Whether we’re all aware of it or not, we’ve all been subjects to foreshadowing be it in literature, film, or in TV shows. Foreshadowing is, by dictionary definition, "a warning or an indication of a future event’. Sometimes, foreshadowing can totally ruin the ending of a movie for you; sometimes it can be a hint to a huge revelation coming in the past that you completely miss until you watch (or read) the thing again; and sometimes it can such a throwaway comment that you barely notice it was there.
Below, I’ve listed five examples of foreshadowing that I found particularly interesting, from two TV shows and two movies that I’ve watched, that I believe are pretty damn good examples of the concept.
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers!
5. Cruel Intentions — Sebastian drives past a cemetery in the opening scene
For those of you who haven’t watched Cruel Intentions, I recommend you go do that right now. If you don’t have the time to watch, let me break it down for you: rich New York City kids out to ruin other rich New York City kids through a web of lies, deceit, drugs and sex. The movie’s main protagonists are Kathryn and Sebastian, step-siblings with a little bit too much incestuous feelings going on between them. The opening scene of the movie is a large graveyard (almost "World War I graveyard’ scale large) that pans out to include our first glimpse of Sebastian, who is driving past the cemetery in his prized possession — his Jaguar Roadster.
The foreshadowing? The Jaguar Roadster is what (indirectly) lands him in a cemetery himself. Sebastian dies towards the end of the movie, due to a bet that would have lost him his precious car if he loses. Granted, he did lose, and got hit by a taxi, which ultimately killed him.
4. Orphan Black — “Do I have a twin sister or something?”
Sarah Manning, orphan and conwoman, lands herself back home in Canada, trying to make amends with her foster mother in an attempt to get her daughter back. Simply ending up on the train station when she did results in a chain of events that leads her to realize that she isn’t as alone as she thought — she’s a clone. The series strives to answer two questions: “Who created the clones?” and “Who’s trying to kill them?” Amongst a set of characters — some loveable, some not — we’re introduced to various clones. A conwoman, a detective, a scientist, a housewife, and a psychopath named Helena. But at the beginning of the season, when Sarah is none the wiser about clones and genetic identical, she asks her best friend if maybe she has a twin sister she didn’t know about.
The foreshadowing? She does.
Helena, the psychopathic clone, is in fact Sarah’s twin sister, separated at birth by their birth mother in an effort to protect them. However, the line is uttered in episode one of Season one, and this is all revealed in episode nine of the same season. For those of us who had forgotten about that particular utterance, it was quite the shock. For those of us who remembered it, we’d wished we saw it coming.
3. Back to the Future Trilogy — The way Doc saves himself is revealed way in advance
If you haven’t watched Back to the Future, you’re obviously living under some sort of rock. The story revolves around Marty and Doc, and a car that, when reaching 88 miles per hour, can transport you forward or backwards in time. The trilogy follows a set of events so entwined with each other that it’s almost genius — no scratch that, it is totally genius — how the story plays out. You watch the movies barely expecting any of the events to happen. However, they were all cleverly thought out.
The foreshadowing? The ending is revealed sometime in the second movie…by another movie. In Back to the Future 2, Marty confronts his father’s arch-nemesis Biff about a stolen almanac, while Biff is watching A Fistful of Dollars, a spaghetti western in which Clint Eastwood saves himself from a shoot out by wearing a metal plate under his clothes. In the third movie, Marty himself pulls this same stunt to rescue himself from a shoot out he finds himself in in the Wild West. And towards the end of the third movie, Doc is revealed to have saved himself from being gunned down by terrorists…by the same mechanism.
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Vampire-Willow reveals Real-Willow’s sexuality two seasons in advance
Ah, Buffy. A show that a generation of viewers grew up watching, teaching us values such as "just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean you’re not strong’, "you’re more than your destiny’, and most importantly "never let a Vengeance Demon grant your spur-of-the-moment’ wish. One of the most notable characters of the show was Willow Rosenberg, Buffy’s nerdy best friend, who became involved in witchcraft and discovered her inner lesbian in Season 5 upon meeting Tara Maclay. For most of us watching Buffy, we had been quite surprised. Willow, the same Willow who had a boyfriend and then cheated on him with another guy? A lesbian?!
The foreshadowing? We’d had it coming from Season 3.
Really, if we’d been paying attention, we’d have known that it was coming. In Season 3, parallel universes meet, and we’re introduced to Vampire-Willow — basically, what Willow would be like if she got turned. And Vampire-Willow is very in touch with her inner lesbian (she even flirts with Real-Willow). Real-Willow’s reaction to meeting her vampire counterpart is to turn to her companions and say that she’s "kinda gay’. Really though, we should have seen that one coming.
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Dawn’s arrival is predicted earlier on in the series.
Really though, Joss Whedon knows how to give little nudges to the audience. Dawn Summers, Buffy’s little sister who we don’t meet until late into the show, is brought on very suddenly; the reason being she’s actually a mystical entity called The Key, and that everyone was given false memories so that Dawn would be treated like a member of the family even though she literally appeared about fifteen years too late into Buffy’s life. Apparently, nobody was expecting it… Except…
The foreshadowing? We’d had hints all along.
Buffy had had dreams earlier on in the series that listed a few hints that Dawn was going to be around, most notably, two lines: “Little sis coming, I know” and “Be back before dawn”. But they were so cleverly inserted into the whole thing, it pretty much slipped everyone’s notice. Until you rewatch it, of course.