History Main / GoingNative

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': The finale of the first series, "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E24To26Starcrossed Starcrossed]]", reveals that Hawkgirl is an agent sent to spy on Earth by the alien Thanagarians. She betrays the League and the Earth by helping the Thangarians conquer the planet in order to institute their plan. However, during her time on Earth, she adapted to human culture, including their morality on right and wrong and equality for all, causing her to question the "By any means necessary" warrior culture of Thanagar. When she learns of the true plan to build a Hyperspace Bypass that would destroy the planet, she double-crosses her own people and helps the League destroy the device and drive the Thanagarians away.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Obsoletely Fabulous", Bender is stranded on an island with outdated robots and goes native by replacing his metal exterior with wood. He then launches a guerrilla war against civilization. [[spoiler:But it turns out to be all a dream induced by the upgrade procedure he is undergoing.]]
** He ends up doing it again when he goes into hiding among penguins. After an accident, his program rebooted and he started acting like an actual penguin. He ends up returning to normal [[spoiler:when Leela accidentally shoots him]].
* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': The finale of the first series, "Starcrossed", revealed that Hawkgirl was an agent sent to spy on Earth by the alien Thanagarians. She betrayed the League and the Earth by helping the Thangarians conquer the planet in order to institute their plan. However, during her time on Earth she adapted to human culture, including their morality on right and wrong and equality for all, causing her to question the "By any means necessary" warrior culture of Thanagar. So when she learned of the true plan to build a Hyperspace Bypass that would destroy the planet, she double crossed her own people and helped the League destroy the device and drive the Thanagarians away.

* ''Film/{{The Blue Lagoon|1980}}'',: When castaway Richard spots a ship, he is elated to finally be rescued. However, when Emmeline sees the ship, she decides not to light the signal fire because she believes [[IChooseToStay the island is their home now]], which causes tension between the two teens.

[[caption-width-right:350:They don't call him Lawrence of UsefulNotes/{{Wales}}.]]

** Every single District 5 peacekeeper fought against Romulus Thread and the elite peacekeepers when they're ordered to decimate the district. It's left ambiguous if they were on the side of the Rebellion all along, or simply decided to a man that Thread [[CompleteMonster was beyond the pale]].

* In ''ComicBook/{{Cossacks}}'', a young early [[TheCavalierYears 17th century]] Lithuanian Hussar from the UsefulNotes/PolishLithuanianCommonwealth deserts the Polish army to join a group of UsefulNotes/{{Ukrain|e}}ian UsefulNotes/{{Cossacks}} and live among them, learning their ways.

* A common plot element on ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', where Stan would go full-throttle on various cultures or lifestyles. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Francine in "Stan of Arabia".

* The Ente Islans from ''LightNovel/TheDevilIsAPartTimer'' warm up quite quickly to living in the real world, to the point where the person who is supposed to be ''Satan''[[note]]He's not actually the biblical one, though he is at a similar level of power[[/note]] places "taking over the world" second to "getting a promotion at [[WcDonalds MgRonalds]]".

* In the ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' comics ''The Broken Ear'' and ''Tintin and the Picaros'', the titular reporter comes across Ridgewell, an English explorer who ended up living with natives in the South American rain forest.

* At the end of ''Film/{{Stargate}}'', Daniel Jackson happily settles down, on another planet, with Sha'ri.

This is also what can happen to a ForeignRulingClass: they could take more and more of their subjects' culture until becoming entirely assimilated. In cases like these, these two tropes can heavily overlap with LedByTheOutsider

** Anne Boonchuy starts out understandably reluctant to eat the local cuisine of mostly bugs, but within a month is fine with it, much to her own horror. By season 2, she starts using the local euphemisms. In season 3, she's shown to be so used to an insectivorous diet that [[spoiler:she doesn't consider that her mother [[IAteWhat might not appreciate cicada cookies]].]]

** Anne Boonchuy starts out understandably reluctant to eat the local cuisine of mostly bugs, but within a month is fine with it, much to her own horror. By season 2, she starts using the local euphemisms.

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/LawrenceOfArabia https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/going_native.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:They don't call him [[Film/LawrenceOfArabia Lawrence]] of UsefulNotes/{{Wales}}.]]

* LonelyRichKid Tommy Marshall (aka the Kangaskhan Kid from ''Anime/{{Pokemon}})'' ends up this way in ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'' when he becomes lost in the Safari Zone. At first, he tries to adapt as best as he can only to survive, but despite missing his parents, soon he finds himself enjoying his new lifestyle more than his old one.

Compare RaisedByNatives, RaisedByOrcs, RaisedByWolves, MightyWhitey, BecomingTheMask, ForeignCorrespondent, LostInCharacter, StartingANewLife. See also OfThePeople. For the inversion, see MajoredInWesternHypocrisy.

* Played with a few times in ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' has the Wolf's Dragoons, a mercenary unit that was, in reality, a scouting party for the Clans from somewhere deep in the Deep Periphery to determine the strength of the Inner Sphere. Eventually, however, most of the Wolf's Dragoons abandoned their original directive and warned the Inner Sphere of the imminent Clan Invasion, known to the Clans as Operation: REVIVAL. Until the Dark Age, at least, long after the Clan Invasion was over, they have continued to serve as a mercenary unit within the Inner Sphere.

!!Examples:

