The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People

Can't really be a jerk when there's no one non-hostile enough to screw with, you know?^note art credit

"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."

— Professor Barnhardt, The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

In peacetime, certain characters are at best Shrinking Violets and, at worst, menaces to society. But when disaster strikes, they will take the lead, take control, be surprisingly effective, and maybe even be nicer than usual — or if they aren't, at least they don't seem so different from everyone else. They will seem different if any Fridge Logic gets applied. Part of the reason for this is that in extreme situations, characters have more dramatic opportunities to be heroic than they would have as a 9-5 cubicle monkey. When daily survival means standing back to back with your neighbor to help pick off that morning's crop of zombies so they don't murder you for a can of chili later, people can really develop that small-town sense of being decent and helpful to each other.

This sort of character is often forced into a Heroic Sacrifice or (for nastier peacetime examples) Redemption Equals Death. If the character does survive, and if things ever return to a semblance of normal, then they are as likely as not to return to what they had been before the disaster took place, whether anyone wants the jerk back or not.

If this trope leads to the reconciliation of a Romance Arc, you have a Relationship-Salvaging Disaster.

When said apocalypse happens in the Bad Future, this trope leads to Future Badass.

Compare Machiavelli Was Wrong, Rousseau Was Right, and Enemy Mine. Contrast Apocalypse Anarchy and Go Mad from the Apocalypse.

Examples may contain unhidden spoilers, so tread lightly.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• 20th Century Boys: Most of the characters are dissatisfied losers when we first meet them and become fulfilled badasses as the situation in Japan worsens.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Introduced in Dragon Ball Z, Trunks is very noble and polite, compared to the main timeline 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 caused 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 Future Gohan instead of Vegeta.
  • His mother Future Bulma as well. All of Main!Bulma's negative traits shown in both the original Dragon Ball and Z, such as her vanity, arrogance, selfishness, and temper tantrums completely disappear in the future, with her better nature cranked up, almost to the point of bordering an All-Loving Heroine and Big Good, despite Future Trunks claiming that she hadn't changed when Krillin asked him in the manga.
  • Dragon Ball Super: In the same apocalypse mentioned above, 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 Goldfish Poop Gang who wishes to conquer the world.
• Log Horizon: While not a literal apocalypse, the event called The Apocalypse brings out the best in some people, particularly Shiroe, and the worst in others.
• When the New Bloodline drove Tokyo to its knees in Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, it was Da Chief Naohiro Usui (who up to this point was a complete dick) who lead the police and Tokyo to band together to resist him.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: It was only during the Antarctic research expedition that would become Second Impact that Dr. Katsuragi was able to prove how deeply he cared for his family despite his severe neglect. Although sustaining fatal injuries, he used every last bit of strength to carry a teenage Misato to the only intact escape capsule before succumbing to his wounds.
• In Stellvia of the Universe, a star going supernova devastates civilization. Humanity not only rebuilds but creates a Utopia. It is also, however, implied that humanity would have ended up creating a Utopia regardless, only a bit later...
• One of the main characters in Violence Jack was a lazy high school kid who was completely pampered by his mother and sisters. Then 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.
• The World is Full of Monsters Now shows the apocalypse bringing out the best and worst in people. The protagonist, Kodou Kazuto, and the lovely pink-haired sniper he brings into his party go from a corporate drone and a cowardly shut-in respectively, to being two of the top fighters and heroes in the story. Some other P.O.V. characters instead embrace the anarchy and constant peril to set loose their dark desires, treating their fellow survivors like toys, at best, to feed their dark delusions that they usually keep under wraps for fear of punishment.

