A World Without a Predictable Future: 'The Great Prophecy' / The Lies of the Great Prophecy Part 4

Under the title 'The Lies of the Great Prophecy', I have examined several stories from F's works that follow the theme of how uncertain future prediction is.

The previous articles are listed below.

In the previous articles, I discussed how F-sensei used the lines of Dekisugi-kun from 'Doraemon' and Takahata-kun from 'Esper Mami' to talk about how unreliable future prediction is and how prophets are fishy.

This article takes a slightly different approach.

I have received F-sensei's message that 'prophecies cannot be trusted' over the course of three articles, but 'The Great Prophecy' introduced in this article is a work that uses irony directed at us, the ones receiving the prophecies.

It bluntly throws out the question, 'Why do you believe in prophecies, but not in predictions?'

'The Great Prophecy', S.F. Magazine, May 1976 issue

The protagonist is a popular TV prophet named Nostortanma. Unlike the prophet Ginga-o who appeared in Esper Mami, he looks refreshing and seems like a person without any hidden agenda.

However, the technique he uses is quite dubious; it is an Itako-like method where he puts a third party into a trance and listens to future predictions from their mouth. He seems to have become a hit after correctly predicting some assassination incident.

After finishing his usual program recording, Nostortanma declines the director's invitation to drink and decides to visit his prediction mentor, Master Taroto, for the first time in a while.

As his name suggests, Taroto was a famous prophet for tarot reading, but there are rumors that he has been suffering from a neurosis for the past four or five years. The cause, it seems, is that he foresaw some terrifying future. Nostortanma heads to Taroto's house to hear the truth.

When he arrives at the house, his wife greets him. Taroto seems to be locked in his room, and only his grandson, Shinichi, is allowed to come and go. When Nostortanma enters the room and touches the shoulder of Taroto, who looks every bit the neurotic, he suddenly jumps up with a cry of surprise, 'Waaaaaah!'

To Taroto, who is clearly afraid of something, Nostortanma says, 'There is no need to worry, there is a saying that even if it doesn't come true, it's just fortune-telling...' uttering a forbidden phrase for a prophet.

Since Taroto won't tell him anything, Nostortanma decides to use the method he always uses on TV: planting a suggestion to get the truth out.

When he uses hypnosis and asks what kind of prediction he made, Taroto starts to say, 'I haven't predicted anything.'

Then what is the master afraid of? Just as Taroto shouts, 'You know it anyway,' he bursts into tears, saying, 'Everyone in the world knows.' And then Taroto takes a scrapbook from the bookshelf and hands it to him.

It was a collection of clippings from newspapers and weekly magazines. What kind of article could it possibly be?

・Energy crisis: Oil will be depleted within this century
・Complex pollution: The human body being eroded
・Direct-hit major earthquakes are inevitable
・Population explosion, approaching mini-ice age, global famine
・Nuclear proliferation: No stopping a runaway explosion if the number of possessor nations increases

Each of these was an "inconvenient truth" that tragically predicted the near future.

The late 70s, when this work was drawn, was an era where the myth of upward growth had ended following the oil shock, pollution problems—the distortions of growth—were being highlighted, and there was concern about an impending food shortage due to the explosive population growth centered in developing countries (then called underdeveloped countries).

In other words, it was an era where predictions of a catastrophic future were becoming prevalent. This work is drawn within that kind of mood.

Nostortamma reads these scraps calmly. Taruto, seeing this, says, "Your face, looking so underwhelmed, is scary." And then he starts shouting in excitement.

"I'm scared of everyone who can stay sane while their own destruction is being prophesied! I'm scared of the human race, which won't even try to make a fuss or scream despite having no effective countermeasures!"

People get worked up over uncertain future predictions, yet they show absolutely no reaction to highly certain predictions. They need to do something, but they do nothing. Taruto was terrified of such humans.

In addition to the content of the predictions, Taruto had become neurotic from the fear of humans who would not look the future in the eye.

In the end, the line Taruto says while holding his grandson Shinichi is filled with biting irony.

"Shin-chan, there is no future left for me to predict for you."

Taruto can no longer make predictions. This is because if humans continue to spend their time idly like this, destruction will surely come. Beyond that destruction, there is no future left. Therefore, the need for future prediction also disappears.

It was a work that reached an incredibly desperate ending.

I am doing many analyses of SF short stories.