History Main / HopeSpringsEternal

* The tagline for ''Film/DeepImpact'' was "Oceans rise. Cities fall. Hope survives." It fits that movie well, by the way.

* Done very literally in the end to the video game ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994''.

** A less literal example comes in the form of Kamina's [[{{Determinator}} Never give up spirit]] which he inherited from his dead father [[spoiler: then passes it down to Team Dai-Gurren, especially [[BloodBrothers Simon]] after his death, giving them the strength to continue the fight.]]

* And now for a depressing example: [[ManipulativeBastard Tzeentch]] is the ''evil'' God of Hope in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Fantasy'' and ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000''. He can't be killed (and killing all his worshippers is less than practical), so technically, hope goes on forever.
** The reason that Tzeentch can't be killed is ''[[MortonsFork because]]'' he is the God of Hope. Taken to an insane extreme, like all the Chaos Gods. The very thing that allows mortals to fight him and his forces IS him.
*** Here's something to help counterbalanace that: Tzeentch may be the ultimate manipulator, but you can take heart in one thing. ''He has no plans.'' All of his twists and turns, plots and schemes... they're all for their own sake. If Tzeentch ever had an actual ''goal'' that was accomplished, he'd probably cease to exist. Hope for the future, because Tzeentch can't.
** All of ''Warhammer 40k'' is a depressing example, but the ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'' tabletop game places one single bright point within it. You are a human in the Imperium of Man. You live in a shitsack world setting so bleak that it is (in)arguably the crappiest of CrapsackWorld settings. [[BlackAndGrayMorality Every side is evil]], typically horrifyingly so, and the Imperium certainly counts. There is no real way to defeat Chaos or even the mundane enemies of the Imperium, not for good. The collapse of humanity into ruin, chaos, death and worse is only a matter of time. You play an Inquisitor. Your job? To hold off that collapse, and preserve the souls and lives of humanity. For one more year, one more month, one more day. One more hour. Your name will not be remembered when you fall. You will not know glory in life, or rest, or peace. But you may succeed in preserving your species for just that little bit longer. Grow powerful enough, you may even succeed in making things better for some small fraction of humanity. In all the horror and constant, borderline self-parodying grim dark that is ''Warhammer 40k'', no other philosophy shines so bright as this. One single light in the dark.
** In the last words of the [[GodEmperor God Emperor of Mankind]] (before he became a HumanPopsicle):
-->[[AsLongAsThereIsOneMan One unbreakable shield against the coming darkness,]]
-->[[DefiantToTheEnd One last blade, forged in defiance of fate,]]
-->[[SuperSoldier Let them be my legacy to the Galaxy I conquered,]]
-->[[MyGreatestFailure And my final gift to the species I failed.]]
* While Tzeentch still exists in ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'', it takes a far more optimistic view of this trope. After Nagash betrayed the alliance of gods, Chaos managed to conquer 7 of the 8 realms, and Sigmar shut the gates to Azyr for an entire age while Chaos ran unopposed. Sigmar wasn't idle, however, and he finally opened the gates of Azyr when he finished the creation of the Stormcast Eternals, his heavenly host of immortal warriors. While the war against Chaos is far from over, Sigmar is making progress, his armies slowly retaking territory and his alliances with the other gods are slowly being rekindled and the great cities of Sigmar once again stand tall across the world.
* Deconstructed in ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}''. [[ThePowersThatBe The Dark Powers']] punishment may be tailor-made for each Darklord, but the crux of their curse is that no matter how many times the Darklord tried and failed to gain their heart's desire, there is ''always'' a sliver of hope that they will succeed next time. This will ''[[FailureIsTheOnlyOption NEVER]]'' come to pass, as The Dark Powers will actively screw over the Darklord's attempt over and over. The only known escape is to abandon all hope of succeeding, leave your quest, admit what you did was wrong, and accept your punishment. [[EpiphanicPrison Of course, if they were the kind of people who could admit that, they would have never become Darklords in the first place.]]
* [[TabletopGame Mage The Awakening]] has specialized sub-groups among their splats called "Legacies". In terms of game mechanics, membership in a Legacy allows a mage to potentially cast as many as eight distinct spells without fear of Paradox (basically, reality telling a mage that "no, you have NOT pushed me hard enough to get the changes you want"). In terms of storytelling, however, Legacies represent a further refinement of certain philosophical stances or guidance toward achieving certain social goals, which the aforementioned eight spells are intended to support. One group, the [[https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Tamers_of_the_Cave Tamers Of the Cave]] has the concept of this trope as part of their identifying quote: "... Even when there's nothing, there's hope."

* At the end of the ''Franchise/StarWars'' prequels, the Emperor has taken power, Anakin Skywalker has [[FallenHero fallen to evil]], the Jedi order is destroyed, Yoda and Obi-Wan have been driven into exile, and the Republic has been turned into the oppressive Galactic Empire. But TheAlliance has begun to form and the Skywalker twins have been [[MosesInTheBulrushes hidden from their father]], Darth Vader, and they both will become [[TitleDrop a new hope]].

