History Main / SelfFulfillingProphecy

** 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. Even worse, Oedipus learned about the prophecy and ran away from his foster parents to prevent it from happening. Little did he know he was not their biological son. Poor, poor Oedipus...

[[folder:Idioms]]
* A common Vietnamese proverb: "Ghét của nào, trời trao của đó" (If you hate something, God will give you it).

* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'' has the GenocideBackfire version: Lord Shen hears that he will be defeated by a "warrior of black and white", so he destroys the panda village in the area. This act eventually causes baby Po to be sent to the Valley of Peace, which allows him to become the Dragon Warrior and get the training he would need to fulfill his destiny, and indeed, he defeats Shen and ends his ambitions of conquest. It goes into full ProphecyTwist territory with how Shen dies: Po was willing to offer Shen mercy. However, Shen continued to attacking, cutting ropes holding up Shen's creation, a giant cannon. The cannon falls, crushing him. Shen, who through his colored plumage (and through the constant Yin Yang motifs throughout the film) is also a "warrior of black and white." Shen not only caused his own defeat by Po, but also caused his defeat by [[HoistByHisOwnPetard himself]]. The failings of Shen were even lampshaded by the Soothsayer who prophesied it, since she reminded him over and over that it was only forboded to happen ''if'' he continued acting the way he did rather than making peace with it.

* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'' has the GenocideBackfire version: Lord Shen hears that he will be defeated by a "warrior of black and white", so he destroys the panda village in the area. This act eventually causes baby Po to be sent to the Valley of Peace, which allows him to become the Dragon Warrior and get the training he would need to fulfill his destiny, and indeed, he defeats Shen and ends his ambitions of conquest. It goes into full ProphecyTwist territory with how Shen dies: Po was willing to offer Shen mercy. However, Shen continued to attacking, cutting ropes holding up Shen's creation, a giant cannon. The cannon falls, crushing him. Shen, who through his colored plumage (and through the constant Yin Yang motifs throughout the film) is also a "warrior of black and white." Shen not only caused his own defeat by Po, but also caused his defeat by [[HoistByHisOwnPetard himself]].

* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', the primarch Horus gets infected with a demonic plague 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 Literature/HorusHeresy), 10,000 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.

* When UsefulNotes/RichardNixon was President of the United States, he was well-known for being both intensely paranoid and very concerned about [[HarsherInHindsight the kind of legacy he would leave behind]]. So when the Watergate scandal came up, and Nixon discovered that he wasn't about to get out of it, he tried to cover it up as best as he could. If he had simply come out in the very beginning and humbly admitted what he did wrong, his legacy might not have been so harshly viewed. He wouldn't be liked, but people probably would have respected his being forthcoming.

* UsefulNotes/WilliamHenryHarrison, during his run for President, was criticized for being old and frail (at 68 during his inauguration, he was then the oldest man elected President, and would remain so until UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan 140 years later), and many people speculated that he would be the first US president to die while in office. He tried to prove his detractors wrong by [[TemptingFate giving a two-hour inauguration speech outside in the rain in cold weather without wearing warm clothes]], subsequently catching pneumonia and, a month later, becoming the first US president to die in office.

** Many theorize the same thing happened in the 2016 election. Even though both candidates were incredibly unpopular, UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton still seemed to have it in the bag with a huge cash on hand advantage and most media outlets and celebrities supporting her. Speculation of the outcome was also highly in her favor. A lot of her supporters went on the bandwagon of treating her as the only right choice, trying to snuff out any chance of a UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump upset. Their tactics of trying to sway voters got increasingly worse and the campaign itself was accused of being tone-deaf and condescending, [[https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/8/14848636/hillary-clinton-tv-ads focusing mostly on issues of personality rather than policy.]] This led many 3rd-party voters, undecideds, and people who were going to skip the election to vote Trump instead. By the end Trump, to the surprise of many, won.

** When the Witches warn Macbeth to "Beware Macduff, beware the Thane of Fife," it prompts him to send his assassins to massacre Macduff's castle. Macduff isn't home, but the assassins ''do'' succeed in murdering his wife and children...giving [[CrusadingWidower Macduff]] all the reason he needs to [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge storm Dunsinane with his allies and personally kill Macbeth in single combat]].

** Many of the attempts at preventing Ragnarök (tricking Fenrir, tossing Jormungandr in the ocean so he drowns, casting Hel into the realm of Hel) actually end up giving them motivation and power to cause it.

* One of Russia's many excuses for invading Ukraine and starting the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022 was because of the number of former Warsaw Pact nations that had joined NATO. Russia invaded to prevent Ukraine from doing the same. The result was that traditionally-neutral Sweden and Finland--the latter of which was the trope namer of the concept of "Finlandization", where a nation was forced to be neutral to avoid the wrath of a bigger neighbor--both sought to join NATO, as did Ukraine. In addition, western European countries, which had long been skeptical of the continued utility of NATO, have increased military spending and reactivated what had become a dormant alliance.[[note]]In 2014, right before Russia's annexation of Crimea, support for NATO had reached an all-time low with only 3 of the at-the-time 26 member states meeting the budgetary requirements of 2% GDP being directed towards military spending.[[/note]]
[[/folder]] In short, by invading Ukraine out of fears that NATO would become stronger, Russia just strengthened it even further.

* One of Russia's many excuses for invading Ukraine in 2022 was because of the number of former Warsaw Pact nations that had joined NATO, and to prevent Ukraine from doing the same. The result? Traditionally-neutral Sweden and Finland--the latter of which was the trope namer of the concept of "Finlandization", where a nation was forced to be neutral to avoid the wrath of a bigger neighbor--both are now seeking to join NATO. In addition, western European countries, which had long been skeptical of the continued utility of NATO, have increased military spending and reactivated what had become a dormant alliance.[[note]]In 2014, right before Russia's annexation of Crimea, support for NATO had reached an all-time low with only 3 of the at-the-time 26 member states meeting the budgetary requirements of 2% GDP being directed towards military spending.[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

** The Praetorian-prefect named Marcus Opellius Macrinus was informed of a prophecy from an oracle that he would become the emperor. Luckily for him, he got the information before the sitting emperor (the, quote, "Common enemy of mankind"), Caracalla, since if he didn't he would most likely be executed as a possible threat. Since the emperor would inevitably find out sooner or later, his hand was forced so as to actually assassinate Caracalla and he ended up as the new emperor after the Guard proclaimed him such. Not that it made much of a difference since he would also be the first emperor to die before entering Rome. For this reason, making prophecies about the imperial succession was usually a crime punishable by death.

* Used in ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' where Church attempts to stop a whole lot of bad things that happened in Blood Gulch, only to cause most of them.

