...But Mentor Characters Are Good
20-20 vision, yo…After taking some expected abuse for my article on real-life mentors and why they’re mostly worthless, I figured I’d leave off the tough love angle for a bit and talk about the kind of mentors I like.
The character archetype of The Mentor is one of the classics, and that’s why the Mentor often seems lame. After thousands of years Mentoring heroes, it’s getting to the point where we cringe at the thought of the alcoholic sports coach or the wise old woman or the dance instructor who bangs a big stick on the floor and promises to “make you sweat!”
And yet…the Mentor is one of the most useful characters. Mentors let us watch our protagonist struggle and grow. They give our characters secrets and wisdom. Without them, our heroes can seem lost or, at the very least, friendless.
If they’re grumpy types, that’s fine. If they’re fresh-faced young kids from Reseda trying to fit in with the Encino crowd by learning karate, it’s a bit harder.
As always, my advice circles back to the relationship between the character in question (The Mentor) and the elemental dramatic proposition of the story you’re telling (Theme). What is the Mentor’s relationship to Theme?
Simple.
The Mentor knows the Theme.
This suggests a new problem. If a Mentor—and let’s say for the sake of example that we’re talking about Glinda the Good Witch—is defined by her knowledge of the Theme, and the protagonist, Dorothy, is defined as a individual ignorant of the Theme who must come to learn the Theme in order to succeed, then why doesn’t the Mentor just TELL the hero the Theme?
Ginda could certainly float down in her bubble and say “Dorothy, you shouldn’t have run away. There’s no place like home, and you truly do appreciate your home, don’t you? You do? Good. Click your heels together three times. Trust me. It’ll save you a lot of trouble.”
Most people will tell you that Glinda doesn’t do this because Dorothy needs to learn this lesson on her own. After all, if Dorothy is just told the Theme but doesn’t survive the Wicked Witch and the Flying Monkeys and the apple-throwing trees and the Palace Guards, then she won’t really have learned the Theme.
It’s true that Dorothy does need to go through this on her own. The problem is that this makes Glinda psychotic. Suddenly, she’s a hoop-skirted version of the villain from Saw or Se7en. She knows the simple trick that gets Dorothy home, but she’s going to watch as Dorothy enters a serious of potentially deadly predicaments, because you can’t really know something until your friend is set on fire, right?
Well, that doesn’t seem quite right, does it?
So what’s the reason Glinda does what she does?
Here’s my big theory on Mentors. Ready?
They’ve seen the movie.
Hmmm?
Yeah.
Glinda isn’t just magical because she’s a witch. She’s a god, and she is not bound by the temporal experience of the narrative. She’s looked backwards and forwards. She knows what happened to Dorothy before they met, and she knows what is going to happen. Just like The Oracle in The Matrix, she speaks in ways that belie her total knowledge of the entirety of the narrative, because a) it’s more interesting, and b) it’s what she’s meant to do.
Ever notice how unsurprised mentors are when the hero finally gets it? That’s because they knew it was coming. Glinda almost looks patronizing when she tells Dorothy she had the power with her the whole time. And The Oracle definitely patronizes Neo. Most of her sentences end with an unspoken “but that’s obvious, idiot.”
The fact that the world as we know it is actually a computer simulation designed to keep us under control is as much news to The Oracle as it is to the rest of us who have seen the movie. The fact that Neo is “The One”? She’s seen it. The way he beats Agent Smith? She’s seen it.
Because the mentor has seen what must come to pass, they can deliver information in dribs and drabs to the hero. Too much, and they’ve spoiled the hero’s learning process. Not enough, and the hero will be floundering. At no time is the mentor concerned that the hero will fail.
Even when they say they are.
In fact, it’s a great slight of hand to have the mentor doubt the hero, because it helps hide the antidramatic nature of the mentor from the audience. Yoda chit chats with Obi-Wan about how Luke might not make it. It’s baloney. They both know he’s going to make it. Yoda always talks about cloudy things, but that’s just to force Luke to look and see and discover for himself. Yoda sees all.
He probably saw those god-awful prequels coming, but hey, mentors aren’t omnipotent.
Just omniscient.
