History Main / TheOneWhoMadeItOut

** Franklin Clinton's goal in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' is to be one of these. He wishes to escape his impoverished, violent neighborhood of Chamberlain Hills not because he's an honest man, but because the local gangs have no prospects compared to more experienced and hardened criminals like Michael DeSanta and Trevor Philips. Via successful robberies and assassinations, he quickly makes a name for himself and buys a mansion in Vinewood Hills, but pretty much all of his old acquaintances from the hood (including his aunt and ex-girlfriend, the latter of whom became this trope by marrying well) castigate him for forgetting his roots when they're not accusing him of being a male prostitute. [[spoiler: In Ending C, Franklin settles into an upper-class lifestyle, but still demonstrates his loyalty to his friends from the ghetto.]]

* ''Series/AfterschoolSpecial'': Subverted in "15 and Getting Straight," a 1989 "ABC Afterschool Special" starring Creator/DrewBarrymore, Corey Feldman and David Birney about junkies in a 12-step drug counseling program. A teen named Rick seems to have made tremendous progress and is mentoring some of the other teens who are in denial about their problem. The subversion is played as irony ... in the end, the lead counselor (Birney) comes in one day and announces to the group that Rick had overdosed on a new drug. Rick had run into some old friends and was trying to tell them to go away, but they persisted in getting him to try the drug and immediately had a seizure. The counselor – himself an ex-drug user – tells the group "I would have bet money" on Rick's future success in staying straight; instead, Rick is dead ... and – in playing the trope straight and part of this episode's irony – [[WhereAreTheyNow all of the other teenagers who had been in denial are successful in their resolve to stay straight]].

* Season 4 of ''Series/TheWire'' introduces a group of children from West Baltimore's projects and rowhouses. Each friend follows a different path and Namond Brice, the son of a reputed drug soldier, is the only kid able to escape the doomed background of a troubled childhood, a dysfunctional family -at best- and the notion that crime is the only way to earn a living. Sadly, it only happens thanks to a remarkable, extremely unusual and unique adoptive parent, Howard Colvin, a former cop who identifies Namond's potential.

* Since ComicBook/{{Luke Cage|HeroForHire}} became a globally prominent superhero, some characters have occasionally accused him of forgetting his roots as a hero of the downtrodden in New York City. [[BerserkButton He doesn't take it very kindly]], especially not when a young upstart uses this to justify taking up Luke's abandoned "Power Man" codename.

* ''VideoGame/NightInTheWoods'' has this as a theme, as it’s centered on a small DyingTown. Protagonist Mae is the first in her family and friend circle to go to college, but drops out and returns home after a mental breakdown. Another friend, Casey, has gone missing and they think he's hopped on a freight train. Gregg recounts a story from his childhood about [[spoiler: how he accidentally let loose his uncle’s sheep and how nearly all of them either returned or died. Only one of them escaped to the woods, and Gregg says that he wants to do the same.]]

*** Qi'ra, on the other hand, is a [[SubvertedTrope subversion.]] When she and Han meet for the first time since his escape from Corellia, he asks her how she made it out. She replies "I didn't". It's heavily implied she 'got out' by pledging her services to [[BigBad Dryden Vos]] and is clearly under his command now. She may be better off now than she was in the slums of Corellia, [[GildedCage but she isn't free.]]

* ''VideoGame/NightInTheWoods'' has this as a theme, as it’s centered on a small DyingTown. Gregg recounts a story from his childhood about [[spoiler: how he accidentally let loose his uncle’s sheep and how nearly all of them either returned or died. Only one of them escaped to the woods, and Gregg says that he wants to do the same.]]

* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicII'', the Jedi Exile is the only one of Revan's renegade Jedi who did ''not'' become a Sith. Whether or not that stays the case depends on the player's actions.

* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'', this is a major theme for wardens of the Dwarf Commoner origin. A Dwarf Commoner warden was born into abject poverty as a casteless "untouchable" and was forced to be an enforcer for a petty crime lord before being conscripted into the Grey Wardens, who among dwarves are a highly respected order. When they return to their home city later in the game, several casteless (including their former best friend) will berate them for forgetting how hard life is in the slums there, and the Guardian Spirit in the Temple of Sacred Ashes will ask the player if they feel they failed their friends and family by abandoning them to become a Grey Warden.

