Pyrrhic Victory / Western Animation

Pyrrhic Victories in Western Animation.

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• 101 Dalmatians: The Series: In the episode "Fungus Among Us", Cruella succeeds in stealing the mushrooms under the Dearly's barn despite the pups trying everything in their power to stop her. Turns out, it was a good thing she took all the mushrooms, as they give off a horrific scent at night, which Cruella learns the hard way.
• An infamous American Dad! episode was about Stan having a mental breakdown after he was repeatedly bested by a car salesman who kept selling him expensive cars at inflated prices instead of the sensible one at half. Since he couldn't provide for his family, Francine has to work three jobs to stay afloat and Hailey resorts to prostitution. The salesman eventually sold Stan the car out of pity, only to realize Stan only pretended to be mad. The episode ended with Stan gloating in his new car, not caring about the damage he has done to his family just so he can "win".
• Amphibia:
  • In "Toad to Redemption", Mayor Toadstool is chosen to be the new captain of Toad Tower, but by this point he's grown attached to being Mayor of Wartwood and doesn't want to leave. Since he wasn't so much offered the job as ordered to take it, he can't turn down the job without risking being jailed for insubordination. So, Toadstool and Anne concoct a zany scheme to make Toadstool look bad that backfires, up to the point where Toadstool ends up defending the town from a bunch of former Toad Tower soldiers who've turned to banditry. The Newtopian inspector Jacinda decides to let Toadstool stay in Wartwood... because she thinks he's a sentimental softy, and the position of Toad Tower captain should go to someone ruthless and hard-hearted like Bog, the leader of the bandits. So while Toadstool gets what he wanted, he and the other citizens of Wartwood now have to deal with the newly-assigned Captain Bog, who brags that he'll be even more ruthless than Grime ever was.
    Anne: Well that went well. (Beat) Oh, who am I kidding? This is terrible!
  • In "Barrel's Warhammer", Sasha, Grime, and their army manage to retrieve Barrel's Warhammer, however, Braddock and Percy decide to leave the army because Sasha lied about being willing to call off the mission.
  • Happens twice in the second season finale, "True Colors".
    • Just as Anne and her friends Sasha and Marcy are about to be sent home, Sasha and Grime betray the heroes and start their invasion to dethrone King Andrias and conquer Amphibia. Anne and her allies end up stopping the rebellion, but it turns out that King Andrias was Evil All Along and far worse than Grime and Sasha, setting out to conquer Earth and all other dimensions. Andrias had played them all for fools to his master plan the entire time. The worst part is Sasha discovers this just before the rebellion is quashed, and her actions prevent her from being able to warn Anne that Andrias is a monster.
    • In the end, Anne is finally sent back to Earth, just as she had wanted to for the entire series, but at a price. She's forced to leave her human friends to an Uncertain Doom—worse, fresh off falling out with both of them due to Sasha's actions and the revelation that Marcy, in a fit of Moving Angst stemming from separation anxiety, deliberately trapped the trio in Amphibia—and the Plantar family are forced to leave Amphibia and go with Anne to Earth to escape Andrias' wrath, leaving them refugees in an alien dimension. Plus King Andrias still has what he needs to become a Multiversal Conqueror, meaning Anne and co. have to find a way to get back to Amphibia and stop him before it's too late.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • In one episode, Katara comes across an elderly waterbender named Hama who teaches her on how to improve her Waterbending skills, albeit through questionable methods. Her last lesson is Waterbending's ultimate technique, Bloodbending, where under a full moon the Waterbender can take complete control of their opponent. Katara, of course, is horrified at such a practice and vows not to use it. But when Hama takes control of Aang and Sokka and nearly forces them to kill each other, Katara has no choice but to use the technique to stop her. Hama laughs at this while she's being carted off by the officials, as she succeeded in making Katara use the technique much to Katara's dismay.
    • Even more Pyrrhic if you count The Legend of Korra. Bloodbending survives and gets more refined despite Katara not passing on the art. It's used by two Big Bads and one Big Bad Wannabe to devastating effect.
  • The battle at the Northern Water Tribe counts too. Aang managed to demolish a majority of Zhao's fleet (which is approximately half the Fire Nation Fleet), but by the end of the battle, the Northern Water Tribe suffers heavy losses. Their city is heavily damaged, many lives were lost, and as a result, are in no condition to fight the war.
  • One episode has Zuko successfully drive away an Earth Kingdom soldier from harassing the villagers but he ended up getting driven out himself because he is forced to Firebend to do so.
