Gosalyn: Let's cage some crooks!
Darkwing: Reality check! We are the crime fighters — you are the obedient daughter who stays put and out of trouble.
Launchpad: Uh, just what reality are we checking here?
The Hero and their accompanying Ragtag Bunch of Misfits are gearing up for the Final Battle, heading for the airport for the latest trip to a Temple of Doom, or taking the ransom money to meet the kidnappers. The Tagalong Kid, Annoying Younger Sibling, or the Kid-Appeal Character prepares to go likewise. The Hero tells him or her in no uncertain terms that there is no way they are going to be allowed to go along.
Tempting Fate! Anybody unequivocally ordered to stay behind never does. Lock them in their room? They escape with a Bedsheet Ladder. Leave someone to supervise them? Five seconds later, they are a Bound and Gagged Badly Battered Babysitter. Keep every tarp, trunk, suitcase, or any area of empty space constantly visible to your eye 24/7, or it will be used as a hiding place — often with the intention of the stowaways showing themselves once there's simply no way they can be safely sent back.
This can also be said to The Hero by well-intentioned but misguided mentors trying to keep him or her Locked Out of the Loop. It might also be done to someone not in on the Masquerade, making the motivation not so much their safety as protecting secrets.
The Trope Namer is Basil in Disney's The Great Mouse Detective to Olivia, which accomplishes the trope with a Gilligan Cut. Compare Wait Here, Just a Kid, and Stay in the Kitchen (the latter involving someone being ordered to stay out of the conflict because of her gender rather than age).
Examples:
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Comic Books
- The two-part DC Comics Elseworld "The Super Seven" in The Adventures of Superman Annual #6 and Superboy Annual #1 is a Magnificent Seven Samurai story set many years after a successful alien invasion, with Superman Putting the Band Back Together long after Earth turned its back on the heroes. One of the heroes who finds him is Kon-El, still a rookie hero in this universe, but the others all agree that he's too cocky and reckless and Green Lantern literally hurls him away. Given whose title the second part appears in, you can imagine how long that lasts.
- There was a vision of the future in Civil War II where Miles Morales kills Captain America. This vision got a whole new light when Cap revealed himself as a traitor loyal to Hydra, established himself as dictator of the US and launched the Secret Empire. Black Widow goes with Miles to a location where they may ambush and kill him; but then she locked him inside the truck and continued on her own. She said that Miles is not a killer, and wanted to prevent him from becoming one.
Fan Works
- Played for Drama in Dæmorphing: Welcome Home. Jake tells Tom that he can't join their mission to rescue some baby Hork-Bajir... but it turns out Tom eavesdropped on their planning meeting and followed them anyway. Jake snaps when he realises this.
Film — Animated
- The Trope Namer, of course, in The Great Mouse Detective when Basil told this to Olivia with regards to coming along in the search for her father. As per the trope, she comes along anyway.
Basil: Young lady, you are most definitely not accompanying us, and that is final!
cut to Olivia sneaking out of the disguised mouse hole with Basil
Basil: And not a word out of you. - Violet and Dash stow away on Helen's plane in The Incredibles — each claims it was the other's idea.
- Played with in Up, where Carl accidentally takes Russel along with him (Carl never had to tell Russel to stay behind and it's likely that Russel didn't intend to go on a trip) and realizes there's no way to get Russel home. Although Carl contemplates using the Bedsheet Ladder to lower him to the ground, he concludes that isn't gonna work.
- In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, after Flint makes the plan to stop the Meateroid, Brent asks what he can do. Flint makes him "President of the Back Seat", then heads out with Sam, but Brent is quick to follow.
Film — Live-Action
- In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Meriadoc (Merry) is told by Théoden that he'll have to stay behind at the camp rather than participate in the battle at Minas Tirith, despite his protests. He ends up riding to the battle with Éowyn, who herself was forbidden to ride into the battle and does so by wearing a helmet with a face mask.
Literature
- Corin in The Horse and His Boy sneaks into the battle he was told to avoid. He beats up the dwarf assigned to keep an eye on him, disguises himself, and keeps out of sight until the battle starts, when he reasons that everyone will be too busy to notice him.
Queen Lucy: But where is his goosecap highness?King Edmund: Not in the front line, and that's good enough for now.
- In The Last Battle, King Tirian tries to send Eustace and Jill home after they release him and Jewel, before he and his allies go into battle against the Calormenes. Jill refuses, but she feels like Eustace ruins the drama of the conflict by pointing out that they have no way of getting back to their world even if they wanted to.
