You Have Failed Me...: Difference between revisions

*** He also kills that henchman's vengeful brother (also a henchman) who tried to trick Doom into a device that would kill him.

* Near the end of the first volume of [[Runaways]], the Pride's main mole in the police, Lieutenant Flores, tries to capture the kids without telling the Pride in advance. The ensuing fight {{spoiler|destroys the Hostel}} and nearly gets everyone involved killed. His bosses are there when his men find him.

"And for once, you were right." *shotgun* }}

* Completely subverted in [[Hourman]]. When a villain who presides over a hellish slave camp learns that one of the [[Mooks]] screwed up, he finds the underling cowering in fear, certain that he's about to be killed for his failure. Instead, the villain pats him on the back, tells him to believe in himself, and gives him a couple of bucks to go buy himself a snack. It turns out their entire evil organization uses a series of self-help seminars as a front, and so they have a policy of only using positive reinforcement with the henchmen. ''And it works.''

** In another situation, after Soundwave let Buster Witwicky, whom he was ordered to capture, go away free despite him having the upper hand, Shockwave comes to the conclusion that Soundwave is either a traitor, or defective, and has outlived his usefulness. But when Soundwave explains Buster's mind needs to re-unite with Optimus so the Decepticons can tap into its secrets, Shockwave accepts this without question.

* Double-subverted by Darkhell in [[Les Legendaires]]: [[Origin Episode|Origines]], when one of his generals fails to bring him back Princess Jadina. Darkhell grasps him and raises him above a pit of lava. The general begs him for mercy, and the following scene ensues:

'''General''': T-Thanks, master...<br />

'''Darkhell''': ...[[Exact Words|Never a third one]] (''let him fall to his death'') }}

* Upon awakening in ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'', Megatron reunites with Starscream who reveals to him that the Allspark, the very reason they are on Earth and the ultimate power source of Megatron's obsession, is in the possession of the Human soldiers who are attempting to keep it away from him. His response is quite a ticked off; ''You have failed me yet again Starscream. GET THEM!''

* In [[Tim Burton|Tim Burton's]] ''[[Batman (film)|Batman]]'', [[The Joker]] immediately executes his top henchman after his master plan is foiled:

'''Bob the Henchman''': ''hands the Joker a gun, who promptly shoots him'' }}

** Honestly, Joker does this ''all the time'', but it's less about failure and more about the fact that he's [[Ax Crazy|the Joker]].

* Subverted in ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy]]'', part of the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], where tactical genius villain Grand Admiral Thrawn makes a point of [[Pragmatic Villainy|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 [[Career-Building Blunder|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.

** Here's what the [[All There in the Manual|Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook]] has to say.

** 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 [[Kick the Dog|a good reminder]] that while Zsinj and his [[The Dragon|Dragon]] are interesting, clever, and often funny characters, they are also the bad guys, and for good reason.

*** 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 [[Bad Boss|capricious psycho]] like Isard had nothing to look forward to except either death by the Rebels, or death by ''her''.

** [[Jedi Academy Trilogy|Moff Leona Tavira]].

** 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.

* In SciFi's ''[[Tin Man (TV series)|Tin Man]]'' miniseries, Azkadellia's actual reply to the general who let <s>Dorothy</s> DG escape is a sympathetic "You did your best", but considering she immediately followed it up with a fatal [[Life Energy]] drain, the meaning's the same.

* ''[[24]]'' season one example: One of the girls kidnapped by a sub-villain as part of a plan that's [[Gambit Roulette|waaay too complicated to describe here]] gets away and is hit by a car, so only [[Damsel Scrappy|Kimberly]] is taken instead. Said sub-villain says he killed the other girl, but his boss already knew that she'd been taken to a hospital. He takes a page ''straight'' from the Darth Vader book of villainy:

'''Boss:''' Well, I'll tell ya. [...] You're either dead or you're not dead. There's no such thing as "sorta dead". Here, let me show you. [Shoots him on the spot, turns to other, more sympathetic underling] You've just been promoted. Congratulations. }}

* ''[[Wiseguy]]'': A Mafia boss is annoyed that an outside contract killer has messed up a hit. The killer replies that he emptied "an entire clip from an Uzi" into the victim. The boss retorts that the proper way is to shoot someone in the back of the head and stuff their body in a trunk...and then does exactly that to the hitman.

