The Drag-Along

Not always this literal.

"I'd love it if this place were boring. But they're always dragging me off to some cockamamie adventure! 'Hurry Iago, we have to find the razor-clawed ice giant!', or 'Come on Iago, the natives of Nincompoop need saving from a blood beast with a taste for parrots!' And then, when we do stay home, some mutant vegetable shows up, and they want me to be the bait!"

— Iago, Aladdin: The Series

Most of the hero team is eager and ready to go on another adventure, face peril, and explore new regions. But not this guy. This guy would rather stay home, where it's safe. Maybe he doesn't really think the trip is worth it, maybe he doesn't care, or maybe he just has an aversion to painful, dangerous situations. Yet the team wants him to come, so, kicking and screaming if necessary, he comes along anyway.

None too happy about constantly being dragged along on adventures, you can usually find this one complaining and making sarcastic remarks, but, when push comes to shove, you can bet that he'll show his heroic traits in the clutch.

Contrast the Sour Supporter, who is just as skeptical that things will work out and isn't afraid to voice this, but also joins the adventure willingly and helps contribute despite all the sardonic remarks; and The Load or The Millstone, who may or may not be supportive but whose actions and/or very existence work against the heroes' purposes.

A variation on The Complainer Is Always Wrong and I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham. Most Drag-Alongs are also Butt Monkeys or Chew Toys, which may justify their reluctance. In the event the group gets into trouble, he'll be the victim of the Guilt by Association Gag no matter how loudly or how many times he protests he Didn't Want an Adventure.

Compare Refusal of the Call, Cowardly Sidekick, Cowardly Lion, I Just Want to Be Normal, Dragged by the Collar.

Contrast The Team Wannabe but do not confuse with the Tagalong Kid. Also not to be confused with Dragged into Drag, though some unlucky Drag-Alongs may have this happen to them.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Appare-Ranman!, Kosame Isshiki didn't want to go on an adventure across the world, but now that he's with Appare, he has no choice but to help out if he wants to go home.
• In chapter 143 of Beelzebub, Oga reveals that part of the reason he drags Furuichi around everywhere with him is that he thought it would be funny.
• In Eyeshield 21, the three delinquents Juumonji, Toganu and Kuroki, are initially blackmailed into joining the American football team.
• Much of the fun in Flunk Punk Rumble comes from Shinagawa reluctantly complying with Hana's shenanigans. It changes when the focus of the story drifts from her to him.
• Through much of the first part of Fruits Basket, Kyo is quite unwilling to go along with most outings other family members come up with. He's usually either forced into coming, or is innocently coerced by Tohru (which is lampshaded at one point, when Tohru's friends note with interest that it's taking less and less time for Kyo to crumble when Tohru asks him to come along for something).
• Mako from Girls und Panzer would rather be sleeping or reading rather than driving a tank, but she needs the extra credits. And she's really afraid of what her grandmother's reaction will be if she doesn't pass.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders: Iggy doesn't want to be with the heroes, yet he's dragged off to risk his life fighting DIO and the Stand users working for him, and he frequently annoys his teammates with his hostility. The only reason he sticks around is because Avdol defeated him in a fight, and he's bribed with coffee-flavored gum into joining their group. Though underneath all the grumpiness, he does have a good heart.
• Kagerou Project:
  • The series' protagonist, Shintaro Kisaragi, just wanted to stay at home and live on his computer... Forever. One thing leads to another, and his Cyber-Troll-Girl-Thing ends up signing him up to a secret organisation while he's unconscious. Of course, he is a little bit miffed about all of this.
  • Hibiya also counts to a smaller degree; he just wanted to spend a summer in the city with Hiyori, but after the Kagerou Daze incident and Hiyori's subsequent death, he ends up being dragged into the Blindfold Gang by Momo's attempts to cheer him up and his power manifesting.
• Haruka Kotoura from Kotoura-san is a literal case since she's often Dragged by the Collar and thankfully always Played for Laughs. She's justifiably apprehensive about joining the ESP Society and Research Club, whose mission is to prove that Psychic Powers exist, because she knows that society is afraid of her inadvertent Telepathy; and she fears being even more of an outcast.
• In Naruto, Nara Shikamaru fits this trope like a glove early in the series, most prominently during the Chunin exams when chasing Sasuke. He'd much rather simply sit around and watch the clouds than fight or go on missions. Subsequent Character Development means that he takes a much more responsible role.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Chisame frequently acted like this for a while after she found out about the magic world. Then it got subverted, as she successfully escapes the weirdness only to realize that her life was now incredibly boring. So she heads right back into the weird stuff.
• In Neon Genesis Evangelion episodes 1-4 and in End of Evangelion, Misato drags Shinji to pilot the EVA01.
• One Piece: The rest of the Straw Hat Pirates in regards to Luffy. Most of them were pestered, cajoled, and sometimes flat out blackmailed into joining the crew. And then, his decisions as 'captain' end up sending the crew on outrageous misadventures. Usopp, Chopper, and Nami are the ones who complain the most.

