Refusal Of The Call / Video Games

Times where somebody refuses the call in Video Games.

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• In Assassin's Creed II Ezio initially insists he only wants to protect his family from the main villains, preferably by getting the hell out of the country, but after seeing his uncle fight them he is shamed into helping and joining the cause.
• Inverted in The Bard's Tale for the PS2. The Bard does answer the call, but he refuses to be called The Chosen One, and threatens anyone who even thinks to call him that.
• In Betrayal at Krondor, Owyn is the only one who isn't compelled by duty or has a truly personal stake in stopping the moredhel schemes. He tries to go his separate way again after helping an injured Locklear who stumbles into his camp with a chained Gorath in tow. When they realize afterwards that he could talk to the wrong person and get them all killed if they just let him go, Locklear says he's either coming along with them or getting his throat slit, which would be undesirable for both of them. Later, however, when that part of the mission is done and it's assumed he'll be going home, he goes out of his way to stay with them.
• Shrimp and Cornelia do this repeatedly in BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm. They were both playable party members in the prequel, but this time they’re in the middle of a vacation and refuse to get involved with any of the world-saving heroics. They finally get their acts together and rejoin the team in Chapter 8, but only after the Internet has already been almost totally wiped out and vacationing is simply no longer an option.
• In Cartographer Reuben refuses to become his late father's successor as Dragon Slayer because all he wants is to quietly run the inn he owns. Unfortunately, only someone of his heritage can become the Dragon Slayer and he happens to be an only child.
• Castlevania:
  • The story of the canceled Dreamcast game Castlevania: Resurrection had a Belmont named Victor run away from his duties of killing Dracula, although he's eventually forced to take up the whip regardless when he and his ancestor Sonia Belmont are ripped from their respective timelines to fight Dracula in year 1666.
  • And of course, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow are about Ordinary High-School Student Soma Cruz rejecting his destiny to become the new Dracula.
• When the First Flame is in danger of fading once again in Dark Souls III, previous Lords of Cinder are resurrected so that they may sit upon their thrones in Firelink Shrine and open the path to the Kiln so as to link the fire again, but, for various reasons, several Lords of Cinder refuse and abandon their thrones to carry out acts that they've done in the previous lives or to settle unfinished business; the Ashen One is ultimately sent to go and find them and bring them back to the Shrine.
• In Devil Survivor, at a specific point in the game, instead of choosing to keep fighting, you can choose to abandon everything and just try to escape the Hell on Earth scenario you're in, knowingly leaving thousands of innocent civilians to die and the city you're in to go insane and be completely destroyed. But making this choice will cost you dearly. Demons begin spilling out en masse as the barrier between the human world and demon world weakens, and the demons prepare to ravage the human world en masse. Overclocked shows you what happens if you take this choice, as well as gives you the opportunity to fix it.
• In Doraemon: Giga Zombie no Gyakushū, Doraemon comes to the Player Character's home to ask them to help him rescue his crew and defeat the Big Bad. The player is free to tell him "no", and though he'll plead with you, repeating it enough times will lead to Doraemon walking off crying, ending the game.
• Dragon Age:
  • In Dragon Age: Origins it is possible to refuse the call to join the Grey Wardens in each of the six possible openings, even though in many of them you need to join the Wardens to save your character's life. It doesn't really change anything though, because Duncan will conscript your character regardless of whether you want to go or not.
  • In the second game, Anders expresses his frustration at Mage Hawke for refusing the call to lead the Mage Underground, despite being the sort of leader they've waited centuries for.
• In Dragon's Dogma, Barroch is an Arisen who chose not to face the Dragon after his heart was taken, deciding that since he's now effectively immortal he'd rather spend his time adventuring on his own terms.
• EarthBound (1994): When Buzz-Buzz is telling Ness of the prophecy and what he must do, Pokey thinks he's not one of the three boys and backs out from helping. He ends up being involved anyways, but on the wrong side.
• In the Dragonborn DLC of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, if you defeated Alduin before confronting Miraak, he will state that when the ancient Nord heroes of old asked him to help them defeat Alduin he ignored them, claiming that while he could have taken him, he simply didn't care enough to.
• In Fairy Fencer F, after picking up the Fury and listening to Eryn's Info Dump on what a Fencer is, Fang abruptly refuses to collect more Furies and walks away with the sword.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In Final Fantasy VI, General Leo Christophe was the only soldier for The Empire who refused to be infused with Magitek powers, as Celes and Kefka were. Given his sheer strength and abilities alone, it's quite obvious it didn't phase him one bit.
