History Main / HisStoryRepeatsItself

* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'', Master Shifu fights a rematch against Tai Lung, his old apprentice-turned-evil, but loses again.

* One ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' story has MJ tossed off a bridge, exactly the way [[ILetGwenStacyDie Gwen Stacy was.]] Spidey performs the equivalent of MoreDakka with his webslingers to ensure the shock is distributed over her body and not just her neck.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': Happened over and over again with Zuko. Most notably was his final showdown with his father where he was about to get burned once more, but instead deflected his father's lightning.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', Mei discovers that her mother, Ming, went through the same experience of dealing with a mother that expected perfection from her daughter and realizes that, despite Ming's best intentions, she has repeated that with her. Mei decides to try to break the cycle of generational trauma.

!!Examples:

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/AndrogyninjasADropOfPoison'' opens with Sakura facing Sasuke in a sparring match. When she manages to eke out a slight CurbStompCushion, he responds with a vicious BreakingSpeech about how civilian-born shinobi like herself are ''worthless'' compared to those from clans, driving her off in tears. Later, during the Chuunin Exam, she finds herself facing her [[WeUsedToBeFriends former friend Ino]], who wastes no time verbally ripping her apart with her own {{Breaking Speech}}es. This time, however, Sakura is much better prepared to handle such abuse, standing up to her and fighting back just as viciously.
* ''FanFic/BlackenedSkies'':
** During a late-night conversation, Kaede inadvertently hits Mondo's BerserkButton, sending him into a blind rage. In the heat of the moment, he [[spoiler:nearly brains her with a dumbbell]], mirroring a tragic incident from [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc his past]]. Once he comes back to himself and realizes what happened, he's [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone completely aghast]] and [[HeroicBSOD temporarily shuts down]].
** After getting [[TapOnTheHead brained by an iron beam]], Monotaro [[EasyAmnesia loses his memories]] [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony once again]] and mistakes Kaede for his mommy.
* ''FanFic/DanganRonpaAssassinatingFriendship'': Komaeda was previously subjected to ''another'' mutual killing game, wherein he attached himself to [[spoiler:Amami Rantaro]] as a PsychoSupporter, believing that their Hope would be strong enough to grow into something truly impressive. This didn't work out, and he wound up the SoleSurvivor. For this ''new'' killing game, he quickly joins up with [=K1-B0=], impressed by the robot's resolve to avoid killing anyone and find another way out. [[spoiler:He then abandons him after [=K1-B0=] is forced to kill in self-defense.]]
* In ''Fanfic/FracturedFates'', [[spoiler:Kaneki failed to save her younger sister, Yuna, from dying in an accident that Kaneki herself was indirectly responsible for. Several years later, she befriends her classmate [[TokenMiniMoe Asuna Izumi]] during the killing game, becoming something of a surrogate big sister towards her to try and make up for what happened to Yuna]]. [[spoiler:Then, in Chapter 2, Kaneki finds out that Asuna is most likely being targeted for murder. This time, Kaneki vows that "it'll be different this time" and that she will do whatever it takes to prevent Asuna from dying as Yuna did. She ultimately succeeds, but ends up murdered in Asuna's place]].
* A backstory told during ''Fanfic/HopeForTheHeartless'' reveals that Avalina's currently in the same situation with [[VillainProtagonist the Horned King]] as she was four years earlier with her CoolHorse Mitternacht, even if she's unaware of it. The girl alone could see that the [[HellishHorse furious horse]] everyone believed to be a lost cause was just acting out of grief from losing his rider, and she had to tame him before a time limit was up and he'd be put down. {{The dreaded}} Horned King has a time limit to complete his [[RedemptionQuest only chance]] to earn his freedom from [[SoulJar the Black Cauldron]], and Avalina slowly comes to make them both realize [[BeingEvilSucks how lonely he is]]. Also, Avalina met both Mitternacht and the Horned King after being lost, goes through physical and emotional pain before she gets through to them (a task no one quite believes to be possible) and [[MusicSoothesTheSavageBeast has her musical talents as an asset]].
