History Main / XanatosGambit

* The [[MedievalStasis Symphony City]] cutscene of ''[[Videogame/HarmoKnight HarmoKnight]]'' has a Xanatos Gambit in some sort of fashion.
** Either [[FiveManBand Tempo and his partners]] [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny get distracted by the princess's song]], where a few seconds later, she gets kidnapped, or they run into the castle to tell her what's wrong. But they are too slow, and [[NotSoFastBucko by the time they get there, she is already kidnapped]]. Meaning that either way, [[BigBad Gargan]] succeeds in kidnapping the princess.

* In one of Brian Jacques' {{Redwall}} books - precisely which one has slipped this troper's mind - a fierce but rather unintelligent bird guards a river and doesn't let any boats pass by unless the captain beats him in a game. The principle is pretty similar to flipping a coin; one half of a tossed pebble is wet, the other dry, and whoever correctly predicts which side lands face-up wins. One protagonist, of course, successfully pulls a Xanatos Gambit on the bird by telling him, "Dry side, I win. Wet side, you lose." The bird is stupid enough to fall for it and the heroes sail on by.

* On a more benign level, when asked about the failed experiments to develop a light bulb, Thomas Edison stated that he didn't fail, he discovered 200 ways to NOT design a light bulb.

** To explain it little further: Kyubey was aiming for the Witch System in the rebooted reality, but only got the Wraith System. He didn't quite understand why the Witch System wasn't working like it supposed to, but even with that setback, the Wraith System kicked in as an unexpected substitute. So even with the rules of the Universe remade, Kyubey got an energy collection system.

Rau Le Creuset from ''Anime/GundamSeed'': [[spoiler:everyone dies, he wins; Earth Forces lose, he's with ZAFT - he wins. ZAFT loses, he was The Mole giving info to the Earth Forces - he wins. Kira Yamato kills him - he has {{Clone Blues}} and wants to die anyway, he wins]]

** In the Imaginationland Trilogy, [[TheChessmaster terrorists]] try to destroy the collective imagination by pitting the Good characters and Evil characters (who were separated from each other and minding their business until the terrorist attack) against each other, [[KillEmAll hoping both sides would be wiped out.]] By Part II, however, after the terrorists are killed, it becomes a blatant Good vs. Evil battle with full sport of the Good characters, who actually win the war [[BackFromTheDead (and dead good characters are revived)]] despite the terrorists' hopes of no victor, while the Evil characters are imprisoned. [[ObviouslyEvil Sure they are obviously Evil characters,]] [[MagnificentBastard but the terrorists supported neither them nor the Good characters, and were willing get both sides killed.]]

* In the old Armenian tale ''[[Literature/TheLiarFolktale The Liar]]'', a king offers a golden apple to anyone who can tell him a lie he won't believe. Many try and fail until a peasant enters his throne room and tells the king that he owes him money. The king calls the peasant a liar. Thus, the king is forced to either give the peasant the golden apple, or the money the peasant claims the king owes him.

** "There! Diagonally!"

[-[[caption-width-right:350:ThePlan is to stab you five times with MortonsFork.There is a solution: [[spoiler: Take the MacGuffin from the villain, use it to command the dragon to destroy the villain and the villain's army. The villain and his army have now been defeated and the dragon is under your control.]]]]-]

* In The Seventh Edition of DynastyWarriors, The Battle of Mt. Ding Jun is this for Wei and Cao Cao. If they defeat Shu they prevent them from gaining a foothold into Hanzhong. But if Shu wins (which they do in Real Life) then they have stretched their resources too thin and can't send aid to Guan Yu at Fan Castle, especially when Wu takes the side of Wei during it.

* In The Seventh Edition of Dynasty Warriors, The Battle of Mt. Ding Jun is this for Wei and Cao Cao. If they defeat Shu they prevent them from gaining a foothold into Hanzhong. But if Shu wins (which they do in Real Life) then they have stretched their resources too thin and can't send aid to Guan Yu at Fan Castle, especially when Wu takes the side of Wei during it.

