History Main / MeaninglessVillainVictory

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' episode "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS1E17WingItLikeWitches Wing It Like Witches]]", AlphaBitch Boscha catches the GoldenSnitch that wins the grudgby match for her team. By doing so, Boscha's team wins the bet with Luz's team, which will let Boscha bully Willow and her friends even more. However, Boscha's friends come to like Luz and Willow, and Boscha sees she'll probably lose her spot as team captain if she continues to abuse them. Boscha has an arrogant attitude, but puts a ''lot'' of her self-worth on her grudgby skills, especially being team captain. So while Boscha ''can'' cash in on the bet, it would be in her best interest not to. Not only that, but this cements Amity's HeelFaceTurn that causes her to leave Boscha's social circle.

* The 1980 WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadRunner short ''Soup or Sonic''. In the last gag, Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner through a series of smaller-diameter pipes until they come out tiny at the end. Wile E. waves the Road Runner back through. Out the large end, the Road Runner is back to normal, but Wile E. is still tiny. At this point, the Road Runner allows Wile E. to "catch" him. But he is now way too big for Wile E. to actually eat.
-->'''Wile E. Coyote''' (signs to the audience): Okay, wise guys, you always wanted me to catch him. '''Now''' what do I do?
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
** {{Inverted|Trope}} in "Le Petit Tourette", where Cartman fakes having HollywoodTourettes so that he can shout anti-Semitic things as much as he wants without anyone getting mad. He even gets a TV interview, which Kyle naturally tries to stop, and succeeds in doing so. Unfortunately, while he was doing that, Cartman discovers that spending all that time just blurting out whatever thoughts popped into his head has caused him to lose all ability to ''not'' do that, and he couldn't stop blurting out horribly embarrassing secrets about himself. Cartman couldn't have been more relieved that Kyle got his interview cancelled on him.
** In "Dances with Smurfs" Cartman uses his position as morning announcement leader to basically become an obnoxious sensationalist pundit who blames Wendy, the school president, for literally ''everything'' as well as accusing her of trying to kill Franchise/TheSmurfs, which ends with Wendy admitting Cartman is right and stepping down so Cartman can become the school president. Except, Wendy admits he was right in a way that makes him seem like the bad guy in his fictional Smurf story with her being heavily sympathetic, ''she'' sells the rights to the story to Creator/JamesCameron who uses it to make ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', Cartman can no longer read the morning announcements since that can't be done by the school president, and he learns said school president is at best [[PuppetKing a figurehead with no real power]]. Naturally, it also ends with the new morning announcement kid blaming all the school's problems on the school president.
** In "Christian Rock Hard", Cartman makes a bet with Kyle over who can form a band and earn a platinum album first. Cartman creates a Christian rock band, Faith + 1, and actually manages to sell one million copies of their debut album to qualify, while Kyle's rock band, MOOP, ends up wasting time by going on strike against people downloading songs on the internet. However, Cartman's victory becomes meaningless, because in the world of ''South Park'', Christian music albums can only go gold, frankincense and myrrh, meaning he doesn't actually win the bet because [[ExactWords his album did not specifically go platinum]]. To make it even more bitter for him, he spent all the money the band made on an excessively extravagant platinum album ceremony confident that the band's future success would make up for the losses. Upon learning that he could never go platinum, however, he ruins any chance of the band having future success by angrily cursing out Jesus, which their Christian fanbase naturally doesn't take kindly to. And to add insult to injury, he insults his bandmates, causing Token to beat him up and Butters to fart on his face as he's on the ground.
* In ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'', Zim uses MindRape (via virtual reality helmets) in order to sell millions of candy bars and win a school fundraiser. He makes first place, but the "secret prize" he coveted so badly turns out to be literally nothing.
* In ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'', Haggar manages to reach [[spoiler:a reality where Zarkon and Lotor are alive, until Lotor immediately pointed out that the woman standing in front of him isn't his real mother. After this, she decides nothing is worth living anymore and decides to destroy all of existence.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'': In "[[Recap/RockosModernLifeS4E5EdGoodRockoBadTeedOff Ed Good, Rocko Bad]]", Rocko and Ed run for city dog catcher, with Rocko being (justifiably) afraid that Ed will be cruel to the dogs. Thanks to a ton of mudslinging, Ed wins in a veritable landslide... but another measure passes that turns the dog catcher position into an undesirable job with no real power (in case you wanna know, he became a glorified poop-scooper).

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'':
** "[[Recap/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987S03E11AprilsFoolAKAAprilFoolish April Foolish]]": Shredder manages to get away with a rare isotope. Unfortunately for the bad guys, the isotope is unstable under high atmospheric pressures (especially those deep within the Earth), and the sample explodes after the Shredder returns to the Technodrome -- which is parked many miles beneath the Earth's surface.
** "[[Recap/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987S03E43Shredderville Shredderville]]": Shredder becomes emperor of the world and mismanages it so badly that when the turtles arrive he begs them to take him to their world where he doesn't rule. [[spoiler:However, this turns out to all be a dream the Turtles have.]]
** "[[Recap/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987S06E1RockAroundTheBlock Rock Around the Block]]": Shredder successfully uses a laser to free the Technodrome from its ice prison only for Bebop and Rocksteady's violent argument over a comic to cause the laser to blast the ice underneath them, which results in the Technodrome being trapped underwater.
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'':
** After spending the episode racing against Enoch of the Forever Knights to obtain an ancient Mayan superweapon, Max lets him have it after a FriendOrIdolDecision when the kids were about to fall to their deaths. Enoch holds the weapon above his head in triumph... only to have it crumble into dust. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Even an ancient superweapon can't stand against a few millennium of decomposition]]. The episode ends with Max and the kids walking back to their van laughing as Enoch tries to cusp the dust into his hands, obviously [[VillainousBreakdown mentally broken]].
** Played more painfully in ''WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien''. Charmcaster actually succeeds in killing Ben, Gwen, and Kevin and manages to drains the souls of every living being in Legerdomain, [[DealWithTheDevil which she then feeds to Diagon in return for her father being resurrected]]. Unfortunately for Charmcaster, her father Spellbinder would not allow countless innocents to be sacrificed for his life and goes back to the dead. With the bargain refused, Diagon returns the souls to their rightful bodies [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone leaving Charmcaster crushed by what her actions ended up costing her]]. Ben, Gwen, and Kevin don't even arrest her because of how bad they feel for her.
* ''Westernanimation/{{Wakfu}}'' has this [[spoiler:as the end result of the plans of its first season villain, Nox. He's spent 200 years killing living things in order to gather their [[LifeEnergy wakfu]] to use that energy to rewind time and prevent the death of his family. Despite the heroes' efforts in the final battle, he defeats them, succeeds in draining the Tree of Life, and having left everyone left who could stop him dead and/or broken he finally turns back time...but it turns out that much wakfu was only good for a 20-minute rewind, making everything he's spent the last 200 years trying to achieve pointless. What's worse, the only thing the 20-minute rewind managed to do was undo even that final worthless victory. The only thing that is seemingly not undone by the rewind was Sadlygrove's death, but even then he comes back early into the next season, meaning Nox ended up achieving absolutely nothing. The revelation that all of his atrocities were pointless ends up sending Nox into a VillainousBreakdown.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/FreeWilly'': Jessie and Willy were looking for a lost treasure and lost it to the villain. Then, it was revealed the chest actually contained whistles.
* ''WesternAnimation/YogisTreasureHunt'': An alien known as Dr. Mars gave a 24-hour deadline for an old chest to be recovered or Earth would be destroyed. Dick Dastardly and Muttley found it and left Earth with it and the flying saucer of Dr. Mars, who explained to the heroes the chest contained no treasure but a bomb.
* ''WesternAnimation/FenderBender500'': The Fender Bender racers were in Russia to compete for "The Red Square Prize". Dick Dastardly won, and the prize was a red square instead of ''that'' Red Square.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheDreamstone'': Played with. There are actually moments Zordrak succeeds in sending nightmares to the Land of Dreams, and while he does actually savor that victory, the negative effect it has on the heroes is [[PokeThePoodle so short-lived]] (to the point of sometimes being offscreen) and usually met with a [[DisproportionateRetribution far more brutal retaliation]] (a few instances the Urpneys managed to send dreams they were met with a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown), that it's hard not to view it as this trope. This is especially evident for the Urpneys, who usually hate their job and usually the best they hope out of a victory is that it keeps their BadBoss from lashing out at them.
* In ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'', Van Kleiss [[spoiler:gets his hands on the Meta-Nanites, the keys to godhood, before anyone else... only to learn that he can't tap into their united power because Cesar and his parents programmed them in such a way that only Rex could do it.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs1981'' episode "Flighty's Plight", Gargamel gets his hands on his godfather Balthazar's book that contains the gold-making formula and escapes his castle with it...but unfortunately the book isn't written with waterproof ink, as Gargamel finds out when he opens the book after coming out of the moat.
* ''WesternAnimation/BackToTheFuture'': In "[[Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS2E3AFriendInDeed A Friend in Deed]]", Biff finds a deed saying he owns the Parkers' land. After Marty and the boys have gone back in time to fix it, Thaddeus Tannen still succeeds in getting Wendell Parker to sign over his land to him to save his wife, and he still manages to run off and bury the deed where Biff Jr. will find it in the present. However, because [[GuileHero Marty]] gave Wendell a pen full of disappearing ink, the signature doesn't show up and the Parkers keep control of the extorted land.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', shy researcher Jervis Tetch is infatuated with his co-worker Alice, who does not return his interest. He uses his mind control research (earlier demonstrated to work just as well on humans as it does on mice) in order to secure the perfect [[Literature/AliceInWonderland Wonderland date]] with her ([[GoGoEnslavement including putting her in an appropriately-themed outfit]]). When Batman shows up, he calls Tetch out on it, pointing out that any part of her personality that might have attracted him has been suppressed by the mind control stuff, leaving her as a perfectly compliant but utterly blank doll. Tetch has a breakdown, [[NeverMyFault blaming Batman for forcing him to resort to such measures]].
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'', after Terry had to take off his mask to rescue a young boy from a fire, the boy reveals on the news he saw Batman's face. This gets the boy captured by Kobra agents to have his mind scanned to recreate Batman's face. By the time Terry reaches them, they completed the face recreation and the leader mocks Batman that his identity will be revealed to Kobra before jumping into a SnakePit. That is, until Terry sees the face Kobra made was actually the face of the boy's action figure.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGummiBears'', a villain tries to get control of the Great Book, by stealing Zummi's medallion. In the end, after Zummi outright gives him the medallion, he promptly tries to kill the Gummi Bears... and is himself incinerated instead, since "Nothing in the Great Book can hurt Gummi Bears."

