Sometimes, the Big Bad of a story will have their most elite defenders be composed of exclusively female and very often attractive warriors.
Occasionally, however, it would be the hero (or a supporting character on the good side) who has Bodyguard Babes, at which point it's almost mandatory that Hilarity Ensues via an Unwanted Harem situation. May result in a Bodyguard Crush.
Unsurprisingly this is most common when the one being defended by the Bodyguard Babes is male.
In short, Praetorian Guard recruited from an Amazon Brigade. See also Battle Harem and Paid Harem. Ninja Maid is a more specialized subtrope. Compare Bridge Bunnies when the women are the main force behind the scenes.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Agent Aika: The Delmogeny a.k.a. Delmo Corps. The less said about what the Big Bad whom they serve wants to do with them after his grand plan is achieved, the better.
- Halibel from Bleach has only female fraccion.
- A quartet of these crop up occasionally in Cardcaptor Sakura, generally called in by Tomoyo when transport is needed and no other adult figures are available.
- One villain in City Hunter has an entire militia of female mercenaries guarding his private mansion. Said villain was allergic to the presence of other men, hence the justification of this trope.
- Code Geass:
- Lelouch's female bodyguard, Kallen Kouzuki.
- In a related example, Knight of the Round Luciano Bradley is supported by the Grausam Valkyrie Team, an Amazon Brigade complete with pink mecha.
- Shamna from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection has a royal guard consisting of six young women clad in Stripperiffic outfits and carrying spears.
- Delicious in Dungeon: Shuro, the eldest son of a powerful nobleman, has five female retainers who are all capable fighters in their own right — Ninjas (at least one of them magical), an ogre heavyweight, and a Cat Girl conscript. Lampshaded in a bonus comic where Shuro's younger brother complains that he only got male retainers.
- Denpa Teki na Kanojo: At the school, Juu tries to confront Ayase and she pulls a razor, then all the girls run to protect a surprised Juu. Justified because Yukihime and Madoka are Ame's friends, and is logical she asked them not to solve the case, but help Ame to protect Juu.
- Lust and Sloth from Fullmetal Alchemist act as two of Dante's bodyguards for the most part.
- In the original Ghost in the Shell manga, Colonel Tonoda's sexbot suddenly sprouting guns to fend off an attack by a rogue gynoid.
- Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex:
- In one episode, a bad guy of the week is tipped off that the police are trying to track him down. While a shootout proceeds outside in the hallway, Motoko Kusanagi jumps in through the window. One mook notices her and tells two female android bodyguards to fight her off.
- In another episode the target of an assassination attempt lives in a mansion with Robot Girl guards/maids.
- The maids in charge of security of the Hanaukyo household in Hanaukyō Maid Team.
- The Eylstadt Royal Guard in Izetta: The Last Witch counts as one protecting Archduchess Ortfine Frederika von Eylstadt. Every member seen on screen is female and are excellent marksmen, capable of shooting the rifles out of soldiers' hands. Also, their Captain is dedicated to her post, not allowing anyone she deems suspicious near the Archduchess, which initially includes the title character, Izetta.
- Lyrical Nanoha:
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: Jail Scagletti has the Numbers, who are also a Quirky Miniboss Squad. They also have...Other surprises.
- Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force: The Hero Thoma Avenir and The Heroine Lily-Strosek are guarded by The Lancer Isis Egret, who even shares the same bedroom with them that only has two beds. Despite this, the three avert a Love Triangle dynamic, as Isis is no threat to Thoma's and Lily's blooming relationship and she doesn't even share a bed with either of them.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
- Fate's personal Quirky Miniboss Squad is composed exclusively of Cute Monster Girls. As of late, he's even dressed them up as maids.
- Ala Alba itself nearly counts, given that all of them by now have made Pactios with Negi. Kotaro is the only outrider in the deal, and when he gets into a Pactio with Natsumi, she's more of a stealth expert than an Action Girl.
- In One Piece, when Franky ran the Franky Family in Water 7, he was assisted by Mozu and Kiwi, the square sisters. While Franky always prefers to do the fighting himself, the girls prove to be capable of fending for themselves when they join the Ennies Lobby rescue mission.
- Hisami has an attractive female bodyguard in Read or Dream. We later find out the woman is actually the villainess Lily in disguise, and that the real bodyguard was left Bound and Gagged in a bathroom.
- The Rose of Versailles has Oscar, the protagonist, who serves as a member of the Maison Militaire du Roi du France (the collection of regiments working as royal guards during the Ancien Regime), first in the Garde du Corps du Roi (lit. Bodyguards of the King) and later, after losing her faith in the rulers, in the Gardes Francaises (French Guards), who doubled as law enforcement in Paris.
- Most of the villains in Sailor Moon. Specifically the Ayakashi Sisters (R), the Amazoness Quartet (Super S) and the Sailor Animates (Stars). The Witches Five from S were more of an Evil Genius team, as they'd send mooks but rarely fought. In the manga, the Inner Senshi count as this for Princess Serenity, along with the Amazoness Quartet for Chibiusa.
