Confusion Fu: Difference between revisions

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They are the natural nemesis of those blessed with [[Awesomeness By Analysis]]. Stylish Confusion Fu fighters sometimes double as [[Dance Battler|Dance Battlers]]. This style is often used by [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|Bunny Ears Lawyers]] and [[Crazy Awesome]] characters.

Sister trope to [[Spanner in The Works]], in a general sense. The reason why something [[Crazy Enough to Work]] might ''actually'' work. See also [[Drunken Master]] and [[Drunken Boxing]]. Contrast [[Strategy Schmategy]], where the randomness is [[Hanlon's Razor|unintentional]]. Not to be confused with [[What the Fu Are You Doing]].

Sister trope to [[Spanner in The Works]], in a general sense. The reason why something [[Crazy Enough to Work]] might ''actually'' work. See also [[Drunken Master]] and [[Drunken Boxing]]. Contrast [[Strategy Schmategy]], where the randomness is [[Hanlon's Razor|unintentional]]. Not to be confused with [[What the Fu Are You Doing?]].

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== Live Action TV ==

* In ''[[Engine Sentai Go-onger]],'' Hiramekimedes, master of [[Awesomeness By Analysis]], kept losing to Hiroto, who was even better at it... {{spoiler|1=so he went [[One-Winged Angel]] and adopted a ''nonsense-based'' style, calling himself Detaramedes (''detarame'' = nonsense), fighting crazily and yelling things like "1+1=300!" He was winning until Sousuke, who has the usual [[Hot Blooded]] hero's style of "charge in mindlessly and win via plot convenience," stepped in. ''Throwing his sword and riding it like a surfboard,'' he managed to finalize Detaramedes singlehandedly.}}

* In ''[[Engine Sentai Go-onger]],'' Hiramekimedes, master of [[Awesomeness By Analysis]], kept losing to Hiroto, who was even better at it... {{spoiler|1=so he went [[One-Winged Angel]] and adopted a ''nonsense-based'' style, calling himself Detaramedes (''detarame'' = nonsense), fighting crazily and yelling things like "1+1=300!" He was winning until Sousuke, who has the usual [[Hot-Blooded]] hero's style of "charge in mindlessly and win via plot convenience," stepped in. ''Throwing his sword and riding it like a surfboard,'' he managed to finalize Detaramedes singlehandedly.}}

** ''[[Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (TV)|Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger]]'' has Gokai Green, "Doc" Don Dogoier. His teammates are all talented sword- and/or gunfighters, but he isn't; instead he (kind of) makes up for it by doing all sorts of wacky things like using a trapeze, [[Wrestler in All of Us|wrestling moves]], [[Improvised Weapon|Improvised Weapons]] like tree branches and buckets, and even tripping and pratfalling. In effect, Don has '''weaponized''' being the [[Comic Relief]] [[Butt Monkey]]. This gets a lampshade in one episode where his teammate Joe asks why he doesn't ditch that "zany fighting style" and get more serious.

* ''[[~~Doctor Who (TV)|~~Doctor Who]]'': The idea is sort-of mentioned in passing in ''Resurrection of the Daleks''. The Daleks, and their enemies the Movellans, are engaged in a war against each other. Both sides are more machine than animal (the Movellans are possibly androids, maybe cybernetically enhanced bio-forms), and each side controls their entire battle fleet from a giant supercomputer. Because both fleets are using [[Straw Vulcan|purely logical]] tactics, the computers never launch an attack, as the opposing computer can instantly create a counterattack scenario. They both realise that the only way for either side to win is to turn off their battle computer and do something random, as a totally logical battle plan is doomed to fail due to its own predictability.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': The idea is sort-of mentioned in passing in ''Resurrection of the Daleks''. The Daleks, and their enemies the Movellans, are engaged in a war against each other. Both sides are more machine than animal (the Movellans are possibly androids, maybe cybernetically enhanced bio-forms), and each side controls their entire battle fleet from a giant supercomputer. Because both fleets are using [[Straw Vulcan|purely logical]] tactics, the computers never launch an attack, as the opposing computer can instantly create a counterattack scenario. They both realise that the only way for either side to win is to turn off their battle computer and do something random, as a totally logical battle plan is doomed to fail due to its own predictability.

** And invoked by the Doctor in the first season finale of the new series: The Doctor has no plan, and that just scares the Daleks to death.

* ''[[Smart Guy]]'': [[Child Prodigy]] TJ is [[Smart People Play Chess|beaten at chess]] by a computer. In the rematch, he wins by deliberately making bad/random moves, having learned while practicing how hard it is to play against someone who doesn't know how to play well. [[Logic Bomb|The computer virtually melts down in response]].

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* It's this basic principle that occasionally lets inexperienced [[Button Mashing|button mashers]] beat experienced players in fighting games (and other games) at least a few times. Skilled players and the AI are generally predictable, but it can be tricky fighting a flailing foe whose moves are often the ''worst'' in a normal situation.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBn5wMnqVSY&feature=related 3D fighter maker.]

