History Main / HopeSpringsEternal

* A persistent theme of ''Frachise/DarkSouls''; no matter how many times you die, no matter how badly the world has suffered, no matter how hopeless the given situation is, there is still some glimmer of resolve to draw strength from and carry on with, [[ArcSymbol like tiny embers dancing amongst the dark.]] WordOfGod even states that quitting the game is emblematic of your character finally going Hollow, so the theme even works in a meta-sense.

* ''Comicbook/StarWarsTales'' #19, "Storyteller", is set in the far, far future of the galaxy. C-3PO has told a young boy named Remoh the story of the films. The story ends with him destroyed, and Remoh taking up Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, ready to stand against [[TheEmpire the new Empire]].

* In a (now non-canon) ''Franchise/StarWars'' comic set far into the future, two children of an oppressed alien race found the body of C-3PO. The droid spent his last moments telling the story of Luke Skywalker who redeemed a darkened soul and freed the galaxy from great evil. Though C-3PO and one of the children is killed by the oppressors, the other child picks a lightsaber from the droid's remnants and ignites it, vowing to free his people.

* Parodied in ''Discworld/GoingPostal'', where the cynical BoxedCrook protagonist thinks of hope as the thing that makes people fall for "get-rich-quick" schemes and other cons.

* ''[[Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse Global Guardians]]'' heroine Amnesty is the AnthropomorphicPersonification of Hope. She's been "killed" dozens of times, but keeps coming back because hope never really dies.

* There is a certain ''Comicbook/StarWarsTales'' story set in the far, far future of the galaxy. C-3PO has told a young boy named Remoh the story of the films. The story ends with him destroyed, and Remoh taking up Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, ready to stand against [[TheEmpire the new Empire]].

* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', All Might deliberately cultivated this image for himself: By defeating villains in public, he hopes to inspire other people to fight crime and stand up against injustice. For much of his career as a superhero, he's successful at this--until he's critically wounded in a fight against his ArchNemesis, All for One. This event causes doubt and uncertainty to spread among society at large, villains become more bold and brazen, and the other heroes start getting overwhelmed. In a more literal sense, All Might's SuperStrength can be passed down from person to person, and each inheritor thus far has used it to become symbols of hope like All Might.

* Gilraen, the narrator of the story in ''Film/BornOfHope'', addresses Baby Aragorn as ''Estel'', which means Hope in Sindarin. In fact, this trope is just about the entire message of the movie.

* In ''Anime/KirbyOfTheStars'' backstory, only one thing kept Meta Knight going after the war against Nightmare wiped out the Star Warrior army; Hope.

* This is the schtick of the [[GreenLantern Blue Lantern Corps]]. It's composed of hand-selected individuals who have the ability to inspire great hope. Their unofficial leader, Saint Walker, was considered a savior by his people and was the first Blue Lantern. The way their rings work also acknowledges the limitations of hope: their rings can perform amazing feats while they are supporting Green Lanterns but are almost powerless on their own, since hope without the willpower to change things is meaningless.

->''"But you can't kill dreams. Not really. I mean, despair may be the thing that comes after hope, but there's still hope, right? When there's no hope you might as well be dead."''
-->-- '''Matthew the Raven''', ''"The Sandman: The Wake"'' by Creator/NeilGaiman

* In the finale episode of ''Series/GameOfThrones'', as Jon Snow and Tormund Giantsbane lead the Wildlings north to resettle the areas ravaged by the White Walkers, there's a shot of a single blade of grass protruding from the ground. [[ArcWords Spring is coming.]]

-->Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
-->Man never Is, but always To be blest:
-->The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
-->Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

-->The birds who go on singing to their mates in peace, war, peace,
-->The ten-cent crocus bulb blooming in a used-car salesroom,
-->The horseshoe over the door, the luckpiece in the pocket,
-->The kiss and the comforting laugh and resolveâ??
-->Hope is an echo, hope ties itself yonder, yonder.

-->"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
-->That perches in the soul—
-->And sings the tune without the words—
-->And never stops—at all—

-->And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
-->And sore must be the storm—
-->That could abash the little Bird
-->That kept so many warm—

-->I've heard it in the chillest land—
-->And on the strangest Sea—
-->Yet, never, in Extremity,
-->It asked a crumb—of Me.