  • Inverted in The Northern Air Temple, where an invasion from the fire nation on the Northern air temple is successfully prevented after Sokka drops the furnace of a hot air balloon into a gas pocket in a nearby chasm. This causes an explosion that forces the fire nation to retreat, but after this, the hot air balloon has to be abandoned, as it can't increase its altitude without a furnace. This allows the Fire Nation to salvage its remains and reverse-engineer it.
    Qin: This defeat is the gateway to many victories.
• The Batman:
  • The Riddler eventually does take vengeance on the corrupt businessman who ruined his life by sabotaging his experiment and seems wholly content to just die at that point, noting that he won so it's as good a note as any to go out on. Then he learns the corrupt businessman was innocent and framed by his partner and Love Interest, who did it knowing Edward's eccentricities were a threat to the money their invention could make. Sure she ultimately gets brought to justice, but The Riddler's mind is permanently damaged from the sabotaged experiment, he's learned the woman he loved was merely using him, he's wasted years on a meaningless wild goose chase of revenge, and he'll likely spend the rest of his life in prison for the crimes he committed along the way. Even Batman takes pity on the guy.
    Batman: One final riddle. When is a villain... not the villain?
    [cuts to The Riddler on the floor shedding a tear]
  • Francis Grey was a regular guy who, out of desperation, stole a gold watch and accidentally caused a tanker truck explosion during his escape. He ended up in prison for seventeen years, his wife divorced him and he never saw his son again. While in prison, he developed the ability to turn back time, but could only go back twenty seconds, so he couldn't go back and undo his crime. Once released from prison, Francis began constructing a bomb that would release poison gas upon all of Gotham, and due to his time manipulation powers, the Batfamily are unable to stop him. However, Batman sent Batgirl to track down Francis' son Matt, and they arrive just before the bomb explodes. Batman, Robin, Batgirl, half of Gotham and Matt all perish. Francis won, but the victory cost him his son's life. Luckily, the grief gave him the strength to go back in time to the moment before he stole the watch, and this time, he chooses not to.
  • In the Series Finale Dr. Hugo Strange teams up with The Joining, helping them invade Earth and defeat the Justice League in exchange for all the knowledge of the universe The Joining has amassed. He gets what he wanted in the end, but at the cost of rendering him a babbling comatose vegetable who can't comprehend it.
• Big City Greens: The "Chip Whistler takes over Elkins Street" Myth Arc begins with Wholesome Foods losing customers due to boycotting over Chip "decimating" Cricket at the Farmer's Market, leaving him hated by the townsfolk. When his father catches him doing this, he forces them to apologize to the Greens. Chip manages to trick the Greens and his dad into thinking he's sorry, allowing him to take over as Wholesome Foods CEO and further his revenge against the family. However, there is only one drawback; while he did succeed with his plan, this did not fix his reputation, and as of now, people are still boycotting the stores.
• Camp Lazlo has the episode "Racing Slicks", where Edward wins a go-kart race only to find that his trophy is the smallest one given out and the other racers all got larger trophies as a consolation. When he sees that the Dung Beetles got a trophy larger than they are for coming in last place, he angrily throws his trophy on the ground and stomps on it.
• In Chaotic, "Allmagedon", a creature uses an attack to defeat an army of underworlders, at the expense of all he was trying to protect.
• In a season 3 episode of Code Lyoko, Aelita willing makes a Pyrrhic Victory at the end of "Sabotage". X.A.N.A damages the Supercomputer and puts a mass of guards on the tower, so Jeremie needs the active tower offline so he can reboot the Supercomputer but Aelita can't get past the guards to use the Code Lyoko — so she willingly uses Code X.A.N.A. code to delete the Ice Sector, allowing Jeremie to reboot the system and stopping the active tower.
• Numbuh 363 from Codename: Kids Next Door caused one in "Operation I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.". He brags throughout the episode and hates being touched. He also refuses to help Sector V when Count Spankulot spanks them. Finally, when Numbuh 1 saves his life from Father and he is awakened with Father's Pipe, all he can say is "I WIN! I GOT THE PIPE!". His own sector is so appalled by this that they betray him, gag him, and give Sector V all of their stuff.
• A few episodes of Danny Phantom end like this, most notably "Public Enemies" where even though Danny manages to beat back Walker's forces, Walker manages to succeed in his plan to make Danny a Hero with Bad Publicity. True, Danny managed to turn it around eventually, although it did stick for awhile.
