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1-> ''"When the soul of a man is born in this country, there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets."''
2-->-- '''Stephen Dedalus''', ''Literature/APortraitOfTheArtistAsAYoungMan''
3
4Maybe their home is a DyingTown or TheOldCountry, maybe they live in an [[WrongSideOfTheTracks urban ghetto]], or maybe most people are just [[SmallTownBoredom bored]] with life DownOnTheFarm. Hardly anyone seems to want to live there, but finances, family obligations or lack of will to leave keep most people there for good.
5
6But every so often, there's one who makes it out -- maybe an incredible talent proved their ticket out of there. Maybe they won their way to a great, faraway college or to a lucrative job... but sometimes they just up and leave. Peers and elders in the town usually admire them for their tenacity, but tend to resent them for leaving if the community isn't as close-knit. Impressionable youngsters, though, might look up to them and get ideas of maybe leaving one day themselves. Alternately, the one who made it out could be despised for [[CategoryTraitor "forgetting where they come from"]] or trading their "roots" for material success and comfort. Expect, for the hero after achieving success to come back home and find out how much or how little is changed, as well as why YouCantGoHomeAgain.
7
8This story is a particular fascination in several American films, books and plays partly because of its close relationship to UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream, the promise that anyone in America can transcend their origins and roots to get where they want to go.
9
10Character trope. Can overlap with TheRunaway, SocialClimber, WorkingClassHero and RagsToRiches. Darker variations may overlap with FromNobodyToNightmare.
11----
12!!Examples
13
14[[foldercontrol]]
15
16[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
17* ''Manga/BoysAbyss'' takes place in a dreary town with no future and a whole lot of secrets. The goal of quite a few of the main characters is to eventually leave, but their own character flaws and [[AdultsAreUseless the misguidance of their elders]] keeps them trapped. The series plays with this trope with the ones who finally left:
18** Kosaku Esomori left after graduating high school and ended up a famous novelist, but the trauma of what happened in his youth there soured his relationships with all his wives and he ultimately goes back there to stir up trouble.
19** Yuko Kurose's brother left when he was a teenager. Not much is known about why he left but he had a heated argument with his father and left town one day. [[spoiler:He eventually comes back to visit his nephew Reiji, shown to at least have gotten married and had a happy pair of kids, something that very few people in the series can say they have.]]
20** The one who played this trope straightest of all was Saki Shino'oka, a girl Esomori knew and dated in high school. She suffered from neglect in her home and knew her father was cheating on her mother, even attempting suicide there when she learned she was [[HistoryRepeats cheated on herself]]. However, when we see her as an adult, we learn she eventually left, got married, had ''four'' children, and had her parents' relationship resolved with them now acting like a proper couple.
21* Monkey D. Luffy, in ''Manga/OnePiece'', is one of the few people born and raised in the East Blue sector of the world to achieve international notoriety as a pirate. His first mate, Roronoa Zoro, shares this distinction. The people of the East Blue have a reputation as weak and unable to compete with people from other regions, almost every pirate from there quickly fizzling out when they attempt to sail the Grand Line looking for the One Piece treasure. This is why Luffy and Zoro repeatedly shock the world with their accomplishments. However, Gold Roger, the legendary pirate who owned the One Piece in the first place, also comes from the East Blue, suggesting that while few East Blue pirates become notable, those few are the best of the best.
22* Gary is one of these early in ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries''. For example: Before Gold/Silver were announced, he shows off 10 badges when anyone who played the game knew you could only get 8. Additionally, he has a chauffeur and is always accompanied by fangirls and his own cheerleader squad.
23** This also applies to Ash -- he and Gary were the only ones out of the original four trainers that started their journey in Pallet Town that got at least 8 badges, never mind getting a decent place in the tournament (Ash in the top 16, Gary in the top 32). Ash manages to work his way up the ranks with each region, while Gary decides to become a researcher like his grandfather (while still traveling to learn new information).
24* ''Literature/RebuildWorld'': Applies in two ways to Akira, RecruitedFromTheGutter by an ancient ArtificialIntelligence Alpha, becoming a successful {{Private Military Contractor|s}} and moving up in UrbanSegregation class to the Lower District:
25** Amongst Sheryl's Gang he runs with her in the slum, views on Akira's success vary quite wildly. Generally, Akira cultivates an image as TheDreaded, using MakeAnExampleOfThem to prevent people in the slums from betraying him. Erio, after DefeatMeansFriendship becomes a {{Determinator}} to catch up to Akira in combat skill. Akira earns the envy of Sebla, who wishes it could have been him and that Akira was just lucky (which Akira agrees), leading to Sebla being TheMole. Multiple women in the gang want to make moves on him for GoldDigger reasons, but are too afraid of Sheryl's jealousy.
26** Akira earns TheResenter hatred from his competing hunter Airi for having gotten out of the WrongSideOfTheTracks seemingly by himself, while she needed helped by Katsuya (though she doesn't know Akira had Alpha's VirtualSidekick assistance). This led to Airi hiding her intuition that a pickpocket who stole from Akira but claimed otherwise was in fact guilty, and after a certain incident, Airi swears vengeance on Akira.
