History Foreshadowing / RWBY

** In the same confrontation, he flat-out reveals his desire to go to Remnant, and his rage at Alyx for breaking that promise. He doesn't make much of it then, but later turns out to have taken it very, ''very'' seriously.

** When they enter the Garden's Acre, the Cat warns them not to talk to anyone without their guidance. This enables them to control Team RWBY's intake of information about the Ever After.

** The Cat being so easily distractable, only showing up when the heroes are in danger, and forcing Team RWBY to constantly entertain it keeps them from thinking too much about it, and its bizarre contortions and [[StealthHiBye jumpscares]] continually unnerve them.

* The Curious Cat has quite a lot of dialogue foreshadowing their true nature and goals.

** When they enter the Gardens Acre, the Cat warns them not to talk to anyone without their guidance. Team RWBY just think the Cat is protecting them from being beheaded, as almost happened with the Red Prince, but it's later revealed that the Cat's plan to enter Remnant with Alyx first began derailing when she met the Herbalist; the Cat doesn't want the same thing happening with Ruby. Team RWBY does end up talking to Herb without the Cat's involvement, requiring a last minute intervention by the Cat to "save" Ruby; it's later revealed that the Cat was simply trying to prevent Ruby from Ascending and thus destroying their chance of reaching Remnant.

** When Ruby tells them about the two Brothers, the Cat laughs and says “Talk about a god complex.” It’s eventually revealed that the Curious Cat was the Brothers’ first creation and has been driven to despair and madness by their need to know why the Brothers left them.
** They also comment on the “implications” of Oscar and Ozpin SharingABody. Turns out it’s not just them being a MetaGuy: it gives them the idea to possess a human to get to Remnant.
** When Ruby asks if Alyx ever learned her lesson, the Cat pauses and eventually says “Yes, I think she did.”. Turns out Alyx had a HeelRealization at the end and decided to go back and fix things in the Ever After, and the Cat [[HeelFaceDoorSlam killed her for breaking her promise to them]].
** The Cat tells Team RWBY that the tree will come to them, “unless you’re me”. Not only is this literally true (the Tree brings them to it when they’re ready), it’s also the source of the Cat’s FatalFlaw: they are the only being in the Ever After with no one to Ascend them when they break, so they turned evil and treacherous with no way to mend their broken heart.
** The Cat is extremely easily distracted, forcing Team RWBY to struggle to constantly keep their attention and know where they are. This prevents the heroes from thinking too hard about them.
** They tell Team RWBY not to go talking to anyone without them, meaning they control their intake of knowledge on the Ever After. As a result, Team RWBY never find out critical information like how to reach the Tree or the mechanics of ascension, and don't even learn what ascension is until the middle of the Volume. This causes them to make [[DramaticIrony several crucial mistakes about it]], causing them to play right into the Cat's paws.
** In particular, the Cat vanishes right next to the Herbalist, whose purpose is to convince Afterans that it's time to ascend. He uses his smoke on them, causing Ruby to further doubt herself and her ability to save Remnant, thus making her "empty" and open to DemonicPossession.

* At the very beginning of the Volume, a narrator voiced by Creator/MorganGarrett is heard telling a story about a girl with many problems. In the second to last episode of the Volume, it's revealed that the narrator was actually Summer Rose and that it was based off a memory Ruby had of her mother reading her "The Girl Who Fell Through The World" when she was a little kid.

** Ruby's speech to Jaune in Volume 1, Chapter 14 is generally a heartwarming moment where she affirms that, as leaders of their respective teams, they're not allowed to be failures because they need to be beacons for their teammates. However, the scene takes a ''very'' dark undertone as Volumes 7-9 slowly start showing that the mindset of keeping up a positive attitude for the sake of your team can eventually turn into something toxic if you keep putting your own mental health aside. Ruby's RageBreakingPoint in Volume 9 is ultimately the byproduct of her continuously putting her teammate's problems before her own, which meant [[DidYouThinkICantFeel none of them had any idea of how bad her own issues had become until they became too much for her]].
*** In addition, her specifically bringing up that Jaune isn't allowed to "fail" ends up being eerily prophetic, not only of Jaune's status as a FailureHero in the following volumes, but also of one of the major factors behind Ruby's DespairEventHorizon during Volume 9 in the wake of [[TheBadGuyWins Volume 8's finale]]. Ruby takes her failures to save Penny, stop Salem from getting the relics, or rescue Atlas so badly it ends up eroding her own self worth down to nothing.
** During Volume 7, Chapter 5's GoodTimesMontage of Teams RWBY and JNR becoming official huntsmen, there's a RunningGag of Ruby remaining excited and awake during briefings while her teammates slowly become more and more tired. It's played as a simple joke about Ruby's status as a GenkiGirl, but [[FreezeFrameBonus if one looks closely towards the end of it]], one can notice lines on Ruby's face that indicate she's tired too and seems to be keeping herself awake for the sake of her team. It seems like an inconsequential detail, but down the line, especially in Volume 9, it becomes clear that TheChainsOfCommanding have been coming down on Ruby ''hard'' and her cheerfulness increasingly became more and more of a mask to keep her team's spirits up.

