Hated Hometown

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"Oh, so you're from troperville? I'm going there next month, how is it?"
"Hell on Earth."

When a character for whatever reason hates the place they grew up or were raised in. Maybe the people were jerks, maybe they disagreed philosophically, maybe they didn't like the smell. Whatever the reason, before or over the course of story they leave it, either to protect the townspeople's sorry asses or to get revenge, or because they were kicked out.

Small Town Boredom is a Sister Trope- this has a far more negative emotion involved and is often at a larger scale.

Examples of Hated Hometown include:

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

  • In Creature Tech, Dr. Ong hates Turlock, CA, because he thinks there's too many rednecks for his taste.

Film

  • Star Wars:
    • Anakin Skywalker to Tatooine.
    • Luke Skywalker's not too keen on the place either.

"Well, if there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from."

  • Cody Maverick from Surf's Up: "Good-old Shriverpool. *razz* This place sucks, bro!"

Theatre

  • When Sweeney Todd agrees that "there's no place like London," his tone is acid. And when we learn what happened to him, we learn he has every reason to believe such.

Western Animation

  • The Simpsons: Homer Simpson has sometimes expressed this feeling about Springfield.
    • "A Star is Torn":

Homer: You [Lisa] and I are gonna write and sing our way out of this godforsaken hellhole.
Marge: But your song said you liked Springfield.
Homer: I wrote it about Shelbyville then changed the names.

  • In one episode of G.I. Joe , a group of the heroes are hacking their way through the jungle-like brush of a tropical island, and Gung-Ho keeps complaining.

Flint: What's the matter, Gung-Ho? I thought this would remind you of home.
Gung-Ho: It does! Now you know why I left!

  • Challenge of the Go Bots; Counter-X much prefers Earth to Gobotron, as there's very little use there for a robot like him who turns into a submarine. It's easy to see why; Gobotron seems more like a giant space station than a terrestrial planet, and as a result, has no oceans.
  • In Helluva Boss, Moxie is from Notamafia Town (which definitely is ruled by the demonic Mafia) in the Circle of Greed. It's a Wretched Hive even when compared to other cities in Hell, and Moxie claims that the first time he left, he never looked back.

Video Games

Real Life

  • Janis Joplin was known to feel this way about her hometown of Port Arthur, Texas.