Basic Trope: Someone attacks in unnecessary or unwise circumstances and long after it is clearly futile.
- Straight: Jack, heavily wounded, continues to fight Tom, despite there being an open doorway and having only nicked Tom.
- Exaggerated:
- Downplayed: Jack is not that hurt, but is very clearly outmatched by Tom in every way, but continues to fight, even though he could simply admit defeat.
- Justified:
- They have nowhere to flee, and even the slightest chance of injuring their foes is better than nothing.
- They're just trying to buy time while their allies escape.
- They are the stealth team's distraction.
- Jack doesn't have any self-preservation instinct; at all.
- They are members of an army defending their home city; loss of the city will lead to looting, plundering, and quite possibly loss of their family members. At the worst case scenario, their refusal to surrender means that there are less invaders to pillage and more of a chance for their family to avoid a looter.
- Whatever the enemy army would do to them, their superiors would do worse if they retreated.
- Jack hopes that the audacity of his attack will surprise Tom enough to gain a split-second advantage.
- Jack is The Berserker with Unstoppable Rage. Emphasis on "Unstoppable".
- Jack just figured out what Tom's Achilles' Heel is, and has to exploit it right now.
- The Cavalry is on its way, and the heroes just need to hold out until they show up.
- Inverted:
- Know When to Fold 'Em
- A wounded Jack is planning to escape, when he notices that Tom is heavily wounded, too. He then charges back in.
- Subverted:
- The forces charging fiercely are, in fact, illusions.
- Jack suddenly gets in a good blow.
- Jack is invincible, tireless, and has nothing better to do.
- While the fight appears futile, Jack actually has a good reason to think he can hurt Tom pretty badly.
- Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!
- Double Subverted:
- But the wizard casting them will keep it up long after it's clearly futile.
- But not a mortal wound; Tom dispatches him and uses magic to heal the wound.
- But he's Not So Invincible After All.
- It turns out Jack can't do hurt Tom after all, but when he discovers this he keeps on fighting.
- Parodied:
- A disarmed and crippled character thrashes about, trying to attack; the attacker is comically inept and the defender shrugs them off with a mocking grin.
- Alternatively: Tom cuts Jack's head off and Jack, instead of falling over dead, picks his head up and throws it at Tom.
- Zig Zagged: Facing impossible odds, the commander orders his men to retreat while he stays to slow down the enemies. However, one of the soldiers reminds him that he's more useful as their commander than as a martyr, and that he shouldn't throw away his life that easily. However, they know the enemies will catch up on them if someone doesn't stop them. Cue the platoon's Big Guy rushing into the fray to buy his friends the precious seconds they need to scape.
- Averted: Characters flee when it's feasible and fighting on is not useful.
- Enforced: "If the enemies flee, the characters will have to track them down, which will be a long, dragged-out process. Let them die here."
- Lampshaded: "You don't have to attack EVERY SINGLE band of orcs we run across, you know!"
- Invoked:
- A particularly amoral general sends his men on a hopeless mission to turn them into martyrs to ignite the flames of a bigger conflict.
- An army instills a culture of never retreating or surrendering in its soldiers.
- Exploited: Knowing that The Horde will blindly and endlessly attack into the most blatant trap, the general prepares an ambush in a box canyon.
- Defied: "Screw this! I'm going home."
- Discussed:
- "Always be ready for them, lad, until you see they're all dead. They never retreat."
- "At least you don't have to worry about how any survivors might have gotten away and regrouped. They all attacked to the death."
- Conversed: "I might not be an expert on military tactics, but I can recognize a losing battle when I see it! Gotta wonder how that general jerk managed to get into that position despite his stupid tactics."
- Implied: An observant character notices a few odd things about the army he's traveling with. They only ever bring enough supplies for a one-way journey, casualty reports never seem to list any wounded or captured, no one around seems interested in trenches or defensive fortifications, etc.
- Deconstructed: The meaningless sacrifice made by the soldiers that refused to retreat creates a terrible scar on the morale of the surviving troops, and the terrible loss of resources during that nefarious day becomes the first piece on a chain of failures that eventually led to the crushing defeat of the heroes at the hands of the evil army.
- Reconstructed: Despite facing a hopeless battle, the heroes decide to fight until the very end with all their might and courage. After the tragic end of the battle, and even when they didn't manage to inflict considerable losses on the enemy ranks, the Heroic Sacrifice manages to inspire the surviving heroes and those that were reluctant to stand and defy the enemy.
- Played For Laughs: Jack gains an In-Universe reputation as the team's Leeroy Jenkins and every once in a while he needs to be held down and dragged away from the enemy while Jack yells all kinds of insults and requests to be allowed to fight like an R-rated Scrappy Doo.
- Played For Drama: The Evil Overlord smirks at the fallen heros, now certain of his victory. One hero struggles to his feet, and slowly locks eyes with his foe. Streaming Berserker Tears, he attacks the Nigh-Invulnerable villian in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, shocking the formerly gloating opponent and forcing him closer and closer to the open Hell Gate...
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