Bodyguard

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
They aren't always this easy to spot. (French gendarmerie GIGN demonstration, October 2021.)

Some people are just too important to be left to protect themselves. Others think that they're important enough to be in that group. And some people are too paranoid to want to walk around unprotected. This trope is not about them. This trope is about the people who are hired to protect those people.

A bodyguard is somebody who is paid to put himself or herself in harm's way in order to protect somebody else. They're expected to know how to fight, how to escape with their charge, and when to do one or the other. The "how to fight" requirement, and the implied opportunities to use those skills, tends to attract Badasses.

While a bodyguard can be ex-military, a bodyguard squad is not usually a military unit unless they live and work in a dictatorship of some sort.

Fictional bodyguards can fill the role of Cannon Fodder, voluntary Human Shield, or Knight in Shining Armor (or Sour Armor). If they need to serve as The Cavalry, then the story will probably show that they've done their jobs poorly. And be warned: sometimes a bodyguard is in the best position to do to the client what the bodyguard was hired to prevent.

Super-Trope to Bodyguard Babes, Guardian Angel, Guardian Entity, and Praetorian Guard.

Related tropes include Bodyguard Betrayal, Bodyguard Crush, and Bodyguarding a Badass.

Examples of Bodyguard include:

Anime and Manga

  • Suki: A Like Story has a bodyguard as a major character, but saying who it is would be a major spoiler.
  • In the sixth episode of the second season of Squid Girl, Sanae becomes Squid Girl's self-appointed "SP". Since Sanae is one of the people who Squid Girl sometimes needs to be protected from, this does not fill her with confidence.

Comic Books

  • Miyamoto Usagi, the title character of Usagi Yojimbo, was a bodyguard to his daimyo before he became a ronin and occasionally takes up that job during his travels.
  • In the Batman comics, Wayne Enterprises assigned Bruce a bodyguard in the 1990s, Sasha Bordeaux. Hilarity Ensues because Sasha keeps trying to do her job, and Bruce keeps shaking her off his tail to become Batman. She would eventually become a hero in her own right, after she discovered Bruce's identity and he started training her.

Film

  • Yojimbo, of course; the title translates as "Bodyguard". Kuwabatake Sanjuro is the ronin who the local crime bosses want to hire as their private bodyguard.
  • Frank Farmer, the titular character in The Bodyguard, is an ex-Secret Service agent turned freelance bodyguard.
  • The Emperor's Royal Guards in Star Wars were recognizable as his bodyguards by their red all-concealing uniforms.
  • Man on Fire is about retired and burned-out CIA agent John Creasy, who is hired to bodyguard a nine-year-old girl. When she's kidnapped, Creasy gets his act together and goes to rescue her... but things go From Bad to Worse.

Literature

  • The title character of Sir Walter Scott's novel Quentin Durward acts as a bodyguard to the French King Louis XI.
  • The Three Musketeers, especially d'Artagnan, served as bodyguards to Louis XIV.
  • Greg Rucka's character Atticus Kodiak is a professional bodyguard. The novel series about him ranges from realistic to cinematic.
  • Domovoi Butler is the bodyguard to the titular Artemis Fowl. Being a character in a children's book series, he tends to the cinematic side of the spectrum.

Live-Action TV

  • The "mirror universe" in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Mirror, Mirror" is a dangerous place to live. One assumes that the security guards assigned as the officers' personal bodyguards are very highly paid, in credits, promotions, or both.
  • Game company CEO Ahn Min-hyeok initially hires the title character of the South Korean series Strong Girl Bong-soon to act as his bodyguard during the early part of the series because someone is threatening his life, and a tiny, inoffensive-looking "secretary" who could arm-wrestle She-Hulk and win is, in his eyes, the perfect defense.

Video Games

Western Animation

  • The Batman had GCPD assign a cop as a bodyguard for Bruce Wayne in "Cash for Toys". Why? Because the villain of the week, Krank, was trying to murder Wayne in revenge for shutting down his company down, on the grounds that the toys endangered kids. Only problem is that the bodyguard was Cash Tankinson, probably the worst guy for the job as a Small Name, Big Ego cop. Bruce has to figure out how to ditch Cash, who is more competent than he looks at bodyguard duty, so as to catch Krank.

Real Life


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