History Main / TheSlowPath

* In ''Webcomic/TwoEvilScientists'', Mega Man is sent back to the [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog Space Colony ARK]] fifty years in the past, and ends up waiting 100+ years to the time of VideoGame/MegaManX.

*** The episode ''[[Recap/StargateSG1S2E211969 1969]]'' has 2 examples.

** ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekStrangeNewWorldsS2E03TomorrowAndTomorrowAndTomorrow Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow", Sera, a Romulan intelligence officer, came back in time from an unknown date of origin intending to interfere with the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s by assassinating Khan Noonien-Singh and thereby prevent the Federation from forming. Problem was, [[TimeCrash everybody and their mother apparently had a similar idea, which ended up delaying Khan's childhood to the 2020s]]. Thus Sera was forced to live on Earth as a DeepCoverAgent for the intervening thirty years.

** ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'': Sera, a Romulan intelligence officer, came back in time from an unknown date of origin intending to interfere with the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s by assassinating Khan Noonien-Singh and thereby prevent the Federation from forming. Problem was, [[TimeCrash everybody and their mother apparently had a similar idea, which ended up delaying Khan's childhood to the 2020s]]. Thus Sera was forced to live on Earth as a DeepCoverAgent for the intervening thirty years.

* ''Series/StargateSG1'':
** "Unending" -- SG-1 is trapped within a time-stop field on the ''Odyssey'' for fifty years. When they finally work out a solution, Teal'c volunteers to be excluded from the time-reversal effect, so that he can deliver a plan to save the ship. Fortunately, as a Jaffa, his lifespan is [[WeAreAsMayflies exceptionally long]], though he is still visibly older by the end of it.
** Earlier in the show, Season 8's finale "Moebius", a Zero Point Module takes the slow path from Ancient Egypt, due to some monkeying with the TimeyWimeyBall by the team. That ZPM ends up in ''Atlantis'''s Season 2 premiere.
** In the episode "[[Recap/StargateSG1S4E6WindowOfOpportunity Window of Opportunity]]" Jack and Teal'c spend a sizable amount of time [[GroundhogDayLoop living through the same day over and over]], instantly traveling back in time to the beginning of the day each time, and use the months of time they live through to take the opportunity to learn juggling, pottery, and also how the time machine works.
** In ''Film/StargateContinuum'', Mitchell goes back in time in order to stop Ba'al from sabotaging the Stargate Program. However, he accidentally arrives several years too early, and is forced to wait until Ba'al's attack takes place.
** The episode ''1969'' has 2 examples.
*** When SG-1 are sent back to 1969, they meet a young Lieutenant Hammond, who helps them thanks to a note from his future self. He then has to take the long way to see them again as a General. It's also stated that his encounter with them was what led to the older him giving them the information they would need to get back, before they left. He could have even stopped them from going, but knew it would have created a paradox.
*** Then at the end of the episode when trying to get home they accidentally go too far into the future. An elderly woman greets them in a clearly deserted SGC. Sam recognizes her as Cassandra - a young preteen in their time. She knew they were coming and was waiting for them to return them to the proper time. Meaning at some point Sam told her when she would need to be there and gave her the necessary technology, and she took the slow path to do so.
* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'':
** "[[Recap/StargateAtlantisS01E15BeforeISleep Before I Sleep]]" -- An alternate Dr. Weir has spent ten thousand years in stasis after saving Atlantis from flooding. She's still an aged old woman by the time she's discovered, as the stasis couldn't perfectly preserve her.
** In the Season 4 finale "[[Recap/StargateAtlantisS04E20TheLastMan The Last Man]]", a solar flare sends Sheppard 48,000 years in the future. To return to his present, Sheppard spends somewhere around 700 years in stasis to catch a solar flare that sends him back to 12 days after he disappeared.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E26S6E1TimesArrow Time's Arrow]]", Data's head spends several hundred years in a cave in California. In a classic StableTimeLoop, it's the discovery of his head that bootstraps the adventure. There's also Guinan (whose species lives a long time) first meeting the crew 500 years in the past. Just before the crew returns to their present time, they note that Guinan won't see the crew again for 500 years, but the crew will see her in a few minutes on the ''Enterprise''.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E03TheVisitor The Visitor]]", Benjamin Sisko is sent blinking in and out of time, staying for only a few moments, and leaving for years at a time. He keeps reappearing near Jake at farther and farther times apart, as Jake spends his entire life obsessively trying to stabilize his father, lest he be lost in subspace forever. Despite being the one afflicted with temporal instability, Sisko takes the experience in stride, and is far more saddened by his son's suffering. Ultimately, Jake becomes a decrepit old man before he has the chance to undo the whole ordeal. The episode is one of the most loved episodes in all of Star Trek.
** The episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS05E22ChildrenOfTime Children Of Time]]" has the crew of the ''Defiant'' encountering a planet inhabited by their own descendants, as an upcoming accident will cause the ship to crash-land there 200 years in the past. The original crew is obviously long-dead, save for the long-lived Odo, who doesn't look much different after two centuries, and he's very happy to see his friends again. The Dax symbiote is also still around, with current host Yedrin Dax addressing Sisko as a close friend just as Jadzia did.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS03E21ESquared E Squared]]", the Enterprise is sent one hundred years back in time while attempting to travel through a Xindi subspace tunnel. As a result, it lays low for the next century, becoming a generational ship, all so that it can stop the accident from happening in the first place. Its existence is hinted several times prior to that episode, when the Xindi claim to have seen other Earth ships in the area.
* {{Invoked|Trope}} and PlayedForLaughs in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E19TomorrowIsYesterday Tomorrow is Yesterday]]". After Kirk is [[TimeTravelersAreSpies caught inside a US Air Force base in the 1960s]], the soldier interrogating him tells Kirk that he's "going to lock you up for [[LongerThanLifeSentence two hundred years]]!" Kirk ruefully mutters that "that ought to be just about right".[[note]]It's actually not -- the real number is closer to 300, but the series was still iffy on exactly what point in time it was set at. These days, most fans just accept it as a bit of exasperated hyperbole on Kirk's part.[[/note]]
* ''Series/StarTrekPicard'': Season 2 begins with a mysterious new Borg Queen arriving in the Alpha Quadrant. After ten episodes of time travel shenanigans, the Borg Queen turns out to be [[spoiler: Dr. Jurati, who was assimilated in 2024 and who is only just reconnecting with her own timeline after 400 years.]]

