Farm Boy

"At last! All those years battling ferocious geese will finally come in handy."^note ...what? Geese are scary assholes sometimes!

"Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?"

— The Fantasy Novelist's Exam

A staple of fantasy adventures. Farmy McFarmboy is just an ordinary, humble young farmboy/hunter/etc. living and working in a simple, tranquil, pastoral land until destiny (and his mentor) comes knocking, normally knocking down his house or town in the process. Farmy is typically very whiny and resistant to the idea of being the Chosen One but eventually accepts the idea. Generally, he's the son of somebody important — either the Big Bad or The Dragon — or else from an ancient line of wizards or kings and is either A) raised by an aunt or uncle or B) their parent has fled their old life of adventure.

To make things safer, any such heritage will be spoiler marked, no matter how obvious.

Does not have to be male (which doesn't mean he's the Spear Counterpart of the Farmer's Daughter), but almost always is. Similar settings with a female protagonist are more likely to have her as a Princess Protagonist.

One common beginning for The Hero's Journey. Very common in stories set in the past, because pre-industrialization, and for most of the history of human civilization, most people were farmers. These days, due to prevailing urbanization and universal education, the equivalent is likely to be an Ordinary High-School Student.

This is such an old trope it's died and been reborn several times already (who better to keep a horse in good condition than a farmer), and there are a few traditional ways for the story to pan out. Generally, the kid will either go from Rags to Riches (or even all the way to Royalty), or he'll reject the strange new world he's saved and return home to accept the Call to Agriculture.

A science fiction story with such a hero where the main action happens in the rural setting (so he isn't actually leaving it) may be a case of Pastoral Science Fiction — or of its evil twin, Lovecraft Country.

As David Eddings (a major user of this trope) explained in The Rivan Codex, it is a good way to explain how your fantasy world works within the context of the story. The reader learns the rules along with the main character.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Slightly off course is Sheeta from Castle in the Sky. She's a farmgirl who is descended from the Laputian royal family, but she already knows this when we meet her (neither we nor Pazu does, though).
• Hideki from Chobits moved away from his family's farm at the very start of the series to AVOID becoming this trope. He just wants to live a normal life and experience the thrills and modern marvels of the city while he pursues his own future. He certainly gets far more than what he expected, to be sure.
• Edward and Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist. Their home town of Resembool is always portrayed as a farming village, although they're never shown participating. Also, their alchemy teacher Izumi Curtis is the wife of a butcher, which also lends to the rustic charm. As for the other part of this trope, they're the sons of Hohenheim, the series' Big Good.
• Goblin Slayer: Warrior is a deconstruction of this. Like many fantasy heroes, Warrior grew up on a farm and was inspired by the stories of adventurers to become one himself. However, since he spent his entire life on a farm, he has little-to-no experience in fighting, no formal training, and no real knowledge of the world at large. Naturally, Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs on his very first (and last) adventure.
• MÄR: Jack. Really a sidekick, but still a farmboy.
• Deconstructed in Yuusha Gojo Kumiai Kouryuugata Keijiban. When the kingdom in the Sky Garden universe was threatened by the Demon Lord, the destined hero from the countryside, marked with the blessing of various spirits, appeared to save the day. Unfortunately, he had been born so far out in the sticks that the kingdom forgot he existed and summoned a hero from another world to deal with the threat. Since the kingdom now has two fully qualified heroes for an enemy that does not warrant that much force, it's up to Sage of the Forest, a retired hero who has no idea how to handle the situation, to come up with a solution.

