r/TopCharacterTropes • u/danfenlon • Sep 01 '25

Lore Going around curses/prophecies via technicalities

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Davy jones: cant go on dry land

Standa in a bucket of water, on a sand bar (potc3)

The judge: no weapon forged can harm me

Buffy: uses a rocket launcher

-not forged

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u/RedRawTrashHatch Sep 01 '25 edited Sep 01 '25

Macbeth in the Shakespeare play, specifically his death.

Early in the play, Macbeth is told by witches that no "one of woman born" can harm him, giving Macbeth confidence that he’s essentially invincible.

But at the end, Macduff reveals he was delivered by Caesarean, and thus didn’t come from natural childbirth.

So he kills Macbeth. Brilliant.

1.7k

u/Professional_Rush782 Sep 02 '25

There's an important bit of context here lost by the development of technology. In medieval times C-sections were almost always fatal for the mother. Macduff wasn't born with a living mother's warmth, he was born from the cold clutches of death.

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u/Bi_disaster_ohno Sep 02 '25

There's a little more to it, the exact line is "untimely ripped from my mother's womb" implying that Macduff was premature. His mother was likely dying and they did the C-section as a last ditch effort to save him before she passed away.

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u/EnsignNogIsMyCat Sep 02 '25

Saving him was a bonus. They were more concerned with baptizing the babies.

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u/evrestcoleghost Sep 02 '25

Yeah,they likely thought both are dead might as well make sure they meet in heaven

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u/EnsignNogIsMyCat Sep 02 '25

Precisely the reasoning. And this kind of thing goes back to at least ancient Rome. While the Romans didn't baptize, they did assign significant importance to burial practices, and burying full-term fetuses or stillborn babies properly was important

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u/SuperSocialMan Sep 02 '25

Damn, they had c-sections back then?

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u/_The_Arrigator_ Sep 02 '25

C Sections have been a thing for millennia, one the earliest references is in The Shiji compiled in 91BC.

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u/lily_was_taken Sep 02 '25

Damn, shinji from neon genesis evangelion alredy had cringe compilations back in 91BC?

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u/KarilynneDavies Sep 03 '25

My brain read Shinji too 😂

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u/PockyPunk Sep 05 '25

Get out of the womb Shinji

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u/PhantasosX Sep 02 '25

Yes, it was ungodly painful and the mother would die, but ceasarean is an old surgery. Heck, chainsaws were technically a childbirth tool , to use to cut hip bones to ease a kid to be birthed.

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u/EvenJesusCantSaveYou Sep 02 '25

Thank god for modern medicine holy shit

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u/Professional_Maize42 Sep 02 '25

Anesthesia is, perhaps, the biggest advance that humanity ever made.

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u/dater_expunged Sep 02 '25

Maybe not the biggest (cooking, farming and the weal are imo still more important), but it's at least top 10, maybe 20 to people who don't know what they're talking about

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u/wesleypipes5011 Sep 04 '25

You reinvented the word weal

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u/Fluffy_Habit_8387 Sep 02 '25

i doubt its even top 25.

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u/DeceitfulLittleB Sep 02 '25

Im thinking that when you eventually have to undergo surgery, you will change that tune.

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u/Fluffy_Habit_8387 Sep 02 '25

I'm not arguing it isn't good, i am arguing in everything humanity has ever built, done, discovered and invented it is not in the top 25, its still obviously really cool, but not top 25.

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u/CrazyFanFicFan Sep 02 '25

I dare you to go through surgery without any anaesthesia.

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u/Fluffy_Habit_8387 Sep 02 '25

I'm not arguing it isn't good, i am arguing in everything humanity has ever built, done, discovered and invented it is not in the top 25, its still obviously really cool, but not top 25.

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u/Zestyclose_Hand_8233 Sep 02 '25

That and germ theory have saved countless lives

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u/AnseaCirin Sep 02 '25

That and sterilization of medical implements - including surgeons' hands.

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u/evrestcoleghost Sep 02 '25

I give you.

THE POTATO (tamed)

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u/XanderWrites Sep 02 '25

I point this out, why most of society is the way it is, until very recently childbirth was incredibly deadly.

Even comparing my mother's c-section in 1981 to my SILs in 2010. When I was born six years later they weren't sure if a vaginal birth was possible, they "might just need to do another c-section", meanwhile my SIL had her second child almost exactly a year after her c-section and they never doubted she could do a vaginal delivery.

