History Main / ResignationsNotAccepted

* In ''[[ThiryRock 30 Rock]]'' Jack learns that the Bush administration is doing this, forcing him to instead lead a costly, embarrassing, and useless military research project to get fired.

* Averted in ''MenInBlack'', where the technology to alter people's memories means an agent can retire without the agency worrying that HeKnowsTooMuch. Although the second movie shows that it's possible for the agency to find an ex-agent and restore his or her memory if needed, which verges into MandatoryUnretirement (if things get to that point, they're not going to take no for an answer).

* A standard in evil organizations (see Hydra for Marvel Comics) and villains' mooks. No one can leave TheJoker's gang alive, or the Red Skull. Even AlwaysChaoticEvil races are so: Skrulls (Marvel Comics) are said to be euthanized when old.

* A standard in evil organizations (see Hydra for Marvel Comics) and villains' mooks. No one can leave TheJoker alive, or the Red Skull. Even AlwaysChaoticEvil races are so: Skrulls (Marvel Comics) are said to be euthanized when old.

* ''{{Nextwave}}'' sees Dirk Anger contemplating/attempting various suicide methods. He eventually succeeds in hanging himself...accidentally, but to his annoyance, Beyond Corporation did not accept his retirement and brought him back as a ''zombie''. It's that kind of series.

-->-- '''Michael Corleone''', ''TheGodfather, Part III''

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

* Implied in ''{{Hellsing}}'' with [[ThoseWackyNazis Millennium]]. If they're willing to [[ManOnFire set you on fire]] if you [[YouHaveFailedMe fail your mission]] or were about to spill their secrets, do you really think they'd let you retire?

* TheSyndicate (and probably everyone else) in ''DarkerThanBlack''. [[TheCorpsIsMother They don't get a lot of choice about joining, either.]]

[[AC:{{Comics}}]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* ''TheGodfather'' trilogy, as seen in the page quote, but also TheMafia in general. This may be TruthInTelevision.
* ''KillBill'': When The Bride tried to resign from the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, they tried to murder her. She ''did'' make it look like she cheated on a professional hitman, so it might be something other than [[HeKnowsTooMuch she knows too much]].
** The second installment indicates that she didn't quit as much as walk off her current assignment and allow Bill to think that she was dead so that she could avoid having him raise their child as an assassin, although it's likely that quitting normally was not an option.

* Averted in ''MenInBlack'', where the technology to alter people's memories means an agent can retire without the agency worrying that HeKnowsTooMuch.
** Although the second movie shows that it's possible for the agency to find an ex-agent and restore his or her memory if needed, which verges into MandatoryUnretirement (if things get to that point, they're not going to take no for an answer).

-->'''Mercurio:''' ''(ordered to shoot the protagonists)'' Sir, I'd like to... resign from my-- ''('''BLAM!''')''

* The problem the heroes in ''NunsOnTheRun'' find a way to overcome.
* The JamesBond film ''DieAnotherDay'' implies that MI6 has a compound in the Falkland Islands for keeping agents deemed a danger (which may include those who decide to resign).

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* Secret agent Duhamel from the ''{{Aubrey-Maturin}}'' books falls victim to this when trying to defect.

* Sort of applies to Gara Petothel/Lara Notsil from the ''XWingSeries''. After discovering that GoodFeelsGood and the PowerOfFriendship is something she'd not felt since she was little, she wants to give up her plans as TheMole. It's never that easy.

-->'''Tycho''': "We're really men of peace at heart."

* In {{Catch-22}} the main characters have to fly a certain number of missions before they are discharged. The number of missions keep increasing however...

[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]
* ''ThePrisoner'' is based entirely around this trope. Possibly excepting the last episode.

