The Prophecy

For the movie, see The Prophecy (film).

So the bumbling protagonist, the wandering merchant, or the neighbor from down the street walks into a herbal shop, gets met by some strange person, or simply has a dream with a lot of flashy lighting effects. Next thing they know, they've been declared destroyers of worlds, rulers of fates, or simply the best goddamned kitten-saver in the entirety of the universe.

There is a considerable overlap with The Chosen One, but chosen ones are not always told what they were chosen for, and prophecies don't always refer to a particular person.

Subtrope of Call to Adventure. Supertrope to Either/Or Prophecy, Self-Defeating Prophecy, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy; please add the appropriate examples directly to those pages.

Examples of The Prophecy include:

Anime and Manga

• The 5111st Prophecy of Grendel in Scrapped Princess foretells that the eponymous heroine will destroy the world, setting up the conflict between her select few guardians and the rest of it.
• In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S, Carim Gracia's rare prophetic skill allows her to foresee the Big Bad's plans, which would have otherwise caught the Bureau completely unaware. Thanks to her, however, they were able to prepare for the crisis just in time.
• In Zettai Karen Children, a powerful ES Per dolphin prophecies that there will be a global war between ESPers and Muggles where two of the protagonists, notwithstanding the love that they will feel for each other, will find themselves on opposite sides and one of them will kill the other. Much of the series deals with how to avoid this prophecy from being fulfilled.
• Words Worth: The prophecy concerning the inscription on the titular tablet forms the crux of the plot. "Only one of Light and Shadow may read the words inscribed here and understand their meaning. Thus, the two worlds will be made complete."
• Gotoh's prophecy is a key plot point in The Castleof Cagliostro, and is inscribed on Clarisse's ring: "Light will rejoin shadow and live again."

Film

• Balto 2: Wolf Quest was driven by the prophecy that the wolf pack would be led by "one who is wolf and does not know".
• The Dark Crystal has the prophecy that only a Gelfling can heal the Crystal of Truth and return the urRu and Skeksis to their true urSkek forms. Wanting to prevent this, the Skeksis launched a genocide against the Gelfling but Jen and Kira survived.
• The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy introduced the prophecy of the Chosen One, the one who is said to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force. Prequel era media suggests that this Chosen One is Anakin Skywalker but the fact that the Sith survived beyond Anakin's death has led to the post-2014 Star Wars Expanded Universe questioning if the prophecy was about Anakin and what "balance" it referred to.

Literature

• The Inheritance Cycle gives the protagonist, Eragon, a couple of these, starting with Angela the Herbalist's.
• Sybill Trelawney's first prophecy more or less drives the entire Myth Arc of the Harry Potter series, as it foretells the death of the Big Bad at the protagonist's hands or vice versa.
• The Great Prophecy in Percy Jackson & the Olympians drives the whole plot, predicting Kronos's fall at the hands of a hero. Percy himself is declared The Chosen One. A second prophecy goes on to form the basis of the Sequel Series, The Heroes of Olympus.
• The Warrior Cats series is driven by prophecies.
  • The first series has Fire alone can save our Clan, referring to the main character and his, uh, potential to save his Clan.
  • The second series has two main prophecies. The first is Darkness, air, water and sky will come together and shake the forest to its roots. Nothing will be as it is now, nor as it has been before., foretelling the destruction of the forest by humans. The second is Before there is peace, blood will spill blood, and the lake will run red, about a character killing his half brother, who would have otherwise caused inter-Clan bloodshed.
  • The third and fourth series follow the same prophecy - There will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws - about three relatives of the character the prophecy is made to, and the fact that they are each born with a supernatural power.
  • Even one of the Expanded Universe books has its own prophecy: Like fire, you will blaze through the forest. But beware! Even the most powerful flames can be destroyed by water.
• The Nine Lives of Chloe King is driven by the prophecy of a chosen one who would unite the Mai prides. Chloe is that chosen one.
• The Belgariad by David Eddings is about two conflicting prophecies.
• Harry Potter is kicked off by Voldemort learning of one saying he will be defeated by a child born to parents who have thrice escaped the Dark Lord. It could have easily been about Neville Longbottom but it became about Harry because Voldemort chose to attack the Potters to prevent the prophecy while his minions attacked the Longbottoms.

