History Main / VillainBall

* In ''TabletopGame/BattleTech''. When the Draconis Combine were conquering the Federated Suns territory, they reach the planet Kentares, the New Coordinator ordered the killing of the planets population in an act of vengeance for assassinating his father the previous Coordinator. When [[CargoCult [=ComStar=]]] broadcast this to the rest of the Inner Sphere, this demoralized the Draconians, and enraged the Federated Suns to lead a RoaringRampageOfRevenge on the Combine, effectively retaking every world conquered by the Combine. Plus, there is the fact even from a PragmaticVillain point of view, with the [[SciFiWritersHave/NoSenseOfUnits small size]] of the ''[=BattleTech=]'' armies, diversion of a sufficient force (a good portion of which eventually said ScrewThisImOuttaHere rather than continue the genocide) was quite unwise on its own.
* Just about every thwarted invasion of Orks/Chaos/Dark Eldar in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' is due to this. Orks will destroy and loot highly advanced weaponry for parts so they can make their primitive shootas and vehicles (admittedly, they wouldn't know how to use them anyway), Chaos armies tend to fall apart due to second-in-command betrayal/costly sacrifices/religious differences resolved by chainaxe to the face, and Dark Eldar will happily take out their own leaders to take their place (while KlingonPromotion very strongly applies to the other two, the Dark Eldar turn it into a lifestyle). The Eldar's long-term plans rely heavily on misdirection and getting other armies to fight for them, but even when they're facing a common enemy like Necrons or Chaos they don't tell their allies/pawns everything they should know, and suffer for it.

[[caption-width-right:250:VisualPun aside, possessing a ball to do crimes isn't a well-rounded idea.]]

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Although powerful and intelligent, Cinder's impatience, sadism, and pettiness often sabotage the villains' plans through constant gloating to victims, attempts to steal Maiden powers, and seeking revenge against her enemies. [[spoiler:It leads to Ruby maiming her during a TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening when she delays killing Pyrrha to gloat; it costs the villains the Relic of Knowledge when she sabotages Salem's plan just to go after the Spring Maiden and Ruby; and it costs her the Winter Maiden's power when her gloating allows Fria to fend her off just long enough for help to arrive. In Volume 8, Watts lampshades this during a powerful TheReasonYouSuckSpeech that reduces her to tears and forces her to re-evaluate her behavior. And even after that, she still grabs the ball tight in the following fight with Team RWBY, betraying her only combat ally Neo in the middle of the battle, valuing revenge against someone who once threatened her over having the best chance of victory, which contributes to her inability to achieve her main objective of getting the Winter Maiden's powers from Penny.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': [[Characters/TheOwlHouseEmperorBelos Emperor Belos]] EvilGloating. Philip is able to succeed in his plans largely because of the support he gets from the denizens of the Isles he tricks into following him, yet whenever he achieves some form of success of goal through them and feels he has [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness finished with them]], he seemingly '''cannot''' resist the opportunity to let them know how he ''really'' feels about them, rubbing in his deception and how he's thoroughly enjoying the chance to leave them for dead for worse off for their encounter. This resulted in 'Philip' becoming known as [[HatedByAll a manipulative and untrustworthy individual throughout all the Isles]], forcing him to assume the identity of 'Belos' and even mutilate himself to appear as a Native, and his betrayals of Luz, Lilith, Kikimora and the Collector all rebounded back on him once he showcased his real opinions of them. Despite this, Philip never once learned from the multiple times this trait backfired on him, and is even hinted to secretly ''resent'' having to disguise his real nature and be continually forced to obscure what he really thinks of those around him. Him indulging in this one last time on the Day of Unity when the opportunity arose ultimately resulted in his carefully-laid plan and almost guaranteed victory going up in smoke.

* A recurring theme with villains in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' is that, despite their admittedly noble goals (Amon wants equality, Unalaq wanted to bring back the spirits, Zaheer wanted the people to be free, and Kuvira is trying to bring order to the Earth Kingdom), they are not above committing pointless and petty acts of cruelty, which leads to Korra ruining their plans and even got their goals accomplished (except for Zaheer, in which he mournfully admitted that his actions in Book Three only caused chaos after he killed the Earth Queen that lead to Kuvira's rise to power and descent to villainy).

* In the season five premiere of ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'', [[spoiler:Gabriel has the Rabbit Miraculous as per the events of the previous season. Meaning that, as his loyal assistant Natalie points out, he can simply go back in time and send himself a USB drive with information on how to repair the Peacock Miraculous, thereby saving Emilie and (by extension herself) from its detrimental effects, without the need of the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous whatsoever.]] After all, saving his wife is the reason ''why'' he became a villain in the first place. Instead of doing that however, [[spoiler:he immediately abandons the plan to instead attempt to ambush Ladybug and Rabbit Noir in the present and gain their powers. This naturally fails, resulting in him losing his newfound time travel abilities. When he reveals this to Natalie, she is so taken aback that she quits working for him right then and there.]]

** In the two-episode story "A Canterlot Wedding", Twilight Sparkle is the only one who suspects the character of Princess Cadance, who's marrying Twilight's brother, though she doesn't guess that it's actually Queen Chrysalis who had taken Cadance's place. At the end of the first part, Chrysalis manages to convince everyone, including Twilight herself, that Twilight is being a horrible person and only accusing her because she's possessive of her brother. That would have neutralised the only threat to her plans, but it's just not evil enough, so she has to go and imprison her in the same place where the real Cadance was, apparently trying to make Twilight kill her -- only to lead to her eventual defeat after Twilight doesn't and they flee together to stop the wedding. It's also a bit more complicated than that, with a bit of a BugWar in there and whatnot, but the way the good guys win in the end would not have been possible if the real Cadance had not been freed. Or with Twilight moping alone somewhere after being told not to even attend the wedding. Even with Twilight out of the picture, Chrysalis ''constantly'' does things that are [[NotHelpingYourCase Not Helping Her Case]] like being a massive {{Bridezilla}} who constantly berates everyone for doing any little thing she doesn't like, even ''Shining Armor'' for doing minor things like wanting to wear something that belonged to his father. All she had to do to win was hold her position with Shining Armor loving her, which she would have accomplished with much more success had she just swallowed her pride and paid lip service to "her" fiance and their wedding staff.

** In "School Raze", once Cozy Glow was foiled, had she turned back on the innocent little filly act she was otherwise so good at and made up a FreudianExcuse or cried to Twilight Sparkle about not understanding friendship, she would have been treated the same as Starlight Glimmer and been [[EasilyForgiven thrown a second chance so fast her freckles would have been blown off]] leaving her free to go back to villainy the second Twilight's guard was down. Instead she'd rather [[VillainousBreakdown rant and rave about her villainy]] and gets [[DraggedOffToHell tossed in Tartarus]]. [[spoiler:She's actually smart enough to keep her mouth shut the second time she's foiled, but unfortunately this time Queen Chrysalis isn't and [[GoodIsNotSoft Celestia doesn't care either way at this point]].]]
** In the Season 9 premiere, King Sombra would've gotten away with it too, had he [[LegionOfDoom joined forces with the rest of the villains]], instead of [[ICanRuleAlone attempting to invade Equestria on his own]].

* Dr. Doofenshmirtz from ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' is one of the worst examples, as illustrated in the episode "Candace Gets Busted" where a building is blocking his view of the theater. He remarks that he could just move his chair, but decides to build a machine to zap the building out of the way.

** Multiple episodes of feature some variation of a plot where Aku forces a person or a group of people into deceiving Jack and luring him into a trap to save their own lives or get some desired MacGuffin from him. Inevitably, this plot will succeed, but Aku [[YouSaidYouWouldLetThemGo always fails to uphold his end of the bargain]]. Which, of course, leads to [[TheDogBitesBack the dog biting back and helping Jack escape]]. Had Aku ever just swallowed his pride and ''not'' screwed somebody over in exchange for the death of his most hated and dangerous enemy -or just waited to do it until Jack had been dealt with- he would have won. At least one episode suggested that Aku, being [[MadeOfEvil a living personification of evil]], is literally incapable of ''not'' [[KickTheDog kicking the dog]] even when it [[PragmaticVillainy would be beneficial for him not to do so]].
** One episode has him actually manage to steal Jack's sword, the ''one thing in all existence'' capable of harming and killing him. Does he destroy it, or order one of his goons to bury it on the other side of the planet, or hurl the damned thing into the stratosphere? No, he decides to dick around and use the sword to kill Jack. Granted he couldn't have reasonably known the sword couldn't hurt Jack, but given how much of a pain in his arse Jack has been and how clever and resourceful the samurai is he ''really'' shouldn't have even offered the scant possibility of Jack managing to get his sword back.
** When Aku finally manages to capture Jack in the series finale, he decides to broadcast his execution to the entire world to make an example out of him. Then he wastes so much time debating (onscreen) about what the most painful way to kill Jack would be, that all of the people Jack has helped over the years have time to fly to his castle and launch an assault to rescue Jack. Aku being [[NighInvulnerability Nigh-Invulnerable]], they aren't able to do much more than annoy him, but it does provide Jack the distraction he needs to escape.

* Slade in ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' would be a full-time MagnificentBastard if he'd just learn not to give in to his sadistic impulses unnecessarily. As it is, this has gotten in the way of his plans by providing an out for one minion and turning another against him (which got him lava fried). Of course, this does mean that for a SmugSnake, he's still very effective and creepy, but he could be so much more...

