But Now I Must Go

"Bart: Work here is done. I'm needed elsewhere now. I'm needed wherever outlaws rule the West, wherever innocent women and children are afraid to walk the streets, wherever a man cannot live in simple dignity, wherever a people cry out for justice! Crowd: (in unison) Bullshit! Bart: ...all right, you caught me. Speaking the plain truth, it's getting pretty damn dull around here."

- Blazing Saddles

A.K.A. "Mary Poppins Syndrome". An easy way to add anywhere from a twinge of sentimentality to a whole extra Tear Jerker scene to the end of your movie: after helping out and saving the day, The Drifter character must leave forever. Used a lot in solo series of many an Ensemble Darkhorse, as their adventures alone can't keep them in the small town forever; they have to plausibly be able to get back to the team.

Excuses for why they need to leave are varied. Perhaps once their job is done, they are no longer needed and must set off for a new job, as with the Knight Errant. Perhaps they are bound by some kind of supernatural curse or spell that states they can only come back every X years or they can only stay for X days. Maybe they're just a traveler and can't deny the call of the open road or the cry of the sea. Maybe they must Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence. Maybe they are starting or completing the Journey to Find Oneself. Maybe the final cut is missing some scene that could explain this.

It doesn't count if the character was already dying for some understandable reason, has some kind of good, understandable, plot-related reason to leave, or goes off to a Heroic Sacrifice. This is when the character has become loved and respected by other characters, and has to leave for no other reason than "he must".

This tends to happen a lot in Girls Love anime, especially if the heroines don't end up crazy or dead.

Compare Riding Into the Sunset, Save the Day Turn Away, Walking the Earth. Also see I Choose to Stay, which is the polar opposite.

As an ending trope, expect SPOILERS.

Advertising

 * A recent Verizon commercial has a biker getting ready to leave and telling his lady love that she can't come with him, because he rides solo...and then she asks about the crowd behind him. "Well, except for my Network."

