History Main / GambitPileup

* ''{{Bleach}}''. Oh my GOD Bleach. To be fair, as of present only [[spoiler:Urahara and Aizen]] seem to be going all-out, but EVERYONE seems to have their fingers in a pie and a secret to keep, even [[spoiler:Ichigo's [[ObfuscatingStupidity secretly]] [[Really700YearsOld shinigami]] [[BumblingDad father]]]]. And everyone does seem to be jumping in with an 'ah-hah, but you weren't expecting THIS!' This pileup first appeared in the Seireitei arc. And it's STILL GETTING WORSE. Ichigo and his TrueCompanions seem to be the only ones without some type of ulterior motive...

* The GambitPileup is basically the sum total of ''AlloAllo''. It's nine seasons of at least four groups trying to steal ''one'' painting and several other plot {{MacGuffin}}s.

** ''ExitFate'''s plot effectively starts out as a XanatosRoulette on the part of the [[spoiler:Almengan Emperor]] and it just builds on from there. Plus, with seventy-five playable characters, a good portion of your group will be throwing their own hats into the ring.

* ''{{Naruto}}'' has slowly fallen into this: from Orochimaru, to Madara, to Danzo, to the villages it seems that backroom scheming is the ''only'' [[HighlyVisibleNinja ninja activity]] that the characters are good at. In short, Sasuke was being manipulated by Orochimaru who was being manipulated by Itachi (who himself manipulated Naruto) who was being manipulated by Danzo who was being manipulated by Madara. Then Kabuto come out of nowhere for his own scheme, but the readers are uncertain if he is Kabuto or Orochimaru (or ''[[FusionDance both]]''). The Kabuto manipulates Madara by threatening him with a mysterious sixth coffin [[spoiler:Which contained the real (dead) Madara, meaning the guy posing as Madara was an imposter.]] Which means that [[spoiler:Tobi, whoever he is, manipulated the whole ninja world into a war by using Madara's name.]] Yikes. Naruto's Spanner is getting larger and more dangerous by the moment, but who knows whose gears it will clog?

* ''{{Naruto}}'' has slowly fallen into this: from Orochimaru, to Madara, to Danzo, to the villages it seems that backroom scheming is the ''only'' [[HighlyVisibleNinja ninja activity]] that the characters are good at. In short, Sasuke was being manipulated by Orochimaru who was being manipulated by Itachi (who himself manipulated Naruto) who was being manipulated by Danzo who was being manipulated by Madara. Then Kabuto come out of nowhere for his own scheme, but the readers are uncertain if he is Kabuto or Orochimaru (or ''[[FusionDance both]]''). The Kabuto manipulates Madara by threatening him with a mysterious sixth coffin [[spoiler:Which contained the real (dead) Madara, meaning the guy posing as Madara was an imposter.]] Which means that [[Tobi manipulated the whole ninja world into a war by using Madara's name.]] Yikes. Naruto's Spanner is getting larger and more dangerous by the moment, but who knows whose gears it will clog?

* ''{{Naruto}}'' has slowly fallen into this: from Orochimaru, to Madara, to Danzo, to the villages it seems that backroom scheming is the ''only'' [[HighlyVisibleNinja ninja activity]] that the characters are good at. In short, Sasuke was being manipulated by Orochimaru who was being manipulated by Itachi (who himself manipulated Naruto) who was being manipulated by Danzo who was being manipulated by Madara. Then Kabuto come out of nowhere for his own scheme, but the readers are uncertain if he is Kabuto or Orochimaru (or ''[[FusionDance both]]''). Naruto's Spanner is getting larger and more dangerous by the moment, but who knows whose gears it will clog?

* ''FullmetalAlchemist'' gave 4 good guy {{Chessmaster}}s 6 months to plan against the BBEG's culmination of a XanatosRoulette that began by founding an entire nation that is bigger than any other in the setting currently. The number of smart and powerful pieces and tools each side has boggles the mind. And throughout all of this the various parties are all trying to maintain good PR on themselves, leading one set of protagonists to claim they support TheDragon in an attempt to protect themselves.

* ''{{Bleach}}''. Oh my GOD Bleach. To be fair, as of present only [[spoiler:Urahara and Aizen]] seem to be going all-out, but EVERYONE seems to have their fingers in a pie and a secret to keep, even [[spoiler:Ichigo's [[ObfuscatingStupidity secretly]] [[Really700YearsOld shinigami]] [[BumblingDad father]]]]. And everyone does seem to be jumping in with an 'ah-hah, but you weren't expecting THIS!' This pileup first appeared in the Seireitei arc. And it's STILL GETTING WORSE. Ichigo and his {{nakama}} seem to be the only ones without some type of ulterior motive...

* As of ''{{Durarara}}'''s 8th volume, the following groups and organizations are or have been involved in Izaya's crazy little MobWar: the Dollars, the Yellow Scarves, Blue Square, Saika's blade-wielding zombie army, the {{Yakuza}}, TheMafiya, an American {{Megacorp}} interested in research on the supernatural and a Saitama biker gang. There are at least three other {{Chessmaster}}s or wannabe-Chessmasters besides Izaya trying to steer things towards their own interests, and about half a dozen WildCard characters that can make or break alliances at a moment's notice. So far, the only thing guaranteed is complete and absolute chaos.

