Space is Introspective - TV Tropes

"It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."

• Asteroid in Love: While the series has both astronomy and Goal in Life as themes, they don't usually intersect... until the end of the Animated Adaptation, when Mira reminiscences the events over the series so far over a Stargazing Scene, concludes:

  Mira's thoughts: Everyone has certain things we love and certains we're good at. If we isolate ourselves, that limits our experiences. But if we connect our little world with others, then the possibilities are endless! — Just like the great unknown — the cosmos.

• Martian Successor Nadesico: Played with. Sitting in the cockpits of their Aestavalis, Ryoko, Izumi, Akito, and Hikari are waiting in silence to spring their trap on the Jovian ship pursuing them. They're observing radio silence, but they seem somehow aware of one another's thoughts, for as Ryoko says "Now I lay me down to sleep..." Izumi solemnly says, "But in space there is no down. In order to lay down you'd need a duck."
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: With the power out in Tokyo 3, the three Eva pilots, having defeated the Monster of the Week, are sitting on a hilltop looking at the night sky. Ayanami in particular waxes philisophic, saying, "Mankind fears the darkness, and so he scrapes away at its edges with fire."
• Space Battleship Yamato 2199:
  • Kodai has a favorite spot where he can look out at the vastness of space while playing a melancholic tune on his harmonica.
  • In the finale, Captain Okita stares out of the windows of his quarters, looking at the ruin of the Earth. He says that seeing the Earth brings back so many memories as a Single Tear falls down his cheek. He then dies, but his soul powers the Cosmo Reverse System that restores the planet to its former glory.

• Calvin and Hobbes: One of the few heavier story arcs has a Fantasy Sequence where Calvin and Hobbes go to Mars and find that the whole planet has become a wreck due to pollution. This makes Calvin existential and makes him realise he must not pollute.

• I'll Be Your Mirror (based on Ghostbusters (1984)) Egon finds the stars compelling and soothing, with the knowledge that he's made of the same material as them.

• Dark Star: After the accident that killed Commander Powell, Talby takes to staying in the observation dome at the top of the ship, and tells Doolittle that it allows him to think and keep his mind clear. He also talks about how they'll be coming up on the mysterious Phoenix Asteroids during their next bombing run and hopes to see them. When the ship is destroyed by an errant smart bomb deciding A God Am I and declaring "Let there be light," Talby, who was doing repairs on the laser system, is thrown clear in an airlock, and Doolittle, who tried to talk the bomb down, is also thrown clear. Talby finds himself in the midst of the Phoenix asteroids and begins to glow as he begins a millennia-long journey around the galaxy, wondering about all the things he will see on his trip. Doolittle, on the other hand, seizes a piece of ship's debris and perishes surfing into the atmosphere, dying, as Talby had noted before leaving, as a shooting star.
• In The Phantom Planet, as Frank Chapman and Ray Makonnen head off into space, Ray goes into a Contemplate Our Navels speech about how one should focus on the good and the beautiful to be the wisest and the best.

• Clarice Bean: In "Don't Look Now", initially, Clarice Bean found the notion that space is infinite scary, even listing it number one on a list of her biggest worries. However, at the end of the book, she finds it reassuring, since it makes her friend Betty moving away seem less drastic.
• The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy Trilogy: Inverted by the Absolute Xenophobes of Krikkit. Their solar system is shrouded in a dust cloud, so their first astronauts unexpectedly broke through to a Scene of Wonder that revealed the true vastness and majesty of the universe. Their reaction?

  "It'll have to go."

• Science-fiction novels written by Michael Moorcock, especially the ones that inspired the music of space-rockers Hawkwind, will often become introspective and reflective about the nature of space travel and what it is capable of doing to the human psyche. The Black Corridor, where one man is awake aboard a colony ship and charged with looking after hundreds of hibernating humans, is a typical example.

