Series Goal

The thing the characters are trying to do, the goal they're trying to achieve, throughout the whole series. This is the reason the hero was called, the reason he gathered up his ragtag band of allies, the reason he fights the bad guys. In short, the reason the series has for existing.

For obvious reasons, this isn't likely to be achieved until the end, if ever — without it, there's no story, unless you create a new one. Will sometimes overlap with the Myth Arc, if all or most the installments of the series advance the characters' journey towards the goal. This is by no means required, however — sometimes the Series Goal just exists to get the story started and keep the characters moving, but has no real bearing on the actual episodes or arcs of the series.

See also MacGuffin, Humble Goal and Plot Coupon, the acquisition of which may be this. To Be a Master is the typical end goal for a Stock Shōnen Hero. Contrast No Antagonist, No Plot? No Problem!, and Slice of Life shows, which, for one reason or another, might not have series goals.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Trix Rabbit: The Trix Rabbit's goal is to eat a bowl of Trix cereal.
• Vive Sin Drogas: The flower's goal is to warn the boy against doing drugs. He fails. Twice.

Anime and Manga

• Bakuman。: Moritaka Mashiro's main goal is to publish a manga and have it adapted into an anime so that Miho Azuki, the girl he loves, can play the female lead.
• Berserk gives Guts two goals: take vengeance on Griffith and the Godhand for the Eclipse and restore Casca's sanity, the latter of which he ultimately achieved. Don't bet too heavily on him succeeding in the first though.
• Case Closed: Shinichi's goal is to stop the Black Organization and find a permanent cure for the De-Aging pill they gave him.
• Code Geass: Lelouch's two-fold goal, as stated in the Opening Narration, is to find out who killed his mother^note And explicitly not to get Revenge, because he thinks it's meaningless and to make the world a better place for his little sister. He accomplishes the first goal late in the second season (It was his evil uncle V.V.), and the second in the final episode (By making himself a Silent Scapegoat).
• Cowboy Bebop:
  • Spike Spiegel's main goal is to reunite with his lost love Julia. He finally reunites with her in the final arc, but loses her to the Red Dragon's assassins in the final episode, setting the stage for a final showdown with his former friend and rival Vicious.
  • Faye's goal is finding out about her Mysterious Past. She does and ironically finds out she was from a very wealthy family. But, not surprisingly, when she gets to where her old home used to be, there's nothing there anymore.
• D.Gray-Man: Defeat the Millennium Earl and the Noahs.
• Doraemon: Doraemon's goal is to steer Nobita's life in the right direction.
• EDENS ZERO: Shiki and Rebecca both share the goal of finding Mother, the Goddess of the Cosmos, each to advance their own individual goals: Shiki thinks it will attract more friends, but moreover wants to know why he's so familiar with her in the first place; and Rebecca wants to record a video that will get her one million subscribers for her B-Cube account. Shiki later finds out his grandfather tried and failed to find her before his death, which gives him two more reasons: to fulfill his grandfather's dream, and to finally surpass him at something.
• Fairy Tail: Natsu's goal is to find his dragon father, Igneel, who mysteriously vanished seven years before the series begins. It turns out Igneel never left and was sealed inside Natsu all along. Tragically, Igneel gets killed in battle with Acnologia shortly after his big return, at which point Natsu's goal shifts to killing Acnologia.
  • In the official sequel, Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest, Natsu and his team's goal is to finish the Century Quest that Gildarts failed. That quest being to seal Five God Dragons that have grown as powerful as Acnologia, which proves to be tricky due to the insane magic power required to kill Acnologia in the first place.
• Fist of the North Star has two main goals for Kenshiro — find and rescue his lost love Yuria and find and deal with his three other Hokuto brothers while dealing with every bad guy the wastelands have to throw at him and protecting the innocent.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Find a way to return to human state; save Amesteris from becoming one giant Philosopher's Stone; defeat "Father" and the Homunculi, and maybe make peace with the other countries.
• Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Create a Philosopher's Stone to return to human state (the Elric brothers) or become human (the Homunculi). Later on it's kill the Homunculi once and for all, and prevent them and their creator from causing another genocide.
• Future Diary: Becoming God's successor. Yuno, however, has "becoming one with Yukkii".
• Gundam (pretty much all of them): End the war before it destroys humanity/the planet/everything.
• Inuyasha: Defeat Naraku, whose Evil Plan caused so much misery to everyone and destroy the Shikon Jewel. Our heroes eventually end up doing both at once. But it takes twelve years worth of comics to accomplish.
• Kaguya and Shirogane from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War have the contrasting goals of getting the other to confess their love without doing so themselves. They both confess of their own volition long before the end, with the latter half of the series focusing on them as a couple (as well as the multiple ongoing plotlines of the rest of the Ensemble Cast).
