Is fate real? It’s not. When you drop your pencil is it fate, or are you just clumsy? Sorry, but you’re clumsy. You get to where you are because of the choices you make. In the book Parzival by Katherine Paterson, that is not true. A young boy travels through the medieval ages following his destiny to become king. Like I said before, fate is probably not real but this is just a story. Parzival is a written character and who is not real. Katherine Paterson meant for this all to be fake and so for Parzival, every little pencil drop was fate.

Parzival rises to power because of the start of his journey. On page 9, Parzival runs into horsemen. He doesn’t understand who they are or what they are doing. Fate is when something peculiar happens that suddenly makes a change. The whole adventure would not of happened if he had not run into those knights on the street. It was fate for him to run into them. He would not be king if he hadn’t left his house that one day on that one moment. That is why it is fate. Fate helped him in ways that aren’t really noticeable. It wasn’t  his own freewill to leave his house on that day. If his fate was to become king, and the knights started the journey to become king, the knights scene must be fate. Not only was Parzival’s journey started by fate, he also had fate help him in more ways.

Parzival became royalty because fate guided him throughout his journey. “Your mother and and mine are sisters.”page 16.The lector of this line was Parzival’s cousin. Isn’t weird to see your cousin that you’ve never heard of, didn’t know she existed, but she still was a major part of your journey. Think about this, what if everything was meant to happen? This is the idea of fate. Things like this don’t just happen in this book. If he hadn’t met his cousin, he wouldn’t of went the wrong direction, and everything would change. He wouldn’t know who his cousin was the second time he met her.He probably would of went the right way and maybe had a different approach on the scenario. Maybe Arthur would of then made him a knight and he would never become king. That is why fate happens. Not only did fate guide him through his journey, fate is also the reason that his destiny was fulfilled.

Parzival became king as a result of fate because his fortune was to become king. “You are destined to become to be the Grail King.” page 118. The orator of that line was Cundrie, a sorceress. Parzival’s destination was to become king. If he got to be king, that meant that fate won. If he had a different ending, that meant he used freewill. But he didn’t. He became king, and he wouldn’t of became king without every decision that he made. So all the decisions were fate! If that was true, then fate not only guided him throughout his full journey, what was said to become of him happened. Fate played out. Every small thing that happened helped him become king, so it was fate when he met his brother. It was fate when he met his wife, cousin and when he killed that lark. All those things played into him becoming king, so those things must be fate. That is why Parzival is royalty.

Parzival rose to power because of his destiny. Maybe that is true for everyone, but it is for him. His whole life is a series of unexplainable things happening to him. You work for things, and that is how you make you destiny come true. Not for Parzival. That is why Parzival drops his pencil, and why you drop yours too.  

That is my Parzival Essay. We have recently been working on this in class. At the beginning of this project, I was 100% sure that Parzival got to where he was because of freewill. But, then we had debates. We were in teams of five, and had a debate over if Parzival got to where he was because of fate or freewill. I was hoping for freewill, but when they flipped the coin, I was on the fate side. Not by choice. We started our opening statement with some evidence, showing how this or that must be fate. When it was the freewill side, I heard their argument. “No one told Parzival what to do. It was his choice.” I listen to them speak and I try to think of a comeback, and it hits me. I was thinking about Percy Jackson, a book I read in third grade. In this book, Percy’s fate is to make a decision. The decisions you make can be fate! I let them keep talking, not even caring. I hear the dogs go off. It is my turn. “I got this.” I whisper to my team. “I noticed you said that no one told Parzival what to do. Are you implying fate is a person? Because it’s not. Fate isn’t something that tells you what to do. Your fate could be to chose this over that. Fate can be to make a decision.” I see the judges nodding their heads in agreement, “My fate could be to make this choice, which in Parzival’s case was 100% true. Those choices you used as evidence, well, those choices were fate.” I finish, proud of myself. I let my other teammates talk, and they bring up really strong points too. Once our time is done, I listen to the other teams point. “No one told Parzival what to do. It was his choice.” They were repeating points already proved wrong. I knew that moment that we had won, and luckily the judges agreed. From then on, I knew that fate was the answer. Now that I had proved freewill wrong, I couldn’t go back to saying it was right. And that is how I started my Parzival essay.