History Main / MadOracle

* In ''Manga/FourKnightsOfTheApocalypse'', the WaifProphet Guinevere causes a commotion when she kisses a total stranger- one four years older than her, to boot. She insists it's fine because [[AgeGapAlgebra they will get together several years in the future]]; the severely shaken boy does '''not''' agree. Although Guinevere's case is less "foresight makes you crazy" than "foresight exacerbates the selfishness and impulsivity you already have". She knows exactly what she's doing; she just doesn't care.

* ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'''s Postbag from the Hedge pages sometimes have the Chaos Elemental give cryptic hints of future content.

* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': The GodEmperor Jadis used her powers to create a {{Magitek}} device to observe the True Shape of the Multiverse, which gave her [[TheOmniscient absolute omniscience towards everything inside said Multiverse]]. Unfortunately for her, this complete and perfect knowledge drove her mad and hit Jadis with a BrownNote that crippled her body and ravaged her mind. The experience made a tyrant goddess who can do almost anything [[DeathSeeker seek to curl into a ball and die]], with the unfortunate caveat that [[PrescienceIsPredictable Jadis knows exactly]] ''[[PrescienceIsPredictable when]]'' [[PrescienceIsPredictable she's going to die]] [[AndIMustScream and can do nothing to change it]]. Jadis' prophecies are perfect and she's never wrong, but as Jadis lives her life on auto-pilot she has a tendency to be highly obtuse and unhelpful, on top of being easily misinterpreted because she's barely capable of speech.

* Serth, aka The Meressian Oracle from ''TheMapToEverywhere''. He was driven mad after seeing how the Pirate Stream was going to end, up to the point that he was convinced that it was inevitable.

* ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'': The Prophet was once a hermit who preached that the Ancestor's research would bring doom to the Hamlet and tried to turn the people against him. After several failed attempts to murder the man, the Ancestor showed him ''exactly'' what he was working on. The Prophet [[GoMadFromTheRevelation went completely over the edge]], [[EyeScream gouged out his own eyes in horror]], and fled into the depths of the Ruins, where he raised an army of cultists and mad-men to serve the very evil that he tried to stop with everything he had before his fall from sanity.

The good news about this character is that they can see the future. The bad news is that it turns out that seeing the future is not good for your mental health. Perhaps it's the [[ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow stress of breaking through the boundaries of time]], perhaps it's the strain of seeing so much all at once, possibly including alternative futures. It could be that now they can see the future, the concepts of time and causality don't make sense anymore. Maybe they can't handle seeing the truly BadFuture awaiting them. Or it could be that [[PowerBornOfMadness they are only able to see the future because they are mad]], writers often don't distinguish. Either way what we have here is easily one of the most useful and irritating types of Seer. Work out what they mean and you have genuine cast iron visions, [[PoorCommunicationKills get confused or ignore it and you will find it coming back to bite you]].

* ''Literature/TheThirteenthWarrior''. The protagonists go to consult an old woman who supposedly knows how to defeat the 'demons' who are attacking them. A local girl mentions that she's quite mad, whereupon one of the Vikings replies sarcastically: "The perfect advisor."

* ''Series/AlteredCarbon''. Lizzie Elliot had already been tortured into insanity and was then given psychiatric treatment by ArtificialIntelligence Poe, who taught her to make use of the same sea of information he uses. As a result she's become {{Transhuman}} but is something of a cloudcuckoolander, and she lampshades the madness of the original Cassandra in a conversation with him.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheDoomThatCameToGotham'', Barbara Gordon [[MythologyGag really is an oracle]] who lives in Arkham Asylum, but that's because of her medical condition--confined to a wheelchair and speaking and breathing through a chest tube and artificial diaphram. She's quite rational, but prefers it there because she doesn't have to put up with her family's pity. "Besides, if you saw as I do, you'd take the insanity within these walls over the true madness out there."

->''And if I make no sense to you,''\\
''Well, I make no sense to me!''\\
''The dreams I have are sticky as dreams''\\
''That leave trails of words''\\
''That will mean churches' fall!''

* The 'Wise Man' of the Haran tribe in ''Webcomic/YetAnotherFantasyGamerComic'' accurately points out Adina and Vachiritei's next steps to carry on with their adventure. Bad news, though, is that he's a [[CloudCuckoolander kobold.]] [[https://www.yafgc.net/comic/2664-wise-words-in-mouths-of-fools-do-oft-themselves-belie/ Slightly less crazy than Fang, at least.]]

* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': Jadis used her divine powers to figure out "what the Shape of the Multiverse is", which gave her enough understanding of reality to predict the future through mathematical/divinity computations. Unfortunately for her, this crippled her entire body and ravaged her mind. And whatever the answer is, it made a tyrant goddess who can do almost anything [[DrivenToSuicide seek to curl into a ball and die]]. [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum Or give slightly misworded prophecies so they will fail to save the multiverse]].

* In ''ComicBook/CaptainBritain'', the precognitive Cobweb ends up like this when the Fury arrives in the 616 universe and [[RealityWarper Mad Jim Jaspers]] starts taking over the world.
-->Shouldn't be here... pattern broken... there was a Crooked Man and he... [[AGlassOfChianti white wine turning red]]... white and red, like blood and bone, like chessmen... the board's askew... the gamer's hands are scorched and blackened... all strategies are shredded in the random wind... nothing is certain now...

[[folder:Film - Animated]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]
* ''Film/TwelveMonkeys''. Such oracles throughout history are implied to be time travelers who have gone insane.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' has Doctor Strange - he's usually coherent, if cryptic ([[DelightingInRiddles often for his own amusement]]), but sometimes seems to go completely around the bend.
** [[spoiler: Luna Lovegood]] after becoming the new [[ComicBook/TheSandman Delirium]], though she's more coherent than her predecessor.

* {{Justified|Trope}}, {{Discussed|Trope}}, and {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in the ''Literature/{{Belgariad}}'': madness makes it easy for the SentientCosmicForce Prophecy to borrow a person's mind, but limits it to the understanding of the vessel's mind. The near-EmptyShell Mrin Prophet delivers the most comprehensive prophecy of the planet completely out of order because he's too insane to understand ''time''; the Darine Prophet produces short outbursts that are only useful as an "index" to the Mrin Codex; and the sorcerers have to have any number of other local lunatics' ravings transcribed, since only they have the background to distinguish between someone whose mind is touched by Prophecy and someone who's just a bit loopy.

The good news about this character is that they can see the future. The bad news is that it turns out that seeing the future is not good for your mental health. Perhaps it's the [[ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow stress of breaking through the boundaries of time]], perhaps it's the strain of seeing so much all at once, possibly including alternative futures. It could be that now they can see the future, the concepts of time and causality don't make sense any more. Maybe they can't handle seeing the truly BadFuture awaiting them. Or it could be that [[PowerBornOfMadness they are only able to see the future because they are mad]], writers often don't distinguish. Either way what we have here is easily one of the most useful and irritating types of Seer. Work out what they mean and you have genuine cast iron visions, [[PoorCommunicationKills get confused or ignore it and you will find it coming back to bite you]].

A partial inverse of WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity, related to GoMadFromTheRevelation, PokeInTheThirdEye and PrescienceIsPredictable. Compare TheSchizophreniaConspiracy, InfallibleBabble, HisNameIs.

See also WaifProphet, JunkieProphet, FaintingSeer and {{Doomsayer}}.

* Mitsuo Hori, the "Super Psychic" in ''Film/NoroiTheCurse''. His house and his clothing are covered with tinfoil, he mutters, fidgets terribly, is obsessed with "Ectoplasmic Worms" and is prone to get violent when he receives psychic impressions/information. However, he provides very useful information to the investigation.

* In ''Film/SuspectZero'', long term use of the remote viewing abilities O'Ryan's former FBI unit is said to have possessed, combined with the lack of an "off" switch for the abilities themselves, is shown to lead to severe mental breakdowns. Many among the unit eventually were driven to suicide, or suffered psychotic breaks.

* ''Film/TellMeHowIDie'': A pharmaceutical company is experimenting on a drug that allows people to see into the future. The villain is a patient from a previous drug trial who was given increasingly higher doses until the visions took a toll on his sanity and he started getting visions where [[AxCrazy he violently murdered everyone around him]].
* Dennis in ''Film/Thir13enGhosts'' can see ghosts and read the minds of anybody he touches. [[BlessedWithSuck He also has no control over his powers.]] As a result, he's been driven to the brink of madness, and comes off as a twitchy drug fiend.

