Often while writing the scripts of animated TV shows and movies, writers use a literary device called ‘Foreshadowing’ where they give a sneaky hint about what’s going to happen later in the story. We’ve compiled a list of 15 animated shows and movies which cleverly hinted at the entire plot in the start:
Frozen
The song that the film opens with, “Frozen Heart” foreshadows the entire film. It’s called ‘Frozen Heart’ because the lyrics explain how the magic of ice can’t be controlled and even include the words, “let it go.”
Arcane
When Silco consumes the Arcane Powder her eyes glow with reflected firelight. This foreshadows her future transformation into Jinx.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
If you look closely in the Season 1 episode titled “The Northern Air Temple” you can spot the mechanist working on a design for the Fire Nation that resembles a drill. In season 2, we see the huge drill the Fire Nation Uses to breach the walls of Ba Sing Se.
Encanto
When Dolores is singing “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” one of the lines says “I can always hear him sort of muttering and mumbling.” She says this because Bruno is still in the house. If you look in the background closely you can spot him in the balcony behind Dolores and Mirabel.
The Lego Movie
Some of Lord Business’s signs early in the movie convey such un-presidential messages as, “Don’t touch my stuff” or, “Don’t stay up all night” which sound rather like things a child’s parent would say.
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
Before we learn that she’s Doc Ock, several octagons can be spotted in Olivia’s lab. Even the spectacles that she dons are eight-sided.
Cowboy Bebop
In “Gateway Shuffle,” Jet teases Faye for “not paying attention” during hyperspace physics class in school. We eventually learn that her school years were decades before Jet’s, so she was never taught about hyperspace.
Aladdin
Way before Aladdin and Abu found the magic carpet, the duo was riding floor carpets. They escaped the guards in one of the scenes on a rug.
Princess Mononoke
“Cut off a wolf’s head and it still has the power to bite,” says Lady Eboshi who ends up being undone by the bite of a dying wolf god’s head.
Akira
The psychic hallucinations that Tetsuo gets show us brief glimpses of future events, like Kaori’s death and his own mutation.
BoJack Horseman
Sarah Lynn records a music video in a planetarium and then ends up dying in one. This is commented on in the show. Not commented on is the fact that this music video is the very first we see of her, as her life starts spinning out of control.
Coraline
During Coraline’s first visit to the other house, one of the first signs that tell us things aren’t fine is a lightning bolt that forms a monstrous hand- which has an uncanny resemblance with the hands of the Other Mother in her true, monstrous form.
Futurama
Although it’s later revealed that Nibbler was responsible for Fry getting frozen in the first seconds of the year 2000, we can clearly spot Nibbler’s shadow in the first episode as it happens.
Invincible
Omni-Man warns the invading Flaxans that “Earth isn’t yours to conquer” That’s true to its core as we later learn that he has claimed Earth as his own to conquer in the name of Viltrum.
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