Shadow the Hedgehog: I will release you from the chains of your past!
Silver the Hedgehog: I will protect the future!
Sonic the Hedgehog: The present day... the here and now that you've stolen... time to take it back!
Silver the Hedgehog: I will protect the future!
Sonic the Hedgehog: The present day... the here and now that you've stolen... time to take it back!
A Sub-Trope of Power Trio, this is when an ensemble of three characters represents a dynamic of three different time periods: the past, the present, and the future.
Past: Represents what was or what has been. If age is a factor, is usually the oldest (representing someone/something whose prime is in the past). Positive traits associated with the archetype include wisdom and prudence (their experience usually leads to them not being rash). Negative traits usually associated with the archetype are usually focused around cynicism and laziness (a negative aspect of their experience). Corresponds to Crone in The Hecate Sisters, Wife in The Three Faces of Eve, Prophet in The Three Faces of Adam, Elder in Three Successful Generations and Knave in Knight, Knave, and Squire.
Present: Represents what is. If age is a factor, will likely be in-between (representing someone/something that lies between the past and future). Positive traits usually associated with the archetype include liveliness and adaptability (to represent the present's ever-changing nature). Negative traits usually associated with the archetype are usually focused around capriciousness and/or short-sightedness (i.e. rarely thinking beyond the present). Corresponds to Mother in The Hecate Sisters, Seductress in The Three Faces of Eve (representing the liveliness and beauty of the present), Lord in The Three Faces of Adam, Adult in Three Successful Generations, and Knight in Knight, Knave, and Squire.
Future: Represents what will be or what could be. If age is a factor, will likely be the youngest of the three (representing someone/something that will reach their/its prime in the future). Positive traits usually associated with the archetype include optimism and industriousness (to contrast the past's cynicism and laziness). Negative traits associated with the archetype include recklessness and impatience. Corresponds to Maiden in The Hecate Sisters, Child in The Three Faces of Eve (representing the optimism and naivety of youth) Hunter in The Three Faces of Adam, Youth in Three Successful Generations, and Squire in Knight, Knave, and Squire.
Sometimes, the roles of Past and Future may be switched with each other, with Past now representing the past times when someone/something was still young/new, while the Future represents what will happen in someone's/something's future. If this happens, the traits and associations also get switched.
Heavily overlaps with Yet Another Christmas Carol, since the original novel by Charles Dickens, as well as numerous adaptations, has this dynamic with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet To Come.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ah! My Goddess: Belldandy, Urd, and Skuld are Norns, representing the three aspects of time. Urd's realm is the past, and as such when cut off from Ygdrassil she reverts to childhood but is otherwise the eldest. Belldandy is the present, always living in the moment, often not fretting about the past or anxious about the future. Skuld represents the future and is obsessed with gadgets and technology, and when cut off from Ygdrassil she becomes a young woman, instead of the Bratty Half-Pint she usually is. This even applies to what happens to them when they lose or use too much of their powers: Urd physically changes into a child who modern society deems to be too young to drink up the alcohol she needs to recharge her powers faster, Skuld grows up from a child into her early 20's (and finds adult life to be strange to adjust to) and eventually transforms back into a child when her powers come back. Belldandy merely changes into Sleep-Mode Size as she takes a nap to recharge.
- Invoked in Code Geass, where Lelouch explains that unlike his father Charles, who sought the past and tried to force humanity through an Assimilation Plot, or his half-brother Schneizel, who sought to keep the world in a constant state of meaningless present with the Damocles, he will seek the future. By planning a Genghis Gambit that will end in his death and give the world a chance to move on.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016) has the Hero's Shade (an undead champion of Hyrule who already understands the tribulations and harsh realities of the Eternal Recurrence), Link (the current incarnation of the hero who struggles with his identity and the expectations placed on him), and Ganondorf, (an Enlightened Antagonist who sets out to finally end the constant war between himself and Hyrule on his own terms).
Comic Books
- The main characters of Mampato are Mampato, a time-traveling boy from the then-present 20th century, Ogu, a caveman from Hollywood Prehistory and Rena, a girl from the 40th century.
- Paperinik New Adventures: The series has this present in the Power Trio protagonists in the issues "Urk" and "Absolute Zero". Urk, a warrior from an Alternate Universe that, while highly advanced, still carries a tribal warrior aesthetic, represents the Past. The Duck Avenger (i.e. Donald Duck), an everyman-turned-superhero from modern day Duckburg represents the Present. Lyla Lay, an android cop from the 23rd century, represents the Future.
