History Main / WinWinEnding

* ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'': The Viltrumite War story arc ends with Thragg, Nolan, and Mark compromising over the fate of their now homeless race. The Viltrumites have already infiltrated the Earth and are now blending into human society and...that's it. While it's officially a stalemate, the situation speaks for itself. The fighting is over and Earth will be spared from becoming a battlefield for a pointless conflict, there'll be no great reckoning for at least a few thousand years, Mark and Nolan make it home safe and sound, and the is allowed to visit his family at least temporarily. Best of all, the former imperialists are under orders not to cause any trouble and are going to start familes of their own to bond with mankind. The situation is so good that Cecil actually decommisions his ever expanding arsenal of Anti-Invinicible weapons and Reanimen because there's just no point anymore.

The trope is more likely to take place in productions for children or in humorous settings. It is easier to come to an agreement with a HarmlessVillain or and IneffectualSympatheticVillain than with an EldritchAbomination who wants to destroy the universe ForTheEvulz. Also, see MoralityTropes for ways to throw audience expectations off regarding hero/villain divisions.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Leo}}'': [[spoiler:Since the film has NoAntagonist, all the characters get what they want by the end. All the students get past their personal vices with Leo's help, grow closer to one another, and graduate to middle school, while Leo gets a new lease on life, now that he knows he isn't about to die and likes helping people. Even the grouchy Ms. Malkin turns out to be not so bad and earns a permanent teaching position at the school.]]

* ''[[ComicBook/{{Asterix}} Asterix at the Olympic Games]]'': The Romans (who are only the [[DesignatedVillain Designated Villains]] in this story) train the legionnaire Gluteus Maximus to take part in the Olympic Games. When the Gauls find out about the Games, they send their own champion, Asterix. They discover too late that they are not allowed to use magic potions in the games, and Asterix can not beat well trained Romans. However, he plays a BatmanGambit on them, so they are all disqualified, and Asterix becomes the unopposed champion. But he did not take the Palm of Victory home: as he had no use for it, he gave it to Gluteus Maximus, who is promoted to Centurion, and Centurion Gaius Veriambitius is promoted to senator.
* The first appearance of Arkon, in ''Franchise/TheAvengers''. He comes from AnotherDimension, and the rings of his world (similar to our sun) begin to collapse and shut down. He discovered that the first atomic explosion could light the skies for a brief time, and a higher explosion at a certain place would light Polemachus forever. Of course, Earth would be destroyed, but who cares? The Avengers follow him to that dimension, and then again to our world... except for Iron Man and Thor, who stayed in Polemachus. In no time, Iron Man built a machine lighted by Thor's lighting, that solved the problem without destroying earth.

* In the ''[[ComicBook/ElfQuest ElfQuest Holiday Special]]'' episode there's a major grudge fight between Cutter and Rayek where they almost end up killing each other. The win-win part is that it lets Cutter burn out his (admittedly justified) aggression toward Rayek, allowing them to become allies, if not actual friends just yet.

* The first story arc of the ''ComicBook/YoungAvengers''. Hulking discovers that he is a Kree-Skrull mongrel, son of Princess Anelle and Captain Marvell. The Super-Skrull want to take him to the Skrull homeworld, the Kree want to take him to the Kree homeworld, and he just wants to stay in Earth. How do we deal with this? He proposed to stay a year in each world, to know each one, and then decide. Kree and Skrull are satisfied. And when they leave... the real Hulking shows up, he's not going anywhere: the Kree left with the Super-Skrull posing as Hulking, and in a great position to spy on them.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': ''WesternAnimation/WakkosWish'' ends with everyone in Acme Falls getting their wish. Except [[ButtMonkey The Mime]], [[EveryoneHatesMimes of course]].

* ''LightNovel/ShakuganNoShana'' ultimately ends this way. A god named Fu Xi was awakened by the prayers of his followers, the Crimson Denizens, and planned to create a new world for his subjects to live in, away from the conflict with the Flame Hazes. Under the impression that the amount of [[LifeEnergy Power of Existence]] that this plan would require would damage the Earth, the Flame Hazes fought back, and, in the end, sealed the god away. Cut to the present, and Fu Xi is released once again by Bal Masque, the antagonists of this series. This time, however, Fu Xi enters a contract with Yuji, and is renamed as 'The Snake of the Festival'. A second great war breaks out between the Flame Hazes and the Crimson Denizens, but Yuji and the god succeed in creating Xanadu, and were even able to do so without disrupting the fabric of reality around Earth. The conflict between the the two warring factions was now over, as the Crimson denizens relocate to Xanadu (alongside Shana and Yuji, to boot).

