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Historian Explains the Real Oracles that Inspired the Show Kaos
By Ellie Mackin Roberts/The Conversation
This article contains spoilers for series one of Kaos.
Central to the plot of Netflix’s new series, Kaos, are four prophecies. In the lore of the series, all humans are given a prophecy, and no two can be the same. There’s just one problem – all four important prophecies in the show are identical:
A line appears
The order wanes
The family falls
and Kaos reigns.
Each of the prophecy’s four recipients – Zeus (Jeff Goldblum), Riddy (Aurora Perrineau), Caeneus (Misia Butler) and Ari (Leila Farzad) – interprets, and therefore acts upon, the prophecy in a way that makes sense to their own lives. Their connected fates highlight the series’ theme of interconnected destinies and the inescapable nature of prophecy.
By the end of the first series, three of the four lines of the prophecy have come true. A vertical wrinkle appears on Zeus’s forehead, driving his obsession with instilling fear of the gods into mortals once more. A hierarchy shift ends the season with Prometheus sitting on Zeus’s throne, which exemplifies the order waning. The families of each of the three mortal recipients fall apart.
Watching the show, you may have understood the prophecies differently. After all, prophecy is open to interpretation. Or, is it?
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