Effective Mentorship (in a Galaxy Far, Far Away)

Benjamin Acosta, Erin McKenney, Aram Mikaelyan, Autumn Sylvestri, Aurora Toennisson

(Author names listed alphabetically)

A recent group discussion about Star Wars mentoring relationships started with a simple question: “Who’s your favorite mentor in the series?” Most of the usual names came up – Obi-Wan, Yoda, Kanan – but then someone brought up Sidious (certainly not admirable in moral terms, but could he be considered as a structurally effective mentor?). This led us down an unexpected path: What do we actually mean by mentorship? And do any of the Star Wars mentors, Jedi or Sith, match what mentoring theory suggests these relationships should look like?

The Star Wars universe presents a surprisingly varied range of mentoring relationships. Jedi apprenticeships, Sith successions, informal alliances, and manipulative grooming all co-exist within a single narrative system. This variety makes it a useful setting to apply Kathy Kram’s four-phase model of mentorship, a well-established framework used to describe the development of mentoring relationships in organizational contexts:

1. Initiation – The formation of a mentoring bond

2. Cultivation – The exchange of support, guidance, and development

3. Separation – The process of growing independence, sometimes involving conflict

4. Redefinition – A transition into a peer-like or restructured relationship

   
   

Jedi Mentorships: Structured but Rigid

Many Jedi mentorships follow the early phases of Kram’s model closely. Take Obi-Wan and Anakin or Yoda and Luke for example; they both begin with structured initiation and periods of cultivation. The Jedi Order provides institutional scaffolding for these relationships – clear hierarchies, training stages, and rites of passage.

However, these relationships often struggle with the later phases. Emotional suppression, overindexed focus on duty, and a reluctance to embrace autonomy that often leads to challenges in separation and redefinition. Anakin never achieves a healthy separation from Obi-Wan, and Luke leaves Yoda before a true redefinition can occur (Yoda did provide some great philosophical guidance to Luke, but it was more of a crash course than a real mentorship). These relationships demonstrate how institutional mentorship can stall when psychosocial development is underemphasized.

Sith Mentorships: Autonomy Without Support

Sith mentorships invert the structure. Relationships such as Darth Bane and Zannah or Plagueis and Sidious often feature initiation and cultivation, with the explicit goal of the apprentice eventually surpassing – and replacing – the master. The Sith “Rule of Two” (established by Darth Bane) codifies this expectation. In terms of Kram’s model, these relationships often do proceed through separation and redefinition, but through coercion, betrayal, or violence.

What they lack is the psychosocial dimension. Sith mentorships rarely offer sustained emotional or identity support. Instead, they function as high-stakes succession mechanisms. While they may fulfill the structural phases of mentorship, they fall short of supporting the full development of the mentee as envisioned in Kram’s theory.

Kreia/Darth Traya: A Rare Exception

Atypical among both Jedi and Sith is Kreia (Darth Traya), whose mentorship of the Jedi Exile in Knights of the Old Republic II closely follows Kram’s full arc. She initiates a relationship grounded in mutual interest, cultivates the Exile’s growth through philosophical and practical challenges, and ultimately steps back, allowing the mentee to form independent conclusions. The relationship ends with separation and redefinition, not through betrayal or loss, but through autonomy.

Kreia’s mentorship is not conventionally supportive – she withholds guidance as often as she offers it – but it is structured to produce independence. Her effectiveness, in terms of Kram’s model, lies not in warmth or authority, but in the clarity of her role and the space she creates for mentee growth.

Application to Academic Mentorship

These fictional relationships offer a useful parallel to mentoring in academic settings. Like the Jedi, academic institutions often provide clear initiation and cultivation structures – advising meetings, research guidance, professional development. But they can fall short in facilitating separation and redefinition, particularly when mentors struggle to release authority or adapt to changing mentee needs.

Alternatively, relationships that emphasize autonomy without support – mirroring Sith dynamics – may produce technically capable mentees, but at the cost of emotional strain, burnout, or ethical compromise.

Kreia’s model, though embedded in a morally ambiguous context, suggests a version of mentorship that combines intellectual challenge with structural clarity. It underscores the value of mentorship that is intentionally designed to dissolve – not through rupture, but through the mentee’s readiness to move on.

Takeaway

Applying Kram’s model to Star Wars highlights a central insight:

Effective mentorship is not defined by power, prestige, or even good intentions – it is defined by whether the relationship enables the mentee to grow, gain autonomy, and ultimately reshape the relationship without coercion or dependence.

Narrative worlds often exaggerate these dynamics, but they help clarify what mentorship is – and what it isn’t. In both fiction and academia, the mentors who succeed are those who prepare their mentees not to follow them, but to eventually surpass them.

Note: This post was developed as a pedagogical exercise in collaborative synthesis and argument literacy, emerging from a discussion among two students, a postdoc and two faculty members in the M-lab Fun chat group.