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{{trope}}
{{quote|I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
|[[The Bible|Ecclesiastes 1:14]], the theme of King Solomon's final book}}
Alice sacrifices everything she cared
Bob spends months of agonizing time and effort to kick booze. He manages to become sober...and then, five episodes later, he's off the wagon again.
Chris spends a whole season learning to trust his rival at the agency. Then it turns out the rival was [[The Mole]] all along, and every single thing Chris learned in this season was a chump's lesson.
Why did we have the first half of each story again? It was
Sometimes, a [[Story Arc]] completely destroys the point of an earlier arc in the same story. It could contradict the early story's aesop, or it could reveal that the events we cared about [[Retcon|never happened]] or weren't what they seemed. A hero's decisions don't seem so heroic if it turns out that they were [[Batman Gambit|perfectly manipulated]] every step of the way.
And if a character goes through a [[Face Heel Turn]] or [[Heel Face Turn]], their earlier stories might seem irrelevant when we know they'll disavow it all.
When done badly, this trope can feel like outright cheating the
In general, it's more forgivable when it's done as an event, rather than as a [[Retcon]]. If a hero's efforts are undone, that's not as frustrating as if it turns out that they never mattered in the first place. The audience is also more likely to forgive it if we're shown the change, rather than it being done with [[Second Hand Storytelling]].
A storyline that is
Common forms include [[Battle Royale With Cheese]], [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]], and [[Yank the Dog's Chain]]. If done too often, leads to the [[Broken Aesop]], [[Lost Aesop]], and [[Yo
Distinct from [[Status Quo Is God]] in that it doesn't always bring things back to where they started - it often leads to genuine change.
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Not to be confused with [[All or Nothing]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* A somewhat more comedic version of this. In ''[[School Rumble]]'', class 2-C was divided between whether they should do a play or cafe for the [[School Festival]]. They then devoted the next mini-arc to a [[Serious Business|dramatic]] war game held in the school between the two groups using fake guns. The very next day, while being punished for the game, their teacher Kooriyama suggests they just do ''both''.
* The basic premise of the final episodes of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''. Despite all the efforts he made at connecting with others, Shinji is ultimately abandoned by everyone for their own selfish reasons. Despite all their efforts at preventing Third Impact, the pilots failed because their superiors wanted them to fail in order to trigger their own, somewhat better version, only to be in turn foiled by Rei and [[The End of the World
** Except that it was Shinji's efforts at connecting with others that led to Rei rejecting {{spoiler|his father and instead turning the reins of Third Impact over to him. This results in a battered and destroyed world, true, but one that has a hope of recovery as all of humanity can choose to re-embody if they really want to. Who knows if they'd even have ''that'' much if Gendo's plan had gone through.}}
== [[
* Subverted in ''[[Green Lantern]]'' with the origin of GL Sodam Yat. As a boy, he grew disgusted with his planet's murderous xenophobia, including when his fellows murdered an alien astronaut whose ship crashes on his planet. In response, he labored for years to repair the alien's ship and leave, but just as he was finished, a power ring arrived to induct him into the Green Lantern Corps. While that meant that now he didn't need the ship to leave the planet, the fact that he worked with that much determination to repair a ship he didn't know, nor how to pilot it or even where he could have gone after he launched, all for the sake of leaving a place and its evil is an incredible display of courage worthy of the Corps.
== [[Fan
* In ''[[
== [[Film]] ==
* Horror movie franchises are infamous for this, such as killing off the [[Final Girl]] of the previous film ([[Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome]]) in the first two minutes of the sequel. All the struggle they had to defeat [[Friday the 13th (
* The third ''[[Alien]]'' film kills off two characters who Ripley spent the whole second film protecting... in the first few minutes... off camera.
* Similarly, the second ''[[Terminator]]'' film has the characters [[Screw Destiny]]...but the third film reveals that [[You Can't Fight Fate]], and all the efforts in the second film to stop apocalypse were pre-destined to fail.
