This video is more of an overview and not comprehensive. There’s some stuff I could spend an entire other video on that I didn’t really get into. Such as how the “chosen one” virtually always happens to be somebody who fits the standard protagonist template of conventionally attractive, fit/thin, heterosexual, cisgender, non-disabled, and more often than not white. Or how someone being effectively the designated savior who all others must default to very easily plays into fascistic narratives of “chosen people” and the disregarding of the importance of ordinary people. So yeah, there’s more to unpack if people respond well enough.
It probably has an impact on society that only thin-white-cishet-.. people can be heroes or are hero material. So when a black disabled person speaks up it's considered weird and confusing. Society is culturally taught that the underprivileged can't be heroes while the privileged (who don't see a reason to change) can change things. Essentially a perfect plan to keep the status quo. Generalizing things for the sake of simplicity, but does this make sense? I've started to notice patterns when it comes to tropes and representation in the past few years, but it's still hard to figure out what's intentionally there, what's subconsciously there and what's just my imagination. (If things were easy we wouldn't have so many of "those" youtubers.)
Yeah I kind of wish you brought that up in the video. As yes the chosen one or ultimate super important hero of the story often is a good-looking or underdog white male who gets to save the world and get the girl. I can't at the moment think of any examples that isn't that 🤷♂️.
@@CLDJ227 well there’s a few like Buffy who at least isn’t male (though she is cis-het, conventionally attractive, middle class, and white). But when you find the outliers they generally only vary on point and adhere to the rest.
"...Everyone wants to believe they're "chosen". But if we all waited around for a prophecy to make us special, we'd die waiting. And that's why you need to choose yourself."-Eda (The Owl House S1EP2)
The Hunger Games (I suppose mostly its sequels) might be my favorite 'chosen one' story, because Katniss was chosen _by another human_ to be the face of the revolution. They get to do the same "Why me? I don't want it" trope and the stakes that come from being the chosen one, but without the dumb and unsatisfying "the universe said so" answer.
Also, there are many instances when she could have "walked away" from it, but she has the knowledge that there won't be another "chosen one" to lead the rebellion of she leaves and so if she walks away it will all have been for nothing because the rebellion will just die, so in every instance she chooses not to walk away (or to come back when she does), and every time she does have reasons for the decisions she makes.
@@Wynneception Eh, semantics. I like it exactly because it's a twist on the Chosen One narrative--it managed to keep all the interesting aspects of it (and more) while discarding all the annoying things about it--but I suppose you could argue it was twisted too far to still be considered a Chosen One story. It doesn't really matter in the end.
What I love about The Matrix is that Neo’s heroic journey involves rejecting the Chosen One status. He is simply a guy risking everything to save his friend and that is what makes him unlock his potential.
@@natsmith303 The Oracle already knew Neo was the One. It was him finally excepting that "Their is no spoon.", that he unlocked his full potential. The Oracle just seems like Paul from Dune.
@@AceOfSevens I can totally see that since he was an actual program and not a human. Or maybe the combination of Anderson and Smith which is why they both didnt become greater until after they fought.
The only chosen one story that worked for me was Buffy the Vampire Slayer maybe because of the stakes (no pun intended) that came with that role that followed her throughout the show until the end
That one works for me too but it also handles it differently, as there isn't a single chosen one in all of eternity but a succession of chosen ones. At least until the end of it's final season. To me, that helps it work and while it existed at the time, the whole chosen one trope wasn't as prevalent back then as it is now.
@@Elwaves2925 And it is very clear that the choosing wasn't done by the universe or fate, but the system was put in place by human beings, which met that later on it could be changed by human beings. I think that difference made it work.
@@tsuritsa3105 I agree. They took the trope (if it was a trope back then) and did something different and unique with it. It was the standard 'one person born into a destiny they can't avoid who must save everyone' boring trope we usually get nowadays.
One of my biggest pet peeves about the Star Wars prequels is that we never actually learn what the Chosen One prophecy actually says beyond “he will bring balance to the force”.
@@benjamindavis4974 Except that there wasn't balance at the end Of ROTJ. It was one sided in favour of the light side and you can't have balance when it's completely one sided. Which means Anakin wasn't the chosen one, a fact that the sequels ignore until the very last moments and even then they don't really address it.
Yeah quite frankly that prophecies entire purpose was to show the fall of anakin Most likely acting as the oracle of Delphi given the prequel are a green tragedy in space and the Greeks love their misinterpreted prophecy
@@Elwaves2925: actually, if you pay attention, no one in the original or prequel trilogies ever mentions anything about a "light side". It's not a concept that exists in Lucas's presentation. There is only "The Force" which in its natural state is inherently balanced, and the "Dark Side" which is a malignant corrupting influence. There is no light side because anything that attempts to overtly control the force or otherwise move it in a direction away from its default state is the dark side. No matter how well intentioned a user might start out, if they try to subvert the natural order of things, it always leads to corruption. The Force is already both yin and yang, while the Dark Side is anything that tries disrupt that system.
The Force: "We made waaaay too many Jedi OCs, there's like a thousand of them, i need a good way of killing all of them. Can one jedi go mad or something, thanks" -The Chosen One Prophecy
The best defense I’ve seen for Chosen Ones is the Trope Talk video from OSP. It’s a great discussion of what is appealing about the trope, what kinds of stories it can tell, and what elements it needs in order to tell a compelling story. I don’t hate The Timeless Child, but I think it absolutely fails as a Chosen One story because it doesn’t amount to anything. There’s no destiny or duty to fulfill, no adversary to overcome, and no greater mythology revealed. The Timeless Child is just backstory for the Time Lords that doesn’t change what we know about The Doctor or what she knows about herself. It’s one thing to begin a story with this kind of plot device, but it’s another thing to introduce it as a retcon.
Really, it’s hardly a chosen one story since… what’s the Doctor chosen for? I mean, I can see RTD going into this and making more out of it but it feels like it could’ve been explored better if started in Series 11 as a sort of Bad Wolf myth arc.
@@matt0044 That's what I think. Chosen one stories basically say that the reason this person is the hero is because they have an arbitrary destiny to be the hero, not because they actually have particularly heroic motivations. The Timeless Child plot does give the Doctor a greater importance in Time Lord lore but doesn't really have any impact on the reasons why the Doctor does what they do (at least, it doesn't do that as of right now.)
Agree, it jut gives th timeloirds a backtory and for th doctor that never really mattered other than as trauma. Ok with davie but there the doctor dealth with th trauma, not bcaues he is that atached to timelords.
Maybe... just maybe... The Doctor isn't the "chosen one", but an abused, stolen child, who has been experimented on and whose genetic material was planted into their abusers without consent to create a ruling elite for the universe. Then, when they grew uncomfortable for said elite, their whole identity was erased! I have to be honest, it is really frustrating to me that this is taken as a chosen one story. The Master sees it that way, which should have tipped people off from the start. But since Survivors of the Flux it is transparently clear.
My least favorite uses of the chosen one story are when they made characters like The Doctor in The Timeless Child and Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 explaining that the spider that bit him had his father’s DNA making him the only one who could be the friendly neighborhood wall crawler pissed me off, as much as the excessive Sinister Six setup.
It literally goes against the idea of "anyone can wear the mask", which is the point that made Spidey so beloved. Or the musical where Peter became Spider-Man because the greek goddess arachne got horny for him and sent the spider to bit him. That thing's wild I tell ya.
One thing I like about the Star Wars prequels is the subversion of the "chosen one." Because it turns out that the "chosen one" was the "bad guy." And Anakin did bring balance to the Force. Before him, thousands of Jedi ran the galaxy. After Vader, there was balance: 2 Jedi (Yoda and Obi) and 2 Sith (Palpie and Annie). See that coming, Yoda did not.
There is something to be said about who gets to be the “Chosen One” and what the appeal is. I’ve seen the arguments that it’s a trope often reserved for white, straight characters and how it’s not fair to decry it when other types of characters have been denied the honor. It’s often a power fantasy for the young to imagine themselves as the protagonist and feel like the most special person in the world. A feeling few of us might feel again in this lifetime. For the marginalized and underprivileged, it’s a rare sensation.
I think Brandon Sanderson puts some interesting spins on the 'Chosen One/Prophecy' trope in his 'Mistborn' series. As the series progresses, you find out the alleged 'Dark lord' who initially gets defeated in the first book wasn't so 'dark' after all, at one stage the 'Chosen One' actually turns out to be the person that screws everything up by doing what they were 'prophesised' to do, and that a side character ends up accidentally in a sort of 'Chosen One' role simply because the *actual* 'Chosen One' at the time makes an unexpected decision that *wasn't* covered by the 'Prophecy.'
What you said about a chosen one not needing character development kind of reminded me of Clara Oswald. Because we were all too busy trying to solve the mystery, then getting to know War, then farewelling Eleven, then getting to know Twelve, she’d been there for eleven episodes before we paid attention to her personality.
The Elder Scrolls franchise has an interestigng variant on the Chosen One trope, in Mantling and a few other related concepts. Basically, 'hero' is a metaphysical 'slot' that anyone could fall into- or possibly be pushed out of- given the right circumstances. In essence, the 'Chosen One' is whoever is the closest match to what fate demands *at that particular moment*. It is fluid. If the chosen one fails to do their job, or someone else seems like they could do the job better, the position will move. The player character in Morrowind was not born the Nerevarine, and thus destined to fulfill the prophecies. Rather, by fulfilling the prophecies, you are, knowingly or not, BECOMING the Nerevarine, which in turn pushes you further along the prophecy in a feedback loop. Free will and fate both exist in uneasy stalemate in TES; and paradoxically, the more powerful you are, the more important fate considers you, and the less freedom you actually have. At first you wield power, but eventually, power wields you. You have free will, but you can also trap yourself in a fate you do not want. In the Elder Scrolls cosmology, the Chosen Ones are not born that way; they are people who, through sheer force of will, hold fate itself by the throat and FORCE IT to chose them.
I think Lord of the Rings did the chosen one trope well. Frodo was chosen not because he was the most competent, but because he was the least dangerous option. In fact, he tried to pass on the ring to more competent people who all refused because they knew the danger of their failure. Tolkien also described Golum's story who was like a hobbit before he got the ring, which showed Frodo's personal cost if he failed, but it wouldn't be the end for everyone else. Destroying the ring wasn't predestined, but it was a condition needed for victory. Failure was always an option in the story.
I suspect the Angelina Jolie first Maleficent was the most honest take on “prophesy.” Good guys, bad guys and chosen ones are written into the legend years after the events have played out.
A chosen one storyline won't stop me watching anything but they've definitely been causing me to roll my eyes at them for a long while now. You correctly point out that far too many writers treat them all in essentially the same way, you can see the plot points long before they arrive. Unfortunately, that's how that industry works - great new idea followed by bandwagon jumping, followed by subversion of that idea, followed by bandwagon jumping. Rinse and repeat.
I think the thing I dislike most about chosen one stories is the way it dovetails into great man theory and the negative effects that has on society. Chosen-ness presupposes correctness in the actions of the chosen simply by virtue of an innate quality. It need not be earned (necessarily) and need not be justified, and thus can not be questioned. Insert your real world example of choice.
Story idea: a young girl likes writing fantasy stories. She writes an unfinished chosen one story in her notebook just before loosing it. No big loss. She was going to scrap that story anyway. Years later she’s transported to a magical world where that notebook landed. Every one in that world took the notebook as a prophesy and now she’s stuck with not knowing how to and if she should explain the truth “ perhaps SHE is the chosen one.” “Couldn’t be. She doesn’t look anything like how the chosen one was described.” “Yeah well, I was inspired by old movies where the heroes always looked a certain way, and I just assumed that’s how you’re supposed to write, and of course it would be my old cringy work that would catch on!”
She-Ra did a nice job deconstructing this trope (and the attendant notions of destiny and fate), I thought. The narrative initially sets Adora up as a bog-standard Chosen One (“bringing balance to the world” and all). (BIG OL SPOILERS BELOW) But as the story progresses, it begins to interrogate the source of the prophecy, and ultimately we learn that the entities responsible for the prophecy are just as bad as the ostensible villains they’re directing the Chosen One against. And the show explicitly frames this as a critique of the Chosen One narrative and the way it erodes the protagonist’s agency in service to a supposed greater purpose (“You do not get to choose. You were chosen.”). The narrative thrust of the story then becomes rejecting the core notion of higher powers directing the little people who they view as mere chess pieces. (And also gay love saving the universe.) Not coincidentally, this is when the show introduces its true Big Bad, who is expressly emblematic of religious zealotry and domination.