27* Hojo and Asami, the main characters of ''Manga/{{Sanctuary}}'', escaped from the Killing Fields of Cambodia under Khmer Rouge as children, and work together to reform the political system of Japan, one from "on top" as a diet member, and one from "underneath" as a yakuza boss. Atypically, they claim that they didn't make it out of Cambodia because they were clever or driven, but because they were lucky.
28* In ''Manga/TegamiBachiLetterBee'', Jiggy Pepper grew up in the DyingTown of Kyrie, a town in the poor district to Yodaka on the bridge leading to the middle-class district of Yuusari. Determined to give hope to his town, he become a Letter Bee, being one of two known Letter Bees to come from Yodaka(the other being Lag Seeing, TheHero of the series). He proves himself to be TheAce among the Letter Bees, and earns enough money to buy a bell for Kyrie's church.
29* Jack Atlas of ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'', who made it out of the slums of Satellite by betraying Yusei in his backstory.
30[[/folder]]
31
32[[folder:Comic Books]]
33* ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'': Angie Spica came from a lower-class background where her dad drove a bus and all of her sisters ended up pregnant before they finished high school. She escaped the same fate by applying herself to her studies, replacing her blood with nine pints of liquid machinery (which transformed her into the superhero known as the Engineer), and [[spoiler:travelling back in time to turn Jenny Sparks into a Century Baby so that she could go on to recruit the future members of the Authority]].
34* ''ComicBook/BlackLightning'': Jefferson Pierce is the one who made it out of the ghetto and then came back to teach in the high school and help others make it out.
35* ''Comicbook/FantasticFour'': Part of the reason the Yancy Street Gang initially hated the Thing is that Ben Grimm is a former Yancy Streeter who got out, and they think he's forgotten his roots.
36* ''ComicBook/LukeCage'': Since Luke Cage became a globally prominent superhero, some characters have occasionally accused him of forgetting his roots as a hero of the downtrodden in New York City. [[BerserkButton He doesn't take it very kindly]], especially not when a young upstart uses this to justify taking up Luke's abandoned "Power Man" codename.
37* ''ComicBook/{{Satanik}}'' offers a very dark take on this trope: Marnie Bannister is the third daughter of an alcoholic and of a closed-minded housewife and comes from a poor background but is also a brilliant biologist and chemist, having earned herself a Ph.D. at just 25 years of age and is trying to use that to make it out in spite of her poor origins and being ridiculed by everyone, including (especially) her parents and two beautiful sisters, for that and the angioma that viciously scars her face... And the ridicule pushes her first to try and complete the work of the mad alchemist Masopust, and when she succeeds and creates a serum that makes her gorgeous... Well, let's just say that she takes the name [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Satanik]] for a reason.
38* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': Some of the stories (at least before the Creator/DanSlott era[[note]]Where Peter is a CEO businessman[[/note]]) deal with Peter's {{Angst}} about the fact that being Spider-Man is delaying or hurting his ambitions and plans for his career or attempts to live up to his potential. This is also part of the arc of his supporting characters.
39** Norman Osborn in his revival often taunted Peter for being an underachiever who more or less still lives in the same way he did as a young man, was still poor, and came off as an underachiever. Doctor Octopus in the ''ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan'' initially expressed the same views.
40* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': DependingOnTheWriter, continuity reboot status, medium, etc., in various permutations of the franchise, Clark Kent is occasionally given this treatment for having made it from Smallville to Metropolis.
41* ''ComicBook/XStatix'': Phat supposedly comes from a lower-class background before getting spotted by a recruiter for ComicBook/XForce. In reality, he came from the suburbs, and his old neighborhood is less than thrilled by how he portrays in interviews, resulting in him getting the shit kicked out of him when he tries to go home.
42[[/folder]]
43
44[[folder:Fan Works]]
45* ''Fanfic/BeyondTheWall'': Before Whisperleaf was born, her older sister Whispersilk successfully escaped the village and never came back. Their parents told Whisperleaf that her sister was eaten by forest monsters.
46* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' of Creator/AAPessimal, the canonical Aesop of the Three Men in Scrote is explored further. In canon, the story is of two benches outside the livery stable in the rural backwater village of Scrote where nothing ever happens and takes a long time not doing it. On one bench are three young men, all agreed that at the earliest possible moment, they're going to get up, go a long way away, and do something with their lives. Meanwhile on the other bench sit three old men... in Pessimal's Scrote, perhaps a hundred and fifty years before the "present", there are ''four'' young men. One too many, the historian who is relating the tale is heard to observe. The fourth young man, standing some way apart from the three on the bench, is the one who makes it. He is later to make his mark on history as Sir Cecil Smith-Rhodes, having made it all the way to [[DarkestAfrica Howondaland]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Zimbabwe}} conquered a country for the Empire]], and then modestly naming it after himself.
47[[/folder]]
48
49[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
50* ''Film/BlueBeetle2023'': Jaime is the first of his blue-collar Mexican immigrant family to graduate from college and is implied to have wanted to be a lawyer, but the Reyeses' current financial troubles have temporarily put a stop to those plans. He references this trope when he bittersweetly tells Milagro he had wanted to be "the one who made it out" and get them out of the ghetto-y Edge Keys.
