In the last few weeks, my husband has been working on something he’s calling The Hero Project. The concept is simple. Matt is searching for the universal structure that underlies all heroic myths. He started out by reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces but says that in terms of myths, “I started to disagree with Campbell. Most heroic myths don’t actually lay out a roadmap the reader can follow to solve his own problems. In fact, many myths imply the opposite. The message is: ‘Don’t try this at home.’ Most mythological heroes are not average people who rise to do extraordinary things. Instead they’re jerks who get special dispensation from the gods. When you read a lot of different mythologies side by side, a certain message starts to become clear: These guys were anointed by the gods to do this stuff, and you weren’t, so don’t get any ideas.”
So he began thinking it through with posts like Can Heroes Really Start at Zero? and Do Heroes Need Special Skills?
All this led in the end to the creation of the Nine Types of Heroes. Check it out:
You’ll have to read his post on the subject to see examples of this.
Now Matt showed this list at a gathering of children’s literature types, and together they convinced him of two additional categories for this list: The Holy Fool and The Book Taught Amateur.
It all got me to thinking about how these types of heroes appear in children’s literature. Though Matt is using a lot of these types from his screenwriting perspective, overlap into the children’s literary sphere isn’t difficult at all. You just have to tweak certain elements to something a little less adult. So let’s take a gander at what each type of hero would entail in the world of books for youth. Consider the word “job” to mean “school” a lot of the time, and you’ll see why I slot folks in one category or another.
1: The Pro At Work:
- Most qualified person who is doing their job in their element:
- Example: Kiki Strike, Europe from The Monster Blood Tattoo books, Katsa from Graceling (at least at the novel’s start), and a host of other capable folks.
2. The Fish Out of Water:
- Qualified and on the job, but out of their element:
- Examples: I might put Claudia of From the Mixed-Up
12 Comments on The Hero Project: A Children’s Literary Perspective, last added: 8/19/2010Display Comments Add a Comment
Oh, this looks fascinating! I’ll have to actually read it carefully at some point when it’s not, ya know, 12:30 in the morning.
Having been following the YA Fantasy Showdown all day, I wonder where Eugenides would fit into this model. In a lot of ways he’s the Pro, but then I think it might change over the course of the series. In King of Attolia, for instance, he spends a large part of the book being the Fish Out of Water, except that he’s on a job he doesn’t want.
For exile, how about Bobby in The Railway Children or Mary in The Secret Garden? And Tiffany Aching may be a permanent Flounderer — flounders magnificently in both Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith. Good role for an apprentice — you just keep finding deeper and deeper water.
Another example of “The Worst Possible Choice” — Frodo. It’s actually why he qualifies to be the ring-bearer.
Great stuff!
Oh wow, I love you and I love your husband, you are totally feeding my utter geekiness! I LOVE the subject of archtypical heroes something nutty, and now shall proceed to waste much of my already precious time reading all this and debating where people fit instead of tending to the screaming children. Thank you for enabling my obsessions.
Harriet M. Welsch thinks she’s a Pro at Work, but since most adults would not agree that spying is her job, is she really a Rogue?
Is Taran (first book, at least) the Worst Possible Pick? He’s not an adapter at first (not till maybe Black Cauldron when he starts to be a leader), and is often saved by others. Or perhaps he’s a Flounderer because he took on the job of finding Hen Wen (since his job is caring for her).
Aragorn is literally an Exile, but he’s only out of his element in the sense that his element should be ruling. I guess once a character is a lifelong exile, the place/role they’re exiled to may become their element.
Oh, the Laughing Man from When You Reach Me! There’s an Exile for you.
Hi guys, this is the first time I’ve actually commented on my wife’s blog. (She’s never commented on mine either. We tend to just turn towards each other and say what we have to say.)
1. Frodo is definitely a WPP. None of his shire skills are adaptable to his new task.
2. Eugenides definitely starts out as a Fish Out of Water, but I’ve only read the first one.
3. I would call Harriet a Flounderer. She’s taken on a job (spy) without sufficient skills. Technically, I suppose, she’s on her home turf, but she doesn’t feel she’s in her element. In many ways, it’s a novel about entering adolescence and that’s an area where no one is in their element.
4. I would call Aragorn a Rogue, not an Exile, according to these definitions, since all Middle Earth seems to be his element. (This is one reason I’m not happy with the term “Exile” since the dictionary definition is almost identical to Rogue, and almost all Rogues could also be called exiles. I also considered “Wanderer” or “Stranger” but these aren’t quite right either, and either one could still be applied to Aragorn. What term would describe Shane or John McClane, but not Robin Hood or Jack Sparrow or Aragorn? Maybe “Self-Doubter” or “Redemption Seeker”.)
I too love you and love your husband.
If I understand the categories, I think I’d consider J.Lo (from THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY) an Exile. He’s qualified, in his way, but both off the job and not really in his element. He constantly needs simple Earth things explained to him.
Gratuity might be an Adapter.
I am an Adam Rex fan. He is the Pro At Work.
Thanks Matt! The posts are wonderful, insightful and spot on (as those Brits would say). I suppose there might be one more (seldom used) category and that is the Hero who Fails despite his/her Best Intentions (Anakin Skywalker anyone?)
Can’t wait to read more from you.
Perhaps you’d find more exiles in historical fiction, when it’s more plausible for characters to be, well, literally exiled? I’m thinking of types like Katherine Sutton in The Perilous Gard (exiled by Queen Mary — although she’s something of a fish out of water, as well) or Mitra from Susan Fletcher’s Alphabet of Dreams (exiled in 1st-century Iraq). Would stories about immigration, with children separated and searching for lost parents, count? Like in Home of the Brave?
I think Odd, from Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman would be a good fit for the exile section