Foreshadowing vs. "Surprise!"

[Hooves]

Surprises with little foreshadowing to explain it later is what I prefer. Typically because I miss the foreshadowing in the first place until I get whacked with a surprise. Then I look back and am amazed by the foreshadowing that was hidden. That's the type of thing I really like.

[Reckoner]

Surprise and foreshadowing are not mutually exclusive and they have different narrative goals. At the end of the day, it's a case by case basis. Not a useful comparison IMO.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

Surprise and foreshadowing are not mutually exclusive and they have different narrative goals. At the end of the day, it's a case by case basis. Not a useful comparison IMO.

I think you're underestimating the impact of foreshadowing. I also think that the more idealistic responses to this thread might also be underestimating it.

Yes, the odd extremely well-written show (at least in this respect) may manage to have foreshadowing without completely tipping viewers off to the coming surprise (if the goal is to be surprising). But that's very and increasingly rare, in my experience.

Consider death flags, which is basically a form of foreshadowing (even if it is an ironic one, at times - i.e. Characters X says A, meaning he's sort of jinxed himself and -A is going to happen). How often do people here on Anime Suki fail to pick up on death-flags? Very rarely, in my experience. A death flag basically gives the surprise away (the character death to come may otherwise have been a surprise, even if an upsetting one).

Quite often, if not typically, there is a trade-off between having foreshadowing or having surprises (and to the extent you can have both, it typically must be very light foreshadowing indeed). This is the reality of entertainment in the internet age where viewers are increasingly genre savvy.

[Kanon]

Voted 2. I love to be surprised, but I hate the Valvrave style of storytelling. Twists need to make sense and not come out of absolutely nowhere. A little foreshadowing is necessary. As Aohige already said, the best kind of foreshadowing is the one you don't notice until after the big reveal. Unfortunately, few writers can pull that off. More often than not, the foreshadowing is too strong and ruin the impact of the surprises. I think it's always better to have too much foreshadowing than none at all though.

[relentlessflame]

I'm more surprised at the examples that something like OreImo got brought up in this conversation, as the development of the romance seems (to me) very clear from the beginning of the story to the end. If people were really "surprised!" by it to that degree, I think they missed a lot of foreshadowing. Of course that doesn't mean that every detail and twist is completely obvious (I myself had guessed a slightly different permutation), but I would think it falls somewhere in the acceptable (?) range of "a small surprise to many that you can more easily coming in retrospect".

I'm not sure if there's a side conversation that could be had about cases where the "surprise" was indeed foreshadowed, but some were so hoping for something else that they allowed themselves to be "suckered" into a false sense of hope/security in terms of the plot direction. This ties in to a conversation we had in the other thread about "defeat" in romance series. But perhaps this is always the case with surprises, even if they're foreshadowed; as was mentioned, there are many ways to throw people off the trail, even if the evidence is clearly there.

Anyway, going to leave this here for whatever it's worth, but it isn't really part of the core debate except in that it was introduced to the discussion previously.

TL;DR…

OreImo replies to Archon_Wing

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Vegard Aune]

It is my opinion that plot-twists are a fickle business, and one that is very difficult to get completely right. Don't set it up clearly enough, and viewers will perceive it as a deus ex machina, and think less of the story because the big twist just sorta happened with no prior indication that it was possible. Set it up too overtly, and viewers won't be surprised because they'll have long since figured it out anyway, in which case they might think less of the story because the big twist was obvious from a mile away.
So for me, it's an easy choice for the second option. Foreshadow it just enough that the twist will make sense when it happens, but not so clearly that the audience will actually figure it out before it comes. And then looking back at it in hindsight when they know that the twist in question will happen, they suddenly see that the clues were there all along. Of course this is easier said than done, but yeah, that to me is the ideal way to do it.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I'm more surprised at the examples that something like OreImo got brought up in this conversation, as the development of the romance seems (to me) very clear from the beginning of the story to the end. If people were really "surprised!" by it to that degree, I think they missed a lot of foreshadowing. Of course that doesn't mean that every detail and twist is completely obvious (I myself had guessed a slightly different permutation), but I would think it falls somewhere in the acceptable (?) range of "a small surprise to many that you can more easily coming in retrospect".

