Leave Your Quest Test

Captain Obvious can tell you being a hero isn't easynot more than once), but sometimes it is soul-crushingly hard. For their own particular circumstances, The Hero has been put through the wringer and may even wish out loud for a chance to leave The Hero's Journey behind, or at least get a chance to rest. Well, they get the chance.

The Hero presented with a Leave Your Quest Test will be given the chance to lay down their Sword of Plot Advancement and leave the fight. The form this test takes varies quite a bit, but there are a few common variants. A Knight Errant may enter Ghibli Hills and after getting rid of the local crime boss, gets offered a chance to make a home there by the Determined Homesteader. Sometimes just making a Love Interest is enough to seriously tempt a hero to abandon their journey; if not, a forthcoming baby may raise the question of whether a new parent can endanger himself like this. Less benign opportunities come in the form of the Bad Samaritan offering the above, with a slice of Lotus Eater Machine pie and a glass of The Final Temptation. Similar to We Can Rule Together, the Big Bad might offer the hero a clean slate and promises of non-reprisal if they abandon their quest against them. The trustworthiness of these promises varies, of course.

Being the hero, he or she will refuse the temptation. Reasons include never being safe until the quest is done because It's Not You, It's My Enemies, knowing they would get restless and wander again, or seeing through The Vamp or Big Bad's ruse. However, sometimes heroes do give in. In these cases, they usually get a vision warning them to leave, see an injustice and realize they can't stand idly by, they see the pile of cannibalized heroes in the cellar, or their new home gets razed. It's worth noting that a hero legitimately at the end of their quest may feel tempted to keep on "Heroing", and be dissuaded in favor of letting someone else pick up the banner so they can enjoy a Happily Ever After.

See also The Final Temptation, when this is part of a Lotus Eater Machine used to trap a hero. In a video game, may lead to a Nonstandard Game Over if intentionally included, Sidetracked By the Golden Saucer otherwise. Can be a Secret Test of Character.

Anime and Manga

 * Magic Knight Rayearth features this, literally as a test from major legendary godlike beings.
 * In MAR, Ginta starts by looking for a way to return home. When Jack agrees to help out and finds that it won't be as easy as they thought, Ginta is overjoyed.
 * Vash the Stampede winds up in a lengthy Ten-Minute Retirement that's basically flunking this with very good reason: 1) the pain is just too much, 2) his evil brother put one over on him again in such a way that he has to consider himself a public menace, and 3) he screwed up and wrecked another damn city; the human race are clearly better off without him putting his foot in it.
 * He gets dragged out of it by his best friend, who apparently just wandered around until he found him. The combination of Wolfwood's call to duty and Vash's foster-family getting kidnapped by the bad guys he was letting run wild and kill people get him to reactivate, and because of his notoriety he can't be Vash and not go Walking the Earth even if he didn't have a Quest. Trope in retrospect seriously messed with because
 * When Rurouni Kenshin leaves Tokyo for Kyoto at the start of the Shishio arc, there are indications he feels he's just been forced to pass the Leave Your Quest Test. Like on the one hand settling down was irresponsible and wrong, and on the other too good to be true. He adjusts pretty quickly, but then his True Companions chase him down.
 * Multiple cases in Mahou Sensei Negima. One prominent example is the offer by Fate Averruncus to personally escort Negi and his students back to the real world. In this case, it's implied at first that they would have been betrayed, but later events indicate that Fate would not have bothered  The second time is with Poyo offering first to take everyone home (instantly rejected this time) and second
 * Amusingly enough, it's Kari and then Tai who offer this to Koromon during their brief stay in the real world. Tai himself didn't have many reservations about staying before the digimon showed up.

Film

 * In Chocolat, Vianne and her daughter Anouk have gypsy blood and are "cursed to wander" and help towns, which is why they entered the village. At the end, Vianne tries to convince Anouk to leave now that the town is saved, but she ultimately decides that they both feel at home there, and ignores the North Wind's urging to leave, letting someone else fight the battles to be fought. They live happily.
 * This happens in Fire Over England, when Cynthia tells Michael Ingolby not to go on a spying mission in Spain, but to retire quietly to the country with her.
 * An example from The Empire Strikes Back: Luke leaves his Jedi training because he sees a vision of his friends being captured by the imperials.
 * A core element of Total Recall: In a world where memories can be implanted at will, how do you tell the dream from reality when someone comes and tells you the adventure you're having is all a psychotic delusion and you have to follow his instructions NOW or be lost in it forever?

Literature
"Sam: She seemed to be looking inside me and asking me what I would do if she gave me the chance of flying back home to the Shire to a nice little hole with a bit of garden of my own."
 * The Fellowship of the Ring. The Lady Galadriel looks each of the Fellowship in the eyes, and during this she tests their resolve to go forward.


