A Simple Example: Snow White

    A Snow White is a simple Princess vs. Psiren story. The only characters that are properly developed are Snow White and the wicked Queen, though we can see enough of the outline of other characters to see their archetypes. Snow White is an obvious Princess: she is the fairest in the land, an unwed maiden, the daughter of a King, and the only archetypal actions that she performs in the course of the story are descending amongst the commoners (borrowed from the Prince, though in its Princess form it is modified slightly; instead of going out and pretending to be a commoner, she lowers herself to perform the work of a common serving girl), and falling into a deep sleep. The wicked Queen is a classic Psiren; she is jealous of the more beautiful woman, she lures Snow White into her death by various pretexts (the girdle, the apple, etc.), and she possesses a magical looking glass. The Rogue appears in two different forms: as the hunter (a very traditional Rogue occupation) who can't bring himself to murder the innocent princess, and as the seven dwarves, who are miners (another traditional Rogue occupations). The proper split between these two Rogues is only vaguely implied in the simpler versions; in some of the more complex versions the dwarves are obviously Avenger resonant as they chase down the evil Queen and avenge their beloved Snow White using their pick-axes (an Avenger's axe which is shaped like a Rogue's bow).  Both of these characters look on Snow White with adoration, but they are in the position of the Hapless Lover and are not worthy of being her one True Love. The Prince, obviously, is a Prince.

A Less Simple Example: Much Ado About Nothing

    Much Ado About Nothing is essentially a Shrew/Rogue romance. It has one major sub-plot (a Princess/Prince romance complicated by a Trickster), and several split characters. Benedick and Beatrice are the Rogue and the Shrew at the centre of the story; both are certain that they are never going to marry, they squabble constantly, Beatrice has a Shrew's typically sharp tongue, Benedick a Rogue's jocular dismissal of the married state. Beatrice is happy to play matchmaker for her cousin Hero (a Princess), a favour which Hero returns with the help of Ursula (a minor Shrew whose only role in the plot is match-making, and who has the traditional Shrewish occupation of "gentlewoman who waits on the Princess"). Leonato is the classic old King with a daughter to marry off; he is also somewhat responsible for Beatrice and plays his own part in inciting Benedick to acknowledge his love. The sub-plot centres around the romance of Hero and Claudio. Hero is a Princess, Claudio is one of the lower forms of the Prince -- a mere Suitor or Bridegroom -- with a higher Prince, Don Pedro, to help him in his quest. John the Bastard is a Trickster with Userperous tendencies, helped by a more classic, scruffy, rough-around the edges Trickster, Borachio. These two conspire, with the help of Margaret, to falsely implicate Hero in a scandalous affair. (Margaret is a slim character -- in the context of the plot she is a Nymph who brings about evil inadvertently by falling for Borachio's charms. Masked by her hair, she stands at the window and is mistaken for Hero by Claudio and Don Pedro.) Dogberry appears as a Rogue, in his aspect of Faithful Servant to the King, and reveals the plot against the hapless Princess. The King decides to pretend that Hero has died of grief, but of course she is actually happy and well. All is revealed and reconciled, and the story ends, first with the marriage of the Prince and Princess, and finally, with the marriage of the Shrew and the Rogue.

