Pyrrhic Villainy

The villain always loses, right? Actually... no. Sometimes the villain surprises us all and is victorious, even if only in the short term. However, usually when a villain wins, he has to put a tremendous effort in to do so and sacrifices a great deal, so much so that both he and the viewers may well be asking if it was worth it, resulting in a Pyrrhic Victory. Often this takes one of two forms: either it has taken so much effort, (and underhanded tactics) to win that it has left the good guys as the moral victors with a better legacy, or in order to accomplish their goal the villain has had to sacrifice the thing they cared for most and/or humanized them to the audience.

So while their efforts might have paid off, to answer the earlier question of whether it was worth it: frequently it is not.

See also The Bad Guy Wins, for where the villain doesn't suffer from this. This sort of plot may be found in a villain's Start of Darkness, back when the villain was either a hero or a much lesser villain, and first turned to true villainy, bringing victory... but at a cost. On the other hand, really top notch villains may win without sacrificing everything, only to find that Victory Is Boring. A Pound of Flesh Twist is when the villain wins but a sudden unforeseen event renders their victory hollow and their efforts for naught.

Anime and Manga

 * Although it may depend somewhat on your interpretation, SEELE's plan doesn't seem to have turned out the way they intended by the end of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
 * Chairman Keel seemed quite pleased with the outcome. Presumably they are among the people who can't "imagine themselves in their own hearts", so no free resurrection card for them, but that's apparently what they wanted.
 * Shinji, arguably, fits this trope better. In both endings this is what he wanted. In both endings he got better, but after getting what he wanted...well, Alexander the Great might have wept over no more worlds to conquer but thanks to Shinji there's no longer a world.
 * Gendo certainly didn't get what he wanted. Rei rejected him in favor of Shinji, and it's implied that he is not reunited with Yui in the psuedo-afterlife that is Third Impact.
 * Subverted in Code Geass. One of the battles over Tokyo ends in This only works if you see Lelouch as a Villain Protagonist and not an Anti-Hero.
 * Seen in Hell Girl. Yes, your contract with Enma Ai gives you what you want: to punish someone who's slighted you big time. However, by sending that person to Hell, you've condemned yourself as well, since when your life comes to an end, you will join them in Hell. See the mark on your chest? It'll remind you of the Deal with the Devil you made.
 * Happens twice in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Cars, the main villain of Part 2, gets what he wants, but ends up . Enrico Pucci in Part 6,.
 * Harry McDowell in the anime version of the game franchise Gungrave first just wanted enough power to live his life freely and protect the people important to him. With time he succeeds in rising to the top of Millennion and making it more powerful than the law itself, but only by losing sight of his original goals and betraying almost everyone he cares about. He's driven to kill both Brandon, his best friend whom he relied on in all his life (leading to some spectacular Villainous Breakdowns), the fatherly prior head of the organization and his wife, Brandon's sweetheart. Twenty years later, though, he's finally able to face Brandon and come to terms with his life.
 * Conversely, in the game's continuity he shows no remorse for killing Brandon/Grave (Harry in the game's storyline is depicted as little more than a complete prick). Either way he still wanted Mika, the innocent daughter of Grave's former love interest dead.
 * In Hellsing
 * In Saint Beast, having defeated two justified rebellions from the angels Zeus is sick of war and decides to retire and go into a long sleep.

Comic Books
""It was the right thing to do! And I was willing to get in bed with people we despised to get this done. And I knew the world favors the underdog and I would be the bad guy.""
 * In the Emperor Doom Graphic Novel, Dr. Doom succeeds in conquering the world by brainwashing everyone. By and large he's a fairly benevolent monarch and does much to solve many of the world's problems. Unfortunately, he's bored out of his mind, that when the one unaffected hero manages to break the spell on a few others, he lets the rebellion win. He'd rather be a conqueror than a Desk Jockey.
 * This is a running theme with Dr Doom; every time he manages to take control of a nation/planet, he'll spruce the place up very nicely and run it better than most governments ever manage, but will ultimately get bored of running it. Doom enjoys the challenge of taking over a nation and solving problems, not the mundane managerial work of keeping national status quo.
 * The exception is in Doom 2099. He conquers the United States, and actually intends to keep power, so he can fix the entire world. It doesn't end well for him, the country, or most of the heroes.
 * The end of the Civil War plays with this: Iron Man's reputation has essentially become mud because of his support of the SHRA, and it's only further compounded by Captain America (comics)'s death.


 * Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog had an early, non-canon Yet Another Christmas Carol where Robotnik is taken to see the future. Robotnik has finally defeated the Freedom Fighters, but he has rendered himself the last man alive in doing so, turning Mobius into a barren wasteland. However, Robotnik doesn't grasp this, and fails to learn his lesson.

