A Chosen Sacrifice: The Doomed Destiny of the Child Messiah in Late Twentieth-Century Children’s Fantasy

Abstract

The story is familiar. A child is born. It is identified by a mark, prophecy, auspicious birth, or wise soothsayer. A lightning bolt on a forehead. The world rejoices at the birth of the Child Messiah, and hope for the future is restored. Though it may be a happy event for the world, what does it signify for the Child Messiahs? We assume that the heroic destiny is the stuff of dreams for children, and that they are, or at least should be, honoured by destiny's choice. But perhaps being chosen as the Child Messiah in today's world is not as rewarding as it once was. In this paper, I propose that the Child Messiah of late-twentieth-century children's fantasy is not the luckily chosen one, but a doomed sacrifice to Fate in exchange for the future survival of the human race.