End of an Age/Analysis: Difference between revisions

{{Analysis}}{{trope}}

This is actually a very old myth indeed: in Antiquity the belief was that man ''had'' declined from a Golden Age. The [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] poet [[Hesiod (Creator)|Hesiod]] theorized that 'the present' (ie. the mundane world) is only the latest and most bleak period of human history. It was not until much later that the view that human history is one of relentless progress truly caught on. The Roman poet [[Ovid (Creator)|Ovid]] copied this progression, with the Golden Age followed by Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages in his epic ''[[The Metamorphoses (Literature)|Metamorphoses]]'', all declining in quality. Hesiod had a 'Heroic' Age, populated by demigods and heroes, in between the Bronze and Iron (present) Ages.

Hindu philosophers invented a similar concept, of the [[wikipedia:Yuga|four yugas]], which delineated a series of stages in the moral evolution and subsequent devolution of the universe, at large. The main events of both the major Epics fall at the end of an Era, leaving the world to the 'lesser sons of greater sires'. This use of devolution is ''very'' popular across the [[Fantasy]] genre, and any series set in [[The Time of Myths]] usually implies by the end that magic and the Gods will either retire or die off, leading to a society similar to the viewer's, though this might have less to do with cynicism, and more to do with [[Trope MakersMaker|emulating J.R.R. Tolkien]].

It can be argued that this Twilight gives a type of freedom from the tyranny of the gods, or from the temptation the magical/technological power that destroyed The Ancients. Also, whereas former evils back then could only be [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can|sealed]], now the overall entropy means they can die.

The remnants of the past are a common plot device. Discovering the ruins of an [[Advanced Ancient Acropolis]] is a common quest. Pockets of the [[Lost Technology]] that the old ones understood and wielded freely become treasures, either as one-of-a-kind [[Black Box]] constructs or as the foundation of the technology level of the new world. A survivor might even exist in the form of a [[Living Relic]]. Of course, the fearful may (rightly) stigmatize and seek to destroy these relics for fear they are [[Pointless Doomsday Device|Pointless Doomsday Devices]]s.