Welcome to Unexpected Horror with Cute Faces

First off, I want to point out that I am not the target audience for this type of game. I probably will never be someone who goes out of their way to play this type of game. That being said, this game is amazing, but not for the reasons you may think.

Allow me to direct you guys to Doki Doki Literature Club. For the uninitiated, at first glance Doki Doki Literature Club looks like a traditional dating sim visual novel. It's a genre that's popular in Japan and has a distinct subculture among American gamers (usually self identifying as fans of Japanese culture) and not something that I would ever touch with a ten foot pole.

Generally speaking, the target audience for the type of game Doki Doki Literature Club appears be are guys and a few girls looking to fulfill a dating fantasy with the perfect girlfriend. I'm not against dating sims, nor do I care if you're someone who plays them. Romance themed games just aren't my thing.

One of the main characters Monika welcoming you to the game.

Yet, I somehow found myself watching several Let's Plays of Doki Doki Literature Club on YouTube (the name is so much fun to say out loud). Followed by several analysis videos to figure out what the hell was going on with the game. Leading to this blog post.

Now, if you aren't familiar with the game and don't want me to spoil it for you, please go download and play it or watch a Let's Play. The game is free to download on Steam and the creator's website.

SPOILERS AHEAD PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!

To be honest, if I hadn't been asked to become familiar with it, this incredibly interesting game would have likely remained off my radar. I am not the target audience for it.

Doki Doki Literature Club starts out by giving the player a warning that the player will be confronted with several disturbing scenarios and actively discourage players from continuing if they suffer from depression and/or anxiety. This message feels extremely out of place given that the game presented as a cute dating sim fulfilling a male fantasy.

For the first two hours or so of game play, the player is presented with multiple scenarios and mini-games designed as means of getting closer to three of the four beautiful high school girls vying to be your love interest. As I stated earlier, I AM NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR THIS TYPE OF GAME. Thus I was a bit bored watching all the teeth rotting cuteness, while also trying to figure out when the "disturbing content" would show up.

There were also a couple of things that seriously irked me throughout this part of the game. Number one being why the hell would all these girls fall in love with the bland protagonist (insert my eye twitching). I understood that it was a self-insert (young) male fantasy, but come on! Number two being that the character I would have chosen to flirt with, wasn't an option. As I wasn't the one playing the game (remember I was watching a Let's Play), I wasn't as annoyed by this. All it did was make me wonder what this was going to lead to.

Two hours pass and finally, finally, something interesting (at least to me) happens. One of the characters admits to having depression. Well, okay, that's new. Mental illness is something that is rarely address in gaming in general and it fits with the warnings given. It was also hinted at from the beginning of the game. I started wondering if each of the characters had some kind of mental illness and the eventual objective was to help them find the resources they need.

That would have been an interesting change up of genre. Instead of straight romance, the game could easily shift to a dramatic hurt/comfort and friendship narrative.

Nope, I was wrong. This game is straight up psychological horror.

The first part of the game ends with a shocking scene (which I refuse to spoil) and you are back at the start screen. However this time, all of the save files were gone and one of the girls has completely vanished. To get back her file, you have to uninstall the game and then reinstall it. The person I was watching just hit "start new game", wondering if the game was still playable with the obvious glitch.

Oh, yes the game is still playable. It's also where the rapid switch in genre happens.

This game goes from cute romance, which is still NOT MY THING, to psychological horror, which is TOTALLY MY THING!

Now I'm completely invested in the bland self-insert protagonist, what's going on with the three remaining girls, and what bat-[censored]-crazy thing will happen next. Is it just a game glitch? It doesn't seem like it is. It feels like the game is supposed to continue this way.

I finally came to understand why my friend was into this game and why it was blowing up on the Internet (or at least the parts of the Internet I frequent). It was the same "ah ha" moment I had when trying to understand why My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic had become insanely popular, especially for young men.

I finished watching the Let's Play, glad I hadn't actually played the game for myself because my poor future in-law would have had a lot of freaked out texts from me (they work with computers). I probably would have thought my laptop had gotten a virus from the game, especially since it's free. That's how much of a mind-[censored] I feel this game is.

Doki Doki Literature Club stands out because of it's unique ability to present itself as one thing and turn out completely different. I don't think this game would have worked if the creators hadn't tapped into several genre and gamer stereotypes when creating it.

Not only the use of genre, but how the horror is so unexpected for the player. These types of games tend to present the potential love interests as being the perfect "waifu" or a character who is "the perfect wife" for a guy. Waifus don't exist in real life. They are a fantasy. Dating sims are fantasies to obtain the perfect girl out of a bunch of other potentially perfect girls clamoring for the player's attention.

