You were always going to read this category description.
See also Seekers and Seers, and Index Astrologicus for astrology tropes.
Character Tropes
- Apocalypse Maiden: An innocent character is destined to bring about The End of the World as We Know It just by existing.
- Blind Seer: A character who is physically blind, and yet they can see more than we can, e.g. into the future.
- Chekhov's Apocalypse: Once the apocalypse is predicted, it has to happen - or at least be depicted.
- The Chosen One: The ancient prophecy says that only a certain person can save the world.
- The Chooser of the One: The one that decides who The Chosen One is.
- The Chosen People: A specific civilization or nationality is chosen by a higher power as its favorite, often for a higher purpose.
- The Chosen Wannabe: The character is envious of the actual Chosen One and wants to replace them.
- The Chosen Many: The Chosen One, but there's several of them. Alternately, a superpowered individual discovers an organization of similarly-powered individuals.
- The Chosen Zero: The Chosen One is a loser.
- The Poorly Chosen One: Where The Chosen One fails at being the Chosen One.
- It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Being The Chosen One comes with more problems than perks.
- The Unchosen One: A character decides to save the world despite not being marked as The Chosen One.
- Externally Validated Prophecy: When a character makes a prediction about the future which is not fulfilled in the work, yet an audience aware of history knows will be fulfilled. In other words, a Call-Forward to real life.
- Fainting Seer: An oracle/seer has a dramatic negative reaction to the future they see.
- The Fatalist: A character who believes everything that happens is destined to happen and there is no way to escape it
- Immune to Fate: Screwing Destiny as a superpower.
- Instant Oracle: Just Add Water!: The Dehydrated Oracle immerses themself nearly or completely in water, and through contact with the liquid is gifted with visions of the future.
- Junkie Prophet: A character relies on drug-tripping hallucinations or other trance-induced behaviours to see the future.
- Mad Oracle: A character who can see the future, but seems to have terrible mental health.
- Magical Seventh Son: Being the seventh son of a seventh son is an omen of supernatural powers or greatness. Often this power is being a seer.
- Multiple-Choice Future: There are multiple, equally-probable futures.
- Mystical Waif: A fragile young woman infused with plot-relevant magical powers.
- Non-Linear Character: A character that is both in and out of time.
- Not So Omniscient After All: A character doesn't know everything, to the great surprise of themselves or people around them.
- The Omniscient: A character who knows everything.
- Omniscient Hero: The main character knows everything.
- Oracular Urchin: A young person who makes mysterious comments that imply or indicate they know the future, or at least more than they should.
- Precrime Arrest: Someone gets arrested for a crime that they would commit in the future.
- Prescience by Analysis: Predicting the future with probability, statistics, and mathematics and science in general.
- Seers: People who can see into the future, past and to faraway places.
- Waif Prophet: A weak and/or sickly (either physically or mentally) character who can see into the future. Usually but not exclusively female.
Other Tropes
- Because Destiny Says So: Fate is accepted as objective fact.
- Birthmark of Destiny: The Chosen One has a mark that means they're the Chosen One.
- Can't Refuse the Call Anymore: The Chosen One accepts their fate after repeatedly refusing The Call.
- Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Narrowly avoiding death in one incident, then getting killed in a totally separate incident shortly thereafter.
- Chronoscope: A device that allows its user to view past and future events.
- Comet of Doom: A comet in the sky signals—or perhaps causes—a truly momentous event.
- Crystal Ball: Crystal balls are used for magical purposes, typically for seeing things, and especially the future.
- Dead Man's Hand: A poker hand with two aces, two eights, and any other unmatched card. Usually a Portent of Doom.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: A character has prophetic dreams of a future event.
- Either/Or Prophecy: A prophecy specifies two possible outcomes to an event.
- Failed Future Forecast: A work makes a prediction about the future that doesn't come to pass.
- Fate Drives Us Together: The main couple meets by repeatedly bumping into each other.
- Flash Sideways: A suddenly resurfacing memory which comes from the character's Alternate Self in an Alternate Universe.
- Foreseeing My Death: A character has foreseen the circumstances under which they are going to die.
