Some villains lose because they didn’t think their plans through. Others lose because they’re simply inferior to the hero, while some lose to the power of friendship and glee as they’re too evil to possibly fathom things like love and affection. Then there are these villains. Villains who have a plan, execute their plan, and have only one person in the way of said plan.

The easy solution is to kill the person, but for some reason…they don’t. Not until it’s too late to matter. There’s no rhyme or reason either, as the villain will try to kill the hero later and will kill others along the way. The villains imply loses because of a momentary lapse of intelligence and ruthlessness it seems.

The White Witch (Chronicles of Narnia)

The White Witch is the wicked dictator of Narnia, covering it in eternal winter and endless snow. She knows via prophecy that the two sons of adam and the two daughters of eve lead to her downfall, and intelligently enough, she acts on it. The White Witch actively seeks out one of them (Edmund, the youngest brother who’s kind of a prick) and entices him to her side. She uses Edmund, gives him candy and gets him to betray his brother and sisters, all for a short-lived victory of eventually killing Aslan…who resurrects as a Jesus Lion would (like who didn’t predict that? And why didn’t she know the rules of the ritual she was using?).

The thing is, all of this is unnecessary because if she just kills Edmund, the prophecy is now defunct and she’s no longer fated to lose. A simple swing of her sword, or even just turning him to stone and shattering him, or feeding him to her wolves or other soldiers, ends it all.

Why waste time bringing him to your side, when his death literally ensures your victory? She chose the hardest path and it came back and frost-bit her in the ass.

Obadiah Stane (Iron Man)

Obadiah Stane wanted to take over the Stark’s business (accelerated by Tony’s want to move away from weaponry) and he wanted to get Tony’s Iron Man suit and the technology that went with it. He got both of these in the movie Iron Man, along with a handy piece of tech that paralyzes and incapacitates Tony so he can just walk out with it.

But that’s the problem, he just walks out. He doesn’t stop for an extra second to make sure Tony, the only one who can stop him (to his knowledge) is dead, nor does he do anything to ensure that Tony can’t fight against him later. All it’d take is an extra second, a pull of a trigger, a few minutes with a pillow, a quick use of a knife, and Stane wins. Instead he lets Stark live and take him down in the usual plucky-hero-with-a-come-from-behind-win story, but with power armor instead of sports. And the problem wasn’t that Stane wasn’t willing to kill him…he left Tony without a heart when he took the arc reactor. He just wasn’t smart enough to finish the job.

Damien Darhk (Arrow)

Damien Darhk is a telekinetic, former League of Assassin member who tosses around people with a wave of his hand. He fights Arrow a half a dozen times if not more, and always wins by simply yahtzee’ing him with his mind/hand/magic and carrying on with his business. Thing is…Damien has no reason to do any of that.

In other episodes, Damien Darhk has stopped trucks and snapped people’s necks with a mere gesture, and they were far less troublesome that Arrow is to him. Literally all Damien had to do (before Arrow pulled a typical hero moment and became immune to his powers) was move his hand a different way, and his arrow problem was solved forever.