Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Needs Help
, started by Hello83433 on Nov 18th 2020 at 1:59:36 PM
Would someone tell me what trope this would fall under, given how unpredictable most factors are, the OOC-ness involved in some of them, and other stupidity involved in others?
- The antagonists plans in Cries Unheard (a Lucky Star fanfic) could have been pulled off successfully, and they'd still be alive, if they had been a lot smarter about it instead of relying on everything preceding their only-inevitable demises to fall favorably for them. How does Satoshi know that Minami and her friends won't suspect him, charming as he may have been the previous day, of killing her dog Cherry? How does Riku know Kagami won't drop her infatuation for him and slap him for touching her hair, or suspect him of stalking her when she takes Tsukasa out shopping? Kagami and Tsukasa's real character dictates that there should not have been any tension between them that did result from Kagami "ignoring" her (read: Tsukasa just standing on the sidelines and feeling sorry for herself or thinking that Kagami doesn't love her anymore just because she's got a boyfriend now), which in turn would negate Kenji's efforts to keep those two on any questionable terms. What drives Satoshi to obtain security information from Miyuki about her father's company (which she even mentions only overhearing from said father, Jiro, himself)? How does Kenji know that Minoru (or anyone, for that matter) isn't gonna report what he and Brick did to him to the police? How does he manage to stab Konata in the back in the middle of a crowded summer festival, without her either dying or screaming, and without anyone freaking out at such an act of violence or even batting an eye at some guy carrying a girl's limp body around? How do he and Riku know that Misao and her family isn't gonna wonder what's going on with them and Konata while both parties are out camping next to eachother, or that Misao, who has no one yet to lose, isn't gonna scream for her family's help while being raped, or that said family isn't gonna either step in or identify them for the police? How do those boys know Nanako wouldn't survive a car wreck courtesy of some severed brake cables (and they'd just have one more victim to "work on" if she did survive)? How do they know that none of their secondary victims have friends that their primary ones have never even met, who could step in at a moment's notice once they caught wind of everything before being found out about? How do they know that Kagami will either dismiss Misao's complaints of being raped or let them go when they continue to gaslight her? How do they know Kagami will eventually give them sex, when the world is full of people who will do no such thing under any circumstances except marriage? How do they know that Soujiro and Yui will not suspect anything from Konata's aloofness of late or Yutaka's absence for several weeks straight? How do they know none of their own cohorts will start to feel too overwhelmed from whole thing to continue, and either kill himself to avoid prison or just surrender himself and rat on his fellow Yakuza? Really, Satoshi could have just taken some nude footage that he takes of Miyuki, threatened Jiro with it for the information he needs, and left everyone else alone. One thing goes wrong, which evidently does happen eventually, and the whole operation is fucked. Combined with the stupidity of some of the protagonists regarding things like Minami's dog and Tsukasa and Kagami's relationship, any shred of willing suspension of disbelief at this point is obviously long gone, and there's even a certain What If? fic that shows what would have really happened only the second morning in, rendering everything that originally followed a moot point.
Basically, the author wants you to assume that the antagonists get by (at least for as long as they do, before several of their victims finally kill them) due to sheer genius, but we can tell at this point that they only kept lucking out for a whole month straight before biting the dust.
To be fair, though, they are yakuza, and it's possible that they have others carrying some things offpage; one of the onpage antagonists is even called in only partway through the fic. But even then, there are only so many members of the yakuza, compared to the rest of the Japanese population that they'd eventually have to manage had they survived for even longer, and that says nothing about each individual involved still having to do everything they can to simply save themselves from arrest, which not only detracts from their real goal (i.e. to ship some illegal weapons out somewhere via Jiro's company, the reason Satoshi wanted certain information from Miyuki in the first place (as if it even pertains to her), for which he'd also have to keep her and all her friends divided before hoping to blackmail it from her), but would only get harder and harder the more people they end up having to keep divided and drive to either suicide or hikikomori. (Makes you wonder why they don't just kill them outright, considering the sheer workload involved, the already high risk of life in prison, and the fact that dead people cannot contact authorities while anyone still alive could that either stops caring about everything at stake or has yet to even be accounted for.)
Edited by SeaRover
Is it possible to pull a Batman Gambit on yourself? As in, basing the plan on their own human nature. Furthermore, can it be combined with a Suicide by Cop if it invokes a particularly deadly form of their Berserk Button, to make a Thanatos Gambit?
