Annt. Bib. #3

Voglar, Christopher. “The Writer’s Journey”. The Archetypes. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 1998. 49-80.

Summary

This reading covered six more archetypes in a story, the threshold guardian, the herald, the shapeshifter, the shadow, the ally, and the trickster. These archetypes are very popular among many stories, and you rarely see a story without them. Threshold guardians are not the villain in most stories, but usually work with the villain of the story. They are usually guards or minions that help the villain stop the hero. However, sometimes a threshold guardian can be used as an ally for some hero’s, “Threshold Guardians are not to be defeated but incorporated.”

The herald is usually a character that issues challenges and announces the coming of significant change. Heralds provide motivation for the hero and get the story going. It is usually the Herald that is the one that gives the “Call to Adventure” which is what makes a story come about.

The shapeshifter is pretty much what its name describes it. The character in a story that plays the shapeshifter is usually the one that changes their moods, behavior, or view points in a story. Of course, many characters do this, but that is why there is no set archetype for any character, a character can take on more than one archetype.

The shadow of course, is almost as important to a story as the hero. The shadow represents the dark side, or the villain. Everyone has a bit of shadow in him or her, but we learn to suppress it, but of course this is why we need a shadow that is not suppressed so that our hero has a chance to learn something about himself.

The ally and trickster, who can sometimes be the one in the same, ally being a person that wants to truly help the hero, and the trickster being a person that does want to help the hero, but usually only to help themselves. The trickster is a complicated character because they usually are full of mischief and I think are generally good people but tend to cause the most problems in a story.

Reaction

It was interesting to read the other archetypes, and as I went through them, I would think about a lot of my favorite stories and try to place an archetype to each character. I agree with the thought that most stories have the main archetypes that Voglar listed. Also, when I thought about them and how a story might be without that archetype I realized that the story wouldn’t really be the same at all, and that having these main archetypes in stories are very important.

Questions

1. As we know by writing our own hero stories, we can probably put ourselves in any archetype. But if you could pick one you would most relate to, which one would you be and why?
2. Do you think that Voglar is correct about there being eight main archetypes? Do you think there are more important archetypes in a story? Do you think that a story doesn’t always need the archetypes we read about?
3. What kind of characters did you think about while reading through each archetype?