History Main / AndThenWhat

* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'', the Soothsayer asks Shen if taking over the world will finally make him happy. Shen is clearly shocked, never having considered what he'll do after he's done conquering and if it will even be worth everything he's lost but is quick to brush off the moment of by snarkily replying "It's a start. I might also convert the basement into a dungeon."

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'' episode "Collect Her", Lenny Baxter the comic book geek sinks into an immediate depression when he realizes that he has completely collected every piece of Powerpuff Girls merchandise. Collecting their memorabilia was his life, so what does he do now that he's got it all? At first, he steals their belongings before moving onto somehow ''capturing the Girls themselves''.

* ''Fanfic/DirtySimpathy'': [[Franchise/AceAttorney Edgeworth]] asks Phoenix what he will do [[spoiler:if he has Klavier and Apollo arrested and jailed for their crime]]. What will Phoenix do for the innocent people they helped whose cases might be overturned or for the horrible people they put away if their crimes come to light?

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E68TheShelter The Shelter]]", as they're gathering supplies for the shelter, Grace Stockton wonders what the point is if they're destined to live in a ruined world surrounded by the bodies of their friends and neighbors. Her husband Bill tells her that their son Paul is their reason because even if that's the world he inherits, he's still only twelve years old.

* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G87p148EOjo Level Clear]]" by Creator/TomCardy is about a video game character (definitely not Mario) finally defeating the bad guy, only to realize he has no idea what else to do with his life. He ends up starting the game over and over again just to try to find ''something'' fulfilling, whether it's becoming a successful lawyer, moving to Spain and starting a family, raising money for charity, starting a crime syndicate, or becoming Website/TikTok famous by cramming a ball of ham in his mouth.

** In a similar vein, when Maya was a MyopicConqueror warlord in the past with no goals beyond "winning", her teacher brought her down with a similar ArmorPiercingQuestion about what she'll do once she's conquered all. When she passes on the question to Allison, this time, she's ready with an answer: [[spoiler: Some things you have to wait and see what will happen once you get there.]]

-->-- ''ComicBook/{{Serenity}}: Those Left Behind''

*** Abe also points out that, as a mortal man who is now in his 70s, he can no longer simply outlive every threat that comes along.

* ''Literature/VillainsCode'': Belaam wants to destroy the villain guild that he is part of because he feels it has made villains soft and defanged, where they spend more time attending meetings and filling out paperwork than true villainy like conquering the world. Doctor Mechanical asks him what he plans to do ''after'' conquering the world, and points out that if anyone conquers the world, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome they're gonna end up having to attend a lot of meetings and fill out a lot of paperwork]]. Belaam dismisses this as weak-willed nonsense, but Doctor Mechanical has traveled a number of alternate realities, and he saw in a number of them what happened when he successfully conquered the world. Apparently this was why he founded the guild; it's the same amount of work, but this way doesn't piss off the entire world in the process.

* ''Fanfic/FateHaremAntics'': Rin Tohsaka dedicated her life to honoring her father by achieving his goal of reaching The Root. She admits she does not know what she will do after she reaches it.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11613187/1/What-Was-Your-Plan What Was Your Plan?,]]'' Harry confronts Dumbledore about how the man has allegedly manipulated his entire life up to that point. Dumbledore responds by asking him what exactly he expects to happen now, before going over each point to explain why the whole thing sounds absurd.

* ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'': Towards the end of the first season, Copy Rezo declares his intent to prove that he is greater than the original Rezo by killing the people who slew him. When Zelgadis asks what he plans to do with his life after killing Lina and Company, Rezo replies that he doesn't ''care''.

* ''Manga/AsteroidInLove'': The protagonist, Mira, has a GoalInLife: to discover an asteroid and name it after her friend Ao. When she gets into the exclusive Shiny Star Challenge, in which high schoolers get a chance to search for unidentified asteroids, one of her fellow participants asks Mira what she'll do when she accomplishes that goal. Mira says she doesn't know yet, but she'll probably find another goal. [[spoiler:Mira and Ao fail to find a new asteroid, so she avoids having to answer that question for the moment]].

* ''Manga/BloomIntoYou''

* ''Anime/GargantiaOnTheVerdurousPlanet'' falls somewhere between this and SoWhatDoWeDoNow, as this question causes [[FishOutOfWater Ledo]] to finally start questioning his path in life. Being a ChildSoldier taught that his only purpose is to kill the enemy in the Galactic Alliance's ForeverWar, he's a bit confused when asked what he would do if it ever turned out that his side actually won. As far as he's concerned, fighting the war is the only way for humanity to survive, [[CircularReasoning and the only reason that it has for surviving]].

