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Foreshadowing / Supernatural

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  • Dean's almost suicidal guilt over not dying in "Faith" happens on a much bigger scale over Season 2 where his father dies for him. "Crossroad Blues" also sets up his actions in "All Hell Breaks Loose" where he's so guilty over Sam's death that he sells his soul for him. Also from "Faith" is the reverend telling Dean that he chose to heal him because Dean has a very important purpose and it isn't over yet. Cue Season 4, when Castiel tells Dean that it's his job to stop the Apocalypse.
  • Dean's guilt in "Faith" being ramped up to 1000 when John dies for him in Season 2, Dean wanting to make a Deal with the Devil to get his father back in "Crossroad Blues" and actually doing so (except it's for his brother this time) in "All Hell Breaks Loose," all of Dean's onscreen deaths (7 in total?) leading up to the big one in "No Rest For The Wicked" and Dean's "All things considered" comment about their childhood in "Nightmare" turning out to be unbelievably loaded.
  • Sam and Dean's relationship to their father in Season 1 is incredibly similar to Lucifer and Michael's to God. This is, ah, occasionally noted, by them and others.
  • Season 2's Houses of the Holy is like a full episode of foreshadowing that not only will angels eventually be introduced, but that Dean will end up rather fond of them (or one). A priest even uses the term "...an angel of the Lord" which is how Castiel introduces himself to Dean in Season 4. And while they're interviewing the priest Sam asks him "Father, that's Michael, right?" while pointing to a painting... that just so happens to be on the same direction as Dean. On the same topic, we find out at various points throughout the series that Dean's mother would often tell Dean as a child that "angels are watching over you". In Season 8, Castiel straight up says to Dean's face "I'll watch over you".
  • The reveal that Ruby is a demon comes several episodes after her debut. While she was originally posing as a hunter, the fact that one of the demons she went after — who had been imprisoned in Hell for centuries prior to the episode — recognized her on her debut indicated that she was not only older than she looked but had encountered it before. Her fight scene also made use of slow-mo, unlike fight scenes with our human protagonists, but demons have sometimes been known to move in a fast, unnatural way (namely, Meg being exorcised in "Devil's Trap" and failing to be exorcised in "Born Under a Bad Sign").
  • Ruby tells Sam that she's a demon and manipulative is in her job description... the finale of the next season has her admit that she's been manipulating Sam all along. See also her quiet rebuttal to Dean that she doesn't believe in the Devil, which turns out to be true: she doesn't believe in "the Devil". As it turns out though, she is quite devout to "Lucifer". This comes after another demon in "Sin City" had already corrected Dean when he used that name, telling him that "the Devil" is humans' name for him, and demons call him by his original name, Lucifer, because they see him as their savior.
  • Also, "Nightmare" sets up the end of "No Rest for the Wicked". At the end of "Nightmare", Sam's powers are triggered by seeing Dean die in a vision (he telekinetically moves a dresser out of his way). At the end of No Rest For The Wicked, he watches Dean actually die, and then his power apparently reawakens (Lilith can't kill him).
  • The supposed heartwarming moment (which now comes off as half-arsed) in "Nightmare" where Sam says that, all things considered, their Dad wasn't that bad (i.e incredibly abusive like Max's Dad) and Dean repeats the line in a strange tone sets up/is paid off by "Something Wicked"/"Dead Man's Blood" where we find out exactly how crappy John can be.
  • Not to mention Dean's seemingly out-of-character behaviour of hating the food and chucking the wrapper in the backseat in "Simon Said" and the love of the Hollywood/Prison food in "Hollywood Babylon" and "Folsom Prison Blues", which gets paid off in "What Is And What Should Never Be" where he's practically orgasming over his Mom's homemade food.
  • Several of Bela's seemingly-flippant/catty remarks in Season 3 actually make more sense upon a second viewing, including "We're all going to Hell, Dean. Might as well enjoy the ride" and her response to Dean's snarks about her father and how damaged she is, setting up The Reveal in her final episode that she sold her soul to kill her abusive dad.
