You Can't Fight Fate: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Knowing]]'' (2009) stars [[Nicolas Cage]] as a [[Hollywood Atheist]] who rushes around trying to find a way to prevent {{spoiler|(or personally survive) the [[Endofthe World As We Know It]]}}, but by the end we see there was nothing he could have done to change it.

* Played rather frustratingly in [[Tim Burton]]'s ''[[Alice in Wonderland (film)|Alice in Wonderland]]'', in that every character tells Alice she can't fight fate, and despite her numerous attempts to [[Screw Destiny]], the White Queen, who has the power but refuses to slay the Jabberwocky on principle, passive-aggressively guilt trips Alice into doing it for her.

* The [[Sandra Bullock]] Film ''[[Premonition]]'' mixes this trope with a partial [[Temporal Paradox]]. In the future Linda sees, her husband Jim dies, she goes crazy, is suspected of hurting her daughter, and gets committed to an insane asylum. Her efforts to prevent Jim's death create Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, and the film's "happy" ending consists of a reveal that she was eventually released from the asylum, now pregnant with another child.

* In ''Sex and Death 101'' (2008), the main character is emailed (by a [[Magical Computer]]) a list of 101 women's names. It turns out to be a list of all the people he has slept with, or ''is going to sleep with'', before he dies. Initially, he thinks it's just a joke, as his current fiance happens to be #29 out of 101, but, regardless of how he tries to avoid it, he ends up sleeping with every woman on the list, in exactly the order in which they appear, and, to his dismay, the last name on the list happens to match that of a notorious [[Femme Fatale]] [[Serial Killer]] who seduces men before drugging them into permanent comas. {{spoiler|Indeed, she is the last woman he ever sleeps with, because [[Prophecy Twist|they get married]] and live [[Happily Ever After]].}}

** Note: Lister, who was foretold would kill Cassandra, wasn't dating Kochanski but it was foretold that he would kill Arnold with a harpoon gun as 'Rimmer' died of a heart attack after being told he would, but it was actually the captain of the squad wearing Rimmer's jacket with Rimmer's name on it. This was Rimmer's attempt at screwing destiny. This was all part of Cassandra's scheme as she knew she would die and rather sees 'visions' of the future rather than actual predictions as some of her 'predictions' are unclear even to her and thus attempts to take down whoever she can before she dies.

** Future Echoes. Basically each character sees "future echoes" which are events happening in the future, which will happen to the characters at some point as the ship is going past light speed. As they go faster past it, the echoes are in the more distant future. At one point, Lister sees the Cat with a broken tooth. Lister runs off to find the Cat to prevent it, and just as the Cat is about to eat the robotic fish inside the tank (which would of course, break his tooth), the two struggle, with Lister trying to stop the Cat eating the fish. In this struggle, the Cat knocks his tooth off a corner of the ledge where the tank is, thereby breaking his tooth anyway.

* ''Every'' [[Deal with the Devil]] on ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' ends with hell, no matter if you're a guest star or one of the leads.

** Well, they did save the one guy who only made the deal to save his wife...but no one since.

** Several Sixties-era episodes used this, both times in the form of time travel - one tries to prevent Lincoln's assassination, the other tries to avert catastrophes (Hiroshima, killing Adolf Hitler, et cetera). {{spoiler|Neither of them can change anything, obviously.}}

* In the ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'' two part adventure "Armageddon Now", Callisto goes back in time to prevent who she thinks was [[Xena: Warrior Princess]] (because her army was in the village) from killing her parents. While trying to protect her family from Xena's army, the adult Callisto accidentally kills her own father & mother.

** Subverted when Harold's character, Demetri, survives March 15, the day that he was predicted to have been killed. The episode still plays it straight with villain Dyson Frost (who also predicted his own death on that date) dies.

** Olivia highlights a major piece of [[Fridge Logic]]: since the flash forwards are everyone's precise vision of the same 2-minute period, you can avert your flash forward simply by ensuring that on April 29 you are as far away from where you saw yourself in your vision.

* ''[[Fear Effect]]''. The second game strongly gives off this message, if the things the Eight Immortals say are anything to go by.

