You Have Failed Me.../Literature

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Examples of You Have Failed Me... in Literature include:

  • In PC Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath, Rawneth has a particularly nasty example. She strips the names of some twenty underlings, making the affected underlings' souls to fade away, and causing everyone else under her to mostly (but not completely—they know they're missing something) forget them too. However, this causes a great deal of unrest among her followers, and some cases of civil disobedience.
  • In Trickster's Queen, we learn that Ulasim has prohibited his people undercover at the prison to get promoted beyond a certain level, because: "The Rittevons were notoriously fond of executing people in charge when things went wrong".
  • Subverted in The Thrawn Trilogy, part of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, where tactical genius villain Grand Admiral Thrawn makes a point of not indiscriminately killing subordinates, and in fact quietly lampshades this when his Commander Contrarian expects him to act more like Vader. He instead has a Tractor Beam operator (who was also a Contest Winner Cameo!) killed for not following procedure from his training - and for trying to pin the blame on his superior - and later actually promotes a different Tractor Beam operator who quickly came up with a creative solution to a sudden problem that was "no less impressive for its failure" and for accepting the blame himself.

Thrawn used a small measure of fear, certainly: the Grand Admiral realized that fear of failure was a powerful motivating force in a military the size of the Empire. But Thrawn's ability to invoke a sense of pride in his troops was his most powerful asset. Palpatine inspired arrogance and callousness in his officers; Thrawn made his men proud to be Imperial soldiers. Thrawn's officers would have willingly died for the Grand Admiral.

    • The Evil Overlord version (in which the Big Bad kills a random minion as a lesson) is subverted in the New Jedi Order series. Supreme Overlord Shimrra can be a really Bad Boss, but he's clever enough to recognize when he's being played. Near the end, it looks as if he's about to execute High Prefect Jakan, who's been framed as a supporter of the heretics—then turns on the High Priestess who's framing him and is a heretic.
    • This trope seems to be liked by villainous Imperials and former Imperials in general. In the X Wing Series, Zsinj, spying on the consoles of his bridge crew, sees that one of them is playing flight simulators instead of paying attention while on duty. He has been warned about this, but he wants to be a pilot so much. Zsinj has his second-in-command whisk the crewman off in the dead of night telling him it's a secret pilot test, put him through the standard set of pilot qualification simulations, praise or chastise him as necessary, and then kill him. Later on he puts a pair of scientists in a Shoot Your Mate Or I Kill You Both. The trope, and the fact that they're cruel about it rather than simply just shooting them, serves as a good reminder that while Zsinj and his Dragon are interesting, clever, and often funny characters, they are also the bad guys, and for good reason.
    • When someone he's interrogating dies before giving up the information he needs, Kirtan Loor is summoned back to Imperial Center by Ysanne Isard, Empress in all but name. All along the way, even while marveling at the view, he's sweating and expecting her to kill him. She doesn't - not at that point in time - but she does make her displeasure at his poor thinking clear, and wants him to perform better.
      • The Queen of this trope is Ysanne Isard, whose murderous punishments for failure were known to go as far as Familicide. Isard's love affair with this trope is skewered in one of Allston's X-Wing novels, where another Imperial explains that anyone working for a capricious psycho like Isard had nothing to look forward to except either death by the Rebels, or death by her.
    • Moff Leona Tavira.

Corran: "Tavira, when she doesn't hear that you succeeded, will see you as having failed. And you know her -- failure isn't an accident, it's a conspiracy."

