You Shall Not Pass - Television Tropes & Idioms

The finale of Tokyo Mew Mew had Ichigo's team expend themselves so she could face off with Deep Blue.
Likewise, the finale of the first season of Sailor Moon has each Senshi holding off a group of youma to give Usagi a chance to face the Big Bad. Their deaths were rather gruesome, and censored from the English dub, which took out half the two-part episode — the remainder was merged into one.
Deliberately pushed to ridiculous extremes in the Excel Saga episode "Menchi's Great Adventure", where the members of Menchi's group rapidly sacrifice themselves in succession until only Menchi is left.
In Naruto, each member of the Sound 5 and the Sasuke retrieval team (except Naruto who goes to get Sasuke personally) does this.
Saito single handedly takes on an entire army of swordsmen, archers, mages, dragons, and whatnot at the end of the second season of Zero No Tsukaima. And wins. Before the second season was adapted from the novels, an image macro floating on the Internet depicted this using an army scene from Utawarerumono, with the caption: "Saito: Proving that one can simply walk into Mordor".
Both exemplified and inverted in Saint Seiya. Not only are the Gold Saints tasked with barring the heroes' progress through the Sanctuary's Twelve Zodiac Houses, but whenever two or more of said heroes arrive at each House, one of them will invariably stay and fight to let the other one (usually Seiya) press onwards instead of fighting the single enemy as a team. During the Hades story arc, when the Gold Saints are allies to the heroes, they repeat their feat by holding back the spectral forces of the dead, risen to invade the Sanctuary and kill Athena. Taurus Gold Saint Aldebaran takes this to the extreme, with his body continuing to protect his House long after he has been killed.
In a parody of the above, the first Ranma ½ movie presents the Seven Lucky Gods of Martial Arts blocking the title hero's advance in exactly the same fashion, until one of his allies (or, at one point, an entire crowd of them) arrives to take over the fight for him.
- This is actually a repeat of an earlier gag in the anime, where Natsu, Take and Ume, the three elders of the Daimonji School of Martial Arts Tea Ceremony (and anime-only characters) try to bar the desperate charge of Akane, who is attempting to save Ranma from being "sacrificed", only to be knocked out of the way by the Foe Tossing Charge of her uncontrolled horse.
C.C. pulls this in the first season finale of Code Geass, sacrificing herself to deal with the disoriented and crazed Jeremiah Gottwald in the nigh-invincible Humongous Mecha, dragging said mecha and her own mecha into the ocean so Lelouch can hurry on ahead to rescue his sister. Since C.C. has already proven herself immortal (surviving a headshot in the first episode), however, the element of danger and loss is lessened.
- In R2 Episode 10, Li Xingke says this to Zero, who had kidnapped the Tian Zi to stop the marriage between her and Odysseus.
Villain example: Cinque performs this against a berserk Subaru to allow her sisters to escape with their captive in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. She barely survives the beatdown, but she is effectively out of commission for the rest of the season.
- Also, to note, indeed, "You shall not pass!" is also what she says to Subaru before her final attempt at killing her... and it also counts as practically the last thing Cinque says all season.
Haji pulls this one in the finale of Blood+, holding back a rampaging Amshel long enough for the rest of the motley band to escape. Military forces arrive seconds later and bomb the building, collapsing it and burying both of them under several tons of rubble. However, it is very heavily hinted in the final episode that Haji managed to survive.
- Previous to that, Haji does his damnedest to perform a You Shall Not Pass in episode 21 against the Schiff — all of them. It doesn't quite work, but it's still pretty BadAss.
Tasuki attempts one of these in Fushigi Yuugi. His fight with brainwashed Tamahome is already rapidly going downhill when Nakago arrives to finish things. At this point, having already suffered a savage beating from Tamahome and barely able to stand up straight, Tasuki continues to throw himself into battle against both men, hoping to keep them preoccupied long enough for Chichiri and Miaka to get to safety. Definitely his CMoA.
Inverted in a recent chapter of One Piece, when a villain pulls this against a rampaging hero. He even gets in a good Hannibal Lecture about why the hero's actions might not be for the greater good, and may in fact put the world in greater peril. Further bonus points awarded on the last one for the character's name actually being Hannyabal.
- Also pulled by Luffy in his fight against Rob Lucci, in a way, as this trope was pretty much the entire point behind their fight, as Luffy could not let him leave his sight, as he'd go on to kill his Nakama.
- Happens again, with another villain, when Vice-Admiral John Giant (whose last name means exactly what you'd think) stands in the way of Whitebeard, and utters the exact line. It becomes a subversion when despite his colossal strength he's unable to even slow Whitebeard down.
Happened to Jubei in Yaiba during their quest for the Sword of the Thunder God.
Maggie does this to hold back Wong in the climax of the Dokusensha arc of RO Dthe TV Series. She even cuts down a bridge to cause him to fall down. You'd think she'd have read The Lord of the Rings and be expecting the paper whip slap up to pull her down after him.
Rei Ayanami reversing Unit 00's AT Field and absorbing Armisael so she could hit the self destruct and take it out.
Atori from Noein, who uses his body to block the portal through which the forces of Shangri'La are attempting to invade.
In Digimon Frountier Sorcerymon does this to hold off the bad guys giving the kids just enough time to escape.

The Legend of the Five Rings collectible card game once included the terrain card "Come One At A Time," which allowed a single samurai to hold up (and, more often than not, completely destroy) an entire enemy army by invoking this trope.
- L 5 R has also invoked this trope multiple times in its storyline. Notable instances of You Shall Not Pass include the death of the Kami Akodo, and the Battle of the Land Bridge.
Magic: The Gathering, in its Kamigawa block, has a card named Hold the Line, which gives absurd bonuses (+7/+7) to all blocking creatures for fairly cheap. The flavor text, though, is supremely awesome, especially in context:
Forgive me, Master Kami, but in the interest of my people I must halt your advance.
- Similarly, the spell Righteousness gives +7/+7 to target blocking creature for one white mana. (For comparison, the closest thing green, the color of big fat creatures and big fat creature effects, has to Righteousness for the same cost is Giant Growth, which gives only +3/+3 to any creature, though it doesn't have to be a blocker.)
- Two more spells — also white (noticing a pattern?) — give a single creature the ability to block any number of creatures in combat until end of turn: Blaze of Glory and Valor Made Real. Blaze of Glory has the downside of requiring said creature to block every creature it can. Finally, the Avatar of Hope may block any number of creatures as an innate ability, and if you are in dire enough straits can be played for minimal cost. There are other white spells and creatures with similar powers, but they don't have the flavor of these ones.
  - Blaze of Glory has a DOWNSIDE? Give it to a creature with deathtouch (every creature this creature touches dies, no matter the toughness), and let the enemy's shock and horror warm you

In a 1980s storyline in Marvel Comics's Thor, the title character and other Asgardians are being pursued by the forces of Hel as they rescue mortals from the underworld. The heroes realize they will not be able to escape and Thor says he will stay to hold them off and give the others time to escape. He is then knocked unconscious from behind by Skurge the Executioner, a long-time villain who has finally realized how foolish much of his life has been. Skurge takes Thor's place, singlehandedly holding off the demonic hordes and perishing in battle, and earns a place in Valhalla, the heroes' afterlife. You can't go wrong with a Norse god blowing apart Viking zombies with machine guns borrowed from Earth.]
- Though to be fair, Hela tried to keep Skurge in Hel, but realized that his act of heroism made his soul "too bright" for that dismal realm.

