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The Mentor of the Main Character

It is a common staple of myth and legend in our world. Arthur had Merlin, Luke had Ben and so on. I have my own mentor for my main character who is quite deranged, and slightly beyond cracked in the head from having lived beyond a kilennium and is practically a demigod.

I'm curious as to what others have constructed for mentor's for their characters, if you have any at all. If you don't have one, what made you choose to not include one?

More importantly, how do you portray them in your writing?

-Cold
 

Jabrosky

Banned
The whole mentor archetype sounds best suited to coming-of-age stories where the hero starts out inexperienced and needs some guidance to help them accomplish what they must. That's all well and good if you're interested in coming-of-age, but I gravitate more towards heroes who have already developed a certain degree of strength or competence by the story's beginning. For example, if I'm writing an adventure story, I'd rather start with a well-trained warrior than a naive farm-boy. Besides, lots of skills take years to develop.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
A mentor character exists in most stories, believe it or not. Sometimes they're prominent and obvious characters like Merlin. Other times, they're a less obvious character that helps the MC in tiny but significant way. Maybe they give the MC an example of what to do or what not to do. Maybe they dish out a timely piece of advice. The possibilities are endless.

In Jaws, the mentor is Quint.
In Mallrats, it's Stan Lee.
In Alien it's Ash.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Hmmm...

The wizard Lysander has two Mentors, the first Edward Chain, a rather puritanical sorcerer with a dark secret; the second the half-elf artist magician and serial womanizer Danilov.

Toki, another wizard in another land, has 'Master Victor' for a mentor, though that doesn't last long. His hobgoblin companion Hock-Nar is more or less mentor-less.

Titus Maximus, a military officer, had superiors, but no real mentors. Instead, he had his hulking companion Casein.
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
In Alien it's Ash.
Hmm? Mentor? I'm not so sure. He's the one with the information, to be sure, but he offers little active support to the protagonists and actively aids the Alien/antagonist. Or did you mean that Ash was the Alien's mentor? That I can see.

I like a good Mentor. If for no other reason that it can make exposition easier. Sherlock Holmes needs Dr Watson to explain his incredible leaps of deduction to us mere mortals...
A couple of times I have tried using a failed/world-weary Priest as a Mentor.
I like the mix of the spiritual and real-world experience that it gives me. Shepherd Book (from Firefly & Serenity) would be a good example of what I mean.
They can also be usefully done-in if you want a crisis for your hero... make it bloody and/or pointless...
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Hmm? Mentor? I'm not so sure. He's the one with the information, to be sure, but he offers little active support to the protagonists and actively aids the Alien/antagonist. Or did you mean that Ash was the Alien's mentor? That I can see.

No, Ash is Ripely's Mentor. It's been a while since I've seen the movie, so some of the details are fuzzy, but it goes something like this. Ripley and Ash are set off as polar opposites. In the beginning Ripley is the loner set apart from the crew. She's shown to be almost inhuman because she didn't want to let the infected crew back into the ship. Ash is very much apart of the crew and is the one who shows "compassion" in letting the infected crew back onto the ship.

It is through Ash's actions and interactions that Ripley's more human side is brought out. Like I said he's not a mentor in the traditional Obi-Wan sense, but it's through him that Ripley learns to be more human. Why else would she save the cat. :p
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
Why else would she save the cat. :p
He's the only one left?:rolleyes:
I'm still not sold on the idea of Ash as Ripley's Mentor but I can see what you mean - without Ash, Ripley doesn't get to develop. But I don't think his aim is to enlighten her, to make her change. That is an accidental result of the events.
For me a Mentor has to be somewhat of an active [good or bad] influence on the Hero... it shouldn't be a by-product...
 
Unless they're the villain, I never do characters who teach younger characters to kill and don't do any killing themselves. If they have the knowledge and training to fight the villain, it seems unconscionable to send "teenagers with attitude" to do the job instead. (I sometimes use "old-timer" characters, but they're active protagonists with their own flaws and character arcs.)

Edit: To be more clear on this, I sometimes do villains who train followers for their own purposes, with those followers becoming the protagonists. Other times, the protagonists teach and guide each other.
 
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Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
For me a Mentor has to be somewhat of an active [good or bad] influence on the Hero... it shouldn't be a by-product...

If this way of looking at things doesn't work for you, then it doesn't. There are dozens of ways to look at a story and the elements in them. None of them are gospel. It's just a different way of slicing the pie, and regardless, the whole pie is still there. I just find it useful to be able to look at a story in different ways, especially my own. From one angle the story may look fine, but from another, its imperfections may be more visible.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Penpilot, words and terms mean things and you can't just change the meaning of the words to suit yourself. A Mentor character in literature is a character with a certain type of relationship with the hero. The term comes from the character named Mentor in The Odyssey. Athena appears to Odysseus in the guise of his trusted friend Mentor, to whom he gave charge over his son and his palace, in order to aid him along his adventure. Though the term came into use as we know it today due to a French novel that tells the story of Telemachus and focuses particularly on the teachings and advice given to him by Mentor. A Mentor is a trusted counselor/teacher to the hero and also sometimes giver of important gifts/aid. A Mentor is not just any character whose actions may cause growth in the main character.

