#Hero archetype

[em-dash-press]

The Hero's Journey Character Arc Explained

Heroic characters are useful archetypes. Readers are familiar with them and love watching them succeed. Each hero’s journey takes them through trials and failures, but they always become better people in the end.

Here’s a quick guide to learning what a hero’s journey is and how you can write a character arc for your next heroic protagonist.

What Is the Hero’s Journey?

The hero’s journey is a specific character arc for the hero archetype. It has many ups and downs compared to the traditional mountain-shaped plot outline. 

A hero’s journey also includes many parts that aren’t all necessarily required. They’re simply plot points you can consider as you plan or write your stories. 

What Is the Hero’s Journey Character Arc?

The hero’s journey character arc is the general plot progression that takes the protagonist through their overall development. It’s customizable to each writer’s story, but contains these basic parts:

Part One: A Typical Day

Most stories start in this same place. Your reader needs to experience at least a bit of what your protagonist’s life is normally like. It establishes what matters to your protagonist, what they don’t like about their life, and the structural challenges they face.

Part Two: Receive the Call for Adventure

This part is Gandalf showing up on Bilbo’s doorstep. It’s the proposal of a grand adventure or the option to make a drastic change in the protagonist’s life.

The reader has seen what their life already looks like and if the protagonist is happy, so they understand what your hero has to potentially lose if things go wrong on their adventure.

Part Three: Refuse the Call

It’s very human to be scared of change. It’s also relatable to feel unequipped to handle a monumental responsibility. Hero archetypes often initially refuse their call, which can look like a few things:

Literally saying no to someone

Understanding their identity and running from it

Learning about their destined fate and rejecting it

Great heroes can also immediately accept the call. They don’t always have to refuse. It depends on your protagonist’s nature regarding change, adventure, and if they’re ready to overturn their life on a risky bet.

Part Four: Introduce the Mentor

Mentors help heroes prepare for their journey. This is the classic training montage, time spent in classes, or however your protagonist will learn the skills they need to achieve their journey’s goal.

Does your protagonist need a mentor? They may not if they already have most of the skills they’ll need. They can always learn new talents along their adventure as well.

Part Five: The Adventure Begins

The adventure is your overall plot. It might be a literal adventure, like exploring an unknown world. It could also be a new phase in your hero’s life, like going to college. Think of your hero’s adventure as the entirety of their upcoming experience that causes them to grow.

Part Six: Trials, Action, and Conflict Occur

These are your plot twists, your action scenes, and your interpersonal conflict. There’s no specific amount of each thing to include in your story. You only need the elements that further your hero along your plot or teach them more about your theme.

Example: Your hero’s adventure is a road trip across the country. They want to find the family car that got stolen a year ago, but your theme is the complicated nature of processing grief. Losing the family car caused a specific loss to occur within the family. 

The events should help your hero recognize the grief, understand how they’ve been avoiding it, and learn how to process it. Anything that doesn’t build to that overarching theme won’t move the adventure along.

Part Seven: The Protagonist’s Goal Is Close

Your hero’s goal will eventually become within reach. It’s that moment when a character says the cliche, “XYZ is so close, I can almost taste it.”

Will your hero feel more motivated as their goal gets closer? Will they feel intimidated and try to run away? There are many ways this moment affects protagonists in the hero’s journey character arcs.

Part Eight: The Biggest Test or Trial Occurs

This is the part where your hero has no option left but to face their biggest test. It’s the final boss fight scene in a video game or the one-on-one fight in a movie between the protagonist and antagonist.

It can also mean your character faces the inward dilemma that’s the heart of your theme. Does it go well? It depends on how you want to end your story. Readers sometimes love a story that ends in defeat, especially if it sets up a sequel. 

Your hero doesn’t have to end their story perfectly. If you think your theme will be more relatable or understandable through loss, go with your gut.

Part Nine: The Hero Ventures Through the Dangerous Journey Home

Sometimes this part isn’t necessary in stories, but it’s worth considering. After journeying far from home, your hero has won or lost their ultimate test. Now they have to return to their life as their changed self. 

How will their adventure impact their relationships or way of life? They won’t be the same person they were on page one because you’ve had them experience an entire arc.

