History Main / TheApocalypseBringsOutTheBestInPeople

%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

%%Image chosen via crowner in the Image Suggestion thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/ImagePickin/ImageSuggestions123
%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1452266899092104700
%%Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread.

* In ''Anime/StellviaOfTheUniverse'', a star going supernova devastates civilization. Humanity not only rebuilds, but creates a {{Utopia}}. It is also, however, implied that [[RousseauWasRight humanity would have ended up creating a Utopia regardless]], only a bit later...
* When the New Bloodline drove Tokyo to its knees in ''Manga/MajinTanteiNougamiNeuro'', it was DaChief Naohiro Usui (who up to this point was a complete dick) who lead the police and Tokyo to band together to resist him.

** ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'': In the same apocalypse mention aboved, Mai is shown to be a selfless woman ready to sacrifice her life for others instead of the regular Mai who's part of a GoldfishPoopGang who wish to conquer the world.
* One of the main characters in ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' was a lazy high-school kid that was completely pampered by his mother and sisters. Then [[spoiler:his whole family died during the Tokyo earthquake]] and he had to learn to survive on his own, becoming a badass and the leader of all orphan kids in Kanto.
* ''Manga/TwentiethCenturyBoys'': Most of the characters are dissatisfied losers when we first meet them and become fulfilled badasses as the situation in Japan worsens.

* The premise of ''[[ComicBook/{{Irredeemable}} Incorruptible]]''. Notorious supervillain Max Damage turns over a new leaf when his archfoe, the Plutonian goes insane and puts the entire world in jeopardy. The trope was eventually taken to its logical conclusion when Max ''thanked'' the Plutonian for going rogue, since it inspired Max to become a better person.

* A famous speech in Carol Reed's ''Film/TheThirdMan'' invokes this:
--> '''Harry Lime''': ''Don't be so gloomy. After all, it's not that awful. You know what the fellow said: in Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.''
%%* Harlan Ogilvy in the 2005 film adaptation of ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds''.
%%* The title character of ''Film/ShaunOfTheDead'', in part [[IKnowMortalKombat due to his familiarity]] with SurvivalHorror games.
%%* Although it's ultimately prevented from happening, this trope is [[spoiler: the angel Gabriel]]'s plan in the film ''Film/{{Constantine}}''.

* In ''Train of Life'' a whole village of Jews works together on a big ruse to avoid being captured by the Nazis, leading especially the formerly useless 'village idiot' to become a capable hero. [[spoiler:[[TwistEnding Except,]][[TearJerker it's all a lie.]]]]
* The BigBad of ''Film/MissionImpossibleGhostProtocol'' believes this, thinking that causing WorldWarThree and having the U.S. [[MakeTheBearAngryAgain and Russia]] nuke themselves back to the stone age will make a better society rise from the ashes (he explicitly quotes the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki having become large anti-nuclear monuments in the aftermath of their nuking, although it is mentioned that he might just probably have gone crazy from his work as a "nuclear warfare" game theorist/analyst).

* A common theme of Creator/RolandEmmerich's films, especially ''Film/IndependenceDay'', ''Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow'', and ''Film/TwentyTwelve''. Each one shows people being selfless even in the face of certain death.
** ''Independence Day'' features humanity coming together during the alien invasion, casting aside decades or centuries of bad blood. One scene shows British, Israeli, Iraqi, Syrian, and other air forces getting ready to fight the aliens.
** ''The Day After Tomorrow'', similarly, has Mexico bringing in American refugees after the US forgives all Latin American debt.
** ''2012'' establishes this theme early on. Jackson's book had such a theme, leading to critics calling him naïve. Adrian Helmsley uses this in a speech to bring aboard the remaining refugees onto the ark ships.

