The New Poetics 212 How to use this Course

Alternate Titles: These are other names for the same character, each emphesizing a different aspect of the character. There are actually eight aspect names for each character, but not all of them are known. Sometimes there are also specific archetypal words for resonances, shadows, split characters and other variants. For the purposes of this basic introduction we list only a few of these, in no particular order.

Archetypal Events: The complete set of these is made up of 5 Relational Events and 5 Solitary Events. Here we list a small random sampling.

Common Plots: A few examples of frequently occuring plots from the perspective of this character.

Next there is a list of the most important symbols of the character being described. There are many, many variants for each of these and the student will learn how to generate these in a later course. The version given here is the purest form currently known, in the Concrete Aspect and the Royal Scale. The Supply symbol is something often signals the final leg of the plot by running out, the Prize is often the thing sought after in this character's story, the Monument is a symbolic representation of the story after the story is over, and the others are self-explanatory.

Home
Supply
Weapon
Clothing
Prize
Monument
Minor Symbols

Finally is included the Yellow Square as it looks built from the perspective of that character.

The Magus

Alternate Titles: Father, Master

The Magus is the wise man upon his mountain, contemplating the clear blue heavens as he tries to catch flies with chopsticks or unravel the mysterious symbols of last nights' dream. He has already achieved mastery in his chosen field, and who is now in a position to apply and pass on his teachings.
Usually he holds some secret or arcane knowledge: the hidden traditions of an ancient people, the key to enlightenment, or the secrets of the hundred-acre wood. His knowledge and counsel are reliable, and those who do not heed his advice do so at their own peril. His great wisdom leaves him with a grave responsibility to pass on what he knows, to preserve the teachings for generations to come. The ability to pass on his traditions often forms the back-bone of a Magus' plot, especially when that plot is centred in the life of the family.
Because he is a man possessed of special powers and authority, the Magus is generally ruled by a strict code of conduct. This may be a traditional way of life handed down to him by his own forefathers, the rule of the monastery where he teaches, or a professional code of ethics.
In plots where the Disciple does not figure prominently, the Magus will generally be engaged in the pursuit of some especially difficult mystery, a question which is beyond the pervue of ordinary mortals and which he alone is qualified to attempt to answer: the secret of eternal life, the nature of star-birth, or who killed Laura Palmer.

Archetypal Events: Dream, Teach, Retire, Father's Blessing

Common Magus Plots:

Passing On the Secrets: The Magus has found a Disciple, usually an unlikely specimen who must be shaped into a worthy successor. Using riddles, paradoxes, and harsh discipline he passes his knowledge onto the Disciple and is finally able to go gently and peacefully into that good night, content that his tradition will be preserved.

Breaking in the Novice: The Magus is attempting the frustrating task of handing on his wisdom to an ungrateful and lazy Disgrace. His wisdom and sagacity allow him to teach the Disgrace several harsh life-lessons that eventually turn the wretch into a reasonable Disciple.

Brought Together By the Child: A child or children in the Magus' care come to be loved by a Mother. Through their mutual care for these children, the Magus and the Mother are brought together in love. Often in such plots the Magus is a widower.

Clash of the Titans: The Magus and a Wiseman are competing for mastery in their discipline, be it magic, martial arts or chess. The Wiseman attempts to win through trickery and deciet. The Magus makes an unexpected and counter-intuitive move that paradoxically wins him the contest.

The Mountain-top School: The Magus's home is a place of teaching, often located on difficult or inaccessible terrain (high on a mountain-top, in the depths of a swamp on a planet where no one ever goes, etc.) If he lives in the family home (a variation on the Mother's nest) he tends to try to run it like a military academy.
The Sands of Time: Although Father Time is arguably a Magus, time is often not on the Magus' side. He has only a limited number of years in which to pass on his teachings to the next generation, and is often deeply aware of his own inevitable mortality.
The Staff of Power: The Magus' archetypal weapon may be cut from the wood of the world-ash tree, it may be a wizard's staff, or it may be simplified into a teacher's pointer or an old man's walking stick.
Mantle: A peripheral peice of clothing which may easily be taken off and passed on to another, the mantle is also a protective garment (this is passed to the Mother in the case of Mary's mantle spread over the world in Catholic piety), traditionally it keeps out rain and the elements but in modern works it often becomes a vest and may be bulletproof.
A Perfect Death: It is given to the Magus to choose the hour of his own death, to lay down when all of his earthly toils are done in order that he might rest content, knowing that his life's work has been fulfilled and will be carried on in the next generation. This is one reason why Magi tend to be very old, though a younger character may substitute retirement for physical death.
The Family Estate: The Magus wishes to leave the fruits of his labours to prosperity, to provide for generations to come; not merely to pass on the tradition that was given to him, but to enlarge it before handing it down.
Minor Symbols: White hair, Sand, Mountains

