#hero's journey

[psyfi]

haha yeah i'm going on a hero's journey, no i'm not gonna fundamentally change after going through trials and tribulations. i'm gonna return home the same as i was, loser

[averagecygnet-blog]

emma is the villain of tgwdlm

I need to talk about this oh my god

because it's told from the hive's perspective. paul is the protagonist because he is the one who resists them but must ultimately come to accept that they're right. emma is the one who must be beaten through force.

the difference between the hero and the villain is that the hero must change, while the villain cannot. (I'm not speaking in universals here, just generalizations of how the narrative structures work that tgwdlm uses in parody.) the hero and the villain both hold a belief that represents the thematic evil; by the end of the story, the hero must undergo apotheosis, which is to say, ultimate unity with the thematic good. once this is achieved, he can defeat the villain, who represents the thematic evil completely and is incapable of change.

to the hive, "good" is unquestioning conformity to the group's ideals, specifically, singing and dancing in sync with everybody else. "evil" is refusing to sing and dance along when, clearly, you want to.

paul is the perfect protagonist because he resists song and dance, but largely because it makes him uncomfortable. getting out of your comfort zone is necessary for change! it's a good thing to let yourself go through something uncomfortable in order to come out the other side better and stronger for it. (that much is true; however, sometimes discomfort is a legitimate sign that you should stay away from something.) paul has never really tried singing or dancing, and deep down, is afraid that if he tried it, he might like it. exactly the sort of person who can be converted and used as a shining example of the hive's righteousness.

emma must be the villain because her refusal to fall in line is a choice. she can sing, she can dance, she was in brigadoon in high school and she fuckin killed it, she is even taught a whole ass song with choreography by the hive on their first morning in hatchetfield (emma's comment about how they have to sing "all the time, apparently!" and zoey's implied presence at the theater when the meteor hit - because she was with sam, and sam was there - strongly suggests that nora and zoey were zombified all morning and she had no idea). it's stated by hidgens and suggested by nora and zoey that getting a human to sing/dance along with them is supposed to be a sort of mesmerizing tactic that the hive uses to start synchronizing a person to the hive mind, but emma refuses. she sings and she dances, just like they want, but she chooses to actively hate it the whole time, on principle. she can't be convinced; they have to swarm her, surround her on all sides. let it out is meant to win paul to their side; inevitable is just to gloat.

in the bar scene in hidgens' bunker, emma says that she must be the villain to paul's hero because she was in the musical that got him to hate musicals. on the one hand, she had it backwards; she's the villain because according to the hive, the all-encompassing narrative power, he's not supposed to hate musicals. on the other hand, she's kind of right: paul is the protagonist because he is the guy who didn't like musicals, while emma is the villain because she has the capacity to like musicals as well as experience in them, but has chosen to reject them.

who is the hero and who is the villain all depends on who is telling the story. and the hive is telling this story. don't forget that.

[willknightauthor]

Andor recontextualizes the whole original trilogy, to the point that it actually makes me like it more. Like originally, A New Hope and the rest are just a standard hero's journey/chosen-one story about some dude who does training montages and then kills an evil wizard. But when you add in Andor and Rogue One, you have an entire history of the struggle to build and the struggle to destroy the Death Star. You know the many who fought and died over decades, what the existence of the Empire actually means, and what they want to do with the Death Star once finished.

Suddenly Luke isn't some magical boy, he's just a specially talented, well-placed person. He stands on the shoulders of millions who died to get him to where he needed to be so he could do the thing they needed him to do to alleviate everyone's oppression. According to Rogue One he's not even the only person with jedi potential in the resistance! He's just the only one to get any real training or equipment. Luke may be important, but he's not special. The whole saga makes Luke feel normal, and it does so by populating the universe with heroes.

This is the ideal of what prequels should be: standing strong as stories in their own right, while adding to the narrative power of the original story by giving it more context.

[young-royals-confessions]

Just pitching in since I see so much discourse about will they or won’t they that I think we kind of lost the essence of the story: I mean yes, Netflix is promoting the whole are they going to be endgame or not, tune in to find out but I think that’s just a generic marketing tactic.I’ve honestly been ignoring it.

Also, Lisa doesn’t strike me as the type of writer that would push only her own personal agenda or politics to a tv show, especially one that has critical acclaim as yr. That’s not what true storytelling is about. Please bear with me (apologies in advance for the long response !) but here’s my v long winded reasoning:

The theme has always been love v. duty & the monarchy is the enemy. Wille is on a Hero’s Journey - he is ultimately the Main Character; the Young Royal. What’s great about The Hero’s Journey is that it’s easy to follow and makes for great storytelling despite its predictability. I think some people here may have touched upon this so I am simply expanding:

As a viewer, we follow Wille and get to know him. He’s a likable character and we easily root for him and feel for him when we learn about the power dynamics in play; specifically how he feels caged as a prince. Then we enter into a Call for Adventure: him falling for Simon and the high stakes he enters when his brother passes and he is now Crown Prince.