Anime and Manga

 * in the ending of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
 * Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop. He leaves the Bebop one final time (much to Faye's dismay) to confront his past and Vicious.
 * And Ed to a lesser extent.
 * Ogremon, from Digimon Adventure.
 * And more importantly,  in the last episode.
 * Fist of the North Star (more precisely, the anime adaptation) ends with Kenshiro leaving his sidekicks Bat and Lin to wander alone.
 * The very first episode also has a moment like this, when Kenshiro leaves after saving Lin.
 * Dragonball Z did this twice when attempting to end the story for good. The end of GT also had this.
 * This trick is being pulled half-way through the AIR anime, where . It still doesn't really explain though why she had to just vanish, especially since . Obviously the makers of the series wanted to squeeze as many tears out of it as possible - as if the ending wasn't sad enough already.
 * And then it was suddenly subverted when we see Minagi's half-sister, who.
 * Layla Ashley in Avenger. After, no less.
 * This happens to in both Ghost in the Shell movies, but especially in Innocence.
 * Both Haruko and Mamimi in FLCL.
 * in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
 * The original Reinforce in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Oh, c'mon, do you really think the lead girls wouldn't be able to befriend the crap out of anytime while blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs?
 * All cyborgs in Murder Princess.
 * Serial Experiments Lain
 * in Revolutionary Girl Utena.
 * from Uta Kata return in the OVA just to invoke this trope.
 * Parodied in the School Rumble manga. Eri invites Harima to her house overnight to work on the school album. To get him to reveal his feelings, Eri's butler cosplays as a character from Harima's favorite show and fights him. Harima leaves the house w/o revealing his feelings because that's how the episode ended.
 * The Yoshikiri Utano in Shoujo Sect. Pretty sad.
 * , the very, very sympathetic "villain" of the Mahora Fest arc in Mahou Sensei Negima, returns to after her plans fail. The reasons she gives are very vague and suspect (she claims she has no reason to stay in this time, despite some very clear evidence to the contrary) leading to at least half the fanbase wondering if she really did return...
 * Setsuna also tries to pull this, feeling that she doesn't belong now that Negi and Co. know, but gets a lecture from Asuna and decides to stay.
 * Pokémon the First Movie: This is a part of Mewtwo's back story.
 * A Hentai entitled The Licker was about an older woman having an affair with a young boy. She left the town when spring came.
 * In Dennou Coil, simply leaves town and gives Yasako one last phone call, telling her they might meet again. Considering through how much trouble Yasako went to save her that's quite egregious--but Yasako actually takes it very well.
 * Kino's modus operandi. Reach next town, stay for three days and two nights, then gone. The number of times I Choose to Stay is even considered could be counted on a single hand.
 * At the end of Kurogane Communication,
 * At the end of Code Geass Nightmare of Nunnally,.
 * For the original anime,
 * in Yu-Gi-Oh.
 * At the end of GaoGaiGar,, giving new meaning to the ending sequence we've been watching for the past 40+ episodes.
 * Rappi Rangai both parodies this and plays it straight; inevitably, protagonist Raizou ditches the current 'princess' he's helped save, usually scrambling to pull this trope off while in tears due to believing he's been rejected or some similar reason. Played straight when the princesses don't actually want Raizou to leave, but he cuts out of there before any of them could say so.
 * In Risky Safety, But don't worry,
 * Ginko in Mushishi. Justified in that he's an attractor of the troublesome creatures who cause problems for the humans in the series. For this reason he'll never be able to settle down in one place.
 * In the final episode of Eureka Seven, the way Renton left the Gekko and Holland commented that he has graduated from Gekkostate.
 * The entire concept of Angel Beats centers around the unsettling souls eventually leaving the academy in order to pass on.
 * In Fresh Pretty Cure,
 * Subverted in Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?.
 * Manga-only example: Mon Colle Knights. At the end of the last chapter, the Knights use the Monster Items to revive Gren, at the cost of losing the items and causing the portal to fade. Before leaving, they mention that they will never be able to visit Mon World again, though certain things afterwards suggest that, in fact, they do. (The anime ends with a new quest for six new Items beginning after the defeat of Reda and Oroboros.)
 * At the end of A Little Snow Fairy Sugar, Saga loses her ability to see fairies anymore, and explicitly states that she never saw any of them again after Sugar found her Twinkle. Would not have been as contrived if it was just a matter of Sugar having to start her journey as a full-fledged Snow Fairy, with the chance that they'll meet again someday.
 * After the climactic last battle of Gun X Sword,  walks off without saying goodbye to most of the good guys, presumably out of a need to figure out "what next?" It's a poignant ending.
 * from Bleach, in manga chapter 479.
 * Puella Magi Madoka Magica, of the Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence variety. But don't worry, she'll be Homura's BFF forever, that's what she said.

Comic Books

 * In Pre-Crisis Superman comics, when Superman finally succeeds in enlarging the Bottle City of Kandor, the Kandorians choose to live on a Brigadoon-style planet, which phases in and out of the universe at lengthy intervals.
 * A conceit of Starlord was that it was a disguised training manual to allow humans to survive the imminent invasion by the Interstellar Federation, and was published and edited by a benevolent being named the Starlord. In the last issue before Starlord merged with Two Thousand AD, the Starlord said he had trained humanity so well that the Federation was too scared to invade Earth, and so he was leaving to help other planets.

