There are a lot of old laws and customs that are no longer practiced. Sometimes, however, characters see fit to bring them back, often because said customs happen to benefit them than for reasons of sentimentality. When old traditions are revived, they may be done so in a stereotyped, newly codified or even reinvented manner.
Deeply connected to the Good Old Ways, in which the old customs are thought to be better and more virtuous. If these customs do fall under the above, then characters attempting this may be opposed by those who think that Good Is Old-Fashioned. It should be mentioned that this can be good, but can also be something attempted by The Fundamentalist and the Evil Luddite.
This is also a weapon in the arsenal of the Rules Lawyer, who may demand an ancient, forgotten ritual or insist on some kind of ceremonial prerogative that nobody's meant to actually use ("Wait! I invoke the right of ...") to gain some kind of advantage, often simply to stall for time. (Sometimes the custom isn't ancient or forgotten, but the invoker is an outsider who nobody expected to know about it or be able to perform it correctly.)
Contrast against Order Reborn, wherein an ancient organization is being revived, whereas this trope only applies to an ancient law/custom.
The political equivalent is Rightful King Returns.
Examples:
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Film — Live-Action
- Discussed and Played for Laughs in Avengers: Age of Ultron when Tony makes a crack about reinstating prima nocte if he took over Asgard.
Literature
- In A Song of Ice and Fire, Aeron "Damphair" Greyjoy decides to call a kingsmoot (that is, a meeting to choose the next king) in order to solve a thorny succession issue. To his credit, it was probably the best solution on the table, as it avoided a succession war, and the next king was chosen without any bloodshed. On the other hand, that king was Euron Greyjoy...
- This was part of the motivation behind attempting to revive the Triwizard Tournament in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
- In The Stormlight Archive, Dalinar is trying to revive the codes of war, which govern the proper conduct for soldiers and officers. Least popular is it's rule against drinking, which Dalinar in particular has need of.
- I, Claudius: Claudius, having written a history of Roman religion, makes a habit of reviving old ceremonies that he thinks are picturesque.
Live-Action TV
- One episode of Lodge 49 sees Scott insist on reviving the "Naming of the Dead", an old Lynx ritual in which the names of all Lynxes who died in the past year are read. This turns out to be a terrible idea, as nobody liked the ritual to begin with, and it comes off as especially morbid when the Lodge has just lost its Sovereign Protector and is faced with financial hardships.
- Midsomer Murders: The killer in "Night of the Stag" plans to revive the ancient tradition of the Stag (when the men go over to the neighbouring village to sleep with the women, originally started in the middle ages to ensure genetic diversity) which hasn't been done in fifty years, even going as far as bribing his counterpart in the other village by offering up his daughter to him. As well as this being part of his plan to increase his control over the area (Inspector Barnaby comparing it to cult practices where the leader controls his followers by deciding who they sleep with), he also plans to use it as a diversion to rape a young woman who dared try to marry outside the villages.
- Star Trek:
- In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard has been appointed to oversee the succession of the Klingon High Chancellor. Normally, this would be a quick matter, but Picard wants to draw it out so he has time to investigate the previous chancellor's death. He invokes an old rite whereby the candidates engage in Badass Boasting about their battle exploits... which takes hours.
- The main plot of the episode "Accession" of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine centers on a poet from Bajor's past arriving the present and claiming the title of Emissary of the Prophets. Sisko finds himself eager to hand the role over, but quickly regrets it when the new Emissary declares that Bajor must return to the Fantastic Caste System that had been central to their spiritual beliefs in his time. The transition causes significant social tensions and doesn't bode well for the relationship between Bajor and the Federation (which outlaws caste-based discrimination). When a kind and gentle old priest murders his colleague in cold blood on the street (for refusing to retire from the priesthood despite being of a low caste that handles the dead), Sisko realizes he can't sit by any longer and challenges the new Emissary's claim to the role. The matter is ultimately settled by a visit to the Prophets themselves, who declare that the castes (and the poet himself) are part of Bajor's past and not its future.
Tabletop Games
- Shadowrun: The nation of Aztlan (and the Mega Corp Aztechnology) brought back the custom of human sacrifice practiced by their Aztec ancestors. This was done in an attempt to summon the Eldritch Abomination Horrors to Earth much earlier than they normally would have returned.
Theatre
- In Albert Herring, Lady Billows introduces the idea of nominating a Queen of the May in this way, remembering when it used to be quite a big deal among local girls. Unfortunately, her original plan of selecting a Virgin in a White Dress to "make virtue attractive, exciting, desirable for young people" is frustrated by a complete shortage of undeniably virginal young women. Male virgins, on the other hand, are available.
Video Games
- Destiny 2: During Season of the Chosen, after her attempts at forging an alliance with the Guardians failed (because she demanded Commander Zavala bow to her), Empress Caiatl of the Cabal started assembling a war council by bringing back the Rite of Proving, allowing Cabal Red Legion leaders to step up to prove their mettle and prowess. The Guardians would then exploit this to kill off those leaders to prevent them joining Caiatl's council, and to prove they themselves are equals. Lore books from the season reveal that Caiatl had expected Zavala to reject the offer, but was forced to make it anyway or risk losing her authority before the rest of her people.
- In Dragon Age: Origins, the Grey Wardens have the right to demand any of the major Fereldan faction's help against the Darkspawn Horde. However, because the last Blight took place many centuries ago, this was forgotten, so they have to retrieve and display ancient treaties proving their right.
