The Five Most Wildly Irresponsible Fictional Mentors

Just because someone has authority doesn't mean they necessarily know what they are doing. You see it in our politicians all the time, obviously, but also…

5. Batman

Don't get me wrong – I love Batman, to the point that I'm even willing to ignore the base lunacy that drives a man to conscript children into his ranks for his obsessive war on crime in the first place. But if Batman has to have a Robin, you'd think he would exercise a little more effort in, you know, keeping those kids alive. Of the five mainstream-continuity Robins that have accompanied Batman since 1940, three have bitten the dust. Yes, the death of Robin IV (Stephanie Brown) was later retconned in an “I was alive all along!” plot twist and she went on to have a short but excellent run as the third Batgirl, but whatever. All the “faked death” exposition in the world can't convince me that she didn't, even for a brief moment, kick the bucket.

Not pictured: Survival.

Between Jason Todd (Robin II) being crow-barred and blown up by the Joker, and Damian Wayne (Robin V) eating it at the hands of his own artificially aged clone, all up, the Robins would have had statistically better odds of living if they'd just lined up and let Two-Face flip a coin on whether to just straight-up cap them or not. Batman might be the world's greatest detective, but he's also the world's shittiest babysitter.

4. Zordon – Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

After 10,000 years, nefarious space witch Rita Repulsa is freed accidentally by two astronauts from her dumpster prison on the moon and immediately sets her sights on conquering Earth. Meanwhile, Zordon, the powerful and ancient wizard who put her away in the first place and for some reason has a base in California, catches wind of Rita's jailbreak and moves to thwart her. But, being a large disembodied head stuck in a time flux whose only friend is a functionally retarded robot called Alpha 5, his options are limited. Zordon had 10,000 years to think of a contingency plan, and this is what he has:

“Alpha, Rita's escaped! Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude!” – said the galaxy's stupidest wizard.

Nothing says “attitude” like overalls and tucking your shirt in.

You don't have to be a military genius to know that, on face value, this is the worst goddamn plan in the history of terrible plans. Zordon basically kidnaps five unsuspecting adolescents (who are supposed be 'tude-filled to the max, so he's risking getting a bunch of undisciplined malcontents who don't listen and draw dicks on absolutely everything), briefly explains the situation to them and then just sets them loose, armed with magic buckles and giant robots. Hey, I didn't say it wasn't awesome; it's just not well thought out.

3. Miss Honey – Matilda

By all accounts, Miss Jennifer Honey is exactly the kind of teacher that every kid dreams of: kind, warm, understanding, supportive, nurturing, and generally a walking embodiment of goodness and beauty. It's too bad she completely fails in her most basic responsibility as an education professional, i.e. her duty of care. Granted, she shows a special interest in the prodigious intellect of Matilda Wormwood, and immediately recognises that the child's home life is kind of a circus. She even welcomes Matilda into her home for tea, a rookie mistake that in this day and age would land her in front of a tribunal to explain why she was alone in her freaking house with a minor.

“I'm so glad there are no witnesses around to prove I don't abuse you.”

But, that aside, she also turns a blind eye to the repeated and extreme punishments to which the headmistress of Crunchem Hall, Agatha Trunchbull, subjects her students. I get that the Trunchbull is terrifying, especially to Miss Honey, her timid and beaten-down niece. But the headmistress takes torture to a level that would even make Ramsay Snow cringe and say, “Too far, man; too far.” And yet, between watching the Trunchbull swinging a child by the pigtails, force-feeding another a cake that would give anyone diabetes just by looking at it, and locking kids in The Chokey – a kind of iron maiden that Satan wishes he'd invented – Miss Honey, nor any other teacher for that matter, ever thinks to, like, call the police.

2. Ms Valerie Frizzle – The Magic School Bus

I'm completely in favour of learning by doing. But like all educational philosophies, it has its limits, and I'd say taking your class back in time so they can actually walk with dinosaurs instead of just watching a Walking with Dinosaurs DVD is probably beyond them.

Once the pterodactyl eats that lizard, he's coming back for the fat kid in the cap.

The many field trips that Ms Frizzle takes her class on (and presumably doesn't tell their parents about, because I don't remember ever seeing a book or episode where someone's mother expresses concern about their child's impending journey to outer space) include such exotic locations as Earth's interior, the bottom of the ocean, inside a hurricane, the first Thanksgiving, and the digestive tract of one of their classmates. Firstly, I don't care how magic your school bus is, that is an insane invasion of privacy; and, secondly, could you imagine the lawsuit if Frizzle left a student behind on the moon or inside a volcano? Yeah. Say goodbye to your Blue Card, nutjob.

1. Gaia – Captain Planet and the Planeteers

In about 1890, the Earth Mother Gaia looked at post-Industrial Revolution humanity and decided it would probably be a good time to take a nap, because how much damage could we really do if she just shuts her eyes for a while? Well, a lot, obviously. Enough that, when she awakens 100 years later and sees how we'd spent the past century skull-fucking the planet into submission with our drills and bulldozers and noxious gases, she freaks out and – instead of enlisting the aid of Greenpeace or reminding us that she is in charge with a showy and devastating display of global natural disasters – recruits five teenagers with attitude (wait, wrong show), whom she dubs the Planeteers, to help right mankind's ongoing environmental wrongs.

“This is the best idea ever.”

She gives the Planeteers five rings with the power to control the elements – Earth, Fire, Wind and Water, as well as Heart – which, when combined, call forth the mighty super hero Captain Planet, champion of eco-living and sweet mullets. Then, she sends these untrained, vaguely environmentally aware children out to tangle with legitimate criminals, including a radioactive mutant called Duke Nukem, only without the benefit of protective suits or anything. They're just out and about wearing cargo pants in close proximity to outrageous levels of pollution and toxic waste on an almost daily basis, contact with which – oh, yeah – happens to be the only weakness of the guy who is supposed to be their failsafe. All of which is to say nothing about the wisdom of giving power over the elements themselves to a bunch of hormonal young people in the first place.