Flaw Exploitation in Literature.
- Animorphs: David has the same powers the kids have, far fewer morphs, and a year's less experience. Despite this, he's capable of homing in on each Animorph's respective weaknesses in order to defeat them - luring Jake into a one-one battle between his lion and Jake's tiger, splitting up Ax and Rachel by using Rachel's opinion of him as a crook to trick her, and so on. Ironically, David is himself defeated this way, with Cassie exploiting his ego and need for revenge against Rachel to lure him into a trap. And as the only Animorph he had trusted, David never saw it coming.
- One of the many tactics encouraged by Sun Tzu in the The Art of War.
- Played with in the Charlie Parker Series: Amoral assassin Louis has one major redeeming feature: his love for Angel, who acts as his moral compass. Louis is aware of this "flaw", and fears that his enemies may use it against him. However, the one and only time Angel is threatened by an enemy, it is in an attempt to get at Parker, not Louis. Faulker had no idea that by kidnapping Angel, he was bringing Louis' wrath down upon himself.
- In John C. Wright's Chronicles of Chaos, every magical paradigm is vulnerable to another, while a third is vulnerable to it. Exploiting such loopholes is a major plot thread. At one point, Glum is magically keeping Amelia helpless, but because his magic can do whatever he wants — but he has to want it — she suggests that this will not do what he wants. He weakens for a moment, and empowered, Amelia tweaks something to rescue her afterward.
- In Jeramey Kraatz's The Cloak Society, Cloak shunned masks. this backfires on them when they try to be imposters and the heroes can find footage to reveal the truth.
- In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "The Phoenix on the Sword", Ascalante gloats at how he will deal with the men who think he is their tool.by the clay in each, I will crush them when the time comes.
- In the Dragonlance novels, Kitiara plays Laurana like a fiddle, when she uses Laurana's obsessive love for Tanis Half-Elven to lure her into a trap.
- After technology fails in the Emberverse, history professor and Society for Creative Anachronism member Norman Arminger founds the Portland Protective Association, a society whose motif is based on the 11th-12th centuries. He's described as a "Period Nazi" obsessed with recreating that era accurately. This leaves him unprepared when his enemies start using weapons and methods that, while workable in a non-technological setting, hadn't been created in his chosen period. Arminger's in even more trouble later when Mike Havel uses the PPA's concept of honor (carefully fostered by Arminger himself) to force him into a fight that he might not and doesn't win.
- Subverted in Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay. A trio of thieves discovers that the bar they're trying to rob is populated entirely by off-duty members of the Watch. They take hostage a pretty blonde woman, figuring that the others will let them go free as they [The Watch] won't want to risk injuring her. Fortunately, depending on your point of view, she's a werewolf—and a cop—and she can take care of herself.
- In Andre Norton's Forerunner Foray, Yasa exploits the Guild's orders to hide from them that she wants to leave the planet for purposes of her own.
- In Aaron Allston's Galatea in 2-D, they know Kevin will come to the convention even when they are gunning for him, and he knows it because he can't miss the chance to bask in the admiration.
- In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Blood Pact, Rime jeers at Gaunt: he's read his files, and knows he won't execute him without proof. Fortunately, he hasn't read Rawne's file.
- In Larry Correia's The Grimnoir Chronicles:
- When Jake doesn't want to join the Grimnoir, Pershing exploits his soldier past by telling Jake that it's past time to allow volunteers; he's needed, soldier, and he's to join.
- Dan gets two Mooks to shoot each other and later, large number of Japanese soldiers to commit suicide by telling them they are disgraced. He observes that he can't get people to do things against their nature, but these ones have weak points.
- Faye exploits that a Traveler can see an area just as he teleports to arrange for a shotgun blast to arrive moments later.
- Crow exploits Hammer's sense of justice by putting evidence that he knows Grimnoir is innocent in her reach, and information they need. Then he has her followed.
- An imposter has much less flexibility than the original because he has to play the part. This helps lure him to a location.
- The Imperium has told the Iron Guard that Grimnoir is evil. In order to tell them what the real evil guys are doing, Jake indulges in over-the-top Villainous Gloating. Bragging of infiltrating the locations he wants them to cleanse.
- Harry Potter:
- Half of Harry's triumphs come from the fact that Voldemort has no concept of loyalty to his men; thus, many of them will abandon him the moment there's something better to be loyal to. Dumbledore turned Draco Malfoy in book six, and his father and mother switched sides (his mother being the more important of them) pretty much at a drop of a hat, because a choice between an uncaring vindictive bastard who would likely kill them for their past failures or the life of her son wasn't a hard choice.
- Flipping it right around for another good example: half of Voldemort's triumphs come from the fact that Harry has an especially fierce sense of loyalty, and thus will go to any lengths to help his friends. It's even lampshaded in Book 5, when Hermione points out to Harry that he's got a "saving people thing", and raises the possibility that Voldemort could be deliberately taking advantage of that. He is.
- Voldemort's problem isn't that he doesn't appreciate true loyalty. He does. He rewards his two most loyal servants, Bellatrix and Severus Snape with his greatest trust. His problem is that he's terrible at creating loyalty. Bellatrix was loyal due to her obsession over Voldemort. Severus was loyal due to a seeming brotherhood with him, through similar shared childhood experiences. Up until Voldemort tries to kill Lily Potter. Then all loyalty goes out the window. At no time does he do anything that a reasonable person would find inspiring of real loyalty. He seems to want people to feel loyalty towards someone who's a raving sociopath and is incapable of returning that loyalty.
- Since some raving sociopaths actually think like that, this may not be a surprise. Plenty of historical rulers were the kind that no sane person would willingly follow... and then railed against the treachery and disloyalty of their followers.
- Voldemort's other flaw is his massive ego which causes two of the most overwhelming flaws in his big plans. His need to only make horcruxes out of impressive wizard artifacts means that all of them are extremely noticeable. He also feels the similar theatrical need to have a grand 1 on 1 showdown with Harry Potter using Avada Kedavra despite how many times he finds that strange and bad things happen when specifically himself fights Harry Potter. Things would have gone much farther in his favor if he were able to swallow that pride and make a nondescript rock into a horcrux and allowed his army of minions to attack Harry instead.
- In The Goblet of Fire Cedric Diggory told Harry how to solve the Egg puzzle to repay Harry helping him earlier. The Mole told Cedric how to solve the puzzle knowing he would want to help Harry back.
- In Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, Katniss exploits the Capital's need for a victor.
- In Johannes Cabal the Detective Johannes goes up against Count Marechal, a smart military man with dreams of empire and conquest and the brains to do something about it. When the Count has Cabal cornered with a revolver, Cabal preys on his pride and vanity, drawing his sword-cane to provoke the Count into a duel and throw the gun away. It works, and it's not the only time Cabal notes that the Count has a large ego and a short temper, making him easy to manipulate for someone as smart and dispassionate as Cabal.
- This inverted moments later into appealing to the Count's good qualities-his brains-when Cabal realizes he might lose their duel, he implies that it'd be better for him to work for the Count, and even suggests he'd beg for his life — as long as there was no outright groveling. But he's pissed the Count off too much, and he goes right back to trying to kill him.
- In John Hemry's The Lost Stars novel Tarnished Knight, Drakon poses as over-confident in his ability to protect himself. ISS agents will believe that he doesn't bring his guards out of Pride. Later, he knows Hardrad is bluffing because he is offering a deal, not just using what he's threatening to use; he taunts him with being more familiar with him than he is with Drakon.
- Momo: After failing to trick, corrupt and capture Momo, the Grey Men are wondering if there may be some way to bribe her at least. One Grey Man points out that Momo's weak point are her friends. If they take her friends away from her, leaving her utterly and unbearably alone, Momo can be willing to cooperate with them to get her friends back.
- In the Redwall series, badgers are known to be fiercely (perhaps feverishly) dedicated to Justice and Good in general. Salamandastron has the Big Bad acknowledge this outright:Ferahgo: I've dealt with big badgers before. Oh, they're fierce fighters, sure enough, but they lack cunning and suffer from silly little things, like honor and conscience.
- Later in the story, the villains capture a pair of the Badger Lord's finest fighters and have fun messing with him over what they want for their hostages before making an impossible demand for the entire mountain fortress. They even give the badger a couple of days to give his answer, knowing full well they plan to kill their hostages before the time elapses. Fortunately for the two hostages, the series is prone to softening the consequences of such difficult choices, and they end up surviving anyway. Partially this is because hares are invariably awesome in a pinch.
- Isaac Asimov's "Risk": After Black has returned from the Parsec, Dr Calvin reveals that she had specifically chosen him because he hated robots, something that had been relevant in the previous story. She was counting on his hatred of being seen as inferior to robots to help him overcome his fear of being rendered a nearly-catatonic idiot as a result of the hyperdrive accidentally activating while he's aboard.
- Kellhus in Second Apocalypse exploits the flaws of everyone around him. In most cases, this flaw is religion, but he also exploits love several times. His morals aren't exactly in line with the rest of the world.
- Six of Crows: Kaz relies heavily on this. It does seem to be something he has an innate knack for; his first crime was stealing another child's candy and trousers, relying on the boy's shame to keep him from calling for help before Kaz could get away.
- This is par for the course in A Song of Ice and Fire. Littlefinger is especially good at Flaw Exploitation, playing on the weaknesses and foibles of pretty much everybody: Eddard Stark (honor), Lysa Arryn (obsessive love), Robert Baratheon (impatience with the mundane issues of running a kingdom), Joffrey Baratheon (wanton cruelty), Tywin Lannister (pride), Nestor Royce (wanting to see his children better off)... and so many, many more. In fact the only person who might be better is Tyrion, who did most of the above as well as handling his sister Cersei (hunger for power), his brother Jaime (fear of being betrayed by his lover), Varys the Spider (multiple, delicately-balanced loyalties), the Dornish royal family (collective thirst for revenge), Pycelle (greed), and even Littlefinger himself, to a degree.
