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Inspector Javert catches up. The Mecha-Mooks drop in. The Big Bad incapacitates the hero, and starts to move in for the kill...
...Only to be stopped when another, weaker character throws themselves in front of the hero, crying "If you want him, you'll have to go through me!"
The defender may expect the attacker to be stopped by this, or may expect they'll have to fight. The attacker also has options. In some cases, the attacker doesn't really care what happens to the defender, and is perfectly happy to "go through" him or her to get to the hero. In others, the attacker is somehow close to the intervening character, and will stop, if only to find out why he's been betrayed (this makes the Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter a common participant in this trope). Usually, the defender is hoping their magnificent show of Friendship or Love will faze them into reconsidering. It very rarely does. Failing that, they may just be stalling for The Cavalry to arrive.
Occasionally, a whole group of characters will jump between the target and the attacker, and the attacker will either back off, intimidated by these numbers or, (if he's a Villain with Good Publicity, having underestimated the hero's popularity versus his own) simply make an incredibly impressive Foe Tossing Charge.
Unfortunately, what works for the hero can work for the villain, too, and if the Big Bad has a Brainwashed victim or Face Heel Turn-er around that the hero is unwilling to "go through," they can put The Messiah in a very tight spot. Don't try this on an Anti-Hero, though — you can't be sure they won't Shoot the Dog. In fact, don't try this on any hero with a gun, because they'll always find a way to slip a bullet past the victim's head and into yours.
A particularly powerful or numerous enemy in this situation usually leads to a You Shall Not Pass situation. If the defender is so powerful there's a good possibility they'll go through the person being challenged, it's I Am Your Opponent.
If this is said to (or by!) the Intangible Man, expect hilarity to ensue as he, she or it is very likely to act as a Literal Genie. Also in a rare, horror situation, expect the recipient to literally tear the speaker in half and go through.
See also: Protected by a Child, I Am Spartacus, sometimes used as a sneakier way to protect the hero. Contrast Pietà Plagiarism, Crucified Hero Shot. Liable to Threat Backfire.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- A popular variation in superhero stories is to have the hero save a bunch of Muggles, and then have them try to return the favor. It usually doesn't work.
- Parodied in the Italian comic book Rat-Man:
Ortolani (narrating a flashback, in which he's surrounded by thugs): I thought I was done for, but then... a shadow appeared.
Rat-Man (in the flashback): If you want him... you'll have to go through me.
Ortolani (back in the present): Marvellous. Just marvellous. (pauses) They put us in the same hospital room, so we quickly became friends.
- Used very darkly in X-Men: The Age Of Apocalypse. During a massive battle, Colossus sees that his little sister is in trouble and rushes to save her, with gusto. Iceman steps up and says something along the lines of "No can do pal, if you want to get out of here you'll have to go through m-"... and the next panel shows Colossus smashing Iceman into a million pieces. (Which is odd, given that Iceman is considerably more powerful than Colossus).
- Towards the end of the Marvel Civil War crossover, the duel between Iron Man and Captain America is interrupted by a bunch of civilians (including, but not limited to, a cop and a fireman) tackling them to stop the battle.
Film
- Used in Batman Returns, with Max Shreck's son Chip stepping in to save him from the Penguin's Red Triangle gang. The gang are not impressed and pull weapons on him, prompting Chip to say "Dad, go! Save yourself!"
- Admittedly Max was never actually in any danger, since Penguin wanted him alive, but Chip didn't know that.
- In Stargate the movie, the action-y hero (Kurt Russell) almost shoots Big Bad Ra... but hesitates when a dozen young children surround their lord. Well, after all, the hero recently lost his son, so you can understand the hesitation. Of course, at the end of the film, he cheerfully sends a bomb up to the ship, destroying Ra and the children. Would have been a pragmatic and necessary yet heart-rending decision—if anyone had bothered to remember the kids. (According to the DVD commentary, the entire point of Ra having children around him was so if someone tried to shoot him, they'd stop so they wouldn't hurt the children.)
- Children of the Gods, the Stargate SG-1 première movie, all but directly reproduces this scene with Amonet (currently possessing Daniel's wife) taking the place of the kids.
- At the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Will Turner does this to protect (Captain) Jack Sparrow.
