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Run for the Border: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''Better run for the border
''He's never gonna understand
''Better find a place to hide
''On the other side of the Rio Grande"''
|'''Johnny Rodriguez''', "Run For The Border"}}
A character desires to escape something in his home country, and resolves to flee or relocate to a neighboring one.
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This usually manifests itself in one of two ways:
Type A is your standard getaway for criminals and malcontents after they rob a bank or engage in a crime spree, to escape arrest and prosecution. This can even include travel ''within'' the same country. In the US for instance, the criminal will cross a "state line" (border between states) because the police of the state they were in has no jurisdiction in adjoining states. Especially common in [[Western
Type B is the sufficiently more noble version, where a character's home country is either going [[Crapsack World]] by way of [[After the End]], or is [[Day of the Jackboot|taken over by a totalitarian movement]] which quickly brings an end to the previous civil liberties, and escape is the only sane alternative. Fleeing the country is usually the end goal, and they'll likely either have to escape or avoid capture by the roving death-gangs or evil repressive authorities to leave.
May end in a [[
{{examples
=== Films ===▼
▲'''Type A:'''
▲== Films ==
* ''[[Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid]]''. While fleeing from their pursuers:
{{quote|'''Sundance:''' Let's go to Mexico instead.
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=== Literature ===
* In the first ''[[Riftwar Cycle|Serpentwar Saga]]'' novel, Rupert and Eric try to flee to the Sunset Isles after killing Eric's half-brother due to a law there that said that criminals who stayed there without causing trouble for a year had their records cleared. They didn't even get close.
* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[Jeeves and Wooster (novel)|Jeeves and Wooster]]'' whenever an [[Oh Crap]] situation is met by an escape to another country.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* Andrew and Jonathan flee to Mexico at the end of season 6 of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''.
* See ''[[CSI]]'s'' Season 9 opener for an example of A.
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=== Music ===
* Burl Ives song ''"One Hour Ahead of the Posse".'' A murderer tries to reach the Rio Grande river and cross into Mexico.
* Similarly, Christopher Cross's [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur8ftRFb2Ac "Run Like the Wind"] is also about a murderer making a run for the Mexican border.
* Inverted in the Johnny Rodriguez song "Run For The Border," where the narrator is running for the border to get the hell ''out'' of Mexico so he can get away from the irate knife wielding husband of a woman that he spent the night with.
* Subverted in Warren Zevon's "Lawyers, Guns and Money" - he makes it to Honduras, but the trouble has followed him. "Send lawyers, guns, and money/The shit has hit the fan."
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=== Tabletop Games ===
* ''Border Crossing'', an adventure for ''[[Hero System|Espionage]]'' and ''Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes'', is closest to a Type A. The player characters are Western spies who infiltrate East Germany during the [[Cold War]] to investigate a mysterious "factory", and then have to get themselves '''out''' of East Germany. Unless the players have done an incredible job (or the GM has incredibly lousy die rolls), the secret police will be coming after the characters at some point in the mission.
* In ''Spycraft 2'', if you find yourself the subject of a manhunt you can escape by invoking this trope to initiate a chase scene: the manoeuvre is actually called "
=== Real Life ===
* Averted in real life: During WWII, German [[POW
** When was this? Because if it was after May 22, 1942, Mexico wouldn't have been too welcoming.
** There was a
* [[Truth in Television]]. Partly the reason why the FBI was formed was because during the Prohibition era, the lack of any centralized police force meant that gangsters could commit their crimes and cross state or county lines without fear of pursuit.
* The reason why many American criminals (especially serial killers and murderers) escapes to Mexico is because the Mexican Constitution forbids to deport people who are going to face death penalty in their home countries. That law was created during the [[Cold War]] and during the time period when almost all Central and South America were controlled by military dictatorships, but the law doesn't have exceptions for criminals for democratically-elected countries (like the U.S), and while they can be deported back to the U.S., they can't face death penalty due to a treaty with the Mexican government.
** Ironically, this law ended biting the Mexican government in their ass, thanks of the [[wikipedia:Zhenli Ye Gon|Zhenli Ye Gon case]] since the main culprit, by law, ''cannot '' be stripped of his
==Type
=== Comic Books ===
* In Marvel's ''[[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]'', [[Fantastic Four|Ben Grimm]] took off for France when the government passed a [[Super Registration Act]], forcing him to take up sides against friends and colleagues. He decided the hell with it and [[Take a Third Option|took a third option]].
=== Films ===
* Happened in ''[[The Day After Tomorrow]]'' because Mexico was far enough south that the new ice age would be less deadly to people from northern United States. One especially snarky [http://community.livejournal.com/m15m/2025.html#cutid1 web review] put it thusly:
{{quote|'''TV NEWS:''' ''In other developments tonight, millions of Americans are evacuating to Mexico, which briefly closed the borders while drunk on the incredible irony of the situation, but then the administration forgave all Latin American debt. ¡Buenos dÃas a nuestros nuevos amigos!'' }}
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=== Literature ===
* The implied ending of ''[[The Handmaid's Tale]]''.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* Americans flee to Mexico in the [[Made for TV Movie]] ''Super Volcano'', where Yellowstone Park erupts, covers much of the US in ash, and plunges the world into a nuclear winter. They are forced to close the border here too.
* After painting their cars with the most anti-Southern slurs they could think of, driving through Alabama and subsequently getting rocks thrown at them, the members of ''[[Top Gear]]'' made a run for the Louisiana border. Why they thought it would be any better on the other side is up for debate.
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=== Music ===
* The [[Billy Joel]] song "Miami 2017" tells of a future in which New York City is destroyed and everyone flees to Florida. They can't literally
* Chris de Burgh's song ''Borderline'' is about this (probably the Nazi takeover of Germany, judging by the context of the sequel song ''Say Goodbye to it All'').
=== Video Games ===
* ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' begins with this version, as [[Player Character|Hawke]] and his/her family flee the monstrous invasion of darkspawn. {{spoiler|It potentially ends with Type A, as Hawke goes on the run with his/her [[Love Interest]], who may be a highly wanted criminal.}}
=== Western Animation ===
* Amusingly inverted in ''[[South Park]]'''s "Last Of The Meheecans" episode. Butters inspires a resurgence of nostalgia, homesickness, and nationalism that causes Mexican emigrants to the United States to cross the border ''back'' into Mexico. Border patrol guards eventually have to guard the border on the U.S. side instead to prevent the loss of menial labourers to the American economy.
* In ''[[Alfred J Kwak]]'', Alfred and his friends flee to neighbouring Broad Reedland when their home Great Waterland is turned into a fascist dictatorship by Dolf and his [[A Nazi by Any Other Name|National Crows Party]].
=== Real Life ===
* The southwestern United States play host to a ton of illegal immigrants who fled Mexico due to higher wages.
** With the new immigration laws passed by Arizona recently, there's been a lot of news hubbub about Mexican immigrants moving back to Mexico (or at least out of state).
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