History Main / EndOfTheWorldSpecial

* The {{Infocom}} InteractiveFiction game ''VideoGame/{{Spellbreaker}}'' ends with the player confronted by his EvilTwin, created as a result of EquivalentExchange, who it turns out has been manipulating the player into gathering the CosmicKeystones he needs to remake the world in his own image with [[AGodAmI himself as its god.]] The player has only a narrow window of opportunity to sabotage his "End of the World" Special; it's possible to accidentally [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt unmake the entire universe]] as a result of removing the centerpiece of the tesseract entirely, but by replacing it with something non-magical, the universe is remade without magic, and without the player's evil doppelganger.

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'': In ''End of Evangelion'', Shinji has the choice to complete the Instrumentality of souls, turning all of humanity into one dreaming soul where there can be no pain or loneliness, or to reject it, and free humanity to live as a collection of individuals. He chooses the latter option, allowing all humankind return from Instrumentality.

* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', Madoka made a {{Wishplosion}} that caused the universe to be recreated to accomodate her rule. Similar to Lain example above, this also RetGone her from reality.

* In the novel ''[[{{Foundation}} Foundation's Edge]]'' by Creator/IsaacAsimov, the protagonist is faced with the choice of giving galactic power to the Foundation, the Second Foundation, or Gaia. He makes his choice and then there's another sequel where he tries to figure out ''why'' his choice was right.

* ''Confessor'', the final book of the ''SwordOfTruth'' series, does this in spades. Richard Rahl, once he opens the Boxes of Orden and [[AGodAmI acquires godlike powers]], takes the opportunity to tweak several things about his world that have always bugged him: removing the poison from red fruits in the Midlands, bringing back the Temple of the Winds, and balancing the magic flowing into the world thus resulting in a rebirth of wizardry. Oh, and lest we forget, ''Uplifting millions of people from across the world who disagreed with his personal beliefs and dumping them on a parallel planet with no magic and no afterlife.'' Included in the Literature/BraveNewWorld was his ''sister'', though for some reason she wanted to go.

* At the end of DeanKoontz's short story, A Darkness in My Soul, a psychic goes on a JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind and finds God trapped in the psyche of an insane genius. He then absorbs God's powers and uses it to abolish the oppressive society that Earth has been ruled over and removes all weapons of mass destruction, as well as removing the evils that plagued mankind.

* Sort of happens in ''WesternAnimation/AceLightning'' - except that Mark only has the option of deleting Ace's "world" (i.e. the video game) from his hard drive, and he chooses not to.
** Technically, anyone with sufficient programming skills could have changed the game further, but the resident {{Geek}} wasn't in on the secret back then.

* The premise of the {{Marvel|Universe}} CrossOver event ''ComicBook/HouseOfM'' when the ScarletWitch goes insane and uses her [[RealityWarper powers]] to remake the world so that mutants are the ruling race. At the end, she does it again, reverting the world to normal but leaving the mutant population at a tenth of its former size.

* This seems to be what happens at the end of Creator/AlanMoore's ''{{Promethea}}'' and ''Comicbook/{{Miracleman}}''.

