History Main / YouCantThwartStageOne

* Inverted in the [[{{Animorphs}} ''Megamorphs'']] book ''Elfangor's Secret'', where the heroes thwart stage one by saving Henry V at Agincourt but fail to prevent Visser 4 from killing George Washington and Admiral Nelson. They win in the end though.

* ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': One of Glory's minions opened the portal home before Glory was defeated.

* In ''Mafia II'', there are several scenes where your target is visible running away from you, with the intention that you'd be too busy dealing with the next group of {{mooks}} to shoot him then. But if you DO take some well-aimed shots, he's seen taking the hits and ''completely ignoring them'', even headshots. Killing some targets earlier may have spared you having to drive Harry to El Greco or [[spoiler: saved Marty's life]].
** Averted with the mission where you have to [[spoiler: warn Leo that Harry's been sent to kill him]]. It's difficult, but it is possible to simply avoid him and escape with [[spoiler: Leo]]. If you get caught, [[spoiler: Harry strikes a deal and allows Leo to leave town, letting him get payment for the job and keeping your old friend alive.]]

* Frequently subverted in bad fanfics, [[TalkToTheFist where the villain isn't even allowed to get a shot in before being beaten to a bloody pulp]]. Often leads to a stagnant plot, or an endless succession of such encounters. [[TropesAreNotBad There's a reason that this trope is the standard.]]

** ''MassEffect 2'': Even if you install all the ship upgrades as soon as possible, you can't use them against the Collector Ship until the FinalBattle.

** Several accounts state that what Riper did was really just cheating by being a RulesLawyer. Those missile attacks that destroyed the 20,000 sailors spawned from nowhere under the [[InsaneTrollLogic argument]] that the US Navy would ignore fishing vessels in that area simply because he wanted them to. When that failed, he argued that his missiles were fired from converted fishing vessels, despite the fact that this would be structurally impossible for a fishing boat. When this was pointed out to him, he used this fact as an example of how inflexible the conventional military is in their thinking. In other examples, he assumed his communications were instantaneous despite using the much slower systems. And he was finally fired due to his excessive {{Munchkin}} behavior, at the expense of useful experience for the soldiers in the exercise and any realistic sense of strategy. In Gladwell's account he doesn't talk to anyone else from the exercise, hence his biased account.

Compare YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle. Contrast SequenceBreaking.

Compare NotSoFastBucko. Contrast SequenceBreaking.

* ''{{Touhou}} 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom'': you can't stop [[spoiler:Yuyuko from resurrecting herself with the [[SpringIsLate stolen essence of Spring]]]]. [[HoldTheLine The best you can do]] [[spoiler:is dodge [[spoiler:her]] final spellcard, during which she is invincible]].

* ''{{Touhou}} 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom'': you can't stop [[spoiler:Yuyuko]] from resurrecting [[spoiler:herself]] with the [[SpringIsLate stolen essence of Spring]]. [[HoldTheLine The best you can do]] is dodge [[spoiler:her]] final spellcard, during which [[spoiler:she]] is invincible.

** ''Touhou 12: Undefined Fantastic Object'': you can't stop Toramaru and co from unsealing [[spoiler:Byakuren]]. [[spoiler:{{Subverted}}, they aren't villains by any means.]]
** ''Touhou 13: Ten Desires'': you can't stop Miko's rite of resurrection.

*** However, it's played utterly straight regarding the [[MineralMacGuffin Nethicite]]. You can't stop the Dusk Shard falling into the hands of the empire. You can't work out how to use the Dawn Shard, and you utterly fail at destroying the nethicite in the Empire's possession. In fact, the entire plot is an exercise in futility- every time you walk halfway across the map to get some plot-important artifact, you arrive back home only to find that [[spoiler:[[MagnificentBastard Vayne]]]] has done something to make your efforts ''entirely useless''. Sure, killing [[spoiler:Vayne]] may not have saved Dalmasca, but so much aggro would have been avoided if you'd just sliced the sneaky bastard's head off at stage one.

** If you ask me... if you say yes to the [[FanDumb Adoring Fan]] when he asks if he can follow you around, you have failed to thwart his stage one of complete takeover! Of what, I don't know, but the thought of the Adoring Fan having a takeover is actually pretty scary if you take a second to think about it. You know what... Just TakeOurWordForIt and don't ask questions.

* In ''KingdomHearts'', Sora spends so much time trying to lock every keyhole that [[spoiler:he doesn't even find out the Princesses of Heart are being kidnapped until he finds them in the final level, where they're being used for Stage One of "Ansem's" takeover.]] THEN [[spoiler:Sora [[BodyHorror carves out his own SOUL]] and completes Stage One for the guy.]] [[CompletelyMissingThePoint Is this kid just genre blind or what?!]]

* Averted in ''TheObsidianTrilogy'' when the Endarkened's first tactic is defeated before they can destroy their enemies. It still did a lot of damage before it was stopped, though, and they had other plans already starting to be implemented at the time.

** Several accounts state that what Riper did was really just cheating by being a RulesLawyer. Those missile attacks that destroyed the 20,000 sailors spawned from nowhere under the [[InsaneTrollLogic argument]] that the US Navy would ignore fishing vessels in that area simply because he wanted them to. When that failed, he argued that his missiles were fired from converted fishing vessels, despite the fact that this would be structurally impossible for a fishing boat. When this was pointed out to him, he used this fact as an example of how inflexible the conventional military is in their thinking. In other examples, he assumed his communications were instantaneous despite using the much slower systems. And he was finally fired due to his excessive Munchkin behavior, at the expense of useful experience for the soldiers in the exercise and any realistic sense of strategy. In Gladwell's account he doesn't talk to anyone else from the exercise, hence his biased account.

** Several accounts state that what Riper did was really just cheating by excessive by being a RulesLawyer. Those missile attacks that destroyed the 20,000 sailors spawned from nowhere under the [[InsaneTrollLogic argument]] that the US Navy would ignore fishing vessels in the area simply because he wanted them to. When that failed, he argued that his missiles were fired from converted fishing vessels, despite the fact that this would be structurally impossible for a fishing boat. When this was pointed out to him, he used this fact as an example of how inflexible the conventional military is in their thinking. In other examples, he assumed his communications were instantaneous despite using the much slower systems. And he was finally fired due to his excessive Munchkin behavior, at the expense of useful experience for the soldiers in the exercise and any realistic sense of strategy. In Gladwell's account he doesn't talk to anyone else from the exercise, hence his biased account.

** Several accounts state that what Riper did was really just cheating by excessive use of RulesLawyering. Those missile attacks that destroyed the 20,000 sailors spawned from nowhere under the [[IdiotTrollLogic argument]] that the US Navy would ignore fishing vessels in the area simply because he wanted them to. When that failed, he argued that his missiles were fired from converted fishing vessels, despite the fact that this would be structurally impossible for a fishing boat. When this was pointed out to him, he used this fact as an example of how inflexible the conventional military is in their thinking. In other examples, he assumed his communications were instantaneous despite using the much slower systems. And he was finally fired due to his excessive Munchkin behavior, at the expense of useful experience for the soldiers in the exercise and any realistic sense of strategy. In Gladwell's account he doesn't talk to anyone else from the exercise, hence his biased account.

** Justified by one of the other Generals involved: "You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?" [[YourMileageMayVary If you take this logic at face value]], the events would be closer to SaveScumming (though only completely so if the lessons during the "kill on the first day" scenario were integrated into real-life war decision making... which they weren't).

* ''FirstWave'': Was a short lived, low budget series about trying to do exactly this, the title being about the first phase of the aliens' three-step plan.

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