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{{trope}}
{{quote|''It's [[The End of the World
'' and I feel fine.''|'''[[REM|R.E.M.]]''', "[[Title-Only Chorus|It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)]]"}}
"Cosy Catastrophe" is a term coined by Brian Aldiss
Maybe later they'll band together to recreate a humble yet sustainable pretechnological society. Maybe, if they're of mixed genders, they'll see it as their duty to repopulate the species (wink wink). Maybe they'll just learn to accept the extinction of the human race with [[Stiff Upper Lip|quiet dignity]]. Either way, the end of the world shouldn't be the ... end of the world, so to speak.
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Compare with [[Scavenger World]]. See also [[Disaster Democracy]] and [[Angst? What Angst?]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime ==
* ''[[Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou]]'' (Yokohama Shopping Trip) is one of the most laid-back depictions of the twilight of humanity ever; as seen through the eyes of an android coffee shop owner.
* In ''[[Ponyo
* Beginning in episode 4 (out of 7) of ''[[Freedom Project|Freedom]]'', [[Badass Biker|Takeru]] and [[Gadgeteer Genius|Biz]] escape from the [[
** "Freedom" was commissioned by Nissin Cup Noodles as a promotional film, so of course they've got to work ramen in there somewhere...
* Despite having barely survived an apocalyptic war at some point, the world in ''[[So Ra No
* Played with in ''[[
** Also done at the beginning of the movie, when good chunks of the world are being turned into aliens. The meeting held to figure out what course of action to take ends with them arguing over which of them makes the best kind of movies.
== Comic Books ==
* [[Raymond Briggs]]' ultimately tragic ''[[When the Wind Blows]]'', and its animated adaptation are [[Deconstruction
* ''[[El Eternauta]]'' starts out kinda like that... But then [[It Gets Worse]]. [[Cosmic Horror Story|Much worse]].
* This is the intent of the Life Foundation, a group of rich survivalists who usually oppose [[Spider-Man]]. Certain that [[The End of the World as We Know It]] is coming, they intend to survive it, but they have no intent of having to work for it, and are sure there are others with such views. Thus, their schemes usually revolve around building or planning "luxury bunkers", enclaves where they and paying customers could live out the apocalypse in luxury.
== Film ==
* ''[[Casablanca]]''. [[Screw the War, We're Partying|Isn't it great to spend one's time drinkking and gambling at a luxurious nightclub while there is persecution, bloodshed, tyranny, war, and generally impolite behavior all over the world?]]
* In ''[[
* It could be argued that ''Delicatessen'' is a relatively cozy catastrophe, as the mail is still delivered, everyone's basically middle class, and while [[I Am a Humanitarian|people are eaten]] (according to set rules), life goes on pretty a-ok.
* Played as satire in ''[[Night of the Comet]]'', where Earth's passage through a comet's tail turns most animal life into red powder. The only survivors in Los Angeles, aside from some [[Zombie Apocalypse]] cannibals, are a pair of Valley Girl sisters ... who immediately hit the mall and play dress-up.
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* Although not the end of the world, the end of ''[[Fight Club]]'' fits this description in a sense.
** In fact, the entire point is to ''create'' this, to break everything down and start over new.
{{quote|
* [[Shaun of the Dead]]: This is exactly Shaun's plan.
* The 2004 version of ''[[Dawn of the Dead (2004
== Literature ==
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* ''The Changes'' by [[Peter Dickinson]] (and BBC Children's Television spin-off). Funny noise/feeling causes all white people in England to reject all technology beyond the horse and cart.
** A sci-fi short story "The Waverlies" is about alien microbes that "eat" electricity (just bear with me), causing virtually all technology to stop working. People are surprisingly ok with this.
* The short story the "The Highway" by Ray Bradbury takes place in a Mexican village after a nuclear war has destroyed the outside world. Despite the holocaust and the ensuing flood of refugees, the residents of the village continue to live their lives as if nothing happened.
* ''On The Beach'', a 1957 novel (written by Nevil Shute), a [[Film of the Book]] (made in 1959, directed by Stanley Kramer and starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and Fred Astaire), and a made-for-television movie based on the book (made in 2000) each handle the story slightly differently, although the plot remains that of a [[Cozy Catastrophe]]. Nuclear war has devastated the whole world, except for Australia. The winds will bring the radioactivity soon enough, but until then, life goes on largely as normal.
** "On the Beach" is a special case. Depending on the reader, it may either be this trope played dead straight, or it may be a psychologically-horrifying subversion: it takes place in a world decimated from nuclear warfare. The northern hemisphere barely exists anymore, but in Southern Australia the book's protagonists are drinking tea and waiting calmly for the fallout to reach them, knowing that when it does, virtually all life on earth will be destroyed.
** The 1959 movie focuses on the captain of an American sub that was at sea in the Pacific during the war. The sub makes its way to Melbourne, and a romance ensues. With the sub commander played by Gregory Peck, a nuclear scientist played by Fred Astaire, and Peck's Australian love interest played by Ava Gardner, how can their behavior be anything ''but'' civilized, gracious and dignified?
