CONTINUING MENTORS
Mentors are useful for giving assignments and setting stories in motion. For this reason they are often written into the cast of continuing stories. Recurring Mentors include Mr. Waverly on "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," "M" in the Bond pictures, The Chief on "Get Smart," Will Geer and Ellen Corby as the grandparents on "The Waltons," Alfred in "Batman," James Earl Jones' CIA official in Patriot Games and The Hunt for Red October, etc.
MULTIPLE MENTORS
A hero may be trained by a series of Mentors who teach specific skills. Hercules is surely among the best trained of heroes, mentored by experts on wrestling, archery, horsemanship, weapon-handling, boxing, wisdom, virtue, song, and music. He even took a driver-training course in charioteering from one Mentor. All of us have learned from a series of Mentors, including parents, older brothers and sisters, friends, lovers, teachers, bosses, co-workers, therapists, and other role models.
Multiple Mentors may be needed to express different functions of the archetype. In the James Bond movies, 007 always returns to his home base to confer with his main Wise Old Man or Woman, the spymaster "M" who gives him assignments, advice, and warnings. But the Mentor function of giving gifts to the hero is delegated to "Q," the weapons and gadget master. A certain amount of emotional support as well as advice and critical information is provided by Miss Moneypenny, representing another aspect of the Mentor.
COMIC MENTORS
A special type of Mentor occurs in romantic comedies. This person is often the friend or fellow office worker of the hero, and is usually of the same sex as the hero. She gives the hero some advice about love: go out more to forget the pain of a lost love; pretend to have an affair to make your husband jealous; feign interest in the beloved's hobbies; impress the beloved with gifts, flowers, or flattery; be more aggressive; and so on. The advice often seems to lead the hero into temporary disaster, but it all turns out right in the end. These characters are a feature of romantic comedies, especially those of the 1950s when movies like Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back gave plenty of work for character actors like Thelma Ritter and Tony Randall who could portray this wise-cracking, sarcastic version of a Mentor.
MENTOR AS SHAMAN
Mentor figures in stories are closely related to the idea of the shaman: the healer, the medicine man or woman, of tribal cultures. Just as Mentors guide the hero through the Special World, shamans guide their people through life. They travel to other worlds in dreams and visions and bring back stories to heal their tribes. It's often the function of a Mentor to help the hero seek a guiding vision for a quest to another world.
FLEXIBILITY OF THE MENTOR ARCHETYPE
Like the other archetypes, the Mentor or donor is not a rigid character type, but rather a function, a job which several different characters might perform in the course of a story. A character primarily manifesting one archetype — the hero, the shapeshifter, the trickster, even the villain — may temporarily slip on the mask of the Mentor in order to teach or give something to the hero.
In Russian fairy tales, the wonderful character of the witch Baba Yaga is a Shadow figure who sometimes wears the Mentor mask. On the surface she's a horrible, cannibalistic witch representing the dark side of the forest, its power to devour. But like the forest, she can be appeased and can shower gifts on the traveler. Sometimes if Prince Ivan is kind and complimentary to her, Baba Yaga gives him the magical treasure he needs to rescue the Princess Vasilisa.
Although Campbell called these Mentor figures Wise Old Men or Women, they are sometimes neither wise nor old. The young, in their innocence, are often wise and capable of teaching the old. The most foolish person in a story might be the one we learn the most from. As with the other archetypes, the function of a Mentor is more important than mere physical description. What the character does will often determine what archetype is being manifested at the moment.
Many stories have no specific character who can be identified as a Mentor. There's no white-bearded, wizardly figure who wanders around acting like a Wise Old Man. Nevertheless, almost every story calls on the energy of this archetype at some point.
INNER MENTORS
In some Westerns or film noir stories the hero is an experienced, hardened character who has no need for a Mentor or guide. He has internalized the archetype and it now lives within him as an inner code of behavior. The Mentor may be the unspoken code of the gunfighter, or the secret notions of honor harbored by Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. A code of ethics may be a disembodied manifestation of the Mentor archetype guiding the hero's actions. It's not uncommon for a hero to make reference to a Mentor who meant something to him earlier in life, even if there's no actual Mentor character in the story. A hero may remember, "My mother/ father/ grandfather/drill sergeant used to say...," and then call to mind the bit of wisdom that will become critical in solving the problem of the story. The energy of the Mentor archetype also may be invested in a prop such as a book or other artifact that guides the hero in the quest.
PLACEMENT OF MENTORS
Although the Hero's Journey often finds the Mentor appearing in Act One, the placement of a Mentor in a story is a practical consideration. A character may be needed at any point who knows the ropes, has the map to the unknown country, or can give the hero key information at the right time. Mentors may show up early in a story, or wait in the wings until needed at a critical moment in Act Two or Act Three.
Mentors provide heroes with motivation, inspiration, guidance, training, and gifts for the journey. Every hero is guided by something, and a story without some acknowledgement of this energy is incomplete. Whether expressed as an actual character or as an internalized code of behavior, the Mentor archetype is a powerful tool at the writer's command.
All heroes encounter obstacles on the road to adventure. At each gateway to a new world there are powerful guardians at the threshold, placed to keep the unworthy from entering. They present a menacing face to the hero, but if properly understood, they can be overcome, bypassed, or even turned into allies. Many heroes (and many writers) encounter Threshold Guardians, and understanding their nature can help determine how to handle them.
Threshold Guardians are usually not the main villains or antagonists in stories. Often they will be lieutenants of the villain, lesser thugs or mercenaries hired to guard access to the chief's headquarters. They may also be neutral figures who are simply part of the landscape of the Special World. In rare cases they may be secret helpers placed in the hero's path to test her willingness and skill.
There is often a symbiotic relationship between a villain and a Threshold Guardian. In nature, a powerful animal such as a bear will sometimes tolerate a smaller animal such as a fox nesting at the entrance of its lair. The fox, with its strong smell and sharp teeth, tends to keep other animals from wandering into the cave while the bear is sleeping. The fox also serves as an early warning system for the bear by making a racket if something tries to enter the cave. In similar fashion, villains of stories often rely on underlings such as doorkeepers, bouncers, bodyguards, sentries, gunslingers, or mercenaries to protect and warn them when a hero approaches the Threshold of the villain's stronghold.