# Genuinely clever foreshadowing **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 10, 2012, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575 "2012-12-10T05:18:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/41 "2012-12-11T17:24:38Z")
Webcomic **8-Bit Theatre** deserves a mention here. A throwaway line in [Episode 7](http://www.nuklearpower.com/2001/03/20/episode-007-kamehameha-or-something/) pays off big in [Episode 1221](http://www.nuklearpower.com/2010/02/20/episode-1221-longest-set-up-in-webcomic-history/), **nine years later** with no reference to it at all in-between. Whether you consider it foreshadowing or the longest brick joke in history, you have to admire the planning involved. Also, in the “Thursday Next” books by Jasper Fforde, Thursday hides a gun for herself in the first book, only to retrieve it at a critical moment in the fourth book. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/42 "2012-12-11T17:46:58Z")
_The Shield_ is amazingly through-planned - way early on in the show they’re already mentioning in passing the structure of the Armenian mob that played such a major role later on in the show, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/43 "2012-12-11T17:54:40Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > I don’t remember that. The small bird getting crushed in the cage, for one example. ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/44 "2012-12-11T17:59:52Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > I don’t remember that. What I was particularly thinking of was: The trick where making a bird seem to disappear was done by being willing to kill an identical bird (by flattening it) each time the trick was done. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/45 "2012-12-11T18:35:38Z")
Since Gyrate opened the webcomic door, [The Order of The Stick](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/ootscast.html) is renowned for this sort of thing, introducing panel details in one strip, and using them a few hundred panels later. [TVTropes](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick?from=Main.OrderOfTheStick)goes into much more detail than I can remember, but it’s a pastime among OOTS fans to try and tease out future plot elements from the current strip. One running joke is that one of the minor characters is in a pool of magical darkness, yet there are enough clues in all of the ~850 strips (counting extras in like Dragon, and such) that you should be able to figure out what the MiTD is. No one’s definitively figured it out yet though, AFAIK. I don’t think there’s been a nine year wait between jokes, but at the rate Burlew’s updating the comic… Simmer down, I know about the car wreck. If you can’t make fun of those things you really enjoy… ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/46 "2012-12-11T19:05:20Z")
> [@cher3](#): > > What I was particularly thinking of was: > > The trick where making a bird seem to disappear was done by being willing to kill an identical bird (by flattening it) each time the trick was done. “But where’s its brother?” There’s some terrific foreshadowing in the wedding scene of The Godfather. (Open spoilers alert.) On an IMDB thread, I pointed out that Paulie’s envy over the wedding purse (“If this were somebody else’s wedding…”) foreshadowed that Paulie would later sell out his Don for money. Another poster pointed out that that scene was chock-full of subtle foreshadowing…Sonny’s running off to screw Lucy Mancini practically under his wife’s nose showed the recklessness that would be his downfall (and very nearly Vito’s death); Fredo had to insinuate himself into an introduction to Kay (even this early, he’s being overlooked by his younger brother); Clemenza snaps in an instant from carefree wedding guest to snapping orders at Paulie (just the same as he can go from easygoing spaghetti-sauce chef to planning a murder), and so on. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/47 "2012-12-11T19:31:26Z")
I’m not sure if it’s foreshadowing, exactly, but in Looper: The kid on the farm has some toy action figures in his room that look exactly like the Rainmaker’s goons will in the future. [Here are the relevant screencaps.](http://imgur.com/a/LIH5I) ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/48 "2012-12-11T20:10:01Z")
My favorite, and one it took me three years to catch: In the very first episode of _Arrested Development_, the Narrator introduces “George Michael, and his cousin, Maebe”. His cousin. _Maybe_. It’s revealed later on that George Michael and his cousin may, actually, not be related. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/49 "2012-12-11T20:14:31Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > In the lamentably overlooked Oscar-snubbed film _Wayne’s World 2_, there is a seemingly innoculous scene wherein the protagonist encounters some gentlemen doing a day’s labour on a public street. Wayne, the protagonist, and his stalwart companion Garth have a brief conversation with a labourer credited simply as “Chicken Man”. Chicken Man explains the tasks of each of the street labourers. > > **Wayne:** Excuse me, what are you guys doing here in the middle of the street? > **Chicken-man:** Well, I’m putting these chickens in crates, and stacking them right here. Jim’s job is to make sure we always have plenty of watermelons. > **Wayne:** Oh, so you’re selling watermelons. > **Jim:** No, no sir. We just have to make sure we have plenty of them stacked at all times, just like with these here chickens. > **Garth:** What do these guys do? > **Chicken-man:** Well, their job is to walk back and forth with this big plate-glass window every couple of minutes. > > Now, originally I had just thought that this scene was inlcuded simply to color and fleshout the narrative landscape. As the scene concluded, I thought nothing more of it. Later in the film however . . . > > There is a chase scene. The chase ends up taking a path down this very street where we met the innocent labourers. Various destructive collisions occur as the chase tears down the small street. The watermelons are smashed, exploding bright pink and green across the scene, the crates of chickens are disrupted sending escaped chickens to startle about in a flurry of feathers, and the unsuspecting gentlemen carrying the large plate-glass window are left stunned each holding on to an edge of the glass as it is shattered when the chase crashes right through it.Without the earlier scene, this later scene would have made no sense, but I was floored with awe when it all came together. I was not alone in my admiration. At the first screening of the film, when this pay-off scene played out, Shakespeare, Poe, Joyce, and Faulkner all rose from there graves to applaud. Hrm… I actually read that as intentionally telegraphing what was to come, rather than subtly foreshadowing it… But either counts as “clever foreshadowing” I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/50 "2012-12-11T20:39:34Z")
Another one: **L.A. Confidential**. Everyone knows about Rollo Tomasi, but a more subtle one was from an earlier scene where James Cromwell tells Ed Exley he can’t be in homicide because he wouldn’t be willing to beat a confession out of a suspect, plant evidence, or shoot someone in the back. By the end of the movie Exley has done all of those things. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/51 "2012-12-11T20:41:20Z")
My all-time favorite example is the [Community Beetlejuice](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19FMU3M7Jtk). In Season 1, there’s a throwaway gag in which someone is compared to Beetlejuice. In Season 2, someone’s blouse is compared to Beetlejuice. And in Season 3, someone’s music selection is called “Creepy Beetlejuice music”. **At the third mention of his name, Beetlejuice appears**. ---
**Author:** ![Monkey\_Chews](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@Monkey\_Chews](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monkey_Chews)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/52 "2012-12-12T07:07:19Z")
Does a thread about foreshadowing need spolier warnings? Anyway, SPOILERS FOR BABYLON 5 in this post… not using tags as they’re already out there, but a warning anyway. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > When Kosh is introduced to Sinclair, one of the words he says is “Valen.” > [@NitroPress](#): > > Specifically, he says “Entil’zha Valen.” (“Leader/Founder of the Rangers Valen.”) > > Unfortunately, that voiceover was added after the first showing of the pilot - I’m not certain when, but I think it was for the second showing just before the second season premiered and the Sinclair/Valen arc was set in stone. So it’s a retcon, and thus slightly asterisked as foreshadowing. Correct, in the original version of the pilot, Kosh says nothing. The line from Kosh was put in for the revised, re-edited version, which was done at the same time as “In The Beginning” and aired between seasons 4 and 5. It’s about a million times better than the original version.) And of course, there’s no way that could have been the line in the original version, as that wasn’t the original plan for Sinclair, but a fix made after the change of lead actors. (Details of the original plan for B5 were released by JMS and summarised [here](http://jblum.livejournal.com/141237.html) and [here](http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=53739).) Other Babylon 5 foreshadowing: - Everyone and their mother telling Garibaldi, “Watch your back”. Only in the first season of course, because it was really inappropriate and awkward after he actually got shot in the back. - Delenn building her Chrysalis device right in front of our eyes in nearly every scene in her quarters throughout the first season. - Dr Kyle mentions in the pilot a legend that the only person who has even seen a Vorlon was turned to stone… what, you mean maybe like Lot’s wife, who turned around to watch the angels destroying Sodom and Gomorrah? - And even the name of the show referencing the original city Babylon, which saw the beginning of human civilisation and was basically the dawn of the Second Age Of Mankind. From Buffy The Vampire Slayer: In the 3rd season finale, when Faith and Buffy share a dream, Faith tells Buffy as they make her bed that her “Little sis is coming” and calls her Little Miss Muffet. In the season 4 finale, Tara tells Buffy in a dream that she has to “be back before Dawn”. When Dawn does finally turn up in season 5 - first seen on the same spot that Faith and Buffy were making a bed in their dream - someone refers to her a “eating her curds and whey”. ---
