http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit

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all paths lead to a victory." Cavilo, The Vor Game "The key to strategy... is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so thatpaths lead tovictory."

A Xanatos Gambit is a plan for which all foreseeable outcomes benefit the creator — including ones that superficially appear to be failure. The creator predicts potential attempts to thwart the plan, and arranges the situation such that the creator will ultimately benefit even if their adversary "succeeds" in "stopping" them. When faced with a Xanatos Gambit the options are either to accept that the creator will get the upper hand and choose the outcome that is least beneficial to them, or to defeat them by finding a course that they didn't predict; of course, morons are especially good at the second option...

At its most basic, the Xanatos Gambit assumes two possible outcomes for the one manipulated — success or failure. The plan is designed in such a way that either outcome will ultimately further the plotter's goals. A more complex view is offered by the study of probability in which such a gambit is known as a Dutch Book and involves securing bets such that regardless of the outcome the bookie will always pay out less than was bet.

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Since the Xanatos Gambit can involve an obvious goal's apparent failure, this is a convenient device in an ongoing series to let the villain occasionally win (preventing Villain Decay) while still giving the heroes a climactic pseudo-victory.

This trope is named after David Xanatos, one of the main antagonists in the series Gargoyles, who was a master of the technique and used it consistently to serve his own ends.

If the character's plan is continually revised to bring about a winning solution no matter what happens, he is playing Xanatos Speed Chess. When a plan is so ludicrously complicated that it relied more on luck than actual planning and foresight, it's a Gambit Roulette. If the plan relies on misdirection rather than Morton's Fork, then it's a Kansas City Shuffle. If several people are trying to out-scheme the other in this way, you might be headed for a Gambit Pileup where several of them are likely to be Out-Gambitted. This may involve counters to plans the mastermind may or may not be expecting.

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This is one of The Oldest Tricks in the Book, listed in The Thirty-Six Stratagems as the 35th strategy, Chain Stratagems.

Contrast with Indy Ploy, a "plan" executed with no planning whatsoever, and Batman Gambit, a plan which relies on people doing as predicted in given circumstances. The Magnificent Bastard is a villain type likely to use these, but a particularly skilled Chessmaster, Manipulative Bastard, or Guile Hero may also pull one off.

This trope is not to be confused with Thanatos Gambit (where a plan includes the planner's death as a final piece) although they can overlap, or a Xanatos Backfire (When someone's own thingamajig is the source of their downfall (if a work is the source of their downfall, then that's Creator Killer), another name for Hoist by His Own Petard).

Sadistic Choice is the Polar Opposite, in which every given choice will hinder the the person deciding the choice.

Remember: It's only a Xanatos Gambit if all the plausible, mutually exclusive, outcomes benefit the mastermind in some way. It does not count if the plan has multiple desired results but all of them still require to succeed. At the very least, the planner has to benefit regardless of whether the obvious plan succeeds or fails. This is not a shorthand for "any clever, complex, evil plan." You may want Evil Plan for that. Instances of this term that use "Xanatos Gambit" without the key quality of "all (or at least two) plausible outcomes always benefit the mastermind" are WRONG. Please fix them wherever you see them at TV Tropes. If you can't decide what kind of plan it is, use The Plan which is the supertrope for plans in general.

Heroes and villains and everything in between can use this trope, but most cases will have spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Examples:

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Board Games

A game of Chess played by two halfway decent people is truly a joy to behold due to the sheer number of Xanatos Gambits. Indeed, the very principle of the Gambit comes from the Chess practice of offering up the sacrifice of a piece in order to gain a positional advantage. It is exceedingly common to sacrifice one's own piece in order to capture an opponent's piece, or simply to break the opponent's defences. Capturing the offered piece is called "Gambit accepted", and refusing is called "Gambit declined". Since many players have multiple such gambits going on at any one time, a game can quickly become a Gambit Pileup. On a smaller scale, the concept of a fork. He can take one of several pieces; which one will you protect? Another example of this comes in the form of Zugzwang: a situation in which any move the player makes will lead to a disadvantage (either material or positional), and the best possible action would be not to move at all - which is forbidden.

Connect 4 is generally won through a Xanatos gambit: by setting up two sequences right next to each other, either the other player blocks your first one and allows the second, or ignores both and so allows the first.

Tic Tac Toe, capture 3 of the 4 corners to assure that you will win regardless. While not always a board game (in fact, it's usually drawn with paper and pencil), a so-called "double-trap" in Tic-tac-toe is one of the most obvious Xanatos gambits.

Diplomacy is a game which thrives on these, as the players must secretly negotiate, manipulate, and lie to each other as a matter of course. For example, a clever player may attempt to offer another player support for a movement quid-pro-quo. If successful, great. If that player denies support, the first player might support him anyway - and mutter quite audibly about how he was just stabbed in the back. At the cost of one turn's disadvantage, the first player has trashed the second's reputation with the entire table.

