Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:golden-butterfly.jpg|link=Umineko no Naku Koro ni|thumb|350px|Oh, that [[Kill'Em All|can't be good]].]]

 

Whenever you see a pretty (usually blue or black) butterfly show up, things are about to get [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|Symbolic]].

* In the Infinity War, [[Omnicidal Maniac|Thanos]] turns his evil clone.. well, just as evil clone into a butterfly as he passes on. ...[[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|And then eats it.]]

* In a ''[[Doom Patrol]]'' story written by [[Grant Morrison]], [[Ax Crazy|Red Jack]] has found a way to keep himself immortal by imprisoning hundreds of butterflies and absorbing their life essence. When the butterflies are freed, he dies.

 

== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[The Matrix]]'': Neo's speech at the end was going to refer to the Matrix as a chrysalis but [[Executive Meddling|the execs]] weren't sure if [[Viewers are Morons|enough viewers would know what a chrysalis is]] ([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pupa&mobileaction=view_normal_site#Chrysalis it's this, by the way]).

 

* The second book of the ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' : A particularly bloody battle is fought on a river crossing that just happens to be the mating ground for a large group of migrating butterflies. They serve in a few different symbolic ways : ephemerality of life, instinctual drive to mate then die and premonition of the slaughter to come, as they coat the river in a yellow coat before the battle, before being replaced by the red of human blood. Finally, a thousand of them are used as psychopomps for the soul of a particularly powerful warlock.

* [[Mercedes Lackey]] and James Mallory's ''[[The Obsidian Trilogy]]'' has, as one of the signs that the heroes are getting close to an evil place, swaths of dead foreign butterflies. Other signs include flocks of starlings flying endless, unnaturally precise flower-loops and familiar flowers with strange black petals.

* In [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s ''[[Freckles]]'', Freckles watches in wonder as a Luna moth comes from its cocoon and feels deeply frustrated at his ignorance at what it is, though he knows it's not a butterfly. This causes him to ponder his ignorance at length, until it dawns on him that he could find out these things.

 

* A butterfly makes an enigmatic cameo near the beginning of a ''[[Lexx]]'' season finale. Shortly afterwards, an alien character's cocoon-like sleep pod is destroyed, severely limiting her life expectancy, but her spirit lives after death in the Dream Zone.

** Also: Prince, the Satan/Death figure who formerly oversaw the judgment and reincarnation of all human souls, claims to keep a "butterfly room." "You'll love it. I'm very good... with butterflies."

* On ''[[The Fades]]'', butterflies are heavily associated with the Angelics' [[Healing Hands|powers of healing]]—people who have been successfully healed are shown puking out a butterfly, and Paul's resurrection in the fourth episode produces an entire swarm of butterflies. In addition, Fades are shown becoming Reborns by breaking out of sticky cocoons, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** Also from CAVE, every single final boss from the [[ESP Ra De|ESP]] [[Espgaluda|series]], as well as the player characters from the Galuda games.

* ''[[Trauma Center (series)|Trauma Team]]'' has Monarch Butterflies showing up occasionally, in particular after a massive virus outbreak starts. {{spoiler|Later on is discovered that these butterflies are directly related to the outbreak, working as carriers of the virus}}.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20140209184543/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3129 Fuschia is inspired by a butterfly as it means people can change]. (Which she will have to do to win her love.)

** And when the Buddha [https://web.archive.org/web/20140209155700/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4208 enlightens some Illumanti drones, they acquire butterfly wings.]

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In one episode of ''[[Mighty Max]]'', Max teams up with a new band of heroes, [[We Hardly Knew Ye|all of whom are dead by the end of the episode.]] One of them, the Hindu monkey god Hanuman, muses that perhaps he'll come back as a butterfly. A butterfly appears in the last shot of the episode, [[You Fail Biology Forever|even though,considering how long it takes a butterfly to become an adult, he should still be in catapillar form.]]

 

 

{{reflist}}