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{{trope}}
[[File:futurerefusedtochange.jpg|link=Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|frame| And you're ''still'' hungry.]]
 
{{quote|''"Those things had to happen to me. That was my destiny. But you'll understand soon enough that there are consequences to being chosen...because, destiny, John, is a fickle bitch."'' |'''Ben Linus''', ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]''}}
 
A prophecy (or in [[Time Travel]], something that is known to have happened in the past) comes true despite all attempts to prevent it ([[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|and often because of those attempts]]).
 
Often happens with an obvious (or not so obvious) [[Prophecy Twist]] on the language used in the prophecy. As old as ''[[Oedipus the King (Theatre)|Oedipus Rex]]'', used by Shakespeare and Tolkien, and [[Undead Horse Trope|still fresh at least as recently as the mid-80s sitcom]]!
 
Depending on the mood of the series, the final fulfillment of the prophecy may or may not be a [[Downer Ending]]. Sometimes, the heroes still manage to put right the wrong the prophecy promises. In such situations, they usually conclude that fate only said something bad would happen, not that they couldn't eventually right it. [[An Aesop]] usually follows about free will being stronger than destiny.
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== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[Half Prince (Literature)|Half Prince]]'' a different kind of fate takes place when it comes to NPCs in Second Life. The game is programmed for things to happen, which is explored in a rather sad tale when Prince meets two NPCs on the Eastern Continent. Prince has to complete a quest by taking Kenshin the demon lord to see his game-programmed lover, but they find her grave. Even though the game was programmed for this to happen, because Kenshin developed a conscience it made it a very sad experience for him, because to kenshin it was as if she really did exist and she'd waited for him until the end of her days.
* In ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (Animeanime)|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', this is embodied in the sympathetic [[Dark Magical Girl]] who is actually named "[[Meaningful Name|Fate]]". She feels that she has no choice in her life and in her actions, and thus no hope. Ironically, this is her power at first, as her ruthlessness (as there are no other options to her) gives her the edge. The Heroine [[Contemplate Our Navels|contemplates a few times]] on how she, on the other hand, ''chose'' to be a [[Magical Girl]], because it's something she wants to be. (Rather rare; most [[Magical Girl|Magical Girls]] are that way [[Because Destiny Says So]].) Thus, Fate and Nanoha's battle in the first season is symbolic of Fate vs. Free Will.
** Which means that with enough firepower, you cannot only Fight Fate, but you can also [[Defeat Means Friendship|befriend Fate]]. Befriend her right into the hospital. Then start [[There Is Only One Bed|sharing a bed]] with her in [[Time Skip|a few years]]...
*** And if [[Word of Gay]] is anything to go by, the term [[Screw Destiny|"screwing fate"]] takes on a whole new level of meaning.
* In ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima (Manga)|Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', it's totally possible to fight Fate. But look out, he can turn people to stone and his [[Power Levels|power level]] is around 3,000, so...what? [[I Thought It Meant|Wrong Fate? Oh. Um...never mind, then]].
** Of course, recent events show that {{spoiler|even [[Crazy Awesome|Jack]] [[Badass|Rakan]] has a hard time, given Fate's [[Reality Warper|abilities]].}}
** And in the most recent chapter, it turns out {{spoiler|'''there are six of him'', two of which are unaccounted for. And they can be brought back from the dead due to their nature as constructs}}. Unless your last name is Springfield, it seems, you really ''can't'' fight Fate. And even then...
*** Right now? {{spoiler|Five of the Fates have already been defeated. The only one standing is the original, and he and Negi '''are''' fighting their last and more definitive duel.}} So it seems that ''you STILL can fight Fate''.
*** Update! {{spoiler|You don't even '''need''' to fight Fate anymore. [[Heel Face Turn|He's on Negi's side]]. Unless you mean [[Unwanted Harem|having Fate as your romantic rival for]] [[Even the Guys Want Him|Negi]], that is.}}
** Asuna Kagurazaka in the first anime's [[Gecko Ending|alternate]] [[Overtook the Manga|story]] was doomed to die on her 15th birthday due to a [[Deal Withwith the Devil]] so the demons would stop following her and bringing destruction wherever she went. The series' lead's [[Disappeared Dad]] attempted to save her and was promptly [[Dropped a Bridge Onon Him|crushed under a bridge]]. {{spoiler|She has to die and comes back in time to break the deal. And not before Negi has an [[Heroic BSOD]] upon seeing her death.}}
* In ''[[Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch (Manga)|Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch]]'', Lucia Nanami is prophesied to go through great hardship, so she is raised as a civilian. It happens anyway, but it could be argued that because she didn't know she was a princess, she met Kaito, gave away her pearl, and caused everything to happen that gave her [[True Companions]] to get through it. The anime, however, has all this happen while she ''does'' know.
* Neji Hyuuga in ''[[Naruto (Manga)|Naruto]]'' used to be a firm believer in this, until Naruto shows him that [[Defeat Means Friendship]].
** Which is a heavy dose of dramatic Irony because Naruto's the son of a Hokage while Neji's the son of a family slave. Any believer in fate would be betting on Naruto in that case, except for the fact that neither of them knew that at the time.
** 'Dramatic Irony' is one way to look at it, I suppose.
** Yeah...but as of late, it seems that the manga is going out of its way to prove that Neji was right and Naruto was wrong about whether one can or cannot fight fate.
*** They're both wrong, because their positions were absolute. [[Take a Third Option|Messy reality sits somewhere in between.]] And that was the whole point. At the time of their fight, both of them were living subversions of their own position. Neji masters the main branch's secret forbidden technique which he was not supposed to be allowed to learn, on his own. He beats up Hinata, where a properly dutiful side branch believer in the inevitability of fate would have forfeited match to let the main branch candidate advance. And Naruto of course had the source of his power implanted into him when he was baby...
* Played with in ''[[Sonic X (Anime)|Sonic X]]'' with the character Cosmo, whose actual destiny ( {{spoiler|i.e. turn into a tree, die, save the universe, in that order}}), is not revealed until the final two episodes of the series in what feels like a bit of an [[Ass Pull]] on the writers' parts: the spirit of her mother reveals to her that {{spoiler|the stone she wears around her neck, similar to that worn by all species is in fact a [[Applied Phlebotinum|Magical Amulet]] which, when activated, will accelerate her growth into maturity, allowing her to become a tree, attach herself to the [[Big Bad]] and weaken it to the point at which it can be destroyed}}. Because she had spent most of the series struggling with survivor's guilt, abject terror, and low self esteem, Cosmo saw this sudden revelation of her destiny as her redemption - she no longer felt that she had to stand by and watch their enemies destroy everything; she has a purpose at last. As such, she [[Heroic Sacrifice|follows her newfound destiny willingly]].
* Sartorius (Takuma Saiou) was always talking about this in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (Animeanime)|Yu-Gi-Oh GX]]'' when he was the [[Big Bad]]. Aster (Edo) Phoenix did a bit, too, although this is more in the dub (where his catchphrase is "You can't fight destiny").
** The original series, at least in the dub, had a lot of [[You Can't Fight Fate]] with talk about things being fated to happen, but 2nd season ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (Animeanime)|Yu-Gi-Oh GX]]'' went with [[Screw Destiny]] with Jaden (Judai) having the power to defy fate. Somewhat similar deal with talk between Goodwin and Yusei in 5Ds.
* In episode 26 of ''[[Zettai Karen Children (Manga)|Zettai Karen Children]]'', an Esper dolphin whose visions have always been 100% accurate is introduced. He has two particularly dire predictions: the first being his death by several gunshots; and the second one, where {{spoiler|a war erupts between Normals and Espers, and a grown Kaoru has become the Queen of Catastrophe leading the Espers. Minamoto ends up gunning her down}}. Needless to say, Minamoto is determined to [[Screw Destiny]]. He actually manages to subvert the first vision; his interference causes {{spoiler|the dolphin to die from only ONE bullet}}, proving that just maybe the visions aren't infallible.
** {{spoiler|It's not even sure if the dolphin is really dead - [[Never Found the Body|he swims away and is never seen again.]]}}
* In ''[[Rave Master (Manga)|Rave Master]]'', if your a guy whose last name is Raregroove you are destined to be a good person who suffers a horrible tragedy that causes you to turn evil and try to destory the world. If your a guy whose last name is Glory you are destined to stop whichever Raregroove guy from the same generation as you (who always shares your birthday, apparently). Gale and King don't believe this since they're best buddies. How could they possibly fight against one another when they're trying to save the world together? ...Until Gale accidentally gets King's wife and kid killed when the later thinks they need to dirty there hands to accomplish their goal. They later try to put an end to this {{spoiler|when King kills himself and Gale sacrifices himself to save Haru}}, but it turns out King's kid ''wasn't'' dead after all, so the cycle repeats.
** Interestingly enough, all of this was caused by a woman who [[Screw Destiny|screwed destiny in first place to save the human race.]]
* ''[[X 1999 (Mangamanga)|X 1999]]'''s main theme is that the future has already been decided and it can't be changed. Every time a dreamgazer looks at the future, they see the destruction of the world and the extinction of mankind. This did not end up coming true in the anime, and it remains to be seen if it will in the manga (if they ever finish it).
** {{spoiler|Not '''every''' time. Kotori's [[Famous Last Words]] to her fellow dreamseer Kakyou explicitly said that "the future is still undecided", which in the anime turned out to be true via Kamui [[Take a Third Option|taking a third option]] and going through a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. The manga, eh, is something else.}}
* The theme in ''[[Berserk (Manga)|Berserk]]'', where the [[Big Bad]] seems to control fate, while Guts and the Skull Knight are people who "struggle against fate/causality." Guts' power to do this stems from surviving his fated time of death on the day he was born (as well as again during the living hell that was the Eclipse).
* Lots of things in ''[[Eureka Seven (Anime)|Eureka Seven]]'' are predestined and many things happen for a reason. Its revealed that whoever makes Eureka smile is her destined partner_ Holland refuses to acknowledge that he was not "the chosen one" by Eureka and tried ways to gain back her attention and trust (involving physically abusing Renton), which ultimately backfired and nailed the coffin on his chance with Eureka during their quarrel in episode 26. Renton and Eureka meeting each other and falling in love, as well as them being together ever after, is also proven by the events in both TV series and movie to be a destined thing. One good example is Eureka being always able to make a come back in some form in the ending and stay with Renton, one way or another (Tv, movie, manga). Theres a dialogue said by Talho in the movie when Renton reunites with Eureka after 8 years: "A first-timer breaking through a net of monsters...Is this just a coincidence? Or is it the work of a mysterious power?"
* Two of the Stands in ''[[Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga)|Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure]]'', Bohemian Rhapsody and Underworld, actually manage to turn this into a ''weapon''. Bohemian Rhapsody fates people to re-enact stories that they have particular attachments to. This turns downright ugly, or even ''fatal'', if the character they're most like met an unpleasant and/or deadly end. Underworld, meanwhile, fates people to live through an unearthed memory of their current location. Underworld is a little more flexible because Donatello's victims aren't necessarily incorporated into the memory like Bohemian Rhapsody incorporates victims into stories. This means it's possible to circumvent the bad portions of a memory, as long as you wouldn't keep the memory from repeating its original form.
* In ''[[Bokurano (Manga)|Bokurano]]'', it's next-to-impossible to even make a serious attempt to fight fate, given how it toys around with laws of physics you've never even heard of. And if you do somehow try to fight it, you'll only [[It Got Worse|make things worse]]. All you can do is try to [[Earn Your Happy Ending|make the best of it]].
* Teeki of ''[[Muhyo and Roji (Manga)|Muhyo and Roji]]'' makes a [[Hannibal Lecture]] on this point after Julio immobilizes the heroes, claiming that Enchu, who had worked hard to try to catch up with Muhyo and become an Executor to support his mother, is a prime example of how people cannot change their destiny by their own efforts. Roji, however, [[Shut UP, Hannibal|responds that Enchu merely couldn't deal with his grief]], before [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|breaking Julio's curse]].
* {{spoiler|Homura}} in ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Anime)|Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' goes ''crazy'' with this trope, trying to avert it all over the place. It does not help that it [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|keeps]] [[It Got Worse|getting worse]] every time this is attempted, since [[Manipulative Bastard|somebody]] [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain|decided]] to give the wrong person the correct powers for this [[Gambit Roulette|insane job]]. [[Mind Screw|And then the anime]] [[Screw Destiny|decides to pull a fast one]]!
 
