Man, I wrote an entire short essay on The Sentinel’s place in fandom history, and then I went, “Hmm. She probably just wants to know what the trope refers to.” *g* So I’ll do the short (Edit: Not so short, I got carried away. LOL), tropey explanation, and then I’ll put the fandom history essay behind the cut for those who are interested.
The Sentinel was TV show that ran from 1996-1999. In it, Jim Ellison, an Army Ranger, gets stranded in the jungles of Peru, and his team is all killed. The isolation etc. causes genetic-but-previously-latent hyperactive senses to wake up. So he has super-hearing, super-sight, etc. He gets rescued and unconsciously suppressed the senses again and becomes a cop in Cascade, Washington. One day he’s on a long, isolated stake out, and the senses come roaring back and fuck him up because of the sensory overload.
Blair Sandburg is an anthropology student studying the concept of Sentinels, who he describes as “protectors of the tribe” and who have these hyperactive senses. He’s found people with one enhanced sense, but never all five. He hears about Jim, arranges to meet him, and convinces Jim to let Blair ride along on his police work so that Blair can study a real live Sentinel and Jim can get help controlling his senses from Blair.
The series is full of little details about the senses and how they work and the mythology around them. Here are the ones that usually come up in fic:
The zone out: This is when the Sentinel gets hyper focused on one sense and blocks out all other input, becoming almost catatonic. They have to be coaxed out of it with quiet talking and contrasting sensory input.
Spirit guides: In the show, Jim has several visions in the spirit world. While there, he has a spirit guide, a panther. When Blair ends up in the spirit world with Jim, his guide is a wolf. They also occasionally see their guides in the real world, usually trying to warn them of something or tell them something or lead them somewhere.
Territoriality: The Sentinel is described as having a primal instinct to protect his/her tribe. Jim’s interaction with another Sentinel that appeared on the show is…complicated, but fic usually just runs with the idea that Sentinels have a territory (the boundaries of which they determine) and that they’re extremely protective of it. They usually don’t like other Sentinels in their space, either.
Guides: Guides are fanon. People sometimes forget this, but literally the only place that guiding comes up in the show is when a guy in the spirit world tells Jim that “he guides you”, referring to Blair. However, it’s fanon that is 100% accepted by everyone in Sentinel fandom and the resulting trope. So. The Guide is assumed to also be genetically determined. They’re usually presented as someone who is good at calming the Sentinel, who has a strong connection to the spirit world, and who are generally a stabilizing influence on the Sentinel. Guides are also presented as the people who are most capable of getting Sentinels out of deep zone outs.
Bonding: This comes from a scene in the series where Blair is dead. Like, the medics call it. No heartbeat. Dead. Jim flips out, and goes over to Blair, and we cut to the spirit world, and stuff happens, and then the panther and the wolf run toward each other, jump up and merge in a giant flash of light. And Blair comes back to life. Fandom takes that merging of spirit guides and runs with it, usually giving them an awareness of each other’s location and empathy. Other effects of the bond vary depending on the author.
I think those are the major elements of the trope! Damn, that got longer than I meant it to. *g*
And if that wasn’t enough, and you’d like some fandom history, check out the additional info behind the cut:
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
tangentwithtanner
yousharknotpass
gummygunk
pixelskylines
gracieabrams
germansingergirl
