The Chosen One: A Dead Trope?

I think the main difference between a good chosen one character and a bad one is: a good chosen one is the chosen because of who they are, while a bad chosen one is who they are because they're the chosen one.

4:09 Luke is NOT the Chosen One. He gets destroyed by the Emperor. It's Anakin who was the Chosen One and destroyed Palpatine forever, with NO chance of him coming back, bringing balance to the force, in an incredibly roundabout and complex way.

Three of my favorite chosen one characters: Aang (Avatar the Last Airbender), Po (Kungfu Panda), and surprisingly Shrek (… Shrek). They all twist the chosen one trope in interesting ways, and they also have individual, identifiable personalities.

If the hero is destined to cause the downfall of the Evil Overlord, the greatest twist would be that they're not even the one who kills them. They cause their downfall because of the friends they made along the way continuing the quest even after he dies to save them.

I was thinking, for a slighly dark twist on the chosen one, maybe have them go into adventure at first believing all will be fine and easy, the prophecy said they are going to succeed, so there's nothing to worry about. But then a companion of theirs is badly injured an dies just to protect them, and it feels odd, this person in particular was not one to do heroic sacrifices, and wasn't particularly attached to the main character. It's a death after all, so the group has their hopes put down, and starts to be more careful, nobody dares to say out loud their thoughts on how what happened doesn't make sense. Until one day, despite the care the group has been taking, they're ambushed. The softest member of the group, someone who is like a younger sibling to mc, is attacked from behind, luckly mc sees it quickly enough to help, and jumps to protect their friend. Except their body doesn't move. Their friend, who they swore to always protect, even before the prophecy, is murdered right in front of their eyes, and their body refuses to help. The little troup is now two members short, both deaths having involved someone acting in a strange way. And that's when the protagonist realises, they are the chosen one, but their friends aren't, the prophecy that guarantees mc's success doesn't protect the rest of them. On the contrary, Destiny is ready to sacrifice any of them to make sure mc is safe to fulfill the prophecy. The plot armour is made not of incredible luck, but of human shields, no matter if they're willing or not. Edit: (reply i wrote with an ending(?) because i really liked it)  @rosestar1324  nice, personaly i don't really like the concept of "traumatized people become evil", so i was thinking more the hero does it, not because they wanted to, or even had any motivation to, but simply because they had no choice. And then that's it, they feel free somehow, free of the prophecy, that sneaky curse, but that's it. There's no big feeling of accomplishment, not even any relief past the one of getting to the end of a draining long day. Such a big feat, defeating that great evil, completely worthless. And what can they do now? They're free, right, but freedom means absolutely nothing for someone who has lost everything, a husk of a person, a mere puppet of fate. They can finaly die now, though. And that sounds like it should be a relief, but somehow it isn't. The journey was so consuming they can't even find the energy to go trow themself off some cliff. How much time had it been? They don't remember. It could have been days, could have been centuries. It sure felt like a few millennia had passed since they first left home to embark on an adventure, and, at the same time, they could still feel every single death of a loved one, acquaintace or stranger like it happened not more than a couple hours ago. They were tired, so tired. With no energy left, that person who once was a hero, now a mere shadow of themself, collapses to the floor. They think maybe they should let the moss consume their body. When they touch the ground, the plants around them don't wither, maybe for the first time in an eternity.

10:10 Jolee Bindo from Knights of the Old Republic has a very interesting take on this. He tells a story of a Jedi Knight who knew he had a great destiny ahead of him thanks to the force. He does whatever he want, takes insane risks, because he knows he has a great destiny and thinks he can't be killed until that is fulfilled. Eventually, he boards an alien warlord's ship, goes to the captain and mocks him. The captain grabs him and, in his rage, throws him down a reactor shaft. The Jedi's body gets stuck in the system, blowing up the ship and saving the entire galaxy from this insane warlord. So he DID have a great destiny...

Katniss everdeen actually made a lot of sense, since she was mostly a posterfigure for the rebellion. The world didn't revolve around her. She was just a convenient symbol.

There is nothing wrong with the chosen one trope, or any other trope for that matter. Things don't become tropes unless people enjoy them. The problem is that there is a lot of bad writers that give every trope a bad reputation. When done properly the chosen one can be a lot of fun.

I remember almost a decade ago I tried to participate with a small group of artists to make a story together. Each artists (back then we were only six) invented a character with a different background from the rest- Supposedly, they were chosen by a long lost god to be disciples, and were meant to face a conflict that was causing serious damage to their world. One of the characters was a low-rank soldier in charge of looking after the first chosen one, a little girl who had little ways to defend herself in a real battle. The soldier in question was constantly weirded out by how "destiny" was making their trip convenient- crossing paths normally staked with bandits without a problem, or arriving at the last tavern in town to find there was still one room vacant. It was ridiculous. It was as the story went on some red flags started to appear, and it started to look like they were stopping an evil on behalf of a greater one. They noticed their "boons" were taking bits of themselves in order to function, overall, it started to look more like a curse than a blessing. We didnt got to the end because a couple went to college that year, but it was an interesting story! It's good to hear we were going in a somewhat correct way to structure the story!

