History Main / SelfFulfillingProphecy

** In "The Mirror," a successful South American revolutionary leader is told by the dictator he is replacing that his mirror is enchanted and he will see in the face of the man who will assassinate him. The new ruler begins imagining that he sees the faces of his allies and one by one he has them executed becoming as much of a blood-thirsty tyrant as the man he had fought against. Guilt-ridden, looks into the mirror a last time and realizes he is finally looking at his true murderer... and then kills himself.

-->'''Picard''': "If you are right, perhaps we could escape from the loop by avoiding the collision."\\
'''La Forge''': "That's our guess."\\
'''Worf''': "Perhaps we should reverse course."\\
'''Riker''': "For all we know, reversing course may be what leads us into the crash."\\
'''Picard''': "No, we can't afford to start second guessing ourselves, we'll stay on this course until we have reason to change it. But let's do everything that we can to avoid the collision."

->"''A man often meets his destiny on the very road he took to avoid it''"

* In ''TheMatrix'' 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. Then she tells him to wonder about [[MindScrew if he still would have broken it if she hadn't said anything.]] Unlike most examples, the series as a whole [[JustifiedTrope justifies this trope]] in that those prophesied about actually WANT to fulfill the prophecies made by the Oracle. Also further justified in 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. Of course, The Oracle was a memetic program designed to understand and manipulate human emotions. Go figure.
** Case in point, 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 Neo asked the Oracle if he was the One the first time he met her and she told him, "No, not in this life," she was speaking the truth. He wasn't. [[FromACertainPointOfView Not at that point in time, anyway.]] This may also count as an inversion when her telling Neo that Morpheus would die for mistakenly believing Neo was the One unless Neo did something about it eventually led to [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Neo dying, and getting resurrected in a blatant Christian metaphor, and at THAT point he becomes the One. And, of course, gets himself crucified a few films later.]]
** 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 prophecy and later broke the cycle with the [[UnwittingPawn unwitting]] help of [[BigBad Smith]].

* CSLewis' 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.

** Ultimecia is aware that she is destined to be defeated by the Legendary [=SeeD=]. Therefore, she attempts [[TimeCrash Time Compression]] so she can [[AGodAmI absorb all reality and all time]] and escape death. Her meddling with the timestream to accomplish this goal inspired people in the past to create [=SeeD=], the ''very organization'' that raises anti-Sorceress child soldiers.

* In ''TheMatrix'' 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. Then she tells him to wonder about [[MindScrew if he still would have broken it if she hadn't said anything.]]
** 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!

* CSLewis' 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, [[CrystalDragonJesus Aslan]] has a carefully judged paw 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.

** Ultimecia is aware that she is destined to be defeated by the Legendary [=SeeD=]. Therefore, she attempts [[TimeCrash Time Compression]] so she can [[AGodAmI absorb all reality and all time]] and escape death. Her meddling with the timestream to accomplish this goal ultimately results in Squall visiting the past and providing his foster mother with the inspiration for [=SeeD=], not only causing the founding of the very organization which trains anti-Sorceress ChildSoldiers but also specifically setting the course of Squall's life to lead to his becoming the "legendary [=SeeD=]" who defeats Ultimecia.

** Ultimecia is aware that she is destined to be defeated by the Legendary [=SeeD=]. Therefore, she attempts [[TimeCrash Time Compression]] so she can [[AGodAmI absorb all reality and all time]] and escape death. Her meddling with the timestream to accomplish this goal inspired people in the past to create [=SeeD=], the ''very organization'' that raises anti-Sorceress child soldiers.

* CSLewis' 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.

** 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.

<<|FateAndProphecyTropes|>>)

* ''[[TwelveMonkeys 12 Monkeys]]''.

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.

* In PiersAnthony's ''[[ApprenticeAdept Blue Adept]]'', in [[NotSoFastBucko (what they thought was)]] their big showdown, protagonist Stile asks the Red Adept why she was gunning for him. She replies a prophecy had foretold of her destruction at his hands, so she decided to strike first. Stile points out that he never would've heard of her, magic, or the world of Phaze (let alone been able to enter it) if Red hadn't murdered Adept Blue (Stile's Phaze self) and tried to kill him. Turns out the Oracle set Red on his trail intentionally, to get Stile into Phaze to play his part in SavingBothWorlds.

* In PiersAnthony's ''[[ApprenticeAdept Blue Adept]]'', in [[NotSoFastBucko (what they thought was)]] their big showdown, protagonist Stile asks the Red Adept why she was gunning for him. She replies a prophecy had foretold of her destruction at his hands, so she decided to strike first. Stile points out that he never would've heard of Phaze, let alone been able to enter it, if Red hadn't murdered Adept Blue (Stile's Phaze self) and tried to kill him. Turns out the Oracle set Red on his trail intentionally, to get Stile into Phaze to play his part in SavingBothWorlds.

* In PiersAnthony's ''[[ApprenticeAdept Split Infinity]]'', the protagonist eventually ends up destroying 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.

When a [[TheHero hero]] tries to prevent the prophesied release of an [[SealedEvilInACan ancient evil]], his actions will help it escape because [=~you can't fight fate~=]. 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, {{because destiny says so}}.

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.

** By the end of the series, it's been shown that the future seen in flash-forwards can be changed, but doing so required required great effort to fight the inertia of the timestream.

* What drives a lot of the plot in ''FlashForward''. For example, until Janis saw a vision of herself pregnant in the future, she had never really considered having a baby.

*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.

* Jade of ''{{Homestuck}}'' has some semi-precognitive abilities, and ends up creating one of these. [[spoiler: She sees a vision of Dream!John crying in the future— then, presumably, being confronted by [[BigBad Jack Noir.]] So she prepares a birthday present — a collection of high level weapons — to protect him against Jack. Said gift falls into Jack's hands first, who uses it to launch his rise to power, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero causing the scene which prompted her to send the present in the first place.]]

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

->"''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''