Jokes on you, it was actually the empire in the sky that would fall!..right on top of yours.
But what if “river” it’s a metaphor, huh?
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What if the ‘river’ was the artery of the dude you just stabbed to avoid crossing the actual river?
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Go enjoy mai-tais. And then it turns out that you drink a mai-tai meant for someone named River, therefore crossing them. Which just leads us back to the correct response to any prophecy being to not care about it.
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But someone needs to stop the evil empire from destroying the world, and what if the prophecy never said which exact person it was? Although in that case, “not caring” probably would be to keep going as usual, but the prophecy might give la résistance a morale boost.
(Really, it’s too bad that story of mine wouldn’t work as IF without major rehaul. I’m quite fond of the glorious mess of the prophecy in it.)
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I disagree here. Depends on setting, prophecy can be actually handy if approached with creativity. Even if the whole prophecy thing is actually fake, it can be used for convincing people to support you and your cause, or, just like @LiliArch said, boost morale.
Also, it can be Champion of the Gods situation, where Fates it’s just straight up a bitch: or you obey your fate, or it will ruin your life until you surrender.
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I hope Fate’s cleared its schedule, then, because boy howdy, is it going to be BUSY!
Paul Atreides understood it right as far as I’m concerned. Knowing the future is a curse.
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If I had some prophecy that my child would be some fabled chosen one, I think deciding to give them a “normal” childhood as long as possible would be a valid choice. Not sure it’s what I would choose myself, but as @JBento if you believe success or failure is predetermined it would be tempting to let them be happy while they could.
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UNLESS it only tells you the most likely version of the future, based on many different possible outcomes. And since people don’t typically change the prophecy, you don’t really have a way of checking if that’s still the most accurate future based on your decisions since.
Anyway, a trope I hate is when there’s a parent who loves their child dearly, BUT never tells them until they are literally dying. Like Sir Tiuri from Letter for the King who defended his son to other knights in the pub, but never said all those super nice things to the kid who thought his father hated him until he’s dying in said kid’s arms. Or the parents from A Quiet Place, who never actually sat down with their very traumatized daughter and signed, “hey, we love you, we’re happy you are here with us, and we absolutely do not blame you for your brother’s death.” Like, their other son picked up on it! He knew his sister felt unloved and guilty about what happened!
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and by then its little too late, you are past giving a shit.
I hate that!
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You are assuming that one can’t play with the certainty of a prophecy or make it plainly conditional. Divination is no different, yet if it was held as useful and real it was precisely due the fact that the fates predicted by it could be avoided. That a prophecy may describe the result of an action if that course is taken doesn’t rules out the possibillity that there is other courses, likely with less than ideal results.
And even in a deterministic setting prophecy can be used as a rather painful tool, as it is in the legend of Oedipus and other greek tragedies, for example. It doesn’t posses the usual uncertainty of other stories (will the good guys win?), but nevertheless makes for a good tale about the smallness of humanity when faced with fate, or even how the outcome we fear is usually the outcome we cause. It all depends on how you approach it.
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Wait, wait, there’s a video for sort-of this, lemme see if I can find it! Ah, here it is:
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Also in reply to this, but yes. 100% yes. I also greatly dislike this when the story acts like the years of previous bad parenting (even if it was with good intentions or for a reason or whatever) are suddenly excused because the parent said “I love you” or “I’m sorry” right before they died.
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I don’t know if I already mentioned it on this thread, but the more general version of this, commonly known as “deathbed redemption”, can go get fuuuuuuucccccckkkkkkkkkeeeeedddddddd.
Oh, you were a complete asswipe your entire life, but now that you’re dying and don’t actually have to follow through or make amends or put any effort you’re suddenly vewy vewy sowwy? Lol no.
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Or its opposite: I did bad thing, but guess what? I’m DYING!..so, killing me now would be pointless. Go on, kill me…I’m DYING! Hello…doesn’t feel good, does it? Yeah…
Yeah I’m calling you Fallout 4!
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Me splatting their face with a crowbar: just shut up and die already!
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Rinnegato get it! 
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This doesn’t even make sense as a cop-out excuse. EVERYBODY’s dying (except me; I’m hanging around foreverrrrrrrr).
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and yet…there it was.
It sucked. By then, I was so fucking Mad.