XanatosGambit wick and example cleanup

The last time Xanatos Gambit was sent to the Trope Repair Shop, we decided that too much of its misuse was due to its legacy issues for us to make a judgement on whether or not we had to rename it. The description was a mess that included a lot of confusing and incorrect information, there was no explanatory image like there is now, and to top it all off, there was still a lot of old, old misuse left over from before Batman Gambit was split off of it. The plan, or the general idea of it, was to scrub out all of that and, once it could get a fresh slate, give it a few months to see if misuse persisted, and then potentially revisit the discussion.

For reference, a Xanatos Gambit is a plan where all foreseeable outcomes benefit the planner in some way. A good example needs to explain what those outcomes are likely to be and how the planner is okay with all of them. Here is an example of what an ideal Xanatos Gambit example should look like, taken from the page:

• In Iron Man 2, Ivan Vanko's attack on Tony Stark at the race track was deliberately chosen because either outcome would achieve his goals. If he won, he'd kill Tony and get his revenge. If he lost, he'd show the world that Tony's claims that the Arc Reactor tech was impossible to replicate would be shattered, which in turn would ruin Tony's position as the world's self-imposed protector. Vanko even yells "You lose!" to Tony as the police drag him away after he's been defeated.

It explains the two potential outcomes and how Ivan Vanko benefits from either of them.

Here is an example of a bad example of Xanatos Gambit, also taken from the page:

• In one episode of Automan, a plot is foiled and a huge lump of evidence is stored in police headquarters. Later, it is revealed that the bad guy's main goal is to blow up police headquarters, and inside that lump of explosive evidence is hidden a tiny bomb detonator.

This example omits the important information of what happens if the police don't unwittingly collect the bomb as evidence and store it in police headquarters. Since the plan hinges on the police acting the way the bad guy expects and will fail otherwise, it's actually a Batman Gambit, not a Xanatos Gambit. I deleted this example from the page.

Here's an example of a bad wick, from Alas, Poor Villain, where Xanatos Gambit is used as part of the description in an example of another trope:

• In Kamen Rider Kabuto, we get the Rich Idiot With No Dayjob Tsurugi, who has thoroughly become a lovable comic relief character...until it's discovered he's really the Scorpio Worm. The real Tsurugi's over-the-top personality had over-riden the Worm's, essentially Becoming the Mask. While it seems like Tsurugi has betrayed humanity, even his potential love interest, it's actually all part of a Xanatos Gambit to lead the Worms to ruin by following his orders. And it succeeds. Every Worm is defeated. Every. Worm.

In this wick, someone unfamiliar with the work doesn't have enough context to successfully extract the meaning of Xanatos Gambit from this example. Normally that's not a big deal, but with the level of confusion we've seen with Xanatos Gambit, I don't think we can afford to take chances with ambiguity. If the full context isn't adequately explained, its better just to delete the link. I fixed this one by changing "a Xanatos Gambit" to "a gambit", with no link.

Here's another bad wick, this time from Characters.Agarest Senki, where Xanatos Gambit is used by itself:

• Xanatos Gambit: Organizes one herself just to travel with the party.

Again we lack the context to determine if it's correct, and again we want to scrub this away because of its ambiguity, but this time it's on its own line instead of potholed as part of another example. That means we can't just remove the link to the trope and leave the rest untouched. The solution I chose in this scenario was to delete the example from the page and post it on the discussion page in case a fan of the series wants to expound on it properly.

So, here we are in Special Efforts. Here's a list of the things we need to do.

• Check the examples on the page itself. We need to comb all the folders and make sure everything's okay. Examples that are wrong should be removed and, if applicable, moved to the correct trope on the Gambit Index. Examples that are ambiguous or don't explain themselves enough for you to be sure should be moved to the discussion page—we can't take for granted that people understand what the trope means.
• Assign Wiki Curators to the Xanatos Gambit page to help keep new examples clean. Volunteers so far:
• Go through all of the wicks to clean up misuse. If it's an example of another trope on the Gambit Index, such as Batman Gambit or Evil Plan, you can change it to that; if it's ambiguous, move it to the discussion page or delete the link like I did in the examples above. If it's ambiguous but you're familiar with the work, even better: you can elaborate on the example yourself.

We can post here as we make progress.

Anime's done. On the actual page, I mean. There was one I wasn't sure about, so someone else will have to explain it. I left it on the page for now.

