THE JOURNEY
How Heroes are Made
4 STAGES OF THE JOURNEY
 All heroes must go through these four stages in order to become a hero
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Innocence
Initiation
Chaos
Resolution
INNOCENCE
 We are one with the world
 Believe we are the center of the Universe
 Suffering is minimal and short-lived
 Death is unfathomable
 Happy and pleasure
INITIATION
 3 events can start our fall from innocence
 Death
 Awareness of evil
 Sexual Awakening
INITIATION BY DEATH
 We see someone close to us die
 Teaches us loved ones can be separated forever
 No one is immune to death (including ourselves)
 We are all mortal
 Question our own strength and capabilities
INITIATION BY EVIL
 We see evil win
 Violates our belief in the fairness and justice of our world
 Goes against all we’ve been taught about rewarding good and punishing evil
 Makes us question the point of being good
 No compensation for suffering
 No punishment for evil
 Moral compass is no longer guiding
INITIATION BY SEXUAL AWAKENING
 Creates intense desire within us
 Can either be frustrated from lack of being met
 Can be fulfilled and then retracted (Failed Relationship)
 Rejection of emotional intimacy makes us wary of loving again
 Rejection by the person we trust most damages our confidence
INITIATION CONT.
 The temptation of all initiations experiences is to stop growing
 Future is dangerous and illogical
 Understand reality of the world
 Gain knowledge, but not knowledge we wanted
CHAOS
 This is where art is created
 Struggle of our existence to reconcile the information revealed during initiation
 Struggle to move on despite our belief that future only holds pain and unrelieved suffering
 Instinct of man is to move backward
 Return to state of innocence
 Employ denial against what we don’t want to acknowledge
 True hero is not defeated by this knowledge
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Transforms it into wisdom
Distills experience
Reconciles the paradox of good and evil
Strengthened by it
RESOLUTION
 Important to remember heroes that reach this stage do it with open eyes
 Does not evade the knowledge of the fall
 Integrates into a wider, fuller, and truer version of the world
 In mythology most heroes reach this stage
 In modern and postmodern eras in literature there is a litany of heroes who never
reach the 4th stage
 Most feminist and ethnic literature they do find resolution
MODERN DAY HEROES’ JOURNEYS
 At your tables, brainstorm a few examples of a modern day heroes’ journeys.