History Main / UpTheRealRabbitHole

* In ''The Adventures of SuperMarioBros 3'', not only the Mario Brothers, but the Princess and other characters native to the Mushroom Kingdom, called Earth the "Real World".

** Sister series ''VideoGame/NamcoXCapcom'' and its ''VideoGame/ProjectXZone'' sequels reject the trope entirely - ''all'' worlds are equally reality. Even The World from ''Franchise/DotHack'' (which is explicitly digital) is treated as though it's real.

-->--'''Teal'c''', ''Series/StargateSG1'', "[[Recap/StargateSG1S3E6PointOfView Point of View]]"

* The Franchise/{{Tron}} example below is {{Lampshaded}} and just as quickly {{Averted}} in ''Endgame Scenario.'' Tron refers to the User world as the "real" one, and [[VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh Jet]] bristles, firing back that the Program world is just as "real" as the human one.

* ''Literature/TheNeverEndingStory'', both the book and the movies.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' books, the Nac Mac Feegle know that there are multiple worlds, and are able to cross the borders. However, they believe themselves to be already dead, for the Discworld seems like paradise (to them). They drink, fight and steal as much as they can to enjoy their afterlives. They don't suspend all morals, but do act as if the Discworld is a disposable "temporary" world.
** Yeah, but we're given to understand that that's how they would have behaved in their "real" world as well. That's just what Feegles do.
** Also, Archchancellor Ridcully, while heading out to battle elves (with [[MillionToOneChance million-to-one odds]]), is told that, because of the whole multiverse thing, for every one Ridcully that survives the fight, 999,999 other Ridcullys will die. He responds, "Yes, but I'm not bothered about those other buggers. They can look after themselves." He's mostly just bitter they didn't invite him to their weddings, thanks to a disastrous earlier attempt to explain the concept to him.

* ''Film/{{Tron}}'' has onscreen text at one point saying "Meanwhile in the Real World." In dialog, the world of Users is only called "the Real World" by the Master Control Program, who exists in both worlds.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'', the entire game takes place inside a dream, and the ultimate goal is to wake up the dreamer. Doing so will essentially result in [[DreamApocalypse the death of every inhabitant of the dream]]. The humans helping you on your journey? They just don't know any better. Those monsters trying to stop you? They're motivated ''purely by survival''. You've gotta KillEmAll to win the game.

* Averted in the ''LightNovel/SuzumiyaHaruhi'' novels. In later books, Kyon [[spoiler: ends up in a timeline without time travellers, aliens or espers. He considers how selfish it is to want to change things back, that the people in the new timeline have just as much right to exist. He does it anyways, but often "wakes up late at night, with their faces in his mind."]]

* HarryPotterAndTheCursedChild: Most of the characters (even those in the alternate timelines) acknowledge that the cannon timeline is worth returning to because it is in some way significantly better to that alternate one. Scorpius, however, clearly sees his original timeline as the "real" one, with the alternate timelines as mistakes to be "fixed". He makes the following distinction which, once you've already made a few time jumps, starts to seem a little shaky:

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' Part 7, the villain's stand has the power to visit parallel worlds and bring people from said parallel worlds to his world. He constantly refers to his initial world (the world where the plot takes place) as the ''root world'', he doesn't have any problems with killing people from the other worlds and [[spoiler: every time he's killed he has one of his alternate selves take his place, abducting him from his original world and overriding his memories with the villain's (apparently, his alternate selves don't have any problem with this)]]. He has a reason to think like that, since [[spoiler:the [[MacGuffin Holy Corpse]] only exists in the so called ''root world'']]

** In ''InfiniteCrisis'', the Superman of Earth 2 said they allowed the JLA to refer to themselves as Earth 1 out of politeness.

** In TheDCU, the main earth being called New Earth (and the real one) was justified in the fact that it forms the fulcrum/nexus of all the other Earths.

** Also, Archchancellor Ridcully, while heading out to battle elves (with [[MillionToOneChance million-to-one odds]]), is told that, because of the whole multiverse thing, for every one Ridcully that survives the fight, 999,999 other Ridcullys will die. He responds, "Yes, but I'm not bothered about those other buggers. They can look after themselves."
** In ''Discworld/TheScienceOfDiscworld'' and especially the sequels, the wizards consider the Disc is the real world and "Roundworld" is an oddity that sits on a shelf in Rincewind's office. They respect that the inhabitants of Roundworld might see this differently, though.

* ''WesternAnimation/ChalkZone'' also encounters this where characters will refer to our reality as the "real world", even by those from the other dimension of ChalkZone. Which [[FridgeLogic slightly implies]] that because the characters from ChalkZone are made of chalk they're not real.

* Early in ''Literature/BraveSto‎ry: New Traveler'', after the protagonist has wandered into his fantasy land he meets a young girl who says "Travelers only come from ''the real world''". That's a downer.

* The plot of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' involves the world being transformed overnight into a world similar to fantasy games played by the kids who opened a magic book, with the changes seeming to revolve around fulfilling their desires. The main conflict of the story involves the question of which reality is "real", and which one should remain.

