Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
These important concepts were positively received at the time, but they
largely languished in academic circles for decades. They didn't really pen-
etrate the public consciousness until the late 1970s, when George Lucas
announced in interviews that he was heavily influenced by Campbell and
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
when developing
Star Wars
and its im-
mediate sequels.
Screenwriter and film development executive Christopher Vogler later
boiled the Monomyth down for fellow filmmakers in a seven-page memo
entitled
A Practical Guide to The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph
Campbell
, which ultimately led to the development of Disney's smash hit
The Lion King
. Vogler eventually expanded his memo into a full topic,
The
Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers
.
Today, the Monomyth is widely known and used on a daily basis by
writers, editors, and other creative professionals working in movies, TV,
novels, comic books, plays, and yes, games. If you're working with a game
writer, it's very likely she'll be more than a bit familiar with it, and will prob-
ably integrate aspects of it into your game story.
The Monomyth is composed of two main elements:
archetypes
and
story structure
.
Archetypes
The core concept of the Monomyth is that of
archetypes
—a small group
of highly resonant character types that we see again and again in myths
and stories. According to Campbell, each of these archetypes represents
one component of a human psychological profile—so that, combined,
they represent a complete individual psyche.
The Hero starts the story in an incomplete state (since he is only one
part of a complete psychological profile). By meeting and interacting with
other aspects of human personality along the way, he learns from
them—incorporating select elements into himself, while rejecting oth-
ers—thus becoming more whole and fully realized as the story progresses.
There are seven archetypes, and most stories feature some or all of
them. Archetypes are not always 100 percent matched to specific charac-
ters in the story, but rather they are roles, masks, or energies that any
character in the tale can potentially take on at any time. Sometimes a
character in a story will act like one archetype and then minutes later take
