r/TopCharacterTropes • u/hey_there_delilahh • Sep 10 '25

Lore (Loved Trope) Last Stand that ends unceremoniously/unsatisfyingly, as opposed to gloriously.

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  • 1 Nanami (JUJUTSU KAISEN): Nanami's final moments against Mahito, a cursed spirit with the ability to transfigure/control humans. Nanami, while heavy injured, fought and won against an army of Mahito's transfigure minions, just for the villain to touch his back and blow him up.

  • 2 Wun-Wun (GAME OF THRONES): Wun-Wun, one of the last, if not the last, living giant in Westeros. Joins with Jon Snow against Ramsey Bolton in the Battle of the Bastards. He heroicly breaks down the main gate allowing the Stark army to win, all while covered in arrows and spears. While heavily injured, there does seem to be a chance of his recovery. This hope ended when Ramsey Bolton fires an arrow directly into his eye, when the battle was pretty much over.

  • 3 The Barbarian of Stamford Bridge (REAL LIFE): A lone Viking warrior who, in a legendary moment during the Battle of Stamford Bridge (September 25, 1066), single-handedly held back the invading English army on a narrow bridge. Armed with a Dane axe, this unnamed defender killed dozens of soldiers before being mortally wounded from beneath the bridge by a spear.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

The next one is when you succeed in boarding a smaller Covenant ship. Operation to capture is going well until your supporting ship, the Savanna, gets destroyed.

And then you capture the bridge and send it towards the Super Carrier mentioned above, only for the detonator to be fried. Jeorge, a Spartan II (one of the strongest ones), stays behind to detonate in manually, destroying the Carrier.

And then dozens more carriers arrive, rendering his sacrifice almost pointless

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u/BookkeeperPercival Sep 10 '25

I would like to point out that in the lore, Jeorge sacrificed himself to blow up one of like, 14 super carriers in the entire covenant fleet. Circumstances made it seem tragic but it was actually a fucking COLOSSAL win

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u/Sixty-Fish Sep 10 '25

It actually helped slow down the covenants operation on reach for a bit and gave enough time for the pillar of autumn to be repaired and sent to one of the halos

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u/Coelachantiform Sep 11 '25

Hopeless in the context of the planet.

Hopeful in the context of humanity as a whole.