History Main / FailureIsTheOnlyOption

* Myth/CelticMythology takes this to an incredible extreme, placing an elaborate system of taboos upon their mythic heroes that all but guarantee they'll incur the wrath of ''some'' deity or other sooner or later. The fate of Cu Chulainn, hero of the ''Literature/TheCattleRaidOfCooley'', is a prime example: he was invincible as long as he abstained from consuming dog meat. But before a major battle he found himself passing an old woman who offered him dog stew. It was either eat it, and [[BroughtDownToNormal become mortal]]; or refuse it, and violate SacredHospitality. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. (and his enemy Morrigan knew this.)

* YouCantFightFate (If it is prophethized, any attempt to avert this fate would only result in it being sealed)

* Averted in ComicBook/ThePunisher's case: he knows full well that all the criminals he kills won't change a thing in regards to actual crime rates, or bring back his family, or ever bring him peace- he has simply made it his life's work to kill as many criminals as he can until he inevitably dies. This is something neither the criminals nor the heroes (especially Characters/{{Daredevil|MattMurdock}}, who often ends up ''defending'' said criminals in court because he believes in due process, often ending up looking like a fool in the process) understand. DependingOnTheWriter, Frank Castle may even be punishing himself for failing to protect his family.
* ''ComicBook/GrooTheWanderer'' -- Goal: Stop wandering. Since Groo causes chaos everywhere he goes, this will never happen.
* The original premise of ''ComicBook/SwampThing'' was that Alex Holland had been changed into a swamp monster in a freak accident, and was trying to find a cure. The original series, once the book's original creative team left and were replaced, did end with Swamp Thing cured but the condition was quickly overturned in haphazard fashion during a guest-spot in ''ComicBook/ChallengersOfTheUnknown''. His series was relaunched in 1980 and the focus once again became on Swamp Thing wanting to become human, which writer Creator/AlanMoore (who took over the book with #20) felt had to go and go for good since it left the series stuck in an endless loop of failure. He promptly spent his second issue of his legendary run on the series revealing that Swamp Thing was a plant elemental creature with Alex Holland's personality/memories and sealed the deal by producing the remains of Holland, having Swamp Thing meet Alex in heaven and having Swamp Thing pretty much not care about his life being a lie after a brief HeroicBSOD.\\\
This is ironic, given that in spite of the popularity of Moore's run on ''ComicBook/SwampThing'' and his retcon, DC pretty much refuses to market Moore's version of the character in other media. Pretty much every Swamp Thing show, movie, cartoon uses the original "man to monster" origin for Swamp Thing and the Failure is the Only Option trope to drive the plot.
* ''ComicBook/{{Sleepwalker}}'' -- This 1990s Franchise/MarvelUniverse series had the title alien hero trying to find a way to return to his home dimension. Several opportunities come up throughout the series, but Sleepwalker is forced to repeatedly give up his chance at returning home for reasons ranging from the need to protect civilians in danger, to defeat a group of {{supervillain}}s, to retrieving ComicBook/SpiderMan from another alien dimension.
* Brazilian comic ''ComicBook/MonicasGang'':
** Jimmy Five -- Originally Cebolinha -- with his ironically named "Infallible Plans". Goal: take over the street and/or a plush bunny from Monica. And it brings another example of this trope, by his friend Cascão/Smudge - Goal: not joining the scheme... and then the beatings after they fail ([[SpannerInTheWorks usually because Smudge screws up]])
** For Cascão, there's also the goal of [[ThePigPen getting him to take a bath.]]
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics''. Invoked from the villain's side. Mammoth Mogul can't defeat Sonic the Hedgehog? Fine. He'll just quit trying--he's immortal, after all, so he's easily going to outlast that annoying blue blur. And in the meantime he'll amuse himself making life difficult for Sonic in any way available short of outright attack.
* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk''. Bruce Banner will never get rid of The Hulk. Heck, one time Bruce lost the ability to turn into the Hulk, he was savvy enough to observe he would be back. Sure enough. One story has Doc Samson and the army capture Bruce and place him in a chamber filled with NOX. General Ross (IIRC) says that they will lobotomize Banner to stop Hulk and Samson is shocked. Bruce says that he accepts this, since his only wish is to die. Samson says that it's both the wish of him and the Hulk and shuts off the oxygen valve, making Banner breathe pure nitrogen. The last screens of the comic show Banner's heartbeat slowing down, until he dies. [[spoiler:The last panel shows one, big, green, powerful heartbeat.]] The best case scenario Banner will ever achieve is his Merged Hulk/The Professor incarnation, the Strength of Hulk but the Mind of Banner and when he goes berserk he transforms into Savage Banner, Savage Hulk in Banner's puny body. He's not rid of Hulk but at least he can't hurt anybody as much as before.
* Any hero or villain whose motivation is IJustWantToBeNormal, including Characters/TheThing, [[Characters/MarvelComicsMacGargan The Scorpion]], and the aforementioned Hulk and Swamp Thing. In ''ComicBook/Marvel1602'', Reed Richards actually tells Thing that the universe will never let him become human again for very long because that would make his story less interesting.

** Mr. Freeze will never be reunited with his wife. Depending on the continuity, either her health will never recover to the point where he can thaw her out, or Batman and the police will keep foiling his attempts to help her, or she won't love him anymore because he's a supervillain, or she won't love him anymore because she ''herself'' has become a more villainous villain than he is. Any option is possible [[TragicDream except the one Mr. Freeze wants]], because then he has no motivation anymore.

* Creator/CrossGen series ''ComicBook/{{Sigil}}'': Tchlusarud is a Saurian warrior and the youngest of the Matriarch. His quests always end up in failure and humiliation. Since the Matriarch doesn't tolerate failure, she forces him to wear the armor of a commoner and later banishes him.
* In ''ComicBook/SecretWars2015'' the "natural" inhabitants of Battleworld will never truly triumph over GodEmperor Doom and this goes double if you are one of the Barons. If you're not struck down by Doom himself, it's either his Thors or one of the heroes unwittingly putting a stop to their mad plans.
* ''ComicBook/TheTombOfDracula''. So you get to be the protagonist in an issue of a series named after the villain? Yeah, good luck trying to kill him.
* ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'': Despite the occasional teaser to the contrary, Archie will never make a final choice between Betty and Veronica.

** Mr. Freeze will never be reunited with his wife. Depending on the continuity, either her health will never recover to the point where he can thaw her out, or [[SuperDickery Batman and the police will keep foiling his attempts to help her]], or she won't love him anymore because he's a supervillain, or she won't love him anymore because she ''herself'' has become a more villainous villain than he is. Any option is possible [[TragicDream except the one Mr. Freeze wants]], because then he has no motivation anymore.

* ''ComicBook/TheSpectre'' is a FallenAngel named Aztar who repented shortly after Lucifer's Rebellion. Recognizing that his heart was in the right place but his mind wasn't, God promised that Aztar would be let back into heaven once he had punished every mortal sinner who escaped justice at mortal hands. Given human numbers, speed of reproduction, and rate of KarmaHoudini, Aztar is still at it.
* Tchlusarud, a character from the Creator/CrossGen series ''ComicBook/{{Sigil}}'', is a Saurian warrior and the youngest of the Matriarch. His quests always end up in failure and humiliation. Since the Matriarch doesn't tolerate failure, she forces him to wear the armor of a commoner and later banishes him.

* ''ComicBook/ArchieComics''. Despite the occasional teaser to the contrary, Archie will never make a final choice between Betty and Veronica.

*** Charlie Brown's problem kicking the football is referenced in a ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode: Peter actually beats Lucy and makes her hold the ball for Charlie, and Charlie actually kicks it!
*** Similarly in ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' where Lucy moves the ball away and Charlie ''boots her in the head'' instead.
----> [[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch That's for years of humiliation, bitch!]]

* [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2011-05-08/ This]] ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' strip sums up the possibility of success for those who work at [[EvilInc Dilbert]]'s [[IncompetenceInc company]].

* While some characters in the ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' series do escape the traps, that's only the minority that are important enough to make it to the end of the film. The rest are sweet out of luck. Not only will they fail to escape whatever trap they are in, but they will experience the maximum amount of pain possible in trying to do so.
* Done in a comedic way in ''[[Film/PainAndGain Pain & Gain]]''. The protagonists' various attempts to kill Kershaw by car crashing, explosion, running him over via a car and crushing his head with a car wheel all ended in failure. Not to mention the subsequent attempts to reach Kershaw in the hospital and hotel.

* The main premise of one of the best known pieces of medieval European literature, ''Literature/SirGawainAndTheGreenKnight''. Foolishly accepting the challenge of a MysteriousStranger, the young Sir Gawain has to pay up and travel to the Green Knight to have his head chopped off. He either fails to make the journey, and is a failure as a warrior, chickens out and loses his honor, or makes it in time and gets killed. [[spoiler:Even though he panics at the last moment and tries to escape and also failed some of the tests of his honor on the journey, the green knight still appreciates that [[SecretTestOfCharacter he showed up at all and performed at most of the tasks very well]] and spares his life to allow him to return home.]]

* Creator/JRRTolkien just loved this one for his ''[[Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium Middle-Earth mythologies]]'', probably influenced by, you know, actual mythological tales which are just full of death and stuff. A few names in particular from ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'':
** Fëanor, the mightiest elf that ever lived, made the Simarils, jewels so beautiful that [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Morgoth]] (Sauron's boss) himself stole the jewels. He led an entire army of high elves across the sea, slaughtering the elven shipwrights to get the needed ships. When he does get to Middle-Earth, he is [[spoiler: killed by the Balrog Captain in the first battle. His oath to get the Simarils back kills five of his seven sons, and the oath forces his sons to attack friendly elven nations when Lúthien manages to retrieve one of the Simarils from Morgoth. After the final battle, the two remaining sons of Fëanor steal the two remaining Simarils; only for their holy light to burn their hands which had been stained with elven blood, to the point that one kills himself and the other throws away the Simaril to wander Middle-Earth in penance. In short, Fëanor is directly responsible for all occasions of elf-on-elf bloodshed, and the destruction of his sons]].
** ''Literature/TheChildrenOfHurin'': Túrin arguably gets it ''worse''. His sister died of sickness when he was young. His father was captured by Morgoth. His mother basically went insane. His other sister... that he didn't know he had... well, we'll get to her. He got sent away from home, and accidentally killed a noble (in self-defence, but he didn't think anyone would buy that, so he ran away before learning he had been pardoned). He lived as an outlaw for years, and eventually when he was recognized by yet another kingdom for his prowess in battle, he met a woman he fell in love with. Remember when we said "We'll get to her"? His sister had lost her memory, and was found by Túrin in that state; no one (including her) knew who she really was, so they got married. After a couple of years ... and having at least one child ... she recovered her memory and realized she was married to her brother, so she committed suicide. Túrin returned from battle to discover this, and then ''he'' committed suicide.
** The grand champion may be Húrin, Túrin's father. After being captured by Morgoth, he was forced to watch what happened to his children and wife while powerless to do anything about it. He got out again just in time to find his insane wife the day before she died.

* Literature/YoungWizards: The whole series and the point for the existence of wizards deal with this trope. The Lone Power invented entropy and while everyone acknowledges it will be the death of the universe, they also know that the point of wizards is to slow down entropy as much as possible.

* The sci-fi pop culture fiction ''Literature/EscapistDream'' tells the story of a virtual reality world where geeks can live a life similar to a comic book, anime or video game, and the attempts of a few individuals to fix its many problems. All of their hardwork, from removing the computer bugs that’s been affecting the place, to waging war against a mad geek who tried to take it over, were all in vain in the end. Throughout the course of the book, they have to realize that [[spoiler: the deaths of many people inside (including young teenagers), would inevitably lead to the government closing the virtual reality world]]. Its destruction is further cemented upon [[spoiler: when two of the main protagonists ended up fighting each other and causing its destruction]]. These endings pretty much ties the theme of the book: that no matter how much the geeks try to escape the real world into a place made solely for them, the problems of the real world would continue to hound them and force them to face it.

* In the Japanese ChildrensLiterature series ''Literature/TanteiTeamKZJikenNote'', TheLeader plus AttentionWhore Wakatake ''never'' gets the spotlight he yearns. The rest of TheTeam calls it "Wakatake Syndrome."

* The literally classical example is Sisyphus, a Greek king condemned to roll a boulder to the top of a hill, only to have it roll back down, for eternity.
* Another example would be Tantalus[[note]]The source of the word ''tantalize''[[/note]], who is surrounded by fruit and water that always recede away when he reaches for them.
* In Literature/TheBible, [[http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+1%3A4&version=NIV Ephesians 1:4]] says that some people were eternally chosen to be given salvation because Romans 3:23 says that all people are eternally damned to hell as they inherited the genetic material of cosmic treason from their [[http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/15-22.htm federal head Adam]], leaving their wills totally corrupted if left to themselves. This has proved to be a controversial aspect of The Bible. However, that is just [[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm one interpretation of those texts]], based primarily on the work of St. Augustine, Luther and Calvin. Various other traditions - Orthodox, Catholic, and Methodist for example - state that divine foreknowledge and human free will are compatible, and that [[ScrewDestiny no one is "predestined" to go to Hell.]]
* The Mythology and Folklore of nearly every culture on Earth are brimming with examples of such situations. [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek mythology]] in particular stands out, because the [[JerkassGods gods are dicks]] and YouCantFightFate. Myth/CelticMythology takes this to an incredible extreme, placing an elaborate system of taboos upon their mythic heroes that all but guarantee they'll incur the wrath of ''some'' deity or other sooner or later. The fate of Cu Chulainn, hero of the ''Literature/TheCattleRaidOfCooley'', is a prime example: he was invincible as long as he abstained from consuming dog meat. But before a major battle he found himself passing an old woman who offered him dog stew. It was either eat it, and [[BroughtDownToNormal become mortal]]; or refuse it, and violate SacredHospitality. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. (And the tale cites his enemy Morrigan knew this.)

