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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"If I'm not dead, I win."''|'''[[
The trope of '''We Win Because You
A [[La Résistance|rebel faction]] and an [[The Empire|imperial faction]] face off over a particular [[MacGuffin|resource]]. It does not matter who is attacking or defending, but the end result is that the rebel faction destroys the resource, denying it to the imperials/others. Thus, even though the rebels do not have it either, they can claim victory because the imperials did not obtain the resource, regardless of losses suffered by the rebels.
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Compare [[Pyrrhic Victory]], and [[Pyrrhic Villainy]]. When applied to video games, this is known as [[Spiteful AI]].
{{examples}}
▲== [[Anime]] And [[Manga]] ==
* The point of Negi and Rakan's fight in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' wasn't really to actually win, since Rakan isn't a bad guy. The point was to go be able to go all out and truly measure himself. {{spoiler|The battle itself is a tie and only that because Rakan held back a little in the beginning to give him time to start testing his new moves. But the point was made that he's a match for Fate or even better now plus his enslaved students were freed.}}
** {{spoiler|Also pertinent to the trope is that Rakan was impressed enough with Negi's performance that he claimed a loss after the fact and gave him the other half of the prize money.}}
* There's an inverted example in ''[[Bleach]]'' where both Kenpachi and Ichigo believe themselves to have ''lost'' the fight after what is essentially a double knockout. However, you can consider Ichigo the winner because the end result allowed Ichigo to continue pursuing the goal of saving Rukia and Kenpachi is sort of on his side from this point since he wants Ichigo to live so he can be fought again later.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Brian in ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'' once won a bet this way.
== [[Film]] ==
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'''Nick:''' I'm not after you. I'm after them. ''[points at passers by]'' }}
* Applies to any character who has survived a fight with [[Halloween (film)|Michael Myers]], [[Friday the 13th (film)|Jason Voorhees]], [[A Nightmare on Elm Street|Freddy Krueger]], and other slasher movie mass murderers. Since the killers in such movies are typically unstoppable monsters and permanently destroying them is nearly impossible, the real victory for the [[Final Girl]] is the mere fact that she's still alive at the end despite all of the villain's efforts to strangle, crush, stab, impale, club, axe, drown, defenestrate, and/or decapitate her. Ultimately [[Averted Trope|averted]] in cases where the Final Girl later falls victim to [[Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome]].
== [[Literature]] ==
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* This is how the diamond in Charles Benoit's ''Relative Danger'' is finally disposed of, with a slight twist--{{spoiler|none of the people trying to get it actually have the right to it, and the main character knows he's outclassed, so he publicly reveals its existence and location, letting the antagonist take credit for discovering it, but denying him the ability to legally claim it. ([[It Belongs in a Museum|It winds up in a museum]].)}}
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* The ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "Peak Performance" introduces Kolrami, a grand master of the game of Strategema. In the match after it's established that he's able to beat Data, Data plays for a draw, causing Kolrami to [[Rage Quit|leave in a huff]] because he's being mocked. Data is very adamant that, in the strictest sense, he didn't win.
** Though after being goaded by the elated crew, he concedes (possibly for their benefit) that he "busted him up".
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** And the Dominion themselves are big fans of this philosophy. They once tried to negotiate a new border that would leave them with several less systems, but give them one they didn't have. That system would have allowed them to make more Ketracel White (the substance that the Jem ha'Dar soldiers need to survive). When this was discovered, Starfleet rejected the plan outright.
* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' has an example in an early season episode: Rimmer is playing checkers against a skutter (a small service robot), and has been backed into a position in which he has only one possible move, and then the skutter takes his last piece and wins. Rimmer, however, confidently expects victory, because the skutter is due to leave for its shift fairly soon, thus forfeiting the game, provided Rimmer stretches out his turn long enough.
== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
* The "disqualification rule", which specifies that a champion can only lose his title by pinfall or submission, often turns into a form of this trope. A champion will "defend" his title by walking away from the ring (taking a countout loss) or by intentionally forcing a disqualification
== Sports ==▼
* This is common in soccer where a weaker team going against a much stronger team will usually play more defensively and will aim for a draw instead of trying to win.▼
* On a smaller scale; this is a ''very'' common strategy in roller derby. If a lead jammer finds herself being outperformed, or is more concerned with preserving a lead than with taking more points, she will often simply call the jam before her opponent hits the pack. She doesn't score any points, but more importantly, neither does her opponent.▼
* Whenever a team loses (specially in either final matches and/or [[Dark Horse Victory|humiliating]] [[Underdogs Never Lose|defeats]]) [[Fandom Rivalry|the rival team's fandom will celebrate copiously]].▼
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* One of a number of ways you can earn a [[Berserk Button|punch in the face]] when playing ''[[Warhammer
** Some of the [[So Last Season|older armies]], such as the [[Fragile Speedster|Eldar]], practically live off stunts like this, and would not survive the [[Lensman Arms Race|codex creep]] were it not for their ability to pull it off on command.
