"When there is a plan, things cannot go according to it. If they do, the plan becomes a spoiler."
The chances of The Plan succeeding are inversely proportional to how much of the plan the audience knows about beforehand.
As corollaries, you can ensure A Simple Plan's success by making it an unspoken plan, and guarantee failure by telling the audience the full details of the Zany Scheme. Expect to hear the phrase "I've got a plan" spoken by one of the characters with no further explanation before the cut to the next scene. Explaining The Plan after it's been carried out is optional.
This, by the way, is why heroes always manage to thwart the villains' Evil Plan. The villains always insist on boasting about their evil plan and how exactly they're going to pull it off.
Admittedly, the reason for revealing only failed plans to the audience is obvious. There's no drama in something going wrong if no one knows what was supposed to happen. Conversely, where's the drama in seeing exactly what you were just told would happen? The only exception is when the plan is Crazy Enough to Work; when every bullet point could Gone Horribly Wrong, then each success is a big, suspense-building deal. As a general rule of thumb, if things do go according to how the audience is told, you can expect that the characters are walking into a trap.
This often overlaps with The Law of Conservation of Detail — if a character mentions what they intend to do, rather than just letting us see what they do, it must be because their intention is relevant — which means that their intention and what actually occurs are different. Moreover, any mention of a "Plan A" implies the existence of a "Plan B," which would only be relevant if Plan A failed.
If the characters are keeping the plan a secret in-setting (rather than merely not letting the audience in on it), authors have a number of justifications handy. Perhaps the hero's allies are under enemy surveillance, or the bad guys can read minds. Perhaps they have other methods for making people talk. Maybe somebody on your team might be an enemy agent. If so, the only way to keep your opponents in the dark is to lie to the people on your side about what the plan is, or not tell them the plan at all.
A few other justifications include:
- The plan includes a deception, and the planner's allies aren't in on it so that their reactions to the apparent situation will be convincing.
- The plan must be enacted right now, or else it's guaranteed to fail. Thus, any time spent worrying is time that the planner's team can't afford to lose.
- The planner is cut off from his allies or doesn't have any allies in the first place, so there's no point in explaining it (unless he likes to talk to himself).
- The planner is making up the plan as he goes along; no sense trying to spell out a plan that's half-formed at best, and while it's being enacted at that.
- The planner's allies would refuse to help or even try to stop him if they knew what he planned to do. Perhaps his plan is unethical or extreme, or perhaps he intends to sacrifice himself and knows they wouldn't want that.
- The planner is relying on people behaving in a certain way, and letting the subject know that there's a plan at all will make them act differently; the planner, therefore, has to keep quiet about it.
- The planner wants to keep his allies out of it, either because he doesn't want them to get hurt or they're already banged up, and he knows they'd insist on helping anyway if they knew what he was doing. Or the plan is illegal, and the planner wants to be the only one who takes the fall while everyone else has plausible deniability.
Related to the above, there are a few snags that can crop up when this appears in a video game — since the audience is also often one of the executors of the plan, and giving a player a scenario to clear without telling them what they're supposed to do to clear it is a fast way to really annoy players.
See also Obstacle Exposition, Gambit Roulette, "I Know What We Can Do" Cut, Despite the Plan, Impossible Mission Collapse, This Is No Time for Knitting, and Blatantly Self-Defeating. This rule is sometimes violated as a form of Padding. If you want the plan to succeed the way it's explained, consider the Unfolding Plan Montage. Contrast Million to One Chance, where a plan is spoken of, expected by others to fail, yet succeeds. Some Mischievous Body Language may make it clear they have a plan, even if we don't hear it.
Can be undone by "The Villain Knows" Moment.
May contain spoilers.
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Advertising
- The "War of Wits" series of commercials for Halo Wars 2. We're given a narrated montage of how Cutter plans to outwit Atriox in a mundane situation, such as getting a car at a lower price or claiming the armrest at a plane, but Atriox always has the last laugh.
Asian Animation
- Most plans in BoBoiBoy are either not spoken or the planning scenes are skipped, sometimes with flashbacks to the planning scene once the plan works. Inverted in "Kidnapped!", where the only part the audience hear from Tok Aba's plan (let Adu Du capture Gopal) succeed, while the part the audience don't hear (Gopal is supposed to pretend to sleep, then get BoBoiBoy inside) failed.
Audio Plays
- Big Finish Doctor Who: Whatever the First Doctor's plan for defeating Kali Korash was in Tales from the Vault, it obviously worked. However, the listener never gets to hear it because the wax cylinder is so deteriorated that the recording fades out before Steven can explain it.
Ballads
- In Fause Foodrage, also inverted; the queen tells Wise William that if they exchange children, they will each raise the other's child properly and when they meet, exchange code words to ensure that they can tell that the child is doing well without being caught. Then it cuts to the time when Wise William tells the queen's son Secret Legacy.
- Tam Lin inverts this: he describes in great detail exactly what she is to do — and then we are told, in one verse, that she did exactly that. (Does prevent the repetition problem just as well.)
Comic Books
- Aggretsuko Meet Her Friends: In issue 2, Fenneko's plan to stop Anai's blackmail isn't explained at all to the reader before it begins. It's only near the end that we hear the basics, long after everyone else involved has played their part in arranging things to her liking.
- Odds are you'll find out Batman had X gadget after he's used it. Not before.
- In the Marvel Fear Itself crossover, we have yet to be told what Loki's plan for defeating the Serpent is (outside of the fact that he seems to be the only person with a plan at all and that it's a brains-over-brawn plan). Since we have no clue, it is therefore likely to succeed, according to this trope. And the fact that Loki is a Magnificent Bastard.
- Likewise, Odin's "destroy Earth to stop it" plan would never happen once they mentioned it (and because it would end the comic).
- Iron Man also had some sort of a plan here, and went to explain it to Odin in an effort to get him to not destroy Earth. It wasn't revealed until the finale, when he returned to Earth with a set of uru-forged weapons for all of the Avengers.
- Subversion: In The Sandman (1989) #22, Morpheus announces to the population of the Dreaming his plan to go to Hell. He mentions that he has "made certain plans" in case he is captured, but not what they are. However, he isn't captured, and the subject doesn't come up again.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): During the Eggman Empire arc, Nicole's plan is to have Sonic and the others charge to New Megalopolis and rescue everyone from the Egg Grapes. While that's happening, Tails and Nicole modify the teleportation beam that abducted everyone last time to a new area. All that is left is to keep everyone else out of the loop while Eggman thinks he'll win again. By the time the doctor realizes he has been played, it is already too late and everyone is warped to New Mobotropolis.
