Only a Story, Really?

Story has been with us since long. Even though there are no track record when the story first emerged, some people speculated that story has history older than the cave painting. We grow and live hearing a story, yet one question remains. Why we’re not bored with it? Why we always crave from story even though we’re already at modern civilization?

This question always bugs me. Until I heard about the concept of hero’s journey which first coined by Campbell from his book The Hero with thousand faces. He inspected the similarity of all stories around the world.  Campbell said that all of them have the same pattern of story’s deliverence, which is now famous as Hero’s journey. I don’t want to make a detailed explanation about the Hero’s journey (you can find a lot about it through out the internet, google is your friend) but rather, I want to talk about an aspect that still related to the Hero’s Journey, but somehow doesn’t get enough attention as it should be. It is the archetype. Even though both archetype and stereotype has a connection to character creation, each has different impact. While stereotype gives us a boring re-occurance type of character (yet it still sells), archetype gives us more deep of characterization. While stereotype focus on personality that look at the outside, archetype focus on personality which, well, personal. Archetype tells about our basic personality that is not restricted by race, culture, generation, and religion. It is something that resides in our most deep and untouched mind, which unknown to us it shape our personality.

The term of archetype itself is surfaced by the famous psychology, Carl Jung. Carl Jung stated the archetype as a collective unconcious, an universal thought form or mental images that influenced an individual’s feeling and action (Jung, 1953). Further, Joseph Campbell added that archetype is an expressions of the organ of the body, built into the wiring of every human being.  Even though there are limitless number of archetypes, but there are several which always occur in every story. Cristopher Vogler said there are eight most important archetypes in a story. They are Hero, Herald, Mentor, Threshold Guardian, Shapeshifter, Shadow, Ally, and Trickster (Vogler, 2007).

Back to our question, why people still enjoying a story? There are so many people that watch a movie more than one time, although they already remember all the plots in the movie. It becomes their special one, something important, something that they turn to when they are in a difficult situations, something that represents themselves. I believe the reason behind this lies in the archetype. Archetype isn’t only a guideline to create an interesting character, but archetype is the character itself, something  which the audience looks up at the story, pierces through the actor’s skin, as if they searching their soul in that character. Although each archetype is usually represented with a different character, each of these is in fact a part of human’s mind. Here I will explain each of the eight archetypes  and which part of our mind that it represents.

1.     Hero

Everytime I opened my eyes, I see many happiness and sadness. Even I never understand what are they, I kept trying to wear these façade, stuck in whirlpool called Everyday. Only when I shut these eyes, only when I was alone asking who am I, only in that cold darkness, strangely I felt alive. I’m not the Happiness, I’m not the Sadness. I’m a being more than that. I am the Self.

In a story, hero works as the window of the audience. Through him, audiences can feel as if they part of the story. This can be happens because people like to direct their conscious mind into something that interest them whether it is a storybook, movie, games, or maybe just a facebook status. If it goes for a long period, it will shape an emotion, which in turn become an empathy. 

Hero is the most important part of hero’s journey. If hero’s journey represents a plot of the story, then the hero represents each step of hero’s journey. A story may has not one of the step in hero’s journey, but a hero will always appears in every step. Hero is the physical representative of journey in a story, a journey which will change him at the end. That’s why growth is the most fundamental element of a hero. Aware or not, this is exactly what the audience really want. They want the main character (thus the hero) change throughout the story.

In psychology, the hero symbolizes our self, the concious and unconcious mind. Our desire to see the hero change shows that in the very nature, we always want to growth to become better. However, every change and progress has consequences, which in turn creates fear and doubt. To minimalize these consequences, we create custom, daily life, to supress the consequences as possible it can. However, it also hindrances our self to undergo a journey to change. To escape that unfullfiled desire, people like to project theirselves into the hero and cheer for his struggles which ironically, that hero is one and the same their very self.    

2.     Herald

Sadly, it has been too late. The grip of Everyday has became too strong for me to fight. Every struggle lost its power, every shout lost its voice, every tears lost its sympathy. When the word give up already at the tip of my tongue, suddenly I saw a hand reaching to me. Its fingers encircled my body and pulled me from the snare of Everyday. The process was too painful to bear, it twisted my mind and body. But at the end, being too long without an opposition, the tyranny of Everyday lost, and I got my prize, the freedom to choose.      

