Now Do It Again Backwards: Difference between revisions

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' (manga/''Brotherhood''): Edward Elric lost his arm in exchange for bonding his brother Alphonse's soul to a suit of armor. {{spoiler|In the climactic fight against God!Father, Alphonse sacrifices this bond in exchange for his brother's arm (his automail having been trashed moments earlier, his normal arm impaled on a sharp rod, pinning him, and with Father slowly marching his way, fully intent of [[And I Must Scream|using him as a Philosopher's Stone]]). The same isn't possible for his leg/Al's body, however, as he used it attempting to bring his mother back to life, but he just decides to live with it.}}

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew]]'' escaped from a black hole by ''flying their rocketship through it backwards''. No points for asking how it's possible to fly a rocketship backwards in the first place. Justified, since this is Earth-C, the cartoon dimension, which is ''supposed'' to have [[Rule of Funny|cartoon physics.]]

* In ''[[The Incredible Hulk]],'' Banner's [[Girl of the Week|Girlfriend Of The Week,]] Kate Waynesboro, gets dumped into some wacky gizmo and comes out the other end as an [[Transhuman Treachery|evil]], female version of MODOK, complete with [[Cephalothorax|giant head and hoverchair.]] Naturally, sending her through the machine again backwards returns her to normal.

 

== Film ==

* [[Robert Heinlein]] novel ''Starman Jones''. Starships travel by accelerating to near lightspeed and making a "transition" to a new location. During one transition a mistake is made and the ship ends up lost. The crew tries to get back by returning to the point where they appeared and making a transition which is the reverse of the original in the hope that it will take them home.

 

* ''[[Star Trek]]'' was likely the worst offender in this case. The initial example above was from the ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "Crossover", and the quote comes from the ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' episode "Non Sequitur". A list of all the occurrences of this trope in ''[[Star Trek]]'' turned out to be longer than the Universe and collapsed into a black hole that we were only barely able to reverse by rewriting the list in reverse order, so let's just leave it at those two.

* An episode of the kids TV show ''[[Space Cases]]'' featured Harlan Band (and the console that could inform the crew of the lethal radiation leak) becoming invisible after getting zapped by a discharge from the Christa's engine core (which only happened because he spilled juice on it). The obvious solution was to have him stand in the same place, have the ship's android pour ''more'' juice on the engine core, and, of course, [[Reverse the Polarity]] of the neutron flow.

** Actually there were. The first commericial microwave oven was manufactured in 1947, and a home version went on sale in 1955.

* In ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' episode 'The Odyssey of Flight 33', the plane flies into an [[Negative Space Wedgie|effect]] that puts them into the Jurassic period. They return to the effect and instead end up 30 years before their own time. The episode ends with them low on fuel and heading for the effect once more.

 

== Theatre ==

* In ''[[The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)|The Complete Works of William Shakespeare]]'', the players do ''[[Hamlet]]''...backwards.{{context|reason=How is this an example of the trope as described above?}}

 

* ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'' spells.

** When the Resurrection spell is spoken in reverse, it will cause a resurrected creature to return to dust.

** There are also a few magical effects that will undo themselves if applied a second time, like the (cursed) Helm of Opposite Alignment (as long as you didn't start with an alignment that was neutral on either axis) or Belt of Masculinity/Femininity, although in those two cases the character would need to go find a new copy, as each item discharges and loses its magic when used.

** The Truenamer, [[Game Breaking Bug|if it were playable]], would have this mechanic for some of its Utterances (i.e., spells): you can say them backwards to achieve the opposite of the normal effect.

 

== Video Games ==

* [[That One Level|Cold Hard Crash]] from [[Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back]] takes this concept [[Up to Eleven]] to the point of almost cruelty. To get [[One Hundred Percent Completion|100% completion]] of the game Crash must break every box in the current level he is in and collect a gem that only appears when he does so. To get all the boxes in this level you have to play through the first half without dying to activate and reach the death course, a difficult, checkpoint-free path covered in crusher traps and nitro mines, almost entirely on [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|slippery ice]]. When you reach the end of the death course, you need to activate a switch and do the course BACKWARDS to get the new crate the switch spawns at the beginning of the level, at which point you take the platform back to the main level and complete it.

* A variant happens in ''[[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night]]''; After fighting his way to Dracula's throne room, Alucard (some irony there that he's the protagonist, given his name) finds not Dracula, but his brainwashed ally Richter. After defeating and curing him, he has to go through a ''second'' castle that is the same as the one he went through, only ''upside-down''.

== Web Animation ==

 

== Web Comics ==

* Parodied in a ''[[Daisy Owl]]'' strip in which Cooper suggests that the cure for falling down the stairs is falling back up the stairs.

 

== Western Animation ==

* An episode of ''[[Duck Tales]]'' has the Nephews run Scrooge's business for a day, only their products tank and bankrupt Scrooge. However, the nephews find out that children aren't allowed to run a company, so everything that happens has to be undone, which gets all of Scrooge's money back.

* In an episode of ''[[Peter Pan and The Pirates]]'', Michael plays a piece of music that accidentally summons a female viking who can enslave people with her singing. Michael figures out that to get rid of her, he has to play the song backwards.

 

== Real Life ==

* Ultimate Example: Walk forwards. Now do the same thing in reverse. You're right where you started again, aren't you.

** [[Rhetorical Question Blunder|Well, no.]] The Earth will have moved while I was walking. Also, I might have been on a train, or a helicopter, or an escalator.

** Humans actually ''can'' also do this as well (to a degree): it's called [[wikipedia:Gluconeogenesis|Gluconeogenesis]]. It's the reverse reaction of glycolysis, the first part of the process our bodies use to oxidize glucose, and is used when our blood sugar level is low.

* [[Truth in Television]] (sort of): All speed records have to be achieved twice to be declared official - once to set the speed, and ''again'' in the direct opposite direction - this proves that it was an official speed, and not assisted by a tailwind or the such.

** Jokingly referred to on ''[[Top Gear]]'', after Richard Hammond's high speed crash: Jeremy Clarkson remarks that it would have set the world record for the fastest car-accident... [[Catch Phrase|in the world]]. Only he has to do it again the other way.

{{quote|'''Hammond''': I don't want the record -- it's not one I want!}}

** And thus will only really cure a mild thirst.

 

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[[Category:Ending Tropes]]

[[Category:Self-Demonstrating Article]]