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In 1949 Mythologist Joseph Campbell of Sarah Lawrence College wrote what he described as a “self-help book for reading myths.” That work The Hero with a Thousand Faces has become a key seminal work in the interpretation of myth and legend. Campbell’s essential thesis is that all human cultures whatever their historical conditioning share myths that incorporate the same fundamental symbolic journey where a hero emerges, takes part in a mythological adventure and returns to his or her society the wisdom/knowledge gleaned from the adventure.
This fundamental formula known as the Monomyth, has been applied to many or is recognizable in many of the most popular film series of the late 20th and early 21st centuries from the Star Wars trilogy of George Lucas, Harry Potter, Matrix, and Lord of the Rings trilogies. We can likewise apply Campbell’s model to the characters and conditions of Once Upon a Time.
Several of our posters are already familiar with Campbell’s work and their insights will be most welcome on this thread. For those not familiar with Campbell’s work or for those interested in mythological/archetypal interpretations of the characters of Once. I will provide citations from scholarly works to that end and look forward to your contributions.
The Journey consists of the following steps aligned in a circular orientation (examples provided for steps already observed in the plot thus far)
1) The Call to Adventure: Henry arriving at Emma’s door
2) Refusal of the Call: Emma’s skepticism and refusal to accept the veracity of Henry’s claims
3) Supernatural Aid: August arrives in town to make her believe
4) The Crossing of the First Threshold: Facing the Dragon below the Clock Tower
5) The Belly of the Whale: Magic comes to Storybrooke
6) The Road of Trials: everything from the season 2 opener to arrival in Neverland
7) The Meeting of the Goddess
8) Woman as the Temptress
9) Atonement with the Father: Emma reconciling with her parents and the pain of abandonment
10) Apotheosis
11) The Ultimate Boon
12) Refusal of the Return
13) The Magical Flight
14) Rescue from Without
15) The Crossing of the Return Threshold
16) Master of Two Worlds
17) Freedom to Live
While this is called the Hero’s Journey it is often undertaken in groups (Luke is accompanied by Han, Chewie and the Droids, Frodo has the Fellowship, Dorothy has her three companions) Each character partakes in their own journey but the central hero, the one that the audience most identifies with is the focus which in the case of Once is Emma Swan. We can apply this to any of the characters in Once we wish. A discussion of where our characters are at right now in the journey is timely given the descent into Neverland where Adam and Eddie have said our characters will be faced with their true selves and the ‘heart of darkness’ (a reference to Joseph Conrad’s novel of the same name and a template for Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now).
[adrotate group="5"]Custodian of Graham's darts, Rumple's spindle and Robin's quiver
I have a few ideas as to how this might play out, filling in some of the blanks. Some of it is based on some spoilers, so I’ll blacken them out and you must read at your own caution.
7) The Meeting of the Goddess
We know that Ariel’s story in being told in 306. Based on an article from William Keck at TVGuide, Ursula is not just a sea witch, but a goddess who grants mermaids legs once a year. If Ursula was still alive (if Eric hasn’t killed her and my own personal theory is that Eric and his kingdom owe fealty to Ursula) then they might run into her. In other words, a literal meeting of the goddess
10) Apotheosis
Occasionally being able to read Greek comes in handy! For those who don’t know what this is: ἀποθέωσις is when a subject is elevated to a divine level. Emma has always been called the Savior and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if A and E continue to play with the typical Savior tropes. I’m not saying Emma will become Divine, but rather she may fully accept her status as Savior and the power that it wields.
11) The Ultimate Boon
Campbell says the boon is essentially the goal of the quest: the grail, the holy object you sought. If we’re just considering this season, this could be the saving of Henry. It is, afterall, the entire goal of the first half of this season. It might be that Emma will only be able to save Henry once she’s accepted her role as Savior. Up until now she knows she is the Savior but it doesn’t sit with her very well because she’s still the Orphan (all the heroes are now that I’m typing this out and thinking it through…)
13) The Magical Flight
12 baffles me at the moment so I’m passing over it because I’m not sure it fits the arc so far. But this part could be a literal flight out of NL (an escape from Hell as it were) with the boon (Henry) with her.
16) Master of Two Worlds
17) Freedom to Live
Again skipping some in order to think it over more but I think this stage is where Emma’s role as Savior will really come into play. I don’t know WHEN this will happen but I think Emma will give her life for Henry at some point. Now don’t fret! She’ll come back to to life (they always do…) (think HP and King’s Cross) but for Campbell it means that the hero has found a way to be both in the physical here and now and also the master of the spiritual world. It some cases it means being able to give up all fear and limitations of existence but it also has to do with rebirth.
Just a few of my takes
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"A note about Emma and death:
sometimes the rebirth isn’t literal, as in death and rising again, but more psychological rebirth where you’ve cast off all your limitations of self and are ready for whatever lies ahead.
