In Fiction
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Anime & Manga
The home visit, the fireworks, the birthday, and the moon-viewing. How do you explain all these events and still not make any progress?
—Hayasaka, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War
Comic Books
Sometimes I feel like nothing ever changes. Like I'm stuck in a cycle of the same things happening to me over and over again. It's like no matter how hard I try to learn from my mistakes, how much I try to alter my destiny or whatever, we all know how the story is gonna end.
— Peter Parker, The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 5 #29
"Indeed? So, you would say I am just a villain in Captain America's ongoing tale? [...] He has fought for decades, with only ze illusion of meaningful victory. Ze world is no safer place because of him. He struggles for nothing."
— Batroc, The Unbelievable Gwenpool
"Say, it ever occurs to you guys how that thing happens every year? Some kinda crazy big emergency the superguys gotta stop from destroyin' the world, an' then everything just goes back to normal?"
—Tommy Monaghan, Hitman
Fanfiction
But the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. No matter what happened, Status Quo was an immortal god enthroned on a hill of skulls, drinking the blood of virgins from a chalice of razor-faceted obsidian. Many brave fools had tried to slay it, but it was not something you could fell.
—EvilFuzzy9, I Am NOT Going Through Puberty Again!
Film — Live-Action
Stick to the stuff you know
If you wanna be cool
Follow one simple rule
Don't mess with the flow, no no
Stick to the status quo
Stick to the stuff you know
It is better by far
To keep things as they are
Don't mess with the flow, no no
Stick to the status quo
If you wanna be cool
Follow one simple rule
Don't mess with the flow, no no
Stick to the status quo
Stick to the stuff you know
It is better by far
To keep things as they are
Don't mess with the flow, no no
Stick to the status quo
—High School Musical, "Stick to the Status Quo"
"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"
— Michael Corleone, Godfather Part III
Literature
"Those heavily invested in the status quo had difficulty thinking outside of it—and were often tainted by it."
—Daniel Suarez, Influx
Susan knew that [Jimmy] Stewart would win the election but never take office. That was how the story always goes: the young reformer wins in the end, but by the next picture, the corrupt machine politicians are still in power. Susan wondered if Jimmy ever got tired of the cycle.
Wendell: Not to interrupt, but your cousin Spencer has apparently been kidnapped.
Danny: Oh, yeah, that. I mean, I suppose that's awful...in theory...
Wendell: I thought you were friends after we all went to Camp Jackalope together.
Danny: Yeah. Then he came over for three days at Thanksgiving and made that wa-waaaaah...noise every time I died playing Super Mech Unleashed. And then when I tried to get him to stop, he told his mom, and his mom told my mom, and there was a lecture about sharing and—look, we sort of un-bonded.
Danny: Oh, yeah, that. I mean, I suppose that's awful...in theory...
Wendell: I thought you were friends after we all went to Camp Jackalope together.
Danny: Yeah. Then he came over for three days at Thanksgiving and made that wa-waaaaah...noise every time I died playing Super Mech Unleashed. And then when I tried to get him to stop, he told his mom, and his mom told my mom, and there was a lecture about sharing and—look, we sort of un-bonded.
Music
One step forward, and two steps back
Nobody gets too far like that
One step forward, and two steps back
This kind of dance can never last
Nobody gets too far like that
One step forward, and two steps back
This kind of dance can never last
—The Desert Rose Band, "One Step Forward"
It feels like I only go backwards baby
Every part of me says "Go ahead"
I got my hopes up again, oh no... not again
Feels like we only go backwards darling
Every part of me says "Go ahead"
I got my hopes up again, oh no... not again
Feels like we only go backwards darling
—Tame Impala, "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards"
Newspaper Comics
"Large corporations welcome innovation and individualism in the same way the dinosaurs welcomed large meteors."
Live-Action TV
Monk: There's an old saying: Don't change anything—ever.
Natalie: That's an old saying?
Monk: I've been saying it for years.
Natalie: That's an old saying?
Monk: I've been saying it for years.
— Monk
Video Games
"Must we keep going around like this...!? Tell me, Crash... is this all there is... forever!?"
