History Main / SinkOrSwimMentor

** Gameplay ''itself'' used to be this in the game's first couple of years, although there is a good tutorial on the wiki now plus an in-game one in the UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} version.

* The master [[spoiler:Lyu-Ui]] in ''Manhwa/IWish'' was this, especially towards K. He once actually took him to a cliff, asked him if he can swim and, when the answer was No, shoved him off the cliff and into the water. The purpose was to teach K the emotion of "getting a shock" but it actually is a Sink or Swim example.

* In the [[Manga/TheLegendOfZeldaAkiraHimekawa manga adaptation]] of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'', Sahasrahla is willing to set Link against a pair of Armos monsters to test his worthiness as a hero.

** Luffy's grandfather, Garp, followed this Trope pretty closely as he threw Luffy down a bottomless ravine, left him alone in a jungle at night, and tied him to balloons to send him up into the sky '''as a child''', all to make him and his big brother (who it is hinted also went through similar ordeals) into "strong Marines". Needless to say, the minute he leaves them with a friend, they run off and become pirates when they hit their late teens! It should be noted that the age that both of them left their home to adopt a life of piracy was 17. [[DangerousSixteenthBirthday Dangerous Seventeenth Birthday, much?]] It should also be noted said friend was a [[spoiler:''mountain bandit'']]. He was asking for it, really.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'': Colonel Gathers was this kind of mentor in his early OSI days. When Brock complains that he can't swim well, Gathers "motivates" him by throwing live grenades into the swimming pool.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'', the paladins are trying (and failing) to form Voltron. The first time that they formed Voltron was during the heat of battle, [[HilarityEnsues and it just so happens that Allura needs to run a test of the castle's weapon system...]]

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' overlaps this with TrainingFromHell, while Ichigo trains with Urahara. The only difference is that rather than having real enemies trying to kill him, Urahara and his associates attempt to do it themselves. First lesson: defeat an opponent who will kill you if she manages to land a single punch. Second lesson: We'll separate your soul from your body, chuck you in a hole, bind your arms, and make you climb out before you turn into a Hollow. By the way, if you fail, we have to kill you for safety reasons. Third lesson: Knock my hat off with your sword. Of course, I'll be trying to kill you with my sword the whole time. Urahara's reasoning is apparently that if Ichigo fails here, he'd end up getting killed anyway, so he doesn't have anything to lose. However, they didn't have time for traditional training, having only two weeks to invade Soul Society single-handedly and rescue Rukia, so the more extreme "do or die" method of training was warranted. [[spoiler:And Urahara's backfires a bit by causing Ichigo to actually become part-Hollow.]]

* ''Manga/MoriartyThePatriot'': * SinkOrSwimMentor Once Jack takes the Moriartys under his wing, he's happy to help them, but first they have to prove their ability and willingness to fight against actively trying to kill them. He views the situation that if the Moriarty kids as not being up to the task as better off dead.

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' overlaps this with TrainingFromHell, while Ichigo trains with Urahara. The only difference is that rather than having real enemies trying to kill him, Urahara and his associates attempt to do it themselves. First lesson: defeat an opponent who will kill you if she manages to land a single punch. Second lesson: We'll separate your soul from your body, chuck you in a hole, bind your arms, and make you climb out before you turn into a Hollow. By the way, if you fail, we have to kill you for safety reasons. Third lesson: Knock my hat off with your sword. Of course, I'll be trying to kill you with my sword the whole time. Urahara's reasoning is apparently that if Ichigo fails here, he'd end up getting killed anyway, so he doesn't have anything to lose. However, they didn't have time for traditional training, having only two weeks to invade Soul Society single-handedly and rescue Rukia, so the more extreme "do or die" method of training was warranted.

* From Creator/EEDocSmith's ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' series, the appropriately named Mentor of Arisia is an example of this trope. Though Mentor does relent and give the protagonist some training in psychic combat, he generally avoids directly aiding his students and criticizes them for asking him for help or advice when they don't really need it. And since he's effectively omniscient, he ''always'' knows whether or not they really need it. He "trains" Kinnison how to defend himself psychically by ''continuously psychically attacking him''. The justification is that every mind is unique, so each person must develop his own method of defense. And the best way to develop callouses is to hit the tender part over and over. Though he does scale his attacks to Kinnison's ability to survive them.
** Not just that, but the Arisians are this to the whole of Civilisation. They provide the Patrol with the Lens, but they very definitely refuse to provide any other assistance, of any kind whatsoever, either to the Patrol as a whole or to individual Lensmen (below Second Stage). They do not even provide any instruction on how to use the Lens -- it is up to the Lensmen themselves to work out what it can do and how to use it. If Civilisation cannot defeat Boskone of its own resources with no more assistance from the Arisians than the provision of the Lens, then it is not yet ready to become a civilisation and Boskone will be allowed to defeat it and flourish until a more capable Civilisation can develop.