Comic Books

• The Avengers:
  • Rita de Mara, the second (and sort-of villainous) Yellowjacket, got dragged into a team-up in an almost literal sense. The Avengers had disbanded at the time, but a bunch of them had gathered at their headquarters, and found Rita there evidently planning on doing a bit of "salvaging". Hercules then drags her along while the Avengers go deal with the latest plot of the week, partly on the grounds leaving her to her own devices in an unguarded base is not a great move.
  • Rocket Racoon in Avengers: No Road Home was brought along mainly because the Hulk thought it'd be a good idea to bring him. And since this was the Hulk of Immortal Hulk, arguing was not an option.
• Yeagar or Arthax in Nodwick are prone to this behaviour when it's Piffany's turn to pick jobs. Nodwick acts like this all the time, but he has no choice in the matter.
• This is Donald Duck's role in many adventures with Scrooge McDuck. Scrooge and the nephews might be excited at the prospect of a new adventure. Donald has to be coerced. Particularly evident in "The Twenty-four Carat Moon" (December, 1958) by Carl Barks. He doesn't want to go on a space-travel mission and proclaims "I want to keep my feet on good old Earth". Two panels later, he is in the space-traveling vehicle, chained to his seat with his feet in a box of dirt. This doesn't stop Donald from being both useful and sarcastic.
• The Drummer in Planetary is this occasionally, likely because his information-gathering powers aren't the most useful in a fight.
• Richard Dragon has no interest in heroics, he'll react if someone is being attacked right in front of him but he has no respect for laws, considers superheroes amusing and openly disdains police and would rather live a simple life. His friend Ben Turner (Bronze Tiger) has been dragging him along on heroic quests and adventures since their first appearance in Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter.
• Superboy is this in Super Sons, constantly complaining about the amount of trouble he's going to be in as Robin strings him along, particularly after the pair are confronted by Lex Luthor.
• Tintin:
  • In Tintin and the Picaros, Tintin agrees to go in the end, not to save the country but just to get his friends out of prison.
  • Captain Haddock owns this trope. All he wants to do is enjoy his retirement — but unfortunately he fell in with the wrong set of friends. He comes along despite his groans, and always ends up doing something badass.

Fan Works

• Group of Weirdos: Morpha and, to a much greater extent, Gyorg. The latter never actually has a change of heart and is literally being dragged along against his will on Link's adventure.
• My Little Caboose: Blue is Magic!: Church, and to a lesser extent Twilight, during Pinkie, Caboose, and Derpy's quest for ingredients to create "muffcakes". He makes himself very vocal about disliking this, and eventually leaves after he gets eaten by a Hydra and has to blow it up from the inside using his magic.
• Neomorphs: Cassie is initially this, wanting to have nothing to do with yet another war, but after a couple of instances, accepts that she doesn't have a choice as her abilities mean she can't just return to normalcy.