* The main premise of one of the best known pieces of medieval European literature, ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight''. Foolishly accepting the challenge of a MysteriousStranger, the young Sir Gawain has to pay up and travel to the Green Knight to have his head chopped off. He either fails to make the journey, and is a failure as a warrior, chickens out and loses his honor, or makes it in time and gets killed. [[spoiler:Even though he panics at the last moment and tries to escape and also failed some of the tests of his honor on the journey, the green knight still appreciates that [[SecretTestOfCharacter he showed up at all and performed at most of the tasks very well]] and spares his life to allow him to return home.]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Sleepwalker}}'' -- This 1990s Franchise/MarvelUniverse series had the title alien hero trying to find a way to return to his home dimension. Several opportunities come up throughout the series, but Sleepwalker is forced to repeatedly give up his chance at returning home for reasons ranging from the need to protect civilians in danger, to defeat a group of {{supervillain}}s, to retrieving Franchise/SpiderMan from another alien dimension.

** Secondary goal: Make it up to Ultraviolet clearance. This conflicts spectacularly with the GM's goal, which involves strapping targets to everyone's backs, and usually results in upwards of ''[[ExaggeratedTrope five hundred percent]]'' [[TotalPartyKill casualties]], thanks to [[CloningBlues characters coming in six-packs]].

** In the middle of the arena, we have Shinji who decides to settle it all quickly and initiates the Third Impact and kills humanity by himself. Despite having fought to prevent this the whole time.

** [[TerribleTrio Team Rocket]]. Since their goal is usually to capture Ash's Pikachu, they simply can't win. Ironically, several episodes make it appear that if they tried going after someone else's Pokémon (or tried a non-criminal path) they'd be successful. Unfortunately for them, the plot dictates that they must follow Ash and Co. around the planet, so some outside circumstance will see them fall back to their old ways.

** For nearly 25 years, Ash Ketchum has never been able to win a regional Pokémon League Conference in spite of winning the required 8 badges and training his team to be at the top of their game. Due to the cyclical nature of the show, the general assumption from fans is that if he wins a Pokémon League, he becomes Pokémon Master and the show will then end in spite of the fact the regional League Conference is not an indication of being the best of the best in the world. However, despite the loss record, Ash has been noticeably climbing up the ranks with each League participation, culminating him into winning [[spoiler:the [[BrokenWinLossStreak Alola League]] and then later, the World Coronation Tournament which leads him being crowned as the World Monarch and officially [[WorldsBestWarrior the strongest Pokémon trainer in the world]]]]. Ironically, this is immediately followed up with Ash being retired as the main character, despite admitting to himself that he isn't a Pokémon Master yet and [[AndTheAdventureContinues setting off on another journey with Pikachu]].

** The writers have ''never allowed'' Ash to win a regional tournament based in a region from the video games. He'll always lose no matter what (the only time he won was in the Orange Islands, and that was filler). Their logic behind this thinking is that if he wins one single tournament, from one single area of the world, his entire journey ends. While some fans have bought into this line of thinking and hope that he wins so that he'll be replaced as protagonist or the show will end, others question the idea that Ash, whose goal is to be a "Pokémon Master" and has expressed a wish to be the greatest trainer of ''all time'', would achieve that goal by winning one tournament. [[spoiler: Come to Alola where this trope is ''FINALLY'' [[AvertedTrope averted]], Ash '''finally''' won a Pokemon League! CueTheFlyingPigs!]]
** [[TerribleTrio Team Rocket]]. Since their goal is usually to capture Ash's Pikachu, they simply can't win. Ironically, several episodes make it appear that if they tried going after someone else's Pokémon (or tried a non-criminal path) they'd be successful. Unfortunately for them, the plot dictates that they must follow Ash and Co. around the planet.

* The main goal of Bash in ''LightNovel/OrcHeroStory'' is finding a wife. Each volume has Bash encounter a woman he has some chemistry with, only for them to not get together for various reasons. If he ever did get married, the series would end.

'''Tank:''' What? HE SHOT ME!!!\\

* Everybody from all races, even God himself, is incapable of breaking Sora & Shiro's undefeated streak in ''Anime/NoGameNoLife''. Even the siblings couldn't best each other over 500 matches of poker games and ended up no contest.

** Speaking of the Einzbern family, it seems that no matter what they do in the Third Grail War[[note]]''Fate/Stay Night'' is focused around the Fifth[[/note]], they'll manage to lose said war. In the timeline of ''Stay Night'', they [[spoiler: summon the Avenger-class servant Angra Mainyu, who despite having the same name as the Zoroastrian god of evil, is actually one of the weakest servants that can be summoned, and gets killed very quickly; however, he corrupts the grail, leading to the events of ''Fate/Zero'' and ''Stay Night'']]. In the Third Grail War in the back story of ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'', which is in an AlternateTimeline to ''Stay Night'', they instead [[spoiler: summon the Ruler-class servant Shirou Amasuka, yet despite having a servant who can ''[[StoryBreakerPower Command Seal the other servants into killing themselves]]'', they ''still'' [[EpicFail manage to lose the war]]]].

!!Examples

* ''Franchise/DragonBall'': No matter how many times you throw yourself at the big bad of the week, you will always fail. [[OnlyICanKillHim Only Goku is allowed to vanquish the monster once and for all]]. The only few times this did not happen was during the fight with Vegeta who was taken down by Yajirobe, Great Ape Gohan and Krillin with Goku's Spirit Bomb, while he did defeat Frieza, then with Gohan who defeated Cell, and even then Goku assisted from beyond the grave. The only two times that Goku wasn't involved was [a] when Garlic Jr. returned from the Dead Zone, only to be sucked back into it when Gohan destroyed his source of power and [b] when Frieza came to Earth for the first time and was killed by Trunks.
** This trope is lampshaded by Piccolo in the Saiyan Saga after he gets [[WhatTheHellHero called out for berating Gohan for getting frightened]] while fighting [[TheDragon Nappa]]. Piccolo silently admits that it doesn't matter how they do against Nappa, then realizes that if [[ArcVillain Vegeta]] is [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking ordering Nappa around then Vegeta much be even stronger]], so even if Nappa is defeated, the heroes would have to face an even stronger villain. He was right, as not even Goku was able to defeat Vegeta.