* Three symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) are self-loathing, an intense fear of being abandoned, and feeling emotions extremely intensely. A person with BPD may feel undeserving of love, and be scared and worried that their loved one will leave them. When their loved one does something that upsets them, even if they didn't mean to, the person with BPD sees it as a sign that their loved one doesn't care about them and/or is going to abandon them (in other words, they shift from seeing them as a good person to seeing them as a bad person, a behavior called splitting). They get angry and upset and lash out at their loved one, which damages the relationship and may cause the loved one to eventually leave. The BPD person hates themselves even more for driving their loved one away, and becomes even more afraid of their other loved ones leaving them.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/AiKora'' has a chapter where Maeda has a dream where he and Sakurako end up CaughtInTheRain together, [[spoiler: and end up kissing]]. When similar circumstances strike in the real world, [[spoiler: Sakurako ends up leaning towards Maeda for entirely non-romantic reasons, but he's so wound up [[AccidentalKiss he ends up kissing her]]]].
* In ''LightNovel/ArifuretaFromCommonplaceToWorldsStrongest'', the night before the group goes out for their first dungeon training, Kaori goes to Hajime's room to tell him she had a dream where he fell down a ravine and disappeared. Unfortunately, one of their classmates, who is one of Hajime's bullies and is obsessed with Kaori, witnesses her going to his room and goes so mad with jealousy that he ends up causing the "[[UnfriendlyFire accident]]" that causes Hajime to fall down a ravine and disappear.
* In ''LightNovel/{{Corsair}}'', after listening to his brother try to heap guilt on him and justify his actions based on a prophecy made when Canale was born, Canale delivers an [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech embittered speech]] about how the prophecy about him being the "devil's child" who will wreak "destruction on towns and cities" was rubbish and how his family's reaction to it led to him becoming such a dangerous and destructive force in the first place.
* In ''Manga/DeathNote'', Ryuk the {{Shinigami}} tells {{Light|IsNotGood}} [[BrokenAce Yagami]] that misery follows those who use the Death Note. Throughout the series, it becomes apparent that this phenomenon isn't so much the fault of any [[LaserGuidedKarma karmic punishment]] -- it's just that people who use the Death Note are always the kind of people who surround themselves with death and [[PersonOfMassDestruction destruction]].
* ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' gives us Myotismon (Vamdemon in Japanese), who hears that the eighth Digidestined, who turns out to be Tai's sister Kari, will be the one to destroy him. So what does he do? He sends his LegionOfDoom all over the place to hunt her down and destroy her. This causes him to fulfill his own prophetic demise in a few ways; first of all, Kari's partner [[spoiler: is a member of the aforementioned legion of doom, so they never would've met if he hadn't called a hunting party]]. Secondly, by trying to destroy her, [[spoiler: he caused the HeroicSacrifice of Wizardmon]], which triggers Kari's crest and digivolves Gatomon into Angewomon, who proceeds to OneHitKill him. Considering all the other Digimon couldn't do crap against him at that point, he could've conquered the world at his leisure if he hadn't tried to find her. The gravity of it only increases when you consider that without Angewomon, [[spoiler: there wouldn't be no [=WarGreymon=] and [=MetalGarurumon=]]], so if by some miracle he had been brought down, [[spoiler: his resurrection as [=VenomMyostismon=]]] would have gone off without a hitch and he would've [[CurbstompBattle curb stomped the entire world]]. Way to go, you moron.
** Devimon did something similar by hearing the youngest of the kids will be the one to cause his death. He goes after TK, triggering Patamon's evolution into Angemon, who promptly performs a HeroicSacrifice to kill Devimon.
* In ''Anime/DogDays'', Leonmichelle's attempts to [[spoiler:stop the foretold deaths of Milhiore and Shinku ends up summoning the beast that will presumably kill them]].
* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'':
** Frieza kills all of the Saiyans he can find and 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. [[NotQuiteDead It doesn't stick]] but even at that point, it was pretty clear that Frieza was killed ''because'' of his efforts to prevent himself from being killed. In addition, Frieza's ''actual'' death is by the son of one of the three Saiyans he allowed to live in one timeline, and by Goku in the other.
** In the ''[[Anime/DragonBallEpisodeOfBardock Episode of Bardock]]'' special, it turns out Bardock was sent back in time and got into a conflict with Frieza's ancestor Lord Chilled. It also turned out that ''Bardock'' was the Legendary Super Saiyan, meaning that ''Frieza'' was indirectly responsible for the very legend upon which he would destroy that Saiyan race for, an act that would eventually cause his death. Talk about {{Irony}}.
** ''Dragon Ball Minus'' adds to it by revealing that the reason Goku was sent to Earth in the first place. Frieza had ordered all the Saiyans to return to Planet Vegeta; Bardock, thinking that this sounded incredibly suspicious, stole a space pod and sent his infant son to another planet to keep him safe...and as we all know, Bardock was spot-on and Frieza wanted all the Saiyans together so he could easily kill them all. Living on Earth gave Goku plenty of challenges, which lead to his becoming so powerful that he achieved Super Saiyan. If he'd stayed on Planet Vegeta, he more than likely would have just been another forgettable low-class warrior.
** Prior to Goku actually fulfilling the prophecy, Vegeta tries unsuccessfully to invoke this trope, declaring that Frieza was an idiot for destroying the Saiyan race because he feared their potential power...but keeping the strongest one of all alive. Vegeta incorrectly believed that ''he'' had become a Super Saiyan at this point, and Frieza gave him a [[CurbStompBattle rude awakening]]. Since DeathIsCheap in the ''Dragon Ball'' universe, though, Vegeta was brought back to life and got to see the fulfillment of the prophecy anyway.
** In ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'', Frieza's [[TheEmpire empire]] has been falling apart without him, and while [[EvenEvilHasStandards not happy with the idea]], his minions use the Dragon Balls to bring him BackFromTheDead because they see Frieza's [[TheDreaded fear factor]] as the only way to restore it to its former glory. Instead of going back to rule his empire as they expected, Frieza throws it all away for the sake of [[RevengeBeforeReason petty revenge on Goku]], only to get himself killed and his entire army destroyed; by bringing him back to life, Frieza's minions ensured the destruction of his empire, the very thing they wanted to prevent.
* In ''Anime/EurekaSeven'', Holland learned from Norbu 3 years ago prior to the series that whoever makes Eureka smile and happy is her destined partner, who turns out to be the protagonist Renton. Holland's efforts to deny their relationship and trying to win Eureka's favor only seeks to set up a chain of events that made Renton and Eureka officially into a couple. Holland even {{face palm}} on his efforts after his quarrel with Eureka in episode 26.
* In ''Manga/FullMoon'', the main character, Mitsuki, is fated to die in a year, but there's a prophecy that a mysterious person is fated to come along and prevent her death, so two shinigami are sent to prevent Mitsuki and that person from meeting...[[spoiler:and it turns out that her meeting the two shinigami ''is'' what caused her death to be prevented because her outlook on life changed because of them]].
* Harminia from ''{{LightNovel/Gosick}}'' was told at age 6 that she would die when she was 26 years old. [[spoiler: She killed the Elder/prophet, and framed Cordelia. Cordelia is exiled, leading to Victorique's birth, and subsequent return twenty years light to clear her mother's name. After Victorique reveals Harminia is the killer, she goes on a rampage, leading to her death.]]
* In ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', that's exactly the working mechanism of Thoth, the Stand of Boingo, one of the antagonists. Thoth takes the form of an indie comic book, describing future happenings or actions taken by his user and his immediate peers. Thoth is so accurate, even if following a leap-and-bound narration that makes it slightly hard to understand at a quick glance, that every attempt to change or foil the events already written in its pages will ensure the very same event takes place, and exactly as described. One other way to interpret what Thoth is doing is that it generates a single image that describes all the ''possible'' futures in some oblique fashion. [[spoiler:With Oingo: If he hadn't panicked at Joseph's early arrival and taken Jotaro's guise, the bomber orange would have been left in the car...and would have been the one Jotaro began peeling to slake his thirst. With Hol Horse: If he'd relied on the clocktower instead of his fast watch, the bullets would have hit Jotaro at the same time as the water burst.]] In other words, it's accurate for both the "default" stance ''and'' the self-fulfilled results.
* In the first episode of ''Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa'', Dedede appears when the people of Cappy Town ask Kabu what to do about their plight. He asks Kabu to predict what will happen when he pushes a button on his cannon. Kabu predicts he won’t push it. Soon enough, Kirby crash lands nearby, distracting Dedede long enough for him to forget about pushing the button.
* Zera of ''Manga/LycheeLightClub'' is told by a fortune-teller that he will either rule the world at the age of 30 or die at the age of 14. In his desperate rush to achieve the former, he ends up bringing about the latter. Commencing the final step of his plan on the night of his 14th birthday was [[TemptingFate a tremendously bad idea]], but by that point, he'd gone mad with paranoia.
* Mirai Sasaki, aka Sir Nighteye of ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', has a Quirk that allows him to see the future of a person, and his predictions have always come to pass [[YouCantFightFate no matter how much he tried to change them]], so he always approaches every situation expecting worst-case scenarios. It's only when [[TheHero Izuku Midoriya]] manages to [[ScrewDestiny defy one of his predictions]] that he realizes how his own pessimism hampered his Quirk, and that he could have seen more positive outcomes if he had more faith that he could change the future.
* In ''Manga/MyCheatSkillResurrectionRevivedMe'', the king of Resaga has a paranoid fear of the demons humanity is at war with, and rightly so, seeing as they outnumber humans 7 to 3. Unfortunately, this paranoia also bleeds onto his own citizens, and those with a "dangerous" skill like the main character Licht are marked for execution the moment he hears of it. Licht's party lures him into an ambush, where they sell him to his executioners for money, with the old man leading the executioners spelling out that he's marked for death because his [Resurrection] skill is "dangerous" as it could be used to bolster the demon's forces, despite admiting that Licht is indeed a loyal tax-paying citizen who has doubtlessly used said skill to save many human lives. With Licht reviving from a botched execution, he now has every possible motive to bring the king's fears to pass, and acts on it.
* ''{{Manga/Naruto}}'':
** The eldest LITERAL frog sage gave a prophecy that Jiraiya would travel the world to write a book, meet a boy with power in his eyes, and train the one who would change the world for the better. Thing is, this prophecy only ever got anywhere because the sage TOLD Jiraiya about it in the first place.
** The Second Hokage thought [[spoiler:that the Uchiha would betray Konoha and wanted to protect the village. So he ostracized the Uchiha clan from the start of his reign and treated them worse than he should have. His treatment of them led to the attempted coup, since his treatment was passed down (though to be fair he is a lot less to blame in this event compared with the next example.)]]
** Madara Uchiha. [[spoiler:After the village was founded, Madara feared that the Senju clan would eventually eliminate the Uchiha Clan, and tried to get them to break ties with the village. While this ''did'' happen eventually, it was largely because Madara's own disciple (Obito) attacked the village with [[SealedEvilInACan the nine tails]] and framed the Uchiha Clan for it, leading to more discrimination against the clan and the eventually leading them to plan a coup. That in turn leads to a massacre in which said pupil directly participated.]]
** While he was partly manipulated by Danzo Shimura, Hanzo of the Salamander's undoing was the result of this. [[spoiler:He was paranoiac that Yahiko, Nagato and Konan were gaining power and influence with Akatsuki, and he feared they would try to topple him and take over Amegakure. So he lures them into a trap that results in Yahiko's death and Nagato crippled, but not before he unleashes a RoaringRampageOfRevenge that kills almost everyone in sight. Hanzo escapes, but his actions gave Nagato [[DespairEventHorizon the push he needed]] for his StartOfDarkness and become Pain, and a pretty big reason to kill Hanzo and take over Amegakure years later]].
* Gendo Ikari from ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' [[DisappearedDad abandons his son]], Shinji, because he believes that he will be a bad parent and only end up hurting Shinji. The irony is that with his abandonment, he ends up giving Shinji one of his deepest emotional scars. Funnily enough, [[LikeFatherLikeSon Shinji does something similar]]; he desperately [[IJustWantToBeLoved wants human affection]], but alienates all the people who try to help him because he refuses to believe they care about him.
* In ''LightNovel/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'', King Melromarc has [[FantasticRacism a severe disdain]] for demi-humans, and the legends of the Four Cardinal Heroes said that the Shield Hero would be heavily associated with a party made of them, as well as demi-humans worshipping the Shield Hero for being a champion of demi-humans according to their legends. Thus, he enacts a hidden plan to discredit Naofumi, the titular Shield Hero, which results in him being considered a pariah by almost every member of his kingdom. Naofumi becomes jaded and distrustful toward everyone as a result, and only takes on slaves (the majority of which being demi-humans) as party members because they are unable to disobey him.
* ''LightNovel/RosePrincessHellrage'' starts with the execution of the title character because her father was deposed and murdered by his evil younger brother who wanted the crown. The usurper played on a dubious prophecy that children born with silver hair and eyes are "cursed" and destined to doom the country. Since he used this premise to take the throne, he couldn't deny his fanatical KnightTemplar followers who wanted to hunt the child down and preemptively end the menace. When these knights find the child and her mother, they put the pair of women through hell for at least a month before dragging her to the guillotine and then throwing a party over the defiled corpses. They also pointedly ignore the executioner, who is accustomed to seeing undead rise at execution sites if proper measures, like a pre-execution sanctification and a memorial service aren't held, saying "a memorial service for that 'evil' child is a sacrilege." To the surprise of everyone (including the executioner, but only because of her power level), Rene rises up as a powerful undead and immediately starts carrying out her vengeance, only momentarily stopped by an army of the king's strongest elites, and only because she wasn't accustomed to her powers yet, nor had any solid plans or strategies in place...
* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}} Try'' has a town that fears dragons because one of them destroyed the town. They manage (along with Xelloss) to make Filia angry enough that she does just that.
* A tragic example happens in ''Anime/SteinsGate'' episode 23 whereby Okabe [[spoiler: accidentally stabbed his lover Kurisu to death]] in an attempt to prevent her death in the Beta worldline. This tragedy haunted Okabe towards the story of ''VisualNovel/SteinsGateZero''.
* ''Manga/TalentlessNana'' has Tsunekichi Hatadaira and his "Talent" of prophetic dreams, documented using a Polaroid camera. All the scenes depicted on them come true and attempts to avoid your fate oftentimes cause it to happen in the first place.
* From ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'', there's Vash's reputation as the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Humanoid Typhoon]], who causes death and destruction wherever he goes. The bounty was put on his head to prevent any more destruction but caused overzealous bounty hunters with no care for collateral damage to converge on him and cause ''even more'' destruction.
* In ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle'', Fei Wong Reed goes through a ridiculously complex GambitRoulette 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 [[spoiler: Yuko]], she never would have died. The real kicker is that, apparently, ''[[GambitPileup she and Clow planned all this]]''. [[MindScrew Even the characters are starting to get confused]]. And apparently [[spoiler: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 ''LightNovel/TheWeakestTamer'', the village chief of Ratomi, the priest of the local church, and Ivy's own parents believe the existence of a "starless" child will doom their village. So when Ivy's parents take her to the temple and she is revealed to have the [Tamer] skill with no stars, Ivy's parents have a panic attack, and starting the next morning do everything in their power to drive her out of the village, especially Ivy's father who beats the ever loving shit out of her ''at age 5'', shouting at her that the family are the ones troubled, after Ivy finds her place at the kitchen table missing. Over the next three years, the local fortune teller, who can see the future and can see Ivy's circumstances but not the reason for them, is the only villager who treats her kindly. As a result, the village chief denies the fortune teller life-saving medicine when she gets ill, and then conspires with Ivy's father to go into the woods to hunt Ivy down, just to make sure. Ivy overhears it and flees the area entirely. Not long afterward, the village economy collapses because the fortune-teller is dead at the chief's hands, and her ability to properly predict the perfect ripeness of the village's cash crop was the only thing keeping the economy afloat. In a surprise twist, the adventurer's guild, investigating the chief's repeated wanted posters for Ivy, finds out that the chief himself is entirely responsible for the village's fate, as he's both incompetent and corrupt, constantly embezzling the village treasury, but refuses to take responsibility for his actions.
* In ''{{Manga/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]].
* In ''Anime/YuGiOhZEXAL'', Astral uses the Trope name word-for-word to describe how Numbers holder Shuta Hayami is able to predict the future; he manipulates events so that his predictions - which are bad for his victims - come true via their own actions.
* Very nearly occurred with Hiei of ''Manga/YuYuHakusho''. A prophecy held that he would destroy the village of his birth, so he was cast out to die. He survived and, driven by deep-seated anger over being cast aside, returned to destroy the village. Only seeing the misery of the village [[CruelMercy stayed his hand]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In one issue of ''ComicBook/TheBeano'', [[MeaningfulName Fatty]] reads about a bean shortage in the paper. He promptly buys all the beans he can find and causes the shortage.
* A problem in ''ComicBook/CivilWarII''. Many of Ulysses' visions towards the heroes seem to prove true because of the heroes' paranoid attempts to stop them, especially if they involve ComicBook/CarolDanvers. It's because Ulysses' visions work by extrapolating from the now, and Carol is the most prone to paranoidly jump on every one of them, which became a variable in his data pool. They got locked in a ''prophecy self-fulfilling feedback loop'' so to speak.
** The example of the ComicBook/IncredibleHulk stands out particularly. Ulysses has a vision of a mindless Hulk on a hero-killing rampage. Carol takes a massive team of heroes to confront a supposedly depowered Bruce about whether he actually is depowered, which ends with Bruce getting shot in the head. So, no more Hulk? Nope. A few months later, HYDRA brings Bruce back to life, and the trauma of dying ([[ComicBookDeath again]]) has created a new mindless Hulk, who goes on the rampage Ulysses saw.
* Comedic variant from ''Comicbook/CaptainBritain'':
-->'''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!
