"If you have an issue with our arrangements, I'm sure Griselda can assuage your concerns."
"I can think of no better men to serve as my bodyguard than those who rescued me from the Ye-tai and guarded me so well during all the long months at Gwailor."
A character of great power or wealth has their importance underscored by having a cadre of bodyguards from a foreign land. These guards will be elite, disciplined, exotic, and extremely competent.
In fiction, this is usually reserved for villains. The Evil Prince, Evil Overlord, Evil Chancellor, and President Evil all need foreigners to protect them because it's hard to trust your citizenry when you spend most of your day exploiting and oppressing them. Don't be surprised if they are commanded by The Dragon.
Contrary to Hollywood's portrayal, foreign bodyguards were historically very common and very respected. This, of course, pre-dates all the negative stereotypes associated with Private Military Contractors, when hiring mercs was a common way of raising an army; mercenaries who distinguished themselves on the battlefield stood a good chance of being offered a bodyguarding job, which was essentially a permanent exclusive contract. In their favor, a foreigner's loyalty was largely independent from domestic politics, which prevented Bodyguard Betrayal and palace revolutions; and with their exotic look and weapons, they added a welcome touch of grandiosity to a ruler's court, ceremonial and public presentation.
Part of the Standard Royal Court. Whether their charge is good or evil, they'll stick to their oath of service. They are probably a Proud Warrior Race Guy and might be The Remnant. Could overlap with Bodyguard Babes if the babes are foreign. Usually does not accompany a Bodyguard Crush. A subtrope to Praetorian Guard.
Example subpages:
Other examples
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Anime and Manga
- In Dance in the Vampire Bund, Princess Mina's use of the Earth Clan as her personal guard has clear overtones of this. However it is fundamentally an inversion as aside from some trusted human confidants and a defector or two whose whole chain of sires are confirmed as irretrievably dead, the werewolves oath-sworn to guard her are the only beings in the Bund whose obedience Mina cannot compel if she had to.
- Amaterasu's personal guard, the Mirage Knights in The Five Star Stories, are an ethnically diverse group, though it doesn't really count as most of them come from the planet Delta Belune, the only true One World Order in the series (for most of it, anyway).
- In Jormungand, in both the anime and manga, almost all of the arms dealers have bodyguards, though notably only Koko and Casper Hekmatyar have truly diverse cadres of bodyguards.
- In Kengan Ashura, which revolves around lethal underground martial arts matches fought between corporate elites to resolve shady business deals or lawsuits outside the public eye, a considerable amount of the fighters work as bodyguards or bouncers in their daily life, and despite the innocent-sounding job description, most of them are terrifying people with a personal set of standards that rarely extend to their opponent's safety. Kaolan Wongsawat, Agito Kanoh and Rolón Donaire are all among the strongest fighters in the series, with their main occupation being the personal bodyguards of billionaires. A case of Truth in Television, as many professional MMA fighters, boxers, amateur athletes and powerlifters work bodyguard or bouncing jobs in Real Life to rake in the cash to support their main occupation.
- Sailor Moon has a rare heroic example in the Four Guardian Goddesses (aka the Inners) who serve Princess Serenity (in the manga at least where it's clearly established they come from their namesake planets and aren't natives of the moon. Also other parts of the franchise that include this fact. Averted in the anime since it's never brought up). Averted in the present day with both the Inners and Outers (they've kind of become Usagi's bodyguards in the present whereas they explicitly were not in the past); they've all been reincarnated as Earthlings just as their princess has. Even more specifically, they're all Japanese from the Azabu-Juuban district of Minato ward in Tokyo.