Films — Animated

• Takua in BIONICLE: The Mask of Light. He tries to get out of his duty as The Chosen One by making it appear that the mask chose Jaller instead, however, Jaller drags him along anyway.
• In Inside Out, Joy literally has to drag Sadness across the floor, because Sadness is too depressed to move.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Much like in the Super Mario Bros. games, the early scenes show that Luigi seems somewhat reluctant to go along with Mario's wilder plans like using Parkour to rush to a plumbing job and sneaking down into the Brooklyn sewers to fix a major city-threatening leak. The Bros.' father explicitly brings this up during supper, as he thinks it's one thing for Mario to stick with his unsuccessful plumbing business but another thing for him to bring down his brother as well.

Films — Live-Action

• Bad Black: VJ Emmie's commentary suggests that Buddy Spencer is this to Swaaz:
  "This is a bad idea! I wanna go back to school! I want to be a doctor! Or a lawyer, I don't care!"
• Destination Moon. When the radio operator gets appendicitis, Joe Sweeney finds himself volunteered as a replacement. He constantly voices his objections to this crazy trip to the Moon, which doesn't stop him offering to stay behind in a Cold Equation.
  Joe: Oh no, not me! Turn this thing around! I'm not going to the moon, that's just to look at!
• Die Hard with a Vengeance has Zeus, who got roped into John McClane's bomb-diffusing adventure after trying to protect McClane from a street gang without realizing what was happening. They become friends by the end.
• Willie Scott in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a drag along from the beginning, and not shy about blasting Indy for it. Many fans of the series rate her as the least interesting of the women, and also because she screeches a lot.
• In the Lethal Weapon movies, Murtaugh just wants to retire and collect his pension for his time with the police, but Riggs is willing to kill himself if it will help get the bad guys. You often find Murtaugh saying, "I'm too old for this shit," everytime Riggs eggs him into doing something crazy.
• The absolute last thing Matt Farrel wanted in Live Free or Die Hard was to go along for a life-risking country-saving joyride with John McClane, but his odds for survival were considerably worse if he didn't as the bad guys had him marked for death anyways and he was helpless without McClane's protection. Like Zeus above, he seriously mans up, becomes friends with McClane, and even gets the girl.
• A New Hope: This definitely describes how C-3PO acts, especially in the first half.
  C-3PO: We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life.

