History Main / TwistingTheProphecy

Compare ProphecyTwist, when the prophecy comes true in an unexpected manner without any deliberate actions to secure this outcome. Contrast ScrewDestiny, when the Prophecy is flat out defied, and SelfFulfillingProphecy, when its one's actions taken to avoid fate that cause the prophecy to come true. Contrast ThreadOfProphecySevered when a prophecy outright fails to come to pass or is made not to. May result in a HijackedDestiny.

If PropheciesAreAlwaysRight and YouCantFightFate, one thing you can do is turn it in your favour - by ''invoking ProphecyTwist''.

* ''Webcomic/Erfworld'': Fate is a SentientCosmicForce that enforces prophecies like a GameMaster in a RPGMechanicsverse. Fate can be caught off-guard or overpowered by overwhelming odds, but that just forces Fate to try again, and Fate is a lot bigger and stronger than any single side. Even if you manage to kill someone fated to bring about a prophecy you do not like, Fate will just pick someone else. The best way to deal with a prophecy is to "cheat" it, resolving Fate's exact requirements in a way you would prefer. For example, a city fated to come under air attack can potentially fulfill the prophecy by arranging the air attack themselves under controlled circumstances rather than wait for Fate to manipulate an actual enemy into doing it. Even Carnymancers, who specialize in the magic of rigging the game, cannot defeat Fate, but they are the best at cheating it.

* ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'': Rota Fortuna, the goddess and AnthropomorphicPersonification of fate and free will, gives a speech of this kind to [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse during her defeat]]. The way she puts it, those who try to actively fight against fate shall inevitably fail, while those who become obsessed with controlling fate shall become controlled by it instead, but only those who recognize and understand their circumstances, and work with what they have, can change their fate to a more favorable one. [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse, at first, intended to use time magic to put the world back the way it was before Discord won, but became "tangled" in the spokes of fate's wheel by keeping the Dark World timeline in an endless 1,000-year loop for the sole purpose of torturing and punishing Discord, with no intention of ever stopping. In comparison, the present Twilight and her friends understand that using magic to make it so that Discord never won would erase from existence all the ponies and other creatures who are currently alive. They have accepted that they cannot (and should not) attempt to undo their past actions or bring back the past Equestria, and instead their goal is to save the world they live in right now, for a better future.

* ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'': Rota Fortuna, the goddess and AnthropomorphicPersonification of fate and free will, gives a speech of this kind to [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse during her defeat]]. The way she puts it, those who try to actively fight against fate shall inevitably fail, while those who become obsessed with controlling fate shall become controlled by it instead, but only those who recognize and understand their circumstances, and work with what they have, can change their fate to a more favorable one. [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse, at first, intended to use time magic to put the world back the way it was before Discord won, but became "tangled" in the spokes of fate's wheel by keeping the Dark World timeline in an endless 1,000-year loop for the sole purpose of torturing and punishing Discord, with no intention of ever stopping. In comparison, the present Twilight and her friends understand that using time travel or other magic to make it so that Discord never won would erase from existence all the ponies and other creatures who are currently alive. They have accepted that they cannot (and should not) attempt to undo their past actions or bring back the past Equestria, and instead their goal is to save the world they live in right now, for a better future.

* ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'': Rota Fortuna, the goddess and AnthropomorphicPersonification of fate and free will, gives a speech of this kind to [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse during her defeat]]. The way she puts it, those who try to actively fight against fate shall inevitably fail, while those who become obsessed with controlling fate shall become controlled by it instead, but only those who recognize and understand their circumstances, and work with what they have, can change their fate to a more favorable one. [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse, at first, intended to use time magic to put the world back the way it was before Discord won, but became "tangled" in the spokes of fate's wheel by keeping the Dark World timeline in an endless 1,000-year loop for the sole purpose of torturing and punishing Discord, with no intention of ever stopping. In comparison, the present Twilight and her friends have accepted that they can never bring back the past Equestria, and intend to save the world they live in right now for the sake of the ponies (and other creatures) who live in it.]]

* ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'': Rota Fortuna, the goddess and AnthropomorphicPersonification of fate and free will, gives a speech of this kind to [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse during her defeat]]. The way she puts it, those who try to actively fight against fate shall inevitably fail, while those who become obsessed with controlling fate shall become controlled by it instead, but only those who recognize and understand their circumstances, and work with what they have, can change their fate to a more favorable one. [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse, at first, intended to use time magic to put the world back the way it was before Discord won, but became "tangled" in the spokes of fate's wheel by keeping the Dark World timeline in an endless 1,000-year loop for the sole purpose of torturing and punishing Discord, with no intention of ever stopping. In comparison, the present Twilight and her friends have accepted that they can't bring back the past Equestria, and intend to save the world they live in right now for the sake of the ponies (and other creatures) who live in it.]]

Contrast ScrewDestiny, when the Prophecy is flat out defied, and SelfFulfillingProphecy, when its one's actions taken to avoid fate that cause the prophecy to come true. Contrast ThreadOfProphecySevered when a prophecy outright fails to come to pass or is made not to. May result in a HijackedDestiny.

If PropheciesAreAlwaysRight and YouCantFightFate, one thing you can do is turn it in your favour.

Compare ProphecyTwist, when the prophecy comes true in an unexpected manner without any deliberate actions to secure this outcome. Contrast ScrewDestiny, when the Prophecy is flat out defied, and SelfFulfillingProphecy, when its one's actions taken to avoid fate that cause the prophecy to come true. Contrast ThreadOfProphecySevered when a prophecy outright fails to come to pass or is made not to. May result in a HijackedDestiny.

* ''Fanfic/{{Paradoxus}}'': [[spoiler:Daphne the nymph]] gets a vision from an alternate timeline where all of the heroines die and the Burning Legion is successful at conquering Magix. She checks with the nymph of time which events of that timeline are set in stone and which ones can be changed. [[spoiler: Stella and Bloom]]'s deaths are inevitable as it's the entrance of the Burning Legion. However, since [[spoiler:the rest of the Winx and their daughter]]'s deaths are preventable if they are prompted to prepare --elevating their fairy forms to the Etherix for the former and enduring TrainingFromHell in Azeroth for the latter--, then the chances of kicking out the Burning Legion increase exponentially. It's also crucial to protect Solaria's population because elemental light magic trumps the Fel magic used by the Legion's demons. This results in the aforementioned character allying with Galadwen and [[spoiler:Flora]] as well as indirectly setting up the main characters to travel back to the past. She carefully engineers what events are changed and when the important people are informed so the current timeline ends up as way less tragic.

* Myth/ClassicalMythology: Zeus did this twice. Once, he heard his current paramour, Metis, pregnant with a girl at the time, would have a child stronger than the father if she was ever pregnant with a boy, so he turned her, or tricked her into turning herself, into a fly and swallowed her -- the daughter Metis carried becoming Athena later. The second time, the gods heard Thetis, a beautiful water nymph, would have a son (again) much stronger than his father, so they had her marry a mortal: the child thus would be a demigod, by definition stronger than a mortal.

[[folder:Video Game]]

* ''Videogame/GodOfWarRagnarok'': This is what Odin literally lives for. He's aware of his grisly demise in Ragnarök and he took extreme measures (including genocide, theft, and treachery) to postpone the apocalypse and prepare Asgard for the inevitable. A noteworthy example of his cunning is his exploitation of the celestial wolves Hati and Sköll as personal clocks. Since Groa's prophecy tells them they would eventually swallow the Sun and the Moon, he deliberately let them loose to set a deadline on his plans and have a more precise estimate of when Ragnarok will begin, so that he won't be caught off guard. He also appointed Heimdall as the keeper of Gjällarhorn, the horn which, once blown, will kickstart Ragnarök. It's eventually revealed that Odin was on the wrong track all the time, because [[spoiler: Groa's prophecy was a lie and the real Ragnarök would have played out differently, but he still manages to find out the truth while passing off as his son Tyr]]. The Norns also reveal that [[spoiler: his inability to change his ways set the very path that he sought to avoid, which ultimately leads to not only to the complete defeat of Asgard but also to his death in the arms of Atreus, a fate that was originally meant for Kratos, who survives Ragnarök through CharacterDevelopment]].

* ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'': Rota Fortuna, the goddess and AnthropomorphicPersonification of fate and free will, gives a speech of this kind to [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse during her defeat]]. The way she puts it, those who try to actively fight against fate shall inevitably fail, while those who become obsessed with controlling fate shall become controlled by it instead, but only those who recognize and understand their circumstances, and work with what they have, can change their fate to a better one. [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse, at first, intended to use time magic to put the world back the way it was before Discord won, but became "tangled" in the spokes of fate's wheel by keeping the Dark World timeline in an endless 1,000-year loop for the sole purpose of torturing and punishing Discord, with no intention of ever stopping. In comparison, the present Twilight and her friends have accepted that they can't bring back the past Equestria, and intend to save the world they live in right now for the sake of the ponies (and other creatures) who live in it.]]

* ''Literature/ReignOfTheSevenSpellblades'': 300 years ago, a mage theorized that [[MultipleChoiceFuture one cannot observe the future with precision because the act of prophecy itself changes the future]]. This became the underlying principle of the Fourth [[UnblockableAttack Spellblade]], "Angustavia -- the thread that crosses the abyss", which selects a desired possible near-term future and forces it to come to pass. [[spoiler:Main character Oliver Horn uses to defeat Darius Grenville in a SingleStrokeBattle at the end of volume 1.]]
-->''"One cannot observe the future with precision, because ''the act of observation itself'' changes the future. What we call 'prophecy' is merely the act of guiding events towards one potential outcome. When our guidance happens to lead to the desired result, we call the results 'a prophecy come to pass'."''
--->-- '''an unnamed historical archmage''',

Sometime in the distant past, the seers looked into the future and recorded what would come to pass. In their foresight they clearly predicted an outcome that the subjects do not want to come to true (after all prophecies predicting terrible dooms, be it upon a land, a people, or even a single individual, have a habit of being disproportionately popular in these scenarios); and unfortunately the deadline is now rapidly approaching.

* ''[[ComicBook/Marvel2099 Conan 2099]]'': ComicBook/ConanTheBarbarian was cursed by a witch named Morgana to live forever, have his kingdom collapse and the sun burn the ground beneath his feet. The first two parts go exactly as she planned, but Conan finds a way to twist the third; come 2099, he steals a helmet from the Nova Corps (which would allow him to survive in space), hijacks a spaceship, and lets the sun burn that. Now he's as free as a bird.

* ''Literature/EmpireOfTheEast'': Prince Duncan and three of his top wizards conduct a divination ritual which reveals that if Duncan takes his army east, it will be defeated and sent into headlong retreat and that an enemy of terrible power will appear and destroy Ardneh. Ardneh whispers into Duncan's mind that he should take his army east anyway. Duncan realizes that Ardneh can see this future as well as his wizards can, and so Ardneh must have a prophecy twist in mind -- even if Duncan has no idea what that twist might be. [[spoiler:The Empire releases the demon Orcus to destroy Ardneh, and he does -- but when Ardneh dies, he transforms Orcus back into a detonating nuclear warhead, taking out most of the forces of the Empire in the process. Duncan's army survives because it retreated away from Ground Zero.]]