Now as you think about this concept, it might occur to you that the mentor is still bizarre. I mean, if they know how the story is going to unfold and end, then why are they at all concerned with living within the narrative of the hero’s story? Doesn’t it bore them?
All I can tell you is that I’ve watched Star Wars a hundred times. If it’s not boring me, why should it bore Obi-Wan? All stories are repetitious and redundant. It’s not the brilliant twisty endings that make stories wonderful. It’s the journey itself.
In that sense, the mentor is a lot like us…particularly after we’ve already seen the movie once. Maybe some of you identify with Luke when he’s racing towards that exhaust port, but as a screenwriter, I always identify with Obi-Wan.
“Use the Force, Luke.”
“Why, Craig?”
“Because it will be a fantastic way to end this story.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve already seen it come to pass a hundred times, and I’ll see it come to pass a hundred more times.”
“And does it work?”
At which point I grin and say, “I ain’t tellin’.”
When you write your mentors, let them read your treatment first. Let them know the ending. Only then will they be able to do their job.
Excellent post and I think you’ve divined a secret of screenwriting. The Mentor MUST know the outcome; either that, or the Mentor is so confident in his (or rarely, her) abilities that the protege can’t but succeed. I would also point out that the late Pat Morita in Karate Kid (all three of them, in fact) is a good example of the seemingly all-knowing Mentor. Why else would he think Jonathan Brandis could possibly break all those concrete bricks?
In the very first screenplay I wrote, after having become sick of screenplays as a reader, I had as the Mentor character someone whose principal characteristic was that they could see the future and past and was, an ipso facto omniscient. And I was trying to write against a lot of cliches. Maybe it works that my Mentor was hot and young, which does go against mentor type. Oddly, it’s one of the few character types that doesn’t eventually tend toward the young and hot. Hmmmm.
Like many archetypes, there is more than one flavor of mentor. Certainly, there are demigods like the Oracle and Glinda, who know the future.
But Morpheus doesn’t. Obi-wan, either. He’s looking to Yoda for omniscience.
How can you tell a demi-god mentor? They talk in riddles. They send the Hero on quests.
And what about the Dark Father? The mentor who leads the Hero to the Dark Side, like Emperor Palpatine? Or Gordon Gekko? I don’t think they’re demi-gods. Palpatine forsaw his ascension, but he didn’t know Anakin was going to become a crispy critter. Gekko was shocked by Bud’s betrayal.
Are there even more kinds of mentors?
i think the omniscience of the mentor relates directly to the calibre of the acolyte and the desired goal to be accomplished in the story but the level of level of omniscience is what is important.
operating on the presumotion that the mentor already knows the outcome is not a good basis for the character. no one can tell the future.
what the mentor does know however, are the things the acolyte does not. they know “what it takes.” and they are able to see the capacity in the acolyte for success of whatever it is that they will be succeeding in.
to really fine tune this explanation i would begin to talk about abractions of the intellect and the eternal quest for self-knowledge but i’m going drinking in seoul so have a good one!
Point of fact, the late Jonathan Brandis was not in The Karate Kid with the late Pat Morita, that would be the very present Ralph Macchio (whose career has been described by some as late, but he just did a very funny cameo on Enterouge last season and I have high hopes for him) - Brandis did do Sidekicks with Chuck Norris, which may account for the confusion.
In terms of mentor characters, let’s not forget the immortal Burgess Meredith as Mick in Rocky. Mick wasn’t all-knowing about the plot of the movie, but he certainly knew all about boxing. And he delivered the film’s theme, which was that Rocky “had heart” but was wasting his life, in essence, “he had heart but no soul” and when Rocky found that - bingo -
Damn, Rocky still works after all these years, don’t it?
CRAIG:
I think you’re MOSTLY right. The Mentor is sort of omniscient. But they don’t know exactly what is going to happen. They only know that it MIGHT happen. I say, MIGHT because the protagonist does have to take the journey. Not just for the learning experience—if that was all your movie was, it would be flawed. Protagonists have to take the journey for a very good reason…
A Proper story has other characters.
Take your example of The Wizard of Oz. You’re right, Glenda could pop up and say, “Click your heels, stupid!” and then poof!, Dorothy’s home.
