Great prophets and oracles of fiction

[Lord Zentei]

An appreciation thread for our favorite prophets and oracles.

Condition: must be able to scry the future... the more powerful and accurate, the better. Also, the better known, the better. Please specify which setting it is from.

I'll start with:

The Oracle of Sunken Valley of the Order of the Stick. Thus far, we have not seen him fail a prediction, even when he rambles onto tangents.
Eldrad Ulthran of Warhammer 40000. Could see thousands of years into the future with startling accuracy, and could therefore direct the course of history of galaxy spanning cultures. Of course, he could not see his own demise, though to be fair, he was dealing with not one but two godlike beings at that point (the Deceiver and Slaanesh specifically).

[Closet_Skeleton]

Tiresias, he got second sight, blinded and turned into a woman. Three good examples of cursed with awesome.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Cyradis, the Seeress of Kell, (The Malloreon). Okay, so she's basically useless. But she looks good doing it, and gets an Empress-ship out of the deal.
Dominic Deegan, Oracle for Hire (eponymous webcomic). Has convinced many of his readers that he's secretly manipulating events to take over his fictional world, he's so skilled at underhanded use of his prophetic abilities.

[WalkingTarget]

Cassandra from Greek myth, always liked her. Always right, nobody believed her. I can just see her saying "I told you so" every time something bad happens.

Hari Seldon (from the Foundation series by Asimov) predicted thousands of years worth of galactic events (in a general sense, which was usually enough) with the power of SCIENCE!

[Arioch]

The problem is that too-good prophets always ruin a story. Thus, they almost always have some fatal flaw, like only speaking in riddles, being possessed by dark spirits, having fractured and warped visions, or simply being insane. The only usual exception to this is when the quest is to find the oracle in the first place.

My two favourites probably are:


Tersias, the blind prophet boy from GP Taylor's novel. Though his prophecies are flawless, they are brought by evil spirits who are slowly killing him.
Mrs Cake, who I really like as a character.

[averagejoe]

Dominic Deegan, Oracle for Hire (eponymous webcomic). Has convinced many of his readers that he's secretly manipulating events to take over his fictional world, he's so skilled at underhanded use of his prophetic abilities.

Seconded. There shall soon be a new world order, and that order shall be Lord Dominus. However, he doesn't really manipulate people; he guides them into His glory.

Agnes Nutter from Good Omens. I mean, come on; she was going to be burned at the stake, so she hid gunpowder in her underwear, killing everyone out of spite.

[WalkingTarget]

Agnes Nutter from Good Omens. I mean, come on; she was going to be burned at the stake, so she hid gunpowder in her underwear, killing everyone out of spite.

Don't forget the roofing nails, she seemed to have understood shrapnel pretty well. Can't understand why I didn't think of her for my post.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Thus, they almost always have some fatal flaw, like only speaking in riddles, being possessed by dark spirits, having fractured and warped visions, or simply being insane.

Or by being surrounded by total idiots like Oedipus.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Oedipus wasn't a prophet, though. As I recall, that one was on Teiresias.

Still surrounded by morons, though.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Oedipus wasn't a prophet, though. As I recall, that one was on Teiresias.

Still surrounded by morons, though.

I meant that he was the idiot. I already mentioned Tiresias in an earlier post in this thread. It occured to me that I had badly worded my second post though.

I meant "idiots like Oedipus" not "surrounded (by idiots) like Oedipus".

Oedipus apparently does some prophetic stuff in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus but that could also be interpreted as a cursing rather than fortelling. There's an odd ambiguity between having your fate fortold and having it set by a curse. The main distinction being that curses can be traced to a specific point while destiny starts at birth or earlier.

Tiresias only hides the truth because he wants to save his skin from a wrathful Oedipus. He actually reveals the truth plainly when he gets angry, at least in Sophocles and is actually trying to be useful. He's also apparently moderately useful to Odysseus when they meet in the underworld but once again a bunch of idiots ruin things.

Cassandra is also surrounded by idiots but that's because she was cursed by a god for not allowing herself to be raped. Which is sympathetic for differant reasons.

[Arioch]

Oh, I've got another one. Wise Mimir, from Norse Mytholgy. The guy whose well Odin threw his eye to gain wisdom. Of course, his Gift ended up with his head being cut off and preserved so Odin could chat with it.

His Gift was never wrong, but he couldn't control it. According to the stories, he predicted Ragnarok with absolute accuracy.

[rollfrenzy]

The Mua'dib from Dune.

He could function perfectly well even after being blinded. Also took over the entire universe.

[dehro]

Eddings has several mad prophets in his books, the ellenium, the mallorean and the dreamers... I don't recall specific names (mrin?)
elrond and aragorn, Cirdan, Galadriel, Gandalf in LOTR
the nutty professor in HP, can't remember her name
brutha in discworld of course..

