On Not Following Up on Foreshadowing

This is like the opposite of the Foreshouting essay, I guess?

But I have a lot of thoughts about Avengers, some of which were already essays/Tumblr posts that other people wrote so I thought my review should be my final word on that, and then I also have a lot of weird thoughts on Nil in Horizon Zero Dawn but we’re going to put a hold on that because I need to sort that.

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On Not Following Up on Foreshadowing

I just finished re-reading Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan, the second Heroes of Olympus, and I realized that while in the case of Kane Chronicles I accused Riordan of foreshouting (that is, practically screaming at the audience what’s going to happen). But looking at this other series, he kind of does the opposite? There is quite a lot in Son of Neptune that is foreshadowed and it doesn’t go anywhere. At all. And if it does then it’s downplayed.

For instance, in the original series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, we’re told about the idea of fatal flaws and heroes. Perseus Jackson’s fatal flaw, as pointed out by Athena, is his personal loyalty--he will go past the ends of the earth to save the people he cares about, throwing caution and personal safety to the wind. He absolutely cannot cut his losses--he will never give up his friends. The thing is it never comes up in that series--at no point is this really exploited by the villains to great effect. It’s just kind of there. The series is good enough that it’s not a massive loss, but it feels a wasted opportunity.

In Son of Neptune, the second book of the sequel series, we’re told at least twice that Percy’s fatal flaw will come again. Phineas, a seer, tells Percy that on their quest he will face a sacrifice he can’t make. Later on, Mars tells Frank that there will come a point in the quest that will fail if it’s left to Percy, because he won’t make that sacrifice--Frank’s sense of duty and honor will have to push them through it, because Percy will refuse to make the choice that needs to be made. All of this spells out that one of the main characters will have to die, and it’s something that Percy won’t be able to accept.

Except… that doesn’t happen. At no point is there a choice that Percy isn’t able to make. In the final book of the series, Blood of Olympus, one of the main characters sacrifices himself for the world, yeah, but Percy doesn’t even know that’s going to happen because all the characters who know about this plan refuse to tell Percy. So the idea that it’s a sacrifice he can’t make doesn’t work because he doesn’t even know about it until after it happens, and he doesn’t seem that torn up.

Someone asked Riordan once what was the instance where his fatal flaw comes up, and he answered with “Oh he had to learn to let his friends take the spotlight and finish the Big Bad instead of taking all the glory for himself.” Which A) isn’t what his fatal flaw was, B) never came up to begin with and C) not what happened at all!

There’s a bit towards the end of Son of Neptune in which Juno tells Percy that “the one who will cause you the most pain is the one closest to you.” And it’s framed as if Annabeth, Percy’s love interest, will screw things up in the quest and make everything worse. And given that we’ve been told her fatal flaw is hubris, that’s going to hit pretty hard learning that she’s screwed everything over. Except the next book comes, and things go to Hell in a Handbasket (almost literally--Annabeth and Percy fall into Tartarus, like actual Greek Hell), but it’s not Annabeth’s fault! And I know that Juno hates Annabeth to begin with, but you can’t have an actual goddess tell us “This character will screw up” and then not have that happen! Annabeth does nothing wrong, and her actual quest which sounds like it’ll be incredible mostly amounts to her following some symbols and then outwitting a few people.

Finally we have Frank Zhang, who is told from the get-go that his life is tied to a piece of firewood. If that piece of wood burns out, then he dies. He’s too powerful of a demigod to not have any limits, or something, so he’s given that one. Naturally he’s very apprehensive about this, keeping the stick wrapped up in his coat pocket all the time. He’s told repeatedly that it will burn out some day, and when he frees Thanatos from his chains, the personification of death tells him that they will meet again under less pleasant circumstances.

Frank doesn’t die by the way. Not that I wanted him to, but given all the talk of sacrifice, and his whole life line being a plot point, you’d think he’d come dangerously close, but he doesn’t. This is less egregious, because we’re not told when he’s going to die, unlike the sacrifice example or the screwup one, but it is a bit of a ripoff that Riordan telegraphs that Frank’s got something big coming, and he doesn’t even get close to getting killed. No closer than any of the other characters, anyhow.

If you straight-up tell the audience that something’s going to happen, you have to make it happen. This is more basic than Chekhov's Gun, it’s basic storytelling. There are two ways I can think of this not working:

ONE: As a joke. In the film Rango, for instance, we’re told many times by the narrators, a trio of mariachi owls, that Rango is going to die. When, at the end of the movie, our lizard protagonist is still standing, the owls admit that they’re really surprised that he’s alive, but since everyone dies eventually they’re still technically correct.

TWO: As a subversion of destiny. There are plenty of stories in which a certain destiny is foretold for a hero, often a very bad one, and said hero will go out of his or her way to prove that free will is a thing and that destiny won’t happen. I like these, because the notion that we’re constrained to doom sucks and is just boring and I hate it.

Neither of these work for Riordan’s examples, because prophecies have never worked that way in this universe. They always come true. Always.

A lot of times the audience will pick up something as foreshadowing, and it wasn’t intended that way. That’s not what I’m talking about. When you foreshadow events over and over again, and then they don’t happen? That’s not good writing guys. That’s pretty bad. That’s, like, BBC’s Merlin bad, where they go on and on about stuff that’s going to happen in the first season, and almost none of that stuff comes true. The statements that you tell your audience have to mean something. And maybe you’re worried about carrying it out in a way that’s satisfying, but you still have to do it.

Do what you set out to do.

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