51* In ''Film/PokemonDetectivePikachu'', this is inverted with Tim. He is from a small town where young people eventually leave for more exciting things (whether Pokemon training or college). But Tim is the only one out of his friends who refused to leave, preferring to settle for a boring cubicle insurance job. His friends are all worried about him for this reason.
52* In ''Film/TheGodfather'', Michael Corleone, the youngest of Mafia Don Vito Corleone's three sons, is initially set up as this; he's a war hero who has put some distance between himself and the "family business". But [[spoiler:after an attempt on Vito's life, Michael ends up falling in deeper than either of the other two, eventually inheriting his father's position.]]
53* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
54** Anakin Skywalker manages to escape life as a slave on Tatooine, reluctantly leaving behind his mother in the process, and becomes a Jedi Knight at the center of galactic politics. When he returns after ten years, his former master Watto is surprised and impressed by how much he's changed. Unfortunately, this doesn't work out as well as Anakin hoped, ultimately ending in him [[FromNobodyToNightmare becoming Darth Vader]]. Anakin's tragic fate is what makes Uncle Owen very reluctant to let Anakin's son Luke leave Tatooine, as he fears he'll end up the same.
55** In ''Film/ANewHope'', Luke's good friend Biggs Darklighter managed to make it off Tatooine, became a pilot for the Rebel Alliance and insinuates he's [[HeroOfAnotherStory had many adventures]]. Unfortunately, he's killed during the assault on the Death Star before he and Luke can have a proper catch-up.
56** In ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', Rey manages to escape her dead-end life as a scavenger on Jakku--where she'd been stuck since ever since her parents abandoned her--when she gets caught up in the search for Luke Skywalker, with Han Solo also offering her a job. Initially, she actually wants to return to Jakku in the vain hope her parents will come back, but after learning she's Force-sensitive she joins the Resistance and seeks out Luke herself.
57** Two examples from ''Film/{{Solo}}''.
58*** It's played straight with Han Solo. He manages to escape from his crappy life on [[CrapsackWorld Corellia]] and eventually earn his freedom by bribing his way past a check-point (more or less), joining the Imperial Army and then deserting to become a smuggler. He attempted to take his girlfriend Qi'ra with him, but she was unfortunately captured.
59*** Qi'ra, on the other hand, is a [[SubvertedTrope subversion.]] When she and Han meet for the first time since his escape from Corellia, he asks her how she made it out. She replies "I didn't". It's heavily implied she 'got out' by pledging her services to [[TheDon Dryden Vos]] and is clearly under his command now. She may be better off now than she was in the slums of Corellia, [[GildedCage but she isn't free]].
60* ''Film/SomebodyIUsedToKnow'': Ally's friends and acquaintances from her small hometown are all very proud of her for getting a Hollywood job. She's embarrassed to tell them that the show she created and ran has been cancelled.
61* ''Film/{{Umrika}}'': At the beginning of the film, Rajan and Udai are the pride of their small village for going out and getting good jobs. Rajan stays in Mumbai and keeps in correspondence with the village; Udai straight-up vanishes ({{forged|message}} letters aside).
62* In ''Film/VeronicaMars'', the eponymous detective has a shot at getting out of [[WretchedHive Neptune]] and leaving her painful past behind her, but eventually decides she likes being InHarmsWay. (She is a very dysfunctional person.)
63[[/folder]]
64
65[[folder:Literature]]
66* Theodore Dreiser's ''Literature/AnAmericanTragedy'' shows the doomed attempts made by hero Clyde Griffiths to get out of his ghetto. He succeeds for a time, but his past and own moral failings end up bringing him down. His lover Roberta Alden is also a tragic example of the same.
67* ''Literature/IAmNotASerialKiller:'' One of the first hints towards [[StepfordSmiler Marci's]] HiddenDepths is her speech about wanting to get out of Clayton, and how she doesn't understand how such a stagnant, pathetic town came from people who walked out into the boonies and built something from scratch.
68* Janice and Larry, the older Grape siblings from ''Film/WhatsEatingGilbertGrape''. They only come back for Arnie's birthday party at the end of the book.
69* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] {{Elseworld}} novel ''The Infinity Doctors'', some young Gallifreyans treat the Doctor as this, and are bemused as to why he has come back.
70* In ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', Lancre is "the place people come from to become successful somewhere else" (usually Ankh-Morpork). Opera singer Enrico Basilica grew up in Rookery Yard, in the Shades, where "you could fight your way out, or you could sing your way out" ([[{{Metaphorgotten}} or you could get out by going through an alley into Shamlegger Street]], but no-one came to anything going ''that'' way).
71* The non-fiction book ''In Search Of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio'' follows the lives of Puerto Rican crack dealers in El Barrio. One managed to make it out, getting through high school (a rarity in the neighbourhood at the time) and college (almost unheard of) to make it into the middle class and move into a safer neighbourhood. He had to be careful going back home to adopt all his old mannerisms so that he wasn't ostracized, and had to keep his background hidden from his wealthy neighbours when at home.
