Trope of the Month March: The Prophecy

[Nicolas721]

I like prophecies of the "Something terrible will happen in 6 months" kind. They introduce a good amount of drama, and force the heroes to prepare accordingly. Also, when wordplay or "Exact Words" cases are involved then the viewer and the characters are forced to read deeper into it. A good example is The flash seasons 3 & 6.

On the other hand, I don't like the "X will be defeated by Y when the time comes" kind. It breaks the immersion and makes things too predictable. It could be argued that the hero choosing to accept his situation because of the pressure is good drama, but a better and more realistic drama is people choosing on their own to do things that could help everyone even if it's dangerous.

 

[Greninjaman]

On the other hand, I don't like the "X will be defeated by Y when the time comes" kind. It breaks the immersion and makes things too predictable. It could be argued that the hero choosing to accept his situation because of the pressure is good drama, but a better and more realistic drama is people choosing on their own to do things that could help everyone even if it's dangerous.

I do agree that those sort of prophecies tend to be predictable. In fact, I feel that all types of prophecies are predictable. "X will be defeated by Y" pretty much spoils the entire story since the reader would know that the 'Y' will be defeated by 'X' eventually.

 

[LightningTopaz]

The trick then, is to design your prophecy to that even though you know X will by defeated by Y, you don't know HOW exactly Y will go about defeating X. This retains some element of surprise, at least to me.

 

[Greninjaman]

The trick then, is to design your prophecy to that even though you know X will by defeated by Y, you don't know HOW exactly Y will go about defeating X. This retains some element of surprise, at least to me.

That makes sense. The prophecy tells WHAT will happen, but not the HOW. Kind of like the Ninetales Legend in PMD Rescue Team. Ninetales said that when a human becomes a Pokemon, the world's balence will be upset, but Ninetales does not say if the two are related.