History Main / DidntSeeThatComing

** In the season 7 episode Machinima/RedVsBlue (as in, the titular teams duking it out), something to this effect is said as [[spoiler: Sarge's FamousLastWords, lamenting that he really SHOULD have seen that coming]].

See also DidntThinkThisThrough. If there wasn't a plan to begin with, possibly due to a plotter knowing this will happen the moment they start, it's an IndyPloy. A plotter who is aware that these can appear, builds flexibility into his plan, and improvises when they arise, is playing XanatosSpeedChess (and can ''still'' fall prey to this trope if confronted by a SpannerInTheWorks or simply a ''better'' TheChessmaster).

* In ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'' Gaston gives Belle two options: marry him or let her father go to the insane asylum for thinking he’s seen a beast. He never expected Belle could prove the Beast actually exists.

** The Drej have their entire fleet attacking the Titan station, hellbent on destroying it. Titan is running on auxiliary power, which isn't enough to activate the station. The Drej, being energy beings, are undefeatable...until [[spoiler:the heros realize that Drej energy can be absorbed and converted into station power. The entire fleet is not so much destroyed as it is ''eaten''.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/CodeRealize'', [[spoiler:Isaac Beckford]] spent years carefully developing and implementing his grand plan to [[spoiler:become God]], only for the whole thing to fall apart because a certain charismatic gentleman thief saw fit to steal a key component of the plan - Cardia, the visual novel's player character - and give her a chance to experience human kindness, friendship, and love.

* Despite all of the completely ludicrous things they managed to pull off in [[WebVideo/DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog Dr. Horrible]], nobody was expecting Bad Horse to be an ''actual'' horse.

* Ranger has multiple times fallen victim to this type in Roleplay/ComicFuryWerewolf. He's several times forgotten key facts which are public information due to focusing too hard on the details. One of the worst is how he's twice forgotten about the vigilantes, and even [[spoiler:forgot about the alpha's ability to convert]] until he was dead and too late to warn the village.
* In LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonRed, [[MindHive the Mob]] came up with a cunning plan to make sure that [[TheAce Bird Jesus]] didn't get released or deposited when they went to the PC. If they fainted everyone in the party ''except'' for Bird Jesus, he couldn't be put in the PC because then Red would have no usable Pokemon, right? As it should so happen, this leads to variety five - in the first generation of Pokemon, you ''can'' deposit the only Pokemon in your party... leading to Red managing to black out [[EpicFail inside a Pokemon Centre!]]

** His reaction to realizing that ''VideoGame/GraveyardKeeper'' allows the gravedigger to harvest corpses for flesh and [[IAmAHumanitarian sell it to the tavern]] [[TheAlcoholic for beer.]]
* ''WebVideo/LowTierGod'': He was cast in ELEAGUE's attempt at a reality TV show, ''The Challenger'', to the surprise of pretty much the entire internet. Not only that, but his role is a central one; he's presented as the show's "villain", given by far the most focus in the debut trailer, and his... divisive persona was immediately discussed by the other contestants. Upon arriving at the show house, LTG [[TakeThat thanked his haters from the bottom of his heart]] for making this opportunity possible instead of his supporters who vouched for him... Unfortunately for him, the other players wasted no time in targeting him for elimination, getting him picked for the elimination battle without any hesitation, being quickly beaten in ''Street Fighter'', and hastily ejected from the competition ''on day one.''

Then something, or [[SpannerInTheWorks someone]], happens. Not just something that the planner didn't know about, but something that he didn't know he didn't know. In fact, there was no way he could have known that he didn't know this (of course, that means that ''incompetent'' chessmaster or SmugSnake is more likely to fall prone to this trope). Thus the brilliant plan goes to pieces, with a deadpan "I Didn't See That Coming" once the dust settles. Less [[TheStoic Stoic]] fellows may go OhCrap or into VillainousBreakdown.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'': Clearly Hans's whole gambit to usurp the throne of Arendelle did not account for Olaf freeing Anna from the library, or Anna jumping in front of his sword to stop him from slicing Elsa. His reaction after the winter is thawed just reeks of this:

** In the season 7 episode Machinima/RedVsBlue, something to this effect is said as [[spoiler: Sarge's FamousLastWords, lamenting that he really SHOULD have seen that coming]].

'''[[spoiler: Sarge, as he's about to be blown up by Tucker's grenade]]''': Well, should've seen that coming.

** In the season 7 episode [[Machinima/RedVsBlue]], something to this effect is said as [[spoiler: Sarge's FamousLastWords, lamenting that he really SHOULD have seen that coming]].

** In the season 7 episode [[Machinima Red vs Blue]], something to this effect is said as [[spoiler: Sarge's FamousLastWords, lamenting that he really SHOULD have seen that coming]].

* In the ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle'' season 3 finale "ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} vs. [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Pinkie Pie]]", Wiz and Boomstick are absolutely flabbergasted when [[spoiler:the two call off their fight, become best friends, hop through other videos and land in the real world where Deadpool admonishes Wiz and Boomstick's actors for making him fight on his birthday before Pinkie brings him back to Equestria to celebrate said birthday. The two are forced to admit that the real losers this time is ''them'']].

* In the ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle'' season 3 finale "SelfDemonstrating/{{Deadpool}} vs. [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Pinkie Pie]]", Wiz and Boomstick are absolutely flabbergasted when [[spoiler:the two call off their fight, become best friends, hop through other videos and land in the real world where Deadpool admonishes Wiz and Boomstick's actors for making him fight on his birthday before Pinkie brings him back to Equestria to celebrate said birthday. The two are forced to admit that the real losers this time is ''them'']].

* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'': The Clan Invasion in AD 3050, which interrupted the [[SuccessionCrisis Fourth Succession War]]. The Inner Sphere was busy fighting among itself (again) when all of a sudden a ProudWarriorRace, descended from humans who had fled known space centuries ago and wielding much more advanced technology, appears from unexplored space and starts steamrolling everything in their path. It wound up being the first thing in over 400 years that actually got the various eternally warring factions of the Inner Sphere to [[EnemyMine put aside their differences and team up]].

Then something, or [[SpannerInTheWorks someone]], happens. Not just something that the planner didn't know about, but something that he didn't know he didn't know. In fact, there was no way he could have known that he didn't know this (of course, that means that ''incompetent'' chessmaster or TheSmugSnake is more likely to fall prone to this trope). Thus the brilliant plan goes to pieces, with a deadpan "I Didn't See That Coming" once the dust settles. Less [[TheStoic Stoic]] fellows may go OhCrap or into VillainousBreakdown.

Then something, or [[SpannerInTheWorks someone]], happens. Not just something that the Chessmaster didn't know about, but something that he didn't know he didn't know. In fact, there was no way he could have known that he didn't know this. Thus the brilliant plan goes to pieces, with a deadpan "I Didn't See That Coming" once the dust settles. Less [[TheStoic Stoic]] fellows may go OhCrap or into VillainousBreakdown, though usually it's a SpannerInTheWorks that causes that reaction.

But that's an extreme example. There can be much simpler situations where something unexpected happens that entirely surprises a character (and/or the audience) and makes them think, say, or curse that they ''didn't see THAT coming''. For a brief analysis of what usually qualifies as this trope, and what usually doesn't, see [[Analysis/DidntSeeThatComing this page]]. Essentially, anything that you didn't know in advance (and thus cannot or didn't plan for) can be an example of the trope; it's pretty broad.

A plotter who is aware that these can appear, builds flexibility into his plan, and improvises when they arise, is playing XanatosSpeedChess.

For a brief analysis of what usually qualifies as this trope, and what usually doesn't, see [[Analysis/DidntSeeThatComing this page]].

Compare SpannerInTheWorks, which very often is the unknown factor. See also DidntThinkThisThrough. If there wasn't a plan to begin with, possibly due to a plotter knowing this will happen the moment they start, it's an IndyPloy.

** At the end of ''Animation VS [=YouTube=]'', Green uploads himself as a video, rendering YouTube incapable of attacking him as he breaks [=YouTube=] from the inside out.

** At the end of ''Animation VS YouTube'', Green uploads himself as a video, rendering YouTube incapable of attacking him as he breaks YouTube from the inside out.

[[quoteright:320:[[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TzeentchDidntSeeThatComing.jpg]]]]

