History Main / SunkCostFallacy

* In the ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse this is ultimately why Magica is after Scrooge's NumberOneDime: as explained when her backstory was revealed, originally the Witches Council, as part of the RiteOfPassage any witch has to go through to reach adulthood, gave her the Midas Touch quest that requires a coin touched and owned for any length of time by the world's billionaires, but the task had been so hard and infuriating that by the time she went to collect the last coin from Scrooge, that was willing to just ''sell'' her a dime for a dollar, the reveal he had that coin for his entire life caused her to focus on it exclusively because it would make the Midas Touch charm much better than a random coin, and while the Witches Council has realized facing Scrooge is an impossible task and is willing to let her take a different quest she refuses because she put too much effort into taking Scrooge's coin to even consider anything else unless it would give her the ability to take the Dime in the process.

-->'''Apple Bloom:''' [[spoiler: Gotta do it for a day because y'try. Then y'go for a week 'cause iffin y'don't, y'wasted the day. Then it's a moon, lots of moons, and then when it's a year, it's gotta be more. We keep goin' an' goin' 'cause if we ever ''stop'', then it means we wasted ''everything''. An' we could just keep goin' til we're grown up, out of school, but we won't have jobs because we don't have ''marks'' and the only thing we can do is look some more. It's nearly three years an' if Ah do it for one more day, it could turn into... It's too much, an' Ah think -- it's been too much for a while. Too ''long''. An' -- an' it ain't worth it no more.]]

* In ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'', the protagonist explains to recurring villain Fructose Riboflavin[[note]]Yes, it's that kind of a strip.[[/note]] that he's [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20100914.html chasing a sunk cost]], and that it likely feels like giving up on revenge would mean everything else was a waste. Fructose is both stricken by this realization, and ''really'' [[BerserkButton not amused.]]

* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'''s Redcloak suffers from this, as expressed in ''Recap/StartOfDarkness''. It's not that he believes in BigBad Xykon's plan, or even likes the idea; in fact, Redcloak hates Xykon's guts. The reason Redcloak stays around is that he believes that if he quits, it'll make all of the horrible things he's done worthless. This is in spite of Redcloak being told by both his brother and Xykon himself that this is an empty excuse. He continues to support Xykon despite being entirely too familiar with the lich's BadBoss habits and knowing that completing the Plan with Xykon will ''not'' work out in his favor. But because Redcloak feels too invested to quit and find some saner spellcaster to work with instead, Redcloak keeps himself trapped in villainy.

* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'''s Redcloak suffers from this, as expressed in ''Recap/StartOfDarkness''; It's not that he believes in the Plan as much he believes that if he gives it up, it'll make all of the horrible things he's done worthless, in spite of being told from both his brother and [[BigBad Xykon]] himself what an empty excuse this is. Also, he continues to support Xykon despite being entirely too familiar with the lich's BadBoss habits and knowing that completing the Plan with Xykon will ''not'' work out in his favor, because he feels too invested to quit and find some other, saner arcane spellcaster to work with instead.

This trope is not merely Bob's commitment to a course of action because he's invested too much to turn back. If Bob has already made the down payment on a house, for example, he is likely to continue in the purchase of that house since he would lose money for no gain if he stops. In order for a situation to be the Sunk Cost Fallacy, it must be one where (1) Bob remains committed to a course of action in order to justify what he has already spent on it and (2) it is obvious to any rational person that the cost of staying in ''now'' will exceed the cost of simply stopping now, taking on the loss, and moving on.

* This logic is exploited by some publishers to sell what have been known as "microtransactions" which come in many forms, the most despised term being "loot box" or "time saver", essentially a random grab bag of items from ingame that are often awarded to a player very slowly. A player may have to perform an elongated task (such as leveling up their profile) or play for a certain time in order to be given one reward, but the company offers the player a way to obtain these rewards quicker by simply purchasing them for money.

* The Website/JollyRogerTelephoneCompany is a web-based company that provides bots that are designed to waste telemarketer time by responding with pre-programmed routines and other time-wasters like "Yeah" and "uh huh" to make the caller think there's a real person on the other end of the line. In some cases, even after having ages of their time wasted with a bot, the callers will still keep going, thinking that they've already spent all this time already, so at this point they have to get ''something'' out of the call. They will grasp at any straw, anything at all the bot says that leads them to believe that the person on the other end of the line is actually interested in what they're pitching. But, of course, there is no person on the other end of the line, only a bot that can never give them what they want because it isn't programmed to do so.

