Mysterious Protector

"Oh look, it's the mysterious powerful ally that follows us around but doesn't really join our group!"
"That's right, I am the mysterious powerful ally that follows you around but doesn't join your group!"

— Boy and Robot's Epic jRPG Quest

A common element in Shōjo stories, particularly of the Magical Girl variety: the secretive figure who appears in a moment of need, aids the heroine, and then vanishes again. He doesn't always do much — a word of advice or encouragement, or a single attack that distracts the enemy for a critical instant — nor does he even have to be even as powerful as the heroine. But his interventions are critical to her survival or the maintenance of her morale.

While his true name and nature are usually concealed in the beginning, the heroine eventually finds out who he is about two-thirds of the way through the series. Subsequently, he often becomes her love interest. For some reason, he usually gets possessed or otherwise has to work against her for a time. Inevitably, he'll end up having to be rescued by the heroine at one point or another.

Subtrope of Mysterious Watcher. Compare Aloof Ally who becomes a member of the team instead of a love interest, the Mysterious Backer, who generally provides support rather than rescues (and typically has more complex goals than a crush), and Enigmatic Minion, the villainous version. See also Stealth Escort Mission, where the protector is known to the audience but has to keep himself hidden from the cast.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Air Gear has Ringo dress up in a swimsuit and a variety of items from the school drama department closet, takes the chip out of her Air Treks, and calls herself Swimsuit/Croissant Mask to help Kogarasumaru in its early days. She dons the disguise (which fools the more idiotic characters but not the more intelligent) in order to hide her awesome abilities from Ikki.

• Kakeru, the protagonist of the sports manga Area no Kishi, stopped playing football in grade school after injuring another player, and has been unable to bring himself to play again since. After being chewed out by his older brother Suguru for holding himself back, Kakeru encounters a mysterious masked football player in a nearby park, who challenges him to a one on one night game. Though Kakeru was unsure of the player's identity after leaving, the challenge helped to re-awaken his love for playing the sport.
• Far from romantic, and the series is heavily Seinen, but the Skull Knight in Berserk is the reason that Guts decided to go back to the Band of the Hawks after leaving Griffith, and the only reason Guts and Casca make it out of the Eclipse alive.

• Syaoran Li from Cardcaptor Sakura qualifies for this trope exactly once: while capturing The Thunder card and Sakura recognizes him from her dream but does not yet know what he can do. Syaoran during the capture of The Power card would almost qualify this trope - except Sakura and everyone else was frozen due to his Time Card usage and thus, they did not see him come to the rescue. In all other instances, because Syaoran already revealed his intentions and because Sakura already knows about him and his goals (Kero explained it to her), Syaoran does not qualify for this trope.

• Code Geass's Zero fulfills a similar role for Nunnally in her manga spinoff, Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally... sort of. He shows up out of nowhere whenever Nemo is in the middle of a battle, and usually brings about chaos, allowing Nemo to win or escape. It can be seen most obviously near the end, where Zero acts as a Supporting Leader along with Euphie, Suzaku, and their combined armies.
• Digimon Adventure: After the Chosen fall apart following Taichi's disappearance, Sora completely disappears and acts in this capacity, working to get everyone (except herself) back together in the face of PicoDevimon's trickery tearing the team apart.
• BlackGatomon in Digimon Ghost Game is The Voiceless partner of Hiro's Disappeared Dad, who delivers him the Digivices and occasional rescues without a single word.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Dorabian Nights have Doraemon and friends being abandoned by their guide, Mikujin, after an arguement results in Nobita, Gian and Suneo calling Mikujin a "third rate guide" and left on their own in the land of the Arabian Nights. When their first night ends with them accidentally boarding Cassim's slave ship and thrown into the ocean during a storm, they miraculously end up washing ashore, alive, with Suneo thinking he saw a fireball rescuing them while everyone else thought it was a dream. It turns out the fireball is Mikujin in disguise, who decided to observe them from afar and save them from drowning, despite having no reason to do so. Later the gang gets captured by the villains and thrown into a dungeon - cue Mikujin appearing in his fireball form, once more, to save the heroes.
• Fushigi Yuugi:
  • Tamahome sort of falls into this trope at first. "Sort of" because Mysterious Protectors don't usually ask for money back, and because we get to know who he is soon enough.
  • Nakago briefly plays this role for Yui after he swoops down and saves her from being gang-raped by a bunch of thugs when she was searching for Miaka. Subverted, however, because he lets her believe that something did happen to her so that she would be more willing to accept the role of Priestess of Seiryuu and do his bidding.