I'm not sure if there's a side conversation that could be had about cases where the "surprise" was indeed foreshadowed, but some were so hoping for something else that they allowed themselves to be "suckered" into a false sense of hope/security in terms of the plot direction. This ties in to a conversation we had in the other thread about "defeat" in romance series. But perhaps this is always the case with surprises, even if they're foreshadowed; as was mentioned, there are many ways to throw people off the trail, even if the evidence is clearly there.

Anyway, going to leave this here for whatever it's worth, but it isn't really part of the core debate except in that it was introduced to the discussion previously.

TL;DR…

OreImo replies to Archon_Wing

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Of all honesty, I wasn't really paying attention to why this got in here, but I suppose I could indulge this.

Spoiler:

I suppose it was wrong to put a quantitative judgement on the morals of said characters, but I do consider it necessary for a story to work for characters to be humanized to a certain degree.

If you would suggest that the story is also about accepting oneself, and furthermore putting it forth in spite of outside pressure, that sounds like a nice premise and has some relevance since the whole show seems to be a celebration of that kind of lifestyle. "I am who I am" isn't a particularly new concept when it comes to storytelling. And due to the nature of incest in the context of society, practically every series that touches upon it as a major theme usually has to face this issue if it's serious to some degree.

However, I think there's a certain feeling of entitlement both from the narrative and characters itself. In other words, I hear the premise, but it seems that it wants me to take it for granted. When I speak of the quality of people's personalities, I don't refer to them necessarily abiding to some kind of pure virtue but an ability to generate some kind of thought towards "well, i totally think you should go forth" instead of "well, shouldn't you do something to prove that you have some kind of value to make this kind of prostrating"

See, while the concept of freedom is nice and all, people don't exist in vacuums, and while you have freedom of choice, when you bring that choice up into the open (to the audience), I don't think the audience has any obligation to accept this at face value. And in its own universe, where the opposition is in the form of hilarious strawmen, I don't think the degree of conflict for this journey makes it a particularly compelling story.

But we could retreat further in, and try to look at as a strictly internal struggle. Perhaps it shouldn't matter how the viewer thinks of them, and they should do whatever they want regardless of viewer expectations. It's entirely possible too, but I simply don't think the characters have that sort of depth to make sure that really works as a story either.

In other words, the characters and setting are not realistic enough to be accepted through deep introspection over how humans work, but yet not enjoyable enough so I can accept it as some kind of escapist fantasy.

It's fine to think otherwise, since a lot of what seems to be intended is stated directly to some extent, I just don't think what's on screen coincides with what is stated.

I hope this is a better reasoning than simply "Omg X should have won because Kirino is a baddie" because I assure you, that regardless of what it was, I would be writing something similar.

Ironic that this might belong in the other thread better. I think it's also fair to say I'm engaging in something called "premise sniping", which is something that is unfair in most contexts. I of course feel this is somewhat proper though.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Spoiler:

But we could retreat further in, and try to look at as a strictly internal struggle. Perhaps it shouldn't matter how the viewer thinks of them, and they should do whatever they want regardless of viewer expectations. It's entirely possible too, but I simply don't think the characters have that sort of depth to make sure that really works as a story either.

In other words, the characters and setting are not realistic enough to be accepted through deep introspection over how humans work, but yet not enjoyable enough so I can accept it as some kind of escapist fantasy.

It's fine to think otherwise, since a lot of what seems to be intended is stated directly to some extent, I just don't think what's on screen coincides with what is stated.

Just a simple reply to this...

Spoiler for OreImo Plot and Themes:

I don't normally like using this line of argumentation, but I honestly do think this is where the anime's compressed timeline hurt the believability of the characters. I think the themes and messages are presented clearly, and the character development over the course of the story supports it well... but I can't in good conscious argue that the process was smooth and natural. An introspective message is hard to convey when the adaptation is focused mostly on action, drama, and comedy, and does things like covering an entire novel of important transitional character building in one flashback episode. Sure, the pieces are there (which is the main point I was arguing), but you have to be willing to accommodate the constraints. I can understand why some may not have the desire to do so. Even the author was encouraging anime viewers to read the novels to get a fuller understanding of the characters (and see all the parts that were cut), and I think that's not just shameless self-promotion. Adaptation is about compromise, and the debate is always whether the right compromises were made.