But what if the fantasy becomes a little too real?

The closest similarity of this game game is the Gravity Falls episode "Soos and the Real Girl". A character buys a dating sim to learn how to ask out a real woman and ends up getting stalked by the dating sim's main character, .GIFfany, through other electronic devises.

Behind all that cuteness is an evil AI.

It's also pretty much every woman's worst nightmare in real life. It's a common enough trope in dramatic TV shows and movies, not to mention YA novels and the plot to 50 Shades of Grey (if 50 Shades of Grey actually addressed the abusive nature of the two characters relationship, but I digress).

The difference in Doki Doki Literature Club and the Gravity Falls episode is that the main character experiencing these events are men (or at least supposed to be men by Doki Doki game logic), not a woman who is usually stereotyped into these story lines. It's a brilliant play on genre, expectations, and psychological horror.

So, do I like Doki Doki Literature Club? Yes, I think it's a pretty cool game and deserves the buzz that's been building around it.

Would I go out of my way to play it for myself? No, those first two hours a pain for someone who isn't into romance and can't stand bland self-insert characters that don't have the option to make the choices I would make in their situation. The following three hours of mind[censored]ery would probably freak me out to the point that I would have an anxiety attack over whether or not my computer has been infected with a virus.

Play at your own risk.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really freaked pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to My Voice

I occasionally wonder how or even if you, my reader, can hear the words you are reading in your mind. Some people don't hear a voice when they read. I think that's unfortunate.

My mind always creates a voice for what I'm reading. Characters in a novel have distinct voices, while the narrators typically sound like that voice over guy in commercials. More often than not, I hear Morgan Freeman dictate instructions from a manual I'm reading.

Do you hear a voice in your head when you read?

If you do, what does my blog post sound like in your mind? Is it your own voice? Is it mine? Or is the voice someone else entirely?

Do you hear me?

I often worry that something is lost when my hands type out these words. I'm not speaking them to you in a visual or audio format. You can't hear my sarcasm or the long pauses I might make if I were speaking instead of typing. I can only give you context clues and funny punctuation.

Do you ever imagine me speaking these words to you? Especially if you know me in real life. If I am the one narrating these words, what do I sound like? Are you hearing the me of now or a much younger version of my voice?

Honestly, I'm not too fond of the sound of my voice. I've heard its not uncommon for people to dislike hearing ourselves recorded. The way sound reaches our ears when we are speaking is different from when others speak. This YouTube video  can help explain this phenomena. So, please, don't try to force yourself to "hear me" as you read this. I'd rather have my words narrated by someone with a much more interesting voice - like Morgan Freeman or Emma Thompson.

Have you ever imagined hearing music when you read? I often write to music and I think it can influence what ends up on the screen. It influences my mood, which in turn, influences my author's tone.

What sort of music would you put this post to? Or would that be too distracting?

In my wildest fantasies, I imagine a voice, strong and confident, speaking my words exactly as I intend them to be spoken. There is music, epic music, playing in the background. It's starts low, but grows louder and louder to punctuate every point I want to make. A climactic scene in a movie, meant to inspire.

As soon as I click that "publish" button these words are no longer mine. They belong to everyone. Anyone can read this post and create their own meaning from it, regardless of my original intent. I set the tone, but you feel the mood.

My word choice indicates my feelings, my sarcasm or sadness or bubbly delight. But do you read them that way?

What do I sound like to you?

Am I the whiny, obnoxious stereotypical voice of the Y-generation? Or do I sound older? Younger? Am I logical and cold or emotional and volatile? Possibly both, depending on the post.

Or does my voice "die" and get replaced with an entirely different voice?

These words are only mine, if I keep them hidden. Once I share them, I've lost all control to their interpretation.

One day, I hope you can hear what my written words sound like to me. The emotion will be just right with epic music playing in the background, maybe something by Hans Zimmer or Two Steps from Hell. The voice is comforting and powerful, smooth and forceful. It's a voice people want to listen to.

Is that the voice you expected from these words?

I don't mind if it isn't.

Maybe someday I'll write something worthy of that imaginary voice. I'd like to think I can. To write something inspiring and powerful, something the great orators quote and practice would be amazing.

And even when my voice fades, I like to think that my words will remain.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off), please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to Folklore and Mythology Part 9: The End of All Things

Armageddon. Ragnarök. Revelations.

It seems that humans aren't immune to speculating about their own demise. After all if we have myths and legends about how life began, we have to have stories about how everything will end.  Many religions have an end of the world myth, including all five of the current major regions that dominate the world.

Life and death are a part of our existence. To quote The Lion King: "It's the circle of life." For there to be life, there must be death and vice versa.

