->''What's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?''
-->-- '''The Oracle''', ''TheMatrix''

->''One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.''
-->-- '''Oogway''', KungFuPanda

->''DOW JONES PLUNGES ON NEWS OF DOW JONES PLUNGE...''
-->-- ''TheOnion'' news ticker

Whenever anyone tries to avert a prophecy, for good or ill, the end result of their actions is to bring the prophecy about. The harder he struggles to prevent it, the more inescapable his destiny becomes. Fate, it seems, loves irony.

When a [[{{Heroes}} hero]] tries to prevent the prophesied release of an [[SealedEvilInACan ancient evil]], his actions will help it escape because YouCantFightFate. When the BigBad tries to slaughter all the members of a given people in order to kill the one among them who is prophesied to end him, he will only manage to [[GenocideBackfire create the hero]] that he fears, BecauseDestinySaysSo.

One 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 it, or else those it affects must carry an IdiotBall and not take the direct approach that would have no room for failure.

The archetypal OlderThanDirt example is the myth of Oedipus. A prophecy says the king will be killed by his own son, so the king orders his infant son killed. (He has him crippled and abandoned in the wilderness, instead of just breaking his neck.) Oedipus is rescued, and [[MosesInTheBullrushes 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 doesn't recognize his father, 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. The other version of this myth involves Oedipus becoming an athlete, and a thrown discus killing his father, who was watching, by pure coincidence (another myth has another ancient Greek hero, Perseus, doing this to his ''grandfather'', whom he was prophesied to kill).

Most 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 he'd make it happen. An example sometimes given is that a prediction of a bank becoming insolvent becomes true because everyone tries to withdraw their money from the bank, which (since the bank uses fractional-reserve banking) they don't have at that moment (they'd have to recall all the loans they'd given), and this then causes the bank to become insolvent. Another popular example is the fear that there will be a shortage of a commodity (especially gas). Everybody stocks up on the commodity, resulting in a shortage. ViewersAreMorons, after all.

Compare PropheticFallacy. Often an integral part of {{Tragedy}}. May cause a ClingyMacGuffin.

----
!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* In TsubasaReservoirChronicle, Fei Wong Reed goes through a ridiculously complex XanatosRoulette to prevent [[spoiler: Yuko]]'s death from catching up with her, in the process creating two clones, then discarding them (essentially killing them). The woman he was trying to save then embraces her long-delayed death as payment to bring the two clones into the cycle of reincarnation. In other words, had he not tried to save Yuko, she never would have died.
** The real kicker is that, apparently, ''[[ThirtyXanatosPileup she and Clow planned all this]]''. [[MindScrew Even the characters are starting to get confused]].
** [[spoiler:Worse yet, apparently they just set him off again because now he's just going to try again. A StableTimeLoop or something, it's really not very clear... Even the metaphorical [[{{Mindscrew}} screw]] is getting confused, really.]]
* In DragonballZ, Frieza kills all of the Saiyans he can find and even destroys their home planet in order to prevent a Super Saiyan from rising up and defeating him. What happens later? Frieza's efforts actually anger Goku to the point that he becomes a Super Saiyan and completely beats the shit out of Frieza, even to the point of killing him. HeGotBetter, but even at that point, it was pretty clear that Frieza was killed ''because'' of his efforts to prevent himself from being killed.
* In [[{{X1999}} X/1999]], Sorata is told as a boy by his temple superior that he will die for the sake of a woman. Sora decides that if this has to happen, he'd like it to be a beautiful woman, and when he meets Arashi he tells her that he's "decided on" her. Once the two develop genuine feelings for each other, Arashi becomes so troubled at the thought that she'd be responsible for Sora's death that she [[spoiler: defects to the Dragons of Earth, so Sora would have no reason to protect her anymore. When she displeases Fuma, Sora gives his life to spare her from [[YouHaveFailedMe Fuma's wrath]], which would not have happened had she not defected.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* Comedic variant from ''Captain Britain'':
-->'''Zeitgeist''': You didn't warn us because I was ''going'' to insult you? You mean I hadn't even insulted you at that point? You just predicted I was ''going'' to and didn't warn... Cobweb, you are the most thoroughly irrational squack-head I have ever set eyes upon.
-->'''Cobweb''': There! I ''knew'' you were going to say that!
* A couple of Spider-Man stories deal with his TimePolice counterpart from the year 2211 and his archnemesis Hobgoblin 2211. It's revealed the Hobgoblin 2211 is really his daughter Robin, who, while researching breaks in the "multiverse" throughout history, and how to stop them from continuing to destroy reality, is arrested by her father for things she is innocent of now, but will do in the future (namely murder and screwing around with reality), and placed in a virtual reality prison/paradise. Her boyfriend, however, attempts to free her by using a virus to shut down the computer she's attached to, which also drives her completely insane as her mind is effected by the virus. Now totally nuts, she then dons a dimensional/time traveling suit and goes on a rampage through time and reality, erasing people (usually Spider-Men) from existence with RetCon bombs. As a result, not only do her father's attempts to stop her from becoming the Hobgoblin directly cause her to do so, but she herself becomes the cause of the very breaks in reality that she had discovered (though that's less a prophecy than merely [[StableTimeLoop an ironic turn]]).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fairy Tales]]
* In [[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/jacobs/english/fishring.html The Fish and the Ring]], [[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/russian/russianwondertales/vasiliiunlucky.html Vasilii the Unlucky]], [[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/29devilgoldhairs.html The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs]], [[http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/260.htm The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate]], and many other fairy tales, a man who discovers finds his child [[SelfFulfillingProphecies doomed]] to marry a poor child tries to kill them with many tasks, before and after the wedding. It never works.