Part Ten: A Final Test Makes Your Protagonist Learn the Plot’s Primary Lesson

After returning home (or on the journey there), your hero may experience one more trial that drives your theme home. It’s not a required part of every story, but it’s another way to make your theme clear to the reader. It may also help you feel like you’ve tied up loose ends, if you feel like some remain.

Part Eleven: The Hero Returns Home Successful

Closing your story with your hero successfully back home brings your plot arc full circle. Heroes typically complete the arc in this way because they’re not stereotypically looking for a new place to live. They initially reject the call for adventure because they don’t want to leave.

However, your hero’s journey may include the dream or newly inspired desire to change their life. As long as they end up in a place where they are either happy or feel ready for new beginnings, you’ll have successfully included this part of the plot arc.

Examples of The Hero’s Journey Character Arc  

The Odyssey

This classic example of a hero’s journey character arc includes every step outlined above. He leaves home for adventure (war), goes through numerous trials along the way there and the way home, then has a final test when he’s back home.

Pride and Prejudice

Elizabeth is the hero of Pride and Prejudice. When she receives the call for adventure (a marriage proposal) she rejects it. The novel’s events carry her on a seemingly unknown journey to the biggest test, which is when she realizes she’s in love with Mr. Darcy. A final test (Darcy’s second proposal) makes her confront her love and her concept of marriage.

The Hunger Games

Katniss’ hero’s journey character arc happens in each of the three books, plus the overall arc of the trilogy. She accepts the call to adventure (taking her sister’s place), experiences trials along the way (the Games), and faces a final test (saving Peeta along with herself by recognizing her true feelings for him and her power over the Games). 

The story doesn’t end perfectly because two more books follow. However, it ends in a satisfying place for readers because every thread gets tied up (Katniss protecting her family, surviving, and learning to recognize and deal with her emotions).

Write Incredibly Heroic Characters

Writing a hero’s journey character arc might take some more planning than you’ve done in the past, but it isn’t impossible. Remember these steps to write an epic story with a hero your readers adore.

[inbabylontheywept]

Soviet Birds.

The secret facility that I work in has holes in the ceiling. We don't know how to get them fixed.

We tried asking the government to fix it, once. We told them that the holes in the older parts of the facility had gotten large enough to fit birds through, and that birds were getting through, and that, perhaps, a Soviet Spy could fit through as well.

After all, it is well known that Soviet Spies and pigeons are approximately the same diameter.

Our hope was that that this vague and nonsensical threat would put a little fire under Uncle Sam's feet. If the fed couldn't be bothered to give a shit about the giant gaping holes in the roof of our facility, perhaps they could be persuaded to give a shit about... Soviet Spies.

This attempt at manipulation 100% blew up in our faces.

See, the government does not need to be persuaded to give a shit about Soviet Spies. It still wakes up most nights, drenched in cold sweat, terrified and confident that a Soviet Spy is hiding in their nightstand. If it sees a rock on the ground, it flips it over, pistol drawn, ready to shoot the Soviet Spy it fully expects to slither out from underneath. Which is to say: The government is crazy. So when we dropped those two words - inflitration risk - in the repair request, they came in guns-a-blazin'.

Does that mean that they fixed the roof? Of course not. Don't be stupid. No, instead of performing basic maintenance, they installed a state of the art alarm system throughout the facility - lasers, sonar, the works - and told us to always be on the guard. Because of the roof holes.

Then they left.

So now we had an extremely good alarm system... and birds. Which have combined in incredibly obvious and predictable ways to produce an unending fountain of problems.

For Example: About once a month, someone gets called in by the local airforce dispatch because AAAAAAAAAAA a Spy is in the Rad Lab! We're all gonna die! Except every time, it's a bird. And I get why we have to check, but every time, the dispatcher is panicked and the person going out has to be like listen, listen: It's a bird. It's always a bird. It's been a bird every month for the last fifteen years. It will be a bird next month. All this stress? Bad for your heart.

