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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"He who sees his own doom can better avoid its path. He who sees the doom of others can deliver it."''|'''Eldrad Ulthran''', ''[[Warhammer
Sometimes, the most powerful fighter will not be equipped with such [[Stock Super Powers]] as super-strength, or [[Nigh Invulnerable|nigh invulnerability]]. Instead, they have the power to see into the future.
Why is this useful? Because it lets them know your next move, and plan accordingly.
Why this doesn't muddle up their ability to know what you're doing ''now'' can be chalked up to the [[Rule of Cool]]. Alternately, it can be [[Handwaved]] by saying that they're not looking that far into the future, or by noting [[Required Secondary Powers|their brain can keep up with both]].
Is often accompanied by [[Spider Sense]], which warns the user of vague danger instead of predicting specific attacks.
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* [[Complete Monster|Takuma Fudou]] from ''[[GetBackers]]'' has this by way of precognition. He can look a few seconds into the future, and see what his opponents are going to do.
* The [[Big Bad]] of ''Scryed'' {{spoiler|eventually gains this ability, which becomes something of a Wallbanger considering it allows him to dodge Straight Cougar's attacks (A Speedster who, with his basic Alter, can break the sound barrier; the [[Big Bad]] is physically no stronger or faster than a normal human. This was in his upgraded form, no less).}}
* This is Diavolo's Stand ability in Part 5 of ''[[
* In ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', Nodoka's artifact has the ability to read minds. While this doesn't quite fit the Clairvoyance part of the trope, the use we see most often is her reading her opponent's mind in combat and reacting to the opponent's plan.
* ''[[Mirai Nikki]]'', being a series about people who receive ways to predict the future and are then sent to kill each other, of course has this in spades.
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** The Mantra (or [[Spell My Name with an "S"|'mantora']]) ability of the Skypeian Priests works like this. The main character overcomes this by ''[[Crazy Enough to Work|turning his brain off and moving at random]]''.
** It is [[Chekhov's Skill|revealed much later on]] that this skill is called Mantra by the Sky Islanders, but is one of three types of [[Ki Attacks|Haki]], called the "Color of Observation" or "Kenbunshoku".
* In ''[[Psyren]]'' we have Kabuto Kirisaki, whose psychic ability "Menace" acts as both [[Spider Sense]] and
* In ''[[Saint Seiya]]'' a silver saint has this ability and it proves hard to defeat
* [[Bifauxnen|Jun]] of ''[[Saki (manga)|Saki]]'' has the ability to read the flow of a Mahjong game and uses this to her advantage by cutting off her opponent when they're about to win. Unfortunately for her, [[Mismatched Eyes|Mihoko]] also has the ability to perfectly analyze a field to see what's going on ''and'' has a presence that disrupts Jun's ability.
* Parodied in ''[[Soul Eater]]''. A [[Mook]] shows up who has this ability. Sadly, he can't ''react'' that fast and ends up throwing himself at his opponent's fist at the first opportunity to save himself the
* The [[Villain of the Week]] Nurse Okamoto/Hina in episode 5 of ''[[Star Driver]]'' has this, able to anticipate all of Takuto's moves... unfortunately, it also came with a fanservice mode. And since she couldn't stop checking out Takuto she lost.
* The [[Informed Ability]] of Eila in ''[[Strike Witches]]''. This allows her to forgo using [[Instant Runes|magical shields]] entirely, being able to see and dodge ''[[Frickin' Laser Beams]]''. However, problems arise in an episode when she's not considered for a mission alongside [[Romantic Two-Girl Friendship|her girlfriend]] Sanya requiring her to be protected from those [[Frickin' Laser Beams]] while she's a sitting duck, aiming her rockets...
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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Midnighter in [[The Authority]], a result of [[Awesomeness By Analysis]].
* The second [[Batgirl]] has this. They try to justify it via [[Training
* [[Birds of Prey]] villain Archer Braun
* In ''[[Doom Patrol]]'' Negative Man (''nee'' Flash Forward) can see the immediate future but due to his relative wimpiness his only use in a fight is coordinating his teammates based on his visions. Eventually he loses control of it and can't stop seeing the ''distant'' future, before being given medication that suppresses his powers altogether.
