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Nice Job Breaking It Hero
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The hero has accomplished their goal; they've killed the Big Bad, or defeated them forever, or at least scored a major blow against the antagonist. They've done what they set out to do...
... but Not So Fast Bucko! It turns out that by the very act of success, they've unwittingly made things worse. Maybe the now-dead antagonist was actually holding back an even greater evil. Maybe the villain, having been defeated or damaged, is now transformed into a new, ultimate, unstoppable, invincible, angry form, generally against the villain's will (or against their expectations, anyway). Maybe the villain, despite their villainy, was serving some other greater good — keeping the world/universe/nature/whatever politically or literally balanced — and their demise throws things into chaos. Maybe that princess you saved is a cold-hearted tyrant at the head of an oppressive regime. Perhaps taking down the villain has resulted in an Evil Power Vacuum, and now even worse guys are fighting to fill the void that the previous villain left, without a single regard for who else gets hurt. Or perhaps the only means of foiling the villain involves questionably massive "collateral damage." For whatever reason, the hero's victory over death and destruction directly or indirectly leads to an even greater wave of death and destruction, or at least an even greater threat of such. Oh dear.
Maybe the villain themselves will warn the hero about the possible consequences, as a last-ditch attempt to save their own skin, or as a bitter "parting shot" to ruin the hero's victory. ("You fools... do you even know what you've done?") Villains being villains, this may just be a bluff. Or maybe the villain will just lament over how the hero defeated them despite all their efforts - it wasn't some Xanatos Gambit sort of plan of theirs for the hero to "win" and thus make things worse. (If it was, that'd be My Death Is Just The Beginning.)
If the mission was a rescue, it was an Unwanted Rescue, and the former captive may bitterly inform them of the true facts.
In most cases, of course, the hero's new mission is to stop the new danger they've unleashed, preferably in a way that doesn't spawn ever greater menaces. "Darker" plotlines may end the story right there, instead, and it's always possible the villain's demise inadvertently resulted in the irreversible destruction or horrifying mutation of the world. I hate it when that happens. If used excessively, this trope often leaves an audience with a sense that the hero shouldn't have tried to change things for the better and indeed shouldn't have even left home, which can be a Family Unfriendly Aesop, but also a more literal moral about getting seriously involved in things without learning much about them.
This trope can be annoying in video games as often-times Stupidity Is The Only Option, particularly in the case of a MacGuffin Delivery Service... It is not particularly fair to try to make the player feel guilty about a course of action they they had no control over, and indeed, might've gotten a "Game Over" if they attempted to not fulfill the objectives in question.
The term " Pyrrhic Victory" has the same connotation and originated from the Pyrrhic War fought by King Pyrrhus in 279 BC, which makes " Nice Job Breaking It Hero" Older Than Feudalism. The tropes overlap, but Pyrrhic Victory is when someone succeeds at their goal but with a very high price, while Nice Job Breaking It Hero includes actions that might not be necessary or even intentional. In addition, this trope sometimes results in no victory at all, not even a Pyrrhic one.
Compare Xanatos Sucker, Resuscitate The Dog, Nice Job Fixing It Villain. (But note that villains are also subject to this trope — they can do something careless that screws them over or helps out a worse villain.)
Hitlers Time Travel Exemption Act is a Sub Trope of this. May overlap with Self Fulfilling Prophecy. No Endor Holocaust is what happens when this is ineptly averted. And if the hero dies following the reveal and is unable to stop the new menace, you've just read a Shoot The Shaggy Dog story. Spoilers, of course.
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Examples
Anime and Manga
- In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the first part of the story is about the struggle for humans to return to the surface by killing the evil overlord keeping them underground... Sadly, the evil overlord was protecting the humans from something worse. Ooops.
- Turns out that the "Something worse" is actually oppressing and destroying sentient races across the universe because if they become too advanced, they could cause existence itself to collapse.
- Some have theorized the opening takes this even farther, and actually shows an alternate ending right before existence does end.
- And Rossiu, in an attempt to figure out how close "something worse" is to happening, evacuates humans from their underground cities even when they don't want to leave— not-quite-unwittingly bringing disaster closer with every person living on the surface.
- Magic Knight Rayearth. Save the princess, kill her kidnapper, Save Both Worlds, right? Uh... not when he was RESCUING the princess from a life as a Barrier Maiden that can't even think for herself, and, because she knew she was stuck in that role and her happiness and self-fulfillment could kill the whole kingdom, she sent the Magic Knights as unknowing Laser Guided Tykebombs to kill HER, not him. After the resulting psychological trauma of The Reveal and being forced to kill the both of them, that leaves the place without a Barrier Maiden, and guess who has to choose between letting the kingdom suffer and dooming one person to a life of misery? No wonder Hikaru decides to Make A Better World instead.
- That isn't even all of it. The Dragon of the second season is actually the consequence of the events of the first season; Nova is the personification of Hikaru's grief over the fact that they had to kill Emeraude. In effect, Hikaru almost ends up killing the man she loves along with thousands of innocents and destroying the world in the process. Nice Job Breaking It, Heroines.
- Arguably, this is also the result of the entire world falling into despair because they've relied on Emeraude for so long that they can't imagine life without her. Which coallesces like Nova into Debonair, an immensely god-like power formed from their collective fear, anxiety, and despair. Debonair is, in turn, the one who manipulates Nova into being her Dragon, as well as brutally screwing up her perception of reality, thus causing all the deaths and pain of the second season. Nice job breaking it, Cephiro.
- In Dragon Ball Z, Mr. Satan/Hercule nobly attempts to fight Tyke Bomb Majin Buu in spite of being outmatched eleventy billion times over by the monster. Through all Hercule's attempts at tricking the childish villain, he unexpectedly befriends Buu, and ends up convincing him to stop killing. The threat to Earth is all but defused, until a pair of hunters Shoot The Dog — literally, a stray puppy Buu had adopted — and trigger Buu's transformation from friendly horror to sadistic demigod. While the hunters are obviously more to blame, had Hercule never gotten involved, Buu would eventually have been defeated by the combined forces of Gohan and Gotenks.
- Wait... Mr. Satan basically saves the day until two guys Shoot The Dog, and you blame Mr. Satan? Man, that's some fierce Fridge Logic.
- Mr. Satan himself gets shot trying to beat up the dog-shooters. It's Satan's near-death that takes Buu over the edge... so maybe it is because Satan is, well, basically living in his own fantasy world inside his head.
- You would predict Buu's evil side manifesting into being? Honestly, if I could convince somebody who didn't know better to stop killing, I would. The later damage may have been quite bothersome, but the Dragon Balls fixed it all up. In the end, the heroes more than stopped the reign of destruction thanks to Mr. Satan.
- No, the MASTER OF THIS TROPE will forever be Prince Vegeta. He is, obviously, behind the Saiyan Saga, as Raditz was his soldier to give permission to go to Earth and it was his plan get the Dragonballs and wish for immortality. Then, Frieza found out, through him, about the Namekian Dragonballs, spawning the Namek Saga. After that he insists on allowing Cell to power up to his strongest level, thus pushing the Android and Cell Sagas way beyond where the heroes COULD have stopped things. Well, when all that gets Goku killed anyway, years later, Vegeta decides that marrying the richest woman in the world and being the strongest being on Earth isn't fun anymore and volunteers to be possessed by an evil wizard looking to steal energy to feed his father's pet, Majin Buu. The only way Vegeta could have been more responsible for every disaster that happened in Dragonball Z was if he held a Ki Blast to a villain's head and ordered him to "kill Kakarotto". WTF?!...
- Vegeta may be considered a master of this trope but DBZ in general has this in spades. As much as I love the series even I need to shake my head at times. Several characters either directly or indirectly wind up causing even more damage when another course of action could have avoided needless deaths and problems. Goku being.....well Goku has done this many times himself and is a close second to Vegeta. This is mainly due to the fact that he tends to want to forgive everyone or have a fair fight. Prime examples are:
- Pleading with Krillin to not kill Vegeta in the Saiyan Saga. His death alone could have avoided many if not all of the examples above.
- Not killing Frieza outright at the end of Namek. This one is argueable so follow me on this. It's very much possible that the extra energy he gave to Frieza is what allowed Frieza to live even after his failed last ditch effort to kill Goku (let's face it.....how many times did Frieza start losing the fight to either transform again or survive what should have killed anyone else?) Granted in the main timeline we have Mirai Trunks kill him when he comes to Earth. In the Mirai timeline itself it's heavily suggested that Goku would have shown up in the nick of time thanks to his Instant Transmission. However if Goku didn't know that skill and if Trunks didn't show up then what kind of damage would Frieza have possibly caused?
- Related to the issue of the Androids we have an awesome suggestion from Bulma. Three years is a ton of time to find Dr. Gero and stop him from even creating the Androids. What was Goku's reaction? "But he hasn't done anything wrong yet!" (The real kicker, of course, being that Dr. Gero was a member of the Red Ribbon Army and therefore has already done quite a lot very wrong things. And Goku should damn well know it!)
- Well, Goku is the forgiving type of hero, if you hadn't noticed. Keep in mind that given that sixteen years prior he killed a lot of Red Ribbon Army personnel, hunting down for one of the last ones would make him no better than Gero, in a sense. Still, he literally paid for this with his life.
- After start of the Gohan/Cell fight we see our hero ask Krillin for a Senzu Bean. Naturally, he assumes that it's for Goku but is horrifed when he GIVES IT TO CELL! After all Cell was also tired following the battle with Goku so it wouldn't have been fair. This one gets even better. Not to be outdone by his father we see Gohan get in on the act too. Upon becoming Super Saiyan 2 for the first time we see Goku plead with him to finish it. Gohan looks at him and says it's too soon to end it and that he's going to let Cell suffer. Lovable, kind hearted Gohan of all people. These two acts obviously lead to Goku's death when Cell tries to destroy the Earth. Obviously Goku would have lived if Gohan just ended it then. However despite being unlikely it's possible that Gohan could have potentially beaten the weakened Cell in his base Super Saiyan form had he not been given the Senzu Bean. This in turn may have allowed Android 16 to live but YMMV on if that's good or bad since he was designed with the sole purpose of killing Goku.
- Goku even does some Lampshade Hanging on the matter. In his speech at the end of the Cell Saga he talks about how his original mission as a child was to destroy Earth for the Saiyans. Goku then proceeds to say that the last few Big Bads were after him in paticular (Piccolo prior to his Heel Face Turn, Radditz, Frieza after Namek, Dr. Gero/the Androids). As a result he's actually been SUCCEEDING indirectly in destroying Earth! It's for this reason that he understandably tells the Z Fighters to not bring him back to life this time.
- Not that staying dead helped, mind you. Prior to the Buu Saga we see Goku is granted one day among the living to fight in the Tenkaichi Budokai. This in itself wasn't bad but when you factor in Babidi it gets worse. Upon seeing his battle with Yarkon it's at this point that Vegeta finally understands that no matter what he does he'll never be able to beat Goku in battle or catch up to him in terms of power. It's at this point he hatches his plan to become Majin. Maybe Goku should have just stayed home and chilled with King Kai and Bubbles...then again he'd somehow find a way to screw that up as well.
- And let's not forget when he had the chance to destroy Majin Buu in the first ever appearance of Super Saiyan 3, when the damage Buu had caused was still relatively minor compared to what he would go on to do later, and instead of actually doing so, he opted to just fight with him for a while and then leave. Why? Because he wanted Gotenks to do it instead.
- Arguably, Piccolo can get called out on this as well. Despite literally killing two birds with one stone (or rather a "Devil Beam Ray"), he would have satisfied with the idea of killing both Raditz and Goku. However, instead of ignoring Raditz when he's mocking Goku with his dying breath, or at least deliver a cryptic response, Piccolo finds the need to gloat about the Dragon Balls and how Goku's friends would likely bring him back. Turns out that Raditz's scouter is also a communication device, which caught the attention of two more Saiyans, who came to Earth demanding them. That battle also gained the attention of Freeza through his scouter, who after listening to Vegeta's conversation, and attacked Namek for their Dragon Balls, leading to a series of battles which ended in Namek's destruction. Incidentally, Namek is Piccolo's home planet. Yeah. You know you done F***K'D UP, Piccolo!
- Arguably, even Krillin of all people can be called out on this one. During the Cell Saga, Krillin is standing about 10 feet from Android 18 (16 is also in the vicinity) with the remote that Bulma made in order to deactivate her so that Big Bad Cell can't absorb her into his being. He goes through a whirl of emotions and argues with himself about whether or not he should actually press the buttons (based on a kiss she gave him earlier, mind you.) His final decision? He decides to crush the remote, and tells #18 that she should get out of there while she still has the chance. Great Job Krillin, especially since Cell found you and #18 directly afterward.
- Occurs on a spectacular scale in Neon Genesis Evangelion. While Gendo and SEELE propagate the general purpose and technically true cover story that their mission is to prevent the Angels from initiating Third Impact (which would kill the entire human race), the reason for killing the Angels is in actuality so that they don't interfere in the Human Instrumentality Project, which is a fancy name for SEELE-controlled Third Impact.
- While Gendo has been preparing his own Instrumentality plan for years under the noses of his superiors, one that is arguably a little better than "genocide and hope for the best," Shinji accidentally triggers their original plan at the eleventh hour. Things get better. I guess.
- Played straight in Rebuild 2.0: Oh Shinji, in the short span of 90 minutes you've managed to make yourself likeable again, have reached out to other people, grown a bit of a spine, and even got to kick a gargantuan amount of ass... Too bad saving the girl results in Third Impact, trapping you and her in your "Giant Robot" while your bishounen counterpart descends from the moon to lance you in the chest!
- In Pokémon Special, one of the first things Yellow does is breaking up an attempt by an apparently resurfacing Team Rocket to hijack the ship S.S. Anne. Said hijacking was part of a plan by a reformed Lt. Surge to lure out the Elite Four with a rumor about finding the one they were looking for.
- Digimon Adventure Myotismon leaves the fog that he created behind after he is killed, after which Joe hangs a lampshade on this trope. Venomyotismon shows up just hours later.
- Frequently implied to occur whenever the Dirty Pair are on the job, but one OVA episode spells it out plainly. The Angels are investigating the mysterious deaths of several hundred mining employees on a planet run as a religious colony; they find that the religion's leadership has evolved into a murdering cult that, with the help of a ring of weather satellites, is capable of calling down Sodom-and-Gomorrah-style devastation down in a specific location. After they destroy the cult's station in orbit, they assume correctly that the cult's reign of terror is ended. Unfortunately, the space station was also the control for the weather satellites, and the weather satellites weren't just used for destructive purposes; the Angels look down from orbit and see about nineteen hurricanes beginning to form, with no weather-control system left to prevent them....
- The whole story of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's. "Let's save our mistress by filling this Book of Darkness!" Well, it's not really their fault anyway, but nevertheless they made quite a mess.
- Princess Tutu. In order to prevent Mytho from destroying his own emotion of love, Fakir cuts the mythical sword capable of doing so in half. It also ensured that his heart could not be shattered again. Now how could this possibly be a bad thing? Well, the piece of Mytho's heart that held love was recently bathed in raven's blood, thus corrupting it — and now it's corrupting Mytho. The only way to get the thing out? Shattering his heart by using the very sword that Fakir destroyed. Whoopsie...
- This type of thing happens a lot in Princess Tutu. Mostly because the characters are living in a tragedy and Drosselmeyer gets his kicks from making a person's good intentions be catalysts for the demise of those they're trying to help. The main character frequently makes everything worse courtesy of her humble attempts to help Mytho.
- Code Geass: In the first season, facing obliteration, Lelouch/Zero geasses Suzaku to "Live!" One year later... Lelouch orders his best pilot Kallen in her new Super Robot to kill Suzaku, which results in the Geass activating, forcing Suzaku to turn to his only remaining weapon: an anti-matter nuke. Nice job nuking Tokyo, anti-hero.
- And don't forget when Lelouch make a joke: "Let's kill all the Japanese". And you had Mind Control power. Nice job making your sister a mass murderer.
- Suzaku himself is a walking catalog of this trope, trying to be the hero but screwing things up due to his own masochism and that he's playing for the wrong team.
- In Jigoku Shojo Mitsuganae, Mikage is able to sense when someone nearby may soon be a client of Enma Ai. In one episode, she stops one such person and urges her not to use the Hotline to Hell... which she had never heard of until then. Smooth.
- In the Season 2 finale of Yu-Gi-Oh GX, Kenzan tries to stop a brainwashed minion from firing the Earth Shattering Kaboom by smashing the laptop computer that controls the satellite cannon. As soon as he does this, he learns the missile was just fired, and he's just destroyed the only means of stopping it!
- In Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, Sakura leaves one of her memory-feathers behind in Acid Tokyo to keep the reservoir pure and the inhabitants alive. While this act ultimately apparently results in her birth, the aging of the feather also allows the Big Bad to win when he returns it to her body in the "several hundred years later" dimension.
- Also, Syaoran. If only he could turn back time, everything would be okay and he could save her, right? WRONG.
- This is clearly becoming a theme, since it turns out that the entire frickin' plot was set into motion by Clow's wish that Yuuko wouldn't die, though he didn't intend for it to turn out quite that way and the Big Bad just happened to be listening.
- In Gundam Wing, the Gundam pilots decide to attack Federation meeting, in hope to obliterate Federation leaders and ending their threat toward colony. Only that meeting is about getting to peace talk with the colonist. Yeah, nice job. VERY nice job putting OZ and Romefeller into leadership, you idiots.
- To their defense, they went to that meeting to destroy only OZ, but Treize put every pacifist on a plane with OZ's name, using that to trick the Gundam pilots into killing them and allowing OZ to take over the world, all that while making the Gundams legitimate enemies.
- Haha guess this is "Nice Job Breaking It, Heero." Sorry just couldn't resist.
- The entire plot of Inu Yasha is based on this. Kagome kills a demon that stole the Shikon Jewel and in the process shatters the afore mentioned Mac Guffin. This kicks off an incredibly drawn-out plot where the main characters have to fix the jewel and fight evil demons who want its power for themselves. Nice job breaking it, Miko.
- Doki Doki Densetsu Mahoujin Guru Guru has the characters discover Kukuri's birthplace where items for her use had been left behind. The bad news is the items had been collected by monsters called Gimu Gimu. Good news is they're tame and don't object to people taking back what's theirs. Unfortunately, they also don't object to people taking items and selling them, which is exactly what Nike, Kukuri, and Toma did prior to reaching the ruins. To make it worse, a necklace meant specifically for Kukuri was lost when Toma earlier used the item it was kept in as an impromptu rocket launcher. Poor Kukuri simply snaps at this point and regresses to a four-year old for a few moments. For the record, they did find the necklace soon after.
- Manga example from Basara: when Momonoi is killed and the Red King retakes his city, Tatara and his rebel army plan on using the leftovers of Momonoi's gunpowder to blow up the water supply of the palace, making the Red King suffer. Too bad it results in the whole city having no water left and the citizens, formerly happy to be freed from their king turn against the rebels. A desert city cut off from water, good way to get their support hero.
- In the Berserk manga, Skull Knight manages to slash Femto from behind at the very moment of his apparent ascension, using his dimension-crossing sword to teleport and get the drop on him. Unfortunately, Femto then redirects his strike towards the vortex of demonic power they are both standing on, and uses its dimension-bending to bring the unholy nature of that place closer to earth, thus bypassing the walls between Seen and Unseen by folding time and space, resulting in the energies of the Unseen manifesting physically on Earth. You've brought about Hell On Earth, Skull Knight. Whoops. Guess that's what you get for bringing in sci-fi conventions into a Medieval Fantasy world!
- An earlier Berserk example: when the King of Midland has Griffith jailed and tortured for deflowering his daughter Princess Charlotte, Griffith accuses him of being attracted to her, since she looks just like his dead wife. Now, if those desires did exist, they were only subconscious — the king would probably never have realized they were there. But Griffith's accusation makes him dwell on his daughter to the point of madness, and in one horrible moment he forces himself on her. She stops him and he regains his senses, but the damage is done. Charlotte is traumatized; the king sinks into despair and insanity; and the Band of the Hawk, now the king's only targets for revenge, are hunted for years by Midland's army and worse. Good one, Griff.
- Gundam00 gives us a Nice Job Breaking It Villain. Near the end of Season 1, the Big Bad's assassination of the hibernating Iolia Shenberg triggers a Dead Man Switch which unlocks the Gundams' Super Mode. With this advantage, the good guys have a fighting chance in what had previously been an all but impossible battle. Thus, in the first season finale, They manage to kill the Big Bad and fight the remainder of his forces to a bloody stalemate.
- Celestial Being had an unintentional variant of this. Their plan in Season One involved getting the whole world to quit shooting each other, and unite them towards a common enemy (them). Unfortunately, this works far too well as this results in the creation of the A-LAWS.
- In a way similar to the Magic Knight Rayearth example above, the entire first half of Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne was this. Maron/Jeanne is helping out God by sealing demons to keep Satan at bay and her boyfriend/arch enemy Chiaki/Sinbad is an agent of the devil, right? Bzzt, wrong! It is revealed that Maron's angel sidekick Finn Fish is actually working for the devil and had been lying to Maron the whole time, and Maron was actually helping the devil and Chiaki God, not the other way around. So Maron had actually been helping the devil that whole time, making him stronger than ever.
- The sum result of the Hueco Mundo arc in Bleach. Orihime left to save her friends, who went after her to save her, who were followed by half of the remaining captains (who, despite at least two of them having their own agendas, did save everyone's favorite group of idiots) and their subordinates... only to find out that that was Aizen's Xanatos Gambit all along when re-kidnaps the Distressed Damsel, closes the Gargantua's that the shinigami had used to get to HM (effectively trapping them all), and merrily skips off to have his way with Karakura Town. And let's not forget how not only did Aizen only find out about Orihime's powers because she tried to help her friends, but that Urahara knew he might go after her and tried to stop her from fighting afterwards (in a way that even he admitted was a mistake), only for Rukia to rebuild her confidence and take her away for training, which ends up leading her to be fantastically exposed when Ulquiorra stops her while she was trying to return to the human world to fight alongside of her friends. Give yourselves a pat on the back, heroes. You really earned it.
- Of course, the Big Bad of Bleach was previously established as a World-Champion Grandmaster of Xanatos Speed Chess, so something like this was probably inevitable...
- Most recently, the villain of a filler arc, Muramasa, lures Ichigo into his hideout and to where Yamamoto seems to be held prisoner, then goads him into using a full-power Getsuga Tensho on him. The result? Muramasa redirects the attack into the barrier surrounding Yamamoto, breaking it. Seems Yamamoto wasn't so much a prisoner as he was trying to seal himself off from Muramasa, who promptly steals the power of Yamamoto's Game Breaker-level zanpakuto as soon as the barrier falls. WHOOPS.
- In the original Mobile Suit Gundam, part of the events from before the show starts involves The Federation diverting a Colony Drop from hitting their incredibly well armoured fortress in the middle of the mostly uninhabited Amazon rain forest. The problem is, a piece of it hit the very much inhabited Sydney Australia. Oops. To be fair, the chances of it hitting not only a continent, but a major city at that, rather then splashing down in the ocean, are probably pretty slim.
- In Kinnikuman, all the choujin were celebrating Kinnikuman's victory in the Choujin Olympics. At one point, they toss him so high into the air he goes flying into outer space and bumps into a satellite. As it turned out, that satellite was a prison for the Devil Choujin and that bump hit the release button.
- The Patlabor TV series features a pretty epic one, with a simple Honor Before Reason decision in an early throwaway episode snowballing into an increasingly deadly story arc that would dominate the later half of the show. Captain Nagumo is opposed to using the prototype Patlabor SRX-70 Saturn created by Schaft Enterprises because she knows they're going to use the motion data from the police's skirmishes to develop military mechs. All well & good, but because Nagumo threw the Saturn away, Corrupt Corporate Executive Utsumi decided to get the Patlabors' data another way, namely smuggling pre-production military Labors into Tokyo & causing havoc in the streets to draw the Patlabors out.
- Seems to be happening in Mahou Sensei Negima. All of Ala Alba went to the Magical World, including the unbeknownst-to-them-Princess Asuna. Asuna is then kidnapped by Fate and the Cosmo Entelexia remnant, who do... something very ominous relating to her Anti Magic powers. It hasn't completely panned out yet, but the going theory is that by bringing the Princess to where the bad guys can get her, they directly caused the revival of the Big Bad. Good going.
- Negi also seems to have majorly screwed up his parents plans. It seems that they stuck him in Wales so that he could live out his life in safety, hidden from the Megalomesembrian Senate , and save for one isolated incident, it worked fairly well. Until he blew it by diving right back to all of the crap that everybody was trying to protect him from. Nice job.
- In the Ark arc of D.Gray-Man, Wide Eyed Idealist Allen Walker is facing off against Tyki Mikk. During the fight, Tyki accidentally pushes him into a Shonen Upgrade, and his Empathic Weapon turns into a really big sword that can't damage humans- only Akuma and Noah. Tyki had been relying on Allen's reluctance to kill another human, so he was a bit surprised when Allen stabbed him right through the chest in an attempt to remove the Noah from him. It seems to have worked for a while... but then it turns out that all Allen managed was to wake it up, and Tyki goes Body Horror One Winged Angel. Woops.
- He makes a very similar (and also understandable) mistake later: While fighting a Level 4 Akuma, in order to trap it, he deliberately makes himself a target, then summons his sword from across the room, impaling both the Level 4 and himself. This would have worked fine if it wasn't for the little snag that he's the host for the Fourteenth Noah. Even the Akuma looked terrified out of its mind before he managed to surpress it. This is why this series has its own High Octane Nightmare Fuel subpage.
- In Gundam Seed Destiny, one might say this trope occurs throughout the series with the Freedom and Archangel interfering with the war. But at the Second Battle of Onogoro, Kira preventing Shinn from continuing his attack on Orb allowed Djibril to escape, thus letting him fire Requiem and destroying a lot of the PLANTs. Shinn in SEED mode most likely would have stopped Djibril before getting on the shuttle or soon after he launched. Kira and the Archangel would have lost Orb, but considering the only Orb forces they had at the final battle were the ones they had before Onogoro....So yeah.
- In Deadman Wonderland, Ganta stops the Deadmen from wiping out the Forgeries because one of his friends was among them. In doing so, he inadvertently incapacitates all of the prison's strongest Deadmen leaving the Forgeries free to start picking them off one by one. As a result, Ganta is completely alienated by his friends.
Comics
- Happens all the time in Hellblazer; it's a fact of the protagonist's life that he never has any permanent, unequivocal victories.
- Done on a universal scale by Reed Richards. Reed learned some time ago that Galactus' existence, however problematic, is necessary to the universe. He tried to get around the problem by turning Galactus into a star. In mainstream continuity, this still ends up releasing Abraxas. In Earth X, it frees up the Celestials to overrun the universe (because what Galactus was really eating was their young, which gestate in planetary cores — then hatch).
- In Jenny Sparks: The Secret History of The Authority, we find out that a thirteen-years-old Jenny Sparks convinced a friend in Vienna that he was wasting his life making paintings that didn't sell and suggested that he'd find another profession.
Jenny Sparks: There must be something you can do. You're patriotic, well-read and an excellent communicator. Have you ever considered a career in local government? Do I even have to say it?: Politics? Actually, that might no be such a bad idea.
- This happens at the very beginning of the French comic book series Les Légendaires. The Five Man Band confronts the Big Bad and foils the plot that should grant him eternal youth... but in doing so, they shatter the magic stone he was using, which results in a supernatural discharge that turns not only the heroes but all the adults on the planet into children. (As well as the denizens of the near-by Elfin World parallel dimension.) Unfortunately for the protagonists as they struggle to correct their mistake, their responsibility in this mess is common knowledge. Needless to say, they aren't very much welcome anywhere after that.
- In an early Avengers issue, the team has come to a military base to locate the Cosmic Cube, an all-powerful wish-granting machine. They find Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner trashing the place for unrelated reasons. During the fight, Hercules tells Namor they'll never let him get the Cosmic Cube. Namor promptly escapes, leaving Hank Pym fuming — he's guessed (correctly) that Namor had never heard of the thing until Herc told him. Naturally, Subby finds the Cube and comes back to mop the floor with them.
- In the latest Blackest Night arc, Hal Jordan managed to get all seven Lantern Corps to work together to fight against the Black Lanterns. Ultimately, they all fire their rings at the Black Central Power Battery, in order to destroy it. Unfortunately, they weren't destroying the Battery, but feeding it. Flush with energy, Nekron (lord of the Black Lanterns) was able to turn every superhero that had died and resurrected into Black Lanterns. This includes Wonder Woman, Superman, and Green Arrow.
- In the Booster Gold series, when he goes back in time to save his friend Blue Beetle. He succeeds, but since Ted Kord's death is the nudge that brought the other heroes into action barely on time for the events of Infinite Crisis, his salvation results in the heroes failing to act on time, leaving the world in ruins and under domination.
- Almost and sort of happened in the Rock of Ages storyline in JLA. As Superman and the other mainstringers of the JLA go after Lex Luthor, who has acquired the Philosopher's Stone and formed his own Injustice Gang, it is revealed to Green Lantern, Flash and Aquaman that the JLA will eventually defeat Luthor and the Gang, and Superman will destroy the powerful Stone which will somehow cause Darkseid to conquer the Earth. They even get a first hand experience of that Dark (pun not intended) future. This future is averted when they get back barely in time to give Martian Manhunter a warning for him to stop Superman from destroying the Philosopher's Stone.
- Sleepwalker has just about defeated the Ax Crazy Psyko and halted his rampage across New York. It's then that he sees a man who's possessed by a demon and uses his warp beams on the man to expel the demon, which provokes a watching Spectra to attack him. While Sleepwalker defends himself from Spectra, Psyko seizes the opportunity to escape and continue running amuck through New York. Fortunately, Spectra later fixes her mistake when she helps Sleepwalker bring Psyko to justice once and for all.
- This is the premise that kicks off I Hunt Monsters when Willam Warlock inherits a graveyard that acts as a Sealed Evil In A Can to powerful monsters his ancestors trapped there. However because no one told Will about this beforehand, when it comes time to recharge the oblisek keeping the monster dormant. He refuses to believe what going on and declines to help. Say the least, he regerts that decsion a moment later when the monsters free themselves and go to wreak havoc across the world.
Films
- At the end of The Ring, we find out that not only has the creepy girl from the well not been defeated, she's actually been released to reign terror upon the rest of the world. Plus she never sleeps, so it's not like we'll be getting a daily eight hour break from the reign of terror. Nice job, hero.
- In the American/Japanese scifi flick Green Slime, the space station becomes infested with monsters made of the titular stuff because a visiting [[Jerkass]]/[[The Kirk}} had smashed on the ground an unauthorized sample of mold taken from an asteroid. He'd done this within a huddle of other astronauts, so naturally a fragment of the container (complete with a blop of slime) gets cuaght in one of the astronauts' pant-leg, and it naturally feeds on the radiation during the decontamination process.
- At the end of Hellboy, the titular Anti Anti Christ kills the villain Rasputin... only for a very huge and scary tentacle monster to pop out of his dead body.
- During the climax of Dogma, the fallen angel Bartleby needs to become human so he can take advantage of plenary indulgence
 in order to return to Heaven. Thus proving God wrong and thereby unmaking all of creation. To do so, he needs to remove his wings... which is promptly done for him with a machine gun by a particularly clueless hero who was trying to kill him.
- In the Star Wars prequels, the Republic winning the Clone War was a Xanatos Gambit made of a series of Nice Job Breaking It Heroes that no one even realized were such. i.e. Anakin Skywalker leading the counterattack against the Confederacy fleet and freeing the captured Chancellor Palpatine was orchestrated specifically so he could defeat Darth Tyranus and murder him. It might be seen as necessary — even a handless Sith Lord would be able to escape all but the most secure prisons while awaiting a war crimes or treason trial — but the fact remains that Anakin killed a badly injured and (at the time) helpless old man because someone told him to.
- In The Matrix Reloaded, Neo encounters the Architect on his journey to destroy The Matrix. He learns that, if he proceeds, every man, woman, and child connected to The Matrix would die, which, combined with the destruction of the rebellion, would be The End Of The World As We Know It. Neo does it anyway. It got better, though.
- In Frequency, John manages to use the time-travel radio to keep his father, Frank, from dying in the burning building that had claimed his life thirty years ago. And so doing began a chain of events that caused a serial killer to live instead of die who then goes on to murder many more women including John's mother. Oh, and did I mention Frank still dies from lung cancer because he smokes?
- Basically the whole plot of The Butterfly Effect is a series of these.
- The Dark Knight. Batman's destruction of the Falcone family's dominance of Gotham City leads to not only a myriad of gangs attempting to fill the gap, but also the Joker and other imitation criminals who create far more chaos and destruction. There are obvious real life parallels in international politics (collapse of the Soviet Union leading to rise of nationalism and fundamentalism) and law enforcement (the weakening of the Mafia clearing the way for Chinese, Russian, Columbian, etc, gangs).
- To be fair, the presence of the Joker, while in many ways a portrayed as a response to Batman's presence, and the general surge in violent crimes (and in later movies, I'm sure, costumed criminals) probably has more to do with the League of Shadows throwing wide the gates of Arkham during Batman Begins.
- Planet Of The Apes. The original had an astronaut landing in the future from a freak accident. The remake has the hero CAUSING the freak accident that launches his ship even further back in time and giving his mutant lab apes free reign over a primitive world. Changes things considerably.
- Layton: "This is an unholy perversion of the balance of nature, Benson! You'll regret this. Needless to say, the defense attorney was absolutely right, as Benson's victory did upset the balance of nature. Fortunately, Benson did fix it before it became irreversible.
- Broken Arrow sees the hero finding a nuclear warhead which the villain has left in a mine. It hasn't been armed yet, so he comes up with the idea to enter the wrong arming code three times, causing a security measure to lock the warhead so it can't be armed. He does so...only for the villain to mockingly inform him that he used uncoded circuit boards. "You have just armed a nuclear warhead, my friend." Oops.
- At a fairly early point in Return To Oz, Dorothy mentions that the Ruby Slippers fell off her feet during her flight back to Kansas, and apparently thought nothing more of them after that. During the climax, the Nome King takes great delight in telling Dorothy what happened because of this:
Dorothy: My ruby slippers—
The Nome King: No, no, no... My ruby slippers. They just fell out of the sky one day — you were so anxious to get home! They're very powerful: they made it possible for me to conquer the Emerald City... thank you.
- In Sunshine, one of the crew members forgets to adjust the heat shield... causing the Icarus II to have a catastrophic fire. Nice job breaking the ship that was supposed to save Earth, hero.
- Actually the misalignment just causes damage to the hydralics. It is the fact that the communication towers are vaporized in the sunlight that causes the fire and causes the first death.
- Actually, this isn't even an example of this trope. The trope isn't about mistakes or failures at all, it's about a successful action whose by-product is a failure on a larger scale.
- True. However, arguably this does happen later in the movie. The Icarus II alters course to intercept the long-gone Icarus I and find out what happened to it. They manage to dock with it, investigate it, and figure out what went wrong. However, in doing so, they allow the deranged lunatic captain who deliberately screwed up the first mission and murdered his crew to board their vessel, which causes pretty much all the problems they have for the rest of the movie and almost ruins their mission, the failure of which will cause the death of everyone and everything on earth. Nice Job, crew.
- Near the end of The Haunting in Connecticut, the reverend manages to exorcise the ghost from the house. Too bad he's a benevolent spirit who was preventing the dozens of malicious ghosts from wreaking havoc.
- In The Monitors, after the heroes drive off the dictatorial machines that enslaved mankind and stopped all human conflict, wars start breaking out all over the place.
- In the first Fantastic Four movie the team is cheered on for their heroic efforts to save people on the Brooklyn Bridge from a major accident... which they caused. Also, the major supervillain of the film exists because Reed screwed up his calculations when predicting the approach of a cosmic storm. The disaster gave Doom his powers and ruined his company, providing him with the motivation to attack. So the whole movie is about the Fantastic Four cleaning up their own messes.
- Sir Galahad wasn't so keen on being rescued from Castle Anthrax, what with the peril of spankings and oral sex and all.
Lancelot: No, it's far too perilous.
Galahad: Well, can't you let me have just a little bit of peril?
- Although her mother did most of the damage beforehand, Carrie White would never have had her murderous breakdown if Miss Collins hadn't gone overboard in punishing her tormentors, causing them to publicly humiliate Carrie at the prom. As if that weren't enough, Miss Collins then throws out the person who tried to stop it from happening. Way to kill everyone, Miss Collins.
- In 9, the title character's newfound friends take out the mechanical beast who had been threatening them, only for 9 to realize that the Mac Guffin he'd woken up with fit perfectly inside a larger machine nearby. Said machine proceeds to kill 2 immediately, followed by 8, 5, 6, and 1 before it's all done.
- Not only that, but what he did was exactly what said mechanical beastie was trying to do not five minutes before. Too Dumb To Live.
- From the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever:
Tiffany: I did it, I switched the tape in the machine.
Bond: You stupid twit, you put the real one back in!
- In Friday The13th Part VI, Tommy Jarvis, just to be absolutely sure, digs up Jason Voorhees' corpse, and impales it with a steel rod. Cue freak lightning bolt.
- 10,000 B.C.: The Fridge Logic sets in that, you know, D'leh and his buddies destroyed one of the only BASTIONS OF CIVILIZATION and set humanity back god knows how long. A few sacrifices isn't that much of a price to pay.
Literature
- In the Anita Blake novel "Blue Moon" the entire plot's problems, involving hostile vampires, necromancers and werewolves stem from Anita SHRIEKING ABUSE at another city's paranoid Master over the phone, and then stomping into his territory with a bunch of very powerful vampires and weres.
- Happens quite often in Harry Potter, but you have to look at the whole series to see any of the examples.
- Order of the Pheonix has a tragic example of this. Harry runs to his godfather's rescue only to be the cause of Sirius's demise. "Nice one, James."
- In the seventh book, Voldemort destroys his last remaining Horcrux by killing Harry. "Nice job breaking it, villain" .
- In the SF novel Legacy of Heorot, human colonists on an alien planet manage to eliminate the "grendels", a native, komodo-dragon like species, that threatened their existence. They find out too late that the grendels were the mature (female) form of these tasty (male) "fish" that are just about everywhere. (Think frogs and tadpoles. Only the frogs are a lot bigger. And have big, pointy teeth. And decide that people taste good.) The mature grendels kept the population down through cannibalism. Now that there are no more mature grendels all of the immature grendels start to grow up and undergo metamorphosis, and they're hungry. Even worse, all of them can move almost faster than the eye can see. Guess what they decide to snack on...
- Nice job breaking the food chain, heroes.
- This is more or less how the The Sword Of Truth series moves from one book to another: Resolving the conflict of one book leads directly to the problems in the next, at least in the beginning.
- The problem is that all of these things are so contrived that by the sixth book it feels like the author intended to end the series last book, but got such a lucrative deal to keep going he had to think up something on the fly to explain the next story. Apart from that, though, they are decent books...
- Happens not once but twice in the Eoin Colfer novel The Supernaturalists.
- The titular group are hunting ghost-like creatures that they can see congregating around injured and dying people. They want to destroy them to prevent them from sucking away people's life force. Too bad they do nothing of the kind. They're benevolent creatures that feed on pain, easing people's suffering. And the kids' killing them off causes them to crop up in larger and larger numbers, so that many of them begin starving to death.
- Done twice in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy.
- First, at the end of the first book when Vin kills the Lord Ruler he warns her that she has no idea what he does for mankind and that she has doomed the world. In the second book, the protagonists discover that the mists that have covered the world for the past thousand years are are growing thicker and destroying crops. In addition, the mists are killing a small fraction of the people that go out in them.
- To stop this, Vin finds the Well of Ascension, which is rumored to have the power to stop the mists. When she finds the well, she releases the power in it as described in the prophecies. Rather than saving the world, this releases the Sealed Evil in a Can. Oh, and the mists are still getting thicker, but that's the least of their problems from this point on. It turns out that the mists were not created by the sealed evil but his now-defunct opponent. He just made them stronger in order to distract the heroes from his true goals. He also perverted the prophecies to play out his Xanatos Gamit. Luckily, it turns out his opponent had anticipated him breaking free and planned for it. It was still a close call.
- In the backstory of the Wheel Of Time series, Lews Therin comes up with a badass plan to re-imprison the Dark One. Unfortunately, something goes terribly wrong, and from then on all male channelers are doomed to go mad, wreak havoc with their immense powers, and then die horribly. The world gets Broken.
- Though in his defense, it's technically better than it could have been had the Dark One won.
- This was also his last resort. His original plan involved both men and women going to fight and seal the Dark One, but the women refused in favour of another plan. One which fell further and further out of reach as the war raged on. The women weren't changing their minds, even after several years, so he had no choice but to go with men only. To be fair, it's possible that if the women went as well, they would of gone insane to, but no-one knows for sure.
- In the final volume of Tad William's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy it is revealed that the swords the hero had been trying to bring together to defeat the Big Bad were in fact the only things which would release the Big Bad from his prison. Whoops.
- In the Star Wars Expanded Universe New Jedi Order series, it is implied (or outright stated, whichever) that Palpatine formed The Empire and ordered the construction of weapons such as the Death Star to prepare for the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong, a species whose sole purpose is taking evil to a level that Palpatine could only dream of, making the original movies a Nice Job Breaking It Trilogy. However, it has also been commented that since The Empire lost to the Rebels, they might not have done as well against the Vong as they would have liked to think.
- Not only that but the death of Palpatine created a vacuum of power. It caused a fracture of the Empire into multiple smaller dominions led by psychotic warlords, who, to solidify their positions, hold even worse weapons, like the Sun Crusher. It caused Admirals (and the last Grand Admiral) to start ploys to resurrect the Empire, raising the specter of a new round of Clone Wars, a working prototype Death Star, and various Super Star Destroyers. It allowed for a cloned Emperor, if possible even more insane than the original, to unleash Devastators on Coruscant. It allowed for criminal organizations to flourish and get into the superweapon race themselves, like the Hutt's Darksaber. It opened the way for genocidal races to use left-over Imperial ships. The New Republic isn't even stable and threatens to collapse many times. So Yeah.
- In the First Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant Covenant's breaking the Staff of Law in self-defense has only good consequences. Then in the Second Chronicles the act turns out to have enabled continuing and rather imaginative evil and suffering on a massive scale. Cue a lengthy quest to repair the damage.
- In the third book of Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space trilogy, the Inhibitors are finally wiped out; however, it is implied that their absence is what allows a swarm of von Neumann machines to eventually consume literally the entire universe. As such this also counts as an Inferred Holocaust.
- Ian Irvine, and the conclusion to the Well of Echoes series. The Magnificent Bastard has gained two artifacts of unsurpassed magic power and is taking over the world. Tiaan tries to stop him by destroying the power sources of all magic, thus preventing anybody from using it. Except then it turns out that said artifacts are the only significant exception, and what she actually did was destroy every single source of power that would have given the heroes a chance. Dang.
- The Gun Seller, by Hugh Laurie. The whole plot is preventing arms manufacturers from pulling off a terrorist attack in order to jack up prices for their new attack helicopters... that made a lot more sense when I was reading it. But anyway, the last page states flat out that the sales of the very weapon he used to beat them skyrocketed. Awkward.
- In Sailor on the Seas of Fate, Elric helps the Creature-Doomed-to-Live to die... And inadvertently sets in motion events leading to the end of the world. Oops.
- In Kevin O'Donnell's novel ORA:CLE, set in a universe where all computers run unprotected operating systems like DOS and all news are shown in Bulletin Board Systems, the news is censored by a viral software implanted by the global Coalition. This is a perfect excuse for a coup by a group of erudites, who then keep the status quo and keep the censors; as the protagonist is an erudite but does not agree with the methods of the new group in power, he arranges to hack the several levels of censor programs, each more seriously defended, until immediately before deactivating the last one, he's warned by the leader of the group in power about not deactivating the last censor. The protagonist does anyway and the leader kills herself while communicating with the protagonist. Later is discovered that the censor programs were implanted to prevent extraterrestrial avian invaders, who use Earth as their hunting grounds, from finding out about a plan to transform Jupiter into a star in order to blind their sensors and allow Earth to launch everything against them in a last ditch effort to get rid of the invaders.
- In the final arc of Deltora Quest, Leif and friends have to destroy the Four Sisters who are killing their land slowly by singing evil spells. No one hears their songs, as they are so quiet and have been in place for so many hundreds of thousands of years that everyone just thought of their songs as the sound of silence. When they finally manage to kill the last one, it turns out that the singing that was making the land barren actually also kept an even worse monster locked down: basically a bubbling pot of poisonous goo that will keep expanding until the entire land—the mountains, streams, forests, cities, and everything alive—is buried under a thick, hard crust of grey stuff. Essentially, it is unbeatable: swords cannot cut it, there is nowhere to throw it away and it expands too fast to curb it in any manner. The Shadowlord thought he had them beat there: die slowly or die quickly were the only options. Thankfully, the goo is not flame retardant, and they did have six gargantuan fire-breathing dragons on demand.
- From the Bible (making this trope Older Than Dirt):
- Adam and Eve manage to achieve this for the entire human race. Having been given the paradise of Eden in which to live they are told that there is one rule: they must not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. One talking snake later and... yeah, nice job.
- Joseph's eleven brothers plotted to kill him out of jealousy. The eldest son, Reuben, suggests that instead of killing him outright they throw him in a pit in the desert and leave him to die. Reuben leaves momentarily and Judah, another one of them, convinces the rest to lift Joseph out of the pit and sell him to slavery instead of letting him die. Then Reuben returns and majorly freaks out - he was trying to save Joseph all along, and planned to return later to the pit and rescue him. Nice job breaking it, Judah.
- In the regular Animorphs series, Elfangor tends to come across as noble and wonderful, a cross between The Obi Wan and The Minnesota Fats, willing to break his people's laws, yes, but only to serve the greater good. In The Andalite Chronicles, however, we see that Visser Three's capture of Alloran is a direct result of Elfangor refusing to kill a mass amount of unhosted Yeerks. This capture also led to Visser Three's eventual promotion. While he originally gained prominence by being the Yeerks' authority on Andalites, his brutish ways and lack of subtlety wouldn't have let him progress much further. Thanks to Elfangor, who opened the door for him to do what no other Yeerk could, Visser One's agenda is the only thing keeping Visser Three from declaring an all-out space war on Earth!
- In the original novels of The Ring, the Asakawa delves into the mystery of the Cursed Tape not only because it's a good story, but to save himself, his family, and his friend from the killing curse. In doing so, he chronicles his investigation in the Asakawa Report, which details every little incident of the quest. By the end of Spiral, the second novel, Sadako reveals that the curse has mutated and taken on the Asakawa Report as its new vector, as well as any of its adaptations —movies, television, radio, and any other form of media where the tale is recounted. Eventually, all of mankind will have been destroyed as she replicates within each individual, infected human. At least the Cursed Video was contained...
- Even in the original concept, it is only the protagonist who realizes that the only way to escape is by copying the Tape and showing it to someone else, as every previous instance stopped at the victim's death. However, by each film adaptation's sequel, the public at large is aware of this method: it doesn't take long for one to realize that this means the Curse will spread like wildfire throughout the world, especially with the advent of new media.
- Which creates the interesting mental image of Cursed Tape Rickrolls...
- Four words, not in this order: 'cup','girls','one','two'...just wait until the effect suddenly shows up.
- In the second book of Beyond The Spiderwick Chronicles, our young heroes succeed in luring the rampaging fire breathing giants into the ocean using a recorded mermaid song. As it turns out though, the giants were awakening so they could fight off an even bigger threat: a group of evil dragons that would be even more destructive.
- In the third book of The Darksword Trilogy, Joram destroys the capstone of the Well of Life. While it seemed like a pretty good idea at the time, the fourth book describes a lot of the unpleasant consequences.
- In Isaac Asimov's short story The Dead Past, the main character's research into time travel reveals that the government has been conspiring to hide the fact that it is easy to build a time telescope that can see perfectly anywhere in the world anytime in the last several centuries. The release of this information dooms humanity to existence with no privacy whatsoever, because you can just as easily set the time telescope to see 1/100th of a second ago as 100 years ago. Sometimes the government keeps secrets for good reasons, geniuses.
- Were they protecting people's privacy or maintaining their monopoly on unbeatable undetectable Sinister Surveillance? Asimov should have written a follow-up detailing how ubiquitous time telescopes revealed all government corruption and solved all unsoved crimes.
- Asimov didn't write that follow-up, but Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter did, in their novel Light of Other Days.
- In another Asimov story, The Life And Times Of Multivac, humans chafe under the generally benevolent but definite control of Multivac. One of them figures out a way to maneuver Multivac into making itself vulnerable, then crashes it. The protagonist declares that humanity is now free... and realizes that it's not at all clear that freedom — including responsibility for running the world without Multivac — is what humanity really wants.
- Metro 2033' has an extremely cruel version of this. To bottom line it, the protagonist ends up unwittingly eradicating a sentient and very humanoid species. Turns out it was trying to make peace with humanity all along and help it to survive. Oh, and it also kept a Sealed Evil In A Can in check, guarded the titular Metro from the worst hazards and was literally humanity's only and last chance to ever regain the planet... or even survive for a few more generations. Nice job indeed, Artjom.
- Early in the first Hollows novel Ivy Tamwood is gifted with a wish. Rather than use it selfishly for herself she gives it to a Mia, a banshee who once gave her life altering advice. Banshees in the Hollows are the life draining apex predators of a world already filled with powerful monsters. Through various means Ivy's wish allows Mia to gain a human mate as murderous as she is, deceive people long enough to drain them of life before they can defend themselves and conceive a child more powerful than any banshee before her. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished indeed.
- In The Company Novels by Kage Baker, Dr. Zeus the AI relies on the threat of this to preserve himself after his period of omniscience comes to an end. It doesn't work.
- In the Ravnica novel Dissension, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV (leader of the Azorius Senate) explains to our heros that House Dimir isn't the reason why the plane/city of Ravnica has had a significant increase in existence-ending disasters: it's because our heros arrested/killed the leader of House Dimir in the first book. Since Ravnica is a world where every Guild and its leader are legally required to exist, even if they are legally required to attempt to kill everyone, arresting/killing the leader of House Dimir had doomed the plane/city to obliteration.
- However, as the Rogue Cop Agrus Kos points out, that makes the first book into a Kobayashi Maru: The first book culminated in Szadek draining the leader of the Selesnya guild - the power sustaining the legal and magical obligation for all the guilds to exist. If Kos hadn't incapacitated Szadek, the power sustaining the civilization would have been destroyed, because he did, the resulting magical imbalance destroyed the civilization anyway.
- In Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere this is basically the entire plot. All Richard has to do is help Door bring the key to The Angel, Islington, so It can return to Heaven and Door can be reunited with her family. Oh, Islington didn't mention that It isn't in Heaven right now because It had been banished to Earth by God? And Its return would lead to God's will being subverted and war in Heaven, possibly leading to Heaven's destruction as well as humanity's? Oops.
- A recent short story featured an American sniper recruited to test a prototype portable time machine. His mission? Go back some years before the 9/11 attacks and kill Osama bin Ladin. Which he does, only to return to an America suffering a severe depression due to terrorist attacks using nuclear weapons, which he realizes happened because there was no bin Ladin to desire to do something showy, but strategically minor. So he tries again, going back a little further. And again. And again. The end featured him one of Pontius Pilate's dungeons awaiting execution due to a failed attempt on the Roman's life.
- In Mitchell Scalon's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel Descent of Angels, Lion (with Luther's help) unites Caliban to exterminate its horrific monsters, despite warnings that this might ruin Caliban. In Mike Lee's Fallen Angels, it is revealed that the monsters stemmed from Chaos taint, and so kept the people untainted, since they would avoid the monsters; killing them unleashed the taint.
- What Liquidon in Stationery Voyagers is convinced he's done to start the Imperial War of Markerterion. In reality, it would've happened with or without him killing Astriliad. But by doing that, he convinced Astrabolo to switch from a campaign of conquest to a plan of viral genocide.
- Codex Alera — The Vord? The pretty-much the Zerg Horde Of Alien Locusts that have almost eaten the entire world, and indeed already have conquered a continent much larger and more populated than Alera itself? It all began with one queen hibernating in an isolated valley until Tavi woke her up. He had no idea what he was doing or what the consequences would be, but that's cold comfort.
Live Action TV
- Happens to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, in the season four episode "Fear Itself":
Giles: (flipping pages) I have it, I have it. Uhm, "The summoning spell for Gachnar can be shut down in one of two ways. Destroying the mark of Gachnar..."
(Buffy walks over to the mark and puts her fist through it, ripping up the floorboards. Gets up and looks over at Giles with a proud smile)
"...is not one of them and will in fact immediately bring forth the fear demon itself."
- Good thing the fear demon itself is only four inches tall.
- Played straight - somewhat - with the demon Balthazar in Season Three. Balthazar was Mayor Wilkins' rival - had he regained his power, he would have killed the Mayor. By killing Balthazar, Buffy eliminated one of the two major threats to the Mayor. Of course, the other major threat was herself...
- And, of course, when Buffy was brought back from the dead, thereby ripping her out of heaven. From Buffy's point of view, at least, nice job breaking me, Scoobies.
- It also broke the slayer line, with all the chaos that followed. Nice job breaking it, heroes. Then in Season Eight Buffy needed funds, stole from a bank... which resulted in a rogue Slayer and a very unhappy military. Giles sent Faith undercover to assassinate a dangerous Slayer. Buffy misunderstood. Faith didn't react well. Willow's flaying of Warren comes back to haunt her. And everyone else. That was just the beginning.Nice job- oh never mind
- And of course there is the fact that the Big Bad in season 7 came around because the Scoobies resurrected Buffy, messing up the slayer line and creating an imbalance of power, so the way they decide to fix this mistake is to create a whole bunch more slayers.
- Also, there was the time Buffy's humiliation of Warren got Tara killed.
- In Angel, the crew defeat the fallen power Jasmine, who took over the world through mind control and was eating people on a daily basis... and are later rewarded by the demonic law firm Wolfram and Hart for "destroying peace on earth and good will toward men" because during the short time Jasmine was in control, there was no war or fighting or hatred anywhere within her influence.
- Of course, it is meant to be ambiguous whether the gang did a good or a bad thing. "We stopped an insidious global domination scheme, not 'world peace'. ...Right?"
- After Angel and his team assassinate all members of the Circle of Black Thorns, the evil forces of the world decide to pull out all the stops and unleash every available evil creature on LA. Of course the results of this apocalyptic battle are left to the imagination.
- Except in the follow-up comic After the Fall, which details it pretty well.
- In the Doctor Who episode "The Long Game", the Doctor thinks he's saving the world by shutting down a space station that controls an Earth-spanning propaganda regime. In the season finale, however, he returns to Satellite 5, a century later - and learns that as a result of the shutdown, Earth has become technologically and socially stagnant, and the station itself has become a clearinghouse for reality shows, secretly run by the Daleks.
- It's also been suggested (including in a column by Russell Davies) that the Doctor's self-righteous overthrowing of Prime Minister Harriet Jones after her actions in "The Christmas Invasion" directly allowed the Master to take her place, conquer the world, and rule in an unequalled reign of terror and genocide for an entire year until things managed to get sorted out. By contrast Harriet's truncated term, according to the Doctor himself, would have been "a Golden Age". Nice going, Doc.
- Originally, this was going to pointed out by the Master in "The Sound of Drums"/"Last of the Time Lords." However, it was decided that this sort of gloating — in addition to the abuse the Master had already heaped upon the Doctor — would be an overkill.
- It also allowed the Prime Minister seen in Torchwood: Children of Earth to come to power. Perhaps Harriet Jones would have had stricter morals about dealing with the 456.
- And to go more Old School (or DVD-school): Did you know it was The Doctor who gave Nero the idea to burn Rome?
- To be completely fair, Doctor Who isn't unfamiliar with this trope. Such as the time the Doctor basically killed off both sides of a conflict by accident while trying to negotiate a truce. Or accidentally killing a damaged man who was only trying to find the woman he loved. Not to mention causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. The Fifth Doctor had a lot of those...
- Most recently, at the end of The Water of Mars, it's heavily implied that the Doctor broke Time itself. Or, rather, he would have if Adelaide had not made the ultimate sacrifice to set things straight.
- And let us not forget that in "Tooth And Claw", the Tenth Doctor and Rose save Queen Victoria from a werewolf, but behave like utter arseholes in so doing and convince her that they're selfish, dangerous adrenaline junkies. As a result Queen Victoria founds the Torchwood Institute to protect the British Empire against extraterrestrial threats, and they spend a good century robbing and murdering innocent alien passers-by, and nearly destroying the human race several times For Science.
- How could you forget Partners in Crime? The Adipose's plan was simply to turn Britain's excess fat into their babies, and then be on their way. A little creepy, but in all practicality, harmless - even mutually beneficial. Then the Doctor comes along, forcing the Adipose to accelerate their plan, and only THEN does their drug have to convert parts of people besides fat into Adipose babies, killing them.
- Torchwood: Owen Harper's opening of the rift rescued his boss and his best friend from being trapped in the wrong decade forever, but it also caused a wave of anachronisms including ancient soldiers in the streets and an outbreak of the bubonic plague in Wales. This despite Ianto practically begging Owen not to open the rift, and even shooting him to try to prevent it. Instead of learning from this colossal mistake, the rest of the team eventually side with Owen and do the exact same thing, again. Predictably, things get worse before they get better.
- In the second episode, Gwen broke the Sex Gas' space rock "ship".
- Jack's resurrecting Owen led him to a much worse fate in "Exit Wounds."
- More recently, Jack and Ianto have gone storming into the alien's base guns blazing in order to, erm..... shoot at the bulletproof glass protecting it, pissing it off enough to release a deadly virus, killing everyone in the building, including Ianto. To make things worse, the entire plot of that episode was Torchwood checkmating the government into letting them into the alien's room, so you'd think they'd have come up with a better plan with all the time they had.
- The plan was to manipulate the aliens into starting a shooting war, forcing humanity to fight back rather than accept the loss of their children; probably figuring that if the 456 had the firepower to just take what they wanted, they wouldn't have tried extortion first. They didn't anticipate the fight being so overwhelmingly one-sided.
- Still rather stupid of them, if you consider that Jack only agreed to hand over twelve children originally because they threatened humanity with a deadly virus. He apparently remembered that all perfectly, so why wouldn't he consider the option that they might do the same again?
- The virus was a natural disease on Earth, said to be related to Spanish Flu. The 456 just offered the cure because they wanted the children.
- Stargate Atlantis, as a whole, is one massive exercise in Nice Job Breaking It Hero:
- Our heroes woke up the Wraith, inflicting them upon the galaxy and angry because of the lack of "food" (humans). The Wraith were always bad news, but their newly accelerated schedule has resulted in many worlds wiped off the map, and everyone working on a way to stop them finding out they have a few decades less than they thought.
- Then they turn a Wraith into an amnesiac human. He starts to turn back, but not all the way, and so once he remembers who he really is and escapes, he finds his people no longer want him now that he's half-human. By now, he's out to overthrow humans and Wraith and have the other human-Wraith hybrids he's created rule. He didn't hate humans that much, though, until our Designated Heroes betrayed him further, though.
- Then they turn the Replicators against the Wraith... and the Replicators decide that the best way to fight the Wraith was to attack their food supply. (Of course, they may have chosen this tactic because they already hated humans and Ancients.)
- In short, all three major threats to humans in the Pegasus Galaxy were created by the Atlantis team. They really, really should have just stayed at home.
- It was even Lampshaded when the combined peoples of the Pegasus Galaxy put Sheppard's team (and, by extension, the Atlantis expedition as a whole) on trial for doing all of this, and call them out on every single mistake mentioned above.
- Not to count the Genii. One major enemy in season 1 and 2. All because they were trying to trade C4 as "farming tools"...
- The Ancients also did a good Neglectful Precursors work, as they accidentally created the Wraith, then developed the Replicators as a weapons against them.
- Then there is Stargate and Stargate SG-1. Every time they defeated a Goa'uld, another, even more ambitious one rose to take his place in the resulting Evil Power Vacuum. This only stopped when the Goa'uld were overthrown as a whole.
- Unfortunately, the SG-1 team wasn't content to rest on their laurels. Instead, they hunt down some old Ancient technology, get transported to another galaxy (sort of), thus allowing the Ori (evil ascended beings) to move in. In effect, after killing off the evil false Gods, the SG-1 team invited evil real "gods" to move in.
- The basis for the franchise really. Movie - Unburied the gate, went to Abydos, unintentionally informed the Goa'uld that the gate on Earth had been unburied and thus Earth was within easy access for them. Killed Ra, everything is good. Tv Series - Oh shit, you created a power vacuum. The goa'uld are fighting and they know the Earth stargate is unburied. And you've proved yourself to be a viable threat to their power and therefore put Earth in danger. Nice job.
- Star Trek: Kirk and company go to the Mirror Universe, and Kirk gets Mirror Spock to try reforming The Empire. So he does. When next we visit it, it turns out that the reforms made weakened the empire to the point of being unable to defend against the Klingon/Cardassian Legion Of Doom. Humans and Vulcans are now slaves. Way to go, Jim.
- The episode "Coyote Piper" of Charmed revolves around a spirit escaping from her demonic scientist creator. She eventually posseses Piper, and uses Piper's body to get her sisters to kill the demonic scientist when he comes to look for his creation...making it significantly harder to deal with the spirit. The demon's final words "You fools! She will destroy you!", as somewhat apt.
- In Supernatural, Dean's obsessive need to keep Sam alive led to the Devil's Gate being opened and a demon army being unleashed and it also led to Sam becoming more of an Anti-Hero, being pissed enough to brutally murder Jake and to slightly slide down the humanity scale. Way to protect both the world and your brother, Dean.
- As Dean is The Chew Toy of the Supernatural world, this happens to him far too often. When he was nine and tired of babysitting Sam for three days, he went out to play videogames and didn't kill the Monster Of The Week when he should have done, thus leading to lots of other kids dying. The Devil's Trap example (the demon getting away) can be blamed on both Sam and Dean, seeing as how a dying Dean was begging Sam not to kill their demon-possessed Dad and Sam listened to him. And in In The Beginning, he tells Samuel everything that's going to happen, not realising that he's being possessed by the same demon that will eventually fuck up his family and ruin his life. You've actually got to wonder why he hasn't put a bullet in his brain yet, considering that he even feels guilty for still being alive.
- To be fair to Dean, Jake would still have opened the Devil's Gate even if Sam had stayed dead. However, without Sam — the only other person on Earth immune to Jake's mind control powers — available for the fight at the Devil's Gate, Dean and Bobby and Ellen would never have been able to close it again. So nice job saving the world, hero.
- Congratulations, Sam! You finally killed Lilith, the only demon powerful enough to break the final seal and free Lucifer from hell... Just kidding! It turns out the angels and demons were both lying to you, and Lilith was the final seal, so by killing her, you actually started the apocalypse. Oops.
- Heroes had two in a single episode now (though one got started a few episodes prior): Big Bad Arthur Petrelli is able to get off life support by stealing Adam's healing power — which he had easy access to because Angela sent Hiro and Ando off to release Adam in a bid to stop Arthur's schemes. Later on, Peter storms Pinehearst on his own, finds Arthur there, and subsequently gets his powers stolen.
- It must be said: Nice job breaking it, Hiro.
- According to Angela Petrelli, Future Peter was responsible for Sylar acquiring Claire's healing power. As Angela put it, "She had a very bad day."
- The season 1 episode where Isaac tries to shoot Peter, in an attempt to prevent him from becoming the human nuclear bomb seen in the future paintings. When Peter becomes invisible, Isaac shoots at a noise behind him...and accidentally kills Simone, who wanted to help Peter.
- When Sylar tries to kill Elle, she renders him unconscious with a massive blast of electricity. Unfortunately, she also overloads the Level Five power grid, allowing all of the super-powered prisoners to escape.
- In her defense, it had been discussed in another episode that their powers were activated by adrenaline. How would you do pinned on the floor while your head was being sliced open?
- Nathan Petrelli intiates a government program to round up persons with superhuman abilities in order to protect regular citizens. But he is forced to flee when he is revealed to have an ability. As a result, Complete Monster Emil Danko takes over the operation; unlike Nathan, he wants to kill all so-called evolved humans (Danko calls them "animals"). Not only does Danko murder Daphne Millbrook and Traci Strauss, he then enlists Sylar to help him carry out his nefarious plans!
- Then there's the Charlie issue. Hiro decides he can't save her life as she's already dying, so forgets about her, as do the writers. But at the very least hecould have saved her from being killed by Sylar instead of allowing Sylar to take her ability. At least the writers' inconsistency with abilities has prevented Super Memory from cropping up again.
- The issue has been addressed in the newest episodes... but, in typical Heroes fashion, clumsily.
- How did Samuel Sullivan find out about the nature and true extent of his powers? Because Mohinder opened a box with research that his father expressly wanted never to surface and traveled all the way to his carnival of horrors to blab about it, of course. It's almost as if the writers hate his character too and wanted to give even newcomers a reason to hate his ass.
- Nice job figuring out Cromartie's plan, Sarah. Go ahead, call John and warn him Cromartie is after him. Wait, is that a phone tap... into the local cellular tower... oops.
- Nice job taking the tougher, advanced battlestar capable of building Vipers and ramming it into a Cylon Basestar to save the aged, more obsolete battlestar, Lee. Especially since the Galactica is now falling to bits entirely.
- Nice job creating an army's worth of Cavils and their war machine and letting them box you, Saul, Ellen, Sam, Galen, and Tory.
- Nice job killing Tory on the spot and losing any chance of peace with the enemy Cylons, Galen.
- Dollhouse has a rare villainous example. In "Omega", Alpha achieves his goal of causing Echo to have a composite event. However, as most of Echo's imprints were good guys, Composite!Echo attacks Alpha.'
- Kamen Rider Decade, if we are to make sense of Wataru Kurenai's contradictory babblings, mentioned that the eponymous Rider has to kill all the Riders to prevent the merging of the Alternative Rider Worlds, mentioning that "creation cannot begin without destruction." Instead, Decade chose to help all the Riders defeat their respective Kaijin enemies as a Rider should. Cue Dai Shocker (the coalition of all the enemy organizations and monster races) through Apollo Geist becoming able to speed up the destruction of the Alternative Rider Worlds. Thankfully, Decade eventually turned into his nasty, somewhat evil Fury Form after being given a major beatdown by the original 9 Riders for all his troubles, thus being able to kill all Riders, trap them into cards and preserving their lives and worlds in the process, but What The Hell, Heroes?! What did they really have to do?!
- In Power Rangers RPM, Dr. K was being imprisoned unjustly by the government so they could use her as a researcher. She uploads a computer virus into their systems, and is apprehended by secret agents before she can install the firewall. The virus goes on to nuke the planet, wiping out pretty much all ecosystems, and either killing or enslaving every human not in the Domed Hometown of Corinth. Doctor K manages to escape thanks to some friends bailing her out. Nice job getting your freedom, doctor. Nice job protecting America, secret agents.
- In Touched By An Angel, a man wakes up from a twelve-year coma. He got in a car accident because he used his wife's car instead of his own. He got in his wife's car because he couldn't find the key for his own. He couldn't find the key for his car because Monica was holding it so she could look at the angel keychain...
- Nice job turning your back on Management in one finale and shooting Strickler in another, Michael. You now have even less of a clue about what's going on, and you almost got yourself into even hotter water.
- In Bones, FBI Agent Seely Booth allowed a man convicted of killing a teenage girl and was less than 30 hours away from being executed for the crime convince him to reinvestigate the case by providing crocodile tears in prison. He did eventually learn that he was right about the man being the killer all along but said investigation turned up even more bodies which prevented the man from being executed before the investigations could be completed (which would likely take years). Even worse, the killer eventually escaped from prison and killed another woman and ended up stalking his potential love interest, Dr. Temperance Brennan. Seriously, nice job breaking it, hero.
- Nice job stabbing Brainiac with the knife from the Fortress of Solitude, Clark. You gave Brainiac a way to interface with the Fortress and release General Zod from the Phantom Zone.
