The Hero Archetype from Ancient Mythology to Modern Fantasy
In his book, A Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell outlines the mythical hero. There are certain archetypes that heroes follow, such as a special or magical birth, having a wise mentor, and a journey into the underworld – literal or figurative. George Lucas used Campbell’s “Stages of a Hero’s Journey” to write the Star Wars saga, but his isn’t the only story that follows the outline closely. Most mythical or fantastical heroes follow similar stages, but heroes have important differences from each other, too. From the ancient Gilgamesh to The Lord of the Rings to Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, the hero figure has developed, keeping many of the same ideals but becoming more and more human along the way.
Gilgamesh is one of the oldest epic works we have access to today, dating back to the seventh century B.C. (Mason 98). In its title character, we see the beginnings of the evolution of the hero archetype. Gilgamesh is exceptionally strong – in fact, he is “called a god and man” (Mason 15) and interacts with the gods of his time, namely Ishtar, whom he refuses to marry (Mason 42-44). He is determined to win fame through great deeds in battle, so much so that he seeks out conflict rather than waiting for trouble to find him. To his friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh says, “if I die I will at least have the reward of having people say: He died in war…” (Mason 29). He has no fear of death, does not even seem to understand its implications. Instead, he is determined to win fame. At first, he does not even care if his accolades are due to infamy. Indeed, he was “a tyrant to his people” and demanded the right to take young women’s virginity before their husbands could (Mason 15) until he met and wrestled Enkidu.
In Enkidu, Gilgamesh learns compassion – another trait passed on to later heroes. Enkidu tempers Gilgamesh, brings his tyranny back under control and provides Gilgamesh with the chance he needs to use his strength for better purposes. If not for Enkidu, Gilgamesh would never have become a hero, instead being remembered only as a tyrant. His grief after Enkidu’s death is what prompts him to begin his true hero’s journey. On his journey to the underworld to bring Enkidu back, Gilgamesh acts not for fame but for love, which is a true trait of the hero and continues on through future epics.
The Odyssey, not quite as ancient as Gilgamesh, demonstrates another stage in the evolution of the hero archetype. Odysseus is not half god as Gilgamesh is, but he is frequently described as “godlike Odysseus” (Lattimore). He serves and is aided by the goddess Athene, so he is tied to the Greek gods as Gilgamesh is to his own. Odysseus is also very strong, surviving many trials, including having to swim “two nights and two days on the heavy seas” (Lattimore 98, Line 388-389) and outdoing the Phaiakians in a contest of strength, throwing a stone so far that “no one of the Phaiakians will come up to this mark or pass it” (Lattimore 126, Line 198).
However, what makes Odysseus a hero is not only his strength and the esteem of Athene, but his intelligence. In Odysseus, the hero archetype turns to the trickster figure. Unlike Gilgamesh, Odysseus rarely announces his purpose on his journey to those he meets along the way. He shows his intelligence most clearly in the Polyphemos’ cave, when he tells the Cyclops that his name is Outis, meaning nobody, so that Polyphemos will answer the other Cyclopes’ inquiries about his injury by saying, “Nobody is killing me by force or treachery” (Lattimore 147, Line 406).
Unlike Gilgamesh – and other Greek heroes – Odysseus does not seek glory or fame. Rather, he avoids conflict when he can do so and keep his life, his freedom, and his honor. Odysseus is a hero in that he is loyal to those he loves and to whom he owes his loyalty. His quest isn’t a journey away from home, but a journey back toward it. His only desire is to return to his wife and his son. While Gilgamesh’s desire for fame is a very human trait, Odysseus’ need for the love of his family is even more so.
The story of Beowulf provides another look at the evolution of the hero archetype. Like his predecessors, Beowulf is far stronger than the average man. This strength allows him to defeat not only the monster Grendel, but Grendel’s mother and, far later in the hero’s life, a dragon as well. Where other warriors would and have failed, Beowulf succeeds because he has “the strength of thirty in the grip of each hand” (Heaney 27, Lines 380-381). His ancestry, while not godlike as in Gilgamesh and The Odyssey, is stressed in the epic: his father was Ecgtheow, his maternal grandfather Hrethel the Geat (Heaney 27, Lines 373-375). Because of his great bloodlines, Beowulf is predisposed to heroic acts.
Beowulf shows us another reason for a hero to be a hero: he fights for justice and to protect his people. Unlike Gilgamesh, he does not seek out battle for battle’s sake, and unlike Odysseus, he wishes to protect others’ lives as well as his own. Beowulf comes to Hrothgar because he has heard of “danger abroad in the dark nights, this corpse-maker mongering death in the Shieldings’ country. I have come to proffer my wholehearted help and counsel” (Heaney 21, Lines 275-278). All of his conflicts are started by someone else: he only attacks Grendel’s mother because she attacks Heorot, and he only seeks out the dragon because it has been killing his people. This step from self-service to the service of others is just one more in the evolution of the hero archetype.
