"You'd need to be God to plan all that, dood."
— Prinny commentary, Disgaea
"Or are you suggesting that I am somehow able to manipulate coincidence?"
— Kristoph Gavin, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
"It's like you gathered together all the 'ifs' in the world for this lameass plan."
— Revy, Black Lagoon
"How can anyone, even skilled conspirators, predict with perfect accuracy the outcome of a car crash? How can they know in advance that a man will go to a certain pay phone at a certain time, so that he can see a particular truck he needs to see? How can the actions of security guards be accurately anticipated? Isn't it risky to hinge an entire plan of action on the hope that the police won't stop a car speeding recklessly through a downtown area?"
— Roger Ebert's review of Arlington Road
"You link all these events together, but the slightest accident might break the chain. The vulture might not fly over at the right moment, or it might fall a hundred yards away from the fishpond."
"That's precisely where the art lies: to be a great chemist in the East, you must direct chance. It can be done."
— Madame de Villefort and Edmond Dantes, The Count of Monte Cristo
"What plan?! [Circe] planned for Air Force One to be brought down, she planned to get knocked unconscious by Batman, she planned for the Bana to purportedly be the real enemy only they're not, thus making their entire sub-plot utterly, totally, completely worthless!"
— Linkara on Circe's "master plan" in Amazons Attack!
"You've taken all the puzzle pieces, scrambled them up, and slipped them in various people's pockets with the intent of later manipulating them to meet up and magically, in unison, pull a rabbit out of the ass of the fucking universe!"
"I know! It's going to be glorious!"
"I know! It's going to be glorious!"
— Monica and Jin, Wapsi Square
"[Palpatine's] grand plan was to cloud [the council's] judgment and trick them into letting Anakin go with Padme because he knew that he was gonna fall in love, get her pregnant, then have premonitions of future pregnancy complications resulting in her death so that Palpatine can tell Anakin that he can use the Dark Side to save her so that Anakin can become Darth Vader and help Palpatine rule the Empire. You'd think if this guy could see that far into the future he could just pick the lotto numbers; or maybe that's how he paid for the clones!"
"Any plan with more than four steps is not a plan, it is wishful thinking.”
— Dread Empress Maleficent II, A Practical Guide to Evil
"I KNEW that if I rigged this building to collapse, and then hid in the closet, and then fought with you, and then not really did that but caused the building to collapse anyway, you would eventually have to hoist it back up with your own body and become STUCK IN THE GROUND! NOW I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT TO YOU!!"
(Pi steps out of the ground)
— Mojo Nixon, "Princess Pi vs. Mojo Nixon"
Zhao: Well darn, it looks like I'm out of luck barring a sudden promotion, like the one arriving right now.
Colonel Shinu: What!? There's no way you could have timed this down to the second!
Zhao: Of course I can. I went to the Light Yagami School of Strategy. I can practically predict the future.
Colonel Shinu: What!? There's no way you could have timed this down to the second!
Zhao: Of course I can. I went to the Light Yagami School of Strategy. I can practically predict the future.
That was when Father had told Draco about the Rule of Three, which was that any plot which required more than three different things to happen would never work in real life.
Father had further explained that since only a fool would attempt a plot that was as complicated as possible, the real limit was two.
Draco couldn't even find words to describe the sheer gargantuan unworkability of Harry's master plan.
But it was just the sort of mistake you would make if you didn't have any mentors and thought you were clever and had learned about plotting by watching plays.
Father had further explained that since only a fool would attempt a plot that was as complicated as possible, the real limit was two.
Draco couldn't even find words to describe the sheer gargantuan unworkability of Harry's master plan.
But it was just the sort of mistake you would make if you didn't have any mentors and thought you were clever and had learned about plotting by watching plays.
This is a convoluted scheme you bring me. Convoluted; labyrinthine, even. A great many things must go precisely right if you're to deliver to me what's mine.
— Nicol Bolas (to Liliana Vess), Agents of Artifice
When drawing a marble in a bag of black marbles with a 1% chance of drawing the one white marble, Marble Phantasm is the ability to raise that chance to 100% and definitely pick the white one amongst all the black ones; this remains within the laws of the world.
— TYPE-MOON Wiki on Marble Phantasms in Nasuverse
in Nasuverse"If I could have planned for Celty randomly appearing here, I'd have dropped a meteor on your house ages ago."
— Izaya, Durarara!!
God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other playersnote , to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time...
— Good Omens (about how it works when actually justified)
"So naturally to acquire [some disks] he merely transported an entire Scottish castle to the top of a New York skyrise to acquire a collection of mythical creatures who he deceived with a destructive battle caused by a squad of highly trained mercenaries that he hired himself so that they would wind up performing the heist believing it was retribution and protection against the framed culprits! It was almost too easy!"
"Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design."
