Thomas Laszlo
Sage
In my WIP, there's a prophecy that the MC doesn't want to happen and she tries to find a way to subvert it. A goddess made the prophecy centuries ago. The time for fulfillment has come. Some powerful people and another god want the prophecy to be fulfilled now. So the MC has her work cut out for her.
In some books that deal with prophecies, the details are often vague enough, you don't really know who the Chosen One is. Someone might think they are, yet not be, in which case they might fail (or they might succeed despite not being the Chosen One). In the case of a vague prophecy, there's no guarantee of a particular outcome simply because someone has tried to fulfill the prophecy.
Other books might spell out the specifics of a prophecy, but even then, there is bound to be someone who doesn't want it to come true. Or someone might fabricate a prophecy and spread it in the name of some god/entity who didn't make it. You could say that it's not a real prophecy if it doesn't come true, and I might even agree with you, but you don't know it's not a real prophecy until it fails.
Even a fake prophecy might become a self-fulfilling one if everyone accepts it as real. To quote my own signature block: "The truth doesn't matter. What people believe matters."
A good example is Harry Potter. The unspoken truth about his choosing is that Voldemort had to try to kill either him or Neville. If he had tried to kill Neville the whole plot could have changed as Neville would've been then the chosen one
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