Going Down with the Ship: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

''So they stood an' was still to the Birken'ead drill, soldier an' sailor too!''|'''Soldier an' Sailor Too''' by [[Rudyard Kipling]]}}

 

** [[A Night to Remember]] showed this as well. Captain Smith himself is last seen walking onto the bridge (presumably deciding to go down with the ship). Both films also showed the band which played as the ship sank, and a few passengers who ''intentionally'' stay aboard for one reason or another. There's even a sub-plot about a young married couple who initially want to stay behind just so they can remain together, but are talked out of it by Thomas Andrews, the architect who ironically went down with the ship himself.

* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: Dead Man's Chest''. The Kraken destroys the Black Pearl with Captain Jack Sparrow {{spoiler|handcuffed}} aboard.

* Used in ''[[Kind Hearts and Coronets]]'': "...all hands were saved, save one. Admiral Lord Horatio D'Ascoyne, obstinate to the last, insisted on going down with his ship."

** The ship sank because [[What an Idiot!|he didn't know starboard from port]].

** Happens to Sisko again with the ''U.S.S. Defiant'' as it's being blasted to scrap. He's the last one on the bridge after calling for the crew to abandon ship, and probably the last one off before the Dominion finish the job.

** Subverted hard in The Original Series episode "The Doomsday Machine". Commodore Decker evacuates all of the crew of the ''U.S.S. Constellation'', remaining aboard because the captain is the "last man to leave the ship". The planet killer knocks out the ''Constellation'' transporters, then begins devouring the planet her crew had taken refuge on.

* In ''[[Firefly]]'' when Serenity is crippled Mal sends the rest of the crew off in the shuttles and stays on board. He claims this is because someone might hear their distress signal, but Inara at least assumes that he's doing this. In the end the crew, who had little better chances of survival in the shuttles in any case, come back to join him.

* [[Discussed Trope|Discussed]] in the ''[[Babylon 5]]'' episode ''Babylon Squared''. The last remaining crew members of {{spoiler|Babylon 4}} are being evacuated before the it gets drawn back into a [[Negative Space Wedgie]]. As it is [[Collapsing Lair|unclear]] if {{spoiler|Babylon 4}} will survive the transition, Commander Sinclair compares it to [[Space Is an Ocean|a great old ship sinking]]. Garibaldi [[Averted Trope|reminds his commander]] that he is emphatically ''not'' [[The Captain]] there and he is ''not'' [[Going Down with the Ship]].<ref> [[Foreshadowing|Little do they know...]]</ref>

* A twist in [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]' [[John Carter of Mars|Martian]] novels: traditionally, a (flying) ship caught in a hopeless battle can't surrender until ''the captain'' abandons ship -- by jumping over the side and falling to his death. Whenever it's shown, this is explicitly noted as a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to save the lives of his crew.

* In ''Tomorrow War'' (the first book of the series) by Alexander Zorich, the protagonist [[Space Cadet]] volunteered into fleet sent to the joint operation with another faction against some tough aliens who dropped into human space while [[Horde_of_Alien_Locusts|demonstrably unwilling to see distinction between human colonies and other surface organics and minerals]]. They fly by the remnants of an old dreadnought. He notes that while live of "Clones" is not nice, you got to respect their dedication:

Interesting, did they kill [[Curb_Stomp_Battle|as much as one]] Jips, shot as much as one "[[Goddamned_Bats|scallop]]"? Would be nice if yes.}}

 

== Music ==

* Steeleye Span song - "Let Her Go Down".

Just the fortunes of a sailor }}

* Gordon Lightfoot's ''The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald''