Ozymandias' victory was more water-tight than you think.
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00:00While the hero doesn't always come out on top in movies, it's generally made abundantly
00:04clear when the bad guy wins, right?
00:07Well, every so often, movies get a little bit more sly and subtle about the villain's
00:12victory, perhaps because they don't want to downplay the hero's successes or make
00:16the movie a pure downer.
00:18Yet all the same, and following up on our last video on the subject, I'm Ewan, this
00:22is WhatCulture, and here are 8 more movie villains you didn't realise actually won.
00:288.
00:29Robert Callahan – Big Hero 6
00:31Big Hero 6's villain is a masked man known as Yo-Kai, later revealed to be Professor
00:36Robert Callahan, played by the always brilliant James Cromwell, who faked his death as part
00:41of a revenge plot against tech madney Alistair Cray, Alan Tudyk.
00:45And though Callahan is ultimately arrested at the end of the movie, he straight up accomplished
00:49everything that he set out to do.
00:51He obliterated Cray's HQ by reactivating the teleportation portal, and most importantly,
00:57he got his daughter Abigail back, who disappeared while working as a test pilot on one of Cray's
01:01portal experiments.
01:02All in all, a few years in jail for executing his plan as intended is probably a pretty
01:08acceptable trade-off for Callahan, especially as he rescued his beloved daughter.
01:13It's just a shame that the plan inadvertently led to the death of protagonist hero's older
01:17brother Tadashi, which Callahan at least expresses regret for.
01:22Even so, the outcome for Callahan was absolutely a net positive.
01:267.
01:27Azog the Defiler – The Hobbit – The Battle of the Five Armies
01:31In Peter Jackson's less-than-necessary Hobbit trilogy, Ark War Chief Azog the Defiler's
01:36plan was to wipe out the male bloodline of Durin by killing Thorin Oakenshield and his
01:41nephews Fili and Kili, and in the third film, The Battle of the Five Armies, he absolutely
01:47succeeds.
01:48Sure, Azog also dies during his final battle on the ice with Thorin, but it's certainly
01:52anything but a victory for the Dwarven King, who also perishes from his wounds moments
01:59later.
02:00This was Azog's personal quest from the outset of the trilogy.
02:03He took an oath and, damn it, he followed through, even at the cost of his own life.
02:08And while the films might brush it under the carpet in pursuit of a more triumphant, crowd-pleasing
02:12climax, Azog totally succeeded in wiping out Thorin's bloodline, just as he swore he
02:18would.
02:19If that's not winning, then what is?
02:236. Freddy Krueger, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, The Dream Master
02:27Though it's fair to say that Robert England's Freddy Krueger just loves to torment young
02:31folk through their dreams, his wider operating goal since the start of the series has been
02:36to kill off the children of the parents who banded together and killed them in revenge
02:40for murdering 20 local children all those years ago.
02:44And in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, The Dream Master, Freddy finally follows through with
02:48his quest, killing the so-called last of the Elm Street children, Kristen Parker, who
02:53was burned to death midway through the movie.
02:56Kristen herself even hammers the point home by telling Freddy moments before her demise
03:00that she is the last.
03:02And while the series of course continued on for many more installments, by the franchise's
03:07midway point, Freddy had effectively accomplished his main mission.
03:11The rest of the souls he claims after that point are just gravy, basically, and no matter
03:16how many times he's defeated in the subsequent movies, nobody can take away from him the
03:20fact that he killed all of the original Elm Street children.
03:245.
03:25President Snow, The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2
03:28Granted, there aren't many movie villains who get ripped apart by an angry mob and can
03:32still genuinely claim to coming out on top.
03:35But The Hunger Games' President Snow, Donald Sutherland, is no ordinary villain.
03:40Though Snow is murdered by a rabble of irate citizens in Mockingjay Part 2, this comes
03:45at the end of a long, successful, and enriched life.
03:49He got to live many, many decades as the autocratic ruler of Panem, and through Katniss' actions,
03:56not only avoids an official, formal execution, he also gets to see his nemesis, President
04:02Coin, get murdered by her before he dies.
04:05Even accepting Snow's own brutal death, he literally goes out laughing, knowing that
04:10he managed to talk Katniss into killing his enemy, robbing her of the power she so desperately
04:15craved before he himself was finished off.
04:18It may be a pyrrhic victory for Snow, but it's a victory nonetheless.
04:234.
04:24Terrence Fletcher, Whiplash Whiplash seemingly ends with jazz drummer
04:29Andrew Nyman, played by a career-best Miles Teller, triumphing over his abusive former
04:34instructor Terrence Fletcher, J.K.
04:36Simmons, by leading the band in a mesmerising performance of the jazz standard caravan.
