Archetype Definitions:

1
Archetype Definitions

• Character Archetypes
• Situation Archetypes
• Symbolic Archetypes

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The HeroCharacter Archetype

• In its simplest form, this character is the one
  ultimately who may fulfill a necessary task and
  who will restore fertility, harmony, and/or
  justice to a community. Often he/she will embody
  characteristics of Young Person from the
  Provinces, Initiate, Innate Wisdom, Pupil and Son.

3
Young Person From the ProvincesCharacter
Archetype

• This hero is taken away as an infant or youth and
  raised by strangers. He/she later returns home
  as a stranger and is able to recognize new
  problems and new solutions.

4
The InitiatesCharacter Archetype

• These are young heroes who, prior to the quest,
  must endure some training and ritual. They are
  usually innocent at this stage.

5
MentorsCharacter Archetype

• These individuals serve as teachers or counselors
  to the initiates. Sometimes they work as role
  models and often serve as father or mother
  figure. They teach by example the skills
  necessary to survive the journey and quest.

6
Loyal RetainersCharacter Archetypes

• These individuals are like the noble sidekicks to
  the hero. Their duty is to protect the hero.
  Often the loyal retainer reflects the heros
  nobility.

7
Friendly BeastsCharacter Archetypes

• These animals assist the hero and reflect that
  nature is on the heros side.

8
The Devil FigureCharacter Archetypes

• This character represents evil incarnate. He/she
  may offer worldly goods, fame, or knowledge to
  the protagonist in exchange for possession of the
  soul or integrity. This figures main aim is to
  oppose the hero on his quest.

9
The TemptressCharacter Archetype

• Characterized by sensuous beauty, she is the one
  whose physical attraction may bring about the
  heros downfall.

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The Platonic IdealCharacter Archetype

• This source of inspiration often is a physical
  and spiritual ideal for whom the hero has an
  intellectual rather than physical attraction.

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Damsel in DistressCharacter Archetype

• This vulnerable woman must be rescued by the
  hero. She also may be used as a trap, by an evil
  figure, to ensnare the hero.

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The Star-Crossed LoversCharacter Archetype

• These two characters are engaged in a love affair
  that is fated to end in tragedy for one or both
  due to the disapproval of society, friends,
  family, or the gods.

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The Creature of NightmareCharacter Archetype

• This monster, physical or abstract, is summoned
  from the deepest, darkest parts of the human
  psyche to threaten the lives of the hero/heroine.
  Often it is a perversion or desecration of the
  human body.

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Father-Son ConflictCharacter Archetype

• Tension often results from separation during
  childhood or from an external source when the
  individuals meet as men and where the mentor
  often has higher affections of the hero than the
  natural parent.

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The Scapegoat Character Archetype

• An animal or more usually a human whose death in
  a public ceremony expiates some taint or sin that
  has been visited upon a community. Their death
  often makes them a more powerful force in the
  society than when they lived.

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The Outcast Character Archetype

• A figure who is banished from a social group for
  some crime (real or imagined) against his fellow
  man. The outcast is usually destined to become a
  wanderer from place to place.

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The Earthmother Character Archetype

• Symbolic of fruition, abundance, and fertility,
  this character traditionally offers spiritual and
  emotional nourishment to those with whom she
  comes in contact.

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The Shadow

• The Shadow is the threat - the primary obstacle
  to the Hero's successful completion of his Quest,
  and should be strong enough to provide a worthy
  opponent. The Shadow can be the darker side of
  the Hero that he is trying to suppress.
• (An obvious example would be the "Evil Duncan"
  that emerges when MacLeod takes the Dark
  Quickening in Highlander. The best Heroes, and
  the best Quests incorporate both internal and
  external Shadows.)

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Herald

• A necessary archetype is the Herald--the
  harbinger of change who delivers the "Call to
  Action" or challenge to the Hero. The Herald can
  be a minor character, a significant ally of the
  Hero's, or even an agent of the Shadow. The Call
  can be an event instead of a message delivered by
  a person. The way the Call is delivered, and the
  Hero's reaction to it, can tell the reader a
  great deal about the story and about the Hero.
  (Typically, the Hero refuses the Call in some
  manner characteristic of his internal weakness or
  doubts before he is persuaded to accept it, thus
  setting the scene for his struggles with his own
  nature later.)

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The QuestSituational Archetype

• This motif describes the search for someone or
  some talisman which, when found and brought back,
  will restore fertility to a wasted land, the
  desolation of which is mirrored by a leaders
  illness and disability.