I do think that agreeing with Kirino and Kyousuke's arguably-immoral life choices is sort of beside the point, at least from the author's point of view. The key thing is watching them both finally be able to be honest with themselves. I would suggest that the strawmen set-up for the conflict were representative, and weren't necessarily intended to embody the entire scope of the challenge they face -- a point that was directly acknowledged in the story as well. This too played into the rather understated way that the story ended (which, again, was cut short for the anime to the point where it was easy to miss the message).

Anyway... all this to say that the discussion of whether or not it was a "good anime" or whether "people should have liked it" is a bit different than the one about people should have been surprised by it or whether it was properly foreshadowed. If people pay attention to the themes (allowing for the "bumpy ride"), the way for the story to develop was fairly clear. But seeing Kyousuke turn his back on a number of perfectly valid, wonderful life choices in order to "follow his heart" and pursue an immoral path was a very tough pill for people to swallow, and you have to really trace the development the whole way along to see why this was so important to him. (You can't just remember him as the same person as in episode one and be like "what happened?!") Some may have argued, just like some characters in the show, that he should set his childishness/selfishness/foolishness aside and do the Right Thing that would have been good for him and his future... but being true to himself didn't allow that. And it's not like everyone is going to agree, particularly when you make what he gave up so clear. But, in the end, this is also what gave Kyousuke his initiative, and made him become a bit more than a narrative stand-in for the audience; making his own life choices gave the viewers the ability to disagree and even despise those same choices, particularly when the arguments against were all around him. And so -- if we are willing -- we have to reflect again on the story's message, and draw our own conclusions about whether the author's argument is ultimately for the best or not.

[Marcus H.]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Spoiler:

However, I think there's a certain feeling of entitlement both from the narrative and characters itself. In other words, I hear the premise, but it seems that it wants me to take it for granted. When I speak of the quality of people's personalities, I don't refer to them necessarily abiding to some kind of pure virtue but an ability to generate some kind of thought towards "well, i totally think you should go forth" instead of "well, shouldn't you do something to prove that you have some kind of value to make this kind of prostrating"

See, while the concept of freedom is nice and all, people don't exist in vacuums, and while you have freedom of choice, when you bring that choice up into the open (to the audience), I don't think the audience has any obligation to accept this at face value. And in its own universe, where the opposition is in the form of hilarious strawmen, I don't think the degree of conflict for this journey makes it a particularly compelling story.

Spoiler for Oreimo:

If Fushimi-sensei did want to show a story about two siblings falling in love despite the challenges that face them and the concept of self-acceptance, then I certainly didn't feel that conflict throughout the story, Manami as "final boss" aside. Thinking about it, who actually actively opposed their relationship aside from Mr. Japanese Society and Manami? Saori's fine with it; Ruri and Ayase supported them; Kanako doesn't care; hell, even the anti-otaku father implies that he wants Kyousuke for Kirino than any troglodyte outside of his family.

Another irony in Oreimo is that while the story is claustrophobic in the sense that it only expands on Kyousuke and Kirino, the story is also so endearing on the two that any notion of conflict is left between Manami and the internal conflicts with the siblings.

What I wouldn't give for a greater storm that would truly test the relationship of the two, not just some girl with the guts to not leave the main couple marching on the altar with her posse cheering for their happiness.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Spoiler for Oreimo:

Thinking about it, who actually actively opposed their relationship aside from Mr. Japanese Society and Manami?

Spoiler for OreImo:

They were their own worst enemies, with Kyousuke having convinced himself of his uselessness and inability to take initiative, and Kirino convincing herself that her feelings were wrong and the only suitable solution was to bottle them up inside somehow. Overcoming these self-imposed barriers and coming to terms with who they really were was the entire thrust of the story. The little row with Manami was just a case-in-point to demonstrate how much Kyousuke had changed (or rather, rediscovered the part of himself he had denied). The opposition was less important than their internal resolve.

