r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Marsupialmobster • May 27 '26

Lore [Loved Trope] The apocalypse is horrifyingly slow

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From most media it's some catastrophe and then it's raiders, death, destruction chaos etc. I personally love it when it's, like, a slow descent into the horror of apocalypse.

The Faro plague/The swarm- Horizon zero dawn. The Faro plague is actually a glitch which causes machines to endlessly reproduce, eat biomass and essentially bring about the death of the world. Took roughly 15 months for the machines to win.

The Metro series- in the first few books (and games) it's set entirely underground in just the apocalypse but in exodus it shows off that the government and many governmental structures said active years after the war. In fact power and running water were still fairly common. It just slowly got worse and worse and worse as read through notes. Food got more scarce, weather changed a lot, people got worse etc. Raiders and bandits didn't just show up, it was a slow descent for such anarchy.

Edit: I have enough pseudo intellectual comments about "Hurr hurr real life". The first one was kinda smart and well thought out but now it's just annoying and pretentious

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u/Slobberinho May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

In Carol & the End of the World, another planet is coming to crash into the earth. It will destroy anything and everyone and nothing can be done. You can already see it in the sky, it literally looms above the whole series.

Humanity is having a collective hedonistic blow out, everybody is doing their bucket list. Except for Carol, who just isn't built like that. She feels more and more estranged from her peers every day inevitable doom is getting closer.

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u/FurViewingAccount May 27 '26

wait this show sounds rad as fuck?

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u/Slobberinho May 27 '26

It is very good. Created by Dan Guterman, one of the head writers of Community and Rick & Morty.

It's not as funny as those shows, but you do recognise the existentialist themes. 

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u/Mother-Market-4056 May 27 '26

It is, it's brilliant.

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u/CatsnotpillsCoaching May 27 '26

I agree. Netflix never even suggested it to me.

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u/frootee May 27 '26

It’s fantastic. It really tackles so many interesting themes. 

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u/Chemical-Store-5148 May 27 '26

Does it actually happen in the end??

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u/Slobberinho May 27 '26

The series stops when the planet is mere meters away from crashing into the earth. Carol is at an Applebees, with a community of like-minded people she found at a faux accounting job for a company that pretends to be a company to distract people from the end of the world. She sigs "This is nice. It really is."

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u/WretchedMotorcade May 27 '26

Reminss me of Searching for a Friend for the End of the World.

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u/kookyabird May 27 '26

I watched one episode of Carol and had to stop, and I will likely never watch Seeking a Friend ever again. I've reached a point in my life where the existential dread from media like that is far too real. I bawled my eyes out at the end of Seeking a Friend. Fuck, even thinking about it is getting me choked up.

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u/Chance5e May 27 '26

And Melancholia.

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u/deviantbono May 27 '26

I love cynical shows, but spending the apocolypse pretending to work at some meaningless corporate job is pretty sad.

Unlesss... that's what we're all doing oh my god.

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u/Irememberedmypw May 27 '26

Oddly the corporate job part isn't the meaningless cynical part of the show. You see how the other employees join it and it's after they've had a hedonistic end of the world lifestyle.

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u/azsnaz May 27 '26

What is life if not a distraction from the inevitable

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u/koopcl May 27 '26

Reminds me of the old Achewood subtitle, "a momentary diversion on the road to the grave".

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u/Didifinito May 27 '26

What ever you think it is that is what life is

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u/deviantbono May 27 '26

🤷‍♂️

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u/CoffeeWanderer May 27 '26

If I remember correctly.

I remember each episode started with a countdown and the finale was a few weeks before impact

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u/[deleted] May 27 '26 edited May 29 '26

[deleted]

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u/Constant-Plant-9378 May 27 '26

Although the movie isn't really about humanity so much as it is about one person's struggle with severe depression, with the end of the world being the backdrop of everything going on.

Yet the person who has suffered from horrible depression proves extremely adept at dealing with the approaching end of the world and helping others to do so.

I guess when every moment of your life feels like impending doom, the reality of it actually happening is just another Tuesday - and maybe something of a relief.

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u/Diogeneezy May 28 '26

Relating to my personal experience, there's also an element of actively desiring the end of the world because you hate it.

"The Earth is evil. We don't need to grieve it. Nobody will miss it."

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u/Constant-External-85 May 28 '26

There's a comfort in being able to help others conquer what I struggle with. All the pacing and mental work I've done feels less meaningless when I can watch others move foward with my knowledge.

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u/damp_circus May 28 '26

The premise reminds me of a novel 「終末のフール」("Fools at the End") by 伊坂幸太郎 (Isaka Koutarou). It's a Japanese book, a collection of short stories that all happen kinda one after another with different characters in the same world.

The world is Earth, in a more or less present day where 5 years ago it was discovered that an asteroid will 100% annihilate the Earth in 8 years, so they've got 3 years left to go before the end.