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'':
** In one episode, "The Price" David Xanatos discovers a method to immortality based on the cauldron of life story. He kidnaps Hudson as a plan to test the formula by forcing him to bathe in it first, but Hudson is able to escape. Afterwards, Owen decides to dip his right arm into the formula. It's discovered that the formula does work, only it turns the person into ageless, solid, stone. Owen's arm remains turned to stone for the rest of the series. [[spoiler: Good thing he was really Puck in disguise and can easily neutralize the effect with his magic.]]
--> '''Xanatos:''' What does the legend say? Whoever bathes in it will live as long as the mountain stones. [[ExactWords How literal minded]].
** "Metamorphosis" has Xanatos gain the loyalty of several humans mutated into creatures similar to the Gargoyles, and they don't appear again until well into the show's second season, which ends with them turning on Xanatos.
** Another episode ends with Xanatos acquiring a dangerous computer virus that nearly destroyed the cyborg Gargoyle Coldstone, and is [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse never brought up again]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{MASK}}'' did this a few times:
** Similar to the ''Dukes of Hazzard'' example above, one episode has a search for buried money in Washington, D.C. which turns out to be worthless Confederate money.
** Another episode has a search for a golden totem pole. Mayhem gets his hands on it first, but scans it for purity and discovers it's actually amber.
** Another episode has a search through the Scottish Highlands to find a buried treasure. Mayhem is last seen climbing out of the treasure chamber asking "Is that all there is?" and escaping. It turns out the "treasure" was the warmth of the cavern during cold weather.
* While most of the victories by The Light in ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice2010'' play some part in their larger scheme, even events where their involvement seems tagged on, the episode that introduced Lex Luthor, which ended with him gaining the trust of the leaders of Korea stand-ins, turns into this simply because it's never ever brought up again.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' has Darth Maul work with Death Watch to take over Mandalore, and then pulls an EvilerThanThou on their leader, leaving him the uncontested ruler of the planet. Unfortunately for him, this draws the attention of [[BigBad Darth Sidious]], who shows up and puts him well and truly in his place, rendering his victory moot.
-->'''Sidious:''' You have become a [[SuddenlyShouting RIVAL]].
** Maul doesn't do any better in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels''. Every encounter with the heroes ends with him getting at least part of what he wanted, moving him closer and closer to a final reckoning with Kenobi... who kills him in a CurbStompBattle that lasts two seconds and three moves.
* ''WesternAnimation/PacMan'': When Pac-Man has to drive an armored truck, Mezmaron believes it contains power pellets and orders the ghost monsters to steal it. They do steal it but, instead of power pellets, it has fireworks.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants''
** In "Plankton's Army", with the help of his brethren, Plankton manages to get into the Krusty Krab safe and procure the Krabby Patty formula. As he reads the ingredients out loud, he discovers that the most important one is four pounds of freshly ground [[spoiler:plankton]], which causes Plankton and his family to run out of the Krusty Krab. [[spoiler:It's then revealed that what Plankton found wasn't even the real formula and that Mr. Krabs has the actual one in his home under his mattress]].
** "Bucket Sweet Bucket" has another one involving Plankton. After tricking [=SpongeBob=], Patrick, and Squidward into fixing up the Chum Bucket, Plankton manages to get into the Krusty Krab safe and find the formula, [[spoiler:only for it not to be the formula, but a To Do list and that Mr. Krabs had the formula with him while he was on vacation]]. In addition, since [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick used the ''entire Krusty Krab'' to fix up the Chum Bucket, Plankton also lost his restaurant when Mr. Krabs pushes his back to its normal spot.
** Yet another one involving Plankton, in "For Here Or to Go", Plankton enters a contest at the Krusty Krab where the prize is a free Krabby Patty (and he brings in a contest official that makes Mr. Krabs allow Plankton to enter). Plankton manages to win and despite Krabs's attempts to prevent the patty from being made, Plankton gets his patty, but has to eat it on the premises. However, Plankton makes it back to the Chum Bucket and has the patty analyzed before it's digested, with him selling Krabby Patties the next day. [[spoiler: However, they taste awful, due to Karen having analyzed all the contents of Plankton's stomach, which in addition to the Krabby Patty also included things such as stomach acid and pills.]]
** The episode "I Heart Dancing" has this combined with KarmicTwistEnding. [=SpongeBob=] has been chosen to audition for a role in a dance number, but Squidward, jealous of him, decides to "teach" [=SpongeBob=] various dances in an effort to overwork him so he can't go to the audition and eventually works him like a dog. In the end, [=SpongeBob=] is too tired to go and Squidward auditions instead and gets the part. However, it turns out that the number Squidward's going to be dancing in is [[spoiler:Squilliam's, who proceeds to work Squidward like a dog much like Squidward worked [=SpongeBob=] like one]].
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' involved a soapbox derby that many of the kids take part in that has a top-secret mystery grand prize. When Bebe and Chalky end up in trouble towards the end of the race, Doug and Skeeter decide to turn back and save them, allowing Roger to win the race. However, as Doug puts in his journal at the end of the episode, Roger won the mystery grand prize that everyone ''thought they wanted'', a week as vice mayor, a.k.a. a desk job where Roger has to do paperwork for Mayor White.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheWildThornberrys'', an episode involved a reindeer race that Kip O'Donnel and Neil Beiderman took part in where the prize was 1000 lievos. At the end of the race, Eliza exposes Kip and Beiderman's reindeer as a racehorse in disguise, which disqualifies them, but they're then shown making off with the 1000 lievos anyway. Turns out that "lievos" means "pastry" and that Kip now has 1000 pastries (no wait, 12 of them are Beiderman's).
* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': After Hayley and Jeff absconded with $50,000, Roger tracks them down and begins harassing them to get the money (mostly by just making a really annoying sound over and over, which drives them crazy). After an elaborate chase around the world, they finally give in and give him the money... or what's left of it, since they spent most of it trying to get away from him.
* ''WesternAnimation/KiddVideo'' and his band once came across Master Blaster's good twin brother who's been imprisoned by the villain. It turns out he's the mayor of a city based around plumbing and has access to the city treasury. The kids try to get the good one recognized as the real deal, but their mother intervenes to let Master Blaster have the treasury. And he does go to take it...only to discover it's a pile of shower heads.

