wick cleanup needed: Xanatos Gambit

Courtesy links.

Ooooooookay. I don't expect this to go over well. I know how much effort's been put into trying to sort out the gambit tropes already, but I feel like it's gotta be said:

Do Batman Gambit and Xanatos Gambit really need to be seperate tropes? They're basically the same thing: Someone devises a scheme, taking care to predict the reactions of everyone who might get involved; the scheme is then set up so that, when other people try to foil the scheme or react against it in some way, they unwittingly take actions that help the schemer be successful. The only difference between the Batman and Xanatos versions is that in a Batman Gambit the scheme requires its dupes to behave as expected, otherwise the plan doesn't work, while a Xanatos Gambit produces favorable (though often different) results for the schemer whether or not someone tries to foil it.

But, from a storytelling standpoint, is that really a meaningful distinction? The point of the tropes, showing how smart someone is by having them manipulate neutral and/or antagonistic people into doing their bidding, is present in both; one just has the schemer being a little more cautious than other. I just don't see why we need two different tropes here.

P.S. Besides, when a Batman Gambit is done successfully, how can you be sure it's not really a Xanatos Gambit? Maybe if the other characters had done the unexpected and messed up the "trick them into aiding me" plan, the schemer would have just revealed a contingency plan that would still allow them to prevail.

You're misstating them.

Batman Gambit: A gambit that relies on the target behaving in a characteristic manner in order for the Gambit to succeed.

Xanatos Gambit: No matter what the target does, the Gambiteer will get something he wants out of the plan.

They're hugely different.

No, they're really not. Batman Gambit is: "I predict that if I do X, you'll do Y, which benefits me." Xanatos Gambit is: "I predict that if I do X, you'll either do Y or Z, both of which benefit me." One's just a slightly more complicated version of the other.

No, they are different: a Batman gambit doesn't take into consideration that someone might do Z, because Batman is 100% sure he will do Y. If someone does Z instead of Y, a Batman gambit will fail, whereas a Xanatos gambit won't. That's the difference.

Yes, they are different. I think all others who chip in will agree.

Maybe Batman Gambit's definition is unclear. We split it off Xanatos Gambit originally to stop the latter trope's misuse... that failed completely, as we saw earlier this year during the Xanatos Gambit cleanup. Should we do more to clarify the trope?

Maybe rename it? Comics aside, does the popcultural osmosis view of Batman have anything to do with this trope? Good at fighting, lots of gadgets, a detective, sure, but "uses his knowledge of people's tendencies to trick them into action?" No, I don't think the name does anything to help distinguish the trope from other cons.

edited 13th Oct '11 4:50:25 AM by Routerie

Batman Gambit: "Ha, I knew you'd do X, so I set a trap preparing for exactly that! Wait, you did Y? Fuck.

A Batman Gambit relies on predictability to work; if the other person doesn't act as predicted, the plan fails.

Xanatos Gambit: "If you do X, Z will happen. If you do Y, Z will happen. Either way, I win."

A Xanatos Gambit rigs the outcome so that any choice works out in the planner's favor. With a Batman Gambit, the target has to be predictable; with a Xanatos Gambit, the target is screwed, regardless of predictability.

edited 13th Oct '11 4:45:09 AM by tropetown

Yeah, as a name Batman Gambit is quite counterintuitive... First of all, like you said, only comic book readers know Batman's main power is being Crazy-Prepared (and even in the comics that has not always been so, only since the 1990s). But what's even worse, a Batman Gambit isn't necessarily a gambit at all. A Batman Gambit doesn't have to have "sacrifice something to gain something" as an element, unlike a Xanatos Gambit.

edited 13th Oct '11 4:44:21 AM by Tuomas

It's more of a gamble than a gambit, though the word "gambit" can mean any plan that someone uses to gain an advantage.

Hmm, I didn't know that... I guess I'm just used to the chess term and it's metaphoric use, which specifically means you have to sacrifice something.

A Xanatos Gambit might take into account someone doing Y or Z, but what if they do X instead? Or what if the Xanatos Gambit takes X, Y, and Z into account, but the victim does K or S or W?

We say in the trope description that a Xanatos Gambit has all paths lead to victory, but that's really just hyperbole. Even the best laid Xanatos Gambit can't prepare for every possible turn of events, otherwise it would be a Xanatos Roulette. So the only difference between a Batman Gambit and a Xanatos Gambit is that the latter prepares for a greater (but still finite) number of possible reactions. That strikes me as just a case of The Same But More.

No, as a storytelling conventions they are quite different. Batman gambit is based on the assumption that "people are always predictable". Xanatos gambit is based on "people are not predictable, but there's a finite amount of likely actions a person will take". So it's basically determinism vs. free will, two different premises that can lead to rather different kinds of stories.

edited 13th Oct '11 5:38:54 AM by Tuomas

No, it's not hyperbole.

If it doesn't lead to some sort of outcome that the gambiteer considers a win, no matter what the target does, it's not a Xanatos Gambit. The "win" doesn't have to be the same in all circumstances. It just has to be something that he considers a win.

A Xanatos Gambit is defined by its outcome: It always ends in some sort of a benefit for the person running it. It does not always have to end in the same benefit.

edited 13th Oct '11 5:39:48 AM by Madrugada

Then what makes a successful Batman Gambit any different from a Xanatos Gambit?

The fact that if the person acted contrary to the Batman Gambit, the whole thing would fall apart. If the person tries to act contrary to a Xanatos Gambit, there is always a benefit to the planner.