* In the Comicbook/DoctorWhoTitan comic story "Weapons of Past Destruction" [[spoiler: the Unon's (a centaur race that decided to look after time after the time war) try to prevent the excroth, a technologically advanced race, from developing time travel which will somehow make them become the lect, a destructive race that will hunt the unon's, by destroying their entire planet. Unfortunately, some excroths survive and try to get their revenge by putting their bodies inside some tanks to kill the unon thereby becoming the lect]].
* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': In the 2003 Gyro Gearloose story "The Accidental Factor", a future telling device predicts a rampaging elephant ruining the mayor's parade. In order to prevent it, Gyro tracks the elephant down and tries to keep him in place with a large number of peanuts, but the animal goes crazy after the peanuts and causes the exact accident Gyro was trying to prevent.
* ''Franchise/TheFlash'': ComicBook/EobardThawne was obsessed with superheroes in the 26th century when everyone has forgotten about them. Mainly the Flash (Barry Allen). Studying him to the point of knowing every recorded detail on his life, successfully replicated the experiment that gave Flash his powers, and traveled back in time to become The Flash’s sidekick and best friend. Except in the Flash museum he saw an entry on Professor Zoom, a psychopath who was bent on destroying Barry and everything he loved. His identity? ''Eobard Thawne!'' Angry, he did what we all would've done: Ran ''further'' into the past to kill Barry's mother and frame his father. Constantly bullying the young Flash through the time barrier in the most petty ways imaginable [[note]]Tripping him down stairs, letting his dog out on the street so it can run away, blowing out his birthday candles before he could, making kids think he was weird in school[[/note]] before becoming a full blown supervillain.
* ''Franchise/GreenLantern'': This is how Hal Jordan got his ring. Green Lantern Abin Sur heard a prophecy from Qull that his ring would fail and he would die, setting off a chain of events that would lead to [[ComicBook/SinestroCorpsWar Sinestro turning evil and spreading chaos across the galaxy]]. When Sur went to Earth to investigate this prophecy, he was terrified of his ring failing; so much so that, with prodding from Atrocitus, he lost his belief in his own abilities and succumbed to fear, [[EmotionalPowers thus ensuring the ring would indeed stop working for him]]. This led to his death, Hal getting the ring, and everything else that came after.
* ''ComicBook/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': The Covenant, a clique of [[KnightTemplar extremist Jedi]], murder most of their students and begin ruthlessly hunting down the SoleSurvivor after receiving a vision of themselves all dying and a powerful Sith Lord wearing a red environmental suit arising. They had assumed that because their students happened to be wearing the same kind of environmental suit at the time, the vision is the Force trying to warn them that one of said students would become the Sith Lord in question. [[spoiler:Naturally, it turns out the vision was ''actually'' the Force warning them of what would happen if they continued down [[WellIntentionedExtremist their dark path]], and by attempting to defy the prophecy by doubling down on their fundamentalism, they simply seal their fates. All but one of them dies over the coming days, the last survivor goes into hiding after being disgraced and maimed, and [[VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic Darth Malak]] arises partly/indirectly because of their actions… complete with briefly wearing the environmental suit.]]
* In the classic ''Comicbook/JudgeDredd'' storyline ''The Judge Child Quest'', the Judge Child makes predictions that make the people who hear them cause the accidents that they just heard predicted.
* A couple of ''Comicbook/SpiderMan'' stories deal with his TimePolice counterpart from the year 2211 and his arch-nemesis Hobgoblin 2211. It's revealed the Hobgoblin 2211 is really [[spoiler: 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 affected by the virus. Now 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]])]].
* ''ComicBook/SupermansPalJimmyOlsen'': One issue has Jimmy helping a scientist who has a psychic transmitter that might prove reincarnation. To his horror, he discovers that all his past incarnations were close to one of history's great men (Julius Caesar, Richard the Lionheart, and Abraham Lincoln) and somehow brought about their deaths. Concluding that he has to separate from Superman to protect him, he crashes a helicopter on an island that Superman knows the Superman Revenge Squad booby-trapped. Superman refuses to be deterred, and in the process of trying to get his guilt-stricken friend to listen, he gets hit by a kryptonite beam, apparently killing him. Luckily, it turned out Superman was momentarily PlayingPossum to get Jimmy to stop running and hear him out.
* ''Comicbook/XMen'':
** Bolivar Trask was inspired to create the Sentinels because his son was having visions of a BadFuture, and he assumed this meant a mutant-controlled one. The visions were actually of the ''ComicBook/DaysOfFuturePast'', a Sentinel-controlled future. Trask's son also saw visions of various mutant supervillains' crimes. What he didn't see was mutant superheroes were the ones who stopped them.
** Another case of this is Genosha. Prior to the 2000s, this island nation depended on brutally enslaving mutants in order to exploit their powers, which one Genoshan justifies with the logic that if mutants were allowed to live as free people, they would exterminate the humans of Genosha. When ComicBook/{{Magneto}} conquers the island and frees the mutant slaves, their bitterness over the inhumane way they were treated during their stint as slaves causes them to rise up and drive off/massacre the humans who had enslaved them.
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'':
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': During UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age of Comic|Books}}s the reason ComicBook/{{Circe}} kept attacking Diana was that a prophecy claimed Diana would be her doom. Diana ends up accidentally unmaking Circe's immortality while defending herself from the witch, something she'd have had no reason to do otherwise, given that Diana hadn't even ''approached'' Circe before she started attacking her.
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': Hippolyta's attempts to save her daughter after hearing a prophecy that Wonder Woman will die by instigating the events of ''ComicBook/TheContest'' while siphoning Diana's powers in order to ensure she'd be defeated and have to give up the title lead directly to Diana's death due to having her power drained when fighting Neron. To add insult to injury the plot also gets ComicBook/{{Artemis}} killed after she wins the contest and temporarily replaces Diana as Wonder Woman.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* {{Discussed|Trope}} in ''Fanfic/TheHeadhunt''. Tess Phohl notes that a good part of the reason so many genetic augments turn bad is that the Federation treats them like crap, whereas "folks like [[TheMafia the Mottas]] actually appreciate them." Hence people hate Augments, hence more of them turn bad.
* ''FanFic/RosarioVampireBrightestDarkness Act III'': In chapters 23 and 24, after Ahakon has a dream about Yukari that leads to him calling her name in his sleep, Apoch and Astreal begin to mistreat Yukari to the extent that they outright try to ''murder'' her, fearing she might take him away from them. In the latter chapter, their actions, combined with the fact that Ahakon was caught in the crossfire and nearly killed by Apoch and Astreal's attack while trying to save Yukari, end up being one of the main reasons Ahakon breaks up with them in favor of Yukari.
* ''[[FanFic/AdoptedDisplaced You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter]]'': Pinkie Pie explains the concept to Zeus, and later Cronos, and they realize the mistakes they've made as a result. This leads to a much happier ending for both. (Namely, they don't get killed by Kratos.)
* In the ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' fanfic ''Fail Better'' it's implied that every attempt to break a prophecy ended in this. Lucia was the first one who could trick the system.
* Invoked in ''Fanfic/AvengerOfSteel'' when Clark contemplates [[spoiler:the possibility that Raven will destroy the world; as Clark sees it, treating Raven as though she's a threat increases the possibility that she will be, but treating her as a person increases the hope that she'll become an ally, so he chooses to treat her as an ally and hope for the best]].
* ''Fanfic/PrincessOfTheBlacks'' has an especially ironic example. Dumbledore, who in canon remarked that Voldemort's attempts to circumvent the prophecy caused it to come to fruition, fears a prophecy about one of the Potter twins "knowing only darkness" and possibly being the one to defeat Voldemort; so he sets out to have the appropriate twin permanently removed from the Magical World. Little Jen would spend four years in an abusive home before she was blinded and abandoned; she went on to grow up a child prostitute and become an ''immensely'' powerful Black Witch. Throughout the series, Dumbledore proves incapable of realizing that Jen's darkness is his own fault, instead believing that she was born evil.
* ''FanFic/{{Fade}}'':
** All L's attempts to stop canon!Kira's rise with his own Death Note are fated to fail for one reason: L has already supplanted Light's place as Kira.
** L deliberately keeps Light away from the Task Force so he won't turn them against L as he did in canon. It's a fruitless effort, as L manages to do that on his own with little to no involvement from Light.
* In ''Fanfic/UnexpectedSurprise'', Emma used to have dreams about sitting on the roof with her daddy who just saved her from something. Therefore, she constantly tries to get to the roof. During one of the attempts, she almost falls before Adrien grabs her and gets them both to the roof.
* Played with in ''Fanfic/WhatYouAlreadyKnow'', as a few of Daniel's earlier premonitions are of things that mostly end up happening because of his actions (such as Sam almost getting killed in a Goa'uld attack that only posed a threat because Daniel and Teal'c left the SGC and ended up on that planet to rendezvous with Jack and Sam), but in general it is soon established that Daniel's visions are of what would happen if he did nothing, with the SGC using the accompanying foreknowledge to prevent these futures from happening.
* In ''Fanfic/APrizeForThreeEmpires'', ComicBook/{{Mystique}} and ComicBook/{{Rogue}} attack ComicBook/CarolDanvers because Mystique's lover Destiny foretold Carol would somehow harm Rogue in the future... which comes to pass because Carol was attacked by them in the first place.
* Discussed in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/23448010 Not Set in Stone]]''. Cisco "vibes" and has a vision of Laurel's death. The two of them decide not to tell anyone about it, out of fear that the attempts to prevent it will be what causes it. Eventually, Barry and Oliver accidentally learn about it, and both of them also agree not to tell anyone else. They do however start to work on ways to prevent it, reasoning they can take ''some'' precautions. By the time the rest of Team Arrow learns of it, they are all reasonable certain they'll be able to prevent it now. [[spoiler:They're right]].
* ''Fanfic/WhatItTakes'': Felicity decides to keep Oliver LockedOutOfTheLoop in regards to what's happening in Starling (namely, that Laurel has been outed as the Black Canary and is on the run, and the city is under the control of Damien Darhk) so he won't break up with her and rekindle his relationship with Laurel. [[spoiler:When Oliver finds out the truth, he promptly breaks up with her, goes back to Starling and eventually rekindles his relationship with Laurel]].
* The central premise of ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/28237845/chapters/69195987 Change fate by being aggressively kind]]'' is someone trying to avert this. A prophecy is told throughout the land of three children who will eventually grow up to bring about the apocalypse, and so every adventurer in the land seeks to end the prophecy by slaughtering them...except Phil, who realizes that a lifetime of being hunted for things they haven't even done yet will give the children a negative view of humanity and no choice ''but'' to end the world in response. Therefore, he hunts them down to [[HappilyAdopted adopt them]] and give them a better life than that. [[spoiler:He's also motivated to do this because ''he'' nearly gave in to one of these in the past -- a prophecy about how an avian would kill thousands upon thousands, which led to avians being hunted until he was the SoleSurvivor of his species, at which point he hid away rather than give in to his rage and prove the prophecies right.]]
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Fanfic/HeroChat''. After a dream where Ladybug has to stepped down because she was pregnant and Team Miraculous spent forever fighting on who would take her place, Chloé nominates herself to take Ladybug's place if the latter goes on a maternity leave. This leads to Alya saying that she wants to be the backup Ladybug and will fight Chloé for the post, followed by Kagami (since she looks like Ladybug the most), then Kim (since he wants to join in on the challenge), and then Alix (because she thinks Kim as Ladybug will be a bad idea). All of this despite the fact that Ladybug isn't even pregnant now.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In the ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' novels, people have gotten into the habit of looking up themselves in uptime reference works. Some of them then decide to try to make the bits about their future that they like come sooner, and the bits that they don't like [[SelfDefeatingProphecy not happen]]. In some cases - the matter with Charles I of England and Oliver Cromwell being the most obvious - the manner in which they try to avoid their fate just makes it likely to happen sooner.
* Played with in the Tim Pratt short story "Another End of the Empire": an EvilOverlord receives a prophecy that a child from a certain village will grow up to bring an end to his empire. Rather than wipe them out (he knows how these things work; there will be survivors), he instead uses the village as a test bed for social and political reform, improving education and the general quality of life, hoping to eliminate any possible motive anyone would have for trying to overthrow him. He even adopts the three most likely candidates as his sons and allows them to pursue their own agendas to keep them happy. The twist is that [[spoiler: in making all these changes, he has made his empire peaceful and prosperous, his subjects actually like him now rather than simply fear him, and he can even retire happily and pass on rule to one of his more progressive-minded sons]]. So his empire does come to end, just not the way he expected. Amusingly, both the overlord and his Sybil is aware of this trope and discusses it -- it is the reason he is certain there would be survivors, when he complains that his probability witches have been unable to narrow it down beyond the three most likely candidates the Sybil suggests it is a dynamic prophecy and any one of them ''could'' be the overthrower if the other two are killed or removed, and towards the end the plan is to continue the course so as to avoid triggering the prophecy before he can die from something less destiny-entangled. It is only at the end he realizes he'd managed to arrange things so [[ProphecyTwist the prophecy could be fulfilled in a less personally unpleasant way]].\\
\\
The wording of the prophecy was "If allowed to grow to manhood, he will take over your empire, overthrow your ways and means, and send you from the halls of your palace forever", which ''almost'' (one can quibble about one part of it) happened, just not in the way the evil overlord thought: the Empire is taken over by one of the children... because he adopted the child (all of them, but only one wanted to rule) and later abdicated and gave the throne to that child, his ways and means were overthrown... because, in the process of allowing them to indulge in their agendas, that child had introduced extensive but effective reforms far beyond anything the overlord had considered, and while the one that took over the Empire didn't exactly ''send'' the overlord from the halls of the palace forever, he did see the overlord do so - because the overlord felt useless and didn't ''want'' to stay around after having abdicated.
* In the Victorian heist novel ''Any Old Diamonds'', the main character's WickedStepmother always feared that high society, and her new stepchildren, would not accept her because she's a lower-class woman who married a duke. So she rubs her wealth and rank in everyone's face all the time, and is in general a huge {{Jerkass}}. (It doesn't help that are some nasty skeletons in the closet regarding her ''first'' marriage.) So yes, high society hates having her around and people only invite her to things when they absolutely have to, because she's ''unbearable''. The protagonist notes that there are other women who married into the nobility after careers as dancers and actresses who are now well-accepted after the initial classist hiccups, because they're actually nice to people.
* In Creator/PiersAnthony's ''Literature/ApprenticeAdept: Blue Adept'', in [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle (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, which is really a supercomputer, set Red on his trail intentionally, to get Stile into Phaze to play his part to SaveBothWorlds.
* In ''Literature/AstralDawn'', Caspian unwittingly fulfills his destiny by traveling to the Moment of Creation, a point in space-time he was warned never to go.
* In ''Literature/CastleInTheAir'', Flower-In-the-Night's father locked her up since her birth, after hearing a prophecy that the first man she sees will become her husband. If he hadn't done that, she would have never met the main protagonist Abdullah ...
* Creator/CSLewis' book ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia: Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy'' 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. [[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 GambitRoulette. No doubt giving the dryad the plot-triggering prophecy was all according to plan.
* ''Literature/ACryInTheNight'': When Erich learns Jenny is planning on leaving him, he's convinced that his paranoia that she would break her promise and abandon him was justified. However, Jenny was only driven away because of Erich's own jealous and controlling behavior.
* ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' uses this trope in an interesting way. Instead of the {{seer|s}} giving a prophecy and leaving others to fulfill it, the seer '''is''' a MessianicArchetype who tries to find the best possible path for the future and enact it himself. The problem is that once humanity is set on a certain path in the present, the number of possible futures diminish and it becomes impossible to switch to a different path for the future without dealing with the effects of the prior path.
* ''Literature/ElementalLogic'': 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.
* Chris and Cathy's incestuous love in ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic''. The Grandmother wanted to prevent such a thing, but she actually pushed them together by locking them up for years, isolated from the rest of the world and other kids.
* ''Literature/TheFolkOfTheAir'':
** Dain is told that if his child lives, he will never be king. [[spoiler:Attempting to murder his unborn child by poisoning the mother succeeds in killing only the mother. The child ends up in the hands of Madoc who, having his hands on a secret member of the royal family and aware of Dain’s depravity, decides to shift loyalties, resulting in Dain’s murder just as he was about to be king.]]
** Jude’s mother is told that her child would alter the fate of the faerie world. [[spoiler:Thinking it to be about Vivienne, she fakes her death and flees back to the mortal world. It’s suggested that the prophecy was actually about Jude, who was only born because her mother ran away from Madoc and remarried a human.]]
* ''The Nice And Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch'', from ''Literature/GoodOmens'' work a bit like this:
-->'''Newt:''' But if you're going to places and doing things because she saw them, and she saw them because you were there, then...\\
'''Anathema:''' Yes, I know.
* In ''Literature/TheGraveyardBook'', if the Jacks had never taken it upon themselves to kill Bod's family, Bod would never even have made it to the graveyard in the first place.
* Creator/JaneYolen's ''Literature/GreatAltaSaga''. When Jenna's soldiers capture the Cat and tell her to kill him, as it is prophesized she will, she refuses. That night, the Cat breaks free and Jenna's close friend, called Cat as a nickname, dies in the resulting fight. Thus, Jenna [[ProphecyTwist does]] bring about the death of a Cat.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'' is built around one, as explained by Dumbledore in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince book six]]:
