Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

[Fyraltari]

‘‘Posthumously’’ and the Oracle’s deaths are clearly falsifiable as well as Xykon attacking Girard’s Gate before Kraagor’s. They all came true so far.

[Dion]

‘‘Posthumously’’ and the Oracle’s deaths are clearly falsifiable as well as Xykon attacking Girard’s Gate before Kraagor’s. They all came true so far.

I would argue that Durkon’s “death and destruction” did not come true.

He named his new hammer “destruction” in an attempt to make it true, but he didn’t actually bring the hammer home with him, so therefore the prophecy was false.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I would argue that Durkon’s “death and destruction” did not come true.

He named his new hammer “destruction” in an attempt to make it true, but he didn’t actually bring the hammer home with him, so therefore the prophecy was false.

Nonsense. He came home while dead, killed (or commanded his followers to kill) a bunch of people (thus bringing death), and the ensuing mayhem has meant a number of things have been broken (thus covering the "destruction" clause).

Arguing that the prophecy didn't come true is like arguing that V didn't use four words because two of them were the same word, repeated.

Grey Wolf

[Dion]

Nonsense. He came home while dead, killed (or commanded his followers to kill) a bunch of people (thus bringing death), and the ensuing mayhem has meant a number of things have been broken (thus covering the "destruction" clause)f

Other than the cheap wooden chair he knocked over, I don’t think he destroyed anything.

Definitely false.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Other than the cheap wooden chair he knocked over, I don’t think he destroyed anything.

Definitely false.

He doesn't need to murder anyone to bring death and destruction. He brought with him an entire team to do it for him. For example, the outer ring of Dvalins' voting chamber is going to need some fixing.

Grey Wolf

[Resileaf]

It's pretty obvious that what is going to be destroyed will be the roof so he can bathe the council room in glorious light to destroy the vampires.

[Dion]

It's pretty obvious that what is going to be destroyed will be the roof so he can bathe the council room in glorious light to destroy the vampires.

Hmm... that raises a question in my mind.

Did Odin predict that Durkon would destroy the roof of the council chamber?

Or did Odin predict that the word “destruction” wouldn’t technically be incorrect when used to to describe the events that happen?

Like, for example, if Durkon naming the hammer “destruction” fulfills the prophecy, then is the prophecy just “well, no-one would ever describe what actually happened as ‘bringing death and destruction to us all’. But I suppose if you did say that, you technically wouldn’t be wrong...”

[Peelee]

I would argue that Durkon’s “death and destruction” did not come true.

He's still there, ya know. The prophecy wasn't, "he will bring death and destruction but only in the first hour or so." See Belkar's complaint to the Oracle: the fact that it hasn't happened yet does not falsify it, because it could still happen in the future.

[The Pilgrim]

Greg, stagecoaching Durkon's corpse, has already brought "Death and Destruction for us all". Specifically, in the form of Hel's Vampires aiming to tamper the voting of the Council, getting the Gods to destroy the World and, thus, bring Death and Destruction to everyone.

Of course, just because someone brings Death and Destruction to your place, doesn't means you must accept the "gift". You can defend yourself and avoid it. Which is what Durkon and his family are about to do.

[Dion]

Greg, stagecoaching Durkon's corpse, has already brought "Death and Destruction for us all". Specifically, in the form of Hel's Vampires aiming to tamper the voting of the Council, getting the Gods to destroy the World and, thus, bring Death and Destruction to everyone.

Huh. It’s almost like the prophecy is so vague it’s literally impossible to know what it means even after it’s completed!

[Fyraltari]

I would argue that Durkon’s “death and destruction” did not come true.

He named his new hammer “destruction” in an attempt to make it true, but he didn’t actually bring the hammer home with him, so therefore the prophecy was false.

Okay. First, he did not name his hammer destruction, he just took it and said it time for destruction.

Second, how does that invalidate anything that I said? I did not mention that prophecy because it (purposefully) open to interpretation and probably not even entirely fulfilled yet. But I brought up several others that were fulfilled in details. The Oracle’s power were precise enough not only to know that Belkar would kill him, exactly when, but also how many kobold he needed for that to trigger the mark and he also could read Haley’s speech by gazing into the future and get everything right. A prophecy or two being loosely worded does not cancel out the others.

[tomaO2]

When you think of it, the OOTS world can be seen as a sophisticated computer program by the gods, who are beings of such unfathomable power and intelligence, that it wouldn't be surprising at all if they had ways of predicting how events would play out. Normal people can't make a prophasy, it needs to be granted by gods. Gods directly interfering muddies the playing field, so they don't do that, generally. They probably also tend to not look into the future because they prefer to be surprised by what ends up happening. The Snarl, also being a higher entity, can also just screw everything up that is near it, possibly this is why the gods can't predict if the OOTS can stop bad things from happening in time, and have to vote on destroying the planet.

I'm pretty sure that the subject of destiny/prophasy is going to be dealt with more in the next book.

At present, all the OOTS have had completed arcs except for one. Roy has dealt with his daddy issues and petty impulses. Hailey has learned to love and trust others. Var has come to understand that her pursuit of unlimited power was a self destructive desire. Durken has come face to face with his worst self, and triumphed over it. Elan has faced his father and realised that he can never have the happy family he wanted.

Then there is Beklar, and his main arc is the growth of himself as a person. Namely, evolving from being just some chaotic evil into something else, and the prophasy of his death also plays into this. "Evolve or die" is the passphrase used to remove the curse, and I don't think it's random. I think it signifies a chance for Beklar to be the first character to outright break a prophasy.

If he remains chaotic evil, then he is destined to die but, if he can evolve his alignment, then perhaps he can be saved. If Beklar dies because he becomes self sacrificing instead, then that, I think, would be another strong indictment that free will is simply a delusion that the mind creates in order to spare a person from going mad.

[Rrmcklin]

Other than the cheap wooden chair he knocked over, I don’t think he destroyed anything.

Definitely false.

It's one thing to be dissatisfied with how Mr. Burlew goes about actually executing these prophecies, but it's another thing entirely to argue that in-story, we have reason to believe they're not actually happening. The story hasn't been ambiguous about any of this at all.

[Dion]

The Oracle’s power were precise enough not only to know that Belkar would kill him, exactly when, but also how many kobold he needed for that to trigger the mark

None of that was part of the prophecy that the oracle gave Belkar.

You can’t just say “oh, I totally knew that was what would happen” after the event and call it a prophecy.

It's one thing to be dissatisfied with how Mr. Burlew goes about actually executing these prophecies, but it's other entirely to argue that in-story, we have reason to believe they're not actually happening. The story hasn't been ambiguous about any of this at all.

What? The prophecy DID absolutely happen. A prophecy is a prediction. The prediction was made, therefore the prophecy happened.

The prophecy didn’t come true. That’s normal. 99.9999% of prophecies never come true. If the prophecy about death and destruction had come true, it would have been pretty strange.

[Rrmcklin]

What? The prophecy DID absolutely happen. A prophecy is a prediction. The prediction was made, therefore the prophecy happened.

The prophecy didn’t come true. That’s normal. 99.9999% of prophecies never come true. If the prophecy about death and destruction had come true, it would have been pretty strange.

Semantic word-play? Really?

The point is these prophecies are coming true, and we've been given no reason to think they aren't. And as others have said, just because Durkon's (probably) isn't completed yet, does not give you reason to say it won't be. Nor will it invalidate the other obvious examples people have given you of ones that have absolutely come true.

This is such a strange hill to die on.

[Fyraltari]

None of that was part of the prophecy that the oracle gave Belkar.

You can’t just say “oh, I totally knew that was what would happen” after the event and call it a prophecy.

But he totally knew what would happen. How could he have set that up otherwise? And how could he understand Haley? Or have known to keep a banishing wand? Or the order in which Xykon would attack the Gates?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The prophecy didn’t come true. That’s normal. 99.9999% of prophecies never come true. If the prophecy about death and destruction had come true, it would have been pretty strange.

Again: nonsense. Lets check:
1) Did Durkon return home after dying? Yes
2) Did Durkon's return cause Death and destruction to happen? Yes

Therefore, the prophecies were accurate.

What did not happen is Durkon himself causing the death and destruction, which is something you have added to the prophecies. But it is not what the Oracle or Odin predicted. What they did in fact predict has happened.

Grey Wolf

[Dion]

But he totally knew what would happen.

But he never gave a prophecy about it.

Are we talking about prophecy (which, has been carefully pointed out by another poster is defined as a “prediction”, nothing more and nothing less, and to assume it’s anything else is an abuse of the language), or are we talking about knowledge of the future?

[Peelee]

But he never gave a prophecy about it.

He prophesied that Belkar would kill him. All other actions related to his death were taken on the basis of that prophecy.

[Rrmcklin]

But he never gave a prophecy about it.

Are we talking about prophecy (which, has been carefully pointed out by another poster is defined as a “prediction”, nothing more and nothing less, and to assume it’s anything else is an abuse of the language), or are we talking about knowledge of the future?

The question is why are you separating the two? If the Oracle has on-demand knowledge of the future, for what reason do you have to claim "well, his prophecies still might not come true/be false", as you have been doing.

You're majorly splitting hairs here, and it makes no sense.

