|
Narrative
|
alt title(s): The Xanatos Gambit Discussion Am I the only one who keeps on seeing this title and subconsciously thinking that someone may have written "Xanatos/Gambit" X-men/Gargoyles crossover slash fanfiction? - Zeta
Lale: Probably. Ever come across anything like that?
Agent Westmer: Not sure about the Negima example. The Xanatos Gambit is one where the person running the gambit manipulates a hostile party to his advantage. More broadly wins in any outcome. The headmasters plot doesn't seem to be that kind of Heads/tails I win operation. It seems more like a zany scheme, any objections to this example being moved to the zany scheme page? Robert: Any examples of this gambit failing? I think it's been attempted against the Doctor, only to fail badly, but I don't recall the specific episode. Also, there might be something to be said about which types of heroes this gambit works on, and which it fails against — falling for it is an aspect of the hero's characterisation. Chrome Newfie: Quite a few, starting with the Gargoyles itself doing something of a Lampshade Hanging on it in the episode "Eye of the Beholder". Seven Seals: "I don't suppose you have a plan D?" That wasn't a Lampshade Hanging, though, but a subversion. Notable enough to put in, though. Chrome Newfie: I had forgotten that bit, or misremembered it. Yes, from there, it's a subversion, especially when Eliza goes on to say "This is his plan D. If it fails, he'll move on to E or F." Not to mention how the story finally gets resolved.... Hi, I just stumbled across this wiki (looks awesome) and I don't have a lot of time right now to figure out the local customs, so I'm just putting my observations about this Xanatos Gambit on the talk page. Hope this is OK. 1. Is this necessarily reserved for villains, as the article says? In Asimov's Foundation series, Hari Seldon spreads his ideas that the Galactic Empire is collapsing, spurring the Emporer to banish his people to the far reaches of the galaxy — which is exactly where he wanted them to be, forming the two Foundations that would restore civilization to the galaxy after the collapse. 2. The first example given from Gargoyles doesn't seem to fit the description of the ploy. It sounds like the gargoyles had nothing to do with achieving Xanatos' goals. Ununnilium: Not reserved for villains at all, IMHO. Editing that. Umptyscope: Please tell me the South Park ep "Scott Tenorman Must Die" is acceptable for inclusion. (Wiki link — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Tenorman_Must_Die  )
Seth: I would say so.
Zubon: What's amusing about Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is that Isaac's Xanatos Gambit is part of a LARGER Xanatos Gambit perpetrated by The Big D himself, as egged on by Death, who's moonlighting as Zead the Priest. Isaac only thinks he's in charge. Dracula wants Hector, the stronger Forge Master, as a vessel, and so he lets Isaac think he's the Xanatos until the end. The only two people in this game NOT being crank-yanked are Julia and Death. Even. St. Germain gets pulled onto Dracula's demented plot ferris wheel of 'ha ha, owned'. Basically the whole premise of this game's a goddamn DOUBLE Xanatos Gambit. ralphmerridew: Removed Real life example: the highly coordinated Western Allied deception plans leading up to D-Day were a masterpiece of getting the Germans to think they were getting away with all sorts of intelligence coups and insights into Allied plans. In fact, every single spy they thought they had in the UK was being run by Allied intelligence. Furthermore, the Allies assembled a fake invasion force, made of inflatables and General Patton himself, apparently poised to cross the English Channel at its narrowest points while the real invaders crossed the widest.
Scottbert: Since this was called "Way to go, Serge" in the list of RPG Cliches ( http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html ), shouldn't we mention Chrono Cross here? — Oops, nevermind, that's in Xanatos Roulette.