A Xanatos Gambit usually takes the form of "I'm doing X. If you try to stop me doing X, I make a gain. If you don't, I still make a gain. If you do Y, I still make a gain." The person subjected to a Xanatos Gambit is screwed to some degree, no matter what they do. The benefit to the planner isn't always the same (in fact, it rarely is), but any action taken will further the planner's agenda.

A Batman Gambit usually looks like this: "My plan hinges on you doing X; if you don't, then my plan is ruined." The person who uses a Batman Gambit is counting on the mark to make an error that the plan will exploit. If that error doesn't take place, the planner is screwed; there won't be a benefit at all.

edited 13th Oct '11 6:12:09 AM by tropetown

You're either not paying attention or too focused on the minutiae to see the big picture. The two Gambits are fundamentally different. A Batman Gambit requires assumptions about the mark's personality and thinking and if those don't pan out, the gambit fails completely. A Xanatos Gambit may involve those same assumptions, but ultimately they are only a small facet of the overall plan; even if the main thrust of the gambit falls through, some part of it will be a success for the gambiteer, so it's a net win.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

edited 13th Oct '11 6:11:11 AM by Willbyr

I think what the OP is seeing here, is the fact that a Xanatos Gambit can be ruined, which gives it a failure condition, just like a Batman Gambit. This is true, but when one is ruined, it does not remove the gain that the planner made; it just does something which turns the gain into a hollow victory. The original benefit is still there, but it comes at a cost that renders that gain useless.

On the other hand, when a Batman Gambit gets ruined, the whole plan falls apart. There is no gain, there's just a ruined plan.

edited 13th Oct '11 6:24:38 AM by tropetown

But Xanatos Gambits don't prepare for every possible action. Even if they prepare for every action discussed or attempted in the story, that's not the same thing.

Actually, I think I've had this discussion on these forums. I remember, because, then as now, the example that came to mind was: The Chessmaster sets up their elaborate Xanatos Gambit, taking every possibility into account . . . then a giant asteroid hits the Earth and kills everyone.

A Xanatos Gambit can fail, but the gain will still be there; it'll just be rendered useless. If it's something like a Deus ex Machina that stops it, that's just bad luck, and nobody can plan for that. If they did do that, it would turn into a Xanatos Roulette, not a Batman Gambit.

The best planners play Xanatos Speed Chess when bad luck happens, though.

edited 13th Oct '11 6:30:14 AM by tropetown

Raven Wilder, I think you're focusing too much on the point of view of the Chessmaster. From the point of view of the gambit's targets, there's a big difference between them, as a Batman Gambit implies psychological determinism, whereas a Xanatos Gambit doesn't. So yeah, from the point of view of the schemer they might be quite similar, but not all stories involving these gambits are told strictly from that point of view.

edited 13th Oct '11 6:37:03 AM by Tuomas

But it's only by looking at the schemer's point of view that we can tell which kind of gambit it is. What looks like a Batman Gambit could have lots of contingencies in place that make it a Xanatos Gambit, and what looks like a Xanatos Gambit could actually have exploitable flaws, the victims of it just never thought of them.

This is true. Like I said, the difference is in the outcome. The only way a true Xanatos Gambit can actually fail, is either through some uncontrollable factor (a freak storm, someone unknown working against it, an asteroid, etc), or by making the gain come at a cost that would render it moot. A Batman Gambit (and this is the important part) hinges on the mark making a mistake and falling into the planner's trap. If the mark doesn't make that mistake, the plan fails, period; there is no other gain to be had.

edited 13th Oct '11 7:15:01 AM by tropetown

In that case, Batman Gambit is the same as Concert Kiss because if an asteroid hits Earth, both will fail. Or, the tropes each have a definition which has nothing to do with success in the face of asteroids.

If you think the tropes are the same, what is the common definition that both fall under?

edited 13th Oct '11 7:25:44 AM by Routerie

I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't really see the hard distinction between one level of preparedness and another. Looking through the Xanatos Gambit page, in every example I'm familiar with, I can think of things other characters could have done that would have ruined the schemer's plan. Not just "victory outweighed by the losses", but "victory thwarted completely, leaving them worse off than they were before".

No Xanatos Gambit is flawless, regardless of what the trope description says, and many Batman Gambits have contingency plans. I'd say they're both the same trope (schemer predicts other people's reactions and designs their plan so those reactions benefit the schemer), only distinguished by the fact that one takes more possible reactions into account than the other.

edited 13th Oct '11 7:37:45 AM by RavenWilder

You appear to be fixating on "flawless" as a criteria for Xanatos Gambit. It's not one. You also seem to be assuming that there can be only one "win condition" for a plan. That's also not true.

The defining characteristic of a Xanatos Gambit is that no matter what the target does, the gambiteer gets something they want as a result. It doesn't have to always be the same thing.

edited 13th Oct '11 8:04:51 AM by Madrugada

Note that a Xanatos Gambit doesn't actually require to be pulled off successfully to be successful. Or whatever else I can word that.

I can design a marvelous plan that uses weird patent stuff, FUD and internal disagreement in the scientific community to result in giving me control of the entire production of antibiotics in the world, and then a Spanner in the Works can thwart or pretty muck wreck it, but after the fall I still might be in control of the entire world's distribution of syringes or IV devices and pretty end up swimming in money, even when the "letter" of the original plan failed.

A Batman Gambit does require to be pulled off successfully, in the context to which the predictability factor applies. The entire strength of a Batman Gambit relies on the specificness of the steps, on the "letter" of the plan be hard.

The difference is much more than degree — it is direction of the planning. And since that leads to different narrative contexts, that solidifies as different tropes.

EDIT: Madrugada'd, but leaving my example here because it's cute.

edited 13th Oct '11 8:06:38 AM by SilentReverence