!!Examples:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''LightNovel/FateZero'', Unknown Unknowns example: Rider was thinking he could defeat Gilgamesh with his [[BadassArmy Ionian Hetairoi]] if he was only faced with [[HyperspaceArsenal Gate of Babylon]]. He did [[OhCrap NOT]] expect [[spoiler:to be faced with [[InfinityPlusOneSword Ea]], Gilgamesh's own sword capable of [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroying the world]] and his entire army with it in a single swing]].
** Also, [[TheChewToy Kayneth]] is ruined by a [[HumiliationConga series of these]]:
*** The first is a False Assumption: he had assumed that the other masters would have acted as mages and, in an attack on his stronghold in the higher roofs of the Hyatt Hotel, would have had to deal with his enormous preparations. Here comes Kiritsugu, who just [[StuffBlowingUp blows up]] [[DungeonBypass the whole hotel]] [[MugglesDoItBetter with explosives]]. Kayneth survives, but the explosion and the demolition destroy all of his defensive measures and almost all of his Mystic Codes;
*** In revenge for Kiritsugu's attack, Kayneth attacks him in the Einzbern Castle and runs head first in another False Assumption ''and'' an Unknown Unknown. The False Assumption is that his last Mystic Code could easily defend him from mundane weapons, but while Volumen Hydragyum can easily repel the pellets from Claymore Mines and the fire of a [[RareGuns Calico M950]] it has to concentrate to defend from the point blank fire of a [[HandCannon Thompson Contender chambered for .30-06 rounds]], and he survived with a wound only because the Contender is single shot. The Unknown Unknown happens when Kiritsugu returns with the Contender: this time Kayneth concentrates his defense and reinforces it with prana, [[JustAsPlanned not knowing it was exactly what Kiritsugu needed for his]] [[DepletedPhlebotinumShells Origin bullet]] to ''completely and irreversibly destroy Kayneth's ability to use magic'', nearly killing him through the sheer pain and leaving him paraplegic as a side effect;
*** After surviving Kiritsugu thanks to Lancer, Kayneth runs into an Unknown Known: his fiancee Sola-Ui is [[MadLove madly]] [[{{Yandere}} in]] {{love|MakesYouCrazy}} with Lancer, and tortures the now-defenceless Kayneth to get the Command Seals. He could have avoided the torture and having to give up the Seals by calling Lancer with a Command Seal, but his False Assumption that Lancer was willing to betray him prevented him from it. These would both fall under Unknown Known errors if he'd bothered to read up on the myths regarding his own servant, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne. Sola-Ui falls prey to Lancer's [[LovePotion Cursed]] BeautyMark (actually implied to be MoreThanMindControl), as his future queen did in the myth. And she forced him to betray his lord with magic.
*** After much meddling, Kayneth is seemingly having some luck. Sure, he had to force Lancer to suicide and give up any role in the War, but he managed to have Kiritsugu force himself to not harm him first... And False Assumption and Unknown Unknown hit again in the form of Maya Hisau, Kiritsugu's assistant, who, before Kiritsugu signed the magical contract, had been ordered to kill Kayneth and Sola-Ui as soon as Lancer killed himself. To rub salt into the wound, Kayneth is just mortally and painfully wounded, and when he begs Kiritsugu to finish him he's told that he can't either finish him or tell Maya or Saber to do it due the oath (thankfully Saber has some pity and kills him on her own).
* ''Manga/DeathNote'':
** L, the master of IKnowYouKnowIKnow, didn't realize that he was dealing with an OutsideGenreFoe in the form of the supernatural Death Note and the existence of Shinigami. When he discovers this, he's so surprised [[PeopleFallOffChairs he falls right out of his chair]], and he continues to be taken off guard because he didn't know all of the rules surrounding Death Notes.
** Running into one of these is how [[spoiler:Light]] finally lost. Shidou was a greater SpannerInTheWorks than anyone else, and there was no way Light could have foreseen the damage he did.
* Kyon of ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' gets a note asking him to meet in the classroom after school. He's pretty sure it isn't any of the SOS members, but he thinks a little about how he'll respond to each of them, if it is one of them after all. He knows that he does not know who it is. However, it was not possible for him to know that [[spoiler:Ryoko Asakura was actually an alien waiting there to murder him]]. He got hit with Didn't See That Coming, and it was not fun. At least, not for him -- for the audience, it was ''freaking awesome''.
* Quattro, the resident SmugSnake from ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'' encounters a tiny flaw that completely undoes her whole plan when she overlooks a few critical facts. First, [[spoiler:that Nanoha is a mage that specializes in blowing stuff up]]. Second, [[spoiler:that Nanoha is using a special booster system that makes her capable of blowing up even more stuff]]. And finally, [[spoiler:that Nanoha was using area search magic to look for the cyborg the entire time she was fighting against her adopted daughter, per Quattro's plans]]. On top of all that, somehow Quattro tends to overlook an even more critical fact regarding the way Nanoha [[DefeatMeansFriendship treats her friends and loved ones]]. While being ignorant of the third was a reasonable possibility, there is absolutely no excuse for the first two, not to mention Nanoha's tendency to befriend people. The end result... OhCrap! The thing is Quattro ''did'' see it coming in the end. She was just too late to do anything about it other than look in horror.
** On a wider scale, Jail and the cyborgs got blindsided completely by Section 6' available firepower, due to careful management of their {{Power Limiter}}s hiding what they were really capable of.
* ''Anime/CodeGeass'' . All the time, courtesy of [[ButtMonkey the universe's violent hatred of Lelouch]]. Seriously, the only plan to go off without a hitch was Zero Requiem, [[spoiler:which ends with ''{{suicide|ByCop}}'']].
* [[spoiler:Alucard]] in ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'' is finally finished off when [[spoiler:the Major gets him to weaken himself by unleashing his familiars, become injured by fighting a newly vampirised Walter, then try to restore himself by reabsorbing his familiars and all of the blood in the devastated London. The snag for Alucard comes when the Major has Schrodinger commit suicide and be absorbed by Alucard; Schrodinger's nature means that he ceases to exist if he cannot identify himself. Being absorbed by Alucard and melded with the souls of his familiars makes him unable to identify himself, causing him to cease to exist, and taking Alucard with him]].
* ''Manga/OnePiece''
** The World Government captured Ace and imprisoned him, prompting Luffy to break in to get him out. Normally, one pirate single-handedly invading their fortress jail to break someone out under maximum security would be an easy matter to deal with. Unfortunately [[spoiler:Luffy ultimately set ''all'' their prisoners free, recruited as many as he could into fighting the World Government with the surprise aid of [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain Buggy the Clown, Mr. 3]], [[{{Crossdresser}} Mr. 2 Bon Kurei]], and two ex-members of the Seven Warlords of the Sea. To top it off, a current Warlord, Blackbeard, turned on them for unknown reasons while everyone else was preparing for all-out war with Whitebeard. And wouldn't you just know it, numerous prisoners that Luffy recruited have [[PlotTailoredToTheParty the exact powers needed for the group to succeed]]. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned. Things don't go as planned ''at all'']].
** A better example is when Luffy goes for a rematch with Crocodile, and swallows a huge barrel of water to become a living water balloon. Crocodile is more than a bit surprised by this, though he recovers quickly.
** Enel had the same problem but worse. At least Crocodile knew about his own limits, and had a fall back plan. Luffy not only bypassed Enel's invincibility, but then completely ignored just about every attack Enel tried to use in retaliation. And then the kicker was that there is no rubber in the sky islands. Enel not only didn't see Luffy coming, but he didn't know his main weakness even ''existed''
** Nico Robin (formerly known as Miss All-Sunday) joining the Straw Hats was (at the time) a '''huge''' plot twist. Prior to joining them, she was TheDragon to Crocodile, the BigBad of the entire Alabasta/Baroque Works saga, and while she eventually proved to be a DragonWithAnAgenda who saved Luffy twice after Crocodile tried to kill him, she seemed to be, at most, a WildCard who disappeared after he was defeated. Then, shortly after Vivi [[IChooseToStay turned down the crew's offer to come with them]], Robin randomly showed up and joined instead. These days, however, [[ItWasHisSled it's not really a twist at all]], due to [[LateArrivalSpoiler all the merchandise and pictures of the entire crew]].
*** It was also unfortunately spoiled ahead of time for those who only watch the anime, since the [[SpoilerOpening third opening sequence]], which began airing about halfway through the Alabasta arc, showed Robin (who didn't join until the very, very end of the arc) among the crew members.
** Luffy's "execution" (actually an attempted murder) in Loguetown is prevented when the executioner is struck by a bolt of lightning. Luffy's flabbergasted allies can only conclude it was DivineIntervention. However, they were atop a tall tower, the executioner wielding a metal sword, while ''[[WhatAnIdiot thunder was rumbling in the background]]''. [[spoiler:Although it is well implied that it wasn't natural lightning that struck.]]
** Zoro [[spoiler:begs Dracule Mihawk to train him so that he can surpass and defeat...well...Dracule Mihawk. He's actually trying to get stronger for the sake of the Straw Hats, but, he's not forgetting his own goal in the process]]. Mihawk [[spoiler:''agrees to it,'' knowing that he's helping to create the one swordsman he believes can defeat him. Simply ''because'' Zoro is willing to throw away his pride for the Straw Hats]].
*** [[spoiler:Although, we really shouldn't be surprised that Mihawk is encouraging Zoro to become powerful enough to surpass him; he subscribes to YouKillItYouBoughtIt, and he's chosen Zoro as his successor.]]
** When the Straw Hats enter the New World, Smoker falls victim to this in his attempt to ambush them. He knows that a New World log pose points to three possible islands, and he knows Luffy would pick the most dangerous of the three options. So he sets anchor by the most dangerous of the first three islands in the New World. What doesn't occur to him is that Luffy would instead go to Punk Hazard, an island that ''isn't even on the log pose''.
** [[spoiler:Sabo. ''No one'', not the Straw Hats, not Doflamingo, not even the ''audience'' saw him coming, making him a classic example of a SpannerInTheWorks. Makes you wonder what else the Revolutionary Army has in store for the rest of the series.]]
** The Dressrosa arc of the story is basically a long chain of these on all sides, starting with [[spoiler:Doflamingo changing the whole world's newspapers just to fool Law.]] Once the Straw Hats start their attack properly it gets to the point where somebody gets this every two chapters or so, culminating with [[spoiler:Usopp somehow startling Sugar into fainting, and Doflamingo surviving having his head chopped off.]]
** Doflamingo assigns a bounty of 500,000,000 Beri on [[spoiler:"God" Usopp]], which is even higher than the World Government's bounty on Luffy.
** The reveal of [[spoiler:Law's full name: Trafalgar D. Water Law]]. Seems minor, but considering [[spoiler:carriers of the Will of D. are notorious as bearers of calamity, their every move impactful on a ''global scale'', and the natural-born enemies of the Celestial Dragons]], it's shocking that in the ''years'' since his introduction, [[spoiler:Law has been living under the radar with the D. initial to his name and ''we had absolutely '''no clue''' ''. He's certainly living up to his [[SecretLegacy name]], as his 13-year grudge against Doflamingo ultimately triggers a '''civil war''' that demolishes an entire black market empire and shifts the tides of multiple ongoing wars throughout the world. ALL IN FAVOR OF THE REBELS]]. Impactful indeed.
*** It puts Law's alliance with Luffy on a whole other level, as they are no longer just two of the Worst Generation teaming up; [[spoiler:to date there's never been evidence or implications of two Ds working together]], and the impact their actions will bring is currently unimaginable. If the Straw Hats alone declared war on the World government, exactly how much notoriety will they gain yet ''again'' with the Heart Pirates at their side?
** In the Zou arc, the Mink tribe was almost wiped out by Jack the Drought, Kaido's subordinate who was [[spoiler:searching for the Wano samurai (Raizo in particular) and tortured the Minks for info despite them apparently knowing nothing about Raizo]]. As a result, the Straw Hats tried to hide their own [[spoiler:relationship with the samurai]] in order to avoid invoking the tribe's wrath. So you can imagine their (and the readers') surprise when it turns out that [[spoiler:the Minks actually ''were'' lying to Jack, and really ''had'' been hiding Raizo from him the whole time]].
** This can happen even if someone has CombatClairvoyance; Katakuri, one of Big Mom's Sweet Commanders, has trained his Observation Haki so well that it gives him glimpses of the future. When he sees that his sister will fail to kill Sanji, Katakuri tries to snipe the chef himself. Sanji does a BulletDodge so quickly that not even Katakuri foresaw it.
* In ''Anime/PrincessTutu'', [[spoiler:[[DarkMagicalGirl Rue]] pulling a HeroicSacrifice and saving Mytho from TheCorruption through ThePowerOfLove]] blindsides Drosselmeyer so utterly that he spends the next five seconds gaping dumbfoundedly before finally going, "...[[FlatWhat What.]]" [[XanatosSpeedChess He does recover his plans rather quickly though -- just on a different rail]].
* In ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'', [[spoiler:Kurt Godel's]] plan to make Negi an ally was screwed up because [[spoiler:he was totally unaware that Negi had a [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/mahou_sensei_negima/v30/c272/11.html source of information]] that that Kurt couldn't have possibly have anticipated]].
** [[spoiler:Chapter 273 is basically just Kurt's whole Gambit falling to pieces around him. First he reveals himself as a powerful Shinmeiryuu swordsman; Negi overloads his defenses. Then he claims they can't escape from his projected space; Chisame disables it. Finally he claims that no one knows they're there anyway; Asakura reveals that all of Negi's friends outside have been watching what's happened through her artifact the whole time. Then, just to top it off, he gets smacked with [[BigDamnHeroes Ku Fei's artifact and Takamichi lamps him one from across the room.]]]]
** Then right after that, Ala Alba's preparations promptly got shot to hell by [[spoiler:the arrival of one of Fate's minions, causing their main retreat plan, as well as most of their backups, to fall to pieces]].
* In ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'', this is pretty much the only reason why Giovanni loses against Red in the two battles they fought against each other. First time, he completely dominated Red from beginning to end, took down all his Pokemon except Pika, and knew that he could take Red down before it could attack. How was he supposed to know Red stole Lt. Surge's gloves so that Pika could charge up its attack in its Pokeball? The second time, his Deoxys is beating him and Mewtwo. Too bad Bill and Celio, miles and miles away from the battle, manage to steal the jewels that were allowing Deoxys to form change.
* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', Kisame Hoshigaki probably shouldn't have stopped to KickTheDog after subduing Killer Bee- but who could have expected that [[spoiler:he'd be betrayed by his own EmpathicWeapon, leading to his defeat and death when reinforcements arrive]]? Certainly not [[AssPull the readers]], that's for sure... ([[spoiler:Actually, he ''did'' see it coming, since his "death" was a KansasCityShuffle to infiltrate the Cloud Village.]])
** [[spoiler:What he ''did'' fail to see coming was that Naruto would be able to detect ''murderous intention'', leading to his actual death.]]
** In the first movie ''Ninja Clash in the Snow'', the evil ruler of Snow Country is trying to activate a machine that his peace-loving brother (who he overthrew) created under the assumption that it's a [[LogicalFallacies superweapon]]. The machine turned out to be [[spoiler:a system of mirrors designed to warm the country and trigger spring]].
** [[spoiler:Madara did not expect Black Zetsu to betray him, seeing as he's ''supposed'' to be the manifestation of Madara's will. He isn't; he's the manifestation of '''''Princess Kaguya's''''' will. Princess Kaguya was the mother of the Sage of the Six Paths, and the first ever chakra user. She's also supposed to be ''dead''.]]
** [[spoiler:And speaking of Princess Kaguya, in the final battle against her, she proclaims that as the creator of Chakra, [[TemptingFate there is no Chakra-based technique they can use against her that she cannot immediately nullify]]. In response, and in desperation due to being completely out of other options, Naruto hatches a plan, and asks Sasuke if they can do...''"THAT technique"'', Sasuke begrudgingly agrees. They rush in, and Kaguya prepares herself for their attack, only to be hit with...''The Reverse Harem Jutsu.'' With Sasuke and Naruto using shadow clones to turn into a harem of naked, beautiful {{Bishonen}} boys surrounding her. '''''[[CrazyEnoughToWork This actually works.]]''''' Kaguya was so unprepared and unexpectant of this technique, that she's left in utter stunned shock, only able to barely mutter out a ''"...Huh...?"'' in response; then Naruto and Sasuke break the Jutsu, and nail the first solid and square hit against her in the whole fight.]]
* In ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'' during the Kyoto arc, Shishio has set up an attack on Kyoto as a distraction for his real goal: to take his pre-Dreadnought era Dreadnought to Tokyo. He wasn't too surprised that Kenshin read through this ruse, however he and his Dragon didn't know about Sano and frankly didn't care when he showed up. [[spoiler:Until they found out he brought a former terrorist friends gift with him; a handful of bombs. It was this that managed to destroy the ship.]]
* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'':
** The highest-ranking Level 5 esper, Accelerator, is taking part in a horrific experiment that involves [[LevelGrinding murdering twenty thousand clones to advance to level 6]]. Touma Kamijou, the lowest-ranking Level 0 in the entire city, decides he can get the experiment canceled if he beats Accelerator, since no one knows about his AntiMagic right hand. He succeeds (to Accelerator's complete and utter shock), saving the lives of the ten thousand remaining clones. [[spoiler:It's pretty clear that Aleister Crowley, the one who came up with the plan in the first place, saw this coming. He's the only one in the city who knows about Touma's ability, and is the one making an effort to keep it a secret.]]
** Unknown Known, bordering on False Assumption, screws up Aleister Crowley's plans big time when [[spoiler:Shiage Hamazura]], a completely normal Level 0, defeats a Level 5. From then on, [[spoiler:Shiage Hamazura]] becomes an unknown variable to be accounted for, forcing Aleister to use up resources in order to eliminate the unknown variable.
** Much later, right after Aleister has finally gotten his plans back on track, an Unknown Unknown pops up and completely blindsides him: [[spoiler:World Rejector, a power completely the opposite of Touma's, appears out of nowhere]].
* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': for all of [[spoiler:Kyubey's]] {{Batman Gambit}}s and deception to further his plans, he fails to account for the one thing he's been tempting [[spoiler:Madoka]] with in the first place: [[spoiler:Madoka practically wishes to overwrite the entire universe.]] Although he still gets his true goal in a different way: [[spoiler:The Magical Girl system still helps counter entropy, and now finding out the truth doesn't lead humanity to resent him for it]].
** The [[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion movie]] tops this and then some: pretty much everyone is taken off guard at some point, with the most notable being [[spoiler:Kyubey, as he realizes he's been OutGambitted by Madoka again, and on a more horrifying note [[TheOmniscient Madoka herself]], as [[FaceHeelTurn Homura betrays her and steals her powers]]]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/RobotechTheShadowChronicles'', the last words of bad guys are "This was not foreseen", this being an explosion with a blast radius of ''Millions of kilometers''.
* In ''Manga/TheLegendOfKoizumi'' when Taizo and Sanada faces off against Yukio, they were expecting a powerful opponent, especially with the whole alien theme going on. [[spoiler:what they didn't expect was Yukio committing a Chombo, as in picking up the game pieces and ''punching Taizo in the face'' to void the game. Yukio would do this again, flipping the table, and somehow this boosts his luck for reasons currently unknown. Sanada would reply in kind, buy picking up the table and ''bashing Yukio clear across the room'' before the latter could flip the table again. Again, no one saw it coming.]]
* The second season of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'' as a situation similarly to this trope, involving a hijack of a mobile armor by the enemy… only to be foiled by a [[TeamPet Haro]].
** Aeolia Schoenberg, mastermind that he was, built Veda to account for things he didn't see coming: Veda ensures that his plan is fulfilled in spirit, and can make adjustments to the original plan if unknown factors crop up that Schoenberg didn't see coming.
* Shimada serves as an Unknown Known for Rei during the Shishi Ou Cup in ''Manga/SangatsuNoLion''. Rei's so psyched about engaging Gotou in the Finals match that he doesn't take the time to seriously consider how much of a threat Shimada can be, only to realize it too late when he suffers a humiliating defeat.
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': Aizen is defeated by two things he fails to see coming due to the amount of false assumptions he had been making from the beginning. [[spoiler:He wanted Ichigo to become more powerful but failed to understand how powerful Ichigo was capable of becoming and the [[SentientPhlebotinum Hogyoku]] suddenly de-powered him before he could complete his fight with Ichigo. Ichigo believes Aizen was [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor de-powered]] due to possessing a deeply hidden desire to be a [[IJustWantToBeNormal normal shinigami]].]]
* In ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'', Nagisa must distract [[spoiler:Kayano]], an insanely angry superbeing who can counter and predict all his possible attacks. So he resorts to something that isn't even a battle tactic: [[spoiler:kissing her]]. It works.
* ''Manga/DragonBall''
** Pilaf having his wish interrupted by Oolong, who wish for panties.
** The first time Goku turns into a Great Ape, breaking out of Pilaf's prison and destroyed the castle. [[OutsideContextProblem No one saw it coming]], not even Goku.
** Jackie Chun, aka Master Roshi, using a Kamehameha to rocket himself back into the ring after Krillin kicked him off.
** Goku becoming a Great Ape after Master Roshi though he had the match won after trapping Goku in his Lightning Flash Surprise Attack.
** After being outmatched by General White's pet, Buyon, because of his blubbery body Goku beats him by kicking in a wall, letting in a breeze of cold air. [[BossArenaIdiocy It froze the monster solid]].
** Goku blocking Tien's Solar Flare by stealing Master Roshi's sunglasses.
** Tien using a technique that made two extra arms grow caused everyone at the tournament to freakout. He then one ups this by destroying the arena with a Tri-Beam Cannon.
** King Piccolo was more than a little surprise that Goku was not only alive after seemingly killing him (he had, after all, checked his heartbeat after Goku had apparently died), but stronger than ever. He's even more surprise that Goku beat him despite having all but one arm broken.
** Kami having his own Evil Containment Wave deflected right back at him by Piccolo.
** Piccolo finding out that Goku learned to fly and defeats him despite disabling all of his limbs.
** Vegeta didn't foresee Goku being able to raise his power so much using the Kaioken when they first fought.
** For Goku, Vegeta becoming a Great Ape. For King Kai, that Vegeta can create his own moon.
** Vegeta escaping from his healing tank and stealing all of Frieza's Dragon Balls wasn't foreseen by Frieza or Zarbon. Vegeta then experience turnaround when Gohan steals ''his'' Dragon Ball, right from under his nose.
** Frieza being unable to use the Namekian Dragon Balls because he doesn't know the password.
** Frieza picking off Goku's friends and threatening his son, causing him to become a Super Saiyan.
** To round off Frieza's HumiliationConga, him not getting his wish from the Namekian Eternal Dragon because he didn't speak Namekian.
** Dr. Gero had no idea what a Super Saiyan was, let alone that there are two of them. He also had no clue that Piccolo had merged with another Namekian, making him far stronger than he had calculated.
** Cell badly underestimated Piccolo since he didn't know he merged with Kami, something no one believed would ever happened since Piccolo and Kami hated each other.
** The final leg of Goku and Cell's fight gives us two. Cell was caught completely flatfooted when Goku used his Kamehameha in combination with his Instant Transmission, destroying half of his body. Then, Goku got a surprised when he learned Cell could regenerate [[PoorCommunicationKills because no one told him]].
** Cell surviving his own self-destruction. [[BeyondTheImpossible Not even he knew it would happened]].
** For the Supreme Kai, the Saiyans being so freakishly strong. He even lampshades how he would have planned differently if he knew beings like them existed.
** Goten and Trunks are horrified when they see Buu turn Dabura into a cookie and eat him.
** Piccolo didn't foresee Super Buu killing everyone on Earth with one attack after he told him he couldn't fight Gotenks until everyone in the lower realm was dead.
** Super Buu coming back from ''vapors'' shocked Piccolo and Gotenks after they tried [[MakeSureHesDead to make sure he was dead by burning his remains.]]
** Piccolo gets another surprise when Super Buu escapes the Hyperbolic Time Chamber by screaming. [[BeyondTheImpossible Like the regenerating from vapors thing, he thought this was impossible.]]
** After being completely outmatched by Gohan's Ultimate Form, Buu surprised everyone by absorbing Gotenks and Piccolo, becoming both smarter and more powerful. He does it again against Goku, absorbing Gohan after Gotenks' fusion broke.
** Vegeto being able to move and fight despite being turned into a piece of candy. [[BeyondTheImpossible This has never happened before]].
** After absorbing Vegeto, Buu is surprised that not only did Vegeto avoid being assimilated, but he frees all the other people he absorbed. He did get a happy surprised, however, when he learns that Vegeta and Goku couldn't fuse any more.
** Vegeta removes Fat Buu from Super Buu's body, forcibly returning Buu to his original form. Although not as strong as Super Buu at his peak, he is the most dangerous from of Buu. Without a bit of hesitation, he destroys the Earth.
** Kid Buu not only caught the Spirit Bomb, but pushes it back towards Goku, surprising everyone.
* ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar''
** The battle between Kenshiro and Mr. Heart is full of these for everyone involved. For Kenshiro, because he didn't expect that there would be [[{{Kevlard}} someone so fat to resist pretty much all normal attacks]] [[KungFuProofMook and even resist any martial art bar Nanto Seiken]], especially considering that food is scarce in the post-apocalyptic world. For Mr. Heart and his boss Shin, that Kenshiro's Hokuto Shinken [[CrazyPrepared had a technique made specifically to deal with this kind of situation by moving around the fat just long enough to hit a pressure point and kill the enemy]]. Again for Kenshiro because ''he didn't expect to have a chance to use such a ridiculously specific technique''.
** When Kenshiro first fought Souther he found out that [[KungFuProofMook his "Emperor's Armor" was immune to Hokuto Shinken]], something he clearly did ''not'' expect.
** When they were having the rematch, Souther was then surprised when Toki called bullshit on the "Emperor Armor" and explained he knew his ''real'' secret, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dextrocardia a rare medical condition]] that had the side effect of switching around his pressure points (hence why Hokuto Shinked wouldn't work, as it relies on hitting those)... Or that Kenshiro had just realized it (it is in fact Kenshiro the one who explains it to the witnesses). These he should have expected: Toki was not just a Hokuto Shinken practitioner but also a skilled medic, who could have guessed it with a look or just ''checked Souther's file at a hospital'', while Kenshiro had just put his fingers ''inside Souther's body'' as part of a failed Hokuto Shinken technique and felt his heartbeat.
* In the final battle of the first season, Hendrickson from ''Manga/TheSevenDeadlySins'' in the final battle was hit with three of them in the row. First [[spoiler:hero's [[TalkingAnimal talking]] [[TeamPet pig]] ]] jumped in front of his sure-to-kill attack, saving main character. Then, [[BerserkButton death of the]] [[spoiler:pig]] caused [[spoiler:[[TheChick Elizabeth]] to unleash her hidden powers, healing eweryone and damaging him]]. And then main character in the last ditch effort to defeat him, attacks him, while eweryone else fire their most powerful attack on both of them. Hendrickson thought, that he just tries to give others chance to beat him, by sacrificing himself - [[spoiler:and then he revealed a secret technique, that allowed him to collect damage from all that attacks and then release all that on him]].
