This is a really great point. In order for stories to do what stories are meant to do: teach, one must be able to identify with the characters themselves. That... hasn't always been the case for people like me. I'm nonbinary, and I can tell you, the first time I accidentally stumbled upon a story with a queer, gender-nonconforming protagonist I devoured that book like someone dying of thirst in the desert. The connection was so much stronger, especially since the book was written by a nonbinary person, and they just *got* it. Now I seek such stories out. I hadn't, until I found that book, realized how important that was. Besides, relating to a story is in some ways, like relating to the larger world and society: if you feel part of the story, the world, it's easier to feel like you belong there. Thanks for making this a part of your mission. Especially with how hostile the world is to nonbinary and trans people in general at this moment in history, this was a refreshing take on storytelling and mental health.
As someone who loved fantasy stories as a kid, but could never engage with the " win, kill, conquer " vibe of most adult opportunities to engage with mythos i really appreciate this articulation. Excellent! As someone who is way more on the save the dragon, learn to understand the dragon side of things, ive always struggled with the traditional " warrior" too. and the heirachical nature, those are probably the main things that dont work for me. But i see this as also being a way to engage with all the antagonists as actual internal aspects of one self as much as the protagonist. They might be represented/ personified by externalities, true but i think this is a interesting lens through which to investigate ones own messy fantastical internal world 🤔🥰
My favorite "heroes" are what I call "superhealers." These are not fighting against a "bad guy" but against an idea. Opposition comes from good people who don't understand. Winning is helping them understand and _folding them into your fight._ Stories like How to Train Your Dragon, Nausicaa, and the Horizon Zero Dawn game series. There aren't many of these, but they are the most important stories to me.
Oh, yes!! This is such a beautiful summary. I’d love to see more of these. Have you read the Wayfarers books by Becky Chambers? They are a wonderful example of kind, accepting and “bad guy” free sci-fi. They’re among my fave books of all time.
@@melusine826 wow, so I'm not the only one who realized there are these types of stories being told! Do you have any more to add to the list (that I haven't seen?)
I just started reading Becky Chambers and am loving those books! There are two books by Cory Doctorow (The Walkaway and The Lost Cause) that are close to this style, they have more adversity in them but the protagonists arc is about learning to step out of the conflict and into that place of “folding them into your light”.
What a fresh take! It's so important to de-gender these archetypes and add the additional nuance, as you're doing here. I found it helpful to see ways I'm in tenderfoot AND seer in my current journey to leave a 'safe' job of many years, as well as hero (owning my power for a new career) and mage (leaving behind my attachment to current status quo). So many ways to look at one change, and I'm curious to consider how these varying roles can support one overall arc in my life.
Ooh, fantastic! This is exactly how I think we should “use” these stories. As archetypal, surely most of what goes on when we engage with this material will be unconscious, but I think there’s a lot of value in consciously “trying the journeys on for size”. And yes, as far as I’m concerned, this is *so* much easier when we remove the gender factor 🩶
I think that’s wrong. If you "de-gender" stories, you make it harder for either gender to connect with them. Instead, people of all genders should write stories that reflect their perspectives. Trying to de-gender past stories often just ruins them and betrays the intent of the author.
I love this! I just closed out a Tenderfoot-Warrior cycle. The reintegration into society part is important! But i also seem to be in the other 4 passes atm. Thank you
Oh! Congratulations on acting closure on whatever that Tenderfoot-Warrior cycle was about. I’m sure that was a big deal! And thanks for watching and commenting! 🤩
This is hard! I feel like I’ve always kept the childlike wonder alive, and yet I have found myself being blindsided by old storylines from my maiden hood that feel like a death and rebirth over and over again. However, I’m 31 now and feel pulled to leadership. The lessons are still there, and are deeply personal, but I find myself in a position where I keep being called to a higher form of leadership within my job. Though I do desire other things, this pattern has been showing up throughout my whole journey. Desiring to maintain my free spirit and also stepping up as a leader.
Brilliant! My few months away fro age 60 and I see my life's journey so accurately fits to the new archetypal segments presented here. I'm a deep thinker and writer. So it's not as if I haven't pondered much every day my life's experiences. These constructs are the clarity - developmentally - I'VE NOT BEEN AbLE TO ARTICULATE ON my own. So again, brilliant!
