History Main / YouCantFightFate

-> It is written.

->''"Those things had to happen to me. That was my destiny. But you'll understand soon enough that there are consequences to being chosen... because destiny, John, is a fickle bitch."''
-->-- '''Ben Linus''', ''Series/{{Lost}}''

* YouCantFightFate: There are mistakes even Tim can't erase with his time powers, to wit...

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** In ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E3Frontios Frontios]]'', Turlough has Norna pick a hand and when that chosen hand has a good luck piece in, claims that it clearly shows that he can't fight destiny. In fact, he had one in both hands, because he knew what he ought to do.

* This is revealed to be the crux of ''Franchise/TheMatrix'' movies. Towards the end of ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded'', Neo finally reaches the "source" of the Matrix and meets the Architect, the computer program who designed the Matrix. He informs Neo that Zion will ultimately be destroyed and that it cannot be saved. At the end of their conversation, he also mentions that Neo's "destiny", like that of his five predecessors, was to enter the source and restart the program, allowing 23 humans to be selected to rebuild Zion. Thus, the "prophecy" will be fulfilled that after a century of warfare between humans and machines, the fight will finally come to an end. However, Neo would only be restarting the war, not ending it. Finally, the Architect mentions that Trinity will inevitably die in order to save Neo. The Architect tells him that there is nothing he can do to stop that from happening. In ''TheMatrixRevolutions'', Neo tells the Oracle about the Architect's warnings, and she [[spoiler:responds that the Architect is full of crap and can't predict the future worth a damn. Guess what? Zion is not destroyed and the war comes to a permanent end. Trinity dies, though.]]

* The SandraBullock film ''{{Premonition}}'' mixes this trope with a partial TemporalParadox. In the future Linda sees, her husband Jim dies, she goes crazy, is suspected of hurting her daughter, and gets committed to an insane asylum. Her efforts to prevent Jim's death create Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, and the film's "happy" ending consists of a reveal that she was eventually released from the asylum, now pregnant with another child.

* The Prophecy in ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean on Stranger Tides'' states that a one-legged man will be the doom of Blackbeard. In the end, thats exactly what happened despite Blackbeard's efforts to try to reach out to the fountain of youth to avoid that fate.

* Towards the end of ''Film/TheMatrix Reloaded'', Neo finally reaches the "source" of the Matrix and meets the Architect, the computer program who designed the Matrix. He informs Neo that Zion will ultimately be destroyed and that it cannot be saved. At the end of their conversation, he also mentions that Neo's "destiny", like that of his five predecessors, was to enter the source and restart the program, allowing 23 humans to be selected to rebuild Zion. Thus, the "prophecy" will be fulfilled that after a century of warfare between humans and machines, the fight will finally come to an end. However, Neo would only be restarting the war, not ending it. Finally, the Architect mentions that Trinity will inevitably die in order to save Neo. The Architect tells him that there is nothing he can do to stop that from happening.
** In ''Revolutions'', Neo tells the Oracle about the Architect's warnings, and she [[spoiler:responds that the Architect is full of crap and can't predict the future worth a damn. Guess what? Zion is not destroyed, and the war comes to a permanent end.]]
*** [[spoiler: Trinity dies,]] though.
* ''{{Knowing}}'' (2009) stars Creator/NicolasCage as a HollywoodAtheist who rushes around trying to find a way to prevent [[spoiler:(or personally survive) TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt]], but by the end we see there was nothing he could have done to change it.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=1819]] Squidley, after a moment dramatically contemplating a universe where free will is mockery, says, "sure, why not?"

* ''SunsetOverImdahl'' is particularly evil about this trope, since the entire plot is the main character's attempt to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong (and [[spoiler:his supposed ally's successful attempt to [[StableTimeLoop make it go wrong in the first place]]]].) There's only one apparent change: [[spoiler:while in the beginning the hero was the last survivor, in the end he gets a decent burial and a tombstone, while others are dumped in a mass grave.]]