I think our fascination with the end of humanity has to do with the many cataclysmic disasters humans have already survived. At those times it may have felt like the end of the world. For example, imagine if you had been in Pompeii or Herculaneum when Mount Vesuvius erupted, killing everyone and everything in it's surroundings. Or what about the subsequent floods that would have occurred at the end of the last major Ice Age. Entire villages were swept away only to be discovered millennia later under the ocean.

We have myths about cities like Atlantis, Sodom and Gomorrah that angered a celestial being and were destroyed because of their arrogance. These myths indicate that the citizens of these cities deserved their horrible destruction. They are meant as cautionary tales about having a "good" and "moral" society (at least according to their respective philosophies) lest your society meet a similar fate.

It isn't hard to see how these myths might have evolved from accounts from survivors from actual disasters. In modern times, we've seen the devastating destruction Mother Nature can reap upon us. Tsunamis in Japan and in the Indian Ocean caused a lot of damage and killed a lot of people. The horrible aftermath of the 2017 hurricane season left thousands homeless and with little resources. And people still talk about The Great 1906 Earthquake in San Francisco in morbid fascination.

Then there are the more modern examples of people literally stumbling upon ancient civilizations on accident. These discoveries often leave us with more questions than answers. Who were these people? Do we have any references to them in recorded history? If not, where do they fit in our timeline?

We've found the ancient ruins of magnificent cities in the forests of Cambodia and at the bottom of the Mediterranean Ocean...and possibly off the coast of Japan (click here to read the wiki page). What might our ancestors have thought if they had stumbled upon even older ruins? There are a lot of lost cities and civilizations that we are only now rediscovering (here's an interesting video for you on that subject). Is it possible that these mysteries influenced our human need to explain these ruins with apocalyptic myths?

I think so. I mean we thought that dinosaur bones were evidence that dragons existed.

Humans have a curious need to explain the world around them. Before scientific advancements, we only had religion, mythology, and legends to give us explanations. We were able to pick up certain patterns in our existence such as for every beginning, there must be an ending. Hence creation myths and end times myths.

Of course the nuance of these stories isn't as black and white as I'm making it seem. Stories begin and end where they need to, creating a narrative.

What I am trying to make clear is that we are well aware of how fragile our existence is. Our societies have survived devastating wars, plagues, and destructive climate change (yes, humans were around before the Ice Age, it was a very different world than the one we currently live in). Our ancestors knew about civilizations that were destroyed because of these factors and attributed their destruction to angry gods or cautionary tales on their view on morality.

Believe it or not, end of the world myths have also been used to convert followers. Some early Christian missionaries to Norse territories used to preach that Ragnarök had already happened and that those two survivors, Líf and Lífþrasir, were really Adam and Eve (sorry I can't find a link to send you guys too, the latest Marvel movie keeps popping up, but I got this info from a couple of documentaries on Norse mythology). Others, especially in modern times, have used these tactics with much more devastating results, such as the Heaven's Gate cult.

End of the World predictions are as old as creation myths with more coming every couple of years. I usually take these predictions and myths with a grain of salt. I mean 2012 ended a little over five years ago and somehow we're still here.

Our fascination with our own destruction goes hand in hand with our fascination with why we as a species are here. It's very likely that we are the product of random chance and that's exactly what will kill us off. Or we might be the creations of a great intelligent being that is hoping we don't mess up our one chance as a species.

All I know is, is that humanity should at least survive the next 100 or so years. If only because I said so.

Thank you all for following me on this 9 part series on folklore and mythology. I doubt this will be the last time I touch on this topic as I love these types of stories, but for now I want to switch gears and write about some other topics. If there was a topic I missed or you want me to read a particular myth, let me know and I'll get around to tracking it down.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week...

Welcome to Folklore and Mythology Part 8: Guiding Mentors

What do Obi-Wan Kenobi, Albus Dumbledore, and Merlin have in common?

Hint: it's not just the awesome supernatural powers.

They're all mentors to the young protagonist of their respective stories. Obi-Wan is a mentor to Luke, Dumbledore to Harry Potter, and Merlin to King Arthur (unless it's the BBC TV version in which case BFFs for life!!!). They teach their respective charges important lessons and guide them in their journey to become heroes.

Mentors often represent the older generation in stories. They have the wisdom of a long life and teach the younger generation what they probably should and should not do. Mentors aren't infallible beings either. They are known for making mistakes, mistakes that the hero may have to face and rectify for the mentor.

The mentor is often known to die before the end of these stories.

I often took that trope to show how the older generation (the mentor) will eventually have to make way for the younger generation (hero) to take charge of society (narrative). This trope is seen in Harry Potter, Star Wars, Buffy, and even Lord of the Rings (though Gandalf is eventually resurrected).

