Another book with a prophecy

The Mage-Born Child Servants of Ark Book 3 - Jonathan Wylie

Well, there are only two other commentaries on this book and neither of them give one any reason to actually go an read it (or the entire trilogy to be precise). Okay, one does say that it is enjoyable if you like high fantasy, however I must admit that I am somewhat past that stage of my life, and though I may still, and probably will, read more fantasy, I am not in any rush to go out and do so.

 

It seems that this book is about a prophecy that, when fulfilled, will pretty much solve all of the world's problems. It is interesting how a lot of fantasy books evolve around prophecies (that tend to be really short) about a person will come and solve all of the world's problems. I suspect that this comes out of our own Christian heritage, though it is interesting that the idea of the prophecy is somewhat different to how it came about in reality.

 

If you are interested to see how prophecy works in real world religions the best example would be the gospel of Matthew because that entire book is orientated around proving that Jesus Christ was the prophesied one. However, the other interesting thing is that the prophecies of Christ (if you believe in their authenticity) tend to be quite long and complicated, and open to misinterpretation. I say that because people have, and still do, believe that the prophesied Messiah would be some sort of warrior king, when in reality the Messiah was more like a sacrificial lamb. However, that does not change the fact that further prophecies still predict the second coming of Jesus as a warrior king.

 

Many of the stories that revolve around prophecies tend to revolve around short prophecies that are easy to understand and when the event happens everybody knows what is happening. Mind you, when Jesus came and started doing things the Jews, where were very familiar with the Old Testament, did recognise him, but then they still went out and killed him (because he wasn't the Messiah they wanted, but the whole idea of the death of Jesus is quite complicated with numerous competing interests, including the fact that the death was actually a part of the prophecy itself). Also, it is interesting that the fulfilment of the Christian prophecies are, in a way, only half fulfilled because it appears that the world has gone on in much the way that it has gone on before. Okay, things and attitudes have changed, and we do have human rights, democracy, and more empowerment, at least here in the Western World, but in many other ways we are still ruled by our selfish passions and our greedy nature.

Source: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/701561567