Second Example: Sometimes, birds get in while we're actually working. And when it's in the morning, you know, it's a nuisance, and it stops testing (we are not going to risk irradiating a bird) but it's not an all-hands-on-deck situation because it doesn't take ten hours to get a bird out. But surprisingly often, the bird gets in riiiiight at closing time, and in that situation, everyone goes feral because nobody can leave until the alarm is set, and we cannot set the alarm while the bird is there, because the bird would immediately trigger it and then we'd have to stay another 4 hours to confirm that it was not a Soviet Bird.

So in order to go home, everyone's top priority is Get That Bird. And we have a system for it.

Step 1: The test stands tend to be located in rooms with 30+ foot ceilings. We can't catch birds in places like that - so we have to lure the bird into the relatively low ceilinged (8 feet only) upper offices.

We do this by turning all the lights off in the test rooms, then putting floodlights by the exits. I don't know why this works - some kind of evolutionary brain fragment shared by both Bugs and Birds - but work it does. The birds almost always follow after the lights. From there, it’s just two guys moving the floodlight and a third guy to turn off the lights.

Step 2: Everyone else has been waiting for this step. There is this long stairway up from the basement level into the offices, and in the final stage, the floodlights are brought to the base of the stairwell to bring the bird up. At the top of the steps there will be a group of tennish people, waiting for the signal. The light guys will set up the final transfer, everyone will tense, and then, swish...a bird will flit up the stairs and into the offices.

It's like watching werewolves on a full moon. Before the bird cometh, we are engineers. Nerds. Pale and skinny things, trembling under the fluorescent lights. After the bird, we are beasts. Feral, gnawing things, glowing under the orange sunrise of the 70's halogen floodlights.

And like all beasts, we cannot help but give chase.

Step 3: The were-engineers begin the hunt. The goal at the start is not really to catch the bird - just exhaust it. So the pack simply does not relent. Because the stakes are going home on time, the group is basically given free reign to go anywhere in the building. If someone's door is open, and the bird goes inside, they're going to have to deal with ten sweaty panting maniacs leaping around their office. They don't get to say that they're busy, or remark on how all this movement is a terrible distraction. They are allowed to sit in silence during the chaos, and perhaps thank the war party for chasing the bird while they sat comfortably on their ass. This has been explained several times, and it will continue to be explained until cooperation is achieved.

Anyway.

The chase can go on for quite some time. Sometimes, the bird will get tired and find a crevice to hide in, where it can then be reached through standard cornered-bird catching techniques.

Other times, it will slow down enough that someone can actually yoink it out of the air. But this will go on until someone catches the bird and triggers Step 4.

Step 4: The Finale. This is the get-the-bird-out-of-the-building stage, and it requires someone to adopt a specific role: To Become the Sacrificial Vessel of Bird Removal.

This job is both coveted and feared. It's coveted, because holding a wild bird in one's hands is a precious thing. To feel how small, and fragile, and scared it is, only to free it from the building? That is what it's like to be a benevolent God. But the cost! Oh, the cost. The entire time the Vessel is in motion, the bird will be biting the hell out of their fingers. And I cannot emphasize enough just how painful bird bites are. Their entire face is a set of needle posed pliers, and they know tricks the even the cartels haven't figured out yet. So there's always a little hubbub about who shall be The Vessel while onlookers, stranded outside The Office of Bird Capture, can only look on. Quiet arguments and pleas are heard, little fragments of fear and pride and glory trickling out of room like the silver dust left behind in a bag of well shook quarters. The sound of concensus is silence, and the argument will go on until that's all that's left. And then, from the darkness of the final office, the chosen sacrifice will step forward: Hands gently cupped, tears streaming down their face, fingers trembling from the pain of the ongoing bird chomps.

And this scene is what organizes people. Not leadership, not truly. No one can think and coordinate a crowd while their fingers are being attacked with a combination nutcracker/ear piercer. But the crowd sees the suffering of their annointed, and it is driven to do everything poossible to make the process flow. People instinctively flair out, finding the fastest path outside. Doors are held open. Paths are cleared. Someone, somehow, always knows the way forward and can describe it to the sufferer. Left, left, forward. Corner closet. Yep, there's a hall in there. Forward. Two-hundred more feet man, you're doing great. Just hold it together a little longer. You're killing it.

