What a baby.
Mr. Turner: That's my tiny box of dreams!
Timmy: [drops the box and shatters it] Oops! Sorry, Dad...
Mr. Turner: Oh, don't worry about it, Timmy! My dreams were shattered years ago...
Timmy: How many years ago?
Mr. Turner: How old are you?
Timmy: [drops the box and shatters it] Oops! Sorry, Dad...
Mr. Turner: Oh, don't worry about it, Timmy! My dreams were shattered years ago...
Timmy: How many years ago?
Mr. Turner: How old are you?
There sometimes comes a moment when someone realizes that their dream, this thing that they have worked so hard for, just isn’t going to happen and they have to let it go. Whether it was too ambitious, situations change, it was too nonsensical, it was a Tragic Dream, or just plain bad luck.
This is often a poignant moment for them as they reflect on their desires and what they are letting go of. These will have to be moments of introspection, a chance for them to reevaluate where they are and where they go next. It may leave them Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life or cross the Despair Event Horizon since they have nothing to live for anymore.
Depending on where this occurs in the story, it could be the catalyst for Character Development or it might be the culmination of their arc.
If this occurs in a children’s story, it will often be presented as a Hard Truth Aesop that sometimes, being a Determinator won’t help you achieve your dream, and that accepting that it’s not going to happen and finding another one is better for your well-being than striving towards something that’s out of reach.
May overlap with Trade Your Passion for Glory. Also overlaps with Gave Up Too Soon if the character shouldn't have given up because their dream was going to happen. Can lead to becoming The Resenter.
Contrast Pursue the Dream Job and The Unfettered, where the character is willing to cross moral guidelines to make sure the dream comes true.
Compare Know When to Fold 'Em, which is more temporary/situational, and I Coulda Been a Contender!, where they gave up but later regret it.
See also Refused by the Call, High Hopes, Zero Talent and Chose the Hard Road.
Not to be confused with Dying Dream or Dream-Crushing Handicap.
As this may contain plot twists or endings, unmarked spoilers may be present.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The Coming of Age oneshot 2×2×X follows an aspiring actor, Rin, who lives with his roommate Minato, his Best Friend from college. One day, Rin announces that he plans to give up on being an actor so that he can marry his girlfriend. Minato is deeply bothered by Rin's decision. It's later revealed that Minato has romantic feelings for Rin. The climax of the oneshot features Minato and Rin having an awkward, melancholic conversation where they say their goodbyes...only for Minato to pull out a knife and tell Rin to just cut the bullshit and be honest with how he feels for once. He's fine if Rin moves in with his girlfriend if that's truly what he wants, but he's sick of the mixed messages that Rin's been giving him. Rin, relieved, admits that he's in love with Minato and that his engagement to his "girlfriend" was always an Arranged Marriage decided by his parents. It's not explicitly stated if Rin decides to continue being an actor after this but, considering that it's implied the real reason he chose to quit being an actor is that making movies is what brought him and Minato together and it would have been too painful to make them without him, it can be inferred that he continued pursuing his dreams.
- EDENS ZERO: E.M. Pino is an android who spends the entire manga dreaming of becoming human. In the final chapter, where Mother offers her a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be reincarnated as Rebecca's soon-to-be-born baby girl, Pino turns it down in favor of remaining an android, as she respects the baby as her own person and is fine with her friends accepting her the way she is.
- Final Fantasy: Lost Stranger: Shogo and Yuko once dreamed of becoming developers on a Final Fantasy game and became Square-Enix employees in hopes of being promoted into their dream job. But years of toil have led them absolutely nowhere, with Shogo on the verge of giving up entirely by the start of the story.
- Girl Meets Rock!:
- While the exact circumstances are still unclear, it's strongly indicated that Chihiro's father once tried to make it as a rock star. He eventually gave up on his dream since his inability to get a consistent income caused him to fall into alcoholism, fracturing his relationship with his wife and daughter. By the time the story takes place, he has completely switched to the opposite extreme where he's a full-on workaholic working himself to exhaustion in a demanding desk job to support his estranged family, to the point that his family encourages him to be easier on himself to no avail. Although his relationship with his family is still somewhat strained (mainly on account of his self-loathing), it's clear that he deeply loves his daughter and is incredibly proud of her for pursuing her passion for music.
- Although he's still in high school, Takami has preemptively given up on pursuing his passion as a musician and has already decided to give up music permanently once he finishes high school. This is mainly because his father forbids him from pursuing music as a career. To his father's credit, his attitude is entirely understandable considering that his other son, Ryuki, dropped out of high school, cut off everyone close to him, and moved across the country on a total whim in pursuit of a likely ill-fated dream to make it big as a rock star. However, Mizuo, Takami's bandmate, expresses his doubts that Takami will ever truly give up music despite his current plans.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run: Axl RO, an American Civil War veteran, mentioned that he originally wanted to become a musician like Antonín Dvořák, but had to give up his dream when he was drafted into the army.
- Metal Fight Beyblade: Hikaru Hasama started off Season 1 aiming to become the greatest Blader of all. However, her defeat at the hands of Ryuga leaves her so traumatized she is unable to continue Beyblading, so she quits in Season 2.
