TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Dark Horse Victory
(aka: Unexpected Third Party Win)

Go To

Dark Horse Victory (trope)
You shouldn't bring a knife to a fist fight, but you can bring a sock monkey to a dog show.
"A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph."
Benjamin Disraeli, The Young Duke

A Dark Horse Victory involves a third competitor winning in a competition with two major rivals. In many cases:

A common manifestation of this trope involves the protagonist of the story as the judge in a contest, forced to choose between two people, each of whom is extremely important to him (say, a love interest and a best friend or relative). He will often attempt to dodge the difficult decision by Taking a Third Option and ignoring both choices in favor of someone totally different (who may or may not actually deserve the honor).

Often, though not always, the third competitor who wins the award is a throwaway character completely out of the blue — who the audience may not have even known was in the competition until the end or, in fact, may have never seen before (or since) — or even an Inanimate Competitor. And even if they were seen, their performance may have been obviously inferior to either of the rivals, even after you factor in their rivalry. As a Dark Horse Victory requires a third competitor, an upset in a strictly two-potential-winner competition would fall under Assumed Win.

Obviously, this is Truth in Television. Sub-Trope to Non-Protagonist Resolver. Compare Slow and Steady Wins the Race.

Usually, there will be spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.


Example Subpages:


In-Universe Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • A variation is used in commercials, when a perennial also-ran in the market wants to raise its profile in the mind of the consumer. The commercial presents a story in which the top two brands are fighting it out, but the third brand pulls a surprise win. Rarely does this actually pull the company in question into the top two, but it can get it recognized as the underdog.
    • 7up did this, with Coke and Pepsi trucks drag racing and being overtaken by the 7up truck.
    • Snapple took this a step further by designing an entire ad campaign celebrating their status as the #3 beverage company in the U.S.—because "unlike #1 and 2, 3 knows not everyone likes the same thing"—never mind that the #1 (Coke) and #2 (Pepsi) companies also make more than one product.
    • DHL did a series in which UPS and FedEx drivers are in a race, but it's futile, because the DHL truck was ahead of them all the time.
  • A Super Bowl Coke commercial featured Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons of Stewie and Underdog are fighting (aka bumping into each other) in order to get that balloon of a coke bottle. Eventually, the bottle starts to float away, both characters turn and see a round shape on the horizon. It's actually Charlie Brown, who then wins the prize.

    Anime & Manga 
  • Dragon Ball:
    • In the Buu Saga in Dragon Ball Z, the contestants in the World Martial Arts Tournament included all of the Z-Fighters, the Supreme Kai and Kibito, and two humans powered up by Babidi's magic. The eventual winner? Mr. Satan. He faced off with Android 18 in the finals and wouldn't have stood a chance, but she secretly offered to throw the match if he was willing to pay her double the prize money.
    • The Universal Survival Saga of Dragon Ball Super ends not with Goku or Freeza being the last man standing but Android No. 17, since the former two sacrificed themselves to knock off Jiren and secure the win for Universe 7. Honestly, the main cast were as shocked as the real life audience was.
  • Dream 9: Super Collaboration Special!!: Mr. Satan ends up winning the fighting portion of the contest as Goku, Luffy and Toriko wind up destroying the ring and knocking themselves out of bounds, while Mr. Satan just barely winds up starting on the only patch of the ring still intact.
  • A filler episode of Fairy Tail shows one of the guild's many traditions, an annual 24-hour race among all active members. Jet is expected to win handily with his Super-Speed, as he has in previous years, so the primary competition is among Natsu, Erza, Gray, and Gajeel for second place; meanwhile, Makarov has introduced a new rule against the use of flight magic, apparently ruining Happy's chances. Jet is so confident that he takes a nap in the middle of the race; while he's still able to return to the front of the pack when he wakes up, the second-place pack is able to catch up just enough to grab onto him, dragging them all down into a tangled pile right in front of the finish line; they're so distracted that they forget to stand up and cross the finish line until everyone else has already beaten them to it. While Erza managed to sneak out of the pile and across the finish line with the rest of the guild, the remaining four ended up tying for last place. Meanwhile, first place went to Happy, who'd managed to avoid all of the sabotage efforts that the guild members had been throwing at each other, since nobody saw him as a threat. Second and third place went to then-newcomers Wendy and Carla, who had paced themselves throughout the race (with Carla given the same handicap as Happy).
  • The pilot episode of Fate/Grand Carnival features Nero hosting a mock-Olympics, with one of its competitions being a 100-yard dash. Atalante and Achilles hype themselves up to compete with each other, with several other racers being shown just as the race begins - only for the track to be crossed in a single step by the enormous Kingprotea, who until then had only made one appearance in the background when the contestants were being introduced.
  • During the final rounds of the Autumn Festival Arc of Food Wars!, everyone was so engrossed with the rivalry between Hayama and Kurokiba, and the fact that Souma is also in the finals was barely acknowledged. However, the trope ended up being subverted as, after the judges remarked that all 3 dishes were equally good, they declare Hayama as the victor. Still though, the fact that he did get into the finals despite his background puts Soma on the map as a cook not to be taken lightly by the rest of the school.
  • In the K-9 Dance Arc of Inubaka, rival stores Woofles and Wan Kaw each sends a representative to participate in a local tournament, hoping to achieve victory and increase their publicity. Suguri goes to represent Woofles, while Wan Kaw sends the incredibly talented dancer Yasmin. While Suguri and Yasmin manages to earn high points, the competition is eventually won by a blind girl.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Stone Ocean chronicles the battle between Jolyne Cujoh and Enrico Pucci. The winner? Emporio Alniño, a minor ally of Jolyne's who turns out to be the Sole Survivor of Jolyne's party after Pucci uses Made In Heaven to accelerate time and reset the universe.
    • Steel Ball Run is about a cross-country horse race, with the two main characters being Johnny Joestar and Gyro Zeppeli. The winner ends up being Pocoloco, a minor character who had no stake in the main overarching plot. Justified as his insane luck is emphasized at numerous points in the plot.
  • The victor of the Kengan Annihiliation Tournament in Kengan Ashura is Kuroki Gensai. He has no personal stake in the matches, is uninvolved in any of the larger conspiracies going on, has no tragic backstory, no flashy personality or audience popularity; he wins simply because he turns out to be the best fighter in the tournament.
  • The Grand Prix racing episode in Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. Instead of Kirby, Tiff and Tuff, or King Dedede winning the race, it was the Mayor who won who caught up being several laps behind.
  • In an episode of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, the Mermaid Princesses and Dark Lovers face off in a beauty contest, each side vaguely suspecting the other's identities. They all get beaten out by some random girl named Caren... who turns up again soon after, revealed to be not so random after all.
  • In Midori Days, Ayase and Lucy vie to win the school's female marathon event in order to impress Seiji. When Midori decided that she wants to take part too, the three crash and fall, allowing Nao to breeze past them and take the win.
  • Chapter 17 of Monster Musume has Miia challenge Meroune to a swimming race. While the mermaid is the obvious favorite, Miia does an excellent job of keeping up with her. However, it turns out that the heated pool isn't quite warm enough for the cold-blooded Miia and chlorine really does a number on Mero. So the winner is; Cerea, who was ignored for the entire race. For bonus points, she's a centaur, making her a literal dark horse.
  • During the Sports Day Festival mini-arc i My Monster Secret, Mikan, Shiho, Rin, Akane and Akari all competed ferociously (read: cheated and bent the hell outta the rules) to win the title of the MVP. At the end, the one who won is Youko, who simply wanted to have fun.
  • Naruto:
    • The Chunin Selection Exam reunites the protagonists and many genins from every ninja village to be promoted to a higher rank. It was canceled during the third trial when Suna and Oto suddenly assault Konoha. In the end, nobody reaches Chunin except Shikamaru, who gave up during the third trial thinking he had no chance of winning over his adversary, Temari; he'd outmaneuvered her and caught her in his Shadow Jutsu, but was nearly out of chakra and had no clear way to finish her off. Two ninja note that they thought it was a wise decision compared with Naruto (the main character) and Neji (considered the strongest Genin in the village) fighting until they were almost exhausted.
    • The omake Ramen Eating Contest leaves Naruto in third place, despite his being a Big Eater and ramen being his Trademark Favorite Food. Yamato, who doesn't like oily foods such as ramen, out-eats Narutonote  by one bowl, and Hinata wins after eating 46 bowls.
  • By the time the Grand Finale of Neon Genesis Evangelion has begun, the series has been revealed to be a battle between an Ancient Conspiracy called SEELE and its less evil offshoot, NERV. Both want to initiate the apocalypse because they believe humanity cannot survive otherwise. However, due primarily to the head of NERV's cruel treatment of his son, Shinji Ikari, and a startling number of Shinji's friends dying in horrible ways, Shinji himself ends up being the one to initiate Third Impact. And then, essentially, everybody dies. Hey, whoever said that a Darkhorse Victory was always funny or happy?
  • The Osomatsu-san episode "Iyami's Counterattack" features the entire cast racing for the title of protagonist of the series. By the episode's end, nearly all of the competitors have been killed, except for Iyami and Osomatsu, as well as Jyushimatsu who doesn't care about the race and took an extended detour early on that took him out of most of the action. In a major twist, the winner doesn't turn out to be Jyushimatsu, but Shounosuke Hijirisawa, who wasn't even shown competing up until the moment when he crosses the finish line. Hilariously, the very next episode actually does begin with him as the star, but proves to be so horrendously bad that it gets canceled and returned to the old format barely a minute into the first scene.
  • Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: In the Election Day Episode of Season 2, it ends with the ghost president being destroyed and Stocking losing the election, leaving the only contender, the duo's vehicle becoming the new president. It even manages to get Panty pardoned, due to her being its primary owner/driver.
  • This happens in Pokémon the Series every time Ash enters a regional championship after getting his eight Badges to qualify: When he goes over to the venue, the show will establish at least one rival to Ash, sometimes several. Ash always loses, his rival usually loses, and the winner of the championship will either be a minor rival Ash encountered for an episode or even just a portion of one, or some extra who was never onscreen or mentioned up until that point. Johto's Silver Conference takes this to the logical extreme: Ash loses in the quarterfinals to his rival Harrison. Harrison goes on to lose in the semi-finals to an unknown opponent. The winner is some random person named Jon Dickson, who is shown being given the big trophy and holding it up next to the other extras who placed 2nd and 3rd, and none of the three are ever shown or mentioned ever again.
    • Ironically, the show became so notorious for this that when Ash actually did win the Alolan League in Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, it arguably counted as a dark-horse victory in its own right, since most fans were expecting him to just lose yet again.
  • In a way, Negima! Magister Negi Magi's harem ended this way. After many chapters about Nodoka and Yue having to deal with loving the same boy and everything about Asuna and Chachamaru, the one who ended winning Negi's heart in the end was Chisame, of all people. To make it more hilarious, this counts as a Brick Joke when you remember that way back when Chisame was properly introduced, Negi is revealed to be a fan of her Online Idol persona, Chiu.
  • Ranma ½:
    • A filler episode features a go-kart race between many of the recurring cast, but Nabiki and Kasumi won by driving conservatively while the other racers got into one of their typical fights and finally blew themselves off the road (literally).
    • Another episode has Ranma-chan, Akane, Ukyo, Kodachi, Shampoo and Tsubasa enter a beauty contest organized by Nabiki for various reasons. The winner? Kasumi, who was acting as the assistant and not actually taking part in the contest.
  • Rune Soldier Louie has a filler episode where Louie and his mentor/rival Genie compete to see who can finish a race first. They spend so much time fighting that another rival's horse finishes first (A White one, to confuse things).
  • This is essentially how the protagonists' school advances to Nationals in Saki. The audience was expecting a titanic clash between Kazekoshi and Ryuumonbuchi, but a bunch of nobodiesnote  snatch the ticket.
  • Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle has Princess Syalis taking part in a Beauty Contest, with Hades, Poseidon, Demon Cleric, and Siberian joining while Disguised in Drag in a last-ditch effort to prevent the Princess from walking away with the grand prize, a powerful magical item (all the other entrants were zombies, making Syalis' victory a Foregone Conclusion if someone else didn't join). The eventual winner? Harpy, who nobody realized was even competing until she was announced as the winner.
  • In Super Dimension Fortress Macross, the Miss Macross contest appears to be in the bag for famous actress Jamis Merin, with Roy Focker going as far as suggesting that the whole contest was just a publicity stunt for her (or else she'd have been a judge rather than a contestant). Indeed, the novelization of Robotech explicitly portrays it as such. However, Minmay ends up winning, likely due to the fact that the audience is full of soldiers who frequent her restaurant.
  • Tenchi Universe has an episode where the girls enter a swimsuit competition, naturally with emphasis on the rivalry between Ayeka and Ryoko. Nagi wins with a last minute entry.
    • It became a semi-running joke in both Tenchi Muyo! and Tenchi Universe to have Ayeka and Ryoko (and sometimes the other girls) competing fiercely to tend to a wounded Tenchi, only to be beaten to the punch by Sasami when they weren't looking.
    • Played for laughs in the original OVA Tenchi Muyo series. In one episode, Ayeka and Ryoko are strongly competing to gain Tenchi's affections. It continues throughout the day and during the night when both girls try to sneak into Tenchi's room to make out with him. In the end, Sasami (who also has a crush on Tenchi, but is better at hiding it) is able to gain entry just by knocking on his door and asking to come in. Once Ayeka and Ryoko realize this, they try to rush into the room, only to fall into a trap which teleports them to the lake outside of the house. And then Mihoshi shows up.
    • Tenchi in Tokyo: the Third-Option Love Interest got the first ever animated kiss or declaration of love from Tenchi.
  • In Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs, during the Magical Water Gun contest, Yaya and Shion, who were ignored by everyone else, win after all the other girls eliminate themselves.
  • The ending of the YuYu Hakusho series is like this. The three demon factions competing for supremacy are Raizen's (led by Yusuke), Yomi's, and Mukuro's. Yusuke loses, but the fighting has weakened the others to the point where a relatively unknown demon (Enki, a former acquaintance of the deceased demon lord Raizen), uninterested in the factional fighting, wins.

