Skippable Boss

""If you must know, I just walked right past him.""

- Paige Fox

""OH MY!""

- Kamek, once you skip a boss.

Occasionally, games will decide to give you a break and actually feature methods of skipping boss battles, most often by talking them out of fighting the player or by using some convenient environmental feature to instantly destroy them.

Of course, skipping the boss may not be the best course of action if you earn a nifty reward by defeating it through normal means, or if there's one for Hundred Percent Completion. But, hey, that's the penalty you get for taking the easy way out.

The Skippable Boss is occasionally the alternative to the Hopeless Boss Fight or the Bonus Boss. It most frequently occurs in (but is not limited to) RPGs. See also Puzzle Boss.

Note that a Speed Run, particularly tool-assisted one, can make bosses skippable unintentionally.

You get the same ending whichever way you use. "Nizbel: You wanna see Azala? She's right through here.
 * Most of Deus Ex's bosses aren't required to be killed and can simply be evaded and ignored, making the game well-suited to a Pacifist Run, which is a favourite Deus Ex playthrough. Two of the bosses are mech-Super Soldier ex-allies that have an associated "killphrase", a phrase than when uttered causes their enhancements to explode and kill them. The killphrase can be obtained by the player before the fight. One of them is one of the few enemies whom the player must kill to finish the game, either by the killphrase method or the hard way, the other can be evaded. Of course, that didn't stop the hardcore pacifist runners from finding a way around that boss anyway.
 * Both mechs can be evaded; one is just much more difficult than the other. The only character who needs to be killed (Howard something?) has the health of a standard NPC. He can be killed by falling on him (something that is quite easy due to his location).
 * Some website does in fact do a 1-kill walkthrough, including avoiding implied fatalities, such as tranquilizing personnel of a ship that sinks. Geez!
 * 2027, a mod for Deus Ex, has  as this, which can be done by evading him, killing him when he is technically not a boss at the time, or making the right choices throughout the game.
 * The final boss in Fallout can either be killed normally in a fight, talked into committing suicide if you show him proof that his plan is doomed to failure, or be blown up by a bomb hidden in his lair that can be activated by the player.
 * Similarly, Legate Lanius, the final boss for most of the endings of Fallout New Vegas can be convinced to issue a retreat by convincing him several different ways that even if he were to win the Legion would not be able to sustain itself for long (either via lack of manpower to hold all of their territories or having no supply routes, eventually starving) after that and would eventually lose via attrition. Also, if you're fighting for the Legion, Mr. House or Independence, you can also convince General Oliver and his Elite Mooks to stand down either by convincing him he's lost or in the latter two threatening him with your robot army/other allies.
 * Metal Gear Solid 3 features a boss that can be sniped when first seen, thus avoiding a later fight with him. Alternatively, one can use one of Metal Gear's trademark meta-fictional tricks: the boss dies of old age if you set the system clock ahead by a few days at a certain point in the game. Or you could just wait out those real-time days...
 * The original Metal Gear for the MSX features a boss battle with a tank. While you'll probably take a bit of damage, its possible to just walk around the tank and go to the next area without destroying it.
 * Additionally, there was a glitch in the NES version that allowed you to skip having to blow up the computer by simply turning immediately right when you entered the room (you would glitch into the final boss room). Handy if you never bothered rescuing the scientist (you can only blow up the computer with plastic explosives IF the scientist told you).
 * In Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, the Naval Piranha Plant, which grows into the World 3 boss, can be killed with an egg before one gets so close as to trigger the fight-starting cutscene. Oddly, while this is not the only boss you can see (and throw things at!) before starting the battle, it is the only one you can affect this way: probably because the stage itself makes it a point to teach you about deflecting eggs and making them skip on the water surface, more or less making the way you can bypass the boss fight a Final Exam Boss in the subject itself.
 * This can also be done with fireballs to one of the Koopa kids in Super Mario World.
 * An earlier example would be the Fake Bowsers in castles 8-4 and D-4 in the game Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.
 * In Super Mario 3D Land, in one of the Special World airships, a boss battle with Boom Boom can (and must, if you want to get all the star coins) be skipped by taking another route.
 * The final confrontation with the ultimate boss of Planescape Torment can be resolved without violence... in about four different ways.
 * ...And each of those ways have a couple of different ways of going about it. Indeed, not fighting the boss gives you a somewhat better ending than if you killed it.
 * The final boss in Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura can, in the same manner as the Fallout boss, be persuaded that his plan is unsound and will then allow the player to kill him without resistance.
 * It is possible to skip some bosses in Mega Man X5. Either launch the Enigma laser or shuttle early, or let Eurasia fall to Earth.
