Out-Gambitted: Difference between revisions

'''The Man in Black''': [[Take a Third Option|They were both poisoned.]] [[Crazy Prepared|I spent the last few years]] building up [[Acquired Poison Immunity|an immunity to iocane powder]]. |''[[The Princess Bride]]''}}

 

 

This trope specifically has three parts:

* Dio to Jotaro in ''~Jojo's Bizarre Adventure~'' part 3: Dio launched a barrage of knives against Jotaro, which made him fall quite a long distance. Knowing Jotaro was probably [[Not Quite Dead]] because [[No One Could Survive That]], he decided to [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|chop his head off with a Stop sign]]. Too bad that's just what Jotaro wanted, because he got a free hit while Dio was closing in.

** Although Dio would've gotten Jotaro, who couldn't move as the result of stopping his own heart for too long. Jotaro was only saved because Polnareff took that opportunity to try and kill Dio, which gave Jotaro just enough time to recover.

* This pretty much describes every match in ''[[Akagi]]''; Akagi manipulates everyone around him (even people who are watching the entire [[Mahjong]] games from the outside) as they think they have him cornered.

* ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]'', during the hunter exams. Gon had a choice between two candles that he had to keep burning in a windy room longer than the villain's candle, he picks the long one (both are rigged to burn quickly) but because it burns so strong he is able to leave it unattended to run over and blow out the villain's candle.

* Happened in ''[[Liar Game]]'', where Akiyama was out-gambitted by [[Magnificent Bastard|Yokoya]], who walked away with a huge amount of the winnings and left him in debt. However, {{spoiler|Nao [[Hannibal Lecture|pointed out]] to Yokoya that even though he had won, he still lost the game, because he went back on his philosophy of complete dominance and instead turned to common cheating and stealing and three of his teammates had betrayed him.}}

* In ''[[Bleach]]'', {{spoiler|[[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|Shinji]] explains his reversing ability to [[Magnificent Bastard|Aizen]], but leaves out the fact that he can reverse each of the three dimensions individually. Just when Aizen has him "figured out" Shinji reverses only front and back, allowing [[Knight Templar Big Brother|Hitsugaya]] to [[It's Personal|stab Aizen]] from behind, which he never suspects because he's not reversed in the other two directions. Cut to Aizen revealing that he's been using [[Master of Illusion|Kyoka Suigetsu]] this whole time, and just made Hitsugaya [[Ironic Hell|stab Hinamori]].}}

* In ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', Negi out gambits {{spoiler|Kurt Godel}} by simply not revealing that [[Didn't See That Coming|he has an informant from the future]], which allows him to guess his rival's goals.

* In the ''[[Bokurano]]'' anime, {{spoiler|Koeyemshi}} is trying to get {{spoiler|Kana}} to be the next pilot by putting mental pressure on her and threatening to force {{spoiler|her brother Jun}} to do it instead if she refuses. However, {{spoiler|Jun}} asks {{spoiler|his friend Youko}} to help, and she stops {{spoiler|Koeyemshi}} by {{spoiler|shooting him to death.}}

* This happened once in the ''[[Sleepwalker]]'' comics when the Kingpin was confronted with a rival crime boss named Crimewave, who was planning to usurp his position. The Kingpin's response was to manipulate Sleepwalker and [[Spider-Man]] into capturing Crimewave for him after luring Crimewave's disgruntled [[The Dragon|second-in-command]] into his service. Crimewave has never appeared again in large part because no writer has ever been interested in using him, but this troper's [[Fanon]] has it that Crimewave met with an "accident" in prison for pissing off the Fat Man.

* A young [[Star Wars|Imperial Naval]] gunnery officer named Garil Dox became an instant [[Heel Face Turn|Rebel sympathizer]] when the Death Star destroyed his homeworld, Alderaan. Feeling that he could do more good from the bridge of the Imperial Star Destroyer ''Reprisal'' than if he jumped ship to seek out the Alliance, he waited until Darth Vader himself came aboard to oversee the capture of several Rebel groups by Commander Demmings. Knowing Vader's temper when it came to [[You Have Failed Me|failure]], each time the ''Reprisal'' closed in its target, Dox discreetly fired a killing shot despite orders to capture. Vader's anger rising, he ordered one last mission. They arrived at a remote planet with one small settlement on it that Vader claimed was a Rebel outpost. Once again, he ordered Demmings to neutralize the enemy without killing them, and Demmings ordered the best gunner, Dox, to make the shot. Dox annihilated the outpost and waited to see Demmings' summary execution, only to be arrested on the spot. [[The Chessmaster|Vader revealed his knowledge]] of Dox's plan to discredit Commander Demmings, a valued soldier of the Empire, along with preventing capture of Rebel operatives who could reveal damaging information about the Alliance. He then twisted the knife by telling Dox that the outpost that he had just destroyed was not a Rebel base at all, but a [[My God, What Have I Done?|settlement of Alderaanian refugees. Dox then expects Vader to kill him, but the Dark Lord knows it's what he wants and orders him sent to an Imperial labor camp instead, where he can serve the Empire in a useful way via FateWorseThanDeath]].

