Pursued Protagonist

"Must... warn... the president... Giant spider!"

— Messenger, Wild Wild West

This is a standard opening for a movie, book, or cartoon — start with a protagonist in the adventure pursued by relentless, shadowy figures who outnumber them. It can be on Hellish Horseback, spaceships, cars, roofhopping, or any of a thousand methods of pursuit. If the protagonist has escorts, expect them to wear copious amounts of red. If they are critically injured, they will inevitably survive just long enough to alert others.

The Pursued Protagonist has a 50/50 chance of survival, much less escaping capture. However, they have a much higher chance of keeping their cargo out of enemy hands. Enter the real Hero who has been Easing into the Adventure and becomes the Pursued Protagonists' last desperate hope to keep their cargo safe who is handed the MacGuffin or Phlebotinum. Though, expect little explanation of what exactly they got in their hands, much less gotten into. Will they resist or embrace The Call to adventure?

If the pursued protagonist survives, they will likely either become a Mentor to the hero, Love Interest, or otherwise become a steadfast ally. It's not uncommon for said Protagonist to require rescuing as one of the heroes' first tasks, either, for which they may need to gather allies. Bonus points if they're a Princess.

Usually begins In Medias Res. If the hero gets pursued later in the story, expect a character briefly introduced earlier to rescue them. This will end the chase.

Subtrope of Cold Open. Can overlap with Dramatic Chase Opening. Compare Bring News Back. Subtrope of Herald.

Not to be confused with Stern Chase which describes a plot of an ever-pursued protagonist.

---

Examples

Anime & Manga

• Jue of Final Flight of the Osiris in The Animatrix is a version of this. She's a strange example because she is delivering a message inside the Matrix while her crew mates are pursued by sentinels in the real world. Although this isn't the beginning of her story, it kicks off the Enter the Matrix video game and the second film.
• In Brave10, Isanami is on the run from Tokugawa the whole series, right from the very first scene.
• The opening of Castle in the Sky shows the heroine being chased by evil forces.
• In the opening episode of Code Geass, Lelouch has a run-in with a truck manned by Nagata and Kallen carrying a payload stolen from a Britannian facility, with the military hot on their trail.
• The first action scene in Full Metal Panic! starts with Sousuke rescuing a woman who carries a CD containing vital information.
• The anime for Granblue Fantasy begins with Lyria escaping pursuit by the Erste Empire.
• Monster Rancher opens with Genki winning a tournament. His prize for this is a beta copy of a new game, which opens this way, showing Holly and Suezo running from Captain Dino and his Mooks.
• Outlaw Star opens with the Space Pirates in hot pursuit of Hilda.
• The second major Myth Arc of Reborn! (2004) begins with Basil being pursued by Squalo as he attempts to deliver the Vongola half rings to Tsuna. Slight subversion in that Squalo grabs the rings right out of Tsuna's hands. Fortunately, unbeknownst to Basil, he had been given fake rings to serve as a decoy so that Dino could deliver the real rings with no interference from Varia.
• Episode 15 of Samurai Champloo begins with a Ninja spy fleeing from a counterfeiter's enforcers. The ninja is actually caught, but not before tossing his evidence into a nearby pond, where the Power Trio finds it.
• The manga Tokyo Underground begins with the main heroine Ruri, who'd been held captive much of her life, escaping pursuit and fleeing to the surface with her bodyguard Chelsea.

Comic Books

• All-Star Squadron: The hero Midnight debuts (in issue #31) running out of an office building and then hiding to ambush a Nazi pursuer before resuming his flight, until he escapes on a train.
• Avengers: The Initiative: Issue #28 begins with C-List Fodder hero Nonstop running across the desert and yelling that she just wants to go home, as she is chased by her former teammates, who are out to (non lethally) enforce the draconian new Resignations Not Accepted policy. They catch her, but in a twist, most of them sympathize with her disillusionment with their tyrannical new overseers and decide to let her go and desert as well.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Death, Lies, and Treachery: The second scene introduces Nominal Hero Boba Fett through the POV of four fugitives fleeing from him on swoop bikes. He kills or captures them one by one before moving on to his next job.
  • Star Wars: Republic: Issue #49 introduces the character of Khaleen Hertz (a Femme Fatale spy in love with her boss, Jedi Quinlan Vos) as she runs through a space station while being chased by Separatist agents. She escapes the grip of a goon who grabs her, leaving a Pineapple Surprise behind for him, and escapes into an Air-Vent Passageway before his boss can arrive.

