History Main / StatusQuoIsGod

StatusQuoIsGod can easily collide with HappilyEverAfter. Sometimes, a story simply can't have an ending that is both happy and maintains the status quo--thus, these two powerful tropes are in conflict with each other. When this conflict occurs, it's likely that the status quo will be maintained, and the ending will be less happy than it might have been if not for StatusQuoIsGod.

** ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'' went through thirty-eigh volumes of Ataru chasing after other women and refusing admiting outloud what he loved Lum. Finally, when the story left him no option other than acknowleding his feelings, ResetButton was pressed. The only meaningful change in the status-quo was Shinobu breaking up with Ataru, and that change happened in the beginning and [[ExecutiveMeddling it was forced on Takahashi by her editors]]. This was lampshaded in a story arc where several characters have the chance to make a future tailored to her needs. Shinobu is unsure of what asking, and thus she decides nothing changes. Shortly after she got to see that future and she realized it was a dumb idea.

*** The third movie is also guilty; the enchanted "[[FaceFault sit!]]" beads are broken partway into the movie, but since the film isn't part of series canon, the beads have to be replaced, this is is handled in a post-credits scene in which Kagome puts them back on for... no real reason.

* ''Manga/KeroroGunsou'' is particularly devoted to this trope. Let's face it, Keroro will continue building Gunpla and ticking Natsumi off, Tamama will continue eating candy and obsessing over Keroro, Giroro will continue to be infatuated with Natsumi and shine his guns, Kururu will continue being a jerk and eating curry, and Dororo will continue to sit in a corner and cry. NOTHING SHALL CHANGE.

* Commonly averted with {{K-On}}, which sets up the sorts of "lesson of the week" situations that you'd normally fully expect a cast in a work like this to forget about by the next episode (i.e. don't be so clingy, be more thoughtful towards your friends, study hard, etc.) but actually has them work as permanent character development.

* Another Batman foe: Poor [[ComicBook/TwoFace Harvey Dent]] is a ''victim'' of this. No matter how many times his face and sanity are restored, soon he is driven back to his (half)disfigured face and insanity, even in some out-of-mainstream-continuity stories, like ''Batman: Black and White''. In an Alternate Future from FrankMiller's limited series ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightReturns'', [[spoiler: only his face is restored, not his sanity. FromBadToWorse: His good side vanished, leaving him all "normal" outside and all monstrous inside]].

* The cyclical nature of comics was {{Lampshaded}} in an issue of ''Comicbook/NewAvengers'', where WonderMan points out that the entire ''Comicbook/CivilWar'' crossover was utterly pointless since everything (more or less) went back to normal within just a few short years.
* ''Comicbook/KingdomCome'' {{Lampshades}} this. WonderWoman's entire purpose was to come to America and bring an end to warfare across the globe. The problem of course is, thanks to StatusQuoIsGod and ReedRichardsIsUseless, she'll never be allowed to make any real progress in this mission. Thus, we cut to a few decades later and find that she's been exiled by her fellow Amazons precisely because she hadn't made any headway in solving this problem.

** There have been several attempts to give PowerGirl more modest outfits, starting in ''[[WestCoastTeam Justice League Europe]]'' in the 80's. The thing is, [[TropesAreNotBad regardless of gender, many fans genuinely like her original costume]] (CleavageWindow and all), so any attempt at a more conservative redesign is usually jettisoned very quickly. Most recently, they tried to give her a new costume in the {{New 52}} that ditched the cleavage window and gave her pants, but fan outrage eventually got her restored to [[LeotardOfPower her iconic look]].

** BlackCanary famously had her own DorkAge in ''[[JusticeLeagueInternational JLI]]'', where she started wearing a more conservative costume that resembled a tracksuit. Fans hated it, so the writers eventually brought back her classic [[StockingFiller leather and fishnets]]. A cover of ''ActionComics'' even had Black Canary [[TakeThat proudly burning her]] ''JLI'' suit while wearing her iconic costume.

* An almost appalling example of this is shown with the Barbara Gordon incarnation of Batgirl. In the well-acclaimed graphic novel ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'', she was shot in the spine by SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker, rendering her permanantly paralyzed. Barbara then took on the persona of Oracle, working behind the scenes to aid the Bat-Family with her hacking skills and computer expertise. But after the 2011 reboot {{New 52}}, Barbara was back on her legs as Batgirl.

