History Main / ResignedToTheCall

** The third season has this trope as a small plot point. The now adult protagonists rescue a small 6 year old girl named Vivio from the season's BigBad and his minions. Nanoha decides to look after her in the meantime until Vivio can be safely given to a caring foster family, and she develops a bond with Vivio upon regular interaction with her. When asked why Nanoha doesn't just adopt Vivio as her daughter, she mentions that she's reluctant in raising her as her child given that her work sometimes puts her in dangerous situations, citing an experience she had that almost ended her career. By the end of the anime, Nanoha has official adopted Vivio as her daughter and is perfectly happy with the relationship.

* The star of ''TheLifeAndTimesOfJuniperLee.'' She has the role of the Te Xuan Ze imposed upon her whether she likes it or not, but once engaged in her role as the balancer of the real world and the world of magic, Juniper performs it with gusto.

* ''Literature/TheElricSaga'': Elric often complains about his fate as the [[EternalChampions Eternal Champion]], but feels helpless to avoid it.

* (Bel)Garion, the main Chosen One of David Eddings' ''Literature/{{Belgariad}}'' is Resigned To The Call; he spends roughly 4 1/2 of the five books asking "Why ''me''?". C'Nedra also spends a fair bit of books 4 and 5 Resigned To The Call, giving recruiting speeches and leading the army because, according to the Prophecy, she ''must do so'' in order for Belgarion to have a chance to win, even though public speaking makes her physically ill.

* Morgon of ''Literature/TheRiddleMasterTrilogy'' is very much not happy about the ambiguous, threatening prophecies that have been ascribed to him and only grudgingly agrees, after almost being murdered a few times, to try and figure some of this stuff out.

* ''[[CiemWebcomicSeries Ciem]]'' offers us Candi Levens. She has resigned herself to the fact all along that she must take up superheroics. But the Call decides to punish her anyway.

* In ''TransformersWarForCybertron'', Optimus shows shades of this after [[spoiler: Zeta Prime is killed, forcing him to take up the mantle of the last Prime]].

* Jonah in ''Literature/TheBible'' is an example of Resigned To The Call coming after he RefusedTheCall and got a dose of YouCantFightFate. By the time the big fish spat him out, his attitude had changed from "I am ''NOT'' going to Ninevah!" to "I guess I'm going to Ninevah."

* (Bel)Garion, the main Chosen One of David Eddings' ''Literature/{{Belgariad}}'' is Resigned To The Call; he spends roughly 4 1/2 of the five books asking "Why ''me''?". C'Nedra also spends a fair bit of books 4 and 5 Resigned To The Call, giving recruiting speeches and leading the army because, according to the Prophecy, she must in order for Belgarion to have a chance to win.
* Morgon of ''Literature/TheRiddleMasterTrilogy'' is very much not happy about the ambiguous, threatening prophecies that have been ascribed to him and only grudgingly agrees after almost being murdered a few times to try and figure some of this stuff out.
* In ''Literature/KingdomKeepers'', the [[FiveManBand keepers]] aren't to enthusiastic about their new mission, especially [[TheLancer Maybeck]] and [[TheBigGuy Charlene]]. However, since they cross over every time they fall asleep, there's little they can do except go with it.

Then there's the hero who isn't happy about being called, but doesn't believe that he can avoid it, either. For whatever reason, his reaction isn't "Yay! Adventure!" or "Leave me alone. I'm not doing it." His reaction is "I can't talk you into picking someone else, can I? I'm gonna have to do this thing, aren't I? ''(sigh) Fine.'' Let's get it over with." He's Resigned To The Call.

* [[NorthKorea Kim Il Sung]] supposedly preferred being a military man over a political leader, at least according to the Soviet Diplomats who had to convince him to take up leadership because he was the closest thing to a Communist leader in Korea following the Japanese occupation.

--> '''King Stannis''':''Lord Seaworth is a man of humble birth, but he reminded me of my duty, when all I could think of was my rights. I had the cart before the horse, Davos said. I was trying to win the throne to save the kingdom, when I should have been trying to save the kingdom to win the throne.''

** The second season has Hayate, who upon learning that she is TheChosenOne, responded with what could be summed as "Sure, why not?" She was pretty content with her life, despite being a crippled girl who lives alone, and wished noting more from the Book of Darkness, only expressing happiness for it has provided her with people she can call family. After the Book of Darkness incident, she realized that she has been given an opportunity to help people in a greater way, by joining the military and keeping the universe safe from similar incidents that happened around her and as the current master of the book, feels she should share the responsibility with her guardians.

