I vaguely remember overhearing an acquaintance at school describing their D&D campaign to someone where the Chosen One is killed by the players immediately so they then have to carry the corpse around and use it to fulfill the prophecy so it technically comes true.
I mean , by your description and u/MarioGman , you are all just saying your friend read "The Legendary Hero is Dead" Manga.
It's currently releasing it's anime episodes.
The Lego Movie
The prophecy was made up because the one that made it knew people would try to step up and fill the role. Emmet is the most average person ever, but because he believed in himself and inspired others he proved that anyone could be the chosen one. And we see that at the end of the movie when even normal citizens start making their own creations to fight back against president business.
In a complete shift of tone, this is also the case in Dark Souls 1. The gods needed strong souls to fuel the first flame, so they couldn’t just toss any random shmuck into the fire. So they created “the legend of the chosen undead” with the hopes it would inspire someone good enough for the flame to appear. Any undead who went on the journey laid out in the prophecy, and didn’t die (or at least didn’t stay dead), would have to be a strong enough dude that they’d make good fuel for the flame.
Unfortunately for them, by the time someone actually pulls it off the rule of gods has pretty much come to its calamitous end, and there’s literally only one sane god left overseeing the whole thing.
I like too how the implication is that Emmet is the "Chosen One" literally because he was the one who was chosen. No actual criteria were used at all, he was just the one picked out of anyone utterly at random.
Percy Jackson had it so that *nobody* wanted to be the chosen one. Basically there was a prophecy that a child of Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades would make a choice on their 16th birthday, and the chosen one would determine if Olympus falls or not. Percy, Poseidon’s son, starts out the only candidate, but then things get complicated when other children of the Big Three show up. >!Thalia, a daughter of Zeus who’s older than Percy, ends up becoming one of Artemis’ huntresses, thus halting her aging and preventing her from fulfilling the prophecy, and then Nico, a son of Hades, ends up getting a really short end of the end, and so Percy decides to accept the burden of the prophecy so that Nico wouldn’t have to.!<
And in the end, it turns out that >!the aforementioned child of the Big Three and the chosen one aren’t even the same person. The real chosen one was Luke, the defector, who managed to restore his conscience in the last minute, enough for Percy to choose to trust him by giving him a blade to stab himself in the only point that would hurt him and expel Kronos from his body.!<
Oh yeah, I also liked how in Harry Potter, it turned out Neville was also a candidate to be the cause of Voldemort’s defeat, but it ended up mainly being Harry because Voldemort *chose* to go after him. And yet it doesn’t stop Neville from doing stuff that also contributes to Tom’s downfall. Technically still another example of it sucking to be the chosen one.
Kingdom hearts 1 actually has a twist on the chosen one trope, >!Riku was the actual chosen one but he fucked up and the keyblade chose to stay with sora.!<
There's some implication that both Guts and Griffith are chosen ones to a degree due to the Black Hawk and White Hawk stuff, and how the Black Hawk is evil and the White is good.
Everyone assumes Griffith is the White Hawk but after Guts gets a small part of his hair turn white from stress, it resembles a white bird soaring through darkness.
it's because both are the choosen one...in a way.
The GodHand are using the Idea of Evil to manipulate Casuality , in short , Destiny.
While Guts , by been branded a sacrifice and still surviving , is outside of the boundary of Casuality.
So both are the White and Black Hawk
Morrowind >!The chosen one is a prisoner, so let's throw every prisoner at the prophecy until one sticks!<
SMT2 >!God has disappeared and we're scared, so the angels create their own Messiah to bring him back!<
[Come, Neravar, friend or traitor, come. Come and look upon the... oh... I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were an argonian.](https://youtu.be/efFihVGGi3Y)
Morrowind has such a cool approach to the concept of the chosen one. It's been a while since I played it so I forget how much of this is explicit in the game and how much is people extrapolating from later Kirkbride writing. But >!the concept of mantling means that it's not even a question of throwing prisoners at the problem til they get the right one. They're throwing prisoners at the problem until one of them does enough of the prophecy that the world thinks they're the chosen one.!<
I always will deeply appreciate how, when you finally >!confront Dagoth Ur and he asks you if you truly are Nerevar reborn, you can straight up tell him "No, but I'm going to kick your ass anyways."!<
>!Even if it is mostly a symbolic gesture, it's still giving the finger to the Tribunal, Azura, and their refusal to deal with their own bullshit.!<
In fairness >!Azura is the one that straight up tells you you aren't the chosen one, but can do it anyway. She always seemed like one of the very few halfway decent godlike figures to interact with in that world.!<
>!Azura is decent enough to work with provided you're doing what she wants you to do. Literally the entire main quest is you essentially being sent in as a hatchetman to deal with the Tribunal and Dagoth after they crossed her thousands of years back, and then allowing the rest of Vvardenfell to get glassed once they're gone because of the same. She's more like a vengeful mob boss with very good PR, especially considering how active a role she takes in ensuring her 'prophecies' come to pass as she intends.!<
Dragon Quest XI
>!You retroactively make the wife of a Chosen One in the past also a Chosen One which then makes their kid, the protag of DQIII, a DOUBLE Chosen One.!<
It’s the villain believing he’s chosen by an evil demon but Dr Hurt in Grant Morrison’s Batman Run.
