History Main / AllForNothing

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/AWalkThroughHell'': [[spoiler: Shaw actually manages to escape hell despite everything that happened to her partner and everyone else that went into that warehouse and winds up in a roadside diner. But then she hears on TV about a race riot erupting from a Black Lives Matter protest over the police shooting of a black suspect, and a white man in the diner openly talks about "stringing up" black people in their own streets. No one in the diner, including the man's own family, reacts to his utterance in any way except for a young woman who casts a disgusted look in the man's direction as she turns to leave. This, followed by her hearing on TV about a governor seeking re-election making bigoted comments towards gay and transgendered people, shows Shaw that open bigotry is becoming something acceptable to do. In response, Shaw sets off to assassinate the governor in some kind of attempt to fight against the growing evil engulfing humanity. She's gunned down in the attempt and ends up right back in hell for good.]]
* ''ComicBook/BatmanContagion'': A bulk of the story has some of the Bat-Family trying to hunt down survivors of the plague from Greenland. The first is killed by St. Dumas assassins, the second [[DidntThinkThisThrough killed himself believing himself invincible]], but Catwoman is able to rescue the third and get her back to Gotham, only to learn that the three survivors only lived because they had a natural immunity to the plague, which made them useless. Azrael and his allies are able to find a cure through some documents they saved, but as ''Legacy'' reveals, even that was fleeting.
* ''ComicBook/TheBoys'': [[spoiler: [[EvilInc Vought]]'s [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Stillwell]] did everything in his power to keep the company alive. At the end, he witnesses the presentation of the newest (and last remaining) superhero team, he begins to notice that something is off about them. (Specifically, he notes the unexplained erection of one member of the new team, and the telltale signs of drug withdrawal in another.) He realizes this batch of supers will most likely be worse than the last one and that [[PsychoSerum Compound V]] is just a bad and, worst of all, ''unmarketable'' product. He appears to start the early stages of a nervous breakdown in the final issue, finally cracking as he realizes that his years of scheming led to nothing, and that there is no way to turn Vought's situation around.]]
* ''ComicBook/DP7'': In Issue 14, Randy tells a stunned Charly that, perhaps because of his upbringing, he can't see himself in a relationship with a black person. Charly is so hurt and angry that she joins a militant black faction, the Black Powers, and adds Randy's name to a list of racists the gang intends to beat up. A few issues later, they reconcile and become friends again. Over the next dozen issues, they experience adventures together, share many happy moments, and seem to be moving toward becoming a couple after all. But after Randy becomes trapped inside his dark antibody, Charly begins avoiding him. In Issue 31, Randy confronts her about it and Charly bluntly tells him that they had been the two normal-looking ones in their old therapy group, but now that he was trapped inside his antibody, he could no longer pass for normal. When Randy asks if they're no longer friends because of his appearance, Charly reminds him that he did the same to her. She tells him that she is rejecting him the same way he rejected her, and leaves. It's as if everything Randy and Charly shared with each other in the time since his rejection of her doesn't count for anything. One would think that the fact that Randy and Charly had ''saved each other's lives'' more than once would at least be enough to sustain a friendship, but apparently not. Because there was very little direct contact between Randy and Charly in the next (and last) issue of the series, the reader is never told whether Randy and Charly ever resolved their differences.
* ''Franchise/TheFlash'' went into the future to find an atomic clock that threatened to explode like an atomic bomb, that was sent into the future in a time capsule that included an old Flash costume Professor Zoom a.k.a. the Reverse Flash used to recreate the superhero's speed powers to commit crimes with it. With no other clue where the clock was, the Flash chased down Professor Zoom in hopes he knew. After an extended fight, Flash managed to capture Zoom. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a waste of time: Zoom knew nothing about the clock and Flash had to search even more frenetically to find it and just barely managed to succeed.
* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''Franchise/GreenLantern'' with the origin of GL Sodam Yat. As a boy, he grew disgusted with his planet's murderous xenophobia, including when his fellows murdered an alien astronaut whose ship crashes on his planet. In response, he labored for years to repair the alien's ship and leave, but just as he was finished, a power ring arrived to induct him into the Green Lantern Corps. While that meant that now he didn't need the ship to leave the planet, the fact that he worked with that much determination to repair a ship he didn't know, nor how to pilot it or even where he could have gone after he launched, all for the sake of leaving a place and its evil is an incredible display of courage worthy of the Corps, and likely what attracted the ring to him in the first place.
* ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'': Vance Astrovik volunteers to be sent on a mission to Centauri IV, which is a thousand year-long journey. He has to be sealed inside a special suit to prevent him dying of old age on the way there, and cryogenically frozen, with the occasional while spent making sure the ship's still on course. He [[GoMadFromTheIsolation Goes Mad From The Isolation]], but his Mutant powers kick in as a result. ... and when he finally gets there, it turns out mankind figured out how to go faster than light a few centuries after he left, making his entire mission superfluous.
** And then, a few minutes after he's unfrozen, the Badoon appear and try to wipe out mankind, and do a damn thorough job of it, making Vance one of the last humans alive.
* In ''ComicBook/TheAvengersJonathanHickman'', the possibility that this trope is in effect looms over the story, with the Avengers questioning if they'll be able to stop the Incursions threatening to destroy reality. It's a bigger threat than anything they've faced before and things are looking increasingly hopeless... but even if everything is doomed, would that justify doing nothing? [[spoiler:Ultimately [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]; many plans truly were for nothing, but many others came together to save the multiverse, and it's clear that everything would've died if people like the Avengers and Fantastic Four hadn't fought to the bitter end. Even if they had lost, [[DoNotGoGentle they would've at least gone down fighting]].]]
* Explicitly averted, or for the moment very explicitly attempted, by Kieron Gillen on his run in ''ComicBook/JourneyIntoMysteryGillen''. Major Spoilers ahead. [[spoiler:Well aware that there was no way Loki could be left good when he was the major villain of the third biggest film of all time, having his run end with Kid!Loki triumphing and changing "for good" would really just become "for the next week or so until the next writer comes along." In order to avoid his story losing any of its impact, he didn't just kill Kid!Loki, he erased him from existence utterly to be replaced by his older version.]]
* ''ComicBook/MiniMarvels: Cereal Quest'': Wolverine discovers someone ate his cereal. In anger, he slashes the X-Men's table leg, causing the cereal to fall on top of Angel. Wolvie then embarks on [[TitleDrop a quest to get more cereal]], encountering many thoroughly unpleasant individuals, including the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, who try to steal his cereal or otherwise impede his progress. Finally, Wolverine returns to the X-Mansion, cereal in hand. Then he discovers he has no milk. [[SubvertedTrope But then]] Nightcrawler offers to [[StatingTheSimpleSolution simply teleport to the store and buy more milk]], so Wolverine takes it and pours it into the bowl... [[DoubleSubversion which then falls to the ground]]. [[LaserGuidedKarma Because of the bad table leg]].
* In the ''ComicBook/MortadeloYFilemon'' story ''ComicBook/ValorYAlToro'', the entire plot of getting back some secret plans is rendered all for nothing when it is revealed that the plans never left the pocket of their inventor in the first place. The title agents are not amused by this.
* ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'': Lyta Hall makes a deal with [[TheHecateSisters the Furies]] in an attempt to avenge her husband and son [[spoiler:who she believes was killed by Dream of the Endless]]. Sadly, [[spoiler:her son Daniel turns out to be alive]] but Lyta is unable to recall the Furies after learning this, [[spoiler:and when the Furies kill Morpheus Daniel [[AbstractApotheosis 'dies']] alongside him, permanently ruining any chance she had of getting him back.]]
* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'':
** "ComicBook/ThoseEmeraldEyesAreShining": Lightning Lord finds out that his sister Ayla "Light Lass" Ranzz has left the ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes, and believing he can talk her into joining him, attacks the super-team's base to learn Ayla's current whereabouts. After tearing the place down and fighting most of Legionnaires, Lightning Lord is knocked out by Lightning Lad, who reveals that his brother Mekt was wasting his time in trying to blast Light Lass' location out of everybody. Ayla did not tell anybody -not even her own twin brother- where she was going to. And Garth did not ask her either out of respect for her privacy.
** ''ComicBook/Superboy1994'': Amanda Spence thought that Superboy was the enhanced clone of her father, Dr. Paul Westfield, one of the scientists in charge of the cloning. She then decided to make Superboy's life miserable, feeling he was a disgrace to her father and his memory. This includes creating the more powerful and unstable second clone Match, causing Superboy's body to start falling apart and gruesomely killing Superboy's love interest Tana Moon. Her vengeance was already badly misguided and hugely disproportionate, but when you add in that Westfield was retconned out as being the clone donor, it makes it this trope big time.
* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'': The Shadowplay arc becomes this, thanks to the ForegoneConclusion of being a flashback. The villains are trying to make the Decepticon Registration Act mandatory, via a circuitous scheme involving murdering the current Prime and putting a massive bomb in his corpse. Orion Pax and his allies foil this plot, though at the cost of one of the few truly good members of the Senate, and Pax's friend. Then, some years later said friend's student Zeta will become Prime and make the Act mandatory anyway, pushing Cybertron right over the edge into full-scale war.
** And that Senator? Just happens to be [[spoiler:Shockwave]].
** The entire quest for the Knights of Cybertron turns out to have been this, to wit [[spoiler:the Knights of Cybertron died a long time ago and they actually stumbled upon a massive euthanasia clinic that makes dying patients [[LetThemDieHappy see their greatest fantasy]] and they made a map to it after they thought it was a utopia. Meaning all the pain, death and betrayal was for nothing]].
** Getaway's mutiny also never comes close to achieving anything he wanted it to. [[spoiler:He got Rodimus and Megatron off the ship, but neither the Galactic Council nor the Decepticon Justice Division manage to kill them. Far from being an opportunity to find the Knights of Cybertron without delays or inconveniences, Getaway ends up spending more time trying to maintain his control over the ship than actually pursuing leads or following the map. When he ''does'' get to Cyberutopia, the above detail about the quest is still true, but for bonus points, Team Rodimus -- the people he dismissed as continually getting them caught up in distractions -- has still ''beaten him there'', and end up curing most of his army of sparkeaters and defeating him. Needless to say, he doesn't get to be a Prime like he wanted, although he does get a vision of Primus... except it's a hologram being used by a swarm of scraplets, and when he touches it, he gets ''eaten''.]]
** [[spoiler:Megatron]] specifically tells this to [[spoiler:the DJD]] as he kills them.
--->'''Spoiler Character:''' Goodbye, [[spoiler:Glitch]]. I want you to die with one thought in your head: ''everything you did was for nothing.''
* ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen'' Vol 3: Cyclops begins the mutant revolution -- a peaceful demonstration that shows that mutants can co-exist with regular humans. After the 8 month TimeSkip following ''ComicBook/SecretWars2015'', mutants are going extinct because of Terrigenesis and are hated more than ever.
* ''ComicBook/TheUltimates'': The Chitauri tried to harmonize Earth with the help of the Nazis, and that led to WWII. But the survivors regrouped in the jungles, started a mass infiltration, arranged many plans to achieve their goals through more indirect means... and it was all pointless. The Chitauri main fleet shows up, without even bothering with cloaking devices, and informs them that there is no more time. Because of intergalactic reasons, they have to leave the area ASAP, so Earth will have to be blown up and be done with it.
* After creating worldwide peace [[spoiler: through making a false alien invasion by Ozymandias]] in ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}, ''ComicBook/DoomsdayClock'' depicts how much [[spoiler: Ozymandias]] went through amounts to nothing after ''seven years'' of worldwide peace, where [[spoiler: [[FromBadToWorse the United States and Russia went back to start World War III ]] when Rorschach's Journal containing Ozymandias's schemes were exposed to the public.]]
* ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}:'' [[spoiler: The Osiris Club are a secret society of immortals who have been prophesied to survive Ragnarok and use the power of Hellboy's right hand to become gods of the new world. After living for hundreds of years and surviving the return of the Ogdru Hem, they obtain Hellboy's severed hand and use it to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu absorb the lifeforce of the Ogdru Jahad]], bringing their plans to the brink of fruition. However, it is at this moment that Hellboy's ghost returns and reclaims the hand, destroying them all in the process. In their final moments, at least two of them lament that it had all been for nothing.]]
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: It turns out that Diana and Etta's landlord Russell Abernathy is a former senator who was convinced by Russian agents that if he gave them intel on weapon development programs and military movements they could and would save his dying wife. [[ILied They lied]], and he lost everything that had ever mattered to him and spends the rest of his life with a target on his back.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* The climatic chase of ''WesternAnimation/{{Boogie}}'', a RaceAgainstTheClock where Boogie must deliver Marcia to a courthouse to testify against the local mob kingpin, Sony Calabria. After driving like crazy in a chase scene involving what seems to be around 200 police vehicles, Boogie made it in the nick of time!... except Calabria already had a dozen of his mooks on standby, immediately ordering them to gun down everyone the moment Marcia tried testifying. At which point Boogie decided the best course of action is to just shoot everything in sight.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Coco}}'': [[spoiler:Miguel becomes stuck in the Land of the Dead and needs to find a family member who will give him their (unconditional) blessing so he can go home. After some challenges, he finally tracks down Ernesto de la Cruz, who agrees. Then he finds out Ernesto is a murderous phony who stole the songs that made him famous from another musician, whom he killed. Not wanting to risk Miguel telling people the truth, Ernesto changes his mind and instead tries to trap Miguel. On top of that, it turns out Ernesto isn't even actually a relative of his at all.]]
* A {{Downplayed}} example in "WesternAnimation/FrozenFever". After spending most of ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'' learning how to control her powers, Elsa again loses control in the sequel short. This time, however, she at least has a better idea of how to handle that loss of control, and the results are much less disastrous.
* ''WesternAnimation/AGoofyMovie'' has Max learning to accept his dad, faults and all, for who he is. In the sequel, ''An Extremely Goofy Movie'', Max's ''first line of dialogue'' shows that Max has regressing to being often annoyed with his dad. On the other hand, it has been a few years and the circumstances are quite different (with the first being based in lack of communication and the second on lack of purpose). In fact, one can view the first movie being the focus on Max and the sequel on Goofy.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles1'', Bob painfully swallows his sense of justice and grudgingly obeys Huph's order that he does not leave the office to help a mugging victim, else Huph will fire him. But afterward, Huph pushes Bob to his RageBreakingPoint, so that he throws Huph through several walls, seriously injuring him, and is fired anyway.
* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'' features two:
** Zigzagged with the plan to save Earth from Darkseid's control, as while they ultimately couldn't stop Darkseid's Reapers from causing irreparable damage to Earth and thus end to have Flash cause a CosmicRetcon to restart everything, their fighting allowed them to find Flash in the first place, so at least said Cosmic Retcon ''was'' an option because of their efforts.
** Given Lex Luthor was really the mole for the rebellion, their siege on Lexcorp Tower caused the deaths of Cheetah and Lady Shiva during it to be this.
* How Tai Lung's quest for power ends in ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda''. [[spoiler:He finally gets his hands on the Dragon Scroll, only to find nothing but a blank sheet of reflective gold. He fails to learn its message that Po figured out already. There is no secret ingredient. It's just you.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017'': [[TheDragon Tempest Shadow]] spent years building the Storm King's army, committing atrocities for him, and honing her own body into a weapon, all under the promise that once the Storm King had attained the power of the Princesses she had promised him, he would use it to restore her broken unicorn horn. [[spoiler:Once he has the power, he decides not to honor his end of the agreement (if he ever could for that matter) and [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness attempts to kill her]], rendering all of her villainy for naught.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManIntoTheSpiderVerse'': Kingpin's ultimate plan is [[spoiler:an attempt to undo [[MyGreatestFailure his greatest mistake]] by finding an alternate version of his deceased family with the Collider. Little does he know that people transported to other dimensions with the Collider can't stay there for more than a few days before breaking down on an atomic level. Additionally, the ''reason'' his family wound up deceased is because they saw his secret violent side and got into a traffic accident when fleeing; a side that Kingpin refuses to change and will inevitably show again, as demonstrated when it happens during the climatic fight against Miles. As Spider-Man bluntly tells him, his plan to get his family back will ''never'' work and all the evil things he's done are all for nothing; even if he did get them, he'd just lose them all over again.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' the Clone Wars as a whole ends up being this ultimately. Considering that the Jedi are fighting to protect the Republic and keep it from collapsing, [[spoiler:the fact that Palpatine as Sidious]] seriously undermines this and ensures that the Republic is doomed already. All the warfare shed between the Republic and the Separatists is meaningless as the Sith effectively control both sides of the war. If the Separatists had won, the Sith take over. [[spoiler:When Anakin falls to the dark side and joins Sidious, the Republic transforms into an Empire with the Sith firmly in control.]] As for the clones, [[spoiler:once Order 66 is declared they themselves become the enemy to the Jedi Order and help destroy the Republic]]. The only ones who won were Sidious and his new apprentice, and said apprentice [[PyrrhicVictory suffered from it]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'':