Comic Books

• Age of Apocalypse: The Daredevil villain Bullseye is a hero fighting for humanity.
• Dark Cybertron: The imminent end of the universe as a result of Shockwave's plotting (along with having some heart-to-heart conversations with Bumblebee) causes Megatron to repent all the death and destruction he's caused and have a Heel–Face Turn, joining the Autobots in order to stop Shockwave.
• DCeased:
  • Lex Luthor puts aside decades of animosity to work with Superman and other superheroes to stave off the Zombie Apocalypse.
  • While it takes nagging from Harley Quinn to do so, Poison Ivy lets go of her hatred of humanity to create a safe zone for survivors in Gotham.
  • The side-story Unkillables has circumstances leading to a group of supervillains — including Deathstroke, Lady Shiva, Solomon Grundy, and Cheetah — holing up in an orphanage. In the process of training the children to fight in order to increase their chances of survival, they bond with them (most notably Cheetah and a little girl who calls her a "good kitty"), and in the end, most of them sacrifice themselves to get the children to Ivy's safe zone.
• Incorruptible: The notorious supervillain Max Damage turns over a new leaf when his archenemy, the Plutonian, goes insane and puts the entire world in jeopardy. The trope is eventually taken to its logical conclusion when Max thanks the Plutonian for going rogue since it inspired Max to become a better person.
• The Magnificent Ms. Marvel: Maliq Zeer, the king of Saffa, is a cruel and despotic tyrant who rules through brute force and intimidation. Once the Beast Legions arrive and overrun the planet, however, he realizes how pointless his tyranny was and gives his life to buy the heroes enough time to save Saffa.

Fan Fiction

• In Miraculous vs. Vampires, a crossover between Miraculous Ladybug and DC vs. Vampires, Shadow Moth steps up as the new Big Good of Paris after Nightwing turns Ladybug and Chat Noir into vampires with Ladybug becoming the new vampire lord of her corrupted teammates. The sequel, The Ambush, Deconstruct this in Gabriel's mind, as he recognizes that the fact it took the end of the world and losing everything for him to even act like a decent person, much less become a proper Butterfly hero, says a lot about his lack of character prior to the crisis. When Nooro praised him for using the Butterfly Miraculous to create heroic Kamikos instead of akumas, Gabriel can't even look him in the eye, though he secretly hopes to properly earn his kwami's approval in the future.
• Scar Tissue: Played straight when it is said that people are working together in order to survive, helping each other and sharing resources. However, it is subverted when we see that some people still keep very ugly attitudes.
• The Second Try: Shinji and Asuka are the last two people on Earth and have to fend for themselves, eventually getting past their laundry list of neuroses and becoming a pair of Badass Bookworms, as well as a pretty good set of parents.
• In a now-defunct Pokémon Zombie Apocalypse RP, Cyrus apparently overcame his Straw Nihilist tendencies in favor of providing information and Mission Control for the survivors (player characters).

Films — Animated

• Maruti from The Return of Hanuman is considered a naughty kid in the village. But when Rahu and Ketu and the volcano monster try to destroy the village, Maruti turns into Hanuman to beat them up. Because Hanuman is a Hindu God, all of the villagers worshipped him.

Films — Live-Action

• Downplayed in Avengers: Endgame. 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 Heel–Face Turn 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 Captain America: Civil War, reconcile and unite in one massive front to defeat Thanos once and for all.
• In Constantine (2005), 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.

