Foreshadowing - yay or nay?

Taake

Taake

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One of the things about re-watching season 2 (Btvs) that I enjoy is the foreshadowing of the Mayor. It's just small mentions, but I still find it very enjoyable.

Later we get foreshadowing of Dawn's arrival, which I also think is pretty cool, even if I'm not crazy about the Dawn plotline.

But, was there ever foreshadowing of the Initiative? Would that plotline have been more popular if it had been seeded throughout season 3 with hints and indications? Were there hints that I just can't remember?

Do you like foreshadowing and do you think the shows handled it well?
 
The Mayor and Dawn's foreshadowing were handled well I think, though they mostly work as a rewatch bonus. There did not seem to be anything else that was really foreshadowed, only things that were claimed to be foreshadowing but were not, simply people claiming that stuff that happened was foreshadowed earlier, even though it was not planned and therefore could not be foreshadowed. Fauxshadowing?

Having the occasional demon or vampire Buffy was chasing disappear or Adam precursors be found in S3 would have added some interest to the Initiative plot.

I feel that I overused the word "foreshadow."
 
Buffy's death was forshadowed in Graduation Day when Faith said "Little Miss Muffet counting down from 7-3-0". 730 days till Buffy's death in The Gift.

In Restless, Buffy is talking to Tara in her bedroom. Buffy looks at the clock which says 7:30 and Tara tells her that the clock is "all wrong" because Buffy's death is now only a year off.
 
NotASlayer
NotASlayer
Also, when Faith is looking at Buffy's credit cards in Buffy's body, that is apparently when they expire.
There was indication that the government knew about the demons and magic from s1 with Marcy. The initiative was probably an offshoot from that. Not exactly foreshadowing. I enjoy the specific stuff.
 
NotASlayer
NotASlayer
The Initiative is referred to in the Angel WW2 submarine episode. Which only foreshadows in universe.
Taake
Taake
Ah yeah, that's true!
NotASlayer said:
Having the occasional demon or vampire Buffy was chasing disappear or Adam precursors be found in S3 would have added some interest to the Initiative plot.
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I would have liked this! It would've been subtle enough, but felt rewarding by season 4
 
Okay, it's fine, in the hands of a good writer who has a sufficiently advanced master plan. However, I think the concept has declined in the era of hacks with mystery boxes and clickbait fanzine articles about how an L in the latest Marvel film means that some obscure hero will appear in the next movie, and why that's problematic.
 
It's how it's done that really matters imo. And when it's done well, it's pretty cool. Buffy's death and Dawn's arrival were the best ones.

What's really frustrating is when they foreshadow a plot line they drop later, which is something that rarely happened in BtVS, fortunately. Some other shows did it too many times, like Lost (which is still a show I love, despite its obvious flaws).
 
I don't think they really foreshadowed the initiative at all because as a whole it just makes no damn sense.

How could they have a gigantic facility like that underneath the college but have zero knowledge of anything that had been going on in Sunnydale over the previous three years? It's clear they didn't just build the whole place in the summer after Buffy killed the Mayor. So where were these initiative dudes against The Master and his Order? Where were they when Angelus, Spike, and Drusilla were assembling the Judge or opening up hell portals? How do they not know the Mayor of the town is a psycho trying to turn himself into a snake monster and eat all the local children and why aren't they at the Graduation Day battle? How do they not know who the Slayer is or even that she's active in Sunnydale, how do they not know about places like Willy's? Riley claims to have killed 17 demons in his time when he first comes clean to Buffy. That's like a slow week for the Scooby Gang. Even Andrew, Anya, Dawn, Cordelia, and 5'0" Oz all ended up with some kills in their time. But Riley with his military training, advanced weaponry, backup, natural size and strength, steroid enhancements, etc. only managed 17?

My basic point is that to foreshadow something they would've had to think it out much more completely and coherently than they did, a lot earlier.
 
Xander coming out was 'forshadowed' in S2 during his talks with Larry.

Ooops!!! 🙄

Actually, the writers set up a contingency that they didn't use. They did that several times. Whedon & Co lay a foundation but the stars don't align so they don't build on it.

So forshadowing kinda depends on what comes together one or two seasons out. There were several foundations laid that were not used. I wish i could remember the examples, they are pretty good.
 
