Basic Trope: A character is treated as a True Companion by the main cast but cannot join them full-time.
- Straight: Alice, Bob, Celine, and Dorian (a.k.a. the Abyss Crew) are Fire-Forged Friends who travel the world together, looking for adventure. Elanor is a freelancer who only teams up with them occasionally but has long earned their complete trust.
- Exaggerated: The Abyss Crew has more honorary True Companions than they have full-time ones.
- Downplayed: The original four members participate in every adventure, while Elanor sits out on some of them.
- Justified:
- Elanor is the captain of a mercenary company and is prevented from joining the Crew full-time by her responsibilities as such.
- Elanor is a Hero of Another Story, and thus she's Saving the World on a different front which allows their paths to cross semi-regularly.
- Inverted: Elanor is a full time member of the Abyss Crew, but makes it clear that they are colleagues not companions, and makes a point of not being involved in their personal lives and letting them into her's.
- Subverted:
- Elanor decides that her second-in-command Frederick will make a better captain and hands over her company to him, joining the Crew on a permanent basis.
- Sixth Ranger
- Double Subverted: ...until the city that she and the Crew have just saved elects her as their new queen! She has to quit once more but keeps them company whenever they visit her new kingdom.
- Parodied: Anything that moves is given an honorary friendship. Cows, dogs, mice, an ant that wanted a crumb they dropped...
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: The Abyss Crew are True Companions and no one outside their circle enjoys the same level of trust they have for each other.
- Enforced: Elanor is a hit with the fans but her actress' erratic schedule prevents her from making an appearance in most episodes, so the producers have to write around her frequent absences.
- Lampshaded: Dorian remarks that by now, Elanor is basically an Abyss Crew member who forgets to wear her badge.
- Invoked: The Crew undertakes a mission they know Elanor will be interested in—just so they can catch up with her.
- Exploited: General George sets a trap for the Abyss Crew by ambushing Elanor's mercenary team at night and taking her alive, then broadcasting news that Elanor is being executed at dawn in one week for aiding and abetting the terrorist Abyss Crew, knowing the Crew couldn't leave her behind to die, and then making the execution site one big death trap for the Crew.
- Defied: Elanor feels that her implicit commitment to the Crew hinders her other duties and relocates her own company to another continent.
- Discussed: When the Crew is in a tight spot, they half-expect Elanor's mercenaries to bust in and save their asses.
- Conversed: "You know, I trust Elanor with my life, yet she's rarely around because of her mercenary job."
- Deconstructed: Elanor is torn between her commander's duty to her own men and the affinity she has for the Crew, which comes to a head when she has to make a Sadistic Choice between them.
- Reconstructed: After she chooses to save her friends, they abort their current mission and initiate a Roaring Rampage of Rescue to save her mercenaries. Alternatively, she saves her men, who immediately mobilize to rescue the Crew, knowing how much they mean to her.
- Played For Laughs: The justifications for Elanor having to leave after every adventure grow more and more ridiculous with every episode she appears in.
Courtesy line returning you to Honorary True Companion.
