History YouHaveFailedMe / StarWars

** It gets even worse when you read various stories from the old Expanded Universe which showed that Vader would kill you for failing him, but the Emperor would not only kill you in any number of agonizing ways — as Lemelisk could attest — he would also [[AndYourLittleDogToo kill your entire family]]. One story from ''Tales of the Bounty Hunters'' took it even further by implying that even if Vader would off underlings for many reasons, he always had a definite reason for killing them, but the Emperor... he would straight-up kill for pleasure, something that Vader '''never''' did.

** In others, [[PragmaticVillainy he's evil, not stupid]]-- while he's brutal to those whom he's decided are useless, "the last time" was ''never'' the first time; you had to screw up habitually, badly, or in Ozzel's case, ''both''. According to ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'', Ozzel was a [[TheNeidermeyer Neidermeyer]] who loved to [[NeverMyFault blame subordinates for his own mistakes]] and kept his job mainly through family connections, meaning that Vader was looking for any excuse to get rid of him. Indeed, in ''[[Literature/StarWarsAllegiance Allegiance]]'', Mara Jade asks Vader to keep an eye on then-Captain Ozzel, with the implication that his promotion to Vader's flagship is Vader's way of doing exactly that. Vader was certainly harsh, but he wasn't ''completely'' unreasonable; if your failure was the result of something that you had control over (e.g. you didn't utilize resources properly, you gave up too quickly, you had poor judgement, [[RunningGag you were Admiral Ozzel]]), then you said goodbye to your trachea. However, if the failure was a result of something that you had no control over (you lost a battle because of unexpected enemy reinforcements), he'd let you live, but you ''damn well better'' learn from that mistake, or suffer the consequences. This would seem to be the intended characterization from the films, as seen when Vader ''didn't'' kill Piett when the ''Falcon'' escaped. In this case his trap failed because R2 arrived with Luke and repaired the sabotage to the ''Falcon''-- something that Piett couldn't have expected, and was in fact partially ''Vader's'' fault because he'd drawn Luke there in the first place, and just locked R2 out and let the droid go instead of destroying him.

** In Season 4's [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS4E02InTheNameOfTheRebellionPartII "In the Name of the Rebellion"]], by the Death Trooper commander as neither she nor the freighter's captain want to tell Krennic the Rebels have absconded with the kyber crystal.
-->'''Death Trooper Commander:''' We've retaken Hold 6, Captain. The cargo is gone.\\

** Towards the end of the series this is strongly implied by Thrawn towards Governor Pryce after she ends up destroying most of the planet's fuel supply in an attempt to kill the escaping rebels, which had the effect of [[NiceJobFixingItVillain indefinitely stalling production of the game-changing TIE Defender fighter]]. This is [[EpicFail a blunder so colossal]] that unlike the sole example of him doing this in ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'', he is visibly ''seething'' with so much rage that he [[PunctuatedForEmphasis can't even use full sentences]].

* The trope name originates from ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', and possibly the most famous instance: Darth Vader's PreMortemOneLiner "You have failed me for the last time" before choking Admiral Ozzel to death for botching the fleet's approach to Hoth. If you listen, it's possible he says it through clenched teeth behind his mask. Ozzel had brought the Imperial fleet out of hyperspace too close to Hoth, which gave the Rebels enough advance warning to activate their shield generator and begin evacuating before the fleet was in position to attack. Ozzel's death deserves special mention, as Vader wasn't even in the same room and killed him ''over the intercom/viewscreen'', promoting Ozzel's subordinate Captain Piett to Admiral before Ozzel's body hits the floor.

* ''Literature/LegacyOfTheForce'': After Jacen Solo falls to the dark side and becomes Darth Caedus, he follows in his grandfather's dark footsteps by killing Lieutenant Patra Tebut in a fit of anger after she unwittingly allowed a Jedi team to board his star destroyer and retrieve his and Tenal Ka's daughter Allana. Admiral Niathal informed Luke Skywalker of the murder but was unwilling to oppose Caedus openly at that point. Skywalker was not particularly surprised that the murder happened. Caedus actually regretted killing Tebut because it did nothing but deprive him of a good officer and hurt his standing among the rank and file, and led other good officers to defect to Niathal's faction. The regret doesn't stop him from snapping people's neck, and Caedus's sister Jaina later finds out that medical officers and droids always know when Caedus killed someone as the victims necks are invariably broken.

