Gondor Calls for Aid

Aragorn: The Beacons of Minas Tirith! The Beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid.
(Beat)

King Theoden: And Rohan will answer! Muster the Rohirrim!
—The Film Version of The Return Of The King

The heroes may have the plan, but they just don't have the manpower. So, against all hope, they have to call on the sorts of people who may not want to help or even like them.

Then they help. Whether or not it's successful, it's a good show of the ultimate community spirit. It's also a nice Continuity Nod if it features characters the heroes have helped in the past.

Named after The Lord of the Rings, wherein the eponymous nation calls the neighbouring kingdom of Rohan for aid in the war against Sauron. Ironically, even in this desperate time, most of Gondor's armies are hanging around in the South, waiting for the Corsair raids.

If the act of making the call is an adventure unto itself, that's Bring Help Back. Compare/contrast with the last resort version Enemy Mine, the more metaphysical Combined Energy Attack, and the mandatory version Hero Secret Service. For when the party that is called could beat the living shit out of either side, see Awakening the Sleeping Giant. For drama related to the physical act of calling for help, see Epic Hail. May lead to Battle Royale With Cheese. Big Damn Heroes and Gunship Rescue are smaller versions of this trope. Crowded Cast Shot is similar, but played for laughs and (usually) not as urgent.

Examples of Gondor Calls for Aid include:

Anime and Manga

  • The Dark Masters arc of Digimon Adventure, and the last episodes of Digimon Adventure 02 and Digimon Savers, although it's kind of an accident.
    • Digimon's most insane use of this trope, however, is the climax of Digimon Next, where literally every single character the kids and their Digimon have met who isn't dead (and even a few who are) show up to help against the Final Boss, ranging from The Mentor to background characters to even the surviving villains. Unfortunately for them, said final boss verges on The Omnipotent, so he simply obliterates them all in one shot and the entire dimension while he's at it, leaving only the main characters alive. He's ultimately beaten simply be being convinced by the protagonists that he's wrong, and he restores everything and everyone he destroyed.
  • The Anime Adaption of Black Cat pulls this trope in the final few episodes. When Eve is kidnapped by Mason in order to activate the Eden Project, Train calls on literally every other surviving character (More than fifty) to aid in the rescue. Whilst the original call extends out to the remaining Chronos Numbers and the Sweepers Alliance, word spreads and Train and company eventually receive assistance from the likes of the rogue Apostles of the Stars, the kids from Leon and Tim's hideout, and later even Creed and Echidna.
  • The final Best Student Council arc, where nearly every minor character who showed up once and got named returned to help the titular student council.
  • Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch always brought in the secondary trio, Kaito, and that season's orange princess in the end, even though throughout the series, they were either useless, unawakened, incapacitated or unwilling to do the job.
  • Sort of done in the climactic battle with Kid Buu in Dragon Ball Z: Goku continuously asks the people of Earth to lend some of their energy to his Spirit Bomb, but none of them want to because they can't see Goku, don't know who he is, and the few people who do lend their energy end up really exhausted afterwards. It takes Hercule/Mr. Satan, the Fake Ultimate Hero of the DBZ world, to convince the population to lend their strength.
    • In the anime version, there are some people who answer Goku's request, and we get to see some faces we haven't seen since Dragonball (Bora and Upa and the group from Penguin Village come to mind). We also get to see what's become of Lunch and Seventeen.
  • While not exactly calling for direct aid, Eyeshield 21 has Every ace from every important team in Kantou show up to help the Devil Bats train for the Christmas Bowl finals.
  • When it comes down to the final battle in The Violinist Of Hameln.(pictured), a truly ridiculous amount of reinforcements show up (including just about every minor character capable of taking to the field).
  • In Naruto, the Leaf Village gets the Hidden Sand Village to help them bring Sasuke back when he leaves Konoha for Orochimaru. Later, in Shippuden, its the Sand Village's turn to call for aid when they need to rescue the Kazekage.
    • The Raikage does this by issuing calls for an immediate summit of the Kages to discuss the threat of Akatsuki. With the threat posed, he insists that all the vilages must unite. He had previously ignored these very warnings from Konoha, and only acted when his own brother was lost.
  • Inverted in The Law of Ueki. Friendly Enemy Smart Guy Kilnorton calculates the odds of defeating Big Bad Anon to be suicidal and thus refuses to participate in the Final Battle. For the sake of his True Companions, however, he convinces Ai to make him fall in love with glasses in order to bring him to the arena despite what his better judgment says. She succeeds and Kilnorton joins in on the action. Subverted when Anon knocks him out before he can actually do anything to help.
  • The final battle of Vandread brings back every character and civilization that ever displayed the ability to pilot a spaceship.
  • In Durarara!!, Mikado calls on everyone online at the Dollars website to help rescue Anri from the Yellow Scarves
  • The last episode of the hentai title Meiking, every group Cain helped (or spared) along the way showed up to assist in the final showdown with Cain's evil rival, Francis.
  • In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann episode seven, a number of characters (such as Kittan and Dayakka, amongst a bunch of newly introduced folks like the twins) arrive to help the Gurren-Dan capture what will become the Dai-Gurren. They stay around afterwards, however, and permanently expand the Gurren-Dan.
  • Towards the ending of Mai-Otome, BOTH sides in the final battle call upon reinforcements in the form of Otome from other nations, all seen briefly way back in episode three. And once the final battle breaks out, the teachers and entire student body of Garderobe comes to help the heroes.
    • Happens in the manga too. When the real Princess Mashiro resurrects herself and dark versions of the Himes from the prequel, the protagonist(s) get help from Garderobe, the other nations, and even Shwartz in fending them off so Manshiro can get to the castle for the Final Battle.
  • In the OVA series Golden Boy's final episode, Kintaro Oe calls upon each of the women whose hearts he'd won in previous episodes for the finale in which he works for an anime production company (they each had talents to offer).
  • In the final episodes of G Gundam, all the Gundams of the world unite to help the Shuffle Alliance defend Earth. Naturally, they include nearly all the opponents the main cast has fought up to this point (and creating a Mythology Gag since several others are based upon past series Gundams; including an early appearance of Wing Gundam), all putting aside their differences to defend the world they love.
  • Near the climax of the G/S/C Story Arc of Pokémon Special, things were looking grim for the Pokédex Holders as they're fighting a losing battle against both Ho-oh and Lugia. Just then, they noticed something in the distance. Bill had finally fixed the Pokémon Transporter that the new Team Rocket had sabotaged, and with the director of Goldenrod Radio spreading the news, every single minor character introduced in the arc (and even some from the RGBY arc, meaning that it's likely every trainer in the Johto and Kanto regions) had sent their Pokémon to help the heroes, producing a huge-ass army that rushed the two Legendaries and quickly tamed them.
  • Ties into Write Back to the Future in Rave Master when Seig Hart, in the past, writes letters to all of Haru's friends so that they arrive to supply much needed support in the final battle. How he knew when the battle would occur...
  • Happens during the climax of Sailor Moon Super S. The Senshi need to use the Golden Crystal to defeat Nehelania, but when Sailor Moon tries to do so, she fails to activate it's power. Nehelania reveals that the power source of the Crystal is the beautiful dreams of humanity...but mankind has lost the power to have those dreams, depriving the crystal of it's power. Helios insists this isn't true, prompting Chibi-Moon to use the Crystal to call on all the people of the world with beautiful dreams to lend the power of those dreams to them. And, in a montage showing almost every character previously targeted for having beautiful dreams, they do just that, breaking Nehelania's spell over the Earth and repowering the Crystal.
  • In the manga of Fullmetal Alchemist, when Ed and Al call on the help of all their friends from places they've been (like Briggs) and from friends (like Izumi) to help them defeat the Homunculi and Father in the Final Battle.
  • The Pretty Cure All Stars movies (and other Pretty Cure movies since Yes! Pretty Cure 5) have this in terms of the Miracle Lights. It also doubles as Audience Participation, since the movie goers are given their own Miracle Lights when they go into the show.
  • Transformers Cybertron in the final battle against Galvatron, the Autobots are joined by the forces of Velocitron, Jungle Planet, Gigantion and the Decepticons under Lugnutz leadership.

