You Are Too Late: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

# The hero is still in time to stymie the villain's overall plan, but [["Friend or Idol?" Decision|only at the cost of]] a [[Heroic Sacrifice]], or the death of the [[Love Interest]], [[True Companions|close friend(s)]], or (rarely) an innocent bystander. Often results in a [[Bittersweet Ending]] or [[Downer Ending]].

Compare [[Remembered Too Late]].

 

{{examples}}

The hero is still in time to stymie the villain's overall plan, but [["Friend or Idol?" Decision|only at the cost of]] a [[Heroic Sacrifice]], or the death of the [[Love Interest]], [[True Companions|close friend(s)]], or (rarely) an innocent bystander. Results in a [[Bittersweet Ending]] or [[Downer Ending]].

 

* ''[[The Dark Knight]]'': Batman arrives in time to rescue {{spoiler|Harvey Dent}} but the Gotham Police are too late to save {{spoiler|the love interest}}. The trope is invoked a second time when Gotham's citizens refuse to participate in the Joker's plan, but the Joker points out Batman still cannot redeem the corrupted Harvey Dent.

** Which was part of the plan, really. Joker was counting on Batman being just fast enough, and the police not being fast enough. {{spoiler|That's why he switched the locations. Batman thought he was saving Rachel. Joker KNEW he'd choose Rachel, he's already jumped off of a skyscraper to save her.}}

 

 

* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', the Scooby gang were too late to stop Glory from opening the portal; only a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] could close it again.

** Also, "Becoming". Different villain (Angelus), different portal, same result.

 

 

* In ''[[Halo]]'''s fifth level, Cortana sends the player to stop an [[Zombie Apocalypse|outbreak]] of [[Not Using the Z Word|the Flood]], "before it's too late!". Turns out it is, and the only way to stop them from spreading out into the galaxy is to destroy the titular fortress world along with any human survivors still on it.

** In the level "The Covenant", Johnson is captured to be used to activate the array. Master Chief is a bit too far away, so Miranda goes in after him. They almost sacrifice themselves, but Truth kills Keyes before she can carry it out, then activates the rings. MC and the Arbiter, with the [[Enemy Mine]] help of the Flood, arrive [[Just in Time]] to deactivate them.

** Still, at the end of the game Soap and Price are wanted as traitors with no real way to clear their names, the Americans have repelled the Russian invasion but at the cost of many civilian deaths and the eastern seaboard heavily damaged by an EMP, Makarov escaped, and World War III is just getting underway.

** Guess again. At Fort Besselat, he floods the battlefield, essentially {{spoiler|stopping the Lion War as it reached its peak}}. He also would have probably succeeded in rescuing Orlandeu even if Delita hadn't {{spoiler|staged that execution}}. Before that, he spirits both the Virgo Stone & the Germonic Scriptures away before the Knights Templar can get their hands on them. Granted, they eventually {{spoiler|get them anyway}}, but he still shows up JUST in time to thwart the [[Big Bad]]. Whether or not he managed to {{spoiler|save his sister}} is a matter of debate.

** While Ramza fails to stop the corrupt church or the machinations of his childhood friend turned evil Delita, he does arrive in time to deal with a much worse threat, in the form of the Fallen Angel Ultima.

* ''[[Persona 3]]''. The party is the [[Unwitting Pawn]] that, about halfway in, allows the [[Big Bad]] to summon the [[Eldritch Abomination]], and find out three-thirds down the story that they've been too late to stop it ever since. They nonetheless manage to prevent the Abomination from destroying humanity, {{spoiler|though the main character dies in the process of doing it.}}

 

* In ''[[Endstone]]'', [http://endstone.net/2009/03/02/issue-1-page-5/ they didn't stop Jon from rocking the two over-stones.] Kyri stops him but is tossed through time, leaving her daughter behind and [[Parental Abandonment|alone]].

 

* In the ''[[Lonelygirl15]]'' story "[[Season Finale|lonelygirl15 Season One Finale]]", the gang rush into the Order base just in time to see that the Ceremony is over, and Bree dies from having the blood drained out of her. In the [[Grand Finale]], "The Ascension", the Order attempt to do the same thing to Nadia, and the gang arrive in time to interrupt the Ceremony, but too late to save Nadia, who dies from loss of blood anyway.

{{quote|"IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO MY DEMANS" - "TOO LATE".}}

 

The hero [[Indy Ploy|has to come up with a new plan]] to beat the now-strengthened villain; often the additional strength arrives and is defeated in the final act, but this can also be a [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]].

