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Prophetic Fallacy: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
A variation on the [[Prophecy Twist]] and, sometimes, the [[Self
For example, a man might see himself being knocked down by a car and note that the time on a digital display is 10:51, then spend the entire episode trying to avoid going near a road, despite various events conspiring to put him in danger. He eventually makes it to 10:52 and thinks he is safe, but is knocked down an hour later and discovers that he saw the digital clock in a mirror and his actual time of death is 12:01.
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Like most [[Twist Ending]] tropes, '''Beware of Spoilers'''.
{{examples
== Anime and Manga ==
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* In ''[[Basara]]'', male and female twins are born, and it is prophesised that one of them will overthrow the evil kings that rule post-apocalyptic Japan. The villages automatically assume that the boy is the saviour... but he gets killed, leading the girl to disguise herself as him and lead the rebellion. The village wise man comments that she noticed without realising it that she was in fact the saviour.
* In ''[[Rave Master]]'', a seer sees Haru (hero) stabbing Elie (heroine) with his sword. Turn out, Elie's magic was going to go crazy and Haru activated the next form of his sword that can cut magic but nothing of substance, thus sealing her nearly-rampaging magic and saving everyone. After this, he waves the sword through his arms a few times to demonstrate.
* In part 3 of ''[[Jo
* In ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of The Wind]]'', the prophecy of the Blue-Clad One refers to a great leader, a bird perched on his shoulder, appearing from a field of gold to lead the nations to peace and unity and save them from the Sea of Corruption. What it actually foretold was {{spoiler|Nausicaa, her [[Dressing As the Enemy|Dorok tunic]] stained deep blue and indigo from a baby Ohmu's blood, being lifted high into the air by the shining, golden feelers of innumerable Ohmu, her long and bushy-tailed squirrel-fox Teto on her shoulders}}.
* In ''[[Dog Days]]'' Princess Leo receives a prophecy from a magic mirror that both Princess Millhiore and the Hero Cinque will be killed at a certain date and time. Turns out fortune telling is far from accurate and trying to avoid the prophecy, which never came true, was nearly a disaster.
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== Literature ==
* In the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' books, Voldemort hears half of a prophecy about a boy about to be born who will be his nemesis. With two possible choices, he chooses Harry, but in the process of trying to kill him, gives Harry both the power and a reason to defy him, which was the half of the prophesy that he missed. Also a [[Self
** It's implied that the prophesy still would have been true if he had attacked the other boy, in a bit of a [[
** It's also clear that Voldemort intended to kill both children, just to be sure. But once Harry survived the attempt and Voldemort was temporarily reduced to a near-death state, it became obvious that he was the one the prophecy referred to and thus Voldemort lost interest in the other child. He didn't realize, {{spoiler|and never did figure out}}, that Harry was only [[The Chosen One]] of the prophecy because ''[[Hoist By His Own Petard|Voldemort was the one who chose him]]''. As mentioned above, that's the Fallacy part of the [[Prophetic Fallacy]].
* The ''[[Discworld]]'' book ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Interesting Times|Interesting Times]]'' references Croesus (below). A seer, who, as he's on the Discworld probably has a decent batting average, is completely flummoxed by a demand to predict the outcome of a battle, which is understandable as Lady Luck, several billion chaotic-system-generating butterflies, and Rincewind ("With him here, even uncertainty is uncertain") are all in the immediate vicinity. Knowing that he would be put to death for admitting it, he says only that "a decisive victory would be won" -- neglecting to mention who would be the victor.
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* The ''Journey of the Catechist'' series has the main character repeatedly warned that if they continue they will die. They do, only to be resurrected immediately afterward.
* ''[[The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'': Arthur Dent knows that he can't be killed until he visits Stavromula Beta and has an attempt made on his life while there, thanks to his encounter with Agrajag. Dent assumes it's a planet and does his best to find out where it is, so he can avoid it. {{spoiler|It turns out to be a nightclub, Stavro Mueller's Beta. He doesn't realize that this is the name of the nightclub until he enters it. The attempt on his life is made, and he's killed seconds after that}}.
* Much of the ''[[The Darksword Trilogy|Darksword]]'' trilogy concerns an ancient prophecy about [[The End of the World As We Know It|the destruction of the world]]. Unfortunately, the prophet [[Fainting Seer|died in the middle of speaking it]], leaving it unfinished. Naturally, when the final line of the prophecy is eventually revealed it completely changes the meaning. Turns out the people who have been trying to prevent the end of the world have been doing ''exactly the wrong thing'' for several thousand years now. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Oops]].
