Out-Gambitted: Difference between revisions

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''(Vizzini [[Evil Laugh|laughs maniacally]] for a few seconds, then stops abruptly and falls over dead.)''<br />

''[...]''<br />

Sometimes this situation [[The Chessmaster]] vs. a superior Chessmaster, and sometimes it's [[Smug Snake|somebody who only]] [[Big Bad Wannabe|thinks he's the Chessmaster]] vs. [[Magnificent Bastard|someone who actually is]].

 

{{examples}}

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', {{spoiler|Hohenheim manages to completely undo Father's transformation of everyone in Amestris into a philosopher's stone using a transmutation circle ''made from the shadow of the solar eclipse''. And this was possible because Father's own [[Evil Plan]] required that solar eclipse. Furthermore, Hohenheim's allies undo the seal Father put on everyone else's alchemy by using ''Father's own transmutation circle''.}}

** Here's an example from 5D's done by Yusei, which also is something of a [[Xanatos Gambit]]. Yusei has on his field nothing except two face-down cards, against Greiger/Bommer's Flying Fortress SKYFIRE/Giant Bomber AIRRAID. If SKYFIRE's attack goes through, then Yusei will lose - and SKYFIRE allows Greiger to destroy a card on the field once per turn by discarding a card. Greiger decides not to destroy either one, speculating that it's actually a ploy to make him deplete his hand uselessly. It turns out he's right: the two cards are Wasteland Tornado and Limiter Break. If Wasteland Tornado was destroyed while set, Yusei would be able to destroy a face-up card - in this case, SKYFIRE. If Limiter Break is sent to the Graveyard, Yusei can Special Summon Speed Warrior to protect against SKYFIRE's attack. And since Greiger doesn't destroy either card, Yusei instead activates Wasteland Tornado to destroy his own Limiter Break and get Speed Warrior to intercept the attack.

* Happens incredibly often in ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]''. Technically Yusuke's {{spoiler|death}} falls in this category; Jaki's attempt at turning {{spoiler|Kuwabara}} to the [[Dark Side]], possibly for a stronger host; Yusuke outwitting Goki (with little difficulty) and then later Hiei, back when they first met; Yusuke accidentally foiling Rando's plans by {{spoiler|getting his ears clogged with algae}}; Kurama's fight with Roto; Kurama outwitting Kaito (although that was technically ''supposed'' to happen); Sensui and Toguro both getting their way despite the team's actions. Phew! Quite the list.

** How about a few minutes later with the room where they must leave two people behind or take the long road? (Explained: the team loses 50 hours in a gambling match just after the above example, so they have about 2 hours left, one route which only 3 of the five can travel down takes 5 minutes, the other route takes about 12 hours. The [[Take a Third Option|solution]] Gon sees is to chose the long route, then [[Cutting the Knot|break down the wall]] to the short route, then sled down the hill on a door--they make it to the finish with less than a second to spare.)

* Shikamaru Nara from ''[[Naruto]]'' pulls this off quite a lot. All of his battles involve him making his opponent so sure of their victory that they inevitably screw up and fall to his masterfully laid [[Batman Gambit]].

** It's more that he stopped getting convenient strokes of luck, like getting an easily manipulated minion with the shinigami eyes right after L just so happened to reveal his identity to Light. Plus Light already had a tendency to make rash mistakes.

* In ''[[Sailor Moon|Sailor Moon Stars]]'', Sailors Uranus and Neptune, in the face of death, come up with a brilliant plan to escape: [[I Surrender, Suckers|fake a Face Heel Turn]] (and even kill Sailors Pluto and Saturn to fool Galaxia), and right when Galaxia least expects it, do her in. However, it turns out that Galaxia had seen it coming, since she had already been [[Crazy Prepared]] with immortality, and so she [[Bury Your Gays|instantly destroys]] both Uranus and Neptune in front of Eternal Sailor Moon and the Sailor Starlights.

** Also, like Uranus and Neptune before her, Moon [[Fake Defector|pretends to pull off a]] [[Face Heel Turn]] in the first season, greatly risking her own life to try getting into the Dark Kingdom to rescue Mamoru. Kunzite, however, sees right through her and almost gets her killed.

* 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]].}}

** Zero's altercation with Mao (both times actually.)

** Zero leading the Black Knights against Xing-ke. Once again Zero is Alice.

 

 

== 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!

{{quote| '''The Penguin:''' "You gotta admit, I've played this stinking city like a harp from Hell!"}}

* 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!"

 

== Literature ==

** If you pay attention to the Man in Black's challenge, he says "Where is the poison? The contest ends when you choose and we drink." In other words, under the literal rules of the game, even if Vizzini had figured out they were both poisoned, he still would have drank and died. Unless he decided to [[Take a Third Option]] and NOT DRINK.

