History Main / WindsOfDestinyChange

* Beowulf himself says, "Fate often saves an undoomed man, if his courage is good." Implying that most anyone can alter their own fate by their actions... but if you're doomed you're doomed.

** TheHero [[{{Miko}} Reimu Hakurei]] implicitly uses this as her ultimate power - in spite of technically being totally outclassed in terms of raw power to the actual [[PhysicalGod deities]] or RealityWarper enemies she fights, she uses her "Intuition" to frequently evade all harm from things that should flatten her to a paste. Of course, her ''explicit'' power is "merely" a low-level RealityWarper power, which may certainly help in this regard.

** [[{{Miko}} Reimu]] implicitly uses this as her ultimate power - in spite of technically being totally outclassed in terms of raw power to the actual [[PhysicalGod deities]] or RealityWarper enemies she fights, she uses her "Intuition" to frequently evade all harm from things that should flatten her to a paste. Of course, her ''explicit'' power is "merely" a low-level RealityWarper power, which may certainly help in this regard.

** Then there's Suwako's priestess Sanae, who explicitly has the power to cause miracles. [[ThatOneBoss Like your miraculous defeat at her hands.]]

** And last but certainly not least is [[ScrewySquirrel Tewi]] the rabbit youkai, who has the power to bestow good luck.

** [[PhysicalGod Both the goddesses Hina and Suwako]] are [[BadPowersGoodPeople curse goddesses]]. Hina is a born goddess of misfortune that can inflict bad luck upon people to the point where they suffer a NecroNonSequitur. However, she generally likes people, and instead grants good fortune by eating the misfortune of others. Suwako gained curse god powers by bringing powerful curse gods under her control, but generally uses her powers to help others, largely because she [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly needs people's faith in her to continue to exist]], and as such grants good fortune and miracles in exchange for faith. Both, however, use their curse powers as weapons when in a fight.

* {{Trope Namer|s}} which comes from the signature chant (at least in the cartoon ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersUnitedTheyStand'') of Wanda Maximoff - aka the ScarletWitch - who pretty much launched this trope. It may seem like a pointless power, but she's the only person who can consistently beat Ultron.
** And that's before it got [[PowerCreepPowerSeep kicked up to total omnipotence]].
** On the downside, it also increased the odds of making contact with the horrible demon sealed in the mountain near her home. This is both the reason for her increased power and the long, long TraumaCongaLine that is her life.

* [[VideoGame/GalaxyAngel Milfeulle Sakuraba]] has what could be considered an unconscious version of this trope, only turned UpToEleven. When her luck is good, it's insanely good (for example, her EstablishingCharacterMoment in the first game has her winning the grand prize in a convenience store lottery ''five times in a row''); however, when her luck is bad, it's horribly bad (a picnic being ruined due to a fire alarm being tripped, followed by the CoolShip she and her crewmates serve abord [[FTLTravel warping out]] in the middle of an enemy fleet, followed still by her personal starfighter's engine crapping out on her).

* Fluke of ''TheYoungProtectors'' is able to give other people good luck, [[EquivalentExchange but he has to suffer some bad luck first]]. As an example, [[ThePreciousPreciousCar totaling the car he just paid off]] gave him enough juice to save some bystanders from falling rubble.

** In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer40000}}'', the lowest-level psykers have a great deal of good luck. Higher-level ones may be able to influence it. The new Psychic Power Charts contain Divination, which has several abilities that cause this, such as "Misfortune" which causes an enemy to re-roll successful saves, and "Prescience", which enables a friendly unit to receive re-rolls to hit, which are similar to the Eldar powers, "Doom" and "Guide". In short, one of the best psychic tricks, is screwing destiny.

** For [[PhysicalGod the gods]] in ''Deities and Demigods'', the salient divine ability "Power of Luck" is basically this trope, and its strength is proportional to how many divine ranks the deity has.[[note]]Having more than 20 divine ranks in D&D is tantamount to being one of PowersThatBe.[[/note]]

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', 1st Edition ForgottenRealms boxed campaign set. Beshaba is the deity of Mischief, Misfortune, Ill Luck and Accidents. Surefire plans go awry, stout weapons or walls suddenly give way, and freak accidents occur to man and beast in places where she has been.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': The very act of channeling Virtue is exactly this. And then in Sidereal manual, it's revealed that the very act of ''spending Essence'' [[ImmuneToFate overrides the power of the Loom of Fate]], and the pattern spiders who maintain the Loom must rewrite destiny in accordance with the effect used or suffer causality errors. So the wind regularly blows for Essence users, the biggest of which are your player characters.