Fanfics
- Oversaturated World: As "Huginn Kisses, by Masterweaver and FoME" implies, there's a version of the three Norns as three important characters. They deal with, and are seers of, the past, present, and future, and their identities are: the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle.
- Story Shuffle 2: Double Masters: The "The Hecate Sisters" concept is referenced in Adagio's musings in "Paparazzoid"
, connecting it to beginnings, middles, and ends:
the sirens often found themselves claiming parts in many things the same way they knew their places in harmonies. Just as she took the high notes, Sonata lived for the starts of things, the first burst of novelty before she grew bored again and sought out the next hit. Aria kept to the lower registers and looked forward to the ends of things, harvesting the fruit of their labors that meant she could stop having to put in effort and, worse for her, listen to Adagio.
Adagio knew the triple-goddess archetype predated them in this world, but sometimes she wondered just how much they'd reinforced it over the years.
Literature
- A Christmas Carol: Three ghosts visit Scrooge after a visit by his late business associate Jacob Marley. They include:
- The Ghost of Christmas Past, who shows Scrooge his Dark and Troubled Past, and what kind of man he used to be before becoming the Hated by All miser he is in the present. It is constantly flickering and its visage constantly changes as it does so to represent how Scrooge's past is but a fuzzy, unclear memory to him. However, it also has a bright light that Scrooge can never snuff out (in fact it gets brighter the harder he tries to do so), alluding to the fact that he can never truly forget his past nor deny the role it has in making the person he is today.
- The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge what he is currently (i.e. presently) missing out on, the joyful, merry Christmas parties of both Bob Cratchit (his underpaid, overworked employee) and Fred (his nephew). He represents the joyful, merry Christmas atmosphere that the story is set around, but he also throws back Scrooge's earlier mean-spirited comments about poor people in his face with regards to Scrooge's sympathy to the two spectral, malnourished-looking children clinging to his robes, Ignorance and Want. He represents how lonely Scrooge is beneath his miserly personality, and how selfish he is to dismiss issues (represented by Ignorance and Want) that his wealth could have helped lessen.
- The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows Scrooge the Bad Future that will take place if he does not change his miserly ways — one where he dies unmourned, his employees waste no time pawning his possessions as soon as he dies, his business partners wisecrack at his expense and only caring about his funeral if something is in it for them (in this case, lunch), and his grave overgrown and neglected. He appears as an indistinct, shadowy black-clad figure resembling The Grim Reaper, as an allusion to how the future is still uncertain, but also the only certainty of the future, death.
- The Green Man's Heir Chapter 26 has a trio of Really 700 Years Old shapeshifters appear as Maiden, Mother and Crone, to reflect their relationships to each other.
- The History of Bees has three point-of-view characters. William lives in the 19th century when beekeeping was in its infancy; George lives in 2007 (8 years before the book was published) when beekeeping is an established industry; and Tao lives in 2098 when bees will be extinct.
- "Lukundoo": The explorer Stone mistakes the three men at his deathbed for spirits representing his life in three sections. Singleton is a childhood friend of his and therefore represents the past. Etcham is his current right-hand man and as far as Stone knows still away looking for help. He represents the present. Stone does not know Van Rieten and as he stands by him with his black beard and a razor in hand, he resembles a psychopomp. He represents the future. This final association becomes an applicable blessing when Stone is informed that the three men are not spirits and the unknown man is introduced to him as Van Rieten. Stone knows of his work as explorer and is elated that in his final moments he can pass on his own work to Van Rieten to make the most of.
Live-Action TV
- Charmed (1998): "The Three Faces of Phoebe": When Phoebe casts a spell to decide if she should marry Cole, this manifests in summoning her childhood self (past) and her elderly self (future).
- Doctor Who:
- This dynamic can be seen during the Eleventh Doctor's Team TARDIS trio. Amy Pond is the past, characterized as "The Girl Who Waited" and always clings on to the memory from her childhood of her imaginary friend (The Doctor) who came back years later. The Doctor is the present and always concerned with having fun in the here and now, with little care about what is behind him or what awaits him. Rory Williams is the future, seeking to settle down for a life with Amy, best seen when he was turned into an auton and waited 2000 years guarding a Not Quite Dead Amy in the Pandorica before she could be revived.
- "The Day of the Doctor": This dynamic is seen with the three Doctors. The Tenth Doctor is "the man who regrets" being a Broken Ace burdened by Survivors Guilt and full of loathing. The War Doctor is the present who has not yet done the act of destroying Gallifrey that would change his lives forever and still weighing upon whether he should go through with it. While the now older Eleventh Doctor has become the future, having become "the man who forgets" as a coping mechanism for all the grief he has experienced and has moved on from the act that haunted Ten and instead prioritized the impending end of his journey.