* ''Dream Girl'' in pre-any-reboots [[Legion of Super-Heroes]] could do this. Not only that, her ability to do it was taken from a much older LSH story.
* Speaking of which, [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]], depending on how the writers feel his [[Spider Sense|significant sense]] should work.
* [[Superman]] villain Massacre. Superman eventually figured out that Massacre's actual ability is being able to read his opponent's nerve impulses to predict their actions and knocks him off guard with a ricochet attack and presses the advantage to keep Massacre from regaining his bearings.
* In a recent ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'' comic, Clock King is able to clobber Robin by virtue of being able to see a few seconds into the future and knowing what his next move in combat is going to be.
** Ravager has the same power. In the final issue of ''Terror Titans'', she wipes the floor with Clock King by [[Fighting Dirty]] and not giving him time to react to his visions.
*** Actually not the same power. It was retconned later that her power is based on [[Awesomeness By Analysis]]. Deathstroke, who shares the same powers as Ravager, explained this too her.
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== [[Film]] ==
* Nicholas Cage played a precognitive in the movie ''Next''. Since he was always seeing two minutes ahead, he was actually LIVING two minutes
* The [[Big Bad]] in ''[[Chronicles of Riddick]]'' has this as a [[Required Secondary Powers|Required Secondary Power]]. If you can [[Flash Step|instantly]] [[Confusion Fu|pick your next move]], you better know the consequences of those moves. {{spoiler|Riddick tricks him into an unwinnable situation.}}
* The [[Big Bad]] of [[Dead or Alive]] has... a pair of sunglasses that both give him the fighting prowess of those he gathered data from, as well as lets him predict their movements. It makes less sense in context, as it allows a non-combatant about twice the age of his enemies to take down three skilled fighters working together.
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** Of course, Anakin's ability to see the future seems more like a curse than a blessing in [[Star Wars|Episode 2: Attack of the Clones]] and by [[Star Wars|Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith]] we know it's more of a curse than a blessing.
*** Well, prescience plus [[Genre Blindness]] is a curse. Doesn't the GFFA have stories about [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|self-fulfilling prophecies]]?
** There's a [[Star Wars/Fanfic Recs|fan fic]], "[https://web.archive.org/web/20100610083324/http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/22761239/p1/?0 The Sith Who Brought Life Day], where an officer trying to figure out the identity of the pilot who destroyed the Death Star looks at some of Luke's records. He'd taken a hand-eye coordination test and caused the computer to crash.
{{quote|At least according to the record, he'd been hitting the correct response buttons in the milliseconds after the trigger stimuli algorithm had been run, but ''before the actual images appeared onscreen'', and the computer had not been able to handle near-simultaneous input and output. He'd crashed the thing three times before he'd evidently [[Cover-Blowing Superpower|decided to slow down a little and let the program catch up]].}}
* General Buford makes a speech about what will happen at [[Gettysburg]] if he allows the Confederates to take the high ground before the Union infantry arrives. Though this is due to being [[Genre Savvy]] as a result of decades of experience as a professional soldier rather than any superpower, he does reference the trope.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* In the ''[[Dune]]'' series, the Kwisatz Haderach has the ability to (among other things) see into the future, which is used in combat. Mentats can also see the future by way of "projecting" the possible outcomes of a given choice, but their role was not usually that of a front line combatant. And yet when it came to combat, prescience proved useless because of too much happening too fast. During one fight, the most Paul could see was that possible futures include him winning and him being carried out as a corpse.
* The main character from the ''[[Alex Verus]]'' series is one of the best examples of this. He's usually going up against opponents far more powerful than him, but survives through always being one step ahead.
* {{spoiler|Prince Po}} from ''[[Graceling]]'' has a variation of this as his [[Differently-Powered Individual|Grace]]. While he can't see the future, he ''can'' sense people's intentions toward him. If someone's going to punch him, he'll know it before they so much as twitch. He's a very talented hand-to-hand fighter on his own merit, and his Grace amplifies it exponentially.