* Creator/HPLovecraft's Franchise/CthulhuMythos: The Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, writer of the Necronomicon. Technically not an oracle, as he probably couldn't see into the future (although the contents of the Necronomicon are too vague to say for sure), but other than that he fits this trope very well. Strange visions, cryptic texts, being completely off his rocker etc.

* Mrs. Tachyon from the Creator/TerryPratchett novel ''Literature/{{Johnny and the Bomb}}''. Her dementia isn't due to SEEING through time so much as TRAVELING through it--- and constantly losing track of whether she's speaking to someone from the past, present, or future....

* Raymond Feist's ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle'' contains an oracle which is mad because it shares a body with a godlike being granting her its powers.

** The CourtJester Patchface. While he's generally humored by those around him, treated as just an insane fool, his short ditties are not only prophetic, but aptly disturbing at that.

* In ''Literature/WyldersHand'', mad old Uncle Lorne makes a number of oddly-accurate prophecies despite his normal style of conversation. Though it may just be coincidence, since every other seemingly supernatural occurrence in the novel turns out to have a non-supernatural explanation.

** ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Drusilla is a cross between this and WaifProphet. Unlike many such prophets, her madness can make her, not just other people, unable to act on them properly. In the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode "Redefinition" she sees a vision of Angel setting her and and Darla on fire, but doesn't really understand it and takes in only how pretty the fire is. When it actually happens she's a lot less happy about it.

** An AlternateUniverse Episode of ''Series/{{Angel}}'' featured the title character as this, when he inherits the visions sent by the PowersThatBe. In the normal episodes this didn't happen to Cordelia, but [[FridgeHorror it could have]] if she hadn't chosen to become part demon, since humans weren't meant to have the visions and they were destroying her brain.

** The Real Life Oracle of Delphi was much more mundane. The Pythia was a middle aged local woman (young virgins having proven prone to kidnapping); she didn't rave or speak in tongues and those cool 'delphic' prophecies seem to be entirely fictional. The usual questions handled by the real Oracle concerned matters religion and ritual.
*** The fact that Delphi was, partly because of the Oracle, a major hub for gossip, meant that often the Pythia and the clergy were just well informed.

* Johnny Carson's "Carnac the Magnificent" routine on ''Series/TheTonightShow'' had him play a character like this. The routine worked like this: Carson would enter dressed as Carnac, wearing a large feathered turban and a cape, to Indian music (usually stumbling as he did). Ed [=McMahon=] would produce a set of envelopes which he claimed were sealed. "Carnac" would hold each one to his head, say what he believed was the answer to the question written within, then open it, and read the question. Of course, revealing the question was always the punch line to a joke. One example:

* Ophelia from ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' is often portrayed like this in the mad scenes. Many researchers believe that her madness gives her an ability to sense everything (Unfortunately, she's unable to express her thoughts properly, which makes her a Cassandra-like character).

--> "A plague o' both your houses!"

** Ulstyr Moresby, a character from [[Literature/TheElderScrollsInUniverseBooks 'Chance's Folly']], one of the many books that can be found in the series. The eponymous 'Chance' is an infamous thief who learns about an ancient tomb that, though full of traps and monsters, has untold riches within. She enlists the assistance of Ulstyr, a gigantic warrior who mutters incoherently to himself and is generally viewed as an eccentric by the other townsfolk. Throughout the story, whenever he speaks (including before they actually start the journey), he repeats several key phrases:

*** At one point, Chance wonders to herself if the rumours about the insane being in communication with the Daedric Prince [[MadGod Sheogorath]] were true, and if he was relaying this information to Ulstyr through this madness.

* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': Jadis used her divine powers to figure out "what the Shape of the Multiverse is", which gave her enough understanding of reality to predict the future through mathematical/divinity computations. Unfortunately for her, this crippled her entire body and ravaged her mind. And whatever the answer is, it made a tyrant goddess who can do almost anything [[DrivenToSuicide seek to curl into a ball and die]]. [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum Or give slightly mis-worded prophecies so they will fail to save the multiverse]].

* Creator/FrankieHowerd used a mad soothsayer in ''Series/Up ompeii'' (Senna the Soothsayer) and a similar character, a mad beggar (Derti Dhoti) in ''Series/WhoopsBaghdad''.