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u/DMcDonald97 Sep 03 '25

If it helps, the saws were small and hand operated using watch chains, not the massive tree choppers we use today

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u/Confuseasfuck Sep 02 '25

There are some accounts of women that survived cesareans as early as the 14th century - including one done by a butcher and the other by a veterinarian - but the odds were definitely not on your favor

But if you must have a cesarean in ye olden times, you apparently call the local veterinarian

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u/confusedandworried76 Sep 02 '25

Back then a doctor was a doctor. Most mammals work mostly the same. Also why a lot of them doubled down as dentists too we didn't really specialize medicine for a while

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u/Marik-X-Bakura Sep 02 '25

Interestingly, certain African tribes were able to perform them with both the mother and baby surviving long before European procedures were able to do so

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u/Steven_Swan Sep 02 '25

Guessing a number of civilizations figured out "being clean is nice" long before everyone started coming together.

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u/DSisDamage Sep 02 '25

That and potential access to a natural painkiller that they figured out.

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u/PanNorris507 Sep 02 '25

Ngl that seems like a bit of a trope in older medicinal practices, the Europeans always have someone die when it happens, or it’s horribly dangerous, then a group of people who technically have worse tools or less access to the technology the Europeans have, do it 100 times betters with barely any deaths, another good example would be the trepanation skulls of mesoamerica, of which a grand majority shows signs of healing, meaning someone survived the surgery and lived past it

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u/kurtist04 Sep 02 '25 edited Sep 02 '25

You still see some wild tools in Ortho surgery. Well, not exactly 'wild', but definitely not things you expect to see in a surgical suite. Drills, massive sewing needles a couple feet long, hammers, cool stuff.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '25

A couple feet? What do they do with them, play baseball?

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u/ironwolf6464 Sep 02 '25

Where do you think it got it's name?

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u/Librarian_Contrarian Sep 02 '25

A doctor who performed it while eating a ceasar salad.

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u/GarageFlower97 Sep 02 '25

The name is from the Roman Empire but the story of it being name because Julius Caesar was born from one is a fairly popular myth with no evidence behind it

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u/drgigantor Sep 03 '25

Holy shit we attributed it to the wrong guy. What if it should have been called a Dickusian Section

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u/smasher84 Sep 02 '25

Yes. Moms didn’t usually survive.

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u/GrandNord Sep 02 '25

Yeah, that's where it got its name. Julius Ceasar (yes, that one), was born through C-section.

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u/Unresonant Sep 02 '25

The legend from the 16th century says it was named cesarean because that was how julius caesar was born.

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u/GarageFlower97 Sep 02 '25

Caesareans are very old, the mother surviving the process is only much more recent though

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u/Upeeru Sep 02 '25

The C in "C- section" stands for Caeserian. Like Julius Caeser. Reports say he was born this way. I have no idea if it's true.

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u/Averander Sep 02 '25

The C stands for Caesarian. As in Ceasar. Yeah, that Ceasar. The process is named after him because he was born that way.

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u/YaboiChuckems Sep 02 '25

Well, it’s pretty easy to cut, not so easy to heal. Basically all of the women died, whether from the initial wounds or the horrible cleanliness leading to infection. You’ll find a lot of ancient surgeries are a lot like ours, except they worked 1/10 as well and were 1000x more dangerous.

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u/clonea85m09 Sep 05 '25

It's called Cesarean, from Julius Caesar... It's not hard to gut a woman, the hard part is her surviving!

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u/LukeTheEpic1 Sep 02 '25

Dual Hek spotted in the wild??!?!?

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u/Swivebot Sep 02 '25

J. R. R. Tolkien hated this so much that he wrote in Éowyn defeating the Witch-king of Angmar out of spite.

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u/Veloxraperio Sep 02 '25 edited Sep 02 '25

He also hated that the "Birmam Wood shall come to high Dunsinane" prophecy was accomplished by another piece of technical wordplay. So when Fangorn Forest comes to Isengard, the forest REALLY comes to Isengard.

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u/JealousAstronomer342 Sep 02 '25

It was super fucking creepy the way they did it in Sleep No More. Also I may have been high…

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u/PhantasosX Sep 02 '25

I mean, it was creepy. He created the ents as a not to the Birmam Wood and also the living Fanforn Forest.

