Where The Chosen One is the ultimate victim of Because Destiny Says So, the Unchosen One is the ultimate perpetrator of Screw Destiny. This is the hero or heroine who stands up, not because of a prophecy, but because they feel the need or desire to stop the Big Bad (sometimes doing so in spite of a prophecy). The Unchosen One is, in essence, a Chosen One who Chooses themselves.
The reasons for this can vary. Perhaps the Chosen One Missed the Call, or was killed or incapacitated by a Destiny Screwing villain. Or, in a twist, the Chosen One is the villain and the Unchosen One decides to stop them. If all the prophecies say evil will triumph, the Unchosen One's reply would be "screw that." It could also be nothing more than a simple chance encounter allowing them to intercept the Call to Adventure in place of the real Chosen One. Every so often, the Unchosen is also a Chosen One who's decided to save the world of their own will, regardless of Fate.
Of course, because they aren'tThe Chosen One, things won't be laid out on a silver platter like a proper Chosen Hero often gets. They'll more often have to earn their place as The Hero. If there is a being or force doing the Choosing, they'll eventually have to acknowledge the Hero even if he wasn't the Chosen One. They may also have to deal with the possibility that The Chosen Onewill get the creditfor all of their hard work.
An Unchosen One has high odds of being a Heroic Wannabe, a Determinator, or any other hero type that is likely to jump at the call. There's also the possibility of the Unchosen One being a Badass Unintentional, someone who actually doesn't want to save the world but may be the only one in a position to do so. A possible fate for those who Missed the Call.
Some writers can't escape from this frame of thinking, though, and they occasionally write in that the character really was the Chosen One after all.
Compare Anti Anti Christ where someone is the Dark Messiah for the bad guys and tells them to take a hike.
Flame of Recca - Recca is the cursed one destined to end the Hokage clan and Kurei was meant to be the Hokage clan leader.
Subverted. Reccz really did end the clan. He defeated their final remaining enemy in the modern day and thus ended the need for the Hokage clan to exist. The spirits of the former dragon clan leaders could finally rest in peace thanks to him "ending the clan."
Death Note, Light Yagami: "The world is rotting and those who are making it rot deserve to die. Somebody's got to do it because the world can't go on like this. And if somebody's got to do it, why not me? In fact, I'm the only one who can..."
Also explicitly stated by Ryuk, when Light asks him why Ryuk chose him.
Light:Why did you choose me?
Ryuk:I didn't choose you. The notebook just happened to fall around here and you just happened to pick it up.
Well, halfway. Drosselmeyer did personally select her for the part of Princess Tutu. She just decided what to do with it.
Much of the cast of Princess Tutu are an interesting example of this: Drosselmeyer picks specific roles for them, but they eventually grow strong enough to pick different roles. Duck, Fakir, and Kraehe are perhaps the best examples.
Basara, the main character is the twin sister of the nominal Chosen One everyone has their hopes on. When he dies still young, she crossdresses to take his place.
Actually it's rather a subversion, as Sarasa was always the one the prophecy revered to and her brother was proclaimed The Chosen One to protect her.
Simon from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is a rather good example. He was just a kid with the right stuff who was lucky enough to stumble across the right mecha at the right time.
In Dragon Ball Son Goku is a fine example. For numerous reasons, such as being the son of a low class warrior, being labeled as such himself, but moving on to become one of Earth's finest heroes (Despite being sent there to destroy it).
Averted with his father, who thought he could pull this off after being able to see visions of the future, he failed.
Same aversion goes for Vegeta, the prince of the Saiyans from Dragon Ball Z.
Well, besides Ryo, who was technically a chosen child in the Adventure Universe
were not specifically chosen to save the Digital World. They're just kids with Digimon, and for the bulk of the series, it's not clear that they even have anything to save. Digimon Frontier returned to a Chosen Children model, but Digimon Savers and Hunters also had unchosen leads. Digimon Xros Wars falls somewhere in the grey area.*
Taiki and the others were chosen , but by "ordinary" (albeit powerful) Digimon, rather than the divine Digimon of Adventure and Frontier.
