Foreshadowing is when an author drops subtle hints or clues about something coming later in the story. Rowling did a lot of this, and she’s brilliant at it. And of course, there’s plenty of foreshadowing in Sorcerer’s Stone. Day 2 discussion focuses on Rowling’s use of foreshadowing in the first novel, and it’s a simple discussion starter:
Now that you’ve got the knowledge of all seven books, where do you see clever foreshadowing in Book 1? What’s your favorite foreshadowing from the first book? What things from the first book have taken on new and enhanced meaning since the release of Deathly Hallows?
One of my favorites is Sirius’s motorbike – a device which seemed so innocuous in book one, but which ended up belonging to one of the key players in the story and being the means of magical escape from Privet Drive for book 7. Think about Rowling’s parallelism here: Sirius’s bike brings Harry to 4 Privet Drive for the beginning of his 7 years there, and it takes him away at the end of his 7 years there.
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Ah foreshadowing is about my favourite discussion point of the Harry Potter series !
To me, the summum of Rowling’s foreshadowing is the pair of Vanishing Cabinets. Harry encounters the first in Philosopher’s Stone in Borgin & Burke’s and is saved by it when he needs a place to hide from Lucius and Draco.
In Chamber of Secrets, Harry is saved by the other when Filch wants to vent his anger on him for mucking up the castle. Nearly-Headless Nick thinks to distract Filch by dropping and smashing up the one Vanishing Cabinet that resides in the school.
Then in Goblet of Fire, Harry is saved by the school’s Vanishing Cabinet again when Fred and George punish Marcus Belby for his plans for Harry and the Gryffindor’s by stuffing him in the broken Vanishing Cabinet that is now stored in the Room of Requirement. Marcus turns up weeks later when he manages to spontaneously disapparate himself to safety. He accounts later that he could hear what was going on in the school (that many visitors to the RofR, ’cause it ain’t thin walls ?!) and Borgin & Burke’s off and on.
And finally of course in Half-blood Prince, Harry, the school but mainly Dumbledore is doomed when Malfoy spends half the year repairing the broken Vanishing Cabinet and subsequently leads the Deatheaters into the school via Borgin & Burke’s through the link between the two Vanishing Cabinets.
Masterpiece in my opinion !
The foreshadowing that I found interesting in SS was at the end of chapter 7, “the sorting hat.” Harry has a strange dream in which Quirrell, Draco and Snape appear. At first glance the dream just seems to foreshadow that Quirrell is Voldemort’s agent inside Hogwart. Now this next part might be a stretch but I almost see it as foreshadowing the events on the astronomy tower in half-blood prince (strangely, I read HBP before SS). Because first you have Draco appear and then turn into Snape and everything goes green (like an AK). Also, with Harry wearing the Turbin and it speaking to him, you might have some Voldemort possession and HarryCrux imaginery. This might be a stretch, but that’s what I thought of.
Also, I like in chapter 1 how McGonagall, waits all day for Harry to show up at the Dursleys. It shows how much she cared for him even though she was stern towards him and would do much to help him succeed in DH.
Victoria,
Actually, we don’t see the Vanishing Cabinet until CoS. First, early in the book Harry ended up in B&B when using the Floo for the first time and took shelter in the VC when the Malfoys entered the shop. Later in CoS, Peeves dropped the twin VC that was on the first floor in order to distract Filch from discovering Harry. But I agree that the twin Vanishing Cabinets are masterfully plotted and foreshadowed.
Travis,
I suppose my favorite bit of foreshadowing is the Mirror of Erised scene when Harry saw his parents. In PS, he only saw a simple projection of them, and they could do nothing more than wave and smile. He was later helped by their shades in the Priori Incantatem scene in GoF where they spoke to him, but the communication was limited and one-sided. Finally, in the Forest scene in DH, he was able to have a conversation with them.
In the first chapter it describes Dumbledore’s nose as looking like it’s been broken twice. We find out in DH that Aberforth broke it on at least one occasion.