In Shrek 2, Puss-in-Boots holds off a pack of guards as Shrek rushes to stop the Fairy Godmother's evil plot to make Fiona fall in love with her son, in payment of his debt to Shrek. He wasn't honestly in much danger from them, but that makes him holding them all off no less impressive, especially for a normal-sized housecat.
The Big Guy from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
In The Movie of The Magic Roundabout, Zebedee apparently sacrifices himself to prevent Zeebad from going after the rest of the group, to the point of creating a landslide when they try to go back and help him.
- All the more delicious of course because the voice of Zebedee is that of Ian McKellen, who delivered the Trope Namer.
Spoofed in Corpse Bride. The pastor stands at the doors of the church just before the climactic wedding, shouting at the Dead that they are not to enter the church. They merely file past him, admonishing him for shouting in a church. The fact that the character getting a You Shall Not Pass is played by Christopher Lee, who played Saruman the White in the Lord of the Rings films, makes the scene even more delicious for those who recognize Lee's ultra-distinctive voice.
In Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs Brent holds off a horde of giant roast chickens while Sam and Flint go to shut down the FLDSMDFR.
"Now go, you crazy kids, and save the world!"

Vasquez and Gorman blow themselves up to allow Ripley and company escape time in Aliens (though it's debatable whether this was the case, or they just wanted to avoid being alien chow).
Much less debatable is Dillon's moment at the end of Alien 3, when he Throws Down the Gauntlet and fights the alien with his bare hands shouting "Come on! Come on! That's all you got?! Is that as hard as you fight, motherfucker?!" before both of them are buried in molten lead.
This is how Robin Hood survives the original escape in the first five minutes of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Played straight in Predator, when Billy chooses to stop and wait for the alien hunter on a log bridge, throwing away his gun to fight with a big knife. Next thing we know, we're seeing through the Predator's eyes and he's creeping over the base of a fallen tree to confront Billy. Two seconds later the other survivors hear a horrible drawn-out scream. Then the Predator catches up with them again.
The movie 300 depicted a (very fanciful) version of the real life Battle of Thermopylae. In it, a handful of Greek soldiers successfully defend a narrow pass against a million-strong Persian army for three days before getting killed — and would have held out longer had they not been betrayed.
- Then the Australians and New Zealanders did it again in 1941.
  - Before them the Phocians did it again in 353 BC against Filip, the Greeks in 279 BC against Brenus, the Selucids against the Romans in 191 BC, the Greeks again in 267 AD against the Heruli, and the Greeks again against the Otomans in 1821. So what prompted you to only mentions the ANZA Cs (I know they were not ANZAC in WWII, but it's shorter this way)?
"Old Ben" Obi-Wan Kenobi distracted Darth Vader and the Death Star docking-bay security detail (twenty or so stormtroopers) in Star Wars (A New Hope) while Han, Luke, Leia and Chewie sneaked back aboard the Millennium Falcon. Whether this was Kenobi's intended effect or he just found himself on the receiving end of the gambit is debatable, but his "If you strike me down, I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" speech seems to imply the former. (Is this the "like, duh!" of the week?)
- The Expanded Universe makes it clearer that he might have escaped anyway — given Luke's power level, Kenobi should have been able to sweep aside Vader and the stormtroopers with a wave of his hand — but specifically chose not to.
- He smiled. Watch him closely. There's that little secret smile as he glances from Luke to Vader, and then shuts his eyes and puts up his lightsaber. He did it on purpose, no question.
- I'm not buying it. Anakin was easily a match for Obi Wan. If Kenobi decided to wave his hand, Vader could certainly counter it. I think he smiled to show us he was not afraid of death, but he did not want to die. Why would he? He did not become more powerful then we can imagine. He just became an annoying hologram.
  - Word Of God, namely from the Revenge of the Sith novel, makes it clear that he did become more powerful than we can imagine. The annoying hologram is, according to Rot S, something the Sith could never really accomplish (though the EU seems to negate this). Yoda and Ghost!Qui-Gon in fact go to great lengths to explain that only through self-sacrifice can true power over life and death be obtained, in spite of what Palpatine might want Anakin to think.
- Word Of God also states that Vader was severely weakened by his transformation into a cyborg. I think it was stated that he was at about 80% of what he used to be as Anakin. Which is way the Emperor wanted Luke to take his fathers place, at his side. Considering that Obi-Wan beat the crap out of him once it's a safe assumption that he could have done it again. And the "he was older and thus less of a fighter" justification, doesn't stand if you take into account that he was a Jedi powered by the force (to paraphrase Yoda in Empire Strike Back), and Yoda's display of prowess in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. And the little dude was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY older the Obi-Wan.
The first The Mummy movie had Ardeth Bey literally wade into the undead hordes to give the heroes a chance to escape. Thanks to test audience reaction, he shows up at the end, mildly wounded. The second Mummy movie had him leading an entire army for the same purpose.
- Happened twice. First time was that museum curator guy who held off the zombified population while the heroes escaped thru the sewer.
In Serenity, River Tam finally demonstrates just how immensely badass she is by holding back a seemingly innumerable horde of Reavers by herself, as the rest of the crew is either dead, exhausted, out of ammo, or severely wounded by that time. They huddle behind a locked door, expecting that when they open it again she'll be dead. When it opens, however, she is standing in the middle of a horde of dead Reavers, without a scratch on her.
- And after that, when the Alliance troops rush into the room, she is calmly and emotionlessly preparing to do it again. Considering the level of ass-kicking just demonstrated, its a safe bet that the Alliance troops would have been massacred.
  - They were all holding high-end projectile weapons. They'd have won. Not that it would have stopped River for the first dozen ammo rounds or so.
  - They're Faceless Goons against Waif Fu in close quarters. They'd lose.
  - Right. This is not REALITY we're talking about here!
Monty Python and the Holy Grail actually has three examples, one with the Black Night ("None shall pass!"), one with the wizard ("Answer me these questions three."). Arguably, the latter is actually more subversive. The other, of course, is the Knights of Ni.
The ending of the second X-Men film is an example of this trope, with Jean Grey staying behind to hold off the inevitable just long enough for the rest of the team to escape. Although everyone, including her, thinks that No One Could Survive That, she manages to survive.
In Pirates of the Caribbean, Commander Norrington, instead of following Elizabeth on a rope off of the Flying Dutchman, chooses to cut it instead to guarantee her escape. He is then killed by Bootstrap Bill.
- This trope was oddly subverted at the end of Dead Man's Chest, when Elizabeth handcuffs Jack to the mast of the Black Pearl in order to keep the Kraken from coming after the rest of the crew, since it only wants Jack. This, after Jack chose to come back and help the crew escape rather than abandon them as he almost did.
- Yeah, but then they go get him back.
  - But only because he was in possession of the missing Plot Coupon
Embraced and subverted in Star Trek: First Contact. Picard clearly wants to sacrifice himself and his ship; "The line must be drawn HERE!" but in the end, compassion and common sense win out and he orders the crew to safety.
- In one of the more amusing scenes of Star Trek: First Contact, Doctor Crusher activates the Emergency Medical Hologram as the invading Borg are approaching Sick Bay and orders it to create a diversion. As the Borg break down the door, the nonplussed Doctor attempts to prescribe them an analgesic creme to soothe the skin rashes caused by their cybernetic implants.
- Pulled of in Star Trek III with a dash of Xanatos Gambit. Kirk orders the destruction of the beloved Enterprise so that he and his crew can escape to Genesis while the explosion kills most of the enemy Klingons.
- In the new Star Trek, Captain George Kirk of the Kelvin does this to the Narada.
The remake of Dawn of the Dead. Arguable, but when C.J. remains in the truck at the end and then blows himself and all of the remaining zombies up. No, I don't know why they were all killed, but they were.
In The Matrix: Revolutions, hordes of the machines are storming Zion, one last elderly soldier stands bravely and alone, and blasts as many of them as he can before being mauled.
In the 13th Warrior, one of the 12 Norsemen stays behind in the tunnel to hold off the rampaging horde of cannibalistic cave-dwelling Neanderthals after uttering the tip-off phrase for a wounded soldier: "Well, I think I've gone as far as I can. Today was a GOOD day. Meet me in Valhalla!"
And speaking of Norsemen, the utterly forgettable Lee Majors movie The Norsemen sees this trope with a warrior named Olaf. Who later makes his way back from his sure-to-be-suicide stand. (The enemies that the Norse were fighting in this movie were native Americans.)
The Three Musketeers (1973). D'Artagnan and the three musketeers (Athos, Porthos, and Aramis) are on a mission for the queen. Along the way they're attacked by various groups sent by Cardinal Richelieu. In one encounter, while fighting a Mook, Athos orders d'Artagnan to keep going while he stays and keeps the opponent busy.
Australia: The Drover's best friend against Japanese soldiers.
Starship Troopers. During the showdown in the Bug hive near the end of the movie, trooper Watkins is injured and can't escape.
Watkins: Give me the nuke!
Rico: You trying to be a hero, Watkins?
Watkins: I'm trying to kill some bugs, sir!
(as the other MI escape, Watkins detonates the nuke, killing the Bugs)
- Similar thing happened to Michael Madsen in Red Planet.
The Last Samurai. Katsumoto's wounded son Nobutada single-handedly holds off several Japanese soldiers at a small bridge behind his father's home in Tokyo, so that Katsumoto, Algren and the rest of the samurai can make their escape.
Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion. The SDF is evacuating Sendai when Legion attacks. Gamera arrives in time to hold the Legion off, but is mortally wounded while the SDF leaves.
The robot, remote-controlled by Will Robinson, in the movie version of Lost in Space.
In District 9, this is the protagonist's turning out. Oh, and he's also in an armed to the teeth suit of Powered Armour. He catches a rocket propelled grenade.
The phrase gets spoofed in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Peter went a whole week wearing the same pair of sweat pants. Come Saturday, he says "You Shall Not Pass".
Subverted in Inglourious Basterds; Pvt Zoller is a war hero to the Nazis, who took out a large number of American soldiers.
In Prince of Darkness, Catherine Danforth pushes Susan Cabot, who's been posessed by The Devil, into the mirror, to prevent her from pulling the Anti-God into our world. Unfortunately, she's also pulled into the mirror, which the priest then destroys, to seal the portal.