 * Not just some; you can fire the Enigma and launch the shuttle immediately after finishing the intro stage. They're not likely to succeed at destroying the colony at this point, but whether they do or not, you can still access the final stages without setting foot in a single Maverick level.
 * Semi-example: At one point in Resident Evil 4, the player encounters two El Gigantes. Killing them both the normal way is quite difficult, but players can kill one of the monsters right off the bat by simply pulling a lever when the enemy is positioned above a lava pit, which causes him to fall to his fiery death. But because there's actually two El Gigantes in this boss fight, this only makes the fight (significantly) easier instead of allowing you to skip it altogether. This particular instance is somewhat of a joint skippable-puzzle boss. That, and if you get too close while the unfortunate brute burns, he'll drag you in with him.
 * The game's expensive and bulky rocket propelled grenade gives a one-hit kill against many bosses, giving players a way out if they're not up to defeating them properly. Assuming, of course, they can get that one hit in.
 * A more straight example is Ramon Salazar's right hand creature, which stalks you in a corridor while you wait for the elevator. If it arrives before you kill him (which is possible, but very difficult), you can just get on and forget about him.
 * And, unlike most of these, if you go back, he's still there waiting for you, only now you're cornered, and are very unlikely to stop being so before you die.
 * Another semi-example: at one point, the player has to choose between two paths, one of which features the second El Gigante encounter and need never be entered. The other path has a small army of Ganados including chainsaw wielding mini-bosses (good thing the player can position himself at the higher ground), however, so you're not getting a free pass. In the right path, though, you can run from the Gigante, using the boulders to slow it down.
 * In the SNES RPG Secret of Evermore it is possible to skip one boss, the Verminator, and continue on with the game... but if you do, you'll eventually be trapped in a room filled with boxes from which there is no escape. Have fun starting the game over!
 * In the first Fighting Fantasy book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, when you finally meet the titular warlock, you can
 * 1) fight him straight off (which is not easy),
 * 2) cleverly reduce him to roughly half power (which is a relatively easy fight), or
 * 3) depending on choices made earlier on in the adventure, kill him instantly without risk.
 * This more or less became a series staple. Fighting Fantasy as a whole generally offered ways to avoid fighting enemies and risking death if the player knew what he was doing. Given that the final boss was often ridiculously hard, this was usually the only way to win these things.
 * Jade Empire had a whole host of battles that you could avoid by choosing a good or evil course of action.
 * Same goes for Fable and most other games with a Karma Meter
 * In Mass Effect you can convince the Final Boss to commit suicide. But regardless of which way you kill him,  you still have to fight the One Winged Angel form.
 * You can also persuade certain enemies not to fight you, but even enemies with unique names well tend to be little more than powered-up Mooks. Still, storywise, they're bosses.
 * Kirby Super Star has a Mini Boss in its Dyna-Blade sub-game that the player skips 99% of the time, as you've likely picked up an Invincibility Power Up that is still in effect (reversing Collision Damage onto the boss)
 * Also, in Spring Breeze, you have the ability to get the almighty Crash ability right before a Boss Fight. Fire off Crash when the Bosses appear, and you'll kill them both instantly.
 * The same Spring Breeze level also has an example of instantly defeating a miniboss with invincibility.
 * In The Great Cave Offensive, you can instantly kill a miniboss by destroying the bridge it's supposed to land on before it appears. You have to be quick, if you try destroying it after it appears, it will just jump safely onto solid ground.
 * In Cave Story, a late part of the game has two dragons (the Sisters) that you fight if you open a very obvious chest in the middle of the room. Less obviously, you can avoid the chest and continue on. Earlier in the game, Recurring Boss Balrog explicitly asks you if you want to fight. If you respond with "no," he says "Oh, okay" and goes about his way.
 * Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis had an EXTREMELY difficult fist-fight against a Nazi that could be avoided by crushing him with a boulder (and a lesser opponent which could be defeated by toppling a stone slab onto him), but in order to get maximum "Indy points" you had to go through the game multiple times, actually fighting the boss at least once. And hey, Nazis in video games!
 * Also, the majority of fights could be skipped outright by using the "Sucker Punch" option, which downed the enemy immediately. You got no Indy Points though, and the above-named Giant Mook just shrugs it off and laughs.
 * Chrono Trigger features two skippable bosses. In one, you fight Magus in North Cape after the fall of Zeal... and you can skip this by convincing him to join forces instead. The second is Lavos. When you arrive in 1999 AD via Epoch, you can crash it into Lavos and skip his first form. However, doing so eliminates your ability to return to the End of Time for saving and healing; on the plus side, whether or not you crash the Epoch changes the ending. And a subverted skippable boss earlier as well:

(You walk past Nizbel, mentally thanking him for the directions.)

Nizbel: Hey! I meant you gotta go through me! Whaddaya think I was standing here looking all vicious for?"


 * Although not technically a boss, there's a seemingly unskippable fight towards the end of Custom Robo for Gamecube that can actually be skipped if you're incredibly insistent with an apparent But Thou Must question.
 * The final confrontation with the Turks in Final Fantasy VII, if you ran the Wutai subquest, can be skipped simply by refusing to fight. However, if you have a Steal materia handy, there's enough loot between the three of them to make it worth the effort anyway.
 * The second time Tiger Joe shows up in God Hand, you can run right past him and exit the stage without so much as one punch.
 * In the second Neverwinter Nights expansion, Hordes of the Underdark, if you're incredibly rich you can make a donation to learn the final boss's true name. With this in hand, you can order him to give up - or even become your subordinate as you take over his plans.
 * And in the Githyanki Base in Neverwinter Nights 2, it's possible to bluff Zaxis into believing that he failed his mission, instantly "killing" him. Until later in the game, when you won't get to fight him anyway.
 * The three Machina Arma wielders from Baten Kaitos Origins can technically be skipped the second time around. Beating them, however, was good for experience and venting frustration (all three had previously been impossible to beat), and beating them but sparing their lives afterward resulted in three extra scenes at the end of the game.
 * Several bosses in Final Fantasy X can be bribed rather than defeated by conventional means.
 * One in particular can be killed with some Revive Kills Zombie shenanigans. In fact, not doing this causes you to miss out on a few Lost Forevers.
 * Sonic Chronicles has the party approached by a Swatbot with memory issues. Telling it it's programmed to fight makes it fight you, while telling it it's served it's purpose causes it to self destruct.
 * Later on, when you first encounter Shadow the Hedgehog, if you tell him you don't want to fight him, you won't. Shadow will say something, and then it skips straight to the dialogue that happens after the fight.
 * Nethack, of all games, has a bunch of these; when you confront various major demons in their lairs, a good fraction of them will offer to not fight you if you bribe them.
 * In addition,
 * More specifically,
 * Metroid Zero Mission has a worm that appears at least twice, but you don't need to kill to proceed in the game... only to get a very helpful Charge Beam which will be Lost Forever if you skip the fight.
 * In Super Metroid, every boss can be skipped through some Sequence Breaking.
 * Subverted in Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction: The guardians of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon can be bypassed with a Plot Coupon. The problem? Enjoy your boss fight!
 * In Final Fantasy XII, The Elder Wyrm boss fight, which some people tend to find harder than most of the game's boss fights because of it's favour of status effecting attacks, can be skipped by taking another route to the next area. There are some pretty tough enemies that you have to run past but it gets you away from the boss.
 * In Chrono Cross, it is possible to get the Black Dragon's relic without fighting him: just bring along a party of non-humans. Unfortunately, doing so means he'll never leave the area, and the player will never obtain a rare item required to forge Prism equipment (the best in the game).
 * Fire Emblem 7 has a few of these, usually in timed missions:
 * Carjiga in chapter 4 Lyn's route
 * Puzon in chapter 13x
 * Sealen in chapter 15 Hector's route
 * Damien in chapter 16x Eliwood's route (in Hector's route he comes charging right for you)
 * Zoldam in chapter 17E/18H
 * Kishuna in chapter 18x (in either route, but in Hector's route it's worth killing him for the extra sidequest)
 * Eubans in chapter 21E/22H
 * Ursula in chapter 26E/28H
 * Denning in chapter 29E/31H
 * Another Fire Emblem example exists in Path of Radiance, where you can choose to fight the Raven King Naesala, or talk to him using one of your hawks and then Reyson to have him and his troops leave the battlefield.
 * In the arcade game Wonder Boy in Monster Land the boss Sphynx will let you pass without a fight if you answer correctly his really zany questions (no, the answer is not "the Man").
 * Wario Land has the ultimate example of a skippable boss. Not only is the entire world he's the boss of completely optionable and non connected to the story, there's actually an UNLOCKED EXIT DOOR right next to the boss for the character to simply walk out the fight. And the exit counts as finishing the level/beating the boss.
