Xanatos Gambit: "All plans work" or "trick as to what the plan was?"

Xanatos Gambit

Though the page quote suggests it's about all paths leading to victory, my interpretation of the article (especially from the "villain secretly counted on it working out this way" part) is that the idea was to trick people into thinking something was plan A, when the real plan was plan B, which depended on people mistaking it for plan A.

I remember adding a few examples for The Dark Knight Saga, and you could probably find them by looking up Xanatos Gambit in the page history. They were deleted because they weren't "all paths lead to victory" gambits; however, they clearly meet the "plan B depends on people mistaking it for plan A" criteria; here's an explanation per gambit.

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Though in hindsight, examples 2 and 4 are a little shaky.

This is indeed a problem, but almost any Evil Plan that takes into account the potential actions of the heroes will employ some degree of misdirection. The definition of Xanatos Gambit is that "any predictable outcome leads to victory for the planner". I admit to getting this confused a few times myself.

"any predictable outcome leads to a victory of some sort for the planner"

Right, that. The problem we keep having with Xanatos Gambit is that there's a tropology gap between generic Evil Plan and Xanatos Gambit that isn't really well defined. We did have a TRS topic to get Kansas City Shuffle renamed, possibly to something like Misdirection Gambit, but the problem there is that Kansas City Shuffle is named for a very specific type of that gambit, where the heroes are tricked into believing that they have seen through your trick. Similarly, Batman Gambit is about Flaw Exploitation; and Bavarian Fire Drill is about pretending authority you don't have.

I think that maybe we do need to YKTTW Misdirection Gambit or something similar as a more generic middle ground.

I think that we desperately need Misdirection Gambit as a supertrope for the various plans that use it in specific ways, and as a holding space for those that don't fit into one of the others we already have.

If a Xanatos Gambit isn't specifically a misdirection gambit, then the wording of the article REALLY needs to be changed.

That said, I think my 1st example might apply anyway. Here's the scene my first example is referring to.

Your first example is more of a Kansas City Shuffle or a straightforward Misdirection Gambit. One way it could qualify as a Xanatos Gambit might be if the Joker benefits either from the Mayor dying (because he accomplishes his main objective) or from Batman saving him (because it discredits Batman somehow, or allows the Joker to go after a secondary target). If the plan fails entirely should Batman save the Mayor, it's not a Xanatos Gambit.

The second example is a Sadistic Choice with a Batman Gambit twist. It fails if Batman somehow finds a way to save both of them.

The third example is only a Xanatos Gambit if the Joker could also have benefitted from not being caught. Otherwise it's a Kansas City Shuffle. If his plan revolves entirely around being caught and he isn't, then it doesn't qualify.

The fourth is also a Batman Gambit. If the officer doesn't come close enough to get grabbed, it fails.

There is some noteworthy irony here in that, in The Dark Knight, the Joker is the one using Batman Gambits against Batman.

edited 26th Oct '10 12:59:07 PM by Fighteer

The real problem is figuring out how valuable the initial plan would be to the planner if it succeeded, because you can almost always argue that if the initial plan resulted in the hero's death than it really would have been win/win.

That's why the most pure form of the Xanatos Gambit is when the outcome of the initial plan (or the initial misdirection) is irrelevant. Like the Star Trek Voyager example where the telepathic refugees would have been safe whether or not the Fake Defector betrayed them, or the Gargoyles example where the fight between The Pack and the Gargoyles didn't matter because the jail break was just to get Fox some points with the parole board.

edited 27th Oct '10 10:51:16 AM by KJMackley

Are we allowed to say that Xanatos Gambit is a terrible name?

Because it is. Yes, I know there's zero hope of changing it before the heat death of the universe, but if we are still not certain about what the term encompasses, then it was badly-chosen. People still use it for "crowning moment of planning" no matter what we do or say in the page.

You can say it all you want, and it remains true, but it's also one of the Tropes Of Legend and is therefore pretty much immune.

Couldn't we... subtly create a bunch of other tropes as subtropes of Xanatos Gambit with more clear names, then slowly move the examples to them until Xanatos Gambit is a supertrope, then quietly move them all to a more clear supertrope, leaving Xanatos Gambit empty? At which point it could be turned into a Just For Fun page along the lines of Toblerone or whatever.

Well, now that you have exposed that idea, tropers who honour Xanatos Gambit will be ready for it.

Seriously, I keep hearing peopelw ho say it is a terrible name. I agree it is not precicely MarySueish good, but it isn't terribly bad either. I actually think it is one of those names that combine concise and witty pretty much perfectly.

I agree with Maddruaga. We need to make another trope.To make a distinction when a character is simply bluffing.

"any predictable outcome leads to a victory of some sort for the planner"

Sorry to veer off-topic, but we should totally appropriate that for the Laconic entry.