Named for Gandalf's big scene against the Balrog (no, not THAT Balrog, or THAT Balrog) of Moria in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
- In the book, however, Gandalf's line was "You cannot pass". It is said in the movie, just before the above quote... Just not as loud.
  - 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 ( a.k.a. Éowyn's) defense of Théoden King against the Lord of the Nazgûl (who seems very confident of his own ability to crush Gandalf like an insect) is mayhap even more impressive: "Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may." She even laughs at him.
- Beregond leaves his post in order to pull one of these to stop Denethor from succeeding in lighting Faramir's pyre.
- There are so many instances of this in The Silmarillion that one can safely conclude Tolkien loved this trope.
  - Hurin, the father of Turin Turambar the dragon slayer, pulls this off against the entire army of the original dark lord Morgoth alone so his allies can escape. He fights to the point where his axe melts on his hands and even then does not give up. All the while shouting: "Day shall come again."
  - With his brother Huor, father of Tuor, although he gets to actually die, where Hurin gets taken prisoner before Morgoth and is made to watch everything bad that happens to his family by magic in revenge.
  - Huan, the hound of Valinor, stands up against Carcaroth, the mightiest werewolf who has a Silmaril in its body, in order to protect Beren. Huan manages to slay the crazed werewolf before succumbing to wounds but Beren dies nonetheless.
  - 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. Glorfindel also killed a Balrog (and was killed) while the survivors were fleeing in the mountains.
- 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 The Great Hunt, Ingtar, having been revealed as a Darkfriend, redeems himself by holding off the advancing Seanchan at the cost of his life, allowing Rand and his compatriots to escape.
In the Star Wars Expanded Universe novel 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.
- It happens again later in the series, when Rogue Squadron is lead into a deathtrap at Distna, One and Two flight (eight X-wings) are forced to fight three squadrons of enemy fighters, while Three flight is forced to take on the same number (with half as many ships) so that the others can attempt to escape. "Alright three flight, we're holding the door open." Delaying Actions are standard for the Rogues; they pull one in The Thrawn Trilogy and are only saved when the cavalry returns.
- In the Star Wars: New Jedi Order novel Traitor, the Jedi Ganner Rhysode declares, "Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass." and proceeds to slaughter hundreds of enemy warriors before being overcome, buying time for Jacen Solo. When he's finally overwhelmed, he pulls a Samson by collapsing the (large) building he's in on both himself and his foes. In fact he was so damn impressive that, according to Unreliable Narrator, in the future he would be made into a deity in the enemies' pantheon called "The Ganner", a giant armed with a sword of light, guarding the gate to the world of the dead, upon which is inscribed — in Basic, not Yuuzhan Vong — NONE SHALL PASS.
- 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 Honor Harrington novels having Harrington go into battle in a seriously outmatched ship with practically no possibility of victory and massive casualties happened frequently enough in the early books that an "Honor Death-Ride" has become cliché (and to be fair, is noted by various characters in the books themselves such as in Honor Among Enemies when several crewmen, upon finding out who's commanding their new ship, immediately begin figuring out how to desert before the inevitable catastrophic battle).
- Of course, the ones doing that are dirtbags that their former commanders couldn't wait to be rid of.
  - And their eventual fate... well, if Bitten By Karma isn't a trope, it should be.
  - See Laser Guided Karma. Or, in this particular case, graser guided karma.
- Don't forget Saganami, whose You Shall Not Pass moment got Manticore's 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 and James Mallory's Obsidian Trilogy, and specifically the first book, The Outstretched Shadow, Jermayan tells Kellen the story of five scouts from the last war with the Endarkened, who held an entire demon army in a narrow pass for three days, buying time for the allied armies to gather. "History" lost their names (even though there are elves living who are so old they are no more than two generations from the time of the last war, thousands of years ago), and it's not known how they did it, but their sacrifice is remembered.
- 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 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.
In HG Wells' The War of the Worlds, the ironclad torpedo ram HMS Thunder Child attacks several Martian tripods to buy time for British refugee ships to escape. The Thunder Child is utterly destroyed, but the refugees get away and it manages to off one of the tripods in the process by ramming it.
- As the Thunder Child sinks, the Martians' "Heat Ray" fire causes the boilers to explode, 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 "Ghola"... and that, as it turns out, has some 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 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 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 John Barnes's One For The Morning Glory, how the Twisted Man died.
In Dan Abnett's Gaunts Ghosts novel First & Only, Sergeant Blane and fifty Ghosts hold off the vastly superior numbers of Jantine Patricians for a long time, even in face of their Zerg Rush, until they are overwhelmed.
- In His Last Command, Gaunt and Wilder 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 Voldemort's curse became ineffective against Hogwarts' students (by Harry's Heroic Sacrifice).
- Ron Weasley performs a nonfatal (but still fairly impressive for an eleven-year-old boy) version of this trope at the end of The Philosopher's Stone, sacrificing himself during the chess game so that Harry and Hermione can continue. Lucky for him this was before Cerebus Syndrome set in, and instead of getting killed, he "only" gets mauled by a giant chess piece.
The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean (variant with wounded guy).
Rockjaw Grang in the Redwall novel "The Long Patrol", after 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. They then died of old age.
In the Wing Commander novel "Fleet Action", a vastly outnumbered and outgunned Confederation manages to hold off the Kilrathi fleet, at one point having civilian craft play "human shield" for the 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 Posleen, and the 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, sending off a handful, led by Ragnar, to bring the news. 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, Laurie's friend Roald holds off approaching Dark Elves after he breaks his leg in a fall. He tells his friend to "Make a song about me, Make it a good one", before he gives a decent accounting of himself, allowing his friends to escape.
In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 Blood Angels novel Red Fury, all the sons of Sanguinius throw themselves into defending the tomb of Sanguinius, knowing that if they fail, the survivors' only choice will be to be destroy the fortress.
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 usual weapon was stolen, Dian Wei instead used a normal infantryman's sword until it broke, at which point he used a pair of 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.)
- 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. Always loved that scene in the book.
In World War Z, a man relates the story of how the zombie war went down in Paris, including how his little brother's unit attempted to contain all the inmates of an insane asylum that had been zombified. His last words before they lost communication were "They shall not pass!"
- One squad against three hundred zombies. One squad led by my baby brother. The last thing we heard before the radio went silent was his voice on the radio: "They shall not pass!"
In Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Princess of Mars, John Carter insists that Dejah Thoris and Sola flee while he holds off the Green Martians.
Kurt's death in 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:
Voro 'Mantakree: And now, Demon, you die.
Kurt Ambrose: Die? Didn't you know? Spartans never die. (detonates FENRIS nuclear warhead)
In Henry Zhou's Warhammer 40000 novel The Emperor's Mercy, Imperial Guardsmen are surrounded by Chaos forces and are fighting on, despite dying of hunger and disease. Roth tells Celemine that they had no choice but to stay with them. The commander hears and instantly wants to fight a last charge: they can get them to their ship and hold off the enemy — and that way, they can be remembered. (They are. In fact, their eighteen minutes defense of the ship is immortalized in a mural on Terra.)
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 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.