* In PreCrisis ''{{Superman}}'' comics, it was established that although Superman could time travel by flying faster than light, he was physically incapable of changing the past - some obstacle would always crop up to prevent it, even a highly improbable obstacle. He first learned this lesson as {{Superboy}} when, after having just discovered he ''could'' time travel, he went back to prevent Lincoln's assassination. Against all likelihood, he bumps into the ''adult'' Lex Luthor, who had simply been time traveling to take a break from the stresses of supervillainy. The encounter with Luthor delays Supes so he can't stop Booth's bullet. When Luthor realizes that he has inadvertently helped kill Lincoln, [[EvenEvilHasStandards even he is aghast,]] and he goes home, badly shaken.

* While time travel is still theoretical (and a very shaky theory at that), [[http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/61301/title/Taming_time_travel this article]] in ''Science News'' indicates that it would take this form. "A bullet-maker would be inordinately more likely to produce a defective bullet if that very bullet was going to be used later to kill a time traveler’s grandfather."

*** Of course, [[http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm there's this fun little story]] from IsaacAsimov about what to do regarding entropy.

* The concept of {{predestination}}, which is prevalent in Western Christianity, especially in Calvinist denominations, lesser in Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism, but also in Islam. The concept of predestination states that God and God only will decide the final repository of each individual human soul, and that final repository has already been decided before anyone has even been born. So whether you will end up in Heaven or Hell is not affected by your faith, your prayers, your deeds, your choices, your lifestyle or anything which is under your own decision or choice. Whether or not you end up in Heaven or Hell is pure lottery on human point of view, and there is absolutely nothing you can do for your eventual fate. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment Suffice to say, [[FlameWar this is a rather contentious school of thought]], particularly as it seems to invalidate free will.

* The ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' films, as a whole, are an example of this. In [[Film/TheTerminator the first movie]], Sarah Connor learns that the fate of her unborn child, John, is to lead the remaining humans against the machines AfterTheEnd; [[Terminator2JudgmentDay the second movie]] is all about Sarah and John trying to stop the end from happening, and seemingly succeeding. However, both continuities which AlternateContinuity explain that Sarah's actions did not prevent, but only ''delayed'' the rise of [=SkyNet=] and the nuclear holocaust, from 1997 when it was originally supposed to happen, until 2004.

* This trope is also all over NorseMythology. If anything, this was the real [[HornyVikings Norse]] [[PlanetOfHats hat]], having four different words meaning inescapable fate, one of them being "{{do|omyDoomsOfDoom}}m". Even the gods can't fight their fate, when [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Ragnarok]] hits the fan.

* The concept of {{predestination}}, which is prevalent in Western Christianity, especially in Calvinist denominations, lesser in Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism, but also in Islam. The concept of predestination states that God and God only will decide the final repository of each individual human soul, and that final repository has already been decided before anyone has even been born. So whether you will end up in Heaven or Hell is not affected by your faith, your prayers, your deeds, your choices, your lifestyle or anything which is under your own decision or choice. Whether or not you end up in Heaven or Hell is pure lottery on human point of view, and there is absolutely nothing you can do for your eventual fate.

* This is a primary theme of the ''Literature/{{Wolfsangel}}'' cycle. Odin is trying to fight/delay his fate by having his destiny play out on Earth, because once the cycle of deaths is broken, the Norns will set Ragnarok in motion and end the era of the Norse gods for good. [[spoiler: A HopeSpot appears in ''Lord of Slaughter'' with a way to break the cycle, [[UpToEleven but even with the Norns themselves pushing for it]], things do not go as planned.]]

* This is a primary theme of The Craw Trilogy. The series is about a cycle of death and rebirth of Odin and Fenris. Vali, Feileg, and Adisla are destined to live out the roles they play in this cycle until Ragnarok. [[spoiler:This cycle is in place because of Odin trying to fight/delay his fate by having his destiny play out on Earth because when the cycle is broken the Norns will set Ragnarok in motion and end the era of the Norse gods for good. Wolfsangel plays this trope straight but Fenrir lays the groundwork for possibly breaking the cycle in the next book.]]