History Main / GeneralFailure

General Failure may have started out as a competent commander in a position of less importance, and his success led to him being promoted beyond his capabilities. If this is the case, then it's a villainous example of the Peter Principle. If he started out as an incompetent mook or private, you can expect his rise to be an improbable series of KickedUpstairs, UriahGambit and PromotedToScapegoat that never deliver on the bad ending or being the only living replacement left when his superiors keep dying.

* Despite being an extremely good ChessMaster who out-gambited the BigBad of the series several times, [[TheNecromancer Kabuto Yakushi]] of ''{{Naruto}}'' has shown to be a GeneralFailure throughout the WarArc. [[spoiler: Edo Tensei who should have ''steamrolled'' the opposition, such as Deidara or Sasori, are sacrificed extremely early on for stupid reasons and there isn't even a proper attempt in the manga to free Deidara after he's been captured. Sasori, despite being resurrected isn't even given his second scroll of puppets to fight with thus robbing him of his poison and his entire arsenal. Kinkaku and Ginkaku are sealed as well-given them their personalities was the worst choice that Kabuto could have done since they worked-as Kinkaku demonstrated, far better as pseudo-Jinchuriki berserkers. Hanzo the Salamander and Nagato, perhaps his second and third/fourth most powerful Edo Tensei are sealed-the latter given a pathetic performance since Kabuto doesn't even give him his normal field of vision. And despite having ''four Kages'', he loses all four consecutively. The only times when he plays it smart are with Zabuza and Haku, as well as [[BiggerBad Madara Uchiha]] which actually scores some wins.]]

** Clan Ice Hellion is infamous for their tactics which can be summarized as AttackAttackAttack. Their commanders favor speed over everything else, as such they field light and medium mechs, against opponents who like fielding larger and more heavily armed Omnimechs.

** Funnily enough, it's possible to use Oliver's incompetence to your own advantage against Legate Lanius. With a high enough speech, you can convince Lanius that the NCR is setting a trap for him. Thinking that this is probably the reason that he managed to get dug in this deep (and considering that's how Graham lost the previous battle), he'll decide to retreat rather than facing a potential defeat.

** Father Elijah, the former Elder of the Mojave chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel ordered his chapter to hold a power plant against the NCR, despite being vastly outnumbered simply for the sole purpose of trying to find a hidden superweapon of some sorts. In his case, it's a mix of tactical incompetence and complete and utter disregard for the lives of his men compared to his obsession with obtaining old world tech.

*** A wonderful counter-example is the British Maj. Ross, played by Bernard Fox, in the 6th season episode "Tea and Empathy". His apparent callous heartlessness to his wounded men is his way of reassuring them that they will fully recover. The initial conflict between him and Hawkeye, and the reconciliation after the reveal, are both very well played.

** In most games, hard or very hard AI opponent isn't much smarter. Best of their capabilities is sending wave after wave to be slaughtered. Even if you are winning skirmishes with very hard AI opponent easily, your first match with a capable human opponent can end as devastating curb stomp.

* Indrick Boreale from the Soulstorm expansion to ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar''. It's hinted at in the manual that he's actually a very, VERY skilled commander... At the level of a tactical squad or three, maybe even a small battle-force. When put in charge of the taking of a planet with not seven different enemy armies (two of which are members of the Imperium itself), his tactics boil down to AttackAttackAttack. This works out extremely well when running the Space Marine campaign, but not so much in any other; his concept of "defense" is to use the Steel Rain deployment, namely keeping everyone in the orbital ships and [[ItsRainingMen using drop pods to deploy directly into combat]]. Again, fantastic for offensive missions, but suicide when on the defensive, especially when he never deploys more than a few men or a vehicle or two at a time instead of [[CurbStompBattle dropping the entire Chapter on the enemy's heads at the start]], finally [[TakingYouWithMe ordering an orbital bombardment in the middle of his own base]] because you've broken through the miserably thin static defenses. It's little wonder (among [[BaseBreaker other reasons]]) that Soulstorm is the ''only'' Dawn Of War campaign that the Space Marines didn't canonically win. In Dawn of War II, Scout Marine Cyrus often speaks of the Kauravan Campaign and Commander Boreale with incredible scorn and [[spoiler:his incompetence is even one of the reasons Cyrus potentially becomes a traitor in Chaos Rising]].

