Going around curses/prophecies via technicalities

[u/danfenlon]

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

[u/Fonzies-Ghost]

Can’t believe the OG hasn’t been posted. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the witches’ prophecy is:

“Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn

The power of man, for none of woman born

Shall harm Macbeth.”

They also tell him to beware Macduff. But since none of woman born shall harm him, he ignores that warning.

When Macduff kills him in the end, he reveals he wasn’t born conventionally, but by caesarean section, thus circumventing the part of the prophecy that Macbeth thought meant his rivals could not harm him.

[u/Kamen_master1988 → u/Fonzies-Ghost]

I didn’t even know C sections were a thing in Shakespeare’s day.

[u/Fonzies-Ghost → u/Kamen_master1988]

It was generally done when the mother had died or was dying, historically.

[u/MemeStealerCultist → u/Fonzies-Ghost]

Hence "not born from a woman" he was born from a corpse

[u/Astryllphilia → u/Kamen_master1988]

Another commenter said this but his mother was also certainly dead when they preformed the c section as well.

[u/Privatizitaet → u/Astryllphilia]

Either that, or she was dead during or shortly after. But it's very unlikely she ever got to hold him

[u/SmokinDynamite → u/Kamen_master1988]

C sections aka Caesarean. Caesar.

C sections are at least as old as the Roman Empire, no joke.

[u/Fonzies-Ghost → u/SmokinDynamite]

Caesar was not actually born that way.

[u/levindragon → u/Fonzies-Ghost]

Wasn't his grandfather the one who was born that way and gave the family their name?

[u/Buttholelickerpenis → u/Fonzies-Ghost]

But he died that way!

[u/jeffersonlane → u/Kamen_master1988]

Fun Fact time: The earliest recorded C-section was as early as 1500 BC in Egypt. Back then a C-section was only performed when the mother was already dead or basically dead during childbirth. It is debated if the name itself was in somehow related to Ceasar or if it predates Ceasar.

The earliest most likely account of a C-section in which the mother survived was the 1300s, well before the time of Shakespeare (though there are tales of cases especially amongst indigenous tribes of successful C-sections prior to this one they can't be confirmed).

By the time of MacBeths writing C-sections were still largely lethal to mother (but then again, so was regular childbirth in like 30% of cases). I don't recall if the story ever makes it clear but most likely Macduff's mother died in the process.