* ''[=~Dissidia: Final Fantasy~=]'': Is it really surprising that when you force ten villains to work together, each with egos and [[SuperWeight powers]] larger than life, and all of them very high-ranked on the scales of [[SlidingScaleOfVillainThreat threat]] and [[SlidingScaleOfVillainEffectiveness effectiveness]] in their own games, that they won't always work together? The Emperor is a textbook [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]], the mastermind of the game's plot with his own secret goal to [[AGodAmI become a god]]. Ultimecia is his second-in-command and goes along with him while harboring her own scheme to become a god in her own way. Meanwhile Golbez goes along with them because he's the ReverseMole and thus is banking on Cosmos' BatmanGambit to work and stop them. Cloud of Darkness, Exdeath and Kefka go along with the plan with the desire to [[OmnicidalManiac destroy everything]], and in the meantime Kefka is working on a plan to invoke a FaceHeelTurn in Terra. The Emperor and Ultimecia try to cut Sephiroth in on their plan, but he rejects them because he has his own secret plan to become a god as well. Kuja tries to interfere with Ultimecia's plan for Squall [[EvilIsPetty to snub her for insulting him]] under the advice of Kefka, who is probably [[ForTheEvulz just messing with them for kicks]]. Jecht is going along with the Emperor's plan because he's the Emperor's UnwittingPawn who has been lied to. And Garland is watching it all unfold knowing that in the end ''his'' plan for Chaos will continue regardless of what they do because he's TheFatalist and doesn't believe any of their plans will amount to stopping the GroundhogDayLoop everyone is stuck in.

* HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality features at least '''''[[BeyondTheImpossible seventy five]]''''' plots during the final battle, though not all of them are actually depicted. Especially notable is the presence of a quintuple agent who thinks he's a quadruple agent in a game with only three sides.

* {{Cypher}}: Or [[BeyondTheImpossible "How many layers of plots can we fit in a single movie?"]]

** Every film in Wild Things series strives to go [[BeyondTheImpossible beyond the impossible]] to make each plot twenty times more convoluted and confusing than the previous film's. Chances are, if you are the protagonist, the antagonist, the victim, a background character... hell, if you're ''in the film'', you are in on the scheme and may be weaving some [[XanatosRoulette incredibly complex plans]] of your own. If there are two things that "Wild Things" is known for, it's the incredibly sexy lesbian scenes, and this trope.

* ''Murder at the President's Lodging'' is a detective story where the murderer kills the unpopular President of the college and frames one of his colleagues. However, another colleague sees part of what happened, and assumes that a fourth colleague is the murderer, and that ''he'' is being framed. So he attempts to frame his suspect. Unfortunately, while doing this, his suspect is alerted, and leaps to the conclusion that the actual murderer is the guilty party and is responsible for this frame-up, and thus he attempts to [[FramingTheGuiltyParty frame the murderer.]] [[BeyondTheImpossible Except that the murderer's intended patsy has now become aware of some of the goings on and deduced that the initial witness is the murderer and attempting to frame the murderer, so of course the only thing to do is to frame his suspect.]]

* ''FullmetalAlchemist'' just gave 4 good guy chessmasters 6 months to plan against the BBEG's culmination of a Xanatos Roulette that began by founding an entire nation that is bigger than any other in the setting currently. The number of smart and powerful pieces and tools each side has boggles the mind. And throughout all of this the various parties are all trying to maintain good PR on themselves, leading one set of protagonists to claim they support TheDragon in an attempt to protect themselves.

* ''{{Bleach}}''. Oh my GOD Bleach. To be fair, as of present only [[spoiler:Urahara and Aizen]] seem to be going all-out, but EVERYONE seems to have their fingers in a pie and a secret to keep, even [[spoiler:Ichigo's [[ObfuscatingStupidity secretly]] [[Really700YearsOld shinigami]] [[BumblingDad father]]]]. And everyone does seem to be jumping in with an 'ah-hah, but you weren't expecting THIS!' This pileup first appeared in the Seireitei arc. And it's STILL GETTING WORSE. Ichigo and his nakama seem to be the only ones without some type of ulterior motive...

* KatekyoHitmanReborn has one during the future arc: All along, the readers were led to believe the whole reason they were in the future was because of Byakuran's machinations and Irie Shouchi was the root of all their problems [[spoiler:Except. Irie isn't their enemy but TYL!Tsuna's spy and the whole plan had been set up by him, Irie and the TYL!Hibari! It's all alright now because they had defeated the Six Funeral Wreaths and could finally - no wait, there's a REAL SET OF SIX FUNERAL WREATHS? The Mare Rings everyone else was wearing were fake? Turns out, Byakuran had hidden the real Six Funeral Wreaths from Shouchi, knowing Shouchi would betray the Millifiore. Then there's all these other plans finally unfolding and it looks like TYL!Mukuro has had a plan all along and Uni knew what would happen, knew that Byakuran was trying to use her and hid her heart away - only to appear in the nick of time at the end of the Choice battle, taking the pacifiers Byakuran so desperately needed. It's a Thirty Xantos Pileup with three main players ]] DOUBLE SPOILER [[spoiler:It is actually entirely Byakuran's gigantic XantosGambit b/c he is amazing like that ]]

* Cho-Katsu Komei from GiantRobo OVA continuity has, according to his backstory, once created this on ''purpose'' of his giant, incredibly convoluded XanatosGambit and the effect was such a huge mess that even his boss, Big Fire, ordered him to stop it all at once, because he has no idea what's goin on anymore. And OVA itself has few gambits playing on one another. And Komei claims it is all part of ''his'' plan all along.

