# Forshadowing in LOTR (SPOILERS for all books and movies will NOT be boxed.) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 16, 2004, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forshadowing-in-lotr-spoilers-for-all-books-and-movies-will-not-be-boxed/224816 "2004-01-16T18:49:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BuckleberryFerry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5f9b8f/32.png) [@BuckleberryFerry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BuckleberryFerry)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2004, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forshadowing-in-lotr-spoilers-for-all-books-and-movies-will-not-be-boxed/224816/1 "2004-01-16T18:49:11Z")
_ **SPOILERS for the ENTIRETY of the LOTR saga will NOT be boxed** _ You have been warned. I’m rereading _Fellowship of the Ring_, and have been pleasantly surprised at the amount of forshadowing that I understand, now that I know the ending. I was hoping you folks would post some forshadowing you noticed and particularly liked and explain it for us. My favorite bit right now that I had never noticed before is as follows: > [@](#): > > _from **In The House Of Tom Bombadil** in LOTR:FOTR, pp 143-144 of Ballatine Books paperback edition_ > “In the dead night, Frodo lay in a dream without light \<…\> there loomed before him a black wall of rock \<…\> within it was a plain, and in the midst of the plain stood a pinnacle of stone, like a vast tower \<…\> On its top stood the figure of a man. The moon \<…\> glistened in his white hair \<…\> Up \<…\> came the crying of fell voices \<…\> a light flashed from the light that he weilded \<…\> A mighty eagle swept down and bore him away.” Frodo seems to be dreaming about Gandalf’s imprisonment and escape from Orthanc, with Gwaihir saving him from the tower and the “fell voices” of Uruk-hai below. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forshadowing-in-lotr-spoilers-for-all-books-and-movies-will-not-be-boxed/224816/2 "2004-01-16T18:57:10Z")
Frodo does do a lot of odd dreaming throughout the books. And its usually at the end of chapters, which is an interesting technique. However, they are a bit clunky. Sorry, don’t have much to contribute, but those are snippets I try to pay attention to when I re-read. ---
**Author:** ![Sauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2004, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forshadowing-in-lotr-spoilers-for-all-books-and-movies-will-not-be-boxed/224816/3 "2004-01-16T19:05:25Z")
There are multitudes of foreshadowing events and such in LOTR. They range from the mundane (Pippin and Merry finding crates of Longbottom Leaf in the wreckage of Isengard) to the cosmic (Sauron made the Ring, and when he lost it he lost a finger; Frodo [sorta] destroyed the Ring, and when he did so he lost a finger).