This, then, propels the story forward, given the stakes are stacked up and it’s not looking good for Wille, especially after he/we find out August was the offender for sex tape leak.

After that, we enter into The Refuse to Call for Adventure; i.e, the hero (Wille) realizes he must face the challenge. We also step into the Meeting the Mentor, which is Boris, who helps Wille learn how to stand up and ultimately fight for himself (and Simon). While I see others thinking that W might push everyone away, including skipping his appts with Boris, I do not think that’s the case. Boris was set up to be the Mentor that W needs to realize the challenge he’s been facing and we may continue seeing him open up to Boris.

This will then allow W to “Cross the Threshold” and reinforce the central theme and conflict of the story - if W continues to stay with the monarchy and his obligations as Crown Prince, he cannot choose Simon. Love or Duty? Which will prevail?

S3 crosses that threshold and produces tests and obstacles that would make the fight for his relationship w S so much more complicated (basically everything we saw in the trailer). This stage in the Hero’s Journey is meant for the audience to doubt the Hero - Wille. It’s already a testament as we are debating if W is going to denounce his title or not just from the 2 mins of what we saw from the trailer. It’s intentional. We need to doubt in order for the central theme to drive home and also portrays the monarchy to be the overarching enemy of this story, without Lisa forfeiting her own political statement.

We enter the next stage of the Journey - which is the Cave - meaning the Hero and protagonists need to regroup and prepare for a counter attack (generally speaking) because the tension is continuing to rise and there are outside forces that wish to disturb the Journey (in this case, public opinion? paparazzi? Hillerska shutting down?).

Next, we enter the Ordeal - which makes the Hero break down bc he enters a mental barrier and is pushed to a corner. However, the Hero, typically comes out stronger after this stage in storytelling.

Ultimately, we reach the end: The Reward. The Hero makes the “attack” or choice and defeats the enemy/antagonist.

Imo, with how everything is set up, I do think it’s set up for W and S to be together in the end at least the end of the show (everything else after is obviously left for the audience member to interpret).

I have no doubt that W & S are going to come up on top and still be together in the end bc like some people mentioned - what would be the point? It was never a question whether they would end up together. The question is if Wille, our Hero in this story, would make the final choice and choose between love or duty. I think Wille would choose love. What better way of making history, especially with everything that’s been happening in real events, then choosing love? That would make for a strong ending.

[high-quality-tiktoks]

Love spotting the heroine's journey in film & hoping to see it in barbie

[shisasan]

Immense love for all those authentic souls who openly wear their big hearts and unwavering integrity. These courageous, generous, compassionate beings facing and embracing the entire world without fear or reservation.

[maripr]

Ruby 🤝 Jaune 🤝 Ozpin

Never feeling like they are enough.

Turns out what they all needed was Oscar.

[uptoolateart]

I'm looking at this Adrien Problem yet another way.

At the end of Re-Creation, we hear this news clip:

'...because no one teaches us how to understand or deal with them. If we don't listen to what our fears, sadness and anger are trying to tell us....'

This parallels the beginning of Conformation, when the Alliance tells the public that we all have fears and the answer is basically to anaesthetise ourselves.

When Adrien succumbs to his fears and accepts the Alliance antidote, this is him not listening to the messages of his emotions. But he has to if he's ever going to heal and grow. Otherwise, he's just repressed...as usual.

The message at the end of Re-Creation was that Adrien would absolutely give into his negative emotions - that there was no way around this, and that's why Marinette had to face Gabriel alone.

But nightmares are there for a reason. They are the subconscious trying to tell us something important. When we identify the thing we're meant to examine, and we tackle it, the nightmares go away. If we ignore them, they fester underneath and find other ways to come out and hurt us.

Adrien and Marinette's Cat Blanc nightmares persist because neither of them are talking about them. Cat Blanc himself told her she wasn't listening to him as he tried to explain what had happened. Interestingly, Marinette switches off the news before hearing the full message. And by putting on that Alliance ring, Adrien isn't listening either - to himself.

He never went into the Innermost Cave faced and embraced his Shadow side, and therefore never came back to the world with greater wisdom gleaned from that experience. In fact, he's not even in the world he started in, because it's all been changed. It means he's still a very broken hero on an ongoing journey.

Again, I just hope hope hope this means they have plans for him in future seasons. Seeing all those other heroes added back to the team at the end made me worried he would be sidelined again - but maybe not. They still have to deal with the rest of the love square - and his story is very much not over, by any classic writing standards.