That first chapter in PS/SS is full of foreshadowing, and done in the way that I love–little seemingly throw away remarks that we don’t know more about until three or four books later.
The one that I noticed that changed in the 10th Anniv Edition is regarding Sirius. Hagrid does say that he got the motor bike from Sirius Black, but later instead of saying he has to return it to him (which doesn’t work with the later books information), Hagrid just says that he has to get the bike away. This chapter is the first time that Dumbledore says that he would trust Hagrid with his life–which he does more than once, but it also points to how often he trusts Hagrid with Harry’s life.
Then when they go to the zoo we get the first instance of Harry speaking Parseltongue. There are quite a few times where Mrs. Figg is mentioned in this chapter, without any particular importance placed on who she is.
And when they are at the hut on the rock, we hear Petunia talk about her sister–it’s a nice set-up for her jealousy that we don’t learn about until Deathly Hallows. Of course, there Harry gets all sorts of information about his parents and Voldemort–especially the comment that Hagrid makes that he doesn’t think Voldemort has enough human in him to die.
One that I thought was fun, but doesn’t seem to have any importance was the reference to scars, when Dumbledore says he has a scar in the shape of the London Underground. I kept waiting to find out why that was significant and got to the end of DH feeling like it was a useless bit of information. But I did find the tie in, and can’t believe I’ve missed it all the times I’ve read PS/SS. It’s when Hagrid tells Harry that the vaults at Gringotts are miles deep under the Underground. Granted, we don’t see Dumbledore use that map, but at least it does tie to something beyond that one mention.
Oh, and speaking of Gringotts, Hagrid gives Harry a lot of information about the goblins and the possibility of dragons there that are a big part of the story in Deathly Hallows.
Rereading the first book now, it seems like the foreshadowing is everywhere, and I can see why Rowling said she had to rewrite big parts of the first chapter because it gave away too much of the whole story. She did a great job with it.
Pat
Pat, I’m glad you saw that part about Hagrid saying he had to put the bike away. I thought that was a change, too, but I wasn’t sure. I’m glad I wasn’t imaging it.
I also noticed they corrected the first Flint by changing Flint’s year from sixth year to fifth year. Had that been done in prior editions to this one? If only there were some sort of Lexicon I could use to check out this information.
Does anyone think that Harrys encounters with Dudley and his gang are a foreshadowing of what he will have to face with Voldemort and the Death Eaters albeit on a much smaller and less serious scope? Also, is Harrys quickness that is mentioned ,indicitive of the reflexes that will save his life and others in the books that follow?
In retrospect, the most interesting foreshadowing hint and, at the same time, the biggest red herring for me is the Philosopher’s Stone itself and Dumbledore’s dealing with it.
The Chocolate Frog Card tells us that Dumbledore has worked on alchemy with his partner Nicolas Flamel. Later we learn from Hermione that Nicolas Flamel ‘is the only known maker of the Philosopher’s Stone’ and that it ‘produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal’.
So, Dumbledore had once tried to find a way to conquer death, although by means very different from Voldemort’s.
But at the end of the book he says: ‘After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all – the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.’
Had he grown so wise, that he lost interest in that materialistic approach to alchemy? I believed that. But after Deathly Hallows it seems that he had no use for a stone that could make someone immortal. He wanted the stone that could bring his dead sister back to life, the Resurrection Stone. And it was precisely the thing that was worst for him.
It is still hard for me to believe that JKR always planned Dumbledore like that. But if she really did, she has done a great job in not revealing anything about it before the last book.
Felicity – Of course you are right. How silly of me ! I was just jumping the gun and should save my post for the anniversary edition of Chamber. Here I go again, *hand*face*head*desk*
I would check it myself, but since I live in Europe, I don’t have an anniversary edition of Sorcerer’s Stone (and one will hardly ever hear me use that title either for that matter).
