Robinsonade: Difference between revisions

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At its heart, the Robinsonade is a [[Conflict|Man vs. Nature conflict]]. The characters are forced to battle for survival. Sometimes they succeed in style, turning their desolate location into taste of paradise; sometimes they fail, descending into a pit of savagery. How easy this survival is depends on the location and the skill level of the person stranded. Depending on the work, the characters might find themselves in a bountiful paradise or an exceptionally hostile enviroment. Sometimes the person is already a skilled survivor before they become marooned, but more often they are forced to undergo a difficult learning process full of [[Character Development]]. Additional conflicts can also be introduced. If a group of characters are marooned together, the Robinsonade allows for a variety of interpersonal interactions. Another variation is to have the location inhabited by natives, who can be either hostile or a helpful.

The [[Deserted Island]] is the archetypical setting of such stories. The island serves to keep the characters on it trapped, allowing attempts to get off the island to move the story forward. However, the location need not be an island. Any sufficiently isolated [[Wild Wilderness]] will do. In [[Science Fiction]], [[Recycled in Space|a deserted planet]] can be substituted for the island.

 

 

If a character is marooned alone or is willingly choosing solitude, he may [[Go Mad From the Isolation]]. Compare with [[Bottle Episode]].

 

* ''[[Maison Ikkoku]]'' had a (subverted) desert island episode (released as an OVA) that is mostly notable for having one of the worst puns in Takahashi history in its title (and that's saying something), playing off "nanpa" being both "hit on/pick up girls" and "shipwreck".

* The "Lincoln Island" arc from ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]''.

 

 

* ''[[Cast Away]]''

* ''[[The Killer Shrews]]''.

* ''Hell In The Pacific'': Two soldiers, one Japanese and one American, are marooned on an island in World War II. Neither understand the other's language, and after a period of hostility, work together to survive and escape the island.

* ''[[Alive]]'' was a movie based on a true story of the survivors of a plane crash in the Andes. The survivors were stranded in the mountains without food and resorted to eating the flesh of those killed in the crash.

* ''[[The Blue Lagoon]]'' - two kids are shipwrecked and grow up on a deserted island with no adult supervision.

 

* ''[[The Swiss Family Robinson]]'' : A marooned family...

** The original German title of the book, which translates roughly as "the Swiss Robinson Crusoes" (the family name is almost certainly not Robinson, unlike what the English title suggests) quite blatantly acknowledges the influence.

* ''The Coral Island'' : Boys marooned, without adult company, who prosper.

* ''[[Lord of the Flies]]'' : [[Teenage Wasteland|Boys marooned, without adult company, who don't prosper.]] A [[Deconstruction]] of the genre.

* ''[[Life of Pi]]'' is this on a boat. He actually does find an island partway through, but it turns out to be made out of carnivorous algae. So he gets back on the boat and leaves. Subverted in that {{spoiler|He made it all up, possibly}}

* ''[[Jurassic Park]]'', all of them

* Ben Gunn in ''[[Treasure Island]]''.

* ''[[The Island of Doctor Moreau]]''.

* ''The Cay''.

* ''Survivor Type'', a short story by [[Stephen King]]. After an an accident on cruise, a lone man washes up on an island. In an unusual variation, it's a ''very'' tiny island with absolutely nothing growing on it. Occasionally he lucks out and catches a bird, or some dead sealife washes ashore. Guess what he eats the rest of the rest of the time. [[I'm a Humanitarian|Go on, guess.]]

* The first half of ''[[The Black Stallion]]'' by Walter Farley is a robinsonade featuring teenaged Alec Ramsey and the title stallion on a small island following a shipwreck.

* The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] novel ''[[Clone Wars Gambit|The Clone Wars: Wild Space]]'' has this happen to Obi-Wan and Bail Organa. As expected it's of the marooned-on-a-deserted-planet variety.

* The ''[[Col Sec Trilogy]]'' at very least owes a lot to the concept.

 

* ''[[Lost in Space]]'' where the family was even the Robinsons [[In Space]]!

** For most of season 1 they were stranded on an unknown planet. At the beginning of season 2 they managed to take off, only to crash land on an almost identical planet. D'oh! At least in season 3 they managed to actually get back into space.

* ''[[Flight 29 Down]]'' was a show about a bunch of kids and a pilot who got stranded on an island after their plane crashed. They split up, and the show focuses on one group of kids, while the others are off-screen with the pilot for most of the series.

* ''[[Survivor]]'' takes the cynical version where everyone turns on each other and makes it an acutal competition.

* ''[[Primeval]]'' stranded {{spoiler|Abby and Connor}} in the Cretaceous for a year. They managed to do rather well given their lack of supplies, but although they were in good health when they returned, the entire experience was clearly traumatic. It's likely that {{spoiler|their nascent romance}} played a major role in keeping them sane, together, and alive.

* In an episode of ''[[Quantum Leap]]'', "The Leaping of the Shrew", Sam leaps into the body of a Greek sailor who's shipwrecked on an island with a spoiled heiress (played by [[Actor Allusion|Brooke Shields]] from the above-mentioned ''[[The Blue Lagoon]]''), who was planning to enter an [[Arranged Marriage]] before her yacht capsized. Sam helps set up shelter for them and attempts to [[MacGyvering|create a signal flare with her aerosol hairspray can]], but she had used up all the hairspray. She later reveals that she intentionally emptied the hairspray cans because she had fallen in love with the sailor and didn't want to return to civilization and her arranged marriage. According to Sam, the two would be rescued in ten years, by which time they would have [[Babies Ever After|four children]], and would be [[Happily Married]] for many years after their rescue.

 

* A frequent plot device in the [[Newspaper Comics]] strip ''[[Prince Valiant]]'' is that when Val takes a sea voyage, his ship almost inevitably gets waylaid on some cursed island with a puzzle Val must solve to avoid the crew being trapped forever or killed.

 

* Parodied in the ''[[Monkey Island]]'' games with Herman Toothrot, the crazy old hermit living on the titular island who, in the fourth game, {{spoiler|is revealed to be the amnesiac grandfather of the [[Love Interest]]}}. He has a boat. He just doesn't use it because it's traditional to wait and be rescued.

** If you've sunk your own boat by the time you get as far as being ready to head home, Herman will even lend you his boat so that you can rescue him in it.

 

 

* ''[[Madagascar]]''.

* The backstory of some of the islanders for ''[[Mike Lu and Og]]''. The descendents of the original shipwrecked pirates are living on the other side of the island.

* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' have an episode where Bart, Lisa, and the other kids get stranded on an [[Deserted Island]]. A ''[[Lord of the Flies]]'' parody ensues.

* The ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'' episode "Marooned" featured the deserted planet version.

'''Cadet Stimpy:''' [[Medium Awareness|Just like the title of this cartoon!]] }}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Solitary Tropes]]

[[Category:Plots]]

[[Category:Robinsonade]]