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When the main characters come up with a plan to save the day, its chances of success are inversely proportional to how much the audience knows about it beforehand.
As a side effect, you can ensure a plan's success by making it an Unspoken Plan, and guarantee failure by telling the audience the details of the Zany Scheme.
This, by the way, is why heroes always manage to escape a villain's Death Trap. Every time, the villains insist on describing exactly what the traps do.
Admittedly, the reason for revealing only failed plans to the audience is obvious. Where's the drama in something going wrong if no one knows what was supposed to happen? Conversely, where's the drama in seeing exactly what you were just told would happen?
This trope still applies if we get to see an A Team Montage assembling Chekhovs Armoury beforehand — as long as we still don't know how the guns within will be fired until the time comes.
This often crops up interestingly in Tabletop RPGs, where it arises from the players describing their plan in front of the GM — who will, naturally, enjoy the opportunity to botch the plan. The best way to avert this is to enlist the GM's help with the plan while keeping other players in the dark — again fulfilling the trope!
See also Obstacle Exposition, Xanatos Gambit, I Know What We Can Do Cut.
Examples:
Theater
- Older Than Steam example: In Romeo And Juliet, Friar Lawrence's plan involving the faked death of Juliet is described to the audience. So naturally, it ends horribly.
Live Action TV
- Every episode of Mission Impossible employs this.
- It is also seen in sitcoms such as Threes Company.
- The Season Three finale of Buffy The Vampire Slayer demonstrates this perfectly. Two enemies make plans; one of the plans is fully detailed to the audience, while the other one is kept vague. The vague one, of course, is the one that succeeds.
- And in Season 5, where they talked in vague terms about what they might have in the way of weapons, but never go into detail about all the parts of their plan. Meanwhile, the Big Bad has been getting pretty specific. And so...
- And again in Season 7. You always know what the Big Bad is going to try to do, but it's not until almost the very end, when the action is well under way, that you find out Buffy is having Willow use the scythe to activate all the potential Slayers into full ones.
- In the Red Dwarf episode "White Hole", Lister is trying to knock a planet into the white hole, using the principles he's picked up playing pool. It misses. After every planet in the system has been knocked against each other and one of them has sunk, he explains he was going for a trick shot. This is, of course, what anyone who gets lucky in pool will tell his friends even if it's blatantly obvious that it isn't.
- Almost every episode of Hustle features a moment when it looks like the plan has failed, but it turns out that either the real plan was something else all along, or there was some brilliant improvisation that we weren't shown at the time.
- Used in the seventh-season Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode "Badda-bing Badda-bang", in which the plan is detailed to the audience throughout the fourth act, not only with explanations but being acted out on-screen; of course, this is only so that the audience knows what's supposed to be going on in the fifth act, when everything goes wrong.
- Spoofed in the Black Adder episode "Witchsmeller Pursuvient", when our inability to hear Baldrick's plan to escape is blatantly lampshaded... and then we don't see the plan either, we're just told it worked!
- Both ends are in play in the Greek episode "The Great Cappie". The Simple Plan, detailing a secret Prohibition drinking party under a rule-following Great Gatsby theme party, is described in great detail...and is derailed when the dean shows up as an unexpected guest. Said party is saved by Plan B, which isn't known to the audience until it's put into motion.
- Averted somewhat in Firefly, like in "Ariel." The whole plan was described in minute detail, complete with scenes of the characters rehearsing their parts, and except for the temporary arrest, both the heist and River's diagnosis are completed as planned. Same with "The Train Job," except for the Captain and Zoe getting trapped. And the opening scene of the Big Damn Movie, except for the Reavers. However, "Trash" and "Objects in Space" are perfect examples of unspoken plans going perfectly (almost). Also, this line from the movie pretty much sums it up:
Mal: I don't plan on any shooting taking place.
Jayne: Yeah, well, what you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar.
- This troper notes that "Trash" both subverts and upholds the trope: the detailed plan for removal of the Laser goes off almost without a hitch (and is ultimately successful) and the unspoken backup plan in case of treachery is pulled off successfully.
- In the episode entitled "Norman" of the vampire detective series "Blood Ties", the heroes Vicki and Henry are forced to give a magic dagger to the demonic villain Norman when he kidnaps Vicki's secretary and holds her hostage. Norman needed the dagger to complete a spell to release the uber demon Asteroth into the world. However, unknown to the audience, Vicki and Henry had first taken the dagger to a priest to have it blessed before they gave it to Norman, so that when he used it, his spell of summoning failed and he was sucked back down to Hell.
Western Animation
Anime
- Lupin III regularly makes use of this trope. No matter how clever the bad guys are, Lupin always one-ups them at the last minute with a new gadget or a brilliant ruse - the audience knows he always has something up his sleeve, but we're almost never told what.
- Episode 18 of The Wallflower has one of these plans as to how the tenants are going to save Sunako from a mob.
- Yu-gi-oh not only does this straight, but makes it extremely obvious where many duels go where the face down cards of hero and villain alike often go unknown until they are used much like a spectator would see. Almost every time this trope is employed the flow is broken where the character would not only completely explain his plan in a drawn out monologue, but often visualize what could have happened.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Every episode up till the 8th features unspoken (or even unplanned) plans, and then they spend half an episode preparing for a well-described plan. Tropers, now is the time to get nervous. The plan actually does work, but Kamina dies executing it.