- In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Ulfric Stormcloak invoked a pre-Imperial Nord law that hadn't been used in centuries to force High King Torygg to a Trial by Combat, feeling that Torygg had ceded too much authority to the Empire (and the Aldmeri Dominion by proxy) after the Great War. Torygg was well aware that he had no good options here; he was no match for Ulfric in combat, and if he refused it would cause a scandal that would likely lead to him being deposed by Ulfric anyway, so he accepted the duel and was killed by Ulfric as you'd expect. Opinions of this event across Skyrim are mixed, with those supporting the Stormcloaks insisting it was an honorable duel, while those who support the Empire consider it flat-out murder.
- This is Sabal's primary goal in Far Cry 4. Unlike his almost terminally pragmatic co-leader, he is The Fundamentalist and if you choose to back him he makes an effort to bring back ALL the ancient customs, including the extremely cruel and barbaric ones.
- In Gleams of Aeterna, Aldo Rakan tries to re-institute ancient customs from the times when his ancestors ruled Taligoia. Very few support that idea.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 1: Because they need to rush the process to crown Melia Empress, Yumea suggests reviving an ancient tradition where the soon-to-be ruler has to make it through the High Entia Tomb. However, Yumea actually made the suggestion in order to get Melia killed.
Visual Novels
- The Great Ace Attorney: Thanks to Susato using an old lawbook she finds a long forgotten practice in the court: the summation examination (in which, if a jury unanimously decides that the defendant is guilty, the defense attorney has the right to ask their reasons and attempt to change the minds of a majority of the jurors). They eventually concede that the defense has a right to do it, even if it hasn't been done in ages.
Western Animation
- Recess
- In "The Rules", the rule book of King Morty is discovered in the school library, and is used to settle a dispute over what a kickball kicked into a dumpster means. From there, the kids decide to use King Morty's rule book for other games. However, since King Morty wrote the book during The Great Depression, when the school couldn't afford balls or toys for the kids to play with, this results in the kids making games out of washing rags, and playing four square with a tree stump instead of a ball, among other things.
- The Simpsons:
- In "Homer Vs. The Eighteenth Amendment", after Bart gets drunk at the St. Patricks Day parade, the city is forced to reintroduce a 200-year-old law banning the sale of alcohol in Springfield. Of course, at the end of the episode, it's revealed that the law was repealed 199 years ago.
Real Life
- Language revitalization is bringing back to life languages formerly extinct from use in daily life.
- Hebrew is the stronger example, going from a Sacred Language only used for religious purposes to be the language of an entire nation.
- Likewise, national revivals during the 19th century in Europe often involved promoting or bringing back the use of languages formerly thought as only belonging to "backward farmers" such as Lithuanian, Finnish or Czech.
- Many if not most neopagan religions aim to revive the ancient suppressed European "pagan" pre-Christian religions such as those practiced by ancient Greeks, Celts and Slavs. However, information on religions other than Greek and Roman ones is often scarce and biased.
- The goal of reactionaries is generally to being back society to an earlier state of being; for exemple, French ultra-royalists advocated fully returning to Ancient Regime, or pre-Revolutionary France.
- Vintage fashion is about reusing clothing from earliest fashions.
- During World War II, British authorities arrested a woman who claimed to enable people to speak to their deceased loved ones (often soldiers). They were disgusted by her attempt to make money off of people's grief, but they had difficulty finding an exact crime she'd committed. Eventually, they charged her under an 18th-century witchcraft law. They did decide to simply fine her rather than burn her at the stake.
- Pope Paul VI changed the Roman Catholic liturgy in 1970 to allow vernacular languages to be used at Mass and other ceremonies, replacing the old Tridentine Mass - which was almost entirely said in Latin and involved elaborate rubrics. Some more traditionally minded Catholics objected to the new version of the Mass, which was called the Novus Ordo Mass. In an attempt to appease such Catholics Pope John Paul II allowed individual Bishops to permit the use of the 1962 Tridentine Mass. Benedict XVI later expanded the rights of Catholic priests and parishes to use the Tridentine Mass before Francis restricted the use of the Tridentine Mass soon after becoming Pope.note
- In what may be an urban legend, a student demands "cakes and ale" at his final exams, citing centuries-old regulations of the college. The student is served the modern-day equivalent - and then fined for failing to dress appropriately for said exams, as those same rules require wearing a cloak and sword.
- The modern Olympic Games were modeled in the late 19th century after their namesake from Classical antiquity.
- The unique legal system of the Channel Islands includes some peculiar medieval laws that are technically still in force. One of them, called the clameur de haro
, is a kind of injunction whereby someone can kneel down in public before witnesses, recite a certain formula in Norman Frenchnote , and thus create a legally binding injunction that prohibits the conduct complained of until its legality can be ruled on by a court. A handful of eccentrics have used it in the 21st century when upset with various planning and by-law matters, and they've had to be taken seriously (even though they generally end up losing) because it's still the law.
- A lot of bad-faith litigants attempt versions of this trope in various jurisdictions to try to get whatever effects they want at the moment, with the Magna Carta being a perennial favourite (despite nearly all of the Magna Carta having long since been repealed in England). One particularly rococo version of this has involved a spate of Cloud Cuckoolanders trying to employ a provision of the first Magna Carta that allowed the barons to enter a rebellion if King John reneged on his word, with the idea that the UK entering the European Union constituted such a trespass, and pledging allegiance to a specific one of the lords who opposed it (this particular lord did nothing to encourage this, was completely unaware of it, and has apparently been bewildered by the whole thing). They don't dwell on the fact that the "rebellion clause" was abolished the year after it was promulgated, so not only are they trying to appeal to a more than 800-year-old law, but to a law that's been repealed for more than 800 years. Needless to say, nothing like this has ever worked in any court. A Canadian court decision dealt thoroughly (and amusingly) with the entire affair, including such lines as "Robinson appears to have sworn herself to be a loyal servant to Lord Craigmyle of Invernesshire. So what?" and "Whatever does that have to do with Canada?"