The Chinese game of Go makes this Older Than Dirt, as the game is believed to be the oldest game still being played (at least 2,500 years old), as well as having many situations where both players are doing this simultaneously. In a situation called 'Ko', you are not allowed to take a stone that has just captured one of yours if it would lead to exactly the same board layout at the end of your previous turn. You must instead play elsewhere, and are allowed to take back on your next turn if your opponent has not played to stop that. In this case you need to make a play somewhere else that makes a threat that will cost your opponent more than he gains by consolidating the original exchange. He responds to your threat, you retake, leaving him in Ko, and so he then must make a threat for you to respond to. Both sides continue this until one player calculates the threat is not worth as much as the Ko position. Even then this may help the other player, as a dead group of stones is saved (or a live group is killed), lessening the value to the other side of winning the Ko. A pair of possible moves is called 'miai' if it doesn't matter which one is played, because the opponent will make the move the other choice would have prevented (often at the same place), and the outcome will be the same either way. This often turns into a bit of a Gambit Pileup, as there's usually no hurry to make a miai move, and it can be saved for a ko threat. Common sequences of moves, known as 'joseki', have become established because they are believed to be best play. Some joseki have many branches, presenting each player with several choices. No matter what they choose (unless they screw up), the player who started the joseki gets some advantage, while their opponent gets a slightly lesser advantage. Those advantages can be various combinations of territory, influence, initiative and aji, and although which combination of advantages you get depends on your opponent's choices as well as your own, a good player will steer things so that the advantages they get work well with the rest of the board. Players are advised not to learn joseki by rote, as it tends to lead to following such memorised sequences blindly, getting them Out-Gambitted by, for example, getting influence in the wrong direction.

This is a common idea in the Game of Thrones Board Game in general The Roose Bolton card does this. He boosts your armies so you might win, but if you lose, you can return him and all your other hero cards to your hand. When one side has a very slight advantage and both players have a grip of a bunch of Hero cards, the leading side will often play a mid-range card in an attempt to bait out a high-power card out of the opponent. If the opponent does, then the leading side does not have to worry about the high power card for later and may not even suffer casualties depending on which House was involved (especially a problem with Stark during 1st Edition). If the opponent doesn't, you still haven't committed many resources and gotten victory in the battle.



Card Games

Frequently the primary style behind the Scorpion Clan in Legend of the Five Rings, both in game mechanics and in storyline, consist of losing to win. Attacking them politically means they indulge in slander and blackmail; attacking them militarily means they lay horrific traps and pull you into impossible wars all the while. This has proven to be a catch-22 for the writers, as it's a Wall Banger if the clan doesn't salvage anything from a defeat, and if they're never truly defeated. They're also notorious for claiming everything is Just as Planned, even unambiguous defeats.

In Bridge, with the number of different varieties of coups, endplays, and the like, it's quite possible to make sure you make your contract (or your opponents lose their contract) no matter what is played, despite said contract appearing to be hopeless (or completely solid). The most common variety would be the endplay (by intentionally losing a trick to opponents, you force an opponent to give you at least two more tricks due to lack of leads), but the squeeze play (where an opponent is forced to discard too many cards, allowing their good cards to be easily captured) and the coup (generally a play to force a foe into promoting one of your other cards) also frequently work like this. The defense can also pull these off, although generally not as easily.

Depending on cards and archetype, this is often the goal in a game of Yu-Gi-Oh!. Decks in modern Yu-Gi-Oh! tend to focus on a singular strategy that can account for a number of potential attacks or moves by your opponent, and certain archetypes use your opponents moves. A Skull Servant deck wants its monsters to be destroyed and placed in the graveyard. Your opponent needs to destroy your monsters to win, but in doing so powers your other monsters (in particular the King of Skull Servant). If they leave them alone to stall your moves, they could risk you summoning something extremely dangerous that may not be reliant on your active strategy, but exists for this scenario. It's a lose-lose situation, and the only way out is to simultaneously destroy a monster and get it banished rather than just regular destroyed. This is not impossible to do, but had your deck not been set up to counter this exact potential moment, you are in a serious risk of failing to recover or gain traction against your opponent.

Comic Books

Fan Works

Films — Animation

Part A of Syndrome's scheme in The Incredibles. Whether a super succeeds or fails against the Omnidroid, Syndrome still gets to collect the data from the battle, and due to the scenario presented, no one thinks there's a need to question the droid's source.

In The Irregular at Magic High School: The Girl Who Calls The Stars, Navy scientists make a meteorite strike Earth as part of their attempts to recreate an illegal experiment. If the meteor hits, they know they got the experiment right. If it is magically disintegrated, they know that the Japanese army secretly has someone very powerful at their command.

powerful at their command. Frozen: Some Xanatos Speed Chess is necessary at first due to changing circumstances, but as of Anna's departure from the palace, a regular gambit is in motion: Hans leads Arendelle through the crisis while both queen and princess are absent, becoming a public hero. Option 1: Neither survive (despite Hans eventually mounting his own heroic efforts to find them), so there is no official heir and he will be supported in taking the throne. Option 2: Anna survives but Elsa dies, so he can marry Anna unimpeded and let the naïve princess be a Puppet Queen to his Evil Consort . Option 3: Elsa survives but Anna dies, so Elsa's one supporter is gone and she can be blamed for everything and executed, turning it into Option 1. Option 4: Both return, but public support will now favor Hans over Elsa and she'll have to let him marry Anna; an accident to the feared queen can be arranged later to turn it into Option 2. Hans nearly gets Option 3, but with Olaf's help , Anna stayed unfrozen long enough to derail things

Films — Live-Action

Folklore

In the old Armenian tale The Liar, a king offers a golden apple to anyone who can tell him a lie he won't believe. Many try and fail until a peasant enters his throne room and tells the king that he owes him money. Thus, the king is forced to either give the peasant the golden apple if he disbelieves the lie, or the money the peasant claims the king owes him.

