Arc Words - Television Tropes & Idioms

The Doctor: Bad Wolf.

Rose: But, I've heard that before; bad wolf, I've heard that lots of times.

The Doctor: Everywhere we go: two words. Followin' us. Bad Wolf.

— Doctor Who, "Boom Town"

An enigmatic word or phrase that appears, unexplained and without context, here and there throughout an Arc, and (with luck) is finally explained at or near the climax. A way of building up tension and mystery, as well as an indicator that anyone using the words knows more than they're telling. Can also be used as a memetic way of advertising the show. A typical element of a Mind Screw.

Arc Words can also be a way to hint at the Aesop or one of the themes of a show, often in the form of a question the characters must find an answer to. Alternately, they can be used for Foreshadowing. But they are not the same thing as a Running Gag, a Catch Phrase, or even just a phrase that ends up popping up a lot due to being used a lot in the plot.

Note that the Arc Words often do not have attention drawn explicitly to them; eagle-eyed/sharp eared viewers are left to notice for themselves. In the "Bad Wolf" example below, the words appeared as, among other things, a helicopter's callsign, a reference in dialogue to "The Big Bad Wolf", a graffito, and even in other languages (the Welsh Blaidd Drwg, the French Mal Loup, and the German Böser Wolf).

Often shows up on the Internet Movie Database "memorable quotes" page for the show, with the label "repeated line".

Compare with Arc Number, Dream Melody. Not to be confused with Arc Reactor Words, which generally have to do with caves and boxes of scraps.

Examples

Anime

Serial Experiments Lain — "Everything is Connected" and "Close the world. Open the next."
"The Beautiful Night" and "Can happiness be achieved without sacrifice?" from the Giant Robo OVAs.
- Another arguable example would be "Big Fire." For most of the series, we're led to believe that Big Fire is nothing more the name of the global criminal superorganization which opposes the Experts. Only in the next-to-last episode do we learn that Big Fire is a person, and all those worshipful chants the BF members were fond of shouting ("Hail Big Fire! Alliance or death!" and so forth) were in reference to him, not the eponymous organization over which he reigns.
The Fauxlosophic Narration at the start of each episode of Noir ("..Two maidens who govern death..") is promoted to Arc Words later on in the series itself. Also, "If love can kill people, surely hatred can save them."
- Thus spake the Hermit, the blood of the soldats shall run through the wilderness and mingle with the great sea...
"Yours is the drill that will pierce the Heavens!" from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM!?" also from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- Notably in the last episode Simon declares that his is the drill that will create the heavens, and in the Distant Finale Simon starts to say the latter but cuts himself off and decides to simply say he's no one.
"Fooly cooly" from FLCL. Despite being the basis for the show's title and appearing at least once in each episode, "fooly cooly" is never explained. In the final episode, Naota's father tries to goad him into revealing the answer to this: "C'mon, you have to know. The main character always knows stuff like this!"
Mai-Otome has Arc Words in the form of a song ("Hoshi ga Kanaderu Monogatari"). Each of the three main characters — Arika, Nina and Mashiro — knows and sings one stanza each, and its real significance is only revealed in the final arc.
"Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty" from The Big O.
- There are two variations of the second part. The first is "ye not" when Rosewater tries to pilot Big Fau and it just shuts down. The second is "ye guilty" when Alan Gabriel is piloting Big Duo and it kills him.
Fafner In The Azure Dead Aggressor — "Are you there?"
"Voodoo Child" are Himiko's personal Arc Words in the Get Backers manga.
"Three years ago" in the Suzumiya Haruhi anime (and first novels). Lampshaded by Kyon, "I'm getting a little tired of the 'three years ago'."
- In the 9th novel "three years ago" becomes "four years ago" since at that point roughly a year has passed since the start of the series.
"Sono me, dare no me?" ("Those eyes, whose are they?")
In the same vein as some of the images described below, a vaguely peanut-like shape starts to appear more and more in various places over the course of Last Exile. Then comes the last episode...
In Hellsing the phrase: "The bird of the Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame." appears together with the series' title as well as on Alucard's coffin. It's taken from the Ripley Scrowle, by alchemist George Ripley. (Whoever that is.)
There is much signifigance to the word "Awakening" in Ergo Proxy.
- Occasionally the phrase "Can you feel the pulse of the awakening?" was used, too.
In Madlax, there's one phrase that's used over and over again: Elda Taluta. There are two others that accompany this (Sarks Sark and Arks Ark) but rarely get used. The Big Bad uses these words to drive the "true nature" of humans out, which normally results in brutal murders or mind rape.
In Gundam00, the Innovators often mention or allude to what they call "the dialogues to come", which according to Revive is a concept beyond human comprehension. However, after Setsuna becomes an Innovator, it's hinted that these "dialogues" may be referring to what he believes is Aeolia Schenberg's plan for human evolution.
"May those who accept their fate find happiness. May those who defy their fate find glory."
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time: "Time waits for no one."
The "kind king" of Konjiki No Gash Bell that everyone who encounters Gash hopes to become.
"The monster inside me has grown so big!". Also, "People can become whatever they want to be" and "Welcome home" are both phrases that plague Nina's memory. Their significance is eventually explained.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's: "A small wish".
Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex has one of these for each season so far, both integrated into an iconic Arc Symbol. For the first season, the Laughing Man logo contains the phrase "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes" (a quote from J. D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye), which eventually leads Togusa and the Major to the truth behind the convoluted Laughing Man case. Similarly, 2nd Gig features a symbol containing kanji that are read idiosyncratically as "Individual Eleven", a phrase that has ties to almost every part of the season's Story Arc.

