"The cops guarding the house, they always get it."
— Deputy Ross Hoss, Scream 4
On jobs like walking a sentry post, if you have a little screentime, our congratulations, you're a Bit Character. If you get more screentime, you have our condolences faster than you can say Red Shirt.
One of the most effective ways to show the importance of a person/place/gathering is to show one or more people (usually armed) on constant guard for a threat. They can be cops guarding the house of a potential victim, soldiers or resistance fighters at a secret base, mobsters scattered around a kingpin’s mansion, security guards at an office building, or any number of other jobs. Whatever their background, motivations, and qualifications may be, though, The Law of Conservation of Detail means that, if you establish a risk of danger regarding whoever needs those guards, then that danger will likely become a reality, maybe immediately afterward, maybe in the climax.
But what happens to those guards once that happens? Well, since it wouldn't make sense for the assailant to just walk on by without an effort or care, usually they will kill anyone in the way on their way in (or their way out, if they somehow trick their way past the guards or attack from an unexpected direction). When they do so, that leads to this trope: the same sentries shown doing their jobs before the attack are either shown being killed, shown lying dead after having been killed, or have vanished from their posts and apparently been Killed Offscreen as the prelude to impending danger.
For this trope to apply, the guards should ideally be shown or mentioned doing their job before an assailant strikes (often in an earlier scene altogether), although scenes from the perspective of the person preparing to attack the sentry are allowed for the trope. A sentry who debuts in an earlier scene and lasts long enough to fight back or whose death alerts the heroes before they die may be a literal Chekhov's Gunman.
This trope can be the result of actions carried out by both heroes and villains, although villains are more likely given how it usually requires the brutal killing of some dutiful and inoffensive minor character. If the guards are slaughtered but the person/people they were protecting are consciously spared, then What Measure Is a Mook? may apply.
The sentries this trope applies to are distinct from regular bodyguards in that they aren’t going around everywhere with a person and constantly standing by their side during any attack that happens. Characters qualifying for this trope can still be bodyguards in job title, but they focus on keeping a property and everyone inside it safe rather than always staying near the person of their charge/s.
The inversion of Bodyguard Betrayal: where the threat comes from treacherous guards (or someone they deliberately let past them). The characters this kind of scene focuses on may be a Gate Guardian or Patrolling Mook, depending on their exact duties and level of prominence. If their fates are caused by incompetence, The Guards Must Be Crazy applies. Some overlap with Storming the Castle is possible, although the guards may die too quickly in some such scenes and smaller scale attacks are permissible. A sister trope, Guard Stations Terminally Unattended, focuses more on the reactions and discovery that something like this has happened from the perspective of whoever is being guarded.
This is (usually) a death trope, so beware of unmarked spoilers.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Kagurabachi: As a policy to manage the massive attendance of the Rakuzaichi, the bidders leave most of their own bodyguards to act as the sentries surrounding the property. This results in the entire estate, inside and out, crawling with katana-wielding who are nonetheless unmotivated because no one ever tries to stop the Rakuzaichi. One particular henchman, serving as the first line of defense at the very edge of the property, lets a kid walk right past him and up to the front door while sarcastically "warning" the others about an invader. This same guard is the first to turn up dead at the hands of Chihiro Rokuhira as he begins his attack on the auction house, without any other guard even noticing.
Comic Books
- 100 Bullets: The second time Graves sends Remi Rome after Joan D’Arcy, her house guards are seen greeting her and chatting about their health and a newspaper story before she arrives. Once Remi appears, they run to stop him but all fall to his bullets until the last one (a sickly former smoker) saves Joan by shooting his oxygen tank to take out himself and maim Remi.
- 24: One Shot: Jack and his companions arrive for debriefing at a safe house set up by Agents Taylor and Landon, who then leave to walk the perimeter. When Jack tries to radio them a bit later, Landon has just been shot by one assassin and another slits Taylor's throat moments after he checks in.
- 30 Days of Night: Most of the first half of Return to Barrow is spent following the townspeople setting up sandbag forts and guard towers to scare off or fight off the vampires if they attack. Once the vampires do attack, they wipe out a couple of the most important guard stations, although several of them stand their ground and survive.
- The third issue of Batman Sword of Azrael ends with an Order of St. Dumas member having the men with guns, clubs, and attack dogs he has recruited from the local village let in a visitor who he wants to talk to about a threat to the Order. Unfortunately, the visitor is the threat and kills him, while the next issue sees Brainwashed and Crazy Unscrupulous Hero Azrael kill most of the guards when they challenge him because he is in too much of a hurry to get inside to try to catch the assassin and save the other Order member.
- Crossed +100: The final arc has an early scene where Future greets three archers guarding the path between the main Murfreesboro settlement and the nearby building where she and her husband live. At the end of the arc, she realizes Jokemercy has been to her home and has her family prisoner when she stumbles across the corpses of those archers.
- Freedom Fighters (2018): The resistance meeting has an armed guard at the doorway to keep out anyone without a Trust Password. An infiltrator captures him as easily as all of the others.
- Star Wars Legends:
- Dark Times: In the last arc, three bouncers at the Lucky Twi'lek casino stop Dass and his companions from entering until their boss gives permission. Once a fight with an assassin breaks out inside the casino in the next issue, one of them is killed as they race to help.
