History Main / AndManGrewProud

* ''VideoGame/StarWarriorII'': The Altian civilization was the most advanced known civilization, but they destroyed themselves with their own infighting.

* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' features the Kingdom of Zeal from the era of Antiquity, 12,000 years before the founding of Guardia. They got pretty haughty — exiling those who couldn't use magic and thinking solar power was SoLastSeason — and it resulted in maybe 80% of the planet being flooded and [[TheMagicGoesAway all Enlightened Ones losing their magic]] with the exceptions of four [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong temporally-consistent]] exceptions who were else''[[TimeTravel when]]'' at the moment, and the party (with two exceptions) who get their dormant magic abilities awakened by the MrExposition that {{Foreshadow|ing}}s the kingdom's importance.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'': The lost civilization of Agartha, a technologically advanced nation millennia ago grew arrogant and waged war against [[DeathOfTheOldGods the goddess Sothis]], who paid them back by wiping out Agartha. [[spoiler:Agartha continues to exist into the present day via the descendants of the survivors of the war, who live in a secret UndergroundCity known as Shambhala, and Agarthan descendants (now known as "Those Who Slither in the Dark"), are ''still'' dedicated to their war of extermination against the goddess and her Children, having manipulated Nemesis and his Ten Elites into killing Sothis while she slumbered and slaughtering the Nabateans in Zanado while forging their bones into weapons and drinking their blood to gain Crests. They also still possess a good chunk of their ancestors' advanced technology and know how to use them: besides living space, Shambhala is also host to a battery of [[FantasticNuke long-range missile silos]], and is heavily defended with [[LightningGun electrical cannons]] and HumongousMecha armed with massive swords that shoot out [[SwordBeam energy beams.]]]]

* In the Franchise/MonsterVerse, it's revealed in ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' that AdvancedAncientHumans once coexisted in balance with the [[Characters/MonsterVerseKaiju Titans]], but eventually they start enslaving them as beasts of war, leading to their civilization's doom when the Titans fought back against this.

** ''Literature/TheLordsOfTheRings'': Gondor grew powerful for a time until arrogant kings wasted their strength on petty civil wars in prior centuries.

* ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': A running theme in the works of Creator/JRRTolkien. Most notably in the downfall of Numenor, the Atlantis-like civilization of which Gondor and Arnor are just surviving colonies. They literally tried to invade ''heaven'' to forcibly steal immortality, and were repaid with divine retribution. Comes up again to a lesser extent with Gondor, growing powerful for a time until arrogant kings wasted their strength on petty civil wars in prior centuries. The Dwarves of Erebor also grew so wealthy that they alienated many of their allies, so that when the dragon Smaug attacked them their neighbors weren't eager to face certain death to help the dwarf refugees.

Sometimes, PrideBeforeAFall occurs with one person. However, sometimes an entire civilization gets overcome by hubris, which means it got excessive pride or an arrogant level of self-confidence, and the society may weaken or even collapse. For example, a society with advanced technology may be so infatuated with innovative engineering that it [[GreenAesop destroys the environment]]. Such civilizations may crumble, leaving only [[LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair ruined monuments they made out of pride]] and the society may be outlasted by them. The formerly towering civilization may decline and become a SoiledCityOnAHill due to decadence and corruption. Regardless of what these civilizations leave behind (assuming there are any traces of them left), the reason for their downfall is the same: excessive pride and unwillingness to consider their limits.

Sometimes, PrideBeforeAFall occurs with one person. However, sometimes an entire civilization gets overcome by hubris, which means it got excessive pride or an arrogant level of self-confidence, and the society may weaken or even collapse. For example, a society with advanced technology may be so infatuated with innovative engineering that it destroys the environment. Such civilizations may crumble, leaving only [[LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair ruined monuments they made out of pride]] and the society may be outlasted by them. The formerly towering civilization may decline and become a SoiledCityOnAHill due to decadence and corruption. Regardless of what these civilizations leave behind (assuming there are any traces of them left), the reason for their downfall is the same: excessive pride and unwillingness to consider their limits.

* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' shows one example of Krypton's destruction. In this case, [[spoiler:it hinges on the highly technologically developed Kryptonians being overconfident in their planet-monitoring AI, Brainiac, firmly believing that he could not be wrong [[IgnoredExpert despite Jor-El's findings]]. Turns out he knows the planet is about to blow up, and decided there isn't time to save the whole civilisation so he is saving himself instead.]]

Sometimes, PrideBeforeAFall occurs with one person. However, sometimes an entire civilization gets overcome by hubris, which means it got excessive pride or an arrogant level of self-confidence, and the society may weaken or even collapse. For example, a society with advanced technology may be so infatuated with innovative engineering that it destroys the environment. Such civilizations may crumble, leaving only [[LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair ruined monuments they made out of pride]] and the society may be outlasted by them. The formerly towering civilization may decline and become a [[SoiledCityOnAHill]] due to decadence and corruption. Regardless of what these civilizations leave behind (assuming there are any traces of them left), the reason for their downfall is the same: excessive pride and unwillingness to consider their limits.

Sometimes, PrideBeforeAFall occurs with one person. However, sometimes an entire civilization gets too full of itself and collapses due to its own hubris. Such civilizations may [[LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair leave behind monuments they made out of pride]] and be outlasted by them, and they may also [[SoiledCityOnAHill suffer from corruption]]. Regardless of what these civilizations leave behind (assuming there are any traces of them left), the reason for their downfall is the same.

Compare LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair, for when a proud civilization built countless monuments to itself before its fall, SoiledCityOnAHill, for one way a city can be destroyed due to hubris (among other reasons, such as [[WeHaveBecomeComplacent complacency]] or [[WretchedHive corruption]]). If the memory of one of these civilizations fades into myth long after its fall, it can go FromCataclysmToMyth.

* A running theme in the works of Creator/JRRTolkien: most notably in the downfall of Numenor, the Atlantis-like civilization of which Gondor and Arnor are just surviving colonies. They literally tried to invade ''heaven'' to forcibly steal immortality, and were repaid with divine retribution. Comes up again to a lesser extent with Gondor, growing powerful for a time until arrogant kings wasted their strength on petty civil wars in prior centuries. The Dwarves of Erebor also grew so wealthy that they alienated many of their allies, so that when the dragon Smaug attacked them their neighbors weren't eager to face certain death to help the dwarf refugees. Tolkien lived through World War I, which at the time seemed like the end of western civilization, nearly wiped out an entire generation, and was fought for petty reasons of nationalism and ego.

* ComicBook/{{Superman}}'s home planet of Krypton is sometimes this. DependingOnTheWriter, reasons for the demise of its society may include a rigid, sterile culture, overconfidence/complacency in Krypton's stability, and/or a sense of superiority/isolationism that stops them from expanding to other planets.

* ''Literature/BookOfGenesis'': Then Man built a tower intended to reach Heaven. God decided to put a stop to it and confuse the language of man. Which is why language classes are needed in the present day.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'': The lost civilization of Agartha, a technologically advanced nation millennia ago grew arrogant and waged war against [[DeathOfTheOldGods the goddess Sothis]], who paid them back by wiping out Agartha. [[spoiler:Agartha continues to exist into the present day via the descendants of the survivors of the war, who live in a secret UndergroundCity known as Shambhala, ande Agarthan descendants (now known as "Those Who Slither in the Dark"), are ''still'' dedicated to their war of extermination against the goddess and her Children, and they still possess a good chunk of their ancestors' advanced technology and know how to use them: besides living space, Shambhala is also host to a battery of [[FantasticNuke long-range missile silos]], and is heavily defended with [[LightningGun electrical cannons]] and HumongousMecha armed with massive swords that shoot out [[SwordBeam energy beams.]]]]

