After refusing the Call to Adventure, the Hero needs encouragement, training or equipment to cross the threshold (ding ding ding, sneak peek for the next stage!) of the Adventure.
The Mentor has a variety of options for his/her dramatic function. There is a list of things the Mentor can do (but not usually all of them at once):
Teach,
Guide,
Protect,
Test,
Train,
Give magical gifts.
It all makes quite a bit of sense. Think of fairy tales--Cinderella's fairy godmother gave magical gifts. The three fairies in Sleeping Beauty protect her and give her gifts. Rumplestiltskin gives the girl (I don't remember her name) the magical "gift" of spinning the straw into gold for her, though he asks a high price for it. (The Mentor doesn't have to be good, necessarily.)
During the Meeting with the Mentor, the Mentor uses his experience, information, or resources to help prepare the Hero for the Journey ahead. The Mentor is enthusiastic (think about the character Mentor in the Odyssey, then think about how enthusiastic means in Greek, roughly, "spiritually inspired") about teaching the Hero and giving him the equipment necessary for completing the Adventure with success.
In Disney movies, any scene with someone training or teaching the protagonist is the Meeting with the Mentor stage. It's fairly easy to identify. Usually it's that scene with a lot of background music and not much dialogue in which you see the character get better and better at whatever he/she needs to do in a very short amount of time.
Once the Hero is armed with the knowledge, training, and equipment the Mentor gives him, he is ready to embark on his Journey. At this point the Mentor may die, or just leave the story, or go with the Hero on his Adventure. In most stories the Mentor ends up dying to symbolize the Hero's new-found independence.
 |
| I liked this picture too much to use it only once. |
No comments:
Post a Comment
If you don't have a blogger account, click on Name/URL and put in your name. [Comments are moderated.]