You speak Common Sense, a rare and increasingly endangered language. I suspect you also speak Adult. Please keep it up; we need your multi-lingual voice.
Your channel has some of the only workups I've seen as to what happens AFTER the hero's journey. As this is a definite set of phases in my current life, I find this quite valuable. I also am fascinated with your treatment of what happens on failure of each of these journeys as life is often filled with these failures where we, hopefully only temporarily, become the villain of the story. Please keep up with these aspects as no one else appears to be doing them.
Truly fascinating. This is one of the first of your videos that I've watched, and I feel it gives me not only incredible insight on the culture of stories, but also on life itself. For many years I've also been developing ideas for a science-fiction novel I want to write, set in a positive and progressive future. I've often wondered if there are alternatives to the hero's journey archetype that I've so commonly heard of, which was so commonly masculine. If I'm writing about a positive and progressive future, then I believe it should be one where we've moved beyond today's common binary views on gender. I feel like your gender-neutral archetypes are the solution I should look to as I write my novel. Considering that I am also someone who has loved stories my whole life, as well as the craft of storytelling, and your Betwixt app works on the premise of looking at your life as a story, it seems really worth my while to check that out as well! And I'll definitely watch more of your videos! Thank you!!!
I left Act 1 a few years ago, individuating from my family of origin, after i moved back in with my parents. One parent died, the other now estranged and i got away from domestic abu$e. Act 2 began when i started my own parenting journey and had to advocate my kids' disability support needs when others were dismissive or just harmful and made life miserable. I might be at a point now towards the end of act 2 where I'm nurturing my own needs, am at greater capacity to handle change and support dependents, and am able to think strategically about how to balance personal gains (in interests and career) with whole-family needs. And yet i feel like I've started another act 2 as a late dx neurodivergent person, finding their community and unmasked self. 😅
The Hero's Journey is a process the individual goes through to grow, learn, and change. The Hero in the Journey is from a different set of Archetypes than the one that includes the Hero as one of the 12 roughly sketched out by Jung and detailed by Joseph Campbell afterward. All 12 of Campbell's interpretations of Jung's archetypes can both be found in, and can progress through the complete Hero cycle. By contrast, the Hero specifically connected to the name of the Journey cycle derives from the Persona, Shadow, Self, Anima/Animus, and Hero set, which already transcends gender considerations. All six of them travel the circle together because they all exist simultaneously within the traveler.
Yes, this is true of Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces (I mention this in the first video). What I’m talking about here is the Hero’s Journey as the three-act story structure we see in movies, etc. This particular archetype corresponds to Campbell’s “the Hero as Warrior” (which is why I went with Warrior here). Campbell’s stages were all gender neutral, which I appreciate greatly.
That said, both Campbell’s and Jung’s theories were steeped in the patriarchal values and perspectives of their time. Campbell, when asked about the masc-leaning nature of his recommended journey, famously suggested that women didn’t need to take the Hero’s Journey (no growth needed for us, apparently. We just… are). And I highly doubt Jung’s theories on the anima/animus would be the same if he were around today. Gender roles have changed hugely, and this means our expression of these archetypes have too. I love this quote from Jung’s “Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious” (on the meaning of myth in a changing world): “the best we can do is dream the myth forward and give it modern dress” 🩶
Honestly I love these so much. It really evokes setting out on an adventure and that it is intended as a progression. The terms are so much more descriptive too and maybe easier to grasp the meaning of because they aren't so culturally encumbered. It's also like learning the language of a fantasy novel, which is really powerful. It's very easy for me to envision myself in the shoes of a Tenderfoot heading out for an unexpected journey. Whereas before I think some of the gendered language was exclusionary to at least someone at any point as far as placing yourself along this path. You just unlocked DLC for everyone. Great work! And thank you! I'm excited about this journey!
It depends on whether we’re talking about conscious or unconscious desire - consciously, we crave growth and purpose, and very often wish to change our lives in some way, but unconsciously we cling to the safety and certainty of sameness, even when more of the same would be a miserable experience. This conflict is at the root of why people can struggle to let go of damaging addictions, fears, limiting beliefs or abusive relationships, etc.
