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Soothsaying and predicting the future has been a part of human culture since the very beginning. Everyone knows of the famous Oracle of Delphi, and who can possibly forget the charming oracle bones of ancient China? The future can be scary because it is filled with the unknown, so, naturally, we as humans would want to try our best to predict and understand it in order to give ourselves a better sense of control. Even if a prophecy predicts the end of the world, it still gives us a sense of security to at least have a guessing framework of what might happen. Thus, it makes perfect sense that prophecies are a big part of story-telling. After all, it presents the author with the perfect opportunity to foreshadow, and it gives the characters something to fight for or against.
But here's where prophecies fall apart in a narrative: they're flimsy.
Prophecies often fall apart if not done carefully. They're either so much a part of the story that there's no point in reading the story because you already know what's going to happen, or they're vaguely mentioned a couple of times maybe throughout the story, and yet in the narrative are treated as a great big deal when it, in fact, hold no real influence over the plot.
A prime example of this is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (*Disclaimer: It's been a while since I've read that particular book, since Harry's emo phase is not my favorite thing to read, so all of this is from my own memory. Apologies in advance if I forget or misremember details*)
In the fifth Harry Potter book, Harry and friends discover that Voldemort is after some obscure prophecy that was made by Sybill Trelawney about Harry having the ability to defeat him.
If you don't remember the prophecy from Harry Potter, here's a little refresher for you:
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
Now, the whole point of this prophecy, narratively speaking, is to set Harry apart as the Chosen One. Being marked as the Dark Lord's equal and having "power the Dark Lord knows not" are clear indicators of a Chosen One-- but Chosen Ones are an entirely different Trope Breaker. The point I'm trying to get at here is that the way the prophecy is used is... flimsy. For one, we didn't even know about it until the fifth book, and it's kinda shoe-horned in at the end of the book when Harry's throwing a tantrum in Dumbledore's office. And, I'm sorry, but by the fifth book, everyone knows Harry is the Chosen One. You don't need to say it. Of course, you could argue that it served to quiet the questions of "Why can't Dumbledore just kill Voldemort? He's the only wizard Voldemort is scared of, and he's super powerful! Why send a teenager to kill the Dark Lord rather than the modern-day Merlin?" And I would say this is a fair point, except Dumbledore dies in the very next book, so if the whole point of the prophecy was to explain why Dumbledore can't do it, the next book just made the entire point of the prophecy moot.