* ''FanFic/OfPatienceAndPettiness'': Alya's refusal to listen to Marinette costs her their friendship, despite her attempts to [[IRejectYourReality deny that painful truth]] and insist that they're still friends. Later, [[NewTransferStudent Eden arrives]], and they become friends... until [[spoiler:Adrien accuses her of being Ladybug]]. At this point, Alya proves that [[spoiler:she's learned ''nothing'' from her past mistakes, as she furiously leaps to all the wrong conclusions and berates Eden, ripping into her harshly enough that the poor girl dissolves into tears and winds up akumatized, effectively ruining ''that'' friendship as well]].
* ''Fanfic/OneDayAtATimeFanfic'':
** Jason met Terry and Matty in almost the exact same way Bruce met him all those years ago: as Batman, in Park Row, with his future children trying to steal parts of the Batmobile. Just like him, Terry became Robin, and became increasingly violent, leading to a confrontation [[spoiler:with the Joker]] where he almost died. ''Unlike'' him, Jason's love for Terry managed to reach him, and not only did Terry ''not'' follow the dark path Jason did, but also proved himself to be the true successor to Jason as Batman.
** [[spoiler:David Cain killed Carolyn Wu-San to "free" her sister Sandra, the woman that would become Lady Shiva. Decades later, he kills Shiva to "free" their daughter Cassandra from their legacy and then sacrifices himself to save her from Shiva cultists, finally allowing her to live her own life]].
* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10895506/15/Thunder-in-Kanto Thunder in Kanto]]'': Once again people are unable to challenge Erika from trivial reasons. And once again Celadon Gym is set ablaze by someone banned from entering it. Due to Erika's and her crew incompetence, she's once again is in trouble (this time, it's her own life that's on the line). And it's up to another person banned from entering gym at all to save the day and prevent even bigger disaster caused by her own unprofessionalism.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/AceCombat'':
** Early in ''VideoGame/AceCombat5TheUnsungWar'', Nagase is almost shot down by a Yuktobanian missile but saved when her flight lead Captain Bartlett takes the hit for her and is forced to eject over open water. Bartlett isn't found, dead or alive, for much of the rest of the game, and the whole event weighs heavily on Nagase's conscience (demonstrated in gameplay by having her [[ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend stay close to your tail even when you give the squadron orders to disperse]]). A few months later, Nagase is finally shot down under similar circumstances, with no one to take the missile for her, but survives and emerges from the ordeal a [[InUniverseCatharsis much better-adjusted individual]].
** In a very meta way, the finale of ''VideoGame/AceCombatAssaultHorizon'' calls back to a particular mission of ''The Unsung War'', where [[spoiler:Chopper]] cannot eject from his crashing plane due to burnt-out circuitry, as you can only helplessly watch him die. In ''Assault Horizon'', Guts takes a missile for you (mirroring ''another'' {{wingman}}'s actions in ''VideoGame/AceCombatZeroTheBelkanWar''), but Bishop (the player character of ''ACAH''), being an even more insane badass than Blaze (the ''[=AC5=]'' PC), puts up a spectacular display of high-altitude marksmanship and ''snipes'' off Guts' malfunctioning canopy with his machinegun in mid-air, so he can bail out into the sea.
* In ''VideoGame/BlazeUnion'', Gulcasa loses a number of people important to him through death and betrayal. He blames this on his own personal weakness (although every circumstance was pretty much out of his control) and vows to gain the power that he needs to really protect his loved ones. Three years later, another large-scale conflict starts; whether or not Gulcasa is capable of protecting his allies depends entirely on whether you're playing ''VideoGame/YggdraUnion'' ([[spoiler:he can't]]) or ''VideoGame/YggdraUnison'' ([[spoiler:he does]]).
* [[TearJerker Tatsuya Suou]]'s history in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}''. He pretty much threw the weight of the world on his shoulders and tasked himself to destroy [[EldritchAbomination Nyarlathotep]]'s plans before they started so his friends wouldn't have to suffer. He failed.
* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry1'': Dante - who lost his mother Eva as a child - nearly lost Trish as well, who is basically a demonic lookalike of her.
* In ''VideoGame/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness'', the HeroicSacrifice is a recurring theme for Laharl's character. [[spoiler:Part of his reason for hating love was that his mother, who tried to instill such ideals, sacrificed her life to cure Laharl of an incurable disease. This would later repeat itself at the end of the game where Flonne offers herself up to be punished by the Seraph so that Laharl and the others would be spared. Then, after defeating the Seraph, Laharl attempts to sacrifice his life to bring Flonne back to life, though whether he does so or not depends on the ending the player received[[note]]Canonically, he doesn't have to. Vyers stops Laharl moments before he sacrifices himself and the Seraph, having been spared by Laharl, brings Flonne back to life as a FallenAngel.[[/note]]]].
