History Main / FailureGambit

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* {{Downplayed}} in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/26066386/chapters/63398650#workskin Aftermath]]''. After spending months grieving for her deceased friends, what eventually gets Rapunzel out of her depression is some good ol' [[{{Slapstick}} Slapstick Comedy]]. After that, Varian got the idea to deliberately let some of his inventions blow up in his face just to make Rapunzel smile and laugh.
* In ''FanFic/MegaManDefenderOfTheHumanRace'', Terra deliberately lost to Duo to distract him from Sunstar and Luna destroying a planet... and enacting a contingency plan, allowing the surviving Stardroids to repopulate their race.

* In ''WesternAnimation/Cars2'', oil baron Sir Miles Axelrod's attempted ploy. He staged an incident where he was lost in the wilderness and converted into an electric car when he emerged alive and created an oil-free fuel named Allinol to take regular fuel's place and featured it as the only fuel type in his own World Grand Prix. During said Grand Prix, cars that used Allinol as fuel and were targeted with a special microwave would burst into flames and exit the competition, creating bad publicity that would "force" Axelrod back into the oil business and kill the fledgling oil substitute industry, allowing big oil to stay on top. [[SpannerInTheWorks But then Mater happened.]]

* In ''Film/LawAbidingCitizen'', a regular DisproportionateRetribution training film, Clyde Shelton confesses to a murder because he wants to be imprisoned, as that becomes key in his plan, while ironically giving him more freedom than he would have had otherwise.

* In ''{{Literature/Dune}}'', Paul Atreides lampshades this in his own mind as one of the possible outcomes just before [[spoiler:his final duel with Feyd-Rautha]]. His thought is "If I die, they'll say I sacrificed myself so that my spirit might lead them", but this is a case of ''being able to foresee how his actions will be perceived'' rather than his actual intent.

* In ''{{Literature/Rogue}}'', Kiara deliberately flunks her tests so she'll be able to stay at home and attend summer school with Chad instead of spending the summer with her mami in UsefulNotes/{{Montreal}}.

* ''Series/ThePunisher2017'': Frank Castle drops into Carson Wolf's large house through the chimney, accosts Wolf when he comes home from work, and ties him to a chair. He then proceeds to torture Wolf for a little bit for information on David Lieberman, but Wolf says he's been to Guantanamo Bay and knows torture is ineffective, and even points out that Frank is answering his own questions. Of course, Frank has left Wolf's restraints just loose enough that he is able to free himself and disarm Frank of his gun. He unmasks Frank, and [[JustBetweenYouAndMe then gloats the information Frank wanted to hear about Lieberman]]. Wolf then prepares to execute Frank...but [[ItWorksBetterWithBullets Frank has already emptied the gun]].
* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'': Pirates board Moya while searching for a former colleague, who has gone with D'Argo to rescue Aeryn and Crichton from the pirates' net. The pirates avoid deadly force because Moya is pregnant and they fear her retribution, so they set up camp and wait. Rygel accepts a challenge from the lead pirate to play a strategy game that involves lots of betting and bluffing, and ultimately he wagers the location of their quarry. Despite Zhaan's psychic attempts to help Rygel win, he loses the game and forfeits the intel, and the pirates go on their way. Afterwards, Rygel laments to Zhaan how hard it was ''to'' lose convincingly because his opponent was an abominable player; he knew the pirates would never leave empty-handed and had planned all along to trick them into leaving with fake coordinates.
* The infamous Eurovision episode of ''Series/FatherTed'' was a send-up of this trope as applied to Ireland's long winning streak, which [[BlessedWithSuck became too much of a good thing]]. Suffice to say [[StylisticSuck the gambit worked.]]
* This is the core idea of ''Series/TedLasso'': the titular coach is hired to manage an English association football team, despite being an ''American'' football coach (and a minor-league one, at that) who doesn't know the rules of the game and has almost no familiarity with association football culture. As it turns out, the current owner of the team is the ex-wife of its former manager, and [[WomanScorned she wants to run the team into the ground as vengeance]] for his infidelity and emotional abuse. This is a rather zigzagged case of SpringtimeForHitler, as, while Ted is a great coach who genuinely gives the effort his all, he's still well out of his area of expertise.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Hearts}}'' plays around with this in many fashions. For one, while it's a trick-taking game, the goal is to collect the ''least'' points, so the easiest way to accomplish this goal is to take as few tricks as possible, which would be this trope in most other trick-taking games. However, you can instead attempt to take all 14 point-scoring cards (the thirteen hearts and the queen of spades), thereby "shooting the moon" and either subtracting points off your score or adding points to everyone else (depending on rules), playing this straight within the conceit of the game. Plus, when the other players realize that an attempt at shooting the moon is happening, one way to stop it is for a player to deliberately take a single heart themselves, a small-scale version of this trope (as ideally they take just that one point and the would-be moon shooter already took the other 25, or can't avoid taking them).
* More generally, the class of games known as "misère games", where the rules of a game are altered so that it's "played to lose", i.e. the game condition that loses the normal game will win you the misère game. Of course, since your opponent(s) are also trying to "lose", it can be just as hard as the normal game. Indeed, some game states / hands / etc. may be favorable in both the normal game and the misère game (or unfavorable in both).

* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyX''. Operation Mi-ihen early on is a villainous example of one. At first it seems like a CooperationGambit between the Maesters of Yevon, the Crusaders, and Al-Bhed to defeat Sin without the use of a Summoner. Utilizing weaponized Machina with the Crusader forces, with the blessing of Yevon's leaders even though it is a terrible taboo and all those participating are excommunicated. It becomes apparent shortly before the operation commences that the Maesters do not believe there is any chance of it working. The result is the utter decimation of Crusader forces and Al-Bhed Machina, leaving spectators and survivors with a sense that straying from Yevon's teachings was their downfall. Auron puts it something to the effect of sending the heretics to die and being left with only the faithful.
* Twisting the trope around to the very beginning of the game, ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' sees the series BigBad Sigma launching a spontaneous attack that X and Zero thwart before anything's even really happened. Except he was intending on this, as the body's explosion causes a rapid spread of the very virus that composes Sigma, infection spreading across the Earth and driving Reploids mad, and thus producing Sigma's Maverick forces for this entry without lifting a finger. If that wasn't bad enough, it was also the signal for Dynamo to perform a ColonyDrop of the genocided Eurasia space colony, throwing the Earth into its greatest crisis yet.

* ''VideoGame/MarioParty'':
** Sometimes you will want to lose a minigame on purpose. This may seem counter-intuitive... but if you're teamed up with a player who's on the lead in stars and is just short of coins to buy the next one after the minigame, you might want to make them lose by letting yourself be beaten as well. This way your teammate won't get too far ahead on the lead, which is a pretty neat outcome in exchange for declining 10 coins.
** ''VideoGame/MarioParty9'': One potential outcome of landing on a Bowser Space is having all players take part in a Reverse Minigame. These take an existing minigame, but the goal is to deliberately come in last, such as being the last player to reach the bottom in Chain Event or being the first player to get eliminated in Billistics. The "winner" will receive ten Mini-Stars for their trouble.
* In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfKyrandia Malcolm's Revenge]]'', you end up playing TabletopGame/TicTacToe against the fish queen, and the only way to progress is to lose (and convince her that she won fairly), or she'll insist on a rematch. Unfortunately she's such a terrible player (the game makes intentionally counterproductive moves) that it's actually a challenge to lose.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'', this is [[spoiler:[[EvilChancellor Osborne's]] plan to get rid of the curse of Erebonia for good. By painting himself as the biggest target, he ends up making sure that he would fall so that the source of the curse, who is possessing him because the curse chose him to be [[TheChosenOne his chosen one]], will disappear from the world for good. It also involves his son, TheHero, to actually do the deed since Rean's quest in ''Cold Steel IV'' is to gather all of the seven divine knights' powers and complete the Great One in order to destroy Ishmelga for good. He succeeds in the GoldenEnding.]]
* In ''VideoGame/PapersPlease'', one [[ScriptedEvent scripted entrant]] presents their paperwork as usual, and it's all in order...and then they bribe you with money to stamp their passport with a denial stamp and refuse them entry, as they found better work elsewhere and wants a documented reason to abort their job and come back home. Denying them access will get you the money promised, but your employer will issue a citation for refusing entry to a valid applicant.