A group of four Unchosen Children appeared in the last stretch of Frontier, though a common fan theory is that they would have been the ones to wield to the Earth, Wood, Water, and Steel Spirits had Cherubimon not been corrupted and given them to a quartet of evil Digimon.
As pointed out in the third season, it was only through sheer happenstance that Nanoha Takamachi encountered a being who knew about the existence of magic and that she happened to have great magical potential. It was she who chose to involve herself in an inter-dimensional case that would later allow her to meet and befriend a troubled Dark Magical Girl,and later be instrumental in stopping a world destroying tome. If not for that one incident, she would have lived a normal, carefree life.
Amuro Ray in Mobile Suit Gundam, as a civilian, is not supposed to interfere with the warfare in Side 7, but he decides to get on the titular Gundam to kick Zeon's asses. As the story progresses, he goes on maturing as a soldier with his own willpower and the support from the White Base crew and ultimately turns the tide of the war, stopping the fated destruction of Earth by Zeon.
Comic Books
In every prophecy that describes him, Hellboy is the bringer of the Apocalypse. However, he chooses to fight for the good guys and routinely save the world, once responding to a lecture on his "true" destiny with an actual "Screw you!"
Marvel Comics' Daimon Hellstrom aka Son Of Satan not only rejected his destiny as the Antichrist, not only worked as a superhero, but was actually ordained as a Christian priest!
Sephie of Meridian. The Sigil was given to her father, who between the stress of receiving the Sigil and being poisoned by his brother, had a heart attack and died, passing the mark and its power on to her.
The Path has another example of "inheriting the Sigil from a dead relative", in this case Obo-san's samurai brother who was killed in battle with one of the First.
X-Men foe Juggernaut, a.k.a. Cain Marko, was not Cyttorak's first choice of being the avatar of his evil power. Xavier was the one Cyttorak wanted. Cyttorak didn't mind though, since Cain was a natural sociopath who didn't need much encouragement to wreck havoc with Cyttorak's power. It's only when Cain had a brief Heel Face Turn that Cyttorak started to regret the situation.
Film
While The Matrix plays The Chosen One fairly straight, Reloaded and Revolutions reveal the prophecy was a lie. Thus, when Neo continues to fight on against the Machines he has made himself an Unchosen One.
The script/art book reveals that originally Neo is the sixth Chosen One by Morpheus, whose poor track record is part of the reason why Cypher wants back into the Matrix.
An alternate interpretation suggests that The Matrixsubverts this one, zig zagging the entire messianic concept: The prophecy was intended by the Architect to be an Evil Plan aimed at a continued recycling of the Matrix as a means of keeping the system in place. He is Out-Gambitted by the Oracle, however, who actually intended for Neo to evolve slightly with each rebooting until he'd eventually reject the Architect's offer to reboot the system and force the machines to reach a settlement with Zion that she believed was necessary for the Machines to evolve. This is possible because Neo was the only one who could beat Smith, who was otherwise poised to bring down the entire machine network (whew!). One hell of a Chessmaster, that Oracle.
In Willow, the then-infant princess Elora Danan is prophesied to destroy the evil queen Bavmorda. However, it is Willow and others striving to protect the princess who stop her. On the other hand, novels that continue the story after the movie play The Chosen One straight, as Bavmorda returns and now-grown Elora Danan must fulfill her original destiny.
Bavmorda isn't the Big Bad of the series, time traveling alternate future Elora is.
Elora did indirectly fulfill the prophecy at the end of Willow: it was because of Elora that Bavmorda accidentally killed/exiled herself. Elora was the cause of the incident.
In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze the Turtles are disappointed when Professor Perry reveals that the formation of the ooze that mutated them and the accident that led to the canister finding its way into the sewer was simply one large accident.
No Turtle was more disappointed than Donatello. He believes there's got to be more to the accident.
For Star Wars, Luke Skywalker is very much The Unchosen One. He had to work hard to get what he had. There is also the fact that he went up against his father Anakin Skywalker, also known as Darth Vader and The Chosen One. Anakin was lauded as The Chosen One ever since he was a child, and experienced first-hand both the positives and negatives of the Jedi Order. Darth Sidious (Palpatine) targeted Anakin for exactly this reason, amplifying the negatives and downplaying the positives until the Jedi's own Chosen One became the Sith's greatest weapon. Luke, on the other hand, experienced the exact opposite and became a hero because of it.