- Subverted in My Hero Academia. By the end of the first chapter, Izuku Midoriya has since come to terms with the fact that attempting to become a pro hero as a Quirkless person is a pipe dream he has to let go. But that's when All Might arrives to tell him that he can be a hero and that he'll be the next inheritor of One For All, the same Quirk that gives All Might his indomitable strength. Near the end of the manga, Midoriya reluctantly forces One For All upon Shigaraki to overwhelm the villain's body with its power, giving up on his future as a pro hero in the process. However, his friends pool their resources together to create a suit of Powered Armor for Midoriya to help him become a hero anyway years later.
- The title character of Tanzaburou Toujima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider does this at the start of the manga: a fan of Kamen Rider 1, he trained his whole life to become strong for the day Shocker would kidnap him and turn him into a cyborg, but once he hits forty he has to admit Shocker doesn't exist and he'll never become Kamen Rider, so he sells his memorabilia collection... Right before some people start committing robberies disguised as Shocker Combatmen, giving him a chance to live his dream in a way. And then one of the robberies is interrupted by an actual Shocker Combatman...
- Umamusume: Cinderella Gray; Oguri's first trainer Jo Kitahara has a dream to enter a horsegirl in the Tokai Derby and win, and he thinks Oguri is the one to do it. However, she is scouted to compete in the much more prestigious National Circuit, forcing Kitahara to choose between letting Oguri go to Nationals (disqualifying her from the Tokai Derby and ending her time as his trainee as he doesn't have the right licenses to train in the National Circuit) or keeping her in the Regionals to pursue his dream (squandering her talent in a dead-end career). Ultimately he chooses the former, sending Oguri to Nationals while he works to get his license upgraded to join her there and move on to greater things than the Tokai Derby.
- Urusei Yatsura: Zigzagged; in the "Open the Door" story arc, Ataru finally finds a dimensional door to a future where he finally got the harem he always wanted. However, Lum is nowhere to be found because in that world, Ataru treated her so badly in favor of the other members of the harem that she finally got tired of his crap and left him for good. Having seen this, the original Ataru shuts the door and flings the knob that opens it into the abyss, meaning it can never come true, because a world without Lum by his side isn't a world he wants. And knowing that his harem would put an end to that, he eliminates that world forever.
Comic Books
- DC: The New Frontier: Upon hearing of the space program, Hal Jordan dreams of going to the stars, too bad the PTSD he suffers due to events in the Korean War seems to make that impossible. A secret space program within NASA gives him a chance to go to Mars, but the ship is sabotaged thanks to interference by the Big Bad. The ship explodes in low orbit, and Hal is rescued by Superman, but it'll take years to rebuild the ship, and he knows that he won't be on the next flight. Hal is despondent as the launch bay doors close, covering him in shadow.
- Superman: In For the Man Who Has Everything, while under the effects of the Black Mercy, Superman sees himself back on Krypton with a loving wife, child, and pet. As Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman struggle with Mongul, Superman slowly realizes he's living a dream and regrettably decides to leave it as Batman pulls the Black Mercy off. When Batman gets snagged by the Black Mercy, he sees himself as a young kid again, and Thomas Wayne manages to overpower Joe Chill, averting the death of his parents (though in the Animated Adaptation of the story that served as an episode of Justice League, Batman rejects the fantasy, leading to Chill regaining the upper hand). While we don't see the rest of the fantasy on-panel, when Superman manages to free him, Batman reveals that in the fantasy, he was a normal adult married to Kathy Kane (the original Batwoman) with a daughter.
Fan Works
- The Archmage's Last Bow: Zig-zagged; Nova Shine has only ever wanted to live a normal life studying and practicing magic after spending years running from his parents. However, he is forced to confront the fact that if he marries Twilight Sparkle, he won't have the life he wants because of her station as princess, and for that matter, as the Archmage, normal was never on the cards for him. He doesn't even entertain the idea of leaving Twilight despite this, because while he wanted a normal life, his deepest and most desperate desire is to have a family with her, and that is very much still a possibility.
- The Best Case Scenario, if you're being "realistic": This is the premise of the entire story, as the Point of Divergence (Izuku stopping to help an injured fox) results in him not having the second encounter with the Sludge Villain, and takes All Might's original advice to heart, instead enrolling in U.A.'s General course as an analyst. This one divergence ends up having massive ramifications for the entire setting, as Izuku not being present for some early canon events such as the USJ invasion and the Work Studies arc snowballs into disasters that causes far more deaths than in canon, and ends up collapsing the entire Japanese Hero System under the weight of its own corruption and leads to its dissolution. In the end, not only does Izuku not become a Pro Hero, no one will ever again, at least not in Japan. Ironically, because he gave up his original dream, Izuku is among the few who can actually manage the changes without too much trouble, and ends up Happily Married with a successful career.
- Boxes: Chi-Chi grew up with the dream of being the perfect housewife to her ideal husband, Goku. Once they're married, she's not as happy as she thought she'd be since Goku turned out not to be what she wanted in a husband. Throughout their marriage, she keeps trying to change herself and Goku to make this dream happen. After Goku cheats on her and the two divorce, she finally has to give up on her dream life ever coming true.
