F is for farmboy

[eimarra]

Poor farmboy goes on a quest and winds up saving the world, right? He doesn’t have to be a farmboy; he can be a pig-herder, a baker’s apprentice, or some other menial occupation. You see it everywhere from Lloyd Alexander to Christopher Paolini — poor boy makes good (even if the pig herder goes back to being a pig herder).

Eragon lives on a farm and also hunts to help provide food for the family. Bilbo Baggins doesn’t seem to have had any job when Gandalf came along and picked him as a burglar. Cat Barahal is a poor schoolgirl on scholarship. Wesley becomes the Dread Pirate Roberts. Luke Skywalker is a dirt farmer. (OK, we don’t have to argue about whether Star Wars is fantasy or science fiction here. I’m just discussing the trope.)

The important point is that a simple soul goes on an adventure. Who wouldn’t want that? Most of us get up, go to work, come home — same-old, same-old, every day. We may want riches, we may want adventure, we may just want a change of pace. The farmboys of epic fantasy get that. They’re plucked from their quotidian existence and given a challenge. No one starts a hero, but each of them is given the chance to become one.

Who’s your favorite “farmboy” from fiction?

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This is a post for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. My theme is epic fantasy, and blog posts will cover authors, books, tropes, themes, or anything else I can think of to fill the alphabet. Check out some of the other bloggers participating or follow my blog by e-mail if you like what you’ve read.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

Bilbo (and Frodo) might not apply since they're basically landowners--other people work their property and harvest the income for them. Or at least that's the impression I get from the way Sam worked for the Baggins family.

[eimarra]

That makes sense. I wasn't sure what they actually did, and Sam and his dad were just referred to as gardeners -- and enough of the houses in our neighborhood have those (or at least yard services) that I couldn't rule out actual work.

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well. Agricultural landlords are extremely uncommon these days in the US, I suppose, so it's natural that you didn't get the implication right away.

[eimarra]

I understand the idea in theory; I've read plenty of English literature. But I'll admit that I'm predisposed to think of manor houses and the like -- and while Bilbo's hobbit hole is nicely appointed, it's just the last one on Bagshot Row, not a stand-alone edifice (like, say, Brandybuck Hall). So although I know that the Shire is primarily agricultural, rural, and pastoral, such a thing didn't occur to me. :)