• The stuck-up Ice Queen journalist in Deep Impact goes through this, defrosting including in front of her until then hated father, and ultimately gives up a place to safety to help a colleague with a baby and to stay behind, watching with her father the big ass tsunami wiping out everything.
• A common theme of Roland Emmerich's films, especially Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012. 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 Darkness (2011): Poldek, a sewer worker in 1943 Lviv, is a petty thief and a black marketer who dislikes Jews. The dire necessity of the moment — ten Jews hiding out in the sewers after the Nazis liquidate the ghetto — brings out the best in him. After Mr. Chiger tells him they have no money left to pay him, he takes care of them for free, at great personal risk.
• The Big Bad of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol believes this, thinking that causing World War III and having the U.S. 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).
• Schindler's List examines the trope from several angles. Oskar Schindler begins the film as a serial adulterer and war profiteer, but, as the death tolls and dangers increase, he becomes continually more concerned with preserving human life, trying his hardest to keep people alive. Schindler himself believes—ironically—in the opposite of the trope: that war brings out the worst in people, and if the war had not happened then Amon Goeth would be generally a really nice guy. The movie itself suggests that war brings out the truth in people, i.e., Goeth is really a monster, and Schindler is really a good guy, it just took the war for them both to demonstrate what they had always been.
• The title character of Shaun of the Dead, a twenty-something Loser Protagonist from London who is stuck in a dead-end job where the younger employees don't respect him, and a rocky relationship with a girl (entirely through his own fault - she is fed up of how inactive his life is). When the Zombie Apocalypse hits, he becomes a badass zombie slayer due to his knowledge of video games and eventually The Leader of a group. Not only does he make it through the outbreak, but he also fixes his relationship with Liz and finds himself more in control of his life.
• The Big Bad terrorist of Source Code appears to believe that "The World Is Hell" and that a better (or at least happier) society will rise if he destroys the old one (by setting off homemade nukes throughout the country). He remains extremely vague on his Motive Rant, though, and this (and the fact that he's a white-bread well-to-do American with enough money, connections and smarts to create said home-made nukes by his lonesome) makes protagonist Captain Colter Stevens to label him as "crazy" and call him out on this as such:
  Colter: [calling 911 after stealing his phone] Hey, my name's Derek Frost. I planted a nuclear device in the white van parked in a Glenbrooke Station CCR parking lot. Right now, I'm handcuffed to a pole in the 944 CCR train headed to Chicago Union Station. I'm a sick and pathetic human being and I need to be locked away for a very long time.
• A famous speech in The Third Man 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.
• 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. Except,it's all a lie.

• General Ludendorff in Wonder Woman (2017), who is not actually Ares, seems to believe this, which is true to the man's real beliefs.
  Ludendorff: War gives man purpose. Meaning. A chance to rise above his petty mortal little self. And be courageous. Noble. Better.

Literature

• Most of the Americans in the 1632 series are hillbillies from a small town in West Virginia and had the town not been transported back in time to Germany during the Thirty Years' War, they would probably have remained a group of working-class miners and locals from a small town in the early 2000s. Once they 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.
• Most characters in Alas, Babylon 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 Men Against the Sea, the second novel in The Bounty Trilogy, The Mutiny 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, The Medic, 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 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.
• Codex Alera:
  • The Vord invasion causes the otherwise scheming Anti-Villain 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. In the end, when 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, First Lord Octavian says that 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 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.
• Emberverse 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.
• In The Ending Series, 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 in.
• 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.
• Sam in the Gone series takes the lead during the FAYZ, despite being completely average during normal circumstances.
  • Taking charge when things get tough and attempting (not always succeeding) to go back to being an Ordinary High-School Student is an established character trait for Sam.
    • Even before the FAYZ, when he saved a busload of his classmates from going over a cliff.
    • Though, completely averted with other characters.
    • In most ways, this trope is Zig-Zagged among the main cast. Sam often states that he doesn't want to be a leader, mental breakdowns come more than Once an Episode, and more than one character has become a Heel–Face Revolving Door.
• In Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's history The Gulag Archipelago, 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 allotted 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.
• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Neville Longbottom beheads Lord Voldemort's Horcrux-snake after spending the whole year leading La Résistance against Hogwarts' takeover.
• In The Screwtape Letters, elder tempter Screwtape warns his protege Wormwood not to enjoy human misery too much (the setting is WWII), because war and hardship can make people more moral and loving than they otherwise would be. He's even suspicious that The Enemy is playing a long game where He wins either way, since the devils don't want human virtue to increase but they can't not make humans miserable.
• Harold Lauder of The Stand. For a while, anyway. Larry Underwood is a more straightforward example, changing from a hedonistic rock star type to a pillar of The Free Zone's community.
• The central thesis of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is that even in the darkest of days, when all seems lost, a person nevertheless has the ability and the choice to find meaning, satisfaction, and some form of joy in their lives instead of falling immediately into despair, bitterness, and selfishness. The author draws upon his experiences as a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps as an illustration. Frankl acknowledges that this is not guaranteed and depends on the person in question actually making that choice, but argues that it is also not guaranteed that dark times must cause someone to retreat from the world into bitterness, hopelessness, and misanthropy. Essentially, in Frankl's argument, the trope is less "The Apocalypse Brings Out The Best In People" and more that "Even In The Apocalypse You Are Still Capable Of Being Your Best Self".
• In Humankind: A Hopeful History, Rutger Bregman argues this is Truth in Television. Citing both London's response to the Blitz and the retaliatory bombings that ravaged Germany, he argues that the quintessential British character is actually the quintessential human character.

