BUT WHAT ABOUT ...
It's exciting to see that there is no end to what can be learned from the Hero's Journey concepts. I find surprising and delightful turns of the path every time I pick up a new story, and life itself keeps teaching new angles.
My understanding of the Shadow archetype, for example, continues to evolve. I have been impressed all over again by the power of this pattern, especially as it operates within the individual as a repository for unexpressed feelings and desires. It is a force that accumulates when you fail to honor your gifts, follow the call of your muses, or live up to your principles and ideals. It has great but subtle power, operating on deep levels to communicate with you, perhaps sabotaging your efforts, upsetting your balance until you realize the message these events bring — that you must express your creativity, your true nature, or die. A car accident a few years ago taught me the rebellious power of the Shadow, showed me that I was distracted, out of harmony, heading for even greater disasters if I didn't find a way to express my personal creative side.
Occasional puzzled looks on the faces of students taught me that I hadn't completely thought through some aspects of the pattern. Some people were confused by the various turning points and ordeals of the model, particularly by the distinction between the midpoint, which I call the Ordeal, and the climax of the second act, which I call The Road Back. Trying to explain this led me to a new realization. Each act is like a movement of a symphony, with its own beginning, middle, and end, and with its own climax (the highest point of tension) coming just before the ending of the act. These act climaxes are the major turning points on the circular diagram:
Lecturing in Rome, I came upon a further development of this idea, an alternate way of graphing the Hero's Journey: not as a circle, but as a diamond. I was explaining that each act sends the hero on a certain track with a specific aim or goal, and that the climaxes of each act change the hero's direction, assigning a new goal. The hero's first act goal, for instance, might be to seek treasure, but after meeting a potential lover at the first threshold crossing, the goal might change to pursuing that love. If the ordeal at the midpoint has the villain capturing the hero and lover, the goal in the next movement could become trying to escape. And if the villain kills the lover at The Road Back, the new goal of the final movement might be to get revenge. The original objective might be achieved as well, or there might be some overall goal (to learn self-reliance or come to terms with past failures, for example) that continues to be served in all movements as the hero pursues changing superficial goals.
To illustrate this concept I drew the hero's goals in each movement as straight lines, vectors of intention, rather than curves. Straightening out the curves of the circle created sharp, 90-degree turns at the quarter points and revealed the drastic changes that may occur in the hero's objectives. Each straight line represents the hero's aim in that act — to escape the constraints of the ordinary world, to survive in a strange land, to win the boon and escape the strange land, to return home safely with something to share that revives the world.
I was amused to realize I had just drawn a baseball diamond (in reverse.) I've often felt that the layout of game-playing fields produces patterns that overlap with the design of the Hero's Journey. Baseball can be read as another metaphor of life, with the base runner as the hero making his way around the stages of the journey.
Perhaps the best way to explore the endless possibilities of the Hero's Journey is to apply it to a number of films or stories. To that end Michael Wiese Productions has prepared a book and CD-ROM entitled Myth in the Movies. These examine a large number of popular movies through the lens of the Hero's Journey. It's a way to test the idea and see for yourself if it's valid and useful. One can see how it operates in a general way and how it transforms in specific cases. And from the comparison of many examples and from the interesting exceptions, one can find more of the principles, values, and relationships that give the craftsperson command of the form.
At the end of this second edition I have added a few new elements in a section called "Looking Back at the Journey." Here I have used the tools of mythology and the Hero's Journey to analyze some key films, including Titanic, The Lion King, Pulp Fiction, The Full Monty, and the Star Wars saga. I hope these will demonstrate some of the ways that the mythic principles continue to be explored in popular entertainment.
Unlike the stories of heroes, which eventually come to an end, the journey to understand and articulate these ideas is truly endless. Although certain human conditions will never change, new situations are always arising, and the Hero's Journey will adapt to reflect them. New waves will roll out, and so it will go, on and on forever.
I invite you to join me on a Writer's Journey, a mission of discovery to explore and map the elusive borderlands between myth and modern storytelling. We will be guided by a simple idea: All stories consist of a few common structural elements found universally in myths, fairy tales, dreams, and movies. They are known collectively as The Hero's Journey. Understanding these elements and their use in modern writing is the object of our quest. Used wisely, these ancient tools of the storyteller's craft still have tremendous power to heal our people and make the world a better place.
My own Writer's Journey begins with the peculiar power storytelling has always had over me. I got hooked on the fairy tales and Little Golden Books read out loud by my mother and grandmother. I devoured the cartoons and movies pouring out of TV in the 1950s, the thrilling adventures on the drive-in screens, the lurid comic books and mind-stretching science fiction of the day. When I was laid up with a sprained ankle, my father went to the local library and brought back wonder stories of Norse and Celtic mythology that made me forget the pain.
A trail of stories eventually led me to reading for a living as a story analyst for Hollywood studios. Though I evaluated thousands of novels and screenplays, I never got tired of exploring the labyrinth of story with its stunningly repeated patterns,
Christopher Vogkr
bewildering variants, and puzzling questions. Where do stories come from? How do they work? What do they tell us about ourselves? What do they mean? Why do we need them? How can we use them to improve the world?
Above all, how do storytellers manage to make the story mean something? Good stories make you feel you've been through a satisfying, complete experience. You've cried or laughed or both. You finish the story feeling you've learned something about life or about yourself. Perhaps you've picked up a new awareness, a new character or attitude to model your life on. How do storytellers manage to pull that off ? What are the secrets of this ancient trade? What are its rules and design principles?
Over the years I began to notice some common elements in adventure stories and myths, certain intriguingly familiar characters, props, locations, and situations. I became vaguely aware there was a pattern or a template of some sort guiding the design of stories. I had some pieces of the puzzle but the overall plan eluded me.