* The dream demon Morpheus in ''WesternAnimation/ExtremeGhostbusters'' too late realizes that he was invulnerable as long as he stayed in dreams. When he became corporeal, he became vulnerable to the Ghostbusters' weapons.
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': At the end of Season 4, The Lich [[spoiler:tricks Finn into opening a portal to Prismo's Time Room. He then uses the one wish that anyone who enters the Time Room gets to wish for the extinction of all life. However, since Finn and Jake followed him through the portal before he made the wish, they weren't affected and also got wishes. Coaxed along by BenevolentGenie Prismo, Jake wishes that the Lich had used his wish to send Finn and Jake back home. All of the Lich's schemes and trickery to get to Prismo's Room is instantly rendered moot.]]
** And in Season 5, he makes a grand impact by successfully unleashing a jailbreak in the multiverse's #1 Superjail, but since Finn defeats him he's not around to lead the criminals into destroying the multiverse, so they're busy spreading plague and endless disease and all kinds of malicious life, the exact opposite of what he wanted.
* The ''WesternAnimation/WildWestCowboysOfMooMesa'' episode "Stolen on the River" had Sheriff Terrorbull cheat in a raffle to win the tickets to the Dixie Trixie that were given to the C.O.W.-Boys by a wealthy couple in gratitude for rescuing them from Five Card Cud and his gang. Sheriff succeeds, but his victory turns out to be pointless when it's discovered that the Dixie Trixie was just a front for Five Card Cud to dupe wealthy people out of their valuables and that the heroes had the boat hauled onto dry land when this was found out.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'':
** In the season 4 finale "The Disaster", [[spoiler:Rob]] finds a remote that can be used to control real objects and uses it to ruin Gumball's relationships with all his loved ones, make his parents get divorced, and very nearly kill Penny, before pausing time to reveal himself for a confrontation. He then uses the remote to open a portal to the Void, and tries to eject Gumball, but the remote doesn't work and [[spoiler:Rob]] assumes it's broken. He then tries a second plan: he throws the remote into the Void, forcing Gumball to jump in to try and find it so he can fix everything. [[spoiler:It turns out one of the batteries had just fallen slightly out of place; Gumball finds it, fixes it, and rewinds time back to the beginning]].
** Happens again in the follow-up "The Re-Run". [[spoiler:Rob actually manages to make things [[FromBadToWorse even worse than last time]], leading to Gumball's parents reverting to babies, Anais getting erased from existence, Darwin turning back into a regular fish in the middle of a mall and then suffocating to death, and Gumball getting trapped in the Void with him. However, when Rob sees that even after everything he's done, Gumball is still willing to risk his life to save him from being trapped in the Void for eternity, he has a fit of conscience and rewinds time to undo all the damage he's done and destroy the remote before he had done anything with it.]]
* I.R Baboon actually beats ''WesternAnimation/IAmWeasel'' in "I Are Big Star". Baboon steals Weasel's pelt and sidelines him for the rest of the episode. Baboon gets to act alongside a beautiful actress and his "performance" is praised by the director. Then he gets run over by a bus and he loses the memories of the best day of his life.
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' ends with Bat-Mite screwing over the show to get it cancelled so that a darker, more serious Batman series will be made in its place. The new series focuses primarily on Bat''girl'', and as ComicBook/AmbushBug points out, a serious Batman series has no room for [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] silliness... like Bat-Mite himself. Bat-Mite realizes his mistake seconds before he is [[PuffOfLogic erased from existence.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' special "Timmy's Secret Wish", Foop succeeds in making Timmy look like the worst godkid ever and having all his wishes undone, including Poof. However, he learns too late that as Poof's anti-fairy, he gets erased from existence too. This brings AscendedFridgeHorror into play when many wondered what would happen to Foop if he succeeded in erasing Poof.
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers'' had this with "Chained." Sure, they got the untrusting townspeople to hand over Gooseman, they free their leader, Macross, and the gang can now get their cache of rare [[GreenRocks starstones]]. They get the stones, but the stones degrade quickly when exposed to ultraviolet light (and they buried the cache in a desert - meaning the stones start crumbling as soon as they unbury the box), and then some townspeople led by sympathetic settler Annie show up armed and sporting for a fight seeing as the gang ''did'' trash their settlement on the way in. Macross and the gang high-tail it, leaving Gooseman behind, but they get nothing for their trouble.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BeanyAndCecil'', Dishonest John invites himself to Beany and Cecil's show to watch the ShowWithinAShow "Defective Story" (a detective show starring dogs), because he's read that TheBadGuyWins. In the episode, a criminal named Doberman ([[PunnyName Alias]] "[[PunnyName The Pincher]]") kidnaps a popular actress and is pursued by detective Fido Vance. Doberman seemingly ends the episode a KarmaHoudini by shaking off Vance and asbsconding with the actress, but the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue shows Doberman has become an unhappy Henpecked Husband slaving over chores and feeding a litter of puppies. Beany and Cecil are delighted, and Dishonest John is forlorn, at this turn of events.
* One ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' episode, "When Mice Rule The Earth", has the duo going back in time in order to uplift prehistoric mice so that their species becomes dominant. They succeed, but this results in a world of...Pinkies!! Horrified, Brain goes to push a ResetButton, as while he ''could'' rule the world as it was... "Who'd want to?"

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'' had MAD searching for a formula to turn lead into gold. They succeed in reproducing the formula, then later on, they drop one of the transmuted gold bars, to discover that what the formula really made was lead-based gold ''paint''.
* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'':
** The episode "Operation: C.R.I.M.E." had a boy pretend to be able to predict the future so that everyone else in school would be in detention and he'd be first in line at the cafeteria before the good food runs out. He succeeds in his scheme, but finds that today's lunch is a lima bean sandwich rather than the pizza bagels he desired.
** Invoked by the heroes in the episode "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.T.H.R.E.E." which starts out as Sector V trying to steal the Delightful Children's birthday cake, like normal. However, [[ItMakesSenseInContext a bunch of chickens that Sector V was going to use]] end up [[ToiletHumor doing their business on the cake]], at which point Sector V decides to leave. The Delightfuls (who didn't realize what happened) are confused, but go along with their plan of eating their cake on live TV for all the children of the world to watch...only for no child to be jealous or upset, but rather utterly grossed out.
** In "Operation: R.O.B.B.E.R.S.", the Six-Gum Gang manage to succeed in stealing everyone's spelling homework and give it to the Delightful Children. However, the first paper the teacher reads is [[DumbMuscle Numbuh 4's]], whose horrible spelling causes the Delightfuls to get detention.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E17MySisterMySitter My Sister, My Sitter]]", after Lisa is put in charge of babysitting Bart while Homer and Marge are away, Bart decides to ruin Lisa's reputation as a babysitter out of anger, and succeeds in doing so when a prank [[GoneHorriblyRight Goes Horribly Right]] and he ends up injured (a dislocated shoulder from falling down the stairs) and unconscious, and she accidentally brings him to the pier where everyone is while trying to get him to the hospital. However, despite her now looking like the worst babysitter ever, Lisa ends up still getting calls for babysitting jobs as she's still the only reliable sitter in town.
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'':
** While calling her a "villain" might be extreme, the one time Candace finally manages to expose her brothers' antics to their mother Linda and have it stick, it's nullified by the fact she reveals it to the version of their mother twenty years in the future (during a TimeTravel adventure), at which point things like holograms, flying cars, and jetpacks are commonplace, the future Phineas and Ferb are by then independent adults, and present day Phineas and Ferb aren't technically her jurisdiction anymore, so there's not much Linda can do to punish them. Candace at least finds a little solace in being vindicated and in the fact it's even possible for her to win.
** Dr. Doofenshmirtz has a victory like this during the episode, "Cranius Maximus". He is trying to steal the key to the city as he believes that it works like a master key for the city and can open any door. Towards the climax of the episode, he does succeed in getting it, but realizes that it's meant to be an award and can't open anything. And then he gets struck by lightning.
** Another Doofenshmirtz example occurs in the episode, "Magic Carpet Ride", when he tries to take petty revenge on his brother Roger (who, years ago, accidentally ruined a masterpiece painting Heinz poured his heart and soul into), by ruining a painting Roger is about to unveil to get even. Dr. Doof actually succeeds in preventing Perry from stopping him ruining the painting, but too late does Heinz find out that the painting being unveiled was ''his'' painting Roger had been fixing since then. Doofenshmirtz is so depressed by his "win" that he doesn't even flinch as Perry sends him and his hovercraft crashing into the street.
** Yet ''[[RuleOfThree another]]'' Doofenshmirtz example in "Happy New Year", when he creates an "-inator" which changes everyone's New Year's resolutions into helping him take over the Tri-State area as his minions. It worked as intended but Doof ''didn't'' anticipate the fact ''no one keeps their New Year's resolution''. In fact, Perry predicted this exact outcome and didn't stop Doof from enacting his plan because he knew it was doomed to fail.
** ''Another'' Doofenshmirtz example happens in "That Sinking Feeling". Doofenshirtz reveals that, ever since he purchased the building that would become Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated, he tends to have sleeping issues due to a variety of ships at the docks making too much noise when moving towards the lighthouse at night, so he decides to put a stop to it by moving the lighthouse elsewhere by installing rockets on it, in order to finally get a peaceful night. He succeeds, as the lighthouse flies away while the ships chase it no matter where the lighthouse is going. Unfortunately, later at night, the lighthouse crashes right ''into'' Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc, with the ships surrounding the building, thus making Doof's nights more noisy than before.
** This happens in the SeriesFinale, when Doofenshmirtz uses a TimeMachine which induces a GroundhogDayLoop, allowing him to keep trying and trying until he finally ends up governor of the Tri-State Area by exploiting a legal loophole, then making it illegal for Perry to stop him. However, he doesn't get long to enjoy his victory, partly because the invention goes haywire and started gradually erasing everything from existence, spontaneously resetting the timeline on increasingly shorter intervals, resetting his victory as well, and partly because his motivation to become tri-governor to stop his daughter from wanting to move out (since he believed it was because she thought he was a loser) is rendered moot when she tells him her moving out had nothing to do with him being "cool" or not, and she convinces Doof to [[HeelFaceTurn give up his evil ways]] because she can tell he only does it out of obligation rather than from his heart.
* The ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]'' episode "Patriot Act" has Wade Eiling, having used a SuperSoldier formula to become a hulking behemoth, attack a parade where the Justice League sent a number of its members to show support. His intent was to defeat the League and prove the danger of superpowered individuals, and he delivers a brutal CurbStompBattle to the Leaguers present--but ends up accomplishing the exact opposite of his goals. As it turns out, all the Leaguers present were {{Badass Normal}}s with nothing but tech and magical equipment at best, and yet still managed to HoldTheLine through sheer gallantry in the name of protecting the civilians. And, as is pointed out, Eiling's attempt to prove that the Justice League are dangerous metahumans resulted in him ''becoming'' [[YouAreWhatYouHate a dangerous metahuman]], which the Justice League exists to combat. If anything, his attack actually ''raises'' the profile of the Leaguers involved, who were previously seen as CListFodder who were picked for parade duty in the first place for not being involved in anything important at the time: the crowd goes from disappointed to hailing them as true heroes.
** In "Hereafter", Superman is sent to a BadFuture in which the only human remaining is the immortal Vandal Savage. In this timeline, not long after Superman's apparent death, Savage had completed a device that [[GravityMaster granted him control over gravity]], in his bid to dominate the world. However, it worked too well, disrupting the gravitational balance of the solar system, and resulting in the extinction of most life on earth. Savage had reflected on how meaningless his ambitions were for tens of thousands of years after the fact.
-->'''Savage:''' I should never have done it.\\
'''Superman:''' Done what?\\
'''Savage:''' This. I destroyed the world.
* The ''WesternAnimation/ActionMan2000'' finale has Dr. X able to accomplish all of his goals. He’s gained superhuman abilities, doesn't need food or air any longer, and becomes NighInvulnerable... and then Action Man traps him on an empty rock floating in the immense vastness of space with no means of escape. He actually does scream Action Man's name one last time as the rock drifts away from earth.
* In ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'' the antagonistic ensign competing with Boimler to be named acting captain succeeds while Boimler humiliates himself to save his crewmates. He serves as acting captain only for a few moments before being relieved by the next shift, and it's made apparent none of the officers regarded who filled the seat as a question of the slightest importance. By contrast, Boimler's actions were noted and commended by a senior officer.
* ''WesternAnimation/FanboyAndChumChum'': The original ''WesternAnimation/RandomCartoons'' short had Berry the Ice Monster agree to thumb wrestle Fanboy for the last of the Frosty Freezy Freeze in Fanboy and Chum Chum's possession. Berry wins, but finds out after being handed the cup that it's already empty due to Chum Chum drinking it all.
* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': One of Azula's major motivations, alongside sticking it to her older brother Zuko, was to become the Fire Lord as their father Ozai's successor. [[spoiler:She gets her wish in the series finale, but only after the extreme lengths she's willing to go to get there cost her the respect of the few people in her life who genuinely care about her. ''Then'' once she's finally crowned Fire Lord, Ozai promptly installs himself as the ''Phoenix King'' and the Fire Lord's superior, making the Fire Lord nothing more than a puppet figure. The realization that she's basically thrown away everyone close to her for nothing drives Azula to a VillainousBreakdown]].
** In the sequel series, ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', the end of Season 3 sees Zaheer achieve his goal of [[spoiler:dispatching the already corrupt and incompetent Earth Queen, resulting in the Earth Kingdom descending into chaos, but in the process he's lost everyone he cares about and ends up in prison for his crimes. What elevates this act from a PyrrhicVictory to this trope is Kuvira promptly [[TyrantTakesTheHelm installing herself as the dictator of the newly christened Earth Empire]], and thus [[MakeWayForTheNewVillains taking over as the new]] BigBad of the fourth season. To add insult to injury, he also tried to get rid of the Avatar for good as part of his scheme, which incapacitated Korra to the extent that she wasn't able to deal with Kuvira when she otherwise could've, allowing the latter to become a far more oppressive and monstrous despot than even the Earth Queen could've hoped to be - and for someone who values freedom as much as Zaheer does, spending life in prison is nothing compared to the knowledge that the only thing he succeeded at in the long term was making an already bad global situation even ''worse''. When Korra visits Zaheer in prison and calls him out on all of this, Zaheer admits that she's absolutely right, and [[HeelFaceTurn redeems himself]] [[TheAtoner by offering her some covert assistance in cleaning up Kuvira's mess]]]].