* A {{Calvin and Hobbes}} Sunday strip features a game of football between the namesake characters, for the duration of which they reveal gambit after Xanatos gambit ad ridiculum, to great comedic effect; Calvin is a double-agent for the opposing team posing as a member of Hobbes's team, however Hobbes knew the whole time and secretly switched the location of their goals, etcetera etcetera. Naturally, it ended up turning into {{Calvinball}}.

* ''{{Snatch}}''. Made particularly amusing by the fact that [[spoiler:the only two characters who had absolutely no idea about the existence of the diamond that prompted so many characters to try and come up with so many {{Xanatos Gambit}}s are the ones who end up with it at the end.]]

** To expand the example: During the bulk of the film, there are three to four {{Xanatos Gambit}}s going on at any given moment. The rebels want the key to the secret passage that will let them attack the castle, the princess wants to marry for love, several nobles want more power by having other nobles assassinated, and there's a witch with hypnotic powers who just wants to stay alive. Unfortunately, due to said hypnotic powers, the protagonist is unaware of all but one of these for most of the film.

* ''{{Duplicity}}'' pretty much devolves into this. Their primary XanatosGambit requires an increasing number of sub-gambits [[spoiler:all of which are rendered moot by [[MagnificentBastard Howard Tully]]'s XanatosGambit that trumps them all]].

* The hapless main characters in ''StrangeDays'' find themselves dragged into the chaotic aftermath of what happens when several would-be {{Xanatos Gambit}}s have already started crashing into each other and spiralling way out of control.

* Many of the stories in the ''NightWatch'' series go like this; Gesar and Zabulon both want something and use their own {{Xanatos Gambit}}s to get it, generally while another villain is also trying to get what he wants, and while Anton is trying to figure out what the fuck is going on and is sometimes trying to use yet another gambit to achieve his goals, which may or may not just be helping Gesar achieve his, while researching or explaining all of the schemes that the Watches have used in the past, and the the Inquisition comes along and thing get even more confusing.

** The entirety of ''[[VorkosiganSaga The Warrior's Apprentice]]'' is ''built'' out of [[XanatosGambit Xanatos Gambits]]. Miles [[spoiler:starts out by convincing, under the effect of what is called 'creme de meth', a desperate jumpship pilot that he's looking for a few desperate men for his (imaginary) mercenary outfit. From there he recruits a military deserter, his personal sergeant and sergeant's daughter, and an even more desperate man trying to get weapons through a blockade of ''real'' mercenaries to his warring government (who turns out to be broke). Through sheer insane, lying chutzpah and a lot of luck, Miles manages to take over the ''entire fleet'', all 3,000 people of them, reverse the war, and get out alive with a profit, though he has to use most of it to pay off the debts he incurred by this excursion in the first place.]] And keep in mind, he's ''seventeen''.

* Most of {{Isaac Asimov}}'s works can be considered big Gambit Pileups. In fact, literally the entirety of his amalgamated universe (from ''The Complete Robot'' through the ''Empire'' series to ''Foundation and Earth'') tells the story of R. Daneel Olivaw's enormous plots to [[spoiler:aid humanity, going through planetary rebellions (a LOT of them), the foundation of an Empire that eventually collapses to make way for a Foundation plan, that itself makes way for a utopian Second Empire and the union of all minds in the galaxy. The entire timeline encompasses over 30,000 years of human history and requires more Xanatos Gambits than you can shake a stick at.]] Phew.

* If there are actually less than 30 different {{Xanatos Gambit}}s going by the various factions in the ''{{Wheel of Time}}'' series, I would be surprised. A partial list:

* Larry Niven has written about entire alien species who do nothing but run Xanatos Gambits;

* In ''Literature/BlackDogs'', The BigBad's XanatosGambit to manipulate his son's personality into becoming crueler and more evil (by repressing all his good and gentle qualities) backfires on him when the newer, eviller son plots another XanatosGambit to usurp his father and to cause him to be killed by his own demon.

* With characters like the Doctor and the Master facing off against one another, it's inevitable that ''Series/DoctorWho'' would have this happen now and then. An early example is ''The Evil of the Daleks'', which is largely made up of a series of interlocking Xanatos Gambits by the Doctor, Professor Waterfield, and the Dalek Emperor. Upon learning about that last one, a stunned Waterfield summarizes the basic idea in a sentence:

** Parodied till it snapped by "The Curse of the Fatal Death". To the point where the first part is nothing but {{Xanatos Gambit}}s being revealed. "I bribed the architect!"

** Also note that said SufficientlyAdvancedAliens have likely spent literally [[spoiler:''millions of years'' enacting {{Xanatos Gambit}}s against one another, using what by now probably amounts to hundreds of less advanced species as proxies in a war of ideas that essentially boils down to a dick-waving contest]].
** This actually leads to a rather brilliant WhamEpisode, culminating with [[spoiler:the less advanced races playing their ''own'' XanatosGambit against said SufficientlyAdvancedAliens, luring the two into a massive but pointless engagement to essentially prove the point that the galaxy would be better off without them]].

* Risk is ''nothing'' compared with ''{{Diplomacy}}'', which is designed to eliminate chance and rule manipulation in favor of seven players running {{Xanatos Gambit}}s of varying depth and complexity on each other at the same time, making for a mind-blowing maximum potential of a [[GambitPileup Forty Two Gambit Pileup]]. Not surprising, since the game is meant to reflect the RealLife GambitPileup that led to WorldWarOne (see below).

