Vagueness Is Coming: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

So the plot of your standard fantasy or adventure story needs to keep referencing the story arc or continuing plot, and the heroes need to know there's some sort of threat. And it's big, and dangerous, and evil.

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Third Impact from ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* In the ''[[Final Destination]]'' (comics, as well as some of the films) the words "it's coming", and "it's here" can be seen at various points.

* In the issues before ''[[The Death of Superman]]'' started, there would be a page of a mysterious fist pounding at a wall, proclaiming "Doomsday is Coming" until it busted through, in which it went "Doomsday is Here!"

 

== [[Fan Works]] ==

{{quote|'''Mal:''' She said, and I quote, '[[A Storm Is Coming]].'

'''Inara:''' [[Lampshade Hanging|That's...vague]]. }}

 

* ''[[Watership Down]]:'' "I know now... a terrible thing is coming." ... "something ''very bad is about to'' happen...! ''It's all around us!"''

** (later) "There's a ''bad'' danger coming--" "--It's not good!" (it indeed proves to be [[Sugar Apocalypse|very bad]])

* This is how the main conflict of ''[[The Simpsons Movie]]'' is set up. Abe Simpson has a "religious experience" in church, culminating in a [[Mad Oracle|strange prophecy]] that everyone initially dismisses as just a foolish old man's eccentricities. His ravings during the episode are all in the form of riddles, so they sound incomprehensible and aren't taken seriously. Assuming that God was trying to warn Springfield, the intelligence of the churchgoers was clearly overestimated.

** It wouldn't have been nearly as effective dramatically if Abe had made to say outright: {{spoiler|"Don't dump pig waste in the lake or the Environmental Protection Agency will quarantine our entire town."}}

* Occurs at various points throughout ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' films.

** "Darkness crept back into the forests of the world. Rumors grew of a shadow in the east... whispers of a nameless fear." "Smoke [[Roll Your Rs|rrises]] from the mountain of Doom. The hour grows late..." "The stars are veiled. Something stirs in the east... a sleepless malice. The eye of the Enemy is ''moving!"''

{{quote|'''Tim the Enchanter:''' Follow. '''But.''' Follow [[Go, Ye Heroes, Go and Die|only if ye be men of valour]], for the entrance to this cave is guarded by a creature so foul, so cruel that no man yet has fought with it and lived... So, brave knights, if you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for ''death'' awaits you all with [[More Teeth Than the Osmond Family|nasty, big, pointy teeth!]]

'''King Arthur:''' What an eccentric performance. }}

* ''The Living Wake'' centers around the protagonist's "vague and grave disease".

* The omnipresent thread of the looming [[Nothing Is Scarier|Nothing]] in the first half of ''[[The Neverending Story (film)|The Neverending Story]]''.

** In every ''[[Star Wars]]'' film there's a least one person who has "...a bad feeling about this."

* ''[[Event Horizon]]'' - when {{spoiler|:Justin temporarily regains consciousness after spending time in vacuum}}, his contribution to the conversation is "It's coming... the ''dark''..."

* Bert in ''[[Mary Poppins]]''. "Wind's in the east. Mist coming in. Like something is brewing, about to begin. Can't put my finger on what lies in store. But I feel what's to happen, has all happened before."

 

* ''[[Legacy of the Force]]'': Luke felt the coming of the man who doesn't exist. Not kidding.

* [[Zig Zagged]] in ''[[Watership Down]]''—the [[Waif Prophet|prophetic rabbit]] Fiver foresees disaster for the warren but is unable to [[You Have to Believe Me|coherently explain it]]. The canny Chief Rabbit does not entirely dismiss the possibility, but he decides that whatever the disaster might be, it will be safer to wait it out. It turns out to be a calamity beyond the ability of rabbits to describe.

{{quote|''"Whence came Natohk?" rose the Shemite's vibrant whisper. "Out of the desert on a night when the world was blind and wild with mad clouds driven in frenzied flight across the shuddering stars, and the howling of the wind was mingled with the shrieking of the spirits of the wastes. Vampires were abroad that night, witches rode naked on the wind, and werewolves howled across the wilderness. On a black camel he came, riding like the wind, and an unholy fire played about him; the cloven tracks of the camel glowed in the darkness. When Natohk dismounted before Set's shrine by the oasis of Aphaka, the beast swept into the night and vanished. And I have talked with tribesmen who swore that it suddenly spread gigantic wings and rushed upwards into the clouds, leaving a trail of fire behind it. No man has seen that camel since that night, but a black brutish manlike shape shambles to Natohk's tent and gibbers to him in the blackness before dawn."''}}

* Justified in ''[[The Dresden Files]]''- vague statements and misdirection are a way of preventing time paradoxes. For example, the Gatekeeper's extremely vague message about dark magic in ''Proven Guilty'' is actually the start of a convoluted [[Gambit Roulette]] to get around the fact that if he told the rest of the White Council about {{spoiler|the impending vampire attack}}, they'd evacuate and {{spoiler|the attack}} wouldn't happen, so he couldn't have foreseen it. It also serves to set up events so that {{spoiler|Molly isn't executed as a warlock}}.

* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'': The motto of House Stark: "Winter is coming".

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Impure Blood]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20130801221347/http://www.impurebloodwebcomic.com/Pages/Issue4PAGES/ib078.html Dark forces are rising]

* In ''[[Doodze]]'', [http://seguemediagroup.com/doodze/?p=749 there's trouble coming, I just know it.]{{Dead link}}