Herald works as the initiators of the journey. He gives a news, motivation, or challenge toward the hero so he would start of his adventure. Without him, hero will still lives in his never-changing secluded life, unknown from any exciting things outside his ordinary. Herald could appears as a character in the story, or can be also an ill condition in hero’s hometown.

The function of herald similar as the call within ourselves. Known as inner call, determination, or commitment, it renders a willingness to change, to move from our current condition. Sometimes deep in ourselves, we know what the right things to do, but unfortunately the custom which we hold think it as inappropriates or worse, as a taboo. Stand in the different side of cliff, the value and the custom then create a doubt in ourselves. There are only two ways to escape the doubt, leave behind the value, or gain the inner call. However, gaining the call is not an easy matter. Just as a memory, we know that it exists but we don’t have a complete instruction how to make it appears as we please. Just as the mood, when it appears we cannot control it, we are fully under its influence, for good or ill. One thing for sure though, when the call within ourself has come, our life wouldn’t be ever the same again.     

3.     Mentor

North, south, east, west, only darkness I saw. No matter how hard I squinted my eyes, there was nothing.  I grumbled, what is the point of getting a freedom to choose if there is nothing to choose to.  And then, at the corner I never though before, at the intersection among the southern of south, the northern of north, the eastern of east, and the western of west, glinted a white light. Faint yet warm, it caught my interest. One step, two steps, just like a pirate hearing a siren’s song, I drawn to the light. Acknowledging me, The light which flicked slow at first, began to flicked faster as if it wanted to say, “follow me, and you’ll find the truth”.  

Known as the wise old man/woman in the Hero with a Thousand Faces, mentor appears in the story as a character who gives guidance to the hero. He teaches the hero all the things that would help his journey. Also, sometimes he gives a magic amulet which will help the hero overcome an obstacle along his way. He is the figure which hero admires, a figure which he would like to be. When the hero has the mentor at his side, he feels secure.

In psychology, mentor works as the ideal. A condition, value, or personality which we thinks as the right. It affects our way of thinking, which then shape our action, and in turn our reasoning. The ideal doesn’t need to be something that accepted by the others, and it mustn’t. This is Because when we use it just because it’s what most people use than it would loss its power. It  become only just a mask, that we wear to please the others, to gain their respect, to become generic not unique. Just like the mentor, who always seen as a crazy person by the community, yet when a hero accept him, he would shower the hero with a surprising and majestic gift, the ideal only needs our approval to be fully worked.

Often comes from the same character who also play as the herald (for instance Ben Kenobi, Gandalf) shows that the call tends  to come together with the ideal. The ideal shows the self a value that entice him, which when piled up can trigger a call to shape the ideal, known as the call. However, having the ideal doesn’t assure the emergence of the call (when it happens the ideal will diminish into a knowledge) yet the other way works. When someone has the call, he must also gain the ideal.

4.     Threshold Guardian

Have found the direction, I walk full of confidence. However suddenly, my feet felt so heavy. Weird, I’m sure i didn’t bring anything from my hometown. Feeling confuse, I looked down to my feet. How shocked I was, found my feet already tangled with thorns. I shook my feet with hope it could free me. Yet it was futile, the process only hurt myself more. Panicked, I raised my head to search for help. As if it not enough to burden me, the horizon which previously stood before me, now replaced with a towering, sturdy black brick wall. Cannot escape, I started to asking myself. Can I still reach the light? What if the light already gone? Am I really ready to do this journey? Is my decision to follow the light correct? Why I do this?

Before the hero escape from his ordinary life, he needs to confront the threshold guardian. Based on the Hero’s journey, the function of the threshold guardian is as the test of hero’s resolution. To test whether he is really ready to go on a journey, to leave behind his old self. Even though standing before the hero yielding a menacing appearance, threshold guardian shouldn’t be treated as an enemy. Some stories shows that the hero managed to pass the threshold guardian not by using physical confrontation, but by assimilating the threshold guardian into him. Moreover, by doing so, he able to turn the threshold guardian to be an ally. For example, in Hobbit, even though Bilbo Baggins has agreed to join the journey with the band of dwarves, Thorin, the leader of the band, still cannot accepted him. However, by showing his usefulness, and his determinations to help the dwarven, he succeed  to gain the trust from Thorin.

Focusing on the threshold guardian’s purpose, there are something inside our mind that have similar function, namely doubt and fear. They reside in every option that we must choose. Even though more than often thought as something that give misery, their very nature isn’t to cause harm, yet the opposite, they are helping us so we don’t make a premature decision. They are seatbelt to our mind, annoying yet necessary. Just like the threshold guardian, if we try to understand them by looking what caused them to appear, what consequences that they give, rather than halt our progress they will shape our earlier choice to be a better one.

5.     The Shadow

Looking behind, I saw a lurking figure hiding in the midst of darkness. Even though he tried to conceal his presence, his foul smell, ugly face, sharp teeth, and his swirling dark pitch of darkness, darker than starless night sky, cannot pass from my sight. Feeling disgusted, I clenched my fist, readied my body, so he cannot overtake my soul.

In stories, shadow represents the opposite side of the hero. He is the dark of light, the chaos of order, the black of white. But one thing to note, he is anything but bad. The shadow is just the hero with his own value. He is not the yin or yang, but he could become yin if the hero is yang, and yang if the hero is yin. He succeed when the hero failed, and failed when the hero succeed.

Christopher Vogler said that the shadow works as psychoses in our mind. It’s our buried feeling that we try to suppress. Located at the very opposite side of the ideal, It’s known as the flaw. If doubt and fear still give us the second chance, the flaw doesn’t. When you fall into it, that is the end.

Just like the shadow who is the opposite of hero, flaw is only a part of ourselves that we regard as bad. However, without it, we won’t undergo a change. If the ideal works by pulling us to it, the flaw works by pushing us from it.

From what I have been said until now, it seems that our mind’s journey is about the battle of light and darkness. But in reality, it’s more than that. As the stories who have a twist near at the very end, our journey also has a twist that will lead us into a catharsis. However, not every journey of mind reaches at this point. It’s a state which very delicate and hard to grasp. No one ever know how to get to there precisely. However, if the archetype is really indicating the mirror of our mind, then I believe the key to unlock that state lies in the next three archetypes which I will describe next.

6.     Shapeshifter

To reach my destination, I need to walk over a long road. But i was not worried, because I believe my feet will bring me to it. However, how angry I was, knowing that my feet betrayed me. Every time it moved, it created more and more distance to my light. Cannot trust my feet anymore, I cut it off. From now on, I’ll leave the rest of the journey to my hands. But again, how angry I was, knowing my hands betrayed me just like my feet did. Full of agony, I stabbed my hands. Now I knighted my head to continue the journey. Silly of me, to trust the head, the place where the liar mouth dormant. It too, misled me. “Dead to you, o servant of devil”  I crushed my head. Finally, being lost all means to move, I cried. 

Vampire, werewolf, tanuki, they are some example of shapeshifter that has re-occur many times throughout stories. Shapeshifter famously known as the character who lives in two different world. Shapeshifter archetype is not only shown by change in physic but also in mind. A character who suddenly changes in personality, or an ally who shifts to become an enemy is believed as more dangerous than one who transforms only in physic. When he appears, he will absolutely disrupt the flow of journey, add a tension to what already has. Even so, Shapeshifter has several very important functions. To the structure of story, he is useful to give a shock and a surprise when the story gives a sign of turning to cliche or when the audience started to predict the future of the story. That is why, writer usually shows shapeshifter true nature at the middle of journey when an assumption toward shapeshifter has been completely made. Meanwhile, to the hero, he gives a valuable lesson which makes the hero won’t let his guard down as long the story not yet ended.