* Jadina from [[Comic Book/Les Legendaires Les|Légendaires]] is able to outgambit the [[God of Evil]] Anathos during the Anathos Cycle in a quite impressive way: {{spoiler|She first let her [[Dark Action Girl]] Tenebris get captured so she can lead the Castlewar, Anathos' mobile fortress, into an Ambush inside a Canyon. Anathos sees through the trap and replies by forcing Jadina's Legendaries to split up when they attempt to infiltrate the Castlewar and having them forced to fight against his [[The Psycho Rangers|Hellions]] while he gets Jadina for interrogation, as he deduced this infiltration attempt was a diversion for a bigger plan. Turns out he's right, but finds that out too late: the Legendaries are able to defeat their Hellion counterparts, and both them and Jadina are able to distract him long enough for the plan to works. The Elves then open several portails between the place and their world's sea, filling the Canyon with water and thus making the Castlewar's weaponry unfunctional while they attacks it with their ships. When Anathos tries riposting by sending his [[Airborne Mook|Vulturs]] attack the ships, the Pirahni and humans arrive with flying machines and rides, quickly destroying them. Even the other Legendaries are impressed to see Jadina planned this all along.}}

 

== Film ==

* The ending of ''[[Dirty Rotten Scoundrels]]'' {{spoiler|has both male leads be out gambitted by who they thought was their mark}}.

* ''[[Rock and Roll High School]]'' marks possibly the only time where one gambit (Riff Randall waiting for three days to be first in line to get tickets to the Ramones concert and getting a hundred tickets for her friends and her music teacher) is Out Gambitted by another gambit ([[Complete Monster|Mrs. Togar]] donating her ticket and her best friend's ticket to charity), which is then Out Gambitted by the [[Gambit Roulette]] that was Riff Randall's [[Take a Third Option|knowledge of the Ramones]] getting her ''and'' her best friend a free ticket each to the same concert. (Granted, [[Didn't See That Coming|neither party knew about the giveaway]] until Riff and her friend got the tickets from it.) Riff's words to Mrs. Togar? "Screw you, Mrs. Togar, we made it to the concert anyway!" And those words were [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|broadcast over the radio]], no less!

* ''[[Batman Returns (Film)|Batman Returns]]'': The Penguin orchestrates a crime wave to make the people of Gotham lose faith in the current administration. He has one of his mooks abduct the Mayor's infant child in broad daylight, only to show up himself and "rescue" it. He wins over the people's sympathies with his pitiful life story. He frames Batman for murder, and uses a remote controlled Batmobile to cut a path of destruction, making it seem as if Batman had finally snapped. All to instigate a recall election and get himself elected Mayor. But he didn't count on the [[Memetic Mutation|Goddamned Batman]] having a disk drive in his [[Cool Car]] to record the Penguin's rants and [[Engineered Public Confession|broadcast them at his next speech]]:

* The climax of ''[[Bill and Teds Bogus Journey]]'' involves this.

* In ''[[Diggstown]]'', Bruce Dern gets out gambitted by James Woods in an overtly crooked boxing wager. Realizing that he'd been bested by a superior conman, Dern shrugs and says, "You beat me fair and square!"

* ''[[Wild Things]]'' essentially consists of this trope and [[Fan Service]].

* The finale of Krystof Kieslowski's ''White'' is a beautiful example of this.

** In ''Dune Messiah'', the Bene Tleilax construct a complicated gambbit involving forcing Paul to discredit himself out of love for his consort, Chani. Paul, of course, has anticipated this, but it's the loyalty of the ghola Duncan Idaho, whom they were counting on to either kill Paul (forcing Alia to make the same choice) or recover his memories, showing Paul what could be achieved with Chani, that allows Paul to evade the trap.