** Mei agrees to appear in panda form at Tyler's birthday party to get money to pay for her ticket to the 4*Town concert. During her break, she discovers the concert is the same day as her ritual, getting her so angry, she ruins the party by attacking Tyler when he pushes her too much and ends up not getting paid. In the climax, she parkours her way into the concert via the open roof, no ticket needed.
** Grandma Wu and the Aunties come earlier than expected to help prepare Mei for the ritual in separating her red panda spirit during a red lunar eclipse but on that day, Mei finally decides to keep and embrace her red panda spirit before running away to the concert; much to everyone minus Jin's shock and objections.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'': It's strongly hinted that Russell's DisappearedDad will show up at the ceremony if Russell gets his final Wilderness Explorer badge, but when Russell is at the ceremony, right when the film sets up a heartwarming redemption/family bonding scene... his dad still doesn't show. Carl comes up to do it instead.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Horror movie franchises are infamous for this, such as killing off the FinalGirl of the previous film (SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome) in the first two minutes of the sequel, often at the hands of the very same villain that she went through hell to defeat last time, who ''always'' comes back because [[JokerImmunity he's too popular to be put down for good]].
* Most heist movies end this way: The money blows away (''Film/TheKilling''), gets burned up [[spoiler:(original ''Film/Oceans11'')]], or comes loose (''Film/TheLavenderHillMob''). Others include [[spoiler:a boy collecting license plate numbers in ''Film/TheLeagueOfGentlemen'']] or the brains behind the operation staring at a young girl so long the cops catch up with him in ''Film/TheAsphaltJungle''. It's usually a way of showing that YouCantFightFate (and that Crime Doesn't Pay).
* ''Film/SixDays'': The terrorist's cause fizzled up in smoke the moment they took the Iranian Embassy hostage, as the UK government had no intention with playing along. Inspector Max's attempts at a peaceful resolution ends with him lying to the confidant who trusted him resulting in the latter's (somewhat justified) deaths.
* In ''Film/NineDaysOfOneYear'', the hero, a nuclear research scientist, winds up absorbing fatal doses of radiation while running experiments designed to produce a fusion reaction. While he's in the hospital awaiting a long-shot bone marrow transplant that might save his life, he finds out that the effect he'd observed in his experiments wasn't fusion after all, and he hasn't found a new energy source.
* ''Film/Alien3'' kills off two characters who Ripley spent the whole second film protecting in the first few minutes... ''off camera''.
* ''Film/AreWeThereYet'': Lindsey and Kevin's bratty, troublemaking behavior is because the two want to keep all men away from their mother in the hopes that she and their father can reconcile. Despite it being clear she doesn't want anything to do with him anymore, they're determined to make their goal a reality and give Nick nothing but trouble even when he's trying his best to get along with them. They finally ditch him and arrive at their father's house, [[spoiler: where they see he was lying about being sick and is in fact remarried with a new baby, not even noticing the two outside his window watching in. By the next scene, they've finally given up on him and their hopes of their parents reconciling, and realized that they wasted all their time driving away their mothers' boyfriends for an impossible goal.]]
* ''Film/AtomicBlonde'': As the film proceeds, the characters come to the realization that ''the entire Cold War'' was more or less all for nothing, and that [[EndOfAnAge their place in the world is rapidly disappearing]]. In particular, [[spoiler: Percival realizing this drove him to his FaceHeelTurn]]. Driven home by how Lorraine's mission ends: [[spoiler: she gets at least two total innocents and a whole mess of bad guys killed in the name of helping the U.S. ''swindle their own allies'' out of some information that's going to be completely irrelevant in mere days.]]
* In ''Film/BlackHawkDown'', a couple of Delta Force snipers go to rescue one of the pilots of one of the downed helicopters, Durant, and after placing him in a nearby building, they go back to defend the chopper, drawing the militia fighters away from Durant by using themselves as bait. Unfortunately, after the two are killed off, Durant ends up being captured by the Somali militia anyway.
* In the Director's Cut of ''Film/DasBoot'', the German submarine crew survives many dangerous encounters to make it home -- only to be killed by an Allied air raid on their port.
* In the ''Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse'':
** ''Film/WonderWoman2017'': Diana single-handedly liberates the town of Veld from the Germans on her quest to stop Ares. [[spoiler:The next day, General Ludendorff uses it as ground zero to demonstrate his new gas weapon, killing every civilian Diana and her team saved.]]
** ''Film/Shazam2019'': After Billy spent over a decade searching for his mother, when they finally reunite [[spoiler: he learns that after being lost at the fair and then found by the police his mother decided to leave him with them because she was too overwhelmed with her own issues regarding her parents kicking her out of the house and her husband walking out of the marriage. Ultimately, she felt Billy would receive better care from the police than she could provide. Billy tearfully walks away to return to his foster home.]]
** ''Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague'': The Amazons seal the entry to the stronghold that their Mother Box was in to trap Steppenwolf and his parademons, killing a good number of their own in the process as the building falls into the water. This is all for naught as Steppenwolf and the parademons rise out of the water afterward.
* ''Film/DeepBlueSea'':
** Susan made illegal modifications to the sharks, inadvertently making her responsible for all the subsequent deaths when the super-intelligent sharks break out, but she did it to [[WellIntentionedExtremist find a cure for degenerative diseases]] and uses this as a defense of her actions when given a WhatTheHellHero speech. However, [[spoiler:the cure is later destroyed when she is forced to electrocute one of the sharks as it attacks her along with the substance they extracted from their brains, making those sacrifices ultimately pointless.]]
** Amazingly, the same applies to [[spoiler:the sharks. The entire film they've been working on a plan to herd around the humans and flood the facility so they can escape. After two of the sharks are already dead, [[NearVillainVictory the last one actually manages to break through the fence]], only to be blown up five seconds later by a stick of gunpowder fired into her back.]]
* In ''Film/DirtyDancing'', Baby says this when her efforts to get Johnny cleared of theft charges get him fired anyway for having a relationship with a guest.
* ''Film/IShotJesseJames'': Despite being his best friend, Robert Ford murders outlaw UsefulNotes/JesseJames in order to escape his outlaw life and be with his LoveInterest. [[spoiler:However, it all backfires. He's stiffed with the reward, he's considered a coward instead of a hero, and he loses the girl to another suitor]].
* ''Film/TheIrishman'': Frank murders Jimmy Hoffa and gets away clean. Too bad he destroyed his relationship with his daughter (who had been close to Hoffa), and the march of time sees all his friends and loved ones dying pointless and ignoble deaths from crime or old age. At the end, Frank is an old man DyingAlone in a nursing home, and no one knows or even cares about who Jimmy Hoffa was or why he was murdered.
* ''Film/TheKnowledge'': On the day Ted passes the legendarily difficult exam that London taxi drivers have to take, he is disqualified for drunk driving.
* In ''Film/TheLie'' Rebecca' and Jay's worry and efforts to cover up their daughter Kayla's actions. [[spoiler: They end up killing the murdered girl's father (who knew Kayla was involved). And then they learn the girl is alive, and Kayla's story of pushing her off a bridge was a lie.]]
* ''Film/TheLifeOfDavidGale'': The governor had promised if evidence if an innocent person executed ever surfaced he'd call a moratorium on capital punishment. [[spoiler:Gale's death is set up as exactly this. However, the governor refuses to call the moratorium, saying the state can't be blamed for a plot by someone else.]]
* ''Film/TheLongestDay'': On D-Day, the U.S. Army Rangers launch a costly assault on Pointe du Hoc to take out several artillery batteries that could have threatened the main landings. However, after finally making it up the cliff and securing the bunkers, the Rangers find out the guns were never even installed and the entire assault was a waste of time. This is subverted if you know that, in real life, the Rangers later succeeded in locating and destroying the guns.
* Nobody ends up with the gold at the end of ''Film/AManCalledSledge''. All of the gang apart from Sledge are dead. The old man hid the gold before he died, so Sledge--who has decided he doesn't want the gold any more anyway--rides out of town with nothing to show for all the bloodshed and death.
* The Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse has a few examples of this:
** ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'': TheReveal that [[spoiler:HYDRA is alive and bigger, more seclusive and dangerous than ever, which rendered everything Captain America and his friends did to wipe them out in World War II meaningless. Black Widow even lampshades this later in the movie.]]
** ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'': [[spoiler:All the heroes' attempts to stop Thanos from completing the Infinity Gauntlet [[ShaggyDogStory fail miserably]], with half the heroes disintegrating by the end and a few others dead. This is ultimately played with, however, as Doctor Strange implies that it is AllAccordingToPlan]].
*** Throughout the movie, the Secret Avengers (plus Rhodey) try to find a way to destroy the Mind Stone without killing Vision. [[spoiler: Wakanda is attacked before Shuri can finish detaching Vision's consciousness from the Stone, forcing Wanda to take him and flee into the forest. In the end, Wanda destroys Vision completely to keep Thanos from getting the Mind Stone, only for Thanos to bring him back with the Time Stone and brutally rip the Mind Stone out of him.]]
** ''Infinity War'' also rendered the whole plot of ''Film/{{Guardians of the Galaxy|2014}}'' story moot, where they tried to protect the Power Stone, given just a brief mention as "Thanos attacked Xandar" last week.
** ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp'': [[spoiler:A particularly cruel example happens ''during the credits'' via Thanos's snap, killing those Ant-Man spent the entire film helping, and leaving him trapped exactly the same as Janet was with no way out.]]
** ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' has one right at the beginning, [[spoiler:as when the heroes go after Thanos, he informs them that he ordered the destruction of the Infinity Stones exactly to prevent his actions in ''Infinity War'' from being reversed. Even if Thor then decapitates Thanos in anger, the bad ending remains. But then, after a TimeSkip, Ant-Man comes back with an idea.]]
** ''Film/DoctorStrangeInTheMultiverseOfMadness'', the main villain's motive (aside from Darkhold corruption) is [[spoiler: to find variants of her illusionary children that she can mother]]. But at the end of the movie, they're hit with the cold fact that while they can ''find'' their objective, murder everyone who gets in the way plus a few more for luck, [[spoiler:and bodyjack her counterpart, she ''can't make the kids love her''. She'll never be their mother, just the witch who killed their real mom]]. The villain's objective was completely impossible from the start.
* ''Film/NationalLampoonsVacation'': After the Griswold family endured an endless barrage of humiliating moments in their road trip from Illinois to California, they finally arrive at the Walley World amusement park [[spoiler:only to find it has been closed for two weeks for maintenance]]. This proves to be [[RageBreakingPoint the very last straw for]] Clark Griswold (who [[TheAntiGrinch insisted on soldiering on for the sake of having happy memories with his family]]) and the climax of the film is all about his attempt to [[DefiedTrope defy this trope]], [[spoiler:by taking a security guard hostage with a realistic-looking BB gun and forcing him to let them ride the attractions. He succeeds -- he doesn't even gets arrested when he explains everything to the police and [[MrAltDisney Mr. Roy Walley]].]]
* ''Film/NoEscape1994'': [[spoiler:The mission to steal an engine part from the Outsiders camp costs Casey and TheMole for the heroes their lives. They never get a chance to use the completed engine before King blows it up.]]
* ''Film/TheNorthman'': While discussing Fjölnir, Amleth's fellow raiders make fun of the fact that Fjölnir killed his own brother for nothing, because King Harald of Norway took away his kingdom soon thereafter, resulting in his exile and becoming a chieftain of a far more modest Icelandic settlement.
* ''Film/NotOkay'': Danni actually got what she wanted, [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor only for it to be incredibly disappointing]]. By the end of the film, her life is actually '''worse''' than it was at the start.
* ''Film/PoliceAcademy'' had a subplot which ended this way. The night before the driving test, Hightower comes to Mahoney and tells him that he hasn't driven a car in a long time and Harris told him he'd flunk out if he didn't pass. So, Mahoney takes him out for a driving lesson in Blanks' car and badly damages it in the process. Hightower ends up passing the test, but Hooks goes after him. At the end of her test, she runs over Blanks' foot. He calls her a racial slur as a result, inciting Hightower to go after him. After Hightower flips over the test car with Blanks in it, Harris expels him. Furthermore, Blanks sees the damage to his car and gets into a fight with Mahoney and Barbara. Mahoney ends up getting expelled as well after he takes the blame for the fight. [[spoiler:Their expulsions get revoked -- and they get commendations on top of it -- when they show up to help contain the riot that breaks out in the climax and save Harris' life in the process.]]
* In ''Film/ReservoirDogs'', [[spoiler:Mr. Orange was a cop, after all.]] Additionally, [[spoiler:Mr. Orange reveals to the audience that he's undercover when he kills off Mr. Blonde to stop the latter from hacking a fellow cop to death. This comes at the expense of risking potentially blowing his cover when the rest of the crew comes back to the hideout, and indeed, his bosses are so unwilling to believe his cover story for killing Blonde that it leads to the film's infamous Mexican Standoff. The real clincher? As soon as the crew returns, [[IronicNickname Nice Guy Eddie]] looks around at the carnage and pops a few slugs into Orange's fellow cop, killing him instantly. So not only was Orange's intervention all for nothing, it ended up dooming everyone else, as well]].
* ''[[Film/CountYorga The Return of Count Yorga]]'' had the main hero Baldwin finally reaching Cynthia after barely avoiding Yorga's traps. He confront Yorga on the roof of the manor and, with Cynthia's help, manages to kill him. Looks to be all well...until it's revealed he was bitten by Yorga's brides on his way to rescue Cynthia and the change finally kicked in, to which immediately goes to bite Cynthia.
* ''Film/RichieRichsChristmasWish'': After Reggie sabotaged a sleigh and framed Richie Rich for it, to the point that Richie himself believed the accident was his fault, he made a Christmas Wish that [[ItsAWonderfulPlot he was never born]]. For the majority of the movie, Richie continued believing this, until the TV version ending, where Reggie's parents force him to confess the truth, making Richie realize that he made his wish and went on the entire subsequent adventure for nothing.
* ''Film/RobinAndMarian'': Richard has the Chalus castle burned down to seize a golden statue its lord allegedly has, while killing women and children doing so. Afterwards, it turns out that the statue was ordinary stone.
* ''Film/RurouniKenshinTheFinal'': Yukishiro Enishi lost his sister, Tomoe, when he was young. This led to him pursuing her killer, Kenshin, in many attempts to destroy everything and everyone he loves. But eventually, [[spoiler:Enishi is defeated, arrested and given his sister's diary in prison. Reading her last entry, it reveals that she intended to protect Kenshin from the men plotting his death, and fully accepted that she might die as a direct result. As such, Enishi had spent his entire life seeking revenge for someone who didn't want it]].
* ''Film/SaferAtHome'': The friends who had started by celebrating a birthday remotely go through hell during the night, culminating in [[spoiler: Evan getting shot by the police]]. And it all could have been avoided if [[spoiler: Evan had done a better job of checking Jen's vital signs after she fell and hit her head before assuming she died.]]
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'': Anakin Skywalker turned to the Dark Side because Chancellor Sheev Palpatine ''(a.k.a. Darth Sidious)'' promised him a way to keep his wife, Padmé Amidala, from dying. But when she learns what Anakin has done in pursuit of this, she confronts him, leading to him Force Choking her in a fit of rage. In the end, he became Darth Vader, destroyed the Jedi Order, murdered an unknown number of innocent Younglings, helped create TheEmpire, all to save his wife... only to ultimately ''cause'' her death. He lost the love of his life, his friends, and everything else he risked his life for in pursuit of a way to keep from losing Padmé like he did his mother. Plus being mangled for life by his former friend/mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, and being encased in a suit of life-supporting armor for the rest of his life.
** The Clone Wars end up being this as the two armies are both under the control of Darth Sidious. The Republic is doomed with either side winning and the true battle was between Palpatine and the Jedi, a battle that the Jedi lose as the Republic is reborn as the Galactic Empire.
** The original trilogy, episodes IV-VI, showed how the Rebellion triumphed over the evil Galactic Empire and the Galactic Republic was restored in its place. Episode VII (''Film/TheForceAwakens'') starts off with the remnants of the Empire having been organised into a new faction called the First Order that has the run of the Galaxy and wipes out the Republic in passing when they feel like it. The plot of Episode VIII (''Film/TheLastJedi'') takes the Rebellion even further back from victory, to the point that they seem to be worse off than at the beginning of Episode IV, and the beginning of Episode IX (''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'') adds a final step backwards by [[spoiler: bringing back the BigBad of the original trilogy on top of that AND having every single Skywalker die due to Palpatine's villainy.]]
* Similarly, ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' has the characters ScrewDestiny... but [[Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines the third film]] reveals that YouCantFightFate, and all the efforts in the second film to stop apocalypse were pre-destined to fail.
** ''Film/TerminatorDarkFate'' has [[spoiler:John Connor killed in the ''opening scene'' to really hammer it in that protecting him in the first two movies was ultimately for nothing, and goes further with the reveal that Skynet being gone doesn't make any difference because another AI will eventually rise anyway and do the exact same thing. The machine war and human resistance is inevitable no matter the names of the players, with latter being destined to win the only saving grace.]]
* ''Film/TrapForCinderella'': Julia admits at the end that her plan was this, as Elinor left her estate to Do rather than Micky so the elaborate SurgicalImpersonation of Do taking Micky's place (who before had been the intended beneficiary) was wasted.
* In ''Film/Tremors3BackToPerfection'', Burt destroys his entire house and everything in it to kill an Ass-blaster after it gets close to his [=MRE=]s (Meals-Ready-To-Eat) because he believes that it, like the Shriekers, will vastly multiply when it eats enough food. It's only after the destruction of his house that he gets a call from Nancy and Mindy to inform him that Ass-blasters go into a "Food Coma" when they eat enough food, meaning that it would have been better if Burt had let the Ass-blaster eat his supplies and that he destroyed his house for no reason. Cue ThousandYardStare.
* ''Film/TheWildBunch'': Thornton spends the entire film chasing down the titular Wild Bunch, only for him to find them all massacred by the time he finally catches up to them in a Mexican village. To add insult to injury, after the bounty hunters who accompanied him leave with their bounties, he's informed later that [[TooDumbToLive they didn't manage to make the return trip]]. [[EarnYourHappyEnding At least he gets to avoid jail time]].
* ''Film/TheWorldOfKanako'': In the end, after being beaten, shot, betrayed and kidnapped by the Yakuza (and after dealing out a lot of punishment too), Akikazu [[spoiler:still cannot find Kanako. As far as we know, she's dead and buried in the snow but he refuses to accept this and keeps searching for her.]]
* ''Film/WouldYouRather'': The film ends with [[spoiler: Iris winning the game by shooting the final survivor - only to come home to find that her brother, Raleigh, had committed suicide so that she wouldn't be indebted due to his cancer]].
* ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'': All the struggling that the Professor Xavier and his X-Men went through to protect mutantkind in the previous movies--especially in ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast''--come across as a moot point in ''Film/{{Logan}}'', given the fact that most mutants died out anyway, along with several of the X-Men themselves, not due to some big final battle, but thanks to [[spoiler:'''one of Xavier's telepathic seizures''' and the birth of future mutants has been stopped thanks to crops being genetically modified to suppress the mutant gene.]] The whole saga, ''including'' any future installments, is ultimately for nothing and comes to a horrible end.

