The full moon follows Batman everywhere.
"Frankly, to live in a world with a full moon every night, owls who tell time by bashing into a church bell, and I don't know how many characters who just won't stay dead..."
It's night, the moon is out, and more often than not it's a full moon. A full moon is a two-night or sometimes a three-night event where at least 98% of the moon is visible from Earth...out of a roughly four-week period. This means that for the remainder of the month, the moon will be in its gibbous, quarter, crescent, and new phases. But in fiction land, the moon is all full, all the time.
In film, television, and comic books, this is done because a full moon hanging in the night sky is a powerful sight, and also lets the audience know that it's a good night for something to happen. It's an excellent way to convey a sense of foreboding. A full moon also provides a fair amount of illumination, and in film and television, it allows for a good amount of light to see things if the characters don't have flashlightsnote .
Also applies in works when the moon is full for more consecutive nights than is possible.
The most common aversion to this trope is when the crescent moon is prominent in the sky, due to its distinctive shape. But the gibbous and quarter moons are out of luck.
In comedic works involving the police or hospitals, expect jokes about how the level of crazy seems to go up when it's a full moon. This also frequently pops up in stories about werewolves, since traditionally werewolves only turned into wolves during the full moon, so if the moon wasn't full, there wouldn't be much of a plot.
Related to Nice Day, Deadly Night; Always Night, and Darkness Equals Death. Definitely involves Artistic License – Space. Sub-Trope of Weird Moon. Often found with Full Moon Silhouette. See also Total Eclipse of the Plot — in real life, a lunar eclipse can only happen on a full moon (while a solar eclipse can only happen on a new moon).
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: There's a three-week period when the moon is about to crash into the Earth. For the entire time, the moon was always visible and full in the sky. Justified in that it turns out that the moon is a huge battleship/mecha called "Cathedral Terra". The real moon was apparently hidden away in another dimension, and was pulled out of said dimension by the protagonists after the Colony Drop had been averted.
- Hellsing: The moon appears to have no other phases other than full moon. The series begin with full moon and ends that way (not to mention the night of the battle happened during a full moon night, in 1999 and 1944).
- My-HiME: The Moon was full throughout the entire season. Granted that there was probably sometime between, but this may have been just so that it could be used as a comparison for the approaching HiME Star.
- Higurashi: When They Cry:
- Averted in the first season. Both Meakashi and Tsumihoroboshi climax on 25 June 1983, and the full moon shown is actually correct for that date. The flashbacks in Meakashi also get the moon's phase right just often enough that you wonder whether it's deliberate.
- Played straight in the second season where they stopped caring: the moon is full whenever it's shown, over a period of two weeks.
- Ookamikakushi: In the anime adaptation, there is a permanently full blood moon.
- Death Note: It seems any time Light goes out walking at night the moon is always full.
- Sailor Moon: Averted, as the crescent moon is primarily associated with the series.
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is an odd case as the first thirteen episodes always depict the moon as the Stock Artistic Unrealistic Crescent Moon, while episodes 14-23 always show the moon as a full moon. Much of the latter takes place on a single night, but the moon is always full even in flashbacks and other episodes that take place months apart. Finally averted in episode 24, which features a gibbous moon and then a realistic crescent moon 15 days later.
Comic Books
- Batman: When Batman patrols the streets of Gotham at night, you can count on a full moon being in the background while he perches on a ledge with his cape billowing dramatically in the wind.
- Moon Knight: Played straight and averted. In cover art and promotional art, Moon Knight is often shown with a full moon in the background. However, in the actual stories, full moons don't really show up that often. A reason for this is his mystically-derived strength peaks during the full moon, so the writers can often have stories where he has to deal with threats when he's not at his full strength due to the moon being in a different phase. He's also at his weakest (albeit still stronger than an ordinary man) during a new moon.
- Spider-Man: When that lean, silent figure slowly faded into the gathering darkness, aware at last that in this world, with great power there must also come great responsibility, a full moon is in the sky.
- Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose: The moon seems to be full ALL the time. Possibly justified in that the comic progresses more or less in real time and is published every 2 months, with most adventures taking place over a single night. In the "Mists of Darkness", which took place over two nights, it was only a full moon for the first night, so Boo-Cat was in her human form for the second. But almost every other time she is in the comic, she spends at least some time as a were-cat due to the full moon.
