You Have Failed Me / Western Animation

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• Amphibia:
  • In the Season 2 finale "True Colors", as Marcy is hacking the Calamity Box so Anne and the Plantars can escape to Earth, King Andrias is furious at her for ruining his interdimensional plans and forcefully stabs her with his sword.
    King Andrias: Now look what you made me do.
  • By the time of "Anne-sterminator", Andrias learns Anne is still alive and is furious the Killer Robot he sent to Earth has failed to kill her, thus he sets the robot to self-destruct in an hour if it still fails to do so by then.
• Angel Wars: In his backstory, Paladin was expecting to get punished for his role in shattering Caliburn when he goes to Archangel Michael after his fleet got out of trouble. Fortunately for him, this version of Michael is a Reasonable Authority Figure who gives him a brief speech about how failure is sometimes inevitable, but the important thing is how you respond to it. Paladin then earns his wings, but he should've seen this coming from how he'd just saved his whole fleet, really.
• Arcane: Downplayed with Silco. While he can't stand traitors he's shown to be much more tolerant of failure. His adopted daughter, Jinx, jeopardizes his enterprise repeatedly but he's always willing to forgive her. Even when his gang fails to stop Vi and fails to prevent his Shimmer stockpile and base from going up in flames, the survivors of the affair all enjoy positions of power in his empire after the time skip. A straighter example would be his dealings with Deckard. Deckard revealing himself to Vi really pissed him off and Silco would have had his skull cracked open if he hadn't learned some valuable info.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: After Prince Zuko fails to capture the Avatar at the end of Season 1, his father sends his sister Azula to capture Zuko to face judgment.
• Ben 10
  • Emperor Milleous from Ben 10: Alien Force is hugely feared by his everyone for his high rank and for being a Planet Destroyer. He will not hesitate to punish his minions for whatever reason. This was shown in his debut episode "X=Ben+2" when he kills an Incursean guard for letting his daughter Attea get kidnapped by Sevenseven.
  • Subverted when it seemed like Simian was presumably Killed Offscreen for failing to get the Plumbers' communicator crystal for the Highbreed, but then he returns in Ultimate Alien revealing that the Highbreed changed his mind and simply locked him up instead.
  • The higher echelons of the Forever Knights have a bad habit of doing this. Enoch is left trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine by his superior, Driscoll, as punishment for repeated failures to eliminate Ben and acquire the Omnitrix, and Urian's Establishing Character Moment consists of fatally electrocuting a hapless mook for bungling a mission. Later, when the founder and leader of the Knights, Sir George, returns and takes back control of the organization, Driscoll is clearly expecting to get the same sort of treatment for his own failures and is nonplussed when George instead just shrugs, tells Driscoll he did the best he could, and moves on to a new plan.
• An early Birdman (1967) villain in the employ of F.E.A.R., the Ringmaster, seems to be terrified of finding himself on the receiving end of this when he is captured. In "Murro the Marauder", a nameless mook gets the Trap Door treatment after being thwarted by Birdman in his attempt to steal a secret formula.
• Lord Nebula of Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys uses the phrase constantly to terrorize his toady Rhesus-2 (along with a few hard knocks). It's not an idle threat because his predecessor, Rhesus-1, was threatened constantly as well; he was eventually shot with a death ray and reduced to a ribcage in a pile of red goo.
• Subverted in Cat City. After each failure, Mr. Teufel, The Dragon, invites his semi-competent secretary "for a few words". The latter survives, but appears in ever-increasing number of bandages.
  • Teufel's boss, however, has the mounted heads of Teufel's predecessors on his wall.
• In one episode of Conan the Adventurer when a snakeman fails to obtain a piece of Greywolf's magic staff, he is executed by Wrath-Amon by being thrown into a pond with a tentacle-watcher thingy and being eaten alive. Thus, becoming probably the only snake-man being really killed on screen.
  Dreggs: Your pet is a messy eater.
• In the Danger Mouse episode "Day Of The Suds," after DM and Penfold escape Greenback's army of sentient washing machines.
  Washing machine: Mission failed...enemy escaped...disengaged.