Pretty bad, right?
Not because it would make for a very short movie but more because that’s not what the movie is about. The theme of The Wizard of Oz is not about Dorothy going home. The theme is: One person CAN make a difference. And if Dorothy just went home, the Lion, the Scarecrow, and the Tin-Man would stay exactly as they are. Dorothy changes them for the better and in turn, they change her. That’s proper storytelling. And if you’ve structured your story properly, the movie won’t depend ENTIRELY on the protagonist. In a proper structure, the protagonist needs the secondary characters to succeed.
So what does that tell us?
A Mentor actually doesn’t have to be Omniscient. They can just have faith in the character to do the right thing.
It’s like having kids. I’m a parent and I expect my son to do the right thing. He may take a bit of a journey to get there but I know he’ll get there. Because I have faith in my son. And I don’t have to be omniscient to have faith. I don’t know how it ends. I just have faith.
The Matrix is yet another good example. In the first part of the series, The Oracle is NOT the mentor. She’s a device. The real mentor is Morpheus. And he’s not omniscient. He just has faith. He believes in Neo. That’s it.
If you want to have a good Mentor in your film you truly only need one thing:
MORGAN FREEMAN.
Oh, and Joshua is right. Assistant Atlas is confusing Pat Morita with MAKO, the other Japanese mentor.
Hm. This article is even more baroque than your other mentor article.
You are saying that real-life mentors don’t (neccessarily) want their proteges to succeed and/or are unable or unwilling to choose proteges who are actually able to succeed. But the reverse is true when it comes to mentor characters. Their sole narrative function is to be instrumental in helping the main character succeed. And they unfailingly choose proteges who are going to succeed because they just know (the whole story).
I disagree with this but on a totally different level I agree.
I disagree because this is blatantly untrue, on both counts (real life and films).
But I agree that it’s probably best for writers to come to terms with the fact that they’re really on their own; it’s extremely unlikely that a mentor comes along and throws them a lifeline. So they should maintain a healthy scepticism towards every mentor-like figure on the horizon. As for films, if you want to write commercially successful films your mentor characters should be infallable and of the omniscient type.
You are presenting a kind of philosophy of life.
Doesn’t the big fun start when the mentor turns out to be the bad guy? I’m thinking Joe Pantoliano in Memento, for example. And who could forget that stunned look in Kevin Spacey’s eyes in L.A. Confidential when James Cromwell’s dependable police chief reveals himself as the killer at the very moment the old guy offs him. There’s a professor at a Certain Big Deal Film School, the Obi-Wan of four generations of screenwriters, who believes you can structure your own life story in three viable acts. If you hit a rough patch, just figure out what act you’re in. In terms of mentorship, it’s probably best to specify your genre as well. Fortunately, my Big Hollywood Life isn’t thrilling enough to be a thriller. It’s more like a quirky little indie only worth seeing at a free screening with snacks and parking included.
Thank you for this great article. I can understand exactly what you are talking about, both with real-life mentors and with mentors as characters in stories.
I have been fortunate to have had several mentors for guidance and brain-picking purposes when it comes to the subject of writing. I don’t think any of them were 100% certain for fortune-telling purposes that I would “make it” as a writer but I believe that they believed I “had the right stuff.”
Each one of my real-life mentors was a success in the writing and/or production fields and did give of their time for the sense of personal satisfaction they got out of it.
I think there was one more reason why they were willing to act as mentors and it may also speak to the motivation of mentors as characters in movies and other forms of writing…
By mentoring, they were creating a small bit of immortality for themselves. As mentors, as individuals, as teachers - if they could leave a part of their knowledge in another brain, if they could have had some part in stretching new writing wings, in a way, they and their mentorship live forever. My parents, both teachers, had this gift that they gave to themselves for having reached young minds and perhaps influenced their course.
When you are a mentor, some of who you are transfers to your pupil. After all, that is the function of a mentor, isn’t it? To impart wisdom and knowledge?
Sometimes, mentors have needs, too - in real life and in stories. Sometimes, they are also seekers and perhaps what they seek is fulfillment of their own destinies and the sense of satisfaction that can provide. And just maybe, they want to live forever. Remember, Obi-Wan did allow his own physical being to “die” so that he might move on to the status of immortal.