Comic Books

"Something fell" from Cerebus.
Stephen Marley's Spirit Mirror has Chia, Black Dragon Sorceress, the amnesiac Action Girl heroine, asking herself: "What happened in Egypt?" We never really find out what happened in Egypt until the next book, though. Similarly, the sequel, Mortal Mask, has Chia pondering her long-lost Egyptian lover's enigmatic plea of "Forgive me".
Watchmen: "Who watches the Watchmen?", "Pale Horse" and "Krystalnacht" (both band names), "One in five (later 'three') go mad", "The Comedian is dead"
- The full phrase "Who Watches the Watchmen" is never shown in its entirety Until the very last page, after the story has ended. It's always either unfinished (as it mainly appears as graffiti) or cut off by the panel border. Probably a subtle suggestion that the minds of the "heroes" are not fully comprehensible.
  - It could also be a suggestion that up until then, the question was unanswered — the vigilantes were mostly ungoverned. Then Ozymandias manipulates them all, showing that he was watching and controlling the "watchmen". The question was only shown when it had been answered.

Film

The Matrix: The very title was an arc word throughout the marketing and right up until a third of the way through the film.
Every David Lynch film. Ever.
Not as enigmatic as many of the other examples, but the phrase "I want to fuck the whole world over" from Croupier could arguably count, along with the narrator's constant meditations on the differences between croupiers, gamblers and cheats and application of gambling terminology to real life.
In the original draft of the screenplay, Dante's constant complaint that "I'm not even supposed to be here today!" in Clerks. was intended to foreshadow the tragic irony of Dante getting shot to death by a criminal at the film's conclusion. As the script was revised, this particular meaning is lost: however, Randall still references Dante's use of the phrase in his rant near the end about how Dante refuses to accept responsibility for his own actions or attempt to make change in his miserable life.

