The prophecy of the chosen one is considered to be a tired trope by many fantasy readers. Indeed, many books use prophecy as a crutch to make it easier on the characters and push the plot along. But when done well, prophecy makes it harder on the characters, not easier, and enhances the mythic quality of the novel.
I love prophecy and the tale of the chosen one. I love when I realize a new book will detail another hero’s journey, and I break out in goosebumps when the prophecy sends our hero forth. The Lord of the Rings teems with prophecy—most of the main characters have legends attached to them. Harry Potter’s entire dilemma would not exist if a prophet hadn’t spewed her ambiguous foretelling, setting Voldemort against him. When in the hands of a master, a prophecy can be devastating. It can wring the chosen one dry, even crushing her spirit and leaving her quest shrouded in doom. A prophecy can add a lyricism to the novel, which makes the writing sing. It cloaks a novel with a hint of ancient folklore. Before you give up on prophecy, read one of these five masterfully prophetic books.
The Dark Is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper
When the dark is rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone…
This is the classic use of prophecy and is pure poetry, adding mystery and suspense to the series. The series is set in modern times but follows the Arthurian legends as evil emerges in our world. The first book, Over Sea, Under Stone, sets the stage for the prophecy. The next four books force characters Will, Jane, Barney, Simon, and Bran to use the prophecy to unravel the mystery of how to defeat the dark forces which rise against them. Always suspenseful, sometimes heartbreaking, this young adult series is one to reread again and again.
The Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling
First shall be the Guardian, a vessel of light in the darkness. Then the Shaft and the Vanguard, who shall fail and not fail if the Guide, the Unseen One, goes forth. And last again shall be the Guardian, whose portion is bitter, bitter as gall.
Flewelling is a master of the prophecy. Her prophecies are not kind, comfortable paths for her characters. They carry heartbreak and abandonment and cruelty. The Nightrunner series begins with the above prophecy, leading to shocking betrayal for Seregil and Alec. Does she leave her characters alone after they resolve the quest? Of course not—there is no escaping the bitter hand of prophecy in the kingdom of Skala. The next prophecy, given to Alec, tears apart the two lovers and creates a backdrop for the remaining series.
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
The curse will be lifted only through the will of a man who would lay down his life three times for the House of Chalion.
How can a man die three times? This question destroys the love of Royina Ista as she tries to save her family from the curse, and threatens to destroy the entire royal family if our hero Cazaril cannot plan and think his way to the answer. The follow-up novel, Paladin of Souls, follows Ista as she tries to rebuild her life after her failure to fulfill the prophecy on her own, desolate and abandoned by the gods she tried to serve.
The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop
To paraphrase the prophet, Tersa: The day is coming that the debt will be called in, and the Blood will have to answer for what they’ve become. Witch is coming. The living myth, the dreams made flesh.
What happens when you are the chosen one that your own family hopes is never born? In this dark fantasy series, Bishop shows us. When Jaenelle is born, her own family does not recognize as Witch. Indeed her grandmother states in Jaenelle’s hearing that if Witch comes, “I would hope that someone would have the courage to strangle it in the cradle.” Jaenelle must undergo horrific abuse while hiding who she is and what she stands for so she can escape those who would control her and the darkness justice she conceals.
The Demon Cycle by Peter Brett
The demons have arisen and wards protect humans from utter destruction. The religion states that a Deliverer protected the people, until mankind turned their back on him. The prophecy states that the Deliverer will return to banish the demons “and lo, ye shall know the Deliverer, For he shall be marked upon his bare flesh…”
It’s easy—our hero Arlen is the Deliverer. He has the tattoos. Of course, he denies it, but he’s just modest. Right? But… who is this Jardir guy from the desert? And why does he seem stronger than Arlen? Wait, how can there be two Deliverers, especially if the two despise each other? And what if the two Deliverers end up killing each other? Who is going to deliver the people then? Oh, naughty, naughty Peter Brett, causing us to doubt and wonder which of his group of characters will really be able to deliver the people from the demons—if any. Brett shows that belief is more powerful than accuracy in naming the chosen one and fulfilling prophecy.
Originally published May 2016
Kelley Grant grew up in the hills of Ohio’s Amish country. Her best friends were the books she read, stories she created and the forest and fields that inspired her. She and her husband live on a wooded hilltop and are owned by five cats, a dog and numerous uninvited critters. Besides writing, Kelley teaches yoga and meditation, sings kirtan with her husband, and designs brochures and media.
Point one; prophecies NEVER mean what they seem to mean. Point two; there is nothing more futile than to try to fight prophecy, the Greeks wrote tragedies about that. Point three; the best way to deal with prophecy is to ignore the damn thing and do what is right, as you see it, in the present situation and let the future take care of itself.