  Greenback: Failed?! Escaped?! Useless tin cans! (to Stiletto) Stiletto?
  Stiletto: Si, Baroni?
  Greenback: Pay them the wages of failure.
  Stiletto: [laughs] Si, Baroni! (presses a button; the lead washers are detonated)
• Double Dragon (1993):
  • In the second episode, the Shadow Master kills two underlings (Abobo and Willy) for failing him by trapping them in the Shadow Mural. Particularly annoying, as he never does this to his goons later. Maybe he just realized that if he killed somebody for every failure he'd run out of men fast.
  • The only other time he does such a thing is in the Season 2 episode "Shadow Conned", when Countdown revolts against the Shadow Master by freeing the Shadow Khan from his shield. He does so by trapping Countdown in the Khan's shield.
• This happens to Captain Crigg, the original leader of the Urpneys, in the first episode of The Dreamstone. Zordrak throws him into "the pit of no return," and promotes Sergeant Blob into his place.
• Exo Squad: Phaeton, the Big Bad, has a habit of summarily executing his generals whenever they really screw up. But since he can easily clone them, he can easily replace them... with themselves. However, he does give them a few chances first. Typhonus, for example, attempted to betray Phaeton, accidentally convinced the Pirates to ally with the Exofleet, and then got his own fleet annihilated before Phaeton finally got rid of him.
• Filmation's Ghostbusters: Prime Evil, the Big Bad, is quite fond of saying this to his ghostly minions, often exacting some kind of "humorous" punishment on them. (Example: Fangster, a werewolf ghost, gets inflicted with vampire fleas.)
• Surprisingly averted in G.I. Joe. Despite the constant distrust COBRA's henchmen have for their leader and their frequent attempts to criticize or even outright usurp him, or if their plans against G.I. Joe completely fail, Cobra Commander never enacts any punishment on his troops.
• Dr. Zin from Jonny Quest does this a lot to his minions. This is taken to the extremes in Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber Insects, in which he has three head scientists. Each time one of them fails, he kills that scientist then promotes another of them. The first one he fed to the insects, the second he throws into a pit of acid, and the third he froze in liquid nitrogen and breaks him into pieces.
  • General Fung angrily shot a Mook for failing to bomb the Quests' boat and allowed them to escape, only for the soldier's body to collapse on a detonator for the mine Fung's boat was directly over.
  • In the Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures episode "Diamonds and Jade," the Puppet Master says the phrase verbatim to his brother/accomplice.
• In the Kim Possible movie So The Drama, Drakken says this to his sidekick Shego after she failed the mission and drops her into a room of synthodrones, but he's really just testing out their combat capabilities and being dramatic about it. She replies "Why are you all, 'You have failed me for the last time!' Are you kidding me with that?" Then they get down to the new evil plan.
  • In another episode, WorldWide Evil Empire head Gemini tells one of his underlings: "You have failed me for the last time." The underlings response? "Um, I just started last Thursday, so I haven't actually failed you bef—" Gemini cuts him off with "Silence!" then sends him down a trapdoor anyway.
• From Season 3 of The Legend of Korra, Zaheer pulls this trope on his flunky Aiwei as punishment for failing to cover the Red Lotus's escape at Zaofu by throwing him into the Fog of Lost Souls.
• It's noted in The Owl House that Emperor Belos is "not a merciful man", and multiple people under his employ express outright terror at the thought of failing to carry out his orders. At one point, Hunter even tries to cut out the middle man upon discovering that his current mission was All for Nothing and begins to dig his own grave.
  Belos: (to Lilith) But, if you fail, you will be stripped of your rank and banished from my coven. You do know what happens to covenless witches, don't you?
• In one episode of Phineas and Ferb, Agent P avoids Doofenschmirtz's Piano (and Piano Player) Drop trap thanks to the maid's carelessness. Doofenschmirtz had this to say:
  Doofenschmirtz: "Oop! Ooo! Oh, I told Nancy to keep the backdoor locked! Note to self... My evil deed for tomorrow: fire the maid."
  • In the Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars special, Vader Force-chokes the officer who brings him a hoagie instead of socks.
  Vader: I find your lack of socks disturbing.