[compo67]

my nephew has to do a school project about the hero's journey by joseph campbell. as we helped him brainstorm, i was about to go feral with sam winchester examples

[transparentbeardmentality]

So sick of hearing bs from dudebros that minimise Katsuki's importance to the plot.

Katsuki IS the central plot.

I'm not kidding. This is an enemy to lovers romance set in a superhero world.

And our hero doesn't have to be conciously aware of they're in a romance story with their antagonist from the beginning. They in fact, typically, don't get it.

Now any half-serious writer knows about 'The Hero's Journey'. A guide to plotting out the narrative and developing the protoganist.

Every hero has to follow this. A writer may wiggle some things around to spice it up, but this is the blueprint they have to cover. It sets the entire plot direction. The purpose of our hero's story.

What's unusual is that the plot in MHA is deliberately misdirected by a dream to be a hero, and an eventual showdown with AFO. But I'm going to tell you the central plot is:

Protect/Save Katsuki.

He must win over Katsuki, be equal to Katsuki, and ultimately save Katsuki.

Our protagonist refuses to voice this desire, but he is very aware (now). He does reach a moment of clarity and self-honesty (after lying about why blackwhip was activated), and from that moment on, we lose all narrated insight of his thoughts about Katsuki.

The story moves forward as though it's something else, but still critically revolves around the two of them. Everything else that happens is a sub-plot for other character development, or a plot-driver for their relationship.

What steps are in The Hero's Journey that make me think this?:

Introduction -Ordinary World

Call to Action/Adventure

Refusal of Call

Meet The Mentor

Accepting the Call/Crossing the Threshold

Let's have a look:

First we have an Introduction: Ordinary World. The world as it is in the beginning for our protoganist, inlcuding our first insights into their existing problems and inadequacies. Things they will need to overcome by the end of the story.

And here's Izuku's Ordinary World:

Izuku's ordinary world is introduced with his terrible relationship with Katsuki, and his quirkless inadequacy that feeds into this. He is not born equal to others, and most critically, not equal to Katsuki.

Next is Call to Action (Adventure). The hero is compelled to rise to meet the crisis.

Izuku's Call to Action:

Someone is being killed. Smothered. It's Izuku's fault.

He accidentilly released the sludge villain while begging to become a hero to All Might. Izuku knows someone has to act right now, the kid is suffocating just like he was when he was attacked by the same villain earlier. His actions caused this, and he doesn't move. He tells himself he can't do anything.

All hero's narratively have to reject the first Call to Action.

Refusing The Call:

He doesn't act, he waits for a hero. Without a quirk, he can't do anything.

You'll notice on our Hero's Journey wheel what is supposed to happen next is Meet The Mentor.. But this step has happened already. We know Izuku meets All Might before any of this happens. What the?..

Yes. Horikoshi subverted the Hero's Journey by having Izuku meet All Might BEFORE The Call to Action. And All Might REJECTS him.

It allows Deku to go straight from clearly Refusing The Call to Avtion, to Accepting The Call (or Crossing The Threshold), which a Hero only does because something critical has changed to move them into action.

Accepting The Cal/Crossing The Threshold:

Despite resolving to give up on his dream to save people, accepting he will never be equal to Katsuki, Izuku answers The Call by saving Kacchan, *BECAUSE* it's Kacchan.

Kacchan is Deku's critical motivator, our turning point. The Call turned out to Katsuki, and it changes everything. He answers this time without hesitation.

Some are going to argue that it's because of his 'save me' eyes, and it could have been anyone needing saving. If that's true, then Horikoshi could have made it anyone else. But he didn't, because it had to be Katsuki to set and drive the plot.

Narration: There were any number of reasons [one of is simply "Kacchan"]. But at that moment...

"YOU..."

"You look like you needed saving."

The first "You.." in a bubble all on it's own, is not an accident. There are no accidents in storytelling. It's the answer.

"There were any number of reasons. But in that moment... You..."

The Call is not becoming a hero, because Izuku never refused to be a hero. He has PURSUED being a hero his whole life. Aggressively. Painfully. Dellusionally.

He is ALREADY a schoolyard hero -even getting beaten to defend others. It's a huge dream, and Izuku will wreck himself over it, but it's not The Call.

It serves as his growth journey to become worthy and equal, and it's a high-stakes commonality to develop the relationship with Katsuki. There's plenty of subplot, explosions, noise and badassery here to enjoy as well. It also decoys and distracts the angsty-gay-romance adverse very nicely.

Just like in a romance novel where the main character is driven to be the greatest pole vaulter, etc, 'pole vaulting hero' is not THE central plot point, or The Call -even if she has self-doubts at any point about pole-vaulting.