• DC Animated Universe
  • Batman: The Animated Series:
    • In "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?" Daniel Mockridge screwed Edward Nygma out of millions in profits from a popular game Nygma created (causing him to become the Riddler in search of revenge). Mockridge faces no legal repercussions for this — but it's apparent from the closing scene that he will spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.
      Batman: How much is a good night's sleep worth? Now there's a riddle.
    • In "The Man Who Killed Batman", Sid the Squid's (apparent) triumph brings him nothing but trouble: other crooks want a piece of him to establish themselves as "tougher than the guy who killed Batman", the police are relentlessly searching for him, the Joker tries to kill him for stealing his chance at final victory, and Rupert Thorne thinks the whole thing is some kind of trick Sid is pulling to take over his rackets. Hilariously it's also inverted in the end once Batman was revealed to have survived — true Sid is sent to prison, but rather than having to deal with the baggage of being the man who killed Batman now he's hailed as the crook who almost killed Batman, set up mob boss Rupert Thorne, and made a fool of The Joker.
    • In a milder example, Jervis Tetch (the Mad Hatter) uses his mind control technology to land Alice, a co-worker he was too shy to talk to, but Batman calls him out on this, asking if a mind-controlled, compliant Alice with no personality was what he really wanted. Tetch has a breakdown and blames Batman for his misery. Thing is, Jervis had ALREADY come to this conclusion earlier in the episode and wanted to woo her on his own merits, but after Alice, who only saw Jervis as a friend, reunited with her boyfriend, he was driven over the edge.
  • Batman Beyond does a similar thing with Inque's daughter Deanna Clay, who screwed her mother over and tried to kill her for the sake of money. By the end of the episode, Deanna is pretty happy with the money she won... until Batman comes to inform her Inque's remnants weren't found anywhere. She now lives in fear of the vengeance of the assassin who can be anywhere, as anyone or anything, seeing Inque in every shadow.
  • As mentioned to Shayera Hol in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Hunter's Moon", because she had stopped her people from trying to destroy Earth just so they could create a shortcut to the Gordonian home world and win the war, her former lover and commander Hro Talak ended up sacrificing himself against the Gordonians which resulted in a great loss for the Thanagarians.
  • Justice League had an episode where Superman is transported thousands of years into the future, only to find the immortal Vandal Savage as the sole survivor of the human race, thanks to his use of an ultimate weapon. He's had plenty of time to reflect, alone, about how utterly unimportant ruling the world is. He even tried to build himself a spaceship but stopped when he realized he deserved to be punished. Superman leaves to stop "his" version of Savage from building the aforementioned weapon, but with a new-found respect for the villain. Given that this was Savage's last appearance on JL, it can be assumed that Superman shared some of what he'd seen with the modern day Savage, and convinced him to turn away from his life of villainy.
  • In the second episode of Static Shock, Virgil feels this is the case even though he defeated Alva and Hotstreak because the evidence proving Alva was complicit in the Big Bang was destroyed. He even compares it to the Trope Namer.
• An episode of Dexter's Laboratory ends with him finally beating Dee Dee in a round of extreme party games, but Computer points out he destroyed the lab in the process. He ignores this and orders her to make him a sandwich. He gets turned into an actual sandwich.
• Donald Duck
  • The Donald Duck/Chip 'n Dale short "Up a Tree" features Chip and Dale destroying Donald's house. Only thing? The object they used to destroy it with was their own chopped up tree which he managed to successfully chop down. Despite the fact that the short ends with the two laughing as always, still manages to succeed in his goal of getting rid of it (making it Pyrrhic for him as well), which means they've lost their home ''and'' likely any food they've gathered up in it.
  • In The Trial of Donald Duck there is a sleazy waiter named Monsieur Pierre who completely rips off Donald, charging him a large sum of money for a lunch Donald himself brought. When he can't pay up, the waiter sues Donald. At the resulting trial, despite the best efforts of his lawyer, Donald is sentenced to washing dishes at the restaurant and the waiter cackles evilly... Cue Donald washing and shattering countless dishes at an incredible rate. Pierre is reduced to a sobbing wreck, begging Donald to stop costing him likely thousands of dollars in dishes.
    Pierre: Please, I forgive you, but don't wash any more dishes! I'll pay you! I-I'll feed you... ANYTHING!
    [The waiter cries miserably as Donald breaks a valuable looking green pot with great emphasis]
    Donald: You heard what the judge said: TEN DAYS!
    Pierre: NO! Ten more days... Aaggh!