- In about 8:23 of this clip from the 60s-era World War Two series, Combat!. One of the characters says "Nice going, hero" after another is forced to shoot a German sentry they were supposed to take alive, not only depriving the unit of a prisoner to interrogate but also attracting the unwanted attention of even more enemy troops.
- In the fourth episode of the original Life On Mars the cops stop taking bribes from and arrest the city's biggest crime lord. The remaining season and a half is spent trying to stop new, more ruthless gangs from getting a foothold.
- In Legend of the Seeker, the television adaptation of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, this trope is played at the conclusion of Season 1 and leads into Season 2 - although BigBad Darken Rahl is defeated, Richard&co have inadvertantly "broken" the ground, opening a rift to the Underworld. Darken Rahl is revealed to have made a contract with the Keeper of the Underworld a while ago, and now serves as the Keeper's right hand man in his attempt to kill even more people than before. The Keeper, after all, hates all life. Darken Rahl also has the power to manipulate people even better than before - by offering dead souls the opportunity to live again if they agree to kill more people for the Keeper.
- In Robin Hood: Kate tries to rescue her brother, and he ends up dead in her arms. It's worse than it sounds: she abandons the other outlaws who are ready and willing to help her, sneaks into the castle by herself, is captured in under five seconds, and watches her brother die as he tries to save her. And then for some inexplicable reason, the outlaws let this idiot join the team, giving her ample opportunity to endanger their lives in almost every single episode that follows.
- In a episode of Malcolm In The Middle, Reese was taught a lesson and gave up his bullying ways. This of course resulted in a bunch of lesser bullies turning the schoolyard into chaos and even abandoning standard ground rules, like not picking on the crippled kid.
- In the fifth season of Lost, Ben thought that by killing Locke, he would be able to get back to the island, but that unleashes Jacob's nemesis. Ben then kills Jacob thinking he's being instructed by Locke, but has unleashed more terror again.
Mythology
- Nice Job Opening the Box, Pandora...
- ...Leading up to that, thanks for stealing fire, Prometheus!
- Nice Job Eating the Apple, Adam and Eve!
Radio
- Halo tie-in I Love Bees ends with the gang taking out a covenant artifact and uncovering an evil plot by a power hungry man in the Earth Navy, only to inadvertantly call the covenant to Earth, triggering the invasion at the beginning of Halo 2 (and alerting the covenant to earth's location, making it possible for later invasions.)
Tabletop Games
- In a Dungeons & Dragons adventure featured in Dungeon magazine, an evil giant living in a flying castle waged a terrible campaign of vengeance upon human towns and villages, murdering scores of innocents in the process. If the heroes killed him instead of making some sort of agreement with him, however, castle dissolved... and released an unspeakably powerful god-spawned monstrosity from its centuries-old prison. The monstrosity would then begin methodically and efficiently killing everything in the area, followed by everything else on the planet. Whoops.
- Potential for this trope is built right into the Ravenloft setting, where eliminating a domain's darklord can have three possible effects: A) another evil being is elevated to darklord status, gaining immense power; B) the domain is split among neighboring darklords, potentially kicking off invasions and so forth; or C) the domain — and everyone living there — literally disappears.
- Urza from Magic the Gathering pretty much lives for this trope, between the sylex blast, the soul bombs and the tolarion academy he probably killed as many people as Yawgmoth did in the invasion!
- Urza's, and by extension, Mishra's, ultimate example of this page's topic was actually their shattering of the Powerstone that held closed the original portal to Phyrexia, allowing the entire next decade (or, in-world, 2,000 years) of storylines to happen, and ultimately tore down reality enough to cause a Continuity Reboot inside the continuity.
- Years ago, a French tabletop RPG magazine had released a two seasons campaign for a generic Dystopia Twenty Minutes Into The Future setting. Season one had the players going against a Nightmare Fuel Psycho For Hire known as the Butcher, who was trying to initiate the biblical apocalypse. They were helped in their quest by a mysterious cube (no, not that kind of cube... Or Is It?), which, between fast-paced action sequences in the present, allowed them to time travel via mind-transfer to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. Then in season 2, it is revealed that The Butcher was really acting this way to prevent a Bad Future to occure (effectively willing to sacrifice millions of people to save billions later), and the players have been manipulated into opposing him all allong, the cube actually being a gift from some Cosmic Horror, with which they really were setting worse what once went wrong — and now of course they have to clean their mess, by time traveling again, this time with a cube given by The Butcher, all while fighting Big Bad 2 The Plague, a High Octane Nightmare Fuel Complete Monster sweating Body Horror and borderline Eldritch Abomination, who is actually one of the secondary antagonists of season 1, Left For Dead by the players and "reconstructed" later — oh, the Irony! (for extra irony, the second cube, with which the characters are supposed to fix what they spoiled, is actually much less user-friendly than the first one).
- In Scion, the titans that the titular heroes have to fight against are innately tied to nature itself, and their deaths have dramatic effects on the planet. For instance, when Odin killed the titan Ymir, it ended the ice age. One can only imagine what would happen if Gaia or Kamimusuhi, titans of birth, were to be killed.
- Among the many, many potential elements of Paranoia Fuel in the World Of Darkness is the potential for members of the Vigil to do this, due to the fact that most people are either genuinely ignorant of the subtle shades of darkness of the supernatural, too closeminded to accept that things aren't black and white, or both. That pack of savage shapechangers? They're the descendents of a long line of half-mortal half-spirits whose purpose is to keep alien totemic spirits from ripping through the fabric of reality and turning humans into puppets and food. Those crazed self-proclaimed mystics? They're actual wizards trying to restore a golden age of humanity, as well as fight off invasions from a kind of 'anti-reality'. The vampires running a trendy nightclub and secretly bleeding the human clientele? Now the civilised vampires are gonna start being a lot more brutal in their feeding habits as they struggle to find their own prey... to say nothing of the band of sociopathic-even-by-their-standards vampires who are going to take advantage of that opening to start butchering humans for the hell of it.
- Then there was Werewolf The Apocalypse from the old line, where it was made clear that the main reason the Garou were doing so badly against the Wyrm was because they slew first, asked questions later. Their millennia-long righteous campaign of purity resulted in the extinction of three races of Changing Breeds (and one of their own tribes), the surviving Changing Breeds severely distrusting them, and a general species-wide feeling of, "Great, now what?"
Theatre
- Urinetown ends with the heroes triumphantly toppling the evil toilet monopoly and launching a new era of free urination. Only, as it turns out, the monopoly was right about the water shortage, the newly unrestricted flushing makes the town run dry, and almost everyone dies of thirst.
Little Sally: What kind of a musical is this?! The good guys finally take over and then everything starts falling apart?! Lockstock: Like I said, Little Sally, this isn't a happy musical. Little Sally: But the music's so happy! Lockstock: Yes, Little Sally. Yes, it is.
Toys
- The whole goal of the heroes in BIONICLE is to awaken the sleeping Great Spirit Mata Nui. Unfortunately, Big Bad Makuta (who put Mata Nui to sleep in the first place) plays them all for Xanatos Suckers: he allows the heroes to succeed and during a window of opportunity in the revival commits Grand Theft Me, taking control of the body of a Physical God and therefore also the world's very laws of nature. Nice Job Waking It, Heroes.
Video Games
Web Comics
- In Sluggy Freelance, when Torg exorcises the demon K'Z'K out of Gwynn, he sets K'Z'K free upon the world. Subverted in that this was actually intentional: they needed the Demon out of Gwynn so that they could use their plan on it directly and not harm her. However...
- Done again almost immediately afterwards, when Riff's attempt to freeze the demon in time actually sends it back in time, creating all sorts of havoc during the middle ages.
- In the process of defeating the big bad guy they've been chasing after, The Order of the Stick destroys a powerful interplanar Gate that he'd been trying to master. Turns out that the Gate is one of a set of portals sealing away a deity-level chaos monster intent on destroying the world, and each one that gets broken brings it closer to freedom. However, several characters argue that letting the villain control it is worse than destroying it, hence why the second one was rigged with a self-destruct rune.
- In an example later in the comic, Bunny Ears Lawyer Celia manages to make a settlement with the local Thieves' Guild. While this settlement fixes a lot of their problems, part of the agreement was that Lovable Rogue Haley (who betrayed the Guild in the past) donates 50% of her loot to the Guild as apology. Since all this loot is part of her "get her father out of jail" fund, she is... upset, to say the least.
- Haley doesn't even have the loot anymore. To pay off the Guild at all she'll need to steal twice that much over again, giving 50% of the new thefts to the Guild outright and paying off the balance with the other 50%; just to end up back at zero as regards getting her father out of jail.
- Haley gets out of this by killing Crystal and leaving when they meet up with the rest of the group.
- In an example earlier then the above one, Miko Miyazaki chooses precisely the wrong moment to destroy the Gate of Azure City - if she had been stalled for even a few more rounds, Xykon and Redclock would be dead and Azure City wouldn't have had its highly competent leader and incredibly powerful Sorcerer to consolidate their conquest of Azure City.
- Girard, one of the creators of the Gates, was paranoid that his former assosiate and fellow Gate-maker Soon would break their vow and try to interfere with the Gates. So he gave Soon and everyone else the wrong coordinates for his gate, booby-trapped the decoy area, and gave the real location to the one person he trusted, Serini. Thing is, Soon never broke his word, being a Paladin. When the decoy area is approached years later by the Order of the Stick to try and defend it from Xykon, they're almost killed by Girard's paranoia and have no idea where the real Gate is. And guess who has his bony hands on Serini's diary?
- In the first chapter of Gunnerkrigg Court, Antimony helps a lost Shadow-Man return to his forest home, by assembling a Robot to escort him there (since the rules prohibited Annie from going herself). She also tells Robot that he only has to return to the Court afterwards if he wants to, so he decides to go exploring the woods. Several chapters later, Robot returns, possessed by another, violent and malicious shadow-creature, and the process of stopping the shadow results in Robot getting impaled on a BFS and deactivated. A few chapters later, Annie finds out that the people of the forest have not been on good terms with the Court for the past decade, and that they hate technology on principle. Nice job completely screwing over your friend and causing a diplomatic crisis, hero.
- 8-Bit Theater has a nice scene where Muffin Dragoon's pet parrot (dragon) reveals to the light warriors that Bahamut, who they had previously awakened, would only awaken when the world is about to be destroyed. Only Red Mage seems to care, though in retrospect any acts of "good" the Light Warriors do usually makes everything worse for someone else.
- During the "Sin City" (no, not that one) arc of Dominic Deegan, Dominic reveals to The Infernomancer that the demon lord he was supposedly bound to serve didn't have control over him, meaning he didn't have to follow any orders. The Infernomancer's response? "Now I get to kill you the way I've always wanted to — slowly!"
- Not to mention the "War In Hell" arc, where Dominic helps out Karnak the whole time only to realize he probably shouldn't have been helping Karnak this whole time.
- In his defense, Karnak's death would have also killed Szark Sturtz, since he and Karnak will linked by a wound Karnak had inflicted on Szark when the latter was a child. You really can't blame Dominic for trying to keep his best friend alive. Plus, as pointed out by Dejah, there was really no way for the war to end positively for humanity.
- And then there's Klo Tark, who started a prison break to (rather circuitously) save Dominic's life.
- In Starslip, the crew (mainly Quine, though Vanderbeam initiated it) have done a Nice Job Ruining The Quel's Utopia.
- And again with the Anthelerix. Both cases were such collossal screwups that Vanderbeam has since repeatedly suggested that Quine would do a better job of doing his job if he were to just sit quietly on the Paradigm someplace where no one has to look at him.
