In the End You Are on Your Own: Difference between revisions
Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead. #IABot (v2.0beta9)
Derivative (talk | contribs) m (→Video Games: Fixing links to disambiguation pages) |
(Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead. #IABot (v2.0beta9)) |
||
| (One intermediate revision by one other user not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{quote|'''[[Big Bad|Angelus]]:''' That's everything. No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away, and what's left?
'''Buffy:''' [''[[Barehanded Blade Block]]''] '''''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Me.]]'''''|''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', "Becoming, part 2"}}
As a [[Stock Aesops|Stock Aesop]], believing in the [[Power of Friendship]] over [[Loners Are Freaks|isolationist self-reliance]] is pretty standard and true. There's a lot a group can accomplish that the individual(s) [[Ineffectual Loner|acting on their own can't.]] In fiction, Friendship even brings tangible benefits like a [[Five-Man Band]] developing an [[Attack Pattern Alpha]] which uses [[All Your Colors Combined]]. Some shows may even go the extra length to [[Anvilicious|crush the message into a viewer]] by having a [[Sixth Ranger]] fail miserably and join the team. Once the [[Season Finale]] rolls around however, [[The Hero]] can't depend on his [[Overshadowed by Awesome|weak friends]] [[Can't Catch Up|to keep up]], and will have to fight the [[Big Bad]] [[Final Boss]] [[Duel Boss|on their own]].
While [[The Hero]] is usually the strongest out of the group, many shows will switch gears abruptly to have them fight the last battle on their own. Be it due to a [[Battle Royale With Cheese]] waylaying all their allies (or worse, In the worst case, [[Dwindling Party|killing]] them [[Everybody's Dead, Dave|all]]), or because the enemy is so strong anyone else trying to help the hero would just become a [[Taking the Bullet|meat shield]] at best and a [[Escort Mission|dangerous distraction at worst.]] This limits the rest of the cast to cheering from the bleachers (maybe verbally [[Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!|slapping some sense into a hero]] woozy from a [[Hannibal Lecture]]) and perhaps acting as fuel a [[Combined Energy Attack]] or [[Super Mode]]. And ''that's it.''
They will spend the rest of the battle just standing there and commenting.
Line 16:
== Anime and Manga ==
* [[Dragonball Z]] basically slowly killed the cast (again) throughout the approach to each [[Big Bad]] (Frieza, Cell and Buu). By the time Goku fought Frieza and (almost) killed him, they were the only two people on Namek, the rest being dead or on Earth. A larger cast lived until Gohan beat Cell, but they were just on the sidelines by then. For Buu, literally everyone that wasn't a Kai, Goku, Fat Buu or Mr. Satan (or the puppy) was dead. Including one of the combatants (Vegeta). [[Dragon Ball GT]] didn't kill the cast as much, but the Big Bads were so powerful by then that nobody that wasn't Goku or SS4 Gogeta was pretty much helpless (besides for Trunks during the Black Star Dragon Balls part and Pan every once in a while).
* Every episode ever of ''[[Sailor Moon]]''; you start to wonder why she needs a team.
** [[Hero Secret Service|Protection.]]
Line 36:
* In the [[Books of Magic]] series, at one point Tim is caught in a pattern based off old fairytales and is reminded that common element of many folk stories and fairytales is that while the hero gains companions and tools that help him reach the [[Big Bad]], in the end it comes down to just his own courage, after companions and tools are stripped away - [[What You Are in the Dark]] is what must win the day.
* Discussed and deconstructed in ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'': When a young boy called [[Meaningful Name|Bernie]] asks an old man [[One Steve Limit|also called Bernie]] for help, he denies it claiming that young Bernie needs to learn that "in a final analysis, we are all alone". Then Old Bernie sees a paper and it’s eager to help young Bernie. [[The Eighties|The paper said that the Russians have invaded Afghanistan and that means]] [[World War III]]. After young Bernie leaves, Old Bernie [[Ironic Echo|monologues that]] [[The Power of Friendship|"we are here to help each other…]] [[The End of the World as We Know It|in a final analysis"]].
== Film ==
Line 73:
** This trend takes up in the later games as well. In ''[[Sonic Adventure]]'' Super Sonic has to take on Perfect Chaos on his own.
** In ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'' Shadow is forced to fight Devil Doom on his own, despite the abundance of characters in the game.
