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It's actually worse if someone is capable of any kind of action. You know everything about the future? That means you already know if you will attempt to avert the future. You already know how this attempt will turn out. You already know what you will think when you make the attempt. In fact, it will be utterly impossible for you to even think of doing something different. You will think what you will think, and you will do what you will do, and you already know what they are. [[And I Must Scream|And you will scream what you will scream]].
And so it goes for some [[Fate and Prophecy Tropes|oracles]] and [[Deus Est Machina|superpowerful intellects]]. They often go [[Mad Oracle|mad]] [[Go Mad
Compare how the [[Living Lie Detector]] is often fascinated by the [[Consummate Liar]]. Contrast [[Scry Versus Scry]] and [[Xanatos Speed Chess]], which have oracles who are anything ''but'' bored.
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== Anime ==
* ''[[Baccano!]]'' has a notable example. {{spoiler|Ronnie, the demon with the immortality elixir,}} has this power, noted its drawbacks, and ''turns it off''.
* [[Knight Templar]] slash [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] Enrico Pucci seeks to invoke this in Part 6 of ''[[
* This is what Eriol claims was Clow Reed's motivation for setting events in motion to pass his powers on to ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]''. ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' and ''[[
* Narumi Kiyotaka from the ''[[Spiral]]'' manga, even more obviously ''bored'' in the prequel Spiral: Alive. It is hinted that the events of the manga happen because he was just too bored, and stated to be the reason he acts like an idiot and does ridiculous things such as dressing up in furry costumes: to spice things up in his boring life. Although his ability to predict ''everything'' is presented more as a form of incredibly high intellect than a supernatural ability to see the future, he is still considered a "god" by everybody else. {{spoiler|Ayumu eventually outwits and defeats him}}, but Kiyotaka is so enigmatic it can be argued he ''knew'' and in fact ''arranged'' this outcome. There's no way to know for sure.
* The interfaces from ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]''. The desire to avert this is likely what drove Ryoko into the radical faction of the entity {{spoiler|and later possibly tergiversating from them alltogether}}, and Kyon notes in the novels that Yuki becomes noticeably happier after she loses this ability.
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* In ''[[Runaways]]'' Niko {{spoiler|inflicts this on Gert's parents when she encounters them in the past. Consequently they both ''know'' that the course of action they're taking will lead to their own and their daughter's death, but cannot change anything they do, listening to themselves justify actions that lead to their doom.}}
* In one incarnation of the ''[[Doom Patrol]]'', one of the men who goes by Negative Man can see a short distance into the future. He ''believes'' he can't change what he sees, and thus is understandably cynical.
* The title character of the near-future gangster comic ''Skreemer'' had seen his whole future by the time he was in his teens, including who he would marry, who would betray him, and how he would die. This led to him taking outrageous risks (such as a home full of balconies with no railings, or walking through hails of gunfire). It also backfired in weird ways, such as when he told a loyal henchman that he knew he'd turn
== Film ==
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** A slightly different take involves a weakness of the Spacing Guild. Because they us [[FTL]] travel, but don't have FTL sensors, navigators use prescience to choose a safe course. This leads them to use their other applications of prescience in the same way, choosing the safe course and not realizing others would choose the riskier way.
** This is ultimately {{spoiler|Paolo, Paul's [[Evil Twin]] [[Cloning Blues|ghola's]]}} undoing.
* Averted in ''[[Slaughterhouse-Five]]''. Although the Tralfamadorians see the past, present, and future as one, without any possibility of changing the
* ''Timequake'', also a [[Kurt Vonnegut]] novel, plays it straight, though. The world had a kind of existential crisis and skips back to ten years ago. Everyone has to replay the last ten years, doing everything exactly the same as they did last time round but aware of what's going to happen.