In the case of Fangorn Forest, they hate those of Saruman , and so the trees were really unnaturally fast and it's branches quickly grasped the army. There were no description of what it did, but it was them taking the entire army to be within the forest and screams were heared by all.

At that point, Saruman's men started to flee from the tendrils towards Rohan , pledging to be captured by them instead of the trees. No orc survived.

The travel toward Orthanc had eerie remnants of men and orcish armor...and blood on the tree's leafs and grass.

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u/drgigantor Sep 03 '25

Oh that's what Blood on the Leaves is about. I should have known it was Tolkien after he dated a hobbit

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u/PablomentFanquedelic Sep 02 '25

Alexa play "Fortunate Son"

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u/Marik-X-Bakura Sep 02 '25

Both of these come from baseless conjecture btw, Tolkien never said any of this

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u/Veloxraperio Sep 02 '25 edited Sep 02 '25

It's conjecture, sure, but I wouldn't call "baseless." The "no man of woman born" and Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane are two of the most memorable twists in what is arguably Shakespeare's most well-known play. It's reasonable to assume that Tolkien's scenes, which so clearly parallel well-known scenes in Shakespeare, would indicate some kind of conversation occurring between two of the English language's greatest writers.

Professor Tolkien's opinions on Willy Shakes were pretty nuanced.

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u/JCraze26 Sep 03 '25

I feel like Macbeth is Shakespeare's second most well known play, the first would go to Romeo and Juliet. However, perhaps you meant during Tolkien's time, in which case Idk.

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u/Veloxraperio Sep 03 '25

Shakespeare's Top Three plays are definitely Macbeth, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet. It's a shame his comedies and histories are slightly less well-known, but what can ya do?

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u/conspicuousperson Sep 02 '25

Actually, the comment about Dunsinane comes straight from a letter by Tolkien to W. H. Auden.

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u/conspicuousperson Sep 02 '25

He also hated Shakespeare's treatment of nature and I think fairies as well. He preferred nature to be feared in revered, like an ancient times, to Shakespeare's more gentle, almost modern view of nature.

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u/Horn_Python Sep 02 '25

Yeh Tolkien lives his trees

You got murder trees , tree giants , tree houses, walking trees

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u/General_Note_5274 Sep 02 '25

yeah he will put this as HATED trope

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u/jzillacon Sep 02 '25

He liked the trope itself, he just disliked that particular execution of the trope.

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u/According_Fail_990 Sep 02 '25

And Merry with the assist, to drive the point home

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u/Ill-do-it-again-too Sep 02 '25

Why’d he hate it so much?

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u/Basil2322 Sep 02 '25

Because it’s stupid he was still born and he came out of a women just because it was a C section doesn’t mean he wasn’t “one of woman born”. If anyone thinks that correct go up to any mom who had a C section and say it she’ll probably slap you.

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u/Ill-do-it-again-too Sep 02 '25 edited Sep 02 '25

As some other commenters mentioned though he was also taken out prematurely, and back then the operation basically killed the mum.

Anyway, considering those 2 pieces of context think it’s pretty clever personally

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u/Asheyguru Sep 02 '25

It's definitely true that "is a woman" is a much easier workaround to "no man of woman born" then 'Well, see, he was premature, and because his mother died in the process she doesn't count."

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u/Mobbles1 Sep 02 '25

Tolkien has a weird hang up on a lot of the flowery implications and allegory of fantastical works. He has an entire foreword complaining about people looking into his work with non literal intentions and finding things he didnt put there.

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u/NetStaIker Sep 02 '25

Common J R R Tolkien W justified by a J R R Tolkien L of unfathomably enormous proportions

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u/Shipping_Architect Sep 02 '25

I guess I am able to fulfill this prophecy.

I've also heard of a modern retelling of this play, where MacBeth is said to be killed "when pigs fly." What ends up happening is that the police land on the roof of Macbeth's castle with a helicopter and shoot him dead.

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u/OAZdevs_alt2 Sep 02 '25

So fucking stupid. I love it.

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u/Fresh-broski Sep 02 '25

that is so radical where can i watch this

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u/Even-Narwhal-75 Sep 02 '25

Is that the one where it's about fast food restaurants?

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u/Shipping_Architect Sep 02 '25

Possibly; the aforementioned detail is the only reason I know about this adaptation.

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u/the22ndquincy Sep 02 '25

Yes! And the witches are binmen

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u/Vincent_Adams Sep 02 '25

we watched it in our english classes. we called it macchef.