Both Kor and Eddington died like this on Star Trek: Deep Space 9.
- Kor was a disgraced senile old Klingon with a damaged vessel but still, singlehandedly destroyed/delayed a Jem'Hadar squadron from overtaking the other Klingon ships. This was deemed so impressive by the other Klingons (even Martok, who'd hated the man), that they all broke out in song. Truly a warrior's death.
- Eddington single handedly master minded a scheme to save his people AFTER the whole Face Turned Heel — not to mention captured and imprisoned — and then went down fighting to ensure that everyone escaped...
In an alternate timeline in Star Trek The Next Generation, the Enterprise is being attacked by three Klingon warbirds; Riker states that they can outrun them, but Picard orders the ship to stand fast and fight the Klingons so as to allow the past Enterprise to escape. Prompts the famous line, "Let us make sure history never forgets. The name. ENTERPRISE!"
Doctor Who: "Tomb of the Cybermen". The Doctor and Jamie attempt to close the electrified doors to the tombs, sealing the Cyber Controller inside. When they realize that doing so would kill them as well, even if they could overcome the Controller's attempts to force is way out, the enormous Toberman pushes them aside, declares, "You shall not pass Toberman: The door is closed," and forces the doors shut, killing himself and (apparently) the Cyber Controller.
- Another Doctor Who example: in the new series episode "Tooth and Claw", a character who had previously betrayed the Queen repents, and so of course has to die, so he volunteers to sacrifice himself to give the main characters more time to escape the werewolf, despite the fact that normal humans with guns had previously been shown not to slow it down at all. His death is not shown directly, so it is not known if or how he actually slowed it down.
- Yet another Doctor Who example: In the new series episode "Doomsday", a Cyberman, who formerly was the director of the Torchwood Facility, turns on its cybernetic fellows at the last possible moment before they break in on Our Heroes and stop them saving the day; this rebellious Cyberman even says "You shall not pass" twice, and then mows down the other Cybers with an electric rifle. It's actually a very touching moment. Then comes the single black tear; borders on Narm but we'll let it pass.
  - "I have done my duty... For Queen and country..."
- Still another example from Doctor Who, when in the new series episode "Dalek", one of the soldiers tries to hold off a fully-charged Dalek with a pistol. We then see a flash of light, the sound of a Dalek shot and a scream. Then we see the Dalek approaching.
- From Part 3 of "The War Machines" back in the William Hartnell era of Doctor Who. In the last scene of the episode, a rampant robot is bearing down on the (characteristically) useless army and random civilian director-type-people. They all turn and run for cover, but the Doctor stands his ground in what could be more of a CMoA too.
- In the episode "The Stolen Earth" in the recent series, the American UNIT general and random Red Shirt single-handedly stand against an oncoming Dalek force to give Martha Jones time to teleport away. ... and of course, get lasered rather quickly. I mean, come on, these are Daleks.
Marcus Cole does this to Neroon in the Babylon 5 episode "Grey 17 is Missing". Clips over part of the episode show Marcus getting his ass kicked. While he is prepared to meet his death to make this delay as long as possible, Neroon spares his life. Neroon then immediately concedes that Delenn is the proper leader of the Rangers by saying "They would die for you; I don't think I could make them die for me."
- In fact, in a Shout Out to The Lord of the Rings, this is actually built into the Rangers' Catch Phrase:
  "We are Rangers.
  We walk in the dark places no others will enter.
  We stand on the bridge, and no one may pass.
  We live for the One, we die for the One."
  - Um, more likely a reference to Horatius, see Real Life below, who inspired the bridge scene in LOTR.
  - Actually, no - J. Michael Straczynski is a big fan of Lord Of The Rings, and Word Of God has named it one major influence on Babylon 5.
- In another episode, in a vision of a possible future, Garibaldi stays behind to make sure Sinclair can escape, even going so far as to declare 'This is the moment I was born for!'
- The Battle of the Line probably also qualifies, seeing as they were attempting to buy time for transports to evacuate as many civilians from Earth as possible.
  "Hold the line. No one gets through, no matter what."
Subverted in the first season two episode of Stargate SG-1 in which Daniel is badly wounded. Thinking that this will likely kill him anyway, he tells Jack to take the others and go on without him while he plans to stay behind and cover them. However he ends up meeting no resistance and instead hauls himself to a Goa'uld sarcophagus to get healed.
- Played straight (or perhaps homaged) in the episode "The Enemy Within" where Teal'c beats a Goa'uld infested Major Kowalski to the gate room before he escapes, utters "You cannot pass" and kills him on the ramp.
- Made ever more awesome because of the circumstances. The Enemy Within is the second episode of Stargate, and at this point Teal'c's fate is yet to be decided (One option was to remove the infant Goa'uld within him for study, which would kill Teal'c). The Goa'uld inside Kowalski takes him over, opens the Gate to Chulak, and enters the gate room to find Teal'c blocking his way. Keep in mind that the Goa'uld are Gods to Jaffa. The Goa'uld orders Teal'c to stand aside. Teal'c: "You cannot pass."
In The Sarah Connor Chronicles episode "To The Lighthouse", Charley Dixon does this for John Connor.
Heroes: Government agents are attempting to capture Micah, because he's been helping other heroes to safety. Finding themselves in a parking garage, Micah and Tracy, who recently learned that she's his aunt, seem to be cornered. However, Tracy tells Micah to run, and also to activate the sprinkler system (Micah can "talk" to machines). He does so, and we get a Crowning Moment Of Awesome for Tracy, as she activates the full power of her freezing ability once Micah's out of range, freezing half of the garage, killing the agents, and sacrificing herself in the process.
- Of course, we later find out she is still alive, after pulling a T-1000 melt-and-reform maneuver.
Supernatural: Castiel does this in the Season 4 finale to hold off the prophet Chuck's archangel so that Dean can reach Sam.
- Subverted: He got better.
- In the Season 5 episode "Abandon All Hope," Jo decides to do this by building a bomb to hold off a group of hellhounds because she's mortally wounded. Right as the plan is about to come to fruition her mother, Ellen, decides to join her, reiterating the show's theme of the importance of family.
An episode of Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. entitled, They Shall Not Pass has Gomer paired with Sergeant Carter. When Carter is injured, only Gomer is left to protect bridge, which he does successfully.

