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{{trope}}
{{deathtrope}}
* Named for Gandalf's big scene against the Balrog (no, not [[Street Fighter|THAT]] Balrog, or [[Cave Story
** In the book, however, [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|Gandalf's line was "You cannot pass"]]. It is said in the movie, just before the above quote - just not as loud. However, in the book he does "cry aloud" while smiting the bridge.
*** Also, in the book he does it twice. The second time, he prevents the Witch-king from riding into Minas Tirith when the main gate is breached, with a completely still "You cannot enter here." This doesn't culminate in a duel however since just at this moment, the Rohan reinforcements arrive. A similar scene is included in the extended version of the ''Return of the King'' film.
*** Thrice. Just prior to the bridge scene he had stayed behind briefly to magically seal a door. The Balrog broke the spell but collapsed the roof, forcing it to go the long way to catch up.
** Dernhelm's (
*** "For living or dark undead I will smite you if you touch him!"
** Boromir telling the hobbits to flee and then building himself a funeral mound of orcish corpses probably qualifies as well.
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**** With his brother Huor, father of Tuor, although Huor gets to actually die, where Hurin gets taken prisoner before Morgoth and is [[Fate Worse Than Death|made to watch everything bad that happens to his family by magic]] as revenge.
*** Finrod Felagund breaks out of his chains and kills a Werewolf barehanded to save Beren.
*** Huan, the hound of Valinor, stands up against Carcaroth, the mightiest werewolf who has
*** During the sack of Gondolin, Ecthelion, a high-elf lord, defends a wounded Tuor against Morgoth's chief captain Gothmog. Ecthelion manages to take down the Balrog before he dies, ''after losing both his arms''<ref> In case you're wondering, he kills it with [[Use Your Head|the spike on his helmet]]</ref>. Glorfindel also killed a Balrog (and was killed) while the survivors were fleeing in the mountains.
*** Subverted during the Flight of the Noldor when Feanor is leading his people from Tirion. A messenger from Manwe appears and tries to oppose their departure (into [[Stupid Sacrifice|certain death]] no less), but Feanor is the more powerful of the two and convinces them to depart all the same: "In that hour the voice of Feanor grew so great and potent that even the herald of the Valar bowed before him as one full-answered, and departed; and the Noldor were over-ruled."
** Parodied in ''[[Bored of the Rings]]'' when the Fellowship actively chop down the rope bridge with Goodgulf and the Ballhog on it.
* The event referenced in one of the Vlad Taltos books where Sethra Lavode compares the tactics of defense to being a real estate agent (i.e. get as high a price as possible for any ground lost) to her apprentice, Sethra the Younger. In a battle a few days later, Sethra the Younger offers to retreat from her strategically-important pass if the enemy commander will send a third of his force, unarmed, through to the prison camps behind her lines. He refuses, and gets his behind handed to him in the ensuing assault.
* In [[Robert Jordan]]'s ''[[Wheel of Time|The Great Hunt]]'',
** An awesome example in the Breaking: When Jaric Mondoran, a maddened sorceror with the power to devastate whole districts, approaches Tzora the Da'shain went to meet him, ten thousand of them, and began to sing to remind him what he once was, and give the (at least) hundreds of thousands of people living in Tzora time to escape. He looked at them puzzled while burning them alive one by one. They closed their ranks and kept singing. He listened to the last one for over an hour. After that the second largest city in the world burned, leaving only a sheet of glass.
* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] novel ''[[X Wing Series|Rogue Squadron]]'', Rogue Squadron and Defender Wing are ambushed by a type of capital ship designed to slaughter large numbers of starfighters. With a little cleverness, Corran Horn works out a scenario to distract, damage, or destroy it it so that the others can get away -- "Worst case, you lose one ship." Not only did it work, Horn and his ship survived.
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*** In [[Legacy of the Force]], Wedge Antilles has to scramble for impromptu designations for himself and Corran. Since they're flying a delaying action, he chooses Ganner One and Ganner Two. What could be more appropriate?
** ''[[Death Star]]'' has the Force-Sensitive stormtrooper Nova Stihl repeatedly [[Dreaming of Things to Come]], and one dream is of he and one other fighting off his fellow stormtroopers, and dying, while trying to buy time for others. He manages to avoid something from another dream, but for this one, he goes along with it and delays the other stormtroopers long enough that his little cell of Imperials going through a [[Heel Realization]] can escape.
* In the ''[[
** Of course, the ones doing that are dirtbags that their former commanders couldn't wait to be rid of. Their eventual fate was a rather more literal variety of [[Laser-Guided Karma]]. Or, in this particular case, ''graser'' guided karma.
** Edward Saganami's [[You Shall Not Pass]] moment got Manticore's version of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis named after him. They also show his final battle to the graduating class every year.
** Honor's armsmen ''live'' (or rather, die) for this trope. Given the number of people that try to kill her, Honor gets through rather a lot of them, much to her regret.
