Sometimes, when a fictional setting is undergoing some great change for better or for worse, the best way to demonstrate this is through a familiar location: a single area — or sometimes even a single piece of scenery — is used to illustrate the overall condition of a society or even an entire world.
The reasons for this vary: sometimes, it's simply a matter of convenience — after all, it's not always possible to take an overview of the entire setting and see just how the world as a whole has changed. Sometimes, it's supernatural in nature, an extremely localized version of the Fisher King in action. Sometimes it's the mundane efforts of the socially-conscious residents. Sometimes, it's pure symbolism.
Whatever the case, the world changes, and this popularly-revisited setting changes to fit.
Compare and contrast Empathic Environment.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Played for cynical laughs in Tintin And The Picaros: the story begins with San Theodoros under the control of General Tapioca, complete with an establishing shot of two police officers patrolling an impoverished shantytown, both of them dressed in the crisp uniforms of Tapioca's regime. At the end of the story, after Tintin has won the day for General Alcazar and unseated Tapioca, we return to the same shantytown... which is exactly the same except that the sign has a different name on it and the two police officers are now dressed in the more rumpled uniforms of Alcazar's Picaros — indicating just how little the country has actually changed.
Film — Animated
- Combined with Fisher King in The Lion King (1994): though the effects of the king's leadership extend all over the Pride Lands, the narrative remains focused primarily on Pride Rock itself. As such, the Rock serves a gauge for the health of the Pride lands as a whole: under Mufasa, the Rock is lit by bright sunshine under blue skies, and the surrounding area is lush and green; during Scar's tyrannical reign, the Rock has turned barren and the skies seem perpetually dark and overcast, just like the Outlands — reflecting the fact that the rest of the Pride Lands have been gripped by a massive famine. One Time Skip after Simba unseats Scar, the Rock is green and flourishing once again.
Film — Live-Action
- The courthouse square in the Back to the Future franchise. When we first see it in 1985, the courthouse is dilapidated, the square itself is a parking lot, and the buildings flanking it include an adult cinema and bookstore, as well as empty buildings because shops have moved to Twin Pines Mall, representing the "grim" eighties. Back in 1955, the courthouse is well-maintained, the square is a village green, and the cinema and other businesses are all "nice" family places, all representing the more idealistic fifties. By 2015, the courthouse is in better condition, but only by becoming a shopping mall, and the square is an ornamental lake (the parking having moved underground), suggesting that the film's version of 2015 is not entirely better or worse than previous eras. In 1985-A, the courthouse has been gutted completely to become Biff's Pleasure Palace, and the businesses in the square include strip clubs and brothels, obviously representing "like the regular eighties, but worse". And in 1885, it's still under construction, representing the town's early pioneering spirit.
- The Dark Crystal: The palace of the Skeksis is a dismal, bleak place, as though made from black mold and creosote. Once the central crystal is made whole again, the dingy outer layer of the palace crumbles and falls away, leaving a glittering, crystalline palace shining in the midday suns.
- In Daybreakers, the subway is used no less than three times to gauge the current state of vampire society. At the beginning of the film, when blood stocks are still relatively plentiful, the platform is calm and orderly, with commuters casual, the refreshments stand still selling coffee with 20% blood, and apart from the "CAPTURE HUMANS" advert in the background, it could be any train station... but a quick pan down reveals that two Subsiders are hiding under the platform. Towards the middle of the film, the train station is in shambles as global blood supplies run low: the commuters are beginning to visibly degenerate, exhibiting pointed ears and junkie-like shivering fits; soldiers can be seen hauling people away in the background, and actually have to suppress a riot at the coffee stand; worse still, an entire pack of Subsiders is hiding under the platform. By the end, the train station is filthy and deserted except for the huge group of Subsiders living under it — and the troops sent in to wipe them out; fittingly, the "Capture Humans" sign has been vandalized to read "CAPTURED ALL HUMANS. NOW WHAT?"
- As with the books, the Harry Potter series doesn't often stray far from Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry, so the school's decor and atmosphere frequently reflect the state of magical Britain as a whole. Usually, everything seems bright and cheerful, but...
- In Prisoner of Azkaban, the society-wide fear of the escaped Sirius Black has spread to Hogwarts, first resulting in the Dementors being called in as security, then — after an apparent break-in — forcing the students to sleep in the Great Hall for their own safety while massive locking mechanisms begin clamping down around the castle.