* ''Manga/CityHunter'':
** In his first named appearance Ryo couldn't possibly have seen coming that an actress would be able to hire Umibozu to kill herself;
** Umibozu's second appearance had him hire Ryo to impersonate him with a girl (Ryo didn't know that Umibozu was a friend of her late father and had paid her music education. Once that was known, it was clear why);
** Who would expect Umibozu to tell Miki she had to kill City Hunter if she wanted to marry him? Also, Ryo and Kaori made a false assumption on the reason, and thought he didn't want to marry Miki because she was Terminator in a drag (Hilarity Ensued when they saw her);
** The two assistants of a Corrupt Corporate Executive tried to hire Umibozu to kill City Hunter and his charges (one of which being a girl 11 years old), not knowing that not only Umibozu and Ryo were allies (sort of) and he doesn't kill children, but had even convinced Ryo to take that job. Ryo was left speechless when Umibozu delivered him the two guys, who were Lampshade Hanging the whole situation.
* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'':
** Throughout the Fairy Dance arc, Sugou/Oberon believes he has everything in the bag and is unstoppable. He would have been, were it not for the intervention of Akihiko Kayaba's VirtualGhost; Kayaba gives Kirito access to his own [[GameMaster admin ID]], which outranks Sugou's and allows him to turn the tables in an instant.
** After being defeated during the climax of the Alicization arc, [[spoiler:[=PoH=] expects Kirito to give him a warrior's death, since he'll be able to pursue him and Asuna and kill them for real after being booted out of the system. What he ''didn't'' expect was Kirito to subject him to a FateWorseThanDeath by imprisoning him in a tree and leaving him to rot in Underworld, vowing that this is the last time they'll meet and [[AndIMustScream PoH will]] ''[[AndIMustScream never]]'' [[AndIMustScream log out]].]]
* ''Manga/BlackClover'': The Witch Queen does not realize that [[spoiler:Vanessa's Red Thread of Fate magic can only form whom she has a bond with. So, when Vanessa's magic stops Asta from killing Noelle and Finral and ultimately thwarts the Witch Queen's plans, the latter becomes puzzled by what has just happened until Vanessa explains it to her]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* Frequent ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' villain the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Thinker Mad Thinker]] is often foiled by things that even his supergenius intelligence can't predict, [[StrawVulcan such as random human behavior]].
* In James Robinson's FF run, the Quiet Man pulls off a massive plot to turn the public against the FF, have the Thing in jail, the Human Torch depowered and Reed and Sue split up, all aided by the Psycho Man. His plan is to have Earth overwhelmed by aliens and alternate heroes from other worlds so the Quiet Man can be the big hero saving the day. When Reed tells him to go ahead and shut the portals down, the Quiet Man tries...and can't. He's totally stunned as Reed openly points out how stupid an idea it is to allow ''THE PSYCHO MAN'' to have ultimate power over two worlds. ("Seriously, the name alone...")
* In ''ComicBook/GothamCityGarage'', [[ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} Dick Grayson]] and [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} Kara Gordon]] are being chased down by a killer robot. Dick decides to split up so the robot chases ''her''... but it goes after ''him''. Dick's reaction?
-->'''Dick:''' Ah dang. Not how I saw that going '''at all'''.
* ''[[Comicbook/TheInfinityGauntlet The Infinity War]]'' has a resurrected Magus employ a complicated scheme to [[spoiler:seize all the Infinity Gems from Warlock and his Infinity Watch]]. Because the plan is too complicated requiring all his attention, the Magus literally ''doesn't see'' the [[spoiler:combined efforts of Doctor Doom and Kang interfering with his plan]].
* The {{Satan}} CaptainErsatz from Creator/JMichaelStraczynski's graphic novel ''ComicBook/MidnightNation'' literally says this line word for word [[spoiler:after TheHero with the MeaningfulName of Gray turns down his offer, chooses self sacrifice, and turns the BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil right against him, something which thousands of predecessors before him had all failed to do]].
* Malekith the Accursed in ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules'' falls prey to this. [[EpicFail One panel]] after he revealed his scheme. [[spoiler:Who can stand against the mighty Grendell with Hercules and Comicbook/TheMightyThor both weakened? ''Zeus''. To add injury to insult, Grendell then ''fell on him''.]]
* In a ''{{Dracula}}'' vs ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' crossover, Dracula's plan was to drink Superman's blood and thus gain the powers of a Kryptonian. Unfortunately he was not aware that Superman is ''solar-powered'', and drinking his blood had a similar effect to trying to chow down on an active grenade.
* In ''ComicBook/AllFallDown'', [[spoiler:AIQ Squared's]] plot falls apart when he fails to plan ahead for [[spoiler:Siphon's Death Activated Super Power.]]
* In the ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' storyline ''ComicBook/EndsOfTheEarth'', Comicbook/DoctorOctopus' final grand scheme was to [[spoiler:flash fry all of humanity save .08% of them, so they can rebuild and remember him as the greatest monster that ever lived]]. When confronted with this, Spidey points out the big flaw in that plan: [[spoiler:they'll live... brain dead - their brains would be flash fried, too]]. Doc Ock promptly wigs out and Spidey takes him down.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'', Mr. Dark has the Fable community to the wall. They can't run any more, and he is slowly shattering Haven's defenses. The Fables are planning a last ditch effort to defend themselves, but the chance of it actually working are slim. Then Mr. North, the North Wind, Bigby's neglectful father who he has had a serious love/hate relationship with, and who has often been shown to not really care about much outside his realm [[spoiler:sacrifices himself to shut Mr. Dark down ''permanently''.]] That it allows him to let his zephyr grandson live is a bonus. [[{{Pun}} A slam dunk]] with #4.
* In ''Film/MarsAttacks Franchise/TheTransformers'', Megatron decides to use the Martian invasion as a chance to ally with them and take out the Autobots. Instead, the Martians capture both Autobots ''and'' Decepticons. As Megatron yells at the aliens and vows to kill them all, Cliffjumper points out that, as robots calling themselves "Decepticons", they should have seen this coming.
** Similarly, the Martian commander assumed that shrinking Megatron removed him as a factor. [[{{BFG}} It didn't]].
* In ''Death of Franchise/{{Wolverine}}'' Dr. Cornelius has a plan to create an army of supersoldiers, and has everything he needs except the last ingredient: Wolverine, so he can extract his HealingFactor to allow them to survive his enhancements. After capturing Wolverine and explaining this, he then has to ruefully acknowledge that he tends to focus too much on the big picture as Wolverine cuts himself to reveal that he's lost his healing factor.
* ''ComicBook/TheWildstorm:'' Michael Cray's attempted assassination of Marlowe would've gone a lot differently had it not been for a few factors neither party saw coming: Marlowe being an alien, with xeno-biology detectors in his office which alerted him to Michael, and Michael's superpowers (which even Michael didn't know he had) saving him from Marlowe's attempt to defend himself... the result of which is that Marlowe gets blown out his office window anyway, and would've died if not for Angie Spice passing by with an advanced stolen flight suit in need of a test drive.
* In a story in ''Vampire Tales'', a man decides to become a vampire in order to get rid of his family (no payments or anything because he's considered dead) and be immortal as long as he avoids fire and sunlight. Three days after his death, he awakes just as he was told he would … [[spoiler:just as his wife is having his disfigured remains cremated.]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
%%* In ''Fanfic/GettingItRight'' for all of his planning Aizen didn't foresee using Orihime as a HumanShield backfiring through an act of self-sacrifice.
* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' has [[spoiler:Sinister]] as a walking blind spot in Strange's extremely powerful abilities as a {{Seer}}, meaning that he's pretty much a living example of this to Strange, who has to resort to frantic XanatosSpeedChess to try and get on top of things again. However, the fact of this is an even bigger case to the cast, who had got used to the concept of Strange being a nigh-omniscient [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] who was ''never'' caught off-guard - he might be irritating, he might attract a number of speeches on the theme of WhatTheHellHero, and rightly so, but like him or not, it's generally acknowledged and assumed that he's always on top of things. The revelation that he's ''not'' triggers a massive OhCrap in the heroes as a result.
** Harry tends to be a living example of this trope to most villainous organisations, through his tendency to function as a SpannerInTheWorks due to his unpredictable planning/tendency to make it up as he goes along. Unfortunately, this tendency means that the good guys find it just as unpredictable, and he's even been known to put big holes in his ''own'' plans. As a result, this backfires horribly early in Book II, during the ''Forever Red'' arc, leading to a TraumaCongaLine that nearly drives Harry insane.
** Jor-El is revealed in the sequel to have been absolutely CrazyPrepared, building as many redundancies and back-ups into his plan as were conceivably possible. However, he didn't predict Clark's ship dragging a lot of debris from Krypton's wreckage with it, causing the Smallville Meteor Shower and making the landing a much bigger event than he'd hoped (making it harder to completely conceal Clark), and creating a much bigger problem for Clark in terms of 'meteor freaks' and the fact that KryptoniteIsEverywhere.
* ''Fanfic/CodeGeassPaladinsOfVoltron''
** While the possibility of the Paladins not being able to be one in mind did not elude Coran, he's completely flat-footed when [[spoiler: the mind-meld fails due to Lelouch thinking about the assassination of his mother]], as this had ''never'' happened before.
** Charles' plan to [[spoiler: capture Lelouch using Nunnally]] gets totally derailed due to several of these factors, specifically the Unknown Knowns: first, [[spoiler: he wasn't anticipating all of the Paladins to show up]], second, [[spoiler: he didn't know just how versatile the Lions were]], third, [[spoiler: he had no way of knowing that the Lions have an empathic bond with their Paladins and could move on their own power if necessary]], and last but not least, [[spoiler: he didn't know that Lelouch's friends would be able to convince him ''not'' to go after Nunnally without a plan in mind]].
* This tends to happen to heroes of PeggySue fanfics when the changes they make to the timeline come back to bite them in the ass. An excellent example of this occurs in ''Literature/HarryPotter and the Nightmares of Futures Past''; Harry rants to Dumbledore about his living conditions with the Dursleys at one point, and Dumbledore responds [[spoiler:by using memory charms on the Dursleys in an effort to improve the situation. When an unknown third party later removes the charms and Vernon ''remembers being charmed'', Harry's already-rocky relationship with the Dursleys turns downright venomous, culminating in a savage beating during the first year/second year summer break that leaves Harry in critical condition]].
* In ''Fanfic/ErikaTheRadical'', the titular commander has made several [[TitleDrop radical]] changes to the Kuromorimine doctrine, exchanging the rigid, heavy tank tactics to more diverse range of light/medium German Panzers and more importantly, independent initiative for each crew. This massively throws off all rival schools who were expecting to overcome a MightyGlacier army, instead getting [[ArcWords a full throttle of blitzkrieg]], as promised by Erika. Even [[TheSmartGuy Assam]] was surprised to see them execute their newly acquired doctrine quite effectively.
* ''Manga/{{Evangelion 303}}'': Expecting proving everybody that she was the top pilot in the Base, [[AcePilot Asuka]] challenged [[AcePilot Shinji]] to a [[OldSchoolDogFight duel]]. She thought she could easily beat him, since there was no way that rookie could get as much out of his ship as she could, and no trick of his could surprise her. Then he flew backwards in midair while she was chasing him and flying right behind him. [[http://eva303.smackjeeves.com/comics/907888/016/ Everybody's faces show that NOBODY saw that coming]].
* ''Fanfic/{{HERZ}}'':
** The American troops' reaction when their anti-Eva satellites got taken down.
** This is [[spoiler:SEELE's reaction when they are trying to retrieve the Lance]] and it suddenly flies away and towards Earth.
** And again when they deploy the second generation of MP-Evas and [[spoiler:the Children hijack them easily]].
* ''Fanfic/ThousandShinji'': [[spoiler:Tzeentch's failure to see the C'tan plans coming]] was what forced [[spoiler:the canon!40k gods]] to work together.
* Pops up left and right in ''Fanfic/TiberiumWars'', to both GDI and Nod. After all, GDI never saw the initial Nod assault coming, nor did Nod ever see [[spoiler:Havoc's mini-guerilla war]], [[spoiler:fifty thousand GDI Marines]], or [[spoiler:a ''division'' of Mammoth Tanks]] coming.
* In ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'', the completely unexpected appearance of mobs of skahs in Ehndris diverts the baddies' attention and gives John and Ringo the chance to avoid a head-on confrontation with the Raleka as they race to get into the warehouse.
** Also, no one was expecting Kerrun to have a VillainousBreakdown and declare the skahs to actually be Idris (the mortal enemies of the Raleka), shifting the focus of the Raleka away from John and Ringo.
* ''FanFic/JewelOfDarkness'': Midnight's plan, to [[spoiler:torture Robin into insanity]] in order to force the Titans to disband, ultimately fails because she had no way of knowing that [[spoiler:[[TheDragon Ai]] was possessed/working for Trigon,]] was plotting against her, and would ultimately sell her out to the Titans. Robin also suggests that the plan would have failed anyway, because even if she had succeeded in [[spoiler:breaking him]], he has faith that the team would be strong enough to withstand it.
* ''FanFic/TheDilgarWar'' has a few of them, on all sides, but the most notable are Earthforce actually being able to take on the Dilgar best and not only win but utterly annihilating them with an [[MoreDakka absurdly high number]] of [[NukeEm nuclear weapons]] and Jha'dur's attempt at [[spoiler:exterminating Earth's population with a plague]] being ambushed in the form of [[spoiler:a Minbari fleet led by Chosen One Dukhat in person who acted on information of the Vorlon]].
* In ''FanFic/AFightingChance'', the Minbari gets a major OhCrap when they realize that [[spoiler:Earthforce has broken their stealth]]. The backstory of this fanfic [[spoiler:the Dilgar had already did it once (and in fact they were the ones who sold Earthforce a few dozens of the stealth-breaking sensors complete with blueprints)]], but that happened to the Windswords who apparently never told anyone else.
* This trope comes in ''LightNovel/FateZero'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8666436/1/The-Fourth-King The Fourth King]]'' when Kariya summons freakin' [[spoiler:''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'']] as Berserker. OhCrap, [[BringMyBrownPants soiled underwear]] and [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity]] ensued for everyone but Kariya and those protected by him.
* In ''Fanfic/{{Game Theory|LyricalNanoha}}'', Precia's carefully laid plans repeatedly get hit with unexpected elements that screw up her strategy, but she manages to [[XanatosSpeedChess adjust accordingly]]. [[spoiler:Only it turns out that one of the aforementioned [[SpannerInTheWorks Spanners In The Works]] actually opened up the possibility of pursuing a ''better'' plan, making it an inversion.]]
* From ''FanFic/FantasyOfUtterRidiculousness'': Yukari Yakumo, Gensokyo's resident Chessmaster, admits as much when the moon is damaged in the wake of Coop and the Glorft's latest battle. Megas's unexpected teleportation into Gensokyo later sidelines her for most of the story.
* In ''FanFic/SonicXDarkChaos'', Maledict is a [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] who created an extremely elaborate GambitRoulette to defeat the Angels and conquer the universe. However, he didn't expect Sonic the Hedgehog to get pulled into the fray by mistake. [[spoiler:Nor did he expect his gambit to create a malevolent EldritchAbomination by mistake.]]
* In ''FanFic/{{Vapors}}'' Tsunade is TheChessmaster, and easily out gambits both Danzo and several of the other kages at a few points. But while she knew Aiko was planning ''something'' as part of their plan to take out Danzo, even she was caught flat-footed when [[ReverseMole Sai]] walked into her office and announced his desire to defect from Root.
* ''Fanfic/TheSecondTry'': [[AncientConspiracy SEELE]] has this reaction to [[spoiler:Toji appearing by piloting Jet Alone and the death of the first MP-EVA]]. Their following argument gets so heated that they don't even notice that [[spoiler:his leader is dying]].
* In ''Fanfic/SomethingAlwaysRemains'', The Smiling Man could account for employees being at [[VideoGame/FiveNightsatFreddys Freddy's]] after-hours. He could account for strange happenings and unreliable programming since he [[spoiler: disabled the animatronics so they couldn't assist Mike or turn on him]]. He could even account for [[spoiler: Spring Bonnie being haunted]]. What couldn't he - or anyone else for that matter - account for? [[spoiler: That Spring Bonnie was haunted by ''two'' ghosts]].
* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8296097/1/Shinji-s-Nightmare Shinji's Nightmare]]'', Gendo's scenario goes flying OffTheRails when Shinji returns from his month inside Eva as an [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic alicorn]], specifically a male version of Nightmare Moon.
* In ''Fanfic/DragonsofIceandFire'', Ser Shadrich [[spoiler:He very successfully executes a high-risk kidnapping, escapes a castle, trekked through the mountains, avoided mountain clans, and single-handedly beats Ser Jorah down to escape. And then Sansa Stark snatches his dagger up and jams into his back. "Oh".]]
* In ''FanFic/RobbReturns'', Robb became very surprised [[spoiler:with the fact that Hodor has become Walder and has not lost his wits.]]
* In ''Fanfic/{{Paragon}}'', the Diamonds were in no way prepared to find out Steven existed, let alone that he was also a Diamond and capable of stopping Corruption.
* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/22502731/chapters/53772595 Fade In, Fade Out]]'', Diaz's plans are ruined when Earth-2 Laurel brings her counterpart back to life with the goal of 'tapping out' of public life and leaving the original Laurel to draw attention. When Diaz 'abducts' Laurel to talk with her about their upcoming plans, still believing her to be her other self, the metahuman blocker he gave her doesn't work on Laurel the way it did for her Earth-2 counterpart, allowing Laurel to destroy basically all of Diaz's allies with one Canary Cry.
* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12044790/1/With-Stars-in-Her-Eyes With Stars in Her Eyes]]'', neither the angels or the demons expected that the Doctor and Rose Tyler would invite Jessica Moore on a trip in the TARDIS the day she was meant to die, and since Brady decided to claim she was dead when he couldn't find her, to date all concerned parties assume that the fact that they haven't found her in Heaven or Hell is just a minor detail.
* In ''[[https://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-27400/DianeCastle+Xander+and+Yet+ANOTHER+Demon.htm Xander and Yet ANOTHER Demon]]'', [[Franchise/StargateVerse Stargate Command]] has numerous cover stories for various scenarios, such as playing Anise off as a psych patient off her medication. What they never expected was that someone like [[SpannerInTheWorks Xander]] would pick apart each cover story as he hears it. Anise is a psych patient? Nope, too lucid and her eyes flash white when she changes between Anise and Freya. Teal'c is from Mozambique? Sorry, Xander's been there and knows Teal'c neither looks or speaks like anyone from that country.
** The biggest example however is that the New Watcher's Council never expected that aliens existed nor did [=SGC=] realize that demons and vampires were real, leading to much initial confusion on both sides.
* In ''Fanfic/WinterThornsOfHighgarden'', all of Westeros' nobility is left flabbergasted by [[NiceGuy Willas Tyrell]]'s sudden decision to abduct and marry the bastard Lyarra Snow.
* Besides the usual PeggySue results of upsetting an entire war in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12511998/1/Wind-Shear Wind Shear]]'', Harry Potter also causes a lot of confusion for Andromeda Black due to his actions changing her family's beliefs on blood purity. Since all three lords in the brewing war are halfbloods, they relax their stance on blood purity, especially after Voldemort attacks them once they've declared neutrality in the war. Later, Ted Tonks nearly dies saving Andromeda's and Bellatrix's lives, causing the family head to not only insist on paying his medical bills but also giving his blessing for Ted and Andromeda to marry (though insisting Ted takes her last name). Andromeda spends roughly half the story trying to figure out when her family changed their tune so drastically.
* In ''Fanfic/WhereTalentGoesToDie'', the first murderer's plan to frame the protagonist by making it seem as though the victim wrote her name in his blood runs into a few unexpected complications. First, the Monokuma File proves that the victim died instantly, and couldn't have written Miura's name. Second, Miura has an alibi for the time of the murder. Third, someone else is using the laundry room, preventing the killer from washing his bloody clothes.
* In ''Fanfic/DeadlyNightshade'', Poison Ivy stealing a bit of Bruce Wayne's DNA immediately made Batman paranoid about the possibility of her figuring his SecretIdentity out. Then he corners her son to validate his hypothesis, only for the kid to reveal [[LukeYouAreMyFather Ivy wanted the DNA for a paternity test]]. And yes, it was positive.
* ''Fanfic/TheUnabridgedMemoirsOfDarthPlagueisTheWise'': The titular Sith Lord is a master [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]], who's always several steps ahead of everyone else, something he's happy to go into detail about in his narrations. However, he's caught totally off guard when Dooku [[spoiler:nominates himself as interim Chancellor]], which is something he didn't even think to consider in all his planning.
* Black Widow sneaks into Wakanda in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/7986607/chapters/18944288#workskin Nobody's Heroes]]'' to rejoin with Team Captain America. Not only did she not anticipate facing multiple fighters who were superior to her, she really didn't expect that T'Challa wouldn't let her stay and instead tells Natasha she'll be taken to an airport where a plane will take her to a destination of her choice.
* ''Fanfic/InfinityCrisis'':
** Said verbatim by Quicksilver when he returns to life before a stunned Clint and Natasha.
** With the heroes and villains all restored, Arrowverse-Barry travels back to his Earth with his Justice League counterpart, reasoning that his other self is the ultimate twist that even [=DeVoe=] could never have seen coming in advance; they directly quote the line in Legacy of Lightning after 'Barry-Blue' disables [=DeVoe's=] equipment while Barry-Red distracts their enemy.
** Subverted when Pietro notes that Northstar actually did see that coming when the Avengers join the X-Men to save Logan from Alpha Flight.
* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7278544/1/First-Contact First Contact]]'', the Batarians attack the newest race on the scene (humanity), confident the Citadel will only give them a slap on the wrist via sanctions like they always do. Instead, the Council demands that the Batarian Hegemony either surrender immediately or go to war against the entirety of the Citadel.
* ''FanFic/TheRavensPlan'':
** In general, the [[PeggySue time travel ritual]] was only supposed to work on a select few people. It backfired, sending the consciousnesses of thousands of people from after their deaths back to a few days after Jon Arryn's death. This throws the heroes' plans, and everything else for that matter, extremely OffTheRails.
** Barristan Selmy was shocked to find out that Jaime Lannister is now backing House Targaryen (i.e., Jon Targaryen).
** When Renly holds Cersei hostage and demands that Jaime and his group surrender in exchange for her life, Jaime's reply shocks both Renly and Cersei:
--->'''Jaime''': Slit her throat and rid us all of her madness.
** After Sam reveals to his family that his father threatened to have him killed unless he took the Black, his father gets an ArmorPiercingSlap from his wife, in total opposition to her usually submissive attitude, shocking everyone.
** Daenerys didn't expect Viserys to be shocked back into sanity by her growth in a YoungConqueror.
** Robert and Renly are dumbfounded when Stannis finally stumbles into the Red Keep, absolutely drunk out of his skull. It gets worse when he reveals he's been trying to [[DrowningMySorrows numb the pain]] of having made a HumanSacrifice of his own daughter in the old timeline.
** [[spoiler:The last thing Qyburn expected when he was caught by Gregor Clegane was for the Mountain to tell him that he ''liked'' being undead, and that he wants to be changed back into the monster that Qyburn made him in the old timeline... just with his own free will this time.]]
** Despite the time-travel element, neither Robb nor Jon were honestly expecting that Ned Umber and Lyanna Mormont would retain their adult minds in the bodies of infants.
** [[spoiler:Qyburn]] showing up in Winterfell with [[spoiler:the Mountain's severed head, an offer to treat Shireen's greyscale scars]], and a cart full of books was quite unexpected for Sansa, Catelyn, Arya, and Davos, and it leaves them wanting quiet time.
* Big Mom in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13198950/8/Crazy-Trouble-With-Love-Part-8 Big Mom's Daughters and Luffy]]'' drugs most of her daughters with a LovePotion to make them fall in love with Luffy so she could have an alliance with the Revolutionary Army. What she didn't expect was that instead of one of them marrying Luffy and bringing him into the family, they'd ''all'' marry him and defect from her crew.
* In ''FanFic/AllsFairInLoveAndWarAndTurnaboutsFairPlay'', Lila sincerely believes that 'friendship' is merely a social construct, that nobody ''actually'' cares about others beyond what they can get out of them, and that other people are generally just as [[ItsAllAboutMe self-absorbed and selfish]] as her. Despite this, she ''also'' assumes that Adrien is just as naïve and trusting as he seems, and is thusly caught completely off-guard when he decides to strike back, using [[HoistByHisOwnPetard her own actions]] to destroy her reputation in one fell swoop.
* ''FanFic/BurningBridgesBuildingConfidence'':
** Lila's constant claims that [[CelebrityLie she and Ladybug are besties]] work especially well on Alya. So well, in fact, that when the latter gets akumatized into Rena Rage, she promptly takes her as a hostage out of the belief that this will make Ladybug respond faster.
** During an akuma attack, Vexxin makes a Mirage of Marinette to serve as a distraction. To both her and Ladybug's surprise, ''Adrien'' goes chasing after the mirage, making matters ''much'' more complicated.
* Naruto in ''[[https://ficwad.com/story/213011 Eroninja]]'' runs into an unexpected snag while seducing Anko when she actually recognizes the jutsu he's using and promptly ties him up and drags him before Tsunade as an attempted rapist.
** After things are explained to Anko, she's used as a willing test subject for how long the jutsu's effects last if the user and subject don't have sex. While she initially shows increasing resistance to the jutsu, eventually she snaps and becomes crazed in her need to have sex with Naruto.
* ''Fanfic/ViridianTheGreenGuide'': Rock Lock brushes off Izuku's attempt to get him to follow him to a robbery, seeing no point in chasing after some punk who threw a rock at him. Luckily, Amplifier [who had met Izuku before] was with him and knows Izuku is trying to lead them to a crime.

