Spoiling vs. Foreshadowing

The week’s been alright, though I am woefully behind on the book reviews. And I need to actually write stuff like fiction or sporkings or something. I have a day trip today, though, so I suspect I won’t get much writing or reading done.

Presently on another Katherine Briggs fairy book.

Spoiling vs. Foreshadowing

Back in the day, when people still read Cracked, and it was worth reading, I remember an article titled something like ‘X Movies That Spoiled the Ending from the Start’. It wasn’t a bad article, from I recall, playfully pointing out how in hindsight, things like the opening song from Frozen apply to the film’s story and warn you about what’s to come. Of course, that’s not really spoiling, because without the context of the rest of the narrative, it doesn’t make much sense.

It’s foreshadowing. Not spoiling.

This article came out in the days just as CinemaSins was picking up so I don’t really blame them too much for not wording their analyses in the exact critical terms. 

This has been on my mind, because I just finished Dragon Age: Inquisition. In that game, there’s one character, Cole, who is psychic (well, not really, but it’s hard to explain so if you’re not in the know that’ll have to work as it’s close enough) and makes several vague, mysterious statements. His dialogue is chock full of things that turn out to be important to other characters’ arcs. There are some things that aren’t explained at all, and fans guessed that they may be clues as to the ongoing mysteries in the series. Dragon Age: The Veilguard turned out to prove many of those theories confirmed.

Let me tell you, it was pretty wild, knowing some of the spoilers already from the Veilguard discourse, and then seeing Cole spouting lines that are very clear references to the things that will be revealed.

There were some fans who said, “Wait, did Cole spoil everything?” Well, no–because you didn’t know for sure what his words meant, because you didn’t have all of the context. But I also find it amazing how many fans were able to do deep dives into the lore, based on his words and other clues, and figure out what would be revealed. Even when fans were wrong, a lot of time they were pretty darn close to the mark, which really impressed me.

Because that’s what really good foreshadowing should do–it should give you clues as to what to expect in later parts of the story, and if you’re eagle-eyed, you should be able to figure out for yourself what’s meant to happen. 

I think a good example of this is the prophecy in the first Percy Jackson book, The Lightning Thief; before Percy goes on his quest, the Oracle gives him a prophecy that lays out what will happen in mysterious terms. We don’t know exactly what the Oracle means until the very end, although you can guess as the story goes on how the pieces all fall into place.

[Riordan actually does get a bit worse at this in some later books; in the last Kane Chronicles book, for instance, instead of hinting, he’s practically beating things into your head and then expects you to gasp when the thing he told you actually happens. It’s a bit frustrating.]

It’s good to give hints to your audience! That’s not spoiling! That’s just good foreshadowing when you do it well! And I suppose, if you do spoil what’s supposed to happen, that’s not ideal, but there are worse things. You could get something like a Random Events Plot, or hints that go nowhere. One of the things that frustrates me with the last few years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is how much foreshadowing they do that goes nowhere, particularly with character arcs.

The point of that, I think, is so that the movies can surprise people with big twists. The problem is that it means there’s some writing that goes absolutely nowhere and means nothing to anyone. The hints of Doctor Strange’s post credits scene, where Mordo declares he’s going to start killing sorcerers, doesn’t actually mean anything, it’s just a bit that goes nowhere because the writers of the second movie would rather do something completely different.

Things should naturally progress in a way that makes sense, so it makes sense that some audience members are going to have an idea of where the story is aiming. That, when it’s pulled off well, is darn good writing, not spoiling. The story isn’t spoiled, it’ll instead feel really coherent and whole when you get to the end.

And that’s what you should be trying to achieve in writing a story, isn’t it?

—