* On ''Series/TheMagicians'', Eliot and Quentin end up traveling back in time to solve the Mosaic in order to get one of the 7 keys. They both live long lives and die decades before the events of the main plot happen. [[spoiler: In the present, Margo ends up traveling back to the moment before they travel in time and gives them the key.]]
* The Australian TV Series ''Series/MirrorMirror'': [[spoiler:Nicholas]] in the original time line.
* In ''Series/OnceUponATime'', characters brought to Storybrooke by Regina's Dark Curse are stuck in a GroundhogDayLoop and don't age. (Regina is the only one aware of the loop, and she's just as trapped as everyone else.) Characters who came to the same world by means other than Regina's magic, like Emma, or who were born there, like Henry, age normally. The loop is finally ended after 28 years when Emma comes to Storybrooke and chooses to stay.
* In ''Series/TheOrville'' episode "[[Recap/TheOrvilleS1E12MadIdolatry Mad Idolatry]]", Isaac chooses to go down to a time-accelerated planet in order to convince the locals to abandon their Kelly-worshiping religion. Being an artificial being, he comes back 700 years later (from his viewpoint) no worse for wear.
* In ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode ''Vanishing Act", a man repeatedly goes to sleep and wake up ten years in the future. Once she figures out what is going on, his lover spends the rest of her life trying to figure out how to save him.

