Chosen One teams up with street-savvy thief

The MC (female, at least in my head) is a child of royalty and the Chosen One. She knows it. Her parents know it. Everyone knows it. Because of this, she's been preparing since childhood to fulfill her destiny. Of course, once she goes out to do so, she has no idea what she's doing. She's lived the typical cloistered, privileged life of royalty and has no idea how the world works. She's been told how to fulfill her destiny and save the world or whatever (and hopefully the people who told her knew what they were talking about), but she has no idea how to get there. It takes a street-savvy thief (or some other street urchin type) to teach her otherwise. Meanwhile, the time to complete her task is running out and if she fails, something really bad will happen.

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Misunderstood gift

Your MC is a typical Chosen One material: young, naïve, possibly a farm boy. His life (I imagined him as male, but feel free to play with the gender) revolves around a single secret: his ability to see the inner nature of people at a glance. An Old Wise Mentor encourages him to join a Five-Man Band out to destroy the Evil Overlord. The party is suitably impressed by the MC’s gift of truesight.

The Five Man Band begins on their merry jaunt. The MC is praised to the skies as he exercises his power and grows stronger. The party picks up companions along the way and there much joy, etc. – until the moment that the MC makes a mistake and sentences the wrong person to death.

This mistake is just the tip of the iceberg. He discovers that this is not the only error he has made: he and everyone around him has misinterpreted his gift, and he has been damning innocent people ever since the beginning of the quest.

Shocked and horrified by what he has done, the MC tries to hide the consequences of his errors. But the effort to do so tears the Five Man Band apart (as some defend and others condemn him. All of them are hiding from their own role in his wrongdoing and from their own crimes — some of which, done in the name of the Greater Good, are worse than any the Evil Overlord perpetuated).

As the heroic band collapses, the MC realizes the true nature of his gift: he cannot see the inner nature of people, only the “roles” that they play (“noble king,” “spunky, rebellious princess,” “wise mentor,” etc.)

He can no longer hide from what he has done. He attempts to clean up the mess he made of individual lives, whole families, and entire communities.

I always imagined that he can never quite fix what he did wrong, and so on coming face to face with the Evil Overlord, is executed for his crimes. But of course, you can go wherever you want with the end.

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seeing the future causes amnesia

MC1 has the power to see the future, how he gains it depends on your story. Anyways, he uses his power to cheat at casinos to earn a living. He uses the money to help MC2, who is sick, with the hospital bills, which is expensive. MC2 is either his lover, sister or a childhood friend.

Unfortunately for MC1, every time he looks at the future, he loses a past memory. To counter this, he reads a lot of books to gain new memory to lose. Eventually he loses his memory about MC2. All he knows is that he has to take care of her and that he loves her. MC1 is having internal conflict about feelings and motivations he does not remember.

MC2 is distressed about MC1 losing his memory about her and the times they spent together. It ends with MC1 eventually forgetting that he has the power to see the future, and he ends up living his life normally with MC2 as his lover (if she's the sister or the childhood friend).

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False Prophecy

When the heir to the throne was born, a soothsayer gave a prophecy that he would end the centuries-old war and return his kingdom to a second Golden Age. But, right before he is to be crowned king (his father is in his death throes, and going to be gone soon) he is visited by that soothsayer, who admits that she made up the prophecy.

She had in truth, not seen a thing in his future, the first time such a thing had ever happened to her. She made up such an over-the-top prophecy in her fit of panic at the prospect of admitting to the king and queen her failure. (Despite being a soothsayer, or because of it, she isn't the most emotionally/mentally stable person.) So obviously, this prince's entire view of himself and his future crumbles into dust. And what happens next, I have no clue.

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the evil overlord's adopted children

Once upon a time, a baby of prophecy was born. The local Evil Overlord kidnapped her immediately, intending to raise her as his heir.

Then a hero rescued the baby and planted her in an orphanage. Shortly afterward, said hero vanished. The EO tracked his prey to the orphanage, but by the time he got there, he had no way of telling which of the thirty babies in there was the one he wanted.