The two that resonate the most today to me are the Queen and the Mage, but I don't feel like facing any real challenge indeed... The difference between those two is not very clear to me though, because I understand that the Mage will be a Luminary per se. But eventually the Luminary is much more indentified with the physical realm than the Mage is...
Yes, I think that's a good way of putting it. The Luminary is much more bound to the world and, in particular, to those they love. The challenge of letting go is similar, but the Luminary does this in order to connect in a more mature way to those they love and, ultimately, to lead them on their journeys through the world. The Mage, however, is letting go in much more of a fundamental way to all ego attachments.
If the end goal is to integrate the masculine and feminine psyche, I would think it important to leave the archetypes as gendered so that each phase balances out the previous one.
I’ve thought about this a lot and I did struggle at the beginning to give up the genders. But, ultimately, masculine doesn’t mean male (some women can naturally express more masculinity than some men, for example), and feminine doesn’t mean female either (ditto). So we really don’t need the characters to have the corresponding outward gender in order to express the traits, and I just think it’s too much of a barrier. I can’t imagine huge numbers of cis men rushing to explore their inner Maidens and see if they’ve walked that path.
@@Betwixt_App I can understand how that could be a barrier for some people, yeah. I guess I'm just a bit weary of the devaluing of the gender polarity lately. I'm a woman who is fairly androgenous in personality and looks to a degree, but it's always been a journey for me of learning to appreciate masculinity and femininity, and I value both.
Oh, absolutely! This is exactly how I feel, it’s just that I believe the non-binary archetypal characters promote and enable acceptance of both masculine and feminine aspects of the psyche, whereas the gendered ones exclude/alienate people, cause arguments, and send incorrect messages about what it means to be male or female (because to be female is not to be feminine, and to be male is not to be masculine. We all need both). With gender-neutral archetypes, the reader/onlooker can always imagine the archetypal character in their own gender, which means they’re accessible. What’s interesting to me is that if I’d just picked a bunch of gender-neutral archetypes to explore and never mentioned gender, no one would have a problem. Carol Pearson’s book “Awakening the Heroes Within” does exactly this (12 Jungian archetypes, all gender neutral), and because they aren’t presented as alternatives, people accept them without a second thought. Gender is just such an emotional tropic, which makes this all the more important as far as I’m concerned.
@@Betwixt_App curious how much of our "hang ups" seem to stem from language. Some languages don't have as much gendered terminology and I'm always keen to learn HOW that might change their interpretation of the same questions 🤔 Edit to add* and what of the many many cultures that had/ have multiple genders historically as PART of their society..... how do THEY discuss these concepts?
Seer and Tenderfoot struck out for me. Healing things from my childhood that I didn't see as harmful until I healed my adult trauma. Tenderfoot along with the Warrior and Sovereign, prepare the path for the Seer and their initiation. The Rite of Integration where all will be a synergistic whole.
Yep! You can check the show notes for some book recommendations about the archetypes and arcs, and I’ll be sharing more in-depth explorations of these particular arcs over the rest of this series, too. We have 12 videos on the way, starting with the Tenderfoot’s first video tomorrow.
Is there a Skeptic or a Doubter's journey to Believer? The kind of arc that involves learning to trust one's intuition, or to believe in magic or the spirit world. It feels like a varianr of the Seer... with the Void as a sort of Death, perhaps?