• Hayate the Combat Butler parodies this in an early episode; When Hayate is about to be taken away by the "Very Nice People", Nagi shows up wearing a goofy mask and calling herself "Mask the Money" before whipping out a ton of cash to pay off Hayate's debt.
• Honey Honey has Phoenix, a Gentleman Thief with a Domino Mask not dissimliar to Tuxedo Kamen — but much earlier; he shows up to help Honey in the nick of time during her wacky adventures, not that she always wants the help.

• Library War: Iku Kasahara was inspired to join the Library Defense Force by her "prince," who came to her rescue when the bookstore she was patronizing was raided and saved the book she had waited years to finally buy. Not knowing his name, he is a mystery to her... Although it is revealed early on that he is actually Atsushi Doujo, her instructor/teammate with whom she has Belligerent Sexual Tension.

• In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, a mysterious masked man shows up to protect, err, the "villains". From Nanoha. He wasn't actually a man either, or even a single person. He was a pair of shapeshifting twin catgirls. But that's a detail. He didn't have their best interests at heart, either.
• In Maria no Danzai, when Kowase tries to kill Yashima by drowning her, Maria saves Yashima by abducting Kowase and leaving his house before Yashima can turn around.

• Female-ish, non-shoujo example: Miyu from My-Otome has helped Arika out of a jam or three before simply disappearing to goddess-knows-where.
• Invoked in Negima! Magister Negi Magi; when Negi was a (younger) child, he viewed his father like this, to the point of getting himself in trouble so that his father would come save him. The one time that things truly do get serious, his father does show up to save him. And then he has to leave again.

• Although he didn't make a habit of it, Dragon from One Piece was introduced as Luffy's Mysterious Protector before it was revealed that he was Luffy's father.
• Some Pretty Cure uses this:
  • HeartCatch Pretty Cure!: He is Coupe-sama, and he has a genuinely platonic reason to do this: Tsubomi is like a granddaughter to him. This being HCPC, the Cures ultimately must beat him in a battle to prove that they have grown stronger than him.
  • Suite Pretty Cure ♪: Cure Muse. Who is not Seiren. She eventually unmasked herself and joins the Pretty Cures in Episode 36.
• Homura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica self-consciously tries for this trope. That and the Batman entrance/exit syndrome.
• Resident Evil: Damnation: Leon and Buddy get trapped after an elevator locks down before they can reach it. They prepare to fight the Tyrant when the elevator reactivates and opens. While Leon is confused why the elevator is working again, the scene cuts to Ada on her laptop hacking the control system before she makes her own escape.
• The prince who rescues Utena at the beginning of Revolutionary Girl Utena, and inspires her to become a prince. Not a love interest. Though, this trope is played with to no end. Utena's desire to find and become the prince has influenced her life enormously. The man who does turn out to be the prince is the closest thing the series has to a Big Bad (though he was once the Big Good). And Utena does eventually begin what could be considered a "romance" with her prince, but it's decidedly non-romantic.

• Sailor Moon:
  • Tuxedo Mask began as 'the guy in the tuxedo that threw roses at monsters' and the reveal of his identity was a big deal. His counterpart from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is anything but.
  • The Moonlight Knight from the Makaiju arc of Sailor Moon R. Then again, he is an expy of Tuxedo Mask himself, who split up from Mamoru's subconscious desire to help Usagi despite having been afflicted with Laser-Guided Amnesia. Once Mamoru recovers his memories, Moonlight Knight reveals himself as Mamoru's other half and disappears, with Mamoru becoming Tuxedo Mask again from then on.
  • Codename: Sailor V has Kaitou Ace who on a few occasions appears as Sailor V's Mysterious Protector, but he's also the main character of a Show Within a Show and thus is simply an actor who V meets and is aided by a couple of times. Until it turns out he's the Big Bad.

