[0:00]What are the eight common archetypes or psychological functions found in most stories? Well, you know, when I was um, sort of composing my model of storytelling, I looked to the work of uh, Carl Jung, who had uh, made this hypothesis that there is some kind of collective unconsciousness, uh, and that out of that, which is like the dreaming state or the unconscious mind of an individual person, the whole culture has got uh swirling cloud of uh ideas and energies. And that out of that, there were some common things that he noticed, and he called those uh common forms or character sometimes, he called those archetypes. And the word means uh uh a version that's very, very old, the original version of something. So the archetypes are kind of uh core beliefs or uh almost models of from which all kinds of other variations can be uh described. But the ones that I found most useful were first of all, the hero who stands for uh, you know, an idealized version of ourselves. Uh, it's somebody who is maybe more uh athletic or successful, or bold or brave or uh uh funny or or some in some way is a little bit exaggerated, uh, but has qualities that we would like to have and so we project ourselves into that hero. Uh the next one that I studied was the mentor because I noticed that a lot of stories like Star Wars have strong relationships between a young hero and an older master like the Jedi Masters uh the various ones that uh you find in in the Star Wars saga. And that was a very interesting study, how those uh teachers and student uh relationships uh developed and and uh you could get a lot of comedy and a lot of uh drama out of those. Uh the next thing would be the shape shifters because um it seemed as I studied many movie examples and fairy tales and so forth that there was often a character uh who might be a love interest or a friend or an ally for the hero, but their nature was always a little bit shifty and they sometimes uh appeared to be uh friendly or to be useful allies and at times maybe there was danger of betrayal or disappointment. So, uh, their nature is uh kind of uh shifting and I think that reflects how people relate to other people, uh that you know, you form first impressions of people and then maybe you learn more about them and you see there were there was more there or less there than I thought. So, uh, that term shape shifter refers to the way that people's appearance or their mask or their behavior might uh change quite a lot in the course of a story or in life and are puzzling sometimes to the hero. The hero has to figure out that's one of the tasks of the hero is to figure out, who am I really dealing with in other people around him or her. So, uh, shape shifter is a kind of a catch all for those and this is where I put all of the romantic relationships, but also the buddy comedy relationships that they fall into that same pattern because typically, one member of this two person team that's thrown together usually, uh one person is pretty fixed and firm in their appearance, in their attitudes and so forth and the other one is kind of shifty and uh untrustworthy or mysterious. And uh this is uh a human thing that we all encounter, we kind of know who we are to a limited extent, but we kind of have a sense of ourselves and then we meet other people and maybe have to work with them and find um, there's more than meets the eye. So the shape shifter is kind of a place where I park all these romantic and uh friendship and alliance and business kind of relationships uh because they do have this aspect of of trying to figure out who am I really dealing with. And then, um, the next archetype I guess that uh uh comes into play is the shadow, which is the dark reflection of the hero. And uh I made an assumption when I started working with these ideas that oh, well, this is where we put all the villains. They're they're the shadows, they're the dark version of the hero, uh and when the hero is up, the villain is down and disappointed and when the hero is in big trouble, the the villain is on top of things and uh feels great. So, uh, it does cover that and and I think that's a a useful way to look at villains that they're kind of the dark shadow version of the hero. But it also, it's a much bigger term in Jungian archetypal theory, uh that includes uh all the stuff within yourself that you are suspicious of or you don't trust or you don't like or you're ashamed of or you're afraid of. Uh traumatic events in the past that you don't want to think about, all of that lives in an area inside of our psychology that's called the shadow. So it's both the name for individual characters who might be wearing that mask of uh threat to the hero or uh the dark version of the hero. But it also can be a space uh within the hero or even within a society where all that uh dark stuff or repressed stuff is hidden and it has certain rules that I think are very interesting for composing stories that uh the shadow tends to get stronger the more you deny it. So admitting to things and revealing things to yourself and and uh exploring and dredging up unconscious material is usually a healthy thing. It's difficult but uh getting the shadow out into the light is a good idea and I think vampires as a uh literary uh creation are really good expression of that shadow idea because technically they're supposed to uh disappear into a puff of ash or something when they come out into the sunlight. And it's the same with these shadow things, they have a lot of power when they're held down and repressed, they become quite dangerous, but when you let them out, it's not so bad. And uh they lose their power when we shine some light on them. So, um, next thing up is uh very useful one uh archetype called the threshold guardian. And this is something that my mentor Joseph Campbell uh wrote about extensively and I found it really useful in life. The idea is that every time you come to a crossroads in life, every time you come to a boundary between one way of living and another or one world and another, there seems to be somebody or something there at the border guarding that transition and possibly blocking you like a policeman uh stopping you, uh demanding payment uh or telling you to go away. And uh it's one of the tasks of the hero is learning how to deal with that. And it's unavoidable, these things are going to come up, sometimes it's a character in a story, sometimes it's a force like a huge uh rock slide or a waterfall or something that's blocking your path. Uh but the heroes have to figure out ways to get around it, over it, under it, through it, uh to embrace it, to seduce it, to uh bring it into your parade uh along with everything else.