- The Grand Tour: "Past, present or future": Clarkson, May, and Hammond take three different supercars with three different powertrain layouts that represent this dynamic; Clarkson represents the past with his Lamborghini Aventador and its massive 6.5 liter V12 internal combustion engine, May represents the Present with his Acura/Honda NSX (second-generation) with a hybrid engine, while Hammond represents the future with his Rimac Concept One battery-electric vehicle. For bonus points, like the cars they drive in this episode, the ages of the hosts themselves fit the dynamic, with Clarkson being the oldest, May in-between, and Hammond the youngest.
Music
- Ploho, a Russian post-punk band, has a variant of this trope in the music video for "Горький опыт" ("Bitter Experience") takes place in a minibus that represents a man's life through three passengers being him as a child, as a teen, and as an adult. The Cheerful Child plays with friends and lives with his mother, but the teen gets robbed at work and falls in and out of love, which is likely why the adult looks so gloomy. At the video's end, the teen watches his girlfriend leave the bus, then the child invites him to play. The teen concedes, but not before sharing a brief look with the adult, who doesn't follow them. The man notices that he's bleeding from the torso and tells the bus driver that he wants to get off. The bus doesn't stop, symbolising his life moving on despite him wanting it to end.
Mythology & Religion
- Classical Mythology: The Fates are three goddesses named Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos with three complementary roles. There's one who unwinds the thread (Birth), one who measures its length (Life), and one who cuts it (Death), which represents, respectively, the Past, Present, and Future (the moment of someone's birth in the past, someone's current life, and someone's death as the inevitable future).
- Norse Mythology: The three Norns who control fate (or "wyrd") are Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld. By analogy with the Greek Fates, they're often portrayed as Urðr representing the past, Verðandi the present, and Skuld the future, but it's not clear that this is the case in the original myths.
Professional Wrestling
- This was the organizing principle behind Evolution, a power stable representing "the past, present and future" of professional wrestling. The legend Ric Flair was "the past", Triple H was "the present", and the up-and-coming Randy Orton and Dave Batista were "the future".
Video Games
- Day of the Tentacle: Time travel sends Hoagie to 1793 and Laverne to 2193 while Bernard stays in 1993. The three of them interact with each other by sending items through time to each other to change the timeline and prevent a Bad Future under the rule of the maniacal Purple Tentacle.
- The Elder Scrolls: The Tribunal, a formerly mortal Dunmeri (Dark-Elven) trio of Physical Gods, each represents one of the temporal aspects (in addition to others, including the Combat, Magic, Trickery Trio, Freudian Trio, and Masculine, Feminine, Androgyne Trio). Almalexia, the "Healing Mother" and wife to Saint Nerevar, is the "past". She clings most to the old ways of the ancient Chimer (ancestors of the Dunmer) as well as to her waning godhood (even willing to kill the other Tribunes and the Nerevarine in Morrowind's Tribunal expansion), taking the appearance of a gold-skinned Chimer as they were before they were cursed into the ashen-skinned Dunmer. Vivec is the "present", the Tribune still most active in mortal affairs (including the main quest of Morrowind), can downplay or play-up up his godhood as fits the situation, and represents the transition from the Chimer to modern Dunmer, with his appearance split right down the middle between Chimer gold and Dunmer gray. Sotha Sil is the "future", a Science Wizard builder of Magitek Schizo Tech (including "clockwork" computers in an otherwise Standard Fantasy Setting) who takes the full appearance of a modern Dunmer (though with cybernetic components grafted in) who wielded his godhood lightly and focused on stabilizing the universe as an expert in Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses: The three Lords represent the past (Dimitri), the present (Claude), and the future (Edelgard). Dimitri is driven by a tragedy from his past in which he witnessed the murder of his father, his stepmother, and countless others that shook him deeply. This manifests itself in an intense (and self-destructive) desire for revenge that is the crux of his character, and only pulls out of it should Byleth choose his side. Claude seeks to unite the continent of Fódlan under one banner, opening its borders to the neighboring countries (One of which he happens to actually hail from) and ushering in an era of peace. Edelgard has similar designs as Claude, however her motivation lies in the horrific crest experiments she underwent as a child that not only greatly reduced her lifespan, but also took all her siblings from her. Despite that, Edelgard firmly looks towards the future of the continent and only dreams of a reality where nobility is earned rather than given (in the form of a Crest that manifests itself when a person is born) and the events she experienced as a child are never repeated. Unfortunately for Fódlan, this means a continent-wide war that spans years that she personally starts.
