Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4196008-20160511002623/@comment-24674051-20160513170206

I'm not sure how much credit I would give to Robin's death being foreshadowed in 5x02. Both his near-death then, and his death in 5x21, were due to his heroic nature, stepping in to protect and save Regina. Honestly, I would not say that there was any foreshadowing of his death, just like there really wasn't any foreshadowing of Neal's death.

The only real foreshadowing of death that I have seen the writers do reasonably well was in 3A. Rumples demise in the winter finale was heavily foreshadowed throughout the arc, and was brilliantly portrayed.

But I digress. Back to the topic at hand, Robin's death was not foreshadowed, or if it was it was not done well. The writers did remind everyone, though, that Robin was "expendable" all season, by continually avoiding any development of his character (much the same as they did with Will, and still do with Belle), and then having near-death after near-death experience. Besides 5x2, there was 5x19 when James was ready to shove Robin and Emma into the Bay, and 5x20, when Rumple ripped his heart out. I may be missing others as well. Point being much of the season, and particularly much of the UW arc was Robin either absent or in perilous situations. That's not foreshadowing.