 

* The characters of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' responded to Chao's preperations by using the [[Time Machine|time-traveling watch]] she'd given them to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] despite the item being powered only within the few days of the [[School Festival]] thanks to the [[World Tree]]'s [[Place of Power|magic]]. After that it was purely a matter of thinking on their feet and hoping for a good outcome. This also falls into the fifth type since her goals as opposed to their own were righteous in their own way.

** Bonus points for being too late ''because'' of said time machine, which was rigged to send them into [[Bad Future|after she had won]].

 

 

** Outside the raising of the army, it's more a matter of the characters failing on location rather than arriving too late.

* ''[[Terminator]] 3''. The goal is still to stop Skynet, but with half the planet nuked it may take a few more movies.

 

* ''[[Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn]]''. The [[Xanatos Gambit|plan]] to bring the [[Big Bad|Storm King]] back to life was set in motion five hundred years ago and, atypically of the genre, the heroes really can't do anything to stop it. They are saved in the end only because Simon manages to [[Take a Third Option]]. [[Word of God]] says this almost ended up as the sixth type due to [[Creator Breakdown]].

* In ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy|Dark Force Rising]]'', Luke and Mara rescue Karrde before he can be forced to reveal the location of the [[Derelict Graveyard|Dark Force fleet]]. Han and Lando fight to keep Thrawn from capturing the other man who might know where it is and fail, but Karrde has been moved into a [[Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal]] and shows them, which should mean Thrawn's forces and the little New Republic team sent out to see if Karrde is right get there more or less at the same time, right? Wrong. Thrawn's already been there, leaving only the fifteen malfunctioning Dreadnaughts out of the [[Ragnarok Proofing|hundred and eighty five working ones]] as bait for a trap. ''Three'' [[Big Damn Heroes]] moments with ''three'' different groups let our heroes survive, but the Empire is much stronger now than it was.

 

* Happens in the main arc in ''[[Babylon 5]]''.

* Not fully the the case, but in ''[[Firefly]]'', the crew are trying to steal the Lassiter from this major war criminal with the help of Saffron. He stumbles onto their plot to steal the Lassiter, but it turns out he seems like a nice, soft-spoken guy that loves Saffron, and that she just ''might'' have lied to them again. He goes out to get a reward for them, and after he leaves, Mal goes on to call out Saffron for her stories and games. However, the "War Criminal" comes back to find Mal and Saffron in the middle of this conversation, lectures her, and when she tells him how much of a fool he is, he informs them that he had alerted security the second he saw them and now armed Alliance guards are coming to take them in. Mal and Saffron escape, but this is much more difficult.

* In the fourth season of ''[[Angel]]'', the good guys completely fail to stop the Beast's plan to [[Total Eclipse of the Plot|blot out the sun]]. It gets sorted out eventually, but it was only the first stage of the [[Big Bad]]'s plan.

* ''Subverted'' in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'': the good guys are racing to destroy Anubis' fleet with the Ancient outpost on Antarctica. As the good guys enter the outpost, they run into Anubis who gloats at them with this trope's name. The subversion occurs when O'Neill steps forward and sticks his hand into Anubis, revealing that it's only a hologram and the Goa'uld was [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|bluffing to buy itself time]]. Anubis responds by ringing [[Super Soldier|Kull Warriors]] into the outpost in order to kill the good guys but O'Neill manages to activate the outpost's [[Attack Drone]] legions and [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|blasts Anubis' fleet into smithereens]] while the rest of the team kept the Kull Warriors occupied. Afterwards, O'Neill [[Human Popsicle|entered a stasis chamber]] [[Heroic Sacrifice|because he knew the Ancient knowledge in his mind will kill him otherwise]].

* In one episode of ''[[Burn Notice]]'', slippery master thief Natalie, who has already managed to avoid getting caught by Team Weston once before, tricks the group into stealing a chemical weapon for her that she intends to turn around and sell to some [[Arms Dealer]] contacts. Michael tries to take the weapon back from her before the deal goes down, but while he's holding Natalie up, her clients arrive at the site for the purchase. [[Xanatos Speed Chess|Michael has to adjust quickly]] and come up with [[Mexican Standoff|a new plan]] to get out of it.

{{quote|'''Michael:''' Let's go.