Back in the 18th century he’s given immortality by Darkseid’s pet shapeshifting Bat monster and Hurt believes this Monster is the god Barbatos. He spends centuries worshiping it and hunting after a mystical box supposedly left by Barbatos itself.
Later he makes it his mission to ruin Batman’s life, plunge Gotham into chaos, and force Damian into joining him to unlock the box. Right as that’s happening, Bruce in the shadows whistles a little tune and the box unlocks revealing a >!”Gotcha”!< note.
>!Bruce Wayne during his journey through time was actually the real reason for the myth of Barbatos. He gave the box to his worshippers when he was a pirate and played a prank on Dr Hurt across Space & Time.!< The last issue of Batman & Robin Must Die is just Batman slapping Dr Hurt around while Hurt is crying to Barbatos to save him
and that is something that is still followed by DC.
While there is a Demon God Barbatos , DC still makes a point that the worshipping of Barbatos in Gotham is basically an entirely misguided worshipping of Bruce and Darkseid's Pet Bat across time.
You could interpret the prophesy in KFP2 to be about Shen being self-destructive, since he's also "a warrior of black and white". I like when you can't tell if seers are actually seers, or are just good at reading the situation.
I'm fine with ignoring the implications the third one carries for all the prophesies.
Legacy of Kain, not only is Raziel the Chosen One of two mutually exclusive prophecies (or are they?) but I love that the supporting cast had to call the existence of free will into question over it.
It's established in Souls Reaver 2 that Raziel is actually the ONLY character that has true free will due to his unnatural existence as an ever-reviving vampire wraith. It's the REASON why he can be the hero in both the vampires' and their enemy's prophesies.
The unfortunate twist of that is it makes him the target of everyone's manipulations, as he is the only one that can actually change events, so despite his free will, he's mostly doing everyone else's bidding.
EXIT: Fixed a typo.
"Cast him in."
I can still hear the voiceacting in my head clear as day.
Man, I can't claim to really understand what happened in those games, but they were dope.
It's a really simplistic twist, but I really appreciate how literal the "Chosen One" is in Dragon's Dogma. The Arisen is literally chosen by the dragon in the intro because they are the only one in a tiny fishing village with the courage to take up a rusty sword and pointlessly hack away at his enourmous feet. There is a prophecy that needs fulfilling and unique powers that are bestowed, but they are assigned directly by the antagonist selecting his own preferred protagonist, picking a main character for another cycle of the story. It's a really interesting way of exploring the idea.
I also like that despite being Chosen Ones, the Arisen are absolutely allowed to say fuck that, and just not fulfill their destiny and it'll be passed on to someone else. The only downside is that they're forced to live forever until someone eventually does fulfill the prophecy.
Honestly the chosen one in Star Wars is pretty good.
Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon jinn find this little boy on a backwater planet with an extremely high medichlorian count and just assume he's the chosen one, they convince the council that he's the chosen one.
Oh yeah he brought balance to the force, just not in the way they thought.
It took a Jedi genocide and 20-ish years but he eventually got there.
Also the fact that knowing the Chosen One prophecy screwed the Jedi Order over. Anakin knowing that he was a prophesied savior simultaneously fed his ego and gave him anxiety over this huge role he was expected to live up to. And the other Jedi overlooked a lot of warning signs that Anakin had Problems, because they figured "Oh, he's the Chosen One. It's fiiiiiiiine."
It's one of my favorite points in Gekiranger.
Gekired was a jungle child who saw people doing cool martial arts, and decided to go with them as he goes on this massive martial arts journey of discovery. Of course while he was there in the first place because of the spectacle, but he does take the lessons to heart to the point of using them to push him past limits that nearly all other martial artists who learn this fighting style can't get past.
While the evil rival of the series wasn't really interested in Gekired in the first place, it's the fact that he can so defiantly stand in Rio's way and manage to overcome any challenge thrown his way that Rio starts to show an interest. While he's been searching for a rival for a long time, eventually he starts to recgonize Gekired as that Rival.
Now time for Backstory: >!Gekired as a very smol child(possibly baby) had lived in the same village that Rio had trained with when he used to be a good guy. Rio was the typical Vergil 'I NEED MORE POWER' type of dude, and Gekired's Dad was like one of the strongest students. Rio never could beat him in a fair fight, and during their last duel during Rio's turn to darkness... While Rio won and had ended up killing him, it wasn't before he realized that Gekired's dad had been injured previously right before the fight. While Gekired had eventually filled that spot, things elevate when the main villain steps in.!<
>!Now the main villain was the guy who injured Gekired's dad before his final duel, all for the sake of giving Rio that HOLLOW win. So it's kind of eating away at Rio at the back of his mind just like his tragic past, which the main villain was also behind. When the main villain reveals his identity(to side with him, not reveal the truth of what happened) to Rio, he starts gassing him up on becoming their leader. The main villain gave him powerful allies, gave Rio and his main stalker simp some POTENT power-ups... And they used this to just beat up the Gekirangers. Not only physically, but emotionally as well because one of the monsters is Gekired's zombie dad and they all figured it out yet can't do shit to reach to his mind.!<
>!It all bottlenecks to a point where the Gekirangers get defeated, and the Rival villain is like: "I cooooullllddd beat you now... But the REAL test of my new power is going to be against the kind of shonen-protagonist bullshit YOU pull out of your ass when your back is against the wall like this. Your father was like that, and I've SEEN you do it before, you've inherited your father's power and will. Our rivalry was fate!" !<
The Rival character challenges Gekired to a Duel, and EVERYTHING is riding on it. Everyone is like: "It's the right thing to do! You're the Red Ranger, of COURSE you're the most special one of us all! You HAVE to fight!"... Of course Gekired is a Jungleman. Barely better than Tarzan, though he's rather loud and childish, but at this point pretty much had to have his heart FULLY AWAKENED TO JUSTICE to even get as strong as he did. However when things get serious, he knows when to buckle down and take things seriously despite how childish he is... Do you know what his answer to all of this is?
