All The Tropes

The End Is Nigh (trope): Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

The End Is Nigh (trope) (view source)

Revision as of 03:53, 8 April 2014

79 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
(→‎Real Life: clean up)
m (Mass update links)
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:cwacom_endisnigh.png|link=Cloudy Withwith a Chance of Meatballs|right]]
 
{{quote|''"The Eastern world, it is explodin'<br />
Line 10:
You don't believe we're on the eve of destruction"''|'''Barry McGuire''', "Eve of Destruction"}}
 
An obligatory trope for any depiction of [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]] or other potential disasters is some [[Crazy Homeless People|crazy-looking person]] (usually holding a sign) or street preacher declaring that we should all repent because the world is coming to an end. Ha! [[Cassandra Truth|As if that will ever happen!]]
{{examples}}
 
== Comic Books ==
* ''[[Tintin (Comic Book)]]'' ("The Shooting Star"). The [[Go Mad From the Revelation|mad ex-astronomer Philippulus]] goes around in white robes, banging a gong and generally making a nuisance of himself.
* ''[[Watchmen]]''. {{spoiler|Rorschach uses this as his cover}}. It also lampshades the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over everyone (not to mention future events in the comic).
* A guy like this is featured in one of the early issues of ''[[Buffy]] Season Eight''.
Line 29:
 
== Film ==
* Played for black comedy in the opening titles of ''[[Zombieland (Film)|Zombieland]]'', where a man with a sign saying THE END IS NEAR is being chased by zombies.
* Don't forget that guy in ''[[Bruce Almighty]]'' {{spoiler|who turns out to be God all along}}.
* There is a random guy like this in ''[[Two Thousand Twelve2012]]'', seen on a street corner during the earthquake that eats California.
* In the movie ''[[Twenty Eight28 Days Later]]'', the main character Jim stumbles into a church that has 'THE END IS VERY FUCKING NIGH' written on one of its walls. Of course, the church ''is'' full of zombies...
* There's a drunk guy in the diner in ''[[The Birds]]'' who claims that the apocalypse is coming.
* In ''[[Independence Day]]'', there is a preacher in the ruins of Los Angeles who is like this. Justified in that the end ''already'' came.
* ''[[Sherlock Holmes (Filmfilm)|Sherlock Holmes]]''. Crowds of of these are seen being broken up by mounted police outside the Houses of Parliament, indicating the "Panic, sheer bloody panic!" inspired by the villainous Lord Blackwood's return from the dead. One man really goes to town describing the terrible events to come.
{{quote| "The end is nigh! Blackwood's come back from Hell, and laid a curse upon this land! He walks in every shadow, and every puff of smoke. Behold, he cometh with clouds, and everyone shall see him!"}}
* In ''[[The Seventh Seal]],'' a radical flagelante comes before a crowd to tell them their all doomed, and says it several times in succesion. Lots of people actually pay attention to him, though, because they're all afraid of [[The Black Death]].
Line 41:
 
== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' ("The Shakespeare Code"). The doomsayer is quite delighted that the end of the world is happening, crying: "I told ye so! I told ye so!"
* Seen in the miniseries of ''[[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'', before the Earth is destroyed. When he realizes the end actually IS nigh, he abandons his sign.
* [[Miniseries|The mini series version]] of [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Stand]]'' featured one of these, played by Kareem Abdul Jabbar of all people. He goes all around [[New York City]] screaming "Bring out your dead" in a reference to the Black Plague, even before people start dying en masse from a disease with a 99% fatality rate. He actually survives the plague, and continues his doomcrying until Randall Flagg kills him personally.
Line 66:
* ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'' has a few of these, with them thinking that the [[Incurable Cough of Death|Wailing Death plague]] is a sign of the end.
* In ''[[Infinite Space]]'', Adis people do this near the end of the game. {{spoiler|Of course, by the time they do this, the universe destruction ''has'' already started to happen.}}
* In [[Dragon Age]]: Origins, players can encounter a seemingly insane Chasind barbarian ranting about [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|the Blight]] in the front courtyard of the Lothering Chantry. Several civilians are trying to silence him, as his shouting is starting to unsettle people. The Warden can choose to ignore him, intimidate him or even shame him into leaving, or try to calm him down with diplomacy. (A sufficiently persuasive Warden can discover the reason for his madness: the darkspawn slaughtered his entire clan, and he was forced to watch as they [[A Fate Worse Than Death|dragged off his wife]].)
** Another doomsayer can appear in Redcliffe, albeit briefly. He warns that the attack on the village by a [[Night of the Living Mooks|horde of walking corpses]] is a sign of the end of the world and that everyone should repent their sins. Like Lothering, the Warden can ignore or drive off the doomsayer, or they can just kill him. He shouts that he welcomes death as you attack him.
* A homeless guy in Santa Monica does this in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]''. Someone familiar with the game's plot and the [[Old World of Darkness]] [[Metaplot]] will find grains of truth in most of what he says.
* In the "Enter the Metro" trailer for ''[[Metro 2033 (Videovideo Gamegame)|Metro Last Light]]'', a scraggly homeless man is standing in the middle of a street in Moscow preaching about the end of the world - then he laughs as the [[World War III|air raid alarms sound and ICBMs launch in the background]].
 
 
Line 79:
== Web Original ==
* ''[[There Will Be Brawl]]'' has this guy in the form of Olimar.
* Red Chocobo's [[Let's Play]] of [[Pokémon]] [[Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (Video Game)|Emerald]] has the cutest The End is <s> Ny</s> Nigh [http://lparchive.org/Pokemon-Emerald/Update%2058/raltsarmageddon.jpg ever].
* The two goofy unicorns in a [[Charlie the Unicorn]] short say this phrase and perform an out-of-place frightening image.
{{quote| '''Charlie:''' Okay, that was the scariest thing I've ever seen.}}
Line 85:
 
== Western Animation ==
* In ''[[Cloudy Withwith a Chance of Meatballs]]'', as the food storm rages all over the world, two guys wearing sandwichboards are standing on a street corner in NYC. The first guy's board says "The end of the world is today!" and the other's says "The end is tomorrow!" The second guy is crushed by a hot dog, and the first guy gloats, "I was right!"
* ''[[X -Men: Evolution]]'' (in the episode that introduces Angel) features a doomsayer like this, bearing a sign with "Angels are among us!"
* ''[[Powerpuff Girls]]'' - a guy is holding a sign like this early in the episode. When we get to the [[Monster of the Week]] part it reads "Told You So".
* One of these appears in ''[[Hercules (Disney film)|Hercules]]'' ranting on the streets of Thebes.
* A rat wearing a sandwich board made out of two slices of bread can actually be seen warning all the other rats about the floodgates in ''[[Flushed Away]]''.
 
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/881500"