Archetypes
I was reading a friend's journal today, and he commented on being upset that a good character died in a movie he was watching. I was very surprised, because in my mind, the character wouldn't have been nearly as good . . . if he hadn't died. He fit an archetypal role--maybe not as ancient an archetype as the Hero, the Ingenue, or the Fool, but an archetype, nonetheless.
For the sake of convenience, let's call him the Expert. He's the grizzled old veteran who's been there and done that. He knows that the thing he's involved with can kill him. If it weren't deadly, he wouldn't respect it. If he didn't respect it, he wouldn't be fascinated by it. When he's faced with the prospect of his own death, he walks forward into danger, anyway.
He's not the hero; the hero survives. The Expert has to die at the hands of this thing that he understands, this thing that looms so large in his life. Anything less would be, in a way, demeaning to him. He maintains his respect of these forces larger than him right up until the moment that they kill him. If they didn't kill him, he wouldn't be right. His input would carry less weight. Instead, with death, he becomes larger than life to the survivors. The character has died, but his influence lives on in the lives of everyone who interacted with him.
Some examples of the Expert:
Hmm. Looking at my list of examples, the Expert may be a post-modern archetype. I can't think of any examples back before a certain time.
Archetypes are not stereotypes. A stereotype is one particular instance of something that repeats so often it's cliched. When I say that, keep in mind that cliches become cliches because at one point, there was a great deal of truth in them. With the caveat that truth is in the eye of the beholder--stereotyping a particular race, for example, doesn't mean that that stereotype is or was true. It means that somebody looked through a specific set of cultural filters and saw the same thing over and over again, whether that thing was really there or not.
Archetypes are kind of backwards from this. Instead of being done to death, they're the roles you can't do without. The faces and facets may be different from instance to instance, but the role they fill is always the same. So . . . if I give you a list of heroes, I bet it'll make sense to you that they're all heroes, even though they're vastly different:
They all fill the hero's function, but if I did that right, they're pretty vastly different. So much so that it might make more sense of I broke it down like this:
Conquering Hero
Tragic Hero
Anti-Hero
The Fool
They each run a different kind of story. The Fool isn't even properly a heroic category, but sometimes, that character functions in the hero's role. (I think this may also be a relatively recent development). If you let the Tragic Hero live, the whole story becomes vastly different. If the Conquering Hero has typically non-heroic qualities, again, you end up changing the overarching plot.
At a certain level, it becomes a design question. Some stories begin in birth and end in death. Some begin in death and end in birth. Some begin with a question and end with an answer. Some begin with a question and end with the understanding that there is no answer. Not every problem has to be solved.
Archetypal characters are the same way. Some have to come to the rescue. Some have to be in trouble. Some have to cause trouble. And some . . . have to die. To make you care about the story.
For the sake of convenience, let's call him the Expert. He's the grizzled old veteran who's been there and done that. He knows that the thing he's involved with can kill him. If it weren't deadly, he wouldn't respect it. If he didn't respect it, he wouldn't be fascinated by it. When he's faced with the prospect of his own death, he walks forward into danger, anyway.
He's not the hero; the hero survives. The Expert has to die at the hands of this thing that he understands, this thing that looms so large in his life. Anything less would be, in a way, demeaning to him. He maintains his respect of these forces larger than him right up until the moment that they kill him. If they didn't kill him, he wouldn't be right. His input would carry less weight. Instead, with death, he becomes larger than life to the survivors. The character has died, but his influence lives on in the lives of everyone who interacted with him.
Some examples of the Expert:
- Liet-Kynes, in Frank Herbert's Dune
- Robert Muldoon, in Jurrasic Park
- Hayes, in the recent Peter Jackson version of King Kong
- Quint, in Jaws
- Rieux, in Albert Camus's The Plague
Hmm. Looking at my list of examples, the Expert may be a post-modern archetype. I can't think of any examples back before a certain time.
Archetypes are not stereotypes. A stereotype is one particular instance of something that repeats so often it's cliched. When I say that, keep in mind that cliches become cliches because at one point, there was a great deal of truth in them. With the caveat that truth is in the eye of the beholder--stereotyping a particular race, for example, doesn't mean that that stereotype is or was true. It means that somebody looked through a specific set of cultural filters and saw the same thing over and over again, whether that thing was really there or not.
Archetypes are kind of backwards from this. Instead of being done to death, they're the roles you can't do without. The faces and facets may be different from instance to instance, but the role they fill is always the same. So . . . if I give you a list of heroes, I bet it'll make sense to you that they're all heroes, even though they're vastly different:
- Luke Skywalker, from the Star Wars films
- Hamlet, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet
- McMurphy, from Ken Kessy's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Huckleberry Finn, from Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn
- Neo, from The Matrix
- Lew Alton, from Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Heritage of Hastur (a Darkover novel)
- Ender Wiggin, from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game
- Jack Sparrow, from The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
They all fill the hero's function, but if I did that right, they're pretty vastly different. So much so that it might make more sense of I broke it down like this:
Conquering Hero
- Luke Skywalker
- Ender Wiggin
- Harry Potter
- Anita Blake
Tragic Hero
- Neo
- Hamlet
- Winston Smith
Anti-Hero
- McMurphy
- Jack Sparrow
- Yossarian
The Fool
- Lew Alton
- Huckleberry Finn
They each run a different kind of story. The Fool isn't even properly a heroic category, but sometimes, that character functions in the hero's role. (I think this may also be a relatively recent development). If you let the Tragic Hero live, the whole story becomes vastly different. If the Conquering Hero has typically non-heroic qualities, again, you end up changing the overarching plot.
At a certain level, it becomes a design question. Some stories begin in birth and end in death. Some begin in death and end in birth. Some begin with a question and end with an answer. Some begin with a question and end with the understanding that there is no answer. Not every problem has to be solved.
Archetypal characters are the same way. Some have to come to the rescue. Some have to be in trouble. Some have to cause trouble. And some . . . have to die. To make you care about the story.
posted by Journey | 11:00 AM
8 Comments:
I can see the 'Expert' as being a viable archetype to use, but the stereotype that bothers me is that it is 'token black guy'.
This just seems to stand out for me, because in a film where there's one black guy, it has become the cliche that the black guy dies. If they had an 'Expert' who died, but he was male and white, then fine, I'd not have really blinked an eye.
I want to see a string of movies come out with the token black guy, but the black guy comes out smelling like a rose.
What does this have to do with my post? I'll go post my response in your LJ, where it'll be relevant. ;)
Interesting stuff. I think The Fool is typically the first stage in the evolution of the Hero.
--durangodave
Hmm. Interesting idea. What would that make the other stages? Classically, I suppose the larval stage of the hero would be the Mis-treated Child (the Orphan, the Bastard, etc.), but I don't know that that holds anymore, and I don't know if that's the direction you were going with this. And I don't know where to go from there. What were you thinking? I'm curious. :)
Well, Journey. I'm certainly no expert in this arena (I'm not old enough, I don't know enough, and I don't want to die the expert's death just yet... but I am slightly grizzled ;)
Nonetheless, I've seen the fool take the first steps of the hero's journey in a couple different settings. As Parsifal, in the Arthurian legend, where he matures from naive youth to hero of the (inner) realm. Only a fool would willingly step off that ledge, careless of the trials that await. Naivete is required.
Also, I've read about the tarot deck major arcana representing the hero's journey, from fool, through tutelage, trials, despair, triumph, to mastery of life.
Look at young Skywalker, for example. Raw, overconfident, impetuous, even whiny and childish, but open and free. A fool at the beginning of a transformative journey.
I think that anyone with a decent amount of sense would be scared off at the beginning of the hero's path, which is why the fool has the best shot at persevering.
--durangodave
ps. "the expert" resonates, as a sort of self-sacrificing wise-elder figure.
Ah, The Fool from tarot, as opposed to the Shakespearean Fool. I'm willing to buy that. The Shakesperean Fool is the wisest character in the work, so I couldn't quite see where you were coming from.
I agree with needing the naievitee to step off that ledge. It appeals to the Coyote in my nature. ;)
p.s. I could never have guessed. Unless your web page was, oh, twenty years out of date, I'm not willing to buy either grizzled or elder. Perhaps the next time in Durango I'll have to look you up and rag on you about it. *grin*
Oh dear. I didn't mean that I resonate personally with the "expert" archetype, just that it rings true. I'm more of the "reasonably competent" type, ready to help, not to die. And my webpage is pretty accurate, I suppose. I still get asked if I'm a student at the college... yeah, sixteen years ago! Different college, too. Do drop me a note if you're headed this way.
I didn't think of the Shakespearean fool. Is he "playing the fool" or is he the real thing?
--durangodave
Shakespeare's Fool is definitely "playing" the fool. He's generally the character that knows too much. In King Lear, the Fool becomes the King's protector. At one point, he says, "Prithee, Nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach thy fool to lie. I would fain learn to lie."
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