History Main / WaitHere

* In ''Disney/{{Moana}}'', Maui wants Moana to stay behind when he goes for the Realm of Monsters to snatch his hook from Tamatoa. Of course, she refuses which he gruntingly accept. When they are done with Tamatoa, Maui admits that Moana was a life saver.

-->-- [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080701010839/http://www.geocities.com/evilsnack/innocent.htm The Normal Innocent Bystander's Survival Guide]]

[[caption-width-right:350:"[[DamselInDistress And try not to get kidnapped for two friggin' seconds.]]"]]

* In Creator/RobertEHoward's ''Literature/TheDevilInIron,'' ConanTheBarbarian orders Octavia to do this. It doesn't work.

* Disney's ''Disney/{{Aladdin}}''. While the title character and his monkey Abu are exploring the caves full of treasure, Aladdin tells Abu to "wait here" while he goes to get the lamp. As you'd expect, Abu sees a huge gem and goes to grab it, ignoring the warning they received to "[[ForbiddenFruit touch nothing but the lamp]]" and setting off a lava flow apocalypse.
* ''Disney/{{Bambi}}'' has the titular character's mother telling him to wait while she checks the meadow to make sure its safe.

* At every crime scene early in the series, Detective Beckett orders Series/{{Castle}} to wait in the car... and he ''never fails'' to get mixed up in the final confrontation of the perp. Subverted in "Home is Where the Heart Stops," when he actually ''does'' wait in the car... and the perp lands on his windshield and drags him out anyway.

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* ''Series/TheTwilightZone'' TOS episode "Still Valley". A Confederate scout gives orders to his partner.

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* Disney's ''Disney/{{Aladdin}}''. While the title character and his monkey Abu are exploring the caves full of treasure, Aladdin tells Abu to "wait here" while he goes to get the lamp. As you'd expect, Abu sees a huge gem and goes to grab it, ignoring the warning they received to "[[ForbiddenFruit touch nothing but the lamp]]" and setting off a lava flow apocalypse.

* ''Disney/{{Bambi}}'' has the titular character's mother telling him to wait while she checks the meadow to make sure its safe.

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* In ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'', at Weathertop Aragorn says he's going to have a look around and for the hobbits to “stay here.” They do. Unfortunately, three of the four decide to pass the time while he's gone by ''[[TooDumbToLive lighting a highly visible fire]]'', thus attracting the attention of the Ringwraiths anyway.
* In ''Film/OceansEleven'', when part of the crew goes to [[spoiler: steal the “pinch”]], George Clooney expressly tells Matt Damon to wait in the van. He can't take the bickering of the two brothers and leaves, which leads to... complications.

* In ''Film/TheSmurfs'', the rest of the Smurfs tell this to Clumsy twice while in modern-day New York City. The second time, he actually does stay behind, [[spoiler:which allows him to initiate the NoOneGetsLeftBehind, as Papa had made them all promise not to go back for him — but Clumsy, who wasn't there at the time, never promised anything.]]

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* This ends up actually working in ''Literature/TheGirlIn6E''. The title character asks the DamselInDistress to wait for her — at a shack in the middle of nowhere and the dead of night — while she goes to confront the antagonist, and to call 911 if she doesn't return in 15 minutes. You'd expect that she'll either get in over her head and be incapacitated, leaving her Damsel at the mercy of the antagonist, or that something or other will happen to the Damsel before she gets back. But while things don't go quite as smoothly as she'd hoped, she returns unharmed in all of 10 minutes, the Damsel is still where she left her, and everything proceeds swimmingly from there.

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-->'''Paradine:''' Now you stay here. If you hear a shot, you get back to the lieutenant at a fast gallop… If you haven't heard from me in 15 minutes, you get back there anyway.
* Dawn in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' often fell into this. (“Dawn's in trouble; [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall must be Tuesday]]...”) Although to be fair, Xander had this happen to him occasionally (at least twice a season.)
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' As shown on the quotes page, the Doctor has been facing this problem for forty years. RuleNumberOne is "Don't wander off" yet the companions always do.

* In ''Series/KamenRiderDouble'''s prequel movie, Shotaro's boss Sokichi tells him “don't move a damn step from here” during a dangerous mission. Being an impulsive kid, Shotaro moves, and unintentionally causes Sokichi's death, which becomes [[MyGreatestFailure his greatest failure]].

