Chade wrote:
I wonder how plot devices such as fate developed.

Tom wrote:
Here’s my theory: Growth and development follow very obvious patterns again and again. So it’s easy to imagine that this pattern is repeated in the events of our lives as well as in the development of our bodies. Just as the child is destined to grow to an adult in a certain way, no matter what it might wish for itself, we are each destined to grow in spirit in a certain way, no matter what we choose. That’s fate.

Here’s mine. Until the development of statistical probabilistic methods for quantifying uncertainty, the progression of future events was unintelligible. Some times things happened, and sometimes they didn’t, and there appeared to be no consistent connection between actions taken and results caused except for on a relatively trivial basis such as dropping an object and seeing it fall to the ground. This absence of consistency was, through a process of anthropomorphism, attributed to some other entity – usually the “gods” – interfering, and having their own way despite the attempts of man to influence the course of events. That’s fate.

The discovery of tools for quantifying uncertainty, which primarily began in the 17th century, enabled this observation of “sometimes things happen, and sometimes they don’t” to be properly understood as illustrative of probability. This was a consciousness-raising discovery for the human race, and enabled the future to be once and for all taken out of the hands of the gods and into the hands of men, enabling rapid advances to be made in fields as diverse as engineering, architecture and finance.

Note: refer to “Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk” by Peter L. Bernstein for more on this idea.