- In Harry Potter, Neville Longbottom is often treated as such by the Golden Trio, and Ginny by her brothers.
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has a weird example of a grown man in this role, namely Sirus Black. Due to being a very wanted criminal, Dumbledore decides to keep him in the Order's HQ 24/7 for his own safety. Being a man of action, though, Sirius grows increasingly frustrated with his situation, which ends with him jumping at the mission to save Harry despite being ordered the exact opposite and getting killed for it.
- In the early books of The Riftwar Cycle, Arutha tries very hard to do this to his young friend Jimmy the Hand. The best boy thief in Krondor has other ideas.
Live-Action TV
- The Adventures of Superman: "Teenager" example — Jimmy Olsen once sneaked onto the plane Lois and Clark took to search for a missing group in the jungle. The morning after they left, he casually revealed himself and asked for breakfast, now that there was absolutely no way they could send him back.
Video Games
- Towards the end of Final Fantasy IV, Cecil is embarks on the Lunar Whale to head to the moon, but orders Rosa and Rydia to stay behind, despite how they've been valuable party members for many portions of Cecil's journey. Rosa and Rydia aren't having any of it, and stow away on the Lunar Whale.
- Blaze the Cat attempts to pull this on Marine the Raccoon in Sonic Rush Adventure by bluntly informing her that she's The Load. This works about as well as you'd expect.
- In the earlier story campaign in Fire Emblem: Awakening, Ricken is told not to come along for a mission, as he's considered too young and inexperienced to be of any real help. He follows the group anyway, and ends up rescuing an endangered ally in a Big Damn Heroes moment.
Web Comics
- Girl Genius: When the older Castle Wulfenbach Students decide to sneak into the Baron's lab so they can see what a wasp engine looks like Itto, one of the younger students, tries to invite himself along and is quickly told by Theo that there is no way they are taking him with them due to his age.
He manages to follow them for a while before they catch him and Zulenna decides to allow him along, but not before stressing how dangerous the engine is and scaring him to the point that he no longer really wants to.
- Stand Still, Stay Silent: When Mikkel goes to explore Kastellet fort, he orders Tuuri to stay in tank for her own safety. The title page picture for the chapter in which this happens is of Mikkel, Tuuri and Reynir exploring Kastellet fort.
Western Animation
- Clue Club: An almost Once an Episode case for kid sister Dotty, who finds some excuse to catch up with the others later. Though, one time this was justified was when she showed up to save her dogs.
- DuckTales (1987): Although Scrooge McDuck was only too eager to take his nephews along on his adventures in the comics, the triplets were sometimes the victims of this trope, Webby even more so.
- "A DuckTales Valentine": Scrooge refuses to let the nephews and Webby come with him and Launchpad on the latest treasure hunt, saying it's too dangerous. For some reason, he ends up letting them come on the dive anyway after they sneak into the plane.
- "The Golden Goose": Scrooge uses Reverse Psychology to get Webby to stay behind when he's trying to fix the problem with the goose.
Webby: Please, no lectures about how dangerous this is. I'm coming with you, and that's final.
Scrooge: Aye, I insist you come with me, Webbigail. I could'na possibly trust you to stay here.
Webby: Huh? Why not?
Scrooge: Because keeping an eye on poor Huey, Dewey, and Louie is the most important job in the world. Now, who could I trust to do that?
Webby: Oh, I can do it!
Scrooge: Oh, I don't think so.
Webby: Oh, yes! Don't worry, Uncle Scrooge! You can count on me!
Scrooge: I'm sure I can.
- Gosalyn about Once an Episode on Darkwing Duck.
- This is Jade's MO in Jackie Chan Adventures. No matter how many times Jackie tells her not to come, she will use Offscreen Teleportation and appear next to him the minute he leaves. Later, when this is pointed out to him, Jackie states he feels like he should still say it.
- Also lampshaded when Jackie is forced to pull an Enemy Mine with Valmont in one episode. Jade sneaks along as usual, and Valmont comments that he now understands why Jade is always there when he and Jackie fight, saying that previously he had always assumed Jackie was just an incredibly irresponsible caregiver.
- In the TaleSpin Five-Episode Pilot, Molly casually says, "I hid in the mangoes" when she shows up on Baloo's plane while he and Kit are taking an unauthorized detour from delivering Rebecca's shipment of said mangoes to retrieve the jewel from Louie.