The Disciple

Alternate Titles: Apprentice, Son, Idealist

The Disciple is usually a young man, sometimes a child, who must learn to become a man. From this point, there are two major lines of departure that the disciple can take: he may be on a classic, Joseph Campbellesque father-quest, which is ultimately a quest for self-knowledge and self-discovery. Alternately, he may be in training, usually under a Magus, to become the best at some pursuit or another (Pokemon is an exceedingly fallen example of this sort of quest; its producers clearly understand that a great deal of junk can be sold by appealing to a small boy's archetypal yearning to develop a particular skill or talent to the utmost.)
Knowledge essential to the disciple, as is identity. Freedom is often a theme that appears in Disciple tales, though when it is analyzed more thoroughly, one finds that he is much more concerned with the freedom to know and define himself than with the more worldly forms of freedom that concern the Rogue. For this reason, his quest is often concerned with discipline, which forms the foundation for the interior freedom that he craves. A good Magus or Mother will set the Disciples tasks and challenges which allow him to develop this interior freedom, and they will give him just enough rope to "hang himself" when he tries to persue self-serving or destructive forms of freedom.
Left without a teacher to guide him, the disciple is at risk of becoming aimless, wandering around dreaming vague dreams and thinking lofty thoughts. He is often a philosophical or abstracted character; if he is called on to write a love letter (a common enough pursuit of the archetype) it is much more likely to be a long and flightly dissertation on the nature of love than a specific set of descriptive phrases applied to the particular object of his devotions.
Woods or wilderness, including urban wilderness, often serve as a symbol of the Disciple's interior quest (the "Forest of Fear" that Campbell speaks about is not proper to all heroes, but certainly is to this type). He is often to be found wandering through these wild places, looking for a mountain-vantage point from which to understand the world and himself, or for a home where he will be able to become a Father.
The Disciple is the sort of hero who truly believes that the world can be saved by a really good leaflet campaign. Oddly enough, this sometimes proves true.

Archetypal Events: Practice, Seek, Ask Stupid Question

Common Plots:

The Father Quest: The Disciple has been left orphan and must go out into the world, or deep into the library, in order to find the secrets of his past and reclaim his lost patrimony. He may be searching for his literal father, like Telemachus seeking Odysseus, he may be searching for his family history, or for a father figure, or for documents that will allow him to procure an inheritance that has been wrongfully seized by villainous relatives.

The Disciple in Training: In this story the Disciple usually begins as a more or less worthless specimen, an ill-disciplined kid who dreams of being a karate champion or Jedi Knight. A wise Magus comes along and takes the Disciple under his wing, training him to become much more than he could have been on his own.

The Disciple in Love: He falls, of course, for an Orphan. Ideally she is a spunky creature who tells him off when he's being an idiot (Cosette, in the couple of scenes where she actually possesses a personality, shows glimmers of this -- unfortunately Hugo seems to have spent more time researching the Paris sewer system than developing his heroine). His love is deep, but he is usually something of a klutz about actually bringing it to fruition and is likely to spend much of his time mooning, writing long letters, trying to die for noble causes, or wandering about blind in the woods eating nothing but roots and berries.

In the Claws of the Parasite: The Disciple becomes bound, in way or another, to a woman who offers him whatever he wants -- with all possible strings attached. If he tries to leave her, she attempts to destroy his career, leads him into a meaningless act of self-sacrifice, or simply shoots him and leaves him floating in the pool.

Bad Wisdom: The Disciple places himself in training under a Wise Man, who promises fame and glory, but whose regimen is founded on false, self-aggrandizing principles. The false teacher either destroys the Disciple by driving him harder than he is capable of being driven, or spoils him and causes him to turn into a Disgrace. Another heroic character (Magus, Mother or Orphan) may be able to snap the Disciple back into reality before it is too late.

\	The Mother

Alternate Titles: Matriarch, Sibyl

Mother characters need not necessarily be literal mothers. They may serve in a mother-like relationship to some other character to whom they have not given birth, or they may mother the world even though they have no children. For the most part they are not fountains of unmitigated sweetness; the 1950's frankenmother with her sewn on smile and her plate of smouldering cookies is not an archetype, but a marketype. Mothers have sass. If you attack their children they will come at you like an angry bear. If you are their child, and you are being disgraceful, you can expect an earful and possibly a broom to the head.
The mother's care for her children is not merely, and not primarily, material. She is a Yellow Square character concerned with the attainment of wisdom, self-knowledge and character. Her instructions are infallible. You need merely obey to avoid being caught by Mr. McGregor or devoured by the Big Bad Wolf. It is the same infallibility that allows the Mother to sometimes appear as a sybilline character, dispensing riddles and oracular truths.
Some Earth Goddesses are Mother figures, however most, like the Medea, are indifferent to their children at best, and liable to devour them in human sacrifice at worst. Be not deceived.
The Mother is often able to continue to work in the lives of those whom she loves after she is dead. Good ghosts are almost invariably mothers, and mothers may also work in the guise of their symbols (through birds, trees, etc.)

Archetypal Events: Give Instructions, Make Provision, Detect Danger, Shelter

Common Mother Plots:

Mother and the Parasite: A Mother has a disgraceful pupil or daughter whom she must raise into an intelligent, resourceful human being.

Mother finds a Family: A Mother falls in love with a Magus, usually in his aspect of Father or Widowers. Either a) they meet and fall in love through their mutual love of a child/children, or b) they fall in love and together overcome obstacles (e.g. infertility, age) to have a family together.

The False Mother: A Medea claims the Mother's child for her own, and the Mother must demonstrate that she is the child's rightful guardian.

Mother and the Disgrace: A Mother is married to a disgraceful husband, or is saddled to a disgraceful son. She may use him as an example to teach lessons to any Disciples or Orphans in her care (this is the basic plot of most Berenstein Bears books).