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/TheThirteenthWarrior'' features an Arab going native amongst Vikings. It's a rare example of an Eastern character going native amongst Westerners.
* ''Literature/AlienInASmallTown'' is about an alien calling himself "Paul," who opts to go native on Earth. Of course, Paul is a [[StarfishAliens completely nonhumanoid alien]] and he chooses to live with [[UsefulNotes/{{Amish}} the Pennsylvania Dutch,]] which makes it more complicated.
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}''
** In ''The Andalite Chronicles'', Elfangor [[spoiler:flees to Earth, permanently becomes a human, marries Loren, and fathers a son before the Ellimist returns him to his Andalite form and the ''[=StarSword=]''.]]
** In ''The Hork-Bajir Chronicles'', Aldrea [[spoiler:permanently morphs into a Hork-Bajir, marries Dak Hamee, and has Hork-Bajir children. When she "appears" in the main series (as a kind of psychic back-up-disk downloaded into Cassie's brain), this is the source of a lot of friction between her and Andalite team-member Ax.]]
** Toomin in ''The Ellimist Chronicles'' with the Andalite cavemen.
** To a degree, Edriss in ''Visser''.
** Also, Ax, to a degree. By the end of the series he's arguably more human than Andalite in terms of personality and habits.
** This applies to the Chee as well after they used their holograms to disguise as humans.
* In ''Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark'''s ''Envoy from the Heavens'', Trevelyan eventually learns that a researcher named Hugo Tasman, who is listed as MIA by the Foundation, has found a life for himself on the MedievalStasis world of Osier, where he's made himself a nobleman and married a local woman. While he can never have children with her (these HumanAliens are incompatible with humans), he is still far happier here than back on Earth. Trevelyan agrees to keep his secret, and [[spoiler:the Paraprims agree to allow Tasman to stay, as long he doesn't mess with the local culture]].
* What Renzi does in the latter parts of ''Literature/{{Artemis}}'' on a Pacific island the crew visits. Luckily, {{Literature/Kydd}} is there to (literally) knock him out of it before the [[Main/ImaHumanitarian cannibalistic]] rival tribe of the islanders hosting them can get there.
* In the ''Literature/BelisariusSeries'', Damodara begins to adopt Rajput ways in the realization that they were the best warriors that the Malwa Empire could field (except for the Kushans with whom they were roughly equal) and flattering them was a way to gain military success and not coincidentally gain the throne.
* In Creator/GeorgeOrwell's early novel, ''Literature/BurmeseDays'', Flory admires Burmese culture more than he does his own, and despises the British Empire. It looks like he might be going this route, but the trope is subverted when [[spoiler: he takes command of the police and breaks up a riot intent on destroying the Club and killing Ellis]].
** The literary critic V. S. Pritchett once described the period Orwell spent living as a tramp as "going native in his own country."
* Jimbo in ''Literature/CloudOfSparrows'' came to Japan from America as a Christian missionary; after being badly injured and subsequently rescued by a group of children, he ended up becoming a Buddhist monk who speaks fluent Japanese.
* Ho Sa in the ''Literature/{{Conqueror}}'' books. When he first joins the Mongols in ''Lords of the Bow'', he is initially reluctant, but later catches himself enjoying his new life. By ''Bones of the Hills'', he doesn't want to go back.
* A literal example occurs in the Creator/RayBradbury short story ''Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed'', about the first colony on Mars. The Martians all died out centuries ago, but as time goes on the colonists gradually change into Martians themselves and abandon the settlement, until a follow-up expedition sent to find the vanished colonists assumes they are a previously undiscovered native tribe.
* Creator/MarionZimmerBradley's ''Literature/{{Darkover}}'' novels are full of Terran citizens going native on Darkover; Andrew Carr and Magdalen Lorne are notable examples. There are also Darkovans who try to go Terran.
* In ''Literature/{{Deryni}}'''s ''King Kelson's Bride'', Morag, Mahael and Teymuraz think that Liam-Lajos may have done this during his four years at Kelson's court in Gwynedd, making him unfit to rule Torenth. They discuss the possibility of passing over Liam in favour of his younger brother Ronal-Rurik.
* Repeatedly PlayedForLaughs in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', where many barbarian armies have tried to take over Ankh-Morpork. In a matter of months they are somewhat confused to find that their weapons and horses are now property of Ankh-Morpork merchants, and that they are now just another minority with their own fast-food places and gang graffiti.
* In Creator/RosemarySutcliff's ''Literature/TheDolphinRing'''s ''The Lantern Bearers'', a young Roman's sister is kidnapped by the Saxons. Years later, he's captured in turn and finds her married to her kidnapper and mother to his son. She helps him escape, but refuses to go with him.
** It's a favourite theme in many of Sutcliff's novels, including ''Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth'', ''Literature/FrontierWolf'', and especially ''Literature/TheMarkOfTheHorseLord''.
* In ''Literature/{{Dune}}'', protagonist Paul Atreides and his mother Lady Jessica, after being rescued by the desert-dwelling Fremen, are assimilated into the culture. Paul takes to it very strongly, and is a feared leader and eventually becomes the Fremen's [[MessianicArchetype messiah]].
* In ''Literature/{{Ecotopia}}'', the main character, William Weston, a reporter from New York, goes to examine the environmentally friendly nation Ecotopia (formerly the [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest northwestern US]]), but ends up deciding to stay there after he acclimates to the country.
* In ''Literature/TheFadedSun: Shon'jir'', Niun and Melein give Sten Duncan a choice: Go Native or die.
* In the ''Literature/Foreigner1994'' novels, protagonist Bren Cameron is the representative of the human LostColony to the alien ''atevi'' on whose planet they live. When the humans in charge of the colony's government begin acting like complete morons he throws his lot in with the atevi, both to protect the atevi from being double crossed by the humans and to protect the human colony from the stupidity of their own government. The human electorate eventually wises up and replaces the morons with officials who welcome Bren back, but by that time he's become so deeply enmeshed in the fabric of atevi politics that he decides he can do everyone the most good by staying there.
* ''Literature/TheGanymedeTakeover'' by Creator/PhilipKDick and Ray Nelson. An alien official is sent to rule over part of VichyEarth, and is shocked to find his predecessor (also an alien) has become a Catholic and has a hobby of collecting model WWI airplanes.
* In Creator/DanAbnett's ''His Last Command'' from the series ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'', [[spoiler: Gaunt's 'forced' Junior Commissar Ludd betrays his trust by reporting him in the eve of battle]] even though Gaunt fully expects him to do so.
* ''Literature/GoodOmens'':
** Aziraphale and Crowley, an angel and a demon respectively, end up going native towards humanity as a result of having been on Earth since the very beginning. Neither are happy to learn about the imminent apocalypse and try their best to hamper its progress.
** [[TheAntiChrist Adam]] ends up becoming an AntiAntichrist as a result of this, refusing to start the apocalypse due to his time on Earth having left him neither evil nor divine, but fundamentally ''human''.
* In ''Literature/GunsOfTheDawn'', the armies of Lascanne and Denland are fighting through a swamp, and Mallen, the chief scout on the Lascanne side, has spent so long there that his sympathies lie more with the swamp's "indigines" than with either army. He helps his own side in the fight, but always in a way which doesn't conflict with his apparently higher priority of keeping the indigines out of harm's way.
* In Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin's Literature/{{Hainish}} short story "Solitude", Ren, the daughter of a Hainish anthropologist doing fieldwork on the planet Eleven-Soro, goes spectacularly native after living for years in Sorovian society, [[AfterTheEnd such as it is]]. She chooses to remain there even after her mother and brother return to Hain, meaning that [[TimeDilation she'll never see them again]].
* ''Literature/HeartOfDarkness'' by Joseph Conrad (which would later have a famous adaptation in the Vietnam movie ''Film/ApocalypseNow''). Kurtz is sent to Africa as an ivory-procurement agent and suffers a spectacular back story breakdown. The narrative either plays the trope straight or subverts it, depending on the reading, though the latter seems more likely. According to the first reading, Kurtz possibly goes native in horrifying ways, inverting the European life he came from. In the [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation alternate reading]], while he has shed his civilized persona, he still hasn't gone native in a meaningful way. Instead, an unnatural and immoral co-dependent relationship has formed, where the [[MightyWhitey natives worship him as a god]], while he in return treats them with utter ruthlessness, much like an unloving god would. The title of the paper Kurtz had been working on was "Suppression of Savage Customs": it is ended with the sentence, handwritten at a later date, "Exterminate all the Brutes!" Not quite the typical going native.
* In ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'', Jason Grace is initially one of the two praetors of New Rome. However, after getting forcibly relocated to the Greek Camp Half-Blood and falling in love with a Greek demigod, he finds himself torn between the two factions until he [[spoiler: fully and officially chooses Greek in the fourth book.]] Conversely, Percy Jackson is forcibly relocated to New Rome, and after being made a member of the Legion in the wake of a massive battle, becomes more and more attracted to Rome, particularly the safe life he and his LoveInterest could live there, protected by the Legion. He has not chosen Rome yet, but it seems likely he will at some point.
* Stanislaus Grummann from ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials''' ''The Subtle Knife'' spent the rest of his days as a Siberian shaman.
* In Creator/StephenieMeyer's adult novel ''Literature/TheHost2008'', the alien invaders, the so-called Souls, are physically inserted into a host body and take control of the host's body. In the titular character's case, the host's mind is still present, and they both think inside Melanie's body, with the Soul eventually coming to identify with the humans around them and help them work against the Soul invasion. Later, the ragtag group of human survivors finally finds another group of survivors with their own dual-minded alien/human, who literally refers to the situation as "going native."
* Jacob Wheeler does this in ''Series/IntoTheWest'' after marrying a Lakota woman. They and their children shift between Native and white society as the series progresses. Jacob's cousin, Naomi, also goes native when she marries a Cheyenne chief, Prairie Fire.
* In ''Literature/ItCantHappenHere'', [[spoiler: [=Macgoblin=]]] goes native after fleeing to Haiti.
--> When last seen, he was living high up in the mountains of Haiti, wearing only a singlet, dirty white-drill trousers, grass sandals, and a long tan beard; very healthy and happy, occupying a one-room hut with a lovely native girl, practicing modern medicine and studying ancient voodoo.
* In Creator/FrancisCarsac's ''La Vermine du Lion'' (''The Lion's Parasites''), the protagonist is a geologist, who ends up growing fond of the primitive natives of a planet that has attracted the attention of a powerful interstellar corporation, seeking the planet's natural resources. The geologist ends up helping the locals force the Earth government to establish a quarantine around the planet, thus protecting it from exploitation.
* One of the characters in ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' [[spoiler:is actually an EldritchAbomination known as the Eater of Souls who was stuck in a human body and trained to pass as an Englishman. The ones doing the training ended up doing too good a job of it.]]
* In the ''Literature/LiadenUniverse'' books by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, this is an occupational hazard for the Scouts, whose task of exploring new worlds often results in them spending long periods immersed in alien cultures. Many an experienced scout, even among those who resisted the temptation, has retained traits from a culture where he or she felt particularly at home.
* ''Literature/LightAndDarkTheAwakeningOfTheMageknight'': Human [[spoiler:Doug]] is so taken by elfin culture (and one member in particular) that he chooses to [[spoiler:spend the school year studying abroad in the elfin capital.]] In the sequel, he'll likely come back with a penchant for very bland tea.
* In Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'':
** The Black Númenóreans who escaped the destruction of the island-realm often ended up living in cultures loyal to Mordor, and becoming their leaders. At least some of the Nazgûl belonged to this group of people, as did the Mouth of Sauron. [[note]]Black is used in the BlackMagic sense, not a racial sense.[[/note]]
** Also in the back story, one of the Kings of Gondor does this when sent as a prince to the ancestors of the Rohirrim. His son's ascension to the throne leads to civil war, and the death of most of the royal line (hastening the end of the line).
** The Elven-Kings of Mirkwood (Oropher and later Thranduil) were originally Sindarin elves who came to the Woodland Realm after the sinking of the sub-continent Beleriand, and ended up adopting the more 'earthy' customs of the Sylvan elves, to the point that Thranduil's son Legolas identifies himself purely as a Sylvan elf.
* The trope codifier, ''Film/AManCalledHorse'', is about a white man captured by Native Americans who eventually assimilates into their culture. It is taught in many grade school literature classes in the US.
* Basil Fotherington-Thomas (from the ''Literature/{{Molesworth}}'' books) fills the Kurtz role in ''Literature/TeddyBearsPicnic'', a bizarre AlternateHistory retelling of ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' by Creator/KimNewman. ''Literature/JustWilliam'' also fits as the soldier sent to kill Fotherington-Thomas who ends up joining him.
* One of the ''Literature/NightHuntress'' books has a minor example. [[spoiler:A friend of Cat's asked her to find out what happened to a reporter of his that was investigating the existence of vampires. Turned out the woman in question had found a vampire, and subsequently fallen in love and was living with her.]]
* In ''Literature/TheOverstory'', the [[TheCynic cynical]] Adam Appich surveys a group of environmental activists fighting deforestation in order to explore their psychology and understand why some people choose to [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman hold non-humans as so much more morally important than others do.]] He ends up [[TookALevelInIdealism Taking a Level In Idealism]] and joining forces with them instead.