• Kill la Kill: Ryuko comes to Honnouji to find out who killed her father and take revenge. Ryuko finds out who killed her father, but while she does kick Nui's ass, she is denied final vengeance. But at this point, she's found her long-lost sister and found out who she truly is, not to mention stopping an evil alien invasion bent on devouring humanity, headed by her own Evil Matriarch mother. Whew!
• Magic User's Club: Protect Earth from the aliens of the Bell. Practice their magic without hurting themselves.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Find Nagi Springfield. Negi does eventually find Nagi, but... He's been taken over by The Mage of the Beginning. He apparently resolves this issue completely offscreen.
  • UQ Holder!: Touta wants Evangeline to acknowledge him, and later he also wants to rescue the aforementioned Negi from the same enemy that took over Nagi.
• Monster: Tenma's goal is to kill Johan. Lunge's goal is to arrest Tenma. Johan's goal is... not made clear for a long, long while, assuming he has one beyond "Evade death/capture". It MIGHT have been Suicide by Cop. Maybe.
• In Naruto, the titular character's wish to be Hokage, and to a lesser extent, Sasuke's wish to kill his own brother.
  • An additional goal for Naruto (and Sakura) later on is bringing Sasuke back to the village and saving him from his self-destructive mission of revenge after his Face–Heel Turn.
• Ninja Hattori: Kemumaki's goal is to love Yumeko all for himself and defeat Hattori and Shinzo.
• One Piece:
  • The search for the eponymous "One Piece". One Piece itself is just a MacGuffin so far, never seen or explained; the series consists mostly of the characters wandering around doing good deeds, though Word of God says that he fully intends on having the crew find it eventually.
    • Something that might count as a Lampshade Hanging is Luffy making a specific point of not wanting to know what the One Piece is (or if it even exists) before he gets there, when another of his crew tries to ask someone who would know. He claims knowing what he is chasing in that way would render their adventure "boring."
    • Early in the Final Saga, Luffy reveals to his crew that becoming the Pirate King is actually only another step towards achieving his true dream, which he then describes to them, but what that goal is has yet to be revealed to the readers.
  • Aside from Luffy's goal of finding One Piece (and becoming Pirate King), it's notable that each member of his crew has an individual end goal. Zoro wants to be the world's greatest swordsman, Nami wants to draw a map of the entire world, Chopper wants to become a doctor that can cure all diseases, Robin wants to discover the true history of the world, etc.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Ash's goal is to become the Greatest Pokémon Master of All Time. In an interesting example of this, he technically does accomplish this goal (at least to some degree) when he is christened as greatest Pokémon trainer in the world at the end of Journeys (after which he's replaced as the protagonist), though he still rejects the label of "Pokémon Master" even then.
  • Opposing him are Jesse and James, who spend the entire series trying to capture his Pikachu and present it to Giovanni.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica has several Series Goals. Madoka's goal is to actually matter and do something helpful. Kyubey's is more subtle, but his goal to make Madoka contract conflicts with Homura, whose Whole Episode Flashback reveals her goal being to prevent Madoka from contracting, for her own good. In an interesting twist, two of these three goals are achieved. Homura failed in saving Madoka from being contracted, but due to the condition of the contract, plus tons of info on the magic system she'd use, makes a wish that ultimately makes the system a lot better to work with (namely, by averting the horrible fate that ultimately awaits Magical Girls who contract), and thus achieves her goal of making a difference.
• In Samurai Champloo, Fuu's goal (and therefore Mugen and Jin's too) is to find the samurai who smells like sunflowers. She does. He dies soon after.
• Tamagotchi: The Miracle Friends arc has the goal of returning Miraitchi and Clulutchi to the future.
• Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee: Lag's goal is to reunite with his Missing Mom, as well as with his Letter Bee friend Gauche Suede.
• Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- has Syaoran and company sent on a journey to find Sakura's memory fragments that have taken the form of feathers and are scattered through many different worlds. However, that's only the beginning... the goal slowly changes as we find out the Big Bad's reason for sending them on their travels; now their goal is to defeat the Big Bad, among other things. The series is a complete Mind Screw if anything—it's CLAMP, after all.
• Ulysses 31: Find the Kingdom of Hades, release the crew from stasis and return home to Earth. Achieved in the final episode.
• The first chapter of UQ Holder! pokes fun at this. Touta makes a big deal about how its his dream to "climb the tower" (really an orbital elevator), and goes on about how he "will" ascend it someday. Then Yukihime points out that if he pays the expensive but not-at-all-unreasonable price, he could ride the elevator whenever he wants.