Mother and Orphan: Sweet tales of a childless woman who finds and adopts a woman in need, or else, mother teaches daughter a lesson. Stories for small girls and Chicken Soup for the Soul readers.

The Mother's Nest: The mother's essential home is a nest, though this is often translated into a comfortable family dwelling (anything from a cottage to a treehouse to an urban semi-detached) which she has fitted out for her family. This is her domain, which she fusses over and preens, making it perfect for her brood.
Days: While both the Magus and the Mother have a supply of time, the Magus emphasizes the flow of time slipping away, while the Mother's time has a characteristic "day-by-day" feel: the Magus hasn't enough years in his life, the Mother hasn't enough hours in her day. This is particularly significant in riddle plots, where the mother is often given a specific quantity of days in which to find the answer that will save her child.
The Mother's Basket: The basket is a symbol of the mother's encircling love. It may hold provisions, babies may be hidden inside for protection, or it may be used to beat dangerous or disgraceful adversaries on the head.
A Wide Skirt: The mother's skirt functions as a security blanket for children who love to hold onto its folds, it can be pulled at to get her attention, and heroes may be hidden underneath it when persued.
Children: Whether she loses them at the beginning of her plot and must get them back, or is striving to have any at all, the mother's prize is her children.
The Family Tree: The Tree is one of those essential yellow-square symbols, and seems to be most closely affiliated with the mother. In many mythologies there is some sort of tree that gives life to the whole world. It might be noted that this Tree goes beyond the passive-feminine mother-earth type of symbology: the Tree has its roots in the ground, but it reaches up into the heavens. The Mother archetype is also such a conduit, first giving her children earthly life but then labouring again to give them the wider life of the mind and of the spirit as she raises them up in her branches.
Minor Symbols: Tears are an important mother-symbol. When a mother weeps, her tears have the power to melt hearts or bring rains back to parched fields. Milk is another obvious symbol of the mother, one which needs no elaboration.

The Orphan

Alternate Titles: Daughter

The Orphan is a young woman, often a child, who is in some sense lost, seeking for a place in the world, a home, a family. The most obvious manifestation is the girl with no mother, abandoned at an orphanage, or placed in the care of a cruel stepmother. She is left barefoot in winter, begging for her bread, looking with longing through the windows of the rich and well-fed, pining for piles of Christmas sweet-meats and dreaming of porcelaine dolls with golden hair.
There are, however, other ways to handle an Orphan. She may have her parents but be, in some way, estranged or rejected by them. Her parents may be evil or overbearing, or they may discourage her from pursuing the dreams and hopes that give meaning to her life. In this case she is often somehow singled out, an odd girl who doesn't quite fit in within her social setting, and who needs to find a community or a purpose that will make sense of her life for her.
At heart, the Orphan is a dreamer. She is given to wild fantasies of a better world, and will, given the slightest opportunity, begin to enthusiastically persue all manner of hopelessly idealistic hobbies. She often appears as a bright-eyed young journalist ready to take on a world of crime and corruption, or as a dreamy poetess traipsing along the peir in total obliviousness to the fact that her shoes are being soaked through. Her head is firmly lodged in the clouds, and she is generally impractical, but there is something charming about this impracticality that harkens others towards old dreams that they thought long dead. This inspiration, especially when helped by the more practical right-hand heroes on her square, may enable her to make her impossible dreams come true.

Archetypal Events: Daydream, Chores, Explore

Common Plots:

A Place to Call Her Own: The Orphan is without a true home. She may be starving and alone in the streets, abandoned in the care of a callous inn-keeper or left in a cruel orphanage. She finds a Mother or Magus who takes her in and gives her a loving home.

Man of Her Dreams: The Orphan lives under the care of a cruel Stepmother or Wiseman. She falls in the love with the man of her dreams (usually a Disciple, though he might be a Magus if the plot is going to be a hapless love story) and he takes her away to safety.

Lost: The Orphan has become separated from her loving parents. She wanders through the world, cold, alone, searching for friends and family until at last she is reunited with her family.

Girl Detective: The Orphan is a journalist or amateur slueth who becomes entangled in some sort of intrigue, often involving a stolen inheritance or an apparently supernatural danger.

Inspiration: The Orphan's bright and optimistic love of life, combined with her willingness to say aloud the things that no one else dares to say, allows her to break through the shell surrounding an older character's heart (often a Disgraceful Magus or aggreived Mother) and give them a renewed hope.

The Wiseman

Alternate Titles: Patron, Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Vizier

The Wiseman is the giver of bad advice, the false teacher, the master who leads his students to their own destruction. He is evil in one of it's subtler forms, the serpant whispering to Eve that if she eats the fruit of the Tree she will not die. His teachings often appear attractive, or even good, on the surface, but when they are put into practice they lead into error and cause the dissolution of one's prospects or moral character. In plots where the Magus is also present, the counsels of the Wiseman will always seem to be the easier road, and even the more sensible course: he tells the listener what they want to hear and offers alternatives that are too good to be true.
His is the wisdom of the world, but it is not the wisdom of God. He will often style himself as a realist, or a street-smart helper who is willing to assist the idealistic characters on the upper half of the square to divest themselves of their foolish and impractical notions. This is the man who justifies immorality by the claim that "This is how things work in the real world..."
In stories where this character is well done, he often comes accross as extremely charming, sympathetic or appealing; the effect that he has on other characters is communicated to the viewer and even though we know that his philosophy is wrong we can see why he is able to draw people in. Lord Henry gets all the good lines in Dorian Gray and the voice of Saruman the wise holds all listeners enthralled.
When he takes someone under his wing, he enters into a relationship where his protege seems to be deeply indebted to him, but where he has no responsibility for the consequences of his actions. Often, he uses his pupils as pawns in his own schemes under the pretext of helping them.