* In ''Literature/PrincessHolyAura'' this is how Stephen Russ plans to handle the problem of finding the rest of the Apocalypse Maidens.
* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in ''Literature/RedHarvest''. Protagonist detective, The Continental Op, comes to city of Personville (also known as [[WretchedHive Poisonville]]) and soon in process of trying to rid the city of organized crime he becomes involved with several gangsters, kills many people directly and indirectly, and shoots a cop. In books probably most famous quote, when talking about it, he compares his situation of slowly becoming corrupted by the town to this trope.
--> This damned burg's getting me. If I don't get away soon I'll be going blood-simple like the natives.
* One of the protagonists of Creator/DianeDuane's ''Literature/TheRomulanWay'' is Terise Haleakala-[=LoBrutto=], a Starfleet DeepCoverAgent tasked with improving the Federation's understanding of the secretive Romulans. By the end of the book she openly admits to Bones [=McCoy=] that she's come to love living on ch'Rihan, and refuses his offer to be extracted with him.
* Author [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassie_Edwards Cassie Edwards]] wrote over 100 bodice ripper romance novels, particularly the ''Savage'' series, all of which feature a white woman hooking up with a Native American man and adopting the ways of his tribe. And while she's the most prominent example, she's not the only author to employ this scenario.
* In ''Literature/{{Seraphina}}'' Dragons are discouraged from this, and punished with a memory-wipe if evidence comes to the Censors.
* John Blackthorne from James Clavell's ''Literature/{{Shogun}}'' is an English sailor shipwrecked in old Japan. Unlike his shipmates, he decides to learn the language and cultural skills needed to fit into the unfamiliar society, and eventually decides that it's preferable to the society he came from in a number of ways. He's no MightyWhitey: he has a ''lot'' of difficulty learning the new ways, becomes only moderately competent, does not impress people, and is usually irrelevant.
* Carrie in Lisanne Norman's ''Literature/SholanAlliance'' novels. After bonding with Kusac and living on his world for a while, she goes native.
** One visiting lead archeologist makes the mistake of comparing the Sholans to trash then following it up by pointing out Carrie's 'Gone Native' status.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** Daenerys Targaryen, from the sedentary Westerosi culture, is married off to Khal Drogo, a warlord of the nomadic Dothraki people, in the hopes of reclaiming Westeros with a Dothraki army. Throughout the first book, she learns the language and customs of the Dothraki people, begins to dress in their style, and develops a fierce loyalty to her new husband. Her older brother Viserys doesn't fare as well, getting offended by Dany's suggestions that he exchange his finery for more practical Dothraki clothing and becoming deeply embittered when he realizes that his sister's assimilation has given her far greater credibility with the Dothraki than he will ever command.
** Jon Snow is forced to do this to the wildlings, becoming a FakeDefector. Ultimately subverted, as he never [[BecomingTheMask becomes the mask]], running off when faced with having to kill an innocent civilian.
** Mance Rayder was raised among the Night's Watch, but abandoned the order and joined the wildlings after spending a few days with a wildling woman and tasting the freedom that they enjoy. He eventually [[MightyWhitey becomes their king]].
** In the backstory, House Targaryen slowly assimilated themselves into Westerosi culture after Aegon's Conquest. They stopped worshipping Valyrian gods in favor of the Seven, ceased practicing slavery, married local Houses, and eventually came to see themselves as Westerosi instead of Essosi. This is a major reason of the difference of opinion between Viserys and Daenerys regarding their place in Westeros. Viserys grew up in King's Landing, so his crusade to retake the Iron Throne is largely driven by [[TheresNoPlaceLikeHome homesickness]]. Daenerys was born in Dragonstone but raised in Essos all her life, so she has no memories in Westeros to cling to. Although she has plans to contest the Iron Throne, she bases it more from her birthright rather than a personal desire. Some characters even question the feasibility of someone who never spent a single day in the Seven Kingdoms wanting to rule it, unless she sees herself as Aegon 2.0 (and even then, Aegon grew up in Dragonstone, so he had far more experiences in Westerosi politics than Daenerys).
* Marat Lon in ''Literature/StarTrekMereAnarchy''. A human scientist assigned to help restore the devastated planet Mestiko, he remains when a reactionary coup forces the Federation and other aliens off the planet. He disguises himself as a native, but doesn't do a very good job of blending in. Fortunately, he is discovered by native factions sympathetic to his cause, who instruct him in how to pass as a Mestiko resident. He transforms over time from an arrogant, somewhat patronizing outsider to someone with a deep concern for the Mestiko peoples. He takes a native name and the woman who helped educate him in the local culture becomes his wife.
** [[spoiler:Erika Hernandez]] in ''Literature/StarTrekDestiny'', though her character arc walks the fine line between this trope and StockholmSyndrome.
** Neta Efheny, in ''[[Literature/StarTrekTyphonPact Brinkmanship]]'', a Cardassian spy inserted into the Tzenkethi Department of the Outside as a low-grade worker. She comes to prefer the certainty that comes with knowing your place and your function, worrying about nothing but how to perform that function, free from the need to face any of the complications regarding identity or responsibility. She eventually accepts the mind-numbing contentment of a low-grade Tzenkethi and allows herself to be fully subsumed into their society.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'':
** Sand People occasionally use kidnapping to replenish their ranks, but on one occasion, a Jedi left the Order and willingly became a Tusken warlord. Sharad Hett's life is covered elsewhere in the saga, but had an impact on A'Yark, Hett's sister-in-law. In ''Literature/StarWarsKenobi'' she believes Ben could be another mighty warlord for her people, and tries to convince him to join them. Ben seriously considers the idea as a way to protect Luke Skywalker covertly.
** {{Invoked}} by the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Mandalorians]]. They are not so much a race as a culture, since the original Taung species died out well before their rise to galactic prominence. If there's a worthy fighter who follows their code, wears the armor, speaks the language, fights under Mandalore's banner, and an established Mandalorian adopts or marries them into the clans (and age/gender/species isn't a hindrance), then the adoptee is just as much a Mando as one born into it. They've been known to recruit orphans or captives, or to hold tournaments (like the Great Hunt) to find worthy recruits, and even a few Jedi traded their robes for ''bes'kar'' armor. They see this method as both the way to get the best warriors possible and to keep their culture alive, even though it's under constant threat from their love of war. As long as there is one Mando who can find, teach, and adopt (or sire/birth) an heir, the Mandalorians are still alive.
** Dev Sibwarra in ''Literature/TheTruceAtBakura'' was a Force-sensitive human slave of the ScaryDogmaticAliens known as the Ssi-ruuk, having been [[StockholmSyndrome captured by them at the age of ten]] and groomed into becoming a fanatic adherent to their way of life. He helped them with their UnwillingRoboticisation [[TheQuisling of other humans]], and [[NightmareFetishist considered it to be the highest honor a person could receive while desiring to be made into a battle droid himself]] [[spoiler:before a FaceHeelTurn and RedemptionEqualsDeath]].
* Amusingly inverted in Creator/NeilGaiman's Franchise/SherlockHolmes pastiche, ''Literature/AStudyInEmerald'', where the [[EldritchAbomination Great Old Ones]] returned to Earth centuries ago, but instead of wiping us out or forcing us to adapt their ways, they assumed leadership in human terms. This resulted in a pseudo-Victorian world where most people lead entirely normal lives despite the fact most crowned heads of Europe have an unpleasant number of tentacles under them, and even consider their existence a blessing that makes the civilization possible at all.
* On the planet Avalon in ''Literature/TechnicHistory'', this Humans and Ythrians Going Native with each other is a minor local tempest in a teapot. As relations between Humans and Ythrians on the planet are good it is usually less the disapproval of the other species, but simply uneasiness at mixing and worrying that those Going Native won't have time for their own.
* In ''Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong'' from ''Literature/TheThingsTheyCarried'', Mary Anne Bell is the girlfriend of a young medic who falls in love with Vietnam and eventually crosses over to the other side, becoming part of the land.
* In ''Literature/TheYearsOfRiceAndSalt'', a Japanese ronin ends up with a Native American tribe and assimilates into their culture.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* On ''Series/{{The 100}}'', Octavia desperately ''tries'' to do this, embracing Grounder ways and rejecting most of her ties to the Sky People, but she can never quite gain acceptance among the Grounders. Her lover, Lincoln, is a Grounder, but the rest of his people accuse ''him'' of Going Native with the Sky People, even though Lincoln's acceptance among the Sky People is only slightly better than Octavia's among the Grounders.
* In ''Series/TheAmericans'', Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings are Russian spies who were sent to America back in the 60's. After 20 years in the States, Phillip has increasingly embraced American culture, creating a rift with Elizabeth, who has remained largely loyal to the Soviet Union.
* ''Series/BabylonFive'':
** The first Kosh seems to have gone native with humanoids, in a sense. To the point of helping to assassinate his successor to prevent him from listening to Sheridan's plans.
** Delenn was accused of doing this by other Minbari and in fact she had, biologically speaking. Culturally she remained a Minbari. Racism aside it is perhaps a legitimate fear that a diplomat will do this if in contact to long and so the Grey Council may have not been totally irrational.
** Sinclair fits in so well as Minbari Ambassador that this seems to be the trope. However, [[spoiler:it's the other way around, Minbari culture is based around his role as [[CrystalDragonJesus Valen]]]].
** Accusations of going native from extremists are common in the series.
** During his assignment to Minbar, Vir goes Full Native. Much to Londo's chagrin. The extent of his Native turn eventually causes some [[RuleOfDrama interesting story]].
** The previous Centauri ambassador to Minbar also went native, which is why the Centauri took so long to send someone again. According to JMS, he's in retreat somewhere, meditating and trying to grow a head bone.
* ''Series/TheBookOfBobaFett'': After surviving the [[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi Sarlacc pit]], Boba Fett is stripped from his armor by Jawas and [[MadeASlave enslaved]] by a Tusken raiders tribe. One day he saves the life of a Tusken child by killing a sand monster, and the tribe starts integrating him. He helps them getting rid of a heavily armed Pyke Syndicate train crossing their territory, and in turn they teach him their gaderffii staff-based martial art, dress him like them and have him build his own staff (he had to go through a [[JunkieProphet ritualistic]] MushroomSamba first). It doesn't end well for the tribe as they're wiped out by the Pyke Syndicate, but the experience does a lot to end Boba's [[IWorkAlone lone wolf attitude]], driving him to [[StartMyOwn form his own crime syndicate]] based on [[TrueCompanions mutual loyalty]].
* ''Series/BurnNotice''
** Michael jokingly accuses the security chief for the Pakistani consulate of going native after finding him in an Indian restaurant. May be a subversion, as the cultures of India and Pakistan are almost indistinguishable.
--->'''Waseem:''' Oh, I like the chicken tikka.
** Almost fully happens to Michael during the final season, which saw him having to live the life of a disavowed and desolate former agent in order to attract the attention of the terrorist group he needed to get in with. By the final episodes, even after making contact with his friends again, he's spent so much time with no back up, no resources, pressure from his handlers who only want top-tier results, and the largely sympathetic nature of the terrorist that got so many on his side in the first place, Michael is only moments away from embracing the other side before he is brought to his senses.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** The Doctor has, over the course of their [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld very long life]], grown very fond of Earth. They still love to travel, and are a little too alien to really be considered a "native", but the Doctor loves everything about our culture, clothes, food and people. Particularly conspicuous in the Classic Series, when they frequently interacted with the Time Lords, throwing into sharp relief how utterly... well... ''alien'' their human-esque appearance and behaviour seemed to other members of their own species. The Tenth Doctor was probably the biggest example of this, almost to the point of mild PinocchioSyndrome.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E11BoomTown "Boom Town"]], a stranded alien has been covertly living as a Welsh politician, and, even as she plots to [[spoiler:blow up the entire Earth to facilitate her escape]], grumbles that the London-based government wouldn't notice if UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} slid into the sea. She then immediately labels the moment as an example of this trope.
* Sully in ''Series/DrQuinnMedicineWoman'' often seems to relate more to his Native American friends than the white folks in town.
** In the episode "Another Woman", a white woman is rescued following a raid on a Native American camp. It turns out she was raised by the tribe after having been abducted at such a young age that she barely remembers her old life or how to speak English.
* In ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', the Peacekeepers are so paranoid about this happening to their troops that they consider ''anyone who even speaks to an alien without explicit authorization'' to have become “irreversibly contaminated”[[note]]The commanding officer who ordered that designation for so little was noted to be ''insane'' and twisting the rules to the point that the officer in question is later told she could have come back to the fold after he was relieved of command if she wished; however she actually had gone native by then and had no desire to[[/note]]. While this may seem like plain old Xenophobia at first, digging into the Peacekeepers’ past with the Eidelon “Peacemakers” reveals that these people were specifically engineered to be impartial enforcers who were never supposed to take sides in a conflict. Therefore, this extreme isolation was necessary for them to retain that impartiality.
