Tag: Star Wars

Trope Tuesday: Planetville (aka Adventure Planets)

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Adventure towns…IN SPAAACE!!!

Seriously, that’s the best way to describe it.  In Westerns and TV serials, the heroes travel from town to town, with a new adventure in each place.  Well, in science fiction, we don’t hop towns, we hop planets.  Why?  Because we can.

Unfortunately, since planets and towns are actually pretty different kinds of places, there’s a lot of room to do things poorly and turn this trope into a cliche.  Any story that doesn’t consider (or at least lampshade) the implications of space travel and planetary colonization is in danger of becoming over-the-top campy–although, to be fair, there is an audience for that.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for this trope in fiction that takes itself a little more seriously.  In fact, I take issue with some of the descriptions on the Planetville page.  From tvtropes:

Unfortunately, because Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, stories about Planetville make no sense. Nobody seems to realize how BIG a planet is — everything in Planetville takes the same amount of time as stories set in towns or countries. In the updated Wild West story, the outlaws are “exiled from the planet” just like they’d be exiled from Dodge City, and have to quietly leave… instead of flat out challenging the authorities to find them when they have an entire planet in which to hide. When the space Nazis invade, they seem to need the same number of soldiers and time as the Earth Nazis needed to invade Europe. And when the crew of the Cool Starship finds the cure for the alien plague, the logistical issues of distributing it to an entire planet rarely get mentioned at all. These considerations are minimized or left out entirely in many stories.

To address these criticisms point by point:

1) Scale is relative to technology and the predominant modes of transportation.  When my ancestors crossed the plains to settle in modern-day Utah, they had to walk.  It took them months to get here and many of their family members died along the way.  Today, I can make the same trip by car in a day or two.  As technology changes, so does the sense of scale.

2) Unlike what some tropes would have you believe, not all planets are Earth-like.  In fact, it appears that most planets outside our solar system are wildly different.  In practical story terms, this means that any part of the world that’s remotely habitable is probably going to be immediately around the colony. Consequently, the local authorities probably will have the power to exile trouble makers from an entire planet, since exile from the colony would mean de facto exile from the planet as well.

3) Anyone venturing outside of the dome would have to carry just about everything necessary for life, including air, water, food, etc.  You might as well try to hide in Antarctica as hide on an alien planet.  It can be done, of course, but to do all that and stay hidden, that’s going to be tough.  You might as well set up a rival colony for all the effort–but at that point, the story is about a lot more than just hiding from the authorities.

4) If your planetary colonies are only as populous as an average WWII era city/town, then yeah, you’ll only need as many soldiers as it took to conquer them.  The biggest difference is that they’ll fly a really cool starship.

5) Again, if the planet isn’t habitable and the population is contained within a handful of relatively small colonies, then distribution shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

However, the tvtropes page does make this valid point:

A side effect of this is that the characters never realize that things can happen in parts of planets. You will never see aliens trying to capture a planet’s equator, or its polar caps — it’s the whole planet or bust.

In the end, I think the key to doing this trope well is to know your setting well enough to fit the story to it.  Tropes are tools, and when done well, this trope can accomplish everything it sets out to do while making perfect sense within the context of the story.

In my own work, this trope is most prevalent in the Star Wanderers series.  Every novella takes place at a different planet or space station, sometimes multiple planets per station.  Because most of the stars in this universe have only recently been settled, the colonies are small and terraforming is quite limited.  In Desert Stars, I used a similar concept, except with large domed areas of a single planet, instead of multiple planets (Adventure towns…UNDER THE DOME!!!).  In cases where the planets are Earth-like, however, or where travel between planets is costly and difficult, this trope doesn’t really ever come into play.

Trope Tuesday: Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Age

Before the world fell apart and the Empire took over, when there were still men of honor in the world who stood boldly against evil and fought for the weak and the downtrodden, there was this trope.  The weapon of choice of a bygone age, more elegant and noble than the crass instruments of wanton destruction so common in the world today.  It might not be practical–or sometimes, even usable–but it definitely will be cool.

Because katanas are just better, this weapon often takes the form of a cool sword, especially in science fiction.  The eponymous example is of course from Star Wars, where Jedi Knights errant fight against evil with laser blades, but it also features prominently in Star Trek (ever been to a Klingon wedding?) and Dune.  The one who introduces the weapon is usually an old master, or a mentor figure of some kind.  Often, the weapon is handed down from generation to generation.