'''Natalie:''' Mmm... I don't think so. See, you're cute. You're clever. But your timing '''''sucks'''''. Your little trick ate up my whole day so instead of getting my hair done, I had to come straight to the buy. And guess what? My buyers are here. [She stops holding her hands up as 6 armed men enter the room] }}

 

** A similar scenario occurs in ''[[Red Alert]] 1'': Stalin has a nuclear facility, and it is unknown whether any atomic bomb has been armed yet.

*** Naturally, some of them are, in time for them to be launched ''during'' the mission. Next mission: infiltrate the command centre, deactivate the bombs in flight.

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'': Act 3. Ocelot can now disable the world's conventional armed forces, but cannot yet launch a nuclear strike or assume total control over their information warfare machine, but see type 5 below.

* Just about all the endings of the original ''[[Drakengard]]''. The canonical one plays it straightest: You're too late to stop Furiae's death and the breaking of the last seal, and have to stop Manah's [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever|final form]] single-handedly. The other endings are ''some'' variant of this as well (usually involving being too late to stop Furiae from kicking the bucket somehow), but with copious amounts of [[It Got Worse]] and [[Mind Screw]] thrown into the mix.

* The finale of the main campaign of ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion]]''. The original plan to relight the Dragonfires to keep the forces of Mehrunes Dagon at bay is rendered moot when Mehrunes Dagon and his army finally break through and appear in the capital. In the end, Martin Septim shatters the Amulet of Kings and sacrifices himself to become an avatar of the dragon god Akatosh and banishes Mehrunes Dagon back to Oblivion. Sadly, Martin does not survive the ordeal.

 

* Parodied in the ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' episode "Gaming the System", where Perry bursts into Dr. Doofensmirtz's lair, only to be told "Ah, Perry the Platypus! You are too late... wait, is it eleven o' clock yet? * glances at watch* Wait, wait... Now! ''Now'' you are too late!" Then Doofensmirtz zaps Perry with his latest invention, the Ballgown-inator, and Perry has to figure out how to defeat Doofesmirtz while wearing an oversized, restrictive dress.

* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', a lot of emphasis is put on the Aang beating Ozai before Sozin's Comet arrives and super-charges the villains for a period of time. It soon gets demonstrated that they have no way of getting Ozai to fight them before then, and there won't be a world to save if they wait till after. However, it ultimately doesn't matter, as Aang is still able to steamroll Ozai once he goes into [[Super Mode|Avatar mode]].

** Later in [[Disney Animated Canon]]'s ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'', the heroes arrive too late to complete Ariel's contract, as Ursula gleefully points out.

 

The villain's plan is his own undoing; [[Pyrrhic Villainy|he succeeds thoroughly but loses anyway]].

* [[Loyalty]] has the climax of the Desert retreival arc. {{spoiler|Sakura has just spent the better part of Two chapters chargeing alone through the desert, chaseing a hunch that Hinata is still alive. Amazeingly she picks up the trail, and locates the kidnappers. The chase culminates with her spotting Hinata leaned against a tree, tied up. She spends the better part of two hours painstakingly setting up her retreival tunnle and sabatogeingher opponent. Only to discover Hinata was dead long before, her body is boobytrapped. Her eyes have been plucked out. This all leaves Sakura in shock. Hinata was, for all intents and purposes, Sakura's only friend. The Rain chuunin who murdered Hinata sees Sakura in shock, and thinks he'll simply walk up and cut her throat. Instead he gets the surprise of his life when Sakura engages an epic murdurous rage and attacks him. She is nearly killed in turn, but manages to take him down for a Crowning Moment.}}

 

* In ''[[El Mariachi]]'', Moco succeeds in killing the man who was out to kill him (Azul), and the Mariachi arrives too late to save his love interest Domino from being gunned down by Moco in a fit of jealousy. But when Moco pulls the dick move of shooting the Mariachi's hand so that he won't be able to play again, this is the final straw that sends the Mariachi over the edge, resulting in Moco's death as the Mariachi guns him down.

 

* [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Stand]]''.

* The end of the ''[[Dragaera]]'' book ''Five Hundred Years After'' starts out as a type five or six (it's not clear if the character responsible is a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] or [[The Evil Prince]]) but then ends up as a type three due to a [[Spanner in the Works]]. In brief, a challenger for the throne, Adron, uses powerful magic to seize the kingdom for himself, and informs the heroes upon releasing it that nothing they could do would stop him. Unfortunately, at that moment, someone else assassinated the Emperor, meaning that the person the spell will dethrone is Adron himself. This causes a [[Divide by Zero]] error in the spell. And since the type of magic Adron was using is powered by direct manipulation of raw chaos, the [[Divide by Zero]] actually does tear a hole in the fabric of reality, destroying everything for miles around (including the capital city and Adron himself).

