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Villain Fixing / Video Games

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Nice Job Fixing It, Villain in video games.

  • Happens sometimes in games where healing or buffing mechanics don't discriminate between friend and foe.
    • Forseti-worshiping Norse players who place a healing spring away from their main base in Age of Mythology are basically donating one of the game's very few healing tools to any invading army that wants it. Meanwhile, Theia-worshiping Atlantean players who make use of Hesperides run the risk of giving their enemy a tree that generates Dryads.
    • Players in Battlefield 3 benefit from standing next to medkits and ammo crates that the opposing team has laid on the ground.
    • This trope occasionally occurs in particularly hectic battles in EVE Online. With hundreds of players in a close fight, poor communication and misclicks can cause repair teams to accidentally fix ships in the opposing fleet.
    • The Runes in the Threewave CTF mods for Quake and Quake II, as well as the Relics in Unreal Tournament. Runes can be dropped either by killing the player that's porting them or the Rune carrier dropping it, especially if they don't fit a particular player or another team member needs it more, however Runes can be picked up by anybody, so players run the risk of giving a valuable Rune to the enemy. Meanwhile, Relic carriers in UT can drop the Relic either by dying or manually dropping it, but it'll spawn in a random location... which may be closer to an enemy than a teammate. All of these games have a relic dedicated to Regenerating Health.
    • In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U & 3DS, the Fairy Bottle item heals anyone who picks it up or gets it thrown at them at 100% damage or more, and can be normally picked up by and thrown to deal damage to anyone at 99% damage or less. An unattentive player can pick up the item, not be healed, and then throw it at someone who is.
  • A3: Reni, the arrogant director of the God Troupe, hates the rival Mankai Company and repeatedly tries to ruin the female main character's attempts to revive it to its former glory, but every sabotage he attempts ends up ultimately benefiting the Mankai Company:
    • He sends Taichi, one of his troupe's two-bit members, to join the Mankai Company as a mole and sabotage the Autumn Troupe's performances, but Taichi comes to genuinely care for his new troupe friends and decide to stay with them instead of continuing to work for the God Troupe. Not only that but Tasuku, the God Troupe's biggest star, leaves the God Troupe in disgust after he learns about Reni's underhanded methods and eventually joins the Mankai Company — for extra Laser-Guided Karma points, Tasuku initially tried to join other theatrical companies but the God Troupe blacklisting him caused their hated rival Mankai Company to be the only theater willing to accept him.
    • He then challenges the Mankai Company's Winter Troupe to an act-off with the terms that if his God Troupe puts on a better performance than them, the Mankai Company must disband. However, to get them to agree to this obviously unfair deal, he promises that if the Mankai Company somehow wins, he'll give them all the revenue from the God Troupe's last show, which will be enough to pay off the Mankai Company's massive ten million yen debt that they have to get rid of by year's end to stay in business. Unsurprisingly, the Mankai Company manages to win the act-off and become happily debt-free — if Reni hadn't issued the challenge, it would have been nigh-impossible for them to earn enough money to cover the debt in such a short amount of time and they would have been forced to disband at year's end anyway.
  • Happens a lot of Ace Attorney, as a lot of times the culprits themselves do or say something that ends up backfiring horribly on them. Some notable cases:
    • In the original, Damon Gant accidentally makes a piece of incriminating evidence legal and incriminates himself, instead of Ema.
    • In Justice for All, Phoenix is trapped in a no-win scenario: either he gets his (guilty) client off the hook and send an innocent woman to jail so he can get his assistant back, or he throws his (guilty) client to the wolves and gets his assistant killed. The guilty client himself accidentally provides a third option: because he was going to use the crime scene videotape to blackmail his assassin, Phoenix gets the assassin to let go of his assistant of his own accord by proving his client's deceit. Then Phoenix is free to send his client to jail with no repercussions, and even if Phoenix decides to go the Cruel Mercy route and let his client go free (so that the client will be open to attack by the now-vengeful assassin), the client decides to plead guilty instead.
    • In Trials and Tribulations, Luke Atmey would have gotten away scot-free with murder if he hadn't slipped up once and revealed he knew Ron was wearing his costume when supposedly Luke wasn't even at the crime scene.
    • In Trials and Tribulations, Phoenix falsely presents a bottle of ear medication as the poison Furio Tigre used to kill the victim. Tigre calls him on it, and in his rage, describes the real vial that he used. Of course, Tigre, having been absent when the real bottle was presented in court, only had one way of knowing that information…
  • Angry Birds 2:
    • Some pigs have a gravity gun that pulls the bird towards the pig. While this does throw the bird off course, more often than not it also ends up with the bird slamming into the structure and causing a lot of damage or outright toppling it.
    • The Polymorph pigs can turn your bird into something useful like a TNT crate or rocket which will do extra damage on impact.
  • In Assassin's Creed Origins, The Order of the Ancients (the precursor to the Templar Order) were responsible for the death of Khemu, the son of Bayek of Siwa and Aya of Alexandria. What they didn't anticipate was that the couple would go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge that would not only get them entangled in Ancient Egyptian and Roman politics, but they would form the Hidden Ones, the original incarnation of the Assassin Brotherhood and thus kickstart a secret conflict that would span millennia.
  • In Baldur's Gate III, a choice made by Psycho Knife Nut Orin the Red prior to the start of the game undoes everything they worked for.
    • She's the one responsible for wiping the Dark Urge's memories, as she wanted to get rid of them and become Bhaal's favored child and champion. This can wind up biting her in the ass, as said amnesia not only causes the Dark Urge to forget their horrid deeds, it can also mean they pull a Heel–Face Turn and reject their Bhaalspawn heritage.
    • On a non-Dark Urge playthrough, their absence in the story is shown to be because Orin opted to just kill Dark Urge instead. Meanwhile, custom character Tav's absence in a Dark Urge playthrough is implied to be because the Dark Urge themself killed Tav prior to the events of the game (assuming Tav is the same Player Character from Blood in Baldur's Gate). In short, if Orin opted to kill Dark Urge, they indirectly saved Tav's life, and in doing so, either allowed Tav to live long enough to become a thorn in the Absolute's side or cleared a path for the other Origin characters to save the day without Urge interfering.
  • In Batman: Arkham Origins the Joke Boss Electrocutioner is brought in to kill Batman. Joker kills him for his earlier defeat and general impudence. But the mere fact of his existence at the meeting allows Batman to find them. Furthermore, his electric gloves are vital to proceed, culminating in saving Alfred and allowing Batman to stop Bane's heart and later restart it long enough for Joker to willingly leave his death trap set up to force Batman to kill someone.
  • In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, Hazama / Yuuki Terumi sends his subordinate Makoto to the far-flung NOL branch in Ibukido to keep her away from feuding friends Noel and Tsubaki, furthering his plans to Mind Rape them both into serving him — the former as Omnicidal Maniac super-weapon Mu-12, and the latter as a Brainwashed and Crazy Yandere. In the end, he ends up regretting this decision badly, as young Makoto ends up causing more damage to his plans than pretty much anyone else in the cast — and given everything she learned, she stands in a position to do so again.
