History Main / TheSlowPath

** ''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. She is eventually restored to humanity and sanity after Ganondorf is killed. Mercifully without the burden of memory of her millenia wandering the skies 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.]]

** ''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]]. The destroyed Master Sword is also sent back in time and spends that time recovering in the Light Dragon's grasp.]]

** ''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 at minimum 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]]. The destroyed Master Sword is also sent back in time and spends that time recovering in the Light Dragon's grasp.]]

* ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': In the British Lostbelt, Mash Kyrielight gets stranded 2400 years in the past. After an adventure, she gets back to the present by putting herself in suspended animation (and to avoid any potential TimeParadox from being in the same time as her past self in the present) until the others discover and revive her.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': There's actually a pretty good [[FanficRecs/DoctorWho fanfic]] set in an alternate universe in which the Doctor takes the slow path with Reinette: [[http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=7495 The Slow Path, or Two and a Half Centuries in Two and a Half Days.]]

** ''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 at minimum 10,000 years. She manages to survive to the present by swallowing a Zonai secret stone, which transforms her into the Light Dragon. The destroyed Master Sword is also sent back in time and spends that time recovering.]]

** ''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 at minimum 10,000 years. She manages to survive to the present by swallowing a Zonai secret stone, which transforms her into the dragon of light. The destroyed Master Sword is also sent back in time and spends that time recovering.]]

** ''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 at minimum 10,000 years. She manages to survive to the present by swallowing a Zonai secret stone, which transforms her into the dragon of light. The destroyed Master Sword is also sent back in time and spends that time recovering.[[/spoiler]]

* In ''Series/KamenRiderOOO'', [[Series/KamenRiderDenO Den-O]], ''All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Rider'', one of two {{Street Urchin}}s who end up travelling 40 years into the past finds himself stuck there. [[spoiler:In the end, he turns out not only to have been instrumental to helping the Kamen Riders make their BadFuture better, he also happens to be [[LukeIAmYourFather his best friend]]'s DisappearedDad.]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]
* After finally [[spoiler:defeating Thanos]] in ''Film/AvengersEndgame'', Captain America volunteers to return [[spoiler:the time-displaced Infinity Stones, as well as the copy of Mjölnir that Thor borrowed,]] to their appropriate places in the timeline. However, he does not return to the present at the moment when he is expected to. Cue Bucky, Sam, and Bruce noticing a scrawny old man sitting on a nearby bench, who turns out to be Steve Rogers as a centenarian. Steve admitted to Sam that, after returning the various items to their proper places, he decided to "try some of that life" Tony had told him to get, so he travelled back to 1949 to marry Peggy Carter and grow old with her, returning to 2023 only after she passed away in 2016.

* In ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'':

* ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'':
** "Roswell That Ends Well". In a direct parody of the ''TNG'' episode, Bender's head is dropped in the New Mexico desert in the 1940s, and has to be recovered ''a thousand years later''. Not only does Bender not mind being buried in the dirt for a millennium, he actually complains upon being rescued that his peace and quiet are being disturbed.
** In ''Bender's Big Score'', Bender ''repeatedly'' and happily volunteers to go back in time, steal precious historical treasures, and then wait in a cavern under Planet Express headquarters until a few seconds after leaving. (This is because the method of time travel he's using only works one way, so The Slow Path is pretty much the only way to get back. When Fry uses it, he has to re-freeze himself for the return trip.) And then [[spoiler:at the end of the film, Bender "wakes up" all of the Bender duplicates and has them exit the basement before they were logically supposed to, thus creating a hole in the universe, and setting the stage for the next film.]]
** At the end of "Simpsorama", a crossover episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', the Planet Express crew's mission to the past is over and the rest of them are sucked back into the future through a singularity in Bender's chest. Bender himself gets back to the future by shutting himself off for 1000 years. Since this episode aired, [[{{Transplant}} he has made multiple non-speaking cameos in the Simpsons' house's basement]] (or floating in the hallway when the house is flooded).
* Omi from ''WesternAnimation/XiaolinShowdown'' had to freeze himself for 1500 years with the Orb of Tornami, because Jack Spicer forgot to mention that his time machine didn't have a means to return him from the past. He gets woken up at the right time because he froze himself under some boulders where he'd knew the BigBad would be raising a fortress out of the ground there.

