edit: oh I see where I said winner and loser.

You're right. I guess I don't know a better shorthand way to say, "At the denouement - regardless of whether it is a single line, joke, beat, scene or whole narrative - rising tension and falling tension is resolved with an outcome for two characters in which the outcome is given meaning by that resolution having different values which affect the situation those characters reside in"

edit2: with the exception of pure word play, exposition, etc...