[-[[caption-width-right:350:ThePlan is to stab you five times with MortonsFork.]]-]

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'': [[spoiler:Wheatley]] goes out of his way to anticipate every possible point of failure during the FinalBoss fight, having studied the FinalBoss fight of ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' and taken appropriate countermeasures. Being an idiot, he [[BossArenaIdiocy exposes a whole new sets of weaknesses while doing so]], but what elevates it to a Xanatos Gambit (and his crowning moment of being DangerouslyGenreSavvy) is that he anticipates the possibility that Chell could ''win''. The only things that stop him from being victorious are Chell's status as a {{Determinator}} and a ChekhovsGun he could not possibly have known about.
-->[[spoiler:'''Wheatley:''']] Four-part plan is this. One, no portal surfaces. Two, start the neurotoxin immediately. Three, bomb-proof shields for me, leading directly into number four: bombs. For throwing at ''you''.\\
[[spoiler:PART FIVE! [[BoobyTrap BOOBY TRAP]] THE STALEMATE BUTTON!]]
%% Wheatley being blown up by the facility is NOT a subversion in this context. Wheatley had two separate and exclusive goals: fix the facility and kill you. The killing you part is the XanatosGambit. And it only fails because Chell is MadeOfIron.

* [[MagnificentBastard Sauron]] pulls one of these against [[UnwittingPawn Ar-Pharazôn of Númenor]] in ''TheSilmarillion''. By goading Pharazôn into assembling the largest army in history and setting out to make war on [[CouncilOfAngels the Valar]], he sets up his defeat nicely by pitting him against opponents far beyond his league. In the unlikely event that Pharazôn actually wins, Sauron's still ahead, as the Valar are his enemies as well. Overall, things go very smoothly (sure, Sauron loses his physical body when Ilúvatar destroys not the the fleet, but the entire island of Númenor, but it was just an [[FightingAShadow avatar]], so Sauron's spirit survives and most of the Númenoreans die). Pity for him that not ''all'' the Númenoreans were dead, though...

** [[spoiler: In ZEXAL, there's also Dr. Faker's Sphere Field and Sphere Field Cannon that takes all of Yuma's , Vetrix's and Kite's (Vetrix had them at that point) Numbers for himself. He didn't even Duel for them at the first place. ]]

* [[MagnificentBastard Sauron]] pulls one of these against [[UnwittingPawn Ar-Pharazon of Numenor]] in ''TheSilmarillion''. By goading Pharazon into assembling the largest army in history and setting out to make war on [[CouncilOfAngels the Valar]], he sets up his defeat nicely by pitting him against opponents far beyond his league. In the unlikely event that Pharazon actually wins, Sauron's still ahead, as the Valar are his enemies as well. Overall, things go very smoothly (sure, Sauron loses his physical body when Illuvatar destroys not the the fleet, but the entire island of Numenor, but it was just an [[FightingAShadow avatar]], so Sauron's spirit survives and most of the Numenoreans die). Pity for him that not ''all'' the Numenoreans were dead, though...

* In SoulCalibur 3's mode "Chronicles of the Sword", Chester pulls off one of these. By enticing the factions to fighting each other, he manages to oust the king of one, taking his place. The truth of the matter is that he would have won, [[spoiler: having manipulated much more than just one faction, and managing to deprive you, the main advancing force who is one of the best, of reinforcements and rest from your own king without actually having him outright try to kill you,]] but because you were such a good fighter, you overcame EVERY enemy that he threw at you to prevent you from becoming a wrench in his plans, and he still manages to take the place of a king despite you being better than expected.

** There was nothing informal about it. The USSR partitioned Poland according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact together with the Reich, as well as sending them resources until 1941. Barbarossa was such a massive initial succes because Stalin didn't believe that Hitler would be stupid enough to break the pact and cut off one of the Reich's major supply lines.

* Queen Chrysalis' plan as revealed in issue #3 of ''ComicBook/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicIDW'' has elements of this. [[spoiler:Stealing Twilight's magic would of course be her best scenario, but putting the bearers of the Elements against each other, or allowing her minions to have taken over Ponyville would have their benefits too. Further, in issues #4, she forces Twilight to either choose to go free and let the Changelings at her friends and the CMC trapped in their pods, or to have Twilight join her as her servant while letting her friends free. The catch on the latter is that Chrysalis still holds back the friends after Twilight takes this option, anticipating that once she's drained Twilight's love for them, Twilight herself would be the one to destroy them. Chrysalis' plan is only fails when the magic from the comet gives a ''bigger'' boost to Twilight than it does to Chrysalis, allowing Twilight to defeat her.]]