* ''Film/{{Mousehunt}}'': Sure, the house was destroyed, but thanks to an idea given to them by the mouse, the Smuntz brothers start a succesfull new business producing cheese string, which saves their factory from bankruptcy and allows the brothers to finally combine their passions of string and cooking respectively. The mouse meanwhile is given a job in the new factoy as cheese tester, providing him with both a new hom and all the food he wants.

* Lampshaded in ''[[ComicBook/{{Asterix}} Asterix and Cleopatra]]'', where Cleopatra orders an architect to build a huge monument in 3 months. If he does it, he will be covered with gold, if he does not, he will be hurled to the crocodiles. Of course, he finished the building in time. In the last scene, all the characters (Romans, Egyptians, Caesar, Cleopatra and the 3 Gauls) share a celebration. The narrator points that everybody is happy, everybody is eating, everybody is drinking, everybody is enjoying the happy ending... well, almost everybody. And then we saw the angry crocodiles with protest banners, because nobody was sentenced to be their food.

* In the ''Firestorm'' extension for ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'', both GDI and Nod are better off at the term of their EnemyMine situation.

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/WinWin'' only sort of has a Win Win Ending. Sure, Leo gets to stay in his own house, Kyle gets to stay in New Providence, and Cindy is out of the immediate picture -- but she gets $1500 a month for nothing while Mike has to take a second job and Kyle may have blown his chance at a wrestling scholarship.
* A version in ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld'': Thor gets to do what he wants: travel the worlds, righting wrongs, fighting evil, and being with Jane Foster, without worrying about being king of Asgard, which he doesn't ''want'' to be anymore. Meanwhile, Loki gets what ''he'' wants: the throne of Asgard -- which even Odin and Thor came to believe he was better suited temperamentally to occupy than Thor -- no one's the wiser, his adopted mother's killer dead, and Thor out of the picture). Even better, everyone else thinks he died a hero's death.

* ''Film/{{Modesta}}: The women of the neighborhood read their list of demands to the men. After a discussion, they come up with a contract that is agreeable to everyone. The contract stipulates that the sticks of firewood (used as a symbol) will no longer go into play (i.e. husbands will not hit wives and vice versa). It also acknowledges women's demands for fair treatment (help with heavier household tasks and child rearing, etc.), while at the same time acknowledging how hard men work to provide- and that they will NOT wash diapers.
-->We acknowledge the right of women to ask us to make them happy. But, since we also want to be happy, that's why we say, "More loving, less gossiping."[[labelnote:Original quote in Spanish]]Reconocemos el derecho de las mujeres a pedir que nosotros las hagamos felices. Pero, como nosotros tambien queremos ser felices, por eso les decimos... más cariñito, menos bembeteo.[[/labelnote]]
* ''Film/{{Mousehunt}}'': Sure, the house was destroyed, but thanks to an idea given to them by the mouse, the Smuntz brothers start a succesfull new business producing cheese string, which saves their factory from bankruptcy and allows the brothers to finally combine their passions of string and cooking respectively. The mouse meanwhile is given a job in the new factoy as cheese tester, providing him with both a new hom and all the food he wants.

* ''Film/ProblemChild 2'' ends with things working out fine for everyone involved. Ben and Annie fall for each other, Junior and Trixie become good friends (and maybe even step-siblings, eventually), [[RichBitch LaWanda Dumore]] finds a more suitable and loyal new husband in [[GoldDigger "Big" Ben]], while his marrying her gives him a sugar mama to punch his meal ticket.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* In ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'', the much-despised PointyHairedBoss often comes into conflict with his workers over their efforts to do as little work as possible and still get paid -- but [[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1993-10-17/ not always]].
* ''ComicStrip/BloomCounty'' demonstrates an upside to BookBurning: as long as the burners are ''buying'' their kindling, the customers are satisfied, the stores that sold them their materials get paid, and the offending creator of the works destroyed gets another big fat royalty check.
[[/folder]]

* ''Creator/OwlcatGames'' seems fond of this one. The secret endings to both of their ''TabletopGames/Pathfinder'' games both involve the ''BigBad'' getting everything she wants in a way that gives the protagonists everything they want, and completely hose other major antagonists.