• In Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, Miyo Takano pulls an amazing one that not only works over all of the different arcs, and thus several different 'worlds', but also manages to have each one work slightly differently (thus moving almost into Batman Gambit territory) in each arc, always with the same results. To be fair, though, the character isn't aware that each arc is a different world and each one of them thinks it's just working in their particular world. But the effect is the same, either way.
  • Not to mention the various gambits pulled off, along with other Xanatos index tropes (especially an I Know You Know I Know played for humour), in the various club activities. Mion and Shion's gambit in the zombie tag game is of special note, along with the combined Xanatos Gambit and I Know You Know I Know (with slight improv) that Rena and Satoko pull against each other in the water fight...

Necrobump.

I've started just going through and nuking all unclear examples, with the edit reason "Zapping all X Just X examples of Xanatos Gambit. If correct, add back with more detail. Remember its not just "cunning plan," it's "All paths lead to victory.""

The A's are done. About 90% of the examples looked good, but if I was even a little bit unsure, I zapped it.

Bumbing to report what I've done. I've got about one third of the wicks cleaned. Most of what I've seen is confusion with Evil Plan because of the JAFAAC page image, the misleading opening line, flaws in the Playing with, etc. Those have been fixed now and Evil Plan is growing in both wicks and inbounds.

Surprisingly, I didn't see much in the way of X Just X. It was either potholes or the details of (usually evil) plan.

Got this pretty done, but since it's such a change in organization, I wanted to run it by more folks, first. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=7ezq9lg9oa8l5pcyg5hhz640

I read it and I like it. Supertrope for plans will help prevent further missue. By the way, I finished another letter section. Like before lots of Evil Plans, but Batman Gambit comes in second.

Okay, trope launched under The Plan. Modified the Gambit Index organization at the same time.

Reporting in with another letter section cleared. I'm almost half way done; 10 letters. I found a lot of generic use this tim and so I'm glad The Plan was launched. It feels better than the Gambit Index and seems to be growing nicely.

Chaotic Novelist, I've seen you've modified a Xanatos Gambit example/pothole to The Plan on the Mitsumete Knight article. The example in question:

I disagree to this change, the Xanatos Gambit usage on that example is legit according to the trope's definition. Let me explain, since I have played this game:

If Meehilbis won the fight, it would have been beneficial for Valpha-Valaharian. But if he lost (as it ultimately becomes the case), this still is beneficial for Valpha-Valaharian since Dolphan's army was severely crippled with his plan (hence why this is example is marked as Pyrrhic Victory. The fact that that Dolphan "win" was disastrous for them is acknowledged In-Universe.) . As such, this responds to the Xanatos Gambit condition of "all the plausible outcomes benefit the mastermind in some way".

It would be great if we could discuss on this one: I'd want to avoid an Edit War and settle this problem the correct way.

edited 9th Apr '12 5:34:05 PM by AceNoctali

Thank you so much for that information. If I tried to find that out myself for every example I'd never finish the clean up. Its wonderful when others tropers fill me on stuff like this. I saw 'a trap masterfully executed' without further details and I thought it was generic use. I placed that information on the Mitsumete Knight page already. I would like to keep the pothole out of it though. I'm afarid it would encourage further misuse as a generic plan. Anything else?

Sorry for the late answer. I'm fine with giving it a separate example instead of a pothole. I've tweaked your addition a little so its writing flow well, and have moved it to the correct section of the articles' example list (it's an example from the original Dating Sim game, not the RPG sequel game). Please tell me if you're fine with those tweaks, and if not, don't hesitate telling me.

edited 14th Apr '12 4:50:26 PM by AceNoctali

Can we get an update on which parts of the alphabet have been swept?

I started in the Zs I (I thought someone was doing the As at the time) and now I'm in the Hs.

Bumb. I'm in the B's. I've seen little upward motion on this trope so hopefully there won't be TOO much misuse behind me.

Updating bumb. This is my second run through the list. Most of the confusion for related tropes (batman gambit, gambit roulette etc) has been cleaned up. The remaining problems are confusion for "Plan by the villain" i.e. Evil Plan and 'complicated/clever/generic plan' i.e. The Plan.

A lot of it is gushing. 'reaching xanatos levels of planning' or 'one MASSIVE xanatos gambit'.

Updating bumb. My clean up is reaching its end. I'm in the 'E's as of this writing and my normal obervatioins are inverted: Correct use outnumbers generic use.

You are a saint. Somebody get this troper a Wiki Cleaner badge.

Yay!

Thanks for the nomination.

Is there anything else we need to do here? Perhaps schedule a check up at some point?