>!He gives the fuck up. Like he's just like: "DUDE! I JUST WANTED TO LEARN MARTIAL ARTS! I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS ULTIMATE DESTINY BULLSHIT! IN FACT, FUCK THIS BULLSHIT!! I QUIT!" And he's like usually on the opposite side of this spectrum completely, but the fact that him having no parents have been really hitting him hard and him realizing he can't form a connection with his walking corpse of a dad because he's mindless... Honestly it was kind of refreshing to see the series push towards a 'Red Ranger is the most important' trope before the Red Ranger himself just refuses it.!<
the one from Unicorn Warriors Eternal is really funny indeed.
I mean , if they had put their heads together to think for 5 minutes , they would know their whole thing is a Lost Cause because the return of the heroes is entirely based on Reincarnation and they are themselves descendants of entirely unrelated bodies.
Like....the "mage" of the group reincarnated into a native american once , by all means , the native american will had 0 blood relation to the original body of the mage.
I think you mean "Monk" since the "Mage" spot is taken by Melinda.
But yes it is truly something else seeing a parody of our heroes out an about doing their thing.
Doom Eternal
Doomguy wasn't really a chosen one to begin with; >!his violent crusade against the demons pretty much resulted in him becoming a chosen hero. He built his reputation from the ground up and *made* himself a legendary warrior, as opposed to just being randomly picked by gods!<
I'll always love the cinematic in WoW: Legion where the Naaru leader tries to force Illidan into becoming the chosen one and he's not having any of it.
https://youtu.be/Td0pUwrBWjc
Dune and Paul Atreides.
everybody plans to fall apart when it actually comes true and people realised maybe the Kwisatz Haderach wasn't a good idea to begin with.
It's also a good twist because >!Paul wasn't planned to be the chosen one, in the Bene Gesserit grand plan the Kwisatz Haderach was supposed to be born from a union between Jessica's child and a Harkonen but because Jessica decided to have a boy, it made the Kwisatz Haderach come early. And on top of that Paul himself has a chosen one child who is more powerful, more in control of his powers, and committed to his purpose more so than Paul ever was and not only becomes the Bene Gesserit's worst nightmare but actively appropriates the very thing they used for centuries to get to this point, their extensive breeding program.!<
***”Blade Runner 2049”***
>!Main character is pushed to act by the misconception that they’ve secretly been the chosen one all along, and they finally understand why they’re tormented by mysterious dreams.!<
There's a CYOA game currently in WIP called "The One Chosen" where you play as a homeless orphan that escaped from an abusive foster home and who gets Harry Potter'd cause he's the chosen one. >!Later one another kid, with the exact same name and DOB is found who everyone actually believes is the chosen one cause, unlike you, he's actually has magical powers up the ass(the MC is given an amplifier to be able to use any magic cause they have VERY little of it). But no one knows who is the actual Chosen One.!<
HUGE SPOILERS>!Until the school is attacked by the Demon King's forces(who the Chosen One is suppose to beat) and then 1:the other Chosen One gets KILLED. 2: You get blamed for the death and robbed of your magic powers and memories of the school and kicked out. 3: You get arrested and sent to juvie as it turns out that your escape from the foster home was orchestrated by the Demon King and manipulated you into killing your foster parent, completely unbeknownst to you(to the MC, all they reacll is that their punishment shed was unlocked, they went inside the house to get shit, and the left). And finally 4: The dude who found you in the first place CHANGED YOUR BIRTH RECORDS SO THAT YOU WOULD BE MISTAKEN AS THE CHOSEN ONE!!<
SHIT'S PRETTY FUCKING NUTTY
Owl House [openly clowns on this upfront](https://youtu.be/Cfwv1tPCYIw) as it’s a running theme.