** The best examples of Thrawn's management style can be seen after the heroes manage to escape being caught in a tractor beam. He had the officer manning the tractor beam station executed, but ''only'' after he quizzed said officer about his performance and the officer's answers confirmed Thrawn's initial hunch that the man was impossible to salvage due to his incompetent and insubordinate nature. When it happened ''again'', Thrawn grilled the replacement officer in the same way, but ''this'' officer's description of how the trick was pulled off and how he ''almost'' managed to counter it resulted in Thrawn deciding the officer acted to the best of his abilities, ''promoting'' him, and telling him to keep looking for a way to counter the maneuver so that their tractor beam emitters don't eat any more proton torpedoes. And in a later story, the maneuver ''is'' countered, suggesting that he eventually succeeded.
*** Basically, the first officer failed to counter the heroes' maneuver and then tried to blame the training his superiors gave him. The second one saw the heroes' maneuver, made a conscious decision to deviate from standard protocols in an attempt to counter it, and took responsibility for his actions despite knowing that Thrawn had the previous officer executed.

* The trope name originates from ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', and possibly the most famous instance: Darth Vader's PreMortemOneLiner "You have failed me for the last time" before choking Admiral Ozzel to death for botching the fleet's approach to Hoth. Ozzel had brought the Imperial fleet out of hyperspace too close to Hoth, which gave the Rebels enough advance warning to activate their shield generator and begin evacuating before the fleet was in position to attack. Ozzel's death deserves special mention, as Vader wasn't even in the same room and killed him ''over the intercom/viewscreen'', promoting Ozzel's subordinate Captain Piett to Admiral before Ozzel's body hits the floor.

** The new ''Star Wars'' Expanded Universe has this in the form of Operation Cinder, a "contingency plan" ordered by Palpatine in the event of his death. Far from being some form of retribution against the Rebellion, instead it's one final act of spite against the entire galaxy and the Empire, using special climate satellites to devastate hundreds of worlds, ranging from Rebel-held systems to loyal Imperial planets, all for the simple "crime" of being unable to protect him and, in Palpatine's twisted, [[ItsAllAboutMe self-absorbed mind]], proving itself unworthy of existence.

** In ''Series/ObiWanKenobi'', Darth Vader spends much of his screentime trying to rein in [[PsychoPartyMember the Third Sister]] by not-so-politely reminding her that if she up with the renegade behavior and fails once too many times, he ''will'' kill her. And he nearly does after one particularly colossal screw-up (letting Obi-Wan and a Rebel spy infiltrate the Nur Fortress itself and rescue a prisoner), practically ''charging'' into the Fortress meeting room to throttle her [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness in an entirely uncharacteristic display of emotion]] and only relenting when she reveals she managed to plant a tracker on the escaping heroes. That being said, it's notable that Vader ''also'' explicitly and genuinely states that he'll reward success at the same time he's threatening punishment for failure; his standards are utterly insane by most definitions, but he does try to incentivize his underlings to work harder and succeed with more then just death threats.

* Subverted in an issue of ''ComicBook/StarWarsMarvel1977''. An Admiral Giel meets with Vader to dissect the result important mission, in which a Rebel infiltration squad led by [[TheHero Luke Skywalker]] destroys the Empire's latest superweapon. Giel, noting that no amount of preparation could have anticipated the Rebels' successful infiltration gambit, refuses to be blamed for the catastrophe, but nevertheless accepts the responsibility for the loss and stands prepared to receive his punishment. Unlike with Needa, Vader is impressed with this display of frankness and integrity and lets Giel live — though he still demotes him down to Lieutenant as punishment.

** The second season [[UpToEleven cranks it up even further]]; when a cargo transport radios for backup as the heroes have captured all but the bridge, Gideon's response is to calmly state that there is no reason to send reinforcements at this point, and that he instead suggests the surviving crew [[TakingYouWithMe kill themselves and the enemy by purposely crashing the transport]] as penance for failing. The unspoken implication being that if they ''don't'' do so, then Gideon will make them ''wish'' they were dead. The ship's captain certainly believes Gideon can make good on that threat, as he immediately shoots his helmsmen and tries to dive the ship into the ocean, and when he is stopped from doing so, he kills himself with a SuicidePill rather than live to report his total failure to Gideon.

