"You gotta love an elite killing force you can fool by putting on a hat."
— Marn Hierogryph, on the Mandalorians, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Being a guard for an Evil Overlord is a low-status, low-pay, high-risk job in an unsafe workplace, with very little long term job security (but they normally have a brilliant pension plan). So it's hardly surprising that most applicants aren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, and could be fooled by tricks that wouldn't faze an average six-year old.
Common issues are:
- Attacking heroes one at a time.
- Stopping them for the wrong reason.
- Dismissing odd sounds as nothing.
- Abandoning their post to investigate odd sounds, usually alone or if there’s a team of guards, spreading out just beyond sight of each other.
- Sounding the alarm at the crack of a twig, even if it's just a cat.
- Not raising an alarm or calling HQ upon seeing something suspicious, especially the corpse of another guard; instead, they try to find the perpetrator themselves.
- When searching for people, not looking in ridiculously obvious hiding places.
- Letting visitors give prisoners seemingly harmless gifts of food, such as a big cake.
- Granting a prisoner a Last Request.
- Letting someone give a prisoner one last kiss.
- Asking prisoners, "Any Last Words?"
- Assuming anyone in a guard outfit must be a guard, even if they don't recognize them note or the outfits are quite visibly a disguise.
- Not noticing that the other guards seem to be disappearing.
- Not confirming the authenticity of unexpected prisoner transfers, surprise inspections, new janitors or pizza deliveries.
- Assuming that the heroes would never attempt to sneak by Right Under Their Noses.
- Getting easily distracted, especially by prisoners getting it on.
- Never curious enough to eavesdrop on conversations between the prisoner and unscheduled higher-ups, especially when they say they want to be "alone with a prisoner", if you know what I mean.
- Leaving important keys dangling from an easily accessible chain.
- Walking very close to prisoners or cell gates.
- Examining allegedly sick prisoners whilst unarmed and alone, and with the cell door left open.
- Leaving prisoners locked in a room with a bed, bedsheets and an open window.
- Ignoring inanimate objects that could conceal an intruder and move around when they aren't looking.
- Blurting out passwords loudly as they enter gates. Or, alternatively, leaving password change memos out where anyone can find them.
- Falling asleep.
- Drinking on Duty.
- Ogling the centerfold in the latest issue of Hot Guard Babes instead of paying attention to what's going on around them.
- Carrying or storing weapons in a prison, in such a way that they are easily stolen by the escaping prisoners.
- Talking too freely with prisoners.
- Allowing the prisoner/captive to go to the bathroom or relieve themselves unguarded, especially when the bathroom contains possible alternate exits.
- Never learning that it's NOT a good idea to fight the hero/villain. Especially after they just left a mountain of their corpses in their wake.
- Not properly searching prisoners before throwing them into the cell. Especially, allowing them to keep their "harmless trinkets" with them in their cells.
- Confiscating the equipment of a prisoner, then leaving the equipment in an unsecured location where the prisoner can easily retrieve it during an escape attempt.
- Dropping their guard because no threat has been detected for a full two minutes.
- When a security camera stops working, ignoring it instead of sounding the alarm, or at the very least getting a maintenance team onto it ASAP with accompanying guards.
- Having alarms that can be switched off by cutting the power or the wire.note Or otherwise triggered as a ruse.
- Allowing the prisoner to taunt them into entering the cell to give them a sound beating, especially if they appear to still be shackled or tied.
- Having a very particular ratio of respect for authority and independence. Just enough of the former to be intimidated and release the hero when he claims higher-ups might get annoyed, but enough of the latter that they don't just pass the buck by checking with their supervisor.
- Forgetting to lock the door to the cell.
- NPCs forget you've just asked them a very suspicious thing or given a wrong answer once you close and re-open the dialogue options.
- Walking up to, then leaning down to peer at what is very obviously an explosive device for a closer look.