- Star Wars Empire: When the Rebel delegates to Jabiim are placed under protective custody, a jailer named Luscen stops some rowdy troops from attacking the Rebels due to hatred for anyone associated with a Skywalker since the Clone Wars. When the Empire attacks the base, Luscen dies quickly, leaving the delegates in greater danger.
- Star Wars: Republic: In the Acts of War arc, young Jedi Jude Rozess is standing watch outside the Jedi Temple as assassins approach from behind and one tries to snipe her. She detects them and fights back but is still mortally wounded, although she takes her killer with her.
- The Tomb of Dracula: In the final issue of The Tomb Of Dracula 1979, Colonel Openheimer is halfway through the process of posting sentries after learning that Dracula is on the attack when the vampire and his hypnotized legions strike and slaughter everyone on the outskirts.
Films — Animation
- Batman vs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: All the Arkham Asylum guards going about their routines are decapitated or impaled one by one as Foot and League of Assassins ninjas arrive to break out the prisoners.
- Mulan (1998) begins with a sentry who is walking between watchtowers on the Great Wall of China hearing some suspicious sounds and then seeing dozens of grappling hooks coming over the wall. He runs to light a signal fire so people know the Huns are attacking and it is implied that Shan Yu kills him immediately after he does so.
- Scooby Doo! Pirates Ahoy!: The lookout who first spots the fog bank hiding the ghost pirate ship becomes the second crew member kidnapped a minute or two later after Captain Skunkbeard climbs up to the crow’s nest after him.
Films — Live-Action
- The Alamo (2004): The film takes great pains to portray how undermanned the mission was, and the ways that the defenders were fortifying themselves against attacks, including posting sentries outside to watch for sneak attacks. When Santa Anna begins his full assault of the mission on March 6th before sunrise, the first thing they do as they creep up on the mission is bayonet the sentries to prevent a warning.
- The Baker Street Dozen: The Scarlet Claw: When Holmes and Watson visit Judge Brisson, his housekeeper Nora answers the door with an Angry Guard Dog on a leash as the first line of defense against intruders. When Holmes calls Brisson again, he learns that someone impersonating Holmes' voice said to chain up the dog, causing Holmes to order Brisson to stay put and alert while Holmes races to help. As Brisson and Nora see Holmes arrive, some camera shots reveal that Nora has been replaced by a Disguised in Drag killer (the room's too dark for the judge to notice) and is preparing to strike Brisson down. The real Nora is found tied up in a closet.
- The Bravados: When the hero arrives in town to watch the executions of several outlaws, he is challenged by Juan, a deputy stationed at the local canyon in case more outlaws sneak into town for a jailbreak. The jailbreaker poses as the hangman to get past Juan peacefully, but since Juan remains at his post following the bloody jailbreak (although the guard at the jail itself is only wounded), the escaped prisoners shoot him on their way out before he can recognize them and block their escape.
- The Car: Bit Character Deputy Tattleman is sent to stand guard over the local school parade in case the murderous self-driving car shows up. It does and begins its rampage by stampeding some horses that trample Tattleman (although he is apparently only wounded).
- Cherry Falls: When the local teens attend A Party, Also Known as an Orgy to escape a virgin-targeting Serial Killer, four deputies are seen splitting up for guard positions around the property. One is stabbed from behind a while later, but another is the one to kill the killer before he can hurt too many of the kids.
- Commando: Matrix's old commanding officer drops off two soldiers to watch him, his daughter, and their farmhouse due to a series of assassinations of former Special Ops soldiers. Unfortunately, the killers shadowed the general up there and launch a surprise attack at the first chance they get. One soldier is dead within a few seconds, and the other a couple minutes.
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Koba approaches unruly sentries Terry and McVeigh to discern information about the San Francisco colony and later kills them after returning with an invasion force.
- Daylight's End: Several of the police station survivors are on standby to break out guns and open fire on any infected who arrive out front and escort any newcomers inside for a proper inspection. Some of them die on missions outside the station, but Chief Hill (although he is the leader rather than a lowly subordinate) and Bishop are still around when the zombies breach the station. They Do Not Go Gentle but are eventually Zerg Rushed and probably killed.
- Defiance (2008): The Bielski Brothers give their cousin Lazar a rifle and make him a sentry at their woodlands refuge for fleeing Jews, a job he keeps despite his incompetence being a Running Gag. In the climax, as the campus is discovered by Nazis and evacuated, Lazar remains behind with the rear guard for a while before presumably being killed when a tank shell tears apart the hut he took cover behind.
- Die Hard: John meets two security guards in the Nakatomi Plaza's lobby, who confirm his identity and let him in. The next time they appear, it's when Gruber and his gang have started taking over the building - which they kick off by murdering the two men in cold blood.
- Die Hard with a Vengeance: A guard monitoring the security cameras at the Federal Reserve sees the bank robbers making their entrance, tries to call for help (only to find the phone lines are blocked), and manages to Hold the Line with some guns for a while before someone gets in through the back door to cut him down.
- The Dirty Dozen: "The guards are through" is part of the mission mantra and the team does knife said guards in their approach.