* As ''ComicBook/StarWarsLegacy'' shows, the Sith are pretty big fans of this in general, at least in the Legends continuity. It’s made clear they tend see anyone who’s not a fellow Sith or related to them as [[AMillionIsAStatistic expendable and interchangeable]], so their attitude is pretty much “if I kill this dude who’s failing, a new dude will replace him and maybe won’t screw up”. The result, of course, is that most of the stormtroopers and imperial officers hate them, with most only serving out of fear or loyalty to the Fel Empire, which the Sith forcibly took control of. Special mention has to go to [[AxCrazy Darth Azard]], who seems to brutally kill subordinates for failure [[UpToEleven in every single scene he’s in]]. At one point we see him chop one poor guy in half [[DisproportionateRetribution just for getting]] [[JediMindTrick mind-tricked]].

* He does it ''again'' to the hapless Captain Needa before the film's even halfway done, despite the man having the foresight and backbone to personally apologize to Vader for losing track of the ''Millennium Falcon'' (hence Vader's line "[[BondOneLiner Apology accepted, Captain Needa]]"). Needa's expression when he tells his men that he's going to apologize personally to Vader tells the whole story; he ''knows'' Vader will kill him — [[TakeMeInstead but if he takes the blame]], [[HeroicSacrifice none of his underlings will]].
* Ultimately subverted by the end of the film when the ''Falcon'' escapes to lightspeed. Piett visibly braces himself as Vader strides toward him, only to brush right past, either because he knew it wasn't Piett's fault or because he was too depressed about losing his [[LukeIAmYourFather son]] to kill any more underlings today, possibly both.
* Despite his reputation, Vader's preference for using this trope is something of a {{Flanderization}}. While he's certainly not someone you would want to work under as evidenced by the fact he ordered his fleet into an AsteroidThicket that resulted in at least one Star Destroyer ''losing its bridge tower'' to a flying rock, he only kills Ozzel and Needa for screwing up, and spares Piett even when everyone in-universe and out expected him to go three for three. As far as ExpandedUniverse materials are concerned it really [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on who's writing him]]:
** In some works he's a madman who will kill anyone at the drop of a hat; even if you did nothing wrong, being the guy standing nearest to him when something goes wrong or even when he's just in a worse mood than usual could mean an early grave. Very competent, very irreplaceable high-ranking Imperials lost forever for things they could have done nothing about? Very much a thing. People trying to avoid promotion because you stay beneath his notice if you value your life? Ditto. Only dumb luck decided whether or not you will be one of the few who actually survives working for him, and as far as the Rebels are concerned Vader becoming the leading cause of death for high-ranking Imperials is the ''best thing ever''. This is one explanation for why the TIE fighters didn't hesitate to chase the ''Falcon'' into that AsteroidThicket; the pilots knew damn well simply breaking off pursuit would be an instant death sentence from Vader. ''Tatooine Ghost'' at one point noted that Vader's reputation was so bad the only people in the galaxy ''more'' scared of him than the Rebels were the Imperial officers serving directly under him.
** In others [[PragmaticVillainy he's evil, not stupid]] — while he's brutal to those he's decided are useless, "the last time" was ''never'' the first time; you had to screw up habitually, badly, or in Ozzel's case, ''both''. According to ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'', Ozzel was a [[TheNeidermeyer Neidermeyer]] who loved to [[NeverMyFault blame subordinates for his own mistakes]] and kept his job mainly through family connections, meaning that Vader was looking for any excuse to get rid of him. Indeed, in ''[[Literature/StarWarsAllegiance Allegiance]]'', Mara Jade asks Vader to keep an eye on then-Captain Ozzel, with the implication that his promotion to Vader's flagship is Vader's way of doing exactly that. Vader was certainly harsh but he wasn't ''completely'' unreasonable; if your failure was the result of something you had control over (e.g. you didn't utilize resources properly, you gave up too quickly, you had poor judgement, [[RunningGag you were Admiral Ozzel]]), then you said goodbye to your trachea. However, if the failure was a result of something you had no control over (you lost a battle because of unexpected enemy reinforcements), he'd let you live, but you ''damn well better'' learn from that mistake, or suffer the consequences. This would seem to be the intended characterization from the films, as seen when Vader ''didn't'' kill Piett when the ''Falcon'' escaped. In this case his trap failed because R2 arrived with Luke and repaired the sabotage to the ''Falcon'' — something that Piett couldn't have expected, and was in fact partially ''Vader's'' fault because he'd drawn Luke there in the first place and just locked R2 out and let the droid go instead of destroying him.
** It's noted in one of the novels that the fastest way to promotion in the Imperial Navy was to get yourself assigned to Vader's flagship, the ''Executor''. The flip side of that coin is, as Captain Pellaeon says, this meant the crew of the ''Executor'' was entirely staffed by people who were either hypercompetent or very lucky (Vader was known for strangling people [[ShootTheMessenger who delivered messages to his quarters while he was in a bad mood]], so the crew drew lots whenever someone had to do that, with the honor going to the loser), since they were the only ones who survived, which meant that when it was destroyed at Endor the Empire lost the best of the officer corps along with it.