Card Games

  • In Magic: The Gathering, the Invasion block had a major multicolor theme, to show people putting aside their differences. Tellingly, the last one, Apocalypse, reversed the traditional color pie, with enemy colors being allies and vice versa. For instance, white is about society, whereas black and red are about the individual.[1] Suffice it to say, they don't get along. Yet they did in this one. As did blue with red and green (logic vs. emotion); black with green and white (death vs. life); red with white and blue (anarchy vs. rules); and green with blue and black (nature vs. progress).

Comic Books

  • In the comic book series Elf Quest, when two elf tribes—the Wolfriders and the newly-introduced Go-Backs—join forces to wage war against the trolls of King Guttlekraw, the elves form a grudging alliance with the trolls formerly led by the late King Greymung, who have been enslaved by Guttlekraw, even though Greymung's trolls have been the hated enemies of the Wolfriders ever since betraying them back at the start of the storyline. The Go-Backs, meanwhile, would never have thought of teaming up with trolls of any kind, period... But it's probably only because of this uneasy alliance that Guttlekraw's trolls are defeated.
  • Tom Strong spent nearly a dozen issues befriending and helping various entities and past enemies. The scenario used them all.... to deal with a ludicrous, never before/ never again seen, dead-in-one-issue menace. This may or may not have been a parody, though.
  • The climax of the Lucifer comic involves the invasion of Heaven by a vast army, Lucifer himself forced to gather together a truly motley group of allies from past stories to defend it. Unfortunately at least one of them wouldn't mind killing him, and none of them particularly like him (or heaven for that matter).
  • Grant Morrison's run on JLA ended with the entirety of Earth gaining superpowers and joining with the Justice League to fight a potentially galaxy-destroying menace.
    • This was also something of a bookend moment, as Morrison's run began with an arc where all Earth's people hold up lighters, matches, and torches in order to defeat a Martian invasion (Martians in the DCU being weak against fire.)
  • Morrison pulled another with Final Crisis when Mandrakk shows up at the end. Just as he's about to eat the multiverse, in comes the Supermen of every universe, the Green Lantern Corps, the Zoo Crew, the new Fifth World gods, and the army of Heaven itself. Mandrakk doesn't last long.
  • Nearly everyone the newest Blue Beetle had befriended (and a few of the previous Beetle's old friends, but oddly not the team he was affiliated with at the time) came to the aid of either Beetle himself or his family and closest friends as he fought off The Reach during the "Endgame" arc.
  • Issue #125 of the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic had just about every hero and villain still alive teaming up to fend off an alien invasion.
  • The first story arc of Kurt Busiek's run on The Avengers sees virtually all of the (still-living) former Avengers teaming up to fight Morgan le Fay.
  • In a Marvel comics What If? issue, instead of saying 'no more mutants', Scarlet Witch utters 'no more powers', and the result is that every super-powered being throughout the Marvel universe loses their powers. The Red Skull uses this as an opportunity to take control by using the Cosmic Cube, assembling the Hand and HYDRA to use as his army, murdering the remaining active Young Avengers and the Fantastic Four, and announcing his intentions to bring about the Fourth Reich. Iron Man creates new armors for the remaining Avengers to wear in order to challenge him, and Cyclops rallies the X-Men, armed with Shiar tech, to take out the Red Skull. This fails, resulting in heavy casualties for both the Avengers and X-Men. Peter Parker enters the fray, announcing to the citizens of New York, who were cowering in the shadows, that they can no longer stand by and wait for heroes to save them, and that they are all needed in order to save the world, because it is the responsibility of everyone to stop injustice, powers or no. Peter then leads an army of New Yorkers, many of whom stand no chance of winning (children, the elderly etc), into battle with the Red Skull and his army. The heroes win.
  • In Batgirl #23 Stephanie pulls this by calling in various super-powered girls to help her defeat the Reapers, even trusting Supergirl's superhearing enough to trust that she'd hear the word "Shazam!" from wherever she happened to be at the moment...which happened to be the Hall of Justice.
  • Teen Titans #100, the Grand Finale of the series, has a bunch of former Titans coming together to help the current roster in their battle against the Legion of Doom.