72* This is Mahlia's life's goal in ''Literature/TheDrownedCities''. She is desperate to make it out of the war-torn WretchedHive she lives in. [[spoiler:She manages to do it by the end, bringing a whole pack of [[ChildSoldiers soldier boys]] along for the ride]].
73* In Francine Rivers’ ''Literature/RedeemingLove'', Angel is the only prostitute that escapes the brothel she lived in at the beginning of the story. [[spoiler:This is partially because there was a fire that killed most of them a few weeks after Angel left.]] Near the novel’s end, she [[spoiler:begins working to subvert this trope by beginning a ministry that helps girls who have been sold into prostitution by teaching them skills that will help them integrate into society as self-sufficient and upstanding women]].
74* Beka Cooper and her friend Tansy make it out of the slum in ''Literature/BekaCooper'' in different ways. Beka helps the Lord Provost arrest a gang that threatened his career, so he takes in her immediate family to repay her; her dying mother gets her pain and troubles eased, her siblings get to become upper class servants, and Beka herself follows her passion and becomes a Dog (police officer). Beka's not on the best terms with much of the ''rest'' of her family, many of whom resent her for both her fortunes and for being in law enforcement. Tansy marries Herun Lofts, the NiceGuy grandson of the richest (and nastiest) man in the Lower City.
75* Blke Thorburn of ''Literature/{{Pact}}'' is the only one of his extended family to make it out of the toxic environment that their BigScrewedUpFamily became over an inheritance conflict, with dubiously-legal acts of sabotage and spiteful manipulation abounding. In an inversion of the usual, Blake ended up homeless in Toronto, where he was brutally beaten more than once, and by the start of the story has only just managed to claw his way up to "dirt poor." He still considers it better than coming home.
76* Although this is often an American trope, Creator/JamesJoyce, explored it in a specifically Irish context as well. It's found in his short stories, ''Literature/{{Dubliners}}'', and ''Literature/APortraitOfTheArtistAsAYoungMan''.
77* Factors into the SurvivorsGuilt felt by Sean in ''Literature/MysticRiver'', since unlike his friends Jimmy and Dave he actually made it out of the fictional poverty-stricken neighborhood of Boston where they grew up and made it as a cop.
78* In ''Literature/TheAbsolutelyTrueDiaryOfAPartTimeIndian'', the protagonist realizes that if he stays in his American Indian reserve, he'll lose hope and [[HistoryRepeats go nowhere like everyone else in the reservation]]. He is encouraged to go to an off-reserve school (where the education is better than in the reserve) by a teacher who helps him see this.
79* Given a cruel twist in ''The Only Good Indians'', whose four protagonists grew up together on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana. Two of them left for career reasons, initially with some success, but supernatural forces from an event in their past ultimately catch up with them, [[spoiler:causing their deaths. [[RayOfHopeEnding The final chapter]] suggests that one protagonist's daughter may "make it out" for real, no strings attached]].
80* One way of interpreting the fate of Molly the pony from ''Literature/AnimalFarm''. While she's the only animal to leave the Farm and voluntarily return to the service of a human, she nevertheless seems happy with her new life and ends up with more luxuries and less work than almost any other animal on the Farm. Some people have even suggested that [[ObfuscatingStupidity Molly was smarter than she let on]], at least enough to realise that Napoleon and Squealer tended to hastily change the subject whenever [[OnlySaneMan Benjamin]] asked them [[AndThenWhat pointed questions about the finer details of their big ideas]], and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere took to her hooves]] before everything went wrong.
81* The Ghost With The Lizard from ''Literature/TheGreatDivorce'' is the only Ghost we see who accepts redemption and becomes a Person.
82* ''Literature/HillbillyElegy'': The author is one of the few who left his DyingTown, becoming a lawyer in New York and trying to hide his poor rural background. However, he seems to have some form of contempt for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave.
83* ''Literature/TheresSomeoneInsideYourHouse'': Invoked. [[spoiler:The killer saw all his victims as having the potential to do this, which caused him to kill them.]]
84* ''Literature/OctoberDaye'': Toby is this for Home. She's the first changeling to be knighted and gain (partial) acceptance in fae society, when most of the other kids from Home end up as street criminals, [[FantasticUnderclass just as purebloods expect them to]].
85[[/folder]]
86
87[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
88* ''Series/AfterschoolSpecial'': Subverted in "15 and Getting Straight," a 1989 "ABC Afterschool Special" starring Creator/DrewBarrymore, Creator/CoreyFeldman and David Birney about junkies in a 12-step drug counseling program. A teen named Rick seems to have made tremendous progress and is mentoring some of the other teens who are in denial about their problem. The subversion is played as irony ... in the end, the lead counselor (Birney) comes in one day and announces to the group that Rick had overdosed on a new drug. Rick had run into some old friends and was trying to tell them to go away, but they persisted in getting him to try the drug and immediately had a seizure. The counselor – himself an ex-drug user – tells the group "I would have bet money" on Rick's future success in staying straight; instead, Rick is dead ... and – in playing the trope straight and part of this episode's irony – [[WhereAreTheyNow all of the other teenagers who had been in denial are successful in their resolve to stay straight]].