- Defused (MHA): Katsuki always dreamed of being the Number One Hero since he was little, but after graduating UA, his name became poison in the hero field due to his rotten attitude. Only Best Jeanist is willing to give him a chance and treats him as even lower-ranking than a sidekick. Everywhere he goes, he can't stop seeing reminders that Izuku is the Number One Hero, and realizes he'll never catch up to him because of how thoroughly he trashed his own reputation. After that, he trains harder, improves himself, and becomes a real hero, even while aware he'll never be number one or even in the top ten, and eventually earns his pro license and the respect of his colleagues in Best Jeanist's agency.
- Final Fantasy VII: Another Side: All through the fic, Aerith has had the desire to just be normal, but as the party approaches the Ancient Temple, she has a realization, “normal is someone else’s dream”. She then begins to more fully embrace her Cetra heritage.
- A Monster's Marriage: Jaune resigns himself to the fact that he'll never be a hunter after being rejected at Beacon. Marrying Cinder makes him forget about it for years, until they're assaulted by muggers and he's sent to the hospital. He then contacts Glynda to ask her to help him reapply to Beacon, however, upon learning that Cinder's pregnant, Jaune drops his dream again and this time for good, as his most important goal now is to protect his family. The epilogue shows him running a clothes shop with Mercury, while caring for a pregnant Cinder.
- My Battle Acamaidia: All For One has given up on his original goal of stealing One For All and reuniting with his brother's spirit. Now, he's content to watch his son and daughter change the world for the better.
- Some Things Never Change: In this fanfic, Squidward finally accepts that his dream of being a talented musician/artist is just a pipe dream, and finally decides to give up on it, deciding only to play music and make art as hobbies for personal enjoyment.
- Weight Off Your Shoulder: At one point, Bunnyx peers into a Bad Future where Marinette and Adrien have gotten married and she's become a famous fashion designer. Sadly, Adrien has never learned to stop taking her for granted; he's All Take and No Give, leaving her to run the company he inherited and hold their marriage together. When Bunnyx checks up on them, Marinette has wised up and is signing the divorce papers while Adrien tries Guilt-Tripping her into staying.
Film — Animated
- Aladdin: Aladdin dreams of being rich so he and Abu no longer would have to steal to live, and he would marry Jasmine. At the end of the movie, Genie says that Aladdin can use the third wish to ask to be a prince again (he had asked that before, but Jafar undid his wish after he stole the lamp). Instead, Aladdin uses the last wish to free Genie, even knowing he probably wouldn't see Jasmine again. Fortunately, the Sultan is touched by Aladdin's heroism and decides that Jasmine can marry whoever she wants.
- Arthur Christmas: Early in the movie, the Christmas family plays a Christmas-themed board game. Malcolm, as the boys' father and current Santa Claus, is given the Santa figure. Steve, the elder son and presumed inheritor of the role of Santa Claus and a driving force behind innovating and modernizing the North Pole's operations, is given a candle for all his bright ideas. As events progress, it becomes clear to everyone that Arthur embodies the spirit of Christmas more than his brother or his father. At the end, Steve holds up the Santa figure, representing his hopes and dreams, clutches it in his hand, and then offers it to Arthur.
Steve: I'll be the candle.
- Beauty and the Beast: Zigzagged. Belle dreams of leaving her village to have adventures in a wide, faraway place and, especially, to be understood. But when she finds out that her father is Beast's prisoner, she promptly offers to take his place and gives up on everything. The scene where she lets herself fall on the floor as Beast frees her father, and afterwards, when she cries in her room, shows how heartbroken she is. However, although Beast's castle is not exactly "a great wide place", its inhabitants are open-minded and quickly make friends with Belle without judging her like the villagers did. Even Beast is inspired by her to change for the better; he encourages her (misunderstood) love for books, and they bond over being different (this last part is more evident in the theatrical version, where Belle actually discusses that with Beast).
- Coco: Subverted; throughout the movie, Miguel learns that his family is more important than his dream of becoming a musician. When Mama Imelda is about to give her petal blessing, he's resigned to "never play music again", as she wanted; however, Imelda has learned some lessons of her own and corrects him: "Never forget your family loves you". Ernesto interrupts them, but a while later, she gives her blessing again, this time without any conditions. Back to the living world, when Miguel brings Mama Coco's memories back by singing, his family realizes how wrong they were in banning music, and his dream finally becomes true.
- Hercules presents a case of giving up a dream after achieving it. After going to the temple of Zeus and finding out he was actually born a god, Hercules' drive and ambition become to prove himself a true hero so he can have his godhood restored and return to Olympus with his parents. His heroics bring him fame, money, and popularity, but godhood remains frustratingly beyond reach. It isn't until he throws himself into the River Styx to save Meg that he finally has his godhood restored, but that would mean being separated from Meg, and he decides to give it up to stay with her.
- Meet the Robinsons: After 124 adoption interviews, Lewis is convinced that no one will ever adopt him and obsesses on meeting his mother and convincing her to have him back. In the end, Wilbur takes him back to the night when Lewis’ mother abandoned him as a baby at the orphanage door. Lewis walks towards her, is about to touch her... when he realizes that if he talks to his mother, he’ll change the time stream and lose the wonderful family that he is going to have in the future. He retreats but slips, and the noise startles his mother, who leaves the baby at the door and goes away.
