Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Jackson:''' I'm energy now.

'''O'Neill:''' ''(sarcastically)'' How's that working out for you?

 

The character ascends to a higher state of being, [[A God Am I|even becoming a god.]]

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]'', Lain disappears from the Earth after deleting her memory from everybody's minds. Also, Eiri Masami.

* Utena Tenjou disappears from her world in the end of ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]'' television series (and manga) upon achieving her ultimate goal.

 

== Comic Books ==

* The ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'''s Jean Grey is a literal example of this in her White Phoenix of the Crown form.

* This is implied to be the ultimate fate of Gambit of the ''X-Men''. The post-ascension version of him lives/will live/has lived outside time, and is already in contact with him. This being ''X-Men'', [[Never Live It Down|this may actually be ''harder'' to come back from]], [[Kudzu Plot|when and if it actually happens]].

* The Ancient One, [[Doctor Strange]]'s mentor, became one with the universe after his death, though he was still available for an occasional consultation.

 

* ''[[Shinji and Warhammer40K]]'': If it doesn't follow the ''exact'' path of the [[God-Emperor|God-Emperor of Mankind]], this is almost certainly going to be the conclusion of [[Messianic Archetype|the life]] of [[Elseworld|this universe's]] Shinji Ikari. As well as possibly [[Yandere|Rei]]; and [[Tsundere|Asuka]].

* In ''[[Night of the Seance]]'' {{spoiler| [[ABBA|Agnetha]]}} does this, but she [https://m.wattpad.com/234962998?m=1 returns to take control] a random person in order to speak with the living, often whoever is close to death or [[Driven to Suicide]].

 

== Film ==

{{quote|'''Mo'at''': The Great Mother may choose to save all that she is, in this body.

'''Jake''': Is that possible?

* The ending of ''[[Repo Man]]''.

* The villainess at the end of the ''[[Casper]]'' movie is defeated in this manner; she is killed and becomes a ghost so that she can fly through a treasure vault with ease and grab the loot. Unfortunately for her, by grabbing the loot she has completely fulfilled all her life goals, giving her no reason to linger as a ghost any longer. She is taken away to the afterlife against her will and the treasure is left behind.

** This is strongly hinted in the regular cut as well (or was it one of the earlier movies?) when a character explains Davy Jones' backstory.

* ''[[The Nines]]''—technically more of a re-ascension, since the main character was a sort of god to begin with until he got addicted to playing various human characters in the world he made.

* Obi-Wan in ''[[Star Wars]] IV'', which comes packed with the famous line that fits this trope to perfection...

** Ditto for Qui-Gon, Yoda and Anakin.

* Commander Decker has a sexy ascension with Ilia in ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture]]''.

* ''[[Powder (film)|Powder]]'', anyone?

* In ''[[The Matrix Reloaded]]'', this apparently happens to Agent Smith after his...experience in the first movie. He then uses his power to copy himself and replace everyone inside the Matrix, including a Zion rebel inside it at the time.

** An alternate interpretation is that this is an aversion; Neo making him go all explodey is no different than when an Agent is rarely shot; they just take a new host. Because this particular defeat proves the current batch of Agents outdated, Smith simply goes back to the Machines to be replaced, except he feels an un-programmed urge to refuse this and stays in the Matrix instead. Copying onto Bane and leaving to the real world is certainly still an ascension, though.

* Apparently this happened to Valeria after her death in ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]''. She comes back briefly in a form reminiscent of a Valkyrie to aid Conan in the battle against Rexor, much like Belit did in the classic Conan story "[[Queen of the Black Coast]]."

 

== Literature ==

* A fairly weak but completely by-the-book version in ''[[Elantris]]'': pre-Reod and post-restoration, pretty much anybody had a random chance of becoming one of the Elantrians, a race of super-powered, magical, semi-immortal pseudo-deities that basically everyone wanted to be. Kinda sucks if you got in after the universe broke though.

** Also from [[Brandon Sanderson]], the [[Mistborn]] trilogy ends with this happening twice, first to the heroine Vin, who takes the power of Preservation and then After Vin kills Ruin via [[Taking You with Me]], Sazed takes the powers of both Ruin and Preservation.