Fan Works

 * There is a Final Fantasy VII AU story in which Sephiroth.
 * On a similar note, there is a Star Wars fanfic where Anakin wins the duel with Obi-Wan on Mustafar, but Padme dies before Palpatine's ship arrives. Anakin promptly turns on Palpatine and kills him, and spends some time ruling the galaxy, searching for a way to bring Padme and the twins Back from the Dead, slowly going crazier all the while. Naturally it's a massive case of Came Back Wrong when he finally does try to bring Padme and the twins back, and Anakin responds by wreaking havoc on the galaxy in his fury. In the end he returns to Mustafar, where he spends eternity sitting on a throne in the middle of the hellish wasteland, surrounded only by the bodies of Obi-Wan and Palpatine, (and maybe Padme) and talking to the bodies as though they were still alive.
 * When All Your Dreams Come True, an Avatar: The Last Airbender fic, explores what would have happened if Prince Zuko had actually managed to capture Team Avatar. The results are nightmarish, with . And the worst part for Zuko, aside from the guilt of seeing that happen? No one back home believes he actually captured the Avatar. They think Iroh did and then gave the credit to his incompetent nephew. The fic ends with

Film

 * In Pixar's Cars, Chick Hicks wins the final race, but because of his actions during it he finds himself hated and rejected by everyone.
 * Michael Corleone might be the ultimate example of this by the end of the second Godfather movie. Certainly he's destroyed every major underworld power in his way and taken on the US government and won, but he's also destroyed his marriage, alienated his children and friends, killed his brother, and is left utterly alone. And then the third film features his daughter getting killed right in front of him.
 * Daniel Plainview's empty isolation and drunken insanity at the close of There Will Be Blood.
 * The movie version of The Talented Mr. Ripley has Ripley . The book ends by indicating that he'll never be able to look at another policeman without that flash of alarm that says "This is it - he's the one - he knows." Not a way I'd like to live my life.
 * Star Wars: Anakin Skywalker is a prime example of the by the end of the prequel trilogy. Sure, he's won the war, and his turn to The Dark Side has allowed his Evil Chancellor partner to take over the galaxy, but he's lost the pregnant wife he did it all for, had his limbs chopped off, and been burned to hell by magma.
 * By the end of 300, Xerxes has lost most of his best troops and although he's defeated Leonidas at Thermopylae, the performance of the Spartans and the losses inflicted among his men has only given new determination and inspiration to the other Greeks.
 * By the end of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid it's clear that Garrett realizes that he will lead a conflicted, unhappy life and will be chiefly remembered for killing his friend. Billy, meanwhile, will have most of his bits of sociopathy forgotten by an adoring public. (To an extent this extends to other portrayals of the two, including Young Guns 2).
 * In House of Flying Daggers, The Mole for La Résistance accomplishes his mission to perfection, but loses the Action Girl he loves, and later kills her while fighting The Rival who had won her love.
 * In Lord of War, Villain Protagonist and weapons smuggler Yuri Orlov manages to evade the law and escape a long stay in prison to continue his gunrunning. However, this comes at the cost of his brother and uncle being killed, his parents disowning him, and his one true love divorcing him and taking his only son with her. He was also only released due to being useful to the U.S. Government and he's fully aware they can have him disposed of if he stops being so. This is hammered home by the Interpol agent chasing him saying that he would like to wish that Yuri would go to Hell, but he's already there. Of course, YMMV, and less fettered character interpretations exist.
 * In the Hong Kong action crime drama Sha Po Lang (or Kill Zone in the U.S.),.
 * Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Khan's ruthless, vicious bid to exact revenge on Captain Kirk does succeed (up to a point), and he even acquires what might be the most powerful piece of technology in the 23rd century. All it succeeded in doing was making him sink even deeper into insanity, lose his faithful followers, get horribly disfigured, and...oh, yes, DIE. The sad part was, his own right-hand man tried to tell him that he had already accomplished what he set out to do and should quit while he was ahead. Advice went unheeded, quite naturally.
 * Real Steel has