So on a side note, is Hagrid’s description of their route still the same ? He says that they flew over Bristol to Surrey. Has anyone besides me ever taken the map out to look at the direction Hagrid and Harry were flying ? That was about the first thing I did when I finished the book anyway.
Especially with the Sorting Hat describing Godric Gryffindor as Gryffindor of the Moor, I expect the village of Godric’s Hollow is in Wales ? And Harry is actually a Welshman ?
Yes, Hagrid still says that Harry fell asleep as they flew over Bristol. But does that necessarily mean they were coming from Wales? Since it took so long, I thought they might have been taking a route that would have made Mad-Eye Moody happy.
And now that I think about it, it doesn’t mean they lived in Godric’s Hollow when Harry was born–just that they were hiding there. It does make sense that they wouldn’t hide in the place where they already lived, doesn’t it? And how far from Godric’s Hollow were they when Harry and Hermione decided to go there? Of course, with apparating, I don’t suppose it really had to be right next door, so to speak.
Rena, I hadn’t thought of the idea that Dumbledore had really switched from wanting a philosopher’s stone to wanting the resurrection stone. With what Dumbledore says about the PS, I see that as foreshadowing that we are going to learn that he wanted some sort of immortality and has learned that it isn’t what he, or anyone else, needs. We learn just a few years later that he banned all books having to do with Horcruxes. All that does, however, seem to foreshadow that we will learn why Dumbledore was so against things that would bring any sort of immortality made by man, with other small hints that he wasn’t always the most noble soul that Harry thinks he is. McGonagall tells us so when she says that Dumbledore could do all the magic that Voldemort did but chose not to, and he blushes and jokes about it. Then later we learn that he probably could have done and even considered doing some of that dark magic in his youth. Nicely, and very subtlely, set up.
Pat
Oh, and for more foreshadowing–how about Harry’s visit to Ollivander to buy his first wand? The wand chooses the wizard; you will never get such good results with another wizard’s wand; and the shared wand core of Harry’s and Voldemort’s wands–who guessed all that would be so important to the story and that we wouldn’t find out about all of it till the 7th book.
Learning about the shared wand core in GOF seemed to be the pay off for that bit, but really, it was the wand lore in book 7 that was even more important.
Pat
(Can you tell where I am in the book by my comments? It seems that with each chapter, I find something new.)
Harry was speeding toward the ground when the crowd saw him clap his hand to his mouth as though he was about to be sick — he hit the field on all fours — coughed — and something gold fell into his hand.”
Who knew?! Who knew way back in Sorcerer’s Stone that this delightfully funny and seemingly throwaway moment would come back to us with such powerful poignancy in Deathly Hallows?
To use Janet Batchler’s parlance, I think this is one of my favorite “set-ups and pay-offs” in the entire series. But there are so many, and every time I re-read Sorcerer’s Stone, I see so many more.
Foreshadowing and other types of “echoes” really seem to be one of Rowling’s strengths as a storyteller. I’d love to have a glimpse into her inner creative process during the writing of this series to see how many of those echoes were consciously planned from the beginning, and how many of them came to her later, when she realized that a moment she wrote early on could be layered with even deeper significance. So many images seem to come full circle from PS/SS to DH, like Hagrid carrying Harry out of the wreckage of the house and then carrying Harry out of the forest.
Another favorite set-up for me from Sorcerer’s Stone is the scene where Hagrid tells eleven year old Harry that he’s a wizard. In Half-Blood Prince, we get an incredibly similar (but oh so different scene) when Dumbledore tells Tom Riddle the same thing. Here the echoes are so creatively entertwined: we’re being set up by the similarities of the situations to compare and contrast them in our minds, and to look at the differences in the boys’ responses. I once wrote an essay comparing the two scenes and came away really amazed by Rowling’s artistry. I really do think this element is a big part of her success as a story-teller!
