Being Aware

People who are aware of cycles are the ones who destroy them.  This thought popped into my head earlier.  It's always the characters who are aware of the doomsday prophecy that are able to prevent it.  Those who are aware of an infinite loop in time that break the cycle.  Any time things always have been a certain way, or something is destined to change things forever, it is always somebody cognizant of this that changes it.

There are some exceptions to this.  You could specifically subvert it by writing a story of The Fool who blindly changes the fate of the world without ever realizing it.  But this is largely a subversion, something done because the opposite is so prevalent.

I suppose it makes sense that this is the way.  We like to be aware.  Stories are more powerful when the heroes know what they are doing and we are rooting for them to succeed.  A story where things change by sheer happenstance will have trouble gripping an audience.  It turns into just a bunch of stuff that happened.

What I think is interesting is how often being aware is implicitly good.  The more we know, the better off we are.  If we didn't know what was going on, we would never be able to stop the evil or save the world.  But there is also an implicit danger.  Sometimes things are fine the way they are.  If nothing has changed in hundreds of years, maybe that's because it works.  There are cautionary tales about the danger of knowledge.  One of them is in Genesis.  Humans were kicked out of Eden because of gaining knowledge.

Of course, the tale of Adam and Eve could also speak to the sheer power of curiosity.  Humans just have this burning desire to know stuff (at least, some of us do).  Even when we know something is dangerous, we still have to do it so we can see or experience it for ourselves.

Whether knowledge is good or bad in your eyes, it is a factor.  People will act very differently in a situation based on how much they are aware of at the time.  If you are the writer, you are aware of pretty much everything, but that doesn't mean your characters do.  When they are faced with a decision, ask yourself, what are they aware of, and how would they act based on what they know?