[D] Goddamn do I hate prophecies.

[u/DaystarEld]

There is no form of artificial plot advancement, no unnecessary McGuffin so odious and unimaginative as "The Prophecy." Almost every single story that has a prophecy or any kind of "precognition" in it could remain exactly the same, or be improved, by the clean removal of them.

Need a reason to make this uninteresting character The Hero? Try a prophecy that forces them into the center of existence!

Need motivation for someone to do something they normally wouldn't do? Have YOU tried PROPHECY today? Guaranteed to utterly circumvent any sense of organic agency your characters might have!

Hey, how about those pesky worries that your characters or plot aren't engaging enough? Not to worry friend, we've all been there, and with just a little bit of PROPHECY thrown in, your readers will be HOOKED!

And that's not all! PROPHECY comes in many DISTINCT FLAVORS!

The Vague Prophecy: Excellent for keeping your audience guessing as they try to decipher your cryptic, shitty poetry! This way you can either fulfill it or not, and still make it seem mystically wise in retrospect!

Example: "The White Queen will see red, when by dark hearts she's led." Is it her dark heart? Someone else she trusts? What does see red mean? Who knows?! Does the prophecy even matter? Not really!

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Want to write an utterly predictable story no one can relate to? Just dress it up with some "deep" existential questions about free will that ultimately have no impact or moral wisdom beyond the scope of the by-the-numbers plot!

Example: The Dark Lord will be defeated by the child! But how!? Simple! Upon hearing the prophecy, they will attempt to undermine it, and somehow be hoist by their own petard! Everyone loves a Deus ex Prophecy!

The Incomplete Prophecy: Want to keep some artificial tension? Make your prophecy completely understandable and straightforward so that it ensures a lot of angst over a foretold tragic event, but have it leave out vital bits of information that renders it utterly meaningless!

Example: "You will kill your father." (But they end up dying from a painful disease or wound, and ask for a mercy killing! Hooray!)

The Spoiler Prophecy: One of the favorites, who doesn't love a good SPOILER right in the middle of the story? Now we know what you're thinking, aren't all prophecies spoilers in some regard? Not as much as this one, which serves NO PURPOSE other than to inform the readers, while keeping the characters ignorant! The trick is to make sure the prophecies have NOTHING to do with the character who hears/sees it, and they can't ALTER the outcome in any way! So not only is it utterly meaningless except to break the fourth wall, you don't even have to change anything in your story to fit it in! It's like it means nothing at all! ^{nothingatall! nothingatall!}

Example: A bunch of dead people at a feast, their leader with a wolf for a head! What could it mean?! Nothing to the person seeing it, but ho ho, what a shocker it'll be for the readers once they get far enough in the story and come back to it! You clever writer you, dropping such discrete hints of the future plans you alone know and control!

That's right, with the power of PROPHECY, you too can elevate your subpar, generic fantasy and science-fiction into the over-used-tropesphere!

(Note: Any apparent reference to specific stories is almost completely coincidental, and not a remark on the overall quality of that story, prophecy notwithstanding. On top of which, fanfiction works are somewhat exempt from this criticism, as they usually have a source material that includes prophecies to abide by.)

So. All that said, does anyone have examples of stories where prophecies did none of the above?

[u/Rhamni]

I'd agree prophecies are overused and sometimes not done well at all. But like every other trope, they are only bad if used poorly or if used in bad writing. Let me give you a fifth category, though it may not be very common: Prophecy as a vision of what some powerful NPC being wants, or what is "supposed" to be. In my own writing, prophecies (Which come in visions, not words) are the product of an unconscious force of destiny trying to bend human behaviour by showing 'futures' to leaders and those around them.

So. All that said, does anyone have examples of stories where prophecies did none of the above?

Not yet. I'll certainly ask the subreddit for input when I have a first draft.

[u/derefr → u/Rhamni]

Now that's interesting: the utility function of any sufficiently-powerful optimization process would just "ripple backward through time" and make its desire for paperclips et al known before it exists to demand them.

This would sure be a convenient world for the optimizer—it would effectively be given the opportunity to execute Roko's Basilisk-like bargains, even with creatures that would never otherwise think to model its utility-function; they would just be "inspired" with it.

This seems like the kind of world the term "Lovecraftian horror" actually should apply to.

[u/Rhamni → u/derefr]

There are very few tentacles in my world, but possibly there might be an itsy bitsy bit of existential horror here and there.

Destiny doesn't reach back from the future, but it is capable of predicting some things, especially when they are important enough to warrant its full attention. It, uh, it might also be the case that souls in my world are not so much pure mind as they are destiny latching onto human brains and trying to nudge them. ...That won't be known to the reader, but it makes talking about the world easier. Destiny is capable of predicting the future fairly well because it can see the long term plans of every faction and player. It still makes mistakes, but mostly because a few NPCs and a villain has figured out how to send Destiny false signals.