• Haku in Spirited Away certainly counts. He helped Chihiro several times throughout the course of the movie, remarking that despite not remembering anything else about his past, he remembers her. It is later revealed that when Chihiro was a child, she fell into his river and he had rescued her.
• In Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Ultra Magnus is this, though his attitude toward them is less mysterious and more "I don't like the Autobots but... I guess I shouldn't let them get vaporized."
• Texhnolyze: In a rather odd variation, Ran and Ichise are this with each other. Ran, resident Mysterious Waif, is the more traditional version, distant and mysterious, appearing to guide or help Ichise out suddenly at pivotal and critical moments, before fading away into the background, remaining almost anonymous until at least halfway through the anime. Ichise, on the other hand, is dark and quiet Determinator who tends to show up mysteriously at the right moments through more sheer luck than anything else (while all of Ran's appearances are intentional, as far as we know).

• Wedding Peach: Limone. Though here he ends up with Yuri aka Angel Lily, The Smart Guy, and not Wedding Peach herself — she ends up with Yosuke/Viento.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Yami Yugi is this for Tea at the start of the manga - for a long time, due to the circumstances, she never saw his face, and she ended up falling in love with his voice. It was only later that she realised that he was actually the alter-ego of her childhood friend. Also, he can count as this for Yugi as well - in the early chapters, Yami would possess Yugi when he was needed and he'd deal with the threat...meaning that to Yugi, he would suddenly black out and wake up to find that whatever problem was stressing him out is gone somehow.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds Dark Glass is this to Yusei, only showing up to act as a mentor or help Yusei out when he's in a pinch. And then it turns out (in a not-so-shocking twist) that Dark Glass is secretly Bruno, one of Yusei's close friends. In an actual shocking twist, Dark Glass protecting Yusei was part of the villain's plan all along.

Comic Books

• Some versions of Batman depict him (at least during the early stages of his crimefighting career) as an "urban legend" who occasionally appears from out of the shadows to take down a criminal and then vanishes back into the night.
• In the Elseworld JLA: The Secret Society of Superheroes, not only is Superman one, he persuades the Justice League of America to likewise operate in secret. Rumours of their existence are pursued by Intrepid Reporter Lois Lane and FBI profiler Bruce Wayne.

• Superman:
  • In Kingdom Come, Wonder Woman commented that Superman could have chosen to remain behind the scenes and do his superheroing in secret but chose to be as obvious as possible.
  • In Superman: Lois and Clark, he's doing just that, staying out of the way of the New 52 Superman but still performing feats of bravery invisibly.
  • In 1981's Superman (1939) #362 and #365-366, a flashback to Clark's early days at Metropolis University show he operated in secret as Superboy, to avoid anyone noticing Clark and Superboy both moving from Smallville to Metropolis. During this time, the whole country's abuzz and wondering what city Superboy had moved to. One scene even shows gamblers in Las Vegas making bets on which city the Boy of Steel had picked. The cities guessed at included Metropolis, Gotham City, New York (future home of the Teen Titans), Washington DC (future home of Pre-Crisis Wonder Woman), Boston, Miami, Los Angeles, Detroit (future home of a short-lived version of the Justice League), New Orleans, and Chicago (a future home of Supergirl). Oddly, other than Metropolis and Gotham, none of the other fictional DCU cities were guessed at by anyone. Adding to the hype, each city claimed they'd found (false) "proof" of Superboy secretly doing super-feats there. The ex-Smallville Sensation finally comes out in the open, thanks in part to then-reporter Perry White deducing the Boy of Steel was in Metropolis.
  • In The Supergirl From Krypton (1959), Kara is not supposed to reveal her existence to the world until her hero training is done, so she decides to patrol Midvale secretly at night, trying not to get caught while she stops crimes and saves people. Midvale locals rumored that they were protected by a "guardian angel".
    Supergirl: Maybe I can still do super-deeds for worthy people without being seen, like a sort of guardian angel!"
  • In Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot, Deadman is getting upset because nobody is aware of the good he has done until Supergirl reminds him that fame and glory are not his goals. Of course, Kara knows what she is talking about, since she operated as a secret hero for many months since her arrival to her public reveal, and that is not counting that nobody knows she saved the universe.
  • Post-Crisis Supergirl also did this once. In the DC Universe Holiday Special 2008: A Day Without Sirens, a "Day Without Sirens" is proposed right before Christmas. Commissioner Gordon believes such an initiative is doomed to failure. The criminals of Gotham would never heed such a calling. However, the day proceeds without police sirens. It turns out that◊ Barbara Gordon teamed up with Supergirl and both girls handled covertly all emergency calls during that day. Supergirl ended up completely exhausted, though, making clear she cannot keep it up forever.
    Barbara: Just rest easy knowing you did something special today.
    Supergirl: You really think so? Do you think this one day is going to make a difference?
    Barbara: I know so. Never discount the healing power of a little hope, Kara.

