Line #18 Main/ThePampas


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/la_nada_misma_4511.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Visit the incredibly diverse Argentina!]]
3	->''El mal que aqueja a la Argentina es la extensión:\
4	el desierto la rodea por todas partes y se le insinúa\
5	en las entrañas; la soledad, el despoblado sin una habitación \
6	humana, son, por lo general, los límites incuestionables entre\
7	unas y otras provincias''[[note]] ''The evil that bothers Argentina is the extension:\
8	the desert surrounds her everywhere and it insinuates itself in the guts; the solitude,\
9	the abandoned without a human's room are, often, the unquestionable border between provinces''[[/note]]
10	-->-- '''Domingo Faustino Sarmiento''', ''"Facundo"''
11
12	The pampas are the UsefulNotes/{{Argentin\|a}}ian quintessential landscape, both in fiction and reality: a ''really'' flat (a perfect horizontal line of nothingness) and ''extremely'' wide (almost 800 kilometers of nothingness from Buenos Aires to the city of Córdoba... and we aren't counting Uruguay or anything to the south of the well-known [[TheCapitalOfBrazilIsBuenosAires Capital of Brazil]]...) endless grassland.
13
14	But actually, this is one of the most developed, fertile and productive lands in all the country, and one of the richest fields all over the world. This land is now ''very'' valuable, as the Argentine economy strongly depends in the soy and cereal crops, and the cattle.
15
16	Historically, the Incan people gave the name "pampa" to any flat land, and by extension all the central region of Argentina, Uruguay and the south of Brazil, and when the Spanish conquistadors came to this lands, named that way too. It was a scarcely inhabited region, mainly by hunters/foragers or fishers of the Guaraní family that dwelled near the rivers. This people welcomed and helped the first founders of Buenos Aires. [[AssInAmbassador But, due the finesse of the Spanish colonizers,]] [[ChasedByAngryNatives that didn't last too long...]]
17
18	After the epic fail of the first foundation, that according to the landsknecht Ulric Schmidl ended [[ImAHumanitarian with unusual gastronomy]] and the foundation of Asunción del Paraguay, the city of Buenos Aires was founded again, and the region slowly gained population. Also, the first colonizers freed many horses and cows in the region, that reproduced insanely fast thanks to the lack of natural predators and the abundance of food (grass); and also, planted many trees near the population centers, hoping to create visible landmarks in an otherwise unremarkable region.
19
20	The pampas later became the home of the first successful [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Revolution revolution against Spain in the Americas]] (there were prior revolutions across the Americas, like the Tupac Amaru's revolt, but they didn't prosper), and became the central point of the South American revolution.
21
22	In fiction, the pampas are a wild and lawless territory, populated by brave {{Gaucho}}s, skillfull and honourable riders and cattle-herders; or fearsome {{bandito}}s, malevos (depending on the author) and [[TheSavageIndian murderous Indians]]. This perhaps was partly TruthInTelevision in the past, but today the pampas are mostly vast farmlands owned by the argentine [[CattleBaron oligarchy]], highly man-modified, and interrupted by huge cities like Buenos Aires and Rosario, and medium towns like Paraná and La Plata in Argentina. Uruguay, on the other hand, is entirely part of this region, with many characteristics (geographical and cultural, economical and historical) shared with Argentina.
23
24	This trope is for sure OlderThanRadio, and most probably OlderThanSteam, as the origins of the name date from the Incaic empire, and it was (sort of) present in the conquest chronicles (like the works of Ulrich Schmidl) and early poetry. As a side note, in many early works, as the '''Facundo''', "the pampas" were more generically called ''"el desierto"'' (The Desert). But "pampas" is more widely recognized as the Argentine "desert" -not in the sandy, hot and dry meaning, but the not-a-fucking-soul one-, as even one province [[note]]according to many people the most depressive place in the world[[/note]] is called "La Pampa".
25
26	This trope is very, ''very'' common in the ArgentineLiterature, and shared by many works depicting the South Cone countries. Compare to TheSavageSouth; contrasts with LatinLand and the {{Mayincatec}} conceptions of UsefulNotes/LatinAmerica and misconceptions like TheCapitalOfBrazilIsBuenosAires.