- The Mizunokouji family from Urusei Yatsura has a team of beautiful female bodyguards. This probably has to do with the fact that Mizunokouji family custom inolves raising their female heirs in complete separation from all male contact until they meet their parentally-arranged spouse to ensure their purity (something that didn't work out as planned for heiress Asuka). Ironically, they also serve the family's male heir, son Tobimaro, who doesn't think very much of them — partly because he has a low opinion of women due to being tormented by Ryoko Mendo throughout his childhood, partly because of their dubious competency.
Comic Books
- Batman:
- Lark is the Penguin's bodyguard and limousine driver. She actually predates the much better known Mercy Graves mentioned below.
- The Riddler is sometimes accompanied by Query and Echo, a pair of female bodyguards who are his most loyal enforcers. They actually met each other at a BDSM sex club, but it's unclear if their new relationship with him is romantic or strictly professional.
- Harley Quinn for the Joker, especially in Joker, in which she's never seen speaking on panel.
- The Joker's topless female Nazi transsexual bodyguard Bruno in All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder. Yes, you read that right. She wears swastika pasties. However, Bruno's an independent operative in the comic she's introduced in, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns; Rob and Don work for her after the mutant leader's takedown.
- Black Panther: The Black Panther has a highly trained group of female bodyguards called the Dora Milaje, who are technically speaking wives-in-waiting — but since he never ever sleeps with any of them, you can't really call them a harem. They call him 'husband', however. They're almost certainly inspired by the "Dahomey Amazons" — see the Real Life section below.
- Kennedy's Slayer bodyguards in season nine of Buffy The Vampire Slayer provide a literal example.
- Deconstructed in The Couriers. Triad boss Johnny Funwrecker's brigade of teen girl bodyguards are recognized by everyone else as purely a way for him to indulge his fetishes, almost none of them are any use in an actual fight, and the only one of them who is genuinely competent — Special, one of the two protagonists — ends up successfully plotting his utter destruction because she's fed up with him treating her like a sex object and everyone else assuming that's all she is.
- Executive Assistant Iris has the titular occupation of Executive Assistants who perform bodyguard duties along with espionage and assassinations. The majority of them are raised from childhood through Training from Hell at the special academy.
- Infinity, Inc. villain Carcharo has two human assistants, Rema and Mora, whom he calls the Remoras. The Remoras are the crew of the submarine and his personal servants.
- New Gods: Darkseid has the Female Furies, though they are only rarely used as bodyguards per se. Also, while it depends on the artist, "babes" is a stretch for most of them. Big Barda was good-looking enough if your tastes run in that direction, but Bernadeth is generally depicted as fairly ugly and Mad Harriet is nearly always hideous.
- Miho often acts as a bodyguard to Dwight in Sin City.
- In Strangers in Paradise, Darcy Parker has the bleached-blonde amazonian twins Tambi and Bambi as her bodyguards and main thugs. They are eventually revealed as heroine Katchoo's half-sisters.
- In the Superman comics, Lex Luthor has a pair of female bodyguards named Mercy (a Canon Immigrant from Superman: The Animated Series) and Hope. It has been hinted that they might be a pair of renegade Amazons.
- Transmetropolitan: Channon was a stripper before she was hired as Spider's "Filthy Assistant", and before that she worked as a bodyguard for three semesters. After she quits to join a nunnery/brothel and is replaced by Yelena she decides to come back and since the "Assistant" position is filled Spider hires her back as his bodyguard.
- Wonder Woman: Queen Hippolyta named Alkyone, Myrto, Charis, and Philomela as her personal guards. While they were indeed fanatically devoted to their queen, it... didn't work out that well, particularly since they didn't transfer that loyalty to the queen's daughter.
- X-Men: In the 1984 limited series Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, Japanese gangster Heiji Shigematsu has traditional bodyguards. Wolverine later discovers that the two geisha-like women with him are an undercover second line of defense.
Fan Works
- Played with in The Witching Hour - Chaos is Change
, in which Princess Celestia has two separate royal guard forces, one of each gender:
"'Undercover guard'? What undercover guard?" Midnight asked, agitation returning.
"Haven't you ever wondered why the princess has only stallions as guards in armor?" Sapphire asked with a sly smirk. "Yet she's got enough maids for at least two castles?"
Midnight felt her jaw drop slightly. "Son of a... why hasn't she said anything!?" - A gender-flipped example in Xenophilia, with Princess Celestia's personal guards; they are explicitly described as being competent but mostly selected for their looks because the guards produced by the previous selection criteria were bored and disgruntled.
- Although she occasionally enters the battlefield, in Akame ga Kill:Reworks, Esdeath's primary assign role is this towards the kid emperor. Three guesses why this is.
- Ciaphas Cain has two extremely powerful, deadly and beautiful bodyguards stationed permanently at his side in Ciaphas Cain, Warmaster of Chaos: Malicia Mortalyss, a Drukhari Wytch, and Akivasha, an Ancient Vampire. That said, they're not the only bodyguards Cain keeps at hand at all times, since he also has his ever-present secretary Ferik Jurgen and Hektor, a World Eater Space Marine.