* In ''Film/{{Constantine}}'': [[spoiler: invoking this trope is why Gabriel aids Mammon in trying to literally unleash Hell on Earth. The Logic being that living such a horrible existence will force this trope to apply to humanity in general, thus making them "worthy" of God's love.]]
* Downplayed in ''Film/AvengersEndgame''.[[spoiler: The film doesn't call attention to this trope, but it seems to be in effect. Despite the elimination of half of all life in the universe, human civilization continues without collapsing into dystopia. This applies to some specific heroes in particular. Banner despite being a hero before the tragedy ultimately takes his defeats as a learning opportunity and reconciles his Banner/Hulk sides to become the best version of himself. Nebula goes on to fully complete her HeelFaceTurn by working with the heroes to rebuild and thwart the event. And of course, the team of Avengers, now utterly fractured by the events of ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'', reconcile and unite in one ''massive'' front to defeat Thanos once and for all.]]

%%* The Last Survivors characters.

* S.M. Stirling's ''Literature/{{Emberverse}}'' series revolves around this. While it contains a very tragic portrayal of what would happen to society if all modern technology stopped working, quite a few genuinely "good" people rally survivors to them and keep them organized and safe under extraordinary circumstances.
* Most characters in ''Literature/AlasBabylon'' are examples of this after nuclear war erupts between Russia and the USA. The main protagonist, Randy Bragg, goes from a lazy, failed politician living on his family's inheritance, to a strong and capable leader. Also, on a society-wide scale, the nuclear war causes an end to segregation, at least in the area where the main characters live.
* In Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's history ''Literature/TheGulagArchipelago'', a massive compilation of the horrors perpetrated by the Soviet Union upon its own people, there is a small amount of space given to the optimistic attitude that even the personal apocalypse of being arrested and sent to a work camp can still bring out ''good'' in people. Most prisoners relinquished their morals when they entered the camp and instead took up the aim of 'surviving at any price,' even if that price meant stealing the small daily bread allotted to another suffering prisoner. But there were indeed some people who avoided falling into this trap of despair and evil:
--> '''Solzhenitsyn:''' And how can one explain that certain unstable people found faith right there in the camp, that they were strengthened by it, and that they survived uncorrupted? And many more, scattered about unnoticed, came to their alloted turning point and made no mistake in their choice. Those who managed to see that things were not only bad for them, but even worse, even harder, for their neighbours. And all those who, under the threat of a penalty zone and a new term of imprisonment, refused to become stoolies?
--> '''Solzhenitsyn:''' As soon as you have renounced that aim of 'surviving at any price,' and gone where the calm and simple people go--then imprisonment begins to transform your former character in an astonishing way. To transform it in a direction most unexpected of you. And it would seem that in this situation feelings of malice, the disturbance of being oppressed, aimless hate, irritability, and nervousness ought to multiply. But you yourself do not notice how, with the impalpable flow of time, slavery nurtures in you the offshoots of contradictory feelings.... You are ascending.
* Most of the Americans in the ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series are hillbillies from a small town in West Virginia, and had [[MassTeleportation the town not been transported back in time]] to Germany during the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar, they would probably have remained a group of working class miners and locals from a small town in the early 2000's. Once they [[FishOutOfWater come to terms]] with their new universe, their future knowledge base and cultural attitudes give them an edge that propels some of them to grand positions on the world stage, and many of them find personal fulfillment in surviving in their new world that they might never have achieved in their original timeline.
* Norma in Fannie Flagg's small-town novels is a very anxious woman under normal circumstances, but when disaster hits she helps a lot of people partly because she can imagine the worst so vividly that she's prepared and ready to act.
* In the ''Literature/CodexAlera'' series, the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Vord invasion]] causes the otherwise scheming AntiVillain Attis Aquitaine (who has been an active villain for the rest of the series who only works with the protagonists against mutual enemies) to rise up and take command of Alera and lead the people as best he could. At the end, when [[spoiler: he dies from his wounds, the very characters opposing him at the beginning of the series end up praising him for his heroism.]]
** On a related note [[spoiler:First Lord Octavian said the Vord invasion was the best thing to happen to Alera, by forging alliances with long-term enemies]]
** Fidelias finds refugee camps morbidly fascinating because they bring out both this trope and [[HobbesWasRight its opposite]]; he will see people literally giving the cloaks off their backs to the naked and children being adopted and protected by total strangers, while at the same time robbery and murder abound, and those who hoard precious resources extort harsh or degrading service from the desperate.
* In the ''Literature/TheEndingSeries'' a fair amount of the people that Dani and Zoe came into contact with do their best to be decent and help others survive in the horrifying world that they find themselves into.
* In ''Men Against the Sea'', the second novel in Literature/TheBountyTrilogy, TheMutiny aboard HMAV ''Bounty'' leaves William Bligh and the men still loyal to him set adrift in an open boat. Bligh has to lead the men in the launch over 3000 miles of open ocean to a European settlement in Timor. Ledward, TheMedic, marvels at the courage Bligh shows, and not just that but the character and leadership ability he displays. Bligh shows himself to be a far better man than the vicious martinet who egged on a mutiny. He concludes that Bligh was born to lead men in peril. This is further backed up by Byam's encounter with Bligh at the end of ''Mutiny on the Bounty'' (the first novel in the trilogy), after Bligh was overthrown again in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_Rebellion the Rum Rebellion]], and at a time when Bligh was not under stress and not forced to lead men in mortal danger. Byam observes Bligh as still being an abrasive {{Jerkass}}.