I have one very important Mentor figure that appears in pretty much all my stories. He is not the Mentor of any particular character exclusively, but sees it as his duty to Mentor any person who has a strong potential to have a large impact on the history of the world. He also happens to be the God of Memory.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Penpilot, words and terms mean things and you can't just change the meaning of the words to suit yourself.

I didn't just arbitrarily change the meaning of anything to suit myself. There are hundreds of books on writing theory and this way of looking at what a mentor is is from one of them.

Again, like I said, there isn't one gospel way of defining things in story. There are many-many-many theories out there, all of them equally useful or useless depending on the individual. Take the ones that are useful to you and discard the rest.
 

Saphirion

Acolyte
Unless they're the villain, I never do characters who teach younger characters to kill and don't do any killing themselves. If they have the knowledge and training to fight the villain, it seems unconscionable to send "teenagers with attitude" to do the job instead.

As a reader, I totally agree with Feo. If the mentor is capable of doing the job, why do I have to follow some bratty kid around? In a terrible book I read recently, the mentor not only had the power (until plot conveniently required he didn't) but he also had FOREKNOWLEDGE of everything and dropped "mysterious hints" but never did anything to stop what was coming from happening. So, there would be an example of how not to write a mentor.

As a writer, I can see the argument that there are mentors in every story. I never deliberately write a mentor, but since my MCs need to learn something, a character ends up teaching or advising them. It works in other stories - Star Wars, LotR, ect. - but I don't usually like mentors who "hover" around the protagonist, watching over them as the grow, "waiting until the MC is ready." That's why I write mentors that interact with the MC, but have their own goals, jobs, objectives, or whatever. Basically a life apart from the MC (unless the MC is family).

The mentor for one story is actually the adopted mother of the MC. And her mentoring is slightly flawed as some of what she wants to teach the MC isn't good for the MC. (She's a dragon, MC is human.) But the mentor believes she's doing these things for the MC's good. In another story, the mentor is a ship captain that "takes the MC under his wing" when the MC strikes out with his own ship. Now that I think about it, he's also a flawed mentor but the MC is both older and more objective towards his advice.
 
I have a mentor who basically acts as the behind the scenes puppet. He both teaches and uses the MC to his own ends, whether noble or not. There is a lot of vengeance and hate that fills the mentor, especially for the MC's family and people, while the mentor tries to keep his own people from acting in the revenge schemes that might cost more (in his eyes) precious lives.
So in a way my MC is a pawn to his schemes.

I think if a mentor has the power to do things, there may be reasons why they do not directly act. Doing so might cause people they care about to get caught in the crossfire. There are always reasons why powerful people fail to act.

-Cold
 

Sheriff Woody

Troubadour
...I gravitate more towards heroes who have already developed a certain degree of strength or competence by the story's beginning.

Every story is a journey for the hero, and if your hero has nowhere to go or nothing to develop internally, then what is the purpose of your story?

The mentor is the character that has already accomplished what the hero is struggling with, and can therefore provide assistance in getting the hero to develop and arc.

Not every story provides a mentor character, but every good story has the hero change.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
Every story is a journey for the hero, and if your hero has nowhere to go or nothing to develop internally, then what is the purpose of your story?

The mentor is the character that has already accomplished what the hero is struggling with, and can therefore provide assistance in getting the hero to develop and arc.

Not every story provides a mentor character, but every good story has the hero change.
There are many dimensions in which a character may "grow". A character could start out experienced in one area but need growth in another. What I was reacting against in my original post was the stereotype of the wimpy adolescent farm-boy who starts out with barely any skills pertinent to adventuring or whatever.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I didn't just arbitrarily change the meaning of anything to suit myself. There are hundreds of books on writing theory and this way of looking at what a mentor is is from one of them.

Again, like I said, there isn't one gospel way of defining things in story. There are many-many-many theories out there, all of them equally useful or useless depending on the individual. Take the ones that are useful to you and discard the rest.

The idea of "many-many-many" definitions for a literary term is sheer nonsense. Words mean things. Terminology is used to convey knowledge and understanding. You can't do that if a word or term can have a huge variety of differing meanings. Characters who directly or indirectly aid the MC can be written in many ways, but that doesn't make them "Mentors".

