Times where somebody refuses the call in Western Animation.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang runs away after being informed (prematurely) that he is the new reincarnation of the Avatar. He is then frozen in an iceberg and reawakens to a world in a century-long war that needs the Avatar now more than ever.
- In The Legend of Korra, after Zaheer assassinates the Earth Queen, sending the Earth Kingdom spiraling into anarchy, the world's leaders ask Suyin Beifong to temporarily take control of the region until it is stabilized. She refuses, saying that she's not interested in seizing that kind of power for herself. Unfortunately, her protégé Kuvira didn't take kindly to Suyin not stepping up to lead when a leader was so desperately needed. So she took on the task herself, stabilizing the region by force and creating a new despotic regime in the process.
- Batman Beyond goes so far as to have a two-part episode titled "The Call", in which Terry is invited to join the Justice League. In the end, he refuses to do so, at least as a full-time member.
- For a time. The Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue" reveals that Terry eventually does join the League.
- Big Hero 6: The Series: This is what everyone but Fred tries to do after the events of the movie, no longer seeing a reason to continue being heroes after beating Callaghan. It ultimately takes an invasion of Baymax-clones caused by the gangster Yama to convince them to keep being heroes.
- In Danny Phantom, Danny often tries to Refuse the Call. This never works well, with the result being either just a mundane ghost attack to creating horrific alternate futures where the world is destroyed. One particular example is the episode "Memory Blank" where a powerless Danny with no memories is forced to answer the call anyway.
- The Dragon Prince: Rayla tells Callum that, to truly stop the Cycle of Revenge, someone has to take the stand. Having gone through a Heroic BSoD, Callum simply says that he can't do anything, and can't be one of the heroes who goes and stops all the fighting. Needless to say, this refusal is short-lived.
- Jade Armor: In the first episode, it took the Beasticons multiple tries until Lan Jun finally accepted the Jade Armor to stop the ongoing time loop.
- In Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Batman sees the Crime Syndicate's world as an Expendable Alternate Universe and utterly refuses to participate in saving it until the villains' machinations threaten his own world.
- The two-part Origins Episode of Miraculous Ladybug revealed that after messing up her first outing as Ladybug, Marinette, already reluctant about accepting the Call, tried to quit and secretly pass on the Ladybug Miraculous to her friend, Alya. Circumstances and a pep talk from Cat Noir later cause her to reconsider and take up the mantle again.
- Lampshaded by Rick and Morty when Rick rejects a call to assemble the Vindicators.Rick: I refuse to answer a literal Call to Adventure, let it go to voicemail.
- South Park:
- This trope is a running joke in the "Woodland Critters" episode.
- Parodied in the "Pandemic" episodes, where Craig's attempts to refuse the call leads him to accidentally fulfilling the prophecy associated with him.
- The episode "Towelie" runs on this. Being told to exchange Towelie to get their "Okama Game Sphere" console back, they end up tied up in a convoluted conspiracy plot. Despite this they are totally uninterested in whatever unfolds:Scientist: Thank you for bringing him to us, boys. You see, this is not an ordinary towel. He is the RG-400 Smart Towel, designed with a computer chip inside the terrycloth
Stan: We don't care.
Scientist: You see, here at Tynacorp, our goal was to make the perfect towel. A towel that would sense how wet or dry the user's skin was and fluff itself accordingly.
Stan: Dude, we don't care.
Scientist: Towelie was our greatest success. Smart enough to beat the average human at chess and absorbent enough to soak up even the toughest spills. But then one day, Towelie got high and just sort of wandered off.
Stan: We...don't...care.
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series: Just like his comics counterpart, no matter the version.
- This is a recurring theme in the various Transformers series:
- In "The Burden Hardest to Bear", Rodimus Prime has been growing sick and tired of "being responsible for the preservation of the universe and its outlying suburbs", and takes the opportunity to leave the Autobots when he loses the Matrix. He's eventually Resigned to the Call, though, as he comes to realize that as The Chosen One, the Matrix is intertwined with his own destiny. And then destiny punches him in the face a few episodes later with "The Return of Optimus Prime".
- When Optimus Prime apparently came back from the dead before coming back for real Rodimus immediately returned the Matrix to him and was overjoyed when he reverted to Hot Rod. He had to take the Matrix back when Optimus turned out to be a case of Came Back Wrong.
- Smokescreen of Transformers: Prime has almost the exact same reaction as (G1) Ultra Magnus. Despite often speaking of his belief that he was destined for great things earlier on, he adamantly states that he doesn't think he's worthy of replacing Optimus. He even decides to Screw Destiny by using the last of the Forges' energy to resurrect Optimus.
- In World of Quest, the titular Quest spends most of the first episode actively refusing the call. Actually, more like kicking the call in the butt. Eventually he's tricked into accepting.
