Stage Five: When Harry comes of age, he is returned to the wizard world, where—through the course of seven adventures—he will avenge himself by defeating Voldemort.
Stage Six: Harry will eventually claim his birthright as a noble hero in the wizard world of his true father.
As an orphan, Harry can easily negate his surrogate parents, his abusive and nasty aunt and uncle, while fantasizing about his ideal biological parents—a beautiful, caring, sensitive mother and a super-powerful, brave and dashing wizard father. Harry’s escape into a fantasy world in which he is a powerful wizard communicates the basic childhood fantasies of overcoming inferiority, escaping parental brutality, breaking out of the boredom of reality and realizing a sense of personal nobility and divine destiny.
Christian Complaints
Fundamentalist Christian groups have denounced the Harry Potter books and films because they claim that the stories espouse heathen beliefs. Though this may be true, it must also be acknowledged that nearly all children’s stories from Snow White to Pinocchio to Cinderella feature heathen semi-divine figures such as sorcerers, witches, fairies, dragons, ghosts, fairy godmothers, magical spells, etc. The reason why Christian fundamentalists rail against Harry Potter and not Cinderella is because the myth of Harry is a thinly veiled recasting of the most influential myth of the birth of the hero—the myth of Jesus.
Like Jesus, Harry is the son of a powerful supernatural figure. Like Jesus, Harry has a predestined fate as a redeemer of nations and a conqueror of great evil. Like Jesus, Harry must discover his own identity for himself, and face his great challenges on his own. Like Jesus, Harry is gifted with supernatural powers. Like Jesus, Harry will be tempted to join forces with the evil one, but he will overcome this temptation. Like Jesus, Harry will encounter death at one point or another, only to be reborn or resurrected with a stronger spirit. And finally, like Jesus, Harry’s myth has been told a thousand times in a thousand different languages with a thousand different names. As Otto Rank pointed out, while the face of the hero changes with each myth, the message the hero delivers always remains the same.
The Princess Hero Saga
The childhood fantasies expressed in fairy tales and myth are also resonant to little girls’ issues, though the female hero in traditional tales tend to be less proactive. As seen in film depictions of the female hero myth such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Cinderella (1950), the typical female hero is a princess. Though she is born of royal parentage, she is usually an orphan left under the care of a cruel surrogate parent—an evil stepmother. So, like the male hero, the princess is pitted in a hostile, antagonistic relationship with a menacing same-sex parental figure. While the real mother is dead, the princess will generally receive help and guidance from the mother’s spirit, represented by the supernatural “fairy godmother.” However, rather than defeating the evil stepmother herself and usurping her throne, the princess is typically rescued by the male hero—Prince Charming—who claims the princess hero’s birthright for her, and returns her to her rightful seat of honor on the throne.
The Mentor Who Unveils
The fairy godmother figure in the princess myth is a mentor figure—a ubiquitous role throughout all hero mythology. The critical function that the mentor serves is to purvey to the hero some crucial knowledge of his backstory. Just as the wise old man in dreams informs the persona about repressed or hidden knowledge in the unconscious, the mentor in myth unveils to the hero elements of the myth of his birth that are necessary for his development on the journey ahead. In Excalibur, Merlin provides Arthur with some background information that is critical to his sense of identity. Merlin tells him that his real father was the king. Similarly, in Star Wars, Obi-Wan tells Luke the key to his identity—that his real father was a great Jedi knight. The mentor almost always tells the hero the same basic story, the myth of the birth of the hero. By unveiling the hero to himself, the mentor gives the hero the critical knowledge he needs to get onto his destined path.
The Mentor as Former Hero
In order to guide the hero through the unknown, the mentor must have personal knowledge of the wilderness. The mentor must be a former hero—someone who has experienced his own saga and therefore has the wisdom and power to guide others. Arthur accepts Merlin as a mentor because he has heard many tales of Merlin’s great power and adventures. Because Merlin was a hero in his own time, he has the credentials to inspire Arthur to similar feats of heroism. When Arthur develops from boy to hero, Merlin fades into the background, as Arthur no longer needs his mentor’s guidance and inspiration on a daily basis. By the time Arthur has progressed from hero to mentor figure, as the king and leader of the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin has also progressed from mortal mentor to immortal legend. Arthur doesn’t need the physical presence of Merlin to guide him because he remembers Merlin’s teachings and has integrated him into his own identity. The legend of Merlin is all that Arthur needs for inspiration. At the resolution of Arthur’s character arc, when he passes over from mentor to legend, Perceval is there to be inspired by his mentor, Arthur. The key to the hero’s character arc is that his mentor figure is always one step ahead of him.
The Circular Character Arc
The mentor is a true role model in that he represents the beginning and endpoint of the hero’s character development. The full cycle of the mythical character arc is from boy to hero, from hero to mentor, and finally, from mentor to legend. The final progression from mentor to legend is a circular denouement, the point where the character arc comes full circle (i.e., the snake swallowing its own tail). In a Jungian sense, the character arc starts and ends in the collective unconscious. The myth starts with a prophecy, which is a story, oracle, legend or dream. The prophecy is materialized in the birth of the hero, who internalizes the prophecy as a personal dream or goal that he must achieve. After achieving his goal, the hero can proceed to mentor, and his task is to inspire a new hero with a similar dream or goal. And when the mentor dies, his life story becomes legend—a story—returning the hero’s identity to the collective level of myth and dream.
