The Oracle fixed execution plan feature fixes the entire execution plan, not just which indexes are used. Think about a query where there's ten (indexed) tables

The Oracle fixed execution plan feature fixes the entire execution plan, not just which indexes are used. Think about a query where there's ten (indexed) tables involved. Saying "use this index for this table, this index for that table, etc." isn't the same as saying "First, filter the third table down to the fields that match the criteria given for that table using index Foo, then filter the 7th table given its criteria using index Bar, then join them together using nested loops, then join them to the result of ...". Think about an Oracle execution plain as your declarative SQL query rewritten as a procedural program as you would write it in C/Java/Python/Ruby with hashtables, nested loops, if statements, etc.