Chiron is one of the most famous mythological mentors in Western culture (much like Merlin, but he lives in his story). He was responsible for teaching many of Greece's greatest heroes including, Achilles, Ajax, Jason, Theseus, and, of course, Heracles. It's Heracles who is ultimately responsible for Chiron's death with a poisoned arrow, allowing Heracles to exchange Chiron's life for Prometheus's (versions of this story vary and I'm using Wikipedia as my main source as I can't find my mythology book with this story in it).

Chiron and Achilles

Mentors don't even have to be "good guys" necessarily, though this is a more modern trope. They just have to be guiding force and teacher to the protagonist. In the Anime/Manga Black Cat, the hero, Train, is trained by the man who murdered his parents. The man takes Train in with the explicit purpose of teach Train how to kill him one day. Train eventually grows up to become one of the best assassins in his organization.

Another example of this modern trope would be Littlefinger from Game of Thrones choosing to look after and mentor Sansa Stark. He mentor's Sansa in the art of The Game of Thrones so that she will survive and possibly win. He is without doubt a morally ambiguous character (even by his universe's standards), but that doesn't stop him from trying to teach and guide Sansa in the world she has found herself in. Just don't think too hard about his creepy attraction to her because she looks like her dead mother.

Even villains need mentors.

Darth Vader had Darth Sidious. Sauron had Morgoth. Light had Ryuk. Each teaching and tempting them to the ways of the villain.

Mentors are as important in mythology and folklore as they are in our modern society. Seriously, one of the first pieces of advice I was given when I joined the workforce was to find a good mentor to teach and guide me. Every few months Business Insider usually has one or two articles about how to find good mentors. Even I wrote a blog post about this in the first year of starting this blog (I'm not sure how good it is anymore, but click here if you're curious).

People can have many mentors throughout their life. Mentors can be relatives, family friends, teachers, or complete strangers who live on an island and you have to seek out because someone told you to. They pass on wisdom and knowledge, but ultimately it is up to the person to decide what they do with these lessons.

I am still at a time in my life where I still feel that I would benefit from having a mentor. I wouldn't feel comfortable being a mentor myself, but that's not often my decision to make. Mentorship is often an inevitable part of a person's life cycle. At some point I will likely have to pass on my knowledge to someone else. I will eventually be a member of the older generation.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to Folklore and Mythology Part 7: A Tale As Old As Time

I was recently asked by my therapist to go see the movie "The Shape of Water". It's a beautiful masterpiece, created by Guillermo del Toro. An adult fairy tale about a mute woman who falls in love with a sea "monster" (though I prefer the designation River God). He deserves every award he gets for this film.

It bears more than a few similarities to "Beauty and the Beast".

I was first introduced to Guillermo del Toro's work through the "Hellboy" movies and later "Pan's Labyrinth", one of my favorite movies by him. His work tends to be on the darker side. Well, that's not quite what I mean. He creates beautiful stories, full of life and light, against a backdrop of the dark, grim reality his heroes live in.

I could go on and on about del Toro's work, but that's not why I'm writing this post. I'll save that for a later date. I'm writing this post to talk about one of the most common stories in the public contentiousness.

The story about how beauty comes to love a beast.

There have been a number of modern retellings of this story, from TV shows to movies. One of the most famous movies to come out of the Disney Renaissance was "Beauty and the Beast", which was remade last year as a live action production. There's even a song in both versions (which I'm sure most of my readers are familiar with) that contains the lines "tale as old as time".

I've written about "Beauty and the Beast" before in this blog (click here to view if you're curious). I didn't go back and reread that blog post before writing this, so I might repeat myself a bit. It's a movie and story that I deeply enjoy, especially the Disney version. This story is what actually inspired me to write this series of blogs on folklore and mythology in the first place.

There are the very straight forward tellings of this story, including the Disney versions and "La Belle et la Bête" created by Jean Cocteau and also remade a few years ago (you can find the remake on Netflix as of this posting). There's a great analysis on YouTube comparing these two versions to one another by Some Jerk with a Camera and Kyle from Brows Held High. I cannot recommend this three part series more (click here for part 1, part 2, and part 3). It's hilarious and done to the Disney's musical version while they are running around Disneyland.

Then there are the tragic tellings of this tale. They usually take the form of thriller or horror stories, such as "King Kong" and "Creature from the Black Lagoon". It's where we get the famous quote "it was beauty that killed the beast".

But these are all more modern examples of this fairy tale. I'm supposed to be looking at folklore and mythology too.

Well, in the oldest known written story, "The Epic of Gilgamesh", there is a version of the story (sadly I'm not super familiar with it and can't write much on it). So, we know that the story of a beauty falling for a beast is as old as the written word.