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'': Ash gets hit by this question during [[Anime/PokemonToBeAPokemonMaster his final arc]]. [[spoiler:After defying decades of viewer resignation by finally winning a League and then even the Masters Tournament, Ash really does become the strongest Pokémon trainer in the world!]] Then on returning home he realises he has no idea what next. He eventually decides that [[spoiler:the mark of a true Pokémon Master isn't battle prowess anyway, but instead one's ability to befriend any Pokémon. Having ultimately failed to break through a Latios' mistrust of humans an episode prior, he believes he still has much to learn, and [[AndTheAdventureContinues sets off once more on a journey]] wherever fate takes him.]]

* ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'': [[spoiler: This is the question plaguing the members of Team 5D’s at the end of the series. Having successfully averted the BadFuture, Yusei realizes that he doesn’t know where to go from there. He became a scientist like his dad to ensure the future would be safe, but now that goal is finished. Yusei reasoned that he would simply remain in Neo Domino City to continue protecting it, but he has his doubts. The other members of Team 5D’s (minus Jack) all receive offers on where to go, but following up on them would require that they leave Neo Domino City, splitting up the team. At first, of all of them, Jack is the only one to have answered this question, his new goal being to become the World Turbo Dueling Champion and then to defeat Yusei. When the team comes together and they all learn they have the same dilemma on their minds, Yusei decides to duel Jack one more time to determine what they would do. In the end, the Signers choose to separate, going on their own individual paths in life. Crow returns to Pro Dueling just like Jack, Leo and Luna move back in with their parents, Akiza goes to study medicine abroad, and Yusei decides to stay in Neo Domino City, acknowledging that it’ll always be his home.]]

* Asked of [[{{VideoGame/Tekken}} Kazuya Mishima]] in ''Ashes of the Phoenix'' by [[spoiler:Lei Wulong. While Kazuya has an answer, Lei [[ShutUpHannibal successfully outmaneuvers him]].]]

* ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'': in TheStinger, all of the dentist's fish finally manage to escape the tank and return to the ocean!... but they're stuck in plastic bags. After an awkward silence, Bloat asks "Now what?"
** ExpandedUniverse materials show that they make it out of the bags and find Nemo again. ''WesternAnimation/FindingDory'' on the other hand [[spoiler:shows that they're ''still'' trapped in the bags over a year later, but they're found and rescued by aquarium workers]].

** Turns out that [[spoiler:Metro Man himself ran into the same question back in that bout against Megamind. Feeling out of it, he decided to use his SuperSpeed to clear his head (i.e. going so fast time is a near-stop for him.) He looks back and notes that he and Megamind have been doing the same exchange for their entire lives and somewhat pigeonholed by outside forces into their roles. However, he ends up reading some self-help books from the library and decides to fake his death so he could retire and become a musician. His later exchange implies that he knew Megamind would undergo the same sort of existential crisis upon his victory and subtly encourages him to become Metro City's new protector.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'', Carl has no idea what he's going to do once he gets to Paradise Falls. It was his and Ellie's dream to live there for the rest of their lives. However, since Ellie is dead and Carl is an old man, not much can be accomplished. The first thing he does when he sets his house down, he moves his and Ellie's chairs together... and sits in dead silence. It doesn't last too long as he reexamines the photo album of him and Ellie and [[spoiler:looks back at their wonderful times before seeing her final message thanking him for all of their adventures and encouraging him to go have more. He ends up deciding to do just that and saves the day, going on to become a father figure to Russell.]]

* In ''Film/BatmanForever'', The Riddler presses Two-Face to think about what happens after he succeeds in killing Batman. A quick death would be so unsatisfying, wouldn't it? Wouldn't a more involved scheme to thoroughly destroy the Bat be better?

--> '''ComicBook/TheJoker''': Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it!

* ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'': Dr. Stanton poses this question to the EcoTerrorist [[spoiler:Emma Russell]] when the latter reveals they intend to release all the {{Kaiju}} so they can inflict GaiasVengeance, believing nothing but destroyed wasteland will be left in the aftermath. [[spoiler:Emma]] replies without missing a beat that the creatures won't devastate the planet's biosphere but will instead rejuvenate it. The end shows that [[spoiler:she was ultimately right, although countless millions perished and she doesn't live to see it.]]

* ''Literature/{{Uprooted}}'': When the CourtMage called The Falcon arrives at his keep accompanied by [[WarriorPrince Prince]] [[PrinceCharmless Marek]] and a small troop of horsemen in response to rumors of someone being rescued from the nearby [[DontGoIntoTheWoods enchanted forest]], the first thing out of his mouth to The Dragon is an insincerely regretful accusation of him losing his senses out in the hinterlands. The Dragon promptly cuts The Falcon off by noting how ill-prepared he seems for the eventuality he is hinting at:
-->'''The Dragon''': ''[Rising from his chair and [[TheSlowWalk stalking forward]] as [[CastingAShadow thickening shadows]] fill the chamber]'' "If [[TheArchMage I]] had [[TheCorruption fallen to the Wood]], what did you imagine you would do, here in [[WizardsTower my tower]]?"

