Tropedia

  • Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
  • All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
  • All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO SelfCloak. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.

READ MORE

Tropedia
WikEd fancyquotesQuotesBug-silkHeadscratchersIcons-mini-icon extensionPlaying WithUseful NotesMagnifierAnalysisPhoto linkImage LinksHaiku-wide-iconHaikuLaconic
Cquote1
Yes... I, Grodus, will build a new world! A perfect, ideal world, made by me, about me, and FOR me!
Cquote2


So things aren't going to well for you. Maybe you want to turn over a new leaf. Maybe you want to start your life anew. Instead, maybe you don't want to half-ass it, you want to make all life anew. Or, you could just be a Card-Carrying Villain. This trope is when a character gets the bright idea to recreate the world, or at least go back to the beginning of time, or a foundational event in the timeline, because their mere presence or actions will cause For Want of a Nail to its logical extreme.

Examples of In Their Own Image include:


Anime and Manga[]

  • Cyrus, leader of Pokémon's Team Galactic, attempts to use the pokegods of Time and Space in order to remake the universe in his image. However, he lacks his game counterpart’s good intentions.
  • This is the plan of the the Big Bad Pucci in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure part 6; to reset the universe and create a world where everybody knows their own destiny (also, the Joestars won't exist, but that more Avenging the Villain).
  • At the end of Transformers Cybertron, this becomes Galvatron's goal. He seeks to send the multiverse ending Black Hole into overdrive to destroy everything, using the Omega Lock and Cyber Planet Keys to survive the end of the universe, then rebuild it as he sees fit.

Comic Books[]

  • In an issue of The Incredible Hulk the Leader goes back to make everyone a gamma freak (they'll turn out Leaders, Hulks, or Abominations) and Hulk & the Avengers go back to stop him.
  • Sise-Neg from a Doctor Strange story in the Marvel Universe. Note that Sise-Neg is "genesis" spelled backwards.
  • In The DCU's Crisis Crossover Zero Hour, Hal Jordan as Parallax tried to go back to the big bang and reboot the universe the way he wanted it. This resulted in another Cosmic Retcon and a partial Continuity Reboot to several DC series (Hawkman and Legion of Super-Heroes, most notably).
  • The Anti-Monitor did this in Crisis on Infinite Earths after his original plans to destroy all universes were defeated by superheroes. He is stopped again, but random changes (most notably the elimination of all Parallel Earths) happened as a result.

Fan Fiction[]

  • Fanfic version: In the Undocumented Features arc Twilight (no relation), Loki sneaks into the building containing the supercomputer Yggdrasil, planning on reprogramming it to grant him infinite cosmic power. However, Urd stops him.

Literature[]

  • In the Corwin part of The Chronicles of Amber series, the evil half-brother, Brand, seeks to recreate the universe to his own image by re-drawing the Pattern.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog's UK book Sonic In the Fourth Dimension had a band of imaginary creatures facing Fantastic Racism attempt this. Surprisingly a good read, even after a decade.
  • Played with in Eric by Terry Pratchett. The not-really-evil conjurer demands Rincewind make him live forever, which means starting at the beginning of creation..... Mayonnaise ensues.
  • Subverted in the 2nd Dragonlance trilogy, the Twins set, when Tasslehoff ends up in the future, and manages to get to a pivotal point in time to avert said future. He makes Raistlin, who is altering the timelines, discard his plan to become a god by convincing Raistlin that Raistlin, even as a god, will NEVER be able to create life.

Live-Action Television[]

  • This is Brajira's ultimate goal in Tensou Sentai Goseiger.
  • Once Upon A Time: Peter Pan doesn’t intend to recreate the world, but he does intend to recreate Storybrooke. Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t know for sure what Peter was planning to do to Storybrooke, but he imagines something akin to a wretched hive. Unfortunately, Rumple turns out to be right. Peter wishes to turn everyone in Storybrooke into his slaves, and he tells Felix that it’s going to be a fate worse than death for them.

Western Animation[]

  • In Justice League, this turns out to be the overarching scheme of Darkseid: He will discover the Anti-Life equation and use it to destroy reality itself, before commandeering the recreation process and rebuilding it in his image and create a universe of perfect order and obedience.
    • One-off villain Lord Chronos tried this using his time-travel suit, a far cry from his original hobby of going back to steal objects no one would ever miss.
    • After being taken over by Brainiac, Luthor asks what the plan is after analyzing and destroying all worlds. When it turns out he doesn't have one Luthor suggests they do this, and Brainiac acquiesces. As a result, Superman's "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight appeal fails miserably.
  • In Pinky and The Brain, the Brain once went back in time to make a world ruled by mice. He succeeded, but changed his mind when he ended up with a world full of Pinkies.
  • In an episode of Aladdin, Abis Mal gets his hands on a time travel device and decides to go back to the day Agrabah was founded, so that he could found it instead of the ancestors of the current Sultan. Instead, he ends up squabbling with his ancestor and not really getting anything done, before Aladdin shows up to take the time travel device away and set everything right.

Video Games[]

  • The villains of Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door and Super Paper Mario. Grodus of the former gives us the page quote. He implies that he’ll make the world a better place…but the plan involves using an evil demon.
  • SHODAN, after having the player fight off the Annalids, tries to take control of the hyperspace module to rewrite the universe to her specifications.
  • The Dark Voice from Starcraft seems to fit this pretty well.
  • This is the point of the Reasons in Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne. Each Reason holder seeks to recreate the world according to their guiding philosophy. The only one who attempts this and fails is Yuko Takao, who believes that her God will tell her the Reason, failing to realize that she is meant to come up with it herself. However, the MC can still unlock it as available ending. It's worth mentioning that her motivation is relatively unselfish compared to the others: she's only trying to undo her mistake by restoring the world to the way it was.
  • This is the goal of the gods in Shin Megami Tensei V. They want to recreate the world, though their reasonings for doing so tend to differ. It’s left ambiguous in the case of some of the gods as to why they would wish to recreate the world. But it’s confirmed in the case of Abdiel (though she’s technically an angel), Koshimizu, and Khonsu. Abdiel wishes to make the world like it was when God was in charge. Koshimizu wishes to create a democratic world filled with Gods. Khonsu wishes to create a utopia where everyone is treated equally. It’s averted with Nuwa who wishes to destroy the Throne of Creation. And Khonsu himself is a subversion because he decided not to take the throne to look after Miyazu, as she suffered from a disease.

Web Comics[]