The oldest version of the story that I am most familiar with, is the Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche (literally translates as Love and Soul). It has all of the classical myth troupes such as why you shouldn't piss off a powerful god, tasks that the hero (Psyche in this story) must complete, and the general god shenanigans we're used to from these stories.

But it also has all of the classic Beauty and the Beast troupes. There's a mysterious "monster" (really Cupid in disguise), an amazingly beautiful young woman who falls in love with him after a set amount of time, invisible servants who maintain a luxurious palace, and jealous family members nearly destroying the couple's happiness. It's honestly become one of my favorite versions of the story.

Because the story doesn't end with Cupid turning into a handsome prince. The story keeps going for a while. Cupid has already proven his love to Psyche, but Psyche must prove her love and devotion to him by convincing his mother, Venus, that she is worthy to love her son. And boy, oh boy, does Venus hate Psyche. The story ends, when Cupid and Psyche are able to convince all the gods (including a still kind of pissed off Venus) just how much they love each other and how far they are willing to go to be together.

It's a beautiful story.

It's also a story with a few problems. Like the majority of folklore and mythology, they are a product of their societies. They contain the morals and ethics that that society has. And, despite popular belief, morality and ethics are not a universal constant. As Mabel Pines said in an episode of "Gravity Falls": "morality is relative".

These stories change over time with each retelling. New generations bring new lessons and morals to the table and remove the ones that no longer fit within their society. We can even see this change over the past few decades with all the jokes being made about the Disney version having elements of Stockholm Syndrome (I personally don't think it does, but better people than me have pointed this out - click here for more information from Lindsey Ellis). Regardless of how I feel about it, this is a discussion/debate that still plagues the internet.

But it is true that it isn't the healthiest example of a relationship in the stories we constantly retell.

"The Shape of Water" is proof of this metamorphosis. Guillermo del Toro took a story we were all familiar with and told it in a way that was new, exciting, and reflected how our society has changed.

And this is what makes folklore and mythology so powerful. It isn't just that these stories are old and at one time taught as religious truth, but how we retell these stories. Beauty and the Beast really is a tale as old as time and it will continue to be a tale we tell. And so is the Hero's Journey and of Death. They teach lessons, explain the unknown, and reflect what are our values.

If you haven't seen it yet, go check out "The Shape of Water", "Beauty and the Beast" (both versions), and Jean Cocteau's "La Belle et la Bête" (the original and the 2014 remake). I can't recommend these movies enough.

I think I'm almost finished with this series of posts. I'm not sure how many more myths and folklore I'll look at. If there's anything you guys feel that I missed or a story/folklore/myth or topic you feel very strongly about, let me know and I'll look into it. I am planning on ending this series with a look at stories that go into the "End of Times" (spoken with a big booming voice and echo effect).

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome to Folklore and Mythology Part 6: The Rise of Villains

Do you find heroes boring and one note? Would you prefer to explore the darker side of humanity? Do you enjoy laughing with an evil flare? Do you miss the days when Disney Villains were actually intimidating?

Then you might want to explore THE RISE OF VILLAINS!

They are coming for you!

Except, there aren't a lot of villain stories in folklore and mythology, are there? I mean there are a few examples of villains having stories in classic mythology. There's the story of Medea who murdered her children, but is she really a villain or tragic character? Or what about the origin story for Medusa? All of the versions of the story I'm familiar with indicate that Athena punished her after being raped by Poseidon (basically the ultimate rape shame story I've ever read).

But I don't really think of Medea and Medusa as villains.

When I think of folklore and mythological villains, I think of that evil entity that needs to be defeated so that the hero can live happily ever after. They're sort of one note entities that only exist to do bad things and showcase what is not okay behavior in the society the story was written for.

Heroes defeat villains. Every Disney movie made before 2010 made this very clear.

Who wants to join Captain Hook's crew?

Some of the stand out villains that I can name from my childhood are Lord Voldemort, Ursula, Maleficent, Gaston, and Darth Vader. They are all evil and the heroes need to defeat them to end the story. Villains might be redeemed before the end (Darth Vader), but it's not always the case. The villain also might not be the central focus of the plot, but forces attention on themselves because they are the drama queen villain (Gaston and Ursula).

But what makes a villain, a villain? The Hero's Journey has been studied to death and it's still everywhere in popular culture. So what's the opposite? Is there a Villain's Journey?

The Internet answers that question with a solid yes.

And if you guys want a solid example of the Villain's Journey, look no further than the manga/anime "Death Note" (not the Netflix movie, it doesn't exist in my universe). It completely focuses on the transformation of Light Yagami from genius student to self declared god. His path to villainy almost perfectly mirrors the Hero's Journey with a few exceptions.

So here's my version of The Villain's Journey:

WARNING - SPOILERS FOR THE ANIME/MANGA DEATH NOTE - THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING!

1. Ordinary World - Starting out in the ordinary world is essential to both the Hero's and Villain's Journeys. Light starts out as a normal extremely smart high school student. All of that changes on one fateful day...
2. Call To Adventure or The Temptation - Once again we see the similarities in the two Journeys. One random day, Light finds a strange book on the ground with weird rules about how he can kill someone just by writing their name in this book. This is the opening for Light to leave the Ordinary World and enter the Extraordinary.
3.  Skeptical of the Call - The first step that I think separates Heroes and Villains is how they respond to the Call To Adventure step. In Light's case, he doesn't reject the call, but he is skeptical of it. He's intrigued and wants to know more about what he's been presented with. He is tempted to answer the call, but doesn't really believe what he is being offered.
4. Meeting The Mentor - The two paths meet again at the mentor step. Much like Harry Potter has Dumbledore to guide him, Light has Ryuk. Ryuk was the one who dropped the Death Note Notebook in the first place, all because he was bored and wanted to know what a human would do with it. He tempts Light into using the notebook's powers and then guides him on how to best use them. He is entirely indifferent to how successful Light is because he can just find another human to mess with if Light proves to be too boring. Mentors don't necessarily have to be villains, but they often are. Mentors are often another challenge to overcome. Sometimes the villain has to kill their mentor to gain ultimate power or be killed by their mentor.
5. Embracing Temptation - Villains don't cross a threshold, so much as embrace their temptation. In the case of Light, it's when he chooses to use the Death Note and kill anyone who breaks the law. He will be the one to punish them, especially if the powers at be can't punish the criminals. He takes out mobsters, murderers, and thieves left and right all while believing he is doing the right thing. He becomes the mysterious killer known as Kira.
6. Addiction, Minions, and Adversaries - Heroes have tests to see how committed they are to their cause. Villains often find that their success comes naturally, almost too easily. They like this success, this power. It's thrilling and they want to keep feeling that thrill. It becomes an addiction. And unlike heroes, who find strength alongside their friends, villains don't need friends. They have minions. People who do things for them. Minions can be willing or unwilling. Some might be fanatical devoted fans of the villain. Misa's devotion to Light is unquestionable, neigh fanatical. She loves Light's alter ego, Kira, and will do anything to prove her love. Finally, there are adversaries. They're the ones who fight back against the villain. At first they're unsuccessful, like the police force and FBI agents looking for Kira. But then someone worthy shows up to challenge the villain. For Light, that worthy adversary is L.
7. The Point of No Return - This is the step where a villain truly diverges from the path of redemption and heroism. They might still think they are doing the right thing, but everyone else knows the truth. The villain has fully embraced evil. Light hits this point when he chooses to kill the FBI Agent, Raye Penber, and Raye's fiance, Naomi Misora. They weren't criminals. They hadn't broken the law. They were trying to find and arrest Kira. This is when Light showed that he didn't care who got in the way of his goals. He would kill them.
8. The Confrontation - This is when the villain is finally confronted by the hero or heroes. It could be the final show down, but it's usually not. This is when the villain is confronted by his greatest adversary. In my example, it's when Light and L start playing their games, trying to out do each other. Waiting for the other to slip up. 
9. The Conquest - Heroes have their rewards, villains have their conquests. Here's the biggest spoiler of Death Note, despite L being Lights greatest adversary and should be the one to defeat Light/Kira. He isn't. L is ultimately killed by Light. And Light becomes the god he always wanted to be.
10. The Reign of Terror - Villains ultimately end up in a high seat of power. We see this with Lord Voldemort, Darth Vader, and Light Yagami. Light through his alter ego Kira secures his power. He gets to decide who lives and who dies in his world. Crime virtually goes away. Some people see Light/Kira as a hero, someone who made the world a safer place. Others see the truth, that in reality, Light is an evil dictator who can choose to kill someone on a whim. What Light is doing is wrong.
11. The Resistance - This leads to the rise resistance against the villain. This is usually external, but there are cases where there is an internal resistance, such as if the villain is seeking redemption. New heroes rise to challenge the villain and remove them from power. Near and Mellow are L's successors. They are the new leaders of the resistance against Light/Kira. Though I didn't find them as awesome as L (as did almost everyone else who followed the series), they are the ones who will ultimately bring Light/Kira down.
12. End of the Villain - All villains will eventually be defeated. This is true of any story. Some villains end up redeeming themselves at the end of their stories. Most are either imprisoned or killed. Light is ultimately defeated by his own ego. He doesn't think as highly of Mellow and Near as he did L. This leads him to making mistakes and is eventually cornered. Ryuk, seeing that this is the end of his fun, write's Light's name in the Death Note, killing him. 