* Also by [[David Weber]] in the [[
* In [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s and James Mallory's ''[[
** In [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''[[Heralds of Valdemar]]'' series, Vanyel does it at least once on-camera.
*** So did Lavan, though his particular explosion was more out of rage, grief, and a sudden lack of desire to live. Maybe more [[Taking You
* In the old pre-revision ''[[
* In [[
** As the ''Thunder Child'' sinks, the Martians' [[Energy Weapons|"Heat Ray"]] fire causes the boilers to explode, [[Taking You
* In the original ''[[Dune]]'' book, Duncan Idaho sacrifices himself to hold off a flood of Imperial Sardaukar elite troopers, while Paul Atreides makes good his escape. In the sequel, it's revealed that while he did, indeed, die, the surviving Sardaukar were so impressed with his [[Implausible Fencing Powers]] that they preserved his body, later having it resurrected as a "[[Cloning Blues|Ghola]]"... and that, as it turns out, has some [[For Want of a Nail|extremely far-reaching effects]] on the ''Dune'' universe.
* In Jim Butcher's ''[[Codex Alera]]'' novel ''Cursor's Fury'', the hero, Tavi, has to hold a bridge against a massive invading army with an inexperienced, under-equipped, and badly-outnumbered Legion (6 thousand Legionnaires against ''sixty thousand'' invaders). He very nearly has to sacrifice himself and a cohort of his ''legionares'' to hold off the invaders, and although he survives, the fact that he actually declares, "You will not pass," to the leader of the invading army makes it worth mentioning as an example.
** A massive invading army of eight-foot-tall berserker ''wolf-men'', which simply adds a whole 'nother level of [[Badass|badassery]] to the act.
*** And the fact that he pulls it off and manages to send them into retreat makes it all the more impressive.
* In ''[[His Dark Materials]]'', book two, when
** Also a [[Rasputinian Death]] because of how many times he was shot and how long it took him to finally die.
* In John Barnes's ''[[One for
* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s [[
** In ''His Last Command'', Gaunt and Wilder [[More Hero Than Thou|dispute over who has the honor of taking a company and holding off the Blood Pact to let the rest of the regiment escape]]. Since Gaunt does not have a command rank, Wilder wins.
* In ''[[Harry Potter]]'', there's a charm that works just like this. If you protect someone with strong will, and die for them, then your sacrifice will fuel a charm -- making your protected ones completely immune from direct harm from the one that killed you. That's how Harry survived the Death Spell from Voldemort (by having his mother inadvertently cast this charm), and later, in the last book, how
* ''[[The Guns of Navarone]]'' by Alistair MacLean (variant with wounded guy).
* Rockjaw Grang in the ''[[Redwall]]'' novel "The Long Patrol", after [[Taking the Bullet|being fatally wounded]]. He manages to kill over twenty [[Mooks]] before he finally dies.
** Also Bragoon the otter and Sarobando the squirrel from ''Loamhedge'', similar to Gandalf's example, threw a log that was bridging a canyon down said canyon while foes were scrambling across it, to save the three young ones that were with them. Being pretty old, they died of exhaustion shortly afterward.
*** Also also, Felldoh the squirrel in Martin the Warrior was probably the first example of this in the writing of the books. He takes down at least twenty enemies and scares the rest enough that after he's dead, the rats are talking about later basically saying "thank GOD we didn't get to him in time!"
* In the ''[[Wing Commander (
* "Gunny" Pappas, in the [[Posleen War Series]] book ''When the Devil Dances'', holding off the [[Horde of Alien Locusts|Posleen]], and the [[Powered Armor|ACS]] troopers who were too damaged to move did this, while the rest of the force retreated for resupply.
* In William King's [[Warhammer
** In Lee Lightner's ''Wolf's Honour'', two veteran units hold off the rebel attack long enough for the rest of the Imperial Guard to reach the fortified perimeter; they die to the last man.
* In Raymond Feist's ''Darkness at Sethanon'',
* In [[James Swallow]]'s ''[[Warhammer
* Happens in ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]''. When Zhang Xiu ambushed Cao Cao, Dian Wei remained behind to hold the main gate against Zhang's forces. Because his [[BFS|usual weapon]] was stolen, Dian Wei instead used a normal infantryman's sword until it broke, at which point he used a pair of [[Grievous Harm
** Zhang Fei, a warrior in the ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'', managed to pull this off single handedly against an entire army. It was a bit different, though, as there was no actual fighting, just a very tense stand-off where the opposing commander Cao Cao was so taken aback by the audacity of a single person trying to hold off an army, that he figured that it was an attempt to lure him into a trap. Once Zhang Fei yelled, however, all bets were off, and the entire army... ran away.(Ironically, Zhang Fei had a bunch of followers raising clouds of dust to make it look like an ambush would be waiting if Cao Cao's army advanced, although it's shown that while the advance elements was stalled by that 'poorly disguised ambush' it was Zhang Fei himself that scared Cao Cao.)