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' two-part episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E4Gambit Gambit]]", a militant Vulcan seeks an ancient weapon, and it's as deadly as expected. But Picard realizes that the weapon is based on emotion, so when the ancient Vulcans embraced logic and emotional control, the weapon was abandoned; by suppressing their own emotions, the Enterprise crew easily apprehends the villain.
** In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E12WhoMournsForMorn Who Mourns for Morn?]]", a band of thieves who the barfly Morn used to work with tries to find the loot he helped them steal (and swiped from under their nose) in a famous heist after he tried FakingTheDead (because the statute of limitations was up and he knew they'd finally be coming for him), dragging our good old Ferengi friend Quark along for the ride. Ultimately, they fail to force Quark to help them, but turn on each other as soon as the loot is in their hands. Quark is ecstatic that now it's ''all his'' nice and legally... but it turns out Morn had long ago extracted the valuable parts from it, leaving behind a bunch of WorthlessYellowRocks, rendering the thieves' search moot, even if they ''had'' succeeded in finding it. Then turned around for Quark when Morn comes out of hiding after the other thieves leave and gives Quark a sizable portion of the material that he had extracted and had kept in hiding elsewhere the entire time in order to make it up to him.
** The ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS7E18AuthorAuthor Author, Author]]" does a WhatMeasureIsANonHuman plot involving the Doctor's property rights to a holonovel he's written. His publisher argues that the Doctor cannot own his work, as, legally, a holonovel is the property of the artist who created it, and an artist is defined as "a person who creates an artistic work". Going against the handful of precedents set in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', the courts find that the Doctor doesn't count as a person, which ought to disqualify him. However, the victory is a hollow ([[{{Pun}} or holo]]) one for the publisher, as the courts instead decide to expand the definition of ''artist'', so that personhood is not a necessary precondition... which turns a loss into a similar hollow victory for the doctor, who's now legally an artist, but still no person.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'': In the final BBC season this is used against the heroes: Having been imprisoned for stealing and destroying a Starbug, their attempt to escape and prove their innocence demonstrates to the captain that their story is true, exonerating them regarding the theft. But it also demonstrates that they had improperly accessed classified personnel files, a crime carrying ''exactly the same penalty''. (The files would have revealed the Captain bribed his way up the career ladder, which explains why he was looking for the loophole.)
* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': This becomes a plot point with the Cylons' whole plan to destroy humanity as laid out in ''The Plan''. It turns out that [[PsychoPrototype the Cavils]] orchestrated the whole thing because they were angry at their parents, the original Five Cylons, for giving them human bodies. They even went so far as to wipe their memories and put them on the Colonies so they could experience their destruction first-hand and realize that HumansAreBastards. By the end of the special one of the Cavils realizes that wiping out humanity isn't going to make their parents suddenly change their minds and adore them instead. His brother completely [[IgnoredEpiphany ignores this epiphany]] and pledges to deactivate the other one before continuing on his genocidal quest to get their approval.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'':
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E15IShotAnArrowIntoTheAir I Shot an Arrow into the Air]]", a group of astronauts crash-land on an asteroid. The villainous SoleSurvivor kills his crewmembers and takes their water, [[spoiler:only to find out that it was EarthAllAlong. They crashed in the Nevada desert]].
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E60TheRipVanWinkleCaper The Rip Van Winkle Caper]]" features a band of crooks who pull off a gold heist and put themselves in suspended animation to avoid the {{statute of limitations}}, sleeping for 100 years. The rest of the story deals with the lengths each member goes to (culminating in every one of them dying) trying to get the most gold. Then we learn that [[spoiler:[[WorthlessYellowRocks gold is worthless]], [[ShootTheShaggyDog because it can now be manufactured]]]].
** A famous example is "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E61TheSilence The Silence]]" in which a snobbish Colonel bets a fellow club member in desperate need of money that he can't keep quiet for a year. When despite all odds the man actually succeeds and goes to collect his money, it turns out that the Colonel is broke and can't pay him his winnings -- however, the man had his vocal cords severed so he could win the bet.
* The final episode of ''Series/{{Alias}}'' has [[spoiler:Sloane finally achieving immortality... only for Jack to sacrifice himself in an effort to [[SealedEvilInACan seal Sloane beneath a mountain]] [[AndIMustScream for all eternity.]]]]
* Illyria of ''Series/{{Angel}}'' nearly laid claim to the world. She sacrificed her immortal demon form, high priest, and a good chunk of power in order to access the alternate dimension where her demonic army awaited her command. Only Wesley managed to follow Illyria as she prepared to unleash the army... only to find that her army had fallen into ruin, leaving her with nothing. Illyria was at this point so powerful it's not clear she even ''needed'' her army to conquer the world... but the fact that the army was long dead shocked her into realizing that her time had come and gone. She proceeded to hang out with the heroes because she had nothing better to do. An extra case of this because it turned out that she was too powerful for her new form, which led to her being depowered so she could survive. Even if she had kept her army, ''at best'' she'd have been only slightly more powerful than them. At worst she'd have died shortly after conquering the planet.
* At the end of ''Series/TheWire'', [[BigBad Marlo]] survives and keeps his freedom and money, on the condition that he not return to the drug scene... which is all he really cares about. He's last seen walking out of a high-class party and antagonizing two random thugs on an empty street corner who don't even know who he is, simply unable to let go of the Game. It's clear that he will inevitably end up in jail or in the morgue, unable to enjoy his riches.
* The Australian children's education program ''Infinity Limited'' had a group of trouble-shooters helping a pet shop to use a new computer for inventory control while their "rival" company (and comic relief), Vortex Ventures with Valerian Vortex and Arthur Plankton tries to win a competition where you need to guess the number of a certain product which would fit into a sports stadium. After Vortex and Plankton fiddle with the shop's computer in an effort to get it to calculate the number, they end up accidentally ordering a huge amount of "plankton" fish food. Arthur wins the contest by simply guessing a number and Valerian immediately assumes ownership of the money... then the Infinity Limited people arrive, having figured out who ordered all of that Plankton. The money they won will just cover the cost of all that fish food...

