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1%% Trope was declared Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease via crowner by the Real Life Maintenance thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php?crowner_id=fackmrde
2%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13350380440A15238800
3
4->''"A man often meets his destiny on the very road he took to avoid it."''
5-->-- '''French/Chinese/[[WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda1 Tortoise]] proverb'''
6
7Whenever anyone tries to avert a prophecy, for good or ill, the end result of their actions is to bring the prophecy about. The harder they struggle to prevent it, the more inescapable their destiny becomes. Fate, it seems, loves {{irony}}. Strangely, the other side of this, where the prophecy is fulfilled because someone ''wants'' to fulfill it, is rarely explored in fiction ([[EitherOrProphecy Either-Or Prophecies]] notwithstanding).
8
9When a [[TheHero hero]] tries to prevent the prophesied release of an [[SealedEvilInACan ancient evil]], [[NiceJobBreakingItHero their actions will help it escape]] because YouCantFightFate. When the BigBad tries to [[NiceJobBreakingItHero slaughter all the members of a given people in order to kill the one among them who is prophesied to end them]], they will only manage to [[GenocideBackfire create the hero]] that they fear, BecauseDestinySaysSo.
10
11One common mechanism for this is a ProphecyTwist. If no one understands the real meaning of the prophecy, any attempts to avert it will naturally be futile. A cynic will point out that by this measure, a prophecy ''must'' be vague. Otherwise, it would be easy to defeat, or else those it affects must carry an IdiotBall and not take the direct approach that would have no room for failure.
12
13To be this trope, a member of the cast must be actively trying to prevent it from happening. Then it happens, most often ''because'' of the attempt to prevent it. Generally, this happens through one of two courses: either a) the person the prophecy concerns will, in their pre-preemptive efforts to prevent their purported doom, end up creating the very circumstances by which the prophecy is fulfilled; or b) having taken their preventative measures, they will then unwittingly blunder right into the prophecy's hands. More complex prophecies may include both.
14
15The archetypal OlderThanFeudalism example is the Greek tragedy ''[[Theatre/OedipusTheKing Oedipus Rex]]''. A prophecy says the king will be killed by his own son, so the king orders his infant son killed. (He has his feet nailed to a board and left to die of exposure in the wilderness, rather than, say, cutting him in half with a sword.) Oedipus is rescued, and [[MosesInTheBulrushes brought up not knowing he's the prince]]. Twenty years later, he learns his fate: he will kill his father and marry his mother. Wanting to protect his adoptive family -- who he believes are his natural parents -- Oedipus leaves home. On the road, he meets his biological father (whom he doesn't recognize, naturally), gets into an argument, and kills him. Shortly thereafter he comes to the city his father ruled, and frees them from the Sphinx; as a reward, Oedipus is made king of the city and marries the widowed queen... his own mother.
16
17Most of the real-world prophecies that come true are also self-fulfilling -- simply stating that something will happen often ensures that it will happen ''someday'', whether by accident or because someone read your prophecy and decided they'd make it happen.
18
19An example sometimes given is that a prediction that a bank may go bankrupt may scare people into withdrawing their money from the bank all in a rush -- but since the bank only keeps a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking fraction]] of their deposits actually on hand (the rest is invested out, e.g. bank loans), the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_run run on the bank]] can drive the bank into insolvency, ironically just as predicted. In simpler terms, fear that a certain commodity (like gasoline) will run short may trigger people to stock up on it, leading to a shortage of that very commodity. Then there's [[TheParanoiac plain old paranoia]], which is a good way to make enemies.
20
21Contrast SelfDefeatingProphecy. Compare Catch22Dilemma, PropheticFallacy, TheFireflyEffect, StreisandEffect, NiceJobBreakingItHero (and/or NiceJobFixingItVillain, depending on who did it), and NiceJobBreakingItHerod. Often an integral part of {{tragedy}}. May cause a ClingyMacGuffin or be caused by being ImproperlyParanoid. For the TimeTravel version, see YouAlreadyChangedThePast and StableTimeLoop. See also Situational {{Irony}}.