** In "The Savage Time," the League travels back to World War II in order to stop ComicBook/VandalSavage from conquering the world, and Wonder Woman fights alongside special agent Steve Trevor while there. Once the League returns to their own time, Wonder Woman encounters Trevor again -- this time as an old man in a retirement home.
** In the same episode, Hawkgirl meets and fights alongside the Blackhawk Squadron. Later, in the JLU episode "I am Legion," the last surviving member of the group calls the Justice League for help. He remembers her, of course.
--->"We met a while back, Ma'am. Longer for me than for you."
** In another episode, "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E19And20Hereafter Hereafter]]," Superman is teleported several thousand years into the future, where he finds Vandal Savage, who has spent the entire time on Earth alone, living with the guilt of having wiped out the human race. For an additional sting, Vandal himself is personally well-versed in time travel science (cf. "The Savage Time"), but [[OurTimeTravelIsDifferent his time machine's design]] prevents one from [[NeverTheSelvesShallMeet travelling to an era where one already exists]] -- which for the immortal Savage is basically ''all of history'', which is why in "The Savage Time" [[WriteBackToTheFuture he merely sent information to his past self.]]

* The episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' that introduced the Smurflings started with Nat, Snappy, and Slouchy as adult Smurfs until they chased Nat's butterflies into Father Time's special grandfather clock, which de-aged them about 50 years. Father Time had no idea how to reverse the process (he couldn't cause time to go forward in the same way he was able to make it go backward), so the three would just have to grow up the usual way.
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003''; when the Utroms realized they had crash-landed on a planet where the technology was too primitive to repair their ship and build another, they decided this was their only solution; they had to wait. They knew humanity would eventually evolve and advance in science and technology to a point where they could use it with theirs. Being a ''very'' long-lived species, this eventually paid off, and after ''centuries'' of waiting, they succeeded. (With the heroes' help, that is.)
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'', Jade is taken back in time, then Jackie and the bad guys follow. Jade and Jackie make it back to their own time, but the baddies end up going even ''further'' back, and have to return by The Slow Path... only to be back to their young selves by the next episode through Shendu's magic.
* In the first season finale of ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'', Dethklok is excited by their idea for a new piece of merchandise, "Time Travel Face Bags" that let the wearer travel forward in time "at the speed of regular time."
** With bags on their heads.
* A technological variant in ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'', Jazz needs to send a message to Danny Phantom who is [[spoiler: trapped in the future of the Ghost Zone. She attaches a message to a tracking device that will find him and throws it into the Ghost Zone. 10 years later, the device activates when it detects Danny and brings the message to him.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/DaveTheBarbarian'', the cast are turned into babies. Because Candy doesn't know how to make them normal, she does the next best thing, and wait for them to grow back.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'', Captain Hero does the [[NowDoItAgainBackwards Superman time-rewind trick]] to the beginning of time and then... waits.
** Although he does make use of the ensuing millennia to [[spoiler: [[PowerPerversionPotential screw with evolution and create Boob People]].]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', [[TheChosenOne Aang]] was a HumanPopsicle for a hundred years (making him chronologically 112), while his friend Bumi aged normally and is now the CoolOldGuy king of the city of Omashu.
* An AndIMustScream version is used in ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex''. Van Kleiss was sent back in time by Breach and an episode focuses on how he got back to the present. While it looks like he's getting in a time machine during his travels between the various eras it's later revealed that [[spoiler:it's not a time machine but a stasis chamber and the AndIMustScream part comes when it's revealed that he was ''AWARE'' of each passing second during the thousands of years of waiting.]] All while being chased by [[spoiler:Breach, who had been turned into]] a mysterious energy force.
* This is played for laughs in ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'': After seeing a piece of amber containing himself, DW decides to get answers and so goes back in time with Quackerjack's Timetop, to the time of the Dinosaurs. They find a society of dinosaurs who are intelligent...but all carrying an IdiotBall. After much hijinks, one of the dinosaur scientists accidentally activates the Timetop and sends Launchpad and Gosalyn back to the present. Darkwing is stuck in the past, until a Dino-scientist knocks him in ''sap'' (he was making pancakes), [[StableTimeLoop becoming the amber fossil he'd seen at the beginning]]. Next we see a passage of time montage, with DW frozen with his eyes open. After realizing the origin of the fossil, Launchpad and Gosalyn crack open DW's amber tomb. Darkwing just shivers and says "Does anyone know what eon it is?"
* In the Mexican animated film ''WesternAnimation/TheGuardiansOfTheLostCode'', the kid heroes after completing the first part of their mission, receive instructions to go to Ancient Egypt at 1345 BC, however Freddy mistakenly dials 1345 ''AD'' on their time portal, and end up in the middle of the desert with their objective buried under meters of sand; When they finally make it, they are greeted by the god Anubis who is particularly annoyed at having to wait for them for nearly 3000 years.
** Also, after meeting the emperor Puji as a toddler [[spoiler:[[BigDamnHeroes he shows up as an old man in the final battle]]]].
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'', Stewie and Brian travel back in time to prevent Bertram from killing Leonardo Da Vinci and causing a TimeParadox. Despite defeating Bertram, they fail to save Leonardo, so Stewie (who has Leonardo's DNA) decides to stay behind and take his place while Brian returns home. He then receives a [[WriteBackToTheFuture letter from Stewie]] saying that after he had impregnated Leonardo's girlfriend (with a syringe), he placed himself in cryogenic stasis under the house where Brian finds him.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/AvengersAssemble'' Kang two-parter, Thor misses the time portal when the other Avengers follow Kang's ship to the 30th century. When they arrive, they find a white-bearded Thor leading the resistance.

