All right, the post is finally up! This is the first time I’ve tried to keep a blog, and boy, have I learned a few things over the past few weeks.
First, when the post starts running long, don’t just try to power through. I’d meant to just breeze past the sections in part 2 of the Hero with a Thousand Faces that I didn’t find valuable, which probably would have left this post at about half its final length. But as I was writing the post I began to feel slightly dishonest for not giving each section a fair shake, and started to wonder if I was doing a disservice to fellow writers who may find a given part more useful than I did.
When I decided to include at least a brief explanation of all the sections the post’s length began to balloon out of control. So, lesson learned: if the post needs to be longer than I initially thought, break it into more manageable sections instead of trying to get it all done in one fell swoop.
Second: try to write the post contemporaneously with reading the book, or at least shortly thereafter. I finished The Hero with a Thousand Faces a few weeks ago and as the days went by my interest naturally shifted to other things. Waiting too long to write about the book saps the emotional energy of my first readthrough and forces me to spend time rereading.
Third and finally, treat the classics with a tad more respect. I assumed that I’d be able to blow through The Hero with a Thousand Faces in a few weeks, or maybe at most a month. Instead it’s taken nearly three months and I’m still not entirely finished. While I don’t regret starting with The Hero with a Thousand faces (given that I’m studying the hero’s journey I don’t think I really had a choice) it would have been wise to assume there was some fire beneath the smoke of prestige and I would need to contend with the book seriously.
So with all that said, what are we looking at in this post?
This post covers the entirety of part 2 of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I go chapter by chapter, give a brief description of what they’re about, and pull out the most useful elements for you to consider.
By far the most valuable chapter in part 2 is Chapter 3: Transformations of the Hero, so most of this post will focus on that. (If you just want the information that is useful for writers, feel free to skip to the section on Chapter 3).
Let’s get started with:
Chapter 1: Emanations
Campbell starts this chapter by discussing how he believes myth relates to psychology and metaphysics. This directly relates to a lot of my critiques of Campbell’s work, so I’m going to save it for the next post.
He then moves on to creation myths, and says that this type of mythology follows a cycle of ascension and diminution. Just like day/night and the idea of birth/death/rebirth, the world is created, ends, and is created again.
When it’s time for the universe to be created (or re-created), Campbell lays out the basic form of:
The universe is created out of the void
v
Within the universe, life appears
v
The universe is broken into different pieces.
The third, breaking into pieces stage of a creation myth usually involves some kind of fall, or at least general worsening of the world. Before this event everything was perfect and unified – but then something happens that splits heaven and earth, male and female, and so on. Often the divisive event is necessary or ends with a net positive, but it still carries at least a tinge of destruction.
For writing, if a story needs a lot of worldbuilding (and especially if it involves religion) this creation myth outline is probably worth keeping in mind. If your story doesn’t, it’s safe to skip over this chapter.
Chapter 2: The Virgin Birth
Campbell really outdid himself here, and this chapter may be the most abstruse in the entire book. As best I can tell it’s discussing the creation of humanity, but I couldn’t find any hard rules for what distinguished it from Emanations.
At first I thought that the creation and maturation of humanity would mark the boundary, yet in some of Campbell’s examples humanity was clearly created in the early parts of Emanations. Conversely, given that there’s an entire section in the Emanations chapter titled ‘Within Space – Life,’ it would stand to reason that life should already be established by the time of the Virgin Birth. But in one of the longest myths Campbell recounts the work of spreading plants, animals, and other life throughout the world is completed concurrently with this event.
This suggests to me that either I’m too ignorant to understand what Campbell was going for, or that the pattern he wanted to establish here wasn’t quite supported by the mythology so he decided to fudge his definitions a little. I’ll leave it up to your judgement.
As best I can tell, the general theme of The Virgin Birth is this: a masculine and feminine force come together to create humanity (and possibly the rest of the world). The masculine force is common but optional, and some societies leave it out in favor of just a creating mother.
After various events – the details vary – these parental figures leave humanity to its own devices. As soon as mom and dad leave town for the weekend humanity predictably descends into greed, stupidity, violence, and worship of the superficial. Eventually, things get so bad that the two creative forces have to come back and set things right.
According to Campbell, the favored form of intervention is the birth of a hero via a virgin mother. The virgin, due to her purity, takes on the role of the feminine creative force. Based on Campbell’s examples, the masculine god seems to show up in person.
Does this pattern hold true in societies that forego a masculine creative force? Who knows – Campbell never addresses it.
My recommendation? Skim this chapter, or better yet read the cliff notes. The outline it presents is potentially useful for setting the stage before the hero arrives, but it’s too vague and self-contradictory to help us develop our writing.
Chapter 3: Transformations of the Hero
Oh yeah, it’s time for some learnin’.
