An essay by Baylie Heims

How much control do we really have over our lives? This question comes up in countless science fiction and fantasy movies, television shows, and stories- not to mention several times a day. Are our lives governed by freewill (giving us total control of the direction our life will go) or causal determination (governed by choices but choices that are inevitable based on the last choice) or even predestination (the end result of our life is set in stone no matter what we chose)? Science fiction writers have covered all three bases.

Let us start with disputably the most well known science fiction saga, Star Wars. The first three episodes: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith, discuss it the most. Aniken is the “one who will bring balance to the Force”. He does not have a choice; he is predestined from his mitochlorian conception. It was so set in stone that he would be the one to bring balance that he was not even conceived naturally. He was created for a purpose, not out of love or passion or desire for a family. As he grows up Aniken deals with emotions like fear, anger, and doubt, which of course are gateway emotions to the Dark Side. Aniken tries to fight these. He tries to be a good Jedi but his destiny is too much to fight. He slowly slips and relapses several times before giving into the seduction of the Dark Side, first not obeying Obi wan Kenobi, killing the entire tribe that kidnapped his mother, then getting married against Jedi rules, engaging in talks with the Chancellor, and eventually killing all the Padawan Jedi’s attempting to kill Obi wan Kenobi and becoming Darth Vader. The mass murder of Jedi’s that Aniken engages in tilts the Force from Light side dominance to Dark side dominance. Not an exact balance, but that is what Luke is for. Aniken does not want to be an evil person. In fact, it is hard to believe that the sweet, caring boy we meet in “The Phantom Menace” is going to grow up to be the antagonist of the universe, but he really has no choice. It is completely against his nature yet it is going to happen whether he likes it or not.

Another movie that raises questions about both Hayden Christensen’s acting skills and predestination is “Jumper”. His character is born with the “gift,” for lack of better term, to “jump” anywhere he likes from anywhere he likes. This is an ability he did not ask for and cannot give up, and it is an ability that has the potential to get him killed, even by his own mother. She is sworn to an order whose purpose in life is to kill the jumpers. He is predestined to be always running and hiding from his own mother. His mother left when she discovered her son’s abilities because she wanted to give him a chance even though she knows that some day he is probably going to be killed, possibly by her. They cannot escape who they are nor the paths and struggles their lives will take them on. This is what they were given in life; this is how they must live and what they must do. They have no choice. It was predestined.

“Bruce Almighty” takes a polar opposite view on life. When Bruce is given God’s powers the only proviso he is given is that he cannot mess with free will. Bruce is given all the powers of God, he can do anything that God can do-anything! But free will is off limits. This means that we have absolute power over our own lives. God knows everything that is happening and can affect it, as is illustrated in His reasoning for how He answers prayers and why “yes” is not always the best answer, but He is not controlling it, we are. Bruce even tries to break the rules and control his girlfriend’s (well at that point ex-girlfriend’s) free will by trying to make her take him back. He tries with all his might, looking quite foolish to boot, and she just looks at him like he is nuts and walks away. His efforts do not work. He can not change her will, it is hers to change not his, even though he has all the power of God. If he cannot change her mind, then neither could God nor anybody else. Nothing and no one is in control of her life other than her. She may and can do whatever she may like. Whatever she decides is best for her. Her decisions are hers to make and while they affect each other they do not determine each other.

“Ella Enchanted” also fights the battle against freewill. Actually in her case it is more of fight for free will. Ella is given the “gift” of obedience as a baby by a delusional fairy god mother. However this “gift” means that she must do whatever she is told regardless of what it is. Her step sister finds this out and tells the evil prince (brother of the former king, uncle of the current heir to the throne) and he decides that Ella would be the perfect weapon for offing the prince. Being a fairytale Ella is of course in love with the prince and wants to do no such thing. Torn and upset she tries to avoid the prince at the time when she has been ordered to kill him, but alas he of course finds her. This would seem like a case for predestination: circumstances beyond one’s control and a destined endpoint regardless of one’s wishes and tries against it. However, at the last moment, right before she is about to stab the prince (because that’s more dramatic), Ella overcomes her “gift”. She manages to let her will control her. She does not want to kill the prince so she does not. It was a life long battle but she finally won it. She found and mastered her free will. It was there all along she just had to harness it (granted she had some pretty big obstacles). Ella seemed destined to do as she was told forever, even though it meant her great unhappiness. But she is a human and therefore in control of her life, she just had to figure out how to take that control. Perhaps that’s all any of us need to. Perhaps free will can over take predestination. Ella would certainly think so.