**Author:** ![Orr\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ee59a6/32.png) [@Orr\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orr_G)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/53 "2012-12-12T10:02:00Z")
Speaking of Lost… No, let’s not. Or, maybe… One example of a tightly-written series, with rather profound foreshadowing, is _Life on Mars_. The protagonist finds himself in a rather difficult to explain situation. Early on he makes a list of possible explanations for what has happened to him, including coma, purgatory, time-travel and so on (looking rather like the list many fans of Lost came up with for that show). Alongside the list, he places a big question mark, and it’s suggested that the truth is likely something other than one of the items on his list. At the end of the series, it turns out The truth is indeed something other than one of the items on his list. I found it to be a very satisfying conclusion to an interesting series. And, IMO, an example of some pretty clever foreshadowing. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/54 "2012-12-12T13:55:47Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I like a lot of the foreshadowing in Moffat’s Doctor Who. I think he does a great job, with clues for the sharp viewer, and still manages to take many people aback. > > Hidden in plain sight. Specifically, the Doctor losing, then wearing, and then once more not having his jacket in the episode _Flesh and Stone_, with the payoff coming in _The Big Bang_. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/55 "2012-12-12T14:54:49Z")
> [@Hermione](#): > > “But where’s its brother?” For bonus points, consider something else we’re explicitly told. [SPOILER]Angier’s lookalike (_“When I get through with him,”_ says Michael Caine,\* “he could be your brother”\*) meets Borden – who helpfully explains that he’s used the same method to work his own version of the Transported Man trick, pointing out that _“when I incorporated this bloke into my act, he had complete power over me.”_ Since he’s obviously just saying it to pit the guy against his employer – and it immediately has the desired effect – it’s danged easy to disregard.[/SPOILER] ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/56 "2012-12-12T15:18:49Z")
> [@Covered\_In\_Bees](#): > > I’m pretty sure in the original airing of the pilot, Nibbler’s shadow isn’t there. I still have my tape of the original airing, and went back and looked when this issue first cropped up. It’s there. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/57 "2012-12-13T23:05:14Z")
In _The Silence of the Lambs_, during their first interview, Clarice Starling comments on one of Hannibal’s drawings – a cityscape of Florence. He replies that it’s “The Duomo, as seen from the Belvedere.” Something always bothered me about the way the line was delivered. If Hannibal Lector had spent enough time in Florence to be able to sketch the Duomo from memory, his Italian pronunciation should have been rather more up to scratch – not “doo-OH-moh” but “DWOH-moh”; not “BEL-veh-deer” but “bel-vih-DARE-eh”. My first thought was to chalk it up as an actor’s mistake – even Sir Anthony is not immune. Later on I decided that Lector was simply mocking Clarice’s West Virginia accent. On the umpteenth viewing I finally noticed that the name of the town where Buffalo Bill was discovered was Belvedere. :smack: Yes, he \*was \*mocking her accent, but at the same time giving her a clue that sailed far over her head. ---
**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/58 "2012-12-14T16:34:55Z")
> [@Kizarvexius](#): > > On the umpteenth viewing I finally noticed that the name of the town where Buffalo Bill was discovered was Belvedere. :smack: Yes, he \*was \*mocking her accent, but at the same time giving her a clue that sailed far over her head. There is also another aspect that goes right over her head. When Clarice asks Lechter how to find Buffalo Bill he says “Simplicity, Clarice.” Starling thinks that he means that she has to think simply about the case. But Simplicity is a famous maker of dress designs. Lechter is actually telling Clarice what Buffalo Bill is doing , but she doesn’t know enough to realize it yet. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/59 "2012-12-14T17:40:34Z")
> [@Eutychus](#): > > There is also another aspect that goes right over her head. When Clarice asks Lechter how to find Buffalo Bill he says “Simplicity, Clarice.” > > Starling thinks that he means that she has to think simply about the case. But Simplicity is a famous maker of dress designs. Lechter is actually telling Clarice what Buffalo Bill is doing , but she doesn’t know enough to realize it yet. Holy crap, that’s subtle! ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575/60 "2012-12-14T23:56:02Z")
> [@Eutychus](#): > > There is also another aspect that goes right over her head. When Clarice asks Lechter how to find Buffalo Bill he says “Simplicity, Clarice.” > > Starling thinks that he means that she has to think simply about the case. But Simplicity is a famous maker of dress designs. Lechter is actually telling Clarice what Buffalo Bill is doing , but she doesn’t know enough to realize it yet. Damn. That one never occurred to me, either. Going to have to re-watch tonight and parse every word Lector says. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genuinely-clever-foreshadowing/643575.md?page=4)