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' has Anais' attempts at making friends. Usually anyone she attempts to befriend is either driven away by her [[NoSocialSkills lack of social skills]] or if they actually get along with her it turns out there's something wrong with them. The one exception being "The Friend", where Anais does manage to make a friend, though he has to leave at the end. [[spoiler: In "The Buddy", she does finally manage to make friends with Jamie.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': All of Steve's attempts to lose his virginity will fail. One particular instance has Steve meet a girl who's attracted to him immediately and her father is perfectly okay with Steve having sex with her, as long as he uses protection. Should have been a sure thing, right? Well, the father asked to meet Steve's parents first and Stan just happens to be battling a crack addiction. Stan screws the whole thing up by trying to have oral sex with the father in exchange for crack money. Once Stan checks out of rehab, Steve swears eternal hatred for Stan.
** Subverted in Season 13 where he ''[[ThrowTheDogABone finally]]'' gets some as Stan gives him TheTalk while [[ItMakesSenseInContext sword-fighting the girl's father]]. Additionally, Steve is shown to have a RidiculouslySuccessfulFutureSelf who has no problem finding a date.
* ''WesternAnimation/Ballmastrz9009'': The Leptons are bar none the worst players of The Game, and most of the first season is them either getting curb-stomped by another team or nearly winning and throwing it away at the last second. They avert it at the end of the season when Gaz unintentionally gives them a boost in confidence needed to defeat her former team.
* WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead will never ''ever'' "score" with the ladies. Not without reason, as the two are cartoonishly [[{{Gonk}} repulsive]], [[TooDumbToLive moronic]], and [[CasanovaWannabe lecherous]].
* ''Challenge of the WesternAnimation/SuperFriends'' - Goal: Catch the Legion of Doom. They always [[VillainExitStageLeft escape via some ridiculous method]], sometimes not even really escaping, just turning invisible in front of them or slooowly pushing a button to teleport away.
* ''WesternAnimation/ClassOfTheTitans''- Goal: Defeat Cronus. As it is, the heroes tend to just defeat the monsters he sends their way.
* In ''WesternAnimation/CrashCanyon'' it takes place at the bottom of a massive canyon where an entire community of people have well, crashed and survived and constantly try to find ways to escape. (Though oddly no-one seems to have investigated this location where at least 30 people have mysteriously gone missing, but then again one of the survivors is a cop) But seeing as this show is essentially a spiritual successor to ''Series/GilligansIsland'', all the ingenious or wacky attempts at escape are foiled in the most goofy or horrendously inconvenient manners.
* ''WesternAnimation/DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines'': - Goal: Catch That Pigeon!
** Subverted in the episode "Stop Which Pigeon?", in which Dastardly uses a Yankee Doodle Pigeon doppelganger to fool the General into thinking they caught him. Lampshaded and then averted in the same episode when Dastardly catches the pigeon diving into a flying pool of water (what Iwao Takamoto wouldn't think of) but then letting him go when Dastardly learns he can't swim.
** {{Subverted|Trope}} in two comic book stories where they do catch Yankee Doodle Pigeon, but there were twists to them. One story had Dick and Muttley tasked with obtaining Yankee Doodle's satchel while the other had them luring him over to their side during a truce, hypnotizing him and making him pose for pictures making him look like a traitor. Naturally, neither instance worked.
* ''WesternAnimation/DaveTheBarbarian'' - The parents are out fighting random evil around the world, and they never call it a day. Apparently, they consider this to be much more important than raising their three children and running their kingdom.
** In one episode, the parents actually DID achieve the goal of stomping out all evil everywhere in the world...except that MORE evil had popped up back in the place where they started, so they had to do it all over again!
* Zordrak and the Urpneys capturing ''WesternAnimation/TheDreamstone'', or at least holding onto it long enough to do much constructive with it.
* Without this, ''WesternAnimation/DungeonsAndDragons1983'' wouldn't have been the same. Also, this is the source for a bunch of rumours about the [[MissingEpisode Missing Last Episode]], with fans claiming that the heroes had died and gone to Hell, and Uni, the TeamPet, is a demon whose only task is to prevent them from going away. Again, these are [[EpilepticTrees rumors]].
** The writer of the lost final episode ''did'' release the script onto the web -- revealing quite a different set of EpilepticTrees. [[spoiler: The D&D realm is a kind of Cosmic Zoo and all of its mythical creatures were stolen from their homeworlds and forced to coexist, including the kids - and Venger wasn't such a bad guy after all.]] Failure wasn't the only option in the end after all.
* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy''. Usually the goal is a variation on getting jawbreakers/money/respect. Never works out due to wacky hijinks, and the few times they manage to get one of the three they lose it in the end of the episode.
** Driven [[ExaggeratedTrope Up to Eleven]] in one episode, where the candy store is giving away free jawbreakers, and the Eds have ten minutes to get there before the place closes. ''Everything'' that can possibly go wrong goes wrong: Sarah blocks them, Eddy accidentally runs into Kevin, who drops a piano on him later, the Kankers attack, they lose the BambooTechnology vehicle that Edd makes, and when they finally reach the store, the ''sky opens up'' and they get pelted with a sudden storm of rain and driving winds. At this point, Edd laments that "Fate has conspired against us!" When Ed uses his brute strength to get past the storm, a ''completely random'' "chicken drive" overrides Ed's priorities and he dives into the crowd of chickens. Eddy gets out and has to make a FriendOrIdolDecision: get a jawbreaker, or save Edd. He chooses the jawbreakers, but in the time it takes him to jump at the door, the place suddenly closes and he just ends up smacking against the door. Oh, and the storm then immediately ends. Just wow.
** The Eds finally win their peers' respect [[spoiler:in the finale movie, and Kevin will give them jawbreakers, which is lampshaded]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': No matter how many times Timmy Turner tries to impress Trixie Tang with the target to get her affection, eventually, the episode ends with Trixie rejecting him. If anything, it's heavily implied he's ''not'' supposed to end up with her.
* The goal of WesternAnimation/TheFonzAndTheHappyDaysGang was to get back to 1957, except when there was a FriendOrIdolDecision, in which case some of them would reach 1957 but have to leave to save their friends.
* In ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'', Arnold never ends up finding his parents (he simply just wasn't proactive about it at the time). Furthermore, Helga's secret infatuation with him is a pivotal theme in the show and in several episodes her secret is almost revealed... but of course, Arnold never does end up finding out. [[spoiler: Even when Helga eventually confesses in the movie, the two later decide to blame it on the "heat of the moment" and forget all about it. Thankfully, production was revived for ''[[WesternAnimation/HeyArnoldTheJungleMovie The Jungle Movie]]'', which finally concluded the former part of Arnold's journey.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'' - Does it three times: Doctor Claw's goal: Conquer the Earth (or at least a little bit of it, maybe buy a small country). Doctor Claw's secondary goal: [[NeverSayDie Kill]] Gadget. Gadget's goal: Arrest Doctor Claw. ''None'' of these goals are ever achieved.
** Gadget almost never actually solved a case himself either. Even in his rare bouts of competence it was Penny that stopped MAD ultimately, Gadget at his best assisted or rescued her while doing so (at his usual worst he just spent the majority of the episode [[InspectorOblivious on a wild goose chase]]). Of course, for all he and the majority of the population except Penny and Brain know, [[AccidentalHero Success Is The Only Option for him]].
* ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZIM'' has this in spades. The titular character's goal is to take over the Earth and be rid of Dib. But as Dib's sister Gaz aptly points out when asked why she never helps fight Zim: "[[StupidEvil He's so bad at it.]]" Meanwhile, Dib wants to expose Zim as an alien, but pretty much every other human outside himself and Gaz are TooDumbToLive or just find the notion absurd. [[CrapsackWorld Though considering the type of world they live in]], the latter group is somewhat justified in assuming that the obvious alien is just a green-skinned child without ears. Somewhat.
* ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'' - Johnny will never succeed when it comes to women. This goes to the point that a few examples borderline on DiabolusExMachina. Though one episode strongly implied, if not outright confirmed, that he isn't a virgin[[note]]An Amazon tribe tried to use him as a virgin sacrifice to a volcano, but it exploded in implied disgust; he's even noticably offended at being called a virgin.[[/note]]; so maybe it's more accurate to say that Failure is the Only Option ''onscreen'', because [[RuleOfFunny its funnier to watch him get shot down]].
* Subverted in a ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode where Superman must stop Lex Luthor from pressing the red button, but the only way to stop him then is to kill him. Luthor states that Superman needs him to be a hero, and that they will continue playing hero and villain forever, as [[StatusQuoIsGod this allows them to have a purpose]]. [[spoiler: The subversion comes when Superman [[TakeAThirdOption takes a third option]] and kills Lex Luthor. Then [[NotHimself Batman]] says he's okay with it. Then we pull back to realize the whole thing just took place in The White House. Cue Alternate Dimension reveal!]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'':
** Poor Stumpy almost never wins anything, except in [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness the pilot]] and a handful of other episodes. Even his [[BungledSuicide suicide attempts fail]].
** Mr. Cat's attempts to confess to Kaeloo that he is in love with her usually end on a very bad note, either due to Kaeloo's [[ObliviousToLove obliviousness]] or poor execution on Mr. Cat's part.
* ''WesternAnimation/KiddVideo'' - Goal: Escape the sinister music executive and return to their own world. The fact that the band actually enjoyed the Flip Side made it certain that they wouldn't be trying too hard to get home.
* ''WesternAnimation/MackAndMoxy'' has Shelfish Sheldon, who despite his CatchPhrase "Next time, Shelfish Sheldon shall succeed!" never actually does succeed in his goal of stealing the Great Helpee and taking its happiness. Only once does he even come remotely close by managing swipe the Helpee egg and trap the heroes in a very deep pit, only to end up losing it and get trapped in the pit himself.
* Lampshaded somewhat in Ruby-Spears' ''WesternAnimation/{{Mega Man|RubySpears}}'', "2,000 Leaks Under the Sea": Wily's plan seems to be succeeding wonderfully, and Proto Man remarks that it's about time something went right for once. Then Mega Man shows up...
* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': Any attempt to cure Eda of her curse will either be a scam or unreachable.
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' - Neither Candace nor Doofenshmirtz will ever succeed in their goals, or at least not any kind of success that will affect the {{status quo|IsGod}}. For example, in "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Phineas and Ferb Get Busted]]" she finally busts the boys but then it turns out to be AllJustADream. She succeeds again in "She's The Mayor", where she busts the boys, but then [[spoiler:Doofenshmirtz's latest invention makes time go back to the beginning of the episode]]. Doofenshmirtz also succeeded in taking over the Tri-State Area in "Quantum Boogaloo". Said episode ''also featured'' Candace (a future version) busting the boys, but then she has to stop it from happening as it [[SpaceWhaleAesop creates a dystopian future.]] The present version of Candace does it [[spoiler:in the future, but then decides to simply keep on trying anyway]].
** [[WordOfGod The creators]] have stated that, if "Quantum Boogaloo" is taken as the canonical future of the characters (barring the various ways futures can be messed up, of course) she will never succeed in busting her brothers, but eventually learns to accept it.
** The episode "The Doof Side Of The Moon" featured the boys making the tallest building ever that stretched to the ''Moon''. It was [[TemptingFate literally said by one character]] that ''no force on Earth'' could make it disappear [[spoiler:and it disappears anyway when Doof's Lunar-Rotate-inator causes the moon to rotate and drag the building away]].
** In "A Real Boy", Candace manages to get Linda to see the giant spring-loaded toy the boys have built... and then Linda gets zapped by Dr. Doofenshmirtz's "[[LaserGuidedAmnesia Forget-About-It-Inator]]". After this happens ''several times'' in a row, Candace ends up leaving when Linda blurts out [[ChekhovsGun the hypnotic code phrase that makes Candace want to stop busting the boys]], and after getting hit by the Forget-About-It-Inator one last time, Linda wanders off before she can see the project again.
** On the Doofenshmirtz front, [[WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerbTheMovieAcrossThe2ndDimension the movie]] reveals that in AnotherDimension, he actually ''has'' taken over the Tri-State Area.
** Exploited by Candace in the movie, where she attempts to get her mom to see outside where [[spoiler:robots from the alternate dimension are invading]]. She reasons that getting her mom to see them should make [[spoiler:the robots]] disappear since her mom never sees what Phineas and Ferb have done. Ironically enough, in that scenario, it wouldn't have made any difference if she HAD seen them, because she would just have her memory [[spoiler:erased with everyone else at the end]].
** In the episode "Backyard Hodge-Podge," Linda is able to well and truly see what the boys have made. [[ItMakesSenseInContext Candace doesn't.]] Linda decides she is hallucinating from lack of sleep, as she has hallucinated twice already, and goes to bed.
* ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' - Goal: To TakeOverTheWorld, despite only being lab mice (with a ton of resources to go by, however...).
** Success: They managed to bait the entire living populace to a duplicate Earth. Day 2 with Brain as leader they find that the original Earth is in the path of an asteroid, he and Pinky escape to the duplicate whilst the original is destroyed. New goal: Take over the duplicate Earth.
* ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'': No matter how many times Mitchell tries, he just can't successfully expose Jet, because in this universe, the identity of the Propulsions is apparently the CassandraTruth.
* In ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'', Jack's attempts to return home always fail either due to Aku's interference or simply Jack's ChronicHeroSyndrome and refusal to let others sacrifice themselves for his goal. Likewise, Jack and Aku's attempts to kill each other always end in failure and this was even lampshaded by Aku in "Jack vs Aku". [[spoiler:Jack finally succeeds in the end, but he loses the girl he loves, which would've otherwise prevented him from taking the opportunity had he known.]]
** Of course, another thing Jack can never succeed at is getting a girl, because they always end up trying to harm or kill him.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretSaturdays''. No matter how hard they try that can't seem to keep up with Argost, except for the handful of episodes where they come ahead. They finally succeeded in the last episode, obviously.
* ''WesternAnimation/SilverSurferTheAnimatedSeries'' - Goal: Find and return to Zenn-La. Would have been achieved in the first season finale if the producers hadn't decided to bank on a cliffhanger.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Smurfs|1981}}'' - Goal: Kill the Smurfs. Sadly, Gargamel never got that chance. In the last season, the Smurfs were sucked into a time warp and spent the remainder of the series desperately trying to make their way back to Smurf Village. So it's two Sisyphean goals in one!
* ''WesternAnimation/SonicUnderground'' revolved around Sonic, Sonia, and Manic attempting to reunite with their mother at the proper time to defeat Robotnik, but the show never had a proper ending so it didn't happen.
* For most of ''WesternAnimation/SpacePOP'' the girls aren't even close to finding their parents, and when they do get opportunities to save them they don't succeed.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'':
** To this day, he still can't pass his driving test. However, in some episodes and notably, the movie, he will settle on driving without a license.
---> '''Mrs. Puff:''' Not even in your dreams, Mr. [=SquarePants=]!
** Squidward unfortunately has yet to successfully move away and/or receive recognition for his artistic and musical talents, let alone [[ButtMonkey earn any portion of happiness]] as long as he remains affiliated with [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick.
* ''WesternAnimation/StreetSharks'' - Goal: Find their dad, get the MadScientist arrested, get turned human again. None of that happens. One episode has them temporarily turn human, but they decide that they like being sharks better, since they can fight off the evil mutants. There are rumors of an episode in which they nearly meet their dad and he leaves them a note saying that he'll see them soon, but they never actually find him in the series. The last few episodes actually do have Dr. Paradigm exposed and arrested, but he escapes.
* ''Series/TheSuperMarioBrosSuperShow'' - Goal: For Mario and Luigi to get back home to Brooklyn. While this was mentioned as the reason the four heroes were traveling all over the vast multiverse, it's not a frequent topic of discussion in most episodes.
** There was one episode where Mario and Luigi ''did'' get back to Brooklyn once, only for Bowser to follow them and invade, which causes the Princess and Toad to go to Brooklyn and attempt to help the Mario Bros. Mario and Luigi returned to the Mushroom World after that. Another episode also showed Mario and Luigi having one chance of returning home, only for them to pass it up since they couldn't simply leave the Princess behind, even though she wanted them to go after she got captured by Bowser.
** In a piece of irony, in the show's sequel, ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfSuperMarioBros3'', the characters were frequently able to visit "the Real World". By then, though, Mario and Luigi had apparently given up their old goal of returning to Brooklyn and were comfortable living in Toad's house.
* ''WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'' Goal: For Baloo to buy his beloved plane, the Sea Duck, back from Becky. This actually happens more than once, but in every case he's forced to give it back by the end of the episode. In fact, in more than one episode Baloo acquires a huge amount of money, more than enough to buy back the Sea Duck, but is later forced to pay [[OnTheMoney the EXACT same amount]] to someone else to settle a bill. Another he actually buys back the Sea Duck but gives it back out of guilt after Rebecca's business falls apart without him, implying he is doomed to failure willingly or not.
** Also the Sky Pirates getting past Cape Suzette's security to plunder the city. They actually succeeded in the pilot thanks to the Lightning Gun however.
* In almost every original ''WesternAnimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|1987}}'' season, Shredder and Krang's goal is to free the Technodrome from wherever in the universe it's trapped. It's always in the season finale or next season opener that they succeed, only to get it trapped somewhere else.
** The Turtles are essentially victims of this trope as well, as Shredder and his minions always escape through the dimensional portal or transport module, thus avoiding being brought to justice. (Just how many episodes climaxed with "they got away again?")
** There was also the goal of Master Splinter to return to human form. Happened once, but he was back by the end of the episode.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' makes a living off this trope with nearly everyone. Not only are the villains meant to fail, but the main protagonists are basically failures themselves, except Brock (and he's got some failures himself). There is a whole section on [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]] about how, according to WordOfGod, the theme of failure is very key.
* In ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' Dick Dastardly will never win, [[DickDastardlyStopsToCheat because he always cheats]], since one episode was shown to have him win only to have the trophy taken away from him because he cheated. Yet he continues to cheat anyway. Funny thing is, that when he sets the traps up for the other racers, he is always far ahead of everyone else, so if he just raced legit, chances are he would win every time.
** In the unsold pilot ''Wacky Races Forever,'' Dastardly even states that his being a villain qualifies him to cheat, even when victory is within his grasp.
* Most [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Warner Bros. Cartoons]], with the goal of eating/shooting/defeating Roadrunner/Bugs Bunny/Speedy Gonzales.
