A Question About Evil in Animation?

Do you mean at the end of the series? Or victories throughout the series?

David Xanatos won far more often than he lost in "Gargoyles."

Megatron in "Beast Wars" scored a number of victories.

The Fire Nation won quite a bit during "Avatar: The Last Airbender."

This is of course done to prevent Villain Decay.
 
Well, this didn't have a story, per se, but in the "Night on Bald Mountain" segment of Disney's Fantasia, Chernabog (the devil) was the personification of evil, and was never defeated by anyone in the segment, if that counts.
 
I don't know if this counts, either, but in Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983), Bad Pete (formerly Peg Leg Pete) appears as the Ghost of Christmas Future. He isn't defeated because he basically represents a force which can't be defeated: death itself.
 
In the animated series for Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Zoltan and his gang hadn't been defeated after they basically took over the world in the second season.

Reboot also ended with Megabyte having scored a major victory at the end of season 2 when ABC cancelled the series. I know the series continued in Canada (and ultimately on Cartoon Network), but for a LONG period, the S2 finale stood as the series finale.
 
Evil usually gains a bit of a foot-hold, but in the long run, good usually comes out on top, except in stories that are made to be horribly depressing, where there are no real heroes at all, or where everybody suffers and dies brutally.
 
Not earth shattering victories, but:

- Pokemon: Jesse of Team Rocket has actually won some Pokemon Contests.
- Superman The Animated Series: In "Two's A Crowd" Parasite got cable television for aiding Superman. Though I suppose Darkseid gets a victory in Legacy. Not conquering the Earth, but damaging Superman's reputation.
- Teddy Ruxpin: I believe in the finale, Quellor successfully regain one of the crystals from the title character.
 
You mean the Shen Gong Wu? Yeah, he did, and there was at least one or two episodes where he successfully reclaimed all the Shen Gong Wu from the heroes, which they only managed to reclaim one or two before the end of the episode (though sometimes they reclaimed some offscreen, but usually this table-turn was kept for a few episodes).

Speaking of talismans, there were a few early episodes of Jackie Chan Adventures where the bad guys got that week's talisman before Jackie could (which eventually led to them getting all the talismans by the end of the first season and temporarily reviving Shendu.

IIRC, Dr. Robotnik in SatAM won several times over the short run of the series. Hell, he won before the first episode.
 
In an episode of Futurama titled "Less Than Hero", a super villain called The Zookeeper kidnaps Leela's parents and uses them to blackmail the New Justice Team (Fry, Leela and Bender) to steal the Quantum Gemrald for him. They do and The Zookeeper isn't brought to justice by the episode's end.
 
In the 8th Season premiere of the original TMNT series (The first Red Sky episode), Shredder succeeds in blowing up the Channel 6 building, and then getting away in the end of the episode. Had Splinter not resorted to destroying property to unlock the door (something he detested), the entire News Crew would have been killed in the explosion, so that kind of counts of as a victory for Shredder in causing his enemy to do something he loathes.
 
There was a Disney short made during World War II based on Chicken Little that ended with Foxy Loxy eating all the chickens in the barnyard.

Also, I remember a Jimmy Two-Shoes episode that ended with Misery Inc making everyone miserable and Jimmy sinking in water..."Catalouge of Misery", I think.
 
If we mention some cases of "Close but no cigar". In Goldorak/Grendizer episode 7. Gorman(Janus) almost defeated Duke Fleed if he wasn't betrayed by general Blackie(Hydargos). A similar plotline (who was written by the same scenarist) happened later in episode 53, when Dantus's remote controlled big saucer monster almost destroyed Grendizer until he was also betrayed by Zuril (Horos) and Minos.
 
Heck, for about a minute, the Turtles seriously thought the Channel 6 team WAS dead. So it was also a victory in that he proved to them that they should've been taking him seriously all those years rather than making a joke out of him. He pretty much redeemed his role as a serious villain right there.

And, while I haven't seen all of the Red Sky episodes, I think the destruction of the Channel 6 building made the Turtles' lives difficult even AFTER Shredder was finally defeated. Following that event, the Turtles were labeled as public enemies by Burne Thompson, causing everyone to lose trust in them, which made Lord Dregg's plan go smoother than it would've if the Turtles were able to convince the civilians of his deception. Not to mention that April had to struggle as a freelance reporter for the rest of the series. So Shredder's victory in that one episode made everyone's lives incredibly difficult for several years/nearly unknowingly caused a successful alien invasion. It was a huge victory psychologically, even if he didn't physically win anything other than the destruction of a(n evacuated) skyscraper.
 
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