* An episode of ''Series/AreYouAfraidOfTheDark'' involved a mummified Egyptian princess and a ring that would grant eternity. Towards the end of the episode, the bad guy corners the main characters and their father, threatening to burn down the museum if they don't give him the ring. After giving him the ring, the villain decides he'll burn down the museum anyway so that the good guys can't tell the authorities on him. However, the male protagonist decides to ask the bad guy if he'll put the ring on first to see if it makes him immortal. The bad guy does so, but after glowing a few colors, he gets [[TakenForGranite turned into]] [[AndIMustScream a statue]] and the father says that the villain got what he wanted, [[ExactWords immortality]].
* In one episode of ''Series/TheDeadZone,'' the villains are after the cargo of a crashed plane. All they know about the cargo is that it was insured for millions of dollars. They force Johnny to help them find it at gunpoint, and they do ultimately get their hands on it, but it turns out to be a crate of 3-year-old computer chips. Given how fast computer technology becomes obsolete, they're essentially worthless.
* The prequel series to ''Series/SpartacusBloodAndSand'' shows just how much effort Quintus and Lucretia went through to achieve prominence with their ludus - including murdering Quintus's own father. The end of the prequel shows them celebrating their newfound success - only to cut to the last shot of the first season where the two lie dying after the gladiators have rebelled. The shot practically screams WasItReallyWorthIt.

* [[spoiler:Lucas North]] from ''Series/{{Spooks}}''. He succeeds in selling [[MacGuffin the Albany file]] to the Chinese, but in the process destroys the life he built and [[spoiler:causes the death of the woman he loves]]. And to top it off, [[spoiler:the weapon Albany is a blueprint for turns out not to work]].
* At the end of the second season of ''Series/{{Fargo}}'', Mike Millegan finally manages to claw his way up the ladder of the Kansas City Mafia, but instead of the throne that he'd imagined, he ends up with an office chair. And a desk. And very few opportunities to commit violence. It turns out that the higher echelons of the Kansas City Mafia are moving away from the kind of bloodshed that allowed Millegan to thrive and instead turning their focus to more respectable pursuits like banking and finance.

* In ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'', she realizes that [[spoiler: Ares killing Eli has sealed the Olympians fate because the human race will not continue to worship gods who murder the innocent]].

* ''Series/{{CSI}}'':
** Hannah West, a sociopathic TeenGenius and the ArcVillain that made Sara Sidle quit being a CSI (for a while) because she got fed up with the horrors of the job. On the second time she appears, she manages to frame her brother for murder and place him in jail for the rest of his life because that way she will always have him under control and be the only girl he will ever have contact with, and she rubs this in Sara's face. Hannah's victory becomes meaningless because her brother, the only family she had left after their parents died, [[DrivenToSuicide commits suicide out of despair]] and the fact it's the only way he sees he will get out of under Hannah's thumb, leaving the little girl (who has a severe case of IntelligenceEqualsIsolation) to live the rest of her life completely alone.
** A handsome young dwarf who was engaged to be married is murdered by hanging. The girl he was engaged to was the average-height daughter of two little people, with her father very proud that she'd beaten the odds and ''not'' inherited dwarfism. [[spoiler: It turns out that the father considered her fiancee to not be tall enough for her, and knew that any child of their marriage would have a 50% chance of being a dwarf, so the father killed him. Except his daughter was already pregnant with her fiancee's child, making that he'd only succeeded in denying his future grandchild - dwarf or otherwise - a loving father.]]
** In another episode, two teenage [=BFFs=] suffer a car crash that leaves one dead and the other terribly injured, face mangled and unable to speak or write. It's discovered that the survivor was driving and is culpable for the accident. The grieving mother sneaks into the hospital and murders her in vengeance ... only for the investigators to discover that the one she killed was ''her own'' daughter, who'd swapped [=IDs=] with her slightly-older and similar-looking friend so she could get into a No-Minors-Allowed nightclub.
* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'': In the finale of season 3, Hawthorne Abendsen explains to John Smith that the Nazis' plans to invade other dimensions and all the effort they put into building an InterdimensionalTravelDevice will be for naught, since [[spoiler:people can only travel to dimensions where [[DeadAlternateCounterpart their counterparts are dead]].]]

* At the end of the second arc of ''Series/KamenRiderZeroOne'', [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Gai Amatsu]] manages to buy out Hiden Intelligence, leading to [[TheHero Aruto]] leaving the company. However, the very next episode after this happens reveals that the [=HumaGear=] and Zero-One technology, which is what Gai really wanted, is patented, not under the company, but under the Hiden family name. Aruto proceeds to simply start a new company, allowing him to resume his activities as a Kamen Rider.
* ''Series/CobraKai'':
** At the end of Season 4, this happens to Tory. Sure she wins the All-Valley Tournament, but she overhears that Terry Silver bribed the judge to be biased in her favor and realizes she ''should'' have lost and the judge not seeing that foot go out of bounds wasn't just luck. Furthermore John Kreese goes to prison and Terry Silver takes over Cobra Kai meaning the dojo that she looked up to has become exactly what she hated. Both realizations shatter her resolve and belief in Cobra Kai as a dojo, rendering basically everything she did there meaningless.
** Same goes for Kreese himself in season 4. Thanks to Tory's victory, the Cobra Kai dojo as a whole is awarded the Grand Prize, but he doesn't get to enjoy his victory for long. Silver soon reveals that he [[FrameUp framed Kreese for aggravated assault and attempted murder]], leading to his arrest and Silver acquiring full control of Cobra Kai, which he plans to franchise. Kreese had also made a gentleman's bet with Daniel to close down Miyagi-Do if they lost the tournament, which Daniel [[ILied flat-out refuses to do]] and recruits Chozen to continue the fight against Cobra Kai.
** At the end of season five, [[spoiler:Kreese makes an escape from prison in hopes of getting revenge on Daniel and Johnny. He doesn't find out until ''after'' he's escaped that he was about to be released anyways because Silver's frame-up was exposed and Silver has been arrested, meaning his conviction was overturned… and since breaking out of jail is a separate offense, he's now wanted regardless of his innocence in the assault and going to be put away again if caught. Worse, Cobra Kai has just imploded as a result of Silver's aforementioned exposure and arrest, meaning Kreese doesn't even have any allies or students to rely on anymore.]]
* ''Series/LazyTown'': Robbie successfully makes off with a trophy in "My Treehouse" only for it to break immediately.

* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' has Allen Marks, who was known to have killed and robbed many wasteland inhabitants for Sunset Sarsaparilla star caps [[WorthlessTreasureTwist just so he could win a "legendary treasure" from before the war.]] [[spoiler: Once he had collected enough caps, the guardian of the "treasure", Festus, (who was nothing more than a primitive robotic mascot with pre-programmed phrases) allowed him entry into the prize vault. Somehow, he became permanently trapped inside and discovered that the prizes were merely plastic deputy badges for children. Eventually, he succumbs in the tightly sealed vault from lack of oxygen, and his body is found slumped against the wall by the time the Courier arrives. All the caps Allen collected were for nothing, and all the people he killed died in vain.]]