- X-Men teams frequently use telepathy to communicate privately; the "Breakworld" arc of Astonishing X-Men gleefully takes advantage of this to have them set up a plan without cluing in the reader at all. Not until after most of the plan has taken effect do we get to hear what they were really saying in that scene. In issue 22, they discuss the plan out loud. Then, in issue 23, that page is reprinted, but faded into the background and with a second telepathic conversation printed over it.
- The Unbelievable Gwenpool: No Fourth Wall Genre Savvy Gwen explains to the team her basic plan, but not the super-secret backup plan because she knows that plan will not work if she reveals it before the dramatically appropriate moment.
- In Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze's plan to defeat Lucifer is only revealed after he's delivered the penultimate blow, although the stage was set for the final confrontation a few issues previously.
- The Avengers: In The Kang Dynasty, Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man make a plan for him to break out of one of Kang's concentration camps that is not revealed until it has succeeded.
- Our Worlds at War: Superman uses J'onn's telepathy to concoct a plan and beam it right into Luthor, Steel, and Darkseid's brains, only asking them aloud over and over "Will it work?!" And since we have no idea what that plan is, then of course it does.
- The Ultimates (2024): Iron Lad and Doom outline their initial plan for the Ultimates in detail, despite Captain America warning them ahead of time it won't work. They implement it, and while we don't see all the results, we see their reaction. It really, really failed. (The fact it's the first issue of a series might also have been a tip-off for the reader.)
Fan Works
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): A villainous case with the Many. The heroes don't realize until it's too late that the Many's attack on Castle Bravo was a diversion, meant to draw Godzilla away and cut off the humans' communications, so that Monster X will have no warning and no backup from Godzilla when MaNi comes for them.
- Adventures of a Line Hopper: Chapter 9 of My Weapon ends with the Doctor telling Buffy that he has a plan, before the next chapters immediately moving to the part where the plan is executed and seemingly fails as Buffy gets caught. When the plan suddenly succeeds at chapter 12, the rest of the chapter is dedicated to showing the planning stage and Buffy executing the important part of the plan before letting the Daleks see her.
- After
has a couple of versions of this — Lauren sends Antonio to distract Jayden, he doesn't tell anyone what he's going to do, and it works, though only because Jayden lets himself be distracted. Later, Lauren explains a plan to the team. The narration says only that she lays out the plan, and then the others start complaining. It works.
- Arc-Ved Protagonists:
- When Jaden is dueling Sora in "Dark Fusion", he never reveals what card he added back to his hand with Supreme Command the second time that effect went off. He latter uses it as Fusion material to summon a monster that wins him the duel.
- Played with in "Coming Right Back". Yoko and Syuzo mention a potential combo Yuya could pull off with the cards in his hand and Graveyard, that could allow him to inflict damage to Yugi every turn without leaving a monster with weaker attack then Dark Magician out on the field, for Yugi to attack. Whether Yuya is aware of this or not is never revealed, and the turn before he could pull it of if it he were, he loses.
- Happens every so often for KJ in Death Note II: The Hidden Note. We often learn a little bit about the start of the plan, but not how it's supposed to play out.
- In Curious George Goes to Paris, The Man in the Yellow Hat discusses a plan to save the British soldiers with Corporal McFluffin, which the reader never hears about. The plan goes well until Nazi tanks show up.
- Didn't Expect That uses a Chekhov's Armory trick where the narrative lays out all the elements of a plan without explaining how they fit together until Kanril Eleya actually puts it into effect. The real trick, there's two plans: she sets a trap to counter the Albino's trap for her, and then sets a different trap to arrest Franklin Drake.
- In Dungeon Keeper Ami, the reader doesn't get to know what the plan to rescue Jadeite is until it's already being executed, with Tserk going into a Light temple all on its own.
- In Fallout: Equestria, the plan for defeating the Goddess. Notable in that this trope applies in-story as well; after coming up with the plan, Littlepip tells each member of the party their part in the plan and ONLY their part, and then has her own memories removed. The reason is that the Goddess is telepathic, and Littlepip herself will be facing the Goddess directly. Letting your opponent read your mind and figure out your plan would kind of put a damper on it.
- In Game Theory, Precia does not reveal to anyone that she has found a way to revive Alicia without traveling to Alhazred, and that she intended use the battle on the Garden of Time to fake their deaths, which works flawlessly. The justification was that if Nanoha or Fate were captured by the TSAB, they could not give her real plans away if they were ignorant of what they were.
- Hop to It:
- Played with when Ladybug's plan to lure Cottontail out of her hiding place is only explained after we've seen it fall apart. Played straight with her plan to actually beat her.
- Played straight again with Rabbit's Batman Gambit to beat Nanny Mite while also drawing out Chameleon. All we get is Rabbit saying, "I have an idea… But it’s dangerous and stupid and we have to split up." Cut to them implementing it almost perfectly — the akuma is defeated and Chameleon falls for their trap by trying to impersonate Ladybug, but he gets away at the last minute because none of the heroes have enough time on their Miraculous for a fight.
- Very much a part of The Keys Stand Alone: The Hard World, after the four find out they're in a giant telepathic MMORPG and hook up with Durothé, the Last Wizard, who's in the real world, in an effort to free themselves. Since they've luckily already established their willingness to talk telepathically whenever someone might be around to overhear them—something that drives their personal game master Ikaly nuts, because she cannot legally listen to their thoughts, so she can't give them experience for the successful outcome of their planning—every single important thing they do in the last third of the book is either planned mentally or planned outside the game. Particularly their marathon Virtual Training Simulation session where they practice endlessly to retrieve the Amber Staff. Bits and pieces of this plan come out in snippets of dialogue as a kind of fragmented Training Montage, but neither readers nor anyone else see what’s going to happen until it actually happens in the chapter appropriately entitled Speedrun.
- There's an extra layer, though: Durothé fears that Jeft, the Grand Game Master, Big Bad, and “owner” of the four, will break his personal rules and read their minds at some point, since he hates the four so much. So she's careful not to tell the four about a few important details that would doom everything if Jeft learned them. She also sets up something to mislead Jeft if he does read their minds.
- More Than Enemies:
- Subverted with Sakura’s nearly suicidal bet to kill Orochimaru’s gigantic summon. Her improved chakra-sensing and her fine chakra-control are enough for her to learn chakra-coating from Ahika while both of them are within the snake’s gastric tract. She then activates an overpowered explosive tag and, miraculously, the snake is torn from the inside and both her and the other shinobi are alive if in severe need of medical aid.