- Down: Andy and Gary, security guards in the tower plagued by the killer elevator, recur throughout the film's first half. Gary is ultimately killed by the elevator when it decapitates him in front of Andy, who is so traumatized he's left catatonic.
- El Dorado: Played for Drama when Mr. MacDonald sends his youngest son Luke to wait on a cliff with a rifle in case the gunman hired to kill him shows up. Luke takes a shot at the guy (after having fallen asleep until he was almost there), gets an Agonizing Stomach Wound when the man returns fire, and kills himself due to the pain. The kicker? The gunman who shot him had just quit his job out of respect for the MacDonalds and was on his way out of town.
- The Equalizer 2: Deciding to confront the villains on familiar ground, Robert bluffs his way past the cops at a roadblock leading to his hometown, which has been evacuated ahead of a hurricane. When the bad guys arrive on his heels, they simply shoot the cops at the roadblock.
- Fido: Timmy and Mr. Theopolis get past a gate guard to get into the plant where they are trying to rescue Fido (and inadvertently trigger a mass zombie escape/massacre). On their way out, they pass one of the escaped zombies eating that guard. To add insult to injury, the Propaganda Machine decides to frame him as a terrorist saboteur rather than admit that greed and incompetence led to an accident that could potentially recur.
- Ghostbusters: Afterlife features a mechanical version. The kids find the source of the earthquakes around town: four proton packs jury-rigged to launch energy blasts at the gateway to Gozer's realm whenever anyone tries to get through. Later, their possessed teacher is seen dismantling some of those packs as Gozer tries to emerge again, and the remaining packs aren't strong enough to stop the escape.
- Subverted in a Bait-and-Switch way in Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning. Constantly armed gatekeeper Cormac is the first denizen of the fur-trapping fort the sisters meet upon arrival. In the climax, he is also the first one to see Ginger when she returns for an Ax-Crazy rampage after being infected, but rather than get killed right then, he reluctantly lets her through at the instruction of his overconfident boss, who wants to fight her (which still ends up going badly for himself, Cormac, and their last three companions).
- This is almost a Once an Episode occurrence in Halloween movies.
- Halloween II (1981): The security guard at the hospital eventually goes to investigate a power outage and is ambushed with a claw hammer.
- In Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Sheriff Meeker takes Jamie, her foster sister Rachel, and Dr. Loomis to his house for protection, having them go to the second floor and stationing his last deputy, Logan, on the ground floor with a shotgun. When Meeker's daughter brings Logan some coffee, she finds Michael sitting in his chair and Logan’s body lying nearby.
- Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers: This happens three times over.
- First, the two deputies guarding Tina are waiting outside the house where Tina and her friends are partying are found dead in their car after they mistook the approaching Michael for the kids playing a second prank.
- Later, once it is Jamie’s turn to be in Michael's crosshairs, the two state troopers guarding her house put up more of a fight but don't last long.
- After Michael is captured, Jamie observes the many armed guards making sure he won’t escape before the prison transport arrives. She has barely had time to walk across the street before she hears the machine gun fire of the Man in Black slaughtering those cops to rescue/abduct Michael.
- Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later: The boarding school has a security guard, Ronnie, but Michael chooses to sneak past him rather than kill him. Once he realizes there is a dangerous man lurking around, Ronnie races to try and stop him but accidentally ends up shot by Laurie's boyfriend before Michael has a chance to kill him. Fortunately, he is only wounded and survives.
- Halloween II (2009): Deputy Neale, who is assigned to guard Sheriff Brackett's daughter and Laurie after Michael Myers escapes, is asked to stay outside by Annie and is strangled before he ever gets back inside.
- Halloween (2018): Deputies Manny and Francis are waiting outside Laurie's family’s house in a car, chatting about their lunch, when they first appear. When Karen goes looking for them, she finds them mutilated.
- Havoc: A police guard is posted at Cortez's hospital room. When Ching shows up to kill Cortez, the guy's presence makes him walk past the room and take some time to plan out a surprise attack, but he's back in a couple of minutes and the guard doesn't get off a shot.
- High Plains Drifter: The stable hand posted in the belltower to shout out a warning when Bridges and the Carlin Brothers ride to town is also one of the only townspeople to stand his ground rather than run or hide after the deconstructed Training the Peaceful Villagers scenes. This relative bravery gets him shot dead.
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The first warning sign about the soldiers shown driving down a highway might be Dressing as the Enemy is when they gun down the M.P.s greeting them at a guard hut. The James Rollins novelization emphasizes the effect by giving those guards a prolonged scene watching their future killers in a drag race.
- The Jackal: Major Koslova and Agents Witherspoon and McMurphy spend several scenes watching the safe house Isabella and her family are at and are killed one by one once the Jackal finds it, although Isabella and her family were evacuated to another location right beforehand.
- James Bond:
- Octopussy: The climax shows the guards at the Big Bad's palace being distracted by a circus act as Bond and his other allies sneak in the back and the performers prepare to kill or incapacitate those guards once they get the signal.
- Licence to Kill: A pair of cartel guards surprise Bond as he infiltrates the marina in search of whoever fed Felix to a shark, but he turns the tables and gets them killed by some of the animals being kept there.