    • And that's exactly what happened, as Chronophantasma sees Terumi fouling up again with the Battle of Ragna the Bloodedge, and this time Relius is on hand to help him foul up. The aforementioned battle is a massive tournament where people compete over who gets to claim the bounty on Ragna's head, which is really a trap to lure Azrael out, and one Kagura repurposed to ensnare Tsubaki Yayoi as well. But rather than think to investigate the competition themselves, they sent Tsubaki alone and unsupervised. This is not entirely true, as Relius did send Terumi there, but only to investigate the dampened seithr concentrations in the region; either way, none of them thought to look after Tsubaki. The reason this is a problem? In addition to the aforementioned trap, neither of them entertained the possibility that Jin Kisaragi, Noel Vermillion, and the aforementioned Makoto were either on-site already or in a position to get there quickly, something which an attentive individual like a Captain of Intelligence could have cottoned on to. TL;DR: Relius and Terumi literally hand Tsubaki over to their enemies on a silver platter, and both come to face the consequences for this oversight. And all Terumi bitches about is being caught at the epicenter of the seithr disruption when he finally tracks down Ragna, which said disruption was concealing from him.
  • Done to hilarious effect in BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle. The System is relying on people it abducts not knowing the nature of the place it summons them to get what it wants, so it tends not to tell them anything, as demonstrated in the opening with Ragna. To help deflect his questions, the System summons Noel to impress the importance of the tag battle rules. After the warmup fight, Noel — one of a series of dimension control androids — offers to use her Eye of the Azure to determine the properties of the dimension they occupy to give them some leads. The System immediately realizes what a colossal mistake it just made and resorts to teleporting Noel into the middle of nowhere, which only reinforces Ragna's feelings of being suspicious of absolutely everything that's going on.
  • Cave Story. After you defeat the Corenote , Misery and the Doctor pop in to (sort of) save the Core because it's the only thing keeping the island afloat. Misery then tries to kill you by flooding the chamber… which opens the way out of the Labyrinth, ultimately allowing you defeat the Doctor for good.
  • In Chrono Trigger, when Dalton steals the Epoch, he converts it into a flying vehicle. Without this modification, the party would never be able to reach most of the side quests. This is even lampshaded, probably unintentionally, with multiple party members having lines such as "I guess we are actually in his debt." after the fight.
  • In Dark Souls III: Ashes of Ariandel, father Ariandel and Friede decided to let the painted world rot away, and Ariandel relentlessly flagellated himself so that his blood would drown the fire that was supposed to burn away the rot. When the Ashen One kills Friede, Ariandel becomes enraged and attacks the Ashen One with the vessel keeping the fire, causing it to flare up and igniting the painting.
  • Terrorist organization Majestic 12 from Deus Ex created the Daedalus AI to fight terrorist organizations. It turned out well! For the player, that is. Their attempt to control Daedalus by fusing it with another AI, Icarus, backfired too. The resulting Helios chose to pursue its own agenda and turned against its creators as well.
  • Devil May Cry:
    • Devil May Cry 1:
    • Trish herself is guilty of this trope as she reveals her allegiance to Mundus during Dante's battle with Nightmare. While Dante was willing to blindly trust her before due to her resemblance to his other Eva, the the reveal of her true motives causes him to abandon her until she saves him from Mundus.
    • Devil May Cry 3:
      • Vergil stabs Dante with Rebellion, the latter's own sword, in their first battle. Besides only putting Dante down for the short term, contact with Dante's blood also activated Rebellion's dormant power. This pays off in Devil May Cry 5 where Dante realizes that he can achieve his strongest form by fusing Rebellion and his father's sword into him, allowing him to defeat Vergil's demon half Urizen.
      • Everything that Arkham did to gain the power of Sparda, from murdering his wife to manipulating the sons of Sparda, ended up biting him in the ass. The Sparda twins teamed up against him after he revealed his plans and his daughter Lady kills him as revenge for killing her mother.
  • Diablo III: Maghda. Dear Lord, Maghda. Taking it from the top:
    • The first time she appears, she tells the Nephalem (i.e., you) that the first part of the stranger's sword belongs to her, summons her ineffectual minions to deal with you, and then, once you're finished mowing them down like the weaksauce mooks they are, helpfully tells you that you can't reach the next piece because it's in a place guarded by the Ancients — literally all the clues needed to figure out exactly where it is.
    • She does successfully send you on a wild goose chase after the third piece and takes the opportunity to not only steal all three pieces, but kidnap Leah, Cain, and the stranger in an attempt to force Cain to remake the sword… But torturing Cain is enough to provoke Leah into unleashing her powers, wiping out every mook in the room. Maghda gives it up as a bad job and disappears with the stranger, and Cain's dying act is to remake the sword in time to hand it over to YOU. And never mind the fact that a being feared by angels and demons alike is now out for her blood…
    • Add this to the fact that she absolutely cannot believe that her boss — Belial, the LORD OF LIES — could possibly intend to sacrifice her to distract you while he carries out his plots elsewhere, and she's not even borderline Too Dumb to Live.
  • On a low level, every time you come to a dead end in Doom³, some minion will burst through the wall / locked door or knock over something you can use as a bridge. In a more serious example, the bad guy's plan to lure you to hell has the minor flaw that hell contains the only weapon that gives you the possibility to thwart his evil scheme.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition's Trespasser DLC reveals that Corypheus of all people is guilty of this. By failing to die when he unlocked the orb (and subsequently claiming it for himself), he prevented it from reaching Solas, who would have promptly used its power to tear down the Veil and remake the world, causing untold amounts of death and destruction. By detonating the orb and creating the Breach, Corypheus actually prevented an even more cataclysmic event from taking place.
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • In Morrowind's Tribunal expansion, Almalexia tasks you with reforging True Flame, the Flaming Sword of the original Nerevar, to use against a deranged Sotha Sil. However, it turns out that she is the villain, having already killed Sotha Sil, and basically handed the Nerevarine one of the best swords in the game to use against her.
    • Oblivion: The Mythic Dawn had killed off the Emperor's heirs at the start of the game, in doing so, set the Emperor to meet the player character in the dungeons, where they end helping save Tamriel from the Oblivion crisis.
    • Skyrim:
      • The entire game might not have happened if not for Alduin pulling this trope. The Last Dragonborn would have died a nameless nobody in Helgen if Alduin hadn't interrupted their execution by trying to kill them. (Possibly justified, or at least excused, given that Alduin's colossal Pride probably made him want to be the one to kill the Last Dragonborn directly.) And had the Captain not been so hell-bent on killing Dovahkiin, s/he might not have allied with the Stormcloaks like many a player have, using her actions as justification.
