History PyrrhicVictory / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/Charmed1998'': In the Season 3' finale, [[spoiler: the evil forces managed to kill Prue, dismantling the Power of 3 in the process. This will ensure the victory of the evil side, [[SpannerInTheWorks if the Halliwell sisters's mother illicit romance with her whitelight doesn't just provide the Power of 3 with another sister]], to replace Prue's role.]]

* ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace'': The "Lipsynch Assassin" of the season is the queen who puts on a fierce "Lipsynch For Your Life" and sends multiple queens packing. But in the normal (non-''All Stars'' or ''Vs the World'') seasons of the show, being in that position in the first place means ''failing'' multiple challenges and doing poorly enough to land in the bottom two, and the more often a queen lands in that position, the more likely she will get eliminated. It may lead to some memorable recap clips, but it is absolutely not an ideal position to be in.

* ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace'': The "Lipsynch Assassin" of the season is the queen who puts on a fierce "Lipsynch For Your Life" and sends multiple queens packing. But in the normal (non-''All Stars'' or ''Vs the World'') seasons of the show, being in that position in the first place means ''failing'' multiple challenges and doing poorly enough to land in the bottom two, and the more often a queen lands in that position, the more likely she will get eliminated. It may lead to some memorable recap clips, but it is absolutely not an ideal position to be in.

*** In the opening battle of the Dominion War, Dukat managed to capture Deep Space 9, but lost over fifty ships, let Starfleet take out a vital shipyard while the fleet was otherwise occupied, and failed to bring in reinforcements through the wormhole thanks to Starfleet blockading it with self-replicating SpaceMines that took months to get rid of. Oh, and just to set the tin lid on it, Starfleet was able to hold the combined Cardassian[=/=]Jem'Hadar fleet off long enough to evacuate all their personnel ''and'' [[SaltTheEarth comprehensively trash the station itself]]. Dukat being [[IRejectYourReality Dukat]], he was [[WorthIt perfectly fine with this]]... at first. [[TraumaCongaLine Retaking the station was the last time anything went well for him for some time]].

** The episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E145TheMasks The Masks]]" has a benign, rich, and dying Jason Foster having to deal with his greedy, callous, and hypochondriac daughter, her husband, and their vile children in the last hours of his life. They are there just to see him die so they can inherit his vast fortune and he knows it. So he makes an addendum to his will: if any of them removes a special mask he had made for them before midnight, one which, he says, reflects the opposite of their "true" face, [[note]]though in truth holds all the ugliness and villainy that their pretty faces hide, [[/note]] they will inherit only enough money to take the train back to Boston. They succeed and Jason soon dies after midnight. [[spoiler:When they remove the masks, they see their faces have contorted and shifted to be perfect matches for the ugly masks they were just wearing for hours. Now they must live with these faces that reflect their inner vanity and pettiness]].
** The episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E61TheSilence The Silence]]" has heavily indebted Jamie Tennyson accept a bet from fellow club member Archie Taylor to not say a word for an entire year for $500,000. Tennyson manages to win the bet despite Taylor trying to get him to talk by gossiping about his wife leaving him. [[spoiler: Then Taylor reveals that he lost his money years ago and can't pay $500,000 (or even the $1,000 and $5,000 he offered Jamie earlier to end the bet early). Jamie then reveals he severed the nerves to his vocal chords to win the bet. So Jamie wins the bet, but he wasted a year of his life, he's still in debt, his wife possibly has left him and he's now permanently mute.]]

* The ''Spinosaurus'' in the first episode of ''Series/PlanetDinosaur'' manages to find off a ''Carcharodontosaurus'' and steal the tasty carcass they were fighting over, but unfortunately, the ''Carcharodontosaurus'' manages to damage the ''Spinosaurus’'' sail with its jaws, and the ''Spinosaurus'' dies.

** Robert's Rebellion in the backstory, especially for Robert whose main motivation was to rescue his beloved Lyanna Stark from Rhaegar Targaryen. When Lyanna died at the end of the war, Robert was left with the throne and married to someone he despised instead of the woman he loved. [[spoiler:It's even worse that in truth, Lyanna and Rhaegar ''did fall in love'' with one another and married in secrecy. The entire rebellion is based on poor miscommunication on the parties involved which makes it very tragic with Robert having no idea that his beloved left him for another man]].

** And in the Series Finale, [[spoiler:Daenerys conquers Westeros... at the cost of her sanity and credibility. Driven mad by paranoia, inadequacy, incest, and the deaths / betrayals of most of her cabinet and two of her children, she gives in to her demons and commits genocide on King's Landing. Jon assassinates her before she can wage war on the world itself. Weeks later, Bran is elected king and uses his powers to solidify the progress of Westeros, ensuring that Daenerys's dream of a free world would eventually be fulfilled ''because she was no longer in its way''.]]

