The use of prophecy in fantasy

For the benefit of those of us who aren't immersed in fantasy, could you share an example of a non-complex use of prophecy that doesn't serve as agency for either the protagonist or antagonist?

Well, there is the prophecy about the Witch King of Angmar in The Lord of the Rings. Glorfindel had prophesied that he would not "fall by the hand of man" (or as the Witch King says "no living man may hinder me" although he had already been hindered at Feathertop when his purpose was to kill Frodo and he didn't). Everyone took this to mean that no one could kill the Witch King, so nobody even tried. But the prophesy was fulfilled by Eowyn and Merry, two secondary characters -- as was the nazgûl himself for that matter. And it certainly wasn't something Eowyn thought about doing until she found herself in the situation of trying to save her dying uncle, and in the heat of battle. It's possible that she didn't even know there was a prophecy.

Given the era the story comes from, I think an orphan knight-in-training is probably about as egalitarian you're going to get. Anything lower than that and Camelot would be a work of social revolutionary fiction. A serf attaining any advance in their station would be simply unbelievable to anyone of the time.

None of which changes the fact that Arthur was not an "everyman" character as you suggested. As squire to Sir Kay and training to become a knight -- a privilege which the common man didn't have -- he was part of the ruling elite, although at the very lowest level. Did the common man or woman identify with him? That is very doubtful, especially since they knew the beginning of the story and were quite aware of who he really was. It probably wasn't until hundreds of years later that people began thinking of the young squire as a lowly character and were able to identify with him.

(Serfs could advance to freemen under certain circumstances, and to them it must have seemed a tremendous advance in their status. So for a serf to attain some advance in their station was both possible and believable.)
 
Well, there is the prophecy about the Witch King of Angmar in The Lord of the Rings. Glorfindel had prophesied that he would not "fall by the hand of man" (or as the Witch King says "no living man may hinder me" although he had already been hindered at Feathertop when his purpose was to kill Frodo and he didn't).
Not to nit-pick overly, but is that really a "prophesy" any more than Achilles being dipped in Styx? Is the prophecy providing the protection simply through a type of predestination, or is the Witch King actually and physically invulnerably shielded from violence from males? Is it a portent, or simply a description of the limits of his power as granted by his ring?

None of which changes the fact that Arthur was not an "everyman" character as you suggested.
I just think you're taking a slightly anachronistic view of who could and couldn't be a protagonist in a medieval heroic account. The serfs, villeins, cottagers and freemen were not available to step into a role on the other side of the feudal system. My comments were from the viewpoint of the people living at that time, and I meant that the "everyman" hero would have to be at least in the minimum class and race that qualified for consideration. Of those, Arthur starts near the bottom. It was simply not conceivable to tell a tale of power and chivalry any other way.
 
is that really a "prophesy" any more than Achilles being dipped in Styx? Is the prophecy providing the protection simply through a type of predestination, or is the Witch King actually and physically invulnerably shielded from violence from males?

There's nothing (apart from the prophecy) to say the sword stroke that felled him couldn't have been a man's. Eowyn doesn't have a magic sword, and we're not told of any protection the Witch King specifically has against men. (The prophecy is "not by the hand of man shall he fall", not "he cannot fall by the hand of a man".)

What allows Eowyn to kill him, it seems (though it's not made explicit), is that the Hobbit Merry first knifes him in the back of the knee with an ancient blade enchanted against the Witch King. We're not told (as far as I recall) whether this magic then removes the Witch-King's protection against normal weapons (assuming that even existed). But it does fulfil your requirements of being a prophecy, rather than a statement of existing conditions, and one that does not provide anyone with agency, since neither Eowyn nor Merry seem aware of it at the time of going into combat.
 
the Witch King says "no living man may hinder me"

I took this as a direct allusion to Macbeth, where the eponymous hero is told he cannot be killed by "any man born of woman", and realises the sharp truth of it when he faces Macduff, who was born by caesarian.

Any trope in any genre can be pointed to as crutch, but that doesn't mean that any discussion of those tropes is any more of an attack on the genre than just pointing out that fantasy one of the most extreme forms of literary wish fulfillment there is.

I did not mean that prophesy alone prepares the protagonist completely, but it does explain why anyone feels the need to train her or why she is even able to complete the training. It is a stand-in for some of the character's agency.

Quite true, and I very much agree with much of what you say on the issue of prophecy in fantasy - there has been some very lazy writing in the past that uses it, precisely for the reasons you mention.

However, I can't think of any examples in epic fantasy published this century where it's been used in that way, but I can think of more than a few examples where the concept is directly challenged, inverted, or otherwise spun very differently.
 
I just think you're taking a slightly anachronistic view of who could and couldn't be a protagonist in a medieval heroic account.

I never said anything about who could or couldn't be the protagonist in a medieval heroic account. I simply disagree with calling young Arthur an everyman character. He wouldn't have been that from anyone's standpoint during the medieval period. To my mind it is anachronistic to consider him in that light.

But it also seems to me that you and I will never agree on that point, so let's agree to disagree and leave it.
 
I never said anything about who could or couldn't be the protagonist in a medieval heroic account. I simply disagree with calling young Arthur an everyman character. He wouldn't have been that from anyone's standpoint during the medieval period. To my mind it is anachronistic to consider him in that light.

