History Main / TheRestShallPass

The good guys are on their way to kill the BigBad, foil the EvilPlan, or rescue the DamselInDistress, but they only make it so far before a bad guy pops up and gives them the old YouShallNotPass Inevitably, one of the team will step up and say, "You guys go on ahead. I'll take care of this guy." He then stays behind to fight the villain while the rest of the group moves on.

* This happens on two separate occasions in the third season of ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'', when the heroes are TrappedInAnotherWorld and about half the school has been turned into Duel Zombies. On the first occasion, Jim has to hold off the horde to let the others get by, then Adrian has to do the same; fortunately, both of them escape. The next time, however, when a bigger horde is attacking due to TheVirus spreading, Professor Chronos and then Napolean have to do it, and they aren't so lucky -- both are among the horde that the remaining heroes have to fight at the end of the arc.

* Thor and some allies are escaping from Hel with some unjustly trapped souls. The minions of Hel are rapidly approaching, and Thor decides to stay behind to buy time for everyone else to escape. Balder points out that Thor will surely perish if he does this, and Thor responds that he ''might'' not die, and no one else can possibly hold them off long enough. Then [[spoiler:Skurge]] knocks him unconscious, picks up a pair of assault rifles, and turns the situation into [[YouShallNotPass/ComicBooks You Shall Not Pass]] instead.

* Happens in the Pokemon fanfic ''Fanfic/BloodInTheWater'':

* ''Film/TheMatriReloaded'': Neo versus the new Agents. Later, Neo versus the Merovingian's goons.

* In the third ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' movie, ''Anime/Pokemon3: Spell of the Unown'', Brock and Misty do this while Ash goes off to find his mom.
** Happens in ''Sun & Moon'', where the cast splits up to take on Lusamine's Pokemon, leaving Ash to deal with Lusamine herself.
* The first ''Anime/RanmaOneHalf'' movie, ''Big Trouble in Nekonron China'' has this. There are a series of gates that lead up to where the kidnapped Akane is being held. Each gate is guarded by one of the Seven Lucky Gods martial artists. Members of Ranma's group gradually break off to deal with these guardians. This is a blatant parody of said trope happening in ''Saint Seiya'', up to one of the Lucky Gods, Monlon, fighting with RazorFloss just like Benetnasch Eta Mime.
* Used blatantly in the last episode of ''Anime/RecordOfLodossWar'', when one after another Parn's allies stop to fight lesser monsters so he can have his inevitable one-on-one duel with Ashram.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Coco}}'': Miguel and his entire dead family--ItMakesSenseInContext-- arrive to confront the villain. He recognizes who they are and that they outnumber him; he flees, calling for his security {{Mooks}}. Papa Julio, boxing like a prizefighter, takes out the first couple. Oscar and Felipe work together to take out the next few, so Miguel and his remaining relatives can give chase. It is [[spoiler: Imelda who faces off against the bad guy alone as she ends up on his stage]] leaving Miguel and the remaining family members to watch helplessly.

** [[WesternAnimation/Shrek1 The first movie]]: Shrek stays behind to "take care of the Dragon" while Donkey and Princess Fiona make for the exit. Like most everything else in the movie, this is a SubvertedTrope: Shrek only stays behind long enough to set a trap so that the dragon can't follow them out of the castle, [[CombatPragmatist which is a far more sensible choice than fighting a fire-breathing dragon one-on-one with a rusty sword]].

* ''Anime/MyHeroAcademiaTwoHeroes''. While the main cast is traveling up the inside of the tower to get to the security controls on the top floor, a couple of times they leave several of their number behind to fight against encountered opponents so the rest can press on.

* ''Film/TheMatrix Reloaded'': Neo versus the new Agents. Later, Neo versus the Merovingian's goons.
--->'''The Merovingian:''' ''Handle'' us. You'll ''handle'' us? You know, your predecessors had much more respect.
* ''Film/ThePhantomMenace:'' This trope is how Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi react to Darth Maul during the liberation of Naboo.

* This happened in ''Film/RushHour2'' when Carter tells Lee to go after Ricky Tan while he fights [[DragonLady Hu Li]].

* In ''{{LightNovel/Durarara}}'' Shizuo tells Celty to go on ahead while he deals with Seiji, and cheerfully points it out with an "I always wanted to say that!"

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'': Shrek stays behind to "take care of the Dragon" while Donkey and Princess Fiona make for the exit. Like most everything else in the movie, this is a SubvertedTrope: Shrek only stays behind long enough to set a trap so that the dragon can't follow them out of the castle, [[CombatPragmatist which is a far more sensible choice than fighting a fire-breathing dragon one-on-one with a rusty sword]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2'', Puss in Boots stays behind to fight off the guards while Shrek runs to save Fiona, also falling into YouShallNotPass territory.