— Dr. Neo Cortex, Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
Webcomics
"I'm the last living thing on the planet! Uh... I should have this fixed by next week, folks..."
— Princess Pi, "Princess Pi vs. Everything"
Web Video
"It's fine, guys. All you need to know is that everything went back to normal at the end of the episode."
Western Animation
"It's just a matter of knowing the secret of all TV shows; At the end of the episode, everything is always right back to normal."
— Fry, Futurama
Judge: And I further decree that everything will be just like it was before all this happened! And no one will ever mention it again... under penalty of torture. [The townspeople cheer.]
Peter: Yeah, how did you lose your job anyway, Lois?
Lois: Ah, I don't know, Peter. Do you really care? Does anyone really care?
Peter: I guess you're right. The story's over, everything's back to normal 'til next week, so who gives a damn?
Lois: Ah, I don't know, Peter. Do you really care? Does anyone really care?
Peter: I guess you're right. The story's over, everything's back to normal 'til next week, so who gives a damn?
Stan: Jeff?! I thought you drowned!
Jeff: Nope!
(pregnant pause)
Stan: Alright!
Jeff: Nope!
(pregnant pause)
Stan: Alright!
— American Dad! "Season's Beatings"
"Oh, put that thing away, Samurai. We all know what's going to happen. You'll swing your sword, I'll fly away, and probably say something like, 'I'll be back, Samurai!' And then I'll flutter off over the horizon, and we won't see each other for about a week. And then, we'll do the same thing all over again."
— Aku, Samurai Jack
"There's a certain rhythm to these things! I cause trouble, he shows up, we have some laughs, and the game starts all over again!"
"You can't have happy endings in sitcoms, not really, because, if everyone's happy, the show would be over, and above all else, the show... has to keep going. There's always more show."
Wordgirl: Y'know, it would be nice to have just one villain-free day.
Narrator: Yeah, that would be... really exciting to watch...
Narrator: Yeah, that would be... really exciting to watch...
— Wordgirl
Discussions of this trope
General
We protect the status quo, and make steady war on revision and improvement.
"Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'."
Without deviation, progress is not possible.
— Zen Masters: The Wisdom of Frank Zappa
This too shall pass.
— Persian adage
"Now what happens when the rebels finally win? You see, that's the funny thing. THEY DON'T! At least not if the story becomes a franchise. See, it turns out that building or rebuilding a government after a collapse is like... really hard, especially when it comes to democracies. So while worldbuilding the complex social, economic, and political changes a successful rebellion turned revolution would entail is extremely difficult, resetting the franchise back to status quo is NOT. No matter how many victories, no matter how many times the evil emperor is killed, no matter how many imperial armies crushed, superweapons destroyed, or generals assassinated, the franchise will always be reset back to its money-making default. The rebels will always fight the evil empire... FOREVER. Hey, it's not a revolution until it revolves back around to where it started."
— Terrible Writing Advice, "REBELS"
On Anime & Manga
The line that ends the actual story comes when Keitaro once again walks in on all of them in the changing room, and Naru, once again, sends him blasting off again for the transgression. At which point she says, "You never change!" which sounds like an insult, but is actually the elevator pitch for the whole harem-cottage industry. You will never change, never grow, never meaningfully come to terms with your own feelings or the feelings of others, or find the courage to communicate those feelings honestly. But here's an endless cavalcade of different girls— or you know, the same five or so girls in a near-infinite range of slightly different haircuts— who will love you anyway. Or, you know, a lowest-common denominator amalgamation of the collective insecurities of guys like you, at least.
On Comic Books
Two years, folks. That’s how long the death of the DC Multiverse, the entire stated reason for Crisis, managed to last.
I am not huge into comic books anymore. It is not that I don’t love the characters because I do. It is not that I don’t love the adventure; I do. It is because comic culture has this neurotic fear of change. This is something that is shared by both the makers and the buyers. Now I can understand why from both sides. From the comic book company perspective you want to keep things as static as possible to keep the run going as long as possible to sell the most books. After all, if Batman for examples conquers his demons then that would kind of be it. There would be nothing left for his character to do. From the public perspective we kind of dislike things that are different and prefer the safe norm. Much like fast food we know what we are getting and are fine with the same but fulfilling formula.