Live-Action TV

• Early on in The 100, Bellamy only seems to care about himself and 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 antagonist, but by the end of the first season, he's one of the most heroic characters on the show.
• One episode of Angel includes a subplot where a homeless shelter is under siege by zombified cops. One of the people trapped there is a gangbanger who showed himself to be a violent, selfish Smug Snake 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.
• Derren Brown attempts to show this in Apocalypse, a large-scale Candid Camera Prank aimed at one lazy man-child named Steven. He is tricked into believing that he is a survivor of a Zombie Apocalypse caused by a meteorite. Everyone else is an actor, including dozens of "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 a trance again and is made to believe it was All Just a Dream.
• Babylon 5:
  • G'Kar was an arrogant jerk when his people, the Narn, were on top. When the Centauri (aided by the Shadows) conquered and brutally oppressed the Narn homeworld, he evolved into a leader, a hero, and eventually, a prophet.
  • Quiet Centauri aide Vir also discovered his inner hero after the conquest of Narn, using his position to smuggle 2000 Narns to safety.
  • Londo gets worse at first but then gets better when he realizes what working with the Shadows and Morden is doing to his people and to himself. He spends a good portion of the series working to mitigate the damage wrought by his earlier actions.
• In the finale of Blackadder Goes Forth, with the main characters about to be sent into No Man's Land, Blackadder puts aside his usual Comedic Sociopathy. When his recurring nemesis Darling is sent to the front line, he treats him with courtesy and respect. When Baldrick declares that he has a plan, instead of mocking and sneering as usual he ruefully remarks that Baldrick's idea (whatever it is) is probably better than what he came up with. Finally, he sincerely (if futilely) wishes everyone good luck.
• Chernobyl: Boris Shcherbina is a careerist apparatchik who (by his own admission) only trusted that the Kremlin was telling the truth about the "mildness" of the accident because they put someone as unimportant as him in charge. When he realizes how dire the situation is, he begins to turn into a Badass Bureaucrat and pushes to get everything that the scientists need, helping them navigate the political difficulties, and even giving a Rousing Speech to persuade three plant workers to undertake a Suicide Mission.
• In the classic Doctor Who episode "Genesis of the Daleks", the Doctor cites this as one of the reasons why he feels he doesn't have the right to wipe out the Daleks before their campaign of genocide: several races had managed to set aside their hatreds and unite solely because of their fear of the Daleks.
• In the Grand Finale of Flashpoint, Parker urges the public to make this the case when the city is under threat from a Mad Bomber.
  "Today is the kind of day that we'll all look back at, years from now, and remember exactly where we were and what we did. We have a chance to make choices here that we will be proud of. Today's the day that we did not let fear break us down and turn us against each other. This was the day that we took care of each other. The day that we said no to terror, together. I want us all to think about how we want to remember this day. It's up to us."
• The last season of Game of Thrones features just about every surviving named character, many of whom used to be bitter enemies, coming together to make a stand against the Night King at Winterfell... and then, after he's defeated, the second half of the season sees all their old rifts and rivalries reassert themselves.
• Most of the protagonists of Jericho (2006) undergo this, with lead character Jake being one of the best examples.
• The Outer Limits (1995): In the episode "The Haven", servant A.I.s 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 Power Rangers RPM. A shallow Rich Bitch before the Robot War, 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 Badass Biker Action Girl 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.
• Supernatural: Castiel is from a race of Light Is Not Good angels who are fanatical in their devotion to the idea of an apocalypse that will bring about paradise on earth. Thanks to his friendship with the Winchester brothers, Castiel rebels and works with them to avert the apocalypse and the billions of human deaths it would cause. In the process, he learns to be more compassionate, far less fanatical, and falls in love with humanity in general and Dean in particular. Averted in two alternative timelines that find him either a fully human depressed stoner running a sex cult or a fully powered angel who is an Exalted Torturer with contempt for humanity.
• Daryl Dixon of The Walking Dead (2010) 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 calls him on his racist comments.

