History Main / Arcadia

* Mildly deconstructed in the Tiffany Aching ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' sub-series, which make it clear that being a shepherd is bloody hard work, and birthing a lamb at three in the morning in the rain is not conducive to a peaceful life. But both the Chalk and Lancre are generally presented as simpler and "nicer" places than Ankh-Morpork, so Sir Pterry does play it more-or-less straight at times.
** Not really. Ankh-Morpork is, in real-world terms, a cross between New York and New Jersey. Being nicer than Ankh-Morpork isn't hard; the bottoms of particularly uninviting wells are routinely nicer than Ankh-Morpork.
*** This doesn't stop people from moving from places like Lancre to Ankh-Morpork.

** ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' has Camphrier Town, a small idyllic village heavily inspired by the French countryside with berry fields nearby.

*** Even parts of South Jersey have been Arcadia, perceived to have natural and historic value. Music/PattiSmith actually bought her childhood Arcadia, Thomas' Field in Woodbury Gardens, a part of Deptford, hoping to have it protected as a wilderness preserve. [[http://preservewoodbury.blogspot.com/2015/10/patti-smith-land-of-woolgatherers.html She was later forced to sell it]] so that its historic buildings could be demolished and the land she and her siblings had known was a sacred, magical place turned into a soccer field.

* The Two Rivers from ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series, mostly shepherds with a scattering of farmers, check, GhibliHills in the mountains, check, believes in the GoodOldWays, check. Small wonder that the [[PowerTrio Protaganists]] grew up there. There's a bit of deconstruction going on, since it's made plain that the farmers do actual work for their food (on one occasion some women are joking that men always faint during childbirth, and Rand reminisces about the rigors of lambing), and the area suffers the typical DoomedHometown phenomenon, though it manages to survive... and become a cosmopolitan economic center.

* ''Anime/{{Windaria}}'' The Valley, also known as 'Saki'. Its the region where people farm. It's a beautiful place with friendly people.

* In Creator/GrahamMcNeill's TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Literature/{{Ultramarines}} novel ''Dead Sky Black Sun'', Uriel retreats from ColdBloodedTorture to the memories of his childhood home, an Arcadian {{Shadowland}} to the [[{{Mordor}} Eye of Terror]]. Only when his [[DeadPersonConversation dead mentor Captain Idaeus]] appears to chide him does he return to the pain.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fable}}''

** The White version of VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite's Opelucid City, a quiet, old-timey town. Black's version of Opelucid is a techno haven.

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'': The very purpose of Gensokyo. But it just ends up being a very broken paradise with a 60-years-long ViciousCycle, some truly psychotic casts, and ''failing'' in actually stopping technology from encroaching it.

* Players can enforce this trope with the ''Agrarian Idyll'' civic in VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}. City districts house fewer people, gathering districts (farming and mining areas) house more people, farmers produce amenities (which counters unhappiness), oh and only pacifistic empires can adopt this.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* The vast majority of the ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'' books by Creator/LMMontgomery are set in this trope (except goes to ''Anne of the Island,'' where she is in a city going to college), and her "Emily," "Story Girl," "Magic For Marigold," "Literature/ATangledWeb," and "Pat" books also fit the bill. On the other hand, "Literature/TheBlueCastle" and "Literature/JaneOfLanternHill" are about [[CityMouse City Mice]] finding fulfillment in Arcadia -- here embodied in Prince Edward Island.

** More specifically, growing grass was done to show that you were rich and didn't need to use your yard for a produce garden as had once been the norm. Today, some people are returning to this practice to save money -- and [[http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/local_laws_ban_front_yard_food_gardens/ have been charged with a crime]] and [[https://abcnews.go.com/US/vegetable-garden-brings-criminal-charges-oak-park-michigan/story?id=14047214 faced jail time]] [[[[https://www.npr.org/2019/07/04/738791507/one-womans-quest-to-get-back-her-vegetable-garden-results-in-new-florida-law for doing so]].

