The life of an Action Hero can be a tough one. Members of the team likely haven't got much going on outside of adventuring or fighting the good fight. Especially when The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life. They might be fugitives who jump from safehouse to safehouse, spend their time between missions Wandering the Earth, or at least rarely spend their free time doing more than socialising in dingy bars with other Super-Soldier sorts. Except for this member of the team, who ends each adventure by punching out (at the clocking out machine the True Companions installed just for them) and going home to their family.
Such characters are often The Watson, but very rarely the protagonist or The Hero (who tends to have a more interesting homelife). They might even be a Naïve Newcomer, even when the main character signed up more recently. If the protagonists are members of some government agency, they've usually been promoted from the ranks of normal law enforcement. Sometimes they are also The Team Benefactor, if their "part-time" status is offset by access to some sort of resource or status the rest of the crew need.
As far as plot arcs go, they're likely to be Everyone's Baby Sister (and threatening them or their family is often how the Big Bad will Kick the Dog). If things get dark, they're likely to be either sent somewhere safe or the first on the chopping block. Compare; The Team Normal, who may or may not have a life outside the team, but is defined by lacking any special abilities; Punch-Clock Hero, who only does heroics because it's their job (but may or may not have a life outside of it). Contrast Out of Job, into the Plot, for characters that did have a life outside of adventuring, but were fired or otherwise quit before the plot started, leaving them to be a part of the party full-time.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Cardfight!! Vanguard (V Series): After the 10-year Time Skip, Shinemon has now taken over Card Capital as the new owner and manager, and focuses on raising his orphaned niece, while all his friends continue their cardfighting careers. When those friends come back to invite him to join in a team tournament with them, Shin considers taking them up on the offer, but he declines because he has long since withdrawn from the professional scene and has other worries.
- Togusa of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is the only confirmed member of Section 9 with a family (the red coat technicians are not elaborated on), having a wife and two children at home (who think he works for a security company, although he's told them by the time of Solid State Society). By contrast, almost everyone else doesn't seem to have any personal ties outside the military-industrial complex (and possibly the Yakuza for Paz). This was a plot point in the first season finale, as Aramaki had him arrested in order to ensure his survival, since unlike the rest of the team (who lived from safehouse to safehouse), he couldn't just go on the lam while Aramaki allowed the team to be made The Scapegoat before being reformed in secret once again.
- Inuyasha: While the rest of the group hunting jewel shards does so full time as they wander Japan, occasionally getting sidetracked but having left their outside social lives and homes behind, Kagome still tries to keep up with her family, friends, and schoolwork from her home time.
Films — Live-Action
- In The Blues Brothers, when Jake and Elwood are trying to get the band together again, trumpet player Alan "Mr Fabulous" Rubin turns them down, as he has a new life as maître d' at an upscale restaurant. He takes some heavy persuading. Similarly, Matt "Guitar" Murphy is initially reluctant as he and wife (played by Aretha Franklin) have settled down to run a soul food eatery together.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe: Hawkeye, of the Avengers, is revealed in Avengers: Age of Ultron to have a family outside of superheroing/being an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. By comparison, most of the team either can't or don't have a normal life. When the odd circumstances of The Snap make Tony Stark be the only one with a family by the time of Avengers: Endgame, he makes sure to add as a condition to help with the Time Heist that the Avengers won't try to Ret-Gone the changes the Snap brought (and with them Tony's daughter Morgan).
Literature
- Keel from The Ember Blade is the only member of the small resistance movement against the Krodan Empire with a family that is both alive and reasonably functional. Part of the book has him return home to discover his son has fallen deathly ill and only an expensive Krodan medicine can cure him. This leads him to sell Garric out to the Iron Hand in exchange for the money to heal his son.
- Nightrunner: Micum works as a spy with Seregil, but he only travels rarely because he has a much-loved wife and several children at home on his land and is an active, involved father. While he does occasionally show up to help on travelling adventures, quite often he only stops by the city or Seregil and Alec visit him at Watermead.
Live-Action TV
- In The A-Team, Hannibal, Face, B.A., and Murdock are all ex-soldiers turned mercenaries after being falsely convicted of a crime they didn't commit. Amy, by contrast, is a reporter who has no such issues and can continue to live in everyday society.