* A lot of songs associated with Ruby, such as "Red Like Roses Part II" and "Die", tend to have very dark and depressing lyrics, which seems odd for such an upbeat character. Only, as the show goes on, it turns out that Ruby is hiding a ''lot'' of very serious issues under her cheerful leader persona, and it starts becoming apparent that said persona is [[BeneathTheMask her way of coping with them]]. This reaches its head in Volume 9, where Ruby hits her breaking point from Volume after Volume of trauma, and the weight of keeping up said persona finally becomes too much for her to bare and she ends up being DrivenToSuicide.

* A lot of songs associated with Ruby, such as "Red Like Roses Part II" and "Die", tend to have very dark and depressing lyrics, which seems odd for such an upbeat character. Only, as the show goes on, it turns out that Ruby is hiding a ''lot'' of very serious issues under her cheerful leader persona, and it starts becoming apparent that said persona is [[BeneathTheMask her way of coping with them]]. This reaches its head in Volume 9, where Ruby hits her breaking point from Volume after Volume of trauma, and the weight of keeping up said persona finally becomes too much for her to bare.

* The Curious Cat tells the Red Prince he understands what an unfulfilled purpose is like when giving him a piece of their heart to "heal" them, later "protecting" Ruby by doing the same for the Herbalist, who is swallowed up by the Ever After. The Cat later changes Hawker's purpose entirely to force it to suicidally attack the Jabberwalkers and give Team RWBY time to escape. Jaune reveals the Cat's role is to guide Afterans who can't fulfil their purpose towards "ascension", nourishing the Tree in the process, and believes they led Lewis to the same fate. The Cat eventually admits they've been cursed by their creator with insatiable curiosity and have been effectively driven [[EvilAllAlong dangerously insane]] by the unsolved question of why their creator abandoned the Ever After; they've been trying to break down Ruby for the purpose of possession so that they can seek answers outside the Ever After; the Herbalist's intervention endangered that plan and Hawker's brainwashing hinted at the lengths the Cat will go to in order to achieve its goal.

* The Curious Cat tells the Red Prince he understands what an unfulfilled purpose is like when giving him a piece of their heart to "heal" them, later "protecting" Ruby by doing the same for the Herbalist, who is swallowed up by the Ever After. The Cat later changes Hawker's purpose entirely to force it to suicidally attack the Jabberwalkers and give Team RWBY time to escape. Jaune reveals the Cat's role is to guide Afterans who can't fulfil their purpose towards "ascension", nourishing the Tree in the process, and believes they led Lewis to the same fate. The Cat eventually admits they've been cursed by the Gods with insatiable curiosity and have been effectively driven [[EvilAllAlong dangerously insane]] by the unsolved question of why the Gods abandoned the Ever After; they've been trying to break down Ruby for the purpose of possession so that they can seek answers outside the Ever After; the Herbalist's intervention endangered that plan and Hawker's brainwashing hinted at the lengths the Cat will go to in order to achieve its goal.

* The Curious Cat tells the Red Prince he understands what an unfulfilled purpose is like when giving him a piece of their heart to "heal" them, later "protecting" Ruby by doing the same for the Herbalist, who is swallowed up by the Ever After. Jaune reveals the Cat's role is to guide Afterans who can't fulfil their purpose towards "ascension", nourishing the Tree in the process, and believes they led Lewis to the same fate. The Cat eventually admits they've been cursed by the Gods with insatiable curiosity and have been effectively driven [[EvilAllAlong dangerously insane]] by the unsolved question of why the Gods abandoned the Ever After; they've been trying to break down Ruby for the purpose of possession so that they can seek answers outside the Ever After; the Herbalist's intervention endangered that plan.

** Neo is sat at a table drinking tea with multiple silhouettes behind her; Episode 9 reveals that the silhouettes are of characters who have died throughout the show, who have been manifested by Neo's Semblance clones for the purpose of driving Ruby to despair.