Very Little Foreshadowing? (was Re: Malfoy's Redemption)

[caliburncy at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 25399

Interesting that a couple people have brought up Hermione's time 
turner.  Remember how I said in my post--perhaps 'dissertation' is 
more accurate :)--that there was so much first-time foreshadowing I 
was actually having trouble finding the one, ideal example to use?  
The example I ended up using WAS first-time foreshadowing, but a 
weaker example since it didn't have far-reaching consequences.  The 
story question was raised and answered in the span of a single 
chapter.  A lot of first-time foreshadowing is simple like this.  But 
I wanted a single, good example of first-time foreshadowing AT IT'S 
VERY BEST.  Well, just ten minutes later, having already turned off my 
computer and laid down in bed, the example I wanted came to me and 
that's what it was--the hints about the time turner.  I resolved to 
post about it the next day (today) so here I am, and people are 
already bringing it up (albeit for different reasons)

This is interesting because people have said they thought this was a 
little obvious and, yes, it was because unlike second-time 
foreshadowing, first-time foreshadowing is supposed to be.  Why is it 
first-time, you ask?  Well, there's several incidences involved here 
so I'll start just by picking one, at the end of this quote from PoA 
below:

***

Hermione slammed her Arithmancy book down on the table so hard that 
bits of meat and carrot flew everywhere.
    "If being good at Divination means I have to pretend to see death 
omens in a lump of tea leaves, I'm not sure I'll be studying it much 
longer!  That lesson was absolute rubbish compared with my Arithmancy 
class!"
    She snatched up her bag and stalked away.
    Ron frowned after her.
    "What's she talking about?" he said to Harry.  "She hasn't been to 
an Arithmancy class yet."

***

Like all first-time foreshadowing, this raises a story question.  In 
fact, in this case, Ron kindly asks it for us: "What's she talking 
about?".  Unlike with second-time foreshadowing, no false explanation 
is supplied.  We are left to wonder on purpose, because this is what 
first-time foreshadowing is supposed to do: make us interested to keep 
reading and find out.  Now some readers may speculate anyway, but the 
text does not facillitate this.  And it's not too much of a clue 
because we're not given enough to draw a firm conclusion.

So it was supposed to be obvious that SOMETHING was up with Hermione's 
schedule, but not obvious what.

But to be perfectly fair, there is one instance in PoA that was also 
part of an instance of first-time foreshadowing which was not done 
quite as well and almost gives it away (which is not the point of 
first-time foreshadowing).  This is when Ron first sees Hermione's 
schedule and says "Look--they've got you down for about ten subjects a 
day.  There isn't enough TIME."  In the original text, "time" is 
italicized not capatilized.  But the emphasis is there.  And it's like 
Rowling dangling a carrot in front of our nose, expecting us not to 
realize it.

And you know what?  Thankfully, we don't.  Did anyone know it was a 
time-turner at this point?  No.  We may have had mild suspicions of 
time shifting but that's all.  No firm conclusions.  Why?  Simple. The 
time-turner wasn't introduced until the secret was revealed.

Notice that all the magic or magic items we are introduced to that are 
accompanied by second-time foreshadowing make an innocuous appearance 
before the real, plot-twist appearance.  Such as the portkey, the 
Whomping Willow, the class discussion about Werewolves, etc.  Because 
the time-turner was accompanied by first-time foreshadowing it could 
not have made an earlier innocuous appearance or the solution would 
have been blatantly obvious.

-Luke

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., cynthiaanncoe at h... wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., caliburncy at y... wrote:
> > 
> <snip>
> 
> > Anyway, JKR uses lots of first-time foreshadowing, which is where 
a 
> > lot of her good pacing comes from.  And she uses a little author 
> > prophecy, but not much.  I have never seen a book that used much 
of 
> > this, nor would it probably work to do so.  So that leaves second-
> time 
> > foreshadowing which is, of course, what I imagine you were taking 
> > about in the first place (partly why I gave two examples for it, 
> since 
> > it is most important to our discussion--but they may not be the 
two 
> > best examples, I almost added more, but stopped myself).  
> 
> 
> Luke, thanks so much for that fabulous explanation.  I hadn't really 
> thought about foreshadowing in those terms.
> 
> I think the reason JKR is able to fool me so easily is that she 
> doesn't foreshadow the BIG PLOT TWIST nearly as much as she 
> foreshadows little things.  Consider Crouch/Moody.  We get two tiny 
> direct clues (that I recall) that Moody is not himself.  One is the 
> bouncing ferret business.  The second is in Padfoot Returns, when 
Ron 
> says that Dumbledore is smart, but a really clever dark wizard could 
> fool him.  Everything else, IMHO, fits perfectly with the little we 
> know about Moody, or seems so unrelated to Moody that it isn't 
> possible to piece the facts together (e.g., Crouch searching Snape's 
> office).
> 
> The timeturner was different, though.  Sure, it was easy to see 
> that "something" was going on with Hermione.  But could one tell 
that 
> she was able to re-live time, as opposed to cloning herself with 
> polyjuice potion (hmmm-- I wonder what would happen if you tried 
> that)?  So there was a lot of foreshadowing leading to the same 
> result -- total surprise that it was a time-turner (something never 
> before introduced in the book) that would be the tool needed for the 
> dramatic rescue at the end.  
> 
> Another one is Cedric's death.  I saw no foreshadowing there at all. 
> 
> Cindy (who should have paid more attention in English Literature)