Film — Animated

• DC: The New Frontier: The second half of the opening credits shows unauthorized vigilante Hourman being chased across rooftops by the police and eventually being shot and falling to his apparent death, emphasizing the government's hostility toward "Mystery Men" who won't reveal their identities.
• Justice League vs. The Fatal Five : The first scene shows Star-Boy running in the opposite direction from three shadowy members of the Fatal Five as he finds himself outmatched while trying to stop them from stealing a time machine.
• Treasure Planet has one of these, where a turtle-alien thing in a spaceship crashed, mutters about a cyborg, asserts that "He'll have to pry the chest from Old Billy Bones' cold, dead hands!" He dies soon after, leaving the MacGuffin in the possession of young Jim Hawkins.

Film — Live Action

• The 12th Man: The opening scene shows Jan and his La Résistance comrades staggering ashore after their boat is destroyed and trying to run and hide from the Nazis on shore. Only Jan gets away, after killing one of his pursuers and swimming across the lake.
• The Asphalt Jungle: In the first scene, Anti-Hero hood Dix briskly walks through the street, hiding when a police car appears, while heading somewhere he can hide his gun before he is inevitably caught and searched.
• The Beast Must Die opens with Tom Newcliffe being chased by a helicopter and a group of hunters in Land Rovers who are being guided by Mission Control Pavel who is using microphones and cameras mounted throughout the grounds to monitor Tom's progress. This is eventually revealed to be Tom testing the effectiveness of his new security system.
• Black Rat opens with a bloodied Kengo clad only in his underpants being hunted through the school corridors by a figure in a rat mask.
• Bones (2001): The film opens with Shotgun fleeing from Jimmy's hellhound to establish the danger it poses, barely locking himself inside his apartment in time.
• The Chronicles of Riddick (2004): The first scene after the opening narration is Riddick (initially unrecognizable with a beard and hair) running through a frozen wasteland, being chased by a ship of Bounty Hunters who he soon turns the tables on.
• The Colony (2013): The first scene shows two Colony 5 residents running through a bunker's tunnel until they reach a locked door. They beg for the man hiding inside to let them in as unseen figures quickly close in on the two fugitives and the camera cuts to the next scene. It's never shown what happened to them, but it's heavily implied that they're killed and cannibalized like everyone else besides the man hiding behind the locked door.
• Cry_Wolf: The film begins with a girl being chased through the woods and hiding from a pursuer who calls her phone so that her cellphone ringing will give her away, after which the pursuer shoots her.
• Frankenstein 1970 opens with Caroline being pursued by a shambling monster and being driven into the lake. This is then revealed to be a scene for the movie they are shooting.
• The Great Silence: The drawn-out scene of one of the bandits running through the woods before being lassoed by evil Bounty Hunter Loco and dragged behind his horse is the fourth scene rather than the first, but otherwise has the atmosphere and plot importance to count. Loco's torture of the man leads to him giving up the location of Pauline's husband, who Loco then kills, causing Pauline to hire Silence to kill Loco, kicking off the rest of the plot.
• Halloween III: Season of the Witch begins with Harry Grimbridge running through the woods and into a town while being chased by a man who wants to kill him before he can expose the Evil Plan. Harry wins a fight with his pursuer, but is badly injured in the process.
• The Cold Open of Hard Target is Binder being hunted for sport through the streets by Mr. Lopacki—Fouchon's latest client—accompanied by Fouchon, Van Cleaf, and Fouchon's 'hounds' on motorbikes.
• The 2008 film version of Journey to the Center of the Earth opens with a Dream Sequence in which the hero is being chased by a T-Rex.
• Loose Cannons: At the beginning of the film, four men in a speedboat are drifting on a foggy night, trying to hide from several villains who taunt them from a more powerful speedboat and display the severed head of one of their associates. As the killers get closer, their targets turn on the engine of their boat and make a run for it, but are chased down and run aground, with two of the four being killed while the other two narrowly escape over a fence.
• The opening chase with Trinity and the agents in The Matrix.
• Night and the City has a Cold Open with the protagonist being chased by mobsters.
• Octopussy had Agent 009 in a clown costume, pursued by a knife thrower, before dying in the British Embassy with the MacGuffin in his hand.
• The Rocketeer: Well, pursued Punch-Clock Villain anyway. The second scene shows two Valentine Mooks with the jetpack MacGuffin fleeing from several police cars. One of them is quickly killed, while the other hides the jetpack in the protagonist's workplace (where he quickly finds it) before being captured.
• Rovdyr opens with a young blonde woman running through the forest, fleeing something that is chasing her. She steps in a Bear Trap, and while struggling to free herself, is shot from behind.
• Sherlock Holmes And The Baker Street Irregulars begins with Jack, the eponymous group’s leader, jumping into the Thames in a failed effort to escape a kidnapper.
• Marv's story in Sin City begins this way with a SWAT team moving in to capture the hero.
• Star Wars: A New Hope opens this way, with Leia being pursued by an Imperial Star Destroyer on her way to deliver the plans of the Death Star to the Rebellion. Using R2-D2, she tries to send them to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine. R2 and the plans instead end up in the hands of Farm Boy Luke Skywalker, which kickstarts the adventure.
• Surviving the Game: The opening scene is intercut with showing the protagonist's miserable life (and the loss of his dog) and another man being chased through the woods and murdered by the same hunters who will soon target the hero.
• Subverted in The Thing (1982): It starts off with a husky being pursued be Norwegians in a helicopter who are throwing sticks of dynamite. In retrospect, offering sanctuary to the pursued was probably not in the best interests of the protagonists.
• Transformers: Rise of the Beasts begins with some quick shots of the villains arriving on the Maximals' homeworld, then shows Apelinq running through the jungle with the MacGuffin and fighting some pursuers before giving the object to his friends and staying behind to Hold the Line.
• The film version of Wild Wild West opened this way; see the page quote. One of the kidnapped scientists was fleeing through a forest, being pursued by a giant flying buzzsaw. Seconds later it chops off his head.