First off I have to say that Betwixt is brilliant, so kudos to you for that! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 This video is fantastic and hopefully we are arriving at place where the culture can begin to understand this. Even early and late 20th century Jungians realized that an integrated androgynous psyche was the goal, but I think they were constrained by the language they had access to the the extremely enforced patriarchy they and their clients/patients lived in. Thus early Jungians were forced to be very gender specific, like Toni Wolf with her archetypes applied only to women: the Amazon, the Mother, the Hetaira, and the Medial Woman. Later 20th century works like “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” while geared exclusively to men, acknowledged the importance of the integration of the Anima and stated that simply changing “King” to “Queen” would make the archetypes as applicable to women. (Interestingly, I have seen some shifts in modern reference to these in pop culture. Tony Robbins for example uses “Sovereign” instead of King/Queen when he refers to archetypes in order to make it gender neutral.) Aside from de-gendering, another area we can look at is decolonizing the archetypes. Some non-Western systems like the Vedic archetypes (ashramas) are already non-gendered: Brahmacharya (Student), Grihastha (Householder), Vanaprastha (Forest Dweller), and Sannyasa (Ascetic). I’m looking forward to more videos from your channel!!! 👍🏽🤓
This is a fascinating comment, thank you! I think there was/is an important place for the gendered archetypes too, particularly the female ones, as I don’t think we could jump straight from patriarchal misogyny to gender neutrality without serious losses. Femininity and women/girls need to be elevated first. That said, it’ll be a while (understatement) before we can say that work is done, and I think the enby stuff now needs to happen alongside that fight. I didn’t know Robbins used Sovereign! It is the best option, for sure. I used Monarch for a while but it was just too… dry. And re Jungians and anima/animus - I think Jung was miles ahead with him views on the anima/animus, although his expression of those views was slightly jarring on occasion! But I very much doubt his opinions would be identical if he was alive now. To me, it only makes sense to believe that we all have both an animus and anima, rather than only having the one in opposition to our outwardly expressed gender. Thanks so much for this comment!! And I’m thrilled you’re enjoying Betwixt!!
@@Betwixt_AppI completely agree with you that there is a place for gendered archetypes. Firstly, since soooooo much has been written geared towards men and just have “man” or "he" as the default, whatever is out there that is geared towards women is very important, among other things for empowering women to see themselves more directly in the what is being represented. And secondly, I personally (especially as a cis man) just like the notion (as you say at the beginning of this video) that going back and forth between the two poles strengthens psychological fluidity and growth towards a more integrated psyche. (The notion that a Pawn becomes a Queen by making it to the other side of the chessboard must come from somewhere! 😃) And perhaps some LGBTQ+ people are better able to access this because we are already "transgressing" societal norms and expectations and/or have grappled with issues of identity during adolescence. But yeah, as you’ve mentioned in some of the comments, and as I’ve heard anecdotally from those in practice, there are just a lot of clients/patients that have difficulty (or just actively resist) seeing themselves in an archetype if it doesn’t match their gender. And omg so much of the older literature has to be read with an understanding that their language around gender (and queerness) was… limited. 😮💨 Thank you so much for starting this channel!!! 🙏🏽
@@phil0rms Jungian psychology, mainly. I don’t mean that we literally become the characters of the books, films or games we engage with. I mean that the archetypes expressed in such narratives are an innate part of who we are, and that we can either bring them into conscious awareness and use these aspects healthily and positively, or we can leave them in the shadow (the unconscious), where they work through us in, usually, much darker ways.
I find the perspective as briliant! Congratulations for the discovery and ideas! Can it also happen that they are not linear but mixed during our lifetime?
Oh, definitely! I think we could feasibly be on all six journeys at once, and we won’t complete them in the archetypal way each time, either. But there’s just something so powerful about engaging with the stories in full, no matter how twisted or diluted our real-life versions might be 🩶
I would love to see a different story that is compelling and successful. Ideally.. Without using too many inaccurate excuses if it isn’t… (or else… we can of course correct without facing what’s most uncomfortable and what needs improvement). But the hero’s journey, when done well, captivates us because… we are living it in any number of ways. On the micro cosmic and macro. As far as I’m aware, story telling is our oldest modality of conveying memetic information. Apart from that.,. Joesph Campbell (hero with a thousand faces)… and so on.
Absolutely not. We can be on any of these paths at any stage in life, and technically we need to have completed the previous arcs to fully inhabit the Sovereign (or Monarch) archetype. And unfortunately, most of us won’t do that. But it is an option, and we’re more likely to be there if we’re middle-aged than if we’re younger.
Archetypes are expressing the collective human experience hence archetypes.. You are just very accommodating. Good luck with this you come across as a decent person . Let's hope people with mental issues don't totally reject therapy over a person ' s point of view of universal truths, symbols and archetypes. Huge responsibility.
