You Have Failed Me...: Difference between revisions

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== Western Animation ==

* Phaeton, the [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Exo Squad]]'' had a habit of summarily executing his generals whenever they really screwed up. But since he could easily [[Cloning Blues|clone them]], he could easily replace them... with themselves.

** Although, he does give them a few chances first. Typhonus, for example, attempted to betray Phaeton, accidentally convinced the Pirates to ally with the Exofleet, and then got his own fleet annihilated before Phaeton finally got rid of him.

* In the second episode of the ''[[Double Dragon (animation)|Double Dragon]]'' cartoon, the Shadow Master kills two underlings (Abobo and Willy) for failing him by trapping them in the Shadow Mural. Particularly annoying, as he never does this to his goons later. Maybe he just realized that if he killed somebody for every failure he'd run out of men fast.

** The only other time he does such a thing is in the Season 2 episode "Shadow Conned", when Countdown revolts against the Shadow Master by freeing the Shadow Khan from his shield. He does so by trapping Countdown in the Khan's shield.

* An early ''[[Birdman]]'' villain in the employ of F.E.A.R., the Ringmaster, seems to be terrified of finding himself on the receiving end of this when he is captured. In "Murro the Marauder", a nameless [[Mooks|mook]] gets the [[Trap Door]] treatment after being thwarted by Birdman in his attempt to steal a secret formula.

* 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...

{{quote|'''Bonk:''' * Finishing his rant* I want out!

'''[[The Joker]]:''' * Pulls a gun* If you insist...

'''Bonk:''' Take... Take it easy, man -- I was just kidding!

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

'''The Joker:''' So was I.

* Bonk relaxes -- [[Double Subversion|Joker pulls the trigger again, firing the flag into Bonk and impaling him]]*

'''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.

{{quote|'''Chronos''': Do you know what killed the dinosaurs?

'''Ghoul''': No... Sir.

'''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}}.

* Prime Evil, the [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Filmation's Ghostbusters|Filmations Ghostbusters]]'', was quite fond of saying this to his ghostly minions, often exacting some kind of "humorous" punishment on them. (Example: Fangster, a werewolf ghost, gets inflicted with vampire fleas.)

* Black Mask from ''[[The Batman]]'' killed his [[Number One]] and told a random Mook [[Mook Promotion|"You! You're my new Number One."]] The first just because he was pissed and he shot, the second questioned anti-gravity spray working and was made a test subject.

* In the ''[[Kim Possible]]'' movie, Drakken says this to his sidekick Shego after she failed the mission, but he's really just being dramatic. She replies "Why are you all, 'You have failed me for the last time!' Are you kidding me with that?" Then they get down to the new evil plan.

** In another episode, WorldWide Evil Empire head Gemini tells one of his underlings: "You have failed me for the last time." The underlings response? "Um, I just started last Thursday, so I haven't actually failed you bef--" Gemini cuts him off with "Silence!" then sends him down a trapdoor anyway.

* Subverted in ''[[Cat City]]''. After each failure, Mr. Teufel, [[The Dragon]], invites his semi-competent secretary "for a few words". The latter survives, but appears in ever-increasing number of bandages.

** Teufel's boss, however, has the mounted heads of Teufel's precedessors on his wall.

* [[Big Bad|Lord Nebula]] of ''[[Captain Simian & the Space Monkeys|Captain Simian and The Space Monkeys]]'' uses the phrase constantly to terrorize his toady Rhesus-2 (along with a few hard knocks). It's not an idle threat because his predecessor, Rhesus-1, was threatened constantly as well; he was eventually shot with a death ray and reduced to a ribcage in a pile of red goo.

* Robotnik does this to a Swatbot in the ''[[Sonic Sat AM|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' episode "Hooked On Sonics."

* 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.

{{quote|'''[[Bumbling Sidekick|Dreggs]]:''' Your pet is a [[Big Eater|messy eater]].}}

* 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.

** However, not so much averted in [[Transformers Generation 1|G1,]] where Megatron said that to [[The Starscream|Starscream]] [[Once Per Episode]].

