Because Destiny Says So - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Destiny is unstoppable. Everyone has to give in... Give up—let life win."

—Gravitation

"'D,' It is written."

Slumdog Millionaire

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.

Sometimes The Hero identifies it only in retrospect and assures the other characters that this is not a Contrived Coincidence. May be used to persuade them to carry out The Hero's plan: it can not possibly be coincidence that he just received exactly the information he needs to carry it out, or that his new companion has exactly the skills required. Any sort of portent can be interpreted as a prophecy. Sole survivors of disasters are often regarded as marked out by destiny. Although Maybe Magic Maybe Mundane can come into play, with characters convinced that it was just coincidence to the end.

Sub Trope of Prophecies Are Always Right.

Compare with You Cant Fight Fate, Only The Worthy May Pass.

Contrast with Screw Destiny.

Examples:

Anime and 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 Pokemon 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) from outside threats, and Sailor Saturn is destined to bring her Silence Glaive down on worlds whose time has run out.
- It also seems to be the only reason Mamoru and Usagi are together, as they hate each other before their civilian identities are revealed to each other.
  - Only in the anime. Manga-wise the two where on friendly terms as their civilian selves and had apparently already started to like one another in their secret identities.
  - Also, in the Japanese version of the anime while the two do bicker almost every time they meet, their bickering does get less antagonistic and more banter-like in nature; it arguably starts to reach a level of Slap Slap Kiss Kiss prior to the reveal. And in the episode where Tuxedo Mask's identity is revealed, Usagi is clearly disturbed when the conversation she starts with Mamoru doesn't follow that pattern; that along with the shoulder wound makes her realize something's wrong.
- Subverted in the live-action series, when Mars decides to actively work against what was decided by their past lives.
xxxHolic: "There is no coincidence in the world. What is there is 'hitsuzen'."
- For those who don't speak Japanese "hitsuzen" refers to "inevitable fate" or "what is determined".
The entire Yu-Gi-Oh franchise revolves around this trope and Screw Destiny. Depending on which series you're watching and even which season, the heroes may be trying to fulfil their destinies, or trying to change them.
- Two characters particularly offensive are Yami Yugi in the original series, and Sartorius in GX. Watch the English dub of the second season and keep track of how many times Yami mentions "I will defeat Marik, it is my destiny". Sartorius' deck is based on Tarot cards with supposedly random effects, but he claims Destiny Says So, and thus their effects are already predetermined and he knows exactly how they'll turn out.
Fuma Monou in X kills his beloved sister, turns against his best friend and tries to eradicate humankind, simply because destiny says so.
Boingo's Stand Thoth, of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, takes the form of a comic book, and tells the immediate future, and it will happen, no matter what, as proven by what becomes of Oingo and Hol Horse.
- The Big Bad of part 6, Enrico Pucci, decides that heaven is a world where everybody knows their own destiny...and sets out to make it that way.
Rah Xephon subverts this. The prophecy is only revealed in the antepenultimate episode, and its origin is far from supernatural. The protagonist also goes out of his way to state that he's doing what he's doing because he wants to, not because destiny says he must.
Glass Fleet characters seem to rely far too much on Destiny, with a prophecy being one of the central aspects to the series. However, characters don't always interpret the words correctly...

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.
- Although, Delerium escapes this trope by being the incarnation of insanity.
  - Do you know why I stopped being Delight, my brother? I do. There are things not in your book. There are paths outside this garden. You would do well to remember that. - Delirum to Destiny in Brief Lives

Film

Twelve Monkeys: The past is immutable. Everything the characters do to try to change the past leads to ensuring events unfold just as they did.
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.
Slumdog Millionaire concludes that "It is written" explains why Jamal manages to survive, win the quiz game, and get the girl, although some viewers may suspect that it's all a Contrived Coincidence.
In a cut scene from Star Trek, future Spock says this is why Kirk and company are all serving together on the Enterprise despite meddling villains from the future. The destiny aspect remains implied in the final cut of the film.