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'': Lonzak barely manages to avoid this fate in the [[Show Within a Show|Captain Proton holodeck program]].

''[[Surrounded by Idiots|LONZAK]]'': He... err... escaped.<br />

''CHAOTICA'': [[You Fool!|FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!]] You shall PAY for your incompetence! Seize him!<br />

** He only did it once, in the pilot, to his general, who was supposed to kill the Seeker as the baby but failed. And the blood didn't go to waste - he used it immediately to send a message to his troops.

* "Offering their life in penance" was something The Master in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' demanded. One of the worst examples was when he told the Three to kill Buffy because she was killing too many of his servants, and they almost did, easily overpowering her. Angel showed up and helped her run away. As opposed to telling them to get back out there and try again and keep an eye out for Angel this time, The Master [[Double Subversion|double-subverted]] this trope:

'''[[Enfant Terrible|Collin]]:''' So you would spare them?<br />

'''Master:''' Hmm. I am weary, and their deaths will bring me little joy. <br />

* ''[[Angel]]'' used this as well. Wolfram and Hart was notorious for it, though they rarely did it onscreen. There was also the vampire Knox, who killed one of his best minions to prove a point about them getting soft. Vampires seemed to get this treatment a lot in the Buffyverse, especially the less modern ones.

** Played [[With/inverted Trope|inverted Trope]] when Linwood Murrow finds out about Lilah's [[Dating Catwoman|affair with good guy]] Wesley. It seems like he might try to pull this in the middle of a board meeting...until Lilah mentions that she contacted one of the [[Eldritch Abomination|Senior Partners]], who agreed with her that Murrow himself was doing a terrible job dealing with Angel.

'''Lilah:''' Just under it, actually. }}

* Adelai Niska on ''[[Firefly]]'' does this routinely. He intimidates Mal and crew by showing them a prisoner he's in the process of torturing to death. Then he attempts to do the same to Mal and Wash after they fail to carry out the theft he hired them for.

** Played straight in the episode "Losing Time": at the urging of project leader Drillic, Scorpius sends a test pilot on a flight into an unstable wormhole- only for the pilot to melt inside the cockpit. Scorpius promptly assigns Drillic the task of piloting the second test-flight.

* [[Ultraman Mebius]] has the target point this out--while being shot.

* In ''[[Flash Forward]]'' episode "Better Angels", merciless Somalian leader Abdi shoots two of his followers but spares the heroes, saying "They have failed me; you will not."

* The ''[[Due South]]'' episode ''Gift of the Wheelman'' has the bag guy pulling this on one of his henchmen for falling for a double cross by another henchman.

* In ''[[Assassin's Creed]] 2'', {{spoiler|Jacopo de'Pazzi}} gets stabbed a few times by {{spoiler|Rodrigo Borgia}} for failing to kill Lorenzo de'Medici and Ezio.

* In ''[[Dawn of War]]'', the Imperial Commissar will sometimes spout the trope name if you use his "Execute Guardsman" command. And in one of the stronghold battles:

'''Commissar''': If you will not serve in combat, you will serve ''on the firing line!'' }}

** If you defeat the Chaos faction in the ''Dark Crusade'' expansion, you'll see Eliphas the Inheritor on the receiving end of this courtesy of a Daemon Prince, who psychically choke-slams Eliphas into a geyser of gore. [[Unexplained Recovery|He gets better]] in time for ''Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising'', though.

** Except, oh yeah, [[Anthropic Principle|then the rest of the series wouldn't exist]].

** He was "feeling...generous" since Cortex's last blunder had inadvertently led to his release from his temple prison. He did actually try to fry Cortex for a couple of later failures, though has bad aim. In ''Crash Of The Titans'' he once again decides to fire Cortex, but in a business sense.