- Monsters University: Mike spends most of his time working and studying to be a good scarer. After the dean doubts his abilities, he goes to the human world to scare human kids to prove himself. But he realizes his goal to be impossible after discovering human kids do not view him as scary, and instead takes a job as a scarer's assistant. Due to Foregone Conclusion, this gets zig-zagged in the first film, where scarers get replaced by comedians to make human kids laugh, which Mike takes as his new job.
- Robots: Rodney's father Herb wanted to be a musician when he was younger, only to be programmed to be a dishwasher after his dad convinced him that it was an impossible dream for him. Because of this, Herb convinces Rodney to follow his dream of becoming an inventor. At the end of the film, Rodney gets hired to work for Bigweld and his company. Rodney then gives his dad a trumpet so that he can achieve his dream as a musician. While Herb starts playing rather poorly, he eventually gets the hang of it, triggering the film's Dance Party Ending.
Film — Live-Action
- Apollo 13: As Apollo 13 rounds the moon, their landing site at Fra Mauro comes into view. Jim looks down and imagines himself walking on the surface. As Houston reestablishes his radio contact, he is jolted out of his fantasy. Fred and Jack make comments about how they wish they could still land, but Jim says, “Gentlemen, what are your intentions? I’d like to go home.” While he had realized it wasn't going to happen as soon as he got the order to close the fuel cells, this is the moment he truly accepts it.
- Back to the Future Part II: A potential Bad Future for Marty is seen when Jennifer visits her and Marty's future home. In it, Marty is working a soulless corporate job with a Japanese-owned company, Jennifer is a bored, resigned housewife (much like Marty's own parents at the start of the first movie), and their children are brats who would have ended up in jail had past Marty not intervened. It turns out that Needles calling him "chicken" once was the cause of all this; Marty ended up crashing into a Rolls-Royce after being challenged to a race, breaking his hand (making it impossible to play his guitar) and putting him into massive debt after being sued for damages. Needles even makes things worse by calling Marty "chicken" again, leading to Marty getting fired on the spot for joining Needles' illegal financial scheme. Luckily, the events of this and the following movie finally break Marty of his bad habit, and when the race incident arrives, Marty doesn't go through with it, allowing his future to be dictated how he sees fit.
- The Banshees of Inisherin:
- Colm gives up his dream of being a composer and a pianist — because he chooses instead to cut off each of his fingers every time Pádraic speaks to him.
- Dominic gets gradually disillusioned throughout the film, first by Pádraic's growing cruelty after Colm ends his and Pádraic's friendship very suddenly. It's probably not helpful that his father is extremely abusive; it's known by everyone on the island that he beats Dominic, but at one point, Pádraic accuses him of raping Dominic, too. Still, Dominic only explicitly gives up after he makes an attempt at declaring his love for Siobhan and Siobhan turns him down (admittedly very gently). It's left ambiguous whether he's Driven to Suicide after that or if he really did slip and fall to his death.
Dominic: You probably wouldn’t ever want to... I don’t know... to fall in love with a boy like me, would you?
Siobhan: Oh, Dominic. I don't think so, love.
Dominic: No, yeah, no. I was thinking no. Not even in the future, like? When I'm your age?
She shakes her head as kindly as she can.
Dominic: Yeah, no, I didn’t think so, but I just thought I’d ask on the off-chance, you know? Faint heart and all that...well, there goes that dream!
- Discussed and Played for Laughs in Cool Runnings when Yul Brenner declares his desire to leave Jamaica and live in a big house, Sanka laughs in his face when he shows him the photo of his desired house.
Yul: What ya laughing about?!
Sanka: That's Buckingham Palace. You plan on living there, you're gonna have to marry The Queen.
Junior: Yul, that's where the Queen of England lives.
Yul: (crumples up his photo of Buckingham with an expression of BSOD)
Sanka: Face it, Yul Brenner. You can start calling yourself Madonna, but you're still gonna end up in an outhouse shanty like every other dock working nobody.
Sanka: That's Buckingham Palace. You plan on living there, you're gonna have to marry The Queen.
Junior: Yul, that's where the Queen of England lives.
Yul: (crumples up his photo of Buckingham with an expression of BSOD)
Sanka: Face it, Yul Brenner. You can start calling yourself Madonna, but you're still gonna end up in an outhouse shanty like every other dock working nobody.
- Everest (2015): In the bottleneck that forms on the day everyone plans to summit, the delays mount up to the point that several of Rob's group begin turning back. To put this in perspective, this is something that most will only be able to attempt once in their lives, with a stated price tag of $60,000, and that was back in 1996. One of the group, Doug Hansen, refuses to give it up, and with Rob's assistance, he finally makes it. Unfortunately, this results in them summiting late in the day, which means they're still on the mountain when the infamous blizzard hits, leading to his eventual death and Rob's as well.
- It's a Wonderful Life: George initially had dreams of leaving his sleepy home town and to travel the world. But for one reason or another, is forced to give it up for the sake of helping his family or friends. By the time of the present day, he's married and has a family that he's long given up on it ever coming true and this is part of the reason why he's Driven to Suicide before Clarence comes along and shows him otherwise. Indeed, all his sacrifices weren't for naught and his experiences with the theoretical Bad Future if he wasn't born, as well as the town coming together to help him in his hour of need, showed it was all worth it in the end.
