#four archetypes

[fictionadventurer]

Sometimes I just think about  @thelonelybrilliance‘s Four Character Archetypes and wish they were more widely known because I find it very useful as a writing tool. (Seriously, follow the link and read the whole essay).

The four types are trickster, genius, martyr and savior, and there’s a lot of nuance when it comes to classifying already-written characters, but when I’m using it as a character development tool, I tend to focus on a character’s primary archetype and use it to answer a simple question about a character’s personality. .

I think of this category as answering the question of: How does the character deal with their problems?

Savior: Takes action to solve their problems, and probably other people’s problems, according to what they value and what they think is best. 

Martyr: Endures problems. Their goal isn’t necessarily to stop the source of the problems (and it may not even be the kind of problem it’s possible to solve). They just power through the problems life throws at them.

Genius: Deals with problems by relying on their area of expertise/competence (or sometimes just ignores problems and hides in their area of special interest).

Trickster: Deals with problems by manipulating or subverting the rules of society or the people around them. (Or sometimes just by working with the people around them).

These can often roughly line up with a character’s temperament (savior as choleric, martyr as phlegmatic, genius as melancholic, and trickster as sanguine), but the two don’t always match, and this archetype classification seems to have a more specific focus on a character’s story role that I find very helpful in story planning--it basically tells you how the character approaches the plot.

Knowing an archetype can be helpful in sketching a basic character arc. There are lots of possibilities, but here are a few basic ones that come to mind.

A savior takes firm, decisive action, but tends to think they know best and may not care about the feelings or input of the people around them, so their arc can be learning to consider the people around them.

A genius may be confident in their skills but need to learn to value the skills of others. They may withdraw from others and need to learn to let other people into their life. They may need to learn to quit hiding in their area of special interest and face their problems more directly.

A trickster can be manipulative or self-centered and need to consider others as people rather than pawns. They may be hiding who they really are and need to learn to be more honest with the people around them.

A martyr may be too passive and need to learn to take more decisive action against their problems. They may be trying to take on too much themselves and need to ask for help. They may blame others for their problems and need to learn to take responsibility.

It gets extra fun when you start having different characters with different archetypes playing off of each other.The strengths of one character’s archetype can help another character learn how to overcome the weaknesses of their own archetype. They can all use their problem-solving strengths to overcome problems in unique and creative ways.

It’s even possible for one character to embody multiple archetypes in the same story--a character who fits all of them can be extra complex because they have lots of different problems and lots of different ways to approach them. But for the purposes of character planning, I tend to focus on a character’s primary archetype and only throw in other archetypes after I know more about their role in the story.

I feel like I’m leaving out a lot of nuance here (it doesn’t help that part of my strategy for classifying characters is “I know it when I see it”), but I feel like the basic concept is really helpful when I’m in the early stages of trying to develop a character. So I’m bringing it back in case someone else can find it useful.

[summerfyre]

The mother-complex in the son

The mother archetype forms the foundation of the so-called mother-complex. It is an open question whether a mother complex can develop without the mother having taken part in its formation as a demonstrable causal factor. My own experience leads me to believe that the mother always plays an active part in the origin of the disturbance, especially in infantile neuroses or in neuroses whose aetiology undoubtedly dates back to early childhood. In any event, the child’s instincts are disturbed, and this constellates archetypes which, in their turn, produce fantasies that come between the child and its mother as alien and often frightening elements. Thus, if the children of an overanxious mother regularly dream that she is a terrifying animal or a witch, these experiences point to a split in the child’s psyche that predisposes it to a neurosis.

The mother-complex in the son

The effects of the mother-complex differ according to whether it appears in a son or a daughter. Typical effects on the son are homosexuality and Don Juanism, and sometimes also impotence. In homosexuality, the son’s entire heterosexuality is tied to the mother in an unconscious form; in Don Juanism, he unconsciously seeks his mother in every woman he meets. The effects of a mother-complex on the son may be seen in the ideology of the Cybele and Attis type: self-castration, madness, and early death. Because of the difference in sex, a son’s mother complex does not appear in pure form. This is the reason why in every masculine mother-complex, side by side with the mother archetype, a significant role is played by the image of the man’s sexual counterpart, the anima. The mother is the first feminine being with whom the man-to-be comes in contact, and she cannot help playing, overtly or covertly, consciously or unconsciously, upon the son’s masculinity, just as the son in his turn grows increasingly aware of his mother’s femininity, or unconsciously responds to it by instinct. In the case of the son, therefore, the simple relationships of identity or of resistance and differentiation are continually cut across by erotic attraction or repulsion, which complicates matters very considerably. I do not mean to say that for this reason the mother-complex of a son ought to be regarded as more serious than that of a daughter. The investigation of these complex psychic phenomena is still in the pioneer stage. Comparisons will not become feasible until we have some statistics at our disposal, and of these, so far, there is no sign.

[…]

Since a “mother-complex” is a concept borrowed from psychopathology, it is always associated with the idea of injury and illness. But if we take the concept out of its narrow psychopathological setting and give it a wider connotation, we can see that it has positive effects as well. Thus a man with a mother-complex may have a finely differentiated Eros instead of, or in addition to, homosexuality. (Something of this sort is suggested by Plato in his Symposium.) This gives him a great capacity for friendship, which often creates ties of astonishing tenderness between men and may even rescue friendship between the sexes from the limbo of the impossible. He may have good taste and an aesthetic sense which are fostered by the presence of a feminine streak. Then he may be supremely gifted as a teacher because of his almost feminine insight and tact. He is likely to have a feeling for history, and to be conservative in the best sense and cherish the values of the past. Often he is endowed with a wealth of religious feelings, which help to bring the ecclesia spiritualis into reality; and a spiritual receptivity which makes him responsive to revelation.

In the same way, what in its negative aspect is Don Juanism can appear positively as bold and resolute manliness; ambitious striving after the highest goals; opposition to all stupidity, narrow-mindedness, injustice, and laziness; willingness to make sacrifices for what is regarded as right, sometimes bordering on heroism; perseverance, inflexibility and toughness of will; a curiosity that does not shrink even from the riddles of the universe; and finally, a revolutionary spirit which strives to put a new face upon the world.

—Carl Jung en "four archetypes"

[alwayschooselife]

All that is outside, also is inside.

C.G. Jung