Literature

In Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40000 novels:
- In The Brothers of the Snake, the Space Marine squad Damocles disgraced itself in its leader's eyes, confessing to breaking rules; he refused to let them go on a certain undertaking. Somewhat thereafter, the Chapter Master insists on their going on the rescue mission for that undertaking. He tells the leader that first, he has dreamed of it and second, he thinks the squad's disgrace was Fate's way of ensuring that they would be kept off the mission itself, so as to be available for the rescue.
- Gaunt's Ghosts has this with the involvement of the Ghosts in general, and Gaunt and Milo in particular, in the reincarnation of Saint Sabbat.
In Richard Adams' novel Watership Down, the story of El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé involved the rabbit hero trying to bargain with the Black Rabbit, to exchange his life for his people. However, the Black Rabbit refuses saying that there is no bargain; what is is what must be. (This suffers Adaptation Decay in the animated film, in which Hazel makes a similar attempt to bargain with the sun god Frith and receives the same answer.)
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.
- Center seems to particularly enjoy (as much as an emotionless AI can) showing the protagonist the Bad Ends that could result if things go wrong. Since the tech level is mid-19th century and politics is very much a Byzantine blood sport, they can go very wrong indeed...
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.
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 Teresa Edgerton's The Queen's Necklace, Rath recounts how the religious group who raised him thought him a miracle: a Maglore appearing centuries after (they believe) the Maglore had been wiped out. Obviously, he had been transported through time for a purpose. Although he later learned that they were wrong about the wiping out, he had survived several things that should have killed him as a child, and he thinks it may have been his destiny that saved him.
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.
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 largish 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.
- This is also a literal case of Because Destiny Says So when the Chosen One, not knowing what to do next, consults the prophecies written about himself in a deliberate effort to fulfill them.
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.
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.
- This is also the logic with which Anathema lives her life, until Newt convinces her to live her own life instead of sticking to her ancestor's prophecies. Though this part may also be playing it straight,as knowing Agnes Nutter, she might have predicted this too.
In Graham Mc Neill's Warhammer 40000 Ultramarines novel Dead Sky Black Sun, when Uriel meets Colonel Leonid, who can tell him what is in the Chaos fortress, Uriel tells him that it was not chance that brought him to meet Leonid.
- Later, Leonid speculates that they recovered a woman from a daemon's control in order that he might not die alone, since she comes from his regiment.
In Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, various witches claim that most of what Lyra does is destiny (although just because it's destiny doesn't mean it has to happen).
Because Destiny Says So is a factor in the Sign of Seven trilogy by Nora Roberts. After their friends have gotten involved in relationships with each other. Gage and Cybil are actually pretty annoyed at the idea that they should get romantic because destiny said to. (They do anyway.)
From Harry Potter and the 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 in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince 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.
In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel The Flight of the Eisenstein, the housecarl Kaleb thinks his master chosen by the God-Emperor and so Kaleb's carrying out his wishes is part of the Emperor's work. He sacrifices his life to preserve his master for that work.
In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 Blood Angels novels Deus Encarmine and Deus Sanguinius, both Arkio and Rafen foresee they are destined to a Cain And Abel fight, and one would die. When Inquisitor Stele plays on Rafen's mind to induce Driven To Suicide, Rafen's random flight brings him to a make-shift mediation chamber that he had made earlier. It might have been the Emperor guiding him, it might have been chance, it might have been muscle memory; on the other hand, he breaks free of Stele's influence and receives a vision.
- At the end of Red Fury, Seth declares that the events of the novel had been sent by the Emperor to test the Blood Angels and to remind the other Chapters from Sanguinius's gene-seed that they were not cousins but brothers.
In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 novel Faith & Fire, when Verity is the sole survivor of a transport, she is told that the Emperor has plans for her.
In Nick Kyme's Salamanders novel Salamander, an artifact calls Dak'ir toward it — so powerfully that he doesn't even notice that he ransacks crates, looking for it, or that he had found it. He confides in another brother later, who agrees that it looks as if he were meant to find it.
- Later, a strange eruption from the planet Nocturne is regarded as a portent of ill fortune.
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.
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.
Taken really literally in Left Behind. There doesn't have to be logic behind some of the things people will do. They do it because it's in the prophecy.
How much of Dune and its sequels are The Chosen One acting out a preordained destiny, and how much is actually The Messiah choosing his own destiny and then being forced to live it out unto the bitter end? Frank Herbert would like you to think about it.