      • In the Dragonborn expansion, the main quest starts with cultists attacking the player. One of the cultists has a note with orders from Miraak, the first Dragonborn. If he had never tried to get cultists to kill the player, the player would not have known about him, and he would have been able to leave Apocrypha and take over Solstheim. This could be a subversion however, since there is considerable evidence Miraak didn't order the hit: when you first confront him, he seems to have no idea who you are before sensing you are the Dragonborn and then merely sends you away, though he starts taking active steps to prevent you from absorbing more Dragon souls. Even the aforementioned kill orders say "Return with word of your success, and Miraak shall be most pleased", as if they were sent by a third party. It's possible the orders somehow came from Hermaeus Mora, who hoped you would dispose of his treacherous subordinate.
      • Following the Great War, the Thalmor-led Aldmeri Dominion succeeded in getting a ban on Talos worship in the (heavily lopsided in their favor) peace treaty they forged with the Cyrodillic Empire. As it turns out, this ban led to an increase in Talos worship in the Empire's remaining provinces, especially Skyrim, essentially as a way to say Screw You, Elves! on a large scale. This is obviously the opposite effect that the Thalmor hoped to have with the ban.
  • Fallen London: During the Light Fingers ambition quest, once you stumble upon the Orphanage, its enforcer, Poor Edward, will invite you for some tea. He'll politely give you a sample of Lethean tea leaves, and tell you you can either use its memory-wiping properties to forget all about your quest and never get bothered again, or keep snooping and get Buried Alive (he's not bluffing about the latter). Once you find the two sisters you were looking for, one tells you the other has been so thoroughly Mind Raped she won't want to leave the Orphanage as long as she remembers it, and that memory-wiping herbs are too rare for them to have any hope… and are also the same herbs Edward himself gave you to wipe your own memory.
  • Fallout: New Vegas used this trope on purpose. Nice job, Ulysses, arranging a lethally dangerous delivery mission for the person you wish death to. Turns out, that person is hardier and tougher than they look, and the mission turns out to be marvellously rewarding. Now it's them and not you who became the NCR/Legion's top field agent, Mr. House's second-in-command, or simply gave New Vegas its independence and has the support of a grateful population.
    • Fallout 3 has a similar situation, in which the protagonist is almost killed by the Big Bad, only to be rescued by another figure from the same evil faction in order to broker a deal — which backfires horribly when the decision is upheld, starts a mutiny, and potentially the destruction of an entire base as well as the undoing of the faction's leader.
    • Fallout 4: It turns out it was Farther who released the Sole Survivor from stasis, which, if the player sides against the Institute, leads to their destruction.
  • A complicated case in Final Fantasy IX: Nice job booting Zidane down to Gaia from Terra, Kuja. If you hadn't done that, he might have actually joined your cause, instead of forgetting his birthplace and purpose and developing sympathy and attachment to Gaia. In the end, this does disrupt Garland's plans more than Kuja's, and Kuja's pretty successful at murdering everyone anyway, but still, it certainly made things a lot more complicated for everyone.
    • Also, creating the Black Mages was certainly a good plan… except that Kuja's Super Prototype is highly likely to be one of the four people killing him at the end of the game.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, Nidhogg does this to himself. Having taken possession of the Azure Dragoon Estenien, he crashes the peace conference between the Ishgardians and the dragons of Dravania, stabs Vidofnir, and gloats that the Dragonsong War will never end. Instead, the people watching are so sick and tired of the war that they began chanting "Death to Nidhogg!" — he wanted to remind them that the war will never end, but instead just gave Ishgard a face to punch, and once Nidhogg is slain for good, the war comes to an end.
  • In the climax of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Manfroy opts to spare Julia and use her as a puppet against Seliph's army in the final chapter, as he believed the power of Major Naga blood to be too good to pass up on, despite the Loptous-possessed Julius' wishes to have her be executed outright. However, when Manfroy is killed, his control over her will break. This means that the wielder of the Book of Naga, one of the only weapons capable of truly defeating Loptous, is now on the side of the heroes, and she proceeds to wreak havoc on Loptous' plans. If Julia is made to confront him, Julius will angrily lampshade that Manfroy had "made a grave mistake" by leaving her alive.
  • A monumental example hails from Fire Emblem: Awakening, where God of Evil and resident Big Bad Grima single-handedly creates a loophole that allows it to be permanently killed. Following Lucina and her comrades in the past, it creates a timeline where TWO versions of Grima exist. How is that a problem? The only person capable of killing Grima... is Grima itself. And the present Grima (also known as the player's Avatar) is a good guy more than ready to pull a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy his alternate self forever. Plus, the reason the Avatar is so intent to do this is because the Future Grima tried to merge with his past self at a point when the past self was weak; this caused the present Grima to lose all memories, create deeper bonds with the people who find him/her, and be more ready to stop the Future Grima. Oopsie daisy.
    • Really, all future!Grima had to do was stay put in the bad future and the most that could've been done would be Chrom sealing Grima with Falchion. However, Grima wasn't aware that time travel causes a timeline split, and so he was afraid that Lucina and co. would actually destroy him and erase everything he had done. To add salt on the wound, the damage he had done to the bad future was restored shortly before the events of Fire Emblem Fates, by another dragon, as Grima wasn't around to prevent it.
  • In The Force Unleashed, Darths Vader and Sidious come up with a plan to lure out The Empire's dissenters by having Vader raise an apprentice, then send him out to gather an army under the pretense of distracting Sidious so he and Vader could take him out and assume control. The problem? None of them were even in a position to oppose them until Starkiller intervened in the second act of the game. Master Kota was blinded by Starkiller in the beginning and spent all his time drinking on Nar Shaddaa defeated until Starkiller was sent to recruit him, inspiring him to take up arms once more. Princess Leia was a prisoner of the Empire and her adoptive father Bail Organa was held prisoner by a Dark Jedi before Starkiller rescued them. Their plan directly led to the creation of the Rebel Alliance, as well as Starkiller's Heel–Face Turn and Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the game, making him an Inspirational Martyr to them. Even in the alternate ending where Starkiller is made Vader's replacement, they still lose the Death Star to the Rebels and fail to recapture Leia.
  • At the start of Grand Theft Auto III, gangsters from the Colombian Cartel raid a prison transport to kidnap an elderly, Asian gentleman. In the process, the game's protagonist, Claude, escapes and eventually eliminates the Cartel from Liberty City. Additionally, bomb maker 8-Ball escapes and Claude buys explosives from him to destroy a ship used by the Cartel to transport drugs. Furthering the irony even more, the entire reason Claude was in the prison transport was because he was betrayed by the Cartel's leader, Catalina.
  • Grim Fandango: Manny's Mean Boss Don Copal puts enough pressure on him to make a good sale to tempt Manny to steal a client from his rival Domino, the kindly Mercedes Colomar. This leads to Manny falling in with the Lost Souls Alliance and unraveling Hector LeMans' evil plot to steal Number Nine Express tickets.