** Also Tobi's plan in the original manga. [[spoiler:He pulls Kakashi and himself into Kamui, isolating the two of them from the rest of the fighting and enter with him into battle in order to remove Madara's seal as it prevented him from becoming the Ten Tails Jinchuuriki. So he allowed Kakashi [[DeliberateInjuryGambit hitting him in the heart]], to remove Madara's seal and become Jinchuuriki.]]

Let's face it. Sometimes a villain's (and occasionally even a hero's) great big, all-encompassing master plan can be... [[ComplexityAddiction a little convoluted]]. It might not even make complete sense even after it's finally been thoroughly explained, maybe through a series of flashbacks, at the end of the day. But it's a special kind of deviant who is able to conjure a plan so incredibly obtuse that it hinges on their own defeat, and will inevitably fail [[SpringtimeForHitler should they happen to win.]] Somehow, some way, someone has managed to twist the plot completely on its ass to the point that the only way for them to win is to lose, and the only way to lose is to win. That MagnificentBastard.

* Throwing a match by faking incompetence or pain while playing, then cashing in on all the assets their business partners made betting on the other guy. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book, probably ever since losing stopped equaling death on the battlefield. Note that this doesn't really work in the big leagues, as players have a salary that could make a CEO blush, while witnessed by millions of viewers (both in and out of game, so making behind-the-scenes deals is near-impossible), and thousands of sports experts that can spot a fake-out in a split-second.
* This is the basic idea behind the concept of "tanking" in professional sports. See, at least in North American professional sports, a lower record means an earlier chance to pick new players every year out of college, which is supposed to result in better players and a chance to restock a failing roster. This is usually done by middling teams that can't get over the hump or bad teams that aren't quite bad enough to net a top pick. Teams also have two ways to tank: either by not giving full effort in games or by blowing up an existing roster by cutting and/or trading most of the top-end talent. Either way, the result is a bad roster built to lose lots of games. The first method is usually met by derision by fanbases and observers but is also fairly rare and difficult to prove. The second method is more accepted, as it can happen involuntarily due to salary cap restrictions, but is liable to turn sour if it doesn't lead to a winning team within a few years.

* More generally, the class of games known as "misère games", where the rules of a game are altered so that it's "played to lose", i.e. the game condition that loses the normal game will win you the misère game.

* There are a handful of seemingly counterintuitive business strategies where products are sold at a loss that end up leading to other forms of stimulation that result in more long-term profitability than if they just had a higher starting price. The "loss leader" strategy involves selling a product at a loss in order to attract (or "lead" in) customers to other products with higher profit margins, with common examples being grocery stories and supermarkets (ever wonder why so many stores place cheap bananas at the entrances? This is why!). The "razor-and-blades" model involves selling a primary item at a cheap price in order to increase sales of a complementary good, with the name coming from an apocryphal catchphrase about shaving razors: "Give 'em the razor; sell 'em the blades" (this is also found with other products like video game consoles -- console manufactures often sell consoles at a loss, but make up through the sales of video games that they license for release).

'''[-WARNING: This trope is often an EndingTrope, and thus its examples contain many spoilers. Unmarked spoilers. You have been warned.-]'''

* This is the idea behind a "loss leader": selling a product at a loss in order to draw customers to other products and make a net profit.

* ''Videogame/MetalGearSolid''. In the first installment, Solid Snake's goal is to shut down Metal Gear REX using a special key delivered to him by Otacon. Liquid Snake and his forces had, at this point, spent much of the game trying to retrieve this key from Solid Snake in order to prevent him from shutting down REX. In actuality, the key is the device that launches REX, and Liquid had counted on Solid Snake to make it through his forces and attempt to shut down REX, thus activating it. The reason it counts as this trope is that Liquid thought the device required ''three'' keys, and it turns out Solid Snake's key ''was'' all three[[note]]It was a shape-memory alloy key that changed shape with certain extreme temperatures[[/note]]...and while Solid Snake eventually learned how the key worked, Liquid didn't know anything about it, so he still had to depend on Solid Snake unlocking the launch sequence because Liquid couldn't do it himself.