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* Jade in ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' lives and breathes this trope. Jackie will say “Stay here,” “Don't play with the CosmicKeystone,” “Don't try and fight the ancient evil dragon spirit.” And what does she do? The above. It's gotten to the point Jackie should carry chloroform and rope wherever he goes just to subdue her. Or accept she's his {{Sidekick}}, train her, and let her be annoying/helpful like a more competent [[TheScrappy Scrappy]].

* Yoda to Padmé in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars''. To her credit, Padmé does get out of the situation herself by taking out a couple of invisible mooks.

* Disney's ''Disney/{{Aladdin}}''. While the title character and his monkey Abu are exploring the caves full of treasure, Aladdin tells Abu to “wait here” while he goes to get the lamp. As you'd expect, Abu sees a huge gem and goes to grab it, ignoring the warning they received to "[[ForbiddenFruit touch nothing but the lamp]]" and setting off a lava flow apocalypse.

** When John goes to confront the half-demon Balthazar he tells his potential LoveInterest Angela Dodson to stay in the car. After a while she decides to go after him, ends up losing the amulet he gave her to protect her and is captured by their enemies.

* In ''OceansEleven'', when part of the crew goes to [[spoiler: steal the “pinch”]], George Clooney expressly tells Matt Damon to wait in the van. He can't take the bickering of the two brothers and leaves, which leads to... complications.

* ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun''. After killing Scaramanga, JamesBond tells Mary Goodknight to "Wait here" while he takes care of the maintenance man. Goodknight enthusiastically tells him that she's already taken care of the maintenance man (she hit him over the head with a wrench).

* AceVentura tells a character that if he doesn't come back in 5 minutes, just wait longer.

* Harry of ''TheDresdenFiles'' on several occasions tells his apprentice to stay somewhere relatively safe before heading off for his latest confrontation. Unusually, this actually works, although the fact that his apprentice can turn herself invisible helps.

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* This can be TruthInTelevision for some people. How many times have you been told to wait somewhere and somehow decided to wander off anyway? True, the fate of the world is usually not at stake, but there are people out there who simply don't listen.
** Children and those with [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny short attention spans]] are specially vulnerable.

* ''BuckarooBanzai''. When the Red Lectroids break into Buckaroo's mansion, he tells Penny Priddy to stay in his room. Of course she wanders off looking for him, which is both good and bad. Professor Hikita manages to pass the Oscillation Overthruster to her so the Red Lectroids can't get it from him, but then she's captured by them and used as a HostageForMacGuffin.

[[caption-width-right:350:"[[DamselInDistress And try not to get caught for two friggin' seconds.]]"]]

* In ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'', at Weathertop Aragorn says he's going to have a look around and for the hobbits to “stay here.” Naturally it doesn't work out exactly as planned.
** "Exactly as planned" meaning that the hobbits attract the Ringwraiths anyway by ''[[TooDumbToLive lighting a highly visible fire]]''.

* In the ''Literature/{{Hurog}}'' duology, Ward tells other people to stay behind a couple of times. They're clever enough to actually do it. Lampshaded when he tells a woman to "wait there", and she ... actually does, because it's the most sensible thing to do.
* In Creator/RobertEHoward's ''Literature/TheDevilInIron'' ConanTheBarbarian orders Octavia to do this. It doesn't work.

* Harry of ''TheDresdenFiles'' on several occasions tells his apprentice to stay somewhere relatively safe before heading off for his latest confrontation. Unusually, this actually works (the fact his apprentice can turn herself invisible helps).

* As shown above in the page image, during The Subspace Emissary in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'', [[Franchise/MetalGear Snake]] has been very clear to [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]] and [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Peach]].
** Although they don't listen to him, they actually don't get into any trouble and make themselves quite useful. Peach manages to recruit Fox, and they both help out in the fight against Duon, after which Peach adds yet ''another'' useful member into the team; Mr. Game & Watch.

--> '''Mal''': “If I'm not back in one hour, you take this ship, and you come and you rescue me.”
--> '''Zoe''': “What? And risk my ship?”
--> '''Mal''': “I mean it. It's cold out there. I don't wanna get left.”

-->'''Paradine''': “Now you stay here. If you hear a shot, you get back to the lieutenant at a fast gallop…If you haven't heard from me in 15 minutes, you get back there anyway.”

---> '''The Doctor''': You know one day, one day, just maybe, I'll meet someone who get's the whole "Don't wander off" thing. 900 years of Phone box travel it's the only thing left that surprises me.

---> '''Chuck''': You know what, it's '''never''' safe in the car!

--> '''Beckett''': "Wait here."
--> '''Castle''': "[[SarcasmMode Yes, we've seen how well that works out.]]"