Asian Animation

• Cupid's Chocolates: Haoyi's goal is to reverse his magic-induced Unwanted Harem.
• Happy Heroes: Big M. and Little M.'s goal is to take over planet Xing Xing.
• Lamput: The docs' goal is to capture Lamput and return him to the lab.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Wolffy's goal is to capture and eat the goats.
• Simple Samosa: Cham Cham's goal is to be better than his rival Samosa.

Comic Books

• Bone: The Bone Cousins finding a way back home. Later on, it's defeating the Lord of Locusts, in addition to that.
• Rogue Trooper: In the Rogue continuity, find and kill the traitor general. They eventually manage it, which left the writers without any decent plots for future stories, which led to the Friday reboot. In this version, the goal was to get to Highguard and find out the reason for the massacre on Hill 392 and why the Norts had GIs. This was achieved even more quickly, leaving Friday without a compelling reason to have more adventures. Eventually, the writers tried having Rogue and Friday meet, but again, the two had little personal reason to actually do anything.
• Deadman: Deadman's goal is to find the man who killed him and bring him to justice.
• Swamp Thing: Swamp Thing (Alec Holland) regaining his humanity. Except Swamp Thing isn't Alec Holland after all. He never was.

Eastern European Animation

• Nu, Pogodi!: The Wolf's goal is to catch the Hare.

Film

• I Got Five on It: After Officer Evans scams and arrests Jimmy, the goal of the protagonists is to get payback on Evans.
• The Matrix: Destroy the Machines and save the humans. While not quite fulfilled, the two sides are at an uneasy peace.
• Star Wars:
  • Prequel trilogy — Defeat the Separatists and end the Clone Wars.
  • Original trilogy — Defeat the Galactic Empire and restore freedom to the galaxy.
  • Sequel trilogy — Defeat the First Order and restore freedom to the galaxy.
• Fantastic Beasts: Defeat Grindelwald.

Literature

• Harry Potter: Defeat Voldemort.
• Stephen King's Dark Tower series: Get to the titular tower and (for awhile) stop it from being destroyed.
• The Wheel of Time: Win Tarmon Gai'don, the great final battle against the Dark One.
• The Lord of the Rings: Destroy the One Ring and keep it from returning to the hand of its creator, Sauron.
• Animorphs: Hold off the Yeerk takeover of earth until the Andalites come to the rescue. Eventually changes to "stop the Yeerk invasion ourselves" when it becomes apparent that the Andalite military doesn't give a damn about earth.
• Cradle Series: Lindon's goal for most of the series is to become strong enough to save his home from a Dreadgod. After he accomplishes that (albeit mostly by evacuating everyone rather than actually fighting the Dreadgod), he relaxes for a bit, until he hits on a new goal: Become strong enough to drag the Monarchs with him when he ascends, so that they can't screw over the world any more.
• The Hunger Games: Keep yourself and your loved ones alive as the dictatorship grows increasingly more hostile and trusting people gets harder.