*** At one point it is mentioned that Minds created without emotions and passions similar to those of biological beings universally Sublimate almost immediately.

*** In Buddhist theology, a being who has reached the point of being able to attain nirvana but refuses to do so until all sentient beings may do so is called a bodhisattva; they are technically inferior in insight to the being who does not make such a vow and goes on, but venerated in Buddhist cultures for their compassion...the Culture Minds are essentially bodhisattvas.

* Sublimation is what every race in [[David Brin]]'s ''[[Uplift]]'' universe is supposed to strive for.

* [[Roger Zelazny]]'s ''[[Lord of Light]]'' plays weird with this one. The protagonist's ''enemies'' send him to a place of eternal bliss, because they can't figure out any other way to get rid of him. The book starts with his friends pulling him out, against his will.

** This was because an [[Energy Being]] (one of that planet's original inhabitants) had done for the protagonist what his own people had done for themselves "strengthened the fires of the mind so that they can burn independently of the body."

* In the classic space opera novels of the ''[[Lensman]]'' series by [[E. E. "Doc" Smith]], the Arisians make repeated references to "higher planes of existence." The Arisians are a benevolent race of [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]]s whose sole stated motive for opposing the similarly advanced Eddorians is for the sake of 'lesser races'; the Arisians themselves do not consider the Eddorians a threat as the worst the Eddorians can do to them is force them out of this plane of existence.

** At the end of the series, their successors have been successfully created and their mission fulfilled. Thus relieved of their duty toward civilization, [[But Now I Must Go|they proceed voluntarily into the next form existence]].

** This is the fate of Reepicheep in ''The Voyage of the Dawn Treader''.

** Aslan does this at the end of every ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]'' book (as that's just his way of going home).

* In [[Gabriel Garcia Marquez]]' ''[[One Hundred Years of Solitude]]'', Remedios the Beauty quite unexpectedly ascends to heaven one day, taking the best linen with her. It's a weird book that way.

* ''[[Childhood's End]]'', the famous (and depressing) 1953 science fiction novel by [[Arthur C. Clarke|Sir Arthur C. Clarke]], uses this. Alien Overlords come to Earth, gifting Mankind with incredible technological advances, and creating true world peace. But ultimately, it is revealed that they're a servitor race of a higher entity, and their reason for coming is to prepare Mankind to its final fate: The current generation of humans will be the last one and with them human civilization will cease to exist, as all their children born from that moment on are no longer human and will mind-meld and ascend into a higher form of consciousness that transcends material bodies. Ultimately, that is the fate of all sentient races, except those that are "stuck" and cannot ascend (like the Overlords), doomed to die out or linger on until the stars burn out. All technological or social progress becomes meaningless ([[Writer on Board|according to the author]]) in view of this, and most of the adults of the final generation linger on for a bit before committing suicide.

* The German pulp [[Sci Fi]] series ''[[Perry Rhodan]]'', started in 1961 as weekly issues and still ongoing, introduced the concept of [[Psychic Powers]] that allowed out-of-body travel and ascended entities called "super-intelligences" early on, within the first 50 issues. Later, during the early 1980s, this was expanded into a whole cosmic framework for the series. Sufficiently mentally advanced space-faring races would be fostered by super-intelligences until their individual consciousnesses would either be absorbed into an existing entity or ascend and merge to form a new one. More advanced entities strove to merge with whole galactic clusters and form White Holes, thereby recycling burned-out suns and cosmic matter, until they were ready to transcended the space-time continuum of the multiverse and join the ranks of the real Cosmic Players, the near omniscient forces of [[Order Versus Chaos|Order and Chaos]] called Kosmokrats and Chaotarchs.

* In ''[[Star Trek: New Frontier]]'', Mark McHenry eventually becomes a godlike being and leaves the ''Excalibur'' to prevent others of his race from abusing their abilities.

* In the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series by [[Diane Duane]], this concept gets used as a moral quandary in one book: is it worth releasing the ultimate [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] to reopen the possibility - just the possibility - of this future for a race which cut themselves off from it (and is just fine with that decision, thank you very much, and actually does seem tremendously ''better off'' the way things are)?

* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' [[Spin-Off]] ''[[Faction Paradox]]'' features the Celestis, a group of Time Lor—err, Great House members who foresee a massive War against an unstoppable Enemy. Terrified of being removed from history if they lose the War, the decide to do it first, erasing their corporeal bodies, but leaving their ''meaning'' behind, existing as [[Memetic Mutation|memes]] in [[Another Dimension]] made of pure concept. Subverts the trope since the Celestis are still the same petty, bitchy, backstabby, ''fearful'' [[Jerkass|JerkAsses]] that they were as mortals. ''[[Universe Concordance|The Book Of The War]]'' puts it best: "Everything can't be all right in a society where everyone's either a god, a slave, or an assassin."

** They, additionally, are remade into [[Reality Warper]]s who can only mantain their existences in the physical universe if someone believes in them and continuously thinks about them in order to serve as their anchors to reality. They, naturally, with their [[Magnificent Bastard|natural]] [[Manipulative Bastard|manipulation]] [[Complete Monster|skills]] entered the business of [[Deal with the Devil|wish-granting]]. They will give you whatever you can wish in the physical universe, within certain limits, at the cost of [[Fate Worse Than Death|imprisoning what amounts to your immortal soul and chaining it in their dungeons to, yes, continuously think about them until they are the only thing in your mind. Forever and ever.]]

* Happens to most of the main characters in ''[[Journey to the West]]'' after Xuanzang retrieves the scriptures.

* In ''[[Animorphs]]'', the Ellimist, [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens|near-godlike already]], effectively does this after being sucked into a black hole. Unfortunately for... well, everything, [[Evil Counterpart|Crayak]] eventually does the same.

** In ''[[Blood Music]]'', a nanomachine civilization becomes so advanced that their sheer presence starts warping reality through some sort of observer effect, forcing it to transcend from the physical world.

* In the [[Isaac Asimov]] short story "The Last Question", this happens to all of humanity and then to the rest of the universe.

* Caitlín is offered this in ''[[Poul Anderson|The Avatar]]''. In fact, it's what the [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] who had engineered all of her [[Reincarnation|several incarnations]] had meant for her to do all along. [[Screw Destiny|However, it's subverted; she declines the offer]].

** With the notable exception of the firstlifes, who created the galaxy-devouring Void.

* ''[[The Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' does this to every other character. They can literally 'ascend' through unknown means. The most likely way seem to simply be by being awesome.

* An electronic version of this: after the AI Wintermute merges with [[Neuromancer]], becoming a virtual entity beyond living comprehension.

* At the end of ''[[Who Cut the Cheese?]]'' by Mason Brown, Cover is removed from the maze. The frame story characters speculate on what happens next to Cover.

 

* In the series finale of ''[[Lost]]'' the entire main cast is dead. They gather in a church in Los Angeles in a sort of Purgatory and are led by Christian Shephard into a bright light that is implied to be heaven.

* [[Creator's Pet|Wesley Crusher]] from ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]''. Benjamin Sisko in the finale of ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]''. Also Kes from ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'', although she comes back to Voyager in a later episode (and does not re-ascend.)

* ''[[Beggars And Choosers]]'': This was Brad's [[Ass Pull|quick explanation]] for the disappearance of Parker's ashes.

* This to happens to Reapers from ''[[Dead Like Me]]'' (they get "promoted") when they collect their quota of souls.

** It is heavily implied that this is Anders's fate too, hence the "I'll see you on the other side". It also means the two characters ended up [[Together in Death]].

* The [[What Could Have Been|"Coda"]] written for ''[[Andromeda]]'' by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, its original showrunner, who was fired after "Ouroborous", states that Beka would have ended the threat of the Abyss by merging with it and doing this.

 

== Music ==

* Happens to Dargor at the end of [[Rhapsody of Fire]]'s Dark Secret Saga.