A Complicated Example: Barry Lyndon

    This is the story of one man's descent through the ranks of the Red Square male characters, until at last he is a defeated Usurper. It is a Red Square story, but with Green square resonances and a Yellow shadow plot. Redmond Barry begins his story innocently enough, as a Roguish rebuffed suitor who has fallen for a Whore resonant Nymph -- his cousin Nora Brady. She is the classic obliviously evil woman, she has casually given her charms to Barry, and he has fallen for them completely, but of course she is for sale to the highest bidder. The highest bidder, as it turns out, is a rich Usurper, Captain John Quin, who Barry (borrowing Avenger events) challenges to a duel. Nora's brothers intervene in the role of Tricksters and concoct a plot to make it look like Barry has successfully killed the Usurper, when in fact his gun is not even loaded. They convince our hero to flee for his life (again, borrowing from the Avenger as he goes into exile.) On the road, Barry is waylaid by yet another Trickster and has all of his money stolen. He becomes a soldier.
    He is not, however, a very good soldier -- already he has started to descend, and is heading into his Trickster phase. No longer able to borrow from the Avenger, Barry borrows from the Coward and flees from his first battle. Disguising himself in the clothing of an officer, he escapes from the army. He seduces a German woman (Adulteress, filling in the role of Shrew) who hides him for a couple of days before he abandons her. His disguise and his lies are not, however, sufficient to protect him; he is captured by the Prussians, and drafted into the Prussian army. Exposed to much greater suffering than in the English Army, Barry looks, for a moment, as though he might make good. If he was actually an Avenger, imprisoned and beaten, rather than a Red Square man hovering on the blade's-edge between Rogue and Trickster, his trials in the Prussian army might have been sufficient to redeem him. He regains his courage, acts heroically in battle, and is decorated. But then the war is over, and he once again plays the Cowardly turn-coat as he agrees to help the Prussian police investigate one of his fellow countrymen, the Chevalier de Balibari.
    The Chevalier is a true Trickster, a master at the trade of gambling, lying, cheating and deceiving. He takes Barry under his wing, and the young hero's fate is fixed: he is now in an apprenticeship to become a true Trickster, and his new Archetypal role allows him to fool his Prussian masters, ultimately escaping from them disguised as the Chevalier himself. Now that he is comfortably ensconced in his role as Trickster, Barry falls in love with Lady Lyndon (or rather, with Lady Lyndon's wealth). The Lady is yet another Whore resonant Nymph, only now, instead of being in a Nemesis relationship, Barry, as a Coward resonant Trickster, is perfectly positioned, as her Lover, for seduction. He wins her over and inadvertently succeeds in killing her Rightful Husband (a relatively low form of King), who dies of shock when Barry is insolent towards him. Barry's eyes are now firmly fixed on Usurpation; he marries Lady Lyndon, along with her estates and her money, and renames himself Barry Lyndon. But he does not have the official title that he craves -- the late Count Lyndon had a son, Bullingdon (a Prince in his guise of Rightful Heir), who is now Lord Lyndon. Whoring and feasting in traditional Usurperous style, Barry squanders his wife's fortune trying to Usurp a peerage for himself.
    Barry's Usurperous ambitions would, at this point, render him a wholly unsympathetic character, but this is not what Kubrick wants. A Yellow Square shadow sub-plot saves him: Barry becomes a Father, with a Golden Boy Disgraceful son who dies tragically as a result of disobedience. This strengthen's the viewers commitment to the now quite unsavoury hero, and it provides the emotional impetus for Lady Lyndon's descent into darkness.
   In the mean-time Bullingdon has been reduced, under Barry's tyranny, to a Rogue; he defies the Usurper's authority, and suffers various beatings and humiliations. At last he confronts Barry directly, defies him in public, and induces the tempermental Usurper to beat him in front of all of the people he is trying to impress. This effectively destroys Barry's hope of a peerage. Bullingdon, having triumphed as a Rogue, now rises to the level of Prince in Exile. He leaves, but will return.
    With his Kingdom in ruins, Barry squanders what remains. His Mother (playing the Prude resonant Psiren) comes to help her son out; she is horrible to Lady Lyndon, who by now has sunken completely in the traditional mournful despondency of the ill-fated Nymph. After some lovely images of the Nymph lying in her bath and staring off in moody contemplation of her own ruin, Lady Lyndon tries, and does not succeed, at suicide. At last Bullingdon returns and challenges Barry to a duel in order to regain his rightful inheritance. As is typical in Usurper perspective peices, Bullingdon, the Prince, appears to be a trifling milk-sop. In the duel Barry slips, slightly, towards redemption: instead of murdering the Rightful Heir, he deliberately misses. Bullingdon shoots Barry, who is then taken to a disreputable inn (a classic hide-out for Tricksters) where his leg is amputated. With his Usurperous goals finally thwarted, Barry's mother swoops him off back to Ireland, where it is suggested that he attempts, with relatively little success, to return to his Trickster's life as a gambler.

The Exercises:

1. Practice forming the square from the perspective of different characters. The easiest, and most fun, way to learn this is to get yourself a set of toys that look like the archetypes and play around making the squares, but you can do it with the names of the characters written out on peices of card if you prefer. Start by building the square from the perspective of the Prince and then transform it into a Usurper square, a Princess square, and a Rogue square. Once you've done these, you should have the hang of it and see how it works. If you don't, do the remaining three characters.

2. Choose an Archetype. Take a story that you are familiar with, either from one of our examples or one where you know the story well and are sure of your analysis. Add a shadow sub-plot to Lighten or Darken the main character.

3. For each of the Archetypes presented in this course, pick one of their symbols and try to discover as many different forms of it as you can by flipping boolean switches such as old/new, big/small, concrete/abstract, light/dark, ancient/modern, common/unique, masculine/feminine, or any other Yin-Yang type pair. The concrete/abstract switch is the most powerful and when used in combination with others will yield the most interesting varriants.

4. Find a work in one of the example lists that you are not familiar with. Obtain a copy and write an archetypal analysis such as the ones above (we recommend that you start with simple stories -- don't try to do War and Peace or Twin Peaks as your first analysis.) Or, better yet, find a work that isn't on our example list, do an analysis, write it up and send it in so that we can post it on the web-site.

5. Take a simple story and invent an alternative ending by adding additional characters to shift the tipping point.

6. For both of the Right Hand Heroic Archetypes in this course (Parts 2 & 4) choose an example character and create a story line about their decline and fall as they shift archetypes 3 times, first to the Sidekick position, then the Lietenant, and finally the Enemy.

7. Create the reverse (a redemption plot) using examples of the two Right Hand Vilainous Archetypes (Parts 6 & 8).

8. For each of the Archetypes presented, choose an example character with whom you are familiar and imagine them in each of the plots that are listed as common for their Archetype but do not occur in their own story.

9. Experiment with letting the Archetypes on this square borrow one another's symbols and observe how the symbols are transformed as they are passed between characters.

10. Try to think of people you know who resemble the Archetypes described in this course, keeping in mind that although there are many points of similarity between characters and people, humans tend to not be bound to a single Archetype but fluctuate between all four archetypes of their gender on the square their life's main plot line takes place.

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