History Main / YouCantFightFate

* In ''WebVideo/TheKingDragonCanon'', Dennis plays a Telltale-Games-esque version of the game, but due to a PlotlineDeath in the original, a certain choice reeks of ButThouMust (Much to his dismay.)

** ''Film/DarkFate'' (after [[CanonDiscontinuity replacing the other sequels to ''Judgment Day'' in the official canon]]) takes the concept even further: Here, after Sarah and John succesfully stopped Skynet from happening, a Terminator already in the past kills John after that. But even with Skynet and John Connors now both out of the picture, there still is a war between humans and machines happening in the future, with Legion and Dani Ramos taking their places in the original timeline.

* This is Wanda's philosophy in ''Webcomic/{{Erfworld}}'' after her and Jillian's experiences with trying to fight Fate just made things harder on them. Wanda chose to submit to Fate and became rather stoic and hopeless as a result, but generally gets what she wants. Jillian herself keeps fighting Fate despite the futility and is usually happier and more fulfilled even though she always seems to end up suffering and losing eventually. So, who won?
** Later, an actual Predictamancer calls Wanda's worldview simplistic after it causes yet another screw up. Fate itself is a part of the world of magical disciplines and clever people can get around it or stall it for a time if they know how. Tricking a prophecy, moving the goal conditions further along and bizarre strategies that ensure maximum safety and no risk. The best people to cheat Fate are usually Carnymancers, but even they lose in the end. To beat the [[spoiler:strongest known Carnymancer, Charlie,]] though, Wanda needs to stop being so inflexible and start searching for loopholes herself.
** Theoretically, one could prevent a prophecy by killing the person that the prophecy is about, but on the occasions when somebody actually had the opportunity to do this, they were too scared to try because they believed that fate would retaliate by sending somebody worse to fulfill the prophecy.
** Carnymancers can make bargains with fate to change a person's destiny. One carnymancer had a girlfriend who was destined to die in a fire, so he changed her fate to be that she would kill herself, thinking that this would make her effectively immortal for as long as she wanted to live. Both prophecies came true, but not in the way he expected. Since her fate made it impossible for anybody to kill her, she became overconfident and ended up killing herself by refusing to escape from a fire, mistakenly thinking it couldn't hurt her.
** One character had a theory that fate does not exists and Predictamancers are not really predicting the future, but are actually, without realizing it, forcing the future to happen the way they think it will by generating incorporeal entities that manipulate luck to make their prophecies come true, and these entities can be outsmarted, but only if you are willing to sacrifice yourself to do it. It is unclear if he is correct, as he ends up sacrificing himself in an attempted to cheat fate but still doesn't succeed.
* ''Webcomic/{{Roommates}}'': The characters are aware of their fictionality, the stories they are from AND the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality so the [[BecauseDestinySaysSo destiny that says s]]o and/or the fate they can't fight. More directly: [[Film/{{Labyrinth}} Jareth]] desperately tries to be a hero but [[RunningGag always fails]] and got [[SuperPoweredEvilSide villainous]] [[ParanoiaFuel backlash]] because of it. [[Film/{{Zombieland}} Tallahassee]] tried to escape his {{canon}} to bring back his son...and failed.

* ''Film/TwelveMonkeys'' has a great case: time-travelling protagonist Cole [[spoiler:recognizes a scientist and concludes he is directly involved with the virus that wiped out most of humanity. Cole runs trying to stop him, and is shot down by airport security. Said death is witnessed by young Cole, [[YouAlreadyChangedThePast becoming one of his most vivid memories, played over and over in his dreams]] - it was already set that he couldn't change the future]].

Compare BecauseDestinySaysSo, ButThouMust, PropheciesAreAlwaysRight, InSpiteOfANail. Contrast with ScrewDestiny and ImmuneToFate (who treats this trope like a funny joke). A way to get around it can be TrickedOutTime.

* This is a major overarching theme of ''WesternAnimation/SpidermanAcrossTheSpiderverse''. ComicBook/SpiderMan2099, Miguel O'Hara's, Spider-Society works to maintain the status quo across dimensions after [[InterdimensionalTravelDevice Kingpin's collider]] breaks the stability of TheMultiverse and displaces people across universes so "the {{canon}}" stays intact. That is, events that ''absolutely must'' happen in the stories of Spider-People across reality so that the stability of their universe doesn't fall apart. [[spoiler: Miguel himself]] upon discovering interdimensional travel attempted to try this out after discovering a universe where his family wasn't dead, and [[DeadAlternateCounterpart he instead was]], allowing him to jump in and replace him. However, this ended up causing irreversible damage to the dimension, wiping out his new family in the process. Now jaded by the experience, [[spoiler: Miguel]] ensures that this will never happen again. But when Miles Morales discovers that [[spoiler: his father's death is a "canon event"]] and chooses to ScrewDestiny and save him regardless, this puts him at odds with Miguel and the Spider-Society who believe [[spoiler: he must die for the sake of his reality]].

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': Konrad Curze, 8th Primarch, was a firm believer in this; he was one of two Primarchs "gifted" with the ability to see the future, but unlike his brother Sanguinius, believed the things he saw were inevitable, including the Horus Heresy and his own descent into insanity. It should be noted, however, that this is demonstrable ''not'' true in the Warhammer universe. Characters with the ability to see the future are fairly common, and regularly act to alter their visions. The Craftworld Eldar are an entire faction that operates under this principle, seeing multiple futures and manipulating events to actualize the one most in their favor. Thus, Konrad's belief in this is treated more as a symptom of his insanity (or possibly the cause of it) than anything else, turning his visions into [[SelfFulfillingProphecy Self-Fulfilling Prophecies]] by his unwillingness to even ''try'' to prevent them.

Compare with BecauseDestinySaysSo, ButThouMust, PropheciesAreAlwaysRight and InSpiteOfANail. Contrast with ScrewDestiny and ImmuneToFate (who treats this trope like a funny joke). A way to get around it can be TrickedOutTime.

* ''Film/{{Glorious}}'': Ghat is convinced that fate has contrived to bring him and Wes together in the bathroom stall. He describes it as a force greater than gravity and one that even an Elder God such as he has no control over. Why else would their vastly different planes of reality possibly intersect to allow them to meet each other? Wes makes numerous attempts to reject the part the universe wants him to play, all of which fail spectacularely.