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Pyrrhic Villainy: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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 [[Was It Really Worth It?|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 [[Kick the Dog|underhanded tactics]]) to win that it has left the good guys as the [[Doomed Moral Victor|moral victors]] with a better legacy, or in order to accomplish their goal the villain has had [[Lonely
So while their efforts might have paid off, to answer the earlier question of whether it was worth it: frequently it is not.
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== [[Fan Fiction]] ==
* There is a ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' [[Alternate Universe|AU]] story in which Sephiroth {{spoiler|achieves his goal of godhood only to "rule" over a dead, unpopulated landscape, doomed to wander forever through a barren world alone and abandoned by Jenova. It climaxes with him falling to his knees, screaming in agony and irretrievable insanity}}.
* On a similar note, I read 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
* [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3036180/ 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 {{spoiler|Sokka publicly lynched and his corpse put on display in a museum, Katara forced to spend the rest of her life fighting in a gladiator arena in order to bloody virgin troops, and Aang is bodily mutilated to the point where he can't threaten anyone, to the point where the last we hear of him is him having gone insane to the point where he begs his guards to let him out to feel the sun on his skin one last time.}} 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 {{spoiler|Zuko escaping into a fantasy life where he made friends with Team Avatar, while outside in the real world the Fire Nation wins the war.}}
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* The final Act of ''[[Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog]]'', [[Joss Whedon]]'s 2008 [[Web Original]] supervillain musical. {{spoiler|Dr. Horrible, attempting to kill Captain Hammer to both gain entry to the Evil League of Evil and win Penny's heart, indirectly causes Penny's death and Captain Hammer's humiliation. The final scenes show him living the high life of an A-List villain...but the final shot shows Billy, heart-broken and traumatized. The final song contrasts the reality of this to the lyrics where he describes that he has achieved everything he ever wanted.}}
** Listen to that song one more time. Its lyrics are dripping with double meanings. {{spoiler|"The world I wanted at my feet": the world is my oyster, or Penny - the "world I wanted" - lying dead at his feet?}} 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 [[
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