- It's possible the Shitennou were/are this to Endymion and his reincarnation Mamoru in the manga and Crystal note . In these versions they're assigned areas to look for the Legendary Silver Crystal (Europe for Zoisite, North America for Nephrite, East Asia for Jadeite, and the Middle East for Kunzite) and it'd be easier for them to be natives of their respective regions so as not to draw attention to themselves, especially since there's not a whole lot of Japanese people outside of Japan and they tend to be concentrated in certain areas in countries where there is a sizable population (i.e. the West Coast of the US). Jadeite could still be Japanese, but his ability to blend in in other East Asian countries would then have to rely on all Asians looking alike and it'd be weird that he saved Japan for last, instead of looking there first. Making it harder is the fact that Mukokuseki is fully in effect for them; they don't really look like they come from anywhere and their origins are never explicitly stated. The closest we get is a mention in the Materials Collection that Kunzite has the air of a Middle Eastern king or something similar, seemingly confirming that he's supposed to be Middle Eastern, which then doesn't make it too far-fetched for the others. Since Endymion is prince of the Earth and Mamoru future king, it'd be nice to avert Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe for once. Regardless of canonicity, it's definitely fanon for some parts of the fandom and there are fics where they're explicitly stated to be non-Japanese; assignment of ethnicity mostly follows the regions given above (which means Jadeite averts it when he's the token Japanese member of the group), except for Kunzite. For some odd reason, it's very hard to find a fic where he's Middle Eastern even though he has the closest thing to a canon ethnicity out of the four.
Comic Books
- In Pathfinder: Worldscape, Empress Camilla (the Scandinavian ruler of a jungle city trapped in another dimension) employs White Martians (in other words, literally aliens) as both her bodyguards and street enforcers.
- Wonder Woman (1987): The race which created and rules the Sangtee Empire are the kreel but their Emperor's personal guard seem to be something else. While the guards are never seen without their face concealing helmets they are of a shorter and slightly different build than any adult kreel.
Comic Strips
- In Little Orphan Annie, Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks has Punjab and the Asp, an Indian Mystic and East Asian martial artist respectively.
Fan Works
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series Kaiba hires German Nazis to work as security guards.
- In The Bridge there is a heroic version when post Heel–Face Turn Xenilla, a kaiju born in deep space and native to Terra, becomes the protector of the Crystal Empire and royal family.
- In A Ballad of the Dragon and She-Wolf Daenerys has the Queensguard, which consists of a Northerner, a Stormlander, a Lhazarene, a Basilisk Islander, a Meerenese, and two of uncertain origin.
- A Thing of Vikings:
- The historical Varangian Guard of the Byzantine Empire is a central focus for Snotlout's personal character plotline—and Snotlout ends up introducing Dragon-Riding to the Empire, who cheerfully adopt it as their new great weapon.
- They're not exactly "foreign", since the Norwegians and Berk are both Norse (and Ruffnut's originally from Berk), but after Father Henriksson and the thanes' treachery is revealed, Magnus sends for Berkian bodyguards for Ruffnut and their children since they couldn't trust that the local Christian options weren't compromised by Henriksson's fanaticism.
- A very common piece of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Fanon is that the bat-winged pegasi that accompany Princess Luna in some episodes are actually a specific subspecies of Pegasi called Batponies (among many other names depending on who's writing them), usually depicted as living apart from regular Equestrian society but swearing fealty to Luna, making them a downplayed case of this trope.
Films — Live-Action
- Austin Powers has Dr. Evil and Random Task, a parody of Goldfinger's Oddjob.
- Conan the Destroyer: Zula (a black warrior who was the only survivor of her raiding party) becomes the captain of the guard of Queen Jehna at the end.
- Goldfinger and his bodyguard, Oddjob. Also counts for his numerous Chinese henchmen.
- In Kaamelott: Premier Volet, tyrant Lancelot hires a bunch of Saxon mercenaries led by Horsa (Sting) to help enforce his Reign of Terror. They're expensive, but they're also good at their job, which is something quite rare in the Medieval Morons-populated kingdom of Logres. Also, there's Quarto the slave merchant, who has two idiotic Visigoth henchmen/bodyguards.
- Lucky Number Slevin: The Rabbi hires two Badass Israeli bodyguards to protect his son from assassination.
- Return of the Jedi: Jabba the Hutt relies on brutish Gamorrean guards for security. Justified because Hutts aren't exactly fit for combat, as shown by this image of what passes for "fit" among the Hutts
.
- A variation in Year of the Dragon. Triad boss Joey Tai is accompanied by an African-American bodyguard, presumably because he can't understand Chinese and overhear any secrets, and has no family or other connection to Triad rivals.