22
23----
24!!Examples:
25[[index]]
26* SelfFulfillingProphecy/AnimeAndManga
27* SelfFulfillingProphecy/ComicBooks
28* SelfFulfillingProphecy/FanWorks
29* [[SelfFulfillingProphecy/AnimatedFilms Film — Animated]]
30* [[SelfFulfillingProphecy/LiveActionFilms Film — Live-Action]]
31* SelfFulfillingProphecy/{{Literature}}
32* SelfFulfillingProphecy/LiveActionTV
33* SelfFulfillingProphecy/MythologyAndReligion
34* SelfFulfillingProphecy/VideoGames
35* SelfFulfillingProphecy/{{Webcomics}}
36* SelfFulfillingProphecy/WesternAnimation
37[[/index]]
38
39[[foldercontrol]]
40
41[[folder:Audio Play]]
42* In ''The Broken Cyborg: A Biopunk Fairytale'', [[CityOfAdventure New Albion's]] mayor gets a message that the city is about to go through a great upheaval on the scale of the one that [[AudioPlay/TheDollsOfNewAlbion previously led to New Albion becoming a police state]] and the ensuing [[AudioPlay/TheNewAlbionRadioHour civil war]]. There's a community of transhumanists living in a shantytown in the city's central park which she fears will be the catalyst, so she orders the military to exterminate them all. Some of the survivors including Jane, the titular cyborg, escape through a gate into the fairy realm where they learn how to alter their bodies in even more extreme ways. With this knowledge, Jane leads an army of {{mutants}} and TheFairFolk to reclaim the park and declare it a sovereign territory.
43[[/folder]]
44
45[[folder:Fairy Tales]]
46* In ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20060516111343/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/jacobs/english/fishring.html The Fish and the Ring,]]'' ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20060117121751/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/russian/russianwondertales/vasiliiunlucky.html Vasilii the Unlucky,]]'' "Literature/TheDevilWithTheThreeGoldenHairs", ''Literature/TheKingWhoWouldBeStrongerThanFate'', and many other fairy tales, a man who finds his child is destined to marry a poor child tries to kill them several times, and the wedding always come to pass due to their attempts to prevent it.
47* In ''Literature/SunMoonAndTalia'', an older variant of ''Literature/SleepingBeauty'', wise men prophesy that Talia will be harmed by flax. Her father, therefore, bans it from the castle -- which means Talia doesn't know what it is and finds it intriguing.
48* In Creator/MadameDAulnoy's ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20050114004905/https://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/aulnoy/rosette.html Princess Rosette,]]'' the fairies (reluctantly) predict that the princess will cause grave danger, or even death, to her older brothers. So her parents lock her in a tower. When they die, her brothers immediately free her. She learns that people eat peacocks and, in her innocence, resolves to marry the King of the Peacocks. Her loving brothers try to bring this about and end up in grave danger (though they do survive).
49* In Creator/TheBrothersGrimm's ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20060104232104/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/115brightsunbrings.html The Bright Sun Brings It to Light,]]'' a tailor's apprentice in need of money robs and murders a poor Jew who prophesies with his last breath that the apprentice won't get away with it because "the bright sun will bring [the crime] to light." Years pass and the apprentice eventually finds work, marries his boss' daughter and starts a family. One day, he notices the sun shining on his coffee and the reflection making circles on the walls and mutters "yes, it would like very much to bring it to light, and cannot!" His wife asks him what he means by this and pesters him until he admits his crime to her. She confides the secret to someone else and it soon becomes public knowledge. "And thus, after all, the bright sun did bring it to light."
50* {{Downplayed|Trope}} in ''Literature/TheGratefulBeasts''. Ferko's brothers, looking for something to [[MaliciousSlander slander him with]], claim he will carry off the princess. He does marry the princess, because of the consequences of that.