** This, and any other views of old-fashioned Arcadias in the United States would be subject to dissonance nowadays, as formal lawns are a relatively recent thing. Those gentle agrarian places of old used to have either no grass in the yard, or whatever bushes, trees, and wild plants grew up instead, with household trash tossed in. That's just where people threw their trash in rural areas back then. Either that, or they planted vegetables. Growing grass and flowers in a yard was something rich people did to show that they didn't ''have'' to grow food. Today, [[https://www.wired.com/2011/07/michigan-woman-may-get-93-days-in-jail-for-planting-a-garden/ growing food in your yard]] [[https://abcnews.go.com/US/vegetable-garden-brings-criminal-charges-oak-park-michigan/story?id=14047214 is forbidden]] by many city ordinances and homeowner associations, and [[https://www.npr.org/2019/07/04/738791507/one-womans-quest-to-get-back-her-vegetable-garden-results-in-new-florida-law people have gone to court]] to challenge that.
** More specifically, growing grass was done to show that you were rich and didn't need to use your yard for a produce garden as had once been the norm. Today, some people are returning to this practice to save money -- and [[http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/local_laws_ban_front_yard_food_gardens/ have been charged with a crime]] and [[https://abcnews.go.com/US/vegetable-garden-brings-criminal-charges-oak-park-michigan/story?id=14047214 faced jail time for doing so]].

*** Even parts of South Jersey have been Arcadia, perceived to have natural and historic value. Music/PattiSmith actually bought her childhood Arcadia, Thomas' Field in Woodbury Gardens, a part of Deptford. [[http://preservewoodbury.blogspot.com/2015/10/patti-smith-land-of-woolgatherers.html She was later forced to sell it]] so that its historic buildings could be demolished and the land she and her siblings had known was a sacred, magical place turned into a soccer field.

** This, and any other views of old-fashioned Arcadias in the United States would be subject to dissonance nowadays, as formal lawns are a relatively recent thing. Those gentle agrarian places of old used to have either no grass in the yard, or whatever bushes, trees, and wild plants grew up instead, with household trash tossed in. That's just where people threw their trash in rural areas back then.

* In ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'', the Hafn culture has Arcadia as its central motif, idealizing simple farm life and putting agriculture on a pedestal. Their version is slightly more high-tech, though, as Jedao notes they write poetry about milking machines.

* ''Anime/TheTaleOfPrincessKaguya'', also an Creator/IsaoTakahata production, depicts Kaguya's incredibly idyllic, carefree rural childhood, where everyone is kind and pure-hearted, in contrast to the materialistic, snooty, and sometimes downright evil people in the capital shown later on.

* The last segment of Creator/AkiraKurosawa's ''Dreams''.

* Acadia was historically a French colony consisting of modern-day New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Maine. Maine still has a reputation for being old fashioned and idealistic. There are still some French-speaking descendants of those colonists, particularly in coastal New Brunswick, the Saint John Valley on the Maine-New Brunswick border, and the Louisiana Cajuns.
** In fact, the word "Cajun" originated from "Acadian" (In reference to these French-speaking peoples, originally of the northern East Coast.)

* In ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemElibe Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword]]'', there was a village named Arcadia where humans and dragons lived in peace (when everywhere else, dragons were made extinct by humans). However, its giant libraries were also the place where the BigBad obtained his ability to drain and consume LifeEnergy.

The good landscape may be responsible, posing in contrast to EvilIsDeathlyCold, the {{Shadowland}}, GrimUpNorth, urbanized Shadowlands such as the DecadentCourt or ViceCity, or the Shadowland equivalent found in the GreenAesop; the PollutedWasteland. In [[SocietyMarchesOn older works]] (as late as an early nineteenth century), wilderness was not considered attractive scenery; a pleasant view was one of the cultivated countryside, usually with human figures in it) it contrasted with the WildWilderness and TheLostWoods; making this aspect something of an EvolvingTrope.

