I wanted to explore a very well-known trope we see, mostly in science fiction and fantasy genres of media but can be found in other genres. The basis of the chosen one trope includes the plot being centered around a character chosen typically by a prophecy or something akin to a prophecy. The character is tasked with saving the world and sometimes the stakes are as high as saving the world or the universe (or multiple universes). The hero must put themselves or someone else—or even everyone—they love at risk for the greater good to fulfill their destiny. It has this built-in angst that comes with being the chosen one.
I wanted to explore a few characters that I believe embody this trope in a couple different ways to what is “typical” and whose stories have stuck with me.
(If you care about spoilers, there will be spoilers for each character and their story.)
Ellie Williams – The Last of Us
Starting us off strong, I have Miss Ellie from Naughty Dog’s, The Last of Us. Ellie is the only known person to be immune to the virus that took control of the world the story is set in. The world pandemic that ravages the world is called the cordyceps virus, which has a little twist on your usual zombie infection story. Essentially this virus takes control over the host’s brain and then controls it. As you “turn,” you have less control and less acknowledgement to what you are doing. If the host isn’t killed by the uninfected, they can survive for decades as the virus continues to spread throughout their entire body. Once the infected dies, it releases spores into the air in attempt to also infect who ever killed the host.
In this world infection is very easy to come by, a bite or airborne spores is enough to doom you. However, one of our protagonists, Ellie, comes to find out that she is immune to this virus. She is bitten while out exploring the quarantine zone in which she resides, with her best friend and first love, Riley. They are bitten in the same encounter with some of the infected and eventually she watches as Riley turns, and she survives. Ellie is found by the anti-military group’s leader; Marline and she has a plan to get Ellie to a hospital in Salt Lake City where they are looking for a cure or vaccine for the virus. Ultimately, she is given over to Joel, our main protagonist, and together they go across country to find the hospital where Ellie can use her immunity for something good. Of course, along the way they face many trials testing their will and ability to keep going. They meet more people that aid them and that hurt them. And in this journey these two characters become very close, they are father and daughter by the end.
They find the hospital on a happenstance and there, the soldiers, doctors, and scientists take an unconscious Ellie in for testing and eventually decide to prep her for brain surgery to take a sample of the virus growing in her brain to then try and reverse engineer a vaccine. They do all this without telling Ellie what will happen to her if they take the sample out: she will die. But they do tell Joel and with that information he decides to murder everyone in that hospital to save her life.
And this is where I believe she falls into this chosen one trope: Because of her immunity, she wanted to be able to save as many lives as she could to justify all the people that had died at what she believed to be her hand. She blames herself for every death that occurs as they cross the country. Starting with Riley, then Joel’s quarantine partner, Tess, then the brothers, Sam and Henry that aided them in Pittsburgh, and then finally a justified kill in Silver Lake, CO where Ellie kills a cannibalistic and pedophilic man hunting her. But apart from individuals, she feels that she could have saved all of those who were infected.
But the reason this story sticks with me (and there are many reasons, not just this aspect) is the fact that Ellie couldn’t choose if she wanted that surgery or not, whether the ends justified the means for her. Joel makes that decision for her, and Ellie is left with trying to find peace with the “what if?” and trying to find something else to live and fight for.
Dani Clayton – The Haunting of Bly Manor
Another story I love to revisit every time October comes around is The Haunting of Bly Manor. Adapted by Netflix, based on the classic novella; The Turn of the Screw by Henry James written in 1898, it features a young au pair (nanny) living in London in the late 1980’s and working for the Wingrave family in their manor.
This manor, unknown to Dani, is haunted. It is haunted by the spirit of a woman that they call “The Lady in the Lake.” Every night this woman would come up from the bottom of the lake that is on the Bly Manor grounds and walk the same route around the grounds, into the house, and back to the lake. The kids, Flora and Miles, know of the Lady in the Lake and warn Dani to stay in her room at night but they don’t tell her why. As the story unfolds in a nonlinear fashion, Dani starts to see the ghosts of the previous au pair, Miss Jessel and her partner, Peter Quint both of whom died on the grounds because of the Lady in the Lake. Their souls are tied to the grounds and to the Lady of the Lake. They can’t leave, none of the victims that were taken by the Lady of the Lake can leave. So not only are the ghosts of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint roaming about, but hundreds of people that had lived in the house before the Wingraves too, all stirring about the grounds and in the house.