Literature

• In Animorphs, Marco started out as one of these, having no real reason to enter the battle against the invading Yeerks, and not really wanting to get involved. This changed BIG TIME when he discovered that Visser One was using the body of his supposedly deceased mother as a host. After this he quickly grew into the hero role, but he was still the sarcastic jokester of the group.
• Ciaphas Cain: Ciaphas definitely fits this trope. Warhammer 40,000's least likely Commissar would rather spend his days somewhere far away from the fighting that pervades the galaxy (good luck on that one...). Yet time and time again he's dragged reluctantly into action against every single foe that the galaxy at large can throw at him (and then a few from a different reality altogether).
• Rincewind from Discworld. In pretty much every book he's in, he's always forced into adventure without any say on his part. The exception is The Last Hero, where he doesn't want to go, but knows he'll end up going somehow, so "un-volunteers". After this book, he is rarely brought into other adventures.
• At one point or another, each member of the core cast of Everworld was the drag-along. Eventually, they just get plain sick and tired of running from Loki, Ka Anor, Merlin, the Hetwan, etc., etc. ad nauseum.
• Geronimo Stilton: Geronimo is continually dragged into adventures, usually literally, by the other characters, despite his assertions that he'd rather stay home and has a lot of work to do.
• Haruhi Suzumiya: Kyon, the viewpoint character, is always getting dragged around as an accessory to the schemes of his totally-not-girlfriend, and is rarely ever happy about it. He later acknowledges that he actually likes the craziness. Well, he does but that doesn't mean that he likes being forced to dig countless holes for a treasure map that, of course, doesn't exist.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: This happens from time to time. Depending on the task, Arthur Dent, Zaphod, or Ford will not want to do it. Guaranteed. Of course, Marvin never wants to do it.
• The Hobbit: Poor Bilbo Baggins was billed as a burglar by Gandalf, for no apparent reason at the time (later explained, however, in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings), and then was dragged out of his comfortable hole in the ground by a party of treasure-hunting dwarves. Inverted after a novel's worth of Character Development—when they finally reach the dragon's lair, the dwarves chicken out and Bilbo is the only one with the guts to go on.
• The eponymous Kedrigern in the series of books by John Morresey. He's a powerful wizard who hates to travel and just wants to live quietly in his home on the mountain, but he keeps getting pulled into adventures.
• Temp and Boots, mostly, in The Underland Chronicles. Averted in Gregor and The Curse of The Warmbloods. Temp kept on warning them, first suggested the idea that the cradle/cure might not be where they thought it was, and Boots did her dance.
  • Lampshaded by Ripred in the same book —
    Ripred: And if Temp is right, it would explain one thing .. The point of having a crawler on this whole hellish trip! Honestly, how has he added to anything of significance? No offense, Temp, you've been a real champ about babysitting, but what have you contributed? Nothing! Maybe this is it! Your big moment!
• Mat from The Wheel of Time, he has a very low opinion of heroics and the risks that are involved but unfortunately for him You Can't Fight Fate.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Cordelia in the earlier bits. Eventually, after moving to LA, she starts working for Angel and realizes that she likes fighting demons, and even more interestingly, that she's not that bad at it.
• While most Doctor Who companions are those who willingly went with the Doctor to go see the universe, there are a few who wish they didn't have to be in this bloody blue box.
  • First example: Ian and Barbara, the very first companions. They were just teachers concerned for their student's well-being; in exchange, an alien kidnaps them, and is such a bad driver that they get pulled along on many adventures before he drops them back home. (Two years later, we should add!)
  • During the Peter Davison (5th) Doctor era, this became Tegan Jovanka's defining character trait, likely due to flanderization, and too many characters on the TARDIS at the time.
  • Mickey Smith, at first. You can't really blame him. He's nearly killed, his girlfriend abandons him, her disappearance makes him a rape and murder suspect for a whole year. Eventually he goes along in hope that he can regain Rose's affection. Then it turns out that he's pretty good at killing Cybermen, and becomes a professional monster fighter.
  • Similarly, Rory Williams. The only reason he traveled with the Doctor at all was to avoid losing his fiance/wife. Eventually he takes about five hundred levels in bad-ass, but his fighting is always a last resort, and he'd much prefer to have a quiet life as a nurse. Eventually he gets it. The Doctor drops him and Amy on Earth with a shiny new car and house.
  • This also qualifies with Rory's father whose first adventure happened because he was with Amy and Rory when the TARDIS materialized around them. When the Doctor asks why he was there, Rory complains it was his fault.
  • Nardole became the Twelfth Doctor's companion only because River Song knew the latter would need a Morality Chain once she was gone for good and conferred that responsibility upon him. Once the Doctor takes the vow to guard the Vault in the Series 10 Story Arc, Nardole's not only hates being dragged along on adventures elsewhere on Earth, but does everything he can to dissuade the Doctor from traveling on his own and/or with Bill Potts due to the importance of keeping the vow. Still, he is a truly loyal "valet" despite it all. This is something of a plot point in "Oxygen" — both Nardole and Bill want to turn back upon getting a taste of the dangers the distressed space station holds, but the Doctor pressures them to follow and soon they can't turn back. When Bill's life looks to be lost and Nardole tries to comfort the Doctor over this, the Doctor furiously proclaims (in spirit though not letter) It's All My Fault because she wouldn't have ended up in danger if he hadn't dragged them along, and doubles down on his efforts to save her.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has Poppy, who would rather not take part to Nori's shenanigans. She acts as a reluctant voice of reason in her friendship with the impetuous Nori, and is constantly fretting about her lack of caution — especially when she's cajoled into Nori's plan to take care of and befriend The Stranger from the meteor.
• Our Miss Brooks: Miss Brooks often finds herself made an unwitting accomplice to Walter Denton's various schemes, i.e. "Cure That Habit", "The Cafeteria Strike", as exposing Walter would lead to his being suspended or expelled. Other occasions see her being ordered to go along with a scheme of Mr. Conklin's, as he's her principal and has the power to force her - or leastways make her life very miserable if she refuses, i.e. "The Big Jump". Occasionally she even gets cajoled by her landlady Mrs. Davis, or Mrs. Davis' sister Angela, into aiding into some other wacky scheme from which Miss Brooks would prefer to keep her distance, i.e. "Mr. Casey's Will".
• In one episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Cody is away at Math Camp with Zack missing him, so he and London (who doesn't know how to drive) decide to go to the camp and abduct Maddie so she wouldn't tell anyone. Maddie constantly complains about being taken along against her will and at the end of the episode, informs her friends that her lawyers will be in touch.