- John Wick: Chapter 4: Within seconds of the Continental Osaka showing up, Koji is seen checking on his security guards as they prep for a possible attack. Such an attack comes by the end of the night, leading to a drawn-out battle where all those men are killed or injured.
- The Kingdom (2007): The beginning shows Sgt. Haytham and other soldiers stationed at a Saudi gated community for American oil workers going about their routines. Then some disguised terrorists make themselves known by shooting two guards at the gate and speeding through to open fire on a baseball game (killing many people before being stopped themselves by Haytham and another guard).
- The Last Samurai: A samurai standing guard during the noh performance is quickly killed from behind by Neck Snap when the ninjas attack the samurai village.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: The Ringwraiths make their presence in Bree known by running down the suspicious gatekeeper who earlier let the Hobbits in.
- Lucky Number Slevin:
- The assassin-wary Boss has an armed man stationed on the roof of the elevator leading up to his penthouse. On Mr. Goodkat’s final visit to the penthouse, there is an inside view of the elevator shaft and some muffled shots before the guard is shown lying dead across the elevator roof (which has several fresh bullet holes in it) as it approaches the top floor.
- There are two bodyguards living next door to Yitzchok who it is made clear Goodkat and Slevin will have to kill if they do attack Yitzchok. The two come running over to help from an initially unexpected entrance but still die in an ambush.
- Malavita: Witless Protection Program matriarch Maggie frequently chats with or brings food to the two marshals parked outside the house the family is under. Both die fast once the mafia comes after the family in the climax.
- The Matrix Revolutions: A lot of attention is paid to Zion breaking out mini-mechas and recruiting bazooka teams to defend the city outskirts in case Neo fails to stop the attack, and many of those defenders (including Mifune, commander of the mecha pilots, and bazooka loader Chara) are killed in action.
- Miami Blues: Pedro, the intimidating guy with the shotgun guarding the pawn shop, is offed by Junior immediately when he turns his back.
- The Mummy (1959): After Inspector Mulroney is convinced of the danger John faces. He stations himself on guard outside the family home, along with the village constable and a deputized poacher. The Never Hurt an Innocent mummy quickly knocks Mulroney unconscious, while his less scrupulous summoner knifes the other two guards at their posts.
- Patriot Games: The DSS agents assigned to protect the Ryans are killed by Sean Miller and Kevin O'Donnell's IRA team, with Geoffrey Watkins, Lord William Holmes's personal assistant, secretly killing the lead DSS agent while acting as Miller and O'Donnell's mole.
- The Postman: A variant occurs with the man with a rifle who challenges the Postman on the walls of Pine View and the sheriff who that guard summons to question the Postman and decide if he can enter. When the Holnists arrive, they make no effort to resist either time, and let the intruders in due to knowing resisting such a force would get everyone slaughtered. The second time, though, both men are among the hostages executed to punish the Postman.
- Psycho Cop Returns: There is a guard manning the desk of the building Serial Killer Vickers has tracked a group of sinners to. By taking a bribe to let in the strippers for their stag party, he ends up on the killer's list too and gets a pencil through the eye.
- Punisher: War Zone: Punisher leaves the Donatelli Family in a safe house guarded by Carlos Cruz before going after Jigsaw. He returns to find the family kidnapped and Carlos dying of wounds from a hatchet attack.
- The Quick and the Dead: Herod constantly has a bunch of henchmen in high-up places like the roofs, balconies, and clock tower to counter any threats from both inside and outside the town. The Lady and Cort blow up or shoot all of them early in the final showdown to force Herod into a fair duel with no backup to rely on.
- Red Hill: When Old Bill learns that his old enemy Jimmy has escaped from prison, he appoints Constable Shane, his other subordinates, and several deputized townsmen at various checkpoints to intercept Jimmy when he comes back. Shane is knocked down a hill (taking a while to return to town) and many of the others have been killed at their posts by then. Played with, since it turns out that all of those guards (besides newcomer Shane) weren’t on guard duty to protect the town but to protect themselves. They killed Jimmy’s wife and set up for a siege because they knew he would be coming for revenge, so naturally he would kill any of them he found at a guard post regardless of whether he could get past them another way.
- Resident Evil: Apocalypse: When LJ stumbles across a S.T.A.R.S. command post, a sniper on the rooftop kills a zombie coming up behind him before waving LJ through. Immediately afterward, the Nemesis arrives, proves impervious to the sniper's bullets, and blows up the roof with a bazooka before going in after the other cops.
- Return of the Jedi: Two alien guards stationed right past the door of Jabba's palace leer at Artoo and Threepio when they arrive. When Luke arrives, he casually Force-chokes those guards (although they apparently survive) for blocking his path.
- Rio Lobo:
- The film begins with the guards for a Union gold shipment boarding a train and then shows the Confederate preparations to ambush them. Two guards are shot in the ambush and the rest have to jump off the moving train after the Confederates throw a hornet’s nest into the baggage car, leading to the unit commander breaking his neck while other men suffer lesser injuries.
- When McNally and his friends liberate the surrounded Phillips ranch and then take Ketcham hostage, they first spend a while hovering back and noting the Patrolling Mooks present on different parts of the property before sneaking up to kill or knock them out one by one.