• In a handful of episodes of The Dreamstone, the villains actually succeed in sending nightmares to the Land of Dreams. As much as Zordrak savors these victories, the Urpneys couldn't care less that they had and usually suffer ten times the abuse the Noops ever could from a bad dream in the process (and usually a revenge beating to go with it afterwards), but they do it.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy had an episode where the Eds played hide-n-seek against the Cul-de-Sac kids (particularly Jimmy, who is the champion hider and seeker of the Kids) with a tree on a wagon as Home Base. They win the seeking part, but when it's their turn to hide they carelessly ruin their hiding spot and rush to the tree wagon which they swing rapidly into a bunch of other trees. Ed declares they've won, but all three Eds are seriously injured from the collision.
• Family Guy:
  • Played for Laughs in "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter", Peter, Chris, Stewie, and Brian hold an ipecac drinking contest with the last one to vomit getting the last piece of pie in the fridge. Chris wins, but can only celebrate for a few seconds before he himself throws up.
  • Also done in "McStroke". Peter decides to grow a mustache which catches fire while he saves McBurgertown's manager from a blaze.
• Every season of Final Space ends with one of these:
  • In season 1, the goal is to save the Earth from getting sucked into a breach in space and time, in addition to stopping an army of giant monsters from coming through said breach. The heroes close the breach by one of them performing a Heroic Sacrifice, but not before one of those giant monsters grabs the Earth and pulls it into the breach. In addition, their entire army is wiped out while fighting Lord Commander, and while the main characters survive to reach the next season, everyone else is dead.
  • In season two, the goal is to free someone who would help them save the one who made the aforementioned Heroic Sacrifice, as they didn't die but got trapped on the other side of the breach. They free him at the cost of a different character dying, and while they save the one they did all this for, now they're all trapped in that dimension because the way in was closed behind them.
  • And in season 3, the only goal is to get back to their own dimension. They do escape, but the Eldritch Abomination that had been imprisoned in that dimension escapes as well, and is ready to consume all of reality. The show qualifies as a Cosmic Horror Story for a reason.
• The Grim Adventures of Bill and Mandy: In the episode The Secret Snake Club vs P.E., the Secret Snake Club summon the Destroyer to wreck the school gym into a million pieces, though it appears as a small snake, prompting Sperg to steal Grim’s scythe and make the Destroyer truly live up to her name by enhancing her size. However, while Wiggly and his 2 friends Viper and King Cobra succeed, they, the boys (Expect for Billy), and even the Destroyer are beaten by Mandy, Mindy, and the girls because P.E. is also important to the opposite gender. The Coach even calls the boys out for getting beaten up by the girls.
  Coach: You know what happened? You got sloppy!
• Hey Arnold! has an episode where Helga got away with framing her nanny for stealing, but she was the only one helping Helga cope with her dysfunctional home life and everything goes back to crap without her.
• In the House of Mouse short "Music Store Donald", Donald Duck and Pete work in a music shop, but both are incredibly lazy and haven't made a sale for a long time, causing their Mean Boss to send them an ultimatum: the next person who makes a sale gets to keep their job while the other is fired. They both end up competing to sell an instrument to their next potential customer, Daisy Duck. In the end, Pete ends up the victor by using Donald himself as the bagpipes, allowing him to keep his job and get rid of Donald at the same time. However, in the process of trying to make the sale, both he and Donald cause a lot of damage to the store, so the manager not only takes Pete's commission, but his entire year's salary to cover the damages, and orders him to clean up the mess. Donald meanwhile, despite having lost his job, ends up with Daisy.
• Jimmy Two-Shoes. Lucius manages to push the weavils off their land, but the mountain he was going to carve his face into ends up carved into a weevil head instead.
• Kaeloo:
  • In Episode 54, Stumpy and Quack Quack enter a horse race. Mr. Cat, who bet on Stumpy winning, manages to rig the course so Stumpy wins. Stumpy is happy until he remembers that he bet every last cent of his money on Quack Quack winning, since Quack Quack usually wins everything, and is now completely broke.
  • Episode 58 (the one where Mr. Cat goes on a rigged game show hosted by Kaeloo to prove that he's right about everything) had one. Kaeloo asks Mr. Cat what Smileyland's most important rule is, and he says that it's "Have fun". This is the correct answer, but Kaeloo, Stumpy and Quack Quack's idea of " having fun" turns out to be strapping Mr. Cat to a board and tormenting him.