* In the Director's Cut of ''[[Das Boot]]'', the German submarine crew survives many dangerous encounters to make it
* In ''[[Reservoir Dogs]]'', {{spoiler|Mr. Orange was a cop, after all.}}
* In ''[[Dirty Dancing]]'', Baby says this when her efforts to get Johnny cleared of theft charges get him fired anyway for having a relationship with a guest.
* In ''[[The Mummy (1999 film)|The Mummy]]'' Imhotep suffered through the Curse of the Hom-Dai for trying to resurrect his lover, Anck-Su-Namun. At the end of the ''[[The Mummy Returns]]'' after the Scorpion King is slain by Rick O'Connell, both Rick and Imhotep are left hanging over the Abyss to the Underworld. Though Rick is saved by his wife, Evie, Anck-Su-Namun's reincarnation leaves him to save herself. Imhotep's heart breaks and realizes he suffered for three thousands years and tried to save a woman that wouldn't save him when he needed it. In the end, he loses the will to live and gives his enemies a smile acknowledging their love and [[Dragged Off to Hell|casts himself into the underworld.]]
== [[Literature]] ==
* In [[Harry Turtledove]]'s ''[[Worldwar
* ''[[Harry Potter]]'':
** In ''[[Harry Potter and
**
* A disappointing example occurs in the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series, in which the dramatic climax of the (relatively good) first book turns out to have been all for naught. Umpteen books later, in the final book of the series, we discover that {{spoiler|
* Essentially the ''entire plot'' of ''[[The First Law]]'' turns out to have been this, in the sense that nothing truly changed and the protagonists were only tools. Certainly, all of Logen's and Jezal's quest in the second book qualifies, as does
* Stephen Donaldson does this in his [[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant|''Thomas Covenant'' books]], to the point that Lord Mhoram advises: "
**
** The Unhomed, who were wiped out in a genocide.
** Whatshername, who tried to warn the lords about the
** The story of Sunder and Hollian and their son Anele - who outright loses the
**
** Drool Rockworm, who tried to win freedom for the
* The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] reveals that Emperor Palpatine came back to life after the events of the Original Trilogy, so... {{spoiler|though it should be noted he's destroyed again by the end of the ''[[Dark Empire]]'' stories.}}▼
* ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]'' novels:
▲**
** This is also a criticism fans had with the film ''[[The Rise of Skywalker]]'', where it is revealed that Palpatine had been [[The Man Behind The Man]] of the First Order the whole time.
== [[Live Action Television]] ==
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' Season 5 has all the drama of Joyce's brain tumor. Then she dies of an aneurysm after the tumor is removed.
* ''[[Degrassi High]]'' is extremely fond of torturing the audience this way, to the point where it feels like [[Dropped a Bridge
** In ''[[Degrassi Junior High]]'', L.D has to deal with trauma from her mother's dying of cancer. She finally learns not to fear and distrust all things relating to
** Much of ''[[Degrassi Junior High]]'' is [[Big Ego, Hidden Depths]] for Joey, who learns not to be such a lazy ass. In Degrassi High, all that talk about getting off his butt and working hard is rendered meaningless when it turns out he has dysgraphia. (It still fits his character arc, since he still has to cope with feelings of inadequacy, but it's a huge shift.)
** The [[Do They Know It's Christmas Time?]] episode of ''[[Degrassi Junior High]]'' is about Arthur and Yick learning to stay friends even though Arthur is richer and Yick is more rebellious. The lesson sticks for the whole series. But in ''[[Degrassi High]]'', they almost stop being friends completely for those same reasons.