Literature
- A heroic example in Aeon 14. After the Battle of New Canaan and the start of the Civil War in the Transcend, New Canaan's Intrepid Space Force provides ISF Marines as the bodyguards for Transcend President Sera Tomlinson (though she's quite capable of bodyguarding herself).
- Artemis Fowl: The Irish hero is guarded by the Butler family, of Caucasian (as in, from the Caucasus) descent.
- In the Belisarius Series Princess Shakuntala has a unit of Kushans that were originally her captors before she convinced them in a Moment of Awesome that she was a much more honorable not to mention much prettier employer. It was assumed that anyone who was badass enough to keep Shakuntala captive should also be able to keep her alive.
- The Big Bad Link has bodyguards from Khmer(Cambodia), both eunuch-soldiers and professional assassins.
- In The Black Company, in the later novels, the leaders of Taglios, the officers of the Black Company, and at least one Shadowmaster have foreign bodyguards.
- Deryni: The Marluk and his daughter Charissa of Tolan seem to favor black robed Moors as their personal bodyguards and chief lieutenants.
- In Diamond Sword, Wooden Sword, the Emperor of Mel'in is guarded by naturalized Freefolk warriors.
- In Eurico the Presbyter, the Arabs are served by Sudanese warriors that act as guardsmen and bodyguards for their emirs and sheikhs.
- Honor Harrington:
- The bodyguards for the Hereditary President of the People's Republic of Haven are all from Neo Geneva, partially due to tradition but mostly because (rightly) doesn't trust any Havenites and the Genevans have a reputation for the utmost loyalty. They're intended to be a parallel to the French Kings' Gardes-Suisses (see Real Life).
- Honor's armsmen hail from Grayson, prompting some ruffled feathers when she has to take armed foreign nationals onto Her Majesty's warships. Though this is technically an aversion, because Honor has dual Manticoran and Grayson citizenship (and titles).
- El Patron of House of the Scorpion had a bunch of Scottish hooligans as bodyguards, including a couple former terrorists, expressing the opinion that one should always hire your security from another country to limit their opportunities for betrayal. Matt looks into getting his own after taking over.
- In The Long Ships Orm and his companions serve in the Almohad Caliph Al-Mansur's bodyguard for several years. Orm's brother Are and Olof Summerbird both served in the Varangian Guard in Constantinople.
- In Paladin of Shadows, the Keldara are descendants of Scots and Vikings brought into the Byzantine Empire to serve in the Varangian Guard, and serve as this to the Keldar (a position always held by a foreigner) in the present.
- A Song of Ice and Fire
- Prince Doran Martell's personal bodyguard is Areo Hotah, a foreigner trained by the bearded priests of Norvos.
- For a short time, Tyrion Lannister has bodyguards who are leaders of the various mountain clans that he has recently recruited. The mountain clans are from within the borders of the Seven Kingdoms but exist outside of its feudal society. Although not suited to the Decadent Court of Kings Landing, Tyrion wants soldiers who are loyal to him personally, as opposed to Lannister household guards who might be beholden to another member of his Big, Screwed-Up Family.
- In Star Trek: Vanguard, the Knowledge Broker Chathani has several Anticans serving as her bodyguards. She mentions that Antican guards are known across the Taurus Reach for their loyalty, and thus it's implied a fully Antican detail is a status symbol.
- As a Proud Warrior Race, the Noghri in Star Wars Legends often appear in this role. Notably, the titular Grand Admiral in The Thrawn Trilogy invokes their species' debt to the Empire to secure their services as his bodyguards and assassins. In the same trilogy, Leia picks up a pair of Noghri bodyguards as well, due to her status as "Lady Vader." She keeps these bodyguards for years afterwards.
- Subverted in Tales of the Branion Realm: The Granite Shield, in which knights from an alternate England cross the border to protect a Welsh pretender to their own throne during a religious schism between the two.
- It being a fantasy version of Byzantine Empire the Videssian emperor in various books by Harry Turtledove has his Halogaland guard of large men with axes from the frozen north.