- Played straight with Kakashi’s idea to bring down Río. The narration spends some time with him pondering just how to defeat a mind-reader and Jiraiya’s failed and awkward bonding attempt with him revolves around creating a seal to cancel out her abilities. When the time comes, it seems to have worked but her resourcefulness and his reluctance to deal the killing blow prompt his plan to fail.
- Zig-Zagged with both of Río's crazy plans during the Konoha Crush. The plans do succeed as the unease ROOT-ANBU joint team manages to break the Fuinjutsu barriers caging the former Hokage, Orochimaru, the Sandaime, Danzo, and the Clan Heads, but they derail at some point or another. The first plan goes without a hitch (throw the Hokage Tower to the barrier and exploit the glitch to saturate with chakra the inner layers, then use a ROOT agent’s Kekkei Genkai to support the remaining structures), but the Kekkei Genkai refuse to care about collateral damage. It involved letting the agent be possessed by a psychopath, long-dead Nara whose only goal was to set a score with one of the people inside the barriers. When the Nara gets his fight, his attacks’ splash damage affects Oto, Suna, and Konoha nin indistinctly. Regarding the second plan, Río fakes her death so she can wet the seal tags with a time-consuming and precise Water jutsu. Only one remains when the Clan Heads inside the barrier realize she’s very much alive and stare at her, thus alerting a Suna nin of her ploy. Kakashi warns her in time for her to dodge, but they now need to rely on a third teammate to destroy the last tag.
- Lampshaded but ultimately averted in the story A New Order. Hino-sensei (Rei's grandfather) has been arrested, but Usagi needs his help to tell when the Dark Kingdom bus is coming, so she decided to secretly reveal to him that she is Sailor Moon and ask for his help. The rest of her team object to this and she explains her plan to them (and the reader). The next day it goes off without a hitch, but because of the previous discussion the audience is expecting it to go catastrophically wrong.
- Yukari Yakumo initiates an extremely ambitious Thanatos Gambit in A New World, but only feeds her close friend Yuyuko a tiny bit of her plan, knowing she will in turn give the info to Maribel... ensuring her gambit's success.
- Used in Taaroko's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 when the gang infiltrate another dimension to rescue Lorin, one of Oz’s band mates, from his people; the author even explicitly notes that she took the idea from the fact that the characters’ plans in the show only worked perfectly when they never revealed what they were doing until it was over.
- In the Jackie Chan Adventures fic Queen of All Oni, this is played with in Operation:Steel Lighting, we only know the most basic part of it (that it involves getting a mask on Jackie and somehow using that to steal the masks from Section 13, due to Jade remembering what happened with Jackie Dark in Season 1). The first part doesn't go as planned, with the mask ending up on Captain Black instead, but the plan goes ahead, NEARLY succeeding, and Jade getting a Consolation Prize out of it.
- The end of Radiance deliberately averts this, making for a couple of very boring chapters.
- In Spirit of Redemption the characters acknowledge several times that a good, solid plan will last about thirty seconds.
- Defied in the Five Nights at Freddy's fanfic, Something Always Remains. Mike, Vanna, and William Wickes come up with a plan offscreen. It goes pear-shaped before it can be executed.
- Sword Art Online Abridged:
- In Episode 3, Kirito, Sachi and their three NPC "guildmates" fall into an ambush, and Sachi tries to come up with an escape plan on the fly.
Sachi: (near-panic) It's okay, we'll just grab one of the Teleport Crystals from Gary!
Kirito: Who the fuck is Gary?!
Gary: We must save my family! (teleports out alone)
Sachi: That was Gary...
Kirito: Of course it was!
Sachi: No no no, it's fine! Charlie's got a bunch of health potions!
Kirito: Which one's Charlie?! (an NPC dies) Nevermind, I got it.
Sachi: Well, we still- (the last NPC dies)
Kirito: Oh god, STOP! - In Episode 9, Kirito goes through an Imagine Spot strategizing for his duel with Heathcliff, and comes out of it just in time to find he's already lost.
Kirito: (thinking) Alright, I think this'll work! Time to do this thing why am I on the ground?
Announcer: And the winner, with a blistering four-second knockout is... Heathcliff!
Heathcliff: Heh. Noob.
- In Episode 3, Kirito, Sachi and their three NPC "guildmates" fall into an ambush, and Sachi tries to come up with an escape plan on the fly.
- In Zero Context: Taking Out the Trash, Aldonza and Zapana are discussing how to deal with a giant mecha. Most of Aldonza's attacks can't phase it; while Zapana fares better, she risks the mecha's reactor going nuclear and obliterating the neighborhood. In addition, the mech is coated with magic-nullifying armor that can shut down any attacks from their supernatural allies. The suggestion is eventually made to hit it "with the type of magic that doesn't care one whit for magic negation". How they plan to do this isn't clear at first, since everyone's combat capabilities had already been well-established, leaving both the readers and the story's antagonist to wonder what's going on. Turns out that one more character who had been previously introduced in a throwaway line back in the first chapter was lying in wait for the right moment; when Zapana serves the mecha over to her, she annihilates it in style.
- Invoked in Z to A; when Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Stephen Strange, Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker arrive at Voromir to retrieve the Soul Stone and learn of the price that must be paid to get it, Strange reveals that he already looked to the future and confirmed that this combination of visitors are the only ones who can visit Voromir and leave with the Soul Stone without losing anyone. This is because Peter and Wanda have been sent back in time by the Stones from a future where Wanda "already" sacrificed Peter, with this deal still applying even though Peter and Wanda won't do that again.
Films — Animation
- A Bug's Life: After the bugs have a close encounter with a wild bird, Flik convinces the ants to build a giant fake bird to scare Hopper's gang away. This plan almost succeeds, until the fake bird catches fire and Hopper gets even angrier that he was tricked. During the final battle, Flik comes up with a new plan to defeat Hopper, but doesn't say anything to Atta other than "go that way". Only after Hopper catches up to them does Atta (and the audience) realize that Flik had lured Hopper to the real bird's nest.
- Zig-Zagging Trope in Finding Nemo with Gill's plan to escape the fish tank, which involves sabotaging the filter so that the dentist will have to clean the tank, during which he'll put all the fish into water-filled bags that they'll use to roll out of the office and to the ocean. The first attempt fails completely, and almost gets Nemo killed. The second time Nemo tries, he succeeds, and the plan seems to be in motion — until the dentist installs a new filter, wrecking the plan. Nemo still manages to escape down the drain into the sewer system, thanks to a series of events that have nothing to do with the plan. At the end, the new filter breaks, forcing the dentist to clean the tank—and the rest of the fish finally escape as planned... until they realise, while stuck in plastic bags bobbing in the ocean, that they hadn't properly thought through the plan anyway.
