"The situation's changed, for Pinky and the Brain. No laboratory, alone in the rain..."
- Arcane: Twice over. Vi's return to the Undercity is an unhappy one. Vi destroys her first childhood home in the Pit to escape from Silco and his goons. She's also pissed to see that he's taken over her 2nd childhood home, the Last Drop bar. Armed with Hextech gauntlets she storms it, but before she can properly retake it, she's knocked out by Jinx.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: One of the things that makes Aang and Zuko much alike is that neither can go home again — Zuko because he's been exiled, and Aang because it's not there anymore. 70 years later, he rebuilt and restored his ancestral home to its former glory.
- Subverted when Zuko betrays Iroh and is allowed to come back. Then subverted right back to straight when Zuko realizes it wasn't worth it and makes a Heel–Face Turn. And subverted again in the finale when he not only goes home, but he owns the home.
- Also happened in The Legend of Korra to Asami Sato. After discovering that her father is an Equalist, she had to abandon her home and her previous lifestyle that came with it.
- The plot of Brandy & Mr. Whiskers. Brandy Harrington can't return to her affluent family in Florida because Mr. Whiskers has stranded them in the Amazon Rain Forest. Several episodes tease them returning to civilization, but of course it never worked out.
- Danielle in Danny Phantom can't return to Vlad's manor where she was cloned and raised on the virtue that the owner is willing to kill her in order to make a better clone! She spends her time constantly on the move.
- For a while in The Fairly Oddparents, Mark Chang was unable to return to Yugopotamia, since it would force him into an Arranged Marriage with Princess Mandie.
- The basis of Futurama. Fry subverts it in the final moments before the Opening Theme, however:
- Gargoyles sometimes plays with this trope, for example in "Enter Macbeth," in which Xanatos is released from jail and free to return to his castle... forcing the titular gargoyles to leave said castle and find a new home. It doesn't stop them from visiting occasionally, though...
- Also notable is the Avalon arc, where several characters spend much of the second season being dragged around the planet by a magic boat.
- In the "Hunter's Moon" arc (the last canonical arc of the show), the clock tower where they've been living is also destroyed. Luckily, Xanatos owes them for saving his son and allows them to return the castle.
- A conversation between the Martian Manhunter and Hawkgirl in an episode of Justice League notes that this trope applies to so many of them — Superman and J'onn are each the Last of His Kind, Hawkgirl is stranded light-years from home, and Wonder Woman has just been exiled from
Paradise IslandThemyscira — that they should call themselves the "Just Us League". It's even more poignant for the audience, who (unlike J'onn and Hawkgirl) know that Batman lost his family as a child.- This trope is played with in Hawkgirl's case. She is actually an agent sent by the Thanagarians to spy on Earth and its secrets. The Thanagarians eventually come to Earth and take it over. She then finds out that they are going to use Earth as part of a weapon against this one alien species they are at war with. Unfortunately, Earth would be destroyed once the weapon is activated. In the end, she ends up alienating a lot of people, causes a chain of events that lead to the destruction of Thanagar, and it takes a long time before she is allowed back into the Justice League. Wonder Woman eventually manages to work things out with her mother, and she is allowed to set foot on Themyscira again.
- The whole premise behind The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh episode Home Is Where The Home Is. Christopher Robin accidentally breaks a statue of a family member and decides that he can't stay there anymore.
- In Mission Hill it happens as part of Kevin's Character Development. After losing his temper at his birthday party he buys a birthday cake from the same place his folks always got one goes to his family's old home to eat it. When Andy catches up to him he's miserable and somberly remarks that nothing is the same anymore, as he and his home have changed too much for him to ever go back. Andy cheers him up by showing him his alcohol and porn stash and then pointing out they have a golden opportunity to do all the things they were never allowed to do as kids like slide down the banister, pee in the shower, and throw a huge party.Kevin: This cake isn't as good as I remember. Nothing out here is as good as I remember. Not even home.
- The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Castle, Sweet Castle" has something of a variant as it's about Twilight not wanting to stay at the new castle, missing the Golden Oak Library, which was destroyed by Lord Tirek at the end of the previous season.