** Some players positively revel in the Xanatos gambit aspects and play a dizzying array of contradictory and/or complicated rules to cover what they're actually trying to get done.

** The SoulDrinkers chapter were involved in one of these right before their rebellion. An Administratum bureaucrat wanted a space station secured quickly, the Soul Drinkers wanted to reclaim their Chapter's holiest relic, the Adeptus Mechanicus wanted that same relic for back-engineering, and [[spoiler:Abraxes, Architect of Fate, Engineer of Time, Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, wanted someone to kill the Daemon Prince Ve'Meth for him]] -- and pretty much everyone was carrying the IdiotBall in the belief that everyone else was afraid of them. The fact that the Soul Drinkers were shortly declared Excommunicate Traitoris (which includes a shoot-on-sight mandate and the complete deletion of all records pertaining to them) demonstrates how arch-cosmologically it ''sucks'' to be in a position where all thirty of the {{Xanatos Gambit}}s are at your expense.

** As a general rule of thumb, any creature that has a lifespan greater than that of an average human being in ''{{Eberron}}'' is a {{Chessmaster}}. You have at least five entire organisations made up ''entirely'' of these. They don't get along. At least three of them are practically immortal and pull {{Xanatos Gambit}}s that can take ''centuries'' to unfold. One of them exists on another plane of existence where time is greatly slowed relative to the Material Plane, a fact they frequently use to spend ''weeks'' planning their next move while only a few hours pass in the real world. And if that's not bad enough, you've got the ''mortal'' {{Magnificent Bastard}}s to deal with, who may not have goals as lofty as complete cosmic domination but are still spinning their dangerous schemes none the less.

** Even then, they may all have been manipulated (and are possibly still being manipulated) by the Patriots, the Philosophers, [[spoiler:EVA]], or [[spoiler:Big Boss himself, in a posthumous XanatosGambit beginning in the very first MetalGear for the MSX.]] And one or several of these parties might even be manipulating the others into manipulating them.

** Reptor and Langobalt [[spoiler: killed the prince of Grandbell in order to sieze power, placing the blame on Sigurd's family. They mortally wound]] Vylon, Sigurd's father [[spoiler: who still manages to survive long enough to give the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Tyrfing]] to Sigurd, who resolves to storm Grandbell, expose the real traitors and crear his name.]] Meanwhile Andre or Jungby [[spoiler: killed his father to gain power, but decides to side with Langobalt since they have a mutual enemy in Sigurd]] Alvis [[spoiler: is siding with Reptor and Langobalt as well, but in reality he is just manipulating them. Manfroy is manipulating Alvis, through blackmail, and thus everyone, in order to further his Xantos Gambit to revive the Dark God Loptous. Alvis, however, has no intention of supporting his plans, and is simply working with him to eliminate Sigurd and become king so he can create a world free of prejudice.]] Unboknownst to him, however [[spoiler: his marriage to Princess Diadora was also part on Manfroy's plan, and they are in fact half-siblings.]] Meanwhile Cuan and Ethlin arrive to aid Sigurd, however, they are unaware that [[spoiler: Trabant, the jealous king of a neighbouring country has followed them, and intents to kill them and take their lands. He suceeds too, and also manages to take Cuan's 'Infinity Plus One Lance' and his infant daughter Altenna.]]

** To even further complicate things, [=FE5=] reveals that [[spoiler: Trabants attack on Cuan and Ethlin was all part of a Xantos Gambit by Veld, who in turn is just a pawn in Manfroy's Xantos Gambit.]]

* ''[=~Dissidia: Final Fantasy~=]'': Is it really surprising that when you force ten villains to work together, each with egos and [[SuperWeight powers]] larger than life, and all of them very high-ranked on the scales of [[SlidingScaleOfVillainThreat threat]] and [[SlidingScaleOfVillainEffectiveness effectiveness]] in their own games, that they won't always work together? The Emperor is a textbook [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]], the mastermind of the game's plot with his own secret goal to [[AGodAmI become a god]]. Ultimecia is his second-in-command and goes along with him while harboring her own scheme to become a god in her own way. Meanwhile Golbez goes along with them because he's the ReverseMole and thus is banking on Cosmos' XanatosGambit to work and stop them. Cloud of Darkness, Exdeath and Kefka go along with the plan with the desire to [[OmnicidalManiac destroy everything]], and in the meantime Kefka is working on a plan to invoke a FaceHeelTurn in Terra. The Emperor and Ultimecia try to cut Sephiroth in on their plan, but he rejects them because he has his own secret plan to become a god as well. Kuja tries to interfere with Ultimecia's plan for Squall [[EvilIsPetty to snub her for insulting him]] under the advice of Kefka, who is probably [[ForTheEvulz just messing with them for kicks]]. Jecht is going along with the Emperor's plan because he's the Emperor's UnwittingPawn who has been lied to. And Garland is watching it all unfold knowing that in the end ''his'' plan for Chaos will continue regardless of what they do because he's TheFatalist and doesn't believe any of their plans will amount to stopping the GroundhogDayLoop everyone is stuck in.

* The situation that the [[PlayerCharacter Jedi Exile]] wakes up to at beginning of ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic II: The Sith Lords'' is the direct result of the collision of two or three {{Xanatos Gambit}}s and a number of other people's plans and agendas. The Exile spends most of the rest of the game sorting some of these out.