This 12 Step Guide is really just that, a guide. Villains are known for taking short cuts and finding the path of least resistance. But I think that you could take the journey that I've outlined above and find a way to apply to many different villain stories. Lord Voldemort would easily fit this outline, as would Darth Vader. 

Prince Zuko from "Avatar - The Last Airbender" would also be an interesting case to look at. He's one of those cases where chooses to redeem himself at the end of his journey to become part of Team Avatar. (Actually "Avatar - The Last Airbender" is probably one of the greatest examples of epic modern storytelling).

What makes Light such a cool villain isn't that he ever thought he was evil. He never once thought he was doing the wrong thing. He wanted a world rid of crime and he got what he wanted. Light thought he was a good guy, but he wasn't. He was the villain of his own story. 

Like I wrote above, most villains in classic mythology and folklore don't get a story arc. They are simply The Villain. But I can think of at least one example of the this journey in folklore and religion, that of the Fall of Lucifer. He is the ultimate villain for a lot of people and he had to have gone on some kind of journey to go from most beloved angel to greatest adversary to God.

Stories about heroes and villains have always been popular. They are the stories about good versus evil that we loved as children. Though they can be complex at times, they're usually fairly simple in premise. 

Villains teach us a lot of things. They show us how not to act. They show us what can happen when someone has ultimate power. And they can show us how someone who believes they doing good are actually evil.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Let me know if there's something you'd like me to cover in my series on Folklore and Mythology. I can't promise to work it in, but I'll try to get to it before I move on to a new topic.

Welcome to Folklore and Mythology Part 5: The Path of Heroes

Happy 2018!

It's a new year and I'm still writing about Folklore and Mythology. And why not? Storytelling is in a fundamental part of our humanity. I don't think I know a single culture that doesn't have a culture of story telling. It's how we pass down our history, morals, and dreams to the next generation.

And wouldn't you guys know it, there was a documentary on mythology on Netflix that popped up the minute I got home. I watched all six episodes of Myths and Monsters in the span of two days. I wasn't super impressed that they only really focused on European mythologies, though. There are a lot of great myths from all over the world, but I digress.

The first episode of this series was about Heroes and Villains, specifically the Hero's Journey. The theory was first introduced by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (note to self: find a copy of this book asap). In it, he claims that most myths and legends about heroes follow the same 12 steps, known as the Hero's Journey.

The call of the adventure! Thank you Dr. Seuss.

The episode then uses Star Wars as an example of this journey. Since the latest Star Wars movie came out less than a month ago, I found this very appropriate. Star Wars has become a modern myth and the first three movies are a classic example of good versus evil often found in myths from our ancestors. Looking deeper at the stories I consumed as a child, I realized that there are many other examples of the Hero's Journey, including Harry Potter.

Since Star Wars has been used to death to show this journey, I'm going to use Harry Potter to showcase the 12 step program to become a hero. For the record the Hero's Journey is flexible and doesn't have to follow the steps as I have listed here. By the way, this will contain spoilers if you haven't read all of the books. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING.