** There ''was'' a roadrunner short that ended with the roadrunner being "caught", after a fashion. Wile. E. Coyote chases the Roadrunner through a series of pipes, which get progressively smaller. Upon emerging, both the Roadrunner and Coyote have been shrunk to only a few inches in height. The coyote whistles to the roadrunner to turn around, and they go back through the pipes in reverse. The Roadrunner comes out restored to his normal size but the Coyote remains small, and grabs onto the Roadrunner's ankle before realizing what has happened. In the last shot he turns to the camera and [[TalkingWithSigns holds up a sign]] that reads "Okay, wise guys, you always wanted me to catch him. NowWhat do I do?"
*** Interestingly, while Bugs, Tweety and Speedy tend to actively outsmart their foes, the roadrunner [[WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing does little to nothing]] against the coyote. Wile's mostly HoistByHisOwnPetard, either due to his own ineptitude or malfunction of the AcmeProducts he uses. [[GravityIsAHarshMistress Gravity doesn't help, either]].
** Sylvester ''always'' lost in Looney Tunes even when he's being heckled without provocation. Almost like he was the DesignatedVillain by default simply for being [[BuffoonishTomCat a cat in an old cartoon.]]
** In the case of eating Tweety, when Sylvester finally did that in the final episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSylvesterAndTweetyMysteries'', it resulted in [[spoiler:the show being cancelled]].
** There have also been occasions where Sylvester DID eat Tweety, but he was then forced to spit him out.
** And delightfully inverted and subverted in "Tiny Toons: How I Spent My Summer Vacation." Beep beep! SPLAT!
** WesternAnimation/ElmerFudd did manage to kill Bugs in "WesternAnimation/WhatsOperaDoc" using his "[[LargeHam Maaagiiicc Helllmeettt]]'s" weather control powers. But as he was carrying off Bugs's body Bugs looked back at the audience and said "What did you expect in an opera, a happy ending?"
* ''WesternAnimation/WhereOnEarthIsCarmenSandiego'' Obviously, if they catch her, she has to escape. Depressingly lampshaded in one episode, when Zack moans to Ivy that they never seem to catch her. Another time they ''let'' her escape because Carmen's wanna-be replacement [[spoiler:Sara Bellum]] was even worse. [[note]][[spoiler:And Zack felt they owed Carmen a favor since it was only with all three of them working together they escaped Bellum's trap/prison.]][[/note]]
** Played with when reversed around with the Nightmare Stone. In both situations the heroes succeeded in capturing it, [[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame rather handily]], however [[SequelHook they could never truly dispose of it]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wunschpunsch}}'': The spells of the week Bubonic and Tyrannia cast never last long enough to become permanent, as their pets make certain to thwart their schemes.
* In-universe example in ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice2010'': in "Depths" Black Manta admits to Kaldur that he would have continued setting up missions with a high chance of failure on Kaldur's part until he did fail, since he wanted to see if Kaldur would take credit for something he didn't actually accomplish. As Black Manta said, "true character is revealed not by success, but by failure."
* As for actual exceptions in animation: ''WesternAnimation/ConanTheAdventurer'' and ''WesternAnimation/JumanjiTheAnimatedSeries''. Conan eventually did defeat his arch-enemy and save his family while the final episode of Jumanji had the trio find the final clue and escape the game for good.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Academagia}}'': Many adventures and events within the game will fall into this. Especially when all the options are either red, or, (gulp) [[OhCrap purple]].
* ''[[VideoGame/AloneInTheDark2008 Alone in the Dark]]'' (2008): [[MortonsFork Take your pick]] of allowing Sarah to be possessed by Lucifer, or killing her and having Carnby become the embodiment of Lucifer himself and unleashing the forces of Hell on the world.
* ''VideoGame/BaldisBasicsInEducationAndLearning'' has you solving simple addition and subtraction problems from time to time. From the second notebook onwards, though, the final problem will be a scramble of indecipherable BlackSpeech (a bit like math in real life, really). There is no right answer to these problems, so you're forced to get them wrong and make Baldi angry at you (speeding him up if he's already chasing you).
-->'''Baldi:''' Problem three! *[[SensoryAbuse BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ]]* plus *[[HellIsThatNoise BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ]]* times *[[RuleOfThree BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ]]* equals...
* ''VideoGame/Bioshock1'': At the start of Fort Frolic, [[MadArtist Sander Cohen]] has chained one of his proteges to a piano and is forcing him to play a song he's composed. If the protege misses too many notes, the dynamite strapped to the piano will detonate. Real-life pianists have analyzed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRl4-CKtSzI the song]] and declared it ''nearly impossible'' to play correctly, even when you ''aren't'' fearing for your life. [[StuffBlowingUp Needless to say, he doesn't last long]].
* At the beginning of ''VideoGame/BloodOmenLegacyOfKain'', it's possible for Kain to wipe out all of his would-be assassins, even without a VideoGame/GameShark, if proper caution is taken. However, all the exits out of town are blocked off, and you'll just have to walk in and out of a building to respawn the enemies and let Kain die like he's supposed to.
* ''VideoGame/{{DEFCON}}''. Goal: Win a nuclear war. You may have spotted the problem already. Hell, even the tagline: "Everybody loses...but maybe you can lose the least!" (Paraphrased, anyway...). The website is even named [[http://www.everybody-dies.com www.everybodydies.com.]]
** One of the best examples of this comes from a metagame strategy known as the "Star of India", a formation that you play with as Asia when fighting 1v1 against Russia. You're aiming to get 99% kills on Russia, but to do so you're completely sacrificing 90% of your population (i.e. all of eastern Asia and Japan) to do so.
** If it has a win condition, you can win it. Definitely qualifies as a PyrrhicVictory in most instances, but failure is most definitely not the ''only'' option.
* ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' features the fairly unique (for an FPS) feature that your actions in-game modify the storyline and how characters interact with you. However, you are still limited to the same basic story-[[spoiler:for example, no matter how badly you want to play the part of cold-blooded assassin working for the hideously corrupt UNATCO, you are forced by your brother to go to a captured NSF base and send a distress signal. This action immediately causes you to be considered a rogue by UNATCO and all the agents will become hostile. It's required to advance the storyline and cannot be avoided]].
** This isn't how the game [[WhatCouldHaveBeen was supposed to be, actually,]] as we can see [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cEg5Xo7VFU here.]]
** At that point, the game was supposed to split into two branching storylines, one following the NSF and another for UNATCO. Of course, we only have the NSF storyline, which as many players remember, is mostly [[spoiler:a paragon run through a big conspiracy involving your allegedly-lawful organization UNATCO, and discovering [[NebulousCriminalConspiracy how it was actually controlling the Gray Death spread and selecting which civilians and VIPs were important enough to stay alive and vaccinated with Ambrosia. All under the designs of the Majestic 12]]]]. Supposedly, in the canceled UNATCO storyline, [[spoiler: YOU would be the one making all that "evil magic" happening, alongside all your old UNATCO allies and chiefs, [[BlackSheep as you were supposed to, being a nano-aug agent sponsored by the very MJ12 from the shadows since childhood and all]]]]. Ironic, isn't it?
* The entire ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' series has the goal of destroying the Lord of Terror. Though you end up taking him down in every major game, [[JokerImmunity circumstances always conspire to bring him back, usually bigger and badder than ever]].
** In ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' the unnamed protagonist is met with failure at every turn due to arriving ever so slightly too late to have stopped the villain from doing what they were trying to do.
*** Act 1: The hero arrives too late to catch Diablo in his new body and Andariel is successful in delaying his venture to the east to go after Diablo.
*** Act 2: The hero arrives in what couldn't have been more than a few minutes after Diablo got there and freed his brother, which is precisely what you were trying to stop him from doing. They leave Duriel there to delay the character's pursuit.
*** Act 3: You make it to Mephisto mere moments after he activates the power of the soulstones on his brother Diablo and opens a portal to hell for them to escape to, staying behind himself to delay the player's pursuit.
*** Act 4: You actually make it to Diablo and kill him before he does anything too terrible, but that's only because he wasn't actually trying to do anything to Sanctuary at that point, and Baal was still at large in Sanctuary (although fortunately, he didn't manage to find Marius or retrieve his Soulstone until some time after Diablo's defeat, so you don't exactly fail). However, while you do manage to catch up to what the Prime Evils are planning, you squander that lead in the months leading up to...
*** Act 5: Halfway through, you arrive just too late to interrupt Baal from getting an object that will allow him to walk right through the front door of the Worldstone Keep. You then get to Baal and - surprise, surprise - he doesn't seem to have corrupted the Worldstone yet. You fight him and defeat him thinking that you arrived just in time to stop the world from being destroyed, but wait! Tyrael then tells you that the mere act of Baal touching the Worldstone corrupted it completely, meaning that after the fight you find out that yet again you arrived too late, once again by mere minutes at the very most.
*** The entire quest you set out on in the beginning of the game turns into failure after failure. Sure, you destroy 5 of the most powerful evil beings in existence, but not before they succeed in doing the very thing that they set out to do in the first place. And let's not forget Diablo is using the body of the Warrior from the first game.
*** It's notable that in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', Mount Arreat is now known as Arreat ''Crater''. That's right, Tyreal had to ''destroy an entire mountain'' in order to stop the corruption of the Worldstone. Clearly a PyrrhicVictory, and a temporary one at best.
* ''VideoGame/DiceyDungeons'': After a run, Lady Luck allows a spin on the prize wheel, which has over a dozen winning spots and a single losing spot. The losing spot is landed on every single time, leading to another run through the dungeons.
* [[http://www.dinknetwork.com The Dink Network]] had a mod-building contest once where the submitted mods had to end with Dink failing whatever the main goal was supposed to be. One or two of the better ones, such as ''The Basilisk Smile'', even had multiple ways to fail.
* Multiple fights in the story of ''VideoGame/Disgaea2CursedMemories'' are {{Hopeless Boss Fight}}s unless you've gotten levels you wouldn't realistically have on a first play-through. Some of these fights, while winnable if you power-level or in NewGamePlus, cause a NonStandardGameOver for your trouble.
** ''VisualNovel/DisgaeaInfinite'' will cause all but one of the outcomes to end in failure. Once you find out that [[spoiler:Thursday's upgrade caused its part to fall off of it when it went berserk, causing Laharl to think it is the Super Rare Pudding he was looking for]], your first action may be to get Gordon and Thursday out of Laharl's room. [[spoiler:Thursday gets upgraded in a different room and Laharl gets the part from a Prinny.]] Try to keep Laharl away, by say, going with Flonne to find the delivery boy she is looking for, and [[spoiler:he gets bored and leaves, finding the fake pudding]]. If you try to flat out make Etna give Laharl the pudding she has, [[spoiler:it still blows up in Laharl's face anyway (although there is a reason for that: after her meeting with Laharl, Etna goes to a secret room in the castle to find her pudding is also a fake)]]. In subsequent loops, the protagonist flat out asks his MacGuffin if he can't mind control Laharl to prevent him from eating the fake pudding.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'': No matter what choices Hawke makes or how hard they try, the situation in [[WretchedHive Kirkwall]] continues to get worse and worse. Varric heavily implies in his narration that the Mage-Templar CivilWar that begins at the end of the game was completely inevitable. If it hadn't started there, it would have started elsewhere. [[InherentInTheSystem The events of the game were just the final fuels to the fire that had been building for centuries]].
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'': [[spoiler: The [[BigBad Big Bad Rhapthorne]] needs to kill the descendants of the seven sages that [[SealedEvilInACan sealed him away]] to be free. The party arrives in time to save three of the seven, fighting a BossBattle that they have to win each time, only to fail anyway thanks to CutSceneIncompetence]].
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestXI'': At the end of Act One, [[spoiler: Jasper ambushes the party at the heart of Yggdrasil]] leading to an unwinnable fight where you cannot even do any damage.
* In the Cavia game ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'' the protagonists endeavor to prevent the seals that hold the world together from being broken, however they always seem to show up just a few minutes too late. Then there's the endings...
* PlayedForLaughs in ''VideoGame/DreamfallChapters''. If Zoë is working for Mira, then she will be tasked with taking a salvaged robot called "Shitbot" out for a walk and test its functions. Sure enough, Shitbot fails ''every single test'' in rather comedic ways.
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' literally has no win condition. Just an astonishing number of lose conditions. There is a reason the official motto is "Losing is Fun!"
** There is only one actual lose condition: everybody dies. And many, many ways to get there.
* In ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'', the [[{{Wutai}} Akaviri]] race known as the Kamal has this going on for their entire race. According to in-game sources, they are a race of "snow demons" who [[HumanPopsicle freeze every winter]] and then thaw out in the spring to attack the Tang Mo "monkey folk". Every year, the Tang Mo successfully defend themselves. The one time the Kamal broke this ViciousCycle was to attack Tamriel (the continent where every game in the series to date has taken place), and that invasion failed as well.
** In ''Skyrim'', Jarl Ulfric's public challenge to High King Torygg trapped him. He could accept and die in a lopsided duel against a war veteran who everybody else knew was ten times the warrior, or refuse and be humiliated and possibly trigger a Moot which would see Ulfric become High King anyway. There was no good choice the poor boy could have made.
** The consequences of the hero's victory in the various instalments of the series seem to take this to CosmicHorrorStory levels. The Nerevarine saves Morrowind from falling to House Dagoth, and even reality itself being overwritten by Dagoth Ur's twisted mind. But destroying the Heart of Lorkan weakened the barrier between Mundus and Oblivion, which would become the crisis point for the next instalment. Further, the fall of the Tribunal Temple also cost Vivec his divinity and existence, ultimately resulting in the meteor whose descent he arrested wiping out the city named after him, and the eruption of Red Mountain, which made much of Morrowind uninhabitable. The Hero of Kvatch would be instrumental in defeating the daedric invasion of Mehrunes Dagon, but in the end, Dagon's purpose was fulfilled; the Septim dynasty was wiped out and the Amulet of Kings destroyed. As the Prince of Revolution, he definately brought the chance he represents as the empire weakened, allowing an extremist faction to rise in Summerset whose ultimate goal is the unmaking of the world and utter genocide. Though the Dragonborn has the choice of who ought to rule Skyrim, his true purpose is to defeat Alduin, the world eater. But Alduin had strayed from his purpose because of his arrogance, instead maintaining his reign over mortals rather than ending the world and all that lived on it. His death would create a void that is free to be filled by a new creation of Akatosh with the purpose to end the cycle.
*** Not even the non-player inhabitants of Mundus can seemingly refrain from contributing to their world's destruction. Various so-called Towers exist all over the world, both made by gods and mortals. These load-bearing structures maintain the stability of the planet and prevent it merging into Oblivion. But through events, many of these Towers have been rendered inactive or destroyed, including the folly of mortals. The Thalmor gained stewardship of the Crystal Tower during the Oblivion Crisis and they failed to protect it from complete destruction. Tiber Septim made the Brass Tower his weapon of war, and it was wiped from existence twice. The White-Gold Tower became the palace of the Empire, who temporarily lost control during the Great War with the Aldmeri Dominion, who burned it. Even if it remains active, it is in great danger as long as the Empire remains threatened. The Orichalc Tower sank into the sea along with Yokuda when a careless Yokudan swordsinger performed his craft. The Coral Tower, if it is a real one, is believed to have been the base of operations for the vile Sloads. This race unleashed a devastating plague upon the world, prompting them nations around them to attack and destroy the surface realm of the Sloads, who sank their land and the tower in an effort to survive underwater. And the Red Tower, housing the Heart of Lorkan, was rendered inactive by the Nerevarine's actions, who both destroyed the Heart of Lorkan and ended Vivec, who had kept a meteor suspended over his city, whose impact devastated Morrowind in the Red Mountain's eruption. It seems even when done to end a more immediate, more serious threat, the Towers and the world they protect are unraveling...
* ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' - the quest Tenpenny tower is about getting a load of intelligent ghouls into Tenpenny tower and gives you two main options, let in a load of feral ghouls and get all the human residents killed or the peaceful solution, where you convince the management let the intelligent ghouls move in. Unfortunately [[spoiler: many of the human residents get killed which ever you pick as there is a 'disagreement' shortly after you leave]]. Unless you [[spoiler: TakeAThirdOption and kill the Ghoul leader just after you arrange the peace. You'll get some evil points, you'll 'fail' the quest and the other ghouls will turn hostile, but you can escape without killing the normal ghouls and the massacre will be averted. How killing the murdering, psychopathic ghoul leader is a bad act will forever remain unknown. You can also assassinate the leader undetected, which will also stop the massacre and not award any bad karma]].
* All the possible endings for ''VideoGame/FarCry5'' has this. No matter what ending you get, [[spoiler:[[BigBad Joseph Seed]] wins in the end. If you choose to fight and stop him, his prophecy of doom comes true with a nuke going off shorty after defeating and arresting him, which results in the SilentProtagonist being stuck with him in one of the many bunkers for the remainder of their life. If you accept his final offer to walk away and leave his cult alone, despite all the damage you've caused during the game, then everyone leaves, but it's implied that Joseph's older brother's brainwashing ultimately worked, when the song "Only You" plays on the radio before the credits. And there is the secret ending, where you don't try to arrest Joseph Seed in the beginning of the game, and which triggers a cutscene of you leaving area, ending the game]]. Ultimately rectified in [[VideoGame/FarCryNewDawn the sequel]]. [[spoiler:Not only are that game's villains actually defeated by the end, but the player even gets to stop Joseph's successor and then finally either kill Joseph or let him live with the overwhelming grief and knowledge that his actions were not what God wanted.]]
* While it is possible to get happier endings in the first two ''VideoGame/FatalFrame'' games, the endings where [[spoiler: you fail to save your brother/sister]] [[DoomedByCanon are the]] ''[[DoomedByCanon canon]]'' [[DoomedByCanon endings]].
* ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon FEAR]]''. Goal: To stop Alma's shenanigans. Two games in, and she's only made things much worse. As an icing on the cake, the people who could do something about it manage to be even ''worse'' than Alma (I am looking at you Genevieve Aristide).
* In most ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games, no matter how hard the heroes try, the villain can never be prevented from becoming all-powerful. Their victory only comes after the villain has already brought the world to its knees.