Tabletop Games

• Magic: The Gathering:
  • The plane of Ravnica is a City Planet that is ruled by ten guilds. One for every combination of the five colors of magic. Every guild has its own rule in the city, but their diversity of methods and beliefs often leads to clashes among them. But the invasion of Nicol Bolas and his army of Eternals makes them finally act in accordance with each other in order to defeat him.
  • When New Phyrexia begins their Invasion of the Multiverse, the inhabitants of every single plane put aside their differences to drive them off. From a lowly bellringer riding the Elder Dragon leader of an enemy clan into battle, to an angel paragon and a vampire chieftain fighting side by side, to even a horrific frog monster teaming up with a cathar dedicated to protecting the innocent, everyone works together to defend their worlds from the Phyrexian threat.

Video Games

• In Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, Brenner is very proud to see that what's left of humanity after the meteors hit have banded together to form small communities and even enforce rudimentary laws among themselves. Lin scoffs at the idea that this is a reflection of humanity's kindness, instead stating that it's nothing more than survival and that everyone involved is really just looking out for themselves. While Lin's theory is supported by the fact that even after the apocalypse, there's still a war going on and tyrants like Greyfield still rise to power, Brenner's theory is supported by the likes of Tasha and Gage dropping their lifelong grudge with Rubinelle once and for all upon witnessing the noble side of Brenner and Will, and even artificial rapidly-aged test-tube humans like Isabella, Cyrus, and Penny choosing to be good people in spite of being an absolute blank slate (Isabella), being trained to be evil from birth by his "father" (Cyrus), and being mentally broken to the point of insanity by cruel experiments (Penny). In the end, it seems to settle on "The Apocalypse Brings Out The Best In Most People." Even Lin lightens up in the end.
• Death Stranding: Most people you have to connect with are more than happy to join the Chiral Network, to share their work and discoveries with others and help them avoid the Death Stranding. Some of the preppers are hesitant at first, but they still want to pitch in and help others after you prove your worth. Many of them will happily give you gifts and schematics of things that might be useful on your journey (exoskeletons, weapons, better gear or backpack charms that give you different perks) just out of the goodness of their hearts.
• Subverted in Devil Survivor and Devil Survivor 2
  • In Devil Survivor, the apocalypse isn't happening, but the Yamanote train line areas of Tokyo have been locked down and separated from the rest, with no one allowed to leave. And nobody, aside from the protagonists, really shows their good sides. And even the protagonists aren't immune to this. There is Midori, who becomes an overzealous 'Warrior of Love and Justice', and uses her demons to help people in danger, but it ultimately backfires on her pretty fast. Even Keisuke, the quiet, academic boy shows a pretty dark side of his mentality, when his Berserk Button is pushed. Worse, the policemen locked into the Yamanote circle gain access to using demons and begin to abuse their position.
  • In Devil Survivor 2:
    • The world is breaking down, and literally being swallowed into a void, but the majority of the people are still no better. There are people like Ronaldo, who makes it his job to take care of the weaker people out on the street, protecting them from demons with his own and trying to get food and shelter for them. But overall, the majority of humanity is now separated into the protagonists' side, helpless, cowering, and fearful civilians that are slowly losing their will to live, and the aggressive civilians, who have begun to grow insane because of the circumstances and will use violence to get what they want.
    • 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 premise of this ending, is debatable.
    • Played straight in the Triangulum Arc. The apocalypse happening is very similar to that of the original arc, though the enemies are the Triangulum and not the Septentriones, but Miyako Hotsuin uses her authority as leader of JP's to ensure food and shelter is given to the people in Tokyo that don't have access to the demon-summoning program. This leads to said apocalypse running a little more smoothly than before, with no fractures between society occuring and leading to the party to not have to fight rogue demon summoners.
• Dragon Age:
  • Parodied in Dragon Age: Origins: 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 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 Dragon Age: Inquisition 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 organization in Thedas.
• Optional storylines in Fallout 4. 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.
• Invoked by the Big Bad of Fate/EXTRA, whose ultimate plan is to grant power to war profiteers like the Harway dynasty, so good people will always be helping each other in the constant war. Said antagonist claims to be a pacifist himself.
