I chose this photo off Pexels, and now I almost can’t stand to post it, because it could be my dad in 20 years.

I’ve been thinking lately about how the death of the mentor, in fiction, is often more poignant than the death of the Significant Other. Maybe it’s because the former happens more often. In a normal quest-type story, the mentor gets killed at some point, often kind of early in the action, and the S.O. doesn’t get killed at all, or often even threatened until later in the story. The exception would be crime-fighting superhero tragic back stories, where having a beloved wife killed off to serve as motivation is so common that it has been given a derogatory name (“fridging”).

Anyway, the above paragraph is, of course, just about stories that follow very conventional models. Stories in the wild are quite individual and they go all over the place. Here are some mentor deaths that spring to mind, from stories good, bad, and ugly:

• In Star Wars: Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon Jin, Darth Vader
• In Dr. Strange, which I just watched last night: The Ancient One
• In Harry Potter: Sirius Black, Dumbledore (not to mention Harry’s parents)
• In Narnia: Aslan
• In The Hobbit: Gandalf doesn’t exactly get killed, but he leaves the party right before they enter Mirkwood
• In LOTR: Gandalf
• In Genesis: Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel (I am thinking of mentors who had a chance to give final curses and blessings and instructions before they died. Of course they all die, good and bad, IRL)

In the comments, please add your own.

Perhaps another reason that the mentor’s death is more poignant than the S.O.’s is that the relationship has gone on longer and has been, in a sense, more important to the young protagonist. It is, of course, in a sense the mentor’s job to die. He or she will have to take a less prominent role in the young hero’s life as the latter matures. And, older people tend to die. Joseph, on his deathbed, says, “I am about to go the way of all the earth.” But a tragic mentor death, like the ones above, seems to happen too soon, when we still need them, when we’re not ready.

I myself have ruthlessly killed off my characters’ mentors, sometimes more than one in the same book. I did not plan to do this in order to torture my young protags; it was just the way the story unfolded. One or two deaths even took me by surprise. However, some of my older men and women managed to survive the story long enough in order to be a rock for the rising generation.

Story Deaths and Stages of Life

Some people, sadly, have really tragic childhoods and are faced with death, loss, and betrayal well before they should have been. For young readers not in this position, I find that the type of story death that they find most poignant (and that therefore is most likely to appear in their literature) changes with stage of life:

• for a kid: the stuffed animal or pet
• for a teen: the mentor
• for a young adult: the Significant Other
• for a middle adult: the baby or child
• for an older adult: ??? I don’t know yet, since I haven’t really hit this stage. But my mother-in-law is certainly going through it! Spouse? Best friend? Sister? Everyone your own age who remembers you when you were younger?

So, when I was a kid, it was stories of animals (including toys — I’m looking at you, The Velveteen Rabbit) that really got me. Now that I’m a parent, it’s stories where the baby or toddler dies that I really can’t stand to read.

It’s as if our hearts are pieces of leather that just keep getting softer and more tattered and beat up the more they experience.

I’ve been busy lately, so this post was written in one sitting. I apologize that it’s sort of a mind dump. I’m sure all these things have been articulated before, and much better than this, probably by Jordan Peterson.

Share your thoughts in the comments.