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The Thing That Would Not Leave: Difference between revisions

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The Thing That Would Not Leave (view source)

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* A ''[[Silent Hill]]'' graphic novel puts a horror twist on this. A bum artist who went from friend to friend mooching this way sees a report on Silent Hill, an abandoned town that still has water and electricity and fully stocked markets. Never questioning his luck for a second, he moves there and starts painting... and seeing ungodly abominations who are always polite to him and pose for his portraits. He paints them, sends the portraits to his manager, becomes famous and rich... and realizes he's in a [[Closed Circle]]. The town is [[An Aesop|punishing his impoliteness]]. He tries to escape with the help of a bus full of cheerleaders, but that ends badly.
* [[Squirrel Girl]] kicked [[Deadpool]] out of the [[Great Lakes Avengers|GLI]] clubhouse when he wouldn't leave. She was alerted in a [[Meanwhile in Thethe Future]] situation: she had gone to the future, and the team leader (who is immortal) had waited 90 years to ask her to go back in time to kick Deadpool out.
 
== Fan Works ==
 
* Arguably the [[Harry Potter]] fanfic [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5688056/1/On_a_Clear_Day On a Clear Day]. Draco works for a charity organisation. When the organisation plans a gala to raise money for the children who lost their parents in the war against Voldemort, Draco's boss demands that he makes sure that the Great Harry Potter is in attendance. The problem is that since the war, Harry has turned agoraphobic and refuses to leave Grimmauld Place, which prompts Draco to intentionally invoke this trope. It's not that he never leaves, but he goes there every day, sits around for hours and tries to annoy Harry into agreeing to come to the gala. {{spoiler|He succeeds.}}
* In the fancomic ''[[Girls Next Door (Webcomic)|Girls Next Door]]'', the [[PansPan's Labyrinth|Pale Man]] apparently followed Ofelia to the apartment building. He installed himself in Jareth's and Eric's kitchen, and to date has not left. They managed to get rid of him once "with the help" of the ''friendly'' Girl Scouts, but it came back and has a brownie slash since.
* In the ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'' [[Crack Fic]] ''[[All You Need Is Love (Fanfic)|All You Need Is Love]]'' [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5949144/1/All_You_Need_is_Love\] Naomi Misora [[Sympathy for Thethe Devil|feels so sorry]] for her [[Stalking Is Love|stalker]], [[Big Bad|Light Yagami/Kira,]] [[I Have You Now, My Pretty|because he's being sexually harassed in the workplace]] that [[What Were You Thinking?|she invites him to stay at her place for a couple days...]] In the end Naomi ends up kidnapping Raye (her clueless fiancé) and fleeing the country to get away from Light. Meanwhile Light, who has to date not yet left her apartment, sends her a note informing her that the fridge is empty and now L and Matsuda (the stalker's stalkers) had followed him there and are in the process of "redecorating." The story then has a [[Time Skip]]-it's five years later and Light still hasn't left.
 
== Film ==
 
* ''[[You, Me and Dupree|You, Me, and Dupree]]''
* ''[[What About Bob]]''
* ''Madhouse''
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== Literature ==
 
* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: In ''[[The Odyssey (Literature)|The Odyssey]]'' by [[Homer]], during Odysseus' 20-year absence, many young men, [[Never Found the Body|assuming that he must have died]], take up residence in his mansion [[You Have Waited Long Enough|to court his wife, Penelope]]. [[I Will Wait for You|Penelope believes that Odysseus is still alive]] and will not take a new husband. The suitors stick around and live off Odysseus' wealth for years, even when it becomes plain that Penelope does not want them around and has no interest in remarrying. When Odysseus finally comes back, he kills them all for violating the laws of hospitality as guests.
* The final chapter of [[Jane Austen]]'s ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]'' indicates that Lydia and Wickham often imposed on Jane and Bingley in this way later in life, so much so that the perennially good-natured Bingley "came so close as to ''talk'' of giving them a hint to be gone." Lydia also occasionally did this to Darcy and Lizzy, but her husband was never allowed to accompany her - which, given the history between Wickham and Darcy, is entirely unsurprising.
* ''Bartleby, the Scrivener,'' by [[Herman Melville]], is about a man who is hired by an office as a scrivener, becomes increasingly particular about the work he does (to the point where he "would rather not" do just about anything), and ''just won't leave,'' despite having been told to get out many times. Though Bartleby's employer puts up with him for a time because he's not harming anything or anyone by merely staying in the office, he ends up deciding to move his offices elsewhere to get rid of him (as he can't bring himself to forcibly throw Bartleby out). Even then, Bartleby ''still'' remains in the office building until he is arrested for trespassing because the new owner of the office doesn't want to put up with him.
* One of the many subplots of Anthony Trollope's ''Ayala's Angel'' involves the usually generous patriarch Sir Thomas Tringle being driven to exasperation by the failure of his new son-in-law, the Honourable Septimus Traffik, to remove himself and his new wife to an establishment of their own and quit mooching off her rich family, despite his continual hints, barbs, and even demands. Near the end of the book the Traffiks do finally move out, though.
* Gilbert's cousin does this to the Blythes in ''[[Anne of Green Gables (Literature)|Anne of Ingleside]]'', sticking around for almost two months past her original vacation. She only leaves after Anne, who's been driven to total distraction by her, decides to actually do something ''nice'' for her and winds up inadvertently offending her so much she leaves. {{spoiler|She decides to throw a birthday party for the cousin, with all the (very few) things the cousin liked; it backfired horribly when said cousin turned out to be extremely sensitive about her age, and was convinced Anne had thrown the party to be nasty about it and rub it in.}}
* ''[[The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (Literature)|The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency]]'': Mma Ramotswe's first case was a woman whose father (whom she hadn't seen since she was little) returned and was living off her. She wouldn't object to feeding and housing her father for the rest of his life, since that's what you do for family, but she'd started to suspect that this moocher wasn't actually her father. Mma Ramotswe came up with a way of getting rid of the impostor.
* [[Diana Wynne Jones]]'s chapter books ''Chair Person'', ''The Four Grannies'' and ''Who Got Rid Of Angus Flint?'' has been collected as a volume called ''Stopping For A Spell'' whose back cover describes all three stories in terms of this trope.
* As in the page quote - E. Gorey's short story ''The Doubtful Guest'' involves a ''highly'' annoying [[Everything's Better Withwith Penguins|Penguin-like creature]] constantly angering a family.
* [[Ogden Nash]] wrote a poem about [[The Thing That Would Not Leave]] called ''[http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/polterguest.html Polterguest, My Polterguest]''.
* A children's book called ''[[The Trolls (Literature)|The Trolls]]'' has a woman tell her nieces and nephews about growing up in Vancouver with her eccentric family. One of these family members was their great-uncle Louis, who came for two weeks and stayed for six years. {{spoiler|He only left after he insisted he saved the narrator's younger brother from a pack of trolls and the narrator's mother ordered him out in disgust.}}
* In the story ''[[Fudge (Literature)|Superfudge]]'', the Hatcher family is constantly annoyed by Fudge's friend Daniel. At one point, Daniel looks ready to invite himself to stay for dinner with them, but Mrs. Hatcher tricks him into leaving by pretending that they're having peas and onions with their dinner (two foods that he hates).
* In "[[Petronella (Literature)|Petronella]]", one of the stories in Jay Williams' ''The Practical Princess and Other Liberating Fairy Tales'', Princess Petronella, the third offspring of a family which had always had three ''sons'' up until then, decided to defy her parents and brothers and go off in search of a prince to rescue. She found one, supposedly-captive, at the house of Albion the enchanter and rode off with him, only to be told by Albion later that "He came to visit me for a weekend. At the end of it, he said, 'It's so pleasant here, do you mind if I stay on for another day or two?' I'm very polite and I said, 'Of course.' He stayed on, and on, and on..."
* This happens in ''[[Jeeves and Wooster (Literaturenovel)|Jeeves and Wooster]]'' fairly often, as poor old Wooster is such an [[Extreme Doormat]] that it's impossible for him to turn away a houseguest. Fortunately, Jeeves is smart enough to cleverly get rid of such visitors with no hurt feelings.
* Kate in [[Meg Cabot]]'s ''Boy Meets Girl'' becomes this to Jen and Craig, her friends who she's staying with. It's somewhat subverted in that they like her, don't mind her staying and are entirely sympathetic with her problem of not having enough to get her own place, but their place isn't that big and they kinda want their flat back (especially since Jen's trying to get pregnant).
 