[[caption-width-right:350:''A Childhood Idyll'' by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1900]]

* [[Music/LudwigVanBeethoven Beethoven's]] Sixth, the Pastoral Symphony.

* ''Literature/TheAnderssons'': As much as this series applauds progress in most other areas, it is very protective of the increasingly marginalized countryside. Elin is determined to live on the family homestead until she dies, and Elisabet and Saga are dedicated farmers. The commune "Fyra systrar" is located in the countryside too and gives several struggling women (including members of the Andersson family, like Judith and Maria and Nina and Louise) a place to live in the 1970s. Of course, some members of the Andersson family have other interests and prefer to live in the nearby town of Växjö. Anna, Cecilia, and Åsa even spend most of their lives abroad. But still, Saga writes a series of books about the family. And that reminds them of where their origins are.

A TenMinuteRetirement often brings the character to Arcadia. A character -- perhaps a CityMouse who's learned [[AnAesop his lesson]], or someone [[EasyAmnesia who lost his memory]], or a NatureLover who's finally escaped the ViceCity -- may settle down here for a peaceful life and a [[GirlNextDoor quiet]] [[SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan romance]]. The pursuits of Arcadia are often portrayed as bringing life into the world, and are more productive than the destructive pursuits of heroes and villains. Depending on how it is depicted, this can range from idyllic leisure, to unending and hard work -- but this work is [[TheSimpleLifeIsSimple never too complicated or stressful]], but rather peaceful and fulfilling for a character who was DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife.

The CountryMouse or the FarmBoy often come from a (more or less idealized) Arcadia. It often features as HomeSweetHome for an adventurer. Many a RetiredBadass and OldMaster live here full time, having jumped at the CallToAgriculture. If the question of social relations comes up, it will always turn out to be a CloseKnitCommunity. The NatureLover often appreciates it for the greenery.

Suffice it to say that in RealLife, things are much more complicated. Rural areas may have major advantages, but may also come with serious disadvantages. Some people can't stand life in sparsely populated areas, others can't imagine living anywhere else. In both cases, utopian societies generally don't exist in the real world, and presenting any place as such usually involves ignoring its flaws.

* ''Anime/{{Windaria}}'' The Valley, also known as 'Saki'. Its the region where people farm. Its a beautiful place with friendly people.

* The setting in ''Manga/YokohamaKaidashiKikou'', mostly consisting of the Miura Peninsula, lives and breathes this trope. Much like Aria, it's completely necessary for the series that things be so pastoral and peaceful, because the series revolves around the quiet atmosphere that the countryside has.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Back when ComicBook/WonderWoman's home was still known as Paradise Island it was unquestionably a lush peaceful green island with a tight knit community of women who had arrived there over the centuries, generally as refugees, and loved it so much they chose to take the oaths and undergo the training to become Amazons. It especially helped that there was a seperate island dedicated to their many RND and science experiments ("Science Island") and that their prison was also on a seperate nearby island ("Reformation Island").

* In "The Prince", Joshua Christopher and his family live in a town named Arcadia, somewhere in the Midwestern United States. It is the modern day parallel to Bethlehem/Nazareth/Jerusalem.

* ''Film/TheThinRedLine'' has several examples: the Melanesian village, Witt's flashbacks to his life on the farm and Bell's memories of his married life.

* ''Film/BigFish'' has Spectre, a hidden town where nothing bad ever happens. The ground is covered in soft grass, so no one ever wears shoes. The main character stays there for a bit, but decides that he needs to experience more of life before retiring there.

