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This is a war, Ch'i, not a pissing contest between guys at a bar. There's NO REASON to give your life in a moral victory over your enemy when you could've just as easily sent the damn spear through the middle of his face. It's not like they were in single combat and Leonides was clearly overwhelmed but managed to get in a slash to Xerxes just as he fell. He chucked his spear at him from far away just to scratch his cheek and knock off some of those pretty piercings. Drawing blood in single combat would've been one thing. Drawing blood with a projectile when your opponent is sitting on his throne scratching his nuts means either a) you're a bad shot (not that he didn't have every reason to be a bad shot in that case) or b) you're somehow deluded into thinking that it's somehow a significant moral victory to scratch your opponent's cheek while you die in a mess of arrow fire.
Nicking Xerxes' cheek didn't demoralize the Persian army, though I'm sure it would've pissed him off. Being held at bay by a force of 300 did. If that spear goes out, it should either have missed in a display of the futility of his effort at that point or it should skewer Xerxez.
I think, again, the problem with the movie as a concept is that the REAL victor here was the phalanx. As people keep noting, watching a phalanx work is relatively boring, so the entire system gets tossed out to keep the bronzed Adonises in single or double combat against swarms of enemies. That's all well and good, but it undercuts what made the real battle so amazing and it makes it seem very odd that suddenly they get slaughtered just because they're surrounded. They did ok for the rest of the movie without using a phalanx. What happened?
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