04:41This is despite Fletcher's attempts to publicly embarrass him by having the band
04:45first play a song that Andrew doesn't know.
04:49However, even beyond the debates about whether Andrew pushed himself too far in the pursuit
04:53of greatness, didn't Fletcher ultimately get what he really wanted?
04:58His own Charlie Parker.
04:59A few scenes earlier, Fletcher laments to Andrew that despite his efforts, he was never
05:03able to mould his own Charlie Parker, a genuine musical prodigy formed by his harsh, if we're
05:10being kind, methods.
05:12But with Andrew's stunning final performance, Fletcher finally got it.
05:16Andrew may think he was the real winner by subverting Fletcher's plan to embarrass
05:19him on stage, but all it did was push Andrew to give the best rendition of his life and
05:24fulfil Fletcher's own twisted ambition.
05:283.
05:29Richmond Valentine, Kingsman The Secret Service
05:32Now to be completely fair, Kingsman's villain Richmond Valentine, Samuel L. Jackson, absolutely
05:38did not want to die at the end, but all the same, he was ultimately far more successful
05:44in pulling off his population-curbing plan than the movie's ending or its sequel would
05:48have you believe.
05:50Valentine's hilariously over-the-top scheme involved giving away free SIM cards to everyone
05:54on Earth before transmitting a signal which would turn them murderously violent, all in
05:59the pursuit of whittling down the population and stemming global warming.
06:03We see a brief display of this potential in Valentine Activates a Signal in the third
06:08act, causing absolute chaos around the world until the signal is stopped.
06:13People instantly start fighting and killing each other, with even parents, including Eggsy's
06:18own mother, trying to kill their own kids.
06:21And yet, director Matthew Vaughn kind of glosses over the fallout at the end of the film, no
06:25matter that surely millions, even tens of hundreds of millions of people would have
06:30been killed globally, especially the young, old and vulnerable.
06:35Even with the signal only being active for such a short time, Valentine likely wiped
06:39out a decent portion of the world's population.
06:422.
06:43Ozymandias, Watchmen
06:44Plenty of spirited debate, shall we say, about whether Ozymandias is Watchmen's true villain
06:50or not, but you know, the guy kinda sorta murders 15 million people in his quest to
06:56unite the world against a common enemy, Doctor Manhattan.
06:59And that's not exactly heroic.
07:01There's absolutely a cruel, perverse logic to his actions, which are at least initially
07:06shown to completely succeed.
07:09The world does unite together, Manhattan is exiled from Earth, and the single dissenting
07:15hero, Rorschach, is even killed by Manhattan on his way out of the door.
07:21Some will point to the film's final scene, where Rorschach's journal ends up in the
07:24hands of a New York tabloid, as proof that Ozymandias' ruse will eventually be exposed.
07:30But think about it, who's gonna believe it?
07:32The scrawlings of a deranged vigilante have considerably less credibility than a retired
07:37superhero-turned-businessman, especially when published by a cranky, paranoid tabloid.
07:42As such, it's incredibly likely that humanity at large would posthumously dismiss Rorschach
07:47as a fringe lunatic conspiracy theorist, and Ozymandias wouldn't face any major repercussions
07:53for his actions.
07:54He won in pretty much every way that matters.
07:571.
07:58Khan Noonien Singh – Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan
08:02Ricardo Montalban's iconic villain, Khan Noonien Singh, may not survive the events
08:07in the greatest Star Trek movie, Wrath of Khan, but he nevertheless fulfils his primary
08:12objective.
08:13To, in his own words, do something far worse than kill Captain Kirk – hurt him, and hurt
08:19him bad.
08:20Khan's actions end up severely damaging the Enterprise, in turn causing Spock's
08:25sacrificial death, and in Kirk's quest to resurrect Spock in the third film, also leads
08:30to the death of Kirk's son, David.
08:33On top of that, the precious Genesis device is destroyed, a ton of Starfleet personnel
08:38are dead, and because Kirk kills Klingon Kruger, Christopher Lloyd, in the third movie's
08:44climax, Klingons now hate him forevermore.
08:52And yeah, that's a big old mess that Khan created for Kirk, and consequently, a lot
08:57of pain even long after Khan himself is dead.
09:01Khan cuts Kirk, and he cuts him deep.
09:04No matter that he didn't actually kill the guy, instead he left him to live and experience
09:09the full feeling of his pain.
09:11And those were 8 more movie villains you didn't realise actually weren't.
09:15Any villains you feel secretly handed a big fat L to their opponents in a given film?
09:19Shout them out down in the comments below!
09:21Don't forget to drop the video a like if you enjoyed it, and subscribe to the channel
09:24so you don't miss another upload.
09:25Either way, thank you all for watching, I've been Ewan, this has been WhatCulture, and
09:29I will hopefully catch you next time.
09:31Bye!