So What Do We Do Now?: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Some kids [[I Just Want to Be Normal|just want to be normal]]. Others [[Jumped At the Call]] to get into the action right away. They've had wacky hijinks, great adventure and dramatic changes to their lives, but now it's over. The [[Big Bad]] has been defeated. The universe is saved. The balance has been preserved. The need for a hero has seemingly gone away. The hero can go back to his ordinary, safe life again... [[Victory Is Boring|which will promptly bore him out of his skull]].

It turns out that the hero ''liked'' the [[In Harm's Way|increase in excitement]]. And his normal life is missing some things. Friends he made from the adventure. The thrill of flying in a spaceship. All of these are gone now. He's no different from anyone else again.

 

 

 

Subtrope of [[In Harm's Way]].

Contrast [[Send Me Back]], where the hero wants to go back to how things were because they didn't save the day.

 

 

As a pseudo-endings trope, some Tropers forget their spoilers. Consider this your only warning.

 

 

* At the end of ''[[Buso Renkin]]'', when the kakugane are collected, Tokiko feels uneasy because she was so used to having hers. Then, of course, Kazuki promises that his will be with her forever...

* ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' both subverted and exemplified this.

* ''[[Gundam Wing]]'' does this in [[The Movie]] ''Endless Waltz''. Most of the pilots find normal lives after the war & seem to be enjoying themselves, but [[Arrogant Kung Fu Guy]] Wu Fei can't find meaning in his life without battles and ends up joining a rebel group so he can help start a new war. Post-Movie he joins the Preventers, an organization dedicated to stopping wars from breaking out in the first place.

* Kurau's human half in ''[[Kurau Phantom Memory]]'' has fond memories of the time she was taken over by her Rynax entity, but comes to terms with the fact that it is all over now.

* Happens to {{spoiler|Simon}} from ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'': after finally destroying the Anti-Spirals and bringing peace to the Universe, he puts on his cape, says goodbye, and spends the rest of his days [[Walking the Earth]]. {{spoiler|We then see him as a 40-something traveller helping a kid open a coconut with his drill key; the kid is all surprised with Simon's drilling skills, he calmly says "Of course, kid, who the hell do you think... (kid ignore him) Forget it, I'm just a nobody". Then we see the kid and Simon looking at the horizon as the Gurren Lagann is launched to outer space}}.

* After episode 5 of ''[[FLCL]]'', Haruko and Canti leave Mabase, and life for Naota briefly returns to normal. Naota is rather glad to have Haruko back in episode 6, well in time for the climactic showdown and the series' explosive finale.

* In the ending of both the anime and manga of ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'', everyone seems to have returned to normal permanently. Their marks have disappeared, they can't talk to animals, and Ichigo stops turning into a [[Catgirl]]. Then one day, depending which version you're watching, either Ichigo's cat ears reappear just as Berii looks in the window or the girls are informed that their powers have returned and there's a new enemy to fight.

* Happens to ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' protagonist Yusuke after his final battles with Toguro and Sensui. Kuwabara smacked him for it. {{spoiler|When you consider that he had to fake his own death before Yusuke could find the motivation to defeat Toguro (AFTER he killed [[Old Master]] Genkai, mind), it's understandable.}}

* This is a major point of contention between ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'' and many of his antagonists. Unlike them, he's willing to settle for an ordinary life. Kenshin, for one, ends his adventure by {{spoiler|[[Happily Married|marrying Kaoru]] and [[Babies Ever After|having a child with her.]]}}

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[Nextwave]]'' ends with the titular squad's members asking each other what they should do now that they've defeated the H.A.T.E organization, as they stand on the top of its former mothership. Monica's answer, {{spoiler|after she realizes the mothership is still ''fully operational'': "Anything we want."}}

* In the [[Marvel Universe]], Richard Rider aka Nova went through this situation when he choose to give up his powers to leave the planet Xandar to return home. As it happens, his life was completely ruined with a disrupted education, dead end jobs and no future. At best, Rider tried to live as best he can while wishing with all his heart that he could get the powers back and become a superhero again. Unfortunately, the planet Xandar was destroyed later, which seemed to mean that any chance of Rider [[Re-Power|getting repowered]] was gone forever. However, Night Thrasher, wanting a [[Flying Brick]] for his planned superhero team, deduced that there might be a way through a [[Die or Fly|high stress situation]]. To do so, Night Thrasher abducts Rider, drops him off a roof and sure enough, Rider's powers reignite before he hits the ground. Naturally, Rider overjoyed at this and even though he didn't care for the fact that Night Thrasher didn't know if his plan would work, Rider still owes him big time.

 

== Film ==

* ''The Candidate'' (1972) ends with Robert Redford's title character, a dark horse candidate for U.S. Senate, winning the election (which nobody, least of all the heroes, had expected). During the victory party in his hotel suite, he finds a quiet moment to ask his campaign manager, in a horrified tone, "So. What do we do ''now''?".