** Because of how objectives work in 5th edition
** This is all far less of a problem for [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle|Warhammer Fantasy]] because Fantasy uses a Victory Points system for everything, whereas 40k [[Dummied Out|almost never does]].
▲== Video Games ==
* One where is ''isn't'' a Spiteful AI is the AGD remake of ''[[King's Quest III]]''. Quite by accident, Alexander obtains a relic of Daventry's first king, something the [[Big Bad]] has been seeking for ages. In the ending Cutscene, Graham takes it and smashes it. The curse is still on the family, and the Black Cloak still active, but at least the [[Big Bad]] has been deprived of further leverage.
* In ''[[Halo: Reach]]'', the primary objective of the initial Covenant strike force apparently was to secure a forerunner artifact before it falls into human hands. At which they fail and {{spoiler|the UNSC learns about the location of the first Halo}}. However, the main invasion fleet arrives a few days later and successfully wipes out the largest center of human population outside of Earth, single handedly scoring the most important victory of the entire war.
* In a certain puzzle in [[Professor Layton and the Unwound Future]] (spoilered since the very fact that this trope applies spoils its solution, but it's also quite plot-relevant) {{spoiler|Dimitri Allen challenges Layton to a 'puzzle battle'. They each have five armies of varying strengths, and Layton has to arrange his so he avoids defeat. But at first glance this seems impossible, the armies you're given are vastly weaker than his. (His go up to strength 5 and the best you have is a 4)But if you do things right, you can arrange it so both sides win 2 battles, lose 2 and draw 1, thereby tying. [[Exact Words|The rules never stated Layton had to ''win'', he just needed to "avoid defeat."]]}}
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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* Used in ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'' where Master Fung teaches the warriors that they can't get the jade elephant from him if it's no longer an elephant, but a pile of jade dust instead. Omi puts this lesson to use by sending a teleporting Shen-Gong-Wu to the earth's core rather than let any of the villains have it.
* ''[[Justice League]]'' Invokes this trope when Vandal Savage travels back in time and become [[Those Wacky Nazis|Fuhrer of Germany]]. Upon discovering the Enigma machine has been stolen (which is a historical fact, and procuring one was the difference between decoding the German coded messages being impossible and being trivially easy), he orders them to "Get it back, or destroy it."
== [[Real Life]] ==
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** Technically the war is still on going as no peace treaty was ever signed between North and South Korea, and China and The United Nations never declared war on each other.
** It should be noted though that conquering North Korea was only a secondary goal for America and her allies- the primary goal was to save South Korea, which they succeeded at. China's goal also wasn't conquest of South Korea, but rather keeping North Korea as a buffer zone, which they also succeeded at, albeit at a huge cost to human life. The real losers here were the North Koreans.
* The Battle of Jutland in [[World War
** The British fleet was the last line, the Germans would have decisively won the entire war shortly after if they hadn't been stopped there.
*** A decisive German victory was never really in the cards considering the numerical superiority of the Royal Navy, and that is without taking into account the navies of the other Allied nations and the United States, which would join the Alliance in 1917. However, the High Seas Fleet did leave German territorial waters on a few occasions after Jutland (which the Germans consider(ed) a victory) and was e. g. able to mount amphibious operations on the Baltic coast against Russia, contributing to Russia losing its Baltic provinces and Finland.
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** At a conference after the war, an American officer insisted that the NVA and VC had never won on the battlefield. His Vietnamese counterpart replied, "That is true. It is also irrelevant."
* Every war where both sides claim victory. There is quite a few, actually.
▲=== Sports ===
▲* This is common in soccer where a weaker team going against a much stronger team will usually play more defensively and will aim for a draw instead of trying to win.
▲* On a smaller scale; this is a ''very'' common strategy in roller derby. If a lead jammer finds herself being outperformed, or is more concerned with preserving a lead than with taking more points, she will often simply call the jam before her opponent hits the pack. She doesn't score any points, but more importantly, neither does her opponent.
▲* Whenever a team loses (specially in either final matches and/or [[Dark Horse Victory|humiliating]] [[Underdogs Never Lose|defeats]]) [[Fandom Rivalry|the rival team's fandom will celebrate copiously]].
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Universal Tropes]]
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