* The ''Starcraft'' addon ''Brood War'' had ''at least'' Kerrigan, Mengsk, Fenix, Zeratul, Duran, Daggoth and the UED all play various [[{{XanatosGambit}} Xanatos Gambits]] against each other. The only ones who seem to be not playing XanatosGambit are Stukov and Raszhagal, and Stukov [[spoiler:subsequently gets killed as a result of Duran's first XanatosGambit against ''him'']], while Raszhagal [[spoiler:[[UnwittingPawn turns out to have been a victim of Kerrigan's manipulation and later mind-control from the very beginning]]]]. But to be fair, Stukov at least had some potential, he just didn't live long enough to play it off.

* Done to death in ''{{Duckman}}''. In one episode, while it is revealed that Duckman and Cornfed have been the unwitting pawns of a Xanatos Gambit by an ominous secret organization, the episode ends with one secret society after another viewing the events taking place in the previous organization's Evil Lair and declaring gleefully that "everything went just as planned". Cue evil laughter. [[MindScrew And ending, ultimately, with Mom, Dad, Sis, and Bro watching the events on TV.]]

* The whole point of ''WesternAnimation/AvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' seems to be how many {{Xanatos Gambit}}s they can fit into the show.

* ''Murder at the President's Lodging'' is a detective story where the murderer kills the unpopular President of the college and frames one of his colleagues. However, another colleague sees part of what happened, and assumes that a fourth colleague is the murderer, and that ''he'' is being framed. So he attempts to frame his suspect. Unfortunately, while doing this, his suspect is alerted, and leaps to the conclusion that the actual murderer is the guilty party and is responsible for this frame-up, and thus he attempts to [[FramingTheGuiltyParty frame the murderer.]] [[BeyondTheImpossible Except that the murderer's intended patsy has now become aware of some of the goings on and deduced that the initial witness is the murderer and attempting to frame the murderer, so of course the only thing to do is to frame his suspect.]]

* With characters like the Doctor and the Master facing off against one another, it's inevitable that ''Series/DoctorWho'' would have this happen now and then. An early example is "The Evil of the Daleks", which is largely made up of a series of interlocking Xanatos Gambits by the Doctor, Professor Waterfield, and the Dalek Emperor. Upon learning about that last one, a stunned Waterfield summarizes the basic idea in a sentence:

** The Doctor Who novel ''The Doctor Trap'' has the single greatest GambitPileup in human history.

** ''The Pandorica Opens'' has one of these that's still not completely resolved. Basically... The Doctor attempts to [[spoiler:manipulate the various aliens arrayed around Earth into leaving him alone so he can defeat whatever's in the Pandorica.]] But then it's revealed that [[spoiler:there is nothing in the Pandorica - the entire setup was a trap by those same aliens to imprison the Doctor in "the ultimate prison" so he can't destroy the multiverse.]] But since we as viewers know that the Doctor is NOT going to [[spoiler:destroy the multiverse]], this implies some [[TheChessmaster other]] faction that planted evidence and also [[spoiler:caused the TARDIS to blow up.]]

** There is a Whoniverse spinoff, FactionParadox. Time travel tech is easy to come by. Think you can alter the universe? ''[[HighOctaneNightmareFuel You're]] [[ParanoiaFuel welcome]] [[TemporalParadox to]] [[MindScrew try]], [[SchmuckBait gentlemen]].''
** The entire history of the Earth starts looking like this if you take the long view. The planet only exists because of the Racnoss trying to hide, evolution for the past 12 million years was planned by the Fendahl, humans won out over other hominids due to Daemon cullings and experiments (which also destroyed at least one Atlantis), Egyptian culture was guided by the Osirians, Inca culture was guided by the Exxilons, Saroth, last of the Jaggoroth manipulated our technological development to help us reach time travel, and from "fire and the wheel" until 1969, the [[spoiler: Silence]] were controlling our society to, among other things, develop space travel and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking wear business suits]]. Every week we learn of ''another'' comparatively minor event orchestrated by yet ''another'' alien species.
*** One wonders if there's an enterprising merchant somewhere giving out numbers, or if they're just very conscientious about not stepping on each others' toes, because to the best of our knowledge ''none'' of these thousands of independent major and minor Earth-guiding gambits have crashed into one another in any meaningful way.
*** Of course, when you take [[TimeyWimeyBall the nature of time travel in the show]] into account, it's possible that every single of those origins is true, but just not all at the same time.

A PsychologicalThriller is more likely to have one of these. Expect lots of IKnowYouKnowIKnow. Expect a lot of people to be OutGambitted, a lot of {{Unwitting Pawn}}s, and maybe someone to have the LastPlanStanding. Compare XanatosRoulette, where one person has an improbable plan that would only make sense if he/she is near omniscient. Also compare MultilayerFacade. Done well, strongly affirms TheVillainMakesThePlot.

* Spoofed in the ''{{Community}}'' episode "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design". The episode culminates in Jeff, Annie, a drama professor,and the Dean shooting all of each other with prop guns; all of them were shot at least once and there were something like 4-5 different plans involved.

** Planners include: Clow Reed, Fei Wong Reed[[hottip:*: the BigBad, who in and of himself creates so many overly complex gambits that even ''he'' gets confused]], Yuko Ichihara, Tsubasa "Syaoran Jr." Li, CardCaptorSakura Kinomoto, Ashura-O, Syaoran "Syaoran Sr." Li ([[spoiler:aka Cloney]]) and his wife Sakura Li, Tomoyo-Hime, Queen Nadeshiko and King Fujitaka ([[spoiler:before being RetGone'd]]), and probably several others offscreen. None of these people collaborated to any significant degree when planning their gambits, except ''maybe'' Clow and Yuko, who collaborated on the early and penultimate stage details and loose end tying. The rest was all independent {{Xanatos Roulette}}s crashing from all conceivable directions into one another. ''Diagrams are of absolutely no use here''.

** Remilia Scarlet plans to conquer the Moon, and teams up with Reimu and Marisa. [[spoiler:She doesn't realize that ''everyone is using her''. [[OrIsIt Maybe.]] It's hinted that she might just be bored and playing along.]] Likewise, Reimu is coming along to try out her Shinto God powers to power the Rocket through faith and duct tape.

* Like [[ASongOfIceAndFire the series of books]] it is adopted from, ''GameOfThrones'' is made of this trope. Everyone is scheming either to control the Iron Throne or fulfill their own agendas.

* The series ''{{A Song of Ice and Fire}}'' is nothing but one long GambitPileup, combining all of the characters' various {{Xanatos Gambit}}s and {{Xanatos Roulette}}s with an AnyoneCanDie setting.

* ''GameOfThrones'' is made of this trope. Everyone is scheming to control the Iron Throne.

[[folder:RealLife]]
* History. All of it.
* Politics in general.
* ImperialChina, especially...
** Seven Warring States Period. Centuries of war, with seven kingdoms all plotting endlessly against each other (it started with more than a hundred but was whittled down to seven near the end). Legendary military strategist Sun Tzu says in TheArtOfWar that the art of war is the art of deception. Is it any wonder that he lived during this time?
** Three Kingdoms Period. RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms is filled with stratagems and counterstratagems.
** Most of Imperial Chinese history is a DeadlyDecadentCourt filled with struggles between emperors, concubines, princes, nobles, eunuchs, peasant factions, and barbarian hordes. Fiction also throws in the likes of martial arts lodges, Shaolin monks, and sorcerers. Which may have something to do with the current state of the country. Western nations love to criticise it but it's probably the most stable government they've ever had.
* Renaissance Italy. It's no accident that the adjective "Machiavellian" is derived from the name of a [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]] [[TheObiWan mentor]] who lived during this time. Put families like the Borgias, Medicis, Sforzas, Valois, Habsburgs, Pazzis, Albizzis, Trastámaras and Osmans in a playground of a thousand city-states and you get a DeadlyDecadentCourt.
** The logical result of this craziness was the War of the League of Cambrai. For some context, no one in Europe seemed to like the Republic of Venice: people with a navy hated them for having a bigger one, people with money hated them for having more, Christians hated them for trading with Muslims,the list goes on. This came to a head with the League of Cambrai, which included pretty much every country in Europe, including but not limited to England, France, Spain, The Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Switzerland and the Pope. All of these folks and more attacked Venice all at once in what promised to be an utter CurbStompBattle. That's when things went crazy: Spain and Hungary grabbed some territory and left; England got sidetracked into a war with Scotland; France and the Papal States actually switched sides and together with Venice managed to beat the Swiss and the HRE. To make a long story short, all of Europe attacked one city...and [[EpicFail failed]].
* The Byzantine Empire was famous for political machinations that were, well, byzantine.
* The ThirtyYearsWar. The pileup was so humongous it fueled the war(s) for an ''unbroken'' period of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin three decades]].
* WorldWarOne. The entire conflict is essentially the result of a GambitPileup, with some of the plans having been in motion for several ''centuries'' beforehand.
** [[MagnificentBastard Otto von Bismarck]] arguably was the biggest manipulator of the bunch in Europe. Though he wasn't around for the pileup that was World War I, he was very accurate as to its root cause. In December 1897 he stated:
--->"One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans."
*** AdolfHitler was bound to happen after WWI (Foch said "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years."). Bismarck is really to blame for not planning ahead. His gambits were too complicated for anybody but himself to understand, let alone keep up.
*** Bismarck himself wasn't nearly as much to blame as Kaiser Wilhelm II, the one who derailed all of Bismarck's plans simply by being a complete moron and giving Austria-Hungary a blank check. Wilhelm took the carefully crafted schemes Bismarck set up to keep Russia friendly, France isolated, and Austria-Hungary defensive and threw all those out the window because they were too complicated for him. If anyone was Bismarck's SpannerInTheWorks it was Wilhelm.
*** Historians have argued that the constitution of the German Empire was perfectly designed for Bismarck (a dynamic Chancellor) and his Kaiser, an amiable underachiever. When those roles were reversed and a dynamic (though hardly brilliant) Kaiser was paired with a clueless Chancellor, the whole system blew up.
** As illustrated by [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/august-5-1914,10615/ this helpful Onion front page]]...
* The Spanish Civil War was fueled by this one, particularly on the Republican side (where Anarchists and Chekists frequently spent as much or more time fighting each other as the Falangists).
* When you put enough {{troll}}s in [[ImageBoard a small enough area]], this happens quite frequently. The trolls, all convinced they're the only actual troll (aside from painfully obvious ones) will each do everything in their power to hijack a thread inhabited ''entirely'' by other trolls.
