History Main / ContemplateOurNavels

* ''{{Naruto}}'': Kabuto is obviously channelling [[Series/{{Heroes}} Dr. Mohinder Suresh]] when he bombards Naruto with questions such as [[FauxlosophicNarration "Who are we? What is our purpose?"]] prior to revealing he has [[spoiler:fused himself with the remains of Orochimaru to give himself an identity]]. Orochimaru himself sometimes slips into this when describing why he's seeking immortality.

* ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries'', despite being more action-packed than [[CalvinAndHobbes its source comic strip]], still has a touch of this.

* Calvin, from ''CalvinAndHobbes'', has a tendency to do this.

*** Interestingly, their suspicions are revealed to be correct in StarWarsTheOldRepublic and its associated media, which shows that there indeed was a threat manipulating the Mandalorians. Whether their course of action was correct is still up for debate.

--> -- ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''

* ''Film/TheMatrix Reloaded'' and ''The Matrix Revolutions'' were both crammed with navel-contemplation. The original wasn't free of it either, although it was far more pronounced in the TwoPartTrilogy.
* ''IHeartHuckabees'' was filled with this, which makes sense as the main action of the movie involves characters going through an existential crisis or ten. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by one character not yet willing to admit he's also going through one:

* ''TheThinRedLine'' is possibly the epitome of this trope. Nearly every soldier has a ridiculous voice-over monologue, and many times there are more than one of them onscreen, making it impossible to tell who's actually saying it. After watching, one reviewer commented that it sounded like a series of high school papers asking "Why is there War?" and noting that he felt compelled to yell letter grades at the screen. And then you find out that the studio had to chop the film down from ''six hours''....
* [[DarkAndTroubledPast Cloud]] gets into the habit of this during ''FinalFantasyVIIAdventChildren'' as part of his [[{{Wangst}} wangsting]] phase.
* ''KissKissBangBang'' has one of these with a nice moment where Harry looks back at his unrequited love's apartment and sighs.
* The entire film ''WakingLife''.
* Oddly, ''OverdrawnAtTheMemoryBank'' has this mentioned in a very strange way part way through.

!!Examples

** Used [[Narm/FinalFantasy unintentionally hilariously]] in VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII when [[TheHero Squall]] monologues about how he doesn't want people to talk about him after he dies and then shouts "I won't have it! I won't have anyone talk about me in the past tense!" which makes sense... until you realize that the entire monologue just took place ''in his head''.

* Irenicus did a fair bit of it in the dream sequences in BaldursGateII, waxing on about how "life is power" and precisely why, in his opinion, your character should embrace their Bhaalspawn nature instead of fighting it. All of which was made ten times more creepy by David Warner's mostly-deadpan delivery.

* In SheriSTepper's ''Grass'' [[spoiler: the hyper-intelligent Foxen are being killed off by the less intelligent, but more ambitious, Hippae; because they have degenerated into passive navel-gazers.]]

* The last two episodes of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', consist entirely of this, along with a great deal of MindScrew. It's also done on a few other occasions: namely, by Rei during her synch test with Unit 01, Shinji while trapped inside an Angel, and Shinji again during the weeks he spent merged with Unit 01.

Depending on the show, this can be [[{{Theme}} thematically appropriate]] or a [[ActionMovieQuietDramaScene pause in the action]]. When used as {{padding}}, and if little thought is put into them, these scenes can be annoying -- the poor viewers may find themselves sitting through five minutes of "Who am I? Who is me? I is me, but you is not me. The universe is not real to me, unless it is real to you, but who is you? [[MindScrew Who is..."]] and so on against a ClipShow background. Depending on the delivery, [[NightmareFuel it can be really creepy.]]

