Archetypes

The roles people play: guidance, opposition, uncertainty and support can move among characters.

Begin with function

A role describes what a character does in a passage. A stereotype supplies an expectation about a category of person. An individual character can complicate both.

• Archetype, Stereotype & Character

  A character is a particular person in a work. A stereotype supplies a familiar expectation; a dramatic archetype describes a function.

Vogler’s eight dramatic roles

• Hero

  The hero is the figure whose choices organize a journey. Being central to a story does not automatically make someone admirable.

• Mentor

  A mentor gives the protagonist something they can use: knowledge, equipment, a standard to live by, or an example to question.

• Threshold Guardian

  A guardian tests access to a new situation. The obstacle can be a person, a rule, a danger, or an internal resistance.

• Herald

  A herald brings change into view. A person, message or event makes the old situation newly unstable.

• Shapeshifter

  The shapeshifter makes allegiance or identity uncertain. The change may be in the character, or in what the protagonist understands about them.

• Shadow

  The shadow concentrates opposition or disowned possibility. A villain may carry it, but the role is not a synonym for evil.

• Ally

  An ally helps the protagonist pursue a goal while bringing their own needs, judgment, and stake in the outcome.

• Trickster

  The trickster unsettles habits and hierarchies through mischief, contradiction, disguise, or comic disruption.

Compare the vocabularies

• Hero Types

  Willing, reluctant, collective, tragic and catalytic heroes organize attention differently. These descriptions can overlap within one story.

• Jung & Vogler: Different Uses of Archetype

  Jung proposes patterns of psychic life. Vogler describes functions in a story. Their shared vocabulary does not make the projects interchangeable.

• Propp’s Seven Dramatis Personae

  Propp groups characters by spheres of action. The groups describe narrative work, not a cast of seven required personalities.