History Main / TragicMistake

* ''Franchise/StarWars Episode III: Film/RevengeOfTheSith''. Anakin Skywalker had made many mistakes prior to this point (including his vengeful massacre of the Sandpeople, down to the last child), but what pushed him irrevocably over to the Dark Side was his decision to save Emperor Palpatine, leading directly to Mace Windu's death and leaving him no chance to go back to being a Jedi.
** Another point of no return for Anakin was when he impulsively (and unnecessarily) refuses to see Padmé Amidala, his wife, trying to talk him down, and Obi-Wan Kenobi stowing away on her ship, [[WithUsOrAgainstUs as anything but an attack on him]]. This results in him Force-choking his wife and dueling with his former Jedi Master, ending with him having his three remaining limbs chopped off and getting burned very badly by the lava. The old Anakin might have been able to find a way to save his wife from dying in childbirth, but after waking up in the black suit, he realizes that his own fear and anger ended up killing her.
** The Jedi as a whole had this when they made the decision to fight in the Clone Wars without hesitation. As the novelization says explicitly, the Clone Wars themselves were the ultimate Jedi Trap as it put the Jedi in the perfect position for their trusted clones to turn on them.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'''s characters tend to fall victim to the inevitable hubris of their {{Tragic Flaw}}s, but a couple of them can pin their failure to definitive points of no return. Eddard turning down the help of Renly and Littlefinger and warning Cersei that he knew her secret, expecting her to flee to safety, resulted in [[spoiler:her killing the king and installing her son, who has him executed for treason]]. Robb's decision to marry Jeyne Westerling [[spoiler:sets off the events leading to the Red Wedding]]. Theon Greyjoy's choice to hold Winterfell kicks off what is arguably the series' most tragic character arc. Arguably, leaving Winterfell in the first place is Catelyn Stark's tragic mistake, because everything that she does after leaving merely makes things worse for her family, and all of her attempts to make up for it just make things snowball until [[spoiler: her husband and sons have all lost their heads (to her knowledge), her daughters are both missing, and most of her friends are dead or in chains.]]

** Arguably, one of the most tragic -- because it is clearly depicted as a mistake -- involves Clara Oswald in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven "Face the Raven"]]. [[spoiler:Clara has a death sentence intended for a friend transferred to her in the mistaken belief that the episode's antagonist, Ashildr, would never harm her. She's wrong and ends up killed as a result (later episodes play the TimeyWimeyBall on this last point, but the end result remains unchanged).]]

* ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'': Though it's arguable that Sweeney Todd's hesitation in his first attempt to kill Judge Turpin, a la Hamlet, was the point of no return for him, his ''real'' point of no return was [[spoiler:when he killed the Beggar Woman, who he did not know was actually his wife, because he had no time left before the Judge showed up for the second and last time]].

* In ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'', V siding with [[spoiler:[[MegaCorp Arasaka]]]] and choosing to [[spoiler:live out the rest of their life after being terminally diagnosed leads them to the realization that the betrayal they did to try and save themselves was [[AllForNothing for nothing]]. Johnny is gone but he (and Jackie) continues to haunt V's conscience and V's other friends are distant towards them, meaning that the rest of their short life is likely going to be lonely and full of nightmares... culminating by them breaking the [[TragicKeepsake bullet necklace]] in despair. Chose poorly, indeed. This variant of "The Devil" ending is arguably the worst ending a player can get next to "The Reaper".]]

* In ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'', Arthur being perfectly willing to kill Garth to save his son in ''ComicBook/DeathOfAPrince'', then charging ahead with his revenge quest, ended up nearly costing him his friendship with Aqualad ''and'' may have ensured his son's death by not being there for Mera when she went alone to save him. Mera subsequently blames him for their child's death, and Arthur can't really refute it. The decision and fallout changed the tone of the stories completely and had ramifications for decades as Aquaman dealt with grief and loss, his marriage fell apart and continued to have ups and downs as Mera blamed him for the child's death, Aqualad's relationship with Arthur was strained for a period, and Black Manta became cemented as his arch-nemesis for killing his son.