* Most of the protagonists of ''Series/{{Jericho}}'' undergo this with lead character Jake being one of the best examples.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In the episode "The Haven", servant AIs cause an apocalypse (to the best of their ability) for the sole purpose of invoking this trope. It turns out the whole thing was set off by the opening scene, where the desk hologram sees an elderly woman collapse in front of her door, convulsing as she desperately tries to reach for her dropped medication. The hologram attempts to call her neighbors so they can come help but all of them are just mad at being bothered. The hologram realizes after she dies that his programming instructions to provide a social community living environment aren't being met if the tenants are hostile to the idea of even briefly seeing each other, and deliberately fries his systems to force the humans to cooperate in order to escape.
* Summer Landsdown of ''Series/PowerRangersRPM''. A shallow RichBitch before the RobotWar, she wandered alone through the devastated wasteland and saw her beloved butler die in her arms. By the time she got to the last haven of mankind, she was a BadassBiker ActionGirl who truly cared for her fellow man, and quickly goes to the front lines as a Power Ranger. The series ends with the war, so we don't see if she regresses when she goes back to civilian life.

* Daryl Dixon of ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' started off as racist, hot tempered, selfish, and dominated by his even nastier older brother Merle. After a few months of dealing with the zombie apocalypse, being forced to work together with others to survive, and Merle's absence, he has become a much nicer (if still gruff and awkward), steadfast, reliable, useful, and loyal member of the group. When Merle returns, Daryl even [[CharacterDevelopment calls him on his racist comments]].
* Early on in ''Series/{{The 100}}'', Bellamy only seems to care about himself and [[BigBrotherInstinct his sister]], and only assumes control of the 100 to advance his own interests. However, as the dangers of post-apocalyptic Earth become clear, Bellamy becomes a more caring and responsible leader, determined to keep his people alive. The first few episodes make it look like Bellamy will be our main [[TheAntagonist antagonist]], but by the end of the first season he's one of the most heroic characters on the show.
* Creator/DerrenBrown attempts to show this in ''Series/{{Apocalypse}}'', a large-scale CandidCameraPrank aimed at one lazy man-child named Steven. He is tricked into believing that he is a survivor of a ZombieApocalypse caused by a meteorite. Everyone else is an actor, including dozens of "[[NotUsingTheZWord infected]]". At first, there is a leadership figure he can follow. Then the older guy chooses to leave with his infected wife, leaving Steven in charge of the compound. He then meets another survivor, who is deliberately modeled on Steven himself to allow Steven to see himself from a third-person perspective and get disgusted. Steven is forced to make a hard choice, after which, he is put in trance again and is made to believe it was AllJustADream.

