When the Mentors Have to Get Involved
Despite the story focusing around the hero, sometimes, the entire world’s in danger. The kingdom is collapsing. The entire town is in trouble, and it’s too much for them, or maybe they just aren’t ready yet. Either way, they need help. They need backup. They need the people that taught them everything they know. The teachers, the elders, the wise people. It’s time for them to step in. If this happens in the finale, it can’t be the fight against the big bad; it will be a fight elsewhere, against the big bad’s minions. Otherwise, it won’t be the final fight, because that’s for the main character to handle.
In the show RWBY, the main characters are taught to fight. But at the end of volume III, the entire city was under attack, and the main characters were still only students. So it was time for everyone to pitch in and help. Even their headmaster, whom we’d never seen fight before, got involved. While this was the finale of that volume, it was far from the series finale. It made sense for the teachers to step in, since the main characters couldn’t be expected to handle it all alone. It shows that not only are they a force to be reckoned with, but they are responsible(ish) as well.
In Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is a secret society made up of all of their teachers. People wise enough to see that the war plaguing the world was pointless and had to be stopped. But the only one powerful enough to take down the big bad was the main character. So while he fought the big bad, that society took back the capital city of one of the nations. It gave something for many of the most popular characters in the show to do, and allowed us to see what they could do when put to the test, all without interfering with the final fight between the main character and the big bad.
Another reason to unholster the big guns is to show how much of a threat one of the villains can be. I did this in Girl in Red, in year six when Dumbledore faced off against Rose. This was one of my favorite fight scenes to write, showing just how clever Dumbledore was in his choice of spells. When he ultimately failed to stop her, the four house heads took their shot at her in another of my favorite scenes. There is something that must be considered when going with this approach: if the teachers couldn’t do it, why can the students? In this case, Hermione was able to beat Rose because Hermione knew how to fight Rose’s unique magic.
It’s a tricky business letting the mentors fight. You don’t want them to fight all the time, otherwise the main characters wouldn’t do anything. But sometimes it makes sense for them to fight, so they have to get involved. Balancing the two sides is something that must be learned.
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