* Voldo in ''[[Soul Calibur]]''. Very few characters in the series can keep up a volley of attacks at an opponent while ''facing the opposite direction''. Or while prone. And then there's his variety of interesting grab attacks, the most acrobatic of which is occasionally known by the [[Fan Nickname]] of "[[Where's Waldo|Where's Voldo]] [[Shout Out|Now]]?"

* Voldo in ''[[Soul Calibur]]''. Very few characters in the series can keep up a volley of attacks at an opponent while ''facing the opposite direction''. Or while prone. And then there's his variety of interesting grab attacks, the most acrobatic of which is occasionally known by the [[Fan Nickname]] of "[[Where's Waldo|Where's Voldo]] [[Shout-Out|Now]]?"

** Ditto with Yoshimitsu. Yoshimitsu's repertoire includes propeller-based flight, teleportation, healing himself from the [[Lotus Position]], [[Seppuku]], spinning until dizzy, using his swords as stilts or pogo sticks, and a health-draining face grab, to name a few. Sometimes several of the above occur at once, and the health-drain also unlocks limited usage of a small move pool consisting of [[Shout Out|an attack borrowed from each Tekken character]].

** Ditto with Yoshimitsu. Yoshimitsu's repertoire includes propeller-based flight, teleportation, healing himself from the [[Lotus Position]], [[Seppuku]], spinning until dizzy, using his swords as stilts or pogo sticks, and a health-draining face grab, to name a few. Sometimes several of the above occur at once, and the health-drain also unlocks limited usage of a small move pool consisting of [[Shout-Out|an attack borrowed from each Tekken character]].

** Also applies to Maxi: he has seven different stances and different moves from them, making him difficult to read.

** Can be used when playing Stance Roulette with Siegfried by rapidly switching between his 4 different stances and mixing up the attacks deployed from them.

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** The Scout can double jump. This doesn't sound impressive, but a good Scout is a nightmare to deal with, being able to change direction while in the air and be impossible to hit, or SEE. And because of his high speed, you can never be sure whether a Scout is genuinely running away or circling around to ambush you again.

** An increasingly common tactic with the Engineer is to put his mini-sentries in random places that make no sense outside of how unexpected they are, and then put up a new one in a different location as soon as the old one is destroyed.

* Peacock from ''[[Skullgirls (Video Game)|Skullgirls]]'' is an [[Ax Crazy]] [[Toon]] who uses a huge variety of weapons and absurd objects pulled out of Hammerspace to attack her foe with. She pulls out pies, [[BANG Flag Gun|Bang Flag Guns]], mallets, chainsaws and more for close-range hits. She shoots [[Abnormal Ammo]] out of her revolver, tosses [[Cartoon Bomb|walking bombs]] around, and can pull out a full-fledged cannon for long-ranged hits. On top of that, she has a veritable cornuciopia of random items she can summon from the sky to fall on her foe, from flower pots to [[Piano Drop|pianos]] to [[Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga)|steamrollers]] and more. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

* Peacock from ''[[Skullgirls (Video Game)|Skullgirls]]'' is an [[Ax Crazy]] [[Toon]] who uses a huge variety of weapons and absurd objects pulled out of Hammerspace to attack her foe with. She pulls out pies, [["BANG!" Flag Gun|Bang Flag Guns]], mallets, chainsaws and more for close-range hits. She shoots [[Abnormal Ammo]] out of her revolver, tosses [[Cartoon Bomb|walking bombs]] around, and can pull out a full-fledged cannon for long-ranged hits. On top of that, she has a veritable cornuciopia of random items she can summon from the sky to fall on her foe, from flower pots to [[Piano Drop|pianos]] to [[Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga)|steamrollers]] and more. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

* You're practically forced to fight this way in ''[[The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword]]''; sword-wielding enemies are very good at blocking deliberate sword strikes from any direction. To hit them, you must either fool them into thinking you're swinging in one direction and then actually swing in a different direction (which is pretty tricky), or swing randomly like a maniac until you hit them.

* ''In [[World of Tanks]]'', one of the best ways to use the nimblest light tanks, especially the T-50-2, is being as "random" as possible in maneuvering once shots start firing. Hitting them becomes incredibly difficult, and they're known for their ability to sneak past large columns of tanks to strike at the weak artillery in the rear.

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* There are a handful of baseball pitchers who throw the knuckleball. Essentially throwing the ball with no spin, allowing the imperfections (mostly the seams) to determine the flight path. Such pitches are so unpredictable (even the pitcher doesn't know what will happen, the catcher usually wears an oversize mitt to help snag them), that some batters take the day off rather than have their timing and instincts ruined for the next several games.

** A handful? Try 2. Tim Wakefield of the Boston Red Sox, and R. A. Dickey of the New York Mets. And Wakefield is forty-five years old.

** Even more so is the Spitball. It's actually banned from most professional leagues for its sheer unpredictability, which can ''[~~http://en.~~wikipedia~~.org/wiki/Ray_Chapman~~ kill a man]'', although that wasn't so much unpredictability as invisibility. It's equivalent is still legal in Cricket, with certain exceptions (gouging the ball with your fingernails, for instance, is unacceptable while spitting on one side and polishing the other is no issue)

** Even more so is the Spitball. It's actually banned from most professional leagues for its sheer unpredictability, which can ''[[wikipedia:Ray Chapman|kill a man]]'', although that wasn't so much unpredictability as invisibility. It's equivalent is still legal in Cricket, with certain exceptions (gouging the ball with your fingernails, for instance, is unacceptable while spitting on one side and polishing the other is no issue)

* The Wildcat Formation in American Football. There are four main plays (two rushing, two passing) that can be run from the Wildcat Formation, and all of them look exactly the same until the play is actually executed, making it difficult for the defense to anticipate what they must do.

** The Wildcat is an interesting example. After seeing Ronnie Brown and the Miami Dolphins paste the recently near-undefeated New England Patriots with the Wildcat in 2008, several other teams misunderstood the ''reason'' it worked (the Dolphins simply surprised the Patriots with a scheme they had not thought to prepare for) and began to implement the Wildcat into their normal offensive playbooks. Once defensive coaches had a few weeks to study the Wildcat, defenses adjusted to counter the Wildcat and offenses designed around it were stopped cold. Today, the Wildcat is almost entirely out of vogue... which means that if a team is very careful about using it sparingly, it can still be an effective surprise attack.

** There are a surprising number of [[Confusion Fu]] techniques in American Football, and almost every play utilizes them to some extent. A quarterback can use his eyes to fool an unsuspecting defensive player to think he will throw in a certain direction. The pump fake is often used in the same way. He may also alter his pre-snap cadence to make it harder for the defense to time the snap. Running backs will follow a blocking pattern until the defense adjusts to it, and then cut back and run the other way. Receivers will make moves to throw a defensive back off his coverage. Skilled defenders are just as capable of utilizing confusion by continually moving before the snap, or lining up in an apparent zone and then blitzing through linemen not expecting a strong pass rush. There is no team sport which is as intensely strategic as American football.

* [~~http://en.~~wikipedia~~.org/wiki/Maurice_Richard~~ Maurice "Rocket" Richard] was once asked in an interview how he planned his shots on goal. He answered along the lines of "If ''I'' don't know what shot I'm going to make, how will the goalie?"

* [[wikipedia:Maurice Richard|Maurice "Rocket" Richard]] was once asked in an interview how he planned his shots on goal. He answered along the lines of "If ''I'' don't know what shot I'm going to make, how will the goalie?"

* Pick a combat sport or martial art, any of them, from boxing to competitive martial arts to fencing, and this trope is partially in effect. To an expert, first-timers are tougher than beginners; first-timers are often so bad, all that expert's hard-won skill is thrown off by helpless flailing. Someone with no training and no understanding of the sport likely will do better (though still lose) than a beginner with some training. Becoming good means passing through a phase of drilling basic movements - and that makes a beginner highly predictable to an expert. This can be a difficult problem for an instructor. "You're really improving," sounds hollow when they did "better" their first time.

** In addition to using strategies that an expert would find unpredictable, there's also the safety issue. Martial arts vary in how much contact is acceptable, but competitors don't generally try to ''hurt'' each other. Whether a beginner will pull a punch and make light contact, miss entirely, or knock his or her opponent on the ground is hard to predict, even for the beginner himself.

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* Fighter pilots during the World Wars remarked that "experienced" pilots were easier to shoot down, as they were in greater control of their motions, making them predictable, while greener pilots tended to skid and flail all over the sky.

* Mansour Bahrami is a tennis player known for his crazy fake outs and trick shots. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Vqp6UveIU&feature=channel_video_title It is a sight to behold].

* The Karate school [~~http://en.~~wikipedia~~.org/wiki/~~Genseiryu Genseiryu] is a more controlled version of Confusion Fu; while it doesn't employ the outright random attacks of many examples on this page, the style is founded on the idea of the practitioner gaining the advantage over his opponent by making his movements and attacks difficult for his opponent to read or predict.

* The Karate school [[wikipedia:Genseiryu|Genseiryu]] is a more controlled version of Confusion Fu; while it doesn't employ the outright random attacks of many examples on this page, the style is founded on the idea of the practitioner gaining the advantage over his opponent by making his movements and attacks difficult for his opponent to read or predict.

* [[Drunken Boxing]] runs on this - it's meant to be hard to predict, using flowing movements that emulate a drunken stagger.

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[[Category:Foo Fu]]

[[Category:Confusion Fu]]

[[Category:Trope]]