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(Was "Battle-Halting Battle") Alternate Title?:

• Strike Heard Around the World
• Distracting Duel

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It's the Final Battle, and chaos is reigning supreme all around the Big Bad and the Hero, who are leading their respective armies to battle. The audience gets to see all sorts of little pieces of the surrounding climatic battle, but then suddenly the first blow is struck between the Big Bad and the Hero (usually the Big Bad first).

Then everything goes silent.

All around the chaotic fighting grinds to a sudden halt as the main event between our hero and the Big Bad gears up. All the fighters stop fighting and come into a circle surrounding the battle as the two main characters start circling, ready at any moment to strike. This moment when everything stops because of the Strike Heard Around the World is the Battle Halting Battle. Everyone stops and puts aside their differences to watch the fight between their leaders.

Compare [Stuff]. Contrast [Other Stuff]. Related to Combat By Champion. May be caused by Leave Him To Me. Possibly a more willing version of Locked Out Of The Fight.

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Examples:

Anime

• Fullmetal Alchemist

Film

• In Lion King 2: Simba's Pride, the start of the final battle fits the description of this trope to a T.
• In Troy, the big battle between Achilles look-alike and Hector causes the battle to halt around them, especially when Achilles look-alike dies a painful death.

Literature

• In Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, the final battle with Voldemort effectively starts this way, though the "strike" seen by all is Harry revealing himself from under his cloak.