* One episode of ''Series/{{Angel}}'' includes a subplot where a homeless shelter is under siege being zombified cops. One of the people trapped there is a gangbanger who showed himself to be a violent, selfish SmugSnake before but proves to be capable of heroism when it counts. The end of the episode implies that he goes right back to normal afterward.

* Optional storylines in ''VideoGame/Fallout4''. The main character, if he or she so chooses, can team up with many other characters inhabiting the ruins of Boston. Maintaining their friendship will cause the main character and the other people to realize that they can do a whole lot of good helping innocent people and that's just pretty darned awesome.

* ''Franchise/DragonAge'':
** Parodied in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': right after Alistair is dragged into a petty feud in the middle of preparations for a major battle, he sarcastically tells the Warden ''"You know, one good thing about [[ZombieApocalypse the Blight]] is how it brings people together."'' And depending on your Warden's actions, it might be played straight as well.
** Played straight in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' in which the titular Inquisition is mostly comprised of volunteers who left often much safer positions to oppose the world-shattering events of the game. The final DLC, ''Trespasser'', shows that with the apocalypse averted, the Inquisition has more and more started to resemble any other morally grey powerful organisation in Thedas.

*** Played straight in the Liberator ending. The catastrophe has been stopped and humanity is ''finally'' bringing out their best, helping each other out. Though exactly how good this is, given the [[EsotericHappyEnding premise of this ending]], is debateable.
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** Groose from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword''. Originally just a bully and a JerkJock, when he follows Link to the surface and sees [[EldritchAbomination The Imprisoned]] nearly break free of its seal, he volunteers to keep watch over the seal and even builds a surprisingly effective bomb launcher to help Link the next few times the Imprisoned tries to escape. By the end of the game, he's a hero in his own right, and there's no trace of his former enmity with Link.
** Ralph in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames Oracle of Ages]]'', overcoming his [[AlwaysSaveTheGirl Nayru fixation]] to focus on the kingdom in crisis, and even attempting a HeroicSacrifice without question to thwart the villain, not because he expects it to succeed, but because "to stand by and do nothing... [[CharacterDevelopment just wouldn't be me]]".
* This is basically Paragon Shepard's view on the [[HopelessWar Reaper invasion]] in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', in a nutshell. And given how many missions, War Assets, and side conversations involve [[EnemyMine old grudges laid aside]], [[TheNeedsOfTheMany self-sacrifice for the cause]], and [[HopeBringer just plain hope]] -- s/he's got a hell of a point.
** EDI becomes rather confused by this at one point. She tells a story the Resistance passed the Alliance from a Reaper concentration camp about the behavior of its inhabitants. Some became [[TheQuisling Quislings]] but others fed the Reapers false information about escape attempts. None of the actual attempts succeeded and the givers of the false data were executed. What confuses EDI is that according to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs Maslow's hierarchy of needs]], the prisoners should be focused entirely on survival, which she interprets as every man for himself. The Paragon response can be paraphrased to the trope title, and EDI learns something about self-sacrifice.
** You can overhear some smugglers getting into an argument. While one wants to take advantage of the situation, the other, a human, gets completely cheesed off at the idea of ripping off Alliance during this crisis and threatens her business partner if he tries anything.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'''s Genocide Route, where the player character is a killing machine murdering EVERYTHING in the Underground, many of the other characters actually show their best sides.
** Papyrus confronts said dangerous murderer with an offer of peace and friendship, begging them to abandon their path of murder and destruction, telling them he fully believes that they could be a better person underneath all the hatred and anger. Even when he's ''decapitated'', he tells them he still believes they can do better.
** Undyne pulls a HeroicSacrifice for Monster Kid and then resurrects herself as Undyne the Undying to save ''everyone'', even the humans that imprisoned her kind, as she realizes that the player is about to destroy everyone. When she finally goes down, she's happy she at least bought everyone else time to get away.
** Mettaton goes into a battle he knows is hopeless in order to protect his fans and friends. Even though he fails to HoldTheLine unlike Undyine, this really shows that beneath his diva personality, he shows genuine concern over the entire monsterkind.
** Alphys gets over her fears and lies to lead the evacuation effort and save everyone in the Underground. And her efforts prove fruitful should your run be halted by Sans or otherwise ended prematurely. And she finally gathers the guts to tell the character ''how much she hates them and how she wants to kill them when she has the chance''.
** Sans finally gets over his laziness and feeling of hopelessness in a last effort to save the timeline, with a [[SNKBoss ridiculously hard]] [[ThatOneBoss boss fight]] where he blatantly breaks and exploits the combat system, in the hopes of pissing you off so much you'll RageQuit.
** Even ''[[OmnicidalManiac Flowey]]'' shows his more TragicVillain side in this run, telling you to stop and even attempting to warn Asgore of your approach.
* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' has Bill, an aging Vietnam veteran with no family. In the supplementary comics, it's shown that before the zombie apocalypse he really didn't have anything to live for and existed in a well of depression. Since then he has been able to use his experience as a soldier to help him protect 3 other people who he has come to care for like family, particularly Zoey; in the end he ends up sacrificing himself so that his new family can escape the apocalypse and have the hope of a relatively normal life.
* ''VideoGame/PlagueInc'': Once your disease begins to kill people ''en masse'', all of the governments of the world will immediately drop any resemblance of animosity, and start working together to make a cure.
* In the Demon Path of ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'', after Revya becomes a powerful, malevolent VillainProtagonist, a number of villains of the normal storyline [[HeelFaceTurn turn Face]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'': A Crisis looms, whether it's devouring hordes from another galaxy, hungry energy beings from another dimension, or a long-lost malevolent AI. The bickering petty star nations throw aside their differences to face down the threat, and better still, the BenevolentPrecursors throw aside their arrogance and act as a true BigGood, throwing together a [[TheFederation Galactic Defence League]] to be the last, best hope for the galaxy. When the Crisis is destroyed, the Precursors don't go back to their old patronising ways; they join the galactic community for good, the new generation of star nations having earned their respect.

