History Main / FirstTimeInTheSun

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' fanfic ''Fanfic/BlueSky'', Wheatley (a robot who has spent his entire existence indoors [[spoiler: or in space]])'s first reaction to the sun is "''AAAHHH!'' Aaahh ahgodwhat'sthat it ''burns!''" He then realizes it isn't quite as dangerous as he initially thought.
* In ''[[Fanfic/MyLittlePonyAUFanficMutant Mutant]]'', the ponies encounter this in... [[DeceasedParentsAreTheBest Less than ideal circumstances.]]
* Brony Dance Party's PMV for [[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KwW9slmrKXo Awoken]] has this happen to H8_Seed's OC after his escape from the Fanfic/RainbowFactory. Soon after, A Blue Skittle's OC appears, they share a hug!
* ''Fanfic/FalloutEquestria'': {{Averted}}, as the first thing Littlepip sees upon emerging from the stable is the sky, eternally covered by clouds. Much later in the book, the entire Wasteland sees the sun for the first time when a hole is blown open in the cloud cover, giving the general population the hope to begin fighting back against Red Eye.

[[folder:Films — Animation]]

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

* Averted in Creator/GeorgeMacDonald's fairy tale ''The Day-Boy and the Night-Girl''. When [[MeaningfulName Nycteris]], who has lived all her life in a cave, ventures outside and sees the Sun for the first time, she is [[DayHurtsDarkAdjustedEyes temporarily blinded]] and thinks she and the entire world are burning alive. She hates the Sun for years. As you might have guessed from the title, {{inverted|Trope}} by Photogen.

* This happens in Geraldine [=MacDonald=] Wallis' now-forgotten classic fantasy ''Legend of Lost Earth'' -- exactly as described in the intro on this page, except the people had a few hours on Earth at night, letting them gradually get used to it.

* Fanfic/FalloutEquestria: {{Averted}}, as the first thing Littlepip sees upon emerging from the stable is the sky, eternally covered by clouds. Much later in the book, the entire Wasteland sees the sun for the first time when a hole is blown open in the cloud cover, giving the general population the hope to begin fighting back against Red Eye.

* ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice2010'': In "[[Recap/YoungJusticeS1E1and2IndependenceDayandFireworks Independence Day and Fireworks]]", Superboy's first sight of the outside world is a huge full moon. Lampshaded earlier in the story, as Robin tempts him with seeing the sun; Kid Flash points out that it's night by now but hastily adds that they can show him the moon, anyway.

* ''Film/CityOfEmber'' has the protagonists come out from the underground city... to a wholly dark sky. They start doubting their whole trip, believing that what they were told about the dead world outside is true. Then the dawn comes...
* In ''Film/{{Frankenstein 1931}}'', the doctor opens a skylight over the monster, who embraces the sunbeam. He seems rather put out when the skylight is closed.
* ''Film/GoliathAwaits'': The film ends with Lea (who was born in a community trapped beneath the ocean) taking in the sunlight for the first time and marveling at its beauty.

* In the British 1963 sci-fi movie ''Film/TheseAreTheDamned'' (aka ''The Damned''), children resistant to fallout are held in a secret bunker, to be released after nuclear war breaks out to ensure the survival of the human race. When they escape for a short time, they stare in amazement at the sun they've never seen, until soldiers in hazmat suits drag them screaming back to their bunker.
* At the end of ''Film/{{THX 1138}}'' the protagonist emerges from the underground city to find himself on the surface of the Earth for the first time, just as the sun is setting. We don't see much of what the surface is like, however, nor his reaction to seeing it because he's only seen from behind. (Plus it's getting dark, and who knows what dangers might be lurking in the night...)

* Most of the characters in Creator/RayBradbury's classic short story "All Summer in A Day". They 're children who live on a perpetually wet, cloudy Venus (before [[ScienceMarchesOn it was realized that the planet was inhospitable to life]]) where the sun only comes out for one hour every seven years.

** "Literature/Nightfall1941": InvertedTrope, because Lagash has [[AlienSky six suns]], creating EndlessDaytime, and the climax occurs when [[TotalEclipseOfThePlot the last sun in the sky is eclipsed]], causing the first nighttime in over two thousand years. Also a SubvertedTrope, because instead of being awed, as the Emerson quote that inspired the story suggests, [[CosmicHorrorStory a civilization-ending panic and insanity outbreak ensues]].
** ''Robot Trilogy'': most people from Earth are agoraphobic. The protagonist Elijah Baley describes standing on bare soil as feeling like he is standing on a rotting corpse.