* ''Literature/ShakespearesSpy'': Widge and his friends meet a fortune teller who tells them prophecies about their lives, all of which become true in ways they didn't expect. At the end, Widge decides to visit her one last time, but becomes aghast when his fortune is that he "will tell a great many lies". Noticing his despair, the fortune teller urges him to not take the prophecy so literally, and Widge ultimately resolves to tell countless "lies", by becoming a playwright.
* ''[[Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians The Sea of Monsters]]'': Before departing on her quest to find the Golden Fleece, [[BrawnHilda Clarissa Le Rue]] receives a prophecy from the Oracle telling her she will "fail without friends, and fly home alone" seeming to spell her failure, leaving her terrified of disappointing her father [[WarGod Ares]]. Sure enough, despite making it to the island, it's Percy who captures the Fleece. However, Percy declares it still her victory as she brought them as friends, gives her the Fleece, and buys her a plane ticket so she can fly back to Camp Half-blood alone.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The Eleventh Doctor is particularly fond of doing this.
** In the Silence arc, the Doctor is informed that he is prophesied to [[KilledOffForReal die permanently]] at Lake Silencio at the hands of the Impossible Astronaut. However, it's [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong later revealed]] the Doctor managed to pull a case of ExactWords, as he manages to avert his death by hiding himself in the shapeshifting Teselecta disguised as himself. Whereby a "Doctor in a Doctor suit" meets the conditions and still allows the Doctor to survive.

* ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'': In "Cradle of Hope" a king reluctantly orders the deaths of all newborn baby boys, fearing a prophecy that a boy born during that period would replace him as king. Xena eventually convinces the king to raise the kid prophesied to replace him as his son, so that when he does replace him, it will be as his heir, not as his conqueror.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind'': The Stand Rolling Stones will automatically manifest when someone who will die soon is near it, at which point once touched, shows the manner in which the person will die. This death is unavoidable. However, it's also quickly shown that if the touched person touches it again, it gives them a second, less "futile" death. Essentially, they will still die, but their death will be more suited to their own free will.
[[/folder]]

* ''Literature/EmpireOfTheEast'': Prince Duncan and three of his top wizards conduct a divination ritual which reveals that if Duncan takes his army east, it will be defeated and sent into headlong retreat and that an enemy of terrible power will appear and destroy Ardneh. Ardneh whispers into Duncan's mind that he should take his army east anyway. Duncan realizes that Ardneh can see this future as well as his wizards can, and so Ardneh must have a prophecy twist in mind - even if Duncan has no idea what that twist might be. [[spoiler:The Empire releases the demon Orcus to destroy Ardneh, and he does - but when Ardneh dies, he transforms Orcus back into a detonating nuclear warhead, taking out most of the forces of the Empire in the process. Duncan's army survives because it retreated away from Ground Zero.]]
* ''Literature/ShakespearesSpy'': Widge and his friends meet a fortune teller who tells them prophecies about their lives, all of which become true in ways they didn't expect. At the end, Widge decides to visit her one last time, but becomes aghast when his fortune is that he "will tell a great many lies". Noticing his despair, the fortune teller urges him to not take the prophecy so literally, and Widge ultimately resolves to tell countless "lies", by becoming a playwright.
* ''[[Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians The Sea of Monsters]]'': Before departing on her quest to find the Golden Fleece, [[BrawnHilda Clarissa Le Rue]] receives a prophecy from the Oracle telling her she will "fail without friends, and fly home alone" seeming to spell her failure, leaving her terrified of disappointing her father [[WarGod Ares]]. Sure enough, despite making it to the island, it's Percy who captures the Fleece. However, Percy declares it still her victory as she brought them as friends, gives her the Fleece, and buys her a plane ticket so she can fly back to Camp Half-blood alone.

* ''Literature/TheYearOfRogueDragons'': BigBad Sammaster's goal is to force the outcome of a prophecy that--so he insists--predicts [[{{Dracolich}} undead dragons]] ruling the world. Most of the other wizards who have studied the prophecy in question think [[LostInTranslation he translated it wrong]] and is trying to force an outcome quite different from what the prophet predicted, and in any case, they're all rather baffled that anyone could possibly ''want'' undead dragons to rule the world.