[[folder:Films — Animated]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'': Clearly Hans's whole gambit to usurp the throne of Arendelle did not account for Olaf freeing Anna from the library, or Anna jumping in front of his sword to stop him from slicing Elsa. His reaction after the winter is thawed just reeks of this:
-->'''Hans:''' But she froze your heart!\\
'''Anna:''' The only frozen heart around here is yours! ''[punches him in the face]''
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'', this is Maui's reaction word-for-word when, after he tries to get rid of Moana by hurling her off the boat, the Ocean plops her right back on it. "Did ''not'' see that coming."
* ''WesternAnimation/TitanAE'':
** In a subversion of TheGuardsMustBeCrazy, the guard that the heroes are trying to fool instantly figures out that they're trying to pull a fast one over on him. Preed [[SarcasmMode subtly]] leans over and asks if [[TimeForPlanB the group has a plan B]]. Stith beats the crap out of the guard, and leads Preed to the following quote.
--->'''Preed:''' An intelligent guard. Didn't see that one coming.
** The Drej have their entire fleet attacking the Titan station, hellbent on destroying it. Titan is running on auxiliary power, which isn't enough to activate the station. The Drej, being energy beings, are undefeatable...until [[spoiler:the heros realize that Drej energy can be absorbed and converted into station power. The entire fleet is not so much destroyed as it is ''eaten''.]]

