Scry vs. Scry: Difference between revisions

* Subverted by ''[[Fighter in The Wind]]'', a Japanese movie about a real life Korean man who became a Karate master. Before having a duel with his [[The Rival|rival]] they have a vision of the katana wielding rival being stopped before he can unsheath his sword and then losing. When they do fight, however, the rival is able to draw his katana and ''lay it flat on his opponent's head'', showing that he could have easily won. Then they fight for real.

* There are some suggestions that the movie [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435705/ Next] may be one of these, given that {{spoiler|half the movie turns out to be the main character's precognitive vision}} and {{spoiler|1=the bad guys have been specifically ordered to stop him before he hooks up with his [[Power-Up]]/[[Love Interest]].}}

* At the climax of ''[[Bill and Teds Bogus Journey]]'' Bill & Ted are facing de Nomolos in a [[Battle of the Bands]]. Each has a time machine, and each keeps changing the present by going back into the past in the future to fix things. Bill & Ted have the epiphany that only the one who wins will be able to go back to change things, including changing things their rival is going to change in order to lull him into a False Sense of Security.

 

* [[David Eddings]]' ''[[Belgariad]]'' and the follow-up series ''[[The Malloreon]]'' involves a conflict between two prophecies, which are personified and able to communicate with the protagonist and the villain respectively.

** Eddings appears to be rather fond of this trope. Another David Eddings book, ''The Redemption of Althalus,'' actively pitted two [[Five-Man Band|groups]] with the ability to change the past and future against each other, with the major edge of the protagonists being a creative boy who tends to have [[Crazy Enough to Work|completely unorthodox applications]] of the capability.

** To clarify; Alice can see the future and Edward can read minds.

* Discussed in ''The Cursed'' by Dave Duncan, in which those who see the future essentially go insane if they change said future. One oracle who's a supporting character had a friend who went insane this way, and the heroine is told that to truly understand him she should ask him whether he saw the future where the friend did nothing or the future where the friend went insane. (Incidentally, she never asks, allowing the author to avoid that bit of [[Fridge Logic]].)

* In ''[[His Dark Materials]]'', all the factions have people who can read alethiometers, though Lyra has the ability to read it with greater speed and accuracy than the others, and [[Chaotic Good|she's working on neither side]].

* In ''[[Mistborn]]'', Allomancers can see a few seconds into the future--not enough to generally be useful, but enough to give them a massive tactical advantage in battle--by using the fictional metal [[Applied Phlebotinum|atium]]. When two atium-using Allomancers get in a fight, the result is a very... compressed version of this trope.

** Aziriphale (an angel) claims that all these predictions are just propaganda, and if there were no uncertainty, there wouldn't be any point to the war between Heaven and Hell in the first place.

** He also points out that all prophets, except for Agnes Nutter, had some sort of "static" preventing them from predicting the future with total accuracy.

** By the end Crowley adjusts his view {{spoiler|describing the war [[Xanatos Gambit|as a game of solitaire that God couldn't ever really lose]]}}.

*** But that's because God isn't really on Heaven's side, but his own, and perhaps of humanity, that both Heaven and Hell consider mere pawns.

** And then in one of his later ''[[Xeelee]]'' novels (''The Ring'' I believe) you find out that the Xeelee were really mainly fighting another entity entirely. One with the intent of essentially destroying every star in existence so as to let themselves live longer and easier. Humanity was only ever a distraction that the Xeelee put up with until we got too annoying then they put us in our place. Oh and those pesky {{spoiler|photino birds? They win, the Xeelee loses. The known universe is abandoned.}} As this was the first novel in the sequence I read it was a rather disturbing first impression of the Xeelee.

* The martial-arts version is discussed in ''Market Forces'' by Richard K. Morgan, with one character speculating that the system would be prejudiced against those with itchy eyelids.

** Whats makes the whole thing even more confusing is that Tzeentch is such a obsessive [[The Chessmaster|chessmaster]] that sometimes the person he's going up against is himself. As the god of change the only thing that matters is playing the game, since winning would lead to a form of stagnation.

* Time Combat in ''[[Continuum]]'' works like this. Rival spanners try to undo each other's changes in the timestream and, in so doing, [[Temporal Paradox|frag their opponent into quasi-sentient time goo]].

* ''[[GURPS Supers]]'' has an example in its "Mixed Doubles" supplement: Hunchback was a British precog whose powers allowed the Allies to counter the advantage of the Nazi's own precog during world war two.

* The martial arts version crops up in ''[[Legend of the Five Rings]]'' during [[Single-Stroke Battle|iaijutsu duels]]. Each swordsman gets a limited ability to "see" some or all of his opponents stats, and some battles end before the first stroke if one combatant decides he's completely outmatched. It is not considered dishonorable to forfeit a duel this way.

 

== Video Games ==

** Actually, the Light Prognosticus isn't a telling of a future but a means and thoughts on how to combat the prophicies held in the Dark Prognosticus.

* The plot of ''[[Time Hollow]]'' revolves around main character Ethan Kairos manipulating time to stop an antagonist using the same abilities as himself.

* ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' has this in spades. Especially interesting considering the series' (awesome) unholy marriage of [[You Can't Fight Fate]] and [[Screw Destiny]]: [[Anti-Hero]] Kain knows that he has a world-shattering [[Sadistic Choice]] coming, and so goes back through slightly altered versions of the same events over and over again, hoping that, eventually, the right [[Butterfly of Doom]] will come along and allow him to [[Take a Third Option]]. Naturally, [[Gambit Pileup|it gets more complicated from there]].

* In ''[[Sam and Max]]'', {{spoiler|the tutorial on how to use Max's psychic powers in season 3 is actually a psychic flash-forward to the climax of the episode, showing how Sam and Max defeat Skun-Ka'Pe. Near the end of the actual episode, Skun-Ka'Pe takes the Toy of Power that let Max see the tutorial and is able to take the items Sam and Max needed to win before they even begin their plan.}}

 

 

* Celesto Morgan versus ''[[Dominic Deegan]]''... sort of. Their conflict [[Lensman Arms Race|escalates beyond this]] fairly quickly, but when they first butt heads, it's as competing oracles.

** Also Dominic vs. Vilrath in the Visions of Doom arc. {{spoiler|Or so it appears at first. In fact, Vilrath is Dominic's [[Aloof Older Brother|Aloof (and evil) Older Brother]] Jacob, and he knows all about Dominic and his family not from scrying, but simply because he is (or was) part of that family.}}