“Quests? Suck. Trust me. They’re all dead
ends.”
“It’s hard letting go of a story, a mission.”
“That [life’s mission] was your story…. I got one of those, too… but those
stories that we tell to keep us going? Man, sometimes they blind us. They take us to dark places.”Most people know Joseph Campbell’s “Hero With a
Thousand Faces,” which uses a blend of mythology and psychology to
describe a supposed “archetypal” male heroic quest story. Historically/culturally
accurate or not, the stages of the Hero’s Journey have become very well-known
and very influential for writers—Eric Kripke included, btw.The Heroine’s Journey, written by
Campbell’s student Maureen Murdock, is a similar thing, except that instead of focusing
on the archetypal hero, it focuses on the archetypal heroine. (Not everyone who goes on a heroine’s journey is a woman,
though; nor does the heroine’s journey necessarily apply to all women. Looking at it from a writing perspective, it’s just
another way of structuring a plot/character arc… one that’s a little
different from the usual fare.)We’re smack in the middle of a heroine’s journey
right now. And that is really, really
interesting.Because at its most
basic, the heroine’s journey is about turning away from the expected path (i.e.
the heroic quest, the road of trials, Campbell’s hero’s journey) because the
expected path is harmful—physically, spiritually, and emotionally. It’s about
going your own way and achieving autonomy. It’s about accepting
the entirety of yourself—particularly
the aspects that have been repressed or rejected. It’s
about using that newfound sense of self-acceptance to affect the entire world.
And it’s about arriving at a balancing of opposites and becoming whole. All
the emphasis on duality and the merging of opposites in s10 and s11 so far? That’s
the heroine’s journey all over.This is the best online summary I’ve been
able to find. I recommend Murdock’s book, too, if you can find it—it’s
interesting and goes into much more detail. It’s a little dated, maybe… But
so’s Campbell, really, if you actually read his book–so much more Freudian than I’d
expected :p Still a solid story structure.The hero and heroine’s journeys begin similarly,
with a heroic quest, but they diverge after that: once the heroine has achieved
the goal of their quest, they realize that their attempt to fulfill the hero’s journey has left them missing
something or feeling like an incomplete person, maybe falling ill—and they realize that they
need to go on a further journey in order to become whole. Once the heroine has
achieved balance, they can finally live freely.
All three members of Team Free Will started
their main Carver-era story arcs by trying their very, very hardest to break
themselves permanently in two.
Reblogging this now, after the latest episode (Don’t Call Me Shurley).
Through visual motifs, Amara has been brought into parallel with Mary Winchester and themes of sacrifice. It would certain fulfill the imperative that the river shall end at its source” that Chuck and Amara were once one and the same, and that the only way out of this current situation is a sacrifice that leads to their reunion.
God divided himself in half because His “darkness,” His aspect of nothingness, was destroying His every creation. His failure to make peace with that part of Himself reverberates through the ages via Lucifer’s rebellion and his subsequent corruption of humanity. Lucifer was tasked with carrying the burden of the key – the seed of betrayal and discontent. And it was Lucifer who corrupted Lillith and Cain, and who tempted Gadreel from his role as guardian. Per Chuck, Lucifer was not the villain. Instead, Lucifer himself was corrupted by God’s initial betrayal. Lucifer was God’s first failure and because He didn’t embrace Himself as a whole, He, too, rejects the darkness in humanity.
Hearseeno 