- Averted in Death Note, but only at the end of the least important story arc. The details of the other two arc-concluding Xanatos Gambits are sprung when there's nothing anyone could realistically do about it, and the many Gambits in between fit this trope to a tee.
- Used in varying degrees throughout Code Geass, most notably with the Zero Requiem. Although Lelouch and Suzaku refer to it in nearly every scene from R2 22 onwards, its true nature isn't revealed -or even hinted at- until the climax of the final episode, as it's being executed. Naturally, it works perfectly.
- Referenced in the Lucky Star OVA during the voleyball match, where Konata announces that it's time to use the "Jet Stream Attack" and Konata, Tsukasa, and Misao get in position... until Misao asks just what the heck is a "Jet Stream Attack", whereupon Konata bemoans how she wasn't supposed to say that and now the plan won't work.
Film
- Done in the movie V for Vendetta, as V had an iron vest underneath his clothing near the end, although he was fatally wounded.
- In Ocean's Twelve, what the audience believes to be "the plan" is shown to fail miserably. In fact, the real gambit is carried out successfully and silently in the middle of the movie, unannounced, and everything from there on is just a ruse to fool the antagonist.
- Averted in the Seven Samurai. The heroes' plans are constantly detailed, and never totally fail.
- The diner scene in The Godfather is planned out meticulously. Then the protagonist acts it out, but changes a bunch of details because Its Personal. It works fine.
- The implication, at least in the book, is that the Bad Guys were ready for the original plan, and he was lucky he didn't come out of the bathroom firing.
- A classic plan that's destined for disaster occurs, complete with visualization in Shaun Of The Dead. If the heroes could really "wait for all this to blow over," it wouldn't be much of a horror movie...
- A possible villainous inversion of this is the Joker's train of Xanatos Gambits in The Dark Knight. They succeed so well precisely because the only time he reveals a hint of what he's about to do is when he's either completely lying his ass off, lying about the bit that's going to make you walk right into it, or telling you the bit that's going to make you walk right into it. 99% of the time Batman, the police, and the audience have no freaking clue what to expect next.
Comic Books
- Subversion: In The Sandman #22, Morpheus announces to the population of the Dreaming his plan to go to Hell. He mentions that he has "made certain plans" in case he is captured, but not what they are. However, he isn't captured, and the subject doesn't come up again.
- Brutally, brutally subverted by the Big Bad in Watchmen. He goes on and on for pages about his incredibly convoluted plan to save the world from itself. The subversion? He has already done it. 35 minutes ago to be exact. He's not even punished for it. The heroes realize that exposing him would destroy the good his plan has done and push it to the brink of war again. Of course, it is left slightly open whether or not it ultimately succeeds.
Literature
- In the Discworld novel Going Postal, Moist von Lipwig and the Smoking Gnu work out a plan to destroy the semaphore company by blowing up the signal towers. The reader is told exactly how this plan will work. Just before they do it, though, Moist realises this would cause more problems than it solves, and comes up with a plan to destroy the company but leave the system in place. We aren't told how this one works until the payoff.
- In Watership Down, not only is the audience never informed beforehand of Hazel's plan to steal does from Efrafa, he doesn't even tell the other rabbits, realizing that if he does, something is sure to go wrong before the plan is carried out. That's one Genre Savvy bunny.
- Hazel doesn't tell them because if any of the rabbits are captured "They'll make you talk, all right."
Web Comics
- Terror Island subverts this trope with the first time Demon-Jame possesses Jame. First Folio describes the plan clearly to Stephen and Sid, and the plan goes off without a hitch.
- Averted in The Wotch: They had an Unspoken Plan
 , but Miranda had to Tempt Fate...
- Parodied in this Dragon Tails strip.
- Lampshaded in Order Of The Stick:
Lien: Anyway, given that, we had to keep a close eye on Elan, waiting for you to make contact.
Elan: Why didn't you tell me about it, though?
Lien: Because we wanted it to work! Seriously, how many times do I have to go over the, "Good, not dumb," thing?
- This may be less about this trope and more about Elan being an idiot they can't trust not to mess things up.
Video Games
- Mostly averted in the Sly Cooper series, where Bentley describes in detail what must be done in each mission, and the mission usually goes just as planned. Not all of them, mind you, but exceptions are the exception rather than the rule. After all, it's considerably more fun to play through something you've heard about than to just watch it.
- There is a straight example of this trope, though, in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves. In the final mission against Pirate Captain LaFwee, Bentley's plan appears to fail due to LaFwee's counter-planning, but it turns out to be much more elaborate than the plan described to the player.
- Honestly, this trope just doesn't happen very often in computer games. How would the player carry out an elaborate mission that they hadn't been informed of?
- However, it shows up in Psychonauts. The plan Shegor's talking pet turtle comes up with that goes off without a hitch and very nearly solves everything is blanked out when discussed, then carried out in a cutscene.
Web Original
- Played with by way of No Fourth Wall in Dr Horribles Sing Along Blog. Dr. Horrible's plan fails because it turns out that Captain Hammer and the police have been watching the video along with the audience. (Something of a subversion, though, since the audience doesn't even know his target until his recap of the failure.)
- Also subverted with his revenge plan - we are told nothing, save that it will be both vicious and final. It... almost works.
Newspaper Comics
- Garfield seems to be an expert bird-catcher...Unless he plans his 'attacks' on-panel. Then, almost invariably, he fails miserably.
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