Live Action TV

• Gilligan's Island: Get off the island. The first TV-Movie had them finally succeed and finding how the world's changed since they've been marooned. However, it ends with them getting stranded again. The second TV-Movie had them try to leave the island ("Flight of the Phoenix"-style, to boot), but they choose to go back because Gilligan accidentally fell out of the plane while jettisoning some weight and had to parachute back to the island. ^note By this point, all of the island's drinking water had been contaminated, so he'd have likely died of thirst before anyone could get to the still uncharted island. The castaways lucked out, though, and twice over: their plane's engine falls off after they land, while the Navy soon arrives because the plane appeared on radar long enough to be tracked. The island is finally charted, while Mr. Howell spends a year overhauling the place into a resort (with the others as his silent partners). So, they can come and go and communicate with the mainland when and as they please, while enjoying access to every luxury money can buy!
• House of the Dragon: Rhaenyra Targaryen (supported by the Black faction) aims at becoming Queen of the Seven Kingdoms to fulfill the wishes of her father King Viserys and maintain a strong realm in order to protect it against the threat of the prophetic Song of Ice and Fire (the Long Night that would eventually descend upon Westeros in Game of Thrones). Trouble is, another faction, the Greens, wants her half-brother Aegon II to be king instead of her. Then the Succession Crisis turns into a Civil War.
• Subverted by How I Met Your Mother. Ted's goal is to find his future wife, however the story takes place in the past; Future-Ted's goal at first seems to be to explain to his children how he met their mother. However, the last few episodes pull a twist, revealing he's had a different goal the whole time.
• I Dream of Jeannie: Jeannie wants to marry Major Nelson. Jeannie finally gets her wish midway through the fifth and final season.
• Jessie's goal is to become an actress.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Hunting down Sauron.
• Lost: Get off the Island, obviously. But like anything on Lost, an epic monkey wrench is thrown into these schemes halfway through the series: flashforwards reveal Jack, Kate, and others escaped the island and desperately want to go back, their lives sucking so bad that the island was all they truly needed.
  • After they return, they do a bit of meandering before discovering their true purpose: stop the Man in Black/smoke monster from escaping the island. Jack finds his purpose is to save the island from destruction, which he successfully accomplishes. Additionally, in a callback to the original goal, all remaining characters except Hurley and Ben (who stay behind to protect the island) escape once again aboard the return plane, Ajira flight 316.
• My Name Is Earl: Earl's goal is to cross off everyone on his list that he's wronged, in order to finally be able to live a happy life. The creator revealed that if the show wasn't cancelled, Earl would have never finished the list but instead tore it apart after people got inspired by him and started making their own lists with the exact same purpose, ensuring that he's officially done far more good than bad
• Our Miss Brooks: Connie's goal is to marry shy biology teacher Phillip Boynton. It finally happens in The Movie.
• Quantum Leap: Have the main character get back to his home time frame. It's implied this never happens, as he simply chooses to keep Leaping.
• Secrets of Sulphur Springs: Discover the reason behind the disappearance of Savannah Dillon.
• Stargate SG-1: Originally to survive against the Goa'uld, which became defeating the Goa'uld. Over 8 seasons, whenever the team found a weapon that might defend Earth/destroy the System Lords, it inevitably was destroyed. Then, when the writers thought the series was going to end, the team was actually allowed to tie up all its loose ends... then they got another season, and the writers had to come up with another Series Goal.
• Sliders: Have the main character(s) get back to their home dimension.
  • In the fourth season of Sliders, the goal becomes "find Quinn's original dimension and get the weapon they used against the Kromaggs in order to save Earth Prime from the Kromaggs". By the fifth season, it's revealed that the weapon destroyed Quinn's original world and isn't usable. And Quinn and Colin are seemingly lost forever, leaving them without a goal.
• Star Trek: Voyager: Find a shortcut back to Federation space, which is 70 years away at maximum warp (while a full success only happened in the finale, partial success was something that happened more than once — by the series' end they had gotten more than half the distance, despite only travelling for a tenth of the projected time). At a few points of low ratings it was actually considered to let them succeed and continue the show with a more traditional exploring space theme.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The original goal was to bring Bajor into the Federation and protecting them and the wormhole from the Cardassians which was not achieved, and was even advised against by Sisko in later years, which evolved into saving the Alpha Quadrant itself and defeating the Dominion.