The central plot is the relationship. Always. Pole-vaulting is shared high-pressure to grow as a person, and critically develop the bond with her sexy, amazing, but unreasonably angry, rival, pole vaulter. It's a vehicle. It could just as easily be professional dancer, marketing executive, whatever. As long as it drives the relationship.

Back to Izuku. He may have been heroic "saving" Katsuki, but it was also kind of pathetic. He doesn't "win" Katsuki over, or prove he is equal. Katsuki rejects him immediately.

No hero wins without a boatload of growth and suffering first.

Then we get a do-over of Meet The Mentor. And this time All Might accepts him, praising him as worthy of his dream, because Izuku had already fulfilled Answering The Call.

He gets to be a hero. Most importantly, he gets to go to UA with Katsuki. I don't mean to undermine his growth as a hero, but this career's main point is to drive the physical and emotional stakes skyhigh.

So with the acceptance of The Call, our journey to equality and saving Katsuki, has officially begun...

Katsuki of course, continues to aggressively reject him, but Izuku won't let him go his own way, or back down.

Even as their relationship develops, they won't stop emotionally tormenting each other, even though it's unintentional. Relationship conflict and saving Katsuki is the whole point. Finding their EQUAL place beside each other will be the resolution.

And that's exactly how it's playing out now. They are both in a crisis phsyically and emotionally. Katsuki is at death's door, and emotionally has gone too far in his view of their respective worths, now viewing Izuku as his superior (ref apology). Not equal.

Izuku is making desperate decisions to save Katsuki, like fighting on the ground to keep Katsuki out of the battlefield. He is also aggressively fighting his feelings, because he doesn't believe their feelings are the same.

Saving Katsuki and equality of worth, feelings, and abiliity, will have to be resolved for the story's climax. So I expect we are waiting for below:

*Izuku must save Katsuki.

* Izuku reveals he has been very flawed. Not superior. Eg. Lying. His secret feelings. Losing control. Leaving Katsuki vulnerable. He apologises. They both accept they are both flawed and have hurt each other, but remain each others' hero.

*They realise their romantic feelings are the same. Katsuki will ultimately bridge the gap.

* Katsuki will also need to save Izuku to restore equality.

* They will win the war because they work together, equally important to the victory.

* Enjoy peace and working together dor bright future side by side.

I'm rambling now, but...

There is a strong secondary plot arc, and sub plots. They are ultimately pot-stirrers to our central plot which really is: Protect/Save Katsuki. It is.

Protect/Save Katsuki is why the audeince has akways felt such a sense of unease about Katsuki's vulnerability and safety, despite the rough exterior, because it's the plot. You're supposed to be invested like this.

And Horikoshi continues to naturally progress the narrative along, by repeatedly putting Katsuki in increasing levels of stakes/danger (insulted, kidnapped, speared, "dead").

It's why Izuku had to fail repeatedly to save him, he narratively MUST fail until our climax.

It's why Izuku is increasingly torn up inside, and out of control in his heart to protect Katsuki, because Katsuki is his goal. He had to become increasingly emotionally obsessed with Katsuki as progression to match the increasing stakes to Katsuki's life.

It's also why Katsuki had to grow to love Izuku over time, and then goes too far in his respect/guilt over him as the climax draws near (superior/inferior). He reverses Izuku always chasing him, and instead longs to catch up to Izuku. To be equal, narratively, he should have extreme, tumultuous feelings and experiences to match Izuku's own, so he does.

He is concurrently responding to the same increasing stakes against Izuku's life. He develops a desperate need to also save Izuku. Equal. Equal. Equal.

As clearly identified in our introduction, Normal World, Izuku will need to have fully developed self-worth, and be equal in ALL respects to finally protect Katsuki. Katsuki must equally grow and reciprocate all of it.

MHA is ultimately:

[averagecygnet-blog]

you have two wolves inside you. one recognizes that the point of the hero's journey is to go on the journey and return having changed, and therefore respects suzanne collins for having gregor leave the underland behind him forever. the other really wants gregor to go back to the underland and stay there and marry luxa and be king of regalia in a time of lasting peace. you are gay

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

It’s Time to End the Hero’s Journey

I don’t know about you, but I’ve absolutely had enough of it: the story structure known as the hero’s journey.

It’s everywhere, from Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark to just about every Bruce Willis or Tom Cruise movie you’ve ever seen even through to Barbie and The Hunger Games. A hero is called to action, refuses the call before begrudgingly accepting it, has adventures in which (generally) he is repeatedly tested, receives assistance from mentors and other helpers, is brought low by a nemesis shortly before (generally) ultimately succeeding, and comes home an enlightened person.