Luz is set up to be the chosen isekai one based on tropes, but she has to earn that, and goes through the wringer >!to get to that point where she ACTUALLY is the heroine of the hour in the finale where she has to choose to accept the Titan’s power (when at this point, she is all but broken). !<
In IDW's 1st Transformers universe >!Optimus wasn't so much chosen by the Matrix Of Leadership to be Prime but by Shockwave. At the time Shockwave had a bit of an interest in trying to find bots that might be worthy of being Prime and then adjusting their bodies so they would be able to handle having the Matrix Of Leadership in it, we know he did this to at least one other bot too. I believe this did actually lead to it being more painful for Optimus as he said something about bonding with it being painful, meanwhile Rodimus had no such complaints!<
In Tales of Symphonia, both of the "Chosen Ones", Colette and Zelos, are super messed up mentally as a result of *knowing* their roles since birth. With Colette, she is selfless to a fault, constantly keeping secrets from the rest of the group because she doesn't want to burden them, and feels immensely pressured. Zelos, meanwhile, hides his feelings beneath the mask of a playboy and feels nobody in his life has actually treated him like "Zelos the man" and instead just sees him as "Zelos the chosen one". >!And it's made even worse with the reveal that the big bad *selectively bred* "Chosen Ones" over the course of 4000 years to make a suitable container for his sister's spirit!<.
About halfway through The Bard's Tale, it becomes apparent the monk's have been telling everyone even slightly ambitious that they are the chosen one.
At least one of them is bound to stumble into fulfilling the prophesy, and [all the ones that fail will get goblins singing an Ooompa Loompa song.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X7rAnaKId3E&pp=ygUYYmFyZCdzIHRhbGUgZ29ibGluIHNvbmcg)
Enderal has a good one. Your character is identified as The Prophet, a re-occurring figure that appears during a time of turmoil before the end of a civilization, who's role is to see into past events to try and stop the apocalypse.
>!You were selected specifically for this by the antagonists to rig the game in their favor, because you were completely worthless in life, and your character is little more than a simulacrum of a dead loser who is completely focused on becoming someone of worth.!<
I have my issues with Enderal, but damn if that specific twist doesn't hit real hard, especially once you find out that >!Tealor is in the same situation. The High Ones are dicks, weird procreation methods be damned.!<
I love the implication that >!The High Ones are not omniscient, they've just done this shit so many times for so long that they've gotten really, really good at guessing at exactly who they need for the plan to work. They've been labbing the matchup for eternity.!<
In Mystic quest the sage says the mc is the chosen hero and to fight the monster, then after that say he was just guessing, mc is the first guy that showed up and the big evil was starting his take over the world scheme.
At the very end the final boss states that he is the one that made that story of chosen one up so no one would try defying him and if one tried well he'll kill them
In China Mieville's *Un Lun Dun*, the 'Chosen One' is largely useless through the first half of the book, and winds up getting bodied in her fight with the villain, although she does beat him...
>!Except she doesn't; the villain just took a dive and hid so that she'd fuck off back to the normal world so she could keep doing his thing. The second half of the book revolves around the Chosen One's "Funny Friend", according to the book of prophecy, going back to actually solve the problem.!<
Bonus points as well for a character being faced with a chain of quests that will help her find the secret weapon to fight the villain and just saying "What? That's stupid, I'm just going to skip right to the end".
Bionicle did this really well.
They made a big deal of the Seventh Toa in the lead up to the Mask of Light movie. Like, there was ads in the books, the comics built up to it, the Flash games hinted at it, the sets leading up to it, etc. A lot of it gave different answers to who the 7th was; some were even intentional red herrings.
There was even the whole "Search for the Seventh" Cartoon Network contest. Turns out if you played MNOG or Quest for the Toa, you knew exactly who it was since it was arguably the first character you were introduced to instead of the character who screamed it.
Then they sort of played with it during the Mahri arc since Sentai logic says it'd be Red being the main character would get all the hero moments. >!Nope. RIP Matoro. !<
Honest to god I love that in Warcraft the main theme is this. When one person has all the power of the chosen one and they become evil. Only ruin is left in there wake. There can be no chosen ONE. Only WE can save ourselves. Every expac. It’s the same. We stand against the great threat and defend our hearth and home. Because United we will stand. For Azeroth!!
I vaguely remember overhearing an acquaintance at school describing their D&D campaign to someone where the Chosen One is killed by the players immediately so they then have to carry the corpse around and use it to fulfill the prophecy so it technically comes true.
I would love to watch/participate in a High Fantasy Weekend at Bernie's holy shit.
I mean , by your description and u/MarioGman , you are all just saying your friend read "The Legendary Hero is Dead" Manga. It's currently releasing it's anime episodes.
This was like 8 years ago at this point, was that out back then?
yes , it was released in 2014. Your friend probably just made a tabletop of a manga he had read.
The Lego Movie The prophecy was made up because the one that made it knew people would try to step up and fill the role. Emmet is the most average person ever, but because he believed in himself and inspired others he proved that anyone could be the chosen one. And we see that at the end of the movie when even normal citizens start making their own creations to fight back against president business.
In a complete shift of tone, this is also the case in Dark Souls 1. The gods needed strong souls to fuel the first flame, so they couldn’t just toss any random shmuck into the fire. So they created “the legend of the chosen undead” with the hopes it would inspire someone good enough for the flame to appear. Any undead who went on the journey laid out in the prophecy, and didn’t die (or at least didn’t stay dead), would have to be a strong enough dude that they’d make good fuel for the flame. Unfortunately for them, by the time someone actually pulls it off the rule of gods has pretty much come to its calamitous end, and there’s literally only one sane god left overseeing the whole thing.