Then the final door swings open, and the bird flees out into what remains of daylight. And yet, even here, the deed is not yet done. I cannot explain it in words, but the crowd that helped is never content until they can see and speak on the Bird Vessel's wounds. They all have to pull the fingers back and see what was given. Estimate the price: One day to get better - No, three - No, a week! Are you blind? Do you see that blood blister? -Yeah, that's not going away anytime soon - Damn, can you believe how feisty those things are? Like wolves without teeth.

(They cannot help but touch as they go. It has always been this way. Even Thomas was not content until he felt the wounds in Christ's hands.)

Only when the last of the helpers has seen, and commented, and commended, will the engineers scatter. It is their return from the underworld that announces to the sun living surface dwellers that they too can go home. (@somerunner tolja it needed to be a post.)

[amaranthdahlia]

thee twin brothers

[pencap]

FINAL LAMENT OF THE HERO'S HEART

i love you. doesn't that mean anything? of course it does. it means everything, don't you know?

and you love me. you know i do. it isn't a question. not even now. not from you.

you promised me forever. was that a lie? i meant it. i still mean it. my love is yours forever. for as long as my broken heart beats, and beyond.

but you're going to leave anyway. i have to. i'm sorry. i would stay if i could. but somewhere out there lies a gravestone waiting already with my name written on it and i do not have the strength to uncarve a stone.

why you? why do we have to be the tragedy? because the gods are cruel, or at least uncaring. because the earth is parched with bloodthirst. because all the other lovers who were tragedies asked the same question and received no answers.

but i love you. and you love me. my broken heart, if love were enough to change the story there would be no tragedies left in this world.

[pioneer-over-c]

I like to make theme teams for Tap Battle. This time I hired a bunch of mercenaries for the job. Dancing is not really their strong suit

[ultfreakme]

I just want to know what is this obsession with some ATLA fans on making Katara "The Mom"? She's 14. We start with Aang saying she is just a kid so what on Earth is this weird take?

[whump-in-the-closet]

Hi! I’d love to hear more about your Whump Archetypes concept!

sorry it took me a sec to get to this one. (referencing this post right?)

hero whumpee: sun-coded/ pride of the city/self-sacrificial -> failing to protect those they love/ their torture is videotaped and broadcasted to the city/ sacrifice everything for their friends

sidekick/apprentice whumpee: unshakingly loyal/ optimistic/ eager to prove their worth -> handed over to whumper in a trade for someone more "useful"/ disillusioned by the world/ forced to undergo training that breaks them emotionally and physically, punished if they can't complete their assignments

defiant whumpee: sarcastic/ argumentative/ never goes down without a fight -> muzzled/ publicly humiliated via flogging/ forced to lick their whumper's shoes

stoic whumpee: quiet/ steady head on their shoulders/ no one can control them, only their situations -> put on display/ used as an ashtray in party environments/ when whumper finally makes them break down and sob, its game over

vampire whumpee: threatening demeanor/ proud of their capabilities/ deep-hidden fears that no one knows about -> silver blades that make them bleed/ fangs ripped out/ manhandled and dehumanized until they no longer recognize themself

[utilitycaster]

I’ve long noticed and previously commented on the odd fandom antipathy towards characters like Suvi of Worlds Beyond Number and Jonas Spahr from Midst; and simultaneously a far, far more generous approach to outright villains like Will Gallows, many of the witches, and Moc Weepe.

I’ve also commented on the favor and endless forgiveness shown villains before, and to get it out of the way, yes, a lot of this is due to horny reasons, and as someone who does not identify personally as a monsterfucker this might be part of my lack of interest. But I think it would be unwise to chalk this up entirely to people wanting to fuck the villains, and given that Suvi and Jonas are both extremely attractive as well it’s certainly not the whole picture.

Suvi and Jonas are born into and achieve positions of privilege - military/political no less - in imperial societies. They are both explicitly indoctrinated. They are not, in my opinion, brainwashed; but they are driven into who they become through competition.

I think a lot of people are really uncomfortable with characters shown to be complicit in and favored within this kind of society. I think Spahr and Suvi occupy a space that they find too close to home; too close to what they themselves are. A villain validates one’s beliefs: Weepe is ruthlessly self-interested, driven by profit, and terribly violent, and so it’s easier to be comfortable with him, ironically enough, because the story tells you he’s a bastard and you can feel good about clocking him as a bastard, and even like that this character is on a meta level telling you that you’re right in your beliefs.

