Xanatos gambit

plural Xanatos gambits

1. slanglifestyleA subtle plan (usually villainous) that cannot be foiled, such that attempts to defeat it actually further its creator's goals.

   Beale can insist that he brilliantly put Hugo voters in the jaws of a Xanatos Gambit whereby every choice is a losing move[…]

   2017 December 10, Elizabeth Sandifer, Neoreaction a Basilisk: Essays on and Around the Alt-Right, Elizabeth Sandifer, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   It strikes me, as it no doubt has struck many of you, that this strategy is cynical. What may not have struck you is how cynical, how much of a Xanatos Gambit, this game their playing really is.

   2011 June 29, “Their Xanatos Gambit”, in Daily Kos

   "How do we know this isn't part of some elaborate Xanatos Gambit?" I left off staring at the traffic. "Some elaborate what?" "Some sort of complicated scheme. I mean, how do we know this isn't all exactly what she wants us to do?"

   2018 October 2, S. L. Huang, Zero Sum Game, Tor Books, →ISBN