In a lot of ways, this trope reflects the age-old tension between Romanticism and Enlightenment, hearkening back to a simpler time rather than looking ahead to a glorious future.  Perhaps that’s why many of these weapons tend to be swords rather than guns.  And since science fiction is traditionally the more forward-looking genre, perhaps that’s why it’s invoked so often in subgenres like space opera that lean more toward fantasy–to provide ready contrast.

When used well, the effects of this trope can be awesome.  It wasn’t just the shiny blade and the cool sound effects that made lightsabers so awesome as a kid–it was the sense that something about the weapon was special.  None of the mooks had one, after all, and Luke’s came from his long-lost father.  It probably helped that Star Wars paired this trope with the call to adventure (in a very specific way).

In my own work, this appears in Desert Stars with the heirloom rifle that Sathi gives to Jalil.  At least, I think it qualifies.  The rifle is more of a status symbol than a combat weapon, but it does figure prominently in the story.  However, my forthcoming novel Stars of Blood and Glory goes a lot further with this trope than Desert Stars.  It has Katanas, and a far-future Polynesian-Japanese society that knows how to use them.

Trope Tuesday: Came Back Strong

This trope, also kown as apotheosis, is by far my favorite part of the hero’s journey.

Up to this point, the hero has faced a lot of tests and trials.  Some of them he’s passed, some of them he hasn’t, but the setbacks haven’t yet been enough to stop him.  Sure, the costs have been high–he may have lost a friend or mentor, for example–but at least he’s still in the game.  Then, just as he experiences the power of love (meeting with the goddess) and reconciles with the ultimate power in his life (atonement with the father), what happens?

He dies.

This may be literal or metaphorical, physical or spiritual–but whatever form it takes, the hero has to lose something significant, up to and including…well, everything.  After all, there are so many things worse than death.  While all the other failures up to this point left him more or less intact, this one completely shatters him–and in the process, transforms him.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the hero comes back from the dead, often with a level in badass.  By dying, he gains that last piece of knowledge, experience, or resolve that he needs to defeat the big bad and gain the ultimate boon of his quest.  Whoever or whatever he was before, that person wasn’t strong enough to pass the test–but now, he is.

When done well, this is a stand-and-cheer moment of the best possible kind.  It’s the culmination of everything the hero has gone through, not just in terms of plot, but character as well.  Years from now, you might forget everything else in the story–even the parts that you loved–but you’ll remember how you felt when you got to this part.

One of my favorite examples of this trope is in the clip I posted from the Matrix.  Seriously, when Neo realizes that he is The One, that is one of the best moments in all of cinema.  The Empire Strikes Back also has a moment like this, though since the movie is essentially a tragedy, there’s a lot more emphasis on Luke’s death (falling through the gas mine shaft after confronting Darth Vader) than his resurrection (getting a new hand and reuniting with his friends).  The oldest examples, of course, come from mythology–Odin gained the ability to use magic by sacrificing himself on Yggdrasil, and before returning to Ithaca, Odysseus first had to journey to Hades to pay his old friend Agamemnon a visit.

So as writers, how are we supposed to get this trope right?  I’m by no means an expert, but my gut instinct tells me that the way to nail it is to be as excited about this moment in the story as we want our readers to be when we get to that point.  Even though storytelling is ostensibly just making stuff up, it’s not something you can fake–if you aren’t excited about your own story, how do you expect your readers to even care?

Fortunately, this is often the part of the story that drives us to write everything else.  There have definitely been times when I could hardly wait to get through the other stuff and finally write the chapter where this happens.  Bringing Stella Home was a big one–and that’s all I can say, at the risk of giving spoilers.  Star Wanderers is another one, though it wasn’t until I was midway through Fidelity that it really came to me.  Desert Stars was more of a Heroic Second Wind, which is basically Came Back Stronger without the death.  However, there was definitely a transformation, both for Mira and Jalil.

So yeah, I really, really, REALLY love this trope.  When done well, it’s one of those things that can turn a run-of-the-mill adventure story into something both soul-searching and powerful.  You can definitely expect to see me play with it a lot in the future.