** , He [[spoiler:decides to use the [[WaveMotionGun Fusion Cannon]] on the entirely helpless proto-humans [[LawfulStupidChaoticStupid when he should have attacked the Maximals first, who could actually do something to stop him]]]]. To make it even worse [[spoiler:all of the proto-humans [[UnexplainedRecovery survived somehow]] and he only succeeded in killing Quickstrike and Inferno, ''his own minions'']].

* In Adam Troy Castro's Literature/SinisterSixTrilogy, [[EvilOldFolks The Gentleman]] had a rather malicious plan to screw over the entire world [[spoiler:by crashing the world economy, setting off an EMP over New York and simultaneously releasing a catalyst that would bleach all ink including bank notes and contracts]] and he might've gotten away with it if the plan didn't call for betraying [[Characters/MarvelComicsOttoOctavius Doctor Octopus]] and the Chameleon for no good reason.

* Very early in the ''Literature/{{Redwall}}'' AnimatedAdaptation [[BigBad Cluny]] sends his henchman Shadow over the wall of the titular abbey to steal their tapestry of Martin the Warrior. Shadow succeeds but is wounded, and Cluny refuses to help him since he "has no bedroom for bunglers". Apparently in Cluny's book, a loyal follower who can silently climb walls like ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' isn't worth nursing back to health when your enemies have a fortress to hide in.

* The villain decides to dispatch the hero via a grisly and complicated DeathTrap over [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim more pragmatic]] solutions, ignoring that methods with more complex working parts are more likely to fail as opposed to simple solutions. A common result of this is WithinArmsReach, where a character in one of these traps or fights manages to just so happen to grab something that allows them to fight back -- even though they're usually doing so in full view of said villain.

** In ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'', everything would have worked out fine for Jafar if he'd simply tossed Aladdin a few coins and sent him on his way rather than double-crossing him after Aladdin retrieved the lamp. Also, in the end Jafar was already the most powerful sorcerer on Earth, more than strong enough to defeat Aladdin. Instead he had to be the most powerful creature and wished to be a genie, [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor with all that entails]]. Years of planning and hardwork for Jafar end up being for nothing with someone else getting his greatest dreams all because he wanted to screw the kid over.

*** Perhaps him abusing Big Baby wasn't such a good idea.

* In ''Literature/TheHundredAndOneDalmatians'', Cruella de Vil owned more than 80 dalmatian puppies. ''Owned'', as in had legally bought and paid for. There were no police, human owners, or frantic canine parents looking for these puppies. One would think that would have been plenty to start her dalmatian fur farm. If not, she could have waited until there was another litter for sale and just bought more puppies. Instead, she kidnapped the Dearly puppies (paying far more to the dog thieves than she had for any litter), thereby bringing the police, human reward-seekers, and [[PapaWolf Pongo]] and [[MamaBear Missus]] down on her head, permanently putting a stop to her plans.

** Aside from the central extravagance of the hunger games (and even that is in some ways an inspired form of repression in that it forces people to become complicit in it through starvation, quite stalinesque actually) the tactics the capital uses to repress the districts are actually a fairly realistic representation of the terror methods that RealLife regimes use, and just like in RealLife but unlike in most stories: They work, to a point. In 75 years of power the capital had almost certainly weathered minor uprisings that it had been able to quell through force, control of information, and playing districts off against each other. What tips the scale in the period of the plot is: [[spoiler: military support from district 13, inter-district organizational and information support from district 13 and rebels in the capital, and a unifying symbol for all the districts in the form of [[TheHero Katniss]] and [[TheLoad Peeta]] that had already been helpfully broadcast through the capital's own propaganda machine]].

** In the two-episode story "A Canterlot Wedding", Twilight Sparkle is the only one who suspects the character of Princess Cadance, who's marrying Twilight's brother, though she doesn't guess that it's actually Queen Chrysalis who had taken Cadance's place. At the end of the first part, Chrysalis manages to convince everyone, including Twilight herself, that Twilight is being a horrible person and only accusing her because she's possessive of her brother. That would have neutralised the only threat to her plans, but it's just not evil enough, so she has to go and imprison her in the same place where the real Cadance was, apparently trying to make Twilight kill her -- only to lead to her eventual defeat after Twilight doesn't and they flee together to stop the wedding. It's also a bit more complicated than that, with a bit of a BugWar in there and whatnot, but the way the good guys win in the end would not have been possible if the real Cadance had not been freed. Or with Twilight moping alone somewhere after being told not to even attend the wedding. Even with Twilight out of the picture, Chrysalis ''constantly'' does things that are [[NotHelpingYourCase Not Helping Her Case]] like being a massive {{Bridezilla}} who constantly berates everyone for doing any little thing she doesn't like, even ''Shining Armor'' for doing minor things like wanting to wear something that belonged to his father. All she had to do to win was hold her position with Shining Armor loving her, which she would have accomplished with much more success had she just swallowed her pride and paid lipservice to "her" fiance and their wedding staff.