* {{Lampshaded}} in one ''{{Nodwick}}'' strip in ''Magazine/{{Dragon}}'', in which Nodwick has been bouncing back and forth in time trying to save the universe from the Unnamable, and has [[TakenALevelInBadass taken several levels in basass]] as a result, becoming a mutliclassed wizard-cleric-fighter. The strip ends with Artax reassuring Yeagar that once the Unnamable's been dealt with they can wipe his brain, because having him be better than them at everything is just embarassing.

* The premise for ''Film/BatmanTheMovie'' and [[Series/{{Batman}} the Batman TV Series]] is that that incarnation of Batman only is useful to fight supervillains (and nothing more). [[ReedRichardsIsUseless He cannot change anything more in his world]]. Robin's idea to better the world by making a FreakyFridayFlip with the bickering United World Organization security council is quickly rejected by Batman. [[ZigZaggingTrope Then when this happens]]… the security council is still bickering between themselves, but each one of them is bickering in a different idiom. Batman realizes that StatusQuoIsGod and he and Robin going out inconspicuously through the window.

* ''Series/SavedByTheBell'' was the king of this, with new girlfriends constantly introduced for Zack and disappearing after their one episode. There was the case of the homeless girl who, along with her father was about to move into Zack's house, as well as Slater's previously unseen sister. While Lisa didn't disappear after the episode where she and Zack started dating, the relationship was dropped after one episode. The only non-main cast girlfriend to stick around was Stacy during the "Malibu Sands" mini-season, she was never mentioned after the Malibu Sands recap episode at the beginning of the senior year season. Earlier, Violet disappeared without explanation after a several episode run that left Screech without his girlfriend and pining for Lisa again.

* As irritating as this trope can be in light-hearted series, it's even moreso in serious drama. ''{{Spooks}}'' has managed to hit both AnyoneCanDie and StatusQuoIsGod, the latter for [[spoiler: destroying half of south-east England, murdering the Royal Family, killing the parliament and leaving one of their main cast on death's door, before revealing the whole thing was a training exercise.]]

*** ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' eventually decided that StatusQuoIsGod too. In the episode "Hard Time", O'Brien is convicted of a crime and sentenced to live twenty years in prison... and is then given the memories of a twenty year stint in a maximum security prison that included every bad event you can imagine happening in such a place. The rest of the episode deals with the fact that, even though he ''physically'' was never in prison, he still has PTSD and his behavior patterns are now those of a ruthless prisoner and how he has trouble relating to his wife and friends anymore, and so on. This traumatic, life-changing event, or it supposedly long-term effects, are never mentioned again once the episode is over with no explanation as to why it suddenly goes away other than "a different writer is penning the next episode."

** Two especially blatant instances of shoving things back into status quo in the original series can be found in the episodes "Operation - Annihilate!" and "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky". In the former, Spock is afflicted by an alien parasite, and it is discovered that extremely bright light can kill it without harming the host. Well, except for rendering Spock permanently blind. Mere minutes from the end Spock suddenly turns up on the bridge with his eyesight restored, and it is handwaved by explaining that Vulcans have a secondary inner eyelid which protected him from permanent blindness. Said physical feature was never mentioned before, and never brought up again until late in ''Enterprise''. In the beginning of "For the World is Hollow...", we learn that McCoy has a rare incurable disease which will kill him within a year. Wouldn't you know it, the new civilization the Enterprise encounters in the episode has advanced medical knowledge which just happens to include a cure for that very disease.
* Although the plots of ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' implicitly offer up an unlimited number of hilarious, deliciously complex, irony-steeped {{Aesop}}s, the characters never, ever learn anything from them and in every episode they are as shallow and petty as they were in the previous one. In fact, in nine years of adventures, the only change they ever went through was that by the Finale they ran out of new things to talk about and [[BookEnds started repeating what they had been talking about in the Pilot.]]

* ''{{Series/Supernatural}}'': Anything that could potentially separate Sam and Dean, be it a bad argument, demon trickery, a trip to Purgatory, or [[DeathIsCheap death]], will be quickly resolved because Sam and Dean just can't be apart. If it cannot be fixed quickly in-universe, they will use a TimeSkip. The show is currently on it's eighth season and the longest they've ever been separated is two episodes ("Free To Be You And Me" and "The End" in season 5).

