History Main / HereThereWereDragons

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': The Targaryens once ruled Westeros from the backs of their dragons, but by the start of the series dragons have been extinct for over a century. Their skulls are kept as heirlooms, their bones are used in things like dagger hilts, and their fossilized eggs are priceless curiosities. That is until Daenerys hatches three dragons at the end of Season 1.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' Earth was once a magical place, until the sealing of {{Atlantis}} also took most of the magic away, too. It came back in a big way: [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the reemergence of magic]] and the opening of several (hundred/thousand) interdimensional portals was caused by the mystical aftershocks of millions of lives being simultaneously wiped out by [[WorldWarThree atomic bombs being used on population centers]]... at noon on the winter solstice during a total eclipse of the sun and at least one planetary alignment, effectively a mass human sacrifice at the worst possible time, when mystic energy was more or less under a 100x multiplier. Unfortunately, planets use things like Earthquakes, volcanoes, and hurricanes as magic pressure release valves...

** In ''TabletopGame/GURPSTechnomancer'', since the magic came back, most people ''assume'' the legendary past was actually high mana, even though there's no evidence to support this.
* The ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' world, while still plentifully enmagicked, has lost a lot of it since the olden days because of the elves creating the Vortex on the Isle of the Dead, greatly decreasing magical potency and also preventing daemons from rampaging across the world. Incidentally, this may have caused the dragons themselves to fall asleep as well.
* Replacing magic with technology, you have The Dark/Golden Age of Technology of ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', when Mankind had access to unbelievably awesome technology. Nowadays finding the tiniest scrap of it makes a man rich beyond his wildest dreams. Why is it called the Dark Age? Because men's use of technology meant they didn't worship the GodEmperor (the truth is a bit more complicated, the Emperor didn't ''want'' anyone worshiping him in those days, and wanted science to replace religion).
* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', the plane of Tarkir is unique in that there are no dragons present. There were dragons once, but they have been extinct for a long time. The plane's people still revere the dragons' memory, with each faction's philosophy based on whatever trait of the dragons they believed was the best one. Interestingly, TheMagicComesBack here is carried out by [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong changing the past such that it never actually went away.]]

* Planet Venus. (Or Mars, perhaps less so.) Public image, nourished by SF, before a probe got through, was a hot jungle full of life. At least the "hot" part was right.
* [[AuthorTract Averted with a vengeance]] in [[Creator/RichardDawkins ''Unweaving The Rainbow'']]. He heavily argues against the common notion that science slays the dragons and kills the magic.

* Subverted in ''Literature/DragonSlippers''. Creel is convinced that dragons have been extinct for decades, as no one has seen one in living memory. Because of this, she's not too troubled by her aunt "sacrificing" her to a dragon, as it means she can go off to seek her fortune... until she's promptly carried away. Oops.

* As described in the Real Life entry below, Music/{{Supertramp}}'s "The Logical Song" highlights this issue. through a GrowingUpSucks lens.

* As described in the Real Life entry below Supertramp's Logical Song highlights this issue.

* Creator/LedZeppelin's song ''Ramble On'', which draws heavily from Creator/JRRTolkien work, also talks of this trope.

** ''TabletopGame/GURPSThaumatologyAgeOfGold'': The setting is a 1930's pulp reality with magic on the way back. The triggering even was discovery of Philosopher's Stone in ancient tombs -- apparently common enough in the distant past, its rediscovery is leading to a renaissance of magic research and even the emergence of magically-powered super-heroes.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Earthdawn}}'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' are two roleplaying games that take place in a world where magic ebbs and flows over the eons. The term "Worlds" is used to distinguish a period when the mana levels are high enough to support magic or nearly nonexistent. ''Earthdawn'' takes place in the Fourth World, when the FiveRaces (and others) are commonplace and magic is a steady trade. The Fifth World is the present day (well, an AlternateHistory version of "the present day" that splits off around 1999), when magic is nearly nonexistent. The Sixth World of ''Shadowrun'' begins in 2012, with the return of dragons, magic, and the FiveRaces.

* ''FanFic/TheBridge'': Over 70,000 years ago on Terra, magic was quite common and fantastic races existed as a result of ambient mana changing mundane species. Fae folk and humanoid yokai like rakshasa or elves were subspecies of humans and dragons were likewise for crocodilians and large snakes. But when mana levels plummeted after Bagan caused the Toba mass extinction even, almost everything magical lost it overtime; becoming mundane humans and animals again. Fae still survive to the modern day, such as Mothra's faeries, but are extremely rare and faded to myth.

* Invoked almost literally in ''Faith of the Fallen'' in the ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'' series. In the setting, dragons are biological creatures that depend on magic to fly and survive. Because of events far too complicated to explain here, magic is slowly dying out in the world and Richard, while traveling, comes across the remains of a dragon and wonders if this means they're all dead. [[spoiler:A few books later, we find out they're still around.]]

* The whole premise of Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld/GuardsGuards'' novel. Big dragons can no longer exist, right...?
** The first two Discworld books exhibit this in general. In ''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic'' Rincewind encounters dryads in a tree and says he thought that TheFairFolk were all extinct (which they are shortly afterwards). They encounter dragons later in that same book, but they are imaginary and can only exist inside the Wyrmburg's magical field. In ''Discworld/TheLightFantastic'' it's implied that trolls are also on their way out, many of them having already become immobile. Later books drop this, save for the case of Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver Horde, who are the last of the {{Barbarian Hero}}es and somewhere in their 80s.

