What is Futureshadowing?

The trope description for Futureshadowing says that it's about seeing the effects of an event before the event itself i.e. the main character has a Prophetic Dream where their house has burned down, and two episodes later the villain sets their house on fire.

However, most of the examples are of a completely different scenario, where a prequel or interquel foreshadows events the viewer already knows about i.e. In season one, the main character's house burns down. In a flashback scene in season two, set before season one, the main character makes a joke about the dangers of playing with matches.

So, what is the actual definition? The source of this problem is likely that the trope has no Laconic. Is that allowed?

Edited by TheMountainKing on Sep 30th 2018 at 7:04:51 AM

Laconics are not the definitive version of the trope definition (they often miss some sublties). What you are missing is the statement here: "or just via seeing the scenes out of chronological order."

---

Those words link to Back to Front and Anachronic Order, which is what happens when you create a prequel or interquel.

---

That said, I disagree that time travel or prophesy should be considered future shadowing. I am, of course, disagreeing with the original YKTTW draft by saying so.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

According to the definition, the example about playing with matches is wrong.

The trope is only about the effects of an event, not regular foreshadowing that happens chronologically before the event (counting future visions as happening in the future). Exactly how the effects are shown isn't important. What's important is that we see something that comes from after the event that indicates what has already happened at that point.

Check out my fanfiction!

So would any How We Got Here be a form of this trope?

Edited by eroock on Oct 7th 2018 at 6:16:03 PM

(I think the question was edited after my post. ~Another Duck gives an excellent answer to the question as it is currently written.)

Edited by crazysamaritan on Oct 8th 2018 at 3:21:34 PM

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I'd say it's more like a How We Got Here setup would almost certainly contain some Futureshadowing. The former is about the structure, while the latter is about the specific details that implies what will happen.

Check out my fanfiction!

"where a prequel or interquel foreshadows events the viewer already knows about"

That'd be Call-Forward.

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

I checked the example list and don't find strong evidence for misuse. The Deadpool example seems off though.