A Sub-Trope of Artistic License – Prison and an Acceptable Break from Reality, as competent guards would cause characters to end up stuck in prison forever so movie and TV plots wouldn't advance, and Stealth-Based Games would be unwinnable.
The facility the guards are employed at may have Swiss-Cheese Security, in which case they never had a chance at keeping intruders out anyway, despite their best efforts. So Long, Sentry may accompany this trope if the guards themselves die because of their poor efforts at halting danger.
The trope name is a pun on the film The Gods Must Be Crazy. See also Conspicuously Selective Perception for the stealth game variant.
Example Subpages:
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Films – Animation
- Films – Live-Action
- Live-Action TV
- Video Games
- Webcomics
- Western Animation
- Real Life
Other Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: In Chapter 17 of the manga (Episode 10 of the anime), Shizuka, Nano, and Kusuri have had to run out of the Hanazono mansion because an alert was triggered, only to nearly get found by a guard. Nano and Kurusi make passable imitations of a cat meowing... and Shizuka uses her phone app to say "The cat says 'meow'". The guard falls for it.
- Those two guards on the top floor of the hotel in the Island arc of Assassination Classroom are trained agents, yet both of them immediately left their spot to chase after a kid just because he insulted them. Not to mention they got outrun by a kid (a kid trained in assassination and the fastest runner, but still...).
- In the Captain Harlock manga, Earth's prime minister has Daiba arrested with plans to have the guards follow him to Harlock or otherwise use him as bait... Then Yuki, from Harlock's crew, walks in the prison, presents herself as one of Harlock's pirates and asks for confirmation if that's where they keep Daiba for the trap, at which point they just let her pass. Harlock's vice-commander Yattaran, who had got himself thrown in the same cell as Daiba to help him in a "proper" escape attempt, can barely believe it, the guards belatedly realize they look like fools... And the plan to follow Harlock's ship falls through because the radar operator was playing golf with the prime minister.
- Code Geass:
- The Britannian guards frequently wait until Lelouch has geassed them before actually doing their job. Twice they have waited for Lelouch to give a long pretentious speech before he geassed them into killing themselves. Reaches its peak when Lelouch just walks up and waits more than a minute while the guards attack him with spears before geassing the entire room. Although he was still a Prince, and thus it's doubtful assault against royalty goes over great in Britannia.
- The Chinese Federation are even worse. While they do have guns, they just stare dumbfounded as Xingke fights them off with a sword since the only Chinese soldiers to fight are the ones with spears, and then they watch as Lelouch gives a speech before he finally has the sense to take his gun and hold Tianzi hostage with it. Granted, they were in the middle of a wedding chapel surrounded with VIPs from two superpowers, so it's possible that they may have simply wanted to avoid accidentally shooting someone else, but the guards outside have no excuse.
- In one episode, an unarmed Lelouch and Kallen find some Britannians on a remote island and effortlessly steal their ridiculously powerful prototype mech. The mech itself was unguarded, and the "guards" left the keys in the ignition. Kallen has to beat up a few guys, but they don't make use of their firepower advantage. Euphemia was fairly close, though, so it may have been to avoid regicide.
- One episode of Digimon Adventure has Piyomon and Gomamon knock out and steel some food from a particularly dumb Bakemon guard by goading him into taunting them with it.
- In The Mysterious Cities of Gold, the Mayan sentries are supposed to guard the house where the gang is staying. Instead, they sleep on the job, giving Pedro and Sancho a chance to sneak out.
- In One Piece, Impel Down is the World Government's high-security super-max mostly due to its architecture and resources, such as demon guardians and Seastone restraints. Unfortunately, it seems very little attention was given to selecting and training human guards, who are woefully unprepared for handling prisoners with Devil Fruit powers should said prisoners be able to use them. (It doesn't apply to named characters like Magellan and Sadi-Chan, however.)
- The Rose of Versailles: Being based on the period before The French Revolution, it's featured with some regularity in one of the show's many examples of Truth in Television.
- Jeanne Valois actually states you only need a hat and a sword to reach the queen. She and her husband then proceed to do just that, and only fail because they stumble on Oscar, who could have recognized they were out of place.
- This is almost exactly as it went in real life, as Jeanne was kept away by Marie Antoinette's personal bodyguards, who had both a strict list of who was allowed to come close to the queen and specific instructions to keep Jeanne Valois away.
- Also subverted on one occasion, where Fersen is leaving Versailles after a secret meeting with Marie Antoinette and is stopped by some soldiers of the French Guards. Bonus points for the French Guards being particularly infamous for laziness during guard duty and Oscar, who had recently become their commander, showing up in time to save Fersen because she planned to catch them shirking guard duty. Double Subversion when Oscar tells Fersen which gate was guarded by the laziest guards (who weren't in Oscar's regiment, so it wasn't her problem).
- Jeanne Valois actually states you only need a hat and a sword to reach the queen. She and her husband then proceed to do just that, and only fail because they stumble on Oscar, who could have recognized they were out of place.
- In Windaria the key to Lunara's floodgates are guarded by an old man that sleeps most of the day in a guardhouse without a door. At the start of the film, a spy walks in there, takes the keys, and no one realizes anything until he opens the flood gates. Considering this could have flooded the entire city it merges with Too Dumb to Live.
Arts
- Some of Karl Spitzweg's most famous paintings (Der strickende Wachposten
◊ and variations) depict a sentry standing or sitting on the battlements among the cannons and knitting.
- And there also is Der schlafene Wachposten◊, in which a soldier on guard duty has made a scarecrow out of his uniform and rifle and gone to sleep. And even if he had not been asleep, there is still a book lying on the howitzer.
Asian Animation
- Lamput: In "Break Out", the guard who is supposed to be manning the laboratory's security cameras never once thinks to give them constant attention, only periodic attention, and just barely misses the docs each time when they sneak further and further to the room where they keep Lamput. It isn't until Skinny already has Lamput that he realizes someone snuck into that room.
- In the Rocket Boy & Toro episode "Boots of Destiny", one of the two guards in the shoe store mentions hearing a sound behind them, but neither bother to look behind them when Trash steals the Boots of Clogg, and they don't realize they're gone until after they're stolen.
Board Games
- In Chess, it's a rare game where the King's pawns are not somehow involved in blocking his retreat and forming a checkmate.
- Older Than Print: In Xiangqi, the checkmated General/King's own Advisors/Guards are often part of the reason it's checkmate; there would be escape if they weren't there, and sometimes the one the enemy Cannon is using as a gun mount cannot move because it's in a corner of the Palace and the other Advisor/Guard is in its way.
Gamebooks
- Lone Wolf: Although even smart guards would have a hard time against a psychic hero specialized in infiltration and camouflage, some over the series display the typical incompetence associated with this trope.
- For example, in Shadow on the Sand, two Vassagonian gaolers believe their prisoner has escaped when they can't see him through the peephole, just because Lone Wolf is sitting against the door. And he isn't even doing it on purpose, but still gets the opportunity to ambush them when they open the cell.
- In Dawn of the Dragons, the Eldenorian guards capturing Lone Wolf and bringing him before Prince Lutha take his gold, backpack, and weapons... but not the weapon-like special items. Including the Sommerswerd!note The collector re-edition explains this by having the soldiers being quite superstitious of touching magical artifacts or weapons.
- The Warlock of Firetop Mountain: The Warlock's orc guards are probably the most incompetent guards so far. The first two orcs you can encounter are sleeping on their jobs, and later you find two drunk orcs guarding a room... containing a powerful spell book that can repel dragons. You can also find an orc chieftain too busy flogging servant to pay attention to you, an intruder, or enter a mess hall full of orcs too busy eating to notice you.
Literature
- Subverted by the Alex Rider book Scorpia Rising: When Jack is escaping from her cell (by means of a convenient loose bar in the window), she marvels at how none of the guards overhear the huge amount of noise she makes, there's only one guard left watching the cars, and they've left the keys in the ignition. She even wonders if this might not all be too good to be true... and she's right, as her entire "escape" has been stage-managed in order to lead her into a deathtrap.
- Both fiercely subverted and then played straight in An Oblique Approach, the first book of the Belisarius Series by David Drake and Eric Flint. The Kushans guarding Princess Shakuntala were so highly disciplined, effective, and intelligently led that Raghunath Rao, greatest assassin in India, knew he could never rescue her from them. So Belisarius tricked Venandakatra into replacing the Kushans with "guards" so inept that Rao had no problem wiping them out — except for two killed by the princess herself.
- In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian novel The Hour of the Dragon, Zenobia gets the keys, to the Tailor-Made Prison no less, by getting them drunk.
- The Discworld books have a lot of fun with this.
- In The Last Hero, Evil Harry Dread (the archetypical Evil Overlord) hires his henchmen on the above criteria. "Butcher" is the archetype of the trope.Why?
- Guards! Guards! opens with a dedication to those people "whose job it is, round about chapter three, to rush at the hero one at a time and be slaughtered."
- In Thud!, the text mentions how when Sergeant Colon is on guard duty, he "kept the cell keys in a tin box in the bottom drawer of his desk, a long way out of reach of any stick, hand, dog, cunningly thrown belt, or trained Klatchian monkey spider (making Fred Colon possibly unique in the annals of jail history)."
- Seemingly averted in The Last Continent, where the guards at Bugrup Prison are wise to every escape trope, but haven't worked out how Tinhead Ned (and later Rincewind) did escape (the jail door can be lifted off its hinges). Possibly because they reckon it makes a better ballad if the prisoner escapes and then gets killed in a last stand at the Post Office.
- In Pyramids, it's noted the guards of Djelyibabi are intentionally hired for being stupid and unimaginative, in case they start getting ideas, especially ones along the lines of "why aren't we in charge?"
- Night Watch: Snouty, prison guard of the old Treacle Mine Road watch house at the time of the Glorious Revolution of the 25th of May. Vimes notes he's stupid enough to walk up to the bars of the cell, when he's on his own and has the keys on a belt, which means Vimes could easily lay him out and escape if he wanted. After a few seconds, Snouty actually steps into the cells, and Vimes' monologue notes if he did it with the other prisoner he's got, Snouty would be dead a few days early.
- In Doom: Hell on Earth, a pair of bored Clydes are frisking zombies boarding a plane. They fail to notice the heroes Pretending We're Dead or catch that one is being carried upright between them.
- In one of the Get Smart novels, one guard is particularly immune to this. Instead of entering the cell when Max sets fire to the bed as a diversion, the guard merely opens up on him with the firehose. However, just a few pages, later the rest of the guards in the prison are fooled by Max writing "out of order" with a piece of chalk on a death ray!
- Subverted in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy: Ford attempts to save himself and Arthur from being chucked out an airlock by talking a Vogon guard into questioning the purpose of his life, but the guard is too dumb for Ford to get through to him. In fact, the guard really enjoys his job. Including the whole throw people out of the airlock part. And the shouting.
- John Carter of Mars. Dear GOD, if a strange man climbs up to the roof you're guarding, tells you what a difficult and dangerous climb he had, and invites you to take a look at how precariously his rope is dangling off the edge, DON'T DO IT!
- Journey to Chaos:
- Generally averted, as it is not easy to sneak past the guards in Roalt castle. During A Mage's Power this is played for laughs when Kasile sheepishly notes that her King Incognito disguise fooled her bodyguards. Mia replies that they must be "stupidheads".
- Looming Shadow example; The guards in Mr.15's lair are smart enough to check for invisible people when they're looking for a mage, but they remain easy to fool because of that fact. They don't look for anything else.