* In ''[[SunMoonTalia Sun, Moon, and Talia]]'', an older variant of ''SleepingBeauty'', wise men prophesy that Talia will be harmed by flax. Her father therefore orders it all kept of the castle -- which means Talia doesn't know what it is and finds it intriguing.
* In Madame d'Aulnoy's ''[[http://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).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* The entire plot of ''StarWars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith''. This was done to contrast with Luke later being confronted by the same sorts of troubling prophesies, but ultimately deciding to ScrewDestiny and avoid the path his father took.
* In ''TheMatrix'' quote above, The Oracle tells Neo not to worry about the vase. Neo turns around to see what vase she's talking about, and in the process knocks it over.
** As a more serious theme, however, it's subverted when Neo, TheMessiah "prophesied" by the Machines to perpetuate a cycle of death and rebirth of Zion that had repeated several times before, he rebelled against the prophesy and later broke the cycle.
*** The cycle wasn't broken - merely delayed by one round as part of the machines' deal with Neo. It's unlikely that would have been enough for Zion to beat the machines when they resumed.
** Another self-fulfilling prophecy, Trinity said that the oracle had told her she, Trinity, would fall in love with the guy who was The One from the prophecies. When Trinity fell in love with Neo, she used this to justify her belief that Neo was The One. But maybe she only fell in love with him because she thought he was The One? She was so fixated on the idea of the prophecy that she was unable to fall in love with anyone else, but once Morpheus announced Neo as TheChosenOne, Trinity wanted desperately to believe in it.
** Similarly, when the Oracle told Neo that he ''wasn't'' The One the first time he met her, she was probably speaking the truth. He wasn't. Not at that point in time, anyway. But by giving him the ''choice'', to chose whether he wanted to rise to the challenge or not, he became exactly what she wanted and did what she needed him to do.
*** The Oracle was a memetic program designed to understand and manipulate human emotions. Go figure. The Architect even admitted that the whole religious prophecy crap was just another control mechanism.
*** It's mentioned that the Oracle may ''see'' the future, but she usually doesn't ''tell'' the future. That is, she doesn't tell the Zionites what the future actually holds. She just tells them what they need to hear in order for that future to come about. Case in point: She told Neo he wasn't the One because that would lead him to realizing he was. Presumably, if she'd just said, "Yes, you're the One," things wouldn't have worked out so well.
**** Case ''more'' in point, she told Neo "no, not in this life". And then he dies, and gets resurrected in blatant Christian metaphor, and at ''that'' point he becomes the One. And, of course, gets himself crucified a few films later.
**** Or this is a complete subversion, because this was a Self Denying Prophecy. The only way to make Neo become The One was to tell him that he's not. Neo is really the king of reverse psychology.
**** Whoa!
* The bank insolvency example was mentioned in ''{{Sneakers}}''.
* In the first ''{{Terminator}}'' film, John Connor would not have been conceived if the T-800 hadn't traveled back in time and attempted to kill Sarah Connor, while Skynet wouldn't have been created if T-800 hadn't traveled back in time and attempted to kill Sarah Connor.
** Similarly, in the third film he likely wouldn't have been in position to survive a nuclear war and assume command of the widespread human survivors (or get together with his future wife and second-in-command) if the T-X had simply gotten on with covertly helping the rise of Skynet and left him alone.
*** He would have done that anyway, eventually. T-X just sped it up.
**Although, when John Conner breaks what may be the only computer able to order Skynet to desist in a fit of pique, he may be making the 'bad-future' by that action.
* In ''{{Willow}},'' the local evil sorceress inadvertently causes her own downfall by trying to kill the infant prophesied to... well, be her downfall.
* Subverted in ''TheCabinetOfDrCaligari'': Cesare predicts that Alan has until dawn to live, and then goes and ensures the accuracy of his prediction. [[NightmareFuelUnleaded With a knife.]]
* ''MinorityReport'' exemplifies this trope.
** ''Except that the original short story is about free will. The protagonist finds a prediction that threatens his future with the company (we do not learn what he has learned). He hides the evidence and leaves. A retired General (who wishes to take over the country) has him captured, as his illegal access to the predictions means he knows the protagonist is the man who will kill him. They talk; general realises protagonist had no intention to kill him, and is in a position to help him after the coup; so releases him. Later, at the military veteran's parade that gathers the general's army for the coup; special guest protagonist decides to kill the general, realising what will happen if he does not act. He succeeds, kills the general, is arrested; coup defeated by security forces operating with precrime knowledge. Protagonist shows he had evidence of what would happen, is NOT PROSECUTED for murder, but must leave. He chooses to move his family to an off-world colony, where there is no precrime organisation.
** The movie plays it straight for most of it but subverts it near the end.
* Or more simply: 'destiny ain't what you thought it were'.
* In ''{{Wanted}}'' the Loom of Fate causes Sloan to fall into this. [[spoiler: The loom marks Sloan for death, but Sloan is the only one who interprets the loom's coded marks, so he simply hides it away and manufactures targets to make money as well as shape the world as he sees fit. In the end, the loom also marks the entire Chicago Fraternity for death; one tries to say ScrewDestiny, but is killed by the ActionGirl just after, who kills herself with the same bullet, in the same shot, as her name is on the list. Though Sloan survives this scene, his attempt to turn the Fraternity into assassins for money and his failure to succeed allow the main character to survive and kill him in the very next scene.]]
** In ''Weapons of Fate,'' Wesley shows some GenreSavvy and ridicules the Immortal for the Fraternity's reliance on the concept of fate; his mother [[spoiler: died by his father's hand, ''at her own insistence,'' because the loom of fate marked her, and he went along with it.]] Wesley finds this absurd and doesn't think the problem is self-fullfilling prophecy so much as members of the Fraternity having serious problems with common sense and a lack thereof.