** Voldemort indirectly hears half of a prophecy about a boy about to be born who will be his nemesis. With two possible choices, Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom, 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. What's more, Dumbledore hints that not all prophecies have to be fulfilled. The only reason Harry is going to fulfill the prophecy is that [[TheUnchosenOne he would never rest until Voldemort was dead]], and the same goes for Voldemort. The only way to avoid it coming true is if they both stop, which certainly won't happen. Worth noting, the prophecy only actually says that one of the two (Voldemort, Harry) will kill the other. Since Harry was a baby at the time Voldemort heard it, striking immediately seemed to make sense. Voldy really should have put more thought into it, though. [[WordOfGod JK Rowling]] has said that had the roles been reversed, Neville would have been just as capable of walking the same path Harry did. There ''was'' a [[TakeAThirdOption third option]] available to Voldemort, but it was one that his ego and paranoia would've never allowed him to take even had he been aware of it: do nothing. That would've resulted in neither Harry nor Neville being "marked as the Dark Lord's equal" and gaining the power to defeat him.
--->'''Dumbledore:''' Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back! Voldemort is no different!
** Played for laughs with some of Trelawney's "predictions". The first time we see her, in the third book, she asks Neville to use one of the blue cups for tea-leaves-reading after he breaks his first one. Neville, already nervous at the best of time, promptly breaks the first cup he uses. She ends the lesson by telling him he'll be late next time, "so mind you work extra hard to catch up". Hermione believes this is why people die when they see "the Grim"; since it's believed to be an omen of Death, many people get so scared to see it that they die of fright.
** A similar example is mentioned in ''Literature/FantasticBeastsAndWhereToFindThem''; The Augurey's mournful cry was once believed to foretell the death of whoever heard it (in reality, they were predicting rain). The entry goes on to mention how several wizards suffered fatal fear-based heart attacks after hearing an unseen Augurey's cry.
* In ''Literature/HoratioHornblower'' novel ''Lieutenant Hornblower'', Captain Sawyer's deteriorating mental state turns him into TheParanoiac. He abuses and undermines his lieutenants because he's convinced (with no evidence) that they're conspiring to mutiny against him. As a result of this behavior, his lieutenants reluctantly consider the prospect of mutiny... and then comes Saywer's mysterious fall down the hatchway.
* Inverted in ''Series/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...
* In book 2 of ''Literature/TheIncorrigibleChildrenOfAshtonPlace'', one character refuses to tell Penelope what's going on for fear that Penelope's attempts to avoid it will lead to this.
* ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'':
** In ''Eragon'' the title character is asked by a mother to bless her child. He scrapes together some magic words and does. Then his dragon kisses the child, leaving a mark on their forehead. When Eragon protests that he didn't really do anything, someone points out that the kid has both the blessing of a dragon rider and the mark of a kiss from a dragon. They're probably not going to be satisfied as, say, a grocer or blacksmith. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, Eragon screwed up the wording, and accidentally cursed [[http://inheritance.wikia.com/wiki/Elva Elva]].]]
** This is discussed later on in the series, and it's stated that the only sure way to prevent one of these prophecies coming to pass is to immediately kill oneself (an example is given of an elf seeing a premonition of him killing his son in battle and committing suicide so he wouldn't do it), because the premonitions don't tell you what choices you made to make the future that you saw.
* ''Literature/TheLicaniusTrilogy'': Given that this story has both prophecy and time-travel as major components of the plot, this trope comes up a lot.
** In the first book, the Augur Kol has a vision that he will be killed by Scyner. Upon meeting Scyner, he promptly attacks and Scyner kills him in self-defense.
** When he was still a youth, Gassandrid's home city was destroyed by an unknown catastrophe. Millennia later, he attempted to travel back in time and prevent this, only for the backlash from his malfunctioning time travel attempt to cause that very catastrophe
* Subverted and lampshaded in Calderon's ''Life is a Dream'', where Segismund - the subject of an [[Theatre/OedipusTheKing Oedipus Rex]]-type prophecy - points out that it ''would'' be a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, 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!''
* An old [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_(meter) Spanish romance]] named ''The Lover and Death" features [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a man in love meeting Death]]. [[TheGrimReaper Death]] tells him that he has one hour left to live. Desperate, the man seeks the company of his girlfriend, wishing to spend his last moments with her. Problem -- her parents left and the door's locked, so she can't open the door for him. So she decides to help him climb to her balcony with a thread of [[TooDumbToLive silk]]. He falls to his death.
* In the Myth/HinduMythology epic ''{{Literature/Mahabharata}}'', possibly the UrExample, the story of Krishna begins with his uncle Kamsa, the king of the Mathura kingdom, being told a prophecy that predicted his death at the hands of his sister Devaki's child. Out of fear, he imprisons Devaki, planning to kill all of her children at birth. Eventually, her eighth child Krishna is born and is smuggled out to be raised by foster parents in the village of Gokula. Years later, Kamsa learns of his survival and sends demons to kill him. The demons are defeated by Krishna, who as a young man returns to Mathura to overthrow his uncle, resulting in Kamsa's death at the hands of his nephew Krishna. It was due to Kamsa's attempts to prevent the prophecy that led to it coming true.
* In the short story "Literature/TheManOutside" by Creator/EvelynESmith, someone called Martin is destined to have a son who develops the interstellar drive, resulting in the exploitation of other planets and their native populations -- so one of his descendants (Conrad) plots to travel back through time to kill him, preventing the birth of his son. Martin's other descendants get wind of this, and themselves travel back to protect Martin from Conrad, including anyone from Martin's time who might be an agent of Conrad. When Martin is old, ''childless'', and on his deathbed, Conrad finally turns up -- and confirms what Martin had worked out years earlier, that his plan all along was to deliberately allow his "death threat" to leak, panicking his brothers and sisters into acting as they did, and thereby achieving the same result without the assassination actually needing to be carried out.
* Mr. Casaubon's posthumous attempt in ''Literature/{{Middlemarch}}'' to prevent his widow, Dorothea, from marrying Will Ladislaw using a codicil in his will that removes her inheritance if she does so. At the time of Casaubon's death, they have no serious involvement and certainly no plans to marry, but Dorothea's sense of injustice helps to attract her to Will, and in fact, her money is one of the things standing in the way of the relationship...
* A mundane version is mentioned in ''Literature/NightWatchDiscworld'' with the paranoia of Homicidal Lord Winder. He has the brutal [[SecretPolice Cable Street Particulars]] continually root out plots and spies... and as the narrator says, the thing about rooting out plots and spies by such measures is that if there are no plots and spies to begin with, there ''will'' be plots and spies very soon.
* The Clayr in the ''Literature/OldKingdom'' series apparently see nothing odd about inducting a member into their ranks because they Saw themselves inducting her into their ranks.
* ''Paycheck'' offers a twist on this. Instead of trying to prevent the prophecy from happening, the protagonist Jennings is actively trying to figure out how to fulfill it. [[spoiler: Jenning has an envelope of items, which will help him to survive. At all times, there is the appearance of free will; only at certain moments do the items reveal how they are useful. Jenning's [[WeUsedToBeFriends frenemy]] seems to defeat Jenning's mission (the prophecy) with a [[LukeIAmYourFather reveal]] but then the time scoop shows up to reveal the final item's worth.]] The movie by the same name (see above) plays with the trope in a different way.
* ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'':
** There was a great prophecy stating that a child of the "Big Three" (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades) would make a decision that will decide the fate of Olympus upon turning sixteen. Those three gods formed a pact to stop having children as a result, and to kill the ones they currently had before they turned sixteen. Suffice to say that if not for that pact [[spoiler:Hades' lover Maria wouldn't have been killed, Hades wouldn't have cursed the Oracle, Luke's mother wouldn't have gone insane trying to become the new Oracle, Luke wouldn't have tried to bring back Kronos, and]] there would have been no decision for the kid in the prophecy to make in the first place.
** It's implied that [[spoiler: Luke's mother was driven mad from the visions of her son's rather unpleasant future. As mentioned above his mother's insanity drives Luke down the path of evil. This makes it a rare instance where merely viewing the prophecy made it come true without any actions being made to prevent it]].
* In Creator/ShannonHale's ''Literature/PrincessAcademy'', the priests of a country traditionally predict what city the prince's future wife will come from, and then the prince goes there to meet all the local girls and get married. The current prince is told that his bride will come from the remote village of Mount Eskel, so the kingdom hurriedly sets up the titular academy to give the local peasant girls a decent education before one of them becomes queen. The prince ends up proposing to [[spoiler: Britta,]] a girl he knew from back in the capital, whose parents had shipped her off to Mount Eskel to get her into the pool of potential brides. The priests are quick to close this loophole for future prophecies, and the main character later wonders why the prophecy didn't point to the city that [[spoiler: Britta]] was originally from, but decides that it was because Mount Eskel "needed an academy more than a princess".
* In ''Literature/TheShatteredKingdoms'', the "curse" of Norland ([[spoiler:actually a disease]]) wouldn't have been released if the Emperor hadn't unsealed a tomb where a weapon against the cursed is supposed to be obtained.
* In ''Literature/SleepingDragon'' by Creator/JohnnyNexus, five people in a DungeonPunk world are teleported to the same place and given a mission. They eventually learn that five hundred years earlier, the wizard who invented the meta-spells that make modern industrial magic possible prophesied that the world was doomed, and so created a spell that would summon the five greatest heroes of the age to stop it. (They also learn that "heroes" are in short supply, so the spell summoned the five people who came closest to fitting the criteria and then had a breakdown, but that's by-the-by.) Much later, they discover that the threat is a product of industrial magic, and then realise that the wizard ''only researched meta-spells in the first place'' for the specific purpose of creating the summoning spell. Their own wizard says that prophecies always work like this, which is why nobody attempts them any more.
* Cersei Lannister, from ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', had her fortune told when she was a child, and every attempt she's made to say ScrewDestiny seems to bring her closer to fulfilling various conditions.
** Part of the fortune was that [[spoiler:'the valonqar' - the younger sibling, implied to be male - ]] would [[spoiler:murder her]]. She decided that this meant [[spoiler:Tyrion]] and began [[TheBully treating him like complete dirt]], thereby giving him several very solid, personal reasons to dream of [[spoiler:killing her]] as he grew up. But, her increasing paranoia (and stress-drinking-and-sleeping around) over what the prophecy could mean has caused massive rifts between her [[spoiler: and the "safe" Jaime, who is younger than her by a matter of seconds,]] and as of ''A Feast for Crows'', he may be able to fulfill the prophecy by [[spoiler:refusing to save her from the Swords and Stars]].
*** And [[spoiler:the prophecy says THE valonqar, not HER valonqar - which means the prophecy may actually refer to some ''other'' acknowledged set of notable siblings' young/er/est member, and Cersei's bloodthirsty plotting has left ''many'' of those with a serious wish to take revenge on her in its winding wake]].
** She also seems to be on her way to fulfilling her own personal interpretation of the part regarding her children - "gold shall be their crowns, and gold shall be their shrouds". She sees it as "they'll be crowned, then they'll die and then you'll be left with your life wrecked and you'll die" -- even though there are other interpretations. They're all born blond -- aka "golden-haired" (which is a bit odd for Baratheons), hence... they may not necessarily need to actively rule anything (with her as the puppetmaster of their lives) to meet the "golden crown" conditions -- but, [[RegentForLife that's what she aims to do]], regardless of the known risk. And, as pure little Lannisters, "golden shrouds" are a given; red and gold are the House colours. It also does ''not'' necessarily say that her children will definitely die before her to make everything she wants to go down the drain enough to have her weep buckets (although it's heavily implied by following the mention of shrouds), but she certainly fears that it definitely does. [[spoiler:However, the way she [[MyBelovedSmother raised Joffrey]], partly thanks to her worries, helped turn him into a monster, which set him up to be killed by the Tyrells to protect his bride, Margaery Tyrell... which then allows her to marry the more pliable Tommen... who becomes a boy-king at a ''very'', very unstable time liable to generate numerous ways to get him torn from Cersei's smothering grasp, turned against her, maimed and/or killed: all outcomes she'd not want. Meanwhile, Myrcella ''is'' "taken" from her and sent to Dorne as part of an arranged betrothal, surrounded by people with a more progressive outlook which, if she adopts it, might distance her enough from her birth family to actively fight Cersei at some point. Although the Dornish ''also'' have little cause to love Lannisters, despite Myrcella being an olive branch between kingdoms, so that not only had the chance to lose the prospective Princess her looks through misadventure, but could still blow up in the way Cersei expects... And, all because Cersei refused to undergo another political marriage, mainly so she could remain at King's Landing to keep a paranoid eye and over-firm grip on the "[[HeirClubForMen more important]]" boys.]]
** Each Targaryen attempt to outright force the Prince That Was Promised prophecy into happening in their specific generation (as it turns out, most of them premature, at best) has had long-lasting effects. Most being tragic ones, when not being outright stupid ''and'' tragic together. Yes, each and every attempt has, ultimately, led to the situation in which dragons were, finally, hatched again. And, arguably, after enough failures... ''somebody'' would eventually get it right, if only by accident; so, it was always going to pass in some manner. Whether the price will ultimately prove worth it? We'll have to see.
** When Tyrion was born, some very snide comments/ rumours/ wishful satire started circulating about how such a deformed birth boded nothing but ill for the prideful Lannister House. Both Tywin and Cersei certainly had other reasons on top of this to dislike him all his life, but ''perhaps'' horrifically abusing him for years was not a sound long term plan if you maybe, might, perhaps have to rely on him to stay loyal?
* Done with a ProphecyTwist in Creator/PeterDavid's ''Literature/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]].
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'':
** In ''Literature/FateOfTheJedi'', it is revealed that [[EldritchAbomination Abeloth]] [[WasOnceAMan used to be a mortal woman]]. Fearing that her immortal family would abandon her once she became old and decrepit, she drank of the Font of Power and bathed in the Pool of Knowledge. Doing so gave her immortality and incredible powers, but mutated her into her current form. Her family abandoned her in disgust.
* In the Creator/DaleBrown novel ''Starfire'', the Russians attacking the space station that the eponymous solar power collector is installed on out of fear that it gets weaponised against them is exactly what leads to it being weaponised in self-defense.
* All prophecies in the ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'' series are self-fulfilling. Richard, the main protagonist, also makes a strong argument for just letting things run there course as part of it. Throughout the series, every prophecy has been twisted because of interpretation, and no one knows what the actual meaning is to properly use. Even then, there are "dead branch" prophecies because some are either-or. Combined, this meant that trying to invoke a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy or prepare for it could actually prevent or impair it.
* In ''Through a Brazen Mirror: The Famous Flower of Servingmen'', the sorceress Margaret is haunted by a vision that her daughter and an unknown man will kill her; since the laws of magic prevent her from killing family without magical backlash, she tries to break the prediction by getting rid of the likeliest candidates for the man. [[spoiler:These candidates are her daughter's husband and son. She doesn't realize the son also counts as her family, and his death sets her up for failure for the rest of the book. She is eventually executed for the deaths of her grandson and son-in-law, as well as all the people she kills trying to indirectly kill her daughter afterward.]]
* About thirty years before the start of the Literature/VorkosiganSaga, Mad Emperor Yuri became convinced that his relatives were planning to kill him and seize the throne for themselves. So he sent teams of assassins to kill all of his successors before they could strike. Those of his relatives who survived the attacks, along with their in-laws (Including the greatest warleader in the empire, General Count Piotr Vorkosigan, who did ''not'' take having his wife, daughter and oldest son murdered at the dinner table well) decided that they'd had enough of Yuri's insanity and launched a coup which resulted in his death.
* In ''Literature/TheWatchmakerOfFiligreeStreet,'' Grace is convinced that Mori [[spoiler: will either convince Thaniel to leave her or use his manipulation of probability to MurderTheHypotenuse. She ends up attacking Mori and creating a bomb from one of his clockwork creations, which injures him, and in doing so causes Thaniel to leave her for Mori]].
* In ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' 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 YouCantFightFate, 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]].
* In the BackStory of ''Whit'' by Creator/IainBanks, Isis's Great-Aunt Zhobelia [[spoiler: has a vision that the large bag of banknotes discovered near Isis's grandfather before he set up his cult, and which she's been hiding ever since will bring disaster to the cult. So she decides to burn it. This causes the fire in which Isis's parents were killed]].
* The dragonet prophecy in ''Literature/WingsOfFire'' [[spoiler:is actually a lie spread by Morrowseer]], but nearly everyone in Pyrrhia knows it and believes in it. So, when a group of dragonets who fit the prophecy show up, they are given significant political power (if only because of their reputation)...which they naturally use to end Pyrrhia's CivilWar. Exactly as Morrowseer said they would.
* When the [[LegionOfDoom Slaughterhouse Nine]] come to Brockton Bay in ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', Dinah Alcott predicts that if their leader Jack Slash escapes, he'll end the world in two years. Jack learns about this prophecy, grabs some resources, and goes to ground for two years while he puts together something that could do the job.
* In ''[[Literature/ZeusIsDead Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure]]'', Zeus's original order that the gods withdraw from the mortal world was Zeus's attempt to outwit a prophecy of his murder, which, eventually, wound up making it come true..