• Battlestar Galactica (both versions): Escape the Cylons and reach the rumoured planet Earth.
  • In the original series, they eventually find Earth, but it's not sufficiently advanced to help them against the Cylons.
  • In the new series, they eventually find Earth...but it turns out to be an irradiated wasteland. They then find a healthy planet and name it Earth, so everything's okay.
• Crusade: Find a cure for the Drakh plague, which will kill everyone on Earth in five years' time. According to Word of God, this would have been accomplished not too long into the series' intended five seasons; other problems would have arisen in the meantime.
• The Fugitive: Dr Richard Kimble wants to find the one-armed man and clear his name.
• Monk: Solve Trudy's murder.
• Farscape: John Crichton wants to get back to Earth. He actually succeeds before the end of the series, but realises he no longer fits in there. He later has to destroy the wormhole back to Earth to prevent the Scarrans from invading, meaning he can never go back.
  • Quite a few examples from here. D'Argo spends the whole first two seasons determined to find his son. He finds him at the end of Season two, but he runs off early in the third season after having an affair with Chiana, to whom D'Argo planned to propose. Also Scorpius spends the entire series trying to gain access to John Crichton's wormhole knowledge. He does obtain it at the end of the second season, but Crichton destroys his wormhole project at the end of the third season.
• Lost in Space was another get-back-to-Earth show in principle, but the Robinsons didn't seem to be trying very hard.
• The Time Tunnel: Tony and Doug try to get back to their own time.
• Land of the Giants: Another Irwin Allen show with a similar premise: the Spindrift crew's goal is to get back to Earth (or at least "their Earth").
• Red Dwarf: Get back to Earth and/or see if Humanity has survived in the intermittent 3-million-year period.
  • They actually do end up getting back to Earth a few times. There's just always some kind of catch, like the time they accidentally prevented John F. Kennedy's assassination or when they landed on an Earth that was the same as ours except everything was literally backwards (including time; as Rimmer puts it, "You start off dead, then you have a funeral, then you become alive again").
  • In one instance, the gang got access to a time machine and realized to their excitement that with a hyper drive they could easily get back to Earth. This is all well and good until they meet exceptionally rude future versions of themselves who have been abusing the time machine to enjoy fine dining (casually bringing up Louis XIV and Hitler as being among their closest friends). The heroes become so disgusted that they knowingly create a paradox that gets most of them killed just to prevent this future from happening.
  • Yet another episode had Dave successfully go back in time and prevent the entire series from happening by giving his younger self advice that made him into a multi-millionaire. Then Rimmer went back in time to try and do the same thing himself only to accidentally set everything back the way it was before.
• Firefly: Get a job, stay flying.
  • Also, find out what River's deal is and get her cured. Mission accomplished as of the Big Damn Movie.
• Lexx: Find a livable planet to settle on, without getting it destroyed by the end of the episode.
• Edmund has one in every Blackadder series.
  • The Black Adder: Become king. He does, but only for thirty seconds before dying himself.
  • Blackadder II: Gain favour with the Queen, avoid being executed. Gains the favour, but is then murdered with everyone else by Prince Ludwig.
  • Blackadder III: Gain money and power, possibly join the aristocracy. Goes one better: He lives as the Prince Regent (and eventually King) after a case of mistaken identity leaves the real prince dead.
  • Blackadder Goes Forth: Somehow get out of the war alive. Heartbreakingly fails
  • Hell, even two of the specials had a goal:
    • Blackadder in the Cavalier Years: Save Charles I. He fails, so he Heel Face Turns (as much as a Villain Protagonist can anyway) to turn Baldrick (who was harboring the Prince of Wales) in.
    • Blackadder Back And Forth: Find his way back to his time. He succeeds only to find he changed history, he goes back and fixes history, then he realizes he could change history to benefit himself and uses time travel to become king of the United Kingdom.
