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Post by wulfhere on Feb 14, 2017 6:14:21 GMT -5
This post makes some really good points about why hollywood continually misses the mark. link
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Post by robp on Feb 14, 2017 8:30:48 GMT -5
Great essay, agree with pretty much everything he says. Thanks for posting!
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Feb 14, 2017 9:56:45 GMT -5
Excellent read.
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Post by deuce on Feb 14, 2017 12:07:45 GMT -5
Rick does good work.
I've been seeing a lot of bashing on Campbell's Hero's Journey lately which I believe is misguided. Just because morons -- in Hollywood, especially -- use it as a crutch and an antidote for not having ideas or talent, does not mean the archetype doesn't exist. You can easily parse out The Lord of the Rings or The Hour of the Dragon using Campbell's structure. Both were written before Campbell ever published, just like so many other previous tales and legends which fit the archetype. I haven't read everything by Campbell -- in fact, hardly anything beyond his "Hero's Journey" work -- but I don't recall him saying that every tale needed to conform to the structure. From what I recall, he admitted that there were examples where it didn't.
Short stories, which were typical of the pulps, don't easily lend themselves to the HJ structure. If anything, individual tales are just single episodes in a given hero's arc, if that. The same goes for an average movie, which makes it idiotic to try and shoehorn an installment of, say, "The Fast and Furious" into that mold.
I've seen Lester Dent's "Pulp Formula" touted a lot lately. It certainly has its good points, but I've seen a lot of junk manufactured using it as well. Yet, I don't see people piling onto Dent and saying nobody should ever use his formula.
The overriding thing to keep in mind when using any system is: junk in, junk out.
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Post by Von K on Feb 15, 2017 14:41:30 GMT -5
That’s a very insightful article.
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Feb 15, 2017 16:26:41 GMT -5
Speaking of Conan the Barbarian, I'm often amazed at how many people I've ran into that mistake Conan's exclamation, "Crom!" when the mummified corpse of the ancient Atlantean king crumbles after our Cimmerian removes the sword from its withered grasp, to mean that the skeleton is, indeed, Crom - Conan's not-so-revered god.
I've explained numerous times it was the same as if someone took the sword, and yelled "Holy crap!" when the mouldy bones crumbled.
They're always like: "Do what?"
Food for wolves?
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Post by Von K on Feb 17, 2017 10:28:18 GMT -5
Rick does paint Conan somewhat lighter than he is though:
"But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storm in their blood, restless harbingers of violence and bloodshed, knowing no other path." Robert E Howard - A Witch Shall be Born.
There's a lot of the darkness of Cormac Fitzgeoffrey and REH's version of Baibars in Conan too.
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Post by Von K on Feb 17, 2017 11:18:52 GMT -5
Deuce is right that the short story form doesn't always leave enough space to show transformation arcs, which is why in Conan the main arc is over the course of his whole career as opposed to in any one yarn.
Hour of the Dragon is the one place where REH has the space to give Conan a full arc.
#
The Hero's Journey is a deep archetypal form, which is great for showing character transformation, and can even culmnate in a kind of apotheosis for the protagonist.
Joseph Campbell showed seventeen common archetypal elements in mythic stories, and stressed that they didn't all appear in any one myth. Likewise he presented them in a rough sequence, but once again, they don't necessarily appear in that order all the time in the myths from which they were culled.
George Lucas first popularised Campbell’s work in a screenwriting context. Christopher Vogler’s reworking of Campbell’s material compounds the elements into twelve stages for easier understanding, and blends in some Jungian archetypes. Like Rick states, his ideas were being circulated in memo form in screenwriting circles, and were influential years before he wrote the first edition of his book.
The Hero’s Journey structure is also hard baked into Blake Snyder’s beat sheet as well, but in a reframed format.
All three have been very influential on Hollywood scriptwriting. Some say producers and screenwriters have become too reliant on Vogler and Snyder, however. Their books are excellent, but there are many more structures and structural variants to use.
The problem with the Hero's Journey is that its easy to see it as a quick and easy formula. But it is actually a meta structure, one which incorporates many other elements of storytelling, and thus is hard to master. Lester Dent's Plot Formula is a much easier one to use as its much less meta, and a whole lot more suitable for shorter pulp style yarns, though it can be used in a larger structural way as well. It's lighter, easier to scale up or down, though less meta and deep or steeped in raw transformationas the Hero's Journey.
I don't see any harm in George Lucas using the form so frequently, as for the most part it was the right one to be using for the kinds of stories he was telling. Some theorise that George Lucas was using an intricate larger level of structuring for his six Star Wars movies. It's called Star Wars Ring Composition theory.
Imho, Hollywood has done as many great things with the Hero's Journey as it has cookie cutter ones. It's a natural structural fit for superhero origin stories for instance. One example of that is the first Iron Man movie. The film uses Hero’s Journey as a general guide but it begins in media res with the Call to Adventure/Threshold, then while Tony is unconsious, it flashbacks to give us a glimpse of his Ordinary World, then segues back to a literal Ordeal in a Cave where he almost dies and is symbolically Reborn/Ressurected. Most of the rest of the film is taken up with an extended Return phase.
Incidentally, REH uses that effective opening technique for a few of the Conan yarns, of an in media res opening followed by backstory after the story gets going and the reader is now already involved - for Servants of Bit Yakin, Xuthal of the Dusk, and Queen of the Back Coast, for example.
The good thing which the writers did in the case of Iron Man was to realise (as Sid Field used to say) that 'structure is flexible' and that the stages can be creatively rearanged, as I tried to show above. They used the form but didn't let it take precedence over their material or override getting Tony Stark to the point where he can say 'I am Iron Man.'