Film
"Philo: You're welcome. Well, it appears that my work on this planet is finished, so I must now return to my home planet of Zarquon. George: [dubious] Oh...okay. Have fun!"
 * Pete's Dragon.
 * Mary Poppins.
 * Nanny McPhee, A.K.A. the "modernized" Mary Poppins. She even lampshades it: "As long as you need me but do not want me, I will stay. When you want me but no longer need me, I must go."
 * Pirates of the Caribbean, 1 and 3, with Captain Jack Sparrow.
 * Also with at the end of the third movie, due to his curse. However,.
 * Blazing Saddles: See page quote.
 * "Shane! Come back!"
 * Pale Rider.
 * The Lord of the Rings: Frodo, Gandalf, Bilbo, and all the other Ringbearers take the very last ship to the Gray Havens, leaving behind a world which they themselves saved.
 * Sam doesn't go right away, and he was a Ringbearer for a short while. He does go 30 years later.
 * Michael, a movie starring John Travolta about an archangel who visits Earth. He ascends to a higher plane of existence at the end of the movie. Since he has used up all his visits to Earth, he can never return again.
 * ET the Extraterrestrial: "I'll be right here..."
 * Happened in Jack Frost 1998 (The family movie). The titular main character is trapped in the body of a snowman in order to say goodbye to his family. They spend a good deal of the movie trying to keep him from melting and getting him to a nice cold mountaintop. Upon accomplishing this task, he drops "but now I must go" for seemingly no reason and disappears into the wind.
 * The movie Finian's Rainbow ends with the dad (Fred Astaire) picking up his carpet bag and cane and heading out. On his beloved daughter's wedding day. And the only reason she gets to say goodbye and get half an explanation is that she spotted him leaving. Way to make your daughter's anniversary memorable, Daddy Dear.
 * (This editor's dad had a regular tirade over the ending and how he'd never do that to a daughter of his...and thanks to this trope, this editor better understands the negative reaction to this turn of events.)
 * Subverted in the musical theater show. Dad gives an explanation of what he's going to do next.
 * The movie Chocolat almost ended this way. Vianne had previously dragged her daughter Anouk through several moves, usually because they got thrown out, and also because her own mother had done the same thing to her. After the story is settled and the pair hasn't been thrown out of town, Vianne gets set to move on anyway -- but then realizes that she wants to stay, and instead dumps her mother's ashes out the window, leaving her mother's spirit free to roam and no longer forcing the family to accompany it.
 * This trope is played straight in the original novel by Joann Harris, however.
 * The titular characters of Three Amigos! pulled this one at the end of the movie because their characters in their Show Within a Show always did it.
 * Subverted at the end of the Good Burger movie: Ed gives Dexter a teary, heartfelt farewell speech, though neither of them is going anywhere.
 * Kevin Costner's character in Waterworld. The exact reasoning for his leaving is a bit vague, but seems to be because he evolved for a marine existence.
 * "There is one more chip. And it must be destroyed..."
 * The plot of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium revolves around the titular character's sudden plans to "leave" for absolutely no reason.
 * The Searchers. No dialogue, very poignant.
 * Casablanca, 'cept it was the love interest who left. A similar scene occurs in the ending of the Pamela Anderson film Barb Wire (albeit the gender roles are reversed).
 * The penultimate scene in Big Trouble in Little China inverts this when loner, truck-driving hero Jack offers would-be love Gracie the opportunity to settle down, only to have her lament that the only way she would stay with him is if he maintains his nomadic lifestyle.
 * The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones: In this crossover film, Hanna-Barbera's two well known families meet each other in the past after Elroy Jetson invents a time machine. They switch places (The Flintstones as well as the Rubbles go to the future where Fred and Barney work for Mr. Spacely while George works for Mr. Slate). Also in the past, Judy falls in love with a "stone-ager" named Iggy. At the end of the film, The families return to their respective time periods. Judy is crushed to leave behind Iggy, but is consoled when she meets his descendant in the future.
 * The Iron Giant: "I go. You stay. No following."
 * Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
 * In Back to the Future Part III, Doc and Marty are preparing to leave 1885 and go back to 1985. The night before, Doc goes to see his love interest Clara and say that he's leaving, and can never comes back. Subverted in that he eventually tells her the truth, but she doesn't believe him.
 * Lisa, at the end of Weird Science. She has successfully transformed the lives of Gary and Wyatt, getting them popularity, girlfriends, and most importantly confidence. So she decides to become a gym teacher...
 * Play It Again, Sam: Alan Felix (Woody Allen) imagines that Humphrey Bogart is with him and confers with Bogey to take decisions. In the end, Humphrey Bogart chooses to leave as "You don't need me any longer."
 * Óscar, Kina y el láser, a 1978 Spanish movie (adaptation of a short story) about a child who builds a speaking laser device. "The Laser" helps Óscar in his adventure and, when the plot is over and Óscar goes to bed saying goodnight, the Laser farewells him, apparently feeling there was no need for the Laser to stay.
 * Yojimbo. A partial aversion in that Mifune's character leaves the village not because "he must", but simply because with his enemies defeated, the place was boring.
 * Echoed in Sanjuro: The Lord of the region offers him a job, but Sanjuro doesn't show up. The Lord reveals that he knew Sanjuro would never be able to settle down like that, and the young samurai Sanjuro had been tutoring chase after him to change his mind.
 * In Moonwalker Michael Jackson turns into a spaceship and flies away, while his young friends say "He's going home." ...averted though in the fact that he comes back...immediately.
 * In UHF, Philo makes his grand exit this way.


 * In The Legend of Bagger Vance, after helping Matt Damon's character regain his golf swing, Bagger Vance leaves never to return, cementing his Magical Negro status.
 * In The Return of Hanuman, Maruti must leave the village and Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence after turning into Hindu God Hanuman.
 * Pocahontas
 * Played With in Pulp Fiction, when Jules has a near-death and then near-life in prison moment in the same day, he decides he must leave and travel the world. Not only is he not a heroic character, but the the story is told out of order.

Literature
"--"In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also." (John 14:2?3)"
 * Jesus, in The Bible.

""I am a landless man." A strange, intangible, almost mystic look flashed into his cold eyes. "I come out of the sunset and into the sunrise I go, wherever the Lord doth guide my feet. I seek...my soul's salvation, mayhap. I came, following the trail of vengeance. Now I must leave you. The dawn is not far away, and I would not have it find me idle. It may be I shall see you no more. My work here is done; the long red trail is ended. The man of blood is dead. But there be other men of blood, and other trails of revenge and retribution. I work the will of God. While evil flourishes and wrongs grow rank, while men are persecuted and women wronged, while weak things, human or animal, are maltreated, there is no rest for me beneath the skies, nor peace at any board or bed. Farewell!""
 * He'll be back, though. Eventually.
 * This is a recurring theme in the light novel series, and the anime adaptation, of Kino's Journey in which the main character, as a drifter, has a self-imposed limit of staying three days upon reaching a town or rest stop and can give no exceptions regardless of the situation. This is in order not to form attachments to prevent the ideal of traveling. A little different in that the plot follows Kino to each next place.
 * Remus Lupin's resignation in Harry Potter.
 * Mightily Oats, of all people, in the Discworld book Carpe Jugulum.
 * And he is spoken of later in a Crowning Moment of Awesome in Unseen Academicals.
 * Robert E. Howard did a superb But Now I Must Go ending for the Solomon Kane story "The Blue Flame of Vengeance":

""I'm terribly sorry, but we can't stay. You see, we have to..." But what it was they had to do was never said, as there was a gust of wind, and they were gone."
 * Running with the Demon. John Ross drifts back out of town.
 * After half a book of back story, this trope basically becomes the entire premise for the Castaways of the Flying Dutchman books by Brian Jacques.
 * Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, resulting from Mandella and Potter's return to Earth after their first tour of duty, during which thirty years have passed on Earth due to Time Dilation from Faster-Than-Light Travel.  Needless to say, the two re-enlist in the Army and get off that Crapsack World.
 * Un Lun Dun by China Mieville's defies this trope. At the end of the book, the protagonist Deeba is told that she has to return permanently to her home in mundane London, because travel between London and UnLondon is too difficult to allow her to return. Her response is to burst into laughter, systematically list all the people in the book who've traveled back and forth between the two along with how easy it was for them to do so, and say, "Of course I'll come back!"
 * Five of the seven books in 'The Chronicles of Narnia' involve the heroes being sent back to England in the end. In the other two books, they didn't because 1) the main characters were natives, and 2), so going back wasn't an option.
 * A Wrinkle in Time has this with