* Godlike has the Aces power, which gives good luck to your rolls, and Jinx, which gives bad luck to your enemies. Justified that both of these powers use up lots of Will, the fuel that makes your powers work. Run out of will and your powers stop working until you get some more. The Aces power can even be improved with the 'Flamboyant' extra, which makes your powers go off in very obvious ways.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': The very act of channeling Virtue is exactly this. And then in Sidereal manual, it's revealed that the very act of ''spending Essence'' forces the Pattern Spiders to rewrite your Destiny in accordance to the effect you want to happen. So the wind regularly blows for Essence users, the biggest of which are your player characters.

* As an inversion of the trope, Himawari from ''Manga/XxxHOLiC'' randomly causes bad luck to anyone who tries to become close to her, with the exception of few people: her parents and Doumeki. She can't control when or who it happens to.

* The main character in Manga/PsychoBusters ''appears'' to have this, with things like pieces of the ceiling falling to intercept attacks or the floor collapsing under his opponents feet just before they attack. It turns out to be just highly precise subconscious time manipulation.

* In Manga/MagiLabyrinthOfMagic, the black Rukh grant the ability to alter destiny. The villains even come close to repeating the trope name verbatim when invoking the black Rukh power in the Balbadd arc.

* The "Super Luck" ability which some ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' have.

* Quite a few of powerful beings in ''Literature/{{Nightside}}'' have a form of this as a power. King of Skin knows your biggest fears and can alter reality to make them appear right here, right now. Count Video rewrites history by choosing and enforcing an alternative time track. Count Entropy and later his son could pick and choose any MillionToOneChance in anything and make it a dominant one.[[/folder]]

** [[spoiler:Atem/Atemu]] could actually do this in the original series, but only after [[spoiler:learning his true name, which he [[LaserGuidedAmnesia specifically wiped from his own memories]] to hide the power from Zorc Necrophades]]. Supposedly, anyone could pull that trick off, while the aforementioned character was just really, ''really'' good at it. (Good enough to [[spoiler:play XanatosSpeedChess with an EldritchAbomination]], in fact!) Sort of [[BrokenAesop undermined]] the whole [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower "Heart of the Cards"]] thing from the dub, though... [[labelnote:*]]The original {{aesop}} of Yugioh, mentioned a grand total of ''once'' in the dub, was how that everything and everyone had a place, just like a puzzle. Hence the card game itself was loaded down with [[LethalJokeCharacter extremely powerful cards]] that [[DifficultButAwesome just needed to be used in the right combination]]. Which carries over to [[RealLife our version]] of the game... to an extent.[[/labelnote]]

* ''{{Bionicle}}''
** Toa Jaller has the Mask of Fate, allowing him to do exactly this.
** Toa Nikila has the Mask of Possibilities, which is similar to the Mask of Fate. The main difference is that while the Mask of Fate is limited to allowing the wearer to perform at his maximum physical capacity by altering probability, the Mask of Possibilities can make any event more or less likely to happen.
*** The Mask of Possibilities is this trope, the mask of Fate would more accurately be named the Mask of Action Film Moves (or perhaps the [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons Mask of Take 20]]) since it doesn't really break reality, it only removes the user's limits on things they could conceivably do. For example, a human can lift a car given enough adrenaline, but it tends to hurt your muscles. With a Mask of Fate you could lift the car any time you wanted without injury, but you could not fling it like the Mask of Strength would let you do. The Mask of Possibilities would rather cause some random other event to move the car ''for'' you.

* Fortune from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'' is said to have this power, but the real explanation is something else entirely. (Maybe.)

** For [[PhysicalGod the gods]] in ''Deities and Demigods'', the salient divine ability "Power of Luck" is basically this trope, and its strength is proportional to how many divine ranks the deity has.[[hottip:*:Having more than 20 divine ranks in D&D is tantamount to being one of PowersThatBe.]]

* Literature/HarryPotter gives us a potion called Felix Felicis, a potion which will make a person phenomenally, impossibly lucky. There is no chance of "Felix" screwing up and almost everything will go right for the user. In fact, it's not even limited to mere probability, as Harry ''actually goes out of his way to do something that was not his plan simply because it felt like it was the right thing to do'', and it worked. In fact, it is wizarding law that one cannot use whenever they're supposed to be making a bet, have a Quidditch, are taking a test, etc. The drawback comes in that it is a dangerously tricky potion to make and it is dangerous to use it more than very sparingly. Also it is stated that luck can't do everything, [[spoiler:as we find out in the end of book six]]. The tie in book, ''Literature/FantasticBeastsAndWhereToFindThem'', gives us the exact opposite of Felix with the Mackled Malaclaw. It has a venom which will make the victim impossibly unlucky, and the book even warns that a victim should cancel any bets, duels, tests, etc. as they are sure to go against the victim.

* In ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'', one of the Jedi abilities is "fate manipulation", which, in game mechanics terms, allows a player to reroll a dice. The characters use this to varying effectiveness throughout the games.

* In the ''WebVideo/DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog'' fanfiction AShinyNewAustralia, [[spoiler: Penny is revealed to have this power.]]