It seems like almost every variation of the End Times, End of Days, End of All Things, etc. always ends up being some bleak and gloomy post apocalyptic wasteland and/or the extinction of humans/everything/common decency. I can name exactly two scenarios where this doesn’t happen off the top of my head: Ragnarok, the prophesied end of the gods in Norse mythology; and the world in My Time at Portia, a crafting-based life-sim game with combat elements. Ragnarok, as mentioned earlier, is the end of the major Norse gods and their enemies, followed by a great flood, and finally everlasting peace for the survivors (it’s a little more complicated than that, but the keywords are everlasting peace.) The world of My Time in Portia is a post apocalyptic one, but the worlds is vibrant and full of life with the only real impact being the stagnation of technology and mutants/dangerous robots wandering outside rebuilt civilization.
This cultural obsession with depressive, misanthropic views of the future and inevitable end of civilization is telling of current unity of humanity: there’s very little. Even in positive outlooks of the post apocalypse, we still have technophobia and idealized ignorance while technology-focused factions are often portrayed poorly if not universally despised/evil. Really, though, when you look at all media depicting the End Times, whatever it is that brings about the end is typically caused by humanity’s utter disdain for itself.
I guess what I’m trying to say is: write more End Times scenarios like Norse Ragnarok where the end result is ultimately better than everything that lead up to it. I’d do it, but I’m too much of a misanthropic nihilist not good enough to write one properly.
illuminatus.blog 