Uriah Gambit: Difference between revisions

See also [[Unfriendly Fire]] for a more hands-on approach that can work in both directions. When you send someone out with an item that attracts danger, that's the [[Trouble Magnet Gambit]]. When you do this [[Driven to Suicide|to yourself]], it's [[Suicide by Cop]]. When you're sent on this sort of mission and manage to get out alive, that's [[Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder]]. Not to be confused with [[David Copperfield (novel)|Uriah Heep]] -- [[Uriah Heep|either of them]].

* What do you do when your Data Interface gains emotions, but you can't kill her off lest the protective [[Badass Normal]] called Kyon convinces [[Suzumiya Haruhi|Kyon]] convinces Haruhi to recreate the world and wipe you out? You invoke the Uriah Gambit, sending the Interface to meet up with the Sky Canopy Dominion and hope she will [[Go Mad Fromfrom the Revelation]].

* Implied in ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' of all things when Giovanni tries to get rid of James and Jessie by assigning them to a really dangerous airplane flight using an old airship that is clearly not in good condition. His actual goal is to collect insurance when the duo's incompetence causes the airship to crash, and by now he is certain they will.

* In the film version of ''[[The Man in the Iron Mask (1998 film)|The Man in the Iron Mask]]'', King Louis XIV, upon finding out that one of the women he desires is already engaged to a soldier, sends him to the front lines to die in battle. Though the plan succeeds, it also backfires since the soldier also happened to be the son of one of the legendary Three Musketeers.

* In ''[[Iron Man]]'' Obadiah Stane arranges to have Tony Stark killed by terrorists in Afghanistan while he is presenting a new missile system to the americanAmerican troops stationed there. [[Super-Hero Origin|It doesn't quite work out as planned.]]

* This is named for an incident in [[The Bible]] where, desiring Uriah's gorgeous wife Bathsheba, King David [[Murder the Hypotenuse|had him sent into battle as cannon fodder]] (or, I suppose, arrow fodder). More specifically, David had first slept with Bathsheba while her husband was off on the front lines. Then when David found out he'd gotten Bathsheba pregnant, he tried to cover it up. The first coverup attempt ("Hey, Uriah! Buddy! Doin' a great job as an officer, my man! As a reward, I'm gonna give you a little vacation. Here, have a drink... or two or three... now go home, relax, enjoy an evening with your wife. You've earned it!") failed because Uriah [[The Men First|refused to accept privileges that his men weren't being allowed]]. Being unable to explain away Bathsheba's pregnancy the normal way, David pulled [[The Uriah Gambit]] as a [[Indy Ploy|probably spur-of-the-moment]] backup plan. Joab, the general David gave the order to (who also knew what David had done), was forced to put all of his troops within arrow range, then pull all of them but Uriah back, to make sure Uriah was killed. In a passive -aggressive [[What the Hell, Hero?]], Joab returned to Jerusalem to say something along the lines of: "The deed is done. Oh, and by the way, here are the names of all of the other guys who had to die by your strategy for no reason."

** In ''[[Cartoon History of the Universe|The Cartoon History of the Universe]]'', Joab is shown crumpling up the order and muttering "The things the boss makes me do" before sending Uriah out.

* David might have learned the Uriah Gambit from his predecessor, Saul, who kept trying to kill him with it. Much to Saul's chagrin, David not only [[Nigh Invulnerable|survived]] the [[Springtime for Hitler|the crazy missions]] that Saul sent him on (like [[Twenty Bear Asses|collecting the foreskins of 100 Philistines]]—which — which meant ''killing'' 100 Philistines, or at least administer a circumcision with or without their consent—toconsent — to win Saul's daughter Michal's hand in marriage), but went [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|above and beyond the call of duty]] (like bringing back ''200'' foreskins). It's not too surprising that going from shepherd boy to war hero to general to prince to king went to his head, and he thought he could get away with anything. Then God got the last word, and gave David massive succession issues and a really short time with his family actively on the throne.<ref>If we're not counting God's promise to make David's successor rule forever - fulfilled by his descendant Joseph passing the legal inheritance on to Jesus, assuming you're [[Christianity|Christian]]. For [[Judaism|Jews]], it's rather more complex, but the prophecy still has a member of the House of David being the Messiah.</ref> It is still worth noting: the child whose conception caused the problem in the first place died in infancy, God's way of expressing His disapproval. The ''next'' child David and Bathesheba had, however... Well, his name was Solomon.

* In Honor Harrington, "Honor among Enemies" there is a complicated subversion. Klaus Hauptman a shipping magnate is tired of losing ships(not to mention [[Papa Wolf| personal]]) to pirates in the Silesian Confederation and pulls strings to get Honor who is an old political rival of his, assigned there. The subversion is that he is not trying to get Honor killed-exactly-and in principle would rather she succeeded. Hauptman is just thinking,"better her then my employees", that she is after all the officer with the qualifications he thinks necessary(in other words tactical wizardry combined with utter insanity), and there are in any case naval officers he would grieve over far more.