* Leon from ''WesternAnimation/TitanMaximum'' became the SixthRanger of the team in the time of need. He's still silent.

* The legendary "Dunkirk spirit" (volunteer rescuers) or "spirit of the Blitz" (Londoners) is an example of this trope. If you actually look at real studies of of actual people and their feelings at the time then you find (as with the 'Mass Observation' polling-magazine's reports) that The Blitz was a time of ''low'' British morale. Morale was actually highest in the winter of 1942-3, when the Germans had been dealt a massive blow at Stalingrad and ejected from the Caucusus and eastern Ukraine - and less well-informed and more optimistic people hoped that the war could be over within just a year or two.
* The Russian goverment - though not Tsar Nicholas II, who abhorred any kind of bloodshed - hoped to invoke this in the UsefulNotes/RussoJapaneseWar when Japan attacked them seemingly out of the blue, this situation being the result of extremely poor collaboration between the Ministry of War and The Diplomatic Service (the former was actually quite okay with the Japanese having a decent share of commercial interests in Korea, but the latter didn't make that clear and so the Japanese got paranoid). It kind of worked, because hey - evil foreigners were attacking Russia. But most citizens got more than a little irritated when the peace-loving Nicholas II decided to end the war early rather than fight it out to the end and win (which Russia was certainly capable of doing) - because as far as they were concerned, what were the lives of another hundred thousand of them (of a population of more than 150 million) compared to National Humiliation? The decision to end the war prematurely added impetus to the great social unrest of the times and resulted in large parts of the countryside essentially boycotting the government/rebelling and the industrial workers in several urban centers rioting because they were out of jobs (they'd hoped that wartime industries would result in their employment despite the general economic depression of the times) and unemployment benefits didn't exist anywhere in the world at the time.