Lots and lots of Warhammer 40000 fluff characters get scenes like this. Most notably, perhaps, Gaunt et al.
- This can actually happen in a way in the actual game. Say you have a Chaos Predator declare Tank Shock on a squad of Veteran Guardsmen. They pass the morale check, then have the guy with the meltagun step in front of the speeding tank, and take a shot at it. If the shot hits, the tank slews to a halt in front of the heroic soldier.
In a recent game of Risk: Godstorm, this troper watched another player who was defending Egypt with one army, get attacked by another from Nubia with eight armies. (In this game, dice are rolled corresponding to how many armies are being committed to the battle; the highest dice are compared. Defenders win ties). The attacker withdrew after losing six armies. To do this, the defender had to match or beat the best of three dice with one die, six times running. It was definitely a "You Shall Not Pass" moment.
- This happens pretty consistently with ANY game of Risk actually, though it remains utterly awesome anyways. This Troper once saw a battle of 5 on 25, and though the 5-man army eventually last, the 25-man army was reduced to about two armies.

Happens in War Craft III, outside the vault where Frostmourne is held:
The Guardian: Turn back, mortals. Death and darkness are all that await you in this forsaken vault.
Arthas: I doubt there's anything more terrifying here than what we've faced already.
The Guardian: Believe what you will, boy. You Shall Not Pass.
Skies of Arcadia had defense-minded Worthy Opponent Admiral Gregorio standing fast to allow the heroes time to escape from Big Bad Galcian as his Heel Face Turn.
Regal's More Expendable Than You moment near the end of Tales of Symphonia was of this type, by standing fast in the face of an army of angels to allow the others to advance without their interference. Unlike most examples, he enters the battle intent on getting out alive, having sworn to Lloyd not to die. He survives.
- Then he pulls one again in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, against an army of one.
Asch in Tales of the Abyss pulls this in the final dungeon, as he holds off 4 guards while Luke goes on ahead. To make matters worse, he just gave his sword to Luke, so he has to fight without a weapon at first (he takes one from an enemy mid-fight). Why he didn't ask Luke for his old weapon in return for the Sword of Lorelei is a mystery. In the end, he seemingly kills them, only for 3 to get up suddenly and impale him all at once. He does still manage to kill all of them, but dies of his wounds afterwards.
- In the animated adaptation, Luke actually hands him his own sword in return, for all the good that did him.
Final Fantasy IV has Cid. After Yang has just made his own (unrelated) Heroic Sacrifice and it seems The Dragon is about to finally kill the rest of the party by demolishing the Tower of Babil's bridge with them on it, Cid catches them on the Enterprise. They are still being chased by other airships, however, and after flying into a tunnel leading to the group's next destination, Cid gives the wheel to Cecil and jumps off the ship carrying explosives. As soon as the ship is clear, Cid detonates his bomb to seal the passage (and presumably incinerate/crush himself). However, it was just a Disney Death.
There are two examples in Final Fantasy VI. The first comes when the party is nearly captured by the Big Bad after their raid at a Magitek Factory; even though Locke believes her a traitor, Celes throws herself at the enemy forces and casts a spell that warps them (and herself) to parts unknown, allowing Locke and the others to escape. Much later in the game, as the balance of magic is broken and the world begins to tear itself apart, the mercenary Shadow double-crosses the Big Bad and traps him while the party escapes back to the airship. Although the player is free to leave once the goal is reached (presumably, leading to Shadow's death,) there is also a chance to subvert this trope by waiting for him until the last possible second.
In Final Fantasy X, Kimahri does one of these, standing his ground against a major villain while telling the rest of the party to run. They do, but then decide to obey the No One Gets Left Behind creed instead and run back to help him.
- Most of his species stand against the Big Bad later and are slaughtered. Only the ones who aren't home and the ones in the Blitzball team survive.
In Final Fantasy XI after defeating the Big Bad, the Shadow Lord, he has a Heel Face Turn when suddenly the even Bigger Bads Kam'lanaut and Eald'narche show up and summon the "Warriors of the Crystal" intent on destroying everyone in the room. The Shadow Lord stalls the Warriors of the Crystal giving Zeid, Lion, and you time to escape before he goes all explode-y all over the {{Big Bad}}s. (You have to fight the Warriors of the Crystal later though).
Final Fantasy V beats out all of these with Galuf, though. The heroes are down, and everything looks poised for The Bad Guy Wins . Galuf's grandaughter pulls a Big Damn Heroes moment, but it turns into a Hope Spot that leaves her on the brink of death as well. And then Galuf gets up. He pushes through Exdeath's Agony Beam, saves his grandaughter from the spell trapping her, and then rushes the Big Bad alone. He goes head to head with the boss of the game, refusing to fall even in the face of Flare/Holy/Meteor combos, even as he hits 0 HP. And he finally manages to defeat Exdeath on his own, driving him away to lick his wounds. And then he collapses. What follows is one of the most heart-rending scenes in any FF game, and the sole subversion to one of the most famous Console Roleplaying Game Cliches, as the heroes try everything to resurrect him, and it all fails.
"Galuf! You can't die! Curaga! Please... Raise! Open your eyes! Phoenix Down! Elixir! Anything!
Breath of Fire 2 has a number of secondary characters sacrificing themselves for the party, the party sacrificing itself for the main character, and the main character sacrificing himself for everyone else.
In Super Robot Wars: Original Generation, Sanger holds back the UCC forces to give his teammates time to escape... but is actually defecting to the Divine Crusaders' side, because he feels that he can better prepare them for the coming battles as an enemy than as their commander.
Illusion of Gaia featured the protagonists captured by a village where the natives were so desperate for food as to preparing to resort to cannibalism. The princess' pet pig, a faithful companion who has gotten the party out of many tough scrapes by luck and its intelligence, leaps into the cooking fire, sacrificing himself to be food for villagers. Kind of sad...though also somewhat Narm worthy considering the reaction Will has if you examine the cooked remains. Oh, and the fact the pig's name is Hamlet.
In the first Suikoden game, Viktor and Flik pull this one off, earning themselves a No One Could Survive That! Of course, they did survive...they just didn't tell anyone that, for some reason.
- Another case in the first Suikoden game was Pahn, a loyal retainer who tries to hold off the imperial army after the hero's army was defeated. You actually get to control him in the duel which determines whether he lives or dies.
- In the second Suikoden there was Jowy during the Highland camp infiltration, where he uses holds off the enemy with his True Rune and forces you to run no matter what choice you make. He comes back, but he betrays you shortly after.