  • In Half-Life 2, toward the end of the game, Gordon Freeman (the player character) goes through a weapon confiscator created by the Combine (the enemy faction). It destroys all his weapons except for the Gravity Gun, which the confiscator is unable to destroy. Instead, the confiscator malfunctions and actually ends up making it more powerful. So powerful, in fact, that it completely outclasses every other weapon in the game.
  • In Halo, mankind is right on the cusp of extinction in its war against the technologically and numerically superior Covenant, and then the Prophet of Truth makes the decision to betray the Elites, which results in a huge portion of the Covenant allying with the humans; during the last large space battle in Halo 3, it's the Elites who are largely responsible for wiping out Truth's fleet.
    • Truth did one better in sabotaging himself further down the line, he spared a young and ambitious (but extremely loyal) Sangheili noble named Thel Vadamee from being executed for murder. For context, Vadamee killed his friend after the friend learned about Truth's Sanity Slippage after learning Humanity are the true Reclaimers and Truth is leading them down the path of war and genocide. During the final year of the Human-Covenant War, instead of letting Vadamee die for the failure for protecting Installation 04, he makes him the new Arbiter to crush the Master Chief and activate Installation 05. Vadamee later learns the truth that the Halo rings are actually meant to kill all sentient life in the galaxy, after Truth betrays him via proxy of Tartarus, with relation to the aforementioned Villain Fixing. The surviving Elites band around the Arbiter, who then decides to help the Master Chief defeat the Covenant. In short, one of Truth's very few good deeds came to seriously bite him in the ass, as Arbiter is also the one to personally kill him.
  • In Ib, Garry suffers Laser-Guided Amnesia if he is captured by the dolls and is unable to escape. Mainly, he forgets what he just learned about Mary. Namely, that she's a painting. Later on, Mary tries to attack him… which causes him to remember everything he forgot. Oops.
  • Jade Empire. Master Li manipulates the Player Character into murdering the Emperor so Li can take his place, but instead of offering a We Can Rule Together, Li makes a permanent enemy of the Player Character — the only one who can stop him — by murdering the player in cold blood. In his defense, he would have gotten away with this scot-free had the Celestial Bureaucracy not had a vested interest in bringing the Player Character back to life, something Li had no possible way to anticipate.
  • Played for laughs in Kid Icarus: Uprising with the introduction of the Jitterthug. Viridi proclaims that he's immune to melee attacks when red and invulnerable against shots when green in an effort to taunt Pit.
    Viridi: Now what are you gonna do?
    Pit: Uh, I guess I'll just melee him when he's green and shoot him when he's red.
    Viridi: But— Oh, darn it!
    Palutena: Thanks for the advice!
  • Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy: One level Jaden is captured by the Empire and put in a holding cell. The only reason why he or she gets out is because the base commander is bored and wants to try hunting him/her for sport.
  • Kirby Super Star: By using Galactic Nova to ram into Planet Popstar, Marx basically gave the sun and moon a reason to make peace.
  • Knights of the Old Republic: The Republic is almost conquered by Sith Lord Darth Revan and his/her apprentice Malak. However, Malak turned on his master by firing on his/her ship when the Republic had boarded it to defeat Revan. And although this gained him the Sith throne, it set in motion the events of the game, leading to his death at the end.
  • L.A. Noire has Cole demoted to Arson due to his affair with Elsa being exposed. But the good news is that he could get close to the Suburban Redevelopment Fund. The best news is that Roy Earle, the one who exposed his affair, is not happy about this.
  • In Left 4 Dead, many an eager-to-help Tank user has freed a Survivor from the clutches of a Hunter or Smoker, or the Charger in Left 4 Dead 2, by going to attack said Survivor.
  • The heroes of The Legend of Dragoon agonize about possibly having to kill Shana because she's an Apocalypse Maiden. In most stories, they would Take a Third Option. Here, though, the Big Bad takes Shana's power onto himself, leaving the heroes free to punch him out.
  • The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon: Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx have been frozen in crystal for three years, allowing Big Bad, former Sealed Evil in a Can Malefor to run rampant over the world with an iron claw and is days away from succeeding in his ultimate plan to destroy the world. Then some mooks decide to break them out of the crystal to sacrifice to a giant monster, they escape, allowing them to turn the tide against Malefor and save the world. They also tethered the two together with a pair of magic necklaces, but this allows the two to work together much more effectively and ultimately makes them realize their love for one another.
    • Also, in a way, Malefor is guilty of it for what he did to Cynder, as it gave Spyro something important to fight for, something Spyro himself even makes mention of when Cynder is corrupted again.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: prior to confronting Agahnim, Link only has access to a small portion of the Dark World. After beating Agahnim, He sends Link to the center of the Dark World(not knowing Link has the means to return to Hyrule) and opens a gate underneath the castle gate, thus giving Link access to the rest of the World to rescue the maidens and foil Ganon's plot.
    • A more minor situation comes in this game and it's direct sequel The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening with the little demons you summon by using fairy powder on their pots. They come out, make a big declaration of how their going to curse you then zap you. The end result is Link getting an upgrade with this game it's a mistake in that he claims to be halving your potency of magic but ends up halving the cost, while in the sequel he's claiming to "burden" you with carrying more of bombs, arrows or fairy powder.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask begins with the Skull Kid turning Link into a Deku Skrub. Link is able to find a way to reverse this and swap between human and Deku forms at will. Not to mention the Happy Mask Salesman would have had no reason to teach Link the Song of Healing if he never became a Deku, the same song Link uses to heal Darmani and Mikau, meaning Skull Kid is inadvertently responsible for Link getting all his quest-necessary forms.
    • At one point in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Zant curses Link to stay in wolf form by putting a black crystal in his head. This comes to bite him in the ass later, as the power of the Master Sword allowed Link to return to human form and keep the black crystal, allowing him to switch forms at will. This is lampshaded by Midna right before you actually fight Zant. In fact, Zant does this repeatedly by sending his Shadow Beasts after you. They fall from the sky via a portal that remains when you kill them, which you can then warp out of whenever you want with Midna's power.
    • At one point in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker you have until daybreak to get to Outset Island and acquire one of the MacGuffins before the pirates do. However, it's not a Timed Mission because Ganondorf's curse makes the night last forever, giving you all the time in the world to get there. Thanks, big guy!
    • In the fine tradition of villains accidentally giving Link a transformational power when trying to curse him, Yuga from The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds tries to trap Link in a painting for all eternity. Thanks to the bracelet he had been given earlier, Link gets the ability to turn into a painting at will and move while in this form.