* A lot of histories and memoirs from TheGreatDepression note that despite the widespread unemployment, poverty and crime levels, there was a genuine optimism that things would get better. One reason they cite is that the financial crisis brought communities together in solidarity and fellow feeling, there was also the constant programs put in place by Roosevelt for his New Deal many of which did not really work but definitely improved morale. Historians cite this resilience as one reason why fascism despite some high profile advocates like Charles Lindbergh was a super-fringe movement in the 30s, and the strength of the government response being a major reason why Communism, hoping to channel worker outrage, were forced to work with the Popular Front rather than dominate it. It was a great triumph of democracy. In a sad inversion, TheGreatDepression proved to be the knockout blow for UsefulNotes/TheWeimarRepublic, following a decade and a half of political and financial instability. The Weimar government's wariness of a New Deal approach for fear of repeating the hyperinflation of the 1920s, caused it to lose legitimacy among the German public, which responded by turning to political parties at the extremes. One of those parties, the NSDAP - better known globally as the [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi Party]] - eventually [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany won the ensuing power struggle in 1933]], and [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the rest as they say is history]].

** Similarily, there is a famous proverb: "Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And Weak men produce hard times".

* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'':
** [[FutureBadass Trunks]], compared to regular Trunks. Growing up in the shadow of constant apocalypse not only made him a more reliable and effective fighter than he would otherwise, but it causes him to develop a strong sense of moral responsibility from an early age that regular Trunks lacks. It helps that he was also raised by [[AllLovingHero Future Gohan]] instead of [[ItsAllAboutMe Vegeta]].
** Future Bulma as well. All of Main!Bulma's negative traits, such as her vanity, arrogance, selfishness, and temper tantrums completely disappear in the future, with her better nature cranked UpToEleven, almost to the point of bordering an AllLovingHeroine and BigGood, despite Future Trunks claiming that she hadn't changed when Krillin asked him in the manga.
* ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'':
** In the same apocalypse mention aboved, Mai is shown to be a selfless woman ready to sacrifice her life for others instead of the regular Mai who's part of a GoldfishPoopGang who wish to conquer the world.

->"You say we're on the brink of destruction and you're right. But it's only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve. This is our moment. Don't take it from us, we are close to an answer."

* Actually, many religions see the world as a cyclical process of rise and decline, and the Apocalypse is the culmination of the decline and the beginning of the new golden age for mankind.

* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'': [[spoiler: It took [[TraumaCongaLine losing his ghost powers, watching Danny turn evil, and the deaths of Jack and Maddie]] for Vlad Masters to ''finally'' become a good person in the episode ''The Ultimate Enemy.'']]

->'''Oskar Schindler:''' I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don't know. If I'd just... I could have got more.\\
'''Itzhak Stern:''' Oskar, there are eleven hundred people who are alive because of ''you''. Look at them.
-->-- ''Film/SchindlersList''

** Parodied in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': right after Alistair is dragged into a petty feud in the middle of preparations for a major battle, he sarcastically tells the Warden ''"You know, one good thing about [[ZombieApocalypse the Blight]] is how it brings people together."''

** Undyne pulls a HeroicSacrifice for Monster Kid and then resurrects herself as Undyne the Undying to save everyone (even the humans she usually hates). She also realizes that the player isn't just trying to get rid of monsterkind, but humanity as well, and thus she has more than enough reason to stop them. In Neutral or Pacifist run, she only fights the player character for the sake of monsterkind. In the Genocide run, she's fighting for the sake of every single living being in this world, including the very people that imprisoned her kind. When she finally goes down, she's happy she at least bought everyone else time to get away.

** Alphys gets over her fears and lies to lead the evacuation effort and save everyone in the Underground. And her efforts prove fruitful should your run be halted by Sans or otherwise ended prematurely. And she has the gall to tell the character and the player ''how much she hates them and how she wants to kill them when she has the chance''.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'''s Genocide Route, where the player character is a killing machine murdering
EVERYTHING in the Underground, many of the other characters actually show their best sides.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'''s Genocide Route, where the player character is a killing machine murdering EVERYTHING in the Underground, many of the other characters actually show their best sides.

