You Can't Thwart Stage One: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"You fool! Don't you know evil always triumphs in the middle!"''
|'''Aqualich''', ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1905.html strip #1905]}}
[[Finagle's Law]] meets the [[Rule of Drama]]. Any time the villain is putting together an [[Evil Plan]], we can ''always'' expect it to reach its final stage, no matter what the hero or heroes do to try to stop it. If the villain is trying to collect the [[Rule of Three|Three]] [[Cosmic Keystone
No matter what the hero tries, the forces of villainy will inevitably [[
This is especially painful to watch when [[The Hero]] or otherwise a good guy will attempt to foil the [[Evil Plan]] in a way that [[In-Universe]] seems like a perfectly good idea, but from a [[Watsonian Versus Doylist|Doylist]] point of view is too anticlimactic to work. In the ''best case'', they fail at the earliest opportunity in a relatively harmless way. Otherwise, they may appear to be making
[[You Are Too Late]] is often involved. [[Hostage for Macguffin]], [[MacGuffin Delivery Service]] and [[Xanatos Gambit]] are frequently employed to make the hero effective without routing the villain. [[Team Rocket Wins]] can give the heroes more of a challenge and justify failing at first.
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Compare [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]].
{{Unmarked Spoilers}}
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* The heroines of ''[[Lyrical Nanoha]]'' were almost able to thwart stage one in each of the three seasons, having retained one half of the [[Mineral MacGuffin|Jewel Seeds]] in Season 1, convinced the Wolkenritter that finishing all [[Number of the Beast|666 pages]] of the [[Artifact of Death|Book of Darkness]] might be a bad idea in Season 2, and rescued the [[Mysterious Waif]] before she could be used by the [[Big Bad]] in Season 3. Almost doesn't cut it though as Precia executes her plans anyway with what she has no matter how unstable it is, {{spoiler|the [[Mysterious Protector|Masked Man]] intervenes and uses the Wolkenritter's essence}} as fuel for the remaining pages of the Book of Darkness, and {{spoiler|[[Quirky Miniboss Squad|the Numbers]] [[All Your Base Are Belong to Us|invade and destroy the heroes' HQ]]}} to reclaim the [[Mysterious Waif]] respectively.
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* In ''[[Dragonball Z]]'', The [[Big Bad]] of each season will always reach his strongest transformation, especially in cases where this involves absorbing somebody. However the only strong characters have chronic cases of [[Honor Before Reason]] and typically let the enemy get to their maximum power so that there's no doubt of [[My Kung Fu Is Stronger Than Yours|who's the strongest when its over.]]
** The most straight forward and egregious example being the beginning of the Buu saga, wherein Goku and Vegeta who were at least twice as strong as [[The Dragon]] and 100s of times stronger than the [[Big Bad]] not only failed to stop [[Sealed Evil in a Can|Buu's revival]] but agreed to cause it so they they could settle their infighting. Cue 60+ episodes of trying to undo the damage.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Mai-Otome]]'', the protagonists make moves against Nagi's plans for the first 16 episodes, but are unable to accomplish enough to stop him from {{spoiler|taking over Windbloom or activating the Harmonium, leading up to an attempt to liberate Windbloom, destroy the Harmonium and defeat him}}.
* In ''[[Naruto]]'', Akatsuki need to seal all 9 of the Tailed Beast for their goal ({{spoiler|both the ones Pain and Tobi stated}}) to be completed. Inevitably, in the Rescue Gaara arc they fail to get Gaara back before his beast is sealed, beast 2-7 were sealed off-screen, and {{spoiler|Tobi seems to be able to at least partially make up for the absence of the 8 and 9-tailed beast with a fraction of each one's chakra found in a severed tentacle and the body of a man revived by Kabuto, respectively.}}
* In [[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]], the [[Big Bad]] of the Inheritance Ceremony Arc, {{spoiler|Daemon Spade}}, manages to steal {{spoiler|Mukuro's body}} near the end of the arc. He receives a ''massive'' power boosts since he now has access to his full power, and the rest of the arc consists in the final battle against him.
* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' has
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* A variant on this was standard procedure in [[Silver Age]] [[DC Comics]]: The villain would always pull off one or two crimes with a given modus operandi before the hero beat him. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by [[Batman|the Penguin]], who commented that if you actually look at the numbers, he defeated Batman more often than Batman defeated him (people just remember Batman's victories because the Penguin went to jail afterward).
* Humorously deconstructed in the ''[[Astro City]]'' "Show 'Em All"
* An aversion happened in the [[Sin City]] story ''Family Values''. Throughout this graphic novel, Dwight and Miho decimate an entire mob family with only a few instances where it's possible that Dwight may be killed or arrested. The drama actually comes from the mystery surrounding the reason why Old Town is going after this mob family and how the random pieces of information all link together.
== [[
* True to its roots as ''Nanoha'' fanfic, ''[[Deva Series
* Frequently subverted in fanfics, such as when [[Talk to the Fist|the villain isn't even allowed to get a shot in before being beaten to a bloody pulp]]. [[Tropes Are Not Good|When done badly]], it leads to a stagnant plot, or an endless succession of such encounters. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|When done well]], it can be a case of [[Reality Ensues]], or a way of taking the story in a different direction. It can also have a place in a story where the struggle against the [[Big Bad]] is ''not the point of the story''.
* In ''[[Quarter
* Whatever changes occur in ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2384630/1/Brothers_in_Arms Brothers in Arms]'' or its various [[Follow the Leader|imitators]], the nuclear rearmament of the Earth Alliance and the Second Battle of Jachin Due almost inevitably will come to pass.
* In ''[[Ace Combat: The Equestrian War]]'', the griffins eventually manage to besiege Canterlot, despite the ponies putting up a good fight through the war.
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* In ''[[Collateral]]'', Vincent kills all but one of the people on his hit list, although it's not until the fourth one that Max begins actively trying to stop him.
* In ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'', Jake and the Na'vi fail to repel the human invasion until the last possible opportunity.
* In ''[[The Manchurian Candidate (novel)|The Manchurian Candidate]]'' remake, all efforts to reach out to Marco fail {{spoiler|until he decides at the last possible second to have himself and his mother get shot instead of the president-elect, thwarting the conspiracy's plans}}.
* ''[[Austin Powers]]'' Subverts and lampshades this. In song.
{{quote|
** It's also one of the things on Austin's "Things to do Before I Die" list.
* Surprisingly averted in ''[[Johnny English]]''. The titular agent gets too close to the [[Big Bad]]'s attempt to kidnap and impersonate the Archbishop of Canterbury, so he abandons that plan.
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** Also averted: One of the past plans Dr. Impossible mentions never even got to the evil stage before being shut down: {{spoiler|the plan that created superhero Fatale}}.
* In ''The Amulet of Samarkand'', the first installment of ''[[The Bartimaeus Trilogy]]'', Lovelace manages to trap the British government and summon Ramuthra before he is defeated.
* ''[[Angels
* The ''[[Seventh Tower]]'' series ends with the heroes fighting the [[Big Bad]] to regain the [[Cosmic Keystone|Violet Keystone]] - if they're too slow, their world's defense fails. They catch up to him just when he's summoning his army.
* Subverted somewhat in ''[[Dune]]''. Baron Harkonnen's plan to take over Arrakis, destroy House Atreides, and eventually place his nephew on the Imperial throne has several important factors go wrong from the beginning (such as Paul and Jessica surviving and his [[The Dragon|second-in-command]] [[Psycho for Hire|Piter]] being killed before he could assume control of Arrakis, and keeping a member of the Atreides staff alive and in his employ). The repercussions of these factors ultimately ruin the Baron, and probably meant that his plan wouldn't have succeeded in any case. As the Princess Irulan said, "A beginning is a very delicate thing".
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*** To be fair, Shepard wasn't really available (If You Know What I Mean) while the Collectors were doing most of the legwork on their plan.
