I’m embarrassed to say that I have encountered this, this particular type of story on multiple occasions… So I got curious, is there a name to this trope?
To clarify, are you asking if there’s a specific genre to Planet of the Apes where there’s a big reveal that this is actually just earth after some society ending disaster? (And similar stuff but that’s the first that came to mind).
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I don’t think there’s a trope name for it, since the trope itself would spoil the story since this is often a twist.
Tap for spoiler
Like Etrian Odyssey 3
Do you often go into a book or movie knowing all the tropes that exist within that story? I don’t even understand the logic here.
What’s the etymology?
It doesn’t have one. I was making a joke.
- Hi = High
- Fanta = Fantasy
- Po = Post(-apocalypse)
- Dys = Dystopian
- Fut = Future
Hifantapodysfut = High-Fantasy-Post-Apocalypse-Dystopian-Future.
It’s in the title.
You maniac, you made up! God damn you all to hell!!
So that’s the etymology
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Now what’s the entomology?
Hmm not sure. I guess I’d call it post-apocoliptic fantasy lol. But I know exaxctly what you mean and I love that genre. The Horizon games and even the Witcher books/games fit into this genre.
You mean like Adventure Time?
They are pretty obvious about it being a post nuclear war reality.
You mean like “dwarves and elves are GMO humans” and “magic is actually tech gadgets” ?
Death Gate’s cycle says hello!
For a pure magic example
The Mistborn era 1 (books 1-3) are fantasty magic.
Mistborn era 2 (books 4-7) occur hundreds of years later in that worlds “industrial/steam” age. Still, with magic.
So, for example, some allomancers can push or pull on metals. In Era 1 that’s used for combat but also for rapid movement. An allomancer can fall from a wall, throw a coin and “push” off of it causing them to bounce forward and upwards. As they’re starting to reach the azimuth they “pull” the coin, catch it and repeat.
They also in combat throw and then “push” coins or metal fragments like shrapnel.
In Era 2. A sheriff (who’s an allomancer) leaps across a gully, aims and shoots a bullet into a wooden crate and then “pushes” on it to cross it.
Another time during a shootout one “pushes” gunfire away so it deflects around him. Not guaranteed to get all of the bullets but useful in situations like that.
There are other uses and other allomantic abilities but the entire shift of the format was just done phenomenally.
Can’t recommend the Mistborn series enough
Yeah, Sanderson earned the cred on the original trilogy. It’s a fantasy series, but the magicians are basically Jedi. Great stuff!
And the powers, as in all the Cosmere, has limits which balances it out.
No endless pushes, flying, etc. every world has some resources or constraint so you’re not left with a “Superman” kind of scenario.
you probably already know this, but for anyone else:
The Cosmere Series (of which the Mistborn Saga is a part of) does heavily feature Sci-Fi as well as post-apocalypse themes alongside (mostly) fantasy (Sci-Fi: the sunlit man, tress of the emerald sea; post-apocalypse: Stormlight Archives, Yumi And The Nightmare Painter), which made me think OP was talking about this series specifically.
In some of the other books it is mentioned that all of the powers originally came from a being called Adonalsium (basically God). what fuels all these manifestations of powers is called Investiture. Each Shard of Adonalsium manifests different Powers, Allomancy is just one of them.
so it’s a unique mix of classic fantasy, sci-fi, and post-apocalypse genres in a single gigantic saga, in which the sci-fi and post-apocalypse themes are intentionally kept vague and in the background.
highly recommend all of the other books!
they are great in their own right, and also give a LOT of extra bits and peaces of the overall lore!
what’s best about the series is, as you’ve already explained, the “hard-fantasy/sci-fi” approach to powers: all power requires some kind of source, everything comes from something.
best to do the Stormlight Archives after Mistborn (either order works), then the rest; order doesn’t really matter, although i recommend Tress of the emerald Sea and The Sunlit Man to be read last, because they contain a lot of sci-fi lore, which is best enjoyed last (imho)
also: Stormlight Archives Book 5 is coming relatively soon, i think it’s december?
That’s a great summary. I’ve really enjoyed all of his books.
I can’t wait for December 6th when Wind and Truth releases.