* {{Subverted|Trope}} on ''Series/{{NCIS}}'': Palmer is ordered to stay in the car and he does...but he ''[[CarFu drives the car into the perp!]]'':

--->'''Felix''': Detective Art Bell? ... You don't know me, but I need to talk to you about Beth Childs. \\
'''Art''': Beth Childs? What about her?\\
'''Felix''': I was told to call, um... ''(Sarah knocks on the window)'' Shit! Christ! [[BlatantLies Wrong number.]]

-->'''Russian''': I'll go see if I can find the others. Wait here.
-->'''Daniel''': ''[heavily sarcastic]'' Yes. You go into the dark tunnel, alone, and I'll wait here in the dark room, alone.

-->'''April''': “I found the hideout. I'm going to check it out.”
-->'''Leo''': “No, don't. Wait!”
-->'''April''': “Okay. I won't wait.”

* In the original Gold Key ''MagnusRobotFighter'', Leeja Clane would, on the fairly uncommon times Magnus told her to stay out of harms way, do exactly that. Until something happened that Magnus needed to be urgently told about. Then Leeja would try to find him and only then be caught by the villain. Unlike ''Star Trek'', nobody in North Am thought of personal, portable communications.

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi'' has an interesting variation in the Watanagashi arc. Keiichi and Rena have gotten Mion [[spoiler:actually Shion]] to confess to the murders and convinced her to turn herself in. She agrees, on the condition that she be given a half hour alone with Keiichi. Keiichi agrees, but (understanding that his friend is a homicidal maniac) tells Rena that if he's not back within the time limit, to call the police. Rena does just this. As a result, Keiichi narrowly avoids having several nails hammered into his hand.

Occasonially, it's the hero who ends up getting in over his head. In this case, the buddy/girl will get to be the {{big damn hero|es}} for once and bail him out of a thrashing by the villain's [[{{Mooks}} goons]]. Cue AnAesop about ThePowerOfFriendship when the hero [[HeroHarassesHelpers complains about them ignoring orders]].

Not to be confused with FineYouCanJustWaitHereAlone.

Occasonially, it's the hero who ends up getting in over his head. In this case, the buddy/girl will get to be the {{big damn hero|es}} for once and bail him out of a thrashing by the villain's [[{{Mooks}} goons]]. Cue AnAesop about ThePowerOfFriendship when the hero complains about them ignoring orders.

* Yoda to Padme in ''CloneWars''. To her credit, Padme does get out of the situation herself by taking out a couple of invisible mooks.

This almost never helps.

If they actually listen to the hero, they'll get [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty captured]] or TrappedByMountainLions the moment he's out of earshot. Half the time, though, they'll ignore the hero's advice and go off to do something incredibly stupid (and inevitably [[DistressBall end up in hot water]]). You'd think they could take five minutes to call the relevant authorities, or failing that get one of the hero's peers to come help before doing something incredibly stupid, [[TooDumbToLive but noooo]].

Of course, the common subversion of this trope is that it's the hero who ends up getting in over his head. In this case, the buddy/girl will get to be the {{big damn hero|es}} for once and bail him out of a thrashing by the villain's [[{{Mooks}} goons]]. Cue AnAesop about ThePowerOfFriendship when the hero complains about them ignoring orders.

* Mickey and Rose do this in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode ''The Girl in the Fireplace'', wandering off to explore after he just told them not to run off.
** As shown on the quotes page, the Doctor has been facing this problem for forty years.
*** [[TimeyWimeyBall His time, their time, or our time?]]
** Of course, the unstated but very obvious ''reason'' the Doctor keeps facing this problem is because people who would wait behind when told to are not people he would consider interesting enough as travel companions. The Doctor himself never quite seems to pick up on this.

* The Temperance Brennan novels, on which ''Series/{{Bones}}'' was based has this as a very dark RunningGag. Some cop tells Tempe to stay out of trouble, occasionally reminding her she's not a cop, and then circumstances and/or her own curiosity send her into trouble anyway.

* On ''Series/OrphanBlack'', Sarah has teamed up with [[spoiler: Helena]] in order to find one of the originators of the cloning experiment. She goes to search through the archives of a church and tells [[spoiler: Helena]] to stay in the car. Unfortunately, she goes to a bar and ends up being arrested and eventually captured by the [[ReligionOfEvil Prolethians]].

* LoisLane is, of course, the queen of this trope in every incarnation she's appeared in. JimmyOlsen ties a close second.