- Then Elizabeth Swann does it to protect him. Probably because it didn't look like the people he was stopping were convinced.
- Done in the first Spider-Man film: When Goblin pulls the Sadistic Choice on Spider-Man, the crowd throws things at him, distracting him for long enough for Spider-Man to catch his breath. One shouts "You mess with Spidey, you mess with New York! You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!"
- Subverted in Spider-Man 2: A crowd on a subway car try to do the same thing to Doc Ock: he grins, says "Very well." and shoves them up against the subway walls.
- This is nearly played straight at the end of in Muppet Treasure Island when everyone is teaming up to protect Captain Smollett (Kermit).
Jim Hawkins: Kill Captain Smollett and you'll have to kill me!
Gonzo: Kill Jim and you'll have to kill me!
Squire Trelawney: Kill Gonzo and you'll have to kill me!
Rizzo: Kill Squire Trelawney and Mr. Bimbo and you'll have to... negotiate strenuously.
(Just for clarification: Trelawney is Fozzie, and Mr. Bimbo is his finger the alleged man who lives in his finger.)
- Reservoir Dogs:
Mr White: If you kill that man you die next, repeat, if you kill that man you die next.
- Isn't that more of a Mexican Standoff? He's not risking his own life to prevent Orange's death, after all...
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring did this in the scene on Weathertop, where the Ringwraiths casually fling aside the other hobbits trying to protect Frodo.
- And don't forget the Return of the King, where the Nazgul king moves in to finish Theoden and Eowyn steps in.
- The third RoboCop movie has the Big Bad trying to shoot Robocop. The female cop, present in the series from the first movie, has the extremely smart idea of putting her soft squishy body in front of Robocop's metallic armor and declaring "You'll have to go through me first", or somesuch (this troper only watched the Italian dub). The Big Bad replies "gladly" (or somesuch) and promptly kills her with a burst of machinegun fire, followed by firing a grenade in Robocop's torso. Most audiences really didn't like such a major character dying in such a stupid way.
- McDaggett's exact words were "I don't have a problem with that." Also, it was at Nancy Allen's request that her character was killed off; she wouldn't have returned to play Officer Lewis otherwise.
- Played for laughs at the climax of the first Men in Black movie. Will Smith's character makes the challenge to the Big Bad, who promptly swats him out of the way and continues like nothing happened.
- Enchanted also played this for laughs, when Robert grabbed a sword he had no idea how to use and got between Giselle and a Scaled Up Queen Narissa. Her response? "All right, I'm flexible." Cue James Bondage.
- In Bruges: the hotel owner, a pregnant woman, stands between a hired killer and his target.
- Of course, Harry, being the principled criminal he is, adamantly refuses to do anything to harm her.
- A Day at the Races has the following exchange: You leave this room over my dead body! - Well, that's a pleasant way to travel.
- At the beginning of the Hungarian animated cult film Cat City, cats break into a mouse bank with a tank. The clerk shouts: "No! Over my dead body!" The tank promptly shoots him.
- In Monsters vs. Aliens, this is said by B.O.B. Being The Blob, however, the mook does go through him.
- In the 2009 Astro Boy movie, Tenma and Elefun tagteam this ultimatum while protecting Astro from the military. Of course, Stone was happy to have them both shot, but there was a small interruption.
"I think Metro City can learn to get along without you."
- A double in Godzilla: Final Wars, in which Minya and a kid interpose themselves between Godzilla and the badass heroes, preserving the thin truce that just defeated the invading aliens.
- The horror form occurs in Wishmaster, where a security guard says this to the Jackass Genie villain - who turns him into glass and smashes through him to get in.
- At the finale of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, Doug attempts to invoke this trope to stop Leslie from getting to Taylor. Unfortunately, Leslie doesn't even break stride to smash his head against a wall and knock him out cold.
Literature
- In Neil Gaiman's book/miniseries Neverwhere:
"If you're going to hurt her," (Richard) said, "you'll have to kill me first!"
Mr. Vandemar seemed genuinely pleased by this. "Alright," he said. "Thanks."
- Used in A Clash Of Kings, when Lannister Mooks attempt to capture Gendry.
