The website also discusses the concept of “Justified Trope,” in which a seemingly implausible trope actually has at least a little basis in fact. For example, there were actually a number of cases in which European adventurers went into remote areas and became members of the local tribe or even warlords, as in the real story on which “The Man Who Would Be King” (a classic example of Mighty Whitey) was based.
Similarly, there really was a case of a Westerner going to Japan in the 19th century, becoming a genuine samurai, and fighting for the old ways of the samurai class against the modernizing forces of the Meiji Restoration. His name was Eugene Collache, and he was a French naval officer who took the side of the Shogun in the Bakamatsu wars. He was granted a legitimate samurai rank and proceeded to go hog-wild with it, dressing as a samurai and fighting in samurai armor. Unlike Tom Cruise, though, he did not make a heroic last stand with sword in hand, survive a Gatling gun barrage, and then plead with the Emperor to maintain the culture of feudal militarism with Hollywood's strangely uncritical approval. Instead he led one of the Shogun's ships into battle, lost the battle, and escaped to France- where he was charged with desertion for joining a foreign military. Whitey, in this case, was not so mighty as all that.