Literature

The words "copper" "silver" and "gold" in that order are in every story of Gödel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid until the big reveal that you are actually reading a book written by a guy named Douglas Hofstadter, and every person you've grown to know and love in it is actually a character inhabiting stories written in the pattern of Bach's songs
"Who is John Galt?" from Atlas Shrugged. He's the unnamed figure in every story that anyone tells to Dagny before she meets him.
- Referenced in Bioshock with "Who is Atlas?"
Philip K. Dick's Ubik, especially. Ubik varies from chapter to chapter, finally culminating in Ubik declaring itself as God.
- Also, "The Empire never ended", from several of his later works.
"In the Country of the Blind, the One-eyed Man is King," from H. G. Wells's short story "The Country of the Blind." These Arc Words are a paraphrase of Erasmus; Wells's story gives them an ironic connotation as the protagonist repeatedly fails to prove the superiority of his sightedness in a Lost World inhabited entirely by blind people.
The Black Company series had a number of these, especially near the end. They even became the names of two of the novels, Water Sleeps (which in context means "Revenge is coming") and Soldiers Live ("and wonder why", referring to survivor's guilt).
Tad Williams' Otherland features a significant and enigmatic character who keeps repeating, "An angel touched me."
Pretty much the entire purpose behind Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. The words are "Trystero", "WASTE" (apparently an acronym for "We Await Silent Trystero's Empire"), "DEATH" ("Don't Ever Antagonize The Horn"), and a picture of a muted postal horn (trumpet). The best part, though, is that we never find out if it means anything.
"Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head!" from 1984, and the associated rhyme.
- The phrase is referenced in Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. Knowing the reference makes it even more chilling.
- This phrase is also referenced in Silent Hill: Origins. Except that it is changed to read "Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes the butcher to chop off your head!"
  - And of course, there's the three Party slogans: "Big Brother is watching you" (verifying the accuracy of this statement is arguably the point of the narrative), ""War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength" (which is ultimately explained by Goldstein's book) and "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past" (which is explained in detail by O'Brien in the novel's third act).
"Delial" and "House" from House Of Leaves.
A Song Of Ice And Fire is crawling with these; every major noble family in Westeros has its words (with House Stark's "Winter is coming" getting the spotlight). There is also valar morghulis and valar dohaeris, the code-phrases-cum-mottos of the Faceless Men.
The initials V.F.D. and later J.S., in A Series Of Unfortunate Events, as well as various names and phrases that begin with them.
- Also, "The world is quiet here" and "I didn't realize this was a sad occasion" count as well.
Madame Zeroni's lullaby in Holes.
In Fingerprints, the name "Erika Keaton", which the heroes are puzzled by until The Reveal in book 6.
In Fahrenheit451, "Consider the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin..."
Snow Crash has, well "Snow Crash," a phrase which gets dropped several times in several different contexts before finally getting elaborated on.
In the novel Some Other Place. The Right Place by Donald Harington, the phrase "some other place" appears repeatedly throughout, followed by "the right place", usually on the opposite page.
In Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett, the following snippet of dialogue recurs, almost as a refrain (and to punctuate the various ways the two find to pass the time):

Gogo: Let's go.

Didi: We can't.

Gogo: Why not?

Didi: We're waiting for Godot.

In several of Kurt Vonnegut's works, "So it goes." and "Tralfamadorians".
In the 32nd installment of Piers Anthony's Xanth series, Two to the Fifth, the title is brought up numerous times throughout the book, and its meaning is not revealed until the last fifth or so of the book.
In Stephen King's The Shining, Danny kept seeing the word "REDRUM" before he realized it was "MURDER" spelled backwards.
In Catch 22, the title phrase is used to explain almost anything that uses circular logic, or just doesn't make sense.