    Comic Books 
  • Aggretsuko (Oni):
    • The original series' sixth issue, "The Carrier Cup," primarily focuses on two teams in the titular competition: Retsuko's and Tsunoda's. The other two teams (one headed by Ton and another composed entirely of minor characters from the original anime) are given comparatively little focus. When the final event rolls around, it seems as though Tsunoda will take home the gold... at which point one of the minor characters swoops in and wins out of nowhere.
    • "Rare Record" (from the Aggretsuko Super Fun Special) revolves around Haida and Komiya racing to buy the titular object before the other can, only for Haida's ex Inui to beat them both to it.
  • Archie Comics:
    • One issue had Archie as one of the judges of a swimsuit competition. Both Betty and Veronica manipulate him into promising them his support in the contest. Moose also intimidates him into supporting his girlfriend, Midge. In the end a fourth girl wins. Betty, Veronica and Moose are all about to pound Archie, but he defuses the situation by showing them his clipboard, proving that he did his best to help them by giving them all an "A" grade. His skin seems saved until the girl who won comes by to thank him for tipping the scale in her favor with a grade of "A+ ". The story ends with Archie running for his life.
    • Another Archie story involves a track meet between several schools. Riverdale finishes second in every single event while two rival schools alternate beating them out for first. In the end, however, Riverdale, thanks to all its second place finishes, wins the meet on total points.
    • Another story is sort of a combination of the above two. Every judge in a beauty contest votes for Ethel for second place because no judge wants to give points to someone who might beat his choice for winner (i.e. his own girlfriend), so she gets the most points overall. The judges' girlfriends are not happy.
    • Because they don't want to choose between Reggie and Archie for a school election, Betty and Veronica try to throw Jughead in for the sake of a darkhorse. He does win, but refuses to accept the title because he didn't want to run in the first place.
  • PS238: The students are supposed to vote between USA Patriot Act and American Eagle, two annoying, politically-supported heroes, for "Official Protector of Student Liberty and Guardian of Constitutional Values." Nobody likes either of them, so they all write in Tyler's name instead, figuring that it would be a good consolation prize to someone without superpowers. At first, the official candidates seem like they're going to be Graceful Losers (because they "support democracy", after all), but they later try to get Tyler disqualified on a technicality.
  • Rising Stars: Randy Fisk decides to run for President of the United States as the logical next step of his efforts to make the world a better place. His first two campaigns fail utterly, as he runs as an Independent, but then, on his third try, one of the frontrunners is caught up in a major sex scandal one week before Election Day... which only comes to light because the other frontrunner commits a felony by spying on him. When Election Day comes around, the public finds themselves choosing between an adulterer, a felon, and a superhero. Randy wins easily.
  • The Simpsons: Mr. Burns holds a competition to see who can improve the power plant, with the winner gaining a hundred dollar bill. Lenny tries setting up Christmas lights, which cause epileptic fits in everyone. Carl hands out hamsters, until they drink some runoff, grow to giant size and, naturally, become super-aggressive. In the end, Smithers gives the bill to Homer, who was asleep through all of this, simply because he did the least damage to the plant.
  • Street Fighter: In the Udon Comics series, Karin tries to use a hot dog-eating contest to trick Sakura into fighting her with a full stomach. As the contest degenerates into an actual fight when Sakura's friends from Rival Schools step in, E. Honda ends the contest by choosing the winner to be Karin's butler Ishizaki, who happened to have eaten more than the both of them combined.
  • The Transformers (Marvel): In the wake of Optimus Prime's death, the Autobots are debating who should become leader. Then, Trypticon attacks, and taking command of the situation to keep him at bay until he's called home for being too wasteful is someone the "council" wasn't even considering: the Dinobot commander, Grimlock. They unanimously vote him in. They come to regret this very quickly.

    Fan Works 
  • In Calvin & Hobbes: The Series, Elliot is elected class president at the end of "CALVIN FOR PRESIDENT!"
  • Cheating Death: Those That Lived: Several games ended in victors that no one could have predicted, but easily the biggest example was Snag Nakamura, who had a training score of one due to having cystic fibrosis that left him unable to walk without aid. Even Snag thought he stood no chance and only wanted to not be the first one dead, so he wheeled himself away from the Cornucopia as soon as the horns sounded. However, a poorly thoughout attempt by the head Gamemaker to make the games "explosive" meant the only items inside the Cornucopia were hand grenades, which, sparked by the District Six girl, who was suffering from withdrawl dropping one, resulted in a massive explosion that killed or horribly injured everyone else, so by the time the last other tribute tracked Snag down, he was already a dead man walking and Snag managed to successfully kill him.
  • Total Drama:
  • Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness:
    • The draw of the main story was Megas vs. Suika. It's safe to say no one in-universe was expecting Marisa, who wasn't anywhere near the battleground.
    • In the Extra Stage, Reimu, Marisa, Alice, Patchouli and Reisen engage in an authorized Mêlée à Trois in order to settle a massive argument between the five of them. Coop ends up the winner when, desiring to make them stop, he decides to "gift" them with Megas's Super Destructor Mode.
  • In The Keys Stand Alone, the main rivals among the Power Groups vying to take down the Black Tower are the Guardians, the Circle, and the Animals—all groups with thousands of members—with the Dark and the Focus lurking in the background as potential spoilers. So what happens? Out of nowhere, the four, who were explicitly added to the game as NPCs meant only to help one of the Power Groups win and have no infrastructure and almost no supporters, come up with all the pieces of the Ten-part Key very quickly and win the game.
    • The quality of those few supporters made a huge difference— one regular game master who fell in love with them, one player with a grudge against the Grand Game Master, the greatest wizard ever on the real planet where the virtual game was situated, and the AI running the game. Which made a whole lot of cheating possible on multiple levels, albeit with great care and subtlety.
  • In A Rose Blooms in Sorcier, Mary, Sophia, and Maria are all trying to ask out Catarina to the Rose Bloom Festival, an all-woman festival celebrating women friendship where a girl asks another girl to accompany them by offering a rose bloom. The girls all try to get Catarina alone so they can ask her, but also prevent the other two from doing the same. It ends up being Lady Francine, a minor character and classmate of Catarina, that ends up asking her to the Festival, with Catarina happily accepting.
  • Ruby Pair: In "My Fair Tenn", first place for the beauty pageant that the chapter is built around ultimately goes to GIR, who isn't even a contestant, because Beauticiatron finds him cute, and she's the one running the pageant.
  • 1-X: Bakugo was highly favored to win the Sports Festival due to being The Ace of Class 1-Y and placing highest on the Entrance Exam, Present Mic outright stating a special betting site has him as the one to win. Pony beats him in the first round of the finals instead, leaving everyone, including Midnight and Present Mic, stunned beyond belief, the latter even struggling to find words at what just happened.
  • The Victors Project: Frequently, whenever a tribute with a low score ends up winning the Games. This mainly happens with female tributes (with Johanna, Circe, and Cotton being the cited examples), but "the dark horse to end all other dark horses" is the male tribute Abram, who scored only a three during training. Even he seemed to be astonished at his own victory, and he's still not entirely sure how he did it years after he won.
  • The World of Looming Gaia: Project Starblast: In "The Looming Games", several divines, including very powerful and strong ones, fight to the (temporary) death The Hunger Games-style. After Saraia and Skylie both end up killing each other, the surprising winner turns out to be… Miliko, Divine of Vanity. Fortunately for Skylie and Saraia, they bet on him to win earlier and end up winning a lot of money for it once they resurrect thanks to how miniscule the odds in favor of him were.

    Films — Animation 
  • This happens in a nightmare that Lightning McQueen is having during his stay in Radiator Springs in the first Cars film. While they are competing for first during the tiebreaker race, he, Chick Hicks, and Strip Weathers get ambushed by a certain combine harvester. While McQueen and Strip dodge to the side, the combine harvester kills Chick with his header and crosses the finish line, earning the Piston Cup even though he wasn't supposed to even be participating. Watch.
  • The Shrek 2 bonus short "Far Far Away Idol" has multiple endings depending on who the viewer chooses as the winner. If you select anyone other than Donkey, Puss, or Shrek and Fiona as the winner, Simon Cowell will reject the result, declare himself the winner, and start singing My Way.
  • In Surf's Up protagonist Cody is up against Jerk Jock Tank in the finals, with Chicken Joe on the side basically oblivious to the fact that he's even in the contest. Tank's constant efforts to take down Cody result in Joe winning, much to his surprise.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The Best Man (1964) is about two candidates locked in an ugly battle at their party's presidential nominating convention. The more principled one gets ahold of what in 1964 would be a devastating smear: his rival may be a homosexual. But he's the more principled one. So instead of dropping the bomb, he quits the race and throws his support behind a lightly-regarded also-ran candidate, who winds up winning the nomination.
  • The Family Channel's made-for-TV movie Christmas Every Day features a take on this, where the main character rigs a jelly bean counting contest to keep his rival from winning later days of the film's "Groundhog Day" Loop, first himself, and then on the final repeat of the day a poor family that had only been briefly seen early on so they can win the prize.
  • Conclave: The victor — Cardinal Benitez — not only went into the conclave not expecting or even wanting to be named Pope (he in fact spends the whole film supporting another candidate), but none of the other Cardinals expected him to be either.
  • In political satire The Dark Horse, the two factions at a party convention are deadlocked over who to nominate for governor. One faction throws the name of amiable idiot Zachary Hicks into the ring in a bid to fracture the other faction's support. The other faction winds up swinging to Hicks out of spite. Hicks is nominated for governor, and despite being dumb as a fencepost, is elected.
  • Escape Room (2019): The Game Master admits that Ben, the only person to get through all the rooms in the traditional way, thus making him the "winner", was given the lowest odds of survival.
  • Exam: After staying, for the majority of the movie, out of the spotlight and being one of the most sensitive ones, Blonde is the one who wins, figuring out what's the question and having her paper completely fine.
  • In the 2007 Hairspray musical film, rivals Amber von Tussle and Tracy Turnblad are battling it out for the Miss Teenage Hairspray title (which Tracy wins in both the original film and the stage musical) when Link gets a spur-of-the-moment idea to ask Little Inez to dance (she was supposed to dance on the next Negro Day, and was devastated when it was cancelled) and she ends up winning in a last-minute surge of votes. Amber isn't happy, but Tracy is thrilled by this turn of events even though she doesn't get the title because not only does she see Inez as a Worthy Opponent, but it makes her the first non-white regular on the Corny Collins show.
  • High School Musical 3 has a supposed battle between Troy and Sharpay for a Juilliard scholarship (although Troy's application was submitted behind his back). The actual scholarship goes to Ryan and Kelsi.
  • Steve McQueen's classic movie Le Mans features a double dose of this. McQueen crashes his original car halfway through the race and is out. Then he takes over his teammate's car, and still finishes second to an almost unnoticed third Porsche. The German villain finishes third. McQueen famously flicks a playful 'V' sign to the German guy after the finish.
  • The documentary Murderball focuses on the rivalry between the USA and Canadian wheelchair rugby teams. At the 2004 Paralympic games, Canada beats the USA team. And then Canada still loses overall to New Zealand.
  • Not Another Teen Movie: During prom, the camera (and viewer expectations) focus on the protagonist and the Rich Bitch cheerleader. When the Prom Queen is finally announced, it's a tie between two conjoined-at-the-head twins.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End has a variant in-universe example: All of the pirates vote for themselves to become their leader—except for Jack (expecting this to happen), who votes for Elizabeth.
  • The Shoes of the Fisherman: Cardinal Kiril Lakota goes into the conclave not expecting to be elected Pope and pretty much no one else had either. He wins election as a compromise candidate after the conclave becomes deadlocked.
  • Smile concerns a beauty pageant, and while a number of the contestants are given a spotlight in the story, the actual winner is a character who wasn't featured at all. In fact, the girl given the most screentime doesn't even place.
  • A major plot in Stardust involves the princes trying to outdo each other at doing each other in to become king. The new king is the son of their sister, who had disappeared about eighteen years before.
  • In Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, the climactic race has hero Ricky Bobby and the antagonist Jean Girard competing so fiercely with each other that they ultimately get themselves disqualified. The winner of the race ends up being Ricky's best friend and perennial runner-up Cal Naughton, Jr. — much to Ricky's pleasure, and he finally treats his old friend like an equal.
  • In golf movie/Rom Com Tin Cup, you'd expect the winner of the US Open to either be main character Roy or his arrogant rival David Simms. Throughout the tournament though, occasionally a third golfer is mentioned who keeps getting closer and closer to the lead. In the final round Simms starts buckling under the pressure and once he gets behind, he plays too conservatively to catch up, while Roy effectively takes himself out of contention by obstinately trying to hit a near impossible shot that he is sure he can make, only to repeatedly hit the ball into the water. This leaves the third golfer to actually win the tournament. Fortunately for Roy, the film embraces the Second Place Is for Winners trope.