* Right before the beginning of ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'', the van der Linde gang steals $150,000 (worth a little north of $4 million in today's dollar) off of a banking ferry. In their hasty retreat, the leader Dutch has to stash the take. The heist was supposed to their OneLastJob as it was big enough for all two dozen of them to retire to normal lives. However, Dutch spends the rest of the main story of the game pouring more and more money into replacing the take which only further gets the law on their tail as well. Even though they have the money they need just sitting there, they just need to be patient. The more logical decision would have been to have the gang keep up operations as normal for a year or two and then have him go back to get the money or hire someone else to do it once the trail's gone cold.

* In the sequel to ''Fanfic/TheDarkLordsOfNerima'', ''The Dark Lords Ascendant'', this is the BigBad Tanizaki Kazuo's FatalFlaw. [[spoiler:His EvilPlan was to use a clone of Sailor Moon called Unit Zero to take control of the Silver Crystal to [[InTheirOwnImage reshape reality so he's on top of the entire world]]. Unfortunately for him, the Nerima Wrecking Crew [[SpannerInTheWorks throw a monkey wrench into this plan]], allowing Sailor Moon to survive and keeping Unit Zero from using the Silver Crystal. Tanizaki, needing to kill Sailor Moon for his plan to come to completion, tries multiple times to finish her off, getting increasingly desperate as his resources dwindle and he loses his VillainWithGoodPublicity status. For his ultimate plan, Tanizaki makes a deal with [[OmnicidalManic The]] [[EldritchAbomination Nameless]] [[SealedEvilInACan One]] that could result in it being freed, which would be TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. All the while, Tanizaki kept believing that if he could just get the Silver Crystal, he could "fix" everything the way that he wanted. Ultimately, Sailor Moon foils him by [[TakeAThirdOption splitting the Crystal so both she and Unit Zero could survive]], rendering Tanizaki's plans AllForNothing. And that isn't even the end of it, since Ranma manages to figure out that Tanizaki's using a SoulJar to gain immortality, and has Ryouga destroy it, rendering Tanizaki mortal again and allowing Ranma to kill him. And all of this could have been avoided if Tanizaki had realized that he should have given up earlier.]]
* In the ''Fanfic/TriptychContinuum'', this is the central reason the Crusade continues: the Cutie Mark Crusaders have essentially become fanatics in the name of their cause, and to stop would invalidate everything which had come before -- including all the accidents, disaster relief forms, reparations, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and tree sap]]. The Fallacy itself winds up being summarized in a speech by [[spoiler: Apple Bloom]], and the voicing of it is part of what finally [[spoiler:[[Recap/TriptychContinuumUnstableSale breaks the Crusade]]]].
--> [[spoiler: "Gotta do it for a day because y'try," she slowly said. "Then y'go for a week 'cause iffin y'don't, y'wasted the day. Then it's a moon, lots of moons, and then when it's a year, it's gotta be more. We keep goin' an' goin' 'cause if we ever ''stop'', then it means we wasted ''everything''. An' we could just keep goin' til we're grown up, out of school, but we won't have jobs because we don't have ''marks'' and the only thing we can do is look some more. It's nearly three years an' if Ah do it for one more day, it could turn into... It's too much, an' Ah think -- it's been too much for a while. Too ''long''. An' -- an' it ain't worth it no more."]]