Live Action TV

The new Doctor Who has had one each series/season.
- "Bad Wolf" from Series One.
  - "Bad Wolf" is also something of a subversion in that the words kept appearing (although less often) after the "arc" was concluded, because the words were across all of time and space, so they wouldn't be expected to only appear where they were actually needed.
  - The phrase also appears in the recent DVD release of "The Invasion" (with animation replacing the Missing Episodes). From the Doctor's perspective, that's long before the arc...
  - Just to mess with things further, it appears written on a wall in issue #10 of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, during a story involving Time Travel and Alternate Universes.
  - The phrase also has been known to pop up on this wiki, especially on page histories.
  - Since Torchwood is set in the same universe as Doctor Who, it's not surprising that "Bad Wolf" has appeared there as well (on the wall behind Jack and Toshiko when they go back in time).
- "Torchwood" from Series Two.
- "Mr. Saxon" from Series Three.
- Series Four has apparently expanded the concept and instead of Arc Words it has a series of foreshadowing words dating all the way back to the first episode of Series One: The Shadow Proclamation, the Medusa Cascade, Rose Tyler continually appearing in the background, the disappearance of planets and bees, the Doctor and Donna being mistaken for a couple, and Donna being the focal point of several timelines. Naturally, they all come to a head in the finale.
  - Right before the finale, how bad things truly are is established when the Doctor learns that Rose Tyler has broken through the dimensional barriers. To herald her presence, the words "Bad Wolf" appear everywhere, including on the TARDIS itself.
  - Donna also repeatedly receives the warning "you have something on your back."
  - Donna mentions the bees disappearing repeatedly.
The Big Finish audios also used Arc Words for one season of their Eighth Doctor Adventures. The phrase itself was a nursery rhyme:
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you when you're sleeping.
"Save The Cheerleader, Save The World" from Season One of Heroes.
- The stylised RNA symbol in Heroes is arguably an Arc Word, despite not actually being a word. It appears in any situation surrounding the Heroes, from the book published by Suresh to a tattoo that appears on one of the characters' back when she uses her powers. A full list of its appearances are logged at Wikipedia. (Warning: SPOILERS.)
- The second half of Season One: "Are you on the list?"
- It's later parodied in a commercial about some tax program: "Save the Taxpayers, Save the World!" Of course, it's lampshaded.
"From beneath you, it devours" from Season Seven of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
- Or, as one pair of characters translated it, "It eats you starting with your bottom."
- In season 5: "Death is your gift."
On Angel, "The Father Will Kill the Son" was an important part of the Holtz/Sahjahn arc. Characters find out what they think it means, try to stop it from happening, leading to events that later (sort of) cause it to happen...
"Fire, walk with me" from Twin Peaks (it was even the name of The Movie that was made after its cancellation).
- Found under the fingernails of various murder victims were what we might call Arc Letters.
Before you know just what Dharma is in Lost, the Dharma logo certainly serves as a creepy Arc Symbol.
- Lostpedia has a whole list of commonly used phrases on the show, some of which may be arc words.
- And of course, the famous Arc Numbers — 4 8 15 16 23 42.
- "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" appears to be the straightest use of this trope in the series thus far.
- Some characters get their own Arc Words — "fix" for Jack, "special" for Locke, "coward" for Desmond...
The logos and name of the Blue Sun Corporation from Firefly may have been intended as Arc Words, but the series got canceled before anything came of them. River's repeated "two by two, hands of blue" is definitely an example, though.
Battlestar Galactica:
- "All Along The Watch Tower" is a set of Arc Words: because it foreshadows the identities of the final five Cylons.
- The Mandala from the Temple of Five pops up in seasons two and three, and it's starting to look like it might be hinting at a deeper connection between Starbuck and the Final Five.
- "The shape of things to come" may or may not be, as it is not yet established exactly why the half-cylons are so important, barring medicinal use.
- "All this has happened before, and will happen again" is another possible example, having been spoken repeatedly without proper explanation so far.
  - Season 4 has a bit of that: Some Cylon Centurions are briefly allowed to "rebel" against some of their humanoid cylon masters, in response to what they see is being done to the raider. This echoes the original cylons' uprising against humanity.
  - Sort of explained in that a main tenet of their religion is the idea of a cyclical time line, the same story being told over and over again throughout eternity.
  - "Sometimes a Great Notion" reveals more: Earth was nuked to a barren wasteland 2000 years before The Colonies were at the start of the series.
- "Nothing but the rain", on the other hand, is not Arc Words, just an inside joke between Adama and Starbuck.
Millennium season two: "This is who we are."
The Prisoner had a creepy set of Arc Words: every time someone would say goodbye to anyone in the Village, they would form a circle over their right eye with a thumb and forefinger, tip it forward in a salute, and say "Be seeing you."
- More Arc Words: POP, which either stood for Protect Other People, or the song "Pop Goes the Weasel," and, of course, the penny farthing bicycle that was the Village's logo. What's more, none of these were ever explained.
The Pretender contained a nursery rhyme sung by Young Jarod at the very beginning of the show, which continued to appear throughout the remainder of the show, and was even sung by characters other than Jarod. Its significance was never explained.
Threshold has a fractal triskelion pattern that appears throughout the series. Though it is explained in the first episode as a representation of a triple helix, and the characters consider its mere presence to be evidence of an infectee, its true nature is never explained.
Babylon 5 had a question associated with each of the two most prominent races of First Ones in the show: "Who are you?" commonly asked by the Vorlons, and "What do you want?" from the Shadows. (When Sheridan asks Kosh "What do you want?" in an early episode, not realizing its significance, the Vorlon angrily tells him, "Never ask that question!") During his Near Death Experience he meets Lorien (the First One) who has his own question: "Why are you here?" In "Into the Fire," the younger races throwing off the yoke of the First Ones is emphasized when Sheridan turns their questions around on them: "Who are you?" he asks the Vorlons; "What do you want?" he puts to the Shadows; they are unable to answer. And in the final episode, Sheridan meets Lorien once again, who rhetorically asks him, "Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here? Where are you going?"
- Babylon 5 also referenced the arc words from The Prisoner; when the more sinister members of the Psi Corps say goodbye they do the same salute, complete with "be seeing you".
The Sarah Connor Chronicles gets one in late season two: Will You Join Us?
"Every prophet in his/her house."
The Dollhouse series loves the word "broken" when applied to the dolls. Among other lines it appears in, Echo insists that she is not broken. Whether or not she's right remains to be seen.
Fringe has "The Pattern" and "ZFT" which (in German) stands for "Destruction Through the Advancement of Technology".
Everybody lies
"Someone's at the door" from American Gothic.

