The Bad Guy Wins

It's not that horrible.

"They say, 'Evil prevails when good men fail to act.' What they ought to say is, 'Evil prevails.'"

— Yuri Orlov, Lord of War

We're all used to heroes winning out over the bad guys. The bad guys get theirs, justice is done, and the heroes walk away happy. Sometimes things are a little more bittersweet, but we at least expect the villain to lose in the end. One can even get away with a Downer Ending where it ends badly for the heroes, but many of these kinds of endings are "nobody wins" affairs where everybody pays the price (fatally or not). Even if the villain wins in these kinds of endings, it's usually at great enough personal cost to the villain that they are utterly ruined as a result.

Not so with this ultimate of Downer Endings. The Bad Guy Wins is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: complete and ultimate triumph for the villain, and complete and utter devastation (frequently with death or worse) for the hero or heroes who dared to oppose them. A bad guy who wins is a Karma Houdini by definition, and such endings can frequently be depressing as hell itself — even more so than your regular Downer Ending. When this trope is parodied, it is the happy ending stuck on for the villain instead which is despairingly from the hero's perspective.

History has plenty of examples of this trope, especially in stories of failed rebellions against a powerful empire or recountings of real life tragedies. But in Fictionland, when this kind of ending shows up, it's often used either as a hook for a sequel that will give the hero (or a new hero) the chance to succeed where they failed in the first one, or as a way of showing how much of an utter, hopeless Crapsack World that the characters live in — particularly in the case of Dystopias, where it serves as a warning to those living in the here and now not to let this kind of thing happen for real. There can be any number of other reasons for the bad guy winning: simply for the sake of a twist ending (especially in horror stories, which are often most effective if they leave the audience with a hugely emotionally negative final shock); out of the writer's desire to be original or to throw in a new twist to keep things fresh or unpredictable; because the writer is really pessimistic and/or believes that True Art Is Angsty; because the villain is a Well-Intentioned Extremist and in this case The Extremist Was Right; or just because the writer couldn't find any other way to end the story which suited them. Sometimes it may all just be part of a Black Comedy anyway.

Doomed by Canon often requires this trope. If the Big Bad's Backstory involves the Big Bad attaining all kinds of success to get him or her into the position that started the story, the Prequel requires them to win — and kill off any major characters, no matter how sympathetic, who do not make it to the original story, especially when the original story mentions the villain killing them. More generally, Villain Protagonists will benefit from this trope, particularly in video games where the player takes on the role of a bad guy.

Some stories may attempt to use this trope, yet still try to soften the blow. Perhaps the villain's goal is ultimately a good thing. Or the heroes aren't really that different after all and their loutish behavior keeps us from feeling too sorry for them. Another variant is for the villain to create a Villain World that the heroes must topple in a future story. In the case of video games with Multiple Endings, it is common for at least one ending to have the villain succeed in whatever their plan is, but this is rarely the true/canon ending, which is typically a Golden Ending instead.

In cases when the hero was particularly well-liked and/or the villain particularly hated, the audience may call for a sequel in which the villain gets a proper comeuppance. Or lacking that, they may decide to write their own.

The sixth form of You Are Too Late is one technique to bring this about. Another technique to invoke this is to form a Xanatos Gambit: the villain wins something regardless of whether the heroes foil their Evil Plan or not. A Last Stand commonly features them.

Doing this too often or having this happen almost inevitably will result in Invincible Villain.

This would overlap with Hate Sink, likely the Audience and Moral Guardians would likely increase their wrath and would despise the villains a lot more.

See also: Downer Ending, Karma Houdini, Industrialized Evil, and Shoot the Shaggy Dog. Dystopias often end this way. Compare Team Rocket Wins, when the bad guys in question are usually so ineffectual the audience may actually be happy for them to catch a break. Contrast The Good Guys Always Win. Can overlap with Godwin's Law of Time Travel. May be considered a form of You Can't Thwart Stage One if it happens in a serial work. Also compare Meaningless Villain Victory, in which The Bad Guy Wins, but the victory is rendered hollow or meaningless or actually becomes a defeat due to some technicality or unforeseen chance. Near-Villain Victory is a typical subversion of the trope in which the bad guy does win for a time, only for the good guys to rebound and take that victory away.

Compare Pyrrhic Victory when the villain's victory came at a great cost. This is NOT necessarily the same with Karma Houdini and Downer Ending, as there are plenty of happy endings where villains escape unscathed and a plenty of Downer Endings where the villains suffer as much as everyone.