** Justified for once in ''[[VideoGame/RebelAssault Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire]]''. Vader Force Chokes an officer telling him "You have failed me for the last time - you will ''not'' have the opportunity to do so again." Note that this officer A) lets a Rebel sabotage team onto Vader's command ship, B) is unable to capture them when the alarm is raised, C) still fails to capture them after Vader orders the internal security doubled and the ship locked down, and D) lets the Rebels jack a TIE Phantom prototype that blasts its way out of the ship, sending the main reactor into meltdown as they leave. And even THEN, Vader only snaps his neck when he orders the ship disengaged from the space station it is docked with and the Captain can only blubber that they can't. At that point, Vader looks almost ''saintly'' for the sheer amount of patience he has for the incompetent idiot.

** Bevel Lemelisk, lead designer of the Death Star, was executed by Sidious having him EatenAlive by piranha beetles as punishment for overlooking such a massive design flaw... and then brought back to life with a clone body and [[BlackMagic Sith Alchemy]] because despite this mistake Lemelisk was too much of an asset to throw away. Sidious proceeded to make a point of [[AndIMustScream executing and resurrecting Lemelisk]] every time something went wrong with the Death Star II's construction, with [[CruelAndUnusualDeath a new and unique method of execution]] every time. The punishments we learn about are the aforementioned piranha beetles, getting ThrownOutTheAirlock, lowered inch by inch into a vat of molten copper ("It was what the smelter used that day."), and being chained in a drive tube while the engine was slowly powered up. This happened ''six times'', meaning there were two more punishments that we never learned the details about. When the New Republic finally got ahold of Lemelisk and sentenced him to death, his request to the firing squad was that they "do it right this time." At least Vader is business-like about killing you; Sidious will make sure you ''suffer''.
** It gets even worse when you read various stories from the old Expanded Universe which showed that Vader would kill you for failing him, but the Emperor would not only kill you in any number of agonizing ways — as Lemelisk could attest — he would also [[AndYourLittleDogToo kill your entire family]]. One story from ''Tales of the Bounty Hunters'' took it even further by implying that even if Vader would off underlings for many reasons, he always had a definite reason for killing them, but the Emperor... he would straight-up kill for pleasure, something Vader '''never''' did.

** This is what Count Dooku tells Ventress when [[spoiler:he "fires" her from the services of the Separatists]]. The truth is that Sidious realized Ventress was being trained to help depose him, and ordered Dooku to get rid of her as a show of loyalty.

** First, a terrified officer, Lieutenant Mitaka, reports to Kylo Ren on how BB-8 and Finn have escaped aboard [[spoiler:the ''Millennium Falcon'']], the man fully expecting to be killed. Instead, Ren ignites his lightsaber and [[PercussiveTherapy slashes a computer wall to pieces]]. When he's finished, he quite calmly asks "anything else?" as if nothing had happened. He does Force-choke the lieutenant when he starts to explain that BB-8 and Finn had the help of a girl (Rey), but Mitaka is seen later, shaken but still alive.