 * A common feature in Choose Your Own Adventure novels, where various decisions can be made about either progressing or leaving the main plot line
 * In Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files novel Summer Knight, the Gatekeeper urges Dresden to give up because the task is far too large for him; the Council would never send a single wizard to do it. When he refuses, the Gatekeeper
 * The Odyssey. The Lotus Eaters.
 * Also, Circe and Calypso.
 * The Aeneid. The goddess Juno tries to get Aeneas to leave his quest by arranging for him to have sex with Dido, Queen of Carthage. He and Dido become involved, leading Jupiter to send Mercury to remind him of his quest to found Rome. Aeneas heeds the vision and leaves Dido behind.
 * In Taran Wanderer, the fourth book of the Chronicles of Prydain, Taran is on a quest to discover who his parents were (and in so doing, who he himself is). Early in the journey he visits his friend King Smoit, who offers to pre-empt the quest by adopting Taran and making him his son and heir. This is something of a subversion of the trope, because King Smoit has only the best of intentions -- he's very fond of Taran and would be proud to call him his son.
 * In the fourth Percy Jackson and The Olympians book, Calypso offers Percy the chance to be immortal with her and let another demigod bear the weight of the prophecy.
 * In Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, Amalthea (the unicorn transformed into a young woman) tries to back out just before the final battle. Her lover, Prince Lir, is an experienced hero and insists that she has to finish her quest -- even though if she stayed human they could marry and be happy together.
 * In Robert E. Howard's The Hour of the Dragon, Conan the Barbarian faces a rare dual version. He feels the temptation to leave his quest for the Artifact of Doom and to regain his throne -- for the In Harm's Way life of a mercenary. He chooses the "regain the throne" quest instead of the mercenary way of life.
 * In the Animorphs special Back To Before, Jake fails this test and accepts Crayak's offer to free him from the responsibilities of leading the war. It turns out poorly: Visser Three, having gained political ground on Visser One (thanks to ) and believing the Andalite presence on Earth destroyed, stages a full-scale invasion. Naturally, The Call still knows where they live and everyone but Ax and Jake are shot before Crayak calls off the exercise.
 * Happened even earlier in book 7 with the Ellimist doing the offering. He explained that due to cosmic restraints, he couldn't stop the inevitable Yeerk invasion of Earth but he could bring a small remnant of humanity (including the Animorphs) to a sort of wildlife preserve on another planet so that all would not be lost. Turns out that the Ellimist was really just using the offer and subsequent vision of the future as a way to help the Animorphs in their fight.
 * In the second Star Trek String Theory novel, Tuvok is given a shot at reaching a Vulcan philosophical ideal...but he'll have to die as a result. He is so attached to the idea of his transformation that he offers his farewells to Janeway and the others, intending to remain how he now is rather than work to save himself and continue Voyager's journey. Of course, Foregone Conclusion and Status Quo Is God are both in play here, given that this is set mid-way through the series. He therefore survives, doesn't reach the ideal state of being, and recommits to the journey home with the others.

Live Action TV

 * In Battlestar Galactica Reimagined two parter "Lay Down Your Burdens", humanity has the choice to quit the search for Earth and settle a planet that's about as hospitable as summertime Siberia in the form of the presidential elections. They choose Baltar and the Siberia planet. Of course, it comes back to haunt them.
 * In one episode of Charmed, the Angel of Destiny offers to take the Charmed Ones' power in return for defeating the Source (of all evil). Of course after feeling powerless in a battle, they decide to keep their powers.
 * In the Doctor Who episode "The Family of Blood", the Doctor (who is currently a human) is given the option of remaining human and living an ordinary, happy life. He even gets a vision of a wife, children, and a quiet death in old age, all things the Doctor can't have or has lost. Kind of an odd situation as he isn't the Doctor at the time, but does have some idea of what the Doctor's life is like. He chooses to revert to his Time Lord self.
 * It is the Doctor in human form making the decision but because he can't really remember his Time Lord self, the scene feels more like a normal human being willing to cease to exist in return for the Doctor coming back. Even the Doctor himself, when he is a Time Lord again, seems to think that this sacrifice was one of the most noble things he has ever experienced.
 * In the Season Six episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Normal Again", Buffy gets poisoned by a demon, and suddenly finds herself in a mental institution, with her worried parents (both alive and together) hoping that she might come out of her prolonged psychosis. She's told that being a Slayer and everything that's been involved (including all her friends) was just a prolonged hallucination, and all she has to do to come back to reality is let go of it...by killing her friends in the hallucination. In the end, she decided to be an unhappy hero who MIGHT be in a hallucination, versus being a happy person of no consequence in what also might be a hallucination.
 * Angel becomes a human briefly in the episode "I Will Remember You", but realizing that he can't effectively fight evil as a normal human, he persuades the Powers That Be to return him to his vampire state.