I would have categorized Neo as a hero instead of a maiden. He powered up and left home in order to rescue his love interest, and then at the end of the series of movies he delivered the power he acquired on his journey back to his home team by renegotiating the deal between the Matrix-dwelling humans and the machines. So what happened to Neo during those movies that was more maiden than hero? Neo's escape from the Matrix at the beginning of the first movie was instigated by someone else. Maybe the claim is that Neo was a maiden during the first movie only? The image of Neo offered in this video wasn't from the first movie, IIRC. He didn't fly around much then. I was hoping that you were going to suggest new paths to take. It is less interesting to relabel the existing paths to make them gender neutral, given that you offered examples showing that they weren't overwhelmingly gendered to start with. Dorothy couldn't have been a hero if heroes were always male. It isn't obvious that using a less gendered word for "hero" would have helped Dorothy given that neither the old word nor the new word were ever used in Dorothy's presence.
I think this is a wonderful concept! The only thing for future reference is I would also add a real-life example for each archetype to make it a bit easier to understand too: Like, “this is what we experience when we need to move away from the situation that feels too small for us, PAR EXAMPLE: when you want to move out to live on your own, but your parents aren’t ready to accept that you’re an adult now & don’t want to let you go - so you have to learn to prioritize your reasonable needs over other people’s feelings about them”. That way it’s easier to grasp the concept/ground it in real life, but also to relate to it ❤️
Ah, yes! I do this a bit more in the videos that are still to come where I’m going into each archetype (along with their antagonists, shadow selves, and the all important Lie vs Truth). But if I’m honest, I could have gone heavier on the examples even in those vids. I was trying to be mindful of time 😬
I intend to play Betwixt soon (I'm captured by the positive, social game Sky: Children of the Light) But I'm going into game dev from 3D animation, and I want to make more positive games like Sky. So this video speaks very deeply to my soul right now! If there's a game dev community out there for positive, social, or mental health games, please please share!
Oooh!! I love this! Betwixt is a text-based game (by design - it’s important to leave space for the imagination) but… I’d love to experiment with a visual version (possibly in VR). If you have any thoughts after playing, please let me know! And I don’t know of a community of that ilk, unfortunately. I wish I did!
@@Betwixt_Applet's stay in touch after I play Betwixt. I've been doing a ton of study on how to build a standard story into a 3D game. (Hint: start with game mechanics - the parts between the story beats. In Sky it's flying and collecting, Horizon and RDR2 it's riding and fighting, in TLoU, it's stealth and fighting.) Would love to find a way to collaborate (if I can figure out how to get my bills paid too!)
I love these new names! They still extract the power the gendered terms while making them more accessible to people of either, neither, or both embodiments. Very cool! Also, it still strikes me as fascinating that the stories of the Christ and the Buddha so accurately line up with the Seer and Mage archetypes. No wonder I (and many others) am inspired by their tales and words! Thanks for the great videos!
Oh, totally! Jung believed that all myth, religious and primitive stories were born *out* of archetypal psychic contents. He reasoned that the fact that the same motifs and characters recurred countlessly in different cultures and geographies suggested that these stories are innate and that they pre-date our religious texts, etc - that those stories were written based on projections of what we already understood unconsciously. It’s fascinating stuff!
Love this video!! Really appreciate the de-gendering of these archtypes which to me feels like it gives them an even more mythic quality. I've always felt the obsession with the hero's journey was off. I remember as a child we'd play pretend and all the boys were falling over themselves trying to be the hero and avenge one another. Everybody wanted to be the saviour, nobody wanted to be saved. They'd get into fights over it. Social harmony requires people to be willing to be fluid with their roles and the meaning they bring to a situation. When we privilege one role above all others, we create a rigidity within people that can lead to conflict. It's also very boring haha 😹
100000% I absolutely agree with all of this. We need to be able to change roles in order to adapt to different environments and stages of life, too. This is very hard when anything other than the Hero is considered lesser
@@Betwixt_App Yeah totally! I'm glad you agree 😊 I'm a fan of your videos. Personally I felt the tenderfoot arc type resonated for me the most. Or at least, it's the one I yearn for most deeply. I have spend a lot of my life trying to support and please my family. I love them dearly, but I long to spend some time away and get to experience the world and meet new people.
@@Betwixt_App I believe so ☺I moved out on my own at the start of the year. And I've made a new friend who's amazing and she seems to want to meet new people too. I still have some family commitments, but I'm feeling really excited about my future!