This chapter had, by far, the most valuable information of any part of the Hero with a Thousand Faces. It’s divided into eight sections and we’re going to spend some time looking at all of them. That might sound like a lot, but believe me, it’s worth it.
1) The Primordial Hero and the Human
Campbell lays out an interesting concept here. He says that mythologies tend to start in the utterly fantastic, such as the world being created from an egg. These stories are so obviously absurd that everyone understands they should be understood symbolically.
Then over time the supernatural element cools, moving from the obviously fanciful to the merely extremely unlikely. Examples include the half-man, half-bull Minotaur, or a founding patriarch that single-handedly created the arts of fishing, hunting, and animal husbandry, as well as the social structures of clan and marriage. These figures clearly have some fantastic elements, but are a touch more realistic and could potentially be based on genuine historical figures.
Finally, we enter the world of the everyday, with all the common moral and social failings humanity is cursed with. It’s into this world that the hero is born.
The hero, Campbell argues, is a throwback to the earlier, more glorious ages. He describes it as reconnecting with a primordial consciousness, and while I have no interest in that particular cup of Kool-Aid, I agree with the central proposition that heroes are generally working to restore something of value which has been lost.
To give an example of these three pieces in action, in Star Wars the mystical energy field ‘the Force’ binds the universe together. This is the truly fantastic, the piece of the story which is so unlikely that Han Solo calls it a hokey religion. In the next tier down – the middle ground of the merely unlikely – is the order of supernaturally empowered Jedi Knights. Everyone admits they once existed, but the officers under Grand Moff Tarkin express open contempt for Darth Vader’s ‘sorcerer’s ways.’
Luke Skywalker is born after the Jedi have already been destroyed, in an era of darkness and oppression under the evil empire. His journey is to reconnect with their lost glory and bring the Jedi and the Force back into the modern age.
A return to past prosperity is probably not the only thing that can motivate the hero, but I’m genuinely struggling to think of examples where a hero seeks to enact a new and untested vision of the world. Heroes that want to reclaim their lost gold from The Lonely Mountain seem vastly more common than those who march out and claim a fortune which has never been theirs, and we should design our stories accordingly.
(EDIT: A thoughtful reader by the name of T.G. Ellis provides the obvious counter-example of King Arthur and his quest for a kingdom. I still think that returns to lost glory are the more common breed, but the tale of the good king is a seminal hero’s journey that runs exactly the other way. Clearly we have some room in which to work.)
2) Childhood of the Human Hero
While the hero can be a normal person who rose to the occasion when adventure presented itself, it’s more common for at least a hint of their destiny appear before the call to adventure. This is exemplified in Hagrid’s famous line,
“Did you ever make anything happen? Anything you couldn’t explain – when you were angry, or scared?”
(Yeah, yeah, I used the line from the movie. In this one instance, I think it’s better than what was said in the book.)
These hints of destiny often – though not always – lead to the child hero having some proto adventures before the Call to Adventure is delivered. Wart’s experiences being transformed into different animals by Merlin in The Once and Future King is probably the best example, but the same theme can be found in Harry Potter’s run in with the snake in the zoo.
Despite their strange powers, the hero’s childhood tends to be less than pleasant. Campbell points out two specific ways this can manifest.
First, the hero is exiled from his rightful kingdom. If this happens, part of the hero’s journey will involve a triumphant return to their homeland.
Second, after being exiled, the hero must spend their early life in some sort of menial or degrading position. This might mean living as a servant, squire, abused stepdaughter, or in the cupboard under the stairs.
When the hero’s powers or heritage are finally noticed, it usually causes some sort of crisis that marks the end of the hero’s time in obscurity. This probably involves their call to adventure, and leads to the next step, The Hero as Warrior.
3) The Hero as Warrior
This is my favorite section in all of The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Campbell starts by saying that when the hero sets out on their journey, they’re trying to change things. He’s adamant on this point, and says:
“For the mythological hero is the champion not of things become but of things becoming. The dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo: Holdfast, the keeper of the past. From obscurity the hero emerges, but the enemy is great and conspicuous in the seat of power; he is enemy, dragon, tyrant, because he turns to his own advantage the authority of his position. He is Holdfast not because he keeps the past but because he keeps.” (Campbell, 337)
The above quote also draws attention to two key elements of the hero’s quest. First, the hero usually starts out unknown and rises to glory, whereas the villain is already in a position of authority. Second, the villain is a villain precisely because they are abusing their position for selfish ends. (The hero will have to contend with this temptation later on, during ‘The Hero as Emperor and Tyrant.’)