* In ''Literature/JohannesCabalTheNecromancer'' the final town the diabolic carnival visits is one of these-Cabal notes that its ''nice'' in a nearly-pervasive way. The place seems almost magical though its noted that even in such a place there are few who would be deserving to sign their souls over. In chapter description its described as a nice place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit-its so powerful Cabal, quiet misanthrope, finds himself unable to tell off a child, feeling a strange urge to find a nice lady have kids and settle down, and gets quietly pushed into a teahouse and having a polite conversation, all [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness very unusual for him.]]
* In ''Literature/DonQuixote'', at the end of the book, Quixote considers leaving being a [[KnightInShiningArmor knight]] to become an arcadian shepherd instead. Pastoral tropes in general are deconstructed and parodied in the novel: The real shepherds are {{Country M|ouse}}ice -- ignorant people who have enough common sense and work as shepherds by need. They want to help and are sympathetic enough. The problem comes when a lot of {{City M|ouse}}ice try to invoke this trope:

** The Shire is a subversion. It's a nice place to live, definitely, but it's not utopian, and while the hobbits are generally friendly, generous and bucolic, they are also unimaginative, clannish, parochial, and prone to gossip and TallPoppySyndrome.

* Mildly deconstructed in the Tiffany Aching ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' sub-series, which make it clear that being a shepherd is bloody hard work, and birthing a lamb at three in the morning in the rain is not conductive to a peaceful life. But both the Chalk and Lancre are generally presented as simpler and "nicer" places than Ankh-Morpork, so Sir Pterry does play it more-or-less straight at times.

*** Which doesn't stop people from moving from places like Lancre to Ankh-Morpork.

* Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem {{Evangeline}}, the begining of which is a description of the French colony of Acadie.

* Many Creator/AgathaChristie novels are the deconstruction of this. On the countryside, everyone knows everyone. That's, good, right? Well, everyone has a reason to hate the others, and everyone had a reason to kill the victim.

* In Creator/PoulAnderson's "Literature/TimeLag", Vaynamo is heavily rural, and quite peaceable. Elva feels quite safe doing the circuit with only some Alfavala servants, who are barely intelligent enough to talk, and at one point contemplates how little violence they have in their history.

* ''Literature/MartinFierro'': At the second song, Fierro declares his former life as a rancher as this: All the hard work the [[{{Gaucho}} gauchos]] made seemed to be a party, everyone was happy after work, even the poorest gaucho had hope in the future , the CattleBaron respected them, and there was food in abundance for all. At the third song, Fierro implies this is full of NostalgiaFilter because he is now an {{Outlaw}} who only can remember his lost old life.

* ''Literature/TheAnderssons'': As much as this series applauds progress in most other areas, it is very protective of the increasingly marginalized countryside. Elin is determined to live on the family homestead until she dies, and Elisabet and Saga are dedicated farmers. The commune "Fyra systrar" is located in the countryside too and gives several struggling women (including members of the Andersson family, like Judith and Maria and Nina and Louise) a place to live in the 1970s. Of course, some members of the Andersson family have other interests and prefer to live in the nearby town of Växjö. Anna, Cecilia and Åsa even spend most of their lives abroad. But still, Saga writes a series of books about the family. And that reminds them of where their origins are.

** In the series 2 finale, the Doctor alludes to "the Fall of Arcadia", a battle during the Time War. As we later learn from Day of the Doctor and the earlier minisode Last Day, Arcadia is considered the safest and best defended city on Gallifrey during the Time War. Until the Daleks broke through the sky trenches.

* Music/AlStewart's "Timeless Skies." The refrain is "Under timeless arcadian skies."

** The [[{{Hobbits}} halfling]] homeland of Luiren in the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' campaign setting. It's not ''completely'' free from danger (this is ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' after all -- why go somewhere if not to kill and loot stuff?), with a dangerous forest at its border and the occasional monster, but all in all it's one of the safest places in the Realms.
* Fortitude in ''TabletopGame/ChuubosMarvelousWishGrantingEngine'' is like this, only with a bit more of a focus on sailing and a culture of swashbuckling rats, and Little Island is if anything even more so. The area actually ''named'' Arcadia, on the other hand, is a huge shopping district haunted by tsukumogami and with so much neat flashy stuff it probably has epilepsy warnings.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Banished}}'', the aim of the game is to ensure the survival of a colonial-era settlement, and manage its growth. Most successful settlements will look like this, but unfortunately, you will need to build smoke-spewing mines, quarries and heavy industry sometimes, which will tarnish the aesthetic.