* ''Series/{{Arrowverse}}'': In the crossover ''Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths2019'' Barry is already aware of the fact that he disappears into the timestream after trying to stop the crisis. However, the Barry Allen from Earth-90 realizes that it only states that Barry Allen dies, not which one, and sacrifices himself in our Barry's place.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]], history states that Gallifrey disappeared in the Great Time War, presumably destroyed along with the Daleks firing at it. So the [[MesACrowd (three) Doctors]] (along with every Doctor regeneration) instead seal Gallifrey in a pocket dimension and keep it in stasis. To the rest of the universe, it looks like Gallifrey disintegrated, so history is kept intact.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'': Cassandra, a sentient computer that is advanced enough she calculate the future with 100% accuracy, predicts that Rimmer will die in a short while. After thinking it over, Rimmer realises that as they've never met Cassandra and she has no idea what he looks like, he successfully averts this by giving his jacket to another crewman - since Cassandra could only have identified him from the name on his jacket, it's the other crewman who dies.

[[folder:Mythology & Religion]]
* ''Myth/ClassicalMythology'': Zeus did this twice. Once, he heard his current paramour, Metis, pregnant with a girl at the time, would have a child stronger than the father if she was ever pregnant with a boy, so he turned her, or tricked her into turning herself, into a fly and swallowed her - the daughter Metis carried becoming Athena later. The second time, the gods heard Thetis, a beautiful water nymph, would have a son (again) much stronger than his father, so they had her marry a mortal: the child thus would be a demigod, by definition stronger than a mortal.

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'': Trying to accomplish this on a worldwide scale is the EvilPlan of BigBad [[spoiler:Van Grants]]. The Score is an ancient prophecy that has always proven true, but what most people do not know is that the end of The Score also predicts the end of the world. Thus, the villain's plan is to bring about the end of the world himself but use Fomicry (a dangerous technique that can copy any matter - including people) to create a new world populated by clones right as the old one dies. The problem is, the villain's role in the apocalypse, and the clones themselves, are ''also'' accounted for in The Score -- [[SelfFulfillingProphecy thus, it's arguable that his actions are exactly what was predicted in the first place]], which is why the heroes try to stop him and opt for a hard ScrewDestiny solution, which the villain himself is convinced won't work. And so, though both sides want the same goal, one has to kill the other.

* ''Webcomic/SwordsAndSausages'': PlayedForLaughs. Chapter 10 has Tor and Silver visit a theme park littered with swords embedded in stones. While Tor can't extract any of these swords, he does succeed in plucking off their jeweled grips. Then Tor tries a sword guarded by a huge stone dragon; he can't budge it. While Tor is busy with a basilisk, Silver takes a tug on this sword, and surprise! She frees it on page 20. The sword exults at being freed by its rightful master as prophecied, which unnerves Silver. She sticks the sword back in its rock and abandons it. Nothing in the rule book says she has to take it with her.

This trope often relies heavily on exploiting ExactWords or LoopholeAbuse. For example, say the Prophecy predicts a meteor will destroy the town of Dale. Then the characters solution is to simply switch the town's name with that of an decrepit abandoned hamlet called Hale. Thus, "Dale" is eventually destroyed by the falling meteor, saving "Hale" from catastrophe with no casualties.

Compare ProphecyTwist, when a the prophecy comes true in an unexpected manner without any deliberate actions to secure this outcome. Contrast ScrewDestiny, when the Prophecy is flat out defied, and SelfFulfillingProphecy, when its one's actions taken to avoid fate that cause the prophecy to come true. Contrast ThreadOfProphecySevered when a prophecy outright fails to come to pass or is made not to. May result in a HijackedDestiny.

* ''ComicBook/{{Aquila}}'': [[WickedWitch Locusta's]] prophecy predicts that a new god will rise in to power in Rome, something the [[TheCaligula tyranical emperor Nero]] takes to mean himself, his goal to become an immortal GodEmperor and "carve my name across the bones of this Earth". Ficus tries to stop the prophecy coming to pass, before residing that there is no way to prevent it. However, he realises the Prophecy doesn't specify it has to be Nero, and instead engineers it so its the benevolent [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} carpenter god]] worshiped by that new religious group with a thing for fish.

* ''Anime/PokemonZoroarkMasterOfIllusions'': The BigBad, Grings Kodai has the power to see the future, an ability he gained by siphoning off Celebei's time ripple, and uses it to become the successful businessman he is today. When he plans to absorb the time ripple again to replenish his power, he sees a vision of his success and remains smug and confident throughout the film. The heroes manage to exploit this by having Zoroark conjure an illusion of the time ripple for him to absorb, all so they can catch his confession and gloating on camera.

