The Swiss Advisor

The world of Andalusada has many places within itself that it considers "exotic." As a rule, most of these are inhabited by colored people full of exuberant barbarism, who by all rights should have been conquered by the world's more civilized races and all that. As a rule, most of those savages have been conquered by most of those more civilized races already.

But it's not true of all of them. There are, in fact, some exotic locales that stubbornly refuse to bow their heads and accept their destiny. It's understandable for some of these defiant aborigines, because they're proud (or cruel) and honorable (or merciless) warrior races. But not all of those holdouts are warrior races - and no warrior race, however noble (or vile) it may be, is actually the equal of the good and doughty soldiery of the Empire, whichever Empire it is that the speaker belongs to. Where the plot takes the characters into the midst of such a foreign people, therefore, it is customary to have them encounter the local Swiss Advisor.

Identifying the Swiss Advisor is the simplest of tasks: he's the only man in the whole lot who dresses properly and speaks a recognizable language, rather than a racist caricature of one. Mind you, in his work abroad he's also become fluent in the local bwana; if the characters must meet with the local Chieftain, the Swiss Advisor will inevitably do double duty as a translator - and will be trusted implicitly, because the terms of his contract forbid distrust or summary execution for saying things the Chieftain does not wish to hear.

So what exactly is the Swiss Advisor for? His job is to "advise," by which is meant "bootstrap the natives into a proper fighting force." As an archetype, however, his role is to legitimate the Local Foreigners. By training them to work like him and obey his orders, the Swiss Adviser makes his clients civilized by proxy. Without him, they would be neither morally good nor plausibly competent; and should his presence be denied them, they will rapidly cease to be either until his role is filled once more.

Characterization of the Swiss Advisor

It goes without saying that this is a racist trope; the Swiss Adviser is a magical white man necessary to legitimate the colored parts of the cast. Of necessity, therefore, the Swiss Adviser is a gentleman as well as an officer: to grant respectability, he must be respectable himself. (The Swiss Adviser is Swiss not only because most of them are IRL, but because it lets him speak several languages, one of which is a perfectly-accented French unlike anything actually spoken in Romandy.)

Away from his duties to the Chieftain, the Swiss Adviser is a man of the world. He can and will casually reference a dozen even more exotic, remote locales where his services have been called upon (and paid for, six months in advance at double, in either gold or raw gemstones, because that's how the Agency works.) He can walk with crowds and keep his virtue, and knows how to fit right in during the local foreign festival episode. At the end of that episode, however, as the fires dim and the jungle drums are stilled, he will (in a clearing brilliantly lit by an improbably low full moon) succumb to that disease common to all Swiss mercenaries, homesickness, and pry desperately for news about what's going on in "the world," by which is meant a more civilized locale.

The Swiss Advisor's aspect is as a soldier: he will be armed, invariably, with a sidearm and a sword, either of European or local provenance. If he's shown actually doing Swiss Advisor things, expect to see a fine Swiss musket and bayonet as well. The Chieftain's bodyguards will be armed likewise, depending on the power dynamics at work, and usually the Chieftain's rank-and-file will be outfitted with whatever fine pieces of Swiss-Peruvian hardware the props department can dredge up. (This hardware is polished, loaded, and in working order by the Swiss Adviser. He does it with magic.)

Understandably, nobody will have anything bad to say about the Swiss Adviser except for a single cartoonishly evil figure.

Swiss Advisors in Andalusada

Bengal is a success story of the developing world, right alongside Korea and Japan: economically prosperous, well-nourished, tranquil, educated and establishing an international presence. Becoming those things involved the help of a number of Swiss Army officers and instructors, to stay independent of both Anglo-Scottish and French imperialism.

They get no love at all for that success story. Instead, their respect is given to the Sultanate of Multan, because the Daulat-e Multan is badass.

• Multan's badass didn't stop it from arranging for a Swiss advisor of its own. [who?] He was intercepted and killed by the French en route; the international blowback from his death resulted in France getting spanked fighting the Jura War. [details?]
• Arguably the progenitor of this trope was Melchior, of Three Wise Men fame. Without his involvement in the Moorish New World last century [details?], Gran Peru would likely never have risen to regional-power status.
• Not the best example here. Melchior didn't grant Gran Peru a legitimating role. Without that moral role, a Swiss Advisor is a different trope entirely.
• So doesn't that mean that there are no Real Life examples of Swiss Advisors?
• Shut your mouth.