** In ''Children of Dune'', Alia, now [[Grand Theft Me|possessed]] by the [[Genetic Memory]] of [[Complete Monster|Baron Harkonnen]], plots to have Paul's children assassinated to [[Regent for Life|cement her rule]]. Meanwhile, the Bene Gesserit are trying to manipulate the children into returning to their control. Leto II, however, by willingly embracing his father's messianic role, successfully discredits Alia and becomes the God Emperor.

* In ''[[Daemon|Freedom]]'' this turns out to be the case: {{spoiler|The villains thought that they had finally managed to pull one up on Sobol and beat the Daemon. Turns out that he had expected someone would try to do so and had planned against it.}}

* In [[War of the Dreaming (Literature)|War of the Dreaming]], this happens to Azrael's plan to free mankind from tyranny by destroying the magical realm's power over them, carried out by a complex line of murder, betrayal, backstabbery, and replacing Congress with shapeshifting doppelgangers. The counter-gambit to this is set up by {{spoiler|Prometheus}}, who outmaneuvers him simply by having a son [[Heroic Lineage|whose descendents]] will interbreed with humanity and spread the ability to [[Screw Destiny]] at much less cost.

** This occurs in the season 8 episode "Chase," surprisingly on House against Taub. Throughout most of the episode, House is constantly attempting to successfully ambush Taub, who's been taking self defense classes, and Taub is shown to be surprisingly adept at reacting to whatever House throws at him. He also reveals, however, that constantly being on guard against House's attacks forces him to try to think three steps ahead of House; in one scene, House assigns Taub to "obviously fraudulent lab work" so that he'd know exactly where Taub would be at the time so he could leap out and blast him with a squirt gun (and as a bonus, he'd get to watch Taub's paranoia at work beforehand, watching him look in all the wrong places for the oncoming attack.) After he leaps out and fires, however, it turns out Taub already rigged the squirt gun to misfire, and instead it squirts at House's own face.

* In ''[[Mad Men]]'', Duck Phillips tries to leverage [[Magnificent Bastard|Don Draper]] out of his position at Sterling Cooper through a corporate buyout that would leave him as President and Draper's creative division nearly devastated. He does all this with the assumption that Draper was working under a contract and couldn't take clients with him when he left. The hitch in his plan? Don [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|doesn't have a contract]].

** In those cases they usually forget that the races in question have very straight-forward goals (exterminate everything and assimilate everything, respectively), and so are not as vulnerable to convoluted maneuvering from anyone who isn't The Doctor.

** Inverted in "The Five Doctors", where the Master, knowing that the Cybermen will kill him once he has [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|outlived his usefulness]], leads them all into a death trap once they have outlived theirs.

* ''[[Criminal Minds]]'': In the fourth season episode "Masterpiece", [[Seinfeld|Jason Alexander]] plays a serial killer who confesses to [[The Chessmaster|Agent Rossi]] that he's committed seven murders and is about to kill five more people, unless the BAU can find where he's hidden his victims. He does this as a massive [[Take That]] to Rossi himself, who [[My Name Is Inigo Montoya|caught his serial-killer brother and watched as he was executed]]. It does not end well for him - Rossi lets him believe he's won, confess his entire scheme, and then reveals he's [[Lying to The Perp|recorded the entire thing]]. And oh yeah, his team is fine, thank you very much, he knew the place was booby-trapped. This is why one [[Papa Wolf|does not threaten Rossi's "family"]].

* In ''[[Cheers]]'' Sam is often outgambitted by rival bar owner Gary in the "Bar Wars" episodes. Other times it's the snooty owner of the restaurant upstairs, "Melville's".

* In the season 2 finale of ''[[The Sandbaggers]]'', Burnside spends the entire episode maneuvering to convince Wellingham to appoint Peele as the head of SIS, as Gibbs, the other candidate for the job, is someone he has a long-standing rivalry with; he spies on Wellingham to find out what he wants and feeds the information to Peele, goes looking for skeletons in Gibbs' closet and tells Wellingham they're common office gossip, and so on. Then Peele writes a memo that clearly displays him to be unfit for the job, and Burnside has to go back to Wellingham and walk back everything he's said, and Wellingham reveals that he knew all along what Burnside was up to, had already made the decision to appoint Gibbs, and had maneuvered Peele into writing the memo in order to convince Burnside that he wasn't a suitable candidate.