Films — Animation
- In Shrek Forever After, Rumpelstiltskin has an army of female witches serving as his minions.
Films — Live-Action
- Ballerina. Although the main emphasis is on Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas) as an assassin, the Kikimora are also meant to be bodyguards. Her training includes a scene where she has to move through a Killing House type shooting gallery while shielding a fellow trainee from assassins, and her first assignment involves protecting a client of the Ruska Roma from a kidnapping attempt.
- Black Panther (2018) has the Dora Milaje, a group of female warriors with the task of protecting the Wakandan royal family. Their leader, Okoye, is close friends with T'Challa.
- In Death Ring, Egomaniac Hunter Danton Vachs has a pair of female bodyguards/enforcers clad in identical Spy Catsuits named Bambi and Thumper.
- A non-fanservice version is in Dune (2021) where the Duke's concubine, Lady Jessica, is escorted by a female Atreides soldier. Justified given the widespread use of assassination; a bodyguard would have to go everywhere she did, including her private quarters. Jessica is shown communicating with her using the same covert Hand Signals she uses with her son Paul.
- Enter the Dragon.: Mr. Han's daughters. As Roper says, "No one's more loyal than Daddy's little girl."
- In The Ice Pirates, Weird Wendon (in the Tri-System) has a brigade of "horse"-mounted lady guards, there to attend to his "every wish." Turns out he is just a decapitated head, and can't do anything for himself.
- James Bond:
- Diamonds Are Forever (1971): The reclusive millionaire is guarded (from rescue or escape) by two beautiful and under-clad young women named Bambi and Thumper. Bond is forced to beat them (it's implied they're lesbians and impervious to his charms).
- The Living Daylights: In Tangiers, Felix Leiter is protected by a couple of attractive female CIA agents.
- The World Is Not Enough. Bond enters The Mafiya casino wearing his X-Ray specs which reveals the lingerie of the casino girls...and the fact that they're carrying guns under their dresses.
- Justice League: following his arrest in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Lex Luthor has escaped from Arkham Asylum and is residing on a luxury yacht with the expected bevy of beautiful women. However there's no Male Gaze on the bikini girl in the swimming pool; instead there are several women dressed in Stripperiffic suits, with automatic weapons and serious expressions, guarding Luthor. They appear to be an expy of the comic Mercy Graves—the film version was only Lex's personal assistant and died in Dawn of Justice.
- King of New York: Frank White rarely goes anywhere without his attractive pair of bodyguards, Melanie and Raye.
- When Robert Rodriguez was roping in various friends and acquaintances for El Mariachi, the guy playing Azul said he'd only appear in the film if he could be seen in bed with two women. Rodriguez said they weren't making that kind of movie, but if he could find the women then Azul could have a couple of female bodyguards instead. The women are shown in bed with Azul, but after he leaves a minion creeps into the bedroom hoping to get some action only to find himself facing several guns.
- Red Sonja (2025): Annisia is a Statuesque Stunner, but she's not just eye candy. She protects Draygan and beats Sonja twice without putting much effort into it.
- Repo! The Genetic Opera: Rotti Largo is always accompanied by his two female bodyguards. For a gender inversion, Amber Sweet and her two bondage guards.
- Star Wars: Queen Amidala's handmaidens are also highly trained bodyguards. Watch five beautifully dressed, flawlessly coiffed young women mow down battle droids. (We can assume that Sabé, her stand-in for the "decoy trick", was the best at it.)
- Strange Days: Mace (Angela Bassett) is a limo driver who doubles as a bodyguard, as she usually is dressed in a black suit and carries a gun on her thigh.
- In Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst is accompanied by a number of women whose purpose in being there is likely not just keeping her company, considering that she's on the run from the police. There's a short sequence where the protagonists learn Jiu Jitsu.
- Wild Wild West: Dr Loveless has his aides/bodyguards Amazonia, Munitia, Miss Lippenrieder and Miss East.
- Year of the Dragon. Angry over an undercover cop that's been murdered, Captain Stanley finds Triad boss Joey Tai in a Triad-run nightclub, drags him into the bathroom and starts beating him up. A couple of young Chinese girls burst in after him and try to shoot Stanley, leading to a running gunfight.
Literature
- In Ancillary Justice, the protagonist's language has no gender, and in the translation the femininum is used as default, resulting in all bodyguards being female, at least grammatically. Since the protagonist's culture also doesn't place much importance on biological sex as a means of discrimination, it can be assumed that about half of the bodyguards are, in fact, female.
- Artemis Fowl: Juliet Butler's been trained for most of her life as a bodyguard; it's because she's a Butler, and that's what they do. When Artemis keeps her around for missions, it's solely because she's well trained and already knows about the Masquerade. While an excellent fighter, she's too impulsive to be a good bodyguard and in the later books starts a career in wrestling.
- Belisarius Series: After she marries Kungas, Irene is approached by young women inspired by her who insist on becoming her "Sarmatian Guard". Although the men initially don't take this seriously, she does, and insists they be trained instead of merely being a ceremonial troop. Kungas later uses them as the assault element to foil an assassination attempt. Although they suffer casualties taking down the assassins, they take pride in this because they've proven they're warriors and they will be taken seriously.