* In the ''VideoGame/ChzoMythos'', this trope is in effect for the Chzo cultists. Chzo finally has the bridge to crossover from the World of Magic into the World of Technology at the very end of the story. However, the cultists vastly overestimated Chzo's interest in doing so. Chzo was more interested in the pain and suffering the cultists inflicted upon themselves in making the bridge, as well as the emotional pain when they realized Chzo never cared about them and was never going to reward them for anything they'd done.
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', Kefka gets what he wants, ascending to godhood by absorbing the power of the Warring Triad and then rearranging their statues. Once he's arrived at the pinnacle, [[AndThenWhat he suddenly loses all sense of purpose]], and sets about killing people for his own amusement, until he grows bored of that too. Following this, [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum he just decides to destroy the world]] because he believes that [[PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery life has become unbearably meaningless]]. The protagonists, meanwhile, inverted the trope entirely by finding purpose and reasons to live after their defeat, and are able to put a stop to him.
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', Kuja's mastery of XanatosSpeedChess allows him to out-maneuver every other character and eventually ascend to become a PersonOfMassDestruction unrivaled by any other in the story. He celebrates by [[TheStarscream killing his master]], and then prepares to finally TakeOverTheWorld. However, the spirit of his master then tells him that his victory is meaningless, because Kuja was designed to have a finite lifespan and thus will die soon. Kuja... [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum does not take it well]]. [[PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery At all.]]
* In ''VideoGame/HalfLifeOpposingForce'', [[EliteMooks black ops]] are sent to Black Mesa to cover up the incident once and for all by murdering everyone present there, including the [[YouHaveFailedMe Marines previously sent there to do exactly that]], culminating in using a nuclear warhead to detonate the facility. The world finds out everything that happened anyway due to there being survivors, and not long after the world is invaded and annexed by the Combine.
* ''Franchise/TheKingOfFighters'':
** Both Ángel and K9999/Krohnen end up achieving one in ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters2001''. Good news: they successfully wounded Foxy, traumatized Kula, and escaped with their lives. Bad news: their employer is rendered essentially defunct and they're now in the same boat as the very traitors they were meant to be hunting. They seem to be handling life on the run well enough by ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFightersXV'', though.
** Speaking of ''XV'', the Awakened Orochi Team score such a victory in their ending. They successfully [[KillAllHumans ensure the genocide of the human race]], allowing their master Orochi to reclaim the Earth... except that they now have [[VictoryIsBoring nothing to go do after that]] and [[GoMadFromTheIsolation nobody but themselves for company]]. Needless to say, [[TheSociopath Chris]] is the only one celebrating, as both [[MsFanservice Shermie]] and [[BoisterousBruiser Yashiro]] show some apprehensiveness about what they just pulled off.
* Killing the Jedi Masters in ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' and effectively wiping out the Jedi Order results in Kreia confronting The Exile. Asking what, if anything, they have really accomplished. She points out that it's gotten them no closer to defeating the Sith who are hunting them, and questions if it brought the Exile any sense of peace.
* The bad ending of ''VideoGame/LegoIsland'' has the Brickster gloating "It's mine! All mine!" before it slowly dawns on him that he ''destroyed everything'', hence there's nothing left to be "all his".
* In ''VideoGame/TheNeverhood'''s bad ending, Klogg succeeds in convincing Klaymen to put on Hoborg's crown and gloats about his victory. Seconds later, Klaymen is corrupted by the crown's power and kills Klogg, declaring himself the Neverhood's new ruler.
* ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'': Grodus succeeds in his goal of getting into the Thousand Year Door and managing to reawaken [[spoiler:the Shadow Queen]], even successfully managing to dupe the heroes into helping him. However, when Grodus attempts to order [[spoiler:the Shadow Queen]] to destroy the heroes, he quickly learns that EvilIsNotAToy, as [[spoiler:the Shadow Queen]] effortlessly destroys his body, leaving him as just a head. To add insult to injury, the heroes manage to defeat [[spoiler:the Shadow Queen]] anyways, meaning that even the one part of his plan that was successful didn't amount to anything.
* ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'':
** The end of ''VideoGame/Persona2: Innocent Sin'' has Nyarlathotep succeeding in destroying the world with the help of several deluded humans, but thanks to an intervention from Philemon, the heroes managed to bring back the world before he intervened. Then in ''Eternal Punishment'', Nyarlathotep tries again only to be defeated by a new team of heroes, and is banished for his troubles.
** ''VideoGame/Persona5'': The Phantom Thieves never manage to stop [[spoiler:Shido from becoming Prime Minister]], but they ''do'' succeed in changing his heart, preventing him from taking any joy in his achievement, ever. Moreover, thanks to this changed heart and the rest of their efforts, his day in court is rapidly approaching.
* In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Pokémon Platinum]]'', the BigBad Cyrus manages to [[RageAgainstTheHeavens successfully enslave the gods of time and space]] for his GodhoodSeeker plan but this ends up alerting [[FantasyPantheon the god of antimatter, Giratina]] [[BarrierMaiden who keeps the two in balance]]. As shown in the original duology and the AlternateUniverse in ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'', he only needed ''one'' of the two for his plan, but he overextended himself and ensured that either Giratina or the PlayerCharacter would've showed up to make his efforts meaningless.
* In ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'', the Maria ending sees James not learn his lesson, and give into his delusions, accepting Maria as Mary's replacement and leaving Silent Hill with her. Maria's victory is rendered moot as soon as they leave town, with her breaking into a coughing fit, implying that she's doomed to fall victim to illness, like Mary. James ominously warns her to do something about the cough, with the implication that he'll kill her if she does fall ill. Whether by Pyramid Head or James's hand, Maria is to fated to die no matter what.

* ''VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon'': Shao Kahn's arcade ending is the canonical one, [[spoiler:as he ultimately wins after the events of said Armageddon by surviving the ascent up the pyramid and follows that by killing [[PhysicalGod Raiden]] (who sends a message to his past self about the events, thus setting the stage for ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''). Finding out there's nothing else left to conquer, Shao Kahn is DrivenToMadness]].

* ''Franchise/DragonBall'' franchise

* By the nature of the work, ''Franchise/LupinIII'' is excessively fond of these. Since Lupin is a criminal, [[AntiVillain technically a villainous character]], and chased by [[SympatheticInspectorAntagonist a good guy upholding the law]], examples are limited to when a third party is competing against Lupin and the gang.
** ''[[Recap/LupinIIIS2E52 Emmanuelle in Bangkok]]'': Lupin allows Fujiko and Emmanuelle to fight over the treasure, a box made to contain the Scripture of Immortality or the "Fountain of Youth", as it might otherwise be known. It's crumbled to dust.
** Another caper, "[[Recap/LupinIIIS2E12 The Sleight Before Christmas]]", had Lupin and the gang managing to steal a vintage and priceless wine and swap it with a garden variety one along with a crate that they think is money. However, when they drink the wine itself, they find out it tastes horrible (which likewise saved Zenigata's hide, as it kept the U.S delegates from tasting it), but that crate turned out to be filled with dolls which were supposed to be delivered to kids for Christmas. At least Lupin realizes his mistake on this and air-dropped the dolls across the land as an apology.
** The treasure of ''Anime/TheCastleOfCagliostro'' is an ancient Roman city perfectly preserved beneath a lagoon, priceless but simply too ''big'' for Lupin to steal. The mechanism to drain the lagoon is designed to [[DeathByGreed crush to death whoever activates it]], so the Count ''gains'' the treasure only to be killed before he can so much as see it. And while Zenigata successfully blows the whistle on the counterfeit "goat" bills, TheStinger reveals that Fujiko stole the templates from the printing presses.

* In ''Manga/SoulEater'', the heretic witch Arachne spends a good deal of resources sending an army to an island where the good guys are also assembled, all to recover [[AncientArtifact the Demon Tool BREW]]. When her right-hand man finally succeeds in recovering the mystic tool, it turns out that [[spoiler:it is broken beyond repair.]] However, it is subverted in that [[spoiler:Medusa had actually switched the real BREW out for a fake. BREW itself was still usable and eventually falls into the hands of another villain, but as far as Arachne is concerned, it is played straight]]. Even so, [[spoiler:BREW being broken doesn't actually change Arachne's plans at all. She may not have the working tool, but her enemies don't ''know'' that, so she is able to use the empty ''threat'' of using the tool as a way to lure her enemies into the open when they attempt to stop her from using it.]]
* In ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'', Yukari and Nyamo bet ten thousand yen on the outcome of the SchoolFestival. Yukari's class wins, Nyamo hands her the money... and then Nyamo points out that Yukari borrowed ten thousand yen from her a while back. ''Yoink!''[[note]]Although Yukari ''is'' still ten thousand yen up as her debt has been cleared, knowing [[JerkAss what she's like]], Nyamo probably assumed Yukari would never pay her back anyway and was taking her only chance to get her money back.[[/note]]
* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Happens in the Dressrosa arc, chapter 742: [[spoiler:Usopp is the only person left who can knock out Sugar and return all the people she transformed into toys to normal. He tries to stand up against her bodyguard Trebol, but gets thoroughly beaten. However, Sugar feeds him the grape she assumed was poisoned to get rid of him (it's actually spiked with an ultra-spicy substance). The result is Usopp screaming in absolute agony while making a ''spectacular'' NightmareFace, [[AccidentalHero scary enough to make her scream and faint in turn]], rendering her victory moot]]. Comes up a bit again later when [[spoiler: Usopp weaponizes her newly-gained trauma to save Luffy and Law by launching a projection looking like said face to render her unconscious again, all while unlocking Haki.]]
* In ''Literature/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'', King Aultcray and Malty seek to deprive Naofumi Iwatani, the Shield Hero of any advantages in order to keep him a destitute and impoverished nobody, and had latched onto him owning a Slave as a Party Member as [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil a reason to demonize Naofumi]]; [[{{Hypocrite}} conveniently ignoring the fact that they were the ones who made slavery legal in the kingdom.]] Having beaten Naofumi in a challenge that resulted in him losing his slave and removing her RestrainingBolt, the recently-freed Raphtalia berated and yelled at them for doing this, citing that while she was purchased as Naofumi's slave, she was but a Slave to him in-name-only and that she saw Naofumi for the kind man that he really was; and as such ''willingly'' went back to Naofumi's side to prevent him from falling into a DespairEventHorizon, resulting in Naofumi and Raphtalia's bonds with each-other deepening [[RestoredMyFaithInHumanity as it helped stabilize Naofumi's troubled mind.]]
* ''Anime/TransformersArmada'': Megatron has just successfully killed Optimus Prime, but it had left him empty as he has no rival anymore, and spent that next few episodes doing nothing till Optimus is resurrected.

* In ''Manga/PuellaMagiTartMagica'', while [[spoiler:Isabeau de Bavière]] was the final obstacle, Minou remained a bigger threat till the end of the series. She succeeds in capturing Tart and have her excuted by fire, but she has [[spoiler:lost her sisters due to her actions, her beloved mother is dead, and Minou's goals have been thwarted]]. Her last words indicate that she [[DrivenToSuicide will commit suicide soon]] to be reunited with her beloved mother.