It’s been years since I’ve read LORD OF THE RINGS. Did Frodo have a prophecy attached? It certainly would be fitting that he did not since he was an everyman little guy, not a big player like Aragorn.
The “chosen one” narrative is rife in young adult fantasy, and I always think “Heaven help us” when a bunch of tweens are the only thing standing between the world and some type of Armageddon. Real world, we’d be totally screwed. And, yes, I am older than dirt, not a tween or teen.
I can’t think of an example, but the chosen one narrative has been parodied and made fun of by numerous writers as it is so richly deserved.
I usually turn away from any prophecy book. They’re all the same! But there is a difference between prophecy and prediction. Paul Atrides was an attempt to fulfill a prediction. This is much more interesting than prophecy because there is a challenge to make it happen
@2: I think, Frodo is a “chosen one” in the literal sense that he was picked (chosen) by Gandalf to bring the Ring to Rivendell and the Council there then chooses him to carry the Ring to Mordor (I hope I’m not talking nonsense here, it’s been a while that I’ve delved into the story).
So he’s a chosen one in that sense.
But I don’t recall there being a prophecy about that. In fact, I would have said there surely is not.
Was it foretold that Aragorn would retake the throne? I’m not sure on that. Maybe Kelley had that in mind? But then she says that the book “teems with prophecy” and that “most of the main characters have legends attached to them”. This is not how I remember it but like I said, it’s been a while.
Maybe she can let us know what she was referring to?
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I just realized that the article is six years old and was reposted.
So I guess, we shouldn’t expect Kelley to chime in!
The “Chosen One” is such a common trope maybe it would be easier to list fantasies without it.
@2 In the books, Faramir has a prophetic dream, “Seek for the Sword that was broken/In Imladris it dwells/There shall be counsels taken/Stronger than Morgul spells/There shall be shown a token/that doom is near at hand/For Isildur’s Bane shall waken/And the Halfling forth shall stand.” All of which is true or happens at the Council of Elrond, so he’s sort of prophesied, but only shortly in advance when he was already on his path.
I like Bujold’s take on the chosen one in The Curse of Chalion. At one point, Caz asks what would happen if he refused to try to break the curse, and someone points out that he’s hardly the only one the gods chose to set on the path to break it; he’s just the only one to make it this far. Thus he is a chosen one. We just think of him as the chosen one because he was the only chosen one to succeed.
Babylon 5 has a similar line from Delenn where she admits that yes, she thinks she is the one destined to fulfill a prophecy, but it doesn’t have to be her specifically, and if she dies, someone else will take up the role and succeed.
Chosen One narratives can get a bad rap, but I think that’s more from stories where the Chosen One is special simply because they’re special (kind of like the Kardashians being famous for being famous), and their status doesn’t feel earned, there are other members of the party who seem more deserving, or they’re perfectly qualified but no more than many other characters in the story. Done well, however, with acknowledgement that their position, however they came by it, doesn’t make them worth more than the other characters (and without the pesky trope that an inexperienced guy is chosen one over a much more competent woman), it can be a very satisfying story.
Some day, I want to see a Chosen One story where it turns out the prophecy wasn’t predicting a specific individual but was simply a job description of the necessary qualities to achieve the task.
@6 I don’t know (about it being easier to list fantasies without Chosen Ones). I think it depends on how you decide if someone’s a chosen one. The Pevensie kids were pretty clearly Chosen Ones, specifically prophesied and all that with no prior interest in fighting a witch and claiming thrones. But Shasta in The Horse and His Boy was also prophesied to save Archenland, and that seemed to be less of a proclamation of his destiny than a simple statement of how events would happen to play out, so he fits the most basic tenets of a Chosen One but has very few Chosen One vibes.
Similarly Taran from the Prydain Chronicles has a prophecy associated with him, but the series is mainly him growing up and trying to do the right thing so that by the time the prophecy is revealed, it already feels like he’s earned it by his own deeds and not by fate, and once again the prophecy was just stating what would happen.
In some ways, although few would identify Maia from The Goblin Emperor as a chosen one at first glance, when you think about the fact that very few people, maybe no one else, could have done what he did (been born into a situation where he could take the throne but also not be encumbered with the unenlightened prejudices of the royal court), he’s got some strong Chosen One vibes.
There are countless other examples of characters who straddle, match and defy the Chosen One traits, so how does one decide if an sff story is a Chosen One story? If you define a chosen one narrative as all the traits that annoy you, you’re skewing the results. But on the other hand, how does one define a chosen one besides how it makes you feel, whether positive or negative?
Morgon, from Patricia McKillip’s Riddle-Master Trilogy, is a multiply-Chosen One. I like the three books. McKillip is wonderful at fantasy, and when, at the beginning of the second book, we’re told that the hero of the first is apparently dead, oh, the fun it was!