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The TaskSituational Archetype

• This refers to what possibly superhuman feat must
  be accompanied in order to fulfill the ultimate
  goal.

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The JourneySituational Archetype

• This sends the hero in search for some truth of
  information necessary to restore fertility,
  and/or harmony to the kingdom. The journey
  includes the series of trials and tribulations
  the hero faces along the way. Usually the hero
  descends into a real or psychological hell and
  forced to discover the blackest truths, quite
  often concerning his faults. Once the hero is at
  this lowest level, he must accept personal
  responsibility to return to the world of the
  living.

23
The InitiationSituational Archetype

• This situation refers to a moment, usually
  psychological, in which an individual comes into
  maturity. He/she gains a new awareness into the
  nature of circumstances and problems and
  understands his or her responsibility for trying
  to resolve the dilemma. Typically, the hero
  received a Calling, a message or a signal that he
  or she must make sacrifices and become
  responsible for getting involved in the
  problem. Often a hero will deny and question the
  calling and, ultimately, The Initiation, but will
  eventually accept responsibility.

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The RitualSituational Archetypes

• Not to be confused with the Initiation, the
  Ritual refers to an organized ceremony which
  involves honored members of a given community and
  an Initiate. This situation officially brings
  the young man or woman into the realm of the
  communitys adult world.

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The FallSituational Archetype

• Not to be confused with the awareness in The
  Initiation, this archetype describes a descent in
  action from a higher to a lower state of being,
  an experience that might involve defilement,
  moral imperfection, and/or loss of innocence.
  This fall is often accompanied by expulsion from
  a kind of paradise as penalty for disobedience
  and/or moral transgression.

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Death and RebirthSituational Archetype

• The most common of all situational archetypes,
  this motif grows out of the parallel between the
  cycle of nature and the cycle of life. It refers
  to those situations in which someone or
  something, concrete and/or loss of innocence.
  This fall is often accompanied by some sign of
  birth or rebirth.

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Battle Between Good and EvilSituational Archetype

• These situations pit obvious forces which
  represent good and evil against one another.
  Typically, good ultimately triumphs over evil
  despite great odds.

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The Unhealable WoundSituational Archetype

• This wound, physical or psychological, cannot be
  healed fully. This wound also indicates a loss
  of purity or innocence. Often these wounds pain
  drives the sufferer to desperate measures of
  madness.

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The Magic WeaponSituational Archetype

• Sometimes connected with the Task, this refers to
  a skilled individual heros ability to use a
  piece of technology in order to combat evil,
  continue a journey, or to prove his/her identity
  as a chosen individual.

30
Nature vs. the Mechanistic World Situational
Archetype

• Nature is good, while science, technology and
  society are often evil.

31
Light vs. DarknessSymbolic Archetype

• Light usually suggest hope, renewal, OR
  intellectual illumination darkness implies the
  unknown, ignorance, or despair.

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Water vs. DesertSymbolic Archetype

• Because water is necessary to life and growth, it
  commonly appears as a birth or rebirth symbol.
  Water is used in baptism services, which
  solemnizes spiritual births. Similarly, the
  appearance of rain in a work of literature can
  suggest a characters spiritual birth.

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Heaven vs. HellSymbolic Archetype

• Humanity has traditionally associated parts of
  the universe not accessible to it with the
  dwelling places of the primordial forces that
  govern its world. The skies and mountaintops
  house its gods the bowels of the earth contain
  the diabolic forces that inhabit its universe.

34
Haven vs. WildernessSymbolic Archetype

• Places of safety contrast sharply against the
  dangerous wilderness. Heroes are often sheltered
  for a time to regain health and resources.

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Fire vs. IceSymbolic Archetype

• Fire represents knowledge, light, life and
  rebirth while ice like desert represents
  ignorance, darkness, sterility and death.

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Supernatural InterventionSymbolic Archetype

• The gods intervene on the side of the hero or
  sometimes against him.

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FogSymbolic Archetype

• Fog symbolizes uncertainty.

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The RiverSymbolic Archetype

• The river symbolizes the stream of time and the
  flow of circumstances. Since baptism often takes
  place in a river, it also symbolizes the washing
  away of evil and the regaining of purity and
  righteousness.

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The CrossroadsSymbolic Archetype

• This intersection is often a place or time of
  decision when a realization is made, and change
  or penance results.