• In the season 3 finale, "Ascension", of Agentsof SHIELD, Hive and Lincoln find themselves stranded on the Quinjet, which has just made it into low orbit and is therefore impossible to manuever properly in zero-g, and a nuclear warhead onboard is minutes away from exploding. Lincoln knew this was a one-way trip, and impresses on Hive the lack of reason to fight anymore. Rather than fight his fate, Hive calmly accepts that he's lost and actually seems to look forward to dying, since after living for many thousands of years, death is the only conceivable thing that he has not experienced yet. The two just admire the view of Earth through the windshield as the seconds count down, and have a brief-yet-completely heartfelt conversation about the planet.
• Doctor Who: While space is often associated with epic space battles and danger, since the Doctor often encounters hostile aliens trying to take over Earth, it is just as often treated with wonder, as the Doctor loves to show off the universe to their companions. The revival series has a number of scenes where the Doctor and companion(s) look upon or float in space with the TARDIS doors open.
• Midnight Mass: As Erin lies dying of blood loss after the Angel slashes her neck, she has a Dying Dream where she thinks back to the conversation she held with Riley about what happens after death. She gives an existentialist monologue about what she thinks will happen to her, dreaming of the stars as she describes how the matter that makes up her will eventually go on to form new stars and planets.

  Erin: You, me and my little girl, and my mother and my father, everyone’s who’s ever been, every plant, every animal, every atom, every star, every galaxy, all of it. More galaxies in the universe than grains of sand on the beach. And that’s what we’re talking about when we say “God.” The One. The cosmos and its infinite dreams. We are the cosmos dreaming of itself. It’s simply a dream that I think is my life, every time.

• Sesame Street:
  • "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" is a song with a slow, lullaby-like melody, in which Ernie mentions that he wants to go to the moon (as well as other weird places like the ocean) but would get homesick and so doesn't want to live there.
  • During the song "I Think That It is Wonderful", which is a sentimental song about what characters love the most and sung at bedtime, Ernie says that seeing the stars is wonderful.
  • The song "We Are All Earthlings" has the message that humans and animals should live in harmony because we're all "spinning around together on a planet of the sun".
  • Telly once sings a slow, wistful song about what it would be like if he befriended one of the "yip-yip" aliens.
  • Another song about the yip-yip aliens involves a woman who is friends with one of them but is sad because he lives so far away.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • In "Family", Picard's nephew Rene stares at the night sky, because he is daydreaming about wanting to be in Starfleet.
    • In "Q Who?", Q, after introducing Picard and his crew to the Borg, notes that space is wondrous, but not safe.
    • In one episode, Guinan notes that customers at her bar on the spaceship often stare out the window wondering if any of the stars is their solar system.
    • In "Thine Own Self", an amnesiac Data looks out at the night sky (possibly subconsciously remembering his time as an astronaut) when affirming to a little girl that he does believe a place where "everyone gets along and nobody gets sick" exists.
  • Star Trek: Voyager:
    • When people point out that the Voyager crew, who are lost in space, would get home quicker if they didn't explore, they counterargue that space is so worth exploring that slowing down their trip is Worth It.
    • In one episode, Janeway and her crush have fun watching an aurora in space and it makes her nostalgic for Earth's aurora borealis.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise focuses on humans first getting into interstellar travel, and the theme song is an inspirational ballad about how the singer is no longer being held down and has faith in himself.

• Avenged Sevenfold song "Exist" has a narration of a scientist who talks about the vastness of space, uncountable amount of stars, and comparing them with humanity.
• David Bowie: In "Space Oddity", astronaut Major Tom is surprisingly calm despite the speed he's going and his disconnection from Ground Control, contemplating how far he is above everything as he floats away.
• In "Arcturus Beaming" by The Crane Wives, the singer looks up to see "Arcturus beaming on a summer night" and wonders if there is another world beyond the stars looking back at them. Word of God says that the song is about having the hope for and working towards a brighter future by healing oneself so that one can heal their own community.

  This blinding light, this reckoning
  There's more to life than suffering
  But there's still time, it's not too late
  Nothing will change until I change

• Elton John: "Rocketman" takes place from the perspective of an astronaut who, on the one hand, sees the missions as more of a job, but also contemplates how lonely it is out in space and that he's a different person in space than he is at home.
• Space rockers Hawkwind can always be relied on to explore this trope. Tracks such as '"Golden Void", "Space is Dark'" or "'Lighthouse'" all take the viewpoint of travellers in deep space, musing about what the experience can do to the human mind.

  .Space is dark and it's so endless.

  When you're lost it's so relentless,

  .It is so big and we're so small

  Why does man try to act so tall?

  Is this the reason, deep in our minds?

