The Glory of a Last Stand
A few weeks ago, in the lead up to the Superbowl, I heard a podcaster talk about how sports are only entertaining because of the stories we ascribe to them. Without the storylines of dynasties, legacies, and triumph through adversity, it’s just a punch of people running around with a ball.
That stuck in my mind as I watched Patrick Mahomes in the Superbowl, as he was steadily pounded into the ground. But the story line that came to mind wasn’t that of triumph through adversity or the others I just mentioned, but the theme of the ‘last stand’. It was a breathtaking thing to watch, because even as the defensive line of the Buccaneers pounded him, even as his receivers dropped his passes, even as the clock ticked down toward a defeat that seemed more inevitable with every passing minute, Mahomes came out and performed some of the most incredible feats I have ever seen.
As I talked about it with one friend afterwards, we both agreed it was the best performance we had ever seen by Mahomes, because for the first time in his career, he met a challenge that pushed him to his limit, and we got to see the full gamut of his abilities, his determination, and his toughness.
And that’s part of the appeal of any last stand, at least for me. It’s a chance to see to the very core of a character, when the stakes are highest and we get to see everything there is. In The Lord of the Rings, we see who Eomer truly is when he finds his father dead on the battlefield and realizes they have no hope of victory. In The Magnificent Seven we learn what kind of friend Harry Luck really is in the last gun battle when there is little hope of survival.
But as some have pointed out to me; who gives a crap? It’s depressing to watch our heroes and heroines get beaten by the bad guys.
They’re right, of course, if every last stand ended with the forces of evil triumphant then that would be depressing indeed. But there can be more to it. The last stand can be compelling, because even when our characters fall to outside forces, the last stand can be an ultimate victory in the battle we wage with ourselves to become better people.
Few of us will have to face the buccaneer’s defensive line (thank goodness), defend a mountain pass against an enemy army, or stand in lone opposition to a political bill in congress or parliament. Those battles, no matter how well drawn, will always seem distant. But all of us will face hopeless situations, sometimes daily. All of us, at some point, will face a situation and think ‘what’s the point in even trying’.
Everyone has battles they wage every day, against their own demons, flaws, and the hundred little shortcomings we all struggle with. Normally, these battles are quiet drudges with little recognition of victory. You don’t get an award for being on time to work even though you had to fight through depression that morning, no one cares you just made it through a panic attack, and habits are built not through one great battle, but through a hundred thousand tiny, exhausting, repetitive choices.
But in the last stand, all that is reversed. For one glorious moment, our heroes and heroines make one choice, one decision, and then stand triumphant in the wreckage of their worst self. The victory of the outside world is robbed of most of its triumph, because the more intimate battle, and ultimately the more important one, is over.
One of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who (and there are so many) is ‘Flesh and Stone’ from season five. {spoiler alert} Father Octavian is taken by the weeping angles and urges the Doctor to run and save himself. After desperately trying to save him, the Doctor tells him goodbye saying “I wish I had known you better,” to which Octavian responds “I think sir, you know me at my best.”
And I think that ultimately, that is what is so compelling about stories that contain or end with, some sort of last stand. It is a final stamp on a character, usually showing them victorious in dramatic fashion in a battle we can all find familiar, even as they perhaps lose one we can’t empathize with as much.
As always, I am thrilled to hear from you, so if you have thoughts on the theme of the last stand, questions for me, or just want to yell into the void, send me an email and let me know what’s on your mind!
One book that was heavily on my mind as I wrote this was ‘The White Company’, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which I highly recommend. I didn’t bring it up, because I didn’t want to spoil it, but it is one of my all-time favorites.
In writing news, I’m wrapping up all the final work on Karik’s First Battle, which is now available for pre-order on Amazon, and you can add it to you ‘to-read’ shelf on Goodreads. I have had an absolute blast writing it and I’m so excited to finally share it with you.
