The archetypal Caregiver seeks to provide and nurture. They are focused on the act of caring for others (hence their name), but also on the choices that doing so will require in their own lives; they do not merely care, but rather center their lives around it. This gives them a distinction from other archetypes like the Ruler and the Warrior, who can be inspired by someone they are taking care of, but are less involved in the nurturing process.

Background

For those of us just seeing this series for the first time, I'm writing a series on using Pearson's personality archetypes (affiliate link) in storytelling. This profile, of the Caregiver, is the eighth of twelve entries in this series, following the Destroyer, Orphan, Innocent, the Sage, the Warrior, the Ruler, and the Magician. You might also be interested in my earlier series on the Hero and Hero's Journey and the Nemesis.

If you just want a quick recap or introduction, here's the gist: archetypes are recurring patterns that have proven to be pretty universal. They're cognitive schemes that allow us to examine behavior and narratives in light of a coherent whole. That makes them valuable tools to audiences and storytellers, since they make stories authentic and lend them meaning.

Understanding the Caregiver

The Caregiver is a less common archetype in storytelling; Pearson gives no literary examples of the work in Awakening the Heroes Within (except a to Christ, but I don't find her reasoning on that point to be particularly compelling), and that's not entirely accidental. While the Caregiver tells some of the most beautiful and sublime stories through their actions, they are difficult to fully pin down.

Fortunately, I have one good example of a Hero's Journey that has an archetypal Caregiver throughout the whole story rather than a character who merely adopts elements of the Caregiver, like Hugo's Jean Valjean.

The Biblical story of Ruth presents a touching and powerful example of a Caregiver archetype.

Ruth is a Moabite, a foreigner, whose mother-in-law, Naomi, is an Israelite. There are a couple noteworthy points to be made, but to distill them here: the Israelites and Moabites were not particularly friendly with each other, frequently at war, and at the best times only neutral toward each other because they couldn't think of anything the other had that they wanted bad enough for it to be worth taking by force.

Upon her sons' deaths, Naomi plans to return to Judah, where as a widow she would live a squalid existence. She summons her daughters-in-law (Ruth and Orpah, though we won't really talk about Orpah) to give them her blessing to return to their families.

Ruth, however, responds with a moving passage:

Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.

Ruth 1:16-17, NASB

As a Moabite, this was essentially Ruth renouncing her citizenship to follow Naomi. Ruth had no foreseeable future in Judah, since she was herself a widow and unlikely to find a positive prospect.

At the same time, Ruth is an innately noble figure due to her willingness to sacrifice. The two archetypes most willing to sacrifice are the Destroyer and the Caregiver, and they have very different outcomes.

Ruth defies expectations with her loyalty, and that's a powerful tool for any storyteller.

Naomi entreats Ruth and Orpah, by William Blake

O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi" also has the Caregiver as archetypes of its main characters, though their relationship is less dependent. In it both Jim and Della, the protagonists, sell one of their most valued treasures to give each other a Christmas gift.

In archetypal considerations, we should not be put too far off by the fact that the Caregiver in this instance shows concerns for luxury instead of needs, because the psychological need of feeling loved is one sustained and fulfilled by the Caregiver.

The Caregiver is typically motivated by individuals, but they can extend this motivation to groups when they have a compelling reason to do so, and have the confident belief in their own power to take on such a burden.

The Tragic Caregiver

The issue that the tragic Caregiver faces is sacrifice. Like the Lover, they need to be loved, but their need for love is of a different sort. The Caregiver needs support for themselves in the same way that they give support for others: they tend to be very resilient, but not able to fully form themselves into independent agents, their relationships becoming a source of dependence for them.

Caregivers who pour out too much emotional and physical resources into their charges will burn out, destroying themselves. In some cases this can go so far as to lead to a meltdown or critical incident in which the Caregiver undergoes a radical transformation, perhaps into a Ruler or a Destroyer, or simply enters a state of aimless dysfunction.

The tragic Caregiver can also fall into issues when they exhaust their ability to care. Although equipped with a great amount of empathy and concern, they may be dominated by the Innocent, leading to a situation where the high and lofty expectations they have go unfulfilled and they face a harsh awakening as a result, or they may be dominated by the Orphan, and see failure as a manifestation of their own inability and worthlessness.