Seeing Luke tortured led Vader to Heel Face Turn and kill the Emperor, helping bring peace to the galaxy. Thus, fulfilling the prophecy of the "one who will bring balance to the Force", all thanks to Luke.
Literature
The Trope Namer is China Mieville's Un Lun Dun, in which the heroine Deeba was listed in the Book of Prophecy as the "Funny Sidekick" to Zanna, the real Chosen One. When Zanna is injured and sent home, Deeba returns to unite UnLondon against the Smog and gets named The Unchosen One by UnLondon's residents.
The odd thing about this is that the Book always turned out to be right about the things it claimed were wrong. It later realises this, and is pleased.
Subverted in Sir Apropos Of Nothing, where Apropos thinks he is this and hijacks the call, only to find... he was the Chosen One after all. It's complicated.
Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy just loves to play with this trope. Kelsier, Vin, and Elend were just the people around who were able to do the job. And, of course, were helped by the Big Bad. In fact, just about every good guy in the trilogy could be said to be an Unchosen One with the exception of Sazed.
Percy Jackson himself is in fact not the hero he had heard in the prophecy in Percy Jackson. Instead, the prophecy was referring to Luke who would sacrifice himself to destroy Kronos.
However, it is debatable since Percy does make the decision to trust Luke to do the deed. So whilst Luke is the hero, the prophecy still refers to Percy.
Taran, the protagonist of the Chronicles of Prydain becomes involved in a war for control of his homeland because he went chasing after a runaway pig and came face to face with the series' resident Supporting Leader, Prince Gwydion. He slowly works his way up from being a Tag Along Kid to a Bad Ass Normal warrior and the equivalent of a general and eventually the High King of Prydain because he heeds the advice of his mentors and refuses to give up on causes he believes in.
In I Shall Wear Midnight Tiffany is told that apparently the only thing she was born with was a natural gift for making cheese. Seeing old Mrs. Snapperly cast out of her home and allowed to freeze and starve to death by people who thought she was a witch made Tiffany determined to make sure it never happened again — what better way to do that than by becoming a real one?
I said you weren't born with a talent for witchcraft: it didn't come easily; you worked hard at it because you wanted it. You forced the world to give it to you, no matter the price, and the price is and will always be, high. [ ... ] People say you don't find witchcraft; witchcraft finds you. But you've found it, even if at the time you didn't know what it was you were finding, and you grabbed it by its scrawny neck and made it work for you.
This seems like something of a Retcon, considering that A Hat Full of Sky and The Wee Free Men both implied that Tiffany inherited the post and powers of witchcraft directly from her Granny Aching.
Arguable, as witchcraft is never seen to be hereditary. The books imply that Granny Aching was a witch but that's about it. Granny Aching seems to be a mentor of sorts to Tiffany, but has never taught Tiffany anything having to do with witchcraft. However, she taught her how to raise sheep, which is arguably more important
Making Harry into an Unchosen One is a large part of the plot of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Once educated about the source of Voldemort's near-immortality, Dumbledore makes a point of making Harry realize that the Prophecy doesn't need to be fulfilled, that only Voldemort's insistence on it makes it worth anything, and Harry is free to choose his path. Harry, thinking about all that Voldemort had done by that time, chooses to fight.
Neville also applies - though he was one of two possible candidates, he'd never heard the prophecy, nor was he marked as Voldemort's equal, but he still manages to turn Dumbledore's Army into a pretty badass rebellion force, openly defy Voldemort even when it appeared all hope was lost, and kill the snake to thus render Voldemort mortal.
