So, the two self-conscious living beings engage in a life and death struggle. We can figure them as two fearless, proud subjects clashing against each other in the attempt to elicit the other’s recognition, and showing an equal determined will, they continue fighting to the end until one or, characteristically, both of them die. In this they have effectively established the certainty they were struggling for – yet, as Hegel goes on to remark, “this is not the case for those who passed the test in this struggle” (§188). They cannot bear witness of their independence for they are no more. The first result is therefore that, on the one hand, there are dead fighters who proved their absolute freedom (“negation without self-standing”) and some bystanders, on the other, who may effectively recognize the dead fighters but are not recognized themselves (“self-standing without absolute negativity”). In any case there is no mutual recognition.