When the time comes for the hero to defeat the villain, Campbell says,
“The tyrant is proud, and therein resides his doom. He is proud because he thinks his strength is his own; thus he is in the clown role, as a mistaker of shadow for substance; it is his destiny to be tricked. The mythological hero, reappearing from the darkness that is the source of the shapes of the day, brings a knowledge of the secret of the tyrant’s doom. With a gesture as simple as the pressing of a button, he annihilates the impressive configuration.” (Campbell, 337)
The last line in resonated with me due to the prevalence of self-destruct sequences, collapsing castles, and other mechanisms that, after a relatively simple activation, completely dismantle the villain’s power base.
I’ve also noticed that villains are almost never defeated through superior skill, power, or even will. I can’t think of a book or film where the hero simply powered up to the point where they could overcome the villain in an honest fight. I suspect that this is at least partly due to the audience’s preference for underdogs, but Campbell’s point is also well taken – it’s a rare villain whose arrogance and trust in his own power does not directly cause their downfall.
When the villain’s weak point is found, defeat is instant and crushing. Examples include Luke Skywalker shooting a thermal exhaust port (which gets bonus points, because Grand Moff Tarkin expressly refuses to evacuate in his moment of triumph), as well as Iron Man defeating the Ironmonger by luring him into an overloading arc reactor, and Harry Potter securing the Philosopher’s Stone from right under Voldemort’s nose. This doesn’t mean that beating the villain is easy, just that when the hero finally succeeds it’s usually over in a flash.
4) The Hero as Lover
With the villain gone, the hero can set about righting the world. I feel like this is a pretty brief section in modern stories, lasting just long enough to give the reader the feeling that everything’s going to be alright. Once we know that the hero is going to correct all the villain’s wrongs we don’t need to waste time in the nitty-gritty of rebuilding cities, restoring an economy, and so on.
Campbell says that in mythology this righting of the world is usually symbolized by the rescue of a maiden. I can already hear gagging from many readers, but before we lampoon Campbell too harshly I think it’s worth pointing out that from a purely analytical standpoint Campbell is probably correct. If we took all the great myths from around the world and counted 1) how many involve a male hero, and 2) how many of these male heroes end up rescuing a woman, I think we’d find it to be an incredibly common and durable trope. Even Harry Potter rescues his eventual love interest from the Chamber of Secrets. All this does not mean that the trope is immune to criticism or we shouldn’t subvert it, just that trying to pretend it doesn’t exist is factually dubious.
Per Campbell the woman who’s rescued is the hero’s other half, complementing both his strengths and weaknesses. Through their union, a new world is born. Even if the hero has already defeated the villain they may have to go through some further trials to to rescue the maiden, and until he does the world will remain unhealed.
Campbell notes that there’s even a sub-type of story centered entirely around the hero being thwarted from reaching his true love by overly controlling parents. In these stories, the hero’s journey is the tale of the hero overcoming a series of impossible tasks issued by the maiden’s parents and eventually winning the hand of his one true love.
5) The Hero as Emperor and Tyrant
It may seem like most modern stories end before reaching this stage, but we’re living in the middle of a major exception: The Avengers.
At first glance the Avengers films seem to challenge Campbell’s notion that a defining element of the hero’s journey is destroying a corrupt status quo. The majority of the Avengers’ storylines have these roles inverted, with the superheroes acting as agents of the status quo trying to stop a renegade villain.
More generally, I’ve heard it commented that superheroes are often reactive and tend to spend their time protecting something like Metropolis or Gotham rather than enacting a plan for making the world a better place. Does this mean that superheroes are a different type of hero than the one that sets out on a hero’s journey?
Campbell would say no – they’re just a bit further along. After defeating the villain and repairing the damage their evil has wrought, the hero becomes the protector and sometimes ruler of the new world. Campbell describes this as becoming a representative of the divine will and medium between the earth and heavens. I don’t think this spiritual framing is necessary, but if we substitute virtue for divinity the model works just as well.
So how well do the Avengers follow the model? Well, each of the major heroes that make up the team (sorry Hawkeye and Black Widow) started with a solo film where they went through extremely traditional hero’s journeys. These earlier films moved the characters through the four steps I’ve just outlined. When it was time for a true Avengers film that involved the whole team, the heroes were already established as Emperors protecting a revivified world.
So while it would probably be unwise to start a novel here, the Hero as Emperor and Tyrant is an excellent guide if one of our stories extends into sequels or a series. I’ve found many storylines – particularly in anime and manga – that become very samey due to repeated resets of the hero’s position. Every time the hero defeats the big bad an even more powerful villain appears who sends the hero back to the position of questing adventurer. If this is repeated too many times the audience will lose interest, so we should remember that after completing a full adventure we can shift our emphasis from the hero building a new world to protecting a good one.
One final point on The Hero as Emperor and Tyrant – Campbell says that after assuming power the hero may fail to remain pure and thereby become a tyrant rather than protector. If this happens the gaudy, earthly empire they’ve built will inevitably come crashing down around them. I see two main ways for us to apply this to storytelling.