51* Myth/RussianMythologyAndTales: In a Russian fairy tale, a ruler is foretold that his favorite horse will cause his death. He orders the horse taken away and killed. A year later, he goes to the place where the horse was killed, taunts its bare bones and kicks the skull. An angry snake crawls out of the skull and bites him in the leg, killing him. The story was turned into the poem ''Literature/OldOleg'' by Creator/AlexanderPushkin. In his version, the prince does not have the horse killed but decides not to ride it anymore and leaves it on a distant pasture to graze. Many years later, he comes to the place and finds that the horse has died of old age in the meantime. Then he makes the mistake of approaching the skeleton...
52* A story is told in England about a 14th-century nobleman named Robert de Shurland. Upon getting a prediction that he will die because of his horse, he killed it on the spot. A year later, he passed nearby and kicked the skull. A piece of bone pierced his foot, causing blood poisoning.
53[[/folder]]
54
55[[folder:Folk Tales]]
56* A fable from the Middle East tells of a wealthy man of Baghdad, whose servant begs for his master's fastest horse to flee the city to Samarra. The servant tells his master that he saw [[TheGrimReaper Death]] in the marketplace that morning and that she had made a threatening gesture at him. The master acquiesces, then hunts Death down for an explanation as to why she'd threatened his servant. Death replies that she was not threatening, only surprised to see the servant there...because she had an appointment with him that night in Samarra.
57** Retold by W. Somerset Maugham in "The Appointment in Samarra".
58** And by Italian singer Roberto Vecchioni in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coaDHAcqukQ "Samarcanda"]]
59** Also used as a TitleDrop in the TV adaptation of Creator/AgathaChristie's ''Appointment with Death''.
60** Given a lovely recitation by Creator/BorisKarloff in ''Film/{{Targets}}''.
61** That story is played with in ''{{Literature/Discworld}}'' when '''Death''' runs into Rincewind and tells him they have an appointment in another city and asks Rincewind to please hurry and go there, even offering to lend him his horse. Rincewind refuses. It was the same city Rincewind was planning to run to in the first place, making it a sort of accidentally self-defeating prophecy.
62** The Jewish version of this story has King Solomon meeting the angel of death, who looks sad. Upon being asked why he is sad, the angel replies that he is supposed to take the lives of two of Solomon's advisers but can't. Solomon, worried for his advisers, sends them off to the city of Luz, famous for the fact that all who live within have immortality so long as they remain in that city. The following day Solomon sees the angel of death again, who is happy this time. Why was he sad yesterday, and why is he now happy? Because he was supposed to take the lives of those advisers just before the entrance to the city of Luz, and couldn't do so so long as they weren't there yet...
63* There was a small town. One day, an old lady said something bad was going to happen that day. Word gets out, and then every person is so paranoid that the townspeople burn it down and run.
64* The ancient Greek fable of Oedipus Rex (later made into a play by Sophocles), which ended in Oedipus gouging out his own eyes and his wife/mother hanging herself.
65[[/folder]]
66
67[[folder:Manhua]]
68* ''Manhua/OldMasterQ'' have this PlayedForLaughs; one strip have Master Q consulting a fortune teller who tells him, "he'll have a ''bad'' day ahead." Master Q replies with, "What a load of bullshit..." causing the fortune teller to poke Master Q in the nose in anger. Master Q responds with a ''[[MinorInjuryOverreaction punch]]'' on the other guy's face... cue a last panel where the police drags Master Q to prison for starting a fight in public.
69[[/folder]]
70
71
72[[folder:Music]]
73* The Music/KateBush song "Babooshka" is about a woman, bitter and paranoid that her husband is cheating on her, initiating a TwoPersonLoveTriangle with him to test his fidelity. He ends up succumbing to the charms of the mysterious Babooshka... but only because 'she' reminds him of his wife before she 'freezed on him'; if she hadn't succumbed to paranoia about her husband's fidelity and turned on him, he wouldn't have become unfaithful in the first place.
74* The Music/BlackSabbath song "Iron Man" is about a man who travels in time to the future, sees the world being destroyed by a man of steel, then while returning to his original time, turns to steel because of a magnetic field. He becomes immobilized and is ignored by the people when he tries to warn them. This causes him to become bitter and angry until he finally has his revenge on mankind. In other words, he becomes the very thing he was trying to save the world from.
