: Re: How can I handle a powerful mentor character without killing them off? I'm writing a book series that involves people with various superpowers. One of these characters and is more or less the

@LarsenBagley300

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Your protagonist is not the only iron the mentor has in the fire
In Avatar, the Last Airbender, Uncle Iroh is a powerful and interesting mentor character (with his own complex arc). He has his role of providing advice for Toph, and maybe a little for Aang - but he's primarily the mentor for the show's first antagonist. He's interested in seeing the Avatar be successful, but he's more interested in seeing success and happiness for his nephew, who thinks he needs to capture the Avatar.
And at the great cataclysmic end, Iroh has a role which completes his own arc, but which takes him in a different direction than either Aang, or his nephew.
In Lord of the Rings, Gandalf is the wise mentor character, but besides shepherding hobbits or dwarfs here and there, he's got to manage the affairs of wizards and kingdoms, and is commonly called away for other issues, or temporarily put out of commission by balrogs.
If your world is bigger than your story, your mentor can easily be too busy to always step in and solve your protagonist's problems

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