One small step for man...
"We [the British] stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. 'I claim India for Britain!' They're going, 'You can't claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!' 'Do you have a flag?' 'We don't need a flag, this is our country, you bastard.' 'No flag, no country. You can't have one. Those are the rules... that I just made up! And I'm backing them up with this gun...'"
Whether you've arrived in uncharted territory or taken over a place (or even a vehicle, like a ship) from your adversary, you need some way to demonstrate your ownership. So, do you visit an office? Update a map or owner's title? No, you plant a flag.
This is a common trope in explorer fiction, with the adventurer sticking a flag in the dirt while dramatically declaring that he claims the land in the name of whatever group he represents (regardless of natives' or rivals' opinions). In cases in which this trope appears for captured ships or fortifications, the lowering of the old flag and the raising of the conqueror's symbolizes the change in affiliation.
See also Iwo Jima Pose, which also involves planting a flag, and Sword Plant, which can overlap if the flagpole is weaponized. If the claim might be disputed, then planting a flag may be Throwing Down the Gauntlet.
I claim these examples... for Spain!:
open/close all folders
Comic Books
- In Tintin: The Shooting Star, Tintin and the rival American scientists on the Peary race to be the first to plant their flag on the meteorite. Tintin succeeds Just in Time, though he has some trouble undoing the knots.
- In Don Rosa's The Island at the Edge of Time, Scrooge and Flintheart Glomgold race to claim a newly formed island made out of pure gold. Glomgold plants his flag into the ground first, seemingly victorious... until it turns out that the island sits right smack in the middle of the International Date Line. Where Glomgold made the claim it's Wednesday, so Scrooge sticks his flag to the other side where it's still Tuesday.
Films — Animated
- In The LEGO Ninjago Movie, Lord Garmadon declares his conquest of Ninjago (with his indestructible Garma Mecha Man) successful by planting a giant Garmadon flag on the top of Ninjago Tower, claiming it as his own.
- Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension. Doofenshmirtz 2 sends his robot army to invade the dimension of our heroes. One of the first things they do is topple the American Flag from City Hall and hoist Doof-2's flag.
- Mimicked by Pocahontas during her "Colors of the Wind" song. "You think you own whatever land you land on / The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim [mimics planting the Union Jack] / But I know every rock and tree and creature / Has a life, has a spirit, has a name."
Films — Live-Action
- Five Weeks in a Balloon. The plot of the movie involves a race between the British Empire and a group of slavers to claim uncharted land in West Africa near the Volta River. If the slavers succeed, they will be able to use the land in their slavery operations. Whichever side plants their flag first gets control of the land. At the end of the movie, the British flag is planted first, denying the slavers the land.
- Mars Attacks!: After a tense standoff, the President proposes a truce, and extends his hand for a handshake. The Martian commander seems to concur, until his "hand" (really a small robot) detaches, skitters along the President's arm, and stops in the middle of his back. There, it embeds the Martian flag, with the pole skewering the President's heart. He topples over prone, of course.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: Right before the Mêlée à Trois between Blackbeard's crew, the British Marines, and the Spaniards, Lieutenant Groves runs up to the Fountain of Youth and claims it with a flag in the name of King George II. The Spaniard promptly shuts him up by shooting him through the flag, before asking his men to make a note of Groves' bravery.
- Space Jam: A New Legacy: Marvin the Martian arrives in the nearly deserted Toon Town, and plants the Martian standard, claiming it on behalf of Mars. Bugs Bunny bamboozles Marvin out of his spaceship and takes Lebron James on a whirlwind trip through cyberspace to collect the other scattered Looney Tunes.
- A brief gag in The Wrong Box. One of the tontine participants reaches the apex of a very tall mountain, plants the Union Jack "in the name of the queen", and immediately falls through the snow and ice to his death.
- Moon Zero Two: Played for Laughs and exposition in the Animated Credits Opening, depicting an American astronaut and Soviet cosmonaut landing on the moon at almost the same time and battling over whose flag stays up. While they fight, a multinational fleet of ships sails to the moon; the pair are shocked to notice a United Nations flag surrounded by dozens of other flags standing and declare a truce to explore the new moon city in the background.
Literature
- Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Greg claims to have planted a flag on the grounds of Rowley's house before it was built, meaning he claims everything on it. Rowley is about to give his bike to Greg for this reason until his dad stops him.