Archetypal Events: Bad Advice, Mesmerize

Common Plots:

Down Goes the Disciple: The Wiseman finds a promising Disciple, possibly already under the guidance of a wise Magus, and lures him in with promises of an easier path to glory. The Disciple follows the Wiseman's bad advice and is ultimately destroyed by it, falling to Disgrace and often to death.

Lets Kill the Children: A Wiseman and a Medea get together and destroy (physically, or metaphorically) their children, students, proteges, etc. In the process they come to hate and despise one another with greater and greater fervor. Their violence towards one another may be largely psychological and intellectual (as in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?) or terrifyingly gory (as in Antichrist.)

Obsessive Ambition: The Wiseman is in the pursuit of some accolade or honour, a championship, a promotion, a Nobel prize. He sacrifices everything in his life, especially his relationships and loyalties, in order to win. It turns out, once he gets it, that the object of his desire is nothing but vainglory.

The Better to See You With: The Wiseman tricks an Orphan into ignoring the wise advice of her mother. He lures her into his lair and gobbles her up.

The Pederast's Love Story: The Wiseman falls for and seduces a Disgrace, under the pretext of mentorship. (This story is the entire basis for Greek pederasty.)

The Disgrace

Alternate Titles: Brat, Golden Boy, Catamite

The wanton boys of Gloucester's complaint are a perfect image of the classic Disgrace: a boy who imagines himself to be a sort of minor god, casually destructive, with a corpulent face and full, greedy lips. In children's tales, this is the character who wants nothing but to sit at table, stuffing himself with sweetmeats and crying in brutish frustration whenever his tiny will is thwarted. In adult literature he becomes more nuanced: a young man crumbling in the suffocating embrace of family ties, a failed disciple undone by resentment of discipline, a shining paragon of manly promise broken on the rocks of his own ambition.
The Disgrace is often first presented as a man of unusual beauty, charm, skill and intelligence. Much has been given to him, and much is expected -- sometimes too much. Nursed on stories of his own grandeur, he becomes narcissistic and self-obsessed. He sees success as his birthright, and becomes lazy and unmotivated, flying into a rage or flinging himself wearily onto the nearest sofa every time that he is confronted with even a minor obstacle. He is easily seduced by flatterers, and comes to resent or hate those who give him wiser, more level headed advice.
An alternative approach is to have the Disgrace begin as a man of poor or meagre means who dreams grand dreams, but ultimately lacks the discipline and conviction to carry out his ideals. Anyone whom he manages to convince with his wild story-telling risks being sucked along in the wreckage of his illusions.

Archetypal Events: Give Up, Indulge, Self-Pity

Common Plots:

The Seductive Wiseman: A promising young man is wooed by the fine words of an older, more experienced man of the world. He is plied with bad philosophy and good food and is groomed into a consumate narcissist or a braying ass.

Smothered: The Disgrace is the beloved son/lover of a clutching Medea or Parasite who tries to control every aspect of his life, to turn him into her private Golden Boy. This leads to his eventual destruction.

Just Desserts: The Disgrace persues a career of arch-disgracefulness, willful, self-indulgent, dismissive of wise council, etc. until he runs out of chances and is promptly destroyed.

The Lousy Apprentice: A Magus tries to teach his secrets to the Disgrace. The Disgrace is consistently contemptuous, disobedient and wayward. He learns nothing and squanders the Magus' teachings.

The Golden Litter: The disgrace wishes to be bourne upon the shoulders of the world. The litter is an appropriate home because it represents his transitory state, but also suggests the fact that he is unable to support himself. The litter may be transformed into an inherited mansion which bears him up until he squanders it.
2nd Chances: A common theme in Disgrace tales is a limited number of chances (I'll give you three chances to be good, or I'll turn you into a goon). Once they are used up, the Disgrace reaps the fruit of his lassitude.
The Treacherous Dagger: The Disgrace is fundamentally cowardly if he is required to fight. In murder mysteries, a dagger or stilletto, usually in the back, is a good representation of this sneaking treachery. This may be transformed into an underhanded or illegal move in a competition, abstracted to a simple betrayal, or be a sword concealed in a dandy's walking stick.
The Ruffled Bib: The Disgrace wears a special piece of finery so that when he stains his fancy clothes with blood and porridge, all the world will not see it. A monogrammed neckerchief, a giant's bib, a high lace neck-ruff,  or a ruffled poet's blouse will all serve the purpose.
The Mirror Image: A strong persona is necessary for the Disgrace to continue receiving the laurels and applause that he covets. He is often deeply enamoured with this perfect self-image, preening and adoring it while his inner self decays.
And the Moral of the Story is...: Disgraces are popular heroes for morality plays: the standard "young man who goes bad and falls to ruin" trope. The moral is ideally inscribed on his tomb-stone, but it will do just as well on the last page of the story-book.
Minor Symbols: Wind