* In [[Graham McNeill]]'s ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' [[Horus Heresy]] novel ''Fulgrim'', when Vespanian complains to Fulgrim that the captains who should have been supporting Captain Demeter didn't, and if it weren't for the intervention of other men, the captain and his men would have died, he realizes that this was exactly Fulgrim's intent. {{spoiler|Then Fulgrim kills Vespanian.}}

* In ''[[Flashman]] and the Mountain of Light,'' the Sikh ruling class deliberately starts a war with the British empire so that their unruly and regicidal army will be slaughtered.

* Felix Cortez plans to do this in ''[[Clear and Present Danger]]'', sending Cartel fighters against the American soldiers while building his own loyal group of fighters to take over the Cartel. The plan get interrupted in the story by other events.

* Done in the [[Mirror Universe]] novel [[Star Trek: TNGThe Next Generation|Dark Mirror]] to mirror![[Doomed by Canon|Jack Crusher]] by Evil!Picard to take possession of Beverly. Original!Picard is horrified to learn this.

* In ''[[Harry Potter and Thethe Half-Blood Prince (novel)|Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince]]'', both Narcissa Malfoy and Dumbledore think that Voldemort's main goal when he assigned his mission to Draco was to have Draco killed trying, as a punishment for Lucius' past failures.

* [[Andre Norton]]'s ''Star Rangers'' (alternate title ''The Last Planet'') begins with a would-be dictator getting rid of the local [[Space Police|Stellar Patrol]] by sending them on missions to map long-forgotten border systems, with a vague promise of turning these systems into bases from which the Patrol can be reborn. "Undermanned, poorly supplied, without real hope, but determined to carry out orders to the last," they go....

=== Tabletop GamesRPG ===

* In the [[Dungeons and& Dragons]] [[Video Game]] version of ''[[Temple of Elemental Evil]]'', a temporary party member named Prince Thrommel has a [[Cool Sword]] called Fragarach. He will ''only'' release the sword if you pry it from his cold dead hands. Evil players can just kill him (and it's required for a quest in the Lawful Evil path). Good characters who want the sword "accidentally" let him die. (You can resurrect him later, he doesn't ask what happened to his sword, oddly and will still give you its counterpart.) You can also marry a (rather annoying) NPC (with subpar stats) for a gift and throw her into the middle of combat naked, her father doesn't care.

* In ''[[StarcraftStarCraft]]'', Mengsk sends Kerrigan to hold off the Protoss during a Zerg invasion, and when the Zerg begin to overwhelm the Terrans and Protoss alike he abandons her. It's implied the reason he did this was because she and Raynor were beginning to get a bit too defiant to his increasingly extreme methods.

* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion]]'', one of the Mage's Guild leaders has you go pull a ring out of the bottom of a well. A ring that happens to weigh as much as a full suit of armor. One of your predecessors is floating around in said well when you dive in. {{spoiler|Guess which Mage's Guild leader turns out to be working with the Necromancers?}}

* In ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'',* Roy's first adventuring party kept sending Durkon on suicidal missions, but Durkon kept surviving. Durkon was actually aware they were trying to get rid of him, but he was resigned to it until Roy stood up for him, at which point the two left to form their own group.

{{quote|'''Sploorfixa Shlumpoid''': Suicide mission? What makes you think the Supreme couincilCouncil wants me dead?

'''Vexxarr''': Oh, I don't know... There is's just something about being sent against a technically superior enemy without possessing so much as an opposable thumb that sort of sets off my conspiratorial side... }}

* ''[[Re BootReBoot]]'' has Megabyte do this to his own henchmen [[Minion with an F In Evil|Hack & Slash]] because he's sick of their incompetence.

* [[Truth in Television]].: The Soviets are suspected of taking advantage of the Warsaw Uprising that way (they claim they were just out of gas, but they also refused landing to supply planes from the Western Allies). They allowed the fighters in the city to bleed out, then they occupied the city destroyed by German soldiers. Between the early Soviet failure in Poland, splitting it with Reich (which "officially" started [[World War II]]) and "rail war" on Soviet territory, it's reasonable to assume Stalin would expect problems there and wanted the place to be as weakened as possible by the time Red Army's supply will move through it - and setting up one enemy to attack another is something he did all the time.

* In the [[Second Sino-Japanese War|Sino-Japanese War of]] (1937-1945]]), the Chinese Nationalist government, in an effort to "use space to buy time" repeatedly held back their best-equipped and most -loyal forces and left the nominally nationalist-aligned warlords and bands of civilians to fight the Japanese alone and in guerrilla warfare. The Communists did their best to avoid combat and leave the hard fighting to the nationalists, building their strength whilst launching grassroots publicity campaigns emphasizing their comparative willingness to fight the Japanese directly.

** The Chinese have a long and proud history of playing "let[[Let's youYou and himHim fightFight]]" in war and politPolishicspolitics. Initially a very minor player in party politics, Mao originally came to power as the most powerful surviving leader of the Communists; he had left most of his rivals and their followers to face the purges of the Nationalists alone and be massacred, taking care of the remainder himself. During the Vietnam War, the PRC played both sides, sought to prolong the war as long as possible to ingratiate themselves with the North Vietnamese and weaken the US (who they wanted off of their borders).

* Very popular method as used by Ottoman rulers: Untrustworthy generals were sent to invade Europe, often resulting in [[Xanatos Gambit|win-win situations]]. For- for the Sultan, that is.