Suvi and Jonas and those like them don’t permit you that validation. They participate in these harmful systems while believing it to be the right thing to do. They are also young people who grew up knowing little else, with unfathomably high expectations placed upon them. They are flawed, with no shortage of harsh edges, but they are also frequently kind and generous people who are incredibly important, as they currently are, to characters one might find more sympathetic. They are deeply human. And they are both the beneficiaries and the victims of a vast and complicated system. You cannot fit them into the box of a “stripped of choice” victim even though both have found themselves backed against a wall by their respective societies. You cannot avoid that the dissolution of their society would have devastating consequences, even if it might be right (which Midst directly explores; I suspect the Citadel might not be a thing to be dissolved). And while many people do so, one cannot in good faith and intelligent analysis treat them as nothing more than a shipping doll who needs to be programmed to become a mirror of the “correct” character of one’s choosing without ignoring who they are and what they bring to the table: a political savvy, a great deal of talent and intelligence, and a desire to embody the best parts of their respective flawed societies.

As Midst reaches its denouement, one of the core messages is that a harmful society is still one comprised of people: some upholding it, some actively furthering it, and some just living within it. While Worlds Beyond Number is nowhere near its end, Brennan Lee Mulligan’s body of work upholds a similar message; that one cannot lose sight of the personhood of people, even those involved in messy and damaging systems, and that people must be judged with that in mind. Suvi and Spahr are not cogs to be wrenched free and corrected, but characters to appreciate in their complexity. It is a shame that so many reject them in favor of those who consistently choose to do harm because it is less difficult and challenging to think in terms of Good Guy/Bad Guy.

[whyoneartheven]

I MADE A UQUIZ!!!

@margindoodles2407 @isasan347 @ginjusttalkaboutnothing @bluevaractyl

and anyone else can take it too ofc :D

[monstergreentea]

saw a post on booktok about tgcf where hua cheng was described as "the villain" and xie lian was "the hero" and i full-body laughed bc how did you read all of tgcf and come away with any character being a hero or villain???

[aengelren]

the way he’s desperately grabbing onto Armin knowing it’s their final time

[ladyinthebluebox]

sometimes i wonder how many more people inconvenient to Zariel in some way Mizora could've possibly sicced Wyll on & how many more he could've eliminate not willing to listen to them, like he eventually listened to Karlach, all while believing he worked for the good of the Coast...

[buckevantommy]

it's so wild to look at s1!buck compared to s7!buck

[b4kuch1n]

fanciful stories (you're way too good at this)

(that's not what it's about. being good at it)

[ohmerricat]

i hope ruby gets a well-that’s-alright-then-style notdeath. on the one hand it will make haters mad because oh no not another companion with an impermanent end (and i like to see haters mad) on the other it would require creativity to depict this in a new way + i love all the implications i love the dark fairytale quality of these companion exits i love my un-undead schrodinger’s women

with the way the legend of ruby sunday is titled… legends aren’t usually told about living people. legends are stories of the bygone past, of an age long since over, fictionalised and overgrown with folklore like barnacles sticking to an abandoned shell. there is such a thing as a living legend, but they’re exceedingly rare. the unmistakeable raven’s call in the 73 yards teaser, the trailer’s cut to fifteen crying alone after promising to cherry he’d protect her daughter… the foreshadowing is clear as day…

and yet. there’s one massive HOWEVER. ruby appears in s15: millie’s been spotted on set filming it. which leads me to believe — the doctor isn’t one to take the time travel route and revisit companions that in his future are genuinely dead. that would hurt too much, it would cause unnecessary trauma and could break the timeline. that must mean ruby stays alive in some way. ish. she’s alive and a legend and a mystery. girl-ballad girl-song girl-paradox

here she is, fading out.

p.s.: thesis statement on moffatgirls from the tags i left on somebody else’s post about charley pollard.. well it belongs here since it’s basically the semiotic hurricane swirling around ruby at the moment :)

[pathfinder7007]

You just had to be there

Like ik if the fandom was even just a fairly decent size there would be way more craze lol I need to hype them up to compensant