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}''.
** Nandi, former [[HighClassCallGirl Companion]] (a ritualized and ''very'' high-class prostitute from the urban, "civilized" Core) turns tough-talking [[MissKitty madam]] of a rim-world brothel. Certain episodes suggest this may be happening to [[SilkHidingSteel Inara]], the show's other companion, through her association with scruffy and unrespectable folks like Mal.
** More sinister is the sole survivor of a Reaver attack on a ship. He begins to act as a Reaver because he can't mentally handle the things he saw, so he becomes the horror he witnessed. It's strongly implied that this is how the Reavers replenish their numbers.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** Daenerys goes native among the Dothraki, though their RapePillageAndBurn traditions still repulse her; she is far less willing to assimilate into Qarth and Slaver's Bay, however.
** Sansa's hairstyle grows more elaborate during Season 1 as she adapts to life in the south.
** Jon Snow pretends to go native when he joins the wildlings and gains a lot of insight into them in the process and his superiors accuse him of actually going native. He's unquestionably loyal to the Night's Watch but with his frequent references to the Wildlings as "Free Folk", it's more than a little obvious that his time among them has had an effect. Tormund Giantsbane even {{lampshades}} this when he suggests Jon spent too much time with them and will never be a true "kneeler" again.
** Mance Rayder grew up in the Night's Watch but eventually went native among the wildlings and rose to be their king.
** Jaime snarks that Catelyn has become a real she-wolf (House Stark) rather than a fish (House Tully) as she became quite comfortable with her Northern home after being married off to Ned. Lysa Arryn later tells Sansa that her mother in her youth was quite a big eater and far less austere than when she was Lady of Winterfell, pointing out that she assimilated into Ned's world very easily.
** Myrcella chews Jaime out when he comes to rescue her, declaring that she loves Trystane and Dorne is her home now.
* Called out in dialogue in ''Series/GoodOmens'' when Crowley and Aziraphale survive the attempts of their respective superiors to execute them; it's Beelzebub's explanation for how Crowley, a demon, can lounge casually in a holy water bath.
* In the second season of ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', Mohinder works with Mr. Bennet to take down the Company from within, but eventually becomes convinced that the Company is really the heroic organization and Bennet was misleading him.
%%* Zeb Macahan from ''Film/HowTheWestWasWon''.
* In the ''Series/{{JAG}}'' episode "Gypsy Eyes", after Harm & Mac have had their plane shot down by the Russian Air Force in Russia, they join a Gypsy brother and sister couple. They find out that Harm’s long lost father escaped from captivity as a POW taken to Russia, assimilated into that Romani family, died protecting them, and had even sired a son with a woman.
** A different episode concerns a female naval officer who got lost, took shelter with, then joined an Iraqi Bedouin tribe by marrying into it.
* ''Series/KamenRiderGaim'': Part of Kamen Rider Bravo's backstory. Born Gennosuke Oren, he changed his name to Oren Pierre Alfonzo after going to France, where he served as a soldier of their Parachute Regiment, fighting in the Middle East and Africa, in order to gain French citizenship. He also trained as a patisserie there, and is renowned as one of their top bakers. By the time he returned to Japan, he was more French than Japanese.
* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': Locke "goes native" by leaving the 815 camp to join the Others. Also, in season 5, [[spoiler: several of the 815ers join the Dharma Initiative and lead happy lives in the 1970s.]]
* PlayedForLaughs on ''Series/{{MADtv}}'' when an Arab terrorist sleeper agent ([[CastingGag played by the Jewish Ike Barinholtz]]) becomes completely Americanized to the point of becoming Jewish, speaking with a perfect "Goofy White Guy" American accent and basically living UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream as just another suburbanite. He's called out on this by his contact... who then [[HeelFaceTurn becomes mesmerized by the vibrating chair, built-in remote and TiVo,]] promptly adopting the same accent and turning his turban into a fruit bowl to become the agent's "old friend".
* A RunningGag in ''Series/TheNanny'' was the Sheffields, especially Gracie, adopting stereotypically Jewish mannerisms and speaking Yiddish due to Fran's influence.
* In the later series of ''Series/NorthernExposure'', Joel ends up living with native villagers on the banks of the river.
* ''Series/TheOrville'':
** {{Downplayed}} but present with the Security Chiefs. Alara and Talla are Xeleyans, a culture whose [[PlanetOfHats species hat]] is that of the ProudScholarRace, who [[KlingonScientistsGetNoRespect look down on military careers and combat soldiers]], despite being {{Heavyworlder}}s with SuperStrength in Earth-normal gravity. Alara had a great deal of insecurity and angst over being unable to fit in with her native people, feeling more comfortable with humans. Talla comes from a family of {{Cultural Rebel}}s who are considered trash by their fellow Xeleyans, and grew up in the more cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Union.
** Another "{{Downplayed}} but present" comes with Isaac. A MechanicalLifeform, he was sent by his people as an observer [[spoiler: as well as a spy and infiltrator]] to learn about organics. In the course of this, he spends 700 years on a time-shifted planet observing their cultural development, starts a romantic relationship with the ship's doctor (and helps take care of her kids), and comes to feel more at home with the crew than his people [[spoiler: enough to make a HeelFaceTurn and literally rip his leader's head off when ordered to prove his loyalty by killing his girlfriend's young son.]]
** Likewise, the conflict with Bortus and Klyden has elements of this with some {{Deconstruction}}. Their species is a OneGenderRace that presents as male and has a nasty misogynistic streak. Early on, Bortus is forced to question his culture's gender norms when his child is born female, which forces a court battle against "correcting" the child's gender (he loses). Bortus's ex also [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything turned out to be more into women, which is punishable by life imprisonment]] on the homeworld. Bortus adapting to the more gender-neutral culture of the Union (including taking orders from Kelly) while Klyden is stubbornly sticking to his guns as far as Molocan norms, has pretty much destroyed their marriage.
* ''{{Series/Outlander}}'': After offering himself in exchange for [[spoiler: having Roger freed from captivity, Young Ian is adopted by the Mohawk, an outcome he is very pleased with]]. Upon his reappearance, he has a Mohawk hairstyle and clothing, along with carrying a bow.
* In ''Series/{{Rome}}'', Lucius Vorenus is complimented by a high-class Roman visiting Egypt for averting this. He stays true Roman while other officials in Cleopatra's court, including the triumvir Mark Antony, go native, a sacrilegious offense to Roman eyes. See Real Life below for more info on Antony's fate.
* In ''Rosehaven'', Emma Dawes follows her best friend Daniel to his hometown while recovering from a bad honeymoon, getting a job in his mother's real estate agency. By the end of the second series, while Emma and others claim that she's still an outsider, Daniel points out that she likes Rosehaven more than most of the people born there.
* During one "Sprockets" sketch on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' broadcast just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dieter waxes poetically (and almost [[HoYay homoerotically]]) about an East German filmmaker (played by Creator/WoodyHarrelson) whose films, in the opinion of Dieter, were "the perfect combination of depression, anti-consumerism, and disdain for the decadent western democracies". He then says that he is personally thrilled to welcome the filmmaker to his show. And when the filmmaker comes out, he's in a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and flip flops, Hawaiian shorts, and is toting two big bags of fast food hamburgers. Most of his interview consisted of Dieter being aghast at the man's sudden devotion to western-style democratic consumerism now that the Wall had fallen.
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepers_(TV_series) Sleepers]]'', a BBC comedy-drama originally shown in 1991, tells the story of two Soviet 'sleeper' agents sent to Britain in the 1960s but all but forgotten about until 1991. Meanwhile the two agents have Gone Native and now consider themselves British, and the series depicts their attempts to evade the KGB who want to bring them back to the Soviet Union.
** The trope is lampshaded when Major Grishina finds the head of the local KGB cell loudly cheering a baseball game. "What am I supposed to do, wear an ''I Love Leningrad'' T-shirt?"
* Happens multiple times in ''Series/StargateSG1'':
** In "A Hundred Days", Jack O'Neill gets trapped on a planet after a meteor hits the Stargate and buries it. He gets a quick TimeSkip montage wherein he gets married and settles down, only to get rescued by the end of the episode.
** In "Fallen", Daniel Jackson wakes up on a strange planet with no memory of his previous life (before or after he [[AscendToAHigherPlaneofExistence Ascended To A Higher Plane Of Existence]]) and becomes a part of the local tribe. The [[StatusQuoIsGod status quo]] is returned, along with his memory, by the end of the episode ... again.
** Downplayed with Ba'al. After the Goa'uld are no longer the threat they once were, he hides out on Earth, developing a fondness for the culture. He's still evil, of course, but he actually picks up enough human traits that he becomes a better villain than the rest of the Goa'uld combined. His fondness for Earth is best shown in ''Continuum'', where in an alternate timeline, [[BenevolentAlienInvasion his grand takeover of Earth would have involved leaving it exactly as it is]], in exchange for humanity submitting to his absolute authority as God-Emperor. The other System Lords think he's gone ''insane''.
** Long time [=SG-1=] antagonist Harry Maybourne eventually gets marooned on a low tech planet, where he uses his knowledge to make himself king. He finds that he ''likes'' being the king, and that he's ''good'' at it, so much so that he is very popular among the people he's ruling because he has done so much to make their lives better. When he gets the opportunity to return to civilization, he opts to stay.
** Teal'c, after spending several years on Earth, becomes a bigger PopCulturedBadAss than his teammates.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek''
** ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries ST:TOS]]''
*** Thanks to {{phlebotinum}}-induced [[LaserGuidedAmnesia amnesia]], Captain Kirk winds up accidentally going native in the episode "The Paradise Syndrome". Being original Franchise/StarTrek, this of course is [[ResetButton reversed by the end of the episode]].
*** Captain Kirk does this again in "A Piece Of The Action" when he adopts the [[TheMafia natives' ways]] by making himself the biggest [[TheDon don]] on the planet. Nobody's gonna put the bag over him any more!
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''
*** Data does the same when he walks into a pre-industrial village with damage-induced amnesia.
*** Even though it is done through a LotusEaterMachine (a small alien probe), Captain Picard does this in "The Inner Light". He lives out a long, full life in the span of an episode (and approximately 15 minutes in-universe).
** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''
*** During [[ResurrectiveImmortality her previous life in the body of Curzon]], Dax was one of the early Federation diplomats to start friendly relations with the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Klingons]]. Being already kind of a boisterous hothead, he gained their respect and trust by becoming deeply involved in Klingon culture, learning their language and martial arts, as well as coming to highly appreciate their music and [[ForeignQueasine cuisine]]. Eventually one of his Klingon friends even named his son after him, and Dax was part of the group of four warriors who swore a blood oath to avenge the murder of the firstborn sons of the other three, no matter how long it would take to find their killer (a Klingon criminal known as the Albino). His connection to the Klingons was so strong that even when his body died and his mind added to that a young female scientist, it became a very major part of her new personalty. To the extent that [[spoiler:when she meets the only Klingon in the Federation as he takes down a group of bullies with his martial arts skills, she immediately gets very interested in him and eventually ends up as his wife a few years later.]]
*** Ben Sisko went completely native over the course of the series, he started calling the wormhole aliens "Prophets", learned to read ancient Bajoran and bought land on Bajor to build a house. Several of his superiors said that Starfleet was deeply concerned by Ben's role as the Emissary and increasing assimilation into Bajoran culture, and said that they would have pulled him out if it wouldn't have totally ruined friendly relations with Bajor. Ultimately subverted in the three part pilot of Season 7, where we learn that Sisko’s “mother” was actually one of the wormhole alien “Prophets”, thereby making him partially a native of that region. She even tells him that “you are of Bajor”.
** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''
*** According to T'Pol, a Vulcan expedition crashed in Pennsylvania in the 1950s and, believing that rescue was not coming, disguised themselves as humans to survive. By the time rescue ''did'' come several months later, one of their number had become so fascinated with humanity that he refused to leave, and the others finally let him stay and reported to High Command that he had died in the crash.
* Gabriel/Trickster from ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' fits this. He ran away and 'joined the Pagans', only to eventually go up against Lucifer because he actually quite likes humans and doesn't particularly want them to die. He's also shown to understand sarcasm, have conversations with people and blink regularly (Castiel had difficulty with those at first).
* An episode of ''Series/TalesFromTheDarkside'' was called "Going Native", and involved an alien woman settling down on Earth.
* ''Series/TheTerror'': "Tell them we are gone." [[spoiler:One of them hadn't 'gone' as in died, he'd 'gone' as in this trope.]]
* In ''Series/YesMinister'', "going native" is a term for when ministers start to view themselves as part of their departments rather than part of the government, and get into the Civil Service mindset of hoarding money and influence for the department rather than following the government's agenda.