* ''Series/BreakingBad'': Once Walt kills all of his enemies and begins to build his meth empire, [[spoiler:Skyler shows him the money pile the empire built up, while sincerely asking Walt what he intends to do with it even if he can't safely launder it anymore. Walt takes it to heart and quits the meth trade, eventually intending to slowly live off the money for the rest of his life. Unfortunately for him, karma bites him in the ass in the form of Gale's book.]]

* ''Franchise/KamenRider''

* Asked by Wrestling/JimmyJacobs to [[Wrestling/DeanAmbrose Jon Moxley]] on the need to keep fighting everyone and everything in life during their 2010 Wrestling/DragonGate USA feud.

* ''Theatre/WesterosAnAmericanMusical'': "I'll Be Back" exists partly to point out the lack of long-term thinking in Daenerys' plan to bring her deposed family back to the Westeros throne with the help of her dragons. The song points out that by the time she's singing it, she can no longer have children, her brother died without leaving any descendants, and she doesn't have an existing heir. She's also LastOfHerKind.

** Therion's Big Bad, [[spoiler:his former thieving partner Darius]], wants to use the Dragonstones that they stole from House Ravus for the sake of power. But since the Big Bad has ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, Therion counters that [[LonelyAtTheTop even if they succeed, they'll have no one they can trust]], and then what are they going to do? The best part is, [[spoiler:Therion is almost immediately proven correct after the fight. Darius was such a caustic boss that the only person who showed loyalty to him actually ended up dead. ''No one'' wants to follow him, and even after he survives his fight with Therion, he's too weak to do anything and is forced to watch as what little remains of his treasure hoard [[KarmicDeath is stolen right in front of him.]]]]
** Primrose's path sees the villain give her such a question instead of the other way around. [[spoiler:Primrose's former LoveInterest Simeon]] points out that, should Primrose manage to actually kill the Crows like she wants to, [[VengeanceFeelsEmpty she'll have nothing left to live for]]. So what will she do if she gets her revenge? This is enough to make Primrose momentarily falter, requiring a BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind to snap out of it.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': This is the gist of Illidan's BreakingSpeech to Maiev Shadowsong after his defeat at the Black Temple. He rightfully points out that her obsession with hunting Illidan had become so all-consuming, she wouldn't know what to do if she actually succeeded; indeed, she admits now she's won, she feels hollow. ''Legion'' showed she spent the better part of the ten years guarding Illidan's body, choosing to leave his soul in a state of limbo rather than trying to find a way to permanently kill him [[note]]Illidari cannot die by normal means; since they're part-demon, they can return to their bodies after they're killed. This is why Maiev trapped him in a fel crystal; to stop him from remanifseting[[/note]].

* In ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'', late in Rin's route, Hisao gets the chance to ask Rin this when she expresses her desire to have someone who can understand her without asking questions. [[spoiler:If you make this choice, you get the good ending, in which Rin comes to terms with herself]].

* ''WebComic/KillSixBillionDemons''

* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance''

* This happens in [[http://www.doctorshrugs.com/foxhound/comic.php?id=461 "P.461 Discuss Amongst Yourselves"]] in ''WebComic/TheLastDaysOfFoxHound'' when Octopus raises the question of what exactly they hope to actually ''do'' if their insurrection succeeds and their demands are met:

* An episode of ''WebAnimation/SethMacFarlanesCavalcadeOfCartoonComedy'' called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xItDDGL12jg "Die, Sweet Roadrunner, Die"]], had Wile E. Coyote going through an existential crisis after finally catching and eating the Roadrunner. He gets (and loses) a job as a waiter, then tries to commit suicide via ACME catapult before [[spoiler:finding God and becoming a Jehovah's Witness]].

** This is ultimately how [[EldritchAbomination The Entity]] (aka, [[spoiler:[=MissingNo=]]]) is defeated. Linkara's [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath diatribe]] is especially remarkable. He doesn't just ask The Entity what it plans to do after it achieves its goal, he continues to point out the pointlessness of its own existence, its quest, and the rather unimpressive ending to its goal which just keeps reiterating the question. [[spoiler:This gets so bad, it sends The Entity into an existential crisis where it begins babbling to itself incoherently, unable to comprehend its own worthlessness despite being a god. This eventually gives Linkara the chance to ask The Entity what happens when a god like itself dies. Truly intrigued by the question, [=MissingNo=] [[DrivenToSuicide explodes itself]], releasing everything and everyone it had absorbed]].

