#evil apprentice

[eyugho]

The Evil Professor and his Evil Apprentice! ^7^/

[erdariel]

You know, I was just wondering...

Why is it that we have a thousand fantasy stories (and Star Wars, but that's basically fantasy) of an old master who reluctantly takes a new apprentice and trains them after their previous apprentice turned evil and became either The Big Bad or the Villain's apprentice/henchman.

But I've never, or if I've seen I don't remember it, seen a story where the old master turned evil and it was their apprentice that stayed good and had to defeat them?

I mean, if you think about it, there's at least a 50/50 chance that in any given fantasy book the mentor/old master/wise wizard character has some sort of "the end justifies the means" idea or is willing to sacrifice a lot of people for "the greater good". Hell, I've seen that being the cause of the apprentice becoming evil at least once (in a flashback in The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, we see Hawkings turning to the Dark as he realizes Merriman would've let him die to complete a spell or whatever it was without hesitating). Everyone loves critiquing Dumbledore for that mindset, actively raising and manipulating Harry to become a person who'd sacrifice himself to defeat the bad guy. Belgarath is borderline this in some scenes in his/Polgara's backstories (though sometimes only because Pol doesn't know the whole truth), not quite but he gets close sometimes. Depending on the interpretation, many things Alessan does in Tigana (especially forcibly binding that one wizard to his will without asking) could be seen as this, although he doesn't quite resemble the classic mentor archetype. And I could probably go on and on.

But no, it's always the apprentice who turns evil. Why?

[magicastrid]

Accidentally turned my girlfriend into a worm 💔💔 now I gotta take care of a worm until I can turn her back 🙄🙄