{"id":7798,"date":"2012-10-23T07:13:38","date_gmt":"2012-10-23T12:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=7798"},"modified":"2012-10-23T07:13:38","modified_gmt":"2012-10-23T12:13:38","slug":"trope-tuesday-came-back-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/trope-tuesday-came-back-strong\/","title":{"rendered":"Trope Tuesday: Came Back Strong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zyd_xliZM3U\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/CameBackStrong\" target=\"_blank\">This trope<\/a>, also kown as <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Monomyth#Apotheosis\" target=\"_blank\">apotheosis<\/a>, is by far my favorite part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=7499\" target=\"_blank\">hero&#8217;s journey<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Up to this point, <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/TheHero\" target=\"_blank\">the hero<\/a> has faced a lot of <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/SecretTest\" target=\"_blank\">tests and trials<\/a>. \u00a0Some of them <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/SecretTestOfCharacter\" target=\"_blank\">he&#8217;s passed<\/a>, some of them <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/GoneHorriblyWrong\" target=\"_blank\">he hasn&#8217;t<\/a>, but the setbacks haven&#8217;t yet been enough to stop him. \u00a0Sure, the costs have been high&#8211;he may have <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/MentorOccupationalHazard\" target=\"_blank\">lost a friend or mentor<\/a>, for example&#8211;but at least he&#8217;s still in the game. \u00a0Then, just as he experiences the power of love (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Monomyth#The_Meeting_With_the_Goddess\" target=\"_blank\">meeting with the goddess<\/a>) and reconciles with the ultimate power in his life (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Monomyth#Atonement_with_the_Father\" target=\"_blank\">atonement with the father<\/a>), what happens?<\/p>\n<p>He\u00a0<em>dies.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This may be literal or metaphorical, physical or spiritual&#8211;but whatever form it takes, the hero has to lose something significant, up to and including&#8230;well, everything. \u00a0After all, there are <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/FateWorseThanDeath\" target=\"_blank\">so many things worse than death<\/a>. \u00a0While all the other failures up to this point left him more or less intact, this one completely shatters him&#8211;and in the process, transforms him.<\/p>\n<p>Like <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/ThePhoenix\" target=\"_blank\">a phoenix rising from the ashes<\/a>, the hero <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/CameBackStrong\" target=\"_blank\">comes back<\/a>\u00a0from the dead, often\u00a0with <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/TookALevelInBadass\" target=\"_blank\">a level in badass<\/a>. \u00a0By dying, he gains that last piece of knowledge, experience, or resolve that he needs to defeat the <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/BigBad\" target=\"_blank\">big bad<\/a> and gain the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Monomyth#The_Ultimate_Boon\" target=\"_blank\">ultimate boon<\/a>\u00a0of his quest. \u00a0Whoever or whatever he was before, that person wasn&#8217;t strong enough to pass the test&#8211;but now, he is.<\/p>\n<p>When done well, this is a stand-and-cheer moment of the best possible kind. \u00a0It&#8217;s the culmination of everything the hero has gone through, not just in terms of plot, but character as well. \u00a0Years from now, you might forget everything else in the story&#8211;even the parts that you loved&#8211;but you&#8217;ll remember how you felt when you got to this part.<\/p>\n<p>One of my favorite examples of this trope is in the clip I posted from the Matrix. \u00a0Seriously, when Neo realizes that he is <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/TheChosenOne\" target=\"_blank\">The One<\/a>, that is one of the best moments in all of cinema. \u00a0The Empire Strikes Back also has a moment like this, though since the movie is essentially a tragedy, there&#8217;s a lot more emphasis on Luke&#8217;s death (falling through the gas mine shaft after confronting Darth Vader) than his resurrection (getting a new hand and reuniting with his friends). \u00a0The oldest examples, of course, come from mythology&#8211;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.<\/p>\n<p>So as writers, how are we supposed to get this trope right? \u00a0I&#8217;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. \u00a0Even though storytelling is ostensibly just making stuff up, it&#8217;s not something you can fake&#8211;if you aren&#8217;t excited about your own story, how do you expect your readers to even care?<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, this is often the part of the story that drives us to write everything else. \u00a0There have definitely been times when I could hardly wait to get through the other stuff and finally write the chapter where this happens. \u00a0<strong>Bringing Stella Home<\/strong> was a big one&#8211;and that&#8217;s all I can say, at the risk of giving spoilers. \u00a0<strong>Star Wanderers<\/strong> is another one, though it wasn&#8217;t until I was midway through\u00a0<strong>Fidelity<\/strong>\u00a0that it really came to me. \u00a0<strong>Desert Stars<\/strong> was more of a <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/HeroicSecondWind\" target=\"_blank\">Heroic Second Wind<\/a>, which is basically Came Back Stronger without the death. \u00a0However, there was definitely a transformation, both for Mira and Jalil.<\/p>\n<p>So yeah, I really,<em> really,<\/em> REALLY love this trope. \u00a0When done well, it&#8217;s one of those things that can turn a run-of-the-mill adventure story into something both soul-searching and powerful. \u00a0You can definitely expect to see me play with it a lot in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This trope, also kown as apotheosis, is by far my favorite part of the hero&#8217;s journey. Up to this point, the hero has faced a lot of tests and trials. \u00a0Some of them he&#8217;s passed, some of them he hasn&#8217;t, but the setbacks haven&#8217;t yet been enough to stop him. \u00a0Sure, the costs have been&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/trope-tuesday-came-back-strong\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Trope Tuesday: Came Back Strong<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[68,44,857],"tags":[574,108,403,306,380,740,641,565,626],"class_list":["post-7798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bsh","category-ds","category-sw","tag-character-arcs","tag-climax","tag-death","tag-star-wars","tag-the-heros-journey","tag-the-matrix","tag-trope-tuesday","tag-tropes-and-cliches","tag-tvtropes","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-21M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7798"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7800,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798\/revisions\/7800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}