75* The theme of "Oh No!" by Music/MarinaDiamandis:
76-->I know exactly what I want and what I want to be\
77I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine\
78I'm now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy\
79Oh, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh!
80* ''Music/EvilliousChronicles'': In the song Project "Ma", Queen Maria Moonlit prophetized the end of Levianta (her country) and the whole world by <The Dark Legacy, "Sin">. Levianta's answer was to create Project [Ma] to purify the sins. The first project's failure caused Eve Moonlit's mental instability and the second project created Hänsel and Gretel, the twins she would later kill for, unleashing the "Sin" onto the world.
81* In the music video for the Music/TheyMightBeGiants song "Bastard Wants to Hit Me", the "crazy bastard" is so mad about getting snubbed by the narrator that by the end of the video, he ''does'' want to hit him (and does so).
82* In Joe Diffe's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlAa0IGCXCw Third Rock from the Sun]]" a man in Smokey's Bar sees a beautiful woman walks into the bar and calls up his wife to tell her he is working late (so he can make time with the lady in question). The wife calls up her sister and asks her to come over to comfort her, which gives her boyfriend time to go out and get a beer from a nearby store. He leaves the keys in his car, allowing some teenagers to take a joyride in his car. [[DisasterDominoes The teenagers end up in the path of a semi truck]], which crashes into them, goes across a bank parking lot and hits a nearby clocktower. The clocktower falls over and takes out a powerline, making the entire town go dark. A waitress calls the police in panic, claiming aliens are landing, and the police call the mayor, waking him up because they can't find the sheriff. The mayor tells the police to use their heads - if he isn't in his car, he's probably hiding from his wife [[CallBack down at Smokey's Bar]]. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard So he is going to have to work late after all.]]
83[[/folder]]
84
85[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
86* At Wrestling/RingOfHonor's ''Undeniable 2007'', [[Wrestling/KevinOwens Kevin Steen]] rejected Adam Pearce's offer to join Hang Men 3 at the expense of [[Wrestling/SamiZayn El Generico]], arguing that only he was allowed to have fun smacking Generico around. At the 2009 ''Final Battle'', guess what Steen did to Generico?
87[[/folder]]
88
89[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
90* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', the primarch Horus gets infected with a demonic plague that causes him to fall into a coma and get visions of the future from the Chaos Gods. In the visions, he sees the Imperium turn into a repressive totalitarian {{dystopia}} where the Emperor is worshiped as a god and his name is not mentioned anywhere. This, combined with his anger about the Emperor returning to Earth and leaving him and the other Primarchs fighting to expand the Imperium, causes him to turn to Chaos and start a civil war that nearly destroys the Imperium. As a result of the war (known as the Literature/HorusHeresy), 10,000 years later the mortally wounded Emperor, now confined in the life-supporting Golden Throne, is venerated as a god in a repressive totalitarian dystopia, and the names of Horus and other traitorous Primarchs have been removed from Imperial records.
91* A ''TabletopGame/BlackCrusade'' campaign can start one of these, depending on how the GM follows the plot thread the antagonist of the introductory adventure, ''False Prophets'', starts.
92* In the first edition of ''TabletopGame/{{Aberrant}}'', a secret subdivision of Project Proteus fears that the superhuman novas will eventually [[SuperSupremacist either enslave baseline humanity on purpose]] or simply render them extinct in some fashion. To counter this, they slip sterilizing agents into the drugs that all novas recruited by Project Proteus are fed in order to help them control their powers, and assassinate any novas that either learn about this, seem to powerful, or have powers that could counteract their sterilization project. Naturally, when this inevitably comes out, it provokes so much outrage and fear amongst the novas that it triggers a full-fledged supers vs. baseline ''race war''.