 
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* Present throughout ''[[Booster Gold]]'', but particularly in the issue where he tries to keep Barbara Gordon ([[Batgirl (Comic Book)|Batgirl]]) [[The Killing Joke|from getting shot by]] [[The Joker]]. He tries and fails to stop the event from happening multiple times before accepting that there are some things he isn't capable of changing because of solidified time (i.e. changing the past purposely, already extremely dangerous in "normal" cases, becomes impossible because certain events are literally too important to change, such as preventing Barbra Gordon from being crippled, thus preventing her from becoming Oracle, or saving [[Blue Beetle]], preventing the Max Lord / Checkmate conspiracy from being revealed).
* ''[[Universal War One]]'' , when the group of heroes are trapped in the past, one of them realise that all the attempts to avoid the death of one of them is in fact leading to his death.
* Doctor Manhattan of ''[[Watchmen (Comic Bookcomics)|Watchmen]]'' gradually came to such a belief due to his immense powers. Despite being a [[Physical God]], he felt himself powerless before the forces governing the universe. Even though he could see key events before they occurred and could easily have shaped history to his liking, he felt that anything he did would be so insignificant in the long run, taking action was pointless.
* [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] opponent Vargas (the [[Big Bad]] for part of the early 2000s ''X-Treme X-Men'' title) was seeking out the diaries of Destiny, a long-dead [[Blind Seer]] with the ability to predict the future. Being convinced that the prophecies favoured him, he boasted to the X-Men that they couldn't fight fate. When he comes across a diary that depicts Rogue killing him in battle, he [[Screw Destiny|changes his tune]].
** Averted. Vargas changed destiny (only to be killed around X-Men #200 by one of the Marauders).
* In ''[[The Metabarons (Comic Book)|The Metabarons]]'', the Metabarons are fated to never be happy and lead a tragic existence; son slaying father to succeed as Metabaron, wives dieing, mutilation and general unhappiness.
* Subverted in the crossover [[Spawn]]/[[Wild CATS]], where future versions of Grifter and Zealoth (the former being the original's future self but the latter being a new Zealoth) are sent in the past to slay Spawn, and as such prevent a future where Spawn became a ruthless dictator known as the Ipsissim. When they fail to kill him, the present Wildcats and Spawn agree to join them in the future to defeat the Ipsissim, but it turns out this was part of a predestination paradox, as the Ispissim uses the opportunity to give Spawn the medals that corrupted him and caused him to turn evil to begin with. When back to the present, the influence stats, and Spawn starts [[Evil Gloating]]... until the future Wildcats realize their mistake and make a last attempt to modify a minor action in the past. This cause Spawn to recognize future Zealoth as an adult version of his beloved wife's daughter Cyan, come back to his senses and handle over the medals to her, such preventing his transformation into the Ipsissim and erasing this alternate future.
 
 
== Fan Fiction ==
* In the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (Franchise)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' fanfic A Rose And A Thorn 4, Project: Mirage goes back in time to try and stop Ashura from causing the fall of the ARK. It turns out that BECAUSE she did this while knowing what was going to happen, she made Sonic blue, and gave birth to {{spoiler|Knuckles}}. The experiment she mated with caused the rampage of the Artifical Chaos because she told him it was going to happen. She still couldn't save Maria even though she knew about it and was right there. But then, she had just been shot...
** But she did manage to kill Ashura so that A Rose And A Thorn 3 didn't happen, breaking a time loop that may have been going around for centuries, and because it ''didn't'' happen, A Rose And A Thorn 5 happened instead. So there was a point to it after all.
* In ''[[Harry Potter and The Nightmares of Futures Past (Fanfic)|Harry Potter and Thethe Nightmares of Futures Past]]'', Harry manages to come back in time, with the idea of preventing his future from happening. However, there are still things that happen no matter what he does - Voldemort trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone, Ginny falling under the control of Tom Riddle's Diary, Sirius escaping Azkaban, Dementors posted at Hogwarts...which makes him despair that maybe he can't fight fate, and worries that everything may end as it did in his past. However, there seems to be someone that is trying to force things to happen as they did during the books.
* The [[Mega Crossover]] [[Fanfic]][[Web Comic|comic]] ''[[Roommates 2007 (Webcomic)|Roommates 2007]]'' uses a highly meta version of this and [[Because Destiny Says So]]. The characters are aware of their fictionality, the stories they are from AND the [[Theory of Narrative Causality]] so the destiny that says so and/or the fate they can't fight. More directly: [[Labyrinth (Film)|Jareth]] desperatelly tries to be a hero but [[Running Gag|always fails]] and even got [[Super-Powered Evil Side|villainous]] [[Paranoia Fuel|backlash]] because of it. [[Zombieland (Film)|Tallahassee]] tried to escape his [[Canon]] to bring back his son...[[Tear Jerker|and failed]].
 