  • In Episode 85, Kaeloo and Mr. Cat have a debate over whether violently beating people up is a good thing or not. Kaeloo thinks violence is unnecessary, but Mr. Cat thinks they're fun. Mr. Cat wins the debate (by bribing Quack Quack, who was the judge, with yogurt), but since his argument was that violence is a good thing, she violently beats the tar out of him in an even more brutal way than usual.
  • In Episode 112, it turns out that Stumpy, Quack Quack and Mr. Cat made a bet to see who could make Kaeloo get mad enough to beat them up first. No matter who won, winning the bet would have made him get a severe beating. Mr. Cat ends up winning and as a result is beaten so much that he nearly loses consciousness.
  • In Episode 135, the main four and the director can't agree on the show's budget; the director needs them to save money, which means they can't make their Les Misérables themed episode go as planned. They end up acquiring a bigger budget by getting Product Placement deals, which the director approves of, but they spend so much time promoting the products that it distracts from the plot anyway.
• The Legend of Korra:
  • At the end of Book 2: Korra saves the world from Unalaq and Vaatu, preventing darkness from engulfing and destroying the world as they know it, however in the process the Avatar cycle is destroyed in battle. This winds up costing her ten thousand years worth of skills and knowledge built up in the lives of previous avatars, as well as apparently permanently severing her connection to the spirits of those previous Avatars, including Aang.
  • At the end of Book 3: While Team Avatar manage to defeat the Red Lotus and save Korra's life, she ends up confined to a wheelchair due to poisoning sequelae, depressed and with signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. On top of this, the Earth Kingdom remains in complete chaos after the queen's assassination and with no clear fix on sight, until Su's captain, Kuvira, makes a Face–Heel Turn to stop chaos and reunite the country with a lot of Su's people, which gradually corrupts them, and establishes herself as the dictator of the newly christened Earth Empire.
  • The Book 3 finale also provides a Pyrrhic victory on the antagonistic side as well. While Zaheer manages to kill the Earth Queen, bring anarchy to the Earth Kingdom, and break the Avatar's spirit, the costs are that he's lost the woman he loved, ended up the only one left from his group of friends, and has to spend the rest of his life locked up in chains, his only consolation being the world leaders becoming more aware of the threat of the Red Lotus. In the following season, Korra rubs salt in the wound when she pays him a visit, pointing out that the freedom he claimed to be fighting for, to have killed the Earth Queen for, has been utterly crushed under Kuvira, who's made the Earth Empire even more oppressive than the Earth Kingdom could hope to be. On top of this, Zaheer's aim to kill the Avatar for all time only left Korra down for the count where she could have participated in dealing with the problem or even preclude it altogether, since Kuvira's Motive Rant after she's defeated states that Korra's absence from world affairs spurred her to act - which, for someone who valued freedom above everything, is infinitely worse than spending his life in prison. To his credit, Zaheer not only acknowledges that Korra was correct to call him out on what was all in all a Meaningless Villain Victory, but also goes on to redeem himself by covertly assisting her in taking the usurper down.
• Looney Tunes:
  • Bugs Bunny finally beats Cecil Turtle in "Rabbit Transit", only to be arrested by the police because he was doing 100 in a 30 miles-per-hour speed limit zone in order to win. There have been no more Bugs-Cecil cartoons, apparently because Bugs was satisfied with actually winning for once, pyrrhic victory or not.
    Cecil: (glancing toward the camera) Ain't I a stinker?
  • Invoked in a cartoon featuring Foghorn Leghorn. Foghorn had been trying to shake off Miss Prissy, so she teamed up with the Barnyard Dog. He put on a chicken costume and pretended to be another suitor attempting to woo her. Foghorn got jealous and he and Barnyard Dog got into a fight. After winning the fight, Foghorn grabbed Missy Prissy and rushed off to a chapel to get married. Afterwards, he triumphantly declares "I WON!" It's that moment that he realizes what he just did and then says, "I wonder if there's any way I could have lost."
  • In Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, Duck Dodgers and Marvin the Martian are fighting over Planet X. They both finally deploy doomsday weapons, blowing the planet up and leaving a chunk so small that it literally isn't big enough for the both of them. At this point, Dodgers shoves Marvin off the planet and starts gloating about his victory, while the camera pans down to reveal the Space Cadet is hanging on to a few roots, saying "Big Deal".
  • In any situation where Elmer Fudd appears to succeed in killing Bugs Bunny in Looney Tunes shorts, he breaks down emotionally. The best example is What's Opera, Doc?, where in the story, Bugs' character is Killed Off for Real. This demonstrates that perhaps Elmer isn't really cut out for this hunting business.
