Batman Gambit/Western Animation: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

** Another such gambit involves a gangster and rival of the Joker dying and willing him 250 million dollars. On paper. What ''really'' happened was that only 10 million dollars of the inheritance was real. The rival was banking on the Joker's massive ego not allowing him to admit to being fooled, which makes things hard for the Joker when it's time to pay inheritence tax.

* ''[[Justice League (animation)|Justice League]]'': A villainous version happens when Lex Luthor builds a city for the poor as a charity event and then places a huge machine under it, suspiciously whispering about it to his aide. Superman, who was invited to the event, thinks it's a bomb and wrecks half the city trying to destroy it. Turns out it was an experimental generator and now half the country hates the Justice League.

** In a later episode, "Widowmaker", Francine wishes Stan was more open with her like her neighbor Julie did with her husband Craig, who has been missing for three weeks. After some "therapy" with Roger, Stan becomes very open with Francine, including the fact that he killed Julie's husband for being a blabber-mouth by order of the CIA (and going into graphic detail). Then Francine accidentally tells Julie and has to knock her out so the CIA doesn't decide to kill Stan for the same reason as Craig. Then it all turns out this a plan by Stan and Craig so Francine will quit bothering Stan, and so Craig can get away from having to talk to Julie by moving to a tropical island and taking a new wife. ''God'', Stan ({{spoiler|and Craig}}) is an '''[[Jerkass|asshole]]'''.

** In "The Scarlett Getter", Stan meets an old flame from his CIA training academy and he starts to re-develop feelings for her and ignore Francine. Francine is so irritated by this hookup, she tells Roger to put on a disguise to steal Scarlett from Stan. This works, but Stan wants to break up Roger and Scarlett and hires an alien hunter to capture Roger. Stan and the hunter arrive at the cabin where Roger and Scarlett are planning to have sex, where it turns out that {{spoiler|Scarlett is an alien hunter herself. She knew Stan had an alien in his house before thir "chance" encounter each other and used Stan to get to Roger and dissect him.}}

** That one was nothing compared to the one Clockwork the Time Ghost pulled in [[The Movie]], "The Ultimate Enemy". Knowing everything that would happen, he manipulated events which lead to Danny encountering the evil monster he could become so he could overcome it, change his future, gain his sister as a confidant, and develop his most powerful ability ten years early, while at the same time, pull his evil self out of time so he couldn't harm his own timeline anymore. The only side effect is now that if he ever gets loose, he'll be free to travel into Danny's time without anything to teether him.

* In the third season opener of ''[[ReBoot]]'', Mainframe security forces have been shot out of the sky by Megabyte's military and Dot needs the few remaining to return to the Principle Office. To get enough time to lower their shields and get the survivors back inside, Dot tells them to move into a single file line to approach the hanger bay. Such a tactic would be insane, but Dot knew Megabyte's military tactics. The enemy forces took position on both sides of the allied forces and prepared to shoot them down in the crossfire. With the enemy fighters in neat little groups of their own, the good guys were able to lower shields, gun down the attacking forces with the base turrets and bring in the survivors all in one move. It didn't work out quite as clean as on paper, though.

{{quote|{{spoiler|'''2003 Leonardo:'''}} If there's one constant in [[The Multiverse]], it's the Shredder's big fat ego!}}

* In the two-part pilot of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', main character Twilight Sparkle's mentor, Princess Celestia, sends her to Ponyville to make some friends, right after she warned her about an [[Prophecies Are Always Right|ancient prophecy of doom]]. Turns out, her mentor predicted this. Thanks to her understanding of friendship in the second part, Twilight and her new friends saved the world.

** Princess Celestia continues to use some variant of this in pretty much every major appearance thereafter, reasons varying from trying to teach Twilight and friends something, to using Twilight and friends as pawns to get out of having to sit through a boring soiree.

*** To playing pranks on inattentive waiters to screwing with the animal lover's head (but at least she made the bird apologize)...she really loves this trope.

** And let's not forget the second one she pulled. She figured Discord would break out, so she had Twilight Sparkle stay in Ponyville, writing letters to her, explaining what she learned about friendship. When Discord comes and takes over Ponyville, Celestia sends all the letters to Twilight Sparkle in order to snap her out of her [[Heroic BSOD]]. Put simply, it works.

* An episode of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes|Jimmy Two Shoes]]'' had {{spoiler|Lucius}} pull off a rather impressive one to prank [[All Bikers Are Hells Angels|The Rodeo Clowns]].

* In ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' episode "Sideshow Bob Roberts" Lisa figures she can get Sideshow Bob to admit he rigged the election by insinuating he was a lackey to [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|Birch Barlow]].

{{quote|'''Bob''': Only I could have executed such a masterpiece of electoral fraud. And I have the records to prove it! Here, just look at these -- each one a work of Machiavellian art!}}

* In one episode of ''[[The Cleveland Show]]'', Donna breaks her leg and guilt trips Cleveland into taking care of her and the household. Cleveland does everything he can to please Donna and she takes advantage of his by making him come up to her room for every little thing she wants. Cleveland's friends notices how soft he has gotten and they confront Donna, thinking she's not really disabled at all, and try to prove she is faking it by pushing her down a flight of stairs. Donna turns out to be just fine as she got up at the last minute and admits she is pretending to be crippled because she knows that Cleveland will push himself to take care of her since he feels guilty about not helping out more. However, {{spoiler|Cleveland knew all along that Donna was faking her injury and was working hard to make her feel guilty about having him do all the work. Once Donna got "better", she sees Cleveland is still busting his ass to please her, so she demands to resume being the housewife of the family. Cleveland pretends to agree and once Donna is working hard at home, she then realizes she was being played with all along.}}

* In ''[[Gargoyles]]'', the entire scenario with Derek Maze, Elisa Maza's brother, was one big Batman Gambit by David Xanatos. There were many times Xanatos plans for Derek could have failed. All Derek really had to do was trust and believe in his own sister's warnings about him. {{spoiler|Elisa even gets Fox on tape admitting that Xanatos had shady plans for her brother. She gives the tape to Derek, but he clearly doesn't listen to it. Episodes later, (after the damage was done) Derek/Talon finds out the hard way he was nothing but a science experiment, and a personal stab at Elisa Maza. David Xanatos, himself, even criticized his scientist, Anton Sevarius, for being a bad actor - something Derek should have noticed being an ex-cop. "You always overplay your hand, Anton."}}

* In an episode of ''Arthur'', Arthur refused to take D.W. to a science museum. The next day, D.W. shows off her own science exhibit...which includes such explanations as "H2O can be made by combining O (oxygen) with H (hose)" and "the sun turns off at night." So, Arthur and the Brain finally take her to prove her wrong, only for D.W. to reveal that her whole plan was to be taken to the museum.