** At one point when Vizzini is saying "you may be relying on your strength to save you", Westley looks concerned that he will indeed figure it out. Instead he goes off into various tangents, much to Westley's relief.

*** The Triwizard Tournament wasn't his plan though - {{spoiler|Voldemort taking Harry's blood was just a lucky bonus from something that went horribly wrong seeing as how he had no idea Moody was a fake until the climax of the book.}}

**** However, as it would with a true chessmaster, this contingency massively works in Dumbledore's favor. Harry's {{spoiler|blood in Voldemort's body is the tie to life that allows Harry to survive his own death, sans horcrux.}} Even when Dumbledore loses, he wins.

* In ''[[Outbound Flight|Survivor's Quest]]'', the {{spoiler|Vagaari}} turn out to have a rather large gambit involving [[Obfuscating Stupidity|Obfuscating Fawning Idiocy]]. But, it's revealed, the Chiss planned for this all along, letting word leak out so that the {{spoiler|Vagaari}} formed their plan in the first place, setting up safe spaces for their crew, inviting along Jedi and [[Badass Crew|501st stormtroopers]] and not letting the {{spoiler|Vagaari}} see what they could do. All to make that nomadic people of slavers strike, satisfying the Chiss [[Martial Pacifist|Martial Pacifism]] so that they could seek out and attack the {{spoiler|Vagaari}}. After it's all over Mara Jade looks at that plan in disbelief, and says that [[The Thrawn Trilogy|Thrawn's]] fingerprints are all over it. But Thrawn is dead, and [[Hand of Thrawn|his clone was destroyed]]. Wasn't it?

** In ''[[X Wing Series|Isard's Revenge]]'', Ysanne Isard neatly outgambits her clone and the New Republic. One of the things she does is set up a lab at a site she knows the New Republic will attack, one that involves research into the next generation of superweapons. The New Republic instantly seizes on this as justification for mounting a more vigorous campaign against this particular splinter of the Empire, while the splinter protests that they'd never heard of this lab until the New Republic attacked them, it must have been forged. A clueless pilot even wonders what good it would have done the New Republic to set up a fake Death Star lab. The end result is that both sides look worse due to the [[Golden Mean Fallacy]], and despite trying to trick each other they do pretty much exactly what she wanted. Until...

*** At the very end of the novel, Isard herself falls victim to this trope. {{spoiler|Her plan was to steal the newly-repaired Super Star Destroyer ''Lusankya'' from under the collective nose of the New Republic fleet. Unfortunately, New Republic Intelligence agent Iella Wessiri, Booster Terrik, and Mirax Terrik Horn (with the assistance of a fourth which will remain unnamed) managed to anticipate her action, in part thanks to two droids escaping her clutches earlier. Both of Isard's boarding parties were knocked out via atmospheric pressure, and Isard herself was going to be tried for piracy before a military tribunal, avoiding a public trial that would only have helped her. She avoids that fate only by attempting to attack Iella, who fatally shoots her.}}

** In ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy]]'', the Republic tries to [[Kansas City Shuffle|play Thrawn by making him think they were going to attack Tangrene instead of Bilbringi]]. Seeing as it's [[Magnificent Bastard|Thrawn]] we're talking about here, it backfires rather spectacularly.

*** Which could still have turned out to be an Imperial victory if {{spoiler|Rukh didn't kill Thrawn}}.

* ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'': [[The Chessmaster|Sauron]] out-gambits everyone else ([[The Starscream|Saruman]] and [[Regent for Life|Denethor]] most notably), only to be out-gambitted himself by Gandalf via [[Evil Cannot Comprehend Good]].

* The [[Big Bad]] of ''Raised by Wolves'' had a very simple plan: {{spoiler|infect Chase with lycanthropy, then leave him in Stone River Pack's territory. Chase would be taken in by Stone River, where he'd make contact with Bryn- a former target who got away- and bring her back to him.}} Unfortunately for him, {{spoiler|Callum, the pack's alpha, turned out to have precognitive abilities, a mastery of [[Xanatos Speed Chess]], and a grudge against the [[Big Bad]] for what he did to Bryn.}} ~Didn't See That Coming~.

* It's common for someone be outgambitted in [[Dan Brown]] novels.

* ''[[Dune]]'', being a millenial tale of galactic intrigue that accumulates [[Gambit Pileup|Gambit Pileups]] like some books accumulate minor characters, has numerous examples of this trope.

** In the first novel, the Emperor travels to Arrakis to "put down the Fremen rebellion" once and for all and to severely discipline the Harkonnens he was using as his tools. The Guild travels there to safeguard their precious Spice, having foreseen a crisis with their oracular powers. Paul Muad'dib, however, has become [[The Messiah]] possessed of far greater powers and takes advantage of having all his enemies together to pull a surprise attack that winds up with him dethroning the Emperor and taking his place.

