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Q&A Can a successful book series let the bad guy win?

Consider giving a pyrrhic victory to the good guys in the end as an alternative. A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defe...

posted 5y ago by Nikos Hidalgo‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:19:24Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46305
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Nikos Hidalgo‭ · 2019-12-08T12:19:24Z (almost 5 years ago)
Consider giving a pyrrhic victory to the good guys in the end as an alternative.

> A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has also taken a heavy toll that negates any true sense of achievement. ([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory))

It still resembles a tragedy, it still makes the reader think whether having such an absolute black and white perception of the good guys vs the villains is worth it. I would happily accept a bad-guy-wins ending, if it was meant to make me think how the mistakes of the good guys led to that outcome, and see if I can try to avoid those in my daily life in a way that would prevent such outcome.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-06-27T11:53:10Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 1