- The Famous Five: In Five Go To Smuggler's Top, Julian and Dick tell of Sooty's daredevil climbing on the school roof, and how he tied the union jack flag to one of the chimney pots, presumably to "claim" it.
- The Island of the Skog: When the mice land on the titular island, Bouncer plants a flag, claiming the land for the mice while simultaneously declaring himself the king of the new nation.
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo, whose advanced submarine the Nautilus enables him to go places no one else can manage, arrives at the South Pole and sticks a gold-and-black flag in the ice. When Arronax asks him in which king's authority he's claiming the area, Nemo retorts that he's claiming it for himself.
- In The Last Hero, Carrot plants the Ankh-Morporkian flag on the moon, but says he's claiming it for "all the nations of the Disc". (Lord Vetinari's reaction is that this is an admirable position, and he might even tell them.)
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who: In the Third Doctor story "The Time Warrior", the first thing the Sontaran captain Linx does after exiting his spaceship, to the bemusement of the watching locals of medieval England, is to plant a standard from which a couple of flags pop out, play the Sontaran national anthem, and claim Earth (and any moons and satellites it might have) for the Sontaran Empire. The Thirteenth Doctor story "War of the Sontarans" reveals that the Sontarans fully believe this claim is valid, even centuries later.
- Kids in the Hall: Dave Foley explains how sketch comedy works by first establishing a wacky comic premise: A man awakes to find a Spanish conquistador planting a flag on his chest and claiming it for Spain. (Dave escalates the premise by having a different explorer plant a French flag on him and declaring war.)
- Red Dwarf:
- Although not shown on screen, Kryten mentions Rimmer planting a flag on an S3 Planet (which turns out to be a psi-moon) that he and Rimmer came across and tried to claim in "Terrorform".
- In "Timewave", the crew find a moon containing a large quantity of the rare commodity Helium-7. The moon is subsequently claimed by them through the planting of a JMC flag on the moon.
- Star Trek: Enterprise: The Special Edition Title of the mirror universe episode depicts an astronaut planting a Terran flag on the moon, as per the more imperialistic Federation in that timeline.
- The West Wing: When dealing with a genocidal African ruler, President Bartlett threatens to deploy a brigade each of the 82nd and 101st, seize the capitol and the airport, and run the US flag up the pole.
Music
- In the video for the Rare Americans' song "Money!" (the first song on their Concept Album Searching for Strawberries), as part of the album's satire of capitalism and the rat race, Elon Musk is seen landing on Mars and planting a flag saying "MINE".
Puppet Shows
- On Bear in the Big Blue House, in his Imagine Spot in the "When I'm Older" song from "Mouse Party," Tutter plants a flag with the logo of Bear in the Big Blue House as "the very first mouse on the moon."
Theatre
- Parodied in Vladimir Mayakovsky's Mysteria-buff. When the Englishman and the Frenchman slide down from the Earth after a flood that destroys the world and land into a snowy realm that serves as a basement for the planet, each of them sticks up his country's flag and they immediately start squabbling over whose colony it is.
Video Games
- Civilization: Call to Power: The opening titles show a legionary army making landfall and their leader planting their standard in the newly-conquered beach.
- The opening animation of Colonization features someone sailing across a map of the Atlantic (dodging sea monsters along the way) to plant a flag on the New World.
- Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!: the Level Flag appears in every non-boss stage which the Kongs must reach and jump at to raise a flag to complete the level. In the overworld map, completed levels are indicated with a colored flag matching the Kong who completed it while uncompleted levels have a Krem Flag.
- Final Fantasy XIV: In Stormblood, the plan to take Castrum Velodyna involves using Glamour Prisms, items that can change an object's outside appearance, to transform the gigantic Garlean flag hanging from the fortress into the flag of Ala Mhigo tricking Imperial forces in the field into thinking it had already been taken in their absence when, in fact, it was a small force assaulting the place. The resulting morale drop, and the Ala Mhigans' and Alliance's morale boost forces the Garleans into retreat.
- LEGO City Undercover: One of the side activities in LEGO City is to plant flags at the highest points in the various districts with the Astronaut disguise. The game keeps tracks of it as "Districts Conquered."
- Mario Party 8: The minigame Crank To Rank has all four characters gradually raise their respective flags to the top, and whoever does so first wins the challenge (if no one manages to do so after five minutes, the minigame ends in a tie).
- In OMORI, Kel celebrates being the first to ascend the ladder reaching into space by triumphantly planting a flag on the surface far above, saying: "That's one small step for KEL... and one large step for KELKIND!!" Audrey then points out that it's not even his flag but her Butt Certificate.
