Enemy Mentor YKTTW vs.: Evil Mentor

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=e6weqzuxrvxuexal1kl7btd7

The discussion section of that YKTTW involved a mention on my part of the similarities to Evil Mentor

My point was not to claim it was the same trope (actually, I rather hate that kind of approach in YKTTW) but to try to clarify the distinction, and to see if some kind of split of Evil Mentor might in turn be worthwhile so that the aspects of it closer to Enemy Mentor could be merged with it and the aspects further away be taken into a trope.

I guess a clearer notion of Enemy Mentor and Evil Mentor, along with the exact distinctions, might be useful.

edited 12th Apr '11 11:24:21 PM by neoYTPism

As the guy who started the YKTTW, my opinion is thus: the Evil Mentor is a villainous character who acts as an explicit mentor to someone else, usually a hero, but the hero doesn't neccessarily realize what's going on or why until later on; in other words, a mentor who turns out to be evil. The Enemy Mentor, by contrast, is a known villain and enemy who plays on a connection (usually of the Not So Different variety) between him/herself and the hero in an attempt to take the hero under his/her wing, which may or may not be successful. So, to use Star Wars examples, Darth Vader is an Enemy Mentor to Luke, but is never really an Evil Mentor because Luke is never actually his student; Chancellor Palpatine is an Evil Mentor to Anakin / Vader because he's Anakin's mentor figure who turns out to be evil. So they're almost inversions, in a sense- one is a mentor who turns out to be a villain, the other is a villain who tries to become a mentor.

^ I think that last sentence puts it beautifully. That's the difference I'm seeing as well. It might be a wee bit clearer to say that Vader is an Enemy Mentor to Luke, and Palpatine is an Evil Mentor to Anakin. By the time Anakin becomes Vader, he's fully aware that Palpatine is Evil and Palpatine has simply become his Mentor.

edited 13th Apr '11 9:55:39 AM by Madrugada