1. Starting off in the Ordinary World - Harry is in the Non-Magical World or Muggle World when we first meet him as an 11 year old boy.
2. The Call to Adventure - Harry is given a letter telling him he's been accepted to Hogwarts: School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
3. Refusal to Answer the Call - So, I don't like the wording of this one. I wouldn't call it a refusal, so much as a hesitance to answer the call. For example, Harry has to go to school no matter what. He can't refuse to go to school. His refusal instead takes two different forms. The first is his aunt and uncle telling him that the whole thing is crazy and that he can't possibly be going to a magical school. The second is his aversion to being treated like a celebrity once he gets there.
4. Meeting the Mentor - Or in Harry's case mentors who are his teachers. Yes, Dumbledore takes a special interest in Harry because he's "The Boy Who Lived" and is the main mentor, but Lupin or McGonagall or Hagrid also mentor Harry from time to time. 
5. Crossing the Threshold - One can argue that Harry does this when he steps through the barrier to Platform 9 and 3/4 or when he sees Hogwarts for the very first time, but I disagree. I think that this moment happens the instant he is sorted into Gryffindor. This is when Harry makes his first active choice in the Wizarding World (no going to school doesn't count). He chooses to be placed in Gryffindor house over Slytherin. It's Harry's first decision and sets the tone for the rest of the series.
6. Test, Friends, and Enemies - Throughout Harry's time at Hogwarts he is constantly tested (inside the classroom and out) in his magical abilities. He always has finals at the end of the school year as well as one major battle against Voldemort or one of his followers that shows how much he's grown throughout that year. He also makes a lot of friends. Ron and Hermione are without doubt Harry's two best friends, but they aren't his only friends. By the end of the series he has so many people who are willing to fight for/with him that it could easily compare it to a Shonen Manga (think Naruto or One Piece). The same goes for his enemies, starting out with Draco Malfoy and leading up to Voldemort and all of his Death Eaters. For the record, I think this is the largest and most time consuming of this 12 step program.
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave - Despite the confusing name to this step, I think it's pretty clear which step this corresponds to for Harry and his Friends - the entire first two thirds of the seventh Harry Potter book. By this point in the series, things have become desperate for our hero. He can't go back to Hogwarts, a place that had always been safe in the past, and instead must find seven objects that must be destroyed so that he can vanquish Lord Voldemort for good. I'm sure others could argue that when Harry chooses to confront Voldemort in the woods one last time, but I think this takes away from the growth Harry has to go through in the seventh book.
8. The Ordeal - This is the metaphorical and occasionally physical "death" of the hero. For Harry, it's the first part of the Battle of Hogwarts. He's just put all of his friends in danger by returning to the school, found out that Dumbledore knew he was the final "object" that needed to be destroyed, and that he had to die so that everyone he loved would be able to live. The Ordeal ends when Voldemort ends Harry's life in a flash of green.
9. The Reward - Harry is allowed to chose whether he wants to live or die. I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, I was all for Harry choosing to die and finally be at peace. If this had happened, Neville or Ron could have stepped up to lead the final charge, creating a new hero for everyone to rally behind. It would have been a fitting ending, but not necessarily completed the Hero's Journey. Instead he chooses option two: to come back to life. His "reward" isn't just that he gets to make this choice. It also includes protection for his friends because he sacrificed himself to save them.
10. The Road Back - Basically when Voldemort makes Hagrid carry Harry back to Hogwarts. 
11. Resurrection - Part 2 of the Battle of Hogwarts. As Voldemort and his followers arrive back at Hogwarts, everyone thinks Harry is dead (his body is lying limp in Hagrid's arms after all). But then, Neville makes an amazing speech, rallying the remaining good guys. Voldemort responds by placing The Sorting Hat, while it's on fire, onto Neville's head. Neville pulls the sword of Gryffindor out of The Hat, allowing Harry to make his grand entrance as newly resurrected. This step ends when Voldemort dies when the curse he killed Harry with rebounds onto himself (this scene was so much better in the books).
12. The Return - Technically this step has a longer name, but I'm ignoring it. Harry defeats Voldemort, we're given a comforting scene in the Headmaster's Office with just him, Ron, and Hermione. Harry is at peace, but he's not the same 11 year old boy who started his journey. He's older, wiser, and ready to live a somewhat normal life in the Wizarding World. We're then given an epilogue 19 years later with Harry sending two of his children off to Hogwarts. It's the happy ending the fans wanted and JK Rowling gave us (ignoring the play that recently came out of course).

Well that was long and sure some of the Steps in this 12 Step Program to go on your very own Hero's Journey don't always align. Heck, Harry isn't the only one to go on the journey in this series. Neville also goes through it, even if we only see part of his journey (most of it takes place off screen during the 7th book). Cedric Diggory starts his own, but is tragically killed before he can complete it. 

And Harry's journey doesn't exactly fit the steps as they are presented. I had to make a few examples fit and arguments could be made for different events in Harry's story to be used. 

This also isn't the only way to define how a hero is made. It's just a theory (more like a pattern) that was noticed by the scholar, Joseph Campbell. It's heavily skewed towards European myths and legends. Though there are examples of this pattern showing up in the ancient world outside of Europe, it isn't a general rule. I would argue that the story Journey to the West (as I remember it) doesn't quite fit this mold. The story of David and Goliath could also be considered a Hero's Journey story and doesn't seem to fit the pattern (again, I'm going off of memory...it's been a while since I read it).

Harry's story is both modern and ancient. It's unique and new, while giving us a sense of familiarity. His story pushes our cultural boundaries, while also passing on a story telling tradition that goes back thousands of years. Fitting, as JK Rowling is a fan of classical literature. 

My point is, the heroes I am most familiar with in both ancient mythology and modern stories, often follow similar journeys to become a hero. It's a pattern that some of us really like and can easily identify with. 

Because if we know the 12 Step Program to becoming a Hero, we might be able to follow it and become Heroes ourselves. Now wouldn't that be a dream come true.

Next week, we'll look at a slightly different journey: The Villains Journey.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week! Muahahahaha!