If the story lacks a villain, nature (or the heroes' own flaws) might defeat them instead.

Note: This is a Spoilered Rotten trope, that means that EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE on this list is a spoiler by default and most of them will be unmarked. This is your last warning, only proceed if you really believe you can handle this list.

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Examples

• Anime & Manga
• Comic Books
• Fan Works
• Films — Animated
• Films — Live-Action
• Literature
• Live-Action TV
• Music
• Professional Wrestling
• Tabletop Games
• Theatre
• Video Games
• Web Comics
• Web Original
• Western Animation

Other Examples

Advertising

• A Toon Boom commercial has a movie shoot where this trope is supposed to happen, but one of the actors is distracted with his game.
• This Weetabix ad revolves around the classic story of The Three Little Pigs... except that this Big Bad Wolf starts his day with Weetabix, which gives him the strength to blow down the brick house and devour the pigs.

Card Games

• Magic: The Gathering:
  • The brains behind the game ran a several month-long Publicity Stunt involving a conflict between two factions, the native Mirrans, and the invasive Phyrexians. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the unquestionably evil, parasitic, the invasive side won and renamed the realm of Mirrodin into New Phyrexia.
  • And in the Shards of Alara block, the dragon planeswalker Nicol Bolas succeeds in bringing about the Conflux and merging the five shards of the plane. And immediately after that, in the Zendikar block, Bolas manages to get the Eldrazi released from their prison. And he was instrumental in bringing about the rise of Phyrexia as well.
  • In the most recent return for Bolas has him creating an army of zombies that have all the skills that they had when alive, select warriors gain new and powerful abilities, warping an entire plane of reality to suit his whims before destroying most of it and defeating the Gatewatch, who had just defeated two of the Eldrazi titans and sealed the final one into a moon, with insane ease and scattering them to the far corners of the multi-verse just to have a chance to survive.
    • How bad was it? Well, Nicol Bolas erases part of Jace's mind, nearly kills the indestructible Gideon, puts out Chandra's flame, turns nature itself against Nissa (who can command Nature with a thought), and easily overwhelms Liliana, the strongest Necromancer ever, with such ease you would think he was swatting flies.
  • Hell, Nicol Bolas pretty much wins every time he appears up until he's finally defeated in War of the Spark.
• In Magician, part one ends like this with Janus achieving all his goals: taking Natasha, defeating Edermask, and uniting the continent through conquest with him in the ultimate position of power.
• A special promotional set was released for Legend of the Five Rings called "Thousand Years of Darkness", showing what would have happened if a Shadowlands player had succeeded in winning the final tournament for the Distant Thunder story arc (which very nearly came to pass). The set's storyline ends with Rokugan overrun with monsters and the undead, and the last surviving heroes sailing for another land.

Fairy Tales

• Kolobok: The titular character -a little round bun- is tricked and eaten by a cunning fox.

Pinball

• It is possible to make this happen in WHO dunnit (1995) if the player fails to catch the killer, either by failing the Taxi Chase or not completing The Roof chase.

Radio

• The Goon Show loves this trope. In "The Phantom Head Shaver of Brighton" the title character appears to get away scot-free after balding all the good guys and apparently blowing most of them up. In "Lurgi Strikes Britain" Neddy goes mad after realising how completely Grytpype and Moriarty have fooled him. In "Dishonoured (Again)" Neddy dies in battle fighting troops raised by Grytpype and Moriarty. The list goes on. It's all for Rule of Funny, and they'll all be back next week to rue another day.

Roleplays

• Destroy the Godmodder: Be the godmodder, rather than fighting the godmodder, you are acting almost as his lackeys. As Mojang is almost portrayed as villains, no matter which way it goes, the bad guy wins.

Theme Parks

• "Villains Unite the Night", Magic Kingdom's 2019 castle show that's exclusive to the "Disney Villains After Hours" event, centers on Hades as he plots to fulfill a prophecy that will grant him unlimited power when "the five planets align", allowing him to rule the entire universe. However, when Jafar, the Evil Queen, Dr. Facilier, and Maleficent butt in to reap the reward for themselves, the five villains eventually agree to split the power evenly amongst each other. At the end, the newfound Legion of Doom ultimately takes over Cinderella Castle, decorating the famous landmark with banners bearing their images. It's probably the only time where a Disney Park show ends with the villains outright taking over the universe.
  Jafar: I have all the power of the cosmos!
  Evil Queen: Now I am the most powerful of them all!
  Dr. Facilier: Finally, my friends on the other side can't touch me.