* In Creator/NeilGaiman's original ''ComicBook/TheBooksOfMagic'' miniseries, the WellIntentionedExtremist Mr. E takes the protagonist to the end of time, so he can kill him without interference. [[TheGrimReaper Death]] stops him, and forces him to take The Slow Path ''back'' -- with the implication that he will create a StableTimeLoop by teaching his younger self to time-walk.
* In Franchise/TheDCU CrisisCrossover ''ComicBook/DCOneMillion'', various Justice League members exchange places with their [[LegacyCharacter successors]] in the 853rd century. The ComicBook/MartianManhunter and the ComicBook/ResurrectionMan are already there. (As is ComicBook/VandalSavage, who keeps coming up in this trope.) And Platinum of the ComicBook/MetalMen. She keeps the bodies of her former team, lost one by one.
* In ''ComicBook/IKilledAdolfHitler'' both main characters walk the past: he returns to the present from his botched assassination of the Fuhrer, she slow-goes to the future where the time machine is usable again to return back to the present.
* In one particular ''[[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA]]'' story, ComicBook/PlasticMan is [[LiterallyShatteredLives blown to bits]] in the past and the rest of the heroes manage to return to the present. Plastic Man was forced to spend the three thousand years in between attempting to reconstruct himself. He remains conscious the ''whole time'', and the experience somehow [[BoredWithInsanity actually makes him LESS crazy.]] The arc also features the Green Lantern Kyle Rayner [[spoiler: getting killed in the past, but "living" through the centuries as a ring-generated "ghost"... until the day he's discovered by the replacement League.]]
* In ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'', the immortal elf Rayek kidnaps the family of Cutter, chief of the mortal Wolfriders, and takes them roughly ten thousand years into the future. His plan is to save the ancestors of the elves during their initial time travel mishap (which sent them back into the past). However, this would prevent the Wolfriders from ever existing. Cutter has no idea when his (immortal) lifemate Leetah and their (mortal) children will ever appear again, and he knows that he will die after roughly six thousand years. The first five centuries are torment for him and his tribe, and they eventually decide to have themselves wrapped in a time-freezing cocoon. The immortal characters (including the troll king, whose daughter was also kidnapped) live the years out, as do a select few Wolfriders in the Sun Village who dislike tampering with nature and who simply choose to live a normal life. The plot resumes ten thousand years later, when Cutter's lifemate and children finally see him again -- after what, for them, has only been a few hours. Later chapters show that Cutter's time without his family severely traumatized him -- he could simply not stop ''counting''.
* In the ''Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Special'', Comicbook/SquirrelGirl gets lost in time travel and ends up in 2099, with a version of her boyfriend who avoided becoming DarkerAndEdgier (literally). She decides it's not so bad, until fellow [[ComicBook/GreatLakesAvengers Great Lakes Initiative]] member Mr Immortal shows up to tell her how the present's going. She wonders how he traveled there, then remembers how. For those who don't know, Mr Immortal's power is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.
* ''ComicBook/XMen'':
** ComicBook/{{Bishop}} was stuck in the past during the team's mission to stop Legion. He therefore lived through the years as the ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'' storyline unfolded until its "present day." While the entire [=AoA=] timeline was wiped out at the end of the event, Bishop's memories of his life there were inherited by his mainstream continuity self. Somehow.
** In the ''ComicBook/XMenMessiahComplex'' storyline, Hope and Cable jump across numerous time periods to keep ahead of their pursuer, Bishop. In one future timeline, Cable accidentally jumps two years into the future but leaves Hope and Bishop behind.
** One arc sees the team accidentally deposited to the past, and stuck on the home planet of the Skrulls - just hours before Galactus was fated to destroy it. The team manages to escape, but they don't have any way to return to their present (and at the current moment in X-history in the time they were in, it would have been only shortly after both the ComicBook/NewMutants were formed and ComicBook/{{Rogue}} first joined the team). Kitty uses the stolen spacecraft they escaped in to take a slower path back to Earth, while using a stasis field to keep them frozen until they arrive at the moment they left.
* In the first story arc of ''Midnighter'', the hero uses this by saving a man's life during World War 2 and asking for, in return, him to deliver a message to the Big Bad in the future.
* One issue of ComicBook/{{Flight}} Comics had a story abut a girl who found a box, invented by a Chinese man, which basically stopped aging and the need for bodily functions as long as one was inside. Then her brothers die. She crawls inside the box, falls asleep, and wakes up in the future, where she has a good life and falls in love. [[spoiler:[[TearJerker Turns out she never woke up, and the world ended above her]].]]
* In the ''ComicBook/{{Thorgal}}'' story ''Master of the Mountains'', a time-warping ring is used to deposit two characters in the past. One uses the ring to get back, the other has to take The Slow Path. [[spoiler:This is done twice, once by a would-be ChessMaster in a ploy to end up with power ''and'' the girl, and once by the girl to counter the ChessMaster's ploy and kill him.]]
* Creator/AlanMoore wrote a few comics for the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse. One of them is "Tilotny Throws a Shape", in which Leia, forced to land on a barren world and pursued by stormtroopers, comes across some ungodly ancient powerful beings. One kills Leia and the stormtroopers, and another resurrects them -- Leia just fine where and when she was, letting her escape... the stormtroopers [[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/Marsh8472/starwars_timetravel.jpg eight thousand years in the past]]. Leia comes across their desiccated bones, near where the ship landed long after their deaths.
* In ''ComicBook/PS238'' Zodon's attempt at time travel left him stranded in the ice ages, so he froze himself in a glacier and set his chair's beacon to activate roughly around the time he left.
* During a fight over a TimeMachine in 1947, ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'' villain Per Degaton was split in two. The "chronal duplicate" got the machine and went off to a career as a ConquerorFromTheFuture stuck in a GroundhogDayLoop, while the original stayed behind and had to wait to catch up with the machine when it arrived in the 1980s. When it finally did arrive, it didn't go well for him. [[ContinuitySnarl Depending on the telling]], he either got disintegrated by [[NeverTheSelvesShallMeet coming into contact]] with his past self or was DrivenToSuicide when the man he fatally shot in 1947 stumbled out of the machine and exposed his killer with his dying breath.