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer this is Xander's role in later seasons. He has a steady job in construction and is promoted to manager - making him the only Scooby able to hold down a regular job, and letting him support Buffy repairing the constant damage to her house - and even nearly gets married.
- Homicide: Life on the Street
- Most of the detectives are shown to have absolute wrecks of personal lives and don't have anyone in their lives with the exception of their (often estranged) immediate family and in some cases not even that. The only exception is Bayliss, who has a fairly stable personal life and frequently mentions hanging out with friends in his off-time. Of course, he has deep-seated emotional problems and violent outbursts to make up for it.
- Bayliss's partner, Frank Pembleton, is initially an exception, having a happy marriage and children despite his uncompromising personality. He and his wife separate for a time later on in the series as a combined result of his crisis of religious faith and the aftereffects of his stroke.
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit:
- Dominick "Sonny" Carisi is pretty much the only detective who, while dedicated to his position as detective and later ADA, isn't Married to the Job. His averts the Standard Cop Backstory by having a normal upbringing and close relationship with his family, who live nearby on Staten Island. He sees them and his sisters, as well as their children regularly, he is now the character on the show with the most known family members. He dates more often than other characters and goes to law school at night to get his JD. In season 23, he and Rollins had their Relationship Upgrade, and the show devoted screen time to their fledgling relationship; as of season 24, they are now married, and raising Amanda's girls together.
- Subverted with Stabler, who should be this trope, since he starts out the show married with four children. But while the early seasons do show his home life, and him doing things with his family, his Married to the Job devotion means he's never around, nearly leading to the destruction of his marriage and a strained relationship with his kids.
- Inverted in Leverage: the back-to-back episodes "The Girls' Night Out Job" and "The Boys' Night Out Job" lampshade the fact that everyone, even extremely socially unaware Parker, has some friend or life outside the crew, except Nate.
- In The Mysterious Benedict Society, unlike Number Two, Rhonda is shown having a life outside of her work for the titular Benedict, once going to vandalize pro-Emergency billboards in the city. It causes a lot of tension between both, until they both go vacationing together at the end.
- In the early seasons of NCIS: Los Angeles this is Sam Hanna, the only member of the team who is married and has children, in contrast with his young single career-oriented coworkers - particularly his partner G who has no personal life at all (not even a first name).
- For the Star Trek: The Original Series crew, this was retconned for Sulu. The TOS movies gave the distinct impression that the crew killed time between Enterprise missions teaching at the Academy. They didn't have personal lives. Then the seventh movie revealed that Sulu had a daughter. The novel The Captain's Daughter (not to be confused with the Pushkin novel of the same name) elaborates on their relationship.
Kirk: Sulu. When did he find the time to have a family?
- Torchwood
- Gwen Cooper is the only team member to have a life outside of work. Gwen even gets married and starts a family in seasons 2 and 3 respectively.
- This is semi-averted in season 2 when Jack and Ianto have a relationship.
Video Games
- Astral Chain has Marie. Unlike the scientists, medical personnel, elite cops, and former news anchors who make up Neuron, she was promoted from the traffic cops. She spends most of her time doing paperwork or serving as The Heart as Lappy, the department's mascot.
- In Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned, Jim Fitzgerald, the Lost MC's treasurer and Johnny Klebitz's best friend, is the only one of the bikers with a wife and child, both of whom he loves dearly. This makes it all the more tragic when he's killed by Niko Bellic.
Webcomics
- Linked Universe: Time reveals that he's married at one point, much to the shock of the other Links who only have adventuring in their lives. Hyrule even says that he hadn't thought it was possible for any of them to settle down, with them being on the road all the time. But nah, Time lives a blissful married life with Malon on her ranch.
- In Val and Isaac, Space Dread's assassins' guild has a member named Emotion Joe
, who's well adjusted, has friends outside of mercenary work, and a happy family. This makes him unpopular with other mercenaries and very popular with everyone else.
Western Animation
- Steven Universe: The Crystal Gems consist of aliens, Steven, and a full human, Connie. The aliens are The Needless, generally disinterested in human interaction, and only go into town when Steven asks or if there's a monster. Steven regularly goes into town and interacts with the citizens and his dad, but still lives with the Gems. Connie is Steven's best friend and the only one who doesn't live in Beach City full time (as her parents' careers mean she moves a lot). In between helping the Gems, she goes to school, takes tennis and violin lessons, and (initially) hides her involvement in any of this from her parents.