Depending on the show, this can be [[MindScrew thematically appropriate]] or a [[{{Padding}} pause in the action]]. When used as padding, these scenes are usually very annoying, because so little thought is put into them -- the poor viewers have to sit through five minutes of "Who am I? Who is me? I is me, but you is not me. The universe is not real to me, unless it is real to you, but who is you? [[MindScrew Who is..."]] and so on against a ClipShow background. But in rare moments, [[NightmareFuel it can be really creepy.]]

** And that ''[[YukariTamura voice]]'' would make ''anything'' sound dramatic. Especially when you find out who is speaking.

* ''[[DotHackSign .hack//Sign]]'' characters do this a lot, spending a great deal of time discussing all manner of deep subjects. It comes as a relief to see Sora, the only character who regularly acts like he's actually playing a game...

* [[{{Cats}} The moments of happiness... We had the experience but missed the meaning and approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form, beyond any meaning we can assign to happiness... The past experience revived in the meaning is not the experience of one life only but of many generations - not forgetting something that is probably quite ineffable...]]

Not to be confused with [[NavalGazing Contemplating Our Navy]].

** Jerry: Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and how little we've grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it's not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably; happy birthday? No such thing.

* In the ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' episode "The Visa", when George ends up double dating with Jerry and Elaine, he asks Jerry not to be funnier than him so that his date won't leave. His date comes back to the table and says that it's her aunt's birthday. Jerry then launches into a depressing spiel about how birthdays are just a symbol of how little we've grown over the year.

* In the ''RobocopVsTerminator'' graphic novel, ''the Terminators'' do this, since [=RoboCop=] is essentially a divine being to them (as in this continuity, he was an integral part of [=SkyNet's=] creation). It gets really weird when they start discussing the fact that he doesn't want to help them.

*** Interestingly, their navel gazing is revealed to be general justified in The Old Republic and its associated media, which shows that there indeed was a threat manipulating the Mandalorians.

* The characters in ''Manga/Vagabond'' do this quite frequently; a lot of Musashi's character development happens through inner monologues where he questions just what it means (and how much it means, in the end) to be strong.

** In ''GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' If the Tachikoma [[SpiderTank actually had navels]], they'd do this frequently. The 2nd Gig episode called "The Machines' Afternoon" comes to mind.

* ''{{The X-Files}}'' occasionally suffered from somewhat portentous and long-winded voice-over monologues of this nature.
* In the Doctor Who Serial "Planet of the Spiders", there is a rather literal example. Sarah Jane is brought in to investigate some strange goings on at a mediation retreat of some sort. Mike Yates tries to explain the meditation to her but she doesn't seem to really get it.

* Calvin, from CalvinAndHobbes, has a tendency to do this.

* Tod and Buz of ''{{Route 66}}'' like to narrate about life, the universe, and everything in extremely metaphorical and existential terms.

* BloomCounty's popular staple in the comic was the characters sitting in a dandelion field while analyzing whether THIS latest popculture event will inspire the end of the world, or that will. Most especially with Binkley, who was known for having panic attacks on the idea of reincarnating as a toaster.[[/folder]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "The Tooth Fairy Tats" has Kyle start to doubt his own existence after discovering the tooth fairy isn't real. He spends the rest of the episode reading various philosophy books and talking about the nature of reality, even when the conversation around him is something totally different. He finally has an out-of-body, one-with-the-universe experience, and comments that it was weird. It's never, ever spoken of again.

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' opened most episodes (and closed some) of the first season with an astoundingly generic monologue about fate and destiny, a practice which had decreased but not completely died out in later seasons. They're so similar that if a TV network accidentally put the monologues in the wrong order, few people would ever notice, at least for the opening monologues. The closing monologues tend to be more relevant to the plot of the episode. Regardless of their lack of content (or perhaps because of it), they can be a very soothing way to ease the viewer in and out of the episodes, especially since Sendhil Ramamurthy reads them as though whispering a fairy tale to a child. See also FauxlosophicNarration.

** [[spoiler:Big Boss]] proves he really was a Patriot at the end of the game, by blathering on for almost as long as the AI's did.