    Literature 
  • One book in The Baby-Sitters Club series had the various sitters and charges competing against each other to win a pageant. The prize went to a girl none of them knew, but who had been in pageants before and knew exactly what to do to win, in contrast to the charges, who were relying on their special talents. Although Myriah Perkins, the only BSC charge who had a realistic shot, did come in runner-up. Given that the second-place prize was a shopping spree at a toy store, while the winner got a savings bond and entry into another pageant, Myriah makes it clear she's perfectly happy with the outcome.
  • Fletcher Knebel's Dark Horse plays with this. There's a "dark horse", but he doesn't end up winning.
  • Davitas Harp: The yeshiva's top contenders for an overall academic award are Davita and a boy named Reuven Malter. It turns out that Davita deserves it, but the school won't recognize her because she's a girl and parents would stop sending their sons to the school. Reuven declines the award because he didn't really earn it, and it ends up going to some other male student, whose name we never hear.
  • In Parson Dimly's Treasure Hunt from the Fern Hollow books, Polly Prickles shows up on foot, while everyone else has some sort of vehicle—from a penny-farthing bicycle to cars. Even a fire engine gets involved! Nobody thinks she has a chance. Not only doesn't she fall afoul of any vehicular mishap—Brock Gruffy's car ends up in a river while Sigmund Swamp's penny-farthing blows a tyre and sends him into the drink—she's likewise unaffected by a massive traffic jam at Mr. Bramble's farm. By the time everyone else has sorted that mess out, she's won. She shares the prize though—a big hamper of food—as a picnic.
  • Though Haganai ends with Kodaka shooting down everyone in his Unwanted Harem, it's Yukimura, not Sena or Yozora, who gets to date him for a bit.
  • In the first section of The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School, a team from Drearcliff competes in an annual interschool scavenger hunt. It's widely regarded as a grudge match between Drearcliff and rival school Draycott's, whose team trounced them by underhanded means the previous year; the other teams aren't considered much threat — especially St Cuthbert's, a school of Upper Class Twits whose team always blows off the competition and goes on a pub crawl instead. After several chapters of close-fought contest between the Drearcliff and Draycott's teams, the contest goes in a resounding victory to St Cuthbert's, with Drearcliff coming a distant second one point ahead of Draycott's.
  • Harry Potter: Cornelius Fudge's election as Minister of Magic is heavily implied to be this. The two major favorites for the post were Albus Dumbledore and Barty Crouch Sr., but the former wasn't interested in running for it, and the latter suffered a massive drop in popularity after he sentenced his own son to Azkaban.
  • Young adult fiction example: in Here She Is Miss Teeny Wonderful, the plot mostly focuses on the tomboyish protagonist's rivalry with a pair of obnoxious, underhanded twins for the title of Miss Teeny-Wonderful. Naturally, they lose, but so does the protagonist. She does at least beat them, by placing second where they get third. The title goes to a girl the audience hadn't even met before.
  • How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: During the Succession Crisis in the Backstory, Elisha Elfrieden was a princess far back in the line of succession whose only magic was the ability to warn her past self of her impending doom. She chose to marry a minor knight, Albert, whom she saw trying to stop the bloodshed in every potential Multiple-Choice Future, and retired to the countryside with him... which accidentally led to them inheriting the throne after every other heir wound up dead.
  • John Putnam Thatcher: In Accounting for Murder, the combination of his natural incompetence and the bad publicity from the murder of an auditor guarantee that The Alleged Boss won't hold onto his job for long. His nephew and a couple of ambitious division managers consider themselves potential successors for the company presidency and occasionally behave accordingly. In the end, the job goes to the company controller, who has spent the entire book offscreen, wisely making excuses to avoid going back to the main office amidst all of the drama and police investigations.
  • Ōkami-san has a beauty contest in which Otohime and Mimi are competing. Mimi places dead last with 0 votes and Otohime gets only 1 vote, while a character who won't be important until later wins.
    • This was all Exactly As Planned by the other members of the Otogi Bank. Otohime's one vote was from Urashima, the guy Otohime and Mimi were fighting over in the first place, to remind her what's really important. The character who actually won was a ringer thrown in by Otogi Bank.
  • The heroines of Oreshura enter an "expressing your love" contest as a thinly-veiled culmination of their competition for Eita's affection. They all make uniquely dramatic and sappy performances, but they all lose to a random little girl who talked about how much she loved her dad.
  • Rainbow Magic: Throughout the Music Fairies' series, a variety of bands are shown during the music competition, most notably the villain Jack Frost's band, Frosty and his Gobolicious Band. In Sadie's book, the last one in the subseries, a girl group known as Green Factory, who hadn't appeared in any previous books, comes out of nowhere and ends up winning the competition.
  • Reign of the Seven Spellblades: In volume 10, Tim Linton is the surprise winner of the election for Student Council President, after he dropped everything to save the lives of underclassmen who fell into the arena during incumbent president Alvin Godfrey's Tournament Arc match against Leoncio Echevalria. Godfrey decided this execution of his own ideals, at significant personal risk and abandoning his own fight against Gino Beltrami, made Tim the most worthy successor he could ask for, and he nominated him at the last minute.
  • Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Liu Bei, Cao Cao and Sun Quan establish kingdoms and try to unify China. Eventual winner? Sima Yi's descendants, who established the Jin Dynasty.
    • Only really works on the surface, though. Cao Cao's kids who were chosen to rule seem to have been incompetent in some way or other, angering Sima Yi. Yi was fiercely loyal to both Cao Cao and his son Cao Pi, however. And the popular and effective heroism of Liu Bei and his Tiger Generals overrode much of the military success of Wu in peoples' minds. (Wu was much more powerful and had far more experienced generals and warriors. Shu was the 'Perot' in the mix, a peasant/militia army like the Americans at the time of the Revolutionary War.)
  • A Song of Ice and Fire:
    • A Storm of Swords: The election for Lord Commander of the Knight's Watch is won by someone who wasn't even running in the first round of voting (Jon Snow) because two major contenders give their support to him to prevent Smug Snake Janos Slynt from winning.
    • Fire & Blood: Due to the occasional misfortunes in Westeros history, often an unlikely person ends up being the one left standing. For example, Daella Targaryen was the least capable of all King Jaehaerys I's children (a Nervous Wreck suffering from severe learning disabilities), but it's through her children the family line continued. A few generations later, Daella's great-great grandson Viserys would become king, mainly because his four older brothers all died (three of them before he'd even hit puberty), and his last brother's sons died without issue.
  • Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online:
    • The second Squad Jam tournament is largely a fight of LLENN against Pito, with both of them killing anyone on their way to their final confrontation. After a suitably dramatic final battle, LLENN finally kills Pito... and then is shot by Team S-T, who had been hiding in a corner of the map for the entire tournament and been completely forgotten about. The people watching the tournament complain loudly.
    • The winners of the fourth Squad Jam end up being Team ZEMAL, a group of hotheaded and none-too-bright machine gun wielders. The climactic battle in the mall ends with LLENN and Fire, The Hero and the leader of the alliance of teams, respectively, as the only two left alive, and LLENN ends up getting taken out by the zombies that spawn if people stay still too long, while Fire resigns. This results in ZEMAL being the last group standing.
  • A more lethal variant than usual occurs in Warrior Cats. The whole first arc was focused on the rivalry between Firestar and Tigerstar. Then, when the final book of the arc, The Darkest Hour reached their final showdown, Tigerstar revealed that he had an ally named Scourge, who proceeded to kill both Firestar and Tigerstar. Fortunately, Firestar came back from the dead, or else Scourge would have ruled the whole forest.
  • This also happens in The Wheel of Time, when Egwene, a mere Accepted, is raised Amyrlin because the two main contestants fear the other might win. To most, she was supposed to be a puppet or a sacrificial lamb, but she turned out to be just as manipulative and stubborn as the rest of them and by the time they realized this she was already in power.
  • The Trope Namer is Benjamin Disraeli's novel The Young Duke, published in 1831. Disraeli's protagonist, the Duke of St. James, attends a horse race with a surprise finish: "A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph."