  • Luck be a Landlord: Once Essence Tokens are unlocked, on the next rent payment after they are collected, the landlord will proudly appropriate them from you, but is forced to offer Essence items in exchange. The tokens are otherwise worthless, but the items you get in exchange can easily be the deciding factor in defeating your current level. note 
  • In Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, this turns out to be the result of Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach. It turns out that the "Princess Peach" the brothers rescued from beneath the Koopaseum was actually Princess Shroob in disguise, and was planning on assuming her guise. Bowser, however, thwarts this plan by taking her away.
  • The Collectors' attack on Shepard at the beginning of Mass Effect 2 ends up putting Shepard in a position where he/she has no choice but to cooperate with Cerberus...who happen to be the only power in the galaxy who actually believes the Reapers are coming and is prepared to throw their full backing behind Shepard's quest to stop them.
  • Max Payne
    • Max Payne: Nicole Horne sends two junkies to "silence" Max Payne's wife because she stumbled upon a secret. With his wife and kid dead and nothing else to live for, Max joins the DEA and spends the next few years infiltrating the mob, and eventually stumbles upon the exact conspiracy Horne tried to hide. The whole thing ends with dozens of her men dead, and her, in a helicopter, plummeting down to the cold, hard streets of New York.
      Max: And now I was going to kill her - the queen of the underworld who had tried to lift herself a bit closer to heaven with her drug money. No begging, no bribes. She knew better. Honor among killers, "we who are about to die." Both of us knew how this would end: in pain and suffering.
    • The villain in Max Payne 3 is Victor Branco. One of the major facets of his plan involves getting his entire extended family killed by local extremist groups, which means he'll inherit direct control of his family's money from his late brother Rodrigo. As such, he needs a security guard who's good enough to protect his family from casual threats, but not good enough to protect them from Victor's conspirators. His solution is to hire Max Payne, a drunken slob with a history of violence. Unfortunately for Victor, Max is very bad at keeping people alive, but he's very, very good at making people pay for their crimes. If Victor had hired almost anyone else on the planet to be his fall guy, his entire plan would've worked out just fine.
      Max: Say what you want about Americans, but we understand capitalism. You buy yourself a product and you get what you pay for, and these chumps had paid for some angry gringo without the sensibilities to know right from wrong.
  • In one of the endings of Mega Man X2, Sigma leaves the protagonist (X) at a total dead end, leaving him alone with his Brainwashed and Crazy old friend, Zero. However, after he leaves Zero to fight X, Zero is able to break out of his craziness and actually opens an otherwise unreachable path to the final boss.
    • In Mega Man X5, Sigma may or may not have done so again, as Zero is severely injured and possibly killed offscreen. He miraculously recovers, possibly with Sigma's intervention, but his Superpowered Evil Side has been reawakened (definitely Sigma's work), which gives him only one objective: to kill X. However, as with X2, he eventually ends up turning good again and actually saves X from Sigma after X is weakened from a fight, something he probably wouldn't have been able to do if he was still stuck in the wreckage of a spacecraft and/or dead.
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: As Raiden battles PMC forces in Detroit, villains Jetstream Sam and Monsoon relentlessly taunt him by exposing the hypocrisy in his philosophy of killing to protect the weak, claiming that simple bloodlust is the only reason he continues to remain on the battlefield. Raiden eventually ends up agreeing with them... however, rather than breaking him as they had initially hoped, this instead allows him to tap into his Ripper persona, making him even stronger than he was before and giving him the edge he needs to kill the deadly Monsoon.
  • The Monster Girl Quest trilogy has Ilias, who's spent She-only-knows how long trying to kill monsters and keep them and humans apart via lies, manipulation, and a mandate to destroy any knowledge she doesn't like. All of this is because she hates monsters for being an anomaly in the world she created, and because they learned the truth about the humans' 'benevolent' goddess. At the end of the second game, she gets sick of maintaining the façade for the humans' benefit and decides to Kill Em All so she can start anew with her newest creations. Humans and monsters, on the fence about co-existing due to Ilias' champion promoting peace, band together and join forces to fight her army of abominations off, which greatly helps the two groups build camaraderie and start to co-exist.
  • Mortal Kombat:
    • Shao Khan in Mortal Kombat 9 attempts to merge Earthrealm with Outworld near the end of the game once he thinks Raiden fully submits to him. This causes the Elder Gods to actually get off their asses and do something (merging the realms without initiating Mortal Kombat is against the rules) by giving Raiden a power boost, which lets him kill Shao Khan as punishment.
    • Mortal Kombat 11:
      • The majority of the cast meet with their past selves and then learn that if their past self dies, then their current self will also die. Kano taunts Sonya with this notion by holding past Johnny hostage and threatening to kill him so that the current timeline Cassie will cease to exist due to her father dying before she would have been born. Sonya, who is holding the past Kano hostage, thanks the current Kano for the advice and promptly blows a hole right through young Kano's skull. This causes current Kano to also gain a huge hole through his head and he writhes in pain before he completely vanishes.
      • Another villain, Kronika, had set Raiden against Liu Kang, because their combined power posed a threat to her vision of the timeline. However, it resulted in past Raiden fusing with Revenant Liu Kang, effectively turning him into Fire God Liu Kang. This was poor planning on Kronika's part, and Liu Kang, now Fire God (resulting in Raiden becoming mortal), defeats Kronika.
    • In Mortal Kombat 1, the very moment Titan!Shang Tsung's realm-konquering plans began to be derailed can be located in New Era!Shang Tsung's Evil Gloating to Syzoth about how Tsung killed Syzoth's family, the reasoning being Tsung's dislike of leaving "loose ends". Prior to this speech, Syzoth was New Era!Tsung's muscle, working for him in exchange for Syzoth's family's lives not being threatened. Said speech triggers Syzoth's Heel–Face Turn, giving the Earthrealmers and Baraka the extra help they need to escape from his lab, and them stumbling in the Living Forest also leads to them finding Ashrah (thus even more extra help, and eventually Earthrealm gaining a new player in the process), discovering Quan Chi's soulnado devices, and Kenshi finally unlocking the power of Sento. Syzoth's abilities also play a key part on the gang's escape from Outworld once they discover where the portal is located, and discovering in the process that General Shao and Reiko are in league with the evildoers. While a small war between Earthrealm and Outworld exploded, the amount of evidence gathered during the trip was fundamental in convincing Li Mei to assist Lord Liu Kang, Li Mei finally having the opportunity to make amends with the royal family, and Sindel stopping said war... as well as Liu Kang revealing his past to her and her daughters, prompting both sides to join for a common cause and getting Titan!Shang Tsung out of the bag. New Era!Shang Tsung and Quan Chi discovering that they were being used as pawns trigger their own Heel–Face Turn, and their help proves fundamental in the destruction of the portals, preventing a huge army to be deployed on this dimension. All of this ends with the Battle of Armageddon, where Titan!Shang Tsung and Titan!Quan Chi finally bite the dust for good. And absolutely none of this would have happened without that single speech.