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
* ''Film/AnchormanTheLegendOfRonBurgundy'' probably executed this in the most humorously absurd manner. When Burgundy and company start butting heads with another news group, they bring along multitude of weapons. Soon, other rival news groups join, and they all get into one large and epic battle royale. At different times, one person gets killed with a trident, another gets caught in a net and dragged on the floor by two horses, someone gets a hold of a grenade, Luke Wilson's character's gets an arm chopped off, and then his other arm is ripped off by a {{bear|sAreBadNews}}.
-->'''Frank:''' ''(after getting his arm chopped off out of nowhere)''" Ugh! I did ''not'' see that coming!"
* It's an invoked RunningGag in ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' between Quicksilver and Hawkeye that plays to the RuleOfThree. The first two times are snarky, with Barton's being an IronicEcho, and the third is played for drama [[spoiler:when Quicksilver saves Barton's life and that of the child he was protecting, making this trope also his LastWords]].
* In ''Film/BigGame'', ''Nobody'' expected that a thirteen-year-old badass Finn would be going through his RiteOfPassage the same day and in the same place the president is being hunted down.
-->'''Chief of staff''': Who the hell is that?
* The Joker's reaction to the eventual result of his social experiment in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' can be seen as an emotive example of this trope. Of course, being the Joker, he's not put off for long.
* In ''Film/ExMachina'', Nathan's plot to prove that Ava is truly sentient [[spoiler:his real one, that is]] works flawlessly, and even Caleb's moves to stop Nathan are mostly for naught. Nathan was all set to win, then the one thing he didn't see coming was [[spoiler:Kyoko's [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebellion]] and murder attempt on him, which gave Ava the opening needed to kill him]].
* Creator/TheCoenBrothers movie ''Film/{{Fargo}}'' centers around a slimy car salesman trying to get out of financial trouble by hatching an EvilPlan to have some men kidnap his wife and pretend to hold her for ransom so he could get some money from her wealthy father to pay off his debts. The plan spirals completely out of control and causes the deaths of about five or six people, including the wife. It still falls into DidntThinkThisThrough territory as he didn't factor in how his teen son might react to his mother being kidnapped.
* In ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'', Kerim gives a speech on this trope:
-->This is a billiard table... And you have hit your white ball and it is traveling easily and quietly towards the red. The pocket is alongside. Fatally, inevitably, you are going to hit the red and the red is going into that pocket. It is the law of the billiard table. But, outside the orbit of these things, a jet pilot has fainted and his plane is diving straight at the billiard room, or a gas main is about to explode... And the building collapses on you and on top of the billiard table. Then what has happened to that white ball that could not miss the red ball, and to the red ball that could not miss the pocket? The white ball could not miss according to the laws of the billiard table. But the laws of the billiard table are not the only laws.
* Played at [[spoiler:and ultimately subverted]] in ''Film/TheGame'' when [[spoiler:Nicholas invades the building of the organization that's been running his life for the past few days with what one of the lead actors recognizes as a ''real'' gun, not one of their props, and she pleads with him that it's all a big surprise party and they're not really trying to kill him and he ends up shooting his brother just as it turns out there really ''was'' a cake and it all flies horribly off the rails, driving him to jump from the rooftop... and then it turns out that, no, that was a squib, the gun's loaded with blanks, and even that was all in the script]].
* PlayedWith in ''Film/HomeAlone2LostInNewYork''--Harry predicts that Kevin will reuse the paint can trap from the first movie, and he and Marv successfully dodge the attacks. They just don't count on Kevin actually taking that bit into consideration, and dropping a ''sewer pipe'' on them when they think he's out of tools.
-->'''Marv:''' [[OhCrap Oops.]]
* ''Film/TheHungerGames'': In universe. There's only one crown for the victors. [[spoiler:Katniss]] wears it.
* Said verbatim by Griffin in ''Film/{{Jumper}}'' after [[spoiler:[[BigBad Roland]] escapes through a [[OurWormholesAreDifferent jump scar]] and takes [[LoveInterests Millie]] with him]].
-->'''Griffin''': Well... crap. Didn't see that coming.
* In ''Film/KickAss'', Frank D'Amico never imagined that by framing the cop who refused to take his bribe, he would turn him into something far more dangerous. Big Daddy was so ridiculously efficient in destroying D'Amico's operation that if Kick-Ass wouldn't have [[SpannerInTheWorks accidentally provided him with a lead]], D'Amico probably wouldn't have realized who was after him until he was about to die.
* In the climax of ''Film/{{Logan}}'', Wolverine has spent the last of his energy (and the super serum) attacking the Transigen troops and is clearly running on fumes. Cue Dr. Rice emerging from his vehicle with gunmen in tow, standing a safe distance from Wolverine's claws. He cheerily gloats, knowing that Wolverine can't bridge the gap and successfully charge him. [[spoiler:And of course neither he nor the audience expect the Wolverine to [[CombatPragmatist pull out a gun]] and [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim gun his opponent down]].]]
* ''Film/OnceUponATimeInMexico'''s Agent Sands had a nice [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] scheme going. A number of things went wrong, including Cucuy going FaceHeelTurn and Mariachi and crew deciding to help the President instead of letting him die, but the one hitch that Sands truly did not see coming was [[spoiler:Ajedrez turning out to be not only TheMole, but Barillo's daughter]]. [[spoiler:Ajedrez]] even lampshades it: "You never saw it coming, did you?"
** Which makes for a nice bit of irony (or something) as [[spoiler:he shortly after loses the ability to see ANYTHING coming in an EyeScream moment]].
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Film/PhoneBooth'' where The Sniper threatens to kill Stu if he reveals who he is talking to. When Stu claims he's talking to his psychiatrist The Sniper bursts out laughing, seeing the move as inspired and preventing the police from listening in.
* ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'':
** No one (possibly including himself) knows what Jack Sparrow's going to do next.
** ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd'': A NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering Pirates are voting on who will be their leader. Naturally, they all vote for themselves.
--->'''Elizabeth:''' [[SarcasmMode Elizabeth Swann]].\\
'''Barbossa:''' Barbossa.\\
'''Jack Sparrow:''' [[spoiler:[[SincerityMode Elizabeth Swann]].]]
* In ''Film/{{Pumpkinhead}}'', Ed Harley wants revenge against the kids who accidentally (and carelessly) kill his son. He has an old backwoods witch, Haggis, call upon a demon to do so. [[spoiler:But he didn't count on enduring his victims' death agonies every time "Pumpkinhead" makes a kill. Or having his soul condemned to hell for invoking a demon to murder for him.]]
* ''Film/RichieRich'' fits this trope as the Riches do in fact keep a vast vault filled with valuables, but it's all family memorabilia and things with ''sentimental'' value. Their money, rather sensibly, has been ''invested'' and isn't vulnerable to just being swiped.
* The Italian movie ''Scialla'' has the protagonists Bruno and Luca survive the mob thanks to this trope. Luca had ''[[WhatAnIdiot stolen drugs and money from the mob boss' own home]]'', and was so pissed that not even Luca's father Bruno giving him back everything as soon as he found out calmed him. The boss was about to make an example of them... Then realizes that Bruno was his favourite high school teacher that he still adores, and lets them go. The boss' underlings and Luca even {{lampshade|Hanging}} this.
* ''Film/{{Serenity}}'':
** Mentioned as par for the course with the film and the series, with this early exchange:
--->'''Jayne:''' ''[on the fact that he'sarmed to the teeth]'' I get excitable as to choice. I wanna keep my options open.\\
'''Mal:''' I don't plan on any fighting taking place.\\
'''Jayne:''' Well what you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar.
** This trope comes in when the Alliance releases the Pax. No one could have foreseen the [[spoiler:Reavers' creation]]. Of course, their failure to do so is a classic case of the IdiotBall, as what kind of a moron doesn't run proper clinical trials before [[spoiler:dosing an entire planetary population]].
** This trope also comes in later in the movie when [[spoiler:the Alliance's trap is derailed as Serenity [[GiveChaseWithAngryNatives charges at them with an army of Reavers]]]].
--->'''Zoe:''' You know they're gonna see us coming.\\
'''Mal:''' No. They're not gonna see ''this'' coming.
* ''Film/TheSpanishPrisoner'': Almost everything that happened was planned out, but the plotters didn't predict that [[spoiler:Joe would just happen to hang on to a book that one of them left fingerprints on]].
* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Emperor Palpatine thought it impossible that the natives of Endor (human child-sized savage creatures) [[RockBeatsLaser might be able to take advantage of their native terrain against the Empire's finest troops]] (though said natives did have help from a Jedi, a droid who could hack anything, and several crack shots). And he apparently never considered that a guy who [[LoveMakesYouEvil turned to the Dark Side to save his wife]] might [[LoveRedeems turn from it to save his son]]. If you take that plot from the EU, you could say that he ''did'' have a plan to survive the latter... but not for the Rebellion succeeding in blowing up the Death Star.
* This is the whole plot of ''Film/UnderSiege'' with Steven Seagal. Who would have thought that this annoying ''cook'' could be a threat to the very well conceived plan executed by the bad guys.
%%* This is the plot of ''Film/UnderSiege2DarkTerritory'' and a lot of other action movies, like the ''Film/DieHard'' series, other of Seagal's movies and many others.
* In ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020'', Sonic, Tom and Maddie are cornered on the top of a building, surrounded by Robotnik's drones set to open fire on them. The protagonists note that while Sonic is fast enough to avoid them, his friends aren't. So Sonic's solution... is to push them off the building [[note]]Don't worry, he saves them with a ring as [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil seen in the first initial trailer]].[[/note]]. Even Robotnik notes he wasn't expecting that.
--> '''Robotnik:''' I was ''not'' expecting that... but I was expecting not to expect something. So it doesn't count.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* In ''Series/BabylonFive'', after Jha'dur, the last [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Dilgar]] was captured; she managed to get a pardon in exchange for developing her immortality serum. Just before she was about to go to Earth she gloated to Sinclair that the serum can only be manufactured by killing [[PoweredByAForsakenChild other people]] and that her capture was actually part of her plan to make the rest of the races just as bad as hers was. What she didn't realize was that the Vorlons were not the enigmatic reclusive weirdoes that they seemed to be, but were actually [[spoiler:[[TheChessmaster manipulative]] Precursors]] who saw right through her plan and destroyed her ship to stop it. Also, since the Vorlons themselves were forced to act openly and directly instead of manipulating events from the [[AccidentalPun shadows]] as they usually did, Jha'dur herself could be considered a SpannerInTheWorks.
* In ''Series/{{Blackadder}} the Third'', Edmund is tied up on "[[LampshadeHanging an unrealistic grassy knoll]]" by the highwayman The Shadow, who plans on coming back to kill him later. Just when all hope looks lost, his BumblingSidekick Baldrick shows up, wanting to get the Shadow's autograph. Blackadder thanks Baldrick for teaching him an entirely new sensation: being genuinely pleased to see him.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''
** [[BigBad The Master]] had planned to kill Buffy, gaining the power to escape his prison and open the Hellmouth, bringing about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. If he thought about Buffy's allies, he dismissed them as powerless. Unfortunately, while his plan to kill Buffy worked, Xander knew CPR. Buffy therefore returns from the dead, and proceeds to kill the Master. Considering the Master has been in a prison for hundreds of years, it's possible that [=CPR=] itself was an "unknown unknown" to him. The idea that a human could come back to life through non-supernatural means may well have been completely foreign to him.
** In Season Two, Spike and Drusilla had a plan to destroy the world. They had resurrected the Judge, a demon who, according to prophecy, could not be killed by any weapon forged. They did not take into account several hundred years of advancement in weapons technology, and [[NoManOfWomanBorn Buffy blew away the Judge with a rocket launcher]]. Given that The Judge was defeated last time he rose up too, they might not have actually expected him to destroy the world (which Spike rather likes), but they were certainly expecting a bigger death toll than ''two''. One of which was one of their own minions.
* Happens a lot to the bad guys on ''Series/BurnNotice''. Notable is one supposedly genius crook who ends up stabbed in the back by an underling who notes "the problem with guys like you is that you're so busy thinking ten steps ahead that you miss what's right in front of you."
* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'': [[spoiler:Daniel Shaw [[NearVillainVictory thinks he won]] when he [[YouKilledMyFather killed Chuck's father]] and captured Chuck, Sarah, Casey, and General Beckman taking them to their doom. After the team is rescued by Ellie, Devon, and Morgan, Shaw's reaction is this.]]
* On ''Series/CovertAffairs'', Auggie experiences a 4-5 combination when he appeals to his ex-girlfriend Natasha for help on a case, and is somewhat surprised and dismayed when she refuses to help, still angry that he landed her in jail previously. He says the trope name verbatim when she slaps him upon their first reunion...except he means it literally, having been blinded since their last encounter.
* ''Series/CutthroatKitchen'': A "cowboy" themed episode had a sabotage where the cowboy/cook was forced to wrangle an unruly "horse" (two stagehands in a costume). The "horse" was instructed to wander off, kick the cook, and otherwise misbehave. The cowboy cook who got stuck with the sabotage was a chuck wagon cook and no stranger to unruly horses. He hobbled the "horse" with kitchen twine and used the twine to hitch the stagehands to the closest post. The look on Alton's face clearly expressed this trope.
* ''Series/Daredevil2015'':
** Season 3 starts with Wilson Fisk pulling a massive gambit to get himself out of prison that involves manipulating several FBI agents for years, secretly buying a hotel through several shell companies, and hiring an inmate to shank him to give the illusion he's in danger. Everything in the scheme has been thought through to a 'T'. Except while Fisk is being transferred to the hotel, his FBI convoy is attacked by Albanian gunmen wanting to retaliate against Fisk for snitching on them. Fisk's facial expressions while trapped in his overturned SUV clearly shows that this was something he didn't account for. He only survives thanks to Dex killing the assailants.
** In season 3 episode 4, Matt visits the prison to gain information on Fisk's shanking. However, his plan understandably doesn't account for Fisk having a secret room at his penthouse suite from which he can call the prison, as seen when Fisk has his men drug Matt then try to kill him in a staged riot.
** In season 3 episode 8, Karen makes an impulsive visit to Fisk hoping to get him to violate his parole by attacking her on camera so he'll go back to prison. After trying to provoke him by bringing her visit to his mother, she decides to reveal to him that she killed James Wesley. The only thing preventing Fisk from killing her there and then is Foggy suddenly showing up to thwart her interrogation. The next episode establishes that the FBI agents in the room work for Fisk, so it's likely that if not for Foggy's intervention, Fisk would've likely beaten Karen to death and had his FBI cronies eliminate all evidence of it.
** Speaking of that, season 3 episode 9 sees Ray Nadeem decide to take what he and Matt have learned about Dex's treachery to his boss Tammy Hattley, hoping to blow the whistle. But based on the reaction when she [[spoiler:abruptly kills another agent with Nadeem's gun, then Felix Manning shows up and threatens him, he clearly didn't expect that Fisk would've dirtied more agents than just Dex]].
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd "Journey's End"]], no one saw [[spoiler:the biological metacrisis that created the half-human clone Doctor and the Doctor-Donna coming, thanks to the Doctor using his spare hand as a receptacle for regeneration energy.]] The latter especially is the one who saves the day.
* ''Series/TheFlash2014'':
** Captain Cold says this line after Flash tricked him and Heat Wave into making their freeze ray and flamethrower's beams collide, which cancelled them out.
** [[spoiler:Eobard Thawne]] admits that he didn't anticipate how much he would come to care about Barry, Cisco and Caitlin. Unfortunately, he refuses to let his love for the three of them interfere with his plans.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Series/{{Friends}}'' when Rachel tries to teach Joey sailing, but finds herself turning into her father in the process; when she figures it out, she laments that she was trying so hard to not become her mother that she never saw this coming.
* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'': In the third season, Olivia is trapped in the mirror universe and conditioned to think she's her doppelganger from this world. She hunts Milo, a man who, thanks to various experimentations, is able to see the hundreds of outcomes of any action, allowing him to kill people via wild "accidents". When Olivia gives chase, Milo leads her into an alley and pauses as he's "seen" that because the air in this area is bad, Olivia will pause to grab a respirator and that will cause her to be crushed by a load of bricks. But because Olivia isn't actually from this world, she doesn't know what the warning sign means and instead avoids the bricks to charge Milo. Milo is literally frozen in shock as, for the first time ever, something has happened that he never saw coming.
-->'''Milo''': That... isn't supposed... to happen...
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** It's hard to tell who is more surprised when Sam manages to kill a White Walker.
** No one expected Walder Frey would stoop so low as to violate SacredHospitality, not even Catelyn Stark who knew fully well that he was a "dangerous man to cross".
** Littlefinger planned to marry Lysa anyway but clearly didn't expect to marry her ''immediately''.
** Despite being a chessmaster, Varys has dropped the ball many times. The High Priestess Kinvara eventually calls him out on this, mocking him for being a KnowNothingKnowItAll. His original plan with Illyrio was to bring Khal Drogo and his Dothraki across the Narrow Sea with Daenerys as his bride and Viserys as King, even arranging a botched assassination attempt to trigger Drogo. This backfired when Drogo died and then Dany hatched three dragons. Dany chews him out about this in Season 7, noting for all his "For the realm" talk, his plan was to replace a lazy but functional and basically competent king with someone who would have been another Aerys II, and that whatever his plans were, it certainly didn't include her. He was also caught off guard by Ned Stark's execution, the outbreak of the War of the Five Kings and Joffrey's assassination. Likewise, going on the lam with Tyrion was never a real part of his plan but he eventually adapts to his situation, anyways. Indeed, most of Varys' actions since the start of the series has been improvising and surviving, since his original plan, to bring Viserys over with the Dothraki hit a huge snag.
* In ''Series/{{Grimm}}'' this happens several times throughout the series-given the many plans and secrets that abound. One season six episode, "Blind Love" has two-someone kidnaps Diana not knowing she's far, far more dangerous than she looks. And the villain who makes a Love Potion specifically to tear the group apart by causing a pile up of all-powerful unrequited love doesn't realize Rosalee is pregnant which causes her to not drink the dosed wine and remain affected while everyone else is hopelessly affected.
* The Volume Four finale of ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', "An Invisible Thread" involves [[spoiler:Peter having used Sylar's shapeshifting power to impersonate the President, heading off Sylar's attempt to shapeshift into the President and become him. From Peter's dialogue, it is clear that Sylar probably knew that Peter had replicated one of his powers, but wouldn't have expected him to have taken something so mundane]].
** In Volume Four, Danko, having rounded up most of the specials and put them on a plane to a detention facility, agrees to free Claire in order to mollify Nathan Petrelli (her father). He admits that her power ([[GoodThingYouCanHeal regeneration]]) doesn't make her a threat to society. However, he didn't know that Nathan has no real control over Claire, or that being immortal and all but immune to pain means that she can and will carry out acts normal people would consider suicidal. [[spoiler:Claire escapes from Nathan, gets on the plane via the landing gear, frees the captive specials, and ends up causing the plane to crash. Now the government has to round up the specials all over again, only this time they're actively evading capture.]]
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': In 1st season episode "Sightings", Colombian drug smugglers use the underground facilities of a supposedly abandoned navy base in Texas where they have a cocaine processing facility without the locals knowing anything about it. Obviously, they didn't foresee that the disappearance of a young local girl would lead the Navy to send two of its most resourceful investigators and foil the whole operation.
* In ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'', former TheDragon Damaras has defeated the Gokaiger, capturing Captain Marvelous for execution, killing the others, and letting LovableCoward Don live out of mercy. Then his plan gets completely derailed when Don actually comes back to mount a rescue, relying upon their little-known TeamPet to rescue Marvelous while he distracts everyone else (and is lampshaded by Marvelous' EvilFormerFriend Basco outright saying the trope's name when Don first shows up). [[spoiler:And then we find out that Basco only faked killing the other Gokaigers, which he reveals as he literally backstabs Damaras.]]
* In the ''Series/KamenRiderDecade'' movie ''All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker'', the BigBad Shadow Moon has Decade and Kuuga right where he wants them when [[spoiler:Kamen Rider Double comes out of nowhere for a CurbStompBattle ending with Shadow Moon embedded in the wall of his own castle]].
%%* Being a series about a team of con artists taking down the rich and powerful, ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' features this in pretty much every episode.
* ''Series/MidnightTexas'':
** Played for laughs as the gang are trying to rescue a kidnapped friend. As they argue, seemingly normal bartender Joe strips off his shirt and allows a pair of angelic wings to burst out of his back. He takes off flying as the group (comprised of a psychic, a witch, a werewolf, a vampire and a hitwoman) just stare in shock.
--->'''Manfried''': Was I the only one not in the loop?\\
'''Olivia''': Nope.\\
'''Fiji''': Did not suspect that.\\
'''Lem''': Well, that explains a few things.
** Happens again later in the show when Olivia's cat, Mr. Snuggles, reveals he can talk.
* In ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', Crow ''did'' know that breaching the hull of the Satellite of Love would result in dangerous decompression... yet he still somehow thinks tunneling back to Earth is a good idea and is taken by surprise when it doesn't work.
-->'''Crow:''' Whooooooooooa I didn't expect this! [...] Wow, this ''is'' confusing! Mike! You wanna hand me me my calculations? ''[The wind happens to blow Crow's calculations right into his face.]'' Thank you. ''[Reading.]'' Well, look at that. "Breach hull--all die." Even had it underlined.
* In ''Series/TheOfficeUS'' every time Dwight tries to do something manipulative it falls prey to this. He even lampshades it.
-->'''Dwight:''' Just once, I would like to be a [[TheChessmaster puppetmaster]] and have nothing go wrong. Just once.
* ''Series/{{Salem}}'': Rose claims that she has seen and manipulated everything that has happened, including Mary killing Mercy. Turns out Mary turned Mercy into a witch, and Mercy then swiftly beheads Rose.
* ''Series/TheShadowLine'':
** Gatehouse gets this in his first encounter with Glickman, when he realises that Glickman knew he was coming in advance and prepared countermeasures; namely, [[spoiler:a large bomb, which destroys his shop and almost kills Gatehouse]].
** In the next episode this happens to Glickman himself. [[spoiler:He contacts his girlfriend not knowing that she's working for Counterpoint. She then stabs him to death.]]
* ''Series/StargateSG1'': After capturing SG-1 on a planet he recently conquered, Cronos decided to publicly execute them so that the locals would see how foolish it is to try to resist him. Unfortunately for him, during the execution it was revealed that [[spoiler:they were actually SG-1 robotic Doppelgangers]]. Kind of hard to keep claiming to be an [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien all-knowing god]] when you can't even [[JawDrop keep your jaw closed]].
* In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', the Klingon High Council [[DeceasedFallGuyGambit blames Worf's deceased father, Mogh, for betraying the Khitomer colony to the Romulans]] to cover up the fact that the real traitor was Ja'rod, father of Councilor Duras. It seems guaranteed to work -- Mogh is dead, so he can't defend himself; his (unnamed) mate is dead, so she can't defend him; and their son is on the ''Enterprise'' flying around Kirk-knows-where, so he won't hear of it. Unfortunately for them, several factors end up ruining it all, starting with the fact that Mogh has a second son who was raised by a family friend. When he hears of the conspiracy, he alerts Worf, who tells Picard, who brings the ''Enterprise'' to Qo'noS to deal with things. They then discover another survivor of the Khitomer massacre: Kahlest, Worf's nurse, whose mere presence shakes the truth loose.
* An episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' featured a group of hyper-intelligent, genetically engineered "friends" of Dr. Bashir's, who, upon thinking on the Dominion war situation, decide it was in the best interest of all involved if the Federation surrendered or was defeated quickly and the Dominion won (which would save billions of lives in the long run, and end in a galaxy-wide rebellion to overthrow it). They restrain Bashir so he can't intervene and go to give the Dominion some classified Starfleet tactical data, but one of their own foils the plan by releasing Bashir, allowing him to stop them. Dr. Bashir then points out that if one person can uproot their brilliant plan, then maybe their predictions aren't as perfect and inevitable as they think.
** A very subtle double example, as the payoff is in an earlier episode: the Dominion had already worked out the ''exact same'' projections, and had a counter to it: [[spoiler:When they won, they were going to purge Earth, as an example]].
* In an episode of ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' a local gangster discovers that Sarah is a fugitive and tries to blackmail her. To make sure she would play along, he sends one of his henchman to kidnap her children. Since Sarah's "daughter" is actually a [[DeceptivelyHumanRobots killing machine]] from the future, that plan goes [[HilarityEnsues really bad, really fast]].
* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'':
** In "Small Worlds", a paedophile tries to force a little girl into his car. He really had no way of knowing that [[FairyCompanion fairies]] were interested in the girl and that they were [[TheFairFolk not the Disney kind]]...
** In ''[[Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth Children of Earth]]'', Jack Harkness knew that the 456 were capable of [[spoiler:curing viruses deadly to humans]], but it never occurred to him that they could create and instantly release one if anyone tried to resist their demands. [[DiedInYourArmsTonight And he learns this in the worst way possible.]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* Wrestling/{{WWE}} 1996: [[Wrestling/TammyLynnSytch Sunny]] offered to manage Wrestling/AhmedJohnson, who turned her down, calling her "trash." Sunny's response was to bring in [[Wrestling/RonSimmons Faarooq]], leading to the kidney injury that messed up Ahmed's career forever.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* On the one hand, Game Masters are very often on the receiving end of PC ADD (not AD&D, though the similarity is telling) and are often forced into {{Railroading}} the plot. On the other, PC's can be struck by a ''very'' creative GM who gleefully goes OffTheRails with them and reprimands misbehavior [[RocksFallEveryoneDies creatively.]]
* This happens quite a bit to the Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marine chapter in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. [[CrazyPrepared They plan any action they take for years, carefully plot out every single possibility...]] Then their rivals, the Space Wolves, just run in and beat the shit out of them when they least expect it. You'd think they'd learn by now. (The current page image is a parody of this scenario; Tzeentch, God of XanatosSpeedChess, is repeatedly beaten back by the fan-made [[TestosteronePoisoning Angry Marines]].)
** One example took place in the Gothic War. Chaos runs in and has the Imperial Navy on the ropes, they're clearly winning with their plans falling perfectly into place. Then out of the blue, the Ork pirates which have been pestering the Imperials decide it might be fun to attack Chaos for a while.
** Similarly, one Necron commander gets bonuses against every other faction (save one) because he's studied their tactics. The one exception is Orks, as they're simply too varied and surprising. The same occasionally applies to the Imperium: everyone knows that Orks are stupid and brutal (and they are), so stuff like Kommandoes (Orks who can use stealth) or pulling a starship out of the Warp goes unconsidered by their human opponents until it's far too late.
** The bread and butter of the Alpha Legion, to the extent where their very existence has been denied by the Imperial Inquisition three times. It's not really clear who's side they're even on.
** There was the time when Craftworld Iyanden was getting swamped by an Ork Waaagh!, forcing them to raise even more Wraiths. For the record, Wraiths are artificial soldiers that are powered by spirit stones that contain the [[SoulJar souls of dead Eldar]]. Then out of the Webway the Dark Eldar come in to save the Craftworld Eldar, with their stated reason being they were amused by the Eldar's angst/desperation in summoning their dead.
** Prior to the current setting, the Imperium had gotten pretty good at fighting Eldar, Orks, and Chaos, such that they had become TheUsualAdversaries. Then around the 41st Millenium three new factions spring up that blindsided the Imperium: the Necrons, whose advanced technology made them almost impossible to kill while slicing through the best the Imperium had to offer like it was nothing, the Tyranids, a hyper-intelligent HordeOfAlienLocusts that could easily outmaneuver Imperial defenses before drowning them in unending waves of bugs, and the T'au Empire, a small confederation of aliens that ignore HollywoodTactics in favor of some of the most powerful guns in the entire setting. While the Imperium is adapting, First Contact with these new aliens resulted in unsatisfying stalemate at best and complete military disaster at worst, and they always seem to bring out new threats to keep the Imperium from ever getting a good solid counter.
* Happens to virtually everyone in ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'', especially when Adorjan or the Exalted are involved.
** [[TheChessmaster Chejop Kejak]] is the poster child for this trope. He led his fellow [[{{Seers}} Sidereals]] to overthrow the increasingly insane [[AGodAmI Solar]] rulers of Creation based on what he was convinced was a prophecy that ''guaranteed'' the survival of Creation. Unfortunately for him (and more than 90% of Creation's population), he underestimated the threat posed by beings from ''outside'' of Creation, who are by nature ImmuneToFate and thus cannot be predicted.
** In Autochthonia, one of the nations implemented a form of currency to keep the Populat happy during a series of high-profile scandals. Now there are illicitly wealthy members of the Populat bribing their way out of their responsibilities, regulator corruption all over the place, counterfeiting rings springing up, and similar chaos, and nobody has any idea what to do about it.
* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'': The Clan Invasion in AD 3050, which interrupted the [[SuccessionCrisis Fourth Succession War]]. The Inner Sphere was busy fighting among itself (again) when all of a sudden a ProudWarriorRace, descended from humans who had fled known space centuries ago and wielding much more advanced technology, appears from unexplored space and starts steamrolling everything in their path. It wound up being the first thing in over 400 years that actually got the various eternally warring factions of the Inner Sphere to [[EnemyMine put aside their differences and team up]].
* Pretty much any darklord in the TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}} setting, upon committing some horrible deed that crossed the MoralEventHorizon in pursuit of their own evil goals or passions, Didn't See It Coming that the Mists would abduct them and trap them in an EpiphanicPrison for their troubles. For darklords from other game-worlds, this possible outcome would rate as an Unknown Unknown, as few outlanders know much about Ravenloft; for the few native villains who ''do'', it's still this trope, but an Unknown Known (because they wouldn't have expected it to happen to ''them'').

