Quotes / Foreshadowing

"[...]One day fate smiled upon the child, and so he came upon the implement of his destruction, decisions! Decisions! The outcome was not certain - Pro captu lectoris, habent sua fata libelli."

—Cry of Fear

Malory: I'm sorry, but how is that "awesome"?
Archer: Because, pretty much my whole life I've wanted to fight some guys on the roof of a speeding train!
Kenny: Well find one of my boys. You might just get your wish, big guy.
Archer: Ooh, thanks Freddie Foreshadowing.

—Archer

"And of course in stories there is always fate. It goes by the name of foreshadowing and is the emperor of everybody."

—Percival Unck, Radiance

I keep doing that, I know. The foreshadowing. It's a cheap trick, a would-be writer's conceit, but it's also how life works. Everything is foreshadowed once it's happened, and I have now happened. The man I'm describing, the one still an hour away from Lake Tahoe, with a full bladder and an increasingly strident desire for a beer, is the man I was a few weeks ago. The guy who opened Book 'Em is the man I was over ten years back. The one who placed a ring on the finger of a feisty girl from Portland called Aerin (who lit up every room I ever saw her in, and who, I am sure, truly meant it when she swore she'd be forever true) is twenty-five years in the past. The cat's out of the bag in those lives. I know what happens, which road fate pushes those guys down. They become me. The person I am now, who casts a dark shadow back down his years, limiting everyone he once was.

We all cast shadows. They are dark.

—Afterlife, Michael Marshall Smith

"Ness! Now, I... well... It's going to seem like I'm running away. But perhaps I'll just sneak away to another era to think about my next plan."

—Porky Minch, EarthBound (1994)

Jad: Any advice at all? Something that's going to save my life?
Rosa: Don't open it.

— Ben Drowned

"So Ajax and Odysseus are all like "Yo, Agamemnon's willing to give you your girlfriend back, along with a ridiculous amount of wealth and a few Kingdoms if you get out there and help us fight" and Achilles is like "Nope! He's a jerk. In fact, I'll sail home tomorrow unless something really tragic and unnecessary happens to make me stay and fight. Hey, if it isn't my best buddy Patroclus! I don't know what I'd do if this guy died!" (that folks, are what we in the writing biz call "Foreshadowing")"

— Overly Sarcastic Productions summarizes The Iliad

"Remember when I was foreshadowing? This is the shadow that I was foring!"

—Birdie, Central Park

WARNING: AS OF CHAPTER 118, THIS CHAPTER IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT TO THE LORE AND READERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO GO BACK AND LOOK AT IT AGAIN. BECAUSE OF THIS, THE COMMENT SECTION IS FILLED WITH SPOILERS FOR ALMOST 80 CHAPTERS FORWARD. READ THEM AT YOUR OWN RISK.

—Salty_Sam's author's notes in Chapter 29, "The Portals (Part 2)" of Between Dreams and Memories

Milo: Well?
Opus: Well what?
Milo: What do we call what just happened?
Opus: Heck if I know.
Milo: FORESHADOWING!
Opus: WELL, SORRY, BUT I NEVER READ THE "EDITOR'S NOTES"!!

— Bloom County, December 13th, 1985

GM: You don't need to point out foreshadowing.
Jim: How do you know when I'm being clever, then?
GM: We realise it afterwards, when we reflect back on what happened and make connections between subtle plot elements that were painstaking to set up.

— Darths & Droids, "Backstory 55: A Good Day to Fly Hard"

Ned Stark: My honor is going to get me killed one of these days.
Tony Stark: Have you never listened to the old tales, cousin? They call that "foreshadowing". I’d avoid it.

— A Man of Iron, Chapter 22

"[Tommy Tallarico is] very happy about the fact he was specifically on MTV's Cribs. He says it a lot in interviews, and that's what he calls the video he uploaded onto his own channel, and there's no way he would tell an obvious lie like that... would he? [Beat] Foreshadowing is a literary device in whi--"

— Hbomberguy, "ROBLOX_OOF.mp3"

"You might have even heard of Shergold. He was the subject of a massive chain letter campaign, wherein he wished for as many people as possible to send him get-well cards so as to get more cards than anyone else had ever gotten. In a seemingly insignificant detail that will become important later in the story (that's called foreshadowing, ladies and gents) this is the only wish on the list that wasn't granted by the actual Make-A-Wish foundation, which note on their website, we do not participate in these kinds of wishes."

— Cracked, "The 8 Most Badass Make-A-Wish Foundation Wishes"

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