Trelawny

[Mistress Siana]

"The kid to freak out the extremely evil dude will drop in at the Hufflepuffs' summer party..."

Dumbledore: eh?
Snape: Oh man...that will not be easy to explain...
Voldemort: I'm truly scared now...Severus, here, an Aspirin, and if you ever drink again while you're on duty, it's Crucio!

Yes, the choice of words is important. *g*


I'd say who, or better, what chooses the words is...what causes the prophecy. But what exactly is it that makes somebody fall in trance and make a prophecy? Fate? Buddha? God? Marlboro, or too many mushrooms on your pizza?
The state Trelawney falls into when she makes a prophecy is somewhat like that of Ginny when she was possessed by Tom Riddle...trance, no memory, different speech patterns...so I guess Trelawney's possessed, too, in one way or another. Maybe somebody wanted to play fate and imperioed her...but no, that's unlikely. But where does it come from?

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

Words are everything when it comes to prophecies.

Because in order for a prophecy to not come true all the members involved must believe it to be wrong, or to try and prevent its occurrence.

Prophecies are interesting for discussions... but it's quite a cloudy area.

[Chimera]

Prophecy has always been tricky, throughout the fantasy genre. Had Voldemort heard the entire prophecy chances are he would not have acted on it immediately, he would've waited.

I'd like to draw a parallel with the palantir in LOTR, whenever anyone looks into it they get the truth, but not the whole truth, and bad decisions ensue. Same thing here. Any Buffy freaks here recall the end of the first season?

Prophecy gives half the info and the person acting on it makes a wrong call, things become worse for them. I guess the plot has to twist somehow...