- In white nationalist novel Victoria, the tyrannical rulers of Cascadia depend on foreign mercenaries, mostly Swedes and Czechs, to protect their persons and enforce their rule.
- The Wheel of Time: Rand al'Thor — The Chosen One of almost every prophecy on the planet — gains the Maidens of the Spear, an entire society of the Aiel Proud Warrior Race, as his honor guard after journeying to the Aiel Waste. All Aiel are infamous in the Western countries for being incredibly deadly warriors, but the Maidens are particularly invested in Rand for being the son of a Maiden who publicly declared that they "carry [his] honor".
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5: Michael Garibaldi goes on a mission to the Drazi homeworld. He meets a human friend working as a bodyguard. He tells Garibaldi that rich aliens hire human bodyguards as a status symbol.
- Game of Thrones: Qhono seems to act as Daenerys's bodyguard. Qhono and a few of his men always loom in Daenerys's throne room, watching. When Jon Snow takes one step forward, Qhono gets in a defensive position.
- In I, Claudius, one of the difficulties faced in assassinating Caligula is the large contingent of German guards he has around him. He apparently didn't trust his native-born Praetorian Guard and military officers very much (with good reason, as it turned out.)
- Star Trek:
- Nausicaans are occasionally shown serving in this capacity.
- Given his fearsome appearance, Proud Warrior Race Guy reputation, and position as chief of security on a mostly human crew, Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation tends to give off this image, especially when accompanying the away team.
Music
- In one particularly odd example, "Rich Girl" by Gwen Stefani (also known as the lead singer of the band No Doubt) describes Gwen's Japanese backup dancers thus:
I'd get me four Harajuku girls to
Inspire me, and they'd come to my rescue
I'd dress them wicked, I'd give them names
Love, Angel, Music, Baby — hurry up and come and save me - Sabaton's song "The Last Stand" is about Pope Clement VII's Swiss mercenary guards protecting him during the 1527 sack of Rome by mutinous Protestant troops from the Holy Roman Empire.
Tabletop Games
- BattleTech: The Fidelis in service of the Republic of the Sphere, though they were more of a special ops force than a true Praetorian Guard. Many suspected that they were survivors of Clan Wolverine, when in actually they were the survivors of the Smoke Jaguar Annihilation.
- In Eberron, mercenaries and bodyguards are one of the main exports of Darguun, a nation of traditional monster races. (That's one of them in the page image above.)
- Pathfinder features a little Genius Bonus; the corrupt, convoluted, falling empire of Taldor, inheritors of a proud legacy that is being drained out through war and internal strife, has a bunch of Ulfen Guard serving the royals as their elite. The Taldans, geographically, come close to being an Expy for the Byzantines. The Ulfen are culturally the Theme Park Version of vikings. See Real Life, below.
- Traveller Classic, Book 4 Mercenary. One of the mercenary tickets (scenarios) was to act as bodyguards to the leaders of the planet Jokotre while they made a pilgrimage to the shrines in the holy lands.
- In Warhammer 40,000 a Dark Eldar Archon can have a cadre of xeno bodyguards for their protection, because they're not motivated by Chronic Backstabbing Disorder which is prevalent in most of the Dark Eldar. The usual bodyguard of choice (and the only ones there are currently game rules for) are the hulking four-armed snake-like Ssslyth, who are known for their loyalty.
- A less ostentatious variant are Incubi, who are Dark Eldar, but are not members of a Kabal and instead are members of various temples. Since they aren't actually underlings of the Archon they're guarding, this protects both their charge and their true masters from the possibility of Klingon Promotion at the same time, while making one of them safer and the other richer.
- Another particular example comes from the Navigator Houses, specifically House Belisarius, which, due to longstanding alliances with the Space Wolves, send some of their best Navigators to serve on the ships of the Space Wolves in return for an equal number of Astartes serving Belisarius as bodyguards. Given that the wolves are largely distant from Terran politics and culture and as space marines, are practically a law unto themselves, they still serve the main theme of this trope despite both technically being from the Imperium.