- Earlier, Jon Snow gets ordered into this after he complains about the treatment of Samwell Tarly.
- Several characters do this in respect to Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, especially Samwise Gamgee.
- Still, the prime example is Éowyn standing up to the Witch King of Angmar when he's out to kill Théoden. Talk about a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
- Subverted in Harry Potter, Harry's dad James says that he will hold Voldemort off while his wife takes Harry, only to be killed seconds later by Voldemort. As Voldemort fully intended to kill James anyway, this blunted the heroism of James' sacrifice. James was dead the second Voldemort found him without a wand, he would had died no matter what he did.
- Lily Potter as well, who refuses to stand aside and let Voldemort kill Harry. She's cut down quickly too. However, unlike James, Voldemort did give Lily the chance to step to the side and live. Because of Snape's request. She refused. This act of sacrifice triggered the magical protection, that she could have walked away, and didn't.
- Done in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, with Ron trying to threaten Sirius Black — despite his broken leg making him unable to back up his threats. Fortunately, the one Ron was protecting wasn't the one Sirius wanted to kill.
Ron: If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too! Sirius: Lie down. You will damage that leg even more. Ron: Didn't you hear me? You'll have to kill all three of us!
- Played with in a non-lethal fashion in the first book, where Neville tries to keep Harry and crew from sneaking out at night by threatening to fight them. Of course, Hermione apologizes before temporarily paralyzing him, but...
- In the movie Prisoner of Azkaban Severus Snape puts himself between a werewolf and his three least favorite students. Don't call him a coward.
- Crookshanks also tries to protect Black from Harry in Azkaban, by sitting on his chest.
- Not my daughter, you bitch!
- Quasimodo does this in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, protecting Esmeralda.
- Subverted in a way in Dune: After Chani dispatches a would-be challenger to her lover Paul/Muad'Dib, she says that fewer people will try to challenge him if they learn that first they have to go through (and suffer the possible disgrace of being killed by) his women.
- Near the end of the Horus Heresy, Horus has badly wounded the Emperor. Right before Horus strikes the final blow a single Imperial Army solder stands in the way. Sure, he's killed in less than a second but it gives the Emperor the opening needed to win the day. Later fluff change this to being a Space Marine
- In Temple, William Race's bodyguard does this to protect him from his own commander, Colonal Nash. Nash was armed and he wasn't, so the results were predictable. At least he distracted Nash long enough for the Cavalry to arrive.
- Invoked in the Forgotten Realms novel Elfshadow, although to protect the attacker and not the target. Near the end of the book Danilo Thann tells his comrade Arilyn Moonblade that if she wants to kill her Evil Mentor she's going to have to kill him first. Arilyn grudgingly swears to take the man alive—so he can testify to his crimes, and incidentally clear Arilyn herself—and Danilo readily steps aside.
Live Action TV
- True Blood has a hilarious literal example; when, in the fourth season, the main antagonist Marnie is confronted by Bill and Eric, Marnie's right hand Roy stands up and tells Eric to go through him first. Eric than literally goes through Roy, lunging forward and piercing into the man's chest, ripping out his heart. Counted as a Moment of Awesome to the fandom.
- Doctor Who, "The Satan Pit": "You'll have to kill me first!"
- This also happens to the Doctor in the episode Midnight. When he tells the very frightened passengers that they'll have to get past him to throw the Monster of the Week out of the spacecraft, they turn on him, and even attempt throwing him out a little while later.
- Before either of those times, it happened to him in "The Age of Steel", after the Cyber-Controller offers to convert him:
The Doctor: You might as well kill me.
Cyber-Controller: Then I take that option.
- And in "The Unquiet Dead":
Gelth: We want this world and all its flesh!
The Doctor: Not while I'm alive.
Gelth: Then live no more!
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, just about the whole cast (except Spike) does this for Tara when her emotionally abusive family shows up. Especially funny because Spike had been the one who exposed her family as liars by punching her and inflicting pain on himself, to prove that she didn't have demonic heritage.
- And only a few episodes previous, a Brainwashed and Crazy Xander challenges shallow male love interest Riley Finn with this if he wants to save Buffy from Dracula. Riley's response? * POW!* "Okey-dokey." In that order. From anyone else, this would be a CMOA.