* Happens to Franchise/{{Superman}} in the story ''ComicBook/TimeAndTimeAgain'' where he keeps getting sent throughout different points in time. Through the arc, there are moments where it shows what everyone in Metropolis is doing, showing how little time is passing for them. By the time he finally returns home in the then-present day 1991, Lois remarks that just a couple hours have passed, while an exhausted Superman has been gone for nearly five months. This trope is also directly referenced at one point in the arc, when Superman is currently trapped in the 1940's and wonders if the only thing for him to do is take the slow path all the way back to the present.
* In Magazine/DisneyAdventures, Kid Gravity is stranded in the time of the dinosaurs by his evil rival, only for Gravity to suddenly return in another another time machine. He explains to his rival that he wrote himself a note to the future telling his future self to send another time machine to the past for him to return home. How he wrote that note, had it undiscovered for millions of years, identified the exact day he was trapped on, etc, isn't... exactly explained.
* In ''Lanfeust Des Étoiles'', the RecycledInSpace sequel to ''{{ComicBook/Lanfeust}}'', the hero spends some time in the distant past before being able to come back to the present [[spoiler:only to discover that the return trip overshot very slightly his point of origin and that he's now 15 years in the future. His wife Cixi, who remained in the present, aged accordingly]].
* A variation occurs in one comic book adaptation of ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers''. Lord Zedd's MonsterOfTheWeek is a trap that sends the Zords with the rangers inside them through a time portal to the prehistoric era, where Zedd assumes they'll be lost forever; Billy, however, eventually manages to use the Zords to reopen a portal, but there's one problem - they can't take the Zords with them. Once they get back, the exact instant they left, the problem becomes far worse, as the monster is still there, and still at giant size, and without the Zords, they have no idea how to stop it. Until, that is, Zordon contacts them and tells them the Zords were built ''[[RagnarokProofing to last]]''. Indeed, they're still where they left them, buried under several million years desert sand, and they still respond to their summons and work perfectly. They easily defeat the creature.
* In one ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' comic, Angela, Broadway, and Brooklyn are hanging around when all of a sudden, the time-travelling Phoenix appears out of nowhere and swallows Brooklyn up. Angela and Broadway have only 40 seconds to ponder that they've lost him forever when he returns, 40 years older with a wife, pet, and two children. We see the first place the Phoenix took him, and the rest of his journey [[WhatCouldHaveBeen would have been]] the subject of a story arc called ''Time-Dancer''.
* In ''ComicBook/AtomicRobo'' [[spoiler:Dr. Dinosaur's time device ends up transporting Robo to 1870. To "get back" to the present, he (or rather, [[LosingYourHead his head]]) has to be put in a box that ends up stuck in Tesladyne's deep storage. In the present day, Lang and Bernard go through said storage and find the box, allowing them to revive him.]] The [[StableTimeLoop implications this has for the timeline]] are lampshaded and discussed, such as pointing out that if Robo ever went through his father's old stuff he'd have found [[spoiler:his own severed head]].