I enjoy the foreshadowing a great deal. One example I like is where, in the first book, Harry asks Dumbledore what he sees when he looks in the mirror of erised. Dumbledore says he sees himself holding a pair of socks, Harry is not sure whether Dumbledore has told him the truth and reflects that perhaps his question had been too personal (and the truth takes a long time in coming!).
Dumbledore also explains that the happiest man in the world would see himself just as he is. Dumbledore by his reply is clearly not that man.
I really enjoy how foreshading completely changes the experience on the second reading. For instance, now that we know Sirius’ tragic story, the mention of his motorbike in book 1 brings with it associations and feelings that could not exist on first reading.
Lots of good examples of foreshadowing here. Sorry I haven’t contributed too much; just got back from a conference & didn’t have much time. But I think you’ve all hit a lot of the high points.
Quite agree with Beth that foreshadowing is one of Rowling’s strengths. The way she just tosses out things that seem as if they’re going to be one shot deals but then end up being quite critical or informative later on.
Now, Jo didn’t ‘pay off’ all the set ups she put in the books; she changed her mind about someone doing magic late in life, for instance. But she paid off most of them & in quite brilliant fashion. Is Janet doing a second book, where she goes back through her first book & shows where Jo either paid off the set up or didn’t & how she did so?
Also relevant to the foreshadowing is that she sometimes has the first time something is mentioned seem as though we’ve had the pay off, but then it comes up again and again. And some of the foreshadowing is also part of the narrative misdirection that Rowling does so well.
Pat
Just noticed the first hint of major foreshadowing in HPSS. In chapter four when Harry first meets Hagrid, one of the very first things Hagrid says to Harry is something like, “You look a lot like your dad but you’ve got your mum’s eyes.”
Sweetness!! Only four chapters in we’ve got something that winds it’s way through almost all the books & plays an important role. Who could imagine at that point in the books that seven books later as Snape lay dying that Harry’s eyes being the same as his mother’s would be the key to why Snape did all he did?!!
I also often wonder, do you think Jo ever gave Cuaron a hint regarding the importance of Harry’s eyes because that fact is mentioned so prominently by both Lupin & Sirius in the POA movie? Or was Cuaron just a bit more preceptive than the rest of us?
Eeyore,
You WRock!
Interesting bit of foreshadowing in Harry’s first trip to King’s Cross. Who is the first Weasley to be named? Ginny!
Thought that was neat. The first Weasley to be named in the books is Harry’s future love. It’s also her he watches as the train leaves the station.
Ah well, I’m just a shipper at heart.
Now, here’s a bit of non-foreshadowing, if you will. We have already found out in HPSS that Petunia is well aware that her sister was a witch & knows about Hogwarts. But when Harry mentions later that he needs to be at Platform 9 & 3/4’s to leave for school. Both she & Vernon stare at him. Vernon says there’s no such place, & Petunia doesn’t correct him. But we know from DH that Petunia was at the train station where the Hogwart’s Express was the very day Lily first left for school.
So, what think ye? Is Petunia just being dense? Or was it a different train station when Lily went to school, although Harry makes no note of this when he sees the scene in Snape’s memory? Or did Jo not yet have that future scene detailed in her mind at the time she wrote HPSS? Or did she have it in mind but didn’t think she could give any hints of it because it would either give something away too soon or else get in the way of Harry’s introductory story? Not as much impact if Petunia knows exactly where the Platform is & knows how to get in there, eh?
Has anyone found any other types of non-foreshadowing moments, as it were, like this?
I thought about that too. I think that it’s one of the things that Jo didn’t want to give away too early. The first hint that we get that Petunia knows any more than Lily got a letter and went to Hogwarts is OP when we (and Harry) find out Petunia knows about dementors and mentions “that awful boy”. (I still love it that many of us figured out that the awful boy was Snape.)