- God of War Ragnarök: The Norns are a group of three Goddesses of Fate in the Nine Realms associated with time. Skuld is the energetic, flighty and childlike representative of the Future dynamic, Verðandi represents the Present by her stately, self-possessed personality, and the wise Urð represents the Past. This fits thematically, too, as scholars have interpreted their roles in Norse mythology prophecies as, respectively, What Will Be, What Is, and What Has Been. This is also seen in how they interact with Kratos' group when they arrive; Skuld says what they're saying as it's happening, as if she knew what they were going to say beforehand, Verðandi narrates their actions as they happen, and Urð, having seen it all before, refers to them as archetypes doomed to make the same poor decisions over and over again.
- Honkai Impact 3rd: As part of the game's Part 1 finale, the protagonist trio Mei, Bronya and Kiana come to represent the pastnote , presentnote and the futurenote as Herrschers of Origin, Truth and Finality respectively.
- Honkai: Star Rail: Late in the Penacony storyline, you encounter the Past, Present and Eternal Show, a troupe of three robots from the Sweet Dreams troupe that have fallen under the Order's influence, and are endlessly performing odes to Penacony's past as a prison, present as a galactic haven of hedonism, and intended future under the Order as a land free of free will, and thus free of suffering.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have a downplayed example with the box legendaries. Koraidon is the Paradox Pokémon of the Past, having a scaly body with feathers akin to a velociraptor, while Miraidon is the Paradox Pokémon of the Future, having a very rubbery body with an electric interior. Their present counterpart is said to be Cyclizar, but Cyclizar is neither a Paradox Pokémon nor a legendary, and is generally not considered part of a trio according to the game.
- Shin Megami Tensei IV: The three kings who are all different versions of a man named Akira.
- King Aquila represents the past, having lived a millennium and a half ago. His legacy includes the Samurai Order, Mikado Castle, and it's implied he brought relatively advanced technology from Tokyo.
- King Akira of Infernal Tokyo represents the present. His plans to improve his city begin immediately and mostly depend on resources that are there but mismanaged. Unlike below, it's possible to walk around the city and see its citizens talk about what he's done.
- Akira of Blasted Tokyo represents the future. As soon as Pluto is gone and no longer poisoning the land and his people, he declares his vast ambitions to rebuild Tokyo from the desert, by harnessing the power of demons who will enter his land.
- In Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Shadow, Sonic, and, Silver represent the past, present, and future respectively.
- Shadow was haunted by his dark past in his debut. In the end, he overcomes this and decides to protect the world. He spends the game investigating the past of Mephiles, the Big Bad of the game, and ultimately convinces Silver to do the same.
- Sonic enjoys being free and living in the moment. He doesn't dwell much on the past or worry about the future.
- Silver comes from an apocalyptic future and seeks to change it. He is manipulated by Mephiles into believing Sonic is the cause of the future's ruined state. Silver eventually figures out Mephiles' lie and fights alongside Sonic to save the world.
- Splatoon 3: The final Splatfest revolves around which is more important, the Past, Present, or Future. Rather than having each member of Deep Cut representing one team, the other idol groups from the previous games partake in it and represent their own teams, each with their own reasons; the Squid Sisters represent Past as their fond memories shape them to who they are, Off the Hook represent Present, as they enjoy every moment they're spending right now, while Deep Cut represents the Future, where they always ancitipate of what's to come.
- In the first three mainline Xenoblade Chronicles games, the Big Bads for each game fit this trope thematically, likewise for the heroes opposing them.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 1: Zanza, the god of the Bionis, represents the Future — he has the power to see the future by reading the ether, and is able to shape it due to the Monado. He is also adamant that fate be written as he decrees, manipulating events and people towards that end, and he's willing to sacrifice everyone else in the process. Meanwhile, Shulk (who has his own limited view into the future) and his allies fight so that everyone can forge their own destiny without it being dictated by any would-be gods.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Amalthus, the Praetor of Indol and original Driver of Malos, represents the Past — after his own troubled past where he viewed the flaws of the people of Alrest first-hand, and unable to believe that anyone could truly change from who they were, he concludes that everyone deserves to die, viewing himself as the Architect's divine instrument of death. His actions either directly or indirectly shape the state of Alrest and the people living in it, including other antagonists such as Malos and Jin. In contrast, Rex tries to help his friends face their traumas to begin healing while learning from the mistakes of the past to avoid repeating them himself.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Z, the leader of Moebius, represents the Present — he is obsessed with preserving the present by trapping the inhabitants of Aionios in a Forever War in order to harvest their life energy to fuel a perpetual loop that he refers to as "the Endless Now". This is because he is an Anthropomorphic Personification of peoples' fear of the uncertain future, the dread of losing what they have now with no guarantee that what comes next will be better, formed when two worlds faced possible annihilation. The protagonists, the Ouroboros, wish to break themselves and all of Aionios free of this pointless cycle and allow the present to finally change and move forward.