Fan Works

• Adventures of a Super Family: Karen managed to spend one year saving people and averting disasters anonymously before her existence was revealed to the public.
  For the last year or so there had been a veritable deluge of stories about averted disasters, mysterious last-minute saves, and people miraculously surviving accidents that should have killed them. There had always been stories like that, true, but not in those numbers. It was almost like there was some kind of guardian angel out there, doing its best to keep people safe. A guardian angel that preferred to remain invisible.
• The Cardinal King is a Sailor Moon Alternate Universe Fic where Mamoru is the Henshin Hero, so naturally Usagi gets this role, as Jewel Tiara.
• Cosmic Warriors is a Sailor Moon retelling so of course Tuxedo Mask fits this part.
• A Diplomatic Visit: Discord's been taking on this role for Equestria in general; he alerted Twilight to Starlight's actions, and later kept an eye on Cozy Glow when he detected she was a potential threat. In chapter 10 of Diplomacy Through Schooling, he finally tells Twilight that he's been secretly watching over her school for her, per her earlier request, after Cozy Glow is exposed.
• Knights, Magic & Dovahkiin is about Jon Snow worrying about his family after hearing that Ned has become the Hand of the King, and leaves Skyrim in order to watch out for them, going so far as to personally intervene in two separate conflicts as a masked knight to protect them. He stops being mysterious, however, as of Chapter 7 when he reveals himself.
• Mysterious Encounter has the Snagger, a cloaked woman with a Snag Machine who is able to stand up to Cipher and aid Michael. She is actually Lovrina/Ashley, a member of Cipher who worked with Eldes to make the Snagger her "I quit!" notice. The Snagger receives a P.O.V. Sequel in The Snagger Chronicles.
• A New Chance For Adventure: Skailyn, a Shiny Rayquaza and friend of Latios and Latias, secretly aids the team in their rescue of Larvitar's mother from Rico, has one of her minions erase the memory of Officer Jenny so Latios isn't charged with Rico's murder, and sets up a protective sphere (that they are unaware of) to shield them from the evil spirit that tried to kill them over a century ago.
• In "The Third Life of Steve Rogers", after Steve has spent several decades making a family with Peggy Carter, by the late 2000s he, his children and grandchildren have dedicated themselves to discreetly helping the future Avengers come together, such as Steve's son working in SHIELD as Clint Barton's supervisor, one grandson working in security at Stark Enterprises, and another working as a priest to help provide Bruce Banner with emotional support while he was in hiding.

Film - Animated

• In Coraline, the Cat followed and watched over Coraline for some time before making himself known to her. And when he does, he drops hints that there are more sinister things at work in the Other World.

Film - Live Action

• Lo, from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon plays to this niche admirably in an early fight sequence. He obviously lacks the firepower to stop any of the major fighters of the setting, but he only needs to provide a few seconds of distraction to allow his love, Action Girl Jen Yu, to escape.