- Jurassic Park (1993): At the beginning of the movie, Hammond steps out of the helicopter, proud and eager to share his dream. At the end, after Grant says he has decided not to endorse the park, Hammond firmly says, "So have I." As they return to the chopper, Hammond sorrowfully turns to take one last look at his dream. His final shot as they fly off has him staring mournfully at the head of his cane, an insect trapped in amber.
- A Minecraft Movie: Malgosha's backstory was that she initially wanted to be a dancer. But when she tried to entertain a crowd at a talent show, they booed her off the stage and her father pretty much told her to stick to making gold for their Piglin race. She wound up bitter as a result, came to hate creativity and seeks to throw the world of Minecraft into eternal night as a way of projecting her failed ambitions.
- Newsies: Jack's big goal at the beginning is to move to Santa Fe, out in the open west where he feels he can make something for himself as opposed to New York where he feels he has no future. At the end he despite leaving to head out west, he goes back to stay with his friends.
- The titular Pearl dreams of escaping her miserable life on her parents' farm and becoming a famous dancer. She's willing to kill everyone in her way. However, Pearl fails the audition that she had hoped would provide her big break. This makes her realise that she will never become a dancer or escape the farm, subsequently becoming Trapped in Villainy as she stays there and slowly transforms into the murderous, envious woman seen in X.
- Pokémon Detective Pikachu: Like all the kids from his small town, Tim wanted to be a Pokemon Trainer, but his mother falling ill and dying, along with his father having grown distant from him due to his work as a Ryme City detective, led to him giving up on his dream and becoming an insurance company worker who was disillusioned with Pokemon in general.
- Schindler's List: Oskar gives up on his dream of wealth (two steamer trunks full of money) because he doesn't want to abandon his workers to near-certain death in Auschwitz. This is a Historical Downgrade, since he knew about the Final Solution from Day One (being a member of the Nazi party), and conspired to lie and bribe Nazi officials to keep his workers alive, claiming that they were "essential to the war effort."
- This is arguably the Central Theme of Spider-Man 2: accepting that sometimes our dreams call us in the wrong direction. Spider-Man's Psychosomatic Superpower Outage is specifically because I Just Want to Be Normal, Even If That Means I'm Not Saving Anyone; it's only when he accepts that his power to do good outweighs his personal ambitions that he is able to truly embrace being Spider-Man (and his Love Interest is able to begin dating him in earnest). Meanwhile, Big Bad Dr. Otto Octavius is obsessed with his dreams of fusion power, but is convinced to abandon them when his out-of-control experiment threatens NYC.
Aunt May: Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they’ll tell how they stood in the rain for hours, just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer. I believe there’s a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.
- Star Trek: Generations:
- In the Nexus, Picard is presented with the world where he has a wife and children, and his recently passed nephew. Despite realizing that it isn’t real, there is a part of him that is tempted to stay and live the dream. Eventually, his duty overrides his desires, and he walks away from it.
- Kirk's journey is a bit more complex. When we first see him, he’s been retired from Starfleet for a while but clearly wants another shot at the captain's chair. During the Enterprise-B's rescue mission, he’s offered the chance, but gives it up to its rightful captain. This leads directly to the events that cause his apparent death. The Nexus has him reliving a painful memory with an old girlfriend before taking him back to the moment they met. While initially thrilled after a horse ride and jumping a ravine, something that used to scare him, he realizes none of this is real. He begins pondering what he actually wants; this eventually leads him to go with Picard to make a difference one last time.
- Tucker: The Man and His Dream: After Tucker's efforts to build "the car of the future" draw the ire of the Big Three, he finds himself hit with charges of stock fraud. At this point, his financier Abe Karatz resigns due to previous convictions of bank fraud that he feels will be used against Tucker. They have an emotional conversation where Abe relates something his mother said when he was a kid, "You can't get too close to people or you'll catch their dreams". As he got older, he realized she was saying "germs". He then admits that he joined Tucker for the sole purpose of making money, but "I got too close and caught your dreams". At the end of the movie, Tucker has successfully beaten the charges against him, but as he and Abe look at the line of Tucker 48s, he realizes even before Abe says it that Tucker Motors is dead. He takes a moment, then as he gets in a car, he starts thinking about designing a new refrigerator.
Literature
- How to Be Comfortable in Your Own Feathers: The protagonist bird eventually has to realise that, due to not being a hummingbird, they will never flutter like they wanted to, and should thus stop trying to lose weight.
- InCryptid: The first two books have Verity Price being conflicted over whether she can pursue her dream of being a ballroom dancer while caring for the cryptid community. She realizes in the second book, Midnight Blue-Light Special, that she has to give up dancing in order to protect New York's cryptid community from the Covenant of St. George.
- Malory Towers: The third novel features a transfer student, Zerelda Brass, who fancies herself as an actress. She spends most of the time preparing herself for stardom and dismisses her other schoolmates as simple/plain. When she attempts to audition for the leading part in the school's Romeo and Juliet production, she is told plainly by the teacher that her acting is atrocious. Humbled, Zerelda abandons her dream of becoming an actress and discovers that being an "ordinary schoolgirl" is not so bad after all.
- Race to the Sun: Nizhoni realises she must sacrifice her dream to save her family.
