History Main / ProphecyArmor

* Played with in a ''very'' cruel fashion on the ''Franchise/FinalDestination'' series: Death wants you dead, and Its cruel game [[spoiler:which includes giving some people visions about disasters so they can get away and It can keep on hunting them down]] is played by ''Its'' rules. This includes deciding to take your own life to try to appease Death: Death just won't let you die until It feels like taking you. The two TokenMinority members of the cast in two different films -- Eugene Dix in ''Final Destination 2'' and George Lanter in ''The Final Destination'' -- try to commit suicide once it's made clear how screwed they are and in both occasions the suicide attempts fail utterly, freaking out the rest of the cast.

* ''[[WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers The Venture Bros.]]'': Discussed and exploited in the episode "Past Tense", where after OldSoldier Action Man pissed off Dr. Orpheus by shooting at him, the necromancer read Action Man's future to say that he'll suffer from a stroke [[YourDaysAreNumbered two years and seventeen days from now.]] He then goes off with the rest of the cast to save Rusty Venture who was kidnapped and has to fight his way through an army of robots. [[spoiler:True-to-form, Action Man does suffer from that stroke two years later in the episode "Arrears in Science", but he is just rendered comatose.]]

* If a person's name is written on ''Manga/DeathNote'' and a specific date for the death and the method of death are noted, said person will not die before that date. However, since the Note can only be used to ''shorten'' a person's expected natural lifespan, [[YourDaysAreNumbered it's a pretty hefty cost to pay]]. [[spoiler:In the live-action movies, L sacrifices himself by writing his own name in the Death Note to make himself temporarily unkillable, which lets him bait Light into writing his name, play dead, and then steal the damning evidence.]]

* Minor example in ''Film/BlackAdam2022'': [[spoiler:Karim is informed by Dr. Fate that he won't die from his current wounds because Fate has looked into the future and seen that he'll die by electricity. Later, confronting the walking dead, he smiles happily, repeating the prophecy, and lays into the zombies]].

* If a person's name is written on ''Manga/DeathNote'' and a specific date for the death and the method of death are noted, said person will not die before that date. However, since the Note can only ''shorten'' a person's expected natural lifespan, [[YourDaysAreNumbered it's a pretty hefty cost to pay]]. [[spoiler:In the live-action movies, L sacrifices himself by writing his own name in the Death Note to make himself temporarily unkillable, which lets him bait Light into writing his name, play dead, and then steal the damning evidence.]]

* If a person's name is written on ''Manga/DeathNote'' and a specific date for the death and the method of death are noted, said person will not die before that date. [[YourDaysAreNumbered There's a limit to how far in the future it can be]], so it's a pretty hefty cost to pay. [[spoiler:In the live-action movies, L sacrifices himself by writing his own name in the Death Note to make himself temporarily unkillable, which lets him bait Light into writing his name, play dead, and then steal the damning evidence.]]

* ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'' deconstructs this with its depictions of Magni and Modi. The two of them have even greater Prophecy Armor than the other Norse gods, as they're foretold to be among the few who ''survive'' Ragnarok. As a result, the two have grown up to be [[FearlessFool Fearless Fools]] who provoke as many fights as they want and behave like spoiled bullies; it doesn't matter who they piss off. They'll survive anything the world can throw at them. [[spoiler: They realize too late they're fighting [[OutsideContextProblem Kratos]], who has [[ScrewDestiny rewritten the outcome of his fate]] and [[BackFromTheDead crawled back from Hades multiple times... painfully]]. So when Kratos murders Magni, Modi is just as much horrified as he is baffled. Now realizing he has no divine protection, Modi turns and runs. Eventually he is blamed for Magni's death and is killed shortly afterwards by Kratos' son Atreus.]]

In some sense, this trope can serve as an in-universe version of PlotArmor. May involve a visit from Death stating that ItIsNotYourTime.

* ''Literature/MachineofDeath'': Many of the stories invoke this. In one, a pregnant couple realizes that their child will be carried to term, as it's destined to die of congestive heart failure. In another one, secret agents are recruited for a dangerous mission due in part to their predicted death by cancer.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' episode "Final Desmithation" fortune cookies created via the droppings of a RealityWarper alien can render people immortal provided that they haven't fulfilled their fortune. The episode's villain is the CEO of the fortune cookie corporation whose personal fortune is the unattainable goal of "becoming the most successful female corporate worker on the planet" that Rick is able to fulfill by hacking into Goldman-Sachs and buying out her company.

* Discussed and exploited in an episode of ''[[WesternAnimation/VentureBrothers The Venture Bros.]]'' where OldSoldier Action Man having pissed off Dr. Orpheus by shooting at him, the necromancer reads Action Mans' future to say that he'll suffer from a stroke [[YourDaysAreNumbered two years and seventeen days from now.]] He then goes off with the rest of the cast to save Rusty Venture who was kidnapped and has to fight his way through an army of robots. [[spoiler:True-to-form, Action Man does suffer from that stroke two years later, but he is just rendered comatose.]]

* Enforced in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist''. The homunculi seeking to use Edward and Al as human sacrifices have to keep the boys alive until "The Promised Day", so they frequently end up pulling {{Villainous Rescue}}s to ensure their prey stays alive. When the two brothers learn this, they start exploiting it, engaging the homunculi in battle fearlessly and at one point putting themselves in danger to bait their watchers out into the open.

* As mentioned under the Mythology folder, which Gods will survive until Ragnarok and which aren't is already foretold. ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'' deconstructs this with its depictions of Magni and Modi. The two of them have even greater Prophecy Armor than the other Norse gods, as they're said to be among the few who ''survive'' Ragnarok. As a result, the two have grown up to be [[FearlessFool Fearless Fools]] who provoke as many fights as they want and behave like spoiled bullies; it doesn't matter who they piss off. They'll survive anything the world can throw at them. [[spoiler: They realize too late they're fighting [[OutsideContextProblem Kratos]], who has [[ScrewDestiny rewritten the outcome of his fate]] and [[BackFromTheDead crawled back from Hades multiple times... painfully]]. So when Kratos murders Magni, Modi is just as much horrified as he is baffled. Now realizing he has no divine protection, Modi turns and runs. Eventually he is blamed for Magni's death and is killed shortly afterwards by Kratos' son Atreus.]]