Literature

• In The Dark Profit Saga, an troll named Thane joins the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits partway through their quest in the first book, although he requests that Gorm keep it a secret, especially from Kaitha, whom Thane has developed feelings for but is ashamed to show himself to. From then on, he becomes the party's secret protector, keeping monsters away (it helps that most monsters are scared of trolls). By the middle of the second book, everyone in the party learns of Thane's existence, including Kaitha, although she accidentally chases him away by putting an arrow in his eye. Troll bodies may heal quickly, but their hearts don't, so he leaves the party.
• From the Deryni works by Katherine Kurtz:
  • In The Chronicles of the Deryni, Morgan and Duncan are met a few times by a mysterious man who appears to be Saint Camber. In High Deryni, this person warns them about other Deryni mages who might challenge them to test their powers. In the climax of High Deryni, he reveals himself to be Stefan Coram, Deryni mage and member of the secretive Camberian Council.
  • In the next trilogy, he is replaced by yet another Camber-clone, who implies there's a whole society of them. Since our heroes know Coram is dead, they speculate about whether these subsequent appearances may be by Camber himself, though one such visitor denies this to Kelson and Dhugal.
  • Sir Sé Trelawney, by this time a fully avowed Knight of the Anvil, makes a brief and stealthy appearance to shoot a single well-placed arrow in the effort to save Brion from assassination in Childe Morgan. Mission accomplished, he quickly disappears.
• In Changes, the protagonist is this to his daughter. Because of his job as a Winter Knight of the Fae, he can't raise her, but he could save her from the Red Court.

• In Out of Spite, Out of Mind, Martin becomes this for Phillip, who is utterly unaware that someone is setting up traps for him. While Phillip can't be hurt by such traps (wizards are impervious to damage), he can be inconvenienced, and the attacker may have ulterior motives. So, Martin starts following Phillip around and keeping him safe from the traps, while Phillip is too absorbed in his own problems to notice either the attacks or Martin saving him.

• Welstiel Massing from The Saga of the Noble Dead is also a subversion- he appears at convenient intervals, gives Magiere much needed advice about fighting vampires but is actually training her to fetch an Artifact of Doom for him. Oh, and he's her half-brother too. And himself a vampire, albeit one who has learned to sustain himself by magic rather than feeding.
• Sailor Nothing subverts this. In the backstory and beginning, Magnificent Kamen would show up to help the heroine when she's fighting monsters she can't handle herself, but he's a scheming bastard who has no qualms about killing civilians and even ex-Sailors who have seen too much or outlived their usefulness, and towards the end actually turns out to be one of the same kind of monsters the heroine has been fighting.

Live Action TV

• Angel in season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The first time he and Buffy meet, he doesn't even say tell her his name and just says he's a "friend". His story slowly gets unravelled, and by early season 2 he is less mysterious and Buffy's boyfriend, not protector. By the time he gets his own series, he's a badass hero.
• Doctor Who, "The Girl in the Fireplace". Inverted in that we see it from the side of the Mysterious Protector himself.
• On an episode of The Haunting Hour, a girl named Jillian finds herself running for her life from two hungry werewolves. She's saved at the last minute by a third werewolf who returns her silver necklace (which, due to silver burning werewolves, had been stolen from her), looks at her for a moment, then disappears without a word. A comment from Jillian's mom later reveals that the werewolf was Jillian's father, who she and her mother believed to be dead.
• The Haitian from Heroes could've been the Trope Namer. Tall, black, and silent, nobody had a clue what this dude's agenda was. Just when it looked like he was about to finish Claire (the immortal cheerleader), turns out he's her appointed protector.
• In Misfits, the mysterious "Superhoodie" keeps showing up to save the Misfits, and seems to know an impossible amount of information about them. He's actually Simon's Future Badass counterpart.
• Power Rangers:
  • Both the Gold Ranger of Power Rangers Zeo and the Phantom Ranger of Power Rangers Turbo, who would appear to save the Rangers and then vanish. They each wound up having to be rescued by the Rangers they zipped in to protect. It was in that arc that we learned who the Gold Ranger was, and almost learned who the Phantom Ranger was.
  • A few Rangers would also play this role for an episode or two before joining the team proper, such as the Omega Ranger of Power Rangers S.P.D. and the Gold and Silver Rangers of Power Rangers RPM. Played with in Power Rangers Samurai with Antonio, the Gold Samurai Ranger: he tried to use this shtick as his introduction because he's an Attention Whore, but at one point had to turn tail and run from the Rangers because they tracked him down before he was ready to reveal himself.
• In a gender-flipped version, Ruby from Supernatural hung around stalking the boys for her first few episodes. She eventually did swoop in and save them Buffy-style from a group of demons. It even seemed she was being developed as a potential Love Interest before it was eventually revealed that she was really a demon working for her own endgame and not a hunter.