Puppet Shows

• Boober in Fraggle Rock is perpetually this or a Sour Supporter, or both. However, in an episode where he and Red get trapped under a rock slide and believe they are going to die, he confesses that he secretly has enjoyed all of the Fraggles' adventures, despite having been a reluctant coward about them all when they were happening.

Roleplay

• Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
  • Irene, the day after receiving superpowers, tries her hardest to go home but is persistently hounded by the other students demanding information from her. When she tries to ignore them, David uses his power to try and drill a hole through her head.
  • Jacob implores the other students not to get into crazy situations just because he knows that he'll inevitably get dragged into them. They do get into antics, and like he fears, he does get pulled along.

Theatre

• The Magic Flute: Papageno combines this trope with Cowardly Sidekick.

Video Games

• Arfenhouse 2 introduces Joseph, who wanted to be in a normal RPG, but the moronic heroes need him as a party member:
  Joseph: Oh, dear god, this isn't one of those Arfenhouse $h*ts, is it?
  HOUSEMASTR: YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES!!
  Joseph: Dammit! Ugh... Get me out!
  HOUSEMASTER: JOYN TEH PARTEE!
  Joseph: ...fine... -_- Might as well kill some time...
  BILLY: ITZ OK I GIV U A GOOD BATL PIC!
  Joseph: Yeah, whatever.
• In Breath of Death VII, Dem the skeleton knight is dragged into adventure by Sara and Lita and doesn't really care about their goals, and his opinions are often ignored. That's because he, due to being a skeleton, cannot speak, and Sara, capable of Telepathy, just ignores his opinions if they contradict hers.
• In Cuphead, the titular character's younger twin brother Mugman understood the dangers of taking the Devil's gamble, but Cuphead was blinded his own greed when the Devil offered all the loot in his casino, he took the gamble and lost. Now Mugman has to be a debt collector alongside Cuphead on the Devil's behalf, though Mugman was willing to gamble in the Devil's casino at first, only stopping upon realizing the dangers of taking the Devil's gamble, but it was too late by that time.
• Dragon Quest VII's resident Tsundere Maribel hits this after forcing her way into your party in the first place! (To be fair, she's mainly complaining because what she thought would be a fun, relatively safe romp through the ruins led to you all getting transported back in time and suddenly having to fight monsters, which haven't been seen in your homeland for generations... and she grows out of it quickly.)
• Final Fantasy IX: Captain Adelbert Steiner views his first and greatest duty to safely return Princess Garnet to Alexandria Castle, with seeing Zidane punished for his kidnapping of Garnet as a strong second place. Garnet and Zidane are desperate to get to Lindblum instead. Eventually, Steiner learns to see his duty as supporting the princess' goals rather than keeping her locked up and becomes fully heroic.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mils clearly doesn't want to go around raiding monster-infested ruins with his sister Mina, but she won't listen to his complaints.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Immediately after the sludge gets dispelled from Zora's Domain, Finley rushes off to investigate reports of a glowing rock in a southern Lanayru cave and takes Sasan along with her. Sasan isn't eager to do something so potentially dangerous, especially since he had been separated from Finley for some time due to the sludge keeping him out of Zora's Domain until recently. Not helping matters is that the cave has constantly shifting water levels that make it difficult to progress through; Finley, being a Zora, can just swim ahead easily, but a Hylian like Sasan has to ask Link's help in constructing a makeshift raft.
• Luigi in the Mario & Luigi games, part of the general move toward cowardliness he's been going on since Luigi's Mansion, as part of his Divergent Character Evolution. This also serves as a Hand Wave explanation for his absence in major installments like Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine.
• Reid Hershel, from Tales of Eternia, is this despite being the main protagonist of the game, being dragged along on a crazy journey to save two worlds from destruction by his childhood friend Farah, who Jumped at the Call. Throughout the journey, Reid constantly expresses his desire to just go home and let the world's military take care of things, but one thing leads to another and he ends up a fugitive of his world.