** Shockingly, there might actually be a good reason for this, [[spoiler: as Magicus Mundus is actually a giant pocket dimension (on Mars), and it's implied that Fate's old boss may have created it, along with it's inhabitants, meaning that it might not be exactly as "real" as people think it is.]]

** In the JLA "Red King" story arc, the villainous Red King has access to ''six billion'' alternate Earths (one for every human soul) and they are identical ''except for his own actions''. So he uses these "free second chances" to try every possible course of action, finds out which ones work for him, then obliterates the "failed" realities. In short order, he's become wealthy, influential, and has every super-power imaginable - all at the cost of reducing six billion universes to ''four''. Including killing six billion versions of ''himself'' (who didn't count because they were "losers").

* Subverted in ''FushigiYuugi''; when BigBad Nakago [[WelcomeToTheRealWorld escapes the book-reality most of the series has taken place in]] and starts trying to conquer the real world, the heroes protest that he cannot do this because he is just a character from a book. Nakago responds that this only makes it more amusing for him to rule this "world of the gods".

* In chapter 251 of ''MahouSenseiNegima'', Negi refers to "our" world as "the real world" (In the MagicWorld, it's known as "the old world"). He corrects himself immediately afterwards.

* In ''[[PrettySammy Magical Girl Pretty Sammy]]'', the heroine is ''finally'' deciding to do something about her [[DarkMagicalGirl best friend's]] ParentalAbandonment problem, so tries to use her magic to fix the situation. It doesn't work. She's confused until her Animal Sidekick explains magic doesn't work so well against problems in the "real" world. She finally uses her powers to send a letter that her best friend has written to her father but couldn't find the courage to put in the mailbox. This is beginning of the turning point in the entire series.

* In ''{{Webcomic/Erfworld}}'', Parson [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0018.html initially believes]] that it's all a hallucination, and later he notes [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0086.html the various odd parallels]] between Erfworld and Earth as supporting evidence. His reluctance to accept Erfworld on its own terms might have something to do with his being stuck in an apparently [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0084.html hopeless situation]]. Later, the viewpoint is inverted by Wanda's statement, "You didn't wish for this world, Parson Gotti. It wished for you."
* Parodied in ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' by [[http://xkcd.com/180/ referring to "real life" as separate from Canada]].

* Averted in Larry Niven's "Literature/AllTheMyriadWays", set in a world where travellers to parallel universes report worlds where the Cuba War was "a damp squib" (called the Cuban Missile Crisis) and return with different technology such as the stapler.

* In the crossover ''{{JLA-Avengers}}'' comic, during a dream-state where in ComicBook/TheAvengers and the [[JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA]] regularly meet up, the heroes argue which Earth is Earth 1.

* In the VideoGame/{{Portal 2}} Perpetual Testing Initiative, Cave refers to his Earth as Earth-1 or Earth Prime. One other Cave also refers to an Earth-1, but since there are multiple test subjects from other universes in there, it's unexplained if he means your character or someone else. Dark Cave also refers to the first Cave as Cave Prime, though this might be for the purposes of avoiding confusion. Interestingly enough, the world this Cave is talking about wouldn't be the "real" world from the perspective of the player, since that Cave has an assistant named Greg instead of Caroline and he also shuts down the [=GLaDOS=] project after hearing the ramblings of an AI Cave.

* ''EternalSonata'': The premise is that the fantasy world in which the game takes place is a figment of Chopin's imagination created on his deathbed, and that the characters and events of the game are allegories for his own life experiences and personality traits. Chopin himself, being a smart guy, quickly figures all this out. But suddenly, [[spoiler:in as big a GainaxEnding as there ever was, Chopin suddenly realizes -- after attempting to ''[[KillEmAll murder]]'' [[KillEmAll all of the party members]] -- that "it's not a dream!"]] Don't get it? Well, this is a game that ends with a tête-à-tête between a caterpillar and a snail after all.
* The plot of ''FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' involves the world being transformed overnight into a world similar to fantasy games played by the kids who opened a magic book, with the changes seeming to revolve around fulfilling their desires. The main conflict of the story involves the question of which reality is "real", and which one should remain.
* Early in ''Brave Story NewTraveler'', after the protagonist has wandered into his fantasy land he meets a young girl who says "Travelers only come from ''the real world''". That's a downer.

* ToTheMoon features Dr. Rosalene and Dr. Watts talking to a virtual construct based on Johnny's personality. Problem is the construct doesn't know he's a construct and is understandably terrified when the protagonists delete his friend from the memory. At one point Watts begins explaining to the construct that it doesn't exist. Rosalene calls him on it, saying that if the construct doesn't exist, why does it matter if it knows that.

* [[DefiedTrope Defied]] in ''StarOcean3''. [[spoiler:While some of the 4 dimensional race (including BigBad Luther) disregard the "created" Eternal Sphere is a false reality, the inhabitants disagree and are steadfast in their position that their universe, though artificial, is equally real and valid.]]