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Both'' of the novels in the ''[[{{Literature/Bloodline2006}} Bloodline]]'' series end like this!
** In the first book, Tepes' grand plans to restore House Dracul completely crash and burn, leading to [[spoiler: his and Mina's deaths]]. And the good guys' rescue mission to save Lily was also all in vain -- Lily is [[spoiler: DrivenToSuicide]] and John [[spoiler: undergoes a particularly nasty FaceHeelTurn]].
** Less so in its sequel, ''Reckoning'', but the bulk of the novel involves Quincey attempting to redeem himself by abstaining from human blood. By the end, he [[spoiler: is forced to resume drinking it again, since otherwise he would be too weak to protect himself and Mary from their enemies]].
* ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': In book #9 (''The Cat Who Went Underground''), Qwill spends three weeks at his cabin, spending part of that time trying to have an addition built onto it that he can use as a study. He goes through two carpenters (both of whom disappear and turn up dead) before the addition, except for its foundation, is destroyed in a storm. After that, he gives up on having it built and soon after moves back to Pickax.
* Stephen Donaldson does this all but nonstop in his [[Literature/TheChroniclesOfThomasCovenant Thomas Covenant books]], thanks to the [[TheChessmaster absolute cunning]] of [[GodOfEvil Lord Foul the Despiser]], to the point that one character outright advises the protagonist: "It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are always set about with other snares". It's a very, very standard part of his fiction.
** Kevin Landwaster, a lofty and wise ancient lord, who, after brutally battling [[BigBad Lord Foul]] for years, fell into despair, eventually resorting to [[FantasticNuke The Ritual of Desecration]], that snuffed out almost all life there for centuries. The hope was that the land could regrow while Lord Foul would surely die. [[CompleteImmortality He didn't.]] Kevin using the ritual was [[DespairGambit Lord Foul's idea in the first place.]]
** The Unhomed Giants, subject to a lengthy rescue campaign by the Lords -- [[spoiler:who were wiped out in a genocide brought about by the very omen they thought would save them, all unwilling to run or raise even a single hand in self-defense. They were told that their troubles -- dwindling numbers, declining birthrates, slow death -- would all be over when their race gave birth to triplets. They did. All three of them were soon possessed by staggeringly evil spirits.]]
** Whatshername -- we never hear her name - who tried to warn the Lords about a nasty Ur-Vile ambush, and who was bewitched to be unable to speak at all, so that her very attempts to warn the Lords would delay them long enough for the ambush to be sprung in the first place.
** The story of Sunder and Hollian, [[spoiler:who accompany the heroes throughout the journey, and both die and are resurrected in extremely unlikely circumstances]] and their son Anele, who is entrusted with the [[CosmicKeystone Staff of Law]] [[spoiler: and who outright loses it.]]
** Convenant's daughter Elena, who locates all the {{MacGuffin}}s needed to get to the Earthblood, which grants one wish to the drinker, granted unconditionally so long as it's within natural power [[spoiler:, and then completely screws it up when she does drink it, sending the spirit of the aforementioned already despair-broken High Lord Kevin after Lord Foul. He is swiftly overpowered and enslaved and turned on her, and just as swiftly kills her. The summoning also breaks the natural Law of Death, allowing Lord Foul to raise the dead from this point forward.]]
** [[BigBadWannabe Drool Rockworm]], who tried to win freedom for the Cavewights from Lord Foul, and who [[StarterVillain was just being led along by Lord Foul to recover the Illearth Stone]].
* ''Literature/{{Devolution}}'': After Kate and Mostar (and eventually the rest of the community) have invested a great deal of effort into starting a garden so that they can use its produce to survive the winter, and just when it's starting to bloom, it's unceremoniously trampled into muck by the alpha Sasquatch.
* In ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKid'', at one point Rodrick has a WildTeenParty and forces Greg to help clean it up so he doesn't get in trouble, down to nearly getting caught with the bathroom door replacement (Someone at the party had written on it and they couldn't get the words off, so they swapped it with a downstairs closet door). It's brushed off for a while... then later in the book, the parents find that one of the guests had fiddled with a camera in the closet and taken a ''very'' incriminating picture of the whole thing. Rodrick and Greg get punished.
* In ''[[Literature/{{Divergent}} The Divergent Trilogy]]'', [[spoiler:Tori's RoaringRampageOfRevenge to avenge her brother George's death in ''Insurgent'' and death in ''Allegiant'' amount to this, after TheReveal that her brother George is alive and outside the fence]].
* ''Literature/TheEmperorsGift'': Hyperion believes that one of the reasons reason the [[ProudWarriorRace Space Wolves]] are outraged the Inquisition intends to purge Armageddon's population, since it renders the sacrifices of all the Wolves who died fighting Angron's army to ensure the people would be spared worthless.
-->'''Hyperion''': When seen in such a light, the Wolves' actions - already noble enough - takes on another layer of righteousness. They've lost warriors, too. How many of them died in glory, only to learn now it had all been in vain defending a doomed population?
* The ''Literature/FearStreet'' book "The Rich Girl" has Sydney and Emma finding a bag of money. They decide to hide it but then friend Jason starts acting up, and the girls end up killing him. When it looks like Jason is coming back from the grave, Sydney starts to snap and finally has a total breakdown to land in the mental hospital. At which point, it turns out that Jason is alive and he and Emma did all this to get rid of Sydney so they could get the money for themselves. But when they try to spend some, they find out that while some bills are real, the vast majority of it is fake play money. The book ends with Emma rocked to realize she destroyed her best friend for a "fortune" that doesn't exist.
* Essentially the ''entire plot'' of ''Literature/TheFirstLaw'' turns out to have been this, in the sense that nothing truly changed and the protagonists were only tools. Certainly all of Logen's and Jezal's quest in the second book qualifies, as does, to an extent, Glokta's defense of... again ''the entire plot''.
* ''Franchise/HarryPotter'':
** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'' Harry and Dumbledore fight through all of Voldemort's protections on his locket Horcrux, only for Harry to later discover that it was a fake.
** The DistantEpilogue of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'' shows that Harry [[EarnYourHappyEnding Earned His Happy Ending]] -- the world is at peace, he no longer has [[ImHavingSoulPains soul pains]], and he has a warm relationship with his son Albus; when Albus worries about his Sorting, Harry assures him that he won't be placed in [[AmbitionIsEvil Slytherin]] if he doesn't want to be. Then ''Theatre/HarryPotterAndTheCursedChild'' came out, and we find out a new evil is rising, Harry's scar hurts again, his relationship with Albus is and has apparently always been strained, and Albus ''was'' put in Slytherin and is miserable there.
* In ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' this is what Katniss feels like after [[spoiler:Prim, the sister she went through all of the hell of the Hunger Games for, dies in the final portion of ''Mockingjay''.]]
* ''Literature/JaineAustenMysteries'': This is a two-way case for [[spoiler:Dickie Potter's plan to divorce Patti Devane and get a healthy divorce settlement]] and [[spoiler:Conrad Devane's murder plot to kill her and get her money]], both from ''Killing Bridezilla''. For [[spoiler:Conrad, it's because unbeknownst to him, Dickie and Patti had already married in Vegas before the events of the book, so her money would go to Dickie, not revert back to her Mother Daphna, and by extension, him.]] For [[spoiler:Dickie, it fails... because Patti had frittered most of her money away in bad businesses. When Veronica, Dickie's girlfriend finds this out, she drops Dickie like a hot stone.]]
* ''Literature/JohnPutnamThatcher'': The villain from ''[[spoiler:Murder Without Icing]]'' commits two murders to delay [[spoiler:his creditors seizing assets that he needs for an upcoming business deal that he believes will keep him from going bankrupt. The business deal is a scam, so committing the murders wouldn't have done a thing to persevere his company and reputation, even if he hadn't been exposed as a killer.]]
* In the prologue of the first ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'' book, Kel Cheris' unit takes tremendous losses and she herself is forced to commit heresy to secure the enemy infrastructure intact -- only for her superiors to pull her and her people out and bomb the entire area into oblivion.
* ''Literature/TheMadScientistsClub'' The bad guys in ''The Big Chunk of Ice'' spend the whole novel trying to retrieve a stolen diamond that had been lost in the (now melting glacier) and fallen into a plaster cast the mad scientist club were making. At the end, it turns out that it was not the diamond, but rather a glass doorknob that a drunk tourist had yanked out of the motel and discarded in the glacier. As one of the villains puts it:
-> Three generations of research, six months of planning, and a free-wheeling trip across the bloody ocean to boot. And all that kid had was a bloomin' doorknob?
* ''Literature/MegLangslowMysteries'': By the beginning of the book, two characters in ''[[We'll Always Have Parrots]]'' have spent decades in hiding without needing to.
** [[spoiler: The killer got into debt with a LoanShark while financing the publication of some comics he wrote and faked his death, gave up art, and worked a series of unsatisfying jobs while waiting for his girlfriend to sell his work to a movie or TV studio. When he finally finds out that his brother paid off all his estate's debts right after he faked his death, and his ex-girlfriend never told him about that, and that his ex made a trashy InNameOnly TV adaptation of his beloved comics without giving him any credit, he snaps and kills her.]]
** [[spoiler:Michael’s NervousWreck agent is a former 70s radical who changed his name and took a job he never really liked after breaking into a government office and burning draft cards. It turns out that he broke into the wrong office and burned dog licenses instead, and if he had been burning draft cards, [[StatuteOfLimitations since no one got hurt, the statute of limitations would have expired many, many years ago]].]]
* ''Literature/MoonBaseAlpha'': The mystery in [[Literature/WasteOfSpace the third book]] is an attempt to poison reviled CorruptCorporateExecutive and space tourist Lars Sjoberg. [[spoiler:Lars poisons himself with the help of his daughter Lily to force the moon base to send him home early because of how miserable he is (the allocation of space on cargo shuttles is keeping him from getting regular permission to leave). Unknown to Lars, everyone on the base is about to be evacuated because of equipment failures and all his efforts achieve nothing but leaving him humiliated, in legal trouble, and facing an ugly divorce when his wife disapproves of his cowardly efforts to make Lily take all of the blame.]]
* The novelization of ''Film/MurderByDecree'' has Holmes disputing the justification of the government's actions to resolving what they thought was the threat to the monarchy. [[spoiler: Annie Crook's Catholic child by the Duke of Clarence & Avondale would never been a serious claimant: the Royal Marriage Act 1701 would have rendered the marriage invalid and the Act of Settlement 1772 mandated a Protestant as a successor to the throne. Thus, the threat that led to these horrible crimes only existed in their paranoia.]]
* Both the book and the film version of ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory'' play with this: Atreyu has risked his life and lost people important to him on a quest to find out the cause of the Empress's illness and what had to be done to cure her, only to have her reveal that she'd known both of these things all along. [[CallingTheOldManOut Atreyu is understandably furious about this]], until the Empress explains that his quest was important and did have a purpose, even if it wasn't the one stated up front.
* The Creator/RobertLudlum novel ''The Road to Gandolfo'' has General Hawkins embarking on a wild plot to kidnap Pope Francis I and hold him for the ransom of one dollar for every Catholic in the world. This involves using Francis' lookalike opera singer cousin to pose as him long enough for the abduction to take place. After various crazy twists, the kidnapping is pulled off and Hawkins sends the ransom demand. To his shock, the Vatican replies that the Pope is perfectly safe and see no reason to pay. Hawkins realizes the cardinals ''like'' the imposter far more than the real Francis. Not only that but Francis himself enjoys taking an extended vacation from the pressures of the job while using a radio to "coach" his cousin how to play the part so Hawkins' entire scheme doesn't net him a dime.
* ''Literature/TheRunningMan'': Richards joins the Running Man contest, being pursued by groups of 'Hunters' and receiving money for every hour he stays alive, in order [[HealthcareMotivation to provide for his wife and his sick daughter]]. He makes it further than any previous contestant in the history of the show, eluding the Hunters for almost two weeks and managing to escape on a plane after he publicly threatens to blow up the airfield (which is a bluff). [[spoiler:[[CorruptCorporateExecutive Killian]] then offers him a job, but reveals that Richards' family had been killed in a home invasion only two days after the start of the contest. With nothing left to live for, he hijacks the plane and flies it right into the Games Tower.]]
* ''Literature/RunWithTheWind'': During Day 1 of Hakone Ekiden, [[spoiler:Prince is the starting runner for Kansei University and unsurprisingly comes last in his section, but the admirable efforts of Musa and the twins help the team climb up the rankings. Unfortunately, the last runner for the day is the very sick Shindo; he has to push himself to move at all, let alone complete his section, and the team drops back down to 20th place for that first half. The team has nothing but admiration and concern for Shindo, who insisted on competing since withdrawing would mean Kansei dropping out of Hakone together]].
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** Upon Cersei Lannister's coup to install Joffrey Baratheon to the throne, Ned Stark is given the choice to either confess to false charges and take the black, or defy the Lannisters and face execution. Ned is pointed out that if he chooses the latter, his daughter Sansa will be at the mercy of the Lannisters, so he [[PapaWolf understandably]] chooses the former. Then Joffrey goes off-script and executes Ned anyway, meaning he is both dead ''and'' has his reputation tarnished, while Sansa is taken hostage for a year because her brother Robb declares rebellion upon their father's death.
** Daenerys Targaryen saves Eroeh and Mirri Maz Duur from being gang raped by the Dothraki khalasar who sack their village. While Mirri's case is more of TheFarmerAndTheViper, Eroeh's story falls squarely in this trope. She is merely a sad, terrified girl who can only count Daenerys to protect her. As a result, when Daenerys loses the loyalty of the khalasar after Drogo's death and is recovering from her childbirth, the khalasar waste no time to gang rape and brutally kill Eroeh.
** The liberation of Astapor and Yunkai. Soon after Daenerys leaves, Astapor undergoes a FullCircleRevolution that sees the former slaves subjecting their masters into slavery, while Yunkai reverts to the way it was before Daenerys' visit. When she hears about their fates, Daenerys laments that she has created "ten thousand Eroehs".
** Many people have conquered [[BigFancyCastle Harrenhal]], but their attempt to rule over it always failed, creating rumors that the castle has a {{Curse}} associated with it (though it's more that Harrenhal is AwesomeButImpractical). When Petyr Baelish inherits it as a reward for his cooperation with the winning side of the War of the Five Kings, he chooses to level it to the ground.
** The Dance of the Dragons from the viewpoints of everyone involved. Rhaenyra insists over her birthright as heir to the Iron Throne because her king father said so. She does reign over King's Landing for half a year, but loses her three eldest sons, her husband, many of her supporters, and her own sanity, as she's driven paranoid over the many attempts against her life and ends up lashing it out against anyone she suspects to be traitors, causing her reputation to tank and forcing her to abandon the city anyway, before she is captured and executed in front of one of her two surviving sons. Her half-brother, Aegon, insists that he is the rightful heir because he is a man. He ends up losing his wife, brothers, sons, and grandfather in the process, and becomes even more of a drunkard and womanizer than before. Aegon officially wins the war and would go down in history as the true king... which is rendered irrelevant because he is assassinated shortly after the war ends, and his daughter dies childless, meaning all the efforts to crown him over his sister are in vain because the throne passes over to Rhaenyra's sons, and their progeny will be the one to continue the Targaryen line.
* The now-non-canon ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' expanded universe reveals that Emperor Palpatine came back to life after the events of the Original Trilogy. [[spoiler:though he's destroyed again by the end of the ''ComicBook/DarkEmpire'' stories.]] This is a notable source of FanonDiscontinuity for many, despite the fact that Lucas actually liked it more than most of the EU book series. As of April 2014, it is considered non-canon, and the emperor's actor, Ian [=McDiarmid=] stated that Palpatine is now KilledOffForReal... aaaaand then Palpatine came back anyways as the BigBad in Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker.
* A disappointing example occurs in the ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'' series, in which the dramatic climax of the (relatively good) first book turns out to have been all for naught. Umpteen books later, in the final book of the series, we discover that [[spoiler:Darken Rahl would have died no matter what box he opened]]. So much for ThePowerOfLove.
* ''Literature/TitansForest'': Everything Ular does in the first book is for the purpose of learning magic, returning to Canopy, and fulfilling the fate she believes lies in store for her as the bodyguard of the reborn Audblayin, and is willing to justify rather extreme actions on the basis of the great destiny they will work towards. When it's revealed that [[spoiler:Audblayin was reborn as a girl, and will thus take a male bodyguard, it becomes clear that everything she did -- every betrayal, every abandonment, every death she caused and the aid she gave to Kirrik's destructive plans -- served no purpose at all]]. [[HeroicBSOD She does not take this well.]]
* ''Literature/TreasureIsland'': When the Captain's party gives up their stockade, part of their supplies and the map to Silver, he knows something's going on, but he never mentions his suspicions to the other pirates. When they arrive to the point where the treasure had been buried, they find that someone (Ben Gunn) had done it before - and the Captain's party ambushes the pirates, rendering all their efforts to nothing.
* A subplot in the first book of ''Literature/WatchersOfTheThrone'' has Chancellor Tieron working to get the High Lords of Terra to repeal the Edict of Restraint, which forbids the Custodes - the Imperium's biggest, baddest group of {{Super Soldier}}s - from venturing out of the Imperial Palace and aiding in the Imperium's many wars. Ultimately, [[spoiler:the Custodes Captain-General votes against. ''Then'', Guilliman returns and repeals the Edict anyway, and it turns out that the Custodes have been secretly ignoring it already.]] This being said, Tieron managing to assemble the High Lords in the first place does aid them, so it's not ''entirely'' for naught.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/TwentyFour'' does this constantly, to the point that it could be called "All for Nothing: The Series":
** The show's second season had Jack recover some of his ordinary life by the end. The third season reveals that he has completely screwed it up between seasons, becoming (among other things) a heroin addict.
** Tony sacrificed his marriage and his good standing with the government over the course of the third season after he was blackmailed by the main antagonist of the season. He ultimately finds redemption in Season 4, helping to stop a new threat and ends up patching things up with his wife. In Season 5 [[spoiler:his wife, and as it later turns out, his unborn child are killed in a car bomb, Tony himself is badly injured in the explosion and later left for dead by the same man who helped plot their murder, it turns out that President Logan, the same man they were aiding in Season 4, was one of the collaborators in the plot of Season 5 and has stabbed everyone in the back, and by Day 7 when Tony discovers the mastermind that collaborated with Logan and led to his wife and son's death he becomes so desperate for revenge he resorts to terrorism to get the man, which eventually leads to his arrest.]]
** Said government constantly stabbing everyone in the back, including leaving Jack a prisoner in China for nearly two years at one point, destroys his own faith in the government. Allison Taylor, the President as of Day 7, is easily the most moral one in the series since David Palmer, and she's eventually able to help restore his faith is gradually over the course of the season. Then in Day 8 [[spoiler:Taylor betrays him and her own morals for her own purposes and destroys Jack's faith for good this time.]]
** Speaking of Allison Taylor, in Day 7 she is forced to make some tough decisions [[spoiler:and ultimately loses her entire family; her son due to murder, her daughter due to her committing a crime and thus allowing her to be arrested, and her husband due to him divorcing her after their daughter's arrest.]] Her actions in Day 8 see her try to get an important peace treaty signed and it's clear she's desperate to see it happen because of what she sacrificed in the previous season to make it have some sort of meaning. [[spoiler:When it turns out Russia, one of the parties supposed to sign the treaty, has been involved in masterminding terrorist attacks to get out of it, the aforementioned moment of her abandoning her morals comes as she blackmails them into signing the treaty with Logan's help and attempts to keep the truth about the events silenced. While she has a change of heart, she realizes confessing her crimes will destroy her presidency and leave her political career in irreparable shambles, meaning her worst fear, that her sacrifices really were meaningless, [[SelfFulfillingProphecy ended up coming true]].]]
** In ''Series/TwentyFourLiveAnotherDay'' after Jack is left a fugitive following the previous season's events, he comes out of hiding to prevent a presidential assassination and is given a pardon. [[spoiler:His ex Audrey is murdered and Jack is ultimately forced go give himself up to Russia by the end of the season, making it meaningless.]]
* This is the theme of ''Series/TheAmericans''. Phillip and Elizabeth are deep cover KGB agents in 1980s Washington. The series revolves around them doing dirty jobs, sacrificing so much and ruining the lives of friends for their mission. The series finale has them [[spoiler: "burning" their lives in America, leaving behind their children and returning to Moscow. The series ends with the duo back home, unaware that just four years later, the USSR will collapse, the KGB will be disbanded and everything they did for their country will be for naught.]] In other words, the series focuses on two Cold War soldiers with no idea they ultimately will lose the War.