    Live-Action TV 
  • The "Final 3" on The Amazing Race tends to come down to two teams racing for the million dollars, while the third team has no chance at all of winning.
    • The First major and the most negative example happen in the first All-Stars in 2007. Most was expecting fan favorites Dustin & Kandice To win because of their dominance in the second half of the race. Charla & Mirna was also a decent team in their own right, was good with Airports and won back to back legs. Eric & Danielle bickered all season, avoided elimination multiple times and was dismissed as fodder. Because of a Luck-Based Final Roadblock, Eric was able to leave before Dustin & Kandice and pull out the win.
    • In Season 16, those two teams were expected to be Fan Favorites Jet & Cord and Scrappies Brent & Caite, with brothers Dan & Jordan just along for the ride. The fanbase was legitimately shocked when Dan & Jordan ran a perfect final leg to pull out the victory.
    • Season 21 featured this Final Three: Jaymes & James, who had run a strongly consistent race throughout, Trey and Lexi, who had a couple of victories and were likely the strongest team remaining, and Josh and Brent, who had never won a single leg and in fact faced elimination at least three times. While not a perfect run, Josh and Brent caught a couple of lucky breaks, claimed a victory in the last task and ended up winning the $1 million dollars.
    • Season 25 had four teams remaining. Adam & Bethany, a fairly strong team and the Fan Favorites to win. Misti & Jim was the most dominant team of the final four. The bumbling Brooke & Robbie managed to win the penultimate leg. Leaving Amy & Maya, who was Out of Focus for the first half of the season, nonathletic, didn't win any prior legs and would have left if not The Reveal that four teams was racing in the final leg. The All-female team managed to get a lead on the others and Quickly finish the Final Exam Finale first to barely beat out Misti & Jim for the win.
    • The very first season of the Asia version had in the finals Sandy & Francesca, who were very athletic; Andrew & Syeon, who were not as athletic but still a strong and smart team; and Zabrina & Joe Jer, one of the least athletic teams, who had never finished first and whose performance had declined during the second half of the season. In the final leg, Zabrina & Joe Jer suddenly came from behind, overtook the other two teams and pulled off the win, also becoming the first all-female team to win in the franchise as a whole.
  • For pretty much the entire eighth season of American Idol, nearly everyone declared that the winner would be either Danny Gokey or Adam Lambert. In the end, Adam beat Danny, but both were beaten by Kris Allen.
  • One episode of The Andy Griffith Show had Andy acting as judge for a beauty pageant. Everyone starts trying to do him favors so their daughters or themselves can win. When come time to decide a winner, Andy picks...an elderly old woman who was working on the pageant as she was the only one who wasn't badgering him about it.
  • In Disney's A.N.T. Farm, this trope is inverted in a way. Chyna and Olive were competing to try and lose the election. They were both hoping for the other one to win, because winning meant having to be shot out of a cannon. In a twist ending, Chyna's brother Cameron wins the election and is happy about it because he never wins anything.
  • Boardwalk Empire had Nucky go to the 1920 National Republican Convention in Chicago as par to the New Jersey delegation. He quickly realizes that the two front runners will deadlock and quickly makes a deal with Warren G. Harding's campaign manager to throw the New Jersey votes to Harding if the vote goes past the third ballot. Harding then wins the nomination on the tenth ballot and Nucky not only gets the support of the future President but also thwarts Senator Edge (who double crossed Nucky on a road fund bill) from becoming Vice President.
  • The Brady Bunch: Greg, a judge for the cheerleading tryouts, picks a third girl instead of either Marcia or his girlfriend. Marcia is very understanding and concedes that Greg made the right decision, but the girlfriend dumps him, leading Greg to conclude that she was only dating him so she could win the competition.
  • This happens on Brooklyn Nine-Nine in "Halloween III". Jake and Holt are competing with each other in the heist after Jake won the first year and Holt the second. In the end, however, they're both duped by Amy. This happens again the next year, when the three of them are outwitted by Gina.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Homecoming": Buffy and Cordelia are competing viciously for the title of Homecoming Queen and are then forced to work together to defeat some demons/villains on the night of Homecoming. They've put their differences behind them by the end of the night, and it's announced that there's a tie for Homecoming Queen!...between Holly and Michelle, two Spear Carriers whom you probably forget were also competing in this race.
  • In the Disney Channel Original Movie Camp Rock, Peggy, the girl that Rich Bitch / Alpha Bitch Tess has been belittling the entire movie, wins the "Final Jam" competition over Tess and main protagonist Mitchie (though Mitchie did get the guy in the end).
  • The Community episode "Intro to Political Science" focuses on an election for student body president. Most of the plot is dominated by the conflict between two frontrunners: Annie, who has a strong and meaningful strategy and focuses on the issues, and Jeff, who, in an attempt to mock the whole process, runs a deliberately style-over-substance campaign that never once discusses his actual plans. Towards the end of the episode, both of them (along with a number of other candidates) drop out, leaving only minor characters Magnitude and Leonard, whose campaigns consist of the words "Pop-pop!" and blowing a raspberry, respectively. Ultimately, the election ends with the student body having cast eleven votes, of which seven were for a write-in candidate: South Park. As in, the TV show. The Dean grumpily implies that this has happened before, and it's why he abolished student government in the first place.
  • Season one of Dawson's Creek has this with a beauty contest in which Joey and the Alpha Bitch compete.
  • "The Drew Carey Show":
    • In the episode Drew Vs. Mimi, Part II, the promotion to employee representative on the board of directors is looking like a dead heat between Drew and Mimi since Larry looked unprofessional and rude at the work luncheon with the staff and the candidates. Larry ends up taking the promotion because he was sleeping with Old Lady Lauder. It also overlaps with the other variation, since Drew is content that at least Mimi didn't get it.
    • In the fifth season episode Mr. Wick Returns, Drew loses his brief promotion to store manager and it looks like Mimi is about to take over after a successful trial run. She ends up losing it after a joke sabotage involving vibrating panties in front of the board of directors. Mr. Wick ends up regaining his former position as store manager instead of Drew getting it back. Similar to the other example from this series, Drew is content that at least Mimi did not get the promotion either.
  • In an episode of Eureka, this happens when voting for town mayor. The competition is between Lucas (Zoe's boyfriend), Vincent (Town cafe owner), and a new character who's a weatherman. Guess who wins. contestant #4, Henry (who didn't even know he was running.
  • In the Ever Decreasing Circles episode "Snooker", the ever competitive Martin is delighted to discover that his usually highly capable neighbour Paul is hopeless at snooker, and he eliminates him easily in the first round of the local pub snooker tournament. However, usual light comic relief character Howard's anger at being seen as a loser boils over after an incident at work, and he wipes the table with Martin in the final.
  • Season 3 of For All Mankind features a three-way race to Mars between NASA, the Soviet Union, and the private company Helios. Along the way, the Soviet ship is damaged and most of their crew are rescued by NASA, leading to a joint NASA-Soviet mission which manages to land on Mars before Helios. Except...at the end of the season, it's revealed that they were beaten by North Korea of all places.
  • In the Frasier episode "And the Whimper Is," Frasier fights for a Sea Bee award, but finds out that one of his three competitors is an esteemed talk show host, who is retiring and has never won the award. Frasier is momentarily thrilled to learn there is a tie, but of course, it is between the other two competitors.
  • Game of Thrones: In the end, the ultimate victor of the Game and ruler of the Seven Kingdoms proves to be Bran Stark, who is the Three-Eyed Raven now, never really took part in the politics or wars, and is one of the small few people who never wanted the throne. Indeed, this is actually part of the reason why he’s chosen; most of the remaining Houses and factions are more or less neutral on him which, combined with the fact that he’s carrying the wisdom of entire generations of kings in his mind, makes him a fairly safe, non-divisive choice for Westeros’ first elected monarch. For bonus points, he Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing, as another part of the reason he’s chosen is because almost all of the other viable candidates are either dead or in no state to rule.
  • Ghosts (US): The episode "Viking Funeral" has Alberta and Isaac run against each other for the title of "Ghost Representative". Isaac tries to win by enlisting the votes of the plague ghosts, only for them to vote for one of their own, leading to "Creepy Dirk" becoming the winner instead.
  • Gilligan's Island:
    • On 'President Gilligan', Mr. Howell challenges the Skipper for leadership of the castaways, so they hold an election. The final tally is Skipper — 2, Mr. Howell — 2... Gilligan -- 3.
    • On "Beauty is as Beauty Does", the women of the island decide to have a beauty contest, with the men as judges. The Skipper supports Ginger, the Professor supports Mary-Ann, and Mr. Howell supports his wife, leaving Gilligan throwing the deciding vote. Gilligan declares that all three women are ineligible to win the contest, since they're not native to the island, and gives the prize to a monkey.
  • In the Glee episode "Prom Queen", it's prom. The election of Prom King and Queen is of course Serious Business, and especially the Prom Queen candidates treat it like a matter of life and death. None of them win. Instead, Kurt is elected Prom Queen in a homophobic prank that apparently the whole school except his friends in glee club took part in.
  • The Golden Girls, episode "The Flu," sees Blanche, Dorothy and Rose fighting over which of the three of them will win the Volunteer of the Year award. Naturally, Sophia wins.
  • Greek, "The Popular Vote": It's Frannie vs. Casey for the Zeta Beta presidency, and they go positively Rovian on each other (though Casey takes the high road near the end). When the votes are counted, the winner is...Ashleigh, Casey's best friend.
  • Growing Pains: In "Michaelgate", a class election between Mike and the Big Jerk on Campus gets both candidates (and the vice-President of Mike’s rival) disqualified for cheating. This causes Boner (the perpetually dumb sidekick who won a coin toss to be Mike’s Vice-President) to be the only eligible person on either ticket left to win the election.
  • Hell's Kitchen:
    • Season 7 had the final four in Jay, who was considered the major favorite to win early on in the season, Benjamin, who while a scrappy, was consistent and could back up his words, Autumn, who had an underdog story going on and had seriously improved her attitude, and finally Holli, who while consistent, was Out of Focus thoughout the season. Many people were shocked once Holli won, over Jay in the finals no less.
    • Season 9 had the final two between Will, a chef who had established himself as the clear leader of the blue kitchen, as well as a strong cook who holds the distinction of never making a mistake on the line, while Paul, the other finalist, was more mistake prone and had actually been nominated for elimination before. To the surprise of many, Will completely lost control of his kitchen by having Krupa on the team, while Paul managed to do the impossible and get rivals Carrie and Elise to work together, the latter especially being impressive in that she was notorious for her constant refusal to be a team player, resulting in Paul winning over Will.
    • Perhaps a bigger example of this happened in Season 12. The three major front-runners were Jason, who was returning after failing to make it to the first service in Season 9 and showed great promise, Rochelle, who was very popular and consistent, and Joy, who while divisive, was still very good in service. No one expected Scott to end up as the winner, despite being nominated as much as Elise (although a good chunk of those nominations were the result of chefs like Ralph, Anton, and Joy throwing him under the bus).
  • Food Network had their annual Holiday Baking Championship. Eight bakers, one grand prize of $50,000. There were bakery owners, executive pastry chefs from high-end resorts...and one home baker. The home baker was a short, scrawny guy who managed a cafeteria in middle-of-nowhere Kentucky, had a mile-thick accent to match, and no formal culinary education, relying on recipes he learned from his grandma, mother, and aunts. He became the first home baker to take home the prize and has since been a judge on other baking competitions.
  • Jeopardy!:
    • The current version's first-ever Tournament of Champions from 1985 pitted the first season's fifteen undefeated champions against each other. Among the participants were Paul Boymel who won $56,200 on his original run and Elise Beraru who set the show's first one-day record with $23,800 and became the first champion to retire undefeated. Jerry Frankel, a musician from Buffalo, New York, put together a meager $32,650 during his five-game streak and had the lowest score among wildcard qualifiers in the semifinals. Nevertheless, Jerry would come out victorious after curb-stomping his opponents in Double Jeopardy! of his semifinal match and finishing tough in the finals by becoming the only player to correctly respond to Final Jeopardy! of the deciding game.
    • The 2014 Tournament of Champions finals included two celebrated contestants from the previous year: The controversial Arthur Chu, and Julia Collins, the winningest woman to ever play the game. The third player, Ben Ingram, had a solid but unspectacular 9-game win streak. It would be Ingram, however, who took the Champion title with a strong first-day performance.
    • The 1990 "Super Jeopardy!" tournament was the show's first all-time tournament that saw some upsets:
      • During the quarterfinals, Roger Storm, a 4-time champion from season 3 (1986-87) and a wildcard semifinalist in the 1987 TOC, defeated Tom Cubbage, the 1989 inaugural College Championship winner and reigning TOC winner.
      • Dave Traini, a 5-time champion from season 3 and a finalist in the 1987 TOC, defeated 1986 TOC winner Chuck Forrest, who was widely regarded as Jeopardy's first "great" champion, during the quarterfinals, and during the semifinals, he defeated eventual 1990 TOC winner Bob Blake, who had broken Forrest's 5-day record by winning $82,501 and became the first player to exceed the show's then-winnings cap of $75,000.
      • During the quarterfinals, 1987 TOC finalist Eugene Finerman defeated 5-time champ Frank Spangenberg, who recently shattered the show's all-time records by winning $102,597 during his tenure (which included the 1-day record of $30,600).
      • During the quarterfinals, Keith Walker defeated 1988 TOC winner Mark Lowenthal.
      • The tournament was won by Bruce Seymour, a 4-time champ from season 4 that narrowly missed out on the 1988 TOC semifinals, defeating 1987 TOC winner Bob Verini and the aforementioned Traini.
  • Episode 8 of Leonardo is about a painting contest organised by the Duke of Florence. It's presented as all about Leo and his rival Michelangelo. The winner is Leo's friend Tomaso.
  • Little Lunch: In "The Beep Test", Debra Jo—who is the one who hates the beep test the most—is the last one standing after Tamara sprains her ankle, Atticus makes himself sic, Melanie cramps her foot by attempting to force it into a too small cast, and Rory (who decides to run wearing an eyepatch) collides with Battie and takes them both out.
  • In an episode of Lizzie McGuire, the main character and Claire go against each other in a school election. The winner ended up being the third candidate Tudgeman, who only won because he ate worms in exchange for votes (which he even acknowledges in his acceptance speech).
  • Played with in M*A*S*H. Father Mulcahy turned out to have some gambling skills, and he used it to anticipate a game of bridge, by betting on Potter's and Winchester's partners, not the guys themselves. Fortunately, he used the winnings for charitable work.
  • The Masked Singer
    • In Season 6, while Bull and Banana Split were favored from day one (the former was even declared by judge Robin Thicke to be finale bound as early as his first performance), it was ultimately Queen of Hearts who won the competition. She even called herself this. It is downplayed however, as Queen of Hearts was still a fairly popular and talented performer.
    • Season 7 contained an arguably bigger example. The final 3 consisted of Prince, who proved himself able to handle various different styles of music without compromising any talent, Ringmaster, who was the favorite to win due to her powerful voice and talent of pulling off very difficult songs and Firefly, who ended up in a Duel (meaning she was in the bottom two in one round) and wasn't the favorite of her group. Going into the finale, many assumed Firefly would wash out in the first-round while Prince and Ringmaster would compete for the Golden Mask, yet in the end, it was Firefly who ultimately beat out Ringmaster in the final round to win the trophy.
  • In the Murdoch Mysteries horse-racing episode "Cool Million", the consensus of the fraternity is that, with the favourite murdered, Emmett Carmichael's horse is going to win, although many, including Inspector Brakenreid, think that Miss Hart's decision to enter her horse, Cool Million, changes things. Cool Million wins by a nose but is disqualified because Miss Hart was riding him herself. Carmichael's horse is also disqualified once he's exposed as the murderer. So the Disqualification-Induced Victory goes to the horse that came a distant third ... which Murdoch had bet on because he calculated that while it was less likely to win than the other two, the overall risk/return was more favourable.
  • Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide:
    • In "Spirit Week", Ned competes against Martin Querly for Spirit King, so he can be Susie's date, and eventually end up tied. In the end, neither of them wins, as instead the election goes to Loomer (who kept getting zeroes), for the sake of unintentionally saving the Spirit Stick.
    • "Elections" has Ned face off against two popular kids (Suzie and Doug)...and the weasel for Class President, and ends up in a four way tie last minute, with Coconut Head getting the deciding vote. In the end, it's the weasel who ends up winning, and the only one who did not cause Coconut Head any physical harm when begging him.
  • The Office (US): Michael, Jim, and Karen are all competing for a job at corporate, which goes to Ryan, who had been interviewing for the job in secret. This fact was not revealed until the tag at the end of the episode.
  • The scoring system on QI is so legendarily incomprehensible that it's nearly impossible to tell who is in the lead at any given time (even Stephen Fry, the host, often seems surprised when reading the scores at the end). However, what really makes this trope is the several occasions in which the studio audience won the show, due to having answered at least one question correctly while the panelists were all in negative scores.
  • In The Red Green Show episode "The Folk Art Convention" from Season 15, the "Adventures" segment features an ATV race between Bill, Winston, and Dalton. Dalton is essentially driving a riding mower, while Bill and Winston have faster, more powerful vehicles. However, they drive recklessly and ultimately run out of fuel just short of the finish line, handing victory to Dalton.
  • Remember WENN has an episode where Jeff and Scott competed for the "Golden Lobe" award.
  • RuPaul's Drag Race. By and large, the queens who win each season are also the ones who have the most main challenge wins. In season 9, RuPaul flipped the script, and the finale of the seasons became a sudden-death lip sync mini-tournament for the crown. This put the top four contestants by season's end on level ground, with often surprising results.
    • For example, at the end of season 9, walking art-school project Sasha Velour, despite a consistently high track record, became the first contestant to win the crown without the most challenge wins. In fact, she had two, against Shea Couleé's four, and Trinity Taylor's three. And Sasha's two wins were team wins with Shea, at that. Being Always Second Best during her season made her surprise win that much more of a shock.
    • And then there's season 11 and Yvie Oddly. She often placed high, only spent one time in the bottom two (a famous lipsync with Brooke Lynn Hytes that was so good, they were both allowed to stay), but she only scored one challenge win — a team win with Scarlet Envy during an acting challenge. Yvie Oddly still got a lot of attention based on her monstrous style of drag, and extreme flexibility while performing (brought on by Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome). This allowed her to hang in there until the finale, where she became the first person to win the crown off of one challenge win.
  • In the Scrubs episode "My Life In Four Cameras", each of the main characters is trying to win a talent competition to save a popular cafeteria worker's job... the cafeteria worker himself wins the contest. Except it turns out the whole episode was J.D. fantasising about Scrubs being like a happy-go-lucky sitcom where Status Quo Is God. The cafeteria worker loses his job in real life.
  • Seacht ended like this — after the characters spend the entire episode trying to win a music contract, complete with all sorts of blackmail and behind-the-scenes shaggery, the winner is somebody who had never appeared in the series before the last five minutes. Lampshaded when Brian asked who the f*** this was.
  • In an episode of Seinfeld, George has a chance to score a terrific apartment, but learns that the tenant board wants to give it to an Andrea Doria survivor instead. George works laboriously to prove that his life has contained more suffering and hardship than that of the shipwreck survivor. He succeeds, as his tales of the mishaps he endured in previous episodes leave the tenant board in tears. In the end, however, Elaine's boyfriend gets the apartment by giving the super a fifty dollar bribe.
  • On Selfie, the company holds a mud obstacle course. Henry and Freddy, who previously trained for the course together, end up stopping to fight due to their conflicting interactions with Eliza. This allows Charmonique to pull ahead and win.
  • Small Wonder, "Little Miss Shopping Mall": Vicki and Harriet (perennial rivals again!) both lose to Ellen Sue Beasley, whose parents own the shopping mall and are judging the contest. And it's a Crack Defeat too, since Beasley was clearly outclassed by Vicki.
  • The second season of Superior Donuts has Arthur run for president of the Business Owners' Association against Faws over the proposal to turn a local park into a parking lot. They have a debate with Sofia moderating. While they throw insults at each other, Sofia tries to keep the peace and even proposes a workable solution to the parking problem. When it dawns on the voters that she's the only one who's read the bylaws, they hold an impromptu vote then and there and elect her as the new president.
  • The Weird Al Show: Weird Al and perennial rival Uncle Bobby both lose the TV Host of the Year competition to senile, ukelele-playing puppet man Fred Huggins, another kids show host, which provides the Aesop for the story.
  • In the Welcome Back, Kotter 2-part story "Vinnie in Love", the Sweathogs are competing in a talent show as "3 Do's and a Don't". In the midst of rehearsals, Barbarino falls in love with a girl from another school and starts neglecting the others, which leads to their group being dropped from the competition. After talking it over, they get a second chance, only for the other acts to lose to someone who does bird calls.
  • On Welcome Freshmen, Erin Kelly is disgusted with the fact that a super-slick politician-in-training will likely become class president, with only disgusting slob Billy Cushman providing competition. She enters the race, but is immediately hit with so much negative campaigning that she eventually has no choice but to go negative in response. They both end up so damaged that Cushman wins.
  • The Democratic Primary in Season 6 of The West Wing was this. In-universe, the race was widely assumed to be a straight contest between the current Vice-President Bob Russell and former Vice-President John Hoynes, but the nomination eventually went to the little-known Congressman Matthew Santos.
    • Given some of his comments President Bartlett himself was one prior to the start of the series.
  • The Worst Year of My Life, Again: After Troy wins the cross-country race and gets his photo on the trophy next to Nicola, Alex attempts to use the 'loop year' to ensure that he wins instead. However, his messing with the time line cause neither himself nor Troy to win: with the victor being the one boy too slow to have been redirected by the detour Alex caused the rest of the runners to run into.
  • In Yes, Minister, Jim Hacker's ascension to Prime Minister boils down to this. The two frontrunners inside the party hated each other, so either winning would lead to internal strife - Jim, an unknown with no strong positions, was the safe choice. note  With that said, the civil service (who also benefited, as Jim was viewed as more malleable by his advisors) did organise a win in the press to get him in the public's mind before his appoint.
  • Zondag Met Lubach: In a segment lampooning how first-time buyers are being driven out of the real estate market by large investors, both foreign and domestic, there's a sketch showing an open house sale with many prospective buyers showing up. Then it turns out the house was already bought up by Pino.