- In the third Between Worlds novel Jason Linford is made Champion—a ceremonial position in which he represents the regimental flag, which is no longer used in an era of space warfare, but which requires him to be guarded as his loss would be as bad for morale as losing the regimental standard would have in the old days. As the Shil'vati military is mainly an Amazon Brigade he's assigned two female bodyguards—Yaro, his Rakiri girlfriend who figures this is a good way to keep an eye on him, and Nora, a Sexy Scandinavian whom he ends up sleeping with as well (though only once).
- Bridge of Birds: In The Story of the Stone, the barbarian king who is holding Moon Boy (sort of) captive has a regiment of all-female bodyguards.
- The Conqueror from a Dying Kingdom: The Royal Swords of Shiyalta and Nightcloaks of Kilhina are Ninja Maids or Battle Butlers that protect the Royal family. They are all female bodyguards often wearing pantsuits but they are not chosen for their beauty, and yet virtually all Shanti are considered beautiful by humans. During the day, they are maids and servants of the Royal family while acting as nondescript bodyguards. At night, they are the Queen's spies and assassins.
- At the end of Deep Six (1984), Dirk Pitt and Sal Casio enter the office of Min Koryo, with Sal knocking out first the receptionist (who's carrying a concealed pistol) and then another Asian woman who tries using martial arts only for Sal to shrug off her blows and punch her into a Priceless Ming Vase.
Dirk Pitt: You certainly have a way with women.Sal Casio: Lucky for us there are still a few things we can do better than they can.
- Doc Savage: Giantia and Titania, John Sunlight's Amazonian bodyguards, in Fortress of Solitude.
- The Dresden Files:
- Gentleman Johnny Marcone has a number of bodyguards, among them, Ms. Gard. Gard's official position is that of a consultant, but it's made very clear that she doubles as a bodyguard as well.
- Lord Raith in his first appearance had two sets of identical twins as bodyguards, one set were bodyguard babes. They don't last the book and later, Lara Raith takes over and replaces them with mercenary bodyguards chosen for ability rather than looks.
- Dune: God-Emperor Leto Atreides II is protected by an all-female order of bodyguards known as the Fish Speakers, because he viewed male-dominated armies as inherently predatory.
- Fire & Blood. The Targaryens created the Kingsguard to protect them, but after Queen Alysanne is attacked in a bathhouse by several septas acting out of religious fanaticism, she tells the King that she needs a personal sworn shield, a woman who could follow her even into woman-only spaces and protect her. The king chooses Jonquil Darke, who had made a name for herself participating as a mystery knight in a tourney before she was finally unmasked as a Sweet Polly Oliver.
- Forest Kingdom: As seen in Beyond the Blue Moon, St Christophe (the biggest crime boss in the port city of Haven) has a bodyguard of twelve female bodyguards, each a deadly warrior and completely naked bar their swordbelts as a very effective distraction technique.
- God-Emperor of Dune: The Fish Speakers, God-Emperor Leto II's galactic occupation army, whose elite members make up his personal guard unit. Entirely female as part of his master plan for humanity's destiny, and to prevent things like his soldiers raping civilians or otherwise abusing their monopoly on violence.
- In Hive Mind (2016), telepaths are assigned teams of bodyguards, and since they often have to be in very close contact with these bodyguards for extended periods of time, they're supposed to be people the telepath finds attractive. This results in the male telepaths having bodyguard teams full of hot badass women.
- Merry Gentry: An equal opportunity example shows up. The royals of the faerie court are each guarded by a cadre of the opposite sex, who double as a harem until the royal person is married.
- While a single- (and opposite-) sex guard, and the harem emphasis, are recent phenomena of Unseelie-specific history, membership in any court's Royal Guard was always one way to become a lover and potential consort, so this was endemic to the setting to a limited extent.
- Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain: Penny witnesses a Chinatown mahjong game between four supervillains, three male and one female. Two of the men have attractive female bodyguards (the third has robots). Penny is amused to note that the woman has gratuitously pretty male bodyguards.
Penny: At least the shallow trappings of success were equal-opportunity.
- The Power has a gender-flipped example. Tatiana Moskolev, the President of the Republic of Bessapara, is described as being accompanied by two very buff men in very tight, black shirts that show off their physiques. As it often is with straight examples, the point is very much the dictator's vanity, especially given how Tatiana is described in increasingly Caligula-like terms late in the story. In a world where women have gained electrical superpowers and used them to become the dominant gender, Tatiana doesn't need two male bodyguards who most women could probably overpower on their own, but they do make for nice eye-candy.
- The Big Bad of Quiller's Run is Shoda, a female Cambodian Arms Dealer who uses women as bodyguards and assassins. Quiller suspects this is because Shoda hates and fears men due to her Dark and Troubled Past.
- In the Andrew Vachss novel Shella, Professional Killer The Ghost is called in to kill a crime boss who somehow managed to gun down two previous assassins in a nightclub, even though he was seen with empty hands seconds later. After watching him for a while, Ghost realises that his dance partner at the nightclub is actually his bodyguard, and makes sure to take her out first (though not fatally).
