All The Tropes

Glory Days: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Glory Days (view source)

Revision as of 16:56, 8 April 2014

254 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (Mass update links)
m (Mass update links)
Line 21:
** They trump their [[Glory Days]] with more [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|epic moments]] in the quest to stop [[Big Bad|the Claw]].
* A painful example would be from the 2003 [[Utsuge]] turned [[Anime]] ''[[Kimi ga Nozomu Eien]]''. Hayase Mitsuki, a once-in-a-generation swimming prodigy had the makings of an Olympic-Grade Champion. She leaves it behind to look after her best friend Haruka's boyfriend Takayuki. He is unable to complete high school because of his suicidal depression over Haruka's car-accident induced coma. An accident inadvertantly caused by Mitsuki. Three years on, when Haruka awakens, Takayuki leaves Mitsuki behind to restart life where he left it. Mitsuki, now a mere office lady, meets an old-rival who is now an olympic grade champion-swimmer doubly reminding her of the meaninglessness of her sacrifice.
* In ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'', Light Yagami {{spoiler|kills L at the end of the first arc, in his [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]], then spends the rest of the series, and his life, missing the challenge from L and working at a desk.}}
* ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' has a trio of old men (possibly former cowboys) which keep talking of the great days back in their youth.
 
== Comic Books ==
* Silk Spectre sums up her comrades' feelings: ''[[Watchmen (Comic Bookcomics)|"I was a hero, goddamn it!"]]''.
* In ''[[Nextwave]]'', Monica Rambeau can't start a sentence without mentioning how she once led [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]].
* Most of the depowered heroes in [[JLA: Act of God (Comic Book)|JLA Act of God]] seemed to not be able to get past the days when they were superheroes. Even Supergirl called the past, 'The Glory Days'.
 
== Film ==
* Norma Desmond in ''[[Sunset Boulevard]]''
* Producer David O. Selznick had his greatest hit with ''[[Gone Withwith the Wind]]''. He made hits after that, but nothing on the level of that movie.
* In ''[[Galaxy Quest (Film)|Galaxy Quest]]'', the main character suffers from a brief [[Heroic BSOD]] at the beginning, when he overhears someone laughing at the fact that he and his colleagues haven't had an acting role since the titular ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'' [[Fictional Counterpart]] a decade or two earlier.
** Until then, that [[Large Ham]] had been happily [[Chewing the Scenery]] and enjoying having fans; the rest of the cast were long-since sunk in awareness that they were washed up and abiding hate for their 'captain' coworker. (William Shatner approves this message.)
* Uncle Rico from ''[[Napoleon Dynamite]]'' is a particularly sorry example of this trope, as he looks back on a football game that he spent warming the bench. He spends all his free time practicing his throw and lamenting that he could have won the game and gone pro if the coach had put him in.
Line 44:
* Sam Rothstein laments the old Vegas at the end of ''[[Casino]]''.
* Robert De Niro's character in ''The Fan'', to an [[Axe Crazy]] degree.
* The [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] were going through this in ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Filmfilm)|TMNT]]'', which is odd, since there was no indication from the last movie that things would turn out this way.
* ''[[Rocky Balboa]]'' was also meant to remedy such a situation caused by ''Rocky V''.
* "Fast" Eddie Felson in ''[[The Color of Money]]''. We saw his [[Glory Days]] in ''[[The Hustler (Film)|The Hustler]]'' but when ''The Color Of Money'' opens, he's a bitter burnout selling booze and ends up working as a stakehorse to a younger player. Subverted when he makes a comeback towards the end of the film.
* Mr. Incredible from ''[[The Incredibles]]'' exemplifies this trope. After a forced retirement from his career as a super-hero, he settles down and becomes a typical cubicle dweller. While his wife has adapted to their new circumstances, he is stuck re-living his past glories, {{spoiler|a fact which the villain exploits to get Mr. Incredible to unknowingly help him.}}
** He is even on the cover of a [[Lampshade Hanging|''Glory Days''' magazine]].
Line 56:
 
== Literature ==
* Tan'elKoth in ''[[The Acts of Caine (Literature)|Blade of Tyshalle]]'' literally fits this trope to a T. He used to be a ''god''. As [[Glory Days/Quotes|a line points out]], his very name was changed to an unwilling admission that he no longer is that being. Hari also longs for the glory days of his career, when he was an unstoppable assassin instead of a paraplegic bureaucrat. See also [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Orbek's]] obsession with reviving the Black Knife nation in ''[[The Acts of Caine (Literature)|Caine Black Knife]]''
* One of the main themes in ''[[The Death of the Vazir Mukhtar]]'', at least for the characters associated with the secret societies that were crushed in 1825 (the book is set in 1828). The main character's glory days are seemingly still in full swing, but a) [[Genre Savvy|he has great and well-founded fear of suffering this trope in the future if he doesn't take some risks]] and b) while his political and social career has been doing well, [[Lonely At the Top|he has become increasingly detached from many of his old friends]] and has also hit a major writer's block, which leads to a lot of regret and nostalgic reminiscing on his part.
* Bavragor Hammerfist from ''[[Dwarves (Literature)|Dwarves]]''. He created some of the finest stonework in the world, before his love of drink took over.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' story "A Phoenix on the Sword", Thoth-amon's days when he owned the [[Ring of Power]].
* Many characters in ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', but especially Tom Buchanan, who used to be a star football player for Yale. Nick's impression of Tom is as a restless man who goes about his entire life looking for another football game to win.
** Gatsby himself inverts this. He never had such pure happiness in his past, but he's ignoring reality in order to try and make the ''future'' glorious and perfect and lovely.
Line 65:
 