Literature
"Raistlin: I sacrificed myself to save myself."
 * In the Chuck Palahniuk novel Haunted, one character, a small time journalist, tells a story about bringing his sick dog to a strange vet and realizing the vet is a former child star. He does a friendly interview with the vet, which shows the vet has made a good, happy and normal life for himself, but the tabloids the journalist works for aren't interested in it. They don't care about former stars that are normal and happy. So he talks to the vet again, drugs him, makes him OD, and creates a wild story about the former star having sex and drug addictions, etc. The story sells and earns him a ton of cash... but next week when his dog is sick and he doesn't know a good vet to bring it to, the dog dies.
 * Judas Iscariot may be an example. Sure, he got a tidy sum for betraying Jesus, but, according to Matthew, he was so overcome with guilt afterwards that he hanged himself.
 * Exactly how things worked out for Judas varies a bit depending on who's telling it. The Gnostic Gospel of Judas (rejected when New Testament's contents were formalized) even claimed that Judas "betrayed" Jesus under Jesus's orders.
 * Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me... For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born." (Mark 14:17 & 21, ESV)
 * In Test of the Twins, Raistlin Majere's goal of becoming a god is revealed to be a severe case of Pyrrhic Villainy. He succeeds, but in the process he destroys the world and eradicates every shred of good in his own soul, leaving him with no ability to renew or heal that which he has laid waste. Fortunately for all concerned, his brother Caramon is able to go back in time and reveal this outcome to the earlier Raistlin, who then sacrifices himself to save Caramon and Crysania.
 * He thinks of it differently, as revealed during his nephew's test to become a full-fledged mage.


 * In the William Gibson short story "Dogfight," the main character wins the aerial combat video game, but in the process alienates everyone he might possibly celebrate his victory with.
 * The Silmarillion: After 500 years of struggle Maedhros and Maglor finally get the two remaining Silmarils. In the process they lost their father, all their brothers, their kingdoms, their followers and, thanks to them committing genocide against other elves on three seperate occasions, they've made enemies of the entire world. And when they try and hold the Silmarils in their hands? They burn them due to all the evil they've done, so they can't even hold them without feeling unbearable agony.

Live-Action TV

 * The Wire:
 * The Shield's Vic Mackey ends up with a cushy job as a Federal Agent, after burning every bridge imaginable with his family (disowned him and in witness protection), his friends (one killed his entire family/self and left a note blaming Vic for turning him into such a monster while the other, who's loyalty to Vic was never in question, was made into the scapegoat for Vic's crimes), and pretty much had ALL of his sins exposed to the world, as part of an immunity deal he landed as part of his job. Worse, his cushy job is a desk job, which plays against Vic's strengths as a law enforcement agent and his boss, horrified at the fact that Vic conned her, has vowed to make Vic's life a living hell in desperate hope to making him void his immunity deal, costing him his job and freedom. And even if he survives, after three years the Feds can fire Vic and with his sins all public knowledge, means that Vic will never gain employment in law enforcement again, denying him the justification he used to hide from his crimes. Karma is a bitch, Vic.
 * from Spooks. He succeeds in selling the Albany file to the Chinese, but in the process destroys the life he built and . And to top it off,.
 * Morgana from Merlin lives for vengeance, but when she finally manages to have King Uther killed, it's clear that she doesn't feel the victory the way she thought she would.
 * In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", the ship is occupied by two aliens from a species where half are black on their right side and white on their left, and the other is the opposite, and the former have set themselves up as the societal superiors of the latter, in an obvious metaphor for the racism prevalent at the time. The black-on-the-right one is chasing the white-on-the-right one as a criminal, and ultimately succeeds in forcing the crew to return to his home planet, where his prisoner can be judged. However, they find that while the chase was going on, the war between the two sides escalated until every single person on the planet was killed. The two aliens promptly accuse each other of their people being responsible, and teleport down to the planet to continue their war, as Kirk somberly notes that their hatred for each other is all they have left.

Theatre

 * The ending of Sophocles's Antigone, in which the sympathetic Anti-Villain Creon succeeds in bringing his rebellious niece to justice but at the cost of his entire family, makes this Older Than Feudalism.
 * Macbeth: The MacBeths killed King Duncan, forever destroying the mental peace of Lady Macbeth and turning Macbeth into a Fallen Hero who essentially sold his soul to the devil, all for a temporary victory. In the long term, what they accomplished was to make Banquo's descendants kings.