• Storm Chasers: The show is centered around the quest for IMAX filmmaker Sean Casey to use his custom designed Tornado Intercept Vehicle to get inside a tornado for the purposes of capturing footage for his Magnum Opus that will also provide financial security for his family. What happens if the goal is achieved is not currently known.
• The X-Files had Mulder's everlasting crusade to find the Truth about everything, from the abduction of his sister to the alien plans to colonize the planet.
• Merlin: For Merlin to keep Arthur safe long enough for him to become the famous king of legend and ensure that magic is reinstated throughout the land.
• The Walking Dead (2010): Find somewhere safe.
• Community has Jeff going through college in order to get his job back, which he lost after his degree was discovered to be bogus. Accomplished as of the end of the fourth season, with the new goal being the rest of the Study Group graduating.
• Kamen Rider Decade had "You must travel to the nine worlds and save them from destruction, saving your world from destruction." Though twenty episodes later, the goal is dropped and it's revealed at the very end that Tsukasa failed. He was supposed to kill the riders, not make friends with them. He fixes this though.
• Pair of Kings: Lanny's goal is to get rid of Brady and Boomer so he can be the king of Kinkow instead of them.
• Power Rangers has, of course, defeat the Big Bad & save the world each year. Individual seasons have had their own, however.
  • The third season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers had rescuing Ninjor after he was captured at around the halfway point of the season,. They eventually accomplished this towards the end of the season.
  • Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers, the mini-series that aired between the third & final Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Power Rangers Zeo had the original Rangers searching for the fragments of the Zeo Crystal in order to undo the effects of the Orb of Doom & restore everyone on Earth to their actual ages. This was accomplished in the finale, although Billy had managed to restore his age to normal beforehand, which would come back to haunt him later on in Zeo.
  • Power Rangers Turbo: The first half featured Bulk and Skull, who had been turned into monkeys early in the season, trying to return to normal or at least tell someone they're actually humans. They eventually resumed human form by the end of "Honey, I Shrunk the Rangers — Part 2". Their goal for the remainder of the Turbo series was getting a job and not losing it.
  • Power Rangers in Space had the goal of rescuing Zordon, the mentor to the original Rangers, after he was kidnapped by the new Big Bad. Ultimately, the Rangers fail to do this, because Zordon instructed Andros to destroy his energy tube & kill him, allowing Zordon's energies to spread across the energy and purify every Power Ranger villain at that point.
  • Power Rangers Lost Galaxy was set on the space Terra Venture with the goal of finding a new planet for humanity to colonize. Accomplished purely by accident in the finale, as they're forced to crash land on Mirinoi, the planet the Rangers first acquired their powers on in the opening episodes after wandering through a portal.
  • Power Rangers Time Force had the unique goal of apprehending the Big Bad rather than outright destroying him, and taking him back to the year 3000 to be tried for his crimes there. (Actually, to finish serving his life sentence since he was technically an escaped convict)
  • Power Rangers Ninja Storm has the goal of rescuing the kidnapped students & teachers of the Wind Academy, and later, the Thunder Academy. And restoring their sensei from his unwilling transformation into a guinea pig.
  • Power Rangers Operation Overdrive had the Rangers competing the various villainous factions for a group of powerful gems.
  • Power Rangers Jungle Fury had the Rangers & Big Bad seeking out past Masters who thought in the Beast War to hone their skills before the other does so.
• Danger 5. The Colonel states their goal in every Mission Briefing. Kill Hitler!
• Friday the 13th: The Series has its two protagonists seeking to recover all the cursed antiques sold by their uncle as part of his Deal with the Devil.
• Hunter Street: Find the missing foster parents.
• Star Falls: Get the two parents to date each other and eventually marry.
• Maths Mansion: The kids' goal is to solve enough math problems to escape the Mansion.
• Victorious: Being set in a performing arts school, most of the characters want to make it big in Hollywood, with many episodes dealing with them auditioning for roles in movies or trying to get recording deals.
• Starman: Paul, the alien from the movie, returns to Earth when he learns the son he had with Jenny is in distress. Together they set out to find her, sometimes following clues and sometimes laying low to hide from the government agent obsessed with finding them.