Comic Books

• In Arrowsmith, young Fletcher Arrowsmith is a farm boy living a quiet life until a recruiter inspires him to run away and join the war being fought in Europe. And that's where his story really starts...
• Some writers have Red Sonja born to a farming family before they all get slaughtered, kicking off her Wandering the Earth.
• Farmer Boy, an ill-fated New Meat replacement soldier for Easy Company in Sgt. Rock. There’s so much loss and sacrifice in war that he wants to make something grow; he has a bit of topsoil from the family farm and whether it’s in a pot, a tin can, or even a spare helmet he’s always tending to seeds planted in it. A flower finally, miraculously blossoms — in a desert mind you - at the site of his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Supergirl: In Supergirl: Being Super, Kara's parents are a couple of farmers from Midvale. She leaves her town to become a hero shortly after learning about her Kryptonian origins.
• Superman:
  • Subverted in Superboy (1949). In the Silver Age and the Bronze Age continuity, the Kents sold the farm before Clark started school and bought a general store in Smallville, whereas Clark became Superboy at age 8 (Smallville's still a one-horse town, however). Played straight in Post-Crisis continuity, wherein Superman was raised as farmboy Clark Kent.
  • Inverted with his clone Kon-El, who went to go live with the Kents for a "proper upbringing". Kon has quite a bit more hubris than his progenitor, though...
  • Ironically, Superman's Kingdom Come rival Magog started out a farmboy too, albeit from Iowa rather than Kansas. He blew up Kansas.
• X-Men: Siblings Colossus and Magik as well as Cannonball and Husk were farm kids—the first two from Russia, the latter from Appalachia—when recruited by Xavier. And while Husk doubles as a Farmer's Daughter, Magik does not since this aspect of her character is downplayed due to her having one of the most complicated backstories in X-Men history (and that's saying something).

Fan Works

• Child of the Storm has the traditional example of Clark Kent.
• Tobias Talltree of Clouded Sky is a farmboy before being chosen to become a Pokémon guide.
• In Heroic Myth, Gina and Primo initially mistake Bell for a noble because of his Servants' tendency to call him "Master". He tells him that he's just an ordinary farm boy, only for Archer to scoff and say that if all Adventurers grew as fast as he did, they wouldn't need falna.
• The Joys and Sorrows of Young Charles Finster reveals that Melinda Finster, then Melinda Cavanaugh, grew up on a farm until she was nine years old, when she and her father to the city. There, young Melinda met young Chas, who was just her age. The move also counts as a plot point, since, although Chas was told that Melinda's own mother had died, Melinda herself didn't know that.
• The title character in Kyoshi Rising: The title character was born on a small farm in the southern Earth Kingdom. She's not related to anyone famous, but she is the latest reincarnation of the Avatar.
• Seventh Endmost Vision:
  • Sephiroth even wears (black) overalls. He was raised by Elmyra in Sector 5, and grew up working on the family farm. They apparently grew a lot of potatoes, and also have the Leaf House orphanage kids help out from time to time. This also means that Sephiroth's weapon is a Sinister Scythe- appropriate for a farmer, though the author's notes state that it is also a reference to the original concept of Vincent in Final Fantasy VII, where he wielded a scythe before it was changed to firearms.
  • Tifa, as shown by her reminiscing about her childhood, and she even discusses growing up on her family's land with Sephiroth at one point. Tifa does state that it was more of a ranch than a farm, since most of the land was devoted to animals, though she has fond memories of working her mother's garden with her father.
• Reality Collides: The Ezekiel Chronicles: Like in the original cartoon, Ezekiel is a teen who grew up on his family's farm and has been homeschooled his whole life.
• Zed from Total Drama Letterz, who interestingly enough befriends a girl from the city.

Films — Animated

• Hercules is raised as a farm boy by his Muggle Foster Parents after losing his divinity as a baby, as part of being played as a Superman's stand-in. Megara even snarks about his "big, innocent farm boy routine" after they first meet, even though he really is that dorky and cute.
• In an urban variant in Kung Fu Panda, Po the Panda was just a noodle vendor and cook until he was picked to be the Dragon Warrior seemingly out of the blue.

Films — Live-Action

• The Bastard Sword Tias mention's he is a grain farmer.
• The Princess Bride has the Dread Pirate Roberts, who starts the story as simply Westley the farm boy. His One True Love Buttercup only ever calls him Farm Boy until she realizes she's in love with him and begins using his name instead.
• The Star Wars films have Luke, who was raised as a "moisture farmer" by his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru before answering the Call to Adventure.
  • His wife, Mara Jade even calls him "farmboy" sometimes as an affectionate nickname.

