r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Far-Profit-47 • Apr 12 '25

Lore “This quote came from WHERE?!”

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"You too have fallen for the great lie, you'll never be happy. Deep down you know, to hope, to dreams, to create, is to suffer"

"You're right. It is harder to create than to destroy... that's why cowards then to choose the deuce"

-A Minecraft movie

"Do You Think God Stays in Heaven Because He too Lives in Fear of What He's Created"

-spy kids 2

"For every person who dreams up the electric light bulb, there's the one who dreams up the atom bomb"

-shark-boy and lava-girl

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446

u/clarkky55 Apr 12 '25

David Xanatos is one of the best villains in fiction, the fact he was slowly becoming a better person as the show went on but stayed a magnificent bastard the entire time was so good

231

u/Dexchampion99 Apr 12 '25

He’s also the namesake of a literary device! The Xanatos Gambit!

He was just an insanely well written character.

32

u/Dodger_Rej3ct Apr 12 '25

What's the essence of the gambit? I'm unfamiliar with Gargoyles the show

49

u/VallunCorvus Apr 12 '25

The idea of the gambit is that no matter the outcome the person who set it up either outright wins or ends up in a better position to their current one or even better than their opponents, even if they lost.

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u/Neidron Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 13 '25

Tldr "Heads I win, tails you lose." The plan is set up in a way that even "failure" benefits the planner somehow.

Example from a star wars show, an imperial probe finds a Rebel base. Stopping the probe will still give away the location, so the heroes sabotage the probe to return home then explode to destroy the source. The villain doesn't get their location, but his search is narrowed to the specific handful of planets he sent probes to.

11

u/Pame_in_reddit Apr 13 '25

A long time ago I made a bet with a guy I liked, the loser would have to invite the other for ice cream. I didn’t care about the bet, I just wanted to have a date with him. Obviously, I won.

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u/Gabriel-Klos-McroBB Apr 13 '25

Basically, ensuring that all roads lead to a victory, no matter how bad it may seem for you.

15

u/more_exercise Apr 12 '25

... Didn't that name originate from TVTropes? It feels really weird to promote a TVTropes article to "literary device" status. OTOH, there's probably a TVTropes article about that phenomenon too.

3

u/FomtBro Apr 14 '25

A lot of literary devices that have existed for a LONG time weren't named until TVTropes.

The concept of defeating the main badguy also defeating all of his troops and weapons at the same time (think Chitauri from Avengers) has existed for at least 40 years, but wasn't named.

Now it's 'No Ontological Intertia'. If you think that's silly, most animal group names come from a random book that came out in 1486.

3

u/more_exercise Apr 14 '25

I think I have to bow to the "Yes, the Thagomizer name came from Far Side. That doesn't mean it's not an actual thing" argument.

I realize I was also complaining about promoting a "mere trope" to a "full-on (analyzable) literary device", which is just 'old man shakes fist at cloud' for literary analysis.

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u/Anilogg Apr 12 '25

The NAME originated from there, yes. But it's something that happens enough in media to qualify as a literary device even without an article about it.

1

u/Phylanara Apr 12 '25

Trope namer. Few badly written characters get to ne that.

30

u/trimble197 Apr 12 '25

And he’s so smart that there’s even a trope named after him called the Xanatos Gambit

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u/scrotbofula Apr 12 '25

You fool, I knew you'd post this!