 * Star Fox 64 has several bosses that can be skipped:
 * If you go the easy route, any Star Wolf Members you didn't defeat on Fortuna show up again on Bolse. In both cases, you can ignore them (although that means you'll have to let the timer run out on Fortuna).
 * If you enter one of the Warp Zones, you'll skip the respective level's boss.
 * The boss on Macbeth (a train with a mecha-kite) can be skipped by redirecting it into a fuel depot. However, the last switches used for this don't appear until the boss fight begins, so you can't completely skip it.
 * In Castlevania III, there is a fork in Block 3. Should you take the upper path, you'll eventually reach the boss. Selecting the lower path, on the other hand, takes you immediately to Block 4 without a boss battle.
 * If you are willing to beat Simon's Quest without the most powerful knife in the game, you can simply walk past Death and claim Dracula's eye without fighting him. The same thing could have been done with Carmilla if her dropped item wasn't required to complete the game.
 * In Symphony of the Night, Scylla and Granfaloon only guard unnecessary items, Karasuman only blocks a direct path through the Clock Tower to the Castle Keep, any Inverted Castle boss that doesn't guard a piece of Dracula is skippable, and the Saturn-Only Skeleton Leader boss doesn't really get you anything either.
 * Lots of bosses in Harmony of Dissonance are skippable. You can just walk around the Giant Bat's room, the Minotaur is only guarding a spellbook you don't actually need to win, the Golem is guarding something I can't even remember because it's not all that useful.
 * Specifically, the following bosses can be skipped: Giant Bat, Golem, Minotaur, Minotaur II, your choice of either Legion (saint) or Giant Merman, and Legion (corpse). And that's not getting into Sequence Breaking...
 * In Castlevania the Adventure Rebirth on the Wii, each stage has an alternate route you can take which skips past the stage's mid-boss. Of course, that alternate route isn't going to be any easier.
 * In Rondo of Blood, many levels have alternate versions. Going to the alternate versions often means fighting one boss instead of another. However, a couple of routes have no bosses at all, most notably Stage 5'. However, you don't get to play Stage 5' until you've beaten Dracula, presumably because the developers wanted you to go to Stage 5 normal first time round and fight Death. Yes, on replays, Death is skippable. The level itself is so much harder though...
 * You can avoid the second Rival battle in Pokémon RBY by not exploring Route 22 the first time you pass through Viridian City. In Yellow this will have an effect on his final line-up.
 * Final Fantasy IV: While the fight itself is unavoidable, two of the bosses (Calcobrena, Dr. Lugae) have stronger forms that you can skip if you kill the enemies in the first stage in the right order. Although in the second case this means the remaining enemy will probably go kamikaze on one of your characters, knocking him out right before you get into another, much more troubling boss fight.
 * In the X-Men game for Sega Genesis, one of the bosses was Mojo. There was a hidden dead-end cave above his room where you could pick up a little health for the fight with him. However, if playing Nightcrawler, you could teleport right through the dead end to the next room and skip him altogether.
 * Also in the first level, if you jumped to the top of the trees right before the mid-boss area and used Iceman to make a bridge across to the other trees, you could skip the fight with Juggernaut. If you were at the third level and jumped on top of the rocks right before the mid-boss area, then called Iceman to make a bridge across to the other rocks, you could skip the fight with Sabretooth. In the fourth level, there was a huge gap where you had to fight a couple of Sentinels to pass, but if you used Nightcrawler's jump kick or Wolverine's jump punch you would be able to dive across the gap without fighting the Sentinels. This made all of these levels considerably easier.
 * If you are playing a Pacifist Run in Iji, you can get one boss taken down by his subordinate, and another can be completely avoided via Dungeon Bypass.
 * Mega Man Zero features a variation in the first game, where (roughly) half of the selectable missions in the game will be skipped if the player . This is so that,, the player cannot reap rewards from the Bosses in the missions that were skipped.
 * In Sonic the Hedgehog 3, there's a glitch where you can skip all of Ice Cap zone with Sonic & Tails right at the first ice block you see. Just have Tails place Sonic on the block and do a spindash.
