History Main / YouCantFightFate

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker": Timmy finds out that Crocker became the man who he is after losing his fairies, which turn out to be Cosmo and Wanda. Timmy tries to prevent this, but Present!Cosmo fumbles this up, revealing Crocker's secret to the world and resulting in him losing his fairies anyway.

* ''Series/QuantumLeap'' 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.]]

* The ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "Cassandra" provided a perfect example with a computer that could tell the future. After it had foretold that certain characters would be left 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.

** Two of the Stands, 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 ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'', 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.]]

** Even earlier, both Mata Nui and Makuta tried to exploit this at the same time. Mata Nui determined which Matoran would become the Toa Metru, and a prophecy of their identities leaked out. The prophecy was quickly surpressed, but not before Makuta learned of it. He then tricked Toa Lhikan into deciding that the prophecized Matoran were not the ones truly destined to be Toa and caused Lhikan to pick six others who Lhikan thought would do the job. These six were, in fact, chosen by Makuta as six who would never be able to work together and therefor fail. These six became the Toa and Makuta seemingly won (at least for a little while). Future averted, right? [[spoiler:Nope. The prophecy was a lie created by Mata Nui for just such an occasion. The six Matoran Makuta planted in Lhikan's mind were in turn planted into HIS mind by Mata Nui, thus allowing those truly destined to take the power.]] Not bad for a guy who was asleep most of the series.

* Neji Hyuuga in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' used to be a firm believer in this, until Naruto shows him that DefeatMeansFriendship. [[spoiler:While [[JerkassHasAPoint he ultimately was right]] about everyone sharing the fate of death, he ultimately ends up dying for Hinata's sake [[HeroicSacrifice on his own terms]].]]
** [[spoiler:Naruto would later discover that he was one of the reincarnations of one of the sons of the Sage of Six Paths, destined to forever fight his brother throughout every reincarnation, he ultimately subverted this fate by making peace with his current incarnation, Sasuke.]].

* Neji Hyuuga in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' used to be a firm believer in this, until Naruto shows him that DefeatMeansFriendship. [[spoiler: Double Subverted that [[JerkassHasAPoint he ultimately was right]]. Naruto had a even more pedigree and potential than just the Hyuuga 'heir'. In short, Naruto was the Nine-Tails's host, the son of the Fourth Hokage, TheChosenOne who will destroy/usher the peace in the Ninja World, as well as one of the reincarnations of the son of the Sage of Six Paths. It was almost predestined that Neji ''will'' lose to Naruto. He also ultimately ends up dying for Hinata's sake like he feared, though at least [[HeroicSacrifice he chose to do it on his own terms]]]].

** Recent events show that [[spoiler:even [[CrazyAwesome Jack Rakan]] has a hard time, given Fate's [[RealityWarper abilities]].]]

* It didn't matter what Rean and Class VII did in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel III'' despite their best efforts. There is no way to [[spoiler:prevent the Nameless One from dying just like according to the Black Records prophecy and unleashing the curse all over Erebonia and the continent. What's worse is that Rean does the deed ''himself'' when he loses it in his UnstoppableRage.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker":

#The event comes true but not ''quite'' as expected. Usually this involves a ProphecyTwist, where the prophecy hinges on some AmbiguousSyntax or metaphor that make it ''technically'' true.

* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': In spite of Bardock's visions of the future, the destruction of Vegeta was inevitable. Bright side, his vision about his son defeating Frieza was also inevitable as well!
** [[spoiler:In fact, Frieza's attempt to stop the rise of a Super Saiyan (and unbeknownst to him, subvert Bardock's vision) ended up with him creating the means to his defeat. After his defeat by Frieza, Bardock gets sent to the past and finds himself in a conflict with Frieza's ancestor, Lord Chilled. It also turned out that the Legendary Super Saiyan was ''Bardock'', meaning ''Frieza'' created the very legend that would eventually lead to his death.]]
** Gohan muses on whether the dark future Trunks comes from is inevitable, voicing his concerns to his father Goku by citing how the Androids were supposed to kill his friends and then one day kill Gohan himself. Goku notes that the future is far from set since his own death detailed in Trunks' timeline has been prevented thanks to the antidote which cured his heart virus. Though despite the future not being ruined by Androids some small echoes of the future do come true [[spoiler:Goku dies sacrificing himself to stop Cell, and Cell cripples Gohan's left arm echoing the future Gohan who had his left arm blasted off in a battle with the androids. Fortunately, both are fixable in this timeline.]]

