beehammer | The Incompetent Mentor

One of my favorite tropes of all time--and I know this is a weird one to the point of possibly not being a recognized trope, but bear with me--is probably the Incompetent Mentor.

You know the one. Some kid's the Chosen One, selected by Destiny to slay the Great Evil, and then it turns out that the person put in charge of making sure they lived to hit puberty never bothered explaining the job to them.

Obi-Wan Kenobi's probably the most famous example of this. Dude's got almost twenty years to spend teaching Luke to at least not be such a jackass, and what does the kid get? Half an hour with a training droid, a pack of lies about his father, and a second-hand laser-sword.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Luke: I completely fucking forgot about you roughly two weeks after I dumped you on your aunt and uncle's doorstep."

I don't even know why I love it so much. I just do. Just whenever you've got some teenager running around as poorly equipped for their grand destiny as humanly possible and a caretaker who knew this was coming and did fuck-all to prepare them for it, I can't stop snickering to myself. It's just like, you had one job. And who even put them in charge of raising the chosen one in the first place?

I mean, if you're entrusted by the High Council of Stuff with the future savior of the world, it seems reasonable to think that somebody would have checked your references and made sure you're not a slack-ass loser, right? Did the All-Knowing Wisdom-Havers of Ancient Power just pick some asshole at random and tell them to raise the hope of all mankind? Did they look at the resume that includes "Fucked Up Royally Last Time This Happened, 1189AD-current" and hand the baby over with a shrug and a "Surely you won't make the same mistake twice."?

We're not talking about the stories where an infant of dubious identity is smuggled out of a burning castle by a half-senile washerwoman and raised by her unwitting grandchildren as a foundling. That can't really be helped most of the time, because it's a huge fucking surprise to everyone when the kid can shoot lightning bolts from their eyes and fly on alternate Tuesdays. I mean the stories where the kid starts shooting lightning bolts from their eyes, and good old Uncle Jim goes "Okay, time to take your proper place in the world as Wizard Jesus. Did I mention that magic is real? Because magic is real. So, let's hit the road."

And sometimes you can chalk it up to the fact that they were in hiding, but most of the time the kid's been left wildly incompetent even by those standards. Like, okay, you couldn't teach them magic with the massive, perpetual, kingdom-wide witch-hunt on for any unapproved sorcerers. But you probably could have gotten away with teaching them how to whack somebody in the face with a cudgel really well and how the government works. Maybe explain the basics of the economic system and that stormtroopers aren't your friends. Maybe "Dragons are fantastical creatures, but if they were real, you'd probably kill them by shooting them in the heart with an iron arrow."

But it's just like, nope! The most incompetent mentor available taught them to grow turnips really well and never let them leave the farm or watch the news, so you better hope they're a quick study or can find a way to weaponize turnips.