- Warhammer
- The Phoenix Kings of the High Elves have traditionally been guarded by a contingent of Chracian White Lion Huntsmen, ever since an incident when the third Phoenix King Caledor the Conqueror had his life saved from Dark Elf Assassins while out hunting in Chrace himself. In that the Phoenix King is the sovereign ruler of Chrace along with the other nine kingdoms of Ulthuan, the White Lions are not mercenaries but loyal subjects, but since none of the twelve Phoenix Kings so far have ever been Chracians themselves, they're still foreign bodyguards in that sense.
- Warhammer's version of the Varangian Guard are Hungs and Norscans employed by rich citizens. Anyone who knows anything about their religion knows how stupid this is.
- The Regiments of Renown have a special character called the Paymaster, who is protected by four ogre bodyguards. If he dies, the regiment disbands since there's no one to pay them.
Video Games
- Crusader Kings II lets you recruit landless foreign noblemen and use them as Mook Commanders. They usually have to be in your own religious group (otherwise the fact that you're infidels relative to each other tends to put the noble's Relationship Values below the required threshold), but it's completely possible to be an Irish Catholic duke with a Greek or African general leading your army.
- Destiny: The Queen of the Reef is introduced guarded by a couple of Fallen from the House of Wolves, which she had defeated and usurped some years ago. Later it turned out that using a conquered people as bodyguards was a bad idea, as when the House of Wolves revolted, one of those bodyguards was among the first to turn on her.
- In Dishonored, protagonist Corvo Attano is not a native of the island of Gristol where the game takes place, and whose Empress he is the bodyguard of. However, this isn't a regular occurrence. In fact, Corvo is the first non-Gristolian Royal Protector in recorded history, and there is much speculation in-universe as to what bearing this has on his actions and motivations. It is eventually revealed that he and Empress Jessamine were romantically involved, and Emily Kaldwin is their child.
- The Elder Scrolls
- In the backstory, the Tsaesci of Akavir invaded Tamriel in the late 1st Era during the reign of Reman Cyrodiil. Reman was able to defeat them, using the Thu'um against them at the decisive Battle of Pale Pass. The Tsaesci, who detest all dragons, recognized Reman as "Dragonborn," who they believe to be the ultimate dragon slayers. They surrendered and swore fealty to Reman, who incorporated the surviving Tsaesci into his armies and took their Dragonguard on as his personal bodyguard in the fashion of this trope. They would go on to influence the Blades, who would act as spies and bodyguards for all later emperors of Tamriel (at least until the 4th Era when they were forcibly disbanded as part of the White-Gold Concordant). By that point, there hadn't been any Tsaesci Blades in centuries, but later generations of the Blades still had strong influence from the Tsaesci. Blades armor, weapons, and architecture is all strongly influenced by the Tsaesci, who had a very Japanese aesthetic compared to the Tamriel's largely European one.
- In Morrowind's Tribunal expansion, Hlaalu Helseth, King of Morrowind, has this going on. His strongest bodyguard, Karrod, is a Redguard. The Captain of the Royal Guards, Tienius Delitian, is an Imperial. Alusannah, another Redguard, is the personal bodyguard of Helseth's mother Barenziah. There are still plenty of Dunmer Royal Guards — although notably, none of the guards that followed Helseth to Morrowind were Bretons despite that he came from High Rock (the Breton home province) after having lived as a prince of a regional kingdom there for at least nearly two decades.
- The Kingsglaive in Final Fantasy XV are tasked with the protection of the Lucian royal family and carrying out other sensitive missions outside the purview of the regular military. The prequel film Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV reveals that almost all the members of the Kingsglaive are immigrants from Lucian vassal states. This turns out to be a problem when Lucis's negotiations with The Empire and its expanding borders means politics stops being local and starts affecting their homelands.
- For Honor:
- The Shugoki class were originally this for the Dawn Empire. The trailer for the class states that the Shugoki were new allies who joined the Dawn Empire's people when they settled their new lands, and served as bodyguards and protectors. Since then, they have "become as family" to the people living in the Dawn Empire, to the point that two Shugoki are considered Daimyo who can vie for the Imperial throne. It is strongly implied that the Shugoki are actually descendants of native Vikings in the region, which is supported by not just their massive size (with only the Vikings' Warlord and Raider classes being of comparable stature) but also certain Shugoki helmets have red or blond hair and beards.
