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"Destiny is unstoppable. Everyone has to give in... Give up—let life win."
"The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills."
Heroes find that they are fated to accomplish some task or face some overwhelming foe. Sometimes this is a prophecy, sometimes it's predestination or karma left over from a previous life, and sometimes it's because someone went back in time and told what he knew.
Whatever the mechanism, the prediction can become a central issue for the hero, either as a goal to pursue or a fate to dodge, and can drive much of a storyline.
Characters based on the Heroic Archetype are often saddled with issues of destiny, family, and fate. See The Chosen One. Because Destiny Says So is a common excuse for why The Chosen One is the only one allowed to save the world, or what have you.
If it's a recurring thing, it's Generation Xerox asserting itself through the ages.
Compare with You Cant Fight Fate. Contrast with Screw Destiny.
Examples:
Comic Books
- In Sandman, even Destiny the character has no free will. He calls a certain fateful meeting of the Endless because his Book told him he was going to.
Live Action TV
- In Babylon 5, the (highly accurate) prophecies of Valen are a central pillar of Minbari culture for a thousand years. Unlike on many shows, however, there is a reason for the accuracy of Valen's prophecies... Other characters (Lady Ladira, Elric the Technomage) were also prophetic, mostly in regard to the future of Londo Mollari. (Londo himself had prophetic dreams on many occasions.) In fact, the use of prophecy in B5 is so extensive that there's an entire Web page
 detailing it. As with all good prophecies, however, when the events foretold eventually come to pass, they rarely happen in the expected or obvious context.
- In the third season of Lost, Desmond regularly sees flashes of the future, always seeing Charlie die. He saves him a couple times, but You Cant Fight Fate and Charlie dies in the season finale.
- Sam from Supernatural suffers from a very evil (and very vague) destiny. Wangst ensues.
- Unsurprisingly in a miniseries based on fairy tales, in The Tenth Kingdom it is apparently Virginia's destiny to stop the Evil Queen, save all the monarchs of the Kingdoms, and restore Prince Wendell to his rightful throne. Granted, seeing as the Evil Queen is her long-lost mother, this might be seen as her responsibility, a personal problem she must clean up after. But when the Gypsy Queen vaguely intones that she has "a destiny that stretches way back in time", and Snow White tells her that Wendell "needs you to save his kingdom, we all do," you get the feeling there's something rather arbitrary about all this. The fairy godmother does do a very good (if slightly Anvilicious) job of comparing her life to Virginia's to explain why she "found the right person." But when, after killing her mother in self-defense with the poison comb, Wolf tells her it was not her fault, even Virginia seems to buy into it by saying the fateful words: "It was my destiny..."
Anime/Manga
- Fuu, Umi and Hikaru of Magic Knight Rayearth must fulfill an ancient prophecy — but what they think they have to do and what they actually must do are two very, very different things.
- Honoka and Nagisa of Futari Wa Pretty Cure are fated to become Magical Girls, according to their mascots.
- A prophecy twist example: "The world will turn to ash"... which turns out to refer to Ash Ketchum in one of the {{Pokémon}} films.
- This is more a case of Because 4Kids Says So, since in the original version, Ash is named Satoshi, whose name has nothing to do with the prophecy. The prophecy is actually pretty bleak, prompting Satoshi to say "Screw Destiny!"
- It was a decent turn of phrase, though.
- Himemiya Chikane and Kurusegawa Himeko in Kannazuki no Miko are the reincarnations of priestesses who fought Orochi and are destined to do so again.
- Borderline in Neon Genesis Evangelion. The Secret Dead Sea Scrolls possessed by the mysterious Seele organization supposedly predict the arrival of attacking Angels, although these predictions seem useless for all practical purposes.
- Used extensively in Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon is fated to find the Moon Princess and then be the Moon Princess once she discovers her true identity, the Inner Senshi are fated to protect the Moon Princess, the Outer Senshi (minus Saturn) are fated to protect the Moon Kingdom (and by extension Earth, I guess) from outside threats, and Sailor Saturn is destined to bring her Silence Glaive down on worlds whose time has run out. Oh, and then there's Sailor Pluto with that whole guardian of the Time Gate thing, but that's only when she's not hangin' with the rest of the cast. Or something.