* In P.N. Elrod's ''Quincey Morris, Vampire'', {{Dracula}} is the epitome of the Sink Or Swim Mentor when Quincey wants to know how to turn into mist like Dracula does. The Vampire simply tossed Quin off the castle. When asked why, Dracula admits to the reader that's how ''his'' father taught him how to swim as well.

* Ubiquitous in the ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}'' series. If the player alchemist has a mentor at all, they'll inevitably just teach them the basics of how to do synthesis and then tell them to go adventure and learn recipes themselves. For example, in [[VideoGame/AtelierSophieTheAlchemistOfTheMysteriousBook Plachta and Sophie's]] case, Plachta really ''can't'' do more than that because her memories are gone and she can't teach any recipes. Then when teaching [[VideoGame/AtelierFirisTheAlchemistAndTheMysteriousJourney Firis]], Sophie will abandon Firis and head off on her own adventures right after the opening, so that Firis can find insights for herself instead of being taught recipes. It's how ''she'' was taught.

* Lisa Lisa (pictured above) from ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency'' puts Joseph Joestar through a number of grueling exercises, including placing a "breathing correction" mask that forces him to either breathe in the proper manner required to use [[KiManipulation Hamon]] or suffocate and kicking him down a pit and forcing him to climb up an oil-drenched pillar. The pit wasn't her usual method for a student so new, but Joseph was going to die anyway if he couldn't defeat two of the Pillar Men in a month's time. Regardless, her other student insists on joining.

''Series/TheChosenTVSeries'': In his first scene, Yanni takes his new student Shmuel to a rough part of town to build a following and practice his oratory skills by preaching to the crowds. Yanni then leaves after half-seriously commenting about how dangerous it is to be in the area alone.

* In ''WesternAnimation/YinYangYo'', Master Yo eventually [[FakingTheDead fakes his death]] in order to force Yin and Yang to face Eradicus on their own. In this case, however, it's not his usual method, but because they weren't even trying to get stronger and were simply making him constantly save them.

[[caption-width-right:350:The training hadn't even ''started'' yet.[[note]]Oh, and one of the people in there is her son, by the way.[[/note]]]]

** And as she points out in the manga, ''her'' master's idea of survival training was to dump her in the frozen tundra of Mt. Briggs for a month. She survived by ''breaking into a nearby fortress'' for supplies. Without alchemy. And said fortress, we later learn, is staffed by some of the biggest badasses in the series. Yeah, Izumi swam. Granted that said survival training didn't really have anything to do with alchemy,[[spoiler: the one who sent Izumi out to do the same wasn't even realizing she wanted to ''be'' an alchemist]].
** In the first anime and the manga, when she threw Ed and Al on the island,[[spoiler: she did leave someone with them to make sure they didn't starve to death. He also was under Izumi's orders wear a disguise and fight them at every possible opportunity, so yeah.]] In the manga, [[spoiler:he even cooks them some fish when it looks like they're too tired to go on]]. All this before she even ''accepts them as students''. Had they failed, she would've sent them home before they could even begin their training.

* The master [[spoiler: Lyu-Ui]] in ''Manhwa/IWish'' was this, especially towards K. He once actually took him to a cliff, asked him if he can swim and, when the answer was No, shoved him off the cliff and into the water. The purpose was to teach K the emotion of "getting a shock" but it actually is a Sink or Swim example.

* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', this seems to be a common form of instruction. The main character learned water walking at the boiling hot springs, weapon training always seems to include real weapons, and after a long TrainingMontage fails to help him perfect his ninja Toad Summoning, his TricksterMentor Jiraiya shoves him into a BottomlessPit hoping that the fear of death will allow him to summon a toad big enough to straddle the pit. The weapon training at least was justified, with ninja as military forces. Traditional training methods tended to involve carefully choreographed full-contact kata with weapons which could at least cripple, the theory being that until you had experienced being on the wrong side of a lethal attack a few thousand times, you weren't emotionally prepared to handle a real battlefield.

* In ''Girl Genius'' fanfiction ''Fanfic/RaisedByJagers'', the professors at TPU largely view lab accidents as a way of weeding out the stupid. They are therefore rather annoyed that Agatha keeps saving people, but she also prevents expensive property damage, so they can't get too mad.

* ''ComicBook/TheUmbrellaAcademy'': Sir Reginald Hargreeves is a [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]] of this. Due to his abusive demeanor and tactics, his lessons fail to register with his children and they all end up growing so maladjusted [[spoiler:that they failed to stop TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt he had tried to prepare them for. ''Twice''. And worse is that, in fact, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero his abuse is the primary cause of the apocalypse]].]]

* In ''LightNovel/KinosJourney'', Kino's mentor sent her on a journey to the [[spoiler:original Kino]]'s homeland, telling her to visit a specific house and tell the occupant there the purpose of her journey. [[spoiler:Turns out, said mentor had been asked for weeks to go shoot the insane serial killer living there, but ostensibly thought it would better serve to teach Kino to defend herself and kill if necessary.]] Kino didn't seem to mind all that much. The time spent with her master likely explains a lot about Kino's [[TrueNeutral character]].