12 Stages Of The Hero's Journey - Christopher Vogler

Chris can you please give us a 10 minute version of what the hero's journey is yes the hero's journey I I'm going to give you the quick uh down a dirty version there are in the way I look at it I broke it into 12 stages and it doesn't necessarily have to be chopped up that way you can describe it in 10 stages or as Campbell did sometimes he would take 16 or 32 because he was interested in telling you every possible thing that could happen but I cooked it down into this rough outline of 12 stages because I I was trying to get something that could be useful in many many many cases for analyzing scripts basically so I came up with this 12 point uh proposal of of what the story really is down deep so the first stage is The Ordinary World you need to introduce the character the main character the story is about you have to introduce the world they live in and let us know what's been going on there up to this point uh so this is like a stage that you create on the screen and you bring your characters out and introduce them to the audience and show the character doing something uh characteristic their characteristic Behavior a way of getting on in the world but in that opening section there should be some kind of clue we're going someplace else or there's a problem here that needs to be solved or there's a question will the hero escape from this world will the hero get what he or she wants will they learn what they need so this is an opportunity to set those things in motion and kind of set the table for the audience of what they need to know to get involved and drawn into the store Story the second bit is the stage of Call to Adventure because you really need to announce to the audience that there's a problem that needs to be solved or there's a desire somebody has and that generates a lot of energy in the story and draws Us in because we are just programmed to observe anybody even stick figure drawings and plug ourselves in to the desires of that stick figure uh if if it's reaching its little stick hands out uh to pick up a baby or something or to get food we automatically plug into that so the Call to Adventure is announcing to us hey here's somebody who's kind of like me and um they want something or they're in trouble or they need something or their world is in trouble so uh it's a way of announcing that and I've noticed uh there is a strong tendency to play certain kind of music at this point they go to the Brass section and they play horns you'll hear a lot of horn calls like bugle calls on the soundtrack at this point so the composers are instinctively going for that kind of sound so the next thing that typically happens in stories is uh there's a reaction so the Call Comes how does the hero react and that's the third stage which is usually refusal of the call most of the time they put up a fight about it of saying I don't want to go or I can't go or I already went once and I didn't like it there'll be some kind of statement like this or turning away from the adventure that's being offered and I think this is there for a very important reason it's to tell the audience this is scary and your hero is naturally afraid because he or she is being asked to go into the unknown they don't know what's ahead and we're all afraid of that we might want to get out of our situation in our Ordinary World if we're uncomfortable as most heroes are but uh what's next is unknown and so it's natural to express fear and there are some variations on this some heroes are really into it and they want what they want and they are just ready to go and nothing's going to stop them but somebody else in the design will often jump up and say you can't do that don't you know this is terribly dangerous everybody who tried this was killed and there are a lot of things in fairy tales and myths that suggest this the hero will be walking along the path trying to get what he wants to get into a castle or to rescue a princess or something like that and notices that the ground underneath is very crunchy and making all this noise under his boots and he looks down and realizes he's walking on the bones and skulls of all the heroes who went before and didn't make it so it is signaling to the audience this is serious this is dangerous and we really need that to get involved in the story or else we just go oh well it's you know some cartoon or you know uh uh string of images that I'm observing that aren't really meaningful to me it when we get scared for the hero then we're involved so now we have to overcome this fear and a typical way is stage four introducing um a mentor and the mentor is a character often who is wiser and more involved than the hero has been around the block once or more times has been through the whole hero cycle of 12 stages more than once and they're there with really one job which is to reassure the hero and give the hero something you could equally call this type of character a donor character because often they give something to the herald might be knowledge might be a map might be a magic sword might be a weapon or a vehicle of some kind or just reassurance that no I've I could I'm here to tell you it's scary of over there in this other world but it can be survived and I went there and I know because you look I'm here so you know that someone can survive this so that often is used to give the heroes some reassurance and there can be stories that don't have this uh uh where there's no mentor and that's kind of a scary story when there's nobody to look up to nobody to ask about what are the rules in this other world what can eat me what should I eat and uh you know who's a friend and who's an enemy when there's nobody to ask that's kind of a horror story and that makes an interesting variation and I think that's a good point for all of these stages that this is a very flexible system and if you take out or leave out certain parts it creates a very interesting tension where the audience kind of expects it and they want