* Deconstructed in the ''Literature/{{Belgariad}}''. Zealous cave-dweller Relg, commanded by his god to go with the party onto the surface, has to keep his eyes bound so that the sunlight does not hurt him, is terrified by the prospect of leaving his homeland, and immediately develops agoraphobia after seeing the sky.
* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'': Inverted in ''Literature/TheSilverChair'' with Prince Rilian. When he sees the Deep Lands for the first time, he longs to go and explore the pits of lava and mine the living gems, becoming the first person to reach the bottom of the world. Eustace and Jill stop him, however.
** Likewise, deep enough under ground the expedition meets natives who have only heard that if you go high enough eventually there are no more ceilings, "just a horrid emptiness called Sky"

* In Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''Literature/TheCityAndTheStars'', it's implied that the sun is somewhat filtered from [[CityInABottle the city]], therefore only outside, where only Alvin goes, can it truly be seen.
* At the end of ''Literature/TheCityOfEmber'', the main characters find themselves on the surface at night, just in time to see the sun rise.
* Averted in Creator/GeorgeMacDonald's fairy tale ''The Day-Boy and the Night-Girl''. When [[MeaningfulName Nycteris]], who has lived all her life in a cave, ventures outside and sees the Sun for the first time, she is [[DayHurtsDarkAdjustedEyes temporarily blinded]] and thinks she and the entire world are burning alive. She hates the Sun for years.
** As you might have guessed from the title, inverted by Photogen.
* In ''Literature/TheGiver'', among the memories Jonas gets from the Receiver is one of the sun, suggesting it's somehow filtered out.
* ''Literature/HumanxCommonwealth'': In ''Midworld'', Born's people are descendants of a lost human space colony, who've adapted to life in the third ecological level of an ''incredibly'' deadly [[SingleBiomePlanet Jungle World]] with miles-high vegetation. Born is considered an impressively brave and agile, but also foolhardy, explorer of the forest, because he's climbed to the even deadlier "upper Hell" of the canopy-top and seen the sun ''three times'' in his life. In the sequel, ''Mid-Flinx'', a foraging party is enthralled to discover a gap in the forest where a gargantuan tree has fallen from old age, that allows them to see the open sky for the first time in the children's lives.
* Played with in ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt''. He first sees the sun not at the end, but at the middle of ''Homeland''. It's noteworthy that the other drow with him flinch back away from the light, and he stays in it until he's told the demonstration of the awfulness of the sun is done.
* This happens in Geraldine [=MacDonald=] Wallis' now-forgotten classic fantasy ''Legend of Lost Earth'' -- exactly as described in the intro on this page, except the people had a few hours on Earth at night, letting them gradually get used to it.
* ''Creator/HPLovecraft'': Played straight and then horrifically subverted in ''Literature/TheOutsider1926''. The unnamed narrator has lived his entire life alone in an ancient, desolate castle and has never even seen the sun or the moon because the dense, dark forest outside blocks the sky, and he only knows about the outside world from the books that line the walls. Finally, he can't take his miserable existence anymore, and makes a dangerous climb up the half-ruined tower that stretches above the treeline, and finally reaches a strange room. There, a gate allows passage to the outside, and he sees the moonlit night sky for the first time in his life, and it's just as magnificent as he had always imagined... [[spoiler: except the gate doesn't open up into empty air as he expects, but ground-level to another world. Namely, a cemetery. At this point, the reader has probably already guessed the twist, but it takes the narrator some more exploration to realize it, and from that point on, the sky just functions as a reminder of what he is and how he can never rejoin the living world, consigned forever to the shadows with other shambling half-lives like himself.]]
* ''Franchise/{{Mistborn}}'':
** In her climactic fight against a dozen [[TheDreaded Steel Inquisitors]] at the end of ''[[Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy The Hero of Ages]]'', Vin engages a Steelpush so powerful it rockets her into the atmosphere, above the everpresent mist, to become the first person to see the naked stars in at least a thousand years. Shortly after, she AscendsToAHigherPlaneOfExistence.
** Also, shortly after that, after the BigBad is dead, the survivors that had fled underground to escape a total obliteration of life on the surface, get their first look at a clear blue sky, and a sun not reddened by ash and smoke.
* Played with in {{Literature/Silverwing}}: The whole plot of the first book is set in motion when Shade dares to stay up long enough to see the sun (which, as a bat, he is not allowed to do). When the owls burn down his home as punishment, he decides to give the sun back to all bats. Later he and his friend Marina fly in bright daylight and they are amazed about how different the world looks and how warm the sun is. However, they do have [[DayHurtsDarkAdjustedEyes some problems]]. Also, the [[DarkIsNotEvil darkness is not shown as something horrible]] and Shade is described as a creature of the night and he is happy with it. Other bats even question the necessity of seeing the sun and the young ones are afraid the sun will blind them or turn them into dust.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'' has this in the first season episode "In the Dark". Angel's been a vampire for so long that he's really awed when he puts on the Gem of Amarra and goes out in the sun. He's also very happy in the second episode "Over the Rainbow" that the sun in the alternate dimension Pylea doesn't burn him.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'' has this in the episode "In the Dark". Angel's been a vampire for so long that he's really awed when he puts on the Gem of Amarra and goes out in the sun.