I’m finishing a reread of the Stormlight Archive now.
thank you very much!
also: ha! i’m doing the same thing! currently at book 2 ;)
I wonder who did this first? Didn’t ultima have a storyline like this, or am I misremembering a game from before I was born
i think pops up in early computer rpgs like ultima a lot because the original Dungeons and Dragons was full of that kind of anachronistic stuff. TSR probably didn’t intentionally make it post-apocalypse though. they were just cramming whatever they thought was cool at the moment into their game, which is why you’re just as likely to find a downed spaceship as a dinosaur in Blackmoore. the post-apocalypse angle probably game to be when early crpgs wanted to ape that but wanted give it a proper story justification
i’ve also heard people say that the silmarillion has scifi elements, but i’m not sure how much of that is what tolkien intended versus what people read into it. i’ve also heard that the trope originates from medieval people coming across ruins of ancient roman architecture, but no examples were given- although it’s funny to think we have robots in The Legend of Zelda because aquaducts
Now that you mention it, I seem to remember Xenophon stumbling across giant ruins that perplexed him while out on campaign. I think they were Persian? It very much could be drawing on the experiences of people seeing the ruins of fallen empires.
Edit: AI is telling me that Xenophon traveled through the impressive ruins of Assyrian cities, he was fighting the Persians.
Planet of the apes
Exactly what I was thinking, I’m not sure of any example coming before the original Charlton Heston version.
Don’t have a name for the trope tho
Shan ara chronicles has just that and I searched it in tvtropes: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/TheShannaraChronicles#:~:text=The Shannara Chronicles is an American post-apocalyptic fantasy drama television
The Reveal: Not that the characters particularly care, but Safehold turns out to be the 3000 year old remains of San Francisco
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. is my personal favourite of Bruce Campbell’s work. Starts off as any ordinary western, before getting very, very weird.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105932/
Come to think of it, Firefly might count, after watching Serenity at the end of the series.
Good shit.
I just saw a video on the show on the youtube channel Secret Galaxy, pretty interesting, as I remembered the show, but never knew what happened to it:
I knew a tvtropes link was going to be here as soon as I saw the question lol, here goes my next three hours I guess
How was your trip?
Oh you’re still going? Nice. Enjoy your stay!
Assuming it’s a surprise, this is Earth All Along. Genre Shift is similar, but that’s more about tone than plot
You maniacs, you blew it all up!
Flintsonian/Jetson
Thanks! I think this is it… because I guess the more important part to this trope is that “hehe this is actually the world that you - dear viewer - lives in”… the high-fantasy part is secondary and depends on the genre I guess.
I think the trope From Cataclysm to Myth actually fits better. It even says in the description "Cousin to Earth All Along, but a premise or a plot twist rather than a Twist Ending. "
What happens when the story is not set on Earth?
Specifically the After the End variant
The American dream
Honestly, “America broke down and now it’s Medieval Europe over there” sounds more like the dream of some European patriots.
I have no idea the answer to your question, but I now know like 99% of people on lemmy have shitty reading comprehension.
People on here seem to not know what a trope is. Holy hell.
Seriously. There’s a dozen links to TvTropes and none of them match OP’s description, but they’re all upvoted to high heaven. Not to mention the unrelated replies talking about their favorite stories which don’t actually match the trope either.
The TvTropes links are mostly right though? It matches the third variation of Earth All Along. The linked examples match what OP is describing except not being restricted to Fantasy.
Well OP didn’t specify Earth. I can think of some stories where it transitions from high fantasy into sci-fi but is not set on Earth, which is definitely not under the ‘Earth All Along’ trope.
Spoiler:
The Gods are Bastards is the first one that comes to mind, where it turns out the planet is a colony in an unstable part of space that’s been quarantined by the original science team who have ascended.
Browsing responses here, you aren’t wrong.
Pity, 'cause it’s a great question, and a great trope. I can think of a few good examples. Maybe it’s time to start a TVTropes account and get editing.
I… agree. Did get a lot of great recommendations tho!
I don’t quite think that there’s a name for this genre (yet?) but I’ll take this opportunity to blast out my favorite story-focused game serieses
Xenoblade is a nice fantasy RPG if you really like Storytelling! And all 3 core games are available on Switch!
Generally speaking, Xenogears and Xenosaga have amazing stories too, but Xenoblade got translated and dubbed waaaay better
Edit: just thought of this the last couple of minutes, and, if there was a name for this genre, it would spoil the whole game/movie/book for you! Imagine watching Planet of the Apes for the first time (it’s old by now and I hope there’s no one here who didn’t watch it already) and exactly knowing what planet it is
if there was a name for this genre, it would spoil the whole game/movie/book for you
Not really. A work doesn’t have to be marketed as a specific trope, that doesn’t mean it isn’t categorised as such. There are entire categories on TvTropes that carry mass spoilers - looking at any of the examples will spoil that work for you. This is just one more such category.