* ''[[TwelveMonkeys 12 Monkeys]]''.
**... and "La Jetée", the short French New Wave film it was based on.
* ''{{Paycheck}}''. And not ''{{Paycheck}}''. Depending on the scene more than depending on logic.
* The Sandra Bullock film ''Premonition'', mixed with AnachronisticOrder via UnstuckInTime.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In PiersAnthony's ''[[ApprenticeAdept Split Infinity]]'', the protagonist eventually ends up killing the Red Sorceress, primarily out of self defense. Turns out that the only reason she was attacking him, is because of a prophecy that said he would kill her. Oops. This is later revealed to be a XanatosRoulette by an overly sentient computer.
** He didn't kill her. The prophecy was "Blue Destroys Red." He caused her to lose the tournament in Proton, which got her permanently kicked off the planet. So she didn't die--but she was very definitely "destroyed."
* Done with a ProphecyTwist in PeterDavid's ''StarTrekNewFrontier'' novel ''Martyr''. A prophet 500 years in the past predicts the savior of his people will come when certain events happen. When those events do happen, Captain Calhoun is revered as that Savior.. The Twist? [[spoiler:The actual Savior is the man who thinks he's appointed to kill the Savior, whose traits include a scar (which Calhoun has...and gives the appointee while he's struggling). He does kill the Savior--himself--accidentally.]] And then it's subverted by the fact that [[spoiler:The prophet was cheating by using Advanced Alien Technology to look into the future.]]
* In ''Fire Logic'' an army attacks the peaceful Ashawala'i people because an oracle told them that someone from there would defeat them. Naturally, the lone survivor does just that ''because'' they killed off her people.
* Inverted in ''IClaudius''. A prophecy is made that Caligula (yup, [[TheCaligula that one]]) can "no more become Emperor that he can ride across the bay from Baiae to Puteoli". One of Caligula's first acts as Emperor involves a very long bridge...
* Subverted and lampshaded in Calderon's ''Life is a Dream'', where Segismund - subject of an OedipusRex type prophecy - points out that it ''would'' be a SelfFulfillingProphecy, while [[ScrewDestiny preventing it from getting fulfilled]].
-->''My father, who is here to evade the fury\\
Of my proud nature, made me a wild beast:\\
So when I, by my birth of gallant stock,\\
My generous blood, and inbred grace and valour,\\
Might well have proved both gentle and forebearing,\\
The very mode of life to which he forced me,\\
The sort of bringing up I had to bear\\
Sufficed to make me savage in my passions.\\
What a strange method of restraining them!''
* In the ''HarryPotter'' books, Voldemort hears half of a prophecy about a boy about to be born who will be his nemesis. With two possible choices, he chooses Harry, but in the process of trying to kill him, gives him both the power to defy him and a reason to. What's the best way to turn an otherwise unimportant young wizard into your mortal enemy who's well-equipped to defeat you? Well, murdering his parents and spending the better part of a decade sticking him in convoluted death traps is not a bad start.
** Whats more, Dumbledore hints that not all prophecies have to be fulfilled. If Voldemort never heard the prophecy or ignored it, it might have been meaningless.
*** Even MORE is that Harry ''doesn't have to do anything at all'', the prophecy is meaningless because nothing is forcing Harry to comply. This is touched upon in the books; The only reason Harry is going to fulfill the prophecy is because he would never rest until Voldemort was dead, and the same goes for Voldemort.
*** Not quite. Whether Harry complies or not, the prophecy will come true, simply because of Voldemort. Voldemort is set on hunting Harry and killing him. So even if Harry stops fighting and Voldemort murders him in his bed one night, the prophecy comes true. The only way to avoid it coming true is if they both stop, which certainly won't happen.
* In the ''WheelOfTime'' series Mat learns he would marry the Daughter of the Nine Moons. Much later, she comes across him trying to flee from a city and has to be tied up. When Mat finds out what she is, having already learned the hard way that [=~You Can't Fight Fate~=], he changes his mind about hiding her in the lofts and kidnaps her instead. And much later, [[spoiler:Tuon only completes the marriage ceremony Mat accidentally started because of the marriage prophecy ''she'' got]].
* GreekMythology ''adores'' this trope. A prophecy that Paris will cause Troy to burn down? His parents abandon him in a remote area, but he gets found and raised by someone else, eventually returns home by which time his parents have forgotten the prophecy, and due to things he did when abandoned, causes a long chain of events that ends with Troy burning. Many times this trope in Greek Mythology results in an IdiotPlot; for example, Cronus (father of many of the Greek gods, such as Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades), in an attempt to avert the prophecy that one of his children will overcome him, decides to swallow them as soon as they're born. His wife finally gets tired of it and smuggles the sixth (Zeus) off after he's born, tricking Cronus into swallowing a rock instead. After growing up, Zeus defeats Cronus and frees his siblings. Now, rather than eating the children when they're born, wouldn't it have been far more logical to just ''not have any children in the first place''?
** Given the lack of contraceptives, even divine ones, that would entail keeping it in his toga. And how many of the Greek gods ''ever'' did that?
*** None, especially considering that it was the Romans who wore Togas!
**** Screw the Facts, I have Green Hair!
** [[{{Tragedy}} Greek tragedy]] often revolves around the idea that YouCantFightFate. Those who attempt to do so suffer grisly punishments for their hubris. If you consider Oepidus et al., Paris got off lightly.
** Then there's King Croesus, who was told that if he attacked his neighbor, a great empire would fall. Think about that for a moment--obviously it's going to come true, since whichever empire lost the war would fall. Croesus just didn't consider that it might be ''his'' empire...
** See also the myth of Perseus' birth. See, the oracle at Delphi told King Acrisius that his grandson would kill him, so he decided to prevent his daughter Danae from ever bearing a son by locking her up in a brass tower, where her weeping drew the attention of Zeus...
