10 Most Successful Failures

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The 10 Most Successful Failures in Geekdom

Power Grid

by The Mary Sue Staff | 12:34 pm, March 14th, 2012

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Allow Us To Explain

There's a concept on TV Tropes called Fridge Logic, which is what you call it when something totally makes sense at the time you were reading or watching it, but at some point after the viewing, maybe while you were idly staring into the fridge thinking of not much in particular, you realized that there was something fundamentally wrong with it. Sometimes it's a plot hole, but sometimes it's more subtle. See, all the characters seemed super excited that they'd saved the day, and, carried away by acting and a strong orchestral score, you felt pretty good about it, too. At least you did until now. Now you can't remember why it seemed like they'd accomplished much of anything by defeating the bad guys... Today we're going to talk about how narratives turn failures in to success... or perhaps how success can be accomplished by failure? It's a little different in each case, but ultimately this grid contains a lot of spoilers. Since these blurbs are about the conclusions of stories, we understand that you might be reluctant to venture further in, as even seeing a story or character on the list might give something away. But think about it this way: this grid is about the merging of success and failure. A character might be on this grid because they failed and it looked like success... or they might be on it because they succeeded and it looked like failure. So if you see a name from a series you want to follow up on... just click on. Look, we didn't put a spoiler tag on the end of The Lord of the Rings. There are statutes of limitations on these things.

Frodo

Frodo is hailed as one of the biggest heroes in The Lord of the Rings yet people tend to sweep under the rug the fact that he didn’t actually complete his task. Not that we’re pointing fingers. In fact, neither is Frodo after his time with the Ring. Poor Frodo went through a hell of a lot to get the Ring to Modor, the only place it could be destroyed. He left his comfortable home, saw untold horrors, risked not only his, but his friends’ lives, and went back home without doing what he set out from the Shire to do. At least, not on purpose. It’s a sad, unfortunate tale, and if not for the evil of the Ring, Frodo certainly would have done what Gandalf asked of him. His dedication was there but like most who donned the Ring, Frodo’s strength failed him in the end. Even Samwise Gamgee wasn’t able to keep him strong forever, although he did play a pivotal role in the story. No, Frodo failed in the pivotal moment when standing on the edge of Sammath Naur saying, “I will not do this deed.” It was there he put on the Ring with the purposeful intent of claiming the power for his own. So it was a good thing Gollum was around to bite off Frodo’s finger while he was invisible, thus reclaiming the Ring he so adored and accidentally destroying it along with himself and he fell into the lava of the mountain. So yes, though it was technically no fault of his own, Frodo failed quite spectacularly in the end. But hey, he was still quite the hero and did pretty well for himself after that.

Princess Mononoke

The work of Hayao Miyazaki is characterized by an unwillingness to craft explicitly evil or good forces, and so it should come as no surprise that this theme goes hand in hand with one of compromise. And while the resolution of good and evil (or perspective and perspective or flawed and flawed) sometimes comes around via compromise or mutual resolution or hard work as in Spirited Away, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, the heroes pretty much fail to accomplish anything they wanted at the beginning, or even the middle of the movie; and everybody has to reassess what they want from the war they're fighting at the resolution of the story. Such is Princess Mononoke. Mononoke is the quintessential no-good-or-evil story: with each story beat it deepens its characters, as you whip back and forth between rooting for the forest spirits, who are only defending their land against those who would defile it; and Lady Eboshi's Irontown army, whose safe and secure haven for society's outcasts (disgraced women, prostitutes, lepers) is trying to stay economically viable and defend themselves from neighboring daimyos. For as fearsome and ruthless as the guns of Irontown are, the Wolf and Boar spirits are equally ferocious and out for blood. Caught between the conflict are Ashitaka and San, an innocent human boy cursed by the rage of a spirit, who needs the Great Forest Spirit to cure him; and San (the titular character) a human girl raised by the Wolf Spirit Moro, who considers the spirits to be her family, and their war to be hers. Violence escalates as a third faction appears among the characters we thought we knew; Jigo, disguised a wandering monk, is actually an assassin sent by the emperor, who desires the head of the Great Forest Spirit, and its power to grant eternal youth, for his masters. Jigo doesn't much care who wins the war between the spirits and Irontown, just that there is enough confusion for him to get the head. In the end, while the Great Forest Spirit is slain forever, in death his body rejuvenates the stripped forest. Lady Eboshi nearly dies, but the citizens of Irontown are safe and she vows to rebuild the place as a better town. Ashitaka is cured of his curse, but San... San has neither won her war, killed her nemesis Lady Eboshi, saved the Boar Spirit lord Okkoto, or even the Great Forest Spirit. The only thing her actions have managed to do is rebuild her home forest and create lasting peace between the Spirits and Irontown. So, I guess that's not so bad.

