For the next few Trope Tuesday posts, I’m going to pick apart some of the tropes I’m playing with in my latest WIP, Sons of the Starfarers. One of the things I love to do when brainstorming a new story is to use tvtropes like a menu, finding the tropes that best fit my story… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: Forbidden Zone
Tag: the hero’s journey
Trope Tuesday: I Choose To Stay
The hero’s journey can be divided into three basic phases: departure, intiation, and return. In the departure phase, the hero receives the call to adventure and eventually leaves the familiar world. In the initiation phase, the hero passes through a series of tests and trials eventually leading up to the climax and final confrontation with… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: I Choose To Stay
Trope Tuesday: MacGuffin
So the hero has crossed the threshold of adventure, thwarted the trickster, evaded the vamp, and met with the goddess. He may have lost his mentor and descended into the deepest dungeon, but by calling on the supernatural aid he received at the beginning of the quest, he has passed the final test, found atonement with his… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: MacGuffin
Trope Tuesday: Came Back Strong
This trope, also kown as apotheosis, is by far my favorite part of the hero’s journey. Up to this point, the hero has faced a lot of tests and trials. Some of them he’s passed, some of them he hasn’t, but the setbacks haven’t yet been enough to stop him. Sure, the costs have been… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: Came Back Strong
Trope Tuesday: Well Done Son Guy
So the hero gets the call to adventure, initially turns it down, meets a mentor figure who gives him some sort of supernatural aid, crosses the threshold of adventure, faces a series of tests and trials, loses his mentor, experiences the power of love…and then what? Well, if we’re playing the hero’s journey straight, the next… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: Well Done Son Guy
Trope Tuesday: Supernatural Aid
Getting back to our discussion of the Hero’s Journey, I think it’s important to briefly touch on one of the earlier stages: supernatural aid. At some point between refusal of the call and crossing the threshold of adventure, the hero typically encounters a mentor figure from the unfamiliar world who gives him something supernatural or… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: Supernatural Aid
Trope Tuesday: The Vamp
Also known as the temptress or the seductress, the vamp is one of the more dangerous characters the hero meets on his journey. A devastating beauty who is as evil as she is sexy, she uses her feminine wiles to exploit men’s flaws to her own advantage. If the hero falls for her, he will be destroyed.… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: The Vamp
Trope Tuesday: The Trickster
After the hero crosses the threshold of adventure and finally sets out on his journey, he passes through a long phase that Campbell called “the road of trials.” This is often where the meat of the story happens, but it doesn’t fit squarely into any one trope because of all the possible directions where the… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: The Trickster
Trope Tuesday: Belly of the Whale
The last stage in the departure phase of the hero’s journey is called the Belly of the Whale, after the Biblical story of Jonah. After receiving the call and passing the threshold to the land of adventure, the hero faces what may quite possibly be the darkest hour of his life and dies in some way… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: Belly of the Whale
Trope Tuesday: Threshold Guardians
So the hero gets the call, refuses it at first (or jumps at it, as the case may be), but one way or another he eventually sets out on the adventure. As he soon discovers, though, one does not simply walk into Mordor. Adventures are not the sort of thing that anyone can do, and in… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: Threshold Guardians