** The 2000 made for TV has a lot more conflict and angst than either the earlier movie or the book, but much of that is due to the trend toward [[Darker and Edgier]] that was in full swing when it was made. So the end is nearer, the American sub commander (Armand Assante) is more abrasive, the Australians in general are less welcoming, and the Australian [[Love Interest]] (Rachel Ward) and the scientist (Bryan Brown) are ex-lovers.
* [[S.M. Stirling]]'s [[Emberverse]] series, in which the mysterious Change has killed off high-energy-density technology (electricity, gunpowder, steam engines...), is at least a partial example of this trope; while many of the successful survivors are unusual in some
** All of this is true, but as the series progresses, the protagonists [[Lampshade Hanging|explicitly note]] they have either {{spoiler|fallen into the luckiest string of fortunate coincidences ever}} or, far more likely, {{spoiler|some powerful behind-the-scenes force is assisting and/or guiding them; by the end of the third book, they're receiving overt psychic visions. The chance that this is all somehow tied directly into the Change is very high.}}
** thought sheer mathematics mean they have to be lucky. If 99% of the population dies, anyone who survives will be lucky; anyone who survives and does well will have to be -very- lucky. Someone has to be on the end of the bell curve.
** The survivors also note that their catastrophe isn't particularly cosy except compared to the slow or quick deaths of almost everybody else. One person is grateful to be carrying buckets of milk on a yoke across her
* ''[[The Girl Who Owned a City]]'', a children's novel, where [[The Plague]] wiped out [[There Are No Adults|every one on Earth over the age of twelve]] [[You Fail Your Medical Boards Forever|(in two weeks' time...)]]. The novel's suburban children get on quite well in this curiously clean, decay-free world. Or at least they do once the novel's heroine steps in and teaches them.
* One of the ultimate examples may be George R. Stewart's timeless ''[[Earth Abides]]'', which depicts most of humankind dying off due to a superplague, and the ones left to repopulate the earth are fairly ordinary people who aren't at all badasses or [[Well-Intentioned Extremist
** The book also plays with this as the protagonist initially roams the US looking for survivors. On one hand, he finds a group fulfilling this trope living a reasonably comfortable life from looted goods in New York, but realises they'll be doomed when the food runs out, or when winter comes. On the other, he meets a family of black semi-literate sharecroppers deep in the rural South, still growing their own vegetables and raising animals just as they did before the plague. Their descendants are probably doing just as well as (or even better than) Ish's tribe.
* In 'The City, Not Long After' a plague has wiped out a pretty large percent of the world population, but never mind. The remainder is too poor and diffuse to fight and, with the leftovers of civilisation, they have plenty of support till they develop an agrarian society. The artists in the remains of San Francisco have pretty infinite art supplies.
* In ''Little Big'', the protagonists are largely untouched on their large private estate by the chaos gripping the American continent.
* ''[[I Am Legend]]'', as with its [many] film version[s], has Neville living in luxury with scavenged and stolen items (most of LA is uninhabited... save for the vampires). He even considers moving to a hotel, but that would mean having to start all over again.
** Not the best example, as Neville is in constant danger and spends most of his time alternating between mindless activity and frenzied [[
* Arto Paasilinna's ''Maailman paras kyla'' (non-translated) is about a quiet village where people till the fields, look after their own, and don't care overmuch about the goings-on in the wide world as don't concern them. Meanwhile the world's economy collapses, World War III starts, and a giant asteroid obliterates or floods two continents. The villagers send out a couple of folks to sell a crashed nuke, and have the children sing hymns to pass the time until the sun reappears. The thing doesn't have a plot as much as a saunter.
* [[John Christopher]] is another English author who has written several books in this genre, most notably ''The Death of Grass'' (disease wipes out all grasses, including food crops like wheat), ''The World in Winter'' (an ice age), and ''A Wrinkle in the Skin'' (massive earthquakes).
* [[Stephen King]]'s ''Night Surf'' (appears in the collection ''[[Night Shift]]'') is a kind of early version of ''[[The Stand]]'' that features a group of teens in a small New England town in a world that has been almost depopulated by "A6" superflu. They are traumatized by the deaths of almost everyone they have ever known, but at least they know they are immune. {{spoiler|[[It Got Worse|Then one of them catches A6.]]}}
* Two nerdy college kids do pretty well during governmental collapse in ''[[
* In the short story "Fields" by Desmond Warzel, the world is overcome by mutant wheat that chokes out all other vegetation; after most of the people of [[Cleveland Rocks|Cleveland]] have fled (futilely, it is implied) for greener pastures, the narrator, a homeless man, relaxes by reading and eating canned
* Evelyn Smith's short story "The Last of the Spode" is set in a gently post-apocalyptic England, where a handful of survivors play tennis, try to discuss the problem of repopulating the planet without getting too coarse, and drink tea from the last of the [[wikipedia:Spode|Spode]].
* Completely averted in ''[[The Road]]''. Quite possibly the farthest you can avert it without killing off the entire population before the book starts.
