character archetypes – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Trope Tuesday: Rebellious Princess

You know that innocent and beautiful fairy tale princess, with the tricked out dress and the power to summon woodland creatures? The one with a tendency to get kidnapped, but who always ends up happily ever after with her prince charming?

Yeah, that’s not this princess.

A rebellious princess would just as soon puke if she were any of those things. She hates being royalty–she’d rather be one of the common folk, or at least be out doing something (which is why she’s often involved in politics). She hates all those frilly dresses and tends to wear her hair in a tomboyish ponytail. Rather than wait for her white knight to save her, she’s much more likely to be an action girl in disguise, or at least something of a badass. When she grows up, she may become a lady of war. Invariably, she hates whatever marriage has been arranged for her and often scandalizes those of her class to marry for love (if she even marries at all).

As you might have already guessed, this trope is extremely common, not the least because the princess classic has largely been discredited (at least, outside of Disney). There’s a lot of variation on it too, with some stories featuring the rebellious princess as the love interest, and others showcasing her as the hero.

George R.R. Martin (Song of Ice and Fire) deconstructs the trope with Arya, who eventually becomes something of a sociopath, and Brandon Sanderson (Elantris) subverts it with Sarene, who very much has the personality but uses her royal position to her advantage. Frank Herbert (Dune) zigzags with Lady Jessica, who is undylingly loyal to the Atreides family but rebels against the Bene Gesserit. As you might expect, J.R.R. Tolkien plays it straight, not once but twice: Éowyn in Lord of the Rings, and Lúthien in The Silmarillion.

It transcends cultures, too. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Jen might not technically be royalty, but she is the governor’s daughter and she does reject an arranged marriage to run away and become a wandering warrior. And in classic RPGs, especially the old Japanese ones from Square, this trope is everywhere. The princess in the picture above is Marle from Chrono Trigger, who fits this trope to a T.

So why is this trope so prevalent nowadays? Probably because the modern feminist movement led us to discard most of our old-fashioned feminine ideals, as well as the characters who were held up as shining examples of them. That, and rule of drama. Everything ultimately comes down to rule of drama.

In my own work, Hikaru from Stars of Blood and Glory is an example of this trope, though she’s more of a president’s daughter than a hero or a love interest. She does have her own story arc, though, and I’ve got a sequel in the works with her as the main character. Scientists aren’t exactly royalty, but they do consider themselves elites in Genesis Earth, which means that Terra has echoes of this trope. And in Heart of the Nebula (as-yet unpublished), I’ve got a character who isn’t exactly rebellious, but she does qualify as a badass princess (though the society in question is a perfect techno-democracy and not a monarchy).

Trope Tuesday: Supernatural Aid

Getting back to our discussion of the Hero’s Journey, I think it’s important to briefly touch on one of the earlier stages: supernatural aid. At some point between refusal of the call and crossing the threshold of adventure, the hero typically encounters a mentor figure from the unfamiliar world who gives him something supernatural or otherworldly to help him on his quest. While the mentor often dies (as we saw last week), the supernatural aid that the mentor gives later proves to be a key to defeating the big bad and passing the ultimate test.

Often, this is an actual object. In Lord of the Rings, for example, Galadriel gives each member of the fellowship a specific object. She gives Sam a magical vial, which he uses later to defeat Shelob and save Frodo and the ring. In The Lion, The Witch, and the Warderobe, Aslan gives each of the kids a weapon item specially suited to their characters (except Edmund, who was a prisoner of the queen at the time). In Star Wars IV: A New Hope, Obi Wan gives Luke his father’s lightsaber–though for the purposes of this trope, we can also count his special training with the force, since Luke doesn’t use the lightsaber until episode V.

In discussing this trope, Joseph Campbell said the following:

Having responded to his own call, and continuing to follow courageously as the consequences unfold, the hero finds all the forces of the unconscious at his side. Mother Nature herself supports the mighty task. And in so far as the hero’s act coincides with that for which his society is ready, he seems to ride on the great rhythm of the historical process.

So if the mentor is supposed to die (or get put on a bus) in order for the hero to stand on his own feet, why does the hero need some kind of supernatural aid? Isn’t that just cheating?

Not exactly. Often, the aid is itself part of the ultimate test, and the hero doesn’t figure out how to use it properly until after he’s already experienced everything from the adventure that he needs. The silver slippers from The Wizard of Oz are a good example of this. So is AURYN from The Neverending Story. The hero doesn’t fall back on the supernatural aid until after he’s completed his growth arc.

That’s not the only reason, though. In order for the adventure to have meaning and impact, the stakes have to be really high. Having some sort of mysterious character from the outside world grant the hero something supernatural is a great way to do this, especially at the beginning. If the hero is part of something bigger than himself–saving the world, for example–then it makes sense that he would get some kind of help from the people depending on him, especially if those people have something supernaturally powerful to give.

The Force from Star Wars is one of my favorite examples of supernatural aid. I hear that when episode IV debuted in the theaters, the crowds jumped up and screamed when Obi Wan said “use the force, Luke!” in the clip at the top of the post. Just because it’s so awesome, here’s the full scene (more or less):

“Remember–the force will be with you. Always.”

