Any fan of fantasy novels, movies, comics or games has undoubtedly ran into one particular trope of the genre that I can not stand: "The Chosen One."
The "Chosen One" is a common way for creators to try to add weight to their characters, particularly the protagonist. By making the character somehow destined to do some great big thing they immediately become important to the reader. In theory at least. I personally run into the trope all of the time when reading fantasy novels, watching underrated movies or young adult books as of lately (more on this in a minute) and it almost always ruins the story for me. These are three reasons why I hate "Chosen Ones."
1. It Is Literally An Author Inserted Spoiler
Have you ever started to read a fantasy book and immediately in the first few chapters or paragraphs we hear some prophecy or someone tells the main character that they are destined to do some great thing? I almost guarantee you have. Were you surprised when at the end of the novel, or at the end of the three books in the series, the main character actually does the thing they were told they would do? I also guarantee that, and I guarantee you were not the least bit surprised when that happened. Many times "Chosen Ones" literally spoil the end of stories. You could make the argument that if you are reading a story just for the ending that you are reading it for the wrong reason and I do agree with that. I can put up with a "Chosen One" story if the majority of it is focused on something aside from it.
A good example would be the "Harry Potter" series. Part of why "Harry Potter" is a good story is because of the fact it takes Harry, the "boy who lived," which is basically a new version of the "Chosen One" and doesn't throw it in your face or make it the central focus of the story. Despite being ultimately destined to be the one to defeat Voldemort, Harry still has weakness unlike most "Chosen Ones." The books also spend more time focused on developing side characters, explaining the imaginative wizard world and several other details that take our attention away from how basic the main character arc is. If someone is going to write a "Chosen One" based story do something like that so that your story actually has a reason to be read past chapter three, or have a twist at the end involving the "Chosen One" prophecy.
2. A Cheap Way To Avoid Character Development
This is where the Young Adult genre has gone overboard lately. Society has had a recent shift in the past few years towards a more progressive and accepting world where anyone can be anything. I for the most part have agreed with these movements and unsurprisingly it has been reflected in recent writing. If i read one more story though where "a young teen is revealed to be incredibly important and different" and then the whole story is just people going "your incredible and different" I am going to scream.
Making a character a "Chosen One" is not a character development. I get that the idea is that you see the character as a reflection of yourself and the idea is if you feel you are important you will relate to the character and keep reading. This has never worked for me and sorry if this is mean but I only think weak minds actually fall for it. For me to care about a character that person needs to seem real and in real life if someone's whole personality was "I'm important" I put myself as far away from them as possible. "Chosen Ones" can have character! Give them weaknesses, make them not want to be the "Chosen One" or just make them people! Just do anything but THIS!
3. Lack of Originality
It would be kind of cruel and misleading to say I hate the "Chosen One" because it has been done for so long. It is literally one of the central stories that any person can tell and the idea of it has been around since humans were able to tell stories. Almost all major religions follow the idea of a "Chosen One" such as a messiah or prophet. What I don't like is how nobody ever does anything new with it. Books where the character is told they will do something and then just kinda do it and it all ends like that are so freaking dull. To me it is the equivalently of reading about someone just going from point A to point B and just stopping. There is no reason to ever read the story again. Maybe not even a reason to read it in the first place.
On the other hand, Authors who recognize the "Chosen One" trope and play around with it are some of my favorites. An example could be the "Percy Jackson" series. Many of those books follow Percy and his friends as they go on interesting quest with Greek mythological aspects. At the start of most of their quest they are told some prophecy that basically foreshadows the events of the quest. Where the Author Rick Riordan does it right is the fact that his prophecies are never straight out. They are usually in a poetic form and do not outright say anything they just hint at stuff that might happen. This indirect style means the reading makes their own conclusions and most of the time those conclusions turn out to be wrong. Being able to trick the reader is such an important part of storytelling and the "Chosen One" almost always ruins it.