Fan Works

  • In the Galaxy Rangers Fanfic Chrysalis, the League fleet is in a hopeless battle in the Queen's asteroid field, having been forced into a trap. However, they some critical backup courtesy of the otherwise-xenophobic Traash (which even Her Majesty won't engage because they're just that nasty if crossed) and the Circle of Thought (who were isolationists, content to let the galaxy tear itself apart, so long as they were left alone...until Niko showed them that the Queen was an exile from the Circle, and thus a mistake they made).
  • The Mega Crossover fic Odyssey, by Drunkengrognard, has the likes of Chrono Harlaowan and Jean-Luc Picard, amongst others, preparing their ships for a major battle against a group of Voidspawn (essentially giant killer space squids) and planning to close the portal that they are coming from. Due to circumstances connected to the portal opening, their current location has basically turned into a multiversal thoroughfare; the suggestion is made that help could be requested throughout said multiverse in order to ward off the Voidspawn long enough for the portal to be shut. Rogue Squadron and the fleet they were a part of are amongst the first to answer the call, and it just gets bigger from there.

Film

  • Parodied in Fahrenheit 911 when Michael Moore lists the names of the countries that answered US calls for aid in defeating Saddam Hussein, whether or not they had a military.
  • Parodied in Duck Soup. Firefly (Groucho Marx) gets on the radio and calls: "Mayday, mayday! Rush to Freedonia! Three men and a woman are trapped in a building. Send more men at once! If you don't have any men, send three more women!" Cue Stock footage of fire engines, police motorcycles, Olympic runners, monkeys, elephants, and dolphins.
  • Spy Kids 3D: Game Over ended with the Cortezes calling on their immediate family, then (in the vein of the running theme of "family") various people they had met over the course of their adventures to fight the Toymaster's robots. The movie's haphazard direction keeps it from the climactic feel it should have, but it's still a highlight.
  • In Army of Darkness, Ash calls upon Duke Henry the Red, last seen about to be put to death by Arthur, to help defend the Necronomicon from the Deadites. And while he does show up fashionably late, he does eventually bring his armies to Arthur's castle to assist.
  • Happens all the goddamn time the Godzilla series whenever the military can't handle a monster and calls another monster to help them. Perhaps the most notable example can be found in Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964). In that movie, Mothra is very angry with Japan for the nuclear testing that trashed her home island and the refusal to return her egg to her, but when Godzilla attacks Mothra shows up at the last minute to help based on some sincere Japanese citizens' pleads for help.
  • Rango has the titular character calling upon the aid of the family of mole hillbillies that had previously tried to kill him several times.

Mother mole: You got some nerve showing up here.
Rango: Your boys are about to be hung for a crime they didn't commit. (beat) I have a plan.

  • Independence Day gives us a twofer. First, the Air Force recruits any civilian who knows how to fly a plane to fight the aliens, and then this trope plays out on a global scale as the US uses a telegraph to unite the Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis, the Arabs and many other nations into one coordinated counterattack.
  • In It's a Wonderful Life, when George is on the verge of bankruptcy, Potter snidely tells George Bailey that if he were to ask the "riff-raff" he spent much of his adult life helping for aid when he needed it, they would turn on him. Fortunately for George, Rousseau Was Right, and all those who George had helped over the course of the movie are more than happy to help him.

