According to mythological tradition, what are all hero have in common with the heroes of ancient myths? In my opinions, they are all variants of the same hero. If we consider hero’s journey as a circle, the journey begins and ends in a hero’s ordinary world, but thickest passes through an unfamiliar, special world. Along the way, there are some key events. For example, there are my favourite movie, “Harry Potter” and “Hunger Game”. And also we can look at the movie we have discuss in the class “The Whale Rider” and “The fisher King”. If we take a look of these movies, we will find out hero in the movies are actually follow a certain pattern of the hero journey. So we can divide the hero journey to certain serval stages.
First stage is “call to adventure” which means the hero will receive a mysterious message such as an invitation or a challenge. For example, when Jake gets the call when he first time sees Parry, and Parry ask him to helps him to get the holy grail.(The Fisher King). The, second stage will be “assistance”, the hero will need some helps, because it is always hard to success by yourself, so the hero will probably get helps from a friend, someone older or even the wiser. For example, Harry tells his friends Hermione and Ron whenever he feel or see something weird, and his friend will give him advice and help him. (Harry Potter). Third stage will be “departure”, the hero will crosses the threshold from his normal life and leave his comfort zone from where he used to belong to. For example, when Paikea’s grandpa finds up she wants to join the challenge, she is sent to her uncle’s girl friend’s house by her grandma( The Whale Ride). And they will enter the special world and start their adventure. In addition, because hero have left their comfort zone and they are not in there home anymore. So they will go on the next stage which is “ Trials”. Being a hero is not a easy job to do, the hero will solves a riddle, slays the bad people, at the same time ,they need to try to escapes from a trap. After this, they will go on the following stage “approach”, all hero have to face the biggest ordeal and it is also hero’s worst fear. For example, when Harry sees Voldemort, he is really scared and he gets trap a lot by Voldemort.(Harry Potter) Because you never know what things will happen to you, and can you survive from that challenge. Then, hero will go on the sixth stage which is “crisis”, it will be hero’s most difficult time, they will face death and possibly even dies For example, when Harry sees his friends and school get destroyed, he decides to go fight Voldemort alone even he knows he will fail (Harry Potter). However, hero only need to be reborn. For example, before Harry go meet Voldemort alone, he finds up that he has the resurrection Stone, so he can reborn (Harry Potter). So he can go on the seventh step”treasure”, as a result, the hero will claim some treasure such as some special power. By this, hero can go to the eighth stage”result”, in other words, this can vary between stories. For example, maybe the hero will be chased as when they fly fro the special world. After they complete every challenges. The hero will finally go on the ninth stage which is return, the hero returns to his ordinary world. The ten stage “ the new life”, everything the hero have go through which have change the hero by how he has outgrown his old life. The eleven stage “resolution”, all the tangled plot lines get straightened out. Finally, the hero can go on the final stage”status quo”, but the hero can upgraded to a new level. Because after people become the hero, nothing is exactly the same anymore. For example, there are many poplar books and movies always follow this ancient formula pretty closely.
For example, the movie“The Hunger Games” fits the hero’s journey template very well. The main character Katniss Everdeen gets her call to adventure when her sister’s name is called from the lottery. She knows the journey will not be easy, so she has to find the assistance of Haymitch for helping her on her adventure. Then, she has to depart and leave her ordinary world that is when she gets on a train to the capital to join the challenge. Same as the most famous characters “Harry Potter”, “Katniss Everdeen”, they are all human like us. But the hero’s journey myth exists in all human cultures and keeps getting updated, because humans reflects on our wold though symbolic stories of our own lives. In conclusion, when human leave their comfort zone, they will get an experience that transforms them. And then they recover and do it again. People may do not really fight Voldemort, but they do need to face problems just as scary. So what is the symbolic cave people cave fear to enter? Such as auditions for the presentation, first time kiss or first-time away from home. When we watch for this formula in books, movies, and TV shows us to come cross. And we will certainly see it again. So we have to be sensitive to it to our own life. Listen to our call to adventure, and accept the challenge. Then we conquer our fear and claim the treasure we seek. And then, restart and do it all over agin.