Symbolic Hero Rebirth

"Tell me, who gives a good goddamn?
You'll never get out alive!
Don't go dreaming, don't go scheming
A man must test his mettle
In a crooked ol' world
Starving in the belly, starving in the belly
Starving in the belly of a whale!"

— Tom Waits, Starving in the Belly of a Whale

This, as denoted in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, is the conclusion of the Separation, the first phase of The Hero's Journey: "The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear to have died." There is no turning back from this point.

Also called the spiritual death and rebirth, this is The Hero's Journey where the hero is defeated or reaches the lowest point in some way without actually dying, then gets symbolically reborn as they return as a changed person after finding new resolve or experiencing an important revelation. This overall journey and experience are vital for the character to continue walking on their path to achieve whatever they ought to achieve and learn from such a life-changing event.

Sometimes these characters connect with the sky or nature in a way that resembles a literal resurrection. For further symbolism, this metaphorical death and rebirth may be represented by butterflies.

Subtrope of Can't Refuse the Call Anymore.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Attack on Titan when Eren gets nommed by a titan on his first mission. While he's inside its stomach, he discovers his titan shifting powers which not only help him survive being eaten, but prove to be a game changer for humanity's side.

Films — Animation

• The Croods: While the other Croods accept Guy as one of their own and adopt his ways for the better, Grug stubbornly sticks to his own ways, meeting the change he instills in the family with resistence or hostility out of both Pride and fear that it would endanger them. It is not until he gets to know Guy better when they're trapped in the tar and they work together to escape it does he accept these changes.
• Finding Nemo has an accidental example: Marlin and Dory are swallowed by a whale, which marks their final step in the journey to Australia (and a variant: instead of preceding the Road of Trials, it's the end of it, though not of Marlin's privations).

Films — Live-Action

• The Matrix: After Neo swallows the red pill and awakes in his battery pod outside the matrix. The whole sequence is a very literal "rebirth" into his new world, with a naked, bald Neo covered in goop, breaking out of a translucent sac and being dumped down a chute, only to wake up disoriented and helpless in a hospital bed.

Literature

• The Count of Monte Cristo: Edmond Dantès is initially a benign, trusting, and naive young man with a happy future ahead of him. Then he's falsely imprisoned. He initially hopes that he'll receive justice and return to his friends. But after four years, he realizes that he'll never be released. This is the point where there is no going back to his old life, only ahead. It initially drives him to despair and a suicide attempt. But the unexpected arrival of a fellow prisoner, the remarkable Abbe Faria, turns his thoughts in a new direction, toward escape and revenge. This also marks a change in Dantès's character.
• Halfway through Pact, Blake Thorburn, the viewpoint character, has his connections to the outside world eaten by a demon, causing him to become an Unperson and trapping him in the Drains, where he's forced to confront hard truths about himself and his life, ultimately emerging more supernatural creature than human.

Myths & Religion

• The Biblical story of Jonah in the belly of the whale, where Jonah had no choice but to accept God's plans for him (although the Hebrew word used in the Old Testament is fish "דג" NOT whale "לִוְיָתָן").

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed: Revelations is this for Desmond Miles. He has fallen into a comatose state after being forced to kill Lucy Stillman, and the only way for him to ever wake up is to relive Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and Ezio Auditore's memories until there's nothing left for him to relive, as well as coming to terms with his troubled past, the fact he is an Assassin and the role he has to play.
• Kingdom Hearts: Sora is subject to two symbolic hero rebirths. Once in the sub-journey that is the first game, when he separates his heart from his body, and again and more fitting of the trope in his series-long character arc when his heart is shattered entirely and he has to put it back together and heal before he gets another chance to pass the official Hero's Test Yen Sid was giving.
• Sword of the Stars: The initiation ritual for a Liir joining the Black Swimmers fits this to a tee. First, he goes through what is basically a funeral, where his loved ones circle him, sing to him, and touch him one last time. After he is handed over to the Black Swimmers, his lungs are filled with the oxygenated fluid that Liir warships use instead of atmosphere. To the recruit, this is very much like drowning, and indeed the first day of training is called "Drowning Day". After he has been reborn, not as a Liir, but as a Black Swimmer, he will undergo his military training.
• In Super Robot Wars Alpha and OG, Campbellian Hero archetype Ryusei Date's symbolic death and rebirth comes when he and the rest of the SRX team are forced to use their dangerous, untested Combining Mecha in the middle of battle and re-emerge as the gigantic Super Robot X.

Webcomics

• JoJo's Bizarre Summer Break: Dio still turned into a vampire with his head attached to Jonathan's body, only this time Jonathan also survived thanks to his Hamon powers, and he got George's body instead.

Western Animation

• The Dragon Prince: Callum finally reaches a point of no return, and concludes the first part of his Hero's Journey, when he connects to the sky arcanum and crosses into Xadia. After using Dark Magic, he falls into a coma and nearly dies. He has a series of visions that toss him around and test his character. When he awakes, he realizes that he now understands the sky arcanum, thus achieving what no other human mage has achieved and committing him to finish the journey with Rayla and Zym.
• The Owl House: In the series finale, "Watching and Dreaming", Luz Noceda is seemingly killed when she takes a magical blast meant for the Collector, seemingly disintegrating into flecks of light. She awakens in the realm between dimensions, having been saved by the spirit of the Titan, who returns her to the Demon Realm after gifting her with the last of their power, temporarily transforming her into a human/Titan hybrid with the power to finally defeat Emperor Belos for good.