  • In the initial A Realm Reborn quest arc of Final Fantasy XIV, it's possible to abandon the main questline entirely after learning the basics. Even within the questline itself, the leader of your local Adventurer's Guild will offer you the choice to back away when the Scions of the Seventh Dawn offer you to join them. Of course, not answering the call will lock you out of most of the game's content, including all the expansions as they can only be accessed by progressing the story.
• In Golden Sun, it's possible to refuse to chase after Saturos and Menardi. This leads to a Non-Standard Game Over revealing the world drifted towards its destruction and a bit of Fridge Brilliance, when you realize the destruction wasn't the lighthouses being lit, but the world withering away without Alchemy (or possibly elemental imbalance, given some dialogue in the second game).
• In some Harvest Moon games it is possible to refuse to take over the farm. This usually results in a Non-Standard Game Over.
• The title character of Jak 3: Wastelander is approached by Ashlin after he's been moving up the ladder in Spargus to go back to Haven City and help clean up the mess there. Jak responds that he was blamed for the fall of Haven City despite saving it in the second game, and left to die in the desert by the Grand Council. Naturally, he's in no mood to put his neck on the line for them anymore. He eventually goes back anyway, because The Call Knows Where You Live.
• Lost Odyssey's Kaim doesn't actively refuse the call, but he recognizes that, as an immortal, he has all the time in the world, and so he takes his time. But when it comes to the call of adventure that his lost memories provide, he initially refuses due to the tremendous pain he knows they will bring if he can unlock them again.
• Mass Effect: Andromeda: Avitus Rix, the second in-line for the position of turian Pathfinder, will do this at the end of the turian Ark quest if the decision to take the job is left to him. He'll wind up a miserable drunk, disheartened over the loser of his lover and predecessor, instead.
• In The Matrix: Path of Neo, it is possible to take the Blue Pill, resulting in a Non-Standard Game Over where Morpheus expresses his disappointment at the decision.
• Ni no Kuni: Oliver initially refuses to travel to Mr. Drippy's world to fight the Dark Djinn, as he's still mourning his mother's death. Mr. Drippy then realises that in his world, Oliver's mother is a powerful sage who was trapped in crystal by the Dark Djinn, and rescuing her may bring back the version of her in Oliver's world too. Oliver thus accepts the call, but to save his mother rather than to save Mr. Drippy's world.
• The main plot of Overwatch is that years after the titular Heroes "R" Us was forcibly shut down, Winston — deciding that the world still needs saving against the ever-increasing threat of Talon — makes the decision to recall its former agents and amass new heroes to continue fighting the good fight. Some agents did receive the message, but ended up choosing not to for various reasons (not just the fact that some of them ended up joining Talon in the meantime):
  • Jack Morrison — the former leader of Overwatch, presently the dreaded Vigilante Man "Soldier: 76" — became completely disillusioned with Overwatch and its idealistic mission statement, refusing to join it on principle, believing that it's simply going to collapse again.
  • Ana Amari, another former head of Overwatch and Jack's continued present-day partner, also declined to join as she and Jack are conducting their own business in Cairo, although she does have much higher hopes for the team, sending former agent Cole Cassidy to herald newcomers to Winston's recall. Ana's daughter, Pharah, was also reluctant to accept the call after being contacted by more eager former comrades — both due to her own disillusionment with Overwatch and her commitments with Helix Security International, but following a meeting with Cassidy and her previously-thought-to-be-dead mother, Pharah hops aboard the new team.
  • Vivian "Sojourn" Chase — another high-ranking captain, but one whose testimonies before the UN largely led to Overwatch's illegalization — also initially appears jaded by Overwatch, and when pressed by a government agent on the matter of Winston's recall, she says she declined. However, Sojourn had been secretly doing vigilante work fighting against the brewing threat of Null Sector within her hometown of Toronto, and once Null Sector makes their full-scale attack on the city, she immediately springs into action and ends up joining the reborn Overwatch as they also get involved. They approach her to join them as their new captain, and while she still has reservations of the team's future, she ultimately accepts.
  • Torbjörn Lindholm — another former high-ranking member of Overwatch — also personally declined to join, even after persuasion by his good friend Reinhardt, with the two teaming up to save Torbjörn's hometown of Gothenburg from Null Sector. Ultimately, Torbjörn decides that in his age, it's better for a younger generation to do the world-saving this time and instead commits his efforts to protecting his family and their hometown, but he's more than happy to see his daughter, Brigitte — who had already been Reinhardt's squire for many years now — as well as Bastion to take his place.