This trend continues in “The Knight of the Cart” by Chrétien de Troyes, part of The Romance of Arthur. Set in the Middle Ages, the story is greatly affected by the ideals of chivalry and Courtly Love. The Knight of the Cart – Lancelot – performs great deeds in the name of Queen Guinevere. In fact, he is constantly preoccupied with thoughts of her beauty and his love for her: he has “no strength or defense against Love, who torments him” (de Troyes 96). He also holds true to the principles of Kindness, Generosity, and Compassion, all part of the codes followed by Chivalrous knights.
Lancelot is also very strong. Even Bademagu, the father of Lancelot’s enemy Meleagant, says that Lancelot “without any doubt is the best knight in the world” (de Troyes 119). Lancelot demonstrates his strength by defeating many opponents and winning Queen Guinevere back from Meleagant. In this, he is much the same as other heroes. Unlike past heroes, though, Lancelot’s ancestry is unknown in this story. In fact, his name is not revealed until about halfway through. He is called “the unknown knight” or “the knight of the cart” until then. Lancelot stands on his own merit, rather than relying on the names of his ancestors.
However, Lancelot does seem to be a slight regression in the hero archetype. He does not rely on intelligence. Rather, he simply knows what is right and will do what he must to achieve his goals. Rarely does he have to think things through. When he is confronted with the dilemma of whether to cut off a defeated knight’s head and give it to a girl who has requested it and to whom he owes such a favor or to be merciful as the knight is begging him to be, Lancelot is frozen in indecision. His solution to the problem is simple: a rematch (de Troyes 116). Where other heroes might have given the problem a great deal of thought and come up with a solution that makes everyone happy, Lancelot does not demonstrate such intelligence.
In fact, trickery is looked down on in this story – Kay tricks Arthur into sending Guinevere into the forest with him, and it ends in the loss of the queen to Meleagant (de Troyes 90-92). When Meleagant uses trickery to trap Lancelot in the tower, it goes badly for him, as well: Lancelot escapes and defeats him in battle (de Troyes 152-156).
In Lancelot’s escape from the tower, we see a step forward for the hero archetype. He cannot escape by himself, and so another heroic figure must be introduced. While the girl who helps Lancelot is not a major character, she must undergo a journey of her own in order to help him (de Troyes 149-152). This side-hero is a hint at what is to come in more modern fantasy stories: the idea of multiple heroes.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien expands this idea so that, in a way, it is the story of nine heroes. In these nine, there is a mixture of the traits of the heroes of older epics. There are the strong, warrior characters: Aragorn, Legolas, Boromir, Gimli. There are characters both wise and “tricksy”: Gandalf, Merry, Pippin. There is loyalty in Sam. There is determination in Frodo. However, these characters have more than the one trait each. They are all loyal, all strong, all determined. We also see the return of the trickster figure in Gollum, who, while not exactly a hero, is instrumental in the victory of the peoples of the West against Mordor.
As well as enforcing the idea that one hero cannot do everything, The Lord of the Rings has heroes that are flawed as humans all must be. Aragorn fears that sharing blood with Isildur will give him the same weakness that caused Isildur to fall to the Ring (Tolkien 251). This fear hinders him on his quest to save the race of man until he is able to overcome it and take his place as the rightful king of Gondor. Frodo is dependent on others’ help and, despite being more able to withstand the Ring’s seduction than a human, eventually falls to it (Tolkien 945). Boromir is excessively proud and desperate to save the Gondorian people, and the combination of these two traits leaves him vulnerable to the Ring. His falling to the Ring sets in motion the events that lead to his death (Tolkien 398-414). The other heroes have their failings, as well, and these make even the non-humans among them more realistic than the heroes of older epics, who have no faults or faults that can be explained away as products of circumstance.
The Lord of the Rings introduces the idea that the least heroic person can become a hero. The four hobbits – Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin – live quiet lives until the Ring comes to Frodo. They have no experience in battle and have never even left their home in the Shire. However, despite their lack of experience, all four of them rise to the occasion and become heroes because of their determination to save their home and their people. The idea that determination alone can turn an ordinary person into a hero is a new development in the hero archetype.
Modern fantasy takes yet another step in the evolution of the hero. Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, first book in the not-yet-finished Stormlight Archive, takes Tolkien’s multiple heroes, though he lessens their number to three, and places them far away from each other – some of them haven’t even interacted with each other by the end of the book. Dalinar and Kaladin are in separate war camps along the Shattered Plains for the majority of the book. Shallan is far away from both of them in Kharbranth and doesn’t meet either of them. In this book, we see different kinds of heroism. All three heroes act for their own purposes inside the larger conflict, but they are still heroic.