* In ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Marshall was able to win a lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company but the judge was unwilling to hurt the company by fining them with the intended 25 million dollars and so, reduced it to 25 ''thousand'' (0.1% of the original). Marshall was very upset since more was probably spent on court fees and lawyer paychecks for each side. [[spoiler: This event would inspire him to apply to be a judge so he would have more influence on the system.]] An earlier episode revealed that Marshall's law firm kept itself afloat by settling all their cases and avoiding fighting any cases where they could experience one. Marshall inspired them to contest cases in court again which resulted in his case ending up as one. By the end of the season [[spoiler: the law firm is broke and has laid off almost all employees]].

* ''Series/IClaudius'': Livia succeeds in having her eldest son Tiberius named Emperor of [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire Rome]]. However, she's destroyed his life to do so (having separated him from everyone he's ever cared about, be it via murder or forced divorce), in addition to killing a huge number of possible rivals. She also poisoned her own husband UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}}, who she apparently genuinely loved, when she realized he was going to disinherit Tiberius. However, Tiberius ends up resenting her for messing up his life so drastically, meaning she doesn't exercise the same kind of power through him that she did through Augustus. She also ends up fearing that her soul will be condemned to hell for her actions, leading to her attempting to manipulate her great-grandson UsefulNotes/{{Caligula}} into declaring her a goddess once he becomes Emperor, to make her immune to consequences for her actions, but he taunts her on her death bed that he has no intention to do so.

* In the Swedish noir thriller ''Series/TheLawyer'', Frank succeeds in avenging his parents' death, but the collateral damage includes [[spoiler:an innocent woman dead, Frank's heroin addict sister relapsing and Frank imprisoned for a murder that was actually self-defense]], though that last one [[StatusQuoIsGod doesn't stick]] in the second season.

** And in the Series Finale, [[spoiler:Daenerys conquers Westeros... at the cost of her sanity and credibility. Driven mad by paranoia, inadequacy, incest, and the deaths / betrayals of most of her cabinet and two of her children, she gives in to her demons and commits genocide on King's Landing. Jon assassinates her before she can wage war on the world itself. Weeks later, Bran is elected king and uses his powers to solidify the progress of Westeros, ensuring that Daenerys' dream of a free world would eventually be fulfilled ''because she was no longer in its way''.]]

* Sylar finds this out the hard way in Volume 5 of ''Series/{{Heroes}}''. He's got everything he ever wanted. He's the most powerful Evolved Human on the face of the Earth. He's immortal and invulnerable to harm. There's maybe a grand total of two people (that we know of) who could realistically pose a threat to him and he can easily take all the powers he wants. He's also killed the only two people who ever cared for him and realises that he's now going to be utterly alone, wretched and despised for eternity. It's enough to make him have yet another HeelFaceTurn, this one seemingly more permanent than the previous ones.

* ''Series/IClaudius'': Livia succeeds in having her eldest son Tiberius named Emperor of [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire Rome]]. However, she's destroyed his life to do so (having separated him from everyone he's ever cared about, be it via murder or forced divorce), in addition to killing a huge number of possible rivals. She also poisoned her own husband UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}}, who she apparently genuinely loved, when she realized he was going to disinherit Tiberius. However, Tiberius ends up resenting her for messing up his life so drastically, meaning she doesn't exercise the same kind of power through him she did through Augustus. She also ends up fearing that her soul will be condemned to hell for her actions, leading to her attempting to manipulate her great-grandson UsefulNotes/{{Caligula}} into declaring her a goddess once he becomes Emperor, so as to make her immune to consequences for her actions, but he taunts her on her death bed that he has no intention to do so.

** In the episode “Destiny” Spike wins the fight against Angel. However, the episode makes it BLATANTLY clear that the fight was in no way, shape, or form a cakewalk for Spike. He was up against an older vampire (who was not on his A game) who was still legendary for his martial prowess. By the end of the fight, Spike is not much better off looking than Angel (both are bruised, battered, and bloodied). It’s telling that after the fight Spike (someone known for his bragging) is clearly battered and is actually very humbled. Gunn himself put it best to Angel “looks like you gave as good as you got”.

* In ''Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'' one episode of [[{{Calvinball}} Numberwang]] went on for so long that the game went into SuddenDeath. The first contestant to inhale enough of the poisonous Number Gas won. But, y'know, ''died''.