* ''Flashforward'' by Robert J. Sawyer plays with this trope and adds a tragic twist to it. [[Applied Phlebotinum]] briefly transports the mind of everyone on Earth to the future, giving everyone a short "vision" of what is to come. Believing this means the future is predestined, people make assumptions based on what they saw themselves doing in the future. Some start doing whatever their future selves did while others are devastated by their visions. This drives one character, who wanted to be a writer but saw himself as a bus boy, to commit suicide, ironically proving that the future wasn't predestined anyway. It's also implied he was working as a bus boy [[Its for A Book|for book research]].
* A subversion in ''[[Good Omens (Literature)|Good Omens]]'' by [[Terry Pratchett]] and [[Neil Gaiman]]. One of the main characters owns a book of prophecies made by a distant ancestor that's been passed down from generation to generation. Every last prophecy is perfectly accurate-but pronouncedly unclear. The subversion is that this character, and generations previous, were fully aware of this, and it became a sort of family business to try and decipher them. This wasn't an easy job, since the best explanation that she can give another character was that Agnes Nutter, the original seer, was looking at things she didn't understand through a very small metaphorical tube, in no discernible order, and so while things often slot into place afterward (some in time to do some good even, like, "Dont buye Betamacks"), until then what anyone ''thinks'' the original seer was predicting is as good a guess as anyone else's.
** On the other hand, the prophecies are indeed so accurate that the characters eventually realize they can just {{spoiler|pull one out at random and it'll be the one they need}}.
* ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'': The sea nymph Marinell's mother was scared by a vague prophecy made by a sea god Proteus that a woman would be the cause of her son's doom. Assuming that the woman who could hurt him the most would be the one he loved, she forbade her son from falling in love or getting married... eventually leaving his girlfriend [[Distressed Damsel|Florimell]] easy pickings for [[I Have You Now, My Pretty|Proteus]]. Meanwhile, the prophecy was fulfilled when Marinell was severely injured ''in battle'' with the [[Action Girl]] [[Knight in Shining Armor]] Britomart. His mother eventually saw her error in interpreting the prophecy and got Zeus to release Florimell and give Proteus a stern lecture on abusing the power of prophecy to manipulate people.
* [[Harry Turtledove]]'s fourth ''Tales Of The Fox'' story has a prophecy about "bronze and wood" that fools even the clever and well-educated Fox into thinking it just refers to chariots, but that's okay; it wasn't meant for him anyway, but for his son and his demigod houseguest, who puzzle out the true meaning just in time to save the Fox's army.
* In Daphne du Maurier's short story ''Don't Look Now'' (later made into a film), John Baxter stays in Venice because he sees his wife on a boat. {{spoiler|Turns out he can see the future, and she was actually returning to Venice for his funeral}}.
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* The series that was truly the king of this trope was the contemporaneous ''[[One Step Beyond]]'', which seemingly used this twist every other episode.
* Also happened in ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'', though rather more rarely.
* In the ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'' episode "Cassandra", the eponymous computer predicts that Rimmer will die of a heart attack. However, he notes that Cassandra does not know that he's Rimmer, and tricks a crewman into wearing his jacket (with nametag). Sure enough, the crewmember dies. (Also a [[Self
* ''[[That's So Raven]]'' is entirely built around this, as Raven's brief glimpses of the future never give her the whole story. [[Hilarity Ensues]] as she tries to fix what may or may not actually be broken - [[Self Fulfilling Prophecies|and breaks it]]. And learns her lesson... for [[Aesop Amnesia|precisely twenty-three hours and five minutes]].
* In one episode of ''[[Xena]],'' a widower king's evil advisor tries to get him to kill a child prophesied to take his throne. Eventually, the plot's exposed, the king marries the infant's mother, and the baby will, in the fullness of time, take the king's throne. But he will take the king's throne as his heir, not his usurper. The series is (loosely) based on Greco-Roman myth, where this sort of thing was common, though usually more tragic.
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* ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' did an episode with a number of these, that always cut off right before revealing that the scene shown is actually to their benefit.
* ''[[Babylon Five]]'': "If you go to Z'Ha'Dum, you will die". {{spoiler|[[Back From the Dead|For a while, anyway]]}}.
** Londo Mollari had a vision of his own death: when he is an old man, he and a Narn will strangle each other to death.When he meets G'kar, Londo recognizes him as the Narn from the vision and treats him as a personal enemy (it didn't help that their people had been enemies for decades). {{spoiler|While this occurs exactly as Londo saw, he misread the ''context'': he and G'kar are no longer enemies, and G'kar killing him is an act of mercy because Londo's "[[Puppeteer Parasite|Keeper]]," will not let him [[I Cannot Self
* In the first season finale of ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'', Wes translates a prophecy to say that Angel will die. In the end it is revealed that {{spoiler|Wes mistranslated it, and the real prophecy said that he would "live and die" (the language of the prophecy uses the same word for both); in other words, become human}}. Of course, {{spoiler|the prophecy only said "the vampire with a soul," so in the fifth season, a conflict is introduced that it could have been Spike they were talking about. At the time the prophecy was translated, Angel was not only the only vampire with a soul, but the only one that had ''ever'' existed, nobody had even considered the idea that it could refer to someone else}}.
