Does my protagonist *have* to succeed?

Question

I'm thinking about a YA dystopian novel and have planned it quite thoroughly. However, when I look back, the antagonists tend to always be a few steps ahead of my protagonist, and my protagonist is always *just* too late to stop the antagonist. This happens multiple times during my novel, and even at the end, my protagonist fails to achieve his main goal (but he *does* wound one of the antagonists fatally).In the sequels I've planned (if my novel is a hit), the protagonists still keep on failing, only ever winning the final battle of the series (so they continually fail but win the most important battle).My question: Is this bad? Should I make my protagonist triumph fully at the end of the book?

Answer 1

It's a balancing act. If it's planned as and explicitly is a series, then there does need to be a hook into the next part of the story. But there does need to be enough success that the protagonist--and, vicariously, the readers--can have some hope of resolution.