Though his body is dead, the mentor-hero’s spirit is even more powerful and inspirational as a legend, because it is no longer bound to the limitations of his physical presence. In the case of Jesus, the post-death legend is a prophecy of return or “second coming.” Jesus progressed through all the stages of the mythical character arc. In death, his legend is also a prophecy of rebirth. His beginning and endpoint are exactly the same, symbolizing the divine power of eternity (the Uroboros). He is the prophecy, the hero, the mentor and the legend that lives on eternally with no real beginning and no perceivable end.
The Death of the Mentor
The Death card in the Tarot card cycle represents change. Similarly, the symbolic death of the mentor represents a change in the identity of the hero. The mentor often dies, either figuratively or literally, at the zenith of the hero’s character arc. The mentor’s death is a necessary and essential stage of the myth. Though the hero needs the mentor at the beginning of his journey, at one point the hero must grow out of this dependence, just as a child must at one point grow independent of his parents. In this way, the mentor-hero relationship recapitulates the father-son relationship. At the critical time of development, the son must define his own identity and become an independent individual. In The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Jesus (Max von Sydow) was respected by only a handful of disciples before the crucifixion. But after his martyrdom, millions revered his legend with unquestioning devotion. The martyrdom and/or deification of the mentor figure is an archetypal element throughout Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian mythology.
In Star Wars (Episode IV, 1977), we see the same theme in the death of Luke’s mentor. Obi-Wan clearly allows himself to be killed, telling his nemesis, “You can’t win, Darth. If you kill me, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” When Darth strikes him with his light saber, Obi-Wan’s body van
ishes. From that point on, Luke hears his mentor’s disembodied voice in his head. Obi-Wan’s spiritual power is now integrated into Luke’s psyche, and it is this heightened spiritual power—represented by his mastery of the Force—that enables Luke to destroy the Death Star. Obi-Wan’s character arc is a perfect depiction of the circular character arc. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan is a Jedi knight. Though his advanced age make him a mentor, he is clearly a former hero, and that is what inspires Luke to follow him.
In The Phantom Menace (Episode I, 1999), we go back in time to see a young Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) developing from squire to hero under the tutelage of his Jedi master, Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson). In Attack of the Clones (Episode II, 2002), we see Obi-Wan develop from hero to mentor for the young Anakin (Hayden Christensen). In Episode III (2005), Obi-Wan will clearly lose Anakin to the dark side, so he must become a mentor to Luke, Anakin’s son. When Obi-Wan dies in Episode IV, he becomes immortalized into a spiritual, divine presence in Luke’s psyche. Obi-Wan’s death in Stars Wars marks the critical moment in which Luke makes his transition from squire to hero, and it also marks the resolution in Obi-Wan’s character arc from mentor to legend.
The Character Arc as Metaphor for Life
The progression of the hero through the character arc is a long journey, just as life itself is a long journey. A person is born with the need for a mentor to guide and teach him. That person eventually grows up and becomes an independent individual, no longer needing the guidance of his original mentor. The person then may have a child of his own. That person then has to deal with the burdens and responsibilities of mentorship. And finally, that person will die. At that final stage of identity development, it is only his legend that will survive. The character or quality of that legend will live on partly in his deeds, but mainly in the memories of his own children. The memories of a positive mentor relationship will live on after him. The memories of a negative one will, with any luck, be either forgotten or repressed.
The Search for the Mentor
Mentors inform the developing ego of the tasks at each stage of life, and how to address them. Children especially need positive role models to identify with. These models come from their immediate environment, but they also come from stories, myths, history, television and movies. As Erik Erikson (1968) noted:
Children at different stages of their development identify with those part aspects of people by which they themselves are most immediately affected, whether in reality or fantasy.
To a child’s imagination, it does not matter whether an identification figure is real or fictitious. A storybook hero or movie character can be as significant or influential in the child’s developing ego identity as a mother or father. Children and adolescents who do not have an appropriate father figure will seek one out. The search for a father figure is a critical element of identity development. For better or for worse, many of these people find their father figures on the movie screen.
To Kill a Mockingbird
In their gala network special, the “American Film Institute’s 100 Years … 100 Heroes and Villains” (2003), Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) was voted the #1 hero in the history of film. This choice was particularly interesting, because technically, Atticus (Gregory Peck) was not even the hero of the story. Atticus was the father of the hero—his daughter Scout. But the fact that Atticus is remembered as the hero of To Kill a Mockingbird is very significant. Atticus represents the perfect image of the strong, dependable father figure. He is moral, courageous and virtuous. As the combination of the perfect father and the quintessential mentor, Atticus Finch stands out in the viewers’ memory as the hero and focal point of the film because he provides the ultimate identification figure for children with a deep psychological need for the perfect father.
A Bronx Tale
Young boys typically identify with their fathers, as long as their fathers are present and at least somewhat of a positive role model. But as a boy matures, he begins to develop an individual sense of identity that is personal and unique. At this point, he begins to look outside of the home for a father figure who represents a new identity. Growing children identify with sports stars, rock stars and movie stars in the same way that they identified with their mothers and fathers earlier on in childhood. In A Bronx Tale (1993), Calogero (Francis Capra) is a nine-year-old boy who thinks of his father Lorenzo (Robert De Niro) as a working-class hero. When Sonny (Chazz Palminteri), the local Mafia boss, kills someone, he becomes indebted to Calogero, the sole witness, after Calogero lies to the police. Lorenzo is strongly opposed to the presence of Sonny in his son’s life, but Sonny and Calogero develop a relationship despite Lorenzo’s objections.
Eight years later, at seventeen, Sonny has become a much more prominent figure in Calogero’s (Lillo Brancato) life. Instead of going to Yankee games with his father, Calogero goes to the racetrack with Sonny. Instead of being a nobody in the neighborhood, Calogero earns respect and money by being Sonny’s favorite neighborhood kid. Calogero even changes his name to “C,” the nickname Sonny gave him. In rejecting the name Lorenzo gave him and replacing it with a new name from Sonny, Calogero makes a strong statement about his emerging identity. He no longer identifies with the traditional, blue-collar values of his father, encapsulated in Lorenzo’s father’s name—Calogero. He identifies with the slick, mobster values of Sonny, who named him “C.”
Sonny has become a new father figure to C, rivaling Lorenzo for control over C’s identity. Will C become a hardworking, honest man like his father? Or will he become a corrupt, dangerous mobster like Sonny? The conflict is illustrated when C and Lorenzo attend a boxing match. They are sitting in the “nosebleed” seats, the best that Lorenzo could afford, while Sonny and his gang are at ringside. When Sonny invites them down to sit in his row, C wants to sit by Sonny. It is clear that C is identifying with Sonny as a primary father figure, and it’s easy to see why. Sonny’s world is glamorous and financially rewarding, while Lorenzo’s world is strenuous, impoverished and hopelessly square. Why should C sit in the back seats with Lorenzo and let life pass him by when he can enjoy all the thrills from a seat with Sonny at ringside.
As the story progresses, C’s relationship with Sonny begins to duplicate his relationship with Lorenzo. Sonny is constantly reprimanding C, reminding him that he knows nothing and trying desperately to keep him away from a bad crowd of local hoodlums. Sonny’s violence comes back to haunt him when he is killed by the son of the man that he murdered eight years earlier. At Sonny’s funeral, C reflects on Sonny’s influence on him. Sonny was a very significant figure in C’s development, but in the end, we see that the love and respect that C has for his father was stronger than his transitory fascination with Sonny and his glamorous lifestyle. No matter who C might be identifying with at the moment, he will always return to the positive base of a father figure that Lorenzo provided for him.
The Movie Mentor Formula
With the exception of the hero, the mentor archetype is the most common figure in stories, myths and movies. Sometimes the mentor plays a small supporting role; sometimes he plays the central figure. In Jerry Maguire (1996), Jerry’s (Tom Cruise) mentor is a long-dead sports agent. In the film, the mentor only appears twice in very brief flashbacks. However, these two flashbacks seem to inspire the most important developments in Jerry’s character. Similarly, in The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s mentor, Glinda the Good Witch, only appears three times. Yet in each brief appearance, she manages to influence the direction of Dorothy’s development in extremely significant ways. First, she provides her with the ruby slippers and directs her onto the yellow brick road; then she covers the sleep-inducing field of poppies with snow so Dorothy can proceed to Oz; and finally, she guides Dorothy home by showing her how to employ the power of the ruby slippers. Even a brief appearance by a mentor can change the entire direction of a hero’s myth. Nevertheless, the following film analyses will focus on movies in which the mentor figure plays a more prominent role.
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p; Teacher Mentors
In Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Mr. Chipping (Peter O’Toole) is an elderly, wise and inspirational teacher who has taught and guided thousands of students. Though he could never have children of his own, when reflecting back upon his life, he sees his individual students as emerging heroes, overcoming their own weaknesses and embarking on their own journeys under his tutelage. Through these young heroes, Chipping experiences his own adventures, and the victories of his students become victories of his own.
Mr. Keating (Robin Williams) in Dead Poet’s Society (1989) is also an inspirational mentor to his students, but with a different message. Keating rouses his students towards nonconformity and individuality. He encourages them to march to the beat of a different drum, and enthuses them with a passionate love for art, poetry and the creative pursuits of life. The guidance Keating provides his students puts them into direct conflict with the awesome powers of conformity that govern their repressed environments—their negative father figures. One of Keating’s disciples self-destructs and commits suicide when his budding individuality is squashed by his tyrannical father. Nevertheless, the legend of Keating’s inspiration lives on in the newfound independence of his surviving students. When he leaves his classroom for the last time, the students whom he affected the most stand up on top of their desks in a show of nonconformity. They call out to him as a devoted hero would call out to his true mentor: “Captain … oh my captain!”
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