"So [Arthur Frayn's] plan was... herd a bunch of working class brits into, breeding someone genetically able to think on the Eternals level; lead him to a library. Hope, that he taught himself how to read properly. Hope, that he came across the one specific book that inspired the whole Zardoz shtick. Hope, that he would stow-away on the Zardoz head and shoot him. Then hope, that the head would crash back inside the vortex. Hope, that the other Eternals didn't kill him immediately, and teach them all that they know; in the hopes that he would figure out how to destroy the tabernacle and therefore all the Eternals. In other words, the exact kind of plan you expect for a man who draws on his goatee."
— Oancitizen's review of Zardoz
"Little Toa, you have not yet begun to see even the barest outlines of my plans. I have schemes within schemes that would boggle your feeble mind. You may counter one, but there are a thousand more of which you know nothing. Even my ... setbacks ... are planned for, and so I shall win in the end."
Okay, I'm officially calling black label bull*** on this movie. What is that? Well, it's when a movie's entire story is anchored to random acts of chance. They not only got Tressler to volunteer this information on the private jet, but then this wealthy businessman still uses stupid "personal questions" to unlock his sizeable bank account? No-one who makes hundreds of millions of dollars would leave such a glaring loophole for any asshole to log into his account. Not to mention the stupidity of leaving $140 million in a single bank account instead of investing it or diversifying it like any real rich person would do.
— CinemaSins on Now You See Me
Yes, thought Braniac, stroking his tarantula, Henri IV; now was the time to convince the Mayor he was telling the truth about the lies he had previously told, this time but not the last two times, except for the part about Joe and the daughter of the prison warden, unless the Mayor had not believed that before.
"M heads off to a public inquiry while Q attempts to hack into Silva's laptop. Silva calmly stretches in his cell... and what follows is the most convoluted scheme in the history of the Bond franchise.
Q accidentally stumbles into a trap on the laptop that screws up their computer systems and allows Silva to escape his cell. Silva kills all the guards off-screen, escapes through the London Underground, meets up with some goons who hand him a police uniform, evades Bond through the Underground and on a train and then the sewers (with the help of a bomb he planted just in case this chase happened and Bond caught up to him at this particular spot), crashes a train in the process, gets away because Bond chooses not to shoot him, and goes off to murder M at the inquiry he didn't even know was happening until now. Meanwhile, Q explains to Bond that Silva had been planning this for years and wanted to be caught, even though Severine, who was the one who brought Bond to Silva, was not in on this plan.
Did I mention that this film had three writers?"
Q accidentally stumbles into a trap on the laptop that screws up their computer systems and allows Silva to escape his cell. Silva kills all the guards off-screen, escapes through the London Underground, meets up with some goons who hand him a police uniform, evades Bond through the Underground and on a train and then the sewers (with the help of a bomb he planted just in case this chase happened and Bond caught up to him at this particular spot), crashes a train in the process, gets away because Bond chooses not to shoot him, and goes off to murder M at the inquiry he didn't even know was happening until now. Meanwhile, Q explains to Bond that Silva had been planning this for years and wanted to be caught, even though Severine, who was the one who brought Bond to Silva, was not in on this plan.
Did I mention that this film had three writers?"
a.If Superman survives, I'm screwed.
b.If Lois Lane survives, I'm screwed.
c.If Doomsday survives, I'm screwed, and so is the planet.
d.If any one thing in this impossibly intricate plan over which I have almost no control over anyone's actions goes wrong, I'm screwed.
b.If Lois Lane survives, I'm screwed.
c.If Doomsday survives, I'm screwed, and so is the planet.
d.If any one thing in this impossibly intricate plan over which I have almost no control over anyone's actions goes wrong, I'm screwed.
"...Plans that hinge on way too many factors are bound to succeed. Does the plan involve manipulating multiple nation states, stealing uniforms for a False Flag Operation, hijacking a nuke, framing numerous senators, running the largest Ponzi scheme in history to fund everything, infiltrating the CIA, and killing off the protagonist's parents in a car crash to stop their investigation into the conspiracy? Yeah, I can't see a single thing there that could go wrong even if the only way this plan would work is if The Conspiracy had precognition and funding equal to the GDP of a first world nation."
Eventually the plot becomes about a sinister scheme by an elitist cult to kidnap girls. A scheme that hinges on the use of elaborate stagecraft to convince a young boy that he's on a spaceship and then encourage him not to do the things that make the ship kidnap girls, thus ensuring that he will do them through reverse psychology. Who came up with this plan, Heath Ledger's Joker?!?
So we roll the dice,
See where they may fall
Come on, why don't we spin the wheel
See whom it may call
(To) Give into temptation
(To) Win it
(Or) Maybe lose it all
Who knows
Where the whims of fate may lead us
See where they may fall
Come on, why don't we spin the wheel
See whom it may call
(To) Give into temptation
(To) Win it
(Or) Maybe lose it all
Who knows
Where the whims of fate may lead us
— Whims of Fate, Persona 5
"There is one of Dorothy Sayers' [works] in which a man is murdered alone at night in his house by a mechanically released weight which works because he always turns the radio on at just such a moment, always stands in just such a position in front of it, and always bends over just so far. A couple of inches either way and the customers would get a rain check. This is what is vulgarly known as having God sit in your lap; a murderer who needs that much help from Providence must be in the wrong business."
— Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder
The G-Man made a deal with Adam to have him impersonate Gordon Freeman and beat Mitchell half to death, I guess just counting on Mitchell swearing blood vengeance on Freeman for attacking him in self-defense. He then made Mitchell a deal to help him raise an army in exchange for helping him kill Freeman someday. He also made a deal with Boris to keep him and his daughter Sasha alive after Alaska in exchange for installing Sasha as the Combine's spy in the resistance. I guess the G-Man just counted on Mitchell being a dumbass and never joining the resistance and thus running into the real Gordon Freeman.
20 years later, the G-Man sends Mitchell to kill Freeman. I guess he just hoped Mitchell would be a douche willing to kill the resistance, and I guess he just also hoped he'd join up with the Combine, who I guess he just hoped would agree to work with him for literally no reason, all so the Combine would know who Mitchell is before he goes off. He then I guess just hoped that Mitchell would never come close to the actual Gordon Freeman — maybe he had Boris intentionally send him to the wrong place, I don't know — but he also just hoped that Mitchell would somehow end up alone with Sasha away from the Combine's forces, then have Adam assassinate Sasha to pin it on Mitchell. From there, I guess he just hoped that the Combine would get super mad at Mitchell, despite the fact that he's also wiped out the resistance on their behalf.
Now the Combine are sending a huge army to kill Mitchell for revenge, which I guess the G-Man just hoped would happen, which will clear out City 17 enough for the real Gordon Freeman to do a vital mission in the city.
Yes, the payoff to this 23-year long plan that would've completely fallen apart if any of the main players had a functioning brain between them... was to create one distraction to make the Combine leave a city for a few hours!
Maybe I have to be a Half-Life fan to understand, but are there not about 50,000 easier plans the G-Man could've gone with? You didn't need three separate deals and an elaborate conspiracy to send Mitchell on an all-consuming revenge quest! You could've just picked out any guy in the Seven-Hour War, told him "I'll help you raise an army if you lead a crucial battle in 23 years", and had that army attack a Combine facility to draw them away from City 17. It's almost like the G-Man's entire "plan" was yanked out of the writer's ass to try and make it look like the plot makes a remote shred of sense after the fact!
20 years later, the G-Man sends Mitchell to kill Freeman. I guess he just hoped Mitchell would be a douche willing to kill the resistance, and I guess he just also hoped he'd join up with the Combine, who I guess he just hoped would agree to work with him for literally no reason, all so the Combine would know who Mitchell is before he goes off. He then I guess just hoped that Mitchell would never come close to the actual Gordon Freeman — maybe he had Boris intentionally send him to the wrong place, I don't know — but he also just hoped that Mitchell would somehow end up alone with Sasha away from the Combine's forces, then have Adam assassinate Sasha to pin it on Mitchell. From there, I guess he just hoped that the Combine would get super mad at Mitchell, despite the fact that he's also wiped out the resistance on their behalf.
Now the Combine are sending a huge army to kill Mitchell for revenge, which I guess the G-Man just hoped would happen, which will clear out City 17 enough for the real Gordon Freeman to do a vital mission in the city.
Yes, the payoff to this 23-year long plan that would've completely fallen apart if any of the main players had a functioning brain between them... was to create one distraction to make the Combine leave a city for a few hours!
Maybe I have to be a Half-Life fan to understand, but are there not about 50,000 easier plans the G-Man could've gone with? You didn't need three separate deals and an elaborate conspiracy to send Mitchell on an all-consuming revenge quest! You could've just picked out any guy in the Seven-Hour War, told him "I'll help you raise an army if you lead a crucial battle in 23 years", and had that army attack a Combine facility to draw them away from City 17. It's almost like the G-Man's entire "plan" was yanked out of the writer's ass to try and make it look like the plot makes a remote shred of sense after the fact!
wait! You mean you use spec ops soldier whose face I never see to beat me to actually death but then resurect me and make that boy my best fren only so that sevanteen year later you both culd use me to make it so freeman was always play on easy mode, even tho combins actually dont care about me and all I did was be on boat for two decade and be frame for kill one spy? BASTARD! Oldest trick in book, under my nose hole time!
— Moint Pan, Half Life: Side Story: Gaiden: HUNT DOWN FREE MAN, parodying the plot of Hunt Down the Freeman.
Rogal Dorn: I do not see a plan. I only see terrible decisions being made.
The Emperor: This plan is entirely based on terrible decisions being made.
Rogal Dorn: I am... confused.
The Emperor: This plan is entirely based on terrible decisions being made.
Rogal Dorn: I am... confused.
Oh, you don't actually expect me to believe you planned that?