If a mentor’s wisdom and knowledge live on, so does the mentor.
I would add that one of the reasons mentors don’t seem completely loony is that they’ve been in the place their student is on…or at least on a similar path. They know things will work out because, hey, they got through the same thing!
Wisdom comes from having lived and learned. Mentors know, not necessarily because they have seen the future, but because they have lived the past…and as we all know, history repeats.
I can’t believe I thought Jonathan Brandis was in Karate Kid- duh. I was totally thinking of Sidekicks with Chuck Norris. Still, they’re just about the same movie, except that Sidekicks also has Joe Piscopo as the evil dojo leader. And also, Pat Morita is a much better mentor than Chuck Norris.
As always, thanks for taking the time to share your insights. Good stuff.
ANOTHER KIND OF MENTOR
I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, but for what it’s worth…
This is the mentor that, not only isn’t omnipotent, but doesn’t even live up to omniscient. A mentor that might suspect what the theme is, but doesn’t know any better than “the kid” does, and in the end may well be proven to be wrong.
This is a mentor/student relationship based more on the idea that…
“Age may bring wisdom, but youth has a vision age often lacks.”
In a relationship like this the Mentor has seen too much over too many years, been around the block far too many times, has learned all too well “how the world works”, and no longer has the capacity to envision alternatives.
The student on the other hand, although he or she might not yet know “how the world works”, can still imagine “how the world COULD work”, how it could change.
Personally this is a dynamic I find myself much more drawn to. The student doesn’t know all. The mentor doesn’t know all. We don’t know all. We all have to watch to discover “the theme”.
Will the cynicism of age be proven correct? Or the vision of youth? Comedy or tragedy? Only the twist into the third act will tell.
And the fun part of a story like this is that, as I’m writing, often I don’t even know.
In a story, a mentor is someone who has seen it all and, therefore, knows all, or almost all, possible outcomes. It’s not so much that the mentor knows exactly what the protagonist will do, the mentor knows what the results will be regardless of what the protagonist does. Glinda’s seen little girls come and go. Some of them made it back to Kansas and some of them stayed in Hollywood.
Anna:
Baroque?
Er - yes. You know, with a lot of flourish. Extravagant, symmetrical (polarized).
Great article! I’ve had a problem with a catalyst character for a while; he doesn’t do anything, he just sits there in the middle of the action tweaking things…he’s been driving me nuts. I didn’t understand the “why” of him. As I read your article I realised that this character is ALSO a mentor. It’s blown him wide open for me! I can get inside his head now. Cool! Thanks! :)
Hmm. Certainly an interesting take on mentors. I have to agree with some of the commenters that there are different kinds of mentors.
Some are as you described: omniscient; so they don’t worry that the protagonist will die trying, because they know it will turn out okay.
But there are mentors that aren’t, like Morpheus. They also don’t worry that the protagonist will die trying, because they have faith that everything will turn out okay.
Anna:
Yeah, I know, but flourishy? Okay, if you say so. :)
I really don’t think the writer of Scary Movie 3 and 4 gets to say anything about horrible sequels or prequels. The new Star Wars films may have problems, but at least they have an actual story to tell.
J.P.
I don’t “get” to say anything about the Star Wars prequels because I wrote Scary Movie 3 and 4, but you “get” to say something about Scary Movie 3 and 4 because you wrote…?
Then again, does it really matter? You could be Spielberg or an illiterate cretin or any point in between. You still get to voice your opinion about movies.
We all get to say whatever the hell we like about any movies we like, as long as the films are released publicly. You can trash my movies all you want. That’s the price I pay for authoring public works. Lucas pays a similar price.
There’s no hypocrisy possible.
The best example of a mentor that we could ever come across is ‘Gandalf’ In Lord of the rings trilogy.Essentially A mentor should have three charecterstics. 1.Should beleive in good.(Fools Hope) 2.should have faith in the one.(Ring bearer) 3.Should be willing to play his role as part of a Larger Scheme,which is beyond him.(The divine Play)
Craig:
I didn’t write “flourishy”. I wrote “with flourish” (Flourish noun: a showy gesture (Example: “She entered with a great flourish”)
And btw, this was not meant to be criticism!