The Cast of Battlestar Galactica

There's an argument to be made that a series with as many secrets as Syfy's Battlestar Galactica could never live up to fan theory and speculation, could never provide the closure that hungry fans were salivating over after six years of suspense and intrigue. But I can certainly set aside my personal feelings about the conclusion of Battlestar Galactica for the purposes of this blurb. Because they don't really have anything to do with how the characters managed to fail at everything they set out to do and succeed spectacularly at the same time. Of course I can. No, that facial tic has always been there. The goals of humanity in BSG are simple: get away from the cylons, keep as many people alive as possible, and find the near mythological Earth from which their species originally arose. By the end of the series we've failed on all counts. The cylons are still with us (but friendly, the rest are destroyed or, uh, freed, kinda). We did follow the trail of the 13th tribe back to the planet that originated humanity, but it turned out that in the interim, the 13th tribe had invented their own cylons and been peaceably replaced by them. These cylons and their culture were indistinguishable from human society, so much so that they eventually destroyed themselves and the planet through nuclear warfare. When the fleet arrives, Earth is an irradiated wasteland. But it's okay! We find another planet with early hominids and decide to settle there. Right after we throw all of our technology into the sun, including, like, penicillin, fertilizer, steel, and faster than light travel. YES, THAT FACIAL TIC HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE. But I digress. There was a third point, and that was keeping every one alive. By the end of the series, the population of the fleet has dwindled from about 50k to an all time low of 38,000. That's just the survivor count. 12,000 dead doesn't begin to take into account instances of growth in the fleet from births or finding other surviving humans. So how is the fleet successful? Well, it founds the human race. Our human race, I mean. Us. The only human/cylon hybrid to survive gestation, Hera Agathon, becomes the "Mitochondrial Eve" of humanity. Sometime in the early 21st century, we apparently discover her genome as the most recent common ancestor of all humanity. So, in a sense the fleet of BSG doesn't fail on the population question, since our entire civilization descended from them. Well, one of them. Everybody else must have died out in a few generations. Yaaaaaaaay!

Brock Samson

The creators of The Venture Bros., Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, cite one of the major themes of the show and its characters is "failure." "Beautiful, sublime failure," according to Hammer. And just one prime example of that failure is the Swedish Murder Machine himself, Brock Samson. He seems successful, and true, he is an exceedingly effective killer and protector of the Venture family. Actually he's not even very good at that, considering how many times Dean and Hank have been killed, usually within minutes or seconds of each other. And considering how much trouble Dr. Venture gets himself into while under Samson's watchful eye. And how no matter what, he cannot get past Molotov Cocktease's chastity belt and just ends up masturbating. He didn't start out as a failure...no, actually he did. But he did graduate high school! So he has that. After high school, he attended college, but was kicked out after accidentally killing another member of his football team during practice. He's an effective, but sometimes unintentional killer, you see. Brock never really forgave himself for that, but after college he did become an Army Ranger, and that was going great! And then he was recruited into OSI, which was also going great! And then there was the attempt by OSI to infiltrate the Guild of Calamitous Intent by using Billy Quizboy as their pawn, but that goes terribly wrong (and marks the origin of Phantom Limb), and as punishment, Brock is reassigned to become the bodyguard for the Venture family. Which, to everyone in the Venture Bros. universe, sucks. And yet, he is still feared and intimidating to everyone around him, especially the Monarch's henchmen. When they refer to a cause of death as "Death by Samson," you know that guy is something of a legend among that group. At various points, despite his undeniable kickassery, Brock fails to do even the most minor of things; renew his license to kill, for example. And after being lied to about an assassination attempt by OSI (a plot by Molotov Cocktease), he just loses his will to kill for a while before leaving the Venture family to join S.P.H.I.N.X. And he seems to have found happiness...but he'll probably still fail at something. We've got a whole fifth season's worth of failure ahead of us!

The Cast of Star Wars

Yay, it's the end of Return of the Jedi! The Emperor's dead, the second Death Star got blown right the heck up, Darth Vader redeemed himself into a totally sweet force ghost, and every body gets to dance with these tiny furry men. People all over the galaxy are rejoicing and pulling down statues and having a great big loving party! Surely a new era of peace and security has arrived! No. Look, the fact is even in the most totalitarian governments there are lines of succession, and the Death Star was only the laser-shooting crown on an enormous intra-galactic navy. The Galactic Civil War, begun six years before, won't end for another fifteen years, when the last eight backwater sectors controlled by the final remnants of the Imperial Navy sign the Pellaeon-Gavrisom Treaty with the New Republic. And in those interim years, the Emperor returns to life, in a number of clone bodies, six years after his presumed death and brings the Empire back under his rule with a fallen Luke Skywalker as his second in command. But in 19 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin)? Then we get peace. For twenty years, until the Second Galactic Civil War breaks out.