• Minori Suzuki's "Yozora" is about a person contemplating their Goal in Life with a friend (whose relationship can either be read as platonic or romantic) during a Stargazing Scene. As a result, it has lines like "If there's something you want to search for / in the far reaches of the shining sky / believe that you're not alone / and we can set out" or "I cross beyond time / because there's something I want to achieve / I long to be like the stars / in the night sky."
• Devin Townsend: "Solar Winds" begins with the narrator introducing Captain Spectacular, who "introspectively gazes out his starship window". Captain Spectacular then begins singing about time and loneliness.

• Mary Poppins: At one point, Mary shows Jane and Michael the night sky, and they realise that space is very big, so their problems are comparatively very small. Then, she takes them into space and sings an inspirational song about how "anything can happen if you let it".
• Les Misérables:
  • Played for Drama in "Stars". Javert holds much reverence for the stars, seeing them as a holy, stable point of reference that keep the dark at bay. However, this is Javert's Villain Song, and his love for the stars symbolizes his authoritarian beliefs that, as a gatekeeper of the law, he is above rule breakers like Valjean and is always in the right.

    Stars, in your multitudes
    Scarce to be counted
    Filling the darkness with order and light
    You are the sentinels
    Silent and sure
    Keeping watch in the night
    Keeping watch in the night

  • Subverted in "Javert's Suicide" when Javert, having been shown mercy by Valjean, has a Villainous Breakdown and now finds the stars "black and cold". Without his point of reference and unable to cope with moral ambiguity, he kills himself.

• Katamari Damacy: The final level of We ♥ Katamari has the player travel to space, where their goal is to roll up enough celestial bodies to be able to roll up the sun. It's a slow and tranquil process and the finishing touch is the song "blue orb" playing in the background, perfectly capturing the endlessness of the cosmos.
• Honkai Impact 3rd: Whenever she's stargazing, Dr. MEI has always thought that "the stars in the sky are our enemies" because they hang up lightyears above the earth and "look down upon it". A big part of her character is about pondering about how much humanity, and herself in particular, is worth in the face of the vast universe, and she had voiced her desire to see about "how far she can go as a person".
• Stellaris emphasizes the wonder and optimism of exploring space, settling on new worlds, discovering new forms of life and other intelligent beings, and how it impacts a society's sense of identity. The idea is given focus in the Third Anniversary Trailer.

  The galaxy. Trillions of stars waiting to be explored. Where wondrous creations mingle with desires and encounters with the unknown. Where the urge to go beyond, and to determine one's own fate, is universal. Where, from the ashes of devastation, a new dawn may rise, revealing a deeper understanding. And this seemingly endless galaxy is still there; lingering, waiting, for our next move, knowing that its greatest story still lies ahead. And it's yours to tell.

• In the Fox ADHD song "Everyone is Lonely", a woman sings about how we need to be nice since Earth is just a "lonely little blue dot" compared to the whole universe.
• Neopets: Aishas tend to look at the stars if they feel they need guidance.

• Stuffed: In one strip, it is nighttime, and Dragon is amazed at how everyone and everything is made out of the same matter as the stars, which he refers to as "stardust".

• CGP Grey once made a video explaining how to cope with the isolation of quarantine by using the analogy of living alone in a space station.

• Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs: Downplayed in "Jump", when the main characters go to space and make "ooh" noises, indicating they're awed.
• Superman: The Animated Series: In "The Main Man", Dr. Hamilton looks at the sky and tells Superman that he wonders about the civilizations that exist out there — "their great achievements, their brilliant minds...". Immediately subverted with a cut to Lobo trashing an alien dive bar.
• The Venture Bros.: In one episode, Dr. Orpheus goes to his Master to learn how to shrink in order to win a bet with Dr. Venture. After a bit of telling Orpheus off the two stargaze for a while, Orpheus speaks in awe of the vastness of the universe and the Master remarks that it, "makes you feel small, doesn't it?" Orpheus leaves having not learned how to shrink, yet in a way he did learn how.

• One form of this event in real life is the overview effect. Seeing all of Earth at once has caused many astronauts to report experiencing transcendent awe and overwhelming emotion at the sight, including a deeper appreciation for beauty and the shared human existence. This forms the basis of a quote from Edgar Mitchell, lunar module pilot aboard the Apollo 14 mission during The Space Race. Speaking of his time on the Moon, as only the sixth person to ever set foot outside our home planet, while gazing down at Earth:

  Mitchell: You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say "Look at that, you sonofabitch."