But it also seems to me that you and I will never agree on that point, so let's agree to disagree and leave it.
It really isn't very important to have have strong feelings about. To be fair to both viewpoints, I don't think the concept of "everyman" is compatible with feudalism, since it implies that there is only one source of "men", when it was much closer to a two caste system that might as well be two different species.
 
It seems like the use of prophesy is a shortcut that allows the author entirely skip having a back story or character motivation. It makes the protagonist a robot that went from idling on a farm to a freshly programmed warrior prince without the complications of having any real skin in the game or explaining how they become competent. It is much harder to write about the development of skills and desires than it is to simply impose them through a simple plot device.

However, I think part of the attraction is built into the foundation of fantasy itself - that the hero is randomly selected in a sense, which is important because the reader is also keen to be whisked away to a magical land, and that can only happen due to an equally irrational process. The prophesy serves the same irrational wish fulfillment that makes the plumber or accountant reading the fantasy more able to put themselves in the protagonists shoes. Prophesy is the rags to riches scenario for an impossible story in much the same way as the closet is for Narnia and buried alien tech or suspended animation is for sci fi. There isn't a lot of difference between Arthur and Buck Rogers in terms of their humble origins and how they make the reader feel that they too could participate.


RX, clearly you've been reading different prophesy stories than I have. And I can promise you, in my novel, THE UNNAMED RUNE, the first book in the series, you won't find any of the shortcuts you complain about and suggest are rampant examples of lazy writing. If a writer does his/her job effectively, there is no reason to find prophesies any less enjoyable than any other aspect of a story.

Perhaps you have become jaded by reading too much fantasy. Maybe you have become bored with certain common, and highly looked for, tropes in the fantasy genre -- tropes that, if they are missing in the novels I read, I feel deeply cheated. Prophesy is a great dynamic element of this genre, and I never become bored with it, or find it an unrealistic detail (to the genre, of course), or an unnecessary addition to the story. It's what I thrive on, in my reading, and in my writing.

Perhaps a different genre would suit you better. There is no requirement that you read something you find ludicrous. You're the master of your life.

Simply find a genre that does a better job of fulfilling your tastes.

All my best.
 
RX, clearly you've been reading different prophesy stories than I have. And I can promise you, in my novel, THE UNNAMED RUNE, the first book in the series, you won't find any of the shortcuts you complain about and suggest are rampant examples of lazy writing. If a writer does his/her job effectively, there is no reason to find prophesies any less enjoyable than any other aspect of a story.

Perhaps you have become jaded by reading too much fantasy. Maybe you have become bored with certain common, and highly looked for, tropes in the fantasy genre -- tropes that, if they are missing in the novels I read, I feel deeply cheated. Prophesy is a great dynamic element of this genre, and I never become bored with it, or find it an unrealistic detail (to the genre, of course), or an unnecessary addition to the story. It's what I thrive on, in my reading, and in my writing.

Perhaps a different genre would suit you better. There is no requirement that you read something you find ludicrous. You're the master of your life.

Simply find a genre that does a better job of fulfilling your tastes.

All my best.
Maybe. But when I read this description, it sounds a lot like what we were talking about:
The Unnamed Rune, an Ebook by Ronald Taylor Smith

One use of prophecy I really enjoyed (even though it was a silly movie) was in Bulletproof Monk. The monk keeps looking at the boy because he appears to be fulfilling the prophesy, but it turns out the girl who is around for all these events is the actual fulfiller.


I really don't have super strong feelings about prophesy. I think it is an aesthetic element that many fantasy readers really like because it lends gravitas to the story, and that's fine.
 
Maybe. But when I read this description, it sounds a lot like what we were talking about:
The Unnamed Rune, an Ebook by Ronald Taylor Smith

One use of prophecy I really enjoyed (even though it was a silly movie) was in Bulletproof Monk. The monk keeps looking at the boy because he appears to be fulfilling the prophesy, but it turns out the girl who is around for all these events is the actual fulfiller.


I really don't have super strong feelings about prophesy. I think it is an aesthetic element that many fantasy readers really like because it lends gravitas to the story, and that's fine.


I have to agree with you, RX. I do use prophecy in my novel, because I see it as powerful motivation for the MC's. But as I said, it's all about how that prophecy is presented in the story. It can either be done as an exciting and necessary aspect of the story, or it can be bungled and inserted as poorly planned cliché. It all comes down to how well an author uses a trope. Well done, tropes can be some of the best elements in fantasy. Poorly done...well? You made a good argument for writers to do the hard work necessary.

And by the way, I enjoyed our discussion. Varying points of view are so often a good tool for making each of us reconsider our own stance on an issue. It's best that we always review out opinion on long-held certainties. In doing so, I've had to reevaluate and alter my mindset more than once over the years.

Although you've brought up some great points, I have to say, on this issue only, I must retain my original opinion. I still love stories with well done prophecies.

All my best to you, RX.
 
One other thing, RX. I happened to pull up the Smashwords site this morning and found it was all messed up. At least it is for my novel. I sent their support group a note explaining the problem and I hope to get a response real soon.

However, on Amazon, my novel, THE UNNAMED RUNE, comes up just as it should. So I'm a bit disappointed in Smashwords. I don't know how long this problem has been going on. But I will say I haven't had any sales on their site in the past few weeks. I just hope other authors aren't experiencing the same trouble.

Have a great day, RX.
 

Similar threads


Back
Top