** Particularly, the plot of ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' has an infinite number of possible worlds in which the characters are always fighting each other. When one side wins, things just start over.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' also deserves special mention, because even when the heroes actually succeed in ''killing'' the BBEG, he just [[HellHasNewManagement takes over Hell and comes back stronger.]] [[spoiler: The heroes then kick his superpowered ass anyway.]]
** In-universe in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'': summoners don't come back from their pilgrimages alive... and they aren't supposed to. [[spoiler:Yuna does manage it, in the end, but not because she wasn't prepared to die — she just wasn't prepared to let someone else become Sin and start the cycle over again.]]
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'': as revealed in the secret ending, [[spoiler: all possible timelines lead to Caius winning. Realizing this sent Lightning over the DespairEventHorizon and she voluntarily crystallized herself]].
* If the seventh night is to be taken as canon, Mike Schmidt, the protagonist of ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' doesn't make it past his first week on the job, being fired for "tampering with the animatronics" (i.e. customizing their levels of activity). Either way, the "reward" for completing the custom night is to be fired without pay. Fritz Smith, the protagonist of the custom night in [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 the sequel]], only lasts that one night for the same reason.
* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'': [[spoiler:Niko Bellic]]. The end game gives you two choices for endings: [[spoiler: Choice one is to work with the main bad guy, in which case the game punishes you for compromising on your values, and Niko's cousin Roman is killed as a direct result. Choice two involves getting your revenge and killing the main bad guy, in which case Niko is punished for choosing revenge, when the one woman Niko might love, and his one chance at salvation (Kate Mcreary) is killed instead. While Niko gets revenge on the murderer either way, it's implied that he will NEVER find peace]].
* ''VideoGame/HaloReach''. You are DoomedByCanon. There are some survivors, but you will not succeed in defending Reach [[spoiler:though you'll pass the torch to Master Chief for him to save humanity in your place]].
* ''VideoGame/InazumaEleven'': A few matches are impossible to win, normally those at the start of the game. One particularly note worthy example comes in the third game though, where one of the matches three quarters of the way through the game requires you to lose as part of the story. The first official match you take part in also requires you to fail at first, and have the opponent team score several goals. Your states are so low, with no way to raise them before the match, that you've not no choice but to fail every single thing you try to (you can actually get a few successes, if you're really lucky, but scoring a goal is complete impossible). Of course considering there's no real warning of this, [[FissionMailed you may very well not realize this and assume you're just playing really badly]].
* ''VideoGame/Hitman2'' plays with this trope in its Miami mission for Sierra Knox. The game never lets Sierra win the Global Innovation Race by herself, and the only way to do so is for 47 to interfere with her gameplay loop in some way (killing Moses Lee, her direct competitor, or disqualifying Moses Lee).
* Present in the ending to ''VideoGame/KaneAndLynch'', where [[spoiler: the two possible endings to the game involve Kane abandoning his allies to save Jenny, proving in her eyes that he's every bad thing she thought he was, or Kane going back to save his allies and getting Jenny killed]]. The sequel hints that [[spoiler: either Lynch isn't too upset about the first ending, or that Jenny survived the second. It's not really clear which happened.]]
* ''VideoGame/KingdomComeDeliverance'': During the side quest "Playing with the Devil" in Uzhitz, Henry is asked by the priest to investigate the local herbalist, who is rumored to be inciting several local women to commit witchcraft. The truth is, it was actually the women who asked the herbalist to make them a magic ointment to let them speak with their dead relatives, a request she reluctantly fulfilled by making one with incredibly strong hallucinogenic results. When Henry confronts the alleged "witches" at their gathering, he ends up getting dosed on the psychedelic ointment and having vivid and nightmarish visions, including seeing the women turned into animals. Towards the end, the group are attacked by "devils" and Henry can either kill the "devils", kill the women, or flee and allow the demons to kill the women. When he awakens from his drug trip, he discovers the "devils" were actually a pair of bandits trying to rob them. In any case, his hands are soaked in the blood of another and a Reputation loss is incurred from both the priest and the herbalist no matter what. The only way to "win" this quest is not to complete it in the first place.
* ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' spends half of his time destroying Mavericks, and the other half trying to put a stop to the war. [[VideoGame/MegaManZero A hundred years later]], war is ''still'' in full swing. In fact, [[spoiler:the war only ended at the ''end'' of the ''Zero'' series, long ''after'' his "death"]]. There's a reason why fans think of him as TheWoobie...
* The first act of ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare''. After your failed attempt to capture Al-Asad, the city where most of your missions took place gets nuked and YouAreTooLate to escape it. And Price's attempt to snipe Zakhaev [[DoomedByCanon will inevitably be non-fatal.]] Attempting to capture Zakhaev's son for information will always end with him committing suicide when cornered.
* ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare2'' also pulls this multiple times. In "No Russian", your character will be shot at the end - and the Russians will blame the attack on the United States based on an American being amongst the terrorists. Attempting to rescue "Icepick" will fail as he will have died before you reach him. Finally, infiltrating Makarov's safehouse and copying all the information on his computer will result in [[spoiler: your entire team getting wiped out except for you and Ghost - who are promptly shot, covered with petrol, and set on fire by General Shepard, who was apparently supposed to extract you]].
* ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare3'': The level "Turbulence", set on the Russian President's airplane, does this twice. First, your character tries to escort President to an escape pod, only for "Mission Failed" to cross the screen as the plane crashes. You both survive, and you then have to find the President and get him to safety [[spoiler:leading to you opening a helicopter door and being promptly shot and killed by Makarov]]. Later, there is a flashback to [[spoiler: the No Russian mission, where you are a dissenting member of Makarov trying to stop the airport massacre. Unfortunately, you are too wounded to catch up to them, and your aim is set up to be off if you try to shoot them from afar]].
* ''VideoGame/MysticWarriors'' is an arcade game that supports up to four players, and has five different player characters to pick from. Once all the players pick who to play as, one of the remaining characters gets kidnapped and must be rescued. [[spoiler: They are rescued about halfway through, but shortly afterwards they sacrafice themselves to help the others escape a trap, meaning there is no way to save them. The rest of the game is spent avenging their death, and beating the game sees the player characters mourning the death of their fallen comrade.]]
* The first two Game Gear ''VideoGame/NazoPuyo'' games do not explicitly tell the player that they've failed a mission; after the player has used all of their alotted Puyo, the games will endlessly provide pairs that are completely irrelevant to the current puzzle. This changes in ''Arle no Roux'', where the player is given a hard limit on the number of pairs that they will receive for a given puzzle.
* ''VideoGame/NoOneLivesForever'''s Cate Archer suffers some failures early on no matter what the player does, including the assassination of a man the player spent a whole level protecting and [[spoiler:the death of her mentor, or so she thinks]]. It turns out [[spoiler:her missions are being sabotaged from within]].
* Creator/{{Activision}}'s ''VideoGame/{{Oink}}'' for the UsefulNotes/Atari2600 is a reversed BreakingOut game based on ''Literature/TheThreeLittlePigs'', where your goal is to see how long you can keep the Big Bad Wolf from eventually breaking through the wall and coming after your pigs.
* No matter what you do in ''VideoGame/OneChance'', there is no way to find the cure to save everyone on the planet, including [[spoiler:your co-workers and wife]]. You can still save yourself and your daughter in a few endings, though.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Patapon}}'', there is a mission called Despair, and in this mission there is a trick: at first you encounter some Zigoton towers with Yumitons, these towers take a lot of time to take down, if that wasn't enough, this mission always has wind against you, favouring the Yumitons and weakening your Yumipons. By the time you are done with the two towers, your troops will already be weakened, and then, you encounter a huge Zigoton gate full of traps that simply stop your Patapons from getting close to it; shall they do it, they will simply perish as the gate's mechanisms are too strong for them. You are supposed to lose this mission in order to continue the game, since here, the Patapon army canonically loses to the Zigotons for the fist time... normally (It is recommendable to bring the Tailwind Juju if found to aid your Yumipons and weaken the Yumitons, and easen the mission a fair bit).
** After you lose, a cutscene with Meden and a Scout Yaripon will take place, where the Scout tells Meden and the Almighty Patapon about a Zigoton catapult that Patapons can steal and take up to the Zigoton gate to destroy it. Although... you can actually take down the tower without the catapult in the fist try, you just have to be either very powerful or play the most strategic way possible, but that is unlikely for the moment you reach there unless you grind a lot for it; if you manage to take the gate down without the help of the catapult, you will receive the items you skipped from the other missions when stealing the catapult, and also Meden will point out your Mighty strength to take down the gate without the catapult.
* ''VideoGame/{{Penumbra}}: Black Plague'' features a scene where [[spoiler: you accidentally kill someone while hallucinating that they are a monster trying to kill you]]. You have to go through with it, refusing to do so gets you a GameOver.
* ''VideoGame/PonyIsland'': Most of the game's various options, regardless of the version Satan created, simply do not work. ''Even the text-based adventure has errors.''
* The only way to figure out how to get the true ending in ''VideoGame/{{POPGOES}}'' is by being killed by each animatronic.
* ''[[VideoGame/PunchOut Punch-Out!! Wii]]'' has certain challenges that are this. One thing you ''will'' need to do for HundredPercentCompletion is actually knock down [[WarmUpBoss Glass Joe]] twice, and then throw the fight and let him win by decision. Feels bad, man.
* ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}} 2'': All your efforts against the Chimera [[ShootTheShaggyDog are in vain]]. [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie Then they succeed at turning you into one of them.]]
* In both ''VideoGame/RivalSchools'' games, the Story Mode has one of the {{final boss}}es as mid-bosses (Raizo Imawano in ''RS: United by Fate'' and Kurow Kirishima in ''Project Justice'') with a lot of energy and power, leaving the player with DeathIsTheOnlyOption. The characters have to suffer the consequences of being defeated, which are already part of the main story (mostly one of your team been kidnapped by the bad guys).
* In ''[[VisualNovel/SavetheDatePaperDino Save the Date]]'', virtually every option you choose leads to [[spoiler: Felicia dying and the game restarting]]. The way you progress in the game is through a system of saving and reloading, and using acquired knowledge to prolong your playthrough.
* ''VideoGame/SheepDogNWolf'': On level 4, you get a magic flute. This flute allows you to hypnotize Sam the Sheepdog, lure him under a falling rock, and steal a sheep before he can react. On level 5, you also get a magic flute. However, when you try to use it on Sam again, you discover that Sam learned from the previous incident and got himself some earplugs. Cue you getting punched all the way back to the starting location. After that, Sam sets up some mines, and starts walking around as opposed to standing in a fixed spot. Even if you already know about this, you still have to do it to be able to advance through the level.
* In ''VideoGame/Sly3HonorAmongThieves'', you come across dialogue challenges where you need to pick the right answer to get the desired result. However several times you won't have any successful ones: you need to flush out all the failure options so that they get replaced with the one that ''will' work.
* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'':
** Doctor Eggman ''never'' succeeds at any of his plans in the long run, either due to Sonic getting in the way, or because whatever force he's using spirals out of his control, and whatever [[TeamRocketWins little victories he does earn now and then]] are short term at best. In ''VideoGame/SonicRivals'', Eggman Nega, depicted as his future descendant, reveals that Eggman will ''never'' succeed, and his failures completely ruin the Robotnik family name.
** Terminal Velocity Act 2 from ''VideoGame/SonicColors'' has Sonic trying to '''outrun a black hole''' [[spoiler: created by the FinalBoss]]. He does manage to last an impressive 30 seconds, though.
* ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'''s designer, Cakebread, described the game as such: "You will make a choice that does not matter. You will follow a story that has no end. You will play a game you cannot win." This is reflected in several ways in the game proper:
** [[DevelopersForesight As every "choice" you can make is pre-programmed]], ''The Stanley Parable'', and video games in general, can (at best) be regarded as an exploration of the alternatives the programmers were willing to grant you and, at worst, a waste of your time as you're still choosing to sit in front of a computer, pretending that you're making choices in a video game, instead of actually making ones that matter in real life. The game brings attention to this all in numerous ways.
** The story has endings -- lots of them, in fact -- but as every route ends with the game loading in a new start, ("The End is Never The End is Never The End",) most routes are affected by earlier attempts at getting through the game, and several routes even have fakeout beginnings, the concept of the game having an "end" is diluted to the point where it ceases to matter.
** Finally, there's no way to win. Every route either ends in Stanley's death, a darkly ironic turn of events, a jab of ExistentialHorror [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou aimed directly at the fourth wall]], or a combination of all three. There is no sense of sincere triumph, no non-ironic GoldenEnding, no meaningful progress and, even though (or maybe even ''because'') the basic premise of the game is whether you follow the instructions of The Narrator or not, there's ultimately no way to actually go OffTheRails.
* ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' has an apocalyptic mission in which you will eventually be overrun no matter what you do. In order to "win" the mission and advance the plot, you must kill a sufficient amount of enemies before this happens.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' featured Mario storming castles and fighting hordes of monsters, alone and with very little firepower, to save Princess Toadstool, only to [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle keep finding out that he's stormed the wrong castle]]. He gets there in the 8th and final castle.
* In ''VideoGame/SpiderManPS4'', there's a mission where the player briefly controls pre-Spider-Man Miles Morales who must sneak past a bunch of gun toting henchmen. If he's spotted, it's an instant failure, and the player has to try again from the start. Upon successfully completing the mission, a cutscene plays... where Miles is immediately spotted and apprehended by the same gun toting henchmen that the player just spent the last several minutes sneaking past.
* In the downloadable game ''VideoGame/{{Which}}'', the door to freedom opens [[spoiler: only for one. There are just you and a woman-like being with a ''knife'']]. A PyrrhicVictory is possible; [[spoiler: you can't save both of you, but if you give her a heart instead of a head she'll choose to kill herself so you can escape]].
* ''VideoGame/TheWolfAmongUs'' has a subplot where Mr. Toad can't afford glamour for himself or his son ([[FacePalm despite being able to buy a new sports car]]). Bigby can outright tell him ''not'' to go to the Farm and give him some money to pay for a glamour. Despite that, he is still sent to the Farm in the end - while DoomedByCanon overall.
* The main goal of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' is presumably to end the war between the Alliance and Horde. Whether one side wins or the two sides come to a peaceful conclusion and finally decide to stop killing each other is up to the individual person. However neither option seems all that obtainable. Any progress either side makes toward the former is washed away by StatusQuoIsGod, and the two sides will never reach peace as long as a good number of the faction leaders despise each other enough to want to kill each other more than anything else. Essentially the war has to continue or there won't really be a game anymore. However the massive amount of EnemyMine toward common enemies makes it look a little weird that the two sides would continue to kill each other despite how counterproductive it is, so the ConflictBall and IdiotBall are juggled around quite a bit to keep things going. There's a reason the name of the game has the word "war" in it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Yanderella}}'' has the protagonist trying to navigate a LoveTriangle with his two {{Yandere}} [[ChildhoodFriends best friends from childhood]], with tragic but predictable results. [[spoiler: When you choose a girl to commit to, the other girl snaps and murders both you and your chosen girlfriend in cold blood. The only way to avoid this is to openly avoid committing to either girl and keep things the way they always have been, meaning that the protagonist will likely never get to have any sort of life of his own, instead devoting his time to making sure his two friends don't murder anyone.]]
* Inverted with ''VideoGame/YouHaveToBurnTheRope''. Though the Grinning Colossus shoots projectiles which knock you back, there is no way to actually die.
* In ''[[VideoGame/ZettaiHeroProject ZHP: Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman]]'', your first attempt at defeating the last boss is met with failure. Hence you go and train in the game's dungeons to gain the power needed to contend with the boss again, only for you to get beaten again and require more training. It goes on like this for a good long while.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Shows that center around searching for proof of the supernatural, such as ''Series/GhostHunters'' and ''Finding Bigfoot'', is set up for failure by their very premise as not only would the shows conclude if they were ever successful but any legitimate evidence of the supernatural they found would likely be publicly reported long before any episode was edited and aired.
* ''Series/TwentyFour''. It gets tricky -- Goal: stop the threat ''immediately'' (i.e. in less than 24 hrs). You know that the threat won't, in fact, be stopped by episode 7. But this is {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in that, usually one threat ''is'' thwarted, but then the heroes are surprised with [[XanatosGambit back-up plans or secondary plots]]; thus the show's love affair with the trope. Conversely, in the final episode of the season, you know that no matter how well they've planned, the BigBad '''has''' to lose.
* Averted on ''Series/{{Alias}}'', when [=SD6=] is, surprisingly, defeated in the middle of the second season. They are, of course, replaced by a new series of goals, some of which are also resolved before the end of the series. Played straight with Sloane himself, though. At least as straight as it can be when a HeelFaceRevolvingDoor is involved.
* ''Series/AllThat'' had a running sketch of a gameshow, literally called "You Can't Win". Questions asked (if they're not skipped over entirely -- because who cares, they'll never get it right anyway) include such examples as "Who am I thinking of right now?" or simply "How many shoes?" The one time a contestant actually got a question right, the host [[BlatantLies claimed he couldn't hear him]] so it didn't count. There are also physical challenges, such as teaching a basset hound Spanish within ten seconds, or eating ''exactly'' 400 meatballs in 30 seconds (the contestant lost by eating the full amount given -- 40''4'' meatballs).
* ''Series/{{Angel}}'' has this theme in a more upbeat fashion. While Angel & Co. try to fight the Senior Partners (and evil in general), they come to realize throughout the series that they can never defeat their adversaries. However, the point is not whether they will win against evil, but that they will fight the good fight regardless, issuing quotes like "We're not running a race, we're doing a job" and "If nothing we do matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do". In the Series Finale, they engage in a mostly suicidal mission that won't defeat Wolfram & Hart, but will hopefully set them back a few decades.
* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' embodies this trope from the very first scene in the pilot to the last scene of the finale. It ends with the two characters who moved in with the family in the pilot to help them out basically saying,[[spoiler: "ScrewThisImOuttaHere" and running away to Mexico]].
* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' crosses this with ForegoneConclusion in the flashback scenes. Oliver can never actually succeed in getting home to his family (at least, not until five years after he's shipwrecked on the island). However, it's also revealed that not all the 5 years was on the island; [[spoiler:and he ''did'' spend some time in his home city in year 3, he just couldn't tell anyone or let them see him]].
* A twist on this trope is ''Series/TheATeam'', wherein one of the goals: to evade capture by government forces, was met continuously until the show was UnCanceled after four seasons with the fifth, in which they are captured and subsequently work for a covert federal agency headed by Robert Vaughn. (However, the underlying goal, clearing their name or at least getting a pardon, was never achieved.)
* The ''Series/BabylonFive'' sequel ''Series/{{Crusade}}'' was meant to feature a subversion, with the supposed plot hook of finding a cure for the Drakh plague that will kill all humans in five years resolved in just one season. Then the means of finding the cure would lead to more story arcs involving corruption of the Earth government and the manipulation of leftover Shadow technology that were what J. Michael Straczynski really wanted the show to be about; the plague story had been forced on him by executives who wanted the show's core premise to be able to be summed up in a few words. Unfortunately, it was cancelled long before this could happen.
* ''Series/BarRescue'' is built upon the premise that Jon Taffer and his various experts can turn a sinking bar around in a matter of days. However, there are some bars that are beyond help. The bad apples neglect the advice given to them, revert back to failing ways, reject a new name or theme or even both, lose ownership, succumb to bankruptcy, or outright quit. Sometimes, Jon will actually refuse to save a bar because the people are so toxic that it would look bad on his reputation. A large number of Yelp reviews reveal a ''huge'' number of flipped bars are either closed for good, torn down, or sold/repurposed. The coronavirus outbreak caused a major collapse in the hospitality sector of business; bars closed because people stopped coming in and bills keep swamping the establishments, forcing even high-end bars to say sayonara. Consequently, it gave Jon many more bars to save.
* In ''Series/BattlestarGalactica1978'', the goal was to find the mythical planet Earth. In the followup series ''Galactica 1980'', the Galactica did in fact find Earth. The resulting episodes were bad enough to guarantee that there would be no ''Galactica 1981''.
* In ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'', [[spoiler:they find Earth before the end of the series...only to find the planet in an post-apocalyptic state, presumably from nuclear war. Later, they get a DeusExMachina trip to another habitable planet that they also call Earth, mingle with the locals, and 150,000 years later we develop Roombas]]. This could be said to be an aversion, as current humans are much more savvy about the danger of building machines that could [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters turn against them]]. The earliest warning against this (the story of the golem) goes back several hundred years.
* ''Series/BetweenTheLions'' character CliffHanger. Goal: Rescue himself from hanging from the cliff. Invariably, some ContrivedCoincidence will return him to the perilous branch he hangs from. When the protagonist himself got tired of it, and [[TenMinuteRetirement abandoned his post]]; the lions [[LampshadeHanging pretty much said that there would be no more adventures to read about if he didn't end up back on the cliff at the end of each story.]] Naturally, he's convinced to resume his job for the benefit of the readers.
* Both 1960s/1970s TV [[TheWestern Westerns]] ''Series/TheBigValley'' and ''Series/{{Bonanza}}'' had the same thing happening: every time a male character on the show got serious with a woman or got married, she got killed off in some gruesome fashion or died of some horrible disease, or in childbirth, on the same episode. (Exception: Hoss' mother on ''Bonanza'' lasted ''two'' episodes.) In fact, the CartwrightCurse is named for ''Bonanza's'' Cartwright family. ''The Big Valley'' was a {{Dueling Work|s}} with ''Bonanza'', and basically the same but with [[SpearCounterpart a female lead and a daughter to better represent women.]]
* In the afterparty of the nineteenth season of the US version of ''Series/BigBrother'', Paul Raffi Abrahamian [[PlayedForLaughs pokes fun]] at how he came in second twice in a row the exact same way and is now going to shoot for second every season he comes back as a RunningGag that he just can't win.
* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'''s goals:
** Series 1 -- to become heir to the throne, or at least get noticed by his father. [[spoiler: He becomes King after murdering everyone in his way, then dies 30 seconds later]].
** Series 2 -- not as clear as other seasons, but apparently to marry Queenie and become the richest and most powerful man in England. [[spoiler: He always seems on the cusp of doing so but the Queen's short attention span means she's no longer interested in his achievements every time he comes back to her.]]
** Series 3 -- To get rich and improve his station. [[spoiler: He finally achieves this after Prince George is shot and Blackadder becomes the new Prince Regent thanks to the madness of King George.]]
** Series 4 -- the clearest example of this, Captain Blackadder's endless attempts to get out of the trenches before he dies. [[spoiler: He fails. Cue one of the most famous {{Tearjerker}} {{Downer Ending}}s in the history of, well, history.]]
* ''Series/BlakesSeven'' - The objective of Blake's Seven -- or at least of Blake himself -- was to destroy the Federation. Even with the most advanced ship in human hands, it's not very likely you're going to do that with a crew of seven. The first three seasons had several successes, but by season 4 [[spoiler:the Liberator was destroyed and]] every single thing they tried failed. The [[BolivianArmyEnding ending]] was inevitable.
* ''Series/TheBobNewhartShow'': Bob Hartley is a psychologist with a core group of dysfunctional regular patients; episodes may end with him making a minor breakthrough with them, but they never actually get better.
* ''Series/BurnNotice''. Every time Michael thinks he's found out who and what's ''really'' behind his Burn, he discovers it's only another layer of obfuscation. As of the end of season two he's decided to finally forget about finding out who burned him and move on with his life -- only for BigBad Gilroy to come waltzing into the picture. Michael is ''still'' looking into the mystery in Season 5. Even now that he's [[spoiler: back in the CIA]], he's still got loose plot threads to tie up.
* On ''Series/{{Castle}}'', any time Beckett comes close to finding her mother's killer, she fails. She [[spoiler: first shoots the trigger man to save Castle before finding out who hired him, finds the next killer in the chain only for him to escape custody and kill Montgomery, is shot by a sniper, and after finding him is later thrown off a roof by that same sniper]]. With the beginning of season 5 it is [[spoiler: finally averted when she finally finds the TheManBehindTheMan but she is still unable to prove it]]. When she thinks she might finally have a chance [[spoiler: it is yanked away when it turns out that the mastermind is innocent of the current crime and she saves his life instead]].
** Averted by the end of season six with the conclusion of that story line. Used in small scale with the season six finale episode dealing with getting the wedding. Beckett spends the entire episode tracking down and getting a husband she didn't know she had to sign annulment paperwork, which was complicated by his being kidnapped right in front of her. Interspersed through this are a series of dramas including the wedding venue burning down, a water pipe bursting in her apartment that ruined her dress, trying to relocate and coordinate the shuttling of all the guests within a few days, and [[spoiler: Castle getting run off the road and his car set on fire while on the way to the wedding from submitting the annulment paperwork]].
* ''Series/CharlieJade'' -- Goal: Get back to his home dimension. [[spoiler: Achieved, but soon he has to leave to stop the BigBad's plot, which as far as he knows requires a HeroicSacrifice. The series' last scene before cancellation reveals that he survived after all.]]
* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' -- Goal for the first two seasons: Get the [[OmniscientDatabase Intersect]] out of Chuck's head, and/or find out how to build another one so the government doesn't need to depend on a bumbling flighty geek. At least a quarter of the episodes of the first two seasons revolved around pursuing one of those goals, and failure was the only option for them. As of season three, the trope was finally averted and the show continues with a related premise.
* ''Series/ComeBackMrsNoah'': The format of the show meant that any attempt to return the Britannia Seven to Earth was doomed to fail. The series ended with the space station being sent spiralling even further into deep space.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' went through such periods when he'd have a companion or companions who didn't actually want to travel with him. This was actually the show's original premise with Ian and Barbara. Later, attempts to get Tegan back to Heathrow and her flight attendant job failed for quite a bit. When they finally dropped her off, it was found out in the next story she'd been fired and she willingly joined the crew.
* ''Series/{{Dollhouse}}''. Viewers may empathise with Ballard's ([[CowboyCop ineptly pursued]]) goal of bringing Dollhouse down and freeing the Actives, but if he were successful, the show would be over. He, Echo and the others ''do'' manage that. In the penultimate episode. Though [[BadFuture it turns out that doesn't totally fix things]]. They probably indirectly caused the bad things that would happen. If they had publicized both the technology and the vaccine people would have been ready, and no-one would have had a monopoly over the information, but instead they thought that blowing up a mainframe and covering up the rest was enough to foil the evil corporation's plans. Of course, that's what the BigBad ([[spoiler:Boyd]]) told them -- the genie is out of the bottle. They didn't believe him.
* ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' - Goal: Frame the Duke boys, foreclose on Jesse Duke's farm and send him and Daisy packing once Bo and Luke have been convicted on charges they are innocent of. To do so, you must come up with a fool-proof scheme to rob the bank, conduct black market sales or otherwise embezzle money from various businesses or sources and then somehow make it so that the Duke boys were engaged in the illegal activity. But when you're Boss Hogg, and overambitious in seemingly wild schemes to destroy your rival -- who, by the way, forced you out of illegal moonshine production by reporting the activities to the government (if only to avoid felony charges yourself) -- and have a bumbling stooge of a brother-in-law who seemingly got his law enforcement training off the back of a kiddie's cereal box and seemingly could not understand the simplest of instructions to save his life, viewers would soon come to know what happens next ... but it was sure fun watching Boss and Rosco play the part of Wile E. Coyote.
* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' - Crichton's obsession throughout the series is finding a way back to Earth--which would end his adventures and the series. [[spoiler: Subverted magnificently in the middle of fourth and last season, where Crichton manages to get back to Earth... only to realize that [[YouCantGoHomeAgain his experiences have changed his perspective so much that he really can't be happy there anymore,]] causing him to head back out for deep space. The entire situation is deconstructed to the Moon and back (rather literally).]] And, of course, this being ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', John Crichton [[LampshadeHanging lampshades this]], referring to various pop-culture pieces in the process.
* ''Series/FatherTed'' -- Goal for the priests (well, Ted at least): get sent to a parish not on the island. For Ted this would require him to replace the money that was "just resting in [his] account".
** Goal achieved by subversion in "The Passion of St. Tibulas" then inverted in order to maintain the {{status quo|IsGod}}. Charged with a task from Bishop Brennon, not only does Ted fail in the task he achieves the opposite effect. Thus the Bishop having had enough of them sends them to even worse parishes, where they won't be his problem. Inverted when they successfully blackmail the Bishop on his vows of celibacy.
** Also achieved in the first episode of the third season. Ted, possibly as a reward for his actions in the Christmas Special, is sent to a much nicer parish. But when his fellow priests notice some irregularities in the accounts, Ted is promptly sent back to Craggy Island ... where he discovers Mrs. Doyle bent almost double due to back trouble, Dougal's pet hamster riding around on a miniature bicycle, and Father Jack living in the chimney.
** The finale looks to be the eventual ending of this, with Ted being offered a place at a parish in Los Angeles by an American priest who was very impressed by Teds managing to talk a suicidal priest off a ledge. Subverted when he quits when the priest actually tells him it's a Parish in a gang warfare zone. Lampshaded by Dougal, when he says Ted is stuck with them forever.
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' played with it, as at least twice the crew pulled off heists that, if successful, would let them live their lives in a significantly less impoverished state while still on the run. However, we find in the next episode that, for one reason or another, they are unable to capitalize on the gains. Arguably, in ''Serenity'', it is the fact that the crew is actually able to pull off the heist at the beginning and ''then'' cash in on it in the next scene that makes all the forthcoming fighting-the-power action plausible.\\\
This is actually a long-running minor trope in ''Series/{{Firefly}}'', as mentioned by Mal Reynolds at least once: "It never goes smooth. Why does it never go smooth?" (In the ''Serenity RPG'', "Things don't go smooth" is actually a character trait you can take. Mal has the major version of it.)
* In the first episode of ''Series/ForThePeople'', the lead federal public defender tells her idealistic new proteges that "You are going to lose". Their opponent is the US Federal Government, who have unlimited money and power and win 95% of their cases. Indeed, almost every case ends with a conviction or, best case scenario, a plea deal for reduced prison time. Unusually for a CourtroomDrama, outright acquittals are very rare.
* Series/{{Frasier}} is just not meant to find love.
* ''Series/Formula1DriveToSurvive'': While given the documentary format this isn't actually true the show frames Willams' dismal situation in this manner, with their chief technical director Paddy Lowe being fired before the UsefulNotes/FormulaOne season even starts in 2019 and excluding the team's single point of 2019 from coverage.
* ''Series/TheFugitive'' - Goal: Get the one-armed man jailed to [[ClearMyName clear your name]]. Resolved in the GrandFinale.
* ''Series/GilligansIsland'' - Goal: Get off the island. The series was abruptly cancelled after Season Three, so they never did achieve this in the series. They did finally get rescued years later in a reunion movie, but in the ''second'' movie (when they met up again for a reunion trip in the first one after they were rescued, they got washed up right back on the same island; they were rescued for good in the second one) it turned out they hated life on the mainland so much that they ''returned''. At least this time, they were no longer stranded, and set the island up as a resort.
* ''Series/GoldRush'': Played straight to varying degrees in different seasons.
** During the first season, the guys frequently lament that they are in danger of going into foreclosure on their houses back home. Failure to find any gold means going home not just broke, but deeper in debt than when they started. Unfortunately, by the end of season one, they have failed to find more than a few ounces of gold valued in the tens of thousands of dollars. They need more than 100 ounces worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
** Season 2 saw the Hoffman crew kicked off their Porcupine Creek claim as well as recovering a relatively small amount of gold.
** Season 4 saw the Hoffman crew pretty much lose everything in the jungles of Guyana.
** Parker's first few seasons mining from his grandfather's Big Nugget mine were nothing but disappointment.
** Although they finally meet their 1000 and 2000 ounce goals by the end of season 5, after the "final" cleanouts, we learn that they need more gold to secure mining rights for the next season (Hoffman crew) or afford to buy a new claim (Parker Schnabel).
** For season 6, Tony Beets wanted to produce 900 ounces or 1 million dollars worth of gold with his decades-old resurrected dredge. He missed that goal by about 100 ounces. But his high efficiency methods gave him a 50 to 60% return on the digging efforts. (Vs 10 to 30% for stationary washplants.) Operating the dredge taught him and the crew how to do the job correctly and Tony plans on buying a second dredge during the 2016 mining season (season 7).
** Eight episodes into season 7 and Tony Beets's dredge has been sunk not just once, but twice.
*** The next episode, the inspector declares his top-heavy tugboat unseaworthy, requiring him to go out and find another means of pushing/towing/hauling his new dredge downriver.
*** 2 weeks later, the bucket ladder return pulley suffers a broken bearing, sidelining the entire machine.
** The Hoffman Crew found mining at the High Bar mine in Oregon's Blue Mountains to be much like their first two seasons and their South American season. The Buckland claim didn't help them fill their 5000 ounce wish list either.
** Near the end of season 7, Tony learned that while he does indeed own his second, larger dredge, he lacks the proper land use permits he needs in order to move the behemoth dredge (or its larger removed components) to the river.
** For season 8, everybody is having a hard time meeting their gold recovery goals.
* ''Series/GoodTimes'' - Goal: Get out of the projects. Resolved in the final episode by all (except Bookman). Michael moves into a dormitory. Thelma and Keith move into a duplex when his football career rebounds, only to have Florida move in with them. JJ gets his own place. Willona and Penny move to the same duplex.
* ''Series/TheGreatestAmericanHero'' - Goal: to gain complete control of the supersuit.
* ''Series/HogansHeroes'':
** Colonel Klink's actor Werner Klemperer only participated in the show under the condition that the Nazis would never, ever come out on top in anything. This being a comedy and Nazis being AcceptableTargets, it wasn't hard to pull off.
** In an in-universe semi-example, Klink ''thought'' this was true of Hogan and his eponymous heroes. Of course, they could have escaped any time; they just didn't want to because they were being so effective where they were.
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' - Goal: Meet wife and mother of children. Although, as opposed to most examples on this page, we ''know'' that [[ForegoneConclusion it will succeed]], thanks to the premise. It just that for exactly the same reason it can't happen until the final minutes of the show, so so long as the series goes on...
** Also goes with [[spoiler: Barney and Robin now that it's revealed they're getting married]]: Any other relationship one or the other is in is 100% guaranteed to fail.
* ''Series/TheIncredibleHulk1977'' - Goal: Find a cure to the Hulk transformation and a way to control the raging spirit that dwells within.
* ''Series/TheInvaders1967'' subjected both the hero and the villains to this trope. David Vincent was trying to prove the existence of [[AlienInvasion alien invaders]] [[TheyLookLikeUsNow disguised as humans]] on Earth; in turn, the aliens were trying to silence him. The series format depended on neither side being able to accomplish their goal. However, near the end of the series, Vincent met the Believers, a group of people who were already aware of the invaders, which changed the status quo since at least he now had dependable allies.
* ''Series/{{iZombie}}'' - Goal: Find a cure for zombiism. The working cures thus far have either been temporary or had nasty side effects.
* ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'': With very rare exceptions, just about anything any of the main cast tries doing is going to end up failing miserably. The prominent of these is Charlie's crush on the unnamed Waitress; no matter what he does she's never going to fall for him.