  • In Mother 3, Porky introduces the world to the evils of materialism and money. This seems to just be a distraction from his true plan to destroy the world. If he didn't indulge in this, the protagonists may have very well stayed at home, allowing his masked assistant to pull the Cosmic Keystone and destroy the world without any interference.
  • Haldos from Nexus Clash was the first-ever Lich who built his fortress out of the dead or undead bones of millions of people, until the demonic god Tlacolotl suckered him into attacking the Nexal death god Hashaa, one of Tlacolotl's principal rivals. One Bolt of Divine Retribution later, Tlacolotl became unintentionally responsible for Haldos' death and the end of his reign of terror.
  • Vice-President Aslik in Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus tries to pass himself off as a Benevolent Boss and all-around good guy by putting up "Uncle Aslik's Tourist Tips" all around the Fee-Co Depot that offer advice and warnings on the area and it's many dangers. Of course, when Abe shows up he's able to put these tips to pretty good use...
  • Subverted in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Having pursued Grodus deep inside the titular door's dungeon, Mario & Co. are left helpless when he uses Princess Peach as a hostage. Cue Bowser, who has spent the entire game one step behind you, crashing in from the ceiling and accidentally crushing him. Unfortunately, Bowser then immediately wants a go at you himself, giving Grodus time to escape with Peach.
  • Persona 5: A common scenario is is that the Phantom Thieves are at the mercy of the Palace Ruler. Just when it seems to be over for the Thieves, the villain goes and mocks an ally without a Persona. This then awakens their will of rebellion and allows the ally to gain a Persona and turn the tide.
  • Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky: Had Dusknoir not taken you and your partner into the Bad Future, neither of you would actually realize that the entire world was in danger.
    • This actually happens again at the end of the game when Darkrai (disguised as Cresselia) actually tries to kill you because to him, it's the only way the world will be saved, and that Darkrai was actually behind everything all along. Fortunately, the real Cresselia shows up and exposes Darkrai's true identity. Had he not done this, you wouldn't have known about his backup plan in the first place.
  • In Portal 2, Wheatleynote , when suffering from test withdrawal, he decides a good way to fix it is to move the test chamber Chell and GLaDOS are in as close as possible to his lair.
  • The Gloria's Theater level in Psychonauts revolves around finding new scripts and producing a series of plays so Raz can ascend the stage to the catwalks and battle the Phantom, and oddly enough, the first script you find, the one that sets almost the entire solution process in motion, is given to Raz by the Phantom himself, aka Jasper.
  • In Chris's scenario of Resident Evil, Albert Wesker saves Chris's life when he shoots Enrico before Enrico can shoot Chris believing him to be a double-crosser. This not only allows Chris to go on to repeatedly save the world from Umbrella but also bites Wesker in the ass for the remainder of his villainous career spanning multiple games as Chris repeatedly foils his schemes and ultimately kills him. Doubly so in the 2002 remake as Wesker saves Chris's life twice: once with Enrico and once in the opening cutscene when he shoots a dog that would have otherwise killed Chris. Before his Last Villain Stand in Resident Evil 5, Wesker even angrily declares that he should have killed Chris years ago after his plan for COMPLETE... GLOBAL... SATURATION... has been thwarted.
  • In Shadowverse, the Black Dragon of Malediction's curse on Rowen turns into an unexpected case of this in the later chapters of Rowen's story. While the dream world could generate illusions to satisfy its inhabitant's desires, it cannot remove the curse that Rowen carries with him. The presence of this curse alone is what shattered the illusion for Rowen, allowing him to break out of its clutches early and giving him the opportunity to save Isabelle.
  • According to the first Splatoon's artbook, the Final Boss of Splatoon 2 was one of these. At the end of the first game, the Squid Sisters' performance of the Calamari Inkantation apparently caused a number of Octarians to rethink their leader's whole revenge plot and start clamoring for a peaceful reconciliation with the Inklings. Octavio's answer to this? Kidnap one of the Squid Sisters, brainwash her, and hold a massive concert for his subjects so she can publicly denounce the Inklings. Unfortunately, he didn't count on the other Squid Sister recruiting the player to rescue the one he captured, break the brainwashing, and expose even more of his mooks to the song than if he had just not bothered with the whole plan in the first place.
  • Starbound: The Apex are ruled by the Miniknog, a totalitarian government that constantly oppresses its populace, where every act of perceived dissention (up to and including trying to have non-standard furniture or pets) can get you dragged off to "Thought Reassignment" or volunteered for terminal science experiments. The Miniknog is also troubled by the constant emergence of rebel cells, suspecting that in fact every Apex community have or will develop one (or several, in the case of larger cities). It doesn't occur to them that they are responsible for this. After all, when an otherwise peaceful and content citizen realizes they could get executed for wanting to have a green pet fish, becoming a rebel can't really make things much worse.
  • In the original StarCraft, the Zerg Swarm is ruled by the Overmind, who is practically immortal due to not having a physical body and instead being dispersed throughout all Zerg brains, its will enforced by the psychic Overseer units. This also allows it to coordinate all Zerg actions throughout the sector, making them an unparalleled threat to all other life. However, the Overmind's ultimate goal is to conquer the Protoss homeworld of Aiur, where it is able to build a physical body for itself… thereby making it vulnerable to attack. One spaceship collision later, the Overmind is dead, and the Swarm would be rendered mostly harmless if Kerrigan didn't happen to be there to pick up the pieces. The sequel, however, reveals that the Overmind was doing this in purpose, as he had a vision about a really bad future and was acting to prevent it from happening.
  • Across all three games of Starcraft II, Arcturus Mengsk, Emperor of the Terran Dominion and declared Big Bad after the events of both Starcraft I and its Expansion Pack Brood War, ends up being the one responsible for derailing Amon's entire plan:
    • Leaving Kerrigan for dead on Tarsonis gave the Overmind the perfect opportunity to reshape her into the Queen of Blades. The Overmind had every intention of creating an agent that would eventually resist Amon's directives and control much of the Zerg swarm.
    • There are hints that Narud and Mengsk had some sort of partnership to plant Tychus in Raynor's crew, and both intended to de-infest and kill Kerrigan for their own reasons (Mengsk: to end the greatest threat to his life. Narud: obtain the energy to resurrect Amon and leave the Swarm leaderless and 'available' to Amon). But Mengsk's insistence on killing Kerrigan backfired horribly on Amon. Kerrigan was no longer able to control the Swarm, and her life became a non-factor after the events of Wings of Liberty. The apparent death of Raynor at the beginning of Heart of the Swarm gave her the motivation to reclaim the Swarm, re-infest herself with primal zerg essence, and kill both Narud and Mengsk. As a result, Amon lost two assets amongst the Terrans, and the Swarm was now under the control of an uncorrupted Kerrigan, fully aware of Amon, and who withdrew her Swarm to slay the hybrids and find Ulnar. This would make things worse for the Xel'Naga.