Webcomics

• Girl Genius: This happens to Moloch rather often as he would rather be as far from every Spark in Europa as possible, though he becomes increasingly good at dealing with it, though not without a lot of bitter resignation. Sometimes it even happens literally.
• Kakyoin from JoJo's Bizarre Summer Break originally declined Jotaro's invitation to go to Egypt for summer break, opting to stay at home and play video games. Unfortunately for him, Jotaro didn't give him a choice and practically kidnapped him. Unlike most examples, Kakyoin doesn't really complain about his situation and just goes along with it.
• Most of The Order of the Stick (except Elan and Durkon) are prone to this behaviour; Haley and Belkar are the most repeat offenders but V is the most vocal one about it.
• Sluggy Freelance
  • Zoe can be like this, especially in the early strips. Whenever Torg or Riff decide it would be fun to summon demons or open portals to other dimensions, she often tries to stay out of it, but can't stop the weirdness from affecting her life.
  • Bun-Bun is also sometimes like this, though he'll hop right on board the adventure train as soon as he sees some benefit in it for himself.
• Shibisu from Tower of God gets dragged along by Anaak and Hatz quite a bit, especially when they engage in their Indy Ploys. He is even physically dragged along at one point, which considering Hatz and Anaak once considered him to be The Load, shows they really do... kinda respect him... Kinda.
• Cadugan in Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic would like nothing more than to stay home and tend to nature. Unfortunately his skills and in one case his heritage means people (particularly Lucas) keep pestering him to come along with their adventures.

Web Original

• Craig from The Allen And Craig Show is almost always unwilling to go along with Allen's plans, despite almost never seeing as bad an end as Allen does.
• In the Revenge of the Sith Gag Dub Backstroke of the West, Chewbacca is actually named "Drag Along."
• Morpha in the fanfic Group of Weirdos doesn't particularly want to come along, as he is vastly weakened without water and hates being treated as an adorable ball by the others. At least he begrudgingly assists occasionally (see the Stallord fight), which is more than Gyorg does. That little fish never truly joins the heroes, having to be stuffed in a bottle and later literally dragged to come with them, even attacking them during the final fight!
• Not only does Perf of JourneyQuest not really want to be on the quest, but given a decent chance he will try (albeit not very hard) to escape his party.
• Phase of the Whateley Universe. He complains so often that his teammates suggest he change his name to "Kvetch".