 
== Films ==
* Towards the end of ''[[The Matrix (Film)|The Matrix]] Reloaded'', Neo finally reaches the "source" of the Matrix and meets the Architect, the computer program who designed the Matrix. He informs Neo that Zion will ultimately be destroyed and that it cannot be saved. At the end of their conversation, he also mentions that Neo's "destiny", like that of his five predecessors, was to enter the source and restart the program, allowing 23 humans to be selected to rebuild Zion. Thus, the "prophecy" will be fulfilled that after a century of warfare between humans and machines, the fight will finally come to an end. However, Neo would only be restarting the war, not ending it. Finally, the Architect mentions that Trinity will inevitably die in order to save Neo. The Architect tells him that there is nothing he can do to stop that from happening.
** Of course, in ''Revolutions'', Neo tells the Oracle about the Architect's warnings, and she {{spoiler|responds that the Architect is full of crap and can't predict the future worth a damn. Guess what? Zion is not destroyed, and the war comes to a permanent end.}}
*** {{spoiler|Trinity dies,}} though.
* ''[[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 (Filmfilm)|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.
** Ironically, being railroaded into [[Took a Level In Badass|taking a level in badass]] like this ultimately gives her the self-confidence to [[Screw Destiny]] back in the "real" world.
* 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]].}}
* The ''[[Terminator (Filmfranchise)|Terminator]]'' films, as a whole, are an example of this. In the first movie, Sarah Connor learns that the fate of her unborn child, John, is to lead the remaining humans against the machines [[After the End]]; the second movie is all about Sarah and John trying to stop the end from happening, and seemingly succeeding. However, both continuities which [[Alternate Continuity]] explain that Sarah's actions did not prevent, but only ''delayed'' the rise of Skynet and the nuclear holocaust, from 1997 when it was originally supposed to happen, until 2004.
** The plot of ''[[Terminator (Filmfranchise)|Terminator]] 1'' is that in order to save humanity in the future Kyle got sent back in time to save Sarah thus saving the future John Connor from the Terminator that was created by Skynet that was created from the very Terminator that was sent back in time to kill Sarah and the future John Connor in order to screw the humanity in the future. Headache!
** What's worse about this is the futility of trying to change the future: if John and Sarah Connor ever were to succeed in preventing [[Sky Net]] from achieving self-awareness, it would by definition cause a temporal paradox ensuring that John Connor {{spoiler|never existed}}. In the first movie, Kyle is sent back to save John's mother from being killed by [[Sky Net]] before she could give birth to John, and in the process of protecting Sarah, Kyle and Sarah sleep together, conceiving John. If there is no [[Sky Net]], there is no threat, so Kyle never needs to go, so John is never conceived. Also, this nonexistence reality manifests if John dies at any point before sending Kyle back, since John is the only one who knows where/when to send him.
** ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' twists the whole notion around at the end of the second season: {{spoiler|John travels forward in time past Judgment Day, and discovers that he was superfluous; humanity is still around and kicking without him.}}
* ''[[Twelve12 Monkeys (Film)|Twelve Monkeys]]'' is an excellent example.
** As is the film it's based on, Chris Marker's [[La Jetee]].
* The ''[[Final Destination]]'' series is a variation, which basically says "If you're supposed to die, you will".
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* This is the whole plot of ''[[The Butterfly Effect]]''.
* In ''[[Lawrence of Arabia]]'' during the trek across the intensely hot Nefud Desert to Aqaba, one of Prince Faisal's men, Gasim falls off his camel during the night. Ali says it's too late to go back and that it is "Written" that he die. Lawrence goes back and saves him proving "Nothing is written!" Later, after they forge an alliance with the tribe of Auda Abu Tayi, one of his men is killed one of Faisal's. Lawrence decides to settle the dispute and save the alliance by killing the guilty man. It turns out to be Gasim. Lawrence then has to execute him with a pistol. Afterwards, when Auda asks Ali why Lawrence is upset, he tells him he brought the man he killed out of the Nefud. "Ah," Auda says, "It was written, then."
* In ''[[Revenge of the Sith (Film)|Revenge of the Sith]]'', Anakin had foreseen his beloved Padme's death and tried to find ways to prevent it, which led him to the dark side. Ultimately, he failed to prevent Padme's death.
** Not only did he fail to prevent Padme's death, he was the direct cause of it. She "gave up on life" because she had lost him to the dark side. Also, the force choking didn't help matters too much either.
* ''[[Young Frankenstein (Film)|Young Frankenstein]]'':
{{quote| '''Dr. Frederick Frankenstein:''' All right, you win. You win. I give. I'll say it. I'll say it. DESTINY! DESTINY! NO ESCAPING THAT FOR ME! DESTINY! DESTINY! NO ESCAPING THAT FOR ME!}}
* [[The Devil]] in the form of the Antichrist Franco Maccalusso in the ''[[Apocalypse (Film)|Apocalypse]]'' series pretty much knows he's doomed for the Lake Of Fire, and so decides to [[Taking You Withwith Me|take as many souls with him]] in the Tribulation through the [[Mark of the Beast]].
* The Prophecy in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean (Film)|Pirates of the Caribbean]] on Stranger Tides'' states that a one-legged man will be the doom of Blackbeard. In the end, thats exactly what happened despite Blackbeard's efforts to try to reach out to the fountain of youth to avoid that fate.
* In ''[[Kung Fu Panda 2 (Animation)|Kung Fu Panda 2]]'', the antagonist peacock Shen ordered the massacre of the entire panda population in China because of the prophecy that he will be brought down by a warrior in "Black and white". In the end, his efforts to change his fate became the very beginning of his downfall (Shen's parents banished him out for it) and sets up the chain of events that will fulfill this prophecy.
 