From what we see in Snape’s memory, it sounds the same. The only comment that I thought was odd in that chapter was from Molly, who knows how they all get through but has to be reminded of the Platform number. Wouldn’t you think, that after having gone there for seven years herself, then having two older children who had recently gone for seven years that she would know that Platform number without even thinking about it? I’d guess that Jo had her ask the question so Harry and the reader would get the information, but it seems it would have made more sense for Ron or Ginny (who haven’t gone before) to ask that question. However, maybe with having seven kids, Molly hasn’t been getting them to the train at all, and she’s just a bit distracted and forgot.
There’s another bit about the train station, with Ginny watching them all leave. Not really foreshadowing so much, as more of an echo–it’s when the next generation of Potters and Weasleys are boarding the train and their younger siblings are left behind, anxious for their turn to go to Hogwarts.
Pat
Pat, thanks for your reply to my post above. I agree with you on all points. What I tried to express is that Dumbledore had always been portrayed as the wise old man who knew so much about life and death and that ‘there are things much worse than death’. He probably read the Tale of the Three Brothers many times and must have known that the resurrection stone could not bring anybody back to real life (‘Though she had returned to the mortal world, she did not truly belong there and suffered’). He knew that it was essential to destroy Voldemort’s horcruxes in order to keep him from installing a regime of terror and killing many, many people. But yet he even forgot about the ring being a horcrux, because he wanted to bring his family back to life to tell them how sorry he was. For me, this change in character was not traceable nor comprehensible. It was a bit (although not as much) like smart Voldemort believing he was the only one who ever discovered the Room of Requirement.
Very rarely (if ever?) has a ‘children book’ had to withstand such intense scrutiny!
Does anyone think we should cut JKR a little slack?
I even find myself trying to rationalise what may well be oversights and errors, so much do I want these books to be logically perfect. Perhaps I am over invested in HP? For instance, Petunia not remembering platform 9 3/4 – I rationalise as Petunia not wanting to admit, in front of Vernon, that she knows anything about it.
Seajay, how is analyzing the books & asking questions about them ‘not cutting Jo any slack?’
I think I’ve made it quite clear over at Hogpro’s that any criticisms of HP or any difficulties with the work do not affect my enjoyment of the series at all.
It’s also enjoying & stimulating to discuss things in the book that appear to be errors or continuity issues & come up with explanations for them or varying theories. If I didn’t love the books so much, I wouldn’t waste my time analyzing them.
So, for me, it’s not about not cutting Jo some slack but about being engaged with her work.
I agree with you revgeorge, I was more puzzled by my own desire for the books to withstand all scrutiny and why is it that I feel so defensive about them when people dismiss them? Anyway enough with my pseudo-self-analysis already!
Seajay, I can see your point. It is easy to become over defensive about the books. But I don’t think acknowledging that there are flaws or some inconsistencies in the works necessarily denigrates them, either. It just acknowledges that Jo is a human being like any other & that any work is going to have its own issues.
The people I can’t really get are the ones who either don’t like the books or even hate them & yet spend so much time criticizing them or tearing them down. It’s like, fine, you don’t like the books, nobody says you have to, so why don’t you move on to something you do like?
I haven’t meant anything I’ve said as a criticism of Jo or the books. Her writing fascinates me. There are choices she has made about who the characters are and what they would do. She is so clear in her descriptions, that most of the characters have a depth that brings them to life. I’ve always been able to imagine them as if they lived next door to me. (Not Voldemort so much, but that’s a comfort actually–not exactly the sort of neighbor I’d like to have.)
In finding inconsistencies in the characters, I find that it makes them more human. As much as we all would like to think that we always act the way we should, we just don’t. We say or do things that seem “out of character” with ourselves, and sometimes wonder later why we made certain choices. What Rowling does with the characters in Harry Potter is to give them the same latitude that we give ourselves and real life people we know. And I see that as one of the examples of brilliance in her books.
By including things like Petunia not talking about the details of Lily’s time at Hogwarts or Molly forgetting where the Platform is, Rowling has added that reality and depth of what it is to be human.