Literature

• In The Annals of the Chosen Breaker was a strong, if somewhat clumsy, farmboy in a quiet village until the Chosen Swordsman came looking for a successor and Breaker was the only volunteer. Since the Chosen are rarely called to duty, he still spent most of his time farming and, after his first adventure, came to appreciate the quiet life even more.
• Subverted in Athyra, which is told from the perspective of a smarter-than-average Teckla [serf] named Savn, who also has some skill with magic. From Savn's perspective, Vlad comes across as the Obi-Wan figure, but the reader (who knows that Vlad is the actual protagonist of the series) realizes this isn't the case, and indeed Savn does not have the happy destiny of the other characters on this page.
• In Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain (and Disney's film adaptation of the first two books, The Black Cauldron), Taran is a young boy, profession assistant pig-keeper, who ran headlong into adventures (and a thornbush) when Hen Wen, his oracular charge, ran away from Arawn's new lieutenant the Horned King. Special bonus points must be awarded as he is often called farm-boy (or, more often, pig-boy) in a derogatory way. Son of nobody, as far as it's known. He was found as a baby near a violent battle where nobody survived, so he was without rank or heritage, something which his foster-father took as a sign that he was the chosen child.
• The Belgariad:
  • Garion is raised on Faldor's Farm by his aunt Pol, who runs the kitchen. He spends his formative years getting into all sorts of very ordinary mischief with his very ordinary friends until extraordinary events force the farm's visiting storyteller and his aunt to flee a man who has been spying on them with Garion and the farm's unassuming blacksmith, Durnik. This sets Garion on a collision course with a destiny that's been thousands of years in the making, forcing him to learn the truth about both the world and who he and his companions really are.
  • Durnik was raised as a farmboy who was apprenticed to a smith and lives at Faldor's Farm as the resident blacksmith until he accidentally becomes embroiled in the events that force Garion to leave. He and Garion only learn the truth over time, but it takes a very long time for it to become clear that this most ordinary and humble member of an otherwise extraordinary group actually has one of the most critically important destinies of them all.
• The Bone Maker: Zera began life as a farmer's daughter, joined the Bone Workers' Guild, became one of the five Heroes of Vos, and ended up as a fabulously wealthy and well-renowned bone wizard in Cerre's most elite district. When she asks a friend what he thinks of her hedonistic lifestyle, he points out how well she's done for herself.
• A Brother's Price has Jerin, who lives on a farm, which he leaves relatively early in the plot. His ancestry consists mostly of spies and soldiers. He is the grandson of a prince.
• Codex Alera has Tavi of Calderon, an orphan raised by his aunt and uncle, powerless in a world where Everyone Is a Super. As he grows up, saves the world repeatedly, and generally attracts attention by being a Badass Normal, people begin to notice strange things about him. Such as how the mentally disabled slave owned by his uncle looks rather like legendary swordsman Araris Valerian behind the coward's brand on his face and is uncannily good with a sword. Or how Tavi just happens to look a lot like Princeps Gaius Septimus, who was killed in battle assassinated under cover of a battle near Tavi's home shortly before he was born. Or how First Lord Gaius Sextus, Septimus's father, put Tavi through the Academy as his personal aide. Or how his bodyguard when he ends up Captain of a Legion is a brilliant, scarred swordsman named Araris... Yeah, "Tavi" is short for "Gaius Octavian."
• The (unnamed) protagonist of The Crimson Tide is a 13-year-old farmboy who lives on his parents' farm, before marauders from another country invades his Doomed Hometown. He must then embark on a 5-year-journey to the capital city to avenge his parents and overthrow the tyrant responsible for his predicament.
• Crown of Stars: In King's Dragon, the first book, Alain is the foster son of a merchant, and is raised by he and his sister, Alain's "aunt" Bel. He was not raised on a farm but still fits the trope, because he grows up at home, doing work for his guardians and being a normal guy. Until he is visited by the Lady of Battles, taken to Count Lavastine's castle, and eventually discovers that he is his son and heir.
• Genderflipped by Elizabeth Moon in The Deed of Paksenarrion: Paks is A) a girl, and B) a sheepfarmer's daughter who is... actually the daughter of the sheepfarmer and the sheepfarmer's wife too. She gets all her power through hard slogging, not having been born to it. (The first book in the trilogy is actually called Sheepfarmer's Daughter.) Though her originally humble upbringing probably helped in regards to becoming what she became.
• Discworld:
  • Carrot Ironfoundersson of the City Watch fits this trope in every way, save that he's a miner's son rather than a farmer's son (and a dwarf, albeit two meters tall).
  • Subverted with Tomjon, apparent heir to Lancre and supposed son of King Verence I. Given to a troupe of actors to raise (mostly because that's how these stories are supposed to go, but also so that, if this whole king thing doesn't work out, he'll at least learn a useful trade) he was raised to be his father's son. Turns out that if you raise a king as an actor, he'll mostly turn out to be an actor.