** 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 [[TheChewToy 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, [[YouAlreadyChangedThePast thus causing his original disappearance]].
** A particularly strange timeloop appears when the archmage, while falling to his death, is saved by his future self. This future self gives him some extra powers and instructions and after what can't have been more than a few hours sends him off to save what now is his past self.
** 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 to obtain the Phoenix Gate for himself, so Goliath is presented as making the right choice.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' spent several episodes of the fourth season dealing with Raven's prophecied role as the instrument by which [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt 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...[[ResetButton they just fix it afterward]].

** In "The End, Part II," Robin calls Slade out on helping Trigon destroy the world. Slade responds that while he ''did'' play a part in it, even if he wasn't there, it wouldn't have changed anything; Trigon's coming was inevitable.
** Season 2's episode "How Long is Forever?" has Starfire sent 20 years into the future during a battle with a time-traveling villain named Warp. In the future, her friends split apart after her absence and Warp tells her, despite believing his interference caused it, that nothing has changed, as everything is as history says it is. Of course, [[ScrewDestiny reuniting her friends proves otherwise]].
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/JacobTwoTwo'' 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 [[spoiler: the ''[[DisasterDominoes complete destruction of their entire house]]'']]. And the record gets destroyed in all instances. 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:[[YankTheDogsChain And then Daniel accidentally breaks that copy, too.]]]]

** 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 [[AnAesop to not worry about what the future brings.]]
** In the season 3 finale, Twilight's main friends have had their Cutie Marks accidentally switched by the latter and are forced to perform the task each Cutie Mark brings, it being their supposed fate to do so. [[spoiler:Subverted when everything goes back to normal.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', one episode shows the Flash's grandson Impulse going back in time through a one way time machine to prevent his grandfather from being killed by a super villain named Neutron where he believes will prevent the world from being devastated by Neutron's uncontrollable power. He succeeds in saving Flash and also eliminating Neutron's power with a blue pill that the future Neutron gave him. Neutron is changed by Impulse's actions, but the world continues to be devastated.
** However, he ''does'' later help change the outcome of [[spoiler:the Reach invasion; by helping prevent Blue Beetle's FaceHeelTurn, the Reach are ultimately prevented from taking over Earth like they did in Impulse's BadFuture.]] The Season finale (which until the revival was thought to be the last episode) suggests that there ''would'' be other threats to the Earth that might lead to the same (or similar) outcome, but until season 3 this can't be known for certain.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', at every alternate universe shown so far, some event happens that makes [[AnArmAndALeg Finn lose an arm]]: his life in the Pillow World, a world where he had wished the Lich never existed, visions of the future, and his previous life as Shoko. [[spoiler:As of "Escape from the Citadel", this happens to Main!Finn canonically. He seems to ScrewDestiny by getting it back a few episodes later... only to lose it ''again'' not long after, forcing him to use [[ArtificialLimbs a robotic one]] for the rest of the series. You really ''can't'' fight fate here.]]