* ''Series/{{Angel}}'' Season 3 has such an example when Wesley discovers a prophecy that seems to predict that Angel will eventually [[OffingTheOffspring kill his newborn son Connor]]. Fearing for the baby's life, Wesley makes a deal with Angel's old enemy Holtz to spirit the baby away before that happens, but Holtz ends up double-crossing him; as a result, Wesley ends up with a SlashedThroat while Holtz and Connor end up trapped in the hell dimension Quor'toth. Then it's revealed that the prophecy was in fact [[PropheticFallacy fabricated]] by [[DirtyCoward the demon Sahjhan, who had discovered that Connor was destined to grow up and kill him.]] When Fred visits Wesley in the episode, she informs him of his blunder, even quoting the trope name word for word.
* ''Astrid et Raphaëlle'': In the Season 1 episode "Fulcanelli" two people got murdered over a 16th century alchemical recipe — since the nook with the key to the recipe's container also had gold ingots, they likely thought it would be a way to transmute gold, at the very least. In the end, however, it was revealed that [[spoiler:the recipe described the secret of phosphorus — a surefire ticket to riches in the 16th century, but worthless today.]]
* ''Series/BarRescue'':
** For all the work Taffer puts into the bars, some of the owners have reverted back to their old ways after he leaves. Some of this is minor. Other cases are major. Quite a few have closed permanently or been sold, in some cases even before their episodes aired.
** He's walked out entirely in four cases to date (O'Face, Second Base re-rescue, Black Light District, Hideaway Bar & Grill), after seeing that the bars and their owners were just too screwed up to benefit from any help he could offer.
** Second Base (formerly Extremes) failed again after Taffer rescued the bar in Season 2. He tried to do a second rescue in Season 4, but gave up after the owner refused to put any of his own money into the re-design.
* ''Series/TheBarrier'': By the time she and her brother are ready to deploy their vaccine for the [[ThePlague noravirus]] Alma has been branded a traitor due to being assumed to be an accomplice to to her husband, who has turned against the government. She lives in a dicatatorship whose leaders aren't big fans of letting traitors live for very long. The situation gets subverted when [[spoiler:the President catches noravius and Alma's brother finds people who have secretly been given an old experimental vaccine better than the one she came up with]].
* On the ninth season of ''Series/TheBlacklist'', a scientist begins killing members of the team who helped him develop a sonic weapon. The team assumes it's to eliminate those who helped so he could sell it to the highest bidder. In reality, the man is so guilty over this weapon that he's getting rid of anyone who could make it and planning to kill himself. After he does, an angry Ressler confronts the government contractor behind the project who not so subtly indicates another team is already working on a new version of the weapon. Ressler sardonically sums up that "eight people died and you're not even going to miss a beat."
* In Season 3 of ''Series/TheBoys2019'', Butcher and Hughie resolve to throw away everything -- their relationships, [[WellIntentionedExtremist their values]], [[TakingYouWithMe their lives]] -- on one final gambit to [[CapeBusters kill]] [[BigBad Homelander]]. [[spoiler:After spending half the season babysitting the crux of their plan, the CameBackStrong [[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica Soldier Boy]], and catering to his every whim in exchange for his help killing Homelander, he turns on them after learning that [[LukeIAmYourFather Homelander is his son]] before [[GruesomeGrandparent trying to kill Ryan]] and renders their efforts all for naught.]]
* This is a recurring situation in ''Series/BreakingBad'':
** In Season 2 Walt gets WrongfullyCommitted for three days in the hospital as part of what he calls "the world's most expensive alibi" as part of his plan to keep Skyler from finding out about everything. This backfires on him later, as she figures out that he was faking it and it becomes another factor in her divorce attempt.
** The entire point of the TrainJob in season 5 was to steal their supply of methylamine without [[LeaveNoWitnesses having to worry about witnesses]], and it goes off almost without a hitch [[spoiler: until the kid on the dirt bike [[ChekovsGunman seen at the beginning of the episode]] [[DiabolusExMachina shows up at the last minute]] and Todd executes him]].
** "[[Recap/BreakingBadS5E14Ozymandias Ozymandias]]", Walter White's ill-advised kidnapping of his infant daughter Holly when he realizes Skyler and Walter Jr. have turned against him and thinks that Holly couldn't turn against him due to not knowing enough practically put a final nail in the coffin for any chance of redemption. And he is proven wrong, as [[IWantMyMommy she starts crying "Mama!"]] [[HeelRealization Having realized he'd gone too far]], Walt sends Holly to the Fire Station to be brought home to his wife and son, and [[TheAtoner he spends the rest of his life at least partially trying to make amends]] [[RedemptionEqualsDeath until his death in the finale.]] The entire series revolved around Walt turning to a life of crime to provide for his family, but it's because of his LivingADoubleLife that he ended up losing them. Walter even shouts "It can't all be for nothing!" in the second-to-last episode when his son [[ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules refuses his attempt to send money]], blaming him for [[spoiler: Hank's death]]. Walter manages to subvert it in the GrandFinale by having his old business partners give the family everything he had under their name, but it's still a PyrrhicVictory.
** Jesse's major motivation for sticking with Walter and continuing to cook meth is to make a ton of cash and get rich. However, over the course of the series he undergoes an utterly massive TraumaCongaLine which nearly breaks him, and ends up becoming a nationally wanted criminal when Walt's activities are exposed, [[Film/ElCamino so he's forced to use nearly all his remaining money to get a new identity and flee to Alaska]]. The only faint silver lining is that he never, ever has to deal with Walt, meth, or the cartel, ever again.
** Mike's main drive to work for Gus (and then Walt) was to accumulate a huge nest egg for his granddaughter. Unfortunately, it all ends up for naught when the police discover the offshore bank accounts Gus used to pay his employees, and they confiscate all the money. Then, once they uncover concrete evidence connecting Mike to Gus's criminal activity, Mike is forced to flee New Mexico without even saying goodbye to his granddaughter, and worse [[spoiler:he ends up being killed by Walt in a fit of rage, and his body is unceremoniously disposed of]].
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' Season 5 has all the drama of Joyce's brain tumor. Then she dies of an aneurysm after the tumor is removed.
** A purposeful, tragic example in Season 7: a girl [[MeaningfulName named Cassie]] has prophetic powers and repeatedly predicts that she will die this Friday. [[SelfFulfillingProphecy Because of this]], a cult tries to sacrifice her to a demon, figuring people will just rule her disappearance a suicide. Buffy saves her from the demon, saves her from a booby trap, tells her that [[ScrewDestiny people can make their own destinies]]. Cassie then falls dead from a heart condition that she didn't even know that she had. [[spoiler:After giving a veiled prediction that Buffy will stop the Apocalypse]].
* ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}''
** Akimov and Toptunov spend the night standing waist-deep in irradiated water to turn coolant valves. At that point they probably could have gotten away with disobeying Dyatlov (as Stolyarchuk, who begs them not to go, does), but the thought of the core being ''gone'' is so incomprehensible that Akimov believes that it would be putting lives at risk to not go. He and Toptunov die a few weeks later of ARS from their attempt to cool a core that no longer existed.
** Subverted with the liquid nitrogen heat exchanger that was installed beneath the plant to prevent the meltdown material from reaching the water table. Ultimately, the corium didn't get that far, but the workers who risked their lives (many of whom did die young from radiation-induced illness) were still glad they did it. The chances that it would were 40%, which is way too high when talking about poisoning the groundwater relied on by millions.
* One of the recurring characters on ''Series/ComeFlyWithMe'' was Fearghal O'Farrell, a gay air steward who resorted to increasingly unethical methods in an attempt to win Steward of the Year, including deliberately giving a customer food they were allergic to so they could save them and be hailed a hero, and sleeping with the airline's (female) CEO. All this proves to be for nothing in the finale, when another employee wins the award instead. Fearghal is so incensed by the snub that he [[AccidentalPublicConfession reveals all the unethical lengths he went to]] and then steals the trophy. He's unsurprisingly fired.
* A few times on ''Series/CSIMiami''.
** A pair of crooks rob an armored car, killing one of the guards. One is killed himself by the cops while the other is caught. It's then discovered that the money was actually fake as the crooks just happened to pick a shipment that had been swapped by ''another'' pair of crooks for the real cash. The captured thief can't believe he's going to jail for killing a man over a pack of fake cash.
** A set of triplets conspire to murder the rich husband of one sister, figuring their identical appearances will guarantee the cops can never prove which one of them did it. Not only are they wrong but as it happens, the man they killed was actually their husband's BodyDouble and he's very much alive to raise the son of one of his "wives."
** A series of seemingly random murders at Spring Break turn out to be the work of a young woman who had been horribly bullied by those kids as overweight and ugly. After a huge makeover, she hunted them all down to kill them off. The episode ends with the woman (in her "original" form) smiling as she's led off in handcuffs. As soon as the cell door shuts, she becomes her current version with her smile fading as it sinks in how she let her desire for payback for some minor bullying ruin her entire life.
** More than one dying crook has had the last thing they hear be Caine dryly asking if "it was all worth it in the end."
* ''Series/DegrassiJuniorHigh''
** L.D. has to deal with trauma from her mother's dying of cancer. She finally learns not to fear and distrust all things relating to health -- and in ''Series/DegrassiHigh,'' L.D. gets leukemia.
** Much of ''Series/DegrassiJuniorHigh'' is BigEgoHiddenDepths for Joey, who learns not to be such a lazy ass. In Degrassi High, all that talk about getting off his butt and working hard is rendered meaningless when it turns out he has dysgraphia. (It still fits his character arc, since he still has to cope with feelings of inadequacy, but it's a huge shift.)
** The ChristmasEpisode of ''Series/DegrassiJuniorHigh'' is about Arthur and Yick learning to stay friends even though Arthur is richer and Yick is more rebellious. The lesson sticks for the whole series. But in ''Series/DegrassiHigh'', they almost stop being friends completely for those same reasons.
** As the resident AntiHero, Wheels is always getting shoved through the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor. More than once, he turns heel ''off-screen'', with no warning until we're suddenly told that he's been acting this way for weeks. SecondHandStorytelling makes the perfect tool for manipulating the audience.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]", in which almost every action and event is rendered pointless by almost everyone dying. What's more, the only thing the Doctor was able to accomplish was saving Peri's life; [[NiceJobBreakingItHero meanwhile, he caused a gigantic power collapse on Androzani Major and managed to destroy one of the planet's most valuable resources.]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS24E4Dragonfire "Dragonfire"]] shows how villain Kane was exiled from his home planet of Proamon and has spent three thousand years trying to find an energy source to power Iceworld. He finally succeeds and is prepared to reconquer Proamon for his ultimate revenge. At which point, the Doctor reveals there's no one to get revenge from; Kane's home planet was destroyed when its sun went nova two thousand years earlier. Kane [[DrivenToSuicide does not take this well]].
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E12BadWolf "Bad Wolf"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E13ThePartingOfTheWays "The Parting of the Ways"]]: The Doctor discovers that, after he sacrificed his own species to destroy the Daleks in the [[GreatOffscreenWar Time War]], they're still around, meaning his people died for nothing.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E4DaleksInManhattan "Daleks in Manhattan"]]: The Doctor has this reaction again when he finds out the Daleks escaped [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday the Battle of Canary Wharf]], where he lost Rose stopping them.
--->''[TranquilFury]'' "They survived. They always survive, while I lose everything."
* In the PilotMovie of ''Series/{{Emergency}}'', the thing that convinces John Gage to become a paramedic is when he rescues an electrocuted line man and because the lineman didn't get any life saving treatment to stabilize him before transport to the hospital, he was hopelessly terminal by the time he arrived. As John remarks, "Rescue, Hell. All we rescued was a corpse."
* In ''Series/EverybodyLovesRaymond'' episode "The Angry Family", when Michael tells a short story about a bickering family, it results in a chain of events in which Raymond, Debra, and their in-laws end up in therapy. It's at the end of the episode that Raymond and Debra learn that Michael actually based his story off a tv show he watches.
* ''[[Franchise/ASongOfIceAndFire Game of Thrones]]'' universe:
** ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
*** Jorah Mormont's plan to regain Daenerys' favour by presenting her with Tyrion. All he gets out of the whole adventure is a case of greyscale.
*** After sacrificing his daughter so he can resume his advance, Stannis loses everyone and everything including the battle.
*** Despite a season worth of effort, Myrcella dies anyway.
*** Theon sabotaged Sansa's attempts to free herself from Ramsay Bolton in order to protect her from his wrath (as he believed that escape was impossible and trying would only make things worse), but eventually realizes that all his efforts are meaningless because Ramsay is still planning to torture and eventually kill her anyway (after he gets a ChildByRape from her to secure his claim to the North). Knowing this makes him snap and he breaks out of being Reek for the first time.
*** Robert's rebellion ended with his beloved dead, and him stuck with a crown he never wanted. "The Dragon and the Wolf" reveals that Lyanna was never kidnapped by Rhaegar, but instead went with him willingly because she was truly in love with him.
*** Queen Cersei's schemes and plots cost her all her allies, the lives of her children and the love of her brother/lover, but in the end she's once again forced into an unwanted marriage, except with a ''much'' worse suitor, she's completely alone and surrounded by enemies. [[spoiler:She does get Jaime back in the penultimate episode of the last season...only for both of them to die not long after their reunion]].
*** Perhaps the biggest example is Tywin Lannister. He spent years trying to build up the Lannister legacy, committing ruthless and outright horrific acts to protect it, accruing enemies on every side who would love nothing more than to see him dead and his house wiped out. This eventually culminates in the Red Wedding, where he has Robb and Catelyn Stark and most of their bannermen murdered while they were under guest right. Considered his greatest triumph, it's after that everything begins to fall apart. First, Jaime refuses to leaves the Kingsguard and carry on the family name, then Cersei reveals his aforementioned legacy is nothing more than a lie by confirming the rumors about her and Jaime are true, and then Tyrion outright murders him after being put through a sham-trial that was meant to end in Tyrion's death, unable to take his father's emotional abuse anymore. Once Tywin dies, that's when everything ''really'' goes downhill: the Tyrell alliance he painstakingly tried to maintain crumbles after Cersei blows the Great Sept of Baelor sky high with wildfire, killing Margaery, Loras, and Mace, along with Tywin's brother Kevan. This sees Tommen commit suicide and Cersei taking the Iron Throne for herself in a desperate bid to stave off the inevitable retaliation. The Starks he had seemingly wiped out and defeated have retaken Winterfell, and then Daenerys Targaryen lands in Westeros, dragons and all. [[spoiler:All of that eventually leads to Jaime and Cersei dying in Daenerys's inevitable attack on King's Landing, leaving Tyrion, the son he despised, as the last remaining Lannister. To top it off, Tyrion has been celibate since Shae's death, so unless he breaks out of that mindset, House Lannister will go extinct]].
** ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'':
*** The relentless efforts of King Viserys and Queen Aemma to have male heirs a brought to a sad end with the DeathByChildbirth of Aemma (via a TraumaticCSection she didn't consent to)... and the death of the child a couple hours later.
*** King Viserys has spent his whole reign trying to conciliate as much as he could, avoid war at all cost, maintain a strong realm and consolidate his succession. It all goes up in flames as soon as he dies, with the SuccessionCrisis and looming CivilWar between two rival factions of Targaryens competing for the Iron Throne.
* ''Series/{{Gotham}}'': Sofia Falcone seduces Jim Gordon, the man [[spoiler:who murdered her brother]] into allying with her, creates an orphanage solely to manipulate Penguin, [[spoiler:summons a SerialKiller to Gotham, allowing him to cut a bloody swathe through the GCPD just so Gordon can take him down and be considered a hero]], and [[spoiler:assassinates her own father]] in hopes of recreating the Falcone Empire in Gotham with her at the head. Before Season Four is even over, [[spoiler:she's in a coma, her empire is permanently crippled and fractured, and any remaining influence her family had in Gotham is gone for good]].
* On ''Series/HawaiiFive0'' a girl is seemingly kidnapped by her boyfriend who killed her father. The team find evidence the girl was abused by her dad and the boyfriend was trying to help her. But as they dig deeper, they realize the evidence is fake and the girl was using the man to kill her father so she could inherit his million-dollar life insurance policy. The girl arranges for her dupe "boyfriend" to be killed by the cops and talks of him as a madman attacking her family. But not only does the team know the truth but in interrogation, they drop the bomb: Wanting to make sure her college education was paid for, her father stopped payments on his life insurance so the policy had lapsed. Kono openly snaps "you've got nothing" as they leave the girl to spend her life in prison.
** Jenna [[spoiler: was forced to spy on the team as Wo Fat was holding her fiancee hostage. She finally delivered Steve right to his enemy, was brought to see her love...only to find he'd been dead for months and Wo Fat was hiding it to continue to use Jenna. She ends up sacrificing herself to save Steve, noting that she threw her entire life away for nothing but can at least help him.]]
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' ends this way: [[spoiler:Barney and Robin get divorced after three years of marriage, Ted finally meets the Mother and is blissfully happy for eleven years until she comes down with an illness and dies in 2024, ''[[PosthumousCharacter six years before he started telling the story]]'', and the kids have realized that the story was really a way to ask them for approval to chase Robin AGAIN.]]
* The proto-Creator/MontyPython special ''Film/HowToIrritatePeople'' has a character played by Creator/GrahamChapman spending most of an office party trying to persuade a co-worker played by Creator/MichaelPalin to offer him a lift home. It's not until the end of the party that Palin reveals that he came to the party via train and thus can't give Chapman a lift home -- though as Creator/JohnCleese notes in the hosting segment, it wasn't a ''complete'' waste of time for Chapman since he did at least get to have fun irritating Palin.
* ''Series/Kingdom2019'': At great risk to himself, the Crown Prince ensures no survivors are left behind as they flee from the ruins of Dongnae to Jiyulheon just as night falls. However, forces loyal to Cho soon track him down and demand his surrender in daytime. When he refuses, Cho's forces unleash a hail of arrows that kills many innocents.
* ''Series/LawAndOrder'' has a case where a Jewish woman killed a man thought to have her grandfather's Nazi-confiscated coin collection. Eventually, after several false starts, red herrings, and wild goose chases, the prosecutors find out that said murder victim never possessed the collection in the first place; he said he did as a financial pretense on which to back his fortune and only knew of the collection from an old auction catalog he'd read. The murderer breaks down in tears and horror as she realizes she killed a man for nothing but a memory.
