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From: Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Gaming Prophecy?
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:54:59 -0400
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On 8/27/24 6:11 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> We touched briefly on Cugel today, and this sequence was on my mind:
> 
> 
> 	<snip transcription of Cugel doing Cugel things> >
> 
> I know that Offut & Lyon's "War Of The Wizards" trilogy has a good
> example (not to mention they are really fun books!) and I understand
> there was a run on "Thor" where Odin tried a strategy of making all
> the Ragnarok prophecies come literally true in a survivable way.
> 
> What are some other good examples of characters trying (succesfully or no)
> to game prophecy?

When I read this post three nights ago:
a) I knew I would be very busy for a few days[1]
and
b) I knew there were plenty of examples that would come to mind

While a) was sadly correct, b) was sadly incorrect.

However, after staring at my bookshelves and also getting some help from 
the internet, I have come up with a few (two successful, two not):

[SPOILER ALERT - titles are ROT13'd and concatenated]

Two successful ones:
1a) In evbeqna'fcreplwnpxfbafntn, the protagonist is told "And you shall 
fail to save what matters most, in the end." It turns out that he does 
indeed fail to save his own mother, but that's because he gives her the 
ability to save herself.

1b) In another part of the same series, a character receives a prophecy 
from an oracle telling her she will "fail without friends, and fly home 
alone”. Sure enough, she fails because it is the protagonist who 
captures the MacGuffin. However, the protagonist immediately gives her 
the MacGuffin, and then buys her a plane ticket so she can fly back to 
their camp alone (because if protagonist and sidekick fly back with her, 
they’ll lose their earthly protection and probably be killed).

Two unsuccessful ones:
2a) In guruneelcbggrefrevrf, the Big Bad Guy tries to kill his 
prophesied nemesis, not realizing that the nemesis didn't actually 
didn't become his nemesis until the moment Big Bad tried to kill him.

2b) In qvnanjlaarjbarf’ pnfgyrvagurnve sybjrevaguravtug'f father locked 
her up since her birth, after hearing a prophecy that the first man she 
sees will become her husband. If he hadn't done that, she would have 
never met the main protagonist  ...

- Tony

[1] "stupid busy" in our local lingo[2]
[2] where "local" means "in my house"