* The Hand of Repose in the ''VideoGame/{{Exmortis}}'' games serves this purpose when allowed to speak; normally, he acts as a living gateway for the Exmortis demons to return to Earth through, but his position as an anthropomorphic wormhole has allowed him to see a little way into the future - resulting in the Prophecy of the Hand booklet given to you in the second game. And in a particularly interesting twist, [[spoiler:the Hand is none other than the PC of the first game.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'''s Postbag from the Hedge pages sometimes have the Chaos Elemental give cryptic hints of future content.
* ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' gives us 'The Unredeemed Turret'. Turrets in the ''Portal'' games are sweet, [[KillerRabbit sapient little robots designed to riddle everything moving with as many bullets as possible.]] Any that are "different" are placed on the 'redemption line' to die a horrible flaming death as they're melted down for scrap. At one point in the game you're able to rescue one who thanks you, and makes some rather ''strange'' statements, such as "get mad", "the answer is beneath us", "her name is Caroline", "Prometheus was banished by the gods for giving knowledge to man. He was sent to the bowels of the Earth...pecked at by birds", and finally, [[NonSequitur "don't make lemonade."]] It's all {{Foreshadowing}}. [[spoiler:The turret's words referencing that beneath them are about Old Aperture, where the company was founded. Cave Johnson was the founder, and as expected (given Aperture Science) was quite insane, so much so that when he learned he was dying and recalled an aphorism about making lemonade from life's lemons he went on a bizarre rant about turning the lemons into bombs to [[{{Metaphorgotten}} blow up life's house]]. His assistant was Caroline, who was turned into [=GLaDOS=]. And [=GLaDOS=] does indeed get cast into the earth to be pecked at by birds.]]
* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' on Eden Prime there is an ''apparently'' insane scientist who only gives terrified, cryptic statements and claims to be the OnlySaneMan. When you learn of [[spoiler:the Reapers]], you'll realize exactly what he was talking about.
** And again in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' where the crazy doomsayer on Omega appears to have read the game script ahead of time. His cryptic prophecies all turn out to be correct later.
* From the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' franchise:
** [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas "No-Bark Noonan"]] of Novac appears to be a crazy conspiracy theorist, and he is, but his information holds surprising and important insights somewhere amidst all the nuttery.
** [[VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}} Mama Murphy]] has "the Sight," which she claims allows her to glimpse the future, the past, and the present. She has an odd cadence to her speech as if she isn't entirely within the moment. She uses [[JunkieProphet various chems to invoke the Sight]], and it's likely that a lifetime of substance abuse has fried her brain.
* [[Franchise/AssassinsCreed Subject 16]] is unstable at the ''best'' of times -- and stark raving mad at the worst -- but his ramblings are always far more relevant than they first appear. He ''does'' know what he's talking about. The problem, naturally, lies in figuring out ''what'' he's talking about.

* ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'': The Prophet was once a hermit who preached that the Ancestor's research would bring doom to the Hamlet and tried to turn the people against him. After several failed attempts to murder the man, the Ancestor showed him ''exactly'' what he was working on. The Prophet [[GoMadFromTheRevelation went completely over the edge]], [[EyeScream gouged out his own eyes in horror]], and fled into the depths of the Ruins, where he raised an army of cultists and mad-men to serve the very evil that he tried to stop with everything he had before his fall from sanity.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In ''Webcomic/AmericanBarbarian'', [[http://www.ambarb.com/?p=344 the god.]] [[spoiler:It's actually the main character caught in a StableTimeLoop, wearing time-travelling gear. Everything he says is related to something that will happen later in the comic.]]
* In ''Webcomic/AutumnBay'', [[http://autumnbaycomics.com/comics/18/ Stephen, Adam, and Callie run into Benny]], a homeless man who has scribbled the [[RoomFullOfCrazy cryptic and prophetic words and phrases]] onto the walls of the subway tunnels.
* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': Jadis used her divine powers to figure out "what the Shape of the Multiverse is", which gave her enough understanding of reality to predict the future through mathematical/divinity computations. Unfortunately for her, this crippled her entire body and ravaged her mind. And whatever the answer is, it made a tyrant goddess who can do almost anything [[DrivenToSuicide seek to curl into a ball and die]]. [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum Or give slightly mis-worded prophecies so they will fail to save the multiverse]].