- Played with in Kung Fu Panda 3: preparing for his final battle with Kai, Po reasons that he needs to get close enough to Kai to employ the Wuxi Finger Hold. We then see a Training Montage where Po drills the other pandas not in kung fu but in skills they already possess (hugging, hacky-sack, ribbon dancing), then moving on to weaponizing those skills (hugging logs so hard they splinter, using fireworks instead of hacky-sacks and nunchucks instead of ribbons). Even amid the training, Po's plan is still not revealed; when he announces, "They are ready," Tigress is scratching her head. Finally, when Kai arrives with the jade-zombie army of martial arts masters, Po springs his plan and the other pandas succeed in holding their own against the jombies and distracting Kai enough for Po to get close enough for the Wuxi. Which does not work on Kai because he is no longer mortal. The parts of Po's plan that we don't fully know about in advance work flawlessly. The part he discusses in the beginning (the Wuxi Finger Hold) doesn't.
- Averted in The Land Before Time, where Littlefoot explains in detail how they're going to kill Sharptooth and things work out more or less as advertised.
- Mulan (1998) has the title character and the Guy Trio not saying anything onscreen about how to get into the palace, save the emperor, and defeat Shan Yu. They just enact the plan as if they had. What little there is of it, as Mulan admits to Mushu that she's being forced to think on the fly. Mushu himself gets in on it when Mulan only needs to notice a fireworks tower for him to immediately figure out what Mulan is after and get what she needs.
- Toy Story:
- In the first Toy Story 1, Woody's rescue of Buzz Lightyear (and cause Sid to become scared of his toys) wasn't elaborated upon until the plan was executed. It went off without a hitch.
- In Toy Story 3, there's the plan Woody makes to have the toys escape from Sunnyside. The only detail we get to hear is that they will use the garbage chutes to escape, and everything works perfectly up until that stage of the escape.
- In Zootopia (2016), Judy and Nick's climactic Batman Gambit was very successful, but the audience knew nothing about it other than Nick's desperate reassurance, "We'll think of something."
Myths & Religion
- From The Bible, Judith 8:32–34. "Judith said to them, 'Listen to me. I am about to do a thing which will go down through all generations of our descendants. Stand at the city gate tonight, and I will go out with my maid; and within the days after which you have promised to surrender the city to our enemies, the Lord will deliver Israel by my hand. Only, do not try to find out what I plan; for I will not tell you until I have finished what I am about to do.'"
Tabletop Games
- One of the oldest rulings in tabletop RPG goes along the line of "unless it's specified already, anything goes". The idea is that players can introduce, at any moment, narrative elements that completely change the situation, and then frame them as part of their plan. Of course, their game master could do the same. This mode of playing started to gain prominence in the late 90s via indie games, eventually becoming a separate style of game design by the early 00s, leading to games like Dogs in the Vineyard, Fiasco, Powered by the Apocalypse and many more.
- Fate from Evil Hat Productions, via its aspects sub-system, allows to manipulate the narrative in a way that retroactively changes the pre-defined situation, or enforces a very specific outcome. Including the ability to enforce this very trope by simply having it as your aspect and invoke it whenever fitting.
- Blades in the Dark (also by Evil Hat Productions) is one of the most prominent examples of this trope in Tabletop RPG, to the point of it being its main gimmick and the most advertised feature. Although the player characters are assumed to plan their scores extensively, the players don't specify anything ahead of time, except the score's objective, the attack point, and their respective maximum loadouts. This way, the latter can retroactively introduce contingencies into the former's "plans" that had never been mentioned before, and thus adjust to the situation, rather than having to scramble with an actual plan.
- Adeptus Evangelion has several skills for Operations Directors that work explicitly like this, including retroactively designating any structure as a defensive fortification the others weren't told about and personally showing up out of nowhere as long as they haven't done anything location-specific for a while (ie. nobody knows what they're doing). Then there's the "Pack Rat" skill which allows a character to arbitrarily whip out a small item they need at the moment, even if nobody knew they had it on their person.
- One of the most important skills for Twilight Imperium players is the ability to read the table. Almost all alliances and team-ups are informal and temporary, and they usually emerge via this trope. On top of that, various factions have their specific playstyles, which in turn affects what strategy cards will be picked by their players. It's entirely possible to agree to simply play together (or against someone) without any specifics and then have a perfect team-up just through the emergent gameplay.
- Eidolon: Become Your Best Self has the "Reveal Your Master Plan" move, which allows the player to declare that they've already enacted a scheme without anyone else's knowledge. The GM has the ability to state if something is impossible, but as long as the player has enough wiggle room to justify the actions that occurred offscreen and rolls well enough, it can go off without a hitch.
Theatre
- Anyone Can Whistle: Schub tells Cora in the first scene that he's come up with a plan to save her Dying Town. When she doubts that it'll work, he reassures her: "This one will: it's unethical." "Highly," Cooley adds. The scheme is not revealed to Cora or the audience until the next scene.
- The Cenci: Orsino and Giacomo come up with two plans to kill Count Cenci. The first plan, that they will have him ambushed on the road to Petrella, is explained to the audience beforehand and fails when he sets out earlier than expected. The second, that Lucretia and Beatrice will drug him and then let the assassins in while he's unconscious, isn't explained until it's already underway and ends up succeeding.
- Shakespearean examples:
- In Romeo and Juliet, Friar Lawrence's plan involving the faked death of Juliet is described to the audience. The plan fails thanks to some spectacularly bad timing and poor communication, resulting in both Romeo and Juliet dying.
- One of the main differences between Shakespeare's tragedies and his comedies is that the tragedies are more likely to play this trope straight, whereas the comedies are more likely to avert it. For example, the second half of Much Ado About Nothing centers on another false death gambit, also hatched and explained in detail by a friar, but in this case the gambit actually succeeds.
- In Thrill Me, Richard suggests two plans in "The Plan". One is killing his brother John, which Nathan talks him out of. One is killing some random kid, which he is absolutely certain they will get away with, since there's no motive. It doesn't work out. Additionally, Nathan puts together another plan which is not revealed until the end, and goes off without a hitch, landing them in prison — together for the rest of their lives.
- In Utopia, Limited, an operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan, the wisemen plot to overthrow the king's company, but do all their plotting by whisper, concluding, "At last a capital plan we've got/ We won't say how and we won't say what:/ It's safe in my noddle —/ Now off we will toddle,/ And slyly develop this capital plot!"
