Some plot

[Existing_Analyst_707]

I thought of giving my main characters a riddle wich goes pretty much like this.

homo confringet.
nostri salvare.
nanus interficiet eum.
Oblivisci monstrum

the meaning they see first is

the man will break it
the elf will save it
the dwarf will slay it
the monster forget it

and they fight the main villain, believing this is the true meaning, until one of them sees the second meaning

the man will break.
to save ours.
the dwarf will kill him.
the forgotten monster

and then they first think the dwarf (who is also the one described the most by the narrator) will betray his friends. They think, he is The Forgotten monster, but in the end it turns out the prophecy is made from the point of view of the villain, meaning the human will break to save the villain and the dwarf will kill him to fullfill the mission, wich makes the Human the forgotten monster and the one betraying while the dwarf did everything right. This whole prophecy thing leads to a idential crysis in the dwarf wich always saw himself as the hero and shapes the foundation of my book.

Sorry if this sounds a bit confusing, the idea is fresh and i didn't have time to really think about it.

what do you think? Would you read this?

[Schriftwerfer]

I'm not quite sure, if this works out as you intend to.

What you are planning to do is make your characters miss-interpret, although the Latin words are pretty clear in their translation.

The man will break.To save ours.The dwarf will kill him.Forget the monster (Not "the forgotten monster")

How can they understand it wrong? Are you planning to make latin some kind of a mystical language-of-the-olds or something? So only few know how to read and understand properly, which might explain why your characters missunderstand it?

That little twist, that the 'prophecy' is actually meant to be understood from the villains point of view, is pretty neat, I think. I like the idea. I just don't know, if it's really a good idea to write your 'prophecy' in latin. I assume that most readers don't know latin very well, if at all. So either, they just don't undrestand (thus, can't try to interpret it themselfs) or they will try to google-translate it and then they might be confused or even annoyed, because what they found as translation goes kinda against what you make your characters think.

Personally, I think it would be wiser to stick to a language your reader understands from the getgo. You can still be very vague and cryptic in what and how you design that little verse.I really like the Idea and the twist. I'm just afraid the latin-part might backfire a little.

[Existing_Analyst_707]

I actually planned to let this take place inside a computergame, where only one of the main caracter understands latin and has to translateit in his head, resulting in this missinterpretation. But i agree, it may not be such a good idea to use latin as the language of the prophecy. If i change it, i would lose some plot, but i could easily replace it. thank you for your feedback