Films — Animation
- The Nightmare Before Christmas: Halloween Town seems to have a full moon every night, and this is even later seen in the real world, with Jack flying under a full moon on Christmas Eve.
- Toy Story 3: In one scene, Mr. Potato Head uses a tricycle's mirror to reflect the moonlight in order to signal an escape. Luckily for them, it happens to be on the night of a full moon.
- All scenes during nighttime in The Red Turtle show the characters bathed in stark moon light coming from a point near the horizon, although the moon itself is rarely shown. It would seem like there is always full moon on that island.
- Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, depicts the moon as being full for four days.
Films — Live-Action
- Arachnophobia: The movie poster featured a single spider hanging from a web-line, silhouetted against the full moon in the background.
- Batman (1989): When Batman is flying the Bat-Plane, there's a brief shot of it against the full moon, mimicking the Bat-Signal.
- Daredevil (2003): The moon appears full every single night.
- Gutterballs: The moon is always full.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: As the skeletal pirates are marching underwater to attack the British navy ship, a full moon is shining brightly over the scene.
- Poseidon: When the First Officer looks through his binoculars and sees the giant wave bearing down on the ship, a full moon is hanging low in the sky. Low enough for the top of the wave to begin to blot it out, visually showing how truly monstrous this wave is.
- Watchmen: While the film takes place over a span of at least several days (Rorschach is shown being captured and imprisoned, as well as being interviewed by a prison psychiatrist), yet there is a full moon every single night.
- The Wraith: There is a full moon for the entire duration of the movie, which spans more than three days. The closing scene of the movie is the titular car/character riding off down the highway toward an impossibly huge full moon.
Literature
- Dracula: The moon is dependably bright in all cases except when obscured by clouds, and it is explicitly described as "full" in two instances forty nights apart.
- The Famous Five books, Enid Blyton is fond of the trope of the moon being full enough to see by, especially when the Five have adventures at night; and of the moon going behind a cloud at just the right moment.
- In Five go to Smuggler's Top, Julian, Dick and Sooty are watching the marshes one moonlit night. When the moon goes behind a cloud, they can see tiny pricking lights in the distance, of smugglers taking a secret path across the marsh.
- In Five on Kirrin Island Again, George rows to Kirrin Island by the light of the moon, which has an annoying habit of going behind a cloud when she badly needs every scrap of light she can get.
- In Five get into Trouble, the Five cycle through moonlight, which is so bright that they switch off their bike lamps. Anne observes that there is not much colour to be seen in moonlight, and jokingly says "Switch off your headlamps" to Timmy the dog, whose eyes are illuminated by the moonlight.
- In Five on a Hike Together, the Five collect the loot from the lake at night (when they will not be watched), and plan their trip for a time they know that the moon will be well up. Julian says he is sure the villain hid the goods in the lake on a moonlit night, as everything can be seen so clearly.
- In Five have a Wonderful Time, the Five are in a castle tower room, illuminated only by moonlight. During a scuffle in which one man has a gun, the moon suddenly goes behind a cloud, plunging the room into darkness. The man with the gun does not dare to fire, in case he hits the wrong person.
- Gor: The series takes place on a Counter-Earth which has three moons instead of only one like we have; but whenever they're mentioned, all three are always full. The latest book reveals that at least one of the moons is artificial and is used as a Prison Planet by the Priest-Kings.
Live-Action TV
- American Gothic (1995): It's always a full moon in Trinity.
- Charmed (1998): Full moons last for three days.
- Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "In Throes of Increasing Wonder...", the full moon is in the night sky when Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt's backs are facing towards the camera as they stroll towards the latter's townhouse, and it becomes brighter as the clouds drift away. Moonlight is romantic and vampires are nocturnal, so it's fitting that on the evening the vampire Lestat has chosen to seduce his human Love Interest Louis, the moon is at its most luminous, shining on their blossoming Boy Meets Ghoul romance.
- The Mighty Boosh: The Man in the Moon appears in every episode starting in Series 2, always in the full phase. He comments on this in one of his surreal monologues where he says that the full moon is the best phase, and people don't like the other phases as much.
- The '90s comic relief soap operas played by Globo had a Running Gag in which the moon would always be at its full phase and be several times bigger than normal.