** Actually, it's worse than that. Those painfully obvious trolls? Sometimes they're meta-trolls, trolling the trolls by trolling poorly. Not to mention the fact that even when people know everyone else is a troll, they still do it. 4chan is a good example of this. The level of trolling there reaches meta factorial levels. Sometimes you even get people who change things up by trolling through not trolling. As they say, trolling is a art.
** 4chan's /a/ board had quite possibly the most complex trolling effort of all time. An individual, or group of individuals, referred to as "The Gorespammer" supposedly aspired to ruin all discussion of ''{{Bakemonogatari}}'', initially by spamming threads about the show with shock images etc. This eventually spread to complex trolling and reverse trolling of the show with threads such as "Post your IQ, and your opinion on ''Bakemonogatari''." and screenshots of ''Bakemonogatari'' along with "ITT: Art." More traditional trolling followed, with insults to the shows limited and stylized animation, and claims that the show was animated in Microsoft Powerpoint. This continued for well over a year, and many on /a/ still assume Gorespammer attempts to ruin anything animated by [[StudioShaft SHAFT]], despite there being absolutely no evidence to suggest that there ever was a Gorespammer outside of one guy who spammed gore images when the show was airing.
* LSD, the Kennedy assassinations, the civil rights movement, the Cuban missile crisis, basically everything in the sixties can be explained as a GambitPileup of TheMafia, the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover, and revolutionaries of both the Cuban and American leftist variety. To further explain:
** LSD used by CIA in mind control experiments.
** [[JohnFKennedy JFK]] was being spied on by J. Edgar Hoover.
** J. Edgar Hoover was spying on Martin Luther King.
** [[JohnFKennedy JFK]] appointed brother Robert Attorney General to watch J. Edgar Hoover.
** Attorney General Robert Kennedy goes to war against TheMafia.
** Mafia held interest in Cuba before revolution.
** CIA screwed up Bay of Pigs.
** Students using LSD inspired by Martin Luther King to become radicals. (What?!)
** Mafia finds new money source with LSD.
** Black Panthers arise from Martin Luther King assassination.
** CIA and FBI under J. Edgar Hoover shut down Black Panthers.
** Haven't even mentioned ''[[RichardNixon NIXON]]'', yet. You want to talk about a trope namer...
** Don't forget the CIA working (for a very, very brief time) with the Mafia to kill Castro because they got driven out of Cuba to make Castro look good. (de-classified in the last two years)
** The Onion's [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/november-22-1963,10534/ covered]] this story, too.
* The ColdWar. There were only two major players, the US and USSR, though that hardly makes things simple. Each had a great deal of internal plans by various politicians, and as the regime changed, old gambits were either forgotten, torn up, built upon, or modified. Sometimes the reality didn't hold up to the plan's expectations, sometimes the objectives were changed half way through, and in the complex world of geopolitical manipulation, even a successful plan often led to completely unforseen results. Each manipulated their half of the world, alongside the undecided bits, sparking anything from mild political unrest to outright civil war, and brining new players to the table, or ressurecting old ones thought long dead. Thats not to say they were the only ones in on the fun of course; most smaller countries had their own plans and interests, and even the weaker, more easily manipulated parties have shown more then once that human pawns occasionally move on their own. Its a wonder no one got nuked throughout the whole ordeal, though there were a few close calls...
* The last decades of the Roman Republic. At least half a dozen major players (Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Cato and Clodius) in a complex pattern of shifting alliances, each trying to get on top by playing the rest one against each other. We all know [[GaiusJuliusCaesar who ended up winning the game]].
** Not to mention the mess that happened after Caesar's assassination. Mark Antony, Gaius Octavianus and the ''optimates'' faction all tried to pull elaborate gambits against each other - not to mention Cleopatra. Caesar's adoptive heir [[MagnificentBastard Octavianus]] turned out to be the best schemer of them all, even surpassing Caesar.
* Duke William of Normandy (also called [[HeroicBastard William the bastard, because he was illegitimate]]) invaded England and killed King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon King. William was motivated by the fact that he was Edward the Confessor's cousin, and was supposedly promised it by Edward on a stack of holy relics (Edward the Confessor was the King of England before Harold Godwinson for those paying attention). King Harold Godwinson's daughter married Prince Vladimir Monomakh of Kiev (whose own mother was the daughter of Constantine IX Monomachus of Byzantium). The Russians, assisted by large numbers of Scandanavians, invaded Byzantium in 1043. Harald Hadrada ("the Ruthless"), who later became king of Norway, joined the Byzantine army with a large following of northmen ("Varanger"), campaigned widely, and ripped out the eyes of the Byzantine emperor Michael Caliphates in 1042. King Harald Hadrada of Norway invaded England in 1066, on the pretext that it was promissed to his family by Harthacnut who's father was Cnut The Great, Viking King of Norway, Denmark, and England (also parts of Scotland, Sweden, Ireland, and Poland) from 1018-1035. Harthacnut's mother was also Emma of Normandy, William of Normandy's grandmother. Harald Hadrada was killed by King Harold Godwinson, who was himself killed by Duke William at the Battle of Hastings, thus ending the Saxon period, and leading to centuries of French rulers on the English throne. All at a time when most people never got further than 3 miles from their birth place.
* In a way the US Constitution was designed to ''[[XanatosGambit deliberately]]'' cause this in the hope that that would lead to an internal BalanceOfPower.
* Royal courts in general - not so much today, perhaps, but in the days when kings were really top dog... Everyone wanted something and there was lots of scheming to get it.