* ''Series/{{Jessie}}'': All of Jessie's attempts to make it big (trying to get a song recorded, auditioning for a part, trying to get a short story published, etc.) all end in disaster ''at best''.
** Her most successful attempt was when she got a role in ''[[Franchise/TombRaider Mayan Mayhem]]'' ... as a stuntwoman.
** She also auditioned for an In-Universe show called ''Worthington Manner''. She would have gotten the role if it wasn't for an injury she got (no thanks to Ravi).
** Averted in season 3 where she starred in an off Brodway musical and a kitchen utensil video.
* ''Series/KitchenNightmares'' is about famed chef Creator/GordonRamsay attempting to save troubled restaurants. However, there are too many to count that still crumble because the restaurant industry is savage and highly competitive, and dysfunctional people often doom the place because they have a very poor understanding of what goes into running an eatery or lack fundamental culinary skills.
* ''Series/KungFu1972'' - Goal: Find Kwai-Chang Caine's long lost half-brother. [[spoiler: Achieved in the four-part SeriesFinale.]]
* ''Series/LandOfTheGiants''. Their goal was to get out of the titular place. However, something inevitably went wrong every time there was a chance of doing that. [[TheMillstone Fitzhugh]] was no help.
* ''Series/{{Land of the Lost|1974}}'': Escape the Land Of The Lost. Creator/SidAndMartyKrofftProductions had quite a few of these, with ''Series/HRPufnstuf'', ''Series/{{Lidsville}}'', ''Doctor Shrinker'', ''Series/FarOutSpaceNuts'', and ''Series/TheLostSaucer''.
* ''Lazarus Churchyard'' - Goal: [[WhoWantsToLiveForever Die]]
* ''Series/LazyTown''. It makes sense that Robbie Rotten's schemes ''always'' fail. If they succeeded, there would be no more show.
* ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}'' - Goal: Return to 2006. [[spoiler: Achieved in the last episode, only to have the main character realize it was not what he wanted after all.]]\\
\\
Subverted in the [[Series/LifeOnMars2008 American version]] [[spoiler: when it's revealed that Sam isn't a cop from 2008 after all but an astronaut in 2035 caught up in a glitched virtual reality program]].
** This trope also applies to spin-off ''Series/AshesToAshes2008'', with Alex's main goal always being to get back to 2008 and make it to her daughter's birthday party.[[spoiler: This appeared to have been achieved at the end of series 2, only for episode 1 of series 3 to reveal it was just a DreamWithinADream. And unlike Sam Alex never even got a choice - the final episode revealed she never could have gotten back as she was DeadAllAlong!]]
* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': With the premise of "people stranded on a deserted Island", it was pretty obvious to viewers that any attempts to get off said Island were doomed to fail. It was then famously subverted when some characters left the Island and their goal became to get back there. [[spoiler:And then totally inverted in the final season: the goal of the main characters becomes to stop the BigBad from leaving the Island - something they have attempted themselves for so long early in the series.]] The other goal is to figure out what the hell is going on. Characters and the viewers alike were fated to fail here.
* ''Series/LostInSpace'' - Goal: Find [[strike:Earth]] Alpha Centauri.
* Klinger of ''Series/{{MASH}}'' fame attempting to get out of the army by [[ObfuscatingInsanity acting crazy]] (getting a Section 8). This was of the every episode variety, at least until later seasons. After Radar leaves, Klinger takes over the job of company clerk and quits the routine, except for a couple of occasions. Later, he has a bad dream where he ''does'' arrive in Toledo, but then looks back at the scenery and sees the 4077th operating room and himself as the patient, heavily implying that he will carry a guilty conscience if he ever calls it quits on everyone and runs away from the war. After this experience, Klinger abandons all schemes of bucking for a Section 8 forever.
** Inverted in the finale, when the war is officially over and everyone is being discharged. Klinger elects to stay in Korea to help his new wife find her missing family.
--> '''Klinger:''' I can't believe I'm saying this. I'm staying in Korea.
--> '''Hawkeye:''' You don't have to act crazy now. We're all getting out.
** Also, Winchester trying to get out of the 4077th. Shown less often than Klinger's, he mostly tried to throw his weight around to get transferred back to Tokyo.
* ''Series/{{Monk}}'' - Goal: discover the truth surrounding Trudy's death (achieved in series finale). There's also Monk's [=OCD=], which isn't exactly a problem that the characters actively attempt to solve, but it ''is'' an essential part of the series' premise. Monk is occasionally cured of this ailment, but it is always undone by means of the ResetButton because he doesn't have his crime-solving abilities without it (not to mention because StatusQuoIsGod).
* ''Series/TheMonkees'': Goal: get big break and reach success as a rock and roll band. Often when it seems as though they've finally found their chance at stardom, something always ends up getting in the way, causing chaos, and numerous {{epic fail}}s.
* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' (especially the later seasons) - Goal: Escape the Satellite of Love and return to Earth. Achieved in the final episode.\\
\\
Also achieved by Joel in the middle of the 5th season (''Mitchell''), though ironically he had grown content with his life aboard the Satellite and was tricked into leaving by Gypsy because she thought the Mads were going to kill him. Later, Crow got Mike off the Satellite retroactively using TimeTravel to convince him to stop temping. He returned to learn that he died pursuing his dream of being a rock star and his {{Jerkass}} older brother was launched into space in his stead, so he went back and undid the change.
* Baking show ''Series/NailedIt'' revolves around terrible bakers having to recreate professionally decorated cakes in intentionally way too short of a time period. It goes about as well as can be expected, to hilarious effect.
* ''Series/NorthernExposure'': Joel Fleischman's CharacterDevelopment from being a stereotypical neurotic New Yorker to embracing the folksy wisdom of the inhabitants of Cicely, Alaska was the point of the show. They dragged this premise out for about five seasons until Joel's actor left the show, the character found enlightenment, and the show imploded on itself.
* ''Series/OnlyFoolsAndHorses''. Goal: make a fortune ("[[CatchPhrase This time next year, we'll be millionaires!]]"). Heartwarmingly achieved in the [[GrandFinale finale]] (with something that's been lying in their garage for years), then [[CanonDiscontinuity undone]] for a ChristmasSpecial some years later, only to be slightly fixed by a dead relative's will.
* ''Series/OurMissBrooks'' - Miss Brooks can't get Mr. Boynton to propose marriage . . . that is until the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale grand finale]] where, with the help of Mrs. Davis, she succeeds in marrying Mr. Boynton and living [[HappilyEverAfter happily ever after]].
* ''Series/PeepShow'' is built on this trope, because it's a CrapsackWorld and StatusQuoIsGod. Likewise, Armstrong and Bain's sitcom ''Series/TheOldGuys''.
* ''Series/PhilOfTheFuture'' - The time machine being fixed so the Diffys can return to the future. Slightly subverted in that Lloyd [[spoiler:purposefully procrastinated/sabotaged the systems because the family enjoyed the 21st century so much. He really could've just fixed it at any time]].
* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' lampshades this in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxfxamMgWZI a comedic scene]] in ''Film/TurboAPowerRangersMovie''. When the new villain Divatox asks the more experienced Rita Repulsa for advice in how to deal with the Power Rangers, Rita and Zedd seem to have given up their battle against the rangers entirely. Rita even sarcastically advises Divatox to just run from the Rangers, knowing full well that when the Power Rangers get into the picture, this trope comes to play.
* ''Series/PrisonBreak'''s first season was ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, but also had an overarching conspiracy for the characters to get to the bottom of. The actual prison break was obviously unachievable until near the end of the season, but the conspiracy dogged the characters for another three seasons.
* ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'' - Goal: Escape from the Village. Achieved at the series end. Or is it? Also, [=McGoohan's=] repeated return to the village is, arguably, one of the themes of the series.
** A far more straight example, the bad guys have the goal "find out why Number 6 quit being a spy." Since teasing that answer out would also end the show, they are also doomed to failure at every turn.
* ''Series/QuantumLeap'' - Goal: Stop leaping and go home. In a twist, the series ended with Sam realizing he could go home if he wanted, but he chose to continue leaping. Of course, that's because no one has bothered to remind him that he has a wife back home [[spoiler:and he can't remember.]]
* ''Series/RedDwarf'' - Goal: Get back to Earth, and several smaller themes such as Rimmer wanting a real body, the Cat wanting a mate, and Holly wanting his/her intelligence restored.
** In the later seasons, many of the smaller themes have actually been achieved in some way - albeit happening in sometimes almost literal DealWithTheDevil way of going horribly, horribly wrong. Rimmer, for example, got a body [[spoiler: by getting a HardLight drive for his holographic body, after which he left to become the next Ace Rimmer; later, in Series VIII, a new version of him was reincarnated in human form with no memories of his death or his time as a hologram]]. Holly was done similarly, with [[spoiler: a completely different Holly being restored alongside the crew in Series VIII, with his IQ back to the original 6000]]. Most of the minor goals searched for were technically achieved, just not the way we thought. Except the Cat, but that's more of a problem with a script being scrapped in Series VII.
** Lister's desire to get back to Earth is so unachievable (its going to take at least 3 million years to get back to Earth) that the second episode ''Future Echos'' shows a 170-something Lister still on Red Dwarf.
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'':
** The "It's Pat" sketches -- Goal: To find out [[AmbiguousGender whether Pat is a man or a woman.]] Interestingly, for this example, it's a bigger consequence if the audience finds out as opposed to the characters, since with the exception of Chris (who knows Pat's gender and whose gender is equally ambiguous), there are no recurring characters in these segments. One sketch was even interrupted with a fake NBC News Special Report just to preserve the mystery.
** "Celebrity Series/{{Jeopardy}}" -- Goal: Make the game easy enough for the celebrities to win.
--->''[shows picture of Batman]''\\
'''Trebek:''' Is this Batman or Robin? Chris Tucker.\\
'''Chris Tucker:''' Yo I know this, man. That's Robin!\\
'''Trebek:''' No. So since it's not Robin, that leaves only one correct answer. Anne Heche.\\
'''Anne Heche:''' ''Who'' is Robin?\\
'''Trebek:''' Amazing. Sean Connery.\\
'''Sean Connery:''' What is Robin?
* ''Series/SirArthurConanDoylesTheLostWorld'' - Goal: find a way out of the Plateau. But the series would end if the explorers ever did. So, predictably, any lead they discovered to a way out never panned out as they hoped.
* ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' - Goal: 'Slide' back to our dimension. This goal was actually achieved at the start of the fourth season. There was also a much earlier instance where they were implied to get back to their own dimension... but did not realize it, and moved on to the next one.
* ''Series/{{Space 1999}}'': Goal: Find a planet to settle down on.
* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' - Goal: Secure enough [=ZPMs=] to fully power Atlantis. In the first season, there were concerns in the {{fandom}} that Failure Would Be The Only Option for the expedition's attempts to contact Earth, thus turning it into the ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'' equivalent of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', but these fears turned out to be unfounded. They do in fact end up getting three [=ZPMs=] after the Asurans temporarily take over and leave a set behind. However, SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs - in the Franchise/StargateVerse, people who are not main characters also need [=ZPMs=], so Atlantis only gets to keep one anyway.\\
\\
In the last episode Todd supplies two [=ZPMs=] stolen from Asuras before it went kaboom. [[spoiler: Though Earth was saved from invasion, it is very unlikely that the IOA will let Atlantis take off for Pegasus since with it floating conveniently in the Bay of San Francisco, they can mine the tech without danger from the Wraith.]]
* ''Series/StargateUniverse'' - In episode 7, there's a plan to get everybody back home. It's not much of a spoiler to point out that this is not a seven-episode series. (A couple of episodes earlier, everybody's worried that the ship may be destroyed outright. Well, everybody but the audience, anyway.)
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' - Goal: find a way home. [[spoiler:They finally do it in the last episode, thanks to a time travel paradox.]] A while in the writers realized some of the backdraws of this trope, and began to allow ''partial'' successes; they can't get all the way home, but they ''can'' use whatever the technology of the week is to cross some substantial amount of space in a matter of minutes, shaving years off the journey. In a few cases, it's even set up in advance that the expectation is for said technology to get them X years closer to home rather than getting all the way there, so achieving that number ''is'' an unequivocal success even if their ultimate goal is still incomplete. (Having them succeed was also considered as an option for {{Retool}}ing the show, but this never came to fruition.)
* Subverted ''painfully'' in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''. The show starts off with the boys searching for their dad and what killed their mom and after some close calls, it looks like failure will only ever be their only option. Then they succeed by the ends of seasons 1 and 2. Of course [[spoiler: their father dies and gets sent to Hell shortly after being reunited with them]] and [[spoiler: the demon that killed their mom was a MagnificentBastard who ended up winning anyway due to a BatmanGambit centred on Sam]]. After that things [[FromBadToWorse get much worse]].
** Season 3's goal: Save Dean from his DealWithTheDevil. [[spoiler: Dean goes to Hell anyway. Though he [[BackFromTheDead did get better]].]]
** Season 4's goals: Prevent Lucifer from rising and kill Lilith. [[spoiler:Sam succeeds in killing Lilith, only for it to turn out that [[NiceJobBreakingItHero doing this broke the final seal, resulting in Lucifer being released anyway]].]]
** Season 5's goal: For the boys to stop the apocalypse ''without'' saying "yes" to Michael and Lucifer, and hence preventing pushing the entire world beyond the GodzillaThreshold, which would happen if the angels made it their battlefield. [[spoiler: Sam says yes to Lucifer in order to trap both him, Lucifer and Michael (along with Adam) in the Pit, and the world ''still'' gets worked over by Lucifer in the upcoming months, and then worked over by Mother in season 6]]. And that's ignoring all the psychological torment and torture both Sam and Dean went through in that period of time. Let's just say, you [[DownerEnding don't get many happy endings]] in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''. If you do, there ''will'' [[BittersweetEnding be a catch.]]
* In ''Series/TeenWolf'', if a werewolf kills the Alpha that bit him he can either be cured or take a KlingonPromotion. Knowing this Derek kills Alpha Peter Hale while Scott begs him to stop.
* In ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'', the characters can try to keep casualties to a minimum (it doesn't work) and/or delay Judgment Day as long as possible, but "winning" much of anything would end the series.
* ''This Morning with Richard not Judy'' - In the weekly Nostrodamus routine the terms for success get two out of three predictions correct. So, the trope was played usually by having one obvious prediction and two laughable to think that they'd come true, thus always failing. One week, a laughable prediction was "A member of Boyzone will come out as being homosexual." Shock -- horror, within a week a member of Boyzone came out! This would have been a simple aversion, had it not been for the predictable prediction being a LampshadeHanging: "Nostrodamus will fail to get two of his predictions correct." Consequently causing a Played Straight/Aversion feedback loop.
* Like ''Lost in Space'' and ''Land of the Giants'', ''Series/TheTimeTunnel'' was an Creator/IrwinAllen series in which the protagonists were lost and trying to return home. In this case, two scientists were bounced back and forth through history by the titular TimeMachine, while their colleagues tried to retrieve them. As with the other series, ''Time Tunnel'' was canceled before the heroes could accomplish their goal.
* The ''Series/TrailerParkBoys'' are always coming up with various illegal schemes to make enough money to retire from crime. Most of their schemes fail for one reason or another, and the Boys quickly blow through the money they make for the schemes that actually succeed. This is subverted by the end of the seventh season, where the Boys make over $450,000 in a scheme that involves shipping marijuana to the United States and getting contraband cigarettes in exchange, which they sell at cut-rate prices in Canada.
** Which they end up losing later, proving that this trope always takes precedence in this show. If that wasn't bad enough, virtually ''everyone'' ends up going to jail due to a well-crafted [[ThePlan plan]] by Mr. Lahey. The GrandFinale movie was more of the same.
* The 3rd season of ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'' focuses on the main characters war with the Original Vampires, the source of every other Vampire in the show. Just when they had completed their ultimate weapon to defeat all of them, it's revealed that the death of an Original means the death of every Vampire connected to that Original's Sire line. The cast lose the war once they learn this, because far too many of their friends (and the series 3 leads) are Vampires and the show would have to do some serious recasting and concept altering if they wanted to have a Season 4.
* ''Series/TheWire'' is a perfect example of this. In a show with cops, drug dealers, politicians, union workers, and school students barely anyone really wins in the end. "The game is rigged, but you cannot lose if you do not play." Practically every major character on the show experiences this:
** Detective [=McNulty=]'s goal is to stop Marlo Stanfield by fabricating a series of murders to "juke the stats" and divert police resources to the Major Crimes Unit. While he does arrest Marlo and his crew, the victory is hollow: the fabricated murders are discovered, leading [=McNulty=], Rhonda Pearlman and Commissioner Daniels to all fall on their swords. Marlo ends up getting off scot-free (with caveats), the reporter who covered the fake serial killer story (whom the Detective chewed out) wins a Pulitzer Prize for his stories, and [=McNulty=] realizes in the end that he can't change the system.
** The kids introduced in the fourth season (and, by extension, the entire Baltimore school system). Roland Prezbylewski realizes that nothing he does can curb the school system's trend of cutting corners and mismanaging internal resources, even though he tries to give the kids a better education. Most of the main students end up becoming "hard" to the Baltimore street life and take up the roles of past main characters (Dukie becomes a drug user like Bubbles, Michael becomes a stick-up artist like Omar, and Randy becomes a thug in a group home).
* ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'' slowly moves away from this, with the goal of making the radio station truly successful after being dead last in the city. Their ratings do improve, but hardly to the degree that the lead character, program manager Andy Travis, is trying to reach. It was revealed in one episode that the station's original dead-last performance was in fact deliberate on the part of the owner, Carlson's mother, who had been using the cash-hemorrhaging station as a tax write-off.
* ''Series/{{Wonder Woman|1975}}'': The goal of the first season was to defeat the Nazis and win World War II, but to actually do so would end the series. Fortunately, it was picked up by CBS and moved to TheSeventies for season 2.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'' - Goal: Find the truth behind the conspiracy. Achieved by the last couple seasons of the series, opening the door to the far more insurmountable... Goal: Stop the conspiracy.
* ''Series/ZNation'' - Goal: Get the one guy with a zombie cure in his blood to a working laboratory so someone can synthesize a vaccine and the rest of humanity can be saved from the ZombieApocalypse. Naturally the group transporting the guy keeps running into problems that delay them and send them off by several states from wherever the lab is.
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* The first two ''[[VideoGame/PuyoPuyo Nazo Puyo]]'' games do not explicitly tell the player that they've failed a mission; after the player has used all of their alotted Puyo, the games will endlessly provide pairs that are completely irrelevant to the current puzzle. This changes in ''Arle no Roux'', where the player is given a hard limit on the number of pairs that they will receive for a given puzzle.