- In What We Do in the Shadows (2019), the moon is full every time the exterior of the house is shown.
Tabletop Games
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Averted, as while the full moon is prominent in the game's artwork, every phase of the moon is associated with a different auspice, the phase a person was born under, which determines their role in werewolf society and the abilities available to them (basically character classes). Full moons are warriors, gibbous moons are bards, quarter moons are judges, crescent moons are shamans, and new moons are tricksters/rogues. By logic, the majority of werewolves should be shamans and bards since the moon is in those phases more often than the others, but the spirit world ensures that werewolf births are evenly distributed among the five auspices.
Video Games
- Another Code: Both games end on the night of a full moon, with the first game even having the characters talk about how beautiful the full moon is. However, both games take place on exact dates — July 24, 2005 for Two Memories and August 24, 2007 for Journey into Lost Memories — and needless to say, those nights weren't full moons (they were waning and waxing gibbous moons, respectively).
- Batman: Arkham Asylum: The game has an absolutely massive full and backwards moon hovering over Arkham Island. And no matter how many hours you play the game, it never moves, and daybreak never comes. It just hangs there for atmosphere. This holds true for the sequel, Batman: Arkham City.
- Final Fantasy VIII: The local moon is always shown full and huge, since it'll be important later in the story.
- The Sims 3: In the Supernatural expansion, there are two choices where you can adjust the moon phases. One of which is having a constant phase such as the full moon running every night, allowing the player to make this an Enforced Trope. The downside of having a full moon every night, zombies will pop up at your lawn, so be aware of that.
- DragonFable: The game by Artix Entertainment plays it straight with DoomWood, where the moon is always full. The character Thursday from Doomwood's town of Amityvale even Lampshades this when you talk to her.
- Forza Horizon: In the series, everytime the night goes on during the game you play, the full moon can be appreciated. Also in the races when it's during the night, mostly the Street Races.
- The Legend of Zelda: In Ocarina of Time, the moon is always full, regardless of how long your quest takes you. (And since it only takes a few minutes to go from day to night and back, quite a few days will pass In-Universe.)
- Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale: Every time you visit the Town Square at night, the moon is full, even though the main game happens over the course of more than a month.
- Fable II: The moon is always full. No wonder Westcliff has a Balverine problem.
- Sly Cooper: If the moon appears in a game, chances are it'll be full, to justify being able to see at night.
- Sonic Heroes: The Moon as seen from Hang Castle is perpetually full.
- The moon in The Lost Crown: A Ghosthunting Adventure is perpetually full, and unnaturally large. It can even be seen to grow at one point, looming larger behind bare tree branches.
- World of Warcraft: At night, the moon is always full and it's huuuuuge.
- Sengoku Basara: In Sengoku Basara 3, if the Moon appears at all it is always full.
- The Matrix: Path of Neo: the game doesn't have the moon visible very often, but when it does it's always full and at a realistic distance.
- City of Heroes: The moon is always full and rises in the south.
- The Jackbox Party Pack: The game "Monster Seeking Monster" has three full moons in the last five of the six nights the game goes for. The full moons are there to activate certain monsters' secret powers.
Western Animation
- Archer: The moon is nearly always visible and full in nighttime scenes.
- Bruce Timm commented how whenever the moon is shown in any DC Animated Universe show that it is full. He tried to get it shown as a crescent to indicate change in time, but it never quite came to pass.
- Gargoyles: There is rarely an episode where the moon was anything but full. Exceptions are a brief shot of a crescent moon in "Eye of the Storm" and several in "Hunter's Moon".
- Over the Garden Wall: The moon is always half-full in the Unknown, a sign the place doesn't follow natural rules of time. It's also subtle foreshadowing that it's still the same night in the town where Greg and Wirt came from, and the Unknown may or may not be a dream.
- PJ Masks: The moon is always full, in every episode.
- Road Rovers: Parodied in the episode "Hair of the Dog that Bit You", when after a werewolf attack, Blitz looks at a calendar and notes that there is another full moon the following night.
- The Tick: An early episode had a villain named Chairface try to carve his name on the moon, he managed to get as far as "CHA". Every subsequent episode had the moon full to show that it's still there. A later episode had the "C" repaired but a Galacticus parody took a bite out of the moon. Again, every subsequent episode had the moon full to show its still there.
