Exchange of Realities

Mentor figures are popular in our kinds of stories, but they always create one major question: If Teach is better or more experienced, why isn’t she the one solving the problem at hand? Sure, we all know the plot-reason is that she’s not the main character, but there needs to be a reason that functions coherently within the world itself.

So why can’t Teach save the world?

1. Age. This one’s popular because it’s an easy out; Teach may have all the skills, but her joints aren’t what they used to be. Better for someone young to do the haring off across great distances and over high mountains, or squeezing through the itty-bitty tunnels. No more for me, thanks!

2. Age, again—this time the fact that the younger set have less idea what’s impossible. The mentor knows how the world works, whether accurately or not; the youngster still hasn’t gotten there yet, and might be able to bypass certain limits or come up with new solutions because it hasn’t occurred to him that he shouldn’t be able to. Diane Duane utilizes this in her Young Wizards series; I personally could probably get an entire article about this if I tried.

3. Differing areas of expertise. Sure, Teach is good with history, or arcane theory, or how to function in other planes of reality, but what this problem needs is someone who knows his way around various forms of weaponry.

4. More differing areas of expertise. Teach’s gift is in teaching, not actually using the skills in question—her job isn’t to solve the problem herself, but to make sure that there are as many people capable of solving these sorts of problems as possible. (I actually know someone like this; my mother doesn’t help the education system by teaching classes, but by teaching teachers to take their tests. Different impact, but still contributing.)

5. Teach is unavailable, having been killed, abducted, trapped in another plane, or stuck in an old friend’s extradimensional time-manipulated happy hour, or otherwise rendered irrelevant.

6. Teach is needed elsewhere. Perhaps there’s a greater threat, or something in need of investigation that requires her experience and craftiness, or there’s just a whole lot going on at once and only one of her. Or maybe it’s a crisis situation, and somebody with standing in the community needs to get the locals to stop panicking and help them figure out what they can do to handle it. Teach has the social standing; you don’t. So could you go deal with this other issue?

7. The problem is a student’s test. Teach isn’t going to do your homework for you!

8. Conflicts of interest. For whatever reason, Teach can’t trust her judgment when dealing with this enemy. Perhaps they were lovers, or related to each other; perhaps this was her mentor, or a former student; maybe she just owes the enemy big for something in the past. You, on the other hand, have no such biases, and won’t hesitate at the wrong moment.

9. Teach didn’t expect you to need to Do Something Heroic, just to go ask one of her old students how she was doing. Communication being what it is, and the urgency of the situation being pretty high, you aren’t exactly going to be able to run back and bring her in. Cliché, sure, but they use it because it works.

10. Value. You and Teach are both reporting to someone higher, and they consider you more expendable than she is. Sucks to be you, but at least there’s a chance that you can prove yourself just as valuable. (Or better suited to these sorts of tasks, which might not be quite as much of a good thing.)

11. Teach doesn’t care. Maybe the problem is something that concerns you more than it does her. Or the last few times she solved a problem like this, it really wasn’t worth it; nobody recognized her efforts, and in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t that important. You, on the other hand, are young enough and involved enough that it Matters. Go have fun!

12. That Destiny Thing. Please, avoid this. Sure, it’s a good reason why the mentor can’t be the one to handle the issue, but it’s a bit of a cop-out, a serious cliché, and, well, has issues.

13. Teach is the problem. Will probably be covered up by use of one of the prior reasons.

So there you have it—a bunch of possible reasons why it’s the main character’s job to go out and do Protagonist things. Got any more? I’d love to see ‘em, and it doesn’t matter how crazy they are.