Fanlore Info Dump | Sentinels & Guides
So thanks to the babe @leschanceux and feral encouragement from folx in the Dev Tea Room, I'm going to info dump about my very specific interest: the Sentinels & Guides Trope!
What Even Is the Sentinel/Guide Trope?
The origin of this trope is from a TV Show in the 90s (literally called The Sentinel) where one main character has latent hyper-enhanced senses triggered by being stranded in an extreme situation, revealing that he is a Sentinel. Through the show's narrative, we learn that Sentinels are an evolutionary role in mankind that has existed throughout all historical societies, manifesting in people who are biologically granted abilities to serve as "Protectors" of a community. This means Sentinels have (at least 3, sometimes all 5) exceptionally enhanced senses, which they can dial up or down as the situation calls for it.
But the thing about Sentinels is that their enhanced sense are a double edged blade. Yes, they're powerful and tend to have the advantage in a fight or encounter, but those senses can also present a significant weakness due to what's called 'Zoning' Or 'Zoning Out.' This is when the Sentinel becomes too hyperfocused on one single sense to the detriment of everything else, and is unable to pull themselves back. Zoning can also happen if they have a sense dialed up (like their hearing in order to track something far away) and an unexpected input overwhelms that sense (such as a loud explosion into a heightened sense of hearing). When a Sentinel zones, they are both incredibly physically vulnerable because they're immobile and unresponsive, and they're at risk of never being able to find their way back from their hyperfocus (which would ultimately lead to their death). This is where Guides come in.
Guides themselves do not have any canon enhanced abilities in the original content. In fact, they're technically fanon as a result of one episode in the TV show. But their presence is widely accepted as adopted canon in the Sentinel/Guide trope, and pretty much everyone writes them as the unique "other half" of a Sentinel -- if not uniformly empowered. Guides are the biological companion to Sentinels, possessing the ability to connect with a Sentinel on an astral or spiritual level. The original show used the concept of a "Sp!rit World" and "Sp!rit Animals" alot when relating the Guide character to the Sentinel character, a detail I don't personally adhere to nor promote because of its typical appropriative 90's TV shaman stereotyping. But the trope itself has moved beyond those origins to instead keep the basic concept of a metaphysical "soul-bond" connection between a Sentinel and a Guide. This means that the Guide has the ability to empower and protect the Sentinel's senses from harm. A bonded Sentinel/Guide pair are meant to be inseparable, and are often considered incredibly powerful because the Guide unlocks the potential of the Sentinel.
(Sidenote: As you can tell from my note above, the show had some good stuff, but overall it was kind of poorly done? Low budget, etc etc. The vast majority of the audience keeping the fandom alive were early era slash fans who saw the two main male characters and immediately built up fanlore around them. When the show was cancelled in 1999, many of those fans kept the concepts introduced in it alive by injecting this trope -- with improvements -- into other fandoms. We salute you, Fandom Elders! )
Tell Me More About the Connection Between a Sentinel & a Guide
The Sentinel/Guide bond can be written in a wide variety of ways, often tailored to suit whatever fandom the Trope is being applied to. But there are some universalities. Such as:
Guides can convene with the Sentinel at a metaphysical/transcendental level (sometimes interpreted as a telepathic connection), guiding the Sentinel to focus on or repress one sense over another and fine tuning their abilities in the process.
Sentinels with Guides have notably more powerful senses and better control over them. They are often consider the most powerful iteration of a Sentinel.
Guides can reel back a Sentinel's senses, even shield a sense from sensory input in order to avoid being overwhelmed.
Guides can also pull a zoning Sentinel out of their zone by giving them a lifeline to follow back to the physical world (note, a Guide does not need to be bonded to a Sentinel to accomplish this)
There are more elements of the Sentinel/Guide Pairing that are considered flexible to the trope, often applied in writing and art but not labeled as requirements. Such concepts include:
Sentinels and Guides are generally believed to have been biologically destined for one another. A Guide's scent will be pleasing to a Sentinel, for example. The sound of their voice is naturally calming and grounding.
Some Sentinels and Guides have full-on telepathic bonds, sometimes they just have a merging of souls and a sense for one another. Almost always, and Guide can sense what a Sentinel is feelings unless the Sentinel closes himself off from his Guide.
