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Walking the Earth: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:fallout3dogmeat 4984.jpg|link=Fallout 3|frame]]
{{quote|''"I'll just walk the earth... You know, like Caine in ''[[Kung Fu]]''. Walk from place to place, meet people, get in adventures."''
|'''Jules Winnfield''', ''[[Pulp Fiction]]''}}
Footloose and fancy-free, perhaps [[Noble Fugitive]]s on the lam, or maybe [[Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life]], we set off among the [[Adventure Towns]], seeking the next place, rather than our fortunes.
This trope is bottomless, it seems. The audience ''wants'' to believe life without roots is romantic and [[In Harm's Way|full of adventure]]. [[The Drifter|The character]] has no home, no job, no money, no identification, no friends, and no visible means of support, yet is always healthy, well-fed, clean, and welcome wherever he goes.
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Most of us would agree with Vincent Vega's response to Jules: "You're gonna become a ''bum!'' If you don't have a job, a home, and legal tender, that's all you'll be is a bum. Someone who picks in garbage cans and eats the stuff I throw away." Most people who go '''Walking the Earth''' by themselves are male (or [[Sweet Polly Oliver|disguised as male]]). Females generally belong to a nomadic group, mostly for defense purposes.
It's much easier when you have a valuable skill... but this is [[Knight Errant|a different trope]]. You can get away with just
This trope is a very American one. As far as big TV producing nations go, The U.S. of A. has the geography best suited to this form of adventure. Australia also has the tradition of the Walkabout, where young men would wander the land for months as a spiritual journey. Notable exception: [[Doctor Who]], largely because the protagonist isn't limited to walking the ''Earth''. Also a very common trope in older [[The Western|Westerns]].
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When one is forced to walk the earth against one's will, this trope becomes the much darker [[Flying Dutchman]].
If a character
Most [[Wuxia]] heroes fall under either [[Knight Errant]] or (if they do not have a code of honour but merely wanders the land for enjoyment) this, they will master their arts and search for worthy opponents, either before a remarkable quest calls for them or after they already finished their quest in life and decides to drift off to other places.
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== Comic Books ==
* Doctor Bruce Banner in ''[[Incredible Hulk|The Incredible Hulk]]''. Given [[Hero with Bad Publicity|his alterego's reputation]], it's never a good idea to stay in one place for long.
** And David Banner in [[The Incredible Hulk (TV series)|the TV series]].
* Miyamoto Usagi of ''[[Usagi Yojimbo]]'', much like the historical figure he's loosely based on, [[Miyamoto Musashi]]. And many others.
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{{quote|''I cannot rest from travel: I will drink''
''Life to the lees:'' }}
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s blind singer Rhysling, composer of the song "[[The Green Hills of Earth]]" in the short story of the same name. Until the accident that blinded him, he had been a spaceship engineer; after the accident, he took advantage of the informal custom that a spacer could have one free trip home, using it to wander at will all over the solar system.
** His most famous character, Lazarus Long, spends centuries wandering the galaxy. His wanderings are fueled both by boredom, and by needing to move on from a community before the locals start to suspect his immortality.
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* ''Voyage of the "Princess Ark"'' (first published as series in ''[[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon]]'' magazine, later collected in ''Champions of Mystara'') is a [[Mockumentary|log]] of an Alphatian airship wandering the skies of [[Mystara]] ([[Space Sailing|and beyond]]), as narrated by the captain and a few other officers.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[The Incredible Hulk (TV series)|The Incredible Hulk]]'' has David Banner walking the United States.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' is a classic example of this, though it's helped by the fact that the Doctor, with a TARDIS and [[Time Travel]], really doesn't need to worry about food, shelter, or expenses.
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* In ''[[The Immortal]]'', has Christopher George as Ben Richards, who runs from the employees of a terminally ill, wealthy man who want to capture him for transfusions of his blood because he has every immunity there is, and is likely to live forever, and would do something similar for anyone who got transfusions from him. The exact opposite of ''Run For Your Life'' (see).
* Caine in ''[[Kung Fu]]'' is, of course, the [[Trope Namer]], and did a lot to show people how easy it was to apply the model of [[Adventure Towns]] to an ongoing series.
* ''[[The Littlest Hobo]]'' was this kind of series, only the central character was a dog. (And [[Canada|Canadian]], which makes this a rare non-American example.)
* Some versions of ''[[Lassie]]'' also depict her travelling alone, a la ''Littlest Hobo''.
* ''[[Quantum Leap]]'': Like the show article says, replace "Earth" with "Timeline."
* In ''[[Renegade (TV series)|Renegade]]'', Reno Raines was a [[Bounty Hunter]] on the run from the law while trying to [[Clear My Name|clear his name]] of a [[Wrongly Accused|false murder accusation]].