The Medea

Alternate Titles: Stepmother, Mother Earth, Smothering Mother

She may be a false mother, a stepmother, or a mother whose love is lavished only a single one of her children. This is a mother who is able to kill her own offspring. She may kill or abandon the less loved of her children in order to strengthen the child in whom she has bestowed all of her hope -- like a gardener thinning out weaker plants in order to make room for the roots of the stronger. Or she may even kill the child that she loves most, believing her murder to be an act of love.
If she has any children that she loves, she pours out her entire life into them, but hers is a disordered, clutching love. In her heart, she does not love her children for themselves -- she does not even see them for themselves -- but as an extension of her own goals and ambitions, which are concentrated entirely in them. She does not allow her beloved children to grow beyond her because she is certain that without her constant help and direction they would be unable to accomplish all that she believes them capable of. In many cases, she entirely thwarts and cripples the child that she loves in trying to force him, or her, to conform to her own ideals.
In fairy tales and children's literature, where this sort of complicated destructive love is difficult to handle, she often appears in the guise of a Stepmother who is out to exploit, abandon, bewitch, or otherwise thwart a poor Orphan or Disciple who has somehow ended up in her care.
Earth Goddesses are very often Medeas who bestow their special affection on particular human children and demand the sacrifice or destruction of others -- this is why so many polytheist religions have those creepy mother goddesses with skulls hanging about their necks, and also why many human sacrifice cults believe that they are returning the blood of human children to the hungry earth. In occult traditions that mix Catholicism with pagan rites or witchcraft, the Virgin Mother is sometimes reinterpreted as one of these goddesses.

Archetypal Events: Kill her Children, Play Favourites, Manipulate, Abandon

Common Plots:

The Favourite Child: The Medea has multiple children, but only loves one of them. She hurts, kills or neglects the lesser children -- usually Orphans or Disciples -- while adoring the beloved child -- usually a Parasite or Disgrace.

Stepmother: The Medea becomes romantically involved with a Magus in his aspect of Widower. She tries to convince him to abandon his children by his former marriage -- this can be watered down to "send them away to a boarding school," or it can be as extreme as demanding their deaths.

The Unwanted Children: The Medea is in some way responsible for a child or children whom she does not want. She locks them away and is increasingly cruel and abusive until the children either die, are rescued, or escape.

The Parasite

Alternate Titles: Rich Bitch, The Disappointment

Whereas the Orphan's story is often one of rags to riches, the Parasite's is often one of riches to rags. She may be a fallen star, a beloved child who has fallen out of favour, a socialite who has lost her place in society, a fiance who has been abandoned by her lover, a spoiled child who has lost her mother. Whoever she is, she craves what she once had, and is willing to do anything in order to regain her lost glory.
The Parasite, on first glance, often appears to be a helpful benefactress. She is willing to provide the hero, or heroine, with anything that they could possibly need or desire -- but she keeps a tidy ledger, and she values her favours much more highly than you would suspect. Whether she is waiting in the wings to take over your place in the spotlight, or is willing to betray her own family in order to forward your designs, she will make a big show of selfless devotion, but she secretly believes that her sacrifices entitle her to own you. If she feels that she has been betrayed or disappointed by someone that she has bought, she feels justified in destroying whatever she feels she has given them -- their career, their children, their life.
As a minor character, her deviousness often takes a more obvious form. She may play the invalid, needlessly prolonguing illness in order to gain attention, or she may sacrifice her own talents and abilities in order to spite others. If she gives birth, she tends to be either negligent or smothering, revealing the downward trail towards the Medea's deadly favouritism.
Amazonian versions of the character will often show a marked, but ultimately delusional, self-reliance; they are able to be all that they want to be, and accomplish all that they feel lies within them, only by pretending to be someone who they are not. This often leads to posturing and politicking in order to oust anyone else whom they feel wants to steal their spotlight, and causes them to be ungrateful and treacherous towards those who help or nurture them.

Archetypal Events: Riches to Rags, Lavish, Languish, Hysterics, Take Back, Escape into Fantasy

Common Plots:
Obsession: The Parasite falls in love with a Disgrace, who perpetuates a kind of fantasy in which she is propelled to the top of the world. He then becomes bored with her, and moves on. She becomes increasingly desperate to regain his affections or otherwise revenge herself on him. She may commit suicide, or, if he has impregnated her, she may murder his children (born or unborn) in order to punish him.

The Fallen Star: She was once loved and adored by everyone, now she lives in a crumbling old mansion, with the ghosts of her former glory. She cannot move forward into the future, but a Disciple has come along, and she believes that she can somehow, through him, vicariously reclaim her place in the spotlight, take vengeance on the lover who jilted her at the altar, or reclaim her lost youth. She takes him under her wing in order to groom him as a reincarnation of her past self and in the process she destroys him -- unless, of course, he is rescued from her clutches by other heroic characters.

False Invalid: The Parasite has lost something of great value to herself, often her mother, and she expects everyone around her to pet and adore her in order to make up the loss. She plays sick, or deliberately refuses to get better after an accident or injury, in order that others will have to bestow on her the attention that she feels she deserves.

The Man Who Could Never Be Enough: A Disciple falls in love with her, but he isn't good enough. Perhaps she loves someone else -- often a Disgrace -- or perhaps she has already married and is now bored because her husband didn't fulfill her unrealistic fantasies. She makes an elaborate show of considering her lover to be inadequate, but she is not willing to let him go. She may, however, be willing to arrange his death.