While I think that does play a part in Emma’s moment, where she’ll be able to move beyond a lot of her issues that plague her with self doubt, I do actually think we’re talking DEATH her. And when comes back (I know..dead is dead) it will be played as “true love never dies” because that’s what Emma is. She isn’t just magical (like maybe Regina and Cora who have sparks of magic [thanks to Storyteller in another thread for correcting me on that]) but she is TL Incarnate. It sounds a little cheesy but this is ONCE. We’re full of the fairy tale cheese.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I keep coming back to this and making more notes. LOL
But it occurs to me that often times apotheosis and rebirth can go hand in hand. So it could be that Emma’s death will occur sooner than I anticipated if the boon is Henry. But I don’t think they’d do the “rebirth” arc so soon given Emma’s psychological issues that really need resolving. So if Emma’s apotheosis is rebirth from an actual death then the boon isn’t Henry unless they want to mess up the order of the monomyth. (possible)
I’ve started pulling out my notes and textbooks. This isn’t a good sign.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Another thing that must be stressed is that the journey is not a straight line ascent from lowly spiritual conditions to highest illumination it often is a two steps forward one step back affair. As an example consider Regina: The baseline Regina, that is the person she is in her deepest identity is almost certainly the Regina we see in Stable Boy. A celestial and virginal figure dressed in white or ethereal colors (light blue) who has a powerful and loving heart which is at the same time tender and vulnerable (symbolic of childhood innocence) when that heart is infected with darkness a figure whose natural realm is the angelic heavenly spaces is pulled down to earth. She becomes a telluric (an earthly) figure. The upper realms are closing off to her and she is being anchored to earth and her costuming reflects it (the earth tones browns and greys that she affects in 2×02 and 2×05) and by the end of 2×05 she is now a chthonic (subterranean) or stygian (deathly) figure robed in black and a prisoner of the darkness. Yet, her heart survives spindled and shattered though it be, and the mending of that heart determines where she is on the journey. Regina as of now is in her trial phase moving towards her own apotheosis (discovery of her true self) that has followed her assumption of the redemption struggle, initiated from within (not imposed from without). When she reaches apotheosis she will either recoil in fear and refuse become what she is to be and revert into what she became after Daniel’s death which would then necessitate her extended family rescuing her from herself in manner reminiscent of Luke Skywalker’s final confrontation with his father in ROTJ. Or embrace her true self freeing herself of her burdensome anger and resuming her true celestial nature (personally I wouldn’t hold my breath that she’ll do the latter on her own, it just wouldn’t be a good story).
Custodian of Graham's darts, Rumple's spindle and Robin's quiver
I keep coming back to this and making more notes. LOL But it occurs to me that often times apotheosis and rebirth can go hand in hand. So it could be that Emma’s death will occur sooner than I anticipated if the boon is Henry. But I don’t think they’d do the “rebirth” arc so soon given Emma’s psychological issues that really need resolving. So if Emma’s apotheosis is rebirth from an actual death then the boon isn’t Henry unless they want to mess up the order of the monomyth. (possible) I’ve started pulling out my notes and textbooks. This isn’t a good sign.
Henry is the goal but the boon will come as a result of the quest for Henry, the first step on the road to apotheosis was acceptance of what life experience has made her namely a lost girl, the journey now is to being a found girl and that is Step #8 Meeting with the Goddess, which is part of Snow’s journey this season.
(For the benefit of all readers, IMPORTANT NOTE: Steps in the Monomyth are not always A leads directly to B leads directly to… Often they are A bleeds into B while overlapping with C)
Custodian of Graham's darts, Rumple's spindle and Robin's quiver
Henry is the goal but the boon will come as a result of the quest for Henry, the first step on the road to apotheosis was acceptance of what life experience has made her namely a lost girl, the journey now is to being a found girl and that is Step #8 Meeting with the Goddess, which is part of Snow’s journey this season.
I agree with that but are we taking the series as a whole as the monomyth or as each season as its own monomyth which then in turn plays into a whole monomyth.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"The meeting with the goddess could be a spiritual one, in which Emma comes to understand her mother and the sacrifices they made. I think for that to happen Snow also has to become..well…she has to become Snow White again. Our characters are sometimes still stuck in “Mary Margaret” and “David Nolan” mode and I think NL is all about finding out who you really are. Snow needs to become the Princess again.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Whichever we feel valid we’ll just have to remember to preface whether we see it in a seasonal or serial context. My previous post I feel encapsulates both the seasonal and serial arc.
Custodian of Graham's darts, Rumple's spindle and Robin's quiver
The meeting with the goddess could be a spiritual one, in which Emma comes to understand her mother and the sacrifices they made. I think for that to happen Snow also has to become..well…she has to become Snow White again. Our characters are sometimes still stuck in “Mary Margaret” and “David Nolan” mode and I think NL is all about finding out who you really are. Snow needs to become the Princess again.
She doesn’t necessarily have to become the Snow White image of herself that existed before she murdered Cora. Just a more developed and nuanced version who holds true to goodness while at the same time recognizes that pain and loss are part of what she signed up for when she joined the game of life.
Custodian of Graham's darts, Rumple's spindle and Robin's quiver
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