** In addition, this is not helped by the fact that in ancient Greek times, it was considered a ''huge'' sin to kill your own family directly, no matter what the circumstances. So, most rulers and such didn't really have a choice in leaving their children out in the wilderness.
***As opposed to current day ethics where killing your own family members directly is perfectly acceptable.
***It's not considered much worse than badly injuring them and abandoning them in a dangerous place, hoping and expecting that they die.
** Of course, you've gotta mention Oedipus. Before his birth, someone cursed his parents, declaring that their child would kill the father and marry the mother. When little Oedipus was born, they spiked his heels and left him on a hill to die of exposure - only for the rulers of another nearby region to find the child and take him in. The rest, as they say, is history. Or maybe mythology.
* This is the cause of Baldur's death in NorseMythology. Baldur has visions of his death approaching, so he turns to his mother Frigg for help. Frigg makes all things in the world swear not to harm Baldur, making him invulnerable to any form of attack, so the other gods start a game out of throwing things at Baldur. Loki gets frustrated by this and discovers that Baldur is not invulnerable to misteltoe, makes an arrow made of misteltoe and tricks Baldur's blind brother Höður into using it to kill him.
* ''Paycheck'' offers examples of these as reasons why the machine that sees into the future is a really bad idea.
** Specifically, [[spoiler: the machine sees in the future that there will be a plague. So, leaders use the machine to see who will get the plague, round them all up and keep them together to prevent it from spreading. Surprise! They all get the plague. The machine predicts a war with another country, so leaders launch a pre-emptive strike against the evil country and the result is a war. By seeing the future, the leaders create the future, which they then see. It's weird and circular, but makes sense: the machine doesn't so much see the future, it sees the future that ''the machine'' will create merely by existing.]]
** Again, the movie is an inversion of the original short story. In the original; protagonist has an envelope of items, which will help him to survive. The time scoop is being used for one political party to improve their candidate's chances in election. At all times, there is the appearance of free will; only at certain moments do the items reveal how they are useful, and always the protagonist must find this out for himself. Simply by existing, he causes the defeat of those employing the time scoop.
* In TheBible, Joseph has prophetic dreams saying he will one day rule his older brothers - so they fake his death and sell him into slavery. But this then starts a chain of events which lead to him becoming prime minister of Egypt and controlling the only source of stored food when a famine hits, leading to his brothers having to beg him for help.
** Not only that. There is a prophecy that the Messiah would be known as "Emmanuel". Many Christians call Jesus Emmanuel because of that prophecy. Try to wrap your head around ''that''.
* ''{{Dune}}'' takes this trope quite literally. "True" prophets (Paul Atreides and his descendants) don't predict the future so much as ''create'' it, locking themselves (and everyone else) into an inescapable destiny. It takes [[spoiler:Leto II]] almost four thousand years to break humanity free from the consequences of this.
* 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 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.
** Retold by W. Somerset Maugham in "The Appointment in Samarra."
** That story is played with in {{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. Rincewind refuses :).
*** The very city Rincewind was planning to run to in the first place, even. So a sort of accidental self-defeating prophecy.
*** Also in Discworld: Princess Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling. This unusual name was the result of her mother Magrat Garlick's attempt to correct a mistake made by her own mother, who had intended for Magrat to be named "Margaret" but was unable to spell the name properly when she wrote it down for the priest. In an effort to ensure the proper naming of her child, Magrat appended "Note Spelling" in the note she passed to the priest. This back-fired when he read out the complete sentence, but the deed had been done and by their culture or law could not be changed.
** 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...
* All prophecies in the SwordOfTruth series are self-fulfilling. In fact, that's the entire ''point'' of prophecies- they wouldn't be much good if they didn't actually change things.
* C.S. Lewis' book ''[[TheChroniclesOfNarnia The Horse And His Boy]]'' is, in theory, based around one of these; the revelation of the content of the prophecy sets in motion the very events that were predicted. Of course, Aslan [[CrystalDragonJesus Aslan]] has a carefully judged thumb (claw?) on the scales of the universe throughout - pushing boats to shore, scaring the horses, propping up the central character's failing morale, and generally helping the characters complete his XanatosRoulette. No doubt giving the dryad the plot-triggering prophecy was all according to plan.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* Dolly Parton had a variety show in the '80's, and commented in her opening monologue one night about a tabloid paper that predicted she would fall in love a 300 pound wrestler, and write a song about him entitled "Headlock On My Heart." She then introduced her special guest star, Hulk Hogan, and showed a video of a song she wrote, called "Headlock On My Heart." (Lyrics at http://www.dollyon-line.com/archives/lyrics/headlockomh.shtml )
** Granted, the tabloid gave her the idea, and she never "fell in love" with Hogan (and, in fact, in the video he played a "Goldust"-style wrestler named "Starlight Starbright" instead of himself), but was this her having fun with a tabloid or an actual, but faulty, prediction of the future? Hmmm?
* ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', "Prophecy Girl": The Master is freed by drinking Buffy's blood, but she went to fight him only because of the prophecy.
** Another ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' example from "Help": Cassie's prophetic abilities convince her she is going to die. Naturally, this causes her no small amount of stress. Despite Buffy saving her from demons and deathtraps, she dies from an aggravated heart condition. Aggravated no doubt by the aforementioned belief she was going to die, the demons, and the deathtraps. She was convinced she would die, and so she died.
* Subverted in one episode of ''XenaWarriorPrincess'', in which a particular child is destined to take a king's throne, and the [[EvilChancellor obligatory evil councillor]] tries to use the prophecy to start a civil war which will put the baby on the throne and himself in place as regent. Eventually, the king marries the baby's mother, and so the prophecy is fulfilled: The baby is now heir to his father's throne.
