(cache) shouldertappingghosts: one thing I’ve grown a...

Thursday, November 26, 2015

one thing I’ve grown a little tired of in fantasy is the idea that being the prophesied hero is some kind of motivating force that turns the life of the unmotivated protagonist around
what I want to see is a story in which the practical dedicated young warrior receives a prophecy that one day they’re going to save the world from great evil and uses it as an excuse to do whatever the hell they want for the rest of the story
sleep through sword training? who cares? you’re going to be good enough to kill the dark lord anyway
gamble away your spellbound armour? so? it’s not like you’re going to get cut down in battle
what I want to see is a hero with enough confidence in the prophecy that they face the enemy’s entire army hungover and alone but through a near-impossible string of coincidences still manages to win the battle because only three of the seven blessed scrolls have been opened and they know they can’t die until evil has been driven from the world
I want a hero that makes fate do all of the hard work for them

She worked really hard for a few months. She did all those horrible jobs no one wanted to do but that paid really well. She got enough gold to buy off the whole monastery, and she spent it all to hire four lawyers, five monk scribes, two seers and to contact and bring over a priest from each of the major religions plus a few of the less known ones. They examined the inscription in rigorous detail, debated with each other for a week, but that was probably, to the bafflement of the seers and priests, the clearest prophecy ever heard of: she was, in fact, the Chosen One. She was the one meant to defeat the Great Dark, with the amusing but ultimately meaningless help of a ragtag band of friends who would leave the final blow to her.

She beamed at the room full of expectant and uncertain faces and said, “Thank you very much!”

Her master looked at her with a grave, grave expression, and said, “Surely you know what this means.”

She looked at him with a smug grin and said, “Of course.”

He walked over to the shelf full of parchments and continued, “Then your training must start now. You must study-”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t think so.”

He (and the scribes, prophets, and priests, though not the lawyers, who had caught on) looked at her like she’d grown four tentacles. “Excuse me?”

“Well, I’m the Chosen One. Me. No one else. It has to be me. I am going to defeat the Great Dark. Correct?”

“Well, yes, but-”

“And there is absolutely no way this prophecy could fail to be fulfilled, or be misinterpreted as meaning someone else?”

Her master, looking quite annoyed, said, “Yes, that’s what this whole exercise has been about, isn’t it?”

“In that case I think I’m going to go eat a burger.”

The lawyers were now beaming just as much as she was, and the two seers were looking like they were starting to understand. Her master just looked baffled. “What?! But you’re vegetarian! And in any case, there is much to do to defeat the Great Dark! You must be prepared!”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, a vegetarian burger! And anyway, no I don’t actually need to do any work. The prophecy says so, I’m going to defeat the Great Dark.” The master continued to stare at her in befuddlement, and she sighed and decided to explain. “This means that no matter what I do, I’m going to defeat it. Ergo I don’t need to train. Or study. Or really do anything at all. It’ll just happen.”

The penny dropped. “Now, wait one second, young lady-”

“Nah, I don’t think I will. I have a decade of sacrifice and self-abnegation to make up for. Toodles!” She dropped the bag of gold on the table and merrily sauntered off to go do something fun.

On the Day of Doom, when the forces of the Great Dark were amassing for their final strike against the peoples of the Good World, she and a few friends slipped into the Great Dark’s Mystic Lair due to a hilarious miscommunication between the surveillance teams and a timely malfunction of the security wards, got into the main control room where the Binding Ritual of Death and Destruction was being performed by following a mostly random sequence of doors that were mysteriously unguarded, and disrupted the whole thing by accidentally tripping on her own shoes, tipping over the Crystal Candle of Cinders and accidentally setting fire to the robes of the Fell Brothers present.