* In the sequel to ''Fanfic/TheDarkLordsOfNerima'', ''The Dark Lords Ascendant'', this is the BigBad Tanizaki Kazuo's FatalFlaw. [[spoiler:His EvilPlan was to use a clone of Sailor Moon, Unit Zero (with, to take control of the Silver Crystal and its reality-altering powers to [[InTheirOwnImage reshape reality so he's on top of the entire world]](using [[ExpendableClone spares]] for when [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique the strain kills her]], since he expects it to take several tries). Unfortunately for him, Ranma and the rest of the Nerima Wrecking Crew end up [[SpannerInTheWorks throwing a monkey wrench into the plan]], allowing Sailor Moon to survive and keeping Unit Zero from using the Silver Crystal's RealityWarper abilities since Sailor Moon still maintains a connection to it. Tanizaki, needing to kill Sailor Moon for his plans to come to completion, tries multiple plans to finish her off, getting increasingly desperate as his resources and support base rapidly dwindle and he loses his VillainWithGoodPublicity status in the process. For his penultimate and ultimate plans he ends up releasing the Wyrmspawn, an ancient beast with [[AntiMagic immunity to magic]] that he believed was completely unkillable, and making a deal with [[OmnicidalManic The]] [[EldritchAbomination Nameless]] [[SealedEvilInACan One]] that could result in it being freed, believing that if he can just get Silver Crystal he could "fix" everything the way that he wanted. Ultimately, Sailor Moon foils him by [[TakeAThirdOption splitting the Crystal so both she and Unit Zero could survive]], which [[EvilCannotComprehendGood he can't comprehend, since Unit Zero is disposable in his eyes]], rendering his plans AllForNothing. And that isn't even the end of it, since Ranma manages to figure out that he's using a SoulJar to gain immortality, and has Ryouga destroy it, rendering him mortal again and allowing Ranma to kill him, all of which he could have avoided if he'd realized that he should have given up earlier.]]

* The concept of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair the missing stair]] works like this in social psychology. The term refers to how people in a social group who engage in bad behavior -- abuse, lying, backstabbing, self-destruction, or other behavior that has to be "managed" somehow -- yet are allowed to continue to act that way because everyone else would rather work around the missing stair than deal with them. The sunk cost comes in when the others in the group continue to allow this long after they should have removed the missing stair, because that would be admitting that they wasted time trying to deal with someone who was just making things worse. [[ElephantInTheLivingRoom So they allow it to go on, unaddressed]].

* ''Music/TheMegas'': By "Gamma Unchained" in ''History Repeating - Blue'', Wily has ended up falling fully into this, convinced that after all the damage his past plans to TakeOverTheWorld [[WellIntentionedExtremist for everyone's own good, of course]] have done, he ''has'' to win, otherwise all those deaths were pointless. [[GoneHorriblyWrong So he builds a giant robot that decides to "restore peace" by killing everyone]].

* An ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'' comic has a group of villagers decide to take a poorly built ship to war rather than cut their losses and have the months of hard work spent on building it be wasted. It doesn't end well for them.

* ''Podcast/TheLastPodcastOnTheLeft'': In part 3 of their series on the Aum Shinrikyo cult, the hosts tell the story of a woman who joined the cult, fled multiple times, and each time was brought back and made to undergo the Bardo Initiation, a ritual meant to frighten her into staying. Eventually, when she fled again, she returned entirely on her own because she couldn't escape the thought of the cult's guru, Shoko Asahara, sending her to Hell. Hosts Marcus Parks and Henry Zebrowski note the Sunk Cost Fallacy as one of the reasons for this behavior. By leaving, all the suffering she went through while part of the cult, all the years spent there, all the years her ''family'' spent there because of her joining, would become AllForNothing. This idea would become a frequent talking point on future cult episodes, such as L Ron Hubbard's Scientology and Jim Jones's Peoples Temple.

* [[spoiler: Locus]] from ''Machinima/RedVsBlue''. He has to keep following orders because admitting he has a choice now would mean admitting he had a choice in all his previous actions, and he can't face that.

--> "It means you need to maintain harmful behaviors in perpetuity because you made a bad decision a long time ago, and now you deserve to be punished."

--> "It means you have to maintain harmful behaviors in perpetuity because you made a bad decision a long time ago, and now you deserve to be punished."

* ''Podcast/TheLastPodcastOnTheLeft'': In part 3 of their series on the Aum Shinrikyo cult, the hosts tell the story of a woman who joined the cult, fled multiple times, each time brought back and made to undergo the Bardo Initiation, a ritual meant to frighten her into staying. Eventually, when she fled again, she returned entirely on her own because she couldn't escape the thought of the cult's guru, Shoko Asahara, sending her to Hell. Hosts Marcus Parks and Henry Zebrowski note the Sunk Cost Fallacy as one of the reasons for this behavior. By leaving, all the suffering she went through while part of the cult, all the years spent there, all the years her ''family'' spent there because of her joining, would become AllForNothing. This idea would become a frequent talking point on future cult episodes, such as the Order of the Solar Temple and Jim Jones's Peoples Temple.