Live Action TV

• Both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel are made of this in many seasons.
  • Buffy season one has the prophecy that the Anointed One would rise and the slayer would not know him. He would lead the slayer to the Master and the slayer would die at the hand of the Master. Buffy does, but then gets revived by CPR.
  • Angel has the Shanshu prophecy, that the vampire with a soul will become human after his part in the apocalypse-he will either save the world or destroy it.
  • Sesaon one also has the Prophecies of Aberjan, part of which was the Shanshu prophecy and part of which foretold what happened to Cordelia, when she was cut off from the regular world and her mind opened to all its suffering.
  • Season 3 has the birth of Connor, the child sired by the vampire with a soul, who would grow to manhood and kill Sajan (a demon villain). There's also the false prophecy "The father will kill the son". Angel does sort of kill Connor, but not the way Wesley or anyone else expected. Angel cuts his son's throat to stop him after he goes off the deep end, and then Wolfram and Hart gives him a new life.
  • Season 5 had Illyria's prophecied return.
• Merlin has the prophecy about Merlin helping Arthur become the great king who will unite all of Albion. Then there's the dragon's prophecy that the Druid boy Mordred will kill Arthur. And the prophecy that Morgana is now spending all her time trying to prevent happening: that Emrys (Merlin, though she doesn't know it) will be "her destiny and her doom."
• Series 9 of the post-2005 Doctor Who concerns the looming shadow of the Hybrid prophecy. The prophecy tells of a creature formed from two warrior races that will one day stand in the ruins of the Time Lord homeworld of Gallifrey, unravel the Web of Time and destroy a billion, billion hearts to heal its own. Throughout the series, the Doctor and Clara Oswald meet several potential hybrids, before, in "Hell Bent", Ashildir suggests that the Doctor and Clara are themselves the Hybrid. Time Lords and Humans are both warrior races, the Master manipulated the two together, the Doctor risks all of time to bring Clara Back From the Dead to heal his broken hearts and they end up standing in the ruins of Gallifrey. Though at the same time, there's been no In-Universe confirmation that they're the Hybrid so any future author could revisit this...
• The first season of Star Trek: Picard deals with an advancing Romulan one, that the Ridiculously-Human Robots of the Milky Way will wage a Robot War that will purge the galaxy of all organic life. It turns out to be a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. What the Romulans interpreted as a doomsday vision was meant for binary-coded synthetic brains, being both a helpline and credentials from a race of hyper-advanced Mechanical Lifeforms who will help out any androids losing their Robot Wars. The Romulan threat nearly convinced the Milky Way's android populace to make the call but Picard and the Federation standing up for them convinced them not to.

Video Games

• In Super Paper Mario, the plot is driven by the prophecies told by the prognosticative books possessed by Merlon and Count Bleck. One tells of a man in green who will bring darkness with the Chaos Heart, and the other of a legendary hero who will stop the end of everything with the Pure Hearts. Some time into the game, Merlee tells an additional prophecy that reveals that there will be four heroes destined to save the day.

Western Animation

• A variant in the Planet of the Apes series. In "Escape" and "Conquest", the humans are worried about the knowledge that apes would rise up and rule the world. In "Battle", Caesar is worried he won't be able to stop the foretold destruction of Earth in his parents' time in the future.
• Transformers:
  • The final two episodes of Beast Wars deal with a doomsday prophecy foreseen by the ancients of Cybertron about the coming of the Cybertronian equivalent of the Antichrist. Who turns out to be Megatron himself.
  • The first season finale of Transformers Prime has the Autobots preparing for a doomsday prophecy. Though Megatron initially believes it to be about him coming into his role as a Dark Messiah, the prophecy had actually foreseen the awakening of Unicron.