Professional Wrestling

The run-up to Chris Jericho's return to WWE in 2007 had the commentators and the wrestlers on-screen puzzling over mysterious interruptions to WWE's programs that prominently featured the phrases SAVE_US.222, SAVE_US.X29, and 8.2.11/SAVIOR_SELF. Note that most of the puzzlement happened on-screen; the fans largely figured it out fairly quickly (though there were a few alternate theories that stuck around until The Reveal, chief among them a new Hart Foundation stable led by Bret Hart's nephew Teddy), which reportedly drove the WWE's creative team nuts.

Tabletop Games

Unknown Armies: 333 is a number to dread, and thus it pops up over and over. Also? You did it.

Video Games

Bioshock: Just about everything you're asked to do to continue the game is prefaced with "Would You Kindly". While at first it seems like Atlas is just being polite, he later reveals that not only is he not who he claims to be, "Would You Kindly" is in fact a genetically coded key phrase that compels you to unquestioningly obey the "suggestion." This is a particularly cunning reveal since up until this point, chances are good you have (dun dun duuunnnn!) followed Atlas' advice without wondering where all this might be coming from.
Portal: "The cake is a lie!" is seen scrawled in various places around the Enrichment Center. For that matter GLaDOS mentions "cake" repeatedly enough for simply "Cake" to be considered an Arc Word.
- "She's watching you" is also seen (written in blood) in various places, although less frequently than the meme-tastic quote about the cake.
Chzo Mythos: "it hurts", the final entry, in its entirety, in a diary belonging to one of the game's murder victims. It's never explicitly mentioned precisely how, but it's implied that John Defoe was born twisted or deformed, and was locked up and eventually beaten to death by his own father.
it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
- The tie-in story, The Expedition, explains that these words basically are the only/last thing that is going through the mind of Chzo and his servants's victims.
Final Fantasy XI: An ancient song, prophecy, and/or history, the "Memoria de la Stona" is critical to the first three story arcs, most of the various Home Nation story arcs, and is likely a part of the as-yet unfinished storyline to "Wings of the Goddess". The first verse is the spoken-word intro to the first cutscene in the game. After completing the first storyline, the "true" meaning of the first verse is revealed: upon beginning the second, it is immediately and forcefully reinterpreted. Throughout the Chains of Promathia storyline, many major NPCs are in possession of one verse, which they have usually misinterpreted In Bahamut's case, so badly that he wishes to destroy all sentient life on the planet; in Tenzen's, he merely wishes to kill the player.
"What can change the nature of a man?" from Planescape: Torment.
The original Baldurs Gate had Gorion's spirit appearing to you in dreams at the end of every chapter and always telling you "You will learn..." before you wake up and discover a new entry in your special ability list. Presumably, he meant learning about your Bhaal heritage by that.
According to the Word Of God, the title 358/2 Days won't make sense to players until the game's end.
- The concept trailer "Another Side, Another Story [deep dive]" from Kingdom Hearts Final Mix is entirely composed of Arc Words. The thing is filled with quotes and random concepts that are subtly included in Kingdom Hearts II (non-existent ones and "You are the source of all Heartless," anyone?) In can make chills run up and down the savvy fan's spine.
  - This troper cheered when she realized she was right about who "This time, I'll fight" was said by.
Urban Chaos: Riot Responce has one. While not a sentence, or a phrase the Company, Shift It appears everywhere! If you look for it of course. The reason it's so important is that Shift it are actually the Burners. The CEO is the leader of the gang, and forceably brainwashed all of his employes into the animals that are the burners.
killer7 has the phrases "Don't gain the world and lose your soul", "How soon is now"', and "666" scrawled in various places.