Fry

Let's start this off with some honesty: Philip J. Fry is his own grandfather. He has accomplished the nearly impossible by being just basically careless. A lazy, immature slacker, Fry literally fell into his futuristic journey. After receiving what turned out to be a prank call, he went to deliver a pizza on New Year's Eve 1999 to a Times Square address. On his way, he found out his girlfriend was cheating on him. And then, he found out about the prank call, placed by the one and only Lord Nibbler, who assisted in helping Fry fall into the cryogenic tube that would take him into the 31st century. See, Fry was needed to stop the Brainspawn when they attacked the Earth. Because (in an unrelated adventure) he became his own grandfather he lacks the delta brainwave, a genetic/temporal glitch that makes him immune from their attacks. See, the Brainspawn wanted to suck up all the universe's knowledge and then destroyit so there could be no new information -- Fry is immune to their mind bending powers: he's an very special kind of idiot. But this makes Fry the most important and powerful person in the universe. So, the Nibblonians send Fry to save the last bit of information from the Brainspawn's Infosphere on the Scooty Puff Jr., but then Fry screws that up, too. By asking questions. After being told not to think too hard, so as not to be detected by the Brainspawn. Idiot. But Fry still realizes that he's been used this whole time, and even an idiot is going to see that. And while he likes his life in the future (and Leela), he didn't appreciate Nibbler's prank call and shove into the cryogenic tube for the purpose of using him to save the universe without his knowledge. So, Nibbler takes Fry back to 1999, where he makes himself fall into the tube, and then he goes back to the Infosphere and gathers the data on a Scooty Puff, Sr. (And gives Leela a flower.) Fry's delta brain wave defect continues to protect him from the Big Brain -- so it pays to cause anomalies in time and space.

Katniss Everdeen

(Spoilers for the entire trilogy, not just the first book, ahead.) At the beginning of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen has one goal - stay alive. That goes for both her regular life in District 12, not the safest or most pleasant place to live, but also in the arena after she volunteers herself for the Hunger Games. Moreso the Hunger Games because, well, she has no other choice but to try and win. If she loses, that means she’s dead. But that one, simple, obvious goal winds up causing a lot more issues than anyone could have predicted. For example, Katniss choosing to eat the poisonous Nightlock berries along with her fellow District 12 tribute Peeta, seemed like a good idea at the time because it kept her alive then but the act made her an enemy of the Capitol. And yes, it just happened to cause a rebellion by almost all the citizens of Panem as well. Everything seemed well and good after that but before long, Katniss realized her actions were coming back to haunt her. Those she loved were threatened by the Capitol and she and Peeta were sent back to compete in a Quarter Quell that included past Hunger Games winners. As if that weren’t enough stress, she realizes she’s powerless to stop the uprising she inadvertently began. Oops. And it doesn’t stop there. In the third book, Mockingjay, Katniss gets wrapped up in a full on war. Her family is fairly safe but Peeta is being held prisoner and tortured by the Capitol and she must become a willing face for the rebellion, aka The Mockingjay, in order to help stop the violence. The war cost many lives, including that of her sister, and it turns out one horrible government was just replaced by another! One she technically helped to gain strength and as she finds out, responsible for Prim’s death. That new government, lead by President Alma Coin, suggests yet ANOTHER Hunger Games event in order to take revenge on the Capitol. So in the end, Katniss lives, the Capitol is overthrown, she protects the next generation from the horror of the Hunger Games and even marries and has children... but just about everything else has turned to you-know-what.

The Muppets

If the Muppets had anything going for them, even after all those years, it was that they can always get people to love them. Even after they couldn't keep their group together. Even after they lost everything to an evil Texas oil man. Even after they traveled the world to reunite, organize a new show to raise the money to buy their theater back, only to pull out a show in the end, and still fall short of their needed amount. By quite a bit, actually. Yeah, despite how we all feel about the Muppets, they really screw up pretty much everything in The Muppets, don't they? For one thing -- and bear with me, because I know this will sound just awful -- they couldn't even keep the Muppets together in The Muppets. How in the wide world of sports do you let that force of entertainment and joy fall apart? Egos? Psssht. They should have risen above that. Fortunately, this was only limited to the bizarro universe of The Muppets, in which we lived on an Earth that no longer considered the Muppets famous anymore. Which is crazy. But really, Kermit and Piggy are apart. They couldn't keep that going. Fozzie is selling out singing crappy, fake versions of "Rainbow Connection" to make ends meet, and still lives outdoors. Gonzo repressed most of his weirdness to make efficient toilets. And true, they all reunited in the end, even Piggy, who was doing just fine without the "failed" group. And then they got together and they still couldn't accomplish what they set out to do. They fell way, way, way short of their fundraising goal. To a stereotypical oil guy. Who raps. Uncomfortably. But what happens when they all leave that theater, hanging their heads in failure? They walk out of their to streets filled with fans. Fans who love them and always did, and even brand new fans. It's a good thing all those supremely forgiving and devoted fans were happy to see the Muppets at the end of that movie, because if they'd been angry, that would have been a horrifying riot. Horrifying. It just goes to show: audiences love an underdog, and in that movie, those Muppets were the underiest of underdogs.