 
== Literature ==
* Happens a lot more than you think in ''[[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]]''.
** And it's pretty much the premise of [[Left Behind]] and all Christian-related end-times fictional stories.
* The plot of [[Philip K. Dick]]'s novel ''The World Jones Made'' is driven by the titular Floyd Jones, who has the power to see one year into the future. Unfortunately, after he sees the future, he loses the ability to change the decisions he makes in that future - possibly because he's actually sending his memories ''back'' through time to his younger self.
* In the ''[[Stationery Voyagers]]'' episode "Essentials of Nativity," Joe learns from Gabon that Minshus ''must'' be born and ''cannot'' die until some time after he is born. However, attempts to kill him before he is at least ten years old will result in [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|entire nations being obliterated in a nuclear holocaust]]. So they must still defy King Hernald and save Minshus from the king's murder-happy ways; even if Hernald slaughters an entire village looking for the child.
** And if Maria is stoned to death and Minshus ''is'' allowed to die before his appointed time, [[Apocalypse How|the universe will implode]]. And not suddenly either. It will happen slowly over the course of thousands of years.
*** Joe witnesses in his dream the Voyagers and their friends at war with an ''[[Beyond the Impossible|even more]]'' [[Ax Crazy]] [[Religion of Evil|Yehtzig Pirate League]]. As loved ones begin [[Ret-Gone|fading out of existence]], Katrina and Garret engage a futile resistance against bazooka-happy mass murderers.
** As much as Joe fears for his reputation and fears destroying that of his family if he marries a pregnant teenager, [[Black and Gray Morality|there is literally no other course of action he can take]] [[Butterfly of Doom|without making things]] ''[[Up to Eleven|biblically]]'' worse.
** Minshus with pretty much all of Outer Reality and the [[Fate vs. Free Will|Web of Destiny]] is very talented at course-correction when other characters' attempts to [[Screw Destiny]] prove [[Too Clever Byby Half|profoundly stupid]], and to [[In Spite of a Nail|make the greater plan happen anyway]] no matter how much the free will of others [[The Evils of Free Will|changes the environment and endangers or voids lesser aspects of the original plan]].
* In [[David Eddings]]' ''[[Belgariad]]'', Ce'Nedra stubbornly refuses to accept the truth: that she is in love with Garion, whether she likes it or not, and that she has to go to Riva. It takes a god with a stare to die for to change her mind. The series makes a point of driving this home with a large hammer. Numerous times Polgara and Belgarath say that "Everything has already been decided." Which turns out to be true. Even minor, never to be seen again characters were born just for one particular purpose (such as the soldier heckling Ce'Nedra when she needs prodding to make an important speech).
** Possible lampshading in the related books ''Belgarath the Sorcerer'' and ''Polgara the Sorceress''. In those books, the titular characters spend thousands of years on assorted errands to ensure that the prophecy ''will'' be fulfilled. For example, Belgarath and Polgara practically dictated a major treaty to a sovereign power at swordpoint to make sure that, 500 years later, Ce'Nedra would be sent to Riva.
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** It's later revealed that it's ''possible'' to escape both fates. But it would make the universe go so far [[Off the Rails]] that the "third fate"'s outcome is unpredictable, and neither side is willing to risk that rather than accomplish the Prophecy that's good for them.
* This is one of the two overriding themes in all of [[Thomas Hardy]]'s work, the other being [[It Got Worse]]. Of course, Hardy did believe in a philosophy called "fatalism", in which this trope is ''the'' central tenet.
* Cersei Lannister in [[George RRR. R. Martin]]'s ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire (Literature)|A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' is haunted by a childhood prophecy that has successfully predicted several events of her life; this prophecy also predicts that she will outlive all her children, that she will be supplanted by a younger and more beautiful queen, and that her little brother will strangle her. All of her attempts to prevent these things from happening only serve to alienate those around her.
** Running tally: {{spoiler|Joffrey is dead, Tommen's fate is largely dependent on her own (outlook not good), and Myrcella is surrounded by people who, while they don't wish her harm, will use her to gain power. Sansa Stark is being groomed for rulership by Littlefinger, Margaery Tyrell isn't dead yet, and let's not forget Dany Targaryen. ''And'' she has begun to alienate Jaime--also her younger brother, if only by minutes--while Tyrion yet lives}}.
** On the other hand, The Stallion That Mounts the World, a prophesied warrior destined to become the greatest of kings and lead the Dothraki across the sea died, stillborn. Unless of course, the prophecy actually referred to Dany and the ones speaking got it wrong. Given that this is apparently the case with Stannis and Melisandre, it's quite possible.
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* In [[H. Beam Piper]]'s short story ''The Edge of the Knife'', a history professor remembers flashes of the future as well as the past; what he doesn't always remember is "the edge of the knife" - the knife-blade moment of the present separating the two - and so he gets into trouble for things like looking for books in the university library that won't be written for several hundred years, because he wants to draw analogies between two different historical situations. He copes with all this by thinking of events being just as much historical facts if they happened yesterday or will happen in the future.
* The [[Tim Powers]] novel ''Three Days to Never'' has an interesting twist on this: one character, a Mossad agent, keeps having premonitions of things he will ''never'' do again (e.g. he hears a ringing phone and realizes that's the last time he will ''ever'' hear a ringing phone). The first time it happened -- he touched something and received the premonition that he would never touch it again -- he immediately tried to prove the premonition wrong, and not only failed but got his hand horribly disfigured instead. In the end, {{spoiler|we're never actually shown why he has these premonitions, but they all come right when he dies}}.
* [[Terry Pratchett (Creator)|Terry Pratchett]] and [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Good Omens (Literature)|Good Omens]]''.
** {{spoiler|Adam decides that it doesn't matter what is Written, [[Screw Destiny|because you can always cross it out]]}}.
** It reaches the point that two main characters realize they can pick any part of the book of prophecy at random and be assured that it'll be one relevant to their situation.
* Played straight and subverted in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Colour of Magic|The Colour of Magic]]'' by [[Terry Pratchett (Creator)|Terry Pratchett]]
** Early in the book a psychic sees {{spoiler|the future burning of Ankh-Morpork}}, and races off away only to be killed in an avalanche - proving that Death also has a sense of humour
** Later, Rincewind sees Death, who's surprised to meet the failed wizard, since he has an appointment with Rincewind the next day in another city. Death even offers to lend Rincewind a fast horse, but wisely he doesn't take up the offer. (This is Pratchett's take on an old Arab legend - see below under Myth & Folklore.)
* Norman Spinrad's short story "The Weed of Time". The victim - er, narrator - remembered the entirety of his 110-year life from the moment of his birth. An expedition to another planet brought back the weed which caused the precognition effect and it had been released accidentally and grew wild. The experience drives him insane, because he cannot change any of the events he experiences.
* Kurt Vonnegut's ''[[Slaughterhouse 5]]'' takes this to the extreme, with the protagonist hallucinating himself a theory about the non-existence of free will, involving [[Mental Time Travel]] and aliens. He does this in to make sense of what he saw during [[World War II]].
* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings (Literature)|The Lord of the Rings]]'', Iluvatar (God) acts mostly through fate: Gandalf tells Frodo that "there are other forces at work in the world...one could say Bilbo was ''meant'' to find the Ring, in which case you were also ''meant'' to have it." Being a demi-god, he has seen a vision of the history of the universe before it was made, and therefore is able to predict that [[It Was His Sled|Gollum]] would destroy the Ring.
** The Lord of the Nazgul not only fits this trope but proves that Fate has backup plans. The prophecy that no man could harm him proved insufficient in the face of {{spoiler|being opposed by the woman Eowyn and the Hobbit Merry, one of whom is not a man by gender while the other is not a Man by race}}. However, it can be argued that Fate originally meant for the Nazgul Lord to face Gandalf {{spoiler|who is also not a Man, but an immortal Maia}} and had to go to [[Time for Plan B|Plan B]] after {{spoiler|Denethor's attempt to kill himself and his son forced Gandalf away from the battle at the crucial moment}}. If so, then {{spoiler|it's a Plan B that was thought out well in advance, because many months earlier Merry just happened to acquire a knife that was engraved with spells to defeat the Witch-King of Angmar, who just happened to be the selfsame Lord of the Nazgul, without which his stroke might not have weakened the Nazgul's power sufficiently for Eowyn to deliver the final coup}}. But that bit's not in the movie.
** The basic plot point of the story of Túrin Turambar, thanks to Morgoth's curse on Húrin's family.
** Also the point of the Doom of Mandos, which states that the Feanorians will never complete their oath.
* Jane Yolen's ''[[Great Alta Saga]]''. Jenna, destined to be [[The Messiah]] for her people, eventually accepts that she is "the Anna for this Turning".
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s "[[Literature/The Slithering|The Slithering]] hadow", Thalis urges this on [[Conan the Barbarian]] about the [[Living Shadow]] Thog.
{{quote| ''"Be at ease," she advised. "If Thog wishes you, he will take you, wherever you are. That man you mentioned, who screamed and ran — did you not hear him give one great cry, and then fall silent? In his frenzy, he must have run full into that which he sought to escape. No man can avoid his fate."''}}
* Explicitly the case in ''[[The Wheel of Time (Literature)|The Wheel of Time]]''. Several events that occur, occur because they are in the Pattern woven by the Wheel. The [[Power Trio]] in particular ''[[Winds of Destiny Change|cause]]'' [[Winds of Destiny Change|people to take their fated roles in prophecy]], and conversely [[Railroading|have their own actions dictated by the Pattern at many points]].
* [[Matched]] by Ally Condie. Somewhat of a variation, actually; Cassia tries to go against the society, but they've seen it all before. No matter how hard Cassia tries, the society's data is always one step ahead.
* In ''Powerless'', Rowan uses this explanation, verbatim, when trying to convince Daniel not to try to find out what happens when the super kids turn 13 and lose their powers and memories. Daniel ignores this, and it turns out that you ''can'' fight fate...if fate turns out to be a power hungry {{spoiler|old man}} covered in shadows, and not actually fate.
* This trope is actually part of the draw of ''[[Machine of Death (Literature)|Machine of Death]]'' Many characters try to subvert their, or other peoples, predictions out of fear or wanting to prove the machine wrong. You explicitly know they die of whatever their paper says anyway, but [http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=675 according to the comic that spawned the project] "part of the fun would be seeing how".
* This is explicitly the case in ''[[Time Scout (Literature)|Time Scout]]''. You can act in the past, picking things up, talking to people, even killing people. However, if someone is crucial to some later act, he cannot be killed. YOU can, though, so you should be careful not to anger the wrong person. Paradox will be averted through a convenient coincidence.
* This is a primary theme of The Craw Trilogy. The series is about a cycle of death and rebirth of Odin and Fenris. Vali, Feileg, and Adisla are destined to live out the roles they play in this cycle until Ragnarok. {{spoiler|This cycle is in place because of Odin trying to fight/delay his fate by having his destiny play out on Earth because when the cycle is broken the Norns will set Ragnarok in motion and end the era of the Norse gods for good. Wolfsangel plays this trope straight but Fenrir lays the groundwork for possibly breaking the cycle in the next book.}}
* [[Discussed Trope]] in ''[[Septimus Heap (Literature)|Septimus Heap]]'', where Septimus questions Marcellus Pye's intentions on creating a potion that gives eternal life ''along'' with eternal youth, since Marcellus has already taken the potion for eternal life already and Septimus saw him a withered old man 500 years later in Septimus's own time.
 