Literature

• The Angel Experiment opens with Max being pursued by bloodthirsty wolfmen called Erasers. It turns out to be a dream, but also a good indication of her life and the events to come.
• Angel: Dark Mirror: The book begins with a Private Investigator on the run from his demon doppelgänger, which can gain power by killing him. He is wounded, but makes it to Angel Investigations, causing them to learn about the demonic threat and get involved in stopping it.
• Elfangor in Animorphs crash-landed after a battle in orbit around Earth. He then met a group of teenagers, gave them powers, and immediately got killed off.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Here Be Monsters begins with Heidi Lindstrom running from vampires until she is too exhausted to run any further. They tell her that she lasted ten blocks more than they'd expected her to and then drag her home for their mother to taunt and kill.
  • Early in the first chapter after the prologue of Carnival of Souls, Buffy (who is on patrol) sees two of her classmates running through a cemetery, being chased by vampires. They alternate between showing some strategy and behaving in a panicked fashion, but Buffy does kill their pursuers, only for the three teenagers to blunder into a sinister carnival whose proprietor covertly curses the twins as part of a soul-stealing gambit that they barely survive.
• Christopher Paolini's Eragon opens this way, with Arya being pursued by Durza on her way to deliver the dragon egg to the rebellion. Using teleportation, she tries to send it to Brom. It instead ends up in the hands of Farm Boy Eragon, which kick starts the adventure.
• The first part of Gods and Warriors begins with Hylas fleeing from a group of Crow warriors who are hunting Outsiders such as him. It's later revealed that they killed his dog when they suddenly attacked his camp, and he ended up being pursued by them when he tried to prevent them from finding his sister. He manages to evade them for the time being by literally hanging from the edge of the mountain trail.
• The novel Green Rider opens with a messenger who's been shot in the back trying to escape pursuit. He meets the heroine and makes her swear to deliver his message, then dies on the spot.
  • And then goes on to save the heroine's life several times despite being DOA (Dead On Arrival)
• Parker: Butcher's Moon opens with a failed robbery where Villain Protagonist Parker and his partners Michaelson (who is killed by return fire) and Hurley shoot over their shoulders at the police as they run for the tunnel they'd dug.
• The prologue to the Matthew Hawkwood novel Rapscallion features Lieutenant Sark being chased through the marshes by unknown pursuers with dogs. He does not survive the experience.
• Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters begins (not in the very first scene but very soon after) with a palace guard rushing to escape, er, other palace guards while trying to spirit the baby prince out of the castle following the king's death. When who should he meet, before dying of an arrow wound, but the three witches...
• The Secret Runners of New York begins with Becky Taylor being chased by the maddened inhabitants of New York in the Bad Future. The time portal she hopes to take back home is blocked, and Becky is never seen again.
• Wizards First Rule started out like this, with the protagonist Richard helping Kahlan (his eventual love interest) save herself from a Quad, four assassins who have been chasing her.

