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" ...for the last time!"
— Pretty much everybody on this page
The main bad guy - usually a Diabolical Mastermind - kills one of his henchmen who has failed to capture and/or kill the hero, as a reminder to all of his other underlings that he is a badass. Presumably, the other underlings immediately all fall into line instead of quietly updating their resumes and trying to find a less psychopathic overlord to work for. This is related to Karmic Death, in that it means the hero doesn't have to dirty their hands.
Some bad guys will use The Blofeld Ploy to pull off the underling murder. Others will drop the offending underling through a Trap Door in The War Room into a Shark Pool or other deathtrap.
The main bad guy almost never kills the second person who fails, as he begins to develop a healthy respect for his adversary.
See also: Bad Boss, You Have Outlived Your Usefulness.
Examples
Anime
- Gendo Ikari's motivation to switch to Unit 01's Dummy Plug in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Of course, the main reason why Shinji refused to kill the Angel in that instance is because it was an EVA gone bad...with Toji Suzuhara trapped inside it.
- Mimi and Sheshe suffer this fate at the hands of both their bosses in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch. They got off lucky the first time, only turning back to their original forms; the second time, depending which version you're following, either their hearts are absorbed like Seira's, or they get eaten alive.
- Subverted twice in Yes! Precure 5 by Bunbee. He drops Girinma down the Trap Door, presumably never to be seen again... only for Girinma to climb back up five episodes later, ready to fail him again. Much later, Bunbee finds himself on the other end of this trope, being dropped off of a building by Kawarino. Bunbee turns out to have grabbed a convenient ledge... and then remembered that, you know, he can fly.
- The Quirky Miniboss Squad in four of the five Sailor Moon seasons all fall prey to this trope at the hands of each season's Big Bad. There was at least one villain per saga doing so, from Queen Beryl killing Jadeite to Galaxia killing eventually winding up killing all but one of her minions, including the "brainwashed" Uranus and Neptune. Rubeus gives a specially cruel twist to it in regards to Kooan from the Ayakashi Sisters.
- Actually this doesn't really occur in Sailor Moon S, where all of the Big Bad's underlings either kill one another or end up hoist by their own petards. The Big Bad does make an attempt to kill his own Dragon, but it's more a case of You Have Outlived Your Usefulness (also the would-be victim survives).
- Sailor Stars is a particularly cruel instance of this trope. The Big Bad (Sailor Galaxia) sends her four minions, the Anima-Mates to Earth to find "true star seeds" (basically, immortal souls) inside of the living beings of Earth that would impede her chances of taking over the galaxy, and killed most of them when they failed (except Sailor Lead Crow, who was too ambitious for her own good and got eaten by a black hole). At the end of the series, it turns out Galaxia knew that the Sailor Soldiers held the true star seeds the whole time, which makes it seem like she toyed around with the Anima-Mates for yuks and giggles.
- Subverted in Excel Saga, in which Diabolical Mastermind Il Palazzo drops Excel down a miles-deep, alligator-filled pit almost every episode. It isn't always alligators; in fact, the first time they appear, Il Palazzo refers to them as a Christmas present ("I have provided you with a knife and all suitable supplies"). The next time we see Excel, she's discussing the proper way of killing an alligator and complaining about how tough it is to skin one.
- Played straight later in the series, when he actually tries to kill her
- Mai-HiME: Father Joseph gets the "You're fired" speech from the higher-ups at Searrs for failing to eliminate the main characters in Episode 12. Even though he created Miyu, the folks at Searrs made certain to delete her override codes to prevent him from rebelling against them before his dismissal. He tries to turn the tables against Alyssa after the destruction of the Artemis, but Miyu takes him out for real this time.
- During the Saiyan Saga of Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta kills his partner Nappa after he gets his ass kicked by Goku, considering Nappa to be no use to him as a Saiyan warrior considering how Goku made an idiot out of him.
- Well, his back was also broken during the course of the fight...it was still a jerkass thing to do.
- MetalSeadramon from Digimon Adventure kills Scorpiomon after he fails to capture and incapacitate all 8 of the kids (Joe and Mimi escape).