    Music 

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Professional Wrestling does this with Triple Threat matches when one of the three wrestlers in the match has not been involved in a running feud between the other two, or is otherwise pushed into the match with an intentional lack of build-up. A recent example: Randy Orton, a textbook heel and then-WWE Champion, went into WrestleMania 24 defending his belt against John Cena and Triple H in a Triple Threat match. Triple Threats as championship matches are notorious for hamming up the defender losing a belt unfairly or without being 'properly' beaten, because one of the non-champions can win the belt by pinning the other non-champion. WWE even did a phone-poll for fan speculation on who would win the match, with Orton receiving an underwhelming five percent of the vote. Guess who won the match?
  • Dark Horse Victories are common enough in wrestling that WWE has begun successfully swerving the audience by letting the odds-on favorites win handily. The most visible example is WWE's recent years-long campaign to re-establish the #30 spot in the Royal Rumble as the odds-on favorite (since drawing #30 out of 30 had previously been, statistically, the worst chance to win the match) by having a streak of victories from the final entrants; meanwhile, Wade Barrett was built as such a foregone conclusion to win the first season of WWE's NXT show that his victory was a surprise.
  • Manabu Nakanishi's New Japan Pro-Wrestling 1999 G1 Climax win over the legendary Keiji Mutoh. Later, when he won the IWGP Heavyweight title in a bout wit the much younger Hiroshi Tanahashi.
  • Much to the joy of every internet Smart Mark alive, CM Punk held the WWE Championship, Daniel Bryan held the World Heavyweight Championship and Zack Ryder held the United States Championship simultaneously (at one point). All three (Punk and Bryan being indy circuit vets and Ryder being an internet darling (more so than the other two)) were widely seen as "not championship material" by management. Following their victories after the 2011 TLC pay-per-view, all three joined together to defeat Dolph Ziggler, Alberto Del Rio and The Miz in a tag-team match, and then celebrated with the crowd as the collective "People's Champions". A subsequent promotional video, using the song "Dark Horses" by Switchfoot, was made in recognition of this time of events.

    Puppet Shows 
  • The Book of Pooh: In a "Win Who Won Situation", Rabbit and Tigger compete in a race to see who's the fastest animal in the Hundred Acre Wood when neither of them can agree on who won the previous race (as each one had different recollections on what happened). By the time they get to the finish line, they find that Eeyore beat them there to tell them that they should have waited for him to say Go before they ran off.
  • The Dinosaurs episode, "And the Winner Is..." revolves around the dinosaur equivalent of a Presidential election, with Earl running as an everyman candidate against Corrupt Corporate Executive B.P. Richfield. The winner is Edward R. Hero, the political correspondent who anchored the election coverage, by a landslide write-in vote.
  • In the Muppets Valentine Show, Kermit has to fight a giant rat for Miss Mousey's affection. And then she goes with another guy with the cool motorcycle.
  • In a 1973 Sesame Street News Flash sketch, Kermit is reporting on the race between the hare and the tortoise. When the starting bell sounds, the tortoise plods away, while the hare, true to the story, relaxes by the starting line, telling Kermit he'll sprint to the finish after giving the tortoise a head start, the better to make the race interesting. Kermit heads to the finish line to cover the end of the race... and, in so doing, crosses the line before either of the runners and is declared the winner.

    Roleplay 
  • In For The Tyrants Fear Your Might, Ochiro Tayuki seemed unlikely to win the Osliam presidential election, being behind the two other candidates in polling, but thanks to fears of "Hand Biter militarism" from Idyllia and his performance in the last debates before the election he surprisingly won the presidency.
  • Survival of the Fittest's version 3 endgame (Spoilered for massive spoilers) ultimately subverts this. In this case, there are four competitors: J. R. Rizollo, Trish McCarrol, Lenny Priestly, and Louise "Lulu" Altaire. Lulu is obviously the odd one out here, only killing 2 people, both only out of revenge, not to mention she is massively outpowered by everyone else. Ultimately, she makes it to endgame, and puts up a brutal fight against one of the biggest killers in the game so far, J. R., going so far as to even cutting off several of his fingers. Unfortunately, he takes advantage of one of her flaring disadvantages, her glasses which she can't see without. This allows him to kill her, and he wins v3, subverting the expected trope (Trish and Lenny had both killed each other by this point).

    Theatre 
  • One of the shows in the late, great Adventurer's Club, the Balderdash Cup competition, involved a 'rivalry' between one character (Otis T. Wren) and another member (Hathaway Brown), who Wren sends on a Snipe Hunt before the competition. Both of them, however, almost always lose to a third contestant, on his "first night". Each of the other two have won at least once, though, as the contest is judged by the audience. While it's generally understood that the audience is supposed to vote for Bleehall, a group of guests colluded and threw the contest for Brown. And, on the very last night the club was open, Otis T. Wren finally won.

    Video Games 
  • This is the backstory to AI War: Fleet Command. Two human factions waged a massive war for centuries, but then the combat AI turned and beat them both.
  • In the Arknights event The Great Chief Returns, Gavial returns home to the Acahualla region just in time for the Great Chief's Ceremony, a trial by combat to decide who will lead the tribes living there. While she easily won the last one before she left, many powerful challengers have cropped up in the time since then, including her old friend and admirer Tomimi, Wrench Wench Eunectes and her weapons of war, and Flint, a Pint-Sized Powerhouse hailing from a tribe in the rainforest. Eunectes proceeds to decimate the competition with her Mini-Mecha, but Gavial destroys it once it gets out of control, claiming victory. However, since she'll be returning to Rhodes Island shortly after, she can't accept the position, and with every other notable contender deciding to come with her for their own reasons, the title of Great Chief ultimately goes to Inam, a merchant who never even entered the contest in the first place.
  • In Choice of Magics, Saint Twimsby is a kind-hearted healer and animal lover, but apolitical and frankly a bit simple-minded. If he becomes Hierophant after the death of the previous one, it's because the voting system allows electors three vetoes each, and he's the only one nobody bothers to waste a veto on.
  • In the Dragalia Lost event "The Hunt For Harmony", Luca takes part in the Vernal Banquet's Egg Hunt in hopes of winning the right to allow sylvan festivities to be celebrated by all, but he ends up having fierce competition in the form of Laranoa and Sylas. He also meets a younger sylvan named Fleur, who isn't as good at the egg hunt as the other three due to dedicating her skills to painting more than hunting. In the end though, Fleur wins the contest thanks to the other three deciding her reason for competing having more value than theirs and thus give her all their eggs and a quick ride back to the village on a dragon.
  • In Fallout: New Vegas, three factions are fighting over Hoover Dam and the city of New Vegas: Caesar's Legion, an army of raping slavers, Mr.House, a brilliant former businessman with his own robot army, and the New California Republic, a strong, rich, democratic republic from the west. The main plot of the game is deciding who wins by helping them take bases, screwing up their enemies intelligence, annihilating minor factions who are allied against them, etc. However, instead of helping any of the above, you can assassinate Mr.House and take control of his robot army. You can then use that robot army to defeat both the New California Republic and the Legion at Hoover Dam (after optionally dealing with the various raider groups and Legion bases around the Mojave) and take control of Vegas for yourself. It's not statistically the best ending (it ends with at least two "bad" ending slides and several neutral ones, as opposed to the NCR ending where all "good" endings are possible for everyone).
    • Depending on the player's actions, the downloadable content Dead Money can feature a significantly darker version of this trope. Throughout the questline, you've been trying to help the insane former Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel, Elijah, break into a massive pre-war casino which for some reason had numerous technological wonders like matter replicators and invincible laser shooting holograms in it, and an army of Ghost people guarding it. It's also surrounded by a huge red toxic cloud only called "the Cloud". When you finally get into the section of the Casino he was looking for (the one that lets him control the holograms and the flow of the cloud), he tries to pull You Have Out Lived Your Usefulness on you, and tries to kill you. However, you can convince him through a very specific set of dialogue that We Can Rule Together, resulting in a Non-Standard Game Over. Then, a little cutscene will play explaining how Elijah and the Courier unleashed the Cloud and the holograms upon the Mojave, which killed everything in their path. No living thing set foot in the Mojave for years after due to rumors of ghosts immune to gunfire and a red cloud that brought death in its wake. All that remained was Elijah and the Courier, waiting in the Sierra Madre for the world to begin again.
  • Fallout 4: The Minutemen are by far the weakest of the main 4 factions, having been barely saved from extinction at Concord by the Sole Survivor, and even before that most others consider them to be Good Is Impotent. If the Sole Survivor helps them build settlements and recruit troops, they can destroy the Institute by infiltrating it from an old disused tunnel, and optionally destroy the Brotherhood of Steel's airship using artillery emplacements.
  • A strange example occurs in Final Fantasy VII. When Sephiroth goes mad and it turns out Cloud had been taking on Zack's persona. The fights went like this: Tifa vs. Sephiroth, Zack vs. Sephiroth, and a random mook (not even a Class-Three SOLDIER) vs. Sephiroth. The winner of the first two is Sephiroth. The winner of the third fight? The random mook, who turns out to be Cloud.
  • Any sports management game (Football Manager and the like) will let you pull off this trope by taking charge of an unfancied team and leading them to glory, but the computer will sometimes pull this off itself, with competitions being won by the most unlikely or obscure of teams. The Internet is rife with tales of international minnows winning the World Cup, or lower-league sides winning cup tournaments.
  • In Grand Theft Auto IV and its DLCs, after bloody gang wars that were fought over it, the diamonds that has killed almost everyone who holds it was finally claimed in the end by a random hobo in Meadows Park who stumbled upon it by accident in a trash can.
  • At one point during Might and Magic VII, your actions as Lords of Harmondale lead to another war over Harmondale between Tularea and Erathia. There are two variations for how a victory is achieved (bloody war or negotiated compromise following skirmishes), but at first it might seem as if those are the only two contenders. Take the right actions, however, and a third victor is possible: You. If you get the Gryphonheart Trumpet and give it to the Arbiter, Harmondale becomes an independent buffer kingdom.
  • In Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, after the final battle, the Lord has united the continent, both holding control of the kingdom of Zenobia and The Empire of Zeteginea. In most of the endings, either Tristan, the heir to the throne of Zenobia, takes the throne, or he abdicates it in favor of the Lord, but in one ending, Rauny, the first female Paladin and the heir to the Zeteginean Empire, takes the throne in her own name, marrying the Lord to support her claim. This is the only ending where Rauny takes the throne, and she's not otherwise a candidate.
  • Similarly to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms example above, the Sima clan (considered their own faction of Jin as of 7) in Dynasty Warriors are the eventual winner of the warring between the three kingdoms, though they do so under the banner of Wei.
  • In Tyranny, the player character is an official who travels the lands of the final conquest of an evil overlord Kyros and executes justice in his authority. The conflict is based around two armies that participated in the conquest who now compete for the govenorship of the conqured province, while also clashing with the remenants of the conquered realms acting as rebels against the overlord's authority. In all endings the player himself comes out on top, suprising everyone, including the overlord himself. This is usually done by siding with one of the three factions throught the game and then siezing direct controll of the faction, ultimatly bowing to or defying the overlord using the power he aquires during the events of the game. The most radical example of this trope is the so called „anarchist“ victory. In this ending, the player doesn't side with any faction, but instead sizes the entirety of the game area by himself, destroys all other factions and proceeds to attack the Overlord's lands.
  • One of Undertale's neutral endings, if you kill every boss but absolutely nobody else, results in the Annoying Dog becoming ruler of the Underground. Somehow this works out pretty well. Notably, this is the only ending where you kill Papyrus and Sans doesn't call you out for it.
  • In The World Ends with You, the mission for Week 2 Day 2 requires the players of the Reaper's Game to win a Tin Pin Slammer tournament. Neku turns out to be something of a natural, but is totally outclassed by Shooter, who destroys him in the semifinal. However, because Joshua tampered with his pins, Shooter ends up losing the tournament to Sota, another player, who Neku and Joshua hadn't even met yet.