* The ''[[Mistborn]]'' trilogy is basically a [[Gambit Pileup]] by the end, so naturally a lot of people end up [[Out-Gambitted]], In roughly chronological order {{spoiler|Preservation outgambits Ruin, trapping him, then Ruin outgambits a lot of people by changing prophecies in order to try to get somebody to free him, then Kwaan and Rashek outgambit Ruin by figuring out his deception and killing Alendi so that Rashek can take the power of the Well of Ascension for himself, becoming the Lord Ruler, and stopping Ruin from getting out. Then Kelsier outgambits the Lord Ruler in order to kill him. Ruin outgambits everyone again to get Vin to go to the Well of Ascension and free him. After that it turns out that the Lord Ruler had prepared for the possibility of his death and Ruin's release and prepared storage places for people to hide to protect them, and hid the atium stockpile, which contained most of Ruin's power where Ruin couldn't get at it. Then it turns out that Preservation had planned for everything, in spite of having had most of his mind destroyed when he trapped Ruin thousands of years before, and he managed to get Elend and his army to destroy the atium stockpile, keeping the power away from Ruin, meanwhile he'd also arranged for Vin to take his power, and perform a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to kill Ruin.}}. And really there are other examples, these are just the major ones.

* 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.}}

* Unsurprisingly, given its high concentration of [[The Chessmaster|Chessmasters]] and [[Magnificent Bastard|Magnificent Bastards]], as well as [[Big Bad Wannabe|those who aspire to be such]], this happens a lot in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. In particular, pretty much everything that happens to [[Smug Snake|Cersei Lannister]] in ''A Feast For Crows'' is this trope.

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

** Happens to Cuddy again and again every time she tries to play House.

{{quote| (in response to her switching his painkillers with laxatives) ''I know when my Vicodin isn't Vicodin. [[Oh Crap|Do you know when your birth control pills aren't birth control pills]]?''}}

** And in "The End of Time", {{spoiler|The Master prepared for the possibility of his death, but his plan gets derailed when his widow reveals she's been making plans of her own.}} Not enough to stop him entirely, but it kind of ruins the man's day.

*** Also in "The End of Time", the Master summons Rassilon, leader of the Time Lord High Council, in a gambit to resurrect the Time Lords and turn them all into copies of himself. One hand motion by Rassilon and the smile is wiped off of the Master's face...

* Captain Dylan Hunt of the ''[[Andromeda]]'' has a knack for pulling this off, especially when dealing with the Nietscheans. The episode "Double Helix" in season 1 features multiple layers of outsmarting each other.

* 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 ''[[Noah's Arc]]'', {{spoiler|Guy has an elaborate plan to manipulate both Alex and Trey, involving staging random accidents that Guy can "fix", breaking down Alex's credibility in the eyes of Trey and Alex's friends, and a [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit]]. As complex as Guy's plan is, he's [[Out-Gambitted]] by Alex and his friends concocting a simple fake note, tricking Guy into revealing his feelings for Trey (who was never interested to begin with)}}.

* In ''[[Command and Conquer]] 3: Kane's Wrath'', Kane [[Magnificent Bastard|(of all people)]] manages to be out foxed by {{spoiler|Alexa Kovacs}}.

** In ''[[Command and Conquer]]'', Kane spends most of the GDI campaign outmanouvering the GDI... right up until they manage to trick ''him'' by {{spoiler|pretending to have their funding cut and their leadership completely out of the loop, making NOD go on the offensive before the Brotherhood is really ready for that}}.

* The player's interaction with Drakuru in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' becomes this. While he initially uses you as a pawn in his schemes to breach Drak'tharon Keep and enable the Scourge invasion of the Gun'drak zone, things change once you get there. He tries to turn you into a ghoul and make you into his [[The Dragon|right hand]], but the [[Dark Is Not Evil|Knights of the Ebon Blade]] fake the transformation and have you secretly sabotage all of his plans while pretending to serve him. Eventually you manage to turn his secret weapon against him and he asks the Lich King for help, who kills him. {{spoiler|This turns out to be because Arthas is working on a gambit of his own, and you're more important to it than Drakuru.}}