- Partially subverted in the live action series, when Mars decides to actively work against what was decided by their past lives.
- "There is no coincidence in the world. What IS there is "hitsuzen"."
- Fuma Monou in X kills his beloved sister, turns against his best friend and tries to eradicate humankind, simply because destiny says so. Also an example for I Am Not Making This Up.
Western Animation
- In Teen Titans, Raven is doomed to a "because destiny says so" scenario concerning the apocalypse.
- Another Cartoon Network Superhero team series, Justice League Unlimited, used a similar prophecy twist to the Pokemon example, in an episode where Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Supergirl are abducted to the 31st century by the Legion of Super-Heroes. The Legion is concerned, because all their records indicate that Supergirl won't return from the future, which we are led to believe means she's going to die. Indeed, she does have a Disney Death, but returns in the very next scene... but then decides to stay in the future, as she had fallen for Legionnaire Brainiac 5. (This episode was originally designed as a Poorly Disguised Pilot for the The Legion Of Super Heroes animated series; however, they decided to go for a different, non-DCAU production crew, and a different setup.)
- Zuko, from Avatar The Last Airbender, eats, breathes, and sleeps this trope. Only his interpretation of his destiny switches twice every season.
Film
- A similarly executed example is from Sphere: One character notes the logging of a certain event in a future spaceship (falling down a black hole) as unexplained. He believes that this means that he and his colleagues will die down there, or else the event would be known in advance. In the event, they don't, but they end up choosing to use the Sphere's power to erase their memories of what happened.
- The Mummy Returns resorts to this to explain several coincidences in the movie. The most blatant is the artifact the heroes carry through the entire movie despite the fact that they have no clue what the Mac Guffin is for; naturally, it turns out to be completely necessary at the end. So why do they even have it? Fate, of course.
Video Games
- Knuckles from the Sonic The Hedgehog series is fated to spend the rest of his life on Angel Island, guarding the immensely powerful Master Emerald (although, considering the number of times it's been stolen or broken to pieces by a baddie or even himself, Knux is a pretty bad guardian). Whether he does this solely out of choice or whether someone told him to be the guardian isn't clear.
- Either that, or he subconsciously wants to be be done with fate.
- In the dating sim/RPG Ar Tonelico, one of the potential love interests has to spend her entire life singing in a special room to prevent the Sealed Evil In A Can from waking up, Because Destiny Says So. Her conflict between commitment to fulfill her duty and desire to avoid this fate and be free comes to the forefront many times if you pursue her.
- Subverted, ironically enough, in Tales Of Destiny. The title is actually misleading: One of the legendary Swordians tells the main character he's the Chosen One, but later on it's revealed that the Swordian was just telling him that so he'd play Hero.
- Played with in Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: The Dark King informs you at the end that he made up the prophecy foretelling his defeat. When you beat him, your Trickster Mentor reveals he's the Crystal of Light - implying that he arranged things so that you'd fulfill the prophecy, true or not.
- This trope is the entire premise of the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time trilogy, although at the same time frequently and ruthlessly subverted by the Dagger of Time.
- Ironically, the combination of Because Destiny Says So and You Cant Fight Fate is what drives the second and third games, wherein the Prince is hunted in an attempt to remove him from time for screwing with, er, time, and the third game wherein everything he prevented in the first game comes to pass anyway because of what he did in the second game. In the end, he only escapes his rightfully deserved punishment because he accepts that he's not meant to change the past. Which, again, ironically, he then does anyway.
- Played with in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, where Snake, when you call Sigint while equipping the cardboard box, displays such a fondness for it that he claims that it was his DESTINY to be in the box.
Literature
- Destiny is very much the driving force in Virgil's Aeneid. The gods repeatedly tell Aeneas, as well as one another, that the Trojan refugee has a destiny to fulfill; and at the point when Aeneas finds himself comfortable & happy, pretty much playing house with Dido in Carthage, the gods get impatient and interfere, reminding Aeneas of his duty to keep sailing until he reaches Italy so he can get around to founding what will become the Roman empire. Definitely Older Than Feudalism.
- It's probably easier to count the Redwall books not hung on this trope. There's even a Prophecy Twist: the beginning of The Bellmaker has the prophecy "Five will ride the Roaringburn, but only four will e'er return"; five leave Redwall, but Joseph stays behind to help the country they save rebuild itself.