93* In ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'', "thin-blooded" vampires who are sufficiently removed from the power source behind vampirism are frequently hunted and killed by vampire elders. These elders fear that the thin-blooded are a portent of doom whose presence heralds the end-times return of the Antediluvians, the slumbering AbusivePrecursors of their kind. The official sourcebooks for narrating the actual end times reveal that nothing gets the attention of the Antediluvians like large numbers of their descendents getting killed, no matter how distant those descendents may be.
94* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': A ''Magazine/{{Dragon}}'' article about bartering with dragons warns about having them invest in your business, however much of a sure thing it is. They ''hate'' having a part of their [[DragonHoard hoard]] out of their sight, and will hover around to keep an eye on it and make sure you aren't cheating them. Once they've scared away all your customers and you've gone bankrupt, that just proves they were right to be suspicious about the deal the whole time.
95[[/folder]]
96
97[[folder:Theatre]]
98* Shakespeare's ''{{Theatre/Macbeth}}'' revolves around this trope.
99** When the Witches greet Macbeth as the King of Scotland in the first act, it prompts him and his wife to plot to steal the throne from the rightful King after the Witches' earlier prophesy (that Macbeth would become the Thane of Cawdor) unexpectedly comes true.
100** When the Witches prophesy that Macbeth's friend Banquo will give birth to a line of kings, he tries to have Banquo and his son Fleance murdered so that it won't come true. He only succeeds with the first part, with Banquo [[YouKilledMyFather ordering Fleance to avenge him]] with his last words. It should be noted that in Shakespeare's time, it was believed that the House of Stuart - the line which the Scottish kings belonged to - was believed to be the descendants of Fleance.
101** When the Witches warn Macbeth to "Beware Macduff, beware the Thane of Fife," it prompts him to send his assassins to massacre Macduff's castle. Macduff isn't home, but the assassins ''do'' succeed in murdering his wife and children...giving [[CrusadingWidow Macduff]] all the reason he needs to [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge storm Dunsinane with his allies and personally kill Macbeth in single combat]].
102* Shakespeare's ''Theatre/HenryIV'' also has this, in its own way. King Henry's refusal to ransom Mortimer under the fear that he might lead a rebellion eventually causes Hotspur to lead a rebellion of his own.
103[[/folder]]
104
105[[folder:Visual Novels]]
106* In ''VisualNovel/ShinraiBrokenBeyondDespair'', Hiro tells a story of a ClingyJealousGirl who got into a relationship with the boy of her dreams, only to become afraid of losing him. She then became increasingly possessive, forbidding him to talk to other girls or even his friends. In the end, he got tired of the girl's behavior and broke up with her... at which point [[IfICantHaveYou she killed him]] [[MurderSuicide and then hanged herself]].
107* In ''VisualNovel/ZeroEscape: VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' the ArcWords are [[YouAlreadyChangedThePast "What you do in the future affects the past"]], and this presents itself most clearly in [[spoiler: [[MysteriousWaif Phi]]'s betrayal. In one set of endings she betrays Sigma for betraying her in the "first Round 2" even if [[BlamedForBeingRailroaded the player hadn't done so yet]] and this ''was'' the first Round 2, ensuring they would go back and do so after the GameOver to understand what happened. By virtue of the TimeyWimeyBall, [[MindScrew she betrays the player in the present after witnessing a betrayal in the past that took place in the future]]. That is, [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential assuming you didn't just simply pick betray the first time around]].]]
108[[/folder]]
109
110[[folder:Web Original]]
111* Used in ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' where Church attempts to stop a whole lot of bad things that happened in Blood Gulch, only to cause most of them.
112* Done 'spectacularly' in Opifex's ''FanFic/TheStormDragons'' series, a {{fan fiction}} series based on the ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'' world. Most Elves and Dragons know a legend about a black dragon born during a storm that will cause a great deal of evil for the world. Both races attempt to kill the black dragon Ravana, but not only does he prove himself extremely hard to kill, but their attempts to do so drive him over the edge of insanity when he realizes every living thing is his enemy, turning him into exactly the kind of vengeful and murderous creature that the prophecy spoke about.
113* On TV Tropes, anything added to the FlameBait page will... well, become flamebait, because then people will argue about whether it belongs there, scold other people for adding it to tropes, and so on.