    Siegfried!Elmer What have I done? I've killed the wabbit. Poor little bunny! Poor little rabbit!
    (Elmer starts blubbering while carrying Bugs' limp body to Valhalla)
    Bugs: Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?
• Miraculous Ladybug
  • One episode shows a Bad Future in which Hawk Moth won, akumatizing Chat Noir and killing Ladybug. The price? All of Paris, including Hawk Moth himself, died in the ensuing Angst Nuke.
  • Outside of that Bad Future, Lila repeatedly manages to get away with her constant lies and manipulation... but her secondary goal of winning over Adrien gets farther away with each episode where she gets focus, as Adrien knows about her true nature, and her scheming only alienates him. In "Ladybug", she does manage to make some forward progress with Adrien, but at the price of being forced to undo her latest scheme to hurt Marinette and essentially out herself as a compulsive liar. And furthermore, Adrien makes it clear that he will never consider Lila a true friend after all that she's done.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In the episode "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000", the Flim Flam Brothers win the contest with Applejack by producing far more barrels of cider than she and the rest of the Mane 6. In the process, they not only manage to alienate the town with their Jerkass behavior, but also had to shut off the quality assurance of their machine to win. The resulting cider is so unappetizing that nopony is willing to buy or take it for free. Faced with an angry mob, they have no choice but to pack up and leave.
  • In "Rarity Takes Manehattan", Suri Polomare takes credit for the creation of Rarity's special fabric to increase her reputation at a fashion competition. Suri does end up keeping Rarity from reaping the benefits of the competition, and it's never discovered that Suri didn't make the fabric herself. But on the flip side, Rarity manages to still officially win the competition, Suri's Hypercompetent Sidekick Coco Pommel (who did most of the actual work) quits and does a Heel–Face Turn, and while Suri has the reputation for making beautiful fabric, she doesn't have the actual ability, meaning that her reputation will be short-lived.
  • In "The Cutie Remark", Starlight Glimmer managed to develop a Time Travel spell so that she could go back in time and stop Rainbow Dash's first Sonic Rainboom which causes the Mane Six to never become friends and every time Twilight tries to fix things, she fails thanks to the spell being designed so that Starlight would arrive before Twilight. However, because the Mane Six never became friends, they weren't around to protect Equestria from all the previous Big Bads that they've stopped, and every time Twilight fails to fix the past, the Bad Future ends up worse and worse. Eventually, Starlight gets to see for herself what her changing the past would do, at this point, the only thing left is a barren wasteland, and it's implied that if Starlight continued that the future could have gotten worse.
  • In "No Second Prances", Trixie uses her friendship with Starlight Glimmer to have her choose between helping with her performance or going to Twilight's dinner with Celestia. When she chooses to help Trixie, Trixie brags about it to Twilight claiming that since Starlight chose Trixie over Twilight Trixie has finally beaten Twilight at something. But, Trixie formed a real friendship with Starlight and when Starlight runs off in tears over being used, Trixie is left without her assistant for her show and no friends at all, making her self-proclaimed victory pointless. Fortunately, Twilight is able to convince Starlight to forgive Trixie for her behavior and the three all make amends.
• In the season 2 finale of The Owl House, Belos technically achieves both of his main goals, just really not in the way he wanted.
  • His first goal was to kill everyone on the Boiling Isles, which he may have succeeded in — but only because the kids had to free the Collector, an all-powerful Reality Warper with the mind of a seven year-old who wants to play games without realizing what consequences that may have, in their effort to stop the Draining Spell. While Belos's Draining Spell was stopped, the Collector could easily cause an even bigger cataclysm for the Boiling Isles, and not even grasp why that's a bad thing.
  • His second goal was to return to the human realm. He also succeeds in this — but because the Collector decided to paste him against a wall for betraying them, he returns to the human realm not in his human form, but as a tiny glob of semi-sentient necrotic goop that splashed onto Hunter's shoulder while he was running for the portal.
• In the "Uh-Oh Dynamo" episode of The Powerpuff Girls, Professor Utonium threatens to ground the Girls if they don't use his Dynamo invention to stop the Giant Fish Balloon Monster; they reluctantly obey him, destroying the Giant Blowfish Monster and damaging most of Townsville in the process.