* Subject Five of ''Literature/UnlikelyEden'' speaks in an oddly reversed poetic manner. Every one of her predictions is reputed to be inevitable. It's just that no one (including her) can be sure what they ''mean''.
* Moira Vu Noi in ''Roleplay/TheGunganCouncil'' is borderline insane with the number of visions she has seen, including those of Darth Apparatus which made her develop an [[{{Yandere}} insane obsession]] for him.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie'' gives Grandpa a flash of this.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'': When the Doctor goes mad in "Zagreus", he suddenly develops the abilities to see the future, past and alternate timelines.

* Creator/CrossGen's ''The First'' has Orium, whose MeaningfulName is a portmanteau of "oracle" and "delirium." He's a creepy old god who was given the [[BlessedWithSuck gift]] of true sight by Altwaal after the latter was disappointed with his vision as a leader.
* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'': Dr. Manhattan's powers (including the ability to see the future) have made him so out of touch with humanity he has forgotten how to act "normal." The future-sight is a major part of this, as he perceives time non-linearly and can get confused as to when he actually is.

* Delirium in ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' is occasionally shown to have insights into the future even Destiny doesn't have. Since she's the AnthropomorphicPersonification of insanity, it can be assumed she's an oracle ''because'' she's mad, rather than the other way round.

* ''ComicBook/AgeOfBronze'': Cassandra's prophecies are accurate, but because she's mad people rarely see the truth of this. In this case, she wasn't driven mad because she spurned Apollo, rather, [[spoiler:she and her brother were raped by a pedophile in Apollo's temple, who jeered that no one would believe them even if they reported what happened]], so her CassandraTruth became something of a SelfFulfillingProphecy.

* Oracle Lunara from ''FanFic/OfDarknessAndLight'' speaks backwards when giving predictions, so she even needs a translator. She's a bit mad as well, with a really strange sense of humor and all. [[MeaningfulName She's not called Lunara for nothing]].
* [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Frodo]] is one of these in the ''FanFic/{{Bagenders}}'' prequel episode set in Troy.
* In ''Fanfic/GeorgeWeasleyAndTheComputationalError'', George finds it convenient to claim that he's one instead of admitting that he is from the future. For bonus points, he says his becoming this was a product of the Ministry trying and failing to make an artificial seer.

* ''Fanfic/TheLionKingAdventures'' Series 5 brings us Ugaidi, a cub who was tortured by the creatures guarding the Dark Caves. This drove him insane, but somehow [[PowerBornOfMadness gave him the power]] to see the future... which, due to his madness, he's only able to express in [[VaguenessIsComing nonsensical broken sentences and warnings]]. [[spoiler: ''The Final Task'' reveals that in actuality, the Roho and the Hermit of Hekima granted him his powers and altered his memories, all in an effort to warn Simba and his friends of the coming of [[UnseenEvil The Writer]]. Unfortunately, this process [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatResponsibility drove him insane]].]]

* Angelique from ''The Empress Returns'' (sequel to ''FanFic/TheGodEmpressOfPonykind'') is a psyker whose powers manifested at a very young age, leaving her a mental wreck who speaks only in convoluted (and usually unpleasant) prophecies about those she's around. She has moments of lucidity when around more maternal figures (such as Sister Bianca) or more powerful/mentally stable psykers (such as Twilight or Celestia).
* In ''FanFic/RobbReturns'', [[spoiler:Patchface, who somehow knows that dragons are coming back and that the Others are starting to make their move.]]

* ''Film/TakeShelter'' is deliberately ambiguous whether the protagonist is a mad oracle or just mad, being plagued with increasingly vivid nightmares that he believes to be [[DreamingOfThingsToCome prophetic]]... and yet it's also entirely possible that [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness an established family history of mental illness is finally catching up to him.]] [[spoiler: The ending doesn't really clear it up.]]
* The [[Creator/CrispinGlover Fireman]] in ''Film/DeadMan'', who reveals the end of the film at the beginning.
* Seneca from ''Film/CarryOnCleo'' is portrayed as this, moaning and twitching about the "Ides of March" and annoying Julius Caesar. [[spoiler:Although a vague prophecy, the March gets its own back on Caesar, leaving a smug Seneca to mumble "I told you so" at his dead body.]]