Live Action TV

In Babylon 5, the (highly accurate) prophecies of Valen are a central pillar of Minbari culture for a thousand years. Unlike 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 Babylon 5 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 Kings, it's more like "Because God says so." And He's not always nice about it.
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.
In Merlin, Merlin is told by the last dragon that he is fated to protect Arthur until he can grow up, become king and have his own great destiny, so it's kind of recursive.
Supernatural: From the beginning, a very evil (albeit vague) destiny was hinted at for Sam Winchester. By the fourth season, it was insinuated that Dean also had some sort of destiny: “The righteous man who begins it… is the only one who can finish it,” “It” being the Apocalypse, which Dean inadvertently started when he tortured souls while in Hell. By the beginning of the fifth season after Sam unknowingly releases Lucifer from Hell, the brother’s shared destiny is revealed: they were born to finish the battle between the Archangel Michael and his brother Lucifer, started in Heaven eons ago, when Michael banished Lucifer to Hell. Sam is Lucifer’s vessel, and Dean is Michael’s. As the Archangel Gabriel says in one episode: “As it was in Heaven, so shall it be below.”
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..."

Tabletop Games

It's essentially the job of the Sidereal Exalted to ensure this. Complicating matters are the facts that a) Fate is designed by committee, with all the attendant foibles, b) it can be defied by sufficiently powerful beings or simply through Heroic Willpower, and c) certain beings exist outside of Fate entirely, and tend to function as the Spanner In The Works whenever they come into contact with anyone or anything that doesn't share their immunity.

Theater

Prometheus's accounts to Io in Prometheus Bound: both her miserable wanderings, and that her descendant will free him.

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.
Treasure Of The Rudra, The Danan Prophecies. If you play as Sion you will know what they are in Ramylith's Castle late in the Sky Island portion of his scenario.
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.
- This isn't really a case of Destiny Says So. This is more of a case of inheriting the position and everyone uses the word Destiny as an excuse.
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.
- On the other hand, this plays a giant role in Tales Of The Abyss, with the existence of the Score, a telling of fate lasting thousands of years, and whether or not the heroes decide to fight it or go along with it.
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.
- Snake! You can't do that! You'll create a time paradox!"
Maria from Silent Hill 2, who chooses to follow her fate, although she was told that James is a "bad man".
Used in an interesting fashion in the Baldur's Gate series-the prophecies of Alaundo, which you discover towards the end of the first game, seem to lay out a specific path for the protagonist and his/her siblings, which indeed appears to be true throughout the first and second games-and in Throne of Bhaal, even the bad guys are still operating from the prophecies and what they mean. The twist comes late in Throne of Bhaal, when you find out that the prophecies aren't a foretelling of what you will do-they're warning of what will happen if you fail, and that the Big Bad is using the prophecies to manipulate everyone, and has no intention of following them.
The meaning behind the word "Survivor" in the title of Devil Survivor is a combination of this and Screw Destiny—the main characters are told the major events of every day and the exact date of their (and most other peoples') deaths, and the goal of each day is to find a way to get around it.
This is pretty much the driving force of any The Legend of Zelda game. It's destiny that if you are a blond-haired boy who wears a green tunic at any point in his lifetime, you are morally/contractually bound to save the princess.
- It is written: Only Link can defeat Ganon.
Subverted in Quest For Glory. The Muggles of Spielberg believe there's a prophecy concerning a hero who will restore the missing royal children and drive off the witch Baba Yaga, breaking her curse on the valley. Erasmus explains that the "prophecy" is actually just a counter-curse - put simply, a list of instructions on how to break the curse.

Web Original

In the Whateley Universe, Bladedancer seems to be stuck with this in her role as Handmaid of the Tao. The most glaring example to date may be the incident where she was forced to kill an innocent man 'because the Tao required it'. Though the mentor telling her so wasn't necessarily helping her own case by afterwards revealing that she'd been flat-out lying about the actual reason why...

Western Animation

In Teen Titans, Raven is doomed to a "because destiny says so" scenario concerning the apocalypse.
- Raven's case is a bit strange, because if she'd just sat down and thought about it for a second, she'd have realized that the prophecy couldn't come true unless she willingly allowed it.
  - To be fair to the Gal, she was somewhat willing to give Screw Destiny a chance until it was apparent that further resistance would get the other Titans killed.
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.
- The show's attitude to destiny can be summed up nicely by Iroh's line: "Destiny is a funny thing, Prince Zuko. It never happens the way you expect."