89* Tasha Yar of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was originally from a post-apocalyptic planet but managed to get into Starfleet. Ro Laren similarly managed to escape from the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor.
90* In one episode of ''Series/{{NUMB3RS}}'', Che Lobo, a former gangster turned hip-hop CEO, tells Colby Granger that he wanted his ([[VictimOfTheWeek currently kidnapped]]) son to be this.
91--> '''Che Lobo:''' I swore I would never let my life touch him. That he'd have a chance to be something better. A few months ago, he tells me he wants a paper route so, so he could be a businessman, just like me. I know that he meant it in all the right ways, because that's the only part of me I ever let him see. When you're nine years old, your dad should be...\
92'''Granger:''' Superman.\
93'''Che Lobo:''' Yeah.
94* This is a major theme in ''Series/{{Justified}}''. Harlan County is very poor and many of the characters dream of leaving and starting a better life somewhere else. However, few actually follow through with this.
95** Raylan Givens is actually one of the characters who actually made it out of Harlan. Faced with either working in the coal mine for the rest of his life or becoming a criminal like his father, he left Kentucky and became a U.S. marshal. He is understandably quite unhappy that when he is assigned to the Kentucky office at the beginning of the series.
96** Bowman Crowder and his wife Ava wanted to get out of Harlan and believed that as a local football star Bowman would get a college scholarship and then have a professional sports career. When it turned out that he was not good enough for a scholarship, he went to work in the coal mine and started committing DomesticAbuse. After Ava kills Bowman she has a chance to leave Kentucky but decides to stay. When Ava finally gets away from Kentucky, [[spoiler: she is a fugitive wanted for murder]].
97** The main motivation behind Mags Bennet's actions is to provide her grandchildren with the opportunity to go to college and get away from the criminal life she and her sons are living.
98** The Crowes are a family of poor criminals and Wendy Crowe is desperate to get away from that environment. She works as a paralegal and is studying to be a lawyer. However, she is pulled back into the criminal life when her brothers get in trouble with the US Marshals. It turns out that Kendell Crowe is actually her son and she lacks the means to support them both so has to rely on her brothers to help raise him. [[spoiler: She finally has a chance for a fresh start with Kendell when her brothers are killed.]]
99%%* Frequently parodied with Tracy Jordan on ''Series/ThirtyRock''.
100* ''Series/WelcomeBackKotter'': Gabriel Kotter made it out of the Brooklyn "ghetto", became a teacher, and then moved back to teach in his old neighborhood.
101* One episode of ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' had a Marine captain whose mother had taken him away from their hometown to escape the [[FeudingFamilies blood feud]] which had killed his father and countless other members of their family. He only returned to take revenge when he learned his brother had been killed as part of the on-going feud.
102* ''Series/TheWire'':
103** Poot is the only one of his friends who got out of the game and found a real job. He's also the only one alive by the end of the series.
104** Season four introduces a group of children from West Baltimore's projects and rowhouses. Each friend follows a different path and Namond Brice, the son of a reputed drug soldier, is the only kid able to escape the doomed background of a troubled childhood, a dysfunctional family--at best--and the notion that crime is the only way to earn a living. Sadly, it only happens thanks to a remarkable, extremely unusual and unique adoptive parent, Howard Colvin, a former cop who identifies Namond's potential.
105* The premise of ''Series/SurvivorsRemorse'' is that two cousins from a rough neighborhood made it big in professional basketball, and now have to contend with being in the spotlight and the effects it has on their family.
106* This trope is a running source of source of conflict in ''Series/SixFeetUnder'':
107** Older brother Nate ran away from his dysfunctional and overbearing family so he could live outside their influence and without having anything to do with their family business. This condemned younger brother David to suspend his ambitions to go to law school as he felt responsible for the family and he got saddled into a line of work he had no interest in. When their father dies at the beginning of the show, Nate returns, clearly afraid of getting stuck at home for good this time while David's resentment at being left behind to deal with everything boils to the surface.
108** Over the course of the series, it is revealed that their mother, Ruth, had her own dreams but ended up staying home to take care of her sickly mother, resulting in life-long regret of WhatCouldHaveBeen.
109** Towards the end of the series, their sister Claire receives a job offer in New York and takes it. Just before she is due to leave, she gets news that the offer is no longer available but she decides to move anyways as she is afraid of repeating the mistake her mom did.
110--->'''Nate''': Claire, you can't stay here!
111* Characters of this type show up from time to time in the various ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'' series. Their past often ends up being related in some way to the case.
112** Amanda Rollins of ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'' is implied to be this in her family. Her mother and sister are less than thrilled (though the latter eventually comes around), believing that Amanda thinks herself better than them because of this.
113%%* One episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'' has an intentional (on the part of the mother) version of this in the form of a young man whose ControlFreak of a [[MyBelovedSmother mother]] deliberately moved and left him behind after his teacher called child services on suspicion of her abusing them. He eventually ends up taking in his next youngest brother after their mother manipulates the middle boy into killing his youngest sibling.