*** For that matter, you cannot prevent the destruction of the ''Normandy'' SR-1 and Shepard's death in the prologue.
*** Specifically, Shephard can install the highly destructive Thanix Cannon (which [[One-Hit Kill|one-shots]] it in the [[Final Battle]]) before running into the collectors' ship two more times, without using
* Subverted in the ''[[Star Trek]] Generations'' game: If you can win an extremely difficult (but not hopeless) space battle, you can put an end to the [[Big Bad]]'s plan and win the game long before the villain's plans come to fruition. Unfortunately, while this rewrites the canonical [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|Bridge Drop]], Kirk still stays dead.
* In almost every ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' game starting with ''[[
** In the [[Final Fantasy II
** And of course you can't stop the Cyclone from {{spoiler|destroying most of the cities in the game. Mysidia survives, and Salmando and Bofsk, and you just manage to save Phin; Altea, Paloom, Porft and Gatea go bye-bye. The Emperor destroys Palamecia castle himself, and Dist and Kashuon are both abandoned and/or in ruins anyway.}}
** Arguably, the party's entire goal in [[Final Fantasy I|the first game]] is to [[Subverted Trope|subvert this trope]] by {{spoiler|winning a battle that, according to the [[Stable Time Loop]], you're destined to lose.}}
** In ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'', you can't save [[Doomed Hometown|Damcyan or Fabul]] from [[The Empire|Baron]]. You can't save a single [[Cosmic Keystone|Crystal]], Light or Dark, from falling into Golbez' hands. You can't stop the awakening of the [[Humongous Mecha|Giant of Bab-Il]] (though you can blow it up from the inside.) You can't even fight the [[Big Bad]] yourself, only his [[One-Winged Angel]] form.
** In ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'', you can't save ''any'' [[Cosmic Keystone|Crystal]] from shattering. Ever. You can't save the Elder Forest. You can't keep the worlds from merging. You can't stop Exdeath from [[Sealed Evil in a Can|unsealing the Dimensional Rift]] and all its [[Eldritch Abomination
** In an extreme case, [[Final Fantasy VI|Kefka]] succeeds at becoming a god and [[The End of the World as We Know It|Destroying the World As We Know It]] a year before Our Heroes finally manage to kill him and liberate the few survivors.
** In ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', you can't topple Shinra, stop Sephiroth from acquiring the [[McGuffin|Black Materia]] or summoning [[Colony Drop|Meteor]], or even stop him from skewering your [[White Magician Girl]] in a [[Plotline Death]].
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** Again in [[Suikoden V]], you cannot {{spoiler|prevent Lord Godwin from taking over the castle with Nether Gate, the King and Queen being assassinated, or Lymsleia being kidnapped and eventually forced into puppet-queendom, no matter what you do.}}
* Listing all the times this happens in ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'' would likely require a trope page all of its own.
** The all-encompassing one, of course, is that our heroes spend the whole game collecting five of the six Moon Crystals and keeping them out of enemy
* In an amusing example, one speedrun of ''[[Super Mario RPG|Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars]]'' features beating the boss Punchinello on first turn using Mario's Super Jump attack to cause more damage than the boss has HP. Punchinello normally goes through "stages" where he summons and throws bombs of increasing size; when killed early, he runs through all of his bomb summons animations sequentially and then goes right into his death animation.
* At the start of ''[[Metroid|Super Metroid]]'', you encounter Ridley making off with the Metroid hatchling. Nothing you can do can stop him. If he beats you, he'll escape to Zebes with the larva. If you beat him, he'll drop the larva, then pick it up again and escape to Zebes anyway.
* ''[[Ace Combat]]'' can be pretty bad about this. Let's just take one game: ''Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War''. The big final scheme involves the use of a very large rocket with a nuclear payload. You fight your way through a tough squadron of [[Ace Pilot|ace pilots]] then through a twisting canyon with ridiculous SAM coverage overhead, and then fly into Avalon Dam to destroy the launch controls. Even then, the missile is ''still'' launched and you have to take out {{spoiler|your former wingman Pixy}} who turns out to be controlling the launch from his supertech-loaded plane; the final fight becomes a race against the clock to destroy the plane and thus the control before the missile can make reentry.