* [[Game Mod]] ''[[Red Alert 3 Paradox]]'' [[Playing with a Trope|plays with this trope]] by having it in its motto: "You can't change the universe without repercussions...", as in "[[Time Travel]] can only make the universe worse".

* This is a large part of the character of Nozdormu, the Aspect of Time, in ''[[World of Warcraft]]''; he was shown the ''exact moment and cause'' of his death when he was first given his powers, but can do nothing to change it because of his role as leader of the [[Time Police]]. Plus, he knew about the betrayal of his friend Neltharion and subsequent transformation to [[Omnicidal Maniac|Deathwing]], and that [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Malygos]] would snap when Blue dragons nearly went extinct. The best example of this, though, is that Nozdormu ''also'' knows that he will eventually become [[Future Me Scares Me|Murozond]], the leader of the Infinite Dragons who are screwing with history. And he ''accepts it'', even if the thought terrifies him. He got better about it as of ''[[Thrall Twilight of the Aspects]]'', deciding to only focus on the here and now, even if he knows for a fact what the future holds. "All that matters is this moment."

* In ''[[Diablo III]]'' the Scroll of Fate dictates the fate of everything in existence. The only ones who can fight fate are the Nephalem (the player characters) since the Scroll of Fate doesn't mention them. Their fate is literally unwritten. {{spoiler|This is good news for Heaven, since the Angels are otherwise destined to fall to the Prime Evil.}}

 

== Web Originals ==

* In [[The End (web video)|The End]], whenever Brendon meets someone new he receives a vision of the end of that relationship and he cannot change what he sees. His only choices are to accept fate or not to pursue that relationship at all.

 

* In the ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (animation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'' episode "Seer No Evil", a gypsy moth named Cassandra gives a series of unlikely predictions to everyone except Zipper, but they all end in different ways than expected. Monterey Jack gets a pink fur coat (he gets covered in cotton candy), Gadget would have a run-in with a tall, dark stranger (specifically, the [[Villain of the Week]]'s monkey), Dale would fly without wings (a magnet picks him up after he gets his foot stuck in a thimble), and Chip would end up running into an elephant and get crushed by a trunk, implying that he would die. However, it was an automated elephant at the entrance of the fun house, and the trunk in question {{spoiler|had all of the stolen loot as well as Dale, Monty, and Gadget trapped inside, and they used force to knock it down and pry it open.}} Luckily, Chip didn't die, because {{spoiler|there was a hole in the floor.}}

* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'''s [[Future Me Scares Me|future self]]. The circumstances will be different, but the outcome generally the same. His present/past self says "[[Screw Destiny]]" and appears to have avoided that fate...but did gain a useful ability.

{{quote|'''Timmy:''' NO! This is exactly what I was ''trying! To! Prevent!''}}

* Comes up several times in ''[[Gargoyles]]'', thanks to the Phoenix Gate's ability to [[Time Travel]]:

** By the end of the Avalon arc, Goliath has learned his lesson enough that, faced with a dystopian future vision of things that will happen to his friends and allies and asked by Elisa to give her the Phoenix Gate in order to fix things, he refuses, stating that time and fate are immutable and cannot be changed. As it turns out the whole experience was staged by Puck as a gambit to obtain the Phoenix Gate for himself, so Goliath is presented as making the right choice.

*** Essentially, Gargoyles manages to avoid the [[Timey-Wimey Ball]] by sticking with one rule of time paradox.

** And yet, it should be noted that when Hades had Hercules trade away his strength for 24 hours, he also broke his spirit, so he almost succeeded in removing him from the game as a fighter. And THEN he had the bright idea of sending the Cyclops to eliminate Hercules for good, thus prompting Meg to go get Phil, thus leading to Hercules's victory, thus leading to Meg getting hurt, Hercules gets his strength back, and the Titans are thrown for a loop. (So close, and then you had to kill him right then!)

* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'': After some [[Time Travel]], Mojo Jojo chucks a young Utonium into the town volcano. However, the PPGs have travelled as well, and not only do they save Utonium, it turns out that this incident is what got him into science...[[Stable Time Loop|and eventually led to the PPGs' creation.]]