 

* ''[[Dead Rising]]''. Carlito dies if you continue the main storyline, but he has already destroyed one American city and has planted walking [[Zombie Infectee|children zombie bombs]] with host families all over the country.

 

''(Cut to the credits screen))'' }}

 

* Happens in the finale of [[The Secret Saturdays]]: {{spoiler|Argost succeeds in capturing Zak and stealing his Kur Powers; unfortunately for him, he had earlier stolen the powers of his [[Evil Twin|anti-matter clone]], and as everyone knows, matter and anti-matter tend to not get along well. Cue the villain imploding.}}

 

The villain's plan was sabotaged by the heroes (or sometimes by a [[Spanner in the Works|third party]]) so that [[Out-Gambitted|his success becomes a failure]]. The viewers often [[Unspoken Plan Guarantee|don't find this out until afterwards]].

* The ending of ''[[Death Note]]''.

* This was parodied on a particular [[Image Board]] when a certain [[Fist of the North Star|martial artist]] explained to {{spoiler|Veidt}} [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|"I killed you and your plans thirty five minutes ago."]]

* Isn't this, like, every ''[[Liar Game]]'' major arc, ever?

 

* In the first [[Story Arc]] of [[Grant Morrison]]'s ''[[Zenith]]'', the [[Eldritch Abomination|Lloigor]] [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|Iok Sotot]] has already beaten and killed most of the heroes, assumed its [[One-Winged Angel|true form]], and actually begins to enter our physical space, when the post-hypnotic command Mandala had implanted in its mind gave it a fatal "seizure".

* In the ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'' example listed under Type 5, Rorschach leaves his journal behind, which identifies the [[Big Bad]] and thus could potentially undermine his victory. The book ends with the question of what, if anything, will come of the journal [[Left Hanging]].

 

* ''[[Ocean's Eleven]]'' and, to an extent, ''Ocean's Thirteen''.

* In ''[[Damnatus]]'', after the heroes attempt a Type 1 and fail, the [[Big Bad]] (half way through his [[Evil Gloating|victory monologue]]) realises that the [[Soul Jar]] of an old nemesis has pulled a Type 4 on him by delaying him long enough to be caught in an [[Earthshattering Kaboom]].

 

* In the first ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' book, Richard pretends to be touched by Kahlan's power, then makes Darken Rahl open the wrong box, which kills him.

* In the ''[[Incarnations of Immortality]]'' series, 'With a Tangled Skein', the personification(s) of Fate is trying to prevent a diobolical plot of Satan's to sabotage some sort of ceremony. Many sidequests ensue as they follow their suspect before realizing that they royally screwed up by following a decoy around the whole time. Cue a Satan showing up to mock their failure. It's all right, though, because during the course of the sidequests and subplots they alerted Chronos (the incarnation of time) to Satan's plot, and he simply called the ceremony's hosts and told them to call it off once he was certain they would fail.

 

* Very common on ''[[Hustle]]'' or ''[[Leverage]]'', as befits shows about the good guys' conning the heck out of the villains (and audience).

 

 

 

The villain is a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]], and his plan really was for the [[The Extremist Was Right|greater good]] or at least close enough to be debatable. If instead the hero had won, it would have been a [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]].

* The rule of a thumb when fighting [[Anti-Hero|Lelouch]] [[Magnificent Bastard|Lamperouge]] from ''[[Code Geass]]'': when he contacts you first, you have probably already been screwed up three times over by him without noticing it. Depending on how you interpret his character, however, he may either belong here or in the sixth kind.

 

** If you go back and look you can see that Moore and Gibbons were shoving it in your face the whole time. The two "concurrent" scenes are ''filled'' with clocks.

* The ''[[Sinestro Corps War]]'', Hal Jordan realizes too late that {{spoiler|the Guardians' new authorization for the [[Green Lantern]] Corps to kill}} was the whole reason [[Sinestro]] started the war in the first place, meaning [[The Bad Guy Wins]]. However, even Jordan acknowledges at the end that the ability to use lethal force like real cops and soldiers does help in defending the universe.

 

{{quote|'''Danny Liberty:''' But the emitter will only amplify. You need a telepath to...Kerrigan. You're going to use Kerrigan to bring in the Zerg.