- The Stuart Gibbs Funjungle novels get a lot of humor from the incompetence of the parks security guards. After an animal is stolen the guards fail to realize the correct time the theft occurred (if they had the. Security footage would have easily solved the case), a guard assigned to prevent the poisoning of giraffes fails to realize that it’s his own actions of feeding then dangerous plants that’s making them sick and one of the few times they actually catch a criminal it’s because the officer pursuing the man tripped over a little kid, and accidentally tapered an old lady who the fleeing criminal then tripped over. By the third book, park owner JJ McCracken has tried to get around this by hiring he more professional Chief Honneker to run things smoother (which despite some initial arrogance, he arguably does) but the rank and file guards still screw up a lot.
- In Noob, this is actually exploited by a Non-Player Character. The Player Characters are stuck in jail in which magic can't be used and the Non-Player Character is an alchemist so good that he can literally make invisibility powder out of thin air. When one of the players points out that being invisible will be useless if they can't get out, the alchemist's reply comes down to "Nah, the guards are going to panic when we all vanish, open the gates to let reinforcements in, and we'll take advantage of this to escape.". The plan actually works.
- In Syren, the fifth book of the Septimus Heap series, Septimus gets past a guard in the Trading Post by claiming that he is someone important. Now, Septimus did not in fact lie to him. He was the Senior Apprentice(with the nifty Magykal cuffs to prove it), and he was on official business ( getting Jenna, the Princess). Trope still applies in that the guard did nothing to verify this.
- Tolkien's Legendarium:
- In The Hobbit, the Mirkwood elves demonstrate the Drinking on Duty variation of this, allowing the dwarves to escape.
- Averted in The Lord of the Rings by Háma, doorward of Meduseld in Edoras. He's smart enough to know that "the staff of a wizard may be more than a prop for age", but lets Gandalf through with said staff because he deems he's a friend here to help (a judgment that is soon vindicated). It's a bit more vague in the movie, but it's certainly a plausible interpretation of his actions there.
- In Warrior Cats:
- Cats guarding the camp often don't notice when their Clanmates sneak out.
- In The Darkest Hour, Jaggedtooth is guarding Tigerstar's prisoners. Ravenpaw pretends to be a RiverClan cat and tells him that he'll take over as guard for a bit since Tigerstar wants Jaggedtooth to report to him. Despite Jaggedtooth not recognizing Ravenpaw, and he himself pointing out that Tigerstar declared that only ShadowClan cats are allowed to guard them, he still leaves the prisoners alone with the stranger, enabling them to escape.
- Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River: The chief of security at Glen Canyon Dam has an outburst when he is told that a security guard let the bomber in without confirming that the supposed elevator maintenance guy was in fact an elevator maintenance guy.
- Subverted in the novel Where Eagles Dare. The German soldiers searching for the commandos don't check the ladies toilet where they're hiding. When one commando mentions how stupid that is, his superior points out the soldiers were eager to think up excuses to avoid searching places where desperate men might empty a submachine gun into them.
- The guards at the "best guarded keep of the stoutest castle" in The Wind in the Willows apparently can't tell the difference between a washerwoman they see every day and is the sister or sister-in-law of the chief warden, and their main prisoner, who is an anthropomorphic toad.
Magazines
- Reader's Digest once had a story in "Humor in Uniform" where a group of army brass talked about the guards on duty at their base and mentioned that some of them are on duty for so long, they don't bother to verify presented identification. So, they came up with a challenge to see who could get past security with the weakest form of identification. They each successfully passed security with driver's licenses, library cards, credit cards, and so forth. The winner's identification: a piece of toast.
Pinballs
- In Williams Electronics' Safecracker, the player must sneak into a guarded bank vault. Methods for doing so include distracting the guards with donuts and bribing them with points.