- Star Wars Legends:
- Isolder's Hapan Royal Guards introduced by The Courtship of Princess Leia, entirely composed of gorgeous women warriors (of course, the Hapans are known as the most beautiful Humans in the galaxy overall).
- Also, Shada D'ukal, bodyguard to the smuggler Mazzic in some of Timothy Zahn's novels: Most people believe she's just a decorative companion, until it's too late. Shada belongs to a secret society of female mercenaries, the Mistryl Shadow Guard.
- Stranger in a Strange Land: Jubal Harshaw surrounds himself with beautiful personal assistants, among whose multiple talents and skills include his personal security. Although they flirt, he's too much of a Chivalrous Pervert (and perhaps too old) to regard them as a harem.
- Sten: The eponymous protagonist acquires a Bhor bodyguard. The Bhor are enormous aliens who look rather like large blue-furred wookiees and act like vikings, but the captain of the guard is Cind, human sniper-hottie who also harbors a major Bodyguard Crush.
- Sword of Destiny: Téa and Véa are both beautiful warrior women who have been hired to guard Borch.
- Sword of Truth: The D'Haran Emperor's Combat Sadomasochist elite bodyguard cadre, the Mord-Sith, who all wear skintight red leather, and wield what is essentially a magical riding crop.
- The Wheel of Time:
- When Elayne reorganizes the Queen's Guard, her personal bodyguard becomes this. She dresses them in the most ridiculous uniforms she can come up with to make it look as though they're purely decorative, when in fact they're an elite squad led by an incognito Living Legend.
- The Maidens of the Spear, an Amazon Brigade who must either anonymously give up the child or leave their order should they become pregnant, become this for Rand, since he is the only child of a Maiden to ever be publicly known as such. While most instances of this trope have a sexual subtext (when it's not just plain text) to a man being in a position of importance and authority to a symbolic harem, in this example, Rand is seen as a younger brother at best, and more often as a son, by his bodyguards.
- The Witcher: In Sword of Destiny, Tea and Vea are this to the travelling nobleman Borch Three Jackdaws, who is later revealed to be a legendary golden dragon named Villentretenmerth.
Live-Action TV
- Blake's 7:
- Servalan often uses mutoid guards, conditioned cyborg soldiers who for some reason are all female (not that she has any objection to handsome male staff members). Any male bodyguards however are the standard Gas Mask Mooks.
- In one episode when Vila Restal thinks he's going to be rich, he fantasizes about having a bodyguard of a "thousand handpicked virgins in red fur uniforms. Vila's Royal Mounties."
- Chuck: Pops up occasionally, where an episode's villain might have a female Dragon who also doubles as a bodyguard, or other female Mooks who take the bodyguard role more specifically. Shows up in full force in one fourth season episode, where a female arms dealer runs a gang entirely made up of women, including her personal bodyguard (leading to a botched attempt by Casey to seduce a guard holding his team captive).
- Legend of the Seeker: The Mord Sith are beautiful women trained in combat with magic and multiple weapons to protect Lord Rahl. He also sleeps with many, and some like Cara have born him children.
- The Professionals. George Cowley has various attractive women chauffeuring him around for his official duties, as noted by an envious friend in "Weekend in the Country". That same episode however shows that such women are armed and capable CI5 agents, when Cowley uses his chauffeur to lure out and shoot a criminal who tries to hijack their car.
- Vikings: While Lagertha commands both male and female warriors, her personal guard detail are all female.note
- VR Troopers has Karl Ziktor flanked in his office by women. In Chōjinki Metalder, Gozo Kirihara (Karl Ziktor's counterpart in the source material) has his two secretaries, K and S.
- The West Wing:
- A drunken Russian politician showed up unannounced at the White House with a young woman that Josh assumed was either a bodyguard or a prostitute. It's never conclusively established either way.
- Secret Service agent Gina Toscano. She was specially selected for Zoe's detail because her youthful looks could blend in with college crowds.
Professional Wrestling
- Chyna was Triple H's bodyguard back when he was still a mid-carder in the WWE.
- After members of Bitch Slap got injured trying to prove themselves against male wrestlers on the roster like Ron Killings, Jim Cornette (i.e. Spike TV and possibly Fox Sports Net) declared it illegal for men to hit women in TNA. This led to a lot of wrestlers taking up female body guards (didn't say anything about women hitting men) such as Bobby Roode getting Traci Brooks and Payton Banks, whom Jerry Lynn and Eric Young were powerless against. It was mostly an inverted though, with one woman "protecting" a group of guys. Gail Kim for America's Most Wanted (James Storm and Chris Harris), Shelly Martinez then Angel Rose for LAX, Christy Hemme for Rock 'n' Rave Infection, Sirelda for AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels, Toxxin for Inc Ink, etc.
- While The Lovely Lacey was Jimmy Jacobs's girlfriend and The Radiant Rain was Lacey's best friend/life partner, they effectively if unofficially acted as this during The Age Of The Fall while Jacobs tended to injuries he suffered in Ring of Honor.