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* In the short-lived [[FOX]] series ''[[Danger Theatre]]'' one of the two rotating series was "The Searcher," a parody of ''Renegade'' and ''Knight Rider''.
{{quote|Someone needs help, so they called me. That’s what I do. I help people in trouble...They call me: The Searcher.}}
* The short-lived [[Judson Scott]] TV series ''[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083464/combined The Phoenix]'' also followed this model, except the man doing the walking was a space alien.
* The western series ''[[Wagon Train]]'' featured a group of people "walking the earth". According to Gene Roddenberry, the show's format of wandering from place to place and encountering different characters and adventures was the template for his own ''[[Star Trek]]''.
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{{quote|Oh yeah, I'm the type of guy that likes to roam around
I'm never in one place, I roam from town to town.}}
* [[Frank Sinatra]]'s "Love's Been Good to Me":
{{quote|I have been a rover
I have walked alone
Hiked a hundred highways
Never found a home
Still in all I'm happy
The reason is, you see
Once in a while along the way
[[Title Drop|Love's been good to me]].}}
== Mythology ==
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** In the original game, killing Ganon and saving Hyrule was framed as one of his many adventures; he was a wanderer already, and was going to wander off with the Triforce once he was done. He hung around to help the kingdom rebuild itself in ''Zelda II''.
** ''Link's Awakening'', ''Majora's Mask'', and ''Phantom Hourglass'' are similar wanderings (presumably of different Links), outside the Hyrule story. ''Majora's Mask'' occurred when Link was looking for an unspecified friend. Hopefully not [[The Scrappy|Navi]], but perhaps Saria, or Nabooru, [[Wild Mass Guessing|or the Skull Kid, or...?]]
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild]]'' downplays this, as there is an optional side quest that lets Link buy and then fix-up a house in Hateno Village. The lore heavily implied that it was his house before he had to take a hundred-year nap to heal himself. Still, he can't exactly stay home much, considering his mission, even if it does give him a free place to heal and store weapons and armor.
** Beedle is this too, overlapping with [[Intrepid Merchant]]. In games where he appears, he differs from the typical merchant in that he's never in one place for long, traveling Hyrule to sell his wares. Kind of a boon for Link, of course, seeing how much ''he'' fits the Trope.
* Ike from ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' does this. He turns down a chance to be a noble in order to wander around with his posse of mercenaries, and all of his endings involve him leaving Tellius forever, presumably to do some more earth-walking.
* Guy in the ending of ''[[Final Fight]]'', after clobbering fellow player character Cody for practically ignoring Jessica [[Blood Knight|to get to the next big fight]] despite their epic adventure to rescue her from the Mad Gear gang.
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* [[Radiata Stories]] {{spoiler|Human Path}} and its part of what makes that ending such a downer.
* Allowing for the 'walking' to be done by horse, boat or teleportation magic, [[The Elder Scrolls]] protagonists tends to do this, as a side-effect of the [[Wide Open Sandbox]]. Why rush to finishing the main quest when you can travel around Tamriel/the Iliac Bay/Vvardenfell/Cyrodiil/Skyrim finding random stuff to do/take/buy?
== Webcomics ==
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Samurai Jack]]'', though he does have a purpose to his wandering, however: he's looking for a way back into the past. A journey without a specific destination, but with a very specific goal. Another reason he never stays in one place is because Aku is always watching him, meaning any community that takes him in is never safe.
* [[Ben 10]].{{context}}
* Sonic and Tails in ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]''.
* Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Toad in ''[[The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!]]''
* ''[[Scooby-Doo]]'', in all its incarnations, is centered around this trope, as the teenage heroes roam the country solving mysteries for local townspeople, without getting paid, without having any recurring family or friends, and without ever worrying about school or jobs. Later spin-offs, adaptations and supplemental material refer to them as "Mystery, Inc.," though it's only in the more recent entries that they're generally recognized as investigators, and even then there never seems to be any payment involved. Their wanderings are [[Parental Bonus|subtly]] parodied in some spin-offs: at one point, the Mystery Machine drives through a snowfield to a scientific outpost, followed by a cheerful
** [[Suspension of Disbelief]] however, states that they probably have some kind of (short-term) employment when they aren't solving mysteries.
** ''[[Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated]]'' show retcons the whole shenanigan - all the mysteries the gang solved in previous incarnations of the show actually happened in their hometown of Crystal Cove, which has made it famous as a supernatural hotspot, and most local business is based chiefly on tourism. So much so, that Velma and her tendency to bitterly point out that every last one was a hoax pose a significant danger to the local economy all by herself.
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[[Category:Plots]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Tropes on a Trip]]
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