- Xander has far more success in the Season Six finale, where he tells Dark Willow, "If you're going to destroy the world, then start with me. I've earned that."
- Occurred at least five times in Babylon 5. Delenn deliberately walked into a thrown knife intended for Sheridan, drove off an attacking enemy fleet to save his neck, and offered her life to a Vorlon inquisitor to save his. Later in the series, two Alliance ships implicitly said 'go through me' by placing themselves between the Alliance command ship and incoming Shadow missiles. Also used to awesome effect by Marcus:
Neroon: My quarrel is with Delenn.
Marcus: Then your quarrel is with me.
- In a Stargate Atlantis episode Kolya threatens to kill McKay, and one by one Teyla, Ronon and Carson step in front of him, saying that they each want to be killed first.
- Mc Kay does it himself, when Kolya is aiming a gun at Weir in "The Eye", in the first season. He downplays it uncharacteristically.
- In an episode of Flashpoint, a targeted man's wife stood between her husband and the shooter. Said shooter had no problem of shooting her. Unfortunately for the shooter, the SRU team shot her first.
- Lampshaded in Being Human, when Regus chooses to help the housemates protect Eve from a vampire hitsquad. He's fully aware that as a scholar, he's got no fighting skills and will barely slow them down, but it's the thought that counts.
Tabletop Games
Video Games
- Nier Gretel who, crippled and wounded, stands against the overpowering Nier and his equally overpowering allies. Over and over she is struck down, but keeps standing up to protect her friends, knowing she can't win, just using herself as a target to tear apart so that he doesn't attack her friends. A tearjerker in itself, especially when you beat her in half a minute and gain the achievement "A True Friend"
- In Sakura's ending in Street Fighter Alpha 3, she stands in front of Ryu to protect him, telling Bison "You'll have to kill me first!" Bison just knocks her aside.
- This happens a couple of times in Tales Of Symphonia Dawn Of The New World where Emil stands between Richter killing Marta. Richter doesn't hurt Emil because Emil looks just like Richter's dead best friend.
- Several times in the Sonic the Hedgehog series:
- In Mass Effect 2, Thane met his wife Irika while attempting to assassinate a target. She spotted his targeting laser and jumped between Thane and the target. The instance was so jarring that Thane found himself jarred out of the mental state of a trained assassin he'd been in throughout his entire life, and found himself obsessed with finding out who she was. He even explains the exceptional circumstances of the situation to Shepard, explaining that while soldiers are trained to protect others, untrained civilians are not, and how remarkable it would be that someone would unthinkingly shield someone else that they don't even know.
- In the original Mass Effect, during the final battle, several turian battleships position themselves between Sovereign and the Citadel. Sovereign simply plows through them as though they weren't there.
- Shepard invokes this in The Arrival DLC towards Harbinger, letting the Reapers know when they come, s/he will be waiting.
- In King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride, Edgar does this when Malicia is about to attack Rosella.
- In Dragon Age II, Cullen tells Meredith that she will have to go through him to get to Hawke after she turns on them. She is so crazy by this point that he will still do this even if Hawke sides with the Mages. If Carver joined the Templars, he will do this too.
- Becomes even more significant if Hawke themself is a Mage and sided with the Mages, where even a loyal Templar like Cullen would rather stand with a Mage such as Hawke than follow Meredith anymore.
- Liberty Lad of Freedom Force gets to be a hero by way of a blood transfusion, which became necessary after attempting to do this for a hero who was about to get machine-gunned.
- Midna of The Legend of Zelda:Twilight Princess does this for Princess Zelda, protecting her from Ganondorf. It doesn't work. He gets through, and It Got Worse.
Webcomics
Web Original
- Nintendoland's Deathmatches section has this for the Mario vs Sonic
 story.
- In There Will Be Brawl, Zelda attempts to protect Link from Ganandorf this way. He kills them both anyway.
- Takua does this between the Bohrok and the residents of Ga- and Po-Koro in BIONICLE. As it turns out, he shouldn't have bothered, as a surge of energy, released when the Bohrok queens were defeated, was about to shut down the Bohrok in a few moments.
Takua: SHOO! ... Shoo?