    • Exagerated in Legacy of the Force: Caedus kill an officer who was fooled by a false ship identification, even if it was obvious that Luke's ruse was too well-prepared; there was no way she could have suspected the trap.
  • Harry Potter: The fear of hearing Voldemort say this, no doubt quickly followed by "Crucio!" and "Avada Kedavra!", hangs over the head of every Death Eater.
    • However, very few times do we see him actually kill one of his minions for failing him. Lucius Malfoy, for example, fails him spectacularly a number of times; and his punishment is psychological and possibly worse than death in its way: his only child sent on a suicide mission.
    • It is suggested in the sixth book that Voldemort would be more, uh... picky if he didn't have so few followers.
    • In book 7 he does at one point shoot everyone in sight when he is called after the Trio breaks into the Lestranges' vault, stealing Hufflepuff's Cup. This is very much a Villainous Breakdown on his part; he now knows that Potter knows his secret.
  • Animorphs' Big Bad, Visser Three, was famous for this, to the point where promotion for a Yeerk was a very dicey proposition, since every ladder rung you climb brings you slightly closer to Esplin 9466's stolen tail blade and hairtrigger temper. He does this so reliably that Marco's able to bluff his way out of a situation where three flunkies were expected by saying, "I think Visser Three killed them for doing something wrong".
  • In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Traitor General, Uexkull executes a commander as "an incompetent weakling" for failing to search for Gaunt and his men, and disables the second for not answering promptly enough—and has the third-in-command shoot him.
  • In James Swallow's Warhammer 40,000 Blood Angels novel Deus Sanguinius, at the end, Garand receives a message from Abaddon. He sends for his death-shroud before going.
  • Mocked in the Emberverse. Mike Havel pontificates for a while on how a "You fail, you die" policy is detrimental to subordinates' willingness to tell their superiors about their mistakes, thus effectively crippling said superior's ability to do his job.
  • In Thud!, two trolls working for a mob boss threaten Vimes. When Vimes meets with their boss, he claims he hadn't told them to make threats, and indicates a box. The narration is quick to point out wouldn't fit an intact troll.
  • In the Dale Brown novel Plan of Attack, one Russian general fails to rein in trigger-happy underlings who cost them a SAM group. The Big Bad has someone sneak in while the general is napping and deliver a Boom! Headshot!.
  • Stephen King's The Stand has a real doozy in the demise of Randall Flagg's henchman, the hapless Bobby Terry. Bobby rather overdoes the orders that he's given to simply capture the Judge, one of the good guys, ending up by accidentally blowing the top half of his head off. On a lonely road, in the middle of nowhere, a panicking Bobby suddenly hears footsteps approaching him, faster and faster, from behind...and turns to see Flagg charging at him with a huge, manic grin..."HEY, BOBBY TERRY, YOU SCREEEEEEWED UPPPPPP!!!"...'There were worse things than death. There were teeth.'
  • Robespierre gives Chauvelin this ultimatum in The Elusive Pimpernel, one of the sequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel, where Chauvelin epically failed to capture the eponymous vigilante Superhero.
  • Recurring villain Overseer Biron in the Starfleet Corps of Engineers stories is quick to kill off subordinates who fail him. As an Elite Officer-caste Androssi, he is within his rights to kill a Worker at any time. Failure, even relatively minor, often results in instant vaporization and replacement - Workers are considered fully expendable. Ironically, Biron's own boss is rather forgiving on those occasions that Biron himself fails.
  • The Klingons are like this throughout the Star Trek Novel Verse, though all but the most unhinged practice restraint. In Star Trek: Vanguard, when Captain Kutal's weapons officer Tonar responds to an order by saying "I'm endeavouring to do just that", Kutal replies: "then endeavour with greater zeal, or I shall find a new weapons officer". In Star Trek: Klingon Empire, General Kriz kills a captain under his command for failing to conquer a planet and ignoring good advice from his underlings.
  • In Theodore Cogswell's short story Wolfie, sorcerer Dr. Arsoldi's "colleague" will drag him off to hell if ever a murder he aids and abets fails. Naturally, there's eventually an insurmountable slip-up.
  • In Death: Max Ricker stands out as a crime boss who will not be happy with employees who fail to carry out their missions. Considering that he is a Complete Monster combined with Ax Crazy and Bad Boss, the penalty for failure is undoubtedly unpleasant.
  • Judging by the reaction of the assassin in Septimus Heap to the Supreme Custodian's demand to bring her target's body to him, You Have Failed Me... seems to be standard for the assassins.
  • In the Honor Harrington series, this is official government policy in the People's Republic of Haven under Pierre and Saint-Just. In fact, not only do they kill officers who fail to carry out their orders, but their entire families as well. This has the effect of stifling initiative, which hampers the war effort against Manticore. Ironically, the policy was put in place because they were afraid that the officers might try to overthrow them if they were given a free reign, but it inspired resentment among the military, which ultimately led to several coup attempts, one of which was eventually successful, becoming something of a self fulfilling prophecy.
  • Done quite a bit in Belisarius Series. The hero is also seen doing that on occasion. At one time an outpost has to get into it's head that there is now a major war on and it is no longer a police post but a supply post and the field army's interests take priority. It requires the firing of five separate commanders. At another time at the Battle of Mindouas, the right wing commander, although told that his job is to hold position while the counterattack circles round on the other wing, tries to lead a dashing cavalry charge which would cost lives and possibly lose the battle or at least make it harder to win as complete a victory. This time Belisarius is in to much of a hurry and orders him relived the old-fashioned way.
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