* 6 in the movie ''WesternAnimation/{{Nine}}'', but 1 refuses to believe him and just keeps him in a corner with a curtain over it, where he spends all his time drawing what he sees in his head.
** The deleted scenes also show once he finally saw what was in his head, he got a new vision, and apparently heard/saw in his head [[spoiler: the monster made out of 2's body. "Huh..2? 2..is...coming?"]]
* ''Film/TwelveMonkeys''. Such oracles throughout history are implied to be time travelers who have gone insane.

* Mad Medium variation from the [[NoNameGiven crazy homeless guy]] in ''Always'', who can hear the voice of Richard Dreyfuss[[spoiler:'s ghost]] and repeat what Dreyfuss is saying. The message gets a little lost in the man's general rambling, making him a less-than-ideal communication device -- Dreyfuss's attempt to [[spoiler: discourage a young hotshot pilot from pursuing his widow]] comes across as just the opposite.
* Mitsuo Hori, the "Super Psychic" in ''Film/NoroiTheCurse''. His house and his clothing are covered with tinfoil, he mutters, fidgets terribly, is obsessed with "Ectoplasmic Worms" and is prone to get violent when he receives psychic impressions/information. However, he provides very useful information to the investigation.

* In ''Film/Monster1999'', Travis Reeves initially agrees with the police of New Purgatory that his grandfather Lloyd is suffering from some form of senility or dementia when he insists that the Monster from the series of {{B Movie}}s that [[ShowWithinAShow Lloyd wrote and starred in during the '50s]] is [[RefugeeFromTVLand actually real and attacking the town]]. But then Lloyd keeps making uncannily accurate predictions about strange, impossible things, even predicting that Travis' new LoveInterest is named either Jane, Jill, or Sally. It ultimately turns out that Lloyd is actually a case of CassandraTruth; whilst his status as Town Hero makes him immune to the GenreBlindness inflicted on the town by the Monster's RealityWarper powers, that same GenreBlindness causes the locals to ignore Lloyd and treat him as a crackpot until the Monster is defeated.

* The witch in Creator/DanAbnett's TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Literature/GauntsGhosts novel ''Blood Pact''. She CannotTellALie -- and apparently, can't ''shut up'' either.

* The Sibyl at Orm in ''[[Literature/TheDarkAngelTrilogy A Gathering of Gargoyles]]'' turns out to be mad Doona from the house in which Aeriel grew up as a slave. [[spoiler: Subverted in that Doona is actually not the Sibyl. She killed her and took her place.]]

* The Illustrated Man, a Creator/RayBradbury character who was [[BlessedWithSuck given tattoos that showed ever-changing visions of the future]]. Unfortunately, they tend to show people's deaths, often violent ones, so he [[WalkingTheEarth can't stay in one place very long because people don't react well to seeing how they die]]. As a result of this, he has become unstable and violent, to the point where people sometimes see ''him'' killing them in his tattoos...[[YouCantFightFate and then it happens]].

* Mrs. Tachyon from the Creator/TerryPratchett novel ''Johnny and the Bomb''. Her dementia isn't due to SEEING through time so much as TRAVELING through it--- and constantly losing track of whether she's speaking to someone from the past, present, or future....

* In Alfred Bester's story ''The Push of a Finger'', the Stabilization Bureau's Prog building doesn't contain a human oracle, but a mechanical one; it can't go mad, but it does illustrate how a human one could: one of the techs working it explains it as a sort of probabilistic machine that does millions of predictions and kind of "averages" them into a likely future, and if you were human and happened to get the one with the hyperintelligent lobster people, then that would pretty quickly either drive you actually mad or make people think you were.

* Subverted in ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresCatsCradleTimesCrucible Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible]]''. The Pythias were the seers who ruled Gallifrey before Rassilon came to power. The last Pythia goes mad because she's ''losing'' her oracular abilities, and can no longer see the future clearly.

* Quasiman from Literature/WildCards. When he says he remembers you, it's a good idea to listen to him, because he's probably in your future. However, he gives one the impression of being... not all there (literally- bits of him, both mind and body, pop in and out of local space-time, one piece at a time).