The Ruins of a Dream: The Parasite lives within the crumbling remains of her shattered ambitions, an old mansion that is falling to the ground or a wedding feast that has all but crumbled to dust. She may live in a fantasy world where she is unable to percieve the ruined state of her fortunes.
The Mill-Stone: The mill-stone or wheel serves as a symbol of the Parasite's demanding nature, her tendency to crush those around her beneath the grind-stone of her demands. The Orphan chained to a spinning wheel is symbolically oppressed in this way. May transform into a wheel-chair in which the Parasite languishes. (The unsuccessful wheel in the story of St. Cathering of Alexandria is a transformation of this symbol -- Catherine is a Mother-Virgin who cannot be destroyed by a mere Parasite symbol.)
Costume: The Parasite loves to dress up in fancy clothes, to deck herself out as something that she is not. This is often a literal stage costume, but may be an abstract persona.
A Major Award: The Parasite craves fame, recognition, success, the limelight. She wants to be honoured, not necessarily for her accomplishments, but simply for being herself. (It is worth noting that while the Disciple holds a light that he shines on the world, the Parasite -- his diametric opposite -- wants a spotlight that is turned on herself.)

Examples & Exercises

A Simple Example: Michael (Wordsworth)

    Wordsworth's Michael is a straightforward Yellow Square story: Michael is a Father-Magus who is married to a classic Mother. He had his only child in old age, he lives up in the mountains where he teaches his son the arts necessary to his simple life (shepherding and small-holding). He makes a little staff for the boy so that the child can play at being the shepherd that Michael expects him to one day become. His wife works in their cottage, spinning industriously and providing for all of the domestic needs of the family -- the standard Wordsworthian/Romantic ideal of the poor-but-industrious rural peasant. But now disaster strikes: the land, the patrimony which Michael intends to bequeath to his son, is threatened. The son must be sent off into the world to learn a trade and earn the money that will secure his inheritance. Michael bestows his paternal blessing on the boy and the Mother provides him with all that he will need for the journey, and he is sent off to the city. At this point, Michael's Magus-quest has basically come to an end; the Disciple has reached that point in his life where he must stand or fall on his own strength. What happens exactly? This is not clear: the big city is treated as a sort of non-anthropomorphic Wiseman within the text -- whether there is a specific Evil One under whose spell the Disciple falls is not clear because this action takes up approximately four to five lines of verse. In any case, the son becomes a Disgrace, sinks into vice and finally runs away, forsaking his parents and his inheritance. Michael is crushed by the loss of his son, the loss of the chance to pass on the heritage that he had worked all his life to preserve, uphold, and teach to his boy.

A Less Simple Example: Heidi (Film Version -- 1968)

    Heidi, an Orphan, comes into the care of her Grandfather, a sort of Magus in disgrace who lives in an alpine hut high in the mountains, cut off from the ordinary world. She befriends a goatherd -- a quite typical Fool-resonant Disciple who has an old blind grandmother (Crone resonant Mother). Heidi's fresh, optimistic outlook begins to soften the heart of her grandfather who takes on the task of teaching her his mountain ways; he passes on wisdom through his stories about the eagle, and he begins to teach her to read. The priest of the village plays second Magus -- technically he is a higher form of Magus because he doesn't have the mantle of sorrow weighing down his shoulders and he is not beset by fears and failures, but because this is a story of an Orphan who brings light and life back into the lives of those around her the priest, who is already in possession of all that he needs, serves as a supporting character. He does not perform the functions of an archetypal Priest; he does not heal, minister, forgive, and so forth, but rather takes on the Magisterial tasks of teaching lessons, tricking the grandfather into taking on the responsibilities of a father, and -- symbolically most telling -- he walks around with a very large and conspicuous staff. After some time of living in the mountains and learning from her grandfather, Heidi is taken away, into the care of her uncle Herr Sesemann, who has an invalid daughter, Clara, and a live-in governess, Frau Rottenmeier. In the book, there is a greater proponderance of evil characters, but the movie has lightened the situation: Frau Rottenmeier keeps her inauspicious name, but is cast as a Mother character who cares for and loves Heidi and Clara and who falls in love with Herr Sesemann. Clara is a fairly light Parasite of the lingering, tantrum-throwing, intellectually proud type. Herr Sesemann plays third Magus, taking on the role of one of the lowest forms of this archetype: the Widower. As in Sound of Music, he has become detached from his fatherly duties as a result of his widowhood, and he is ultimately too effeminate (i.e. "Motherly") to give Clara the sort of difficult lessons that she needs in order to level up to Orphan. Fortunately, Heidi is not happy in Frankfurt, where the Sesemann's live, and pines to return to her home in the Alps. She returns, Peter, the Disciple, is disgusted with her newly acquired ribbons and finery -- tokens typical of the Disgrace and Parasite who are much more concerned with foppery than the characters on the upper half of the square -- and he very quickly convinces Heidi to abandon them and return to her hard-working, cheerful Orphan lifestyle.
After a time, Herr Sesemann tries to reclaim Heidi but she does not want to go: she is herself in the Alps, she has found her true home. She is willing to relingquish it for Clara's sake, however, because she possesses that glimmer of deep caring for others that suggests a trajectory towards eventual Motherhood. Fortunately, grandfather provides a solution to the conundrum: Clara will come to the Alps. She does, and Heidi and Peter get to work trying to help her overcome her malingering and reassert her ability to walk. Their efforts are fruitless, however, until Grandgather carves for her a staff -- a symbol of his own strength, upon which she will be able to lean. He leaves her with it, sending away everyone who might help her, and forces her to confront her problems alone -- unlike her father, he does not lack the stern, Magus-style wisdom necessary to counter-act the sentimental over-mothering of Herr Sesemann and Frau Rottenmeier. Clara struggles and finally manages to pull herself up, beginning her ascent off of the bottom half of the square, her redemption into a proper Orphan.
This complete, the Grandfather is moved to relinquish his own pain and fears. He returns to the village, to the life of his community, and to the music at which he was so adept years ago. Frau Rottenmeier and Herr Sesemann are brought together, Heidi's quest to inspire and renew those around her is complete, she has a home that is her own, a new family has been formed, and everyone lives happily ever after.