The children’s behaviors begin to change, and Dani is determined to figure out what is going on and to keep them safe. Miles is the first to go, and as we learn has been gone for a long while. Peter takes over Miles’ body and Miss Jessel is to take Flora. This is where Dani becomes her own self-proclaimed chosen one. She will save these children if it’s the literal last thing she does. Flora is taken by the Lady of the Lake and is about to drown Flora with her as she descends to the bottom of the lake. Dani tries to get the Lady of the Lake to stop, and she says the only words that mean something to the Lady in the Lake, “it is you, it is me, it is us.” The Lady of the Lake stops, gives Flora back, and enters the water. Dani didn’t realize that saying these words would tie the Lady of the Lake to herself. Dani saves the kids, but she slowly, year after year, is taken over by the Lady of the Lake, until Dani herself becomes the Lady of the Lake. She frees all the spirits tied to the manor and Dani, as the new chosen Lady of the Lake, would never take any other spirt or let anyone take her place, ending the haunting of Bly.
It is truly a devastating story; Dani sacrifices everything to keep the children safe because that’s what she swore to do. She wanted to make a true impact on Miles and Flora. She felt she could never make an impact on the kids in the classes she used to teach because there were too many of them that she cared for too much. She saves Miles and Flora’s lives, where they grow up and don’t even remember the events of the hauntings. She saves their childhood innocence and allows them to grow up safe.
Dani knows she will eventually be taken by the Lady of the Lake in the years after the hauntings. She feels it get more and more control over her. She starts seeing her in her reflection and can’t sleep and feels herself slip away. During this time, her partner, Jamie who was the gardener at Bly, watches her slip away. One night, Dani is gone, and Jamie finally finds her at the bottom of the lake.
Mary of Nazareth, Mother of Jesus – The Bible
Then the last woman I want to touch on is—and I know it sounds strange but hear me out—Mary of Nazareth.
Because we are all assumingly familiar with the story of the conception and birth of Jesus and likewise Mary, I won’t go too far in-depth story wise. What really strikes me about this chosen one story is all the cultural and historical context that it has layered beneath it. Because the Bible is such a factual based narrative, we never get the emotion of these humans feeling human emotions. We never get to see the relationships build or characters develop. It’s all based on events, one after the other. So, what we do is we look at the cultural context and historical context to try and understand what these characters might have been thinking or feeling as all these wild and crazy things happen to them.
So, Mary is chosen by God, and she has nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, she can’t escape or say no. It’s this giant task that is asked of her. Her social status will be destroyed along with her and her husband’s reputations and there isn’t a thing she could do to stop it. She at first is in disbelief that she is the one chosen and that such a thing could even happen, a child born without intercourse. But eventually she accepts the situation and deals with the fall out gracefully. Which says a lot about her as a character. I mean, she does everything right, she is a virgin and marries the man picked out by her father and does so when the time is right. She is faithful and is a believer. And she deals with this situation thrown onto her. Childbirth, as we all know is not a light matter. It’s dangerous at this time and the only thing she can do is hope and pray that she survives.
And then there is the matter with how Joseph reacts to the news of Mary being pregnant. He was going to divorce her. He didn’t believe her when she told him that she was not unfaithful to him but was impregnated by an angel of the lord in a dream. He was going to divorce her quietly, to keep his status and reputation, so that he could walk about the town without shame and humiliation. The angel Gabriel had to tell Joseph himself that what Mary had told him was true and that he needed to stay with her. And so, he did.
You can imagine this might create some tension between a couple, the lack of trust. But they make it through the pregnancy and Mary delivers the Son of God, Jesus to the world. And she loves her son with everything that she is.
This story, like the others, is about sacrifice. How much Mary and Joseph, and mostly Mary, sacrifices to deliver Jesus (one of the most important characters in the Bible) to the world. And then to have him sacrificed, while she watches. It’s about the give and take. And all for a purpose greater than she. Greater than she might ever come to understand. She is this piece of a larger puzzle, and her role is fleeting. Yet how much she gives to be a part of it: it’s a beautiful story of love.
All these stories are a product of love. Ellie’s love for those she meets along her journey, Joel’s love for Ellie, Dani’s love for Miles and Flora, Dani’s love for Jamie, Mary’s love for God, and Mary’s love for Jesus. It’s all worth it in the end to say, “I did it for them.” It’s a grand show of their love and while it is tragic in most cases, it is beautiful.
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