[[folder:Music]]
* Parodied in "Gone Guru" by Lifeseeker (a.k.a. [[SongAssociation that Convicts song from]] ''VideoGame/DeadRising''). A rockstar [[CelebrityIsOverrated becomes disillusioned]] with his [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll glamorous lifestyle]] and gives it all up to become a hermit living out of a van in the middle of the woods. He becomes a self-help guru, and ends up even ''more'' rich and famous than he was before, to the point of becoming the leader of his own cult. He promptly returns to his old hedonistic ways, and when he reaches old age he spends all of his money on a procedure to turn him into a BrainInAJar robot so he can keep partying it up for all eternity.
* Music/PattiSmith, "[[UsefulNotes/{{Explorers}} Amerigo]]":
-->''Ahh, the salvation of souls! - but wisdom we had not,''
-->''For these people had neither King nor Lord,''
-->''And bowed to no one''
-->''And they had lived in their own liberty...''
-->''It's such a delight to watch them dance''
-->''Free of sacrifice or romance''
-->''Free of all the things that we hold dear...''
-->''And the sky opened''
-->''And we laid down our armor''
-->''And we danced, naked as they''
-->''Baptized in the rain''
-->''Of the New World...''

-->
-->

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' has the Wolf's Dragoons, a mercenary unit that was, in reality, a scouting party for the Clans from somewhere deep in the Deep Periphery to determine the strength of the Inner Sphere. Eventually, however, most of the Wolf's Dragoons abandoned their original directive and warned the Inner Sphere of the imminent Clan Invasion, known to the Clans as Operation: REVIVAL. Until the Dark Age, at least, long after the Clan Invasion was over, they have continued to serve as a mercenary unit within the Inner Sphere.
* ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'' has one example so far. Dr Peter Sawyer, the Hairless Warrior or Kioth-Tanied, went native after witnessing the genocide of a Venusian concordat at the hands of their traditional enemies and aggressive Earthling corporations. He now leads a band while his parents worry for him back on Earth.
* There's a short article about going native in the ''TabletopGame/{{Space 1889}}'' main book which discusses and averts the trope. It was normal in the 18th century, but is no longer acceptable by 1889. A British person is now expected to stay essentially British even in completely different social and physical environments. Mixed marriages are definitely frowned upon.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* The whole shtick of the [[NatureHero Harmony]] affinity in ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth''. They eventually get the ability to breathe and heal in the formerly-poisonous air and tame the local creatures, and their [[InstantWinCondition victory condition]] is to integrate themselves into the [[GeniusLoci mind of the (sentient) planet]].
* When a free colonist unit visits an Indian village in ''VideoGame/{{Colonization}}'', they can ordered to stay with the natives for a turn to learn useful skills, like tobacco planting.
* ''Franchise/DragonAge'':
** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'', according to some of [[WordOfGod the writers]], after his lengthy debriefing by his Qunari superiors, Sten will likely have to go for re-education by the Ben-Hassrath to iron out all of the bad habits he's picked up during his time in Ferelden. Sten seems aware of this if he and the Dog are the ones chosen to rescue the Warden from Fort Drakon.
--->'''Sten''': And now I am ''talking'' to an animal. I have been in this country ''too'' long!
** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'': Like Sten before him, The Iron Bull is sent by his Qunari superiors to learn about the goings-on in Andrastian society, and picks up many of their habits and worldviews. It gets to the point that he isn't sure if he's still a Qunari spy pretending to be a mercenary, or a Tal-Vashoth (deserter) pretending to still be part of the Qun. [[spoiler: Unlike Sten, the PC can tip the balance by encouraging him to either become full Tal-Vashoth, or strengthen his loyalty to the Qun.]]
* In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'', Kiefer abandons your party to join the Deja tribe of the past. [[spoiler:It is strongly hinted that Aira of the Deja tribe of the present (who joins your party) is a descendant of Kiefer.]]
* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'', the PlayerCharacter is encouraged to do this as part of his/her cover story. Joining a Great House — even the most Imperialized House, Hlaalu, is still at core a Dunmer house based on Dunmer traditions — and just looking out for the interests of Morrowind's people first, prominently mentioned when [[spoiler:Caius Cosades is recalled]], leaving you the highest ranking Blade in the area. It's entirely possible to go full-blown, avoid all the non-Blade Imperial factions, and join just a Great House and the Temple (unless you go native in the Telvanni — their traditions discourage giving more than the absolute minimum of tolerance to the Tribunal).
* In ''VideoGame/FarCry3'', Jason Brody's growing adaptation to the native [[ProudWarriorRace Rakyat]] culture and his own latent BloodKnight tendencies drive a significant portion of the plot. [[spoiler: Towards the end of the game, he decides to stay with the Rakyat rather than leave with his friends. The player's choice to either have Jason reject their culture or accept it and stay (and murder his friends in the process) [[MultipleEndings decides the ending of the game]]]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'':
** The majority of the core members of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn are scholars of Sharlayan who grew fed up with its HeadInTheSandManagement and followed Louisoix to Eorzea to help solve the problems that plague the entire world. By the present, the Scions identify as Eorzeans for the most part and fight to defend the land against the many things that prevent lasting peace.
** The Warrior of Light is a traveler from outside of Eorzea who came to make their fortune as an adventurer. Their various escapades soon have them standing with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and the Eorzean Alliance against the greatest threats the world has ever known, essentially making them an Eorzean in all but birth. They also never correct anyone when they're referred to as an Eorzean, showing that they've adopted the land as their own.
** The ''Heavensward'' expansion has the reveal for [[spoiler: Lucia. She was originally a [[TheEmpire Garlean spy]] sent in to infiltrate Ishgard and see if they had any means of accessing Azys Lla. Lucia became Aymeric's 2nd in command to the Temple Knights and played her part well, but once she saw how much of a good person Aymeric was and what Ishgard went through with the dragons, she grew fond of him and the nation and she willingly revealed herself as a spy. Aymeric didn't care that Lucia was a spy and was glad that not only she revealed the truth, but was also glad that she wanted to fight for Ishgard's cause.]]
* The Another World Team from ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'' were originally from different time periods and dimensions (Nakoruru is an Ainu priestess from 18th century Japan, Mui Mui is a kungfu fighter from Ancient China and Love Heart the Sky Pirate is from another dimension where magic airships and floating islands exist) before suddenly appearing in modern day Earth. As a result, they find many things on the modern era strange like television. By the time of ''Videogame/SNKHeroinesTagTeamFrenzy'', which takes place after the team's first debut, Another World team has gotten use to living on Earth, including wearing modern clothes and using smartphones.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'' has a rare inversion of this: The Yahg were considered too savage and violent when first encountered by the [[TheFederation Citadel Races]] and it was decided to leave them confined to their wild planet until they develop space flight on their own. One of them was abducted as a slave/exotic pet, but he managed to kill his master and successfully put himself in his chair behind the main terminal that controlled his entire galactic empire of political and industrial espionage. Since the Shadow Broker never allowed any visitors to his secret base and communicated with his lieutenants and agents only through voice synthesizer programs, nobody ever found out about it.
** Many aliens have adopted other alien cultural concepts. For example; a few Turians have converted to Zen Buddhism and Confucianism, and plenty of asari have adopted the customs, traditions and even attitudes of their non-asari mates. A few Asari, such as [[CoolOldLady Matriarch Aethyta]] believe this is a consequence of [[BizarreAlienBiology asari biology]].
** The Geth platform known as Legion assimilates somewhat into human culture by appropriating N7 human special forces armor, using the handle "n7infiltrator" while gaming, contributes a lot of money to a human charity for victims of a Geth attack, and even recognizes a Bible chapter and verse when it is named Legion.
** Due to being something of a [[TheXenophile xenophile]], Paragon Shepard is often accused of this by their detractors. Some superior officers similarly dislike Shepard for playing friendly with the various alien races, instead of using their Spectre status to advance humanity's position in the galaxy.
--> '''Rear-Admiral Mikhailovich''': You still know what color your blood is, Shepard?
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/ReahFaceTheUnknown''. Several human colonists from planet Reah visited its sister version in AnotherDimension, which also keeps advanced human technology from working there, forcing these colonists to blend in with the natives and conduct first-hand observation among them. But the ones you see in-game actually want to return back to Earth.
* In ''VideoGame/SplinterCell: Double Agent'', the NSA constantly worries about Sam Fisher going native and actively joining John Brown's Army. In the bad ending, that's exactly what he does. In the neutral ending, that's what everyone ''thinks'' he does.
* Many characters with MultipleEndings in the ''VideoGame/StarOcean'' games whose relationship with someone from another planet gets to a certain point will choose to live on that planet with them.
* In ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', one of the starter zones has a slightly {{jerkass}} reporter who asks you to fetch her cameraman who went undercover with the rebels (or at least get his footage), you find him ranting and raving about how the rebellion is a righteous cause and have the option of letting him stay or knocking sense into him. If you let him stay, the reporter is ecstatic because this has happened before, and when it does he always comes back with better and more detailed footage.
-->'''Lamalla Rann:''' [[NoodleIncident On Tatooine, he went to live with the Jawas for three months-- Thought they were his spiritual kin.]]
** There are also Joiners on Alderaan, humans (and others) who semi-voluntarily assimilate into the native Killiks. The process isn't pleasant and it's not reversible, though the ones who go through it claim to be fine with being part of their MindHive. One of the party members (and potential love interest) for an Imperial Agent is a diplomat who went through this in order to try and convince the Killiks to side with the Empire...and the notoriously xenophobic Empire doesn't like it a bit.
** A Bounty Hunter is given the opportunity to do this among the Mandalorians who sponsor the Great Hunt, to the point of being legally adopted by Mandalore the Vindicated. A female Bounty Hunter can step this up even more by marrying Torian Cadera and agreeing to raise any children they may have in the culture...though, as of the ''Fallen Empire'' expansion, they still need to work on the language.
* An occasional risk when infiltrating pre-spaceflight species in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}''. Fortunately you can have a nearby warship take them out with a "freak meteor strike" before they do too much damage to your efforts to take over the government and assimilate them into your galactic empire.
* In an "undercover cop switches sides" example of the trope, the John Woo game ''VideoGame/{{Stranglehold}}'' features Jerry Ying, Tequila's partner, who has gone undercover with Wong's Dragon Claw syndicate. The more time he spends around Wong's crew, however, the more he begins to identify with them instead of the cops he's supposed to be one of. It all comes to a head when [[spoiler: Wong orders Jerry to kill Tequila and [[OffingTheOffspring Wong's own daughter Billie]], who Tequila loves and had a daughter by. Tequila survives, but Billie is not so lucky, setting up a furious showdown between partners as Tequila seeks vengeance for Billie]].
* In the backstory of ''VideoGame/{{Tribes}}'', the [[TheEmpire Earth Empire]] sent their elite Blood Eagle knights to suppress rebellions from the Order of the Phoenix. The Blood Eagles came to like life in the lawless frontier, though, and became a Tribe, themselves.
* In the ''[[VideoGame/{{Ultima}} Worlds of Ultima]]'' game ''VideoGame/WorldsOfUltimaTheSavageEmpire'', several recruitable party members are ''{{Expy}}''s from previous games who have gone through this trope, with amnesia to boot.