Being the chosen one is the ultimate narcisistic fantasy, and for me also there's a bit of narcisism is icky ickiness in being asked to relate to that fantasy. I'm surprised you didn't mention Buffy as she probably was an inspiration for many chosen one story lines, but at least she had complicated feelings about her chosen oneness. I'm a big fan of your Jumpgate podcast and really looking forwards to seeing how you feel about that prophesy story playing out.
I liked how the trope was changed throughout the series: that there are several trained chosen ones and even more who have the potential to be it. When the gift became available for all who had the potential it showed the ridiculousness of the trope. As a teen I thought it destroyed the story. Now I think differently about it.
Choosen ones as a concept itself is scary. A genetically choosen individual is told by "destiny" to act as the world police state and "restore balance". Most stories don't dwell into the politics and ethics but its scary. What if the individual has bias toward a nation or ideology? What if the individual uses it for personal gain? And what does it do to their psychology? How would an individual that can no longer suffer from the consequences of his actions due to their overwhelming power eventually turn into? For how mid I found the show, Avatar touches on this topic a bit with 2 avatars having let their bias affect them.
I think my feelings on chosen ones vary wildly - like, as with many tropes, its often done poorly as a way to make the main character extra special, and that's annoying. Then there's ones that people seem to like that my response is 'ok but why a chosen one tho?' (Star Wars being a prime example of that - when Obi Wan was shouting 'you were the chosen one' I was rolling my little middle school eyes because even back then I found that choice to be incredibly trite, I didn't even find any enjoyment in the fact that they were trying to subvert it because I found the fact that there was a 'chosen one' at all to be pointless). But there's other times when I find it comforting and nice and not distracting, like Aladdin being the 'diamond in the rough' chosen one, or Moana being 'chosen' by the ocean. And then I paused to think about what the ones I like have in common, and I found that almost always when I like a chosen one, its because they got to do some choosing themselves.
A take on the Chosen One that I actually enjoyed was in the video game 'The Bard's Tale', and otherwise mediocre game with some funny songs. You are designated as The Chosen One and during your quest you come across the dead or dying previous Chosen Ones. The people who designated you as such just kept throwing the title at whoever to get them to fulfill their quest, in the hopes that someone lucks out and actually manages it. In pretty much every level you come across either the corpse of a predecessor or that same predecessor getting killed (and they just tend to be hapless nobodies who believed the hype). Obbviously, these are your first sign that the ones who sent you on your quest are incompetent good at best, and outright evil at worst. But yeah, prophecies/chosen ones tend to lead to boring storytelling. Exceptions are there but they're few and far between.
I like one thing Linkara said in one of his videos about the Star Wars prequels, which could be applied as a nifty idea for a "chosen one" prophecy: what if the prophecy is what turns a hero into the big bad (or dragon to the big bad, in the case of Star Wars)? Specifically, the chosen one is brought up being told that they are special, chosen destined for greatness, and so it goes to their head. Nothing they do could be wrong, because they're the hero, divinely chosen. No criticism of them can possibly hold any water because of that. This could lead them to wanting to eliminate any dissent, and also to the fact that they can be manipulated by those who are willing to give them unending praise.
I've watched Linkara, but not those videos. I like to watch his Power Ranger reviews. Maybe I should check out some of his other stuff. It will be a long time before he reviews the next season.
In The Lord of the Rings there are prophesies about Gandalf, Aragorn, and other big shots, but not about the Hobbits, who turn out to be vital to the survival of the more important characters-I always loved that about the story.
Writing this before finishing the vid because I agree so much, so sorry if this is redundant! I was so pissed when watching The Rise of Skywalker because I was thrilled that Rey was a 'nobody'. I much prefer the Ratatouille 'Anyone Can Cook' narrative.
The Doctor was the Time Lord who “ran away” and “interfered.” They were called to exploration first (an admirable if self-focused motivation) and then to true heroism. It’s all so unique and compelling. You can riff on this endlessly. The Master is a good evil opposite to that (though I would do something different than play them as either Space Hitler or the Joker). I also don’t think regeneration is the most interesting thing about the Doctor. It just explains how we can have different actors playing the character but beyond that, I don’t need to know more. I know this might fall into “chosen one” category but I would’ve been more interested if the revelation was that the Doctor in a past unknown incarnation had created time travel. It speaks to who the Doctor is (the explorer) and is more active than passive. The Timeless Child is a passive revelation about the Doctor, which I resent.
I love the take on the Doctor (from Tom Bakers run) that the Doctor was bad at being a Time Lord. That by the standards of their people they were sub par at best.
The Doctor is not that different from any other Timelord. He makes different decisions and his decision to steal the Tardis started his adventures. But everytime they save the day they don't do anything any other Timelord - or any other person - couldn't have done. They took this away with the timeless child. Making the companions special should have been enough. The Doctor being an alien should've been special enough.
_"I also don’t think regeneration is the most interesting thing about the Doctor"_ - Agreed. In fact, it's not even the most interesting thing about the Time Lords, because we know in-universe that there are other species/races (like the Kastrians and Minyans) who also have the ability to regenerate. It's for this reason that I don't get too wound up about the Doctor being the Timeless Child; I just find it an unnecessary plot development that's proven to be more trouble than it's worth.
I always thought that was the Doctor's backstory. Time Lords are made on a temporal Loom thing that basically recycles the souls of those who have died. The Doctor was hinted at being one of the first of their race, 'The Other', alongside Rassilon and Omega, who founded Time Lord culture. I don't rememeber the exact details, but it was something like that explained in some of the books on the lore.
A lot of super hero origins hit me the same way. People might be "chosen" by something random, like who a spider happened to bite, but it's still a character that's arbitrarily picked to be special so now the story will follow them. I don't necessarily dislike the trope, but now that I think about it, it does seem to come with the lead character being the least interesting
I wish I could like a video more than once. You articulate so clearly, exactly all of the reasons why I don't like chosen ones. Thank you, honestly. It's almost expected now, that once there's a chosen one, then there's a severe lack of agency to the point where it's like actual choices don't matter, and no one else matters except for this one character being ultra special, and it's all because of fate/destiny/the prophecy says so, and no one ever questions any of it. I really, really don't like that. I do like chosen one deconstruction stories, but a lot of the time it seems like they don't go far enough somehow, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just me. I'd love for a prophecy to be mistranslated, and/or for people to argue over the exact wording, things like that. If a prophecy turned out to be someone's grocery list, or some unexpectedly mundane thing, that would be really fun.
I'd be curious to read a chosen one story that does not actually follow the chosen one, but a different character in their social circle, and how not being chosen affects them. Maybe that subversion has been done before, but I've never seen it.
There is an anime called "Banished from the Hero's Party" that is like that. The chosen one is the protagonist's sister, and the rest of the party kicks him out because they think he is holding her back. Though the sister is a secondary character, the plot is about how his expulsion affects both of them. Using the American grading system, I would say it is a good, solid B for story telling. I enjoyed the watch.
@@ptcarbonproductions2013 Well.. it's not like any of the other characters are upset they're not the Chosen One. But you're right, the movie is arguably more about Willow and Madmartigan then it is Elora Danan, just by virtue of her being an infant.
18:35 The first arc of Wings of Fire does this decently, with the dragonet prophecy revealed to be a fake designed to give the nightwings more power over the other tribes, and the main characters in said prophecy being essentially pawns in that whole scheme.
I totally agree, but listening to this makes me really want a chosen one story where the whole thing is just people arguing about prophesy- who said it, when, why, what makes it true, how do we know, etc. Really hashing it all out.
There's a lot of that on the Percy Jackson series of books. And this is why I like this chosen one story. There is also the meta conversation that this story only is a chosen one story because it is emulating ancient greek myths and stories, with the Oracle of Delphi and all, and also the vagueness of the profecy that allows for more than one person to be the possible chosen one, if they will fulfil the profecy willingly or unwillingly, if there is way to stop it, if it will be save or destroy, which of this options will be good or bad, etc...
I like Buffy as a chosen one for one thing because it's clear the council treats slayers as disposable and easily replaced, the role is what's important not so much the person and Buffies specialness comes from her own skills and abilities in the role and not the role itself
It occurs to me that one could interpret "Everything Everywhere All at Once" as a chosen one story. :) I also enjoy some of the stories that has someone think they're a chosen one but turn out to be wrong.
In some ways yes it is. However the idea of “in an infinite breadth of possible realities there’s a version of you who can do this super special thing” absolutely meshes with the ideas and themes in a way that feels cohesive and not like any kind of cheat or shortcut.
The Terminator had a decent Chosen one story, I think. John was chosen because of a closed loop time paradox. He was only chosen AFTER the Terminator was sent back in time to kill him.
The show Amphibia had a "Chosen one" prophecy that was done well. We didn't learn about it until close to the finale. It also gave room for the girls to fail. Victory also came at the cost of one of the girls "dying". They lost the power they used to come to Amphibia, and never got the see their new friends again once they left for home.
And in the Aladdin example, he screws it up (well, Abu does, but Aladdin let him come in) and only gets out of the cave because of Genie. He's chosen in the sense that he's the only one who can currently enter the cave (which he never would have found out about had Jafar not obsessed about the lamp), but he's not destined to take the lamp. I never thought of Aladdin being a "chosen one", but if he is, it's a good take on the trope.
That's very interesting topic! I'm actually writting a story of my OC that also uses some troopes from "Chosen One": This OC is Marcus Dumon AKA the Spectruman, a 15 year old boy who is choosen by the dying alien warrior Percyon to recive the cosmic power of Zeon so he can become a protector of the universe and continue the legacy of Percyon, as well the legacy of his fallen friends, the Order of the Star Knights (basically the story is mix of space sci-fy concepts of Green Lantern with the teenager drama of Spider Man). In the first chapter of my first arc I dedicate it to establish Marcus before meeting Percyon, showing his personal life, his relationships with his friends and family and his personality, showing the qualities that make him worthy of reciving such power, like his bravery and genuine desire to help others (which he gained from his love for super heroes as well from his parents, a firefighter and doctor). Then, after reciving this powers, Marcus, at first, is arrogant, not taking his role as super hero seriously, with the idea that he was "choosen one" giving him a false sense of security, that he is "flawless" because he was choosen (showing he sees super hero in very steriotypical way, that they are perfect and everthing goes right for them). It's only after a battle against his first villain, Cold Bones, that results in one of his friends getting injured by the collaterall damage that Marcus finally sees his mistakes, causing to question if he was truly the choosen one. It's thanks to his mother and friends that Marcus is able to overcome his self-doubts and use his power to defeat Cold Bones, saving the lifes of his friends. The arc ends with Marcus interacting with spirit of Percyon, who tells him that the power of Zeon doesn't define their fates, that even the best knights made mistakes, some were even tempted and corrupt (hint for future villain), however what prove them as heroes and knights in the end wasn't the power of zeon, but rather their own choices, their will to keep doing the right thing, even in the darkest hours.
My favorite deconstruction is when the villain fabricated the prophecy/chosen one to hinder resistance by having its opponents divided and/or waiting for the chosen one instead of fighting.
that's kind of what happens in the Matrix reloaded. Mistborn has the villain slightly alter the prophecy to free himself; i'd love to hear more examples;
The one I liked how it unraveled was in Angel with the Shanshu Prophecy in that the Vampire with a Soul will play a pivotal role in the upcoming apocalypse and become human. I like it because the specifics of how the prophecy plays out is seeing how Angel veers the line of which side of it he will take and how the collective big bad keeps messing with him in that regards. Another spanner in the works was the addition of Spike, another Vampire with a Soul and him grappling with what that means for him and his fight up I until that point. But what I love most about it is that at the end, he signs it away in a move that allows him to keep fighting the good fight on his own terms.