"Obi-Wan: Not the last of the old Jedi, Luke. The first of the new."
 * At the end of the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra tells the group of followers that have gathered around him "Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves, and only when you have all denied me will I return to you." He does, indeed, return.
 * At the end of the Star Trek Expanded Universe novel Kahless, the original Kahless tires of his life as The Emperor and decides to leave. His subjects ask him where he will go. Deciding to play up on their myths of him (mostly so they'd leave him be), he points to a random star and tell them to look there. 1500 years later, they do.
 * The whole point of the novel is demystifying the figure of Kahless and showing him as just a man. In fact, the whole idea of forging the first bat'leth from his own hair dipped in lava was merely a dream he had. He promptly makes a sketch of the weapon and takes it to a blacksmith.
 * In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Obi-Wan Kenobi's Force Ghost continued to advise Luke Skywalker for a while after Return of the Jedi, but he eventually moves on to the afterlife, much to Luke's sorrow.


 * Obi-Wan's Force Ghost does make two more appearances. First, to congratulate Luke on the birth of his son, then to celebrate the defeat of the Yuuzhan Vong.
 * In Warrior Cats, several characters do this, most notably
 * In How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford,

Live Action Television

 * Used quite a lot in The Lone Ranger, as he goes off into the sunset...leaving grateful townsfolk behind, wondering, "Who is that Masked Man?"
 * Used straight in The Adventures of Pete and Pete. In the two-parter "Goodbye, My Little Viking", Little Pete parts ways with his best friend and personal superhero Artie (the Strongest Man - in the world!), who realizes that he is no longer needed more, and sets off to find a new kid who does.
 * In the final episode of Battlestar Galactica,  does this rather abruptly.   jumps on the bandwagon and immediately ascends to a higher plane of existence.
 * The Doctor from Doctor Who shows something of this; he saves the day, and then leaves again, never staying. It's been suggested in the show this is because he's afraid to look back at the trail of destruction he leaves behind.
 * A strange subversion of this trope is used in the Doctor's regeneration in 'The Parting of the Ways'. He tells Rose he'll still be there, "but not like this. Not with this daft old face."
 * He is forced to face the consequences of his own actions a few times, such as in "Bad Wolf", which takes place a century after "The Long Game". Instead of freeing Earth from the tyranny of the Jagrafess, his actions result in a complete shutdown of the government, followed by decades of chaos before an even worse example of tyranny takes hold, forcing people to participate in deadly games and others to watch them.
 * Though to be fair to him,  wouldn't have let it turn out any other way.
 * Power Rangers did this a few times:
 * Power Rangers Turbo: The Phantom Ranger makes this sort of exit. He does it again in Power Rangers in Space.
 * Power Rangers Time Force: The rest of Time Force does this to Wes in the finale, going back to the year 3000.
 * Power Rangers Wild Force ends with Princess Shayla taking the Animarium back into the sky. While that may have been necessary, not allowing Merrick, who loved her, was from her own time period, and had nothing in the present, to stay with her was not.
 * It's what he gets for being one of the better characters that season.
 * Power Rangers Mystic Force does this with Nick, in keeping with his entrance as The Drifter, but uses a version of The Lady's Favour to show he intends to return soon.
 * Parodied mid-first-season of Angel, when Wesley joins the cast. Wesley pretends he must do this, while secretly hoping to be invited to stay, but Angel and Cordelia play along with the pretense.
 * Later played straight mid-fifth-season when It's more Tearjerker in the show than that description, obviously.
 * Also Lorne's final fate.
 * No matter how much the people he interacted with wanted him to stay, The Littlest Hobo would always leave at the end of the episode.
 * "There's a voice...that keeps on calling me...down the road, that's where I'll always be..."
 * Spoofed in an episode of Corner Gas, and Hank wanted Hobo to stay in Dog River. When Wanda explains that leaving when the trouble is over is what Hobo does, Hank wants to stir up more trouble to get Hobo to come back.
 * This is the default ending for most of the Ultraman series, as the Ultras are assigned to Earth from their home world and when their tour of duty is complete, they must return. In Ultraman and Ultraseven, this was given further meaning, as they were badly hurt and they couldn't be healed on Earth.
 * Also the default for The A-Team, as they couldn't stay in one place too long without being caught by the military.