In the BIONICLEAdventures books, this is Subverted. All this time, the Toa Metru believed they were the chosen Matoran of Metru Nui, hence why the former Toa, Lhikan, had arranged for their transformation into Toa. Then, they found evidence that six other Matoran were meant to take on the role, and their becoming Toa was only due to Makuta's tampering with Lhikan's mind. This chimed with their initial failings as Toa heroes. In reality, Mata Nui anticipated Makuta's trickery, so he re-arranged the stars over Metru Nui, thereby changing the prophecies about who should become Toa. Thus, when Makuta tried to foretell these prophecies, and then attempted to prevent their fulfillment, he deliberately planted the names of the most unlikely Toa candidates into Lhikan's brain. That is to say, the names of those exact Matoran that were supposed to become Toa.
Kavi and Jiaan both from the Farsala Trilogy operate under the name Sorahb, who is supposed to be reborn in a time of need acording to their country's legend. There is no Sorahb reborn, and if the legend they create is anything to go by, there probably never was an original.
He was meant to receive the costume; his alien mentor just happened to have other possible replacements, just in case.
And the only reason he was a klutz who couldn't Shot Web was that he lost the instructions, which is only evidence that he drops things.
Chuck, as of the end of Season 2, has graduated to actively being the Not-Chosen One after being The Woobie since the beginning.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Potentials, sort of... they don't have much choice on whether or not they'll join Buffy in the fight against The First for much of season 7, because if they don't, they'll probably end up dead... but in the series finale Buffy gives them a choice - become real Slayers and fight The First and his army, or not. They choose the first option.
Also Spike, when he chose himself to fulfill the destiny that had seemingly been planned for Angel.
The BtVS RPG includes the "Slayer Poseur" template, who is not even a Potential Slayer, but fights vampires anyway.
Played straight however with Xander, who despite being a somewhat nerdish guy who's vastly outclassed constantly gets swept into Buffy's larger than life Monster of the Week/Apocalypse of the Year situations, and continues to help her to the best of his abilities. At one point in the third season he even passes on the opportunity to become a supernatural being(a zombie), realizing the group needs someone normal(keep in mind at this point most of his friends have displayed some sort of superhuman ability or are themselves supernatural beings). Plus is not like he is always useless, striking one of the most solid hits against Glory, the Big Bad of the fifth season, by attacking her with a construction wrecking ball. This even gets lampshaded in the seventh season, with a speech he gives to Dawn, who herself at this point has become another Unchosen One since the end of her MacGuffin Girl plot from the fifth season, in which he almost calls the trope by name:
Xander: They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody's watching me. I saw you last night. I see you working here today. You're not special. You're extraordinary
Sam and Dean of Supernatural dive very heavily into this, particularly Dean who is even more stubborn about not embracing his destiny, and not letting Sam embrace his. Considering their destinies, this is probably for the best.
Gentarou, of Kamen Rider Fourze. He was never meant to be Fourze by anyone, instead coming out of nowhere and actually stealing the Fourze driver to become the Kamen Rider.
This trope is a point of much frustration for Shroud in Kamen Rider Double. Shoutarou transformed with Philip for the first time pretty much out of necessity, with no idea what he was doing. Shroud spends the majority of the season trying to split them up and put her Chosen One with Philip instead. Unfortunately, her Chosen One is rather uncooperative, and she eventually accepts that Shoutarou is not only Philip's true partner, but also the trump card that can take down Museum.
Shinji in Kamen Rider Ryuki is another by-chance Rider. Ryuki and Raia, another unchosen Rider, become a serious problem for Kanzaki. Unlike Kanzaki's handpicked Riders, these two don't have any pressing desires and really just want to end the fighting.
Guinevere in Merlin was the only main character never to be mentioned in any prophesy uttered by the dragon or any other seer (though she appeared briefly in one of Morgana's prophetic dreams. She ends up being the individual who rules over the Golden Age of Camelot, with it being heavily implied that she also unites the kingdoms and legalizes magic. Up until the final episode, everyone assumed that this was Arthur's destiny.
Music
One interpretation of Chad Kroeger and Josey Scott's Hero.