- Scarface (1983): There are always a lot of armed cronies keeping Tony's mansion secure. Only a couple last long enough to even fight back when an army of hitmen creep into the estate in the climax.
- Scream:
- In Scream (1996), Deputy Dewey patrols the yard and road around the Macher house while his bodyguard charges are partying inside and then shows up on the porch with a knife in his back when Sidney tries to run outside (although he is only wounded).
- In Scream 3, actress Jennifer Jolie’s bodyguard Stone is seen checking the lower levels of her house with a flashlight while she has some fellow potential targets over for the evening, and he is ambushed and mortally wounded a scene later.
- Scream 4: Deputies Hoss and Perkins park their car on the street outside of the house where the latest girls needing protection are and have a Genre Savvy conversation about how at risk they are of getting killed shortly before being proven Properly Paranoid.
- Shanghai Knights: The Mongol raiders make their presence known through the arrows and garrotes they use to kill the four guards at the entrance to the Forbidden City.
- Sleepy Hollow (1999): As Ichabod Crane arrives in town, he witnesses Jonathan Masbeth marching off for a shift in the guard tower set up outside of town to detect and deter the Horseman. Jonathan is lured out of the tower and decapitated that night, although it turns out that the Horseman was after Jonathan specifically, because He Knows Too Much about a Lost Will and Testament, rather than anyone he was guarding.
- Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball: Much of the first act follows the layers of security at the FBI safe house (people in the buildings and streets outside the safe house, undercover customers and staff in the bar downstairs, and more men in the corridors between the bar and the bunker). The second half of the movie has those people start dropping like flies as multiple, disparate assassins converge on the safehouse, with only the undercover bartender managing to shoot his way out.
- Speed: A security guard doing his rounds by the elevator shafts at the beginning of the film sees Payne planting a bomb and is stabbed after a brief chat where Payne loses his guard by pretending to be a friendly repairman.
- Spy Game: Several checkpoints of armed guards surrounding a CIA target affiliated with Arab militias deter traditional means of assassination. The agents decide to convince a doctor who is allowed past the guards to poison the target, only for one of them to prematurely initiate a backup plan and send in suicide bombers from a rival militia who blow the building, the target, the doctor, and quite a few guards.
- Stake Land:
- When Mister and his group reach Strivington, the most thriving town left after the vampire outbreak, a group of guards led by Sergeant Harley search and chat with them and feel like they might be safe given how the sentries in two other, less well-off, settlements never faced any attack during the heroes' visits. That night, an Apocalypse Cult drops vampires into the middle of town by helicopter and Sergeant Harley initially seems to have come out of the fight fine as he chats about rebuilding the next morning, only for a Face-Revealing Turn to show he is infected (although still clinging to his human emotions).
- In the sequel, one of the first sights Martin has of Doc Earl and Bat’s compound of survivors is the tower with a rifle-wielding lookout. When the vampires attack, the lookout in the guard tower spots a suicide bomber running for the generator that powers their UV lights and opens fire on the guy but fails to penetrate his shield in time and is the first of the group to fall as the fight for the compound commences. Unusually for the trope (although not for real-life), the senty job has shifts, so the person who is in it when it is introduced and the one in it when it is overrun are separate characters.
- The Terminator: A flashback scene shows Reese and some companions entering a bunker full of resistance fighters and refugees and being greeted by an armed man with some Evil Detecting Dogs. A few minutes later, those dogs start barking at the next group of visitors, one of whom turns out to be a disguised Terminator who kills the dog-handler and several other soldiers.
- They Live!: There is a shotgun-wielding biker at the front door where the La Résistance meeting is. He avoids being the first to die when the aliens and their collaborators break down the back wall for their surprise attack, but he is last seen trying to Hold the Line and buy time for his unarmed companions to run as the attackers advance.
- Toy Soldiers:
- Frank, the security guard, spends the first act greeting any students coming through the front gate and then is shot at the start of the hostage situation.
- The climax flips this around by showing the FBI and students gradually killing or incapacitating several narco-terrorists at the guard posts they have been at throughout the film, with the others only realizing too late to stop the rescue.
- Wagons East!: Early in the movie, as the emigrees camp, one of the Ferguson brothers is standing watch with a rifle. He has dozed off while picking his nose when an assassin sneaks into the camp and shoots him in the back of the head with a muffled gun. This shot wakes up Ferguson, causing him to hold the intruder at gunpoint and question him for several seconds before a lethal Belated Injury Realization.
- Warm Bodies: Three soldiers nervously walking a patrol at the human enclave are attacked by Bonies, who quickly kill two and have the third at their mercy before the arrival of M and The Cavalry saves him.
- Waterworld: The many guards armed with crossbows and water cannons warily watching from the atoll wall when the Mariner arrives later take heavy casualties fighting for their lives against the Smoker invasion, although they Do Not Go Gentle and some survive.
- The Wild Geese: Early in the discussion of how to perform the mission, the Wild Geese mention that there are multiple guards around Limbani, most importantly the perimeter guards who will cause a lot of noise either by opening fire on the mercenaries or by the mercenaries shooting them (downplaying Hollywood Silencer). One of the Geese, Krueger, proposes using a crossbow with cyanide-tipped arrows to take them out silently and does so when the time comes.