    • The retreat of the Swarm prompted the Daelaam to begin the reclaimation of Aiur at the beginning of Legacy of the Void. But prior to said events, Zeratul would assist Talis in rescueing her templar, a job made easy by Kerrigan's assault on the facility where they were held during the Precursors prequel campaign. Learning of the Temple of Erris, Zeratul tracked down Ma'lash and, in the act of spying on him, destroyed the building Amon used to give instructions to the Tal'darim, depriving him of his protoss forces. His luck seemed to turn when he seized control of the Khala, gaining the control of the Golden Armada, which did not require him to work through underlings anymore. Now that he was able to use the Khalai to build his body and serve his hybrid forces, he had no further use for the Tal'darim Death Fleet. His promises of Ascension broken, it drove Alarak to usurp Ma'lash, turning the Death Fleet against Amon. Once again, Zeratul's interference denied Amon, by saving Artanis. The Hierarch set out to fulfil the Keystone prophecy. Here, again, Mengsk's folly proved critical: with the succession by Valerian, the artefact was no longer in the hands of Amon's minions, and the Moebius raid on Korhal was a failure thanks to Raynor's Raiders and Artanis' remnant army.
    • Again, a situation that would not have occurred had Mengsk merely left human Kerrigan and Raynor to remain fugitives, the retrieval of the Keystone gave Artanis the only means to capture Amon, and banish him to the void. On Ulnar, Kerrigan's control over the Swarm and motivation to kill Amon again proved important in saving Artanis and allowing him to figure out exactly how Zeratul's prophecy of the Keystone would undo Amon's possession of the Khala. It was also the occasion that brought Alarak and Artanis together in stripping away the loyalty of the Tal'darim. After rallying more forces and destroying his physical body, the Protoss succeeded in releasing Amon from the Khala and thrust him back into the void. And because all of this wasn't enough yet, it was Kerrigan's initiative to follow Amon into the void and destroy him in the one place he would have been safe. Key figures who would not have been alive or have any power if Mengsk had not overplayed his hand like Valerian, Raynor, Stukov, Zagara, Alarak, Kerrigan, and Artanis, all came together in a climactic battle against Amon on Ulnar, where they inadvertently discovered Ouros, the only being capable of endowing Kerrigan with the power needed to kill a Xel’naga. Something that, again, likely would not have ever occurred had Mengsk not altered events by pissing off Kerrigan, and driving her to become exactly the one thing that could put a stop to Amon's plan.
  • Star Trek Online episode "From the Ashes", mission "Turning Point". Colonel Hakeev of the Tal Shiar tries to bust up the international summit on Khitomer and pin it on the Romulan Republic, in order to prevent the Federation and Klingons from giving protection and aid to the Republic. He gets caught red-handed by Captain Ja'rod of the IKS Kang, and after Commander Temer dies shielding Ambassador Woldan from a Tal Shiar bomb the two superpowers are greatly impressed and decree that the Republic has the right to exist as an independent nation (and therefore can receive military support from them).
  • In Super Robot Wars: Original Generation, the villains have brainwashed one person's girlfriend to forget they fought together, and make her think he was an enemy. By reminding her of a memory of when they were together, she gets paralyzed and stands there, indecisive. Then a group of said villains minions show up and threatens the guy's life, accidentally triggering the girl's memories of her relationship, immediately snapping her out of the brainwashing and rushing to protect the guy. Whoops. Gets Lampshaded.
  • Summoner: Emperor Murod hears a prophecy saying that a summoner will bring his reign to an end. Everything he does to stop that prophecy from happening only succeeds in it coming true, when his army attacks Joseph's village and undoes his Refusal of the Call. Joseph even calls Murod out on this; had Murod simply done nothing, Joseph would have lived the rest of his days as an ordinary farmer on another continent without ever knowing Murod even existed.
  • Super Robot Wars X: Stage 35, due to Elvira experimenting with the Nu Gundam between stages, Amuro finds himself in trouble when Yazan orders for all units to concentrate their fire on him… Until Cumpa calls him on the sides and gives him the Hi-Nu Gundam in an attempt to convince Amuro of following his idealsnote . Unsurprisingly, Amuro rejects discussing things and takes the Hi-Nu with himself back to the battlefield, promptly delivering a curb-stomp on G-IT and Towasanga's forces.
  • The Talos Principle: Depending on your choices when speaking with Milton, eventually you can reach a point where Elohim will allow (or depending on your point of view, force) you to shut down the Milton program. Doing so resets the security blockade on the stairway that leads to the Tower, allowing you to climb it against Elohim's wishes.
  • In the 1st Tantei Opera Milky Holmes PSP Game, the Big Bad Phantom Thief L's very idea of forming Milky Holmes and bringing back old time rival Kobayashi Opera from retirement to act as their mentor figure ultimately foiled his master plan to destroy Yokohama using crystalised form of plutonium as an energy bomb.
  • Terranigma actually has this occur when Ark opened Pandora's Box in the beginning. By doing so, Beruga was killed and his plan of using a toxic gas to commit genocide was stopped. Although this is only told to the player after they have just resurrected Beruga. Great.
  • Releasing the Cornstalker in the final chapter of Touch Detective 2 1/2 would seem to fall under Stupidity Is the Only Option… except that this is all he manages to pull off — his efforts to steal the treasure only succeed at helping Mackenzie safeguard it and escape the aliens who have abducted them.
  • The F-Con trio in Tron 2.0 make some really foolish mistakes. Yes, they kidnap Alan and successfully intimidate him into forking over the information needed to make the digitizer run… but then they lock the man who programmed Tron and Ma3a in a room full of old computer parts, giving him the ability to at least make contact with his son and upload Mercury to help. Then, they decide to dispose of him by shooting him into cyberspace, reuniting him with his son and Ma3a and giving him access to crash the datawraith server from the inside.
  • In a case of the nemeses of a mischievous villain protagonist, the villagers in Untitled Goose Game frequently open new paths for the Goose whenever they put up "No Goose" signs. It's likely that much of the Goose's mischief is for exactly this reason, so it can get into the model village and steal the church bell.
  • Valkyrie Profile: Lezard Valeth in the best ending. Most of his appearances and villainous actions actually are required for the best ending to even occur. Lezard Valeth kills Mystina, who becomes very loyal to Lenneth, which is why she refuses to serve Hrist and helps transfer Lenneth's soul temporarily to a homunculus. Lezard kills and mutilates the body of elves to create a homunculus for himself and Lenneth, which is needed to store Lenneth's soul when Hrist takes her body. Lezard transfers his soul to a homunculus and sacrifices the Philosopher's Stone to survive Ragnarok and grant himself immortality, which allows him to be present to fight Hrist. He is one of the four people willing and able to fight Hrist to retake Lenneth's body due to his obsession with her. The only villainous thing Lezard that does not contribute to getting the best ending is killing Lorenta and her husband (it is required to see this event to get the best ending, but Lorenta is a basic einherjar that never gets mentioned in the plot after she is recruited).