* This happens in Geraldine [=MacDonald=] Wallis' now-forgotten classic fantasy ''Legend of Lost Earth'' -- exactly as described in the intro, except the people had a few hours on Earth at night, letting them gradually get used to it.
* ''Creator/HPLovecraft'': Played straight and then horrifically subverted in ''Literature/TheOutsider1926''. The unnamed narrator has lived his entire life alone in an ancient, desolate castle and has never even seen the sun or the moon because the dense, dark forest outside blocks the sky, and he only knows about the outside world from the books that line the walls. Finally, he can't take his miserable existence anymore, and makes a dangerous climb up the half-ruined tower that stretches above the treeline, and finally reaches a strange room. There, a gate allows passage to the outside, and he sees the moonlit night sky for the first time in his life, and it's just as magnificent as he had always imagined... [[spoiler: except the gate doesn't open up into empty air as he expects, but ground-level to another world. Namely, a cemetary. At this point, the reader has probably already guessed the twist, but it takes the narrator some more exploration to realize it, and from that point on, the sky just functions as a reminder of what he is and how he can never rejoin the living world, consigned forever to the shadows with other shambling half-lives like himself.]]

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' featured the Sewer King, who forced orphans to commit crime and controlled them by conditioning them to fear light, and locking them in a brightly lit room if they misbehaved. At the end, after the Sewer King was captured, the kids were brought up to the surface in time for sunrise, and quickly forget their conditioning to glory in the dawn light.
* Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' episode "Mirror". The clan had been turned into humans earlier in the episode, but are back in their true forms by the end. As the sun starts to rise Hudson laments he would have liked to have seen the sun, just once.
** And then played straight. The episode ends with Demona seeing/feeling the sun for the first time and rejoicing in how good it feels... before she realizes that she's now ''human'' (in the day at least).
* The BigBad of ''WesternAnimation/MightyMax'' has been trapped underground in the center of the earth for thousands of years. He will often speak of how nice it would be to see the sun again. When he finally does escape he has a genuine moment of happiness at seeing the sun again. Then he summons a dragon and begins trying to TakeOverTheWorld.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'' pilot, Superboy's first sight of the outside world is a huge full moon. Lampshaded earlier in the story, as Robin tempts him with seeing the sun; Kid Flash points out that it's night by now but hastily adds that they can show him the moon, anyway.

* Happens to Quasimodo at the end of ''WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' when Phoebus and Esmeralda lead him out of the cathedral after Frollo is dead. While he has been outside before, this time Quasimodo openly reveals himself to the people of Paris. They accept him with open arms.

* Brony Dance Party's PMV for [[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KwW9slmrKXo Awoken]] has this happen to H8_Seed's OC after his escape from the RainbowFactory. Soon after, A Blue Skittle's OC appears, they share a hug!

* In the British 1963 sci-fi movie ''Film/TheseAreTheDamned'' (aka ''The Damned''), children resistant to fallout are held in a secret facility, to be released after nuclear war breaks out to ensure the survival of the human race. When they escape for a short time, they stare in amazement at the sun they've never seen, ignoring the soldiers moving in to recapture them.

* In ''ComicBook/SevenSoldiers Of Victory'', [[ComicBook/KlarionTheWitchBoy Klarion Bleak]], who's spent his whole life in a small, dark, and perpetually rainy town beneath the earth, is forced to flee to the surface, and finds himself in modern-day Manhattan, in the daylight. He's awed.