* The wars and the power games within the Democratic Republic of Congo is this. It began as a simply two-side war between Mobuto's government and the rebel group AFDL, tired of [[TheCaligula Mobuto]]'s ways and having the supports of the Rwandan and Ugandan governments, which ended with Mobuto's overthrown and the rebel leader [[RebelLeader Laurent-Désiré Kabila]] taking over. The Second Congo War, or "Africa's World War", started pretty soon between Kabila and the rebel group RCD. RCD was mostly supported by the Tutsi, and so was "assisted" by Rwanda. This caused Kabila finding support from the Hutu exiles who ran away from Rwanda after the Rwandan Genocide. The rebel group MLC becomes a player too, with the support from Uganda. Soon afterward, Zimbabwe, Chad, Angola and Namibia sent their armies for "Congo's cause". However, Kabila was assassinated by his own troops but his son Joseph Kabila took over and he quickly took care of the traitors. However, one Congolese Tutsi general named [[TheStarscream Laurent Nkunda]] went rogue, started his own militia and declared war on the Congolese government but decided that he should [[DivideAndConquer wait for his enemies to take care of each other first before he would make his moves]]. Kabila made an truce however with Rwanda and Uganda and quickly defeated RCD and weakened MLC. Allying with his [[EnemyMine former enemy]] [[DefeatMeansFriendship Rwanda]], he also defeated and captured Nkunda and weakened his former allies the Hutu militas. Yet now the MLC try to win power through democratic election but hasn't won any. Their attempts to start riots within the capital city afterward didn't help to further their cause either. And all of them had been in conflicts with the UN Peacekeeping forces, who is trying to keep peace within Congo's borders but mostly the situation has forced them to become "peacebringers" instead of "peacekeepers".
* The current War in Afghanistan. It began with at least three factions: the victim (U.S.), the attacker (al-Qaeda) and the wrongly accused (Iraqi Muslim extremists). Can anyone count how many factions there have been since the war started or even how many there are just now? Just prior to the war, Afghanistan's factions included: Taliban, al-Qaeda, Khalq, Parcham, Shiite, Sunni, the mujahid movement which primarily gathered into the Hizb-i Wahdat and the Ittihad-it Islami and many, many more. Every one of those factions, if not directly involved in the current war, heavily influenced beforehand events leading up to and during the war. Afghanistan is an extreme example due to its tribal populations, which easily form into factions, but many of the involved nations have several distinct factions of their own. As the war gets longer and the activities of all these parties become more entangled, the war ending anytime soon seems less and less likely.
** At this point it isn't entirely clear what the objective even ''is'' for half the factions other than to prevent the others from winning.
** There is a reason why Afghanistan is sometimes referred to as "The Scourge of the West".
*** Mike Malloy: "Afghanistan - Where empires go to die." Alexander the great, Gengis Khan, The British, USSR, the Taliban... America?
*** Clearly, certain politicians and military strategists never watched ''Film/ThePrincessBride'' -- or at least forgot what the best-known blunder in the world is...
** Post-war Iraq: Kurdes, Sunni Muslim Arabs, Shia Muslim Arabs, USA, Saudi-Arabia and Iran, which links it to Afghanistan and with its nuclear program provides the scene for another Gambit Pileup including the US, Russia, China, Israel and several other European and Middle Eastern states. And I haven't even mentioned Palestine yet...
* Lebanon, particularly during the 1976-1990 Civil War. The short list of players within Lebanon consists of Maronite Christians (divided into various fueding clans and supported by, at times, Syria, Israel, and the U.S.), Shiites (supported by Iran and sometimes Syria), Druze (supported by the Soviet Union), the nominal Lebanese government and Palestinian refugees (represented by the PLO and various splinter groups and generally supported by the Sunni community). Outside forces that invaded Lebanon at one point or another included Israel (who wanted the PLO out of Lebanon and a pro-Israeli government), Syria (who wanted reunification of Lebanon with Syria and the PLO out of Lebanon), France, Americans, and Italians (as part of a multinational force to keep the country from descending into mayhem following the first Israeli withdrawl). Non-invading players included Iran (in opposition to Israel, in support of the Shiites, and sometimes in alliance with Syria) and the Soviet Union (who wanted revenge for U.S. support of Afghan mujahideen as well as greater influence for the socialist Druze). The list increases exponentially if one considers the various militias, political parties, minor players, smaller ethnic groups, and random criminal gangs that played their parts in the conflict. Needless to say every player sought to advance their own interests at the expense of everyone else. However, even during times of relative peace, the country is a hodgepodge of competing confessional and ethnic groups with a greater emphasis on clan and confessional solidarity than loyalty to the state.
* The Wars of the Roses. Explaining exactly why would take about a year.
* The 2011 Debt Ceiling Crisis- both parties and multiple factions within the parties try to extract concessions from the other actors on the assumption that the debt ceiling must be raised, and if it is not, each has a plan to take credit for anything good that happens and place blame on the other guys for anything bad. Then, there are the last minute bills that are being introduced with the intent that the other factions will be forced to vote in favor of a bill they don't like or else time will run out.
* The 2010-2011 mobile patent war is officially the biggest GambitPileup in electronics history, with HTC, Samsung, Motorola, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and a bunch of upstart patent trolls clawing at each others' throats over various smartphone and tablet patents. [[BannedInChina At the rate Apple is forcing Samsung out of certain markets and that fresh lawsuits are being filed,]] [[SarcasmMode this is definitely going to end well for the smartphone market and consumers.]]
* All human interaction, although it's rarely as sinister as in fiction.
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* ''{{Alias}}'' becomes a lot like this in its later seasons, when there's the conspiracy behind the conspiracy, and then there's another conspiracy running for x-ty years no-one else knew about, and so on. Also coupled with a few too many instances of the main characters' allegiances being questioned (in most instances even the ''same'' characters over and over again) in season 4.