I'm watching this after your Power of the Doctor reaction and I find it hilarious that everyone had the assumption that Chibnall was going to "wrap up" the Timeless Child story... when in reality he just left a massive story unfinished while walking away, patting himself on the back, and going "Mission accomplished!!!"
Dune is an interesting inversion of the chosen one narrative. Frank Herbert addresses many of these questions directly. Should a prophecy be believed? What is its purpose and who does it benefit?
I love that you brought this up, because my latest reading of the saga had me thinking about this. Could Paul have avoided the Jihad and 60 billion deaths? He says he couldn’t but we have to trust him to be a reliable narrator and take his word for it. But what if he isn’t a reliable narrator, or substituted “could not” for “unwilling to” in his mind. His subjects accepted it because his chosen-ness presupposes his correctness. I’m starting to think about Leto II’s reign in much the same way. I think that’s why I like Dune so much, the way it deconstructed the chosen one trope.
@@jamesbarr8218 Then there's his son Leto II. He fulfilled the Golden Path. But he would forever be remembered not as a hero, but a tyrant. And he knew that, but it was the only way. At least, only way he could see.
I definitely feel the same even though I loved a lot of these stories growing up. I think the one that I still love despite the obviousness of it is Willow because the chosen one is a baby it feels more like a metaphor for the younger generation and our focus is on the other characters.
@@CouncilofGeeks When I first saw it, I thought there would be time jumps and she'd grow up to defeat the evil queen. Masterful subversion of the trope, actually. And then there's the sequel novelization where she grows up to be a spoiled brat because everyone still treats her like the chosen one.
For a story with a creative take on prophesies and the Chosen One trope, I warmly recommend Shannon Hale's YA novel Princess Academy. I have the Full Cast Audio unabridged version on 8 CDs and it is Chef's Kiss.
I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the only chosen one story I've ever really loved, though I'm so disgusted with Joss Whedon now that I don't love it as much as I once did. Overall, I do think of chosen one stories as being a lazy sort of storytelling. What I actually disliked most about the two Amazing Spider-Man movies is that they went and turned Peter friggin' Parker into a chosen one. For that matter, Ang Lee's Hulk pissed me off for the same reason back in the day.
@@chaserseven2886 you mean he DIDN'T become Spider-Man because of his dad's experiment that was basically coded to his DNA? ONLY he could have become Spider-Man in that universe.
I feel like both Chosen One/Prophecies belong in a certain kind of cathegory where it can work if you play around with them, but largely doesnt work when ”played straight” so to speak.
The only Chosen One stories I like are Sinclair in Babylon 5 and Sisko in Deep Space Nine. Sinclair's Chosen One status was a totally shocking plot twist at the time, and the character is written as having doubts about who he is, where he belongs and being Chosen gives him inner peace. Sisko resists being Chosen for years, finally fully embraces it, but in doing so, suffers a great loss that shows even a Chosen One with godlike powers can't have everything he wants.
In the case of Doctor Who, as you say, it's not even clear why this is necessary at this point. I much prefer to think the Doctor is important because they happen to have rebelled and made the decisions they've made, rather than because of their essential importance. Personally this idea of essential importance has... monarchist? Implications, in that it's about importance by birth, even sometimes literally by bloodline, rather than because of what you've done. I actually enjoy when Doctor Who does the opposite - puncturing their importance, like by introducing Time Lords/Ladies that are more skilled than the Doctor (Romana and River both do this at times). You get the sense the Doctor only seems impressive because they spend so much time with humans, who are likely to be impressed by Time Lord science and knowledge generally. Chibnall's decision destroys that sense of arbitrariness that can be fun in the show.
Related to a point you raised: Prophecy is often an extremely arbitrary way to make elements in a story significant. It kinda functions the same way Magic does in many works. For example, in Into The Woods (not a criticism, btw, I love that show) the undoing of the spell on the Baker and his Wife is what ties everyone together because the components needed to break the curse could be literally anything, so they become the items from these other fairy tales.
Miraculous Ladybug does this subversion of the chosen one as anybody can done the Miraculous and use their powers so long as they have the guts to do what’s right. Marinette becomes Ladybug while Adrien is Chat Noir not because the jewels or Kwami deemed them destined but worthy based on character primarily. What helps is that the Guardian of the Miracle Box allowed them to operate on their own without orders from him. It’s never because they were told to but because they can. Marinette later is chosen as the next Guardian in Season 3 but only after episodes of proving her worthiness.
What bothers me most about Chosen Ones is that they're given importance to the world they live in. They don't earn their importance; whether they're literal or functional chosen ones, they are given unearned importance by someone else. Its the major reason why I dislike the Timeless Child Twist (the doctor isn't just important because of their actions and decisions anymore, they are special - even by Timelord-standards - cause they were born special and are now the sole reason for the Timelords rise); and its a major reason why I dislike a number of "recent" (relatively speaking) entries in various narrative-heavy videogame-series; in MEA got the Pathfinder who became a functional chosen one by their daddy putting nepotism over the chain of command; or in DA:I we got the Inquisitor who was important because they got special magical powers by accident which made them literally the only one capable of saving the world. None of them earned their importance the narrative and other characters heap on them, they are given importance through no action of their own. Best example for a good story about a (literal) chosen one for me is still the Star Wars-Prequels (despite their problems): What happens when you tell a guy from 10-years-old that they're a superspecial chosen one with a great destiny? They became headstrong and increasingly angry at every perceived failure or whenever they're denied something they supposedly deserve and end up becoming a mass-murderer. Bonus points for having a character point out (once its already too late) that prophecies can easily be misinterpreted.
I don't expect anyone to have heard of it, but the Engelsfors trilogy does an absolutely amazing reconstruction of the standard prophecy narrative that I think addresses several of your criticisms here (which I agree with). It's just as much a mystery/thriller as a fantasy adventure. It's about a prophecy, but it's really vague and nobody can seem to agree on what it means or whether it's even true, not even the Chosen Ones themselves (yes, there is more than one). This is just as big a source of conflict as the actual evil that everyone is trying (or not trying) to defeat, if not more so. And the story is not predictable at all; both the characters and the reader are kept guessing as to if, how, and by whom the prophecy will or won't be fulfilled. It has several really well done plot twists and it goes in directions you absolutely don't expect. The characters are all three-dimensional and flawed and best of all, they have agency in how they interpret and respond to the prophecy. Their decisions have real weight and consequences, even - especially - at the climax. If you'd like to read a Chosen One story done right, I cannot recommend this series enough. (And that's not even mentioning its wonderful characters, really good queer representation, and examination of various social issues.)
Thank you for the video, Vera (The Chosen One by the Council of Geeks)! It could be argued that most of stories where the main protagonist is the hero, they are already the chosen one. My main gripe with prophecies is how they try to put the stories "on the rails". I do agree that most stories require some kind of structure, but that is too much. And there is also the problem of authors treating prophecies as "Chekhov's guns": the final conflict between protagonist and antagonist will always happen, and despite some suffering, the protagonist will always reach a happy ending. A good subversion of that could be the protagonist completing their hero's journey by resisting the pressure and having agency in order to go against the prophecy, and the antagonist is foiled by the protagonist choosing to walk away from the conflict. And the reason why only comedies are willing to question prophecies seems to be because they are the only ones brave enough to make meta-commentaries/jokes at the expense of their own plots.
you missed the option where fulfilling prophecy makes everything way worse, or at least worse in the short or term or only has positive effect, centuries later, and the chosen one ends up starting religious war and commits genocides. Bad that's really a different can of worms.
I think some of the points you make highlight a frustration I had with the fan discourse about Game of Thrones: at some point in reading the books particularly (but also watching the show), I came to the realization that I didn't trust any of the prophecies and that the important part was how people responded to or used them instead. The biggest point of frustration being the people talking about "oh, Jon Snow must be this 'prince that was promised' who will fulfill this big Lord of Light prophecy and defeat the Night King" - in the books, it felt much more vague and murky whether there really was a prophecy of this prince or whether it was just a tool to manipulate people into doing certain things. Also, a focus on the importance of the prophecy shifted a story I felt was focused on the people of this world and the horrible things they'll do (even if there may be some big threat looming) to a big Chosen One narrative about how the supernatural threat is defeated (oh and people are bad, I guess), which led to disappointment for viewers when that threat was defeated halfway through the final season and the last episodes focuses on what I always thought was the most important part: the people. That might just be me.
This is one of the reasons why Critical Role’s Legend of Vox Machina is so pleasing: all the characters are the main characters of their own story and have their moment in the spotlight. It single-handedly makes all the characters more fleshed out. This is partially due to the nature of a fairly run live-d&d campaign and partially (especially when it comes to side characters) a storytelling skill by Matt Mercer where all the characters within the story are respected as three dimensional individuals.
I think it's the stories about the notable figures, those who do reshape history, are the ones that suffer the most from the trappings chosen one narrative, because so much of their motivation was - historically speaking - the struggle not to fall into obscurity and irrelevance. A possibility which the narrative precludes.
@@saphiriathebluedragonknight375 I never said Po killed Shen. Basically I said, Shen caused his own undoing because he believed & feared the prophecy of a warrior in black & white to come true & by deciding to prevent it from happening created “the chosen one” to defeat him
The prophecy elements were (one of) my biggest problems with Evangelion. The knowledge of there being a set amount of angels and that their attacks were prophesied to happen made them so much less terrifying, as well as making the motivations of the major powers so much less interesting
Carrot Ironfoundersson, in the _Discworld_ setting. He is Destined to restore the kingdom of Ankh and become the new king. But he doesn't, because he doesn't want to. (Not an exception to the rule that this only happens in comic works.)
Media that questions the provenance of a chosen one idea: the Matrix sequels! The idea of the One turns out to be in part a tool of cooptation by the machines.
I somewhere read an Essay about how chosen one stories make the reader/watcher "lazy" because we got told we just have to wait for a hero to save us and how this way of thinking can be dangerous. While i don't mind the use of prophecy or chosen ones per se there are very few chosen one stories i realy enjoy.
One of my favourite stories is the Lord of the Rings and in it Frodo isn't the Chosen one that's for sure, he makes mistakes and even succumbs to the Ring in the end, he was a just normal Hobbit who had this great responsibility thrust upon him.
I still hold to the theory that Gollum is the Chosen One of the quest to destroy the One Ring. The first thing Frodo says when he recovers his wits on Mount Doom is that without Gollum, the Fellowship would have all been in vain -- and that Gandalf prophesied that Gollum 'might yet have something still to do'.
One of the few "chosen one" stories I liked was the first Mistborn trilogy, and that was in part because deducing the identity of the Chosen One was a big part of the story. People were often WRONG, they misunderstood the prophecy entirely, and in the end the Chosen One was a minor part of the narrative, tying up the resolution neatly.
Where would we end up if we had the choice? Where would we end up if we didn't have the choice? What would we choose given the choice? Do we have that choice to choose? Or indeed can we be choosy about the choice chosen? What are the chooses? ... Choices.
When there is a Prophesy I always question where it came from and what their motives were. I do agree that crow-barring a Chosen-one story into Doctor Who didn't work (for me). If you're not careful it can take away character agency.
I completely agree with you This is honestly why I love She-Ra though - she has the Chosen One mantle thrust upon her and acts against what people claim is her destiny
Apologies for turning the focus on the Harry Potter books, but my greatest disappointment was that they failed to do anything particularly interesting with the prophesy angle. I think it was a given that Harry would end up killing Voldemort, but how much more moving it could have been had he died of his own injuries afterwards. The triumphalism of the actual end (to say nothing of the clunky epilogue) felt really empty.
You know this, but I am a huge fan of the Chosen One™. Avatar: The Last Airbender and especially The Legend of Korra explore this chosen-ness. It probably has something to do with my own personal history, but I really enjoy the catharsis of seeing someone with responsibility and expectations thrust upon them outside of their control, then learning to cope as they either rise to the occasion, fall in their endeavors, or reject the expectations entirely. That's where the entertainment is for me. Sometimes, we find ourselves in situations that cause people to expect action or accomplishments on our part, and we have to respond. As a former Gifted Child™, I identify with this trope in a way I'm not sure others outside that experience would. This is one of my biggest sources of appreciation for the trope.
Well said! I agree. When it's good and done well, though, I can definitely appreciate the chosen one trope. I've been wanting to write a subversion of this trope, but I keep getting stuck with the middle. Someday, I'll crack this code!