And they say that a hero can save us, I'm not gonna stand here and wait
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles, watch as we all fly away
Tabletop Games
In Exalted, all Celestial exalts except Sidereals *
But even that exception has an exception, see below.
gain their exaltation spark this way. Solars were ordinary mortals who fought back despite the overwhelming odd, Lunars persevered despite the harsh situation, Abyssals refused to die in their struggle, and even Green Sun Princes, the supposed 'losers', would rather procrastinate under the devils than let go of their one specific vendetta. Basically, the Fates told them to go accept your fate and die, and they replied by telling the the Fates to go shove it.
The aforementioned Sidereals are the Chosens of the Fates, and they are ordained to be exalted the moment they were born. However, there are a lot of things in Creation that are Immune To Fate and screw this predestination, resulting in someone completely out of the loop becoming a Sidereal. The fellowships of Sidereals aren't too pleased if/when this happens.
Video Games
Link in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was apparently not chosen by the gods to be The Hero right away. He trudged on solely for the sake of his little sister at first, then accepted the quest as a whole later. In doing so, re-empowering the Master Sword after it was weakened, and reassembling the Triforce of Courage, the gods eventually acknowledged Link as the "Hero of Winds."
This could actually be Fridge Brilliance, because in the Timeline Wind Waker takes place in, The Hero of Time was sent back to his childhood, so he never died in this timeline and was thus never reincarnated.
Groose in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword could be seen as this. Unlike Link and Zelda, he has no real "destiny" to speak of - a fact supported by the fact that unlike those two, he isn't reincarnated in (chronologically) future games to continue fighting Ganon. Still, he does what he can to help Link, stop Demise and save the surface world.
Sora of Kingdom Hearts is one through chance. Riku, his best friend, was chosen to wield the Keyblade by Terra]] but because he jumped atthe wrong call the Keyblade went to the closest candidate at the time (Sora), following which Sora goes off to save the worlds. He then earns his position as Keyblade Wielder by winning the Keyblade back from Riku by understanding The Powerof Friendship.
In Birth By Sleep it's revealed that of the original trio Sora, Riku and Kairi, Sora was the only one incapable of wielding the Keyblade though the reason why he can is probably because Ventus is inside his heart. Granted, Kairi wasn't intentional.
And it's revealed that there are three types of Keyblade: The Keyblades of Light (almost all the ones we see), the Keyblades of Dark (Mickey's Kingdom Key-D) and the Keyblades of People's Hearts (wielded by Riku-Ansem)
Tales Of Vesperia - the hero, Yuri, is as unchosen as you get. Rather than being predestined, his involvement in almost all of the game's events is due to him suffering from severe Chronic Hero Syndrome. Which his comrades make sure to point out.
Mind you, this is done mostly because the Tales series loves taking all the classic RPG tropes and annihilating them. Symphonia, for example, reveals that The Chosen One is actually "made" through selective breeding to create the most suitable vessel from which the soul can be hollowed out to be replaced with that of the Big Bad's dead older sister. Ouch.
In the "R:1" .hack// games, Aura originally chose Orca of the Azure Sea to be her champion. About 5 seconds after that, Skeith the Terror of Death put his player into a coma. Fortunately Orca was showing his friend Kite the game...
Given she makes herself Kite's partner almost immediately after that, BlackRose could also qualify.
Justin, the protagonist of the first Grandia, was never The Chosen One. The spirits who do the choosing are eventually forced to accept him.
In City of Heroes the player can unlock the ability to play as one of the generic Arachnos mooks by getting a Supervillain character to the max level. The mook character follows a special storyline apart from the normal missions in which they repeatedly try to become a Destined supervillain, only to realize by the end that they had already done so the second they hit level 2.
In Last Scenario, Hilbert is initially portrayed as The Chosen One thanks to Heroic Lineage. However, Zawu was lying, and he is in fact completely normal. This doesn't stop him from smashing the Big Bad's schemes down hard and helping to end the infighting between the 3 or 4 countries that are the focus of the game. As Alexander put it, his Heroic Lineage is real not because Hilbert is Alexander's descendant (which he isn't), but because he chose to follow Alexander's footsteps.