Trope Tuesday: Mentor Occupational Hazard

Being a mentor to the hero can be a pretty tough job. Don’t believe me? Check out the tvtropes page:

If you don’t have to convince The Chosen One who just wants to be normal to grow a spine and accept the Call to Adventure, you have to convince your blindly excited and dangerously eager young pupil that You Are Not Ready to learn the Dangerous Forbidden Technique. When you try to protect The Hero from the Awful Truth, you end up facing their Rage Against the Mentor. You have to maintain an ongoing conspiracy to keep The Hero Locked Out of the Loop. If they’re an orphan, you have to find them a set of Muggle Foster Parents while keeping social services in the dark. You have to endure accusations of insanity when you’re trying to teach your charge that Your Eyes Can Deceive You, give them advice on how to tell a love interest “It’s Not You, It’s My Enemies,” and keep a close eye on them 24/7.

And what is your reward for all this patience and effort?

You die.

And that right there is the heart of the matter: mentors tend to die. And stay dead. Even if they do figure later in the story, they tend to be spirit advisors from the other side with little or no chance of coming back from the grave–even if everyone else does.

So why does this happen?

The most obvious reason is that if the mentor and the hero are both working toward the same goal, the mentor cannot overshadow the hero–otherwise, why not forget the hero and send the mentor off to save the world? The hero may start off weak, which is why he needs the mentor in the first place, but at some point in the growth arc, he’s going to have to stand on his own two feet. Oftentimes, the most poignant (and convenient) way to mark that transition is to knock the mentor off.

That doesn’t explain everything, though. If the only reason for killing the mentor is to give the hero a growth arc, you can accomplish that just as well by putting him on a bus. So why does he have to die?

Lots of reasons! Character growth, increasing tension, making the story more meaningful–the list goes on and on. For an in-depth discussion on killing off characters, I’d recommend checking out this last week’s episode of Writing Excuses. My own personal take is that everyone dies eventually–even the immortal characters have to pass through some sort of transition from this world to the next–so the best thing I can do for a character isn’t to keep them alive, but to make their lives and their deaths actually mean something.

It’s also worth pointing out that in most stories, the mentor isn’t actually fighting against the big bad, but the dragon–the big bad’s lancer. Again, the main reason for this is to keep him from overshadowing the hero. But the dragon is a character in his own right, with his own agenda that may run counter to his boss–think Darth Vader from Star Wars. And in a lot of stories, the dragon actually tries to tempt the hero to come around and join him.

Perhaps that’s another reason why mentors often die–if they didn’t, then the bad guys wouldn’t ever be able to dissuade the hero through temptation. The hero would be so protected that he’d never have the opportunity to switch sides, or at least he’d never have to face any moral ambiguity because of the guardian mentor constantly guiding him.

So those are some of the reasons why mentors tend to have a short life expectancy. Can you think of any good ones?

Trope Tuesday: The Trickster

After the hero crosses the threshold of adventure and finally sets out on his journey, he passes through a long phase that Campbell called “the road of trials.” This is often where the meat of the story happens, but it doesn’t fit squarely into any one trope because of all the possible directions where the story can go. For that reason, I think it’s more useful to think in terms of who the hero meets, not what the hero does.

The Trickster is often (though not always) one of the first characters the hero encounters upon entering the lands of adventure. He is almost always male, though sometimes he can change shapes and even sexes (for example, Loki, who turned into a mare and conceived Odin’s horse). His role in the story, though, can range from mentor (Merlin, Yoda, Mary Poppins) to bad guy (the Joker, the Homonculi, Grand Admiral Thrawn) to the hero himself (Prometheus, Bugs Bunny, Bilbo Baggins).

Obviously, the Trickster is a very slippery character. You can tell who he is, though, by whether he meets these two basic criteria:

completely unpredictable
not beholden to any authority

In this way, the Trickster often stands in stark contrast to the people of the ordinary world that the hero left behind. Which makes sense–having just crossed the threshold of adventure, the hero needs to leave his old mentality behind and be exposed to new experiences and ideas. For that reason, the Trickster’s antics often serve to teach the hero an Aesop, helping him to learn and grow.

That doesn’t mean that the Trickser is harmless. Quite the contrary–he’s a dirty, lying cheat, capable of taking any disguise and throwing the victims of his pranks into any moral quandary just for laughs. He’s not necessarily a jerkass–he may even be more of an ally than an enemy–but he definitely is not to be trusted.

Like most things associated with the hero’s journey, the amazing thing is just how prevalent this trope is. It’s even cropped up in some of my own work. For example, in Bringing Stella Home, Ilya Ayvazyan is a trickster of the playful hacker variety. In Star Wanderers, Samson is a blithe spirit who doesn’t necessarily have Jeremiah’s best interests at heart…though his girlfriend (the one at Alpha Oriana) is a lot more sinister. I’m not sure if anyone fits this trope in Desert Stars, but you could probably make a case for Lena or Amina–or better yet, Ibrahim.

Of all the major character archetypes, though, the Trickster is the one I feel like I know the least about. If you have anything else to add, I would like to hear it!