114* In [[http://www.creepypasta.com/the-gift-of-mercy/ The Gift of Mercy]], an alien race from the other side of the galaxy discovers humanity after picking up radio signals from Earth, and starts studying us, concluding that we're all a bunch of barbaric savages obsessed with violence and killing, but fortunately much too stupid to ever be a threat to them. Then we develop space travel and they start getting a bit worried. Then we start ''deliberately'' sending radio transmissions out into space trying to make first contact, and they collectively shit their pants in terror. "They knew we were out here, and they were coming for us." They scramble to build a WMD to wipe us out, the titular "[[MercyKill Gift of Mercy]]", and launch it directly at Earth. They aren't exactly ''happy'' about doing this, but see it as a [[NecessarilyEvil necessary evil]] to save themselves. Crossing the galaxy takes a really long time even at lightspeed, and in that time we evolve so much that we all become {{Transhuman}} pacifists who make some of the most beautiful art the galaxy has ever seen. Alas, there is no way to stop the Gift of Mercy from reaching its target, Earth and most of our solar system is obliterated, and the aliens are left wracked with guilt over committing a genocide that turned out to not have been necessary after all. Then, a HopeSpot: it turns out that millions of humans still survived on other colonized planets that were far enough away from Earth to have avoided destruction. The aliens breathe a collective sigh of relief that they didn't actually wipe us all out after all... [[OhCrap and then they get a message from us]]: "[[IronicEcho We know you are out there, and we are coming for you.]]"
115* In ''WebAnimation/TheBackwaterGospel'', the coming of The Undertaker always signifies that someone will die. [[spoiler:In the end it's the townsfolk's fear of him and desire to survive at all costs that turns the town on itself, causing the people to viciously massacre each other and bring upon the deaths The Undertaker's coming augured.]]
116* ''WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows'' concluded that Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair" was created as a TakeThat to a {{Hatedom}} that didn't exist until the song was released.
117* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUmkf_l38fA There's a Man in the Woods]]'' details a teacher that cares for his students, and a greedy brat named Sid who was spreading rumors about a SerialKiller hiding in the woods. Eventually, the rumor underwent GossipEvolution (including things such as Batman ears and a woman's severed thigh) and spread to the parents, who get the teacher fired. The result that the teacher, with his life ruined by the fiasco and being bitter and angry about it, decided to go back to the school, now ruined by the [[ThinkOfTheChildren paranoia the rumor caused]]. The final shot is him in the same woods, [[NothingIsScarier glaring at Sid and reaching into his coat pocket threateningly...]]
118--> "[[TitleDrop There's a]] [[{{Revenge}} man in]] [[BookEnds the woods.]]"
119* ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'': [[SuperheroSchool Whateley Academy]] student Semiramis Vesmarran's CodeName, Sahar, is Arabic for 'the evil eye'; her main ability is the power to psychically impress a self-fulfilling prophecy of Doom on a target's mind, causing them to act as if they are cursed and draw disaster upon themselves accordingly.
120* In ''Literature/TheRuinsOfAnAmericanPartySystem'', the Troika ruling the Soviet Union come to fear that the increasingly popular Grand Marshal Tukhachevsky will stage a MilitaryCoup and overthrow them, to the point that they excommunicate him from the Party and try to have him relieved of command... which pisses off Tukhachevsky (who'd actually had no treasonous thoughts whatsoever) and his men to the point that they ''do'' stage a coup.
121* In the 500th Episode of ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'', Linkara tried to prevent the BadFuture caused by Brother Eye by calling the person who created it, [[spoiler: WebVideo/{{Welshy}}]], and apologizing for never finishing their crossover review. At first, it seems to work as [[spoiler: the evil future Welshy]] disappears, but Linkara forgot to hang up the phone, causing [[spoiler: Welshy]] to realize the alterior motive of Linkara's apology. He swears to get revenge for Linkara's actions, almost certainly resulting in the future Linkara was trying to prevent.
122[[/folder]]
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