“You know what I’ve noticed? Nobody panics when things go ‘according to plan’ – even if the plan is horrifying!” But when one unexpected bad thing happens “… well everyone loses their minds!” remarked Heath Ledger as he played the Joker in “The Dark Knight Rises.” Even though this is a movie quote, these are wiser words than we give them credit for, and unfortunately, they are quite accurate.

In general, society doesn’t really react to events based on how awful they are; rather it reacts to them based on how expected they are. As Ledger remarks “Upset the established order and everything becomes chaos.”

Last month the world saw chaos emerge when ISIS attacked Paris. ISIS struck the French capital with coordinated attacks, injuring and killing well over one hundred French people. As France and the world react to these horrific attacks we’re left wondering one key question – Why Paris? ISIS’s attacks were against innocent civilians, not against any political or military targets. What point was ISIS trying to make with their attacks?

The answer can be summed up in that ISIS wanted to prove that they’re willing to “break the plan.” In its roughly two years of existence ISIS has made itself known across the world for numerous crimes against humanity. The extremist group’s record includes starving the people under its occupation, bombing mosques, town centers and other areas full of innocent people, forcing child soldiers into its army, and publicly executing people on the mere suspicion of dissent. The world has come to know ISIS, but the times when people care the most about ISIS were mostly when Westerners were victims. Quite unfortunately, the world largely didn’t fear ISIS as much as it does today because almost all of its actions have been within the Middle East, where violence is far less shocking. Middle Eastern violence simply isn’t as big of a deal to much of the main steam news as violence in the West would be. Because ISIS’s attacks had been largely confined over there, the world hasn’t cared nearly as much. When a bombing in Beirut, a battle in Mosul, or any similar attack happens the world largely looks on in apathy, so ISIS hasn’t been treated too seriously. However ISIS was well aware of this and decided to stop going “according to plan.”

ISIS launched an attack on Paris, and in doing so unleashed terror and chaos that an attack in the Middle East could never accomplish. Sure, ISIS has done and could continue to do things like bomb Syrian towns, invade more cities in Iraq, or commit dozens of public executions to post on the Internet. But if ISIS did this it wouldn’t get the world to care. That would be “part of the plan”, and the world wouldn’t panic, and probably wouldn’t make the news for more than 20 seconds. ISIS is completely aware of the world’s apathy to them and their actions so long as they stay in the Middle East. So ISIS went for the unexpected and went for Paris. The world thought this was never supposed to happen. And ISIS’s plan worked exactly as they wanted.

In attacking Paris, ISIS unleashed panic and terror that an attack in the Middle East could never come close to achieving. By attacking a Western city, ISIS upset the established order. Now that ISIS has made its point that it doesn’t just play by the world’s plan, and is willing to attack the West, the world came to fear ISIS on a whole new level. We’ve known ISIS is extremely brutal for a while – but that was mostly expected. So long as they stayed in the Middle East ISIS didn’t cause huge panic around the world . But now that ISIS has proven that they will go by their own terms and might attack the West if it wants, that got the world to panic. One act alone unleashed terror into the world that a Middle Eastern attack could never achieve. ISIS wanted to upset the established order – and that’s why it went for Paris.