My favorite "Chosen One" is the Nerevarine. There's a lot of ambiguity over whether the player character is really the Nerevarine or just someone who happened to fulfill the requirements along the way and earn Azura's favor.

I never needed the Blank Slate type to imagine myself in a character's shoes. It is imagination, after all. It's not that hard to imagine other viewpoints or lifestyles. And it makes you a much stronger and more likable person to be able to do so.

My favourite chosen one scenario is probably that of Saitama in One Punch Man. Where he is so immensely overpowered that he can win every and any battle with the titular single punch. This brings great boredom and depression to the protagonist as he's robbed of the satisfaction of genuine struggle when fighting. So the story focuses on everything other than the fights. He is so inept at most other things. Especially charisma and leadership. So he goes largely unnoticed and misunderstood by the general public that ascribes his feats to the more PR driven Heroes Association.

Because he was supposed to destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!!! Also, because he hates sand. And he's terrible with kids...

My favorite thing about chosen ones overlaps a lot with superhero genre stories. You may know, with reasonable certainty, that the hero is going to win over the villain. You don't know what the cost will be. You don't know what kind of person the hero will be at the end of their journey. You don't know what will be endured or sacrificed. You don't know what will happen to them after that particular fate is fulfilled. Chosen one, like you mentioned with Dune, doesn't necessarily mean happily ever after. Even if things are mostly okay, that doesn't mean there aren't scars left from the journey as happens to Frodo in Lord of the Rings. And chosen ones can still feel terror, or despair. Fate can be a trap leading to learned helplessness. Imo when humans are thrown into those situations, things get complicated real fast just because people are messy. More happens than what is scripted.

The weird thing about this trope is that the most famous, popular versions of the Chosen One )in Western culture, at least) actually fail at their great task. Achilles, whom you mentioned, doesn’t cause the fall of Troy. He is killed before Odysseus invents his clever trick to take the city. Arthur fails to repulse the Saxon invaders, and is killed by his wife’s lover or his own bastard son, leaving no heir to his throne. Heracles suffers from fits of madness after achieving his destiny, killing his wife and children—twice. Notoriously, the two most famous Chosen Ones in the English canon also fail. Hamlet never really reveals his uncle to be the murderer of his father Hamlet the King, and he too dies with no heir. In Macbeth, an evil Chosen One kills the entire family of the good Chosen One, and then dies offstage, alone and hunted down like a dog. Again, the Chosen One has no heir. The granddaddy of all European Chosen Ones, Odin, leads the Mighty Aesir into battle with the forces of Evil and Chaos—and is eaten by Fenris Wolf in one bite, having not even slain one opponent. In a weird way, the way that we use the trope today is kind of a subversion of what the original archetype was.

I really like the way Morrowind handles the Chosen One trope. The Chosen One isn't some pre-destined individual, but anyone who appears and grows to fulfil the prophesied characteristics of the 'Nerevarine'. Not decided at birth, but something you become over the course of a journey. You even find your predecessors who tell you about their life stories. You could even clear the game while refusing to follow the prophecy entirely.

Look, just because fate is with you doesn't mean that it'll be nice to you, just look at oedipus, he still curses about it to this day, so much so that you think "you kiss your adoptive mother with that mouth?" He kills those who forget to add the adoptive part

There is a type of nightmarish oneiric rules that Fated Chosen Heroes have to follow in which if they are fated to suffer tragedy, no amount of plot armor will save them from the inevitability of loss already destined to befall upon them. If the hero is fated to slay a great adversary, even if the hero grows attachment, doubt or even love against said adversary it must come true. The potential of stories like this is a type if subtle meta-narrative in which if the Chosen Hero is aware of the ordeals and gauntlets of challenges they must partake the stress and pressure becomes overwhelming to the point of dreadfulness. The Chosen is a nomadic and unstable entity, one who is troubled by capricious and trivial laws of storytelling to ignore its specific desires and follow a greater will that is vague to them but clear to the reader. It would be frustrating if there was a grand plan, and the Hero had no real choice in the matter. It could even be quite tragic, that not even premature death will stop the dramatic resurrection from rest of this Hero, for their task may not be over. And maybe, never will.

One of the things I enjoy with the Chosen One archetype is that they may win, but the prophecy rarely states the cost, the losses, the struggle, the tragic joy of being functionally immortal while no one else in your story has the same benefit. Want to make friends? Roll the dice. Want to take a risk? What can you wager besides the lives of others? And when you lose-- because that's more interesting than the Mary Sue approach-- what will it do to you? Will you soldier on? Or will you resist? Will you defeat the villain with gusto? Or with a sick, tired rage? Are you fighting a villain? a fate? a world that chose you to be the one exception to all the rules and damned be your actual wants? There is much that can be done here. And that's just on the Chosen One's side! What about those who travel with him? How far will they go? What will they do? How will the react to being the reliable risk? Do they get close to him and hope for the best? Do they push him away as a hazard magnet? Ah, the richness of material!

Evangelion has one of the greatest takes on this concept in how being “the chosen one” can literally destroy you.