** [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas Zion National Park]] counts as one. It's a mythical, hard to reach place, there is virtually no [[GaiasLament ecological damage]] from the [[AfterTheEnd Great War]], the water is free of radiation, plants thrive in abundance, and it is inhabited by the innocent and peaceful tribe known as the [[NobleSavage Sorrows]]. {{Played With}} in that it's still a part of the [[CrapsackWorld Fallout world]] and as such is host to [[EverythingTryingToKillYou lovely mutants]] like [[BearsAreBadNews Yao Guais]], [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent Green Geckos]], [[DemonicSpiders Cazadores]] and [[BigCreepyCrawlies Giant Mantises]].

** Hateno Village from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''. It's a rural Hylian village on tallish hills overlooking beautiful green hills, and unlike the settlements of the other races of Hyrule it isn't facing any imminent threat from the Divine Beasts.

* In ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare 2'' the 1st Batallion, 75th Regiment of US Army Rangers passes through Arcadia, Virginia, on the way to Washington DC. It's an upper middle-class community and the scenery is therefore a match, if a subversion in that the inhabitants would certainly not be simpler-minded folk. We can't ask them because they've been run off by [[spoiler: the invading Russian Army, which the Rangers are fighting against.]]

* Typically, in ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', the protagonist begins their journey in a ridiculously tiny, picturesque town. Played with in that these places usually host a widely-respected scientist who sends the protagonist on their journey, a character not normally found in Arcadia settings. Other Arcadia spots besides the beginning of each game include:
** [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Johto]] contains a large farm on one of its routes, and the small hamlet of Mahogany Town and its scenic lake.

* Yormgen from ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' is beautiful, secluded and doesn't need Magitek to protect against monster attacks. [[spoiler: Because it is an ancient memory created by Phaeroh of a town that was reduced to a barren desert because of overuse of said Magitek.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'': The very purpose of Gensokyo. But it just end up being a very broken paradise with a 60-years-long ViciousCycle, some truly psychotic casts, and ''failing'' in actually stopping technology from encroaching it.

* Eden Prime from VideoGame/MassEffect was said to be this. People were even housed in arcologies so the landscape wasn't ruined with urban sprawl. By the time Normandy arrives however, it's under attack by the Geth, smoke fills the air and is a DoomedHometown for one of the crew.
* Players can enforce this trope with the ''Agrarian Idyll'' civic in VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}. City districts house less people, gathering districts (farming and mining areas) house more people, farmers produce amenities (which counters unhappiness), oh and only pacifistic empires can adopt this.

** This is only when things are going good, though. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou Everything]] from [[ExplosiveBreeder parasprites]] to [[RealityWarper Discord]] to [[HellHound Cerberus]] (Yes, ''that one'') seems to make a beeline for Ponyville whenever they show up in the show, so Ponyville is [[CityOfAdventure far from peaceful and idyllic]].

* Acadia was historically a French colony consisting of modern day New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Maine. Maine still has a reputation for being old fashioned and idealistic. There are still some French speaking descendants of those colonists, particuliarly in coastal New Brunswick, the Saint John Valley on the Maine-New Brunswick border, and the Louisiana Cajuns.
** In fact, the word "Cajun" originated from "Acadian" (In reference to these French speaking peoples, originally of the northern East Coast.)

* Back when ComicBook/WonderWoman's home was still known as Paradise Island it was unquestionably a lush peaceful green island with a tight knit community of women who had arrived there over the centuries, generally as refugees, and loved it so much they chose to take the oaths and undergo the training to become Amazons. It especially helped that there was a seperate island dedicated to their many RND and science experiments ("Science Island") and that their prison was also on a seperate nearby island ("Reformation Island").

** In fact, the word "Cajun" originated from "Acadian" (In refrence to these French speaking peoples, originally of the northern East Coast.)

* The Pastoral Symphony in ''Disney/{{Fantasia}}''.