- Oh No! It's An Alien Invasion: After the Brainlings kidnapped all the grown-ups they were supposed to leave Earth, but their leader Emperor Brainlius insisted on staying because he finds it a great party spot, much to the annoyance of his assistant Briiian who wants to leave.
- The Owl House:
- In the season 1 finale "Young Blood, Old Souls", the Emperor forces Luz into An Offer You Can't Refuse by handing over the portal to Earth so she can save Eda, King, and Lillith from petrification. Luz hands him the portal, knowing that she'll never return to her home and her mother. But as she is brought up to the execution platform, she activates the glyphs she placed on the portal and destroys it, making sure that the Emperor cannot use Earth in whatever plans he has. A major plot line in the following season is Luz finding a way to make her own portal so she can get back to her mother.
- In "Hollow Mind", a Journey to the Center of the Mind causes Hunter to make several identity-shattering discoveries about Emperor Belos and himself—that Belos is not a witch but a human witch hunter intending to wipe out all life in the Demon Realm, that he is a Grimwalker designed to be a "better version" of a brother implied to have been murdered by Belos for falling in love with a witch, and that Belos murdered the previous Golden Guards for showing signs of a Heel–Face Turn. After Eda gets him and Luz out, he realizes from his study of mind infiltration that Belos will be aware that he found this out, meaning it isn't safe to return to the castle.
- Pictured above, what sets up the premise of Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain. Acme Labs was torn down, leaving those poor mice homeless until they came across Elmyra Duff. Whoop dee doo.
- ReBoot for most of the third season."I live in the games. I search through systems, people, and cities, for this place: Mainframe; my home. My format? I have no format. I am a renegade, lost on the Net."
- In more ways than one too. While Matrix and Andraia are lost on the Net, Bob is lost in the Web. At the same time Dot and Mouse are forced to abandon the Principal Office offscreen and are forced into hiding. The Tor also gets destroyed forcing Megabyte to find a new place to "set up shop". Seems like everyone in this show loses their home at one point or another.
- For Samurai Jack, it was his home time that Aku tried to ensure that he could never return to after sending him to the future. In the Bad Future ruled by Aku, Jack's home has been forgotten for a few millennia since the Master Of Darkness destroyed it.
- The Simpsons parodied this a Tree House of Horror episode where Homer inadvertently travels back in time and repeatedly makes changes to the world. After some time, he settles on a world almost identical, with the only difference being that everyone has long forked tongues."Eh... close enough."
- Dreamy Smurf in The Smurfs (1981) episode "The Smurf Who Would Be King" thought this to be the case when he and his ship were dragged down a whirlpool and shipwrecked in the land of the Pookies...only for the whole thing to be All Just a Dream...Or Was It a Dream?, as finds a crystal similar to the ones that were in the land of the Pookies.
- Stargate Infinity: After being framed for an attack on Stargate Command, Major Gus Bonner and four SGC cadets flee Earth through the Stargate, unable to return until they've gathered enough evidence to clear their names.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars concludes with Ahsoka Tano on trial for multiple sabotages and war crimes, as part of a Frame-Up scheme born from a not-so-misguided belief that both the Jedi and the Republic have failed in their duty as peacekeepers. She's eventually cleared of all charges, but leaves the Jedi Order without hesitation because of the revelation that the Jedi Council, even when acting with honor and wisdom, is capable of cruelty and inhumanity that overshadows the Sith. This turns out to be a good thing, as almost everyone who stays affiliated with the Jedi Council is wiped out in Star Wars Episode III anyway.
- Which allows her to survive long enough to become the grandmaster of the rebels. Then she finds out what happened to Anakin...
- Star Wars Rebels: Quoted almost word-for-word by Ezra in the episode "The Siege of Lothal" when the Empire destroys his old home. This trope technically applies to all of the main cast, as Kanan lost the Jedi Order to Order 66, Hera has been avoiding Ryloth and her father for years, Chopper's old master was killed in the Ryloth campaign, Zeb's homeworld was subjected to a genocide courtesy of the Empire, and Sabine is considered a traitor by many Mandalorians due to her working with the Empire for a time. Ultimately subverted, as most of the cast finds ways to reunite with their cultures or families.