** ''VideoGame/PathfinderWrathOfTheRighteous: The secret ending is literally just finishing Areelu Vorlesh's grand master plan with her. The thing is, her grand master plan is to resurrect her child through the player and ascend to divinity with them. Closing the Worldwound, the player's primary objective, is a necessary step for this. As part of the process, the Demon Lords Baphomet and Deskari wind up getting killed for spare parts.

* The ''Manga/ShamanKing'' manga ends with Hao becoming the titular Shaman King, only for the heroes to convince him not to KillAllHumans, so both sides live happy.

[[folder: RealLife]]
* Almost the definition of commerce if it works as intended (note the qualifier). For instance, the Chinese had a great craving for jade and UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire had a great craving for silk, and after a ChainOfDeals through the Silk Road by relays of {{Intrepid Merchant}}s, each managed to get it. A little more complicated than a simple trade, as Romans didn't have jade but they did have gold, with which they could buy jade in central Asia.
[[/folder]]

This is an {{Ending Trope|s}}, so expect spoilers.

* At the end of ''Anime/{{Macross 7}}'', the Protodevlin discover that [[spoiler:they can create [[LifeEnergy Spiritua]] by singing, rather than needing to steal from humans.]]
* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', the very long-running villain Pain realizes that his and Naruto's goals are the same but winds up [[spoiler:preferring Naruto's approach over his own. He ultimately sides with Naruto and dies happy by sacrificing his own life to resurrect everyone he just killed]].

** [[spoiler:Subverted somewhat, as he goes on to rebuild his own Drum Kingdom after the two-year TimeSkip with a much more evil motif. Yeah, seems Wapol didn't learn diddly squat during his exile.]]

* A version in ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld'': [[spoiler:Thor gets to do what he wants: travel the worlds, righting wrongs, fighting evil, and being with Jane Foster, without worrying about being king of Asgard, which he doesn't ''want'' to be anymore. Meanwhile, Loki gets what ''he'' wants: the throne of Asgard -- which even Odin and Thor came to believe he was better suited temperamentally to occupy than Thor -- no one's the wiser, his adopted mother's killer dead, and Thor out of the picture). Even better, everyone else thinks he died a hero's death.]]

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' ends this way. The heroes get their homeland's sovereignty back and the [[AntiVillain villains]] achieve their goal (which conquering the area was a necessary step in): [[spoiler:overthrowing Ivalice's JerkassGods]].
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', the ''Endwalker'' expansions closes with the heroes saving the world [[spoiler:and the rest of the universe from the Endsinger with Zenos' help at the last second. With all existential threats out of the way, Zenos finally gets his long-awaited rematch with the Warrior of Light. He dies content, having experienced the greatest thrill of his life.]]

** ''VideoGame/PathfinderKingmaker'': The secret ending has [[spoiler: Nyrissa becoming the player's queen, giving her the queendom she wanted from the very beginning, while killing the [[GreaterScopeVillain Lantern King]] by turned all the curses he's been throwing around back at him.]]
** ''VideoGame/PathfinderWrathOfTheRighteous: The secret ending is literally just finishing Areelu Vorlesh's grand master plan with her. The thing is, her grand master plan is to [[resurrect her child through the player and ascend to divinity with them.]] Closing the Worldwound, the player's primary objective, is a necessary step for this. As part of the process, the Demon Lords Baphomet and Deskari wind up getting killed for spare parts.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': ''WesternAnimation/WakkosWish'' ends with [[spoiler:everyone in Acme Falls getting their wish. Except [[ButtMonkey The Mime]], [[EveryoneHatesMimes of course]].]]

* [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=811102&comic=blm This]] ''ComicStrip/BloomCounty'' strip, which also [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools demonstrates an upside]] to BookBurning: as long as the burners are ''buying'' their kindling, the customers are satisfied, the stores that sold them their materials get paid, and the offending creator of the works destroyed gets another big fat royalty check.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOBatmanMovie'' follows the trend; Batman saves Gotham from destruction and gets a surrogate family out of the deal, while the Joker finally gets Batman to admit [[FoeYay their relationship is actually meaningful]] and that he hates Joker.

* ''Comicbook/WhatIf ComicBook/CivilWar'' has an alternative ending for the civil war. Both sides of the conflict save Goliath from the clone of Thor, and then Captain America and Iron Man met in an office, discussed the problem as adult people, and find a way to prevent superheroes doing disasters as in Stamford and, at the same time, keep their secret identities safe.