Web Animation
- Parodied in the Red vs. Blue episode "Make Your Time": Donut writes and directs a play to explain the time-travel situation to Tucker and has other characters play the past present, and future:
Simmons: Hello weary traveler, we represent the timeline.
Sarge: I am the past, where things cost less, and people knew the value of a hard day's work. But they only lived to be twenty-eight years old.
Simmons: And I am the future, where people have no morals and no emotions but we have a bunch of kickass gadgets.
Grif: And I'm the present, which sucks. We have nothing cool, and also no morals.
Webcomics
- Nixvir has the Fates, the World Oak's version of...guess who. Their job is to regulate the destinies of everyone in the multiverse, even the gods. They rarely intervene, but when they do, it's only to ensure that everything stays on the right track. Justified, as without them regulating things, even more chaos would happen, such as Alternate Timelines et cetera. However, good and evil are concepts which they feel themselves superior to, as shown when they resurrect Erik, not through any sense of compassion but because it's not his fated time to die.
Web Video
- Dimension 20: Season 2 of The Unsleeping City has this dynamic with Yga Lisowski, Kingston Brown, and Pete Conlan. Yga represents the past, with her treasure chest containing ancient magic that powers her warlock spells and eventually grants her a sorcerous bloodline; obtaining and destroying the chest is a primary goal for Null, the Big Bad of the season, as doing so would obliterate New York City's past. Kingston represents the Present, being the Vox Populi of New York City and therefore the power of all people currently living within it. Pete, the Vox Phantasma, represents the Future, specifically the power that dreams can have to shape it.
- The Nostalgia Critic: In the review of Scooby-Doo (2002), and just before actually getting to the film, Critic is abruptly met with time portals connecting him to his younger and older selves, the former a teenager excited to watch the Scooby-Doo movie for the first time, the latter an old man with memory problems who's forgotten all about it. As they figure out the temporal anomaly, they pass the time by reviewing the film together, balancing their critiques of an eager fan, a measured film critic aware of the franchise's history, and someone trying to make basic sense of the film's plot, characters, and overall logic.
Western Animation
- Bionic Six: "Triple Cross": The present-day Doc Scarab teams up with his past and future selves to menace the heroes.
- Danny Phantom: The time keeper Clockwork constantly switches between the forms of a child, an adult, and an old man.
- Monster High: Monster High Haunted: The Hall Moanitors at the Haunted High are based on the ghosts from A Christmas Carol, and are aptly named after each aspect of time: Past collects records of student activity, Present carries out the sentencing, and Future can see the crime before it happens.
- My Little Pony: Best Gift Ever: The Gift-Givers of the Grove are a trio of magical reindeer who give cryptic advice to visitors. Aurora is elderly and sees into the past, Bori is middle-aged and lives in the present, and Alice is young and can see the future.
- Steven Universe:
- Pearl, Amethyst and Garnet possess this dynamic: Though she's getting better about it, Pearl frequently has to deal with baggage from the past, especially since she's not quite over losing her beloved Rose Quartz; Amethyst's strongest quality as lampshaded throughout the series is being able to live in the moment and focus on the present; Garnet is a stoic and focused individual with the ability to see the future and uses that ability to the team's advantage.
- The remaining members of the Great Diamond Authority also have this dynamic. Blue Diamond is the Past: she's been in deep mourning over the loss of her "sister" Pink Diamond for millennia and has yet to move on from her grief because she spends all of her time reliving history. White Diamond is the Present: since she's utterly convinced of her own perfection, she never thinks about the past or worries about the future, living perpetually in the moment (as evidenced by the fact that those she assimilates into herself "wake up" as if no time has passed once they're freed). Yellow Diamond is the Future: she copes with the pain of losing Pink by constantly looking ahead and dreaming of a glorious future for the Gem Empire, dismissing Blue's constant grieving as a waste of time and even actively trying to destroy every trace of the past.