Vogler Reading for March 2nd

In this weeks reading Vogler describes two seperate stages of the journey, in the first Refusal to the Call he describes as a “important dramatic function because it signals the audience that the adventure is risky.” Vogler goes on to describe many ways in which the Hero can refuse the Call , including avoidince, make excuses or persistantly deny a call consiquently leading to a tragic end. However, he also mentions that not all refusals have to be negative, such as in the paragraph entitaled positive refusal , in which the hero resists temptation which could lead to a tragic end. 

The second section described the archatype of the mentor, and his / her importance in a story. 

A mentor is described as a wise , protective figure who guides, teaches, or trains the hero. His job is to “supply the hero with something needed on the journery. It is at this point in the Hero's Journey that the Hero will gain wisdom, courage, or supplies needed in order to see his adventure through to the end”

I found these sections to be interesting, but confusing, especially when we reached the section on mentors, I found a lot of the material to contradict its self from one page to the next. Vogler has stressed almost it seems from the very beginning of the book about the importance of the mentor yet in this section he seems to wavier back and forth on the issue. Saying one minute that the mentor helps to guide the hero and give advice, and the next that we could do without him all together. Or that the hero and mentor have a strong relationship one minute and before you know it one is killing the next. I just hadto ask myself “What's going on” quite often durring this reading

I hope to get some of my thoughts clarifyed from the class disscussion tommorow, because right now I am so confused about the purpose of the mentor.

1. In the mentor reading, there is a section entitled avoiding the cliches, and although I understand these types of mentors are used frequently in stories , they must be there for a reason, so dosen't that mean that they are working?

2. I feel like Vogler contradicts himself about the use of a mentor, throughout the whole book he stresses the importance of the mentor on the hero's journey , up until the last line of that section when he seems to put forth the notion that a mentor may not be needed at all? In which case weakens all previous statements about the mentor! Which is it? Do we need them , or not?

3. If the mentor hero relationship is so important why do they try to kill one another?