Music

 * "Heard it in a Love Song" by the Marshal Tucker Band.
 * "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
 * "Sous le Vent", by Garou and Celine Dion.
 * Fait comme si je quittais la terre / J'ai trouvé mon étoile / Je l'ai suivie un instant...
 * Janelle Monae's song BaBopByeYa.
 * My freedom calls and I MUST GOOOOOO!
 * Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On"

Tabletop Games

 * Exalted has a charm, Hero Rides Away, that rewards heroic-themed Solar Exalts for doing this.
 * For the heroic Abyssals, however, they must do this even if they want to stay. Otherwise the folks they just saved will be hit by an ultra-lethal death-wave, or worse.

Theatre

 * The opera Paul Bunyan ends with the unseen title character saying that he has to move on.

Toys

 * in the conclusion of Bionicle after having completed his destiny.

Video Games

 * This is very common at the end of the Zelda games. Either Link's sidekick leaves Link or Link leaves Hyrule to go on a journey.
 * The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time has Navi leaving Link at the end because Link isn't a Kokiri and the only reason she was sent to him was so he could fulfill his quest. Once that was done, she couldn't stay with him any longer. Also, Zelda restores Link's childhood by sending him into an Alternate Timeline where he is a child again making it a "But Now You Must Go."
 * Majora's Mask started with Link getting sidetracked while searching for his friend. At the end of game, Link leaves Termina and Tatl to continue on his quest to find his friend.
 * The ending of Wind Waker has Link leaving his grandma and sister to search for new land.
 * There's also Minish Cap where Elzo leaves for seemingly no reason except that the door behind him is closing and someone must go through it. At least he leaves a parting gift.
 * At the end of Twilight Princess,  At the very end, Link is seen riding away from Ordon village on Epona, but it's never said where he's going.
 * One of the multiple endings to Spirit Tracks has Link leaving if you select the "Dunno" choice when asked what do you want to do after the bad guy is defeated.
 * At the ending of The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword,
 * The ending of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Alucard rescues Richter Belmont and meets up with both him and Maria at a cliff overlooking the former spot of Dracula's castle. He tells them both that because of his cursed lineage, he was better off gone. That being said, Alucard departs to return to his eternal slumber (much like at the end of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse). Depending on certain variables in the game, Maria will either respect Alucard's decision to disappear and return home with Richter, or confess her love for him and follow him.
 * at the end of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. He obviously has a strong attachment to the world
 * Happens to  at the end of Persona 3. He   And this is the GOOD ending.
 * Happens to  at the end of Persona 4. Though considering the series, things could have been much, much worse. Something of a subversion in that we know from the very beginning of the game that he'll be leaving town in one year. And depending on which dialog choices the player chooses, he might not want to leave at all.
 * The canon sequel, Persona 4 Arena undoes this one: in order to investigate Teddie's call to a tournament for Persona users, he returns to his friends in Inaba less than two months after the end of the game.
 * Averted in an interesting way in Lunar 2: Eternal Blue.
 * In Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken, Ninian and Nils
 * In the same game, the Tactician also ended up leaving for reasons unspecified at the end of the game.
 * Also Ike from Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, who disappears to lands unknown at the end of the latter, either alone or in the company of his close friend Soren or Ranulf if you supported him with any of the two. As a bonus, he appears in exactly the same pose as in the page image, complete with a memorial of sorts.
 * Planescape: Torment ends like this with.
 * Likewise the Baldur's Gate series in Throne of Bhaal, in the ending where
 * in Tales of Symphonia.
 * Played straight by, and   in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, where it's always made clear by Old Snake that once he's done with his one final mission, he'll retire to die alone.
 * Ryu's ending in every game he's been in.
 * One of the most memorable phrases in gaming history from his ending in any Street Fighter II: "Already seeking the next challenge, ceremony means nothing to him. The fight is everything."
 * Done for the hero in Quest for Glory IV; in the middle of the reward ceremony, Erasmus locates the hero via scrying and teleports him to Silmaria for the events of the fifth game, remarking "He's a hero, and heroes go where they are needed."