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** It arguably gets more cozy right on the day of Jesus' second coming, at least for the believers. Conveniently, the world's economic system crashes with the destruction of New Babylon on the same day that Jesus comes. Everyone on Carpathia's side, who isn't in Carpathia's Unity Army and isn't so determined to go forward with destroying the Christians and Jews in Petra and Jerusalem, is in a world-wide panic.
** The latter half of the Tribulation gets somewhat cozy for the believers. Sure, they're still getting hunted down and beheaded by those who take the [[Mark of the Beast]]. But bloody rivers? God provides clean water. Sun-baking heat that scorches everything? Not if you're a believer. Pitch-black darkness over New Babylon? God will provide some level of visibility. Petra is basically a [[Place of Protection]] that nobody on Carpathia's side can even enter.
* [[Spider Robinson]] and [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s [[Variable Star]] involves a
== Live Action TV ==
* The short lived series ''Three Moons Over Milford'' takes place after a meteor hits the moon and shatters it into pieces, with pieces of debris falling from the sky in growing numbers. Despite the fact that everyone is all too aware of the fact that eventually one of the larger pieces will inevitably fall and destroy them all, life on Earth goes on as normal with everyone trying to pretend things are fine.
* An episode of the Science Channel's series ''Curiosity'', which addressed the question of if scientific advances could make people live forever, had a scenrario where a transhuman [[
== Music ==
* Fairly obviously: "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" By REM. It doesn't make oodles of sense, but one can assume it's [[Exactly What It Says
* The Decemberists' "Calamity Song", which is a refreshingly peppy and fun song about, well, the apocalypse.
{{quote|
And I believe, California succumbed to the fault line
We heaved relief, as scores of innocents died." }}
* [[
* "The End of the World" by Lenka is an [[Lyrical Dissonance|upbeat song]] about a girl who is perfectly fine with dying as long as she dies with her loved one.
{{quote|
If I can spend it with you, then the end of the world don't matter
At all }}
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== Video Games ==
* ''[[Exmortis]] 2'' features a small and peaceful community of farmers isolated from the apocalyptic carnage that the Exmortis demons are unleashing on the rest of the world. [[Late to
* In [[
** ''[[Fallout
*** Actually, the West Coast was slammed pretty hard, and went through a period of relative anarchy ([[
**** And in contrast to the aforementioned [[Crapsack World]] of ''Fallout 3'', the American Southwest has running electricity, non-radioactive water, actual non-lethal wildlife and fully-functional communities: things that the Capital Wasteland denizens ''wished'' they had.
***** Best shown in Novac; the town has all of the above, two [[Badass]] Snipers for protection, and one of the snipers wife thinks it's a hellhole ''and some of other townfolk agree''.
* Although the world isn't in a great shape, Francis from [[Left 4 Dead]] thinks the zombie apocalypse is the best thing that every happened to him. No cops, no law, no worries.
* This seemingly applies to most of ''[[Town
* ''[[Dead Rising]]'' and its sequel are pretty much "Cozy Catastrophe: [[The Game]].'' The zombies are only dangerous in packs (though there are a LOT of them) and aside from rescuing survivors or running from the occasional psychopath, you're free to roam around, eating, drinking, stealing or wearing whatever you can find.
* ''[[Gears of War]]'' has Azura, a island-based five-star hotel/hideout/research facility protected by a maelstrom defense where the elite of the COG goverment spent their days in luxury while the rest of the surviving population deals with starvation and constant attacks by the Locust and the Lambent.
* ''[[Assassin's Creed
== Web Original ==
* "The Quiet Apocalypse" mentioned in Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne's "Unreal Estate" is one of these. All of those End-Of-The-World-As-We-Know-It scenarios came about (and at more or less the same time), but were far less catastrophic than expected and failed to finish off the human race. The story can be found [http://pixelscapes.com/unrealestate/ here.]
* ''[[
* The Mall could be on the verge of being obliterated, but the heroes of [[Mall Fight]] generally take it in stride. At one point, Mango starts having job interviews while the Mall is being destroyed by Eric and Diablo.
* This ''[[AMV Hell]]'' clip: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aXujOsWJkY Unicron noms a planet.]
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== Western Animation ==
* According to [[Word of God]], ''[[
** To be fair, the show takes place about one thousand years [[After the End]]. More than enough time for a new civilization to establish itself, as seen with the great many kingdoms in the show.
* [[Beavis and
== Real Life ==
* The ''Protect and Survive'' films and leaflets produced by the British government in the early 1980s seemed to imply that this would be the outcome of a nuclear conflict. Sure, you'd have to stay inside for a couple of weeks, but after that everything would be just find and dandy. ''[[Threads]]'' and ''[[When the Wind Blows]]'' (see Comic Books, above) were produced in response.
== Other ==
* [http://www.dezeen.com/2008/06/22/flooded-london-by-squintopera-2/ The Flooded London series of images] by Squint/Opera depict a very
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Apocalyptic Index]]
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