Brought to public awareness as a common pattern in myth by Joseph Campbell in his books, like The Hero With a Thousand Faces, it has irritatingly come to take over western, industrialized movie making and mass market fiction. We have even, to a frightening large extent, internalized our own personal narratives as hero’s journeys thanks, in part, to the self-help industry.

But this is all laziness and a terrible failure of imagination. On top of being egotistical and self-indulgent, the hero’s journey is far from the only structure possible for stories. Worse, its sharp focus on the individual and the male experience of heroism, instead of on community or other ways of moving through life, it has us longing for strong leaders of single–minded, masculine vision. And it has us dreaming of ourselves rising the occasion in the fight against tyranny and catastrophe instead of imagining ourselves working together with other people to solve systemic problems before they plunge us into exactly that sort of catastrophe and tyranny.

Oh, Have You Ever Heard This Story Before

Even if you haven’t been formally introduced to it, you encounter the hero’s journey all the time. Lifted from myths like the wanderings of Odysseus, the story of Jonah, the life of Buddha, and many fairy tales, the hero’s journey has morphed into what feels like our default mode of storytelling.

Take the “save the cat” rules for script writing, which are just the hero’s journey template. Just about every Hollywood blockbuster now follows this formula. Not just just about every Bruce Willis and Tom Cruise (and the Rock and Vin Diesel and Liam Neesen and etc) movie ever, but all the super hero movies. Even female protagonists are frequently shoehorned into the hero’s journey template (see: Angelina Jolie in “Salt” and “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”; Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games books and films; Mila Jovovich in all the Resident Evil movies; and even the little girl at the heart of the story of “Spirited Away”), as if the only way to be interesting is if you’re a hero just like the guys.

But This Is Not Great

While these stories make for great escapism, they’re not great for actually changing the world.

Look at the sort of places the hero’s journey goes…

At the end of the movie Edge of Tomorrow, it becomes clear that the whole point of Tom Cruise’s character’s saving the world from alien invasion is that he’s learned to be a brave, bold hero, rather than a selfish coward. This doesn’t make him less arrogant, but it means he gets the girl, the satisfaction of knowing he has saved the life of anyone he will ever meet, and a magical fresh start that wipes away the negative consequences of his previous insufficiently heroic behavior.

Or, look at Katniss at the end of the fourth Hunger Games movie (Mockingjay, part 2). She’s sitting in a sunny meadow with her husband and young children. On the one hand, oh, I get it know. This is why ordinary people pick up arms and go to war in the face of a terrible threat. She fought so hard and sacrificed so much, not just for her own survival, but so her as not yet even conceived of children could grow up in freedom. It was all worth it. On the other hand, she’s been transformed from being a fearless warrior, skilled hunter, revered leader, and the chosen one who fomented an entire revolution by staying true to her ideals and made the world safe from not one, but two tyrants into a harmless young mother, utterly unthreatening in a faded, modest calico dress, tending to her husband and young family. The whole point of her journey is that the minute she she doesn’t need to be a strong, fearless, rousing warrior anymore of unprecedented skill with a bow and arrow she can happily settle into domesticated bliss, aside from a bit of PTSD? That, deed done, she can now settle into the fate she was truly made for, that of being tame and ordinary and enjoying her subservient place in the patriarchy? I mean, ARGH!

And then there’s “Oppenheimer”, which took the incredible story of everyone and everything that converged to create the atomic bomb, drop it on Japan, and start the Cold War and turned it into the personal hero’s journey of one man. So ridiculous and, frankly, so meh. Go read The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes—which is one of the best books ever written—if you want your mind properly blown by this story. Sure, his story of the endeavor is way more challenging to the reader—you’re going to be exposed to actual information about atomic physics— than the celebrity biopic approach. But you get so much gain for your pain if you push through the reading of the story. You’ll learn so much of the history of the chemistry of the elements that make up existence, of the various genius scientists (all of whom were some pretty interesting characters) involved in the advancement of nuclear science and the Manhattan Project, and you’ll truly feel the horror of the scientists when the military comes along and takes the product of their hard work to save the free world and doesn’t give them any say on how it will be used. But Oppenheimer (in the movie about him). Oh, poor guy, gets his name drawn through the mud by a political nemesis and is a bit sad when all the people die when the bomb is dropped. Sheesh. Doing its sad little treading of the boards in the shadow of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Oppenheimer is the perfect example of how limited, narrow minded, narcissistic, and shallow the hero’s journey approach can be compared to other ways of telling the story.

 We Should Be Telling All Sorts of Stories

Honestly, these hero’s journey stories aren’t the only kinds of stories we should be telling—either within in the genre of solarpunk or not. Not only is all this heroic journeying getting boring, there are major downsides to locking ourselves into this single vision of story. Like becoming fans of authoritarianism and monarchy.