* One of the major reveals in ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' is that none of the people in charge have any intention to prevent the looming EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Everything is part of a huge plan to get an End of the World Special and the actual conflict is between the different groups involved, who have rather different ideas who is going to decide what the remade world will be like.
** Shinji decides to spend the last two episodes [[ContemplateOurNavels contemplating his life and trying to make sense of everything]] [[MindScrew that has happened to him up until that point]]. [[WildMassGuessing Some have suggested]] that these last two episodes are Shinji's train of thought while the world ends in ''End'' (see below). At one point of this sequence, we see a possible world that Shinji could live in, one in which he doesn't have to pilot the [=EVA=] and his mother is still alive. Asuka is his childhood friend, he [[CrashIntoHello crashes into Rei]] while running to school and is overall happier. The sequence ends when Shinji realizes that he ''could'' be like that in [[AlternateUniverse another world]], and that he can stop hating himself and stop being a wuss. Overall it counts as a subversion.
** In ''End of Evangelion'', Shinji has the choice to complete the Instrumentality of souls, turning all of humanity into one dreaming soul where there can be no pain or loneliness, or to reject it, and free humanity to live as a collection of individuals.
** Naturally the first example is done in a spoof of a tired love comedy sequence. [[MemeticMutation Congratulations, Shinji]].
** If you didn't like the Love Comedy Sequence, the Movie version goes for the entire world melting into oceans of womb juice that resembles Tang, then all of it being sucked into the Vagina Hands of a Planetary Sized Naked Teenage Girl with Angel Wings, while playing the most [[SoundtrackDissonance comforting]] {{s|anitySlippageSong}}uicide [[BSODSong song]] [[LyricalDissonance in the]] [[{{Troperiffic}} history of anime]]. In English. [[MindScrew Yes.]] Now imagine if you were Japanese and didn't understand a word of what they were singing. It would be like OminousLatinChanting, but...worse.
*** Annoyingly enough, this has even carried on into Fanfics, where Third Impact basically means the writer can do WHATEVER THEY WANT, no ands, ifs, or buts.

->'''Bastian:''' ''Fantasia has totally disappeared?''
->'''Childlike Empress:''' ''Yes.''
->'''Bastian:''' ''Then, everything's been in vain.''
->'''Childlike Empress:''' ''No, it hasn't. Fantasia can arise anew, from your dreams and wishes, Bastian.''
->'''Bastian:''' ''How many wishes do I get?''
->'''Childlike Empress:''' ''As many as you want. And the more wishes you make, the more magnificent Fantasia will become.''
->'''Bastian:''' ''Really?''
->'''Childlike Empress:''' ''Try it.''
->'''Bastian:''' ''My first wish is...''

[[folder:Anime andManga]]

* Valiant Comics' SolarManOfTheAtom had done this subconsciously, and was later implied to have done it many times without even realizing it (and a few times deliberately as well).

* In the end of ''Anime/{{Mai-HiME}}'', Mai actually rejects the power to reshape the world as she sees fit, arguing that it is immoral.

* In ''ScrappedPrincess'', Pacifica is given the choice to free humanity from its enforced prison or leave them there in blissful ignorance of the real world.

* In the end of ''Anime/AbenobashiMahouShoutengai'', Sasshi summons Eutus, who releases his true power as a super ultra Onmyou Mysticist, who then proceeds to do what they always do- but this time, he does it right. He even includes Eutus and Mune-mune.
* In ''Manga/MiraiNikki'' God is dying and looking for a replacement. This is one of the privileges of the winner. Yukiteru ultimately wins, but is so broken up over [[spoiler: Yuno's death]] that he doesn't do anything but sit around for a ''thousand years''..

* In the ''[[Anime/TheBigO Big O]]'' episode "The Show Must Go On", the character Angel enters a mysterious control center to apparently become the Director of Paradigm City, then appears as a HumongousMecha to erase the ruined city from existence and replace it with a slightly tweaked version of how it existed at the start of the series. This is only one interpretation; [[GainaxEnding nobody really knows what that episode was about]].

* In ''VisionOfEscaflowne'', Dornkirk tries to create a utopia where everyone's desires will be fulfilled. Essentially, this Zone of Absolute Fortunate grants everyone, to a small extent, the power to achieve their desire. Unfortunately, as there is a war going on, most desire the death of their enemy. Whoops.

* In ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', the protagonist has the option to rule the world as a transcendent being, as a conspirator, or to plunge the world into anarchy. In the sequel ''Invisible War'', the player may choose to force transcendence on the people, ally with two other factions, or destroy everybody -- with unforeseen consequences.

* ''MakaiKingdom'' begins with Lord Zetta destroying his Netherworld, and much of the game is about rebuilding it piece by piece by conquering new territory.

* At the end of ''Blood Omen: LegacyOfKain'', Kain can choose to sacrifice himself to restore balance to the world, or rule Nosgoth as the king of vampires. The later games in the series go with the assumption he chose world domination.