 * All the bosses in the first Spyro the Dragon (except the last). This is because bosses make up their own levels and just serve to collect more stuff. All the bosses leave are gems. If you have enough gems/dragons/eggs/etc. to pass to the next hub, you can skip any remaining levels.
 * Despite that it is not exactly required to kill most bosses in World of Warcraft, if you do run dungeons, there exist bosses that will have to be killed in order to unlock another boss encounter, or simply you have to kill that boss because they're in the way. Other bosses are commonly skipped because they are out of the way or are simply notorious for annoying strategies. Almost an entire wiki can be filled with these, but some of the most notorious examples include:
 * "The Fish Boss" in Zul'Gurub due to the fact that the boss is an Optional Boss Fight and is out of the way.
 * Jin'do the Hexxer in Zul'Gurub which became That One Boss for many players due to having a very annoying strategy to defeat. He is not required to reach Hakkar, and in fact is practically the True Final Boss of the dungeon but he was still skippable.
 * Father Flame in Upper Blackrock Spire, but intended boss that was to be summoned in the famous "Leeroy Jenkins" Video. Once most people got all the gear they got from that boss nobody wanted to do that boss encounter.
 * There is also a dungeon called Dire Maul, where skipping bosses is actually encouraged. Every boss, barring the last, can be ignored, trapped, or distracted so that you never have to face them. When you do defeat the final boss, all the bosses you skipped offer you tribute, which is usually better than what you would have gotten by killing them.
 * The final mission of the Faultline arcs in City of Heroes has three villains fighting over who gets to take the MacGuffin from you. You can ignore them, rescue their hostage, and give it to her to destroy.
 * In Super Mario RPG, you can skip Dodo twice (First time you net a nice item, second just run into him with a Super Star). Also, if you get past Booster in a mini-game, you can net a nice accessory.
 * In the first Paper Mario, a ways into Chapter 2, you're stopped by a large vulture named Buzzar. He doesn't necessarily work for Bowser, he just has a Wanted poster from him, so he doesn't quite have an idea of who Mario is. Naturally, he asks who you are, since your face and the one on the poster are identical. Answer Mario or Peach to fight him, or answer Luigi to pass by with no troubles.
 * Golden Sun has one boss you don't have to fight if you can out run it.
 * There's actually three bosses total you can avoid. The aforementioned one, the side adventure for Ivan's sake, and Treasure Island (which could be argued has many given the nature of the dungeon run it forces you through.)
 * During the final leg of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, you fight a number of Sixth House nobles to weaken Dagoth Ur (statistically, it doesn't work). You don't have to fight most of them and, if you do stumble upon them, it is possible to safely talk your way past a few such as Dagoth Uthol.
 * In the arcade version of Gradius III and Gradius ReBirth, there are secret levels you can enter that will allow you to skip the current stage's boss.
 * Two of the Antlion Guards in Half-Life 2 can be skipped, as the exits to the arenas in which they are fought are only blocked with physics objects (as oppossed to the impervious "gates" used in most sections of the game).
 * In Dragon Age, there's an incident which is a hybrid of this and Hopeless Boss Fight -- the fight is not impossible, just really really hard, and you can bypass it altogether by surrendering (or not bothering to fight back). If you win, the story continues; if you lose or surrender . Later, assuming you skipped the original fight, you encounter the same person again, and can talk her out of fighting you if your persuasion skills are high enough.
 * In the Awakening Expansion Pack, The Architect will propose an Enemy Mine with you against The Mother, which you can agree to. Doing so however will anger some companions into attacking you unless you have enough Persuasion to talk them down.
 * Turrican II has a sort of flying saucer on stage 1-2 which you have to go out of your way to fight. However, if you do, you are rewarded with 4 extra lives when you kill him.
 * In Rune Factory Frontier, it is possible to skip the battle against in the Snow Ruins if your friendship with  is high enough.
 * Unless you're going for the Chaos path, in which case it's good for your alignment, you can get through Strange Journey without killing.