Edited by 69.172.221.2 Hide / Show Replies
You can definitely pull a Batman Gambit on yourself if you are able to alter your own memories. The main character of the movie Total Recall (1990) does exactly that.
Edited by 75.182.67.118
If you know that you planned yourself to do that then it's simply a plan. If you don't know then it's Memory Gambit.
Major Monty the Straw Vulcan #7363
Would this count as a Social Engineering trope?
"We are the music makers, and the dreamers of the dream." Willy Wonka.
Does anyone else think this needs a better name? These days, Batman isn't well-known in popular culture for conducting schemes like the trope describes. And at least in recent works, he doesn't seem like much of a schemer (not more so than any other hero, anyway). In my opinion, the trope should be renamed with a more generic and more descriptive word/phrase in place of "Batman". Something like "Probable Outcome Gambit", but better-sounding.
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Thiss ite is for Nerds. It does annoy me that this trait is lacking from the films. I'm hoping he pulls one in TDKR.
Can't pretty much the whole plot of TDKR be considered a huge Batman Gambit? *WARNING: HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD* I mean with Batman it wouldn't be too far fetched to think that he has figured out who Miranda Tate is a loong time ago, and just used her (and Bane) as his "Exit Strategy"? This theory might be a little convoluted, so bear with me for a second: Batman makes sure that the thief hired to steal his prints is Catwoman, because he knows that she wants the software. Since he was the one who HAD the software in the first place, the idea would seem logical. Then, after Blake figures out his Identity, Bats knows he has a worthy successor, he sets up his will (mind that the will was set up with Batman EXPECTING to die soon, since he made sure his debts were covered) and puts his plan into motion. This would also explain why he made the BLATANT mistake of not inquiering more about the child (I mean really, it would take him a couple of hours talking to find out it was a girl)- he already knew about the childs true identity. Add in the reprogrammed autopilot and poof: we get a Batman Gambit par excellence
Would an example of this trope be a case of a Coming-Out Story, only invoked? Here's the plot:
- Bob actually wants his parents to throw him out of the house, and because they are from a conservative background, he believes that if he were to confess to them that he is gay, his parents would be horrified and throw him out. Of course, his parents actually don't do this, saying that as Catholics they would love him no matter what his orientation - in which case, it would be a subversion
Is not South Park: Scott Tenorman Must Die an example of this, with Cartman's laser-like calculation of the reactions of others essential to his revenge scheme?
GammaWALLE
[[Spoiler: Mater]] performs a rather impressive Batman Gambit [[Spoiler: Despite his reputation for lack of wit]] to get [[Spoiler: Axelrod]] to deactivate the Bomb on his snout.
Edited by Sol9000 Hide / Show Replies
Curses! it doesn't censor Spoilers in Discussion Pages! Guide Dang It!
sdmitch16
In the first 3 paragraphs and the Laconic page only explain that the Manipulative Bastard/ Chessmaster must manipulate for it to be Batman Gambit, making it seem that is the main difference from a Zanatos Gambit.
Will I be informed if people reply to my discussion post?
Duke of Dudes
East of Eden apparently came out in the 1950s. Batman debuted in 1939.
Would "Triple Takeover" in the "Transformers Generation 1" cartoons count? After a coup attempt by the Triple Changers Blitzwing and Astrotrain, Optimus Prime calls Megatron and Starscream "Mosquitoes" and said he wanted to speak to the REAL Leaders of the Decepticons (Blitzwing and Astrotrain). This gets Megatron so that he is intent on proving his right to be Decepticon Leader. He ends up taking on the Triple Changers, Devastator and Starscream in a battle royale with Megatron as the winner. Optimus restrains Ironhide from joining in or firing on them...and Ironhide is amazed at what happened. "I guess Prime was right. Megatron took care of the Decepticons for us."
I propose an interesting subtype of Batman Gambit: Escape by Feigning Escape. Examples: Indominous in Jurassic World and John Carter at the end of the eponymous film; I think there are many others I can't think of offhand. Someone is in a prison or blocked by a wall which its designers consider completely inescapable. The captive tricks them into thinking they've escaped; the captors predictably are baffled and investigate more closely or even open the door to get inside and see how the captive escaped, and the captive thereby exits the door, gets the needed key, or whatever to actually escape. I've never made a page here before so anyone who wants to develop this idea into a new trope page, be my guest.