* Sydney Bristow tries to quit SD-6, The C.I.A. and just about any other intelligence agency on ''{{Alias}}'', [[spoiler: even being called back into action in the series finale, after achieving [[HappilyMarried ... Happily ever after]] isolated on a remote island]]
* In the "Kill Straker!" episode of ''{{UFO}}'' when Colonel Foster is subject to alien brainwashing the others contemplate killing him because HeKnowsTooMuch about SHADO, and therefore can't just be fired.
* Played with in ''BurnNotice''- Michael didn't ''want'' to leave his old organization, but [[InvertedTrope everyone there wants him to just sit down and shut up]]. "Management" threatened him about leaving ''them'', but he seems to be doing all right so far. And then, of course, Season 3 comes along and gives him a "BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor" as his search to get his job back leads to [[spoiler: Strickler selling out Fiona to an Irish terrorist, Michael's CIA contact Diego being killed, and Michael's killing of Strickler having [[NiceJobBreakingItHero even further unforeseen consequences]].]]

* ''{{Chuck}}'' thinks he's free to leave the CIA in the second season, [[spoiler: but he would have been assassinated by his own handler had he actually quit]].
** As of the fourth season, Chuck's attempts to find a job outside the CIA after being given explicit permission to leave are foiled [[spoiler:by the CIA, which is apparently willing to go back on its deal with Chuck and blackmail him into working for them again]].

* In {{Torchwood}}: Children of Earth, a character attempts to walk away from an ongoing mission to kill Jack Harkness and bring down Torchwood, and gets shot in the back for his trouble.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* Pick an Imperial organization in ''{{Warhammer 40000}}''. ''Any'' organization. The Inquisition is, of course, the primary example, but even their army works on this basis -- soldiers in it don't retire, they carry on from battlefield to battlefield until they get killed on one of them or promoted into a job that lets them die peacefully of old age.
** Not entirely true. It's also possible that your unit will be disbanded after sustaining enough casualties to render it below combat effectiveness.
*** More like completely untrue. The Imperial Guard DOES have retirement for grunts, and the first colonists for a newly conquered world are usually the soldiers who did the conquering.
**** Of course, given the appalling casualty rates some units suffer, and the fact that all units that have enough soldiers left to be an effective fighting force after one hot zone cools down will be promptly assigned to a new one, the odds of making it to retirement are pretty low. And those who actually make it will most likely find themselves [[YouCantGoHomeAgain discharged on a planet a long, long way from their homeworld, with no practical way of getting back there]].
** The Tau's Fire Caste (basically their military) is mostly like this. There are only two ways to get out of the military: death, or by opting to take a third "trial by fire" (the first two are given to all Fire Warriors), after which they are allowed to become military advisers instead of continuing to fight.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* In ''GrandTheftAuto: San Andreas'', C.J. finds out that this is also true about gang-banging. So, in a CrowningMomentOfAwesome, he [[spoiler: ''takes over the entire state''.]]

* Organization XIII operates this way in ''KingdomHearts''. Marluxia, Larxene, Xion, and Roxas all have Axel, the group's official assassin, sent after them when they go rogue. When he eventually turns traitor, too, second-in-command Saïx comes calling. The TropeNamer is a line spoken by Saïx to Roxas when he tries to stop Roxas leaving the organization for good. [[spoiler: Saïx is beaten by Roxas in battle and Roxas defects from the organization.]]

* In ''DragonAge'' if an Antivan Crow like Zevran fails an assassination he/she is considered dead to the Crows. Some Crows like Ignatio are willing to merely pretend the errant Crow is dead. Others want to make absolutely sure that is the case one way or another. If the Warden lives, Zevran will tell him/her that he knows the Crows will keep coming after him and that he will keep on fighting them for his freedom [[spoiler:which is canon in ''DragonAgeII'']]. If the Warden dies, [[spoiler:Zevran will return to Antiva and take over the organization. It is both a victory and a defeat. Zevran has his life and a position of power and influence -- but he never truly escapes the Crows.]]