David Brin had some great words about how Star Wars’ use of the hero’s journey results in main messages that are authoritarian and undemocratic, leading us, for instance, to forgive—and even fete—great evil, despite the millions of death that person (Darth Vader) has caused, so long as he performs a personal act of redemption in the end. Star Wars and its hero’s journey involving the Skywalkers has us cheering on people with a magical hereditary right to power, as if we’re fine with consigning basically everyone else to be followers.

Jo Walton and Ada Palmer also touched on the down sides and limitations of the hero’s journey, at least adjacently, in their editorial in Uncanny Magazine that called for more stories that don’t center on a single protagonist, called to action, from whom all change unfolds. Using history as their example, the point out that events generally happen because of the actions of the many, not just of one special single person. I might add, when big outcomes do hinge upon the actions, leadership, and unique talents of one single person, it’s generally someone despotic, like Hitler or Stalin. And, as pointed out to us by one of our listeners, Jon Ronson has a great podcast with one episode in particular about how trying to understand your own life as a hero’s journey can lead you to brainwash yourself straight down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, until the call to action you hear is to undermine, if not actually overthrow, democracy.

 To the Typewriter Computer, Solarpunks!

Here’s my call to action by you. Let’s let solarpunk stories dump the hero’s journey, even as a means to explore life in a solarpunk future. Let’s use all the other story structures instead.

Let’s tell stories about endeavors—like the making of the atomic bomb—not about a person undertaking an endeavor—like Oppenheimer herding his cats at Los Alamos.

Let’s tell stories about relationships between people, or between a group of people and the natural world.

Let’s tell stories where the actions of an individual on his, her, or their own never advance the plot.

Let’s tell stories about moments, or about conflicts, where what’s interesting is the development of the moment or conflict, not of the protagonist and antagonist’s paths through them.

And when we do tell stories about a single protagonist, let’s not keep religiously following the structure laid out by Joseph Campbell and copied by save the cat.

Not every protagonist needs to be a hero! There are so many other arcs to follow.

[dyinglikeicarus]

0. THE FOOL

Sometimes I think of doing a tarot inspired by Greta’s arch and see how the jungian theory of the journey of the hero around tarot would look like. 

[scottland-manor]

been thinking about percy jackson (i am new here)

[castilestateofmind]

“And remember, Sancho, no man is more than another unless he does more than another”.

- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote.

[eggbagelsjr]

How To Plot Romance (in fanfic)

Today I realized I've been plotting my romance writing all wrong. Oops! Lucky for you, I think I figured out how to solve this problem. *Gestures to the camera* come along with me and let's figure out how to write romance plots together!

When I'm sketching out a story idea, I generally use some simplified version of Dan Harmon's story circle (ok so this link is not an endorsement of Dan Harmon as a person, but I have found this plotting device helpful), which is itself a simplified version of Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey. The double-simplified version looks something like this:

You (character in a zone of comfort)

Need (want something)

Go (venture outside the comfort zone)

Search/Adapt (adapt to the new situation)

Find (finally get what they wanted)

Take/Sacrifice (but sacrifice/pay a price)

Return (go back to the comfort zone)

Change (different than they were before)

The problem I keep running into is that I never know what goes where, especially as the number of characters and side plots increases. It's also a little hard for my brain to translate this tool that came out of adventure epics to what I need for a romance/rom-com plot. Usually I look at this list, get overwhelmed, and zoom way too far out, filling in these answers based on what I, the all-knowing author, think they should be. The end result looks a lot like (we're using Dramione as our example, but any characters will do):

You: Hermione Granger

Need: To find love.

Go: To a place where you can find love.

Search/Adapt: For/To love!

Find: LURVE

Take/Sacrifice: The love????? But sad now????

Return: With love!

Change: Loved 😍

And. Uh. That's not a plot?

Where I went wrong is that people in the story don't know they're in a story (unless they do, in which case you should probably sleep with one eye open because your characters know what you've done to them). Your characters are unreliable. They only see what's in front of them. By zooming all the way out to LURVE, I erased everything that's fun to read that gets us to our HEA (or, if you're devious, non-HEA).

So, it stands to reason you should fill out this story circle (story bulleted list?) from the perspective of your character, not you. (This is probably very basic science and congratulations if you got there way before me. You don't need this post. You should be writing this post.)

But even more important in a romance? That need, the thing your main character wants, is kind of a red herring. The character thinks this is their primary need/goal to get them out of whatever slump they start out in, but you, the author, know that what they actually need is to fall in love with the Love Interest.

