Disney's Finding Nemo portrays an example of a classic hero when an overly cautious father battles the ocean's obstacles to bring his son back home. When a shark attacks Marlin's home and kills his wife and his hundreds of children, all he had left was Nemo. Naturally, Marlin keeps a close watch over him, but the young fish yearns to see the world outside of the closed quarters his father keeps him in. Unfortunately, Nemo gets more than he expects and finds himself in a much different world outside of the ocean. As the movie's hero, Marlin puts all of his uncertainties aside and journeys across the Pacific to rescue his son from the fish tank of a scuba-diving dentist. .
Marlin recognizes his call to adventure the moment he sees his son get taken away from him. The question of refusing his call is never an issue because he knew he would not allow himself to lose his only son. Luckily for Marlin, when his separation begins he meets Dory who turns out to be an extremely unlikely protective figure. Dory suffers from short-term memory loss, so she may not remember her own name, but she can read the mask of the scuba diver who took Nemo and somehow remembers his address. Although Dory's sometimes-dangerous affability often frustrates Marlin, it is just that about her that gets them directions to the address where Nemo can be found. Without Dory's senseless courage, Marlin would never make it through his journey because his fear and apprehension would easily over take him. Ironically, it is Dory (who cannot even remember Nemo's name) that unknowingly finds Nemo and leads him back to his father.
Marlin's initiation into his journey begins when he decides to follow Dory who claims to have seen the boat that Nemo could be on. This is when he crosses the threshold into the unknown parts of the ocean. He does not know yet about her memory problem and she leads them to the home of three sharks.