[[folder:Theatre]]
* ''Theatre/TheBookOfMormon'' parodies this in the song, "I Am Africa," with the lyrics, "I flew in here and became one with this land!"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* In ''WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice'', after some centuries in the Warp, [[spoiler:Kaldor Draigo]] has gotten considerably more... chaotic since the last he's been seen in the realspace.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* The Princesses Mayapple and Foxglove from ''Webcomic/{{Nefarious}}'' in different ways due to being around supervillains for so long. Mayapple is a WellIntentionedExtremist willing to use the villains ideas for the greater good while Foxglove became a supervillain herself to keep her kingdom's economy running smoothly.
* ''Webcomic/TheNoob'' featured a strip where a mod is trying to reason with a player who was camping a named creature for so long, he believed he was one of the zone's monsters.
[[/folder]]

** Played with in the story of [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-4036 Norman Taylor]], an 1850s American imperialist who became enamored with an indigenous Polynesian form of Sarkicism he finds. However, he still engages in White Man's Burden and feels a moral need to civilize the peoples he finds to save them from colonial exploitation.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat caused controversy among his supporters and commanders for his attempts to assimilate into Persian, Egyptian, and other cultures and traditions. In Egypt, he considered Amun, or Ammon as an aspect of Zeus, and fused the two deites as Zeus-Ammon and worshipped the same. In Persia, he started gaining Persian titles such as Baseilus ton Baseileon (King of Kings derived from the Persian Shahanshah) and he took this to the extent that he, offensive to the Macedonians and other Greeks, would promote Persian commanders on the basis of merits and insisted that in his Empire, Persians were subjects equal to Greeks and others.
* Alexander's Macedonian and Greek generals who carved up his empire into their own personal kingdoms when he died embraced the local customs to varying extents. One of the most notable being Ptolemy I Soter, who declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt.
* Among the many accusations made by [[UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} Octavian]]'s propaganda against his outlived-his-usefulness co-conspirator Mark Antony, the most effective was that Antony had "gone native" and was living like a Hellenist, an unforgivable crime to the proud and conservative Romans. The most damning thing, as far as the Romans were concerned, was the allegation that Antony had, on his own authority, [[FelonyMisdemeanor held a triumphal march in Alexandria.]] This was SeriousBusiness, since triumphal marches were supposed to celebrate the glory of Rome and needed to be approved by the Senate. This would eventually trigger "The final civil war of the UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic" and usher in the UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire after Antony and UsefulNotes/CleopatraVII were defeated and driven to suicide.
** The Romans tried to Romanize many barbarian nations they subjugated, whereby they would take a few of the chieftains' sons as quasi-voluntary hostages, send them to Rome, and shower them with all the luxuries that the capital could offer. After [[MajoredInWesternHypocrisy being thoroughly schooled]] in the might and comfort of the Empire, they were sent home as loyal client kings. This backfired however, when one of them, Arminius, revolted against the Romans, and led the Germanic Tribes to inflict one of the worst defeats on the Empire, at the Battle of Teutoberg Forest.
** Rome also encouraged this among tribes (even ones not yet conquered) who had useful military skills, particularly if those skills involved cavalry or archery (the Roman Legions were almost entirely infantry). Auxiliary soldiers recruited from such tribes would fight for Rome for 25 years, after which they and their children would become Roman citizens, with the expectation that they'd be thoroughly Romanized by that point. After a few examples of this backfiring with auxiliary units using what they'd learned of Roman tactics to stage revolts, the policy was modified so that auxiliaries would always be stationed far away from their home province to remove any such temptations (abolishing the auxiliaries altogether was impossible because they comprised a huge portion of Rome's fighting strength).
* The French colonies in what are today Canada and the United States were an exercise in this, as the French were more interested in exploiting Native American trade goods than in agricultural settlement (unlike the English). Many white fur trappers adopted native customs of dress, residence, and even face-painting, and took native wives. It was no small number, either. Over half a million Métis - people with mixed European/First Nations ancestry - currently live in Canada.
** Adults abducted by Native Americans in war might be raped, enslaved, or killed, but children were likely to be reared as members of the tribe and assimilated. A classic case is that of Cynthia Anne Parker whose white family was massacred at Parker's Fort and became the mother of famed Comanche war-chief Quanah Parker. Some well-treated abductees refused to leave their new tribes when their families found them, either from StockholmSyndrome or because they really were happier in the tribe. (Cynthia was not at all happy about being "rescued", either; she tried to return to her Comanche family, but was re-captured by the Texas Rangers, and eventually died of influenza, completely [[TearJerker brokenhearted]]).
*** During an attack that left their family dead, 14 year old Olive Oatman and her 7 year old sister Mary-Ann were abducted by Yavapai natives and made slaves. After a year they were traded to the Mohave and were eventually adopted into that tribe. They received traditional tribal tattoos (Olive would later be known as the Girl with the Blue Tattoo) The two were given their own clan name Oach and their own plot of land to farm. Olive was also named Aliutman or Ali and possibly referred to as Spantsa (Smelly Womb/Vagina) a bawdy nickname common among Mohave as a sign of affection, that possibly had sexual connotations leading historians to believe she may have been very sexually active. Some second hand reports suggest Olive may have been married and birthed two children (mainly coming from friend Sarah Thompson claiming Olive had confessed to leaving behind her two children) something historian generally don't believe is true due to lack of evidence as the Mohave weren't known to have any biracial children present during and after Olive's departure. Sadly Mary Ann would later die of starvation which nearly killed Olive as well. By the time she was "ransomed" back to white society and her brother, who was left for dead during the attack she was said to be so assimilated after four years with the Mohave that it was hard to even tell she was a white woman. She would spend the next 10 years traveling the country with minister Royal B Stratton, insisting that she was an unwilling captive of the Mohave and that the tattoo marked her as a slave, likely due to Stratton's urging, and likely over fear of ostracization for fraternizing with savages. Stratton also Ghostwrote her book which has been said to be filled with anti native fluff and half truths. Its also been said that Olive suffered from depression and anxiety for the rest of her life. She was said to always keep a jar of hazelnuts to remind her of her time with the Mohave who she considered family. All of this is signs of her full assimilation and the Mohave considering her one of their own.
*** Eunice Williams, the daughter of a Puritan minister, was adopted by a Catholic Mohawk tribe after she and her family were taken captive. The rest of the family was eventually freed, but the Mohawk refused to part with Eunice, who was no longer considered a prisoner but rather a member of the tribe and of her adoptive family. After Eunice became an adult, her family tried numerous times to convince her to come back, but Eunice, who had converted to Catholicism and married a Mowhawk man, could not be persuaded; she agreed to keep in touch with her family and to visit on occasion, but refused to leave the life and community that had become hers.
** Starving settlers deserting to join better-fed Native communities was a major problem in many early North American settlements, before Europeans learned basic New World survival skills. The famous and not at all mysterious disappearance of the Roanoke Colony was almost certainly a case of all the settlers joining the native community on nearby Croatoan Island. But stories of an entire colony vanishing from the face of the Earth were less problematic for the financial backers of the colonies than having it been known that settlers could just quit when things turned out harsher than expected. There is [[http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~molcgdrg/ a project]] underway to demonstrate via DNA testing whether or not the settlers joined the local band.
** Intermarriage could also be voluntary. People might marry for a term, then separate or stay together. Sometimes an Indian girl would among the Anglos, then her Anglo husband would come back to the band with her. This intermarriage and cultural sharing was encouraged in some Plains nations because they believed the kids would inherit the best of both races. Mari Sandoz writes about this in her book ''Crazy Horse, Strange Man of the Lakhota''.
* This trope seems to be endemic to any foreign invader who conquers UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}. In order: Alexander the Great went increasingly native and the Seleucid successor state was a Greco-Persian melange, the Muslim invasions ended with the House of Abassid going native, becoming Perso-Arabic and overthrowing the more Arab-supremacist Umayyad dynasty, the Seljuks and Khwarazmians went native and became Turko-Persian, the Ilkhanate went native and became Mongol-Persian, the Timurids went native and became [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Turko-Mongol-Persian]], and finally the Safavids, Afsharids and Qajar dynasties were all one flavour or another of Turkic originally and ended up assimilating into Persian culture. Bottom line, Iran got invaded a lot but two generations later you wouldn't have known that the ruling house were originally foreigners.
* Not to outdo Iran, but a lot of the Muslim kingdoms of UsefulNotes/{{India}} also tended to established by assimilated foreign conquerors (mostly Turkic, but others also got their share). The last native empire of India, the Mughals, responsible for Taj Mahal and the proliferation of the Hindustani language, among other things, were originally an offshoot of the aforementioned Turko-Mongol Timurids.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_Guerrero Gonzalo Guerrero]], one of the shipwrecked Spanish sailors that Cortez encountered on his expedition, unlike his companion Jerónimo de Aguilar opted to stay with the Maya due to having fathered three children there and becoming a respected warrior under a Maya lord. He had reportedly advised the attack on Córdoba two years prior. Guerrero was later killed in battle by Spanish forces.
* Many of the Norman families who settled in Ireland after the invasion of 1169 eventually became "Hiberniores Hibernicis ipsis"--more Irish than the Irish themselves--to the point where the government passed the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1367, which banned the "English" in Ireland from adopting Irish customs, in a failed attempt to halt the process. It's not only Ireland, this trope defines the Normans. Originally they were Vikings who settled in Northern France, enthusiastically adopting French and converting to Catholicism. Wherever they went the Norse conquered, and left their mark on the language and culture, before being absorbed and integrating into their new homes.
* This was a constant theme in UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire, both in its fiction, and actual administrative concern:
** While Victorian and Edwardian British administrators and soldiers in British India were very derogatory about the native culture --[[WhiteMansBurden partly to justify their rule]] -- --their 18th-century predecessors were much more complimentary -- sometimes to the point of worshipfulness. The early years of the East India Company had many so-called "White Mughals" who adopted local customs and languages and marrying local women, and even took to {{Polygamy}} and conversion. (You can read about this in ''White Mughals'' by William Dalrymple; he says this was a time of widespread interracial sexual exploration, cultural assimilation and hybridity, and that nearly all Englishmen in India at that time did this.) The later Company generals nixed this hard, ostracizing many of these men. The British Raj and other colonies instituted a kind of apartheid to avoid mixing too much with the locals, or identifying with them too much. They also mandated that British children born in India return to boarding schools in England to reinforce their British roots and culture. The scions of interracial unions were never afforded this privilege and were consigned to Eurasian “ghettos”. But the "white Mughal" tradition lives in the plethora of words, items, habits and tropes in modern British culture that stem from Indian culture.[[note]]Read ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'' with this in mind. Sara is described as having heavy, lustrous black hair and dark skin ("little brown hands"). Author Frances Burnett would have been aware of the existence of children like Noor un-Nissa, later known as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Kirkpatrick Kitty Kirkpatrick]], from these once-sanctioned unions. Sara, who is convinced she is a princess no matter what her circumstances, may well be the granddaughter of an actual Mughal princess.[[/note]]
** The scions of these unions between Englishmen and Indian women would go on to form the now dwindling Anglo-Indian community in India.
** Alexander Burns, a.k.a. Bukhara Burnes is a good complex example of this. As an officer employed by the EITC, he became renowned as a BoldExplorer, and spy, known for dressing in local Pashtun dresses, speaking their languages and understanding their customs. During his service in UsefulNotes/{{Afghanistan}}, Burnes kept insisting to his superiors that they respect the ruler Amir Dost Muhammad, but they ignored him and launched the disastrous Afghan expedition instead. Burnes supported this out of loyalty even if he disagreed with it, and he dissipated in service, spending his time seducing and sleeping with local women, much to the distaste of Afghanis. The First Anglo-Afghan War broke out when a rebel contingent attacked the area where Burnes and his soldiers were quartered, and he was brutally killed, and to this day, Afghanis consider Burnes (the man who tried his best to learn their ways, to oppose British expansion there) to be a villain, a snake-like figure who tried to be one of them and failed, and in Victorian fiction, Burnes became a primary exhibit on why going native was not recommended. Burnes inspired such works as ''Literature/{{Flashman}}, Film/TheManWhoWouldBeKing, Literature/{{Kim}}'' among others.
** T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), as an archaeologist in Arabia, went native long before [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI the war]]. He was chosen as a liaison to the Arab rebels because he knew their ways so well and could speak most of their dialects. Particularly, he was one of the few British officers who didn't speak Arabic with an Egyptian dialect, which gained him the respect of the (peninsular) Arab leaders. He was sent to organize the Arabs against the Turks to weaken the German-Turkish-Austrian alliance but felt very conflicted about the whole process because he knew that the British and French were not going to keep their wartime promise of a free, united Arab state. He asked for a transfer to get out of leading a fake revolution--when his request was denied, he attempted to make the revolution successful enough to stick. He failed. After the war, he left Arabia for good, changed his name to Shaw, and joined the RAF as a mechanic, and lapsed into anonymity. The famous {{Biopic}} ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'' more or less dealt with his failure to fully cross the line.
* US Special Forces are usually encouraged to assimilate into local cultures, adopt local customs and learn the language while on deployment. They also have a greatly relaxed uniform code which allows them to wear local dress and grow beards if necessary, and it is a common custom for them to wear the patches and emblems of any groups they are fighting alongside instead of the Stars and Stripes. This caused a minor incident when US commandos fighting ISIS were found to be wearing Kurdish flag and YPG patches, which Turkey, nominally a major US ally, consider terrorist symbols.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_von_Pannwitz Helmuth von Pannwitz]], a German general who was placed in command of the Cossacks who defected over to the Germans to fight the Soviet Union. Due to the respect and understanding he always showed for his troops and his tendency to attend Russian Orthodox services with them, Pannwitz was very popular among his Cossack volunteers. The Cossacks even voted him as their ataman, or supreme commander. When Pannwitz surrendered and his troops were turned over to the Soviets, he chose to go with them, even when told that as a German he was not subject to repatriation. He was convicted of war crimes and executed. The only thing preventing the whole thing from being a positive is the fact that the Cossack regiments under Pannwitz's command committed a number of atrocities against the civilian population, including several mass rapes, and routine summary executions. And, of course, continuing the Cossack tradition of Jewish pogroms.
* UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat. Born a German Lutheran, she converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church in order to marry the Russian crown prince. Once she seized the throne from her husband, she fully embraced her adopted nation, expanding the size, influence, and progress of Russia. Indeed the fact that she became a much more observant Russian Orthodox than her husband and also did more to honor the memory of his predecessor, Empress Elizabeth, was a far from unimportant factor in her gathering the support she needed to oust her husband in the first place. Catherine the Great ultimately became just as autocratic, reform-halting, serf-oppressing, Pole-slaughtering and expansionist as any Russian autocrat.
