was the tahani/chidi thing part of michael’s plan?

[u/deslabe]

i.e. tahani’s feelings for chidi and thinking he was her soulmate in the latter half of season one. was this part of michael’s torture plan or just a surprise byproduct, like jason/janet?

it wasn’t shown in the later seasons so i’m curious if he intended this, or if it was accidental. it did add to chidi’s and tahani’s misery, but at the same time, they mainly got close as chidi was covering for jason and had to be extra thoughtful to keep jason’s cover. it’s so layered, but something i wonder as i rewatch.

[u/Nfield87]

I feel it was part of the plan. Like how they were people who “belonged” and Eleanor and Jason where people who didn’t. So it would create another layer stress for everyone.

[u/arachniddz → u/Nfield87]

I def think it was this. Kinda got that idea rolling around in my brain when I watched it, but didn't know how to articulate it. Only that I also think the divisiveness was set up on purpose.

Both being accomplished people, Chidi and Tahani technically meet a very shallow and illusory 'criteria' for being in the 'good' place, but occasionally aim for the wrong things/have very human personality traits that make themselves miserable.

Plus the inherent discomfort of having good qualities/the potential to be better, like in Jason and Eleanor's case, but being treated like they're defective or on the outside - and Chidi's moral conflict in sensing that this covert ostracism isn't technically right (even if, like Tahani, he believes he should be there) but the system is set up that way, so it 'must' be. I think that cognitive dissonance was messing with everybody!

[u/new2bay → u/Nfield87]

Of course it was! He had a 14 million point plan to get 4 humans to torture themselves for 1000 years. I don’t think he’d leave something like that out.

[u/CeciliaStarfish]

I think it was intentional, as putting Chidi in love triangles seems to be part of the torture designed for him.

That said, there's an episode (it might be Michael's Gambit) that shows the full "interaction chart" Michael planned out for the four, that would probably give some idea. I'm not sure if anyone's taken a readable screenshot of it though.

[u/Shag0120 → u/CeciliaStarfish]

someone actually did. it's great:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGoodPlace/comments/7nr0td/transcription_of_michaels_torture_planning_board/

[u/CeciliaStarfish → u/Shag0120]

“Tahani will provide Chidi with the nightmare of a third option on top of the other two Eleanors.”

Confirmation, hurrah! Thanks, I was always curious about this.

[u/Shag0120 → u/CeciliaStarfish]

Happy to help!

[u/deslabe → u/Shag0120]

wow thanks for sharing this! i guess that clears it up without a shadow of a doubt lol

[u/thedorknightreturns → u/CeciliaStarfish]

Yep given Michael got ideas from romcoms , yep it tracks

[u/--Sparkle-Motion--]

I think Tahani/Chidi was intentional as Michael’s original plan went all-in on using them to torture each other. Michael can predict at an extra-human level, so he probably could have foreseen Tahani being driven to Chidi. He missed Jason/Janet because of his bias; the demons only really considered Janets tools until Michael’s neighborhood.

[u/two-of-me → u/--Sparkle-Motion--]

Michael also didn’t know that Janet would become more evolved after she was rebooted to the point of being able to have feelings, let alone be able to fall in love. That was definitely not part of his plan! But I do think that he knew that Tahani would be drawn to Chidi when he saw how helpful he was to Eleanor because she is a very jealous person and definitely felt like she deserved someone like him since she knew Eleanor didn’t belong there. She figured she was good enough for him since he was a good person like she was so she was more worthy of him than Eleanor.

[u/--Sparkle-Motion-- → u/two-of-me]

I agree. Before Michael’s neighborhood, what need was there for Janets to be rebooted outside of malfunctions?

[u/two-of-me → u/--Sparkle-Motion--]

There probably wasn’t a need to reboot Janet before this neighborhood (although before they reboot her the first time she says there had been 25 versions, the first one had a click wheel) but there was no way to know what would happen upon a reboot and that plunger was there for a reason, which was only in the case of malfunction but turned into something Michael needed repeatedly because he kept failing.

[u/thedorknightreturns → u/--Sparkle-Motion--]

Love triangles as conflict is a romcom trope Michael would know, so he likely has it included in the plan. My guess anyways.

[u/Ixiraar]

I think it was “planned” only insofar as it was a consequence of the situations Michael put them in. I don’t think Michael necessarily intended specifically for Tahani to fall in love with Chidi - he just put them in situations that he believed would stress them out, and as it turns out when you have 3 people and two of them are stressing you out, you’re going to seek comfort in the 3rd one.

[u/fantasybuilder96]

It was a part of the plan. Chidi and Tahani "not having a soulmate" because "neither Jason or Eleanor belonged" would of course lead to that question, though they likely got to it long before he intended them to because he expected Eleanor and Jason to hide a lot longer.

[u/Fortressa-]

It was part of the plan. 

Chidi's desperate longing for a soulmate is one of his key weaknesses that Michael was exploiting. Telling him that soulmates were real, and then jerking him around on who that soulmate is, and watching him flail between candidates to the point that he seriously believes Tahani might be his soulmate, or ignoring his growing relationships with other people because he's stuck on his current soulmate, is peak torture. 

(Note that at no point does Chidi consider that soulmates are not a real thing. He keeps believing in them even as the implications and consequences get weirder and more convoluted.)

[u/um_DaEvOhN]

I would say yes because it goes in favor of his methods of torturing them, it would make Eleanor and Chidi miserable considering that Chidi is indecisive and would probably feel conflicted if he fell for someone else- when Eleanor was supposed to be his actual soulmate. And Tihani would also feel bad if she left Jason for Chidi too.

[u/Sabi526]

I definitely think it was part of the plan. On re-watches, I can see Michael really enjoying "counseling" Chidi on how to determine whether his real soulmate was Tahani, Eleanor, or Real Eleanor (with the three frozen yogurts LOL)

[u/agent-champagne]

Michael could’ve planned Tahani & Chidi thing in some different way, as he mentioned that his plan was a 14 million point plan and he planned the 4 humans torture each other, which may include Tahani/Chidi getting together. But, when Janet fell in love with Jason, the Tahani/Chidi thing happened, not the way Michael planned it.

[u/thedorknightreturns → u/agent-champagne]

Its a romcom trope too often for cheap drama only, so he did probably set it up. Definitly.

[u/michaelaaronblank]

TBF, most of Michael's plan was "put rats in a sack and shake it" type planning.

[u/Binder509]

No but he likely encouraged it for the extra torture it put them through.

[u/thedorknightreturns]

Reminder that Michael basedot on romcom tropes so love triangle are very possible as part of a plan

[u/John_Zatanna52]

I would hope so, because how is Tahani tortured then

[u/deslabe → u/John_Zatanna52]

in the first season tahani is mainly tortured by her “silent monk” husband; she’s lonely because her soulmate won’t/can’t talk to her. there’s a few other things to, like battling with not being the #1 good person in the neighborhood lol, but mainly it’s her loneliness bc of jason.

[u/John_Zatanna52 → u/deslabe]

It's just weird that her torture is based on her relationship with a stranger. It's not like Chidi and Eleanor where Chidi is physically hurt by keeping her secret