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* On ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun'', 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.
* ''Series/{{Angel}}'':
** Done, though never identified as such, in the case of Sahjhan 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. [[EscapedFromHell 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, culminating in [[spoiler: Angel killing Connor to save a bunch of hostages]]. Thanks to a DealWithTheDevil, [[spoiler: Connor came back]]. In short, Sahjahn's meddling to try and avoid his fate created the circumstances that led to his fate being fulfilled.
* ''Series/AshesOfLove'':
** Zi Fen gave Jin Mi the Unfeeling Pill wishing to spare her daughter the heartache she felt, but robbing Jin Mi of the ability to feel and process her feelings dooms her chance of being happy in love.
** No matter what Run Yu does, Tu Yao views it as a plot to steal the throne from Xu Feng. Eventually her abuse drives him to do the things she accused him of.
* On ''Series/Babylon5'', Londo Mollari, especially towards the end of the series, does his best to avoid his prophetic dream of one day being strangled by G'Kar while he is Centauri Emperor from coming true, it tragically does not work as his past mistakes catch up to him, and by the end of his story arc, he clearly is unable to avoid what lies ahead of him.
* On ''Series/{{Being Human|UK}}'' when Mitchell receives a prophecy that a werewolf will kill him, he becomes paranoid about any werewolves other than George and Nina. When they encounter two other werewolves he picks up the IdiotBall and is so aggressive that he starts a feud with them and really messes up things for everyone. In fact, [[spoiler:no one gets killed and they make peace in the end]] and the prophecy itself [[spoiler:later turns out to be a lie]].
* ''Series/BestFriendsWhenever'': It is revealed that Cyd and Shelby themselves are what created the Future Lab timeline:
** When they try to see if Shelby's dad is involved in the Future Lab, they unintentionally get him promoted to that position.
** When they go back to 1991 to stop Janet Smythe from finding Globo-Digit-Dyne, they accidentally leave behind some of their tachyons which Janet later uses to create the {{Mega Corp}}.
** They accidentally tell Janet the secret to time travel which would allow her to create the {{Bad Future}} that Cyd and Shelby saw in "Fight to the Future: Part 1".
** Also, the {{Alternate Timeline}} with Cyd and Shelby strapped to tables was revealed to have been done voluntarily to [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice their powers in order to stop Janet Smythe.]]
*** A minor non-related example was the fire in "A Time Time To Say Thankyou".
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
** "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS1E12ProphecyGirl Prophecy Girl]]": The Master is freed by drinking Buffy's blood, but she went to fight him only because of the prophecy. [[LampshadeHanging He even points it out]].
** DoubleSubversion in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E4Help Help]]": A girl named [[MeaningfulName Cassie]], who seems to have prophetic powers, claims that she will die this Friday, whether she likes it or not. The fact that she's been talking about her own death so much leads a cult to try to [[HumanSacrifice sacrifice her]] to a demon, figuring her mysterious disappearance will be chalked up to a suicide. Buffy [[ScrewDestiny manages to save her]] from all the cultists, demons and death traps...only for her to [[YouCantFightFate suddenly drop dead of a heart condition]] that she didn't even know she had. And while not stated, it's entirely plausible that all the stress of her prophecy and its aftermath ''caused'' that heart attack.
* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' has a few examples:
** Season 6 reveals that Piper and Leo's son Wyatt is destined to become the evilest male witch ever. This leads Gideon, headmaster of the Magic Academy, to try and prevent it by killing Wyatt as an infant. As it turns out, however, Wyatt will fight him off, but the psychological trauma of Gideon's attempts to kill him is exactly what turned Wyatt evil, to begin with. Leo ultimately breaks the cycle by [[spoiler: killing Gideon]].
** A prominent example is with Cole Turner in Season 5. He repeatedly attempts to win Phoebe back and be good, but no matter what he did to try to convince her, Phoebe and her sisters adamantly refuse to accept him back and try to kill him, stating that he will never be anything more than an evil demon. Eventually, Cole [[SanitySlippage goes insane]] and decides to [[ThenLetMeBeEvil just roll with it]].
* In ''{{Series/Community}}'' episode "[[Recap/CommunityS1E09Debate109 Debate 109]]" Shirley comes in to tell Jeff and Annie about the crazy idea Abed had that they would kiss. Thus giving Annie the thought to use this as a ploy to win a round of debate.
* This sort-of shows up in the only ''{{Series/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.]]
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** In [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion "The Christmas Invasion"]], the Doctor deliberately created one of these to get the Prime Minister kicked out of office, saying he could bring her government down with 6 words. "Don't you think she looks tired?" whispered in someone's ear. This got spread around until there was a huge controversy regarding her health. Meanwhile, the stress of her not knowing what he said, and the resulting media circus, actually affected her health and she ended up kicked out of office.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E8TheHungryEarth "The Hungry Earth"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E9ColdBlood "Cold Blood"]], a group of humans come into contact with Alaya, a member of the Silurian race. She then predicts that one of the humans will kill her and that her death will trigger a war that wipes out humanity. The humans refuse to believe her, but then one woman sneaks in, [[spoiler:gets into an argument with Alaya, and ends up accidentally murdering her with a stun gun. Then it turns out that Alaya's sister is the leader of the Silurian military, and she really doesn't like humans..]].
** The Series 9 StoryArc teases a Gallifreyan prophecy about a half-Time Lord, half-Dalek warrior known as "The Hybrid" starting in its second episode, and from there the Doctor deals with a variety of hybrid beings. In the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven three]]-[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent part]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent finale]], the Doctor is revealed to be the one person who knows who or what it is, and [[spoiler: Rassilon]] has him captured and given a ColdBloodedTorture treatment to bring out the truth about a creature destined to stand in the ruins of [[spoiler: Gallifrey]] and perhaps destroy all of space and time. What makes all this self-fulfilling? [[spoiler: It's possible the Doctor '''doesn't''' know what it is, just that it's ''not'' Time Lord/Dalek. Several possibilities are raised as to its identity, but none are confirmed. But capturing and torturing the Doctor '''and''' accidentally getting his beloved companion Clara killed along the way drives him to madness, and he proceeds to escape his confession dial, bloodlessly depose Rassilon and conquer Gallifrey, and then trick the Time Lords into effectively bringing Clara back from the grave with promises of answers to their questions -- in the process almost destroying the universe and traveling to the end of time to stand in Gallifrey's ruins. The Doctor thus becomes the Hybrid, by his own remorseful admission -- all because someone was determined to keep it from coming to pass]].
* Music/DollyParton had a variety show in the '80s and commented in her opening monologue one night about a tabloid paper that predicted she would fall in love with a 300 lb. wrestler and write a song about him entitled "Headlock On My Heart". She then introduced her special guest star, Wrestling/HulkHogan, and showed a video of a song she wrote, called "Headlock On My Heart". (Lyrics [[http://www.dollyon-line.com/archives/lyrics/headlockomh.shtml here]].)
* In an episode of ''Series/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.
* ''Series/TheFlash2014'':
** The entire series occurs because, in the future, the Reverse Flash wishes to stop Flash from existing, so he travels back in time and kills Barry Allen's mother when he was a child, reasoning that Barry would be so traumatized by the event he'd never become a hero. Ironically, this incident is exactly what pushes Barry to become a police scientist obsessed with the paranormal, which is what ends up turning him into the Flash. To add insult to the injury and doubly apply this trope, since the Reverse Flash's powers work by piggybacking from those of Flash's, once he changes the future he loses this connection. So he's now forced to make Barry turn into the Flash even earlier, so he can get his powers back and return to his own time.
** In the episode [[Recap/TheFlash2014S3E7KillerFrost "Killer Frost"]],[[spoiler: Caitlin]] is obsessed with finding Dr. Alchemy so he [[IJustWantToBeNormal can remove her powers]], as she's terrified of becoming a supervillain [[spoiler: like her [[EvilTwin Earth-2 counterpart]]]]. Said obsession ends up fueling her SplitPersonalityTakeover, turning her into a supervillain.
* What drives a lot of the plot in ''Series/FlashForward2009''. For example, until Janis saw a vision of herself pregnant in the future, she had never really considered having a baby. Mark was haunted by the vision that he would fall off the wagon, the pressure building to the point that when he's given a flask by someone who'd foreseen himself quitting drinking, he gives in to fate instead of pouring it out. Olivia's vision of herself with a lover begins to break apart her marriage, making cheating more likely. By the end of the series, it's been shown that the future seen in flash-forwards can be changed, but doing so required great effort to fight the inertia of the timestream.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** Maggy the Frog told Cersei that all three of her children would die. Cersei's own actions, in various ways, lead to this outcome. Joffrey dies because Cersei coddled him and then couldn't control him when he was made king, which led to him being poisoned because he was out of control. Myrcella died because the Mountain killed Oberyn, which in turn only happened because Cersei was determined to punish Tyrion for killing Joffrey without any proof that he was responsible. Finally, Tommen kills himself after Cersei detonates the wildfire under the Great Sept of Baelor, killing Margaery among many others.
** King Aegon II Targaryen was initially not interested in his claim and was willing to go along with his father's wish to have Rhaenyra take the throne. He was convinced after Alicent told him that Rhaenyra would have put his family to the sword as soon as she became the queen. It became a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy as their actions inevitably forced the Blacks to battle them to the death. All his sons were actually killed during the war.
** Towards the end of Season 8 [[spoiler:everyone becomes suspicious of Daenerys, fearing that she is unstable and will go mad. While Daenerys was under a lot of emotional pressure, it was her own allies holding her at arm's length and scheming against her which pushes her over the edge, just as they feared]].
* In ''Series/TheGeorgeLopezShow'', George’s already overweight best friend Ernie puts on so much weight that Vic predicts he is on his way to becoming like his morbidly obese, bedridden mother. Angie deduces that the explanation is that when even after Ernie finally moved out of his parents’ house, he still suffered horrible luck courting women. So Ernie overate and gained weight to become more physically unattractive to women from the get-go so he has an excuse to not have to try to get a date. When Ernie’s weight causes an incident at work, his bosses order him to lose weight or lose his job, and George has to show him that he can now fit into huge pants that his mother once wore to scare some sense into him. Although [[PlayedForLaughs George being George]], he barely remembers Angie’s words and tells Ernie has had a “self-fulfilling prophylactic”.
* In ''{{Series/Hercules}}'', Eurystheus is told that if his daughter Iole ever gets married, her husband will kill him. When Hercules asks that his son Hyllus and Iole may marry to heal the rift between both houses, Eurystheus attempts to have them both killed, fearful for his life. [[spoiler: During the climactic struggle, Hyllus ends up killing Eurystheus by throwing a knife to his chest, who might have lived if he had not tried to kill him.]]
* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' is full of these.
** 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 the graphic novel "Isaac's First Time", Isaac tells Eden about when he first discovered his power: a woman at a gallery showing confronted him about a painting of her being hit by a bus, and then still upset, she ran outside and was hit by a bus.
** In "1961", a young [[spoiler: Angela speaks with the young Company Founders about 7 dream, in which they form a company, and of the horrible things they 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]]''.
* Happens in ''Series/HomeAndAway'' when Miles is told by a young and apparently psychic girl [[spoiler: who was either a hallucination or a ghost that only he could see]] that he will die if he falls asleep. He spends several days not sleeping, eventually collapsing from exhaustion on his desk. If he hadn't been woken up a few minutes later and walked away from his desk, he would have been decapitated by a falling ceiling fan.
* In an episode of ''Series/HoneyIShrunkTheKids'', Wayne makes a high-tech eclipse viewer, which somehow allows him to see the near future. When he tries to show the truth to his neighbor, a cop, the neighbor just concludes that the only reason these things are happening (e.g. a car swerving and crashing) is because Wayne is the one causing them (e.g. running out in front of said car to try to stop it, resulting in the swerve and crash).
* In ''Series/{{Hornblower}}'', the paranoid Captain Sawyer becomes convinced that his officers are beginning to conspire against him. He begins to act increasingly irrational, vindictive and erratic towards them... leading them to begin conspiring against him.
* ''Series/ICarly'': If Carly/Freddie isn't revisited, then Sam's insistence that Carly's feelings for Freddie weren't real would become one. Sam tells Freddie Carly's feelings aren't real. Freddie breaks up with Carly because of Sam's thoughts. This stops any chance of Carly's feelings being allowed to blossom or fail on their own. Instead, Carly's feelings end immediately due to rejection and Freddie's explanation of Sam's potentially mistaken logic. Those feelings never return. Everyone believes Sam was correct. Carly never loved Freddie. Sam saying that Carly's feelings aren't real creates the situation that eventually results in everyone believing that Carly's feelings weren't real thus creating this trope.
* Invoked in a round-about way in ''Series/KamenRiderRyuki''. Miyuki Tezuka, a fortuneteller, predicts that he will be the next Rider to die in the [[DeadlyGame Rider War]]. [[spoiler: This is a lie. The next Rider that he predicts would die was, in fact, Shinji Kido, the protagonist of the series and the only other Rider besides Miyuki who wants to stop the Rider War. When both Riders are attacked by Takeshi Asakura, Miyuki takes a lethal blow intended for Shinji and ends up fulfilling the fake prophecy as a result.]]
* Mirabelle of ''Series/TheKicks'' believes that she's not smart enough to pass her classes, so she doesn't even make an effort. This, naturally, results in the very failure she believed would happen. She finally breaks out of this routine in "Breakaway."
* In ''Series/{{Lexx}}'', His Divine Shadow went out of his way to make the conditions of the prophecy foretelling his death at the hands of the last Brunnen-G possible just to show his contempt for the whole idea of prophecy, [[spoiler:wrongly]] believing that time is not cyclical and that no one can predict the future. His attempts to avert it when he realizes his earlier arrogance was a mistake seal his fate.
* In ''Series/TheLibrarians2014'' they have the appropriately titled episode "And the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy". Such prophecies can only be cancelled by the intervention of a person not included in the prophecy or by causing a massive upset in destiny.
** Baird receives a prophecy that she will be killed by a supernatural assassin in the Library at a certain time, despite the Library being warded against said assassin. She decides to avoid the Library and goes on a case only to be captured in a maze with the assassin stalking her. When the appointed time approaches she discovers [[spoiler:the maze is inside an artifact taken back to the Library. Had she remained in the Library the assassin would never have gotten to her]]. Baird manages to avert the prophecy by [[spoiler:having Jenkins, who was not in the prophecy, throw the artifact out of the Library]].
** The Oracle of Delphi had a vision that she would die after the next time she bathed in the waters of Delphi. [[spoiler:She fled Greece and was living in Seattle, where she regularly bathed in a pool to maintain her powers. However, it also affected the goggles of a school swimming team who used the pool, allowing them to see the future. This results in one of the students winning a trip to Greece. The student then added water from Mount Parnassus to the pool which meant the next time the Oracle bathed she was marked for death, living only so long as she stayed wet. She created Baird's prophecy and planned to use the power of the broken destiny to free herself. When Baird escapes her prophecy the assassin turned on the Oracle who had dried off]].
** Ezekiel, Stone, and Baird use prophecy glasses to catch snippets of their future selves solving the problems they currently face. This ends up nearly bringing them to blows when they see visions of being attacked by one another. The only reason for them attacking one another in the vision was their paranoia after seeing the vision itself.
* ''{{Series/Lost}}'': [[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 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]].
* ''Series/LostLoveInTimes'': Yuan An is convinced Yuan Ling plans to overthrow and kill him, so he falsely accuses Yuan Ling of planning a rebellion and tries to have him arrested. When Yuan Ling returns he really is plotting against Yuan An.
* ''Series/Lucifer2016'': Father Kinley tries to manipulate [[spoiler:Chloe]] into sending Lucifer back to Hell after hearing a prophecy saying that "evil shall be released" after "the Devil walks the Earth and finds his FirstLove." [[spoiler:Instead, it's his actions trying to stop the prophecy that cause it to happen, because it starts a line of DisasterDominoes that end with him dying and being possessed by the ''true'' BigBad of the season, the demon Dromos, who proceeds to kill people ''en masse'' so they can be possessed by other demons and start wreaking havoc on the mortal plane. Ironically, Dromos' actions were to achieve the one thing that Kinley was trying to do to ''subvert'' the prophecy: send Lucifer back to Hell, which he ultimately succeeds in doing.]]
* This is a huge part of ''Series/{{Merlin 2008}}''.
** [[spoiler: Morgana]] is shown to go to the dark side mainly because they're the only other magical people she knows. If Merlin had revealed himself to her, this wouldn't have happened. In case that's too subtle, [[spoiler: Merlin is so desperate to keep Mordred from his future evil acts that he trips him with a branch so he will be caught by Camelot knights. Not only does Mordred kill said knights, but his line afterwards makes absolutely certain that Merlin has driven him to evil]].
** And in "The Tears of Uther Pendragon Part II", he tells the Dragon that he should have listened to him and never trusted [[spoiler:Morgana]]. So apparently he missed the obvious Aesop.
** Luckily, he gets straightened out four episodes later when he's shown visions of the future by a crystal cave. Except for the first three visions, he winds up fulfilling each and every one of them through his paranoia to stop them from happening. He clearly states that this was all his doing at the end though, and nicely averts AesopAmnesia when he talks to Arthur about destiny in the next episode.
--->'''Merlin''': You may be destined to rule Camelot, but you have a choice as to how you do it.
** There's also a nice variation with Arthur. Merlin protects and advises Arthur because Arthur will one day be a great king, and as a result, Arthur becomes a better king.
* Similarly on a ''{{Series/Numb3rs}}'' episode featuring Chinese people, a psychic predicts the killers' next move and goes there with his camera. [[spoiler: The killers are there, along with their big truck. He doesn't get better either.]]
* ''Series/OnceUponATime:'' A seer tells Rumplestiltskin that his actions on the battlefield will "leave [his] son fatherless," which he quite naturally assumes means he's going to die. He's ''not'' happy when he runs into the seer again and she remarks that her prophecy came true.
-->'''Rumplestiltskin:''' "Well, in a manner of speaking. I hobbled myself on the battlefield, was branded a coward. My wife ran away and left me. Then my son was called to the front. Oh! - Then I became the Dark One. ''Then'' Bae left me. So, yes, my actions on the battlefield left my son fatherless. But it would've been ''nice'' to know about all the ''pesky details.''"
* In ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode "Breaking Point", a scientist invents 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 [[spoiler:prevent her death by ensuring that they never meet in the first place, so he travels back to the day they met and shoots his younger self. Both versions of him die. Unfortunately, fate doesn't like to be cheated - his future wife was planning on killing herself that day, and only meeting his past self kept her from taking the pills]].
* ''Series/PrincessAgents'': The emperor thinks the Yan family are plotting against him. So he has them all killed... except for Yan Xun, who plots against the emperor to get revenge.
* On ''Series/{{QI}}'', Victoria Coren Mitchell mentioned a dream she'd had the night before about being on the show. She mentioned a question that had been asked in her dream and her response (which had triggered the klaxon.) The producers Googled the answer to that question and had Stephen ask it, thus fulfilling her prophecy.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'': A recurring theme in the episode "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIICassandra Cassandra]]":
** 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 chewing gum 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 computerized face just before she shorts circuits is [[CassandraTruth a weary "See?"]]
** Earlier in the episode, "Rimmer" (actually [[PropheticFallacy a crew member wearing Rimmer's nametag]]) dies of a heart attack brought on by the stress of being told (by Cassandra) that he's going to die of a heart attack.
** It's subverted when she predicts that Lister will murder Rimmer while the latter is making love to Kochanski. [[spoiler:Cassandra fabricated it to trick Rimmer and Kochanski into doing it so she could get pre-emptive revenge on Lister.]]
* In the first season finale of ''Series/{{Rome}}'', the nobles of Rome assassinate Julius Caesar of out fear he will end the Roman Republic and turn it into a monarchy again. Unfortunately, the nobles underestimated how popular Caesar was with the commoners that his family and allies use the assassination against Caesar to make the people turn against the nobles and gain more power from them. As a result, by the final episode, Caesar's heir Augustus becomes the First Emperor of the Roman Empire, turning the nobles fear of Rome becoming a monarchy again into reality.
* Subverted unusually in the ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' ChristmasEpisode "Lexmas". Lex dreams about a "perfect" future in which he is married to Lana, while Clark is married [[FanPreferredCouple to Chloe]]. He is on excellent terms with everyone, even Jonathan Kent, who has become senator when [[ForWantOfANail Lex made the choice to drop out.]] Jonathan even said Lex is the finest man he ever met. Lex's mother's ghost tells him this could be reality if he makes the right choices. [[DreamApocalypse Unfortunately, dream Lana dies delivering his second child.]] Lex wakes up and decides the only way to stop that is to have money and power, so he [[StartOfDarkness starts the smear campaign]] against Jonathan, [[TearJerker/{{Smallville}} tragically]] missing the point that [[AlasPoorVillain his decision of not dropping out means all the happiness he felt would become nothing]].
* Averted in one episode of ''Series/StargateAtlantis'', the crew meets a man who can tell the future (correctly) and show his visions to other people. The team suggests that they are self-fulfilling prophecies, however even events that could not have been self-fulfilled through the prophecy turn out to be true.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** Discussed in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E18CauseAndEffect Cause and Effect]]," when the crew realizes that they're caughtin a time loop that ends in their destruction.
-->'''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.
** This trope is also one of the driving themes of the episode "Time Squared", although it is averted at the very last moment.
** An example of a prophecy coming true because somebody wants it to occurred in "Rightful Heir". The Klingon messiah Kahless said he would return on Borath. After 1500 years of waiting the Klingon religious leaders decided to use science to make the prophecy come true. They created a clone of Kahless and programmed it with Kahless's memories, essentially making it identical to the original. Thus, as the prophecy predicted, Kahless returned from the afterlife on Borath.
** And in "All Good Things," it's Picard probing into the NegativeSpaceWedgie in three different time periods that causes it to form in the first (and last, and middle) place. That's the TimeyWimeyBall for you.
* During the final season of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', [[ItsAllAboutMe Chancellor Gowron]] becomes convinced that [[FourStarBadass General Martok]] will try to kill him and take control of the Klingon Empire (and [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter he couldn't be more wrong]], as Martok is [[MyCountryRightOrWrong unquestionably loyal to Gowron and the Empire]]). This prompts Gowron to [[UriahGambit send Martok on a series of ill-fated missions meant to get him killed or disgraced]] to the point where he'll no longer be a threat. When Martok's [[BloodBrothers blood brother]] Worf figures out what's going on, [[KlingonPromotion he challenges and kills Gowron]], and immediately passes the chancellorship to a [[ReluctantRuler very reluctant]] Martok.
* ''Series/{{Taxi}}'': In episode 4.1. "Jim the Psychic", Jim has a psychic vision of Alex dying after answering a knock on his door after doing the can-can while wearing a green shirt and a catcher's mask. Why is he doing the can-can wearing a green shirt and catcher's mask? The vision rattled Louie, and that makes Alex want to teach him a lesson about superstition. Partly subverted in that [[spoiler: Alex doesn't die]] and some of the prophecy happens in a not-self-fulfilling way.
* ''Series/ThatsSoRaven''. Most of the episodes revolve around the tried-and-tested formula of vision > attempt to stop vision > vision happens because of attempt. Occasionally, the vision would come true without her not doing anything except for watching. Usually, she ''completely'' misinterprets what's actually going on.
** Case in point: Raven is put in charge of directing the annual town musical. She gets a vision of the audience booing and walking out and is determined to make the performance perfect. But her dictatorial directing soon drives the entire cast to quit. Raven goes ahead and puts on the musical as a one-woman show...which leads to the audience walk-out. But what Raven ''didn't'' see was that, feeling sorry for her, the actors came back to perform the musical to loud cheers.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'':
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E46AMostUnusualCamera A Most Unusual Camera]]", when Chester Diedrich and Woodward begin fighting over the camera that can predict the future, Chester accidentally takes a photograph. It shows Paula, Chester's wife and Woodward's sister, screaming. Chester and Woodward each conclude that Paula is screaming because the other tried to kill him. The two of them fall out the window to their deaths while fighting, causing Paula to scream. When the crooked waiter Pierre comes up to their hotel suite to blackmail Paula, he notices that the photograph has more than two bodies. Paula rushes over to the window to see and trips on the carpet, falling to her death. Pierre then notices that there is a fourth body in the photograph and falls out the window himself.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E112NoTimeLikeThePast No Time Like the Past]]", after traveling back in time to Homeville, Indiana on July 3, 1881, Paul Driscoll recalls that the schoolhouse is going to burn down as a result of a kerosene lantern falling off a passing wagon and twelve children will be badly injured. He vows not to make any efforts to change history as previous attempts to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong all ended in failure. However, when the time comes, he tries to unhitch the horses from the wagon carrying the kerosene lantern. In the process, he frightens the horses, causing the kerosene to fall off the wagon and start the fire that burns down the schoolhouse.
** The same twist happens in the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E49BackThere Back There]]". A man travels back in time and tries to warn people of [[UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln Lincoln's]] assassination. Unbeknownst to the man, one of the people he tells about it is John Wilkes Booth, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero who gets the idea from him.]]
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E144WhatsInTheBox What's in the Box]]", Joe Britt, who has a tempestuous relationship with his wife Phyllis, begins to see his past, present and future on his recently repaired television. A vision of the future shows Joe killing Phyllis in a fight. When Joe attempts to reconcile with Phyllis, she spurns him. Angered by this and another vision of the future showing him being sent to the electric chair, Joe kills Phyllis, just as he saw himself do on television. He is then arrested by the police.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E71TheMirror 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 it 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, he looks into the mirror for the last time and realizes he is finally looking at his true murderer... and then kills himself.
* ''Series/TheUmbrellaAcademy2019'' has three big examples with regards to the Apocalypse:
** Reginald [[spoiler:knew about the apocalypse in advance, and killed himself to give his children a reason to [[PuttingTheBandBackTogether reform the team]] and work together to stop it]]. However, his death leads to Klaus using his return to the Mansion as an excuse to raid Reginald's office for items to pawn for drug money. One of those items was an ornate box in the desk possessing a notebook, which Klaus threw in a dumpster on his way to the pawn shop. This leads to Leonard finding the notebook, which leads to [[spoiler:Leonard finding out about Viktor's dormant powers and how they can be awoken]], which becomes a direct cause of the apocalypse.
** When the Hargreeves siblings learn about the impending apocalypse, they start working together to prevent it. However, in the process, they alienate and belittle [[TheTeamNormal Viktor]], on the grounds that because he lacks a superpower and was never part of the SuperFamilyTeam to begin with, he'd just get in the way if he tried to help. [[spoiler:Turns out he ''does'' have powers, and those powers - combined with his fragmented mental state, caused by the abuse he suffered from his family and his new boyfriend (who's only dating him to exploit said powers) - are what cause the apocalypse.]]
** Why did Sir Hargreeves and Pogo [[spoiler: force Viktor to take antidepressants to suppress his powers as a child then eventually brainwashed him to forget he even had them]]? [[spoiler:Because Hargreeves deemed Viktor's powers too dangerous for him to control. This is the same reason why Luther decides to lock up Viktor in a soundproof cell despite [[TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening seeing his clear distress over what's happening]] ''and'' despite the protests of the other siblings. Viktor discovering the power suppression, combined with the abuse his family always doled on him because of being "normal" and Luther's bone-headed decisions results in him [[FaceHeelTurn snapping]], [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal murdering Pogo]], [[DestroyTheAbusiveHome destroying the Hargreeves Mansion]], and becoming the [[ApocalypseMaiden harbinger of the apocalypse]]. The kicker? Viktor's superpowers [[PsychoactivePowers are tied directly to his emotions and mental state]]; if he wasn't constantly emotionally abused throughout his life and if Luther actually comforted him instead of treating him like their father did, the destruction his powers brought forth when they reawoke wouldn't have been as devastating as it was, and he could have learned how to control them in due time.]]
* ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'':
** Subverted in one episode in which a particular child is destined to take a king's throne, and the [[EvilChancellor obligatory evil councilor]] 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.
** Callisto's 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. [[spoiler: By the end of the episode, Iolaus went back and changed history so that Callisto never went back to that day, so said SFP never actually happened...]]
** It has been prophesied that Xena's child would cause the doom of the Greek gods. They decide to kill the child, their attacks on her and Xena leading to their doom. The gods have immortality and the ability to teleport. For all her abilities, Xena had neither of these. They would have been just fine if they'd stayed away. Ares explicitly noted this trope in "Amphipolis Under Siege" when appealing to Athena to just let it go. He even offered to simply take Xena and the baby to another realm far away from the Olympians. Athena refused to listen. Ultimately, Ares and Aphrodite (who refused to go after Xena and her baby) are the only gods shown surviving the experience.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* The Music/KateBush song "Babooshka" is about a woman, bitter and paranoid that her husband is cheating on her, initiating a TwoPersonLoveTriangle with him to test his fidelity. He ends up succumbing to the charms of the mysterious Babooshka... but only because 'she' reminds him of his wife before she 'freezed on him'; if she hadn't succumbed to paranoia about her husband's fidelity and turned on him, he wouldn't have become unfaithful in the first place.
* The Music/BlackSabbath song "Iron Man" is about a man who travels in time to the future, sees the world being destroyed by a man of steel, then while returning to his original time, turns to steel because of a magnetic field. He becomes immobilized and is ignored by the people when he tries to warn them. This causes him to become bitter and angry until he finally has his revenge on mankind. In other words, he becomes the very thing he was trying to save the world from.
* The theme of "Oh No!" by Music/MarinaDiamandis:
-->I know exactly what I want and what I want to be
-->I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine
-->I'm now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy
-->Oh, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh!
* ''Music/EvilliousChronicles'': In the song Project "Ma", Queen Maria Moonlit prophetized the end of Levianta (her country) and the whole world by <The Dark Legacy, "Sin">. Levianta's answer was to create Project [Ma] to purify the sins. The first project's failure caused Eve Moonlit's mental instability and the second project created Hänsel and Gretel, the twins she would later kill for, unleashing the "Sin" onto the world.
* In the music video for the Music/TheyMightBeGiants song "Bastard Wants to Hit Me", the "crazy bastard" is so mad about getting snubbed by the narrator that by the end of the video, he ''does'' want to hit him (and does so).
* In Joe Diffe's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlAa0IGCXCw Third Rock from the Sun]]" a man in Smokey's Bar sees a beautiful woman walks into the bar and calls up his wife to tell her he is working late (so he can make time with the lady in question). The wife calls up her sister and asks her to come over to comfort her, which gives her boyfriend time to go out and get a beer from a nearby store. He leaves the keys in his car, allowing some teenagers to take a joyride in his car. [[DisasterDominoes The teenagers end up in the path of a semi truck]], which crashes into them, goes across a bank parking lot and hits a nearby clocktower. The clocktower falls over and takes out a powerline, making the entire town go dark. A waitress calls the police in panic, claiming aliens are landing, and the police call the mayor, waking him up because they can't find the sheriff. The mayor tells the police to use their heads - if he isn't in his car, he's probably hiding from his wife [[CallBack down at Smokey's Bar]]. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard So he is going to have to work late after all.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* The entire MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame genre has become subject to this. In August 2012, Kotaku reported that [[http://kotaku.com/5937575/the-subscription-mmo-is-dead "The Subscription MMO is dead."]] Game developers know that Free-To-Play is the only way to go these days, acknowledging that the playerbase itself has become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Gamers are willing to wait for a game to go [[AllegedlyFreeGame Free-To-Play]], and developers know that they won't be able to get any players unless they make the game Free-To-Play.
* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV'' has a version of this in that Fou-lu (who was his own empire's KingInTheMountain) is promoted as the "Dragon of Doom who will destroy the empire" among the soldiers of the empire he founded. [[spoiler: This is done explicitly by the empire as they have no intention of giving the throne back to the GodEmperor they summoned 600 years ago.]] After being the target of multiple and increasingly extreme efforts by his nation to kill him, Fou-lu finally [[KillEmAll snaps]] when [[spoiler: a woman who rescued him from a previous attempt at deicide and who developed a romantic relationship with him is tortured and ultimately used as the warhead in a Curse Nuke ''specifically because of her connection with him'']]... causing the whole "Dragon of Doom" thing to become a self-fulfilling prophecy as he decides that HumansAreTheRealMonsters and that the best course of action is to KillEmAll.
* In the ''VideoGame/ChzoMythos'', TheDragon knows of a prophecy that the BigBad will replace him, and [[DragonWithAnAgenda secretly does his own scheming to stop this from happening]]. Turns out that this defiance of his master's will is the reason he even gets replaced at all.
* ''The Ringed City'' DLC from ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'' reveals that the Undead Curse was the result of one of these; [[spoiler:Gwyn loathes the Dark, fearing that it is a destructive and chaotic force that will destroy his peaceful Age of Fire. Thus, he creates the Darksign as a "seal of fire" and brands the pygmies, the bearers of the Dark Soul, with it to limit their access to the Abyss and its power. Because of this, the pygmies' descendants, humans, never learned how to control the Dark inherent within themselves (Humanity), causing it to manifest as either the Curse (in those with too little Humanity) or as an all-consuming power that drives those who have it to animalistic insanity (in those with too much Humanity). Thus, the Dark becomes the chaotic and destructive force Gwyn feared it was, leading to the Cycle of Light and Dark, the destruction of Gwyn's kingdom, and ultimately the ruination of the world, and he has only his own paranoia to blame for it. The original pygmies had perfect control over the Dark Soul and wanted nothing more than to happily ''serve'' Gwyn and the other gods of Anor Londo. He screwed himself big time.]]
* In ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'', King K. Rool hires a weasel named Snide to build a superweapon called the Blast-O-Matic that will allow him to destroy Kong Isle. However, he grows increasingly paranoid that Snide will betray him, and decides to kick him off the team. How does Snide respond? He defects to the Kongs and ultimately helps them disable the very superweapon he created.
* This is a running theme through the ''Franchise/DragonAge'' series. Mages are heavily restricted to the point of being effectively imprisoned by the Chantry and Templars out of fear for what they might do without those restrictions, especially turning to blood magic and making deals with or being possessed by demons. Many of the mages who turn to blood magic do so specifically because of those restrictions, with blood magic being one of the only ways they can fight back.
* Done twice in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII''.
** First, everyone accuses the Qunari of being militaristic heathens who want to do nothing but convert everyone in Kirkwall to the Qun, even when the Arishok makes it perfectly plain that converting people is the last thing on his mind. In the end, [[spoiler:the Arishok snaps and launches a war on Kirkwall, turning him into the monster many accused him of being]].
---> '''The Arishok:''' Fixing your mess is not the demand of the Qun, and you should all be grateful!
** Done a second time with Knight-Commander Meredith. In Act III of the story, the mages believe that Meredith is slowly going crazy trying to uproot BloodMagic from her ranks, even when it's clear that most of the mages just want to be left alone. When Meredith begins killing ''every'' mage, regardless of the reason, the mages turn to BloodMagic just to survive Meredith and the templars, making Meredith's paranoia end up causing exactly what she was so paranoid about.
* Two concurrent prophecies in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', stemming from Squall's defeat of [[BigBad Ultimecia]], each of them related to the other in a "chicken and egg" scenario:
** It is known that, in the future, a Sorceress will rise to conquer the world and attempt {{Time C|rash}}ompression to attain godhood. Therefore, future societies persecute potential Sorceresses. When Ultimecia is finally born, this persecution plants the seeds of unending hatred within her, causing her to lash out and devastate the world.
** Ultimecia is aware that she is destined to be defeated by the Legendary [=SeeD=]. Therefore, she attempts Time Compression so she can [[GodhoodSeeker 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 - and also caused Edea and Cid to intentionally groom Squall to become the [=SeeD=] destined to defeat Ultimecia.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'', a civilization called Paddra, made prosperous by seeing the future, was clued in that their great city would meet its end by one of the seeress's prophecies. This prophecy divided the populace among those who were desperate to escape fate, those who would just accept the end, and those who were just driven mad by panic and despair. The ensuing civil war... brought about the very end of Paddra that was foreseen.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyMysticQuest'' starts with the main character being roped into helping fulfill a prophecy that states that a knight will defeat the four [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Vile Evils]] and drive the darkness from the land. Upon doing so and marching right up to the BigBad to finish the job, he reveals that he himself invented that prophecy out of whole cloth for reasons unknown, right before the player goes on to fulfill it anyway.
* In ''VideoGame/GodOfWarII'', Zeus is convinced that Kratos will kill him and usurp his role as King of the Gods because of a prophecy ([[spoiler:which says that the father will be slain by the son, as Zeus did to his father Cronos, and Cronos did to ''his'' father Uranus]]). In order to prevent this, he sets up events so that Kratos loses his divine power and is killed. However, this only serves to give Kratos a legitimate reason to be pissed off at Zeus, and with the help of the Titans, he starts on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, so...
** Kratos himself breaks the cycle after getting his revenge. [[spoiler: By killing himself at the end of the game]] ... [[spoiler:[[VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4 Or did he?]]]]
** This also happens in ''VideoGame/GodOfWarGhostOfSparta''. A prophet said that whoever controlled the "marked warrior" controlled the fate of Olympus. Kratos's brother, Deimos, already had a mark on him. But when Deimos was taken away, Kratos tattooed an identical mark on himself out of respect for his lost brother.
** Freya from ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'' has received a vision that his son Baldur will die a pointless death, so fearing for her son's life, she blessed him with complete immunity to all pain and inability to die. Unfortunately, it led Baldur to live a completely miserable life where for 100 years, he is completely unable to enjoy any sort of sensation such as eating, snow or women which ended up turning him completely AxCrazy and insane. In the end, once his immortality is removed, Kratos has no choice but to kill him since he tries to kill his mother in revenge for making his life miserable, inadvertently fulfilling the vision that Freya desperately attempted to avoid in the first place.
* The main storylines of ''VideoGame/GuildWars: Prophecies'' involved this to some extent. The Mursaat killed the Chosen in an attempt to prevent [[spoiler:the release of the Titans, which would lead to their destruction. The players, who were also Chosen, resisted the Mursaat and ultimately freed the Titans]].
** In the second campaign, ''Factions'', a fortune teller who had given him several true prophecies warned Shiro the Emperor would kill him. At first disbelieving, fear of death finally drove him to kill the Emperor, only to be killed in retaliation for the seeming assassination. [[spoiler:Later retconned as a deliberate ploy by Abaddon to convert Shirou into one of his generals.]]
** A Canthan New Year quest 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.
* In ''VideoGame/Hitman2'', two targets are a pair of former members of [[TheIlluminati Providence]] who were afraid they were [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness going to be executed soon]], and so defected to one of Providence's enemies to prevent that. Their defection persuaded Providence to hire Agent 47 to kill them.
* In ''{{VideoGame/Homeworld}}'', forces acting on orders from TheEmperor enforce a mostly forgotten, ancient treaty - by [[spoiler: wiping out the entire population of the planet Kharak]]. The reason behind this decision was that legend had it that the return of [[spoiler: the Hiigarans, who had been exiled to Kharak]] was to herald [[spoiler: the end of the Taiidan empire]]. The effect of this decision was to trigger a war that would eventually result in [[spoiler: a rebellion that changed the empire back into a republic]].
* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsX'', the leaders of the five Unions, the Foretellers, try their best to prevent the events written in the Book of Prophecies written by their Master, detailing a Keyblade War and darkness devouring the light, from coming to pass. However, with the idea of a traitor in their midst, one of them having information he was instructed not to divulge to the others, and each of the Foretellers making rash decisions in regards to their roles given to them by their Master, misunderstandings led to a major rift between all five of them. With mistrust in one another, they all decided to collect Lux to keep the balance of power, until the inevitable battle between the Unions and the prophecy fulfilled. If the Master hadn't written the Book of Prophecies and given it to them in the first place, they likely wouldn't have put themselves in the situation that led to the Keyblade War. This is not helped by the fact that the Master's unpredictable mannerism, eccentric nature, and sometimes questionable logic all give the impression that he may have been deliberately manipulating his students into fulfilling his own Prophecy.
* ''VideoGame/KultHereticKingdoms'': Early in the game, a hermit went to his death because he thought his vision of death was inevitable; later, [[spoiler:Lord Malfagon]] fights Alita to the death because she was prophesied to kill him. Alexandra (who, as the Seeress at the Oracle, presumably knows what she's talking about), says that prophecies like this are actually just self-fulfilling. In reference to the latter case:
--> '''Alexandra:''' It is ironic... were he the kind of man who could have ignored the prophecy and gone on with his life, this fate would have been avoided.
* This is the plot of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''. 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 {{MacGuffin}}s sealing the Golden Realm that Ganondorf has been attempting to obtain, and Ganondorf 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, as a Hylian child, he was considered too young to be the Hero of Time. The Hero would have been unnecessary if he hadn't been sealed away for seven years, letting Ganondorf take over. 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.
* The events of ''Ocarina of Time'' are inverted in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'', where Ganondorf's attempt to work in the shadows to restore and reclaim Hyrule under his title ultimately manage to do everything required to draw he, Zelda, and Link together once more. He perceives this as so self-evident that he expounds at length during the final battle about how the circumstances of their meeting cannot be anything ''but'' fate.
* ''VideoGame/LobotomyCorporation'': This is the backstory of the three birds. [[spoiler:Small Bird, Long Bird and Big Bird used to live together in the peaceful Black Forest. However, one day the forest got word of a prophecy foretelling of a terrible monster who would bring the forest to ruin. The three birds decided to fight against this prophecy by trying to become the forest's self-appointed protectors, but as a result it transformed them into monsters, both figuratively and [[AnimalisticAbomination literally]]. Small Bird became Punishing Bird, an executioner who would punish anyone it deemed guilty. Long Bird became Judgement Bird, a HangingJudge who would send people to death for the smallest crimes. Big Bird became the vigilant guard of the forest who would MercyKill anyone who trespassed so the "monster" wouldn't be able to get to them. Eventually, the three decided that the three of them would be insufficient to protect the forest alone, so they decided to [[FusionDance fuse into one gigantic bird]] so they could perform all of their duties at once. When they did this, the forest's inhabitants fled the forest in fear because the birds had become the very monster destined to bring ruin to the Black Forest.]]
* Vito Scaletta spends most of ''VideoGame/MafiaII'' in the life of crime as he doesn't want to become like his alcholic deadbeat father who is indebeted to loan shark before he died. What follows is Vito, after making his way up in Falcone's organization, losing his fortune, house and his relationship with his sister strained. [[spoiler:What's worse is that Vito ends up becoming indebeted to the same loan shark that his father borrowed money from.]] As such, all of Vito's actions ended up making the same mistakes like his father, eventually forcing him to move to another city.
* Overlord Zetta from ''VideoGame/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.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
** This is the quarian-geth conflict. Robot servants start asking their creators things like "Does this unit have a soul?" The creators panic, expecting the robots to rise up, and try to shut them down. Robots fight back, creators get kicked off their planet. Centuries later, most quarians - including their representative in your party - still maintain the geth would have turned on them anyway and wiping them out was the only option...until Legion shows up. The whole mess becomes even more ridiculous in the third game when it's revealed that the Geth [[spoiler:''didn't even try to fight back at first''. They only initially fought to defend the Quarian minority who didn't want to shut them down from the other Quarians. The Quarians were always their own worst enemy]]. This "Morning War" became a cautionary tale to the other races, who took the exact wrong message from it and made this Self-Fulfilling Prophecy law throughout the galaxy. One sidequest in the first game involves an AI who self-destructs rather than talk to you, even if you try and negotiate.
** The [[spoiler: Reaper Cycle]] is the same situation writ large. The {{Precursors}} believed that [[spoiler: an organics vs. RobotWar was inevitable any time an organic species invented sentient A.I.]] [[spoiler: To solve this, they created[[note]]or rather, they created the Catalyst who created[[/note]] the Reapers, giant sentient cyborgs who go around wiping out organic races every few million years, thus ensuring that an organics vs. RobotWar IS inevitable]]. Ironically, the GoldenEnding to the geth / quarian conflict suggests that organic/robotic peace IS possible.
* In ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'', fulfilling one is done as a game mechanic. The player can pay a Silver Coin to Navali to seek a prophecy, which says something along the lines of "You will do [something]" or "You will encounter [something]". For the first kind, there is nothing that will actively make you fulfill that prophecy, so you can TakeYourTime to do it, but as long as you do what it says, the prophecy will give you some kind of reward. The second type will automatically happen at some point, and are unavoidable as long as you continue playing the game (and in the right area, if it says so).
* In ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'', one of the side quests is about a necromancer looking for the blood of an immortal being. He asked a prophet to tell him where he could find it and was told that he would find it if he searched these specific crypts. And he found it... in the form of the main character (an immortal) who arrived to stop him from desecrating the crypts.
* In ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheForgottenSands'' for the PSP (there are four different games on different consoles under that title), an ifrit seeks to thwart a prophecy stating that a lonely hero with royal blood will kill him. So he starts assassinating people who are part of Persia's royal family. The Prince, upset over the deaths of his cousins, then tracks down and kills the ifrit, before saying that no one can thwart their destiny. Ironically, he later has some experience with that himself.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Summoner}}'', Emperor Murod hears a prophecy that a Summoner will put an end to his reign. Every [[DoomedHometown action]] he thus [[TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive takes]] to stop this prophecy from happening results in making the prophecy 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.
* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** Kamek targets the newly born 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 Yoshis decide to help Baby Mario rescue his twin, which leads to the first defeat of then baby Bowser.
** In ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', Count Bleck learns from the Dark Prognosticus that the Chaos Heart will be born when Bowser and Princess Peach are married, so he makes that happen.
* In ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemptionII'', Dutch's (mostly) unfounded doubts about John and Arthur's loyalties early in the game is what make him take actions against them that would ultimately end their loyalty and support to him.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfGraces'', Aston [[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou sends his son Hubert away]] to live with the military-based Oswell family. Aston does this to avoid a messy SuccessionCrisis between Hubert and Hubert's older brother, Asbel, in the town of Lhant. In a nice bit of {{Irony}}, Aston's attempts to avoid a SuccessionCrisis end up creating one. Neither Hubert nor Asbel wanted to rule the town of Lhant in the first place, but circumstances years later force them to fight over it. Circumstances brought on, at least in part, by Aston sending Hubert away!
* ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}} 7'' reveals that the entire series stems from one of these. [[spoiler:Heihachi's wife Kazumi had predicted that Heihachi would bring the world to ruin, so she married him in order to get close to him and kill him before that happens. Unfortunately, her repeated attempts on his life ended up breaking Heihachi's heart, leading to her death at her husband's hands and Heihachi's hatred for Kazuya, and the rest was history.]]
* In ''VideoGame/WantedWeaponsOfFate,'' Wesley 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-fulfilling prophecy so much as members of the Fraternity having serious problems with common sense and a lack thereof.
* The backstory of ''VideoGame/VermintideII'' reveals that the elf Kerillian received a prophecy that the human city of Ubersreik would play a key role in the downfall of the elven people, and that she ambushed a major military convoy en route to reinforce the city in an attempt to prevent this. Unfortunately, what Kerillian did not know was that the true enemy were not the humans but the Skaven, and that destroying Ubersreik was one of the lynchpins of their entire invasion plan. By substantially weakening Ubersreik, Kerillian allowed the skaven to overwhelm it much sooner than they otherwise would have. This in turn lets the skaven accelerate their time tables and invade elven territory much more easily.
* The main plot of ''{{VideoGame/Weaponlord}}'' bases itself around a prophecy that a warrior born under the Warrior's Moon shall slay the {{Demon Lord|sAndArchdevils}} Zarak. Forced to face destiny, Zarak opens the tournament in order to find and kill the Weaponlord. [[spoiler:This effort becomes pointless in his own Story ending when it is then revealed that Zarak was the Weaponlord all along. The Demon Lord he was meant to slay, then, falls to his predecessor, Raith, who comes back from the dead in an attempt at vengeance (and a possible SequelHook).]]
* There are several of these in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', most notably the prophecy Velen made about M'uru, the Naaru Kael'thas stole from Tempest Keep. He prophesied that M'uru would be stolen, tortured, and enslaved, but it would lead, in the end, to the redemption of a race, adding even more Light warriors to Velen's army of the Light that he ALSO prophesied would be the end of the Burning Legion. A powerful, godlike being went willingly into torturous enslavement ONLY because Velen saw it. If Velen had never had the vision, the blood elves would never be redeemed. Arthas heard about Tirion being so powerful and an unstoppable force of the Light that he started to fear a confrontation with a Tirion at full power, so he attacked only when Tirion's army at the Battle of Light's Hope Chapel was defeated by his Death Knights, which lead to the redemption of Darion Mograine and a few other Death Knights, as well as giving Tirion possession of the EXACT WEAPON he needed to kill Arthas: the Purified Ashbringer. The Ashbringer rejected Darion ONLY because he was in close proximity to Tirion as well. If Arthas had never sent Darion to kill Tirion, the sword would never have switched allegiances and been purified to become the only weapon capable of defeating the Lich King.
** Velen sharing his vision of the gift of Sargeras with his two brothers, Kil'jaeden and Archimonde. One could argue that this didn't do anything at all, but...perhaps KJ/Archi LIKED the future Velen showed them so much that they ignored the fact that it would turn them into the greatest monsters in the universe. KJ is a genius, so perhaps he thought he could escape the bad parts of the future, while Archi was arrogant and likely thought no one could challenge him once he accepted Sargeras' gift. [[spoiler: Kil'jaeden is RIGHT. He has never been killed and eventually took over leadership of the Burning Legion once Sargeras was disposed of. He was merely punted back to where he came from after his defeat at the Sunwell. Archimonde was killed off by WISPS, quite possibly the weakest creatures in Azeroth, after assaulting the World Tree.]]
** The Hour of Twilight; that is, the Old Gods being released due to the dragon Deathwing's efforts, and wiping out all life on Azeroth. The titan who empowered the Dragon Aspects had a vague vision of the event and created the Aspects specifically to stop it(without telling them). The thing is that the Hour of Twilight could never have happened if not for Deathwing, who ''was one of the Aspects''.
* In the ''[[Videogame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' series, the [[PlanetTerra Earth State]] is rabidly anti-[[ArtificialIntelligence AGI]] (even having an [[EliteArmy entire fleet]] dedicated to hunting down AGI producers) after their artificially intelligent terraforming fleet [[AIIsACrapshoot went haywire]] and started "[[ColonyDrop terraforming]]" inhabited space stations and planets, nearly destroying human civilization. When Earth is reunited with its LostColony, the Argon Federation several centuries later, the Argon Federation doesn't show the same aversion to AGI testing that the Earth State shows. Therefore, Earth's United Space Command and AGI Task Force begins to implant spies into the Argon government to steer them away from reverse-engineering Xenon AGI. The Argon Federation finds out and is unsurprisingly very angry, then surprisingly, [[KickTheDog blows up the Earth's]] [[RingworldPlanet Torus Aeternal]] [[ColonyDrop killing millions with de-orbiting debris]], then [[GuiltFreeExterminationWar declares war]] while intensify their AGI research to make up for the [[HumanityIsAdvanced Terran technology being far in advance]] of anything possessed by the Argon. The Terrans begin to lose the war against the AGI {{Zerg Rush}}es and are pushed back to Earth, which is only saved by the [[{{Precursors}} Ancients]] shutting down the PortalNetwork to stop the genocide and to stop the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts spread of the now-uncontained Xenon fleets]].
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' has a variant: Shulk knows his visions [[ScrewDestiny don't necessarily have to happen the way he sees them]], [[SelfDefeatingProphecy and they usually don't]], but one of the vaguer and more far-reaching ones seems to include events conducive to his goals, so he starts actively trying to bring it about.

--->'''Dwarven cleric 1:''' 'Tis risky business screwing with prophecy.
--->'''Dwarven cleric 2:''' Aye, don't I know it.

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': "Frost and Fire" plays with the trope; Finn's attempts to find out what the prophecy actually ''is'' are what set it in motion, and by the time he actually gets the message, it's too late to stop it. Finn has a dream involving Flame Princess, the Ice King, and the [[CosmicEntity Cosmic Owl]]. Upon learning that Owl dreams are supposed to be prophetic, he attempts to recreate the circumstances that led to the dream. He's successful, but in the process, sets off a chain of events that results in the Ice Kingdom melted into a puddle and Finn and Flame Princess' relationship in tatters. And what was the Owl trying to tell him?
--> '''Cosmic Owl''': [[NiceJobBreakingItHero You blew it.]]
* The entire plot of ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'''s "The Oracle" revolves around Gumball hoping to prevent an embarrassing event foretold by Banana Barbara in the form of a painting. Gumball's efforts to prevent the seemingly unlikely circumstances shown in the painting cause all of them to occur, including a shower of raccoons that is a direct result of Gumball sabotaging the family car.
* In ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "Merlot Down Dirty Shame", Stan and Roger became friends in a previous UnInstallment, but after [[KissingUnderTheInfluence Roger kisses Francine while they're both drunk]] he becomes terrified that it'll destroy their newfound friendship. He goes to quite a few extremes to keep Stan from finding out about the kiss -- culminating in him ''[[BuriedAlive burying Francine alive]]'' to keep her from telling, and subsequently burying '''Stan''' alive when he finds out about this -- which naturally pisses Stan off a lot more than a simple AccidentalKiss, and the episode ends with him beating Roger into a bloody pulp and taking away his "best buddies" necklace.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': Leif, one of Andrias' former friends [[spoiler:who was also the Plantar's ancestor]], stole the Music Box that Andrias and his father were going to use to conquer Earth because it gave her a vision of Amphibia being destroyed by [[ColonyDrop its own moon]], and hid it on Earth where it would be used by Anne, Sasha, and Marcy about a thousand years later. However, other parts of the vision are things that we already saw happen, and it's later revealed that the moon falling is caused by [[spoiler:the Core deciding to destroy Amphibia out of anger after Earth is saved from being invaded]], meaning that it could have been prevented if Leif hadn't taken the Music Box to Earth and allowed the girls to come to Amphibia in the first place.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': In the episode "Taming of the Screwy," Mr. Plotz is holding a banquet for foreign investors, and said investors want to meet all of the workers at the Warner Bros. studio, including Yakko, Wakko, and Dot. Under his orders, Dr. Scratchansniff manages to convince the Warners to keep their lunacy under control so they can attend the banquet... only for Mr. Plotz to force them out of the banquet regardless because he doesn't trust them ''not'' to screw things up. Snubbed and insulted, the Warners return to the banquet and ruin it in their usual KarmicTrickster fashion. In a nutshell, if Mr. Plotz had just let them stay since they were behaving, the entire thing would have gone off without a hitch.
* The episode "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFortuneteller The Fortuneteller]]" from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' focuses on a town that hangs on to 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. Wu also 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. So they manipulate one of Wu's fortunetelling methods so she ''will'' predict the eruption, then work with the villagers to divert it. Much to Sokka's frustration, 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.
* ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'': In the episode "Hiya Henry", Cricket is irked when Tilly finds Gramma Alice's old ventriloquist dummy, Hiya Henry, to use in her act for Big Coffee's open mic. Cricket spends the whole episode being tormented by Henry, and doesn't tell Tilly or anyone else because he thinks it would hurt her feelings. When Tilly's act begins, he cannot take it anymore and destroys Henry onstage, which in return hurts Tilly's feelings anyway because he ruined her performance without telling her.
* ''WesternAnimation/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.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/FuggetAboutIt'': In the episode "The Full Mountie." Petey was reluctant to present his new girlfrined to his family since she is Persian and they can be kind of racist to other peoples and she might get offended. When he is finally forced to bring her, he takes any minor comment his family makes as some kind of racist commentary and tries to pre-emptively defend himself, but he brings too much attention to her race, giving the impression that's all he can see and offends her himself, so she breaks up with him.
* A few examples in ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'':
** Demona goes back in time from 1995 to 994 to warn her past self about the slaughter of her clan by the humans. This causes her past self to distrust the humans living in the castle, so she betrays them to the Vikings... who slaughter her clan after taking over the castle.
** Prince (later King) Duncan was paranoid that his cousin Macbeth would try to claim the throne of Scotland, and this paranoia was exacerbated when the Weird Sisters prophesied that Macbeth would become king. So he attacked Macbeth, unsuccessfully, and Macbeth killed him and became king anyway. The catch is that Macbeth had no interest in becoming king and was loyal to Duncan, and he never would have killed Duncan if Duncan hadn't attacked him first.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/HerculesTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "Hercules and the Big Kiss", Cassandra has to kiss Icarus awake. He was put into the sleep in the first place by her efforts to avoid fulfilling a vision which showed her kissing him.
* ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]'''s Project Cadmus arc is all about averting a Superhero-Government war that happened in an AlternateUniverse. ComicBook/LexLuthor and ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} take full advantage of the paranoia to trigger one. Even those actions taken by Cadmus without Luthor's overt involvement (Waller claims, and ''believed'' he was mainly a source of income) contributes to the scenario at the end of the arc.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'':
** In "Raw Deal", the family goes on a trip to Grand Venture State Park, and on the way there, Lucy gives tarot readings. Lincoln's reading is his day at the park will "end in tragedy", which in turn makes him become a hypochondriac and ends up believing everything is dangerous so he won't face anything tragic. As it turns out, there wasn't any danger at the park after all, and he ends up missing out on all the fun which in turn, ends his day in tragedy as predicted.
** In "Stall Monitor", Mrs. Johnson is intent on seeing Rita and Lynn Sr. for Parent-Teacher Conference Night, and Lincoln, worried about what she is going to tell them, tries to stop them from attending with Clyde's help. As it turns out, she was actually telling them what a great student he was, not a bad one, but as a result of trying to stop her, he gets grounded for a week, along with a week of detention.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** One episode regarded a tapestry that predicted everything that would ever happen to it. When one of Homer's ancestors discovered this, he saw that the tapestry depicted him eating it, so he ate it.
** The ''WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror'' segment "The Ned Zone" has Ned gaining the ability to foresee people's deaths. When he foresaw himself shooting Homer to death, he at first successfully changed the fate... only for him to foresee Homer killing everyone via a nuclear explosion at the power plant. Ned then tries to shoot Homer to prevent this, but inadvertently causes the explosion himself anyway.
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
** The "Pandemic" two-parter is full of this. The prophecy - that Craig would be the one to avert the Pandemic - is brought about by a combination of the BigBad sending Craig to Peru, and Craig himself simply walking away when he learns of the prophecy, fully intending to ignore it... leading to him standing on the exact spot necessary to activate his EyeBeams (MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext) and avert the global crisis.
** In the episode "Ike's Wee Wee," Mr. Mackey tries to explain to children DrugsAreBad. But his attempt to educate children by having them smell a sample of marijuana got his fired, mocked, and evicted from his apartment when that sample was stolen. His response to this TraumaCongaLine: ''start taking drugs'' to cope with his depression.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants''
** In "Squid's Visit", [=SpongeBob=] goes to great lengths to get Squidward to visit him, to the point he "borrows" his vaccum cleaner as bait and redesigns his house interior to look like Squidward's, down to the smallest detail. In the end, he gets more than what he barganed for when Squidward has to stay with [=SpongeBob=] when his house gets burnt down from a casserole left in the oven, but [=SpongeBob=] has to sleep outside on the wreckage.
** The episode "[=InSPONGEiac=]" has [=SpongeBob=] slacking off a bit on the job (i.e. using a teensy bit too much mustard) because he went to sleep two minutes later than usual, prompting Mr. Krabs to flip out over it and conclude that he's an insomniac. [=SpongeBob=] starts to get paranoid about his lack of sleep, eventually causing him to become an insomniac for real.
** "The Kwarantined Krab": As it turns out, nobody has the illness and it was all in Mr. Krabs' head, but because everyone was trapped together for such a long time, it causes them to get sick for real, and pretty badly, too.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': An investigation taking place over ten years after Sifo-Dyas' assassination reveals that he really did secretly make the initial order for the clones, lying that the order was under Republic orders after having visions of an upcoming war which which would end in the slaughter of the Jedi. The Sith caught wind of this and killed him, taking over the start of the cloning operations and sealing the fate for the Jedi Order and the Republic, the two groups whose demise Sifo was trying to prevent.
* ''WesternAnimation/TangledTheSeries'' has an interesting take on this in the season 2 finale. From Demanitus' cryptic warning to Eugene about a traitor in their midst, after he decided to bar Rapunzel from entering the castle to protect her, Pascal makes him realize that he was the one who betrayed her by stopping her from fulfilling her destiny. Eugene then tears up the note and tries to find Rapunzel to resume their objective again. [[spoiler: Turns out, this was actually [[SubvertedTrope averted]] as the traitor among them was actually Cassandra, just as Eugene initially thought. ]]
* Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' season four. Raven is troubled by [[BecauseDestinySaysSo her destiny]] to [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt destroy the world]] and, along with Slade and [[SatanicArchetype her father Trigon]], 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.[[note]]That said, while the prophecy to bring Trigon himself into the world requires her participation, he's still perfectly free to send in a platoon of demons and a certain lieutenant in his stead to force her hand.[[/note]]
* The events of the ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'' episode "Timing is Everything" implies that the events of the series up to that point are a ''result'' of this. The Utrom Shredder, after his first initial battle with Turtles, travels to the year 2105, where the Turtles and Splinter are currently stuck as a result of a time travel mishap with the time window. He and his army attempt to take the technology, only to start getting their asses kicked all over the place. The initial battle had it take all four turtles ''and'' Splinter in order to defeat the Utrom Shredder; in ''this'' battle, three of the turtles and Splinter trounce his army while Leo beats him down easily, before kicking him back to his own time, but not before Raph reveals that they had defeated him already. This event is implied to be the reason why the Shredder became so ruthless after his first defeat, which would cause the events of the next four seasons, facilitating said defeat.
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012'': The four-part [[HalloweenEpisode Monster Arc]] of the fifth season involves Savanti Romero traveling through time and assembling [[MonsterMash an army of monsters]] to take over the world, starting with New York. Renet arrives and takes the Turtles back in time to stop Savanti from doing so, but throughout the arc, their efforts end up only ''helping'' him:
** In "The Curse of Savanti Romero," they go back to Ancient Egypt to prevent him from taking control of a [[{{mummy}} mummified]] [[NephariousPharaoh pharaoh]], but end up not only leading Savanti right to the pharaoh's tomb but activating the mummy's {{curse}}.
** In "The Crypt of Dracula," they go to Transylvania and get assistance from Vulko and Esmeralda, a Gypsy father-and-daughter duo, in stopping Savanti from recruiting {{Dracula}}. In the process, Raph gets bitten by Dracula and [[FaceMonsterTurn turns against his brothers]], and Savanti manages to get control of not only Dracula but Vulko, who's revealed to be a werewolf; before he leaves Transylvania, he even gloats that he's gotten everything he wanted to get and more.
** In "The Frankenstein Experiment," Donnie decides to help Dr. Frankenstein complete [[FrankensteinsMonster his experiment]] with the ulterior motive of collecting synthetic blood to FindTheCure for Raph; all he ends up accomplishing is enabling Savanti to add the monster to his ranks.
** All in all, when they return to New York in "Monsters Among Us!", the group is able to tell right away that their efforts to stop Savanti in the past were AllForNothing; as Leo notes, if anything, the streets are infested with even ''more'' monsters than there were before they left.
* The ''WesternAnimation/ThundarrTheBarbarian'' episode "Prophecy of Peril" deals with three women, the hermit barbarian Cinda, the element queen Maya, and the ordinary human woman Valerie Storm. In the end, the three women destroy the Gem of Glory, the power source of the evil wizard.
--->'''Prophecy Crystal Spirit:'''\\
''One lies beneath Endor with Silver to bind her;''\\
''One comes from the past and her foe will find her;''\\
''One dwells in the Canyon of Death, lonely-hearted;''\\
''Unite them, and Vashtar's power is thwarted!''
** The wizard of the week, Vashtar, goes back in time to kidnap Valerie and bring her to his era. The wizard states on camera he ''knows'' the sorceress Ariel cannot time travel. All he had to do after "finding" Valerie in time was leave Valerie alone.
** Cinda couldn't care less about Vashtar's tyranny -until he invades her domain. Vashtar was trying to kill her and hopefully Maya, with Thundarr's crew as a possible side bonus. All he did was tick off Cinda and set her on his trail.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats2011'' episode "Native Son", the Ancient Spirits decree the infant Tigra must die, because he will grow to be the spirits' enemy. To protect Tigra, Javan sends him away, where he is adopted by Claudis and raised by a culture that rejected the spirits of evil.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'', when Megatron discovers that his battle beast Predaking is [[ItCanThink intelligent and capable of transformation]], he has his Decepticons destroy all Predacons that were being created to serve as his army, believing that Predaking might [[TheStarscream turn on against him]]. However, this ends up being the very thing that results in his betrayal; Predaking already swore UndyingLoyalty to Megatron and had no intention to betray him, and once Ratchet reveals that Megatron deliberately allowed the Autobots to destroy his Predacons, he goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge to destroy Megatron.
* ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice2010'':
** After hearing that there is a mole in the team, Aqualad decides to withhold the information and investigate himself for fear of causing disunity amongst the members. [[spoiler: When the other members find out, they end up distrusting Aqualad and it causes a rift.]]
** Blue Beetle learns that he will one day lead the Reach to conquer the Earth. He's so desperate to avoid that that he trusts Green Beetle to damage his Scarab for him. [[spoiler: As a result, his Scarab is rebooted and he's now a Reach mole.]]
[[/folder]]