    Web Animation 
  • DEATH BATTLE!
    • Famously, the battle between Dr. Wily and Dr. Robotnik ended when Metal Sonic went rogue, sending the whole thing Off the Rails and ending with him killing everybody.
    • In a case of Dark Horse Loser, the battle between Scooby-Doo and Courage the Cowardly Dog ended in a draw with neither able to permanantly kill the other. However, they did team up to kill Eustace, the Jerkass among Courage's two owners.
    • In its spinoff series DBX, the battle between Daffy Duck and Donald Duck ends this way in the default ending: after shooting Donald dead with his own shotgun, Daffy is unceremoniously shot by a Zapper-wielding Bugs Bunny.
      Bugs Bunny: Ehh... Ain't I a stinkah?
  • In the (written, but not released) Homestar Runner cartoon "Soap Box Doiby", Homestar and Pom Pom compete viciously for first place. Marzipan, who isn't even revealed to be taking place in the race until the last second, ends up winning. (Homestar's usual rival, Strong Bad, winds up getting last place, however.)
  • Rocket & Groot: In part 4, Rocket enters a space race. Before the race begins, Rocket empties out the ship of anything that could slow him down. This includes Groot, who he tricks into an escape pod. Throughout the race Rocket is neck-and-neck with Blackjack O'hare. When the two get close to the finish line, Groot's escape pod smashes them both and crosses, making Groot the winner.
  • The SMG4 episode "MARIO'S CHALLENGE" features over 100 different characters competing to get to the top of the tower where Mario is, all to win what's in his box. There's a lot of suspense as to who will make it to the top and win the titular challenge, with focus being given to Luigi, Bowser and especially Meggy. The last shot of the final floor has the three, amongst a few others, racing to the elevator... only for the victor to be revealed as Shroomy, a character who had never been seen before. Even Mario is taken aback and confused about the result.
  • During the pre-tournament draw for determining preliminary groups for hololive's 2022 New Year's Mario Kart 8 tournament, as soon as it became known that Group B would have both of the previous two years' champions Aqua and Suisei in it every other talent started praying they wouldn't get drawn into that group. It only got more formidable once other strong players Towa and Pekora were also drawn into it, becoming termed a "Group of Death" as only the top three finishers in each eleven-person group advanced to the final and most fans thought there was little chance for anyone else in Group B to get through. When the day came, the top three finishers included Suisei, Towa...and Gura, who just beat out Pekora on the final race with a timely red shell at the final turn of the final lap and finished ahead of her by one point in the standings. Gura's performance was especially notable as her earlier races in the past year or so showed she wasn't that good, but had put in a lot of practice between then and the New Year's tournament. Gura ended up finishing fourth overall.
  • Fazbear and Friends (ZAMination): In the Hide and Seek game, Among Us manages to survive the game because it was camouflaged among the colored blocks on a shelf.

    Webcomics 
  • In the Batman: Wayne Family Adventures issue Assassin, the Bat kids are playing paintball assassin. At the end, right when it looks like Orphan is going to win for the second year in a row, Bluebird shows up and takes her out, winning the game.
  • Played for laughs and zig-zagged in 8-Bit Theater, when Fighter competes in a Drownball tournament, where the goal is to drown.note  Fighter is a favorite to win, as he competes wearing heavy plate armor. Despite this, he fails to drown, thus making his performance the worst of all the competitors. However, since that makes him the only surviving participant, he's made the winner of the tournament by default.
  • In Chapter 8 of Dating a Team Magma Grunt the titular grunt and a grunt from Team Aqua both enter into a Pokémon Contest to compete for Brendan's affection. Tobias note  won.
  • This was the protagonists' first true victory in Dubious Company. Izor sends the Imperial Guard to quash a rebelling town. The Guard puts down the rebellion in an overly nonsensical manner. The pirates later come in and take the Guard prisoner and sack the town. Given that the Imperial Guard has always curb-stomped the pirates before, this was a bit of a surprise.
  • Played for laughs in El Goonish Shive, with the card game tournament. The comic had been following several main characters as they play their matches... only for the winner to be Some Guy, a random background character who doesn't even have a name.
  • The "Blood on the Sand" arc of Ennui GO! centers on Izzy hosting a series of all-ages competitions, with the winning team getting a single wish granted by her. Captain Orca and his crew compete to see if they can get Izzy to tell them where Key Manati's fish girl population is, and much of the focus is on them and Izzy's friends competing; however, the winners end up being Izzy's nephew Max and his friends, who were largely ignored (both by the narrative and the other competitors).
    Noah: Ayo hol' up. Not that I give a shit, but how did THEY win?
    Izzy: Everybody else was too busy sabotaging each other to actually do well in the events. And nobody bothered fucking with the kids.
  • The webcomic Girls with Slingshots did this in a blogging contest between two characters: [1]
  • In Gunnerkrigg Court Andrew is named the Court's medium instead of Annie by the Headmaster's decision. Everyone was so certain who it would be that they start congratulating the assumed winner, who with false modesty expresses surprise, before they realize who was chosen.
  • In Kevin & Kell, Frank Mangle challenged the Herd Thinners C.E.O. R.L. for control of Herd Thinners. By the rules, the last man standing would be the C.E.O. That turned out to be Kell Dewclaw, who had only intervened to keep R.L. and Frank from killing each other.
  • qxlkbh: La Croix wins the election for Mayor of Citygradville in 133: election results, thanks to weird circumstances which nobody expected due to them previously having just 0.06% of the vote. note  This trope is called out by name in 134: dark horse victory and LC plays a game called Dark Horse III.
  • Dark Horse Defeat in Shortpacked!: Galasso warns everyone that someone will be laid off at the end of the holiday season. Ethan desperately tries to make sure it is the new guy they all hate, Faz, who goes, or at least not himself. At the end of the arc, Galasso announces that the employee to be fired... is a girl who has not once appeared on camera, spoken a line of dialogue or been named or referred to until this point, with vicious lampshading. This leads into Robin getting mad at the cop-out and trying to increase the comic's drama.
    • This character, "Sydney Yus," does return later as part of the forces Faz has assembled to lead his coup against Galasso.
    • This is also a gigantic parody of Tonight, Someone Dies.
  • In Survivor: Fan Characters, this happened in Seasons 5 and 9.
  • This Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic. "I have a fantastic attorney," indeed.

    Web Videos 
  • American High Digital: In "America's Next Top Student Messenger", the person picked to take attendance to the office is not any of the students who were fighting over it, but Ryan, who hadn't even appeared in the video until then.
  • Console Wars:
    • In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters episode, April O'Neil is on a dating game show with two bachelors; Shredder and Casey Jones. At the end of the episode, it is revealed that there was a third bachelor whom Shredder and Casey didn't know about because they were too busy trying to figure out which version of the TMNT Tournament Fighters game was better. The third bachelor is revealed to be Raphael, who made a real connection with April.
    • In The Great Circus Mystery episode, Pat and Dan find out that the SNES and Sega Genesis versions of the game have equal advantages over the other, with the SNES version having better graphics, the Genesis version having a better presentation, and each version having an exclusive level. They get a call from Mike to help them settle their dispute. Mike cites the Game Boy Advance version as being the best one, having all of the elements of the SNES and Genesis versions, as well as a save feature in place of the passwords, an improved character select screen, a language select, and an improved ending.
  • This Food Theory episode compares turkey and ham to decide which is the better meat for Thanksgiving dinner. After tallying up all the points, it concludes that the winner is ostrich.
  • The ball pit challenge in Kittisaurus features the cats competing over who can cross the ball pit obstacle course first, with each course being harder than the last due to an additional obstacle (silver string for the second, water trays for the third). You would expect Lulu, Lala or Dodo to win, given they are the most active and the biggest eaters. The winner is Chuchu and she won against all three of those cats because they were either too distracted or too hesitant.
  • When The Nostalgia Critic did an Old vs. New debate about Cinderella (1950) and Cinderella (2015), the tallies ended up being a draw, so everyone decided that the best Cinderella movie is Ever After.
  • Pokémon Friendlocke:
    • At the Elite 4 in Season 1, the remaining Pokemon are split into two teams (and Collin the Illumise), with the "B Team" consisting of the rejects who are intended to die fighting on the first attempt. They make it out with just one casualty (Forrest the Altaria).
      Oni the Weezing: We went in with the cannon fodder team and won.
    • After the first fight against Ghetsis in Season 2 saw a Total Party Wipe with the only 6 friends left being the weaker ones who weren't even coordinated to work as a proper unit against one of the most infamous fights in Pokemon. They managed to win without any further casualties.
  • In Strip Search, the fourth round of eliminations pitted Nick Trujillo against Mackenzie Schubert. The winner was Lexxy Douglass, whose comic in Elimination #3 had been so absolutely good that the judges couldn't bear to destroy it.
  • Dana Cardinal from Welcome to Night Vale wins the mayoral election, beating out the Faceless Old Woman and Hiram McDaniels, despite not having run for the position in the first place.
  • Youth & Consequences: Grace Ho wins the Student Council President, despite only becoming a candidate very late in the election and basically being an unknown in school, thanks to Lovable Alpha Bitch Farrah's support.