** Seems to be his M.O. for dealing with insane and powerful entities. He used the same tactic to convince [[spoiler:Linksano to give up on trying to take over the world and come work for him instead when he makes the doctor realize that ruling the world will involve ''running'' the world as well, going into great detail about [[DystopiaIsHard the logistics, risks, and minutia that would involve ruling over a planet]].]]

** [[spoiler:Step 1: Fight a bunch of superheroes. Step 2: Use their powers to rob some place. Step 3: Bitches and booze. Repeat as necessary]].

* ''WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017''

* The WesternAnimation/DaffyDuck cartoon "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" has J.L. invoking this a couple of times late in the short as Daffy starts ad-libbing his script.

* {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack''. The 5th season, taking place 50 years after the show, reveals that Aku has succumbed to ennui and depression. He spent time eliminating every time portal present and hoped Jack would die out with old age. However, Aku's method of sending Jack to the future also rendered the Samurai biologically immortal, meaning they're at a stalemate. Ironically, [[spoiler:Aku could've killed Jack when he destroyed the last time portal as Jack succumbed to rage and killed the corrupted lambs, thus becoming unworthy of his sword and it vanishing for decades. Granted, Aku does learn about this and goes to confront Jack, though by the time he does, Jack has undergone therapeutic growth that makes him worthy of the sword once more. Eventually Aku is slain when Jack saves Ashi, his friend-turned-lover and daughter of Aku, from Aku's corruption and she uses her Aku-based powers to tear open a hole in time and Jack kills Aku in the past.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TangledTheSeries'': In the Season 1 finale "Secret of the Sundrop", [[spoiler:evil-turned Varian has abducted Queen Arianna as bait to get Rapunzel to free his father Quirin from amber. Arianna asks him what he will do after he frees his father, hoping he'll realize what he did, but he does not listen to her and still vows all of Corona will pay for turning their backs on him.]]

** The UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar, which was in so many ways a dress rehearsal for the Franco-Prussian and Russo-Japanese Wars, had plenty of mistakes of this sort, perhaps the most tragic being the Battle of the Crater, led by the notoriously incompetent Gen. Ambrose Burnside during the siege of Petersburg. While Burnside had actually had a good idea for once (undermine the enemy lines and attack around the resulting crater), the execution was botched, in part because of ExecutiveMeddling [[note]]An all-black unit was assigned for the attack and was specially trained to go ''around'' the crater rather than into it, but they were swapped out at the last minute for an all-white unit in case the attack failed, as Burnside didn't want to be accused of sending black soldiers to their deaths. This white unit was untrained, and their commander, James Ledlie, a lazy bum and a drunkard, never bothered to relay Burnside's basic instruction "don't go in the crater," so the troops ran headlong into the crater, where they were trapped and slaughtered.[[/note]] and partly due to lack of supplies (namely scaling ladders for getting people who fell into the crater back out), but mostly because there was no clear objective for what to do if the assault had succeeded. (There was a general plan, "capture Petersburg, secure it, and move on Richmond," but [[ItWillNeverCatchOn nobody took Step One of Burnside's plan--blowing a hole in Petersburg's defenses with underground explosives--seriously]], so when that actually worked, people were confused about how exactly to proceed).

* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfGraces'', Asbel asks this to the villain. [[spoiler:BigBad Lambda]] is ranting about how humans are evil, and how he's going to KillAllHumans. Asbel promptly turns this into an ArmorPiercingQuestion by asking "[[{{Deconstruction}} Okay, then what? If you kill everybody, you'll be totally alone, and you and everything in the entire world will die. You really want that?]]" The BigBad is silent for a {{Beat}}, then throws a tantrum and begins the final boss battle proper.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfBerseria'', ByronicHero Velvet Crowe is out to kill VillainWithGoodPublicity Artorius, knowing that [[ThenLetMeBeEvil this will make her into a monster in the eyes of the world]]. Whenever Velvet is asked about what she'll do once Artorius is dead, Velvet fully admits that she has no long-term goal beyond Artorius being killed. Sometimes, Velvet straight-up doesn't answer the question when asked. And when she does give an answer, it can always be boiled down to "I don't care what happens after I kill him" and is left at that. CharacterDevelopment and plot twists mitigate this attitude somewhat, in that it gives her a more noble reason in the form of [[spoiler:stopping Artorius and Innominat from using EmotionSuppression on the entire world]] as well as learning to be less selfish in her actions. But even towards the game's conclusion, Velvet is still focused entirely on killing Artorius, with everything else being tangentially important to that goal.

* In ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' after [[spoiler:supposedly [[DrivenToSuicide driving Ruby to kill herself]]]], the voice of Torchwick inside Neo's head suggests that they take over the Ever After with her evolved Semblance, but Neo shakes her head. Surprised, he asks if [[spoiler:wanting to kill Ruby]] was all she wanted to do and it was. Now that she had done so, [[VengeanceFeelsEmpty she has no idea what to do anymore]].