Literature

  • The Trope Namer is, ironically, not really an example of this trope, because Rohan (and other nations that aid Gondor) are not "unlikely allies", but members of a long-term alliance, and the only factor creating doubt about whether Rohan will come is the fact that they've just finished fighting another war and are exhausted and concerned about threats to their own realm. There's also many other nations - smaller ones than Rohan - which send aid, although only a tenth of their available man-power was sent due to their need to defend their own borders against Sauron's assault; Rohan were the ones who really went above and beyond in terms of providing aid.
    • Also in the book Denethor is more quick-witted than is shown in the film, and had actually lit the beacons long before Gandalf arrived. "It is over-late to send for help when you are already besieged," indeed. He also sends a messenger to Rohan to request aid, since Rohan is more distant than the other nations.
  • Another fantasy fiction example comes at the end of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Dart, in which the heroine journeys to Alba (a fantasy version of Great Britain) to convince the Albans to bring their army to the aid of Terre d'Ange (France) which has been invaded by Skaldia (Germany/Scandinavia).
  • The Phantom Tollbooth has this at the very end.
  • Harry Potter - the climax of The Deathly Hallows, in which the school students, the Order of the Phoenix, estranged members of the Weasley and Dumbledore families, and even Harry's old Quidditch team all turn out to fight.
    • And let's not forget that nearly every single wizard aligned against the Death Eaters arrives to the battle towards the very end.
      • And the centaurs. And even the frigging house-elves. Still a pity Muggles were left out.
  • Inverted Trope and Subverted Trope in the Star Wars Expanded Universe X-wing novel Solo Command, when the Big Bad, Warlord Zsinj, calls up every pirate and mercenary he'd ever hired to come and defend his crippled ship. The protagonists are among that number, having successfully posed as pirates in the previous novel. Zsinj's call for help confirms that he is vulnerable, not preparing a trap, allowing the protagonists to go and kick his ass.
    • This is also a Crowning Moment of Redemption for Shalla Nelprin. During their desperate escape from the Binring Biomedical facility, she had attacked Zsinj's unarmed combat expert in the presence of armed stormtroopers, because said combat expert had recognized her as a member of their fake pirate gang, the Hawk-bats. Since then, she had wondered if preserving the Hawk-bat connection had been worth risking everyone's lives over; this event proved her action to be the correct one.
    • During the Yuuzhan Vong war the Galactic Alliance, the Imperial Remnant, and every capable fighting force in the galaxy join forces against the Yuuzhan Vong.
  • In the final book of the Prydain Chronicles, the heroes must rally all the forces of Prydain to fight in the final battle with Big Bad Evil Overlord Arawn. Virtually every character the heroes have ever met shows up to help. They lose anyway.
  • The Wings of Merlin, the sixth and final book of The Lost Years of Merlin, invokes this for its final battle.
  • Subverted in Star Trek: Destiny, where the United Federation of Planets needs to call on virtually every major power in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants for help against an impending Borg invasion. President Bacco hosts an emergency conference and tries to persuade or pressure nine other nations into sending forces to the Azure Nebula alongside Starfleet. Some of them refuse to show up and the fleet is wiped-out in minutes anyway. All that her efforts really accomplish in the long run is to antagonize the Tholians.
  • The climax of Martin the Warrior, the sixth Redwall book.
  • At one point in Spider Robinson's Callahans Crosstime Saloon series, a telepathic call goes out to all the Regulars. They respond so immediately that at least one stove is left running, a suicide prevention is called short (they bring him along!), a bomb-tech leaves an active bomb-site (he brings the bomb along!), and even more extreme 'drop-everything' examples.

Live-Action TV

  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Graduation" episode. Also "Chosen," but on a more epic scale.
  • Angel's finale, with Angel asking the hated and usually villainous Lindsey to help his team against the Big Bad, although he then, through Lorne, betrayed Lindsey. Illyria was also a semi-unlikely ally.
  • Farscape: past one-shot enemies were called upon to help the main characters rob a bank.
    • And at the end the Big Bad from the previous season shows up to save the day.
  • One season finale for Stargate SG-1 had the Tau'ri, Free Jaffa Nation, Asgard, and Lucian Alliance (the last only agreeing to help after Teal'c beats the crap out of the leader's guards and points a gun at his forehead) band together to stop the Ori from gaining a foothold in their galaxy. In a rather shocking case of The Worf Effect, the Ori outright slaughter the Milky Way alliance.
    • Made even worse by the fact that the Asgard were one of the most advanced races in the Milky Way, and even THEY were trying to desperately think of something fast to stop the Ori.
  • A more successful alliance recently happened in Stargate Atlantis, where the Atlanteans, their enemies the Wraith, and their allies the Travelers successfully destroy the Replicator homeworld, apparently losing only one ship in the process.
  • In Stargate: Continuum, SG-1 (in F-15s) are attacked by gliders. They are saved by a squadron of Russian MiGs, possibly one of the few cases in Western fiction where incoming MiGs are a good thing.
  • The Three Part Ending of Ultraman Mebius both subverts it wonderfully and then promptly plays it dead straight. When the alien Empera-seijin sends his army down to Earth to wear down the heroes, eventually rendering the hero near comatose and destroying most of their weapons and super-vehicles, the heroes get the aid of their various allies they've made over the season. Only to have it amount to nothing as Empera arrives and kicks the crap out of them with a few flicks of his wrist—eventually killing The Lancer and Ensemble Darkhorse before killing the hero in a single blow. A few of them get better, and get a true Gondor Calls for Aid from the Ultra-Brothers and a few of the slain are Not Quite Dead, and the world is saved.
    • Ultraman Gaia also gets one, though its far more effective. All of Earth's monster awaken to fight Zogu's (aka The Root Of Destruction) army after Gaia and Agul are defeated, the military ultimately helping them. In the end, they lend some of their energy to Gaia and Agul to revive and super charge them, allowing them to put an end to Zogu once and for all.
  • My Name Is Earl, "Camdenites": Earl rounds up just about everyone he's ever helped with his list to help him right Joy and Darnell's trailer.
  • In the finale of the fourth series of the new Doctor Who, Harriet Jones, the morally ambiguous former Prime Minister (Yes, we know who she is.), finds she needs to call on the Doctor despite the fact he's the one who deposed her. She even sacrifices her own life to serve as a distraction for the Daleks so the call for aid can get through.
    • In the 2011 mid-series finale, the Doctor does this again when he needs to rescue Amy and her daughter, by gathering people who owe him debts. Some of them we've seen before, such as the pirates from "Curse of the Black Spot", the space-spitfires from "Victory of the Daleks" and Dorium the black marketeer from "The Pandorica Opens". Others are introduced in the same episode.
    • In "The Wedding of River Song" there's an especially touching one when River explains they've constructed a distress beacon to broadcast "The Doctor is dying. Please, please help." and the Doctor comments "That would mean nothing to anyone." To which River replies

River The sky is full of a million million voices, saying, "Yes of course. We'll help." You've touched so many lives, saved so many people. Did you think when you're time came you'd really have to do more than just ask?