* Evanna the witch from ''[[The Saga of Darren Shan]]'' has this, and has taken a neutral stand on most things. Though, when she realizes that {{spoiler|her father [[Meaningful Name|Des Tiny]] has fiddled with time and space to use his 2 sons to essentially cause a dystopian apocalypse, she realizes that maybe fate isn't totally set in stone.}}
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== Tabletop RPG ==
* Tzeentch, the god of [[Xanatos Roulette]] from ''[[Warhammer
** He seems to control his boredom by setting up a dozen plans at once and [[Gambit Pileup|watching them crash into each other and spray shrapnel everywhere]].
** Technically, Tzeentch ''doesn't'' see into the future, any more or less than any of the other partially-precognitive Chaos Gods do. He, however, can calculate virtually every outcome of everything going on, in the entire galaxy. Constantly. He DOES have a Greater Daemon that can see the future... Because he threw it into the "well" that was the literal axis of all of time. It emerged with two heads, [[Knights and Knaves|one that always spoke the truth of the future and one that constantly states the opposite]]. [[Unreliable Narrator|They switch roles unpredictably.]] He has a dozen OTHER demons constantly writing down the unending, insane gibbering, to try and glean what he can of what's to come.
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* Trenia from ''[[Makai Kingdom]]'' is basically the soul of the Sacred Tome that happens to be a [[Cosmic Keystone]] that records the netherword's history... in advance. Sure you can [[Reality Warper|write a wish in the thing and alter reality]], but [[Sorry, Billy, But You Just Don't Have Legs|you've gotta have thumbs for that, y'know]]? So when Zetta takes up her position in the opening, she thoroughly enjoys direct interaction with things, even though she still knows what will happen.
* Fateweavers in ''[[Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning]]'' don't actually weave Fate as their title might suggest. They can only see a person's fate, [[You Can't Fight Fate|which cannot be changed.]] The first Fateweaver you meet, Argath, was originally a famed adventurer and hero who thought becoming a Fateweaver was an honor. Then he read his own Fate and saw his own inescapable death: as the main ingredient of an ettin's stewpot. He started drinking pretty heavily after that.
== Web Comic ==
* The [[
* In ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', this appears to be the main motivation of the shape-shifting Immortal entity dubbed 'Chaos' - she(?) hates predictability and influences events only to make them more chaotic and unpredictable. She helped the good-guys on several occasions, simply because she knew they'd lose otherwise - and she refuses to help the bad-or-not guy escape from his prison, since the only thing she really cares about is NOT knowing when, and if, he'll be able to escape. She only provides occasional hints, to keep him from giving up ('cuz that would be boring...)
** She broke this rule of hers recently, but that was as part of her [[Berserk Button]]. FYI: Don't fuck with her son. It will end...[[The End of the World as We Know It|poorly]].
* Sarda of ''[[8-Bit Theater
* Aradia Megido from ''[[Homestuck]]'' has this in spades, thanks to her communion with the dead and later time powers. She is convinced they are all doomed and nothing they do can change this. She at one point considers killing Karkat just to create a divergent timeline that won't save them either. (Karkat is not amused.)
* Played with in ''[[Girl Genius]]'', from Othar's Twitter account. A girl from Paris volunteered for an experiment, but was basically stuck in mental time travel. For everyone outside, it was maybe an hour, but for her and the others inside the experiment, it was a thousand years. During that time, the girl predicted every event that would happen if she tried a heist, and was correct, until [[Spanner in the Works|Othar got massively drunk.]]
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]'' gives us the Oracle Twins. One of them always sees bad futures, and has become so used to hearing bad news that everything makes her bright and perky. She is not an example of this trope. The other sister, however, only sees good futures, and in the spirit of this trope acts unenthusiastic all the time due to having all of the surprises taken out of life.
* The protagonist of ''[[All Dogs Go to Heaven]]'' discovers a book in which all his future actions are written, and learns that in heaven, there are absolutely no surprises. The book didn't predict that he would ''flee heaven'' because of this.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Example As a Thesis]]▼
[[Category:Fate and Prophecy Tropes]]
[[Category:Prescience Is Predictable]]
[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]
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