So Hero's Journey can be used for Conan just as effectively as any other - if it's done right. Also, Conan could theoretically be cast in the Mentor role in such a yarn, as the main influence character, he doesn't necessarily have to be the transformation arcing protagonist. He structurally plays this role to a loose degree in A Witch Shall be Born, for instance, and in Beyond the Black river. In AWSBB he's the one who 'sees the truth' of Salome's deception. And, like Obi Wan Kenobi, who is the Mentor in Star Wars, Conan leaves the narrative for a while after he survives the tree of woe, to return later and save the day, just as Obi Wan does in Star Wars when he encourages Luke to 'use the Force.'
Conan survives his brush with death physically wheras Obi Wan survives his spiritually. Gandalf, who is the Mentor in Lord of the Rings, exits the narrative then returns later transformed as well. In Gandalf's case his survival is kind of both spiritual and physical.
My 2c.
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Post by robp on Feb 17, 2017 11:55:59 GMT -5
The hero-arc journey thing is interesting or perhaps irrelevant when you think that REH didn't write the Conan stories in a sequence, they seem dotted about at random points in his life. Having said that there is a change in the character depending on the stage of life he is at. Gee, maybe this Howard guy was a good writer
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Post by Von K on Feb 17, 2017 15:10:24 GMT -5
REH often angled toward creating successful series characters rather than one offs, so I’d guess he’d already mapped out a general arc for Conan in his mind’s eye by the time he wrote tGitB. The first three experimental stories (set at the end, middle, then beginning of Conan's career) were a kind of a reversed mini version of the whole arc. He'd probably worked out a reasonably strong idea of the general pattern for Conan's career by the time he wrote the Hyborian Age essay and tToTE.
REH kept half an eye on his potential to write something for Hollywood too, btw:
Imho, if REH were here today he’d be more clued up and knowledgeable about the Hero’s Journey and it’s uses, strengths and limitations as a structural form than most writers.
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Post by Von K on Feb 17, 2017 18:41:30 GMT -5
A good example of the Hero’s journey being used in more contemporary fantasy is shown by some of the books by Heroic Fantasy author David Gemmell. He sometimes used variants of the Hero’s Journey as a structural guide, as a recent re-reading of his diptych of novels Ghost King and Sword of Power revealed.
Ghost King – Thuro/Uther = Hero. Culain lach Feragh = Mentor Sword of Power – Cormac (Son of Uther) = Hero. Culain lach Feragh = Mentor
They are both interesting variants of the HJ structure, featuring the same character, Culain, in the mentor role.
These two rarely come up as Gemmell reader favourites, but I like them both, and Culain is one of my favourite Gemmell heroes.
Great reads, and I heartily recommend them.
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Post by Von K on Feb 17, 2017 19:01:47 GMT -5
You folks probably all think I'm one mad b*stard for casting Conan in a HJ Mentor role and comparing him with Obi Wan and Gandalf. I won't hold it against you if you do. Steve Tompkins, and maybe Taranaich, would have understood where I'm coming from.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2017 3:43:59 GMT -5
You folks probably all think I'm one mad b*stard for casting Conan in a HJ Mentor role and comparing him with Obi Wan and Gandalf. I won't hold it against you if you do. Steve Tompkins, and maybe Taranaich, would have understood where I'm coming from. Hello Von K, I can see where you are coming from. In the Conan yarns, at times, it feels like civilization itself is embarking on the Hero's Journey, and individual characters are a manifestation of that civilization. For example, Conan is a mentor in Beyond the Black River and in the Black Stranger. Conan is one step ahead of all the characters, he is just as comfortable in the Pictish world as he is in the company of pirates, or as a mercenary for the Aquilonians. Conan's definitely the master (mentor) in these situations. I think the concept of time and how fleeting these fabulous shinning kingdoms are is an important theme in REH's work. Eventually, the Hyborian Age will come crashing down and disappear, all their great achievements will be forgotten. I think Conan understands this inevitability, he is in synchronization with it, in this way the knowledge he acquires during his life is used effectively. Civilization, can dismiss knowledge that runs contrary to their established ideas, institutions, laws, culture or traditions. Maybe, Conan, even found the traditions of his own people too restrictive in terms of his individualism (tribal societies can be even more restrictive and complex than so-called Civilized societies). Conan's the only character who is in on the joke in these yarns and he embraces it - he loves the taste of sweet wine, he loves beautiful women, he loves to fight, he's loyal to his friends, he knows no matter how sweet life is; it is not forever! Complex civilizations of the Hyborian Age are constantly clinging, scratching and fighting a losing battle. Conan's also instinctive and unpredictable - these characteristics are terrifying to any civilization.
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Post by Von K on Feb 18, 2017 18:44:14 GMT -5
Thanks Hun, and I agree with your observations.
I think Deuce would likely see where I'm coming from too.
PS. I was slightly inaccurate above. The tree of woe is the term used in the movie, but in aWSBB, REH refers to it as 'heavy cross' and 'grim tree,' the second of which terms no doubt inpired the creation of the tree of woe.
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Post by deuce on Feb 21, 2017 11:15:30 GMT -5
You folks probably all think I'm one mad b*stard for casting Conan in a HJ Mentor role and comparing him with Obi Wan and Gandalf. I won't hold it against you if you do. Steve Tompkins, and maybe Taranaich, would have understood where I'm coming from. I have no problem with that idea at all. Even as a 10yr old (and maybe that helped), I saw Conan as Balthus' mentor. It was just obvious. Maybe the fact that I constantly worked with fairly rough-hewn guys (our farm/ranch hands) every summer from the age of 8 had something to do with it. You get the same thing between Conan and Almuric in the "Tombalku" stuff.
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