Current Events > Are there any shows where the bad guy protagonist actually wins?

(+) Yeah! (+)

All these shows - Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Dexter etc. - it's a pretty inevitable descent into madness and everything falling apart. I can't think of any where the guy has a decisive victory at the end and lives happily ever after as a gangster or whatever.
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Breaking Bad is a bit iffy.
Spoilers: He died but like he died on his terms. At the last two episodes I think he was going to end up being an outcast, having no legacy etc which he could handle I think. The problem was that he was dying and abandoning his family and his life was out of his hands. Then he snaps and wins. At least I consider it a bad guy winning: has giant criminal empire, becomes the ego he desires, fails then picsk up like nothing else happened and died on his own terms more or less

The Wire, kind of
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The Tudors

Something about Star Wars just makes me want the Empire to win and crush those douche bag rebels. Trying to romanticize the whole struggle makes me want to puke.
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The Matrix. Neo successfully brokers a deal that allows humans to leave the Matrix if they so choose.
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No kidding, I think Death Note would have been a much better story if it ended in Light's favour.
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pinky0926 posted...

No kidding, I think Death Note would have been a much better story if it ended in Light's favour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE6beI7AVc4

Zikten posted...

pinky0926 posted...

No kidding, I think Death Note would have been a much better story if it ended in Light's favour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE6beI7AVc4

This was good, and just reminded me of Rurouni Kenshin and Shishio. That's exactly how his ending finished.
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pinky0926 posted...

No kidding, I think Death Note would have been a much better story if it ended in Light's favour.

I don't. It was so much better to have tragic descent into madness and failure. It was an incredible emotional ride. I loved it. Light winning would have been out of theme.
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ending for Death Note was so bad. The entire thing is this back and forth between L and Light where Light is just scrambling to stay one step ahead of L (who is rapidly closing the gap), and then it just sort of ends when Near is a step ahead of Light. It's so anticlimactic. Light is just doing so well for the most part until one day he's not.
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I loved Breaking Bad, but I've discussed with friends before about what an interesting ending it would have been for the finale of S4 to be the series finale. (In this hypothetical, it would be because they chose to end it there and everyone knew it would be ending there, so it wouldn't have been cancelled)

Walt wins. Sure, he wins against a "badder" antagonist, but your last exposure to him is the revelation that he was actually the one who poisoned Brock. Definitely interesting, but I think that people would be upset that he never was caught, etc.
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Code Geass
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Hannibal, kind of.

The ending implies Hannibal survived, but it's rather ambiguous
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thompsontalker7 posted...

Code Geass

Yeah! It's been a while. But Lelouche is one of my favorite characters ever.

That part where he guesses an ENTIRE conversation with his brother and turns out to be a recording, then shows up behind him? What!

I kind of forgot the ultimate ending though. Been years.
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