* ''Videogame/GodOfWarRagnarok'': This is what Odin literally lives for. He's aware of his grisly demise in Ragnarök and he took extreme measures (including genocide, theft, and treachery) to postpone the apocalypse and prepare Asgard for the inevitable. A noteworthy example of his cunning is his exploitation of the celestial wolves Hati and Sköll as personal clocks. Since Groa's prophecy tells them they would eventually swallow the Sun and the Moon, he deliberately let them loose to set a deadline on his plans and have a more precise estimate of when Ragnarok will begin, so that he won't be caught off guard. He also appointed Heimdall as the keeper of Gjällarhorn, the horn which, once blown, will kickstart Ragnarök. It's eventually revealed that Odin was on the wrong track all the time, because [[spoiler: Groa's prophecy was a lie and the real Ragnarök would have played out differently, but he still manages to find out the truth while passing off as his son Tyr]]. The Norns also reveal that [[spoiler: his inability to change his ways set the very path that he sought to avoid, which ultimately leads to not only to the complete defeat of Asgard, but also to his death in the arms of Atreus, a fate that was originally meant for Kratos, who survives Ragnarök through CharacterDevelopment]].

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
* ''Anime/PokemonZoroarkMasterOfIllusions'': The BigBad, Grings Kodai has the power to see the future, an ability he gained by siphoning off of Celebei's time ripple, and uses it to become the successful business man he is today. When he plans to absorb the time ripple again to replenish his power, he sees a vision of his success and remains smug and confident throughout the film. The heroes manage to exploit this by having Zoroark conjure an illusion of the time ripple for him to absorb, all so they can catch his confession and gloating on camera.

* ''Film/TheScorpionKing'': Subverted. Agamemnon's soothsayer says that the captured Mathayus "dies not by [Agamemnon's] nor his men's hand". He takes it as a good riddle and then in the next morning he orders his men to bury Mathayus and his friend neck-deep in the sand, and then release desert ants on them to slowly eat them to death. However, Mathayus and the others still manage to escape the ants.

* ''Literature/EmpireOfTheEast'': Prince Duncan and three of his top wizards conduct a divination ritual which reveals that if Duncan takes his army east, it will be defeated and sent into headlong retreat, and that an enemy of terrible power will appear and destroy Ardneh. Ardneh whispers into Duncan's mind that he should take his army east anyway. Duncan realizes that Ardneh can see this future as well as his wizards can, and so Ardneh must have a prophecy twist in mind - even if Duncan has no idea what that twist might be. [[spoiler:The Empire releases the demon Orcus to destroy Ardneh, and he does - but when Ardneh dies, he transforms Orcus back into a detonating nuclear warhead, taking out most of the forces of the Empire in the process. Duncan's army survives because it retreated away from Ground Zero.]]

* ''[[Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians The Sea of Monsters]]'': Before departing on her quest to find the Golden Fleece, [[BrawnHilda Clarissa Le Rue]] receives a prophecy from the Oracle telling her she will "fail without friends, and fly home alone" seeming to spell her failure, leaving her terrified of disappointing her father [[WarGod Ares]]. Sure enough, despite making it to the island, its Percy who captures the Fleece. However, Percy declares it still her victory as she brought them as friends, gives her the Fleece and buys her a plane ticket so she can fly back to Camp Half-blood alone.

* ''Literature/TheYearOfRogueDragons'': BigBad Sammaster's goal is to force the outcome of a prophecy that--so he insists--predicts [[{{Dracolich}} undead dragons]] ruling the world. Most of the other wizards who have studied the prophecy in question think [[LostInTranslation he translated it wrong]] and is trying to force an outcome quite different from what the prophet predicted, and in any case they're all rather baffled that anyone could possibly ''want'' undead dragons to rule the world.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]], history states that Gallifrey disappeared in the Great Time War, presumably destroyed along with the Daleks firing at it. So the [[MesACrowd (three) Doctors]] (along with every Doctor regeneration) instead seal Gallifrey in a pocket dimension and keep it in stasis. To the rest of the universe it looks like Gallifrey disintegrated, so history is kept intact.

