When all is said and done, The Beatryce Prophecy can be said to be about one thing above all the others that it is also about. It is about the phenomenal invested in the simple act of telling a story. And, after all, what is a prophecy, really, but a story than a story waiting for all the details to be filled in? The prophecy at the center of the narrative really could not be any simpler which, it must be noted, is the very aspect which lends prophecies their power. If you are thinking about going into the prophet business, here is some very useful advice: never add a date to your prediction, not even the most ambiguous of one. Keep it relaxed, man, and just let nature take its course. The minute you supply the moment of expectation that is then unfulfilled, you have already doomed yourself in the prophet business.
"There will one day come a girl child who will unseat a king and bring about a great change." Now that’s a prophecy! The only limitation on the when is that “one day” which is absolutely meaningless. And what of this mysterious girl? Literally, the only information about her that the prophecy contains is that she won’t be a boy. And even that is only because the story takes place, presumably anyway, in the days before gender transition opportunities became available. As for the king, well, how great is that: every single king who takes over the throne has to live in wait and worry because he’s not identified either. And then the coup de grace: this little female messenger will bring about great change in the wake of unseating a king which, technically speaking, could actually mean that she literally pushes him off the throne for five seconds before he climbs right back. The words of the prophecy are simultaneously utterly meaningless yet so packed with potential that only a king not right in the mind would choose to simply ignore. And how does it manage to pull off this pretty nifty magic act?
By telling a story. Which it does in every sense of the word. Using just nineteen words, the prophecy tells a complete story about a day that comes when some unknown little girl causes tremendous trouble for a sitting king. That is technically a story. But here’s the nifty part where magic comes in. Generally speaking, most people—and all people in power—don’t like a story with an ambiguous ending. That is not to say this applies to all people, including the writer of these words you are reading. When done right, the ambiguous ending is almost always better than one which wraps up everything nice and tidy. But people crave tidiness in their fictions because, let’s face, reality is untidy enough. And, of course, you know what happens when a story ends on a note of ambiguity, right? People looking to enforce tidiness and overrule the ambiguity do something about it.
