GURU

Persona (Characteristics)

- Wizened by extensive life experience
- Exceedingly knowledgeable in a craft, art, technique, skill, etc
- Willing to spend his considerable energies passing on this experience and knowledge to her protegee, usually the Protagonist
- Trains and guides the Protagonist for the task to come
- Often a paternal or material supplement to the Protagonist
- May provide some comic relief, as old age and wisdom garner a certain amount of levity 
- Any age, from a kid with an old soul to an old person with an old soul
- Tough as nails and doesn't have the time of day for the Protagonist to be a whiner or a diva
- Willing to die for the Protagonist, as he often tragically does, empowering the Protagonist to go on without him and succeed

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​Examples

Harry Potter: Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall
Film/ TV: Fletcher in Whiplash (shadow); Pei Mei in Kill Bill Vol. 2; Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings; Mama Odie in The Princess and the Frog
Shakespeare: Prospero in The Tempest; Friar Laurence and Nurse in Romeo & Juliet; 

​Shadow (Dark side)

- Only out for personal glory that the Protagonist will bring him with no affection towards her pupil
- Training becomes dangerous, detrimental, harmful, even deadly for his pupil
- So completely focused on the goal that he becomes obsessive and toxic
​- The extremity of his mentorship actually wrecks the Protagonist instead of empowers her
- His mentorship causes the Protagonist to alienate herself from all other areas of her life
- May behave callously, coldly towards the Protagonist for the sake of her training
- May not be entirely stable upstairs; possibly senile and not lucid at times
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