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What Foreshadowing have you caught?


FeatherWriter

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Okay, it's time for some fun. I've been told that I am notoriously bad at catching foreshadowing while reading. I guess almost nothing while I read books. So I want to know, how good are you at getting foreshadowing? What insane catches have you made and what obvious things have you missed?

So here's my most embarassing. The Shallan Shardblade thing? Took me two readthroughs to figure out. And it gets soooooo obvious by the end. I felt so silly. My friend also guessed the train car switch halfway through AoL and I had no idea. Pretty much, if it's not explicitly spelled out, I probably won't get it. And since I don't come to the forums during books, I pretty much get blindsided by every single plot twist.

My sister on the other hand is really good at catching things. I read aloud to her, so I get to see her theorizing every step of the way. She caught that "OreSeur" was actually the kandra spy. The second mention of Kaladin's sphere's going dun and she's guessed that he's sucking the stormlight from them like Szeth. She guessed that Susebron had no tongue after only one night with Siri. Ugh, she makes me feel so incompetent.

However that does make it fun when things totally blindside her. She got so mad when Denth turned out to be evil and when giving up the power at the Well ended up not being a good thing. We're not very far into WoK but I'm hoping some of the things in there will come out of the blue for her. Seeing her reations are one of the reasons I read aloud in the first place!

Maybe it's because I skim when reading to myself, but when read aloud she gets every word. Maybe I accidentally give things away. I don't know.

So what's your best and worst foreshadowing pick-up?

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I'm usually really bad at catching stuff too. I didn't catch Shallan's Shardblade at all either! I only caught it in my second read when i read the chapter again because I couldn't remember where i had left off.

But Elantris was a different story, it probably has to do with me somehow reading Elantris AFTER the rest of the Cosmere books, but I caught on everything really quick. The first time the Chasm is mentioned, I immediately thought, "THATS PROBABLY THE PROBLEM!" and after learning about the restriction of AonDor to nearby Elantris, I was 98% sure. I ended up mentally screaming at Raoden throughout the entire book =p. I caught Lukel's brother being an Elantrian, the use of Dor by the monks when Hrathren mentioned how they cultivate demons, Uncle Kiin being the pirate. I basically got everything except that one mention of the healing gone wrong mention, although i guess it wasn't really{/i} a foreshadowing. I found both the intense hatred and the case study mention really suspicious but never connected the two.

I'm still catching little details that I've completely missed in the forum discussions so I still suck at this stuff. I think i pretty much only caught all the things in Elantris because I've become so used to Brandon's writing from reading every other book and know to look for little things from forum discussions. It's probably also the case that Brandon didn't hide Elantris stuff as subtly as his other books since it's his first published book, and he was less experienced then.

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The problem with good foreshadowing is that you are not supposed to catch it. Brandon has said a few times that this is one of the areas he wants to improve on and learn from R. Jordan. I don't watch for them too much, though I do make a mental note when I see something odd and usually remember it when the revelation comes.

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My guesses? Let's see here. I don't remember if I called Shallan's shardblade.

I did call Kaladin's magicness, from the dun spheres.

And one foreshadowing that I'm predicting, is the odd fact that Miles says that those of Red and Gold, the bringers of the Last Metal. What color is the cigar company that Miles loves? Red and Gold my friends. But that's all the evidence for that.

The trouble is that most of the time, I'm too busy reading the book to actually think about the book and predict things. But sometimes when I'm only given tidbits (a glance at an ARC, early chapters, etc), I'll have time to sit down and make predictions based off of the data I have.

But sometimes that epically fails (like my prediction that Harmony couldn't read minds, he was just guessing).

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I totally called Vin's Earring. Once the basics of Hemalurgy were explained I knew what was going on. I'm also proud to say that I caught onto Shallan's Shardblade the first time it was mentioned.

On the other hand, after rereading WoA, I can't believe I never figured out the major foreshadowing the epigraphs were doing the whole time.

Probably the bit of foreshadowing I'm most proud of is that which I recorded in the thread "On a strong day." (Which features major WoK spoilers, btw.)

(Toots own horn for a bit more.)

(Leaves.)

Edited by Link Von Kelsier Harvey
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I've gotten better at spotting Brandon's tricks. Pretty much everything blindsided me back when I read Elantris.