** Played for BlackComedy in "Couples", which opens with a man dying of a heart attack while jogging with his husband. It later turns out he was poisoned and the cops go to his spouse. To their surprise, the man immediately confesses to the murder, assuming the cops already figured it out. He then starts moaning over how his lawyer just broke it to him that the state of New York refuses to acknowledge the marriage as legal and since everything was in his husband's name, he's about to lose their home and not able to inherit any money or even access accounts.
** In one episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'', a developmentally disabled and traumatized boy [[Awesome/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit fights through his (very much justified) fear to publicly implicate his abusive foster mother in the death of another child]]. The following scene reveals that the foster mother subsequently died of a heart attack before the conclusion of the trial, meaning that the entire trial was ultimately pointless.
* [[ComicBook/TheAtom Ray Palmer]] of the Series/{{Arrowverse}} feels this way about his wealth and inventions, which is what motivates him to join Rip Hunter in the Pilot of ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'':
-->'''Ray:''' I died, or at least people thought I did, and nothing happened. All the money, all the inventions, all the buildings ''({{beat}})'' and [[DudeWheresMyRespect no one cared]].
* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': [[spoiler:Despite all the struggles of the Southlanders to defend their home from Adar and the [[TheCavalry last minute arrival]] of the Numenoreans, his plan to cause a volcanic eruption to create {{Mordor}} still succeeds. Worse than that, Galadriel finds out all her pushing to convince Halbrand to accept being crowned weighs to nothing, because he is Sauron in disguise. All she succeeded to do was to reignite Sauron's ambition when he was at his lowest point.]]
* On ''Series/{{Lost}}'', Jacob has become the Island's protector reluctantly, almost against his wish. He wants it to be different for his replacement, so he sets up an elaborate system of candidates that last for at least a few dozens if not hundred years, affecting and ending the lives of hundreds different people. Near the end it appears to pay off, as Jack takes on the job consciously and willingly. However, he then performs a HeroicSacrifice within the following day and passes the job to Hurley, who is extremely reluctant to take it from him and went as far as saying "Just glad it's not me" when Jack himself volunteered for the job. Jacob's entire plan eventually resulted in nothing. (though Jack's sacrifice was to stop the BigBad that Jacob tried to keep from leaving the Island, so it did pay off... at the cost of both Jacob and Jack's lives)
** Another example: The Oceanic 6 spend 3 years lying about the time they spend on the Island and the fates of people that they left behind, believing themselves to be protecting their friends from Charles Widmore. This causes most of them some serious guilt issues. However, it is later revealed that Widmore performed an off-screen HeelFaceTurn and, while still a big jerk, was actually on the same side as our heroes. Even then, he couldn't have possibly harmed any of the people left on the Island, as those were stuck in a completely different ''time period''. Sorry, Hurley, the Lie was All For Nothing.
** Could be argued that most of the characters' storylines became All For Nothing at various points through season 6, the writers just killing them off seemingly without a care for any kind of subplot they still had going on. Probably worst of all when Sun spends almost a season and a half returning to the island and finding Jin so they can return to their daughter before both simply drown.
** John Locke's entire story arc also seemingly turned out to be All For Nothing, as he was simply a pawn in The Man In Black's game all along. However, Locke's life and death did had one major consequence: he had finally managed to convince Jack of the truth of his beliefs, thus allowing all the events of the last two seasons to happen.
* The first season of ''Series/MadamSecretary'' has the subplot of a splinter group of the CIA and State Department working to overthrow the current Iranian government to put in a leader who can be far more friendly to American interests. Liz is briefly tempted to let them do it...until she discovers that their hand-picked new leader has a terminal brain tumor and just six months to live. Thus, the coup will barely be settled before his death kicks off a power struggles that will leave the nation a mess all over again.
* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'' takes place in a 1962 where the Axis won World War II. Hawthorne is able to collect films from alternate worlds, including a few where the Allies won. Finding out, the Nazis put together a massive machine designed to cross over to these other worlds. In the season 3 finale, Commander Smith tells a captive Hawthorne that the Nazis have tested the device with three "volunteers" exploding and a fourth vanishing. They are now going to use it to invade and conquer other Earths. Hawthrone smugly tells Smith this won't work for one simple reason: [[spoiler: A person can only cross over into another reality if their counterpart in that world is already dead. There's no way the Nazis can know what world they're going to go into, let alone which of the soldiers sent have living counterparts or not. So unless the Nazis plan to field a force made up only of anyone born since 1947 (and it's 50/50), there's no chance their invasion won't end up with sixty to ninety percent of the soldiers not surviving the trip.]]
* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:
** ''Series/Daredevil2015'':
*** Season 1 ends with Matt, Karen and Foggy defeating Wilson Fisk and putting him away after getting a corrupt detective to link Fisk to the murders of Detective Blake and several other cops. However, this only temporarily stops Fisk, as season 2 shows him rebuilding his criminal empire from within prison, even using Frank Castle to get rid of the kingpin who heads the prison's underground economy. And in season 3, he gets out of prison and seeks revenge on Matt, Karen and Foggy for putting him away.
*** Matt's defeat of Nobu and the Hand in season 2 is rendered this trope by ''Series/IronFist2017'' season 1 and ''Series/TheDefenders2017'', which reveal Matt only defeated a faction of the Hand, and never got close to touching the other factions led by Bakuto, Madame Gao, Sowande, and Alexandra.
*** Matt manages to save Stick from Elektra in the 12th episode of season 2, but this only prolongs Stick's life by a couple months, and the next time around, in ''Series/TheDefenders2017'', Elektra kills Stick, with Matt unable to stop her.
** ''Series/JessicaJones2015'' season 1 sees the protagonists trying to clear Hope's name, after Kilgrave made Hope kill her parents. Jessica Jones and her allies go through dangerous lengths in order to capture him alive just to prove his powers and therefore, Hope's innocence. In the end however, [[spoiler:he evades all their traps and Hope kills herself so Jessica can focus on killing him instead of bringing Kilgrave to justice.]]
** ''Series/LukeCage2016'': All of Misty Knight and Luke Cage's work to take down the Stokes-Dillard gang succeeds in putting away Luke's murderous half-brother Diamondback, but Mariah walks free due to arranging for Shades to kill the one witness who could link her to Cottonmouth's murder.
* In the episode "Adam's Ribs" of ''Series/{{MASH}}'', Hawkeye and Trapper go through great lengths to get an order of ribs delivered from Chicago to their outfit in Korea. The moment the ribs are served and the cast is about to have dinner, casualties are arriving and they're all off to the O.R.
** Well, they have the ribs, they'll just need to be reheated. So this is more like delayed gratification.
*** Also they forgot the coleslaw.
** There was another episode where they were so desperate for real food (Father Mulcahy in particular) that they spent months growing corn. And then the cook creamed all of it, much to Mulcahy's chagrin.
** In one ep, Potter was delighted by an accidentally-delivered can of tomato juice, something he hasn't had in a long while. Radar wants to get him a whole case, so he, Hawkeye and BJ engage in a load of horse-trading and just plain grief to acquire it. When they get their goods, Potter reveals that he remembered why he had gone so long without tomato juice - he's [[PlotAllergy horribly allergic]]. Ultimately played with: when Radar quotes the trope Potter gently admonishes him. "An act of kindness is never for nothing, son."
* ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}''. At the inception of the series, a teenaged Merlin comes to Camelot and is made Arthur's manservant, being told repeatedly by a prophetic dragon that the two of them have a great destiny together: to unite Albion, to legalize magic, and to usher in the Golden Age. ''It never comes to pass''. After five seasons, which amounts to ten in-show years, Arthur [[spoiler:dies at Mordred's hands before any of this can occur]]. Unless you count the brief three years of Arthur and Guinevere's reign that happened entirely off-screen in the TimeSkip between series 4 and 5 (in which Merlin is still a lowly servant and the druids and other magic-users still have to live in hiding), everything that Merlin ever worked, waited and hoped for comes to naught. [[spoiler:Though given that the DistantFinale shows that Merlin is still around, and Arthur is traditionally the KingInTheMountain...]]
* More than once on ''Series/MurderSheWrote'', the killer discovers too late that the motive for the murder (from a supposed payday to winning over someone's love) either never existed or isn't what they expect. A key example is "Night of the Coyote." A man kills a rancher to find the location of a lockbox stolen by bandits a century before. He finally digs it up, expecting gold or silver. Instead, he finds it's filled with bonds...for a company that went bankrupt in 1905.
* ''Series/MyCountryTheNewAge'': Seon-ho rebels against his father and kills his father's servants to save Yeon... and she gets killed right when she's about to escape.
* The ''Series/{{Mythbusters}}'' have made several very complicated myth setups, only for them to completely blow up in their faces.
** A giant Lego ball that took hours of work of about a dozen people to make, after getting both all the blocks from Lego Land and the largest private collector, completely broke apart before it even made it halfway down the setup track. It was a huge success in that it proved that the video they were trying to imitate was a fake.
** When they attempted to retest the [=JATO=] Rocket Car myth from their pilot episode, they wanted to give it the best possible chance of actually getting airborne, so they pulled out all the stops: spending a lot of money on a "real" rocket (instead of their original homemade version), building and reinforcing a massive ramp, installing remote controls and elaborate tow-lines so it could be launched safely. After all that effort and expense, their professionally-built rocket engine exploded when it was ignited. This was perhaps the only time since the first season that they couldn't give a verdict of "busted", "plausible", or "confirmed". As this was the "Supersized Special", they ended up calling the myth "appropriately supersized"; after all, they'd still gotten a consolatory fireball.
* A version of this trope that actually favors the protagonists occurs in an episode of ''Series/{{NUMB3RS}}''. A billionaire businessman conspires to rig California's election system, and then starts killing anyone who could implicate him. While the businessman is able to avoid arrest, the investigation results in the scheme being made public, thus ensuring that it won't succeed.
* This was a big part of ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai''. [[spoiler:Throughout the entire season, it has been stated that the sealing symbol of the Red Ranger was the only thing that could seal Master Xandred away forever. However, when the big moment comes for it to be used, [[NegatedMomentOfAwesome Master Xandred shrugs it off]], [[RemovedAchillesHeel having gained an immunity to it earlier]]. It's not just the build up for the sealing power that's for nothing, but the fact that Jayden kept his sister's existence hidden from his friends, as well as all of Lauren's hard work to master the sealing symbol, and their father's plan that started it all. It was even lampshaded]].
* ''Series/RedDwarf'': In "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIWaitingForGod Waiting for God]]", Lister discovers that during the 3 million years he was in stasis, the race of beings that evolved from his cat founded a religion worshipping him as "Cloister the Stupid". They then proceeded to have a holy war over whether [[ItMakesSenseInContext the sacred cardboard hats at his hot dog stand]] were supposed to be red or blue. What makes it this trope is that according to Lister, the hats were supposed to be ''green''.
* ''Series/ReservationDogs'':
** In the beginning of the first episode, the gang steals a truck filled with spicy chips and sells it to Kenny Boy (although they get to keep the chips). However, when Bear finds out that the truck driver lost his job because of the theft and his wife left him because he lost his job, he decides to return the money and give the truck back. After an argument with Elora, they finally decide to do it and go to Kenny Boy... who reveals that they already dismantled the entire truck except for the frame. Kenny Boy laughingly tells them they can have the frame if they want.
** Bear gets his hopes up trying to see his dad after two years, to the point of buying him pricey gifts, despite everyone telling him [[DisappearedDad his dad NEVER visits him.]] Unfortunately, [[ForegoneConclusion they're right.]]
* In ''Series/TheSandman2022'', after his father beats him over the belief that Alex was going to betray him and free Dream, his father demands that Alex [[spoiler: shoot and kill Jessamy]] to prove his loyalty. Alex does it but even after he completes the task, his father simply berates him further and continues to abuse him, while also angering Dream and guaranteeing retribution from Dream later on.
* In ''Series/SonsOfAnarchy'' Jax Teller sacrifices everything in order to fulfill the club's obligations to other criminal organizations and finally get the Sons out of the gun running business and making money in legitimate ways. The followup series ''Series/MayansMC'' takes place a few years later and the Sons are back to running guns as without Jax, their leadership drive faded and they fell back into their old ways.
* ''Series/SquidGame''
** Seong Gi-hun main motivation for returning to the games was to procure funds to cure his mother's diabetes. [[spoiler:After he finally returns from the games however, she was long dead.]]
*** [[spoiler:Wanting nothing to do with the dirty money he had won, he makes a final AllOrNothing bet with Il-nam based on their differing philosophies: If anyone helps a drunken man they spotted on the streets by midnight, Il-nam would have to take back all the prize money. Despite Gi-hun winning the bet, [[YouAreTooLate Il-nam had silently passed away on the dot]], preventing the latter from acknowledging his loss and leaving Gi-hun stuck with the money. It ultimately becomes subverted as this event also convinces Gi-hun to accept and use the money for good.]]
** [[spoiler:Ji-yeong [[HeroicSacrifice throws her game with Sae-byeok to allow her to progress]], as she believes Sae-byeok's family gives her something to live for outside of the game, but Sang-woo ends up unceremoniously killing her offscreen the night before the final game, [[SenselessSacrifice voiding Ji-yeong's sacrifice]].]]
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekS2E23TheOmegaGlory}} The Omega Glory]]" Captain Ronald Tracey blatantly violates the [[AlienNonInterferenceClause Prime Directive]] and gets involved on a primitive planet's war, takes Kirk and his landing party prisoner, murders their RedShirt in cold blood and throws Kirk in with savages to die, all for the sake of getting a serum that supposedly can extend a humanoid's lifespan by centuries. Needless to say, he doesn't take it very well when Dr. [=McCoy=] discovers that the natives simply evolved that way and thus there is no serum to isolate.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E29OperationAnnihilate Operation: Annihilate]]", [=McCoy=] determines that a parasite that has infested Spock, as well as millions of civilians, can be killed by an intense light. At Spock's request, [=McCoy=] reluctantly tests the treatment on him; the treatment successfully kills the parasite, but also leaves Spock blind. Just as they're absorbing this fact, [=McCoy=] recieves lab results that reveal a horrifying fact: the creature is vulnerable to ''one specific type'' of light, which is beyond the visual spectrum and thus wouldn't cause blindness. (Fortunately, it turned out that [[SingleEpisodeHandicap Spock's blindness]] [[ResetButton wasn't permanent]].)
--->'''[=McCoy=]:''' I threw the total spectrum of light at the creature. It wasn't necessary. I didn't stop to think that only one kind of light might've killed it... I didn't need to throw the blinding white light at all.
* The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E14LowerDecks}} Lower Decks]]" has Sito Jaxa (the most focused on of the ensigns and also the one with the most to prove) killed at the end, making all of her efforts moot.
** The entire Klingon Civil War saga was brought about by this trope. The House of Duras was a powerful and influential within the Klingon Empire, so much so that when one of their own allowed the Romulans to massacre a Klingon colony on Khitomer, they pinned the blame on the Klingon Mogh and, years later, forced his son Worf to accept discommendation for it as if the truth came out, a civil war would break out. Two years after the forced discommendation, the Duras Sisters make a power play when Gowron is set to become Chancellor of the Empire and when Picard, as Arbiter of Succession, is forced into a MortonsFork, his decision sets off the civil war.
* Subverted with a vengeance in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E19InThePaleMoonlight}} In the Pale Moonlight]]" where Sisko himself notes in his log that after violating one moral principle after another in a scheme with Garak to bring the Romulans into the Dominion war, the whole thing blew up in his face and it seemed all his moral compromises were wasted. Garak, however, refused to let his XanatosGambit go to waste that easily and managed to salvage it with one thoroughly brilliant and utterly criminal act of treachery.
* On ''Series/{{Timeless}}'', Wyatt believes his wife was murdered by a notorious serial killer. He steals the time machine "Lifeboat" to go back to 1983 and prevent the killer's parents from meeting. It turns into a mess as the man destined to be that killer's father accidentally dies. Wyatt is shaken but copes with how he prevented his wife's murder. Returning to the present, he's not only arrested but discovers that while the killer wasn't born and his other victims were alive, Wyatt's wife isn't. A stunned Wyatt realizes someone else killed his wife and the trip just ends up with him arrested.
* In ''Series/TheTerror'', despite all the crews trials and tribulations, the majority of them die off far from home and in various horrible ways. The sole survivor is then forced to settle down with the local Inuit, avoiding searchers out of guilt.
* ''Series/TheTudors'': Henry goes through deplorable lengths in order to beget the son he always wanted for the sake of securing the Tudor Dynasty. As history would show, and as constantly foreshadowed by the series itself, all his efforts come to naught because his long awaited heir dies as a teenager before he could have any children himself, and would end up having a comparatively unremarkable reign to the ones his older sisters would have. To pour even more salt in the wound, Henry himself is to blame for the dynasty dying out, as his refusal to let Mary get married during his reign led to her marrying at too old an age to have children, while Elizabeth absolutely ''refused'' to get married herself due to her view of marriage being warped by his actions.
* In ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E15IShotAnArrowIntoTheAir "I Shot An Arrow Into The Air"]], a group of astronauts on a prototype rocket crash-land on what they believe is an asteroid somewhere in the Earth's orbit. Only three of them- Col. Donlin, Corey, and Pierson- survive and are left with limited supplies, little water, and no way off. While everyone is focused on survival, Corey gradually descends into a CrazySurvivalist who butts heads with the other two constantly. He goes so far as to [[spoiler: murder Pierson on an expedition to take his water and then guns down Donlin]] before setting out on his own. [[spoiler: After spending the better part of a day climbing over a mountain, Corey makes it over the top and [[EarthAllAlong sees telephone poles and a sign for Reno, Nevada]]. Realizing that they just crashed back into the Earth, he starts LaughingMad before [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone breaking down crying.]]]]
** A chatterbox named Jamie makes a bet with an aristocrat named Archie: if he could stay silent for one whole year, Jamie will win fifty thousand dollars. [[spoiler:After a whole year of silence, Archie finally admits that he is a fraud; he lost his fortune a year ago. Distraught, Jamie writes down on a paper that he is a fraud, too. Knowing he would never be able to keep his end of the deal, he had the nerves to his vocal cords severed.]]
* In the series finale of ''Series/{{Veep}}'', Selina Myers [[spoiler: throws long-time loyal friend Gary under the bus to go to jail for her own misdeeds, bans gay marriage which means daughter Catherine no longer speaks to her and accepts a VP she hates to win votes which drives the rest of her loyal staff to quit.]] So what is Selina's ultimate reward for [[spoiler: throwing away any principles and friendships to be President again? She loses the next election to her rival who serves two terms which is then followed by Richard becoming a great President who finally brings peace to the Middle East. She's nothing but a historical footnote only remembered for her many mistakes and to top it all off, her funeral is overshadowed by the networks cutting to news of Creator/TomHanks having died.]]
* ''Series/TheWire'' ends like for this for Jimmy [=McNulty=], whose fake serial killer scheme finally wrecks his police career. It did get Marlo Stanfield off the streets but it's implied it's temporary and in the greater scheme of things, it didn't make Baltimore a better place.
* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In "A Loaf of Bread and a Grand Old Flag," Sheldon causes a fuss when a company changes his favorite bread by producing it cheaply to save money, and in a series of escalating events ends up [[ItMakesSenseInContext accidentally supporting communism because he thinks it will get him better bread]]. At the end of the episode he announces that he gave the bread another chance and he likes it, trying to make himself sound mature, but the rest of his family is still mad at him for what he put them through [[SilentTreatment and isn't talking to him.]]