Puppet Shows
- Fraggle Rock: In "The Cavern of Lost Dreams", Gobo and Cotterpin discover an ancient city guarded by Crusty and Yeaster, two elderly Doozers. Crusty puts Gobo in prison for trying to eat one of the ancient Doozer constructions, and then he and Yeaster imprison Cotterpin for rearranging of one of the towers. When Gobo pretends to be sick, Crusty and Yeaster leave the prison door open while examining him. On top of that, Crusty calls Gobo a riding beast yet again (he and Yeaster had seen Cotterpin riding on Gobo's backpack). This flips Gobo out, and he knocks down the two old Doozers, causing them to drop their spears, which Cotterpin grabs.
- Kingdom Adventure: Played with: Magistrate Pitts' guards aren't actually bad at fighting or weak, and when they're on alert, they present a genuine threat to the protagonists. That said, one of them is very dimwitted, and the other regularly falls asleep at his post.
- The guards at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Sesame Street special "Don't Eat the Pictures" never notice a group of nine people and four muppets who were locked in the museum overnight TRYING to find a way out until one of the people who was trapped inside mentions it to them as the museum reopens the next morning.
- Tales of the Tinkerdee: A single guard at the gate is tricked by Taminella's Paper-Thin Disguise into letting her into the castle when she pretends to be Santa Claus, and Charlie (her bipedal ogre henchman) pretends to be Rudolph. Somewhat downplayed in that he does ask some questions about why Santa would be there in the middle of summer, and none of the other characters ever sees through her disguises, either.
Tabletop Games
- Danger International, Investigation Script example. If the Player Characters are captured they can use the "sick captive" trick to lure the guards into their cell, ambush them and take their clothing and weapons so they can pass for them.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- 3rd Edition
- Most PC classes that would traditionally be used as guards don't have Spot, Listen or Sense Motive as class skills. This essentially makes them partially blind, hearing-impaired, and incredibly gullible. Exactly how this plays out depends on the DM. Most play the trope straight because guards tend not to be treated as more than minor enemies. Those skills are mainly intended to counteract Hide, Move Silently, and Bluff. In addition, those skills are not infallible unless the DM hands NPCs the Idiot Ball. For example, no matter what your Hide skill is, if you walk in front of a guard without some form of cover, he sees you, no matter what.
- Scouts used as guards can avert this trope. They possess Spot, Listen and Sense Motive as class skills. They get 8 base skill points per level. In addition, they have Hide and Move Silently as class skills, so they can stand guard without being readily visible. Their Skirmish feat also gives them a significant advantage in straight combat against most stealthy classes if there is some room to move around.
- Ironically, the NPC class of Warrior does have Spot and Listen on its skill list, making them potentially better guards than trained Fighters. Even Commoners have those as class skills.
- Module B9 Castle Caldwell and Beyond. The gnoll guarding the Player Character prisoners is not very bright and will fall for any reasonable trick, such as one of them pretending to be ill. However, if the first attempt fails it will be very alert thereafter.
- Speaking of early adventure modules, the above example is all the more unusual because the gnoll in question isn't already distracted from its duty by gambling with fellow guards. Betting on dice, brawls, and/or Beastly Bloodsports is ubiquitous among humanoids in old-school D&D modules; it's amazing any of them actually have any treasure left.
- 3rd Edition
- Time Lord RPG (based on Doctor Who):
- "Curse of the Cyclops" adventure. If the entire Player Character party is captured and there is no-one to rescue them, the guards will demonstrate their usual stupidity and allow the prisoners to fool them and escape.
- In the Journies supplement, a captured Player Character could use "The Daft Guard Effect" to distract any guards present so the prisoner(s) can escape.
Theatre
- Played for laughs in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
Dogberry: You are to bid any man stand, in the Prince's name.
Verges: How if a' will not stand?
Dogberry: Why, take no note of him, but let him go.
Theme Parks
- Justified in Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! The staff are secretly in on Rocket's plan out of spite for their Bad Boss.
- Stitch's Great Escape!: All the security systems in the high security teleportation chamber can be disabled simply by spitting on them. And the guards thought it was safe to raise the glass tube that Stitch was in. All the recruits stationed in that room were on their first day on the job, were unarmed, and were being restrained by DNA scanners that had already finished serving their purpose.
