Refuge in the West

We'll find a place which God for us prepared
Far away, in the west
Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid
There the Saints will be blessed

— "Come, Come, Ye Saints", William Clayton

There's a tendency in fiction for a place that characters need to go to find safety to be located in the west. Such places are where they can survive a coming calamity, escape persecution, or just find rest from the cares of the world. Often times they will be across the sea.

The roots for this are hard to determine, but they extend to ancient times. In Classical Mythology, Elysium, where the souls of the righteous and heroic could rest in a paradisiacal realm, was said to be located at the western edge of the earth. In Chinese traditions, the west was considered a place of rest and refuge. More recently, there have been several westward movements to escape oppression and persecution. This was one of the driving forces behind The Wild West, people leaving (or escaping from) the crowded Eastern Seaboard to seek opportunity and fortune in the west. Even more recently, the Defector from Commie Land archetype fleeing to the West begins to appear.

One specific variation is the Rocky Mountain Refuge which has remnants of the US government or the last vestiges of American civilization evacuating or gathering to the Rocky Mountains so they can endure After the End.

It is related to the Eastward Endeavor, traveling east for healing or renewal, again drawing from Chinese tradition. Because of the Sun, it is/was, classically, thought that if the East is a place of renewal and progress, the West is a place of rest and refuge.

Compare Quest to the West, but where that concerns a journey to the west, this trope is a place in the west, though it may be the objective of such a quest.

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Examples:

Fan Works

• Dungeon Keeper Ami: In "Investigation", when Ami is diagramming out her plan to claim the whole of the Avatar Islands to ensure her safety, she's currently safe in her beachhead on the west side of the islands, because she came from the mainland that lies in that direction and established as soon as she could.
  A disc of blue spread outward from a spot on the west coast of the roughly oval-shaped continent, covering more and more of its surface as it travelled east.

Films — Animated

• An American Tail: Fievel Goes West has the Mousekewitz family living in a Mouse World in New York City, an existence not much better than what they left behind in Imperial Russia. They're offered an opportunity to travel to The Wild West, namely Green River, which is a largely untamed wilderness, a wide-open sandbox of opportunities. The Mousekewitzes and many other mice leap at this chance.
• The Land Before Time. The Opening Narration tells how in the midst of a drought some dinosaur herds strike out toward the west, to search for the Great Valley, a land still lush and green.

Films — Live-Action

• Discussed in 25th Hour. At the end of the film, as James is driving Monty to prison so he can begin his sentence, James tells Monty he could drive him to a bus station instead so that Monty could go west and start a new life with his girlfriend Naturelle.
• The Book of Eli: The titular character is heading west in an After the End setting for a place he's been told to take a very special book, the last known copy of The Holy Bible. After numerous setbacks, his copy of the book is taken from him by a warlord who sees it as a valuable tool, but the book was written in Braille and he couldn't use it, while Eli had committed the whole book to memory. Eli finds the place he's looking for in San Francisco, specifically Alcatraz Island, whereupon he recites the entirety of the Bible to the people there in order to have it recreated for the world at the printing presses secured on the island.
• Bridge of Spies: In the beginning we see East Berliners frantically dashing into West Berlin before the remaining gaps in the wall are filled in, trapping them on the Soviet side.
• The Godfather:
  • Vito Corleone fled Sicily after his family was killed by the local mafia and settled in New York City, only to find that early 20th century America wasn't particularly friendly to Italian immigrants and wind up founding his own mafia family.
  • In an inversion, Vito's son Michael seeks refuge in the East after killing a crooked cop and his drug dealing allies, lying low in Sicily until his enemies track him down and murder his wife.
  • During the Corleone family's Gang War with New York's drug dealing families, the Corleones start building a casino in Las Vegas and making contingency plans to move the whole family westward. After the war ends in the drug dealers' favor, Vito dies of old age, and Michael has everyone who betrayed them killed, the surviving Corleones finalize the move.
• Newsies: Discussed in the song "Santa Fe", Jack's "I Want" Song about his dream to move out to Santa Fe, which he sees as an escape from his current life of drudgery which has no future. Subverted in that he ultimately gives it up to stay in New York and help his friends.
• Six Reasons Why: To the west of The Badlands lies a Utopian community that has closed its gates to what it sees as the sin and corruption of the rest of the Post Apocalyptic world. According to a pilgrim searching for it at the start of the film, there are no criminals, no whores and no violence there.