Arguably, the main character, Serdic's double from Rondo of Swords. He's pretty much dragged in the whole mess by the destruction of Bretwalde in the beginning, which also results in the death of the real Chosen One, Prince Serdic, who's the only one who can properly wield the holy sword. Eventually he has to choose whether to fulfill Prince Serdic's final wish of restoring Bretwalde (which requires him to ascend as Emperor wielding the holy sword... which results in him having to kill Princess Marie to purify the sword) or fulfill the Prince's request to protect his sister (which forces Marie to become the Queen, and causes the double to gain the name 'Altrius' after a legendary hero and become her bodyguard). Either way, he's pretty much just at the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time.
Though she's certainly The Chosen One for a lot of other legends in Arcadia, April Ryan turns out to not be the next Guardian in The Longest Journey. Her job turns out to just be finding the new one, which is pretty damn important in itself.
In Septerra Core, the Big Bad Doskias believes he's the Chosen One on account of being the direct descendant of the world's Crystal Dragon Jesus. Instead, the person who ends up saving the world is the heroine, Maya, who doesn't have any sort of special destiny or lineage, but manages to become Septerra's savior through sheer determination. Also, not being a homicidal douche, unlike Doskias.
Shepard of Mass Effect was a completely ordinary (though Bad Ass - any one of the possible pasts Shepard can have involves overcoming impossible odds through sheer willpower) soldier who basically tripped into knowledge of the oncoming danger to the galaxy, and chose to dedicate him/herself to preventing it. In the sequel, this leads into Shepard becoming an actualChosen One for a vast conspiracy group (still heroic, but working for some decidedly AntiHeroic people) and into him/her becoming a galactic legend.
And in Mass Effect 3, it turns out that humanity as a species is this. Javik, the last living Prothean reveals that the Asari were chosen by the Protheans to lead the galaxy against the Reapers; to that end, they mildy tampered with their genome, influenced the development of their early civilisation and even left behind a working Beacon, all to give them a headstart in leading the next Cycle. However the Asari ended up squandering their gifts, with the Beacon making them such a Higher Tech Species, they became technologically stagnant. Ultimately, they did the exact opposite of what the Protheans had expected, choosing to retreat to their homeworld rather than fight the Reapers, leaving humanity to lead the charge.
Arguably Spyro The Dragon]] is this, in the reboot trilogy. Big Bad Malefor insists that it's their destiny as purple dragons to bring about the end of the world; Spyro disagrees and fights to save it even though he fears Malefor may be right.
In a manner of speaking, Spyro is one of the few characters who can manage to be bothThe Chosen One and The Unchosen One at the same time. He's The Chosen One because he's the legendary purple dragon predicted to guide the fate of the era they're born into. He's The Unchosen One because he's not really chosen to actually do something. He could leave everything well enough alone, go Malefor's way, or change the world for the better. So while he's the purple dragon of legend who is predestined to affect history, he gets to choose how he does it himself.
Played with in Ōkami — Amaterasu, goddess of the sun, is acknowledged by all the other gods and spirits as the one to restore the beauty of Nippon, but as far as the human world is concerned, the inept and lazy Susano (and Nagi, his ancestor) are the legendary heroes. Played with still further when Susano reveals that he knows he's the Fake Ultimate Hero — and then, when the chips are altogether down, summons up some heroism and delivers the final blow without any help from Ammy.
Zak in Evil Islands in an odd case. He is originally hailed by the villagers as The Chosen One by sheer coincidence, and most energetically by the village elder — but then it turns out that the prophecy is more or less a sham, the village elder is actually a spy for The Empire, sent to prepare for its invasion of the island of Gipat. Naturally, he becomes a hero anyway.
Adol Christin of Ys is an inversion: he became Badass not because he was The Chosen One, he became (or repeatedly gets picked as) The Chosen One because he's Badass. Because if your land needs a savior, it's an excellent idea to pick the guy who's already killed enough dark gods to fill a pantheon. In the sixth game's Trials of Alma sidequest, the daughter of the goddess running said trials isn't very impressed with this random guy who just showed up, but when Adol started passing the trials, apparently she went and asked around about you. She becomes much more impressed and respectful after that.