I remember that Disney's Hercules was a Chosen One a la Prophecy. I also remember that the people giving said Prophecy were the Fates, As in: The literal Goddesses of Destiny. Criticisms of that movie aside, When you asked: "By who's Authority should a Prophecy be believed?", I think that the Triple Goddess of Time and Predestination is a very specific justification that could be used more often. I mean, who's going to say No to the Physical God when they make a decree?
For those looking for a cool chosen one story I'd recommend the 1st Wings of Fire series. I think it's the only Wings of Fire series that has chosen ones and a prophecy? Correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't read much of the other series unfortunately. Basically, there is a prophecy and a group of chosen ones (not just 1) but immediately the prophecy gets thrown off and the ones following the prophecy had to substitute someone in. The group has basically been raised on being chosen and well... let's just say they have a lot of issues because of that and the fact that they were basically imprisoned for their whole life to hide from the villains. Since it's a book series with perspectives from (roughly) every member of the group it has a lot of time to unpack all that stuff. I think it's also pretty cool that the prophecy from the start is proven to be fallible to some degree and there's debate in universe over if it's going to pan out or not. Also since there are people actively trying to either prevent or make the prophecy come true but in a way that doesn't come across as a "self-fulfilling prophecy". Anyways if I talk more about it I might spoil something major so yeah
I actually like what dimension 20’s misfits and magic series did with the chosen one story. They basically had a character destined to be the dark lord but he fully rejected this
You’re so right, Vera. I am so sick of chosen ones, and prophecies. Seems like we can’t get away from “ he’s the king” “why?” “Because a wizard said it 1000 years…”
Chosen one prophecies are often used to have a character become an authority figure without demonstrating their ability beforehand. (particularly with farmboy type heroes) It is interesting to see characters struggle with responsibility, but a prophecy to gloss over why they come into that responsibility in the first place has always been a shortcut. And working to access the responsibility doesn't negate the struggle to prove oneself equal to the task, so there's no reason to lean into the character coming into power through their own actions and choices rather than because they are prophesised.
I like to mess with the trope when I write. I have a character who is chosen in a multiple pov series. He isn't actually chosen to deal the final blow. He is chosen to be the holder of the key and the one to unlock the door The key just happens to be a sentient being. The key choose him, but he doesn't see himself as special until a good bit later when another tells him he's important. Then the character rebukes the vision she shares. Its very ala I'm not that guy.
I disagree that this Child Of Time Doctor Who story is a Chosen One narrative. There's no prophesy, the Doctor has no grand purpose here, no task only she can fulfill. She was just some resource the proto-Timelords found and exploited completely, stealing her abilities and then brainwashing her into an obedient Timelord (with mixed success) rather than give her credit. The Doctor is no more a Chosen One now than they were back in McCoy's Cartmel plan era, or when the show was first revived and they were The Last Of The Timelords, The Oncoming Storm and whatnot. If anything, Chibnall took a right turn and moved almost completely away from The Doctor as The Lonely God Who Makes Civilisations Tremble In Fear At His Name. It's one of the things I really liked about his version. My favourite Chosen One story remains She-Ra And the Princesses Of Power, which at the same time plays it relatively straight and subverts it to hell and back. "You do not choose, you were chosen".
I have come to hate the good guy's arch nemesis trope like the Doctor vs. the Master or Space Commander Travis from Blake's 7. When you know the good guy always wins after the first time the bad guy appears he(or she) just becomes a comic book incompetent villain with the "I will get you next time, ha, ha, har" trope. Especially with Travis(Blake's 7) with his little speeches at the end of every episode he appears in. From Seek-Locate-Destroy: "Run Blake run. Run as far and as fast as you can I will find you. You can't hide from me. I am your death, Blake." From Duel: "You see, he made one mistake. He should have killed me."
I'm glad that you touched upon the question of *_WHY_*_ do people in the narrative so easily believe these prophesies?_ That's the thing about the "timeless child" business that bothered me most. That if the two main characters, the protagonist and antagonist both believe something without much evidence, that that somehow carries over as being true for the narrative generally and the viewers. Especially when the prophecy is only known by the Master, who has been established as a liar and trickster countless times before! That's like if somebody you don't like or trust shows you a PowerPoint presentation that "proves" that you are some millennia-old civilization-founding figure. How credulous would one need to be? That came up in online discussions of how, moving forward, the series might write around this reveal of the character. My position was that writing around it is trivial, because it's simply random BS stated by the villain. And later confirmed by Tecteun who conveniently promptly dies. Maybe it's one of my weird autistic disconnects, but I was surprised that many said that it's a difficult narrative thread to work around _because the narrative itself believes it to be true,_ which I don't understand.
@@ThetaSigma-vu1sk - It's like a retroactive prophecy of how they were predistined to this life yet unaware until the present. What we call that process is besides my point of why the characters and viewers believe it.
Since I watch Quill and Sword I already have an idea of what points you'll make, but it will still be interesting to see them in a more cohesive format!
I like Percy Jackson's prophecy chosen one thing because it's based on Greek mythology and they use prophecy SO MUCH in those myths so you can't really get away from it. But there are multiple candidates for the prophecy to apply to so it keeps you guessing and at one point, Percy CHOOSES the prophecy for himself. He actively claims the responsibility because he doesn't want anyone else to suffer that fate. And in the end, the prophecy turns out different than expected but still makes sense. I think it works mostly because Percy Jackson has such a distinct voice and personality and he actively questions the authority of the gods throughout the series.
Very interesting discussion. I largely agree with the frustrations, but I still enjoy the format when it's well done. It's one of those things that I feel fits my analogy of a chainsaw: when used properly, it's extremely effective. When used poorly, the outcome is very bad. On grisly notes, I wonder if you might enjoy a series called the Malazan Book of the Fallen. It plays around a lot with perspectives. It has "chosen" characters, but in almost every circumstance, Steven Erikson makes the choice to tell the story from a different perspective. The Empress's personal agent has a quest to track the activities of mysterious and powerful beings? You get to see the perspective of the random lieutenant she picked up as an aide because he was slightly more competent than average. Got an army fighting to put down a rebellion? You get most of your perspective from a guy who just made sergeant. Someone gets resurrected by a dark god intent on doing terrible things? That guy's brother, and also a slave their parents own. All that said, it is very much a series that is not for everyone. Take 1 part typical fantasy, add 2 parts philosophy and throw in about 1 part horror of what people do to each other and another half part supernatural horror. That's about what you're getting. It's definitely a series to look up content warnings on, and I'm usually one to avoid those because spoilers. The author does his best to avoid making things gratuitous, too....if you can read the entire series front to back without having a moment where you just have to put the book down and process the thing it just depicted, that's kinda scary. It's a harrowing experience, made all the more so by the fact that the author is so clearly aware of what he's writing about. It's a series that moved me to tears on many occasions and, honestly, made me a better, more compassionate person.
An idea of variation on the chosen one I never saw: There is a chosen one but they're not one of the character, nor are they personally known by one of the characters. And the chosen one end up mostly worldbuilding. But the soldier fighting in the war know their victory was fortold, but don't know if they personnaly will make it.
Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica. Baltar was told he has a destiny, but it turns out the only thing he was really useful for in the long run was protecting the human - Cylon hybrid child at one moment of time. Everything else was up to him.
I think one of the best subversions of this trope that I've seen in the past decade would have to be _Blade Runner 2049._ The movie really had me fooled about K until that twist toward the end. And then, after it was all over, it didn't feel like a cheap twist out of nowhere, because it amplified the absolute tragedy of his character arc so much.
I’m a bit mixed because while the subversion of K was excellent it kind of retroactively made Deckard important (thankfully without resolving the replicant question) and he’s not supposed to be.
As a writer, I find the whole prophecy and chosen one thing to be very limiting. If I start out with the characters' paths already laid out by a prophecy, then I am rooted to that path and can't really deviate if I have a sudden idea about something else. I also like to explore motivations and prophecy is a pretty terrible motivation.
Just found this video and want to add that the grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo is a good study on being 'chosen' because of social circumstances. The people of Ravka hope for a sun summoner to defeat the Fold and believe in it so hard because every year their families are torn apart by the draft and their children are killed by volcra. They want that to end. So when Alina comes along, people put her on a pedestal and start seeing her as 'chosen' or a god whilst she, a human who happens to have the power to summon sunlight, strains against that role. It's fascinating.
9:00 I am glad you mentioned the issue where a character that has no traits is the protagonist an example of this is Rey Skywalker instead of giving her unique traits the writers decide to make her bend all of the logic. This is the reason why Rey Skywalker is the most hated character in movies
I've seen the trope used to good effect in stories like _LOST_ and _Moon Knight_ . Yes, they are the chosen ones, but the choosers felt that they could choose them because there was first something wrong with them. In other words, yes they are chosen ones, but they definitely shouldn't let it go to their heads.
I hate the chosen one trope so much. In my opinion, protagonists are usually the least interesting characters in their stories (Harry Potter being the perfect example) and the chosen one trope basically makes the characters in universe aware of the protagonist status. It a lame as excuse to not put any work into making me believe that the protagonists is actually worth following more than any other character. Even if you subvert it or reveal that the prophecy could apply to any one or something like that. The moment someone claims there is a chosen one or a prophecy is cited the whole story has been tainted. It just doesn't do anything for me anymore.
Hey COG~! I've got a Chosen One story for ya! My character is raised to believe she's a "Chosen One," on the night of her adulthood ceremony, she's all pumped and ready to go after the bad guy... and one of the people who's part of her sort of "Watchers Council" vis a vis "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," or Anne Rice's "Talamasca," from her Vampire Chronicles & Mayfair Witches... kind of abducts her, trying to coerce her into marrying him under the really misguided assumption that he can save her from her predestined fate. I decided I wanted to play with the Chosen One trope and turn it on it's head if I could while also turning the Bechdel test on it's head. (My two female characters instead of talking about a guy because ooh dating, end up discussing the villain as a strategy meeting.) I know that I alone can't really fully screw with the tropes, but I'mma try anyway!
This video is more of an overview and not comprehensive. There’s some stuff I could spend an entire other video on that I didn’t really get into. Such as how the “chosen one” virtually always happens to be somebody who fits the standard protagonist template of conventionally attractive, fit/thin, heterosexual, cisgender, non-disabled, and more often than not white. Or how someone being effectively the designated savior who all others must default to very easily plays into fascistic narratives of “chosen people” and the disregarding of the importance of ordinary people. So yeah, there’s more to unpack if people respond well enough.
It probably has an impact on society that only thin-white-cishet-.. people can be heroes or are hero material. So when a black disabled person speaks up it's considered weird and confusing. Society is culturally taught that the underprivileged can't be heroes while the privileged (who don't see a reason to change) can change things. Essentially a perfect plan to keep the status quo. Generalizing things for the sake of simplicity, but does this make sense? I've started to notice patterns when it comes to tropes and representation in the past few years, but it's still hard to figure out what's intentionally there, what's subconsciously there and what's just my imagination. (If things were easy we wouldn't have so many of "those" youtubers.)
Yeah I kind of wish you brought that up in the video. As yes the chosen one or ultimate super important hero of the story often is a good-looking or underdog white male who gets to save the world and get the girl. I can't at the moment think of any examples that isn't that 🤷♂️.
@@CLDJ227 well there’s a few like Buffy who at least isn’t male (though she is cis-het, conventionally attractive, middle class, and white). But when you find the outliers they generally only vary on point and adhere to the rest.
I think a video about that would be really interesting!
@@CouncilofGeeks Agreed 💯 😎.
"...Everyone wants to believe they're "chosen". But if we all waited around for a prophecy to make us special, we'd die waiting. And that's why you need to choose yourself."-Eda (The Owl House S1EP2)
I think TOH did such a good job of immediately saying “no, this isn’t a chosen one story. We also need to humble luz”.
I love both your comment and your profile pic op
oh, i love the owl house
@@fletcheragenda6014 Owl House episode 2 is literally just the creators going "I think all your chosen one fanfictions are trash" and I love that
Yes! Great quote (and I'm reading this right after watching the premier episode of S3 :)
The Hunger Games (I suppose mostly its sequels) might be my favorite 'chosen one' story, because Katniss was chosen _by another human_ to be the face of the revolution. They get to do the same "Why me? I don't want it" trope and the stakes that come from being the chosen one, but without the dumb and unsatisfying "the universe said so" answer.