Music

In rock opera Act II - The Father of Death by The Protomen, Dr. Wily sets out to ruin Dr. Light. He uses a machine they both built to murder Light's girlfriend, and as soon as the news of it goes public, Wily starts slandering Light to the presses. Light actually receives a not guilty verdict, but because of Wily's words the public believes Light did it and that the court system is broken. He is forced to flee town before they take justice into their own hands.

Myths & Religion

The Bible: The overarching plot of the Bible (at least according to mainstream Christian interpretations). Adam sinned by deciding humans could decide for themselves what was good or evil, "tainting" all future humans (which, since he and Eve were the First, is ALL humanity) with sin and death, and Jesus gives himself to counter-act this, the life of a perfect man (Adam) for the life of a perfect man (Jesus). Afterwards, everything is basically a Xanatos Gambit by God against Satan. Satan and the wicked have dominion over the earth and can (have, and will) persecute God's true followers and will attempt to destroy them. This could go several ways. 1) If the "wicked" have good hearts, no matter what, they will be called and welcomed to God's followers. Satan loses, Jehovah wins. 2) The wicked try to ignore God's people and continue ruling themselves. They are unable to successfully rule themselves, as God had predicted, and they will be removed from power. Satan loses, Jehovah wins. 3) The wicked and hard-hearted attempt to destroy God's followers. Prophesies are fulfilled, a battle at Armageddon begins, they are destroyed, the good-hearted are heralded into an eternity of happiness in a paradise earth, Satan and his demons are imprisoned and eventually destroyed, resolving the issue of sovereignty once and for all and ending in the destruction of all evil for all time. Satan loses, Jehovah wins. This comes across in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In the Book of Genesis, Joseph plays one when he demands that the brothers give up Benjamin to be his slave and themselves return to Canaan safely. That way, he ensure that either he gets to keep Benjamin with him (if his brothers treat Benjamin like a dispensable family member, as they treated Joseph years ago), or his brothers show a sufficient Character Arc by refusing to leave Benjamin in Egypt, in which case he reconciles with all of them and brings his entire clan over to Egypt. Luckily for the Israelites, the latter plan eventuates.



Pro Wrestling

LayCool pulled one in their big match against Melina to unify the titles at Night of Champions. They had Michelle McCool face Melina. Michelle was called a co-champion but Layla was the legal champion with Michelle allowed to wear and defend the belt as well. So if Michelle won (which she did), LayCool would be legally allowed to wear the unified title, while if Michelle lost, Layla could turn around and say Melina had won doodly-squat since she hadn't technically pinned or even faced the actual Women's Champion.

Tabletop Games

Theater

Shakespeare's Iago wouldn't be the infamous Magnificent Bastard of Othello if he couldn't pull this off, which he does when he convinces Roderigo to kill Cassio. If Roderigo succeeds, Iago gets his revenge on Cassio (for being promoted instead of him). If Roderigo fails and Cassio kills him, Iago doesn't have to worry about paying his Unwitting Pawn back all the money and jewels he's lost on the enterprise so far. So, as Iago muses in soliloquy, whatever the outcome, he wins.

In Thrill Me, Richard acts like he's pulling one of these through the whole show by committing the "perfect crime"—he's not, but Nathan is. Nathan wants to stay with Richard forever, so goes along with Richard's plan for the murder, then leaves obvious evidence. If the evidence is found, he can "accidentally" turn them in, if not, he can go to the police intentionally. If they get life in prison, then Nathan would bribe the guards to get put in the same cell. If they were hanged, well... Richard: [agitated] What if we got the death penalty?

Nathan: As long as we were together.

Toys

In BIONICLE, Makuta put the Great Spirit Mata Nui to sleep and on the verge of death while he took over in the power vacuum - but if some heroes would arise to heal Mata Nui and wake him up again (something which Makuta was smart enough to expect would happen), then he could usurp the revival process and commit Grand Theft Me, essentially becoming the Physical God of that world. Eight years of storyline passed before this was revealed. A quote from Time Trap says it best. Makuta: "Little Toa, you have not yet begun to see even the barest outlines of my plans. I have schemes within schemes that would boggle your feeble mind. You may counter one, but there are a thousand more of which you know nothing. Even my... setbacks... are planned for, and so I shall win in the end." One of the Piraka once saw Makuta's plan written out in its entirety. It took up the walls of an entire room, and the Piraka went partially insane after reading it.



Visual Novels

Web Comics

Web Original