You Shall Not Pass/Literature: Difference between revisions

*** 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 with Me]]?

* In the old pre-revision ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' novels, a Viking-ish female captain (a lesbian with two wives, no less) named Ordando faces down cavalry in an alleyway to buy time for the general of her army and the rest of their small infiltration party to escape.

** As the ''Thunder Child'' sinks, the Martians' [[Energy Weapons|"Heat Ray"]] fire causes the boilers to explode, [[Taking You with Me|destroying a second tripod in the blast]].

* 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 the ''[[Wing Commander (novel)|Wing Commander]]'' novel "Fleet Action", a vastly outnumbered and outgunned Confederation manages to hold off the [[Mega Neko|Kilrathi]] fleet, at one point having civilian craft play "human shield" for the [[Space Marine|Marine]] landing craft to board the ''Hakaga'' supercarriers, to detonate antimatter mines from the inside, where the heavy armor not only didn't help the ''Hakagas'', but helped focus the blast to gut the ships from the inside.

* "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 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'', {{spoiler|Laurie's friend Roald}} holds off approaching [[Our Elves Are Different|Dark Elves]] after he breaks his leg in a fall. He tells his friend to "[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Make a song about me, Make it a good one]]", before he gives a decent accounting of himself, allowing his friends to escape.

* 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 with a Body|normal infantrymen.]] Not surprisingly, even after he died the enemy were still terrified of passing the main gate.

** 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.)

{{quote|'''Voro 'Mantakree:''' And now, Demon, you die.

'''Kurt Ambrose:''' Die? Didn't you know? Spartans never die. ''(detonates FENRIS nuclear warhead)'' }}

* 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 {{spoiler|takes his jeep full of explosives to attack The Scarlet Beast and the Whore of Babylon as they ravage Jerusalem. Limited in it's success, it's still the first thing that actually hurts them... When he arrives in hell (everyone goes there), several women offer themselves to him.}}

 

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