Monday, August 31, 2015

The Big Question

Throughout literature, hero's have always traveled on a specific trail of events. This trail of events is commonly called "The Hero's Journey," a term coined by Joseph Campbell in 1949.
To me, "The Hero's Journey" is fascinating. It is a theme that has reoccurred in film, literature and many other works of art, from Homer's The Iliad & The Odyssey, to George Lucas' Star Wars. This fascination was only fueled when I discovered a video game called Journey. Journey is a masterpiece of a game. It combines stunning artwork and music that immerses the player, with gameplay that brings the game to a neigh meditative state.
Journey takes the player, who is an avatar with no speech, through his own hero's journey, atoning for the sins and mistakes of a previous race of godlike beings. Throughout this game, I've always wondered which parts of the Hero's Journey are applicable to this character. With this thought in mind, I created my big question, "Is The Hero's Journey applicable to the main character?"
Of course, to answer this in the future, we must first list the steps of The Hero's Journey, which Campbell describes as such:

  1. Departure
    1. The call to adventure
    2. Refusal of the Call
    3. Supernatural Aid
    4. Crossing the Threshold
    5. Belly of the Whale
  2. Initiation
    1. The Road of Trials
    2. The meeting with the Goddess
    3. Woman as Temptress
    4. Atonement with the Father
    5. Apotheosis
    6. The Ultimate Boon
  3. Return
    1. Refusal of the Return
    2. The Magic Flight
    3. Rescue from the Without
    4. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
    5. Master of the Two Worlds
    6. Freedom to Live.
For Journey many of these are listed as the titles of the songs in the soundtrack, which was my first clue to the correlation with the game. My end-goal is to discover how heroes are emotionally affected by the journey, be it positive or negative.

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