Manhua

• Sinbell from My Beloved Mother, who is Raised by Robots and constantly running away from home, much to the chagrin of Milan, his robotic caretaker / mom, to seek his "real" mother, assumes he found the real deal after encountering Asara, a prostitute from the big city, who repeatedly insists she isn't Sinbell's mother. Asara, against all odds, finally gives in, accepting Sinbell as her son as they start a new life together... until two years later, when Asara eventually kicks Sinbell out. It turns out Sinbell's robot mother, Milan, actually paid Asara to accept him for two whole years, but she finally stopped sending the money because the government issued a nationwide robot recall. Cue Sinbell having a massive Jerkass Realization on how awful he's been towards his robot mother.

Music

• The titular character in the song "Camouflage" by Stan Ridgway (also covered by Sabaton on their album The Last Stand). The song is sung from the viewpoint of a young P.F.C. (Private first class) of the United States Marine Corps during The Vietnam War. On a search and destroy mission he is separated from his patrol. Alone in the jungle, he fears for his life when, unexpectedly, a "big marine" comes to his rescue introducing himself as "Camouflage". The two fight together through the course of a night making their way back to base, during which the PFC notices that Camouflage is unaffected by bullets and is capable of superhuman feats. Camouflage leaves after leading the PFC to the edge of his camp. On his return, the PFC is informed that Camouflage has been on his death bed for the past week and died the previous night, his last wish being "to save a young marine".

Podcasts

• The Red Robe from The Adventure Zone is a morally-ambiguous specter that follows the party around, usually making himself known at the end of each arc to ask for their compliance. Madame Director insists that he's an unnatural force tied to the creation of the Grand Relics, but he seemingly protects the party even in situations where it isn't to his interest. He is later revealed to be Barry Bluejeans, who remembered being friends with the party members thanks to his undead immunity to the Voidfish, and has been trying to get the party to inoculate themselves against it so they can confront Lucretia about what she's doing with the Relics.
• The Cool Kids Table game Here We Gooooo! has the hooded figure who helped the party when they first arrived at the Soda Pop Kingdom, and who claims to be the last hero of the Soda Pop Kingdom.

Tabletop Games

• Sidereals are often assigned to protect future Sidereals who haven't Exalted yet; it's part of the job description. Some create false identities to do so, but others simply drop in whenever the fledgling is in danger. Exacerbating this trope is the Mask's curse, which prevents mortals from remembering or recognizing Sidereals.