UBER-SUCCESS: The first time I was told about atium, before I had even read Mistborn, I thought of watching someone who is burning atium carefully and using their "reactions" to what you're about to do in order to change your actions and circumvent their atium power. When none of the characters thought of that for a book and a half, I just assumed that atium's mental enhancements made such a pre-reaction impossible. Then I got annoyed when that was the climactic move in Vin's last fight with Zane. :angry: That might have been my least favorite moment in any of Brandon's books ... it's a good thing it came right after TenSoon's Crowning Moment of AWESOME when he switched sides and saved Vin.

SUCCESS: I figured out Shallan's shardblade pretty early. I figured out Vin's earring pretty early in Hero of Ages, and even guessed that was going to be Marsh's contribution to the good guys at the climax. I figured out how Marasi's allomantic power was going to help the good guys, pretty much as soon as we found out she had it.

MUSHY: I caught Kaladin's magic powers before they were completely obvious, but not the first time they were hinted at. I guessed that the Mistfallen were going to end up being atium-Mistings, but not until a few pages before it was totally revealed.

FAIL: Denth's betrayal shocked me. Sazed being the HoA (i.e. the one writing the epigraphs in HoA) should have been obvious from the tone all along, but for some reason my mind kept setting that possibility aside. "OreSeur" being the spy/impostor wasn't something I ever really considered -- like Vin, I took him at his word about when exactly the switch had happened, and therefore logically eliminated him as a suspect. Sigh. I didn't think of Lightsong healing Susebron's tongue until, like, one paragraph before it happened. I didn't get the hints of the parshmen being Voidbringers until Jasnah said so.

But more than any of the others, I can't believe I didn't catch on to Ruin's ability to alter writings. It's foreshadowed in THE FIRST BLASTED LINE OF THE BOOK. "Anything not written in metal cannot be trusted." How did I overlook that???

Edited by Captain.Kaulu
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The reason I didn't get the parshmen/voidbringers thing is because for some reason, I didn't see it as a mystery. (Not that I really would have guessed it anyway given my track record.) I totally got hooked on the idea that the thunderclasts from the prelude were the voidbringers all along. When Jasnah made her big reveal, I was like "Pffft- Jasnah, you're totally wrong. It's those big rock thingies!" Then I reread the prelude and realized I might have mis-rememberd some things. Oh well.

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I still don't feel completely satisfied on the "Voidbringer" account. Maybe it's just because Brandon decided to do it from a factual standpoint (something that we would likely do), then a story standpoint (having the characters realize it just before the parshmen start turning into Voidbringers). It seems that a major reveal like that should have some more questions being asked by the characters (like Shallan), so that it's a question that gets answered, rather than a connection that's just there. Does that make sense?

Maybe I'm just jealous because I wanted us to figure out the Voidbringer/Parshmen connection for ourselves. ;)

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For the most part I am completely surprised by Brandon's books, but really that is why I keep reading them. If it counts though, I noticed in WoK that every chapter that began with a happy tone would end in an extremely sad tone. When Kaladin's bridge shield worked well, I remember thinking "damnation it. This is somehow going to turn out very bad."

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  • 4 weeks later...

For the most part I haven't noticed the foreshadowing until after I went back and reread the books and noticed it in hind sight, (Dockson mentioning the LR's perfect memory for example.) However there have been a few things I have noticed that I am proud of:

-I "knew" Sazed was going to be the Hero as soon as I read the first epigraph of HoA.I have know idea how I knew it and actually started to think that it was a stupid idea around chapter 10ish but once Vin had been named in them later on I knew it couldn't be her and so I was back to believing it was Sazed.

-I figured out how Elantris was going to end well before I should have, though I will admit that I was only able to do this because I was asking my dad who had already read the book questions I had about Aon Dor and how it worked. If it hadn't been for him I wouldn't have realized that the chasm line needed to be added to all the Aons

-Oh and I totally called Lightsong dying to give the God King his tongue I was totally surprised about what we find out about his life before he was Returned.

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I caught Kaladin's Surgebinding and Marsh's contribution to the good guys at the end. I also immediately thought of how Chromium would be useful, though mine was more focused on holding a target in place rather than forcing them forward in time.

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The only twist that I remember myself figuring out (a few chapters) before it actually happened was the OreSeur thing. I had read most of it in one sitting and hadn't stopped to consider things until I had to take a shower or something.

I wouldn't count Shallan's shardblade as foreshadowing, since it did not lead up to any event. But I did catch that when she first hinted at it, and thought it was obvious enough that I was surprised some people had read the whole book and didn't catch any of the hints.