--> "I can tell you from personal experience that time travel is overrated. For a while there, I was beginning to believe that Jughead was right, that you really ''can't'' fight fate. But when I took charge of the situation, I proved that a bad day is just a bad day, even if you have to repeat it. [[OnceAnEpisode ...In a little town called Riverdale.]]"
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'': This is the main reason why [[spoiler:Esther stopped pursuing Ben and started dating Antonio. While she really does like him, she realizes that her feelings can't compare to what's happening between him and Kai -- added with the knowledge from Spanner that the two are married in the future, she realizes that there's no point in fighting for him anymore since Ben and Kai are ''meant'' to be together]].
* The ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "The Time Travelers Pig" has Dipper getting a time traveling device in order to go back in time and not hit Wendy in the eye with a baseball. But it's shown that no matter how many times Dipper goes back in time, he will always hit Wendy and she'll start dating Robbie. The one timeline where he doesn't hit Wendy also prevents Mabel from getting her pet pig. Dipper decides that he can't take away Mabel's happiness and goes back in time to help Mabel win her pig, but also lose Wendy.
* ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' heavily discusses this. After briefly getting ahold of [[MacGuffin the Golden Disks]], Dinobot reads them and foresees his own death in battle. He spends much of season two agonizing over whether he can ScrewDestiny or not. [[spoiler:He sees evidence that seems to confirm that you ''can'' fight fate and change history... but [[HeroicSacrifice ultimately goes to his death anyways]], because he can't bring himself to stand idle as innocents die.]] Overall, the series [[AmbiguousSituation leaves it very ambiguous]] whether this trope is in effect or not; aside from Dinobot's situation, there are various other moments that ''seem'' to indicate history can be changed (most notably, [[spoiler:Megatron ''almost'' rewriting the timeline by shooting Optimus Prime]]), but by the end of the series, events have "conveniently" played out in such a way as to perfectly line up with [[WesternAnimation/TransformersGenerationOne the events of Generation One]] (the Nemesis is moved to the location it was found in G1, [[spoiler:Earth only has one moon]], the Ark's shuttle is missing, etc.). StableTimeLoop? DivineIntervention? People just making a successful effort to leave history as they remember it? [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane The answer is unclear]].

** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': Hippolyta learns that Wonder Woman is prophesied to die, so she arranges things so that her daughter is stripped of the title and ComicBook/{{Artemis}} becomes the new Wonder Woman. In the end this ensures that [[ProphecyTwist both Diana and Artemis die]]. (They get better).

Compare with BecauseDestinySaysSo, ButThouMust, PropheciesAreAlwaysRight and InSpiteOfANail. Contrast with ScrewDestiny and ImmuneToFate.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong "The Wedding of River Song"]]: River's attempt to stop the Doctor's death. It was a fixed point in time and, when it failed to happen, time literally began to disintegrate.

* In ''Anime/DateALive'', Origami Tobiichi's parents were killed five years prior by what was considered to be a Spirit, and at one point, [[spoiler: after being turned into a Spirit herself]], she traveled back in time with Kurumi's help to try and save them, [[spoiler: only for it to be revealed that it was [[StableTimeLoop her own present self's actions that accidentally killed her parents]]]]. Later, [[spoiler: after Shido goes back in time and manages to prevent the deaths of Origami's parents, Origami's past is considerably altered]]. However, [[spoiler: it turns out that Origami's parents ended up dying anyway a year after in a traffic accident]].

** Comes up a few times. There's a plan for the world, and the world doesn't particularly care what the people think or even do. In ''Discworld/{{Mort}}'', Mort saves the life of a princess he was supposed to reap. That part goes fine, but the princess quickly discovers that everyone is still ''acting'' like she died, with mourning colors being raised in the halls and repeatedly forgetting about the princess even when she's standing right there. Even when she recruits a wizard (who can see her) as the "royal recognizer," it doesn't really help. In the end, [[spoiler:Death talks to the gods, and they agree to change the plan because they're a bunch of romantic saps]].
** Played straight and subverted in ''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic'' by Creator/TerryPratchett

* Jughead lampshades this trope in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/ArchiesWeirdMysteries''.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', at every alternate universe shown so far, some event happens that makes [[AnArmAndALeg Finn lose an arm]]: his life in the Pillow World, a world where he had wished the Lich never existed, and his [[spoiler:previous life as Shoko]]. [[spoiler:As of "Escape from the Citadel", this happens to Main!Finn canonically. He does get better after a couple of episodes, though.]]