- Fortune Cookie Gag: Fortune cookies serve as a source of Running Gags or humorously prescient advice/knowledge.
- Hijacked Destiny: A character manages to steal The Chosen One's status away from the proper chosen one.
- Horrorscope: A character reads something in their horoscope in the news so unbelievably horrifying that they will resort to doing anything or everything to prevent it from coming true.
- Love Will Lead You Back: Believing your lover will return to you because it's destiny.
- Loves Me Not: A character does something (usually plucking flower petals) to determine whether someone loves them, alternating between saying the love interest "loves [them]" and "loves [them] not" with each turn.
- Magic 8-Ball: A popular toy used for fortune telling.
- Magic Mirror: A mirror with magical powers that can do more than reflect one's image.
- Magpies as Portents: The association of certain numbers of magpies with good or bad luck, and the rituals for warding the bad luck off.
- Misfortune Cookie: The slip of paper in a fortune cookie tells the character something demotivational or otherwise grim. Could serve as Foreshadowing.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Herod: A villain tries to kill a child who is destined to defeat them. This often backfires.
- No Man of Woman Born: A seemingly-impossible prophesized condition is ultimately met through Exact Words or Loophole Abuse.
- Ouija Board: A board game that is seen as a mystical device which can be used to communicate with spirits.
- Poke in the Third Eye: A character messes with people who are trying to scry against them.
- Portent of Doom: An omen of ill-fate.
- Preemptive Declaration: Character declares a future action as if done in past tense, before actually doing it.
- Prescience Is Predictable: Perfect knowledge of the future makes life boring or depressing.
- Prophecies Are Always Right: Prophecies are always correct, and are neither lies nor jokes.
- Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: Prophecies all come in verse.
- Prophecy Armor: A character destined to die from a specific circumstance cannot die from anything else.
- The Prophecy: A prophecy that drives the plot.
- Prophecy Pileup: When two or more prophecies overlap.
- Prophecy Twist: A prophecy technically comes true, but not in the way it seemed like it would.
- Prophetic Fallacy: A prophecy that is incomplete or otherwise doesn't give those who see it all the information.
- Psychic Dreams for Everyone: Dreaming of Things to Come? Oh, that's normal, everyone gets those. Even those that don't have Psychic Powers. Especially those that don't have Psychic Powers.
- Reading the Entrails: Divining fate and gleaning prophecies from the patterns in animal entrails.
- Red String of Fate: Character knows another character is their soulmate because a plot device (invisible red string, birthmarks, timers, etc.) connects to them.
- Screw Destiny: Character decides to go against their written fate.
- Scry vs. Scry: When dueling Seers start trying to counter each other's plans.
- Self-Defeating Prophecy: The very existence of prophetic foreknowledge initiates the alteration of the future.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: A prophecy fulfilled by attempts to prevent it from happening.
- Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Sliding scale determining how much free will characters really have in a work.
- Strangely Specific Horoscope: A character's horoscope for the day literally predicts what's going to happen to them.
- Tarot Troubles: Tarot card readings hint at terrible dangers.
- There Are No Coincidences: A character does not believe that strange things just happen.
- Threads of Fate: Powerful and supernatural threads that can represent or even wield cosmic forces like destiny and fate, often to the point where cutting one can end a person's life.
- Thread of Prophecy, Severed: A prophecy fails to come to pass due to something involved in it going wrong.
- Tomes of Prophecy and Fate: A book of prophecies that can be used to predict the future.
- Twisting the Prophecy: Knowingly fulfilling a prophecy in a way that creates a favourable outcome.
- Vagueness Is Coming: Something bad is coming, but... what, exactly?
- Video Games and Fate: Video games where the strictly linear gameplay is justified in-story, by way of reference to fate, destiny or mind control.
- When the Planets Align: As the orbits of planets and/or other celestial objects cross paths, wacky stuff begins to happen.
- Winds of Destiny, Change!: The ability to alter probability or luck.
- You Already Changed the Past/You Cannot Change The Future: A character goes back in time to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, only to discover that the "changes" they're making to the past were what "already" happened anyway.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Characters are unable to prevent what's been foretold.