Tabletop Games
- Chronopia: The Black Sisters are a group of women from the more civilized barbarian tribes of the Celtic-inspired Sons of Kronos, who have a sacred duty to serve the One King. While they tend to put their two-handed swords to use as shock troopers and guards for judges, 3 companies of these women always accompany the One King and are known as the Black Guard.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- The demon lord Graz'zt has a significantly overproportional number of succubi and marilith demons amongst his inner circle and personal guard.
- The 2E supplement Creative Campaigning includes an example of an African-flavored fantasy setting, including a kingdom inspired by Real Life Dahomey. It mentions the king's all-female bodyguard, and points out that their sex makes them highly trustworthy, as only males can claim the throne in their culture. Thus, there's no temptation for them to seize power via Bodyguard Betrayal.
- Hero System: One of the villains of Dark Champions has twin female bodyguards named Starrlight and Starrbright.
- Transhuman Space: The exceedingly combat-capable Felicia-series bioroids — although male models were also produced — were created for an eccentric sultan to be both this and living ornaments for his throne room. They proved their worth when his sister tried to hurry the succession along, and the model became widely popular after accounts of the incident went public.
- Traveller: An example of a mercenary in a sidebar in the GURPS book Star Mercs is a woman who works as freelance bodyguard. She's noted as 'shorthaired woman in a business suit' and 'a slip of a girl' compared to a pair of big guys handling the crowd. She blends in until an assassination attempt, when she gets the assassins.
- Warhammer: The Everqueen of Ulthuan has traditionally been protected by her all-female elite cadre of handmaidens called the Maiden Guard, recruited from the most skilled and accomplished female members of the citizen militias of Avelorn, where the Everqueen rules.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- In the backstory, the corrupt Master of the Administratum and Imperial dictator Goge Vandire had an all-female bodyguard known as the Brides Of The Emperor, who were conditioned to believe everything he said unquestioningly and practically worship him. In the end though they turned on him and beheaded him after their leaders had an audience with their god, the Emperor. The organization is now known as the Sisters of Battle.
- Lhamaeans are an all-female order of Drukhari poisoners typically seen as beautiful, imposing, and extremely deadly bodyguards for the Archons of wealthy Kabals.
Theater
- Yakov Smirnoff parodies this concept in his show in Branson. When he plays "President Yakov", his bodyguards are attractive women.
Audience member: Mr. President... can I get your Secret Service agents' numbers?
Yakov: 1-900...
Video Games
- Atomic Heart features the Twins, a pair of tall, feminine robots who serve as bodyguards for Dmitry Sechenov. They act as the Final Boss of one ending route, where they demonstrate how much deadlier they are than the other robots you've fought prior.
- In Batman: Arkham City, Talia Al-Ghul possesses an elite squad of kunoichi bodyguards. They were a new type of enemy that was more agile and dangerous than regular thugs. In Batman: Arkham Origins, Lady Shiva's and Master Kirigi's female ninjas were still the only ones who used swords, although there were female ninjas that behave like regular enemies. They came back in the Season of Infamy DLC pack of Batman: Arkham Knight (in the main story, you face their male counterparts, Arkham Knight's militia combat experts), although this time around the League of Assassins started to recruit regular thugs into their ranks; unlike combat experts, however, they also had one more extra new move, although they never made it into challenge maps like in previous games.
- The Bratgirls from Crash of the Titans are Nina's personal bodyguards. Not so much in Crash: Mind Over Mutant, though.
- In Dark Souls, Dark Sun Gwyndolin has the Darkmoon Knightess and potentially, you, if you joined his covenant and are female, as his bodyguards.
- Devil May Cry 2 features a boss fight in which Arius leaves the fight to have his Artificial Human female guards attack Dante. Supposedly these are stronger than Lucia, as she's a defect. She manages to defeat Arius herself at the end of the game.
- According to the Diablo II manual, the succubi enemies in Lord of Destruction are Baal's personal harem. Given that you'll fight a few hundred over the course of Act V, Baal is clearly a pimp.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:
- You get several of these, as almost all the housecarls you get when named Thane of a hold are nubile females with reasonably good battle skills.
- Arondil The Necromancer builds his own by kidnapping and enthralling milkmaids in Dawnstar, as his hideout is guarded by solely female Draugr and ghosts, whom he falls in love with.
- Enchanted Arms: Lord Tokimune uses Kunoichi golems as his personal bodyguards.
- In Evil Genius, your mastermind starts accumulating Stripperiffic bodyguards once your Notoriety is high enough. If you're playing as Alexis (the female socialite), the trope is Gender Inverted and Bodyguard Hunks in Chippendale's-type outfits are deployed.
- Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy IX had Queen Brahne's main army troops be all female (and dressed in somewhat impractical armor and uniforms that flatter their figure); the men were in the Knights of Pluto, and had much less respect. The backstory indicates the country of Alexandria has been a matriarchy (both politically and militarily) for centuries if not longer.
- Al-Cid in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 fights your clan with his gang of Viera bodyguards. The law (or rule) for that fight forbids you to lay harm on the Viera units at all, making them dangerous if you plan to abide by the law.
