A Hero With A Thousand Faces: Characters #3

vitruvianman (66)in #story • 6 years ago (edited)

In my previous article I explained the characters that walk with us for our journey. of the our hero's journey. We will continue to examine our characters. This is all about which methods are used when creating a story. The methods described here have been used for centuries. I do not offer any new way of narration. I want to create awareness on the existing method and to use these methods better. If you become aware of the methods, you can use them better. The discovery of these methods was also made by Joseph Campbell, which i use his book name on my series. A Hero With A Thousand Faces. If you missed the previous posts you can get them from the links below.

Source

Shapeshifters

Shapeshifters is the most hard to understand archetype in the stories. Because it's their nature that being complicated. Even the heroes in the stories didn't know who is the shapeshifter and who is not. We must understand their nature if we want to know them. The first shapeshifters are witchs, wizards, monsters and fairys in the old tales. They are mostly trying to trick of our hero's mind. This is their mission. Shapeshifters always playing with the characters. These games affect the psychological function of the characters. How Does ? If someone fools you, you make a big change in your life. Your psychology can change. Even your character can change in bad or good way. All archetypes in the stories doing that: Chance. As I said before, change is an indispensable element of the story.

Source

In modern stories, shapeshifters more than witchs and monster. They are normal people in our lives. For example: Your boy/girl friend. Perhaps you accuse him of imbalance. This affect you negatively or positively. So the shapehifter in your life is your love. These shapeshifters in modern stories are can be humans like our lives. There is a indispensable character in the film noir stories: Femme Fatale. These are seductive or destructive female characters. Their mission is to mislead or destroy characters in the story. So they are the most basic shapeshifters.Or, especially in Hollywood films, there is a male character who is fooling and tricking girls.These also make up the stories so they change their shape. These male shapeshifters can fool both women and men. Our main charachter which mean our hero, can be shapeshifter either. Sometimes our hero needs to be shapeshifter for pass the threshold guardian. Maybe our hero's main mission is tricking people. But generally, when our hero become shapeshifter in the stories, they get punished by other shapeshifters. It can sometimes be with love and sometimes with money. So the story becomes the war of the shapeshifters.

Source

Some examples for Shapeshifters in the movies

Zeus is the most ancient shapeshifter in the history. He literally chance his shape and fools the womans. He come down their home (Olympus Mountain), chance his shape, get to the womans and sex with them. So we can say the male characters in the Holywood films who trying to trick womans are archetypes of Zeus. Zeus change his shape and males change their stories. Even sometimes they chance their shapes with hairs or mustaches.

Source

In the Death Defying movie, the main character Harry Houdini, met a girl named Mary McGarvie. She is a passionate lover at the first. Than she became a murderer. She is the shapeshifter in that movie. As I said before, there are many shapeshifters in the film noirs. For the modern femme fatale example, Sharon Stone is the shapeshifter in Basic Instinct. She fools the male charachters in the movie. Or Kathleen Turner is shapeshifter in the * Body Heat*. Her mission almost the same as Sharon Stone. These are basic shapeshifters in the movie. We can easily see them as a audience. But the heroes in the story can not see them and generally fooled from them.

Source

The famous director Alfred Hitchcock use this archetype all the time. For example, his movie called ''Vertigo'', there is a male character named John 'Scottie' Ferguson. John change the woman called Madeleine Elster to the Judy Barton. He change her hair and clothes. John is the main shapeshifter in the story.

Source

Shapeshifters are metaphors of change. Their main mission is making change in stories. We have them in our lives. As I said before, our lovers can be shapeshifters. Or our parents can be too. We met a lot of them in the life. Because people are generally imbalanced. That's cuze of we must know shapeshifters for both making a story or be caution in our lives.