But there just reaches a point where it all gets ridiculous. Nothing changes. Okay, I take it back. Things eventually change, but evolution is more observable than character changes in comics. It took what: 60 years for Superman to marry Lois Lane? People still go into full blown freak outs at Superman Returns’ sub plot that Superman and Lois had a kid. Spider-Man even made A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL in order to bring the comics back to the status quo. It reaches damn near comedic levels at times. Batman has either reached self parody or is doing its closest modern interpretation of Sisyphus. Instead of being destined to pushing a boulder uphill for all eternity, Batman has to catch the Joker again and again and again to the end of time.
"What this does is simply recycle old ideas even more and more, not allowing these characters to grow and change. This has led to dubious editorial decisions, like Peter Parker making a deal with Satan to destroy his marriage. Characters that occasionally changed and struck out on their own (Scott Summers leaving the X-Men after Jean Grey died, for instance) are now locked into their positions, calcified and stagnant. The flip side to this is that new characters get strangled in the crib.
— Greg Burgas, "How Kurt Busiek (unwittingly) ruined Marvel and DC superhero comics!
"
""If you take a look at a current Spider-Man comic, you’ll find that he’s maybe twenty years old, he worries a lot about whats right and what’s wrong, and he has a lot of trouble with his girlfriends.
Do you know what Spider-Man was doing fifteen years ago? Well, he was about nineteen years old, he worried a lot about what was right and what was wrong and he had a lot of trouble with his girlfriends."
Do you know what Spider-Man was doing fifteen years ago? Well, he was about nineteen years old, he worried a lot about what was right and what was wrong and he had a lot of trouble with his girlfriends."
Here's a secret — when I finally okayed the clone saga, I told [co-writer] Danny Fingeroth to build a backdoor into it. I said that I wanted to be able to bring Peter back as the real deal...I believe that both comic book creators and comic book fans are a cowardly and superstitious lot. While the fans claim they want change, they tend to react negatively to it. So do most creators!
—Editor Tom DeFalco on The Clone Saga
On Film — Live-Action
Worf is also back, also with no explanation — but after three films, that's given. For the record, when we last saw him on Deep Space Nine, he had just been appointed Ambassador to the Klingon Empire. Now he's back to pushing buttons on a console.
"The easiest complaint to make against the ending of Infinity War is that it exists solely for Marvel Studios to reverse it. Surely they’re not going to leave the status quo with characters like Spider-Man and Black Panther not even existing? … But I would argue this is not a bad thing! A serialized story that can’t return to some sort of status quo is typically a story with no center, one that spins off its axis very quickly. Humans crave some sort of order amid the chaos, and we do in our stories too. The Empire Strikes Back ended with the Empire winning, Han Solo being taken by Jabba the Hutt, and Luke Skywalker facing his darkest moment, and the next film more or less reversed all of that over the course of its running time. Most serialized television involves setting up big, epic changes that are then immediately reversed."
Jay: The fact that nobody believes in ghosts anymore? That makes no sense. After all the events of the first movie? A giant marshmallow man walked down the city streets, but nobody believes in anything supernatural anymore? Did everybody forget?
Rich: Because proof of the existence of ghosts would change the world too much. You still wanna ground the movie in reality.
Mike: That's the thing, though, Ghostbusters wasn't specifically ghosts; it was more interdimensional beings. Especially the ending: an interdimensional god was attacking the Earth. It wasn't dead humans coming back to life, it was more an alien-kinda thing. But you're right: It would change society dramatically. And writing that kinda thing into a sequel would be complex.
Jay: But that would make it interesting. I mean, there is a certain science element to these movies, too.
Mike: Ehh, they went and threw it all into the garbage. And listened to the people at the boardroom table who said, "This is the best way to make a buncha money."
Rich: "Look, Jay: You make a plot about slime so you can sell jars of slime to kids. And you can also make a new backpack that they wear that kids'll wanna buy that SHOOTS slime!"