I really don't like that you take this universal tropes and turn it into activism. You are free to do it of course but spoils otherwise great channel. World needs more heroes, young people are weak and afraid to take responsibility, which suits corporations and totalitarian governments to have infantile subjects who are only concerned about gender and pronouns. I prefer people who can carve their own destiny and change the world to their liking, how you are doing here for example.
I don’t see this as activism, actually. I think it’s (really, really) psychologically important that we move beyond the archaic gender roles of patriarchal society, which is all so very out of date. Jung (who most definitely wasn’t a feminist activist 😂) strongly advocated for the importance of wholeness and integration of psychic contexts, *in particular* the contrasexual aspects of the psyche. This means accepting both our masculine and feminine sides/traits, which is to say: striving for psychological androgyny. In a world that is so hung up on gender (as you so rightly point out), though, we can’t expect men to willingly embrace their inner Maidens or, even, women to fully and easily embrace their inner Kings. The barriers are just to tall. And so I truly believe that stripping gender away from important and transformative archetypal stories is a necessary step 🩶
But, you can overlay the hero’s journey onto any specific context, whether the hero is a man, woman, gender-fluid, intersex, or a completely asexual automaton. One can add “queer” themes to a story without even affecting the archetypes of the hero’s journey.
Yes, agreed (hence my listing Dorothy Gale in the Wizard of Oz as an example of the Hero's Journey). But any Hero arc will always promote and elevate traditionally masculine aspects of the psyche regardless of the protagonist's gender, and we dramatise this arc far, far more often than any of the others, which means we have an unhealthy societal bias for the Hero and his macho values, which we could to challenge. However, the main reason I'm queering the archetypes here is for the sake of the discussion I'm setting up. There are 12 videos to come in this series, exploring six character arcs and archetypes (three of which are masculine and three of which are feminine). All six of these journeys are important for people of all genders, but because of the emotional baggage attached to gender in our culture, it's a challenge for a cis man to fully identify with the Crone, for example, or to embrace his inner Maiden. Furthermore, because our society has downgraded all traditionally feminine traits, we unconsciously perceive the female characters' journeys as less important, which isn't the case. So, I've de-gendered them to remove these barriers and also to open all paths up for non-binary folk :-)
Thank you for clarifying that for me, I was worried that you were going to try to augment the main steps of the hero’s journey, like changing “the belly of the beast” to “identity confusion” or something like that. Because, changing the cadence of the hero’s journey is when we start losing the accessibility of that archetype. So, again thank you for doing the good work, but please keep an eye on what is irreducible in all this.
Also, Sky: CotL is structured around the stages of life (infancy, childhood, teenhood, adulthood, midlife, wisdom, death/rebirth.) These are utterly devoid of gender. I wonder if your archetypes could be strutured more like this? (They still have echos of the genders, and still put archetypes associated with masculine traits more advanced to feminine. Not unlike the Tarot archetypes.) I wish we could just erase gender. (Abd race.) :(
I have Sky on my phone but I’m yet to fully grasp it. This sounds very intriguing! And I’d love to erase gender and race, too. I do think it’s helpful to recognise the difference between what are considered masculine and feminine traits and states (because to have one without the other is to deprive ourselves of life and wholeness), but it’s not at all helpful that they have become so closely associated with “male” and “female”, which is not the same thing. So, while I think it’s helpful and important to observe the oscillation between individuation (masc) and integration (fem) during the journey of these six archetypes - because without that, the characters wouldn’t be able to go through the important transitions of their development - I think it’s vital that the characters themselves be gender neutral.
(I wrote a lovely, long reply, which got deleted when I switched to get a Sky friend code! So let me take care of that first, then try again!) I give these out like candy in the game, because I'm now a bit of an elder player: 6183-MXJA-BRB3 (edit: click the upper right to reveal the gear menu. Open the gear and click "Sky codes." Enter it there.) This only connects us in the game. Nothing is revealed by accepting, not even a username. This will allow us to hold hands and it opens chat. If it's invalid, either I had to reuse it for another player, or someone here used it first! Just ask for another. Again, I give these out like candy in game, to save spending the candles I collect. I won't be hurt if you don't use it.❤ I'd love to explore Sky and discuss this very topic in the context of games and game dev! Ok, now I'll rewrite my deleted post in a fresh reply...