Visual Novels
- What a Legend!: Some of the city watch are too nice and lacking in suspicion for their jobs. When you get caught trying to climb over the city wall, the guard seems genuinely touched at your thoughtfulness when you claim that you just climbed up briefly to wish him a good night. (They are later shown to be diligent in responding to more serious threats like a fire, however.)
Web Animation
- In Clear Skies 2, the team are able to spring an informant from a prison outpost (admittedly, a very backwater one) by posing as guards for a prisoner transfer. It works, despite their credentials being stolen and very, very out of date, because the local guard was expecting a prisoner transfer at around that time. He gets chewed out later.
- An incredibly rare example in Dusk's Dawn when the guard in question, Donut, is a main character! He doesn't notice anything about the Big Bad who's "obviously cured" and as he's walking down a corridor monologing about how bored he is, a highly suspicious dark shadow flies by. Rather than do his job and check it out, he just brushes off a potential intruder as "a cat or something" (despite seeing it fly) and continues walking forward.
- Red vs. Blue: In Season 4 of The Blood Gulch Chronicles, Tex attempts to knock out one of the Zealots guarding a temple... but is unsuccessful and repeatedly hits him in hopes that it does knock him out. The only thing more absurd than the Zealot not becoming incapacitated from the multiple strikes is that his fellow Zealots appear unaware that he's being attacked, despite the cries for help he's making.
Tucker: What the fuck, are they deaf?! (someone shoots a sniper round that narrowly misses him) Oh right, that you heard?
Web Original
- The Evil Overlord List has all sorts of tips on how to turn the guards from this sort of behavior and turn them into a ruthless fighting force prepared to guard anything anytime.
- This Cracked article has some pretty spectacular examples:
- Ted Bundy's escape from a Colorado courthouse when he was supposed to be using the law library.
- A Greek robber escaping via helicopter. Twice.
- A convicted murderer who changed his clothes while waiting for his lawyer — then walked right out.
- This Onion article describes multiple instances of kids breaking into military bases to rescue their alien friend, using techniques that play this trope incredibly straight, including nearly every common example of this trope such as, easily distracting guards with attractive women (really just a mannequin and a tape recorder), sneaking past guards who are napping, and covering cameras with silly string.
- One mini-comic in Rapscallion Games's Shagahol features a bard literally walking right up to a guard and offering him oral sex in a nearby alleyway, which he accepts on the spot. Justified, because as she reasons, if he doesn't have any spare money, which she asks about first, the cult that hired him must not be paying him enough to care more about his post than a pretty woman.
Web Videos
- Door Monster:
- "The Guards Themselves": One guard has earphones in and is listening to music while he's supposed to guarding the prisoners. Needless to say, he does not last long.
- Their sketch "Diplomancy" has a guard who starts off sane, but after a series of Bluff rolls is convinced that his name is now Greg and that he killed the King using a chicken.
- "The Guards Themselves"
- "Ginormo", by Steven He features the guards of the Big Bad capturing one team of the heroes, when a second team fools them by different schemes, such as offering a snack cart.
- The LifesBlood Labs goons in LG15: the resistance are pretty incompetent. The "Mace in Yo Face!" and "Done Dirt Cheap" incidents are particularly shameful. Although the "Mace in Yo Face" incident is justified because those weren't real LBL henchmen.
- Rich and Larry from Troopers.
- The princess escapes in almost every episodes she appears when Rich and Larry are tasked of guarding her.
- Rich removes the handcuffs of an alien lizardman (who's been imprisoned for rape) thinking he's friendly. It goes as well as you imagine.
- A prisoner escaped under Larry's watch and placed a dummy in his place. It takes three months before Lord Sinister gets wind of this.
- Rich opens the door for Insurgency troops to storm-in, thinking it was the pizza delivery guy knocking.
