LAST EDITED ON 02-27-13 AT 00:01 AM (EST)Christoph Waltz's win should have been foreseen because it provides two of those Oscar trivia coincidences that are unrelated to the merit of the award --
1) Now four consecutive Best Supporting Actor winners have had first names starting with "Chris": Christoph Waltz, Christopher Plummer the previous year, Christian Bale the year before that, and, yes, Christoph Waltz to start off the chain. (For a parallel, consider the four consecutive Best Supporting Actress winners from 1978 through 1981: Maggie Smith, Meryl Streep, Mary Steenburgen, and Maureen Stapleton -- notice anything?)
2) Also, Sally Field's largely expected Best Supporting Actress loss excommunicated her from the elite group of six actors who were nominated multiple times and won every time they were nominated (twice in each case). But now someone has replaced her in that elite group...Christoph Waltz. Had anyone else nominated in his category won, the balance would not have been maintained.