114* ''Series/ThePurge'': His career as a doctor has caused him to leave the middle or working class black neighborhood where he was born for a more affluent community that was more vulnerable to the Purge. Marcus remains friendly with his old neighbors and is disappointed that they forgot to tell him about one old friend’s death.
115* Deconstructed with the title superhero himself in ''Series/SupermanAndLois'' -- Clark moved out of the little Midwest farming town of Smallville, got a job in the city with a prestigious newspaper, and (unbeknownst to the people of Smallville) became the world's most beloved and famous superhero. Over the years meanwhile, Smallville fell victim to many of the same socioeconomic problems plaguing other small towns in FlyoverCountry, and when Clark returns in the wake of his mother's death, he's appalled at how bad things have gotten, taking it upon himself to turn things around.
116* Played for tragedy with Sang-woo in ''Series/SquidGame'' -- he came from a low-class beginning with a mother who operated a market stall selling fish, attended a prestigious university, and became a successful businessman and the pride of his neighborhood. However, he wound up getting involved with some {{White Collar Crime}}s, which led to him getting into deep debts and trouble with the law. He's desperate enough to compete in the titular DeadlyGame, where he's willing to put his life (and the lives of others) at risk to win the equivalent of $45 million. He's called out on this by his childhood friend Gi-hun, whose own dire financial situation is something [[IAmWhatIAm he fully owns up to]] as being his own fault.
117* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': The victim in "[[Recap/CSINYS08E17 Unwrapped]]" had grown up in a very poor neighborhood rife with drugs and crime. He'd applied himself in school, went to college, became a CPA, moved to a much nicer area and bought an expensive car. He never forgot where he came from, though. He is killed while visiting relatives in his old neighborhood and, when questioned, everyone there speaks highly of him. One drop-out even mentions that the man had encouraged him to stay in school so he could have a better life as well, and regrets not having listened.
118[[/folder]]
119
120[[folder:Music]]
121* A lot of songs by Music/TheKinks. "Do You Remember Walter" deals with someone who has made it out, singing about his friend Walter, who hasn't and the huge gulf that separates the two:
122--> "Walter, you are just an echo of a world I knew so long ago\
123If you saw me now you wouldn't even know my name.\
124I bet you're fat and married and you're always home in bed by half-past eight.\
125And if I talked about the old times you'd get bored and you'll have nothing more to say.\
126Yes people often change, but memories of people can remain."
127* "Dirty Blvd." by Music/LouReed:
128--> "And back at the Wilshire, Pedro sits there dreaming\
129he's found a book on magic in a garbage can\
130He looks at the pictures and stares at the cracked ceiling\
131'At the count of 3' he says, 'I hope I can disappear'\
132And fly fly away, from this dirty boulevard "
133* "[[{{Music/Evermore2020}} dorothea]]" by Music/TaylorSwift is a LoveNostalgiaSong towards the titular woman, who left her small, sleepy hometown to become a famous celebrity. The narrator stayed behind and hasn't seen her in many years, and still carries a torch for her and holds out hope that she'll come back.
134[[/folder]]
135
136[[folder:Poetry]]
137* C. P. Cavafy's famous poem ''[[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51295/the-city-56d22eef2f768 The City]]'' deals with someone longing for escape from their surroundings and going out in the big world for adventure but they get so caught up in their yearnings, that they never truly escape where they come from:
138--> "This city will always pursue you. You will walk\
139the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods,\
140will turn gray in these same houses.\
141You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:\
142there is no ship for you, there is no road.\
143As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,\
144you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world."
145[[/folder]]
146
147[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
148* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
149** Lord Soth stands out as one of the only Darklords ever to escape from ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}''. After nobody-knows-how-long trapped in the Mists, [[HeelRealization he finally came to understand that his punishment was entirely his fault and admitted his guilt for the actions that brought him there]]. As the setting lore repeatedly stated would happen, admitting his own guilt rendered his punishment effectively meaningless, and the plane eventually got bored with him and kicked him back out again.
150** The other Darklord who escaped is Vecna. Demigod, [[OurLichesAreDifferent lich]] and SorcerousOverlord extraordinaire, he once was imprisoned as the Darklord of Cavitius for a while, stuck in a ForeverWar against his treacherous lieutenant, the vampire Kas, Darklord of Tovag... but in a series of adventure modules towards the end of 2nd edition ''[=D&D=]'', he managed to break out of the Demiplane of Dread, put planar metropolis Sigil under siege and nearly killed its ruler, the Lady of Pain in a bid to become ultimate ruler of the D&D multiverse... and when thwarted by the [=PCs=], still managed to get away scot-free, with enough of a power boost to rise in divine rank [[OurGodsAreDifferent from demigod to lesser god]], and with the fabric of the multiverse so irrevocably altered it's implied to be the in-game reason for the changes between 2e and 3e, cementing Vecna as one of the most {{Magnificent Bastard}}s in the game's history. When Vecna makes it out, he makes it out in '''style'''.