 

* Several mortals in [[Greek Mythology]] became gods for various reasons. Heracles and Dionysius were both sons of Zeus who later ascended to become gods on Mount Olympus after their mortal selves died. The warrior Diomedes, who appears in ''[[The Iliad]]'', was given divinity by Athena as a reward for his skill and courage, while the mortal woman Psyche was made immortal after she married Eros, the god of love. The mortal woman Ino, who had taken care of Dionysius when he was young, was rewarded by Zeus by being made into a goddess who helped rescue shipwrecked sailors, appears in ''[[Odyssey|The Odyssey]]'' aiding Odysseus when he's lost at sea.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* In ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' 4th edition, this is the standard fate for epic characters in various versions (some becoming ''normal'' deities, archmages becoming one with the world's magic and others pursuing still other kinds of ascension).

** In the colored-boxed set versions you ascended around 36th level and became a god. You could keep playing to near-omnipotence and choose to return to mortal form. Going through two entire cycles of mortality and rising to omnipotence caused you to ''really really'' ascend and vanish completely.

* It's implied that humans who become avatars for Living Saints in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' effectively take this route, but giving that they are incarnations of the same God-Emperor to whom ten thousand psykers are sacrificed every day, it may or may not be as pleasant as it seems...

** Chaos champions who are favored by their gods and don't lose their minds to the constant mutations are sometimes transformed into Daemon Princes. They go and live in the [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|warp]], commanding the armies of their gods in their eternal internal struggles, though they're sometimes called back to the material realms whenever the tides of Chaos are strong enough to allow a demonic incursion.

* This is the ultimate goal of the player characters in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'': attaining full understanding of the universe and "ascending" into the Umbra, becoming one of the Oracles who guides the hand of Fate.

** Following the Time of Troubles, a triad of adventurers, the mercenary Kelemvor Lyonsbane, the wizard Midnight, and the thief Cyric, ascended to become the deities of death, magic, and betrayal, respectively.

** Finder Wyvernspur was a Cormyrean nobleman and a bard before stealing the spark of the dead god Moander and being made a god.

 

== Theatre ==

* Grizabella in the musical ''[[Cats]]''. Yeah, we KNOW she dies but... just shut up.

** Technically they're ALL dead. The "Heavyside Layer" was Earth - she was basically chosen to be reborn on Earth. 'Jellicle' was basically 'Angelical' after all.

 

== Video Games ==

* Your character does this at the start of ''[[Immortal Defense]]'' in order to combat enemy fleets as they travel through hyperspace before they invade your home planet.

* Dr. Malcolm Somerset in the ''[[Chzo Mythos]]'' series. Represented by Somerset ''descending'' levels and levels of stairs.

* In [[Journey]], {{spoiler|your character was implied to have frozen to death climbing the summit to the final destination and Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence by the [[Precursors]]. This or the character went through [[Reincarnation]].}}

* {{spoiler|In the final ending of ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'' after the source of mantra is destroyed, This presumably happens to Asura and the rest of the Shinkoku race after they can no longer exist, or go through [[Reincarnation]].}}

 

== Web Comics ==

* Technically happens to two characters in ''[[Ansem Retort]]''. Early on in the first season, Sora receives the powers of a demi-god but quickly forgets about them due to his amnesia. Several hundred episodes later, Axel achieves Reverse Nirvana, which effectively makes him an evil Buddhist god with the ability to use mind bullets and nuke cities at will. However, as an [[Averted Trope|aversion]] neither character has left the comic. Hell, Axel's forgotten sometimes that he has mind bullets.

* Officer Getskilled in ''[[Girly]]'', who pulls off a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] by [[Taking the Bullet]] for his friends only to be saved by an immortal who is impressed with his bravery and carries him off to a never-ending life of love and adventure/

*** Actually, in all three of the known cases where that method was used, the physical body had been killed but corpsmooched, causing the soul to be permanently transferred to the dreamself, and then the ''dreamself'' died on the alternate Quest Bed. [[Occam's Razor|The data suggests]] that, rather than a way for someone to ascend without a dreamself, it's a way to ascend when the dreamself is all that's left.

* The [[Freak Angels]] end up this way, outside time and able to communicate with their past selves.

 

== Western Animation ==

* One of the villains from the cartoon ''[[Mighty Max]]'' was beaten by "{{[[[Devolution Device]] evolving}} him] towards the infinite, far beyond such primitive concepts as good and evil."

* From ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. Princess Yue dies and becomes the new Moon Spirit after Admiral Zhao kills the original in the attack on the Northern Water Tribe.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Religion Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]