** Don't forget Callisto, whose parents were killed during Xena's reign of terror, so she naturally assumed that Xena or one of her soldiers killed her folks. After she became a goddess, she accidentally ended up in her old village on the day of the attack. While trying to protect her mother and her younger self, she accidentally kills her father and is forced to kill her mother in self-defense, thus ensuring that she will grow up to be a cold-blooded bitch.
* Often used in conjunction with time Travel. For example, ''TheTwilightZone'' episode "No Time Like the Past" involves a man traveling back in time and attempting to prevent a small town fire he knows will happen. Instead, his actions end up causing the fire.
** The same twist happens in the episode "Back There". A man travels back in time and tries to warn people of Lincoln's assassination. Unbeknownst to the man, one of the people he tells about it is John Wilkes Booth, who gets the idea from him.
** A non-time travel related ''Twilight Zone'' example: In "What's in the Box", a man is shown his future (via an enchanted TV set) in which he kills his wife during a fight and dies in the electric chair. When he tries to describe this to his wife, she laughs at him, which gets him angry, they start to fight, and...
* ''ThatsSoRaven''. Most of the episodes revolve around the tried-and-tested formula of vision > attempt to stop vision > vision happens because of attempt.
* ''[[{{Series.Heroes}} Heroes]]'' is full of these. Especially Isaac Mendez' comic book ''9th Wonders'', which depicts Hiro and Ando doing things like renting a car... and after Hiro finds the comic, he follows it to the letter, because he is shown doing it in the comic; but Isaac had only drawn it that way because he had seen Hiro in his visions of the future.
** Before that, he reads a comic in which he saves a little girl. He does, but only after putting her in danger in the first place.
** Even Sylar, after he steals Isaac's precognition power, does things like [[spoiler:killing Ted and impersonating Nathan to get the presidency]] solely because he had painted himself doing it.
** In "1961", a young [[spoiler: Angela speaks with the young Company Founders about her dream, in which they form a company, and of the “horrible things we will do to protect the secret”, and of how it’s a “necessary evil”.]] She declares these things in a manner which suggests the idea of using the information from her prophetic dreams to help avoid, or prevent, exactly this type of thing from having to happen at all ''[[IdiotPlot never occurred to her]]''.
* Done, though never identified as such, on ''{{Angel}}'' in the case of Sahjan and Connor. Sahjan read a prophecy that Angel's son would grow up and kill him. He tried to get rid of him by sealing him in an inescapable Hell Dimension, where time moved faster so that after only a few weeks on earth, Connor would have died of old age there. [[LikeABadassOutOfHell He escaped]] grown up, a few days later, and killed him a year on earth after that. Additionally, because of his meddling he spent the intervening time [[SealedEvilInACan locked in an urn]].
** The [[spoiler: false]] prophecy that Angel [[OffingTheOffspring would kill Connor]] that prompted [[spoiler: Wesley]] to kidnap then infant Connor from Angel in the first place is also an example. The kidnapping was the event that triggered the tragic chain of events that made up most of season 4 and culminated in [[spoiler: Angel killing Connor to save a bunch of hostages]]. Thanks to a DealWithTheDevil, [[spoiler: [[IGotBetter Connor got better]]]].
* Averted in one episode of ''StargateAtlantis'', the crew meets a man who can tell the future (correctly) and even show his visions to other people. The team suggests that they are SelfFulfillingProphecies, however even events that could not have been self fulfilled through the prophecy turn out to be true.
* On ''[[ThirdRockFromTheSun 3rd Rock From The Sun]]'', Dick became paranoid that the Chancellor had it in for Mary. He then talked Mary into thinking so as well and accidentally got her arrested. At the end of the episode, he described what happened:
-->'''Dick''': I was completely convinced Mary was going to lose her job.\\
'''Sally''': And did she?\\
'''Dick''': Yeah. So I guess being paranoid is kind of like being psychic.
* In an episode of EarlyEdition, Gary's "selfish" counterpart (who used the paper at least partially for his own gain) accidentally ruined the stock pricing of a (very) small computer company (three or five people) by selling all of their stock that he owned when the paper said they were going to crash.
* In RedDwarf, Cassandra, a supercomputer with the ability to predict the future with total accuracy tells Lister that he will end up destroying her. Lister walks into the room with the computer and gives a big speech on how he has his own free will, culminating in his refusal to destroy Cassandra. As he walks out, however, he sticks a piece of bubblegum on the wall, which [[DisasterDominoes falls on a lamp that then swings around into something, catapulting it into something else, until finally a container full of liquid falls on Cassandra's wiring, destroying her.]] The look on her computerised face just before she shorts circuits is [[CassandraTruth a weary "See?"]]
* This sort-of shows up in the only ''{{CSI}}'' episode involving a (confirmed) psychic. The psychic predicts that the killer's next move will be associated with "green tea", and follows Stokes home. [[spoiler: Following a hunch the psychic goes into the attic, where the killer is hiding. The killer gains the upper hand and sends the psychic crashing through the ceiling onto Stokes' carpet, which was a ''green T'' (for Texas) on it. The psychic, alas, does not get better.]]
* Similarly on a ''{{Numb3rs}}'' episode featuring ChinesePeople, a psychic predicts the killers' next move and goes there with his camera. [[spoiler: The killers are there, along with their big truck. He dosen't get better either.]]
* [[LawAndOrderSVU Does it count if]] [[spoiler: the psychic predicts he'll catch the killer when he ''is'' the killer and just playing with the detectives?]]