  • Mort wasn't even much good at being a farm boy, yet a stint as the Grim Reaper-In-Training left him in a position to become a Duke. Not for very long, unfortunately.
• Almanzo Wilder in Laura Ingalls Wilder 's Farmer Boy. It's the story of Wilder's youth on a horse farm. The Call to Adventure is to go west to the wild frontier (for more farming).
• Robert A. Heinlein:
  • In Farmer in the Sky Bill Lermer and his family emigrate from Greater Los Angeles on an overcrowded Earth to Ganymede to become a Determined Homesteader farmer.
  • In Have Space Suit – Will Travel Kip Russell is your average kid getting ready to start college. He even works as a soda jerk at the local pharmacy. In fact, he's such an archetypal 1950s All-American boy that after he's done saving the Earth, he goes right back to work behind the soda fountain.
  • In Starman Jones Max Jones is literally one, working his dead father's Ozark Mountains farm to support his mother and himself at the start of the story.
• Flinx from the Humanx Commonwealth novels was an urban variant, bought at a slave auction and grudgingly raised by the irascible Mother Mastiff in Drallar, the Wretched Hive capital of a rustic colony-world called Moth. He's the product of an illegal eugenics experiment that left him Cursed with Awesome Psychic Powers and the only Class A mind capable of activating a Lost Technology's galaxy-saving defense mechanism.
• Inheritance Cycle: Eragon was a hunter/farmer raised by his uncle, whose home was destroyed by forces looking for the dragon egg. At one point was thought to be the Son of Morzan, a Dragon Rider who was the pupil of the Old Master Oromis before he joined Galbatorix. It turns out that he was actually the son of Brom, who used to be Morzan's lickspittle.
• In Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Bell lived and worked on a farm with his grandpa prior to coming to Orario. His parents died before he ever got to know them, and his grandpa's death is what brought him to Orario (and instilled in him the desire to become a Harem Seeker).
• Bria in The Last Dove. She is raised in a rural village where she is mocked for not being able to Change. Then she finds out that she's Queen Vasi's daughter.
• In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo is the equivalent of the landed gentry (i.e. rich enough to live a comfortable life of leisure), as are Merry and Pippin, so despite coming from a rural area they are not Farm Boys. However, Samwise Gamgee is a gardener. Unlike most Farm Boys, though, Sam does not resist being chosen, but rather forces himself into the quest when others are chosen.
• Mordred's Heirs: Niko Christofolus from Paladins was merely a fisherman's son, before Nadide showed up on the scene.
• Greg Egan's Orthogonal trilogy features two examples, both of which are rare female examples (which in itself is justified by the unusual gender roles in the aliens' society):
  • Yalda spends a few chapters at the beginning of the first book on her family farm before beginning her academic studies in earnest.
  • In the second book, Tamara is also from a farm, which becomes more significant when she is held hostage and almost murdered there.
• Westley in The Princess Bride begins as a farm boy, but eventually becomes the Dread Pirate Roberts. He's not related to anyone important, though.
• Defied in Shadow of the Conqueror, when a farmer's son named Gaidan seems to realize that Daylen is the protagonist of a fantasy novel and tries to join his party. Daylen chews him out for trying to abandon his parents without even a word of leave, trashes him with ease in a duel, and sends him home.
  Daylen: "Kids."
• Storyteller: Jack starts out as a humble farm boy in the rural village of Yorrow before he tries to seek out his fortune as a storyteller.
• Richard from Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth novels started off as a humble woodsman, before saving the Mother Confessor. He is the son of mentor's daughter and the Big Bad, which also makes him the first War Wizard in a thousand years. He is also the first one to turn the Sword of Truth White, the Seeker of the Truth, and so on. Again, just in case you didn't know he was special. Despite all this, he insists he's a "simple woodsman."
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Protagonist Gilbert Markham.
  "Well! - an honest and industrious farmer is one of the most useful members of society; and if I devote my talents to the cultivation of my farm, and the improvement of agriculture in general, I shall thereby benefit, not only my own immediate connections and dependents, but, in some degree, mankind at large:- hence I shall not have lived in vain." With such reflections as these I was endeavoring to console myself, as I plodded home from the fields, one cold, damp, cloudy evening towards the close of October.
• In The Wheel of Time, Mat, Rand and Perrin start out the series as a farmer, shepherd and blacksmith apprentice respectively in a small rural town before answering the Call to Adventure. Lan initially calls Rand "sheepherder" frequently to lampshade his inexperience in the ways of battle.
• Ged from A Wizard of Earthsea is a goatherd, son of a blacksmith, on a very rural island out on the edge of civilization — but the island is known for occasionally producing very powerful wizards.