• The Pirates of Dark Water villain Bloth "rewards" failure by tossing the offending minion to the Constrictus, a mutant monster that lives in a pool on his ship. However, he seems willing to allow second chances to those who escape that fate, and the rest of his crew make bets on whether or not the victim will survive. However, escaping the Constrictus is extremely rare: the only mook to succeed against the Constrictus was Konk, but he lost a leg in the process. He made it out of there the most intact of anyone before Ren.
  • In the first episode, King Primus escapes. Bloth is very unhappy and promptly takes out his anger on the guy who was supposed to be guarding the King.
  Brigmaster: I took my off of him for but a moment!
  Bloth: And a moment is all you've left to live! [drops him into the Constrictus pit]
• ReBoot:
  • Megabyte makes frequent references to the punishments he metes out to those who fail him, but we never do see him delete anybody for failure. Ironically, he did unformat one of his troops for succeeding.
  • In Season 3, Megabyte got more ruthless and finally grew tired of putting up with Hack and Slash's constant failure. He doesn't do the deed himself, but he does decide to give them a dangerous assignment, knowing they'll get killed.
  • When Deacon reports to Daemon that he has been unable to breach Mainframe's firewall, Daemon explains that it is okay and she forgives him. However, when he goes to her later and says he failed again, she activates her infection and causes him to delete himself.
• Boris Badenov consistently fails in his mission to eliminate Moose and Squirrel, and he's seemingly paid the ultimate price twice ("Painting Theft" and "Moosylvania Saved" story arcs).
• Averted by Hordak in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Season 1, when he demotes Shadow Weaver after she repeatedly fails him and promotes Catra, despite her having failed her assault on Bright Moon, since she got closer than anyone else.
  • Played painfully straight in Season 2, where Hordak has grown impatient that no significant gains have been made in the months since and nearly suffocates Catra to death on two separate occasions: the first time for simply irritating him and the second for failing a Secret Test of Character by lying to him about Shadow Weaver's escape.
• Samurai Jack:
  • This may come as a surprise, but Aku tends to avoid the Bad Boss Trope and rarely kills his own minions (of course, most of them are mindless robots). However, he did kill Demongo after failing to defeat Jack. Having said that, Demongo's failure was not something to be taken lightly. Jack not only defeated him, he freed every imprisoned soul that Demongo had accumulated in his career, and seeing as these dozens — possibly hundreds — of Aku's enemies were all problems for him again as a result, you couldn't blame him for being angry. Season 5 shows that somehow Demongo survived.
    Aku: You have failed me, Demongo...
    Demongo: No, Master! Please forgive me!
    Aku: Hmmm... (Thinks about it.) No. (Crushes crystal.)
  • He does again to Scaramouche in Season 5, but again it took a pretty big and legitimate screw-up for it to happen; Scaramouche gave Aku outdated info that Jack had lost his sword, when in fact Jack had just recently gotten it back that put Aku right in a perfect position for Jack to try and kill him, so you can see why Aku's so pissed. Not to mention Scaramouche had already literally bet his life on the info being legit. Also notable because rather than just shooting him or something, Aku makes his head spontaneously explode.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM): In the episode "Hooked On Sonics", Robotnik does this to a Swatbot.
• Subverted in Sonic Underground's opening three-part arc. Robotnik hires bounty hunters Sleet and Dingo to catch Sonic, and when they inevitably fail, he decides to have them roboticized. They plead for one last chance, Robotnik eventually agrees, and they then proceed to fill the role of Bumbling Henchmen Duo for the rest of the series, without any further threats from Robotnik.
• In the Steven Universe Season 2 episode "Message Received", Yellow Diamond gives one to Peridot when she suggests to use the Earth's resources without disrupting the local ecosystem, But Yellow Diamond rejects her ideas as she'd rather have the Cluster destroy it to get back at all the trouble it caused her and the rest of Homeworld. This leads Peridot to object to Yellow Diamond's decision, and eventually turning on her.
  Yellow Diamond (to Peridot): You have failed at every stage of this mission. Your only chance to redeem yourself is to follow this simple order: You are to leave the Cluster to grow! It will tear apart the earth, and I will take immense satisfaction in erasing that hideous rock off of our star maps! Is?! That?! Clear?!