[[AC:WebComics]]
* When Haley quits the thieves' guild in ''OrderOfTheStick'', the leader, Bozzok, gives her a head start before the ditzy-but-powerful assassin Crystal is sent after Haley. Of course, she has to reenter Greysky City later in the story.
** Like the thieves guild rules say "You can only leave in a coffin. And vampires can't even leave in one of those."
* The cult in The Wild in KevinAndKell. Rudy is forced to recruit for them at an airport, watched by several agents who plan to eat him if he attempts to run away. Kevin manages to sneak him past the agent at the exit by disguising him as his seeing-eye dog. On the other hand, when Ralph joins and never amounts to anything, the pack doesn't try to stop Kell from retrieving him.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Task Force X in ''JusticeLeague'' (better known as the SuicideSquad, though they couldn't use that term on a kids' show). At the end of the episode of the same name, the criminals think they're done after one mission. Nope... they've got a long time to work off their sentences.
** Of course, they're let off once the parent organization (Cadmus) is disbanded at the end of the season.

[[AC:RealLife]]
* TruthInTelevision: Vladimir "Viktor Suvorov" Rezun, a defector from the GRU, Soviet military intelligence, started ''Aquarium'', one of his books on the subject by reminiscing about how he was told, when joining, "Theoretically there's only one way out for any member of the organization--through the chimney of the crematorium." And then the recruiter showed him a film of somebody who tried to leave [[ConveyorBeltODoom being put into the furnace alive]].
** Some people consider him a fraud, though.
*** When questioned, he says "I don't know if the film's real, but I was shown that".
* [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife This wiki]], [[WildMassGuessing according to some]].

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->''"[[TropeNamer We don't accept resignations]]."''
-->-- '''Saïx''', ''KingdomHearts358DaysOver2''

* Late in TheSeventies, the Marvel villain the Purple Man had a CutLexLuthorACheck epiphany. He realized that he didn't really need to be a supervillain to get what he wanted, because he had a CompellingVoice (actually, super-pheromones, but it works the same), so people would just hand him whatever he wanted, and thank him for the privilege. So he tried to quit being a villain and take up a life of hedonistic debauchery. Cue almost a decade of stories in which some BigBad (like [[TheChessmaster the Kingpin]] or DoctorDoom) would tack him down and force him to help with their latest EvilScheme. Since then, he's apparently become resigned to his fate, and his last several appearances have shown him trying to TakeOverTheWorld.

* In the 1970s ''TheBionicWoman'' episode "On the Run", Jaime Sommers tries to resign from the OSI but discovers that if she does so, she'll be confined to a government compound for the rest of her life.

* From the ''HarryPotter'' series, the Death Eaters is this sort of organization.
---> '''Sirius''' (talking about his deceased brother): Stupid idiot, joined into Death Eaters - According to what I found out after his death, Regulus was in until a certain point and then got horrified by something he had to do and tried to back off. Well, you don't resign when you are working for Voldemort. It's either lifelong servitude or death...

* Organization XIII operates this way in ''KingdomHearts''. Marluxia, Larxene, Xion, and Roxas all have Axel, the group's official assassin, sent after them when they go rogue. When he eventually turns traitor, too, second-in-command Saïx comes calling. The TropeNamer is a line spoken by Saïx to Roxas when he tries to stop Roxas leaving the organization for good. [[spoiler: He loses and Roxas defects from the organization.]]

-->-- '''Saix''', ''KingdomHearts358DaysOver2''

* Organization XIII operates this way in ''KingdomHearts''. Marluxia, Larxene, Xion, and Roxas all have Axel, the group's official assassin, sent after them when they go rogue. When he eventually turns traitor, too, second-in-command Saix comes calling. The TropeNamer is a line spoken by Saix to Roxas when he tries to stop Roxas leaving the organization for good. [[spoiler: He loses and Roxas defects from the organization.]]

'''Examples:'''

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-->'''Mercurio:''' ''(ordered to shoot the protagonists) Sir, I'd like to... resign from my-- ''('''BLAM!''')''

-->'''Mercurio:''' Sir, I'd like to... resign from my-- ''(BLAM!)''

So you've been working as a secret agent... or for TheMafia... or as an [[CareerKillers assassin]]... or for an EvilOverlord... when you decide it's time for you to retire.

**** Being a colonist on a new conquered world equals to being a unofficial full time soldier, with no equipment. That, and the fact you sustained genetic and surgical modification that made living a "normal" life quite difficult.