* The High Prophet of Regret from ''Franchise/{{Halo}} is a particularly good example of this, though some of this comes from him being continually outmatched by his colleague [[ManipulativeBastard the High Prophet of Truth]]. To a lesser degree, the Expanded Universe shows that the Prophets often tend to impede the operations of the Covenant as a whole due to their politicking, their tendency to meddle in military affairs, and their religious edicts discouraging intellectual curiosity. Hell, humanity would have never won if it hadn't been for [[spoiler:Truth's last-minute betrayal of the Elites]].
** In ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'', Captain Del Rio is presented as one, with Cortana and Chief repeatedly questioning his tactical decisions, starting even before they meet the guy. [[spoiler: When Chief straight-up ignores his orders right to his face, his entire bridge crew joins in and ignores him. As an added insult, when the ''Infinity'' makes it back to Earth he ends up being gulaged by Command (knowing [[StateSec ONI]], maybe literally) for picking a fight with a war hero and letting the Didact reach Earth.]]

* The Prophets from ''{{Halo}}''. They outnumber humanity, possess far superior technology, and have the ruins of an ancient civilization to build upon, yet their religion prevents them from using or developing this tech in any meaningful way. The Expanded Universe even states that they can't use such technology effectively because [[TooDumbToLive they never actually learned advanced mathematics.]] The High Prophet Regret is a particularly good example.
** In ''Halo 4'', Captain Del Rio is presented as one, with Cortana and Chief repeatedly questioning his tactical decisions, starting even before they meet the guy. [[spoiler: When Chief straight-up ignores his orders right to his face, his entire bridge crew joins in and ignores him. As an added insult, when Infinity makes it back to Earth he ends up being gulaged by Command (knowing ONI, maybe literally) for picking a fight with a war hero.]]

* General Sir Anthony Hogmanay Melchett in ''{{Blackadder}} Goes Forth'', a parody of British WWI generals.

* Visser Three [[spoiler:later Visser One]] from the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' embodies this trope.
** That's what you get for having a society basically built on AsskickingEqualsAuthority - ThePeterPrinciple kicks in and your stealth invasion ends up being run by a guy who kills his own troops at the slightest provocation.

* Being set in WorldWarOne and mostly from the POV of [[ShellShockedVeteran shell-shocked]] junior officers and the doctors who try to help them, the RegenerationTrilogy is ''full'' of this.

** That's what you get for having a society basically built on AsskickingEqualsAuthority.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' features more than a few Imperial generals who fit this description, officers who got their ranks through [[BlueBlood family connections]] and [[ArmchairMilitary have never been in actual combat]]. Their strategies tend to center around the fact that the Imperial Guard [[WeHaveReserves has a lot of men in it]], and if you [[ZergRush throw enough of them at the enemy you'll eventually win]]. Some generals even manage to screw ''that'' up.

* While Sosuke Aizen of ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' can run a conspiracy like nobody's business, when it's time to make open war with society, Aizen seems to prefer inefficient GambitRoulette to actual tactics, such as sacrificing half of his elite soldiers to temporarily stall a portion of the enemy fighting force (they get out anyway), launching a pre-emptive strike on Karakura town (that they predicted and countered), and sitting back to let his top 3 soldiers and their subordinates take care of it. (They get slaughtered, and Aizen finishes off one that was doing well himself) Ultimately, Aizen winds up fighting off the entire enemy army himself, which begs the question of why he didn't use his broken powers to make sure he won without losing his entire army besides [[TheStarscream Gin]] [[spoiler:who then betrayed him and got killed. Now Aizen's all by himself]].
** [[spoiler:It was heavily implied to be deliberate. Aizen could have easily taken out all the captains of the Gotei 13 he was facing at any point - he just made an army to face them for ''kicks''. The only arrancar he actually needed was Wonderweiss, because he negated Yamamoto's zanpakuto, which would have been the only thing strong enough to stop him in his transcended form - sans the Final Getsuga Tensho.]]