- The Wolfman (2010): As Lawrence rides to the Romani camp to ask about the werewolf attacks, he meets an armed guard who lets him pass and whistles to alert those of his people waiting ahead. The werewolf takes advantage of his back being turned and pounces on the guard once Lawrence is out of sight.
Literature
- 1632:
- In 1635: The Papal Stakes, the villa that the Pope and his advisors are evacuated to early on has pickets in the surrounding countryside and lots of armed guards inside as well. A force of over fifty assassins surveils the place until they figure out how to bypass the pickets, and by the time they make it back, most of the house guards are dead or wounded (although, fortunately, so are nearly all of the attackers, although most at the hands of guests).
- In the short story "The Man in the Pocket" (collected in Grantville Gazette 25), Henry Jermyn is the Gentleman Usher of the Queen's private house and mostly just acts as a doorman and tour guide but is wielding a musket at the first barricade when a mob attacks. He is elated when his bumbling use of a matchlock rifle sends several rioters in retreat, but they soon regroup and he doesn't make it to the fallback point.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike And Dru Pretty Maids All In A Row: The second half of the book has the Watchers Council pull in most of their field agents from across the planet to set up row after row of armed guards in the mansion where all of the young Potential Slayers are hiding out in the basement during The Purge. When Skrymir and his fellow demons finally attack, the only Watcher guards to survive are the ones stationed in the very last line of defense and a few who the attackers left blind or otherwise immobilized but still alive.
- One scene of Catlow, by Louis L'Amour, has the protagonist wake up to find that the sentries his group posted to guard their prisoners and delay any Indian attacks are now lying on the ground, strangled by the missing prisoners.
- Dirk Pitt Adventures: Valhalla Rising: When Dirk and Kelly visit Josh Thomas's estate, a security guard (one of several) hidden inside a fake tree greets them. Later, when Dirk and Al visit the estate, they see the corpses of the security guards stacked up in the barn on the estate’s surveillance monitors (although the readers already got a brief description of the attackers killing the tree guard and luring the others into a trap).
- Discworld:
- Interesting Times: Cohen's hostage decides to lead him and his men to the stations of the elite palace guard to get them killed, only for those guards to get cut down.
- Night Watch (Discworld): The guards outside the Cable Street Particular headquarters walk up to talk to the wagon of visitors' from Vimes' group and find themselves snuck up on and whacked over the head in the next few paragraphs.
- The Dragon Business: Skeletons in the Closet: The two guard captains who greet Sir Dalbry and his party when they arrive are mowed down (along with most of their men) within moments of charging the orc invaders.
- Ex-Heroes: Makana and his soldiers are an ever-constant presence on the wall of the Citadel City, and when Legion’s zombies swarm the walls at the beginning of Ex-Communication, the guards hold their own but are beginning to take losses before The Cavalry can break the attack. In Ex-Purgatory, when the heroes come back to the city, they find it overrun in their absence, with Makana’s skeleton lying on the wall where he fell, although it turns out that was All Just a Dream and he is fine.
- The Hardy Boys Tom Swift Ulta Thriller: Time Bomb: Tom and his father bring a large contingent of security guards with them and their technicians to test their time machine. When armed thieves come for the machine, the guards Hold the Line for a bit but then begin falling, and only two of them survive the run back to the vehicle they and the Swifts escape in.
- Holmes on the Range: On The Wrong Track: The armed and jittery baggage express guard is constantly refusing to let people near his domain until he is sure they are railroad employees, which leads to a long and fatal delay in discovering that two villains raided the baggage car a bit past the halfway point and took him hostage.
- Zigzagged in Honor Harrington: Naval task forces tend to post picket ships to watch for enemy fleets arriving at a star system jump point. Usually, those sentries are either big enough to defeat the newcomers or immediately retreat from a fight they can't win, but every now and then, some new enemy tactic or superweapon will be enough to wipe them out before they can do anything.
- ''Jack Reacher:
- In Without Fail, While assessing security, Reacher chats with Crosetti, a secret service agent at one of several rooftop sentry positions before the vice-president's visit. Later, someone opens fire with a rifle from Crossetti's rooftop and Reacher realizes the shooter isn't Crosetti, who is found dead nearby.
- In Make Me, When Reacher and Chang go to visit a witness living in a gated community, the rent-a-cop at the gate waves them through, thinking they are there for the guy’s daughter’s engagement party. A few hours later, a hit squad shows up at the house. After killing them and leaving, Reacher and Chang find the rent-a-cop murdered at his post.
- Jack Ryan:
- Executive Orders: Several early scenes at First Daughter Katie Ryan's day-care show three Secret Service agents stationed in a house across the street, another outside, one with the kids, and one waiting in the back room. Five of the six are eventually killed in a terrorist kidnapping attempt, although the three at the day-care Do Not Go Gentle. The Sole Survivor lingered for a moment in the house across the street to call the State Police and consequently avoided being shot down in an ambush with the other two (whose killers he then snuck up on and shot).