Re: Initiative; My head canon is this . The Feds are aware of Sunnydale, but Wilkins is like the godfather of the Californian underworld, is an client of W&H and a patron of Bruckler. He also managed to have a good portion of Sunnydale as part of an Indian Reservation, so he's able to keep the Feds away, but he doesn't really control the College, so the Feds built a secret base, that had fallen into disuse. After Ascension Day, which was a massive embarrassment, the Feds forced their way into Sunnydale, and what was a small research facility, became a well funded, massively armed secret base. Most of this is my fancy, but remember, Riley's frat house was used as an orphanage, so the place is older than it looks.
 
thetopher
thetopher
Good head canon.
AlphaFoxtrot said:
Re: Initiative; My head canon is this . The Feds are aware of Sunnydale, but Wilkins is like the godfather of the Californian underworld, is an client of W&H and a patron of Bruckler. He also managed to have a good portion of Sunnydale as part of an Indian Reservation, so he's able to keep the Feds away, but he doesn't really control the College, so the Feds built a secret base, that had fallen into disuse. After Ascension Day, which was a massive embarrassment, the Feds forced their way into Sunnydale, and what was a small research facility, became a well funded, massively armed secret base. Most of this is my fancy, but remember, Riley's frat house was used as an orphanage, so the place is older than it looks.
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I do imagine that the Mayor is why a lot of the lesser baddies steered their way clear of Sunnydale whilst he was alive.

If only he hadn't tried to change himself into a giant snake demon, Sunnydale would probably have remained a safer place!
 
famicommander said:
I don't think they really foreshadowed the initiative at all because as a whole it just makes no damn sense.

How could they have a gigantic facility like that underneath the college but have zero knowledge of anything that had been going on in Sunnydale over the previous three years? It's clear they didn't just build the whole place in the summer after Buffy killed the Mayor.
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You raise a good point. I feel like to combat this, a quick blurb from Giles to say the space for underground facilities had been there for decades, but was never confirmed (or something much better than my lame reason 🤣).
Actually, AlphaFoxtrot has come up with good ideas to explain how The Initiative came into existence!

So where were these initiative dudes against The Master and his Order? Where were they when Angelus, Spike, and Drusilla were assembling the Judge or opening up hell portals? How do they not know the Mayor of the town is a psycho trying to turn himself into a snake monster and eat all the local children and why aren't they at the Graduation Day battle? How do they not know who the Slayer is or even that she's active in Sunnydale, how do they not know about places like Willy's? Riley claims to have killed 17 demons in his time when he first comes clean to Buffy. That's like a slow week for the Scooby Gang. Even Andrew, Anya, Dawn, Cordelia, and 5'0" Oz all ended up with some kills in their time. But Riley with his military training, advanced weaponry, backup, natural size and strength, steroid enhancements, etc. only managed 17?

My basic point is that to foreshadow something they would've had to think it out much more completely and coherently than they did, a lot earlier.
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I don't think we ever received information about how many years The Initiative was active. Again, you make some good points, that we the audience are supposed to brush aside it seems. If Riley's only bagged 17 hostiles, it sounds like the Initiative is fairly new to the game.

A couple of lines from Riley or Walsh to fill in the blanks would've been helpful.
 
My (weak) headcanon was always that they abandoned their Sunnydale base and left town years before the start of the show, for whatever reason. We do know the Initiative traveled around the world, so maybe there was a lot of supernatural activity somewhere else, which forced them to leave. Then they came back after season 3 because the apocalypse drew their attention. It's not hard to imagine there was a lot of media coverage after the events of Graduation Day.
 
At the very least it seems Walsh was already active in Sunnydale because it wasn't her first year teaching there. So I don't buy that the Initiative wasn't there in the first three seasons.
 
Do we know this wasn't Walsh's first year? I mean, I don't think it was, but I cannot remember it being established how long she had been there.

Does being a professor mean she was tenured? In which case would she have needed to be there for some time?
 
Re: Graduation Day; When you think about the scale of the event, an dinosaur sized monster appearing in front of large non-local crowd, killing a good portion of them, also in front of Sunnydale's elite, in broad daylight. No way that gets written off as "haha, Sunnydale is whacky!" The Men in Black would have locked down the city by Thursday night. Now that's a fanfic waiting to happen, Summer of '99: Buffy vs the MIB.

Re: Walsh; Well, remember, the actual government didn't really care about Adams or Conditioned Demons or the Supersoldier nonsense. Odds are, Maggie had some interesting ideas, got a grant and a secret lab, and a gaggle of Ex-military grad students who wanted a TA for serving as light base security. Only Walsh fell under the influence of the Hellmouth Demons, and decided to go into business for herself. By the time MacNamera took over, it was dealing with the out of control demon outbreak, and nothing else.
 
NotASlayer said:
Do we know this wasn't Walsh's first year? I mean, I don't think it was, but I cannot remember it being established how long she had been there.

Does being a professor mean she was tenured? In which case would she have needed to be there for some time?
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There seemed to have been people on campus who had taker Walsh's class the previous year.
 
TheAnnoyingOne said:
My (weak) headcanon was always that they abandoned their Sunnydale base and left town years before the start of the show, for whatever reason. We do know the Initiative traveled around the world, so maybe there was a lot of supernatural activity somewhere else, which forced them to leave. Then they came back after season 3 because the apocalypse drew their attention. It's not hard to imagine there was a lot of media coverage after the events of Graduation Day.
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Maybe they went to Cleveland. Isn't that where Buffy is in Wishverse-land.
 
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