Anyway, I'm thinking now that maybe I should move the entire OreImo slice of this thread into its own thread in the OreImo section to be more clear, as I think it's sufficiently detached from the core debate of this thread.

Edit: And that aside, have any of the people commenting about this show actually watched it through from start to finish to understand how things are connected? For example, I see Marcus H. saying in another thread that he never watched the second season OVAs. How can you make any sort of reasonable argument about the plot themes and elements without considering the story on the whole and understanding the intricacies of the plot? Did you just assume "I understand enough of what it's about; I don't have to watch it"? No wonder what you're saying doesn't make any sense to me...

[Fireminer]

Say, have anyone thinking that foreshadowing and surprise are for messing up cliches? For example, you thought that this character A will love B, but then the winner is C. In order to do that, what they have to do is making situations with layers of meaning under it. It's like putting false flags on a route.

[Marcus H.]

Anyway, I'm thinking now that maybe I should move the entire OreImo slice of this thread into its own thread in the OreImo section to be more clear, as I think it's sufficiently detached from the core debate of this thread.

No, anything but this. It's not every time that we have to discuss a particular series on its own series thread. This is why we have the General Anime subforum: to discuss anything about anime, specific series or whatever.

Edit: And that aside, have any of the people commenting about this show actually watched it through from start to finish to understand how things are connected? For example, I see Marcus H. saying in another thread that he never watched the second season OVAs. How can you make any sort of reasonable argument about the plot themes and elements without considering the story on the whole and understanding the intricacies of the plot? Did you just assume "I understand enough of what it's about; I don't have to watch it"? No wonder what you're saying doesn't make any sense to me...

I've been spoiled enough to know everything that had happened in the Season 2 OVAs without needing to watch it.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

No, anything but this. It's not every time that we have to discuss a particular series on its own series thread. This is why we have the General Anime subforum: to discuss anything about anime, specific series or whatever.

No, our rules and guidelines state that discussions related to specific shows should go into the most appropriate location. You can't have threads in General Anime that would rightfully belong in another section, and extended tangents should be split off into their own thread in the more appropriate section. General Anime is not an "anything goes" sub-forum.

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

I've been spoiled enough to know everything that had happened in the Season 2 OVAs without needing to watch it.

A key point in this thread is the relation between surprises (generally, plot twists) and foreshadowing, which tie back to the central narrative themes. How can you expect to understand the relationship between the elements if you don't actually pay attention to the details and go only based off of second-hand, biased reports? This is just another variation of "premise sniping" that is discussed in the other thread. I would say without reservation that you may think you know everything that happened in those OVAs, but you don't appear to understand it, or the significance/connectedness of it, at all. At this point, having already made your judgement, preserving objectivity if you do watch it may be difficult. (This doesn't mean that you will like it either way, of course.)

[Marcus H.]

No, our rules and guidelines state that discussions related to specific shows should go into the most appropriate location. You can't have threads in General Anime that would rightfully belong in another section, and extended tangents should be split off into their own thread in the more appropriate section. General Anime is not an "anything goes" sub-forum.

You know that such an approach has killed off more discussions than ever.

...(This doesn't mean that you will like it either way, of course.)

That's the reason why I wouldn't pick up the second season specials even if someone gives me a thousand bucks for it. It's not pretty, and will only ruin my day.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Oreimo Season 2 and its specials were terrible series, not because of the "result" (though the result was in itself quite bad as it portrays a TERRIBLE message about sibling relationships) but because of what happened during its course. It trolled shippers and intentionally sunk them one by one whilst the author was laughing manically with a "UMAD" trollface. At least that is how I imagine it.

But it is far from the worst "asspull" I've seen in anime. That, or an example of that has to go to "Key" adaptations, in particular Clannad After Story.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

Oreimo Season 2 and its specials were terrible series, not because of the "result" (though the result was in itself quite bad as it portrays a TERRIBLE message about sibling relationships) but because of what happened during its course. It trolled shippers and intentionally sunk them one by one whilst the author was laughing manically with a "UMAD" trollface. At least that is how I imagine it.