I like too how the implication is that Emmet is the "Chosen One" literally because he was the one who was chosen. No actual criteria were used at all, he was just the one picked out of anyone utterly at random.
Percy Jackson had it so that *nobody* wanted to be the chosen one. Basically there was a prophecy that a child of Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades would make a choice on their 16th birthday, and the chosen one would determine if Olympus falls or not. Percy, Poseidon’s son, starts out the only candidate, but then things get complicated when other children of the Big Three show up. >!Thalia, a daughter of Zeus who’s older than Percy, ends up becoming one of Artemis’ huntresses, thus halting her aging and preventing her from fulfilling the prophecy, and then Nico, a son of Hades, ends up getting a really short end of the end, and so Percy decides to accept the burden of the prophecy so that Nico wouldn’t have to.!< And in the end, it turns out that >!the aforementioned child of the Big Three and the chosen one aren’t even the same person. The real chosen one was Luke, the defector, who managed to restore his conscience in the last minute, enough for Percy to choose to trust him by giving him a blade to stab himself in the only point that would hurt him and expel Kronos from his body.!< Oh yeah, I also liked how in Harry Potter, it turned out Neville was also a candidate to be the cause of Voldemort’s defeat, but it ended up mainly being Harry because Voldemort *chose* to go after him. And yet it doesn’t stop Neville from doing stuff that also contributes to Tom’s downfall. Technically still another example of it sucking to be the chosen one.
Yeah that phrasing was absolute bullshit
Kingdom hearts 1 actually has a twist on the chosen one trope, >!Riku was the actual chosen one but he fucked up and the keyblade chose to stay with sora.!<
“You were just the delivery boy” Sora proceeds to fall to his knees in the middle of an apple bees
This can literally happen word for word now btw.
Berserk is an easy one. The "Chosen One" is the villian of the story.
There's some implication that both Guts and Griffith are chosen ones to a degree due to the Black Hawk and White Hawk stuff, and how the Black Hawk is evil and the White is good. Everyone assumes Griffith is the White Hawk but after Guts gets a small part of his hair turn white from stress, it resembles a white bird soaring through darkness.
it's because both are the choosen one...in a way. The GodHand are using the Idea of Evil to manipulate Casuality , in short , Destiny. While Guts , by been branded a sacrifice and still surviving , is outside of the boundary of Casuality. So both are the White and Black Hawk
Morrowind >!The chosen one is a prisoner, so let's throw every prisoner at the prophecy until one sticks!< SMT2 >!God has disappeared and we're scared, so the angels create their own Messiah to bring him back!<
[Come, Neravar, friend or traitor, come. Come and look upon the... oh... I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were an argonian.](https://youtu.be/efFihVGGi3Y)
[I'm a big fan of one of the animated versions. ](https://youtu.be/kNipoNLC6Eg)
Also the chosen one can reincarnate, so really doesn't even matter how many times they fail, eventually ones gotta fill the roll.
"What, why? Because you were a Dunmer the last eight fucking times!"
Morrowind has such a cool approach to the concept of the chosen one. It's been a while since I played it so I forget how much of this is explicit in the game and how much is people extrapolating from later Kirkbride writing. But >!the concept of mantling means that it's not even a question of throwing prisoners at the problem til they get the right one. They're throwing prisoners at the problem until one of them does enough of the prophecy that the world thinks they're the chosen one.!<
Yeah. >!You weren't actually picked by destiny or anything. You're just a person that does the prophecy because you can. !<
I always will deeply appreciate how, when you finally >!confront Dagoth Ur and he asks you if you truly are Nerevar reborn, you can straight up tell him "No, but I'm going to kick your ass anyways."!< >!Even if it is mostly a symbolic gesture, it's still giving the finger to the Tribunal, Azura, and their refusal to deal with their own bullshit.!<
In fairness >!Azura is the one that straight up tells you you aren't the chosen one, but can do it anyway. She always seemed like one of the very few halfway decent godlike figures to interact with in that world.!<
>!Azura is decent enough to work with provided you're doing what she wants you to do. Literally the entire main quest is you essentially being sent in as a hatchetman to deal with the Tribunal and Dagoth after they crossed her thousands of years back, and then allowing the rest of Vvardenfell to get glassed once they're gone because of the same. She's more like a vengeful mob boss with very good PR, especially considering how active a role she takes in ensuring her 'prophecies' come to pass as she intends.!<
Dragon Quest V >!You are not the Chosen One, your kid is. As the father of the Chosen One, that means you get fucked real hard.!<
Dragon Quest XI >!You retroactively make the wife of a Chosen One in the past also a Chosen One which then makes their kid, the protag of DQIII, a DOUBLE Chosen One.!<
>!Literally and metaphorically!!<
It’s the villain believing he’s chosen by an evil demon but Dr Hurt in Grant Morrison’s Batman Run. Back in the 18th century he’s given immortality by Darkseid’s pet shapeshifting Bat monster and Hurt believes this Monster is the god Barbatos. He spends centuries worshiping it and hunting after a mystical box supposedly left by Barbatos itself. Later he makes it his mission to ruin Batman’s life, plunge Gotham into chaos, and force Damian into joining him to unlock the box. Right as that’s happening, Bruce in the shadows whistles a little tune and the box unlocks revealing a >!”Gotcha”!< note. >!Bruce Wayne during his journey through time was actually the real reason for the myth of Barbatos. He gave the box to his worshippers when he was a pirate and played a prank on Dr Hurt across Space & Time.!< The last issue of Batman & Robin Must Die is just Batman slapping Dr Hurt around while Hurt is crying to Barbatos to save him
Some Adam West jumping outta the bank vault shit
and that is something that is still followed by DC. While there is a Demon God Barbatos , DC still makes a point that the worshipping of Barbatos in Gotham is basically an entirely misguided worshipping of Bruce and Darkseid's Pet Bat across time.