[[folder:Music]]
* The 60s anti-war song One Tin Soldier tells of the Valley Folk who covet the great treasure of the Mountain Kingdom. The Kingdom are more than happy to share, but the Valley folk greedly want the whole stash, going to war with the Mountain and wiping them out. In the end, the "treasure" turns out to be [[spoiler: a simple engraving of 'Peace on Earth' on the bottom of a rock]]
* Music/{{Rainbow}}: The song "Stargazer" tells the story of a wizard who enslaves people to spend nine years building a tower in the desert for him so he can channel his magic to fly. His first attempt ends with him falling to his death, rendering the whole endevour completely pointless.
* Spanish balladeer Camilo Sesto has a song titled "Todo Por Nada"[[note]][[TropeNamer Spanish for "All For Nothing".]][[/note]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sports]]
* The [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague New Orleans Saints']] play known as the River City Relay has become infamous due to this trope. With the Saints trailing by 7 on the final drive of a game they needed to win to have any chance of staying in the playoff race, they pulled off one of the most incredible lateral plays of all time to score a last-second touchdown... only for usually-reliable kicker John Carney to miss the extra point that would have tied the game and forced overtime.
* The defining buzzer-beater shots in the NBA careers of both Michael Jordan and [=LeBron=] James happened in playoff campaigns their teams ultimately lost:
** For Michael Jordan, it was the series-clinching buzzer-beater against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 5 of the 1989 Eastern Conference Quarterfinal. The Chicago Bulls would beat the New York Knicks in six games in the Conference Semifinal, then fall to the Detroit Pistons in six games in the Conference Final.
** For [=LeBron=] James, it was the buzzer-beater against the Orlando Magic in Game 2 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Final. The Magic would ultimately win the series in six games.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/TheApocalypseStone'' was a ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' adventure designed to destroy a Second Edition world to allow a fresh start with Third Edition. In the default ending, nothing the [=PCs=] do ultimately matters. Even if they succeed at every task flawlessly, by the time they confront the final villain, the world is too far gone to prevent an EarthShatteringKaboom. However, it did also allow alternate endings, such as the fabric of reality being altered in ways that would accommodate Third Edition mechanics.
* Downplayed in ''TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse''. The heroes Visionary and Omnitron-X supposedly travel back in time to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong (saving her younger self from being StrappedToAnOperatingTable for Visionary, and destroying his past selves before they could do too much damage for Omnitron-X). Unfortunately, it turns out that neither of them actually traveled back in time, but instead to another reality (that reality being the timeline the game takes place in also known as the "Prime Timeline") meaning that they didn't change the future at all. On the other hand, they managed to do quite a bit of good in the prime timeline so it wasn't entirely for nothing.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* Both ''Theatre/TheFantasticks'' and ''Theatre/IntoTheWoods'' do this deliberately as a {{Deconstruction}} of fairy tales. The first act is a mythic tale with beginning and end, and the second act is life going on and not ending so neatly.
* In ''Theatre/HenryV'' the titular king, unhindered by civil war, takes his "noblest English" into France and, despite overwhelming odds, defeats the French at Agincourt. Not only does he win the country (or a big chunk of it), he charmingly woos the French Princess Katherine to seal the deal and the last action has the two of them getting ready to be wed. Then the Chorus reminds the audience that, like in real life, Henry would be dead a few short years later, and his son's reign would see all those French territories lost and the country of England plunged into one of its most famous and bloody civil wars.
* Taken across the three ''Theatre/HenryVI'' plays and ''Theatre/RichardIII'' itself, the actions of the House of York fall intot his. For years, Edward, George, and Richard fought to avenge their father and put a York on the throne in place of the Lancasters. But Edward proved feckless, George untrustworthy, and Richard disposed of them both so that he could get the crown and do it ''right''. But his paranoia and indulgence in villainy continues after he becomes king, and rather than securing peace, he drives away most of the allies he didn't murder and gives Henry Tudor ample justification for declaring war. In the end, Richard's actions destroy not just York but Lancaster as well, leading to the end of the Plantagenet dynasty altogether.
* In Theatre/{{legally blonde}}, Elle goes to great lengths to keep Brooke’s alibi of Liposuction a secret. Unfortunately, Brooke blurts said Alibi out.
* The entire plot of ''Theatre/{{Tosca}}''. In chronological order: Mario Cavaradossi's efforts to protect and hide his friend Cesare Angelotti, even under torture, are undone by their enemy Baron Scarpia bullying Mario's lover Floria Tosca into revealing Angelotti's location. Her unwilling betrayal of Mario's trust is then rendered worthless by Mario mocking Scarpia about Napoleon's victory at Marengo, sealing his fate. Napoleon's said victory also renders the risks that Angelotti took meaningless, as Angelotti was jailed for leading a pro-French rebellion, and Napoleon will take over Rome within days; if he'd just stayed put for a little while longer, he would have been freed anyway. Meanwhile, the very government that Scarpia works for will be overthrown as soon as the French take over, and Angelotti [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled kills himself rather than be captured again]], rendering the whole affair pointless. And finally, Tosca's daring murder of Scarpia, who planned to have Mario executed, achieves nothing, as Mario is executed by firing squad anyway. Broken and about to be arrested for killing Scarpia, Tosca [[DrivenToSuicide has nothing left but suicide]].
[[/folder]]