Subverted in the Baldur's Gate series as a whole. It is implied in the first game that your character, good or bad, is just saying Screw Destiny, and that's true enough in regards to their divine parent's plans. But in the last installment, when it's time to finally put an end to the events foretold by the prophecy that's been haunting their lives, it's revealed that it actually comes with a clause saying that the protagonist is the one who can prevent it and save the world a lot of strife (again, even if they choose the evil option).
A rather low-key example due to her late arrival and consequent lack of character development, but Princess Himi of Yamatai in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn qualifies. Because of a prophecy, her adventurer brother Takeru is away from home searching for the Warriors of Vale when the Grave Eclipse happens, and Himi takes it upon herself to join our heroes and save the day, over her father's protests.
In Kingdoms Of Amalur Reckoning, everything runs on You Can't Fight Fate. Except for The Fateless One, who is Immune To Fate due to being resurrected by the Well of Souls. Which is good because there is no Chosen One destined to defeat the invading Tuatha Deohn.
In Dragon Quest V, you are not the chosen one. Your son is. When you eventually find The Chosen One and the special equipment, you can bench him and go beat the Big Bad yourself.
In League of Legends Nami decided that when the prophesied Tidecaller didn't show up to fulfill its regular duties she would do it herself.
Toyed with in Portal. Chell is chosen because she is the unchosen one. To clarify, her evaluation indicates that she should not be used for testing, as she is incapable of quitting and accepting defeat. Rattman puts her into the testing for this very reason, hoping that she will be able to defeat GLaDOS.
Webcomics
From the Crossover Wars, Scale. Her own comic starts with her creators (in story) talking of a planned story which was derailed when the Editor & his forces invaded the comic & captured them. Scale's "birth" was a side effect of the Editor reaching into the metaphorical womb (a computer) and pulling out her bracer into "reality". Afterwards she had to figure out what had happened & what to do next, which involved stumbling across dimensions and assembling an army to oppose the Evil Overlords & rescuing her creators.
The title character of Digger. Digger is an anthropomorphic wombat, and her people usually have the good sense to steer clear of any gods or magic they may encounter. Unfortunately, Digger has gotten herself first good and lost (on account of underground hallucinogenic gas pockets), then entangled (on account of being too nice for her own good) in strange goings on in a faraway land, in which both gods and magic are involved. Prophesies of several groups speak extensively of the other characters in the story, the events that Digger participates in, and even the tunnel that Digger digs up to the surface in the beginning of the story once she decides that she is completely and utterly lost - but strangely none of the prophesies say anything about Digger herself, or mention wombats in any way. Indeed, hardly anyone in the land Digger has found herself in has even heard of them. As it turns out, her ancestor specifically asked that his descendants be immune to divine prying and prophesying in exchange for helping to bind a mad god.
Roy Greenhilt from The Order of the Stick fits this pretty well. Originally he took on the quest to destroy Xykon, his father's personal nemesis, out of a desire to prove himself. In the process, he discovered that Xykon represents a significant threat to the universe. After telling his father to shove it, Roy decides that he's going to take down Xykon regardless of his father's wishes, just because it needs to be done.
8-Bit Theater is about four Unchosen who basically steal the destiny of the actual Chosen and then proceed to completely waste the opportunity.
Western Animation
In Ben 10, Ben is surprised, and deeply disappointed, to learn that the Omnitrix had actually been sent to Earth for his grandfather Max, and attached itself to him only by mistake. This is later weakened a little by its creator Azmuth talking about how destiny chose Ben.
Either way, a Tennyson was meant to have it.
Why would the supposedly most dangerous weapon in the universe be sent to a ten year old who nobody in that area had ever even heard of anyway?
On The Fairly Oddparents "Wishology" Trilogy, Timmy is assumed to be the Chosen One who needed to defeat the Darkness, but after he (first) defeats it it turns out another guy was the real supposed savior. Of course, it's eventually revealed that this guy was chosen by a committee holding auditions, so maybe this one isn't Destiny's fault so much as poor judgement by the fairies.
Also, the Darkness wasn't evil at all, the fairies just assumed that because it lookslike an evil entity.
Jamie in an episode of Megas XLR does this, and actually does the job surprisingly well... compared to Coop himself, anyway.