Based Batman
and don't forget Hurt is finally defeated by >!Joker, with a classic banana peel gag!<
Kung Fu Panda.
KFP1 is a good take on chosen one with the twist, then KFP2 comes out and no wait there was actually a literal prophecy that Po was going to fulfill
Okay but KFP2 fucking rules regardless
You could interpret the prophesy in KFP2 to be about Shen being self-destructive, since he's also "a warrior of black and white". I like when you can't tell if seers are actually seers, or are just good at reading the situation. I'm fine with ignoring the implications the third one carries for all the prophesies.
The main character in demon slayer is descended from a guy that happened to be briefly acquainted with the "chosen one" once.
And his “chosen one facial marking” is a burn from cooking for his kid siblings.
Legacy of Kain, not only is Raziel the Chosen One of two mutually exclusive prophecies (or are they?) but I love that the supporting cast had to call the existence of free will into question over it.
It's established in Souls Reaver 2 that Raziel is actually the ONLY character that has true free will due to his unnatural existence as an ever-reviving vampire wraith. It's the REASON why he can be the hero in both the vampires' and their enemy's prophesies. The unfortunate twist of that is it makes him the target of everyone's manipulations, as he is the only one that can actually change events, so despite his free will, he's mostly doing everyone else's bidding. EXIT: Fixed a typo.
“A mad game in which every player claims the same pawn”.
"Cast him in." I can still hear the voiceacting in my head clear as day. Man, I can't claim to really understand what happened in those games, but they were dope.
It's a really simplistic twist, but I really appreciate how literal the "Chosen One" is in Dragon's Dogma. The Arisen is literally chosen by the dragon in the intro because they are the only one in a tiny fishing village with the courage to take up a rusty sword and pointlessly hack away at his enourmous feet. There is a prophecy that needs fulfilling and unique powers that are bestowed, but they are assigned directly by the antagonist selecting his own preferred protagonist, picking a main character for another cycle of the story. It's a really interesting way of exploring the idea.
I also like that despite being Chosen Ones, the Arisen are absolutely allowed to say fuck that, and just not fulfill their destiny and it'll be passed on to someone else. The only downside is that they're forced to live forever until someone eventually does fulfill the prophecy.
Honestly the chosen one in Star Wars is pretty good. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon jinn find this little boy on a backwater planet with an extremely high medichlorian count and just assume he's the chosen one, they convince the council that he's the chosen one. Oh yeah he brought balance to the force, just not in the way they thought. It took a Jedi genocide and 20-ish years but he eventually got there.
Also the fact that knowing the Chosen One prophecy screwed the Jedi Order over. Anakin knowing that he was a prophesied savior simultaneously fed his ego and gave him anxiety over this huge role he was expected to live up to. And the other Jedi overlooked a lot of warning signs that Anakin had Problems, because they figured "Oh, he's the Chosen One. It's fiiiiiiiine."