Literature

• The Belgariad: The Cosmic Keystone is stored in a Citadel City on the Isle of Riva, the world's westernmost land. Justified as it's being protected from the Angarak Hordes from the East and the locale puts the world's best armies and navy in the way — apparently there's no danger of them sailing east around the globe.
• The Fionavar Tapestry: Drawing from Tolkien's Legendarium, the Lios Alfar sail west to a paradise over the ocean when they tire of mundane life. Or try — it turns out the Unraveller put a Soul Eating Sea Monster in the way.
• The Founding of Valdemar is a trilogy within the Heralds of Valdemar series, showing the founding of the titular kingdom by a group of refugees fleeing The Empire, led by Baron Valdemar. The second book is called Into the West and follows the refugees leaving their original teleport destination for safety.
• The Lord of the Rings. The Undying Lands, to which the Elves, Gandalf, and the Ring-Bearers eventually retreated, were across the sea to the west.
• The Red Night Trilogy: Within the novels' mythology, Paradise is known as the Western Lands, which is actually the name of the trilogy's last book.
• The Stand, as well as its 1994 and 2020 adaptations, has the main characters travel from the east coast to Nebraska and eventually to Colorado to find refuge there.
• Smiley's People by John le Carré has British Intelligence learn that Soviet agents have approached a dumpy fireplug of a woman about vouching for the daughter she left behind in the Soviet Union. George Smiley recognizes this as a "legend" operation, meant to install deep-cover agents under the guise of family of established immigrants. It turns out the daughter, Alexandra, is actually the daughter of Soviet spymaster Karla. The girl has mental problems that are poorly treated in Communist Russia, so Karla is trying to quietly get his daughter into Western facilities. The British use back-channels to let Karla know that his plan has been discovered, but that the Brits will welcome her nonetheless as a medical refugee.
• In the Sword of Truth series, when the war between D'hara and Midlands ended with the first boundary's creation, a lot of people were left fearing and hating magic due to its use in the war. They were given a region without magic in the west and a second boundary was created, sealing it off.
• White Indian: in the last 2-3 pages of the last book in the series, Medicine Shield, the sons of the second Renno and a band of sympathizers head west to escape Tennessee and any further issues with the government there.

Live-Action TV

• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Played With. Galadriel and Halbrand end up by mistake in Numenor, which is located in the west of Middle-earth. Galadriel wants to return to Middle-earth as soon as possible, but Halbrand is seriously considering to retire in Numenor and live as a humble blacksmith despite his kingly ancestry. Later it is revealed that Halbrand is Sauron who became a Retired Monster by the time he met Galadriel.
• In Ms. Marvel, as in real life, the Partition drove most of India's Muslim population towards Pakistan, the westernmost part of what had been British India, in order to escape growing persecution from India's Hindu majority. Kamala's great-grandmother, Aisha, died during the mad scramble for one of the westward trains. This would become the start of the Khan family's Generational Trauma, as Aisha's young daughter Sana spent the next seven decades obsessed with learning what became of her mother, causing her to neglect her own daughter, Muneeba, who in turn grew up to be overly protective of her daughter Kamala.
• Norsemen: Season 2 ended with the protagonists stealing away in the night and settling sail for "the West" (aka Great Britain) after Jarl Varg took over their village. Implying that they were founding the first Viking colony in Britain, but since the third season was a prequel to the first and there was never a Season 4, we'll never know.

Magazines

• Two photos in Life show an Eastern bloc soldier, Konrad Schumann, manning his post in East Berlin. Construction of the Berlin Wall has begun, and this area will soon be walled off. The second photo shows him leaping over some barbed wire into West Berlin before the wall makes this passage impossible.

Music

• Led Zeppelin, Immigrant Song, which expresses a yearning to find new homelands in the West:
  On we sweep, with flashing oars,
  Our only goal will be the western shore!
• The song West of the Fields by R.E.M. has allusions to Greek mythology, in particular to Elysium, also called Elysian Fields. This land, according to Homer, was located on the western edge of the Earth. It was described to be somewhat like a paradise.
• "Go West" by the Village People, more famously covered by the Pet Shop Boys, presents the titular west as an Elysium:
  There where the air is free
  We'll be what we want to be
  Now if we take a stand
  We'll find our promised land

Myths & Religion

• The Bible has had Egypt serve as a refuge a couple of times.
  • Book of Genesis: After revealing his true identity, Joseph invites his brothers to bring their father to Egypt to wait out the years of famine.
  • The Four Gospels: When King Herod orders the killing of the infants, an angel warns Joseph to take Mary and Jesus out of Bethlehem to Egypt to escape the slaughter. They stay there until after Herod's death, at which point they return to their home in Nazareth.
  • However, it is more often subverted throughout the history of Israel; Egypt was seen as a land of slavery and false gods that God had led the Hebrews out of via Moses and the Exodus, and numerous leaders and prophets (Moses included) gave strict warnings that the people were not to return to Egypt either as a refuge or as a military ally. When some Israelites did so after the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, spurning the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah, God cursed that population to never return to the Holy Land and vowed to turn the Egyptians over to their regional enemies as punishment.

