Threads of Fate

A type of magical thread that isn't just meant for weaving, but to wield the greater forces of nature such as time, life, destiny, or fate.

This stems from the Fates of Ancient Greek mythology, or more specifically the Moirai, a group of three elderly women who spin, measure, and cut the Thread of Life. According to Wikipedia, the actual myth is that each of the three Fates have different names and roles, with Clotho spinning the Thread of Life shortly before a person's birth, then Lachesis measuring it to determine what happens during that person's life, and then Atropos cutting it to determine how they die.

In fiction, it is usually referred to as the Thread of Fate rather than its original name, likely referring to the more mysterious, omnipotent nature of fate and destiny rather than the concepts of life and death, which also leaves room for more creativity on what the individual threads actually do.

If they aren't responsible for a person's life, generally they function as a Cosmic Keystone where messing with them could mean altering time or the fate of the universe, therefore wielding these threads is to screw with destiny itself. Though if cutting them does cause death like it does in the original myth, expect someone to try to avert that fate for either themselves or someone else. Or if a tragedy has already happened, expect them to try to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. A Master of Threads may also try to fight with them in combat, though it's more common to see them in the responsible hands of The Weird Sisters instead just like in the myth. Regardless, expect Textile Work Is Feminine and Needlework Is for Old People to appear at some point since it's often elderly women who are doing the weaving.

While similar in both name and theming, they actually have no relation to the Red String of Fate due to different mythical origins. As a result, identifying which one is being used in a story is heavily dependent on which myth is being referenced.

See Tomes of Prophecy and Fate for when books can control the future. See Soul Jar for when a character's life essence is bound to an object, often requiring the "jar" to be destroyed in order to get rid of them permanently. For when the threads of fate are cut before they can even be fulfilled, see Thread of Prophecy, Severed.

Not to be confused with Plot Threads, which refer to story plotlines, though it'd be wise not to forget or abandon any of them since it would leave the fates of certain characters hanging.

For the video game, go here.

Given how these threads heavily tie into life and death, or just a character's ultimate fate in a story, this is considered a Death Trope so spoilers are unmarked.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Black Clover: Vanessa's Thread Magic allows her to produce the "Red Thread of Fate", which usually takes the form of a cat spun from red yarn. This cat can rewrite someone's fate simply by touching them, changing it instead to something more favorable.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Thread-symbolism is used to represent Kamado Tanjiro's ability to sniff out enemy missteps; him cutting that thread at the right time serves as definitive proof his Finishing Move connects.
• Ulysses 31: One episode shows the Loom of Fate, gigantic and powered by slaves turning a Wheel of Pain.

Arts

• Marie de' Medici Cycle: "The Destiny of Marie de' Medici" depicts the three Fates from Classical Mythology holding the titular Queen of France's life thread just as she is being born. Notably, they make no attempt at cutting it, indicating that the Queen has a long and prosperous life awaiting her.

Comic Books

• Spider-Verse: The Web of Life and Destiny is a Three-Dimensional construct in Five-Dimensional space that connects realities together. It was created by the Egyptian Goddess Neith to not only map out The Multiverse but to chart the destiny of humanity, specifically designing it so that mankind would be able to choose their own lives and destiny. She also created the Spider-Totems, god-like entities that are connected to the web and can pass on their powers to people they choose as their avatars. The Great Weaver is one Spider-Totem that has a special interest in Peter Parker, which is why most Peters (or at least variations of him) are destined to become Spider-Man. Breaking a thread of the web can also either radically change one's destiny or instantly end their life, which the Master Weaver demonstrates by breaking the thread of the mother of the Inheritors, killing her instantly and permanently. The Web is also the source of the famous Spider-Sense, explaining why they know of upcoming danger beforehand, and why some Spiders are borderline Seers. In essence, Fate itself is warning of upcoming danger.
• X-Men Comics: Psylocke's elder brother, Jamie Braddock, has a mutation that allows him to see the fabric of reality as literal strings. That means he can pull a thread and kill or revive a person like in UXM #472-474.

Fan Works

• Harbinger (Finmonster): The reason Ember's guitar is magical is because it's strung with literal Strings of Fate. Specifically, ones tied to musicians who died tragic deaths, such as Buddy Holly, Kurt Cobain, and Orpheus.

Films — Animation

• Hercules: Similar to Hades, the Fates underwent some Adaptational Villainy to serve as antagonists for the film's version of Hercules, as opposed to the original myth where they were non-malicious entities. Here, they're seen cutting a someone's Thread of Life with glee. In fact, it's the very first thing we see them do while they're waiting for their meeting with Hades. As soon as they cut it, a woman can be heard screaming in the background and we see her soul passing down to underworld. They then do the same with Megara, and even try it on Hercules, but become shocked when they find out that his thread is uncuttable due to his newly-restored immortality.
  Fate: Darling, hold that mortal's Thread of Life good and tight. (Snips it with scissors)

Films — Live-Action

• Intolerance: The subtitle to this Anthology Film is "Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages", and the four stories span about 2500 years of human civilization. The four stories are linked with segments showing a woman rocking a cradle. Behind the woman, the Fates can be seen spinning, measuring, and cutting their threads, symbolizing how people live and die but human existence is eternal.

Live-Action TV

• Criminal Minds had an UnSub with an obsession with Greek mythology who used this as his modus operandi. After killing his victims, he'd leave a piece of string, measuring the victims age in centimeters, on or near the body.
• In season 6 of Once Upon a Time, it is revealed that Rumplestiltskin's mother was once a human woman who turned herself into a fairy, believing it to be a way to avert the prophecy where her son fights a "great evil". When she goes far enough to attempt killing Tigerlily, the mark of the crescent moon appears on her wrist, proving that she's actually the "great evil" all along. To avoid this fate, she took the Shears of Destiny to sever her son's fate, which is seen as a wiggling white thread that emits from his body. She is banished by the Blue Fairy to another realm, thus leading to her becoming known as the Black Fairy while her son eventually becomes the show's main antagonist down the line.
• Legends of Tomorrow Season 5 revolves around the search for the Loom of Fate, that can manipulate each person's life threads to change their reality, everything from giving them an entirely different past and personality, to killing them, to bringing them Back from the Dead.

Literature

• Paladin of Souls: The Father of Winter passes a mystic thread to Ista, who passes it in turn to Arhys. The thread allows the soul of Arhys to pass on to the Father through the soul of Ista, circumventing his previous status as Barred from the Afterlife.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: In the first book, before Percy is aware of his Divine Parentage or the existence of the Olympian gods, he sees the Fates (who just look like three old ladies to him) sitting at a fruit stand and knitting a giant pair of electric-blue socks. The middle one cuts the yarn with a huge pair of gold and silver scissors, and the sound scares him for reasons he doesn't yet understand. In the last book, after the gods and demigods have defeated the Titans, and Luke has sacrificed himself to defeat Kronos, the Fates arrive to bear away his body and show Percy that same strand of blue yarn, representing his life that was cut short to save the world.
• The Silmarillion: Vairë the Weaver, one of the Valar, weaves tapestries containing the history of the World as it unfolds. These are then used to drape the halls of Mandos, where the spirits of deceased Elves linger.
• The Wheel of Time: People in the setting believe that individual lives are threads in the Great Pattern of the Ages set in motion by the Creator, spun out across endless Reincarnations to live out their destinies.

Mythology & Religion

• In some fairy tales of the Balkanic region, one night, the hero (the youngest of three brothers) meets in the woods an old man or an old woman who tells him he makes the sun rise and set and the moon rise and set by using yarns: bright/white for day and black for night. In order to keep it nighttime, the hero immobilizes them by tying them to a tree, so that they cannot complete the day and night cycle.

Tabletop Games

• Exalted: The Loom of Fate in the Home of the Gods spins out the destinies of everything in Creation, protecting causality and linear time. Touching someone's thread in the Loom, one can view and even alter their destiny. However, outside forces like the Wyld and The Underworld don't show up on the loom at all, and Essence-wielding entities like the Exalted can Screw Destiny.
• Pathfinder:
  • The Norns from Norse Mythology are envisioned as potent fey with abilities related to prophecy, fortune, and curses. They can manifest the golden thread of a nearby creature's life, rendering the target Deader than Dead if they successfully sever it with their magical shears.
  • Grandmother Spider's job was to weave the web of fate, but she rebelled against this role and became a Trickster God. She still has the Fate domain.

Theatre

• Götterdämmerung by Richard Wagner opens with the Three Norns, the weavers of fate in Nordic Mythology, twisting and braiding their rope atop a mountain. The rope catches, frays, and finally breaks, which they (correctly) interpret as an omen of impending disaster.

Video Games

• Fallen London: Meddling with your future in Irem is actively called "working the Loom of Fate", and throughout it all treading different futures like they were places you "gain" different threads to move between them like one would navigate a dream. It's especially pronounced in the Altered Future, which is less of a future and more a morass where all the shorn-off ends of ignominious deaths converge; navigating from there explicitly has you tracking given sets of threads into other futures, and you can collect the snapped threads of various deaths you plan to avoid. You can even ensure you eventually gain Complete Immortality simply by finding and following the one thread that never, ever ends until the universe itself does.
• God of War II: The main plot involves Kratos going to the Island of the Sisters of Fate to rewrite his past. He eventually faces Atropos, Lakhesis, and Clotho. Clotho is a giant worm-like entity that lives inside the Great Loom while surrounded by silk-like threads, Atropos has blade- or knife-like fingers, and Lakhesis has a staff with a hook-like edge. Although they are never seen on screen weaving or cutting life threads, it is implied by their appearances that they still fulfill the role of their real-life Greek mythology counterparts.
• King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos appear in the land of Etheria, which floats in the clouds much like some depictions of Olympus and sports many parallels to Greek mythology there. While the natives are called faeries a la A Midsummer Night's Dream rather than gods, Clotho still spins, Lachesis measures, and Atropos cuts just like in Greek mythology.
• King's Raid: Yuria is a famous Fashion Designer who can sense a client's individual Thread of Fate and use it as inspiration to design their clothing, and attacks people with thread and a sewing needle, so her attacks are appropriately themed on destiny, stars, and divination. Her Circle of Fate skill can give opponents the Threading Destiny status effect to reduce their attack and speed for 10 seconds, and give extra damage to non-heroes.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Cadence of Hyrule: The fortune tellers explain that Octavo stole the Threads of Fate from them in order to make the lute he used to take over the castle. This is directly seen in the intro cutscene to Octavo's Ode, where the threads and lute were combined with the power of the Triforce to upgrade it into the Golden Lute, a weapon powerful enough to defeat Ganon and even render The NecroDancer invincible to most attacks except to the lute itself. Combining the two versions of the Golden Lute created by Octavo's Time Travel attempt undoes the Bad Future timeline and sends him back to the point before he stole the threads. Individually, the Threads of Fate are made up of the Thread of Courage, the Thread of Wisdom, and the Thread of Power, similar to the three pieces that make up the Triforce. They also seem to help the fortune tellers see into the future, as one complains that her visions have been hazy ever since Octavo's theft, though they're still able to deliver fortunes to tell the player where to go next.
  • Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity: Discussed. Astor is a crazed seer obsessed with making sure the prophecy about Calamity Ganon and Hyrule's downfall becomes a reality. As a result, he strongly believes in everything being determined by fate, and at one point, he directly references the myth in a death threat against Zelda:
    Astor: Your thread will be cut here, princess.
• Loom has the weaver guild, whose numbers are dwindling and their seed is barren. Lady Cygna Threadbare manipulates fate by weaving in an unforeseen child and is banished from the mortal world for doing so. The grey thread that was woven into the Loom is claimed to throw the pattern into chaos and bring the Third Shadow.
• Shin Megami Tensei: The Moirae (Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) are all depicted with a single thread; appropriately enough Clotho holds the spool, Lachesis looks like she's measuring it and Atropos holds the scissors.
• Warriors Orochi: In the third game, a person's thread of existence is a necessary component for Kaguya's Time Travel powers, since they work as a form of Mental Time Travel, allowing them to transfer their consciousness to their past selves. This leads to a limitation that prevents the time travel from becoming a Story-Breaker Power, as the appearance of the Hydra distorted the existence of the fused world, cutting every human's thread of existence to the exact time the Hydra appeared, so they can't simply go back and prevent it from appearing. This also leads to an eventual Enemy Mine with Dragon Ascendant Da Ji, since her mystic nature gives her a stronger thread of existence, meaning it was not severed by the Hydra's arrival, allowing her to bring the coalition further back in time.

Visual Arts

• Marie de' Medici Cycle: The Destiny of Marie de' Medici depicts the three Fates from Classical Mythology holding the titular Queen of France's life thread just as she is being born. Notably, they make no attempt at cutting it, indicating that the Queen has a long and prosperous life awaiting her.

Visual Novels

• Tsukihime: The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception is a rare ability that allows its wielder to see thread-like lines representing an object's life force. Cutting a line "kills" the object, ranging from splitting open something inanimate to ending the life of a human.

Webcomics

• True Villains: A Necromancy ritual on a person's remains can manifest a tangible web of every life that has influenced the person's. The main characters use this on a Golem that attacked them, following the threads back to witness the moment of its creation.

Western Animation

• Cyberchase: In "Zeus on the Loose", the CyberSquad met the three fates of Greek myth. One of the fates cuts a string when someone's time is up.
• Hercules: The Animated Series: The Fates' Tapestry of Fate figures in two episodes.
  • "Hercules and the Tapestry of Fate" has Hercules attempt to alter the Tapestry to get tickets to the Orpheus concert. Unfortunately, this gives Hades the same idea, and he alters reality to make himself Top God of Olympus.
  • "Hercules and the Big Sink": King Croesus hires the Fates to show the Tapestry of Fates to prove that Cassandra's vision that Atlantis will sink is not true. When a heckler casts doubt about the Tapestry's legitimacy, one of the Fates pulls on a thread and the man disappears from existence (to the delight of his wife; unfortunately for her, he gets restored). Unfortunately, an accident severs Atlantis from the Tapestry, causing it to sink anyway.
• The Legend of Vox Machina: The opening title sequence shows metaphysical golden threads, cast by a raven, bringing the different characters of Vox Machina together. The raven is a symbol of the show universe's goddess of fate and death, the Raven Queen. In Season 2, Vax discovers an ability to see and bend these strings of fate as a Fate-Touched, enhanced by his pact with the Matron of Ravens.

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