Trope Tuesday: Belly of the Whale

The last stage in the departure phase of the hero’s journey is called the Belly of the Whale, after the Biblical story of Jonah.  After receiving the call and passing the threshold to the land of adventure, the hero faces what may quite possibly be the darkest hour of his life and dies in some way to the home he has just left behind.

I know what you’re thinking: “Huh? Why does the hero die at the beginning of the story?  Isn’t that supposed to happen later?” Well…yes, it does, but the symbolic death at this point is important, too.  At its core, the hero’s journey is a story of transformation and growth.  When the hero comes back from the lands of adventure, he isn’t the same person he was when he first left–he’s been changed in some way.  And in order for that change to take place, the hero needs to let go of who he was and move forward.

Joseph Campbell describes it like this:

The idea that the passage of the magical threshold is a transit into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown and would appear to have died. This popular motif gives emphasis to the lesson that the passage of the threshold is a form of self-annihilation. Instead of passing outward, beyond the confines of the visible world, the hero goes inward, to be born again.

Of course, the death and rebirth doesn’t have to be literal (though it can be, as it was with Dionysus).  The point is to show that the hero has fully crossed the threshold, cutting all his ties with home and burning his ships on the shores of the land of adventure.  Once the hero passes through the belly of the whale, there’s no going back–it’s all or nothing now.

So how common is this trope really?  Actually, it occurs more often than you might think.  In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, it happens when Harry boards the Hogwarts Express and realizes he’s leaving his old world completely behind.  It happens in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when Peter and the others decide to go after Mr. Tumnas instead of returning to their own world through the wardrobe.  It happens in Star Wars IV when the Millennium Falcon gets sucked into the Death Star, and in Final Fantasy IV when Cecil washes up in Mysidia.

The main theme running through all these examples is that adventures are hard.  If they were easy, anyone could go on them–and no one would be changed by them.  They may be fun, and they’re definitely worth it, but to set out on one, you always have to give up something close to you–and that’s hard.

Trope Tuesday: Threshold Guardians

In an indirect way, this guy pretty much saved the galaxy.

So the hero gets the call, refuses it at first (or jumps at it, as the case may be), but one way or another he eventually sets out on the adventure.  As he soon discovers, though, one does not simply walk into Mordor.  Adventures are not the sort of thing that anyone can do, and in order to prove his mettle, he first has to pass a few tests and confront some sort of challenge.  Only then can the adventure really begin.

At the edge of the familiar world lies a threshold, the boundary separating the peaceful, boring land of the hero’s home from the dangerous and exciting lands of adventure.  The threshold might be literal, such as the wall in Stardust and Sabriel, or it might be more symbolic, such as the field in Lord of the Rings that marks the furthest that Samwise has ever gone.  Either way, the threshold is often the site of the hero’s first significant challenge–and the one who offers that challenge is the threshold guardian.

According to Joseph Campbell:

The ‘threshold guardian’…[stands] for the limits of the hero’s present sphere, or life horizon. Beyond them is darkness, the unknown and danger…The adventure is always and everywhere a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown; the powers that watch at the boundary are dangerous; to deal with them is risky; yet for anyone with competence and courage the danger fades.

In terms of story, the purpose of the threshold guardian is not to present some impossible test or to pose some sort of world-altering threat.  Rather, they exist to mark the boundary between the familiar world and the unfamiliar, and to show how the hero is different from all the other people who chose to stay at home instead.  In other words, their main purpose is to kick-start the adventure.

For example, in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the threshold guardians are the Tusken Raiders who roam the Jundland Wastes surrounding Luke Skywalker’s home.  Venturing out into the wastes is dangerous–yet Luke does it, to bring back R2D2 after the droid runs away.

When R2D2 warns Luke that the Tuskens are approaching, Luke doesn’t run away from them–he crawls to the top of the ridge to get a better look.  This leads to his first real encounter with danger, and almost gets him killed.  Fortunately, Obi Wan Kenobi rescues him and takes him home, telling him about the ways of the force and presenting him with his father’s lightsaber.  The adventure is off to a good start.

If Luke had never ventured out into the Jundland Wastes, or if he had run from the Tuskens at the first sign of danger, he never would have been rescued by Obi Wan, never would have learned about his father, never would have left his home and probably would have died when the Imperials attacked his uncle’s homestead.  If the Tuskens had never attacked him, he would have loaded R2D2 into the speeder and gone back home, never meeting Obi Wan as well.  Without the Tusken Raiders, the whole story never would have happened.

In Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, Draco Malfoy plays a similar role.  If Harry Potter had joined House Slytherin, Voldemort would probably have taken over before the end of the first book.  Instead, the early animosity between Draco and Harry’s newfound friends pushed him to take sides, setting the stage for everything else that was to come.

The threshold guardians don’t always have to take an adversarial role.  In a lot of stories, defeating the guardian means winning an ally, even sometimes a best friend.  That’s what happens when Robin Hood spars with Little John–in fact, the trope is subverted because Little John actually wins.  Or perhaps the whole thing was a secret test of character, because it’s Robin Hood’s good-natured reaction to losing that wins Little John over.

Not every instance of the hero’s journey has a threshold guardian, but many of them do.  It’s a clear and compelling way to mark the threshold between home and adventure, which is present in every hero’s journey, simply by definition.  When done well, it’s a great way to show what makes the hero different from all the other would-be adventurers who chose to stay home.

Trope Tuesday: The Call to Adventure

One of the first (and most important) stages of the hero’s journey is the call to adventure.  It happens when the hero first confronts something outside the experience of his ordinary world that beacons him to leave it.  It overlaps closely with the inciting incident, and marks the point at which the hero’s journey begins.

However, it is not typically where the story begins.  In order for the hero to leave the ordinary world, he must first start out there, so we know what’s at stake and what he’s leaving behind.  This is why Luke Skywalker starts out on his uncle’s homestead, and why Neo starts out as a bored and lonely employee of Metacortex.  Events outside the hero’s experience may have already put him on a trajectory to leave on the adventure, but he won’t know it until the call comes.

The hero may start out in a quiet, peaceful village, far removed from any sort of conflict–or he may start out in the middle of a crapsack world, as is the case with dystopian fiction.  The important thing is that it’s the world he’s always known–that he hasn’t ever really made an effort to leave or change it.

How he feels about his world largely determines how he chooses to respond to the call.  In older literature, the hero typically refuses it.  The advantage of this is that it gives the reader a sense of scope–that this adventure is not a small or a trivial thing.  It also sets up an immediate minor conflict that gives some motion to the opening chapters.

In modern stories, though, it’s more common for the hero (or his friends) to jump at the call.  There are also many advantages to this.  In Lord of the Rings, it gives Frodo an immediate band of sidekicks.  In Harry Potter, it plays up the sense of wonder at the magical world.  In the Chronicles of Prydain, it highlights the impulsiveness and naivete of Terran, as he realizes later on in the story just how stupid of him it was.

The call itself can take many forms.  It can come as a fateful visitation from a supernatural messenger, a mysterious request from a dying stranger, or a sacred trust from a dying friend.  It can also be more internal, such as an important moment of decision, or a desire to find some greater purpose in life.  Whatever the case, the one thing the hero cannot do is ignore it–at least, not forever.  One way or another, the hero sets out, and the adventure begins.

Trope Tuesday: The Hero’s Journey

For the next few Trope Tuesday posts, I’m going to pick apart one of my favorite story patterns, the monomyth or “hero’s journey.” Other tropes come and go, but the hero’s journey is truly timeless.  If you can get it to work for you, it can do wonders for your ability to understand and tell stories.

In many ways, this is the trope to end all tropes. it is the source of almost all the major story archetypes, and can be found in the myths and folklore of almost every human culture–hence the term “monomyth.” It was first formulated by Joseph Campbell, who outlined it in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces.  He summarized it like this:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

Campbell was an academic who studied mythology and folklore, and his book, though insightful, is pretty friggin dense (not to mention scientifically obsolete–he references a lot of Freud’s theories that have largely been discredited).  Later, writers like  Chris Vogler, Phil Cousineau, and David Adams Leeming analyzed and simplified the monomyth for popular audiences.

Enough background–what is it?  Basically, it’s a story pattern that resonates powerfully with readers across all genres.  In its simplest formulation, it follows three steps:

  1. Departure: The Hero leaves the familiar world.
  2. Initiation: The Hero learns to navigate the unfamiliar world.
  3. Return: The Hero masters  the unfamiliar world and returns to the familiar.

