Prologue or Anti...logue?

I recently started up a conversation at Absolute Write out of mild curiosity. I've been thinking a lot about that dreaded process of getting a book published known as the "Query Stage." I've never seen anyone actually refer to it as the Query Stage, but it makes too much sense not to use it.

To boil it down, my story has a prologue in it, and in regards to my experience with sending out queries for my last novel, many agents ask for different things: the first 10,000 words, the first chapter, the first three chapters, etc. But I never knew whether or not I should send the prologue along.

Many people use the prologue for many different things, and different people feel different ways about it. I remember one of my teachers telling me that reading the prologue in a book isn't necessary all of the time. My brother has been skipping the prologues because of this line of thinking, as well. So I was sure that if there are some people who think the prologue is meaningless, then there are probably agents who do as well.

So I asked the forum: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165475

I couldn't get a straight answer from any of them, to my amusement. I had would-be authors and published authors trying to figure it out. It was funny, and supported my initial worries. There were a few very helpful posts by people who had been worried about the same thing, and they told me to think of the prologue as CHAPTER ONE if it's of importance to the story.

And the prologue is important to my story in this regard. Without the prologue, chapter one doesn't carry the same weight, and without chapter one, the prologue carries no meaning at all since it's detached from the main story. There are others who use the prologue as an info-dump. The kind of "In a world where darkness reigns supreme" prologues that are more of a refresher course than anything else.

So, I will be sending it along to agents, unless they state otherwise. Just thinking about the time when I can get another shot at the process gets me all excited. The last time around, I was fairly arrogant about everything and did so many things wrong. I plan on not making the same mistakes this time.