    Western Animation 
  • Used twice in The 7D, both times with Hildy Gloom and Snazzy Shazam.
    • In "Sleepytime," Hildy and Snazzy are in the running for Best Sleeping Spell, but the presenter gives the award to himself for putting most of the audience to sleep with his "spellbinding" performance.
    • In "Hildyrella", the winner of the Ultimate Supreme Sorceress Pageant is not any of the finalists, but Hildy's fairy godmother.
  • The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius:
    • In one episode, the school has a day where students and their parents compete together in sports events. Naturally, the focus of the episode is Jimmy vs. Cindy, both of whom cheat. However, at the end it turns out that every family was cheating except for Carl and his equally unathletic father, so they win by default.
    • In "Jimmy for President", Jimmy, Libby, Sheen, and Funny Foreigner exchange student Bolbi run for class president. After the former three try to pressure Carl into picking them to vote for, they end up getting disqualified for bribery, blackmail, and flying a blimp over school grounds without a permit, leaving Bolbi to win by default.
  • The Adventures of Lariat Sam story arc "The Great Race For Office Space" had Badlands Meeney running for sheriff of Bent Saddle. Sam runs against him, and they both become competitors in a horse race to decide the outcome. Sam rides his steed Tippytoes while Badlands rides his minion Bushwhack in a horse costume. Sam wins the race but he defers the sheriff position to Tippytoes, who went above and beyond to win. Badlands waxes philosophical:
    Bushwhack: Don't feel bad, Badlands. I would have voted for you.
    Badlands: That woulda made three, Bushwhack. Your one and my two.
  • All Grown Up!, "Rats Race": Tommy vs. Angelica (despite being cousins, they, too, are perennial rivals) in a go-kart race... but the winner is Harold.
  • Every Which Way But Lose, in the fourth season of American Dad!: both Francine and "Carlotta Monterey" (Hayley) are beaten by "Emmy Lou Sugarbean" (Roger) in the baking competition at Langley County Fair.
  • Angela Anaconda, Angela, Nanette and several other kids entered a bicycle race. The only kid who made it to the finish line was Josephine, who didn't crash into any other racer. Angela's best friend tried to comfort her with the fact Nanette also hasn't won. Angela said that it'd usually be enough consolation but she needed the money prize.
  • In the Arthur episode "DW Swims With The Fishes" Emily wins the swimming race because DW stopped to help James after his swim fin got caught on the pool rope.
    • In "Show Off" a dachshund wins the dog show after Killer and Sebastian the poodle both got disqualified (the former being distracted with a wind up mouse toy, the latter with roast beef and he ends up attacking a judge for it).
  • The Avatar: The Last Airbender crack chibi-short ‘School Time Shipping’ ends this way. Basically the entire young male cast (minus Sokka) are trying to convince Katara to go to the school dance with them. Aang, Jet, Haru and Zuko all try their hardest — but Katara admits she’s already going with someone else. The Blue Spirit! Zuko says “I didn’t see that coming” which is fitting, since the Blue Spirit is his alter ego!
  • Baby Looney Tunes: Bugs and Lola are racing Daffy in a toy car race, with Sylvester and Taz seeming only to make up the numbers (those two have to pool together their parts to put together an entry, even)... until Daffy's car bumps Bugs and Lola's car off the course, leaving the other car (Sylvester and Taz's) the only one to finish and win.
  • In non-baby Looney Tunes, the classic Bugs Bunny short "Ballot Box Bunny" has Bugs and Yosemite Sam as rivals in a small town's mayoral election. Both are beaten out by a literal "dark horse", who becomes "Our New Mare".
    Bugs: Dark horse?
    Sam: Mare?
    Bugs: Well, anyone wanna play Russian Roulette?
    [Bugs hands the gun to Sam. He pulls the trigger on himself, but it clicks, so he hands it back to Bugs. The short irises out and we hear a gunshot. The iris opens back up to reveal Bugs with the gun over his head.]
    Bugs: Heh! I missed!
    [The iris opens fully to reveal Sam Ash Face.]
    Sam: Ooooooooh, I hate that rabbit!
  • An episode of the cartoon Spin-Off of Beetlejuice had the eponymous character disguised as "Betty Juice" compete against Claire Brewster for class president. Even after some literal mud-slinging, BOTH characters lose to some unknown classmate.
  • Bromwell High did this when the school had a contest for the students to do presentations on social tolerance. In spite of all her efforts, including a multi-cultural interview show and parachut stunts, Natella doesn't win. And Keisha, in spite of throwing a gypsy boxing match, doesn't win either. The prize is awarded to the giner-haired Kylie, who didn't compete at all.
  • The CatDog episode "Climb Every CatDog" features Cat participating in a mountain climbing contest against Cat's arch-enemy Mindy, who has beat him in every competition since elementary school. The winner gets the mountain named after them. In the end, Mindy is hit by a flying bird with a bear holding on, thanks to an earlier CatDog mishap and CatDog finally reaches the summit of the mountain only to find that their friend Dunlap made it there before them. The real kicker, he wasn't even competing. He was only trying to return their earmuffs!
  • Daria:
    • Played Straight and averted when the Fashion Club are competing for a modeling contract along with a pudgy, redheaded background character. Oddly enough, she's not the Dark Horse—the contract winds up going to Kevin, one of the boys whom the modeling agency had asked to pose with the competing girls.
    • In "Arts 'n' Crass," the school has an art contest about student life. Most of the episode focuses on Daria and Jane's submission (a well-done but deliberately shocking take on eating disorders) and how they want to rescind it from the contest after Ms. Li alters it without their approval. At the very end we find out that Brittany's entry (which looks like it might have been done by a five-year-old) actually won, to Daria and Jane's amusement.
  • Dennis the Menace: In "The Backyard Band", Dennis, Gina, Tommy, and Jay form their own band and are entered in a talent show against Timmy, the son of a snobby entrepreneur who insults them. Mr. Wilson helps Dennis' band to practice and by the time of the talent show, the results are greatly improved, while Timmy performs a very off-key rendition of "O My Darling", which annoys everyone in the audience, except for his father. When the talent show ends, the judge gives the first place trophy to his twin nephews. Dennis' band gets the second place trophy, though, and give it to Mr. Wilson to thank him for being such a great coach.
  • Detention, "The Man with the Golden Brain": The smartest kids in detention (twin sisters, to boot) were disqualified from a Spelling Bee as one of them has butted into the other's turn.
  • Dexter's Laboratory: The Wacky Races nod episode had five of the racers jockeying for position to cross the finish line, only for the winner to be the police officer who had stopped the van of Mandark's hippie parents and took off out of control in it after activating a jet propulsion tank.
  • Played for Laughs in an episode of Doug which finds the titular Doug running against a classmate for student council treasurer. In the end, neither student wins the election and an adult businessman is elected to the student council due to Skeeter using leftover campaign materials from his uncle's failed campaign for city treasurer. Skeeter's uncle had the same initials as Doug.
  • One episode of Dragon Tales had the cast all take part in a pedal bike race. None of them won, with the winners instead being a pair of unnamed dragons who had appeared throughout the episode- though the episode more or less went with a moral on teamwork instead of dwelling on this.
  • DuckTales (2017): Scrooge's major plot in season 2 involves a bet made with Glomgold; whoever has more money at the end of the year gets the loser's company. The winner of the bet is Louie, who manages to trick Glomgold into handing the resources of both companies (as well as those of the villains Glomgold recruited) over to him. Ultimately, Status Quo Is God; Louie gives Scrooge back his company in the next episode, and Glomgold gets his own company back later on.
  • The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants has the second season finale end this way. Over the course of two episodes, George, Harold, and Melvin have been competing in an obstacle course that will give the winner the highest grade of the year and a scholarship to Eliteanati Academy. At the end, the three have reached a temporary truce and are ready to end the game...only for Erica to come in and snag the win at the last second.
  • On The Fairly OddParents! Timmy Turner invokes this trope, sending Cosmo (or rather, his disembodied head) into a race with two villains, figuring they would cheat each other but ignore him.
  • Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends:
    • Subverted in the episode "Room with a Feud". Several regulars compete for ownership of a room, but a friend who came out of nowhere named Peanut Butter ends up winning it....but only at the closing of the second act. The third act has the other competitors managing to get him to give up the room, and in the end, one of the regulars wins, though in the end it ends up being Status Quo Is God.
    • Also in an episode where Mac and Bloo were competing against a rival kid and his imaginary friend, at the end the winner was a previously unmentioned imaginary friend.
  • Futurama: Zoidberg rigs the Oscars to ensure this will happen twice in a two-minute span: first by listing Calculon among the nominees, and then by announcing the winner, "instead of any of those guys," is his uncle.
  • In the Gravity Falls episode "The Stanchurian Candidate", when the mayor dies Stan competes for the position against Bud Gleeful (under orders from his son Gideon) and Recurring Extra Tyler Cutebiker. While Stan ultimately wins, he's disqualified due to his extensive criminal record and the fact that he and Bud never actually bothered to turn in any of the necessary paperwork. The position goes to Tyler by default.
  • In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy Grim and Mandy face Billy and Irwin in a go-kart race. They are both close up to the final lap, but a series of supernatural events leads to both karts getting trashed, leading to a mysterious rider in a red wagon — revealed to be Pud'n — to win the race. After the episode constantly cut to the wagon barely going faster than molasses and even overturning at some points.
  • Inspector Gadget: In "Race to the Finish", both Dr. Claw and Gadget are disqualified (the former for cheating and leaving the grounds, the latter for being on police duty), resulting in the #17 car taking first place.
  • Kamp Koral: In "Hill-Fu", Sandy is able to curb-stomp all the competitors in the karate tournament. Prior to the battle, SpongeBob learns Hill-Fu from Nobby so he can stand a chance. After a big battle, he and Sandy end up tying, and agree to share the badge... and then Nobby appears, karate-chops them both, and claims the badge for him and Narlene.
  • Kim Possible:
    • Kim vs. Bonnie (vs. Ron...) in "Hidden Talent", see below under "Hey, at least the other guy didn't win" for details.
    • The very next episode was "Return to Wannaweep": Cheer camp at Lake Wannaweep. Bonnie vs. Kim again, this time, for the Spirit Stick. Your winner: A guy in a shark suit named Sharkie from a rival school. Bonnie and Kim both lost because they only cared about showing each other up, but instead both conclude that "Cheer camp stinks." Ron points out either of them could have won if they'd put their differences behind, but agrees with them for different reasons (he spent the whole episode ostracized for correctly suspecting Gil).
    • In "Exchange", Kim and Monique compete for the same Japanese Pretty Boy exchange student, who's seen macking on the Alpha Bitch, Bonnie, as he leaves for Japan instead.
  • One episode of King of the Hill involved Peggy, Nancy and Minh all running for the same seat on the school board, in hopes of restoring the after school programs that had been cut for budgetary reasons. They spend so much time undercutting each other that the seat is won by a ((The Fundamentalist fundamental]] moral guardian who plans on cutting the after school program anyway, along with geometry, biology and all "offensive" encyclopedias.
  • After an episode-long simmering rivalry in "Chain of Command," Lightning Lad challenges Cosmic Boy (who has been absent the entire series until just now) for leadership of the Legion of Super Heroes (2006), it's a quick-cut to the tallied votes, and Bouncing Boy wins instead, as the other plot of the episode was him learning to be a better more assertive Mission Control.
  • The Life and Times of Juniper Lee: In "Citizen June", June runs for class president against incumbent Melissa O'Malley. When June's hero duties prevent her from being able to give a speech, her friend Ophelia manages to save the occasion by giving a speech about how horrible Melissa is. This wins over so many people that Ophelia ends up winning the election for class president via write-in votes, despite not running. She, along with everyone else, is shocked by this.
  • Molly of Denali: In "Brand New Flag", Molly holds a town-wide contest to design a flag for the Trading Post. Overwhelmed with all the entries, she laters finds a flag design that she thinks is perfect, even though it has no name. It wins the contest. It turns out that Suki made it.
  • Monster High (2022): A major plot point in "The Haunted Sandcastle Caper" is Dracula determining who he's going to back in the upcoming wereruler election, with all the candidates vying for his favor and Romulus and Selena getting particular focus. After all is said and done, he ultimately ends up backing...Foxford, who up until that point wasn't even planning on running.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Played with this trope during the Running of the Leaves in "Fall-Weather Friends". After a lot of trickery in an attempt to get ahead of each other, Applejack and Rainbow Dash finished at the same time in last place. Then after they got over that shock, resident Squishy Wizard Twilight Sparkle walked up to them to reveal that she won... fifth place, a result that pleased her since it was her first race (she's read a lot about running and knew how to pace herself while most of the others ran themselves ragged.). The actual winner of the race was an unnamed pony.
    • The winners of the eponymous competition in "The Sisterhooves Social" are Berryshine/Berry Punch and an unnamed filly (nicknamed "Piña Colada"), with Rarity and Sweetie Belle coming in second.
    • In "Sparkle's Seven" the crown of the Sibling Supreme is a reward given in a Sibling Rivalry contest between Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor ever since they were young. Shining Armor challenged Twilight to one last contest to determine who keeps the crown and the title permanently. If she can find a way to get past all the defenses to the castle and steal the crown then she wins, but if she gets caught then he wins. The winner ends up being Spike, who always wanted to be considered part of their rivalry himself but felt ignored by them. He managed to steal the crown himself by manipulating events from the beginning and getting help from Luna behind the scenes, basically teaching their older siblings a lesson about listening to them.
  • In Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown, Charlie and friends don't win the big river rafting race that forms the plot of the movie... but neither do the three bullies and their mean cat. The upset winner in this case is Snoopy's little yellow bird friend Woodstock. What's more, until right before the finish Snoopy was racing with Woodstock in a makeshift tire raft when the cat pops it with his claw. Woodstock crosses the finish line in a little handmade twig raft (made on the spot), which means technically, none of the FOUR groupsnote  competing against each other for the entire race ultimately won.
  • In Peter Pan & the Pirates, the Lost Boys and the pirates compete in a race. Through most of the episode, the main focus is on either the competition between Peter and Captain Hook, or the twins, who have been fighting for the entire episode. In the end, Michael, who had been tailing dead last on a tricycle for the entire race wins, partly thanks to the twins who decide to bury their differences and fix up his tricycle after it crashes.
  • Pocoyo: Sleepy Bird manages to win a race that was only supposed be between Pocoyo and Elly. Granted, the two managed to break their own vehicles and were so busy combining their broken parts that she slowly passed by them unnoticed.
  • Ready Jet Go!: In "Asteroid Belt Space Race", Eggplant and Zerk, Zucchini and Moonbeam, and Jet, Sean, Sydney, Celery, Sunspot and Face 9000 compete in a race around the asteroid belt. Eggplant and Zerk end up winning the race because of their anti-gravity fluxinators.
  • Recess:
    • The A.V. Kid is leaving and uses a series of practical tests to find a successor. TJ and Vince are vying for the position. Initially fiercely competitive, they chose to set aside their differences during the final stage when their equipment malfunctions. They fix each other's projectors just before time runs out and are both successful. A.V. Kid commends them on their teamwork before handing the position to an obviously incompetent third candidate (who we've never seen before or ever see after, yet TJ and Vince apparently know him well), tangled up in the film, for his "independence" (Being a solitary job, the candidate had to prove that they could work without resorting to outside help).
    • This trope was averted in a later episode when Gretchen and Vince are running against each other for class president. Gretchen wins by one vote, which turns out to be cast by Vince after realizing that Gretchen actually had some good ideas and could make a difference, whereas he was treating it basically as a popularity contest.
  • Rocket Power: One episode focuses on a sandcastle contest, where Sam, a Teen Genius rival, and various other entrants make elaborate and difficult sand sculptures. In the end, the award goes to recurring character Mackenzie Benders, a bratty kid whose entry is about what you'd expect from anyone her age. Ray, one of the judges, notes that they had to give it to her—she was the only one who made an actual sandcastle.
  • An episode of Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat involving a writing contest entered by, among others, Sagwa and the daughter of a magistrate the Foolish Magistrate has a recurring prank war with, ultimately concludes with this trope. After the officials spend the entire episode messing up the contest, both Sagwa and the girl lose to an old guy...who had won the contest 48 years in a row prior to this one.
  • The Simpsons:
    • The series did this with the aptly named "Lisa's Rival", where Lisa replaces Allison Taylor's diorama of Edgar Allan Poe's The Telltale Heart with a bloody cow heart, but the guilt gets to her and she reveals Allison's real diorama (getting off the hook despite her feeble excuse), but Allison still doesn't win; Principal Skinner is unimpressed. Lisa does not think she deserves to win after trying to cheat, but she is still surprised when she does not win for a diorama of Oliver Twist. In the end Ralph Wiggum wins simply by putting Star Wars figures in a box. Lisa and Allison decide to be friends and even befriend Ralph despite his initial gloating ("I beat the smart kids! I beat the smart kids!")
    • By most measures, a convict would stand little chance of becoming a city's mayor. It happened in the episode "Sideshow Bob Roberts", when Sideshow Bob defeated the incumbent Mayor Joe Quimby. It was later revealed, however, that his victory was not entirely legitimate.
    • Played for Laughs in the episode where Homer goes to space. The episode begins with Mr. Burns about the announce the Employee of the Month; the rules say that everyone has to win it once, and everyone but Homer already has. Instead, it goes to "this inanimate carbon rod!"
    • In "I'm Dancing as Fat as I Can", Krusty the Clown holds a toy-shopping contest at the Hello Krusty toy store, where the winner gets to keep whatever toys they get. Bart, Milhouse, and Ralph are the three contestants. Bart first sabotage's Ralph's chances of winnning him by having him chase a butterfly (which Ralph believes is the spirit of his deceased grandmother), but he and Milhouse are both equally matched. As the boys head for the finish line, they crash into a pyramid of barrels of Krusty brand slime. Ralph emerges from one of the barrels, takes both Bart and Milhouse's carts, and crosses the finish line, winning the contest.
  • Two examples related to The Smurfs:
    • In the 1980s cartoon show special "The Smurfic Games", Hefty, Handy, and Clumsy are in a three-way tie when competing in the games, and so the final game, the Smurfathlon, is to determine who will be the winner. Hefty and Handy both end up ahead of Clumsy, but because Handy was swept off the track by an avalanche created by Gargamel reciting an incantation to activate the Artifact of Doom and Hefty goes to dig his friend out, Clumsy passes by the both of them and ends up as the winner, which nobody expected. Neither Hefty nor Handy had a problem with Clumsy winning since they both came to learn that winning isn't as important as friendship.
    • In The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow, Gutsy accidentally causes Brainy to be captured by Gargamel by scaring him away from a secret patch of smurfberries in Smurfy Hollow and ends up as the winner of the Smurfberry Hunt, but after Gutsy began to feel guilty for what he did to Brainy, he makes it up to Brainy by offering him the medal. However, neither Brainy nor Gutsy are willing to accept it, and so as they argue over who should get the medal, it slips out of their hands and lands around Lazy's neck, thus declaring him as the official winner.
  • In the Sonic Boom episode, "My Fair Sticksy", both Sticks and Dr. Eggman get nominated for an Awardy Award, which ends up going to Leroy the Turtle.
  • In The Spectacular Spider-Man, gorgeous Mary Jane gets set up with Peter for his school's Fall Formal. Peter is, unsurprisingly, called off on superhero business, but M.J. sticks around and winds up being elected Homecoming Queen, even though she doesn't attend that school.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants
    • "The Great Snail Race": Patrick's "snail" Rocky (a rock) wins a snail race ahead of perennial rival Squidward's pedigree snail in love with SpongeBob's pet snail, Gary (who crashed into the wall).
    • In "Slimy Dancing" Squidward inside Spongebob enters a dancing competition, and at first wins, but loses immediately when Spongebob reveals they're two dancers, disqualifying them as only one dancer at a time is allowed. It turns out everyone else cheated in the same way... except for Patrick, hence he wins.
  • Teacher's Pet (2000): In the first episode, "Muttamorphosis", Scott Leadready and Leonard Helperman both lose to the gross kid in class named Ian for class president. Actually, it's the usual ending for the requisite election episode on just about any show.
  • In Tiny Toon Adventures, Babs Bunny and Plucky Duck competed for who could end up in the greater number of photographs in the school yearbook. It turned out they both tied, but 'The Kid in the Orange Hat' was in the background of every picture either of them was in, winning easily. And that Kid turned out to be Buster Bunny in disguise trying to teach them a lesson; instead, they both proceed to rain violence down upon him.
  • In one of the endings of Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race the Surfers, who had previously lost but came back thanks to one of the other pairs leaving thanks to injury, first beat the Ice Dancers for a place in the final two and then beat their (the Ice Dancers') arch-rivals, the Police Cadets to win. Most of the fanbase was expecting them to come third with the final being between the Ice Dancers and the Cadets seeing as the latter two's rivalry had been built up all season.
  • Total Drama Island (2023): The second season's final episodes hyped up an epic Caleb vs Julia finale. The one who wins ends up being Wayne, who was also in the finale but got ignored by the other two in favor of each other, and managed to come back from an early last place and reach the finish line first.
  • Totally Spies!: The B-plot of "Soul Collector" involves the Beverly Hills Youth Spirit Awards, which Mandy is heckling Sam over due to her having an apparent gray hair (actually some gray paint). When the winner ends up being the school's lunch lady Mrs. Muckle for her years of charity service, Mandy is visibly crushed while Sam is a Graceful Loser, despite a momentary Face Fault.
  • We Bare Bears: In "The Money Man", Chloe and Saanvi Patel are competing against each other in a science contest with Chloe's invention that turns thoughts into visual images vs. Saanvi's Amaze Navi that can help find lost things and help with mazes to win a scholarship from Dr. Bean, an eccentric, Absent-Minded Professor. Chloe and Saanvi reluctantly decide to team up and combine their inventions into one to find Dr. Bean when he wanders off, only for the professor to choose "a basketball with a personality", which is nothing more than a jock drawing a smiley face on a basketball with a magic marker. As Chloe and Saanvi are wondering what to do next with their creation, the government comes and takes the invention away for their own.
  • Played with in the Talent Show episode of The Weekenders. Lor isn't competing against anyone in particular (thanks to Tish inexplicably not even qualifying for the competition), other than her own lack-of-confidence (and inability to remember that the lyrics to "Home on the Range" are NOT "where the deer and the cantaloupe play"). She gives a good performance, but loses to Bluke's "Incredible Flying Hams" act, which consists of him throwing ham in the air and running away, terrified.
    • This trope frequently crops up whenever the main characters are in direct competition with each other to provide An Aesop about the strength of friendship. The regular Darkhorse(s) who benefit are typically Bluke and/or Frances.
  • A Running Gag on WordGirl—anytime there's a competition among the kid characters, and especially if Tobey is trying to win it, the prize will go to Violet. Sometimes this makes a little sense, like when she wins because of artistic skills, but usually it comes out of nowhere.