151[[/folder]]
152
153[[folder:{{Theatre}}]]
154* A major motivation of many characters of ''Theatre/InTheHeights'', and whether or not this is necessarily for the best.
155** Nina escaped the barrio and got into Stanford. Subverted in that she struggled to meet her financial obligations, her grades suffered as a result, and she lost her scholarship and dropped out. When she returns home for a visit she's embarrassed and ashamed when everyone tells her how proud they are of her. DoubleSubverted when she uses the money from her father selling off his business to go back in the fall.
156** Vanessa wants to find a better place to work and get an apartment downtown in West Village. She ultimately goes through with it, but not before getting a date with Usnavi.
157** Abuela Claudia came from Cuba with her family, and is happy to have a home and close relationships with the community until her death.
158** Usnavi wants to leave the Heights and return to his parents' home on a beach in the Dominican Republic, believing the place is changing and with many of his friends leaving, there's not much left for him. At the end after seeing Graffiti Pete's beautiful mural of Abuela, he decides to stay and use his lottery money to fix up the bodega, get a date with Vanessa, and remember all the stories the customers have to tell as the community changes with the times.
159* ''Theatre/DeathOfASalesman'': [[spoiler:It's heavily implied that Biff Loman will be the one member of the Loman line to avoid the trap of chasing after unattainable dreams.]]
160* ''Theatre/PrimaFacie'': Tessa is from a working-class background. She gets mockery from her family for becoming a 'fancy lawyer' and feels out of place among her classmates and colleagues with posh backgrounds.
161[[/folder]]
162
163[[folder:Video Games]]
164* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag'' has Edward Kenway, the son of poor Welsh farmers who wants to become "a man of fortune" and see the wide world. In the process he becomes a {{Privateer}}, a {{Pirate}}, an Assassin and finally a rich gentlemen albeit not without a lot of painful sacrifices along the way.
165* ''VideoGame/NightInTheWoods'' has this as a theme, as it’s centered on a small DyingTown. Protagonist Mae is the first in her family and friend circle to go to college, but drops out and returns home after a mental breakdown. Casey Hartley has gone missing and his friends think he's hopped on a freight train. Gregg recounts a story from his childhood about how he accidentally let loose his uncle’s sheep and how nearly all of them either returned or died. Only one of them escaped to the woods, and Gregg says that he wants to do the same. [[spoiler:Casey turned out to have never made it out of Possum Springs, having been sacrificed by the town cult.]]
166* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' largely deals with protagonists who for a variety of reasons want to escape their hood and face consequences for trying to do so.
167** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' has Tommy Vercetti raised poor and a gangster in Liberty City, the son of his father who worked as a printer. He wanted to get out, and so worked for the Forelli Family who sold him out and Tommy spent a decade or so in prison. Naturally when he gets dispatched to the titular Vice City to oversee a drug deal, Tommy is not going to miss a chance of making up for losing out a huge chunk of his life.
168** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' has CJ who gets a lot of grief from his brother Sweet for walking out of Los Santos to Liberty City after past tragedy. In the middle point of the game, CJ is exiled and banished from Los Santos and becomes a powerful mercenary who is OneDegreeOfSeparation from every mob-boss and power broker on the West Coast but Sweet insists that he has to do something for the Hood.
169** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and its DLC MissionPackSequel also deal with this. Niko Bellic is an immigrant to America who is frustrated and miserable that in the new world he's more or less doing the same kind of work he did in the old world. Luiz Lopez and Gay Tony likewise are kind of miserable about their mutual aspirations, friendships and how a lot of it depends on their ties to the poor homes they came from. Johnny Klebitz doesn't want to escape the hood, but he does want to make his biker gang powerful again, and in the process, he destroys it.
170** Franklin Clinton's goal in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' is to be one of these. He wishes to escape his impoverished, violent neighborhood of Chamberlain Hills not because he's an honest man, but because the local gangs have no prospects compared to more experienced and hardened criminals like Michael [=DeSanta=] and Trevor Philips. Via successful robberies and assassinations, he quickly makes a name for himself and buys a mansion in Vinewood Hills, but pretty much all of his old acquaintances from the hood (including his aunt and ex-girlfriend, the latter of whom became this trope by marrying well) castigate him for forgetting his roots when they're not accusing him of being a male prostitute. [[spoiler: In Ending C, Franklin settles into an upper-class lifestyle, but still demonstrates his loyalty to his friends from the ghetto.]]
171* If Shepard has the "Earthborn" background in ''Franchise/MassEffect'', they escaped a childhood of petty crime on the streets as a member of the Tenth Street Reds by joining the military. In the [[VideoGame/MassEffect1 first game]], a member of the Reds who is still active approaches Shepard and tries to blackmail them by threatening to reveal their criminal past to the galaxy, with embellishments to also make Shepard seem like an anti-alien xenophobe. Shepard has multiple options on how to deal with the situation. In [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 the sequel]], Finch will send you an e-mail saying that, even if you are not a member of the Reds anymore, he is glad it is you going after the Collectors.
172* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'', the Jedi Exile is the only one of Revan's renegade Jedi who did ''not'' become a Sith. Whether or not that stays the case depends on the player's actions.