* AllForNothing/Literature

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'', Bob painfully swallows his sense of justice and grudgingly obeys Huph's order that he does not leave the office to help a mugging victim, else Huph will fire him. But afterward, Huph pushes Bob to his RageBreakingPoint, so that he throws Huph through several walls, seriously injuring him, and is fired anyway.

* In ComicBook/TheAvengersJonathanHickman, the possibility that this trope is in effect looms over the story, with the Avengers questioning if they'll be able to stop the Incursions threatening to destroy reality. It's a bigger threat than anything they've faced before and things are looking increasingly hopeless... but even if everything is doomed, would that justify doing nothing? [[spoiler:Ultimately [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]; many plans truly were for nothing, but many others came together to save the multiverse, and it's clear that everything would've died if people like the Avengers and Fantastic Four hadn't fought to the bitter end. Even if they had lost, [[DoNotGoGentle they would've at least gone down fighting]].]]

* Lyta Hall in ''Comicbook/TheSandman1989'' makes a deal with [[TheHecateSisters the Furies]] in an attempt to avenge her husband and son [[spoiler:who she believes was killed by Dream of the Endless]]. Sadly, [[spoiler:her son Daniel turns out to be alive]] but Lyta is unable to recall the Furies after learning this, [[spoiler:and when the Furies kill Morpheus Daniel [[AbstractApotheosis 'dies']] alongside him, permanently ruining any chance she had of getting him back.]]
* ''ComicBook/Superboy1994'': Amanda Spence, like most at first, thought that Superboy was the enhanced clone of her father, Dr. Paul Westfield, one of the scientists in charge of the cloning. She then decided to make Superboy's life miserable, feeling he was a disgrace to her father and his memory. This includes creating the more powerful and unstable second clone Match, causing Superboy's body to start falling apart and gruesomely killing Superboy's love interest Tana Moon. Her vengeance was already badly misguided and hugely disproportionate, but when you add in that Westfield was retconned out as being the clone donor, it makes it this trope big time.

** He's walked out entirely in three cases to date (O'Face, Second Base re-rescue, Black Light District, Hideaway Bar & Grill), after seeing that the bars and their owners were just too screwed up to benefit from any help he could offer.

** For all the work Taffer puts into the bars, some of the owners have reverted back to their old ways after he leaves. Some of this is minor. Other cases are major (see Piratz Tavern/Corporate Bar & Grill). Quite a few have closed permanently or been sold, in some cases even before their episodes aired.
** He's walked out entirely in three cases to date (O'Face, Second Base re-rescue and Black Light District), after seeing that the bars and their owners were just too screwed up to benefit from any help he could offer.

* Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy leader,[[note]](in title at last; his actual second-in-command was, for all intents and purposes, Hermann Göring)[[/note]] found out about Operation Barbarossa in 1941, and became concerned that Germany could not feasibly fight a war on two fronts. He had heard through his contacts that there was enough desire for peace in Britain that King George VI would dismiss UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill's government and give the Prime Minister's job to Lord Halifax -- who had nearly become PM in Churchill's place the previous year and was known to be more open to negotiating with Hitler -- should Germany make an acceptable offer, and that the Duke of Hamilton would be a good person to serve as an intermediary. Hess therefore flew to Britain on a self-assigned peace mission, but evading radar caused him to use up all of his fuel and crash before he could find a safe landing spot. When he was caught, he was arrested and informed by the British authorities that Hitler had publicly disavowed him and sentenced him to death for treason, meaning he had no entitlement to diplomatic immunity, and would be executed if he returned to Germany. Worst of all, the underlying rationale for his mission had been wrong on nearly every count; Hamilton was not, and never had been in favour of negotiating with Hitler, the general population were just as opposed to any peace agreement that favoured Germany, and Halifax was in no position to form a government even had anyone wanted him to, having been sent to Washington, D.C. to serve as ambassador. Operation Barbarossa went ahead anyway, and was just as much of a disaster as Hess had feared; his actions would probably have made it even worse if not for Stalin stubbornly refusing to believe warnings from his advisors that the only reason Hess could possibly have had for wanting to make peace with Britain would be if Hitler needed the troops to attack the Soviets.

* Most heist movies end this way: The money blows away (''Film/TheKilling''), gets burned up [[spoiler:(original ''Film/Oceans11'')]], or comes loose (''Film/TheLavenderHillMob''). Others include [[spoiler:a mentally challenged boy collecting license plate numbers in ''Film/TheLeagueOfGentlemen'']] or the brains behind the operation staring at a young girl so long the cops catch up with him in ''Film/TheAsphaltJungle''. It's usually a way of showing that YouCantFightFate (and that Crime Doesn't Pay).

** There's a different sort of example in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'': Most of the drama for the first 3/4 (at least) of the book surrounds Harry's performance in the three Tasks of the Triwizard Tournament. The drama is removed from this on all rereadings, when you know that Harry was aided, manipulated and guided through all 3 challenges by the villain, and the villain's entire plan hinged on Harry winning the Tournament.

* ''Film/RichieRichsChristmasWish'': After Reggie sabotaged a sleigh and framed Richie Rich for it, to the point that Richie himself believed his father's resulting accident was his fault, he made a Christmas Wish that [[ItsAWonderfulPlot he was never born]]. For the majority of the movie, Richie continued believing this, until the TV version ending, where Reggie's parents force him to confess the truth, making Richie realize that he made his wish and went on the entire subsequent adventure for nothing.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/TheApocalypseStone'' was a ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' adventure designed to destroy a Second Edition world to allow a fresh start with Third Edition. In the default ending, nothing the [=PCs=] do ultimately matters. Even if they succeed at every task flawlessly, by the time they confront the final villain, the world is too far gone to prevent an EarthShatteringKaboom. However, it did also allow alternate endings, such as the fabric of reality being altered in ways that would accommodate Third Edition mechanics.
* Downplayed in ''TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse''. The heroes Visionary and Omnitron-X supposedly travel back in time to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong (saving her younger self from being StrappedToAnOperatingTable for Visionary, and destroying his past selves before they could do too much damage for Omnitron-X). Unfortunately, it turns out that neither of them actually traveled back in time, but instead to another reality (that reality being the timeline the game takes place in also known as the "Prime Timeline") meaning that they didn't change the future at all. On the other hand, they managed to do quite a bit of good in the prime timeline so it wasn't entirely for nothing.
[[/folder]]

* ''WebOriginal/TheDeathOfRussia'':
** The reforms put into place by Gorbachev and thought to be solidified by Yeltsin died with the latter, as Russia goes through their own version of the [[UsefulNotes/TheYugoslavWars Yugoslav Wars]] that shatters the nation. [[spoiler:Even worse is Gorbachev surviving his time in NSF (later Fascist) captivity and being bartered off to the West for food and medicine, living to see what failure had brought]].
** Expressed during a "One Soldier's War in Russia" segment, where a nameless old veteran of the Eastern Front is captured while trying to desert from the Red Army. The old man cries to Babchenko's commissar that after surviving World War II and years of praise he got from it, he simply can't bring himself to shoot at fellow Russians even if they are fascists.
--> '''Old Veteran''': "I can’t stand knowing all the work I did, my friends who died, the lives that were lost, that it was all in vain. Moscow is gone. The Fascists run Leningrad after we starved for a thousand days to make sure they’d never have it for one. The Union is gone. Ukraine and Belarus are gone. Even Siberia is gone. Why did we even bother fight Hitler if this was what it would all come to anyway? Why? Why?!"