- In Order Of The Phoenix, Cornelius Fudge's authoritarian crackdown on any mention of Voldemort's return prompts sweeping changes at Hogwarts at the direction of Dolores Umbridge: by the end, the walls are covered with framed declarations of newly-instituted rules, the animated paintings are being forcibly evicted, and it's not uncommon to see Umbridge patrolling the corridors, smugly inspecting her handiwork.
- When Voldemort seizes control of Britain, Harry and co. wisely avoid major population centres, so the changes to society are reflected at Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows Part 2: the castle now seems tinted a sickly grey, the students only travel in orderly regiments, and the air above Hogwarts is under the watchful eyes of the Dementors.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers at first shows Isengard as a landscaped arboretum — and then shows Saruman's minions uprooting the trees and turning the place into an industrial wasteland, reflecting the wizard's turn to power-mad evil.
- The White Tree of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King serves as a reflection of how the kingdom is currently faring: at present, with Denethor's leadership failing and Sauron's forces invading Gondor, the tree is dead and skeletal; in Pippin's vision, he sees the tree on fire — a sure sign that Minas Tirith itself is in danger — prompting Gandalf to journey there as quickly as possible; when Aragorn arrives to save the day, a single flower sprouts from the tree. In the end, with Sauron dead, Aragorn on the throne, and the land finally at peace, the tree is alive and in full bloom.
- The Council Bunker of Threads often serves as a measure of the current state of society and the government. It seems fairly orderly at first — but it soon becomes clear that most of the committee have no idea what they're doing, much like the rest of the city. Then, once the bomb hits, the town hall collapses on top of the bunker, leaving the council trapped inside (killing one of them, mirroring the many casualties aboveground). As the weeks go by and the situation gets worse, the bunker becomes progressively messier: dirty plates pile up, empty packets of cigarettes cover the tables, buckets are hastily set up under the leaking roof, and the clothes of the council members grow rumpled and dirty. More worryingly, with the vents blocked by several thousand tons of rubble, air quality drops lower and lower, leaving several council members collapsed against the wall. By the time anyone arrives to rescue them, the council has long since suffocated to death; from here on, society has reached the point of no return and is controlled entirely by the decaying remains of the military.
- In It's a Wonderful Life, the alternate Bedford Falls in which George Bailey was never born is instead Potterville, a loud, gaudy, neon-lit hellscape of rough bars, winos, girlie joints, and (implied, as this was 1946) hookers.
- In It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, inspired by the above, in the world in which Kermit was never born, Rachel Bitterman has replaced the park with Bitterman Plaza shopping mall (with a statue of Bitterman herself "conquering nature" in place of the one of Kermit "dedicated to the children of the world"), and the Muppet Theatre with a rave-culture nightclub called Club Dot.
Literature
- Throughout the Discworld series, Ankh Morpork is a squalid but weirdly likeable Wretched Hive, and Unseen University is a cosy, tawdry, lovably dysfunctional Wizarding School with only vague pretensions to grandeur. As such, when Coin the Sourcerer begins altering Unseen University in Sourcery to make it more impressive, it signifies a very worrying change to the status quo; in turn, when the Sourcery-empowered wizards transform the filthy square outside into a polished Shining City — against the wishes of the people — it's a sign to all and sundry that a new, tyrannical Magocracy is being formed on the Disc. When Coin is finally freed from his abusive father's control, he undoes the changes to the University and the city — a microcosm of the repairs he's making to the world as a whole.
- Given that the Harry Potter series commonly remains focused on Hogwarts, the occasional visits to the Ministry of Magic's atrium serve as an effective measure of the state of Wizarding Britain. For example, when Harry first visits in Order of the Phoenix, the main monument on display is the Fountain of Magical Brethren, a series of golden statues depicting a Wizard, a Witch, a Centaur, a Goblin and a House Elf — the latter three looking up to the magical humans in adoration. It's supposed to represent harmony in the magical world, but in practice, it just ends up representing the Ministry's backwards, self-important attitude. During the Death-Eater attack on the Ministry, the fountain ends up being destroyed in the Wizard Duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore, a sure sign that the imagined prosperity of magical Britain is over. After Voldemort takes over the ministry entirely in Deathly Hallows, the fountain is replaced with the Magic Is Might monument, a statue depicting a witch and a wizard sitting on thrones made entirely out of naked Muggles, each one made to look as ugly and stupid as possible — reflecting the new government's philosophy and style of governance.