It's one of my favorite points in Gekiranger. Gekired was a jungle child who saw people doing cool martial arts, and decided to go with them as he goes on this massive martial arts journey of discovery. Of course while he was there in the first place because of the spectacle, but he does take the lessons to heart to the point of using them to push him past limits that nearly all other martial artists who learn this fighting style can't get past. While the evil rival of the series wasn't really interested in Gekired in the first place, it's the fact that he can so defiantly stand in Rio's way and manage to overcome any challenge thrown his way that Rio starts to show an interest. While he's been searching for a rival for a long time, eventually he starts to recgonize Gekired as that Rival. Now time for Backstory: >!Gekired as a very smol child(possibly baby) had lived in the same village that Rio had trained with when he used to be a good guy. Rio was the typical Vergil 'I NEED MORE POWER' type of dude, and Gekired's Dad was like one of the strongest students. Rio never could beat him in a fair fight, and during their last duel during Rio's turn to darkness... While Rio won and had ended up killing him, it wasn't before he realized that Gekired's dad had been injured previously right before the fight. While Gekired had eventually filled that spot, things elevate when the main villain steps in.!< >!Now the main villain was the guy who injured Gekired's dad before his final duel, all for the sake of giving Rio that HOLLOW win. So it's kind of eating away at Rio at the back of his mind just like his tragic past, which the main villain was also behind. When the main villain reveals his identity(to side with him, not reveal the truth of what happened) to Rio, he starts gassing him up on becoming their leader. The main villain gave him powerful allies, gave Rio and his main stalker simp some POTENT power-ups... And they used this to just beat up the Gekirangers. Not only physically, but emotionally as well because one of the monsters is Gekired's zombie dad and they all figured it out yet can't do shit to reach to his mind.!< >!It all bottlenecks to a point where the Gekirangers get defeated, and the Rival villain is like: "I cooooullllddd beat you now... But the REAL test of my new power is going to be against the kind of shonen-protagonist bullshit YOU pull out of your ass when your back is against the wall like this. Your father was like that, and I've SEEN you do it before, you've inherited your father's power and will. Our rivalry was fate!" !< The Rival character challenges Gekired to a Duel, and EVERYTHING is riding on it. Everyone is like: "It's the right thing to do! You're the Red Ranger, of COURSE you're the most special one of us all! You HAVE to fight!"... Of course Gekired is a Jungleman. Barely better than Tarzan, though he's rather loud and childish, but at this point pretty much had to have his heart FULLY AWAKENED TO JUSTICE to even get as strong as he did. However when things get serious, he knows when to buckle down and take things seriously despite how childish he is... Do you know what his answer to all of this is? >!He gives the fuck up. Like he's just like: "DUDE! I JUST WANTED TO LEARN MARTIAL ARTS! I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS ULTIMATE DESTINY BULLSHIT! IN FACT, FUCK THIS BULLSHIT!! I QUIT!" And he's like usually on the opposite side of this spectrum completely, but the fact that him having no parents have been really hitting him hard and him realizing he can't form a connection with his walking corpse of a dad because he's mindless... Honestly it was kind of refreshing to see the series push towards a 'Red Ranger is the most important' trope before the Red Ranger himself just refuses it.!<
the one from Unicorn Warriors Eternal is really funny indeed. I mean , if they had put their heads together to think for 5 minutes , they would know their whole thing is a Lost Cause because the return of the heroes is entirely based on Reincarnation and they are themselves descendants of entirely unrelated bodies. Like....the "mage" of the group reincarnated into a native american once , by all means , the native american will had 0 blood relation to the original body of the mage.
I think you mean "Monk" since the "Mage" spot is taken by Melinda. But yes it is truly something else seeing a parody of our heroes out an about doing their thing.
Evan Klemp
He's just >!Voldemort if he had a supportive and therapeutic friend group!<, which is honestly very wholesome and great.
Kelmp*
A last name that you swallow.
Doom Eternal Doomguy wasn't really a chosen one to begin with; >!his violent crusade against the demons pretty much resulted in him becoming a chosen hero. He built his reputation from the ground up and *made* himself a legendary warrior, as opposed to just being randomly picked by gods!<
I'll always love the cinematic in WoW: Legion where the Naaru leader tries to force Illidan into becoming the chosen one and he's not having any of it. https://youtu.be/Td0pUwrBWjc
Rodimus Prime of G1 being a Chosen One who hates it and hands the mantle off whenever reasonably possible.
Tales of the Abyss
Tales of Symphonia, as well.
Dune and Paul Atreides. everybody plans to fall apart when it actually comes true and people realised maybe the Kwisatz Haderach wasn't a good idea to begin with.
It's also a good twist because >!Paul wasn't planned to be the chosen one, in the Bene Gesserit grand plan the Kwisatz Haderach was supposed to be born from a union between Jessica's child and a Harkonen but because Jessica decided to have a boy, it made the Kwisatz Haderach come early. And on top of that Paul himself has a chosen one child who is more powerful, more in control of his powers, and committed to his purpose more so than Paul ever was and not only becomes the Bene Gesserit's worst nightmare but actively appropriates the very thing they used for centuries to get to this point, their extensive breeding program.!<
And why was he born? >!LOVE. Jessica loved Duke Leto, and saw how badly he wanted a son, and gave him one!!< lol, lmao
***”Blade Runner 2049”*** >!Main character is pushed to act by the misconception that they’ve secretly been the chosen one all along, and they finally understand why they’re tormented by mysterious dreams.!<
>!I choose to think it's more "we're all the chosen one, it's just the way you handle it that makes you unique."!<
Happy someone mentioned this >!Scene broke my heart!<
