You Can Barely Stand: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|'''Lt. Boomer''': Colonel, Blue Squadron reporting for duty, sir.

'''Col. Tigh''': Lieutenant, obviously you can't even stand.

 

As a rule, much of fiction ends with the villain being defeated by the hero. This should be dramatic, but if the true villain isn't [[The Man Behind the Curtain|that physically powerful]], then this is going to be a rather short fight.

Compare: [[Heroic Resolve]], [[Heroic Second Wind]], [[The Man Behind the Curtain]], [[Determinator]]. Often caused by [[Combat Breakdown]].

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Berserk]]'', after the fight with Rosine, Guts is a complete mess. That also happens to be when he runs into the Holy Iron Chain Knights. He still puts up a hell of a fight, but gets captured at the end of it. In any other condition he would have killed them all.

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', [[Colonel Badass|Roy Mustang]] takes down a {{spoiler|deadly, deadly Lust}} after being stabbed in the stomach and [[Playing with Fire|cauterizing the wounds himself]]. [[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)/Awesome|It was awesome]].

** And appropriately enough in the scene happening parallel to that one, we have Shirou. During the course of his fight he's broken his fingers, gotten covered in cuts, has various other broken appendages, and is all but dead due to being outmatched. Quite literally the only thing keeping him swinging is a full on [[Determinator]] mode.

*** [[Always Save the Girl|Shirou]] in HF too. [[Punctuated! For! Emphasis!|He. Will. Save. Sakura.]]

* ''[[Naruto]]'' has the battle between {{spoiler|Jiraiya and Pein. After it looked like he had won, Jiraiya was ambushed by the rest of Pein's [[Hive Mind|six paths]], [[Necromancer|including the ones he had just killed]]. Worn out by using his sage mode, Jiraiya has no chance in hell of defending himself and all six bodies impale him with their swords. [[Determinator|When he still gets back up]], one of the paths goes to finish him off and slits his throat, at this point he's dying so quickly he invokes the trope almost verbatim. He still doesn't want to die however, so he makes a ''[[Desperation Attack|Massive]]'' Rasengan and destroys the path that slit his throat so thoroughly that it has no chance of revival. The force of this knocks Jiraiya back into the water, where he succumbs to his wounds and [[Go Out with a Smile|dies smiling]] after reflecting on his life.}}

 

* [[Superman]] gets to do this a lot, including fighting weakened by a red sun and having just come out of a coma, or just having been stabbed with Kryptonite.

** Done with somewhat different implications in the [[Superman: The Animated Series|animated series]] finale "Legacy," where a depowered Superman lets out his anger on Lex Luthor, shattering the latter's jaw in one punch.

* In ''[[Elf Quest]]'', Cutter refuses to be healed during the first battle with the Northern Trolls because it would take him out of the fighting for too long, and his tribe needed every fighter they had.

 

* In the ''[[Firefly]]'' fanfic ''[[Forward]]'' story "Business," River and Jayne are in this state when they fight the {{spoiler|Hands of Blue}} at the climax. This is because they had been {{spoiler|captured and tortured by Niska}} previously, and had only just escaped that. In this case, Jayne actually proves to be the better fighter, if only because, being larger, stronger, and tougher, {{spoiler|he was able to withstand the torture better than the much physically weaker River, who was reduced to a gibbering wreck following the ordeal and was so battered that she needed Jayne to carry her on his back.}} River is only able to fight because Jayne injects her with a syringe of synthetic adrenaline.

 

== Film ==

{{quote|'''Roark Jr.''': Look at you, you can't even lift that cannon you carry!

'''Hatigan''': ...Sure I can. }}

 

== Literature ==

* In the fourth book of [[The Sword of Truth]], Richard defeats his evil brother, despite being barely able to stand due to a disease, and the brother wielding the titular sword. A couple minutes later, that brother tries to kill Richard, despite having his spine ripped out.

* In Robert A. Heinlein's short story ''The Long Watch'', the hero Lieutenant John Dahlquist barricades himself in an Interplanetary Patrol nuclear weapons bay on the Moon, while dying from the radiation dose he's getting from impromptu hammer-sabotage of a bunch of nuclear warheads sought by Colonel Towers, the leader of an attempted coup. It's sort of a ''You Can Barely Stand''-off.