173* In ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', the Sith Inquisitor was plucked from the slave auction when their Force sensitivity was discovered and sent to [[AcademyOfEvil Korriban]] [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors Sith]] [[TrainingFromHell Academy]] as just another recruit for the other hopefuls to kill on their way to the top. The Inquisitor ends up as one of the {{CoDragons}} of the Empire (along with the Sith Warrior).
174* Throughout ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'', several characters -- including the lead Arthur Morgan -- keep suggesting John Marston (TheProtagonist of the [[VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption first game]]) to take his family and leave the outlaw life behind. [[SavedByCanon As the first game tells us]], John eventually does so. Once Arthur [[spoiler:finds out he's [[YourDaysAreLimited slowly dying to tuberculosis]], he chooses to use his remaining time to help John leave]]. He even uses this as a taunt of sorts [[spoiler:as part of his last words]]; an another gang member believes he's made it simply by surviving a single encounter, which slightly offends Arthur.
175-->'''Arthur''': John made it. He's the only one. The rest of us... no. [[spoiler:But I tried. In the end I did]].
176* A major theme of ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'' is Travis' status as this in the [[CarnivalOfKillers UAA]]. During the events of [[VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes the first game]] he managed to kill his way up to being Rank 1 in the rankings and then just... left. When he eventually comes back and is forced to restart from the lowest rank, motivated by the new Rank 1 [[ItsPersonal killing his best friend]], multiple assassins, most notably [[DeathSeeker Alice Twilight]], ask how he managed to get away from both the lifestyle and UAA itself.
177-->'''Alice''': We've all become trapped, don't you see? Addicted to the violence, to a life in the shadows. Once we join the ranks, we can never get out.\
178'''Travis''': Don't be stupid. If you get tired of the battles, just [[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] quit!\
179'''Alice''': But that's why we all want to fight you. To learn your secret. Don't you get it?\
180'''Travis''': Get what?\
181'''Alice''': You are the [[RedBaron Crownless King]], the one who got out. You reached the top, then walked away.
182* ''Franchise/DragonAge''
183** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'', this is a major theme for wardens of the Dwarf Commoner origin. A Dwarf Commoner warden was born into abject poverty as a casteless "untouchable" and was forced to be an enforcer for a petty crime lord before being conscripted into the Grey Wardens, who among dwarves are a highly respected order. When they return to their home city later in the game, several casteless (including their former best friend) will berate them for forgetting how hard life is in the slums there, and the Guardian Spirit in the Temple of Sacred Ashes will ask the player if they feel they failed their friends and family by abandoning them to become a Grey Warden.
184** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'', should the player convince Iron Bull to [[spoiler:order his mercenary company to retreat and allow the Qunari ship to be destroyed and]] become Tal-Vashoth, Cole's dialogue with Bull indicates Bull's old Tamassran (teacher-cum-parent) views him this way.
185-->'''Cole:''' I remember the little boy, too wise, eager to help. Words break in small secret spaces. He got away. He got away.
186[[/folder]]
187
188[[folder:Web Original]]
189* In ''{{Literature/Takotsubo}},'' the trope is heavily referenced in the prologue: Cord Cai is a Chinese-American boy from {{UsefulNotes/Oakland}} with gang history, who desperately wants to get out of the street life. [[DespairEventHorizon His fiance Roland's death and the police force's uselessness utterly trash that plan,]] so after a suicide attempt, [[TragicVillain he shoots Roland's murderer and starts a gang again.]] He's constantly calling himself [[InternalizedCategorism a failure or a "bad Asian,"]] but his gang alias is "the TinMan," Cord's gang [[NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters is constantly helping out civilians and the police,]] and the tagline is [[SuperheroOrigin "the story of a superhero."]]
190[[/folder]]
191
192[[folder:Western Animation]]
193* ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'':
194** Huey and Riley originally came from inner-city South Side Chicago. They weren't all that happy about being sent away to live with their grandfather Robert in the lily-white suburb of Woodcrest. Robert himself is a former Tuskeegee Airman who has worked his whole life to get where he is.
195** According to an in-universe documentary, Thugnificent's hometown was so poor that many locals couldn't afford ''clothes''. The crime was so out of control, that the underfunded police department gave up on the place, and just built an electric fence around it. But thanks to his musical career, Thugnificent can now afford a BigFancyHouse in Woodcrest.
196* ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'': Out of the cast of ''Horsin' Around'', Bradley Hitler-Smith was the one with enough sense to get out of show business. At the time of the show's present, he runs a successful hardware store and is the only reasonably well-adjusted member of the group. However, it's also shown that he's quick to drop his business for a chance at a potential comeback.
197** From the same show, Diane is the only member of her family who actually has a job.
198* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
199** The show originally portrayed world boxing heavyweight champion Drederick Tatum this way, to the point where he once said if he ever moved back to Springfield "you know he'd messed up bad". Ironically, when he became a minor recurring character, the show implied he never left despite his success.
200** Marge's high school friend Chloe is this, having become a hugely successfull international reporter, much to Marge's resentment.
201[[/folder]]

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