** Probably not, as it's not a prophecy, it's just B.S. by a {{Jerkass}}.
* ''{{Lost}}''. Arguably [[spoiler: there are three big flags that the detonation of the hydrogen bomb in 1977 will ''cause'' the crash of the original Oceanic Airlines flight bringing Jack and the gang to the island. First: Sayid shooting Ben in 1977 ''causes'' him to become a MagnificentBastard or CompleteMonster in an extended way, since this is what brings him to the Others for ... healing. Second: Miles lampshades this trope in the last few minutes of the episode. Third: if it doesn't, the whole series is in for one weird-ass ResetButton one season out from its announced ending.]]
* Season 6 of ''{{Charmed}}'' reveals that Piper and Leo's son Wyatt is destined to become the most evil male witch ever. This leads Gideon, headmaster of the Magic Academy, to try and and prevent it by killing Wyatt as an infant, not realizing that it will be all his attempts to kill him that will drive Wyatt to evil. Leo ultimately breaks the cycle by [[spoiler: killing Gideon]].
* In an ''OuterLimits'' episode, a scientist has invented a TimeMachine, which he uses to travel several days into the future. There, he sees his wife, who has been shot. When he returns to his own time, he desperately tries to convince everyone that he really did travel to the future, only to have everyone think him crazy (doesn't help that the time shift apparently has some nasty side effects, such as ''actually turning him crazy''). In the end, he ends up accidentally shooting his wife while trying to stop her from leaving him. In a twist, he decides to prevent her death by ensuring that they never meet in the first place, so he travels back to the day they met and shoot his younger self. Both version of him die. Unfortunately, fate doesn't like to be cheated - his future wife was planning on killing herself that day.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In ''[[{{Warhammer40000}} Warhammer 40k]]'', the primarch Horus gets infected with a damonic plaque that causes him to fall into a coma and get visions of the future from the Chaos Gods. In the visions he sees a world 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 HorusHeresy), 10000 years later the mortally wounded Emperor, now confined in the life-supporting Golden Throne, is venerated as a god and the names of Horus and other traitorous primarchs have been removed from Imperial records.
** Which is also deliciously (especially from the Chaos Gods' perspective) ironic, because the Emperor had been an opponent of religious dogma.
** I know it's a typo, but [[http://1d4chan.org/images/7/73/AdeptusOrthodontus_vs_CSM.jpg demonic plaque?]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* In ''{{Summoner}}'', Emperor Murod hears a prophecy that a Summoner will put an end to his reign. Every action he thus takes to stop this prophecy from happening results in making the prophesy happen, by undoing Joseph's RefusalOfTheCall. Had he sat on his throne doing nothing, Joseph would've lived his life as a farmer on another continent, never even learning of Murod's existence.
* Overlord Zetta from ''MakaiKingdom'' receives a prophecy from an oracle that his Netherworld will be destroyed. In an attempt to ScrewDestiny, Zetta hunts down and consults the '[[CosmicKeystone sacred tome]]' - a book in which "everything pertaining to his Netherworld" is recorded - only to find that it states that his own stupidity has doomed the Netherworld. Insulted, Zetta responds by burning the book to a crisp, consequently [[EarthShatteringKaboom un-recording]] the whole Netherworld in the process and fulfilling the prophecy (as seen [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DlvlMJUjpqo here]]).
** Would it still be a self-fulfilling prophecy [[spoiler:if the book ''wanted'' Zetta to do this]]?
*** Well, it ''was'' [[spoiler:a BatmanGambit by Pram, who was the one who wrote that little gem in the book in the first place.]] Anyway, the prophecy was self-fulfilling because, if Zetta hadn't gone for the sacred tome to find a way to defy the prophecy, he would never have managed to destroy his netherworld in the first place.
**** You're misinterpreting. It wasn't Pram that put that little gem in there, [[spoiler:but Trenia]].
--> [[spoiler:Trenia: To be honest, I didn't really like you. All you cared about was becoming the strongest Overlord. I wanted to see what would happen if you lost it all.]]
--> [[spoiler:Zetta: ...Little bitch.]]
* This is the plot of ''TheLegendOfZelda: Ocarina of Time''. Zelda has a vision that Ganondorf will take the Triforce from its hiding place sealed within the Golden Realm, sends Link to preemptively collect the [[McGuffin Mc Guffins]] sealing the Golden Realm that Ganondorf has been attempting to obtain, and of course Gannondorf follows Link into the Golden Realm and takes the Triforce when Link unseals it. This sort of thing happens a lot in the series.
** Specifically, Link himself was sealed away because he was considered too young to have the Triforce (which wouldn't make sense given certain facts up until that point). If Link had in fact been a Kokiri, or else a little bit older, he would have succeeded in stopping Ganondorf because he would have gotten the power first (and its debatable if he would have gotten all of the Triforce).
* Similar to the ''Willow'' example, Kamek targets the newly born [[SuperMarioBros Mario brothers]] because of a prediction that the brothers will be trouble for the Koopas. However, he only managed to kidnap Baby Luigi, while Baby Mario ended up in the hands of the Yoshis. The Yoshi's decide to help Baby Mario rescue his twin, which leads to the first defeat of then baby Bowser.
* A Canthan New Year quest in ''GuildWars'' involves a man who received a reading from a fortune teller that "something terrible will befall" him in the next year. Seeking to avert the prophecy, he contacts a local mystic, who has a ritual to reverse fortune. Unfortunately, the ritual involves submerging his head in water, and he drowns.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Durkon in ''OrderOfTheStick'' has one of these in his background. He's going to cause bad things to happen when next he returns to the dwarven kingdoms, so his bosses send him away without telling him why, and tell him never to return. But he would never have really been able to return if he hadn't left. (Handwaved when they pointed out the possibility of him buying groceries or somesuch.)