• Also invoked by Kirei Kotomine, Big Bad of Fate/stay night. In his own sick twisted way, he loves humankind and inflicting pain, misery, and untold suffering on it, because according to him, from it will shine the true value of human souls. It certainly helps that he is HARDWIRED to enjoy inflicting misery on his fellow man, helping him to achieve personal satisfaction while technically working for the betterment of his kin.
  • The same could also be said of Gilgamesh, albeit for specific values of "best": he thinks only the few humans capable of surviving the hell he will unleash on them are worthy to be ruled. The worst part? He is admittedly right, and has a proof of concept: the Unholy Nuke that leveled part of the city of Fuyuki and killed five hundred people, had only one survivor, Emiya Shirou, the protagonist. Said protagonist has the actual, proven potential to be a Future Badass, a modern-day Heroic Spirit. Rinse, wash, repeat with the whole world next time, and see what Badassery comes out.
  • This is also arguably Played With, what with Shirou certainly being a Nice Guy, willing to put himself on the line for others at every turn, but the problem is that in his case, given he is literally defined by his Survivor Guilt and the wish to become a Hero, he takes it way far beyond the reasonable. He keeps on being called out on that by people who ignore his background. They become a bit more understanding after listening to his backstory.
• Final Fantasy X:
  • Both Jecht and Tidus become better people and heroes by being plucked out of their normal environment in Zanarkand and dropped into the often deadly Crapsack World that is Spira. Jecht went from an alcoholic and abusive Jerk Jock of a father to a hero willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of other people, while Tidus went from a childish athlete with tons of issues and operating for somewhat selfish reasons, (he only goes along with Yuna pilgrimage at first because he thinks it might give him a chance to get out of Spira) to a great guardian who matures, becomes more altruistic and saves the world at the cost of his own life.
  • Many of the game's NPCs drop petty grudges and divisions and do what they can to help during the confrontation with Sin.
• Left 4 Dead 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 three 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.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Groose from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Originally just a bully and a Jerk Jock, when he follows Link to the surface and sees 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 Oracle of Ages, overcoming his Nayru fixation to focus on the kingdom in crisis, and even attempting a Heroic Sacrifice without question to thwart the villain, not because he expects it to succeed, but because "to stand by and do nothing... just wouldn't be me".
• This is basically Paragon Shepard's view on the Reaper invasion in Mass Effect 3, in a nutshell. And given how many missions, War Assets, and side conversations involve old grudges laid aside, self-sacrifice for the cause, and 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 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 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.
• Plague Inc.: 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 Soul Nomad & the World Eaters, after Revya becomes a powerful, malevolent Villain Protagonist, a number of villains of the normal storyline turn Face.
• 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 Benevolent Precursors throw aside their arrogance and act as a true Big Good, throwing together a 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.
• Total War: Warhammer features the "Shield of Civilization" mechanic: in the face of Chaos invading the world, Enemy Mine ensues and a major diplomatic boost occurs between Empire Provinces, Kislev, Southern Realms, Bretonnian Kingdoms, and Dwarf Realms. Total War: Warhammer II adds High Elves and Lizardmen to the list of Shield of Civilization supporters. Most poignantly of all, sometimes the alliances last long after the threat to the world has been dealt with - fighting side by side, the defenders of the world have come to respect each other and will build a better world together.
• In 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 Heroic Sacrifice 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 Hold the Line unlike Undyne, 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. By the time your fight with Undyne is over, the population of New Home is already hidden in her lab, safe from you. If you abort your Genocide run by failing to hit Mettaton NEO hard enough and get a Neutral ending, Alphys will tell you that she's taken a leadership role, and despite her anxieties, she's come clean about her wrongdoings and led the survivors as they try to rebuild their civilization.
  • Sans finally gets over his laziness and feeling of hopelessness in a last effort to save the timeline, with a ridiculously hard boss fight where he blatantly breaks and exploits the combat system, in the hopes of pissing you off so much you'll Rage Quit.
  • Even Flowey shows his more Tragic Villain side in this run, telling you to stop and even attempting to warn Asgore of your approach.

