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* WilliamShakespeare:

* AdolfHitler had one in the final days of WorldWarII when FranklinDRoosevelt died. Hitler was ecstatic, convinced that the US war effort would be derailed as like what happened to FrederickTheGreat when an enemy ruler died. However, reality soon reasserted itself with the Allies' advances not stopping for one second and the new US President, HarryTruman, was no less determined to have the final victory.

* In sports, especially basketball or American football, there are matches where a team who is behind on points makes a rally and catches up with the opposing team only to fail because the other team wises up and improves their offense or defense. This gets more dramatic during championships, when the team who has rallied fail to win because of a missing a perfectly executed shot on the last second.

* Dreams can cause this (i.e if you've had a falling out with someone but dream about reconciling with them, only to wake up and realize things are still the same).

* RedvsBlue: The evil A.I. O'Malley is driven out of Cabooses Mind, everyone has their Radio turned of so he can't take over anyone else, leaving him to 'die'. The Camera hangs over the scenery for a while, with O'Malleys transmission/Bodysurf signal getting slower and weaker and finally fading completely. Then Doc (whom everyone forgot) calls command and O'Malley gets him.
** At the end of ''Recreation'', Simmons, Donut, and Lopez are cornered by [[BigBad the Meta]] when suddenly Agent Washington shows up. Simmons, knowing that Agent Washington fought the Meta during the previous season, thinks they're safe. Then Washington calmly orders the Meta to stand down instead of attacking it. Then he starts asking what the Red Team did to the Epsilon unit. [[spoiler:Then he shoots Donut and Lopez]].

* As noted above every wrestling match featuring RickyMorton ever.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' gives Goliath the chance to prevent Demona from becoming evil by using the Phoenix Gate to go back in time and [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong give her a moving speech to warn her against betraying the clan]]. Unfortunately, the Phoenix Gate [[YouCantFightFate can't be used to change history]] and she reveals at the end that she let their castle get swarmed ''because'' of his warning. She'd interpreted his warning about betrayal as being a warning that the humans they guarded would betray ''them'' and that had always been the reason why she let them get killed. She became a villain ''after'' that when she realised that she had been Goliath's "little speech", and her response to it, was the reason she became an outcast from the clan.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' gives Goliath the chance to prevent Demona from becoming evil by using the Phoenix Gate to go back in time and [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong give her a moving speech to warn her against betraying the clan]]. Unfortunately, the Phoenix Gate [[YouCantFightFate can't be used to change history]] and she reveals at the end that she never forgot Goliath's "little speech". His speech may have in fact made her ''more bitter.''

* At the end of ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'', after [[spoiler: Ozymandias]] explains [[spoiler: his]] plan in detail, Nite Owl is glad they made it in time to stop [[spoiler: him]] from starting its final phase, which would [[spoiler: result in the death of everyone in and near [[BigAppleSauce New York]]]]. But then [[spoiler: Ozymandias]] says this:

* ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' has an incredibly cruel one. [[spoiler:The protagonists manage to defeat the Slaughterhouse Nine and trap Jack in an inescapable time loop, seemingly saving the world... but in the next chapter, [[PhysicalGod Scion]], the most powerful being in the world, listens to Jack's TheReasonYouSuckSpeech and annihilates Britain. And concludes that ''[[EvilFeelsGood he likes the feeling]]''.]]

* Friends and loved ones of [[TheAlcoholic alcholics]] and other addicts - "[[BlatantLies I'm totally sober! I quit! I promise!]]" - get treated to this. [[WasItAllALie Over]]. [[BreakTheCutie And over]]. [[DespairEventHorizon And over]]. [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy And over]].

* Tend to be more prominent in matches where the good guy actually loses to the monster heel - with one of the best examples ever being the famous Wrestler/{{Sting}} vs. {{Vader}} series. Sting didn't win a match against Vader for eight months, but managed to convince the audience each time that MAYBE he'd beat Vader, simply because he was seemingly the only person in the promotion who could even stay on the offence for more than a minute against Vader. The best of these occured at the Great American Bash, where Sting gave Vader a fallaway slam... only for the fans, after exploding, to realise that the mere effort involved in lifting Vader was too much for Sting.
* A classic ladder match between JeffHardy and TheUndertaker (then a heel with a LOT of heel heat, mostly for his KickTheDog moment of making JimRoss kiss VinceMcMahon's ass a few months earlier) for the WWE Championship in 2002 featured several moments where even though everyone knew that JeffHardy had '''no''' chance to beat TheUndertaker and get the title, he was so close to grabbing the belt that WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief kicked in and we all got ready to cheer our lungs out anyway.
** A similar motif was used in a match featuring Wrestling/TripleH and Kaientai member TAKA Michinoku, who would face off for the former's WWF Championship. Despite nearly all the fans knowing that Wrestling/TripleH had all but zero chance of losing his belt on free television to a jobber, several near falls in TAKA's favor drove the crowd into a frenzy until TripleH was finally victorious with a Pedigree.
*** Also used in a Sunday Night Heat match, pitting then WWF Champion Wrestling/KurtAngle against Crash Holly, the two made it look like Crash may get the upset victory about 6 times before Angle uncorked an Angle Slam and retained.

** In a similar vein, Wrestling/RingOfHonor had Naomichi Marufuji vs. Nigel [=McGuinness=] for the GHC Heavyweight Championship, which Marufuji had only won a week before. Yes, it was obvious who was winning at the end... up until [=McGuinness=] rebounded off the ropes, sent his forearm into Marufuji's neck, and brought him down for a ''thisclosealmostthreecount''.
* Essentially all of Takeshi Morishima vs. Bryan Danielson II, as the latter went into the match with an [[EyepatchOfPower eyepatch]], Morishima having fractured his left eye socket and detached the retina in their encounter mere weeks before.
* Tommy Dreamer built his career in {{ECW}} on this trope, especially his two-year long feud with Wrestler/{{Raven}} in the mid-90s: he lost every single match except their last one, but every time he'd come oh-so-close only for Raven to pull some kind of dirty trick and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
* TheMiz vs. RandyOrton on the 11/22/10 edition of Raw. Orton had just suffered a brutal beatdown by TheNexus that injured his knee, and barely survived a title match with Wade Barrett thanks to JohnCena's interference, [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle only for The Miz to show up and cash in his Money in the Bank]]. Unlike most times the Money in the Bank is cashed in, Orton actually fought off TheMiz pretty well, and many points in the match it looked like Orton would overcome the odds, and the fans cheered when it seemed he would actually pull off the win when he went for the RKO...only for The Miz to counter it into the Skull Crushing Finale for the pin and the title.

* Friends and loved ones of [[TheAlcoholic alcholics]] and other addicts - "[[BlatantLies I'm totally sober! I quit! I promise!]]" - get treated to this. [[WasItAllALie Over]]. [[BreakTheCutie And over]]. [[DespairEventHorizon And over]]. [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy And over]].

Tevye: On the other hand . . . No, there is no other hand!

* HopeSpot/FilmLiveAction