[[folder:Theatre]]
* ''Theatre/ThrillMe'', in a case of known unknown: Richard ''knows'' that Nathan exists, and is, in theory, aware that Nathan is smart. Nathan can, after all, hold his attention. Richard [[OutGambitted does not expect]] Nathan to pull a XanatosGambit for the sole purpose of keeping the two of them together (in life or death).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6n2LMg8i3s The impact of the Wii Remote]] is more one for the industry '''itself''' than any in-game thing, but it's pretty much '''the''' perfect example. Only Gamespot saw it coming… in an {{April Fools|Day}} joke.
* Bob Page from ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' had a plan [[AGodAmI to become a]] PhysicalGod by merging with a nigh-omniscient AI that was only ''mildly'' impeded by the player ''[[NukeEm nuking his base of operations]]''. It's completely thrown out the window, however, by the AI deciding [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness it wants to merge with the player instead]].
** Ol' Bobby seems to have a real problem with AI's. Another AI that his organization was using for anti-terrorist operations went rogue when it classified ''them'' as terrorists, then began actively sabotaging their plans. And, of course, he made the classic Villain flop-up by ''continuously'' underestimating JC's abilities.
* Calypso sometimes runs into this in ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal''; he doesn't always pick the most dependable players. In fact, the only two games in the series where he doesn't utterly and completely lose at least once are Twisted Metal 3 and Twisted Metal 2012.
** [[MonsterClown Sweet Tooth]] tends to do this most often, but he's gotten caught off-guard by others as well. At least ''four'' characters turn the tables on him in ''Twisted Metal 2''. Even when he took over Twisted Metal 4, he got his ass handed to him four times (Forced to take DRIVING SAFETY CLASSES, forced to act as chauffeur to an annoyingly crazy family, arrested by a bounty hunter, and trapped in his own Soul Jar).
* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}''. [[spoiler:After his [[TheReveal Reveal]] as TheChessmaster, Shuji Ikutsuki plans to sacrifice most of the party by forcing RobotGirl Aigis to murder them, in order to bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. He's just about to succeed... and at that point, the player is reminded that Ikutsuki forgot to crucify the dog, too.]]
** [[spoiler:[[Franchise/ScoobyDoo "And I would have gotten away with it, too! If it weren't for you meddling kids and that dog!]]]]
* And it happens again in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'', if you manage to find the true ending. The game itself works against you here, making you wait until most of the way through the good ending and then ignore two of its attempts to turn you around, that it's really no wonder the true final boss is surprised you got that far.
** And in-universe, Dojima, and especially Naoto, can usually keep up with the Investigation Team's deductions, only to fall short because they weren't aware of the supernatural elements. [[spoiler:Naoto starts seeing the full picture after experiencing the TV world for herself, but Dojima refuses to believe in the TV world even in the end, though he does get the basic gist of what happened.]]
** And the Investigation Team themselves nearly fall prey to {{Red Herring}}s from time to time. Of particular note is [[spoiler:the fact that there were two people stuffing others into the TV world, and the real culprit is, [[BeneathSuspicion of all people]], [[BumblingSidekick Adachi]]]].
* This is the BattleThemeMusic for ''VideoGame/Persona5'', and fits several of the bosses' opinions of the Phantom Thieves as well. Certainly mob bosses and CorruptCorporateExecutive types never think a group of [[YouMeddlingKids meddling kids]] and an anthropomorphic cat could destroy their perfectly orchestrated machinations.
-->''You'll never see it coming!''
* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'', [[MagnificentBastard Kane's]] always a step ahead. Of everyone. GDI, Scrin, his own generals. Then in ''Command & Conquer 3'' [[spoiler:he undergoes a VillainousBreakdown when Kilian's forces ally with GDI. And then in Kane's Wrath, when it's revealed just how proficient Kane is at playing a GambitRoulette, he's yet again surprised when Alexa reveals to have tried to destroy LEGION, and tricked Kane into executing Kilian, out of her ''devotion to Kane''. That said, he still wins out in the end]].
** In the First game its seemed as though Nod has successfully defamed GDI and caused the UN to cut off all funding from them leaving them vulnerable for their forces. But instead it was all a BatmanGambit by GDI to trick Nod into lowering their guard, when Nod forces began attacking GDI bases they ended up facing fully armed forces.
* ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' has a backstory example: Fhjull Forked-Tongue, LawfulEvil devil manages to trap a deva, a very incarnation of truth and LawfulGood, only to have it undone by the fact that the deva ''lied'' to him. The result of this (which is never precisely explained) is that Fhjull is now trapped into performing charity to any who asks.
* In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', this is basically Grodus' reaction to the reveal that his base's AI TEC has been helping Princess Peach subvert his plans.
-->'''Grodus:''' Never in my most paranoid moments did I imagine a computer would betray me.
* In ''VideoGame/BlazBlueCalamityTrigger'', Hakumen says a variation of this in his Arcade path when [[spoiler:Nu-13 turns out to be the ninth fight instead of the last one.]]
** Hazama runs afoul of this trope in ''[[VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift Continuum Shift Extend]]'', variant 3X. [[labelnote:Here's the rundown.]][[spoiler:During the events of ''Wheel of Fortune: Calamity Trigger'', Hazama makes an attempt on Jin's life, only to have himself parried by a half-dressed squirrel beastkin he initially recognizes as Makoto Nanaya, but when she asks about Noel, who was obliterated in Ibukido during this timeline, he starts running questions through his mind on just who she is. This Makoto, as he finds out far too late to salvage the rest of his ''Wheel of Fortune'' plot, is actually an extracontinuual anomaly, and not only has she been asking questions about things that didn't happen in ''Wheel of Fortune'', but she also brought Noel up before Tsubaki Yayoi - the resulting confusion caused Tsubaki to not meet with Hazama for prescheduled {{mindrape}}, so Hazama has to come up after her, and since Continuum Shift Makoto has been in recent contact, she was nowhere near Relius, who Hazama was outsourcing her handling to. His plans completely toppled and his patience having expired, he decides to kill her where she stands - only Rachel shows up and gets her out of there, leaving him alone with his seething rage. Back in ''Continuum Shift'', when Hazama catches Makoto chatting with Jin and not on assignment in Ikaruga, he finally puts two and two together, and his actions relegate his newfound priorities with her - outsource to Relius or '''''kill on sight'''''!]][[/labelnote]]
** Hazama, once again, runs afoul of this trope [[spoiler:in ''Chronophantasma'' against ''the exact same perpetrator''.]] [[labelnote:Got time to kill?]] [[spoiler:Having completed everything in ''Continuum Shift'' proper according to his own specifications, he is so confident in his ability to control affairs that rather than keep Tsubaki Yayoi (the wielder of the Izayoi and Hazama's anti-Hakumen shield) on a tight leash with him at all times, he lets her run around Ikaruga on her own. This is in blatant ignorance of the fact that the last time he caught Makoto and Tsubaki with each other caused the instance mentioned in the above entry. True enough, Makoto finds Tsubaki, only Kagura Mutsuki happens to interrupt the fight and let Tsubaki run free. After being filled in (and likely getting a knuckle sandwich or two for his trouble), Kagura orchestrates a trap to lure Tsubaki back to Makoto, Noel and Jin to break her brainwashing, and the trap works as intended. Afterwards, Terumi gets into a fight with Hakumen, and when he thinks he can evade Hakumen's Time Cutter, Trinity pins him in place so he can't - and because Tsubaki is now off fighting alongside Makoto against Relius and his cadre of puppets, Terumi can't use her to stay Hakumen's blade. Due to {{synchronization}}, both Hazama and Terumi suffer their worst defeat.]][[/labelnote]]
** Izanami runs afoul this trope as of ''Central Fiction''. [[spoiler:As she's the Goddess of Death, the heroes can't kill her no matter what, a fact she demonstrates multiple times to their shock. However, it never occurs to her that, since both she and Noel carry [[SoulFragment half of the soul of Ragna and Jin's sister Saya]], they can just have Noel absorb her into herself to restore Saya's soul. Granted, she ''does'' try and work around this process by absorbing Noel when she tries it, but once again she doesn't count on Ragna interfering at the critical moment, which results in her defeat]].
** The heroes collectively get hit with this hard at the climax of ''Central Fiction''. ''No one'' saw [[spoiler:Terumi [[HeroKiller killing Hakumen]] and [[GrandTheftMe stealing the Susano'o Unit]]]] coming, mostly because most of them didn't even know [[spoiler:Terumi was the original owner of the Unit and the ones that did never considered that he would both be willing to re-enter it (as he had willing casted it off in the backstory) and have the means to eject Hakumen in order to do so]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'', [[spoiler:Fontaine's]] plot to [[spoiler:get Jack to kill Andrew Ryan to let him take over Rapture]] went off without a ''hitch''....except for those Little Sisters....
* The Outsider from ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'' grants potent powers to those he deems 'interesting' with no conditions on their use whatsoever, in order to see what happens. The only way to truly shock him is to [[spoiler:use his powers responsibly and without malice]].
** He also didn't see [[spoiler:Delilah]] surviving a decade-long journey through the Void of space-time itself. Seriously, that place eats souls for breakfast.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'':
** ''No one'' seemed to see Yuna and her Guardians coming, least of all [[spoiler:Lady Yunalesca, who has never been challenged before and was certainly not expecting to get the shit kicked out of her [[OneWingedAngel horrifying medusa-head form]], thereby destroying the traditional (but not, as she claimed, "only") way to defeat Sin]].
** Nobody predicted that [[spoiler:''Sin itself'', or rather Jecht, was capable of setting into motion events that would lead to its destruction]].
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'', [[spoiler:Barthandelus']] plan to turn the l'Cie into the instruments of Cocoon's destruction hinges on them breaking when he slams them into the DespairEventHorizon, inducing them to follow their Focus and using the power of [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Ragnarok]] to kill Orphan. [[spoiler:Fang]] comes close in the end, but not close enough: [[spoiler:Barthandelus']] failure to recognize humans as more than mere tools is the undoing of his schemes, as the l'Cie ultimately save Cocoon ''[[LiteralGenie by subverting their Focus]]''.
** Also, nobody thought that [[spoiler:killing Bhunivelze, the top god in the food chain, who uses the Fal'Cie's god as a ''weapon''.]] was possible. Guess what happens when you combine the efforts of one OmnicidalManiac with the strength and will of twelve heroes. Yep.
* Sun Li, Glorious Strategist for the ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire''. Yeah, marvelous {{plan}}. Flawless, right down to [[spoiler:deliberately putting flaws in the Player Character's fighting style]]. But...he really didn't expect that [[spoiler:The Water Dragon]] [[OutGambitted was running an equally good one to counter it]].
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'' despite the [[AbusivePrecursors Reapers]] being terrifyingly thorough when it comes to wiping out all life in the galaxy, they still can't foresee every outcome:
** The Reapers didn't plan for [[spoiler:the Protheans to stop the keepers from activating the Citadel Relay. Nor did they anticipate the keepers evolving in manner that could be exploited to this end]]. This is noteworthy as it also relied on the Reapers only weakness: [[spoiler:their expectations. They ''expected'' the Protheans to futilely fight until extinction. They ''didn't'' expect them to accept their fate and FlingALightIntoTheFuture, essentially using their last fighting chance to give future sentient life better odds of survival]].
*** [[spoiler:The last several dozen cycles, at least, have had at least some small part of their membership recognize the same thing, sending forward the ever-evolving blueprints for what would become the Crucible while the Reapers remain blissfully unaware. The Catalyst points this out when Shepard meets it; the Crucible is a sign that the Reapers' [[EternalRecurrence cycle]] is breaking down and needs to be replaced by a "new solution".]]
** [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 Harbinger]] recognized [[PlayerCharacter Commander Shepard]] as a major threat, and had him/her eliminated. He didn't count on Cerberus being able to resurrect Shepard, rebuild the Normandy, and point him/her right at the Collectors.
** [[spoiler:The original Shadow Broker didn't see the betrayal by his AlwaysChaoticEvil yahg agent until it was too late.]]
** In a ''Mass Effect'' novel, the Illusive Man captures Paul Grayson, a rogue Cerberus agent, and has him implanted with Reaper nanites, effectively turning him into a Saren-type Husk. He keeps Grayson sedated and has Kai Leng on standby to kill Grayson if necessary. Then the research station is attacked by a turian squad sent to stop Cerberus and rescue Grayson. The Illusive Man's plan is ruined, and he barely escapes with his life. Unfortunately, the turians experience this as well. They rescue Grayson but have no idea that he's already under Reaper control.
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', [[FishOutOfTemporalWater Javik]] reveals that the Protheans had actually intended [[spoiler:the ''[[TheChosenOne Asari]]'']] to lead the Galaxy against the Reapers in the next Cycle; influencing their early civilisation in order to give them a decent headstart. Upon waking up from 50,000 years of hibernation, Javik is naturally taken aback to discover that they're sitting on their hands, while it's ''[[TheUnChosenOne Humanity]]'' who are leading the charge.
** In the ''Citadel'' DLC, the Mysterious Figure is remarkably prone to this: not bothering to trap Glyph and allowing Traynor to grab her toothbrush before leaving both come back to bite said Figure in remarkably elaborate ways later on.
** ''Mass Effect 2'' squad member [[CombatMedic Mordin Solus]] relies on this trope to give him an advantage when going into a dangerous situation. He states in a conversation with Shepard that people see species like turians and asari as obvious threats because of their strength and capabilities, but because he's a salarian (amphibious lizard people who are comparatively physically weak as a species, yet intellectually superior), his enemies "[[VerbalTic *sharp inhale*]] never see me coming". Extra points for the SlasherSmile with that last bit, and for being ex-special ops and plenty dangerous in his own right. Omega quickly learned not to judge him by his diminished physique and odd behaviour (especially after he displayed the bodies of several mercs who tried to extort money out of him outside his ghetto clinic as a warning to others).
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'', [[RebelLeader Yuan]] has a foolproof plan for getting hold of the PlotCoupon that will allow him to save the world: all he has to do is [[HostageForMacguffin threaten the son]] of the person who can unlock the seal on the [[PhysicalGod Summon Spirit]] that grants it. It probably would have worked, if the BigBad hadn't been traveling with the party incognito...
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' there are two instances of this; the first is that the BigBad was expecting some kind of superweapon [[spoiler:not a SealedEvilInACan]]. The second ''is actually a good thing for the heroes'' [[spoiler:Rita, and no one else, expected them using an apatheia to create an aer controller to aid Estelle would create [[NatureSpirit Undine]]]]!
* ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' - Pity poor Sebastian [=LaCroix=]. For an ineffectual-seeming idiot Prince, he manages to make [[SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder surprisingly good use of the PC]] and then [[spoiler:turn the entire city against you when he [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness doesn't need you anymore]]]]. Problem is, there was simply no way he could count on [[spoiler:you defeating the Blood Hunt and any and all other opposition by yourself, Caine empowering you to defeat his Dominate, ''and'' Jack [[VideoGame/ZeroWing setting him up the bomb]]]]. Okay, the first might have been something he should have expected, but the rest almost amounts to a DiabolusExMachina from his perspective.
* In ''VideoGame/KingdomsOfAmalurReckoning'' [[spoiler:Tirnoch created the Fateless One so that he/she could free Tirnoch from her prison that she was destined to hold her forever]]. This part works perfectly. What [[spoiler:Tirnoch]] ''didn't'' see coming was [[spoiler:the Fateless One being powerful enough to kill her]].
** The PlayerCharacter is this for the entire game world. In this setting, every living thing has a destiny that is consider [[YouCantFightFate inevitable]]. The [[MeaningfulName Fateless One]] ''doesn't'', and merely showing up at an event can throw a major spanner in the works.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''
** ''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Pokemon Platinum]]'''s Cyrus captures the [[OlympusMons Legendary Pokemon of Time and Space]], and prepares to use them to destroy the universe to end human suffering. Unbeknownst to him, they were [[RuleOfThree two-thirds of a trio]], and the [[EldritchAbomination Legendary Pokemon of Matter/Antimatter]], long ago banned from reality and stricken from mythology out of fear, isn't too pleased with him for this...
** In ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'', [[spoiler:[[TheManBehindTheMan Ghetsis]]]] was not expecting the protagonist to be able to summon the other Legendary Dragon of Unova, nor that the player's relationship to their Pokemon really was [[ThePowerOfFriendship friendship]], rather than using Pokemon as tools, ''nor'' that this second revelation would cause N to doubt his own cause and [[WorthyOpponent challenge the player character]] over the validity of their beliefs. As a result, the player ultimately [[DefeatMeansFriendship befriends N]], and [[spoiler:Ghetsis's plan to conquer Unova through FantasyGunControl falls to pieces. And [[VillainousBreakdown so does he]]]].
* In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', the Thalmor were quite confident the Civil War in Skyrim would ultimately end in their favour. If the Imperials won, their Thalmor allies would be free to continue their efforts to infiltrate, influence and undermine a province of the Empire. If the Stormcloaks won, the Empire would be weakened significantly, recall their troops and leaving Skyrim wide open for the Aldmeri Dominion to launch an invasion. What they ''didn't'' see coming was the return of [[BigBad Alduin]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast the World-Eater]], the [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt resurrection of the Dragons]], and the arrival of [[CrystalDragonJesus the Dragonborn]].
** The Dragonborn can potentially end up throwing a huge wrench into the Thalmor's plans for Skyrim by siding with either faction: either they face a reunified and re-invigorated Empire, or a still fairly powerful and not-being-continually-drained Cyrodiil and a rather powerful and ''[[ScrewYouElves very]]'' hostile independent Skyrim, and either winner also gets a new ally in the form of a PhysicalGod.
* ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptuniaVictory'': Mr. Badd's plan to neutralize all the goddesses in Gamindustri worked flawlessly, leaving him and his organization free to move in and take power. He didn't count on a [[UsefulNotes/XBox foreign CPU]] to show up and derail the step of the plan.
** And in the sequel ''VideoGame/MegadimensionNeptuniaVII'', none of the [=CPUs=] saw their defeat at the hands of Gold Third coming. [[spoiler:Neither did Gold Third, for that matter. This counts as an Unknowable Unknown for all involved as an extradimensional RealityWarper nobody knew about had just started screwing with events.]]
* In ''[[VideoGame/SilentHill1 Silent Hill]]'', Dahlia didn't count on [[spoiler:Kaufmann]] having more than one [[spoiler:vial of aglaophotis]].
* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''
** The the Independent Path ends with the 4 year-long-struggle between the Legion and NCR for control over the Mojave, as well as the 200-year-old plans of Mr House, completely derailed by one lone, and very lucky, [[WildCard Courier]].
** While Mr House, the NCR, the Legion or Yes Man send the Courier to parley with the various minor factions to rally support for their side in the second Battle of Hoover Dam, the one faction ''none'' of them expected to get was [[spoiler:an [[OldSoldier elderly]] contingent of [[TheRemnant Enclave Remnants]] from Navarro, whom your companion Arcade can introduce you to]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'':
** The [[TheEmpire Taidaan Empire]] fell due nobody anticipating the Kushan Mothership escaping the Kharakian Genocide, creating a powerful fleet and invading from the unguarded border as they were busy with a large rebellion.
** The rebellion itself. The emperor and his advisors had expected the people to be cowed in awe from the emperor's ability to see the Kushans, descendants of their ancestral enemy the Higaarans, violate the treaty preventing them from developing again hyperspace technology, and cheer upon their final destruction in the Kharakian Genocide. Instead the people realized the Kushans had ''forgot'' the treaty and were not hostile, and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard the Kharakian Genocide sparked the long-brewing rebellion that the emperor was planning to prevent with this act]].
* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'' sees Scarecrow surprised to find out [[spoiler:Bruce Wayne is Batman after unmasking him.]]
* ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' has, at one point, Gordon gaining the ability to command antlions and promptly using this new army to invade an enemy stronghold. Despite the fluff explicitly mentioning that the Combine soldiers are all brainwashed and no longer have a personality of any sort, when one of them does finally report in what's going on, it does so in a [[NotSoStoic halting and uncertain tone]] vastly unlike the [[TheStoic professional manners]] heard so far.
-->'''Combine soldier:''' Warning, uh, [[TheHero primary target]] is engaged in, uh... [[TheBeastmaster command and control tactics]] with [[BigCreepyCrawlies biotics]]. Repeat, primary target has tactical C&C over biotics.
* In ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} the X-Universe]]'':
** The Kha'ak War comes to a rather unexpected and abrupt halt when a dormant jumpgate suddenly turns on and out pours the highly advanced Earth State Fleet, which proceeds to crush their main war fleet. ''Nobody'' on any side of the conflict saw that coming.
** The Ancients who control the jump network use it to keep different intelligent species cordoned off from other civilizations that are [[BlueAndOrangeMorality too different]] for them to get along with. For the most part, this seems to have worked quite well for millions of years, and if the Ancients ever make a bad judgement call, they can rearrange the jumpgates overnight to fix things. Then humanity invented a jumpgate on their own, which the Ancients thought was an impossible technological leap for such a young species. The humans also invented a self-replicating, self-improving, artificially intelligent machine race that is now out of control and spreading very quickly through uninhabited systems, which leads to the Ancients essentially throwing their hands up and [[GodzillaThreshold shutting down the entire network]] in the hopes of containing this chaos before it ruins anything else.
* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' has a DoubleSubversion. The FinalBoss of the No Mercy route ''does'' realize you'll probably [[spoiler:use an InterfaceScrew to attack him after he falls asleep (he ''does'' throw you back into place if you try to use it before he falls asleep, after all)]] and gives a NonchalantDodge when you do so. [[spoiler:He does not, however, anticipate you attacking him twice in a row.]]
* This is a consistent character flaw for Altera in ''VideoGame/FateExtellaTheUmbralStar''. Her brain is completely wired for vanquishing the foe in front of her, to the point of tunnel vision; she completely fails to see battle as part of a bigger picture. Opponent makes a deeply flawed tactical move? She'll chastise them for the error, only to be ''completely blindsided'' by the strategic advantage that set up. Opponent has a non-combat solution to the conflict that doesn't require her to "lose"? She's completely psychologically unprepared and rendered helpless.
* In ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'', the appearance of [[spoiler:the Wendigo]] had completely caught the Psycho off guard. Also, when taunting the group after [[spoiler:revealing himself as Josh]], the Psycho did not expect for Mike to manage to find a ''real'' gun with ''real'' bullets.
* The mother of all moments in the ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' series happens at the very end of ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11''. [[spoiler:Kronika has distorted events in every timeline so that Raiden and Liu Kang would fight each other, because she knows that her plans risk failure should they ever unite against her. While Liu Kang dies in every known instance and Raiden falls to corruption, she has likely planned out how to deal with the mortal champion of Earthrealm should Raiden somehow be removed from the equation. Where this trope comes in is ''how Raiden removes himself'' -- by merging with Past Liu Kang's soul and Present Liu Kang's flesh, displacing the flesh of Past Liu Kang in the process. What is left is the immortality and Hourglass immunity of a god, the power and determination of a mortal champion, and Present Liu Kang's comprehensive knowledge of the layout of her keep and army formations... and because two of the three fused voluntarily, there is no way to divide them and continue her plans as before. Kronika and Cetrion can only stare slack-jawed at Past Liu Kang's empty shackles before going back to work and hurriedly activating the Hourglass, and Kronika's tone of voice speaks ''volumes'' of how thoroughly Raiden compromised her plans.]]
* ''{{VideoGame/Catherine}}'' revolves around a love triangle between Vincent, Katherine, and Catherine. Vincent and Katherine have been together for 5 years, and seem to be on the verge of making the next step, especially now that Katherine is pregnant and [[spoiler: is lying about said pregnancy as a last-ditch attempt to get Vincent to marry her.]] Vincent ends up cheating on her with Catherine, a seductive, flighty, and violent woman [[spoiler: who is really a succubus sent by the BigBad to test him as part of a grander EvilPlan to exterminate uncommitted/unfaithful men.]] The crux of the original game is all about choosing which woman Vincent ends up with, though he can ditch both if played a certain way. However, the ''[[UpdatedRerelease Full Body]]'' version introduces Qatherine/"Rin" as an unlikely ThirdOptionLoveInterest. She's sweet, earnest, supportive, naive, and utterly harmless, and is even suffering from amnesia. All she wants to do is play the piano and make people happy. No one takes her seriously, and the other women barely even notice she exists. Not even [[spoiler: the BigBad seems to care, despite knowing that Rin is actually from a race of AngelicAliens whose human form is that of [[AttractiveBentGender an androgynous male.]]]] Rin lives by some unusual - but profound - ideals: No one can tell someone else how to live their life, and that individuals are the only ones should decide what is important to them. If you choose to romance Rin, [[spoiler: this philosophy turns out to be ''exactly'' what Vincent needs to hear to take a step back from the whole Katherine/Catherine debacle and reassess his life.]] Not only does Vincent become a far stronger, more competent person, he [[spoiler: realizes [[IfItsYouItsOkay Rin makes him happy and that gender doesn't matter to him.]]]] This ''completely'' derails Catherine's strategy; [[spoiler: [[DidntSeeThatComing she isn't even aware of Rin as a romantic rival until it's too late]], and [[KnowWhenToFoldEm just gives up]] when she realizes [[IncompatibleOrientation Vincent may not even be interested in being seduced by a woman.]]]] This also happens to a lesser extent with Katherine, who decides [[spoiler: to break up with Vincent before she even finds out about Rin's gender. She's a little surprised at first when she does, but [[GracefulLoser is visibly relieved and walks away with a smile on her face.]]]] The biggest reaction comes from [[spoiler: the BigBad, who is utterly baffled and annoyed by the entire situation. He never expected a loser like Vincent would survive, let alone get into a same-sex relationship that outright defies the entire basis of the EvilPlan.]] It also never occurs to him that [[spoiler: Rin's piano playing manifests as their angelic power, which gives any listener the ability see new possibilities and oppportunities. It's much harder to kill people in elaborate puzzle death traps when they're emotionally stable and have more time to think.]] Vincent would've survived the ordeal on his own, but sweet, harmless, amnesiac Rin is the one who made that victory inevitable.
* ''Videogame/DoomEternal:'' The Khan Maykr knows enough of the Fortress of Doom, where the Doom Slayer resides, that she's aware that completely draining its power will strand him within it, unable to make it move elsewhere or open a portal to any other location at all; she leaves, thinking he's finally entombed him for eternity... but she doesn't know the Doom Slayer picked up the demonic Crucible just a moment ago; a blade made of pure Argent energy more than capable of powering the Fortress all by itself, making it trivial for him to resume operations with her taunts in mind.