* The TropeNamer is Alexander Pope's ''An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733:

* ''[[Manga/GalaxyExpress999 Maetel Legend]]'' ends with the entire population of Andromeda subjected to UnwillingRoboticisation, including TheHighQueen, who turns from a just, selfless ruler into a ruthless tyrant, who offs her EvilChancellor ''because she is just [[EvilerThanThou eviler than him]] now''. And yet, both of her daughters, [[Anime/QueenEmeraldas Emeraldas]] and Maetel, escape both the roboticisation and her death squads and manage to flee the planet to find a way to undo their mother's mistakes.

However, all is not lost. [[EvilCannotComprehendGood The villain does not and cannot realize one thing:]] though the heroes who tried to stop him have failed, and may well have died, '''Hope lives on''', and with it, the HeroicSpirit survives. Even now, a rudimentary version of LaResistance is forming because word has spread that a ChosenOne has appeared after being sent off like MosesInTheBulrushes. The now-dead heroes who opposed the BigBad sent [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture a weapon through time to the future]] that can defeat them.

These stories about the ChosenOne and the super-weapon might be true but their truthfulness matters less than what it means that these stories exist at all: '''Hope lives on!''' One day, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, maybe not in our lifetimes, but one day, AsLongAsThereIsOneMan, JusticeWillPrevail.

* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': [[spoiler:Homura has witnessed her best friend dying or corrupting four times or more and failed to stop it from happening three times or more. She's watched her fellow magical girls kill each other out of despair. She was present for the end of the world. Kyubey's system of Miracle Contracts is, by her own admission, inescapable. Yet despite all of this, she's determined to find the GoldenPath that leads to Walpurgisnacht's defeat without Madoka's HeroicSacrifice.]]
** Madoka sums it up beautifully [[spoiler:as she makes her wish (becoming ''[[AbstractApotheosis hope itself]]'' in the process):]]

* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', All Might deliberately cultivated this image for himself: By defeating villains in public, he hopes to inspire other people to fight crime and stand up against injustice. For much of his career as a superhero, he's successful at this — until he's critically wounded in a fight against his ArchNemesis, All for One. This event causes doubt and uncertainty to spread among society at large, villains become more bold and brazen, and the other heroes start getting overwhelmed. In a more literal sense, All Might's SuperStrength can be passed down from person to person, and each inheritor thus far has used it to become symbols of hope like All Might. [[spoiler: When All Might is at his lowest point in Chapter 326, ''[[HeroKiller Stain]]'' [[GetAHoldOfYourself had to spell this out to him in order to restore his faith in himself and heroes who carries his torch.]]]]

* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', All Might deliberately cultivated this image for himself: By defeating villains in public, he hopes to inspire other people to fight crime and stand up against injustice. For much of his career as a superhero, he's successful at this — until he's critically wounded in a fight against his ArchNemesis, All for One. This event causes doubt and uncertainty to spread among society at large, villains become more bold and brazen, and the other heroes start getting overwhelmed. In a more literal sense, All Might's SuperStrength can be passed down from person to person, and each inheritor thus far has used it to become symbols of hope like All Might. [[spoiler: When All Might is at his lowest point in Chapter 326, ''[[HeroKiller Stain]]'' [[GetaHoldOfYorself had to spell this out to him in order to restore his faith in himself and heroes who carries his torch.]]]]

* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', All Might deliberately cultivated this image for himself: By defeating villains in public, he hopes to inspire other people to fight crime and stand up against injustice. For much of his career as a superhero, he's successful at this — until he's critically wounded in a fight against his ArchNemesis, All for One. This event causes doubt and uncertainty to spread among society at large, villains become more bold and brazen, and the other heroes start getting overwhelmed. In a more literal sense, All Might's SuperStrength can be passed down from person to person, and each inheritor thus far has used it to become symbols of hope like All Might.

** This inspires him to confer with his past selves, and [[spoiler: ''every single past incarnation'' joins them in freezing Gallifrey in a single moment in time, keeping [[StableTimeLoop the timeline intact while also saving Gallifrey from destruction]].]]

* The end of Matt Stover's novelization of ''Literature/RevengeOfTheSith'' notes that this is the Dark Side's weakness. Darkness is all-encompassing, powerful, and will never vanish entirely...but a single candle can hold it back. Crosses over with ThePowerOfLove as well.

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman: Preludes and Nocturnes'', Dream goes to Hell to retrieve his helmet. The demon Chonoronzon, who currently possesses it, challenges Dream to the ultimate game of "Can you top this?" Choronzon's final move was becoming entropy personified. Dream responded, and won, by becoming Hope.

* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': After all the hardships suffered by the Harfoots to reach a shelter, Orodruin's eruption destroys the orchard where they usualy spend the winters. The Stranger tries to revive a tree, but only succeeds in injuring Dilly. As a result, he is asked to leave. Shortly after his departure, a yellow flower sprouts from the trunk of the tree he tried to revive earlier. The next day, the whole orchard is healed and everyone has plenty of food.