** In the [[Recap/StarWarsResistanceS2E18TheEscape finale episode]], [[spoiler:this proves to be true, as Kylo Ren runs out of patience for Tierny and Pyre's repeated failures to re-capture the Colossus. He holocalls them and uses the Force to make them [[PsychicAssistedSuicide almost shoot each other]] to prove his point... before he lets them go. At the end of the episode, after Team Fireball gets away, Kylo makes good on his threat and holocalls Tierny again and begins to Force-choke her to death for messing up one too many times.]]

* Ultimately subverted by the end of the film when the ''Falcon'' escapes to lightspeed. Piett visibly soils himself as Vader strides toward him, only to brush right past, either because he knew it wasn't Piett's fault or because he was too depressed about losing his [[LukeIAmYourFather son]] to kill any more underlings today, possibly both.

** Played with in ''VideoGame/RebelAssault'' Rebel Assault II the Hidden Empire. Vader Force Chokes an officer telling him "You have failed me for the last time - you will ''not'' have the opportunity to do so again." Note however this officer; A) Let a Rebel sabotage team onto Vaders command ship B) Was unable to capture them when the alarm was raised C) Still failed to capture them after Vader ordered the internal security doubled and the ship locked down D) Had the Rebels jack a TIE Phantom prototype that blasted its way out of the ship, sending the main reactor into meltdown as they left! And even THEN, Vader only snapped his neck when he ordered the ship disengaged from the space station it was docked with and the Captain could only blubber that they can't. At that point Vader looked almost ''saintly'' for the sheer amount of patience he had with the incompetent idiot! Failed for the last time indeed!

** Operation Cinder is mentioned by name; it was Mayfield's last mission with the Empire. Most of the men he served with (somewhere in the neighborhood of ''ten thousand'') died, in addition to countless civilians. It's not explicitly mentioned that it was just Palpatine's last act of spite, and the officer who was in charge of that portion of the operation claims it was all for [[TheNeedsOfTheMany the greater good]]. [[spoiler:Mayfield soon snaps and shoots him, and tells Mando that he had to do it in order to be able to sleep at night]].

** First, a terrified officer, Lieutenant Mitaka, reports to Kylo Ren on how BB-8 and Finn have escaped aboard [[spoiler:the ''Millennium Falcon'']], the man fully expecting to be killed. Instead, Ren ignites his lightsaber and slashes a computer wall to pieces. When he's finished, he quite calmly asks "anything else?" as if nothing had happened. He does Force-choke the lieutenant when he starts to explain that BB-8 and Finn had the help of a girl (Rey), but Mitaka is seen later, shaken but still alive.

** Operation Cinder is mentioned by name; it was Mayfield's last mission with the Empire. Most of the men he served with (somewhere in the neighborhood of ''ten thousand'') died, in addition to countless civilians. It's not explicitly mentioned that it was just Palpatine's last act of spite, and the officer who was in charge of that portion of the operation claims it was all for TheGreaterGood. [[spoiler:Mayfield soon snaps and shoots him, and tells Mando that he had to do it in order to be able to sleep at night]].

* Subverted in an issue of the original ''ComicBook/MarvelStarWars'' comics. An Admiral Giel meets with Vader to dissect the result important mission, in which a Rebel infiltration squad led by [[TheHero Luke Skywalker]] destroys the Empire's latest superweapon. Giel, noting that no amount of preparation could have anticipated the Rebels' successful infiltration gambit, refuses to be blamed for the catastrophe, but nevertheless accepts the responsibility for the loss and stands prepared to receive his punishment. Unlike with Needa, Vader is impressed with this display of frankness and integrity and lets Giel live — though he still demotes him down to Lieutenant as punishment.

* ''Series/TheMandalorian'': Moff Gideon [[EstablishingCharacterMoment makes his big entrance]] by ordering his [[EliteMooks Deathtroopers]] to shoot ''through'' the Client and his men as punishment for being fooled by a particularly obvious trick by Mando and his allies. Shortly afterwards, we learn that Gideon may just rival Darth Vader in terms of this trope, as he casually executes an officer for ''[[DisproportionateRetribution interrupting his speech]]''