Campbell himself identified 17 stages, some of which are interchangeable:

  1. Call to Adventure: The Hero learns that he must leave the familiar world.
  2. Refusal of the Call: The Hero balks, for any number of reasons.
  3. Supernatural Aid: The Hero receives something to help him on his quest.
  4. Crossing the Threshold: The Hero ventures into the world of adventure.
  5. Belly of the Whale: The Hero passes the point of no return.
  6. The Road of Trials: The Hero’s resolve is tested, and he begins to grow.
  7. The Meeting with the Goddess: The Hero experiences the power of love.
  8. Woman as Temptress: The Hero faces and overcomes temptation.
  9. Atonement with the Father: The Hero passes the final test.
  10. Apotheosis: The Hero dies and is reborn.
  11. The Ultimate Boon: The Hero receives a gift to take home.
  12. Refusal of the Return: The Hero doesn’t want the adventure to end.
  13. The Magic Flight: The Hero uses his newly mastered skills to escape.
  14. Rescue from Without: The Hero is saved by his newfound friends.
  15. The Crossing of the Return Threshold: The Hero leaves his new world.
  16. Master of Two Worlds: The Hero reconciles the old ways with the new.
  17. Freedom to Live: The Hero uses what he has learned to live the rest of his life.

Do any of those sound familiar?  Yeah, I thought so.  It might be hard to think of a story that fits all 17 points at once, but it’s not uncommon to find one that hits seven or eight (or possibly more).

A simpler formulation by Leeming goes like this:

  1. Miraculous conception and birth
  2. Initiation of the hero-child
  3. Withdrawal from family or community for meditation and preparation
  4. Trial and Quest
  5. Death
  6. Descent into the underworld
  7. Resurrection and rebirth
  8. Ascension, apotheosis, and atonement

My personal favorite, though, is Vogler’s:

So how useful is this trope really?  Well, consider this: Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game was the first novel to win both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award in the same year…and it hits up all eight points listed above.  The following year, Card published Speaker for the Dead, which also hit all eight points, and also won both the Hugo and the Nebula award.

The thing that made Star Wars more than just another campy sci-fi b-movie with (let’s face it) terrible acting and hokey dialogue is the fact that George Lucas drew so heavily from Joseph Campbell and the hero’s journey.  Think about it: Luke Skywalker passes through almost every one of the 17 points, right up to the awesome throne room finale at the end.

Well, this guy certainly helped.

Of course, it’s possible to go too far.  Lucas also tried to use the hero’s journey in the prequel trilogies, and failed miserably.  Why?  Many reasons, but mostly because he used it as a rigid checklist rather than a dynamic set of flexible guidelines.  The hero doesn’t have to have a literal miraculous conception; he just needs to be chosen in some way.  The goddess doesn’t have to be literal, and neither does the father–those stages can be represented quite loosely, or merged with others.

In my own writing, I’ve found that the best way to use the hero’s journey is to use it to understand what I’ve already written, and to trust my subconscious to fill in the next step.  In every book I read, or every movie I watch, I constantly pick it apart, looking for each of the steps.  This trains me to recognize the hero’s journey in my own work without having to break out the hammer or force things too much.

So how do you use the hero’s journey in your own work?  Do you find yourself hitting up all the points subconsciously, or do you use some other method?  Or do you hate the hero’s journey and try to avoid it altogether?  If you do hate it, I hope that my next few Trope Tuesday posts will help you to change your mind.

Trope Tuesday: Slap Slap Kiss

There aren't enough scoundrels in your life.

Unless you have an unhealthy aversion to kissing books, you’re probably familiar with Slap Slap Kiss.  It’s common in genre romance, but you’ll often find it in science fiction & fantasy too.  When done well, it’s a great way to make sparks fly, but when done poorly…I think you can fill in the rest.

The basic underlying concept is that love and hate are just two sides of the same coin.  Both involve strong feelings for another person, the kind that drive you crazy and make it hard to think straight.  According to this theory, it’s a lot easier to fall in love with someone you hate than to fall in love with someone you don’t really care about.  And once you fall in love, the rest is easy. <snark!>

Kiss Kiss Slap is the Tsundere’s standard MO.  An effective way to end the will they or won’t they? phase, though the trope is so common that you can spot it almost as soon as the slapping starts (Dinosaur Comics has a good commentary on that).  Sometimes happens in conjunction with Foe Yay, though the couple doesn’t have to start out as sworn enemies.  The kiss itself is usually one of those “lovely trick[s] designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.” When set up properly, is often accompanied by a Love Epiphany.