Also, there are many instances when she could have "walked away" from it, but she has the knowledge that there won't be another "chosen one" to lead the rebellion of she leaves and so if she walks away it will all have been for nothing because the rebellion will just die, so in every instance she chooses not to walk away (or to come back when she does), and every time she does have reasons for the decisions she makes.
Yeah she’s not a chosen one, the idea that she is a chosen one is actual literal propaganda within the story itself
@@Wynneception Eh, semantics. I like it exactly because it's a twist on the Chosen One narrative--it managed to keep all the interesting aspects of it (and more) while discarding all the annoying things about it--but I suppose you could argue it was twisted too far to still be considered a Chosen One story. It doesn't really matter in the end.
@@Huntracony Isn’t the entire POINT that she’s not a chosen one?
Great point!
The more I watch the original Matrix film, the more I believe Neo wasn’t “The One”. But stepping up to the plate anyway is what made him a hero.
What I love about The Matrix is that Neo’s heroic journey involves rejecting the Chosen One status. He is simply a guy risking everything to save his friend and that is what makes him unlock his potential.
If you wanna get technical about it, Neo wasn't the One *until* Trinity fell in love with him.
@@natsmith303
The Oracle already knew Neo was the One. It was him finally excepting that "Their is no spoon.", that he unlocked his full potential. The Oracle just seems like Paul from Dune.
Agent Smith was the One.
@@AceOfSevens I can totally see that since he was an actual program and not a human. Or maybe the combination of Anderson and Smith which is why they both didnt become greater until after they fought.
The only chosen one story that worked for me was Buffy the Vampire Slayer maybe because of the stakes (no pun intended) that came with that role that followed her throughout the show until the end
That one works for me too but it also handles it differently, as there isn't a single chosen one in all of eternity but a succession of chosen ones. At least until the end of it's final season. To me, that helps it work and while it existed at the time, the whole chosen one trope wasn't as prevalent back then as it is now.
@@Elwaves2925 And it is very clear that the choosing wasn't done by the universe or fate, but the system was put in place by human beings, which met that later on it could be changed by human beings. I think that difference made it work.
@@tsuritsa3105 I agree. They took the trope (if it was a trope back then) and did something different and unique with it. It was the standard 'one person born into a destiny they can't avoid who must save everyone' boring trope we usually get nowadays.
One of my biggest pet peeves about the Star Wars prequels is that we never actually learn what the Chosen One prophecy actually says beyond “he will bring balance to the force”.
Ok they just should have like maye luke and leia as background characters and something something new jedi, maybe even in another galaxy.
@@benjamindavis4974 Except that there wasn't balance at the end Of ROTJ. It was one sided in favour of the light side and you can't have balance when it's completely one sided. Which means Anakin wasn't the chosen one, a fact that the sequels ignore until the very last moments and even then they don't really address it.
Yeah quite frankly that prophecies entire purpose was to show the fall of anakin
Most likely acting as the oracle of Delphi given the prequel are a green tragedy in space and the Greeks love their misinterpreted prophecy
@@Elwaves2925: actually, if you pay attention, no one in the original or prequel trilogies ever mentions anything about a "light side". It's not a concept that exists in Lucas's presentation.
There is only "The Force" which in its natural state is inherently balanced, and the "Dark Side" which is a malignant corrupting influence. There is no light side because anything that attempts to overtly control the force or otherwise move it in a direction away from its default state is the dark side. No matter how well intentioned a user might start out, if they try to subvert the natural order of things, it always leads to corruption.
The Force is already both yin and yang, while the Dark Side is anything that tries disrupt that system.
The Force: "We made waaaay too many Jedi OCs, there's like a thousand of them, i need a good way of killing all of them. Can one jedi go mad or something, thanks"
-The Chosen One Prophecy
The best defense I’ve seen for Chosen Ones is the Trope Talk video from OSP. It’s a great discussion of what is appealing about the trope, what kinds of stories it can tell, and what elements it needs in order to tell a compelling story.
I don’t hate The Timeless Child, but I think it absolutely fails as a Chosen One story because it doesn’t amount to anything. There’s no destiny or duty to fulfill, no adversary to overcome, and no greater mythology revealed.
The Timeless Child is just backstory for the Time Lords that doesn’t change what we know about The Doctor or what she knows about herself. It’s one thing to begin a story with this kind of plot device, but it’s another thing to introduce it as a retcon.
Really, it’s hardly a chosen one story since… what’s the Doctor chosen for? I mean, I can see RTD going into this and making more out of it but it feels like it could’ve been explored better if started in Series 11 as a sort of Bad Wolf myth arc.
But could’ve continued as legends of this nebulous figure in time and space. A sort of “Sailor Moon being the Princess Serenity” dramatic irony.
@@matt0044 That's what I think. Chosen one stories basically say that the reason this person is the hero is because they have an arbitrary destiny to be the hero, not because they actually have particularly heroic motivations. The Timeless Child plot does give the Doctor a greater importance in Time Lord lore but doesn't really have any impact on the reasons why the Doctor does what they do (at least, it doesn't do that as of right now.)
Agree, it jut gives th timeloirds a backtory and for th doctor that never really mattered other than as trauma. Ok with davie but there the doctor dealth with th trauma, not bcaues he is that atached to timelords.
Maybe... just maybe... The Doctor isn't the "chosen one", but an abused, stolen child, who has been experimented on and whose genetic material was planted into their abusers without consent to create a ruling elite for the universe. Then, when they grew uncomfortable for said elite, their whole identity was erased! I have to be honest, it is really frustrating to me that this is taken as a chosen one story. The Master sees it that way, which should have tipped people off from the start. But since Survivors of the Flux it is transparently clear.
My least favorite uses of the chosen one story are when they made characters like The Doctor in The Timeless Child and Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 explaining that the spider that bit him had his father’s DNA making him the only one who could be the friendly neighborhood wall crawler pissed me off, as much as the excessive Sinister Six setup.
It literally goes against the idea of "anyone can wear the mask", which is the point that made Spidey so beloved.
Or the musical where Peter became Spider-Man because the greek goddess arachne got horny for him and sent the spider to bit him. That thing's wild I tell ya.
One thing I like about the Star Wars prequels is the subversion of the "chosen one." Because it turns out that the "chosen one" was the "bad guy." And Anakin did bring balance to the Force. Before him, thousands of Jedi ran the galaxy. After Vader, there was balance: 2 Jedi (Yoda and Obi) and 2 Sith (Palpie and Annie). See that coming, Yoda did not.
There is something to be said about who gets to be the “Chosen One” and what the appeal is. I’ve seen the arguments that it’s a trope often reserved for white, straight characters and how it’s not fair to decry it when other types of characters have been denied the honor.
It’s often a power fantasy for the young to imagine themselves as the protagonist and feel like the most special person in the world. A feeling few of us might feel again in this lifetime. For the marginalized and underprivileged, it’s a rare sensation.
I think Brandon Sanderson puts some interesting spins on the 'Chosen One/Prophecy' trope in his 'Mistborn' series. As the series progresses, you find out the alleged 'Dark lord' who initially gets defeated in the first book wasn't so 'dark' after all, at one stage the 'Chosen One' actually turns out to be the person that screws everything up by doing what they were 'prophesised' to do, and that a side character ends up accidentally in a sort of 'Chosen One' role simply because the *actual* 'Chosen One' at the time makes an unexpected decision that *wasn't* covered by the 'Prophecy.'
More reasons I need to check out Mistborn at some point heck yeah
And most of that is before we encounter the true big bad of that particular series.
What you said about a chosen one not needing character development kind of reminded me of Clara Oswald. Because we were all too busy trying to solve the mystery, then getting to know War, then farewelling Eleven, then getting to know Twelve, she’d been there for eleven episodes before we paid attention to her personality.
And by then we discovered she never had one
The Elder Scrolls franchise has an interestigng variant on the Chosen One trope, in Mantling and a few other related concepts. Basically, 'hero' is a metaphysical 'slot' that anyone could fall into- or possibly be pushed out of- given the right circumstances. In essence, the 'Chosen One' is whoever is the closest match to what fate demands *at that particular moment*. It is fluid. If the chosen one fails to do their job, or someone else seems like they could do the job better, the position will move.
The player character in Morrowind was not born the Nerevarine, and thus destined to fulfill the prophecies. Rather, by fulfilling the prophecies, you are, knowingly or not, BECOMING the Nerevarine, which in turn pushes you further along the prophecy in a feedback loop. Free will and fate both exist in uneasy stalemate in TES; and paradoxically, the more powerful you are, the more important fate considers you, and the less freedom you actually have. At first you wield power, but eventually, power wields you. You have free will, but you can also trap yourself in a fate you do not want.
In the Elder Scrolls cosmology, the Chosen Ones are not born that way; they are people who, through sheer force of will, hold fate itself by the throat and FORCE IT to chose them.
That's kinda poetic, but never saw it at play past Morrowind. I might have missed the nuances in Oblivion and Skyrim, though.
You said this better that I've ever heard it said! Thank you so much! I'm screenshotting this!
I think Lord of the Rings did the chosen one trope well. Frodo was chosen not because he was the most competent, but because he was the least dangerous option. In fact, he tried to pass on the ring to more competent people who all refused because they knew the danger of their failure. Tolkien also described Golum's story who was like a hobbit before he got the ring, which showed Frodo's personal cost if he failed, but it wouldn't be the end for everyone else. Destroying the ring wasn't predestined, but it was a condition needed for victory. Failure was always an option in the story.
I suspect the Angelina Jolie first Maleficent was the most honest take on “prophesy.” Good guys, bad guys and chosen ones are written into the legend years after the events have played out.
A chosen one storyline won't stop me watching anything but they've definitely been causing me to roll my eyes at them for a long while now. You correctly point out that far too many writers treat them all in essentially the same way, you can see the plot points long before they arrive. Unfortunately, that's how that industry works - great new idea followed by bandwagon jumping, followed by subversion of that idea, followed by bandwagon jumping. Rinse and repeat.
I think the thing I dislike most about chosen one stories is the way it dovetails into great man theory and the negative effects that has on society. Chosen-ness presupposes correctness in the actions of the chosen simply by virtue of an innate quality. It need not be earned (necessarily) and need not be justified, and thus can not be questioned. Insert your real world example of choice.
Story idea: a young girl likes writing fantasy stories. She writes an unfinished chosen one story in her notebook just before loosing it. No big loss. She was going to scrap that story anyway. Years later she’s transported to a magical world where that notebook landed. Every one in that world took the notebook as a prophesy and now she’s stuck with not knowing how to and if she should explain the truth
“ perhaps SHE is the chosen one.”
“Couldn’t be. She doesn’t look anything like how the chosen one was described.”
“Yeah well, I was inspired by old movies where the heroes always looked a certain way, and I just assumed that’s how you’re supposed to write, and of course it would be my old cringy work that would catch on!”
She-Ra did a nice job deconstructing this trope (and the attendant notions of destiny and fate), I thought. The narrative initially sets Adora up as a bog-standard Chosen One (“bringing balance to the world” and all).
(BIG OL SPOILERS BELOW)
But as the story progresses, it begins to interrogate the source of the prophecy, and ultimately we learn that the entities responsible for the prophecy are just as bad as the ostensible villains they’re directing the Chosen One against. And the show explicitly frames this as a critique of the Chosen One narrative and the way it erodes the protagonist’s agency in service to a supposed greater purpose (“You do not get to choose. You were chosen.”).
The narrative thrust of the story then becomes rejecting the core notion of higher powers directing the little people who they view as mere chess pieces. (And also gay love saving the universe.) Not coincidentally, this is when the show introduces its true Big Bad, who is expressly emblematic of religious zealotry and domination.
Being the chosen one is the ultimate narcisistic fantasy, and for me also there's a bit of narcisism is icky ickiness in being asked to relate to that fantasy. I'm surprised you didn't mention Buffy as she probably was an inspiration for many chosen one story lines, but at least she had complicated feelings about her chosen oneness. I'm a big fan of your Jumpgate podcast and really looking forwards to seeing how you feel about that prophesy story playing out.