** Not to forget Zhuge Liang, who single-handedly held off Sima Yi's army with an empty city and his own reputation.
* Bigwig in ''[[Watership Down]]'' has [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|one of the best Shall Not Pass moments]] in literature.
{{quote|
** This doubles as a [[Badass Boast]] by proxy; the attacking rabbits, accustomed to a hierarchy of physical force, conclude that Bigwig's Chief Rabbit must be even bigger and badder than he is. They are appropriately shaken, although Bigwig is quite unaware of it.
** A [[Thanatos Gambit]] as well: Bigwig figures that even after they kill him, they'll have to dig around his corpse.
* In ''[[World War Z]]'', a man relates the story of how the zombie war went down in Paris, including how his brother's unit attempted to contain the inmates of an insane asylum that had been zombified:
{{quote|
* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''[[John Carter of Mars|A Princess of Mars]]'', John Carter insists that Dejah Thoris and Sola flee while he holds off the Green Martians.
* Kurt's death in ''[[Halo|Ghosts of Onyx]]'' counts as this. He holds off Covenant forces long enough for the Slipspace portal on Onyx to close thus saving the other Spartans and Dr. Halsey. This also leads to his [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]:
{{quote|
'''Kurt Ambrose:''' Die? Didn't you know? Spartans never die. ''(detonates FENRIS nuclear warhead)'' }}
* In Henry Zhou's [[Warhammer
* In Toby Frosts third [[Space Captain Smith]] book, ''Wrath of the Lemming men'', Agshad nine-swords single-handedly wins the battle of Tam Valley, defending the bridge from an army of bloodthirsy Yullian soldiers using only his broom before he is finally felled by a sneak attack from Colonel Vok.
* Done twice in the web original [[The Salvation War]]. The first, in Armaggeddon??? has a group of retired Chinese soldiers using bolt action rifles and then bayonettes, to hold off a demon from slaughtering the women and children of their town. The second is in Pantheocide when a Palestinian suicide bomber
* The Swedish-language Finnish poem [[The Tales of Ensign Stal]] contains a classic and rather interesting example of this. The poem at one point tells the story of the brave but increadibly stupid soldier Sven Dufva who, in the middle of a battle against the Russians during the Finnish War (1808-1809) missunderstands an order to retreat and instead attacks the enemies in front of him. He singelhandedly manages to hold a bridge untill reinforcments can arrive, sacrificing his life in the process.
** The quote "Släpp ingen djävul över bron" (in modern English roughly "Don't let a single fucker cross that bridge") has been a [[Memetic Mutation|go-to phrase]] in Swedish for holding out against overwhelming odds ever since. Though the bit about simply being too stupid to retreat usually gets left out.
* The [[Backstory]] of [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[The Golden Oecumene
* A fairly common way for [[Bolo|Bolos]] to go. ''[[Exactly What It Says
* Umslopogaas dies defending a staircase against a small army at the climax of ''Allan Quatermain''.
* A bit of [[Backstory]] in one of [[Andre Norton]]'s [[Alternate History]] books, ''The Crossroads of Time'', mentions that after [[World War II]] went really, really bad for the Allies, and "Japs exploded all over the Pacific," the last word the U.S. got from Australia was that "they were still fighting a desperate rear guard action along the salt deserts there...." That was in late 1940 or early '41; the hero gets this information something like ten or fifteen years later.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "Beyond the Black River," Balthus sends off the settlers and realizes the Picts will catch them. He invokes this trope
* Almost all of Jair's companions in ''[[The Wishsong of Shannara]]'' die this way, staying behind one or two at a time to delay the Gnomes and other enemies that are chasing them.
** This is how Elven Hunter Crispin goes out in ''The Elfstones Of Shannara''. With all his companions dead, Crispin holds the bridge at the Pykon against [[The Juggernaut|The Reaper]], a Demonic [[Serial Killer]] in order to give Wil and Amberle time to destroy the bridge. Easily his [[Dying Moment of Awesome]].
* In Alexandre Dumas' ''The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later'',
* Done agains an object, but otherwise the same in ''Distant Rainbow'' by Strugatski brothers. When the Wave suddenly overpowers most of "Charibdas" (wave-stopping machines), [[Made of Explodium|causing them to explode]] and starts advancing rapidly at the scienific outpost, Robert takes one of the two remaining Charibdas and steers it against the Wave so the other scientists can evacuate.
* In [[Brandon Sanderson]]'s [[The Stormlight Archive]] [[The Hero]] Kaladin Stormblessed does this against an army of Parshendi at the end of the book to save
* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', Syrio Forel holds off five Lannister guardsmen and a knight of the Kingsguard with only a wooden sword to buy time for Arya to flee. He actually kills the lightly armored Lannister guards, and is only defeated by the knight in heavy armor and full helmet.
* In [[Michael Flynn]]'s ''[[Spiral Arm
* John Geary's claim to fame in [[Jack Campbell]]'s ''[[The Lost Fleet]]''. Taking on enemy ships, outnumbered ten to one, so the ships he was escorting could escape immortalized him in [[The Alliance]].
* This is how
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