** [[Fridge Logic|Um, be a Senator, perhaps?]]

** Firmly averted by Sam, though, who comes home, marries his true love, raises a family, and lives happily ever after.

*** In the book, it's mentioned that eventually he ends up leaving Middle-Earth as well.

** The movie ''Rumor Has It'' is about the main character's discovery that ''The Graduate'' was based on her mother and grandmother's life.

** Heck, the whole movie could be seen as post-college "what do I do now" on the part of Ben Braddock.

* ''[[The Proposition]]''. Charlie didn't enjoy his adventure, but the ending just screams of indeterminacy. It doesn't help that {{spoiler|both his brothers, including the one he'd set out to save, are dead}}.

 

== Literature ==

* At the end of book three of ''Secret of the Unicorn Queen'', Sheila gets to go home. By page two of book four, she's decided she can't focus on algebra and baseball, or her "normal life", so she goes back.

* The last of Bernard Cornwell's ''Sharpe'' books has this as a central theme; after a quarter of a century of bloody warfare, Europe is finally at peace - and the world is full of old soldiers who have done nothing but fight their entire adult lives. Many of them have come to enjoy it. So what next? Two solutions are presented; you can either head for South America and join the first rebellion you come across, or you can do what Sharpe does and walk away.

** The TV series solves the problem by sending him to India.

* Last line of [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s ''[[Humanx Commonwealth|Flinx Transcendent]]'' -- {{spoiler|'''Flinx:''' "I'm bored."}}

* [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Neverwhere]]''. He gets to go back to the [[Magical Land]], though.

** The whole book revolves around the idea that the price of getting what you want is getting what you wanted.

* Norton Juster's book (and the cartoon based off of said book) ''[[The Phantom Tollbooth]]'' ends with Milo returning home. The next day, after school, he rushes back home to return to the tollbooth... and finds it's disappeared. In its place is a note saying it's moved on to the next kid that needs a dose of the fantastic, but that Milo knows how to find it. (Presumably this means his imagination.) After a moment's thought, he smiles and admits he does know how... and he doesn't need to go back just yet, there's so much to do where he is now!

* ''[[The Vorkosigan Saga]]''. Miles found himself constantly increasing his challenges every time he succeeded, and realized it was becomes of "So What Do I Do Now?" He gave it a name: "playing wall". He was forcibly divorced from his Naismith identity in ''Memory'', which allowed him to get over his rut.

 

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' ends with this. After {{spoiler|defeating the First Evil, destroying the Hellmouth and the entire town of Sunnydale, and activating all of the potential Slayers,}}, Dawn asks Buffy "what are we going to do now?" The final shot of the series is a closeup on Buffy, smiling.

** It's later revealed, in ''[[Angel]]'' crossover episodes and the canonical Season Eight comic that they've gone out looking for new Slayers and created a multinational demon-killing organization. That'll do nicely.

** There's a very minor one in the [[Musical Episode]] "Once More With Feeling", which ends with a song with these lyrics: "The battle's done / And we kind of won / So we sound our victory cheer / Where do we go from here?"

*** Well, sort of. Before she met the Doctor, she was a medical student, and after she leaves him she joins UNIT and becomes an alien-fighting [[Badass]]. Though she does find time to qualify as a doctor. It's implied that even though she chose to leave, she couldn't just pick up where she'd left off, particularly after her year-long [[Walk the Earth]] nightmare situation.

**** They made sure to wrap up some loose ends in the last episode of the Tenth Doctor. Martha's engagement, apparently, didn't work out and she left UNIT; she does, however, end up with Mickey, and the pair spend their time fighting aliens. Donna finds her true love and gets married, with a little gift from the Doctor. Even Captain Jack, who is shown sulking in an alien bar after {{spoiler|killing his own grandson and losing Ianto}} is a little cheered up by the Doctor, who introduces him to Alonso (the midshipman from the ''Titanic'' starship). He also saves Sarah Jane's adopted son from being hit by a car.

* Many of the comic sketches in [[Spike Milligan]]'s ''Q'' series end without a [[Punch Line]] (he never was one for narrative convention). Instead the cast just stop what they're doing and shuffle offstage sideways, chanting "What are we going to do now? What are we going to do now?"

* ''[[Sliders]]'' season 3 finale. Rembrandt and Wade have presumably slid back to original Earth. Maggie and Quinn attempt to follow them and wind up in a futuristic world. Maggie: "So how do we get home?" Quinn: "I don't know." Scene. Apparently, they thought that if they ended on a cliffhanger they couldn't get cancelled. Wrong.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

* The very first ''[[Baby Blues]]'' comic began right after Zoe was born, with Darryl, Wanda and Zoe all sitting there thinking, "Now what?"