• In the second installment of Penny Arcade Adventures, you have the option to refuse to join Gabe and Tycho after Fruit Fucker Prime destroys your tent. They'll just come back the next day and ask again until you accept. If you refuse enough days in a row, you get an achievement called "The Reluctant Hero."
• Persona:
  • Persona 3: Shinjiro Aragaki was a founding member of SEES, but an undisclosed incident made him decide to quit. Akihiko spends most of the game trying to convince him to come back, and the plot thickening has no bearing on his eventual acceptance. No, he only agrees to return because Ken Amada joins SEES of his own volition. The significance? The incident that led him to abandon SEES was losing control of his Persona and accidentally killing Ken's mother.
  • Persona 5:
    • Joker attempts to delete the Metaverse Navigator app that kicks off the rest of the plot for a good three days before actually using it to willingly enter the Adventure-Friendly World of the Palace, with the first time being by accident. He can also try to encourage Ryuji to do the same.
    • Aloof Ally Kasumi Yoshizawa in Royal initially has little interest in the Phantom Thieves, and even after awakening to her Persona, she was still more interested in furthering her gymnastics career than assisting their crusade against injustice. However, she offers to join them prior to their confrontation with Shido (which is denied by the protagonist and Morgana due to the danger involved) and she ends up joining them for real as the 11th-Hour Ranger during the events of the third trimester.
• In Phantasy Star IV, when presented with the genesis story of the Algo solar system, some time after Rune has chosen him as Algo's champion, Chaz finds the Great Light to be an extremely hypocritical absent god figure and consciously rejects his "destiny" to fight the Profound Darkness. Once he's calmed down, he asks Rune if Blind Obedience to the Great Light's intentions would make them any different from the villains who serve the Profound Darkness. He eventually does come around, but chooses to fight to protect the people of Algo who would be harmed if the Profound Darkness wins, rather than just because the Great Light says so.
• In Psychonauts, refusal of the call just makes Ford Cruller slap Raz upside the head and ask angrily "How about now?"
• The cause of the entire plot in Radiant Historia. Heiss was so angry that his incompetent brother got to be king while he was supposed to die to save the world that he didn't just ditch his duty, he outright sabotaged it.
• The Stanley Parable: The "Coward/Reluctance" ending is gotten by having Stanley interact with his office door to close it again, whereupon the Narrator describes how Stanley decided to stay in his office and wait for further instructions instead of leaving and investigating the mysterious disappearance of his co-workers.
• Super Action Adventure: Having already saved the world twice with no benefits, Bear opts not to take part in Heroes until he is able to ensure he gets compensated for it. Until then, he stays out of the fight to talk with the government about money. Most of the other heroes in Heroes don't join the fight right away either, but only Bear and Grim provide their reasons for not joining right away.
• It's possible to avert But Thou Must! in the beginning of Super Paper Mario by refusing to go after the Pure Hearts. All this does, though, is get you a Press Start To Non-Standard Game Over.
• Reid Hershel from Tales of Eternia initially refused to have anything to do with stopping the Grand Fall, but was dragged along by his childhood friend Farah, who Jumped at the Call. He's content to let the military of his home world take care of things, but eventually he's forced to do it himself as The Chosen One when the other Chosen One dies saving his life.
• In Tears to Tiara 2: Hamil plays dumb to prevent a rebellion, and was willing to let the Zaras kill him and the entire Barcid Party and enslave all the people of Hispania if it meant preventing the death and destruction of war. Seeing Tart about to be burnt at the stake that changes his mind.
• Thief: The Dark Project. Garrett.
  Garrett: Tell my friends that I don't need their secret book, or their glyph warnings, or their messengers. Tell them I'm through. Tell them it's over. Tell them Garrett is done.

Of course, this is followed by:

Artemis: [after Garrett departs] I will tell them this: Nothing has changed. All is as written. Beware the Metal Age.

• In Wario Land II, if you stay asleep long enough at the beginning, you get kicked out of your castle and get to play through an alternate storyline.
• World of Warcraft: Numerous blood elves wish to go to Dalaran to aid in the war against the Scourge, enough that the blood elven rulers feel the need to send an official leader of the group to coordinate with Dalaran's own leadership. Grand Magister Rommath is the perfect choice for this duty, as he is a powerful mage with experience in Dalaran politics and an ironclad loyalty to the blood elven people. The problem is, he loathes Dalaran and will have nothing to do with it, requiring the much less capable Aethas Sunreaver to take the reins instead.

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