Western Animation

• Iago, in Aladdin: The Series, is the quintessential embodiment of this trope. He's more concerned with living in the lap of luxury and staying out of danger, and, as a Card Carrying Coward, is none too happy with being dragged along on some grand adventure every other day (which is understandable, since he's a bit of a pain magnet). True to form, he never stops complaining about it, also making him, as a parrot, a Snarky Non-Human Sidekick. Nearly half his quotes in the show could be page quotes for this, and he always had a bit of Genre Savvy about it. Case in point:
  Iago: Stop right there! You've got that let's put the bird in jeopardy look in your eye!
• In Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Wheeler was the one to fall into this role. In fact, a mini-series involved him actually walking away from the Planeteers, and then going into the future and finding out how horrible things were without five Planeteers.
• Frizz and Nug of The Dreamstone are a rare villain example, being Genre Savvy enough to know being enlisted into one of Zordrak's schemes to steal the Dreamstone, along with Urpgor's deranged inventions and Sgt Blob's incompetent leadership will only lead to painful and miserable failure.
• Eric in Dungeons & Dragons (1983) also fell into this role, sort of. Only he had even less choice because he'd been thrust into this psychotic fantasy world and going along was the only way to get out.
• PJ from Goof Troop. Max constantly talks him into doing things he would prefer not to, usually because it's either profoundly unsafe (which doesn't bother Max at all) or likely to get him in huge trouble with his dad (or both, such as sneaking onto his dad's in-progress ridiculously tall skate ramp). In the former case, PJ will often make agitated, snarky comments about their mortality. Although the reasons vary from episode to episode, he is consistently shown to be in the right frame of mind for refusing. This was lampshaded in one episode with a Gilligan Cut:
  PJ: No, forget it, Max. No way. You cannot talk me into this one. (scene cuts) Every time. How does he do it? Every. Single. Time.
• In several episodes of Kaeloo, Mr. Cat refuses to join the rest of the cast in whatever they're doing, so they normally have to drag him along with them (sometimes literally).
• In The Magic School Bus, Arnold never wants to go, and always ends up wishing that he'd stayed home that day. It's even shown in the opening: "Please let this be a normal field trip!"
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, although Fluttershy probably doesn't want to go along for any of her friend's adventures, she really makes it clear she doesn't want to be there in "Dragonshy" as she is terrified of dragons. Unfortunately (for her), her innate ability to communicate with animals makes her a mandatory and necessary teammate.
• Ready Jet Go! gives us Sean, who never wants to go to space^note  Except in "Not a Sound" and "A Hammer and a Feather" , but always gets forced to go.
• Chuckie "I knew this wasn't a good idea" Finster only willingly goes along with the other babies on Rugrats a handful of times.
• Scooby-Doo: Shaggy and Scooby, who self-identify themselves as being chicken, and, as a result, always end up in the middle of a ghost story gone wrong (often being the main ones to find the Guy In A Mask Monster of the Week while exploring), and have to be coerced with promises of Scooby Snacks. This gets played with in later installments of the franchise where Shaggy and Scooby know they're going to be dragged into doing it anyway, so they exaggerate their cowardice because it means they get free food.
• South Park:
  • Craig in "Pandemic" and "Pandemic 2: The Startling". Somewhat of a parody since it was his own adventure he didn't want to go on, and he fulfilled an ancient prophecy while actively trying to have nothing to do with it.
  • Cartman as well, at least on any adventure that doesn't benefit him personally. The episode "Fun With Veal" is a prime example, while his eagerness to join in during the Walmart episode is an immediate tip-off to Kyle that he's actively working against the rest of them in their mission to thwart the store.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Squidward Tentacles. He makes it quite clear that he couldn’t care less about SpongeBob and Patrick, and that he just wants to be left alone at his house. However, there always seem to be certain circumstances that make him go on their adventures anyway.
• Snowbell the family cat in the Stuart Little animated series, where he was constantly dragged by the Littles whenever they go on vacation or visit somewhere outside of New York, even though he clearly prefers to stay in the house.
• Wander over Yonder: Sylvia can be like this at times, only going along with Wander's schemes to help people out to keep him safe.
  Wander: C'mon, Syl! It never hurts to help.
  Sylvia: Do you know how many times you say that immediately before we actually get hurt?!
• Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum: Brad always protests against going on time travel missions, but is always made to come along anyways. To be fair, it is for his own good.

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