* "Advertising/VictoryByComputer": The Luthor's goons who get Supergirl depowered and imprisoned in his lair could have tied her up and left in an empty room, watched by two armed guards. Instead, they leave her untied and unguarded in a room from which she can access to a storage room filled with telephones, computers and the lair's emergency exit.

* ''[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/sheltered-rwby-pseudo-crossover.713359/ Sheltered]]'' (a Anime/{{Shelter|2016}}/{{WebAnimation/RWBY}} fic) features a ''spectacular'' fuck-up on the part of Jacques Schnee, Weiss' father, who in his greed attempts to force Rin to sign away all overship rights to her ship, including the intellectual property rights, hoping to secure exclusive access to advanced alien technology. Beforehand, Rin had little reason to think the Schnee patriarch would attempt to exploit her - had he played the long game and entered a partnership with her, he would have still secured an extremely lucrative source of profit, but instead he decides to attempt to basically claim ''everything'' from her, and it backfires ''hard''. He initially attempts this when Weiss is away for an extended period of time, hoping Rin would skip over the legalization of the documents she's been sent, only for her to properly study them in detail. He then attempts to directly pressure Rin by using a combination of gaslighting her via fake audio from Weiss, cutting off any communication with the world outside of the Schnee estate to prevent her from trying to contact Weiss beyond that, and locking her in her room. Unfortunately for him, this causes Rin to become desperate enough to remotely order her ship to come to her to get her out of there, and she also first uses her semblance in the process. Jacques' blunder is so spectacular in scope that in order to avoid getting metaphorically crucified by General Ironwood and Weiss, he stages things to make it look like Rin was kidnapped in a White Fang attack (and the resulting security revamp likely having its own consequences later down the line), but he also hires mercenaries in an attempt to re-secure Rin after she lands in Menagerie, which goes ''poorly'' thanks to Ghira Belladonna and his forces, and it also scares her off ''again'', causing her to become paranoid enough to try to slip under the radar, suspecting that Weiss and Ironwood were potentially in on this scheme and had betrayed her trust (even later, when Rin is informed that Weiss is attending Beacon, she is too hesitant to contact her directly out of fear that she was under her father's thumb and might report back to him). Rin eventually ends up living with Taiyang Xiao Long and his daughters Yang and Ruby, who manage to secure her trust, and this ends up causing the technology that Jacques' craves to end up being used by a ''competing company''. In his greed and impatience, Jacques scares off the golden goose, and ends up having to scramble to cover up his blunder, which would make things even worse for him if ''anyone'' from Atlas found out the truth. In the words of one forum poster...
-->'''[=CrowbarKnight=]''': "Hmmm, you know I figured Jacques was a bit of a gambler, albeit more of the card counter or D’Arby variety then anything else, but I didn’t know he was into playing ''political Russian Roulette.''"
** Now that the fic is ''finished'', the epilogue details how this all finally ends: [[spoiler:Jacques is arrested for treason (with Winter taking him in after listening in on him plotting to capture Rin while also unintentionally confessing his guilt), amongst several other crimes he committed in his desperation to secure control over Rin]].
* ''[[FanFic/BurnTheWitchMiraculousLadybug BURN THE WITCH]]'' features a [[WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug Lila Rossi]] who is so used to [[KarmaHoudini getting away with]] [[ManipulativeBitch all her machinations]] that she has no clue how to respond when she [[KarmaHoudiniWarranty finally gets caught]]. Unable to acknowledge even the ''notion'' that her actions can have terrible consequences ''for her'', and furious at the notion of Marinette and Ladybug being the only ones willing to try and protect her from Witch Hunter and the ever-growing angry mob, she repeatedly attempts to spitefully sabotage both her classmate and the heroine. In the process, she winds up self-sabotaging ''herself'' several times, as her attempts backfire and wind up costing her one potential safe haven after another.

* [[TheDragon Drake]] from ''Literature/{{Gone}}'' seems to be aware that hurting [[DarkChick Diana]] would really anger the BigBad, [[StalkerWithACrush Caine]], and, while he openly hates her, he saves most of his taunting of her for when Caine isn't around, even though she often provokes him. But then in ''Hunger'', he [[spoiler: picks her up with his whip-hand and bashes her head open against a rock ''[[DisproportionateRetribution because she yelled at him]]'', all in front of Caine]]. This does not go over well. Of course, he's not exactly mentally stable, so...