Multiple Media

• BIONICLE: First, it was the Toa's goal to reawaken the Great Spirit Mata Nui, and stop Makuta Teridax from taking over the universe (which is Mata Nui's body) — both resolved after 8 real-life years, though only the first was a success. Then, when LEGO attempted to renew the brand, the new goal was for Mata Nui to reclaim his stolen body, reunite the broken planet of Spherus Magna, and defeat Teridax. The series went on for a while after that without a specific goal, but got Left Hanging.
• BIONICLE (2015): Find the lost masks of Ekimu and Makuta, as well as Ekimu himself, and save the island of Okoto.
• Transformers: As outlined in the original theme song, the Autobots' goal is to defeat the Decepticons, while the Decepticons are set on defeating the Autobots and conquering the universe. There are a few exceptions.
  • Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Find Cyberutopia and the Knights of Cybertron.
  • Transformers Beast Machines: Overthrow Megatron, free everyone's sparks, and restore Cybertron to its original techno-organic state.
  • Transformers: Rescue Bots: Learn to work with and amongst humanity. The Sequel Series, Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy is the same, but adds completing the recruits' Rescue Bots training to the list.

Video Games

• Clockwork Knight series: Pepper's goal is to save Chelsea.
• Mass Effect: Stop the Reapers from destroying all life in the galaxy.
• Hidden Hotel Miami Mystery: Oliver's goal is to find out the reason behind the hotel guests' disappearances, how the hotel's owner died, and the big secret the hotel is hiding.
• The Shantae series downplays this; her immediate goal is to stop the plans of Risky Boots and/or whichever other assorted villains involved, while her long-term one is to find her missing parents' whereabouts.
• In the Super Mario Bros. series, Mario's goal is usually to defeat Bowser and save Princess Peach.
• PGA Tour: In the career mode, your goal is to travel your way up through the ranks until you win some of the most prestigious and popular golf tournaments. You also have some other career goals that you accomplish while you win games.
• In Team Fortress 2, the goal is to reign supreme over the other team. Depending on the mode, that goal can entail anything from capturing all of the points, to capturing the enemy's briefcase, to just killing the other team until they're completely gone.
• WarioWare series: Wario's goal is to make as much money off of his microgames as possible.

Webcomics

• Closed Gate: The main character seeks to end the colonial rule over his home island, Terranova.
• Problem Sleuth would very much like to get out of his office.
• Goats: Fix the flaws in the multiverse before it crashes in 2012.
• Looking for Group: Originally the goal was to discover the Sword of Truth. Currently, they are trying to restore Kethenecia and defeat the Legaran Empire.
• The Wotch: Anne's is to finish her training and defeat Melleck Xaos.
• The Order of the Stick: Defeat Xykon and protect the Gates.
• Tower of God:
  • Find Rachel. Season 2: Find Rachel again and ask her some serious questions about certain things she did.
  • Another goal would be, since it's the one thing everybody has in common, to climb the Tower and fulfill ones greatest wish.