Video Games

• Baldur's Gate III:
  • The "Dream Visitor", a mysterious figure who's soon revealed to be the one preventing your party from being taken over by the illithid Hive Mind. In the beginning of Act III, they're revealed to be an illithid Rogue Drone named The Emperor taking A Form You Are Comfortable With to gain your trust so you'll help him secure freedom for the both of you. In a sidequest, you discover that his true identity before becoming an illithid was Balduran, the legendary explorer who founded the titular city.
  • Withers, an immensely powerful undead necromancer who takes an interest in the party and tags along on their adventure, resurrecting dead party members and potential new ones as well as allowing them to respec their skills. It's very heavily implied that he's secretly the previous God of the Dead Jergal, seeking to punish the Dead Three for misusing the powers he gave them.
• Subverted in Betrayal at Krondor: After being captured and brought to the fortress in the heart of enemy territory, Gorath and Owyn are mysteriously set free - the doors to their cells open by magic. Later attempts to discern the identity of their mysterious saviour turn out to be fruitless. In retrospect, it seems obvious that the one responsible was the Big Bad Makala, a powerful magician who needed the protagonists free so that they could unwittingly carry a false message to their allies.
• In the Borderlands 2 DLC Sir Hammerlock vs. The Son of Crawmerax, all of the six playable Vault Hunters became targeted by various assassins, only for several separate individuals to come to their rescue, leaving them none the wiser. They only learn about the thwarted attempts on their lives later when their saviors pass messages to Sir Hammerlock for each of them to receive, and while half of them are loved ones (Axton was saved by his ex-wife, Gaige by her father, Salvador by mercs paid for by his abuela), but the other half are much more mysterious: Krieg's letter is credited to an apologetic-sounding "Sammy" (possibly, but unconfirmed to be one Dr. Samuels, the Hyperion doctor that experimented on Krieg), Maya's letter is uncredited (but its unusually verbose writing style is near-identical to how Tannis talks), and Zer0's letter simply reads "To Zero: One."
  Zer0: Well, that's annoyingly cryptic.
• Bravely Second has Alternis serve as a textbook case for Edea, appearing out of nowhere to help protect her when the party is losing in a cutscene, refusing to actually join, and then leaving. It's actually Ringabel from Bravely Default, wearing his old armor to be indistinguishable from the local Alternis.
• In Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, The Messenger, one of the sapient Darkspawn serving the Architect can become this depending on the player's choices. The epilogue will mention a "mysterious hooded stranger with a lisp" rescuing travelers in danger, albeit accidentally spreading the taint in some cases.
• In Final Fantasy VI, Shadow will join and leave the team at various points in the game, coming and going as he pleases. You'll eventually have an opportunity to add him to your permanent roster, though.
• In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, this trope is subverted. A major, presumed dead antagonist from the previous game actually plays this role to the hilt with the new protagonist, Micaiah. The Black Knight almost takes this role to ludicrous levels, never being content to just simply make a normal entrance: he always uses magic to directly teleport to his destination — which is often right next to his charge. His statistics are so broken in terms of gameplay that using him almost ensures victory, making him stand out from members of this trope that can only act in a supporting capacity.
• Fallout has a perk which causes a "Mysterious Stranger" to appear and assist the character randomly in battles. In Fallout 3 he's so mysterious that he could pop up anywhere: In a fortified Enclave bunker, inside a VR simulation, on board an alien saucer in orbit around the Earth, anywhere. The Mysterious Stranger can also occasionally serve as an inversion as he is infamous for accidentally shooting the player in the back with sometimes fatal results.
• Fallout: New Vegas:
  • Early on in New Vegas, if the player is having trouble, Victor the robot cowboy will show up to help fight off your enemies. While he accredits this to being a generally good-natured robot (which he is), the truth is that Mr. House is using him to make sure that you make it to Vegas.
  • 'Miss Fortune', essentially a female version of the Mysterious Stranger dressed in a Vegas Showgirl getup and causes colossally bad luck to occur to a foe instead of outright killing them. If you take both perks there is a small chance of them both showing up together to aid you.
  • In Honest Hearts, you can learn about Randall Dean Clark, a former US Marine turned survivalist who eventually became this for a bunch of children who would later become the Sorrows, watching over them and giving them supplies and books while remaining unseen to them. In the end, you find his skeleton on the Red Gate as he was about to die from a lung disease, so he left a personalized message to each child, telling them he would be silent but still watch over them, and climbed to his resting spot, dying to the elements. His legend lives as the Father in the Caves, who they later ended up conflating with the Christian God after meeting the New Canaanite missionaries.
• Mickey Mouse (Yes, the Mickey Mouse) serves this role during certain boss fights in Kingdom Hearts II. Get killed during certain encounters and you have the option of having King Mickey rescue you. Now, obviously Sora, Donald, and Goofy would recognize the King when they see him, but he always seems to teleport away immediately after rescuing Sora, so it's never made quite clear if Sora is aware the King is following him around. His rescues are more of a gameplay mechanic rather than an actual element of the plot. Unfortunately, the chances of him appearing in later fights goes down every time he rescues you. If he's saved your ass once or twice, he's unlikely to do it again, possibly because he's becoming too worn out between world-traveling and fighting.^note though again, it's a gameplay mechanic, so it's possible that the programmers simply didn't want to promote too much laziness as he is rather powerful and is sometimes better suited to the fight than Sora and Co He can't actually kill anything however, his move list lacks a finishing move which is required for the final blow on bosses, planting him even further into this trope.