-->''Through me the way into the [[WretchedHive suffering city]]'',
-->''Through me the way to [[FateWorseThanDeath eternal pain]]'',
-->''[[RuleOfThree Through me the way]] that runs among the lost''.
-->''Justice urged on my high Artificer''
-->''My maker was Divine Authority'',
-->''The Highest Wisdom, and Primal Love''.
-->''Before me nothing nothing but [[TimeAbyss eternal things]]''
-->''Were made, and I endure eternally.''
-->''[[AvertedTrope Abandon all hope]], ye who enter here.''

* Invoked in an episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' where a group of genetically-enhanced super-geniuses calculate that the Federation cannot win its war against the Dominion. They argue that the Federation should surrender, accept an occupation and humanity will form LaResistance a few generations later, centering on Earth itself.
** The irony being that a scene earlier in the series, set in the Dominion HQ, shows that their leadership planned to simply wipe out every living thing on Earth as a preemptive measure to any kind of human resistance down the line.

** Also, Greeks believe in an absolute fate. So it's likely greeks thought that hope deceived people with its lies that you could defeat fate.

A common message given by fiction and folklore. Only the most downer of {{Downer Ending}}s exclude it, and even then there's usually some way around such a bleak finish, no matter how bad things are. Often combines with RousingSpeech, because often, TheWarHasJustBegun.

* In ''ThePillarsOfTheEarth'' however the villains try to stop the construction of the cathedral, they fail. [[spoiler: Even burning the whole town down doesn't help.]] There is one point in the story when Philip gives up all hope, but it only lasts until Jack returns from France and decides to build the cathedral in Gothic style.

** ''Film/TheLastJedi'' also ends with a grim note with Luke Skywalker dead and the remaining Resistance soldiers are down to a few dozen. However, Luke has regain his fate in the Jedi Order and name Rey his final apprentice who will restore peace to the Galaxy while Leia assures that the Resistance will rise once more.

* Subverted in ''Anime/BatmanNinja''. Batman and Red Hood come across the Joker and Harley Quinn [[CallToAgriculture working as farmers]], having been restored to sanity after losing their memories. Over Red Hood's objections, Batman decides to leave them be as the couple happily celebrate the sprouting of their first flower. [[spoiler:Turns out the flower sprouting was the hypnotic trigger for their previous evil personalities to reawaken. Knowing that Batman would NeverHurtAnInnocent, the Joker and Harley hypnotised themselves as a MemoryGambit.]]

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* In ''Series/DoctorWho'''s fiftieth anniversary episode "The Day of the Doctor", the 10th and 11th Doctors both show up on Gallifrey with the War Doctor, telling him that they can no longer deny that he was them, that he did all he could during the Time War, and that this time, he won't have to push the BigRedButton alone, that if Gallifrey is doomed, then they will share that burden together. And then, thanks to a RousingSpeech by Clara, the Eleventh Doctor ''changes his mind.''

:: Followed by the Eleventh Doctor deactivating "The Moment", and conferring with his past selves.
--> '''War Doctor''': ''There's still a billion billion Daleks up there!''
--> '''Eleventh Doctor''': ''Yeah there is! There is!''
--> '''Tenth Doctor''': ''But there's something those billion billion Daleks don't know.''
--> '''Clara''': ''What's that?''
--> '''Eleventh Doctor''': ''This time there's THREE of us.''
:: It only got better from there. The Time Lords still can't see the Doctor's plan to freeze Gallifrey like a Stasis Cube as feasible.
--> '''General''': ''The calculations alone would take...hundreds of years!''
--> '''11th Doctor''': ''Oh, hundreds and hundreds.''
--> '''10th Doctor''': ''But don't worry. I started a very long time ago.''
--> '''[[TheReveal 1st Doctor]]''': ''Calling the War Council of Gallifrey, this is the Doctor!''
--> '''11th Doctor''': ''[[ContinuityCavalcade You might say I've been doing it all my lives!]]''
** Indeed, the Doctor in general runs on this trope: No matter how powerful the bad guys are, no matter how little time there is to save the world, he firmly believes that, as he says to Van Gogh of all people, ''There is, surprisingly, always hope.'' It's what allows him to be a Determinator.

* Efforts to preserve critically-endangered species persist, and even become ''more'' intense, if the habitat of origin for that species no longer exists and their numbers have fallen so low that genetic diversity is nil, Even if every last individual dies, dead specimens' DNA is preserved in the hope that they might someday be restored via not-yet-extant technologies. For no current species is this more evident than the white rhinoceros, which is caught in an arms race between conservationalists, who have increasingly heavy human security on each individual rhino; and the wealthy buyers of their horns, who will pay the poachers increasingly handsome rewards to retrieve one.