 
== Live-Action TV ==
* Partially subverted and partially played straight in ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'': a dark and seemingly inevitable prophecy forming one of the major plots of Season Three was {{spoiler|ultimately revealed to be an elaborate [[Gambit Roulette]] on the part of time-traveling [[Big Bad]] Sajjhan, who wanted Connor killed off before he could fulfill the true prophecy: causing the death of Sajjhan. Ultimately, however, the true prophecy comes to pass...[[Prophecy Twist|as does]] [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|the fake one]].}}.
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', "[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)/Recap/S7 E4 Help|Help]]": A teenager has had premonitions about her own untimely death. Buffy saves her from homicidal maniacs, a demon, and a [[Death Trap]], but she has a heart condition and dies anyway.
* Similarly (only with [[Time Travel]]), the ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' episode "Six Months Ago" has Hiro finding out that the waitress that he's been trying to save from Sylar is already dying from a blood clot on her brain.
* On seasons 3 & 4 of ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'' {{spoiler|many characters cannot be killed or die (Michael, Locke, Jack) because "the island needs them". Similarly, many characters are fated to die and any attempts to save them only postpone the inevitable}}.
* The ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus (TV)|Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' episode "The Cycling Tour" plays with this trope for comic effect. Mr. Pither accepts a lift from Mr. Gulliver, whose company has been developing food that can predict accidents and avoid them ("Even if it's in your stomach, and it senses an accident it will come up your throat and out of the window"). While Gulliver is explaining this one of his experimental tomatoes ejects itself from the car. Gulliver is so excited that it works that he loses control of the car, causing the very accident that the tomato had predicted.
* The ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'' episode Cassandra featured a computer that could tell the future. In a perfect example of [[You Can't Fight Fate]], after it had foretold that certain characters would leave alive, a gun was pointed in their face and the trigger pulled. Naturally, it jammed. When pointed at another character who she foretold would die, it worked perfectly. This trope was then used almost word for word to seduce another character, since the computer had foretold he'd die while having sex with her. (When her boyfriend caught them in the act) But in the end, it turned out she was lying to cause jealousy. She foresaw that the boyfriend would kill her. He realized this and tried to avoid it, saying he wasn't going to kill her, but through a Rube Goldberg series of events ends up killing her anyway.
** 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.
* In the ''[[Star Trek: theThe Original Series (TV)|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' episode, "[[Star Trek (Franchise)/Recap/S1 E28 The City On the Edge of Forever|The City on the Edge of Forever]]", Edith Keeler must die so that Germany doesn't win World War II and wipe the Federation from existence. (Had she lived, she would have founded a peace movement that would have delayed the United States' entry into the European front of WWII, allowing Nazi Germany sufficient time to develop the atomic bomb and thus win the war.)
* The classic ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation (TV)|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' episode "[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation (TV)/Recap/S5 E18 Cause and Effect|Cause and Effect]]'' makes a point of this trope when Dr Crusher [[Defied Trope|very deliberately tries to avoid breaking her glass]] in the next loop but just ends up breaking it another way.
* ''Every'' [[Deal Withwith 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.
** Of course, as the fourth season opener reveals, {{spoiler|you can still get out with a little help from above.}}
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*** Another variant for another Sentai is another Sixth Ranger of ''[[Mirai Sentai Timeranger]]'' TimeFire who is also destined to die. Here it's not as specific. TimeFire will die, but as the ranger and not the person, meaning anybody could fulfill this destiny as TimeFire. The original TimeFire found this out and did his best to make sure somebody else took over for him ASAP. Sure enough the new TimeFire dies in the battle he was destined to die in, but the original's selfish scheme is discovered by the other Rangers, who promptly kill him anyway.
*** In ''[[Mahou Sentai Magiranger]]'' any time prophetic flashes, visions, or just straight up prophecies are brought up, they will come true. But once they have come true, there's nothing to stop anyone from undoing them.
* In ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'', if you attempt [[Unwinnable Training Simulation|The Kobayashi Maru]] scenario, it will result in failure, no matter what you do. {{spoiler|Unless you [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|hack the simulation program.]]}}
** You can also refuse to do the main part of the simulation claiming it's a trap.
* On ''[[Reaper (TV)|Reaper]]'', one guy manages to weasel out of his [[Deal Withwith the Devil]]. {{spoiler|The Devil gets his soul anyway.}}
* "Profile in Silver", an episode of the 80s revival of ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'', played with this trope. A historian from the future (who happened to be a direct descendant of John F. Kennedy) prevented Kennedy's assassination, only to set in motion events that would bring about a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia. {{spoiler|He manages to set things right by taking JFK's place in the motorcade, and Kennedy himself becomes a history teacher in his descendant's future.}}
** 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 (TV)|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.
* The entire point of ''[[Flash Forward 2009]]'''s plot, where everyone on earth blacks out and, if they survived, sees a [[Flash Forward]] of themselves six months into the future (except for [[Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle|Harold]]). For instance, Joseph Fienne's character sees that he's on a taskforce to find the source of the blackouts, and when he wakes up his investigations land him on...a taskforce to discover the source of the blackouts.
** 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 29th you are as far away from where you saw yourself in your vision.
** [[Zig -Zagging Trope|Quadruple-subverted]] with the Blue Hand Group: people who didn't have flash forwards since they'll be dead before April 29th and engage in risky behavior, as they think they have nothing to live for. When some of them live because others decided to [[Screw Destiny]], their members start dying before April 29th anyway, in the same manner as they were predicted to. Lloyd thinks its [[Ontological Inertia|fate trying to correct discrepancies]] but it turns out to be {{spoiler|the Blue Hand's former leader doing what he thinks is fate's work.}} [[Double Subversion|Double-subverted]] ''again'' when the FBI tries to {{spoiler|stop him from running over his last victim, only for one agent to accidentally hit her with her car}}, proving Lloyd's theory that if you prevent your flash forward, someone else will just take your place in the sequence of events.
* ''[[The Outer Limits (TV)|The Outer Limits]]'' had its own tendency to mess with this concept. Gettysburg is a great example. A mysterious time traveler, who had appeared in previous episodes, returns. However, this time, instead attempting to arrange "justice" against villains from the past while remaining consistent with recorded history, he is attempting to directly change what happened. Specifically, he hopes to avoid the assassination of the first black president in 2013, regarded as one of America's greatest leaders, by a Southern Sympathizer whose beliefs are all tied up in the Glory of the Confederacy. The time traveler sends the guy back from a Gettysburg re-enactment to the real battle where he serves under an insane commander and faces the true harshness of the war and his supported side. He learns his lesson, and comes face-to-face with his ancestor, whose self-serving cowardice contradicts the impressive legend that he had idolized during his youth, and he rejects extremism and the no-longer noble rebellion against the government. However, the insane commander from Gettysburg is accidently transported to the 2013 date and, while trying to kill "Lincoln," manages to assassinate the president anyway.
* "A Determined Woman", an episode of the [[Dawn French]] comedy anthology series ''[[Murder Most Horrid]]'', tells the tragicomic story of an inventor (French) working on a time machine, who gets so annoyed with her idiot husband disrupting her work that she hits him with a spanner, a little harder than she intended...some years later, after serving time for his manslaughter, she completes her time machine and goes back to try and save him, only to discover that her attempts to prevent his death were what caused it in the first place.
* In ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the Time Lords of Gallifrey (currently personified in one remaining member) are able to see the bend and flow of space-time to the point that they know when an event inevitably MUST happen in the grand cosmic scheme, and when certain things are permissibly malleable. {{spoiler|The latter fact results in Donna convincing the Doctor to save a Roman family that they've befriended in Pompeii in 79 CE, even while he <s>cannot</s> will not stop the [[Real Life|eruption of Mt. Vesuvius]], no matter how many may be perishing}}.
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** In ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S21 E3 Frontios|Frontios]]'', Turlough has Norna pick a hand and when that chosen hand has a good luck piece in, claims that it clearly shows that he can't fight destiny. In fact, he had one in both hands, because he knew what he ought to do.
* Miyuki Tezuka/Kamen Rider Raia from ''[[Kamen Rider Ryuki]]'', a psychic who claims his visions are always accurate, believes this. {{spoiler|When he foresees the death of his friend Shinji Kido/Ryuki, however, he lies and tells Shinji that he foresaw his own death. During a later battle, Miyuki [[Taking the Bullet|takes the metaphorical bullet]] for Shinji, averting his own prediction but turning his lie into a [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]].}}
* ''[[The X-Files (TV)|The X-Files]]'' episode "Synchrony" presents the case of a strange old man warning an MIT student and professor that the student is going to die at a specific time - because of this warning the professor, attempting to save the student, ends up accidentally pushing him into the path of an oncoming bus and thus the warning is a [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]]. The old man is {{spoiler|actually the professor from the future, who has traveled back in time}} attempting to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|Set Right What Will Go Wrong]] and prevent an impending scientific breakthrough {{spoiler|that would be made by the professor in collaboration with his girlfriend, also a scientist, and the student, and which would be a catalyst for a catastrophic technological development.}} Mulder cites an old theory of Scully's about how the future can't be altered, and so the old man's efforts are probably doomed. {{spoiler|Although the professor manages to kill both his present and future selves and erase all of his files, as the episode ends, the girlfriend is continuing the research on her own with backups of the erased data.}}
* In ''[[The Unusuals]]'' episode "42" Detective Banks has to keep saving a woman who foresees several bus robberies and tries to die during one (and tries again, and again, because Banks keeps saving her) because she believes she's fated to do so. He finally convinces her that you make your own fate, only for her to die in a bus crash at like 11:50pm.
* In [[WWE]], whoever competes against [[The Undertaker]] at [[Wrestlemania]] is destined to lose. Long live the Streak.
* ''[[Dark Oracle]]'': Attempts at preventing the comic's predictions from coming true inevitably result in a [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]].
* ''[[Quantum Leap (TV)|Quantum Leap]]'' played with this. In each episode, Sam's goal was to fight a particular piece of fate, and he invariably won. However, when he and Al occasionally tried to change other things in their own personal interest, they were unable to do so. For example, in ''MIA'', {{spoiler|Al lied to Sam about what his goal was, and had him try to stop Al's own wife Beth from remarrying while he was a prisoner of war. Whatever Sam did to keep Beth away from her future second husband, they kept bumping into each other in unlikely places. Sam was actually there to stop a cop getting shot.}} In ''The Leap Home, Part 1'', {{spoiler|Sam could not convince his father to take up a healthier lifestyle and live longer, or stop his brother from going to Vietnam and getting killed, because his only goal for the episode was to ''win a basketball game''.}} It seems the Unknown Force only unlocked little bits of fate at a time. {{spoiler|Sam did save both his brother's life and Al's marriage in later episodes, though.}}
 
