"Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum" God, I Love That Name So Much.

"Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum" God, I love that name so much.

Ya Ever See That Trope Where:

The big bad guy's plan to destroy the world turns out to be unfeasible but he's still gonna, like, blow up a city? Like his plan was to blow up a city and that would somehow blow up the world but that's somewhat not gonna happen. Now the protags still have to rush to save the city because the bbg is still gonna through with it. Possibly with a withdrawal of resources now that the world isn't at risk.

Been thinking of this ever since your "Save The World" Tropetalk. Especially how the audience will often go "Well, there is no way they'll go through with it" when the world is at stake.

It's a common final stage of bossfights! Our heroes enact a complex multistage collaborative plan to foil the villains' overarching scheme, but after that succeeds they still need to escape the exploding base or have one final fight on a crumbling catwalk or some similarly dramatic final encounter with their personal survival at stake. It can actually be narratively higher-stakes than the Saving The World part, because once our heroes have ensured the world is saved, the narrative doesn't need them to survive to the end, so it's technically possible for them to go out in a phyrric victory.

The crumbling of their machinations can lead to a Villainous Breakdown. When the villain's defeat leads to the base exploding as the final threat, that's a Load-Bearing Boss. When the villain actively chooses to initiate one last dangerous confrontation even though their overarching plans were foiled, that's Taking You With Me. A villain who wanted to rule the world but will now settle for destroying it might initiate a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum.