GIFT-GIVING
Giving gifts is also an important function of this archetype. In Vladimir Propp's analysis of Russian fairy tales, Morphology of the Folktale, he identifies this function as that of a "donor" or provider: one who temporarily aids the hero, usually by giving some gift. It may be a magic weapon, an important key or clue, some magical medicine or food, or a life-saving piece of advice. In fairy tales the donor might be a witch's cat, grateful for a little girl's kindness, who gives her a towel and a comb. Later when the girl is being chased by the witch, the towel turns into a raging river and the comb turns into a forest to block the witch's pursuit.
Examples of these gifts are abundant in movies, from the small-time mobster Puttynose giving James Cagney his first gun in The Public Enemy to Obi Wan Kenobi giving Luke Skywalker his father's light-saber. Nowadays the gift is as likely to be a computer code as the key to a dragon's lair.
GIFTS IN MYTHOLOGY
Gift-giving, the donor function of the Mentor, has an important role in mythology. Many heroes received gifts from their Mentors, the gods. Pandora, whose name means "all-gifted," was showered with presents, including Zeus' vindictive gift of the box which she was not supposed to open. Heroes such as Hercules were given some gifts by their Mentors, but among the Greeks the most gifted of heroes was Perseus.
PERSEUS
The Greek ideal of heroism was expressed in Perseus, the monster-slayer. He has the distinction of being one of the best equipped of heroes, so loaded down with gifts from higher powers that it's a wonder he could walk. In time, with the help of Mentors such as Hermes and Athena, he acquired winged sandals, a magic sword, a helmet of invisibility, a magic sickle, a magic mirror, the head of Medusa that turned all who look upon it to stone, and a magic satchel to stow the head in. As if this were not enough, the movie version of the Perseus tale, Clash of the Titans, gives him the flying horse Pegasus as well.
In most stories, this would be overdoing it a bit. But Perseus is meant to be a paragon of heroes, so it's fitting he should be so well provided for by the gods, his Mentors in the quest.
GIFTS SHOULD BE EARNED
In Propp's dissection of Russian fairy tales, he observes that donor characters give magical presents to heroes, but usually only after the heroes have passed a test of some kind. This is a good rule of thumb: The gift or help of the donor should be earned, by learning, sacrifice, or commitment. Fairy-tale heroes eventually earn the aid of animals or magical creatures by being kind to them in the beginning, sharing food with them, or protecting them from harm.
MENTOR AS INVENTOR
Sometimes the Mentor functions as a scientist or inventor, whose gifts are his devices, designs, or inventions. The great inventor of classical myth is Daedalus, who designed the Labyrinth and other wonders for the rulers of Crete. As the master artisan of the Theseus and the Minotaur story, he had a hand in creating the monster Minotaur and designed the Labyrinth as a cage for it. As a Mentor, Daedalus gave Ariadne the ball of thread that allowed Theseus to get in and out of the Labyrinth alive.
Imprisoned in his own maze as punishment for helping Theseus, Daedalus also invented the famous wax-and-feather wings that allowed him and his son Icarus to escape. As a Mentor to Icarus, he advised his son not to fly too close to the sun. Icarus, who had grown up in the pitch dark of the Labyrinth, was irresistibly attracted to the sun, ignored his father's advice, and fell to his death when the wax melted. The best advice is worthless if you don't take it.
THE HERO'S CONSCIENCE
Some Mentors perform a special function as a conscience for the hero. Characters like Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio or Walter Brennan's Groot in Red River try to remind an errant hero of an important moral code. However, a hero may rebel against a nagging conscience. Would-be Mentors should remember that in the original Collodi story Pinocchio squashed the cricket to shut him up. The angel on a hero's shoulder can never offer arguments as colorful as those of the devil on the opposite side.
MOTIVATION
Another important function of the Mentor archetype is to motivate the hero, and help her overcome fear. Sometimes the gift alone is sufficient reassurance and motivation. In other cases the Mentor shows the hero something or arranges things to motivate her to take action and commit to the adventure.
In some cases a hero is so unwilling or fearful that he must be pushed into the adventure. A Mentor may need to give a hero a swift kick in the pants in order to get the adventure rolling.
PLANTING
A function of the Mentor archetype is often to plant information or a prop that will become important later. The James Bond films have a mandatory scene in which the weapons master "Q," one of Bond's recurring Mentors, describes the workings of some new briefcase gadget to a bored 007. This information is a plant, meant for the audience to note but forger about until the climactic moment where the gadget becomes a lifesaver. Such constructions help tie the beginning and end of the story together, and show that at some point everything we've learned from our Mentors comes in handy.
SEXUAL INITIATION
In the realm of love, the Mentor's function may be to initiate us into the mysteries of love or sex. In India they speak of the shakti — a sexual initiator, a partner who helps you experience the power of sex as a vehicle of higher consciousness. A shakti is a manifestation of God, a Mentor leading the lover to experience the divine.
Seducers and thieves of innocence teach heroes lessons the hard way. There may be a shadow side to Mentors who lead a hero down a dangerous road of obsessive love or loveless, manipulative sex. There are many ways to learn.
TYPES OF MENTOR
Like heroes, Mentors may be willing or unwilling. Sometimes they teach in spite of themselves. In other cases they teach by their bad example. The downfall of a weakened, tragically flawed Mentor can show the hero pitfalls to avoid. As with heroes, dark or negative sides may be expressed through this archetype.
DARK MENTORS
In certain stories the power of the Mentor archetype can be used to mislead the audience. In thrillers the mask of a Mentor is sometimes a decoy used to lure the hero into danger. Or in an anti-heroic gangster picture such as The Public Enemy or Goodfellas, where every conventional heroic value is inverted, an anti-Mentor appears to guide the anti-hero on the road to crime and destruction.
Another inversion of this archetype's energy is a special kind of Threshold Guardian (an archetype discussed in the next chapter). An example is found in Romancing the Stone, where Joan Wilder's witchy, sharp-tongued agent is to all appearances a Mentor, guiding her career and giving her advice about men. But when Joan is about to cross the threshold to adventure, the agent tries to stop her, warning her of the dangers and casting doubt in her mind. Rather than motivating her like a true Mentor, the agent becomes an obstacle in the hero's path. This is psychologically true to life, for often we must overcome or outgrow the energy of our best teachers in order to move to the next stage of development.
FALLEN MENTORS
Some Mentors are still on a Hero's Journey of their own. They may be experiencing a crisis of faith in their calling. Perhaps they are dealing with the problems of aging and approaching the threshold of death, or have fallen from the hero's road. The hero needs the Mentor to pull himself together one more time, and there's serious doubt that he can do it. Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own plays a former sports hero sidelined by injury and making a poor transition into Mentor-hood. He has fallen far from grace, and the audience is rooting for him to straighten up and honor his task of helping the heroes. Such a Mentor may go through all the stages of a hero's journey, on his own path to redemption.