** One of her favourites, Stanisław II Augustus (generally better known as Poniatowski), the last King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, is a complicated case. He started out part of a powerful Polish noble family, if associated with Russians early on, and sent to Russia as a young man where he met a young Catherine. They became lovers, and she connived to keep him at court (including, improbably, as the Ambassador from Saxony), while he ended up pushing pro-Russian policies in the Polish ''Sejm'' (a semi-democratic institution not unlike the Roman Senate), participated in a coup attempt against the Polish King, and then became Catherine's chosen successor to the throne. This unsurprisingly meant that he was felt to have gone Russian. But as King, he tried to reform the Polish-Lithuanian government into something efficient and modern and patronised Polish arts and culture, essentially preserving Polish national identity, and even creating the constitution of 1791 that would have made Poland into a constitutional monarchy on the English model. However, while he is generally considered to have done his best to oppose Catherine's efforts to dismantle Poland, making a valiant but doomed attempt to fight back in the Polish-Russian War of 1792 (doomed because Poland was skint and Prussia refused to help). Even after his abdication, he spent the rest of his life on a limited Russian pension campaigning for the Polish cause. So, he was a Pole who went native in Russia, then went native again back in Poland.
* Earlier in Russian history, the Nordic-descended nobility of the UsefulNotes/KievanRus gradually assimilated into the local culture as the empire evolved into the Eastern Slavic countries we know and love today: UsefulNotes/{{Russia}}, UsefulNotes/{{Belarus}}, and UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}}. Scandinavian settler populations likewise went native in UsefulNotes/{{France}} (specifically Normandy -- the word "Norman" derives from "Norseman"), UsefulNotes/{{Britain}}, and UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}}.
* The Magyarab people who live on the border between Egypt and Sudan are descended from 16th century Hungarian conscripts of the Ottoman Empire, which once encompassed both countries. Centuries of intermixing with Nubian women had made them separate from modern Magyars ethnically and linguistically (they are African-looking and speak Nubian Arabic, just like everyone else in the area), but to this day they and the people around them recognize that there is still ''something'' inherently foreign about them.
* UsefulNotes/{{Bulgaria}} is named after the Bulgars, a group that started out ethnically Turkic or Indo-Iranian but merged with the Slavic population to the point where "Bulgar" and "Bulgaria" became something of an ArtifactTitle. This is in contrast with the lesser-known Volga Bulgaria in UsefulNotes/{{Russia}}, which maintained its Turkic identity until the UsefulNotes/{{Mongol|ia}} conquest centuries later. Even today, Turkic ethnic groups (specifically Tatar and Chuvash people) constitute a majority in the Volga Bulgars' former lands.
* UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler's younger brother Radu the Handsome spent his childhood alongside him in the Ottoman Empire, but unlike Vlad who always longed to return home, Radu ended up befriending Mehmed TheConqueror before becoming a leading figure of the Ottoman court and took part in UsefulNotes/TheFallOfConstantinople.
* In the 20th century in Washington, DC, it was dogma among conservatives that the State Department was a nest of liberals/communists. Every time a Republican president was elected, it was hoped that the new Secretary of State they appointed would set things straight down there. Much to their chagrin, however, it was invariably discovered that the new boss had instead taken on his subordinates' colors. He had [[TitleDrop Gone Native]].
** This is likely a problem of ideology not tracking reality. There was a feeling in Britain for much of the 20th century that the foreign office was cynical and conservative and similar disappointment when Labour foreign ministers were often seen to have 'gone native'. The truth is that most state department/foreign offices tend to be run along very pragmatic lines. If you are an ideologue/idealist of some sort--you think the state department should do more to dismantle and oppose communist regimes, or you think the foreign office should have a hand in ousting dictators regardless of whether we have 'friendly' relations with them--you're bound to be disappointed by a pragmatic approach and conclude foreign policy is being run by your ideological opponents.
* J. Hudson Taylor, a British missionary in China, wore Chinese clothing, wore his hair in the Manchu queue, and spoke Chinese to be able to be better accepted by the Chinese public.
** Matteo Ricci, Jesuit priest and missionary, also mastered the Chinese language (including its complicated writing system), wore Chinese robes and was the first Westerner to visit the Forbidden City.
* The escaped convict [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Buckley_%28convict%29 William Buckley]] (no, not [[Creator/WilliamFBuckleyJr that one]]) spent several years living among Aboriginal Australians. The UsefulNotes/AustralianSlang term "Buckley's chance" ("close to no chance") comes from his name.
* Soldiers from any number of long-term occupying armies over the centuries have found themselves in settled lives, even marrying locals and having children, in the occupied countries. For example, it's on record that when the Roman legions were finally ordered back to Rome to defend the capital of the collapsing empire a lot of them quietly deserted to stay with their families.
* William Adams also known as Miura Anjin, an English ship's pilot working for the Dutch who eventually became an adviser to Tokugawa Ieyasu and was responsible for setting up Dutch and English trading houses in Japan. He was officially made a samurai by Ieyasu and served as the inspiration for the Blackthorne character in ''Literature/{{Shogun}}''.
* Ely Parker, chief of the Six Civilized Nations, was an assimilated American Indian. He fought in the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar and was with Grant at Appomattox.
* Henry "{{Literature/Papillon}}" Charriere reportedly spent some time with a native tribe in South America after one of his escapes from a French penal colony. He made friends with the chief, adopted a local lifestyle and subsistence, and married two women with whom he fathered children. However, there are doubts about how much of the story is true as Charriere is suspected of combining tales from other prisoners with his own and outright making some parts up for drama.
* There was a hilarious Transylvanian Internet meme in the form of a log that detailed a Hungarian politician becoming more Romanian with every entry, as indicated by his knowledge of the language improving, but his style becoming more raw and primitive. (As you might have guessed, the two groups don't much like each other.)
* Lafcadio Hearn had a knack at this. Born in Greece to a local mother and an Irish father, he ended up traveling from Ireland to America, where he became a newspaper writer. After stirring up scandal by marrying a black woman, Hearn spent ten years in New Orleans, fell in love with its Creole culture, and through his writings basically created the distinct character of the city. In 1890 he wound up in Japan, and six years later had become a naturalized citizen under the name Koizumi Yakumo. He married into a samurai family and spent the last eight years of his life writing over a dozen books about the country, introducing Western audiences to Japan while documenting his new homeland's myths and legends at a time it was advancing into modernity. Though he's fairly obscure in the West, Hearn/Yakumo is still held in high regard in Japan. If you know him, it's likely because you read "The Boy Who Drew Cats" when you were a kid, or are a ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' fan who got into the setting's supplementary material.
* The Lombards, who conquered Italy in the 6th century, adopted Roman culture to the point that not even the Lombard language was spoken by the 8th century.
** Same with the Manchus in China: they basically adopted Chinese culture and language, and even though many people in northern China claim to be ethnic Manchu, there are only about a dozen speakers of the Manchu language left.
* The Native American woman Pocahontas adopted Christianity and English customs after being abducted by the settlers of Jamestown.
* In reminiscence of a specific lord chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury who later paid his switch with his life, going native in a particular institution has been described as the "Becket effect" by economists (Thomas à Becket started his political career as a thoroughly loyal pawn of Henry II and a party boy. After his ascension to the archbishopric he became one of the Catholic Church's main champions in England, and an ascetic to boot). Generally, whenever a (supposed) pawn of a national government gets into a position like the European Commission or the European Central Bank, he quickly becomes a man of the club and ceases to be the lackey of his "principal", much to the chagrin of their promoters.
* Hasekura Tsunenaga led an expedition to Europe in 1614 at the behest of UsefulNotes/DateMasamune on the European-styled ship ''San Juan Bautista/ Date Maru''. These explorations were the first Japan had ever made to explore the world and went to many Christian nations. Date was a patron of Japanese Christians, while Hasekura and many of the men who served under him as the ships crew were actually Christian. At least five of these crew members would opt to stay in Coria del Rio, a small town in Spain, rather than risk persecution and death as Christians in Japan. Many in the town today claim to be descendants of the crewmen, who have taken up the surname ''Japón'' (Japan), and a statue of Hasekura stands there.
* Steppe cultures like the Mongol Empire tend to do this whenever it forms an empire in settled lands. There are a number of reasons for this: the pasture is not suitable for their horses, the population of the conquered lands is too big to assimilate, the local culture is the only source of bureaucrats and siege engineers for further conquests, and the settled places are just plain rich and viands, concubines, and palaces are more fun than yurts. It is common though to maintain nominal deference to the GoodOldWays like building giant game preserves to hunt in or having horsetails as a flag.
** As mentioned above, the Timurids did this ''twice'': they were a Central Asian steppe empire that eventually assimilated into Persian culture in the 14th century, and then in the 16th century, a Timurid king conquered much of India, forming the Mughal Empire that assimilated into ''Indian'' culture.
** Somewhat similar were the Magyar horsemen who settled into Eastern Europe. Their Hungarian descendants, while having long since adopted European customs and styles, still retain elements of their nomadic past, including their language.
* Many immigrants or expats will find themselves doing as the locals do, taking up new languages, studying for citizenship tests, and adopting local customs as to fit in better at their new home.
** A general rule of thumb in countries such as the US and Canada that have large immigrant populations is that the children born in their new home are, generally speaking, almost fully assimilated in the general culture, and their children certainly will be.
** The Peranakan Chinese of South East Asia are typically descended from Chinese traders who settled in what was then the Spice Islands or the East Indies (Nanyang to the Chinese). After a few generations their customs and cuisine absorbed a lot of Malay influences, going native, although they do maintain distinct traditions based on their Chinese roots. Notably, this is in stark contrast to the later generation of Chinese immigrants to Malaya and Singapore that came during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who ended up maintaining their own distinct Chinese communities and languages to the present day due to colonial racial separation policies enforced by the British and the subsequent ethnic tension that would linger for decades.
* There also exists inversions of this trope, where instead of someone assimilating into the local culture, [[RussianReversal the local culture assimilates into that someone]]: India being one such example with Turkic invaders.
** In Britain, the Anglo-Saxons ended up assimilating the native Britons to their language and culture, absorbing the native Celtic culture in most what is now England around the 6th and 7th centuries CE, and even that was not exclusive - Cumbric, a Celtic language closely related to Welsh survived until the 12th century and Cornish survived until the 17th century. Speaking of Celtic, it's a little-known fact that it was the dominant language group of continental Europe before the turn of the 1st millennium BCE; before Germanic and later Romance languages displaced them.
** Scythians/Sarmatians were the dominant culture of Central Asia and Eastern Europe before the 4th century CE, when East Slavic tribes conquered and assimilated them in Eastern Europe. They survived for a couple more centuries in Central Asia until the various Turkic and Persian kingdoms finally did them in.
** Most parts of the modern Arab world didn't speak Arabic until the Arab conquests and spread of Islam in the 7th century. The Iraqis and Levantines (Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Palestinians) spoke Aramaic, the Yemenis spoke Old South Arabian, the Egyptians spoke... Egyptian (well, Coptic), the Sudanese spoke Nubian, and the Maghrebis (everyone west of Egypt) spoke Berber.
** What is now UsefulNotes/{{Turkey}} had underwent numerous changes to its main language. The population began to embrace Turkish in Eastern Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, when the Oghuz Turks defeated the Byzantines. It should be noted that Manzikert wasn't quite the critical battle later Byzantine historians, and others who followed their lead, saw it as when looking for the point when their decline began, despite the fact that the Emperor was captured [[note]] After the traditional boot on neck pose, he was treated very politely, ransomed and released at the first opportunity. The main loss was the Emperor's valuable baggage train. From a military point it wasn't so much 'tipping point' as 'horrendously embarrassing'.[[/note]] However, it was around that point that Turkish started being spoken widely in Eastern Anatolia. Before that, it was Greek-speaking in the west and Armenian-speaking in the east. They themselves were originally replacements of the Ancient Anatolians, composed of numerous Indo-European tribes unrelated to either, as well as other Bronze Age cultures speaking language isolates (the Hurrians being a notable example). Some of them were even Celts, oddly enough.
** Something similar occurred in Pannonia; prior to the coming of the Magyars, the inhabitants there spoke various Latin and Slavic dialects. After the conquest, inhabitants of Pannonia started switching to speaking Hungarian/Magyar.
** When the Kievan Rus was conquered by the Mongols, the surviving Russian principalities became vassals of the "Tatar Yoke". Many of the autocratic and exploitative political systems of the Mongols were copied by the Russian princes. There is a lot of historical debate over the role of the Mongols in shaping Russia's authoritarian traditions.
* Wherever there is a frontier there are instances of Going Native back and forth. If the original cultures are strikingly different this can lead to some weird looking convolutions, like Indians with English names or fur hunters with Indian dress and Indian wives or mistresses.
* The Pakeha Maori of New Zealand, early European settlers who lived amongst the Maori. Some were taken as slaves, others (such as Frederick Edward Maning) lived with Maori voluntarily, often for trade or religious reasons. A very few even received moko.
* Zigzagged by India’s MARCOS (Marine Commandos). They wear beards while on deployment to Kashmir and learn the local language to operate effectively as a counterinsurgency strike team. However, since Kashmir is technically part of India, it isn’t so much “going native” as it is just “going local”.
* Arthur Andersen accountants sent to verify the accounts of Enron had their offices in the Enron's building and were wholly integrated in the office life of Enron, participating to the evenings and the parties and acquiring their corporate values; this played an important role to explain why they didn't notice the books were cooked.
* In the first and second World Wars, many African-American soldiers stationed in Europe elected to stay after the war was over due to Western Europe lacking the widespread racism of America, with France, Italy, and the UK being particularly popular due to interracial marriage not being as taboo as it was in the United States at the time.
* Andre Cognat was a 23-year-old white Frenchman exploring South America when his canoe capsized in the Maroni River and some Wayana Indians rescued him. He decided to stay with the Wayana (who gave him the name Antecume), adopted their customs, and married a Wayana woman.
* When UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte conquered much of Europe, he put many of his brothers on the thrones of client kingdoms, seeking to establish an international Bonapartist dynasty rivaling that of the Habsburgs. This backfired when he made his younger brother Louis the King of Holland. Instead of acting as a PuppetKing like he'd hoped, Louis made genuine attempts to care for his new subjects and endear himself to them, styling himself as ''Lodewijk I'', learning the Dutch language (during a speech he memorably called himself ''Konijn van 'Olland'' instead of ''Koning van Holland'', i.e. the Rabbit of Holland), turning a blind eye to smugglers who traded with the English, and rebuffing his brother's demand to draft 30,000 men for his ''Grande Armée''. Napoleon eventually became so fed up with him that he just annexed the Netherlands outright so he could rule it directly.
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* Steppe cultures like the Mongol Empire tend to do this whenever it forms an empire in settled lands. There are a number of reasons for this: the pasture is not suitable for their horses, the local culture is the only source of bureaucrats and siege engineers for further conquests, and the settled places are just plain rich and viands, concubines, and palaces are more fun than yurts. It is common though to maintain nominal deference to the GoodOldWays like building giant game preserves to hunt in or having horsetails as a flag.