In the second NES Ninja Gaiden game, Robert, the CIA agent who is Ryu's ally for most of the game, holds off a horde of demons with a single pistol just long enough for Ryu to make it to the end.
Planescape Torment does this with all your companions, except for three (one who just pretended to be dead, and depending on your alignment and if you have them with them, as many as two who decide they would rather kill you).
In one of the campaign missions in Age of Mythology, one of the secondary heroes, Chiron, holds off an army of Fire Giants to allow the rest of the characters to escape. He dies, to the great irritation of this editor, because he was a particularly useful unit.
- Not only that, but he blocks the passage behind him with a cave in.
All of Mario's companions have separate You Shall Not Pass moments in the final chapter of Super Paper Mario, leaving him to fight the Big Bad alone.
- This could be seen as an inversion, since the point of the teams' supposed sacrifice was to get Mario and Tippi past the Quirky Miniboss Squad so that Mario could defeat the Big Bad before The End Of The World As We Know It. So it's more like "You Shall Pass!"
Freelancer has countless moments when an entire wing of fighters was dispatched before you, as Trent, manage to destroy the entire enemy fleet. You don't die because doing so would result in a Game Over, but doing so needs an insane amount of Nanobots and Sheld Batteries.
- This troper usually just went into a tight loop and kicked on the cruise engine until an opportunity to get the hell out of Dodge arose. Missiles normally knock you out of cruise, but if you're going in a tight loop at cruise speeds they can't maintain lock, and the A Is can't hit you with their guns reliably either.
Seto in Final Fantasy VII singlehandedly defended Cosmo Canyon against a rival tribe. In the end, he was petrified, which means that he's still "defending" Cosmo Canyon forty or so years later.
- And in all those forty years, nobody ever thought to use a Soft on the poor guy.
Leonard in Drakengard makes a stand against the Grotesqueries to let the others get through. In fact, here's the scene. A good scene to convey the Small Annoying Creature as well.
Captain Brenner/O'Brian from Advance Wars: Days of Ruin stands fast in the face of the New Rubinelle Army to allow the Independent Legion and the Lazurian Army to escape. He actually manages to eject from his command vehicle and escape, but is nuked to death shortly after.
- The combined Lazurian/Brenner's Wolves have another such moment later facing against Tabitha/Larissa's forces in a mountain pass. They're saved by the timely arrival of Will/Ed and reinforcements.
In Grandia II, near the end and while on the moon, the group is surrounded by the young of Valmar, their transport is low on energy and the horde is closing in. Mareg throws the group into the transport and while fighting off massive number makes a prayer (to a) a god he doesn't believe in and b)a god believed to be dead) to send them safety. It works.
In Half-Life 2, Father Grigori diverts the attention of the zombies in Ravenholm, helping Gordon escape to the mines. It is debatable whether he survives or not.
- You an clearly see him setting the entrance on fire, killing off the entire zombie horde then running into the catacomb if you wait long enough, which counts as 'surviving' as far as the game tells us. Assuming the explosion of City 17 at the end of Episode 1 didn't take out Ravenholm with it...
In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Micaiah spends a good part of the game trying to keep the enemies out of her country, by any means necessary. The situation gets so desperate that toward the end the enemies think she's suicidal and/or crazy, and they propose their help. To no avail.
Micaiah: We will not lose! We cannot lose! If we lose today, everything Pelleas has done will have been in vain! In the name of King Pelleas, fight for Daein!
In Persona 3, this trope is used to justify the Arbitrary Headcount Limit during the Final Battle: while confronting Nyx Avatar, Fuuka detects a large number of Shadows approaching from the lower floors of Tartarus. Mitsuru then orders everyone not fighting Nyx to defend the combatants and hold off these hordes of enemies.
In Fate Stay Night's Fate scenario, Archer does this towards Berserker to let the heroes escape — the fact that a Command Spell was involved in making him do it is mitigated by the fact that he could probably have managed to save himself in the process if he had stuck strictly to the command wording, which was to 'delay', but chose instead to interpret it as an order to defeat Berserker.
- After turning face, Lancer does this on Gilgamesh to let Saber get away with Shirou.
- This is Kojiro Assassin's one and only role.
Exact quote from Aege, the Earth of Foundation, from Soul Calibur III, the Cute Bruiser Juggernaut Ditz with a unique trait that makes her unable to be thrown, knocked down, or stunned. She is the penultimate opponent of Chronicle 11, and cannot be avoided.
Axel pulls this one in Disgaea 2 when he holds off every Overlord in the multiverse who came to kill Zenon so that the heroes could do it. He's doing this both to be helpful and to be a collossal ~~dick of astronomical proportions~~ Dark Hero.
Two in succession at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4. First Meryl stays behind to hold off the FROGS while Snake goes on toward GW, then Raiden does the same. Snake is so awesome that he inspires two "You Shall Not Pass" choke points for the endless swarm of baddies.
In Lunar: Dragon Song, Rufus sacrifices himself to hold off the giant monster Gideon from being able to chase after the rest of the party. Is killed, with the only thing left to show is his sword, which is later handed over to the Big Bad who gloats about it at the heroes.
Somewhat parodied in Alpha Centauri. Richard Baxton held off four waves of mind worms on his own, saving a colony. The parody is that his story is then altered and repackaged as "Recon Rover Rick" so that it can be sold as entertainment, downplaying his awful demise.

In The Order of the Stick, two members of the Redshirt Army offer to hold back a squad of oncoming hobgoblins in order to give their leader and the heroes enough time to escape. Elan, being Genre Savvy to a fault, knows that they're doubly doomed, and even tells them so in an attempt to dissuade them. They manage to save themselves by giving themselves just enough characterization during the battle, and finally even to downgrade a fatal wound to a minor one by telling each other their names, Kazumi Kato and Daigo. Daigo wisely decides to withhold his last name for a future emergency. As they've both managed to get married, reached sixth level (a "booster level" in any class), and step up to the ranks of nobility afterwards, it's proving to be a prudent move.
Torg tries to do this during the "That Which Redeems" arc of Sluggy Freelance. He even quotes Gandalf. But then he decides to just push the bad guy down the hill and outrun him with the rest of his group.
Played with in the B-Movie Comic:

Balrog: Thou shall not pass!

Professor: Strange. I've never seen this being before... ...yet I have the odd feeling that line should have been mine, somehow...