  • A crossroads demon in the third season episode "Bedtime Stories" tells Sam that she doesn't have Dean's contract because her "boss" has it and that "he" isn't going to let it go. Although the female demon Lilith is said to hold all contracts later in the season, Bela Talbot mentions "demons" plural from the character's dealings in trying to negotiate with them. The King of the Crossroads Crowley is introduced in Season 5 as the crossroad demons' boss and Lilith's right-hand who had assisted her in dealing with Bela's negotiations with the Colt.
  • Lilith's white eyes and Holy Hand Grenade seen in Season 3 ties her to the angels, who have similar abilities, after they are introduced to the show's mythos in Season 4. "When the Levee Breaks" reveals that Lilith was the first demon personally made by the Archangel Lucifer, indicating she inherited an alarming amount of his power.
  • The following conversation in "Point of No Return":
    Sam: There's another way.
    Adam: Great. What is it?
    Dean: [sarcastically] Well, we're working on the Power of Love.
    Adam: How's that going?
    Dean: Not good.
    • In the end, it's pretty much exactly the power of love that saves the world.
  • In her two-episode debut, Anna Milton is set up as something of a Good Counterpart to Ruby — Anna is a Fallen Angel and Ruby seems to be an Ascended Demon, Anna gets romantic with Dean and Ruby seduces Sam, Anna fell because she hated being an angel and wanted to be human while Ruby claimed that remembering her human past was why she was helping the Winchesters, right down to their You Are Not Alone moments with Dean and Sam before having sex. Ruby turns out to have been The Mole keeping the brothers Sam alive and manipulating him all along to start the Apocalypse. She is killed by Dean. Anna was genuinely on the brothers' side, but thanks to some brainwashing and torture becomes a Well-Intentioned Extremist trying to kill Sam-slash-erase him from history to stop-slash-undo the Apocalypse. She is killed by Dean's Evil Counterpart, Michael.
  • Christian taunts Dean for having tortured people in Hell. While Dean and the viewers assume that Sam mentioned it to Christian in the year they spent together before the Season 6 premiere, we find out later that Christian has been possessed the whole time, so he probably knew it already.
  • During Season 5, everyone else thought Lucifer just a bratty child who was having a tantrum. It comes to a head when the demon Crowley talks with Castiel in a flashback in "The Man Who Would Be King" and says, "Lucifer was a petulant child with daddy issues," accurately describing Castiel's current Character Development. With his current status as Rebel Leader, it looks like he's about to become the next Lucifer.
    • Worse; it foreshadowed Cas declaring himself the new God.
  • Season 1, Episode 6
    Dean: I tell you though, I'm sorry I'm going to miss it.
    Sam: What?
    Dean: How many chances am I going to get to see my own funeral?
  • In Season 2, Episode 21 we find out that Mary Winchester recognized the Yellow-Eyed Demon before he killed her. The writers leave us to mull that over for more than a full season, until Season 4, Episode 3, when it's revealed that Mary met the YED when she was a hunter, which is something even her own husband knew nothing about.
  • Castiel's line to Dean in "On the Head of a Pin" that "The Righteous Man who begins it, is the only one who can finish it" foreshadows two such moments. In Season 5, after the otherwise good-hearted Sam was corrupted and tricked into beginning the Apocalypse by releasing Lucifer, he ends up stopping it by pulling a Heroic Sacrifice to trap himself and Lucifer in the Cage. Then, in Season 13 Dean (the Righteous Man who'd broken the first seal back in Season 4 and found out he was supposed to end the Apocalypse by letting Michael possess him to kill Lucifer) gives consent to an alternate version of Michael to finally kill Lucifer, who had gotten more powerful and was ready to "remake" the universe.
  • Several episodes have Sam and Dean fighting each other (well, kind of, thanks to demonic possession, hallucination, shapeshifter...). In the fifth season, we learn that as the vessels of Lucifer and Michael, they are destined to fight each other.