I didn't catch Vin's earring right after we had Hemalurgy explained, but I did catch it before it was explicitly stated. I was pretty sure Marasi's ability would get used for something as soon as she discounted it as "useless". I think I caught it when Kaladin first started making spheres go dun, but there was so much lead up to it I could barely count that as foreshadowing, since the Szeth chapters went pretty far towards explaining Surgebinding in general and Windrunning in particular. I definitely didn't catch that Jasnah was using a fake Soulcaster, but I knew when Shallan Soulcast that she was using natural ability. Not sure why I didn't make the connection there. I know I didn't catch most of the "turns out to be evil" twists that have happened in Brandon's books.

But, in much the same way as Jacob, hindsight bias makes being sure of things very difficult.

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I'm really terrible at catching foreshadowing in pretty much any book I read. BUT I don't mind it, since it makes the surprises that much more awesome.

I do catch a few foreshadowing now and then, but it's usually the small stuff, or I randomly notice a pattern. I can't remember all of the few foreshadowing that I've actually caught, but one that I know that I caught the Denth one and the AonDor solution in Elantris. Well...the AonDor one came like three pages from the event, but I'm still counting it.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest Jacob Santos

The trouble I have is that I am not interested in guessing what the author is attempting to do. There are only a few avenues the author can do and if you are Tropes aware, you can pretty much guess where something is going. The trick is to introduce something that even someone unaware of tropes will be surprised.

Also, what is the point if you know exactly what is going to happen? The problem is this.

Unless you record exactly how many misses and hits you have for foreshadowing, you have no way of knowing how well you are doing. The problem is further expounded by the fact that you have a 50% chance of being right. In a sense, either you hit the point exactly and "win" or the author decides to not take the obvious choice and throw something "new" into the mix.

The reason I don't foreshadow is also based on the fact that I like to spoil myself with a lot of the details. The reason is that some of the worlds I visit are sometimes convoluted and it is easier to work out beforehand This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules is going on rather than relisten to the same book multiple times. I do anyway with some series, but I can't be arsed with others. Foreshadowing in that case doesn't work since I already have the benefit of others telling exactly what happens.

The Lies of Locke Lamora, I did not have the benefit of reading ahead (I don't believe there was a wiki at that time or I didn't look). Many of the contents were surprises, which I enjoyed immensely.

Then again, some foreshadowing is so obvious, you'd have to have mild brain damage to not get it. Having the author almost force feed the answer to you doesn't really count towards predicting the answer.

Of course, the Uncle in Alloy of Law was fairly obvious given how often he was referenced and how uncertain the main character was with the event.

The basics is this, I could either read a book correctly and stop every so often and predict what is going to happen or I could simply enjoy it as it is and let the author do my thinking for me. I rather do the latter, but I hear the former can be fun too.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'll say that Kelsier's revolution completely blindsided me. If I had any idea of what would happen, it was blown away by the pure awesomeness of what happened.

EDIT: Also, Marsh's Inquisitorialness (new word!) came as a surprise as well.

Edited by Sir Read-a-Lot
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I'm in some ways really good and some ways really bad. For example:

-I've read tWoK SEVEN TIMES and the first time I thought Shallan had a Shardblade was when I read this thread. Make of that what you will.

-I noticed Kaladins magic very early - not the first time it's hinted, but still early.

-You know the 'Child of Tanavast. Child of honor. Child of one long since departed' bit? I knew the first time I read that that Honors Shardholder was dead. Part of that was because that was the last bit I read one night before I went to bed, and I simply couldn't get it out of my head for some reason. And so I started thinking about it. I thought Tanavast sounded weird to have a name there, thought they might refer to the same thing, and I had it.

Edited by Kaurne
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Way of Kings is an interesting place to look for foreshadowing. We know it's there, there's plenty of books left in the series. It's mostly just a matter of picking it out and presenting it in a logical manner. Some of the Stormlight Archive forum theory threads are entirely about engineering a mountain out of a molehill of one or two lines in the book. Some of them sound downright preposterous.

The biggest mental leap I've seen to a confirmed theory by Brandon was someone's (Edit:Link von Kelsier Harvey's) supposition that Taravangian had a varying level of intelligence based mainly on a line near the end of WoK where a researcher thinks the riddle of a particular death quote would be best suited to "our lord's mind on a strong day".

The sheer number of Cosmere and SA hints that we were given without a complete context is huge.

Edited by Cheese Ninja
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