I liked how the trope was changed throughout the series: that there are several trained chosen ones and even more who have the potential to be it. When the gift became available for all who had the potential it showed the ridiculousness of the trope. As a teen I thought it destroyed the story. Now I think differently about it.
Choosen ones as a concept itself is scary. A genetically choosen individual is told by "destiny" to act as the world police state and "restore balance". Most stories don't dwell into the politics and ethics but its scary. What if the individual has bias toward a nation or ideology? What if the individual uses it for personal gain? And what does it do to their psychology? How would an individual that can no longer suffer from the consequences of his actions due to their overwhelming power eventually turn into? For how mid I found the show, Avatar touches on this topic a bit with 2 avatars having let their bias affect them.
I think my feelings on chosen ones vary wildly - like, as with many tropes, its often done poorly as a way to make the main character extra special, and that's annoying. Then there's ones that people seem to like that my response is 'ok but why a chosen one tho?' (Star Wars being a prime example of that - when Obi Wan was shouting 'you were the chosen one' I was rolling my little middle school eyes because even back then I found that choice to be incredibly trite, I didn't even find any enjoyment in the fact that they were trying to subvert it because I found the fact that there was a 'chosen one' at all to be pointless). But there's other times when I find it comforting and nice and not distracting, like Aladdin being the 'diamond in the rough' chosen one, or Moana being 'chosen' by the ocean. And then I paused to think about what the ones I like have in common, and I found that almost always when I like a chosen one, its because they got to do some choosing themselves.
A take on the Chosen One that I actually enjoyed was in the video game 'The Bard's Tale', and otherwise mediocre game with some funny songs. You are designated as The Chosen One and during your quest you come across the dead or dying previous Chosen Ones. The people who designated you as such just kept throwing the title at whoever to get them to fulfill their quest, in the hopes that someone lucks out and actually manages it. In pretty much every level you come across either the corpse of a predecessor or that same predecessor getting killed (and they just tend to be hapless nobodies who believed the hype). Obbviously, these are your first sign that the ones who sent you on your quest are incompetent good at best, and outright evil at worst.
But yeah, prophecies/chosen ones tend to lead to boring storytelling. Exceptions are there but they're few and far between.
That whole game lives in my head rent free. I watched a relative play it as a tween and thought it was hilarious.
@@finngswan3732 The 'Bad luck to be you' song definitely does.
I like one thing Linkara said in one of his videos about the Star Wars prequels, which could be applied as a nifty idea for a "chosen one" prophecy: what if the prophecy is what turns a hero into the big bad (or dragon to the big bad, in the case of Star Wars)? Specifically, the chosen one is brought up being told that they are special, chosen destined for greatness, and so it goes to their head. Nothing they do could be wrong, because they're the hero, divinely chosen. No criticism of them can possibly hold any water because of that. This could lead them to wanting to eliminate any dissent, and also to the fact that they can be manipulated by those who are willing to give them unending praise.
I've watched Linkara, but not those videos. I like to watch his Power Ranger reviews. Maybe I should check out some of his other stuff. It will be a long time before he reviews the next season.
I think you just described Kung Fu Panda
In The Lord of the Rings there are prophesies about Gandalf, Aragorn, and other big shots, but not about the Hobbits, who turn out to be vital to the survival of the more important characters-I always loved that about the story.
MODERRRRN ARRRRT!!
Excuse me, I'm celtic.
Thank you for your vids and your time
Writing this before finishing the vid because I agree so much, so sorry if this is redundant! I was so pissed when watching The Rise of Skywalker because I was thrilled that Rey was a 'nobody'. I much prefer the Ratatouille 'Anyone Can Cook' narrative.
Yeah for all my issues with The Last Jedi, Rey being a nobody was EXACTLY what I wanted with her.
The Doctor was the Time Lord who “ran away” and “interfered.” They were called to exploration first (an admirable if self-focused motivation) and then to true heroism. It’s all so unique and compelling. You can riff on this endlessly. The Master is a good evil opposite to that (though I would do something different than play them as either Space Hitler or the Joker).
I also don’t think regeneration is the most interesting thing about the Doctor. It just explains how we can have different actors playing the character but beyond that, I don’t need to know more. I know this might fall into “chosen one” category but I would’ve been more interested if the revelation was that the Doctor in a past unknown incarnation had created time travel. It speaks to who the Doctor is (the explorer) and is more active than passive. The Timeless Child is a passive revelation about the Doctor, which I resent.
I love the take on the Doctor (from Tom Bakers run) that the Doctor was bad at being a Time Lord. That by the standards of their people they were sub par at best.
@@UrbanTheFox I also liked that too. It added a lot to the character IMO.
The Doctor is not that different from any other Timelord. He makes different decisions and his decision to steal the Tardis started his adventures. But everytime they save the day they don't do anything any other Timelord - or any other person - couldn't have done. They took this away with the timeless child. Making the companions special should have been enough. The Doctor being an alien should've been special enough.
_"I also don’t think regeneration is the most interesting thing about the Doctor"_ - Agreed. In fact, it's not even the most interesting thing about the Time Lords, because we know in-universe that there are other species/races (like the Kastrians and Minyans) who also have the ability to regenerate. It's for this reason that I don't get too wound up about the Doctor being the Timeless Child; I just find it an unnecessary plot development that's proven to be more trouble than it's worth.
I always thought that was the Doctor's backstory. Time Lords are made on a temporal Loom thing that basically recycles the souls of those who have died. The Doctor was hinted at being one of the first of their race, 'The Other', alongside Rassilon and Omega, who founded Time Lord culture. I don't rememeber the exact details, but it was something like that explained in some of the books on the lore.
A lot of super hero origins hit me the same way. People might be "chosen" by something random, like who a spider happened to bite, but it's still a character that's arbitrarily picked to be special so now the story will follow them.
I don't necessarily dislike the trope, but now that I think about it, it does seem to come with the lead character being the least interesting
I wish I could like a video more than once. You articulate so clearly, exactly all of the reasons why I don't like chosen ones. Thank you, honestly. It's almost expected now, that once there's a chosen one, then there's a severe lack of agency to the point where it's like actual choices don't matter, and no one else matters except for this one character being ultra special, and it's all because of fate/destiny/the prophecy says so, and no one ever questions any of it. I really, really don't like that. I do like chosen one deconstruction stories, but a lot of the time it seems like they don't go far enough somehow, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just me. I'd love for a prophecy to be mistranslated, and/or for people to argue over the exact wording, things like that. If a prophecy turned out to be someone's grocery list, or some unexpectedly mundane thing, that would be really fun.
The Chosen One: Assigned Hero at birth
I'd be curious to read a chosen one story that does not actually follow the chosen one, but a different character in their social circle, and how not being chosen affects them. Maybe that subversion has been done before, but I've never seen it.
Does Willow count?
There is an anime called "Banished from the Hero's Party" that is like that. The chosen one is the protagonist's sister, and the rest of the party kicks him out because they think he is holding her back. Though the sister is a secondary character, the plot is about how his expulsion affects both of them. Using the American grading system, I would say it is a good, solid B for story telling. I enjoyed the watch.
@@ptcarbonproductions2013 Well.. it's not like any of the other characters are upset they're not the Chosen One. But you're right, the movie is arguably more about Willow and Madmartigan then it is Elora Danan, just by virtue of her being an infant.
Dragon Quest V does this by having the chosen one be the protagonist's son.
All the later Ender's Game books?
18:35 The first arc of Wings of Fire does this decently, with the dragonet prophecy revealed to be a fake designed to give the nightwings more power over the other tribes, and the main characters in said prophecy being essentially pawns in that whole scheme.
I totally agree, but listening to this makes me really want a chosen one story where the whole thing is just people arguing about prophesy- who said it, when, why, what makes it true, how do we know, etc. Really hashing it all out.
There's a lot of that on the Percy Jackson series of books. And this is why I like this chosen one story. There is also the meta conversation that this story only is a chosen one story because it is emulating ancient greek myths and stories, with the Oracle of Delphi and all, and also the vagueness of the profecy that allows for more than one person to be the possible chosen one, if they will fulfil the profecy willingly or unwillingly, if there is way to stop it, if it will be save or destroy, which of this options will be good or bad, etc...
I like Buffy as a chosen one for one thing because it's clear the council treats slayers as disposable and easily replaced, the role is what's important not so much the person and Buffies specialness comes from her own skills and abilities in the role and not the role itself
It occurs to me that one could interpret "Everything Everywhere All at Once" as a chosen one story. :)
I also enjoy some of the stories that has someone think they're a chosen one but turn out to be wrong.
In some ways yes it is. However the idea of “in an infinite breadth of possible realities there’s a version of you who can do this super special thing” absolutely meshes with the ideas and themes in a way that feels cohesive and not like any kind of cheat or shortcut.
@@CouncilofGeeks Yes. I really enjoyed that movie. The acting was also really good.
It occurs to me that superhero films are ‘chosen one films’, and follow along the same formula to what you describe.
The Terminator had a decent Chosen one story, I think. John was chosen because of a closed loop time paradox. He was only chosen AFTER the Terminator was sent back in time to kill him.
The Sahjahn(sp?)/Connor/Holtz arc on Angel is good example of drawing into question the authority and legitimacy of a prophecy.
The show Amphibia had a "Chosen one" prophecy that was done well. We didn't learn about it until close to the finale. It also gave room for the girls to fail. Victory also came at the cost of one of the girls "dying". They lost the power they used to come to Amphibia, and never got the see their new friends again once they left for home.
And in the Aladdin example, he screws it up (well, Abu does, but Aladdin let him come in) and only gets out of the cave because of Genie. He's chosen in the sense that he's the only one who can currently enter the cave (which he never would have found out about had Jafar not obsessed about the lamp), but he's not destined to take the lamp. I never thought of Aladdin being a "chosen one", but if he is, it's a good take on the trope.
That's very interesting topic! I'm actually writting a story of my OC that also uses some troopes from "Chosen One": This OC is Marcus Dumon AKA the Spectruman, a 15 year old boy who is choosen by the dying alien warrior Percyon to recive the cosmic power of Zeon so he can become a protector of the universe and continue the legacy of Percyon, as well the legacy of his fallen friends, the Order of the Star Knights (basically the story is mix of space sci-fy concepts of Green Lantern with the teenager drama of Spider Man).
In the first chapter of my first arc I dedicate it to establish Marcus before meeting Percyon, showing his personal life, his relationships with his friends and family and his personality, showing the qualities that make him worthy of reciving such power, like his bravery and genuine desire to help others (which he gained from his love for super heroes as well from his parents, a firefighter and doctor).
Then, after reciving this powers, Marcus, at first, is arrogant, not taking his role as super hero seriously, with the idea that he was "choosen one" giving him a false sense of security, that he is "flawless" because he was choosen (showing he sees super hero in very steriotypical way, that they are perfect and everthing goes right for them). It's only after a battle against his first villain, Cold Bones, that results in one of his friends getting injured by the collaterall damage that Marcus finally sees his mistakes, causing to question if he was truly the choosen one.
It's thanks to his mother and friends that Marcus is able to overcome his self-doubts and use his power to defeat Cold Bones, saving the lifes of his friends. The arc ends with Marcus interacting with spirit of Percyon, who tells him that the power of Zeon doesn't define their fates, that even the best knights made mistakes, some were even tempted and corrupt (hint for future villain), however what prove them as heroes and knights in the end wasn't the power of zeon, but rather their own choices, their will to keep doing the right thing, even in the darkest hours.
My favorite deconstruction is when the villain fabricated the prophecy/chosen one to hinder resistance by having its opponents divided and/or waiting for the chosen one instead of fighting.
that's kind of what happens in the Matrix reloaded. Mistborn has the villain slightly alter the prophecy to free himself; i'd love to hear more examples;
The one I liked how it unraveled was in Angel with the Shanshu Prophecy in that the Vampire with a Soul will play a pivotal role in the upcoming apocalypse and become human.
I like it because the specifics of how the prophecy plays out is seeing how Angel veers the line of which side of it he will take and how the collective big bad keeps messing with him in that regards.