* Referenced in ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', when Impulse/Bart Allen is sitting in his [[TrappedInThePast broken time machine]].
--> '''Beast Boy:''' Maybe he's traveling forward one second at a time?
* In ''WesternAnimation/ElenaOfAvalor'', there is a forty-one-year timeskip between the show's backstory and beginning. Isabel, Abuelo, and Abuela haven't aged the day since Alacazar magically turned them into an indestructible painting to protect them from Shuriki. Meanwhile, Elena is [[AndIMustScream trapped inside of an amulet and fully aware of her surroundings during this time]] (although she doesn't age) and life goes on for Esteban, who becomes Shuriki's NumberTwo and grows into a middle-aged man by the time his family returns. Esteban is noticeably envious of the fact that his cousins are still youthful and that he's almost as old as his grandparents. Another episode has Elena meet her childhood friend, who is a middle aged woman who got married, then became widowed, all while Elena was in the Amulet.
* The ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' episode "Timetagger" uses this concept in both directions. A hero from the future with time-travel powers got stuck in the past after Cat Noir accidentally broke her miraculous. She hides herself in a stele from ancient Egypt for 5000 years to be rescued in the present by Ladybug and Cat Noir. At this time she also informs her present self of the future, though that's only a wait of a few years.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'', Ben, Gwen, and Kevin end up meeting a man named [[DoctorWhomage Professor Paradox]] who is trying to stop a time creature currently going on a rampage in an abandoned military base. The same base where 50 years ago, Paradox performed an experiment that went awry and gave him his TimeMaster powers. It's later revealed that the accident was actually caused by Paradox's assistant, Hugo, and that Hugo was turned into the time creature by the same accident and sent to the present. After travelling to the past and saving Hugo from being turned into the time monster, Paradox takes the gang and returns to the present, leaving Hugo behind. When they arrive wondering whatever happened to him, Hugo, now an old man, reveals he's standing behind them, and responds that he lived his life.

** In [[WebAnimation/RedVsBlueTheBloodGulchChronicles Season 3]], Church gets sent back over a thousand years by an explosion that destroys the present. He asks the nearby AI to build him a teleporter or time machine (or both). It'll take about 1,000 years. Church stands there, and basically does three things: grow a beard ([[RuleOfFunny somehow]]), formulate a plan to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, and listen to awful knock-knock jokes. Keep in mind that, by this point in the story, Church is a ghost [[spoiler:(really an AI)]] inhabiting a robot body, so he's effectively immortal.
*** Additionally, [[spoiler: [[MindScrew this entire scenario]] [[MindRape may have never happened at all]], considering later revelations implying that Gamma could've just made Church think this was happening instead.]]
** In [[WebAnimation/RedVsBlueTheShisnoTrilogy Singularity]], this becomes Played Straight, Invoked, and Defied. [[spoiler:In their efforts to fix the timeline, Caboose, Lopez, and Huggins all individually decide to start from the beginning of the Blood Gulch Chronicles and work their way forward to undo Genkin's paradoxes. But later on, when Huggins and Caboose meet up, they devise a plan for Huggins to scout out the timeline and tell everything to Caboose so everyone can avoid the hassle of reliving their entire lives.]]
*** Also, [[spoiler:when Lopez falls into a black hole because of [[MindRape the Labyrinth]], he ends up at the beginning of the universe. Since he's a robot, he's able to just wait until he reaches the present to reunite with the others.]]

* ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'':

* Willem Kmetsch of ''LightNovel/WorldEndWhatDoYouDoAtTheEndOfTheWorldAreYouBusyWillYouSaveUs'' was TakenForGranite while most of humanity went extinct, and was only found and eventually revived 500 years later. He would later have a reunion with his comrade Suowong, who spent those same 500 years rebuilding civilization with the survivors, [[spoiler:having become effectively immortal through magically removing his heart.]] As an expected twist, Willem is supposed to be the older between the two friends, yet he still looks like a teenager, while Suowong is now an old man.

