Quote Originally Posted by Porthos View Post
See, I don't even look at it like that. IMO, 'fate' knew ahead of time how the dwarves would react when given the prophecy. Thus there was no 'easy' option ever on the table.

Why?

Because if the dwarves were going to take the easy option, it would have invalidated the prophecy, causing it to never occur. And if a prophecy can't occur, it'll never be given in the first place.

To put it another way, this was a prediction, not a curse. Under a curse, no matter what the dwarves did, it would happen. But a prediction is just saying "I know what you're going to do and what the consequences will be".

Couched in flowery language, sure. But ultimately no more than that.

Where it gets interesting is when we get into the bake your noodle speech from The Matrix part of this prophecy. But that's half the fun of prophecies.
Oh, I fully agree with you; I was just trying to take on the idea from the side of "what if they had just let it be?"