The Hero's Journey
If you've read just about anything I've written since the age of 17 I think it should be fairly apparent to you that I have a problem with Joseph W Campbell and the Hero's Journey.
I guess this is relevant for a number of reasons: Obamania, the widening gap between superhero and non-superhero in the English language comics marketplace, and of course my own work (which I'll get to in a bit).
I was going to write a big discourse about it here, but I really don't think it's necessary. I can sum up my argument in one sentence: Stories are about conflict, but conflicts are rarely amongst heroes.
Let me reel off a list of my favourite books and movies:
THE GODFATHER
AMERICAN PSYCHO
HITMAN (Ennis or Block, take your pick)
THE AMBER CYCLE
PULP FICTION
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
BLOOD MERIDIAN
None of these stories employ the Hero's Journey, or if they do, they try to invert or subvert it.
If you look at my own work, I think the closest you'll get to Campbell's ideal is the anti-hero: a character that only does the heroic because they are forced into it; because they are have been coerced into it, or because they have been offered a reward that seems worth the risk involved. Clarice, the protagonist of BLOODY WATERS, is an anti-hero.
A bad apple who finds a tiny moral core is a hero; a good apple who is able to disregard their morals for some kind of gratification may not be evil, but they are just as much a villain as someone who is (an evil person is one who has no moral values at all). McBlack is a villain. He's a genuinely evil character--a gunslinging psychopath-- cast in the role of a detective hero, and he doesn't like it one bit. That tension is precisly what made the book an interesting project for me, because, frankly, Chandler pastiche bores the shit out of me.
In FAERIE APOCALYPSE, there are four protagonists and each one of them has a journey, but none of those journeys result in anything like a hero. Some of the characters are purely villainous, some of them are just deluded, but none of them acts because they want to do what's right. They are motivated by self interest: a thirst for blood, or power, or vengeance, or idle curiosity, or some combination thereof. You could even look at part of the narrative as being the Villain's Journey
DEUCE is different again. It has its eponymous antagonist, but there's only one heroic deed in it, by the most unlikely of characters. It is most certainly not a film about heroism. The characters grapple with what is happening, but they can barely comprehend it. They try to act, but whatever they do is motivated by self preservation. They'll fight, if they have to, but it's only because they want to live.
You know, like most people in the world who wear their underwear inside their pants.
-- JF
I guess this is relevant for a number of reasons: Obamania, the widening gap between superhero and non-superhero in the English language comics marketplace, and of course my own work (which I'll get to in a bit).
I was going to write a big discourse about it here, but I really don't think it's necessary. I can sum up my argument in one sentence: Stories are about conflict, but conflicts are rarely amongst heroes.
Let me reel off a list of my favourite books and movies:
THE GODFATHER
AMERICAN PSYCHO
HITMAN (Ennis or Block, take your pick)
THE AMBER CYCLE
PULP FICTION
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
BLOOD MERIDIAN
None of these stories employ the Hero's Journey, or if they do, they try to invert or subvert it.
If you look at my own work, I think the closest you'll get to Campbell's ideal is the anti-hero: a character that only does the heroic because they are forced into it; because they are have been coerced into it, or because they have been offered a reward that seems worth the risk involved. Clarice, the protagonist of BLOODY WATERS, is an anti-hero.
A bad apple who finds a tiny moral core is a hero; a good apple who is able to disregard their morals for some kind of gratification may not be evil, but they are just as much a villain as someone who is (an evil person is one who has no moral values at all). McBlack is a villain. He's a genuinely evil character--a gunslinging psychopath-- cast in the role of a detective hero, and he doesn't like it one bit. That tension is precisly what made the book an interesting project for me, because, frankly, Chandler pastiche bores the shit out of me.
In FAERIE APOCALYPSE, there are four protagonists and each one of them has a journey, but none of those journeys result in anything like a hero. Some of the characters are purely villainous, some of them are just deluded, but none of them acts because they want to do what's right. They are motivated by self interest: a thirst for blood, or power, or vengeance, or idle curiosity, or some combination thereof. You could even look at part of the narrative as being the Villain's Journey
DEUCE is different again. It has its eponymous antagonist, but there's only one heroic deed in it, by the most unlikely of characters. It is most certainly not a film about heroism. The characters grapple with what is happening, but they can barely comprehend it. They try to act, but whatever they do is motivated by self preservation. They'll fight, if they have to, but it's only because they want to live.
You know, like most people in the world who wear their underwear inside their pants.
-- JF