** Jesse Pinkman initially agreed to partner up with Walt to earn a lot of money, but while he does end up getting a massive amount of cash, far more than he could ever use in his lifetime, but the months of physical and psychological torture he went through to get it, including the death of his girlfriend, countless people getting hurt or killed in front of him, including multiple children, having to murder people to survive, and getting continuously belittled and manipulated by Walt, makes him hate looking at the cash, never mind spend it. Eventually, he's tossing bundles of cash at strangers out of his car window just to be rid of it.

* Walter White of ''Series/BreakingBad'' manages to slip the law, his competitors and former allies in the drug trade. Each time he does, it ruins the lives of those around him and costs him a little more of his soul. By the end of the series, he finally secures millions of dollars for his children and dies on his own terms. In the process, among other tragedies, [[spoiler:his brother-in-law is murdered, his partner is almost psychologically destroyed, his wife and son despise him, dozens of people of varying levels of innocence are killed (including two children), he indirectly causes a plane crash, and his criminal life becomes national news]].

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' season 2 ended with her killing Series/{{Angel}} to save the world, [[HeelFaceDoorSlam right after his soul was already restored]]. That put together a combination of Buffy's mother rejecting her, getting expelled from school, and Kendra's death getting pinned on her caused an emotionally shattered Buffy to run away to Los Angeles. Fortunately, she gets over enough of her grief to return home and face her family and friends early in the following season.

*** {{Discussed|Trope}} in the two-part special "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E01E02TheWayOfTheWarrior The Way of the Warrior]]" when the battle between Deep Space ( and a Klingon attack force reaches a stalemate.

** In the ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," the ship is occupied by two aliens from a species where half are black on their right side and white on their left, and the other is the opposite, and the former have set themselves up as the societal superiors of the latter, in an obvious metaphor for the racism prevalent at the time. The black-on-the-right one is chasing the white-on-the-right one as a criminal and ultimately succeeds in forcing the crew to return to his home planet, where his prisoner can be judged. However, they find that while the chase was going on, the war between the two sides escalated until every single person on the planet was killed. The two aliens promptly accuse each other of their people being responsible, and teleport down to the planet to continue their war, as Kirk somberly notes that their hatred for each other is all they have left.
** In the ''Series/{{Star Trek|Enterprise}}'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS03E12ChosenRealm Chosen Realm]]", pretty much the same thing happens with two religious factions on the planet Triannon fighting over their dogmas. One faction claims that the Sphere Builders created the Delphic Expanse in nine days, while the other insists it was ten. In homage to the TOS episode, both factions have the same mark on their faces, but the colors are different and they're on opposite sides. And yes, the ending is the same.

*** {{Discussed|Trope}} in the two-part special "The Way of the Warrior" when the battle between ''Deep Space Nine'' and a Klingon attack force reaches a stalemate.

*** In the opening battle of the Dominion War, Dukat managed to capture Deep Space 9, but lost over fifty ships, let Starfleet take out a vital shipyard while the fleet was otherwise occupied, and failed to bring in reinforcements through the wormhole thanks to Starfleet blockading it with self-replicating SpaceMines that took months to get rid of. Oh, and just to set the tin lid on it, Starfleet was able to hold the combined Cardassian[=/=]Jem'Hadar fleet off long enough to evacuate all their personnel ''and'' [[SaltTheEarth comprehensively trash the station itself]]. Dukat being [[IRejectYourReality Dukat]], he was [[WorthIt perfectly fine with this]]... At first. [[TraumaCongaLine Retaking the station was the last time anything went well for him for some time.]]
*** {{Invoked|Trope}} in "What You Leave Behind" by the Female Changeling. GracefulLoser she is not. [[spoiler:Penned in by the allied fleets, now including the better part of the Cardassian military after a HeelRaceTurn sparked by her OrbitalBombardment of a city to quell a popular uprising, and near death from a biological weapon, she orders the Jem'Hadar to slaughter the entire Cardassian species. She only relents in exchange for Odo delivering the cure for the plague to the rest of the changelings, by which point 800 million Cardassians are dead.]]
----> ''"You may win this war, Commander, but I promise you, by the time it's over, you will have lost so many ships, so many lives, that your 'victory' will taste as bitter as defeat."''

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': Malcolm Merlyn's life post-Season One. Sure, he destroyed (half) the Glades like he wanted to, but the plan killed his son and ruined his reputation thanks to Moira outing him, along with the wrath of the then-Ra's al Ghul, his former master. His attempts to escape retribution from the League of Assassins goes very much the same way -- he manages to get off their shit list and even becomes Ra's al Ghul for a time, but it eventually costs him his daughter's love, the League itself, and one of his hands. By the time the Legion of Doom goes to recruit him, he's become a JadedWashout, little more than a thug desperate for his GloryDays.