** In ''Crash Nitro Kart'' Velo bellows this [[Punctuated for Emphasis|Sparta-style]] at his minion Geary for losing a race. He prefers [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]] over lethal ones however.

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty]]'' has a variation that is even ''worse'' than the normal use: It mentioned that The Patriots would have killed Olga Gurlukovich's baby if she failed her part of the S3 plan, and the Patriots imply in their mind screw speech to Raiden that, if he fails to kill Solidus, not only will the Patriots execute Gurlukovich's child, but they'll also kill Rosemary the exact same way (And, oh, it gets worse: This happened after Rosemary revealed that she was pregnant with Raiden's child, so not only are they going to kill Rosemary, but they're also going to abort their child in the process)

** Also heavily implied to be one of the reasons why they deactivated Richard Ames' nanomachines besides the obvious fact that [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|he had outlived his usefulness]] in their S3 plan (If you read the in-game novel ''In the Darkness of Shadow Moses'', you'll notice that Richard Ames not only spared Nastasha Romanenko, but also supplied her with the records of the Shadow Moses Incident, as well as all the details of FOXDIE's development and the people involved (which means he might also turn himself in, since FOXDIE is his brainchild, and by extension the Patriots), which also resulted in the creation of the novel, and it is implied from the Colonel [actually an AI construct] that the Patriots did not like the book.)

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Lord Horribus kills a couple of demons for not doing their part in the hunt for Torg. It's actually somewhat more understandable in this case, since it was less a case of the demons ''failing'' to capture Torg and more that they hadn't even been ''trying''.

* In ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', two of Frans Rayner's mooks report that they were unable to capture the Doctor's father because he was on fire. Rayner insists that he could catch ''both'' of his mooks if they were on fire, and has his midget douse them with gasoline and light a match to prove it. He just sits there and watches them run around screaming.

'''Rayner:''' * Sips his coffee* No. I guess they were right. }}

* The Speaker in [[Harkovast]] forces a Junlock minion who disrespects The Speaker's religion to drown [http://www.drunkduck.com/Harkovast/index.php?p=537197 himself]. He also causes the Junlock's friends to think this was perfectly [http://www.drunkduck.com/Harkovast/index.php?p=540580 okay].

* [[Bob and George]] [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/040421c Your apology is accepted]

* Parodied in ''[[Darths and Droids]]'', [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0625.html during] [[Revenge of the Sith|Obi-Wan's and Anakin's climactic duel]]:

'''Anakin:''' That's it, Obi-Wan! [[Just for Pun|You've failed me for the]] ''[[Just for Pun|last time!]]'' }}

** When Darth Vader shows up (not played by the same person as Anakin - yet) one of the first things he does is order an underling to fix his mistake and then execute himself. The force-choke scene then becomes Motti complaining about Vader's policies instead of just mouthing off. Vader doesn't [http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0733.html quite] get the point.

* In ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', after Monique St.Claire spent the duration of a fight at the small cottage hiding from the opponents and her group, Melina Frost killed her for cowardice and being useless.

** In Version 4, Danya has long time henchman Achyls shot after he fails to report Liz Polanski acting suspiciously, allowing her to successfully disable her collar.

* In ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog]]'', Dr. Horrible is told that not only does he need to commit a murder to enter the Evil League of Evil, due to his previous failures Bad Horse will execute ''him'' if he screws this one up. It's put quite catchily, too:

* In ''[[Star Harbor Nights]]'', Webmistress explains she had to resort to this to cover when she accidentally killed a [[Mook]] she had meant to reward with a blissful injection, due to glitchy cybernetics.

* [[God Save Us From the Queen|Führer Katrina]] from v2 - v4 of ''[[Open Blue]]'', due to her perfectionist nature, had a tendency to shoot officers who botched missions. And officers who smelled like alcohol whenever she showed up for a surprise inspection.

* In ''[[The Emperor's New Groove|The Emperors New Groove]]'', Yzma does something even worse than killing her lackey [[Punch Clock Villain|Kronk]]: she [[Berserk Button|insults his spinach-puff recipe]].

