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Bodyguarding a Badass: Difference between revisions
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* U.S. President [[Andrew Jackson]] was attacked by a man wielding two flintlock pistols. When both bullets turned out to be duds it was not his retinue, but the President himself, who jumped the attacker. Some contemporary accounts describe the President, who had been a somewhat violent military man in his youth, ''needing to be pulled off of his attacker''. [[wikipedia:Andrew Jackson
* It is not uncommon for boxers, actors specializing in martial arts, MMA fighters, etc. to have bodyguards. Mainly it's the standard "protect the celebrity from crazy fans" sort of thing, but there's a few caveats. A bodyguard trained in crowd control might be better at handling an overzealous fan than a MMA fighter who might end up hurting someone really badly. Similarly, a lot of martial arts actors don't necessarily have combat applicable skill in an art—there are many arts whose sole purpose is to ''look nice'' and not necessarily be practical in combat, and while they may give the impression they can fight they are really not all that different from, say, dancers.
* Military leaders, even today where Generals can safely conduct wars in a secured bunker, tend to have guards. Even historic badasses like Guan Yu of China, [[Alexander the Great|Alexander]] of Macedonia, [[Napoleon Bonaparte|Napoleon]] of France, etc. tend to be surrounded by guards. This is because in the past, leaders would be on the battlefield directing the fight or even leading the charge, and death of an army's general could lead to the whole force disintegrating. Today, with the chain of command, its not such a big problem but having to bring a new guy up to speed might be a costly
* Tanks need infantry support when not performing fast deep maneuvers without stopping to engage anything. So the main strength are tanks, but when they can be mired in a fight they are guarded or it ends up with lots of burned-out metal boxes. This arrangement started back with [[Older Than Feudalism|chariots]] and war elephants: they are either charging or need protection from being mobbed from all sides. In India footmen protecting chariots were called Chakra Rakshaka ("[[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|demons of the wheels]]").
* In the past, kings often actually had to fight to get their thrones and at other times were sometimes chosen from the one the nobles considered the biggest [[Badass]] in the kingdom. Or were from a dynasty that had gotten to power by such methods so recently that even if they were hereditary had not yet [[We Have Become Complacent|become complacent.]] In any case there were all sorts of reasons why a king might be also a decent and sometimes a brilliantly successful warrior. Nonetheless they usually kept a picked band close by. This was not only as his display or to bodyguard his and his dependants' persons. This was also his personal strike team. Maintaining a standing army requires the revenue that can only come from efficient taxation or ceaseless conquest so without a standing army the king needed a bodyguard hanging around until the troops brought by the rural nobles arrived. Even when he had a standing army there were occasions when he might want someone on hand to give tactical orders to for the local situation. A "fire-brigade" if you will. As an end note, as people competed to fight beside the king or have [[Nepotism|their kinfolk do so]], a king's bodyguard was an Officer Candidate School.
** The warbands of famous epics reflect that tradition. Perhaps the most familiar of these to English speakers are the
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