Caswin: The entry on Jesus is pretty clever, and actually pretty close to the mark, but isn't it really only the first few lines that are an outright Xanatos Gambit? I think it could stand some shortening. StruckingFuggle: Let's say there was a movie; and the ending was that much of the movie was setting up a Xanatos Gambit that pays off for the bad guys. But since that's the way it ends, knowing that would spoil the twist ending; is there any way to post it as an example? (one of the few I can think of that ultimately pays off for the initiating villain, actually...) Malimar: Sure, just put it in a spoiler thingummy. Malimar: Does it still count as a Xanatos Gambit when the character is described within the story as not merely particularly intelligent, but can actually see into the future through magic? Or psuedoscience? Or statistics? Or Applied Phlebotinum? Hari Seldon in the early Foundation novels springs to mind. And a nearly omniscient RPG NPC I had once, who arranged a number of things in advance of his death, within the game, even without my knowledge. wia: Is it me, or does much of the 'portal' entry (well, the second subentry) happen to belong on a WMG page? After all, no evidence in the game for Chell being a G La DOS clone. For that matter, unless G La DOS is supposed to be a bunch of identical human brains in plastic shells, it shouldn't be possible to produce a human clone of her. And I would dearly love to see that troper justify how fighting two or three dozen stationary turrets and some environmental hazards is harder than Gordon's trip to Xen or the penultimate level of HL 2 against everything the combine can throw at you... Bob: It's not just you. Cutting it.
Terrafire: I removed the Order of the Stick entry, because in both cases it wasn't a Xanatos Gambit, so much as a clever ploy. A Xanatos Gambit is much, much, more complex than that. (and, well, the second one was just luck.) Reproduced here, if somebody disagrees.
fhqwhgads: Would this quote from the bible count as a Xanatos Gambit? "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." - Romans 8:28. Of course in that case, it's not really a gambit per se since it can't fail, and it's not done by a villain, but otherwise it would seem to fit the trope. David Argall- Re: The Wotch It would seem the villains running the gambit are, to the extent they are trying such a gambit, are merely the pawns of some larger agency, whose intents remain obscure. All details are speculative, but the dark knight is determined that the Wotch will succeed, and has already rescued her at least once. I think some people got too spoiler-happy in this article. There's seven lines and eight lines and once even 12 solid lines of white space. How does this help anyone? Never done in Scooby Doo, alas, or we'd have "I wouldn't have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids!" Some Guy: For those wondering what happened to this page, I moved about one third of the entries to Batman Gambit and deleted the other third for various reasons- entries that were too long, entries that didn't explain anything, and entires that just seemed to attract a lot of natter. If anyone sees something that was deleted and feels it is relevant, you can add it back, but please try to edit the entry to make it more palatable than the form I deleted. Charred Knight: Can I ask you an actual question? Where you drunk when you edited this? About half way through the edits it just looks like you just started deleting entire sections in mass for no apparent reason. I can honestly say about 20 entires where deleted unfairly since it appears that you didn't know what they where so you just deleted them. I can understand wanting to trim this page, but you deleted things for no apparent rhyme or reason. Since I have been here I have nuked a grand total of one page, and that was Discontinuity Film. I made it clear why I deleted them, and when someone noticed that I accidently deleted an example I didn't mean to, it was restored. I don'[t have a clue why you deleted some of the answers you did. Some Guy: Yeesh. I'm guessing the entries you're referring to are the very long ones. I deleted them, admittedly, more because they were long than because of anything to do with the definition. Yes, I know, There Is No Such Thing As Notability, but things can get taken a little too far when obscure fantasy series have entries that take up an entire scroll- this page is long enough without them. Like I wrote earlier, my objection isn't to their inclusion persay but rather to how unnecessarily long the entry is. I'm perfectly open to someone restoring them provided they are edited down to a more reasonable size. Count_Zero: Would the plot of "War" cover this, with Tom Lone killing Rogue and taking his place and appearing to betray the Yakuza to get close to the local Triad Boss - so he could kill him to get close to the Yakuza Boss who ordered his murder, so he could find out who sold him out... Some Guy: No, because that plan has a clear, single goal and can possibly backfire. That's a Batman Gambit. Robert Trimmed a few more examples, and removed spoiler space. The Xanatos gambit is all about twisty plots. Spoilers should be expected. The Torchwood example was Xanatos roulette. Among other things, Suzie couldn't have known Gwen would be able to use the glove. Xanatos's stay-rich-through-time-travel plan is a Batman Gambit. The wotch example had conversation in the main page, about a different trope. Robert: Took most of the spoilers off the Disgaea 1 example. Having the whole thing under spoilers makes the example pointless. Also, if it's a multi-stage plan, encompassing much of the game, it's probably either a Batman Gambit or Xanatos Roulette. Bob: Put the spoiler marks back, since the information they cover is, y'know, a Spoiler. Robert: That's why it says expect spoilers at the top of the page. Without the spoilers, the example has no substance. Bob: Personally I thought that the article was better without the warning and with spoiler marks in place, but I accepted the change. In this particular case however the example is too plot important and spoileriffic to simple have it unmarked outright, even with the general warning before the examples. Robert: Then don't use that example. It's not as though we're short of them. With the spoilers in, it doesn't exemplify the trope. Besides, it doesn't actually sound like a Xanatos Gambit at all. Bob: I didn't add it, I just added the spoiler marks. Oh well, I guess cutting it works.