** At least it makes sense based on two things: #1, all other Allied Forces were essentially sacrificed to ensure your successful attack run on the Avalon Dam (whether intentional or not on the enemy's part it left you all alone) and #2, you're the ''freaking'' Demon Lord of the Round Table, who liberated your country's capital, "pulled Tauberg's sword from the stone" (destroying the beam superweapon Excalibur), and defeated multiple Belkan ace squadrons along the way. None of ''them'' had a backup...
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** In the first ''X'' game, when you get to Sigma's Fortress, Vile will be waiting for you. Zero intervenes and gets his ass handed to him. At this point, it is possible to have already acquired the [[Game Breaker|Secret One-Hit KO Hadoken]]. However, Vile's Ride-Armor is resistant to it, and will proceed to throttle you, as there are no walls to hang onto. [[Oh Crap|Once he loses that Ride-Armor, though...]]
** In ''X2'', a robot boss called Morph Moth goes through two distinct fighting phases, [[Turns Red|changing between them]] when its health is less than halved. Just before you fight him again in the fortress, you can gain a skill that kills any boss in one hit. Against Morph Moth, however, you have to do it twice - once to beat his first phase (2/3 health), and again to beat his second phase.
** In ''X5'', your initial defeat of Sigma is [[Unwitting Pawn|part of his plan]], setting in motion a [[Colony Drop]]. You then spend most of the game building machines to prevent the
** The missions you undertake in the ''[[Mega Man Zero]]'' games fail a lot. For instance, in ''Zero 2'', you'll just about catch up with Elpizo several times before getting a chance to actually stop him.
** ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' lives and breathes this trope. In all six games, Lan and Mega Man defeat lots of bosses but ''never'' stop them from getting what they're after, be it TetraCodes or Alpha or whatever. Only by beating the final boss can they score a decisive win.
*** In general, the original timeline in ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' (i.e. the one ''not'' involving ''Battle Network'' and ''[[Mega Man Star Force|Star Force]]'') suffers from this tremendously. Every robot created before X and Zero is [["Three Laws"-Compliant]]. In other words, Mega Man can only hope to lock up Dr. Wily for a few months ''at best''. The one time he actually ''did'' try to kill Wily (''7'') ends with Mega Man's A.I. going into a Three Laws loop, which allows Wily to escape. Years down the road, Wily finishes his greatest creation: Zero. When Zero is released is 21XX, he goes on a rampage. Sigma manages to put him down, but [[The Corruption|has his data comprised by the Zero Virus]], slowly driving him mad until he finally [[Face Heel Turn|snaps and declares war on humanity]], [[The Chessmaster|manipulating various parties in the process]], spreading the Sigma Virus over Earth, and (worst of all) [[Colony Drop|dropping the Eurasia onto the planet, turning it into a hellhole]]. Sometime after Sigma ''finally'' goes down circa ''X8'', Zero's anti-viral programming is examined, producing the Mother Elf as a way to eradicate the lingering effects of the Sigma Virus. {{spoiler|Then Weil enters the picture. For no reasons other than [[Fantastic Racism|his belief that humans are superior to Reploids]], he steals Zero's mindless body (reprogramming this blank slate into a psychopathic killing machine known as Omega) and corrupts the Mother Elf (turning her into the Dark Elf), starting the Elf Wars. Final count? 60% of all humans and 90% of all Reploids '''''have been wiped out.''''' [[Sealed Evil in a Can|In order to seal away the Dark Elf]], X gives up his body, forcing the creation of an unstable [[Knight Templar]] copycat of himself to rule Neo Arcadia in X's place. This... doesn't bode well.}} By the end of ''Zero 4'', {{spoiler|Weil has been defeated and the world is saved, but at the cost of [[Anti-Anti-Christ|Zero's]] [[Heroic Sacrifice|life]].}} In the following centuries, humans augment their bodies with cybernetics and Reploids are given lifespans akin to humans, merging into a single race (Humanoids). Then [[Artifact of Doom|Model W]] (heavily implied to be {{spoiler|Weil's soul merged with fragments of [[Kill Sat|Ragnarok]] from the finale of ''Zero 4''}}) rears its ugly head in ''[[Mega Man ZX|ZX]]''. [[Left Hanging|This threat is presumably dealt with]], but the world somehow is [[The Great Flood|sacked by a great flood]] and {{spoiler|humans all but disappear and are replaced by a race of [[Artificial Human
* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]]'' is practically the poster-child for the trope. The {{spoiler|initial}} [[Big Bad]] succeeds in destroying the world within the first few minutes of gameplay, and, due to the structure of the plot, it only gets worse from there. {{spoiler|You can't stop your friends from turning into half-human monsters, heaven forbid talk them out of their [[Face Heel Turn
* Subverted in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]];'' turns out Snake could've stopped stage one easily {{spoiler|if he died. Ocelot ''accidentally'' killed one of the Hostages with the PAL codes (it's revealed later he had his reasons), so they couldn't launch Rex's nuke. Except that Armstech had created a special card key which would deactivate the nuke (if it was activated) or activate the nuke (if it was deactivated). All they had to do was convince Snake that they had the codes, and Snake [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|went along and completed stage one for the terrorists]] ("You found the key and even activated the warhead for us")}}.
** ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'', Act 3: {{spoiler|Ocelot wins. He captured Big Boss's body while you were distracted by a decoy. He has enough control over the SOP system to completely shut down the world's armed forces. All that's left is to ensure that he cannot launch nuclear strikes as well.}}
** The ''Metal Gear'' series provides one of the most excessive examples of this in all of gaming: the first five games are all stopping terrorists, who are eventually revealed to have been rebelling against the very dangerous conspiracy which is only thwarted in the final act of the last game. Arguably, the world would have been much better off if Solidus, Liquid, or Big Boss had killed Solid long ago.
** Solid Snake arguably did more good than harm. A better example is if Ocelot, Liquid, Zero or Big Boss had been killed off early, the dangerous conspiracies would never have even taken place at all.
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* Played ''really'' straight in the [[Game Cube]] ''[[Resident Evil]]'' remake. When playing as Chris, you come across Wesker fighting Lisa Trevor. He'll say "Chris! Take a piece of the action!" when he sees you, and you fight her off together. However, Wesker can get knocked into the abyss by Lisa's attacks. If he does so, he'll ''still'' appear unscathed during the final battle, with no explanation.
* Blizzard seems to enjoy this trope as a means for making proper drama.
** In ''[[
*** Subverted in the ''Brood War'' expansion, as the order is changed to Protoss -> Terran -> Zerg, with the Protoss simply doing their best to survive in their campaign, the Terrans introducing the new UED antagonists and succeeding much like the Zerg before them...and then {{spoiler|Kerrigan betrays ''everyone'' and the Zerg finish the game as the pre-eminent power in the Sector, with only Kerrigan's mercy holding them from overrunning her former allies she used to bring down the UED.}}
** In ''[[Warcraft]]'', the first two games were a continuity snarl as the Alliance and Orc sides had different, mutually exclusive endings if you played through them. ''Reign of Chaos'' however introduced a similar progression to ''StarCraft'', with the Alliance campaign ending on {{spoiler|Arthas' corruption into a Death Knight}}, the Scourge campaign rolling up most of Lordaeron, before the Horde and Night Elf campaigns manage to beat back the Scourge's Burning Legion backers in an exciting climax.
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* Happens quite commonly in [[Project Sylpheed]], thanks to the [[New Game+]] feature. The first time you, the player, take on an enemy cruiser, it's quite the accomplishment, being very, very difficult even on the easiest difficulty settings. Your commander even admits that he's impressed, but he doesn't want to see you try anything that stupid again. Of course, over the span of then game, your space fighter gets weapons upgrades that are [[Game Breaker]]-level improvements... Which in no way effect the game's storyline or allow you to rescue or otherwise impact the story in any meaningful way. Even when you're regularly wiping out entire enemy fleets, your own fleet will still be desperately on the run.
* Surprisingly averted in ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius|Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance]]'' in that after defeating the villain, the [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] is never unleashed (until the sequel) despite having been an apparent [[Chekhov's Gun]] throughout the game.