- Warrior Cats: In The Sight, Jaypaw and Hollypaw both start out with goals that are rather ambitious for them. The blind Jaypaw wants to be a warrior and prove himself capable, while Hollypaw wants power and influence and tries her paw at becoming a medicine cat. However, both struggle immensely with their training — Jaypaw lashing out at his mentor and taking offense at Firestar for pairing him with the half-blind Brightheart, and Hollypaw being unable to remember herbs and having envy over things like battle training. The two ultimately decide to swap roles, with Jaypaw becoming a medicine cat and Hollypaw a warrior, giving up their original dreams for ones that suit their skillsets better (though Jaypaw still takes a while to accept that medicine is and has always been his actual destiny).
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5: In "Eyes", telepath Mr. Gray relates such a story in an attempt to get in Ivanova's good graces, telling how he wanted nothing more than to serve in EarthForce as a pilot, how he'd build models of fighters and finally got the chance to go to the academy. While there, his telepathic talent manifested, requiring him to leave EarthForce and join the Psi Corps, which does not have him flying fighters to defend Earth, but is serving Earth in a different way. Ivanova, however, has no time or patience for him precisely because he's in the Corps.
- The Big Bang Theory: Penny starts the show Waiting for a Break, working as a waitress and auditioning for every movie or TV show she can. She books occasionally, getting a commercial and the lead in a B-Movie, and sometimes does community theater, but she can never find consistent, well-paying work. She gradually grows disillusioned and finds the auditioning process exhausting, and repeatedly wonders if chasing her dream is worth the constant rejection and blows to her self-esteem. She's eventually hired to do the sequel for the B-Movie (which is considered a Cult Classic), but when she asks to do a second take of a scene, she gets fired since the director doesn't care if the movie is any good and is annoyed that she does. This proves to be the final straw. Penny is willing to attend conventions and sign autographs for fans of the movie, but she quits acting and settles into a stable career as a pharmaceutical sales rep.
- The Brittas Empire:
- As a teenager, what Jim wanted to do most in the world was to become an astronomer. However, when he asked his parents if he could stay on at school to achieve his dreams, his father laughed in his face and forced him to take up a job as night watchman. Jim has accepted that he would never achieve his dream and has compensated by constantly praising his twin sons and instilling in them the belief that they could achieve their own dreams. Unfortunately, as seen with Brittas and his belief that he could achieve his dream of world peace and harmony in spite of his obnoxious attitude, this was a bad decision in hindsight.
- Carole admits to Laura that she used to dream of becoming a concert pianist. However, her parents sold their piano and forced her to give it up, believing that it would be better if she did more domestic science. She has long given up on her dream, believing that her parents were right when they told her to get a man and not even being confident of her skills in the piano. Thankfully, as "In the Beginning..." reveals, her talents are eventually found out and she is able to achieve her dream by 2019.
- In "That Creeping Feeling", after assessing the staff's stress levels, Alan tries to convince Brittas to give up his dream of making the world a better place through sports, trying to get through to him that it's his pursuit that is leading to so much pain and suffering. He is unsuccessful, as Brittas refuses to consider the idea that his dream is anything other than a good thing.
- How I Met Your Mother: Repeatedly zigzagged.
- The season 4 finale has the gang convince Ted it was time to give up on his dream of being an architect and accept a job offer to be a professor. Ted would later return to being an architect.
- Marshal considered giving up on his dream of being an environmental lawyer when he started getting comfortable at his corporate job. He ultimately decided to keep following his dream.
- You're the Worst: At the end of Season 3, Dorothy ultimately gives up on her dreams of becoming a successful comedy actress after nearly a decade of working the circuit and Waiting for a Break only to have nothing to show for her efforts. She even outright says, "Not everyone gets their dream."
Music
- In the Gladys Knight song "Midnight Train to Georgia", a man had moved to California to try to make it big in show business. Having failed, he is taking the titular train back to his old home. The narrator is his girlfriend, whom he met in California and who is following him back to Georgia.
- Harry Chapin often has this as a theme to his work.
- In "W.O.L.D", the narrator is a radio DJ calling his ex-wife, looking to see if he can try to make amends and start over with her, only to be told that she's found someone else. "Okay honey, I see. I guess he's better than me. Sure, old girl, I understand. You don't have to worry, I'm such a happy man."
- "Taxi" has a man reunite with his old flame while he's working as a taxi driver. She wanted to be an actress, and he wanted to learn to be a pilot and fly. Neither of them achieved their dreams, "And here, she's acting happy, inside her handsome home. And me, I'm flying in my Taxi, making tips, and getting stoned."
- "Dreams Go By" has a narrator and the love of his life frequently abandoning dreams as the circumstances of their life change, but unlike other works of Chapin, they are fine with it as they grow old together, and have a large family with kids and eventually grandkids to dote on.
- "Mr. Tanner" is a cleaner from Dayton who sings while he cleans and at local talent shows and is eventually convinced to try it professionally. After putting most of his savings into arranging a concert in New York, the critics come back with less than flattering reviews that say "full-time consideration of another endeavor might be in order". In other words, "Don't quit the day job." He returns to Dayton, avoids answering his friends' questions about what happened and never sings except when no one else can hear him.