Of course, it’s possible to go too far.  There’s a fine line between “all’s fair” and kicking the dog, and if you cross it…good luck.  Alternately, if the slapping doesn’t cross the line, but the kiss doesn’t live up to expectations, it’s also going to fall flat.  And if the main reason you invoke this trope is because the plot demands it…let’s just say, you’re doing it wrong.

In general, I think it’s important to keep the following in mind:

  • The attraction needs to be properly foreshadowed.  If the characters start slapping each other without even a hint of sexual tension first, no amount of backpedaling is going to make up for it.
  • Neither of the characters should tear each other down.  There’s a big difference between a slap and a punch (and a roundhouse kick, for that matter).  Even though the characters may abuse each other, they have to have at least some mutual respect.  After all, Han still called Leia “your highness,” and Leia still complimented Han on his “bucket of bolts” (albeit sarcastically).  Once the respect is gone, so is any hint of romance.
  • The kiss needs to be proportional to the slap.  Lots of slap with an innocent little peck is going to feel anticlimactic, while a tap on the chin with a giant make out moment immediately afterward is going to feel melodramatic.  The two need to be balanced in order for the trope to work.
  • The couple should have at least something in common. “Opposites attract” is often just an excuse for shoddy character development.  In real life, if the two people don’t have at least something in common, value-wise and personality-wise, the romance is pretty much doomed to fail.  As always, however, Your Mileage May Vary.

Finally, even though there are a lot of reasons to hate this trope, there’s a reason we keep coming back to it.  What that reason is exactly, I can’t say, but I know it when I see it.  After all, you really shouldn’t over analyze some things.  Like this video:

I think my work here is done.  What sayest thou?

Trope Tuesday: Freudian Trio

Last week, I blogged about the Three Faces of Eve trope.  But if we’re going to discuss power trios in any depth, we first need to examine the classic Freudian Trio, one of the most prevalent combos and, in some ways, a precursor to all others.

As you might expect, the Freudian Trio borrows heavily from Sigmund Freud, specifically, his theory of the Id, the Ego, and the Superego.   The main idea is that the human mind is divided into three parts: the Id, which comprises our basest animal instincts; the Superego, which comprises our concepts of morality and social norms; and the Ego, which struggles to find a balance between the two.

In the Freudian Trio, these elements of the psyche are represented by:

Each of these character archetypes are fascinating in their own right, and deserve to be examined in much greater depth.  However, in the Freudian Trio, it’s the combination of the three that proves so fascinating.

When faced with an interesting moral dilemma, the McCoy often wants to screw the rules and run in with guns blazing, while the Spock advocates caution, reminding us of the prime directive.  Or maybe the McCoy is paralyzed by indecision, while the Spock is the only one cold enough to make the sadistic choice.  In either case, the way the Kirk manages to resolve it will almost always reveal something deeper about the world or human nature.

The thing that’s truly amazing is how prevalent this trope is in fiction.  To name a few:

  • Star Trek: McCoy (Id), Spock (Superego), and Kirk (Ego).
  • Star Wars: Han (Id), Leia (Superego), and Luke (Ego), also:
  • Star Wars: Emperor Palpatine (Id), Grand Moff Tarkin (Superego), and Darth Vader (Ego).
  • Ender’s Game: Peter (Id), Valentine (Superego), and Ender (Ego).
  • Lord of the Rings: Gollum (Id), Sam (Superego), and Frodo (Ego), also:
  • Lord of the Rings: Gimli (Id), Legolas (Superego), and Agagorn (Ego), also:
  • Lord of the Rings: Dwarves (Id), Elves (Superego), and Humans (Ego).
  • Arthurian Legend: Sir Gawain (Id), Sir Lancelot (Superego), and King Arthur (Ego) (I would argue that Guinevere fits the Id role better, but I’m not an expert).
  • The Dark Knight: The Joker (Id), Harvey Dent (Superego), and Batman (Ego).
  • The Matrix: Neo (Id), Trinity (Superego), and Morpheus (Ego).
  • Shaun of the Dead: Ed (Id), Liz (Superego), and Shaun (Ego).
  • Fullmetal Alchemist: Edward (Id), Alphonse (Superego), and Winry (Ego).
  • The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Haruhi (Id), Yuki (Superego), and Kyon (Ego).
  • Final Fantasy VI: Kefka (Id), Leo (Superego), and Emperor Gestahl (Ego).
  • Final Fantasy VII: Barrett (Id), Cloud (Superego), and Tifa (Ego).
  • Myst: Achenar (Id), Sirrus (Superego), and Atrus (Ego).
  • Starcraft: Zerg (Id), Protoss (Superego), and Humans (Ego).
  • Homestar Runner: Strong Mad (Id), Strong Sad (Superego), and Strong Sad (Ego).
  • The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Tuco (Id), Angel Eyes (Superego), and Blondie (Ego).
  • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Ned (Id), Conseil (Superego), and Aronnax (Ego).
  • Twilight: Jacob (Id), Edward (Superego), and Bella (Ego).
  • Archie Comics: Veronica (Id), Betty (Superego), and Archie (Ego).