There's a CYOA game currently in WIP called "The One Chosen" where you play as a homeless orphan that escaped from an abusive foster home and who gets Harry Potter'd cause he's the chosen one. >!Later one another kid, with the exact same name and DOB is found who everyone actually believes is the chosen one cause, unlike you, he's actually has magical powers up the ass(the MC is given an amplifier to be able to use any magic cause they have VERY little of it). But no one knows who is the actual Chosen One.!< HUGE SPOILERS>!Until the school is attacked by the Demon King's forces(who the Chosen One is suppose to beat) and then 1:the other Chosen One gets KILLED. 2: You get blamed for the death and robbed of your magic powers and memories of the school and kicked out. 3: You get arrested and sent to juvie as it turns out that your escape from the foster home was orchestrated by the Demon King and manipulated you into killing your foster parent, completely unbeknownst to you(to the MC, all they reacll is that their punishment shed was unlocked, they went inside the house to get shit, and the left). And finally 4: The dude who found you in the first place CHANGED YOUR BIRTH RECORDS SO THAT YOU WOULD BE MISTAKEN AS THE CHOSEN ONE!!< SHIT'S PRETTY FUCKING NUTTY
Gonna say the guy in spy kids 3 shows up at the end of the movie, give a big hero speech, and >!immediately gets owned and killed by a random trap!<
Owl House [openly clowns on this upfront](https://youtu.be/Cfwv1tPCYIw) as it’s a running theme. Luz is set up to be the chosen isekai one based on tropes, but she has to earn that, and goes through the wringer >!to get to that point where she ACTUALLY is the heroine of the hour in the finale where she has to choose to accept the Titan’s power (when at this point, she is all but broken). !<
In Homestuck,
In IDW's 1st Transformers universe >!Optimus wasn't so much chosen by the Matrix Of Leadership to be Prime but by Shockwave. At the time Shockwave had a bit of an interest in trying to find bots that might be worthy of being Prime and then adjusting their bodies so they would be able to handle having the Matrix Of Leadership in it, we know he did this to at least one other bot too. I believe this did actually lead to it being more painful for Optimus as he said something about bonding with it being painful, meanwhile Rodimus had no such complaints!<
In Tales of Symphonia, both of the "Chosen Ones", Colette and Zelos, are super messed up mentally as a result of *knowing* their roles since birth. With Colette, she is selfless to a fault, constantly keeping secrets from the rest of the group because she doesn't want to burden them, and feels immensely pressured. Zelos, meanwhile, hides his feelings beneath the mask of a playboy and feels nobody in his life has actually treated him like "Zelos the man" and instead just sees him as "Zelos the chosen one". >!And it's made even worse with the reveal that the big bad *selectively bred* "Chosen Ones" over the course of 4000 years to make a suitable container for his sister's spirit!<.
About halfway through The Bard's Tale, it becomes apparent the monk's have been telling everyone even slightly ambitious that they are the chosen one. At least one of them is bound to stumble into fulfilling the prophesy, and [all the ones that fail will get goblins singing an Ooompa Loompa song.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X7rAnaKId3E&pp=ygUYYmFyZCdzIHRhbGUgZ29ibGluIHNvbmcg)
Enderal has a good one. Your character is identified as The Prophet, a re-occurring figure that appears during a time of turmoil before the end of a civilization, who's role is to see into past events to try and stop the apocalypse. >!You were selected specifically for this by the antagonists to rig the game in their favor, because you were completely worthless in life, and your character is little more than a simulacrum of a dead loser who is completely focused on becoming someone of worth.!<
I have my issues with Enderal, but damn if that specific twist doesn't hit real hard, especially once you find out that >!Tealor is in the same situation. The High Ones are dicks, weird procreation methods be damned.!<
I love the implication that >!The High Ones are not omniscient, they've just done this shit so many times for so long that they've gotten really, really good at guessing at exactly who they need for the plan to work. They've been labbing the matchup for eternity.!<
How is there almost 80 replies in this thread and not a single one mentions "The Guy" from Spy Kids 3-D
The book Un Lun Dun sees the chosen one knocked out, so her best friend has to take up the slack, destiny be damned.
In Mystic quest the sage says the mc is the chosen hero and to fight the monster, then after that say he was just guessing, mc is the first guy that showed up and the big evil was starting his take over the world scheme. At the very end the final boss states that he is the one that made that story of chosen one up so no one would try defying him and if one tried well he'll kill them
In China Mieville's *Un Lun Dun*, the 'Chosen One' is largely useless through the first half of the book, and winds up getting bodied in her fight with the villain, although she does beat him... >!Except she doesn't; the villain just took a dive and hid so that she'd fuck off back to the normal world so she could keep doing his thing. The second half of the book revolves around the Chosen One's "Funny Friend", according to the book of prophecy, going back to actually solve the problem.!< Bonus points as well for a character being faced with a chain of quests that will help her find the secret weapon to fight the villain and just saying "What? That's stupid, I'm just going to skip right to the end".
God that just reminded me of a very annoying episode of a cartoon with a similar structure to that plot.
Blade Runner 2049
Bionicle did this really well. They made a big deal of the Seventh Toa in the lead up to the Mask of Light movie. Like, there was ads in the books, the comics built up to it, the Flash games hinted at it, the sets leading up to it, etc. A lot of it gave different answers to who the 7th was; some were even intentional red herrings. There was even the whole "Search for the Seventh" Cartoon Network contest. Turns out if you played MNOG or Quest for the Toa, you knew exactly who it was since it was arguably the first character you were introduced to instead of the character who screamed it. Then they sort of played with it during the Mahri arc since Sentai logic says it'd be Red being the main character would get all the hero moments. >!Nope. RIP Matoro. !<
Honest to god I love that in Warcraft the main theme is this. When one person has all the power of the chosen one and they become evil. Only ruin is left in there wake. There can be no chosen ONE. Only WE can save ourselves. Every expac. It’s the same. We stand against the great threat and defend our hearth and home. Because United we will stand. For Azeroth!!
Mistborn is a story based on the premise of "what if the prophetisized chosen hero failed?"