Alice sacrifices everything she cared for—her home, her reputation, the love of her family and friends—in order to save the world. In ''Alice 2: Back for More'', the police clear her and her family forgives her.

Bob spends months of agonizing time and effort to kick booze. He manages to become sober, then falls OffTheWagon again five episodes later.

Chris spends a whole season learning to trust his rival at the agency. Then it turns out the rival was TheMole all along, and every single thing Chris learned in this season was a chump's lesson.

Why did we have the first half of each story again? It was All for Nothing.

* This trope can be applied to the UsefulNotes/LeagueOfNations. Created just after UsefulNotes/WorldWarI by President Woodrow Wilson, it was intended to maintain world peace from then on. But although the League successfully mediated a number of disputes, especially surrounding borders, the opium trade, and slavery, the United States never joined the League, much to Wilson's embarrassment. Perhaps not surprisingly, this led to problems for the League in the 1930's. To make a long story short, Germany turned to UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler and ThoseWackyNazis, who repeatedly ignored the League's cries for peace, and in 1939, UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, which the League was trying to prevent in the first place, had begun.

* ''Film/RichieRichsChristmasWish'': After Reggie sabotaged a sleigh and framed Richie Rich for it, to the point that Richie himself believed his father's resulting accident was his fault, he made a Christmas Wish that he was never born. For the majority of the movie, Richie continued believing this, until the TV version ending, where Reggie's parents force him to confess the trut, making Richie realize that he made his wish and went on the entire subsequent adventure for nothing.

* ''ComicBook/DP7'': In Issue 14, Randy tells a stunned Charly that, perhaps because of his upbringing, he can't see himself in a relationship with a black person. Charly is so hurt and angry that she joins a militant black faction, the Black Powers, and even adds Randy's name to a list of racists the gang intends to beat up. A few issues later, they reconcile and become friends again. Over the next dozen issues, they experience adventures together, share many happy moments, and even seem to be moving toward becoming a couple after all. But after Randy becomes trapped inside his dark antibody, Charly begins avoiding him. In Issue 31, Randy confronts her about it and Charly bluntly tells him that they had been the two normal-looking ones in their old therapy group, but now that he was trapped inside his antibody, he could no longer pass for normal. When Randy asks if they're no longer friends because of his appearance, Charly reminds him that he did the same to her. She tells him that she is rejecting him the same way he rejected her, and leaves. It's as if everything Randy and Charly shared with each other in the time since his rejection of her doesn't count for anything. One would think that the fact that Randy and Charly had ''saved each other's lives'' more than once would at least be enough to sustain a friendship, but apparently not. Because there was very little direct contact between Randy and Charly in the next (and last) issue of the series, the reader is never told whether Randy and Charly ever resolved their differences.

* In ComicBook/TheAvengersJonathanHickman, the possibility that this trope is in effect looms over the story, with the Avengers questioning if they'll be able to stop the Incursions threatening to destroy reality. It's a bigger threat than anything they've faced before and things are looking increasingly hopeless... but even if everything is doomed, would that justify doing nothing? [[spoiler:Ultimately [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]; many plans truly were for nothing, but many others came together to save the multiverse, and it's clear that everything would've died if people like the Avengers and Fantastic Four hadn't fought to the bitter end. And even if they had lost, [[DoNotGoGentle they would've at least gone down fighting]].]]

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' the Clone Wars as a whole ends up being this ultimately. Considering that the Jedi are fighting to protect the Republic and keep it from collapsing, [[spoiler:the fact that Palpatine as Sidious]] seriously undermines this and ensures that the Republic is doomed already. All the warfare shed between the Republic and the Separatists is meaningless as the Sith effectively control both sides of the war. If the Separatists had won, the Sith take over. [[spoiler:When Anakin falls to the dark side and joins Sidious, the Republic transforms into an Empire with the Sith firmly in control.]] As for the clones, [[spoiler:once Order 66 is declared they themselves become the enemy to the Jedi Order and help destroy the Republic]]. The only ones who won were Sidious and his new apprentice, and even said apprentice [[PyrrhicVictory suffered from it]].

** Susan made illegal modifications to the sharks, inadvertently making her responsible for all the subsequent deaths when the super-intelligent sharks break out, but she did it to [[WellIntentionedExtremist find a cure for degenerative diseases]] and even uses this as a defense of her actions when given a WhatTheHellHero speech. However, [[spoiler:the cure is later destroyed when she is forced to electrocute one of the sharks as it attacks her along with the substance they extracted from their brains, making those sacrifices ultimately pointless.]]

** ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'': Anakin Skywalker turned to the Dark Side because Chancellor Sheev Palpatine ''(a.k.a. Darth Sidious)'' promised him a way to keep his wife, Padmé Amidala, from dying. But when she learns what Anakin has done in pursuit of this, she confronts him, leading to him Force Choking her in a fit of rage. In the end, he became Darth Vader, destroyed the Jedi Order, murdered an unknown number of innocent Younglings, helped create TheEmpire, all to save his wife... only to ultimately ''cause'' her death. He lost the love of his life, his friends, and everything else he risked his life for in pursuit of a way to keep from losing Padmé like he did his mother. Not to mention being mangled for life by his former friend/mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, and being encased in a suit of life-supporting armor for the rest of his life.

* ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'': All the struggling that the Professor Xavier and his X-Men went through to protect mutantkind in the previous movies--especially in ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast''--come across as a moot point in ''Film/{{Logan}}'', given the fact that most mutants died out anyway, along with several of the X-Men themselves, not due to some big final battle, but thanks to [[spoiler:'''one of Xavier's telepathic seizures''' and the birth of future mutants has been stopped thanks to crops being genetically modified to suppress the mutant gene.]] Pretty much the whole saga, ''including'' any future installments, is ultimately for nothing and comes to a horrible end.

* Essentially the ''entire plot'' of ''Literature/TheFirstLaw'' turns out to have been this, in the sense that nothing truly changed and the protagonists were only tools. Certainly all of Logen's and Jezal's quest in the second book qualifies, as does, to an extent, Glokta's defense of...Ah, hell, like I said, ''the entire plot''.

** [[spoiler:Michael’s NervousWreck agent is a former 70s radical who changed his name and took a job he never really liked after breaking into a government office and burning draft cards. It turns out that he broke into the wrong office and burned dog licenses instead, and even if he had been burning draft cards, [[StatuteOfLimitations since no one got hurt, the statute of limitations would have expired many, many years ago]].]]

* ''Literature/RunWithTheWind'': During Day 1 of Hakone Ekiden, [[spoiler:Prince is the starting runner for Kansei University and unsurprisingly comes last in his section, but the admirable efforts of Musa and the twins help the team climb up the rankings. Unfortunately, the last runner for the day is the very sick Shindo; he has to push himself to move at all, let alone complete his section, and the team drops back down to 20th place for that first half. The team of course has nothing but admiration and concern for Shindo, who insisted on competing since withdrawing would mean Kansei dropping out of Hakone together]].

** Upon Cersei Lannister's coup to install Joffrey Baratheon to the throne, Ned Stark is given the choice to either confess to false charges and take the black, or defy the Lannisters and face execution. Ned is pointed out that if he chooses the latter, his daughter Sansa will be at the mercy of the Lannisters, so he [[PapaWolf understandably]] chooses the former. Then Joffrey goes off-script and executes Ned anyway, meaning he is both dead ''and'' has his reputation tarnished, while Sansa is taken hostage for an entire year because her brother Robb declares rebellion upon their father's death.

* The now-non-canon ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' expanded universe reveals that Emperor Palpatine came back to life after the events of the Original Trilogy. [[spoiler:though it should be noted he's destroyed again by the end of the ''ComicBook/DarkEmpire'' stories.]] This is a notable source of FanonDiscontinuity for many, despite the fact that Lucas actually liked it more than most of the EU book series. As of April 2014, it is considered non-canon, and even the emperor's actor, Ian [=McDiarmid=] stated that Palpatine is now KilledOffForReal... aaaaand then Palpatine came back anyways as the BigBad in Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker.

* This is the entire theme of ''Series/TheAmericans''. Phillip and Elizabeth are deep cover KGB agents in 1980s Washington. The entire series revolves around them doing dirty jobs, sacrificing so much and even ruining the lives of friends for their mission. The series finale has them [[spoiler: "burning" their lives in America, leaving behind their children and returning to Moscow. The series ends with the duo back home, unaware that just four years later, the USSR will collapse, the KGB will be disbanded and everything they did for their country will be for naught.]] In other words, the series focuses on two Cold War soldiers with no idea they ultimately will lose the War.

** Mike's main drive to work for Gus (and then Walt) was to accumulate a huge nest egg for his granddaughter. Unfortunately, it all ends up for naught when the police discover the offshore bank accounts Gus used to pay his employees, and they confiscate all the money. Then, once they uncover concrete evidence connecting Mike to Gus's criminal activity, Mike is forced to flee New Mexico without even saying goodbye to his granddaughter, and even worse [[spoiler:he ends up being killed by Walt in a fit of rage, and his body is unceremoniously disposed of]].

*** Despite an entire season worth of effort, Myrcella dies anyway.

* ''Series/{{Gotham}}'': Sofia Falcone seduces Jim Gordon, the man [[spoiler:who murdered her brother]] into allying with her, creates an orphanage solely to manipulate Penguin, [[spoiler:summons a SerialKiller to Gotham, allowing him to cut a bloody swathe through the GCPD just so Gordon can take him down and be considered a hero]], and even [[spoiler:assassinates her own father]] in hopes of recreating the Falcone Empire in Gotham with her at the head. Before Season Four is even over, [[spoiler:she's in a coma, her empire is permanently crippled and fractured, and any remaining influence her family had in Gotham is gone for good]].

* On ''Series/{{Lost}}'', Jacob has become the Island's protector reluctantly, almost against his wish. He wants it to be different for his replacement, so he sets up an elaborate system of candidates that last for at least a few dozens if not hundred years, affecting and ending the lives of hundreds different people. Near the end it appears to pay off, as Jack takes on the job consciously and willingly. However, he then performs a HeroicSacrifice within the following day and passes the job to Hurley, who is extremely reluctant to take it from him and even went as far as saying "Just glad it's not me" when Jack himself volunteered for the job. Jacob's entire plan eventually resulted in nothing. (though Jack's sacrifice was to stop the BigBad that Jacob tried to keep from leaving the Island, so it did pay off... at the cost of both Jacob and Jack's lives)

* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'' takes place in a 1962 where the Axis won World War II. Hawthorne is able to collect films from alternate worlds, including a few where the Allies won. Finding out, the Nazis put together a massive machine designed to cross over to these other worlds. In the season 3 finale, Commander Smith tells a captive Hawthorne that the Nazis have tested the device with three "volunteers" exploding and a fourth vanishing. They are now going to use it to invade and conquer other Earths. Hawthrone smugly tells Smith this won't work for one simple reason: [[spoiler: A person can only cross over into another reality if their counterpart in that world is already dead. There's no way the Nazis can know what world they're going to go into, let alone which of the soldiers sent have living counterparts or not. So unless the Nazis plan to field a force made up only of anyone born since 1947 (and even then, it's 50/50), there's no chance their invasion won't end up with sixty to ninety percent of the soldiers not surviving the trip.]]

* This was a big part of ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai''. [[spoiler:Throughout the entire season, it has been stated that the sealing symbol of the Red Ranger was the only thing that could seal Master Xandred away forever. However, when the big moment comes for it to be used, [[NegatedMomentOfAwesome Master Xandred shrugs it off]], [[RemovedAchillesHeel having gained an immunity to it earlier]]. It's not just the build up for the sealing power that's for nothing, but the fact that Jayden kept his sister's existence hidden from his friends, as well as all of Lauren's hard work to master the sealing symbol, not to mention their father's plan that started it all. It was even lampshaded]].

*** [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]]] in Lilly's Good Ending. [[spoiler: Hisao [[RaceForYourLove chases after Lilly as she's on her way to the airport]]. Mere meters from her, he has a heart attack and wakes up two days later in hospital. Resenting his condition and blaming himself for never helping Lilly with her issues beforehand, Hisao comes very close to crossing the DespairEventHorizon. The next scene (using one hell of a ChekhovsGun) shows that Lilly never left Japan; she stayed behind to build her future with Hisao.]]

* The assassination of UsefulNotes/GaiusJuliusCaesar is one of the biggest own goals in political history. Caesar was no saint, and the methods to get to the height of his power involved exploiting every weakness the Roman Republican system had (along with a civil war). But he was still a competent leader -- and more importantly, a popular one. His opponents in the Senate feared he would become king (which he basically was already), and decided that killing him would restore the Republic to how they believed it should be. Unfortunately for them, Caesar's death not only didn't restore the Republic, but it accelerated its demise. Caesar's supporters rallied the furious public against the "liberators", chasing them out of Rome. Caesar's adopted son Octavian renamed himself UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}}, and became the first Emperor of Rome. Most of the conspirators were hunted down and killed in the intervening years; the few that weren't had been DrivenToSuicide before they were caught. And the Republic became ruled by kings by another name when Emperor Augustus took over. So the only thing the "liberators" achieved was killing Caesar himself. But Rome became ruled by a Caesar anyway. And by one even more ruthless than the last, after seeing [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished how well mercy had worked out for his father]]. The conspirators didn't restore Rome; they helped kill it. And at the end of it all, the conspirators got exactly none of what they wanted.

* Played for laughs in ''WebComic/PennyArcade'', [[https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2019/06/03/return-of-the-lip where]] Gabe had spent months bringing the ''VideoGame/SeaOfThieves'' experience to ''Tabletop/DungeonsAndDragons'', painstakingly crafting rules for every aspect of it, only for an [=RPG=] of the game to come out. It takes Tycho [[ExplainExplainOhCrap a few moments to realize]] why Gabe isn't happy about it.

* ''Film/RichieRichsChristmasWish'': Richie Rich made a Christmas Wish that he wish that he was never been born because Reggie sabotaged the sleigh and framed Richie for it. Richie believed it was his fault. He spent most of the movie believing he caused the accident until in the TV Ending version, Reggie's parents made Reggie confessed for his crimes causing Richie to realize he went through the whole adventure and the wish for nothing.

* This was the salt in the wound with Website/{{Tumblr}}'s adult content ban: aside from being rather obviously enacted over a potential loss of revenue in the app store, the ban failed to impact ''any'' of the problems that inspired it (if anything, the spawning and activity of porn bots ''increased''). The image recognition tech was quickly discovered to be rather faulty (as in, it flagged ''[[https://gizmodo.com/tumblrs-porn-filter-flags-its-own-examples-of-permitted-1831151178 its own post of allowed content]]''), so it was ditched in favor of tag-based post deletion... which meant that users that really wanted to post porn could simply change the tags and avoid getting flagged. Worse, many LGBT tags (such as #gay and #lesbian) were cleared due to a large amount of porn in them, while tags such as #fascism and #fashwave were left almost entirely untouched. For all intents and purposes, Tumblr was left in worse shape than before the adult content ban was enacted.