Stages: One-The Ordinary World and Two- The Call to Adventure

The Ordinary World

Known as the "world of common day", it is the start of the journey; "the context, home base and background of the hero." Also it is use to show the contrast between this world and the new world and foreshadowing aspects of that new world.

In the hero's world a dramatic question is raised to make the audience wonder of the hero can achieve or find the answer to this question. Additionally the hero shows it's inner and outer problems and the audience will be able to see it's entrance or "what is he doing the first time we see him"

Heroes must be relatable, being able to identify with the audience by lacking something or someone and it should have flaws and wounds. Furthermore in this stage the writer establishes what is in stake for the hero or what does the hero stand to gain or lose in the adventure, likewise his backstory, exposition and the story's theme.

Even though this is the first stage before it, the author must have an interesting title, an opening image and a prologue to captivate the audience.

The Call to Adventure

The second stage, "it may come in the form of a message or a messenger". Also it can come as a string of events, temptation, or by a herald. Likewise a lack or need and if the hero does not have any other option.
The hero can be warned about the outcome of the adventure during this stage.

The first stage seems to be of great importance since it establishes the hero and it surroundings to the audience. It gives the opportunity to learn about his world and how it is different from the new world. Also about the personality and the backstory of the hero or/and an exposition of this world. Of course the hero has to be able to make the audience relate to him by having flaws and human emotions. Then because of a new event, a message or the involvement of a herald the hero will be invited to start a journey.

Like Vogler I always thought that besides having a good story, plots and characters if you do not have an alluring title and opening image the work may not be recognized by the audience. I say this because I do choose what books I read or what movies I watch based on the title, image and synopsis. If the title sounds to boring or to childish I do not pick up the book, in the other hand if I like the title I will read the synopsis to make sure that the story will be of my liking. I know this is not a smart way to choose books or movies, but it works most of the time and many use this same method to choose movies and books.

Questions

1. How do you choose the books you read or the movies you watch?
2. Do all stories need a prologue?
3. Why a Herald usually gives the call to adventure?

Peer Reviewing

Jessica was my peer and she helped me by correcting my grammar and giving me advice on how to clarify and explain what I have learned from my experience.
Also she praised me on how I stayed on topic, connected everything well and kept the focus of the story.
I'll follow her advices and use them to improve my paper.

Strengths and areas of improving in my writing

Strengths

*Good introduction:
It explains the situation in a way that is interesting for the reader. The reader knows what to look forward in the essay. Also my main idea or thesis is clear.

*Good structure
The essay is well structured and the paragraphs too.

Areas of improvement

*Lack of details:
I can give the reader more details to help them understand my point of view and what I am trying to express.

*Inconclusive conclusion
Tell the reader what I learned and summarize my experience to give a clear conclusion to my journey and what it meant to me.

Archetypes: Threshold Guardian, Herald, Shapeshifter, Shadow, Ally and Trickster

Threshold Guardians

Obstacles on the road that the hero has to overcome. They can be related to the villain, be neutral and sometimes become allies. They stand for the neuroses of the hero: emotional scars, vices, dependencies and self-limitations that hold back our growth.

Herald

Is the messenger of new adventures or change. Also it provides motivation, offer the hero a challenge and get the story rolling.

Shapeshifter

A character whose appearance or characteristics change, most of the time from the hero's point of view and it can not be sure if it is trustful. It exposes the energy of the animus, or the male element in the female unconscious and the anima or the female element in the male unconcius.
It brings doubt and suspense into the story. It can be manifest by a femme or homme fatale.

Shadow

Represents the energy of the dark side, the unexpressesed, unrealized or rejected aspects of something. It can be projected onto the villains, antagonists or enemies. Stands for psychoses that cab destroy us. It gives the hero a worthy opponent and it can be a mask which can be worn by any character. A shadow can be humanized.

Ally

It can be any character that travels with the hero and helps him. Besides being a companion, a partner, conscience or comic relief it can also bring out human feelings and reveal important questions in the plot.

Tricksters

Provoke healthy laughter and bring out healthy change and transformation. They are the comic relief and can be catalyst characters who affect others but their life do not change.

