Sink-or-Swim Mentor: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

 

** However, they didn't have time for traditional training, having only two weeks to invade Soul Society single-handedly and rescue Rukia, so the more extreme "do or die" method of training was warranted.

* ''[[Gravitation]]'': K and Tohma, while not really mentors in the strictest sense of the word, figure that the best way to promote Bad Luck and inspire Shuichi is to throw the band in front of television cameras at the first available opportunity. This continues well into Shuichi's career, with most of the jobs that K lines up for him being done on the spur of the moment. Perhaps [[Justified Trope|justified]] (or at least [[Lampshaded]]) by both K and Tohma's assertion that a true star should be able to cope with this kind of pressure all the time.

* Kalos Eidos in ''[[Kaleido Star]]'' subjects Sora to extremely hard [[Training From Hell]] to get ready for her roles, and at one point he even fires her when she fails to meet his expectations. To be fair, the Stage's super star Layla was subjected to similar training, and at some point she tells Sora {{spoiler|that Kalos told her and Yuri Killian that they'd be fired if they didn't win the Circus Festival. And that was when Yuri and Layla ''had pretty much reached their peak of popularity and techniques'', unlike Sora who still had a way to go}}.

* Meta Knight in the ''[[Kirby]]'' [[Kirby of the Stars|anime]] isn't afraid to defend himself, but very rarely intervenes much beyond exposition and small pieces of advice when Kirby is facing the [[Monster of the Week]], leaving Kirby to [[Mega Manning|copy an ability]] and [[Let's Get Dangerous|get with the ass kicking]], or Tiff to figure out the problem, or on occasion with other characters as well. Tiff frequently calls him out on this, but eventually gives up.

* In ''[[The Law of Ueki]]'', the rules say that a god candidate (the mentor) can't help their student in battle. If they do, [[Mentor Occupational Hazard|they get sent to Hell]]. The end result: A bunch of junior high school kids with [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|relatively useless or restricted supernatural powers]] running around, who are essentially making things up as they go along.

** Kobayashi more so than the others. He didn't tell Ueki anything about the tournament until the poor kid had already gotten into a fight, and even then he only spilled because Mori and Ueki broke into his house.

*** To be fair, though, Koba-sen did say he only participated in the first place to test Ueki's sense of justice, and {{spoiler|energetically told Ueki to drop out of the tournament and live his own life the way he wanted to before suffering the [[Mentor Occupational Hazard]]}}.

** The scary part is that this was the [[Secret Test of Character|admissions test]]. Asuna was left with a (presumably) enchanted bell with which to "tap out", and her [[Determinator|refusal to do either that or die of exposure]] was what convinced Evangeline to start [[Training From Hell|training Asuna for real]].

** To be fair, although Asuna thought she had to learn Kanka or die, [[Noble Demon|Evangeline]] stayed in the mountains for the entire time, just in case something went wrong (presumably something along the lines of Asuna passing out from cold before being able to ring the bell).

*** However, Asuna ''did'' pass out from cold before ringing the bell. Twice. The first time her repressed memory of how to use Kanka saved her, but by all rights she should never have woken up the second time. When she did wake up she was covered in ice, unable to move, barely able to think, almost too far gone to reactivate the kanka and save herself. Chachazero even said "she was almost dead, too!" If Eva had actually been there to save Asuna, that would have been the point to pull her out.

** Later on, Pseudo-Eva does this to Negi: {{spoiler|either beat your [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] into submission, or die trying.}}

** The weapon training at least was justified, with ninja as military forces. Traditional training methods tended to involve carefully choreographed full-contact kata with weapons which could at least cripple, the theory being that until you had experienced being on the wrong side of a lethal attack a few thousand times, you weren't emotionally prepared to handle a real battlefield.

** Luffy's [[Badass Grandpa]], Garp, followed this Trope pretty closely as he threw Luffy down a bottomless ravine, left him alone in a jungle at night, and tied him to balloons to send him up into the sky '''as a child''', all to make make him and his big brother (who it is hinted also went through similar ordeals) into "strong Marines". Needless to say, the minute he leaves them with a friend, they run off and become pirates when they hit their late teens!

** It should be noted that the age that both of them left their home to adopt a life of piracy was 17. [[Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday|Dangerous Seventeenth Birthday, much?]]

** It should also be noted said friend was a {{spoiler|''mountain bandit''}}. He was asking for it, really.

** Dracule "Hawk-Eye" Mihawk seems to have become one for {{spoiler|''Zoro,'' [[Worthy Opponent|of all people.]]}}

** Consider the ever-so-brilliant martial arts teacher, Genma Saotome. Genma's shown methods of training his son have included hurling a nest of agitated wasps at him and watching the poor bastard fend for himself, dragging him to a cursed training ground simply on the basis that it was dangerous and without finding out why it was considered dangerous, and reminiscing about how, when Ranma was a child, he routinely forced him to fight for every scrap of food he got, remorselessly eating Ranma's food if he couldn't defend it. He also admitted that he tried to "cure" Ranma's [[Unstoppable Rage|Neko]]-[[Harmful to Minors|Ken]] induced cat phobia by throwing him into the pit of starving cats again. When told about some of this, even the borderline sociopathic Nabiki disapproves, proving that sometimes [[Even Evil Has Standards]]. Coupling this with his willingness to simply [[Sins of Our Fathers|throw Ranma into trouble and expect him to sort things out]], often with barely any idea what's going on or why it's happening, he could border on [[Fair Weather Mentor]]. If it weren't for his moments of [[Idiot Savant|Idiot Savantdom]], it would be the conclusion of most fans that not only was Ranma lucky to survive, he's gotten as good as he has despite Genma's training, not because of it. And as bad as Genma is, Happosai is '''worse'''; his nature as a [[Fair Weather Mentor]] is an obvious fact.

** Cologne is just as bad, even if she ([[Chaotic Neutral|sometimes]]) means well. The training for the Bakusai Tenketsu (swinging multi-ton boulders at the trainee until he can make them explode with a finger) and the Hiryu Shouten Ha (wrapping the person in "memory-metal" that will shrink, seize up, and lock down, turning him into a human pretzel if he sheds the slightest amount of heat) would be deadly if these people weren't [[Made of Iron]], and if they end up knocked unconscious from the blows, or drowning in a hot spring, well, that's their fault. Only by learning the fundamentals of these techniques ''on their own'' can the trainee even withstand the training itself.

* ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'' had Hiko as a mentor, whose idea of training was "beat Kenshin senseless with the Technique of the Day, and then beat him senseless with the appropriate counter-technique when Kenshin attempts to duplicate the effect". He also acknowledges that he could defeat [[Social Darwinist|Shishio]] in the blink of an eye, but considers leaving the mountain where he lives as a hermit to be too much effort. (He does, however pull a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment to help save [[Kid Samurai|Yahiko]] from getting killed.)

* Seens to be the only way to train someone in ''[[Twelve World Story]]''... Of course, the main character is a [[Jerkass]] so it's alright.

* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'':

** Izumi's idea of survival training is to drop off two preteen boys to a deserted island {{spoiler|but watching them from afar in the first anime and the manga}} and coming back in a month.

** Granted that said survival training didn't really have anything to do with alchemy, {{spoiler|the one who sent Izumi out to do the same wasn't even realizing she wanted to ''be'' an alchemist}}.

** In the first anime and the manga, when she threw Ed and Al on the island, {{spoiler|she did leave someone with them to make sure they didn't starve to death. He also was under Izumi's orders wear a disguise and fight them at every possible opportunity, so yeah.}} In the manga, {{spoiler|he even cooks them some fish when it looks like they're too tired to go on.}}

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[Wanted]]'', Fox puts herself in front of a shooting target, forcing the protagonist to either bend his shot or shoot her, which is kinda an inversion. A straight example was earlier, when she put a gun at Weasley's head and threatened to shoot unless he shoots wings off some flies.

* Henri Ducard/{{spoiler|Ra's Al Ghul}} in ''[[Batman Begins]]''. They duel with ''real swords'' and in one scene beats the hell out of him.

 

== Folklore ==

{{quote| '''Dracula:''' Well, I was remembering that when I was a child my father decided to teach me how to swim by grabbing me and throwing me into the river.}}

* [[Discworld]]'s Granny Weatherwax is often the benevolent version, especially with Tiffany Aching. According to Granny "witching school" (ie the world) gives you the exam ''first'', and then you spend the rest of the time finding out whether you passed. And everything is a test.

** Mentor's psychic combat training is a perfect example of this trope. He "trains" Kinnison how to defend himself psychically by ''continuously psychically attacking him''. The justification is that every mind is unique, so each person must develop his own method of defense. And the best way to develop callouses is to hit the tender part over and over. Though he does scale his attacks to Kinnison's ability to survive them.

* Gall the moss man is this to Peter in ''The Child Thief'' by Brom. He rescues Peter from a wolf but leaves it to Peter to kill. Keep in mind that Peter is only a few weeks old at the time.

 

== Live Action TV ==

 

* The Doctor from ''[[Doctor Who]]'' tends to treat his companions like this sometimes. Especially Doctor number 1 played by William Hartnell.

* ''[[NCIS]]'': Ziva's father, in a not-at-all-funny or even particularly heroic version. Apparentally, he drove his children blindfolded into the middle of the forest and had them find their way out.

* In the ''[[Lost]]'' episode "Hearts and Minds," Locke ties Boone up and leaves him in the woods with the monster approaching. (Of course, it's vague how much of this truly takes place and how much is a hallucination.)

== Theater ==

 

 

== Video Games ==

 

* [[Dwarf Fortress]] - you can only learn something by doing it. Need some crucial task done, but have no qualified labourers? No problem - throw the unqualified labourers at it, until they learn, or get eaten by fish. This applies to all skills and professions, starting with mining (Here's a pick, get going.), through hunting (Chasing down prey and wrestling it to death? Sure.) to fighting. (No, the ultra-mighty champion wrestlers are under no compunction not to crush your throat in your first sparring session. Deal.)

** Though it should be noted that as the ultra-mighty champions wrestlers have more experience, they have a much lower chance of accidentally seriously wounding their sparring partner. It can still happen, but it's definitely less likely. Of course, some players equip raw recruits with the sharpest and and nastiest weapons in the entire fort, lock them in a room to spar, and refuse to let them out until they're either dead or champions.

 

== Visual Novels ==

** Saber was trying to teach Shiro that he would never stand a chance against Servants, although he never quite grasps that fact. As for Rin, projection magic is ''extremely'' dangerous and overusing it would permanently cripple Shiro at best. And this is Rin we're talking about, so...

** Kiritsugu didn't even teach Shirou he didn't need to create a new magic circuit (something that could have killed him every single time he did it) every time he wanted to use magic.

== Web Comics ==

 

** To be fair to Klaus, he'd...well, he'd ''probably'' be sad if Gil couldn't hold up.

* In ''[[Panthera]]'', you could argue that this is the relationship between [[Action Girl|Tigris]] and [[Naive Newcomer|Onca]]. There's distinctly more "Sink Or Swim" than "mentor", though.

 

== Western Animation ==

 

 

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