• In the Rabbit Ears Productions version of Paul Bunyan, Paul Bunyan was able to successfully chop down all the trees in the forest for the settlers to make their homes at. But then Paul Bunyan becomes upset once he realizes that this would cost many people to not know the wonders of having trees around since they were all cut down. So in the end, Paul Bunyan decided to plant trees across the country to make up for him chopping down all those trees.
• Rocko's Modern Life has the episode "Pranksters" where Filburt was so happy he finally pranked Heffer that he has a heart attack.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
  • Catra gets all the things she claims she wants, running the Fright Zone side-by-side with Hordak by the fourth season and successfully putting together several plans that are leaving the Rebellion scrambling. Said season also has her completely alienate everyone who ever remotely cared about her. Shifts to standard Being Evil Sucks in the season finale, when Double Trouble orchestrates her downfall and gives her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech on top of that when she still refuses to accept what she's done to herself.
    Double Trouble: We both know this was never what you really wanted.
  • Hordak waged a war lasting decades to conquer Etheria in the name of Horde Prime, in the hope of winning his "brother's" favour and returning to his side. By the end of season 4, the Etherian Horde is in shambles from a Rebellion ambush, the professional partnership between Hordak and Catra has fallen apart, and Hordak has been separated from the woman he loves (and may have concluded that she's dead). As soon as Horde Prime arrives, he dismisses Hordak as defective and performs a mind-wipe on him, making all of Hordak's efforts futile.
• The Simpsons: In the episode "Maximum Homerdrive", Homer challenges a trucker named Red Barclay to a Mega Meal Challenge. Red wins, but the meal gives him a fatal heart attack. This triggers the episode's main plot, as Homer feels extremely guilty over having effectively killed Red and decides to complete Red's last delivery in his honor.
• Cartman has one of his victories become pyrrhic in the South Park episode "201" when Scott Tenorman reveals that his father and Cartman's were one and the same, meaning Cartman killed his own father along with Scott Tenorman's mother when he fed them to him as chili for revenge in "Scott Tenorman Must Die" nine seasons prior. Cartman however is more upset that this technically makes him ginger rather than the fact that he killed his own father.
  • In the episode "City People", while Cartman successfully forces Liane to quit her new job as a real estate agent, he ultimately ends up being forced to move to a crappier home on a Hot dog stand and ruins his relationship with his mother.
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series:
  • Discussed after Spidey chases Hobgoblin out of Crime Central.
    Kingpin: It worked. Exactly as planned.
    Smythe: [looking at the smoldering remains of their base] Ever hear the phrase, "pyrrhic victory"?
    Kingpin: You're wrong, Smythe. We're going to rebuild it, bigger and better than before. The main thing is, it's mine again.
  • However, the "Tablet of Time" two-parter was also a pyrrhic victory for Fisk, and he couldn't deny it. In his goal to obtain the Tablet, his wife was kidnapped, and though she is rescued unharmed, she decides to leave him at the end, despite his pleas. Fisk winds up with the Tablet, which he had wanted in the first place, but he orders Hammerhead to get rid of it. "The sight of it sickens me," he growls.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
  • "Defenders of Peace": The staunchly neutral and pacifist village of Lurmen is rescued from becoming casualties in a cruel Separatist demonstration/test of a new superweapon, but their once hidden village is now irrevocably involved in the war and several Lurmen have broken with their Actual Pacifist traditions to become Technical Pacifists to survive. While village leader Tee Watt Kaa admits they owe the Jedi their thanks he can't help but wonder "at what cost?" as Republic ships appear in the sky.
  • "Liberty on Ryloth": Cham Syndulla doesn't want to ally with the Republic forces to liberate Ryloth from the Separatists as he doesn't believe they won't overstay their welcome and become another armed occupation. When the cruelty of the Separatists against civilians forces him to change his mind he is quite bitter about the fact that the Republic forces do become an armed occupation, and is proven right about having to fight them eventually when the Republic becomes the Empire. He's leading the rebels fighting the Empire on Ryloth in Star Wars Rebels years later and the Twi'lek people suffer horribly under the Empire, with his own clan being nearly wiped out by slavery and slaughter.
  • The entirety of the series is arguably this. In the end the Republic won, but the entirety of the Jedi Order was wiped out, the galaxy is now under the sway of the Empire, and in a few years time, freedoms will be nothing but a thing of the past. Yes, there is hope, but in the end, all is lost for now.