  • Part One of the Series Finale of Battlestar Galactica Reimagined ends with Adama putting out one of these for the mission to rescue Hera from Cavil's Cylons. Every character we know from the fleet is called upon to help with the mission if they so choose, including those Marines that were imprisoned after supporting the mutiny against Adama earlier in the season.
  • Babylon 5: The cast spent a good amount of time gathering all of the younger races, and several of the older ones, for their battle with the Shadows and Vorlons.
  • Subverted in Robin Hood: In the finale Robin and the gang are under siege at Nottingham Castle and they manage to sneak one of their people out in order to fetch King Richard's army who are rumoured to have landed back in England. However, the Sheriff soon informs them that Richard is in fact held hostage in Austria and no help is coming.
  • A strange corporate example occurs at the end of Season 3 of Mad Men. When Sterling Cooper's British overlords at Putnam Powell & Lowe decide to sell the firm to McCann Erickson, Roger Sterling, Bert Cooper, and Don Draper instantly realize that they (and Don's creative talent) would be sidelined at McCann's "sausage factory" of an ad agency. As a result, they rally a number of people to start a new firm: they get Lane Pryce—who had had something of a strained relationship with them as PPL's representative in New York—to fire them all in exchange for making him a partner in the new firm; they pull in Pete Campbell, whom Don still regards as too ambitious for his own good, to get his account skills and contacts at the lucrative Richardson-Vicks account; they get Peggy Olson, whom Don had recently insulted, to join as head of Creative; they get Harry Crane, the only man in the office smart enough to see the potential for having a TV division, as head of Media; and finally, they bring in the formerly-exiled Joan Harris as office manager, who scrounges up materials and people for the agency. And then, in a Midtown hotel room:

Joan: Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, how can I help you?

  • An inversion for the series finale of Seinfeld. When the four main characters are put on trial for violating the Good Samaritan Law, a long list of significant characters from the show's entire run are called as witnesses... for the prosecution.
  • Series Three of Blakes Seven ends with the crew of the Liberator calling on the Federation to defend against the Andromedan spacefleet—and defending the pass on their own until help can arrive. The relationship between the allies was... not nice, shall we say?
  • Many times in the finales of the Power Rangers series. But the most memorable is the one for In Space series. In it the rangers are beaten and Andromeda issue an ultimatum to surrender themselves or she'll kill the citizens. When zero hour comes, who should actually stand up to her but Bulk and Skull proclaiming themselves to be Power Rangers More citizens of Angel Grove start doing likewise, inspired by their bravery. Eventually the Power Rangers themselves join in and a full on battle takes place between the citizens and Andromeda's forces. What makes it memorable is that its the non-powered characters that ultimately help achieve victory.
  • The movie Let's Go Kamen Rider. Faced with the Great Colossus that was stated to be unstoppable until it's destroyed everything, ALL of the Riders (whether a hero, villain, or neutral) from the series' 40-year history appear, in order to help finish off the Colossus with the All Rider Break. If anyone's counting, that would be 90 Kamen Riders, more or less.
  • Expanding on the beginning of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, the 199 Heroes movie reveals that the Goseigers are at first overwhelmed in battle by the Zangyack Empire's military might, which prompts the arrival of all previous Super Sentai to help fight off the invasion.
  • Once Morgana takes over Camelot at the end of season three of Merlin, Merlin writes to Lancelot, asking for his assistence. Lancelot arrives just in time, with Percival in tow, to save the company from a band of immortal soldiers by causing a rockslide.

Professional Wrestling

  • Pro Wrestling loves this trope, and tends to use it interchangeably with Everyone Join the Party. The most famous recent example happened on Monday Night Raw in the summer of 2010, when John Cena was being victimized by the fifth-column terrorist group The Nexus. For a terrible moment it looked as if Cena was going to tuck tail between legs and walk out of the arena in defeat....but then turned around and announced: "You've sealed your fate 'cause guess what: I got me some help." Right on cue, every Raw Superstar who had been attacked by the Nexus in the past few months came out to join Cena in a Crowning Moment of Awesome: Edge, John Morrison, R-Truth, The Great Khali, Chris Jericho, and....wait for it....BretHart! What really made this moment splendid is that all these guys often had only negative associations with each other in the past if they had associations at all, and two of them (Edge and Jericho) had been Heels up to this point. The "seven samurai" (as Morrison referred to them) then rushed the ring to chase off the Nexus villains, and Cena shouted: "At SummerSlam, the Nexus IS HISTORY!!!"