* ''Anime/IdolmasterXenoglossia'': In the second-to-last episode, Chihaya, desperate to get Imber back, turns herself into energy and actually ''merges'' with Imber, which would pretty much guarantee that she won, [[spoiler:except that Imber won't have it and fires her essence back out not long after, killing her as a result]].
* In ''Manga/{{Adolf}}'', a Nazi officer named Adolf Kaufmann completes his mission to get his hands on the documents that prove Hitler's Jewish ancestry to finally destroy them, after having spent most of his life looking for said papers. Immediately after, Kaufmann is told that Hitler died and Germany has surrendered. Kaufmann realizes that what he's holding is now just useless trash, and has a VillainousBreakdown that his entire life has been wasted.
* The ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' franchise has quite a few.
** The original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' in 1979 has [[BigBad Gihren Zabi]] [[spoiler:succeeding in killing both his own father and General Revil]], but not only does it ''not'' halt Zeon's imminent defeat, [[spoiler:but he gets assassinated by his sister Kycilia not long after]].
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam0083StardustMemory'' has the titular [[ColonyDrop Operation Stardust]] becoming a success thanks to Anavel Gato's actions. [[spoiler:But it's [[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam the figures behind]] [[StateSec the Titans]] who ultimately take advantage of the situation.]]

* An early episode of ''Anime/DinosaurKing'' has the heroic D-Team and the villainous Alpha Gang compete against each other in a [[StatusQuoGameShow game show]] for a hefty cash prize. The Alpha Gang end up winning after the D-Team are forced to throw the game to deal with a dinosaur that gets loose in the studio, but the prize money is destroyed when they try to return it to their headquarters. The episode thus ends with [[ShaggyDogStory no winner at all]], much to everyone's despair.
* The anime version of ''Manga/GreatTeacherOnizuka'' had the episode where he puts Tomoko in a beauty pageant. The thing is rigged by an entertainment company and their ringer wins thanks to them stuffing the ballot but [[TheRunnerUpTakesItAll Tomoko made such an impression that the crowd loves her more]]. The ringer will quickly fade to obscurity.
* ''Anime/LittleWitchAcademia2017'' has Professor Croix finally manage to unlock the Grand Triskelion, AKA the world restoration magic. Too bad that, without the Shiny Rod, it's nearly useless, amounting to a small twig that can only be used for party tricks. VillainousBreakdown ensues.
* ''Manga/{{Devilman}}''. [[spoiler: Ryo/Satan succeeds in [[KillAllHumans Killing All Humans]] ''and'' killing Akira/Devilman. However, the entire point of killing all humans was for demons to retake the Earth, which is rendered pointless as all ''demons'' were wiped out in the conflict as well. He also didn't ''want'' to kill Akira, because he still loved him and wanted him to join his cause instead. Not to mention that even this PyrrhicVictory is rendered completely moot when God and His heavenly hosts hit the ResetButton on the entire planet shortly afterwards.]]
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' was rather infamous for this in its two major arcs where Aizen and Yhwach were the primary antagonists. Both villains basically achieve all their primary goals, with Aizen [[spoiler:successfully creating and fusing with the Hōgyoku]] and Yhwach [[spoiler:essentially destroying Soul Society and absorbing the Soul King]], only for the both of them to be defeated at the very last second by Ichigo.
* ''Manga/FruitsBasket'': The entire series was kicked off due to a bet between Akito and her AbusiveMom Ren; said bet involved allowing Tohru to stay at Shigure's house to prove that the Sohmas' HereditaryCurse cannot truly force them to love their God, Ren surmising they would rather bond with an AllLovingHero stranger like Tohru than an [[{{Yandere}} abusive]] PsychopathicWomanchild like Akito. Ultimately, Ren wins; as [[JerkassHasAPoint she predicted]], the Zodiac members gravitate towards Tohru and bond with her because she treats them far more decently than Akito ever did, thus proving to her once and for all that the Zodiacs' bonds with her as their God were fake and forced on them by the curse. [[spoiler:Ultimately, however, her victory is pointless, since Tohru also extends friendship to Akito, allowing her to move past her mother's manipulations and find a chance at happiness while Ren is left alone, miserable, and [[HatedByAll either ignored or outright despised by the Sohma family at large]].]]
* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' sees All For One, in Tomura Shigaraki's body, confront Cathleen Bate, the Pro Hero Star and Stripe, to obtain her Quirk [[RealityWarper New Order]]. He ultimately manages to win, but Cathleen gets the last laugh: [[spoiler:as her Quirk is being taken, she gives one final order: New Order will rampage against All For One and all of the Quirks that he has stolen until it burns out, meaning not only does All For One lose New Order before he can use it at all, but it takes out some of his other Quirks, resulting in him suffering a net loss.]]
* The extended ending of ''Manga/ShamanKing'' shows this to be the case for [[BigBad Hao]] [[spoiler:[[EvilTwin Asakura]]]]. His reason for wanting to become [[PhysicalGod the Shaman King]] was to eradicate humanity and create a perfect world where only those who can see spirits, the Shamans, are allowed to live, [[FreudianExcuse since his real Shaman mother was killed 1000 years prior due to human prejudice and superstition]]. [[spoiler:He actually manages to become the Shaman King as the heroes fail to stop him in time and kills the entire cast... Just for him to realize, after witnessing the arrival of all the major and minor characters' souls (including the supporting main cast, Hao's allies, their Spirits and characters already dead to begin with) and his own mother, that he's lost his hatred for humanity. Not that he ever admits this though, as he claims he's still willing to wipe out humanity, but not before observing it for a while as the new God.]] The various sequel series show that [[spoiler: he's still in observation.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda1'', Tai Lung does get the Dragon Scroll eventually. But it's blank. Or rather, it has a mirrored surface to show the reader ItWasWithYouAllAlong. Po gets the message, Tai Lung doesn't, and gets his tail kicked by Po because of it.

** ''[[WesternAnimation/GravityFalls Bill Cipher]] vs [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Discord]]'' ends this way; [[spoiler: before getting destroyed, Discord reveals he trapped both him and Bill in the Nightmare Dimension, thus undoing the latter's conquest of Equestria. This, combined with the fact Discord [[AsLongAsThereIsEvil can eventually reform]] and Bill's inability to find anyone who doesn't know enough about him to agree to one of his deals, means Bill's victory is worth absolutely nothing in the end.]]
** From the same season as the above, ''[[Franchise/DragonBall Frieza]] vs [[Franchise/{{Transformers}} Megatron]]''. [[spoiler: While the former ultimately takes home the win, his army and fleet of spaceships have both been destroyed and in his haste to win, he's destroyed Cybertron--the very planet he showed up to ''conquer''. Megatron himself points this out to Frieza before the final clash, enraging him to no end. Worse, [[spoiler: Frieza's lost [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe both legs and an arm]], not to mention a good chunk of blood, which means he's not long for the world either.]]

** From the same season as the above, ''[[Franchise/DragonBall Frieza]] vs [[Franchise/{{Transformers}} Megatron]]''. [[spoiler: While the former ultimately takes home the win, his army and fleet of spaceships have both been destroyed and in his haste to win, he's destroyed Cybertron--the very planet he showed up to ''conquer''. Megatron himself points this out to Frieza before the final clash, enraging him to no end.]]

* ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle'': ''[[WesternAnimation/GravityFalls Bill Cipher]] vs [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Discord]]'' ends this way; [[spoiler: before getting destroyed, Discord reveals he trapped both him and Bill in the Nightmare Dimension, thus undoing the latter's conquest of Equestria. This, combined with the fact Discord [[AsLongAsThereIsEvil can eventually reform]] and Bill's inability to find anyone who doesn't know enough about him to agree to one of his deals, means Bill's victory is worth absolutely nothing in the end.]]

** In the final case of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyJusticeForAll'', the killer confronts Phoenix with the {{sadistic choice}} of [[spoiler:getting a sociopathic murderer acquitted and sending an innocent woman to jail, or getting the killer sent to jail but having Phoenix's assistant be killed by an assassin.]] After some BigDamnHeroes moments with the last crucial pieces of evidence, Phoenix [[spoiler:reveals to Shelly de Killer that Engarde taped him killing Juan Corrida, and planned to blackmail de Killer with the footage. This means that Engarde has broken his bond of trust with an assassin that values his bond of trust with his clients above all else, a fatal mistake. It puts Engarde in a MortonsFork of getting either life in prison with his reputation destroyed or hunted by one of the best assassins in the world, with either one spelling Engarde's demise. At his point, Phoenix can choose to either change his plea to guilty and send Engarde to jail right there, or to keep pleading not guilty in the smuggest way possible, stressing to Engarde that this is an act of CruelMercy. Either way, Engarde screams in court that he's guilty, claws the hell out of his own face in pure panic, and ends the trial completely humiliated]].