The first is to incorporate it into worldbuilding and set up our villain as a fallen hero. Darth Vader is the quintessential example, who through his arrogance and anger destroyed everything he’d meant to protect.
The second is to use it as a means to prod a complacent hero. After achieving victory the hero may become slothful, consumed by vices or even corrupt, and when their world falls apart they’re forced to return to the virtues that originally allowed them to achieve success.
6) The Hero as World Redeemer
In the Hero as World Redeemer, the hero has gone beyond serving as a representative of the divine and is now one with the divine will. Anyone who has even the faintest familiarity with Christianity will recognize this immediately: through death and rebirth, Jesus moves from being the son of God – the earthly representative of the divine – to becoming god himself.
This event is the end of a story. Campbell says there are two other events that can take place after this one, but they’re more like variants on a theme than continuations of a narrative. In fact, most stories will end well before this event (probably at step 4 or 5), and while Campbell would argue this simply means those stories didn’t go through the full hero’s journey, I think it’s entirely appropriate for a hero’s journey to end before they become a Christ allegory.
If we choose to apply this event in our stories, it’s worth noting that it doesn’t necessarily have to involve the religious or supernatural. To give a purely secular example, a hero who found themselves in conflict with a mentor may come to understand what the mentor was trying to achieve and take up the mentor’s mantle after they die. The symbolism of the hero sublimating their own desires for the good of the world is the key element of this event, and any supernatural elements are – while flashy and fun – not required.
7) The Hero as Saint
If for some reason the hero’s earthly body remains after the Hero as World Redeemer event, they may continue living as a hermit or the titular saint. Campbell says the Hero as Saint involves the hero’s ego being completely dissolved, leaving them at one with the universe. Their body may still be around, but ‘Dave’s not here man,’ and their previous personality ceases to be relevant.
This strikes me as Hero as World Redeemer on steroids, and the only way I can see to incorporate it into a story is to have other characters meet the saint. I suspect that almost anything told from the saint’s point of view would be too alien or just flat-out boring to hold an audience.
8) Departure of the Hero
All good things must come to an end, and every hero must eventually die. Campbell says that to be a hero, death must hold no terror for the character and the hero will go willingly into the long night. It’s worth pointing out that he seemed to envision the hero’s death as coming after the ego-destruction of the Hero as World Redeemer and the Hero as Saint, so if the hero meets their demise before ascending to a higher state of being they may feel a bit less sanguine about the whole thing.
Campbell’s most interesting point here was how often the hero doesn’t actually die. Many, like King Arthur, instead retreat from the world to rest, recover from wounds or simply sleep, and vow to return in their people’s hour of greatest need. I like this trope a lot and will keep it in mind as a potential way of wrapping up the story of an especially popular protagonist. The hint that they could return, even if there are no plans for future books, is tantalizing for the reader and paradoxically a bit more memorable than a final end.
Chapter 4: Dissolutions
1) End of the Microcosm
This section is all about death and the afterlife. To make Campbell’s long, long stories short, the transition to the afterlife is often filled with peril and the hero must go through yet another journey to reach their ultimate end.
The myths Campbell recounted here were vibrant and strange, so I marked it as a potential reference should I ever write a story that involves the transition to the afterlife. My personal favorite is the ancient Egyptian tale of how a dead soul takes on the body parts of different gods during their journey. Their eyes become the eyes of Hathor, their ears the ears of Apaut, their nose the nose of Khenti-khas, and so on. Once their whole body has been transformed, Campbell says,
“ . . . the soul comes into the fullness of stature and power through assimilating the deities that had been thought to be separate from and outside of it. They are projections of its own being; and as it returns to its true state they all are reassumed.” (Campbell 371)
But while the myths of entering the afterlife are colorful, their structure is still that of the hero’s journey. My recommendation is to just read this section for the stories.
2) End of the Macrocosm
Now it’s time for the grand finale, the end of the world. Like the End of the Microcosm this section is brief – really just a retelling of a few grand apocalyptic myths. Campbell doesn’t do much investigation or mention any commonalities in the stories about how the world will end. If you’d like some inspiration feel free to check out this section, but if we want to tell a story about the end of the world (which sounds like an awful lot of fun, come to think of it), we’ll have to examine the mythologies ourselves and see if there are any norms armageddon adheres to.
Whew, that was longer than I’d intended. Apologies again for taking such a long time to get this post up, but at least I can say I learned a lot from it. After the End of the Macrocosm Campbell gives us an epilogue where he talks about myth and the role he sees for it in in society, but I’m going to save that for the next post where I’ll discuss the flaws in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
At long last, there’s just two posts left on Campbell. The next one will be the aforementioned critique, after which I’m going to put everything of value from the book together in a TL;DR for easy future reference. Thank you for reading.