** And it continues to bite Laharl in ''VideoGame/DisgaeaDimension2''. [[spoiler:His little sister Sicily tries to give up her life in exchange for the kidnapped angels, but Laharl talks her out of it. He even comments that she's just like their mother. If the player receives a certain ending, though, Sicily chooses to sacrifice her life despite Laharl desperately pleading her not to and he's so overcome with grief that he suffers a DeathByDespair.]]
* Archer's backstory in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' works this way, putting him in his current position at the game's beginning. As a human, Archer [[spoiler: when he was called Shirou]] was unable to save people from a disaster, which eventually led to his making a [[DealWithTheDevil contract with the world]] to prevent the same thing happening in his adulthood.
* An interesting variant happens in ''VideoGame/InFamous''. Cole [=McGrath=] gets superpowers. Later, he married the love of his life, Trish, and they had two daughters. Then the beast came, destroyed absolutely everything (and killed Cole's family), and Cole went back in time, gave Cole [=McGrath=] superpowers, and killed Trish to make sure Cole wouldn't make the same mistake he did.
* In ''Videogame/TheLastOfUs'', a ZombieApocalypse breaks out and Joel has to carry his daughter to safety through a hostile environment. [[spoiler:At the end of the game (20 years later), he ends up having to carry his surrogate daughter to safety through a hostile environment.]]
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel II'', [[TheRival Crow Amrbrust]] dies in [[TheHero Rean's arms]] after Crow sacrifices himself to give Rean an opening to save the crown prince. Flash forward to ''Cold Steel IV'' and [[spoiler:[[BackFromTheDead Crow]] is defeated again in his duel with Rean and is about to disappear for good when Rean decides he'll have none of it and demands that he live the life that he's been given, hugs him in his arms, and manages to send the energy Ordine was giving to Valimar, back to Ordine to make sure Crow lives.]]
* VideoGame/MaxPayne keeps getting in eerily familiar situations where his attempts to do the right thing result in deaths of his loved ones and himself barely surviving yet another chaotic killing spree. He lampshades it regularly himself, such as this quote from the second game:
-->''"Like all the bad things in my life, it started with the death of a woman."''
* The ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series deserves its own section.
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'': Snake's inability to [[ShootTheDog kill Fox to ensure an easy victory]], because he had learned from his mistakes of killing Fox and Big Boss in ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake''.
** The non-canon ''VideoGame/MetalGearGhostBabel'': Snake retires after the adventure in Outer Heaven back in ''VideoGame/MetalGear1''. He comes out of retirement to deal with another Metal Gear threat in Galuade, a fortress built over the remains of Outer Heaven.
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'': Subtle one. Otacon loses his father - and almost his sister - due to a drowning suicide by the former. If he had been there, he would have been able to save them - but he was in his room [[{{Squick}} having sex with his stepmother]] at the time, and therefore didn't respond to his sister's cries for help. At the end of the Tanker chapter, Snake calls for Otacon to save him from drowning. This time Otacon saves him by ''riding a boat out onto the sea in a thunderstorm'', nearly getting pulled down himself with the sinking tanker, just to pull him out of the water.
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPortableOps'': Big Boss assassinated The Boss, but, when his old friend Python begs for him to finish him off the same way he did The Boss, he tries to save him instead.
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'': [[spoiler: Naomi]] dies in similar circumstances to Sniper Wolf (even the music is the same), and Otacon is overwhelmed. However, instead of grieving, he quotes the line ''Snake'' uttered after Wolf's death ("I don't have any tears left to shed"), and shakily gets on with life.
* Shadow from ''VideoGame/{{Sonic Adventure 2}}'' is shocked into [[FakeMemories realizing his past]] after Amy Rose coincidentally uses the same phrase that the late Maria Robotnik did, and thus decides that, to make it up to Maria for the damage he's done, he'll stop the [[ColonyDrop Space Colony ARK from hitting the Earth]].
** Though it probably wasn't real, ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'' featured a level where Shadow could have the choice to stop the G.U.N. soldiers from killing Maria.
[[/folder]]