You Shall Not Pass/Literature: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

** 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.

*** 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.

** 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.

** In [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''[[Heralds of Valdemar]]'' series, Vanyel does it at least once on-camera.

* 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.

* In ''[[His Dark Materials]]'', book two, when {{spoiler|Lee Scoresby}} stays behind in a ravine and holds off 25 elite soldiers with a battered old Winchester rifle.

** Also a [[Rasputinian Death]] because of how many times he was shot and how long it took him to finally die.

** 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 {{spoiler|Voldemort's curse became ineffective against Hogwarts' students (by Harry's [[Heroic Sacrifice]]).}}

** 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!"

* "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 40000]] novel ''[[Space Wolf]]'', Sergeant Hengist rallies a group of young Marines about him to hold off attacks from Chaos Space Marines, [[More Hero Than Thou|sending off a handful]], led by Ragnar, to [[Bring News Back]]. When a Chaos Space Marine tell Ragnar that the group had broken and the Chaos Space Marines were hunting them down, Ragnor refuses to believe him.

** 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.

** 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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 [[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 {{spoiler|Dalinar Kholin, [[The Fettered]], and the last honorable High Prince left in the entire Alethi army.}} It is easily the best battle scene in the entire book. {{spoiler|The Best Part? Kaladin Lives and gets his freedom.}}

* ''[[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.

* 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 {{spoiler|Rastar Komas Ta'Norton, last Prince of fallen Therdan}}, meets his end in the final book of the ''[[Prince Roger]]'' series.