Live-Action TV

• Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024) begins with an Earth Kingdom spy being chased through a Fire Nation street and delaying pursuers with his powers as he gives stolen war plans to a comrade to take to the Earth King before staying behind to Hold the Line. He is captured, taunted about how the plans were fakes that the Fire Nation wanted the Earth King to have, and then murdered.
• Marcus Cole in the first episode of season three Babylon 5 and G'kar in one season episode two are shown running away from pursuers early on (although being main characters makes it easier to guess they will survive).
  • "The Quality of Mercy": An informant Lurker dies in Garibaldi's arms with the statement, "They're going to kill him." This triggers an investigation by Garibaldi, which unfortunately places Garibaldi in nearly the same situation later in the episode.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The first two episodes of season seven begin with Potential Slayers running from The Bringers and being caught and stabbed, emphasizing the new danger to all Potential Slayers.
• Castle:
  • "Once Upon a Crime" begins with the first victim running through Central Park before being struck with a wolf's paw. Lanie's medical examination later reveals that she woke up suddenly after being drugged and taken to the crime scene.
  • The season 7 episode "Bad Santa" begins with a man running down a street, being chased by a car, with the driver leaning out to shoot him in the back. The killer (whose wearing a Santa suit) then gets out to finish him off with a headshot.
• Chuck begins at a party where the eponymous character eventually gets around to talking about his frenemy Bryce Larkin. The next scene shows Bryce running through a government installation to send Chuck an email full of secrets they will change his life. Just after finishing this, Bryce is shot by another (well-meaning but less scrupulous) member of the main cast due to a case of Right Hand Vs Left Hand. However, a later episode reveals Bryce survived.
• The Dukes of Hazzard may be the only series where the very first scene is a protagonist carrying a vital MacGuffin (although it only figures into that first episode) being chased by … two other protagonists. For added humor, the pursued character is driving a (stolen) police car while his pursuers are in a race car and are just trying to catch up to their friend to get the story behind why he stole first their other car and then the cop car he is driving.
• Firefly: The Tams are this in the pilot. A similar incident happens in the episode "The Message".
• Inspector George Gently: "Gently With the Women" opens with a young woman being chased along the river in Durham by her eventual killer.
• Jeremiah: The first scene of "Deus ex Machina" (after the recap) shows one of the delegates to the Thunder Mountain convention running through the woods after an ambush and then being hit with a crowbar and taken prisoner by a tribe of serial killers (he is later rescued).
• Leverage: Redemption: In the opening scene of "The Debutante Job", a reporter walking down the street and texting an associate realizes he is being followed and then breaks into a run, but is caught and abducted. Hardison pulls a Big Damn Heroes rescue moments later.
• Magnum, P.I.: several of Magnum's clients are this. In one notable episode Magnum's girlfriend turns out to be from a family who has an ancient tradition of guarding a Chinese vase and she is pursued by an assassin.
• Midsomer Murders: "The Night of the Stag" opens with the first Victim of the Week being chased through an orchard at night.
• Mission: Impossible: Happens to Casey in The Teaser for "The Fortune". Leads to her being the only recurring character to be killed on the show.
• Monk:
  • In the opening scene of Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever, screaming lottery announcer Marissa Kessler is chased out of her workplace in the middle of the night by an armed, shadowy figure. She makes it to her car, but he smashes through the window, forcing her to duck out the opposite door. The pursuer yanks Marissa down as she climbs a nearby fence and stabs her to death as she pleads for her life. The killer retrieves the evidence of lottery-rigging from Marissa's body, but police forensic experts find some metallic paint on her fingers which helps clue in Monk.
  • In the opening scene of Mr. Monk and the Miracle, Willie T, the homeless man with a case of He Knows Too Much, interrupts his friends' drunken caroling to say that someone is chasing him across town. He then sees his pursuer in the distance and races away, later being found dead in a junkyard.
• Murder, She Wrote:
  • The first scene of "Night of the Headless Horseman" shows Dorian saying goodbye to his date and heading home, only to be briefly chased by the perpetrator of a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax who is dressed as the Headless Horseman. After a short chase, Dorian gets away humiliated but unharmed, and the scene establishes the enmity between him and the person he suspects of the prank.
  • "Big Easy Murder" opens with the first Victim of the Week being chased through the swamps outside New Orleans before being struck down with a machete when he stops to catch his breath.
  • An episode set in Australia begins with a lawyer fleeing on foot from an armed man in a jeep, although he temporarily escapes by abandoning the McGuffin he was carrying.
• Murdoch Mysteries: The opening scene of "Bloodlust" shows a disheveled girl running through the woods and collapsing facedown in a fountain as a figure looms over her. In a twist, it turns out that her pursuer meant her no harm and even pulled her out of the water, but someone else drowns her once he leaves.
• The New Avengers: "The Eagle's Nest" opens with an agent on a remote island being chased by two murderous anglers. He attempts to seek sanctuary in a monastery where things do not go well for him.
• Reacher: The first few seconds of the pilot show informant Pete Jobling running through a cornfield before being shot in the back.
• Remington Steele:
  • "Steele Crazy After All These Years" begins with intercuts between a man running across a campus and looking over his shoulder and a woman lounging around her house. The man reaches the house and pounds on the door, begging to be let in, but when the woman responds to the cries, he is gone and his body is found a few scenes later.
  • "Altared Steele" begins with an amnesiac man with a head wound trying to calm down a woman who finds him in her house, then running outside, driving off, and being followed first on foot, and then in a car, by a woman who tries to shoot him.
  • In "Elementary Steele", two costumed men break into a woman's apartment, causing her to flee into the street wearing a Modesty Towel and ride off on a motorcycle as they follow. However, it turns out that her pursuers were being manipulated into thinking it was part of a novelty company's mystery scenario and aren't malicious.
• Sherlock: Sherlock at the start of "The Empty Hearse" is being pursued by soldiers and a helicopter with a thermal camera through a forest.
• Stranger Things: The first scene of the series shows one of Brenner's technicians desperately running through a hall and pounding on an elevator button. Unfortunately for him, his pursuer is inside the elevator. His protagonist characterization is sketchy though.
• Vera: "Little Lazarus" opens with a young boy fleeing cross-country from the murderer that just killed his mother.
• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: “Turn Back the Clock” begins with Jason Kemp fleeing from dinosaurs at the Earth’s core and fashioning an air bag from some shed dinosaur skin to escape underwater. However, it turns out that he isn’t exactly a protagonist, as his cowardice got two colleagues killed.

