[[quoteright:248:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/deluge.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:248:[[LookAroundYou Water, water, what hast thou donest?]]]]

What happens when {{God}} (or [[OurGodsAreDifferent the gods]]) decides to KillItWithWater. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt All of it]].

[[OlderThanDirt Older than the book itself]], this is the one element that seems nearly ubiquitous in mythology, and with good reason: it may have had a basis in reality (a hypothesized late Pleistocene/Early Holocene flooding event, possibly from a [[ColonyDrop small asteroid impact]] or earthquake off the coast of Madagascar causing a tsunami), but as a kind of cultural memory it forms the backbone of many origin mythologies, from the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime to the biblical Book of Genesis. Usually the moral of the story is "don't piss off the gods," but sometimes the flooding is part of the process of (re)creating a world.

Some scientists argue that the prevalence of the Great Flood in Eastern Mediterranean myth derives from a historical event, in which the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea Black Sea]] was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_theory suddenly flooded]] in about 5600 BCE. But then again, this would only account for the Middle Eastern and possibly the European myths, not the ones from the rest of the world. And, of course, some of various religious persuasions believe that the prevalence of the Great Flood myth derives from an actual worldwide great flood caused by their deity of choice (although a global flood [[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html#flood isn't seen as plausible by most scientists]])
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Mythology and Religion ]]

* ''Literature/TheBible'', obviously. [[spoiler:[[ItWasHisSled Noah lives.]]]]
** Averted in the Qu'ran, in which the flood is merely local and destroys only one civilization.
* ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'': The earliest recorded example.
* UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}} subverts this trope, as it does so many. Noah constructed the ark according to the instruction of the malevolent Demiurge, but it was burned down with magical fire by Eve's daughter Norea in a fit of supernatural rage. He built a second ark, which turned out to be useless because they were just transferred temporarily into Heaven for the length of the flood.
* Various Native American Mythologies
** The Aztecs believed that the Earth had been created and destroyed four times before the present age, and the end of the last age was a watery one.
* Various Asia-Pacific and Polynesian Mythologies
* ClassicalMythology has ''three'', most notably Deucalion's.
* This list could go on forever. Just check Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_myth]].
* According to {{Plato}}, {{Atlantis}} was actually destroyed by a giant tidal wave known as the "Mebhelmok" (which actually means "great flood").
* NorseMythology. Ymir is killed and his blood flooded the earth and drowned all but two of the frost giants.
** Eventually after Ragnorak the Earth will sink.
* HinduMythology: The earth sank into the sea for some reason and Vishnu, as the Boar Avatar, went down and brought it back to the surface.
** A Demon had thrown it into the sea. He had an agreement with the Gods where he couldn't be hurt by any God, human, or animal, but had forgotten to mention the Boar.
* ChineseMythology, but instead of the flood wiping out humanity, the Emperor Yu directed the construction of great canals and redirected rivers to control the flood and provide better irrigation for farming.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* ''SaintSeiya'': the god Poseidon, wishing to wash away the filth of mankind, raises the oceans to destroy all of civilization. In the anime, this is compounded by the [[BarrierMaiden priestess]] Hilda praying to [[CrossoverCosmology Odin]] to preserve the ice in the GrimUpNorth eternally frozen; her absence causes it to melt and contribute to the flooding. Confusingly, this (and the first major story arc) is all part of a XanatosRoulette that started long before the start of the series.
* ''DragonKnights'': the demon fish Varawoo sunk the world before it was sealed away.
* NowAndThenHereAndThere : Don't piss off Lala Ru.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* This was the end result in ''TwoThousandTwelve''. The earthquakes and volcanic eruptions were merely a prelude.
* The "Rite of Spring" segment of ''Disney/{{Fantasia}}'' actually ends with the entire Earth being flooded by a massive tidal wave caused by a solar eclipse.
** Retold in ''Fantasia 2000'' in the re-imagined "Noah's Ark" adaptation of ''Pomp and Circumstance''.
* In ''Disney/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' the Biblical flood was caused by the Atlantis' weapons research and the city was sunk to ''save'' it from destruction.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* ''RaptorRed'': A flood of the sort that only comes every thousand years strikes Raptor Red and her family around the middle of the story.
* In Shane Johnson's ''Ice'' an astronaut ends up traveling back in time where he experiences the biblical flood.
* ''Literature/{{Flood}}'' is a hard sci-fi depiction of a global flood in modern times.
* One of the two founding myths of [[Literature/{{Discworld}} Ankh-Morpork]] involves a boat that was built to withstand a great flood, containing two of every animal. The accumulated waste products of all the animals was tipped over the side, and they called it Ankh-Morpork.
** In ''Discworld/CarpeJugulum'', one of the things that worries the Slightly Reverend Mightily Oats about Omnian dogma is that ''every'' Discly culture has a flood myth, similar but different to the one in the Book of Om.
* According to WordOfGod, the past of the ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'' universe featured one, causing Syren Island to sink beneath the sea.
* Referenced in Orson Scott Card's PastWatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, in which the origin of the Myth was tracked back to the flooding of the Red Sea.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* [[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Gaius Baltar]] mentions the story of the Flood as explained in the Book of Phytia to Roslin, comparing his role in the destruction of the Colonies to that of the Flood. While no actual Flood is seen, the story is clearly a reference to the biblical story and [[spoiler: may even have been its origin]].

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* Perfect Chaos from ''[[SonicTheHedgehog Sonic]] Adventure''.
* One of these apparently happened sometime between ''VideoGame/MegaManZX'' and ''[[VideoGame/MegaManLegends Legends]]''.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' takes place in a world where the Flood waters have yet to recede. [[OceanPunk Everybody lives on mountaintops]].
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'', destroying the balance between Light and Darkness plunges the world into the latter, [[TimeStandsStill freezing the surface in time]] and then flooding it so only a temple and a priestess remain above water.
* The goal of Team Aqua in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Pokémon Sapphire]]'' and ''Emerald''.
* Killing Poseidon unleashes a great flood in VideoGame/GodOfWar 3. And he's merely the ''first'' God to die in that game.
* Konami's ''VideoGame/NoahsArk'' actually takes place ''during the flood'' where the water slowly raises during gameplay.
* FireEmblem: [[spoiler:Radiant Dawn explains that before years began to be counted, Ashunera expressed great grief over the warring of the Beorc and Laguz, and caused the entire world to be flooded due to her grief overlapping with her power unintentionally. She then split into Ashera and Yune, causing a war of dominance to take place.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Afterlife}}'', this can randomly befall the planet you're supposed to be taking care of, killing off the entire population "except for a few smarty-pants who [[TheArk figured out how to build a boat]]."

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* The Boxing Day Tsunami.
* The 2011 Australia floods.
* A number of record-breaking floods throughout recorded history could be considered as these, at least in terms of regional and economic effects.
** Rising waters due to global warming and the end of the Ice Age. Could have been ''The'' Flood. [[hottip:*:Not [[{{Halo}} THAT one.]]
* There has been some evidence found of a massive flooding when the Black Sea originally formed, which possibly inspired the writings on such great Floods in the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamish in the first place.
----