 * The Avatar from Ultima IX: During ALL the game it's said that you won't be back to Earth nor Britannia (the planet where the game is set) but you will ascend to another form of existence. The full name of that game is "Ultima IX: Ascension". No less.
 * does this in the Neon Genesis Evangelion: Girlfriend of Steel game..
 * Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team...though it ends up subverted, as the protagonist stays after all.
 * in Pokémon Black and White.
 * Morrigan does this at the end of ''Dragon Age. The Warden can follow her.
 * This occurred at the end of Super Robot Wars Alpha, when Kusuha's boyfriend Bullet decided it was too dangerous for someone like him to hang around...plus he wanted to keep RyuKouOu out of other people's hands. He gets over it by Alpha 3,
 * Happens at the end of the Wii version of A Boy and His Blob.
 * Throughout Olimar's journal entries in Pikmin, it becomes clear that he's become quite attached to the pikmin and their strange, blue world. Unfortunately, he's got a family back on his home planet, and the toxic atmosphere just doesn't help anything. If you reach the happy ending, the diminutive alien gives the cute pikmin one final glance before shaking his head, and leaving them all behind.
 * Kinoko Nasu loves doing this to his characters, apparently:
 * in Fate/stay night, in a tear-jerking scene in which she finally confesses to the protagonist that she loves him, right before vanishing forever.
 * does this in the end of Unlimited Blade Works, as well as in one of the endings.
 * Several endings in the first storyline of Melty Blood have female protagonist Sion Eltnam Atlasia leaving the town for various reasons, . Just about the only exception is the ending where she and Akiha bond. Shiki ponders cutting himself.
 * In the original Tsukihime, it happens to Arcueid in her route. And since the anime is based primarily on the latter, it features this as well.
 * Made extremely jarring by the fact that.
 * The protagonists of both Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games ended the games this way, and Word of God says they left their party members behind.
 * Though it's heavily implied first that Revan had some purpose in leaving and would eventually return, while the Exile was said to have gone in search of him. However, the upcoming MMORPG seems to have abandoned this plot line, so apparently they just left they were contractually obligated to.
 * This plot thread is picked up again and resolved in The Old Republic.
 * Way to be a quitter, Exile.
 * And yet, they manage to pull it off.
 * The Bad endings of Yo-Jin-Bo, usually thanks to  In Jin's Bad ending,
 * Happens during The Stinger from Super Mario Galaxy: If you defeat Bowser with all 120 Power Stars, then we actually get to see a cutscene where Rosalina is actually shown bidding Mario/Luigi farewell and flying off to another part of the galaxy, followed by a Luma climbing out of a damaged spaceship. Moments later, however, Mario/Luigi is actually now back on Rosalina's ship!
 * This also happens in the sequel, where after Bowser is defeated the Luma Mario/Luigi travelled with actually ends up seeing Rosalina's ship flying by and telling Mario/Luigi goodbye. However, she does return to help Mario/Luigi
 * Cruelly Subverted in Fallout. After defeating the Big Bad
 * Played straighter in the Fallout: New Vegas DLC. After saving Christine from the immediate danger at the Big Empty and getting what he came for, Ulysses leaves.
 * In My Little Pony Friendship Gardens, you must let your pony cross the bridge to Ponyland at the end.
 * Two of the endings in Saya no Uta don't really count, since the eponymous character had completely uncontrived reasons for leaving Fuminori in the asylum ending, and was killed in battle in one of the other endings. However, in the remaining ending, Saya becomes ill and dies after just having killed Kouji. We know it's meant to be depressing and cynical, and we know this is what leads up to the worldwide plague of mutation spores, but she seemed perfectly fine up until that point, and nothing was ever mentioned that she would die after fulfilling her biological purpose of reproduction.
 * In the first Kingdom Hearts game, this is an unspoken agreement between Donald Duck and Goofy. Due to the "no meddling" rule, they know that eventually they'll have to leave Sora forever. By the time of Kingdom Hearts II, however, they've gotten far too attached to Sora to leave him.
 * In Super Mario RPG, Geno leaves the party and his spirit returns to the Star Road after the heroes have completed their quest in fixing it and defeating the Big Bad.
 * This is two of seven possible endings for Ein in Riviera: The Promised Land, including the one that's Word of God canonical. They're mostly the same, though; the only thing that changes is whether or not his familiar turns into a catgirl.