Video Games

• This is how Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura begins. The player is on board a dirigible, notices a peculiar gnome among the passengers, when suddenly the zeppelin is attacked by planes and shot down. Upon awakening among the crash debris, they see the gnome again, who barely has time to hand them a mysterious ring and some vague ominous warning before snuffing it.
• Descent: FreeSpace opens with a terrified human pilot fleeing the Shivans, a new enemy intruding into an existing war. Because no-one believes his distress call and he then gets killed, the Shivans are a surprise to everyone else when they show up part-way into the campaign.
• Emperor Uriel Septim qualfies in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The old guy is isn't very concerned about his impending demise. His guards drop one by one, and he pushes the MacGuffin into the player's hands before being killed from behind by a crazed assassin.
• Final Fantasy II opens with Frionel, Guy, Maria, and Leon being chased by the Empire's Knights after their hometown's destruction. The Knights catch up anyway and leave the protagonists for dead in the woods.
• Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones has as its prologue Eirika and Seth escaping from Renais before the invading Grado army sacks it.
  • Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn has Micaiah hiding from the enemy soldiers, being caught, and then being rescued by Sothe; the fight ends with her blinding them and the two successfully escaping.
• This is actually how the original The Legend of Zelda begins, although this portion of the story takes place before the game. Impa, nursemaid to Princess Zelda, has been charged with finding a hero who can save Hyrule from Ganon. She is pursued in the forest by Ganon's mooks, only to be rescued most conveniently by the hero in question.
• In The Matrix: Path of Neo you get to play through an extended version of Neo's chase scene in the first The Matrix movie with Agents Smith, Jones and Brown in pursuit.
• Mega Man Zero opens with Ciel being chased by Neo Arcadian forces. They chase her into the lab where Zero is in suspended animation. Cue ass-kicking.
• The second act of Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon begins with Latios and Latias being chased down by an unknown villain while trying to meet with Celebi. They ultimately get turned into stone by said villain, with the heroes stumbling into their petrified bodies that crash-landed, confirming that the rumors of petrification are true, and that not even Legendary Pokémon are safe...
• Rondo of Swords opens with the main character and his two retainers fleeing from their capital city... with the entire enemy army on their heels.
• Skies of Arcadia begins with Mysterious Waif Fina fleeing from a Valuan warship.
• The founding of Durotar campaign in Warcraft III begins with Rexxar encountering an Orc messenger chased by Quilboars. The messenger doesn't survive, so it's up to Rexxar to carry on his message to Thrall.
• The opening mission of Yggdra Union has the titular character being pursued by Imperial force.
  • It's a bit of a subversion, though, as she's assisted by the Decoy Protagonist and takes her rightful place as the main character only two stages later.

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series: "Eternal Youth" begins with an heiress who cut down a forest being chased through the wilderness by Poison Ivy while showing fright about ending up like “the others.” She ends up being temporarily turned into a tree.
• The Batman: "The Laughing Bat" begins with a man running through the streets from someone in a Batman costume while pleading that all he did was jaywalk, only to be gassed into a paralytic state. It turns out his pursuer is Joker, who has decided to screw with Batman by dressing up like him and victimizing misdemeanor offenders.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
  • The "Dawn of the Deadman!" teaser segment begins in the Bad Future with Batman, Kamandi, and Doctor Canus running from a group of rat men to try and reach a time portal so Batman can take the cure to a deadly disease back to his own time.
  • At the beginning of "The Knights of Tomorrow", the Question is caught spying on Darkseid and spends the next couple minutes running through the villains' base, eluding or beating up multiple pursuers before being cornered and seemingly deciding it is Better to Die than Be Killed (although the next episode reveals he just faked his death to escape).
• Justice League: "Fearful Symmetry" begins with close-ups of running feet, as an evil Supergirl clone follows a scientist who knows too much about unethical experiments. He manages to slow her down with some mercenaries and a robot before being cornered and getting a Scream Discretion Shot as the clone prepares to incinerate him with heat vision.
• Martin Mystery: "House of the Zombie" and "Scream from the Forest" both begin with a Bit Character running through the woods while being pursued by the Monster of the Week. The man in the former episode is caught and never seen again. The man from the latter episode somehow escapes and is later found and taken to a doctor by the heroes.
• Princess Tekla in the pilot for Shadow Raiders, fighting off her pursuers is what gets Graveheart and King Kryos to realize they haver a rather literal Enemy Mine on their hands.
  • And once the Beast arrives at the Planet Cluster, and the heroes discover the World Engines, the rest of the series is spent fleeing their enemy. It catches up once, and snacks on one of the four main planets of the Cluster.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): "H.A.T.E." begins with the Turtles leaving the farmhouse for some exercise, only to run into a wounded Cult Defector who is deliriously babbling about a terrorist attack his old group is planning. The Turtles proceed to beat up some armed members of said group when they arrive looking for the wounded man.

---