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

** Played with in ''Turn Coat'': While it's really obvious that he can barely stand (numerous bandages, about to fall over from lack of sleep, and what have you) and he's hopelessly outnumbered, none of the {{spoiler|other Wardens}} want to attack him because [[Shrouded in Myth|they've all heard about]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|the crazy crap he's pulled]] when he's running on nothing but sheer bloodymindedness.

* In the [[Dragonlance]] series, Raistlin Majere is a rare case of [[Inverted Trope|the villain]] suffering from this. Suffering from the most severe [[Incurable Cough of Death]] in all of fiction because of his Test, Raistlin is almost constantly on the verge of keeling over or being blown away by a stiff breeze. Even Crysania, when she opposed him at first, sees him as a pitiable figure. And when Caramon confronts him in the Abyss, Raistlin had been burnt, stabbed, frozen, sheared and skewered to within an inch of his life, and yet Caramon still holds back. Not only because of lingering brotherly concern, but because ''even then'' Raistlin is still dangerous. 98% of his magic had been expended, but that last 2% was still enough to be worried about, not to mention his dagger of last resort that he had no compunctions to using.

 

* When ''[[Angel]]'' loses his soul for the umpteenth time, his sidekick calls in [[The Atoner|fallen Slayer]] Faith to hunt him down. This might have been a short fight, since Angel has a long record of getting soundly beaten every time he fights a Slayer (Faith herself managed to bounce him ''off the ceiling'' while attempting [[Suicide by Cop]]) so before the big fight she gets beaten to a bloody pulp by [[The Juggernaut]]. Oh, and {{spoiler|gives herself a massive dose of magical opiates}}. She still nearly beats him, because Slayers are just that [[Badass]].

* On ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]],'' Buffy gets a rather cool line in the season four opener:

* 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 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.]]

* Booth on [[Bones]], in "Two Bodies In The Lab", after he's injured by the fridge bomb. He leaves the hospital against medical advice and makes Hodgins take him to where he realizes Brennan is being held. He can barely stay on his feet, but manages to stop the corrupt FBI agent and save Brennan. After which, he has to go back to the hospital.

 

== Professional Wrestling ==

* Very common in [[Professional Wrestling]]: the [[Heel]] weakens the [[Face]] before the big title match by getting his friends to beat him up, or forcing the face to have another match just before the title match, usually a handicap match, hardcore match or another grueling type. (This is referred to as the "Spirit of '76" spot, when the bandaged and battered face comes staggering out for the match anyway.)

** More commonly used now since the advent of the Money In The Bank match, which gives the winner the right to challenge the champion [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle|at any time]], even right after a grueling title match where the title holder has been beaten brutally. Use of it this way often starts a [[Face Heel Turn]] for the wrestler who wins the title this way.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* One does wonder about people like [[The Determinator|Commissar Yarrick]] in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'', who have special abilities that allow them to stand up with one Wound left after being killed.

 

== Video Games ==

* This happens in the fight with Incarose in ''[[Tales of Hearts]]'', when other characters tell Shing to step down because of his recent state of being stabbed through the stomach. The weird thing is, you can't even put him in your party that fight. The lines are only known about because of the Sound Museum, although hacking him in does trigger the lines and even the victory animation.

 

* Gilgamesh Wulfenbach in ''[[Girl Genius]]'', [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080310 here]. Near passing out at the start of the fight.

* In ''[[A Miracle of Science]]'', Vorstellen Policeman Benjamin Prester [http://project-apollo.net/mos/mos416.html ends up] [http://project-apollo.net/mos/mos419.html invoking this] from Dr. Haas to treat the latter's [[Science-Related Memetic Disorder]].

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[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 in Badass|Takes A Level In Badass]].

* In the very-first episode of ''Thundercats'', the Mutants invade the Thundarian flagship, seeking to steal the Sword of Omens, and particularly the Eye Of Thundara set in its hilt. When they find it, it lies in the hands of a young Lion-O, and when he tries to threaten them, they laughingly reply that "You can barely hold that sword, much less lift it." Which is, of course, the sword's cue to [[Power Glows|start glowing]]. Moments later, Lion-O is swinging the full-sized sword around despite his young age, and the Mutants are running scared.

 

== Real Life ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Fight Scene]]