== Live Action TV ==
 
* Most of the subplot with Daphne's irritating mother in the later seasons of ''[[Frasier (TV)|Frasier]]'' involved her greatly over-staying her welcome when staying with Niles and Daphne. Daphne's brothers also fell into this trope, but mostly because they really were ungrateful and obnoxious spongers who barged into Frasier's apartments and took unreasonable liberties whilst they were there.
* Spike does this to several different people in season 4 of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''. This becomes particularly apparent when Weetabix gets involved. According to Spike, it adds texture to blood.
* An episode of ''[[Father Ted]]'' had the priests dealing with Father Stone, the dullest man alive, who absolutely loves staying with Ted. According to the writer's commentary on the DVD he was [[Based on a True Story|based on a real person]].
* The [[Trope Namer]] is an ''[[SNL]]'' horror film trailer parody. John Belushi was the thing in question.
* This is the premise for ''[[Two and A Half Men]]''--Alan moves in with his bachelor brother Charlie for "a couple of days" when his wife divorces him, and then stays for about a decade.
* In ''[[Only Fools and Horses]]'', when the actor playing Grandad died, they needed to find a way to replace him. Uncle Albert had been this to one of the branches of the family who attended Grandad's funeral, until they left him at the funeral with no way to contact them. He then became this to the Trotters, even provoking Del, pushed past his limits, to try to get him to leave. Del eventually relents and decides to let Albert stay because "He's fam'ly, in' he?" and Del cannot refuse to take his family in.
* ''[[Yes, Dear]]'' has Jimmy Hughes, his wife Christine and their two sons living in the guesthouse of Christine's sister, Kim Warner, her husband Greg and their son {{spoiler|and later their daughter}}. While Kim has no problem with the Hugheses living with them, Greg certainly does and is always complaining about them, mostly/especially Jimmy, constantly mooching off of him. Eventually, the Hugheses do get their own place, but in the final scene of the [[Grand Finale]], {{spoiler|their house is destroyed by an earthquake, [[Here We Go Again|forcing them to move back into the Warners' guesthouse]]}}.
* One of the earliest examples is from ''[[I Love Lucy]]'' with guest-star Tennessee Ernie Ford as Lucy's "Cousin Ernie" who stays over for one episode and wears out his welcome by the next one.
* One episode of ''[[ICarly (TV)|I Carly]]'' had two police officers use Carly and Spencer's apartment for a stakeout. They eat food out of their refrigerator, interrupt the webshow, one of them brings his bratty little kid over (who screams very loudly when he finds out they're out of soda) and one of the cops is a bully from Spencer's childhood.
* ''[[The Golden Girls]]'' had an episode named "The Stan Who Came to Dinner," in which Dorothy's ex-husband stays with the girls to recuperate from heart surgery, but overstays his welcome.
* Partial subversion in an episode of ''[[Being Human (TV)|Being Human]]'': Tully is invited to stay over one housemate's objections, but by the end of the episode the positions regarding him have reversed, with the original naysayer defending Tully's continued presence against the others' complaints.
* Claire and Mitchell's mom from ''[[Modern Family]].'' Interesting in that she becomes this ''from the moment she arrives.''
* From ''[[The Wrong Door]],'' The World's Most Annoying Creature is this in spades.
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== Web Comics ==
 