Western Animation
- Subverted in a Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons, in which a robot uses Homer as a human shield against a Mechanized Bart. The guy isn't even able to finish the sentence before both he and Homer are sliced in half.
- In a rare dramatic moment during the episode "Who Shot Mr Burns?" Lisa runs in front of a group of officers (including Wiggum) as they are about to confront Homer (who is suspected of the attempted murder) shouting "STOP!!! DON'T SHOOT MY DAD!!!... he's innocent! He wouldn't hurt a fly!" Of course, Homer would have to take this particular moment to start strangling Mr Burns... this is one of the instances where the helpless person's plea is completely successful.
- Done heartbreakingly in the Futurama episode "The Sting", where Fry throws himself in front of Leela to protect her from a giant killer bee, gets impaled on the stinger, and dies. Of course he didn't actually die — the stinger went through him, hit Leela, and his death and the entire rest of the episode were her nightmares while in a venom-induced coma but that doesn't stop it from being any more Tear Jerking. After all, he thought he was going to die.
- Subverted in Jackie Chan Adventures where Jade puts herself between a Turned to Stone Jackie and the bad guys - only to nearly knock him over herself.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
Spongebob: "Sandy, if you wanna go after that worm, you're gonna have to go through me!"
- At which point Sandy lazily (and literally) does pass through him, splitting his sponge body into two western bar saloon-like door halves.
- And as if the episode 'That's No Lady' wasn't already brimming with Ho Yay;
Spongebob: Stop! You're gonna have to do something horrible to me before you're gonna run Patrick out of town!
- On Jimmy Two-Shoes, when Jimmy wants to fly Lucius' Cool Plane, Lucius declares that he'll have to get past him. Which he does. Easily.
- On South Park a scientist tells the military they will have to kill him first after he refuses to reprogram a conscious robot (Cartman). Butters arrives just as Cartman is about to reveal he isn't a robot, so he maintains the charade and the scientist is shot.
- In one episode of Xiaolin Showdown, Chinese gangster Pandabubba sends his goons to raid the Xiaolin Temple Shen Gong Wu vault. There, the goons find Raimundo, who enacts this trope. The thugs just shrug and say, "We're good with that."
- In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Fluttershy, upon seeing the Cutie Mark Crusaders threatened by a cockatrice, orders the girls behind her and makes it clear that she will be a statue before seeing the girls harmed. Fortunately, the cockatrice did not have as much willpower as it thought it did.
- In The Fairly OddParents episode "Back to the Norm", when Norm showed up at Timmy's bedroom saying he wanted revenge, Wanda told Norm that he'd have to go through her to get Timmy. Cosmo then told Norm to make it double. If Norm wants Timmy, he'll have to go through Wanda twice.
Real Life
- Most versions of Pocahontas' rescue of John Smith, including Disney's, and Smith's own "record." Modern anthropology suggests that this was part of an Algonquian adoption ritual, which justifies it somewhat.
- Chris Crocker famously declared that if anyone wants to make fun of Britney Spears they'll have to go through him.
- The world-famous picture of the man standing in front of the Chinese army's tanks during the Tianamen Square Massacre.
- Before assassins came to murder King James I of Scotland, they stole the iron bar that was meant to keep the room locked in case of emergency. One of his wife's ladies-in-waiting, Catherine Douglas, attempted to use her arm as a substitute. She failed and had her arm broken as a result.
- Intervention of the Sabine Women◊ by Jacques-Louis David (1799).
- Emperor Norton I Of the United states, from The Other Wiki : "During the 1860s and 1870s, there were a number of anti-Chinese demonstrations in the poorer districts of San Francisco. Ugly riots, some resulting in fatalities, broke out on several occasions. During one such incident, Norton allegedly positioned himself between the rioters and their Chinese targets, and with a bowed head started reciting the Lord's Prayer repeatedly until the rioters dispersed without incident."
- On 20th of May, 1795, during a protest against the French parliament, a man named Jean Feraud stood in front of the march and told them they would have to pass over his body before they would take another step, and was badly trampled as a result. He got up, dusted himself off, and when the march reached the President's seat, told the crowd they would have to kill him if they wanted to lay a finger on the president... which is exactly what they did.
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