In the End You Are on Your Own: Difference between revisions
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{{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.]]'''''|''[[
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
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 [[
They will spend the rest of the battle just standing there and commenting.
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Some stories work this into a narrative more organically. The [[Big Bad]] may cleverly isolate the hero from his friends via [[Clear My Name|framing him]] or capturing them (and [[Forced to Watch|force them to watch]] him kill their leader). Then again there really ''are'' some challenges a hero [[This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself|Has Got To Do Himself]], and being helped beat this enemy will cheapen their storyline. In these cases the value of friends isn't in their tangible help fighting but by placing their trust in the hero's success, motivating them to do their best. [[The Power of Trust|Trust is a powerful force]] like that.
Compare [[Duel Boss]] (who is not necessarily the [[Final Boss]], as per this trope). See also [[What You Are in
{{examples
== 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.]]
** Without the other Sailor Soldiers there to fight the monsters until she arrives, they would have attacked innocent people.
* ''[[Digimon Frontier]]''. By the end of the series only the lead and lancer could fight the [[Big Bad]] since their ultimate [[Super Mode
* ''[[Saint Seiya]]'' sometimes used this trope, sometimes not. Frequently Seiya would be the last Saint standing against the season's [[Big Bad]], and (if any of the others were conscious/alive) they'd boost his Cosmo with theirs. A few times though they would gang up on enemies, but by and large one-on-one battles were the norm.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'', however, the team often gets their day in the limelight, but they get hurt so often it's a wonder that Yugi lets them come along at all. Given that Duel Monsters is for the vast majority of the time a one on one card game, this is true pretty much every episode.
* Somewhat justified in ''[[Zettai Karen Children]]''... while Za Children generally work as a team, Kaoru is always their heavy hitter, possessing the most in-your-face offensive power - Telekinesis. When fighting Mooks or generally low-level foes, the other two will join in with creative use of their 'utility' powers (Teleportation and Psychometry, respectively). But when the big hitters show up and it's time for a boss-fight, they know that it's better to stand back and let Kaoru do what she does best - sometimes providing intel or a quick escape to aid. In the later season, it's taken to its natural conclusion, with a special device that basically saps Aoi and Shiho of their [[Psychic Powers]] to pool it all in Kaoru, giving her access to her [[Badass]], [[Power Gives You Wings]] [[Badass Nickname|Queen Of Catastrophe]] form, which makes her basically unstoppable, and able to do several things that are otherwise considered theoretically impossible...
* At the end of the ''[[Soul Eater]]'' anime, {{spoiler|everyone except Maka gets knocked out by the Kishin. She doesn't even have her weapon, Soul.}}
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== Comic Books ==
* 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
* Discussed and deconstructed in ''[[Watchmen (
== Film ==
* At the climax of ''[[
* At the climax of ''[[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
* Villainous example. In the ''[[Daredevil (
== Literature ==
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** The second game is particularily cruel, since it abruptly drops you on Malachor V. Your character wakes up and has to spend the entire level on their own, even though it is made perfectly clear that the rest of your crew survived and got out. At least in the first game you could have two party members with you for most of the Star Forge until your fight with {{spoiler|Bastilla}}.
*** This might have had to with early plans for the game, in which there were a few scenes on Malachor V focused on other characters, depending on the choices made by the player over the course of the game, such as a fight between Atton and Darth Sion which could end either with him surviving and reuniting with the Exile, or losing and dying in her arms, or if the player was a dark side female and fell in love with the Disciple {{spoiler|Atton was supposed to kill him}}.
* In ''[[
** Similarly, In ''[[
** And finally, in ''Sonic 3 & Knuckles'', Tails won't be able to accompany Sonic into the Doomsday Zone, the [[True Final Boss|final level]].
** This trend takes up in the later games as well. In ''[[
** 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
* 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 [[
* ''[[
* So long as you are nice to your companions in [[Neverwinter Nights 2]] Mask of the Betrayer, they stick with you until the bitter end. Except that during the final [[Battle in
* [[Jade Empire]] lets you have a teammate with you during most of the game, but forces you to take on [[Physical God|Sun Hai]] and {{spoiler|[[Man Behind the Man|Sun Li]]}} on your own.
* ''Age of Pirates 2: The City of Abandoned Ships'' plays this one extremely jarringly. The game allows the player to have up to three hired blades follow them around, but in scripted quest-related fights they are often inexplicably absent, leaving the player to face often overwhelming odds on their own, even though that's precisely why he or she hired the thugs in the first place.
* 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 (
** However, in ''[[Star Fox (
* 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 ''[[
** {{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>
* 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]].
* ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' kinda has this with the ''Arrival'', its final [[Downloadable Content|DLC]] mission, which has to be completed by Shepard alone (except a few [[Escort Mission]]-esque levels with a [[Guest Star Party Member]]). Though, of course, true to its [[Wide Open Sandbox]] gameplay, you can complete the assignment at any time, even before the [[Suicide Mission]] (which kinda misses its entire point).
** The ''Overlord'' DLC plays this perfectly straight by unexpectedly trapping both your squadmates just before the [[Final Boss]], so Shepard has to take on him/it alone.
** Likewise, ''[[
* In [[Kingdom Hearts]], when Sora goes to fight Riku possessed by Ansem, a barrier pops up, separating him from Donald and Goofy, forcing him to fight alone. Later on, said barrier pops up again during the fight with Darkside Heartless and the subsequent fight with Ansem. However, Donald and Goofy manage to eventually rejoin the fight after Ansem enters his [[One
* Very much averted in ''[[Overlord]]''. When the [[Big Bad]] emerges and you lose control of your Minions, it's only moments before you start regaining them and lead your horde to victory.
* At the end of ''[[Diablo III]]'', {{spoiler|you have to face Diablo on your own because the angels have been depowered and are unable to fight, and your companion gets trapped in a bone cage on your way to Diablo.}}
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* 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 ==
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[[Category:Stock Aesops]]
[[Category:Team Shuffle Tropes]]
[[Category:
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