* When an intern pulls a [[Critical Research Failure]] regarding the Olympics on ''[[Total Drama Island]]'' Chris MacLean ejects him from the plane without a parachute.

* Dr. Zin from ''[[Jonny Quest]]'' does this a lot to his minions. This is taken to the extremes in ''[[Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber Insects]]'', in which he has three head scientists. Each time one of them fails, he kills that scientist then promotes another of them. The first one he fed to the insects, the second he throws into a pit of acid, and the third he froze in liquid nitrogen and breaks him into pieces.

** In the ''[[Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures|Real Adventures of Jonny Quest]]'' episode "Diamonds and Jade," the Puppet Master says the phrase verbatim to his brother/accomplice.

* In ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'' this is what Count Dooku tells Ventress when {{spoiler|he "fires" her from the services of the Separatists}}.

* 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.

{{quote|"''Send in some more ninjas, please.''"}}

* ''[[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:

{{quote|'''Doofenschmirtz''': "Oop! Ooo! Oh, I told Nancy to keep the backdoor locked! Note to self... My evil deed for tomorrow: fire the maid."}}

== Real Life ==

* Admiral [[wikipedia:John Byng|John Byng]] had failed England at the Battle of Minorca.

** "Sometimes it is necessary to execute one admiral to encourage the others." Since Voltaire said it, you may come across the phrase ''"pour encourager les autres"''.

** It can be argued that it actually ''worked'': the Seven Years War marked the rise of England as the major naval power in Europe, mostly due to the freshly 'motivated' attitude of the RN.

** Byng wasn't the only one, either. At the time British naval law had a provision that an officer failing "to do his utmost" against the enemy was a capital offense.

** It also explained why British naval officers were gung ho and notoriously and successfully aggressive- You had two choices- Death, or killing those other guys. Most people chose the second option.

* To probably no one's surprise at all, Hitler had this one in his [[Obviously Evil|cartoonishly evil playbook.]] As the remnants of the Sixth Army were dying at Stalingrad, with no hope of escape or rescue, he promoted their commander, General Paulus, to Field Marshal. Because no German Field Marshal had ever surrendered, it was obvious to everyone that this was a subtle order for Paulus to [[Driven to Suicide|commit suicide]] for his failure to win the battle. Subverting the trope, he didn't.

** Men lower down on the German army totem pole also tended to suffer this a lot, particularly as war turned against Germany. For example, when the U.S. 9th Armored Division captured an intact bridge over the Rhine at Remagen, the German officers responsible for its defense were quickly court-martialed and executed. By the war's end, German soldiers had almost as much to fear from accusations of 'desertion', 'cowardice' or 'defeatism' from their own side as they did from the enemy.

** [[Villainous Breakdown|Near the end]], Hitler has this [[Up to Eleven]]: he thought ''the entire nation of Germany'' had failed him. Due to this, his final orders were to destroy the country in a sort of scorched-earth tactic. Fortunately, his generals [[Pragmatic Villainy|finally decided he was batshit insane and surrendered instead.]]

* Stalin executed many high-ranking officers who lost to significantly smaller numbers of Finnish soldiers during the Winter War. Since "failing Stalin (for the last time)" is not a charge that can be formally brought at a court-martial, one general's official offense was losing twelve battlefield kitchens to the enemy.

** As field kitchens were crucial for winter warfare, this isn't quite as silly as it sounds.

*** It's still barbaric and excessive to ''kill'' loyal people for that.

** Stalin [[The Purge|had also executed many high-ranking officers]] (read: ''90% of his officer corps'') ''before'' the war started because he was pathologically afraid of them turning against him, [[Hoist by His Own Petard|which was a great part of why the Russian military failed so miserably]] during the Winter War; they had almost no veteran tacticians left. Nobody dared to contradict Stalin, lest the same thing happen to them. Ironically, as a result, when Stalin was dying in his room, no doctor dared to enter, due to their fear that he'd randomly have them executed; therefore [[Karmic Death|Stalin died in agony as a result of his own purges]].