- Attempted on Eddard Stark in A Game of Thrones. He finds out about the book of genealogies Jon Arryn was last reading and Pycelle tries to discourage him by reminding him of how dull and boring it is. Ned keeps at it and eventually realizes the same thing that Jon Arryn did; that Queen Cersei is almost certainly cheating on the King with her twin brother Jaime (Cersei eventually confirms this to him when confronted) and all three of her children are illegitimate bastards.
- Renly also has been attempting to foist Margaery Tyrell on his brother King Robert as a mistress by constantly reminding him how much she looks like his late Lady Lyanna Stark. Robert is known for both sleeping with an incredible number of women and for still carrying a torch for Lyanna fifteen years after her death. Renly hoped that between the two of these Robert would become enamored with Margaery and set aside his wife Cersei (whose family is obviously scheming to grab as much power at court as possible), thus ending or at least blunting the chances of the Lannisters taking over entirely. It doesn't work.
- In Tales of Dunk and Egg, Bloodraven lured out and killed Daemon Blackfyre at the Redgrass Field by wounding one of his sons, because Daemon would never leave his son behind, no matter how badly wounded his son was or how great a danger it put Daemon in. While Daemon remained by the side of his injured son, Bloodraven's archers turned them both into pincushions.
- Star Wars: Allegiance: Governor Choard isn't exactly a hero, but his assistant Disra does spend a long time finding all of his buttons and influences his boss into planning to secede violently from the Empire. Disra, as it turns out, is orchestrating all this so he can report the treasonous activity and get promoted. Given that twenty or so years later he's a Moff of no small power, we can assume that his report to Darth Vader was well rewarded.
- Tolkien's Legendarium:
- The Lord of the Rings: Sauron is defeated because he was incapable of imagining that someone who could wield the One Ring wouldn't want to, and would instead send it away to be destroyed. Thanks to the palantír, Gandalf convinced him that Aragorn had the Ring and was headed towards him, to buy enough time for Frodo to destroy it. Ironically, Sauron was right when the moment came. Frodo didn't have enough willpower to destroy the Ring (as per Tolkien himself, nobody could have mustered the will to do so alone at Mount Doom, where the Ring was most powerful), and it was only destroyed when Gollum tried to take it back. So, the Ring was in fact destroyed because of its overwhelming possessive power.
- The Silmarillion: The god-king, Manwë, is so pure-hearted that he is unable to make evil things...and understand evil beings. Morgoth exploits Manwë's flaw after being defeated by faking remorse and begging forgiveness. Manwë believes Morgoth may be willing to be reformed, grants him one second chance, and Morgoth exploits his mistake to ruin the world again. Manwë learns from this, though, and when Morgoth is eventually recaptured he's promptly banished from the universe until the end of the world.
- In near-future military thriller Victoria, this is the key to the secessionists' success. Early on they use the very obstructionism of the bloated government bureaucracy against them, and also showcase the hypocrisy of the politically correct villains, thereby demoralizing their followers. Later, they count (successfully) on the frictions between the fairly grounded and realistic enemy military leaders and the more politicized civilian government to ensure a public relations nightmare on their part in the battle for New York.
- In James Swallow's Warhammer 40,000 Blood Angels novel Deus Encarmine, Inquisitor Stele exploits this when trying to corrupt the Chapter, as they believe they owe him. Fortunately for them, he believes they hold Honor Before Reason a little more strongly than they do; he thinks it was forbidden to use the gear of the dead when it is only forbidden except in the direst circumstances. When a Blood Angel gets off a message with a dead man's gear, he doesn't think to investigate who had access.
- In Warrior Cats: Tigerstar and Hawkfrost use cats' flaws to convince them to join the Dark Forest, mainly preying upon cats who just want to prove themselves and feel unnoticed and unliked.
- A notable example from The Wheel of Time: Cadsuane Sedai is overseeing the interrogation of one of the Forsaken, Semirhage: an extremely powerful, immortal, experienced channeler from the Age of Legends, and a sadistic torturer who was so feared in her own time that prisoners would kill themselves rather than face the smallest part of her wrath. Cadsuane notes that the Aes Sedai who have her under guard are getting nothing from Semirhage, who almost seems to be enjoying herself, and realizes it's because that Semirhage's reputation and power are still things that people in the present time know, fear, and above all respect. She winds up breaking that spell by taking Semirhage over her knee and spanking her like an unruly child, forcing her to eat off of the floor like an animal, and other petty little punishments in order to Break the Haughty in the eyes of her jailors. Interestingly, she comes up with this method after considering how she would go about breaking herself.