Pat
Brilliant foreshadowing in CoS:
Upon discussing how Riddle might’ve earned the “Special Services to the School” Award, Ron says “Could’ve been anything. Maybe he got thirty OWLs or saved a teacher from the giant squid. Maybe he murdered Myrtle; that would’ve done everyone a favor.”
And another absolutely brilliant one:
Harry hears Ernie talking about him in the library to Hannah…”That’s probably why You-Know-Who wanted to kill him in the first place. Didn’t want another Dark Lord competing with him.”
How right you were, Ernie…hahaha.
Here’s another one I found as I read through HPSS. Right after the Trio find out who Nicolas Flamel is, Harry & Ron are in a DADA class discussing how they would use money from a Philosopher’s Stone. The assignment they’re supposed to be doing in DADA? Copying down the treatments for werewolf bites!
Here’s another one. I’m finding all sorts of things as I reread! In one place Harry is doing homework, looking up in Magical Herbs & Fungi, dittany. Dittany, one brief mention in the first book, & then not heard from again until DH, as far as I can remember.
More werewolf stuff. Lots of talk about werewolves as Harry, Hermione, Neville, & Draco do their detention in the forbidden forest. Then after the Trio complete their exams, Hermione says something like, “I needn’t have known about the Werewolf Code of Conduct of 1674.” And then nothing in COS about werewolves as far as I can remember but werewolves play an important role in books 3, 6, & 7.
It really is amazing how many foreshadowing moments JKR managed to pack in this first book, and without some it seeming to be foreshadowing. I love the way some of the references are almost done as comic relief and we only learn later how important it all is. I admire her creativity and her very quick wit.
I’m glad you mentioned the dittany and the werewolf ones, as those loomed out at me also. Especially the were wolf ones with Draco not wanting to go in the forest for detention because there are werewolves there. Hmmm, where did Lupin live before Harry’s third year?
Pat
Here’s one that I’m sure if it’s foreshadowing or just a literary convention or both.
In “Through the Trapdoor,” JKR writes, “In years to come, Harry would never quite remember how he had managed to get through his exams when he half expected Voldemort to come bursting through the door at any moment.”
So, is this comment “In years to come” a foreshadowing by Jo that her hero would survive the series? Is it simply a literary convention like “Once upon a time” or “They lived happily ever after?” Could it be both?
I’m not sure but I would take it as foreshadowing. There’s no need to put it in there really. Jo could just have easily written “Harry didn’t know how he got through his exams when he expected Voldemort to burst in at any moment.” Or something to that effect. No need in the first book to say something like “in years to come.” But I could be reading something in there that isn’t necessarily there.
I remember that one as well. I took it to foreshadow Harry’s survival, though there is no hint how he does or what condition he’s in except that he isn’t dead at the end of the 7th book.
Pat, so I’m not reading something into it? I thought it a strange turn of phrase in the opening book of a series. Especially when something more innocuous could’ve been used. I mean, I’m still not sure it’s foreshadowing; only the author could possibly tell us that. Oh, if only she would talk about her work!
Oh, wow, do you think that Rowling might ever talk about her books? *smirk* There are times I’d like to know what she was thinking, but then I’m reminded that just as often I’ve wished she hadn’t told us.
Once John pointed out the narrative misdirection, I realized that JKR used it all the time. I think she does the same with foreshadowing. There are so many things that she includes that don’t have to be included. But by doing so, she brilliantly sets up something books away.
What’s amazing is that it doesn’t feel over-used. It’s almost a treat to find these gems of narrative misdirection and especially, foreshadowing. Kind of like a secret that the writer and reader share, that Harry doesn’t know about yet.
Pat
Hermione’s corperal patronus is an otter. The otter is in the same family as a weasel. Weasel=Weasley? Also, Ron lives in Ottery St. Catchpole. Is this foreshadowing about them eventually getting married?