Basic Trope: The good guys always win in the end.
- Straight:
- Bob and Alice always stop Emperor Evulz from taking over the world.
- Evul Bob always gets thwarted by Emperor Hiro.
- Exaggerated: Invincible Hero.
- Downplayed: Despite losing some battles, the heroes always win the war against Evulz.
- Justified: Evulz has an ultimately self-destructive flaw that leads to his downfall.
- Inverted: The Bad Guy Wins. Always.
- Subverted:
- Just when it seemed that the heroes had Evulz beaten, out of surprise, Evulz comes back stronger than ever before, defeating them with ease.
- Evulz turns out to have had a Xanatos Gambit going on in the background: the heroes defeat him, but in the process set off a chain of events that allow his daughter, Faye, to easily finish the job. The Bad Guy Wins.
- Double Subverted:
- But the heroes didn't give up that easily and they managed to finally beat Evulz once and for all.
- "Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion to this episode." Relax, it's merely a Cliffhanger.
- Evulz, unfortunately, finds out that he was Out-Gambitted by the heroes.
- Emperor Evulz's victory leads to a chain of events which eventually sets the story for a new hero who learns from their predecessor's mistakes which allows for them to win.
- Parodied: Evulz can't even win at checkers.
- Zig Zagged: Evulz appears to have lost, but it turns out that he had won in the end. And then Bob uses Evulz's apparent victory to beat him. But Evulz saw this coming, so... The cycle of good and evil winning continues.
- Averted: Sometimes the heroes win, sometimes Evulz wins.
- Enforced:
- "It's the general rule of fiction. Also, fans will go insane if the villains win."
- Evil Only Has to Win Once, so for the show to continue, the heroes must win every time.
- Lampshaded: "Evulz, did you really expect to win? I'm the Hero."
- Invoked: Bob and Alice start a PR campaign to portray themselves as undeniably heroic and Evulz as undeniably evil.
- Exploited:
- Evulz creates a Wave-Motion Gun powered by his own failure, and repeatedly skirmishes with Bob and Alice.
- Evulz has all the successful children in the kingdom killed, so none of the winners get to be heroic.
- Defied: Evulz plans every step a month in advance, with assistance from several future selves, and has a backup plan for everything, specifically because of meddling heroes.
- Discussed: “You notice how in stories, it’s always the good guys who come out on top?”
- Conversed: "We all know Alice and Bob will save the day again. I wish they would just lose for once, though."
- Implied: The Villains always assume that Bob and Alice won against them but someone else wins as a Mary Sue, as a neutral invincible hero.
- Deconstructed:
- Victory Is Boring.
- Also in regards to the mentality behind this. Because Alice and Bob are the Good Guys and Evulz is the Big Bad, the expectation they will always win puts enormous pressure on the two, and failure can not only send them into a Heroic BSoD, but also result in scorn and hatred aimed in their direction, making them Heroes with Bad Publicity.
- Reconstructed:
- The Heroes win to make Alice and Bob stronger than ever.
- When they both win, they will retire after the villains gave up.
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