* Used in ''[[Casey and Andy (Webcomic)|Casey and Andy]]'' where one day, straight out of the blue (apparently while on the way to give Quantum Cop another Nobel Prize), the ''King Of Sweden'' (King Carl XVI Gustaf) decided to remain in Casey and Andy's couch and demand they bring him drinks. The only times they managed to get him out of the couch was when they bribed him with drinks to help with a crisis in a fantasy dimension and when he was briefly kidnapped by the Land Pirates (which he joined due to, you guessed it, [[Stockholm Syndrome]]). The strip's epilogue reveals {{spoiler|he remained there for another 20 years before dying and being replaced by his daughter Victoria}}.
** The League of Recurring Antagonists seem to have a similar problem with the Emperor of Japan.
** Their next door neighbor Jenn has Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain on her sofa and scarfing all her lager.
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** They leave after {{spoiler|Tsubasa moves out first.}}
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' does a very strange version with Bert. At first, he's the main characters' roommate, so it's no problem that he's there. Then he says he's moving out because the others are too weird, though he's always most certainly been the weirdest one even in that bunch. The others don't necessarily want him to go, at least Torg, but all right. The problem is when he says he ''has'' moved out even while he's obviously still living in there. In the end, Torg gets fed up and calls the UN to send inspectors to find him, which they fail to do because [i]Bert was in a closet.[/i]
* Katia, the main character of ''[[Prequel (Webcomicwebcomic)|Prequel]]''. She meets Quill-Weave after breaking into her house on a drunken bender to have sex with a stranger in her own bed. Since Quill is one of the first people to genuinely treat her nicely (out of pity and later guilt), Katia latches onto her like an adorably pathetic, puppy-dog eyed lamprey.
* The basic plot of Batman and the Bat-Titans has a [[Jerkass]] version of Batman mooching off of the [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]].
 
