#archetypes  #hero

Intro for ebook of Imaginary Heroes:

I must confess that, 3 decades later, I no longer believe in much of what I wrote for this book, though it still has value for a couple reasons. First, it is a precursor to mythic algebra, showing the sources which developed into it. Also, the analysis of pop culture is still relevant and interesting if we merely relegate archetypes to the status of tropes, not instincts. My current attitude to psycho-dynamics is best summed up in my paper on Wonder Woman, which is part of the other ebook, Mythic Algebra. I quote its statements here:

"Mythic algebra can be used to model stories and show patterns. As a formal system, it may identify tropes for either the writer or reader, and the artist or viewer. While the choices of these tropes occur in a social context, aside from that they still may have a structure. Such formalism does not require determinism, but rather presents the most logical possibilities granted by the language ...

Could the ancient Greeks have ever imagined that their Furies would meet up with Wonder Woman thousands of years later? This hero cycle does not mean that all hero stories have to follow this structure, if only because any storyteller can embellish and improvise the tale to make it different. If hero cycles are universal - whether Campbell's, the tragic Greek, or their combination - they are only so as logical possibilities.

Heroes and villains don't have to change. The basic hero cycle is a kind of template, a starting point for anyone to fill in the blanks or alter the pattern. And part of the joy of humanity is the endless creativity we have to come up with new stories, even if they begin as revisions of myths."

The comments made about hero cycles can also apply to mythic algebra itself: a template of logical possibilities, a formal structure the brain may follow because of its utility to model reality, yet a model to transcend and improvise off of.