** {{Downplayed}} but present with the Security Chiefs. Alara and Talla are Xeleyans, a culture whose [[PlanetOfHats species hat]] is that of a ProudScholarRaceGuy, who [[KlingonScientistsGetNoRespect look down on military careers and combat soldiers]], despite being {{Heavyworlder}}s with SuperStrength in Earth-normal gravity. Alara had a great deal of insecurity and angst over being unable to fit in with her native people, feeling more comfortable with humans. Talla comes from a family of {{Cultural Rebel}}s who are considered trash by their fellow Xeleyans, and grew up in the more cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Union.

*** During an attack that left their family dead, 14 year old Olive Oatman and her 7 year old sister Mary-Ann were abducted by Yavapai natives and made slaves. After a year they were traded to the Mohave and were eventually adopted into that tribe. They received traditional tribal tattoos (Olive would later be known as the Girl with the Blue Tattoo) The two were given their own clan name Oach and their own plot of land to farm. Olive was also named Aliutman or Ali and possibly referred to as Spantsa(Smelly Womb/Vagina) a bawdy nickname common among Mohave as a sign of affection, that possibly had sexual connotations leading historians to believe she may have been very sexually active. Some second hand reports suggest Olive may have been married and birthed two children (mainly coming from friend Sarah Thompson claiming Olive had confessed to leaving behind her two children) something historian generally don't believe is true due to lack of evidence as the Mohave weren't known to have any biracial children present during and after Olive's departure. Sadly Mary Ann would later die of starvation which nearly killed Olive as well. By the time she was "ransomed" back to white society and her brother, who was left for dead during the attack she was said to be so assimilated after four years with the Mohave that it was hard to even tell she was a white woman. She would spend the next 10 years traveling the country with minister Royal B Stratton, insisting that she was an unwilling captive of the Mohave and that the tattoo marked her as a slave, likely due to Stratton's urging, and likely over fear of ostracization for fraternizing with savages. Stratton also Ghostwrote her book which has been said to be filled with anti native fluff and half truths. Its also been said that Olive suffered from depression and anxiety for the rest of her life. She was said to always keep a jar of hazelnuts to remind her of her time with the Mohave who she considered family. All of this is signs of her full assimilation and the Mohave considering her one of their own.

* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'', any Freelancer that spends too long with the Reds and Blues slowly ends up becoming just as wacky as they are eventually and just as prone to pulling antics. It is even more likely if they end up joining them permanently.