- In The Dark Tower, Ka is the driving force between all of the main characters' actions. The particularly creepy tarot scene sums up Ka's position. In addition, in the twist ending Ka forces Roland to begin his life again. It's mentioned that this isn't the first time it's happened.
- Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time novels take this trope and turn it up to eleven. Not only must the Prophecies of the Dragon (which apparently run on long enough to fill a largeish book) be fulfilled, but various characters are either having prophetic dreams, seeing prophetic visions, or travelling through magical gates to get prophetic answers, all of which inevitably come true. It's very nearly reached the point where major characters can fulfill a half dozen ancient prophecies without even meaning to just by having breakfast.
- From Order Of The Phoenix onward, the Harry Potter books were all about the prophecy "...neither can live while the other survives." Technically, all of the books (or at least Voldemort's motivations) were about that, but until OOTP, neither Harry nor the reader knew it.
- Partially subverted when Harry realizes that he could choose, at some point, to avoid the fight, but that he wants to be the one to take down Voldemort for what he did, Prophecy or not Prophecy.
- Also, it may be that Destiny Knows where you Live, as note how everyone Harry Potter loves seems to have big target signs on them...
- To be honest, the reader should have guessed fairly early on in the first book what Harry's destiny was. The book just hadn't pointed it out in big sparkly letters for them.
- David Eddings's Belgariad enjoys this trope throughout the series - Destiny quite literally says so, and takes the time to inform its main characters of what they're supposed to be doing any time they lose track.
- Also Lampshaded in the standalone Eddings novel The Redemption Of Althalus. One of the female leads sarcastically comments to one of the male leads upon hearing a prophecy: 'Gives you a nice, warm sense of your own importance, doesn't it? Save the world, boy! Save! Save!'.
- In Watership Down, during the siege of Hazel's warren by Efrafa, the rabbit hero tries to bargain with his god, Frith, to exchange his life for his people. However, the god refuses saying that there is no bargain, fate will take its course regardless. Fortunately, Hazel's fate turns out to be leading his warren to victory while he himself has a miraculous rescue from certain death and is returned home by a friendly human girl.
- The Tralfamadorians, an imaginary alien species from Slaughterhouse-Five take this to ridiculous extremes. They literally experience the entirety of history at once, and don't understand the concept of free will. They know they're going to destroy the universe doing pilot testing but don't try to stop it. Of course, to them, if something is ever alive, they can infinitely look at when it was, so death isn't a big deal to them.
- In David Drake and S.M. Stirling's The General series the AI supercomputer Center's power to extrapolate future events from data is indistinguishable from prophecy - even if Center does include numerical odds.
- Two of the main characters in Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens possess a book of highly accurate (if not always understandable) prophecies from Agnes Nutter, witch. The Because Destiny Says So reaches such a point that, toward the end of the book, these two characters realize correctly that they can pretty much select any prophecy at random and it will be exactly the one they need at that time.
Real Life (Kinda)
- A real life example, some forms of the philosophy of fatalism basically state that it's useless to even attempt to go against the tide, or they suggest that fate should just be accepted. The Japanese have a phrase, "Shikata ga nai", which when translated means basically "it can't be helped", and is applied in an almost 'that's life' kind of way when it comes to misfortune. Franz Kafka also displayed very fatalistic tendencies in his works. In his nightmarish visions, well...you can't really stop it from happening, and there's little point in resisting. That's fate for you.
- Or more commonly "Sho ga nai".
- Most nations, at some point or another in their growth, feel that they understand destiny and destiny wants them to expand; America's expansion into the West being most frank in saying "Because Destiny Said So". Other nations blamed respective gods. Perhaps the scientifically advanced empires of the future will blame Darwinism?
- You mean to say that a nation will promote the idea that they deserve to expand because their citizens somehow possesses superior traits to other people? You know, there was a certain someone who thought that some people were superior to others...
- yay a nazi reference. Such thoughts were until rather recently (in a historical sense) popular among most of the Colonial Powers. "Why did the British manage to colonise Australia? Because they were better, more advanced and deserved to" and such things to that tone.
- Part of the Nazi idea, was that the country required the fertile surrounding lands in order to grow and evolve. Much like a growing child eventually needs a bed instead of a cradle.
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