Video Games

  • The ending of Skies of Arcadia, of course. Rather unusual in that Gondor never actually called for aid; rather, everyone just showed up because they knew that the heroes were the only ones crazy enough to go head-to-head with the Big Bad, and wanted to join in on the fun.
  • In Freelancer, the first half of the game is about finding someone who can identify the artifact that fell into Trent's hand. Near the end of the game, the Order calls the Outcasts and the Blood Dragons to help them against the Nomads.
  • The climax of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
  • Chapter 3 of Neverwinter Nights 2.
  • Used in both Heroes of Might and Magic III and its expansion Armageddon's Blade.
    • In the first, it's played straight, on both sides—the nations of Bracada, AvLee, and Erathia coming together to face Nighon and Eeofol (who later drop out of the war). Later, the necromancers of Deyja make an alliance with Erathia to stop the necromancers' own king, who has grown far too powerful for their liking.
    • In Armageddon's Blade, the witch Adrienne asks Erathia for aid against an invasion of undead that threatens both their borders. Erathia, too caught up in its other problems, declines. Meanwhile, AvLee and Erathia are allied briefly against Eeofol, and then Erathia finds new allies in the Conflux towns, before the queen of Erathia abdicates in order to pursue the war with more vigor, Erathia having grown tired of war. Finally, the last mission of that campaign has to be completed within two months—or Eeofol's call for aid from Nighon will be answered.
  • In going against Bodhi's guild towards the end of Baldur's Gate II, the player character can form an alliance with a paladin order, the thieves' guild, and the Companions of the Hall (Drizzt Do'Urden and friends) against them. Doing so naturally makes the battle much easier.
  • In .hack//G.U. Redemption, Haseo and Zelkova use their influence to get help from all the players of "The World" to assist them in stopping Cubia.
  • In EarthBound, beating the Big Bad requires the combined prayers of almost every named character in the game, including the player.
  • Final Fantasy IV: When the villains summon the giant world-ending monster, just about everyone you've ever helped, including all your ex-party members except the one that really died, shows up in tanks and airships and starts blasting away.
    • Then, at the end of the game, Everyone prays to give your party the strength to defeat Zeromus. Even Tellah and his daughter Anna show up.
    • Something similar happens in Final Fantasy IX, where the air forces of the entire world arrives to save the heroes from a hundred dragons emerging out of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, and Final Fantasy X, the people of Spira sing the Hymn of the Fayth, the only way to calm down Sin, in order for the heroes to stand a chance of fighting it.
  • In Okami, the prayers from all the people of Nippon, inspired by Issun, are what revives Amaterasu and restores her full divine glory. Cue the Theme Music Power-Up and the final boss fight.
  • Pick any RTS game. If it's any good, it will most-definitely feature a mission where you have to defend yourself for a set amount of time before reinforcements come. The first Dawn of War game seems to be the only exception...
  • The story mode of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe features this trope. Regardless of whether the player chooses to play as the MK or DC fighters, the chosen world's heroes end up having to work together with their villains to deal with the opposing faction's fighters, whom they initially see as invaders until Dark Khan finally makes his appearance for the final showdown.
  • At the end of Warcraft III, the night elves had to ally with the humans and the orcs to defend their World Tree Nordrassil. The first alliance stuck and continued into World of Warcraft, the second didn't.
  • At the end of Space Channel 5, Ulala fights alongside her rivals Jaguar and Pudding, and every person who she's directly or indirectly helped throughout the game come out to lend their support and dance energy.
  • The second-to-last mission of Ace Combat 5 starts with squadrons from both the Osean and Yuktobanian armies supporting you in disabling the Belkan super weapon control station after hearing their leaders' speeches.
    • Mission 12 of Ace Combat 6 requires you to evade no less than 30 enemy fighter jets. After a few minutes of dodging missiles for your dear life, every air squadron in the game comes to your aid (including a squad of electronic support planes).
  • You spend the main part of the game doing this in Dragon Age: Origins. The bulk of the questline involves solving whatever problems are preventing them from being able to dispense said aid. The Elves, Magi, and Dwarves all greet your Warden with variations on, "We'd love to help you, but..."
  • Looks like Mass Effect 3 is gunning for this: a significant portion of the two released main games of Mass Effect are clearly setting this up to happen in a climactic battle against the Reapers. Those being set up in the Rohan role include, based on what actions the player has taken in both games, the geth, the rachni and possibly even the Krogan, though the first two are much more clearly hinted at. The Krogan possibility hangs on a lot more "what-ifs" and ventures into Wild Mass Guessing territory. A version happens in the first game when the human fleet suddenly shows up to aid the Council fleet in the Battle of the Citadel.
    • Don't forget the quarian Migrant Fleet.
    • As of the latest DLC, you now also have access to the Shadow Broker's extensive network thanks to Liara.
    • And from what one can surmise from the trailer for 3, Earth will be the one calling for aid against the Reaper invasion.
    • If Shepard plays his/her cards right, (s)he can look forward to calling on the aid of the Turians, Krogan, Salarians, Asari, and Quarians, and possibly the Geth and the Rachni. These are a lot of chips in his/her favor. They still aren't nearly enough on their own.
  • Near the end of the main quest of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you have to seek aid from all the cities in Cyrodiil to defend Bruma from a siege.
    • Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you realize that Martin Septim is voiced by Sean Bean, who previously played Boromir in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films.
  • This is pretty much what Neptune is doing for most of the game in Hyperdimension Neptunia to fight off against monsters roaming around the world. Of course, the goddesses would rather not bother with it since they all hate each other for various reasons.
  • Your quest in Dark Sun: Shattered Lands is to get military aid from neighbouring cities. That's the object of the entire game.
  • Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism has Reimu and Marisa being helped by various kind of people (who each have their own reasons) on their fight against the subterranean horrors. Yukari is interested in maintaining peace, Aya is going for scoop, and Nitori is defending her rivers—which makes Marisa the aid. In a twist, the unleashing of subterranean horrors themselves is Rin's call for aid. She can't stop her best friend Utsuho who is drunk with (nuclear!) power, so she hopes that someone strong enough from the surface will stop the crazy hell raven.
  • Pokémon Black and White: Bianca calls for the Unova Gym Leaders to come and fight versus Team Plasma at N's Castle, after the Elite Four challenge.
  • In Darksiders, this is what happens when War gets Uriel to break the seventh seal, summoning the other three Horsemen.