Blork: I'm not entirely clear on the distinction between this and Batman Gambit. The description for Batman Gambit seems to say that a Batman Gambit is where the character predicts the most likely outcome and plans for that, while a Xanatos Gambit involves setting up the situation so that either success or failure will go your way. The description for Xanatos Gambit on the other hand seems to go back and forth between the "predict what the other guy will do" and "win-win situation" versions and a lot of the examples only seem to plan for one outcome Robert: The win-win version is correct, but it's a recent split, so there are still traces of the Batman Gamit left, which need editing out. Gloating Swine: The archetypal Xanatos Gambit is where the heroes foiling Plan A directly advances Plan B, and that Plan B was what the villain was aiming for all along, rather than it being "win-win situation" for Plan A, because Plan A was always designed specifically for the heroes to foil. Batman Gambit appears just to be a really detailed Plan A. Robert: Not quite. Plan A has to be desirable for the villain too, or the heroes wouldn't try to stop it (which makes it a type of win-win scenario), but Plan B is much better. Not all win-win scenarios are Xanatos gambits though. In the Batman Gambit, there need be no plan B. Rather than trying to cover all the options, only the most plausible is taken into account. Bob: I agree with Gloating Swine. A Xanatos Gambit is "By foiling my Evil Plan, you have given me exactly what I wanted all along. Muahahahaha!". The "Plan A" should be foiled intentionally to make it a Xanatos Gambit. That definition would hopefully prevent the "any particularly clever plan is added as an example" situation that led to the creation of Batman Gambit in the first place. Robert: Then we're all agreed on what a Xanatos Gambit is; we're just describing it slightly different ways. In particular, I'm emphasising that a Xanatos Gambit has to be a win-win scenario, but not vice versa. The win from plan A is the bait that suckers the heroes into foiling it, giving the villain a much bigger win. A Batman Gambit shouldn't be any particularly clever plan either. Gloating Swine: I'm not even sure on that. Take the incident when Xanatos engineers a prison break for the Pack. That appears to be Plan A, but it's success is at best irrelevant, the only important part of it is setting up Fox for early parole, the Plan B. Bob: Good point. I guess the success or failure of "Plan A" isn't important in all cases. Robert: The important thing is that all plausible outcomes (usually just 2) are positive, and that the heroes are tricked into helping achieve the most positive. The prison break can succeed or fail; Fox can take part in it, against orders, or not. That's 4 possible combinations. Xanatos wins in all of them, but his preferred option isn't what is enemies though it was. Bob: In short: "There is an obvious plan and a covert plan, and by moving to stop the obvious plan you only help the covert one". Gloating Swine: Cut
HeartBurn Kid: Found a bit in a wrestling column I read that perfectly describes the Xanatos Gambit, but I'm hesitant to add yet another quote to the page. Any objections to me replacing the Transformers quote for this? "Taker is a master of Mind Games, his entire career shows that. And he's also a man to [not] ignore unpleasant possibilities. He'll plan for any occasion, he'll have back ups and back ups for back ups. I guess he might have a back up for the back up of the back up, but that's merely confusing speculation."