* In the British 1963 sci-fi movie ''These Are the Damned'' (aka ''The Damned''), children resistant to fallout are held in a secret facility, to be released after nuclear war breaks out to ensure the survival of the human race. When they escape for a short time, they stare in amazement at the sun they've never seen, ignoring the soldiers moving in to recapture them.

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency'' has a rare villainous example when the sun rises the moment after [[spoiler:[[BigBad Kars]] becomes the UltimateLifeForm, overcoming [[HumanoidAbomination his kind's]] weakness to sunlight]]. ''He'' certainly experiences the positive aspect of this trope; everyone else, [[MassOhCrap not so much]].

* Creator/IsaacAsimov:
** "Literature/Nightfall1941": InvertedTrope, because Lagash has [[AlienSky six suns]], creating EndlessDaytime, and the climax occurs when [[TotalEclipseOfThePlot the last sun in the sky is eclipsed]], causing the first nighttime in over two thousand years. Also a SubvertedTrope, because instead of being awed, as the Emerson quote that inspired the story suggests, [[CosmicHorrorStory a civilization-ending panic and insanity outbreak ensues]].
** ''Robot Trilogy'': most people from Earth are agoraphobic. The protagonist Elijah Baley describes standing on bare soil as feeling like he is standing on a rotting corpse.
* In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', Varda creates the constellations just in time for the Elves to awaken, so that their first sight upon coming into existence is the night sky vibrant with stars. Similarly, the race of Men awaken just after the Sun is made and sent into the sky.

* ''Creator/HPLovecraft'': Played straight and then horrifically subverted in ''Literature/TheOutsider1926''. The unnamed narrator has lived his entire life alone in an ancient, desolate castle and has never even seen the sun or the moon because the dense, dark forest outside blocks the sky, and he only knows about the outside world from the books that line the walls. Finally, he can't take his miserable existence anymore, and makes a dangerous climb up the half-ruined tower that stretches above the treeline, and finally reaches a strange room. There, a gate allows passage to the outside, and he sees the moonlit night sky for the first time in his life, and it's just as magnificent as he had always imagined... [[spoiler: except the gate doesn't open up into empty air as he expects, but ground-level to another world. Namely, a cemetary. At this point, the reader has probably already guessed the twist, but it takes the narrator some more exploration to realize it, and from that point on, the sky just functions as a reminder of what he is and how he can never rejoin the living world, consigned forever to the shadows with other shambling half-lives like himself.]]

* ''Series/NightGallery'': In "Eyes", a RichBitch who's been blind her whole life (played by Joan Crawford) pays an indebted man a pathetically small amount of money for his retinas, even though this operation will only allow her to see for about 12 hours before reverting to blindness. Her time is cut short when it coincides with a major blackout that leaves her in darkness for almost the entire period, and allows her only a brief glimpse of the rising sun the next morning, only for her vision to fade as she marvels at the sight.

* ''[[TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms Daughter of the Drow]]'' had a scene with Liriel seeing her first sunrise. She's not the most photophobic down here - as the author points out, drow ''wizards'' don't try to read a spellbook by the heat of its own body, to say nothing of lightning bolts.

* The protagonists of ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 1}}'' and of ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' have both lived in underground 'vaults' for as long as they can remember. The moment that the character first steps into the sunlight is pivotal in both. However, it may also be considered a subversion as the world that greets the protagonist afterwards is even more of a CrapsackWorld than the one they saw in the vault.
** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'': In the intro movie, Vault-Tec actually foresaw that this would be an issue for people leaving the Vaults for the first time, and made sure to instruct them to wear protective eyewear when they prepared to leave upon being given the all-clear. [[spoiler: Too bad for the inhabitants of Vault 13 that the people giving the signal were The Enclave...]]
* In ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarIV '' ArtificialHuman Rika is first taken out of the underground lab she spent her first year of life in, she is amazed at how blue the sky is (which, thanks to the series's comic panel cutscenes, is actually shown despite being a top-down 16 bit jRPG).
* Played with in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky]]''. The future that the story revolves around is frozen in time. The characters have seen nature before, but when they first see the sun rise, and feel the wind blow, they are overwhelmed by it's beauty.
** This is also part of the backstory of [[spoiler:Grovyle and Dusknoir]], as well as part of ''Sky'''s fifth Special Episode.
%%* ''Exile III: Ruined World''

* ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'': Although she hasn't lived there all her life, [[spoiler:Kud fully intends to die in the grimy cave she's chained up in near the end of her route.]] So the moment where she escapes from it, affirming her desire to live, and sees the sun rise as she spreads her arms and watches it forms the most dramatic moment of her storyline.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Portal 2}} Portal 2]]'': After [=GLaDOS=] releases her from the testing chambers, Chell takes a long elevator ride to the surface, emerging into a world with a bright blue sky and golden wheat fields.
* This happens to much of Tokyo in the Neutral Ending of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV''. To protect the city from an incoming ICBM, local deity Masakado formed a layer of bedrock with his body, which became known as the Firmament. [[spoiler:He stayed there for twenty five years to the people inside, while more than ''fifteen centuries'' passed outside]]. It is removed once both Lucifer and Merkabah have been defeated, finally raising the barrier and flooding the long-darkened streets of Tokyo with sunlight as the citizens and even the demons can only watch in awe. While there are many citizens of Tokyo old enough to have been around before the Firmament was formed, there's also many who were born during Tokyo's encapsulation, and thus had never seen sunlight before.
* This trope is downplayed for drama in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'', in which [[spoiler:the Divine Powers' [[TheDragon Dragon]] (figuratively ''and'' literally) Shesha pierces through the bedrock ceiling to make its introduction.]] People stare in awe at Tokyo's first exposure to sunlight in 25 years[[note]]''Apocalypse'' being an AlternateContinuity in which Flynn's mission to save Tokyo is interrupted[[/note]], though the joy doesn't last long since [[spoiler:the forces of Merkabah and Lucifer are still at large and Shesha is capable of striking anywhere it pleases.]]
* In the [[spoiler: True]] Pacifist Ending of ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'', [[spoiler: the six boss monsters you befriended along the way enjoy the sun for the first time after a lifetime in the Underworld.]]

* ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob:'' After spending her [[YoungerThanTheyLook one-month childhood]] in a basement laboratory, Galatea's first reaction on seeing the beautiful and sunny outside world [[http://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/211/ is actually fear,]] since she's never had occasion to trust anyone or anything yet. It's actually the sight of [[http://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/252 the night sky full of stars]] that [[http://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/253 convinces her the outside world might not be so bad.]]

* In Creator/TheBBC series ''Radio/{{Earthsearch}}'', the Angel computers attempt to dissuade their human crew (who have spent their entire lives on a SleeperStarship) from settling on Paradise by claiming the seas are poisonous and the Northern Lights are a sign of high radiation levels.

* ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob:'' After spending her [[YoungerThanTheyLook one-month childhood]] in a basement laboratory, Galatea's first reaction on seeing the beautiful outside world [[http://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/211/ is actually fear,]] since she's never had occasion to trust anyone or anything yet. It's actually the sight of [[http://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/252 the night sky full of stars]] that [[http://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/253 convinces her the outside world might not be so bad.]]

* ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob:'' After spending her [[YoungerThanTheyLook one-month childhood]] in a [[ArtificialLife basement laboratory,]] Galatea's first reaction on seeing the beautiful outside world [[http://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/211/ is actually fear,]] since she's never had occasion to trust anyone or anything yet. It's actually the sight of [[http://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/252 the night sky full of stars]] that [[http://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/253 convinces her the outside world might not be so bad.]]

* ''Creator/HPLovecraft'': Played straight and then horrifically subverted in ''The Outsider''. The unnamed narrator has lived his entire life alone in an ancient, desolate castle and has never even seen the sun or the moon because the dense, dark forest outside blocks the sky, and he only knows about the outside world from the books that line the walls. Finally, he can't take his miserable existence anymore, and makes a dangerous climb up the half-ruined tower that stretches above the treeline, and finally reaches a strange room. There, a gate allows passage to the outside, and he sees the moonlit night sky for the first time in his life, and it's just as magnificent as he had always imagined... [[spoiler: except the gate doesn't open up into empty air as he expects, but ground-level to another world. Namely, a cemetary. At this point, the reader has probably already guessed the twist, but it takes the narrator some more exploration to realize it, and from that point on, the sky just functions as a reminder of what he is and how he can never rejoin the living world, consigned forever to the shadows with other shambling half-lives like himself.]]

* Happens to Quasimodo at the end of ''Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' when Phoebus and Esmeralda lead him out of the cathedral after Frollo is dead. While he has been outside before, this time Quasimodo openly reveals himself to the people of Paris. They accept him with open arms.

* Disney's ''Disney/{{Tangled}}'': Rapunzel has always seen the outdoors through the windows of her tower, but going out in it for the first time fills her with wonder and joy.

SubTrope of TheWorldIsJustAwesome.