- Patriot Games: Dozens of American and British security agents stationed outside Ryan's house during the state dinner find themselves under attack and outgunned in the climax. They Hold the Line for a while but more attackers sneak up on them from behind, leaving only three wounded survivors.
- In the JA Johnstone Western Shared Universe, a lot of books have a villain (or gang of villains) get arrested early on and then one or more deputies guarding the jail get killed when someone tries to break them out (with the deputies from Those Jensen Boys: Twelve Dead Men being among the ones more fleshed out beforehand).
- Mickey7: After Mickey survives a near-death experience in alien territory and returns to base, the first person he talks to is a sentry who he is careful to keep from realizing he isn’t the latest Mickey clone. He is later told that the guard was killed by aliens who followed him back to the base.
- Parker: Slayground: Parker's efforts to flee around different points of the amusement park are hindered by a lookout his pursuers posted in a high vantage point. Eventually, Parker sneaks up on the guy and, after realizing a gun would be too loud, dispatches him with a throwing knife.
- The Passage: Watch member Peter Jaxon is introduced walking a shift on the wall of a citadel city, and, while he ends up being the main protagonist and surviving, all of the named people in the shift that soon relieves him (and all but a few of their colleagues) are killed or abducted by attacking Viral hordes or Brainwashed and Crazy citizens over the next couple of hundred pages.
- The Rainmaker: The security guard who confronts Rudy when he visits Lake's law office is later mentioned as having died when a mysterious arsonist destroyed the building (although said arson is less plot relevant than average for this trope).
- Serge Storms:
- Narrowly subverted in Cadillac Beach, Tony spends several pages befriending a security guard at a building he's robbing so the guy will think he's a tenant. During the robbery, his crew want to kill the guy as a loose end, but he stops them out of sentiment and/or to avoid the risk that a dead body would jeopardize an immunity deal he is secretly making.
- Mermaid Confidential: Multiple scenes show the guards on the ground floor levels and perimeter of the Benzapa Cartel mansion, protecting their Anti-Villain Dark Lord on Life Support boss, and also a bunch of hospice kids who move in during the last act. Chief guard Cinco is confident that the guards won't be necessary even amidst an ugly Mob War, as attacking the mansion would be breaking several criminal taboos. Their rivals eventually do it anyway, and Cinco and his men are all killed or wounded (although so are the attackers).
- A Song of Ice and Fire: The Night's Watch is constantly sending thousands of Rangers to scout beyond the Wall but leaves thousands more Old Soldiers and New Meat to man the castles while they are gone. A Storm of Swords proves the necessity of their presence when the Free Folk's attack on the Wall is only repulsed with great difficulty, at the cost of many Mauve Shirt lives.
- Sorcery!: Crown of Kings: The Mampang Fortress' front gates level has four guards taking turns patrolling the area who the player spies on from hiding for a while and may have to kill one by one (although other scenarios can see them kill or capture the player or the player sneak past without killing any of them).
- The Sheriff Of San Miguel: Chaco and his rifle are constantly ready to cover any visitors to Stumpy Goff's ranch who might find the outlaw hideaway or deter Mark (the one unwilling resident's) escape attempts. When Kirk Calloway comes to rescue Mark, the first shots fired are in the Sniper Duel where he downs Chaco.
- Warrior Cats: Happens occasionally in the books. For instance:
- In Secrets of the Clans, one of the stories begins with two new WindClan warriors, Stoneclaw and Thrushwing, sitting the traditional silent vigil, guarding the camp on the night of their promotion. Stoneclaw is abruptly killed when raiding ShadowClan warriors attack the two of them.
- In Hawkwing's Journey, Sparrowpelt tells Hawkwing that Hawkwing was only dreaming about rogues attacking the camp, and that Stormheart is on guard duty for the night and will warn them if something comes up. They then hear Stormheart screech, which gets cut off; the attack was indeed real, and she ended up dying there.
Live-Action TV
- 24: In "Day 1: 3:00pm-4:00pm," there are three undercover agents posing as workers outside the safehouse where Agents Paulson and Breeher debrief Kim and Teri. First Breeher (although he is killed before he can raise an alarm) and then Paulson notice some of the men outside are absent from their stations and try to radio them as the two hitmen who killed their colleagues move in.
- Andor: The heist plan in "The Eye" involves an episode and a half of planning a way to sneak past the sentries and loot the treasury before they learn what is happening. They get in alright, but a suspicious officer takes most of the sentries to investigate the oddities and catches the team into an act, leading to a shootout where several of the sentries and half the Rebel team are killed.
- Bones, in "The Shot in the Dark", Hal, the security guard Brennan chats about the case she is working on, is later found shot dead not far from where Brennan was shot. Subverted with the reveal that he was crooked and let in the killer, only to get a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness fate.
- Fargo: Season Two: Guard shifts of armed men watch the entrance to the Gerhardt Farm. The current shift is slaughtered when Mike Milligan and his men from the Kansas City Mafia attack the farm halfway through the series, and the two most prominent men from an earlier guard shift died a couple of episodes earlier when Mike and his goons shot them while they were guarding Otto on a trip into town.
- Hogan's Heroes: "At Last, Schultz Knows Something" has the team plot to blow up a German laboratory. They discuss the hidden sentry post during their attack plan and trick the sentries into stealing baskets of food with hidden explosives. Two of the three sentries are still inside when the bombs go off and likely die.
