Macbeth: Victim of Fate?

I think Macbeth’s destiny was out of his control. The interference of fate, in the form of the witches, is what caused his inevitable downfall. Macbeth didn’t exhibit any ambition to usurp the throne until he heard the prophecy. Once the idea was placed inside his head, however, it consumed him. He was extremely indecisive on what course of action to take, and rationalized against doing anything several times. His wife really forced it upon him, using tactics such as questioning his manhood and assuring his success.

Macbeth is a victim of his options. Recall, Macbeth was a religious man. Imagine you were told by a prophetic visionary (whether its angelic or demonic is irrelevant, as long as you believed in it) that you would come across immense wealth.; Immediately, you’d start looking left and right for the first opportunity to make this vision true. It’s only a natural response. Macbeth was already aware Malcolm was the next heir to the throne, so he could infer that his kingship had to be seized. When the opportunity to murder Duncan arose, he would believe it was his destiny.    

Also, take his initial character into question. He was a brilliant warrior, known for brutally slaughtering his opponents. Yet he shook with fright he had to murder whom he perceived an innocent man, and inevitably lost his grip on sanity as a result. That is not the appropriate characterization of the ruthless man Macbeth became by the end of the play. All of his subsequent murders and actions were a result him being trapped on a slippery slope. Towards the end of the play Macbeth laments on the futility of life. He is still able to regret his actions. He suffered greatly; losing his wife, reputation, power, and everything that once formed his identity   
                                                                                                           
Although Macbeth is very intelligent and appeared to have thought through his plan, I don’t believe he really did. His mind was completely focused on the task at hand – he kept rationalizing whether or not to kill the King. The fact that he didn’t consider he had no children to be heir to the throne until AFTER he murdered Duncan attests to that. I doubt he considered the grand scheme of his actions. He acted out of character by jumping the gun and murdering the King due to a perceived urgency of time, and was unable to really think things through. It didn’t help that he had his wife was emasculating him every step of the way. In my opinion, the destiny was forced upon Macbeth. How much blame you can put on the man for giving into tantalizing temptation, the original sin of man?