Video Games
- This trope happens all the freakin' time in the Ace Attorney games. Often his assistant or even Phoenix himself will mention that they've finally figured out the case, give some vague clue as to what conclusion they've reached, yet it's still up to the player to figure it out. Largely justified, since combining evidence to solve cases is the entirety of the gameplay, so having the whole thing spelled out for you at the last minute would kind of defeat the purpose.
- Subverted in the Assassin's Creed franchise; the main characters often undergo a series of investigations including eavesdropping, pick pocketing important items, and interrogating people close to the target. Then they announce a plan they've used those details to come up with in broad strokes, allowing the player to determine the actual plan of attack. Although some targets spring surprises that simply can't be avoided and force the character into an Indy Ploy.
- Brotherhood onward introduced full synchronization bonuses for completing certain objectives like not being seen or killing a certain amount of people. So while the plan can fail in gameplay and result in you having to chase the enemy, canonically your player character really did kill the guy while staying unseen, or slaughtering hundreds of guards single-handedly.
- Batman: Arkham Asylum has a few cases of Batman not saying anything and ultimately surprising the opposition, such as calling the Batmobile to run over Bane, just after the guy has (supposedly) been defeated. And there is one with the player too, as you'd better figure out why Batman performed a seemingly random action earlier before Killer Croc reaches you, or you're toast.
- Subverted in Call of Duty: Black Ops, where all the prisoners in Vorkuta are familiar with Reznov's plan for everyone to riot and escape:
Reznov/Prisoners: "Step One! Secure the keys! Step Two! Ascend from darkness! Step Three! Rain Fire! Step Four! Unleash the Horde! Step Five! Skewer the winged beast! Step Six! Wield a Fist of Iron!...Ah-hahaha! You know what to do! Step Seven! Raise Hell!"
- This turns out to be a Double Subversion when Reznov and Mason break into a garage and reveal the eighth step of their plan: Freedom.
- Mostly played straight in Modern Warfare 2 — Soap never goes into detail what his "Plan B" is in the mission "Cliffhanger", and as such it works as intended. The player probably realized what exactly it entailed by virtue of placing C4 onto something very flammable as part of the set-up for it.
- Final Fantasy VIII features a long and involved plan to capture Deling. One part of the plan goes better than expected (the heat sensors the guards were supposed to use didn't work)... and the plan still fails because Deling was swapped with a body double ahead of time. Then came the planned assassination of Edea, explained once again in great detail, which (despite almost failing for umpteen other reasons) almost makes it through, only to fail at the last minute because Edea blocks the bullet Irvine fires, and in the direct attack, she defeats Squall. But then, later in the game, a much more convoluted plan averts the trope (Odine's plan to have Ellone trick Ultimecia into a partial time compression actually works and helps the heroes reach and defeat Ultimecia.)
- Played almost perfectly straight in the "Poacher's Day" storyline of Granblue Fantasy. The unspoken parts of Carren's plan, like having Lunalu draw a giant lifelike picture of the Urkin Queen to distract the Odajumoki ships, or Tweyen and Izmir firing ice-imbued arrows from over the horizon to stop the leader from dropping their giant crab's remains and setting the queen off to lay her eggs early, goes almost completely without a hitch. Afterwards comes actually removing the shell from the Urkin Queen, which was described in great detail, so naturally the Duskbringer gets stuck in the Urkin Queen's shell. Fortunately, Seofon's sword duplication saves the day.
- Happens in Halo 3 when Cortana sends a vague message to the UNSC telling them of a solution for the Flood at the Ark. As it turns out, the Ark contains a foundry at its core that can build Halo rings, with it having already almost finished building a replacement for Installation 04; John-117 activates it to eradicate the galaxy-threatening Flood as well as their Gravemind. Justified since the knowledge could have fallen into the hands of the Gravemind had anyone known the details due to the Flood's ability to assimilate the knowledge of its victims, which would have led it to not send all its Flood forces to the Ark in an effort to avoid being killed by the activation of the other Halo rings. In fact, Cortana herself wasn't quite sure what was at the Ark, making this less of a plan and more everyone hanging onto something Cortana had vague knowledge of that they didn't even know existed. It also helps that each Forerunner installation's Monitor had important details of other installations removed from its mind as a precaution; otherwise the Flood would have had enough information to guess the plan.
- In Completing the Mission from the Henry Stickmin series, on the Government Supported Private Investigator/Convict Allies path, the final choice involves choosing between Henry's, Ellie's, and Charles's plans to stop the Toppat rocket before it reaches orbit. Charles's and Ellie's plans are shown to the player as they're explained, and both result in failure. Meanwhile, the player hears nothing of Henry's plan while he's explaining it, and it ends up succeeding. The plans in question are as follows:
- Charles: Charles would've ramed his helicopter into the cafeteria window. Ellie gets confused as to how this would work, much less help. By the time they decide to go through with the plan, the rocket is too far away for Charles to actually do it.
- Ellie: She and Henry sabotage the engine and then bail out of the rocket through the forward left vent. While the sabotage is successful, Charles ends up going to the wrong vent and fails to save Henry and Ellie.
- Henry: He and Ellie make their way up to the cockpit where Ellie deals with Sven while Henry changes the rocket's course to The Wall. They then bail out of the rocket and Charles catches them.
- Played straight in Kira☆Kira at d2b's first concert, before which Shika and Murakami have some kind of secret plan they talk about but never clarify until it actually happens onscreen. There's at least one example of the trope going the other way too, where a concert is expected by all characters to go fine but winds up going horribly wrong when Kirari falls victim to a Heroic BSoD onstage.
- Averted in Metaphor: ReFantazio. Late in the game, Strohl makes a quick plan to assassinate Louis with the enchanted spear they obtained from Virga Island after noticing that it bypasses the King's protection. Despite the party expressing their uncertainty on its success, they are left with little choice as they lack any other opportunity to do so. It goes off almost as planned, with the Traveling Boy delivering a near-fatal wound to Louis. The twist is what happens after the plan and the number of contingencies Louis has made to cheat death.
- Nasuverse:
- Tohsaka refuses to elaborate on her plan to defeat Caster in Fate/stay night. Shirou assumes it's because it's some sort of plan that won't work as well if he knows about it. While this may be true, the real reason is obviously so that Tohsaka can surprise us with her hand to hand combat skills and utterly floor Caster. The plan actually works because Caster didn't know Magi had picked up martial arts skills, but it's not enough to win. It was only enough to distract her until Archer showed up.