In our mind, there exists something that has the same behavior with shapeshifter. It’s always trying to get our trust, but when finally got what it wants, it completely betrayed us. It is no other than the expectation. Expectation grows with our curiosity about something which unknown or mysterious to us, ranged from the future to someone feelings. Expectation is our way to fulfill the desire to control things around us. Consciously or unconsciously, when we try to know better about the object of mystery,  we tend to project our expectation to it. “I think it’s good, I think it’s dangerous, I think she loves me”, are some of various expectation that we often created.  Just like an addicted, when we finish projected one expectation, we will feel curious whether our expectation meet or not. This will expose us to a certain fact, which in turn intrigue us to make another expectation. The cycle will continue on and on until before we know it, we already attached to the object. From this point on, continuing our curiosity could be dangerous. Because when we faced with undesired fact (different then our expectation) it would renders us petrified. It will creates a doubt, first with the object and later to ourselves.  A similar condition that the hero faced with the shapeshifter that shift to threshold guardian. The doubt or the threshold guardian will show us a harsh truth, which is actually we don’t really know about the object, that our expectation up to now is wrong, that our expectation true nature is a shapeshifter.

Shapeshifter (the representation of expectation) and threshold guardian (the representation of doubt) are always strengthen each other. They create a sand pit trying to trap the hero (the representation of self), render the hero to two options. Surrenders and eaten by the antlion, or escapes by defeating either shapeshifter or threshold guardian.

7.     Ally

Until now, every oppression i met, i cleared it with my own strength. Till I stopped, faced with a giant gap before me. It was so vast that i cannot saw the edge of it. It was so deep that i cannot saw the bottom of it. Trembled, I started to look around like a lamb lost his herd. Then I saw someone come to my direction. He looks a lot like me, except above his nose, instead of eyes, he got a silver wing grows from each of his eye socket. Through our conversation, he agreed to carry me passing the gap in exchange I show him the path to the light.

Throughout his journey, the hero will meet many people. Some, being attracted by the hero’s qualities , decide to follow him on his journey. However, the heavy road that the hero walks on, made many of them shivered, and forfeited their earlier intention. Only a certain person who keeps his will, gained the trust from the hero as his ally(allies). An ally in the story is the person who has a same cause as the hero. However, different than follower who walks behind the hero, an ally walks directly beside him. He helps the hero when the hero meet a tough obstacle. His uniqueness which the hero lacks, make the hero can depend on him. By so creating mutual dependence between them. While the hero leads his ally through the journey, the ally supports the hero at nearby. An ally doesn’t must have to be a human. Some story brought an ally in the shape different from the hero. Momotaro, a famous folktale from Japan, introduced a dog, bird and monkey as allies for Momotaro. The way an ally helps the hero is not only by physical means. Aware or not, the ally also helps the hero in psychic matter. He often makes the journey to be more enjoyable, cheers up the hero when he feels down, and at the very least he shows that the hero is not alone in his journey.

Inside our mind, ally represents the relief. Relief provide the other values or means that are not directly related to our ideal yet still accepted. Being as an alternatives, it normally dormant, only awaken when we are faced with a doubt. It helps us by giving another perspective without sacrificing our ideal.

There are two reasons why our mind creates a relief. Firstly, relief is our way to justify our cause. By creating relief, when there is a doubt about our ideal or our value, relief will act as a proof that we’re on the right path. Secondly, because human is a social being. From the time of Adam and Eve, we cannot separated with the other person. Even for the most introvert people, they still needs the company of other person. It still mysterious whether our needs for others come as the result of our interaction or the cause of interaction itself. Whatever it is, it already resides in the most deeper of ourselves. This needs also come in our mind. Doesn’t want being left alone, our mind is always trying to search (and sometimes creates) another value that can accompany its own value. When our mind got this other value, it shaped into a relief. Which then everytime we interact with other person, our mind will compare his value with our relief. If they similar, we started to see the other person as likable, as friend. 

Ally (the representation of the relief) is the one who will help the hero (the representation of the self) to pass the threshold guardian (the representation of the doubt). As long as the hero wants to believe an ally, he will always dash to join the hero’s struggle. 

8.     Trickster         

Able to fly, now i believe I can reach the light faster. Or better, maybe I can even surpass the light. My thought was full of arrogance when a flock of birds came across me. They fly so elegant, every flap of their wings made a wonderful sounds, just like a harp being played by the most skillful musician. Wondered where they were going, I followed them. However, when I was at their very center, they stopped to move their wings and replaced their earlier coordinated flight with a random fast glide, trying to crush each other! Everytime they crushed they produced an eerie shriek, just like a banshee’s. I was scared, it was so chaos. I closed my eyes and put my hands covering my ears, hoping it was just a dream. The time I opened my eyes, to my surprise, Instead surrounded by a pack of birds, I was surrounded by thunderous clouds! Terrified, I can’t move until one of the thunder struck me, and forced me to fall, fall, and continue to fall, into the deepest abyss of earth.