** In the final case of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyJusticeForAll'', the killer confronts Phoenix with the {{sadistic choice}} of [[spoiler:getting a sociopathic murderer acquitted and sending an innocent woman to jail, or getting the killer sent to jail but having Phoenix's assistant be killed by an assassin.]] After some BigDamnHeroes moments with the last crucial pieces of evidence, Phoenix [[spoiler:reveals to Shelly de Killer that Engarde taped him killing Juan Corrida, and planned to blackmail de Killer with the footage. This means that Engarde has broken his bond of trust with an assassin that values his bond of trust with his clients above all else, a fatal mistake. It puts Engarde in a MortonsFork of getting either the death penalty or hunted by one of the best assassins in the world, with either one spelling Engarde's demise. At his point, Phoenix can choose to either change his plea to guilty and send Engarde to jail right there, or to keep pleading not guilty in the smuggest way possible, stressing to Engarde that this is an act of CruelMercy. Either way, Engarde screams in court that he's guilty, claws the hell out of his own face in pure panic, and ends the trial completely humiliated]].

** At the end of Season 4, this happens to Tory. Sure she wins the All-Valley Tournament, but she overhears that Terry Silver bribed the judge to be biased in her favor and realizes she ''should'' have lost and the judge not seeing that foot go out of bounds wasn't just luck. Furthermore John Kreese goes to prison and Terry Silver takes over Cobra Kai meaning the dojo that she looked up to has become exactly what she hated.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BeanyAndCecil'', Dishonest John invites himself to Beany and Cecil's show to watch the ShowWithinAShow "Defective Story" (a detective show starring dogs), because he's read that TheBadGuyWins. The episode features a a criminal named Doberman ([[PunnyName Alias]] "[[PunnyName The Pincher]]") kidnapping a popular actress and evading capture of detective Fido Vance. Doberman seemingly ends the episode a KarmaHoudini by shaking off Vance and asbsconding with the actress, but the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue shows Doberman has become an unhappy Henpecked Husband slaving over chores and feeding a litter of puppies. Beany and Cecil are delighted, and Dishonest John is forlorn, at this turn of events.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BeanyAndCecil'', Dishonest John invites himself to Beany and Cecil's show to watch the ShowWithinAShow "Defective Story" (a detective show starring dogs), because he's read that TheBadGuyWins. The episode features a a criminal named Doberman ([[PunnyName Alias]] "[[PunnyName The Pincher]]") kidnapping a popular actress and evading capture of detective Fido Vance. Doberman seemingly ends the episode a KarmaHoudini by shaking off Vance and asbsconding with the actress, but the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue shows Doberman has become an unhappy Henpecked Husband slaving over chores and feeding a litter of puppies. Beany and Cecil are delighted, and Dishonest John is forlorn, at this turn of events.

** Ganondorf's manipulation of Zelda and Link in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' nets him access to the Sacred Realm and the [[CosmicKeystone Triforce]] and neither of them can do anything to stop him... But unfortunately for him, the Triforce has a caveat that unless a human is perfectly balanced with its virtues, they can only possess one piece of it. This means that Ganondorf only gets one third. The most powerful third, yes, but still not ''quite'' the ultimate power he had envisioned, and he becomes doomed by fate to forever be thwarted by the owners of the other two pieces (Zelda and Link, for those not in the know), which together overpower Ganondorf.

* The final episode of ''Series/{{Alias}}'' has [[spoiler:Sloane finally achieving immortality... only for Jack to sacrifice himself in an effort to [[SealedEvilInACan seal Sloane beneath a mountain]] [[AndIMustScream for all eternity.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'': Toffee’s EvilPlan to [[spoiler:recover his missing finger and restore his full powers, making him nigh-unstoppable,]] goes off without a hitch... only to be nullified seconds later when [[spoiler:Star manages to attain her SuperMode, allowing her to blast him with so much raw power that even his precious HealingFactor can’t save him.]]

* ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'': On paper, ComicBook/LexLuthor's scheme [[spoiler:to kill Franchise/{{Superman}}]] worked. He can hardly enjoy this victory, however, [[spoiler:because Superman died a hero and his reputation is at an all-time high. Also, Lex has been arrested for treason and his assets are seized by the government. Franchise/{{Batman}} and Franchise/WonderWoman, inspired by Superman's HeroicSacrifice, set out to form the [[Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague Justice League]] - using Luthor's own data on metahumans to find them.]] And the cherry on top? [[spoiler:Superman is not even dead, just in a healing coma.]] It isn't until TheStinger of ''Film/JusticeLeague'' reveals that [[spoiler: Lex at least managed to escape by having someone else take his place, while currently arranging a meeting with Deathstroke on his yacht.]]

* In ''Literature/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'', King Aultcray and Malty seek to deprive Naofumi Iwatani, the Shield Hero of any advantages in order to keep him a destitute and impoverished nobody, and had latched onto him owning a Slave as a Party Member as [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil a reason to demonize Naofumi]]; [[{{Hypocrite}} conveniently ignoring the fact that they were the ones who made Slavery legal in the kingdom.]] Having beaten Naofumi in a challenge that resulted in him losing his Slave and removing her RestrainingBolt, the recently-freed Raphtalia berated and yelled at them for doing this: citing that while she was purchased as Naofumis' slave; she was but a Slave to him in-name-only and that she saw Naofumi for the kind man that he really was and as such ''willingly'' went back to Naofumis' side to prevent him from falling into a DespairEventHorizon, resulting in Naofumi and Raphtalias' bonds with each-other deepening [[RestoredMyFaithInHumanity as it helped stabilize Naofumis' troubled mind.]]

** Another caper, "[[Recap/LupinIIIS2Ep12 The Sleight Before Christmas]]", had Lupin and the gang managing to steal a vintage and priceless wine and swap it with a garden variety one along with a crate that they think is money. However, when they drink the wine itself, they find out it tastes horrible (which likewise saved Zenigata's hide, as it kept the U.S delegates from tasting it), but that crate turned out to be filled with dolls which were supposed to be delivered to kids for Christmas. At least Lupin realizes his mistake on this and air-dropped the dolls across the land as an apology.

* In ''Literature/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'', King Aultcray and Malty seek to deprive Naofumi Iwatani, the Shield Hero of any advantages in order to keep him a destitute and impoverished nobody, and had latched onto him owning a Slave as a Party Member as [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil a reason to demonize Naofumi]]; [[{{Hipocrite}} conveniently ignoring the fact that they were the ones who made Slavery legal in the kingdom.]] Having beaten Naofumi in a challenge that resulted in him losing his Slave and removing her RestrainingBolt, the recently-freed Raphtalia berated and yelled at them for doing this: citing that while she was purchased as Naofumis' slave; she was but a Slave to him in-name-only and that she saw Naofumi for the kind man that he really was and as such ''willingly'' went back to Naofumis' side to prevent him from falling into a DespairEventHorizon, resulting in Naofumi and Raphtalias' bonds with each-other deepening [[RestoredMyFaithInHumanity as it helped stabilize Naofumis' troubled mind.]]

* In ''Literature/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'', King Aultcray and Malty seek to deprive Naofumi Iwatani, the Shield Hero of any advantages in order to keep him a destitute and impoverished nobody, and had latched onto him owning a Slave as a Party Member as [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil a reason to demonize Naofumi]]; [[Hipocrite conveniently ignoring the fact that they were the ones who made Slavery legal in the kingdom.]] Having beaten Naofumi in a challenge that resulted in him losing his Slave and removing her RestrainingBolt, the recently-freed Raphtalia berated and yelled at them for doing this: citing that while she was purchased as Naofumis' slave; she was but a Slave to him in-name-only and that she saw Naofumi for the kind man that he really was and as such ''willingly'' went back to Naofumis' side to prevent him from falling into a DespairEventHorizon, resulting in Naofumi and Raphtalias' bonds with each-other deepening [[RestoredMyFaithInHumanity as it helped stabilize Naofumis' troubled mind.]]

* In ''Literature/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'', King Aultcray and Malty seek to deprive Naofumi Iwatani, the Shield Hero of any advantages in order to keep him a destitute and impoverished nobody, and had latched onto him owning a Slave as a Party Member as [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil a reason to demonize Naofumi]]; [[Hypocrite conveniently ignoring the fact that they were the ones who made Slavery legal in the kingdom.]] Having beaten Naofumi in a challenge that resulted in him losing his Slave and removing her RestrainingBolt, the recently-freed Raphtalia berated and yelled at them for doing this: citing that while she was purchased as Naofumis' slave; she was but a Slave to him in-name-only and that she saw Naofumi for the kind man that he really was and as such ''willingly'' went back to Naofumis' side to prevent him from falling into a DespairEventHorizon, resulting in Naofumi and Raphtalias' bonds with each-other deepening [[RestoredMyFaithInHumanity as it helped stabilize Naofumis' troubled mind.]]

* In ''LightNovel/RisingOfTheShieldHero'', King Aultcray and Malty seek to deprive Naofumi Iwatani, the Shield Hero of any advantages in order to keep him a destitute and impoverished nobody, and had latched onto him owning a Slave as a Party Member as [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil a reason to demonize Naofumi]]; [[Hypocrite conveniently ignoring the fact that they were the ones who made Slavery legal in the kingdom.]] Having beaten Naofumi in a challenge that resulted in him losing his Slave and removing her RestrainingBolt, the recently-freed Raphtalia berated and yelled at them for doing this: citing that while she was purchased as Naofumis' slave; she was but a Slave to him in-name-only and that she saw Naofumi for the kind man that he really was and as such ''willingly'' went back to Naofumis' side to prevent him from falling into a DespairEventHorizon, resulting in Naofumi and Raphtalias' bonds with each-other deepening [[RestoredMyFaithInHumanity as it helped stabilize Naofumis' troubled mind.]]