History TheBadGuyWins / Literature

* ''Burmese Days'' U Po Kyin's plan to humiliate Flory and ruin his reputation with the other English in Burma succeeds spectacularly when Flory decides to commit suicide. Without Flory, the only other competition to join the [[ValuesDissonance European club as a native]], Dr. Veraswami, disappears from lack of support. U Po Kyin joins the European club. (Though in a bit of retribution, he dies very suddenly before he could work off the bad karma his evil deeds would have accumulated.)

** In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion,'' after the fifth battle in the Wars of Beleriand, [[BigBad Morgoth]] has completely devastated the armies of the elves, and shortly crushes all of their kingdoms into dust, reducing their domain to a tiny island off the coast and becoming the undisputed lord of all of Arda east of Valinor. It takes the intervention of the god-like Valar in the War of Wrath to even achieve a BittersweetEnding.
** It's worse in ''Literature/TheChildrenOfHurin'', even if the reader knows about the eventual intervention of the Valar. [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Glaurung]] may have been killed but he has caused Hurin's children to [[DrivenToSuicide kill themselves.]] Hurin unknowingly sets into motion events that will destroy two Elven Kingdoms. Though it is not in the book, Hurin ends up killing himself.

** No Valar intervention in ''Akallabêth''. Sauron manages to corrupt the Númenóreans' minds and causes eventually the destruction of Númenor, a paradise on Earth. To make things even worse, Eru - the Supreme Deity - does the actual destruction for Sauron. Yes, the physical form of Sauron dies with the cataclysm, but he reincarnates quickly. Unlike in ''Quenta Silmarillion'' the Valar ''do absolutely nothing'' to achieve even a BittersweetEnding. Note the last time the Valar intervened, it destroyed half the known world. The maps in the Silmarillion show that the world as of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' books used to be way off to the east, rather than the extreme west of Middle Earth. They thus swore never to directly interfere again, though they do send emissaries to help guide the peoples of Middle Earth; the wizards.

* Franchise/{{Star Wars|ExpandedUniverse}}:
** Michael Reaves's ''Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter'', naturally, [[ForegoneConclusion as it leads into]] ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'', although it is not necessarily obvious to readers unfamiliar with Star Wars: Lorn Pavan eventually runs into a prominent senator and hands him the info about the Sith conspiracy, so he dies content when Darth Maul kills him. Unfortunately, the senator was Palpatine.

* ''Literature/NoCountryForOldMen'': Anton Chigurh not only kills the hero's wife, but also escapes town through a massive shootout and only gets a broken arm for his trouble. Plus, a bad guy kills the hero unseen, and on top of it all the cop fails to find Chigurh and retires.

* The seventh volume of LightNovel/TheUnexploredSummonBloodSign has [[TheHero Kyousuke]] create the Colorless Little Girl, an artificial summoned being, to defeat his nemesis the White Queen. The Girl actually manages to pull it off... or so it seems at first. The Queen reappears, having somehow survived her apparent destruction, and reveals that this was all part of her plan. She claims that the Girl will, as a result of defeating her, be warped into an even greater monster than the Queen was. To stand against this new threat, Kyousuke will have no choice but to [[EnemyMine work together with the Queen]], which was her goal all along.
* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'': Despite the combined efforts of the entire world, Othinus gains her full power as a Magic God and immediately destroys the universe. This is ''not'' the end of the series, however. The main character Touma manages to survive (thanks to his [[AntiMagic power]]) and the next book details his efforts to fight back. In the end, he's still unable to defeat her. However, Othinus realizes that, because of their shared experiences, he's now able to truly understand her as a person. This was her goal all along. She relents and restores the world to its original state.

* The ''Literature/TheCrewOfTheCopperColoredCupids'' short story ''The Resurrection of the Wellsians'' ends with the reveal that everyone else in the plot has been the Wellsians' UnwittingPawn this entire time: even the heroes come to investigate were actually called by them so that they could make their escape aboard the heroes' own spaceship. Which they do.

* In Creator/CTPhipps' ''[[Literature/TheCyberDragonsTrilogy Revenge of the Cyber Dragons]]'', EvilMentor Snake arranges for the destruction of the Legion AI as well as a massacre of the Elysium resort with [[NiceJobBreakingItHero our heroes unwitting help]]. This turns out to have been designed to provide the US government and Atlas Security plausible cover for a WarForFunAndProfit as well as eliminate their political opponents.

* In Creator/CTPhipps' ''[[Literature/CyberDragonsTrilogy Revenge of the Cyber Dragons]]'', EvilMentor Snake arranges for the destruction of the Legion AI as well as a massacre of the Elysium resort with [[NiceJobBreakingItHero our heroes unwitting help]]. This turns out to have been designed to provide the US government and Atlas Security plausible cover for a WarForFunAndProfit as well as eliminate their political opponents.