Forlorn hope

Okay kiddo, so a forlorn hope is kind of like when you're playing a game with your friends and somebody has to go do something really risky or dangerous, like going first into a dark room or trying to climb up a really tall tree. It's a really brave thing to do, but it's also scary because there's a chance that you might get hurt or something bad might happen to you.

In history, sometimes soldiers would do a forlorn hope when they were trying to take over a fort or a city. They would send a small group of soldiers ahead to try to sneak in and open the gates or weaken the defenses, even though they knew that the chances of success were really low and that most of the soldiers would probably die. The soldiers who volunteered for this job were very brave, but also very scared because they knew that they were probably going to die.

So basically, a forlorn hope is when you have to do something really brave and risky, even though you know that it's probably not going to work out well for you. It's called a forlorn hope because you're kind of hopeless, or without much hope of success. But sometimes people do it anyway, because they believe that it's worth it to try.