Winning By Doing Nothing?

[Moonface]

I already forgot what made me think of this despite only thinking of it like half an hour ago, but what are instances in media where if the protagonist (or antagonist if there's somehow an example of that) was to have pulled a Luigi and done nothing, they would've ended up coming out on top?

The best example I can think of is Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. The movie ends with the Nazi's opening the ark and all dying as a result, which would've happened even if Indy wasn't even present or even been involved in trying to find the ark. I forget where exactly it gets opened but it never seemed to be anywhere of note, so would anyone have even known it was there to go collect it? Furthermore, everybody present (except Indy and Marion) basically melts like the wicked witch of the west so there might not even be any evidence of what happened from opening the ark, so if more Nazi's came to get the thing there's a high chance they'd just suffer the same fate. Indy being present helps the ark be put into secure storage but if no one knew where the ark had been taken and it's in nowhere of note then surely that's just as good?

[Kyng]

I think most race-winners in Wacky Races fall into this category.

The series mainly focuses on Dick Dastardly and his schemes to sabotage the other racers. Dastardly is often way in the lead when he does this (if he wasn't, he wouldn't be in a position to try and stop the others!), but his schemes always fail, and he ends up losing.

Whoever wins the race just ends up inheriting the win - because Dastardly would've won easily had he not hatched his silly plans to stop everyone else!

[ShiraNoMai]

Wacky Races is a pretty solid example of that I actually feel like there's more cases of villain doing nothing and winning than hero, contrary to Moony's belief. Particularly cartoon villains that tend to cause their own demises more often than just existing quietly while the hero falls on their face anyway.

I'm sure there's a SpongeBob episode like that, where the Krusty Krab gets bent way out of shape when they notice Plankton isn't coming to steal the formula. :think:

[Moonface]

I think most race-winners in Wacky Races fall into this category.

The series mainly focuses on Dick Dastardly and his schemes to sabotage the other racers. Dastardly is often way in the lead when he does this (if he wasn't, he wouldn't be in a position to try and stop the others!), but his schemes always fail, and he ends up losing.

Whoever wins the race just ends up inheriting the win - because Dastardly would've won easily had he not hatched his silly plans to stop everyone else!

Dang, I haven't thought about Wacky Races in forever but this is a really good one. Even better, I looked up if anyone had recorded the results of every race and turns out that except for Dick Dastardly, every other racer has won either 4 or 3 races each. It makes me wonder if he didn't screw himself over constantly if he would actually have the most wins of any racer, or even outright dominate the field.


@ShiraNoMai: You bringing up villains more often being applicable to this thread than heroes got me thinking of Disney villains and how many of them would have won by not focusing purely on the hero. Some like Shan Yu in Mulan were doomed no matter what I think, but one I can't decide on at all is Hades from Hercules. His whole reason for trying to get rid of Hercules is because he is explicitly told his plans will fail if Hercules shows up, so in his mind doing nothing is dooming himself to failure; however, let's say he does choose to ignore Hercules. While Hercules would retain his super strength, if Meg never dies for Hercules to go save her then he never gets his godly status back, and Meg only dies trying to save Hercules after Hades takes away his strength. It's just hard to say for sure because it could be that Hercules showing up in any capacity is enough to ruin Hades' plan to overthrow Olympus, but if Hades makes it to Olympus then he's home free because Hercules isn't allowed up there without his godly status.