Toys

• BIONICLE:
  • The Big Bad, Makuta Teridax, ended up becoming the universe itself and enslaving everyone in it at the end of the "Mask of Life" saga, which also marked the end of the original major Myth Arc. So yes, while the Toa managed to fulfill their mission set up eight real-world years before, namely to awaken the Great Spirit Mata Nui and thus save the universe, Makuta possessed Mata Nui's body in the nick of time. Also counts as a Sudden Downer Ending, because this was all revealed in the final chapter of a novel and on the last pages of a comic, while everyone was celebrating.
  • To a lesser extent, the Barraki. Their main goal during the 2007 storyline was to get the Mask of Life so they could reverse their mutations, escape the Pit, and return to land to start reconquering their territories. While the mask eluded them and they were re-imprisoned, they were all later paroled by the Order of Mata Nui for more manpower to fight the Brotherhood. While Caparar died, the others survived both the war and Teridax's reign over the Matoran Universe, escaping to Spherus Magna and, thanks to Mata Nui using the Ignika's energy to restore the planet, also had their mutations cured as a side-effect with the perk of becoming amphibious on the side. Before the storyline ended, they were looking to set up shop on Spherus Magna with their new armies and carve out some territories for themselves, and looked to be ready to become part of a new Big Bad Ensemble. Unlike nearly every other villain, they actually ended the story much better off than when they started.
• Ninjago:
  • In the pilot episodes, Lord Garmadon manipulates the Skulkin king Samukai into bringing all the Golden Weapons to the Underworld; when Samukai tried to betray him by taking all the Golden Weapons for himself, their power disintegrated him, opening a vortex through space and time that Garmadon uses to escape the Underworld.
  • The Big Bad of the Sons of Garmadon arc successfully revives Garmadon as an Evil Overlord and conquers Ninjago by his side.