** Undyne pulls a HeroicSacrifice for Monster Kid and then resurrects herself as Undyne the Undying to save everyone (even the humans she usually hates). When she finally goes down, she's happy she at least bought everyone else time to get away.
** Mettaton goes into a battle he knows is hopeless in order to protect his fans and friends. Unlike Undyne however, he is mostly unsuccessful as he dies in one hit.
** Alphys gets over her fears and lies to lead the evacuation effort and save everyone in the Underground. And her efforts prove fruitful should your run be halted by Sans or otherwise ended prematurely.

[[quoteright:290:[[WesternAnimtion/StevenUniverse https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_apocalypse_brings_out_the_best_in_people_2.png]]]]

->'''Oskar Schindler:''' I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don't know. If I'd just...I could have got more.\\

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]

[[folder: Comic Books]]

[[folder: Fan Fiction]]

[[folder: Literature]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Web Video]]

[[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimtion/StevenUniverse https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_apocalypse_brings_out_the_best_in_people_2.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Can't really be a jerk when there's no one non-hostile enough to screw with, after all.[[note]][[https://discount-supervillain.tumblr.com/post/170654037482 art credit]][[/note]]]]

%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'''s Genocide Route, where the player character is basically an unstoppable killing machine murdering EVERYTHING in the Underground, many of the other characters actually show their best sides.
** Papyrus confronts said dangerous murderer with an offer of peace and friendship, begging them to abandon their path of murder and destruction, telling them that he fully believes that they could be a better person underneath all the hatred and anger. Even when he's ''decapitated'', he tells them he still believes they can do better. It's no wonder that a lot of people abandon their Genocide runs at Papyrus.
** Undyne pulls a HeroicSacrifice for Monster Kid and then resurrects herself by sheer force of will to save everyone in the world (even the humans she usually hates). When she's dying, she says she's happy she at least bought everyone else time to get away.
** Mettaton goes into a battle he knows is hopeless in order to protect his fans and friends, ending up dying in much the same way as Undyne.
** Alphys gets over her fears and lies to lead the evacuation effort and save everyone in the Underground (and becomes a hero if you abort your run at the last possible moment).
** Sans finally gets over his laziness and feeling of hopelessness in a last effort to save the timeline, in that he gives you [[ThatOneBoss a boss fight]] [[SNKBoss that's so ridiculously hard]], it takes literal ''hours'' to beat, in the hopes of pissing you off so much you'll RageQuit.

->'''Oskar Schindler''': I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don't know. If I'd just...I could have got more.
->'''Itzhak Stern''': Oskar, there are eleven hundred people who are alive because of ''you''. Look at them.

** Even ''Flowey'' shows his more TragicVillain side in this run, telling you to stop and even attempting to warn Asgore of your approach.

** Notably, [[spoiler:insecure almost-13-year-old Dipper Pines]] and [[spoiler:cranky con man Stan]] both take on leadership roles, the former becoming master of the RousingSpeech and the latter [[spoiler:[[JerkWithAHeartOfGold sheltering townspeople in the Mystery Shack]]]].

* Downplayed in ''Film/AvengersEndgame''.[[spoiler: The film doesn't call attention to this trope, but it seems to be in effect. Despite the elimination of half of all life in the universe, human civilization continues without collapsing into dystopia. This applies to some specific heroes in particular. Banner despite being a hero before the tragedy ultimately takes his defeats as a learning opportunity and reconciles his Banner/Hulk sides to become the best version of himself. Nebula goes on to fully complete her HeelFaceTurn by working with the heroes to rebuild and thwart the event.]]

** Played straight in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' in which the titular Inquisition is mostly comprised of volunteers who left often much safer positions to oppose the world-shattering events of the game.

* General Ludendorff in ''Film/WonderWoman'' who is [[spoiler: not actually Ares]], seems to believe this.

** Evewn ''Flowey'' shows his more TragicVillain side in this run, telling you to stop and even attempting to warn Asgore of your approach.