- Ironside (1967): "The Monster of Comus Towers" begins with a security guard chatting with a colleague, leaving the room, then hearing something from the room his friend stayed behind in, races to respond, and is brutally killed by a robber (who turns out to be his coworker, who then pretends the robber also injured him) as soon as he enters the room.
- Mike Hammer: A security guard in an office building is doing rounds when he finds the air in a large room is oddly stifling. As the guard is reaching for a desk phone to call for aid, the phone starts ringing, then the whole floor explodes. Detective Hammer figures out that the building was targeted by a shakedown racket, and when the owners refused to pay, their building was filled with hydrogen gas, pumped in through a furnace oil inlet. The telephone's ringer proved the ignition spark.
- The Purge (2018): After his frat brothers realize Ben is a psycho and kick him out of the house on Purge night, one brother, Scott, patrols the downstairs with a baseball bat in case anyone breaks in. He is quickly ambushed and tied up to be killed later.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017): The Doorman making sure no one coming into the Squalors' apartment is the wanted fugitive count Olaf throughout part 1 vanishes and is replaced by an imposter in part 2 after Olaf was last seen approaching him with a hidden knife.
- Stranger Things: In season 4, Agents Wallace and Harmon get a few scenes lounging around the living room watching TV after being assigned to guard the kids in the Byers' House. They show some Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass skills when the house is attacked, helping the kids escape, but one is captured and the other mortally wounded before the fight is over.
- Supernatural: When Mary visits the Men of Letters Bunker in "The Raid," there are armed guards outside. One guard dies as soon as the vampires attacking the bunker later on show themselves, and his companion follows after a failed attempt to run to the front door and take refuge inside rather than put up a fight.
- Tremors: There are a lot of security soldiers present at the project Burt stumbles across in "Night of the Shriekers" to prevent both the Shriekers killing civilians of they get free of their control collars and any civilians killing the Shriekers if they stay restrained. That night, when a Shrieker gets lose in a storm, half of the scientists present survive, but the only soldier to make it to morning does so by running the moment things get bad.
- What We Do in the Shadows (2019): Played for Laughs in the first season. When the main characters arrive for their hearing with the Vampiric Council, a vampire guarding the tunnels they pass through leers at them. When they try to flee through the tunnels after being sentenced to death, that guard intercepts them, then accidentally impales himself on a broken light holder while stepping backward away from a cross Guillermo brandishes at him.
- Z Nation: When the heroes decide to seek help from The Remnant in "Full Metal Zombie", the fidgety soldier at the front door who lets them through turns out to be the last uninfected subordinate the dying General has left, with a horde of zombies Zerg Rushing that guard a few scenes later.
Video Games
- Avernum: There are multiple forts throughout Avernum to protect the populace from the many threats there, such as the bandits, the Nephilim, and the Slith, among others. But then there's Fort Remote, situated in a part of the caverns that sees little action, so the most they fight is boredom. That is, until the threat of Grah-Hoth reemerging is formally introduced by demons slaughtering them all.
- Hitman: This is a common type of guard outpost found throughout the series, denying the player access to restricted areas, or otherwise exclusive places civilians aren't allowed in to. As the player, the idea is to get Agent 47, an assassin for hire, past these guards via the use of disguises. If the mission goes loud, then the guards do usually leave their posts once they get embroiled in the action, but most of the time, they are sentries, and do not move very much (later games even explicitly make them immune to coin distractions so players can't brute-force their way inside an area).
Western Animation
- Jonny Quest: General Fong has ninja-like mooks stationed in perches in the trees near his missile silo. These sentries routinely check in with each other, and they are shown to eliminate investigators with frightening efficiency, mainly by releasing mines anchored to the swamp floor. As Quest and Bannon flee from the pursuing Fong, many of these tree-borne mooks are still sleeping off the Instant Sedation darts that Bannon used to slip past them. The last awake mook gets a You Have Failed Me fate which leads to the Accidental Suicide of his boss (the guy's body landed on the detonator to the mine they were right above).
- The Scooby-Doo Show:
- In "The No-Face Zombie Chase," the security guard that the gang sneaks past to look for the zombie eventually catches them and makes them stay in an office while he goes looking for the alleged zombie. He never returns and is later found to have been abducted.
- In "The Warlock of Wimbledon," the haunting victim has a gatekeeper at his estate who he introduces to the gang as they arrive. Soon afterward, they hear a scream and find the gatekeeper gone. It turns out he is one of the culprits and faked his death/abduction, though.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Rookies", the trooper out on patrol and the two standing guard outside the communications post both witness the meteor shower that turns out to be disguised droid commandos who swiftly kill them.
- TaleSpin: The "Plunder and Lightning" four-parter and "Jumping the Guns" both have an early scene where the air pirates are sent fleeing in terror by the cliff gunners stationed outside Cape Suzette and both episodes revolve around the pirates plotting to find a way to take down those sententials. They briefly succeed both times, blowing up the guns with a Lightning Gun in the former episode (although the gunners flee their stations in time to avoid being killed), and drugging the guards' food in the latter episode.