Live-Action TV

• Basically gender-flipped with Lindsay Messer on CSI: NY, who grew up on a farm in Montana before heading to New York to become a crimefighting detective/investigator.
• Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly was a rancher on the rural planet Shadow before he joined up with the Independents against the encroaching Alliance. He then proceeded to lose everything he cared about except his second in command, his coat, his gun, and almost broken idealism.
  • Mal's homeworld Shadow later became a Doomed Hometown, becoming what's known as a "Black Rock". And no, it's not because the terraforming gave out. It's because it was a Browncoat stronghold during the Unification War, leading the Alliance to orbitally bombard the surface so hard, they made it so no living thing could ever survive there again!
• A Season One episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reveals that Uncle Phil was born and raised on a small farm in North Carolina. Phil, a proud Self-Made Man who attended Princeton and moved to Harlem to participate in civil rights activism, is at first ashamed of this part of his personality, and tries keep it secret—which proves difficult when his mother shows up to celebrate his receiving an important award and starts telling stories about his childhood exploits. After a heart-to-heart, though, Phil publicly acknowledges his rural roots during his award acceptance speech, remarking that while his parents and the farm couldn't give him wealth or material goods, they did bestow the values of hard work, integrity, courage, and love.
• Mad Men: Not a hero, nor a boy, but the idea of the trope is invoked by Bert Cooper upon the death of the secretary Miss Blankenship:
  Cooper: She was born in 1898 in a barn. She died on the 37th floor of a skyscraper. She's an astronaut.
• Merlin was a boy from a small farming village before The Call sent him to Camelot.
• Prince Charming/David in Once Upon a Time is revealed to have originally been a poor farm boy in the Enchanted Forest. When his Evil Twin Prince James (who was adopted by the King to become his heir) is killed, the King forces David to take his place, elevating him to royalty and setting in motion a chain of events that results in his meeting his One True Love Snow White.
• Played with in Skins. Alo lives on a farm, and Mini's "pet name" for him is "Farm Boy."
• Smallville, being the story of Clark before he became Superman, has shown him like this a lot. It's lampshaded, frequently. Reinforced in Lois & Clark with Clark's frequent visits to Smallville. Despite being an alien, he still feels more at home on the Kents' farm than anywhere else.
  Lois Lane: (from the pilot episode) Don't fall for me, farmboy. I don't have time for it.
• Quite a few captains from the Star Trek franchise had farm-related backgrounds:
  • Captain Kirk was born and raised on a farm in Riverside, Iowa. Even though he becomes a Memetic Badass starship captain, he still identifies with Iowa as his home.
    Gillian: Don't tell me; you're from outer space!
    Kirk: No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space.
  • Jean-Luc Picard grew up on his family's vineyard in La Barre, France, although he shed himself of this trope (or its trappings) as soon as he was old enough to enlist as a Starfleet cadet. (He does return to the vineyard for a time.)
  • Kathryn Janeway is a female example, being a Farm Girl from Bloomington, Indiana.
  • Brad Boimler carries on this tradition, though fitting with his station his family make rasins rather than wine. He is from Modesto, California.
• Whateley Universe:
  • Arnie Harvey from Wisconsin, ordinary chubby kid whose family owns a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Until he gets superpowers. He gets superstrength and superspeed. At the time of his story "Triple Threat" he is considered a campus supervillain.
  • There is also superhero actually called Farm Boy, whose partner is named Tractor. Somewhat subverted in that they are both Genius Bruisers; in the Second Gen stories, Tractor became a history professor at Whateley after he retired from heroism.

Podcasts

• Pleck Decksetter of Mission to Zyxx is from backwater planet Rangus 6, where his family grows grass for Zy-ball fields.

Religion & Mythology

• The Bible:
  • Jesus, a carpenter who goes on to be a famous rabbi, messiah, and martyr. Son of God/a very major prophet/a nice dude.
  • His ancestor David is possibly the Ur-Example, making this trope at least Older Than Feudalism. He's a shepherd boy who spent most of his youth watching over his family's sheep, to becoming the founder of the Davidic dynasty that ruled over Israel, and later Judah.

Tabletop Games

• Ryuutama has a Farmer class. While you don't have to play it as a literal farmer, it is very easy to play it straight and fall into this trope.