- Lee Greenwood has a zigzagged version in his song "Dixie Road". He opens talking about how he would play guitar and a girl he liked would sing, but she gave him up because she knew he would be a star and didn't want to hold him back. She stated that they couldn't share a world of "different dreams". He made it as a star, but he notes that another man made her dream come true. And he admits that he scans the crowds looking for "a girl who's just not there" because she's happy in the life she has, while he achieved one dream, but decides he chose the wrong one in the end.
- Franco De Vita has an example in "Louis", a song about a taxi driver that dreams to be a singer but, despite composing some songs, he realizes that he is becoming old and he would not had the opportunity to leave his job and become a singer, despite that, he still daydreams with an opportunity to reach the scenario.
Theatre
- Les Misérables:
- "I Dreamed a Dream" Is Fantine's lament about the state of her life, thinking back on the hopes she used to have before her lover left, leaving her with a young daughter to take care of, a dream she was still clinging to before admitting it's not going to happen.
- "A Heart Full of Love": After bringing Marius to Jean Valjean's home to meet Cosette, Éponine comes to the realization that her feelings for him will always be unrequited, "He never saw me there," especially now that he's found Love at First Sight with a girl who returns those feelings.
Toys
- Tamagotchi: Kiraritchi's Monster Carnival counterpart, Giveuptchi, is said to have given up on her dreams of becoming an Idol Singer, thus turning her into a monster and giving her the motivation to attempt to convince others on giving up on their dreams as well.
Video Games
- Date Everything!: Numerous Dateables in the game have some sort of dream they wish to accomplish: Keyes the piano wants to produce a concerto, for example, while Stella the staircase wants to be a business entrepreneur, and Stepford the trophy wishes to actually win an award instead of just being given to other people. Each time, the player character has the option to support them or try to shut it down. Choosing the latter will cause a Hate ending with them.
- Dynasty Warriors: In his story mode for the 5th entry in the series, Zuo Ci allies himself with Liu Bei as he believes he's The Chosen One to reunite China. His hopes would be dashed after Liu Bei succumbed to illness after the battle of Yiling and his son and successor, Liu Chan, proved to lack the talent his father had. While there was a Hope Spot that the capable Zhuge Liang would act as Liu Chan's prime minister, Zuo Ci foresaw that he would not live very long. Thus at the end of his story, Zuo Ci would depart from the land, regrettably seeing that his efforts had gone to waste.
- Fallout 3: One of the longest quests in the game is helping Moira Brown complete her Wasteland Survival Guide by scouting locations, retrieving items, and experiencing injuries, so that she can document them in a book. Or with a speech check, you can convince her to let the dream go and focus on trading supplies. Doing this will permanently dampen her chipper personality and net you negative karma and the Dream Crusher perk.
- Final Fantasy VII: Cid Highwind always wanted to go to space, and the Shinra Electric Company was initially willing to help him achieve that by making him the pilot of what would have been the Planet's first-ever manned space flight. On the day of the rocket's launch, however, Cid noticed his assistant, Shera, making last-minute checks to ensure the rocket's structural integrity. With mere seconds to ignition, Cid was faced with an unenviable choice: allow the launch to proceed and let Shera die, or abort the launch to save Shera's life. Cid ultimately chooses to abort the launch. The prohibitive costs of maintaining the rocket leads to Shinra shuttering their space program, killing Cid's dreams and turning him from an optimistic stargazer into a bitter, jaded man.
- Loan Shark: The Captain offers to protect you from Cagliuso and his giant shark accomplice, but in order to get his protection, you must agree to give up on your dreams of wealth and self-employment and find a job to do work instead.
- Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire: In the remakes, when you get to Pacifidlog Town you meet a man who tells you that he once had a dream to go to Unova and become a famous baseball pitcher. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make his dream a reality, and before he knew it he was in his fifties with a family. He decides that for their sake, it's time for him to wake up from his dream.
- Sister Ray: In the ending where you kick the addiction and join the kidnapper's gang, Ray will not only give up on the dream of becoming an artist (as she earns a lot more money as a criminal), but also insult it.
- On a Dark Side run of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords an Exile can cause the Disciple, a failed initiate turned into an ardent student of Jedi history and lore to give up on the Force entirely. Unlike most of the corrupted party members, he does not choose violence and destruction, but instead becomes the competent if ruthless Senator of a Mid Rim world and never touches the Force again.
Web Animation
- The Amazing Digital Circus: During her Instructional Film in "Fast Food Masquerade", Gangle projects her past struggles with being stuck in a Dead-End Job as a fast food shift manager instead of pursuing her dream of launching an Animesque web comic before getting trapped in the circus, all on the grounds that "[dreams] are completely unrealistic, and you need to stop trying".
Webcomics
- Dominic Deegan: During the "Snowsong" arc, Dominic disguises Gregory to hide him from Snowsong for a while. Greg, realizing he effectively has a Secret Identity, decides to try Living Out a Childhood Dream of being a superhero, drawing upon his comics from when he was a kid. He gives it up at the end of the arc after seeing how much trouble acting it out brought and realizing that wasn't the person he wanted to be anymore.
- The Order of the Stick: At his mother's remarriage to his father post-victory over Xykon
, Elan realizes that none of it is real (since it involves a lot of Character Derailment) and all of them are still in an illusionist's Lotus-Eater Machine.
Web Original
- The Onion once ran a piece called "Day Job Officially Becomes Job", in which a dishwasher at a restaurant who had dreams of being an underground web cartoonist realizes that he's kidding himself and that he's really just a dishwasher at a restaurant.