It seems that there are many types of archetypes in a story, but sometimes we never stop to think about it. Threshold guardians are the ones that give obstecles to overcome, heralds bring news of change and adventures, shapeshifters bring doubt and suspicion to the hero, shadows bring its greatest fears, allies help when need it and tricksters are the comic relief.
As before this archetypes can be seen in our own life. Like the thresholds we overcome to reach our dreams, the news of change that affect our journey for example moving to a new city, a job promotion or someones dead. Shapeshifter can be those we thought or friends but at the end turn their back on us, everyone has shadows or dark secrets from the past that they trie to hide or eave behind. Then there are those who we trust or allies represented by our family and friends. Finally the funny person our moments that makes us laugh are the tricksters.

When I was reading the chapter about allies I knew that he had to mention Albert. To me there are the perfect definition of ally. Albert is always there not just to help Batman but Bruce, the man behind Batman. He makes sure Bruce follows his sheduled as a rich young man while keeping his identity secret. Also he makes sure Batmn's suite and equipment are always in good conditions. Sometimes he is a mentor giving advice to Bruce when he needs it

Questions

1. Which one of the archetypes do you think is the most important to the hero?
2. Can an ally turn into a shapeshifter?
3. Have you ever confront someone who was a shapeshifter?

StoryCorps

When we were told to do this assignment I was not sure what to expect. First I did not know what the NPR was and why would they have stories about people. After my friend told me that the NPR stands for "National Public Radio" then it made more sense and I decided to listen to a conversation between Nick Shepard and his friend Hugh Ryan about Nick's first meeting with his biological father.

Their meeting was pretty casual and not what you would imaging from movies or TV. Something that intrigued me the most was one of the questions that Nick asked his father besides generic sickness or the reasons why he left; it was to take a picture of him. Even though Nick says he does not want his biological father in his live right now, he still took a picture of him. Also he declared that he felt like he had "made a peace with a part of myself that I never expected — that I never even thought possible."

I was raised with my father, but I do have friends that were not raised by their biological parent (s) and I always wonder how would they feel and how will it be when they meet their biological father or/and mother? I hope it can be as casual as Nick's or better.

Six words to define my life

In the SMITH magazine website there is a section called "Six-Word Memoirs". Here people describe their life or an event of their life in six words. I decided to give it a try and I never thought that it would be a difficult task. How can I summarize my life in six words? After a lot of thinking I asked those that know me the best to each give me a word that would describe me or my life. From those I selected six and this is what I came up with:

"Older sister is pretty and loyal"

Most of my life I have been someones older sister always giving them advices and making sure they are fine. I think the only one who does not treats me or sees me this way is my own younger brother (I guess is because he thinks that he is so much mature than me). Also I am always loyal to those who I care about.

This exercise makes you think a lot about who you are and what have you done in your life. It may look simple but reflecting about your life is not always an easy task.

The Archetypes: Heroes and Mentors

Archetypes

Archetypes are the different types of characters you can find in a story. Carl G Jung defines it as "the ancient patterns of personality that are the shared heritage of the human race". A character can be more than one archetype during the story and the hero can learn from these characters. To identify an archetype is useful to have in mind these two questions: 1)What psychological function or part of the personality does it represent? 2)What is its dramatic function in the story?
The most common archetypes are: The Hero, Mentor, Threshold Guardian, Herald, Shapeshifter, Shadow, Ally and Trickster.

The Hero

In Greek hero means "to protect and to serve". Its purpose is to let the audience identify with it and feel and see what it is feeling or seeing. The main character is the one that learns and grows in the course of the story. The hero is usually the most active person in the story and takes the most risks and responsibilities. A true hero is willing to give sacrifices and to deal with death. A hero can be more appealing if they have some kind of flaw as any human being.
There are many types of heroes: Willing heroes who are committed to adventures with no doubt, unwilling heroes who are full of doubts and hesitations. Anti-heroes who do not act like an stereotypical hero but the audience still feels sympathy for it. Group oriented when there is more than one hero in a group of people, a loner or the hero that decides to leave society and a catalyst who does not change itself but changes others.

Mentor

Known as the wise old man or the wise old woman. It represents the self, the god within us that aspect of personality that is connected with all things. It teaches and trains the hero so it can reach its goal. Also it gives gifts to the hero which can come in handy on the way, but only if the gifts have been earned by learning, sacrifice or commitment. Sometimes it can be the heroes conscience, motivation or sexual initiator.
There are six types of mentors: Dark mentor who helps the anti-hero; fallen mentor who may experience a crisis in their calling, for example death. Continuing mentors who give assignments and set the stories in motion; multiple mentors or more than one mentor for a hero; comic mentor use in romantic comedies usually the same sex as the hero. Finally is the mentor as a shaman who guide the hero trough other worlds and life.