- In Lev Grossman's The Magicians, the Neitherlands are normally a gloomy but largely sedate Portal Crossroad World that manifests as a ruined city decorated with fountains — and given that the protagonists are incurably driven to travel, it's returned at least once or twice per book. However, in The Magician King, it's soon discovered that weather has inexplicably arrived in the Neitherlands, freezing the fountains and consuming the place in a potentially lethal blizzard — a sure sign to magicians in the know that something very bad is on the horizon. It turns out that the gods have become aware that mortals have learned how to manipulate reality through magic as they have, and are now out to destroy magic — hence the erratic weather in the Neitherlands. When Quentin returns to the Neitherlands at the end of the story, he finds that the frost is beginning to melt and plantlife is beginning to grow throughout the ruined city, signifying that the heroes' efforts have paid off and magic has been preserved.
- In World War Z, the narrator can't talk to everybody affected by the Zombie War (as it's essentially every person in the entire world), so he interviews certain exemplars who were present for the most relevant episodes. As such, though Jessika Hendricks' experiences were limited to a national park in Canada, this segment serves as an overview of the refugee situation across the world and the environmental devastation that occurred as a result: she describes how both their camp and the pristine wilderness degenerated over a matter of months, featuring mass deforestation, environmental degradation, Polar Madness, fighting, murder, starvation, and cannibalism. By the present day, the national park is a Polluted Wasteland littered with frozen zombies, rubbish from the camps, and the remains of past "meals." Jessika implies that this breakdown was worse in other places such as Japan.
Live-Action TV
- In the Farscape episode "Different Destinations," the current state of the planet — and by extension, history itself — is regularly conveyed through the state of the monastery courtyard back in the present: at the start of the episode, it's a monumental tribute to a legendary peace arrangement between the Venek Horde and the Jocacean nurses. When Crichton and co get flung back in time to the time of the actual peace arrangement, they naturally find that it's a war zone; soon after, Jool returns to the present to find that the monastery is ruined and marked with the banners of the Venek Horde — indicating that history has gone horribly wrong. After a messy series of disasters in which the planet itself is ruined and even vanishes back in the present, Crichton and the others are able to supposedly restore things to normal, then get back to their own time — only to discover that the monastery is now a memorial to the senseless deaths of the nurses, who were murdered thanks to the changes Crichton made to the timeline.
- The Mirror Universe in Smallville is represented by a deserted Kent Farm, a Daily Planet with "Luthorcorp Media" emblazoned on the globe, a Fortress of Solitude filled with Lionel Luthor's machinery, and a Watchtower that's a Kryptonite murder hole.
- In the Warehouse 13 episode "Endless Terror", Paracelsus alters history so he's been running the Warehouse since the 15th century, and has changed their remit from storing artifacts safely to experimenting with them on human subjects. The "new" Warehouse lacks the Steampunk quirkiness of the regular version, with a high-tech but soulless interior.
Video Games
- Black & White: In the first game, each village center has a statue indicating its current patron god, while flags are raised outside the village store to indicate the villagers' most pressing needs. In the second, town centers have a fountain or brazier to represent your place on the Karma Meter and statues to represent the townspeople's needs and desires, with the height of the plinths indicating their magnitude.
- Day of the Tentacle is grounded in the Edison Mansion and never strays far from the building despite the trio's journey through time; as such, the state of the building serves as a reflection of the time period long before you start asking questions. Hoagie ends up two centuries in the past, where the mansion is an idyllic reflection of colonial America, from architectural style to inhabitants — to the point that Ben Franklin is flying a kite on the lawn. In the present, Bernard finds that the mansion has been converted into a rather chintzy hotel, reflecting the Edison family's fall from grace, and is decorated here and there with Lucasarts memorabilia; for good measure, it's now nighttime, befitting the grim state of the family finances and the fact that Purple Tentacle is free to take over the world. Finally, Laverne finishes up two hundred years in the future, where the mansion is now made of polished steel and outfitted with triangular doors — an early indicator that this is a Bad Future in which tentacles rule the world.