* ''ComicBook/InfinityCountdown:'' In the prologue, Adam Warlock meets with Rama-Tut (Kang the Conqueror's past self), who informs Adam of a vague yet sinister threat he needs to avoid, and offers a way for him to get to 2018 without being noticed. He stabs Adam in the back and has him entombed, in such a way Adam's healing abilities will not wake him up until then.

* A variation occurs in one comic book adaptation of ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers''. Lord Zedd's MonsterOfTheWeek is a trap that sends the Zords with the rangers inside them through a time portal to the prehistoric era, where Zedd assumes they'll be lost forever; Billy, however, eventually manages to use the Zords to reopen a portal, but there's one problem - they can't take the Zords with them. Once they get back, the exact instant they left, the problem becomes far worse, as the monster is still there, and still at giant size, and without the Zords, they have no idea how to stop it. Until, that is, Zordon contacts them and tells them the Zords were built ''to last''. Indeed, they're still where they left them, buried under several million years desert sand, and they still respond to their summons and work perfectly. They easily defeat the creature.

--->'''Lister''': You've been stuck here for three million years? What have you been doing?\\
'''Kryten''': I've been reading that fire exit sign over there. It's given me a lot of solace over the years.
* ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'': Helen Magnus goes back in time 113 years to kill Adam Worth. Since she has no way to get back home again, she hides out for the next hundred and thirteen years, and uses the time to plan what she wants to do to deal with the crisis that was happening when she left. Will is distinctly unamused when she goes missing for what seems to him to be hours, only for her to show up in her ''bedroom at the Sanctuary'' and inform him that it had been more like a hundred and thirteen years for her. And despite being almost twice as old as she was at the start of the series, she looks no different. But then, [[LongLived she was already well over a century old]] to begin with and still appeared to be only middle-aged.

* In ''ComicBook/IKilledAdolfHitler'' both main characters walk the past: he returns to present from his botched assassination of the Fuhrer, she slow-goes to future where the time machine is usable again to return back to present.

If a time traveler gets stuck experiencing this trope for a very long time from the relative view of another time traveler, and yet does not act or behave any differently can be considered a case of OutOfTimeOutOfMind. It's possible he may GoMadFromTheIsolation, which is bad, unless he also grows BoredWithInsanity.

* In ''Film/RebirthOfMothra3'', Mothra goes back to the Mesozoic to kill a younger King Ghidorah, but is too injured to go back under its own power. Instead, a group of prehistoric Mothra larvae web Mothra up to sleep for millions of years, coming back in an armored form powerful enough to kill the adult King Ghidorah that regenerated from a severed tail in the present.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' has a door in the Sealed Grounds that Link is not allowed to open. Late in the game, we discover that [[spoiler:after Zelda took the Gate of Time in Lanayru to the Era of the Goddess, she was encapsulated in a crystal sleep behind that door, using her power as the {{Reincarnation}} of the Goddess Hylia in order to keep the seal on the Demon King Demise. She's still there in the present day, when his Imprisoned form is starting to wake up in spite of the efforts.]]

* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersRobotsInDisguise:''
** Kup was already one of the oldest Cybertronians alive, but thanks to time-travel and alternate universe shenanigans, he's now older than the Universe itself, thanks to having been deposited back at the beginning of time and having to wait to catch up to the present.
** [[spoiler:The finale of ''Optimus Prime'' reveals Shockwave survived the end of ''Dark Cybertron'', and wound up at the beginning of Cybertronian civilisation over twelve million years ago. He then spent the next twelve million years taking the long way back, while experimenting on Cybertronian civilisation on the way.]]
** In ''ComicBook/MoreThanMeetsTheEye'' Tailgate also winds up on the Lost Light for a similar reason - he fell into a cave on his way to boarding the original Ark, and his internal chronometer is damaged, with him passing in and out of consciousness. He eventually ends up on the Lost Light, and is told that he's late for the launch of the Ark - four-million years late.

* Famous ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' {{fanfic}} ''Fanfic/HeartsOfIce'' has Akane trapped in a dimension where time passes much faster than in Ranma's universe. By the time she gets home, she is seven years older than Ranma.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The [[FanficRecs/DoctorWho fanfic]] [[http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=7495 The Slow Path, or Two and a Half Centuries in Two and a Half Days.]] has the Doctor take the slow path with Reinette.
* Kyon has to take The Slow Path for an evening in ''Fanfic/KyonBigDamnHero'', at one point.
** Later, he travels several days back in time and [[RetroactivePreparation spends them to develop a plan]] to rescue [[spoiler:Sasaki]].