  Peridot: I won't do it! I can tell you with certainty that there are things on this planet worth protecting! (Steven smiles)
  Yellow Diamond: What do YOU know about the Earth?!
  Peridot: Apparently more than YOU, You... CLOD!!!
  Yellow Diamond: (Glares angrily at Peridot) HMM?! (The Crystal Gems are both shocked and impressed.)
  Peridot: Uhh... Peridot, out! (salutes, then cuts the transmission)
  • Yellow Diamond responds by attempting to destroy Peridot with the Diamond Line's Self-Destruct mechanism, but it's subverted when the Gems bubbled and launched the communicator into the skies, where it safely explodes.
• An episode of Stroker and Hoop has a ninja mook terrified of this trope after failing to kill the main characters. The head ninja points out how horrible for morale it would be to murder his henchmen every time they mess up... and then slices the mook in half.
  "Send in some more ninjas, please."
• The Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) would always kill his Mooks when they failed him. For minions he couldn't replace, well, it varied. Stockman would lose a piece of him every time, until he was just a brain in a robot body which would be punished with electric shocks. Other people, like Hun and Karai, usually got off without so much as a slap on the wrist. This is in sharp contrast to the older cartoon version that would just berate Bebop and Rocksteady for their stupidity, and then send them back again.
• When an intern pulls a In-Universe Factoid Failure regarding the Olympics on Total Drama Chris MacLean ejects him from the plane without a parachute.
• Averted in The Transformers: The Movie. Unicron invokes the trope name, then gives Galvatron the 411 and sends him off to the Planet of Junk to try again.
  • However, in G1, Megatron said this to Starscream Once per Episode. Though he frequently punished and humiliated Starscream, Megs never killed him. Finally however, in the movie, Starscrem left Megatron for dead in the void of space, and after a makeover, the new Galvatron finally killed Starscream.
• In the Transformers: Prime episode "Inside Job", Knock-Out ends up suffering a non-fatal example of this. After a fight with Smokescreen over the Phase Shifter ends with him stuck in a wall, Megatron leaves him there as an example to his other minions. He gets let out in the following episode when Megatron needs him.
• Sometimes subverted with the Monarch and his henchmen in The Venture Bros.. He frequently kills his henchmen for minor infractions, by accident, or simply because he's having a bad day.
• Subverted in Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, where Darkling Lord ruler Darkstorm regulary sends his loyal toadie Mortdredd down the Trap Door — even when he succeeds in his mission, or just whenever he feels like humiliating the guy. Showing a brain-dead kind of loyalty, Mortdredd never even complains and just climbs back from the pit — often to be thrown back again.
• In Voltron: Legendary Defender, Emperor Zarkon eventually does this to Commander Prorok. He strips him of his rank and has Witch Haggar turn him into a Robeast, than flings him at the Paladins as cannon fodder. Zarkon claims it was because Prorok was the prime suspect for being The Mole, but the investigation to find the mole continues after Prorok dies. Zarkon actually wanted to punish and get rid of an incompetent commander, and the mole thing just happened to be a good excuse.
  • This also ends up happening to Throk; after he fails to defend his base against an assault, Haggar tortures the poor guy to near-death. An interesting and especially cruel example, as the "you have failed" angle turns out to be a pretense; the base attack that got Throk punished was staged as part of a Xanatos Gambit by Prince Lotor and Throk had previously been considering overthrowing Lotor. The torture was just to ensure Lotor's plan worked while removing a potential rival for the throne.
• Phobos, the Season 1 Big Bad of W.I.T.C.H., punished his Mooks heavily for failure, to the point where by the end of the season, one of them defected to the side of the heroes after they found him injured following a battle, knowing full well what Phobos did to those soldiers he discovered had been wounded. He even took a break from the Final Battle to punish his right-hand Giant Mook Cedric, transforming him from a giant snake monster into a tiny, pathetic one. This would later come back to bite Phobos in the ass in season 2, after he regains his power and gives Cedric one more shot. Cedric returns the favor by stealing all of Phobos' power by eating Phobos alive during the penultimate episode.

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