Then, during the Search/Adapt phase, when your main character is looking for that thing they need or trying to achieve their primary goal or whatever, they start to learn more about the Love Interest. Their perspective shifts, and they realize they were wrong before. The Love Interest is what they actually need. This is probably where most of your story will happen. During this step, there's only one bed, the characters are fake dating, they get trapped in an elevator, etc.

Sadly, just when we think the main character has come to their senses, they are offered the exact thing they *thought* they needed the whole time. Bonus point if the thing they thought they wanted is in direct conflict with accepting the affections of the Love Interest.

During Take/Sacrifice, the main character has to choose. Are they going to pick love or the thing they thought they wanted at the beginning of the tale? In a multi-chap, you might let your character choose the original need/goal (or struggle for a while with the choice). In a one-shot, you might not have enough space for this and the character chooses love.

Next, in the Return, if it isn't the consequences of the character's own actions. A character who chose their need/goal over love during Take/Sacrifice needs to make amends to the Love Interest. The character who chose love has to deal with not getting the thing they needed at the beginning of the story. Depending on your fic's vibes, you might invent a magical solution for the character to get everything they want here. Alternately, maybe the character suffers and loses everything. This seems like a lot to cram into the end of your tale, and it is, so try not to drag it out too long. Your reader has gone on a long journey with your characters and they don't want to read fifteen chapters of sadness before the end (or maybe they do?). If they aren't already, the characters want to be together at this point, they might just need a little shove to get there.

In the final step, take a moment to show us how the character and their life have changed as a result of going on this journey. They are now in a new comfort zone / status quo and are ready for further adventures, should you so choose.

To clarify how these steps work for a romance plot, I changed the labels and made you a little graphic. Please ignore that I don't make graphics and a 12 year old on Canva could have done better.

The formula looks like this now:

You: Hermione Granger is in her comfort zone. Note: in fanfiction, you don't have to do as much character development with an established character who is behaving as expected. Use this time instead to highlight the limitations of their comfort zone. You can also use this space to set up their romantic foil, especially if that character is behaving in an unexpected way. For example, if Hermione is being very driven and high-achieving, the reader doesn't need a lot of context for her behavior; they already know this version of her from canon. But if her would-be paramour Draco Malfoy is acting kind and considerate, the reader is going to want more information since in canon his behavior is usually presented as rude/entitled/etc. Don't spoil the surprise of why he's different, just show us the ways he's not what we expect. (Reveal his secret in Step 4 - Learn).

Need: Hermione has The Wrong Goal (pass legislation, solve a mystery, avoid sleeping in the room with only one bed). This might be a very noble goal, but it's at odds with Hermione's true, secret, hidden goal of being in love with Draco Malfoy. Why? Because she doesn't know that being in love with Draco is where she's headed yet.

Go: To the place that Hermione's Wrong Goal requires. Pass legislation? Lobby all the Sacred 28s sitting on the Wizengamot! Solve a mystery? Go undercover to find out who did What in Which Room with What Object. Avoid sleeping in the hotel room with only one bed? Go to the concierge and ask for a new room. What's important is that wherever Hermione goes, she's forced to be near Draco Malfoy, the object of her true, secret, hidden, goal (to fall in LURVE).

Learn: This is where Hermione and Draco are forced to work together to solve the problem of the finding/achieving the Wrong Goal. Through this process, Hermione realizes Draco's exactly what she didn't know she was always looking for, etc. Unfortunately, her original goal is still at odds with being in LURVE with him. Cue tension. Example: They're at the concierge desk begging for a new room; he's offering all the money in his vaults, she's trying to appeal to the hotel staff's sense of human decency. She admires his tenacity. He realizes she's witty and a little bit underhanded. He likes this. She has a fleeting curiosity about how the tenacity would manifest in bed. Oh no.

Find: In this step, Hermione is confronted with an opportunity to obtain her original Wrong Goal. Example: Well what do you know? The bribe and the appeals worked. The concierge has found one other room in the hotel. Dramione are no longer forced to sleep in the room with only one bed.

Choose: Unfortunately, lurving Draco is still at odds with Hermione's original goal, so she must choose between him and what she originally thought she wanted. She might have a lot of introspection here, where she considers the merits of different choices. Maybe she even talks it out with him or someone else. If this is a one-shot with a happy ending, she has grown and developed sufficiently by now to make the right choice and choose Draco. She sacrifices the original goal for him. If this is a multi-chapter fic, she chooses the wrong original goal over him and loses him as a result. Example: They both go back to the room with only one bed. He's going to collect his things and go to the new room. They hesitate. Is it really necessary for him to move rooms? Draco has so many items, and some of her stuff is mixed in with his stuff. He looks at her with eyes full of newfound respect. "What do you think, Granger?" Hermione sacrifices her original goal, calls the concierge back, and lets them know that they won't be needing the new room after all, but "Please enjoy whatever ungodly massive tip Mr. Malfoy left you. I know I sure will."

