Basic Trope: A (sub)plot revolving around dragons or similar apex predators returning from extinction/exile.
- Straight: For a thousand years, the dragons were thought to be extinct... but now they start to reappear.
- Exaggerated: For a hundred million years, the dragons were gone... and one day, when people woke up, they were everywhere: in your cave, in your mountains, in your fridge...
- Downplayed: No one has seen a dragon for the last ten years... and one day, one comes out of the forest.
- Justified:
- The dragons were banished to another world by powerful mage, but the spell stopped working after his death.
- The dragons have long breeding period, and fifty years ago, they all left for their breeding grounds. Now the young ones are returning to their living grounds.
- Inverted: For a thousand years, no human was seen in the Dragonland... until one day, they start to recolonize their former kingdom.
- Subverted: There are rumors about dragons reappearing, but it turns out to be Windmill Political by the leader who wants to take power for himself.
- Double Subverted: Only after he's arrested, the dragons really return.
- Parodied: For thousand days, the Super Minty Candies Of Fun were thought to be out of production... until one day they reappeared on the market shelves.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: There were never dragons. In fact, nobody has ever heard the name "dragon".
- Enforced: Executive Meddling thought: if there are dragons, there's fun. And so dragons have returned in season 2.
- Lampshaded: The characters encounter an insane man who screams "The dragons are there! The dragons are returning!"
- Invoked: A powerful wizard summons the dragons back.
- Exploited: The Evil Chancellor uses the return of dragons to panic people and take power for himself, under the guise of "we need a strong leadership to win against those beasts!"
- Defied: Heroes botch the wizard's dragon-summoning spell.
- Deconstructed: No one told the dragons about the modern arsenal. Dragons return, and are quickly wiped out by fighter jets.
- Reconstructed: The dragons actually made some reconnaissance before crossing the veil, and come back in countries that still hold positive cultural ideas about them.
- Discussed: Heroes discuss whether the unrelated rumors of fire-breathing lizards might mean that the dragons are returning.
- Conversed: Two people discuss a show they watch in which the dragons start returning, bringing chaos to the land.
- Implied: In the backstory, the dragons returned from thousand-year-exile. Now they are ruling the world.
- Played For Laughs: There's a huge comic subplot about shapeshifter dragons trying to adjust to twenty-first century world.
- Played For Drama: Return of the dragons, vicious, predatory creatures, means years of war and suffering as people try to fight a stronger, bigger and more numerous opponent.
Now return to The Dragons Come Back page. The dragons are already there.