-->'''Samuel Hayden:''' She didn't know you had the demonic Crucible... ''*chuckling*'' [[{{Irony}} In the end, the very power you sought to erradicate from Earth is now what will help you save it...]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'':
** Several of these nail [[spoiler:Manfred von Karma]]. He didn't see [[spoiler:Larry Butz]] arriving with key information, didn't expect Phoenix to get useful information out of a parrot [[spoiler:even after retraining it to destroy ''the'' most useful]], and, most importantly, he spends the entire case manipulating the Judge... but never expects the Judge to truly hold devotion to law and order over any fear he may have of him. This last one screws [[spoiler:von Karma]] over more than everything else.
** Also, in [[VisualNovel/AceAttorneyInvestigationsMilesEdgeworth Miles Edgeworth's game]], [[spoiler:Quercus Alba is unbeatable, until a series of these brings him down. Notable in that multiple completely unpredictable (from his perspective) events are required for him to be arrested]].
* In ''VisualNovel/CodeRealize'', [[spoiler:Isaac Beckford]] spent years carefully developing and implementing his grand plan to [[spoiler:become God]], only for the whole thing to fall apart because a certain charismatic gentleman thief saw fit to steal a key component of the plan - Cardia, the visual novel's player character - and give her a chance to experience human kindness, friendship, and love.
** The only thing that causes [[spoiler:Aleister]]'s meticulously-planned long-term campaign to utterly mentally destroy [[spoiler:Van Helsing]] is Cardia, who [[spoiler:gives Van and Delacroix II a chance to reconcile]] and - by falling in love with [[spoiler:Van Helsing]] and refusing to let him push her away - provides him with something WorthLivingFor.
* Part of the BigBad's plans in ''VisualNovel/DiesIrae'' is to actually [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this trope. Both have to deal with foreknowledge, and as such they feel like they [[PrescienceIsPredictable know everything that will happen with nothing exciting or surprising them anymore]] and are enamored by the unknown. [[spoiler:In the end, they both get what they want, albeit in a different way from what they initially intended which only made them happier]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* At the end of the fourth ''WebAnimation/CharlieTheUnicorn'' short, the pink and blue unicorns -- who have spent the last four installments slowly going from obliviously cruel and chaotic to unmistakably malevolent -- show genuine surprise when [[spoiler:Charlie, by wishing on the magic starfish from the previous episode, escapes their deathtrap on the moon]].
* At the end of Volume Three of ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'', Cinder has successfully pulled off her master plan, having stolen the Fall Maiden's powers and killed the people most capable of stopping her. [[spoiler:Then [[TheHero Ruby]]'s eyes go supernova in grief, much to her and the audience's surprise. The normally calm Cinder responds with a BigWhat before being blasted.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* [[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0120.html This]] ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'' strip neatly showcases how PC's can become incredibly paranoid of these dangers (make sure to read the comments at the bottom).
* ''Webcomic/LookingForGroup'': [[http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/229 This strip]].
-->'''Beholder:''' Thus it was written...
-->'''The Archmage:''' This was not supposed to happen.
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0386.html "You know, the first two, I probably should've seen coming. The leprechaun costume? Not so much."]]
** The identity of the champion.
--->[[spoiler:Thog: thog is the Champion, thog's friends! And thog will keep fighting to the end!]]
** And of course, the true secret the Gods have been hiding all along: [[spoiler:this iteration of the world-prison is currently in the '''millions'''. Not hundreds, not thousands, ''millions of worlds and trillions dead''.]]
* Happens all the time in ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance''. Often followed by Riff's CatchPhrase, "Let me check my notes."
** One particularly memorable moment is an inversion.
--->'''Riff''': Torg, why are there pants on the floor?
--->'''Torg''': They're my emergency pants.
--->'''Riff''': ...why do you have emergency pants?
--->'''Torg''': I don't know, but in [[BringMyBrownPants every situation]] I could think up, I was ''glad to have them''.
** Followed about twenty strips later by magical moths that eat all clothing. '''"[[CrazyPrepared This looks like a job for]] ''[[CrazyPrepared emergency pants!]]''"''' He ''did'' see it coming, even though he couldn't have.
* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'':
** [[GambitPileup No character ever gets]] to have everything go according to plan. Something always happens just when you least expect it. They can only be better or worse at [[XanatosSpeedChess being on top of the chaos]].
** [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20121126 This strip]] sums everything up perfectly. While the rest of the gang sees the events as this trope, [[BeleagueredAssistant Moloch von Zinzer]] [[InvertedTrope knows otherwise]].
--->'''Moloch:''' How is it '''''possible''''' that this could surprise '''''any''''' of you people?
* ''Webcomic/{{SSDD}}'', the Oracle is usually successful in his {{Gambit Roulette}}s due to the fact that he was designed to make accurate predictions, but [[http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20010601.html apparently]] TimeTravel throws him off.
* Kale Williams utters those exact words in the Quetza Drake's ''Webcomic/FurthiaHigh'' comic, when [[spoiler:Campy shows up to the school dance with a male date]].
** Ashley averts it when she calmly replies, "I did."
* In an ''Webcomic/{{XKCD}}'' [[http://www.xkcd.com/592 comic]], some nerds figure out how to end all relationship drama (via a mathematic equation, naturally), but upon testing their theory in the real world, all the relationship drama, in fact, SPIKES, leading one to say "Holy shit... people are ''complicated!''
* ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'':
** Our IdiotHero is on the edge of a cliff with The Yellow Demon jumping at him -- [[http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/000709c so he runs back and the cliff falls]]. Bet you the demon didn't see it coming.
** And the sickly Met Demon actually has an attack. [[http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/050524c X uses the trope name]]
* The defunct webcomic ''Filthy Lies'' had one character daydream a SelfInsert fic where he was a JerkassStu (using Felix Felicis, for example, to have a threesome with Hermione and Ginny) in the events of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince''...who, during the climax, ended up screwing everything up so that all the good guys died. [[spoiler:He even took the big moment away from Snape by accidentally bumping Dumbledore off the top of the tower with poor broom handling before Snape could perform Avada Kedavra.]]
-->'''Snape:''' I did ''not'' see that coming.
* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', when Abe disarmed the elf. Anybody who forgets he's fighting a wizard after having to overcome his spells just to get there ''deserves'' to be [[spoiler:[[MacrossMissileMassacre spammed]] by exploding crows]] [[http://egscomics.com/?date=2009-07-04 on the spot.]]
* A chain of these in ''Alanna''. [[spoiler:[[BigBad Tristan]] has forcibly bonded OB, the god of lightning and dissection, to himself, and EB, the god of Frost and Destruction, to the protagonist.]] All he needs to do is capture the protagonist, and he pretty much wins. He knows that the protagonist has a lightning sprite that can absorb his electrical attacks to become stronger, but considers it to be a non-factor because sprites are easily banished. He also knows that [[spoiler:EB's creations will obey her, but isn't worried because he has a small army of Amalgams, and also knows that OB's creations can only function under OB's orders]]. However, he was completely unaware of several important facts: firstly, [[spoiler:OB's creations had a small degree of autonomy, and had built a clone of OB to guide them; Tristan didn't know about this because Fake!OB was non-functional, but the protagonist managed to get it operational. In return, Fake!OB sent OB's creations against Tristan for the final battle, and also gave the protagonist's lightning sprite a warding that made it impossible for Tristan to banish. lastly, it gave her a means to communicate with the imprisoned Real!OB]]. Tristan's [[OhCrap reaction]] to this is absolutely priceless. [[spoiler:More importantly however, Tristan is unaware that there was a complication during EB's bonding]]. At the start of the story, "Spirit Guides" (Actually [[NoFourthWall the readers, who give the protagonist suggestions on what to do]]) were bonded to the protagonist, [[spoiler:occupying the place where EB was supposed to go, meaning that EB is actually bound to ''the readers'', instead of the protagonist. Since we can sever our connection with the protagonist at any time, the readers are essentially provided with a big red button labeled "Screw Tristan's plans six ways to Sunday." And Tristan certainly couldn't have predicted the readers using this information to prove to the original OB that Tristan's plan couldn't work, and that this would cause OB to take advantage of Tristan's unstable mental state when he tried to go OneWingedAngel to leave his body]].
* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2006-03-12 Lil' Evil flips off God and runs off. God asks him where exactly he thought he could hide.]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', [[SpiritAdvisor sprites]] are privy to all of the information needed for a successful [[TheGamePlaysYou Sburb]] run, and [[BlindSeer seers]] are designed to help win the game with intense knowledge of a specific subject. So, the seer-turned-sprite known as [[spoiler:Rosesprite]] has absolutely no idea why their creation is even remotely useful, and none of the other sprites nor seers have a clue either.
** Really, two major unexpected factors completely derail the plans of the main villains close to the end:
*** Firstly, it's an accepted fact in paradox space that events are essentially predestined when it comes to anyone involved in any SBURB session, and any 'offshoot' timelines are 'doomed' since everyone is destined to die somehow. [[spoiler:Until John acquires the power to 'retcon' the "Alpha Timeline" through contact with Lord English's juju, and with Terezi's planning, ensures that so that he acquires the Ring of Life before Aranea has the chance to steal it (taking her out of the picture entirely), and ensuring that Vriska survives, allowing her to put both Jade and Jane to sleep while they're under mind control. The Condense's carefully-engineered plans proceed to ''completely collapse'' as a result.]]
*** Lord English is desperately searching through Paradox Space and smashing the hell out of it in order to try and find [[spoiler:the ghost of his sister, Calliope, and kill her.]] Unfortunately for him, he's too distracted by this and the massive force assembled to try and take him down to be aware of the [[spoiler:''other'' version of his sister who killed her version of Caliborn, and performs a HeroicSacrifice to destroy the Green Sun, shutting down English's main source of power]].
* At Website/DeviantArt, even something as simple as going to do some lower body workout can have Unknown Unknowns, as seen in [[http://toonexterminator.deviantart.com/art/Refreshments-Pg1-198082911 "Refreshments"]] where two women get a drink of water on the way and transform into [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent mermaids]]. ("You think they'll let us use the pool then?")
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In ''Literature/TheSalvationWar'', this is the downfall of several figures in the story, not least of which include the antagonists [[spoiler:Satan and Yahweh]], while in contrast much of human military tech shown in the story is concerned with trying to prevent this. In particular, [[FourStarBadass General]] [[spoiler:of the Armies]] [[TheStrategist David Petraeus]] is shown on several occasions accounting for known unknowns.
* Despite all of the completely ludicrous things they managed to pull off in [[WebVideo/DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog Dr. Horrible]], nobody was expecting Bad Horse to be an ''actual'' horse.
* In the "40K Rejects" series by Mini War Gaming dot com, in Episode 3 (''The Tale of an Ork''), Captain Slaughter and co. are looking for the five Ork Shokk Attack Guns. They capture several Orks in combat, and Slaughter interrogates them one by one. The first few are gibbering idiots, but the third is quite articulate. His intelligence and knowledge intrigue Slaughter, who is subsequently shocked to discover that [[spoiler:the Ork is actually "the Warboss in disguise"!]]. Slaughter's reaction to it is priceless:
-->'''Slaughter:''' Out of all the unforeseen things I've ever seen!
* Ranger has multiple times fallen victim to this type in Roleplay/ComicFuryWerewolf. He's several times forgotten key facts which are public information due to focusing too hard on the details. One of the worst is how he's twice forgotten about the vigilantes, and even [[spoiler:forgot about the alpha's ability to convert]] until he was dead and too late to warn the village.
* In LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonRed, [[MindHive the Mob]] came up with a cunning plan to make sure that [[TheAce Bird Jesus]] didn't get released or deposited when they went to the PC. If they fainted everyone in the party ''except'' for Bird Jesus, he couldn't be put in the PC because then Red would have no usable Pokemon, right? As it should so happen, this leads to variety five - in the first generation of Pokemon, you ''can'' deposit the only Pokemon in your party... leading to Red managing to black out [[EpicFail inside a Pokemon Centre!]]
* [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]]'s reaction in his ''WebVideo/HistoryOfPowerRangers'' video detailing ''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy'' to [[spoiler:[[WhamEpisode Kendrix Morgan's death]]]] involves cutting to him in StunnedSilence.
* In the ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle'' season 3 finale "SelfDemonstrating/{{Deadpool}} vs. [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Pinkie Pie]]", Wiz and Boomstick are absolutely flabbergasted when [[spoiler:the two call off their fight, become best friends, hop through other videos and land in the real world where Deadpool admonishes Wiz and Boomstick's actors for making him fight on his birthday before Pinkie brings him back to Equestria to celebrate said birthday. The two are forced to admit that the real losers this time is ''them'']].
* A Running gag during WebVideo/GamesDoneQuick marathons is someone saying "THAT'S never happened before!" after an unexpected glitch or death during a game's run.
* This happens to ''LetsPlay/GrayStillPlays'' quite frequently:
** In ''Universe Sandbox [[superscript:2]]'', he often gets surprised by the results of his mad experiments. One of the best examples was when he destroyed Earth ''with a grain of sand going at 100 million times the speed of light''. He was underwhelmed by the lack of destruction at first before the game finally calculated the damage and showed that the Earth was completely destroyed.
** His reaction to the PlotTwist of ''Car Hazard'' is a mix of this and INeedAFreakingDrink due to the main character being revealed to be [[spoiler:an insane killer who uses her own friends' skin and blood to make her "art"]].
** His reaction to realizing that ''VideoGame/GraveyardKeeper'' allows the gravedigger to harvest corpses for flesh and [[IAmAHumanitarian sell it to the tavern]] [[TheAlcoholic for beer.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
%%* Junior, intent on embarrassing Ted who hadn't brought back The Lost Shrine of Zagawa, is stunned (along with everyone else at the press conference) when George knocks down a dinosaur skeleton. "Wow. I didn't see that coming." Where's this from?
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'', "Grounder the Genius", had the eponymous bumbling robot minion accidentally end up with Dr. Robotnik's stolen Super Genius Program in his head; he instantly transforms into an [[TheChessmaster uber-chessmaster]] with enough smarts to incapacitate Sonic and decide that the bad doctor [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters has no place in his own schemes for world domination]]. In the end, he has Sonic and Tails on the ropes with a lightning generator and announces that he's thought of every possible occurrence... except the one where fellow bumbling robot minion Scratch shows up trying to help [[LosingYourHead and accidentally knocks his head off]].
* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': Azula "miscalculated" one thing, possibly in her life: [[spoiler:[[EvilCannotComprehendGood Mai's loyalty to Zuko]].]]
** In the AlternateUniverse short "[[HighSchoolAU School Time Shipping]]", Zuko, understandably, utters this when Katara reveals her choice of date to the dance: [[spoiler:the Blue Spirit, Zuko's ''[[SecretIdentity alter ego]]''.]]
** Fire Lord Ozai faces a couple in the last episode: an Unknown Known [[spoiler:Aang regaining control of the Avatar State]] and then and Unknown Unknown [[spoiler:Energy Bending]].
** [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra Korra]] has a habit of landing in the middle of #3. Because she has no information on her enemy (and very few means of getting it), every episode or two, her enemies pull out something she didn't know about and proceed to hit her with TheWorfEffect. The most brutal example was [[spoiler:when Tarrlok turned out to be not only a bloodbender, but [[WrongContextMagic able to bloodbend under any moon phase]], something established to be impossible in the original series]].
* Discussed by Gin Rummy in ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'' episode "A Date with the Health Inspector". He talks about how there are "known unknowns" (things that we know that we don't know), and "unknown unknowns" (things that we don't know that we didn't know), in order to justify how the plan that they had to capture a killer was so far going badly.
* Franchise/{{DCAU}}:
** ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'':
*** In "[[Recap/SupermanTheAnimatedSeriesS3E2KnightTime Knight Time]]", Brainiac is surprised when he blasts who he thinks is Franchise/{{Batman}} only for [[spoiler:Franchise/{{Superman}} to emerge from the resulting fireball, having taken on the guise of Batman with Bruce Wayne having gone missing (due to Brainiac kidnapping and brainwashing him for his plans)]]. His reaction is [[DullSurprise typically understated]]:
---->'''Brainiac:''' [[spoiler:Kal-El]]. This development was highly improbable.
*** Likewise, in "[[Recap/SupermanTheAnimatedSeriesS3E8SupermansPal Superman's Pal]]", Metallo's plan is thwarted because he didn't consider the Unknown Known of the hostage trying to help his intended victim.
** Amanda Waller in ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]''.
--->'''Lex Luthor:''' Did you really think you could take me all by yourself?\\
'''Amanda Waller:''' Actually, yeah. But on the off chance I might've been wrong...\\
''[the founding Leaguers have entered through the window]''\\
'''Flash:''' Ta-da.
** Which is immediately followed by another one: It turns out that ''Brainiac'' is underneath Lex's suit. ''And '''skin'''''.
** Then, of course, there was the episode "Wild Cards". In the middle of Joker's bomb threat on Vegas being aired as a reality TV show, Batman manages to talk to Harley Quinn alone. He insinuates that Joker seems awfully close to Ace, the new henchgirl. Harley storms off toward her puddin' in a jealous rage, but not before throwing and landing a solid punch on Batman for enlightening her. Cue to a shot of Joker staring blankly at a television screen after the exchange is over.
--->'''Joker''': Have to admit, I didn't see ''that'' one coming...
* In the ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' episode, ''Boom Boom Out Goes the Ed'', Ed says this after Eddy throw the TV remote at him for not realizing there's a blackout.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'' has Bloo running against Mr. Herriman for the position of governing the house. This happens in response to Bloo's slander of simply saying "Herriman smalls like poo!"
-->'''Herriman:''' But that's mudslinging! ''[[VisualPun (gets mud thrown in his face)]]'' Should have seen that coming.
* The events of the first ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' ChristmasEpisode lead Fry to lament, "I never thought it would end this way... gunned down by [[BadassSanta Santa Claus]]. Honestly, I didn't see it coming!"
* Storm Shadow expected a hard fought duel with Snake Eyes in ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeResolute'' but still felt he had the advantage of knowing most of their clan's most advanced skill, having already had the one person who knew the complete kata killed when he refused to pass it on to him. He didn't count on Hard Master passing it on to Snake Eyes in secret.
* Happens quite a bit in ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyTest'', leading to many characters [[CatchPhrase using this line]].
* It was almost a RunningGag in ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' how many bad guys would have Kim and/or Ron absolutely nailed to the wall, fail to account for [[TeamPet Rufus]] chewing through their bonds or hitting the self-destruct for the KillSat, and then are absolutely stunned that their plans were foiled in the end. And they usually never learned otherwise no matter how many times it happened to the same villains. In an early episode Drakken did manage to spot Rufus in time to foil him (because a mind controlled Kim pointed it out) but he winds up underestimating Kim's ''[[AnnoyingYoungerSibling brothers]]'' instead when he doesn't believe they have a portable version of a device that (as seen earlier in the episode) is normally the size of a refrigerator.
** And then the villains in the GrandFinale face an ''[[Awesome/KimPossible awesome]]'' Unknown Unknown in the form of Ron's Mystical Monkey Power.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', Connie runs into the house sobbing and says that Bobby broke up with her[[note]]Only not really, it's a ruse[[/note]]. Kahn's immediate response is "Wow, you just taught me the meaning of 'total surprise'."
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** Applejack says this in "Swarm of the Century", when the voracious parasprites, instead of eating her apple crop, ate her barn instead.
** The two things that Discord hadn't planned for were [[spoiler:Celestia breaking Twilight out of her HeroicBSOD by sending her the letters her student had sent her the entire previous season and Twilight somehow reuniting her friends and breaking them out of Discord's MindRape so they could use the Elements Of Harmony to defeat him]]. The former is likely an Unknown Unknown he couldn't have expected and the latter is a Known Unknown: he knew about who was involved but hadn't foreseen how they could do anything to stop him at that point.
** After [[spoiler:Chrysalis's true form was revealed in front of Celestia and her plans explained, it was obvious that Celestia wasn't going to stay still about it. What wasn't obvious was that the queen of the Changelings had already gathered enough strength to beat the Princess. Not even Chrysalis expected that]]!
** King Sombra seems to have a backup curse and/or trap for almost everything. Except a [[spoiler:combination of Spike and a '''''thrown-by-her-own-husband''''' Princess Cadance]].
** Done heartbreakingly so in ''[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E26TwilightsKingdomPart2 Twilight's Kingdom Part 2]]'' when [[spoiler:Discord turns against the other ponies and captures the Mane Six (save for Twilight). Discord mentions that they should have seen it coming, only for a heartbroken Fluttershy to admit she hadn't at all -- she was so convinced her friendship with him was ironclad, she never thought he'd turn his back on her. This turns into an IronicEcho when Discord himself is betrayed by Lord Tirek and Applejack tells him the same exact thing]].
* In the final story arc of ''[[WesternAnimation/IlEtaitUneFois Once Upon a Time... Space]]'', both the [[BigBad Humanoids]] and the combined fleet of the [[TheFederation Confederation of Omega]] were completely caught by surprise when [[spoiler:The Precursors decided to show up and made a star go nova right as the Humanoid armada passed by]]. Goes close to AssPull, except [[spoiler:one of the Precursors appeared saltuarily during the series to comfort Psi when she was in trouble, and the ship that shows in the final episode had already appeared in the first one and showed their technological superiority]].
* This was one of Hunter's {{Catch Phrase}}s in ''WesternAnimation/RoadRovers''.
** "Yet another unexpected twist."
--->'''Hunter:''' I would NOT have predicted this!\\
'''Colleen:''' [[LampshadeHanging Face it, Hunty. The Psychic Network, you're not...]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''
** The episode "Homie the Clown" has Homer unable to get the thought of Krusty's Clown College out of his head, even imitating the mashed potato scene from ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind'' (except he sculpts a circus tent) and seeing his family in clown makeup and waving ads. Eventually he stands up and declares "I'm tired of you people holding me back! I'm going to clown college!" Bart simply remarks, "I don't think any of us expected him to say that."
** Invoked in the episode "Bart's Friend Falls in Love" where Bart and Milhouse get into a giant fight. Groping around for a weapon, Bart finds Milhouse's new Magic 8-Ball and clocks him upside the head with it. As he looks at the shattered hunk of plastic in his hand, Bart remarks "I bet [it] didn't see that coming."
** In the episode "500 Keys", a secret Superintendent Chalmers and Principal Skinner have been keeping for years is exposed due to [[ItMakesSenseInContext Homer buying a returned wedding cake and Maggie locking herself in the car]]. Skinner says [[BatmanGambit they'd planned for the cake]], but not the baby. Chalmers insists he should have seen it coming, even though Maggie hadn't been born at the time.
** In "Bart Gets An Elephant", Springfield's radio station KBBL is having a call-in contest where winners choose between either $10,000 in cash or a fully-grown African elephant. KBBL didn't have an elephant, as it was [[{{Zonk}} an obvious gag prize]], and [=DJs=] Bill and Marty are horrified when Bart wins and wants the elephant instead of the $10,000. After briefly spinning into a scandal, Bill and Marty are threatened with giving Bart the elephant or losing their jobs, so they finally get an African elephant for Bart. This was inspired by an incident in the 1950s version of ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'', where contestant was told he had won an African elephant, and then told he could decide (later) whether to take a $4,000 cash substitute. The contestant – much like Bart did more than 35 years later – chose the elephant, and when legal and other threats arose, the producers complied.
* In one ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode, when Kenny died, Stan didn't react the usual way. (i.e. shouting [[CatchPhrase "Oh, my God! They killed Kenny!"]]) Instead, he said, [[InvertedTrope "Well, who didn't]] [[DeadpanSnarker see that coming?"]] Played straighter in another episode where the plot has already been resolved, and then in the last scene a [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere giant bird busts through the ceiling and eats Kenny,]] prompting a [[FlatWhat flat "What]] [[PrecisionFStrike the fuck?"]]
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'':
** In [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS3E19ZeroHour "Zero]] [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS3E20ZeroHourPartII Hour"]], [[TheChessmaster Grand Admiral Thrawn]] leads an assault on Atollon. Despite the [[LeeroyJenkins incompetence of Konstantine]], he succeeds in destroying the Rebel defenses, forcing their fleet to ground, and capturing their leaders at gunpoint. Unfortunately for him, he falls prey to an Unknown Unknown in the Bendu, who uses his immense Force powers to create a massive storm and rains lightning on everything in sight.
** In [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS4E13FamilyReunionAndFarewell "Family Reunion]] [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS4E14FamilyReunionAndFarewellPartII — and Farewell"]], Thrawn gets another Unknown Unknown. [[spoiler:Ezra uses the Force to summon a herd of massive hyperspace-capable [[SpaceWhale leviathans]], who teleport Thrawn's ship, as well as Thrawn and Ezra, to parts unknown.]] ''Technically'' it's an Unknown Known, [[spoiler:since there are legends of these creatures all throughout space, but even if Thrawn had heard about the time they passed near an Imperial outpost, he couldn't have known that Ezra would be able to summon them]].
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperHeroSquadShow'', shapeshifting mutant Mystique infiltrates the Squad as SHIELD agent ComicBook/BlackWidow. The plan to get access to the heroes' store of plot devices almost works, but then villain Screamin' Mimi turns out to be undercover SHIELD agent Songbird. Doctor Doom just quietly observes "I didn't see that one coming" and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere flies away through the ceiling]].
* In the second to last episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'', during the FinalBattle [[spoiler:Jinx]] [[HeelFaceTurn switches sides.]] Cyborg comments "Now that was unexpected". Control Freak nods in agreement while being pinned down by Cyborg.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{ThunderCats|1985}}'', Mumm-Ra and the evil Mutants had succeeded in capturing ALL the Thundercats - except Snarf. When the Mutants discuss whether they should get him too, they all laugh at the notion that little, dorky Snarf could in any way possibly affect their plans now that they've essentially won. Little did they realize Snarf's talent for communicating with animals, as well as being so small and weak to be ignored to begin with, turned out to be their undoing.
[[/folder]]