* ''[[Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker]]'': One of the Jokerz [[Genre Blindness|mouths off to the Joker]] for not telling them his plan after they fail a heist...

* Joker pulls the trigger, the gun fires -- [[Subverted Trope|producing a 'BANG!' flag]]* <br />

'''The Joker:''' So was I.<br />

'''The Joker:''' Ooops... ''No I wasn't''. }}

** Said underling was named Bonk and was voiced by the always cool [[Henry Rollins]] (when said group of Jokerz appeared on ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'' under the control of {{spoiler|Chronos}} he was voiced by the equally cool [[Adam Baldwin]] instead). And also, {{spoiler|Chronos}} did kill one of them, but it was the portly Chucko instead.

'''Chronos''': Well Chucko does. }}

* Phobos, the season one [[Big Bad]] of ''[[WITCH (animation)|WITCH]]'', punished his [[Mooks]] heavily for failure, to the point where by the end of the season, one of them {{spoiler|[[Mook Face Turn|defected to the side of the heroes]] after they found him injured following a battle, knowing full well what Phobos did to those soldiers he discovered had been wounded}}. He even ''took a break from the [[Final Battle]]'' to punish his right-hand [[Giant Mook]] Cedric, transforming him from a giant snake monster into a tiny, pathetic one. This would later come back to bite Phobos in the ass in season two, after {{spoiler|he regains his power and gives Cedric one more shot. Cedric returns the favor by stealing all of Phobos' power by ''eating Phobos alive'' during the penultimate episode}}.

* At the end of ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'', after Dr. Facilier's plot is foiled, {{spoiler|rendering him unable to pay off his debt to his "Friends on the Other Side", said "Friends" show up to collect anyway... by dragging Facilier to his childhood trauma-inducing doom.}}

* In one episode of ''[[Conan the Adventurer (animation)|Conan the Adventurer]]'' when a snakeman fails to obtain a piece of Greywolf's magic staff, he is executed by Wrath-Amon by being thrown into a [[Shark Pool|pond with a tentacle-watcher thingy and being eaten alive]]. Thus, becoming probably the only snake-man being really killed on screen.

* The Shredder from the newer ''[[TMNT]]'' series would always kill his Mooks when they failed him. For minions he couldn't replace, well, it varied. Stockman would lose a piece of him every time, until he was just a brain in a robot body which would be punished with electric shocks. Everybody else usually got off without so much as a slap on the wrist. Sharp contrast to the older cartoon version that would just [[Harmless Villain|berate Bebop and Rocksteady]] for their stupidity, and then send them back again.

* Averted in ''[[Transformers: The Movie]]''. Unicron invokes the trope name, then gives Galvatron the 411 and sends him off to the Planet of Junk to try again.

* Sometimes Subverted with the Monarch and his henchmen in The Venture Bros. He frequently kills his henchmen for minor infractions, by accident, or simply because he's having a bad day.

* An episode of ''[[Stroker and Hoop]]'' has a ninja mook terrified of this trope after failing to kill the main characters. The head ninja points out how horrible for morale it would be to murder his henchmen every time they mess up... and then slices the mook in half.

* ''[[Pirates of Dark Water]]'' villain Bloth 'rewards' failure by tossing the offending minion to 'The Constrictus' a mutant monster that lives in a pool on his ship. However, he seems willing to allow second chances to those who escape that fate, and the rest of his crew make bets on whether or not the victim will survive. The only mook to succeed against the Constrictus was Konk, but he lost a leg in the process.

* Subverted in ''Visionaries-Knights of the [[Magical Light]]'', where Darkling Lord ruler Darkstorm regulary sends his loyal toadie Mortdredd down the [[Trap Door]] - even when he succeeds in his mission, or just whenever he feels like humiliating the guy. Showing a brain-dead kind of loyalty, Mortdredd never even complains and just climbs back from the pit - often to be thrown back again.

* In one episode of ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'', Agent P avoids Doofenschmirtz's [[Piano Drop|Piano (and Piano Player) Drop]] trap thanks to the maid's carelessness. Doofenschmirtz had this to say: