We’ve all seen it a hundred times before. The grizzled old mentor is called out of retirement at last. Hardened and tough from years of experience, he is extremely doubtful and perhaps even adamantly against training someone as inexperienced and arrogant as our young protagonist. But full of energy and will, the stubborn apprentice wins the mentor over to his side, after which they set out on a quest to save the world.
But they do more than just save the world together. Throughout their journey, the cocky young apprentice learns some valuable lessons about the limits of his own power and the humility that should accompany responsibility. He learns that he is far from worthy of his abilities and that he has much to learn from his mentor. Meanwhile, the mentor becomes softer. The young apprentice helps him learn to heal the wounds that still fester from his own days as a young adventurer. He begins to see himself in his apprentice, and realizes that youth and optimism are still valuable, even though he never entirely loses the hardened demeanor that his age has brought on him.
Yawn.
Both character arcs are completely predictable.. Of course the old mentor is going to come out of retirement. Of course the young apprentice is going to make some embarrassing mistake that costs him his ego. Obviously they aren’t going to get along at first, but by the end they’ll both be wiser and closer, having conquered not only a great evil together, but also their own assumptions and prejudices about the other.
But Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was… different.
And it was also hugely popular. Aside from hilarious side characters, unforeseeable twists, and hilarious quips, this movie played the mentor-apprentice relationship in a whole new way. And a plot full of twists and dialogue full of quips aren’t enough to sell a movie with a character arc we’ve seen a thousand times. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse spun the classic apprentice-mentor relationship on its head, and I think that is one of the biggest reasons it did so well.
Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse
Miles Morales is an average kid whose only super power seems to be getting grades high enough to ship him off to a preppy boarding school full of stuck-up cliques. Although his parents see the scholarship as a great opportunity, Miles only sees his lack of friends and a workload heavy enough to keep him from pursuing his passion — art. One night, Miles escapes the pressures of school life by sneaking off with his uncle to add some graffiti art to an abandoned subway — which results in a bite from a radioactive spider that completely changes his life.
As Miles grapples with new powers that he can’t control or understand, he returns to the abandoned subway for answers, only to discover that it isn’t nearly as abandoned as he thought. The villain Kingpin is using the subway to build a device known as the collider to access alternate dimensions. When Spider-Man appears and attempts to stop Kingpin from opening a possibly world-altering portal, Miles is nearly caught in the crossfire. Peter is able to get Miles to safety, and as he does so they realize that Miles and Peter were bitten by the same radioactive spider. Peter promises that once he stops Kingpin, he’ll take Miles on as his apprentice.
But Peter never makes it out alive. Miles watches Kingpin murder Peter, and is only barely able to escape himself. Lost and alone, the last thing that Miles expects to find after that experience is Peter Parker. Yet while mourning at Spider-Man’s gravesite, he is approached by a man who claims to be Peter, dressed as Spider-Man. But the man who meets Miles is a faded, worn-out version of the Spider-Man Miles knew. He’s from a dimension where Peter has divorced MJ, started several failed business ventures, and spends his days in a broken down apartment feeling sorry for himself. Yet his self-confidence is not in the least diminished. He sees the events that have ruined his life as almost entirely out of his control. And as for those that are directly his fault, who can really blame him? Sure, he’s made a few mistakes, but what awesome protagonist doesn’t?
Miles is ecstatic when he realizes that he’s found someone who could guide him through understanding and controlling his powers. Peter, on the other hand, is uninterested. Once he understands Miles’s inexperience and what the steps are to shutting down the collider that brought him into Miles’s universe, Peter wants nothing to do with him… that is, until Miles provides him with a burger. The truth is, Peter is actually unnerved by the fact that an alternate version of himself could be so much more successful and popular. This tugs at his false belief that he is not to blame for the things that have ruined his life, and that begins to change his view of himself in ways that are not exactly comfortable. So although he has no patience for Miles’s learning process, he is also 100% confident that he can be just as great a mentor as the Peter Kingpin killed. And so he sets out to prove that he and the late Peter aren’t all that different, beginning with proving that he’s the best mentor Miles could have.
The Apprentice-Mentor Relationship
All well-written mentor-apprentice relationships have certain aspects in common. For one thing, both the mentor and the apprentice should be flawed. The cliche accomplishes this. While the apprentice is arrogant and confident, the mentor is self-centered and more reserved. The mentor and apprentice should also have different struggles, as well as separate desires and goals while working through their respective flaws. The mentor intends to teach the apprentice some humility while lacking a proper understanding of his own pride, and the apprentice desires to change the world without the understanding of the gravity of this responsibility. The Miles-Peter relationship echoes this, but other than that, their relationship is completely different from the cliche.
Miles is nervous and confused, desperate to learn but worried he’ll mess up. He thinks he has to prove himself to everyone, instead of focusing on protecting those he can.
Meanwhile, Peter doesn’t think he has to prove himself to anyone. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him, and constantly fights the part of himself that is disappointed with how he’s handled things — like his relationship with MJ and his utter lack of commitment to the role of Spider-Man.
As the story goes along, Miles gains confidence. He learns what’s important and how much it is worth to him, and by the end he’s willing to risk his life for those he loves without worrying about whether or not he’ll fail. He stops worrying about himself and instead devotes himself completely to protecting the innocent.
On the other hand, Peter has to come to terms with his flaws. He realizes that he is not only far from perfect, but also has the ability to change much of what he sees as lacking in himself. When he returns to his own dimension, he’s ready to face the challenges that he left behind. One of the final scenes shows him bringing MJ a bouquet with a nervous and apologetic smile.
Ultimately, there is no single “perfect” mentor-apprentice relationship (despite this article’s title). The mentor-apprentice relationship is full of possibilities to be explored. In fact, the best relationships are often unique and creative, full of new aspects that have never been done before. Rather than outline the “perfect” recipe for creating impactful mentor-apprentice character arcs, this article just serves to point out the effect of a unique one. When you break off from the cliche and create something new, people appreciate it. It magnifies the influence of your story and makes both character arcs much more powerful than they would be, had they followed the same old cliche.
What stories have you read that feature awesome mentor-apprentice relationships? How did they give their characters flaws and desires without sticking to the cliche? And how was the article? Too sweet? Too sour? Just right? Comment below and let us know!
Hi! My name is Mara, and I’m a Christian artist, violinist, and blogger. I remember the day that I decided that I would learn something new about what makes a good story from every book I picked up — whether it was good, bad, or a mixture of both. I use this blog as a way of sharing some of the tips and tricks I’ve learned, and highlight which books, cartoons, and movies have taught me the most about writing an awesome story.
Nice post! I was grooving while reading the typical mentor-apprentice relationship description until I came to the “yawn.” I must say that while I personally appreciate the outcome of such mentor-apprentice relationships, I like how you broke down the infamous Into the Spider verse and brought out the twist in Peters’ and Miles’ relationship in their mentor-apprentice dynamic. The “other dimension” Peter’s lack of the expected typical wisdom for his role was quite unsettling to me, but I do like your perspective on his character being that of a mentor but not without his own flaws and a the need to learn valuable life lessons. It serves as a good reminder that growing never ends in life. Still, I do prefer the more standard, seasoned role model who appears to have a wise head on his shoulders. 😉 Great job with the compare and contrast between the cliché mentor-apprentice relationship and the one portrayed in the Into the Spider verse movie. Nice timing too, since I heard that the the sequel was recently released.