Tigerhawk's sacrifice to slow down the warship Nemesis in the Grand Finale of Transformers: Beast Wars.
Optimus Primal: You can't stop that thing alone!
Tigerhawk: Perhaps... but it is my destiny to try. I will hold the line here. Go!
In the mid-nineties X-Men animated series, in the first season finale, Wolverine and Gambit are infiltrating a Sentinel production facility. Wolverine smells some, and so he herds Gambit to relative safety—then locks the door behind him and runs back to face them. Subverted in that Gambit blows the door open and comes to Logan's rescue. Near the end of the episode, Cyclops finds the two of them standing on a pile of destroyed Sentinels, Wolverine's shirt in tatters.
Wolverine: Next time I try ta save yer life, have sense enough ta let me do it.
Gambit: What make you t'ink there gon' be another time?
Sort of inverted in the 1986 Transformers The Movie, where Optimus Prime, as opposed to facing down a horde of enemies, charges them single-handedly to get to his target.
In Star Wars Clone Wars, Shaak Ti stays behind to fight off thirty-something Magnaguards, to give the other Jedi and the Chancellor time to escape. It's then subverted when the robots stop fighting and leave, and Shaak Ti realizes too late that they were a diversion.
Happens every episode in the first season of Code Lyoko, as the usual plot involves the gang evenly matching (or being overwhelmed by) XANA's programs while Aelita gets to the Reset Button.
Parodied on Chowder, when Mung and Shnitzel are guarding the fridge to keep Chowder from sleep-eating the entire kitchen. Mung even yells out "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" before Chowder (now a hairy, hulking thing) chews the two of them up and spits them out.
In the Dr. Suess short Halloween Is Grinch Night, main character Ukariah tries to stop the Grinch from tormenting Whoville with his strange device, the Paraphernalia Wagon. Although the Grinch regards him as not a threat, he eventually decides to test the abilities of the Wagon on Ukariah. He survives, miraculously.
Parodied in "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers" episode of South Park; Jimmy, who has a speech impediment, stays behind to hold back a horde of bicycle-riding Sixth Graders, but due to his stammer, he can't quite get the line out;
Jimmy: You shall not p-puh... You shall not puh-puh-p-p... You shall not puh-pah-paaa—
(a dozen sixth-graders run him over)
Jimmy: ... Pass.
And parodied within a parody on Family Guy: in the "Petergeist" episode, Herbert the pedophiliac neighbor defends Chris from the carnivorous tree, "Hey skinny-britches! That there's my man! Why don'tcha pick on someone your own size!" He then declares, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" striking the earth with his walker and splitting open the ground beneath the tree - and himself. They plummet together toward the bottom of the chasm with Herbert battling the tree with his walker the entire way down.
For a third Transformers example, in Transformers Cybertron's second episode, Vector Prime does one of these to keep Megatron from discovering the location of the Autobots' base. He does it without dying.
Vector Prime: Hold, Megatron! You shall go no further!
(dark clouds temporarily fill the sky overhead; a swirl forms, and from it descends a streak of green light; the light enters the socket located below and in front of Vector Prime's chest orb, and becomes his Cyber Key)
Vector Prime: CYBER KEY POWER!
Optimus Prime: By the Allspark of Cybertron!
Megatron: What is it?! What are you protecting?!
Vector Prime: Tachyon shield!

: Megatron collides with the shield, and is stopped cold. Soon enough, he recovers slightly and begins trying to break through. Vector Prime responds with a laser blast from his chest orb. Optimus follows up by transforming to Super Mode and blasting Megatron as well. Megatron's shoulder badly damaged, he and Starscream retreat.