Another spanner in the works was the addition of Spike, another Vampire with a Soul and him grappling with what that means for him and his fight up I until that point.
But what I love most about it is that at the end, he signs it away in a move that allows him to keep fighting the good fight on his own terms.
I'm watching this after your Power of the Doctor reaction and I find it hilarious that everyone had the assumption that Chibnall was going to "wrap up" the Timeless Child story... when in reality he just left a massive story unfinished while walking away, patting himself on the back, and going "Mission accomplished!!!"
Dune is an interesting inversion of the chosen one narrative. Frank Herbert addresses many of these questions directly. Should a prophecy be believed? What is its purpose and who does it benefit?
I love that you brought this up, because my latest reading of the saga had me thinking about this. Could Paul have avoided the Jihad and 60 billion deaths? He says he couldn’t but we have to trust him to be a reliable narrator and take his word for it. But what if he isn’t a reliable narrator, or substituted “could not” for “unwilling to” in his mind. His subjects accepted it because his chosen-ness presupposes his correctness. I’m starting to think about Leto II’s reign in much the same way. I think that’s why I like Dune so much, the way it deconstructed the chosen one trope.
@@jamesbarr8218 Then there's his son Leto II. He fulfilled the Golden Path. But he would forever be remembered not as a hero, but a tyrant. And he knew that, but it was the only way. At least, only way he could see.
I definitely feel the same even though I loved a lot of these stories growing up. I think the one that I still love despite the obviousness of it is Willow because the chosen one is a baby it feels more like a metaphor for the younger generation and our focus is on the other characters.
Willow is an interesting case because the chosen one isn’t the hero of the story since she’s still a baby and has no agency yet.
@@CouncilofGeeks When I first saw it, I thought there would be time jumps and she'd grow up to defeat the evil queen. Masterful subversion of the trope, actually. And then there's the sequel novelization where she grows up to be a spoiled brat because everyone still treats her like the chosen one.
For a story with a creative take on prophesies and the Chosen One trope, I warmly recommend Shannon Hale's YA novel Princess Academy. I have the Full Cast Audio unabridged version on 8 CDs and it is Chef's Kiss.
I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the only chosen one story I've ever really loved, though I'm so disgusted with Joss Whedon now that I don't love it as much as I once did. Overall, I do think of chosen one stories as being a lazy sort of storytelling. What I actually disliked most about the two Amazing Spider-Man movies is that they went and turned Peter friggin' Parker into a chosen one. For that matter, Ang Lee's Hulk pissed me off for the same reason back in the day.
Buffy's chosen one story is basically: "Your destiny is pain, lots of pain, lots of emotional pain"
@@chaserseven2886 you mean he DIDN'T become Spider-Man because of his dad's experiment that was basically coded to his DNA? ONLY he could have become Spider-Man in that universe.
"In RuneScape you are great not because you are the Chosen One, but because you chose to be the one."
- Josh Strife Hayes
But I just kicked the habit! I still see Teak Trees in my dreams...
I feel like both Chosen One/Prophecies belong in a certain kind of cathegory where it can work if you play around with them, but largely doesnt work when ”played straight” so to speak.
The only Chosen One stories I like are Sinclair in Babylon 5 and Sisko in Deep Space Nine. Sinclair's Chosen One status was a totally shocking plot twist at the time, and the character is written as having doubts about who he is, where he belongs and being Chosen gives him inner peace. Sisko resists being Chosen for years, finally fully embraces it, but in doing so, suffers a great loss that shows even a Chosen One with godlike powers can't have everything he wants.
In the case of Doctor Who, as you say, it's not even clear why this is necessary at this point. I much prefer to think the Doctor is important because they happen to have rebelled and made the decisions they've made, rather than because of their essential importance. Personally this idea of essential importance has... monarchist? Implications, in that it's about importance by birth, even sometimes literally by bloodline, rather than because of what you've done.
I actually enjoy when Doctor Who does the opposite - puncturing their importance, like by introducing Time Lords/Ladies that are more skilled than the Doctor (Romana and River both do this at times). You get the sense the Doctor only seems impressive because they spend so much time with humans, who are likely to be impressed by Time Lord science and knowledge generally. Chibnall's decision destroys that sense of arbitrariness that can be fun in the show.
I also loved when Rian Johnson punctured the idea of special bloodlines in Last Jedi, and hated when Abrams walked that back.
Related to a point you raised: Prophecy is often an extremely arbitrary way to make elements in a story significant. It kinda functions the same way Magic does in many works. For example, in Into The Woods (not a criticism, btw, I love that show) the undoing of the spell on the Baker and his Wife is what ties everyone together because the components needed to break the curse could be literally anything, so they become the items from these other fairy tales.
Miraculous Ladybug does this subversion of the chosen one as anybody can done the Miraculous and use their powers so long as they have the guts to do what’s right. Marinette becomes Ladybug while Adrien is Chat Noir not because the jewels or Kwami deemed them destined but worthy based on character primarily.
What helps is that the Guardian of the Miracle Box allowed them to operate on their own without orders from him. It’s never because they were told to but because they can. Marinette later is chosen as the next Guardian in Season 3 but only after episodes of proving her worthiness.
What bothers me most about Chosen Ones is that they're given importance to the world they live in. They don't earn their importance; whether they're literal or functional chosen ones, they are given unearned importance by someone else. Its the major reason why I dislike the Timeless Child Twist (the doctor isn't just important because of their actions and decisions anymore, they are special - even by Timelord-standards - cause they were born special and are now the sole reason for the Timelords rise); and its a major reason why I dislike a number of "recent" (relatively speaking) entries in various narrative-heavy videogame-series; in MEA got the Pathfinder who became a functional chosen one by their daddy putting nepotism over the chain of command; or in DA:I we got the Inquisitor who was important because they got special magical powers by accident which made them literally the only one capable of saving the world. None of them earned their importance the narrative and other characters heap on them, they are given importance through no action of their own.
Best example for a good story about a (literal) chosen one for me is still the Star Wars-Prequels (despite their problems): What happens when you tell a guy from 10-years-old that they're a superspecial chosen one with a great destiny? They became headstrong and increasingly angry at every perceived failure or whenever they're denied something they supposedly deserve and end up becoming a mass-murderer. Bonus points for having a character point out (once its already too late) that prophecies can easily be misinterpreted.
I don't expect anyone to have heard of it, but the Engelsfors trilogy does an absolutely amazing reconstruction of the standard prophecy narrative that I think addresses several of your criticisms here (which I agree with). It's just as much a mystery/thriller as a fantasy adventure. It's about a prophecy, but it's really vague and nobody can seem to agree on what it means or whether it's even true, not even the Chosen Ones themselves (yes, there is more than one). This is just as big a source of conflict as the actual evil that everyone is trying (or not trying) to defeat, if not more so. And the story is not predictable at all; both the characters and the reader are kept guessing as to if, how, and by whom the prophecy will or won't be fulfilled. It has several really well done plot twists and it goes in directions you absolutely don't expect. The characters are all three-dimensional and flawed and best of all, they have agency in how they interpret and respond to the prophecy. Their decisions have real weight and consequences, even - especially - at the climax. If you'd like to read a Chosen One story done right, I cannot recommend this series enough. (And that's not even mentioning its wonderful characters, really good queer representation, and examination of various social issues.)
Thank you for the video, Vera (The Chosen One by the Council of Geeks)!
It could be argued that most of stories where the main protagonist is the hero, they are already the chosen one.
My main gripe with prophecies is how they try to put the stories "on the rails". I do agree that most stories require some kind of structure, but that is too much. And there is also the problem of authors treating prophecies as "Chekhov's guns": the final conflict between protagonist and antagonist will always happen, and despite some suffering, the protagonist will always reach a happy ending. A good subversion of that could be the protagonist completing their hero's journey by resisting the pressure and having agency in order to go against the prophecy, and the antagonist is foiled by the protagonist choosing to walk away from the conflict.
And the reason why only comedies are willing to question prophecies seems to be because they are the only ones brave enough to make meta-commentaries/jokes at the expense of their own plots.
you missed the option where fulfilling prophecy makes everything way worse, or at least worse in the short or term or only has positive effect, centuries later, and the chosen one ends up starting religious war and commits genocides. Bad that's really a different can of worms.
I think some of the points you make highlight a frustration I had with the fan discourse about Game of Thrones: at some point in reading the books particularly (but also watching the show), I came to the realization that I didn't trust any of the prophecies and that the important part was how people responded to or used them instead. The biggest point of frustration being the people talking about "oh, Jon Snow must be this 'prince that was promised' who will fulfill this big Lord of Light prophecy and defeat the Night King" - in the books, it felt much more vague and murky whether there really was a prophecy of this prince or whether it was just a tool to manipulate people into doing certain things. Also, a focus on the importance of the prophecy shifted a story I felt was focused on the people of this world and the horrible things they'll do (even if there may be some big threat looming) to a big Chosen One narrative about how the supernatural threat is defeated (oh and people are bad, I guess), which led to disappointment for viewers when that threat was defeated halfway through the final season and the last episodes focuses on what I always thought was the most important part: the people. That might just be me.
This is one of the reasons why Critical Role’s Legend of Vox Machina is so pleasing: all the characters are the main characters of their own story and have their moment in the spotlight. It single-handedly makes all the characters more fleshed out. This is partially due to the nature of a fairly run live-d&d campaign and partially (especially when it comes to side characters) a storytelling skill by Matt Mercer where all the characters within the story are respected as three dimensional individuals.
I think it's the stories about the notable figures, those who do reshape history, are the ones that suffer the most from the trappings chosen one narrative, because so much of their motivation was - historically speaking - the struggle not to fall into obscurity and irrelevance. A possibility which the narrative precludes.
Kung Fu Panda 2 is another example of a villain believing a prophecy to where they end up creating “the chosen one” & are the cause of their undoing.
Po didn't even kill Shen. He killed himself. Possibly intentionally. In other words, Shen himself may have been to warrior of black and white.
@@saphiriathebluedragonknight375 I never said Po killed Shen. Basically I said, Shen caused his own undoing because he believed & feared the prophecy of a warrior in black & white to come true & by deciding to prevent it from happening created “the chosen one” to defeat him
Upvoting to fulfill the ancient prophecy where Council of Geeks becomes the true queen of UA-cam.
The prophecy elements were (one of) my biggest problems with Evangelion. The knowledge of there being a set amount of angels and that their attacks were prophesied to happen made them so much less terrifying, as well as making the motivations of the major powers so much less interesting
I am so glad Jessie Gender told us about your channel! You are so good at this!
Carrot Ironfoundersson, in the _Discworld_ setting. He is Destined to restore the kingdom of Ankh and become the new king. But he doesn't, because he doesn't want to. (Not an exception to the rule that this only happens in comic works.)
I do enjoy Carrot quite a bit, I’ll admit.
Media that questions the provenance of a chosen one idea: the Matrix sequels! The idea of the One turns out to be in part a tool of cooptation by the machines.
I somewhere read an Essay about how chosen one stories make the reader/watcher "lazy" because we got told we just have to wait for a hero to save us and how this way of thinking can be dangerous.
While i don't mind the use of prophecy or chosen ones per se there are very few chosen one stories i realy enjoy.
One of my favourite stories is the Lord of the Rings and in it Frodo isn't the Chosen one that's for sure, he makes mistakes and even succumbs to the Ring in the end, he was a just normal Hobbit who had this great responsibility thrust upon him.
I still hold to the theory that Gollum is the Chosen One of the quest to destroy the One Ring. The first thing Frodo says when he recovers his wits on Mount Doom is that without Gollum, the Fellowship would have all been in vain -- and that Gandalf prophesied that Gollum 'might yet have something still to do'.
One of the few "chosen one" stories I liked was the first Mistborn trilogy, and that was in part because deducing the identity of the Chosen One was a big part of the story. People were often WRONG, they misunderstood the prophecy entirely, and in the end the Chosen One was a minor part of the narrative, tying up the resolution neatly.
I'm late to the party on this video but thank you for voicing some of the thoughts we share and saying them better than I could have.
18:30 Doesn't that happen in the second episode of Owl house? speaking of which, are you watching the new Owl house special tonight?