** [[spoiler:The kobold Oracle, on the other hand has prophesised that Durkon WILL return home... Albeit posthumously. Meaning that the 'bad things' may for instance be due to him not being able to defend the place or simply that his own death and the subsequent mourning may be those 'bad things]]
** The dwarven clerics [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] this (not exact words since this Troper doesn't have the book with him):
-->'''Dwarven cleric 1:''' 'Tis risky business screwing with prophecy.
-->'''Dwarven cleric 2:''' Aye, don't I know it.
** An unrelated ''OrderOfTheStick'' example: Belkar kills the Oracle because the Oracle tells Belkar that he will kill someone from a short list of subjects (including the Oracle himself), then tries to weasel out of the prophecy with a bunch of lame possible ProphecyTwist ideas.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Done 'spectacularly' in Opifex's ''The Storm Dragon'' series, a fanfiction series based on the ''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.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Arguably inverted in ''TeenTitans'' season four. Raven is troubled by [[BecauseDestinySaysSo her destiny]] to [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt destroy the world]] and, along with Slade and [[{{Satan}} her father]], repeatedly insists that no matter what she does, there's nothing she can do to prevent it. She fails to realize that the only way the prophecy can come true is if she willingly goes along with it, as the destruction of the world is completely dependent on the conscious actions she makes of her own free will.
** Her friends even call her out on this, but she shrugs them off each time. During a telepathic conversation with Trigon, she even suggests that she could stop him by refusing to cooperate with the prophecy, but willingly goes along with it when he tells her that, as her creator, he decides her destiny.
** Her willingness to go along with the prophecy could probably be justified by the fact that Slade would have killed the other Titans had she not cooperated.
* ''KungFuPanda'' has the OldMaster Oogway warning that he had a premonition that the villainous Tai Lung will escape his prison. Master Shifu has a bird messenger sent to the prison to increase the security, when he gets there, he inadvertently provides the essential element (a feather, used as a lockpick) that puts Oogway's premonition in motion and Tai Lung escapes. [[LampshadeHanging Oogway even tries to warn Shifu of this possibility before the fact]].
** Arguably, Tai Lung's descent into darkness is itself something of a SelfFulfillingProphecy: if Oogway had not foreseen such darkness in him and denied him the Dragon Scroll, he would not have gone mad with desire for power and sought to steal it. And the snow leopard would never have believed himself destined for it in the first place if a) his [[WellDoneSonGuy father-figure]] Shifu hadn't filled his head with dreams about it and b) he hadn't been given a [[MeaningfulName name which rings the knell of destiny]].
*** Yet, [[spoiler:he actually GETS the scroll during the last fight, and Po goes as far as explaining to him the meaning of the scroll. Considering his violent and not so smart reaction after that]] Oogway may have had a point.
*** This editor more saw Tai Lung's reaction as a refusal to believe the truth, because it would mean he'd wasted twenty years of his life for nothing since he didn't need the scroll to prove he was a great warrior himself. To find out the goal you had, in his own words, broken bones to achieve, was actually unnecessary would make anyone pissed. Anger and darkness aren't the same thing. In any case, this just proves him to be stubborn and proud, not inherently evil or unworthy. And it'd be nice to think, [[NeverFoundTheBody if he survived the fight]], that Tai Lung would have calmed down afterward and realized the wisdom of what Po told him.
*** Considering how quickly he tends to go on murderous rampages when anyone dares to defy his belief that he's the greatest warrior in existence, ThisTroper feels that he'd only get worse with if he did take the lesson to heart.
**** Tai Lung himself claims his motives were entirely about pleasing his Sensei, in a twisted and aggressive way. Given Shifu's general lack of approval for bloody near anything, this is not improbable. Plus, Tai Lung never actually did kill anyone that we know of (though he could have, but chose not to) and had finally been broken down to the point where he was capable of nothing more than insults. So, even if a Heel Face Turn was improbable, he might change somehow.
* There's an old cartoon this troper used to watch, where the empress went after a pair of "twins" who were prophesied to be her downfall. The prophecy was that the people would turn against her when they saw how mean was to two innocent kids.
** ''The Twins of Destiny''?
*** Not the first troper, but if it is the show they were thinking of, then it is not an example, as the overthrowing was done with a lot of help from freedom fighters.
* The episode "The Fortune Teller" from ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'' focuses on a town that hangs on the every word of their fortune teller, Aunt Wu. Aunt Wu's predictions are almost always right, but what the villagers don't realize is that it's what they do after hearing her predictions that cause them to happen. Like the old man who was told that he would be wearing red shoes on the day he meets his true love... so he wears red shoes, every day.
** Another example from the same episode: Wu predicts that [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial the village will not be destroyed by the nearby volcano]]. While the villagers' minds are put at ease, the more skeptical protagonists go to check the volcano and find that it is about to erupt. They warn the villagers, who refuse to believe them, and are forced to divert the lava flow themselves. This does nothing to dissuade the village's faith in Wu; after all, she predicted the village wouldn't be destroyed, and it wasn't.
* ''DannyPhantom'' may have [[MindScrew been this]] if you read TheMovie [[TimeParadox a certain way]]. Specifically, Clockwork was tasked with preventing the BadFuture by [[spoiler: killing Danny]] before it could happen. However, the ghosts he sent back in time failed to do this, causing a series of events that cause it to happen anyway. [[spoiler: Well, almost happen anyway.]]
* ''JusticeLeagueUnlimited'''s Project Cadmus arc is all about averting a Superhero-Government war that happened in an AlternateUniverse. Lex Luthor and Brainiac take full advantage of the paranoia to trigger one.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Economics: Investors' fears of a downturn in the stock market are one of the most common reasons for a downturn in the stock market.
** Recessions in general work similarly, since consumer confidence is a major factor. Once the news media alerts the general population that there ''might'' be a recession coming, people start spending less money, and before you know it, we're in a recession. The longer and louder the media goes on about it, the worse it's likely to be, in part ''because'' of the warnings.