** Bishop was stuck in the past during the team's mission to stop Legion. He therefore lived through the years as the ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'' storyline unfolded until its "present day." While the entire [=AoA=] timeline was wiped out at the end of the event, Bishop's memories of his life there were inherited by his mainstream continuity self. Somehow.
** In the ''ComicBook/MessiahComplex'' storyline, Hope and Cable jump across numerous time periods to keep ahead of their pursuer, Bishop. In one future timeline, Cable accidentally jumps two years into the future but leaves Hope and Bishop behind.

* In the ''Literature/RedDwarf'' novels, Holly goes through this in the same manner as [[Series/RedDwarf his tv series counterpart]]. During the second book, when Lister is marooned on Garbage World and ''Red Dwarf'' itself is forced to escape a black hole, a time dilation effect occurs where the ship has relatively been travelling for a few hours, but Lister has been stuck there for thirty-six years. Presumably, [[spoiler: after his death and [[BackFromTheDead resurrection]], his time on Backwards Earth counts as this as well, since in [[AlternateContinuity both books]] that came after, The Cat is the same age as him once again.]]

** In the [[Film/BackToTheFuture first film]], Marty pops in from the future and the 1955 Doc helps him get back, knowing he won't see Marty again for decades, and it'll be even longer before they can discuss what happened. Just before Marty goes back to 1985, Doc tells him how hard it'll be to wait 30 years to talk about the excitement of building a working time machine.

* In Terry Pratchett's ''Literature/JohnnyAndTheBomb'', the hero and his friends travel back to World War II, [[spoiler:then one of them ends up returning to the present via The Slow Path because of a Grandfather Paradox, after which he seeks out the hero in the present, having spent the intervening half-century using his knowledge of fast food (!) and future events to become the world's richest man.]]
* In Terry Pratchett's ''Literature/{{Eric}}'', the protagonist wishes that he could live for ever. This is then interpreted as living the slow path from the Creation until the end of the world.
* In ''Literature/TheLastContinent'', the Wizards of Unseen University end up stranded thousands of years in the past. While there, they encounter the creator of Fourecks, the titular continent. The Creator humors the Wizards' casual bickering just long enough to paint them into a cave wall, where, in the present day near the end of the story, Rincewind manages to free them.
* In a variant, the golem Anghammarad from ''Literature/GoingPostal'' plans to wait for the cycle of history to repeat itself, at which point it'll deliver a message it had failed to deliver many thousands of years ago. As a golem, as long as he gets repaired occasionally, he could last until the end of time, and the subsequent re-beginning.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* If you've ever wondered why your Great Aunt Whoever was always gushing about how you've grown at every family reunion, it's because of this trope... well sort of. Our subjective experience of time accelerates as we age. Explanations for why this is vary. It could be because any given interval of time is a smaller and smaller fraction of everything we've experienced thus far. It could also be because there are fewer milestone events for adults vs kids. Kids are moving up all the time, but for most adults you're usually stuck doing very similar things for years at a time, with the only major changes coming if you change jobs or move, and the years blur together. So while you may have felt like the last time you saw that great aunt was forever ago, to her it was really not all that long ago.
[[/folder]]

** A late-coming plot twist in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' ([[spoiler:Zelda has to be encapsulated in a crystal for some thousand years to prevent Demise from reviving]]) would have had a lot more emotional impact if a) [[spoiler:she hadn't been "sleeping" the whole time]] or b) Link couldn't just step through the Gate of Time to the present. Played straight with [[spoiler:Impa/the Old Woman]] though.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'': This happens to [[spoiler:Zelda, who at the beginning of the game is sent back in time to Hyrule's founding. The exact time is not stated, but it's significantly more than 10,000 years. She manages to survive to the present by swallowing a Zonai secret stone, which transforms her into the Light Dragon, making her immortal but [[DeathOfPersonality completely destroying her mind in the process]]. She is eventually restored to humanity and sanity after Ganondorf is killed, but, mercifully, does not retain memories of her millenia as the Light Dragon.]] The destroyed Master Sword is also sent back in time and spends that time recovering in the Light Dragon's grasp.]]