* In ''The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian'', the protagonist realizes that if he stays in his American Indian reserve, he'll lose hope and [[HistoryRepeats go nowhere like everyone else in the reservation]]. He is encouraged to go to an off-reserve school (where the education is better than in the reserve) by a teacher who helps him see this.

* "[[{{Music/Evermore2020}} dorothea]]" by Music/TaylorSwift is a LoveNostagliaSong towards the titular woman, who left her small, sleepy hometown to become a famous celebrity. The narrator stayed behind and hasn't seen her in many years, and still carries a torch for her and holds out hope that she'll come back.

* "[[{{Music/Evermore2020 dorothea]]" by Music/TaylorSwift is a LoveNostagliaSong towards the titular woman, who left her small, sleepy hometown to become a famous celebrity. The narrator stayed behind and hasn't seen her in many years, and still carries a torch for her and holds out hope that she'll come back.

But every so often, there's one who makes it out - maybe an incredible talent proved their ticket out of there. Maybe they won their way to a great, faraway college or to a lucrative job... but sometimes they just up and leave. Peers and elders in the town usually admire them for their tenacity, but tend to resent them for leaving if the community isn't as close-knit. Impressionable youngsters, though, might look up to them and get ideas of maybe leaving one day themselves. Expect, for the hero after achieving success to come back home and find out how much or how little is changed, as well as why YouCantGoHomeAgain.

* C. P. Cavafy's famous poem ''[[http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=58&cat=1 The City]]'' deals with someone longing for escape from their surroundings and going out in the big world for adventure but they get so caught up in their yearnings, that they never truly escape where they come from:

* Two examples from ''Film/{{Solo}}''.
** It's played straight with Han Solo. He manages to escape from his crappy life on [[CrapsackWorld Corellia]] and eventually earn his freedom by bribing his way past a check-point (more or less), joining the Imperial Army and then deserting to become a smuggler. He attempted to take his girlfriend Qi'ra with him, but she was unfortunately captured.
** Qi'ra, on the other hand, is a [[SubvertedTrope subversion.]] When she and Han meet for the first time since his escape from Corellia, he asks her how she made it out. She replies "I didn't". It's heavily implied she 'got out' by pledging her services to [[BigBad Dryden Vos]] and is clearly under his command now. She may be better off now than she was in the slums of Corellia, [[GildedCage but she isn't free.]]

* Beka Cooper and her friend Tansy make it out of the slum in ''Literature/ProvostsDog'' in different ways. Beka helps the Lord Provost arrest a gang that threatened his career, so he takes in her family to repay her. Tansy marries Herun Lofts, the NiceGuy son of the richest (and nastiest) man in the Lower City.

-->--'''Stephen Dedalus''', ''Literature/APortraitOfTheArtistAsAYoungMan''.

* Throughout ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'', several chacters -- including the lead Arthur Morgan -- keep suggesting John Marston (The MainCharacter of the [[VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption first game]]) to take his family and leave the outlaw life behind. [[SavedByCanon As the first game tells us]], John eventually does so. Once Arthur [[spoiler:finds out he's [[YourDaysAreLimited slowly dying to tuberculosis]], he chooses to use his remaining time to help John leave]]. He even uses this as a taunt of sorts [[spoiler:as part of his last words]]; an another gang member believes he's made it simply by surviving a single encounter, which slightly offends Arthur.

* One way of interpreting the fate of Molly the pony from ''Literature/AnimalFarm''. While she's the only animal to leave the Farm and voluntarily return to the service of a human, she nevertheless seems happy with her new life and ends up with more luxuries and less work than almost any other animal on the Farm.

** Usnavi wants to leave the Heights and return to his parents' home on a beach in the Dominican Republic, believing the place is changing and with many of his friends leaving, there's not much left for him. At the end after seeing Sunny's beautiful mural of Abuela, he decides to stay and use his lottery money to fix up the coffee shop, get a date with Vanessa, and remember all the stories the customers have to tell as the community changes with the times.