* ''LightNovel/HeavyObject''. The Northern Restricted Zone is home to several prototype superweapons which all fail soon after deployment due to flaws in their design. This is an intentional gambit by the four officers overseeing the Zone. The home countries want proof that no other weapon can rival Objects on the battlefield, so the officers develop superweapons whose failure act as that proof. This ensures the home nations continue to funnel money into the Zone, which the officers can skim off of while building yet more flawed machines.

* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}''. While his defeat in the first season of the Slayers anime was not necessarily intentional or foreseen, in ''Slayers Evolution-R'', the villain Rezo reveals that he intentionally set up a situation in which he would be defeated by Lina and the evil lord Shabranigdo sealed inside of him would be released. In true HeroicSacrifice style, he realized that this was the only way for the mighty demon lord to be erased from existence once and for all, making Rezo less of a villain at the end of the day.

* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', the "Level 6 Shift" experiment had [[WorldsStrongestMan Accelerator]] fighting clones of [[ShockAndAwe Mikoto]] in an attempt to have him [[DeityOfHumanOrigin exceed the limits of esper powers and become a god]]. When Mikoto and Touma get it shut down, the 10,000 surviving clones are sent to facilities around the world for treatments that will give them a normal human lifespan. Then it turns out that "sending clones of Mikoto around the world" was [[ManBehindTheMan Aleister]]'s true plan all along, since he can use their HiveMind to blanket the world in linked [[BackgroundMagicField AIM Fields]]; the Level 6 Shift project was just a smokescreen that let him do it without arousing suspicion. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed Aleister deliberately designs ''all'' of his plans this way because he's been "cursed to eternal failure", and thus the only way his true plans can succeed is by building on the failures of lesser plans.]]

* This is the core idea of ''Series/TedLasso'': the titular coach is hired to manage an English association football team, despite being an ''American'' football coach (and a minor-league one, at that) who doesn't know the rules of the game and has almost no familiarity with association football culture. As it turns out, the current owner of the team is the ex-wife of its former manager, and [[WomanScorned she wants to run the team into the ground as vengeance.]] This is a rather zigzagged case of SpringtimeForHitler, as, while Ted is a great coach who genuinely gives the effort his all, he's still well out of his area of expertise.

This presents an especially dangerous situation to their opponent, who is usually out of the loop on this grand master plan. After all, what can the unwitting hero do when beating the bad guy means ending the world, and losing will actually save it? Sometimes a character seeks to become a political martyr in order to inspire others to take action after their crippling defeat (InspirationalMartyr), others might be tied to some ultimate power which will unleash itself upon their death (MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning). Still others don't seem to make any sense until after the plan has played out successfully-- surprise! Turns out that ass-kicking you just gave them was all they needed to [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence transcend the mortal coil and become a god.]]

The bottom line is, this is what you get when a character deliberately sets out to fail for some intended positive outcome. The failure of such a plan -- that is, accidentally succeeding, or ''failing to fail'' -- results in a SpringtimeForHitler. Note that a scheme which has a beneficial outcome for the schemer whether he/she succeeds ''or'' fails is not an example of this trope, but of a XanatosGambit. In order to qualify here, the plan must be thought of well in advance, and it must completely hinge on failure. Without the threat of the plan failing if one fails to fail, it fails to qualify.

The inverse of this trope is a PyrrhicVictory -- a successful endeavor which ultimately results in an undesirable outcome, which is usually what the opposing party of a Failure Gambit planner experiences. GoneHorriblyRight also arguably qualifies. A Failure Gambit often overlaps with ILetYouWin. A character who plans on taking harm in such a plan overlaps with DeliberateInjuryGambit. A character seeking to end his or her own life with such a plan also falls under SuicideByCop, as well as ThanatosGambit.