* An AndIMustScream version is used in ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex''. Van Kliess was sent back in time by Breach and an episode focuses on how he got back to the present. While it looks like he's getting in a time machine during his travels between the various eras it's later revealed that [[spoiler:it's not a time machine but a stasis chamber and the AndIMustScream part comes when it's revealed that he was ''AWARE'' of each passing second during the thousands of years of waiting.]] All while being chased by [[spoiler:Breach, who had been turned into]] a mysterious energy force.

* AndIMustScream and this trope are played for laughs in ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'': After seeing a piece of amber containing himself, DW decides to get answers and so goes back in time with Quackerjack's Timetop, to the time of the Dinosaurs. Only Dino-society is carrying an IdiotBall of ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' levels. After much humor and hijinks, one of the dinosaur scientists accidentally activates the Timetop and sends Launchpad and Gosalyn back to the present. Darkwing is stuck in the past, until a Dino-scientist knocks him in ''sap'' (he was making pancakes), [[StableTimeLoop becoming the amber fossil he'd seen at the beginning]]. Cue the passage of time, with DW frozen with his eyes open. After realizing the origin of the fossil, Launchpad and Gosalyn crack open DW's amber tomb. Darkwing just shivers and says [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments "Does anyone know what eon it is?"]]

* In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "E^2", 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 an episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''. 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]]

* In the end of ''One Hundred Years Ahead'' by Creator/KirBulychev (as well as its TV adaptation ''Series/GuestFromTheFuture'') before returning to the future, the heroine tells her 20th century friends what will happen with them. The final words are:

* The movie ''Film/{{Primer}}'' is about a box that lets you take the slow path backwards: if you want to travel back in time six hours, you have to spend six hours inside the box. On top of that, leaving the box early has some deadly side effects. The box also works forwards, but that's not quite as useful. Also, if you don't send a person to get out the first time, the object will likely take the slow path back and forth several thousand times. The gunk that built up from bacteria taking that path was the first clue of time travel.

* ''Series/UchuSentaiKyurager'': First invoked when [[spoiler:the spaceship ''Orion's'' mission to 300 years in the past fails, resulting in its wreckage having been left to rot for just that long by the time our heroes find it in the present. After its eponym, the warrior Orion, is prematurely killed, Shou stays behind to spread the legend of the Kyurangers in his stead to ensure a CloseEnoughTimeline, cyrogenically freezing himself once his work is done. Champ also stays behind to search for Doctor Anton and, being an unaging robot, lives through the whole time.]]

* This happens to Jackie and Mickey a mere [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E4AliensOfLondon four episodes]] into the new series. The 9th Doctor intends to bring Rose home 12 ''hours'' after she left, and accidentally returns her 12 ''months'' later. Everyone who had to live through that year the long way thought she had been kidnapped or killed. Needless to say, no one involved was happy about the results. Particularly bad for Mickey, as everyone thought he killed Rose, Jackie in particular led the charge against him, turning him into a social pariah.

* The final episode of ''Series/Lucifer(2016)'' is arguably an example of this trope, as [[spoiler: Rory returns to her own time directly while everyone else gets to that point via living their lives]]. However, the fact that [[spoiler: she also experienced all the time in question except for the months before her birth, because she grew up in it]] might disqualify it.

* In ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'', Church gets sent back over a thousand years by an explosion that destroys the present. He asks the nearby AI to build him a teleporter or time machine (or both). It'll take about 1,000 years. Church stands there, and basically does three things: grow a beard ([[RuleOfFunny somehow]]), formulate a plan to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, and listen to awful knock-knock jokes. Keep in mind that, by this point in the story, Church is a ghost [[spoiler:(really an AI)]] inhabiting a robot body, so he's effectively immortal.
** Additionally, [[spoiler: [[MindScrew this entire scenario]] [[MindRape may have never happened at all]], considering later revelations implying that Gamma could've just made Church think this was happening instead.]]

* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'', Church gets sent back over a thousand years by an explosion that destroys the present. He asks the nearby AI to build him a teleporter or time machine (or both). It'll take about 1,000 years. Church stands there, and basically does three things: grow a beard ([[RuleOfFunny somehow]]), formulate a plan to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, and listen to awful knock-knock jokes. Keep in mind that, by this point in the story, Church is a ghost [[spoiler:(really an AI)]] inhabiting a robot body, so he's effectively immortal.

* The final episode of ''Series/Lucifer (2016)'' is arguably an example of this trope, as [[spoiler: Rory returns to her own time and we see a montage of the events of the decades she skips over/already lived. Chloe and the others that remain on Earth during this time experience these events and these decades, while Rory goes from hugging her 30-something mother to sitting by her elderly mother's deathbed within minutes, all the while Lucifer's in Hell and thus experiencing significantly more time again]]