You Can Barely Stand: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"It's conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass, that I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. But, then again... perhaps I have the strength after all."'' |'''Westley''', ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]''}}

'''Lt. Boomer''': A Viper is flown from the ''seated'' position, sir."|''[[Battlestar Galactica Classic|Battlestar Galactica]]'' (1978), "Lost Planet of the Gods: Part 2"}}

[['''You Can Barely Stand]]''' is a scene where the villain meets the hero when he's in no fit state to fight. The threat of blood loss or collapse is as much a threat as the bad guy slapping him about and telling him [[Just Between You and Me|he's failed]] and that he's [[Not So Invincible After All|not that]] [[Made of Iron|invincible]] [[Not So Invincible After All|after all]]. The reason for the injuries can include a [[Kryptonite Factor|special weakness]], having been poisoned, having been [[Cold-Blooded Torture|tortured]], magical influence, or having just [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|gotten the crap kicked out of him]] by either the [[Mooks]] or [[The Dragon]].

** Also Zoro -- theZoro—the post-Oz Kuma encounter {{spoiler|when he is so injured he can't stand, and yet uses Kuma's magic paw-bubble to take all of Luffy's damage too}}, and the post-Kuma multi-Kuma fight {{spoiler|where his injuries from the Kuma encounter make him collapse, whereupon he gets up again to use his most powerful technique, whereupon he is struck with a light beam/laser thing, whereupon he gets up again to face down Kuma (who is surprised that he survived that first encounter) whereupon he is vanished away to Nightmare Before Christmas-land. Where, upon waking, he tries to get up ''again'' but luckily has been semi-mummified by Perona}}.

** Lampshaded when Ichigo gets a nasty cut as usual during said fight -- exceptfight—except this time his torso is sliced almost in half. On the topic of standing, his opponent [[Evil Gloating|gleefully]] informs him, "It isn't a matter of willpower; it's a structural impossibility." ''[[Reality Ensues|Ouch.]]''

* Touma in ''[[ToA AruCertain Majutsu noMagical Index]]'' was like this during his first fight against Accelerator. the funny part? it was {{spoiler|Misaka}}, the one who he was helping, that put him in that state

** In the book, Boromir is "[[Annoying Arrows|pierced by many]]" arrows, but kills more than 20 orcs -- afterorcs—after driving off hundreds; Ugluk, the Uruk-hai leader, even boasts of this slaying as a great feat, saying "We are the fighting Uruk-hai -- we killed the Great Warrior" (albeit with arrows from a distance, while Boromir was defending two hobbits). Likewise, the story implies that orcs could never have defeated Boromir in combat otherwise.

* Vimes in ''[[Discworld/Thud|Thud!]]'' fights off a small army of dwarfs while badly beaten from a fall, cold and wet, and highly disorientated. However this is (probably) because of {{spoiler|the Summoning Dark trying to control him}}. Where he ''really'' shows his [[Heroic Resolve]] is that, once he's run out of armed opponents, he ''stops''.

* [[The Dresden Files|Harry Dresden]]. In nearly every book. In ''Fool Moon'' he basically ''uses up his magic''-- and—and that's ''before'' he even has a chance to confront the pack of werewolves he came to fight.

** The [[The Dresden Files (game)|RPG rulebook]] lampshades it. Harry asks why all the pictures of him show him beat to crap. Billy says it's because they're pictures of him on the case, and when he's on a case he's usually beat to crap. A little later on, Harry singles out one picture from a case file where he's not all beat up--onlyup—only for Billy to point out it's from early in the case, and there's already a visible bruise on Harry's face.

{{quote|'''[[Monster of the Week|Sunday]]:''' What about breaking your arm, (''grabs at Buffy's left arm'') how'd that feel.<br />

* When Shaw has taken over the Buy More and has chained Sarah to a thick bar at the base of the Nerd Herd desk, Sarah tells Shaw that Chuck won't show up to save her because [[You Can Barely Stand|he can barely stand.]] Yet, lo, and behold, Chuck shows up while injured, gets a [[Heroic Second Wind|reboot]], and [[Technical Pacifist|takes the Paragon Path]] when he won't kill Shaw. [[Action Girlfriend|Of course that doesn't stop Sarah from whacking him across the skull with the object of her restraint.]]

* One does wonder about people like [[The Determinator|Commissar Yarrick]] in ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'', who have special abilities that allow them to stand up with one Wound left after being killed.

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'': {{spoiler|after dealing with a bad heart/rebellious nanomachines, crawling through a hallway full of microwave radiation, and barely surviving a final assault by a bunch of mini-bots, Snake is captured by Liquid Ocelot, who challenges him to one last fight to the death. To ensure that it will be a fair match, Liquid injects Snake with some awesome drug, then, as they [[Cutscene Power to the Max]], they continue to inject themselves with more and more of the drug, until despite their advanced ages, they are able to fight as if they were in their prime. This ''quickly'' devolves, however, to a [[You Can Barely Stand]] battle, as, at the end, the drug wears out, and it goes from two accomplished hand-to-hand combatants duking it out to two old men savagely slugging each other with whatever power they can muster. Note that Ocelot has a good 4 life bars, one for each game in the solid series, in different styles!}}

* ''[[Beast Wars]]''. Specifically Dinobot's [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] where Megatron speaks these lines verbatim when Dinobot, after a long battle with several other Predacons is reduced to a large stick against an upgraded Megatron. Of course, Dinobot "improvises" and [[Took a Level Inin Badass|Takes A Level In Badass]].