* [[Command
* Disgaea 2 has the protagonist try to summon the final boss at the very start of the game. It doesn't work, but he does try.
** {{spoiler|Actually averted, sort of, as he DOES summon exactly what he was trying to summon. He just didn't know the final boss was a fake Zenon and that the real Zenon has reincarnated as the bratty girl who called herself Overlord Zenon's daughter. }}
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** This is explained by the endgame. {{spoiler|After fighting through Demichev's troops, Renko manages to create a bomb powerful enough to destroy the island's reactor - he detonates it in the past. When he comes back to the present, Demichev is waiting for him in front of an ''operational reactor''. He says that it was pointless to destroy the reactor - he just rebuilt it. Dr. Raikov, a supporter of yours, then says that the problem with the time loop wasn't the reactor, but Demichev - since you rescued him from the fire. Demichev then says that ''you've already tried killing him in the past, and it changed nothing'' - as evidenced by notes scrawled on the wall by someone who turns out to be ''Renko''. Raikov then realizes that the only way to stop the loop is to destroy the one thing not present in the original timestream - Renko.}}
* Touched on in one of the opening levels of ''[[Max Payne 2]]'' which sends you to investigate a warehouse where gunfire was recently heard. One of the corrupt commercial cleaners at the place lets you in and shows you around the place, eventually leading you into an ambush. Killing him beforehand averts nothing, but instead causes the protagonist to make an off comment in his rampant monologuing about [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|how obvious a brawl he was walking into.]]
{{quote|
* Averted ''and'' played straight in [[City of Heroes]]. Straight examples: when playing through story missions, it always seems to come back to a climactic battle between you and the villain of the arc, even if you've successfully completed all the missions beforehand (and should have already thwarted his plans). However, you can also do one-off missions such as "Prevent the Xs from obtaining the Oxygen Destroyer!" Once you complete the mission you never hear about it again; it is never explained just what ''would'' happen if the Oxygen Destroyer was obtained, but fortunately you thwarted stage one!
* In ''Mafia II'', there are several scenes where your target is visible running away from you, with the intention that you'd be too busy dealing with the next group of [[Mooks]] to shoot him then. But if you DO take some well-aimed shots, he's seen taking the hits and ''completely ignoring them'', even headshots. Killing some targets earlier may have spared you having to drive Henry to El Greco or {{spoiler|saved Marty's life}}.
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*** To be perfectly fair, this is more due to {{spoiler|Xehanort}}'s amazing ability as a schemer. Literally everything Sora does helps the [[Big Bad]], but it's not because Sora is bad, {{spoiler|Xehanort}} is simply very prepared.
* In the [[Infocom]] text adventure murder-mystery, ''Witness'', the murder itself doesn't actually happen until a few minutes into the game. It's entirely possible to prevent the murder and completely derail the plot by doing something utterly insane (i.e. shooting the killer, or even murdering the victim yourself). However, any such act would end the game immediately with your character being sent to jail.
* In specific missions, the ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' games sometimes do allow you to thwart a
* ''[[Touhou]] 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom'': you can't stop {{spoiler|Yuyuko from resurrecting herself with the [[Spring Is Late|stolen essence of Spring]]}}. [[Hold the Line|The best you can do]] {{spoiler|is dodge her final spellcard, during which she is invincible}}.
** ''Touhou 8: Imperishable Night'': you can't stop Eirin from tampering with Gensokyo's Full Moon. {{spoiler|[[Shaggy Dog Story|And it actually would have been better if you don't stop her and risking Gensokyo in the progress.]]}}
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** ''Touhou 13: Ten Desires'': you can't stop {{spoiler|Miko's rite of resurrection}}.
* A repeating plot in the Sonic series between Sonic Adventure and Sonic Unleashed. In each game in that range, Sonic tries to stop some evil from being released or brought to full power (or in one case the Chaos Emerald from being collected, which unbeknownst to him and Eggman releases an evil anyway). Said plot goes underway anyway despite his best efforts, and the final boss is him going Super Sonic to face the unleashed evil and bring peace to the world again.
