History HypercompetentSidekick / RealLife

* In a rather vile example of this; Heinrich Himmler, the man who supposedly carried out the Holocaust, had Reinhard Heydrich who carried out and created many of the ideas of the Holocaust. He was so vicious, it is said some of the Nazi officials who were his subordinates were more afraid of him than Hitler. This makes sense, as he created the concentration camps and the rest of the Final Solution.

* A frequent occurrence in Prussia/the German Empire from 1812-1918. Field commands were traditionally given to high-ranking nobles, who were raised for the task but nevertheless had varying levels of competence. After Prussia's crushing defeat to Napoleon at the Battle of Jena (1806), [[TheChessmaster Gerhard von Scharnhorst]] was put in charge of reforming the Prussian military, and came up with the idea of retaining the contemporary social structure, while cleverly undermining it by forcing the Field Marshals to co-operate with their Chiefs of Staff, who were appointed on Scharnhorst's advice. The most notable example of this was [[AccidentalHero Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg]], who became a national hero and public icon during WorldWarOne, even though most of his decisions were made by the obscure no-name [[ManBehindTheMan Erich Ludendorff]].

*** As the chief if staff in the Eastern Front, Hoffmann would pull off another one, masterminding the defeat (and collapse) of the Russian Empire while Prince Leopold of Bavaria was nominally in charge.

* Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was this for Octavian, later EmperorAugustus. While Octavian was a highly competent administrator, he needed someone who could match wits with Mark Antony on the battlefield and come out on top. That was Agrippa. He managed to absolutely crush not only the remnants of the conservative resistance to the Second Triumvirate, but also obliterate Antony's forces both at sea and on land. It is widely accepted that Octavian may never have become emperor if he did not have Agrippa handling the military side of things.

* Vice President Walter Mondale was this to JimmyCarter, serving as Carter's troubleshooter (particularly in foreign affairs).[[note]]Mondale's foreign affairs experience later earned him an appointment as ambassador to Japan under the Clinton administration.[[/note]] RichardNixon filled the same role for Eisenhower. Prior to Mondale and Nixon the vice-presidency was little more than a ceremonial posting, and usually a dead end for a political career.
* Vice President Dick Cheney was widely lampooned as TheManBehindTheMan to President GeorgeWBush and is thought to have been the architect of a lot of his foreign policy.

* Nixon had his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

* Stunt doubles, in general. They often work harder than the star they're standing in for, and are on screen during most of the best parts. In a particularly action-heavy movie, it could be said that the stuntman is the real star, and the other guy is just his "face double."
** This claim has very little merit though. The stuntmen usually cant act well themselves and thus couldnt replace the actor in the first place. They are only chosen and paid for their ability to avoid damaging themselves. And because nobody knows their face, they can be easily replaced, a very important property for a movie set for which every day of not shooting is most extremely expensive. So this really not a good example.

** Much the same in Russian Empire also. The nominal commanders-in-chief were either the Tsar or his close relative. The trouble is that Russians often did not have a competent general who would act as the de facto commander. (Soviet Union continued this trend during World War II: Stalin (at least in the latter half of the war, when the Soviets were really winning) was the nominal commander-in-chief. The actual military command was exercised by Zhukov, as the Chief of General Staff.)

* This is the typical situation in many modern militaries when you have wet-behind-the-ears [[EnsignNewbie junior officers]] fresh out of training placed in charge of units with [=NCO=]s who sometimes have been [[OldSoldier serving longer than the officer has been alive]]. The general wisdom is that while the officer makes the decisions (and [[ChainsOfCommanding bears the responsibility for those decisions]]) and can overrule the sergeant appointed under him, a ''good'' officer will consider the sergeant's advice whenever possible.

* This is the typical situation in many modern militaries when you have wet-behind-the-ears [[EnsignNewbie junior officers]] fresh out of training placed in charge of units with [=NCO=]s who sometimes have been [[OldSoldier serving longer than the officer has been alive]]. The general wisdom is that while the officer makes the decisions and can overrule the sergeant appointed under him, a ''good'' officer will consider the sergeant's advice whenever possible.

** This trope is averted with President Barrack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden since neither one of them are particularly competent.

** It's worth noting that the famous photograph from the summit of Mt. Everest is, in fact, a photo of Norgay since Hillary was the only one who knew who to operate the camera, and standing on a mountain peak at 29,000 feet is not the time or place to try and give photography lessons.

* This is the typical situation in many modern militaries when you have wet-behind-the-ears junior officers fresh out of training placed in charge of units with [=NCO=]s who sometimes have been serving longer than the officer has been alive.

** Another notable case was Hellmuth von Moltke, the Prussian Chief of General Staff in the wars against Austria (1866) and France (1870-1871), when the nominal commander-in-chief was Wilhelm I of Prussia. In fact, a number of pundits and experts (including Friedrich Engels) had tipped the Austrians as most likely to win the war of 1866 because the Prussian army was led in the field by its uninspiring and militarily unremarkable king, while the Austrian was led by a general of proven worth.

* A frequent occurrence in Prussia/the German Empire from 1814-1918. Field commands were traditionally given to high-ranking nobles, who were raised for the task but nevertheless had varying levels of competence. After Prussia's crushing defeat to Napoleon at the Battle of Jena (1806), [[TheChessmaster Gerhard von Scharnhorst]] was put in charge of reforming the Prussian military, and came up with the idea of retaining the contemporary social structure, while cleverly undermining it by forcing the Field Marshals to co-operate with their Chiefs of Staff, who were appointed on Scharnhorst's advice. The most notable example of this was [[AccidentalHero Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg]], who became a national hero and public icon during WorldWarOne, even though most of his decisions were made by the obscure no-name [[ManBehindTheMan Erich Ludendorff]].

* This can occur with examples of AssInAmbassador, since while (in the case of the United States) the actual ambassadors to friendly countries like France and England are given the jobs as political favors by the president, while the actual nitty-gritty day-to-day running of the embassies/consulates/what have you are done by career Foreign Service Officers. The career [=FSOs=], i.e. the ones who've made a long life out of doing the job, are often considered equivalent to high-ranking military officers in terms of authority and expertise.

* Sherpas for mountaineersm, especially Tenzing Norgay for Sir Edmund Hillary, as noted elsewhere. Small subversion in that Norgay DID become famous, and Hillary gave him all possible credit.