But it is far from the worst "asspull" I've seen in anime. That, or an example of that has to go to "Key" adaptations, in particular Clannad After Story.

The later point I think also ties into RF pointing out issues of adaptation. where intent becomes horrifically clouded when transitioning into mediums, making it cause quite a dilemma. What may have maintained atmosphere over a long period of text doesn't work the same. What may have seem like adequate growth can seem rushed.

Spoiler for Clannad, Kanon, and Little Busters:

And this is why I think Kyoto Animation is sometimes extremely overrated when it came to the Key adaptations. Now the source material wasn't necessarily devoid of plot twists, but in the case of Kanon and especially After Story, when it came to dealing with their endings, they pretty much just threw their hands up in the air and just took the ending directly without bothering with any of the build up. As inferior as J-cup staff maybe at times according to popular opinion, I don't think they would have done that at all, even if the frame rate would be like cut 1/3. In the end, Little Busters is more internally consistent even if the details are a bit fail, I don't think anything particularly comes out of nowhere. You might object to the ending, but that's a different story. And yes, I've seen the endings in the source and anime, so stop bothering me.

In many ways, I think After Story was most likely carried by its source material, since honestly I found certain parts really lacking polish, like mindlessly spamming the ED song. What the hell?

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

It trolled shippers and intentionally sunk them one by one whilst the author was laughing manically with a "UMAD" trollface. At least that is how I imagine it.

I still have to come to terms with exactly how/why people took it that way, but there's no discounting that this was the perception by some/many. I think it was actually quite important for the show's message for Kyousuke to do what he did, although some of it does come across as a bit disjointed given that adaptation compression factor. I really don't think any of it was an asspull, if you were paying attention to the way the plot was developed. It was all very properly foreshadowed and clear, particularly in retrospect. But again, to the theme of this thread, the gap between foreshadowing and "Surprise!" is apparently influenced by many factors, certainly not limited to shipping preferences.

[Aquifina]

Originally Posted by LKK

Life seldom comes with foreshadowing and neither should story twists. That's my general opinion. Having said that though I also enjoy being able to look back afterwards with 20/20 hindsight and see little signs that indicated the story might turn. Proof that the author knew in advance where he was going all along even if I didn't have a clue at the time.

I personally think that there is a consistency to our characters and personalities that does lead to a foreshadowing of sorts in our lives--and that should be reflected in storylines. Sudden external events can change the environment, but characters' reactions to them should correspond with what we know of their personalities.

[frivolity]

A related issue is what defines a plot element as foreshadowing? Is it the foreshadowing that predicts the ending, or is it the ending that retrospectively defines earlier plot lines as a form of foreshadowing?

Put another way, if the ending of the story were to be changed, would the earlier clues still be foreshadowing, or would they become red herrings instead?

For me, the threshold between foreshadowing and surprise lies in the answer to the above. If the story is structured in such a way that the clues are well-hidden but also sufficiently well-established, such that during a rewatch, a viewer is led to the firm conclusion that the earlier clues retain their foreshadowing characteristics, then I would say that it's a well-written ending.

Conversely, if the structure of the story is such that there are so many clues strewn all over, to the point that a different ending would transform the actual foreshowing into red herrings and the actual red herrings into foreshadowing, then that crosses over to the realm of too much surprise for my liking.

Example:

Comments on Kokoro Connect's ending from another blog (not that I agree with the analysis, but it illustrates the approach I'm referring to)

[Pocari_Sweat]

Kokoro connect is just another example of another badly written melodrama anime that used a body-switching gimmick at first, then whatever the heck that supernatural being known as Heartseed wanted to do because he was bored and felt like it. It's a stupid idea and excuse of a vehicle for drama and it's an excuse of a series that got shippers riled up.

There were asspulls left right and centre, with the most notable being

Spoiler for Spoiler for Kokoro connect somewhere in the first third:

one of the main characters jumping off a bridge out of no where. I actually laughed out loud at the stupidity.

And there was that real life drama with a certain voice actress and eufonius somehow getting involved in that too...