A tragic Caregiver who is simply incompetent may also do a poor job of their desired tasks, the nurturing they intend to do instead causing harm or dependence in others. This prolonged dependence can create a vicious cycle, even encouraging a sort of martyr's virtue on behalf of the Caregiver, where they know their charge is not being truly prepared for the world but they benefit from their continued failure by keeping their self-righteousness and as a result do not meaningfully seek to prepare others for a life of independence and positive interdependence.

The Villainous Caregiver

While the Caregiver seems as an archetype to be consumed by virtue, they can also turn villainous when forced to deal with the concerns of a larger community. Too much of a focus on their own offspring can lead to them intentionally depriving others. The Thenardiers in Les Miserables deprive both Cosette and their own son of a good upbringing to focus on their daughters.

Alternatively the Caregiver can become warped by their charge, pursuing whatever earns their approval and trust rather than what is actually good for them. This leads to enabling behavior. While this can sometimes be tragic, Caregivers who see the damage their enabling is causing and still continue can cross the line into villains, sabotaging their role of trust in a relationship to permit others to fail so that their own sins can go unnoticed.

The villainous Caregiver also uses guilt as a tool against others. When confronted with their actions, they justify them on the grounds of necessity and self-righteousness, ignoring the fact that they may very well have used wicked means to pursue a wicked end.

Villainous and tragic Caregivers both tend to over-extend themselves, but while a tragic Caregiver will go too far in the pursuit of helping individuals, a villainous Caregiver often sets their sights to a grand focus on all of society, even to the point of causing large-scale moral decay to justify their attempts to help.

The Caregiver in Star Wars

Caregiver figures in Star Wars tend not to live very long on-screen. The most clear-cut examples of these, such as Padmé Amidala (after she is pregnant with Luke and Leia) and Shmi Skywalker, both from the prequels.

Shmi is the only case that we get to examine in depth, and even then she plays a relatively minor role, supporting and encouraging Anakin and later serving as one of the motivations for his fall to his Shadow.

Galen Erso in Rogue One plays a role as this by trying to keep his daughter safe, to the point that he later commits acts of treason against the Empire in hopes of making the universe a better place for her.

Using the Caregiver in Storytelling

The Caregiver is an interesting archetype that is rarely explored. Some of this is due to natural causes; the Caregiver is unlikely to leave their ordinary world and embark on the Hero's Journey because they surround themselves with people that they are trying to take care of, who are weaker than them in some critical way.

The result is that the Caregiver rarely sets out to change the world on a universal level as heroes tend to do. They can undergo journeys of self-improvement, like Jean Valjean, but even then they are often only Caregivers in part.

However, as a storyteller you should consider the poignancy and the raw power behind the Caregiver. The Caregiver fulfills the other archetypes' needs, and a character who is motivated by the Caregiver in their persona will be powerful.

They can gain more will and more strength as a result of their burden.

With this said, the Caregiver is difficult to bring to the forefront for the reasons described above. Jean Valjean spends several years during Les Miserables caring for his young surrogate daughter, which is only kept interesting for the reader because it is a noteworthy shift in his personality and his redemptive journey from evil and bitterness to goodness and joy.

Jean Valjean is a doubly good example here because of the fact that he is a Byronic hero–strong, powerful, and keenly intelligent. The only thing stopping him from committing great evil for the purpose of self-enrichment (or even keeping him from rising to the top while being apathetic toward others) is his desire to redeem himself.

Using the Caregiver in Gaming

It is hard to use the Caregiver in gaming, but this is largely because they are difficult to convince to undergo the Road of Trials in the Hero's Journey. They need to stay in the ordinary world, with those they are taking care of, or they risk the destruction of who they really care about.

With that in mind, the Caregiver is able to be drawn out when you have the following:

• Something for the characters to care for and nurture (not simply protect)
• Sacrifices to be made to become a better nurturer
• A world that requires others to have support (and in which these supporters need help too)

If you make sure that there is a place for charity and, for lack of a better term, parenthood made available to the players, they will be able to fulfill the Caregiver archetype.

Once again, Rowan, Rook and Decard's Spire (affiliate link) actually manages to pull this off. The drow midwives have a responsibility of looking after the city, and while they have other duties as well (and are not pigeonholed into being Caregivers), they are generally close to this archetype with abilities that draw them toward these sorts of behaviors.

Wrapping Up

The Caregiver is generally perceived as virtuous, because they seek their goals through the empowerment of others (as opposed to the self-development of the Warrior or Ruler). They are noble and have a beautiful and sublime role in stories, but can become a victim of their own desire to help others instead of themselves.