- In Princess Tutu, when Princess Kraehe continually fails to bring the Raven a heart as a sacrifice, he attempts to eat her heart instead. She escapes, but barely. (Ironically, he then later seems to be surprised when she betrays him and tries to save Mytho from the same fate.)
- In Full Metal Panic!: The Second Raid, a Running Gag sees Ax Crazy Psycho For Hire Gates do this to quite a lot of subordinates for any number of random reasons. It's mostly played for comedy, if only because of the utterly insane ways he does it: In one case, he shoots a man who gainsaid him in the head point blank and then argues with his corpse for a good thirty seconds before noticing he is dead, and then bemoaning the man's sudden and unexpected death and wondering how it happened.
Film
- The trope names comes from what is possibly the most famous instance: Darth Vader's "You have failed me for the last time" before choking Admiral Ozzel and promoting Captain Piett to replace him before the body hits the floor in The Empire Strikes Back. True to form, Piett survives a number of failures, once Vader realizes the heroes may prove to be a bit of a challenge.
- In fairness, Admiral Piett is a competent enough officer that he manages to survive all the way to the final battle, where he is killed in action.
- And Piett hadn't failed. He did everything he was told to do and performed his duties admirably. However, none of them could predict that the rebels would manage to fix the Millennium Falcon or any of those other last minute flashes of brilliance. Vader, to his credit as a villain, only kills incompetent underlings who don't follow orders.
- He does it again to the hapless Captain Needa before the film's even halfway done. The turnover rate for Imperial officers must be appalling.
- This troper feels obliged to point out that Admiral Ozzel HAD failed Lord Vader. The Rebels were able to detect the Imperial fleet and power up their defensive shield because the Imperial fleet dropped out of hyperspace close to Hoth, as opposed to approaching on sublight drive.
- Parodied in this Irregular WebComic strip
 , where Vader strangles an officer, and then admits he hadn't even done anything wrong.
- Parodied by Robot Chicken where it is revealed that the Imperial officers just pretend to be strangled by Vader. They are then dragged out of the room where they put on a fake mustache and uniform and go back to work, with Vader none the wiser. They do this because he still has a lightsaber, and only thinks he can choke people.
- Parodied yet again in this strip of Loserz.
- And again in Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman.
- Years before Star Wars, in the Hammer Horror Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Dracula (Christopher Lee) uses this line in a snarl to the hapless Zita (one of his pretty victims) before vampirising her to death and having her remains burnt in a baker's oven.
- Semi-subverted in the first Austin Powers movie, when Dr. Evil dumps one of his minions down into a pit...and the minion survives, and is very noisy. Dr. Evil gets someone to go down there and just shoot him, and that does the trick...eventually.
- In Desperado, after Bucho's gang repeatedly fails to find and kill the Mariachi, Bucho demonstrates what they're supposed to do by saying "Look! I don't know him! He has a gun! That must be the guy!" and shooting one of his henchmen. "How hard is that?"
- The Rider in The Dark Is Rising (movie) actually said "You have failed me for the last time". You'd think it would be a Dead Horse Trope by now.
- Then again, it is an awesome indicator of villainy. Don't expect it to go away anytime soon!
- Nicely subverted in Die Hard 2, when the Card Carrying Villain puts the barrel of his gun to the Mooks' forehead and pulls the trigger. The gun doesn't fire, the Mook breathes a sigh of relief as the villain tells him that next time, the chamber won't be empty... and then happily goes back to work doing his evil Mook duties.
- In Mortal Kombat Annihilation, Shao Kahn does this twice, once to the Outworld ninja Rain for failing to destroy some Earth Warriors by knocking him into a lava pit with a big whacking hammer; and once to Jade, his mole in the ranks of the primary heroes, after she too failed to destroy them. Her death is even more ignominious — she is fed to a monster carving in a wall, which burps after finishing with her.
- "Suicide, or be shot by someone else" was the option given to the losing Soviet general at the start of Enemy at the Gates.
- "No. YoU haVe FAileD yoUrsElveS."
- "Would you be killed in your sleep like an ailing pet?"
- Slightly debugged for Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, when Captain Barbossa shoots one of his own crewman, Pintel, to see if they're all still cursed with immortality, and Pintel survives. The screenwriters Elliot and Rossio remarked in the DVD commentary that this was the only way a villain could repeatedly achieve You Have Failed Me moments without ever running out of henchmen.