* In the arcade ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the Arcade Game|TMNT]]'', teamwork doesn't work on most of the bosses. You're actually better off taking one player, running a pattern on the boss (usually hit, walk back, up, or down), and keeping everyone else back. Done correctly you can beat most bosses without losing even one bar of energy. If more than one player attacks a boss, the boss will just spam attacks that knock everyone out.
* The final area of ''[[Super Paper Mario]]'' has each of your companions having to leave one by one to allow you to continue, leaving you alone when you fight the boss. {{spoiler|You get them back for the real boss, though}}.
* In [[The World Ends With You]] Neku attempts to invoke this by leaving Shiki and Beat behind unconcious and confronting the final boss but it becomes [[Subverted]] when they catch up with him and tell him off for running off on his own just before the fight starts.
* ''[[Mother 3]]'' handles this is a different way for the [[Final Boss|end]] [[Duel Boss]] battle, in that the Masked Man uses a lightning attack that will always knock out anyone on your team still standing besides Lucas, who's carrying a [[Deflector Shield]].
Line 82:
* In the end of ''[[Breath of Fire]]'' 4 when you get to the Emperor's Fou-Lu Throne room he simply knock off every party memeber leaving only Ruy to face him in a [[Duel Boss]]. {{spoiler|They ultimately recover, eventually, for the real [[Final Boss]], [[The Dragon|the literal dragon Tyrant]] and, obviously, Fou-Lu himself as Astral.}}
** Subverted in ''[[Breath of Fire]]'' 2 for the final boss. {{spoiler|You show up, he kills your entire team while giving them a short epitaph, and then fight him solo}} until you use the [[Power of Friendship]] to return your friends to you.
* In [[Star Fox (series)|Star Fox]], Fox has to fight Andross alone during the final battle.
** However, in ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star Fox 64]]'' Fox ''chooses'' to fight Andross alone, there was no real need for him to do so.
* The final battle of ''[[Persona 3]]'' is the main character against {{spoiler|Nyx}}. Nobody can come with him. In a moderate subversion, however, his weapon against the final opponent is the hopes of everyone he met on the way to the confrontation.
** It gets repeated in ''[[Persona 4]]'' right down to the letter {{spoiler|excepting that there isn't a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. Hey! [[Tropes Are Not Bad]]!}}
* In the Turai Ossa mission of the ''[[Guild Wars]]'' Bonus Mission Pack, you leave your followers to fight Palawa Joko one-on-one.
* Averted big time in ''[[Baldur's Gate]] 2'' where [[The Hero]] gives each party member a chance to leave the party while they can before the "final" confrontation with the [[Big Bad]]. Not even the [[Complete Monster|biggest]] [[Manipulative Bastard|bastard]] [[Heroic Sociopath|from]] [[The Vamp|hell]] leaves his (or her) side.
** {{spoiler|To such extent that they even follow you to [[To Hell and Back|Hell]] for the [[Final Boss, New Dimension|actual final battle]] ''after'' [[Disney Death|you]] [[Death Is Cheap|die]].}}
* Invoked in ''<nowiki>[[Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood]]</nowiki>''. {{spoiler|Ezio decides to go after Cesare alone, saying that he built the Brotherhood to last without him. Accordingly, you cannot call on the Recruits' assistance in Sequence Nine.}}
* The [[Final Battle]] of ''[[Ace Combat Zero]]'' is fought without a [[Wing Man]] or any allied aircraft support (except AWACS) at all, because {{spoiler|your wingman dies [[Taking the Bullet]] for you, while other allied planes simply cannot make it to the battle airspace}}. Ditto the fight against the [[True Final Boss]] in the [[Bonus Level]].
Line 101:
* Klaus Wulfenbach from ''[[Girl Genius]]'' was just the trusty lackey to the Heterodyne Boys when he was younger. When he came back from his offworld expedition, [[Crapsack World|everything had gone completely to hell]] and the Boys were nowhere to be found. Klaus put the world back together alone. [[The Extremist Was Right|It worked.]]
* In ''[[Impure Blood]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20131024210456/http://www.impurebloodwebcomic.com/Pages/Chapter002/ib012.html Dara can get the gate open, but Roan has to get out on his own power.]
== Western Animation ==
Line 117:
[[Category:Stock Aesops]]
[[Category:Team Shuffle Tropes]]
[[Category:
| |||