* Stalin was not a forgiving man during the [[Second World War]], either. When production of the Il-2 attack aircraft fell behind schedule, he dashed off a telegram to Ilyushin's plant managers [http://www.vectorsite.net/avil2.html which read] "YOU HAVE LET DOWN OUR COUNTRY AND OUR RED ARMY. YOU HAVE NOT MANUFACTURED IL-2S UNTIL NOW. THE IL-2 AIRCRAFT ARE NECESSARY FOR OUR RED ARMY NOW, LIKE AIR, LIKE BREAD. SHENKMAN ... PRODUCES ONE IL-2 A DAY AND TRETIAKOV ... ONE OR TWO MIG-3S DAILY. IT A MOCKERY OF OUR COUNTRY AND THE RED ARMY. I ASK YOU NOT TO TRY THE GOVERNMENT'S PATIENCE, AND DEMAND THAT YOU MANUFACTURE MORE ILS. I WARN YOU FOR THE LAST TIME. STALIN." Ilyushin went on to produce 36,000 Il-2s, making it one of the most heavily-produced aircraft in history.

* After [[wikipedia:Zhu Tao|General Zhu Tao]] of the Tang Dynasty rushed into battle against two of his rivals and was soundly defeated, he executed two advisers who had advocated [[Attack! Attack! Attack!|attacking immediately instead of allowing his soldiers to rest for a few days.]]

** Execution for failure was the standard in Ancient China. Part of why Cao Cao succeeded against Yuan Shao was that the latter kept executing capable generals for failures or for giving advice he didn't want to hear. Even Zhuge Liang (yeah, [[Romance of the Three Kingdoms|that one]]) executed one of his most brilliant generals who lost a crucial battle. According to the book at least, it was because the general failed to take important tactical advice into consideration and Zhuge Liang was reluctant to do it because he considered the other man to be like a son to him.

** Even earlier, a Han general was captured by the Mongols, and landed his family in hot water for ''not'' committing suicide. The furious emperor had his family executed and had the one guy (surnamed Sima, incidentally) who spoke up for him thrown in prison.

* [[wikipedia:Decimation (Roman army)|Cowardly Roman soldiers]] were punished by being divided into groups of ten and drawing lots, whereupon the unfortunate soldier in each group would be beaten to death by his comrades.

** This practice is the origin of the word "decimated", which originally meant killing one out of ten, but was later [[Flanderized]] to mean [[Kill'Em All|"killing everyone".]]

** This practice was abolished before the Imperial era. The reason was that brutal punishments have averse effect: they will collapse the already shaky morale altogether. Ordinary soldiers, who face the enemy on the battlefield, consider killing one of their own as a murder. A decimated unit usually had to be disbanded and its soldiers assigned to other units. Decimatio does not mean only losing one tenth of an unit: it means losing the whole unit. Instead punishment of shame, like having to eat only barley instead of wheat or not being allowed to eat sitting were introduced.

* During the French Revolution, and more specifically during the Revolutionary Wars, generals who failed were executed. This is explained by the fact that i. only traitors could fail considering French "élan vital" couldn't be beat (according to the Convention) ii. most if not all generals were generals during the monarchy, and henceforth considered as traitors, except if they proved otherwise by actually winning.

* Two notable times during the [[Greco Persian Wars]]. At one time the Persian Army was trying to build a pontoon and it was washed away by the ocean whereupon Xerxes executed the engineers. Another time at Salimis several Phoenician officers came to Xerxes to blame unpleasant fortunes of war on ships from Greek vassal states. At that moment [[Lady of War|Queen]] [[Magnificent Bastard|Artimisima]] was seen sinking a ship which Xerxes thought was an enemy (it was a friendly as it happened, which the queen was sinking for reasons of her own). Xerxes was enraged because the Phoenicians were not doing all that well, and the Greeks were; and ordered the officers beheaded.

** These are little more than legend, or anecdote, really. The Greek sources also reported Xerxes bringing 2.4 million "slave soldiers" and 1207 warships, while in fact modern historians have reduced that number to 149 thousand troops and 600 triremes.