I'm leaning towards the negative; it's in the same category as vampires.

The concept could have been awesome, only Josh Whedon can pull it off effectively, but everyone else who tries royally fucks it up.

People over use the plot devise so much for the exact same reasons regardless of twists or turns.

Hero, fortold. Destined to die or kill. Or in the odd case become the evil incarnate.

Followed by 75% angst and reflection about absolutely nothing to progress the story other than making the hero seem tortured and angsty.

Used only for pointless drama to fill pages.

 

Sooooo, really they're not that much alike?

 

If anyone's read the Mistborn trilogy then you'll know that's got a pretty awesome use of a prophesy in it, or at least I think so. If you haven't read it I won't spoil it and I recommend you give the books a try. Had me hooked for a week ... come to think of it they probably dropped me around 10% in my exams lol

 

Perhaps you're right.

While the a large portion of the means seems to fit the old Dumbledore is dark story, the motives are completely different.

You can't deny, though, that the cliche Dark!Dumbles 'actively ensures that Harry stumbles into the training he or she needs, stumbles onto the information they need, and generally gains the support of the population' and makes it so 'all of Harry's trusted adventure buddies are in fact members of the org, and they're the means by which the shadow org pulls X's puppet strings.'

The difference is that Dumbledore himself would be going into power, rather than 'X', as in most of those stories Dumbledore plans Harry's death. Also, what I mentioned above.

 

I was thinking the same exact thing. If you guys haven't read his stuff yet you definitely should. The Mistborn series is one my absolute favorites right now, and as Pringles said, the use of prophesy in it is bad ass. Fans of The Wheel of Time series probably know this guy; he was the one who was asked to finish the series after Jordan died

 

Now that I think about it, it would be even cooler if the the person in power they're deposing is in fact someone they put into power in the first place, but has since become unpopular with the people, and a little too uppity. Even better, this happens about once every 20 years or so, such that the shadow org has always been in control, they just always keep popular support for their policies by "creating" a new hero each generation who "deposes" the old one, takes his place, becomes a little too uppity and unpopular and gets deposed.

The story would then center around this particular hero discovering the sham and finally putting an end to the cycle and breaking the shadow org's power for good (or so he thinks).

 

I think I found that series

In the Tad Williams series Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Simon Mooncalf and his companions, following an ancient prophecy, struggle to find three legendary swords to help them fight the evil, usurping king.


!Spoiler Warning!














Unfortunately it turns out that the prophecy was written by the bad guys and uniting the swords will give King Ineluki unlimited power....

OT : I think that prophecies can be quite good when used in certain ways as stated in the posts above .