• In Star Wars Rebels, Imperial Governor Pryce scores a short-term victory against the Rebels and kills Kanan before holding a grand parade to celebrate The Empire's victory over the Rebellion... and to distract everyone from the fact that she only scored that victory by destroying the Empire's fuel depot for the sector, crippling their operations there. Most of the attendants are forced to take part against their will. Grand Admiral Thrawn is not fooled and highly unamused, giving her the classic You Have Failed Me speech with Tranquil Fury. In the end, Pryce ends up Going Down with the Ship after having essentially been marked for death by both sides, despite Azadi attempting to extend an olive branch.
• Steven Universe:
  • The ending of "Jail Break". Steven and the rest of the Crystal Gems are free, and the Homeworld warship has been destroyed, but Lapis Lazuli is stuck at the bottom of the ocean, fighting for control over an unstable fusion with Jasper, and Peridot is nowhere to be found.
  • The rebellion ended like this; Rose Quartz won and saved the Earth from the Homeworld's colonization, but it cost her all (except for a small handful) of her allies to be corrupted and to the creation of the Cluster (a giant forced fusion made up of thousands of Gems) seeded inside the Earth which will destroy it upon formation.
• Samurai Jack: The bittersweet ending of the series is that when Jack finally returns to the past and slays Aku, the Bad Future is erased, and with it everyone that Jack met and befriended. Most notably Ashi, his love interest who was spawned by Aku himself, who fades from existence as she's walking down the aisle for their wedding.
• Teen Titans Go!: In "Them Soviet Boys", Robin is preparing for a showdown with his old enemy Katarou, and the other Titans must join the fight, even though they have no personal issues with Katarou who is Robin's enemy. The other Titans (except Robin) attempt training to become karate masters in virtually no time by using the Training Montage, which they (except Robin) use to apparently master other skills. After they're defeated by Katarou, Robin shows them that the training montage only gives the illusion of accomplishment, not the actual results. The other Titans join Robin in training over a lengthy period of years, condensed into a time dissolve technique. Later, when the elderly Titans have mastered the crane kick and they kick Katarou's skull, they think they have killed Katarou, who had actually died by the time they finally mastered the crane kick.
• Subverted in ThunderCats (2011), with Grune and Panthro. Grune coins the line "No price is too great for the defeat of my foe" when he rips out his own fang to slay a giant spider. Panthro repeats it when he lets his arms get cut off to ensure Grune's death.
  Panthro: Looking down at his severed arms Worth It.
• Total Drama
  • In Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race the reward for coming in first in challenges is getting to have a head start in the next challenge. However, eight times out of ten something will happen that causes the winning teams to have share their ride to the next location with the rest of the teams or even causes them fall behind the others.
  • Total Drama World Tour: Courtney finds out that her boyfriend, Duncan, and Gwen have hooked up behind her back and vows revenge on them — at first, she gets support from most of her team and Gwen's eventually booted off the show (in a tiebreaker between her and Courtney). However, Gwen and Duncan remain a couple while Courtney loses the support of her team and fails in getting Duncan voted off (she actually gets voted off before he does)—and on top of all that, Courtney blindly falls for Alejandro, who's just using her (and actually has feelings for Heather), and Alejandro ends up losing anyway as well (the money itself is actually destroyed in a volcano, so Heather doesn't win either). So, in the end, Courtney ends up with nothing and no one.
  • Also, in Total Drama All-Stars, after Gwen breaks up with Duncan and she and Courtney manage to patch things up (and Courtney has since found a new boyfriend in the form of Scott), it later turns out that Courtney was planning on eventually betraying her fellow contestants (Gwen and Scott included), so Courtney ends up losing Gwen as a friend for good and she also loses Scott as a boyfriend.
• The Transformers: In the episode "The Golden Lagoon", nature-loving Autobot Beachcomber discovers a glen full of organic life and a pool of "electrum" which in this case is a super-protective alloy coating. Cue both factions going through a huge battle to take command of the pool, destroying every single piece of life in the glen. Beachcomber's final words as he surveys the scene? "We won..."
• In the TRON: Uprising episode "Rendezvous", Pavel repeatedly frames various programs, and ends up promoted to the overseer of a district. The district in question? Purgos! And not only does Tessler expect Pavel to clean it up, Paige knows exactly what Pavel has been up to and tells him that she'll get him back for what he did. And on top of all this, Pavel had to hand over the upgrade Disc he'd been hiding!
• Wakfu: Nox defeats the heroes and acquires the wakfu needed in order to travel back in time so he can rejoin his family before they died... and finds all the wakfu he collected over 200 years, including one of the most powerful sources of wakfu in the world, is only enough to reverse time by a mere 20 minutes.

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