History Main / PyrrhicVillainy

[[folder:AnimeandManga]]

* ''{{TotalDramaWorldTour}}'' Courtney finds out Gwen and her boyfriend Duncan kissed and vows revenge. She gets support from most of her team and eventually Gwen is voted off. However Gwen and Duncan remain a couple, while Courtney loses support from her team, fails in getting Duncan voted off, and gets voted off herself instead, and most of all, [[LoveMartyr blindly falls for Alejandro who is just using her]] and he loses anyway. So in the end, Courtney ends up with nothing and noone.

* ''{{TotalDramaWorldTour}}'' Courtney finds out Gwen and her boyfriend Duncan kissed and vows revenge. She gets support from most of her team and eventually Gwen is voted off. However Gwen and Duncan remain a couple, while Courtney loses support from her team, fails in getting Duncan voted off, and gets voted off herself instead, and most of all [[LoveMartyr blindly falls for Alejandro who is just using her.]] and loses anyway. So in the end Courtney ends up with nothing and noone.

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* Harry [=McDowell=] in the anime version of the game franchise ''{{Gungrave}}'' first just wanted enough power to live his life freely and protect the people important to him. With time he succeeds in rising to the top of [[TheSyndicate Millennion]] and making it more powerful than the law itself, but only by losing sight of his original goals and betraying almost everyone he cares about. He's driven to kill both Brandon, his best friend whom he relied on in all his life (leading to some spectacular [[VillainousBreakdown]]s), the fatherly prior head of the organization and his wife, Brandon's sweetheart. Twenty years later, though, he's finally able to face Brandon and come to terms with his life.

* Harry [=McDowell=] in the anime version of the game franchise ''{{Gungrave}}'' first just wanted enough power to live his life freely and protect the people important to him. With time he succeeds in rising to the top of [[TheSyndicate Millennion]] and making it more powerful than the law itself, but only by losing sight of his original goals and betraying almost everyone he cares about. He's driven to kill both Brandon, his best friend whom he relied on in all his life (leading to a spectacular VillainousBreakdown), the fatherly prior head of the organization and his wife, Brandon's sweetheart. Twenty years later, though, he's finally able to face Brandon and come to terms with his life.

* Harry [=McDowell=] in the anime version of the game franchise ''{{Gungrave}}'' first just wanted enough power to live his life freely and protect the people important to him. With time he succeeds in rising to the top of [[TheSyndicate Millennion]] and making it more powerful than the law itself, but only by betraying almost everyone he cares about, and is driven to kill both Brandon, his best friend whom he relied on in all his life (leading to a spectacular VillainousBreakdown), and the fatherly prior head of the organization and his wife, Brandon's sweetheart. Twenty years later, though, he's finally able to face Brandon and come to terms with his life.

* Harry [=McDowell=] in the anime version of the game franchise ''{{Gungrave}}'' first just wanted power to live his life freely and protect the people important to him. With time he succeeds in rising to the top of [[TheSyndicate Millennion]] and making it more powerful than the law itself, but only by betraying almost everyone he cares about, and is driven to near-insanity by the memory of killing both his childhood best friend and the fatherly prior head of the organization.

* Harry [=McDowell=] in the anime version of the game franchise ''{{Gungrave}}'' succeeds in rising to the top of [[TheSyndicate Millennion]] and making it more powerful than the law itself, but only by betraying almost everyone he cares about, and is driven to near-insanity by the memory of killing both his childhood best friend and the fatherly prior head of the organization.

* Harry [=McDowell=] in ''{{Gungrave}}'', which pays more than a little homage to the ''Godfather'' series, succeeds in rising to the top of [[TheSyndicate Millennion]] and making it more powerful than the law itself, but only by betraying almost everyone he cares about, and is driven to near-insanity by the memory of killing both his childhood best friend and the fatherly prior head of the organization.
** This is mainly present in the anime series, as in the game's continuity he shows no remorse for killing Brandon/Grave (Harry in the game's storyline is depicted as little more than a complete prick). Either way he still wanted Mika, the innocent daughter of Grave's former love interest dead. [[spoiler:Harry even had Big Daddy used as a guinea pig and mutated him into an acid flame-spewing monstrosity, just to ''see what kind of effects Necro-Rise/S.E.E.D. would have on him'' and has no qualms about siccing Big Daddy on Grave as the FinalBoss of the game.]]

* In ''{{Wakfu}}'', Nox has spent 200 years of research, plotting, and ''genocide'' in order to gather the energy needed to travel back in time and stop his family from being destroyed partially due to his own negligence. In the end, he manages to defeat the heroes, drain the Tree of Life (killing the Saddidas in the process), and uses the all the energy gained over this time period to travel back in time... a whole ''twenty minutes''.

* DrHorrible'sSingAlongBlog The movie ends with Dr Horrible joining the League (and definitely a more elite section of it, perhaps the head or something, judging from the number of people at the party versus in the room he enters which also has Bad Horse in it) but completely dead inside after Penny's horrific death.

** Which is the victory he always wanted. To defeat everyone who opposed him and to get away from everyone who bored or angered him (which was everyone). He was even expecting his own adopted son to betray him and welcomed it as it reinforced his belief that nobody else on earth was worth caring about or had anything to offer him.

* Heroic example: In the ''LooneyTunes'' short ''Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century'', Daffy Duck clashes with Marvin the Martian over Planet X. The battle between the two all but destroys the planet, so when he triumphantly claims it at the end, all that is left is a clump of dirt just big enough to stand on.
-->'''Duck Dodgers:''' I told you this planet wasn't big enough for the two of us, so... ''[shoves Marvin off]'' off you go!

*** Xerxes ended up steamrolling over what was left of Sparta, as it turns out- without the Gates and the immense tactical advantage they offered, Sparta got overwhelmed by sheer numbers (being outnumbered a thousand to one, in an era of bows and swords, can do that). He only lost when he tried to take Greece by sea and met the [[{{Understatement}} considerable force]] of the Greek Navy.
**** There wasn't a Greek Navy. There were a tenuous collection of ships from various city-states, some of which were of comparatively great naval strength, but not compared to the might of the massive Persian Empire, which was shown at Artemisium The Greek alliance won because Themistokles had tricked Xerxes, telling him the Greeks would try to flee in the night, and so the Persian forces spent the night before the battle patrolling the routes out of Salamis, leaving them tired, and Xerxes angry at being tricked. This also had the effect of forcing the Greeks not to actually flee, as many had wanted to. When the attack came, the overwhelming numbers of the Persian fleet worked against them, as they were unable to maneouvoure effectively between the mainland and the island of Salamis, with damaged ships trying to escape crashing into fresh ships coming to the battle. In addition, a third of the Persian fleet were keeping watch on the other side of the island to stop the Greeks escaping that way. Lastly despite the defeat of the naval forces and departure of Xerxes himself, the Persian land forces were still massive, and were not driven from Greece until rather later.
**** And it wasn't Sparta. Athens was destroyed and Attica ravaged, but Xerxes was never able to cross the Isthus of Corinth to reach Sparta and the Peloponnese

** V's DealWithTheDevil could also count. [[spoiler:He/She literally harnessed the powers of evil, but ultimately accomplished nothing.]]
*** Not necessarily. In a moment of frustration at being "distracted" from his next move, [[spoiler: he off-handedly teleports the entire Azure navy to a new home. When bemoaning to Durkon that he had used the power he had sought for so long in such a brutish manner, Durkon points out that at least he actually accomplished ''something'', even if it wasn't what he planned on.]]