Basic Trope: You lose to the boss, Game Over. You beat the boss, you get thrashed anyway.
- Straight: If Bob loses to the first encounter with Emperor Evulz, he gets a Game Over just like when he loses to any other boss. When Bob succeeds in beating Emperor Evulz, a cutscene shows Bob getting knocked out by Evulz anyway.
- Exaggerated: Every single boss Bob faces in the game is shown defeating him after he beats them.
- Even using cheat codes making Bob invincible and powered up to the max, allowing him to utterly destroy Evulz doesn't change the post-cutscene setting of Bob waking up from being knocked unconscious, meaning Evulz somehow finds a way to knock out Bob despite being Deader than Dead.
- Downplayed:
- Emperor Evulz does not hand Bob his ass after he is beaten, but he does make his getaway in the cutscene after the fight and he kicks the dog on his way just to spite Bob.
- No matter how badly you beat Evulz, the cutscene has Bob defeating Evulz with a desperate last minute attack.
- Justified:
- Emperor Evulz was only pretending to lose to Bob in order to get the hero to lower his guard and become an easy target.
- Evulz is relying on a Xanatos gambit: In order to win, Evulz must lose.
- Evulz is a dark god - if you die quickly he considers you a worthless weakling. If you survive long enough to deal blows that would be lethal to a mortal despite his powers and skill he sees you as a Worthy Opponent and spares you after asserting he is still a god and not to be trifled with.
- Evulz doesn't actually need to overpower you in order to complete his objectives (ex. he's simply distracting you).
- Inverted:
- Emperor Evulz is a Hopeless Boss Fight, but the cutscene after Bob loses to him shows Bob defeating him anyway.
- Emperor Evulz cannot give Bob a Game Over - the story will progress regardless of whether Bob wins or loses.
- Subverted: It looks like Emperor Evulz is going to pulverize Bob in the cutscene after his first boss fight, but Bob quickly counterattacks.
- A ton of Level Grinding allows you to completely destroy Evulz and bypass the cutscene of getting knocked out.
- Double Subverted: Evulz avoids the counterattack and delivers a blow that knocks Bob out cold.
- You still wake up from unconsciousness anyway after the fight, even though you supposedly destroyed Evulz. Apparently he got better and somehow knocked you out offscreen, or something.
- Parodied: Emperor Evulz is a total wimp in the boss fight, but Bob decides to take a dive in the cutscene following the battle because he actually feels sorry for how poor a fighter Evulz is.
- Evulz literally says this with a coin but with inflection and emphasis on words that Bob doesn't catch that it's a rigged game of Heads or Tails?
- Alternately, Evulz calls Heads or Tails? normally but it's a double-headed coin, so Evulz always wins (doubling as a Morton's Fork or Hopeless Boss Fight at the same time).
- Zig Zagged: In the different battles with Evulz, the outcome of the battle varies. Sometimes Evulz defeats Bob in the cutscene regardless of the outcome of his boss fight and sometimes he is in a Hopeless Boss Fight. It is never certain when the final battle is going to happen or when Bob will finally win in defeating Emperor Evulz.
- Averted: Every post-boss cutscene has Bob defeating the boss.
- Enforced: "I'm getting a little bored with how passe boss fights are. Let's make it interesting by having Evulz defeat Bob even though the player beat the boss fight."
- Lampshaded: "I'm the Big Bad, Bob. Did you really expect me to be taken down the first time you face me in battle?"
- Invoked: Emperor Evulz knows that Bob is a formidable fighter, so he pulls off an I Surrender, Suckers right after Bob kicks his ass.
- Exploited: After knocking out Bob, Evulz also takes advantage of the Gameplay and Story Segregation brought on by the Cutscene Incompetence and kills Bob so that nobody is left to oppose him.
- Defied:
- Bob's allies take out Emperor Evulz before he can attack Bob in the post-boss cutscene.
- Bob still keeps his guard up, and continues his tactic that he used to beat Evulz in the boss even when during the post-boss cutscene.
- Discussed: "Isn't it kind of annoying how sometimes when you defeat the boss, he trashes you anyway?"
- Conversed: "Yeah. It's like the boss was simply holding back in a ploy to knock the hero out!"
- Implied: Bob only sees the tail end of Alice's fight against Evilz. In the part he sees, Alice is unharmed while Evilz is broken and bleeding. Evilz suddenly straightens, says "Impressive... And now I will stop humoring you." and defeats Alice with a single strike.
- Played For Drama: The Boss in question is the author, and they are using this trope to demonstrate Bob's absence of free will.
- Played For Laughs: Bob manages to beat Evulz. In the post-boss cutscene, Bob is seen standing still and doing jack shit, Evulz looks around briefly if anyone else has been affected as well, before throwing some lightning fast punches that Bob surely would collapse to, since he's been standing there eerily. During that, he keeps standing. And then he suddenly falls faster than the eye can see.
- Deconstructed: The player knows this is going to happen so the player just skips the cutscene, not caring how Bob loses, and the player also just level grinds and nukes Evulz to get this over with.
- Reconstructed: How Evulz beats Bob is actually an important plot point that the player needs to pay attention to, and a mechanic of different versions of this play out so the player isn't as bored, and also a bonus Easter Egg that can be unlocked if certain conditions are met to allow Bob to actually beat Evulz in the following cutscene. But other than a few dialog tree changes, the game afterwards largely stays the same.
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