Video Games

 * Kratos in the first God of War (backstory included) gains a great deal of power at the cost of many lives, kills the original God of War Ares, and becomes the new God of War in the process. Unfortunately for our Heroic Sociopath protagonist, his burning ambition costs him the lives of his family, possibly the only thing he genuinely cared about emotionally, and causes him to go nearly insane with guilt and endless nightmares. After learning that all of his efforts towards his goal of ending said nightmares were ultimately futile, despite everything that he had gained, he descended further into madness, leading to the events of God of War 2 {{spoiler|where he ends up killing Athena, the one Goddess who was sympathetic to him.}.
 * The third game ends Kratos' story within the trilogy in this manner. {{spoiler|Kratos finally has his revenge on Zeus, and has brought down nearly all of Olympus AND the Titans. However, each god he killed caused a major calamity to strike the world. By the end, the oceans have risen (Poseiden), the sun has been blotted out (Helios), a plague has broken out (Hermes), all vegetation has died (Hera), and what little remains has been covered in Gaia's remains. Even worse, Pandora's Heroic Sacrifice (something he was trying to prevent) was utterly pointless, as the power to defeat Zeus was in him the entire time. When Athena's ghost pulls her Face Heel Turn, he finally has had enough and impales himself, which releases Hope and helps the world a little... but he's still dead, and can never rejoin his family. Damn.
 * {{spoiler|...Or is he? Waiting through the credits reveals Kratos may be alive, and the 2018 God of War confirms it}}.
 * At the end of Final Fantasy Tactics, Delita successfully manipulates his way to absolute power over Ivalice, destroying all of the competing factions and ascending to the throne by seducing and marrying Princess Ovelia. Unfortunately, his methods so thoroughly alienate his new bride that she decides she must have been part of his machinations as well and stabs him, possibly fatally. This forces Delita to kill her in retaliation, and he is left wondering if it was all worth it as he falls to his knees clutching his wound. (The painfulness of this scene is increased further if you believe that Delita genuinely loved Ovelia.)
 * One of two inevitable outcomes of Nuclear War (the DOS game by New World Computing, not the actual political option). Either the last remaining ruler on Earth presides over a blasted wasteland, or the entire world is destroyed.
 * In the first Kingdom Hearts game, {{spoiler|Ansem}} (Who you find out, in Kingdom Hearts II, is really {{spoiler|Xehanort's Heartless}}), successfully opens the door which he believes would lead to ultimate dark power, however {{spoiler|Sora tells him that "Kingdom Hearts is Light", and the villain ends up getting disintegrated when the door opens.}}
 * In Dragon Age: Origins, Well-Intentioned Extremist Teyrn Loghain's plan to take the throne of Ferelden works like a charm ... up until the point where it sparks a civil war and causes riots throughout the country. Ironically, in an effort to protect Ferelden from Orlesian occupation, he's forced to act just as badly as the former conquerors he once struggled against. This sends him into a deep depression and eventually sparks a Villainous Breakdown.
 * In Fallout: New Vegas, one of the ways to talk down Legate Lanius in the Final Battle is to convince him that even if he were to beat the NCR and conquer Hoover Dam, the Legion would inevitably fall via attrition (due to Rape, Pillage and Burn being a poor long-term way to sustain an army) or overextending themselves (much like the NCR themselves have done).
 * At the end of Batman: Arkham City, when it looks like Batman might not save The Joker from his TITAN poisoning {{spoiler|the clown backstabs him to try and get the cure, causing it to drop and smash on the ground. Joker dies about a minute later.}} Extra irony-points because {{spoiler|Batman really would have saved him.}}
 * Shantae: Risky's Revenge ends with Risky victorious, having tricked Shantae into destroying Nega-Shantae, an entity that embodied her genie-half, leaving the heroine powerless. However, as the next game shows, the remains of Shantae's genie half have now brainwashed Risky's crew, causing them to overpower and oust her. And yes, Word of God claims this was the intended plot all along.
 * The Legend of Zelda has three timelines that branch off from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, depending on how the story ends. The "Hero Defeated" timeline is what occurs should Link fail to defeat Ganondorf in that game, in a sense occurring if The Bad Guy Wins. However, this timeline culminates in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, which has one of the best endings in the franchise, with the villain utterly defeated and Zelda and Link together. What's more only Ganon (not Ganondorf) appears in this branch, suggesting his victory cost him his humanity, trapping him in his monstrous, demonic form.

Web Comics

 * The Order of the Stick Start of Darkness book shows this happening very, very heavily to Redcloak, and to a much lesser extent to Xykon as well.
 * Vaarsuvius's Deal with the Devil could also count.
 * Not necessarily. In a moment of frustration at being "distracted" from the next move,  Also,

Web Original

 * The final act of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Joss Whedon's 2008 Web Original supervillain musical.
 * Listen to that song one more time. Its lyrics are dripping with double meanings.  Also, "Everything you ever..." drifts off every time they sing it, leading the audience to fill in the last word with whatever they're expecting - wanted? feared?
 * Bennett the Sage and JesuOtaku have done several crossover videos, with the idea in mind being Bennett attempting to Break or Corrupt the Cutie with terrible and sexually shocking or exploitative anime. The third time around, during Jesu's review of Master of Martial Hearts, she agrees that Sage has won and shown her something so gratuitously cruel and horrific that she just can't laugh it off or remain unaffected by it. However, after a relatively short spell of being horrified, she remembers that it was just fiction and all the good things about life, and goes outside to enjoy herself and play with her roommate's dog. Sage is left in a depressive funk with his "victory", pondering where mankind has gone wrong, whether a species capable of such things is worthy of redemption, etc.