• Mega Man Star Force is shown through the eyes of the Mysterious Protector himself. This occurs as he (Mega Man Geo-Omega) has to protect Luna Platz from danger. This is reversed three times. First, in the first game as she merges with one of the evil FM-Ian warriors, forcing him to battle her. Then in the second game when the OOPart turns him into a wild EM wave being, causing him to attack her (he gains control over the object). Then in the third game where Joker kills her before he (Geo-Omega) can save her.
• Middle-earth: Shadow of War has Forthog Orc-Slayer, a DLC Uruk based on a dev who died during production of the game who will randomly appear to save the player by killing any enemy about to land a killing blow.

• Resident Evil:
  • Ada Wong runs interference from the shadows for Leon's various mishaps in Resident Evil 4. The "Separate Ways" campaign^note available on all major versions except for the original GameCube release shows how she managed to be at the right time and right place to help Leon in the main game.
  • Ada again is helping Leon throughout Resident Evil 6. Since there's an Evil Doppelgänger also running around, Leon's never quite sure its Ada that's helping him, especially after Chris tells him Ada is dead.
• The Kami and Karavan of Ryzom serve as this for the four Homin races. Who they are and where they came from is a mystery (rumors persist that the Karavan are Space Marines from another planet and the Kami represent the planet's spirit), but they seem benevolent enough, even if they hate each-other's guts.
• Parodied in Saints Row IV. After freeing Keith David (As Himself) from a virtual Mind Prison reflecting his greatest fear — getting the crap kicked out of him by Roddy Piper during the filming of They Live! — David indicates that Rowdy Roddy might come to aid them later, wistfully looking skyward while musing "You don't call for Roddy. He comes when he is needed." Immediately afterward the game assures you that nah, you can summon Roddy Piper at will like any other Homie in the game.
• Lloyd Irving, the protagonist from Tales of Symphonia, plays this part to Genis and Mithos in an optional sidequest. Mithos being a powerless tyke and Genis being a decent mage but not the best fighter in the world although Mithos is really Ygdrassil, the Big Bad Knight Templar Fallen Angel type fellow saving them from monsters and the such.

Visual Novels

• Rider in Fate/stay night when she finally gets to move into the main storyline. Even then she's not actually in focus a lot of the time, preferring to be invisible. But she saves Shirou several times and then vanishes without really telling him anything. As for the love interest part... Well, it's pretty clear she's at least somewhat attracted to him.
• In Under the Moon, Zero appears out of nowhere to bail the heroine Ashe out of some tight spots, but disappears just as quickly.
• In Umineko: When They Cry, Gretel/Ange Ushiromiya is an odd example because she's both female and non-romantic (Because of her true identity). However, she matches this better than Aloof Ally in the types of interventions she does, in the secret identity aspect, and in the fact that she makes it expressly clear in the beginning that she sides with Battler, not just that her goals are similar. Also a little odd in that she's not saved when she gets into trouble and becomes Battler's Greatest Failure.

Webcomics

• Insofar as it makes any sense whatsoever, Hitmen for Destiny appears to be a Perspective Flip of the trope.
• Legio Arcana Barry shows up at the beginning of chapter 4. Oded remarks that he hasn’t aged in 22 years and that they don’t know much about him. Barry disappears after somehow healing Thalia, preventing her from dying from her wounds, playing a role in reviving Nolan, and dropping Thalia and Tony off at the hospital

• No Need for Bushido gives us Matrix who can't stop herself from meddling in an as-of-yet unspecified bet that she made.

Western Animation

• Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender becomes "The Blue Spirit" to save Aang in an episode of the same name (although he wasn't mysterious for long), and later to free Appa in season 2. Of course it's just because he wants to make sure no one else gets the credit for catching Aang. This is exaggerated in "The Ember Island Players" enough to make Zuko and Aang... uncomfortable, for obvious reasons.
• Futurama: Leela's parents, who are mutants who live in the sewers, are sometimes shown secretly helping their daughter in various situations.
• In the three-part premiere of Superman: The Animated Series, Superman initially saved people and flew away without an explanation, becoming known as a mysterious "angel" until (like The Man Of Steel example above) he had to save a plane in full public view. Martha Kent convinced him that he ought to go public rather than try to hide, lest people think that he was anything like "that nut in Gotham City".

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