Prophecies and Predictions

[redchild]

However, prophecies have been done so often that most of the time, it's going to be cliched and lame.

Yes I always view them with a bit of suspicion. Thankfully, good writing tends to be much more focused on characters and their interactions with other characters/environment.

Over the course of the story, the characters come up with various interpretations, but in the end no one gets any closer to answer and they decide that it isn't important after all.

Hmm, perhaps prophecies can be like the Holy Grails of stories? Something people search for, even if only to validate its existence, yet is ultimately elusive?

Even the events in a story will eventually be historical events in that world. If a prophecy is fulfilled, wouldn't there be another prophecy to take its place? Is there ever an ultimate prophecy (an ultimate end) or are they cyclical? I think Hobb tackles this with her White Prophets in the RotE quite effectively.

In addition to being cliched, prophecies come with a host of questions: if the future is apparently foretold, does that mean that our heroes' universe is deterministic? Why are prophecies so vaguely worded? (Yes, to keep the story suspenseful, but what is the in-universe reason?)

Another reason for such vagueness provided is that a prophecy can be very dangerous tool... Most prophecies there are vague so that only those they matter for will understand them.

Perhaps prophecies are really only MacGuffins something that drives characters to act as they do. Vagueness is precisely why prophecies are dangerous. People's different interpretations (or lack of knowledge) on prophecies can lead into conflict with other characters in their endeavors to fulfill, alter, or annul the prophecy.

The probability of a highly precise, "perfect" prophecy to be realized with 100% fail-safe execution is extremely improbable. Or, in the case of prophecies that end up becoming fulfilled, perhaps they are worded so vaguely to allow room for different permutations that eventually come to the same ultimate fate.

For example, if the supposed hero who is thought to be the one to fulfill the prophecy dies, it can still be fulfilled though in a different time, with a different hero, under different circumstances. Let's say somebody made a prediction that Columbus would "discover" the American continents.

If Columbus had not "discovered" the New World (perhaps he died or Isabella sent some guy called Joe instead,) eventually someone else would have.

Or, someone else could have discovered the Americas (and there is archaeological evidence that it was) before Columbus' expedition but did not stake claim nor was technologically advanced enough or had no incentive to settle.

Or had Native Americans reached a cultural and scientific "Renaissance" before Europe had, would they have been the ones to discover and colonize the "New World:" Europe?

Any number of circumstances, ranging from slightly to wildly different, would have led to the eventual meeting of peoples between the two "worlds." However, making such a prediction requires either prior knowledge (a la time travel?), or a general conclusion derived from sufficiently gathered data (had there been superhero genius anthro-/sociologists around during the time) to support the probability of, an ultimate outcome. It's quite the paradox really, that if you know the ultimate outcome, you can attempt to alter it. Yet if it is "ultimate," then it should be unavoidable and any attempt to change it is futile...but you never know unless you try (unless, of course, you can time travel.)