fandomhigh | Good Omens...And Bad: Prophecy in Theory and Practice, Class Ten

Monday, November 13, First Period

The classroom is in its usual arrangement, with the usual spread of hot drinks and pastries. Although not quite what was available at the Tangiers, unfortunately.

"Good morning. I hope you all got a good rest last night. Today we're going to discuss what you observed over the weekend. Also, please remember that your group projects are due this week. You can submit them today, or there will be a box outside my office all week. Also, don't forget to turn in last week's homework assignment."

LECTURE: "Over the weekend you observed 'professional' fortune tellers plying their trade. Tell the class something about your experience -- what did you observe, how accurate did the predictions seem, what tricks might they have used to make their predictions seem more personal than they really were?

In some places, public fortune telling is outlawed entirely, while other places have laws against telling fortunes for money. Do you believe that divination for profit should be against the law? Should it be regulated in some way?"

HOMEWORK: Finish your group projects and submit them by Friday. Mr Joxer and Miss Rutledge, I know your group has diminished significantly. Please see me after class if you have concerns about your project. [ooc: See the group project thread below for more details.]

Project Groups:
Blair, Phoebe, Belthazor, Lavender
Anders, Nadia, Walter, Pippi
Bridge, Dean, Dawn, Sam
Marty, John Connor, Lyra, Eric
Joxer, ~~Agnes~~, Maia, ~~John Constantine~~

Syllabus
Class Roster
Classes Linkdrop

ETA: "I need excuses from the following students regarding your absence from last Friday's lab."

Bridge Carson
~~Lyra Belacqua~~ excused

[ooc: ~~Please wait patiently for~~ Your patience has been rewarded. OCD is now up.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Write a brief essay on the pros and cons of being the object of a prophecy. How could it benefit the person Chosen, how could that person's being Chosen benefit others? Inversely, how could being the Chosen of a prophecy turn out to be more of a curse than a blessing?

Bel *handwavey* turned in his half-assed homework attempt.

Joxer turned in a piece of paper with a stick figure drawing of a woman in leather, a horse, a woman in some sort of ancient Greek green sports bra, and a mighty warrior in a pointy helmet.

Lyra turned in her homework, of course. It wasn't half bad, considering that she took the angle she had in class, that is: what if someone didn't know thye were the subject of a prophecy. The paper is littlered with personal anecdotes to support her theories.

Prophecies: How it sucks when it relates to you
Or
Why Nostradamus can suck my *Expletive Deleted*

by Martin Q. Blank

Oh sure, prophecies can be nifty keen when you are enjoying the fortune cookie with the check from your Chinese dinner. Who wouldn't want to meet a tall and handsome stranger? Especially if they pay for said dinner check.

Yeah, we all want the cool prophecies like "You are destined to be rich and powerful" or "You will save the world's population of Spotted Owls by banning toothpicks" or even the unbelievable "The Cubs will win the World Series in 2007". But when you get the prophecies like "You are destined to drown in a shallow pool of water for no good reason" or "You're going to save the world from a zombie invasion but will have to sacrifice your life" or "Go directly to Jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200"... Yeah. You're pretty much screwed.

On the other hand the rest of the world gets to live; Spotted Owl McNuggets will be featured at your local McDonald's and whoever gets to win Monopoly only wins play money, not real ones. Unless of course you are playing strip Monopoly and then you're just nekkid and in handcuffs.

I can't believe I just wrote that.

So to sum up:

1. Prophecies usually suck when you're the one being talked about.
2. Spotted Owl McNuggets? Really tasty in BBQ sauce.
3. I've never played strip Monopoly.

[*loves*

*A++*]

Dean turned in his essay, which listed some good and bad things that could come out of being the focus of a prophecy, which boiled down to having forewarning versus psyching yourself out. He also wrote that prophecies should be given no more weight than any other form of intell and that you could get in trouble if you made it be a big thing that overpowered everything else.

Anders's homework was more of a rant than an essay, really. And you could have substituted "sports star" for "Chosen person" at just about any point. Goes to show you where his brain was this morning . . . or what was left of it after the weekend, anyway.

Depending on how people take the prophecy, the Chosen person could really get a huge status boost from it. Lots of respect, attention, maybe a huge contract and bonuses. And everybody else? Well, people need idols sometimes. Status symbols. Role models or people to look up to, to inspire them or give them hope or something.

But that could get to the Chosen person's head after a while, if they're constantly aware of it, and make them completely unfit to carry out their end of the bargain. And then people would be all "Oh, look at that egomaniac," and start to lose respect, and then it's all downhill from there, isn't it?

Nadia turned in a long, rather bitchy kind of essay about how being the object of a prophesy completely sucked because people tried to use you and kidnap you and generally do horrible things.

At the very end of the essay, though, she turned around slightly and pointed out that maybe, just maybe, if she actually, say, went along with the prophesy, there might be some benefits, like, say, eternal life.

Pippi's paper is a bit rambly and states that being the object of a prophesy as it could give one a sense of purpose but would also suck as prophesy is very open to misinterpretation and people can be very zealous when they think they're Doing The Right Thing.

I have yet to see a prophecy benefit the person Chosen. Pain, immense responsibility, and general suckitude seem prevalent. Also, just because a person is Chosen doesn't mean that they're intellectually or emotionally prepared to deal with their lot in life.

Oh, sure, they may say they are and give ~~many, many,~~ many speeches to that effect, but that doesn't make it true. There are also increased expectations on the subject of the prophecy, under the theory that the Fates, the Powers that Be, or whomever is In Charge of the Universe wouldn't Choose the Village Idiot ~~entertaining as that might be.~~ If the wrong person is Chosen, or refuses their Duty, people can die. The same thing can happen if they believe so strongly in the prophecy that they ignore what their common sense and instincts are telling them.

On the other hand, if the correct person has been Chosen, they can save the world, and do on occasion.

Weiss turned in the assignment. *handwaves*

John handwaved an essay about how it's mostly a bad deal to be a prophesy focus. Totally not drawn from personal experience. No, it's an emperical paper through and thorugh.

Phoebe turned in a rather long paper about the pros and cons about being part of a prophecy. She also included how painful such a thing could be to a person emotionally.

Sam turned in his ~~handwavey~~ slightly-longer-than-brief essay.

Good Omens...And Bad: Prophecy in Theory and Practice, Class Ten

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