CHARACTER ARCHETYPES SERIES
The Hero Archetype
They are not infallible characters. Their beauty is the evolution that characterizes the life of each of us.
In this article on Character Archetypes Series, we talk about the Hero.
The Hero is the first of the Characters Archetypes.
In his work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell talks about it in depth. Campbell’s studies also directly involved Christopher Vogler, a consultant for the Disney screenplays, who in the late 90s wrote a book taking cues from Campbell’s archetypes and his Hero’s Journey, also called Monomyth, developing a valuable book for the analysis of films and written stories.
So, we see in so many literary and cinematographic narratives that the protagonist leaves their “comfort zone” to go to another place to face challenges and inner demons that will lead them to change forever, and then return to their own world with a different awareness of themself.
Who is the Hero?
The Hero is almost always the protagonist of the narrative. The story and the Hero’s Journey are concentrated around them.
The figure of the Hero is presented in the first part, that of the Ordinary World. Here we describe the context in which they spend their daily life, their bonds, and their values.
However, the Hero also has a weakness, defined as a “Fatal Flaw”, which can coincide with love for someone or a strong desire to change the condition of their current life.
It is a missing puzzle piece that intrigues them, making them stay awake at night like Neo in the Matrix, drawn to the feeling that the world they belong to is different. Likewise, Harry Potter.
They both feel the lack of something unknown that does not allow them to feel complete.
Hero is a character with a strong desire, like Pinocchio, who wants to grow, transform, and become a child.
You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Characteristics of the Hero
The protagonist has characteristics in which the readers recognize themself. The Hero has contradictions and defects that, in their own way, make them more attractive in the eyes of those who read their stories and make them more “real”.
Thanks to this strong bond created between the Hero and the public, we want as much as the Hero themself for the Journey to end successfully.
During the story, the Hero grows, reflects, changes, and returns at the end of the Journey as a different Hero from the one who left, with a greater awareness of themself.
Another striking example is Mulan, the protagonist of the Disney cartoon. She’s a young girl who dishonors her family because she does not reflect the characteristics of the perfect woman and wife.
Mulan feels she does not belong to the context that surrounds her. Only when she decides, disguising herself as a man, to take her father’s place in battle, she finds herself and honors her family.
How the Hero’s Journey Begins
In the second stage, the “Call to Adventure”, an event turns the “Ordinary World” upside down, and the Hero understands their goal.
It is not foregone, however, that they immediately decide to follow their Journey.
Why should the Hero put their life in danger or risk leaving what they have, what they know well, for something unknown?
This step is called “Refusal of the Call”. It involves a triggering, dramatic event: the death of a loved one, for example, or the impossibility of the Hero to return to their previous life.
The protagonist lives the situation of the classic straw that breaks the camel’s back and can now decide to venture into the narrative by finding their own personal motivations.
This is the main difference between the “Call to Adventure” and the “Refusal of the Call”: in the first, their social world has been subverted, and the motivation to undertake the Journey is external, while in the second phase, the Hero finds an internal and personal motivation.
The Hero’s Journey in films and books
Many narratives, be they books or films, take the same path.
Let us take the movie “Star Wars” as an example. George Lucas, the director, admits that the script largely follows Campbell’s Hero’s Journey.
Think about how the narration of the film begins. Luke Skywalker is a young man who lives in Tatooine, a desert planet of the Outer Rim. He works with his uncles in the fields. Even though he wishes to enroll in the academy, his uncle Owen does everything to keep him out. Here is his “Ordinary World”.
When the two droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO arrive, Luke’s world is turned upside down. This is the time for the “Call to Adventure”. But Luke initially refuses to get involved, simply trying to retrieve his uncle’s droids and return home, restoring the “Ordinary World”.
The triggering event is the murder of his uncles, so the Hero’s Journey begins.
How does the Journey continue?
The first three phases belong almost exclusively to the Hero and his world.
These are moments when the public begins to understand who the Hero is, their characteristics, and in which world they live.
In the following stages, however, our Hero will meet other characters who will accompany him on his Journey.
We will talk about these and the other characters in the following articles.
Conclusion
The Hero is not an infallible character; they are much more human than the term suggests.
Thanks to their flaws, indecisions, and values, the Hero manages to create a particular bond with their audience to the point of thrill and move them to follow the events of the Journey.
The beauty of this character is the evolution that characterizes the life of each of us.
Think about it, what moment of your life was your “Call to Adventure”?
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