A Complicated Example: Twin Peaks

    This is quite the most difficult example that we have covered yet, so we are going to use a nifty, complicated diagram to show the character relationships. What we're looking at here is a multi-square story, with heavy duplication of many of the characters (first Disgrace, second Disgrace, Cripple-resonant-Disgrace, etc), multiple discreet plots and complicated interrelationships between the plots. The basic plot is Yellow Square, and the action spills out into the two resonant Squares (Blue and White). For the purposes of analysis, we're only dealing with the first season and the second season up to the point where Laura Palmer plot comes to a close -- after this point the series loses a lot of its narrative cohesion, and almost all of its inspiration.

Agent Cooper is a Magus detective who uses riddles, intuition, dreams, visions and, for lack of a better term, magic to solve the question of who killed Laura Palmer. Laura is a classic Victim (though there are strong suggestions, particularly in Fire Walk With Me -- which we are not analyzing here -- that she dies as a redeemed Virgin), who is found on the beach, wrapped in plastic. She has been raped and murdered. Her killer is a Wiseman named BOB; this took us a while to work out because at first glance BOB looks like a beast -- the visual representation of an animalistic killer is very striking, and it wasn't until the third or fourth viewing that we noticed all of the other archetypal and symbolic material surrounding him. Think "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," "Big Bad Wolf," "False Father" and "Enchanter/Seducer" rather than "Evil Advisor" and you'll find the identification pretty straightforward. BOB puts his victims in his "death bag" -- the most sinister inverted form of the Mother's basket, where she hides her living children (the use of bags as a sinister symbol on the yellow square can also be seen, for example, in Beatrix Potter's "Tale of Peter Rabbit".) Cooper has a Disciple, Harry Truman, the local sherrif, who is exceedingly loyal to him and strangely willing to go along with Cooper's unusual methods of investigation. Coop is also involved in a Hapless Love plot with the Orphan Audrey Horne -- Audrey is not orphaned in the strict, physical sense, but is spiritually orphaned: she desperately wants to be loved by her father (Ben Horne, playing second Wiseman), but he is ashamed of her and, if we're going to be honest about it, she is also ashamed of him. (One of the scenes that did not make the final cut of the show reveals that she has also been rejected by her mother, who believes that Audrey is responsible for the mental illness of her favoured child, Audrey's brother Johnny.) Audrey latches on to Coop and incorporates him into her fantasy world, imagining a life for herself as his lover and partner; in order to make this a reality she takes up playing girl-detective (Nancy Drew style, but with more serious consequences). BOB also has another enemy, Michael Gerard, or MIKE, the One Armed Man. Mike is an exceedingly dark Magus who helps Cooper to discover BOB's identity: Mike used to be a killer like BOB, and they had the same tattoo, but Mike cut his arm off in order to rid himself of this evil and is now on a quest to find BOB and stop him from killing. He speaks in riddles, most famously, "In the darkness of future past/The Magician Longs to see/One chants out between two worlds/Fire Walk With Me." When he is not on the drugs that allow him to live a semblance of a normal life as a shoe salesman, Mike is able to sense where BOB has been, who has been near him, where he is now.
Mrs. Palmer is a dark, tragic Mother of the Sybilline variety: she is bereft of her daughter, and so she is left merely to weep and see visions. It is her visions that provide the image of BOB which fuels the rest of the investigation. The Log Lady serves in the same sort of role, but is obviously a Crone. Her log (a part of a Tree, and hence a Mother symbol) gives her access to Coop's Yellow Square plot, and it is the log itself that provides riddles for him to solve. Dianne has no character traits whatsoever, except to be a confidante -- the one who treasures Coop's revelations in her tape-recorder heart.
The entire series is saturated in classic Yellow square symbolism: the Owls, the wind, the trees, even the traffic lights (see the Disciple's lantern), indeed the original inspiration for the show was David Lynch's image of the wind blowing through the douglas firs. This is just scratching the surface -- we'll probably do an entire course on this later.