** The final game turns into this: [[spoiler:with both surviving teams tied at 1 hit point each, neither team can attack the other without dropping their hit points to 0. Under the game rules, nobody can win the prize money anymore... so Akiyama suggests that they use a loophole and perform a filibuster. Since the Liar Game office officially stated that any lie told by the sponsors means paying everyone in the game a huge sum of money, and they said that the game would not kill anyone and would have a winning team, that means they could hold out with food supplies and force the sponsors into paying the lie penalty]]. So basically, they created a situation where failure is the only option, ''but that failure is now directed towards the game sponsors''.

* ''Fanfic/PlatinumPirate'': After Crocodile realizes that Lucas and his team are too powerful to defeat, and that Smoker, whom Lucas is in contact with, knows his plans and is in the process of exposing him, Crocodile [[KnowWhenToFoldEm discards Operation Utopia]], reorganizing all of his resources for Operation Prometheus, which boils down to finding the Poneglyph, stealing it, and then escaping the country before anyone is the wiser. And the most important factor of this plan? Crocodile losing, lulling the good guys into a false sense of security. While everyone else thinks that the war is over, Mr. 3 infiltrated Smoker's Marines to pull a mass jailbreak and Robin is coercing King Cobra into leading her to the Poneglyph on pain of blowing up the city, with Mr. 2 posing as King Cobra and the Mr. 4 team building a tunnel to steal the Poneglyph away underground. If it weren't for Mr. 2 having an attack of conscience and revealing the plan, Alubarna would have been destroyed and Crocodile would have gotten away with nobody the wiser.

* In ''WesternAnimation/Cars2'', oil baron Sir Miles Axelrod's attempted ploy. He staged an incident where he was lost in the wilderness and converted into an electric car when he emerged alive, and created an oil-free fuel named Allinol to take regular fuel's place and featured it as the only fuel type in his own World Grand Prix. During said Grand Prix, cars that used Allinol as fuel and were targeted with a special microwave would burst into flames and exit the competition, creating bad publicity that would "force" Axelrod back into the oil business and kill the fledgling oil substitute industry, allowing big oil to stay on top. [[SpannerInTheWorks But then Mater happened.]]

* ''Film/ShotCaller'': Jacob deliberately uses Shotgun's cellphone to tip off the authorities about the illegal weapons deal taking place in the Salton Sea. He gets arrested and refuses any deal they throw at him to inform on his bosses, going back to prison specifically to confront the Aryan Brotherhood leader and replace him.

* ''Series/MyNameIsEarl''. In an early episode, Earl's El Camino is impounded with the bulk of his lottery winnings in the glove compartment. To get it back, he tries to help Randy get back into high school football and then bet on the game. Randy plays, but his team unfortunately loses. Earl then wonders what he's going to do, until Randy drives up in the El Camino. It turns out that he had made a bet as well...against his own team.

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'': Pirates board Moya while searching for a former colleague, who has gone with D'Argo to rescue Aeryn and Crichton from the pirates' net. The pirates avoid deadly force because Moya is pregnant and they fear her retribution, so they set up camp and wait. Rygel accepts a challenge from the lead pirate to play a strategy game that involves lots of betting and bluffing, and ultimately he wagers the location of their quarry. Despite Zhaan's psychic attempts to help Rygel win, he loses the game and forfeits the intel, and the pirates go on their way. Afterwards Rygel laments to Zhaan how hard it was ''to'' lose convincingly, because his opponent was an abominable player; he knew the pirates would never leave empty-handed and had planned all along to trick them into leaving with fake coordinates.

* ''Videogame/BaldursGateII'': during the cutscene at the end of chapter 1, the BigBad Irenicus is seen using his powerful magic to destroy the Shadow Thieves. However, he is in Athkatla, where magic is illegal, and the combat conjures wizard enforcers that strike back and invite to "you will cease your spellcasting and come with us; even if we fall, our numbers are many, you will be overwhelmed". Irenicus accepts to surrender, at the condition that Imoen is arrested too, since she casted a magic missile on him. Irenicus knows that he will be brought to the distant asylum of Spellhold, which he can easily take over from the inside and use to set up a more efficient operational base for his plans (which include Imoen as well). And he knows that the player character will do anything to take revenge on him and/or rescue Imoen, falling in his trap.