Rich: Because proof of the existence of ghosts would change the world too much. You still wanna ground the movie in reality.
Mike: That's the thing, though, Ghostbusters wasn't specifically ghosts; it was more interdimensional beings. Especially the ending: an interdimensional god was attacking the Earth. It wasn't dead humans coming back to life, it was more an alien-kinda thing. But you're right: It would change society dramatically. And writing that kinda thing into a sequel would be complex.
Jay: But that would make it interesting. I mean, there is a certain science element to these movies, too.
Mike: Ehh, they went and threw it all into the garbage. And listened to the people at the boardroom table who said, "This is the best way to make a buncha money."
Rich: "Look, Jay: You make a plot about slime so you can sell jars of slime to kids. And you can also make a new backpack that they wear that kids'll wanna buy that SHOOTS slime!"
— Half in the Bag riffs Ghostbusters II
On Live-Action TV
There is no ending. There is no release. Nothing ever changes except the iconography. Because change is death, and the show refuses death.
We've been told that this next episode will change the series forever, and put it on the right track. Take it from a guy that's read a ton of comic books in his time. When they say that, they're trying to sell comic books, and it's only true one time in ten after a few weeks have passed.
"Guys come to the door for dates and Phoebe has to make excuses, one or both of the sisters is disapproving and says to slow things down, and Phoebe must learn to find true love. There, I just nutshelled nearly a decade of television for you."
Annorax: When I first encountered your vessel, it was badly-damaged—barely functioning. What if I told you in a blink of an eye, I can restore her to its former condition?
Chuck: [as Annorax] All we have to do is... let the episode end, and you'll be right as rain next week. Trust me, I know it doesn't make any sense but it always works that way for you.
Chuck: [as Annorax] All we have to do is... let the episode end, and you'll be right as rain next week. Trust me, I know it doesn't make any sense but it always works that way for you.
— SFDebris on ''Star Trek: Voyager: "Year of Hell"
When DS9 was under siege at the end of season five and the Dominion took over, the writers took the bold step to have a six-episode arc where Starfleet was no longer in charge of the station. Unfortunately, the writers of Voyager are nowhere near as bold. The Kazon in control of Voyager is so ineptly handled – they walk around with tricorders talking technobabble… It's like the Starfleet crew isn’t even away!
"How many times has the bridge been destroyed? How many shuttlecrafts have vanished, and another one just comes out of the oven? That kind of bullshitting the audience, I think, takes its toll. At some point the audience stops taking it seriously, because they know that this is not really the way this would happen."
— Ron D. Moore on exiting Star Trek: Voyager
On Video Games
He has burned to death in hot lava. He has been eaten by giant flying fish. He has fallen to death. Oh, God, has he fallen to death. And each time, he's been resurrected by magic he can't possibly begin to understand with his CUNY Brooklyn associate's degree in plumbing.
Only to be rewarded with a kiss on the cheek.
Only to be rewarded with a kiss on the cheek.
I believe that the very first Super Mario Bros represented the only time when Bowser was genuinely kidnapping the princess to pursue his goals, presumably the attainment of power and influence. And he succeeded. From that point on, he is occasionally seen wearing a crown and being identified as 'King of the Koopas'. He lives in a castle and employs most of the land's monster workforce. Why does he need to keep kidnapping her? He's already a king. I don't see the saccharine lands she rules appealing to his taste for lava and perpetual twilight. It must just be some regular ceremony recreating the original successful revolt, like a friendly game between two rival footballing nations.
On Western Animation
When it comes to children’s animated TV shows at the time [of Avatar: The Last Airbender], the goal was to simply continue the story for as long as humanly possible, so the stories had no end built-in. The Fairly OddParents!, Rugrats, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and particularly Nickelodeon’s biggest hit ever, SpongeBob SquarePants are as episodic as animated shows get, and they follow the number 1 unspoken rule of sitcoms: things can’t change and people can’t be content.
"They kinda Retcon and gloss over it, because it's The Simpsons and the show deals with change as badly as fans do."
