Discussion Main / BattleButler

I moved the following example here because neither character is a butler or servant of the other so I don't see how it fits:

• Sherlock: Even though John's choices of attire are a bit different from his friend's, and more cash, he's still an Afghan war veteran as well as former soldier, and, even though Sherlock is competent in his own right, being a Badass Bookworm, since he's saved John's ass when he was in awful positions, he's prone to doing kooky things that could easily get him killed. Oi. We have a normal doctor and a very-strange detective.

Two questionable examples removed:

• Sam Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings is a classic example.
  • Sam wasn't a Battle Butler per se— he expressly said he didn't want to be one— but rather his strength came mainly from his unswerving faith and courage. For example, Beren wasn't able to defeat a wolf using an actual Silmaril, since he placed his faith in the jewel, claiming that it would defeat he wolf; meanwhile Sam was able to defeat the much more-dangerous Shelob using only a part of that same Silmaril, since he called upon Elbereth herself. Likewise Beren would have been unable to wound Shelob, but Sam was able to do so because of his courage enabling him to stand beside Frodo while Shelob pounced on him— and his up-turned blade.

Sam isn't really presented as a household servant to Frodo; he's Frodo's gardener, but seems to have a very loose schedule for when he works for Frodo and when he works elsewhere. The relationship is less Master/servant and more like that between a homeowner and 'the guy from the lawn service'.

• Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter is a prime example of this, with a fairly obvious adoration of her master and not much else of a reason to stay with him.
  • "Adoration" is a bit of an understatement, at least in the Order of the Phoenix movie, it was. She was crazy and obsessed with him.

Is she a servant, in the "job" sense? I don't recall that she was, at least as far as the end of book six — she's the mistress of her own household, not a house servant in Voldemort's