Hoisted on their own petard

Make the antagonist’s greatest strength the cause of their downfall

Sometimes brute force isn’t enough – there’s no way to train longer, punch harder, or science faster. The hero faces an opponent who feels too strong to overcome.

Is there a way to make the antagonist’s power into a liability? How is it possible to step aside and let the villain’s own momentum take them over a cliff?

Let’s take a look at how a plan comes together, where a protagonist or team takes stock of what they know, what they have, and what they know how to do.

Hoisted on their own petard

Independence Day presents a pretty impossible scenario for humanity. Alien spaceships have taken out Earth’s major cities in a perfectly coordinated global attack using big spaceships with big lasers. An initial counter-attack reveals a force field shielding the ships from any weapon humans can throw at it.

Well, we had a nice run. Guess it’s time for humanity to pack it up, right? Is there anything to do?

Start simple: What do the characters know? Conventional Earth weapons can’t get through the aliens’ energy shield. The aliens sent a signal hidden in Earth’s own satellites to coordinate their invasion. Every ship follows the same instructions.

And they’ve got a few things on hand that might help:

• A rebuilt alien scout ship that the government spent years analyzing
• An Apple Powerbook 5300
• Telegraph equipment to coordinate with other militaries across the globe

What can they do? Try to get the scout ship through the shields into the mothership, write and upload a virus into the mothership commanding the ships to turn their shields off (which spreads via the same signal they used before), and then break out the Morse code guidebooks to signal every remaining military to launch an all-out assault the moment those shields are down.

So there are the pieces of the plan, but how do you make it convincing?

It’s the characters that sell the idea to the audience. David Levinson already established his credibility by discovering the alien signal on his own, and he continues to show a degree of specific technical knowledge. Captain Steven Hiller volunteers to fly the mission, and he’s already showed his qualifications in an air combat scene with an alien fighter.

But then there’s James Rebhorn (aka “Oh, it’s that guy!”) as Albert Nimziki. He doesn’t contribute to the plan, but his constant attempt to punch holes in it acts as a stand-in for skeptical audience members finding fault in the proposal.

There’s still an element of doubt. This isn’t a slam dunk. But there’s enough confidence that an audience member wants to see them try and hopes it works.

Join them in the trap

In Doctor Strange, Stephen Strange may be a fast learner in the mystic arts, but he’s still a Noob. That’s part of what makes his desire to challenge the powerful Dormammu for the safety of Earth such a longshot. He’s one tiny wizard against a giant, powerful, magical wrecking ball of an entity.

And it’s Strange’s fragility that gives him the upper hand once the trap is set.

We’re told throughout the film that it’s a bad idea to mess with time magic. We’re also shown that Stephen Strange likes to decide for himself what rules apply to him. He’s specifically told to stop when Master Wong finds him experimenting with the Eye of Agamotto in the library of Kamar-Taj. Fellow wizard Mordo warns Strange that the consequences of messing with time can break causality or even create an endless temporal loop.

So at the last possible moment, when it looks like Dormammu is about to claim the Earth, Stephen Strange decides it’s time to have a chat with the big bad.

Either Dormammu bargains and leaves Earth alone (and Strange wins), or Dormammu gets trapped in a time loop with Strange (Strange loses, but everyone on Earth still wins).

One key element to put this over the top is the nature of Strange’s heroic sacrifice. After witnessing the many gruesome ways Dormammu dispatches Strange, the audience sees that he understands exactly the kind of eternal pain he’s confining himself to. And he takes on that burden willingly:

DORMAMMU
You will never win.

STEPHEN STRANGE
No, but I can lose. Again, and again, and again, and again forever. That makes you my prisoner.

A few takeaways

• Don’t let your characters go last-minute shopping for parts of the trap. Show the audience the components and skills necessary before so they can better appreciate the ingenuity of putting it all together.
• Know what happens if the trap fails. How would your protagonist react?
• Never underestimate the joys of seeing a villain receiving an ironic punishment. It’s bad for them that they lose, but it’s emotionally damaging because it’s using their own tactics, tools, or resources against them.