* Inverted in [[
* In ''[[Batman: Arkham City]]'', not only is Arkham City [[Late to the Party|established before the events of the game]], but Protocol 10 {{spoiler|kills a quarter of all inmates before Batman can stop it}}.
* In the very first chapter of the original ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'' game, it's not hard to figure out that {{spoiler|Desther}} is up to something fishy; even if you haven't played to the point where {{spoiler|he}} finally openly sabotages the attempt to find a cure for the Wailing Death yet, a number of clues pop up before then. Yet you can't actually ''do'' anything with them before it's time for the scripted final battle; {{spoiler|he}} can't be fought until then, and any accusations that the dialogue system even allows will simply be met with disbelief from the [[NPC
* In ''[[Dragon Quest VIII]]'', you can never prevent the deaths of the seven heirs who's ancestors sealed [[Sealed Evil in a Can|Rhapthorne]].
* In the game ''[[Catherine]]'', it is ultimately up to the player whether Vincent remains faithful to [[Nice Girl|Katherine]] or leaves her for [[Horny Devil|Catherine]], but the player cannot stop him from cheating on Katherine initially.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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** Not long after this, Xykon encounters a defense of the gate so powerful even he can't overcome it. Naturally, [[Knight Templar|Miko]] shows up to accidentally ruin everything just before [[Big Good|Soon Kim]] can kill Xykon and Redcloak.
** Most notably, {{spoiler|Darth}} Vaarsuvius, {{spoiler|recently and temporarily powered up}} later decides to go and just teleport into Xykon's palace and assault him directly by him/herself to end it all at a very anti-climatic moment, before either party has still ''seen'' the last two portals, or managed to control one. S/he fails.
* This is arguably the overriding theme of Book 1 of ''[[Erfworld]]'', wherein the main character, Parson, had been intending to do this to a group of [[PC
** Especially [[Alternate Character Interpretation|if you believe]] that Stanley's side is [[The Empire]], it's clear who's going to win the Battle for Gobwin Knob, though not ''how'' this will happen. If Parson wasn't working for the bad guys in Book One, then he certainly is considering what happens afterward.
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'': The ''Sluggy'' crew try to stop Gwynn from summoning the demon K'Z'K. Doesn't work. They try to trick [[Killer Rabbit|Bun-Bun]] into killing Gwynn while she's [[Demonic Possession|possessed by K'Z'K]]. Doesn't work. They try exorcising K'Z'K from Gwynn. It works ... but it unleashes K'Z'K in his full power upon the world. They try freezing K'Z'K in time. He ends up going ''back'' in time instead. Only when Torg and Zoe also go to the past, where K'Z'K has amassed an army of demons to conquer the world, do they finally succeed in killing him.
** [[Back
* In ''[[General Protection Fault]]'', Trudy's plan to split up the cast proceeds smoothly until Nick is in the Statue of Liberty, [[Unwitting Pawn|unwittingly]] using his Velociraptor device to power the [[Kill Sat]] that she is using to hold the United Nations hostage in her bid to take over the world, leading to a final desperate attempt to stop her. Then again, it took until the previous chapter for the heroes to even realize there was a plan.
* ''[[Homestuck]]'': A version of this occurs by necessity in all games of Sburb. In every session, someone must defeat the White King (good guy) and begin the Reckoning, a 24 hour period during which meteors from the Veil (asteroid belt) bombard Skaia (sparkly planet-thing in the Medium vital to winning the game). The catch is that Skaia has defence portals which can send the meteors to the host planet (i.e. Earth in the comic), and these portals can send things to the past. It just so happens that the players of Sburb invariably create themselves, and the baby versions of themselves get sent back through these portals to become themselves. So if the Reckoning did not happen, the players of the game would not exist! So if Stage One were thwarted, that would cause a time paradox. Which doesn't happen in this universe (usually).
* Cuco in ''[[Cucumber Quest]]'' would very much like to avert this trope by preventing the Nightmare Knight's summoning, but the
* Obama in ''Obama Guantanamo Escape'' can’t prevent himself from being kidnapped by Bush's two much larger henchmen as part of a plot by Bush to impersonate Obama, but he can free himself from the titular prison at Guantanamo Bay.