'''Arcturus Mengsk:''' Very good.

* In ''Players of [[Gor]]'' (book 20) Cabot learns of a plot by Cos, Tyros, Brundisium and [[Sixth Ranger Traitor|certain factions in Ar]] to attack Ar. He gets the evidence, then learns that it's actually happening right now. The evidence is now worthless so he burns it.

 

 

 

No twist, [[The Bad Guy Wins]]. Typically found only in comedies or very dark works. Sometimes a [[Sequel Hook|setup for a sequel]].

* The death of L and Watari in ''[[Death Note]]''. The evidence to prove that Light is Kira has finally been found and then Rem kills them. The good guys win in the end, anyway, though.

* Dio in the first arc of ''[[Jojo]]'s Bizarre Adventure''. Although he seemingly dies along with Jonathan, he comes back for an epic sequel in Part 3, leaving us to imply that he indeed won.

*** And played with in Rebuild 2.22, where Kaworu arrives too late to prevent Shinji from initiating Third Impact and thus the end of the world, but arrives just in time to stop Shinji from letting it progress too far. Apparently, though, an alien piloting a giant alien in robot armor is able to throw a spear from above planetary orbit...

 

* A ''[[Donald Duck]]'' comic features Donald desperately trying to find and deliver a recycled can of soda to the soda manufacturer, thereby making his total number of returned cans ten thousand and granting him a yacht to a tropical island. He arrives ''just'' a few seconds too late, and is greeted by the manufacturer with this line.

* In the 2009 [[DCU]] one-shot "Faces of Evil: Kobra", the new leader of the Kobra cult is [[Do Not Adjust Your Set|broadcasting to the world]] his intentions to transform the organization and kill everyone associated with his predecessor. He does this from within a Checkmate base, where earlier in the issue, Superman had delivered a bunker full of half-reptilian [[Half-Human Hybrid]] babies rescued from the predecessor's [[Tyke Bomb]] program. As the new Kobra prepares to execute the infants, Superman takes off from the JLA satellite, but finds only flaming rubble when he arrives at what used to be the Checkmate base, making it apparent that the broadcast was not live.

 

* ''[[Star Wars]]'' Episode V. Luke arrives on Cloud City too late to save Han and later the heroes race to save him from Boba Fett only to arrive as the ship takes off.

** Hell, Luke botches it so thoroughly that the heroes have to double back to rescue ''him''.

** Ahem - Episode III, anyone? Yoda ''loses''. The Old Republic is in ruins, the Jedi have been slaughtered, Palpatine is triumphant...

*** Arguably, in the long run, this ends up turning into a Type 3 or 4.

** He did manage to {{spoiler|get rid of Tyler, though.}}

* It's revealed in the final confrontation that Simon Phoenix did this to John Spartan in ''[[Demolition Man]]'' before they were both frozen. Phoenix had already killed the hostages and chilled their bodies, so that Spartan wouldn't have known about them (via thermal scan) until after [[Stuff Blowing Up|the inevitable explosion]] and so that Spartan would have been blamed for their deaths when they were discovered.

* Happens to {{spoiler|Harry}} in ''Speed'' when he arives just in time at the building to be blown up by the bomb planted there as a diversion. It's not the showdown and the villain isn't there, though.

 

* In [[Daniel Pinkwater]]'s ''[[The Snarkout Boys And The Avocado Of Death]]'', the [[Diabolical Mastermind]] villain succeeds at destroying a [[Cosmic Keystone]] by having an orangutan eat it while the heroes were busy capturing him. The effect of his victory is that all the licensed realtors in the United States are possessed by extraterrestrials.

* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[Iron Shadows in the Moon|Shadows in The Moonlight]]", [[Dreaming of Times Gone By|in Olivia's dream]], when the [[Half-Human Hybrid|son]] [[Call on Me|calls on his father]], his torturers cut his throat and kill him before his [[Physical God]] father appears. Of course, it's ''not'' too late to invoke [[Taken for Granite]].

 

* One episode of the BBC ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'' series used this type - Robin Hood and his men attempt a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment to save Allan a Dale's brother and his band of thieves, who are about to be hanged. When they arrive and hide in the shadows, the [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] Sheriff gloatingly reveals that he had hung the group hours ago, since he knew Robin would be here for a dramatic rescue at noon. Instead of saving the condemned men, Robin is staring at already-dead corpses dangling from ropes while the Sheriff laughs.