Literature
- Subverted in the Expanded Universe novels Heir to the Empire and The Last Command, where tactical genius villain Grand Admiral Thrawn makes a point of not indiscriminately killing subordinates. He instead has an ensign killed for not being able to think intuitively during a difficult moment, and later actually promotes a tractor beam engineer who quickly came up with a creative solution to a sudden problem that was "no less impressive for its failure".
- The Evil Overlord version (in which the Big Bad kills a random minion as a lesson) is subverted in the New Jedi Order series. Supreme Overlord Shimrra can be a really Bad Boss, but he's clever enough to recognize when he's being played. Near the end, it looks as if he's about to execute High Prefect Jakan, who's been framed as a supporter of the heretics—then turns on the High Priestess who's framing him and is a heretic.
- Harry Potter: The fear of hearing Voldemort say this, no doubt quickly followed by "Crucio!" and "Avada Kedavra!", hangs over the head of every Death Eater.
- However, very few times we see him actually killing one of his minions for failing him. He usually just tortures them a bit, sends their son into a suicide mission, and that's it. Lucius Malfoy, for example, fails him spectacularly a number of times; however, the Humiliation Conga is all the punishment he receives
- Animorphs' Big Bad, Visser Three, was famous for this, to the point where promotion for a Yeerk was a very dicey proposition, since every ladder rung you climb brings you slightly closer to Esplin 9466's stolen tail blade and hairtrigger temper.
Live Action TV
Tabletop RPG
- In a galaxy full of unpleasant people, Abaddon the Despoiler of Warhammer 40000 doesn't so much take the cake as nuke the bakery from orbit. He is well known across the galaxy for having an insanely violent temper. A good indicator of this is that any underling would rather commit suicide than deliver him bad news. His wrath isn't reserved for people he meets personally either. Any ship that sufficiently screwed up in his presence would get a Wave Motion Gun in the face. This is an actual rule for Abaddon in the Battlefleet Gothic spin-off game - if one of your ships fails a command test in his presence, his flagship will open fire on it.
- Particularly ironic considering that he is also known as "Failbaddon" due to the fact that (quoted from General Failure) he's launched thirteen Black Crusades from the Eye of Terror over a ten thousand year period, with tens of thousands of genetically and daemonically-empowered Space Marines, countless billions of cultist troops, massive industrial support from daemonic Forge Worlds, and the unending hordes of the daemons of the Warp, while being backed by all four of the primary Chaos Gods, and every last one of them has failed.
- Within the tabletop game, Imperial Guard squads with an attached Commissar do not fear failing a leadership test — or rather, they do. A lot. Should the unit try to fall back, the Commissar will immediately execute the squad commander for failure to discipline his squad, making the squad regroup on the spot. The side effect of this is that the squad commander's leadership will increase while both he and the commissar are alive, because the commander is more motivated to lead by wanting to stay alive.
- This was played with in the third edition by the Catachan regiments, Bad Ass Rambo-esque jungle fighters that dislike the trappings of command structure; if they field a Commissar, before the game starts, there's a random chance that he 'mysteriously disappears' in an 'accident.' The rule itself is called "Oops, sorry sir".
- In the Dawn Of War computer spinoff, the Commissar unit actually has the first and third phrases as one of his quotes for the "Execute Guardsman" command.
Commissar: "If you will not serve in combat, you will serve on the firing line!"
Video Games
- Averted (amazingly enough) by Darth Malak in Knights Of The Old Republic, after a bounty hunter hired by Saul Karath fails to kill the heroes. "The penalty for failure is death, Admiral Karath... but the failure was Calo's, not yours. You may rise."
- You can do this on Evil Genius with your minions to completely refill the loyalty, attention and endurance of everyone in the room.
- In Perfect Dark, after the first two version of their plan, which attempted to take advantage of Trent Easton's political connections, fail, Mr. Blonde reveals his alien nature and dispatches Easton in a combination of this trope and You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. When the last, least subtle plan is thwarted as well, the Skedar imprison their other ally Cassandra DeVries for the same reasons.