* Garth Nix's ''KeysToTheKingdom'' series ends with the destruction of everything bar the main character, who is tasked with creating a new universe. He decides to screw that and just recreate the old one.

* In the Warhammer 40000 HorusHeresy series, this trope is played with twice in the "maybe vision, maybe time travel" sort of way: first, [[BigBad Horus]] is whisked to the future where the Empire has been stagnating for thousands of years, the Emperor rules as a living god to all his subjects, and half the Primarchs (Horus included) seem to have been wiped from history. He decides to "fix the galaxy" by turning against his father...not realizing that he was being directly lied to, [[SelfFulfillingProphecy and that vision would come about]] ''[[SelfFulfillingProphecy because]]'' [[SelfFulfillingProphecy of his treachery]]. Later on, [[ReverseMole Alpharius]] has a similar experience, and has to choose between siding with the Emperor and watching all of Mankind continue to stagnate and bloat until Chaos implodes and destroys the galaxy, or side with Horus to help him win, the universe goes through ''hell'' for a couple of centuries, then Horus has a "MyGodWhatHaveIDone" moment and starts a(nother) self-hating civil war that wipes out the rest of humanity but saves the cosmos at large. He joins Horus, figuring a race-wide Seppuku was better than the end of everything; what actually happens is basically [[CrapsackWorld the worst parts of both outcomes.]]

** In ''EndOfEvangelion'', Shinji has the choice to complete the Instrumentality of souls, turning all of humanity into one dreaming soul where there can be no pain or loneliness, or to reject it, and free humanity to live as a collection of individuals.

* In ''MiraiNikki'' God is dying and looking for a replacement. This is one of the privileges of the winner. Yukiteru ultimately wins, but is so broken up over [[spoiler: Yuno's death]] that he doesn't do anything but sit around for a ''thousand years''..

* Happens at the end of the ''Second ChroniclesOfThomasCovenant'' to Linden who uses the opportunity to remake several important natural laws.

* The city-building gameplay elements of ''DarkCloud'' could be considered an expression of this concept. The male protagonist is gifted by the Fairy King with a magical apparatus called the Atlamillia which endows him with the creative potential to salvage lost resources from the previous world stored in Atla and rebuild that which was destroyed by the Dark Genie during the game's opening.

** ''DevilSurvivor2'' plays with this by establishing the AkashicRecords are, metaphorically, the program reality runs on. Said program, to continue with the metaphor, can be edited, deleted or recreated depending on who's currently controlling it. One can choose to use the Records to edit Earth to suit a perfect egalitarian world, a ruthless meritocracy, replace the current admin of the Records with a more sympathetic one, restore reality with the archived file on the past world (with varying success on averting a ViciousCycle), or outright destroy the Records and make it impossible for any admin to ever rise again.

* ''ManaKhemiaAlchemistsOfAlrevis'' has a twist on this: The ''main character'' has the power to remake the world ''right from the start'', only he doesn't know it, yet.

* ''SuperMarioGalaxy''. At the end of the game, Bowser's galaxy collapses into a black hole that sucks up the whole universe [[ApocalypseWow and blows up all of existence]]. [[PhysicalGod Rosalina]] creates a brand new universe.

*** Annoyingly enough, this has even carried on into Fanfics, where Third Impact basically means the writer can do WHATEVER THE FUCKING HELL THEY WANT, no ands, ifs, or buts.

* A variation occurs in Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure, when 2 separate universes are merged into one, which contains the best parts of both (according to the subconscious wishes of the protagonist, facilitated by the godlike power of his HumongousMecha).
* The three Choushin goddesses do this at the end of the third Tenchi Muyo! OVA, although the only real change they make is fixing the damage the villain did, rewinding time to before it happened, and reverting the villain to an infant and removing his powers.

* Reed Richards once did this to the entire multiverse by using the Ultimate Nullifier against Abraxas

*** Annoyingly enough, this has even carried on into Fanfics, where Third Impact basically means the writer can do WHATEVER THE FUCKING HELL THEY WANT, no and's, if's, or but's.

* In ''MiraiNikki'' God is dying and looking for a replacement. This is one of the privileges of the winner.