Fine, You Can Just Wait Here Alone
The latest mission or pursuit of the Monster of the Week is about to commence. However, The So-Called Coward or Commander Contrarian absolutely refuses to go along this time. His teammates, rather than pressing him to Never Split the Party (as he probably expected), say, "Fine, you can just wait here alone." Five seconds later, the thought of waiting alone for whatever danger or villain is lurking out there becomes scarier than the thought of facing it with the team, so he runs after them.
Compare/contrast Let's Split Up, Gang! Not to be confused with Wait Here.
Film
- In Conan The Destroyer, Malak refuses to go to the castle in the swamp with the others - then says to nobody in particular, "They need me!" and jumps in the boat to keep from being left alone.
- Happens in the first live action Scooby Doo film. Daphne needed Shaggy & Scooby to go into a castle with her when they refuse. So she says, "you're not going to stand out here alone are you?" which gets them very eager to accompany her.
- Chihiro in Spirited Away originally refuses to accompany her parents into the haunted amusement park, but follows when they decide to leave her behind. It turns out she was right about the place.
- In the Axis Powers Hetalia movie Paint it, White!, Germany says this almost word for word to Italy, as the nations go to sneak onto the Pictonian mothership
Italy: *waving white flag* I'll wait for you guys here.
Germany: Italy! You are coming inside with us!
Italy: What? But I would rather not. Willingly walking into an enemy's spaceship seems kind of reckless to me. Plus, I don't want to get my costume all dirty!
Germany: Fine. Then stay here alone.
Italy: Ah! Being alone is worse than anything!
Live Action TV
- All in The Family: A little girl the Bunkers were taking care of didn't want to go with with the Bunkers on a trip.
Archie: Well, all right, you can stay here then. (starts to go then stops) But I gotta warn yas about the thing in the attic. You got to place a bit of beef in front of the door and you can't go in there at night... NEVER at night. Well, later...
(Bunkers go outside)
Edith: Archie are you sure...
Archie: Three... two... one.
Girl: (comes outside quickly) Wait!
Western Animation
- Too many times on Scooby Doo to count.
- The Little Mermaid, when Ariel is dragging Flounder along to investigate a sunken ship:
Ariel: All right, I'm going inside. You can just stay here and... watch for sharks.
Flounder: Okay, yeah, you go. I'll stay here... what? SHARKS?! Ariel!
- From the blackout episode of Rugrats:
Chuckie: (from under his blanket) No way, I'm not goin'! Not this time! This isn't just regular-plain-old scary, Tommy. This is THE DARK! There's no light at all, not even a night light! Forget it, Tommy. I'm. Stayin'. Right. Here.
Tommy: Okay, Chuckie, whatever you say.
(The other three go off, leaving Chuckie sitting silently under the blanket for a minute.)
Chuckie: (panicking and running after them, still under the blanket) Hey, wait, you're not gonna leave me?! WAIT! I'm coming, too!!
- My Life as a Teenage Robot: Tuck and Brad come across an abandoned UFO, and, of course, Brad decides to try to get in, despite Jenny telling him not to. Tuck is against it, fearing what kind of freaky alien things could be inside, and Brad responds that he can stay outside with the lions and tigers and bears.