** Also, ''EVEOnline''. Player organizations can and do control large areas of the game, and ownership changes all the time depending on how the latest war is going.

** ''TabulaRasa'' was a bit of an exception - for example, there were bases which were constantly changing ownership as each of the opposing sides stormed to take it back. This did have some effects on gameplay, though they weren't so huge (when the base wasn't yours you couldn't use it's teleporter or shops and you also lost access to the mission givers there, so sometimes you had to mount an attack on enemy position just to get a quest if you were unlucky). TR never grown as much as Richard Garriot intended, so we might have seen more examples of this if they didn't discontinue it. And also, to an extent, the original ''UltimaOnline'' allowed players to build their own houses and in some cases whole cities (on some shards). One such shard was meant as a fairly realistic world, so it had complicated population replenishment, even migration and such and just as the official real economy (just like ''EVE Online'' above).

* The RPG ''VideoGame/BetrayalAtKrondor'' is all about the effort of a certain dark elf to bring peace to his race and put an end to hostile relations between humans and dark elves that have been going on forever. The game is based on ''TheRiftwarCycle'' and its plot was canonised in a novelisation. Two hundred years later in the series, nothing much has changed about the dark elves.

* ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' has a rare in-universe case of this. The heroes and villains have been waging war in the name of their gods for a while now, but every time one side comes within reach of winning, [[spoiler:Shinryu resets everything back the way it used to be]], starting the war over again. This is because [[spoiler:Shinryu made a deal with Cid, aka the Narrator, that he would keep the war going forever in a GroundhogDayLoop in order to temper Chaos into the ultimate force of destruction]]. StatusQuoIsGod? In this case, God is in fact, keeping the status quo!

* In ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'': Bob's roof will ''always,'' somehow, get repaired after having been destroyed earlier in the story. {{Lampshaded}} by the fact that it is unapologetically a RunningGag.

--> '''Cole''': Trust me, Robbie is going to walk through that door and inform us that everything has returned to the {{status quo|isGod}}.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' had an episode in which Peter gets plastic surgery, resulting in a fit, handsome guy. This being ''Family Guy'', the episode ended with him falling into a vat of lard and becoming fat again. Even worse was the episode where Lois gains a lot of weight after Peter's vasectomy. In the end she has quickie liposuction and surgery and ends up looking exactly as though she had never gained the weight at all.
** But ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' changes on occasion: Peter lost his job at the toy factory permanently (at the end of the episode, they point out how odd it is that the status quo has not been restored). Cleveland and Loretta separated and stayed that way. Bonnie finally had her kid, with whom she had been pregnant with for over six seasons. Also, characters are KilledOffForReal; any returns are from their ghosts.
** Recent seasons have subverted this, with Brian's lasting relationship with Jillian ([[spoiler:Okay, they broke up in the end, but they were together for about a season's worth of episodes.]])

** ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' does make reference to some recurring themes. For example, when the Griffins are on the run and they end up in Texas. Peter mentions that he is "legally retarded".

* ''BobsBurgers'' does this with Tina, since like Meg, she's the show's ButtMonkey and a large source of humor stems from her loneliness. One episode ends with Tina finally meeting a boy who shows some romantic interest in her, so naturally, he's neither seen nor mentioned again by the time the next episode begins.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' lampshaded, deconstructed, and parodied this trope in an episode about television. When the main cast is forced to reshoot the finale of ''[[Series/AllyMcBeal Single Female Lawyer]]'' to prevent an alien invasion, Leela (as the titular character) decides to propose marriage. Fry is angry, as he states that you don't do that on television because people only watch TV because of this very [[StatusQuoIsGod trope]]. Right on cue, this angers the aliens, who proceed with their invasion until Fry improvises an ending that would result in her character remaining single, placating the aliens. (The fact that real-life shows often destroy the status quo during the finale is ignored). The aliens are satisfied with this ending, and leave peacefully. With everything back to normal, Fry has a short monologue (serving as a SpoofAesop) about how things should always go back to normal at the end of an episode. The Camera then cuts to a devastated New New York, most of it having been destroyed during the episode. The status quo is restored by the next episode, so it's a DoubleSubversion.