to know why isn't that there usually that's there and that I see there isn't any helper or Mentor so this is maybe a different story that I should pay more attention to so it's good to be flexible about these things so next thing up stage five is now that you have sort of uh loaded up your with equipment and reassurance and you know where you're going you know what you want you face your fear you've been reassured now it's time to get up and go and when I was working for the movie studios especially for Disney they talked about this like an airplane taking off and they said you've spent all this time in what they call the First Act the first three or four or five movements uh those first steps you've loaded the plane up and you've fueled the plane and you've told everybody to Belt their seat belts and you know all the safety things now get the wheels up and get the plane in the air so uh this is the feeling of lifting up that you get when all the preparation is ready and now we're going into that new world or special world as Joseph Campbell calls it he says every story he ever looked at seems to take place in Two Worlds either environments or states of being two different states of conditions so now we're going to really launch into that special world and this is a big turning point in a story that signals the audience all the prep is done now we're really going for it and the audience likes that and they feel a nice lift there and sometimes it's backed up by changing the music or the change in the energy of the scene to say we're leaving Kansas we're leaving the Ordinary World and now we're going someplace very very different and exotic so now you're in this special world and you have to figure out what is special about it so there's a stage number six that's called tests allies and enemies and the idea is that it's like you've been thrown into a college class and you don't know much about the subject but they've given you a few chapters to read and some problems to work out and now you're tested but it's a small test it's like a pop quiz that just focuses on certain skills and abilities and so the hero will be put through some kind of challenges that aren't fatal necessarily but they're a little scary and a little dangerous and they bring attention to the fact I don't know the rules here and I've got to figure it out fast so I got to figure out who can help me with this and and who will be in my way and that's where the allies and enemies come and often you will find teams are built at this stage you think about in Star Wars the Cantina sequence where you're on the threshold of this world of space and the hero Luke Skywalker finds you know the rules are very different here there's weird creatures and quick moments of violence so the hero is alerted that he's going to someplace quite exotic and different so having been through some of those tests there's a stage now because number seven which I call the approach and this is a period of time in movies and in a lot of stories where the hero is not quite to the center of the whole thing yet but there's a period of traveling there and on that travel the hero and the rest of the team get to know each other better and the first impressions that you made of people and the impression you have of yourself may start to change because you're getting to know them better so it's a period I would call another name for it is getting to know you where people develop deeper relationships the friendships get deeper or they get tested and you become suspicious you might be paranoid about the other person or you know somebody sabotaging us and you know who is it and you start looking around for suspects so this is a place where comedy can develop and where romance and Intrigue can develop uh it's a Time in stories where you uh sort of let your belt out as a Storyteller and take some time to go deeper with the characters so this all is by way of leading up to uh sort of the heart of the whole thing the mainspring is stage eight which is the ordeal and uh this is composed really of two beats one is death or a near-death experience or a confrontation with death and then a rebirth that comes out of that and it may be stretched out over two scenes one for the death and one for the rebirth or it can all happen in one scene but this could be a very drastic uh very dramatic scene often you will have physical combat at this stage or legal dispute or a big argument in the family something like that and it there's blood on the floor and it looks like somebody's gonna die or sometimes somebody does die and in a lot of the myths that's exactly what happens uh the hero actually dies and goes into an underworld or is swallowed by a creature uh and uh you know to our eyes to ordinary humanize is dead and over with but they're living in this other world and uh in the underworld or uh they get a second shot at life and are brought back uh transformed because the ordeal they went through was so intense that it shatters the old self and now they get to be something different and uh this will sometimes come as a surprise to the heroes and to the audience that oh I I didn't know I had that in me I didn't know I could survive and face something like that I thought that would wipe me out and it did but I still have something left and and I feel differently about myself now so uh those are are huge transformative scenes and sometimes very violent and sometimes very dramatic the simple way to say it is that the hero faces his or her greatest fear whatever it is they're afraid of should be established earlier in the picture uh earlier in the show but uh at this point they they face that fear and keep going so the next stage number nine is reaping the benefits of that it's called the reward Stage Nine and here is where sometimes you have the rebirth or this is the aftermath of that death and rebirth where you take some time and reflect on what just happened and sort of recompose yourself and begin to experiment with this new identity that's come