== Live-Action TV ==
* A witch in an episode of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' ([[Trope Overdosed|who didn't see this coming]]) never got over her glory days as a cheerleader, so forcibly switched places with her daughter to relive "her glory days".
** Buffy has moments of this, at least at the beginning of the show, missing her popular cheerleader days, back when she didn't have to be a slayer.
* ''[[Star Trek: theThe Original Series (TV)|Star Trek the Original Series]]'', episode 2x24, "The Ultimate Computer," had Dr. Richard Daystrom who invented the duotronic computer system used on Federation starships when he was 24, and spent the next 25 years trying to recapture that moment of brilliance (leading to the disastrous results of the M-5 computer). However he seems to have made some historical impact, as by the 24th century a prominent scientific institute is named for him.
* Did you know that Al Bundy of ''[[Married... Withwith Children (TV)|Married With Children]]'' once scored four touchdowns in one game of high school football? Al sure wants you to know.
* Illyria, a Cthulu-esque goddess demon from ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'', awakens from millions of years of stasis to find herself trapped in a human body, her cult all but extinct and her armies long since turned to dust. She spends a lot of time moping about how powerful she used to be. It's actually quite poignant to see how she deals with the modern world.
* In ''[[NCIS (TV)|NCIS]]'', it's amazing that Ducky has even had the time to experience all the things he's always rambling on about. He's not ''that'' old...
* A running gag in ''[[Babylon 5]]'' with the [[Vestigial Empire|Centauri Republic]] in general and Londo Mollari in particular, leading to an in-universe [[Light Bulb Joke]]:
{{quote| Q: How many Centauri does it take to change a lightbulb?<br />
A: Just one... but in the [[Glory Days]] of the Republic, ''hundreds'' of servants would change ''thousands'' of lightbulbs '''at our every whim'''! }}
* The main theme of ''[[The Twilight Zone (TV)|The Twilight Zone]]'' episode "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine", in which aging actress Barbara Jean Trenton longs for the days when she and her friends were young, beautiful stars.
* ''[[Highlander (TV series)|Highlander]]'' actually has an episode called "Glory Days", where Joe Dawson, who was the star quarterback of the high school football team, meets up with the head cheerleader he'd once dated. He gets depressed because he lost his legs in Vietnam, and doesn't think she'll like him, that he's 'damaged goods' (she was actually married anyway, but she does reassure him that he isn't damaged). Meanwhile, Mac is targeted by a former mobster immortal who's depressed and unhappy and wants Mac dead for instigating the 'death' that got him kicked out of the mob back in the 30s.
* On ''[[Glee (TV)|Glee]]'', Terry accuses Schuester of obsessing over the Glee club in order to revive his Glory Days from high school.
 
== Music ==
* Deconstructed in [[Bruce Springsteen]]'s "Glory Days"
* Also deconstructed in [[U 2U2]]'s "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of"
* [[Bryan Adams]]' ''Summer of 69'', by way of employing [[Nostalgia Filter]]. "Those were the best days of my life."
* [[Mike Oldfield]] - After the surprisingly huge success of his debut album "[[wikipedia:Tubular Bells|Tubular Bells]]", he tried to reproduce it [[wikipedia:Tubular Bells II|again]], [[wikipedia:Tubular Bells III|again]] and [[wikipedia:The Millennium Bell|again]] to save his decreasing popularity, which didn't help much.
Line 94:
 
== Video Games ==
* Guybrush at the start of ''[[Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge]]''. After he beat LeChuck in the first game he had a great life, but people were expecting more and eventually he lost Elaine and people forgot about him. This one of the factors motivating him to find the Big Whoop.
 
== Web Original ==
* In ''[[The Gamers Alliance (Roleplay)|The Gamers Alliance]]'', after Agarwaen becomes the king of Manster, he gradually grows bored with his kingly duties and yearns for the days when he was a free adventurer.
* In ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', it's often argued that Version 1 was the [[Glory Days]] of the board, and that people preferred the old system.
** This was subverted in a recent thread on the board, in which ''both'' V1 and V2 were criticised - V1 for being too spontaneous and for a lesser writing quality, and V2 for being overplanned. To quote the Admin of the site, "for the most part, V3's found a good mix of both planning and spontaneity". Read the thread [http://z10.invisionfree.com/SOTF_V2/index.php?showtopic=2707 here].
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/901791"