* Pretty much everyone in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' doesn't really care about the game. Of course given that they had no choice in the matter, it's pretty much a huge case of YouCantFightFate

* A lot of the characters in ''{{Bionicle}}'' who became Toa were at first, eh, reluctant. [[AllIsWellThatEndsWell But most of them eventually got into the right mood]].

->'''Rincewind:''' Oh, but they will, sir. And then I'll run away, and probably hide in a crate somewhere [[TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive that'll be loaded onto the flying machine in any case]]... Or there'll be a whole string of accidents that end up causing the same thing. Trust me, sir. [[GenreSavvy I know how my life works.]]

* (Bel)Garion, the main Chosen One of David Eddings' ''{{Belgariad}}'' is Resigned To The Call; he spends roughly 4 1/2 of the five books asking "Why ''me''?". C'Nedra also spends a fair bit of books 4 and 5 Resigned To The Call, giving recruiting speeches and leading the army because, according to the Prophecy, she must in order for Belgarion to have a chance to win.

* In ''KingdomKeepers'', the [[FiveManBand keepers]] aren't to enthusiastic about their new mission, especially [[TheLancer Maybeck]] and [[TheBigGuy Charlene]]. However, since they cross over every time they fall asleep, there's little they can do except go with it.
* Aislinn in the ''WickedLovely'' series. She realizes that she has no choice about being a faery, but she makes clear that she will only do it on her own terms.

* Ned Stark in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. He doesn't want to be the King's Hand, even for his best friend King Robert, but sees he has no choice in matter, partly because he [[HonourBeforeReason can't disobey a command from his King]] and partly because he realises his friend is trapped in a DeadlyDecadentCourt and needs his help.
** Similarly, Stannis Baratheon doesn't really want to [[spoiler:succeed Robert as king]]. However, it's his duty to do it and thus he will, [[spoiler:even if it means rebelling against Joffrey and fighting the Lannisters, Starks, ''and'' most of his own bannermen, having the smallest army at the start]]. [[spoiler:After losing most of his troops, he contemplates burning a nephew of his to gain magical aid. However his conversations with Davos show how conflicted he is, but that he considers it his duty to take the throne, for the realm, for his daughter, and even the brother he didn't like, knowing Robert's wife murdered him so her family could usurp the throne. Ultimately, Davos reminds him of his higher duty as a King, to protect the realm and have him come and rescue the Night's Watch:]]

** Similarly, Stannis Baratheon doesn't really want to [[spoiler:succeed Robert as king]]. However, it's his duty to do it and thus he will, [[spoiler:even if it means rebelling against Joffrey and fighting the Lannisters, Starks, ''and'' most of his own bannermen, having the smallest army at the start]]. [[spoiler:After losing most of his troops, he contemplates burning a nephew of his to gain magical aid. However his conversations with Davos show how conflicted he is, but that he considers it his duty to take the throne, for the realm, for his daughter, and even the brother he didn't like, knowing Robert's wife murdered him so her family could usurp the throne.]]

* Miho Nishizumi, from ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' goes through this several times. She transfers to a new school to avoid having to take Sensha-do, but gets drafted into the sport when the Student Council demands she participate, albeit ultimately deciding to go along with it when seeing her friends, who had originally wanted to do tankery, switch their electives to stay with her and defend her decision not to do tankery. When she and her friends form tank crew, she first refuses taking the commander position, but is talked into it by the rest of the team after the first practice. Later she gets "volunteered" to take command of the whole school's Tankery team by the Student Council president.

** Similarly, Stannis Baratheon doesn't really want to [[spoiler:succeed Robert as king]]. However, it's his duty to do it and thus he will, [[spoiler:even if it means rebelling against Joffrey and fighting the Lannisters, Starks, ''and'' most of his own bannermen]].

* ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' plays with this trope in different ways.

* ''ShadowHearts'': Yuri doesn't particularly ''want'' to go on an epic quest or anything, but [[SpiritAdvisor that damn voice in his head]] won't leave him alone, so he's just going along with it until the CharacterDevelopment kicks in.

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' [[{{Nightwing}} Dick Grayson]] (Robin) falls under this trope. He honestly doesn't think [[spoiler: he's cut out to be Batman,]] but he does it nonetheless.

* In ''TheAdventuresOfShanShan'', Shan Shan [[http://shanshan.upperrealms.com/view.php?pageid=040&chapterid=1 tries to put it off]].

* In ''TheLostFleet'', Captain John "Black Jack" Geary has been put in command of the crippled [[TheAlliance Alliance]] fleet against his will (being a HumanPopsicle for 100 years gives him seniority over any other captain). He vows to bring the fleet home, but then wants nothing more than to retire and live in peace. By the end of the main series, he realizes that the Alliance desperately needs him, and he can't quit.