** Also the prophecy {{spoiler|"the father will kill the son"}}, which drove multiple episodes in the back half of the third season, was {{spoiler|faked by the demon Sahjhan (who, upon revealing this, taunts "read any good prophecies lately?")}}. When Wesley goes to one of the Loa for clarification, he is told that the vampire will certainly devour his child. {{spoiler|Angel's blood supply from the butcher had been spiked with Connor's blood by Wolfram & Hart and at the season 4 finale, Angel 'kills' Connor: he destroys Connor's true identity, giving him a fake one to save his sanity by giving him a normal family life, one that carries no memory of his real lifel}}.
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** A picture of Hiro pointing a sword at a dinosaur, which made everyone believe Hiro's time traveling abilities would send him back to the Jurassic Age. Instead it came true when he pointed a fake sword at a museum dinosaur.
** A picture of Nathan standing in the Oval Office, insinuating that he gets elected president, a painting that becomes the basis for mob boss Daniel Linderman's plan for world domination. As it turns out, the painting comes true, but it's not really Nathan. {{spoiler|It's Sylar, who gains illusion abilities, kills Nathan, and takes his place in his own plot to gain power}}. Thank god it only happened in an alternate future seen only in ''Five Years Gone''.
* An [[Applied Phlebotinum]] / [[Techno Babble]]-powered example occurred in the first episode of ''[[
* This happens a fair bit in [[The Dead Zone]], with Johnny getting visions where the intended target/victim is unclear or he jumps to the wrong conclusion about what he is seeing because he doesn't know what he's seeing is incomplete. A particularly good example occurs when he has a vision of himself {{spoiler|killing a stranger}} and the clues lead him to believe Sarah or JJ are in danger ( {{spoiler|the victim is really Bruce and it's a complete accident.}}) At the end of the episode, Johnny laments that he just sees flashes of events out of context which makes trying to predict (and prevent) the future very difficult.
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* Overlapping with the self-fulfilling variation, the wizard whose prophesies form the narrative of the [[There Is No Such Thing As Notability|Myth 2 mod ''The Seventh God'']] can see everything about the war but the identity of the [[Big Bad]], a foreigner who had united the scattered goblin tribes. He tries to prevent the game's events by traveling to their lands and trying to unite them and "lead them to greater glory." This trope is actually a rule of prophesies in the setting, as seers can't see their own future.
* In ''[[Odin Sphere]]'', the Fire King Onyx believes himself to be invincible since the prophecy of the Worlds End clearly states that he can only be defeated by the World Tree. Because there is no World Tree in Erion, he basically assumes that he can stomp his way through the fairy kingdom. {{spoiler|This gives Mercedes the reason to attack and kill him. She is mortally wounded herself and with her last breath reveals her true name: [[Norse Mythology|Yggdrasil]] }}
* In ''[[In Famous (Video Game)|In Famous]]'', the prophecy is that a supremely powerful [[Differently
* ''[[Little Big Adventure|Little Big Adventure II/Twinsen's Odyssey]]'' has an old prophecy hijacked by a character who removed the final part of it, since it predicted the downfall of a deity he was impersonating. Naturally, his actions eventually made the full version of the prophecy self-fulfilling (and it ''did'' turn out to be true in the end).
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* In ''[[The Last Days of Foxhound]]'', Vulcan Raven, having the gift of future sight, is puzzled when he is unable to see past his upcoming encounter with Solid Snake. Somewhat inverted when, near the end, he guesses that the reason he can't see past that point is that he will die in that battle. Since the webcomic is based off of the game [[Metal Gear Solid]] and Raven had a role as a simple boss and only appeared in that one game, [[Doomed By Canon|one can guess how this prophecy plays out]].
* In ''[[Arthur King of Time and Space]]'', Merlin tells King Rience that if he attacks Arthur a great king will fall. [[Author Catchphrase|You can't beat the classics]].
* Some of Jade's prophetic dreams in ''[[Homestuck]]''. She sees individual scenes, but not necessarily the context, which winds up causing a few severe [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]] moments. For example, {{spoiler|she sees that John will end up facing the [[Big Bad]], so she sends him a [[Disc One Nuke]] to protect him. It winds up allowing the [[Big Bad]]'s rise to power in the first place.}}
== Western Animation ==
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