* Season 15 of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' did this. After the DramaBomb episode, "You're Getting Old", it looked like there was going to be some sort of change in terms of the boys' relationships. [[HeterosexualLifePartners Kyle and Stan]] have a falling out, [[FoeYay Kyle and Cartman]] are shown being together of their own volition and getting along. The episode ends with Randy and Sharon separating and moving from the Marsh family home. When the next episode, "Ass Burgers", features a SnapBack, this is invoked heavily. Just as Stan is about to embrace the changes, the status quo comes back with Randy & Sharon getting back together, Kyle & Cartman bickering once again, and Stan going back to the life he once had, though he now secretly drinks to keep off his cynical levels. Sharon even says that [[{{Anvilicious}} sometimes it's best to stick with what you know]].

** Also when Maude Flanders died, she stayed dead.

** Apu got married in season 9; in season 13 he cheated, and ever since then every appearance by him or his wife references it, usually by having them [[CringeComedy act frustrated or angry at one another]].

** Speaking of Barney, he stopped drinking in the eleventh season episode "Days of Wine and D'oheses" and remained a sober, clean-cut compulsive coffee drinker after the end of the episode and for several seasons. Like the Luanne and Kirk example, he reverted to his original state in season fourteen's "I'm Spelling As Fast as I Can". Later on in current seasons, he would have fewer roles, aside from being passed out on the ground.

* [[WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill Hank Hill]] is never going to be a manager. The one time he ''did'' become a manager he managed to blow it... in 10 freaking seconds (and it wasn't even near the end of the episode).

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents'': Timmy will always wish things back to normal at the end of every episode.

* Both invoked and averted in TheClangers. In many episodes a creature or object arrives on the Clanger's planet, causes havoc and then either leaves or is sent back into space. When the Iron Chicken first appears, it seems as if she's also following this pattern. However, she makes appearances in later episodes and she also gives Tiny Clanger an egg which has effects in following episodes[[hottip:* :It hatches to reveal some musical notes, most of which are eaten by the Soup Dragon. However, the remaining two notes are planted and grow into Music Trees. Tiny Clanger later uses notes from the Music Trees to power her flying boat, which puts an end to Major Clanger's unsuccessful attempts at building a flying machine.]]

** This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by two boys who watch a Road Runner cartoon:

** Link did destroy the jar once, but it was [[StatusQuoIsGod back for the next episode.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' had an episode ("Pick a Car, Any Car") in which the family car stops working and his parents start looking for a new one. Arthur is upset because he doesn't want things to change, and it seems like that's going to be the lesson for the episode. But in the end Buster gets the bright idea of calling ''CarTalk'', and they discover that the problem was that Kate had just jammed her rattle into the tailpipe. Not only does nothing change, nothing is learned, except maybe to call ''Car Talk'' if you're having problems your mechanic can't fix.

* The ''ScoobyDoo'' series seems to run on this.
** But averted in ''ScoobyDooMysteryInc" where it usually took episodes for anything to get back to the way it was, and even then there was still traces of what happen that come back up. This also gave the series a much DarkerAndEdgier feel.

* In the early 1950's, UsefulNotes/NorthKorea, previously under Soviet influence, invaded pro-Western South Korea over the 38th Parallel, igniting U.N. fears of communist aggression, leading to [[TheKoreanWar western intervention in a proxy war]]. North Koreans raged all the way to the Southeastern port city of Pusan before encountering heavy resistance from U.N. troops, who cut off their supplies and fought them all the way North to the Chinese border. The U.N. forces were on the brink of driving out the communists; unfortunately, [[RedChina Maoist China]] intervened, pushing the clash back to a stalemate ending roughly near the 38th parallel. The war ''effectively ended where it began'', thus beginning the [[CommieNazis totalitarian-communist]] [[PeoplesRepublicofTyranny "Democratic People's Republic"]] of North Korea, which is currently in its third generation of hereditary rule. It has withstood the Soviet Union's collapse, and shows not the slightest sign of change in leadership or attitudes any time soon. The U.S. Military-Industrial Complex, which arose primarily during the Korean War, has also not diminished in size since Dwight Eisenhower's famous unheeded warning.

** Note, though, that not every decision ''not'' to change is automatically this trope. There is some actual merit to the notion of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" because not all change is necessarily for the better and it's not always easy to judge whether things will really improve without having the benefit of hindsight just yet. StatusQuoIsGod is more about when ''any change at all'' is unwelcome and people will make active efforts to avoid or, if it should happen, undo it.

