Let Losers Win

I take great issue with the perennial loser.  This is the character that, no matter what, will never win anything ever.  He (and it's always a he) is often portrayed as having a heart of gold or being a likable guy or having some other redeeming quality that makes it ok for him to fail miserably at everything and never seem to get bothered by it.  But no person has these qualities.  Anybody who fails at everything they try either gives up trying or kills themselves (though, theoretically, they would fail at that, too).

Losers have to win.  They don't even have to do it all the time.  The character JD from 'Scrubs' is a total loser, but even they let him win every now and then.  Sometimes he beat the Janitor at one of his antagonistic mind games.  He on occasion gets laid or has a girlfriend.  These are important.  They shake up the status quo.  They let the audience know that anything is possible.  They also make the character human, which allows us to grow more strongly attached.

I think the absolute best example of a great cat and mouse relationship is from the TV show 'Invader Zim'.  Amazingly, it beat out Tom and Jerry, which is an actual cat and mouse pair.  The basic premise of the show is that Zim is an alien who was sent to infiltrate Earth, learn everything about humans, then conquer their world.  Zim's antagonist is a boy named Dib, who is the only person that realizes Zim is an alien and tries almost constantly to prove it and thwart Zim's plans.

Now, this is a serial cartoon, so obviously Zim is never going to conquer the world.  That part is unavoidable.  However, the show does not run the same premise in every episode.  It is not simply about Zim creating a plan and Dib stopping it.  Sometimes that is the case, but sometimes Dib hatches a plan to expose Zim.  Sometimes things happen involving completely different characters that have nothing to do with taking over the earth.  In any given episode, you could never guess what the end result would be.  Zim could hatch a plan and fail.  He might succeed.  Dib could hatch a plan and fail or succeed.  Some set of events may force them to work together, but even still they will try to harm each other in some way.  The scope and severity of actions is always fluctuating, as is their results.

If you have a character who you think is funny because he fails, think harder.  The very description is 1-dimensional.  The character will be the same.  Let life be more random.  Let fortune smile in some unpredictable way.  Let losers win, even if it's only so often.