* Victoria Hardwick, one of Lex's early love interests in ''[[Smallville]]'', persuaded him to help her father take over LuthorCorp. Lex suggested they take over both their fathers' companies together. She then stole information from him that Cadmus was a prosperous lab and that LuthorCorp had sunk all their money into a bid for the company, and arranged for Hardwick to outbid them. When she revealed this to him, he explained that the data was fake and Hardwick had bought a worthless company, leaving them financially vulnerable and allowing LuthorCorp to buy them in turn.

** In "You Scratch My Back", Catwoman should have known better that to try and play Nightwing, Batman's protege. He has after all been taught by [[Batman Gambit|the best]].

** In an episode of ''[[Justice League]]'', the Injustice League has captured Batman, and begins working on different ideas to tear the league apart to defeat them. What they don't realize before it's too late is that a) Batman's manipulating THEM into screwing up, and b) He can escape whenever he wanted.

**** {{spoiler|[[Crowning Moment of Funny]] This concert is brought to you by viewers like you, and the Ultra Humanite.}}

** ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'''s third season revolves a great deal around the conflict between super villains Lex Luthor and Grodd. In their final confrontation, Luthor manipulates Grodd into using his own powers to destroy himself, resulting in this exchange:

* [[Looney Tunes|Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam]] are "masters" of this trope.

** As is "super genius" Wile E. Coyote, at least in those shorts where he's pitted against arch [[Karmic Trickster]] [[Bugs Bunny/Characters|Bugs Bunny]]. (In the [[Road Runner vs. Coyote|Road Runner]] shorts, he's not really outwitted so much as victimized by fate, gravity, poorly designed ACME products, and his own ineptitude.)

*** The theatrical compilation film ''1001 Rabbit Tales'' starts with Bugs and Daffy as door-to-door booksellers. After they get out of the opening meeting with their boss at the publishing company, they take the elevator down. Daffy switches territories with the utterly apathetic Bugs about six times.

* ''[[Star Wars the Clone Wars]]'' had Obi-Wan and Anakin negotiate for a captured Count Dooku. The negotiations concluded, they celebrate by having a party. Our heroes are wise to the fact their drinks are spiked, and use [[The Force]] to switch theirs with some nearby partiers. {{spoiler|Not to be outdone, the [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] [[Villain of the Week]] poisons ''all the air in the room''.}}

*** [[Harsher in Hindsight|Oh were they now?]]

* [[Gargoyles|David Xanatos]] in episode 12, "Her Brother's Keeper". No, seriously. His plan is to woo Elisa's brother to his side, first taking advantage of the fact that she can't tell him about the gargoyles (and hence why she thinks Xanatos is an evil mastermind) and then tell him his own version to make sure not even their testimony will help anymore. He even orders Fox to tell Elisa this outright, because with her brother no longer believing her, it will do her no good. {{spoiler|Except that it does, because she brought a tape recorder. Duh.}} This plan is hardly Xanatos's best anyway, since it involves setting hypercompetent killers on himself with serious lethal intent and real weapons.

*** Also notable in that he shows honest surprise and dismay as to the beast he's created, meanwhile in other so-called 'Xanatos loses' episodes he gains something and has a way out of jail or capture anyway.

* In one ''[[American Dad (Animation)|American Dad]]'' episode, Steve's mildly retarded friend Barry turns out to be a criminal mastermind kept in check only by powerful anti-psychotic "vitamins". After he goes off them and causes havoc, Steve challenges him to a game involving two cups, one of which contains his medication. The scene that follows is a parody of the one from ''[[The Princess Bride (Film)|The Princess Bride]]'', {{spoiler|and naturally Steve put Barry's meds in both cups}}.

* In ''[[Teen Titans (Animation)|Teen Titans]]'' Robin creates the identity of Red X so he can finally meet with [[Big Bad|Slade]]. Slade figures this out and not only does Robin only meet with a Sladebot, but this causes tension between him and his friends.

* In ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' Princess Celestia defeats Discord's efforts to keep the Elements of Harmony powerless by returning all of Twilight's friendship aesop letters, which convinces Twilight to fight for her bonds with her friends. Yes, Celestia outwitted a [[Reality Warper]] spirit of chaos by ''mailing a bunch of letters''.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Gambit Index]]