In some scenarios, Sentinels can let Guides perceive the world through their own heightened senses, so a Guide can experience those same abilities.
Sentinels can be territorial of their Guides, and sometimes just territorial in general. They occasionally get written with overlap in the A/B/O lore, where Sentinels are Alphas and Guides are Omegas. This means that two Sentinels tend to be written as kind of aggressive towards one another.
Sometimes a Sentinel/Guide Bonding includes the "bond bite' (yet another thing that tends to overlap with the A/B/O Dynamics in the writing). These are bites on the neck that seal the bond between Sentinel and Guide and can trigger the psychic/telepathic connection between the pair.
Guides are sometimes treated like coveted prizes in fictional societies. Sometimes the premise will be that there are more Sentinels born than there are Guides, and so Guides becomes highly sought after and sometimes aren't given much autonomy or rights (this has some similarities with the social dynamics of Witches and Familiars in our other verse)
Guides aren't always depicted as the weaker of the pair, but there is sort of an implication there. The concept is that while Guides are not weak, they are an Sentinel's weak spot. A villain to seek to control a Sentinel by taking the Guide hostage, for example.
Again, none of the above details are necessary to depict the Sentinel/Guide trope. They're just additional features I have observed in the concept as it has evolved over the past 20-odd years.
Sentinel Ability Specifics
Hyper-acute Senses of Smell, Hearing, Sight, Taste, and Feel: This means they can sense things completely indiscernible to regular humans, sometimes miles away in different locations or behind seemingly impenetrable barriers. Examples: They can hear the heartbeats of goons in a underground compound they plan to infiltrate; They can smell the diesel of an incoming military vehicle that hasn't even crossed a border control checkpoint; they can feel the heat of a fire that started hundred of hectacres downwind; They can see a termite crawl on the wooden window sill of a cabin on the opposite side of Lake Michigan.
Detect Physiological Responses: This ties in to a Sentinel's acute awareness to detail, in that they can focus their senses on an individual to determine whether they are lying or having a response to something. Examples: they can focus on the sound of a person's heartbeat to catch heartrate spikes as a sign of lying; They can smell the flopsweat on a person who is suddenly nervous; They will see any tics that betray a person's true intentions.
Accompanying enhanced strength/speed/reflexes: This isn't present in all depictions of Sentinels, but does occasionally come up as another way to make Sentinels seem more like superhuman protectors. In addition to their enhanced senses, they also react more quickly, which gives them the appearance of being faster and more agile. Or by shutting down senses that transfer pain, they can push their bodies beyond normal human limits.
Grounding a Sentinel: A Guide's attributes are all meant to be a natural focal point for Sentinels, so Guides use their voice and touch to draw a Sentinel's attention onto them, or will have them focus on their smell or their heartbeat to settle and orient their own senses.
Dialing up/down a Sentinel's Senses: The 'Dials' concept is often used in this trope for visualizing how each set of senses can be scaled up or down with the assistance of a Guide. Guides will often instruct Sentinels to think of each sense as having an accompanying dial that goes from 0 to 10. If they dial a sense down to Zero, it can actually disable that sense for a Sentinel entirely, which is dangerous but sometimes necessary to protect a Sentinel from zoning. Equally, a Guide will rarely have a Sentinel dial any sense up to 10 without first considering the risks of overexposure and zoning out.
Empathic Sensitivity: some Guides are also written as empaths that can sense the feelings of those around them, not just their Sentinel. When this is the case, the empathic connection between Guide and Sentinel is often exponentially stronger than anything they can pick up from regular people around them. This often leads to the telepathic bond with the Sentinel as well.
Tap into a Sentinel's Active Senses: Some Guides can perceive things through the eyes/ears/nose of their Sentinel, an experience passed through the telepathic/psychic bond so that Sentinel and Guide can share information seamlessly. Again, your mileage may vary on this element of the trope.
Ok I'm going to end this lengthy post here, but this is my way of documenting beloved fanlore that has managed to survive nearly thirty years as a community driven idea. It's a creative concept spanning media platforms (from analog to online), fan-driven social circles for diverse storylines and topics, and the everchanging nature of time and memory on our collective consciousness. I hope this trope, like others before it, finds a way to live forever.
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