- This is justified in Fate/Grand Order. Doctor Roman's plan to defeat Goetia wouldn't have worked if the rest of Chaldea knew about it, because he needed to be able to get close to Goetia in order to activate Ars Nova (it requires all ten rings to be gathered together in order to activate, though not necessarily in possession of the same people). If the rest of Chaldea knew about Roman's true identity as well as Ars Nova, then Goetia would have learned about it as well and could have easily adapted his plans to keep Roman out of the picture.
- Persona 5: Anything involving the Wham Episode at the end of Joker's interrogation isn't made clear until it actually happens. In particular, the Phantom Thieves discussing the plan is fast-forwarded and blurred, along with all dialogue being muted, so the audience can't hear what the Thieves are talking about. This is because Joker was heavily drugged by the corrupt police force, and legitimately did not remember that there was a plan until the last minute. Still, the plan goes off without a hitch, exposing the identity of the traitor as Goro Akechi, letting the Phantom Thieves get some clue as to who's heading The Conspiracy, and getting Joker safely out of police custody, all at once.
- This trope shows up in Psychonauts. The plan Shegor's talking pet turtle comes up with that goes off without a hitch and very nearly solves everything is blanked out when discussed, then carried out in a cutscene.
- In the second Robopon game, Big Bad Dr. Zero exploits this trope. He doesn't tell you a thing about his plan until it's already enacted, ensuring you have no way of finding or stopping him beforehand.
- Mostly averted in the Sly Cooper series, where Bentley describes in detail what must be done in each mission, and the mission usually goes just as planned. Not all of them, but exceptions are the exception rather than the rule. After all, it's considerably more fun to play through something you've heard about than to just watch it. There is a straight example of this trope, though, in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves. In the final mission against Pirate Captain LaFwee, Bentley's plan appears to fail due to LaFwee's counter-planning, but it turns out to be much more elaborate than the plan described to the player.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic Adventure 2:
- Averted midway through the dark story. Eggman explains to Shadow and Rouge his plan to steal the Chaos Emeralds from the military and destroy their command base at Prison Island. The plan hits a few snags due to Rouge slipping up and the arrival of Amy and Tails, but it ultimately succeeds: the villains get three more chaos emeralds and effectively cripples GUN's ability to interfere with them further.
- Eggman hints that he has some sort of plan made upon seeing signals for two Chaos Emeralds. After he proceeds to go through his last level, he almost kills Sonic, exposes Tails' fake Chaos Emerald and obtains the real one. On Sonic's side of things, he states his Evil Plan out loud, where it proceeds to blow up in his face spectacularly. This scene is practically scrapped in Sonic X.
- In Sonic Unleashed, Eggman's plan to split the world open in order to awake Dark Gaia to harness his energies using his Chaos Energy Cannon is unknown until he suddenly traps Super Sonic in his machine and robs him of the Chaos Emeralds. As such, Eggman is successful in breaking the Earth apart and unleashing Dark Gaia from below the surface.
- Sonic Adventure 2:
- In the Sword of the Stars novelization, the Tarka commander uses an unspoken plan to win against a race of telepaths: She gives her Human and Hiver allies a straight-forward battleplan and has a conspirator in the fleet (who the telepaths can't mind-read) 'betray' them. She then backstabs the telepaths while they're gloating over their victory, with their captives being unable to give them any useful information because they have no idea.
- An interesting twist is presented in the fifteenth installment of the Touhou Project series, Touhou Kanjuden ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom. The fourth boss, Sagume Kishin, is a Lunarian Goddess with the ability of reversing a situation with her words. This means whatever she'll say or any plan she'll speak of will have fate invariably twist itself over its head and turn what she's said into a lie every time, so she has to carefully choose her words should she not want an undesired result from her ability. This effectively makes her a Consummate Liar, but not by vice, just because her words eventually end up becoming lies with time. After a Moon invasion caused by Junko, Hecatia Lapislazuli and their army of fairies supercharged with life force which turned them into the embodiment of impurity (a concept Lunarians flee from like flies from lavender) had the Lunarians relocate themselves elsewhere (first in the Dream World, which ended up not working as planned due to being cornered by Hecatia anyways), their sights were set on the Earth and they decided to invade and purify it in order to make it an actual safe location for them to live. However, this was just a plan B for Sagume, because as soon as she encounters the heroine in the Lunar Capital and tests her skills, she realizes there's no use trying to purify the Earth anymore and wholeheartedly spills all the beans to the heroine, activating her ability and effectively putting the kibosh on her plan B coming to fruition. She essentially took a Batman Gambit as she betted on the reason for her plan to fail being the heroine defeating Junko and Hecatia, thus freeing the Moon from its rampant impurity. It can thus be concluded Sagume is the reason why you win the game in the first place.
Web Animation
- Zigzagged in Dragon Ball Z Abridged. In episode 60 it's revealed that Goku had been planning for the Cell arc to go the way it did so he could get a situation where Cell wouldn't destroy the planet and Gohan would be strong enough to defeat Cell. Unfortunately, because he never told anyone else what the plan was, no one was able to point one massive flaw in the plan; that Gohan hates fighting.
- DSBT InsaniT: In 'The Camping Webisode', despite the fact that the viewers are not told about it, Frog's plan to capture the opposing teams flag in Capture The Flag only has a 50% chance of success, according to Robo. Killdra's team ends up winning.
- Homestar Runner example: In Looking at a Thing in a Bag, we don't hear The Cheat's plan to get some drinks, and it goes perfectly. It still doesn't make any sense at all though.
- Played straight in The Reapers Series, specifically in episode 2, when it's revealed that Shadow secretly had a bomb with him the whole time, which Reaper and his other gangmates didn't anticipate, and didn't waste time yelling at him for not telling them he has been carrying it around with him beforehand.
- Subverted in Red vs. Blue by Caboose's plan while he and Sarge are stuck in Battle Creek.
Caboose: I have a plan, Sergeant, but we will have to move quick. Listen: whisper whisper whisper Do you think that will work?
Sarge: That's your plan? All you said was "whisper whisper whisper."
Caboose: I know. I just wanted to be the one with the plan for once.- It happens for real several times later on, though most of it's really spoilery.
- In the climax of Revelation, a heavily injured Washington hands Sarge something and tells him he'll know what to do. He then proceeds to charge the Meta and get put in a Neck Lift, before signaling Grif to do something ("Shotgun, damnit!"). It's not until Sarge puts the final steps into action and gets a Pre-Mortem One-Liner in that we find out what the plan is: Sarge attached the wrecked Warthog's tow cable to the Meta, while Grif and Simmons pushed said vehicle off a cliff, thus sending the Meta to his Disney Villain Death.
Sarge: Hey Meta... settle a bet, would ya? Does that thing kinda look like a big cat to you?