Uriel: You will be hunted! The White City for certain...the Council...and there will be others! You would wage this war alone?
War: No. Not alone.

  • To fight against Nero, Blanck, and eventually Tartaros in Solatorobo, Red enlists the help of Opéra and the Kurvasz, who then put out a call for everybody to help. And they do.
  • In the neutral ending of the original Akiba's Trip once the two opposing factions begin open warfare on the streets of Akiba, the main character is joined by all the characters he helped on sidequests. If you didn't do any this playthrough you don't get any help during this segment (though this late in the game the help isn't too important)..

Web Animation

  • The climax of this video game Michael Jackson tribute, where everyone joins together to stop a planet-sized Zangief from crashing into Earth.

Web Comics

  • Oasis and Dr. Schlock play this role during the "Dangerous Days" arc of Sluggy Freelance (though with shades of Enemy Mine). The same can be said of just about any time Bun-Bun agrees to help anyone.
  • Just before the final battle against the God Machine in T. Campbell's Fans Book 5, Will informs team leader Rikk that some volunteers have arrived.

Rikk: How many, Will? If it's two or three, send 'em home. I won't sacrifice--
Katherine: Richard? Liege and Lord?...Your army awaits.

Web Original

Western Animation

  • The Lion King: during the climactic final battle of the movie, Simba is headed to Pride Rock, to face Scar alone. As soon as he takes his first good look at his rightful home, he is shocked to see the devastation that has taken place during his absence. Cue Nala walking out of the fog, telling him that this is what Scar has done to the once-majestic Pride Lands, soon thereafter offering her help. Simba initially refuses, rather vehemently, but then Timon and Puumbaa emerge, backing Nala's claims and pretty much addressing how grim the situation is, and offering their servitude. Simba then accepts, dashing off to go confront Scar and reclaim his land. As said actual battle progresses and more and more of the major characters are freed, Rafiki, Zazu, and the pack of lionesses charge in to help Simba.
  • Winx Club: In the fourth episode of season two, Amentia tries to force one of the major characters into marrying her. Brandon effectively lucks out of it, and in the 24th episode of the season, Brandon and Sky decide to get Amentia's help in allowing the Specialists' ship to get inside the Underrealm to rescue Bloom. Also, in season one, a few nymphs from one of the Filler episodes warned Alfea of the arrival of the villains during the final battle.
  • JLU's "The Return" had the entire League trying to help out citizen Lex Luthor (he got a pardon in a previous episode of Justice League) who was being targeted by AMAZO, an unstoppable robot. They didn't like it but they had to try and stop AMAZO especially after it looks like he disintegrated Oa. He didn't he just warped it out of his way. Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, he warps it back.
    • Done during the finale of the series as well when the Legion of Doom unwittingly release Darkseid from captivity and he comes gunning for Earth. Both the JL and the Legion team up to take on the bigger threat.
  • In the DTV movie Justice League: The New Frontier, the Centre has finally shown up off Cape Canaveral. The military and the CIA, however, are more interested in keeping Batman, Flash, Green Arrow, the Blackhawks and Adam Strange away from it, both sides basically drawing weapons on each other. It takes an angry Superman to get the two groups to join forces—especially after he gets blown out of the sky and is presumed dead.
  • The final two episodes of X-Men: Evolution were the main cast calling on aid from almost every mutant from the series to stop Apocalypse.
  • The fifth season finale of the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon involved the turtles calling on pretty much everyone they'd ever worked with, and a few they'd fought against, to help stop the threat.
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender, during the Day of Black Sun, various allies of the Gaang from the Earth Nation show up to help out. It's also one of the few cases where this gambit fails almost completely. However, In the series finale, other characters such as Iroh, Jeong Jeong, Bumi, and Pakku, to name a few, show up to help fight the Fire Nation.
  • The series ender of Danny Phantom and the episode "Reign Storm".
  • Season 4 of The Batman involves an Alien Invasion with Gotham City at ground zero. There's a breakout at Arkham Asylum, and the Gotham City Police Department arrives to find the inmates fighting the aliens, the Joker being especially angry that the aliens are invading his turf. When his lieutenant asks Gordon what to do, he orders his men to back the supervillains up.
  • Chiro also called upon a bunch of previous allies for an epic battle against the Skeleton King... one which never did come (shakes fist at Jetix).
  • The penultimate episode of Teen Titans, "Titans Together", had every young hero the team had encountered over the past five seasons coming together to help battle the Brotherhood of Evil.
  • In the last story arc of the first season of Filmation's Flash Gordon, Flash, Barin, Thun, and Vultan put out a call to the various allies they've made for a final united battle against Ming. It's pretty awesome.
  • ReBoot has Bob call for help from Megabyte and his viral army when the CPUs are outmatched by the web creatures. It turns out Megabyte was deliberately waiting in order to let the web creatures cripple the CPU forces so that Megabyte would have an easier time taking over after his inevitable betrayal.
  • This was also somehow used in the Mr. Bogus episode "Bookstore Bogus", where Bogus calls on the help of Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, and Humpty Dumpty to help him save Rapunzel from the clutches of his sworn enemies, Ratty and Mole.