Reap: Now it's time to reap the consequences of the choice Hermione made in Step 6. In a one-shot, maybe Hermione's all done. She heads back to her old comfort zone with her new relationship. Depending on the tone of this story, maybe there's some way that she gets to have her original goal and her relationship. However, in a multi-chapter fic, this is where Hermione has to do some work to make amends for choosing wrong (that is, for not choosing Draco). If it's a multi-chap with a happy ending, she succeeds, Draco forgives her, and they smooch. Example: They're back in the room. There it is - just the one bed. All those slightly naughty things they thought during Step 4? Oh yeah. They're going to try them all out. Fade to black, etc.

Change: Some final scene showing how things are different now that Hermione has what she really needed (the D). Example: They wake up the next morning way past check out and have to extend their stay. Bummer!

A fully worked example:

You: Hermione Granger is bored at her job at the Ministry of Magic. She unexpectedly bumps into her former archenemy, a now polite and reserved Potions Professor Draco Malfoy. She learns that Minerva McGonagall, the current Hogwarts Headmistress, is retiring.

Need: Hermione needs to prove to Minerva, Hermione's longtime mentor, that she's the right person to hire over the other candidate, who just happens to be polite and reserved Professor Malfoy, even though Hermione has never taught students a day in her life.

Go: To avoid her obvious bias, Minerva sets up a series of practical trials to determine which candidate will win the job. Hermione and Professor Malfoy enter the obstacle course.

Learn: When the practical trials start turning dangerous, Hermione and Professor Malfoy must work together to stay alive. Unfortunately, working side by side shows them they have more in common than they thought.

Find: Hermione is presented with an opportunity to sink Professor Malfoy's ship: she learns that he never finished his Potions Mastery. If she reveals this information to Minerva and betrays Draco in the process, the job of Head of Hogwarts will be hers, and the dangerous practical trials/threat to her life will be over. But what about the romantic "something" budding between Hermione and Draco? Well, that's just an acceptable loss. Hermione's career trajectory is on the line!

Choose: Is this a one-shot? Then Hermione chooses "right" at the last minute and decides to sacrifice the job for love and keeps the information to herself. Is this a multi-chapter fic? Then Hermione chooses "wrong" and decides to sacrifice love for the job. She tells Minerva. Draco is devastated.

Reap: If this is a one-shot, Hermione returns from the trials holding hands with her new boyfriend. While they were in the trials, Minerva figured out a way for them to both get the job somehow! If this is a multi-chapter fic, Hermione returns from the trials alone, with her brand new job and a hefty side of guilt. Realizing her error too late, she works to make amends to Draco.

Change: A year later, the Co-Heads of Hogwarts Hermione Granger-Malfoy and Draco Malfoy-Granger celebrate the one-year anniversary of the trials and their relationship by burning Minerva's horrible obstacle course to the ground.

I've written all this out in list format because, well, you saw the circle I made you, but the circle has the benefit of helping you visualize that where your character is in Step 8 (Change) becomes the new Step 1 (You, character in zone of comfort). If you are writing multiple scenes, you can apply this plot exercise to each scene, even if these little micro plots are very small (e.g., Hermione forgets her quill and has to ask Draco to borrow his). Hermione obviously won't have big revelations about how she doesn't really need a quill and is actually in love with Draco each and every scene, but you can still play around with your characters pursuing one goal only to realize their true aspirations mid-way through a scene using the story circle framework. Plotting this way will help you make sure everything you write leads to some sort of change in your character. And that's character development baybee!

When you're ready to level up your story circle skills, remember that in a romance you probably have at least one other main character whose needs you'll have to service. Your new job is make a story circle for the love interest! Note the ways that the two characters' needs/goals align and the ways that they are in opposition. When the characters' story circles are in opposition, you get tension, when they're in alignment, you get softness! Just make sure that whatever is keeping your blorbos apart is actually forcing them together. Meaning, if they have opposing Wrong Goals (Step 2 - Need), make sure that they still have to work together or be near each other somehow (Steps 3 & 4 - Go & Learn) to be able Find (Step 5) what they thought they were looking for. Also make sure that their true, secret, hidden goal is the same (at least for a happy ending fic): they want to end up in love with each other. The characters may come to this realization at different times, and that may guide whether they choose the Wrong Goal or Love during Choose (Step 6) and who has to make amends during Reap (Step 7).

Finally, if you're an alpha or beta reader, try making these circles/lists for the fics you're reading. It should clarify what's going on in each scene and help you identify what's missing from a story.

Happy writing!