- In The Chorus Trilogy, two of these happen in rapid succession in the crew's assault on the Space Pirates. First, the pirates didn't count on Freckles being there and part of a trap. Second, Tucker's fight with Felix was actually just so he could pull an Engineered Public Confession using Felix's Evil Gloating.
- The Chorus Trilogy's finale includes a Kansas City Shuffle version of this. The Chorusians aren't attacking the Communications Temple and the Purge Temple. They're attacking the Communications Temple and the tractor beam, and using it to pull the Tartarus down onto the Purge Temple, while Carolina and Wash distract Felix and Locus.
- Even later, Grif's incompetent infiltration of the Blues and Reds' lair was actually a diversion for Locus's own infiltration.
- Smash King: In "The Ruby-Eyed Draco," when a crippled Lizardon finds herself sadistically taunted at under Ridley's foot, Bowser threatens to attack both Ridley and Liz with his Magikoopa Blitz, pointing a finger at him ready to strike. This initially seems like a bluff, where Ridley's guard is taken down momentarily so that Bowser's alloy minions can sneak attack him, but is unsuccessful. After Ridley sweeps the alloys away, Bowser uses his Magikoopa Blitz on both Ridley and Liz, though Ridley manages to get away, much to the shock of everyone. When the dust clears however, it's revealed that one of Bowser's alloys took the hit instead of Liz, with Liz getting a sneak attack on Ridley and recovers her health. When Ridley is incredulous about how Liz could move after the amount of damage he inflicted, it's revealed that due to Ridley using Liz's stolen Heart Container to recover, the aura buff he had was reset, dealing far less damage to her than he thought. Liz then gave Bowser a signal for him to summon his minions and for one to switch places with her, allowing her to get the drop on Ridley. Lampshaded by Charizard, where he notes how well the two managed to communicate this to each other without exchanging a word.
- In Unforgotten Realms, Schmoopy at one point refuses to tell his allies his plan for this very reason.
Webcomics
- 8-Bit Theater references this idea in the final panel of this strip. The plan in question actually works... in an extremely roundabout way.
"...And now that I've described the plan in full, nothing can possibly go wrong!"
- Played straight and played with in Antihero for Hire. He tells Wrench he has a plan, almost explains it to the enemy, but stops when he realizes the folly of doing so, then actually does explain it after implementing it.
Shadehawk: I've got a Plan. With a capital P and everything.
- Prominent in Bob and George, and referenced in this strip's commentary.
- Zigzagged throughout Commander Kitty. Mittens' plan to trick Ace into thinking they have a working transporterizer goes about as well as can be expected, but his later plan to trick Zenith into leading them back to her base of operations works with barely a hitch. Then MOUSE's plan to get rid of Zenith on route fails because it was said out loud. Played straight with Zenith's master plan, which she can't seem to shut up about; as it turns out, it never had a chance of working in the first place.
- Parodied in this strip of Dragon Tails.
- In Drowtales, for unclear reasons (implied to involve a mixture of Poor Communication Kills and Snadhya'rune's manipulations, but never actually explained), most of the Sarghress clan, lead by Sang, denounces their own colonists as traitors and sentences them to The Purge. Ariel describes in advance her plan to lure Sang's forces to Felde, trick them into a war with their own Nidraa'chal allies, and then escape. Naturally, every single element of the plan completely backfires. Their airship gets hit beyond repair, so they lose the option of escaping. Felde's forces do in fact briefly mistake Sang for Ariel's reinforcements, but Sang's forces quickly manage to resolve the confusion. In the end, the only thing that saves Ariel's forces from mass execution is Sang's death and the fact that her son is less eager to kill fellow Sarghress, taking them prisoner instead.
- Lampshaded in this strip of Get Medieval (Irony-Chan).
- Gunnerkrigg Court:
- Used in Chapter 24, "Residential". "Kat, this is what you need to do..."
- Arises when the girls go up against Omega, who is The Omniscient with the ability to hear and see anything in the entire physical world. Annie and Kat have some ability to communicate unheard via the ether, but their plan also involves other people who have no idea there even is a plan, much less that they are part of it.
- Played straight and inverted in at the end of Act 5 of Homestuck. Rose's plan, which had been discussed at length, goes about as awry as it's possible to go, whereas Jade's plan, which had been arranged mostly off-screen, succeeds better than anyone had hoped (despite some minor complications). However, WQ's plan, the most mysterious of the three by far, is quite firmly dashed by outside circumstances:
- Rose's plan was to fly Derse's moon and the Tumor to the Green Sun using her dreamself, using the Tumor to destroy it. Instead, both she and Dave died and transferred to their dreamselves. Then DD attacks a defenseless Rose while she's trying to fly away unnoticed. Finally, both she and Dave get the Tumor to the place it's supposed to be, only to discover that the Tumor isn't what destroys the Green Sun, it's what created it in the first place. It's not all bad, though; Rose and Dave got God Tiers out of it, and the Green Sun is now powering two of the heroes as well.
- Jade's plan was to escape through the fourth wall at the last moment, to ensure that the Scratch goes off without a hitch. Not only does this succeed, but she ascends to God Tier due to an unforeseen attack and manages to take their planets through the Fourth Wall too.
- WQ's plan was to use the transportalizer in WV's station to escape to the troll's session, then blow up the stations once they arrived so that nobody could follow their trail. It would have worked, if only Jack hadn't been hiding in the frog temple the entire time, and was released a mere ten seconds after the White King arrived...
- Subverted by GAME_OVER, in which several unspoken plans collide to ruin everything. For example, Jane, Dave, PM and Jack all want to resurrect Jade, but they can't co-operate resulting in PM and Jack killing Dave and Jane Killed by Aranea.
- In Impure Blood, Caspian is reviewing the plan, but we only see a few details before Elnor shuts him down because she knows already.
- Justified in L's Empire. No one tells L's Empire about Dark Star and the plan to defeat him because if they find out, the audience finds out, which means Dark Star finds out (since he's a god, Dark Star remembers anything that happens on screen). At a much later point, Temporary Dark Samus refuses to tell his plans to the rest of LEET. It's Foreshadowing that he gained Viewers Recognition.
- League of Super Redundant Heroes has Lazer Pony comment about this trope after they discuss a plan.
- The Order of the Stick:
- Not that this webcomic needs in-universe explanations other than "it is a narrative trope", but still this is justified in that Lien knows Elan is dumb as a brick and can't bluff so telling him WOULD be a sure way to ruin the plan.
Lien: Anyway, given that, we had to keep a close eye on Elan, waiting for you to make contact.
Elan: Why didn't you tell me about it, though?