The Betty and Veronica one is particularly interesting because it’s also a love triangle.  In fact, most love triangles feature some kind of play on the Freudian Trio: the good girl vs. the bad girl, the nice guy vs. the jerk, the girl next door vs. forbidden love, prince charming vs. the loveable rogue.

Sometimes, the villains come from a dysfunctional or broken Freudian Trio, where one of the three died, was kicked out, or was never part of the combo in the first place.  When this happens, it’s called (aptly enough) a Evil Duo.  Examples include Pinkie and the Brain, Lex Luthor and the Joker, and Kefka and Gestahl (though that particular duo was very, very, VERY short lived).

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that the Freudian Trio is so common, it even occurs in real life.  Perhaps the best example of this would be World War II, where Churchill was the Id, Stalin was the Superego, and Roosevelt was the Ego.  With quotes like “never, never, never, never give up,” Churchill practically embodied the McCoy (his drinking penchant also helped), while Stalin, with his fanatic adherence to communism and his “million is a statistic” approach to the revolution, was as cold and calculating as you can get.  FDR was the one who held the alliance together, and it was only after his death that the Cold War really broke out.

Of course, it’s possible that we only see this trope everywhere because our brains are programmed to see it.  But if that’s true, it makes for an even stronger argument that the Freudian Trio plays on some powerful, universal archetypes.

Trope Tuesday: Chaotic Neutral

Look, I ain't in this for your revolution, and I'm not in it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid--I'm in it for the money.

If you’ve ever read a space adventure with smugglers and pirates, or a sword & sorcery with rogue thieves and master-less swordsmen, or a western with gritty outlaws and mountain men, you know this character alignment.  If you’re a fan of any of these genres, chances are you love him, too.

The Chaotic Neutral‘s one consistent rule is to always look out for #1.  Beyond that, he’s a free spirit who believes in individuality and resists anyone or anything that tries to control him.  Rebellious spirits and lovable rogues tend to fall into this alignment, but so do tricksters and wild cards.  Their resistance to any form of personal restriction makes them unreliable allies, despite what Jack Sparrow says.

From the easydamus alignment page:

A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions.

A lot of characters start out as this but tend to shift as the story progresses.  Han Solo, for example, shifts from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good as he becomes more and more involved with the Rebellion.  The Jägers from Girl Genius are Chaotic Neutral until they have a Heterodyne to lead them.  But in other stories, such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Schlock Mercenary, the Chaotic Neutral serves as an anchor.

My favorite Chaotic Neutral is probably Waylander from David Gemmell’s Drenai series.  The Jerusalem Man is another good one–in fact, just about every one of his books has a Chaotic Neutral that I love.  Haruhi Suzumiya is an excellent example of a female Chaotic Neutral–in fact, she’s probably the queen of this particular character alignment.

In my own work, the best example of a Chaotic Neutral would probably be Tamu from Bringing Stella Home / Sholpan.  Even though she’s technically a slave, she doesn’t really mind it because she has everything she wants and doesn’t have to be beholden to anybody (not even Qasar, really, since she’s his favorite).  Amina from Desert Stars is also Chaotic Neutral, in contrast with Surayya, who is more of a Lawful Neutral, though sometimes it’s hard to tell.  And in Genesis Earth, Terra is definitely a Chaotic Neutral at the beginning, though she shifts a little somewhere around the middle.

I’m hesitant to admit this, but when I took the character alignment test for myself, I tested out as a Chaotic Neutral.  As to what that means, exactly…I’m not going to say. o.0