Fiction Guide: The Hero with a Thousand Faces: The Crossing of the Threshold and the Importance of dividing the Starting Point from the Magical World

The Crossing of the Threshold

“ONCE having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials. This is a favorite phase of the myth adventure. It has produced a world literature of miraculous tests and ordeals. The hero is covertly aided by the advice, amulets, and secret agents of the supernatural helper whom he met before his entrance into this region. Or it may be that he here discovers for the first time that there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage.”

This is how the Part 1 of Second Chapter of Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces’ begins.

Now I’ve recently seen some criticism from some I respect towards Campbell, and I’ll say having thought about it; much of their views are valid. I may like JC, but honestly a lot of his statements are pretty obvious.

Now his idea of the Initiation is crucial. The Hero like you the writer cross the Threshold. It’s a spiritual thing. It’s a thing that you do when entering into a new place…. kind of like when you open a new book and start to read it.

The Initiation of the character is something you see in all great stories.

Here’s some examples; Odysseus crosses the Threshold when he enters the cave of the Cyclops, whereupon he is swept up into another realm. It is something that is key in a story. The thing is

Ulysses

when he steps out of the cave finds that he’s in another world in a way. You see he’s no longer on a simple boat-ride home but one in which everything starts to go wrong, go mystical and which will involve magic, monsters and adventure unlike anything he’s ever endured (oh and yes I could not resist the funny little shout out, to my kindly friend… seriously check out his comic Spirit Girl, it’s freaking good and like the Odyssey in a lot of ways!).

There’s also the story of the Lord of the Rings wherein the heroes enter another world the moment they enter the tavern in Bree. It’s the first hint of change, the first hint of the Great Romance that they are now in the midst of.

It is important to bear in mind that the Initiation is absolute and involves a sudden change in situations as the character is supposed to be ‘leaving Kansas’ or leaving Merry old England and into a new world. We are abandoning the realm of reality for that of dreams.

Amulets & Treasures of Magic

This sort of thing is crucial in stories. Or so many think. I might have to fall in somewhat on a different side than Campbell.

Now Campbell was a man who stated a lot of obvious stuff we all know about literature, and how he believed this to be of the utmost importance. The trouble is that I must level some criticism at him the likes of which

Librarian of Celaeno

is fond of doing… this one’s both a duh and also a… optional choice.

The MAJOR problem with relying too much on this part of the Initiation is that the ‘Gift’ of sorts has become overdone, overblown and is over-relied upon. I know we all love magic and swords and stuff in stories, but the problem is that people have placed too much emphasis on the power and not enough on the characters themselves.

It is important not to emphasize the hero enough. Their personality, their glory and their greatness. The character must come first. If you fail in this and put the sword or the Force, or what have you ahead of their personality you’ll have failed.

People want a great character, they want legends and heroes. They don’t a man in the shadow of a sword.

The blade can initially have him or her in its shadow. It can be a weighty thing, a thing that reduces the hero in a way. By this I mean that he feels himself pale, and nothing in comparison to it. It is thus a burden at first, as one can kind of treat Spiderman’s powers, or the sword Excalibur as Merlin wields it against Vortigern, or the armour of Achilles that Hektor wears against the former.

But at some point the armour must bear them down and see them crushed and destroyed as with Hektor, or Anakin Skywalker when he crumples before Obi-Wan on Mustafar.

The reason for this is that the hero must surpass the Gift lest he be overwhelmed by it. Luke Skywalker surpassed it, because what’s a Lightsaber in comparison to the power and glory of Luke? Do you care about the blade or Luke? Obviously you care about Luke.

Or what of King Arthur? Do you give a fig for him? Or Excalibur? Yes, the blade is amazing and awesome, and the coolest weapon in all of Mythology! But did you know that in some stories it is wielded by the likes of Lancelot, Galahad and even I think Merlin once? But does that matter? Do we care? No. The reason for this is simple: We want to see Arthur wield it. We NEED to see him wield it, and smash his enemies to hell and hew down Mordred with it.

The reason for these things is simple; humanity knows the difference between the man and the weapon. The man makes the weapon, not the other way around. If it were the other way around, we wouldn’t remember the most iconic heroes in literature and fiction such as Herakles, or Arthur, or Sherlock Holmes, or Aragorn.

Cross the Threshold a Meek Mouse, and Come out a Lion!

This is how it should be; the hero should enter a nothing and come out a hero. The thing is this is the point when he begins to realize what it is that he’s made of sterner stuff than he thought he was, or at least that we get an inkling of it.

He realizes that the world he’s entering is larger, and more dangerous than previously expected. His adventure is a greater thing than he might well have expected, precisely because it’s beginning to take dimensions and the like than he or anyone could well have imagined.

The hero likely feels like he’s a mouse, but doesn’t yet realize he’s a Lion!

The Threshold is meant to be a moment of transition in which the hero is caught between fully transforming himself or herself, from child to man. They are in a way hitting puberty, and transcending what they were, metamorphosing themselves.

So the Threshold as we all know is between dimensions; the childhood and the adulthood. It’s closer to the inciting event for a reason. It’s crucial to a story for a reason, as it allows the audience and readers to start to grasp just what sort of world they’re in and what to expect from the story.

The Threshold can be a literal door, it can be a Wardrobe like in The Chronicles of Narnia, which is a story with one of the best examples of a Threshold as it is a literal place/barrier between two different places.

It is a window that stands between the ordinary and the extra-ordinary.

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Also Crown of Blood has a new edition, with maps, character bios and more!