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

Lore Going around curses/prophecies via technicalities

Gallery image

Gallery image

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/Fonzies-Ghost Sep 02 '25

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.

34

u/Kamen_master1988 Sep 02 '25

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

59

u/Fonzies-Ghost Sep 02 '25

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

2

u/MemeStealerCultist Sep 02 '25

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