# Why does anyone listen to prophecy?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [June 17, 2014, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963 "2014-06-17T04:42:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2014, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963/1 "2014-06-17T04:42:11Z")
Going back to the beginnings of fiction, hell myth, prophecies end up fucking people over. If you don’t end up creating a self fulfilling one by trying to avoid the prophecy, you’ll end up fulfilling it but die in the process or get fracked some other way.
I mean seriously even a kid could see the problem with “your best friend will betray you” and then deciding to alienate and treat said friend like crap.
Or you misinterpret it, or read it wrong. Oh who would have guessed that peace on earth meant the extinction of humanity?!
Seriously everyone in fiction should just ignore prophecy, if they had a single brain cell. You can’t win, there needs to be a fictionland intervention.😛
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### Author:  [@orangeapples](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orangeapples)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2014, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963/2 "2014-06-17T07:25:28Z")
It really did a number on Oedipus, that’s for sure.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2014, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963/3 "2014-06-17T09:41:14Z")
The _problem solving_ prophecies in fiction & myth actually are useful more often or not; _“do X, Y and Z to find the Chosen One and topple the evil tyrant”_ and so on. It’s the ones that are a warning or outright premonitions of doom that screw you over almost universally.
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### Author:  [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963/4 "2014-06-17T13:27:50Z")
The most famous single prophecy is probably the one obtained from the Oracle at Delphi about Athens being saved by “wooden walls”.
> [@](#):
>
> In 480 BC, when Xerxes, the son of Darius the Great of Persia, returned to finish the job of conquering the Greeks in which his father had failed, the Athenians consulted the oracle. They were told:
>
> Now your statues are standing and pouring sweat. They shiver with dread. The black blood drips from the highest rooftops. They have seen the necessity of evil. Get out, get out of my sanctum and drown your spirits in woe.[5]
>
> It was unambiguous. When persuaded to seek advice a second time, the oracle gave a way for the Athenians to escape their doom. When Athena approached her father to help her city, Zeus responded that he would grant that “a wall of wood alone shall be uncaptured, a boon to you and your children.”[5]
>
> The oracle again advised the Athenians to flee:
>
> Await not in quiet the coming of the horses, the marching feet, the armed host upon the land. Slip away. Turn your back. You will meet in battle anyway. O holy Salamis, you will be the death of many a woman’s son between the seedtime and the harvest of the grain.[5]
>
> Meanwhile, the Spartans also consulted the oracle and were told:
>
> The strength of bulls or lions cannot stop the foe. No, he will not leave off, I say, until he tears the city or the king limb from limb.[5]
>
> or in a version according to Herodotus:
>
> Hear your fate, O dwellers in Sparta of the wide spaces;
> Either your famed, great town must be sacked by Perseus’ sons,
> Or, if that be not, the whole land of Lacedaemon
> Shall mourn the death of a king of the house of Heracles,
> For not the strength of lions or of bulls shall hold him,
> Strength against strength; for he has the power of Zeus,
> And will not be checked until one of these two he has consumed.[14]
>
> The Spartans withdrew in consternation, wondering which fate was worse. The Delphians themselves then asked how Persia could be defeated. The oracle replied:
>
> Pray to the Winds. They will prove to be mighty allies of Greece.[15]
>
> Events overtook the prophecy when the Persian army assaulted Thermopylae, where the Spartans (notably “the 300”) and allies held the pass against them. The Spartans under King Leonidas (The Lion) resisted the Persian advance at Thermopylae until betrayed by treachery. Refusing to retreat, the entire Spartan contingent, including their King (as foretold), lost their lives, but in so doing gained immortal fame. The Persian armada then sailed to nearby Cape Artemisium, where they were met by the Athenian fleet. The Athenian ships fought against great odds, but in three battles managed to hold their own.
>
> A tremendous storm then arose at Artemesium, with the most violent winds attacking the ships for three days. The Persians lost about 20% of their warships and perhaps the same number of transport vessels to the storm. The stormy winds and huge waves did not harm the Athenian ships.
>
> Back in Athens Themistocles argued that the wall of wood referred to the Athenian navy and persuaded the Athenians to pursue their policy of using wealth from their Attic silver mines at Laurium to continue building their fleet. On the grounds that the oracle referred to the nearby island of Salamis as “holy”, he claimed that those slain would be Greece’s enemies, not the Athenians. For these the oracle would have said “O cruel Salamis”. His voice carried the day, Athens was evacuated to Salamis and in a following naval battle the Athenian fleet and its allies destroyed the Persian fleet at Salamis, while watched by Xerxes. Despite the fact that Athens was burned by the Persians, her occupants were saved, the Persian risk was ended and the authority of the Oracle was never higher.
Back in Athens, some folks thought the “wooden walls” referred to the wall around the Acropolis, and they holed up there - those guys were killed to the last man.
In this case, guessing the “right meaning” allegedly lead to success.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2014, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963/5 "2014-06-17T13:35:05Z")
Even prophecies of doom should be heeded. The problem just comes when you try to avert them-- That always leads to disaster. Preparing for the doom to come, while still expecting it to continue on schedule, on the other hand, is prudent.
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### Author:  [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963/6 "2014-06-17T14:57:00Z")
_Good Omens_, by Pratchett and Gaiman, has a character named Agnes Nutter who’s a prophet. Everything she predicted turned out to be true, but her prophecies were more mundane and lacked imaginative flair, and therefore didn’t attract notice. In one prophecy, she chides someone who scoffs at her while reading it in the future.
She knew she was going to be burned at the stake, so she stuffed her petticoats with gunpowder and nails that exploded and killed everyone at the _auto da fe_.
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### Author:  [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2014, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963/7 "2014-06-17T15:01:24Z")
Your best bet dealing with prophecy in fiction is to kill the prophet immediately.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2014, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963/8 "2014-06-17T15:30:06Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#):
>
> _Good Omens_, by Pratchett and Gaiman, has a character named Agnes Nutter who’s a prophet. Everything she predicted turned out to be true, but her prophecies were more mundane and lacked imaginative flair, and therefore didn’t attract notice.
“Don’t buy Betamax!”
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963/9 "2014-06-17T15:36:21Z")
Cause the Bible says so. Helluva lot of prophecies in that book.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963/10 "2014-06-17T16:52:51Z")
It should be noted that the Biblical sense of “prophecy” is “something that God wants you to hear”. It might be a prediction of a future event, but it might also be “You guys right here and now are screwing up, and had best get your act together”.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-anyone-listen-to-prophecy/690963/11 "2014-06-17T18:32:13Z")
If you ignore the prophecy, it will come true nonetheless.
I once wrote a story where the seer edited the prophecy after everything was done to make it seem like it came true. Since only the seer and the protagonist knew the prophecy, it worked.