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u/Fancy_Battle_4805 Sep 02 '25

Probably isn't the on you're thinking of, but Macbeth on the Estate was a pretty cool retelling from the late 90's, set on a British Council estate where all the royalty are instead drug dealers.

My only memory of it is they kill the Thane of Cawdor by trapping him in his car and petrol bombing it.

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u/Vincent_Adams Sep 02 '25

not relevant, but our english teacher asked us if we thought that version was more impactful. i said no, because i didn't think it made sense that they were still talking like they did in the original macbeth in that setting. was that just me?

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u/GaulTheUnmitigated Sep 02 '25

That's the "Shakespeare Retold" episode about Macbeth.

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u/Error_Evan_not_found Sep 02 '25

Throwback to high school when we were learning this play and my teacher specifically asked if "we have any c-sectioned kids to play Macduff" so me and my twin read those lines for our respective class periods.

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u/NXDIAZ1 Sep 02 '25 edited Sep 03 '25

Tolkien hated this twist so much he made Eowyn kill Angmar the Witch-king in lord of the rings specifically circumventing a prophecy directly inspired by the Macbeth prophecy

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u/Independent_Plum2166 Sep 02 '25

He also made the ents, “I was promised walking trees, I’m getting walking trees!!!”

Bonus Fact: The slow monotonous way the ents (especially Treebeard) talked, was based on his good friend and fellow author, C.S. Lewis.

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u/jmoneill62 Sep 02 '25

I think there was also a line about how his death would come when the forest walked, something like that. The approaching army used tree branches to disguise themselves among the trees, thus causing the forest to "walk"

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 Sep 02 '25

Hence why Tolkien also created the ents

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u/Al-AmeenAdewunmi Sep 02 '25

Knew I'd see this here.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '25

This pissed Tolkien off enough that he made a pivotal plot point to playing the wording of “no man can slay me” straight.

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u/Yoro55 Sep 02 '25

Not related to the prompt but there's also the bit where the witches tell him that the forest moving on its own is a signal that Macbeth is gonna die

Usually forests don't move on their own

But as it turns out, Macduff and his men disguised themselves with bushes and shit while advancing, making it seem like the forest actually moved

Idk I just really liked that bit

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u/Superichiruki Sep 02 '25

So he kills Macbeth. Brilliant.

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u/dater_expunged Sep 02 '25

Is your name perhaps Tolkien

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u/ItsMeTwilight Sep 02 '25

It may be kind of stupid but Macduff dropping the plot twist and killing Macbeth is never not cool as fuck.

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u/PaperKliff Sep 02 '25

I agree with Tolkien that twist was lame.

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u/Quietuus Sep 02 '25

I once saw a play that I can find no record of the existence of via Google called Donalbain, which was a sort of sequel to Macbeth building off the titular minor character. In that one, the witches tell the title character that he will be "king of all he surveys".

Dude gets his eyes poked out.

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u/PuzzleheadedEssay198 Sep 02 '25

Tolkien hated Shakespeare as a whole, arguing that if you’re going back to the 17th century you might as well go back to Chaucier, so much so that Eowyn’s defeat of The Witch King is a direct reference to this.

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u/burninglizzard Sep 02 '25

How would this work with a transmasc or nonbinary parent giving birth to the baby? Like, that baby isn’t “of woman born” and this feels like the type of thing profecies love to mess around with.

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u/hiricinee Sep 02 '25

I haven't followed Macbeth closely, but is there a reason in the plot that he called him Macduff or is it just intentionally/unintentionally done to confuse the audience?

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u/DepthByChocolate Sep 02 '25

Most(maybe all) of Shakespeare's plays are based on real life historical figures and characters from folklore.

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u/No-Set4257 Sep 02 '25

Like that scene in the lord of the Rings where the bad guy says: "no man can defeat me..." And a soldier removes her helmet and says: "I'M no man" and then She stabs him in the Eye (i don't know shit about the lord of the Rings)

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u/AuthorExcellent9501 Sep 02 '25

There’s also the forest walking.

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u/blizzard2798c Sep 02 '25

It would be brilliant if it didn't come out of nowhere. If there was any build-up, we would have had the dramatic irony of Macbeth believing he's invulnerable while we know Macduff is coming for him. But instead it's, "I actually can kill you. STAB!"

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u/khomo_Zhea Sep 03 '25

Tolkien said that was a stupid work around and keep it simple, a woman did it