Thursday, October 04, 2007

Heroes and Heroines

I'm putting Historical Fiction (the course) behind me and moving on to something new this week...

Heroes and Heroines (Sixteen Master Archetypes)
The premise is that all heroes and heroines in books, on TV and in films can be fitted into one of 16 archetypes. The author of the course-book is very definite that they are not stereotypes and that the boundaries are wide.

Heroes
CHIEF - Don Corleone in The Godfather and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice
BAD BOY - Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing and Huckleberry Finn
BEST FRIEND - Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh and James Stewart in It's A Wonderful Life
CHARMER - Bill Murrey in Ghostbusters and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew
LOST SOUL - Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon and Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights
PROFESSOR - Frasier Crane and Harry Potter
SWASHBUCKLER - Zorro and Peter Pan
WARRIOR - Superman and Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird

Heroines
BOSS - Boadicea (Boudicca) and Lucy in the Peanuts comic strip
SEDUCTRESS - Lolita and Cleopatra
SPUNKY KID - Lois Lane and Little Orphan Annie
FREE SPIRIT - Emma in Emma and Ariel in The Little Mermaid
WAIF - Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and Ingrid Berman in Casablanca
LIBRARIAN - Miss Marple and Dana Scully
CRUSADER - Ellen Ripley in Alien and Jane Eyre
NURTURER - Mary Poppins and Deanna Troi in Star Trek:TNG


She says that characters aren't necessarily confined to these. Some are layered with more than one archetype, and some will evolve from one to another in the course of the story.

My first Lesson is to decide which Archetype my hero is, and describe him a little. I'm thinking he will be a Bad Boy :-D

1 comment:

Kull said...

Chances are that you are already familiar with the Kevin Singer case, a lifetime inmate of a Wisconsin correctional facility who has been prohibited to enjoy his D&D games with cellmates out of incredibly bigoted and unrealistic fears he was forming a "gang".

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/27dungeons.html

An online petition has been started to have that absurd ruling reviewed and I think that, as fellow gamers, I thought you may have wanted to support the effort, showing that RPGs can be potent educational tools for the acquiring of social, cooperative and reading/writing skills from which the prison population could surely benefit.

The more time passes the more I am convinced that the u.s. prison system is not a corrective tool with which to re-educate and win back to society inmates but a kind of medieval torture system with which to abuse and degrade those unlucky enough to enter it.

http://www.petitiononline.com/d20d12d8/

We all know that D&D is kiddies' stuff compared to other RPGs, but I really ask you to take a minute of your time, click the link above and leave a signature,

please, there is a person who is being denied the solace and comfort of letting his mind and his imagination soar while his body is restricted in a cell, and, if you can, circulate the petition's URL link among your fellow gamers and friends.