Epic Hail: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

"You'll know it when you hear it," answered Scarlet, "for you've never heard the like in your whole sweet life entire."''|from '''Tuck''', by '''[[Stephen R Lawhead]]'''}}

** Even more epic is the Horn-call of Buckland. The mostly peaceful hobbits, who have no military, are able to jump up and organize in the middle of the night under the guidance of the returned hobbits, to defeat an army of Saruman's men in the Battle of Bywater, which is the turning point of the occupation of the Shire.

** And ''[[Up to Eleven|even more]]'' epic is Eärendil sailing to Valinor to plead for the Valar to come to Middle-earth and aid the Free Peoples in their fight against Morgoth, at the end of ''[[The Silmarillion|Quenta Silmarillion]]''. Oddly, the actual hail we get is from ''them'' to ''him'':

* In [[James Swallow]]'s ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' ''[[Blood Angels]]'' novel ''Deus Encarmine'', Rafen is deeply troubled by the events and goes to [[Talking to the Dead|speak with his dead mentor, Koris]]. He finds his vox, with its command codes, not yet disabled. Using it, Rafen sends a message to their headquarters, detailing all that has happened.

* The Dark Mark of ''[[Harry Potter]]'' is a more sinister example of this. It is generally used to call the Death Eaters (who, keep in mind, are a group of [[Complete Monster|murderous racists]]) together, and does so by causing a tattoo on their forearms to burn. An alternate version acts as a giant, floating, glowing, signpost which they use to mark the sites of their [[Moral Event Horizon|atrocities]]. Also, it looks rather unpleasant (being a putrid skull with a snake for a tongue).

* In [[Robert Heinlein]]'s juvenile novel ''Have Space Suit, Will Travel'' a dramatic and agonizing sequence details Kip's attempt to set the intergalactic distress beacon to alert the All-Powerful Beneficent Aliens to the Wormfaces' actions on Earth. This involved going out in a winter storm. ''On Pluto.''

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' book ''White Night,'' Harry has to get a telepathic message to Elaine in a hurry. The resulting magic takes a lot out of him but definitely qualifies, as it is enough to temporarily drown out {{spoiler|the despair inflicted by the White Court vampire who is gradually killing her}}.

** In ''Small Favor'', Harry brings a couple guns to his showdown with Nicodemus. These particular guns are incendiary rounds, which shoot a very large fireball, which is capable of melting metal. This is [[Awesome but Practical|dual purpose]]; the first use is to surprise Nicodemus and the Nickelheads, and get them to back off for a few minutes. The second is to signal Miss Gard to bring in the helicopter (mounted with a machine gun) [[Big Entrance|while blaring ''Ride of the Valkyries''.]]

* Partial example of [[Horton Hears a Who]]: The Whoville residents set up an Epic Hail of "We Are Here!" in order to save themselves from complete annihilation.

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In ''[[Mulan]]'', the Huns scale the Great Wall of China. The leader, Shan Yu, confronts a sentry, silently daring him to light the fire basin that would begin the signal relay informing the Emperor of the invasion. He does, of course, and very dramatically:

(Shan Yu snaps the Emperor's flag from its post, [[Rape, Pillage and Burn|burning it in the signal fire]])<br />

'''Shan-Yu''': ''Perfect.'' }}