Batman Gambit/Oral Tradition

• Older Than Feudalism examples from Greek Mythology:
  • This happened when Zeus decided to take revenge at humanity because Prometheus stole fire from him. He did this by first giving Prometheus' brother Epimetheus a woman named Pandora who was very curious. With her also came a mysterious box in which Pandora was told never to open it. Naturally, Pandora's curiosity got the better of her and now humanity is ravaged with diseases and vices.
  • The Odyssey features how Odysseus manages to escape the cyclops Polyphemos. When he's first captured, he tells the cyclops that his name is "Nobody". Although his plan does work in the end, it rests on the assumptions that, if the Polyphemos's brothers hear Odysseus blind him and ask if there's anyone there, 1) that Polyphemos will say "It's Nobody," and 2) they'll buy it and go away.
• A couple of these are in The Bible.
  • The Satan pulls one by getting Adam and Eve to disobey God by questioning whether he has the right to tell them what to do, knowing that God won't kill them immediately or else look like he is afraid of someone not being under his authority, thus possibly causing the angels to question his authority. God retaliates by exploiting his Vetinari Job Security and ceding Earth to Satan and the humans so they can screw themselves over trying to rule themselves. God then turns on his foresight and pulls a 4,000-year-long gambit ending in the death of Jesus Christ to redeem the rest of humanity who got pulled into this whole mess.
  • King Solomon pulled this off when he determined which of two women was the true mother of a child they both claimed was theirs. He proposed that the child be cut in half so that both women would have part of him, rightfully believing that the false mother would allow the "division" and that the real mother would sooner have her son be raised by someone else than have him killed.^[1]
• Krishna is the king of this in Hindu Mythology.
  • The Pandavas, Krishna's cousins, are forced to have to defeat an evil, powerful king, Jarasandha, in order for them to become the emperors of the Earth. Krishna destroys Jarasandha's army no less than 17 times, each time sparing the king himself, so that whenever he lets the evil king beat him once, Jarasandha becomes conceited and vain. He then agrees to a duel with Bheema, the strongest Pandava, when he waltzes into his court, rather than just kill him on the spot. Krishna tells Bheema what Jarasandha's weakness is, ^[2] and Bheema is able to topple Jarasandha.

---

Back to Batman Gambit

1. ↑ The benefit here being that even if he didn't get the literal truth of the kid's birth, he still knew who deserved it because she actually cared rather than being in it for the one-upsmanship.
2. ↑ Long story short, Jarasandha was born as two halves of a baby, before he was put back together. He, therefore, can be separated just as easily.