 
== Myth & Folklore ==
* The ancient Greeks loved these types of stories:
** [[Classical Mythology|Gaia and Ouranos]] prophesied that Kronos would be overthrown by one of his sons, so he ate each son as it was born. His wife kept their last son, Zeus, hidden, so that Zeus could eventually fulfill the prophesy (as told in ''[[Theogony (Literature)|Theogony]]'' by [[Hesiod (Creator)|Hesiod]]).
** Acrisius consulted the Oracle of Delphi, and found that he was fated to be slain by the son of his daughter. As such, he locked his still-maiden daughter Danae in a tower. Zeus came to her in a shower of gold and fathered Perseus. So Acrisius puts Perseus and his daughter in a wooden chest and throws them into the sea. Eventually, Perseus unwittingly kills his now-old grandfather in an accident at the Olympic Games.
** Oedipus and his story revolve around this trope: He was prophesied to slay his father and wed his mother. It is an especially ironic example because after receiving the same prophecy his parents received and abandoned him for, Oedipus in turn exiles himself away from his foster father for fear of killing him, with no suspicion that his adoptive parents are not his real parents. In short, everything that the characters do to avoid the prophecy is necessary to make the prophecy come true.
** Two other famous cases involve the Oracle at Delphi; in the first, a man prophesied to die in the sea spends his life avoiding the ''ocean'', only to die in a forest the locals call "The Sea"; in another, King Croesus is told that a great empire will fall if he goes to war, wrongly assuming it will be his enemy's.
* This trope is also all over [[Norse Mythology]]. If anything, this was the real [[Horny Vikings|Norse]] [[Planet of Hats|hat]], having four different words meaning inescapable fate, one of them being [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|"dom"]]. Even the gods cant fight their fate, when [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|Ragnarok]] hits the fan.
* An ancient Arab legend tells about a man who saw Death staring at him and fled to faraway Samarra to avoid him. When somebody asked Death why he'd been staring at the man he said, "I was surprised to see him here because I'm appointed to meet him in Samarra next week."
* [[Older Than Dirt]]: In the ancient [[Egyptian Mythology|Egyptian]] story Princes Ahura: The Magic Book, the prince and his family cannot escape the punishment the gods decree for their sacrelige of stealing the holy Book of Thoth. They try, but it catches up no matter what they do. In the end the prince, his sister/wife, and their son die.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[GURPS (Tabletop Game)|GURPS]]: Thaumatology'' there are items that force a Destiny on the owner, causing them to fulfill it whether they want to or not. The Destiny doesn't run out either, an item that makes one person King of England will also make the next person who picks it up into the King of England.
* Duke Rowan Darkwood in ''[[Planescape (Tabletop Game)|Planescape]]'' gets screwed over by this ''in spades'', {{spoiler|becoming destined to be the person who instigates (as the ancient wizard rumored to have crafted a spell that can destroy the Lady of Pain), starts (as Rowan Darkwood), and ''ends'' (as Gifad, who coaxes the party to help him cast the Sigil Spell) the Faction War all in one go. And all this time, the Lady of Pain had controlled ''everything''...}}
* ''[[Exalted (Tabletop Game)|Exalted]]'' has samsara, the concept that if you look upon Fate for absolute knowledge, then you must go with the results without any chance of deviating. That's why the Five Maidens are loath to look on samsara for knowledge. It's also why everyone wants to keep the [[Demon Lords and Archdevils|Yozi]] Sacheverell asleep; whether he looks upon the present or the future with utter clarity depends on whether he's asleep or awake, and as long as he's asleep, free will is an option.
 
 
== Theater ==
* Subverted in Calderon's ''Life is a Dream'', where Segismund is prophecied to kill his father, King Basil of Poland, and become an [[Evil Overlord]]. Because of this, Basil locks Segismund away in a tower in the mountains, which [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|angers him]]. For a while, the play ''really, really'' looks like it's going to end with Segismund killing Basil. [[Screw Destiny|It doesn't.]] Although he does actually kill his mother, but [[Death Byby Childbirth|that was an accident.]]
* A [[Tear Jerker]] example is the theme of ''[[Our Town (Theatre)|Our Town]]''.
* [[Macbeth (Theatre)|Macbeth]]. A whole bunch of [[Macbeth (Theatre)|Macbeth]].
* The point of most Greek tragedies.
 
