Telling the story of decline

I've been going back and forth on whether or not to post this at all for some time. I don't actually have any specific point to reach, no fact to claim. Between books, movies, TV, and video games, I've noticed a reoccurring trend in storytelling and world building: the use of decline.

Decline might be for the world, magic, civilization, technology, or something else. Or perhaps multiple of these. In The Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time, we see the previous peoples having lived and died, and their works being unmatched. Magic, as Tolkein writes it, is declining, and at the end of the story, with the destruction of the One Ring, magic is all but gone from the world. In Ori and the Blind Forest Hollow Knight. and Kena, we see the world have been previously wonderful, but now corrupted and dead. Similarly in Dishonored, though the player experiences the game before "complete decline". In Dwarf Fortress, civilizations have risen and died many times before the player even starts interacting with their dwarves. In Dead Cells, Rain World, Elden Ring, and the Fallout series, the world is all but destroyed.

In some of these stories, the decline of the world is the primary driving force, whether that's to overcome previous faults or return to paradise. In some, the decline is unsurmountable, and live moves on the best it can. In others, the decline fuels new wonders. Sometimes, characters lament what was before; in others, the past is to be feared and shunned. Sometimes, the loss of what was sets the mood - sad, angry, fearful, or happy.

Like I wrote to open this, I don't really have a point to make here. It's something that I've seen enough to think about sometimes.