The Hero’s Journey in Modern Multimedia Storytelling
Hello creatives,
Today I’m going to break down one of the most common storytelling tools to ever exist: The Hero’s Journey. You may have encountered it in any number of literature or humanities classes in high school or college. It’s the ultimate guide for writers everywhere.
Why?
Because it’s basically the circle of life for any protagonist.
What is The Hero’s Journey?
This framework was first theorizes and popularized by Joseph Campbell’s seminal work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). Campbell studied myths, legends, and folklore across cultures and identified a universal narrative pattern that reflects the psychological process of personal growth and transformation. Joseph Cambell was heavily influenced by the archetypes of Carl Jung’s analytics psychology.
The Hero’s Journey creates 17 plot points that are divided into three distinct acts: The Departure, Initiation and Return. In recent years, this has been criticized for being overly formulaic and the fact that not all stories contain all 17 plot points, which can be subverted in some way. Even so, The Hero’s Journey remains a strong framework to build off of in terms of storytelling techniques.
The Three Act Structure
The Hero’s Journey has three distinct acts with specific plot points that push the protagonist forward. Now, this framework is very focused on outward pressures driving the protagonist, but there are opportunities for storytellers to dive into the inward pressures motivating the protagonist to move through the plot points.
Act One: The Departure
The purpose of the first act is to set the stage for the world the protagonist lives in. We are introduced to everything they have to lose or gain. They are then forced into action, summoned by the call to adventure where they meet a mentor and cross the threshold where they commit and cannot return.
Clear examples of this include:
Luke Skywalker’s life on Tatooine in A New Hope. We’re introduced to a very simple life in a universe that is unstable. Luke expects his future is as a fighter pilot because he has childhood friends who have gone to he academy to be one. Luke salvages a few droids and finds Leia’s message. The words “Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” have echoed across generations for a reason. Luke learns of his father’s former Jedi status and Obi-Wan offers to train him as they go to find Princess Leia. Luke initially refuses the call, but upon realizing his childhood home has been destroyed in search of the droid with the message, he realizes he has to see this through.
Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games is first seen hunting in the woods before the Reaping. Her sister’s name is called out and so she sacrifices her life for her sister by volunteering to replace her as Tribute in the games. Katniss is then rushed onto the train to the Capitol with very little goodbye to her home. These are gut wrenching moments to start off a story.
The pacing of these two examples are quite different. Luke’s slowly-built up call started with accidentally stumbling upon a hologram message which led to a fairly nonchalant conversation with Obi-Wan about leaving everything he knows behind only to be confronted with a cinematic moment as he watches his home burning, forcing him to stick with Obi-Wan. Katniss was facing possible death from the very beginning of the book and movie, forced to sacrifice herself to save her sister, and whisked away to near-certain death in the first few scenes. So you can see how writers can play around with tone, suspense and more to evoke different emotions.
Act Two: The Initiation
The second act its filled with trials the protagonist must go through to refine their character. They may gain new skills or items that will be important later. They may be tempted by something that derails them on their journey. At some point, the main character may come to understand the depths of what they face. This in turn all boils down into a moment of triumph.
Continuing in our examples with Star Wars and Hunger Games:
Obi-Wan gifts Luke a lightsaber and trains him on how to use it as they find and team up with Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon. They get sucked into the Death Star’s tractor beam on their way to Princess Leia’s home planet where they come face to face with stormtroopers and Darth Vader himself. They learn Princess Leia is trapped on the Death Star and narrowly escape death trap after death trap. Han has to be bribed a few times to continue the mission before they make it back to the Falcon.
Katniss is literally tested in the training center and graded on her performance, earning a score of 11. Peeta admits his love to her on live television, making them star-crossed lovers in the eyes of the Capitol. She is thrown into the arena and given gifts from sponsors to help her survive. She is tempted by the stockpile of supplies at the cornucopia and blows it up only for little Rue to die which is where she has a moment of realization and chooses to humanize and memorialize Rue with flowers. She then turns to where she thinks the cameras may be and offers the famous three fingered salute and 3 note whistle, signaling solidarity with the people of Rue’s District. Later in a dramatic standoff, she and Peeta defeat the Mutts, supposedly winning them the game since the Gamemakers announced Tributes from the same district would be allowed to win together.
Again, you can see the similar structures, but the character decisions and motivations are very different as they are pushed forward through the plot. Luke is on this journey because he has nothing to go back to and Obi-Wan is bringing him up in the ways of the Jedi, which supposedly his father once was so there’s an element of family legacy propelling him forward. Katniss is forced into this journey and needs to survive the arena to return to her family and District 11.
Act Three: The Return
The final act is defined by the main characters given an opportunity (or the appearance of an opportunity) to return to their former life, only to refuse. They escape the journey, only to realize going back may be just as dangerous as getting there. They may receive assistance on the treacherous journey home. There is another moment where the main character understands the experiences they’ve gone through has now changed their perspective and they must find a way to live with the trauma and create a new life for themselves.
In practice, it looks like this:
Luke and the team face the final boss that is Vader. Luke witnesses Obi-Wan sacrifice himself so Luke, Han and Leia can escape. Luke wrestles with Obi-Wan’s death and what that means for him. They make it to the Alliance base and share the Death Star blueprints to organize an attack. Luke is reunited with a childhood friend and together they are part of the straighter fleet that is in the attack plans. Luke watches his fleet and friend die in battle and guns down the weak point ini the Death Star with the help of The Force. The victory is celebrated with a ceremony and medals.
Katniss and Peeta, having defeated the Mutts think they have won the games. But it’s announced that the rule allowing two Victors from the same district to win was overturned. Instead of accepting that either one of them would have to sacrifice themselves, Katniss stages a double suicide with poisoned berries, which forces the Gamemakers’ hands in allowing them to both be declared Victors. On the train ride home, their mentor Haymitch, mentions that they will have to play the role of star-crossed lovers for the rest of their lives. Only Katniss doesn’t love Peeta, which he didn’t realize. So she must come to terms that she never really left the arena and she never can mentally or emotionally stop playing The Hunger Games.
Both A New Hope and Hunger Games ends with our main characters being thought of as folk heroes because of their actions against a tyrannical government. The key differences lie in how the characters were forced into their actions.
A New Hope ends Luke’s journey on a high note, leaving Luke as a literal hero and a symbol of the rebellion. The sacrifices made are rewarded with victory and a new hope for the future.
The Hunger Games leaves Katniss with a new dilemma of having to navigate her new relatively comfortable life as a Victor while also continuing to please the Capitol’s need for entertainment so as not to provoke any more pain on her family.
Final Thoughts on The Hero’s Journey
So, you can probably see how this framework can be leveraged in storytelling. There are ways to tweak it based on genre conventions to satisfy audiences’ expectations or to create plot twists that subvert the common tropes that may have gotten a little too tiresome. Personally, I like five acts versus three because of how much more character development can happen in five acts, but that’s just me!
Both of these examples started at books and were adapted into films so the hero’s journey is something that works well for both written and visual stories. This may be helpful if you want to write a story with adaptation in mind.
Let me know your thoughts on The Hero’s Journey! Do you love it? Hate it? What other frameworks do you enjoy?
Until Next Time,
Rochele