Opening this per evidence provided.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Psshhh...
This trope has a severe identity crisis. If not a clear definition, I say migrate the wicks to whichever trope they are used for.
The opening sentence in The Obi-Wan says it's a mentor that "travels with The Hero". Is there anything salvagable in that? It would still need a rename, but I don't see anything else that covers "this mentor is an active part of the adventure, but not the main part." Any examples of mentors who trained The Hero in the backstory, or make the hero come to them (like Yoda) instead of participating in the journey, would then no longer fit.
Later on, the description says "contrast Big Good", which has a more background role. But considering the image for Big Good is Optimus Prime, that's not necessarily true, and Obi-Wan is cited on that page anyway.
There may be something in that aspect, if none of the other tropes cover it, because I have seen two types of "travelling mentor" (Mentor Shares The Journey, or something?).
The one type openly travels with the hero's group. They are the main source of "protection" for the group from the specific type threat the Big Bad represents (because the Mentor is usually the expert in the Big Bad's often unique (for the setting) type of threat). The hero will either openly learn from them, or be relying on them until the Mentor is gone, and then find themselves forced to step into the hole - whether or not they're ready.
The other secretly follows the hero. The only difference between this and the paragraph above is that the hero is unaware that the mentor is continually protecting them as they go. The reason for the mentor keeping his presence in the vicinity a secret may be varied but can be as simple as the hero's ego having been too great to tolerate the mentor's presence initially. Eventually, the mentor will either be revealed and the situation reverts to the first paragraph, or the reveal is occurring when it's time for the mentor to be killed off (or otherwise removed from being directly involved, in which case they'd probably change into one of the other Mentor tropes that already exist).
There's almost no difference between the two types, except for the hero's own knowledge of whether or not the mentor is helping them. So, really, it's "the mentor is travelling with the group either openly or secretly following and assisting the group from the shadows, where his skills initially trump the hero's but over time the hero will develop enough to replace/surpass the mentor".
However, there are a lot of Mentor tropes - are we sure nothing can already accommodate mentors travelling with the hero? I'm thinking Mentor Archetype specifically.
edited 6th Mar '16 1:30:56 PM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Right now though "The Obi-Wan" needs to be a disambiguation though, its being used for pretty much everything in the Mentor Index. Err its named Mentors that is also a problem.
edited 6th Mar '16 3:27:23 PM by Memers
Jupiterian Local
Yeah, supporting The Obi-Wan as a disambig page. There may be a salvageable trope in the "mentor that adventures alongside the hero" thing, but that's something that should go to YKTTW.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
So glad this got made. I've been having trouble figuring out exactly what The Obi-Wan was. Nearly every part of the description has "possibly" or some other qualifier so actual qualifications are tough to find at best. Best I could tell it was "The Mentor who is part of the party and possibly continues mentoring after death."
Which is really just Mentor Occupational Hazard.
Disambig plz.
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The Unknown
Mentor Occupational Hazard doesn't include the "mentoring after death" part, and traveling with the party is not a requirement.
This trope is trying to be a combination of a bunch at once, but we don't really need that. Make it a disambig.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
The way some have been using it is the entire path. That is something that is quite common and maybe can be spun off into something like The Obi Wan Path or something.
But I support The Traveling Mentor or The Mentor Party Member trope, characters like Auron and Basch are that but are filed under here.
edited 7th Mar '16 6:17:16 PM by Memers
The Unknown
I don't like The Traveling Mentor as a name, since it makes it sound like the mentor is The Drifter or something.
edited 7th Mar '16 6:29:35 PM by Karxrida
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Yeah, which is why I edited in the other idea although it is the only idea that comes to mind.
edited 7th Mar '16 7:37:11 PM by Memers
We don't really need a trope for "the entire path", which really means "this character does everything Obi-Wan does in the original trilogy". All you need to do for that is put all of Obi-Wan's tropes on the character's page. As for "mentor as party member", I like the suggestion of Mentor Shares The Journey.
