Day 120: Story Structure Notes #2

So, the hero has answered a call to adventure, travelled to the threshold between the ordinary and magical worlds, and pierced their way through. Maybe they’ve been swallowed by a great creature. Maybe they’ve journeyed across an ocean. Blasted at lightspeed into space. Stowed away on an alien ship. Become trapped in a bathhouse for the spirits. Been bitten by a radioactive spider. Or, like Sam Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings film (I can’t remember if it happens in the book), they’ve simply reached the farthest point from the Shire they’ve ever travelled, and taken another step.

What happens next is what Joseph Campbell terms the Road of Trials. This is the quarter of the circle where the hero moves downwards towards what they want (or what they must get). They face a number of challenges that test their determination and ability to achieve their goal. If the hero is Chihiro from Spirited Away they perform chores in the bath house and learn the adult cycles of work and rest. If the hero is The Dude from The Big Lebowski they set about unravelling the web of intrigue and deceit behind Bunny being kidnapped and, more importantly, their rug being peed on. If the hero is John McClane from Die Hard they fight a whole load of terrorists.

The Road of Trials is where the unnecessary ego-trappings of the hero fall away, or are torn off, bit by bit - the elements that kept them safe and secure, but also stuck, within the ordinary world, and for which they will have no use in the depths to which they are descending, being removed.

The posh urbanite stranded in the jungle loses her makeup bag, her mobile phone, her mink fur coat. The astronauts stranded in space lose their high-tech scanners and engines and life-support gizmos. Luke Skywalker loses his guide in Obi-Wan, and thus his attachment to a parental figure who would keep him mollycoddled and protected. John McClane loses his shoes, his clothes save a primal vest, and, as Dan Harmon notes in his brilliant essays about story structure, eventually even his civilised persona:

“McClaine is advised by a terrorist to whom he earlier showed mercy: "The next time you have a chance to kill someone, don't hesitate." John shoots him several times and thanks his corpse for the advice. The cop has begun to fall away, piece by piece, revealing his inner cowboy.”

It is also during this stage that the hero meets allies, discovers a power within themselves, finds that there is an element of the universe willing to hold them aloft, bear them forwards. They have taken a leap of faith into the unknown, crossing the threshold of adventure, and it is ever true that though there is great danger around every corner, darkness threatening to engulf them, obstacle after obstacle to be overcome, there are also “other forces at work in this world [...] besides the will of evil.” And that, all heroes agree, is an encouraging thought indeed.

The Road of Trials often play out like a succession of mini stories, each with their own call to adventure, crossing of the threshold, movement towards a goal, achievement, and journey back to the status quo (the status quo being here the quarter circle between 3 and 6 o’clock), as the hero trains in their arts, learns valuable lessons, fights towards the dragon’s lair, and in many other ways is prepared by the external world for the moment at the nadir of the circle, the inner sanctum of mystery, the lowest point of the unconscious mind.

For, coming up, is the end of the road...