Aidan of the tavern
Auror
It seems to be a common thing, especially in fantasy that for the protagonist to flourish, or to make things more pessimistic, the mentor/leader figure must come to an untimely demise. In my experience this can happen for a variety of reasons, for the protag to survive, or come into his/her own, to give more drive to the story and increase the impending danger, or simply as a sort of payment in exchange for the good guys winning. Sometimes of course they come back again (Gandalf, Obi-wan Kenobi, Aslan, etc), but the damage is usually done.
Obviously it can be a very powerful tool, Gandalf's death allowed the fellowship to break and go their own way, Dumbledore's death was a huge blow and left Harry largely without guidance, often its an oppertunity for the protagonist to take over and fulfill the legacy. Anyway, what are your thoughts on the whole death of leaders/mentors business? Do you think its becoming too predictable?
Also another question. If my mentor was alive at the end of the story do you think some readers would in a way be disappointed (even if the good side had paid dearly for their victory)? I'm just wondering if some people would consider his blood a necersarry sacrifice for victory. I would still have him out of the way for quite a while (in the Hobbit for instance Gandalf has to leave them for most of the book, then in the Fellowship he gets captured), so I was just wondering what your thoughts were. Another thought I had was for the mentor to die at the end from illness.
Obviously it can be a very powerful tool, Gandalf's death allowed the fellowship to break and go their own way, Dumbledore's death was a huge blow and left Harry largely without guidance, often its an oppertunity for the protagonist to take over and fulfill the legacy. Anyway, what are your thoughts on the whole death of leaders/mentors business? Do you think its becoming too predictable?
Also another question. If my mentor was alive at the end of the story do you think some readers would in a way be disappointed (even if the good side had paid dearly for their victory)? I'm just wondering if some people would consider his blood a necersarry sacrifice for victory. I would still have him out of the way for quite a while (in the Hobbit for instance Gandalf has to leave them for most of the book, then in the Fellowship he gets captured), so I was just wondering what your thoughts were. Another thought I had was for the mentor to die at the end from illness.