*** In revenge for Kiritsugu's attack, Kayneth attacks him in the Einzbern Castle and runs head first in another False Assumption ''and'' an Unknown Unknown. The False Assumption is that his last Mystic Code could easily defend him from mundane weapons, but while Volumen Hydragyum can easily repel the pellets from Claymore Mines and the fire of a [[RareGuns Calico M950]] it has to concentrate to defend from the point blank fire of a [[HandCannon Thompson Contender chambered for .30-06 rounds]], and he survived with a wound only because the Contender is single shot. The Unknown Unknown happens when Kiritsugu returns with the Contender: this time Kayneth concentrate his defense and reinforces it with prana, [[JustAsPlanned not knowing it was exactly what Kiritsugu needed for his]] [[DepletedPhlebotinumShells Origin bullet]] to ''completely and irreversibly destroy Kayneth's ability to use magic'', nearly killing him through the sheer pain and leaving him paraplegic as a side effect;

* In ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020'', Dr. Robotnik is shocked when Sonic shoves Tom and Maddie off a building to protect them. He looks down at where they fell and exclaims "I was not expecting that!", then quickly composes himself and proclaims "But I was expecting not to expect something, so that doesn't count."

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'', "Grounder the Genius", had the eponymous bumbling robot minion accidentally end up with Dr. Robotnik's stolen Super Genius Program in his head; he instantly transforms into an [[TheChessmaster uber-chessmaster]] with enough smarts to incapacitate Sonic and decide that the bad doctor [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters has no place in his own schemes for world domination]]. In the end, he has Sonic and Tails on the ropes with a lightning generator and announces that he's thought of every possible occurrence... except the one where fellow bumbling robot minion Scratch shows up trying to help [[LosingYourHead and accidentally knocks his head off.]]

* In ''Disney/{{Moana}}'', this is Maui's reaction word-for-word when, after he tries to get rid of Moana by hurling her off the boat, the Ocean plops her right back on it. "Did ''not'' see that coming."
* ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'': Clearly Hans's whole gambit to usurp the throne of Arendelle did not account for Olaf freeing Anna from the library, or Anna jumping in front of his sword to stop him from slicing Elsa. His reaction after the winter is thawed just reeks of this:
-->'''Hans:''' But she froze your heart!\\
'''Anna:''' The only frozen heart around here is yours! ''[punches him in the face]''

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Emperor Palpatine thought it impossible that the natives of Endor (human child-sized savage creatures) [[RockBeatsLaser might be able to take advantage of their native terrain against the Empire's finest troops]] (though said natives did have help from a Jedi, a droid who could hack anything, and several crack shots). And he apparently never considered that a guy who [[LoveMakesYouEvil turned to the Dark Side to save his wife]] might [[LoveRedeems turn from it to save his son]]. If you take that plot from the EU, you could say that he ''did'' have a plan to survive the latter...but not for the Rebellion succeeding in blowing up the Death Star.

** In [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS4E13FamilyReunionAndFarewell "Family Reunion]] [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS4E14FamilyReunionAndFarewellPartII — and Farewell"]], Thrawn gets another Unknown Unknown. [[spoiler:Ezra uses the Force to summon a herd of massive hyperspace-capable leviathans, who teleport Thrawn's ship, as well as Thrawn and Ezra, to parts unknown.]] ''Technically'' it's an Unknown Known, [[spoiler:since there are legends of these creatures all throughout space, but even if Thrawn had heard about the time they passed near an Imperial outpost, he couldn't have known that Ezra would be able to summon them]].