* Very well done in season 8 of ''[[24]]'', {{spoiler|Jack Bauer and his team are storming the base where the terrorists are holding President Hassan, while President Taylor watches what she thinks is a live feed of his [[Joker Jury|"trial"]]. Except the feed is pre recorded and Hassan was already dead before Jack entered the building. The [[Big Bad]] and all his men are killed or captured, but they still succeeded in their ultimate goal.}}

* One particularly memorable episode of Babylon5 has the doctor engaged in a [[Race Against the Clock]] to stop [[The Plague]] that is about to wipe out an entire species. He discovers a cure, and just when you expect a [[Just in Time]] ending, the doors to the quarantine zone are opened to reveal [[Everybody's Dead, Dave]].

* An odd twist to this trope happens in the [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]] episode "The Visitor", where an elderly Jake Sisko informs his stuck-in-time father that the only way to get him unstuck is for Jake to commit suicide at a certain time. We then realize what that "medicine" was that Jake took at the begining of the episode.

 

* ''[[The Goon Show]]'' ends one episode with the time bomb version:

{{quote|'''Seagoon:''' Three seconds? I've got to get out of here!

'''Narrator:''' Oh, ''hard'' luck. Still, he tried. }}

 

** But it should be noted that the fact that the space marine legions were going to arrive and help forced Horus to speed up his plan and ultimately get killed.

 

* ''[[Tanz der Vampire]]'' lets Professor Abronsius and his assistant Alfred believe they've saved the beautiful Sarah from the clutches of the vampire lord Graf von Krolock, complete with a dramatic getaway from the ball where she was the Graf's main course. All seems well, and Alfred and Sarah embrace, at which point Sarah reveals a shiny new pair of fangs and attacks Alfred, draining him and making him a vampire too. [[The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You|The rest of the vampires then arrive to claim the audience themselves as their new prey...]]

 

* Again, ''[[Call of Duty]] 4''. The climax of the U.S. assault on the unnamed Middle Eastern country occurs when the player's marine squad fail to find Al-Asad in the broadcast center, while a simultaneous attack by SEAL Team 6 has found a live nuclear bomb in his palace. An epic scene ensues when every unit still in the city scrambles to make it onto helicopters and out of the blast radius, but the SEAL team fails to defuse the bomb and the player's heli is knocked out of the air by the blast wave.

** Also, the next level has you crawling around in the aftermath of the nuke. Then you die.

** It happens again in the Lord of Destruction Expansion. You have to stop Baal from getting to the Worldstone or all is lost. But when you defeat him it turns out he has already corrupted the Worldstone.

** Don't forget about the first game, either.

* In ''[[Super Paper Mario]]'', the sixth chapter fits perfectly. Sammer's Kingdom is consumed by the Void before the party can reach the Pure Heart.

* ''[[Master of Magic]]'' intro [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMNk-YlpuBo movie]. Non-villainous example, but still:

** Of course, this does make the vengeance a bit sweeter when you beat the boss in question.

 

* In ''[[Looking for Group]]'', Cale and [[The Cavalry]] make a dramatic [[Gondor Calls for Aid]] march to the North to help their allies fend off an invasion from [[The Empire]], only to find that the defending forces have already been soundly defeated, the city and fortifications ''burned to the ground'', and the remaining survivors in retreat.

* Subverted in ''[[They All Laughed]]'' ([http://www.project-apollo.net Project Apollo.net])''

'''Marigold:''' Ha ha ha ha! Er, a sinister secret plan! }}

* [[Bob and George]] [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/040223c Only a few moments too late]

 

 

* Played straight for comedy in the [[Phineas and Ferb]] episode "That Sinking Feeling".

{{quote|"You know what, [[Everything's Better with Platypi|Perry the Platypus]], I think it's time for you to go. That's right, go on, your services are no longer required. The lighthouse is gone and there's nothing you can do about it, so you might as well run back to Major Monogram and tell him you lost this one."}}

** Turns into the third kind of this trope in [[The Stinger]] when the lighthouse, which [[Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate|Dr]]. [[Meaningful Name|Doofenshmirtz]] turned into a rocket and launched in order to get rid of the foghorns keeping him awake at night, crashes into his building as he's trying to fall asleep.

* The second season finale of ''[[Beast Wars]]'' ended with Megatron basically erasing the Maximals from existence. Season three had them fix it, [[No Export for You|but not every region got that part.]]

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Time Tropes]]