** As the resident [[Anti-Hero]], Wheels is always getting shoved through the [[Heel Face Revolving Door]]. More than once, he turns heel ''off-screen,'' with no warning until we're suddenly told that he's been acting this way for weeks. [[Second Hand Storytelling]] makes the perfect tool for
* ''[[
* In the ''[[Star Trek:
* On ''[[Lost]]'', Jacob has become the Island's protector reluctantly, almost against his wish. He wants it to be different for his replacement, so he sets up an elaborate system of candidates that last for at least a few dozens if not hundred years, affecting and ending the lives of hundreds different people. Near the end it appears to pay off, as Jack takes on the job consciously and willingly. However, he then performs a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] within the following day and passes the job to Hurley, who us extremely reluctant to take it from him and even went as far as saying "Just glad it's not me" when Jack himself volunteered for the job. Jacob's entire plan eventually resulted in nothing.
** Another example: The Oceanic 6 spend 3 years lying about the time they spend on the Island and the fates of people that they left behind, believing themselves to be protecting their friends from Charles Widmore. This causes most of them some serious guilt issues. However, it is later revealed that Widmore performed an off-screen [[Heel Face Turn]] and, while still a big jerk, was actually on the same side as our heroes. Even then, he couldn't have possibly harmed any of the people left on the Island, as those were stuck in a completely different ''time period''. Sorry, Hurley, the Lie was
** Could be argued that most of the characters' storylines became
** John Locke's entire story arc also seemingly turned out to be
* The ''[[
** A giant Lego ball that took hours of work of about a dozen people to make, after getting both all the
** When they attempted to retest the JATO Rocket Car myth from their pilot episode, they went through a ''lot'' of trouble securely attaching the engine to the car as well as constructing the remote control system used to drive the car and making a ramp to drive the whole thing off of, all in order to give the contraption the best chance of getting crazy air and looking completely awesome in the process. So when it comes down to actually perform the test... the car explodes on the ramp in a giant fireball.
*** The worst part of it was that they A) didn't get a useful result, and B) couldn't reset for another chance at one. This was perhaps the only time since the first season that they couldn't give a verdict of "busted", "plausible", or "confirmed". As this was the "Supersized Special", they ended up calling the myth "appropriately supersized"; after all, they'd still gotten a consolatory fireball.
* In the episode "Adam's Ribs" of ''[[
** Well, they have the ribs, they'll just need to be reheated. So this is more like delayed gratification.
== [[Theater]] ==
* Both ''[[The Fantasticks]]'' and ''[[Into the Woods]]'' do this deliberately as a [[Deconstruction]] of fairy tales. The first act is a mythic tale with beginning and end, and the second act is life going on and not ending so neatly.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Call of Duty]]: World at War'' multiplayer matches often end this way:
{{quote|
* In ''[[Betrayal
** Though this was a [[Foregone Conclusion]], since the game takes place in between two books that had already been published, with no major change to the political landscape between them.
* At the beginning of ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (
* ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'' becomes this in a meta example. Due to its place in the [[Old World of Darkness]] timeline, [[Apocalypse How|Gehenna]] is literally right around the corner when the game ends. Then again, White Wolf's official stance on their canon is that if we don't like an aspect of the lore, we're free to ignore it...
* The most greatest example must be in ''[[Halo]]''. The Forerunners built nine "halo" rings, which were galactic WMDs, in order to use them as an absolute last resort against the Flood, who had conquered pretty much the entire galaxy and had survived and prevailed any advanced weaponry or strategies the Forerunners had tried to use to stop them. When the Forerunners fought their last stand, they activated the halo rings and wiped out the Flood through the galaxy, stopping them from taking over it...the problem was that when they did it, they not only wiped out the Flood but [[Heroic Sacrifice|themselves and all intelligent species through the galaxy as well]], making it lifeless. However, life returned when the Forerunners' constructs cloned back the species and returned them to their homeworlds but the Forerunners were extincted forever. 100,000 years later, the Flood returned and started to mess things up again so in the end, the Forerunners' sacrifice was all for nothing.
* ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'' players were expecting the numerous decisions, struggles, and
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