* Invoked in an episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' where a group of genetically-enhanced super-geniuses calculate that the Federation cannot win its war against the Dominion. They argue that the Federation should surrender, accept an occupation and humanity will form LaResistance a few generations later, centering on Earth itself. The irony being that a scene earlier in the series, set in the Dominion HQ, shows that their leadership planned to simply wipe out every living thing on Earth as a preemptive measure to any kind of human resistance down the line.

However, all is not lost. [[EvilCannotComprehendGood The villain does not and cannot realize one thing:]] though the heroes who tried to stop him have failed, and may well have died, '''Hope lives on''', and with it, the HeroicSpirit survives. Even now, a rudimentary version of LaResistance is forming because word has spread that a ChosenOne has appeared after being sent off like MosesInTheBulrushes. The now-dead heroes who opposed the BigBad [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture sent a weapon through time to the future]] that can defeat the UltimateEvil.

It is a ForegoneConclusion.

* ''Manga/DrStone'': After escaping Tsukasa [[EvilLuddite who wanted to destroy and suppress any scientific advancements in The Stone World]], [[ScienceHero Senku]] meets with Chrome who had spent years collecting and experimenting with various materials in order to create various new compounds that to Senku showed that no matter what Tsukasa tried to do:
-->'''Senku''': There will always be some idiot who will try something just to see what happens. Eventually, thr Shiny Monkies will make a Technological Civilization.

* After escaping Tsukasa [[EvilLuddite who wanted to destroy and suppress any scientific advancements in The Stone World]], [[ScienceHero Senku]] meets with Chrome who had spent years collecting and experimenting with various materials in order to create various new compounds that to Senku showed that no matter what Tsukasa tried to do:

* ''Comicbook/StarWarsTales'' #19, "Storyteller", is set in the far, far future of the galaxy. Two children of an oppressed alien race found the body of C-3PO. The droid spent his last moments telling the story of Luke Skywalker, who redeemed a darkened soul and freed the galaxy from great evil. Though C-3PO and one of the children is killed by the oppressors, the other child, Remoh, takes up Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, ready to stand against [[TheEmpire the new Empire]].

* In ''FanFic/EquestriaAHistoryRevealed'', when Nightmare Moon had cemented her power over Equestria in her sister's absence and all seemed lost, many citizens still held onto the flickering flames of hope; that Celestia would return and save them. Nightmare Moon knew that her inability to completely extinguish all traces of hope would be her downfall, leading to her orchestration of [[spoiler: the Battle of Canterlot, an attempt of an all-out victory against Celestia once she returned to re-take the nation, in order to destroy all semblances of hope forever.]]

* Naturally this trope plays out in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5916940/1/In-Blackest-Night In Blackest Night]]'', a crossover between WesternAnimation/KimPossible and Comicbook/GreenLantern. After high school, Kim finds herself drafted into the Green Lantern Corps just before the events of the ComicBook/BlackestNight arc. One of her recurring enemies, the mutated fish-man Gill, became a Red Lantern, and launched a ferocious attack on Kim. She fought well but her ring reserves were rapidly depleting...until she noticed her ring's power levels increasing, followed by a familiar voice shouting, "Can I get a Booyah?" [[BigDamnHeroes Enter the newly appointed Blue Lantern, Ron Stoppable.]]

* And now for a depressing example: [[ManipulativeBastard Tzeentch]] is the ''evil'' God of Hope in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Fantasy'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. He can't be killed (and killing all his worshippers is less than practical), so technically, hope goes on forever.

* Done very literally in the end to the video game ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound}}''.

* At the very end of the ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' series ''Defiance'', Kain muses that hope was the true gift Raziel bestowed upon him. Being a cynic, he refers to it as "the first, bitter, taste of that terrible illusion" but one he can't help but believe.

* The first generation of ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemJugdral Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War]]'' ends with [[spoiler:nearly all of the heroes killed, TheEmpire triumphant, and TheDarkTimes lie ahead, ruled by the vessel of the [[GodOfEvil Dark God, Loptyr]]. But [[ArcWords The Light Continues to Shine]], and [[TimeSkip seventeen years later]], [[GenerationXerox the children of the fallen heroes]] take up arms to free Jugdral from the reign of tyranny.]]

** Two of the three endings for ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'' draw upon this theme more heavily than the rest of the series; [[spoiler: Choosing ''The End of Fire'' sees the Fire Keeper take the last embers of the First Flame and snuffing them out, ending the eternal cycle of light and dark in the hopes that a new Age of Fire will come about on its own rather than through the continuous perpetuation of a self-destructive cycle. Choosing ''The Usurpation of Fire'' turns into either a GoldenEnding or EarnYourBadEnding depending on your interpretation, but it certainly seems hopeful from mankind's perspective; having gained the power of the Dark Soul from Yoel of Londor and wresting the remains of the First Flame from their mantle, you can now finish the process King Vendrick started in ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' by using the power of both to break humanity out of the cycle entirely, allowing them to ascend as the rightful rulers of the world with you as their Lord of Hollows.]]

* In ''Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa'' backstory, only one thing kept Meta Knight going after the war against Nightmare wiped out the Star Warrior army; Hope.

--->'''Pandora:''' Hope is what makes us strong! It is why we are here. It is what we fight with when all else is lost.