Somewhere between predestination and free will lies determinism. This means that our lives are not set in stone but governed by our choices. Our current position in life was determined by our last choice which was of course inevitable due to the choice we made before that. “All You Zombies” is a morsel of a story that deals with this concept. The character in this story has gone back in time and must convince himself to travel back in time to retaliate against a man that is also himself so that a whole mess of things can occur. Basically he has to seduce the female version of himself so that he can abandoned the female version of himself so that she is alone when she has the baby (which is also himself) so that he can kidnap said baby while she is becoming a he. Very diluted I know. One might think that this is a case for predestination since it seems he cannot avoid seducing himself and then screwing himself over. However as the story begins the bartending version of the man is very anxious. He has to get himself to come with him. The whole thing rests on that decision. The decision of the female version to sleep with the male version leads to the decision to retaliate against the male version. However, when he goes back he cannot help but sleep with himself, another event made inevitable by the choice before it. It is one demented and convoluted time loop dictated by the decisions the individual and the different versions of himself make. His life is a mess and it is because of the choices he has made to get there, however he was not completely in control of those choices because they were determined by each other. He cannot avoid the inevitable but he is still concerned about getting himself to make the decisions he needs to set in action the inevitable. It is basically just a giant mess.

Since movies are made by humans and humans can never be entirely sure of anything there are also those movies that blur the lines of free will, determinism and predestination. A prime example of this is “Ground Hog’s Day” starring Bill Murry. At first glance this movie may seem like a good example of predestination, but if one digs a little deeper they find out that that is not the case. Billy Murry’s character is stuck in the same day, redoing everything until he finally does it right. He has the free will to do whatever he wants each day; he makes every choice in his life for himself. However, until he makes the “right” the choices he continues to live the same Ground Hog’s Day over and over and over again, despite attempts at ending his life. Here is the case for determinism. His decisions affect each other, he cannot continue with life until he makes the choices that allow that. So he has free will, he can do whatever he likes and what he does even affects others…for the day anyway. However, until he willfully chooses the choices that make the rest of his life inevitable he is stuck. The lines are all blurred here. There is an outcome that it has to come to, so predestination right? Well no, because he has free will to make his own decisions. But until he makes the decisions that are going to make the next decisions possible he continues to stay stuck. What ever shall we do with all of this? Think about it of course, and chuckle at Bill Murry’s frustrations.

To continue to ponder blurred lines on what is controlling our lives we can ponder the dilemma of Harry Potter. Harry is destined to either kill Voldermort or be killed by him. This is out of his control, it has to happen- it is predestined. He was destined to be the “boy who lived” because of his mother’s love for him. Again this was out of his control. Voldermort transferred powers to Harry that he will either need or at least be very useful in defeating him, another choice that neither of them made. However, when the Sorting Hat wanted to put him in Slytherin he (Harry) chose Gryffendor. His free will kept him out of that dreaded house. When Voldermort is taking over Harry’s body in the 5th book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry’s free will allows him to overcome Voldermort and the temptations of evil. It would be easier to just give in and it is not an easy thing to do, but he can. So now we have predestination and free will governing the wizard’s life and we get to the 3rd book of the series, Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, and we have a case for causal determinism. The world is the way it is because of the choices that have been made and the events that have happened up to that point. Sirius and Buckbeak are scheduled to be executed although they are both innocent. So Harry and Hermione go back in time and managed to save them based on the difference in events. However, during their time travel they do things that saved them the first time through the events (confusing I know). They knew what they had to do and that they were capable of doing it the second time because they had already done it (further confusing, I still know). This is a dream for a causal determinism. Nothing is set in stone yet everything is decided by the choice that came before it. So the wizard world seems confined and confused by the same boundaries as the human world.

So what is governing our lives? How much control do we really have over them? Are they predestined from the beginning and we’re just along for the ride? Are we in total control and able to use our free will to do whatever we like? Or are we somewhere in between, able to make choices that are inevitable based on the choice we made before that? It is something we will have to continue to ponder, and something science fiction writers can continue to entertain us with.