| “ | The strangeness of this life cannot be measured: in trying to produce my own death, I was elevated to the status of a living hero.
— John Dunbar
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” |
Lt. John J. Dunbar is the protagonist of the 1990 film Dances with Wolves. After heroic action in service of the Union Army in the U.S. Civil War, he is granted the posting of his preference. Dunbar chooses to be posted to the western frontier.
Dunbar is assigned to a deserted fort on the frontier. After his commanding officer commits suicide and Native warriors kill his muleteer, Dunbar is left isolated. After establishing contact with Sioux neighbors, Dunbar begins to trust them and establishes a rapport with their leaders. He learns their language and fights with the Sioux against their Pawnee adversaries. Eventually, he abandons his post at the Army's fort, but when he realizes he left his diary there, he goes back to recover it since it contains information about the tribe's location.
Dunbar is caught and arrested by the Army, who refuse to believe his story. The Sioux ambush the convoy transporting Dunbar back east, and free him, naming him Dances With Wolves. Dances With Wolves accompanies the Sioux and begins a new life as he evades U.S. soldiers searching for Dunbar.
Battle vs. Nathan Algren (by The Deadliest Warrior)[]
Lt. John J. Dunbar is riding his horse down a grassy plain, tomahawks strapped across his back and Colt in hand. An arrow whizzes by his face and spins out of sight down the plain. Dunbar spins his head and sees nothing. He slows his horse down to a trot and goes back to investigate, Colt aimed outward.
Another arrow comes out from a bush and hits Dunbar in the thigh. Dunbar yells, startling his horse, which jumps up and throws him to the ground before running off. Dunbar curses and shoots his revolver into the bush several times. He comes a little closer and is tackled to the ground by something.
Captain Nathan Algren throws his Yumi bow to the side and punches Dunbar in the face. Dunbar knees Algren in the groin, causing him to roll over in pain. Dunbar whacks Algren in the leg with the butt of his pistol, but Algren takes out his Colt and Smith & Wesson pistols and fires twice with each. Dunbar stumbles back, wounded in the shoulder and the leg. He staggers over to where his horse had dropped his other weapons and picks up the shotgun.
Algren backs up at the sight of the shotgun and shoots a few more times, trying to knock the shotgun out of Dunbar's hands, but the fear of the weapon causes him to miss. Algren turns back and begins to sprint away, but he trips over a root and sprains a wrist trying to break the fall. Dunbar tosses the shotgun aside and laughs while he takes out his tomahawks. He bends down almost lovingly and is about to scalp Algren, but the captain rolls over, grabs his Winchester, and fires. Dunbar stares at the hole in his chest, shocked, and falls forward dead.
Algren shakes the pain from his wrist and takes the tomahawks as a war prize before he limps off to find more prey.
WINNER: NATHAN ALGREN
Expert's Opinion[]
Algren won because he was much more disciplined and his weaponry could shoot faster and at longer ranges than those guns of Dunbar's.