Religion

 * The gospels of Matthew and Luke describe the one Jesus went through: He goes into the wilderness to be alone, fast, and pray. Then the devil shows up. There are three temptations described, the first two the devil is trying to get Jesus to prove that he is the messiah. Then comes the Leave Your Quest Test. The devil says that earth is his dominion and that he will give it all up to Jesus, all Jesus has to do is bow down and worship him. This is the perfect opportunity for Jesus to take the easy way out, but of course he didn't give in and did go on to complete his mission.

Video Games

 * In Cave Story,
 * In Starcraft II,  Dr. Hanson will ask Raynor if he wants to stay and start a new life with the colony. Jim for various reasons -- lingering attachment to Kerrigan, the need to fight against the Swarm and the Dominion, and the belief that he isn't meant to have a normal life -- refuses the offer. Tychus agrees, saying that badasses like them just aren't cut out for the quiet life.
 * The Sloth Demon in the "Broken Circle" quest in Dragon Age Origins tries to keep you in its Lotus Eater Machine by promising to give you a reprieve from your quest.
 * In Earthbound, The segment with Poo in Dalaam is basically one long string of these. To advance the plot, you need to complete your training atop of Mt. Mu, and are reminded of the importance of nothingness. To succeed, you need to do nothing and let everything happen to you, starting with ignoring a messenger from home pleading for your return, and ending with losing your arms, legs, ears and eyes to a spirit. You get better, but still...
 * If you're familiar with Japanese legends, you may recognize this as a possible allusion to the tale of Hoichi-mimi-nashi.
 * At one point in Suikoden II, your sister Nanami asks you if you want to - literally - run away from your responsibilities as a leader. Unlike many other games, you actually can agree to do it. After several warnings, this will trigger one of the game's Multiple Endings.
 * In Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, the protagonist is given a less than believable opportunity to return to their childhood home, giving up the power they have acquired since leaving it and living a simpler life again. However this was supposed to be seen as potentially working, the player isn't actually given the opportunity to acquiesce.
 * This is basically  route in Devil Survivor.
 * In Portal 2, the Final Boss generously offers you the chance to kill yourself in a masher on the final puzzle, under the guise that a lot of time had been spent getting the lair ready for the player and it would all be for nothing if the player was to die so close to said lair.
 * In EVO Search for Eden,  will each offer you a choice to join them and abandon your quest to reach Eden. If you accept, you will see a cutscene of the possible outcome then get sent back to the world map.
 * Multiple Roguelike games allow the player to abandon their quest at any time via the stairs (or other entrance) with which they entered, leading to a Nonstandard Game Over. (This holds true for at least Nethack, Dungeon Crawl, and Ancient Domains of Mystery, and probably many others.) Dungeons of Dredmor subverts this by barring the entrance stairs behind the player when they enter (and lampshading the situation heavily).

Western Animation

 * Samurai Jack faced the Bad Samaritan variant. The "Spirit of Spring" offered him rest so he could gain strength for his quest. However, he sensed something was wrong and tried to leave. She reacted violently and tried to keep him by force. While he escaped, she survived...
 * In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Night Mare Moon tempts Rainbow Dash to leave the ponies' quest for the Elements of Harmony by offering her the chance to be known as Equestria's greatest flier, but only if she abandons her friends.
 * And at the start of the second season, Discord tries a similar angle Though the choice he offers is less "abandon your friends and embrace greatness" and more "abandon your friends and go save your hometown instead." With mind control.
 * Batman the Animated Series episode "Perchance to Dream" traps Batman in a Lotus Eater Machine where his parents aren't dead, he's engaged to Selina Kyle, and someone else is running around Gotham City, solving crimes and fighting the good fight. Eventually Bruce Wayne starts to settle in and writes his Caped Crusader days off as a temporary illusion. Then, he realized he couldn't read, and recognized that he couldn't read while in a dream world.
 * Take away everything to do with Batman being framed, the Phantasm trying to get revenge on the Joker, and Bruce Wayne's failure to hold on to a woman, this is the core of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, where he's ready to become a masked vigilante and go down the path of darkness and angst forever (although, notably, he hasn't seen any bats yet)...but has found happiness with Andrea Beaumont, the Girl of the Week. This leads into one of the saddest scenes in all of the DCAU, where he begs his (dead) parents to let him go.