Anna:
It’s okay. :) I actually like the idea that someone’s reading some flourish into these things, particularly when I tend to write them at my bleariest.
I like Part 1 of your theory, that Mentors know the theme, but maybe Part 2 isn’t that they are omniscient and have seen this specific story before, but something more like this: They know the rules of the story’s universe.
In this way, like a Chess Master, they know all of the possible moves someone can choose to make, and the consequences of these moves, and are able to think much further down the line than your average wet-behind-the-ears Hero. They don’t know FOR SURE how the story will turn out, but they do know that if the Hero does X then the results will be A because that’s how that particular universe rule works. In this way, the mentor can advise the Hero to do X, Y & Z, knowing that if he does, the results will always be A, B & C. Whether or not the Hero chooses to do it is the story we are watching unfold.
For example, does Dorothy choose to stay on the Yellow Brick Road? Will Luke concentrate as he’s been instructed, and use the Force? Will Frodo continue to want to chuck the ring in the fiery pit? All these things come down to watching what the Hero does now that they’ve had the game explained by the Mentor, so to speak.
Francine:
I think Dorothy thinks she has a choice.
But she doesn’t. Not really. Go ahead. Watch the movie again. Tell me if she chooses not to follow the Yellow Brick Road. :)
I’m not being facetious, though. I’m serious. Characters have the illusion of choice, but when we step back, they do not. Luigi Pirandello wrote a masterful play about this very phenomenon (and a few other big concepts). And Artful Writer reader Matt Nix (I think he reads this blog, at least) was involved in the making of a short film that dealt with this phenomenon as well.
we all “think” we have a choice.
to quote morpheus in matrix reloaded, “I am here, not because of the path that lies ahead of me, but because of the path that lies behind.”
that path behind is everything a person learns up until a given point in time that enables that person to navigate whatever situation they are presented with at that time. if you learn the magicians trick tomorrow it won’t keep you from getting fooled yesterday.
choices are given by the situation and not something possessed inherently in the navigator of the situation. what the navigator does possess however is purpose. purpose focuses the experience of the navigator on the end goal. of course dorothy follows the yellow brick road. what else she going to do? sit around and play with toto? anything else other than following the yellow brick road does not fulfill her purpose so are essentially not choices at all.
this also makes me think that another key component of a mentor would be to validate and clarify the acolyte’s purpose.
An interesting dialogue! One thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet is the contrariness of heros.
In real life, we’ve all experienced this firsthand as the child who does the exact opposite of what their parents advise — and sometimes even saw that as a goad to spur us further and faster in the opposite direction.
A mentor assigned to a hero with a contrary streak is not psychotic when they don’t just state the clearest course out of the maze. They have discerned (or learned the hard way) that the hero will do the opposite.
“Flourishy”, hmmm. I dunno Craig personally I think using a word like “flourishy” in a post just makes it … ah … How should I put it? Flourishier?
:-)
Maybe ‘choice’ is the wrong concept here then. With the mentor giving what knowledge he or she has about what it will take to succeed, the question that the audience asks itself then is, “Will the hero follow the rules and advice they’ve been given successfully, and will this really help them acquire enough knowledge and skill to achieve their goal?”
In the case of Dorothy, every time she chooses not to follow the Yellow Brick Road bad things happen. She wanders off and gets pelted with apples, threatened by the Wicked Witch, put to sleep by poppies, and so on. Don’t mistake this for ‘is the hero going to try to follow the advice?’ (of course she’s not worth watching if she chooses to stay in Muchkinland, living in her slightly smashed house and licking lollipops all day), but rather, ‘will she use what she’s been given/taught and what she has innately to get what she wants?’
A clearer example is Luke Skywalker, because he has been taught what he needs to know both skills-wise, to use a lightsaber, and knowledge of himself to use the Force properly- he’s just having trouble mastering it all. So again, we ask, ‘Will he use what he’s been given/taught, and what he has innately to get what he wants?’
Thanks for making think about all this, BTW. It’s helped to clarify some things for me.