Where would we end up if we had the choice? Where would we end up if we didn't have the choice? What would we choose given the choice? Do we have that choice to choose? Or indeed can we be choosy about the choice chosen? What are the chooses? ... Choices.
I want a chosen one story where they think it's wrong, slowly realise it isn't and then we don't even know who the chosen one is
When there is a Prophesy I always question where it came from and what their motives were. I do agree that crow-barring a Chosen-one story into Doctor Who didn't work (for me). If you're not careful it can take away character agency.
I completely agree with you
This is honestly why I love She-Ra though - she has the Chosen One mantle thrust upon her and acts against what people claim is her destiny
Apologies for turning the focus on the Harry Potter books, but my greatest disappointment was that they failed to do anything particularly interesting with the prophesy angle. I think it was a given that Harry would end up killing Voldemort, but how much more moving it could have been had he died of his own injuries afterwards. The triumphalism of the actual end (to say nothing of the clunky epilogue) felt really empty.
You know this, but I am a huge fan of the Chosen One™.
Avatar: The Last Airbender and especially The Legend of Korra explore this chosen-ness.
It probably has something to do with my own personal history, but I really enjoy the catharsis of seeing someone with responsibility and expectations thrust upon them outside of their control, then learning to cope as they either rise to the occasion, fall in their endeavors, or reject the expectations entirely. That's where the entertainment is for me.
Sometimes, we find ourselves in situations that cause people to expect action or accomplishments on our part, and we have to respond. As a former Gifted Child™, I identify with this trope in a way I'm not sure others outside that experience would. This is one of my biggest sources of appreciation for the trope.
Oh I’m WELL aware of your fondness for it. And from my experience with your deployment of it, you don’t use it as a cheat the way so so so many do.
@@CouncilofGeeks, I do take that a supreme compliment. Wisp is genuinely one of my favorite characters I have seen in any TTRPG campaign, bar none.
Well said! I agree. When it's good and done well, though, I can definitely appreciate the chosen one trope. I've been wanting to write a subversion of this trope, but I keep getting stuck with the middle. Someday, I'll crack this code!
I remember that Disney's Hercules was a Chosen One a la Prophecy.
I also remember that the people giving said Prophecy were the Fates,
As in: The literal Goddesses of Destiny.
Criticisms of that movie aside,
When you asked: "By who's Authority should a Prophecy be believed?",
I think that the Triple Goddess of Time and Predestination is a very specific justification that could be used more often.
I mean, who's going to say No to the Physical God when they make a decree?
For those looking for a cool chosen one story I'd recommend the 1st Wings of Fire series. I think it's the only Wings of Fire series that has chosen ones and a prophecy? Correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't read much of the other series unfortunately.
Basically, there is a prophecy and a group of chosen ones (not just 1) but immediately the prophecy gets thrown off and the ones following the prophecy had to substitute someone in. The group has basically been raised on being chosen and well... let's just say they have a lot of issues because of that and the fact that they were basically imprisoned for their whole life to hide from the villains. Since it's a book series with perspectives from (roughly) every member of the group it has a lot of time to unpack all that stuff.
I think it's also pretty cool that the prophecy from the start is proven to be fallible to some degree and there's debate in universe over if it's going to pan out or not. Also since there are people actively trying to either prevent or make the prophecy come true but in a way that doesn't come across as a "self-fulfilling prophecy". Anyways if I talk more about it I might spoil something major so yeah
I actually like what dimension 20’s misfits and magic series did with the chosen one story. They basically had a character destined to be the dark lord but he fully rejected this
Yeah I got the feeling you were trying to avoid mentioning Harry Potter even before you mentioned you're trying to avoid mentioning it.
You’re so right, Vera. I am so sick of chosen ones, and prophecies. Seems like we can’t get away from “ he’s the king” “why?” “Because a wizard said it 1000 years…”
Chosen one prophecies are often used to have a character become an authority figure without demonstrating their ability beforehand. (particularly with farmboy type heroes)
It is interesting to see characters struggle with responsibility, but a prophecy to gloss over why they come into that responsibility in the first place has always been a shortcut. And working to access the responsibility doesn't negate the struggle to prove oneself equal to the task, so there's no reason to lean into the character coming into power through their own actions and choices rather than because they are prophesised.
I like to mess with the trope when I write. I have a character who is chosen in a multiple pov series. He isn't actually chosen to deal the final blow. He is chosen to be the holder of the key and the one to unlock the door The key just happens to be a sentient being. The key choose him, but he doesn't see himself as special until a good bit later when another tells him he's important. Then the character rebukes the vision she shares. Its very ala I'm not that guy.
I disagree that this Child Of Time Doctor Who story is a Chosen One narrative.
There's no prophesy, the Doctor has no grand purpose here, no task only she can fulfill. She was just some resource the proto-Timelords found and exploited completely, stealing her abilities and then brainwashing her into an obedient Timelord (with mixed success) rather than give her credit. The Doctor is no more a Chosen One now than they were back in McCoy's Cartmel plan era, or when the show was first revived and they were The Last Of The Timelords, The Oncoming Storm and whatnot. If anything, Chibnall took a right turn and moved almost completely away from The Doctor as The Lonely God Who Makes Civilisations Tremble In Fear At His Name. It's one of the things I really liked about his version.
My favourite Chosen One story remains She-Ra And the Princesses Of Power, which at the same time plays it relatively straight and subverts it to hell and back.
"You do not choose, you were chosen".
I have come to hate the good guy's arch nemesis trope like the Doctor vs. the Master or Space Commander Travis from Blake's 7. When you know the good guy always wins after the first time the bad guy appears he(or she) just becomes a comic book incompetent villain with the "I will get you next time, ha, ha, har" trope.
Especially with Travis(Blake's 7) with his little speeches at the end of every episode he appears in.
From Seek-Locate-Destroy: "Run Blake run. Run as far and as fast as you can I will find you. You can't hide from me. I am your death, Blake."
From Duel: "You see, he made one mistake. He should have killed me."
I'm glad that you touched upon the question of *_WHY_*_ do people in the narrative so easily believe these prophesies?_ That's the thing about the "timeless child" business that bothered me most. That if the two main characters, the protagonist and antagonist both believe something without much evidence, that that somehow carries over as being true for the narrative generally and the viewers. Especially when the prophecy is only known by the Master, who has been established as a liar and trickster countless times before! That's like if somebody you don't like or trust shows you a PowerPoint presentation that "proves" that you are some millennia-old civilization-founding figure. How credulous would one need to be?
That came up in online discussions of how, moving forward, the series might write around this reveal of the character. My position was that writing around it is trivial, because it's simply random BS stated by the villain. And later confirmed by Tecteun who conveniently promptly dies. Maybe it's one of my weird autistic disconnects, but I was surprised that many said that it's a difficult narrative thread to work around _because the narrative itself believes it to be true,_ which I don't understand.
there is no prophecy about the timeless child though.
@@ThetaSigma-vu1sk - It's like a retroactive prophecy of how they were predistined to this life yet unaware until the present. What we call that process is besides my point of why the characters and viewers believe it.
Since I watch Quill and Sword I already have an idea of what points you'll make, but it will still be interesting to see them in a more cohesive format!
I like Percy Jackson's prophecy chosen one thing because it's based on Greek mythology and they use prophecy SO MUCH in those myths so you can't really get away from it. But there are multiple candidates for the prophecy to apply to so it keeps you guessing and at one point, Percy CHOOSES the prophecy for himself. He actively claims the responsibility because he doesn't want anyone else to suffer that fate. And in the end, the prophecy turns out different than expected but still makes sense. I think it works mostly because Percy Jackson has such a distinct voice and personality and he actively questions the authority of the gods throughout the series.
Very interesting discussion. I largely agree with the frustrations, but I still enjoy the format when it's well done. It's one of those things that I feel fits my analogy of a chainsaw: when used properly, it's extremely effective. When used poorly, the outcome is very bad.
On grisly notes, I wonder if you might enjoy a series called the Malazan Book of the Fallen. It plays around a lot with perspectives. It has "chosen" characters, but in almost every circumstance, Steven Erikson makes the choice to tell the story from a different perspective. The Empress's personal agent has a quest to track the activities of mysterious and powerful beings? You get to see the perspective of the random lieutenant she picked up as an aide because he was slightly more competent than average. Got an army fighting to put down a rebellion? You get most of your perspective from a guy who just made sergeant. Someone gets resurrected by a dark god intent on doing terrible things? That guy's brother, and also a slave their parents own.
All that said, it is very much a series that is not for everyone. Take 1 part typical fantasy, add 2 parts philosophy and throw in about 1 part horror of what people do to each other and another half part supernatural horror. That's about what you're getting. It's definitely a series to look up content warnings on, and I'm usually one to avoid those because spoilers. The author does his best to avoid making things gratuitous, too....if you can read the entire series front to back without having a moment where you just have to put the book down and process the thing it just depicted, that's kinda scary. It's a harrowing experience, made all the more so by the fact that the author is so clearly aware of what he's writing about. It's a series that moved me to tears on many occasions and, honestly, made me a better, more compassionate person.
An idea of variation on the chosen one I never saw: There is a chosen one but they're not one of the character, nor are they personally known by one of the characters. And the chosen one end up mostly worldbuilding. But the soldier fighting in the war know their victory was fortold, but don't know if they personnaly will make it.
Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica. Baltar was told he has a destiny, but it turns out the only thing he was really useful for in the long run was protecting the human - Cylon hybrid child at one moment of time. Everything else was up to him.
I think one of the best subversions of this trope that I've seen in the past decade would have to be _Blade Runner 2049._ The movie really had me fooled about K until that twist toward the end. And then, after it was all over, it didn't feel like a cheap twist out of nowhere, because it amplified the absolute tragedy of his character arc so much.
I’m a bit mixed because while the subversion of K was excellent it kind of retroactively made Deckard important (thankfully without resolving the replicant question) and he’s not supposed to be.
As a writer, I find the whole prophecy and chosen one thing to be very limiting. If I start out with the characters' paths already laid out by a prophecy, then I am rooted to that path and can't really deviate if I have a sudden idea about something else. I also like to explore motivations and prophecy is a pretty terrible motivation.
Just found this video and want to add that the grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo is a good study on being 'chosen' because of social circumstances. The people of Ravka hope for a sun summoner to defeat the Fold and believe in it so hard because every year their families are torn apart by the draft and their children are killed by volcra. They want that to end. So when Alina comes along, people put her on a pedestal and start seeing her as 'chosen' or a god whilst she, a human who happens to have the power to summon sunlight, strains against that role. It's fascinating.
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I am glad you mentioned the issue where a character that has no traits is the protagonist
an example of this is Rey Skywalker instead of giving her unique traits the writers decide to make her bend all of the logic. This is the reason why Rey Skywalker is the most hated character in movies
I've seen the trope used to good effect in stories like _LOST_ and _Moon Knight_ . Yes, they are the chosen ones, but the choosers felt that they could choose them because there was first something wrong with them. In other words, yes they are chosen ones, but they definitely shouldn't let it go to their heads.
I hate the chosen one trope so much. In my opinion, protagonists are usually the least interesting characters in their stories (Harry Potter being the perfect example) and the chosen one trope basically makes the characters in universe aware of the protagonist status. It a lame as excuse to not put any work into making me believe that the protagonists is actually worth following more than any other character. Even if you subvert it or reveal that the prophecy could apply to any one or something like that. The moment someone claims there is a chosen one or a prophecy is cited the whole story has been tainted. It just doesn't do anything for me anymore.
Hey COG~! I've got a Chosen One story for ya! My character is raised to believe she's a "Chosen One," on the night of her adulthood ceremony, she's all pumped and ready to go after the bad guy... and one of the people who's part of her sort of "Watchers Council" vis a vis "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," or Anne Rice's "Talamasca," from her Vampire Chronicles & Mayfair Witches... kind of abducts her, trying to coerce her into marrying him under the really misguided assumption that he can save her from her predestined fate. I decided I wanted to play with the Chosen One trope and turn it on it's head if I could while also turning the Bechdel test on it's head. (My two female characters instead of talking about a guy because ooh dating, end up discussing the villain as a strategy meeting.)
I know that I alone can't really fully screw with the tropes, but I'mma try anyway!