* The [[Game Mod]] ''Blue Planet: War in Heaven'' for [[Free Space|FreeSpace 2]] has a magnificent example of this. Admiral Calder of the United Earth Federation thinks he's driven a Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance fleet into a trap by tricking Admiral Lopez of the GTVA into making rash actions to protect her ships. However, Lopez's entire fleet was nothing more than bait set out by [[Magnificent Bastard|Admiral Steele]], the commander of all GTVA forces in the Sol system. He knew exactly what sort of gambit Calder would pull on Lopez, and when Calder's battered, exhausted force [[Hope Spot|finally began to close the noose]] on Lopez's flagship GTD ''Carthage'', Steele brings the GTD ''Imperieuse'' out of its [[Silent Running Mode]] in the Asteroid Belt--Calder thought he had left Sol system to resupply--and jumps out of [[Subspace or Hyperspace|subspace]] into the fray at the exact right location to start tearing Calder's ships to pieces with his main [[Wave Motion Gun|beam cannons]] from beyond the Earth ships' effective range. The "Tevs" lose a few small ships and a number of fighters, while the most elite task force in the entire United Earth Federation is almost completely destroyed save ''one ship'' in a matter of minutes. Also doubles as a [[Player Punch]] as the player is stationed on that one ship that makes it out alive {{spoiler|only to emerge from subspace too close to the sun and doom the crew to an agonizing death...[[Cliff Hanger|or so it seems]].}}

* In every ''[[Resident Evil]]'' game except ''[[Resident Evil 5|RE5]]'', Wesker always wins. Everything is set up to rebound to his benefit, even if he takes a hit or two along the way. Until ''RE5'', the ''only'' character to hand Wesker a defeat of any kind is Ada Wong, who pulls off a successful doublecross at the end of ''[[Resident Evil 4]]''.

{{quote| Eggman: "You thought you could trick me with that fake Emerald?"<br />

Tails: "So... How did you know it wasn't the real one?"<br />

Eggman: "[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Because]] [[You Just Told Me]], [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Fox Boy!]]" }}

* ''[[Jade Empire]]'': The plot is a whole load of this.

 

 

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Tales of the Questor]]'', the fae princeling Dolan had set up a gambit both to shaft the human Duke, after DECADES of extortion, into releasing the Wild Hunt, and another to raise the princeling's own status in the Unseleighe Court and to debase a family enemy from the Seleighe court by forcing his enemy's daughter, Lady Absinthe, to ride the wild hunt for him. This led to the whole thing rather famously [http://www.rhjunior.com/totq/00524.html blowing up in his face].... with good evidence that Lady Absinthe [http://www.rhjunior.com/totq/00517.html had known the score all along and had helped set Dolan up for his fall.]

** Quentyn himself has managed to do thise with a group of people who try to repossess half his home village (including his parents' farm): upon realizing that a covanent clause cannot be indefinite (if it doesn't specify the number of generations, it will only affect the immediate successor), he takes the quest specified in the contract--and the Archivist Guild can't do a thing about it.

* The basis of [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/9/1/ this] ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' strip.

* [http://exterminatusnow.co.uk/2012-05-20/comic/the-bookend-of-unimaginable-power/karma-chameleon/ This] exchange between [[The Dragon]] and the [[Big Bad]] leader of a cult dedicated to the god of [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]] in [[Exterminatus Now]].

 

== Western Animation ==

{{quote| '''Batman''': She almost had me, you know. Arms and legs shackled, dizzy from the blood rushing to my brain... I had no way out other than convincing her to call you. I knew [[The Only One Allowed to Defeat You|your massive ego would never allow anyone else the honor of killing me]], though I have to admit she came a lot closer than you ever did, ''puddin'.''}}

** 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]].

** ...but they are merely amateurs compared to Daffy Duck. ([[Duck Season! Rabbit Season!|"Wabbit season!" "Duck season."]] "Wabbit season!" "Duck season." "Wabbit season!" "Wabbit season." [[Crowning Moment of Funny|"Duck season! Fire!"]])

*** 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.

* In ''<nowiki>~Avatar: The Last Airbender~</nowiki>'', Long Feng and Azula are savvy enough to know they are BOTH attempting this, but {{spoiler|Azula's [[Hannibal Lecture]] is just too good and he concedes.}}

* ''[[South Park]]'': Scott Tenorman. He thought he was getting around Cartman's [[Batman Gambit]], only to run straight into one that [[Disproportionate Retribution|was far,]] [[Moral Event Horizon|far worse]] and cry the tears of unfathomable sadness.

** Arguably, his [[Xanatos Gambit]] in that episode paid off; by the time Elisa got around to giving the recording to Derek, {{spoiler|Derek had already decided not to listen to it.}} A better example of Xanatos being [[Out-Gambitted]] would be in "Double Jeopardy", in which Thailog plays Xanatos, Sevarius, and Goliath against each other.

*** 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 ''[[Generator Rex]]'', all of the villains who spent the entire series scheming to obtain the Meta-Nanites, the keys to godhood, {{spoiler|were outmaneuvered before the series even began. The Salazars -- Cesar and his parents -- had programmed the Meta-Nanites in such a way that only Rex could tap into their full power.}}