Webcomics

• Discussed in Freefall when Florence acknowledges that she would never have known about Gardener in the Dark if Edge hadn't needed her help to save himself from it and wouldn't have been able to stop its release without Sam's social engineering, infiltration, and sabotage expertise.
  "All my life, I've been taught the value of being a good citizen... No one ever told me that when the chips are down, civilization really needs the rotten ones."

Web Original

• SCP Foundation: SCP-3008, an IKEA store with impossible dimensions home to many colonies of ordinary people who got lost inside and besieged by monstrous "staff" who attack every night. A journal from one resident that might it out lampshades how in TV and movies you'd see people in such a situation turn on each other, while in the store basic human decency seems to prevail.

Web Videos

• To Boldly Flee has the most Knight of Cerebus villains flying at Channel Awesome, and the reviewers come out of it the nicest they've ever been. Most notably, The Nostalgia Critic saves the world to look after his friends and doesn't even want them to know.

Western Animation

• Arthur: Season 4's "The Blizzard" When Elwood City is hit by a terrible blizzard, that causes a power outage, the Read house becomes a haven for most of the neighborhood as the blizzard gets worse, with David making stew from whatever food people could bring. Once the snow stops, they work together to dig out and restore services.
• Danny Phantom: It took losing his ghost powers, watching Danny turn evil and murder his human half, and the deaths of Jack and Maddie for Vlad Masters to finally become a good person in the alternate timeline of The Ultimate Enemy. Unfortunately, his prime timeline counterpart never had this much experience, and he continues his evil deeds until even Jack Fenton regards him as Beyond Redemption.
• In Gravity Falls, Weirdmageddon has this effect on quite a few characters.
  • Notably, insecure almost-13-year-old Dipper Pines and cranky con man Stan both take on leadership roles, the former becoming master of the Rousing Speech and the latter sheltering townspeople in the weirdness-immune Mystery Shack.
  • Awkward handyman Soos walks the earth lending aid to those who need him most.
    Soos: I've been wandering the plains like a desperado, helping strangers... I guess there's some folk songs about me now?
  • Both the Stans after holding on to their mutual grudges for so long, decides to finally bury the hatchet in order to stop Bill after a botched attempt due to their argument.
• Leon from Titan Maximum became the Sixth Ranger of the team in a time of need. He's still silent.

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