- That comment is more due to Vanderbeam's irrational hatred of Quine. In the Anthelerix's case, the responsibility arguably rests with Admiral Huff. You'd think that the Paradigm being teleported back to Earth was a sign that maybe the Anthelerix didn't want anyone disturbing them for the time being, but noooo...
- The party of Darths And Droids pretty much does this all the time, one of the most obvious being completely ruining Darth Maul's attempt to retrieve the Lost Orb. However, if the course of the strip is in accordance with the movies sufficiently, then they also inadvertently created Darth Vader and ensured the destruction of the Jedi...to win a pod race. But in their defense, they did win.
- Don't forget: they only got into that pod race to raise money for weapons they never used anyway.
- One of the players accidentally mistakenly referred to a nexu as "Nixon", thereby giving the DM ideas. Now, what contemporary 70's events gave George Lucas the inspiration for the empire's formation, again?
- The Freak Angels had wanted to cause a huge but non-threatening destructive gesture as a means of putting the army off the notion of continuing to chase them (or at least distracting them for a while. Instead, their severe underestimation of just how powerful they are caused them to inadvertantly cause destructive shockwaves which ended civilisation.
Western Animation
- In Jackie Chan Adventures, the defeat of the first season's Big Bad allows the antagonists of the second season back into the world. And he was much weaker than they were. Way to go, Jade... At the beginning of the third season Jackie himself destroys the talismans while trying to keep them away from two opposing forces, the very act of doing this causes the arc for that season.
- In an episode of The Powerpuff Girls, where the three girls and Professor Utonium move to a much larger city than The City of Townsville, which is reversely named the Town of Citysville, The Powerpuff Girls think it's a good idea to continue fighting crime in their new location. After stopping a couple of robbers by destroying the bridge they were trying to get away on, the mayor of Citysville complains to them. "At what point did you think it would be a good idea to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge? Those robbers stole $4000 in cash. But it's going to cost TWO MILLIONS dollars to replace the bridge!!!" This catches the girls off guard because, in every single episode prior, plenty of buildings get destroyed Godzilla-style and nobody seems to care a thing about it, as long as the monster is gone. Moral: There is a significant difference between destroying a few buildings in the process of preventing a giant monster from razing the entire town, and stopping a pair of petty crooks.
- The Simpsons has a send-up of the David vs. Goliath legend, in which King David (Bart) fights Goliath Jr. (Nelson) and loses, with Goliath Jr. taking over as king. After some Training From Hell, he comes back and does a Nice Job of slaying the giant. The Breaking It part comes when he's told that Goliath Jr. was the best king the city had ever had, building roads, libraries, and hospitals, and David is arrested for megacide. Whoops!
- Arguably parodied in the episode You Only Move Twice, when Homer takes a job in another city working for Hank Scorpio. Homer turns out to actually be pretty good at his job, successfully setting up the nuclear reactor Scorpio needed for his plan to succeed, and unwittingly preventing Scorpio's plans from being derailed when "James Bont" tries to stop him. When the family moves back to Springfield, Scorpio sends Homer a thank-you note, stating that he couldn't have taken control of the East Coast without Homer's help.
- This tropes defines Homer's relationship with his family. His Jerkass attitude always ends up hurting the feelings or angering his family. Many episodes have been focused on his lousy parenting skills and sometimes troubled marriage (almost always his fault).
- Transformers Animated has a Whack A Mole episode in which the wrong Autobot was arrested. Wasp goes on to become insane and vengeful in solitarily confinement until he finally breaks out to get revenge on Bumblebee. Longarm, who's really the Decepticon Shockwave, goes on to become a Prime and the head of Autobot intelligence. Well, slag.
- There's also the first Season Finale, where Prime decides the AllSpark key isn't safe with Sari and has Ratchet hold onto it... who them loses it a couple scenes later as he was alone when trying to defend it.
- At the very end of Beast Wars, Optimus and the Maximals stop Megatron from destroying the Ark and the Autobots on it, preventing a time storm that would destroy the Maximals and made the Predacons dominant. They then tie Megatron to the bottom of the shuttle and bring him back to Cybertron to stand trial. All seems well until Megatron manages to break free from his shackles in a time warp, landing on Cybertron long before the Maximals, becoming a dictator and extracting the sparks of every Cybertronian on the planet, leading to the events in Beast Machines.
- From the villainous perspective: according to the Beast Wars: Transmetals game, had Megatron's plan to kill Optimus Prime succeeded, there would have been no Autobot Matrix of Leadership to stop Unicron from destroying Cybertron, dooming both races.
- Silverbolt pulls this off twice in the second season. In "Bad Spark", he unthinkingly detonates the energon crystals on which Protoform X's stasis pod has crashed, heavily damaging himself and his comrades Cheetor and Optimus Primal as well as releasing the monster that would become Rampage- in fact, it's possible that the energon storm he created might have actually jolted Rampage back to life in the first place. And then, in "The Agenda", he helps Blackarachnia open the blasted-shut tunnel leading to the Ark, thus giving Megatron direct access to the Autobots and Decepticons contained within and giving him the opportunity to attempt his "destroy Optimus Prime to change reality" gambit. Love Makes You Dumb indeed.
- Occurs twice in the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series: first when the turtles "kill" the Shredder in the "Return to New York" which sparks a gang war between different factions trying to fill the power vacuum; the second when they steal the Heart of Tengu from The Foot to trade for a cure for the mutated Donatello. Unbeknownst to them, the Heart was the only thing binding a quintet of elemental mystics to the Foot's will; with its theft and subsequent destruction, the mystics were free to resurrect their master, the original (and demonic) Shredder.
- In an episode of South Park, people have been spontaneously combusting. Scientist Randy Marsh discovers that this was caused by people holding in their farts, so he tells people not to hold it in. Unfortunately, the constant release of flatulence begins to cause global warming.
- Speaking of South Park... who knew that Peruvian Pan Flute Bands were the only thing holding back the hordes of Mutant Guinea Creatures intent on destroying the Earth? The Secretary of Homeland Security, that's who.
- And who would have known that hybrid vehicles while emiting less smog, they tend to make the people who drive them emit a more obnoxious gas called smug?
- The Imaginationland episodes begin with Cartman and his friends trying to capture a leprechaun (with Kyle agreeing to suck his balls if Cartman proves his claims, as per the Dead Baby Comedy nature of the show), but once they capture it, the leprechaun proclaims, "I was sent to warn of a terrorist attack, but you boys have made me late. Now the terrorists will prevail! The end is near!"
- Stroker and Hoop pretty much abide by this trope, as no sooner they they think they've fixed things. It only proceeds to get worse due to their blundering.
- How could all of you missed Jimmy Neutron? This trope is used in EVERY EPISODE. And all of the movies. He has even came within inches of cancelling Christmas!
- In the Justice League episode "The Terror Beyond", Superman, Wonder Woman, and Hawkgirl find Dr. Fate and Aquaman seemingly torturing Solomon Grundy. Fate doesn't even try to explain what he's doing, so the Leaguers stop him by roundly kicking his and his friends' butts. At which point Ichthultu rips a hole between dimensions and starts wiggling its tentacles at the League. Quoth Dr. Fate: "I was trying to prevent that."
- Who do the Major League Baseball official scorekeepers credit with the "Nice Job Breaking It, Hero" on that one? At first, it seems obvious that Supes, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl get it but if Dr. Fate had simply said, "Wait, I can explain!" the whole episode probably wouldn't have happened. Stupid grey areas.
- They both take credit, Fate for his silence and the league for jumping to conclusions.
- Justice League has a few other moments. There's the fight between Superman and Captain Marvel in "Clash" which destroys Lex's shiny new city, though Lex was expecting Superman to jump to conclusions. The city being destroyed was a bonus. Then there's the episode where their Kill Sat gets jacked by Luthor, fired at a populated city, and they get blamed for it. Not exactly their fault, but they did make the thing without consulting anyone.
- Danny Phantom has been manipulated into doing this doing this a number of times. It usually turns out alright, but the one time it didn't, someone hit the reset button.
- Sam also does this once in "Memory Blank".
- Xavier Renegade Angel is pretty much the poster boy for this trope. As Xavier's attempts to "help" people invariably lead to the deaths of hundreds.
- In the Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends movie, Frankie manages to reason with the clingy godlike friend World. And it looks like everything is solved. Until Heriman bursts into the room, takes Frankie off, and scolds World.....Who turns into a Tyke Bomb. Nice going, Mr H.
- Avatar The Last Airbender, season 2. Politically destabilizing Ba Sing Se may have felt right, but it was a very, very, bad idea.
- In X Men Evolution, Magneto destroys a Giant Spider that he thinks is the second key to releasing Apocalypse. Turns out the spider was actually a guardian preventing Apocalypse from escaping. Destroying it opened the second door. Oops.
- In Brother Bear, the central point of the story is that Kenai pursues and kills a bear he blames for his brother's death. Later on, he realizes to his horror that was Koda's mother.
- Coop is very good at it. In one episode of Megas XLR he finds a planet, when giant robots are enslaved by mysterious alien, and help them regain freedom. At the end of the episode it's revealed, that this was a prison and he just break free to most ruthless criminals in the Universe. In other episode attack he used agains a villain was so strong, that he ripped hole in reality and almost caused the end of the Universe.
- In Season 4 of Winx Club, Bloom, Roxy and their friends finally manage to reach the forgotten island of Tir Nan Og, where all of the Earth's fairies are imprisoned, and set them free. Yay, awesome! Except that Morganna, the Queen of Fairies, has decided that Humans Are Bastards and that they deserve to be destroyed for ruining the Earth and for not believing in magic any more. And all the other fairies agree with her, and have now declared the Winx girls to be their enemies for not going along. Oops.
- Don't forget the CGI movie. In the end Bloom and Sky destroy the Omega Dimension in order to destroy the spirits of the Three Ancient Witches and free the King and Queen of Sparx (as well as restore said planet to normal). However unknown to our heroines this also frees the spirits of the Tree Ancient Witches to seek out and possess (or simply team up with) their descendants the Trix.
- This also happened in The Real Ghostbusters. After being caught in a snowstorm in Christmas Season, the Ghostbusters find themselves in an old-fashioned place, where they see an old man being tormented by 3 ghosts. They charge in and capture the ghosts, apparently saving the old man. Upon returning home, the Ghostbusters find the people around them have become very selfish and that they all hate Christmas. They soon realize that they actually had just went back in time; that the old man was actually THE Ebenezer Scrooge; that the ghosts they captured are THE Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future; and that they have prevented the events of A Christmas Carol from taking place, leaving an unrepentant Scrooge to provide a different written account, replacing A Christmas Carol, with an opposite message of selfishness to the world.
- In the Direct To DVD film Tinkerbell, Tink's reckless actions ruin all of the fairies' preparations for spring, threatening to cause a chain reaction that disrupts all the seasons, which would result in an ecological castastrophe. Only her brilliant inventions get the fairies back on schedule.
- Ben 10: Alien Force has an example of this in "Time Heals." Gwen successfully goes back in time and prevents Kevin's monstrous mutation . . . only for her to find out that her meddling in time has caused a Bad Future were Hex rules the Earth, Kevin's Charmcaster's slave, Ben's chained in a dungeon as Hex's prisoner, and she's dead. It gets worse when you realize that, unlike some other examples on this page, where the hero had no idea what their actions would do, Gwen was warned by time-traveler Paradox not to go through with her plan. True, he didn't actually come right out and say what exactly would happen, but if a near-omnipotent time-traveler who can see multiple timelines and futures, and usually doesn't visit unless something is really important, tells you not to do something, you should probably listen. Of course, Paradox probably knew Gwen wouldn't listen, but that doesn't give her an excuse.
Real Life
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