** His list of humiliating defeats now includes an army of stone age neanderthals, led by Fry no less. Though to be fair they had woolly mammoth cavalry and a saber-toothed cat-apault.

* The Malwa in the BelisariusSeries. They place purity and bloodlines above competence to the point that, even with the advantage in [[ZergRush numbers]], [[GivingRadioToTheRomans technical assistance]] from an OutsideContextVillain is the ''only'' reason for thier success thus far.

* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic becomes this is WebVideo/{{Kickassia}}. He only manages to take over Molossia [[GladIThoughtOfIt using Phelous's ideas]], then sits around watching TV while the other reviewers actually put effort into running the country.

* General Duke of ''StarCraft'', who has the misfortune of regularly being on the opposing side of whichever army you're playing through virtually the entire run of the game and its expansion. As a result, in game he wins precisely one battle; over Tarsonis, a planet whose defenses he already knows inside and out. Other then that, he gets spanked by Raynor's Raiders in their escape from the Dominion, he gets thrashed by the Zerg on Char, he gets a fleet vaporized by the Protoss under Tassadar, he gets ''another'' fleet wiped out by the UED, he gets thrashed by the UED once more on Korhal, and at last Kerrigan mercifully wipes him and his men out in a surprise attack after the UED have been driven off Korhal again. Suffice to say, his track record after joining forces with Mengsk was a bit spotty.

** Similarly, Horace Warfield in ''StarCraft2'' doesn't ever seem to be able to accomplish anything except get shot down. Eventually, he joins the ground war and lets the player do the commanding, though in Starcraft II he's defended the Dominion against the zerg and has led no less than ''five'' counterattacks against them.

* Admiral, later Emperor Pirk in StarWreck. Only his incredible luck and keen tactical eye explain why he ever advanced beyond Ensign on his military career.

* Admiral Kendal Ozzel from StarWars. In the EU, he once served in the Clone Wars and was willing to senselessly sacrifice hundreds of clones and Jedi to win, and when things start to go south, he would surrender to save his own skin. The only reason why he even got such a high position was because he has connections with Palpatine.

* [[JediAcademyTrilogy Admiral Daala]], from the StarWarsExpandedUniverse, is [[InformedAbility described]] as a tactical and strategic prodigy, yet her attempts to strike back at the New Republic were easily foiled. It is debatable, whether this was caused by poor planning and disorganization, or by good guys having Suncrusher-grade plot armor when written by her creator, infamous K.J. Anderson. Her only lasting achievement was acknowledging her own failures and uniting the remaining Imperial forces under a single leader rather than a group of [[EnemyCivilWar feuding]] [[GloriousLeader warlords]], which in fairness did lead to the Imperial Remnant getting behind her co-conspirator, the very awesome [[TheThrawnTrilogy Pellaeon]], and she may [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap have gotten better by]] ''Literature/LegacyOfTheForce''. Other books offer an array of explanations for Daala's failures - it's mentioned that she excelled at ''infantry'' tactics, while her war against the New Republic was waged by fleet. ''Literature/DeathStar'' offers an {{Retcon}} suggesting that she suffered brain damage at some point, while there's a long-standing rumor that she earned her rank at least partially by being Grand Moff Tarkin's lover (true or not, it's unwise to mention this in Tarkin's presence; the last guy who did got ThrownOutTheAirlock with his spacesuit's comlink on so everyone could listen to how sorry he was as his orbit decayed).