Lien: Because we wanted it to work! Seriously, how many times do I have to go over the, "Good, not dumb," thing? - Genre Savvy Elan believes in this as a force of nature:
Elan: Everyone knows that plans only work if you keep them a secret first!
Roy: What? That's not true at all!
Elan: Sure it is! If you talk about them and then they happen exactly that way, there's no tension! - Nale and Zz'dtri's plan to murder Malack remains unspoken until they actually pull it off. Justified as they had been plotting it together for a long time and waited for the best opportunity, which arrived after the Draketooth Pyramid exploded.
- Lampshaded again later on, when Team Tarquin specifically avoids talking about their plans onscreen. The plan mostly works and only fails at the end due to Tarquin's Wrong Genre Savvy.
- Deliberately invoked by Elan not telling anyone except Durkon, so he could send the message, that Elan had called on Julio for help before the party ever entered the pyramid. Julio, aware of Mentor Occupational Hazards, had at first blown Elan off — but then Elan challenged Julio to defy the trope. Julio bit.
- Not that this webcomic needs in-universe explanations other than "it is a narrative trope", but still this is justified in that Lien knows Elan is dumb as a brick and can't bluff so telling him WOULD be a sure way to ruin the plan.
- Inverted in Penny and Aggie with Aggie's big plan to take down Karen. She doesn't tell the plan in panel (and in fact the last panel before the scene cut is a frazzled friend insisting she "tell us already!") Then it turns out that the real reason the author was hiding the plan was because the audience would say "that'll never work!" Which it doesn't. The plan after they regroup is much better.
- Later played straight when Sara teams up with Rich (and blackmails Martin) to take charge of the "drama" on her reality show, rather than becoming its victim.
- Lampshaded and spoofed in Real Life Comics:
Maelyn: Wow... That's a hell of a plan. Quick question though... now that you've gone over the plan in such detail, what point is there in watching us go through the motions here in the comic?
Tony: Hmmm... That's actually a very good point...
[an irrelevant amount of time later...]
Maelyn: Holy crap... Can you believe how crazy things got back there?
Tony: That was truly a series of events I will never forget. Just... Wow. - Invoked in this Schlock Mercenary strip, where Gasht'g'd'g'tang explicitly says he's not going to discuss F'sherl Ganni plans, especially with the narrator, as "nefarious plans must remain secret".
- Sluggy Freelance had ... well, see for yourself. Yup. We didn't even see how the plan failed.
- Terror Island subverts this trope with the first time Demon-Jame possesses Jame. First Folio describes the plan clearly to Stephen and Sid, and the plan goes off without a hitch.
- In this strip of Two Evil Scientists, after the titular scientists propose an Enemy Mine:
Sonic: What's the plan?
Wily: Get us out of here and we'll let you know.
Mega Man: Why, you don't want to tell us now because if you say it on panel, it won't work as planned?
Robotnik: No, because if we tell you now, Doppleganger will overhear it and won't let it go as planned. - Averted in The Wotch: They had an Unspoken Plan, but Miranda had to Tempt Fate...
- Lampshaded in The Young Protectors with a combat strategy that the Commander develops and meticulously describes: the Platinum Priestess mockingly compliments her for near-perfectly executing it, then plays a few of the tricks up her sleeve and promptly derails the whole thing.
"It really does look like you've dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's. So, I can hardly blame you for thinking that you're close to checkmate."
Web Original
- In the Glowfic "Mad Investor Chaos and the Woman of Asmodeus", the Queen finally understands the nature of the universe, when she proclaims:
"A thought, then. Suppose we are to - Wait! I believe, on reflection, that I should say no more. I should not speak any of my plans or thoughts on the subject aloud. I have not already lost Hell's victory thereby, I think, but I cannot speak out loud of how victory is to be achieved and especially not while speaking with the Most High in a tower overlooking my city's sunset."
- Most of the plans formed and executed by the Undersiders from Worm. They tend to work very well, but there is actually a good reason for that.
- Zhuge Liang weaponizes this in Farce of the Three Kingdoms with his manila envelopes, although several characters suspect he's just being dramatic.
- This trope is one of the reasons why Dream is so successful in Minecraft Manhunt. Dream plans where and what he will do in a specific situation for one of his videos. Then he tells no one until he actually executes his plan. Meanwhile the Hunters are multiple different human beings, and must coordinate plans between them in real time. This often leads them to speak their plan and thus ruin it by tipping Dream off, or spend time communicating it privately which is slower and buys Dream time. The trope is displayed in the different strategies in the first and last 3 Hunters videos: in the former, Bad tells nobody about his trap and Dream lets his guard down and falls for it; while in the latter, the Hunters brag about how they're setting up an unbeatable trap, and Dream — knowing that there's a trap — figures out a way to beat it.
Web Videos
- Dimension 20: "Operation Slippery Puppet" in A Starstruck Odyssey. The players are obviously planning something for the Battle of the Brands, but we don't get to see it until the end of the battle. Sid puts a "special magnet" on one of Riva's psychodrones before the fight while the players use crosstalk to prevent Brennan from looking too closely at the list of items Sid was buying. When that psychodrone eventually is deactivated while fighting Plinth, Sid uses her animal companion to move the drone up to an enemy and detonates the "magnet" which turns out to be a fragmentation charge designed to destroy objects and structures. In hindsight, Brennan almost stopped the plan in its tracks twice*, but it goes off without a hitch and Plinth is blown to pieces.
Brennan: ...Am I getting Ocean's 11-ed on my own fucking show?! [...] Jesus, I'm fucking ruined...
- Played with by way of No Fourth Wall in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Dr. Horrible's plan fails because it turns out that Captain Hammer and the police have been watching the video along with the audience. Also subverted with his revenge plan — we are told nothing, save that it will be both vicious and final. It... almost works.
- Noob, that is set in a MMORPG, has a character tell this to her teammates in the middle of chatting with enemies:
Gaea: Quick, everyone do what I just wrote on the discussion board!
- In the Potter Puppet Pals episode "Trouble at Hogwarts", Voldemort is invading the school but Dumbledore, Harry, and Hermione are all stumped on how to respond. It's Ron who runs in and says "I have a plan!" and then the scene transitions. Turns out the solution is to Just Shoot Him — not with magic spells, but submachine gun bullets!
- Star Wars Down Under. The rebels planning to attack Darth Drongo's base discuss the matter in the laconic Aussie style.
Merve: So that's the plan, eh?
Bear: My oath it is. So whaddya reckon?
Merve: [shrugs] Aw yeah.
Bear: Good. Go get yourself some tucker.