Guide Mentor

Character Role Analysis

The Monkey King

This one's pretty easy. The Monkey King actually tells Jin that he's been in Jin's life, not to punish him, but to be his "conscience—as a signpost to [his] soul" (9.73). And he does a darn good job of it too. He leads Jin to examine what he did to Wei-Chen so that Jin eventually finds and makes up with Wei-Chen. Monkey also gets Jin to leave Danny-land and return to his true form.

Tze-Yo-Tzuh

Sure he's the guy who puts Monkey under a mountain of rock for five hundred years, but that was for Monkey's own good. And sure he doesn't appear as a character at the end, but he really is everywhere. He appears as Wong Lao-Tsai's inspiration and spiritual guide, thereby becoming Monkey's inspiration and spiritual guide—to the point that even Monkey decides to serve as one of Tze-Yo-Tzuh's emissaries. Now that's a major turnaround, folks.

Wong Lao-Tsai

Wong Lao-Tsai is the gentlest guide around. The guy is the model of patience and calm when he attempts to convince Monkey to embrace his true form and serve as his disciple. Demons stab him with a staff and roast him, but all the while, Wong Lao-Tsai says things like: "To find your true identity… within the will of Tze-Yo-Tzuh… that is the highest of all freedoms" (7.64). Wong's method of patient perseverance works too. How can Monkey say no to a guy who's willing not just to die for his beliefs, but for Monkey too? (If you're feeling some Christian overtones to all of this, you're probably not wrong.)