Western Animation
"Doctor Girlfriend: How much did the caterpillars cost? Monarch: A couple of mils."
 * Villain on villain case in Batman: The Animated Series: the Corrupt Corporate Executive whose unfair treatment first turned Edward Nygma into The Riddler succeeds in continuing to make money off Nygma's intellectual creations, but lives his life in constant paranoid fear of Nygma coming to get him again.
 * Batman Beyond does something similar with Inque's daughter.
 * Speaking of Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold ends with Bat-Mite screwing over the show to get it cancelled so that a darker, more serious Batman series will be made in its place. The new series focuses primarily on Batgirl, and as Ambush Bug points out, a serious Batman series has no room for Silver Age silliness... like Bat-Mite himself. Bat-Mite realizes his mistake seconds before he is erased from existence.
 * Frequent theme in Venture Brothers - in one specific example the Monarch has kidnapped Hank and Dean and is holding them for a ten million dollar ransom, threatening Doc Venture that if he doesn't pay, some giant mechanical caterpillars will "destroy the only proof he's ever had sex".


 * This may be an inversion: to the audience and everyone in the Venture universe the Monarch's actions seem Pyrrhic, but the Monarch himself considers whatever cost he has to pay in order to destroy/inconvenience Dr. Venture absolutely worth it. In his twisted mind those caterpillars were money well spent.
 * It's also unclear how taxing a price that is to the Monarch. It's never stated just how much money he has, but he's been consistently referred to as being wealthy. A couple of mils might be well within his budget. It was also mentioned in that show that the reason he was asking for a ransom, which was against the usual guild rules, was that they were low on money.
 * Actually it seems more Monarch was ransoming the boys since he was well aware of Venture's money woes, and since his psychological torment seems to fall flat most the time he'd try torturing his wallet, though according to later episodes the Cocoon funds are running low, at least not enough to afford a small army's worth of body armor.


 * In Wakfu, Nox has spent 200 years of research, plotting, and genocide in order to gather the energy needed to travel back in time and stop his family from being destroyed partially due to his own negligence. In the end,.
 * Total Drama World Tour: Courtney finds out Gwen and her boyfriend Duncan kissed and vows revenge. She gets support from most of her team and eventually Gwen is voted off. However Gwen and Duncan remain a couple, while Courtney loses support from her team, fails in getting Duncan voted off, and gets voted off herself instead. And most of all, blindly falls for Alejandro, who is just using her, and he loses anyway. So in the end, Courtney ends up with nothing and no one.
 * Jimmy Two-Shoes. Lucius manages to push the weavils off their land, but the mountain he was going to carve his face into ends up carved into a weevil head instead.
 * In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000", the Flim Flam Brothers win the contest with Applejack by producing far more barrels of cider than she and the rest of the Mane 6..
 * In one episode of The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, the villain is a demoness trying to perform a ritual that will rescue her father, the dreaded Kordoth the Conqueror, a legendary warlord who was banished to the spirit world centuries ago for unspecified crimes. June fails to halt the ritual and Kordoth is freed, but he's hardly a threat anymore; he's really let himself go during the interim, having grown obese and sluggish from eating donuts.
 * Spider-Man: The Animated Series: The "Tablet of Time" two-parter was this for the Kingpin. In his goal to obtain the Tablet, his wife was kidnapped, and though she is rescued unharmed, she decides to leave him at the end, despite his pleas. The Kingpin winds up with the Tablet, which he had wanted in the first place, but he orders Hammerhead to get rid of it. "The sight of it sickens me", he growls.
 * In an episode of Kidd Video, the Big Bad Master Blaster is trying to become elected mayor of a town - where the incumbent i his own brother no less - where the citizens have a thing for showers, baths, pools, and other water-related and plumbing-related things. What the villain truly wants is the treasure in the town's vault, which he can gain if he becomes mayor. Eventually, Master Blaster wins when their mother casts the deciding vote (a Kick the Dog towards his brother) but only discovers that this town's idea of a "treasure" is a huge pile of old shower-heads.
 * There are two episodes of Laff-A-Lympics where the Really Rottens actually win the competition. In one case, they really aren't happy about it - as Card-Carrying Villains, they want to win by cheating, but had won this round honestly.