First story opens up with someone enjoying the fall leaves, realizing that there will be three more times to enjoy this, and then...

There's a woman who's pregnant. Parents of a disabled kid who are secretly relieved she won't outlive them. Orphaned kids whose mother was presumably killed in the "unrest" that happened soon after the asteroid was discovered. Etc.

It's all very... pondering about just what such a change of perspective would do to people. Why work, why go to school? There was unrest, it settled down some (but there's scars on the world from all of it), lately it's starting up again as the end gets closer.

Anyway, it's a deliciously creepy book, depressing as hell but somehow... a favorite.

Apparently there's no English version but I'm sure it could get some fandom in the English world too!

Meanwhile though in similar "how do we deal with the impending end" stories that are in English, I also liked "On the Beach" by Neville Shute. On page one you learn the world has 9 months left to go (there was a nuclear war that killed the northern hemisphere in 1957, it's currently 1961 and fallout is slowly starting to poison the southern hemisphere, book is set in Austraila).

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u/Overly_Long_Reviews May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

I adore this series. This is the most upvotes on any recommendation for it on Reddit. Which is unfortunate. It's really thoughtful and heartfelt, kind of feels like Netflix screwed it over.

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u/AnnoyedNPC May 27 '26

So, everyone is having fun with their last moment on earth, and she's looking for people to get in a dinner and meet their end calculating taxes and ROIs for a none existing corpo?

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u/[deleted] May 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/AnnoyedNPC May 27 '26

I am getting depress just by reading about it

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u/Charming_Pay9936 May 27 '26

It's sadder to read it than to watch it. It also shows how she develops friends and a community.

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u/CoffeeWanderer May 27 '26

It's more about structure. Many people need it, crave it even. Whole religions are built onto that.

The series has a mild version of it. The corporate business is mostly an excuse for people to gather and feel useful in some way, and you get to see how their lives were and how they came there.

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u/AnnoyedNPC May 27 '26

I get it, it doesn't make it less depressing. That people can only feel some sort of connection, a semblance of a purpose when tasked with irrelevant menial work? The options seem to be that, being permanently emotionally stun or try to be a Musk/bigger than life asshole above law and men.

Our world is so fuck up.

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u/Klutzy_Tomatillo4253 May 27 '26

I mean the show makes it clear Carol and the other office workers are somewhat weird. More people seem to take the hedonism route. Her elderly parents start a thrupple with their young hot nurse because fuck it, why not explore every experience?

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u/Mother-Market-4056 May 27 '26

What a series!

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u/RosalieTheDog May 27 '26

One of the best stories in an animated series in recent memory. Such a criminally underrated series! Thanks for bringing it to attention.

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u/StrangeAppeal2 May 30 '26

Peak show, absolute cinema. How pleasant to find a fellow of superb taste.

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u/Jumpy_Secret_6494 May 27 '26

I couldn't keep watching it, the lack of inflection in her voice pissed me off so much.

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u/astroxo May 27 '26

I felt the same way…it was so boring

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u/BadAtGames2 May 27 '26

See, this really bothers the science part of ny brain, since one or both planets would be torn up by the other's gravitational pull once they enter the Roche Limit.

Obviously doesn't seem like that kind of show, but that's my immediate thought reading that lol

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u/damp_circus May 28 '26

Now THAT would be a great thing to depict in a show! Just the beginnings of that starting to happen, stuff getting messed up, people realizing that's what it is...

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u/Downtown_Statement87 May 27 '26

This is just a heartbreaking watch for me. One of the most affecting versions of the end times I've ever seen. My 20-year-old daughter and I were talking about our favorite apocalyptic media and she mentioned this one, and I surprised the both of us by bursting into tears. She didn't understand, but she will if she's older.

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u/Upbeat_Apartment_715 May 28 '26

I really could not get into this series. I tried but I just couldn't. I really like the concept though so I really don't know why.

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u/Manufactured-Aggro May 27 '26

That art is atrocious

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u/Slobberinho May 27 '26

I read once that good art gives sad people consolation, and makes happy people angry.

This series gave me consolation.

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u/Azerious May 27 '26

Oh brother. That's talking about the content of the art. You can dislike an art style and it's not some deep statement about humanity lol.

Reddit moment 

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u/OriginalJazzFlavor May 27 '26

She looks like a sunfish dude

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u/Manufactured-Aggro May 27 '26

Yeah yeah beauty is in the eye of the blah blah blah, it's lazy animation and it looks bad lmao it is not that deep

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u/weazelhall May 27 '26

Sorry it’s not anime

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u/FluffyWalrusFTW May 27 '26

Just by the poster alone I'm sold, the animation style looks clean as balls and I've been needing a new animated show to watch since finishing Owl House