Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
Given that his Ma wasn't murdered, that seems unlikely.

More seriously, while your point is true from a Doyalist perspective, from a Watsonian perspective, that's at odds with the idea that characters have free will and are able to plot their own destinies. For a prophecy to be prescriptive like that, fate needs to be written already, people don't actually have any ability to change anything, and the entire act of prophecy is pointless in the first place because the characters cant change their behavior. And while there are probably some stories where free will is an illusion, Rich's comments about the importance of choice and consequences to actions make it seem unlikely that this is that kind of story.
I don't see it that way at all though. Prophecies and free will can merrily co-exist. All a prophecy is, ultimately, is a prediction on what a person is going to do/event is going to be. A person choosing their own path in life of their own volition and agency is not at cross purposes with that.

What IS at cross purposes is the idea that the future is undetermined and not fixed. But, again, that's not quite the same thing.

The analogy I like to make is the one of the time-traveller and stable time loops. From our perspective, everything in the past has already happened. We know what people did (if not why). They all collectively chose, through their free will, a set of decisions that formed The Present. Now if I had access to a time machine, went back in time, and didn't interact with anyone, I could theoretically have perfect knowledge of what was going to happen.

The thing is, all the people around me still have their free will even though I know (broadly speaking) what will happen. This really isn't that different. Especially once the concept of stable time loops are introduced, which then lets me interact with people without changing anything.

To me, the idea that free will and prophecies can't co-exist is a philosophical one. But it's more based on the idea that the future is open ended and not fixed. But, for me at least, a fixed future and people having free will/agency is not a contradiction in terms.

NB: I'm not saying I personally believe the future is fixed or open-ended. Just that I don't think it matters one jot to the concepts of free will or agency.