The Adventure of the Hero: Chapter I

Departure
The first steps in practically any hero's journey are receiving the call, refusing it and then accepting that call. If I think back on my favorite heroes there is almost always a moment where the hero is reluctant. In Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, Bruce Wayne always takes out his revenge through assassinating Joe Chill, before accepting that he needs to become a greater hero and get revenge for his parents in a greater way. His call was when Chill kills his parents, he refuses it for years until he finally goes on his journey and trains across the globe. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers' refusal is clearly states in the pilot when she tells Giles how she just wants to be a normal teenage girl. We don't see Buffy's initial call in the series until very briefly in a flashback, but it is clearly established in series canon and dialogue that she was called by her first Watcher, Merrick , when she lived in LA. In Eric Kripke's Supernatural there are many calls to adventure. John Winchester is called to adventure when his wife and mother of his two son's Sam and Dean is killed over Sam's crib. Sam and Dean follow in his footsteps until Sam goes off to go to college and attempt a "normal life." Sam is brought back in in the series pilot when his father is missing, and then permanently locked in after wanting to refuse the call when he returns to college to find his girlfriend dead in the same manner as his mother, and thus his journey begins. Eric Kripke had stated in interviews that Campbell was an influence on him when creating the series, and it is interesting not note this. Nearly anything you look at involving heroes will follow the basic structure laid out by Campbell, whether conscious of it or not.

The Hero With A Thousand Faces: Prologue

In his prologue, Joseph Campbell set's up various classic stories from many different cultures. He tells of King Minos of Crete, Theseus, and the Minotaur. He goes into the stories of Moses, Jesus, and Buddha. Campbell tells that all these classic stories of heroes are all practically the same. they got through the same trials and events, albeit with different faces and situations.

It is remarkable that such similarly structured stories exists in all cultures of Earth and these stories continue to manifest themselves into the 20th century when Campbell wrote his book and into modern times. These stories continue to be relevant and find new audiences through modern mediums such a film, television, and comics. The hero that Campbell writes about is more and more prevalent in the modern consciousness these days with the public looking for real heroes to look up to in a time when there is no faith in the powerful. Screenwriters and TV creators even cite Campbell's work as inspiration for their works. From George Lucas and Star Wars to modern television and Eric Kripke's series Supernatural, writers have read Campbell and model the journey of their characters specifically on the journey he outlined. In a time when actual heroes are hard to come by, the fictional hero is more and more important.

Campbell goes on to set up what the rest of the book is to be about, how each part and chapter will chronicle another part of the hero's journey. It is interesting how he even brings in classic philosophers and psychologists into his discussion of the hero, and points out that even Freud and Nietzsche saw the impact of the hero on the human consciousness.

9/11/2001 Heroes