  • In "The Monster at the End of This Book", Lilith suddenly offers to make a deal with Sam to stop breaking the 66 seals if he agrees to let her kill him and Dean. When he asks why, she tells him it's because she is apparently destined to die before Lucifer is freed and causes the Apocalypse, and since she'd miss out on all that fun anyway, she's willing to drop the plan. "Lucifer Rising" reveals that Lilith's death is the final seal needed to free Lucifer, and that Sam is the only one who could kill her. If Sam had taken her up on her offer, she would have killed him to get rid of her destined murderer and Lucifer's true vessel in one go, eliminated one of the only threats to her existence, and also killed Dean, Michael's true vessel, with archangels being one of the only other threats to her existence. Bumping Dean off would theoretically get one of the last two active archangels off her tail and certainly leave him less powerful without his true vessel.
  • "The Monster at the End of This Book" had the joke of Author Avatar Chuck fearing he was "a cruel and capricious god" because he thought he was writing out Sam and Dean's lives, instead of just being a prophet who had visions of them. This was subtly followed by "Lucifer Rising" sneaking in him laying a comforting hand on an angel's shoulder as they await death, and then a huge number of hints dropped in "Swan Song" (the way he spoke of things that happened even before Sam and Dean's birth, his new white-clad appearance, his uncharacteristically solemn musings, his sudden disappearance into white light) convinced a good many fans he was God in disguise before Season 11 finally confirmed it.
  • Chuck was introduced as a prophet and this was shown through his writing of the Supernatural books, which detail Sam and Dean’s lives like the Bible details the life of Jesus. But hold on, the angels repeatedly state that the Bible, which was written by numerous prophets, “gets more wrong than it does right”, yet Dean notes that Chuck’s books are perfect down to the last detail. Why would Chuck in particular get everything perfect when his predecessors didn't unless he was something greater than a prophet?
  • In the fourth season finale, "Lucifer Rising", when Zachariah reveals to Dean that his role as the angels' Chosen One is not to stop Lilith, but to defeat Lucifer, they are standing in front of a painting of the Archangel Michael with his foot on Lucifer's neck. In the fifth season premiere we learn that Dean is the intended vessel for the Archangel Michael.
  • Since Season 5, Lucifer has been insisting that his fall wasn't his fault and God made him the way he was, which both his brothers Gabriel and Michael scoffed at, giving him the appearance of someone unwilling to accept he was in the wrong. However, Season 10 reveals that he had been given the Mark of Cain by God because he was God's most trusted, and was actually corrupted by it, similar to what was happening to Dean Winchester before Sam destroyed the Mark.
  • Crowley offhandedly mentions in Season 8 that his mother had been a witch. She turns up two seasons later despite being even older than him, which worked with the show having previously established that some witches have found tricks to being immortal.
  • Demons on the show are known to have telekinesis. In the ninth season, Dean received the Mark of Cain from Cain (now a demon), in order to use the First Blade against Abaddon. During his fight with her, he was able to use telekinesis to pick up the blade from the floor. Now, guess what he turned into in the season finale?
  • Lucifer's willingness to use and then kill his own demon "children" at his own convenience, and to kill his own beloved archangel brothers when they won't listen to him in Season 5, foreshadows the end to his fatherhood arc in Season 13 with his nephilim son Jack.
  • In Season 11, The Darkness invades the bunker and searches through it. During that time, she finds a picture of Mary with young Dean. In the finale, she tells Dean that she is giving him something in return for having helped her. That something is Mary, back from the dead.
  • Chuck's throwaway line in Season 4 as Dean chewed the hell out of him for profiting off their miseries by selling books on them, 'Oh, I'm God, a cruel, cruel, capricious God', is proven in Season 14 finale as a Sarcastic Confession, with God playing a Long Game with the world and the Winchesters to get a perfect story.
    • Lucifer's angry rant about his father proves completely correct once God drops the act.
    • Additionally despite appearing to make amends with Lucifer he quickly leaves again without saying a word to Lucifer while also leaving Michael stuck in the Cage, Gabriel as a prisoner of Asmodeus and making no effort to replenish the number of Angels in Heaven which hints at how little he really cares about his creations.
  • A retroactive example, but the shows repeated use of the Cain and Abel trope becomes much more important in Season 15 when it's revealed that Chuck is literally obsessed with the idea and of Sam and Dean killing each other, forcing an unknown number of versions of the brothers to kill each other in alternate realities.

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