- Steven Universe:
- The Crystal Gems can't afford to go back to the Gem Homeworld for good reason; their sinister plans for Earth led to Rose Quartz and the others deciding to stay and protect it. Garnet goes so far as to smash Earth's connection to the Galaxy Warp after Peridot repairs it, with the implication that she was the one (or at least among the ones) who broke it the first time.
- At one point, Pearl recalls when Rose first told her she wanted to stay and fight for Earth. However, she states that if they lose, they'll be shattered, and if they win, they can never go home. This seems to contradict the later statement that Rose Quartzes were produced exclusively on Earth, which would've meant that Rose would have never seen Homeworld. However, this also foreshadows the later reveal that Rose Quartz was actually Pink Diamond.
- Peridot winds up in the same boat as them and becomes a Crystal Gem after the events of "Message Received". This is mostly because Yellow Diamond, her boss and idol, tells her she's expendable, not caring in the slightest if she gets killed in the Earth-Shattering Kaboom that would happen if the Cluster hatches. The last straw, however, comes when Peridot tries to convince her that Earth is worth saving, if only for its resources, and Yellow Diamond goes into full-on Evil Is Petty mode, deciding that Earth must be destroyed simply because the Crystal Gems DARED to defy her... and as later revealed, because their leader Rose Quartz, allegedly shattered her sister, Pink Diamond, who led the attempted colonization of Earth.
- Lapis Lazuli in a way. While Homeworld is still around, and she has the power to reach it by herself it's changed so much that she no longer recognizes it. She can't go home again because the home she remembers no longer exists. Now, Lapis acknowledges that she can't go home again because of how she betrayed Jasper and kept her trapped, as well as the threat that the Great Diamond Authority poses to Steven, her first real friend.
- The Crystal Gems can't afford to go back to the Gem Homeworld for good reason; their sinister plans for Earth led to Rose Quartz and the others deciding to stay and protect it. Garnet goes so far as to smash Earth's connection to the Galaxy Warp after Peridot repairs it, with the implication that she was the one (or at least among the ones) who broke it the first time.
- Mario and Luigi in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!.
- One episode did focus on the duo finding a way back home, but they opt to stay in order to protect the Princess.
- In another episode, they did go back home, only to find out Koopa was terrorizing Brooklyn. They then tricked him into following them back to Mushroom Kingdom and blew up the way so he'd not be able to return to Brooklyn.
- Part of the series premise for Transformers: Beast Wars. Everyone was stranded on a strange planet far from their homeworld of Cybertron; at the end of the first season, this was revealed to be prehistoric Earth Earth All Along, far from their home time, which would be about three hundred years past our present day.
- Played with in Transformers: Prime, Cybertron itself had been reduced to a lifeless planet with so little energon resources it can't contain more than a few small pockets of life. It isn't that they can't return home so much as there isn't much to return to. The video game Transformers: War for Cybertron suggests that the planet core was "rebooting" itself and would take eons to do so before energon production would continue, while late in the second season of Prime there is an option presented that might speed the process up. Too bad that option had to be violently removed from the picture...
- As of the Beast Hunters finale, Cybertron is finally restored and the Autobots, and what remains of the Decepticons, return home.
- In the last two episodes of Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?, appropriately named "Can You Ever Go Home Again?" (pt. I & II), Carmen meets her father, Malcolm Avalon, who has believed for almost thirty years that she died in a fire. At first, he disowns her but later acknowledges her "willful determination" and seems ready to accept her. Then Lee Jordan captures him, and while Carmen and ACME are trying to rescue him, he falls off a roof and suffers amnesia, causing him to forget ever meeting her. Carmen resolves herself never to get close to him again.
- This is the premise of the show Zak Storm: No one who ever enters The Bermuda Triangle, usually accidentally, can exit it unless they find the talking sword Calabrass, defeat the seven guardians of the seven Waypoints in the Seven Seas of the Bermuda Triangle and unlock their Waypoints. In the finale of the first season, it's revealed there is at least one more sea to conquer which is only accessible once all seven Waypoints have been unlocked.
