Line #99 Main/KeepTheHomeFiresBurning


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6	->''"Let no tears add to their hardships''\
7	''As the soldiers pass along,''\
8	''And although your heart is breaking,''\
9	''Make it sing this cheery song:''\
10	''Keep the Home Fires Burning,''\
11	''While your hearts are yearning.''\
12	''Though your lads are far away''\
13	''They dream of home.''\
14	''There's a silver lining''\
15	''Through the dark clouds shining,''\
16	''Turn the dark cloud inside out''\
17	''[='=]Til the boys come home."''
18	-->-- '''Ivor Novello & Lena Ford''', [[http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/keepthehomefiresburning.htm "Keep the Home-Fires Burning"]]
19
20	Lots of stories are about TheHero and their comrades on their adventures. This story focuses on TheHero's [[MyGirlBackHome lovers, family, and friends back home]], often in a LowerDeckEpisode, as they try to keep normal life together and not go crazy from loneliness and worry. British examples will exhibit lots of StiffUpperLip. Romantic partners will find renewed determination that IWillWaitForYou or succumb to AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder.
21
22	The usual portrayal involves families of the [[MilitaryAndWarfareTropes military]] and other warriors: soldiers are subject to long, distant deployments with little contact back home, and combat situations always involve the fear of injury and death. Families of police officers, sailors, and superheroes can also feel like this.
23	* Police Officers & Firefighters: They get regular time off, and they're (usually) home for dinner, but the daily risk of death is still present.
24	* Sailors (non-military): Long deployments in a dangerous profession, but with fewer enemies actively gunning for your sailor's blood. But there's always the suspicion he's got AGirlInEveryPort.
25	* {{Superhero}}es: Regular combat deployment with little warning or time off, since TheHero is always "on call"; enemies out for blood; and if TheHero's [[SecretIdentity identity is secret]], there are few people their loved ones can turn to for support.
26
27	Can deconstruct the facade of a proud military family by realistically depicting the StepfordSmiler-levels of emotional stress and isolation that MyGirlBackHome shoulders with HeroicResolve, as well as the accepted but implicit pain caused when TheHero chooses LovedINotHonorMore.
28
29	Children's books about war naturally tend to concentrate on this, because this is where the children are.
30
31	See also HomeSweetHome.
32
33	----
34	!!Examples
35
36	[[foldercontrol]]
37
38	[[folder:Advertising]]
39	* {{Lampshaded}} in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDB8p-2pcRo this]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAA USAA]] ad, "Two Kinds of Heroes."
40	[[/folder]]
41
42	[[folder:Comic Books]]
43	* Golden Eyes (at least for the first three installments) of the UsefulNotes/WorldWarI serial ''ComicBook/GoldenEyesAndHerHeroBill''. When her sweetheart Bill is deployed overseas to fight in France, Golden Eyes takes to selling war bonds and knitting socks for the war effort - not to mention adopting Bill's dog, [[CanineCompanion Uncle Sam]]. But when she discovers a German spy in her backyard [[CallToAdventure she's ready to ship out and join Bill in the trenches]].
44	* ''Comicbook/SpiderMan'': [[FieryRedhead Mary Jane Watson-Parker]] struggles between her desire to support [[ChronicHeroSyndrome Peter Parker]] in his role as Spider-Man and her real fear that ''this'' time could be the night she sent her husband out to die. This is notably a factor in the ''ComicBook/KravensLastHunt'' storyline when [[spoiler:for two weeks MJ doesn't know if Peter is dead]].
45	[[/folder]]
46
47	[[folder:Fan Works]]
48	* ''Fanfic/BetweenTheCrosses'': William Schofield's wife writes various letters chronicling her side of the story.
49	[[/folder]]
50
51	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
52	* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', Sun Yee's story explicitly begins with it being wartime and the men being all gone.
53	[[/folder]]
54
55	[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
56	* The French film ''Film/AVeryLongEngagement'' is about a woman (played by Creator/AudreyTautou) trying to find out what happened to her fiance who fought in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.
57	* ''Film/Apollo13'': Marilyn Lovell's subplot starts with her shielding her family from media attention (and advising other astronauts' wives in the same). Once the mission goes wrong, she tries to hold her family together emotionally despite the lack of updates from NASA - while still keeping press agents eager for a tragedy out of their home.
58	-->''"Remember! Proud, happy, and thrilled..."
59	* Colonel Moore's wife, Julie, in ''Film/WeWereSoldiers'' has scenes of this. In one, the taxi driver delivering death notification letters to widows stops at Colonel Moore's house to ask his wife for directions to another house. [[TearJerker She initially thinks her husband has died,]] and is not pleased to find out why she just got the scare of her life.
60	[[/folder]]
61
62	[[folder:Literature]]
63	* The last book in the ''All of a Kind Family'' series, ''Ella of All of the Kind Family'', has all the children doing home-front things during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. Ella and her best friend fit the romantic side; both have boyfriends in the armed forces.
