City Mouse

Basic Information

A City Mouse is a character, often though not always female, who was born and raised in a city and has unexpectedly been transplanted to the countryside and now has to deal with those strange and unfamiliar surroundings.

See Also

• Country Mouse
• Fallen Princess
• Fish Out Of Water
• Naive Newcomer
• Older Than Dirt
• Stock Characters

Sources

Bibliography

1. TV Tropes Wiki entry

Game and Story Use

• This is commonly associated with wizards and similar academics in wilderness adventures - these people may be "book smart", but they are totally inexperienced with daily survival beyond the city walls.
• This can also usefully be applied to The Thief, fantasy (as opposed to Celtic) Bards and other types optimised for a role as The face, or otherwise for operations in the built and occupied environment.
• This trope is traditionally suspended when in dungeons - unless the mouse in question is an NPC.
• Most modern people qualify in absolute terms - even those of us who think we're pretty rural and good at camping struggle in a genuinely low tech environment.
• This can be flipped around, of course (see also country mouse) - rather than naivete or sophistication the city mouse can be admirably suited to the "mean streets". It probably still won't help out in the back of beyond, but it's a different skin on the same idea.