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?
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!
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?
Flintsonian/Jetson
I have no idea the answer to your question, but I now know like 99% of people on lemmy have shitty reading comprehension.
Seriously. There’s a dozen links to TvTropes and almost 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.
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.
People on here seem to not know what a trope is. Holy hell.
I… agree. Did get a lot of great recommendations tho!
Aladdin (1992). The Genie is the last survivor of the AI wars and has mental damage. The Cave of Wonders is another remnant. “Magic” is low level AI responding to human intent. Iago is an uplift. Agrabah is literally a generic Middle Eastern country because it was assembled from the fragmented records of what remained of the Middle East.
You know, the modern remake of The Time Machine shares some of these elements. Orlando Jones was the broken AI lol
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.
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:
You mean like Adventure Time?
They are pretty obvious about it being a post nuclear war reality.
Yeah, Adventure Time
Not 100% sure, but these come to mind.
- Science Fantasy
- Dying Earth
- Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy
These sound right to me, especially Dying Earth - a podcast I listen to covered Gene Wolf’s Book of the New Sun trilogy and they described it as such. Wikipedia calls it Science Fantasy. Great books by the way
That wouldn’t fall under a single trope, but would be a combination of several tropes. After The End would be a requirement, and for technology that is like magic to those who live in the world would be Lost Technology.
Nice, I think yours is the most relevant so far.
Star Wars is fantasy, not sci-fi. (Technically it’s a space opera, it not at all about science or how that science might impact society.)
Just because there’s technology, or it’s post apocalyptic doesn’t make it not fantasy.
Shanara chronicles, too.
Shanara chronicles, too.
Yep, they visit ruins in one series that is pretty clearly the ruins of Tacoma or some place like it.
Terry Brooks happens to live in that area. Coincidence? :)
Yeah, in my mind, Sci-fi is more than just space ships or aliens or futuristic tech (though those are loosely part of it), it’s more about exploring different questions, under the guise of some sort of new technology. “Hey, we invented this thing that can remove racism from people’s brains, but it also makes people love-obsessed and creates dependency issues in people. Should we use this on the population?” It raises moral/ethical questions about what we could or should do given the chance.
Star Wars is straight-up fantasy with high-tech aesthetics, but it has more in common with Lord of the Rings than it does with anything sci-fi. It’s about a hero’s journey and good vs evil.
I wonder if you couldn’t do a reverse Fantasy/Sci-fi story? Basically a sci-fi sort of story with fantasy trappings. Like a fantasy story that looks at some new magic development and what the implications for humanity are of that new magic process. “We perfected an alchemical process to turn poop into gold! Should we flood the market with poo-gold and crash the medieval economy?”
And that’s why silver is better than gold.
(/j)
In any case I’d rage about the cross over with horror, it then we’d have to talk about Shelly pioneering sci-fi with Frankenstein’s monster.
And like. That is a classic.
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).
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.
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
Where have you seen this? I’ve been looking for some stories like it
The Wheel of Time does this.
Yeah, though clues are few and far between; the
spoiler
museum in Tanchico with the Mercedes hood ornament
is the biggest clue. From Jordan’s other writings, the
spoiler
First age was our time, then humans created an AI powerful enough to genetically engineer humans to be able to do magic,
and that led to the Age of Legends.
Yup. I think there are a few more, on a re read rn and Great Hunt they go to a parallel world where there appear to be Jet contrails and large swatches of burned ground where absolutely nothing will grow - nuclear fallout?
I hadn’t heard of the AI bit before but it sort of makes sense. sAIdin and sAIdar? No?
I’ve got to check these recs out
OG Planet of the Apes, Horizon Zero Dawn is too in a way
I don’t think there’s supernatural stuff on HZD
There’s not, maybe that’s what he means by ‘in a way’?
Great games, highly recommend them. Not sure they really fit the trope, though.
I’ve never actually seen, just the references. Guess it’s worth a go
OG Planet of the Apes took place on Soror, a planet in the Betelgeuse system.
Shanara chronicles are set after humanity fucked everything up, demons came and fucked more shit and got sealed away and are now coming back.
It’s otherwise your sword and horse fantasy, though.
Yor: Hunter From the Future
The Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein, though sadly she never finished it.
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 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.