There is actually a case from Greek myth where prophecy was fought: after the fall of Troy, a seer prophesied that if Hector’s son Astyanax were to grow up, he would take terrible vengeance upon the Greeks. Solution: throw the kid off the city walls. Vengeance averted. (It’s notable that this particular prophecy did include an “if-“.)
jens@@.-@
In the chapter “The Shadow of the Past”, Gandalf thinks that Frodo was “meant to have” the Ring. That is, Frodo having the Ring (and earlier, Bilbo finding it) was part of a design of a Higher Power. Later in the chapter Frodo asks “Why was I chosen?” and Gandalf doesn’t really know but notes “But you have been chosen”.
I don’t recall a prophecy that said directly that Aragorn would take the throne but in “The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen” (Appendix A), Aragorn’s maternal grandmother (who is described as “foresighted”) says of Aragorn’s mother and father “If these two wed now, hope may be born for our people; but if they delay, it will not come while this age lasts.” I also think that Elrond’s condition for Aragorn and Arwen’s marriage was set with a belief that Aragorn was actually destined to meet that condition.
There’s also the prophecy of Malbeth the Seer about the Paths of the Dead (recited by Aragorn in “The Passing of the Grey Company”) and the last words of the ancient king at the Door to the Paths (recalled by Theoden in “The Muster of Rohan”). Both of which refer (although without specifically naming him) to Aragorn taking the Paths of the Dead.
And of course, there was also Glorfindel’s prophecy about the Witch-king:
“Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall.”
Which turned out to refer to Éowyn.
Seems like David Eddings Belgariad/Mallorian should fit this list. I don’t recall reading a more prophecy focused series. Up to and including using the actual written prophecy as some prophecy within a prophecy trick when it’s discovered an ink blot on the page is actually an additional prophecy countermanding the original prophecy prompting the second series of books. One of the better reads for young adults IMHO.
To address the person suggesting the Belgariad – sadly, as I got older, I learned that David and Leigh Eddings were terrible people responsible for horrific child abuse. Ruined all their books for me.
@13 & 14, I too heard those rumors about David and Leigh Eddings. But their books were ruined for me long before then. I liked the first series of 5 books in my early teens, though even in that uncritical callow state, I remember being secretly underwhelmed by the conclusion. I started the sequel series, but I was in my late teens by then, I developing a critical eye. I started to see just how lazy and generic it was. I never finished it.
@8 Kyna, Fair points. What is a “chosen one”? I maintain the motiff is often present, even when not explicit. Elric, and Conan, and Frodo, and Ged, and Luke Skywalker, and hundreds of other fantasy heroes are chosen ones, by my interpretation of the term.
@11 & 12, I’d say Aragorn is also chosen, an Arthur figure, along with Eowyn and others. It is interesting to note that Eowyn is perhaps the most explicitly “chosen” character, down to being cryptically alluded to in an ancient prophecy. (Tolkien disliked Shakespeare, but he seems to have been influenced by Macbeth.)
@7
I would argue that “The Curse of Chalion” has exactly that kind of “job description” kind of prophecy… It’s inclusion on this list made me think about the difference between “Chosen” and “Prophetized”- about how Caz does manage to fulfill the prophecy of course, but that seems to be less because he is the One “chosen” to do so and more because he happens to have the right kind of personality and “qualifications” to do so… And Ista does hint at some point (I don’t remember in which of the books) that if she had just had more patience (instead of, spoiler, making dy Lutez go through with the drowning again the very next night when he was still traumatized from the first time) their plan might very well have worked, too… (So it was more about managing the fulfill the right circumstances – Caz even says something about the why, about three deaths being necessary to make your soul wide enough for the gods to reach through and remove the curse IIRC – than about Caz as an individual being prophetized.)
The Green-sky Trilogy, beginning with Below the Root, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, has a twist on this. Two Kindar teenagers every year become The Chosen to join the priesthood, so are supposed by the mainstream society to be psychically gifted far beyond any ordinary Kindar (who usually lose their ESP as schoolchildren). In fact, the priests have good reason to not choose anyone with real ESP gifts (they might find out the truth). Raamo, although he does have some ESP, is well aware he’s just an ordinary bloke. Or so he thinks. The high priestess actually pushed for his choosing, because he is in fulfillment of her prophecy — a personal dream sent to her by one of the long-dead founders of the civilization. Not only did she choose him, but a cynical fellow priest chooses him as well, to become an ally to find out what’s really going on. Their explorations and discoveries cause the downfall of their society’s foundations, but we can see the people are determined to rebuild it in truer and better form. This series would have been completely forgotten if the author hadn’t created a DOS video game based on it. Today, people still don’t get it and often wonder if it was based on The Giver — it actually came out eighteen years earlier.
Morgon, Prince of Hed, surely qualifies. Those stars on his face seal the deal.