Veronica likely didn't get awarded Miss Congeniality either.
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers
'Cause we are the champions
Of the world!
We are the champions
No time for losers
'Cause we are the champions
Of the world!
— Queen, "We Are the Champions"
Tropes about the results of competitions, battles, and contests, plus how they are caused and how they are handled.
Tropes
Related:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After the hero is beaten, he pleads for the villain to go easy on him.
- Assumed Win: Someone assumes they've won before being informed that they actually lost.
- Award Snub: A film doesn't win an award even though many people who've seen the film wish that it did.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The villain is victorious rather than the hero.
- Best Her to Bed Her: A woman who will only marry or have sex with whoever can defeat her in combat.
- Blinking Lights of Victory
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: Winning a game by spending real-world currency.
- Broken Win/Loss Streak
- Check and Mate: The victor of the battle/match/war goes to explain how the loser lost, and/or how they won.
- Consolation Award
- Continue Countdown: In losing a video game, the player has a few seconds to decide whether to continue on or not.
- Claiming Via Flag: One side gains something and another loses it when a flag is planted.
- Crack Defeat
- Dark Horse Victory
- Decapitation Strike
- Decided by One Vote
- Defeat as Backstory
- Defeat by Modesty: An opponent is forced to forfeit the fight or competition because they lost their clothes.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Defeating an enemy causes them to become your friend.
- Defeat Means Menial Labor
- Defeat Means Respect
- Defeated and Trophified: You lose against them, your opponent keeps you as a living trophy of their victory.
- Defeating the Cheating Opponent: The villains cheat, the hero plays fair, and the hero still wins.
- Defeating the Undefeatable: Defeating an enemy who had previously never lost and/or was thought to be unbeatable.
- Defiant to the End: Showing defiance towards your opponent even when it's clear that you can't win.
- Disqualification-Induced Victory: The person who actually won gets disqualified, which causes the next ranking participant to win by default.
- Doom as Test Prize: A competition where the winner's reward is getting killed.
- Doomed Moral Victor
- Double Knockout: The battle, game or match ends in a draw.
- Drench Celebration
- Dusting Off Your Hands: When a character slaps their hands past each other to represent satisfaction at disposing of an individual.
- Fireworks of Victory: For when a victory for the protagonists results in an impromptu light show.
- First Girl Wins
- Flawless Victory: Winning without taking any damage in a Fighting Game
- Foregone Victory: A video game level that is impossible to fail.
- Game Over: Running out of lives and continues in a video game results in the game ending on a screen that reads "Game Over".
- Game-Over Man: A character who appears to mock the player when they get a Game Over.
- Going Home Again: Making it to the big leagues, flunking, and returning home in shame or to clear the mind.
- The Good Guys Always Win: The Hero(ine)'s side ultimately wins.
- Graceful Loser: A person who loses, but is content with not winning.
- Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: A Boss Battle where winning the fight results in the boss defeating you anyway.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: A Boss Battle where victory is not meant to be possible and the story can only advance when the player fails to defeat the boss.
- Hospital Epilogue
- I Let You Win
- I Surrender, Suckers: When assuming you’re victorious because the opponent surrenders, make sure they’re not doing this.
- I Was Beaten by a Girl: A man feels butthurt about losing to a woman.
- Instant-Win Condition
- Knee Fold Fall of Defeat: Dramatically falling to your knees and hitting the ground after you're beaten.
- Last Girl Wins
- Last-Second Villain Recovery: A seemingly-defeated villainous combatant rallies just long enough to endanger the hero.
- A Lesson in Defeat: An arrogant student is set up to fail to deflate their ego.
- Loser Gets the Girl
- Loser Leaves Town
- Losing Is Worse Than Death
- Meaningless Villain Victory: The villain wins, but an occurrence or revelation at the last minute renders their victory pointless.
- Misère Game: A game where players win by losing.
- Monument of Humiliation and Defeat: After the villain wins, they celebrate their victory by building a monument with the purpose of rubbing it in that the people they've conquered have lost.
- Myopic Conqueror: When The Conqueror has no plans or interests for a place he conquers.
- Near-Villain Victory: The bad guy almost succeeds, but they're beaten at the last minute.
- Never Filled Out Official Paperwork: A character loses a competition due to not signing paperworking declaring them an official participant.
- Nonstandard Game Over: A video game has an exclusive cutscene for when the player loses at a certain point in the game or in a certain way.
- Not So Invincible After All
- One Judge to Rule Them All
- Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending
- Out-Gambitted (winner in a contest of schemes)
- Please, I Will Do Anything!
- Post-Game Retaliation
- Posthumous Villain Victory: The bad guy wins after his death.
- Post-Victory Collapse
- Pyrrhic Victory: The characters succeed, but their victory has the cost of undermining their intended goal.
- Real Award, Fictional Character
- Rejecting the Consolation Prize
- Relieved Failure: A character is actually grateful to have lost.
- The Runner-Up Takes It All: A person who didn't win the competition ended up becoming more popular than the winner in the long run.
- Second Place Is for Losers: A character sees as meaningless anything other than placing first in a competition.
- Second Place Is for Winners: Not getting first place ended up resulting in a better outcome.
- Second Prize: A character was expecting a different outcome in a competition.
- Shocking Defeat Legacy
- Smooch of Victory: The winner gets a kiss from their love interest.
- Sore Loser: A person who tends to get angry when they lose and willing to harm the people who beat them just to spite them.
- But Not Too Challenging: A character is too proud to take an easy victory, but is also too much of a Sore Loser to accept actually losing.
- Status Quo Game Show
- A Taste of Defeat
- Team Rocket Wins: Ineffectual villains manage to achieve a minor victory.
- Too Quirky to Lose
- Touché
- To Win Without Fighting
- Underdogs Never Lose
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating: The winner of a competition is pretentious enough to mock the other competitors for losing.
- Victor Gains Loser's Powers
- Victor Steals Insignia
- Victorious Loser
- Victorious Roar: When a character just has to let everyone know they won, they do it LOUDLY!
- Victory by Endurance: Winning simply by lasting longer than the other participants.
- Victory Fakeout
- Victory-Guided Amnesia
- Victory Is Boring: Achieving your goal has the downside that you can no longer experience the fun of trying to accomplish it.
- Victory Pose
- Victory Pose On Person: Performing a Victory Pose while having a foot on the body of the defeated to bask in your victory. Or humiliate your opponent even further.
- Victory Quote
- Victory Sex
- Victory Through Intimidation
- Villainous Underdog
- Villains Want Mercy
- We Win, Because You Didn't
- White Flag
- A Winner Is You: Beating a video game rewards the player with nothing but a message congratulating them for completing the game.
- Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing
- Win-Win Ending
- Won the War, Lost the Peace
- Worthy Opponent: A person respects their opponent for beating them.
- You Lose at Zero Trust
- Zero-Effort Boss: A Boss Battle so easy that losing is either extremely difficult or outright impossible.