because you went through a crucible you went through something transformative and scary and now you're not quite the same person anymore and you need to reflect on that and often it's literally reflecting by looking in a mirror there are a lot of scenes in movies where people at this stage take a good look at themselves and begin to realize you know I I thought I couldn't do the X Y or Z and you know what I can and maybe that means I could do something else too so they'd be begin to dream bigger or have a better idea of themselves and it will often be expressed in a long speech and thoughtful speech where they're going over what just happened and and reflecting on you know when I was in the jaws of the monster or when the bad guys were about to beat me up uh I I had a thought and that thought comes out and sometimes it's a profound thing that the hero realizes about himself or herself so having done all this sort of operation there is a kind of a party atmosphere almost at this stage you might celebrate uh on this moment of rebirth but um this reward phase but at some point you kind of have to collect yourself and the energy of the story to focus now on finishing and this is something that mirrors or or corresponds really well to what goes on the life of the artist the artist uh dives into something not knowing what it's going to be they pull something out of themselves that's very intense uh they almost die doing it I think almost every artist has that feeling that it wasn't easy to get it out of me but now it's out there uh it's wonderful but now I have to publish it now I have to bring it home now I have to polish it and finish it so that it can be presented and the same is true for the heroes and the stories they sometimes have to rededicate themselves to finishing and there's a increase in energy here and often in movies you find Chase scenes at this point where the urgency becomes apparent that we better hurry up because the bad guys are almost home and they're going to claim the victory before us so we have have to race them to get home or the bad guys stole the treasure that we came to get and you know we had it in our hands but now it's gone and we have to go chase after it or somebody we love has been kidnapped by the villains and we have to pursue them so the the energy of the chase often comes up if you looked at 100 Hollywood movies you would find at least 80 of them have a very exciting chasing at this point so this is a a place where you can almost see home but there's a lot of trips and uh possible uh flaws and outcomes that can yet trip you up so uh with that increase in energy now we come skidding into the next to last phase number 11 which is the resurrection which is an umbrella kind of phrase that covers a lot of possible operations but basically it's the climax of the movie where uh all the questions are brought to the fore and are answered in one particular choice that the hero makes or one action that the hero takes to stand up to the villains or to seize their Birthright and there might be a big Showdown or a conflict physical fight sword fight gun fight or courtroom battle or big argument between the generations but it serves to focus the heroes energy on how have I changed them what have I learned and I'm going to be tested here to the Max this is the final exam stage eight was kind of the midterm exam this is the final and if I flunked this final I'm doomed I'll have to either repeat it or I'm going to end up killed so it's as drastic as it can be but it has this wonderful effect if the hero faces it faces Their Fear and calls on all the things they've learned in the story then they end up transformed and can express all these things they've learned in a single action and bring out a wonderful feeling in the audience that the hero is now fully realized and has learned the lessons and has defeated the uh the bad forces although it should look like the bad guys are going to win and we should be tricked almost into thinking that they have the upper hand and then the hero pulls out one last burst of energy or gets help from somebody and uh is able to overcome and then the final step stage 12. is what Campbell called return with the Elixir and the idea here is once you've been through such a transformative experience that's churned you up you have an obligation and sometimes a desire to share it with everybody else and that's what really makes a hero according to Campbell's idea of the word hero is that it's someone who protects and serves and doesn't do it selfishly that they do it with a sharing kind of attitude and that that's what really distinguishes a good hero is that they take responsibility for a group that they um step up or that they sacrifice something at the last movement that was very dear to them but which is good for the community so there's often a sense of expansion here that the hero's little world and their little desires and needs have a bigger Dimension and because I went through something dangerous and faced my fears I have something to share I have something to give and it might be a good story or it might be love or it might be a new way of doing things new idea of yourself but it must be shared and transmitted and that's the idea of the Elixir which is elixir is a word from Arabic that means a magic potion or magic dust that has this quality like the Holy Grail of healing all wounds or solving all problems and uh it's a a universal antivirus that that is everything so that's the 12 stages as I see it and it's a beautiful pattern that kind of promises you if you uh observe these things and celebrate them in your story that they'll be a payoff in the audience that they will feel something uh and that their life will be shifted or their view of the world will be shifted just a little bit and maybe they'll have a bigger idea of what's possible for them

Channel: Film Courage

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Length: 22min 48sec (1368 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 13 2023