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* In one episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Otto moves in with the Simpsons after he loses his job. They'd kick him out, but he has nowhere to go.
** The plot of taking a houseguest has been recycled several times: The Simpsons have taken in such Springfield regulars as Krusty ("Krusty Gets Kancelled" and "The Last Temptation of Krust"), Sideshow Bob ("The Great Louse Detective"), Apu ("Homer and Apu," and the season nine episode "Lisa's Sax" had Apu randomly appearing in the Simpson house during a parody of the ''All in the Family'' opening theme), Chester J. Lampwick ("The Day the Violence Died") and Gil (who stayed a whole year, according to "Kill Gil, vols. I & II). When Kent Brockman, this was subject of a [[Lampshade Hanging]] when Homer asks him for an 8"x10" for "the wall of casual acquaintances who came to stay for a while". The most recent example is Lurleen Lumpkin (the country singer whom Homer tried to promote, despite that Lurleen was seducing him) in "Papa Don't Leech."
* "Hi, I'm Dan from [[Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Animation)|Grim Reaper Gutters]], I won't leave until I make a sale."
* One episode of ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants (Animation)|SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' takes this to absurd levels with Squidward as the unwanted guest. He takes advantage of Spongebob's natural friendliness, naïveté, and eagerness to help.
** Even [[SpongeBob]] has limits, though. At first, it was like "You just live with me until you get back on your feet." After "So much later that the old narrator got tired of waiting and they had to hire a new one.", Squidward is now sleeping on [[SpongeBob]]'s bed, forced him to dress as a French maid, and threw a major fit when there was an odd number of seeds in his lemonade. [[SpongeBob]] snaps a bit and drops some '''''very''''' obvious hints that he should find a job already. Because Squidward is in denial or maybe because he is just that stupid, he doesn't get the hint.
*** Either that or it's because Squidward's a [[Jerkass]]. It actually led to a [[Beware the Nice Ones]] moment when, after Mr. Krabs wouldn't hire Squidward again, Spongebob actually ''grabbed him around his neck and started to strangle him'' while screaming about how stupid the entire situation was.
** Another episode has the Flying Dutchman stay at Spongebob's house "while his ship is being repaired". It's actually until 3 months after his ship is repaired.
* Casey Jones is a mild version of this in one episode of the 2003 ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 (Animation)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]''. He doesn't stay that long, comparatively, but he does a fair amount of damage to the furnishings before he goes. The Turtles (especially Mikey) even make several "Thing That Would Not Leave" jokes.
* In ''[[Scooby Doo|The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo]]'', [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|Vincent Van Ghoul]] was staying with the crew while his home was being fumigated, he was mostly staying in bed and made unreasonable demands. Daphne called him "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave", and after their trip through the funny papers, the gang groaned when they learned the fumigation was going to take longer.
* Nergal becomes one of these to Billy's family in ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy]]'' after losing a ''board game''.
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** Though it is later revealed Richie never invites Virgil over because his father is a racist.
* Keef on ''[[Invader Zim]],'' though it was more that he just kept ''coming back'' so much he was calling Zim's house "home" by the end of the episode. {{spoiler|[[Nightmare Fuel|Then Zim ripped his eyeballs out]] and made him think Zim was a squirrel.}}
* ''[[FostersFoster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'' had the episode "Go Goo Go" when a ''very'' hyperactive [[Motor Mouth]] girl named Goo comes to Foster's. After she begins filling up the house with imaginary friends, Mac tries to get rid of her, but Goo doesn't take the hint. The other members of the main cast don't get the hint either, and think that the reason that Goo isn't leaving is because she's Mac's ''girlfriend'' and can't work up the nerve to ask her.
* In an episode of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'', Jon's annoying Uncle Ed moves in and stays for months because Jon is too nice to kick out a relative. Garfield comes up with several schemes to get rid of him which all fail. Finally he tries contacting his wife who shows up to drag him home. See the episode [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKHVBLRPS2k&NR=1 here].
* In ''[[The Looney Tunes Show]]'', Yosemite Sam has to move in with Bugs and Daffy after he rigs his home to work on solar power and a big storm leaves him without power. He becomes more and more of a nuisance, and schemes to get him to leave on his own only backfire.
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== Real Life ==
 
* In real life, [[Hans Christian Andersen]] paid a visit to [[Charles Dickens (Creator)|Charles Dickens]]. Andersen was supposed to stay for a night, but he ended up mooching off of Dickens for over a month. Reportedly, Dickens made ever-increasingly obvious hints to the ever-oblivious Andersen to leave, and refused to answer Andersen's correspondence when he'd gone - much to Andersen's confusion. So enraged was Dickens that he wrote in the mirror in Andersen's room "Hans Christian Andersen slept in this bed for five weeks." The character of Uriah Heep in ''[[David Copperfield]]'' is said to have been based on him.
* Kirby Vacuum Cleaner salesmen. They barge into people's homes [http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/kirby/kirby.html claiming they want to do a "quick" demonstration or that the owner has won a "free carpet cleaning"], then turn the house upside-down with several hours of "demonstrations" (and sometimes [http://www.consumeraffairs.com/in_home/kirby_elder.html outright] [http://www.consumeraffairs.com/in_home/kirby_pests.html theft]), [http://www.consumeraffairs.com/in_home/kirby.htm refusing] [http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/kirby/kirby_letters.html to leave] until either they get forcibly thrown out or someone agrees to buy the vacuum for a ridiculously overpriced cost.
* Used by Queen Elizabeth I as a tactic to financially bankrupt nobles with questionable loyalties at best. Since she was the Queen they had to put her up like a Queen. It was often a cover for her spies to dig through the nobles' dirty laundry while she and her ''very extensive'' entourage (sometimes literally) ate them out of house and home.
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