    • It gets taken up even further when it's revealed that Odin (in this game) is half-elf, and Lenneth becomes this when she's put in Lezard's homunculus body, which itself is made from an elf. In this universe, godly beings, while almighty, have a fixed level of power that cannot grow due to their immortality. As Odin is half-elf, half divine, he can actually grow and obtain even more power on a divine level than he could have if he were simply a god. The same thing happens to Lenneth once she's in her new body, and… well, she isn't called "Lenneth the Creator" for nothing in the second game.
  • In Watch Dogs: Legion, SIRS Operative Richard Malik attempts to set DedSec up by contacting them and fabricating a belief that Zero-Day, the terrorist hacker group that framed DedSec for the bombings at the start of the game, were in fact members of SIRS in order to manipulate them into targeting his superior, Emma Child. When DedSec discover the ruse and ally with Child to capture Malik he arranges a second bombing, killing Child, allowing him to replace her, while blaming the bombing on DedSec. When DedSec defeat him and publicly release a dossier on how he pulled off this bombing, it causes an increased suspicion that DedSec were not, in fact, responsible for the earlier bombing either.
    • The real Zero-Day; Sabine Brandt, managed this as well on a large scale. After being betrayed by her co-conspirator Nigel Cass, Sabine begins reassembling DedSec in order to manipulate them into recovering the resources she needed to complete her plan. This, of course, left a team of operatives ready to step in and defeat her the moment she launched her plan.
  • Frau Engel's mistreatment towards her daughter is what seals her fate (and that of the Nazi regime) in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Originally dismissing of her daughter Sigrun due to her not wanting to abide to the Nazi sympathies her mother adheres to, she leaves Sigrun at the mercy of the Kreisau Circle... who instead of executing Sigrun took her as an ally. A vaulable ally, to boot: hanging out with the Kreisau Circle at the Eva's Hammer led to her losing a lot of prejudices, especially when Sigrun hangs around Set Roth; helping the Kreisau Circle cracking up the Enigma codes helped them to take down the Nazi regime and instill the Second American Revolution (to the point that, by the time of Youngblood, the Nazi regime is a Vestigial Empire), and B.J. to take down Frau Engel.
  • World of Warcraft (as opposed to what it usually does) has this when Fandral Staghelm is revealed as Raganaros' new majordomo: He overloads Thrall's connection to the elements, causing his mind to be broken into four separate pieces embodying each respective element-which allows him to examine his inner conflicts from an objective prospective. When you help him put himself back together, he's found his old Heroic Willpower, no longer divided against himself.
    • Also happened in Wrath Of The Lich King in the Death Knight intro sequence. The eponymous Big Bad has just thrown the order of The Knights Of The Ebon Blade at a small church in the western plaguelands as a Batman Gambit to lure out one Paladin, Tirion Fordring. Not only does this succeed in bringing Fordring back out into the world from Exile, but it causes the merging of two paladin orders to focus on killing The Lich King. Much worse is that in the process of causing this, a long time cursed sword that was in the hands of the commander of the Ebon Blade is purified by the mere touch of Fordring. The Sword? Ashbringer. It ends up shattering Frostmourne into pieces and ultimately causes the Big Bad's defeat at the top of Icecrown Citadel.
    • Sylvanas' backstory is also an example of this. During Warcraft 3, while Arthas is invading Quel'thalas, Sylvanas and her squadron are a major thorn in his side. Despite him (depending on the player) outnumbering her quite a bit, Sylvanas' determination and ingenuity make her a major threat to him. Then, Arthas finally kills her, and instead of breathing a sigh of relief that he'll never have to deal with her again, he decides to resurrect her so he can enslave her and make her miserable. This backfires when Arthas' power weakens temporarily, and Sylvanas immediately frees herself, and although she was unable to kill him she founds the Forsaken by taking command of the other resurrected who were freed from Arthas' control, the Forsaken being eventually instrumental in his destruction (even if there was collateral damage). So Arthas created one of his biggest enemies, when he could simply have let her stay dead.
      • Ultimately, the Lich King's goal was to destroy the living — and Sylvanas/The Forsaken have done much more to this end than he ever could have on his own. She has now nearly exterminated two factions (the Gilnean humans and worgen, whose homeland she plagued and invaded, as well as the night elves whose homeland she burned to ashes). Additionally, she has now freed the Scourge from their stasis by defeating Bolvar Fordragon and removing the Helm of Domination from his head, and then pierced the veil between life and death to wreak further havoc.
    • The attempt to silence Vol'jin in Pandaria during the 'Dagger in the Dark' scenario may have began Warchief Garrosh Hellscream's downfall, as Vol'jin survived his assassination and hid out till the time was right to start his Darkspear tribe's revolt against Garrosh's Horde. He was able to gather a number of Horde heroes, unite every other Horde member nation leadernote  against Garrosh, and even forge a truce with the Horde-opposed Alliance and their heroes, all who very much had a bone to pick with Garrosh. And in a twist of irony in the end, Garrosh Hellscream is dethroned by the heroes and detained by Taran Zhunote  while Vol'jin was nominated by Thrall as the new — and first non-orc — Warchief, with all of the other Horde faction leaders bowing to him to signal their own assent.
    • Baine Bloodhoof was a particularly bad one to piss off with the assassination attempt on Vol'jin, considering that the tauren of Mulgore were the only non-orc nation that Garrosh respected (for their strength), were the next geographically next closest nation to the Durotar peninsulanote , whereas almost every other Horde or Alliance nation would have had to cross the Great Sea or the waters surrounding northern Kalimdor to reach the Durotar peninsula, and crucially formed a sizable and possibly highest non-orc percentage of the Horde's forces.
    • The Old Gods are revealed to have done this in the World of Warcraft: Chronicle. They created the "Curse of Flesh" to turn the metallic and stone servants of their enemies into flesh and blood beings that would be much easier to kill. As a side effect, it also granted them qualities that the Old Gods didn't anticipate: courage, resolve, and heroism. Most of the races afflicted by the curse of flesh would go on to foil the Old Gods' plans time and time again.
  • In Yakuza 0, after Sohei Dojima has decided that the owner of the Empty Lot Makoto Makimura has outlived her usefulness, he orders Lao Gui to kill her so that nobody can contest the Dojima Clan's ownership of the Empty Lot. However, his subordinate Shibusawa turns out to be a Dragon with an Agenda, having gotten Lao Gui to gut-shot Makoto instead so that she had a chance of surviving, allowing him to swoop in and kidnap her from the hospital later and use her as secret leverage to rise in power over Sohei. This ends up working in the heroes' favor, though, as once Kiryu beats the hell out of Shibusawa and takes Makoto back, she's able to sign the rights to the Empty Lot over to Sera, completely foiling Sohei's entire plan.

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