[Fin]

Dont forget good old Eugene Greenhilt. 'When the goat turns red strikes true.' and he was right! :smallwink:

[bosssmiley]

An appreciation thread for our favorite prophets and oracles.

Condition: must be able to scry the future... the more powerful and accurate, the better. Also, the better known, the better. Please specify which setting it is from.

I'll start with:

Eldrad Ulthran of Warhammer 40000. Could see thousands of years into the future with startling accuracy, and could therefore direct the course of history of galaxy spanning cultures. Of course, he could not see his own demise, though to be fair, he was dealing with not one but two godlike beings at that point (the Deceiver and Slaanesh specifically).

Couldn't see his own demise, eh? Given that he's a character in the latest Codex Eldar (released *after* the 13th Crusade sourcebook), don't you find that kinda indicative?
Note also the Maugan-Ra/Altansar link. It is possible to come back from the warp. If you are sufficiently hardcore and have a big enough fanbase... :smallwink:
Agreed though. Anyone who manipulates his enemies into fighting the Second War of Armageddon just so his own people won't be inconvenieced has foresight in spades.

Cassandra (aka "Little Miss I-Told-You-So")
Mrs Cake ("Oh dear, I left me precognition on again...")

IRL, but the stuff of legends and folktales anyway
The Delphic Oracle and the Sybil of Cumae ("You heard what you wanted to hear.")
St John (seven-headed dragons, iron manscorpions, the four horsemen. Interesting Times indeed. :smallbiggrin: )
Nostrodamus ("Mmmmm, them's some good mercury fumes!")

[Lord Zentei]

Couldn't see his own demise, eh? Given that he's a character in the latest Codex Eldar (released *after* the 13th Crusade sourcebook), don't you find that kinda indicative?
Note also the Maugan-Ra/Altansar link. It is possible to come back from the warp. If you are sufficiently hardcore and have a big enough fanbase... :smallwink:


I can't help but feel that his inclusion in 4th edition Codex: Eldar is only to mollify angry fans who were upset at the manner in which his death was dealt with. :smallwink:

See, I have both Codex: Eldar for 4th edition and the White Dwarf where the end of the 13th crusade were dealt with. The initial idea was definitely that Eldrad was supposed to have been killed there, and his soul lost forever to Slaanesh. In the new Codex he is thought to exemplify self sacrifice among the Eldar, and since you can still use him as a special character there is less incentive to change what happened.

As for the Maugan-Ra/Altansar link... yeah: though Altansar wasn't destroyed, only isolated for all that time. Still, as you say, fan bases may work wonders. :smallwink:

Though I must admit that I tend to dislike it when the dead are brought back, even when the death in question is so poorly handled as Eldrad's was.

[Hazkali]

Nathan Rahl, from the Sword of Truth series. One of the better characters, if I recall correctly.

[A Rainy Knight]

The Mrin and Darine prophets are the ones from Eddings, although they spoke in their own variety of gibberish to disguise the message. They were right about everything, though. I wonder if Cyradis counts as a prophet or oracle, though?

[CurlyKitGirl]

Mrs. Cake - because she's a useful, absent-minded prophet
Brutha - just for the tortoise.
Agnes Nutter - a prophet with sick homour
Nostradamus - probably drugged to the gills
Cassandra - I bet she loved gloating

[Eladrinstar]

Angela, from the Inheritance Trilogy. The only character I didn't hate.

Merlin, because the concept of living backwards is just too cool for words.

Prof. Trelawney, from Harry Potter,old fraud that we somehow can't help feeling sorry for.

The Oracle from 300, who was so stoned she could make other people believe she was dancing in the air.

Gypsy-Bot from Futurama. Absolutely hilarious.

[The Bunny]

Angela, from the Inheritance Trilogy. The only character I didn't hate.

Merlin, because the concept of living backwards is just too cool for words.

Prof. Trelawney, from Harry Potter,old fraud that we somehow can't help feeling sorry for.

The Oracle from 300, who was so stoned she could make other people believe she was dancing in the air.

Gypsy-Bot from Futurama. Absolutely hilarious.

Seconded on all accounts.

[Mewtarthio]

A second vote for Hari Seldon, simply because he's the only prophet I've seen who gets his powers through math. The guy basically runs numbers and calculates the fate of the universe, then defeats that fate using the butterfly effect. Sure, he was completely mundane and technically didn't scry the future, but we're talking about a world where a sufficiently advanced understanding of psychology is all it takes to become a frickin' telepath. Literally. You can read minds, control actions, influence emotions, and alter memories just by being a really, really good psychologist. So, yeah, he's mundane, but he's mundane in the "What's the Balance DC for a Cloud?" sense.