- Suda 51's next game, No More Heroes, repeatedly had various female characters, especially Sylvia, instruct Travis to "Head for the Garden of Madness!"
- There's also the advent of the disappearance of smiles that runs throughout the game, before and after missions (with cheerful phrases such as "The day he stops smiling is the day we remember his smile".)
The World Ends With You: "To right the countless wrongs of our day, we shine this light of true redemption, that this place may become as paradise. What a wonderful world such would be..."
Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War had Arc Words in the form of an in-game legend. The legend were shown in three parts, depening on how far you advanced in Campaign Mode.
- Amidst of the eternal waves of time. From a change of ripple shall the storm rise. Out of abyss peer the eyes of a demon. Behold the Razgriz, its wings of black sheath.
- The demon soars through dark skies. Fear and death trail the shadow beneath. Until men united wield hallowed saber. In final reckoning, the beast is slain.
- As the demon sleeps, man turns on man. His own blood and madness soon cover the earth. From depth of despair awaken the Razgriz. Its raven wings ablaze in majestic light.
And from Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, Pixy's "Yo buddy, still alive?". At first, it sounded like he was just wise-cracking the greenhorn, but it's said again later after he joins World Without Boundaries. And again, in the ending, he asks it indirectly to Cipher (and this time may mean it) through a video interview ten years later.
Ace Combat 6 has "dance with the angels" and variations thereof.
Limbo of the Lost has two: "Forget reality, surrender to your darkest dreams" and "Join us, join us now!" The latter is repeated by a disembodied voice all through the games, obviously trying to be creepy, but beffiting of Limbo of the Lost, just ends up being annoying and Narmy.
Any variation on "seven years ago" in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.
- Lampshaded in game: "Seven years"... That phrase sure likes to pop up, doesn't it...
- Likewise, DL-6 or "fifteen years ago" in the original, or any mention of Edgeworth in Justice for All.
Adventure Quest's arc numbers, 755, apeared more so on the forum and on various websites by the game's staff, rather than in game, and several arc phrases that were never seen in game.
World Of Goo's enigmatic messages not left by The Sign Painter, such as: 'Clear your cookies one hour before swimming. MOM knows best.'
Max Payne features a number of instances of the phrase "the flesh of fallen angels."
- Possibly a subversion or simply a red herring, since it doesn't mean anything in the game.
  - Doesn't mean anything? Doesn't mean anything? The expression fits in with the game's symbolic usage of Norse myth. The drug Valkyr ("V") refers to angel-like creatures who will bring the souls of dead warriors to the Norse heaven Valhalla (Project Valhalla). You'll notice that the term is almost invariably spoken by a Valkyr addict, suggesting that the addicts may believe themselves to be "fallen angels" who require Valkyr in order to escape back to Valhalla. The term "flesh" could simply mean that they have a mundane physical form now, (as opposed to a sort of otherworldly presence as angels) which they seek to escape from. Though this troper could be reading too much into this...
- Perhaps a better example is Vlad's "Max, dearest of all my friends."
In Dead Space, you'll hear "Make us whole again", first from a transmission from Nicole. As the game goes on, it gets creepier, as transmissions come from broken computers saying it over and over, then you'll hear it from Doctor Kyne and from Nicole herself. It's all from the Marker.
Saints Row has "The Pyramid", and to a lesser extent, the Ultor Corporation.
- The Ultor Corporation is also a shout out to the first Red Faction game.
Persona 4: "I am a Shadow... the true self."
Tales of the Abyss REPLICA!!!!!.
[[Fallout I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.]] I will give to those athirst from the fountain of life freely. This is pretty much the whole main story of Fallout 3.