* ''Videogame/GodOfWarRagnarok'': This is what Odin literally lives for. He's aware of his grisly demise in Ragnarök and he took extreme measures (including genocide, theft and treachery) to postpone the apocalypse and prepare Asgard to the inevitable. A noteworthy example of his cunning is his exploitation of the celestial wolves Hati and Sköll as personal clocks. Since Groa's prophecy tells they would eventually swallow the Sun and the Moon, he deliberately let them loose to set a deadline on his plans and have a more precise estimate of when Ragnarok will begin, so that he won't be caught off guard. He also appointed Heimdall as the keeper of Gjällarhorn, the horn which, once blown, will kickstart Ragnarök. It's eventually revealed that Odin was in the wrong track all the time, because [[spoiler: Groa's prophecy was a lie and the real Ragnarök would have played out differently, but he still manages to find out the truth while passing off as his son Tyr]]. The Norns also reveal that [[spoiler: his inability to change his ways set the very path that he sought to avoid, which ultimately leads to not only to the complete defeat of Asgard, but also to his death in the arms of Atreus, a fate that was originally meant for Kratos, who survives Ragnarök through CharacterDevelopment]].
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'': Trying to accomplish this on a worldwide scale is the EvilPlan of BigBad [[spoiler:Van Grants]]. The Score is an ancient prophecy which has always proven true, but what most people do not know is that the end of The Score also predicts the end of the world. Thus, the villain's plan is to bring about the end of the world himself but use Fomicry (a dangerous technique that can copy any matter - including people) to create a new world populated by clones right as the old one dies. The problem is, the villain's role in the apocalypse, and the clones themselves, are ''also'' accounted for in The Score - [[SelfFulfillingProphecy thus, it's arguable that his actions are exactly what was predicted in the first place]], which is why the heroes try to stop him and opt for a hard ScrewDestiny solution, which the villain himself is convinced won't work. And so, though both sides want the same goal, one has to kill the other.

* ''Webcomic/SwordsAndSausages'': PlayedForLaughs. Chapter 10 has Tor and Silver visit a theme park littered with swords embedded in stones. While Tor can't extract any of these swords, he does succeed in plucking off their jeweled grips. Then Tor tries a sword guarded by a huge stone dragon; he can't budge it. While Tor is busy with a basilisk, Silver takes a tug on this sword, and surprise! she frees it on page 20. The sword exults at being freed by its rightful master as prophecied, which unnerves Silver. She sticks the sword back in its rock and abandons it. Nothing in the rule book says she has to take it with her.

* ''WesternAnimation/AllHailKingJulien'': Attempting this kicks of the entire series, in the first episode "[[Recap/AllHailKingJulienS01E01KingMe King Me]]" King [[TheCaligula Julien XII]] is given a prophecy by [[CourtMage Masikura]] that the king of the lemurs will be eaten by the Fossa at sundown tomorrow. Realising the prophecy only states the "one who wears the crown" will be eaten, he decides to make his nephew Julien king so he'll [[EvilUncle die instead]], then afterwards he'll just take his kingdom back. It backfires on him as Julien survives [[ProphecyTwist with Fossa only succeeding in taking a small bite out of him]], as the prophecy never stated the king would die.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'': Macbeth attempts this on King Arthur himself in the episode "[[Recap/{{Gargoyles}}S2Pendragon Pendragon]]". It's pointed out to him that the prophecy concerning a once and future King returning in a time of turmoil applies to Macbeth as well, and he resolves to seek out Excalibur in Arthur's place. For a brief time he seems to succeed, but Arthur ultimately figures out the last riddle, securing his place in Destiny's plan.

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]

----
Indexes: FateAndProphecyTropes, OlderThanDirt, PlotTwist

Last edit was made September 2018 so MGD107 is taking this over.
----

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]