Keep in mind, my "mentor is a member of the party" was basically me actively trying to glean something resembling significance from the mishmash of concepts in the description. I don't know how much "Literally Obi-Wan's character" is a distinct trope, even if that is the definition.
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I think that is very trope worthy. You get some mentors like Master Roshi from Dragon Ball that stay where they are or teach from the background and some are right there fighting and traveling with the student during their Heroes Journey and what not.
They tend lead at first then take on the advisor role while the hero or Supporting Protagonist leads after a while.
Once the mentoring is complete they tend to die, leave the party or have their own plot line kick up and treat the hero as a comrade in the party. The latter in video games this usually means the hero caught up in levels and the mentor is free to join full time.
Gandalf comes to mind as well as Obiwan and the FF mentors I brought up in the previous post.
edited 8th Mar '16 6:37:45 AM by Memers
Party Member Mentor can be its own trope.
The Obiwan is to The Mentor as Darth Vader Clone is to Tin Tyrant or Black Knight.
There's definitely misuse, but The Obi-Wan should be specific combination of tropes meant to mimic either Obi's role or appearance in the original trilogy. As such it is intentionally broad. We have plenty of broad character specific clones filled with possibly statements like Char Clone for instance.
Maybe rename to Obi Wan Clone and cut the misuse. Launch Party Member Mentor as its own thing.
edited 8th Mar '16 12:32:27 PM by acrobox
Your comparisons don't really track. Those tropes are for specific expies of characters. This one purports to be an already existing trope that Obi Wan happens to fit (largely because it's a combination of common aspects of The Mentor).
Honestly,it seems like we're trying to make a trope to fit the character, which seems... odd.
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This is worth keeping. We Are Not Alone Index says that it is the same thing as the "wise old man".
... okay, nothing in the description claims that the character has to be old. Or even older.
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What I would be wary of, if setting up a new trope to cover mentors who travel with the heroes is that if the name directly reflects that, it runs the risk of excluding those mentors who do travel "with" the heroes, but in secret - so they're along for the physical journey, but for some reason are helping from the shadows so the hero isn't directly aware of their mentor's presence. That's why I mentioned something like Mentor Shares The Journey as opposed to Mentor Party Member.
In those situations, the mentor would not really be a member of the party, but they are sharing the journey nevertheless. I don't think this is common enough to split off into yet another trope, which is why I think it should be part of the same trope as mentors who are travelling alongside the heroes. Especially given that, when outed, they either become a background mentor (see existing tropes) or openly join the party for the rest of the journey.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
I disagree, they really need to travel with them as a member of the "True Companions" and such. If not that would be a completely different trope. Mentor From The Shadows would make a very good trope though, many mentors do that such as Dragon Ball's Jackie Chun.
edited 9th Mar '16 5:22:52 PM by Memers
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That would be Trickster Mentor.
Re: Wise old man: If that is in fact the archetype that The Obi-Wan is trying to be, I'd argue that's already covered by Mentor Archetype or other tropes. Even if it's not, we're still better off creating a new trope for that along with the others proposed here, because the actual usage of The Obi-Wan (i.e. everything in the mentors index and zces) in no way reflects that.
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
The "wise old man" type is often an Old Master, Trickster Mentor or Eccentric Mentor.
@Memers: Well, in my experience, there are two types of mentor that travel with a heroes party - the type that that is a part of the group, and the type that knows the hero still needs their help, but for some reason (often the hero's naive pride, but not always), the mentor is going to have to help them secretly.
In the latter case, other members of the party may know, or find out first, that the mentor is still along for the ride and secretly helping out, and may help to keep the secret. There usually comes a point where the truth comes out and the mentor then becomes openly a part of the group rather than hiding it. I've seen two methods - following the group or being within the group but disguised as someone completely different.
Their role is exactly the same - they're still assuming responsibility for the hero until the hero is ready to stand on his own two feet - the only difference would be the ability to directly train and guide (they'd be doing it from the shadows, or perhaps via a proxy/plant within the group). Sometimes it might overlap with a trope such as Trickster Mentor, but often it's just straight-forward guidance until the hero is humbled enough to accept they still need the help.