Web Animation

Broken Saints has a great many, most notably "What would you give to know the truth?" "This was not meant for me!", the LEAR/SPEC/SILO anagram, and anything printed on the Vagrant's board.
Several Strong Bad Emails in a row in Homestar Runner featured the words "DNA evidence", which later turned out to lead to a cartoon of the same name, where the seemingly out-of-context utterances were explained. (The last email to feature these words only did this in an Easter Egg, which involved Homestar wearily saying these words after a long silence, as if he was obliged to continue the gag.)

Webcomics

Parodied in the Stick Figure Comic Stickman And Cube: For about nine strips, every comic contains the word "potato salad" somewhere. When the characters call the author on it, he admits that the words were foreshadowing something: they were foreshadowing their own exposition, and meant absolutely nothing.
"Nothing Dead Here" in the "Kesandru's Well" arc of Sluggy Freelance.
- And "Nosce Te Ipsum" (Latin for "Know Thyself") throughout all the Oasis storylines.
Irregular Webcomic: Time Travel.
- Not sure that counts; it doesn't appear "unexplained and without context" (except possibly in the "Me" storyline), it's just that several of the storylines are featuring it simultaneously. The cat and rat who've started chasing each other through all the time-travel settings might count as an arc image, though.
The Worm Lord is Rising!

Web Original

“The Truce” from The Lonely Winds, an as-yet unexplained arrangement preventing a shadow war between the dragon Terek Domar and seemingly everyone else from deteriorating into all-out war.
DNA Evidence...

Western Animation

In Xavier Renegade Angel, "Taste The Pain" seems to be this, or it could just be a strange sort of Running Gag. It seems to be spoken at least Once Per Episode
One episode of Home Movies reveals that Brendan ends each of his movies with the same line — "It's time to pay the price." He doesn't even realize this until Paula points it out.
Numerous in Twelve Ounce Mouse, including "aspirind", "Meat Wars", and "CJ Muff".

Music

The Mega Man rock opera from the self-titled CD by The Protomen has two: "Hope rides alone" and "we are the dead". Both get darker meanings by the end.

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