Theatre

• The musical 1789 gives us Ronan, who starts off as a peasant on his family's land before becoming a revolutionary.
• Ruddigore protagonist Robin Oakapple is to all appearances a simple albeit wealthy farmer, having "much corn and oil"^note implied to be corn oil, as opposed to petroleum, but is actually the rightful Baronet of Ruddigore. That title comes with a nasty curse, though, so Robin^{real name}Ruthven (pronounced "Rivven") Murgatroyd faked his death many years before to escape it and is living under an assumed name.
• The musical Strike Up the Band made it an actual plot point that The Hero Jim was born on a farm: he knows milk well enough to tell that the Corrupt Corporate Executive is using Grade B instead of Grade A.

Video Games

• The Farmer class is one option for the player to choose in Ancient Domains of Mystery. Boring, but Practical, the Farmer class can carry more weight, gather better herbs, doesn't need to eat as often, can make their own food, and levels up faster in the most balanced weapon type in the game than any other class. Who needs the innate ability to cast fireballs or pick locks on their journey to save the world when you have the ability to just survive?
• The main character of Baldur's Gate is an ordinary person living in a library fortress with their adoptive father. However, being the Child of Bhaal, the late god of murder doesn't really allow a person to refuse the Call to Adventure.
• In the social game Dawn of the Dragons every player character starts off as one of these. Amusingly, it is entirely possible (and likely) to accumulate more gold than you'll ever need over the course of the game.
  • This is even lampshaded in the Flavor Text of a few items. With the hordes of treasure, an army at your back, a faithful dragon at your side, and the ownership of literally HUNDREDS of castles and other structures, it seems the quickest way to fame and glory is an entry-level position as a turnip farmer.
• Dink Smallwood is a pig farmer who dreams about becoming a knight. His heritage is deliberately left wide open for the fanon to explore.
• The Human Commoner Origin in Dragon Age: Origins was supposed to cast the Player Character as a Fereldan farmer whose farm is overrun by Darkspawn and who is then rescued by Duncan. It was cut before the release, however.
• The hero/heroine of Dungeon Siege starts as you guessed it, a humble farmer. In the Uwe Boll movie, the character is even named "Farmer".
• Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City has the Farmer class, which is supposed to be the weakest physically, but with plenty of skills useful for explorers to have handy.
• Fable: The Hero is born (to a legendary heroine, unknown to him) in a small rural community that gets torched in his childhood. He's regularly called "Farmboy" by his Vitriolic Best Bud Whisper, from whom it's an Insult of Endearment, and by her brother Thunder, from whom it's just an insult.
• Some of these show up in the Fire Emblem games:
  • New Mystery of the Emblem has Player Personality Quiz concerning Your Character's background which one of the preset choices is "farmer's child." Selecting this background provides some changes in character's stats, personality, and some in-game dialogues.
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening has the Villager class character, Donnel. He starts off as a weak, but keen, character and his skill Aptitude (justified in his Supports as him being a fast learner) allows him to have great stat growth in any of his offence-orientated class options.
  • In Fire Emblem Fates, Donnel's gender-flipped expy Mozu also starts as a Villager and with the Aptitude skill - if nerfed by half. Her own Personal Skill, Forager, allows her to recover life points at the end of a turn when she's standing on a Mountain, Forest, Wasteland, or Field type terrain.
  • In Fire Emblem Gaiden and its remake Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, protagonist Alm and his friends Gray, Tobin, Kliff, and Faye are youths from a small rural village, with the latter four all starting off in the Villager class. That said, it's noted that all of them were already trained in combat by Alm's grandfather, a former knight.
• Hilbert from Last Scenario, except for the bit about being reluctant and whiny; he always wanted to be one and Jumped at the Call when he was told at the beginning of the story that he was the descendant of a legendary hero. Which, as it happens, is exactly what they were hoping for.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Link was a goatherd before he was pulled into a world of Triforces, shadow demons, and the never-ending battle of good vs. evil.
• Alex from Lunar: The Silver Star is a boy who lives in a small farm community. He gets to fulfill his dreams of going on adventures and becoming a Dragonmaster just like his hero, Dyne.
• Evan in MapleStory. Just a normal boy living on a pig farm until he had a dream meeting a dragon. Guess what happens to him when he woke up from his dream...
• Mass Effect:
  • The Colonist origin for Commander Shepard is more or less this, in comparison to Spacer and Earthborn. It implies that Shepard grew up in a backwater human colony which conveniently got the Doomed Hometown treatment.
  • In Mass Effect 3, it's revealed that an agricultural geth unit was the first to pick up a weapon to protect its fellow units after the Quarians turned on them. It's heavily implied this was one of Legion's memories, though it might apply to all Geth at once, as they're a Hive Mind by definition.
• Lucas in Mother 3. Lucas' twin brother, Claus, counts too. In a different sort of way.
• Played straight with Rune Factory's amnesiac hero Raguna. Implied prince of Kardia and brother to Intrepid Merchant Ivan.
• Ayden from Sacred Odyssey: Rise of Ayden is raised in his Uncle Brennan's farm. Ayden's father wass a warrior who died when Ayden's a kid, and Ayden spends his days fantasizing about taking his father's sword to go on adventures, until meeting a princess one day and realizing he's The Chosen One.
• Both the main character and Walter (the Chaos-aligned hero) of Shin Megami Tensei IV are from rural villages and were born into the low-ranking 'Casualry' caste. However, all children in the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado who turn eighteen are tested to see if they can wield a 'Gauntlet' (a sort of arm computer that can summon demons); those who pass are deemed worthy of becoming Samurai, the Kingdom's primary protectors. Not surprisingly, both the protagonist and Walter are among the few Casualries who become full-fledged Samurai.
• In Summertime Saga, not-an-Aunt Diane is a female equivalent. ^note Diane Cummings was the player-character's aunt in the original game conception, but had to be Retconned to remove the relationship, as the game's backers grew uneasy with the incestuous sub-text
• The hero of the Summoner game.
• Constantly reminded of, Stahn of Tales of Destiny from a little village in Lienea is taken for a dolt and doesn't get complimented very well by anyone except for the priestess Philia.
• Played with in Valkyria Chronicles in that Welkin acts like a farm-boy without actually being one. He also accepts the call without any serious objections. Of course his home-nation has a universal conscription law on its books so he's probably used to the idea of having to enlist if there's an invasion.

