You Can't Go Home Again: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''"Is anything better than finally [[Home, Sweet Home|finding your way home]]?''

 

 

This is often seen alongside [[Fish Out of Water]], and tends to result in [[Walking the Earth]] or a [[Wagon Train to the Stars]]. [[Trapped in Another World]] usually entails this (so most examples of that trope are equally valid for this one). When this trope is applied to ''the entire human race'', it's [[Earth-That-Was]].

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Ed and Al burn down their house so they won't be able to give up their mission. Of course, Pinako and Winry's house is always open to them, so they're not as homeless as they'd like to think.

** Hohenheim is convinced they did it so as not to face up to the whole "brought back an abomination of nature instead of our dead mother" thing every time they walked by the study.

* [[The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck]] combines this with [[Stranger in a Familiar Land]]. Having spent most of his teen and adult life abroad, Scrooge has a great deal of trouble fitting in with the traditional Scottish people. He decides to begin a new life in America, this time bringing his sisters along for the ride.

 

* In ''[[Stars Above]]'', {{spoiler|[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica|Homura's]] trip from her own time and universe was one-way. Even with [[Time Master|her powers]], it took a significant boost from another Puella Magi to go back six years, and there's no way to do it again.}}

 

== [[Film]] ==

* The movie ''[[Silent Hill (film)|Silent Hill]]'' after Rose and Sharon leave Silent Hill and apear to arive back home, {{spoiler|they are still in another reality because they entered the world of Silent Hill. Thus they can never truely return home.}}

* It takes Columbus a while to come to this conclusion in ''[[Zombieland]]''. He wants to get back to Ohio to see if his family is still alive (although he eventually admits that that wouldn't mean much even if they were). He reacts appropriately when Wichita tells him that that's a pretty fruitless venture, as it's "a total ghost town". He still doesn't quite get it until he's about to leave and he realizes that he really can't go back home.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* In [[Jack Campbell]]'s [[The Lost Fleet]] novel ''Invicible'', Geary. He can't go home because he slept through a century and everyone he ever knew is dead. (His planet's still there, but the [[Living Legend]] that grew up about him means he doesn't want to.)

 

* ''[[Farscape]]'', John Crichton. Eventually he does make his way home, but he can't stay because he's changed too much...among other things, he's ''killed'', a ''lot''. While he's there, though, {{spoiler|an assassin tortures and kills his best friends, and wrecks his family's house}}. ''On Christmas''. Later, after he leaves, {{spoiler|he's forced to close the wormhole for good, to protect Earth from the Scarrans.}}

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'':

* ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', the entire cast in the first season. That concept was quickly destroyed.

* The basic premise of ''[[Stargate Universe]]''. Apparently wanting to avoid the problems of the previous one, they've stranded the crew so far out that it would literally take decades for a current generation ship to catch up. The can make short trips home using the [[Grand Theft Me|communications stones]], but such trips are temporary and don't solve the supply-line issues.

** Oddly enough, throughout the first and second seasons of the new ''Battlestar Galactica'', numerous characters ''did'' go back home. Most notable case was Kara Thrace who literally returned to her (mostly undamaged) flat in Delphi.

* ''[[Sliders]]'' for the entire run. They eventually combined this with [[Doomed Hometown]] in order to give the series a [[Big Bad]].

* ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]''. In "Home" the crew of NX-01 Enterprise return to Earth after three years in space, only to find that while they have learned to accept aliens, xenophobia has increased as a result of the Xindi attack. T'Pol returns to Vulcan to discover that her mother's career has been destroyed because of her loyalty to Archer, while Archer has difficulty relating to his Starfleet superiors and friends who haven't shared his experiences.

* ''[[Lost in Space]]'', series premise.

** And in the spin-off, {{spoiler|Alex Drake discovers that she can't return to 2008, because she is dead.}}

* ''[[Gilligan's Island]]'', in a comedy example.

* The key premise of ''[[Red Dwarf]]''. Protagonist Lister awakes from what was supposed to be six months in stasis, but was actually three million years. He is the last living human on his ship. He sets off to see whether he's the last living human in the universe. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

 

* The song "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdPR8gq3NsA I Can Never Go Home Anymore]" by the Shangri-Las is made of this trope. It's essentially [[An Aesop]] about a girl who runs away from home and breaks her mother's heart to be with a boy, who she forgets about almost immediately, while it's implied that her mother dies of loneliness in the meantime.

 

* The odds of a member of the Imperial Guard of ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' making it to retirement age are pretty low, considering that the Imperium is almost continuously at war with some if not all of its neighbors. Those that make it are generally discharged on the planet they happen to be on when they retire, and their retirement package does not include a ticket back to their home planet (which could be over a thousand light years away, depending on what events happened during their deployment). As such, there is a very good chance that anyone who enlists in a Guard regiment will never return to their home planet, let alone their home town, ever again.

** Indeed, the lucky ones instead get a commission and land on the planet of the world they conquered latest, and become essentially landed gentry in that world.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'': At the end of v3, {{spoiler|JR Rizzolo}} manages to return home after (ostensibly) being the [[Sole Survivor]], only to find that {{spoiler|his family has disowned him and completely moved out}}.

* The premise of ''[[Mabaka - Magic is for Idiots!]]'' revolves around a novice wizard from another dimension getting stuck on Earth with no way to get back. Naturally, [[Innocent Cohabitation|he ends up staying with the same girl]] [[Crash Into Hello|whose yard he crash-landed into]]. At least until a year is up and he can return via a dimensional transport system.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* Its not just the military brats - the "diplobrats" (aka children of diplomats) often have the same feelings. You live in so many homes, but you don't own them- the government does, or you rent. They're not your home, and going back would just emphasize that point.

* Many people find themselves displaced from their homes due to political turmoil. One noteworthy case was Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian who ended up having to live in an airport terminal lounge for '''18 years''' because his refugee papers were stolen.

* At the end of the [[World War II|Second World War]] the borders of Poland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia were altered by the Soviets. Nearly ten million people were forcibly relocated, many leaving behind villages where their ancestors have lived for generations. Particularly heartbreaking for POWs who were released and suddenly found their homes didn't exist anymore.

** When the Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to complete the "Iron Curtain", those who found themselves in East Germany had to stay there. Not that it stopped some of the more determined ones.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Narrative Devices]]

[[Category:Better Than It Sounds/Comic Books]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]