- In Final Fantasy IX, Lindblum's overall stability is represented by the forge at the synthesist's shop: when first visited in disc one, the city is at the height of its power and the forge is burning hot enough to melt solid steel; in disc two, after Lindblum is ruined by Queen Brahne and occupied by Alexandran troops, the fire is burning so low that it almost appears to be weeping; in disc three, when reconstruction efforts are well underway, the forge is rekindled and slowly returning to its former strength.
- Near the start of Half-Life 2, we see the train station plaza in a relatively pristine state with citizens milling about, metrocops and scanners patrolling the area casually, mobile walls surrounding the area but being unobstructive while a Breencast plays on a screen mounted on a pre-Combine monument. it all signifies the hold Combine has over the city and the tenuous peace it offers. Towards the end of the game, we see the same plaza, now wrecked from the vicious street fighting across the city, mobile walls having consumed about half the plaza, and the group of La Résistance pulling a Breencast screen down, signifying the Combine's broken hold over the city even as chaos and devastation spread unabated.
- In the PC version of Plague Inc., each country has a picture of a city within it in its information bar. This scene gradually changes as your disease ravages the country more and more, showing the increasing breakdown of society in the face of panic and civil unrest.
- Takeover: Whenever a town is conquered, the surrounding area changes to reflect the owner: forest for the Empire, desert for the Horde, tundra for the Alliance, and wasteland for the undead.
- Throughout The Secret World, the Portal Crossroad World of Agartha is often the most accurate gauge of the overall health of the setting. Early in the game, when the crisis is still mostly under control, Agartha's giant tree is intact, with Custodians patrolling the branches and the whole place lit by welcoming golden light. In Issue #7, it's found that the portal to Tokyo is leaking Filth, leaving an entire branch overtaken by Ominous Obsidian Ooze, a sure sign that the Dreamers are gaining strength. Then, a quirk in time results in the player ending up in a Bad Future in which Agartha has been completely ruined: the portals are inactive, the golden light is gone, the branches are encrusted with giant glowing fungi, and the roof has been torn open to reveal an unchanging night sky lit only by a red giant star — normally only seen in the Dreaming Prison. With this level of destruction, there's no need to venture outside: if the Dreamers have gotten this far, it's obvious that they've already won and the world is essentially dead.
- The Evolving Title Screen of Spec Ops: The Line reflects the current state of Dubai throughout the game. Depicting a sniper sitting on a ledge overlooking the city with an American flag flying upside-down in the background, things are initially calm despite the apocalyptic sandstorm: the sniper is at ease, the flag is mostly intact, the buildings are still standing, and Jimi Hendrix's rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner is playing. However, as Walker and his team continue their mission, the flag becomes increasingly damaged to reflect the havoc the player is unwittingly wreaking; the sniper becomes more alert, and can occasionally be seen taking aim; the song becomes more discordant. Towards the end, the sniper is dead and crows are pecking hungrily at his corpse, while several of the skyscrapers are ablaze in the background corresponding with Walker's deranged assault on the Radioman's tower. Following the finale, there's nothing left of the sniper but bloodstains, the tattered remains of the flag have collapsed onto the perch, several skyscrapers have been burned down to skeletal husks, and the background is obscured by a putrid mass of sickly white smoke — reflecting the fact that Dubai and all its people are doomed, and it's all your fault.
- The city of New Los Angeles in Xenoblade Chronicles X starts off relatively empty with only its human population living inside, as it was one of humanity's arkships escaping from the destruction of Earth. As BLADE encounters more friendly xeno groups throughout the story, they start populating its streets and districts, starting with the Ma-non in Chapter 5 whose starship parks itself above a vacant spot in the city.
Web Video
- Mr. Plinkett Reviews: Discussed in the review of Revenge of the Sith. Plinkett points out that the effects of the war could've been shown affecting Coruscant, thus highlighting the issues to the audience. Specifically, he claimed they could've seen the bustling nightlife slow to a stop as the film progressed, and explored the idea of a draft being placed on the citizens of the planet.
Real Life
- The Waffle House Disaster Index
. It measures the strength of natural disasters by whether or not the local Waffle Houses are open. Yes, it's a real thing.
- The gates of the Temple of Janus on the Roman Forum in Ancient Rome were closed during wartime.
- Changing the flags flown on landmark buildings has often been used to symbolise a change of era.
- The flying of flags at half-staff is clear visual shorthand that a tragedy has occurred, while (in the United States, at least) flying the flag upside-down is a signal of distress or of political protest.