- Protectors of the Plot Continuum: Mitsuki, mother of Agent Kaguya, received modelling training in France and would have become a model had she not decided to marry and have a son. For this reason, Kaguya plans to accomplish her dream for her and become a model in her place.
Western Animation
- Bob's Burgers:
- Played for Laughs in one episode, where Gene despondently proclaims how he'll "never be the Royal Baby!"
- Played more seriously in "Itty Bitty Ditty Committee" - Gene, Tina and Louise start a band along with Daryl, Rudy and Peter from school, only for the Belcher kids to get kicked out since the other three don't think they put enough work in. While Tina and Louise don't care that much, Gene is absolutely crushed, feeling that he can't measure up, especially not to Daryl who can both sing and play music, and doesn't have the discipline and focus needed to seriously improve. He strongly considers just giving up music entirerly, and even tells Tina and Louise to get rid of his beloved keyboard, but they (accurately) figure he's just going through a rough patch, and he snaps out of it by the end.
- The Fairly OddParents!: Timmy and his dad are cleaning out the attic when Timmy comes across a tiny box atop his mother's giant "Hope" chest. He asks his dad what the box is for, and Timmy's dad responds that it's his tiny box of dreams. When Timmy accidentally drops the box and it shatters, he apologizes, however his dad responds that "My dreams were shattered years ago". Timmy then asks how many years ago, to which his dad responds, "How old are you?"
- Home Movies: In the series finale "Focus Grill", Brendon realizes his home movies are poorly made (this was already building up in the previous episode when he, Melissa and Jason started to lose their interest in making them) and he gives up on his dream of becoming a famous filmmaker. At the end of the episode, to hammer this in further, his video camera falls out of the car and breaks into pieces to symbolize this broken dream.
- Mission Hill: In "Andy Gets A Promotion", Andy's dream of becoming a cartoonist seems to be going nowhere, and after being rejected for the umptenth time (the Last Straw came when his back-up magazine, Cat Fancier, called him up, only to find out they were just trying to sell him a subscription) he decides to accept the promotion he'd recently been offered at his Soul-Sucking Retail Job. He gets paid better, his boss Ron no longer hates him and he actually does pretty well at the job... at the cost of slowly becoming the exact kind of sleazebag Ron is. Andy is finally faced with a hard choice when he and Ron get an opportunity to invest in a strip club, which has a strong chance of setting them both up for life, but would pretty much lock Andy out of his dream for good. Andy decides to resume chasing his dream, and a good thing too, as two episodes later, Ron is arrested for tax evasion, and his store is seized by the government.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has Scootaloo's inability to fly. Though it's been a long-time coming that she simply can't, with the implication being a Dream-Crushing Handicap due to her wings being too small, she finally breaks down in "The Washouts" and snaps at Rainbow Dash for pushing her to be like her and Spitfire, yelling that while she can't fly she can still be awesome and do the dangerous stunts the titular organization expects of her. Though she quits The Washouts in the end because they are simply too dangerous and makes up with Rainbow Dash in the end, the acceptance that she can't fly and that's okay sticks.
Scootaloo: Just because I look up to you doesn't mean I have to be you! But based on your definition of what makes somepony great, I have bad news. I'll never be the best of the best or a Wonderbolt! Because I! Can't! Fly! Is that what you wanted to hear? But not being able to fly doesn't mean I can't do something awesome!
- The Owl House: Luz Noceda wanted to stay in the Boiling Isles to learn magic and make friends with people who acknowledged that; however, this dream clashed with her desire to return to Camila, her mother, in the human world. Unfortunately, the events of season 2 left her traumatized and feeling guilty, not only because her friends were trapped in the human world but also because Belos' manipulations made her think it was her fault he had almost exterminated all life in the Boiling Isles. Because of all that, she decided she would help her friends return home and stay in the human world for good. In “For the Future”, Camila said to Luz that everyone makes mistakes and that she had wronged Luz for trying to make her fit in instead of supporting her; in that moment, Luz realized that her real dream was to be understood. That realization brought her palisman, Stringbean, to life; by another turn, with the definitive death of the Titan, all glyphs disappeared, and Luz could no longer make magic. On the good side, the Collector created a door between the two worlds, so Luz can see her friends anytime she wants.
- The Simpsons:
- "And Maggie Makes Three" reveals that Homer Simpson used to work at a bowling alley, and enjoyed it, but then when his wife Marge got pregnant with their third child, Maggie, he had to go back to work at the nuclear power plant because it paid more, and accept that he would never get to work in the bowling alley again. Mr. Burns put up a sign that said, "Don't forget, you're here forever", but Homer covered it in photos of Maggie so that it appeared to read, "Do it for her" instead.
- In "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge" Marge tells Fat Tony about all the legitimate things he could do, and Fat Tony responds that she's listing all his broken dreams.
- Frequently invoked in reference to Marge, who gave up dreams such as ballet, painting, and, according to some episodes, college in order to become a housewife. "The Way We Was" depicts Marge as a feminist activist in high school.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: Played for Laughs in "One Krabs' Trash" where Mr. Krabs sees Squidward Tentacles has laid a tombstone for his dead hopes and dreams.
Krabs: What a baby.note