Western Animation

• The 7D: The Glooms' goal is to take over Jollywood.
• Amphibia: Anne Boonchuy's goal is to fix the music box and back home to Earth alongside her friends, Sasha and Marcy. She manages to return to Earth herself at the end of the second season, at which point her goal shifts to getting back to Amphibia in order to help save the multiverse, recover the Calamity Box, and on top of bringing her friends back home as well.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Restoring balance to the world by defeating the Fire Nation and Fire Lord Ozai. This later gets a firm time limit in the form of a Celestial Deadline.
• Beavis and Butt-Head: The title duo's goal is to score.
• Big City Greens: Chip Whistler's goal is to run the Greens out of Big City.
• Bunsen Is a Beast: Amanda Killman's goal is to get rid of Bunsen so his kind won't increase in the human world.
• Butterbean's Cafe: Ms. Marmalady's goal is to steal business from Butterbean.
• Cyberchase: Find the Encryptor Chip to cure Motherboard's virus. This was resolved in the show's third season... but not in the way you think. The Cyber Squad does find the chip, only to discover that Hacker tampered with it so that he would takeover Motherboard's computer and become Cyberspace's unchallenged ruler. The chip is thrown into a black hole, then destroyed and no attempt is ever made to cure her again.
• The Dreamstone: Zordrak's goal is to steal the Dreamstone and have his nightmares rule the Land of Dreams. Fortunately, thanks to the Urpneys he sends being completely outclassed, this never happens, and even when it does, circumstances usually allow the Noops to get the Dreamstone back.
• Dungeons & Dragons (1983): Escape from The Realm and return to their own world. In the never-produced finale, the kids are offered a choice of either returning home or staying in The Realm to have more adventures.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: The goal of the titular trio is to have enough money to purchase jawbreakers or get jawbreakers for free if possible. The few times they do succeed, expect Status Quo Is God to revert the Eds back to their goal as if nothing happened. Finally achieved in The Movie when Kevin agrees to share his collection of jawbreakers with the Eds as the Kids take them to his house after finally befriending the Eds.
• Elena of Avalor: Elena's goal is to become queen.
• El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera: Manny's is to decide whether to use his superpowers for good or evil.
• Fanboy and Chum Chum: Kyle's goal is to return to Milkweed Academy.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Dipper's goal is to find the author of the three journals who can unlock the secrets of this strange town.
  • Grunkle Stan's goal is to "possess money".
• Invader Zim: Zim's goal is to conquer the Earth on behalf of his leaders, The Almighty Tallest. Conversely, Dib's goal is to thwart Zim and expose him as an alien.
• Jumanji: The Animated Series: Figure out Alan's original clue so he can be freed from the game's world. Ultimately achieved in the series finale.
• The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack: Flapjack and K'Nuckles' goal is to find Candied Island. Had the show continued, they would have found the island at long last.
• The Mighty B!: Bessie Higginbottom's goal is to earn every single Bee Badge possible to become her superhero persona, the Mighty B.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • Marinette's goal is to become a world famous fashion designer and to get close to Adrien as possible. As Ladybug, her goal is to protect Paris from the clutches of Hawkmoth's akumas and Mayura's sentimonsters. In Season 5, her goal is to get all the Miraculouses back from Hawk Moth before he becomes powerful enough to destroy Paris.
  • Gabriel's goal (both as himself and Hawk Moth) is to obtain the Miraculouses of Ladybug and Cat Noir for himself in order to obtain absolute power and reshape reality to undo his and his wife's past mistake.
• The Owl House: Luz Noceda's goal is to become a witch. "For The Future" reveals she subconsciously has another more personal goal, which turns out to be her true deepest desire: to be understood and accepted for who she is unconditionally, especially by her own mother.
• Patrol 03: The titular patrol's goal is to arrest Professor Molo and (unknowingly) expose their own boss Pamela. They successfully manage to have both of them arrested in the final episode.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • Dr. Doofenshmirtz's goal is to take over the Tri-State Area.
  • Candace's goal is to bust her brothers.
• Pinky and the Brain: The Brain's goal is to Take Over the World.
• The Powerpuff Girls: Mojo's goal is to Take Over the World.
• Purno de Purno: In the first series, Purno's goal is to restore beauty to a princess he saves.
• Ready Jet Go!: Mitchell's goal is to expose Jet's identity as an alien.
• Regal Academy: Vicky Broomstick's goal is to get Rose expelled.
• Samurai Jack: Return to the past, and undo the future that is Aku. A Matrix-themed episode shows that this wouldn't happen for a very long time. Until it eventually did, but not without a heartbreaking realization as Ashi, Aku's daughter, and Jack's lover ends up fading from existence to help Jack get back to the past as her creation was due to Aku in the future timeline he ruled.
• She-Ra: Princess of Power: Like She-Ra says in the intro, "to free Etheria from the evil forces of Hordak".
• Sofia the First: Cedric's goal is to use the Amulet of Avalor to take over Enchancia.
• Speed Racer X: Speed aimed to win a Racing championship. Had this series not been Screwed by the Lawyers, the Champion would have been selected from a race with three entrants: Speed, Crasher Kid and Racer X.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Plankton's goal is to steal the Krabby Patty formula.
• Star Wars Rebels: Liberate Lothal from the Galactic Empire. By the way things have gone, this is never gonna happen until the series finale where it's finally free from the Empire's grasp.
• Tangled: The Series: Rapunzel's is to solve the mystery of the strange black rock spires and to find out why her long blonde hair grew back. Later learning the rocks' purpose, her new goal is to unlock and fulfill her destiny.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ninja Turtles' goal in most continuities is to defeat The Shredder.
• Toad Patrol: Reach the Fairy Ring, and through it, find Toad Hollow, a place of refuge. Of course, when this goal is accomplished at the end of the first season, a new one is needed. This turns out to be venturing back out in order to turn those who got turned into toadstools back into toadlets.
• Winx Club:
  • The Winx have an Arc Villain each season which they must defeat, though first they must earn a new transformation.
  • Bloom's goal in the early seasons is to find her missing birth parents.
  • Roxy's goal in season 4 is to discover her own powers and believe in herself.
  • Icy's goal is to lift the curse on her sister Sapphire, and save her kingdom Dyamond from a shaman witch.
• Yoo Hoo And Friends: Find the magic gemstones by fixing all misdeeds made, and make a wish to become human again.

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