- During the special "Emperor's Escape" event which was available during the Zhanhu's release, the Wu Lin Emperor Gao Lei had to flee from his palace while being attacked by Blackstone Legion invaders. The playerswere tasked with serving as his bodyguards and protecting him as he flees the battlefield, and can come from any of the four factions, making them fall under this trope.
- Sun-King Avad of the Carja in Horizon Zero Dawn is protected by an honor guard of Oseram freebooters, the very same ones that helped him overthrow his insane father. After Aloy, a Nora seeker, saves him from an assassination attempt, he offers her to stay as one of his guard, but she turns him down.
- In Jagged Alliance 2 while Deidranna mainly uses We Have Reserves forced conscripts, at least one (the others may be, but they don't have names or faces) of her close bodyguards are foreign mercenaries. Of course, by the game's premise, all but a small handful of the party are foreign mercs as well.
- The relationship between the hanar and the drell in Mass Effect is this trope on a species level. Since the hanar rescued the drell from dying out on their starved and overpopulated homeworld, many drell choose to serve them in some fashion and serve as assassins for them.
- Some factions in Medieval II: Total War:
- Byzantium has its Varangian Guard, Scandinavian warriors wielding two-handed great axes, acting as the faction's heaviest shock infantry.
- France can recruits Scot Guards, foot archer units that nonetheless have great melee stats.
- The Moors can recruit Christian Guards, acting as either heavy foot infantry, or as heavy cavalry.
- One of the possible endings for Spectre's mercenary company in MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries is to earn a cushy contract serving as these for Peter Davion-Steiner's regime after helping lead them to victory over their rivals (the Steiner-Davions). Spectre even notes that the "official histories" downplayed his role but, hey, he's getting paid enough not to care.
- Pharaoh: While ithey aren't seen in-game, one of the "gifts to Egypt" (read: bribe officials in the court) you can give to improve your Kingdom rating are Lybian bodyguards (the Lybians being a recurring enemy throughout the campaign).
- Prince Sebastian Lacroix in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines has a hulking African vampire, who is completely mute, as his Sheriff. Considering vampires normally tend to be Manipulative Bastards who avoid direct confrontation if they can avoid it, his unknown origins, inability/unwillingness to speak and physical power makes him very good at his job. He is the Final Boss of the game if you choose to go after Lacroix in the ending.
Visual Novels
- In Ace Attorney Investigation 2, The President of Zheng Fa hired a private security firm during his visit to Gourd Lake. As explained by the game, this is due to the President's remarkably strained relationship with the police force of Zheng Fa, not exactly helped by his dwindling popularity.
Web Comics
- In Ebin and May Lord Valkyn and Lady Rani were Magic Knight guards to Ebin's family from some distant land. When the Felineous Empire invaded they remained loyal unlike the rest of the Royal Guard and got him out of the country.
Web Videos
- Mahu: King Augustus II "The Strong" of Poland has a bodyguard of Saxon soldiers. This is not surprising, as he is both king of Poland and elector of Saxony.
Western Animation
- Archer: Isis is hired to protect the pope from an assassination plot by a group of Swiss guards. Lana is incensed to discover that Archer's opinion of them is based on their ceremonial gear, and didn't bring guns because they won't need them against halberds, which he notes aren't very practical.
"Of course they aren't! That's why now... they carry MP5s!"
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: Azula, the Fire Nation princess, brings back Dai Li agents from the Earth Kingdom and they serve as her own personal elite squad of guards. This ends up being particularly useful to her during the eclipse: the eclipse may turn off Firebending, severely limiting a Firebender's ability to fight, but the Dai Li are Earthbenders, and thus are unaffected.
- In The Promise, Fire Lord Zuko has personally thwarted six attempts on his life, so his girlfriend, Mai, asks the Kyoshi Warriors, an Earth Kingdom Amazon Brigade, to take over as his bodyguards.
- The Penguin in The Batman has just returned from a trip to eastern Asia where he acquired two ninja-like bodyguards wearing kabuki masks that he loves to flaunt