Web Animation

• DEATH BATTLE! has several instances of villains winning their battles, with at least six instances of villains triumphing over heroes (though some are played with as a few of the "villains" are more of particularly violent Anti-Heros than true villains, and for the most part villains are pitted against other villains).
  • Played with in "Godzilla vs. Gamera" ^* Played with as Godzilla has also been portrayed as an Anti-Hero in addition to villain has Godzilla destroy Gamera during an attack on a city.
  • "Ryu vs. Scorpion" ^* Played with as Scorpion is also considered an Anti-Herohas Scorpion incinerating Ryu in the netherworld.
  • "Joker vs. Sweet Tooth" ^* Evil vs. Evil example has the Joker, after being impaled on a pipe, tricking Needles Kane, the driver of Sweet Tooth, into getting out of the vehicle to kill him up close and in person. The Joker, however, then sprays gaseous Joker Venom into Needles' face, causing him to die laughing.
  • "Hulk vs. Doomsday" ^* Played straight with Doomsday has Doomsday stabbing Hulk with several poisonous spikes before delivering a savage No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to the Hulk before ripping his head off, to which Doomsday does a roar of victory, leaving the implication that Doomsday will continue his rampage with no one to stop him.
  • "Sephiroth vs Vergil" ^* Technically an Evil vs. Evil example has the former using Supernova to burn Vergil, causing the latter`s Healing Factor to be overridden. While Vergil is initially successful in using his sword to escape the attack, his wounds leave him vulnerable to being stabbed and bisected by Sephrioth.
  • "Gray vs Esdeath" ^* Played straight with Esdeath has Esdeath successfully freezing Gray to death, leaving Fiore (which she earlier turned into a wasteland by the use of the Ice Storm Commander-in-Chief) ripe for her to conquer even if she lost an arm and used all her trump cards in the process.
  • "Shadow vs Ryuko" ^* Played with as Shadow is also considered an Anti-Hero has Ryuko try to crush Shadow with her scissor blades in Alumni Mode, only for Shadow to remove his Inhibitor Rings to gain the power to shatter them. Shadow then sends Ryuko crashing back to Earth, then finishes her off with a Chaos Blast, completely vaporizing her.
  • "DIO vs Alucard" ^*  Played straight in that, while Alucard is an Anti-Hero, DIO is unambiguously evil. has DIO destroy Alucard's soul army, thus taking away the source of his regeneration, crush Alucard's heart, and splatter his body into a blood rain.
• Dorkly Originals: In "Robotnik Finally Wins", Dr. Robotnik wins and transforms every animal on the planet, including Sonic and Tails into a robot, he comes to this predicament realizing that he's been distracted by Sonic for so long he forgot why he wanted to do so in the first place. He eventually remembers; it was to start an orchestra.
• Foxy Gets Hooked: Freddy wins the fight that he started against Foxy. However, it's Played for Laughs, as Foxy gets comically turned into a flip top trash can.
• Happy Tree Friends:
  • The Ants always successfully kill Sniffles in ways which are horrific even for the series.
  • Fliqpy (Flippy's evil side) usually succeeds in killing everyone around him, though he's died a handful of times.
• By the end of Madness Combat 11: Expurgation, Hank and Sanford are dead and The Auditor is free to continue his reign over Nevada unopposed.
• Mappy: Episode 12 ends with Mappy and Dig Dug getting thrown into jail with Goro, who is pleased to have caused the downfall of his nemesis.
• The Most Epic Story Ever Told in All of Human History: The second episode begins with Ridiculously Epic stating that he took over the world. However, his bragging about this fact includes details about how to take the world back from him.
• RWBY:
  • While more of a You Can't Thwart Stage One situation, Volume 3 ends with a major victory for the villains. Cinder Fall kills Pyrrha by shooting her through the heart, Beacon Academy is in ruins and crawling with Grimm, and the four kingdoms are wary of each other. Team RWBY is scattered, with Weiss being forcibly returned home by her father, Blake on the Run and Yang at home, traumatised from losing her arm. As Ruby, Jaune, Ren and Nora set off for Haven to try and learn more about the villains, Salem announces that her grand scheme is just beginning and implies that, while Ruby may have hope right now, her plan involves destroying it.
  • Volume 8 ends with a big villain victory. The heroes spend the Atlas Arc trying to save both Atlas and Mantle while also preventing Salem from obtaining the two Relics and the Winter Maiden's power. The villains obtain both Relics, Penny is forced to sacrifice her life to protect the Maiden power, and the heroes rescue the kingdom's citizens only by destroying both cities and losing Team RWBY and Jaune to the Void Between the Worlds. The refugees are transported to Vacuo, arriving in the middle of a sandstorm where they're quickly attacked by a horde of Grimm. Although Salem loses the Maiden power and Jinn's third question, the Relics are her priority and so she is very pleased with the results.
• Meta Runner: Season 1 ends with Lucks landing a massive blow against the heroes: He shoots Masa’s Meta Runner arm clean off, forces Sofia to surrender the incriminating info against TASCorp in exchange for Masa’s life, rattles MD-5 by letting Belle reveal Lucina’s demise and Tari’s mysterious involvement with it to them, gets Tari to surrender and join his company in exchange for MD-5’s freedom, and crushes Theo’s cartridge, holding him hostage within his own microchip and using him as collateral, threatening to permanently erase him if Tari or MD-5 try resisting him again. Tari and MD-5 share one more hopeful exchange before being taken away, and a device containing a backup of the incriminating data ends up in the hands of Belle, who keeps it for herself, but Lucks has totally won as far as he’s concerned. He would however get his just desserts in a VERY Karmic Death at the end of Season 2, being shot down by his own gun via Masa’s new arm. Still downplays the trope somewhat, as this would end up with MD-5 becoming wanted by the authorities.
• Sonic for Hire: Near the end of Season 3, Tails attempts to take over the mob business from Sonic after getting fed up with him. When at a stalemate, Tails succeeds in destroying all of Sonic's money, leaving him broke while Tails becomes a multi-millionaire for the duration of Season 4.
• In Underverse, this is more common than the good guys winning.
  • The XTALE series has XTale Chara and XTale Frisk attempting to stop XGaster's repeated attempts to create a perfect universe. They fail in the end and XGaster succeeds at getting his chance of obtaining his perfect universe, and both of them end up unstable.
  • In Underverse 0.0, half of Sans' soul is taken by X-Event Chara and they escape.
  • In Underverse 0.2, despite being beaten back and losing control of Underfell Sans, Cross still manages to escape with Underfell's Snowdin.
  • Underverse 0.3 really gives the cast a beating. Ink starts losing his emotions after X-Event Chara is brought back to life, X-Event Chara escapes with the Underswap cast, and the Underswap timeline is destroyed, with Underswap Papyrus staying behind with Underswap Chara until the very end.
  • The nail in the coffin is Underverse 0.4. A good chunk of the cast is killed, including Underfell Sans and Underswap Sans, XGaster is revived, and the Doodle Sphere is gone, leaving behind a destroyed multiverse without alternate realities and thus leaving Error the "winner" of the truce. Had it not been for the revelation that CORE Frisk managed to save a good amount of people as well as Cross and Dream safely escaping to the Omega Timeline, it could've been worse.

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