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== Videogames ==
* In ''[[Radiant Historia (Video Game)|Radiant Historia]]'' all the things that happened were just a {{spoiler|[[Xanatos Gambit]] from the twins to, not only save the world, but also to make Heiss accept his fate of being the sacrifice}}
* In ''[[God of War (Video Gameseries)|God of War]]'', Kratos finds you can not only fight Fate, you can ''kill'' them too.
** Averted in a sense. Kratos was able to fight the Sisters of Fate, but in the game itself and the more recent ones it was revealed Kratos was fated to destroy Olympus. The implication being even the Sisters were bound by some higher power they could not control.
* Half of the ''[[Legacy of Kain (Video Game)|Legacy of Kain]]'' series revolves around this trope. The other half revolves around [[Screw Destiny]]. It's...complicated.
** In ''Soul Reaver 2'' {{spoiler|despite rampant time-travel, different versions of the Reaver existing at the same time, and ''killing himself with his own soul'', at the end Raziel realizes that he never escaped his terrible destiny; he had merely postponed it.}} History abhors a paradox.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]]'', the main plot of the big bad is to {{spoiler|win the power of the gods to control humanity's own history. Not so evil after all. He both succeeds and loses, which sucks.}}
* ''[[Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XIII-2]]'' focuses on [[Time Travel]] to avoid a [[Bad Future]]. Despite going into various decades, centuries, ''alternate'' centuries or even obtaining the paradox endings, {{spoiler|it always ends with Etro dying, time itself being destroyed and the [[Big Bad|Caius]] achieving his goal}}.
* ''[[Mega Man X (Video Game)|Mega Man X]] 5'' has three different scenarios (two for X, one of which is non-canon, and one for Zero), depending on the [[Luck-Based Mission]] of the game. However, whichever scenario is played out, the [[Boss Battle]] in the penultimate stage will ''always'' be {{spoiler|X vs. Zero, their prophecy finally being carried out}}.
* [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|The Armageddon]] in ''[[Odin Sphere]]''. {{spoiler|You can't stop it, but you ''can'' [[Multiple Endings|make it even worse]] if you don't fulfill the prophecy exactly.}}
* The main plot of ''[[Summoner]]''. The evil emperor Murod is told that his reign will be brought to an end by a summoner. So he spends his life finding the summoner, causing the destruction of his village, and later of the kingdom the summoner is from. This causes the summoner to fight and eventually kill Murod. Ironically, had he done nothing about it, said Summoner would have lived a happy life as a mere farmer.
* Kratos from ''[[Tales of Symphonia (Video Game)|Tales of Symphonia]]'' tends to mention fate a lot in his battle quotes, such as saying "You can never escape fate." Considering what happened to him, it might be very justified.
* In spite of the [[Time Travel]], [[Command and Conquer (Video Game)|Allies will always win.]]
* Present for the [[Big Bad]] in ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (Video Game)|Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Echoes of Time]]''. Larkeicus's plan is to stop an event that's about to happen from causing crystals to disappear from the world 2,000 years in the past [[Timey-Wimey Ball|(...somehow)]]. He calculates the exact time and location of the event, {{spoiler|which is in the middle of the air. So he builds a tower to reach that point. After you defeat him, Sherlotta tells him something along the lines of, "If there wasn't this tower, what could have possibly happened, all the way up here?". She then follows up by essentially [[Invoked Trope|stating this trope.]] }}
* ''[[Prince of Persia (Video Game)|Prince of Persia]]'': In ''Warrior Within/Revelations'' you are chased by an unstoppable monster sent to kill you because you changed the timeline and it was bad. It is implied that it was sent by the gods. So, what do you do? {{spoiler|In the alternative/proper ending you find a magical mask that lets you exist in two places at once. You let your other self get killed to free yourself from destiny and then you stop destiny again using a magical sword to destroy the monster.}}
* In ''[[Chrono Cross (Video Game)|Chrono Cross]]'', {{spoiler|you ''literally'' fight fate, or rather, FATE.}} Of course, [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|things don't exactly go smoothly afterwards...]]
** You get several opportunities (and multiple playthroughs) to try and avoid {{spoiler|the stabbing scene}} which was foreshadowed in the opening sequences. It doesn't work, of course.
* A good part of the common backstory of the Kusanagi, Yasakani/Yagami, and Yata/Kagura clans in ''[[The King of Fighters (Video Game)|The King of Fighters]]'' relates to how they cannot escape from fighting the Orochi clan.
* The [[Big Bad]] Dierker in ''[[The Saboteur]]'' said to Devlin in the Zeppelin "You should have died under my knife. Not like this.". Despite Dierker's Devil Luck to survive every ambush and attacks Devlin throws at him throughout the game, ultimately Devlin gets to kill him for good in the ending, showing Dierker can't fight his fate of dying.
* In the ending of ''[[Tales of Destiny (Video Game)|Tales of Destiny]] 2'', {{spoiler|Kyle STILL ends up meeting Reala in the very same place they did before despite what happened after the final battle. Coincidence?}}
* ''[[Sunset Over Imdahl]]'' is particularly evil about this trope, since the entire plot is the main character's attempt to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] (and {{spoiler|his supposed ally's successful attempt to [[Stable Time Loop|make it go wrong in the first place]]}}.) There's only one apparent change: {{spoiler|while in the beginning the hero was the last survivor, in the end he gets a decent burial and a tombstone, while others are dumped in a mass grave.}}
* The [[Stable Time Loop]] in ''[[Final Fantasy VIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VIII]]'' involves some elements of this trope. {{spoiler|Ellone}} repeatedly sends {{spoiler|Squall's consciousness}} into the past in an effort to change it, but concludes after repeated failures that changing the past is impossible. The [[Big Bad]] also mucks around in the past in an effort to change it, but although the meddling causes quite a bit of trouble for everyone involved, it ends up ''causing'' the very results it was intended to prevent.
** Squall himself also catches some [[You Can't Fight Fate]]; he doesn't want to be in charge of anything and takes it very badly when he's [[You Are in Command Now|summarily appointed leader of SeeD]] thanks to Cid's knowledge of the [[Stable Time Loop]], but not only does he grow into and accept the role as his destiny, he also gives {{spoiler|Edea}} the information which {{spoiler|she and Cid}} use to found SeeD and put him in charge in the first place.
* The villains in the ''[[The House of the Dead (Video Gameseries)|House of the Dead]]'' frequently use this as a part of their [[Hannibal Lecture]].
* ''[[Castlevania Lords of Shadow (Video Game)|Castlevania: Lords of Shadow]]'' has Gabriel Belmont attempting to [[Screw Destiny]], but no matter how hard he does, he cannot change it, and he cannot avoid it. Not only does he fail to save his love from death, but {{spoiler|he also becomes [[Tragic Monster|Dracula]]}} as the prophecy plays out; he also falls victim to {{spoiler|Satan's}} [[Xanatos Gambit]] all along...
* In the not yet released [[Crossover]] ''[[Professor Layton vs. AcePhoenix AttorneyWright: (VideoAce Game)Attorney|Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney]]'' features a girl, who's fate as written in the 'storytellers' book' is to die. The girl thinks that her death is her fate while Phoenix is sure that she will not die.
* ''[[Sailor Moon Another Story (Video Game)|Sailor Moon Another Story]]'' is about you teaching ''bad guys'' about this. Well...yeah.
* ''[[Fear Effect (Video Game)|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 Withwith 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".
* In ''[[Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning (Video Game)|Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning]]'', this ''was'' the case since the dawn of time. The Fateless One is special because he/she is [[Immune to Fate]], and thus is the ''only person in existence'' who can [[Screw Destiny]]. Everyone else, even gods, can't change their fates.
* 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 (Video Game)|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.}}
 
 
== Visual Novels ==
* In ''[[Fate Stay Night (Visual Novel)|Fate/stay night]]'', Gae Bolg works on this principle. It's a weapon that reverses causality: instead of the attack puncturing the heart, the heart is punctured and THEN the attack lands.
** Still doesn't [[Born Lucky|keep]] [[Action Girl|Saber]] [[Super Reflexes|from]] [[Beyond the Impossible|avoiding]] death, using her canonical luckiness and extreme skill to ensure it only grazes her heart. Fate is thus unavoidable, but you can escape the worst of it.
* Even if Ange from ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro Ni (Visual Novel)|Umineko no Naku Koro Nini]]'' [[Screw Destiny|changes the past and helps Battler come home]], {{spoiler|[[You Can't Fight Fate|Battler still won't have come home]], because [[Time Travel Tense Trouble|it already didn't happen that way]]}}.
** Though in the canonical ending, {{spoiler|Battler is one of the only two survivors of the incident on the island, and the whole series is basically his dying dream. He does come out of his coma once he figures everything out, only to die shortly after. So the whole scenario is flipped around: No matter what happens, everyone but Battler and Eva are going to die on the island since that's simply how it happened.}} [[Mind Screw|Or Is It?]]
 