The Roman legend of Horatius at the bridge is one of the earliest examples of this trope, making it Older Than Feudalism. Horatius is sometimes referred to as "Horatio".
On January 26, 1945, Audie Murphy (a real-life example of a One Man Army if there ever was one) held off a German unit singlehandedly. He used his personal weapon until he ran out of ammunition, then climbed into the burning wreckage of several tank destroyers to use their .50 calbier machine guns, and then used a field telephone to direct close artillery fire on the oncoming Germans when he ran out of .50 caliber ammunition. It should be noted that while he was doing this, he not only was wounded by enemy fire, he was still bandaged from an earlier wound received in combat against the Germans. (He was also fighting in two feet of snow in temperatures that hovered around 14 degrees Fahrenheit). He kept this one-man battle up for almost an hour before reinforcements arrived at his position. When the reinforcements finally did arrive, he organized them into a counter-attack, which he led, driving the Germans from the field. For being such a balls-out badass, Murphy was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
- He was also suffering from malaria at the time. The man was a total Badass.
- He should have been awarded every medal in the Allied inventory for what you just described.
The 101st Airborne Division got theirs during the Battle of the Bulge, when they held the town of Bastogne for seven days against an entire Panzer corps. When the Germans demanded his surrender, General Anthony Mc Auliffe sent a one-word reply: "NUTS!"
In World War II the three destroyers and one destroyer escort of Taffy 3 threw themselves headlong at the more numerous and ridiculously stronger Japanese naval force (four battleships, one of which was the biggest in the world, as well as eight cruisers and eleven destroyers) off Samar in order to allow their escort carriers to withdraw and to protect the vulnerable transport ships in Leyte Gulf. Between the destroyer attack and heavy air assault by what were considered second rate pilots flying off of cheap-ass escort carriers (boy did that opinion get revised), the Japanese commander in charge of the attack lost his nerve, thinking that Task Force 34 (which was off chasing a decoy fleet) had not taken the bait after all, and he was facing a full U.S. fleet. He called off the attack, and thousands of U.S. soldiers and sailors were spared.
- The determination of the American sailors during the battle is exemplified by a quote from the Captain of the destroyer USS Johnston. With his ship all but sunk and only one engine remaining, he spotted a Japanese cruiser attacking one of the escort carriers. His response was simply badass: "Fire on that cruiser. Draw their fire on us."
- A quote from that battle: "Goddamnit, they're getting away" — American signal officer
- An interesting note is that this battle was on the 90th anniversary of the infamous "Charge of the Light Brigade".
- The Captain of the destroyer escort told his crew: "This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can."
The Battle of Pavan Khind was the Indian version of Thermopylae, with 300 Marathan warriors holding a narrow pass long enough for their king Shivaji to reach a defensible position against a superior force and almost dying to the man.
The Alamo, where fewer than 200 Texan revolutionaries held off more than 1000 Mexican soldiers for 13 days.
Rorke's Drift, where 139 British soldiers held off thousands of Zulu warriors. Although in all fairness, the Zulus were much more poorly armed; flintlock muskets and guns captured at Ishandlwana were their only firearms.
The Irish legend of Cúchulainn had the legendary hero single-handedly preventing the entire army of Connaught from entering Ulster. While tied to a post and using one arm. That is what Bad Ass is.
The slogan "They shall not pass" was meant to harken back to "No Pasaran!" which was a famous Republican (anti-fascist) slogan during the Spanish Civil War. (Franco et al's retort: "We have passed," albeit in Spanish...) and it goes back farther than that, to the Battle of Verdun at least, where it was uttered by General Nivelle. The Germans indeed did not pass. Verdun, by the way, was the site of one of the bloodiest and most horrible battles in all human history.
- It was used one year later by general Eremia Grigorescu of the Romanian army at the Battle of Marasesti (well technically was something like: "One doesn't pass through here"). The Germans, again, did not pass (although in the previous year they had conquered half the country). They also lost almost 50000 people, the Romanians lost about 27000.
"They Shall Not Pass" was the warcry of the angry mob at the Battle of Cable Street. The "They" was a British Fascist Union parade led by Oswald Ernald Mosley, marching through the mostly Jewish and Irish East End of London.
There's also Dian Wei, of Three Kingdoms China. When Cao Cao was doublecrossed and ambushed by Zhang Xiu, Dian Wei and his unit managed to get him out of the castle and cover his retreat. In the violent battle that ensued, Dian Wei's men were all killed, but he went on to fight with terrifying violence even though he was drunk and his weapons were stolen, first by bludgeoning an enemy barehanded and stealing his sword, then using that sword until it broke, then grabbing a couple enemies and using them as weapons. Allegedly, he was still cursing at the enemies as he died, and his body remained standing. His enemies were so terrified by the ferocity with which he fought, they didn't dare approach his body until they were SURE he was dead, and that bought Cao Cao ample time to flee.
Oda Nobunaga's page, Mori Ranmaru, made one such stand at Honnouji's main gate when Mitsuhide betrayed Nobunaga. He failed to hold Honnouji's gate, but not for lack of trying, as Mitsuhide had to set the entire area on fire and throw nearly a third of his army at him and his brothers to finally bring them down.
- Which is more badass if you consider that up until then he was The Woobie.
And of course there's the old joke about the wizened white-bearded professor bellowing this when he sets his students a mid-term.
Two words: Tank Man.
- Also a Crowning Moment Of Awesome
- This Troper has heard it argued that the true hero is the tank commander who defied his orders and stopped his column — no one knows what happened to him either, but it was probably unpleasant.
Also from World War II, the Russian Order 227: Not A Step Back.
- Similarly, the "Backs Against the Wall Order" issued by Haig in 1918 at the moment when it looked pretty certain that the Germans were going to win.
On September 25, 1066, one Viking held Stamford Bridge, which was being attacked by the entire Saxon (read: English) army. He had a axe. He held that bridge against an attacking force of five thousand soldiers for almost an hour. Oh, and according to tradition, he was finally slain by thrusting a spear between the boards from a boat beneath the bridge.
The British military has a history of this.
- Rorke's Drift 1879, as mentioned above
- The sieges of Mafeking and Ladysmith in the Boer War, 1900
- The battle of Mons, 1914, where 2 British Batallions held up four times their number of Germans. They passed, but only at great loss and after being greatly delayed. Though only armed with bolt-action rifles, their rate of fire made the German forces believe that they were facing a large concentration of machine-guns.
- The Battle of Britain.
- Operation Market Garden, 1944. The 1st Airborne hung on - against German tank divisions, no less, without any vehicles of their own - for ten days in Arnhem, when they were supposed to be relieved by the XXX Corps in four, and none of the supply drops had reached them.
- The battle of the Imjin River, 1950. 4,000 men of the 29th Infantry Brigade inflicted 10,000 casualties on the advancing Chinese army and held them up two days before finally being overwhelmed. And even then, only because they'd fired every bullet they had.
HMS Jervis Bay, converted cruise liner and sole escort of a 37-ship convoy in WWII. Before being sunk, held off the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer long enough for 32 of the ships to escape.
HMS Rawalpindi, converted passenger ship, encountered the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as they attempted to break out into the North Atlantic in WWII. The ensuing battle was short, only 40 minutes before the Rawalpindi was sunk, but her radio report alerted the British Royal Navy and the battlecruisers were forced to turn back.
The British destroyer HMS Glowworm (1,450 tons) faced down the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper (18,000 tons) alone in the North Sea on 8 April 1940, and, when her torpedoes missed, rammed the larger ship in a last-ditch attempt to take it with her. The impact caused serious damage to the cruiser, and the Glowworm even managed to keep firing at point blank range when she was wrapped around the bows of the larger ship, before breaking off and sinking. The Captain, Lt Cdr Gerard Broadmead-Roope, received the Victoria Cross on the recommendation of the Hipper's commanding officer.
Liviu Librescu, Romanian-born Holocaust survivor, scientist and academic professor. On April 16, 2007, Librescu was teaching a class at Virgina Tech when gunman Cho Seung-Hui entered Norris Hall and began shooting into classrooms. Although shot through the door and hit five times, Librescu, 76, held the door of his classroom shut which allowed 22 of his 23 students to escape out the windows before he died of his wounds.
Another World War II example would be the battle of Henderson Field. Hell, the entire series of battles over Guadalcanal qualifies, with a small force of US Marines, Wildcat fighters, and PT boats holding out against disproportionate odds with little support.
- At one point, two American cruisers chose to fight two Japanese battleships to prevent another bombardment of Henderson Field. Two American admirals and one of the cruisers was lost, but the Japanese force was turned back. The Marine commander, who was earlier angry at how the Navy had abandoned them, would later say that this "You Shall Not Pass" moment did more to save Henderson Field than anything else — even more than God and his own marines.
The above pretty much all applies to the battle for Wake Island as well. Four Wildcat fighters and a detachment of marines held off an Japanese invasion force and sunk several ships in the bargain, infuriating the Japanese High Command so much they sent an entire carrier division to take the tiny island.
During World War 2, the Polish 1st Armored Division was assigned to stop an entire German Army from fleeing from the "Falaise Gap". Outnumbered and outgunned, the Polish held their lines against incredible odds that resulted in the death or capture of countless German soldiers - including the bulk of seven Panzer Divisions. At one point, the Polish General told his troops "We are all exhausted, and the ammunition is running out. But there will be no retreat, and no surrender. Tonight we die."
- Also the Battle of Wizna often called "The Polish Thermopylae", not without a reason... Hell, it got a metal song written for it, "40:1" by Sabaton (video)
World War One had Serbians pull this. Surrounded but unwilling to give up the supreme command ordered a full retreat along with a lot of civilians and the king himself. Having no other choice a large detainment of troops were forced to counter-attack Austro-Hungarian and German forces under a barrage of artillery to allow army, refugees and the king to retreat.
- To this point it even came with a badass quote by General Dragutin Gavrilović: "Exactly at three o'clock, the enemy is due to be crushed by your fierce charge, destroyed by your grenades and bayonets. The honor of Belgrade, our capital, must not be stained. Soldiers! Heroes! The supreme command has erased our regiment from its records. Our regiment has been sacrificed for the honor of Belgrade and the Fatherland. Therefore, you no longer need worry about your lives: they no longer exist. So, forward to glory! Long live Belgrade!"
Fall of Constantinople - the last Byzantine emperor was said to have lead an epic last charge of futility against the Ottoman forces... but one could easily see the whole siege as one protracted last stand.
Camerone in Mexico, 30 April 1863. An understrength French Foreign Legion company (less than 50 men) surrounded by over 2000 Mexicans. The captain of the company chose to keep fighting to distract the Mexicans from attacking an important French convoy. With no food, little water, and little ammunition, the Legionnaires held out for ten hours — and then the last six men able to fight, having run out of bullets, fixed bayonets and charged.
In the U.S. Civil War, The 20th Maine was positioned on Little Round Top and ordered to "hold to the last". As they ran out of ammunition, the enemy tired, and the trope was subverted.
On October 9, 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, Col. Avigdor "Yanosh" Ben-Gal, commanding the Israeli 7th armored brigade, which by that time was down to 17 Centurion tanks, was defending the Kuneitra salient against the Syrian 7th division, which consisted of over a thousand T-62 tanks and a comparable number of infantry-bearing AP Cs and artillery pieces. Ben-Gal refused to retreat, and told his men "They will not pass through. The fate of Israel rests on your shoulders. They will not pass." Even though the 7th brigade lost another ten tanks by nightfall, they managed to hold on, and Ben-Gal was made a general after the war.
Both the first, and second battles of Thermopylae combined this trope with Delaying Action for retreating troops.
The Great Patriotic War of the USSR had two really awesome you-shall-not-pass moments: the Brest Fortress and the battle od Dubosekovo.
During the Battle of Waterloo, both Napoleon and Wellington seemed obsessed with defending a small farmhouse on the flank of the battlefield (Hougoumont). It has been theorised that both thought the battle would turn on this farmhouse, but for one reason or another, they poured men into it. Wellington had it for the entire battle, but early on it looked like Napoleon would take it, possibly winning the battle. One British sergeant held the gates to the Hougoumont closed on his own for several minutes while nearly a quarter of the French army was at the doors.

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