Web Animation

• RWBY: Oscar is a young, seemingly normal boy, who lives on his aunt's farm and secretly wishes for a more exciting life. It becomes more exciting than he wanted when he begins hearing voices in his head calling him to a special destiny that places the fate of the world on his teenage shoulders. Professor Ozpin reincarnates into Oscar's soul at the end of Volume 3, making Oscar the inheritor of a divine mission to redeem humanity and save world. Once Oscar resigns himself to his situation, he risks the loss of his very identity to develop the abilities the heroes, who are led by Ruby Rose, need in the quest to stop Salem from destroying the world.

Web Comics

• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, Bob's girlfriend and adventuring partner Dr. Jean Poole is a brilliant young biologist, but she was raised on a farm in "hill country" and was the first member of her family to attend college.
• Subverted with Lars from Girl Genius. According to his backstory, he was a cheesemaker's apprentice until he ran away with a circus. Later, he fell in love with Agata, but ultimately he died as an ordinary guy.
• Juinn of Juathuur (son of the Salamander King.)
• Marble Gate Dungeon: Coleen is a farmer's daughter who was unexpectedly blessed with divine magic by the Highfather, and who is adventuring in the titular dungeon to get enough money to pay the extortionate war taxes levied against her village.
• In Stand Still, Stay Silent, both Mikkel and Reynir qualify. Mikkel is an experienced member of the military, but gets fired so often that he frequently ends up working in the family farm while waiting for a new work opportunity to show up. Reynir is a sheepherder by profession and this is still his official title since he's technically a stowaway who has trouble getting his nascent mage powers taken seriously.
• In Wapsi Square Bud disclaims responsibility for her culture on the ground she was the equivalent of a Mid-West farm girl with common sense.

Web Originals

• Chipz from Ascension Academy was a farm boy living a simple life in North Saigon with his mother and father, tending to the chickens and helping his mother bake. This happy life was ended when the home was attacked by Vampires. While the rest of his family was killed, he was Turned for unknown reasons.
• Hilde Becker from Opening Move is a naive baker girl from a rural seaside town. She gets smooth-talked into joining the army by a weird rabbit-thing with wings and five ears. Whether or not she's related to anyone important is still unknown.