Archetypes seem to be essential for a characters development. It is necessary for the audience to know what kind of role or job is the character playing or doing. This way is easier to understand the character and sympathize with it. Human emotions are a big part of every culture that is why most cultures have the same pattern of archetypes. The hero and the mentor seem to be the most important ones. First you need a main character who is usually the hero with whom the audience can interact and feel empathy for it. Of course most heroes do not start as heroes, they need the guidance, gifts and advices of the mentor to be able to succeed in its journey.

The author mentions how the Greek definition of hero is the same as the motto of the L.A.P.D: "to protect and to serve". He says that the coincidence is incidental, but I do not think so. Probably someone in the department knew the Greek meaning of hero. After all it can be say that they are the heroes of Los Angeles since they protect and keep the peace in the city.
Another fact that caught my attention was how many of the words we use today come from Homer's epic poem. First the title of the poem "The Odyssey", we use the word odyssey to infer to a big predicament. Also Vogler points out that the word mentor comes from this same epic, it was the name Athena took when she disguised as an old man to help Telemachus. I always thought that it was just the word use at the time of translation. It is really surprising how much written works affect our culture and even or vocabulary.

Questions

1. Vogler mentions the most important archetypes but he did not say anything about the antagonist/rival. Do you think it can be count as an archetype?
2. Are the hero and the mentor the two most essential archetypes in a story?
3. When reading a story or watching a movie or TV show, do you always see the story through the eyes of the chosen hero or do you sympathize more with other characters?

Vocabulary and Rice

I never thought that learning new vocabulary would not only help me and my knowledge, but could feed people around the world!
In the website FreeRice, I donated a 1000 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program by giving the meaning of different English words. When I was done with my task it showed that my level is 20 out of 60 but the best one is 30, so I do not think I did that bad.
I'll tell my friends about this website since as I said before you not only learn your vocabulary level and new words, but you help stop hunger around the world.

A Practical Guide

Vogler starts this chapter by introducing Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces and as he said the "ageless patterns of the hero and his/her journey". There are twelve stages to a heroes journey that can be understand by everyone and can be seen in almost every culture. First in the ordinary world or the place where the hero lives before it is call to an adventure which is a problem, challenge or adventure. Then the hero is reluctant since the adventure does not affect him personally, but then a mentor encourages him or her to cross the first threshold and face the challenge. On the way it will meet tests, allies and enemies. After that comes the approach to the inmost cave or the lion's cave, there it will confront an ordeal or the confrontation with it's greatest fear. Finally the hero obtains the reward, starts it's road back, learns from the experiences and resurrects to return with the elixir to the normal world.

Even though these stages are use to explain movies it can also be use to explain life. Life itself is a journey we start in that place were we feel most comfortable and as we grow up we have to go to special worlds to meet our expectations and fulfill our dreams. On this hard journey we are guide by people like our parents and professors and helped by our friends and family. Of course the way is not easy and there will be time in which we also enter the cave and face an ordeal like money, family or internal problems. We all hope that at the end we receive our reward and learn all we need to achieve our dreams. Then when we get older we will have no regrets.

In western Heritage last semester we also talked about the meaning of a hero and its journey. The stages were not unfamiliar to me and it is really interesting how as mentioned in the book, you can find them in almost every culture in the world. We read books from Greek culture like The Odyssey and Indian like The Ramayana and both follow this pattern. To explain the stages many movies were used, most of them were unfamiliar to me. The one I could identify was The Count of Monte Cristo. Dante is a peculiar hero since his motives are based on revenge which made him act in a way not common to the stereotype of a hero. He commits crimes against people that did not do anything wrong to him, he will use them to be able to get his revenge. For example how he use and almost killed Albert without knowing he was his son. Still while watching the movie we cheered for him and as him we wanted his enemies to die too. In some way he makes the audience perceive him as a hero.

Questions

1. What makes Edmund Dante from "The Count of Monte Cristo" a hero in a journey?
2. Do you think that all of the twelve stages can be use not only to explain movies and books, but to explain life?
3. Of the twelve stages, which one is the most important?