* From the late [[TurnOfTheMillennium 2000s]] into TheNewTens, Pepe the Frog--a character originating in Matt Furie's webcomic ''Boy's Club'' and popularized as a meme on Website/FourChan--was widespread across TheInternet. Thus, during the 2016 presidential election in UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates, UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton's campaign team labelled Pepe as a far-right mascot due to the association between the growing alt-right movement and 4chan. At that point, everyone else dropped Pepe like a hot potato while even more of Clinton's right-wing opponents adopted him as a badge of pride. So Pepe indeed became a far-right mascot.

* From the late [[TurnOfTheMillennium 2000s]] into TheNewTens, Pepe the Frog (a character originating in Matt Furie's webcomic ''Boy's Club'') was a popular meme across TheInternet. Thus, during the 2016 presidential election in UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates, UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton's campaign team labelled Pepe as a far-right mascot, since this relatively innocent meme was hijacked by the alt-right. At that point, everyone else dropped Pepe like a hot potato while even more of Clinton's right-wing opponents adopted him as a badge of pride. So Pepe indeed became a far-right mascot.

* ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'': [[SuperheroSchool Whateley Academy]] student Semiramis Vesmarran's CodeName, Sahar, is Arabic for 'the evil eye'; her main ability is the power to psychically impress a SelfFulfillingProphecy of Doom on a target's mind, causing them to act as if they are cursed and draw disaster upon themselves accordingly.

* Three symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) are self-loathing, an intense fear of being abandoned, and feeling emotions extremely intensely. A person with BPD may feel undeserving of love, and be scared and worried that their loved one will leave them. When their loved one does something that upsets them, even if they didn't mean to, the person with BPD sees it as a sign that their loved one doesn't care about them and/or is going to abandon them (in other words, they shift from seeing them as a good person to seeing them as a bad person, a behavior called splitting). They get angry and upset and lash out at their loved one, which damages the relationship and may cause the loved one to eventually leave, which makes the BPD person hate themselves even more.

* The ''WesternAnimation/ThundarrTheBarbarian'' episode "Prophecy of Peril" deals with three women, the hermit barbarian Cinda, the element queen Maya, and the ordinary human woman Valerie Storm whose "foe will find her". In the end, the three women destroy the Gem of Glory, the power source of the evil wizard.
** The wizard of the week, Vashtar, goes back in time to kidnap Valerie and bring her to his era. The wizard states on camera he ''knows'' the sorceress Ariel has neither the magical ability or knowledge to time travel. All he had to do after "finding" her in time was leave Valerie alone.

* The ''WesternAnimation/ThundarrTheBarbarian'' episode "Prophecy of Peril" deals with three women,the hermit barbarian Cinda, the element queen Maya, and the ordinary human woman Valerie Storm who would be found by her foe. In the end, the three women destroy the Gem of Glory, the power source of the evil wizard.
** The wizard of the week, Vashtar, goes back in time to kidnap Valerie, and bring her to his era. The wizard states on camera he ''knows'' the sorceress Ariel has neither the magical ability or knowledge to time travel. All he had to do was leave Valerie alone.

* The ''WesternAnimation/ThundarrTheBarbarian'' episode "Prophecy of Peril" deals with three women (a hermit barbarian, an element queen, and a human woman) that would be found by her foe. The wizard of the week, Vashtar, goes back in time to kidnap the human woman. And in the end, the three women destroy the Gem of Glory, the power source of the evil wizard.

* WebComic/{{Nedroid}} [[http://nedroid.com/2006/10/1443-timetube/ does it]]

** Durkon 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 boss (High Priest Hurak) 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. ({{Handwave}}d when Hurak pointed out the possibility of him buying groceries or somesuch.) [[spoiler:The kobold Oracle has prophesized that he WILL return home... albeit posthumously. This begins to make sense after he becomes vampirized by the Linear Guild, foreshadowing the first prophecy to come true.]] [[spoiler: Notably, Hurak's successor, High Priestess Rubyrock, actually rescinded Durkon's exile as Hurak took the prophecy to his grave with him. However, the letter telling Durkon as such was eaten by the Monster in the Darkness when Team Evil attacked the Azure City Outpost where Miko Miyazaki was resting for a night.]]

*** It later came to a head. [[spoiler:The vampirized Durkon is the servant of Hel, who, by having Durkon attend the Godsmoot, where the Gods debate whether to destroy the world to stop [[EldritchAbomination the Snarl]], plans to have the world destroyed. This will doom every dwarf to her domain, since according to [[Myth/NorseMythology the dwarven faith]], all who die dishonourable deaths belong to Hel, and dying in the apocalypse carries no honour. Not only did kicking him out of his home mean that Durkon went adventuring, joined the Order and became a vampire. But also, according to the evil but free will-possessing vampire spirit controlling his body, the resentment he still carries against the dwarfs for exiling him means that the spirit, who was tailor-made for Durkon's soul, was willing to go along with the plan, while another spirit in another dwarf may not have.]]