* In ''VideoGame/TownOfSalem'', the Jester's win condition is to get lynched by the town. The most common tactic to win is to convince town that you're evil (say, a Serial Killer or Mafia member) and therefore someone who should be lynched, which is game over for literally ''any other role''.

** ''VideoGame/MarioParty9'': One potential outcome of landing on a Bowser Space is having all players take part in a Reverse Minigame. These take an existing minigame, but the goal is to deliberately come in last, such as being the last player to reach the bottom in Chain Event, or being the first player to get eliminated in Billistics. The "winner" will receive ten Mini-Stars for their trouble.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'', this is [[spoiler:[[EvilChancellor Osborne's]] plan to get rid of the curse of Erebonia for good. By painting himself as the biggest target, he ends up making sure that he would fall so that the source of the curse, who is possessing him because the curse chose him to be [[TheChosenOne his chosen one]], will disappear from the world for good. It also involves his son, TheHero, to actually do the deed since Rean's quest in ''Cold Steel IV'' is to gather all of the seven divine knights powers and complete the Great One in order to destroy Ishmelga for good. He succeeds in the GoldenEnding.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': In "Operation E.N.D.", the recently turned teenager Chad Dickson, Numbuh 274, tries to send the entire Moon Base hurtling into the sun to prevent the knowledge of his aging out of the KND from leaking. Numbuh 1's quick thinking manages to prevent the plan, and Chad is slated to be decommissioned. Immediately afterward, Cree Lincoln arrives where Chad was being held, culminating a multi-episode XanatosGambit to send the Moon Base into the sun, but when Chad reveals he just tried and failed that, she immediately gives up and leaves, taking Chad with her. We only learn in the penultimate episode that Chad had known about Cree's plan from the very beginning, and used this gambit to not only save the Moon Base but also become a deep, ''deep''-cover mole in the KND's enemies.

* ''Westernanimation/SouthPark''. In one episode, Satan fights Jesus, and intentionally takes a dive after the people of the town have all bet on his victory due to his overwhelming physical advantage. He then reveals that he made a fortune by being the one and only person to bet on Jesus winning, all according to plan.

* One tax dodge attempted by someone who was more-or-less broke was to sign a note saying they had borrowed a large amount of money, say $100,000, while only really receiving a fraction of this, say $10,000. They then declare bankruptcy on the $100,000. The person who has the note now has a legitimately non-collectable debt, and can claim the full $100,000 as a loss on their tax return even though all they really loaned the person was $10,000.
* Throwing a match by faking incompetence or pain while playing, then cashing in on all the assets their business partners made betting on the other guy. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book, probably ever since losing stopped equaling death on the battlefield. Note that this doesn't really work in the big leagues, as players have a salary that could make a CEO blush, while witnessed by millions of viewers (both in and out of game, so making behind-the-scenes deals is near-impossible) and thousands of sports experts that can spot a fake-out in a split-second.
* This is the basic idea behind the concept of "tanking" in professional sports. See, at least in North American professional sports, a lower record means an earlier chance to pick new players every year out of college, which is supposed to result in better players and a chance to restock a failing roster. This is usually done by middling teams that can't get over the hump or bad teams that aren't quite bad enough to net a top pick. Teams also have two ways to tank: either by not giving full effort in games, or by blowing up an existing roster by cutting and/or trading most of the top-end talent. Either way, the result is a bad roster built to lose lots of games. The first method is usually met by derision by fanbases and observers, but is also fairly rare and difficult to prove. The second method is more accepted, as it can happen involuntarily due to salary cap restrictions, but is liable to turn sour if it doesn't lead to a winning team within a few years.

* In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfKyrandia Malcolm's Revenge]]'', you end up playing tic-tac-toe against the fish queen, and the only way to progress is to lose (and convince her that she won fairly), or she'll insist on a rematch. Unfortunately she's such a terrible player (the game makes intentionally counterproductive moves) that it's actually a challenge to lose.