27
28	!!Examples of this trope:
29
30	[[foldercontrol]]
31
32	[[folder:Comic Books]]
33	* In DC's ''Franchise/TheFlash Annual'' Vol. 2 #13, Flash goes to Argentina to aid a superhero group named Súper Malón, and of course, he runs the pampas in a blink.
34	* ComicBook/ElGaucho is an Argentinian {{superhero}} and CattleBaron who raises horses in the pampas.
35	* Curiously averted in ''[[ComicBook/BatmanGrantMorrison Batman Inc]]'', issues 3, 4 and 5. While mundane things happen in Argentina, Batman and El Gaucho fight criminals in the UsefulNotes/FalklandsWar, in the Patagonic desert and in Buenos Aires instead of the generic pampas. Maybe because the unremarkable landscape isn't so epic after all.
36	* In ''ComicBook/ElEternauta'', Juan Salvo and his group travel across a ominously snow-covered pampa [[FromBadToWorse near the end]].
37	* ''ComicBook/InodoroPereyraElRenegau'', an AffectionateParody of Literature/MartinFierro written by the argentinian author Roberto Fontanarrosa, is a comic book about a lazy but fierce {{Gaucho}} that dwelles in the Argentinian pampas, and meets with several characters stereotypically attributed to the Pampas, like Indians, soldiers, and {{Rancher}}s.
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Film - Animated]]
41	* The animation film ''WesternAnimation/SaludosAmigos'' by Creator/WaltDisney features a short movie named "El gaucho Goofy", where WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} travels to the Argentinian Pampas to learn the ways of the native ''gauchos''.
42	* The sequel, ''WesternAnimation/TheThreeCaballeros'', features "The Flying Gauchito", an Uruguayan gaucho that flies in his donkey "Burrito" over the Uruguayan pampas.
43	[[/folder]]
44
45	[[folder:Film - Live Action]]
46	* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Pampas_%281945_film%29 Pampa Bárbara]]'' is a film that takes place in the early XIX century, between the frontier wars between Indians and Gauchos.
47	* ''Film/{{Camila}}'' features a forbidden love between a priest and a young maiden in Buenos Aires. They run to the fields expecting to escape from prosecution and death from the Rosist's government and even their enemies, Sarmiento and the other unitarians.
48	[[/folder]]
49
50	[[folder:Literature]]
51	* Many of Creator/JorgeLuisBorges' works, like ''The South'', ''The End'', ''Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden'' and ''A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz''
52	* Works like ''Literature/{{Slaughterhouse}}'' and ''Literature/TheCaptiveMaiden'' by Esteban Echeverría.
53	* Both official books of ''Literature/MartinFierro'', by José Hernández, occur in this place.
54	* Creator/RicardoGuiraldes' ''Literature/DonSegundoSombra''
55	* Creator/DomingoFaustinoSarmiento's ''{{Literature/Facundo}}''
56	* Creator/JoseMarmol's ''{{Literature/Amalia}}''
57	* All the ''gauchesque'' literature, like the works of Bartolomé Hidalgo, Estanislao del Campo, and Antonio Lussich
58	* ''Literature/AVisitToTheRanquelIndians'' by the MagnificentBastard Lucio V. Mansilla has an interesting deconstruction of this trope. He describes a diplomatic visit to many indian tribes, depicting the pampas not as savage or deserted hellhole, but instead a place were actual people, with flaws and virtues, live. He proposed a peaceful annexation of the Ranquel indians and their territory, instead of the savage massacre that was going to be the final "[[FinalSolution answer to the Indian question]]".
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	[[folder:Video Games]]
62	* ''VideoGame/JustCause4'', with its PatchworkMap of recognizably [[NoCommunitiesWereHarmed South America-like]] geography, biomes, and landmarks, has almost the entire lower third of the map occupied by a grassland landscape similar to the pampas.
63	[[/folder]]
64
65	[[folder:Western Animation]]
66	* ''WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts'': ''The Gallopin' Gaucho'', one of the earliest WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse cartoons, although this film takes place in a more desertic Patagonian-like landscape. But when the movie was released Creator/WaltDisney hadn't travelled to Argentina yet, and communications were far more difficult at that time.
67	[[/folder]]

Context Main / ThePampas