* In addition to fossils, there are many extraordinary creatures which survived to recent enough times to have potentially influenced mythology and oral traditions of people, perhaps even providing the initial basis for creatures that would appear in tales thousands of years later. For instance there was Megalania, the perhaps 20 foot long giant monitor lizard that likely still lived when humans first colonized Australia. What's more it's living relative the Komodo dragon was once more widespread on many islands in the Pacific, and word of mouth of encounters with them could have added credibility to tales of dragons. Additionally, before widespread hunting, abnormally large individuals of living species of crocodiles, pythons and other creatures were more common and could have gained mythic status depending on who encountered them and how.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* A rare example that sets the modern era in the "age of magic" is ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. According to the spin-off comic, ''Comicbook/{{Fray}}'', at some point in the future the magic gets sealed away. [[spoiler: At present, it appears that this point in the future is the end of Buffy Season 8.]]
* The opening narration to the first episode of ''Series/{{Carnivale}}'' says that man "forever traded wonder for reason" on the day of the A-bomb test at Trinity.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': The Targaryens once ruled Westeros from the backs of their dragons, but by the start of the series dragons have been extinct for over a century. Their skulls are kept as heirlooms, their bones are used in things like dagger hilts, and their fossilized eggs are priceless curiosities. That is until Daenerys hatches three dragons at the end of Season 1.
* The opening narration of ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'' "In a land of myth, in a time of magic..." seems to indicate this.
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** It's also thought that the fossils left behind by these creatures may have inspired the legends of dragons and such in the first place. Mammoth skulls found in Europe and the Mediterranean during the Iron Age are thought to have given rise to legends of the cyclops (the large nasal opening for the trunk in the skull was presumably confused for a giant eye socket). It's also thought the the griffon myth may have been tied to the discovery of ''Protoceratops'' fossils in what are today Mongolia and western Siberia.

** The internet itself could be viewed as an example of this trope. In an era where any claim can be instantly fact-checked by reaching into your pocket and typing a few words into your smartphone, it can be hard to believe that just a few decades ago people were largely at the mercy of whatever they were told by books (which weren't always easy to come by in the first place), news media, or word of mouth. Urban legends are a lot less spooky when you can debunk them with a quick visit to Snopes.com. That said, the internet has also given birth to new mysteries and wonders, and provided a platform for communities that may not otherwise have ever come together, so in that regard the "dragons" are still alive and well.

* All fiction is true in ''ComicBook/LeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'', meaning there are a bunch of fantastic lands out there. By the time of ''Century: 2009'', however, they've mostly been destroyed or forgotten about (usually interpreted as Moore's AuthorTract about the quality of modern fiction). Volume 4 continues this theme, but shows all those forgotten places and people still left a mark on the world.

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** ''GURPS [[http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG37-1651 Thaumatology -- Age of Gold]]'': The setting is a 1930's pulp reality with magic on the way back. The triggering even was discovery of Philosopher's Stone in ancient tombs -- apparently common enough in the distant past, its rediscovery is leading to a renaissance of magic research and even the emergence of magically-powered super-heroes.

* Implied in [[TheTimeOfMyths all mythologies.]] The big ElephantInTheLivingRoom, back when those myths were believed, was that in the past you had heroes and magic and gods running around, but by the time of those telling the story, all such things had vanished with no explanation. This is interestingly {{Double Subver|sion}}ted in medieval European chronicles themselves, where they took TheTimeOfMyths to be when the early parts of Literature/TheBible were set, and then there were about 1500 years of no supernatural things (with [[UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} one exception]]) occurring during AncientGreece and AncientRome, but ''then''... [[TheMagicComesBack there were tales of sorcerers, dragons, and]] [[KnightInShiningArmor Knights In Shining Armor]]... which inexplicably disappeared at some unspecified point in the narratives.

* ''VideoGame/LegacyOfAThousandSuns'' takes place eons in the future, but before humans came to earth they existed on Tor'gyll with other magical creatures, including dragons, elves, dwarves and orcs.

* The Dark Ages were a disconcertingly magical time. Magic didn't work in the Roman Empire, and it didn't work in the Middle Ages either (although medievals were firm believers in astrology), but in the weird, low-population interval between the two, you saw incidents like these:
** The Raven Banner. Accounts differ, but many speak of a flag consecrated to Odin, which would give victory to the flag-bearer's army at the cost of the flag-bearer's life. The Great Heathen Army, led by the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok when they invaded England to avenge their father's treacherous murder, bore such a flag; Harald Hardrada carried a raven banner named Land-Waster, which may have been the same one. At the Battle of Stamford Bridge, Land-Waster's magic failed, and the Norse were routed; but before then, the banner worked, for several hundred years (at least according to Tom Holland's magic-realist history, ''The Forge of Christendom'').
** The Holy Lance: not the spear of Longinus, but a lance forged in the 600s around a nail from Christ's crucifixion. Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, traded a province for it, and he got the better deal; with the Holy Lance borne before them, his army was able to stop the Hungarians' raids into Bavaria and the Rhineland, and secure the peace and stability of Germany.