64	* The poem [[http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-ancient-gesture/ "An Ancient Gesture"]] by Edna StVincentMillay, about [[Literature/TheOdyssey Penelope]].
65	-->Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;\
66	And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,\
67	And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.\
68	Suddenly you burst into tears;\
69	There is simply nothing else to do.
70	* The last ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'' work, ''Rilla of Ingelside'', is about UsefulNotes/WorldWarI in Canada. The central character is Anne's youngest daughter, who is not really the LoveInterest until the very end.
71	* In a non-romantic version of this, in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' novel ''Literature/ColdDays'', when Harry goes back to visit Chicago, he finds, to his shock [[spoiler:his Godmother, Leanansidhe]] has been keeping his obligations current during his absence. Due to the nature of the benefactor, he is more than a bit concerned.
72	* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': Éowyn was ordered by Théoden and Aragon to stay behind in Edoras, she does not take it well.
73	* [[http://plagiarist.com/poetry/1957/ "Penelope"]], a short and searing poem by Creator/DorothyParker, from the perspective of [[Literature/TheOdyssey Odysseus's wife]].
74	* Another non-romantic version: Hestia in ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'', who stands watch over Olympus while the other gods are off fighting. She even says the trope name in a discussion with Percy and Nico. Hestia is the Greek goddess of the hearth and domesticity, so she is a literal embodiment of this trope.
75	* Kate Seredy's ''The Singing Tree'' happens during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The farm keeps on plugging with the news in the background, the father having gone off to war, Russian prisoners being brought in to work, and WarRefugees, children, being brought to the farm so they could eat.
76	* ''Literature/YouKnowWhenTheMenAreGone'' by [[http://siobhanfallon.com/ Siobhan Fallon]] is a collection of short stories focused mainly on the inner lives of U.S. military families waiting in Fort Hood. Fallon is herself a military wife.
77	[[/folder]]
78
79	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
80	* ''Series/ArmyWives'' focuses upon the titular women, along with [[TheOneGuy an army husband]], dealing with the various strains and stresses of their position.
81	* ''Series/BombGirls'' is set in a munitions factory during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, following four different women who all work there and are dealing with various trials and tribulations.
82	* The ''Series/{{Highlander}}: The Series'' episode "They Also Serve..." focused on the Watchers, the mysterious organization who observed and recorded the constant warfare between the immortals but (theoretically) never interfered in the ongoing fights.
83	* The family plotlines on ''Series/RescueMe'' exhibit this trope.
84	[[/folder]]
85
86	[[folder:Music]]
87	* The British UsefulNotes/WorldWarI patriotic song "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Home_Fires_Burning_(1914_song) Keep the Home-Fires Burning ('Till the Boys Come Home)]]."
88	* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHXtQQlyaR0 video]] for "This Is Me Missing You" by Music/JamesHouse.
89	* "It Sucks" by pop-punk band Music/TheUnlovables is about the downsides of this trope.
90	-->And in a way, I wish I was you\
91	Heading cross-country with a dream to pursue\
92	I guess til now I never knew\
93	How much it sucks to be the one who's left behind\
94	You're off in the great unknown\
95	When I'm stuck here all alone
96	[[/folder]]
97
98	[[folder:Religion & Mythology]]
99	* Ithaca's queen Penelope in ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', of course.
100	[[/folder]]
101
102	[[folder:Theatre]]
103	* ''Theatre/{{Agamemnon}}'' shows how this can go horribly wrong; during her husband's long absence, Clytemnestra had plenty of time to ruminate upon how much she despised and resented him, especially for how he'd sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia. By the time he returns, both of them have [[AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder had affairs]], and Clytemnestra has had plenty of time to plot his murder.
104	[[/folder]]
105
106	[[folder:Video Games]]
107	* Parodied in ''VideoGame/ConquerorsBlade'' with a voiceline for the Zykalian Militia, who use incendiary grenades:
108	--> [[{{Pun}} "We keep the home fires burning."]]
109	* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', Miounne takes a motherly role to the adventurers who get their start at the Carline Canopy, the Adventurer's Guild in Gridania. She nags them to prepare themselves properly for their coming adventures while also having an eel pie and a cup of tea on hand for when they return. Yet she also knows that some of the adventurers she sees off won't come back, but that makes it even more important for her to be able to welcome home the ones that do.
110	[[/folder]]
111
112	[[folder:Web Original]]
113	* [[http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/40324.html Dogs Welcoming Home Soldiers]]. "These reunion videos--for me, at least--shed a tiny beam of light on how emotionally draining being a military family can be. [[PreciousPuppies They'll also make you want a dog.]]"
114	[[/folder]]
115
116	[[folder:Real Life]]
117	* Ask any career military family.
118	* Or any police officer's family.
119	* Any nation with compulsory military service for a large majority of citizens, especially if there is a powerful and hostile neighbour. The stress and anxiety of those left behind after a major deployment is intense.
120	[[/folder]]

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