- Final Fantasy XIV has Emperor Varis of Garlemald's bodyguards Annia and Julia, the Soranus sisters. You fight them (as a Sequential Boss with a bunch of combo attacks) at the end of one dungeon, and they're a respectable challenge for a player character who has, at that point, killed at least a dozen gods. Interestingly, their babe-ness is unclear: we never see them out of their armor, and Garlean armor tends towards the Vader look.
- Celia and Lettie to Marquis Elmdor in Final Fantasy Tactics, though slightly subverted in that they're actually non-gendered demons.
- And though not as overt, every time you fight Weigraf (except the last time) all of his support is female.
- Princess Ovelia's bodyguard Agrias and her Lionsguard squad are all women.
- Hotline Miami has the Bodyguard, a blonde woman who attacks Jacket with a katana after Jacket has dispatched the panthers. She serves as the penultimate boss before the Father.
- The Feng twins from Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb.
- I-Ninja's Big Bad, The Evil Overlord O-Dor was protected by his Elite all female body guards, the Stenchu.
- Loopmancer has Hiroyuki Ogata's kunoichi legion, a team of hooded female mooks who appears only in stages where he's around.
- Lunar: Silver Star Story: The Magic Emperor's three main henchmen are sexy-evil Xenobia, Phacia and Royce. To add insult to injury, he later recruits Luna, the protagonist's girlfriend.
- Mass Effect:
- In Mass Effect 1, mini-boss Matriarch Benezia has a personal squad of tightly-clad asari commandos at her service. Of course, since all asari are female, this trope would be the general rule, unless an asari VIP was to hire alien bodyguards.
- As with many Role Playing Games, it's possible to look like this is in effect if Shepard brings along two of their female companions who, during cutscenes and non-combat, hang out behind and slightly to each side of Shepard, like stereotypical bodyguards. In fact, one squadmate Ashley Williams outright informs Shepard “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you!”
- Cora Harper’s job in the fourth game is to ensure the safety of Pathfinder Ryder. Thanks to her ability to boost shields and to biotically charge enemies, distracting them, she is actually Game-Breaker level useful as a squadmate.
- The arch-villain of Mercenaries has an all-female bodyguard contingent. Despite the game being set in North Korea, this is almost certainly in reference to Muammar al-Gaddafi's bodyguards (although in the game they're actually 'loyal'' to their boss and quite effective fighters and while it's implied they're also a harem there's no evidence of it in the missions).
- In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the FROG unit and the Beauty and the Beast Corps are both exclusively female, and the most Elite of mooks in the game.
- In the original No One Lives Forever, a group of three brightly-patterned Spy Catsuit-wearing, Charlie's Angels-like women serve as this for H.A.R.M. They even have sixties-style promotional posters in their room touting them as the Elite Guard. They often complain that they have nothing to do.
- Oni has the Fury class of Striker troops. The manual states that the red-ranked Furies are Muro's personal bodyguard.
- Cassandra's bodyguards in Perfect Dark, much stronger than the Mooks you had been fighting for the first two levels of the game.
- Zhang Li's last line of defense in Perfect Dark Zero is a group of about 20 elite female guards armed with cloaking devices and plasma rifles.
- Shows up in Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The Elite Guard are the personal bodyguard/elite troops for Colonel Helga von Bulow of the SS Paranormal Division.
- The female Prometheus soldiers in Soldier of Fortune II, although they're less skilled than their male counterparts.
- Street Fighter:
- The entire Bison Elite Guard (a.k.a. the Dolls) from Street Fighter Alpha 3 may qualify, but only Juni and Juli serve this function in-game during the arcade mode as the last two opponents prior to the final match with M. Bison for most of the characters.
- Played for laughs with Karin in Street Fighter V who has Ibuki and Rainbow Mika at her side as bodyguards during the story mode. Though she does most of the fighting while the other two girls spend more time arguing with each other.
- In Super Robot Wars: Original Generation, Maier Branstein's personal guard are the Troye Unit, comprised entirely of female pilots. Considering that his niece was among them, we can only hope he didn't create the unit for the obvious reasons.
- Gauche and Droite are Yeager's twin loli bodyguards in Tales of Vesperia.
- In Tekken 6, after his Face–Heel Turn and taking over the Mishima Zaibatsu, Jin Kazama hires Nina Williams to be his personal bodyguard. Her sister Anna Williams, not to be outdone, offers herself to become the bodyguard of the leader of the Zaibatsu's rival G-Corporation, Jin's father Kazuya Mishima.
- In TimeSplitters Future Perfect, the 1960's levels have you and Harry Tipper battle a James Bond villain whose elite guard are made up entirely of women, bluntly titled "The Booty Guard".
- Umineko: When They Cry brings not only Beatrice's sisters-in-furniture, The Seven Stakes of Purgatory, there's also the bunny-girl quartet of MARIA's The Siesta Corps.
- World of Warcraft:
- All of the guards for Darnassus, the night elf capital city, are women, including Tyrande Whisperwind's Praetorian Guard.
- Gender-flipped in Wrath of the Lich King. A Horde quest chain involves dealing with a cruel female commander who runs her settlement with an iron fist. She keeps two Blood Elf boy toys at her side at all times.