- Pikmin series: When a cave is completed 100%, a flag is planted next to the entrance. This is a plain pink flag in Pikmin 2, while in Pikmin 4 the flag has the Rescue Corps symbol and is colored based on what the player had selected to be their color.
Webcomics
- In In Our Shadow during the Rat Empire's first conflict with the Lemurs of Madagascar they sent a single mech that tore the entire Lemur military to pieces, then the pilot got out and planted the Empire's flag on the island. Explained as their having no interest in the southern hemisphere beyond ensuring that the sapient animals down there pose no threat to them, so they simply make an overwhelming display of force to cow them into submission.
Web Original
- Epic Rap Battles of History: Invoked during Season 1's Christopher Columbus vs. Captain Kirk, where Columbus threatens to stick a flag up Kirk's ass and claim him for Spain.
Western Animation
- Darkwing Duck: In "Whirled History", Gosalyn falls asleep due to boredom with her homework and dreams about visiting history. Multiple scenes involve great explorers (always played by her father) arriving to claim land. In one case, two explorers get into a fight over a flag that one planted.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: When trying to come up with ways to get rid of Eddy's enormous pimple, Ed's solution is to plant a plunger on it with an "Ed" flag flying off of it.
Ed: I claim this planet in the name of Ed! Bringer of bacon!
- The Hair Bear Bunch: The zoo animals have escaped in an ark and gone ashore on what they think is undiscovered land. Hair Bear stakes claim to it and plants a flag—right onto Square Bear's foot.
- Looney Tunes
- Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century: Duck Dodgers is sent to find Planet X, last location of the shaving cream atom. Upon finding it, he stakes claim with a flag on behalf of Earth. Soon afterwards, Marvin the Martian arrives and stakes claim for Mars. ("Mmmm. Isn't that lovely? Hmmm?") The resulting battle lasts the rest of the short.
- The 1951 Looney Tunes cartoon "Hare We Go" has Bugs Bunny join Christopher Columbus on his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. When rations run short, Captain Columbus tries to make a meal of the rabbit. The chase is interrupted when the ship runs aground. Realizing that they've landed on the New World, Bugs exults, "Bugs Bunny discovers America!" However, Columbus brought the Spanish standard and has planted it on a nearby hill. "Oh, Bugs-a Bunny? Who'sa discover America?" Shrugging off the slight, Bugs takes the loss well: "No sense changing all the history books just for little ol' me."
- Looney Tunes Cartoons: A recurring series of "mini-shorts" feature Marvin the Martian landing on a planet to claim for Mars, only for something strange to happen when he tries to plant the flag.
- The 1950 Merrie Melodies cartoon "Bunker Hill Bunny" has Bugs Bunny on the side of the American Revolution, holding down a picket fort by himself. His opponent is Sam von Schamm the Hessian, manning a stonework fort by himself. Twice, the two combatants charge at each other, narrowly miss, and end up in the other's fort. There, they switch flags to denote the change in management.
- Schoolhouse Rock!: "The Great American Melting Pot" shows a bunch of people from different cultures showing up in America with flags to show that the country is multicultural.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Goons on the Moon", while Squidward is on the moon, he mistakenly judges that he's alone. He plants a flag depicting a sponge with a "no" symbol over it, declaring the moon to be a "SpongeBob-free zone".
- Wander over Yonder: Whenever Lord Hater conquers a planet, one of the first things he does is plant his flag. This is deconstructed in "The Axe", where Hater learns that he lost all his planets because he didn't back up the flags with a battalion to defend his territory.
Real Life
- This was common for countries to do upon finding new unexplored land. This of course doesn't happen nowadays, as pretty much all land on Earth has been claimed or is considered international.
- There was a non-violent dispute between Canada and Denmark on the claim of Hans Island, with each side planting their own flag along with a bottle of their traditional alcoholic beverages. Eventually, they agreed in 2022 to a border splitting the island nearly in half.
- In 1969, Apollo 11 reached the moon and Armstrong planted an American flag on it. Subverted in that this was not to claim ownership, but to symbolize America's victory in The Space Race; in fact, all space and celestial bodies have been declared international via the Outer Space Treaty. The flag has long since been bleached white by solar radiation.
- Famous examples during WWII include raising the US flag at Iwo Jima and Soviets raising their flag on top of the Reichstag after conquering Berlin.