* One spectacular aversion in the book ''Iapetus'', in which after the normal protagonist has had his complete helplessness around espers repeatedly proven to him, he encounters a community leader of an esper colony; a physically brutal sociopath who enjoys killing "monkeys" and feels the protagonist has stolen his girl. And who is unconscious after one punch to the jaw that nobody sensed before it landed.
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* ''[[Lord Darcy|Too Many Magicians]]'' features a character with this power.
* The mind-reading version occasionally happens to background characters in Christopher Stasheff's ''[[Warlock of Gramaraye]]'' series, though all of the major heroic characters either are telepaths themselves or unreadable.
* Hope Adams of [[The Otherworld]] has the ability to sense chaotic emotions/events. In one book, this allows her to sense bad thoughts ({{spoiler|such as thinking about pulling a gun on someone}}) before they occur and intercept them, thus giving her some form of
* Played with in Weber's Hell's Gate series. While most people's Precog deal with specific disasters like volcanos or forest fires, he Calirath talent is basically 'People Precog', dealing with tragic or sweeping events with /people/. It works quite well when the Calirath is going to be risking death in a
* The Dunyain from [[The Second Apocalypse]] can't technically see the future, but they can read their opponents' expressions and body language and predict their actions before they perform them.
* [[Twilight|Alice Cullen]] uses her clairvoyance against other vampires, both for fighting and playing chess.
* The title device in [[Fred Saberhagen]]'s ''The Mask of the Sun'' could do this for the wearer. When the main character put it on for the first time, it showed him a vision of shifting two pieces of furniture. He did so, and the bad guys who burst in soon afterward stumbled over the items in their new positions, giving him the opportunity to escape. The mask also showed him, '''months''' in advance, how to get out of a certain prison cell, although it wasn't until he was locked in that he realized what that image had been about.
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Dungeons
** Not just spells, but various feats, class/race abilities, skills and item properties work as boosts to Initiative rolls, keep you from being subject to surprise attacks, be able to use interrupting abilities, move out of the way, have someone else take the damage, or otherwise ticking off the GM.
** This is also what numerical "insight" bonuses
* In the [[RPG
* In ''[[Warhammer
* Averted for the Oracle of Tzeentch - he is possibly the greatest seer of the universe but his powers are only useful in long-term Xanatos Roulettes; he is actually blind to the present (one head sees the future and the other the past) and so physically a pushover by greater demon standards.
* In ''[[The Dresden Files (game)|The Dresden Files]]''' RPG, the custom power "A Few Seconds Ahead" that canon character Abby has allows her to see a few seconds into the future. The in-game effect of this is that it allows her to use her high Lore skill to dodge attacks rather than her lower physical skills.
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* Psycho Mantis from ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' does this by reacting to your controller input. {{spoiler|He becomes a much easier opponent if you plug your controller into the P2 port so that he can't read you.}}
* The [[Our Vampires Are Different|Vyrewatch]] in ''[[
* Lambda of ''[[Wild
* In ''[[Warcraft]]'', this is part of why it's a bad idea to fight Nozdormu, Aspect of Time. The others are his colossal other [[Time Master|temporal based powers]], such as the fact that even if you did manage to kill him he could rewind time and try again, and of course the fact that he's a giant dragon.
** Actually Nozdormu is destined to die, although where, when and how is unknown. He was gifted with the knowledge of his own death to keep him from misusing his powers over time. Basically unless you're the destined one, you can't kill him.
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== [[Web Original]] ==
* Averted in [[Dominic Deegan]] during a [https://web.archive.org/web/20110812161416/http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2011-05-23 fencing class.]
* Foreshadow in ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' is a crimefighter who occasionally partners with [[The Cowl|Battlecat]], battling organized crime in New Orleans. He's an almost unbeatable hand-to-hand combatant due to his ability to see just far enough into the future to know what they will do. He's even used this power to dodge bullets. The Eye of God, an expert swordsman and member of the super-terrorist group known as "The Mujahedin", can do the same thing. One wonders what a fight between Foreshadow and the Eye of God would be like.
* {{spoiler|The Girl}} of ''[[A Girl and Her Fed]]'' has this power.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Stock Super Powers]]
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[[Category:Sensory Tropes]]
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