*** That's actually one of the main points of Keynesianism: since private individuals and companies will resort to excessive saving, thus making the recession worse by diminishing the market's activity, Keynesianist advocate that the State, bigger and way more resilient than any given company, act as a pro-active economical actor to counter the SelfFulfillingProphecy. Basically, Keynesianism is a SelfFulfillingProphecy used to counter ''Another'' SelfFulfillingProphecy. The fact that we are talking about RealLife economics is [[RealityIsUnrealistic the icing on the cake]]
* Some Jews and Christians donate money to organizations dedicated to building the third temple in order to usher in the foretold Messianic era. However, exactly what happens during the "Messianic era" depends on which side you ask. Will it be as foretold in Ezekiel, with God reinstating the Aaronic priesthood, the temple sacrifices, and taking the Jewish people under His proverbial wing again? Or will it be as in Revelation, with the golden cube-city of New Jerusalem descending from the heavens to bring God's eternal presence to Earth? Only time will tell...
* Banking Runs are considered to be often impacted by the perception of a bank being solvent. In reality most banks can't withstand all of their liquid money being hit at once. The FDIC knows this, and their list of banks most likely to fail is considered to be top secret since publishing the list will cause runs on those banks and cause them to fail. The most recent example is the Washington Mutual bank failure. Basically, it was going relatively okay until a bunch of people heard the bank might fail with the recent economic downturn. Then, in one day, 10% of its assets were withdrawn by panicky account holders, causing the bank to fail and get bought out by Chase. These are actually the TropeNamer. Robert K. Merton coined the phrase, and used a banking run as the canonical example.
** A recent real life example of a bank run was seen in the UK with Northern Rock. The bank quietly asked the Bank of England if they could have an extended overdraft (effectively), even though they didn't actually need it at that point. Word got out, leading to every branch in the country being besieged by savers desperate to take all their money out before the bank collapsed - which it wasn't in danger of doing until people panicked.
* An example from the UK in recent weeks: a two-day strike at an oil refinery in Scotland wouldn't have affected petrol distribution in the slightest as several days' reserves are stored off-site. However, as soon as news of the strike got out, queues appeared at petrol stations all over the country - even those areas which got their petrol from completely different refineries. This of course meant they sold out of petrol quickly, leading to local news stations running stories about petrol stations running short, which led to more people trying to fill up before the nationwide fuel drought struck their beloved motor...
* An earlier UK example: when there was a sugar shortage in the UK in the early 1970s, a presenter of BBC Radio 4's morning news-magazine programme ''Today'' joking said "at this rate there'll be a salt shortage next". Some [[strike: idiots]] people took him seriously, panicked and started stockpiling, and before the day was out there '''''was''''' a salt shortage.
* Currency Units of Exchange in general are semi-examples. Things work out pretty much okay if everyone accepts that the certain shiny rock or certain green piece of paper legitimately represents a store of value, and if people don't, then things may very well start going down hill. We'll leave it at that.
* The Induced Traffic theory. City fathers and developers argue for the building of new roads and highways and the expansion of current ones to both relieve current traffic congestion and prepare for traffic increasing in the future. In truth ([[YourMileageMayVary for some people]]), it's building the roads themselves that causes the increase in traffic by encouraging more and more people to drive (especially since many of the roads built are not pedestrian friendly).
**The biggest subversion of this may be San Francisco's Embarcadero freeway. The city fought endlessly against activists' demands to tear down the freeway, claiming city traffic would be a mess without it. When the freeway collapsed in the 1989 earthquake and traffic did not subsequently get worse, the city agreed to not rebuild it.
* If the media hawks about a new disease, people get more stressed, which weakens the immune system, which makes them more likely to get sick
* Relatedly, one of the most powerful factors in determining who wins an election (''especially'' the Presidential primary) is who the media (seeing a pattern here?) claims is "leading". This is why most of the attention is given to the earliest primary states, and why states (like Florida in '08, for instance) jockey for the earliest races.
* In 1973, Johnny Carson made a joke about a potential toilet paper shortage. This caused viewers to stockpile toilet paper, thus creating the very shortage he'd joked about.
* There's a potential urban legend floating around surrounding a major expansionary chain (usually McDonalds, Starbucks, or Wal-Mart) that does in-depth studies on urban markets to determine where the city will grow, so that they can buy the land while it's cheap and move in first. Then the city discovers the study and shifts its resources to this part of town, with the increase in attention and funding actually causing the predicted growth.
* [[{{Freiberg}} This Troper]] suspects that the 2012 "prophecy" will act like this. The end of the world is prophesized to happen on December 21, 2012, so terrorist groups may see that as an opportunity to cause chaos because people would be even more scared on that day than on other days. If that happens, people will really start to panic, causing even more chaos, and so on. Hopefully he is wrong with that prediction.
** The coming of the new millennium was supposed to be another end of the world as we know it scenario, although it was not hyped as much as 12/21/2012. We got through it once.
** Not hyped as much? The Millennium Bug alone was supposed to result in TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, never mind the various other Second Comings, alien invasions and apocalypses that were supposed to happen at the stroke of mindnight 01/01/2000.
** This was a subversion, or a "Self-Denying Prophecy" (or more mundanely, "Heeding the warning") - the hype caused a lot of work to be done on fixing the millions of problems before the Millenium turned over. That success is what lead to the disappointing failure of things going spectacularly wrong.
*** Not... really? Much of the hype about things going spectacularly wrong involved things that weren't fixed... because they couldn't be fixed, because they didn't ''need'' to be fixed. Including such things as cars with timing computers in them and frikkin' coffee makers with digital clocks in them.
[[/folder]]

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