[8:55]Uh and not be stopped by it. That's the basic uh key and I've just found this so useful in life and in my career, uh that often uh I will meet an obstacle and I will think this is fatal. This is going to destroy me, this is going to ruin my ambition, uh and then I realize, no, it's just a threshold guardian. And so I knowing that, I can make friends with it, I can bring it on to my side, I can figure out how to outwit it or trick it. Uh it's it's just an extremely useful tool in life as well as in stories. So, uh, next thing up is uh a kind of delightful archetype called the trickster. And um, this is one that uh has a long, long history that goes back into myths and fairy tales, all the way back to the earliest tales we know from the Egyptians and from folk uh stories all over the world. The idea of uh a funny little critter who uh doesn't have all the cards, he's not big and scary, but he's clever. Or there's a lot of him, like a lot of rabbits or a lot of ants and as an individual, they don't have much power at all, but collectively they have a lot of power and they can even be stronger or smarter than a big creature like a bear or something uh scary like that. And these stories uh you know, have their long, long history and we still enjoy stories like this. And I think about uh the Warner Brothers cartoons about Wile E Coyote uh and uh and the Road Runner, you know, the Road Runner is uh would be helpless in the jaws of the Coyote, but he never gets in the jaws because he's smarter than the Coyote and has a million ways of uh outwitting him and using his own energy against him.
[11:00]Uh he's he's a very clever example of this uh this archetype of the trickster. And there are many in different cultures, uh Native Americans uh talk about uh various creatures like the Raven, uh and sometimes the Coyote himself, uh being the clever one who can outwit the the bigger scarier uh creatures.
[11:57]And um the the last one that uh I added in later additions to my book, it was kind of an afterthought, but it was very important is the ally. That um, a lot of characters in stories, heroes in stories, um, are limited in some way. They don't have much of a sense of humor, uh, they are infallible or they have to be right all the time. And they really need somebody to go alongside of them, kidding them, joking with them, deflating them when they get a big ego, um, giving to the audience something very important, which is called comic relief. That uh this is a a belief of Shakespeare is that if I'm going to clobber the audience with really heavy emotions and make them cry or make them horrified by the behavior of the characters, I better leven that just a little bit with something funny. And so he would often put into his most serious plays, uh a little Joker character, uh who would maybe be a drunken guard at the gate or uh uh an old uh family retainer or somebody in in the court uh who is uh there to make fun of the the king and the the fancy people. Um and I just love uh this uh this aspect of allies is that sometimes they have that comic role, they overlap with the tricksters a little bit. Uh but they bring balance to a character and we really, really like this form of uh two people going through an adventure together who are quite different, they contrast quite a lot like uh Sherlock Holmes is cold intellectual. And he's balanced by uh the warmth and the heart uh and sometimes the foolishness of Dr. Watson. So, uh, the two are not exactly mirror images, they're maybe broken mirror images of each other. Um, but you put the two of them together and you get a complete human being and I I think that's a great way to think about these archetypes is that they're all aspects of human life. And everybody has got some of these characteristics and uh some of these masks available to them and so uh it's a great thing I think to study uh psychology and how it comes out in the movies. And see uh you know, what archetypes am I expressing uh at this moment. I'm expressing a kind of a mentor, teacher archetype, but uh I I may uh slide out of this chair and fall down so then we'd have the the the trickster appearing. Uh so, uh, you know, we we have access to all those things and that's what makes a complete human being. And sorry, do we speak about the Herald? Ah, I knew I left one out. Yes. That's the one. It's uh thank you for reminding me. I'd forgotten uh the uh poor character, the Herald, the archetype of the Herald. Uh maybe the reason that I left that one out is that uh it is less um essential than the others. Uh its job can be done by any of the others. Uh but the function sometimes is broken out in the story and given to a specific individual character uh to be the one who brings the message, who usually brings the call to adventure. And uh it could be in a simple thing like a western, uh some guy comes running out of the telegraph office and says, Sheriff, the bad guys just got out of jail and they're going to be on the train at noon, so you better gun up and be ready uh because they're coming to to get you, to get their revenge. And then perhaps that character's never in the story again, uh or they may come back later with other warnings, but the job is that of uh the old Heralds in uh the medieval courts, who um wore a certain costume and uh had usually a trumpet, uh to blow announcements and to say, the king is dead, long live the king or uh the new king or they would say, there's a princess available for marriage and we'd like all the local princes to come around and see which one is the best. Uh or let's declare war, uh or let's declare peace or uh, you know, some important announcement has to be made. And mythologically, uh this goes along with uh uh uh a character who flies from the world of the gods down to earth to bring messages and that's Hermes. uh and or Mercury as the Romans called him and uh that was his job and he shows up probably more than any other character in mythology because he was so useful. He was always flying up to heaven, reporting on things down on earth and then sending down the will of the gods uh to the the uh heroes and people on Earth.