Comical, funny, yet full of deceit are traits of the trickster. The famous example of the trickster are clown and jester. Often being regarded as a mad man, he is actually a high skilled strategist who can turn the flow of every situation. He is the type of character who like to make the enemy unguarded before stabs him to death, just like Loki, the Norse god who caused a lot of problem to other gods. The thing that trickster hate so much are stagnancy and seriousness. If he meet those two, he will use all his wits to bring them down. No one can control the trickster. He is the master of his ownself. However, when the hero able to befriend with the trickster, he will be one of the most useful company the hero has ever got. By providing laughter, the trickster could relieve the hero’s tense, making the hero can solve the problem with a clear mind. Even though he often made changes to the hero (or the other character), he himself usually remains the same throughout the story.  

Trickster symbolizes something very important in our mind. Something that we usually thought as a burden, yet actually a very valuable one. It is the reality. Even though we sometimes try to suppress the reality, just as trickster who no one able to control, the reality will always come up. Actually, it would be better if we don’t try to suppress the reality so much, because it turns out has a powerful function. When we are too obsessed with something, throwing all of our expectations to it, reality will comes out and confronts all our expectations. Not by using magical yet unproven methods, but by chaining all the simple facts, it succeed in making us take a several step back, analyzing everything that we have done. Only by doing so, we will be able to get a better understanding of it. In the end, It’s not rare we laugh with ourselves when we realize how dumb our expectations is. Just like the never changing trickster, we would never able to shape the reality. When we felt like we just changed our fate, beware, cause maybe it was only the trick that reality played on us, while it chuckled from afar.

Although sometimes annoying, but by using his smartness, the trickster (the representation of the reality) able to help the hero (the representation of the self) reveals the shapeshifter’s (the representation of the expectation) true face.

As the sun which is the center of our galaxy,  the hero through his journey also become the center which is surrounded by the other archetypes. Based on that, we can further grouped archetypes by its function into three.

1.     The Avatar

Cannot be argued more, the hero plays as the Avatar of ourselves. He is the shape which we put on when we started the journey, the bringer of questions which we hoped to be answered at the end of the journey.

2.     The Guide

Consisted of the herald, the mentor, and the shadow, their functions is to drive us to the path of journey. While the herald calls us, the mentor pulls us and the shadow pushes us. Even though often depicted as the right and wrong or as the final results, actually the mentor and the shadow are only stimulants for us to do the journey, no more no less. They could be the results, but by thinking so, it means disrespecting their noble task.

3.     The Catalyst

The rest archetypes, the threshold guardian, the shapeshifter, the ally, and the trickster function as the catalyst. They are the one who help the hero to change. By the cycle of the creation of expectation and doubt, the shapeshifter and threshold guardian rise new questions to the journey which the hero walks on. Questions that the hero will  answer by the help of the ally and trickster. They help the hero to analyze the question from other perspectives which hero never thought before. Doing so, not only lead to freedom from the burden of questions, but also the revelation of the hero true self. The revelation that brought by a new herald, showing us a new journey to walk on.

         

Maybe you wonder, if doing the journey only creates another journey, does our journey has an end? Will it be over? Personally, i don’t know. But I believe, just like the hero Menealus, who never gives up force the information from the sea god Proteus, we also need to keep walking on our journey. After all, what the point of reaching the end, if it means leave us with nothing more interesting to do?

All of eight archetypes, with each part of mind that they represent, showed us not only the adventure of Luke Skywalker or the journey of Bilbo Baggins. More than that, they told us our very own story, which aware or not, already being written. A story where we as the hero is called by the news brought by the herald, driven by the light of the mentor and the darkness of the shadow, confronted by the towering threshold guardian and the confusing shapeshifter, and helped by the trusted ally and the silly trickster. A story which if we survive till the end, if we reach at the last page before our ink dried, maybe, just like the last part of the hero’s journey, we could be the master of two world, the present and the future, and gain the freedom to live.