This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Adonic Meki: Put some examples from The Tokyo Fireball Discussion in After the End where they seem to belong.
Robert: I've shortened the post-Rome example, which was of questionable historical accuracy. Historians are still debating how bad conditions were post-Rome, so we shouldn't be making definitive statements.
This trope seems to be confined to the period immediately post-Rome - a few generations only. The rise of the Holy Roman Empire, circa the 10th century, is too late a terminus for the period. The name 'Dark Ages' was coined by 14th century Italian humanists, who did intend it to be derogatory. Modern historians use the term neutrally, when they use it at all, but this wiki is probably not the best place to be explaining the nuances of historical terminology, so I removed the term completely.
Anonymous: I think it's a little hypocritical that this article describes "Post-Apocalyptic" as an inaccurate term, while the article itself is named "After The End". They seem equally nonsensical to me.
Silent Hunter: I came up with the title for this trope and used "After the End" as meaning "After The End of the World as We Know It". That's not hypocritical. BTW, the reason I described "post-apocalyptic" as inaccurate because after the Apocalypse in Revelation comes Judgement Day, a new Heaven and a new Earth.
Wyvern: Actually the original, literal meaning of apocalypse is "a prophetic revelation," not "the end of the world".
Your Obedient Serpent: I remembered a couple more Saturday Morning post-apoc series for children, and suddenly, it went from being "possibly the only time" to "wow, you see that a lot in this context".
Jerry Kindall: Yeah, good call. I originally added the Ark II mention, nice to see someone else thought of some more!
Erica MZDM: Minor comment, but I always thought Land Before Time was pretty explicit on the Great Valley being the dinosaurs' last hurrah - it was just made at a time when gradual climate change was the preferred explanation for why the dinos died. (I refuse to discuss the sequels. <_< )
Ununnilium: Yeah, but it was vague enough that you can't really be sure — and, after all, there were more extinctions among the dinosaurs than just The Big One.
I put up the "Earth sucks in the future" quote, but I'm not sure this is exactly the trope it describes. It seems like a lot of space fiction handwaves Earth out of the picture so they don't have to deal with extrapolating such a complex setting into the future. Does that make sense? —Document N
Haesslich: Edited the Babylon 5 entry, as Earth was the only planet bombed into the dark ages (by itself) in the 'five hundred years later' segment. The colonies helped (covertly) put Earth's society back together; humans as a species were okay otherwise.
I'd just like to point out that the quote at the top of the page re: Evangelion is a little bit like saying that the reason comics have superheroes is because Watchmen did.
nayhem:Not sure how many examples support this, but this and End of an Age—tropes that suggest the loss of society—suggest also the loss of history and knowledge. Maybe the survivors can't make sense of the old writings; maybe the knowledge or treasures have been raided (IRL, Iraqi museums looted by the locals after the "Shock and Awe"); maybe the old ways just don't apply anymore. I wanted to include this, but was unsure of how to go about it, where it applied, or if it could be expanded upon.
Molly Walker: Would V For Vendetta fall under this category?
Lord Zack: Would the flood stories fall under this trope?
Attorney At Lawl: I went ahead and removed the following from the Video Games section on this trope:
- ''Turning Point: Fall Of Liberty' takes place in an alternate history after the Nazis won WWII, conquered Europe and are invading/occupying the US.
This example does not fit under this trope. The world is far from even beginning to be over. While the Nazis taking over everything is bad, it is not the end of the world, nor is it After the End.