== Web Original ==
* In ''[[Suburban Knights]]'', {{spoiler|[[Big Bad|Malachite]] regains the [[MacGuffin|magic gauntlet]] that the heroes have been searching for, despite efforts from the over twenty adult nerds attempting to stop him}}.
* The first three volumes of ''[[RWBY]]'' all lead up to the dramatic strike by Cinder Fall that results in the destruction of Beacon Academy and the Vale communications tower; the latter disrupts inter-kingdom communications and the former was accomplished with the help of subverted Atlesian military assets, giving the impression that Atlas was involved in the attack. Beloved characters died or were seriously injured. And even though the heroes of the show had twigged on to ''parts'' of the plan, they were unable to do more than change some of the scheduling, and in fact some of their early "successes" actually played into the villains' hands.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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* A famous Gandhi quote: "When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it, always."
** "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|then you win]]." Although he [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|didn't actually say that]].
* From 1923, when he first appeared on the German National Stage, until 1945, there were at least 43 different schemes to kill [[Adolf Hitler]], success of which would have vastly altered history. Many had no chance of success, but some came close to success, being thwarted by a [[Butterfly of Doom|twist of fate]]. The most memorable of these is the July 20 Plot, as seen in the [[Tom Cruise
** One of the ringleaders of the July 20 Plot panicked when somebody almost walked in on him while he was assembling the bomb, and thus he ended up using only half as many explosives as planned, not having time to put a detonator in the second set of explosives. [[
* In ''Blink'', by Malcolm Gladwell, he writes about the true story of retired General Paul Van Riper, asked to play the part of the commander of the opposing force (or Red Team) in the Pentagon's Millenium Challenge wargame. Early in the mission, the Blue Team cut the Red Team's fiber-optic lines, thinking that all of Red Team's orders would now all be on tappable phone lines. Detecting no enemy communication, Blue Team then moved a fleet of ships to engage Red Team. Though Blue Team didn't hear anything, Red Team then launched a salvo of cruise missiles at the fleet that sank nearly all of them, resulting in 20,000 simulated casualties. When asked how he could possibly coordinate that attack, Riper replied that he had used motorcycle couriers, coded messages inside prayers, and flashlight signals - "Don't any of you remember World War Two?" Two days after the attack, however, he recieved word that the clock was being turned back - all of his cruise missiles were miraclously shot down by a new missile defense system. In addition, he was told that he had to power down his radar and pull back his forces so that Blue Teams ground forces could land without interference - and Blue Team won the now scripted battle.
** Justified by one of the other Generals involved: "You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?" [[Your Mileage May Vary|If you take this logic at face value]], the events would be closer to [[Save Scumming]] (though only completely so if the lessons during the "kill on the first day" scenario were integrated into real-life war decision making... which they weren't).
** This wargame took place in the Persian Gulf in 2002 - and its success predicted similar success in any future wars fought in that area. Right?
*** Actually the forces were not the type of insurgency fought in Iraq, it was a conventional enemy, the type that was defeated in less than a month of actual warfare.
** Several accounts state that what Riper did was really just cheating by being a [[Rules Lawyer]]. Those missile attacks that destroyed the 20,000 sailors spawned from nowhere under the [[Insane Troll Logic|argument]] that the US Navy would ignore fishing vessels in that area simply because he wanted them to. When that failed, he argued that his missiles were fired from converted fishing vessels, the Navy then claimed that it it would be structurally impossible for a fishing boat to carry an Anti-ship Missile. When this was explained to him, he used this fact as an example of how inflexible the conventional military is in their thinking. In other examples, he assumed his communications were instantaneous despite using the much slower systems. And he was finally fired due to his excessive [[Munchkin]] behavior, at the expense of useful experience for the soldiers in the exercise and any realistic sense of strategy. In Gladwell's account he doesn't talk to anyone else from the exercise, hence his biased account see [https://web.archive.org/web/20200814000743/http://www.tboverse.us/HPCAFORUM/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=289 here] for an analysis.
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