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* [http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/010203 Zoe] [http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20050814 being] [http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20090804 burned] in ''[[Sluggy Freelance (Webcomic)|Sluggy Freelance]]''.
* Happens all the time in ''[[Hitmen for Destiny (Webcomic)|Hitmen for Destiny]]'' for example [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/thorsby/destiny/series.php?view=archive&chapter=39639 here]. Characters who have prophecies predicting their death tend to die right on time ({{spoiler|though sometimes they die earlier than predicted, destiny being fallible and even damageable}}).
* Played with in [http://www.oglaf.com/sooth/1/ this] [[Oglaf]] strip.
* [[Goblins (Webcomic)|Goblins]] pulls this on a magnificent scale - Goblins are named after prophecies of their future so Saves a Fox attempts to thwart destiny by killing a fox. {{spoiler|Guess what? It was suffering from a disease which would have left it to die a slow painful death - in context, she actually ''saved a fox''.}}
* ''[[Homestuck (Webcomic)|Homestuck]]'' has several methods of [[Dreaming of Things to Come|gleaning into the future]] or traveling through time, but the course of time cannot truly be changed. Any attempt to alter the alpha timeline is doomed to failure. If you're lucky, it'll turn out [[You Already Changed the Past]]. In a worst-case scenario, it creates a [[Time Crash|paradoxical offshoot]], [[Fate Worse Than Death|doomed to veer off into nonexistence]] (as one character puts it, "The Universe eats paradoxes for breakfast"). Ultimately, the only thing one can hope to do is set up a series of [[Stable Time Loop|Stable Time Loops]] [[Compound Interest Time Travel Gambit|to profit from what's bound to happen anyways]], or to use an offshoot timeline to work on [[It May Help You Onon Your Quest|something which will aid the "fated" progression of the alpha timeline.]]
** On the one hand, [[Stable Time Loop|Stable Time Loops]] conspire to weave the outcomes of actions into the very structure of the game so that things "always had to happen this way". But on the other hand, these things still come about from people making (apparently) free will decisions. Kanaya highlights this a couple of times in Act 5 conversations with Aradia and Vriska. So ultimately fate may be one huge [[Batman Gambit]].
** As of the end of Act IV, [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003842 Rose has had it with this fate bullshit]. Incidentally, she knows she can't wantonly alter the timeline because [http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004804 she knows it will just create an offshoot.] [[And I Must Scream|Which is something she's had personal experience with.]]
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** Offshoots don't always veer off into non-existence though, as sometimes Paradox Space finds ways to make sure that all parties that would be altered in the new timeline meet a swift demise, as a Dave and one set of Trolls found out the [[Kill'Em All|hard]] [[Implacable Man|way]].
** It also doesn't help the issue that we as the reader know the future, but characters in canon do not.
*** In short, in ''[[Homestuck (Webcomic)|Homestuck]]'' not only can you not fight fate, if you do manage to split away from the main timeline, a quasi magical force known as Paradox Space will doom you all to a horrible death. [[Mind Screw|Probably]].
* This is Wanda's whole philosophy in ''[[Erfworld (Webcomic)|Erfworld]]'': everyone's fate is sealed, and the best they can do is accept it and let it run as smoothly and painlessly as possible.
** Fate is a powerful magic in ''Erfworld'', you're never exactly sure how powerful. [[Whatevermancy|Carnymancy]] is a Fate-aligned magic based on "rigging the game".
** Wanda's [[Start of Darkness]] shows the one time she tried to fight Fate. Wanda eventually got dragged back into the role Fate had in store for her {{spoiler|and her older brother was murdered by someone he would have never met if Wanda had just gone along with Fate.}}
* ''[[Bob and George (Webcomic)|Bob and George]]'': [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/040918c I knew he was going to say] [[Screw Destiny|that]]
* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=1819 Squidley, after a moment dramatically contemplating a universe where free will is mockery, says, "sure, why not?"
* In [[Spinnerette (Webcomic)|Spinnerette]] this rule is what gives [[Benjamin Franklin]] [http://www.krakowstudios.com/spinnerette/2011/10/28/10282011/ superpowers.]
 
 
== Web Originals ==
* Done for laughs in ''[[Red vs. Blue (Machinima)|Red vs. Blue]]'', when Church repeatedly goes back in time, to try to keep "a lot of really weird and totally inexplicable stuff" from happening. [[Groundhog Day Loop|It doesn't work.]] Mostly, either his plan fails, or he actually ''causes'' the event he was trying to prevent, ''including his own death.'' He also seems to selectively forget his mistakes, since he still blames Caboose for the tank incident, [[AI Is a Crapshoot|even though Caboose wasn't really at fault at all.]]
* In [[The End (Webweb Videovideo)|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.
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* In ''[[South Park (Animation)|South Park]]'', Craig Tucker is this during the episode "Pandemic 2: The Startling".
* In the ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (Animationanimation)|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 (Animation)|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.
* ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents (Animation)|The Fairly Odd Parents]]'', "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker":
{{quote| '''Timmy:''' NO! This is exactly what I was ''trying! To! Prevent!''}}
* Comes up several times in ''[[Gargoyles (Animation)|Gargoyles]]'', thanks to the Phoenix Gate's ability to [[Time Travel]]:
** During his first experience with [[Time Travel]], Goliath ends up in his own past and implores the past version of Demona not to make the same bad decisions that led to her becoming his enemy. When he returns to the present, Demona taunts him with the knowledge that she remembered that confrontation all along and that his efforts changed nothing. Interestingly, the bad guy she had teamed up with, Xanatos, already understands what the gargoyles will only later pick up about time travel, he's just there to arrange what he already knew happened, not to change anything.
** Later, Goliath attempts to use the time-travelling Phoenix Gate to save Griff from being killed during the Blitz in WWII London, after being accused of abandoning or murdering Griff by his companions. With increasingly improbable incidents occurring that indicates the universe has decided Griff is its new [[The Chew Toy|Chew Toy]], Goliath ultimately concludes that fate will not allow Griff to get home and uses the Phoenix Gate to bring Griff back with him to the present, [[You Already Changed the Past|thus causing his original disappearance]].
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** 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.
* In Disney's ''[[Hercules (Disney film)|Hercules]]'', Hades is given a prophecy by the Fates that Hercules will defeat Hades' rule over Mt. Olympus in 18 years. You can guess how THAT went down!
** 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 (Animation)|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.]]
* This trope was done in ''The Ned Zone'', one of ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]] Treehouse of Horror'' episodes where Ned can foretell people's deaths, and has a vision showing himself killing Homer. {{spoiler|He believes he's managed to avert the vision, but then has another vision of Homer causing an explosion at the nuclear power plant that destroys the town. In the course of stopping Homer from causing the explosion, he ends up fulfilling the original prediction, but Homer manages to cause the explosion anyway.}}
* ''[[Teen Titans (Animationanimation)|Teen Titans]]'' spent several episodes of the fourth season dealing with Raven's prophecied role as the instrument by which [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|her father would enter and end the world]]. Despite hers and her friends' efforts of preventing it, she ''does'' become the portal for Trigon to get to Earth and destroy it...[[Reset Button|they just fix it afterward]].
** In a way, Raven kind of retroactively says [[Screw Destiny]]. She realizes the [[Endofthe World As We Know It|prophecy]] only came true because she let it, and then turns the [[Deus Ex Machina]] [[Up to Eleven]].
* An episode of ''[[Jacob Two Two]]'' starts with Jacob accidentally destroying his older brother's priceless, never-been-played Beatles record, and discovering a time machine that will let him go back to when he broke it. But every single time he tries to fix it, things turn out ''worse'', culminating in their ''[[Disaster Dominoes|entire house being destroyed]]'' (along with the record). Jacob finally gives up trying to save the record, and uses the time machine one last time to recreate the original incident (where just the record is broken and nothing else). And then he happens upon another copy of ''I want to Hold Your Hand''. Yay! {{spoiler|And then Daniel accidentally breaks that copy, too.}}
* In ''[[Futurama (Animation)|Futurama]]'' Fry kills his own grandfather, but turns out to be his own grandfather after all (explaining his unusual brain structure, or lack thereof), so the Futurama timespace seems to be either impossible to change, or self-correcting.
** Doom coefficient, anyone?
* The ''[[Justice League (Animationanimation)|Justice League Unlimited]]'' episode "Epilogue" (also a [[Fully-Absorbed Finale]] for ''[[Batman Beyond]]'') has former CADMUS leader Amanda Waller explaining to Terry how her branch engineered his entire life to be the next Batman, from arranging for him to be conceived with Bruce Wayne's DNA instead of his actual father's, to setting up the [[Death By Origin Story]] of his parents. The assassin they contracted for that purpose refused to go through with it, leaving the McGinnis family alive. Fate had other plans, however and Terry's father was later murdered by Derek Powers, coincidentally around the same time that Terry met the aged Bruce Wayne and managed to connect the dots about his identity as the former Batman.
** On the other hand, the very same episode emphasizes the choice Terry had in becoming who he is and how he's grown, considering the vast number of psychopathic or self-destructive nut-jobs CADMUS also ended up creating. It may have been fate that turned Terry into Batman, but it's Terry himself that became a hero.
* An ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' episode has the [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of Chaos convinced that Fate is on Aladdin's side after hearing about his many victories against impossible odds. This upsets him, to say the least, and that's when the episode gets a little more serious.
{{quote| '''Chaos:''' To always win against such odds, Fate must have smiled on you.<br />
'''Aladdin:''' Well, I try not to...brag...<br />
'''Chaos:''' But I never liked Fate. Predestination goes against the grain. Besides, he cheats at cards. But if Fate has decreed that Aladdin always wins, what can I do? I mean, where’s the unpredictability in that? I’ve got it! Allow me to produce a little scenario I call “[[Evil Twin]]”. I have no problem with Aladdin winning all his battles. The question is, which Aladdin? }}
* In ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', one episode has Twilight Sparkle meeting her future self, who has messed up hair, a torn-up catsuit, an eyepatch, and a scar. Because Present Twilight talks so much, Future Twilight can't deliver a warning about the future, so Present Twilight panics and tries to prevent a potential disaster, not only causing the changes her future self wound up with, but it turns out there was no disaster in the first place. The warning was [[An Aesop|to not worry about what the future brings.]]
 
 
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