While it's not uncommon for heroes to need a journey of some manner before they'll acknowledge the importance of their mentor's help and accept that help from that point on, the difference here is that the mentors are usually staying in the background until the hero crawls back to them. However, in this case, the mentor has actively followed them and stayed by their side in secret. They wouldn't be one of the trickster/eccentric mentor tropes, and once outed, they're Mentor Shares The Journey. They're also a rarer type than either the mentors that stay out of the journey or who openly share the journey, which is why I'm not sure if they need a trope of their own. I suppose it could be regarded as some kind of "Secret Protector" role until they're back in the open again, and there may be a trope for that already.
edited 10th Mar '16 1:26:07 PM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
A Secret Protector would be its own thing though and not really a mentor thing, it's really common for Tsundere to do it as a Dere moment and the Tsun side doesn't want the person to know about it.
A Party Member Mentor tends to be older by about 5 years minimum outside of school aged shows. The guy who gives advice and teaches the younger ones. While he pulls his own weight he does not go too far and start covering the younger ones unless really needed, occasionally will just straight kick the younger ones forward with a 'you handle it' or dies so the plot forces that in a darker way.
In war movies and such they tend to be the Grizzled Veteran, why that redirects to Old Master I don't know but age really has nothing to do with this its experience that makes them that. When moments get Rom Com they tend to make a meta comment about love and youth and such but will always push the younger ones when it's a serious romantic moment.
In most Japanese works they would be the Senpai character but not every character called that would be one. IE Persona 4's MC is for sure one to Teddie and maybe Kanji but not the rest of the first year party members.
edited 10th Mar '16 1:59:18 PM by Memers
Crown Description:
What would be the best way to fix the page?
This trope came up in an Image Pickin' thread (discussion starts here
), where it was noted to have several issues with Trope Namer Syndrome and redundancy.
We have a whole index for Mentors to compare this trope to, but the description specifically states that "The Obi-Wan is an Archetypal Character. […] For more information concerning "The Mentor" and other narrative archetypes, see Vladmir Propp's theory of narrative." Therefore, it aims to be The Mentor in its most basic Older Than Dirt trope form. Most of the description further describes the mentor's role in The Hero's Journey. However, we already have the much clearer but heavily underused Mentor Archetype article, which confusingly describes The Obi-Wan as a subtrope while The Obi-Wan purports to be the same trope.
The problem I think stems from being named and based on Obi-Wan Kenobi from the Star Wars movies in the first place. Star Wars recycles various mythical tropes—that's why it's so popular and accessible, but it didn't create them. This is the result of building a trope backwards by, as opposed to looking at the character and seeing which tropes fit his situation, it takes Obi-Wan as a trope unto himself to make a "trope" by picking bits and pieces from elsewhere that is redundant to other existing mentor tropes. An archetypal mentor is Mentor Archetype. A mentor who passes on knowledge to an inexperienced character is *every* mentor trope. A mentor who always dies is Mentor Occupational Hazard. A mentor who becomes irrelevant is Relegated Mentor. A mentor who continues to advise someone after death is Spirit Advisor (for which Obi-Wan provides the page image, in fact). A mentor who is simply old is already covered in large part by Old Master and Older and Wiser. Every nut and bolt is already accounted for. The one distinctive part that could be salvaged is to retool this into a mentor with explicit mystical/supernatural powers, but it would need a better name (Magical Mentor or similar) and a solid write-up.
There's also a pretty big problem with Zero Context Examples. Here is the result of a wick check of 50 wicks selected by using the Random Integer Set generator or their nearest available work link.
Zero context (nothing whatsoever or “X was this to Y”, includes potholes without context) = 27
Use as The Mentor (“imparts advice or trains proteges” with no additional qualifiers) = 10
Use as Mentor Occupational Hazard (mentor who dies) = 8
Use as Spirit Advisor = 1
Other = 3
TLDR: The issues are redundancy with other tropes, trope-namer syndrome, and being 54% ZCEs.
edited 9th Jan '16 2:40:30 PM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"