— Matthew Sforcina, Evolution Schematic: The Undertaker, Part 3
Robert: Removed most of
KJMackley: I would like to propose a shorter description for this page. I've always been a fan of shorter descriptions because with most long descriptions it is like digging your own grave, you keep on talking and it doesn't seem to be any more helpful. It would just be a little nip and tuck, nothing too elaborate. And I'll probably emphasize the [win or lose = doesn't matter] aspect of the trope. Fire Walk: Huh? I'd always thought that a Xanatos Gambit 's main schtick was getting people to further your plans, while convinced that they were stopping them. Or at least a plan that relies on your enemies attempts to stop you. KJMackley: If that was all it was, there is no difference between this and Batman Gambit. For instance, you set two of your enemies against each other. No matter who wins the fight, one of your enemies are no longer a problem. That is a Xanatos Gambit in its purity. A second version is that you have an obvious goal, and a hidden goal. When the Xanatos Sucker supposedly stops your obvious goal, that sets things into motion that give you the hidden goal. Your obvious goal may still be something worthwhile, but is usually not as valuable as the hidden goal. Either way, you come out ahead. Batman Gambit was created to try and make this clearer, because any sort of Zany Scheme or manipulation was being shoehorned into the Xanatos Gambit. Bob: I think that Xanatos Gambit should be exclusively about the second definition you offered. Tricking your enemies into fighting each other: not a Xanatos Gambit. Using the knowledge of your enemies habits and patterns to use them against each other: Batman Gambit. Sending The Dragon to steal the Mystical diamond of MacGuffinistan only to have the heroes stop him? Tell him that the diamond was useless and inform him that thanks to the data gathered during the brawl the Killbot 32-P3E will be able to use the Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Xanatos Gambit. You can see the discussion between Gloating Swine, Robert and myself above for some suggested definitions. KJMackley: I went ahead and trimmed it down slightly while clarifying several points. Like the above discussion, we know what it is supposed to be, but explaining it clearly in written form is a challenge. What the page says now is the gambit can be three things: the actions of the heroes do not matter because the goal was already achieved covertly, Plan B is more desirable then the defeated Plan A, Plan A is more desirable but the villain is happy with the success of Plan B. OK, tell me what you think of this... Article Name: Xanatos Collapse Where the Xanatos Gambit meets the Humiliation Conga in the worst possible way, and the biggest form of disaster to spring forth when you Did Not See That Coming. You may have a Xanatos Gambit, or Roulette, of some kind going on. Everything you predicted and planned out is going precisely as you intended. And then, you get a knock on your door. You open it. It's the lady your Gambit focused on swindling out of her inheritance. She doesn't have a happy look on her face, but what she does have is friends. A lot of angry, disillusioned friends, all of which were part of your little scheme. Did I mention she brought the cops, too? They rush in, read you your rights, and slap a pair of handcuffs on your wrists. You think to yourself "suckers... do they really think-" Your train of thought is interrupted as one guy comes out of the audience and starts a rant. As you listen in on his rant, you begin to sweat. Some of the words sound very familiar to you as he goes on his diatribe. Those words? They're pieces of your plan. That schmuck before you, doing the talking? He figured it all out. Everyone else? He tipped them off or found someone who could. And the worst thing? This all happened right under your nose. And he's no Xanatos Gilligan, either; he's too smart for that, and you know it. Just as Contrived Coincidences can help establish a killer Xanatos Gambit, so are they just as capable of breaking it apart. A good Chessmaster cleans up after himself to keep the details from spilling, but somehow this guy just found everything out, and used it intentionally to destroy your well-wrought scheme. It can happen over a short time, akin to your plan imploding with the force of an atom bomb. It can happen over months or years, like the foundations of your plan rotting out from under you. And the most dreadful thing of all? It doesn't have to be a Xanatos Gambit itself to work! Poorly performed Xanatos Collapses look much more like Ass Pulls or Deus Ex Machina against the plotter, but for the ones that are well done... they can only be awesome. —- Another example of a Xanatos Gambit would be a storyline from Michael Crichton's novel, "Next" the whole book focuses on genetic engineering, but a central plotline is about the Burnett family, Father(implied to have some form of survival training and likely military), Daughter(Civil Rights Lawyer) and Grandson(elementary school kid). The Father got cancer and was written off, until his own body defeated thanks to uber-genes that boost his immune system. The doctor treating him sold these genes to a company, because the doc lacked the R&D stuff to analyse them, the R&D company is run by a nervous and barely competent CEO who is at odds with the majority stakeholder, the Xanatos of the piece. CEO is worried because the competition (also to varying degrees bought out by the Xanatos) are pressuring and outdoing him, the nature of the current charter is that the Xanatos owns the company but not the rights to their