The Lantern Hall
Painting: an ancient lexicon open on a carved lectern in a dark chapel of books, glowing runes and symbols lifting off its pages like fireflies.
TermLiterature term

The Chosen One

A protagonist marked by prophecy or bloodline as the only one who can save the world, typically an unassuming youth who discovers a hidden destiny. The trope runs from Arthurian legend through The Belgariad and The Wheel of Time to Harry Potter, and many modern works subvert it.

A protagonist marked by prophecy or bloodline as the only one who can save the world, typically an unassuming youth who discovers a hidden destiny. The trope runs from Arthurian legend through The Belgariad and The Wheel of Time to Harry Potter, and many modern works subvert it.

Quick answers

What does "The Chosen One" mean?
A protagonist marked by prophecy or bloodline as the only one who can save the world, typically an unassuming youth who discovers a hidden destiny. The trope runs from Arthurian legend through The Belgariad and The Wheel of Time to Harry Potter, and many modern works subvert it.

Nearby in the archive

Monomyth

Literature term1949

Joseph Campbell's pattern of the hero who leaves home, passes trials, wins a decisive victory and returns transformed. Folklorists criticize it as oversimplified, but it deeply influenced screenwriting and fantasy storytelling.

The Dark Lord

Literature term

An evil overlord who embodies darkness and seeks domination of the world, usually from a distant fortress. Sauron and Morgoth made the figure a fantasy staple, repeated in countless imitators and games.

Arthurian Fantasy

Literature genre1136

Nine centuries of retelling one story — the sword, the Round Table, the Grail and the fall — from Geoffrey of Monmouth and Malory to T. H. White, Excalibur and Pendragon.

The Belgariad

Book series1982–1984

A farm boy named Garion learns he is the heir to a prophecy millennia in the making: David Eddings's five-book quest was built deliberately to give fantasy readers exactly what they wanted, and it did.

The Wheel of Time

Book series1990–2013

Fourteen volumes, two authors and 23 years: Robert Jordan's saga of the Dragon Reborn defined the doorstopper epic of the 1990s and was finished by Brandon Sanderson after Jordan's death.

Harry Potter

Book series1997–2007

An orphan learns on his eleventh birthday that he is a wizard: J. K. Rowling's seven-book school story became the best-selling book series in history and the foundation of a global media franchise.

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