* Frankie Howerd used a mad soothsayer in ''Up Pompeii'' (Senna the Soothsayer) and a similar character, a mad beggar (Derti Dhoti) in ''Whoops Baghdad''.

** [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Drusilla]] is a cross between this and WaifProphet. Unlike many such prophets, her madness can make her, not just other people, unable to act on them properly. In the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode "Redefinition" she sees a vision of Angel setting her and and Darla on fire, but doesn't really understand it and takes in only how pretty the fire is. When it actually happens she's a lot less happy about it.

** ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheLost'':
*** One Goblin Contract (such Contracts have some ''nasty'' side effects) serves as both ends of the trope. You can uncover anything you want to know about anything you've encountered... but you gain a derangement for the duration of the next day. And you only get the ''mild'' derangements if you roll high; if you roll low, you can look forward to 24 hours of schizophrenia. And once that wears off, you ''forget'' what you learned. Hope that you're lucid enough to write it down.
*** The College of Worms is an [[PrestigeClass Entitlement]] that believes in the value of portents and omens. Unfortunately, for every three serious scholars of fate, there's one loon who thinks the College is the perfect place to ''express themselves''.
** ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'': The Ministers are fantastically powerful [[TheArchmage Archmasters]] who lead the [[AncientConspiracy Ministries]] of the [[DeityOfHumanOrigin godlike]] Exarchs and serve as their representatives in the material world. However, the psychic bond to their patron Exarch basically burns out their minds, so these paragons of magic spend their time sequestered in {{Pocket Dimension}}s, drooling and babbling gnomic prophecies.
* Precognition is a fairly well-known power of psykers in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', but carries with it TheDarkSide. Aside from the Eldar, The Dark Side seems to win more often than not with would-be prophets. Just ask the Night Haunter.
** Kairos Fatereaver, the oracle of Tzeentch is this trope. Tzeentch is able to see into the future himself, but even he doesn't know which possible future will come to be. So he threw his vizier Kairos into the point where all timelines intersect, giving him the ability to see everything that has happened and will ever happen. The downside is that he came back unnaturally aged (daemons are immortal and normally don't age), with an extra head and completely off his rocker. To make things worse, his heads contradict each other; one sees into the past, and the other sees into the future (neither see ''into the present''), and there is no way of knowing which one is telling the truth at any given time.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
** ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'': The Mad Seer Hyksosa, among others. It's pretty common, really. So common, in fact, that it's an NPC class.
** The Contact Other Plane divination spell has a chance of causing severe (if temporary) mental lapses.
* ''TabletopGame/InNomine'': The ArchangelGabriel has a unique connection to God through which she can see visions of the past, present, and future, but she is also, for a number of reasons, quite mad -- some speculate that the weight of this knowledge and connection are at least partly responsible for her instability; among other things, she's not always able to tell the present from the past. Her prophecies still come, but they're often extremely difficult to comprehend or to distinguish from her normal stream-of-consciousness rants and monologues.
* ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'': Those few Chanari, Martian desert people, who gain psychic powers tend to have significant mental illnesses.
* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'': Spellcasters have "Witchsight", the ability to see the BackgroundMagicField superimposed on the physical world. Sometimes this grants them flashes of insight or hints into the future, but these visions threaten an [[SanityMeter Insanity Point]] if they fail to make sense of them.

*** While the 'vapors' were not of volcanic origin or some natural gas (like ethylene, a substance believed to have been responsible: it's been reported that the waters from which the Oracle drank have surprisingly high content of it), recent studies have shown that it may have been oleander that the Oracle chewed and her priests burned below her chamber to induce the prophetic visions. Regardless if it was oleander or ethylene, the former known to the ancient Greeks and the latter attested to rise up under Delphi after earthquakes, there was certainly some form of airborne substance involved. However, it is also perfectly possible to invoke a state of altered consciousness by auto-suggestion. The Pythia was not manic, vase paintings and contemporary accounts describe her as sitting quietly on her tripod holding a branch of laurel and a bowl of holy water a position not conducive to hysterical convulsions, and answering the inquirer in a calm, direct manner. Whether she was coached ahead of time or answered according to her inspiration of the moment is another question.

Compare also TheCassandra, when a character doesn't get mad from predicting the future, but still gets ignored, and sometimes considered as mad by others, because he can predict the future.