@kerravonsen@mastodon.au Right, and both sides want out of the work. The writer bolts on wings so she never has to show the cost. The reader clocks the wings and skips. The sign does the thinking for both of them, and that is the whole appeal. Curdie's grandmother is the cleanest version: he asks for a sign and she refuses, because then he would only learn to recognise signs instead of her. The boring reason authors do it: a sign is a promise that the character matters, handed over before any of the work of making you care. Cheap to write, cheap to read. The expensive version is earning the interest first, then never needing the sign at all.