Dalinar seems the obvious choice for a hero: he’s strong, a warrior, the leader of his people, and he is the only one of the three who’s really paying attention to the war – but his goal is not to win the war. Rather, he wants to end it by uniting the Highprinces and bringing them back to their homes. He also has visions warning him of the coming Desolation and seeks to avoid it.
Kaladin, at first, seems to be a smaller-scale hero. He’s a warrior-turned-slave, trying to survive against the odds after he’s sold into the war camp of a Highprince with no concept of the value of human life. Kaladin is revealed as a true epic hero, however, when he decides that staying alive is not good enough. He wants to live, to escape – and he plans to bring the other slaves with him.
Shallan doesn’t seem heroic at all. She convinces Jasnah Kholin, a renowned scholar, to take her on as a student, which takes great determination. It is then revealed that she plans to steal a Soulcaster – a rare, magical object – from Jasnah to save her family. Shallan is a controversial kind of hero. She must commit a crime in order to achieve her aim, but her aim is a pure one.
All three heroes are flawed, but in a more subtle, human way than even those of The Lord of the Rings. Kaladin blames himself for all of his failures and thinks that he’s doomed to fail no matter what he’s attempting, and so he gives up easily. He says, “My father used to say that there are two kinds of people in the world… those who take lives. And there are those who save lives. I used to think… there was a third group. People who killed in order to save. I was a fool. There is a third group, a big one, but it isn’t what I thought. The people who exist to be saved or to be killed… The ones who can’t do anything but die or be protected. The victims. That’s all I am” (Sanderson 147). Meanwhile, Dalinar focuses too much on his visions and refuses to see that he must compromise to change reality. His son, Adolin, says to him, “Sometimes, the mind stops working right… What you see is not real” (Sanderson 358-359). Shallan’s faults seem obvious at first – lying, stealing – but beneath those is the fact that she truly doubts herself and what she has planned to do.
These three are heroes in part because they manage to overcome the faults that keep them human. Their faults are still there, but they refuse to let themselves be stopped. Kaladin, on the edge of a chasm, decides not to throw himself off (Sanderson 161-162). Dalinar, faced with the decision of carrying on and attempting to hold the army together or abdicating in favor of his son, chooses to keep leading his men as best he can (Sanderson 845). Shallan convinces Jasnah to take her on, steals the Soulcaster despite her fears, and then convinces Jasnah to take her back despite the theft, working against her self-doubt all along.
Working against their faults makes the heroes of The Way of Kings very human. There are other small things that also emphasize their humanity. Kaladin has no desire to be a hero. This might initially seem unnatural – many people want fame such as would come from the role. However, how many people are truly interested in the responsibility and hard work involved? When asked if he wants to be a miracle, Kaladin says, “No. But for them, I will be” (Sanderson 517). He only wants to survive, which makes him very human, but his determination to do what he must is heroic. Shallan encounters her own questions. In her studies, she encounters a moral dilemma when Jasnah takes her into the streets and then kills four men who attack them. She questions the morality of Jasnah’s taking her there when it was extremely likely that their walk would lead to someone’s death (Sanderson 533-534).
Amidst all the newer developments in the hero archetype that Sanderson builds upon, he also draws on elements from the oldest epics. Dalinar and Kaladin are both warriors, highly trained and skilled in battle, just as Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Beowulf, and Lancelot are. Shallan, though not a warrior, has a mental strength of her own. Sanderson also reinforces the idea from The Odyssey that intelligence is heroic. In Kaladin’s attempts to keep his fellow slaves alive, he comes up with strategies to keep them out of the way of the worst assault in battle (Sanderson 492, 869-871). Dalinar attempts to convince the other Brightlords to ally with him, though he is unsuccessful. Shallan’s strongest trait is her intelligence, and she must balance her desire to learn from Jasnah with the desire to save her family.
The hero archetype has evolved drastically since the days of ancient mythology, from simple heroes descended from gods to complex people only trying to survive. The evolution will no doubt continue as society changes. There is no one definition for a hero, and so the hero archetype cannot be pinned down to any certain era. Each mythology, each story has its own hero, and no two will ever be exactly alike.
Works Cited
De Troyes, Chrétien. "The Knight of the Cart." The Romance of Arthur. Ed. James J. Wilhelm and Laila Z. Gross. New York: Garland, 1984. 87-156. Print.
Heaney, Seamus, trans. Beowulf. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2008. Print.
Lattimore, Richmond, trans. The Odyssey of Homer. New York: HarperCollins, 1967. Print.
Mason, Herbert, trans. Gilgamesh. New York: First Mariner, 2003. Print.
Sanderson, Brandon. The Way of Kings. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 2010. Print.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. New York: HarperCollins E-, 2005. Print.