But perhaps you can provide a quotation from the book that says a Mentor is any character who directly or indirectly helps the MC change in even a small way. Or at least a reference for the book. I'd be interested to see what book/author is promoting such a definition.

Every story is a journey for the hero, and if your hero has nowhere to go or nothing to develop internally, then what is the purpose of your story?

I would say rather that every story is a journey for the reader. The ways in which readers can be taken on that journey are infinite. One of the primary ways is through growth and development of the hero over the course of the story. But it is not the only way.
 

JamieMaltman

Acolyte
I have a few plays on the mentor in my series so far.

In book one, the main character meets another equal who is further along in getting to know how to use magic, and then she introduces him to her mentor.

Then in book two there's another new mentor on one side, and the villain has a sneaky mentor like thecoldembrace mentioned above.

And in book three, there's yet another one coming.

But one twist I have on this is that all of them are working from incomplete information, so in some cases they're making things up as they go along.
 

Trick

Auror
I have a mentor who basically acts as the behind the scenes puppet. He both teaches and uses the MC to his own ends, whether noble or not. There is a lot of vengeance and hate that fills the mentor, especially for the MC's family and people, while the mentor tries to keep his own people from acting in the revenge schemes that might cost more (in his eyes) precious lives.
So in a way my MC is a pawn to his schemes.

I think if a mentor has the power to do things, there may be reasons why they do not directly act. Doing so might cause people they care about to get caught in the crossfire. There are always reasons why powerful people fail to act.

-Cold

A little like
Bayaz
which is a compliment btw.
 
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Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
The idea of "many-many-many" definitions for a literary term is sheer nonsense. Words mean things. Terminology is used to convey knowledge and understanding. You can't do that if a word or term can have a huge variety of differing meanings. Characters who directly or indirectly aid the MC can be written in many ways, but that doesn't make them "Mentors".

Words can have different meaning depending on the context in which they're used. In specific fields of study words take on meaning that go beyond the common everyday lexicon. Take for instance the word "Theory". It has an every day conversational meaning and it also has a specific meaning when used in the field of science. The word "Class" has a common meaning but when used in the field of computer science, it can have a different meaning.

So when someone writes a book with a specific view of story, they sometimes define things differently within the context of their theory. It's not confusing, nor does it hamper knowledge or understanding, as long as you know the context.

As for literary terms. From this wiki article, ( Literary element - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), it says the following about literary elements like plot and character.

There is no official definition or fixed list of terms of literary elements; however, they are a common feature of literary education at the primary and secondary level, and a set of terms similar to the one below often appears in institutional student evaluation.

But perhaps you can provide a quotation from the book that says a Mentor is any character who directly or indirectly helps the MC change in even a small way. Or at least a reference for the book. I'd be interested to see what book/author is promoting such a definition.


Here it's from a book series called Save the Cat, specifically Save the Cat Goes to the Movies. Here's the link to Amazon.
Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies: The Screenwriter's Guide to Every Story Ever Told: Blake Snyder: 9781932907353: Amazon.com: Books

And now a quote.

There are other fine points that go with many a MITH (MITH being a type of story called Monster in the House). A character that shows up in a lot of these films is one I call the Half-Man. This is a survivor who has run into the monster before--or has prior knowledge of the evil--and come away damaged because of it. Robert Shaw as Quint is the Half Man in Jaws; Scatman Crothers is the Half Man in The Shining; and Ian Holm as Ash in Alien is not only Half Man but also half robot! From a practical screenwriting point of view, the Half Man allows us to reveal the myth of the monster--and give the hero a hint about what dealing with the monster entails. Many of these Half Man characters wind up dying at the "All Is Lost" moment on page 75 and are the "flawed mentors" of each story, warning us because of their deaths... about the horror that awaits.

Also from a book from 45 master characters 45 Master Characters: Victoria Schmidt: 9781582975221: Books - Amazon.ca

Here are some examples of what it calls The Mentor that don't fit the standard model.

- Gordon Gekko in Wallstreet, the tycoon who mentors and seduces the hero into dishonest trading practices
- Katherine Parker in Working Girl. She tells the hero to trust her and then gives the boss the hero's ideas as if they were her own.

The book goes on to give another set of examples of what a mentor is, one of which is "The expert on whatever information the hero needs, as long as he's excited to share the information and help."
 

Sheriff Woody

Troubadour
I would say rather that every story is a journey for the reader.

Yes, by living vicariously through the characters. And if the character's don't grow or learn, then what does the reader learn?

If, for example, you want to take your reader on an adventure, then you need a character to go on that same adventure.

I think we're getting a bit off topic, but to reign in back in, the mentor exists to guide the hero on his or her journey of change. Mentors can exist in many forms other than the hooded old sage, just as heroes can exist in many forms other than seemingly-talentless farm boy.
 
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