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** But averted HARD in ''ScoobyDooMysteryInc" where it usually took episodes for anything to get back to the way it was, and even then there was still traces of what happen that come back up. This also gave the series a much DarkerAndEdgier feel.

* Musa's hairstyle for the first two seasons of ''WinxClub'' was always a pair of short upwards-pointing pigtails. She even wore her hair like this when she slept and while wearing a stocking cap (which conformed to the shape of her hair), and any flashbacks to her childhood showed her with her hair in this same style. It was eventually changed to have her first lengthen her hair, then start changing the style every time she changed outfits, to the point where she has never been seen with the pulled-up pigtails look after Secret of the Lost Kingdom.

* Musa's hairstyle for the first two seasons of Winx Club was always a pair of short upwards-pointing pigtails. She even wore her hair like this when she slept and while wearing a stocking cap (which conformed to the shape of her hair), and any flashbacks to her childhood showed her with her hair in this same style. It was eventually changed to have her first lengthen her hair, then start changing the style every time she changed outfits, to the point where she has never been seen with the pulled-up pigtails look after Secret of the Lost Kingdom.

** ''Manga/MaisonIkkoku'' is the sole exception ([[{{RIN-NE}} So far...]]), and change took 96 episodes to arrive and stick.

** ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'' went through thirty-eigh volumes of Ataru chasing after other women and refusing admiting outloud what he loved Lum. Finally, when the story left him no option other than acknowleding his feelings, ResetButton was pressed. The only meaningful change in the status-quo was Shinobu breaking up with Ataru, and that change happened in the beginning and [[ExecutiveMeddling it was forced on Takahashi by her editors]].
*** This was lampshaded in a story arc where several characters have the chance to make a future tailored to her needs. Shinobu is unsure of what asking, and thus she decides nothing changes. Shortly after she got to see that future and she realized it was a dumb idea.

* Also, keep in mind that even beneficial societal changes tend to be highly disruptive, or the events leading to them do. A good case in point would be the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement in the US, which plays this both brutally straight and averts this. It only came about not despite the organized opposition to it, but because of the organized opposition. The decade leading to that passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was full of domestic unrest and tacitly sanctioned violence and terrorism by local and state governments. These actions eventually blew up in their faces when even those who would have supported the status quo grew disgusted with the increasingly violent actions taken to try an prevent it.

* Another Batman foe: Poor Harvey Dent is a ''victim'' of this. No matter how many times his face and sanity are restored, soon he is driven back to his (half)disfigured face and insanity, even in some out-of-mainstream-continuity stories, like ''Batman: Black and White''. In an Alternate Future from FrankMiller's limited series ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightReturns'', [[spoiler: only his face is restored, not his sanity. FromBadToWorse: His good side vanished, leaving him all "normal" outside and all monstrous inside]].

* Though not entirely bound to the trope, ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'''s only means of advancing its story appear to have been introducing new characters, or having an existing character learn a new combat technique. Two of the story's main features, the relationships of the characters and the curses that some of them carried, [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption remained set in stone despite the characters' many attempts to alter them one way or another]]. In fact, when the story got to the point where it had nowhere to go ''but'' to change, the series ended.
* This describes every Creator/RumikoTakahashi regular series. Swap "curses" for "[[CanNotSpitItOut mental hangups]]and [[ImplacableMan unkillable bad guys]]" where applicable. ''Manga/MaisonIkkoku'' is the sole exception ([[{{RIN-NE}} So far...]]), and change took 96 episodes to arrive and stick.
* This is painfully common in ''Manga/InuYasha''. Naraku is such an unkillable bastard that he manages to maintain his status as the BigBad for several hundred chapters, and usually is TheManBehindTheMan for every other villain who isn't a MonsterOfTheWeek.
** The third movie is also guilty; the enchanted "[[FaceFault sit!]]" beads are broken partway into the movie, but since the film isn't part of series canon, the beads have to be replaced, this is is handled in a post-credits scene in which Kagome puts them back on for... no real reason.

** The show also revolves around the PerpetualPoverty trope, so any episode that involves the financial betterment of the family will inevitably lead to a DownerEnding. For example, one episode has the family buying a food truck and finding great success with it...only for the truck to be destroyed at the end. Another has them entering a game show in order to win a new car, [[YankTheDogsChain only for them to lose in the final round]].