Some of the Subplots:

Lucy's baby: Lucy is a classic Simpleton character, transposed to the Orphan position in order to give her a place in the plot proper. She is noticeably dithering, but in the end does what she needs to do. Her plot centres on the classic Simpletonian problem of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy -- in this case, she does not know who the father is. Also, in classic Simpletonian style, you never feel that she is particularly responsible for this state of affairs and would never be inclined to describe her as promiscuous. Andy is an exceedingly foolish Disciple: clumsy, clutzy, but trying to get better. (It is particularly humourous to note that in the early part of the plot, Andy's fertility is non-existent, but after he has been trained in the manly art of firing a gun and being a cop by Coop, this situation changes.) Dick Tremaine, the other possible father, is a classic foppish Disgrace: he works in menswear at Horne's department store, smokes a cigarette in a long and ostentatious holder, and thinks that the proper response to Lucy's pregnancy is to offer her money for an abortion.

Shelley and Bobby: Bobby is a Disgrace; he could be the star of the football team, except that he never shows up to practice. His father is an extremely straight-laced, though wise and slightly otherworldly, Magus (Colonel Briggs), who Bobby largely ignored, sneers at, rolls his eyes at, etc. He was Laura Palmer's boyfriend, but the relationship does not seem to have had much content -- one gets the impression that they were each just status symbols to one another, a kind of human bling. The real love of Bobby's life (i.e. the woman for whom he is willing to make some sacrifices) is Shelley. Shelley is portrayed very sympathetically, but she is not actually heroic: she married a trucker named Leo because she liked his car, she lives in a fantasy world where Leo (a psychopathic Beast) will not find out about her affair with Bobby, and in which she is a powerful Amazon capable of standing up to Leo with her pistol (she does shoot him, but not very effectively). Leo beats his wife, is totally unpredictable, and quite stupid. He becomes a sleeping Beast after he is shot -- not by Shelley, that's just a flesh wound -- and there are a large number of very creepy scenes in which the viewer is terrified that he is going to wake up and kill Shelley and Bobby.

The Hardy Girls and Boy: Donna, Maddy and James undertake to investigate the death of Laura Palmer. Donna is the Orphan under her guise as Daughter -- i.e. she is what the Orphan becomes when she is in a plot where both the Mother and Magus are present in her life (Donna's parents are both in the correct archetypal spots, but neither of them does enough in the plot to be worth analyzing in detail.) She's a relatively thin character -- most of the good Orphan events go to Audrey, who is a much more exciting character -- and Donna is mostly left with the Disciple-romance-plot events: kissing under the stars, wrestling with the question of whether we are really made for one another, pretending to be something that she isn't in order to be what she thinks James wants her to be, etc. She becomes entangled with the Cripple Harold Smith -- in this relationship she borrows several Mother events (tries to force him out of his house, to make him face his fears and become whole again; tells him a story) but she is not archetypally able to actually help him, and the impurity of her motives ends up destroying him and wounding her (the Cripple, transposed into the Disgrace role to serve in a Yellow plot, stands in a nemesis relationship to the Orphan.) James is a standard mooning Disciple with no Magus (Ed occasionally take on the role, but not very effectively). He believes that he should be able to work everything out and save the world, but he can't, so instead he roams about on his bike searching for he-knows-not-what and sits on mountaintops contemplating his troubles. Maddy is playing a slightly Disgraceful form of Mother: she follows James and Donna around and tries to minister to their hurts, to watch over them and make sure that they don't get into too much trouble, and to provide whatever they need in the course of their investigation. She is in town to look after Leland and Mrs. Palmer following Laura's death, and like Mrs. Palmer she suffers from visions of BOB -- her nemesis, who eventually kills her.

The Exercises:

1. Practice forming the square from the perspective of different characters. The easiest, and most fun, way to learn this is to get yourself a set of toys that look like the archetypes and play around making the squares, but you can do it with the names of the characters written out on peices of card if you prefer. Start by building the square from the perspective of the Magus and then transform it into a Wiseman square, a Mother square, and an Orphan square. Once you've done these, you should have the hang of it and see how it works. If you don't, do the remaining three characters.

2. Choose an Archetype. Take a story that you are familiar with, either from one of our examples or one where you know the story well and are sure of your analysis. Add a shadow sub-plot to Lighten or Darken the main character.

3. For each of the Archetypes presented in this course, pick one of their symbols and try to discover as many different forms of it as you can by flipping boolean switches such as old/new, big/small, concrete/abstract, light/dark, ancient/modern, common/unique, masculine/feminine, or any other Yin-Yang type pair. The concrete/abstract switch is the most powerful and when used in combination with others will yield the most interesting varriants.

4. Find a work in one of the example lists that you are not familiar with. Obtain a copy and write an archetypal analysis such as the ones above (we recommend that you start with simple stories -- don't try to do War and Peace or Twin Peaks as your first analysis.) Or, better yet, find a work that isn't on our example list, do an analysis, write it up and send it in so that we can post it on the web-site.

5. Take a simple story and invent an alternative ending by adding additional characters to shift the tipping point.

6. For both of the Right Hand Heroic Archetypes in this course (Parts 2 & 4) choose an example character and create a story line about their decline and fall as they shift archetypes 3 times, first to the Sidekick position, then the Lietenant, and finally the Enemy.

7. Create the reverse (a redemption plot) using examples of the two Right Hand Vilainous Archetypes (Parts 6 & 8).

8. For each of the Archetypes presented, choose an example character with whom you are familiar and imagine them in each of the plots that are listed as common for their Archetype but do not occur in their own story.

9. Experiment with letting the Archetypes on this square borrow one another's symbols and observe how the symbols are transformed as they are passed between characters.

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