 

== Radio ==

* After satellite radio was created, talk show hosts came flooding in. Suddenly, they were given freedom of speech. Now they could say anything they wanted to. So what do you say? Suddenly, there's no censorship, no FCC over their shoulders, no [[Moral Guardians]] "protecting" their children's virgin ears. But what do you talk about? You don't have to be creative anymore with your euphemisms, but then it's not funny anymore. Soon, the shows ended up just being the word "fuck" [[Cluster F-Bomb|every other word]], just because they could.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Castlevania]] Symphony of the Night'': Why did the titular castle reappear a mere 5 years after Richter Belmont banished [[Dracula]]? It seems like Richter couldn't go back to a normal life after saving the world from the Prince of Darkness and he wants [[Dracula]] back so he can be the hero again. {{spoiler|Luckily he's just been brainwashed into thinking this, although you can get a [[Nonstandard Game Over]] by killing him.}}

* ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'''s sequel did this twice:

** After the ending of the first game, Spira enters the Eternal Calm. ''[[Final Fantasy X]]-2'', posits that {{spoiler|Yuna's life has settled into a routine, which is shaken up only after discovery of a sphere depicting images of "Tidus." This prompts her to become a [[Action Girl|Sphere Hunter]] to find the truth about this. While this happens, the rest of the world discover that being freed from Sin gives them the opportunity to squabble among each other, giving rise to religious and civilian factions which almost engage in civil war.}}

* About half to two-thirds of the way through ''[[Persona 3]]'', SEES has a short battle with this after {{spoiler|defeating the twelfth Arcana-shadow}}. Not long after, cue {{spoiler|the clarification of Ikutsuki's [[Evil Plan]], followed by the build-up to [[Multiple Endings|either]] the [[Downer Ending]] [[Multiple Endings|or]] the [[Bittersweet Ending]].}}

* ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' manages to take this to downright [[Tear Jerker]] levels. Seriously, it has an honest-to-God [[Don Bluth]] ending.

* ''[[You Have to Burn The Rope]]'' features a little ditty at the end of the game that's mostly about this:

''Maybe watch a video / Maybe press refresh and start again.'' }}

* ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' 2 starts by showing that the heroes haven't actually done very much since the last game ended.

* Lance Boyle brings this up in the intro to ''[[Megarace]] 2'': "[The winner] is crowned King Megaracer 2, he experiences a sense of achievement, and returns in regal triumph to reality, where he will probably never readapt."

* One of the earliest versions of this in videogames is ''[[Ultima IV]]'', and it's ''entirely based around it.'' Basically, in the past three games, ''all'' of the big evils have been destroyed (there are still dungeons full of monsters to fight, but nothing controlling them or threatening the world). So what do you do? Go on a quest to become the most shining example of pure good in the world as an example to everyone else!

** Said example then immediately departs the world, [[Ultima V|giving rise to a new great evil that kidnaps the king and corrupts the Avatar's philosophy, turning moral fortitude into utter totalitarianism]]. So, back to form. Of course, the kidnapping was partly a result of this trope, too (albeit offscreen) as Lord British decided that, having nothing better to do, he needed to wander down into the underworld and see what was up with that freaky place, only to have his party eaten alive by [[Demonic Spiders]]. This is why kings have champions in the first place.

 

== Web Comics ==

* In ''[[Wapsi Square]]'', [http://wapsisquare.com/comic/back-to-normal/ Monica] seems to have this problem. [http://wapsisquare.com/comic/no-other-shoe/ Tepoz] [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] it. And, it turns out that [http://wapsisquare.com/comic/herculean-task/ she's not the only one.]

 

== Western Animation ==

** {{spoiler|Plus she didn't have to worry about not being done as a Guardian as a new [[Big Bad]] was currently building her forces at the time}}.

* In the episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft" of ''[[South Park]]'', [[That One Player|a griefer]] was killing each player discouraging them from playing, so in order to play again, the protagonists play for months, 21 hours a day, killing boars to gain experience points to achieve a level that allows them to beat him, and when they finally do with the help of the [[Infinity+1 Sword]], the question is dropped and the answer is: "Now we can play the game, I guess."

* Averted at the end of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''; even with the defeat of Ozai, Aang and Zuko are clear on the fact that there is a lot of rebuilding to do, both in terms of damage caused by the war and in relations between the nations. It was long theorized that if there ''had'' been a fourth season, it would have focused upon rebuilding the lost Air Tribe.

* Happens ''twice'' in ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' episode "Crimebusters" - there's a dry spell of supernatural activity, so the guys modify their equipment to trap living beings and go into the crime-fighting business. Unfortunately they're too good at this, wiping out all crime...[[Status Quo Is God|right before another surge of ghosts]]. Egon even literally says "So what do we do now?" before the hauntings start getting called in.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Ending Tropes]]