- Happens to Drakuru in World Of Warcraft. After being decieved and nearly defeated by the player, he summons the Arthas, The Lich King, and explains that you've been double-crossing them. Arthas' response—to say this, kill Drakuru, and spare the player.
Web Comics
Web Original
Western Animation
- Phaeton, the Big Bad of Exosquad had a habit of summarily executing his generals whenever they really screwed up. But since he could easily clone them, he could easily replace them... with themselves.
- In the beginning of the Double Dragon cartoon, Shadow Lord kills two of his thugs for failing him by trapping them in the Shadow Mural. Particularly annoying, as he never does this to his goons later, even though they fail much worse than the first two (I mean, did he really think getting the Double Dragon Sword would be that easy?) Maybe he just realized that if he killed somebody for every failure he'd run out of men fast.
- An early Birdman villain in the employ of F.E.A.R., the Ringmaster, seems to be terrified of finding himself on the receiving end of this when he is captured. In "Murro the Marauder", a nameless mook gets the Trap Door treatment after being thwarted by Birdman in his attempt to steal a secret formula.
- In The Emperors New Groove, Yzma does something even worse than killing her lackey Kronk: she insults his spinach-puff recipe.
- Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker: One of the Jokerz mouths off to the Joker for not telling them his plan after they fail a heist...
- Phobos, the season one Big Bad of WITCH, punished his Mooks heavily for failure, to the point where by the end of the season, one of them defected to the side of the heroes after they found him injured following a battle, knowing full well what Phobos did to those soldiers he discovered had been wounded. He even took a break from the Final Battle to punish his right-hand Giant Mook Cedric, transforming him from a giant snake monster into a tiny, pathetic one. This would later come back to bite Phobos in the ass in season two, after he regains his power and gives Cedric one more shot. Cedric returns the favor by stealing all of Phobos' power by eating Phobos alive during the penultimate episode.
- Prime Evil, the [1] of Filmation's Ghostbusters, was quite fond of saying this to his ghostly minions, often exacting some kind of "humorous" punishment on them. (Example: Fangster, a werewolf ghost, gets inflicted with vampire fleas.)
- Black Mask from The Batman killed his Number One and told a random Mook "You! You're my new Number One." The first just because he was pissed and he shot, the second questioned anti-gravity spray working and was made a test subject.
- In the movie of Kim Possible Drakken used this to his employee Shego after she failed the mission. Subverted by the fact that Shego responded with Why are you all, "You have failed me for the last time!" Are you kidding me with that? and explained that this mission would be the one successful mission.
- Subverted in Cat City. After each failure, Mr. Teufel, The Dragon, invites his semi-competent secretary "for a few words". The latter survives, but appears in ever-increasing number of bandages.
Real Life
- Admiral John Byng had failed England at the Battle of Minorca.
- "Sometimes it is necessary to execute one admiral to encourage the others." Since Voltaire said it, you may come across the phrase "pour encourager les autres".
- It can be argued that it actually worked: the Seven Years War marked the rise of England as the major naval power in Europe, mostly due to the freshly 'motivated' attitude of the RN.
- To probably no one's surprise at all, Hitler pulled this one out of the cartoonishly evil playbook. As the remnants of the Sixth Army were dying at Stalingrad, with no hope of escape or rescue, he promoted their commander, General Paulus, to Field Marshal. Because no German Field Marshal had ever surrendered, it was obvious to everyone that this was a subtle order for Paulus to commit suicide for his failure to win the battle. Subverting the trope, he didn't.
- Stalin executed many high-ranking officers who lost to significantly smaller number of Finnish soldiers during the Winter War. Since "failing Stalin (for the last time)" is not a charge that can be formally brought at a court martial, one general's official offense was losing twelve battlefield kitchens to the enemy.
- After General Zhu Tao of the Tang Dynasty rushed into battle against two of his rivals and was soundly defeated, he executed two advisers who had advocated attacking immediately instead of allowing his soldiers to rest for a few days.
- As the U.S. auto makers start to fail, some certain politicians say not so save them with a quote somewhere along the lines of "The U.S. government does not subsidize failure".
- The irony/hypocracy here is rather thick, however, given how contractors (blackwater anyone?) often have their failures ignored and their contracts renewed, creating a subversion.
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