Still determined to get his hands on the kid, he took over the orphanage and adopted all of them. Which made him the proud guardian of thirty orphaned children, running around his evil palace... and as time passed, the kids grew, and he watched them carefully to see which was his Chosen...

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Prepared Sacrifice

MCs find a child [in the forest], running for his life, and too young to explain what he's running from. After looking after him for a while, monsters/crazed wild animals attack the village/farm/homestead. That never usually happens, they normally keep away from humans...after fighting them off, MCs find a dying man following the pack, who explains – the child is a prepared sacrifice, to raise an Evil thing into the world. The man stole him away from the evil people, and ran for it. The magic on the child drives the monsters/wild animals to attack. And now the people who want to raise the Evil are after this child, because they need him/her back before the year ends, and the time of sacrifice is over...

So MCs have to take kid through monster infested forest (optional). They reach the capital city, where the monsters/animals wouldn’t follow. And THERE they find out that the sacrifice had to be of royal blood, and what do you know, the prince has been kidnapped...(this bit’s even more optional...wait, it’s all optional, right, do what you like with it) so they spend a little while thinking the kid was royalty, but in fact he was the heir’s decoy. WHICH MEANT, that the authorities in the city were all for just killing the kid so the prophecy couldn’t happen, because royal blood or no, he's the prepared sacrifice now. With one side trying to capture the child, and the other side trying to kill the child, they were in way over their heads.

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Pawn (the chess and card fanatic MC)

MMC is a guy who is an absolute chess and card fanatic. He can beat anyone at chess with only a few simple moves and he can do all kinds of different tricks and illusions with his many limited edition card decks. However, one day he begins to notice something odd happening with his chess sets and card decks. It appears that almost every time he wins at chess, all the pieces are in the exact same spots and even one time, when he drops them on the ground by accident, they all land on the board in those positions. Every time, it is the king, queen, bishop, and a single pawn set off on their own in the middle. The rest are either captured or (in the case where he dropped the chess set) fallen on their sides around them.

And his cards -- the royals in his decks, especially one in particular, seem to be taking very life-like faces. The jacks in every deck rather resemble himself. And the jokers in each deck stare back at him with mysterious, chilling faces, and even once, he could have sworn that the eyes had moved and stared at him in a sinister, mocking way. What is happening to his chess pieces and cards? MC Googles these things for lack of any other form of action to take and discovers that there is a very ancient prophecy in which four major figures play a role. A King, a Queen, a Bishop, a Pawn. A King, a Queen, a Joker, a Jack. A President, a First Lady, a shifty Ambassador, a young school boy who only ever wanted to just play chess and cards.

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chosen one fails, then gets another chance

There was a Chosen One, who failed - he didn't find the wise old man or the sword, didn't go on the right journey and never became a warrior. The girl he was supposed to marry married another, and the kingdom he was meant to rule as a king was taken over, and ten years later he lives as a beggar on some back-alley. His god, who kept a distance over the years to avoid drawing attention to the Chosen One, finds him and sends him back to his childhood to do it all over again - to do it right this time. I don't know whether he's send into his younger body or if he goes as adult and becomes the guardian of his younger self, though.

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The Chosen Ones All Fail

The opening scene is of a Chosen One leading an army into battle against orcs/monsters/whatever. Backed with the certainty of prophecy, the Chosen One strides confidently forward... and is promptly slaughtered. As it turns out, this hapless Chosen One was about the fifth or sixth in a row who came to such a sticky end. Now, the Oracle has chosen a replacement. This replacement realizes that no good will come of being Chosen, and decides not to play along...

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chosen one is just a baby, so dad saves the world

There is a little Chosen One who is special but doesn't know it. The world is just waiting for the little Chosen One to save it from the Unimaginable Evil that threatens it. Problem is, the Chosen One was just born and wee little baby isn't about to go saving the world. So his dad has to go on a mission to fight evil wizards/dragons/store clerks with a baby, (and possibly a very disgruntled wife on tow). Or if you have a fondness towards odd bodyguard stories, maybe random blacksmith who was formerly a soldier/knight/something realizes what the world expects of this wee little Chosen One and becomes his guardian on this mission of terror.

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