genetic lines especially the Burnetts. The CEO however needs more material and is at the start of the novel in a court case with the Father to acquire a sample, as they have the patent rights to the genes, they can ban the Father, and others carrying the genes, from selling to anyone else. The court decides in favour of this and the Daughter, being the defence lawyer is pretty well pissed off. CEO plans to forcefully acquire the genes, but is unable to do so when the Father goes underground, so the CEO accepts the help of 2 bounty hunters to "acquire" the genes from the other Burnetts, however the Bounty Hunters were paid up by the Xanatos to offer their help to his unhappy underling (At the start of the novel they had "acquired" either a DNA sample or Papers don't remember but it involved some nastiness). The bounty hunters try and abduct the grandson, so the daughter hightails it out of their suburb and moves up and down LA and surrounding regions with a bit of cash and a few guns. The bounty hunters eventually catch up, shooting occurs and the one link to the Xanatos and the first crime die. In the mean time an appeal against the decision on the patent on human genes is happening, which is successful because of the carnage ensured by the bounty hunters. The Xanatos informs the CEO he is selling everything, due to other events the company is essentially as ethical as Mengele, the CEO now shitting bricks is terrified when the existing samples and research is destroyed and their offsite backup storage is blown up. The Xanatos is now overjoyed, with the original holder of the patent gone, he no longer has to put up with that CEO, anyone can buy the genes including himself and all his multitude of properties, but more importantly the Father who helped out by going on a vacation at the Xanatos's rural retreat can now legally prevent anyone else from using his genes in research, selling them to the Xanatos despite full knowledge of the bounty on his daughter and Grandson's head. The Xanatos is now king of the world, the goons hired for all his dirty work are dead and unable to implicate him, the father is more than happy to be a source, the legal court ruling ensures that while the daughter and grandkid could sell, their recent escapades has pretty much ruled out any competitor from being able to buy. There are few more things about the legal implications, but essentially he was going to have the patent and DNA no matter what happened. Alright I know its a wall of text I think someone who may have read it recently, or is just word savy could shorten it to a briefer format. Eyclonus Robert: That goes into far too much detail. It can be boiled down to: In Michael Chrichton's Next, a corrupt corporate executive's dragon uses a Xanatos Gambit to depose his boss and gain control of the Mc Guffin, genes for cancer resistance posssessed by the hero's family. The dragon sends {{mooks} after the hero, knowing that even if they fail the carnage caused will make the company loose a key legal case, forcing the corrupt CEO to resign. The dragon can then simply buy the Mc Guffin. Incidentally, even from this brief description, there are big holes obvious in the plot. For a start, if gene patents are ruled invalid, the Xanatos can't buy control of the gene sequence — there are too many ways for other people to get a copy. Eyclonus:- I read it 2 years ago so I've forgotten most of the details but it mostly consists of Crichton applying the standard copyright laws to the gene sequence. KJMackley: Deleted this as it is really not a gambit: no opponent manipulation, no plan B, only a clever scheme.
Fighteer: I moved the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn entry here from Batman Gambit, as the Storm King's plan didn't rely on using the heroes' flaws against them, but rather depended on them not finding out exactly what he was up to until it was too late. That's why he tried to kill off all of the characters who knew enough to figure it out. Also, the story explicitly states that it didn't matter anyway - the swords would have come to Green Angel Tower no matter what. It's even more clearly not a Batman Gambit when you consider that the characters who did make it to Green Angel Tower with the swords were the only ones who actually had a chance to stop the whole thing. This statement about the effect of the Germans sneaking Lenin into Russia is rather inaccurate:
Did my best to clean up the section on the ultimate Xanatos Gambit/Roulette of the Foundation series; English was probably not the first language of whoever posted it. Can someone who's actually read the novel in which all of this happened check my edits? — St Clair Some Sort Of Troper: I cut... well I cut a lot of stuff that simply didn't have the win-win dynamic required to be a Xanatos Gambit. They fulfill a whole load of the other gambits and plotting tropes well though so they're being moved. Lord Seth: Question about this: Was "Xanatos Gambit" a term TV Tropes came up with, or did it already exist and TV Tropes decided to name the trope for that? I'm curious as to whether the phrase originated at TV Tropes or not. Some Sort Of Troper: Yes, we came up with it. Kersey475: Does Midnighter from The Authority deserve a spot on any of the Xanatos Planned This Index pages? Most of those tropes rely on predicting what is going to happen, but Midnighter has a supercomputer in his head that can run a combat simulation a million times in a second, sometimes allowing him to work backwards to get the most desired outcome. Can a Xanatos Gambit also be supplemented by Awesomeness By Analysis? |
This wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