The Cast of Torchwood

Torchwood was formed in 1879 with the intent of keeping the British public safe from alien threats or technology and to re-purpose that technology to help keep the public safe from alien threats. Got that? Ok, so they had a few instances where their efforts truly helped humanity, the Battle of Canary Wharf for one, but once Torchwood Three came along, productivity went downhill. “Torchwood is ready,” claims Captain Jack. Sure, they’re ready. They’re ready to utilize the alien tech they find for their own benefit. In episode one of the series, one of their own, Suzie, uses a piece of alien weaponry called the Life Knife to kill people. But of COURSE she had a good reason. She actually wanted to learn more about another piece of tech, the Resurrection Gauntlet, and the only way to do that was to handle freshly dead bodies. Well, makes sense to me. But this kind of behavior was running rampant through Torchwood Three. Owen was also using alien property for personal gain and to the detriment of others. He used a special particle perfume in order to attract women but almost got into a fight when one ladies’ boyfriend caught them running off together. So what does Owen do? He sprays the boyfriend and they all head off together to have sex. Nothing like forcing people to have sex with you against their will. In the same episode, Tosh was guilty of using an alien reader to download books onto her computer. Ok, so that’s one’s more illegal than it is a danger to the human race but that wasn’t her only infraction. She was coerced into bringing an alien into the hub after the alien seduced her with an alien necklace that allowed her to read the thoughts of others. And yes, this alien is also a murderer and would have killed others had they not stopped her. And we musn’t forget poor Ianto who kept his girlfriend alive as a partially converted Cyberwoman in the basement of the hub. Come on, he was only trying to restore her to normal! Oops, she killed someone and yup, you guessed it, she ended up dead too. Great job protecting the people of Britain, guys!

Utena

There are a number of different stages of familiarity with the anime Revolutionary Girl Utena. Maybe you've heard about it and decided it's not for you. Maybe you've seen the feature length anime adaptation and thought it was weird and confusing, and that the series probably wasn't for you. And maybe, a friend sat you down and showed you the entire thirty nine episode run of the late 90s series directed by one of the guys behind Sailor Moon, and you realized that it was a funny, touching, often confusingly visually symbolic story about teenage relationships, the gender binary, the spectrum of sexuality, and how men and women can find themselves imprisoned in the roles of literary archetypes. Sometimes literally. Utena is the series main character, who, after being rescued by someone she saw as a "prince" as a young girl, will only wear the boys' uniform to school and dreams of following his example of heroism as she waits for him to make his promised return. Anthy is the princess that Utena is determined to save, a student passively caught up in what appears to be a cruel game that the student council takes very seriously: competing for Anthy's "hand" through a never ending series of fencing duels. Drawn into the competition for the Rose Bride Anthy, Utena discovers that this competition for the right to Anthy's very self may actually be a prize that holds earth shattering power, even as it is revealed that the chairman of the academy is Anthy's older brother... and that the passive Anthy is possibly his non-consensual lover. The premise revealed at the end of Utena is that there are only three players in the oldest story: the Prince, the Princess, and the Witch. The Prince's role is to rescue and defeat the others, respectively. The Princess' role is to be rescued and loved, or menaced by the others. While the Witch can only destroy, be hated and then punished herself. Akio is the archetypal Prince, corrupted by his centuries long stint in the job. Anthy, however... Anthy was the Princess who couldn't be. The Prince could not love his sister, and so he could never rescue her. The only recourse left to a lonely, angry, proto-Anthy was to become the Witch, murdering the Princesses he tried to save. For her crimes she was imprisoned in constant pain, eternally pierced by duelists' swords... She was also a young student at Utena's boarding school. Look, it's Revolutionary Girl Utena. Utena's attempts to treat Anthy like the Princess instead of a defeated Witch rile up the system of endless duels of Ohtori Academy, not to mention the status quo of Anthy's punishment and Akio's sinister goals. But ultimately... With what appears to be her dying breath, Utena convinces Anthy to free herself from her prison, a step that was always within her power. The Princess who became a Witch was imprisoned partly by her own self-loathing. Utena disappears without notice from Ohtori. Anthy, having broken the last ties between herself and her abusers, leaves... to search for Utena. Who is apparently not dead and out there somewhere. Missing or dead, Utena has still succeeded in bringing about the World Revolution that the student council wanted the Rose Bride for, if by the world you mean Ohtori Academy... which doesn't seem too different from the way most of the characters see it. With no Rose Bride, the duels are over, Akio is powerless, and Ohtori will never be the same.