* {{Franchise/Superman}}'s home planet of Krypton is sometimes this. DependingOnTheWriter, reasons for the demise of its society may include a rigid, sterile culture, overconfidence/complacency in Krypton's stability, and/or a sense of superiority/isolationism that stops them from expanding to other planets.

* Literature/BookOfGenesis: Then Man built a tower intended to reach Heaven. God decided to put a stop to it and confuse the language of man. Which is why language classes are needed in the present day.

* Literature/GrasshopperJungle: This seems to be the view of the main characters regarding the actions of McKeon Industries and their disregard for the possible consequences of creating an army of giant, bulletproof, fast-maturing, praying mantises.
* Literature/TheLostFleet: Every ship named ''Invincible'' has a very short lifespan - by the standards of a fleet where it's almost unheard of for a ship to survive three years past its commissioning. Most sailors believe that the name is an affront to the living stars, although fleet engineers see this superstition as pointless, especially since no captain will have his or her ship be repaired with parts salvaged from an ''Invincible''. Despite this, the fleet bureaucracy refuses to retire the name and keeps naming new ships ''Invincible'' as soon as one is destroyed. They get really annoyed when Geary and another admiral choose to christen a captured bear-cow superbattleship ''Invincible''. [[spoiler:Even that one is destroyed in ''Leviathan'', but it serves as a distraction for the dark ships, giving Geary's fleet some much needed time]].

* Series/BabylonFive: The leadership of the human race appears to have started to get delusions of grandeur as they began to expand into the galaxy with the help of the Centauri, and began to grow more expansionist and militant. After a successful war against a species called the Dilgar the human leadership believed they could handle anything that came their way. Then there was an unfortunate incident with a Minbari cruiser...

* TabletopGame/ContinuumRoleplayingInTheYet: Antedesertium is an entire time span of thousands of years where [[spoiler:Africa is ruled by Narcissist kings of time and space, granting SchizoTech to the population, and [[MadScientist performing experiments on causality itself]]. Eventually, they come to look nothing like humans, and then their whole civilization collapses at Interregnum, a massive TemporalParadox-laden no man's land, where time travelers instantly Frag out if they try to span. Interregnum caused a massive axial shift that left the Sahara a desert.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'': The downfall of Atlantean civilization was caused by them misusing their CrystalDragonJesus MacGuffin for military purposes. Both King Nedakh and Kida describe it as wrath of gods, though it's unclear whether it really was the case.
[[/folder]]

* ''Literature/ByTheWatersOfBabylon'': John, after seeing how human civilization was destroyed, says this had been due to them gaining power through knowledge so quickly it had overridden their sense. This ended up resulting in a cataclysmic war which killed most people and left the rest like his surviving as simple foragers who long thought of those before as gods.

''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'': The downfall of Atlantean civilization was caused by them misusing their CrystalDragonJesus MacGuffin for military purposes. Both King Nedakh and Kida describe it as wrath of gods, though it's unclear whether it really was the case.

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'': The downfall of Atlantean civilization was caused by them misusing their CrystalDragonJesus MacGuffin for military purposes. Both King Nedakh and Kida describe it as wrath of gods, though it's unclear whether it really was the case.
[[/folder]]

* A running theme in the works of Creator/JRRTolkien

[[WMG:[[center:[[AC:This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1650029440085848900 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.]]]]]]

* Literature/TheLostFleet: Every ship named ''Invincible'' has a very short lifespan - by the standards of a fleet where it's almost unheard of for a ship to survive three years past its commissioning. Most sailors believe that the name is an [[AndManGrewProud affront to the living stars]], although fleet engineers see this superstition as pointless, especially since no captain will have his or her ship be repaired with parts salvaged from an ''Invincible''. Despite this, the fleet bureaucracy refuses to retire the name and keeps naming new ships ''Invincible'' as soon as one is destroyed. They get really annoyed when Geary and another admiral choose to christen a captured bear-cow superbattleship ''Invincible''. [[spoiler:Even that one is destroyed in ''Leviathan'', but it serves as a distraction for the dark ships, giving Geary's fleet some much needed time]].