Western Animation

• Herry of Class of the Titans grew up on a farm, where his grandmother still lives.
• Annie, the main character of It's Pony, lives with a family of farmers.
• Megan from the original My Little Pony cartoon. Not the daughter of anyone important (her parents don't ever come up, actually), but she definitely fits.
  • Speaking of ponies, two ponies from Friendship is Magic grew up on farms. Applejack tried to leave as a kid but ultimately returned, feeling the family farm was her destiny. Nowadays she seems to run it, and while she has helped save the world twice shows no intention of ever giving up being a farmer. Pinkie Pie, on the other hand, happily turned away from the farm when she realised her destiny lay elsewhere, a destiny that as mentioned included saving the world twice, but mostly bringing parties and laughter to other ponies. Pinkie also claims the farm was so boring that they grew rocks and that her parents were the pony equivalent of Amish. With her being a Cloud Cuckoolander, we didn't know how much of this is true until we actually met the family and visited the rock farm in later seasons.
  • A Tie-In Novel shows that Pinkie was truthful in her account of her past when her family arrives in Ponyville to seek help from the newly crowned Twilight. Also a flashback from an episode reveals that a recurring character was forced to work on said rock to make a living. Two other episodes feature trips to the rock farm in question.
• Total Drama has Beth^note according to her pseudo-canonical text biography on the show's website—it's not mentioned or even suggested in the show itself and Ezekiel in Island, Scott in Revenge of the Island and Rodney and Sugar in Pahkitew Island.

Real Life

• Probably most people who have ever lived, which is one reason why this trope has such the perennial everyman appeal. Humans for most of our existence were migratory hunter-gatherers in populations that topped out at maybe a few thousand and usually numbered much less going around looking for water, food, shelter, and opportunity in roughly that order. However, about 10-15,000 years ago humans started getting good at the farming and stationary animal husbandry games and only periodically looked back. The result was that while there were still plenty of hunter-gatherers around (especially in places that couldn't support it), the farming-or-related share of the population ballooned to be well North of 80% globally and would not seriously drop until the Industrial Revolution.
• Zhu Yuanzhang: youngest son of a peasant, whose home town was wiped out by a flood when he was sixteen and who went on to found the Ming dynasty by way of the Red Turban secret society (and murdering their previous leader).
• Mao Zedong was born a peasant's son, rising to become dictator of Red China aged 56.
• Richard Bong, the top US Ace Pilot of all time (he got to 40 kills before being pulled from combat) was raised on a farm. He died while testing a P-80 Shooting Star on 6 August 1945. In some cases, his death shared the next day's front page with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
• Alvin York, famous American soldier in World War I, was from a farming family and was born in a two-room log cabin near Pall Mall, Tennessee.
• Ladies and gentlemen, The Presidents of the United States:^note This list excludes aristocratic "planters" and other rich farmers whose family inherited or bought large estates and grew up in prominent families, as they don't quite fit the trope. These include Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Coolidge.
  • Andrew Jackson was born on a small "plantation" somewhere in North or South Carolina and grew up rural.
  • James K. Polk is borderline: his father grew his "plantation" from relatively small to quite large and his house from "log cabin" to "proper plantation house" during Polk's childhood.
  • Abraham Lincoln grew up in the backwoods; however, he eventually took up town living as a lawyer.
  • Warren G. Harding grew up in part on a farm—when his dad wasn't busy trying to be something else.
  • Harry S. Truman grew up on various farms near Kansas City; even when his family lived in relatively more urban Independence (so he could go to school), he spent much of his time on his grandfather's farm in nearby Grandview.
  • Jimmy Carter grew up on his family's peanut farm in Georgia; he was appointed to the Naval Academy and became a nuclear engineer, but a family crisis forced him back onto the farm until he was elected Governor of Georgia and later President.
• Former WWE and UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar grew up in South Dakota. It literally became his gimmick post-Summerslam 2021.
• Audie Murphy was a poor farm boy from Texas. At one point he even lived in a place called Farmersville.
• Flavius Iustinus was born around 450 as a farmer's son somewhere in the rural Balkans. 68 years later, he became a Byzantine emperor known as Justin I, having had a steep military career.
• André Rene Roussimoff, later known as André the Giant, grew up in a tiny French Hamlet town, working on his father's farm. He dropped out of school to help his father full time, and according to his brother, his immense size meant he could easily do the work of three men.
• Popcorn tycoon Orville Redenbacher got his start by experimenting on the corn he grew in western Indiana.

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