Real Life

  • The Trope Namer was partially inspired by Poland riding to the aide of Austria during the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683. King Jan Sobieski of Poland is considered to have stopped the Ottoman expansion into Europe. It has the classic elements of calling an entire army (and king) against a sieging army and succeeding.
  • The international volunteers that came to help Republican Spain against the fascists.
    • The international volunteers to help the fascists as well. Nothing says this trope has to be nice, or that only one side can do it. Besides, frankly that war was such a mess that it's up for grabs whether either side was "nice."
    • Similarly during the Winter War thousands of Danes, Swedes and Estonians came to Finland's aid, along with other volunteers, most notable are the Hungarians, who had to skirt around WW2 to get to Finland.
    • Also in World War II, albeit on a much smaller scale, the pilots from neutral (e.g. USA, Ireland) and occupied (e.g. Poland) countries who traveled to Britain to fight for the RAF.
  • During Israel's war of independence, volunteers from all over the world (many of them WW 2 veterans) clamored to aid the Israeli side. Two of the American volunteers were later fined and one jailed.
  • Similarly thousands of people from all over Europe went to Greece to join up with the Greek bid for independence from the Ottoman Empire, including famed crazy Byron.
  • Foreign volunteers for the Boer side in South Africa's Anglo-Boer War.
  • Occurred repeatedly during the Crusades, which were triggered by Constantinople's requests to The Pope for aid against the Turks. But as Crusade succeeded Crusade, relations between the Westerners and their Byzantine hosts broke down until 1204, when the Venetians bankrolling the operation convinced the Crusaders to turn against Constantinople and sack it bare. Though five more Crusades were to come, any sort of understanding between East and West was gone; when in their final hour the Byzantines swallowed their pride and asked for help again, only a few hundred Europeans bothered to answer.
  • The declarations of war on Germany in 1939 by members of the British Commonwealth can be seen as this. In World War I, Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians went to war because, as part of the British Empire, they were obligated to. In 1939, it's because they chose to come to Great Britain's aid, as did many Americans who crossed the border and became part of the Canadian military before 1941, and Irish citizens who put aside the country's neutrality to serve with the British (in some cases, entire units of the Irish Army resigned en masse, crossed over to Britain, and were quickly snapped up by a grateful British Army). Some Irish also joined the Nazis for a chance at vengeance on Britain.
  • This trope is inevitable whenever a conflict involves the Islamic world. Let's just say that a lot of Muslims from across the world have helped Hamas, Hizbullah, the Taliban, the MILF, and ISIS/ISIL. And their enemies wonder why they can't win against them.
    • On a different note, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan it was considered a noble thing to join the Mujahideen resistance. This was encouraged by the USA and many Muslim nations. Among many, Saudi Arabian Osama Bin Laden joined the resistance. He later went beyond this when he founded al-Qaeda to go beyond assisting the resistance to creating a Wahhabi Caliphate across the region.
  • During the Soviet-Afghan War, people from all over the Muslim world went to Afghanistan to fight against the invaders.
    • The same thing happened again during the US-Iraq War. However that happened after the invasion.
  • The Battle of Chalons in 451 AD. It's considered one of the first battles fought, not between two or three entities, but rather two coalitions. The Romans had the Visigoths, Franks, Armoricans, Saxons, Alani, Burgundians, and Sarmatians. The Huns had the Ostrogoths, Gepids, Rugians, Scirii, Thuringians, Scythians, Bastarnae, Taifals, Alamanni, and Gepids. Both armies were of roughly equal size. The Roman coalition was led by Flavius Aetius, possibly the last great Western Roman general, and the Huns were led by Attila. Most historians, since the time of Gibbon, consider the battle to be epochal, with Western civilization at stake.
  • The Balkans. The three major factions are Croat, Bosnian and Serb. Croats were traditionally German aligned and Catholic; Serbs Russian aligned and Orthodox, Bosnians were Turkish aligned and Muslim. So each side had volunteers and arms given, from Muhajadeen to volunteer adventurers, idologues, Neo-Nazis, let alone French, Russian and American arms to various factions. Then NATO invaded...
  • Israel does this a lot. Originally, Balfour only promised Palestine to the Jews because he thought he could use the legendary Jewish money against the Kaiser. Then South Africa went from being Nazi sympathizers to being ardent Zionists after World War II. More recently, premillennial dispensationalists, people who believe that when all the Jews and only the Jews are in Israel, Jesus will come back.
  • Chile, which began as a Spanish colony, ousted the Spanish authorities in September 18, 1810, and established a local government. Similar events took place at other cities in the Spanish America, such as Buenos Aires. This began a war between the new governments and those loyal to the Spanish monarchy (patriots and royalists, similar to the patriots and loyalists of the American Revolution). Chile was finally reconquered after the royalist victory at the Disaster of Rancagua, Carrera, O'Higgins and other patriots escaped to Mendoza (Argentina), at the other side of the Andes. There, O'Higgins worked with the Argentine José de San Martín to raise the Army of the Andes, that crossed the mountain range, counter-attacked the royalists and drove them away from Chile forever. Even more, O'Higgins could not arrive in time to the battle of Maipu, the final battle, which was directed solely by San Martín.
  • The evacuation of the Danish Jews during the Second World War: the non-Jewish people of Nazi-occupied (and, at least officially, collaborationist) Denmark disregarded their country's official stance not to mention their own safety to undertake a massive effort to hide their Jewish neighbors from an impending roundup by the Germans. When all hiding places appeared to be exhausted, the Danes then turned out in every seagoing vessel that could be found, from ferries and cargo ships to kayaks and rowboats, to ensure that as many Jews as possible could escape the country before the Gestapo closed in.
  • The Korean War, when the South was at the brink of being occupied, dozens of nations of the U.N. raced to South Korea's aid, and when tables turn for North Korea China, and the USSR come in to aid it.
  1. ↑ Black is about ambition, while red is about emotion.
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