- Wrathion is often accompanied by his two female bodyguards, Left and Right.
Webcomics
- Annyseed: Count Tarrorviene is never seen without the lovely ninja Tabria watching over him.
- Girl Genius: Subverted with Tarvek's Smoke Knight bodyguard Violet: there's no chance of attraction between them since they loathe each other (and are cousins anyway).
- As a wandering mercenary, Glorianna has been hired for this position on a couple of occasions.
- Nick Claus in Monsterful has an entire humanoid reindeer team (it even includes a red-nose Loli by the name of Rudelph), they serve as both reindeer and also double as Nick bodyguards. The entire reindeer team (even including Nick) is a Fanservice parade!
- The Mistress' guards in Oglaf are attractive lesbians in black leather who gleefully attack at the Mistress' command. Although one character casts doubts on the "lesbian" part.
Web Original
- Male examples in Raising Angels, toting around two athletic twins that have quite the female following, the little Dream Walker certainly know how to party with style.
- In the Web Serial Novel Worm, Kaiser, a white supremacist supervillain, has Menja and Fenja as his bodyguards, who are twins with Sizeshifter powers.
Western Animation
- The Batman (2004) had the Kabuki Twins, the Penguin's two female bodyguards. The above-mentioned Mercy Graves also appeared as Luthor's bodyguard in a later episode. The final season also introduced attractive female sidekicks for Mirror Master and Firefly, despite both villains generally working alone in the comics.
- Batman: The Animated Series examples:
- Mr. Freeze of all people employed a goon squad of women wearing impossibly short leg-baring parka-type outfits. One would hope they're actually wearing warm and comfy flesh-colored tights.
- The Penguin had henchwomen Jay, Lark, and Raven.
- Calendar Girl had the gender-flipped version; bodyguards who looked like Chippendales Dancers.
- Mr. Freeze of all people employed a goon squad of women wearing
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
- In the episode "The Mask of Matches Malone!", Batman poses as mobster Matches Malone and has Black Canary, Huntress and Catwoman pose as his bodyguards. After being conked on the head and believing himself to be a true mobster, Malone is shown with several other henchwomen/bodyguards.
- Another episode has Lashina and Stompa, Mongal's female enforcers. (In the comics, Lashina and Stompa are the names of two of Darkseid's Female Furies.)
- In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021), Man-E-Faces is the self proclaimed King of the Lower Wards, helping the poor of Eternos survive underneath King Randor's negligence. He is always escorted by two Hand Witches who can quickly subdue any threat to him.
- In the Love, Death & Robots episode 1, the gangster's eye candy is revealed to be a bodyguard and minion and that's not even the Twist Ending.
- Superman: The Animated Series has Lex Luthor's bodyguard, Mercy Graves, who wears a chauffeur uniform with very tight pants. Mercy returned as Lex's bodyguard in The Batman (2004) and Young Justice (2010).
Real Life
- Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire in ancient India (322 - 185 BCE) and thus making this trope Older Than Feudalism, had an army of more than 500 highly-trained bodyguards of Greek and Indian warrior women because he considered them less likely to participate in a coup conspiracy (and considering that he lived to renounce his kingdom and set his son Bindusara on the throne in 297 BCE, he may have had a point there). This custom was also used by other Indian rulers according to chronicler Strabo.
- The 40-woman 'Green Nuns'◊ of the deceased Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi. Gaddafi claimed that the "Green Nuns" were formed to get the Libyan people to warm up to the idea of women in the armed forces. How much of that you believe is up to you. In the end, it turned out that they were less bodyguards and more a private harem mainly full of women who weren't there of their own free will — which might explain why none of them stayed around to protect him, once things went south.
- The non-fiction book Gomorrah mentioned that female Camorra gang bosses use female bodyguards. They often dress in yellow jumpsuits in homage to Uma Thurman's outfit in Kill Bill.
- The Dahomey Amazons of the Kingdom of Dahomey, who went from royal harem to Praetorian Guard before being expanded into an all-out Amazon Brigade. Against other African nations they proved capable, but were terribly outclassed against French soldiers, who utterly decimated them in two wars.
- Madame Nhu, the first lady of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963 who infamously referred to the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk in protest of her brother-in-law's policies as a "Buddhist barbecue" and was herself referred to by some as "the Dragon Lady," had a team of all female bodyguards.
- Chinese businesswomen are starting to seek out young female bodyguards who are less conspicuous than their burly male counterparts. They are still subjected to the same intense training.
- More common than most people think. When an important person is accompanied by big men in suits and what appears to be a secretary, she's often one of the bodyguards as well.
- Usually done so potential threats to the VIP are distracted by the larger intimidating male bodyguard, who often is the partner of the female bodyguard in question. To quote one male member of a Bodyguard duo like this: "I can toss two or three guys around, easy, but her? She could disassemble people before they even knew what was happening."
- Exemplified in this Not Always Working story.
Instructor: (...) Celebrities hire guys like you to stand in front of them and look scary; millionaire businessmen hire people like her if they want real security.
- Edemm is a Spanish organization of female bodyguards meant to protect women from abusive partners.