[Resileaf]

Imo, the Oracle proves that the future is not pre-determined. He foresaw that Belkar would kill him, yes. But as a result of this knowledge, he was able to set his trap to make Belkar trigger the Mark of Justice, something he wouldn't have done if he couldn't see the future.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Imo, the Oracle proves that the future is not pre-determined. He foresaw that Belkar would kill him, yes. But as a result of this knowledge, he was able to set his trap to make Belkar trigger the Mark of Justice, something he wouldn't have done if he couldn't see the future.

This doesn't follow. If the future is pre-determined, then it was always going to be the case that Belkar would ask, that the Oracle would see that Belkar would kill him, and also see that the Mark of Justice would activate, and that the mark would activate because he would have established the town behind the tower. He had not choice in the matter, that's what was going to happen, so it did.

Alternatively, if there is free will (as we have been told there is, in-story), Belkar made the choice to ask, the Oracle then saw himself being killed by Belkar, and made the choice to tell him as little as possible. Then spent some time and money preparing both his revenge on Belkar and setting up his resurrection. He could've chosen to do neither, or one and not the other, but chose to do both.

Both scenarios are possible in-story.

Grey Wolf

[Dion]

The question is why are you separating the two?.

Because they’re two completely different things?

[Rrmcklin]

Because they’re two completely different things?

Not for the purposes of this discussion, they aren't. For some reason you seem to have disconnected The Oracle actually has knowledge of the future from whether or not his prophecies actually true. Why you've done this, I have no idea, but, but it makes no sense.

Whether or not prophecies will actually happen is not somehow divorced from whether or not the Oracle's abilities are real. We know they're real, and we have been given no reason to believe has given any false prophecies.

[Dion]

Not for the purposes of this discussion, they aren't. For some reason you seem to have disconnected The Oracle actually has knowledge of the future from whether or not his prophecies actually true..

That’s because knowledge of the future isn’t a prophecy, and a prophecy isn’t knowledge of the future. They’re two different things, and they don’t depend on each other, and they can and should be considered separately if one wants to have a meaningful discussion about them.

Edit: also, the death and destruction prophecy doesn’t come from the oracle, so whether or not it comes true isn’t a comment on the oracles abilities.

[Squire Doodad]

That’s because knowledge of the future isn’t a prophecy, and a prophecy isn’t knowledge of the future. They’re two different things, and they don’t depend on each other, and they can and should be considered separately if one wants to have a meaningful discussion about them.

For the sake of this discussion, which is about deterministic viewpoints, they are effectively the same as they play the same role.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Here’s my thinking. There are at least two kinds of prophecy (in the same way there are at least two kinds of birds):

Falsifiable Prophecy: a falsifiable prophecy is one where an observer can create an experiment to say “is this prophecy false”, and that experiment is guaranteed to produce a result.

Unfalsifiable Prophecy: a prophecy that is not falsifiable. No matter what anyone does, all that can be said is “well, maybe it’s still true because of something that might happens later.”

“When the goat turns red strikes true” is unfalsifiable. If Haley had rolled a 19 instead of a 20, it wouldn’t have proven the prophecy false. Instead, it would have just shown that the prophecy might still be true, but probably meant something else.

By this definition, Durkon's prophecy is falsifiable: if he had returned to his homeland alive, or died by falling in a volcano such that his remains stayed in the South, the prophecy would have been falsified.

Equally, had Belkar died without killing any of the people in the list, it would have been falsified.

Equally, if Xykon had gone to Kraagor's tomb before the other, it would have been falsified.

Not sure that this mental exercise makes any difference, but enough of the Oracle's prophecies are perfectly decidable. And yet they all have come true, precisely.

Grey Wolf

[Rrmcklin]

That’s because knowledge of the future isn’t a prophecy, and a prophecy isn’t knowledge of the future. They’re two different things, and they don’t depend on each other, and they can and should be considered separately if one wants to have a meaningful discussion about them.
Edit: also, the death and destruction prophecy doesn’t come from the oracle, so whether or not it comes true isn’t a comment on the oracles abilities.

Fair point about the Oracle not making the "Death and Destruction" prophecy, but also it doesn't matter because the Oracle claims to get his power from a god who can see the future, Tiamat. And the "death and destruction" came from... Odin, a god who is established to be able to see the future.

And while Odin has his wonkiness, I have yet to see anyone adequately explain to me how Odin just spouting random nonsense about a random dwarf just so happening to be integral to the fate of the world is in anyway logical, interesting, or good story-telling.

I'll say it again, you're playing the semantic game here instead meaningfully addressing anything that has been said to you.

[Dion]

For the sake of this discussion, which is about deterministic viewpoints, they are effectively the same as they play the same role.

Well, I’m not sure what a deterministic viewpoint is. But you can create fantasy settings that include foreknowledge of the future both with and without a deterministic universe. They’re independent options in fantasy universes.

[Dion]

Odin, a god who is established to be able to see the future.

I missed that. Can you direct me to that?