 * The page quote comes from a short Story Arc in FoxTrot where gamer Jason struggles with a nigh-impossible boss, leaves to go to the bathroom, and when he returns his sister Paige has gotten past the boss. Jason refuses to believe that she simply ignored the boss, despite their mother suggesting that it was meant to be An Aesop about discretion being the better part of valor (and of course, it's lampshaded that Jason, who pranks and harasses Paige despite the fact that he inevitably ends up eating a knuckle sandwich, doesn't know the meaning of the word "discretion").
 * In Knights of the Old Republic, the endless stream of droids that stands between you and Darth Malak is meant to be dealt with by using computer spikes to shut down each of the generators, but walking past them and breaking down the door also works.
 * In Persona, there are two boss battles that can be entirely avoided by choosing the right choices. One is a giant teddy bear and the other is a demon that's really Maki's mother. If you make the wrong choice and start fighting Monster Teddy Bear, then you're on the bad ending route, and if you're fighting Hariti (Maki's mother), then you've lost two of your Ultimate Personae.
 * In the epilogue of The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, you engage in conversation where you get the chance to listen to his side of the story. Afterwards, Geralt can decide whether to have a duel to the death or let him go, upon which he promises to never bother you again.
 * In Half Minute Hero, you can avoid fighting the Beautiful Evil Lord by reuniting him with his kidnapped girlfriend Millennia. You can try to defeat him (and you get a special title if you succeed), but you'll have to do a lot of Level Grinding to do so, because he's very powerful when he's angry.
 * The final opponent in Crusader: No Remorse is a difficult opponent, but you don't need to fight her at all. Your objective at that point is not to defeat her, but to get through the door she's guarding. If you run past her, grab the keycard next to her, shut off the alarm, run past her again to unlock the door, and then go through it, you go straight to the ending animation where you escape the exploding station in the last life pod, leaving your opponent behind (The ending itself does not change whether you kill her yourself or leave her to die).
 * Suikoden III has quite a bit of boss battles, usually in the form of fighting human characters. Your character has an option to pick what to say, and that will determine your fight (which may actually be a BAD idea as some of them are rather difficult unless you level grind).
 * In Half-Life: Opposing Force, skilled platforming allows you to skip one boss. Since this is a linear game it makes no difference story-wise whether or not you actually kill the boss; either way you get to the next level.
 * There are three way to deal with most bosses in Dark Souls: fighting them the hard way (emphasis on hard), use environmental features to make a quick job of them, or just skip them altogether.
 * In Clash At Demonhead, you can skip right past, since he doesn't have one of the Medallions that you need to disarm the Doomsday Device.
 * The fourth fight with Gilgamesh in Final Fantasy V is skippable if you don't take a certain chest; however, skipping it will make the Excalipoor and Genji Equipment Lost Forever, as well as making a certain boss fight much later on play differently.
 * The T-Rex encounter in the first three Tomb Raider games can be ignored entirely (the dinosaur in the 2nd game is optional since it guards a secret), although you will have a much harder time trying to navigate the area as you pick up key items while being attacked. In the first game, Larson on his second encounter can be ignored by just running past him and grabbing the Scion, which triggers the end of the level, so killing Larson is purely optional. In the Anniversary remake, the T-Rex can no longer be ignored.
 * A number of the bosses in Alpha Protocol are skippable:
 * The Final Boss will be either or, depending on what you're trying to do in the final mission (take down Halbech, take down both Alpha Protocol and Halbech, or take down Alpha Protocol on behalf of Halbech). If you fight one, the other will be skipped.
 * Also during the final mission, there is a sequence in which you have to defeat both Alan Parker and Conrad Marburg before they can destroy the evidence of Alpha Protocol's existence that you want to recover. Depending on your actions earlier in the game, there are multiple ways to eliminate Parker or Marburg or both from the fight:.
 * In Moscow, you will only fight Championchik, Surkov's bodyguard, if you.