Theatre

• Anastasia: While the animated film also featured the plot of the trio getting out of Soviet Russia and going to Paris, the sense of this being a refuge is more emphasized in the stage version, where the three are criminals being sought after, particularly Anya for the suspicion of either impersonating or actually being Anastasia Romanov. A former Russian noble is shot for boarding the train with illegal papers, adding to the sense of danger. In addition, many of the Russian nobility not killed during Red October turn out to have fled to Paris, where they all socialize at the Neva Club.
• Wicked: When Elphaba begins her campaign against the Wizard and Madame Morrible, she flees to the western portion of Oz (as she notes in "Defying Gravity": "So if you care to find me, look to the western sky!"), where rebel Animals shelter her as she quests to free them from tyranny; it's hiding in the region that gives her the title "Wicked Witch of the West." Later, Fiyero, who's a Winkie prince and thus from the West, tells Elphaba to use his castle as a hiding place. Finally, after Elphaba fakes her own melting, she and Fiyero, by now transformed into the Scarecrow, set out to journey into the west as far from Ozian civilization as possible, as it's the only place they can be safe.

Video Games

• Epic Battle Fantasy 4: The first town, and where the game starts, is at the middle of the west edge of the map, and the endgame is at the north-easternmost. Monsters only appear outside towns and there's a Portal Network to always return.
• In Half-Life 2, Gordon engages in intense combat along lengthy canals, navigating through a river, and confronting a relentless Hunter-Chopper as he makes his way to "Black Mesa East" — a western location outside City 17 where he arrives just as the sun is setting behind it. A Breather Level gameplay-wise and safehouse story-wise where Eli and Alyx are waiting for Gordon to join them. It is there that Gordon learns how to implement Wreaking Havok in the rest of the game/story. Subsequently, Gordon finds himself separated from the other characters and having to go through Ravenholm, in a town infested with zombies and short on conventional combat resources that was once a refuge for the resistance before the Combine assaulted it with Headcrabs turning its population into zombies.
• Overland: After the aliens invade Earth, a group of people starts travelling across the USA from the east coast to the west coast, hoping to find their salvation.
• Prayer of the Faithless: The starting town, a refuge against the monsters outside, is at the western edge of the continent, and an Eastward Endeavor is taken by the protagonists later.
• Prince of Qin: The first location on the map where you start out, the westernmost Zhaocun Village, has an early quest to find a secret, secluded paradise rumored to have been built by a former villager. Later, when you return in the area and the villagers' lives are threatened by the army having had their houses destroyed — nearby you find an intricate cave system involving several enemies and trials in order to gain entrance to the Paradise, there are a few more tests but after that, the people of Zhaocun Village show up there to use it as a refuge. If Zhao Qian is a companion, she will remark on how good it would be to live there with Fu Su once The Quest is completed.
• A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: The place of safety that's founded by the endgame, is located in the western part of the Floating Continent it's on.
• Warcraft III. The game begins with the Prophet urging the leaders of the Alliance and Horde to take their people to the west, to the ancient lands of Kalimdor to have a chance of surviving the return of the Burning Legion.
• Wasteland 2: At some point, the rangers' party makes a journey from Arizona to California. As they proceed on their route, the arid and empty desert landscape becomes more vivid, having lots of vegetation. Searching for water is no longer a problem, and this is a huge breakthrough and relief in the world of this game. The rangers meet many new people and factions trying to build a new and better civilization.

Webcomics

• In The Warrior Returns, most of the population of Europe and Asia flees west toward North America and Africa after the surviving Nine Warriors leave South Korea. The necessity of evacuation only intensifies after Minsu becomes a Demon Lord and it becomes clear that no earthly force save for another Warrior can possibly stop him. Even then, it's only buying time because Minsu is an Implacable Man only impeded by travelling on foot.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Season 3 presents a rather ironic example, as after the fall of the Earth Kingdom, the Gaang heads west to the one place they can find respite and a place where Aang can recover, and where they can prepare for their assault on the Day of Black Sun, the Fire Nation itself.
  • Later, The Western Air Temple provides shelter in the aftermath of the failed assault.
• The Dragon Prince: The backstory is that the elves and dragons drove humanity out of their shared homelands in the east of the continent after a human created dark magic. Now humans live in the west half and magical creatures in the east. The west wasn't a refuge though, it was the destination of a forced relocation. If anything, it's probably an allusion to the forced relocation of eastern Native American tribes to the west.

Real Life

• After being driven out of multiple states, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints eventually wound up traveling beyond the borders of the United States to seek out a place they believed God had prepared as a refuge from their enemies.
• The Thirty-Six Stratagems invert this as one of the stratagems concerns causing a distraction in a place of lesser importance ("Clamor in the east") to draw enemy forces out of their strongholds to enable an assault on what is normally a place of safety ("attack in the west").

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