The mentor-apprentice relationship fills the pages of fantasy more than any other genre, so here are ten fantasy mentor-apprentice tropes.
Good, bad and sometimes just plain icky, the mentor-apprentice vibe permeates stories back into the mists of time. The young, naive and innocent, usually orphaned apprentice needs a parent figure to teach them the ways of magic and the world. But is it always so great? Just look at this list and tell me it’s ever great…
- The mentor recruits the apprentice specifically for potentially lethal mission.
- The mentor knowingly sends a minor into mortal danger. Every third chapter.
- The mentor is regularly mean to the apprentice in some hard-ass, old-school attempt to ‘toughen them up.’
- “Apprentice, how many times have I told you NOT to go near that door of dark secrets and jeopardy? I’m just putting the key on this shelf…”
- “Apprentice, I must pass on to you the one secret only I know and it’s this–” Mentor dies.
- Mentor gets resurrected in Book Two.
- “Apprentice, it took me four hundred years to learn this s*** but you’re going to do it in four days.”
- We discover the mentor also trained the antagonist/villain and made a monumental screw up.
- Mentor betrays their apprentice as the secret villain all along.
- Mentor dies again in Book 3.
I’ve deliberately stayed away from the mentor-apprentice romance as it’s just plain icky. There’s the age gap to begin with, and the creepy attraction on both sides, then the breach of ethics.