Examples of the "Hey, at least the other guy didn't win" variation

    Fictional 
  • This essay on variations of the Kingmaker Scenario calls this "The Vendetta" — whatever the reason, Alice has adopted an attitude of "I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure Bob doesn't win". Alice no longer cares about winning the game — she just wants revenge on Bob.
  • This trope formed the basis of a Doonesbury storyline in the 1970s. A congressional race is going on between Ginny Slade, Lacey Davenport, and a corrupt incumbent. Ginny has the support of most of the cast, as well as a song written about her by rock star Jimmy Thudpucker. However, people are torn between her and Lacey, leaving the incumbent with the full support of his party and coming out ahead. In the end Ginny realizes that Lacey is really the more qualified candidate and withdraws from the race to support her rather than let the incumbent take the race. Lacey wins and serves in congress for many years in the strip.
  • The film The Ringer makes "the other guy didn't win" a plot point.
  • Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, "Hiccy Burp", sees Bloo and another imaginary friend named Blake Superior have a showdown with hiccups and burps (and yes, it's every bit as disgusting as it sounds) in a pageant. After some armpit noise making friend wins, The Tag shows him hiccuping while expressing how glad he is that Blake lost.
  • Hey Arnold!, "Grand Prix": Arnold, Sid, Stinky, and Eugene's go-kart (with Eugene behind the wheel) finishes second in a race. He's content with this, Sid and Stinky are mad they didn't win, while Arnold is glad that they at least beat Edmund and Wolfgang.
  • CatDog, "Climb Every CatDog": Cat is determined to beat his rival Mindy Wonderful at climbing Mt. Nearburg so that it will be renamed after him. Cat manages to beat Mindy, but it turns out that Dunglap was waiting at the top for him to give him his gear he forgot at the store. Dog takes it in stride, but Cat doesn't and breaks down crying.
    Dog: Cat, look at the bright side. Mindy isn't better than you anymore...Dunglap is.
  • Happens in The Fairly OddParents! when Mr. Turner wins the Miss. Dimmsdale pageant. Timmy is weirded out, but is relieved that Vicky did not win.
  • The Curse of the Blue Figurine: Discussed during an ongoing competition in the sequel The Hand of the Necromancer. Professor Childermass is a die-hard fan of the Boston Red Sox, and has a burning hatred of the New York Yankees. At the end of the book, during a game between the two, Professor Childermass surprises everyone by congratulating one of the Yankees on a good play... but then loudly points out that the Yankees are still six and a half games behind the Cleveland Indians, earning chuckles out of his friends and the other Red Sox fans nearby.
  • Rocket Power: In the episode "The Great Sandcastle Race", Oliver's team builds a fully-functional perpetual motion machine out of sand, but they only come in third place. The protagonists come in second with their recreation of the local beach pier, and the winner? The 5-year-old Mackenzie, who built a simple sandcastle - because it was a sandcastle competition, and she was the only one who actually built a castle out of sand. Sam's reaction to this is "at least we beat those nerds... those other nerds".
  • Kim Possible:"Hidden Talent": Bonnie and Kim (perennial rivals, of course) compete at a talent show, Bonnie performing ballet and Kim singing. Ron becomes a "last minute entry" just to stall for time so that Kim wouldn't be disqualified as a no-show (having been stuck in an elaborate death trap by Drakken). To get as much time as possible, he improvises a long series of different actsIncluding. Ron ends up winning, in Barkin's words "Proving that quantity is indeed better than quality." Kim isn't upset and is happy, rubbing Ron's victory in Bonnie's face.

    Sports 
  • One of the more common catchphrases of fans is "My two favorite teams are (favorite team) and whoever beats (favorite team's rival)". Example: "My two favorite teams are the Chicago Bears and whoever beats the Green Bay Packers."
  • Yes, the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Boston Red Sox in the 2008 ALCS, but the mere fact that they were both there means the New York Yankees finally missed the playoffs! Victory for Red Sox Nation! No, seriously.
  • The Dodgers and the Giants ARE this trope. Over the course of a bitter, hundred-plus year rivalry (which has seen them both move from New York to California), fans of both teams take nearly as much joy in playing spoiler for whichever one of the teams is in position to win the division or make the playoffs as they do winning for themselves. The Giants beat the Dodgers 2 out of 3 games to end the season and cost the Dodgers the NL West title in '91, only for the Dodgers to return the favor in '93. And both times, the eventual division winner were the Braves. And that's only one example out of many.
  • The 1973 World Series featured the New York Mets with an 82-79 win-loss record and a .509 winning percentage barely squeaking past the other NL East division teams with a series of wins in September, upsetting the NL West champion Cincinnati Reds with a 99-63 record and .611 winning percentage 3 games to 2 in the NLCS, only to lose to the Oakland Athletics in the '73 World Series, 4 games to 3.
  • San Jose Sharks fans did not mind missing the 2014–15 NHL Playoffs, as their mortal enemies, the Los Angeles Kings, missed the playoffs as well. Vice versa for Kings fans.
  • Arsenal fans cheered when Leicester City won the Premier League in 2016, as this prevented the hated Spurs from winning the league that year.
  • Barcelona player Gerard Piqué rooted for Juventus in the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League semifinal, despite facing (and defeating) them later in the subsequent final, as Juve faced none other than Real Madrid. It's safe to say that Piqué will cheer for any team that beats Real in any competition, even if the same team beats Barça or is above them in the league.
  • The aforementioned 2007 Formula One World Championship with the two McLaren drivers, double World Champion Fernando Alonso and hotshot rookie Lewis Hamilton, locked in a bitter rivalry for the title crown and ultimately losing to their Ferrari rival Kimi Räikkönen. In the final race in Brazil Alonso, despite ending second, appeared surprisingly happy on the podium to the point of smiling. He knew that Hamilton, with whom the relationship critically deteriorated, utterly failed.

Alternative Title(s): Zmelik, Unexpected Third Party Win, Lucky Third Party

Top

Buster Wins

Max, Monty and Buster are tasked with making sure the new racetrack is safe. The dump truck twins are confident that Buster doesn't stand a chance against them, only to be beaten by the steamroller when the former two have a little squabble.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (1 votes)

Example of:

Main / DarkHorseVictory

Media sources:

Report