Web Original

 * Hamburger Pattie in the League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions to return to her own universe (another cybersoap) to settle things there & when things were settled that universe was sealed off & she could never return.
 * The Meme I Must Go, My Planet Need Me.

Western Animation
"Leonard Nimoy: Well, my work here is done. Barney: Whaddaya mean, 'your work is done'? You didn't do anything. Leonard Nimoy: [Chuckles knowingly] Didn't I? ]"
 * A recurring theme of The Galaxy Trio was how, whether they wanted or were even invited to stay on whatever planet they had just saved, the Trio had to move on: "Our job is out there."
 * In the My Little Pony episode "Crunch the Rock-Hound", a tale told by one of the ponies ends with the hero leaving the heroine at sunset. While the other ponies are touched, the ever-logical Wind Whistler is unmoved, remarking that it's stupid to start off on a long journey at night.
 * Parodied in The Simpsons, in which this is the extremely poorly-done manner in which the hated Poochie is Put on a Bus out of the "Itchy And Scratchy" cartoon, from out of nowhere. Apparently Poochie is an alien. And his home planet needs him. And he dies on the way back.
 * Used in a more conventional way for the episode "Stark Raving Dad", when Michael Jackson/Leon Kompowsky leaves for places unknown after saying "Well, my work here is finished."
 * Also parodied in "Marge Vs. The Monorail", after the monorail crisis is resolved:

"Don't think it's sour grapes, But you're all a bunch of apes, And so I must be leaving you!"
 * Would  count? True, she came back, but nobody knew she would for a fair number of years. It was also one of the biggest Tear Jerker moments in the show's history.
 * In the Mary Poppins parody episode, Sherry Bobbins does leave at the end, but not because her work is done:

"Superman: You are everything I ever wanted in a son. This is everything I ever wanted in a life. But I have responsibilities, Van-El, and I...have to go now."
 * Justice League Unlimited: "For The Man Who Has Everything".


 * Numbuh One choses to leave in the Grand Finale of Codename: Kids Next Door to join the Galactic Kids Next Door.
 * In the first episode of Darkwing Duck, after dropping off a couple petty criminals at the police station: "Now I must go: The scent of crime is in the air!"
 * Parodied in an episode of Recess where Gus goes to his old alter ego of El Diablo the Dodgeball Player in order to win the game for his friends. After he wins, Gus turns around and goes off into the sunset...until one of the kindergarteners reminds him that school wasn't over yet.

Real Life

 * George Washington: served two terms as President, then retired. The precedent he established protected the United States from strongman rule for more than a century afterward.
 * The letter anime director Satoshi Kon wrote when he learned he was dying of cancer ends with the phrase "Now, if you'll pardon me, I have to go". The Japanese phrase used has the connotation of someone apologizing for leaving the office before everyone else is ready. This only adds to the Tear Jerker quality of the farewell.