*** It's notable that in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', Mount Arreat is now known as Arreat ''Crater''. That's right, Tyreal had to ''destroy an entire mountain'' in order to stop the corruption of the Worldstone. Clearly a PhyrricVictory, and a temporary one at best.

*** It's notable that in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', Mount Arreat is now known as Arreat ''Crater''. That's right, Tyreal had to ''destroy an entire mountain'' in order to stop the corruption of the Worldstone. Clearly a Phyrric victory, and a temporary one at best.

* In ''VideoGame/SpiderManPS4'', there's a mission where the player briefly controls pre-Spider-Man Miles Morales who has to sneak past a bunch of gun toting henchmen. If he's spotted, it's an instant failure, and the player has to try again from the start. Upon successfully completing the mission, a cutscene plays... where Miles is immediately spotted and apprehended by the same gun toting henchmen that the player just spent the last several minutes sneaking past.

*** It's notable that in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', Mount Arreat is now known as Arreat ''Crater''. That's right, Tyreal had to ''destroy an entire mountain'' in order to stop the corruption of the Worldstone, which could only be called a Phyrric victory, and a temporary one at best.

*** It's notable that in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', Mount Arreat is now known as Arreat ''Crater''. That's right, Tyreal had to ''destroy an entire mountain'' in order to stop the corruption of the Worldstone, which could only be called a a phyrric victory, and a temporary one at best.

*** It's notable that in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', Mount Arreat is now known as Arreat ''Crater''. That's right, Tyreal had to ''destroy an entire mountain'' in order to stop the corruption of the Worldstone, and even then, the victory was temporary at best since Diablo returns anyway.

* In ''VideoGame/SpiderManPS4'', there's a mission where the player briefly controls pre-Spider-Man Miles Morales who has to sneak past a bunch of gun toting henchmen. If he's spotted, it's an instant failure, and the player has to try again from the start. Upon successfully completing the mission, a cutscene plays... where Miles is immediately spotted by the same gun toting henchmen that the player just spent the last several minutes sneaking past.