Resignations Not Accepted: Difference between revisions

See also [[Mandatory Unretirement]], [[Thrown From the Zeppelin]].

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Crying Freeman]]'', The Freeman got abducted, then forced to work as an assassin for the Sons of the Dragon and obviously he isn't allowed to leave them as they initiated him against his will in the first place.

* In ''[[Noir]]'', the secret organization Soldats has absolutely no problem assassinating people who used to kill for them.

* The teams in ''[[Witch Hunter Robin]]''.

* Implied in ''[[Hellsing]]'' with [[Those Wacky Nazis|Millennium]]. If they're willing to [[Man On Fire|set you on fire]] if you [[You Have Failed Me...|fail your mission]] or were about to spill their secrets, do you really think they'd let you retire?

* Akatsuki in ''[[Naruto]]''. {{spoiler|As Konan unfortunately finds out}}.

* In ''[[Bakuman｡]]'', writers cannot simply end their series when they want to, as long as there's still some life in the series, and if they simply abandon their series, they will never be able to write for Jump again. Mashiro and Takagi manage to secure a compromise in which they quit their current series to launch another that can compete with Eiji's works, and {{spoiler|Eiji himself cancels his own series after becoming the most popular manga artist in Jump}}.

 

* A standard in evil organizations (see Hydra for Marvel Comics) and villains' mooks. No one can leave [[The Joker]]'s gang alive, or the Red Skull. Even [[Exclusively Evil]] races are so: Skrulls (Marvel Comics) are said to be euthanized when old. [[Ninja]] clans in particular are notorious for this rule.

** The Hand is especially nasty, since they can raise the dead. Even ''death'' isn't an escape.

* This trope is the whole plot of ''[[RED]]''.

 

* ''[[The Godfather]]'' trilogy, as seen in the page quote, but also [[The Mafia]] in general. This may be [[Truth in Television]].

* ''[[Kill Bill]]'': When The Bride tried to resign from the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, they tried to murder her. She ''did'' make it look like she cheated on a professional hitman, so it might be something other than [[He Knows Too Much|she knows too much]].

*** It was more like Bill was pissed off at having his girlfriend dump him for no apparent reason and shack up with a record store owner in the middle of nowhere, who mistakes him for her father.

{{quote|'''Bill''': There are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard.}}

* Averted in ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]'', where the technology to alter people's memories means an agent can retire without the agency worrying that [[He Knows Too Much]]. Although the second movie shows that it's possible for the agency to find an ex-agent and restore his or her memory if needed, which verges into [[Mandatory Unretirement]] (if things get to [[Godzilla Threshold|that point]], they're not going to take no for an answer).

* In ''[[The Brothers Grimm (film)|The Brothers Grimm]]'':

* ''[[Spies Like Us]]''.

{{quote|'''Fitz-Hume:''' Ah, Colonel we were just talking and uh we've had loads of fun here... and uh you know we met new friends... and had a great lunch... wasn't that a great lunch?

'''Col. Rhombus:''' Boys... it'd be a ''shame'' to have to kill you now. }}

 

* ''[[Aubrey-Maturin]]'': Secret agent Duhamel falls victim to this when trying to defect.

* From the ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' series, the Death Eaters are this sort of organization.

{{quote|"I meant an actual retirement, Zurel. He goes away to live in a cottage somewhere and writes his memoirs."}}

* In ''[[Catch-22]]'' the main characters have to fly a certain number of missions before they are discharged. The number of missions keep increasing however...

* If you're an agent of the [[The Laundry Series|Laundry]] in [[Charles Stross]]'s novels you can't quit. Ever. In fact, you probably weren't even given much choice in joining—most Laundry agents were too close to unleashing [[Eldritch Abomination]]s by accident and simply weren't safe to leave in civilian life. If you screw up they'll put you on unimportant duties but they can't fire you for the same reasons. It's strongly hinted that Laundry agents don't even get to quit once they're ''dead''.

* In [[The Dresden Files]], this is how Lara Raith treats her employees. After several of them are crippled/fatally wounded in an attack by an [[Eldritch Abomination]], she orders her people to take them to her (life-force sucking) sisters, who are also wounded. Harry protests, knowing that if the sisters feed on those people, the people will die. Lara calmly states that they know too much about the White Court to allow them to be let go, and that with the sheer severity of the injuries sustained, their quality of life is borderline nonexistent. Harry, naturally, finds this to be reprehensible, and Lara retorts that he seems to have forgotten that she's a monster. A neat, habitually effective, incredibly efficient monster.

* The Dark Forest from ''[[Warrior Cats]]''. In ''The Last Hope'', {{spoiler|Beetlewhisker tries to leave, but Brokenstar kills him.}}

 

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'': once a psychic is conscripted into the Psi Corps, they are not allowed to leave. Anybody who does leave is hunted down and executed. The telepaths who take sleeper drugs are sometimes killed or commit suicide.

* ''[[The Prisoner]]'' is based entirely around this trope. Possibly excepting the last episode.

* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]''—the shadowy Company started by "the 12" doesn't like quitters. One guy ''does'' manage to quit, but he has the advantage of being invisible.

** He still had to fake his death to do that.

* ''[[The Pretender]]'': The Centre won't accept Jarrod's resignation although he doesn't exactly try and stay below the radar after he escapes.

* ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'': Sydney Bristow tries to quit SD-6, The C.I.A. and just about any other intelligence agency, {{spoiler|even being called back into action in the series finale, after achieving [[Happily Married|... Happily ever after]] isolated on a remote island}}

* In the ''[[Firefly]]'' episode "Trash" they meet a character who is a mule for an organ smuggling syndicate who incubates organs by "wearing" them inside him as if they were his own. Unlike a hit man who might conceivably retire if his employers let him, his job inherently cannot be retired from. If he does some rich customer will die, and the contractors will be angry. And he cannot get any organs of his own except the one's he carries while he is being a mule.

 

* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''

** The Inquisition.

* In the ''[[Planescape]]'' setting, the Anarchs Guild is an organization exclusive to the githzerai with powerful [[Reality Warping]] abilities in Limbo. The downside is, you can't leave, and that applies to the organization and Limbo. Even if a member ''did'' leave, where would he go? He'd be a lot worse off, as the powers that come with membership only work in Limbo and are worthless anywhere else.

 

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'': Organization XIII operates this way. Marluxia, Larxene, Xion, and Roxas all have Axel, the group's official assassin, sent after them when they go rogue. When he eventually turns traitor, too, second-in-command Saïx comes calling. The [[Trope Namer]] is a line spoken by Saïx to Roxas when he tries to stop Roxas leaving the organization for good. {{spoiler|Saïx is beaten by Roxas in battle and Roxas defects from the organization.}}

* In ''[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas]]'', C.J. finds out that this is also true about gang-banging. So, in a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]], he {{spoiler|''takes over the entire state''.}}

* ''[[Eternal Champions]]'' has Shadow, who was part of an assassin agency. When she found herself sympathizing with their victims and unable to kill anymore, she threw herself off the roof of their headquarters - they gave her no other way to leave.

** ''Challenge from the Dark Side'' clarifies that [[Make It Look Like an Accident|she didn't fall to her death by choice]].

* The Loputo sect in the ''[[Fire Emblem]] 4'' and ''Thracia 776'' canon. In ''Thracia 776'', [[Defector From Decadence|Salem]] questioned the Lopto Sect's actions and defected. He was almost killed trying to escape. He even has this to say about the Loputo order

{{quote|'''Salem''': "The Loputo order does not tolerate traitors. That's the rule..."}}

* A ''[[City of Heroes]]'' story arc involves a Crey employee who wants to move out of Paragon City with his wife. They go to some [[Brainwashed|extreme]] [[Unperson|measures]] to try to keep that from happening.

* In ''[[Dragon Age]]'' if an Antivan Crow like Zevran fails an assassination he/she is considered dead to the Crows. Some Crows like Ignatio are willing to merely pretend the errant Crow is dead. Others want to make absolutely sure that is the case one way or another. If the Warden lives, Zevran will tell him/her that he knows the Crows will keep coming after him and that he will keep on fighting them for his freedom {{spoiler|which is canon in ''[[Dragon Age II]]''}}. If the Warden dies, {{spoiler|Zevran will return to Antiva and take over the organization. It is both a victory and a defeat. Zevran has his life and a position of power and influence -- but he never truly escapes the Crows.}}

** The Wardens themselves aren't big on people walking away from them, although even if you try, you still have the taint in your blood and a sharply reduced lifespan before the "last walk".

* ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'': This turns out to be the case for anyone who decides to quit after joining Cerberus, including most of your crew from the second game. A number of missions center around helping various former team mates fight off Cerberus retribution, and at least one former crew-mate's survival relies entirely on a dialogue choice when you first run into them in the third game.

 

* ''[[Kevin and Kell]]'': The cult in The Wild. Rudy is forced to recruit for them at an airport, watched by several agents who plan to eat him if he attempts to run away. Kevin manages to sneak him past the agent at the exit by disguising him as his seeing-eye dog. On the other hand, when Ralph joins and never amounts to anything, the pack doesn't try to stop Kell from retrieving him.

 

* ''[[Justice League (animation)|Justice League]]'': Task Force X -- better known as the [[Suicide Squad]], though they couldn't use that term on a kids' show. At the end of the episode of the same name, the criminals think they're done after one mission. Nope... they've got a long time to work off their sentences. They're let off once the parent organization (Cadmus) is disbanded at the end of the season.

 

* Stop-loss policies in the military allow the army to keep you in it past the time you agreed to enlist for and can even stop you from transferring to somewhere else.

* This is quite standard for criminal gangs and syndicates the world over. Once you join a criminal organization, you're in it for life, and the only way to leave it is in a body bag.

* [[The Mole|Kim Philby]] was a [[Subversion]]. When the British found him, instead of arresting him, they baited him into requesting extract in a neutral city. He then got the [[Sarcasm Mode|sublimely attractive]] reward of spending the rest of his life in a dreary city amid the company of burly bodyguards who probably despised him. But he was allowed to retire.

* Aversion. It is quite common for Intelligence Officers to resign, not least wartime ones who are just doing "duration" service. Several of them leave on a quite friendly basis including remaining in touch with the old team in off hours (The SOE has its own [[Brotherhood of Funny Hats]]). Others find other careers, including [[John Le Carre|famous]] [[Ian Fleming|authors]]. It can be a problem if skills do not translate and there is a big hole in one's [[Backstory|reference]] though.

 

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[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]

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