I love the idea of "individuation" and "integration." It echos Dr. Deborah Tannen's book _You Just Don't Understand_ which was formative in my youth. Perhaps _pairing_ them is what implies the hierarchy, where placing them on more of an alternating continuum feels less like one is more advanced than the other. I've also been thinking of "inner/emotional' world and "outer/physical" world. There are journeys where you need to grow inside (like Kiki's Delivery Service) and ones where you need to act (most other hero stories.) This would also explain why men can struggle in our society - masculine is associated with external action, and shuns internal reflection, and you can't get the internal work done by acting out. Dr. Montessori grouped 3 years together, and also 6 years together (based on Jung who was her contemporary.) What I've noticed working with children is that the first 3 years are _absorptive_ and the second are _expressive._ For instance, 6-9yos are hungry to learn, but 9-12yo are restless to _apply_ that learning. Infants absorb how to move their bodies, and preschoolers use their bodies with purpose. Middle school is all about absorbing social place, and high school is about making that place for yourself, through apprenticeships. Maslow's hierarchy puts the two physical needs lower on the hierarchy than the two emotional needs. Self Actualization and Self Transcendence are cognitive needs and expressions.
As for Sky, there's a lot to that game - it's complicated in a similar way that life is complicated: there's just a lot of tasks to do! Focus on one at a time: at first, to open the map, make your way to each realm's temple. Then you can return any time. As you make your way, release spirits using your light. To get help from other players, use the ? expression (click the yellow fan at the top for the expression menu). Releasing spirits gives you expressions you can use to communicate. Finding spirits will also help you find Light Children. These give you more power to fly. (These become important later.) Along the way, you will collect light from Red Candles, and from burning Darkness. These create candles which are the "money" in the game. When you start, spend your candles making as many friends as possible to help you. Yes, every single gray child you see is an actual real person! Take their hand and let them lead you and _don't feel obligated to reciprocate._ They were once guided by an elder player, just as they are offering to guide you now. And don't be hurt if they turn you down - they're often busy with their own goals. There's more, but that is the core: make friends, make friends, make friends! Sky is an absolutely fascinating game in the genre of "can games make the world a better place?"
This is all super interesting! I’ll give the code a try in Sky when I have a little time. And all the polarities: masc/fem, active/introspective, day/night, etc., are just so interesting to me. I love your observation of this oscillation in children! That’s a fabulous thing. To me, this inhale/exhale pattern when moving through the archetypal journeys was very much a lightbulb moment. Historically, I (like so many “father’s daughters”) have struggled to accept my feminine side. As I’ve matured (and also matured my understanding of the word feminine), this has become easier, and integrating both the active and the receptive in myself has brought with it wisdom, peace, confidence, creativity… really, the list is endless. I have a long way to go, of course, but I guess my hope is that these enby archetypal arcs can help (both me and others) on this integrative path.
Now your channel is on the do not recommend list. Sorry to see you go, but there is no credibility to your point of view after this. It diverges from science and rational, evidence based thought.
![Have you passed one of life's very first tests? [Tenderfoot 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Zd1kqCdp0Rc/mqdefault.jpg)
![How to avoid getting "possessed" by your submissive shadow [Tenderfoot 2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/shyd34TbubM/mqdefault.jpg)
This is a really great point. In order for stories to do what stories are meant to do: teach, one must be able to identify with the characters themselves. That... hasn't always been the case for people like me. I'm nonbinary, and I can tell you, the first time I accidentally stumbled upon a story with a queer, gender-nonconforming protagonist I devoured that book like someone dying of thirst in the desert. The connection was so much stronger, especially since the book was written by a nonbinary person, and they just *got* it. Now I seek such stories out. I hadn't, until I found that book, realized how important that was.
Besides, relating to a story is in some ways, like relating to the larger world and society: if you feel part of the story, the world, it's easier to feel like you belong there.
Thanks for making this a part of your mission. Especially with how hostile the world is to nonbinary and trans people in general at this moment in history, this was a refreshing take on storytelling and mental health.
Your channel is quickly becoming one of my favorites- amazing, enlightening and grounded content ❤❤
Oh, thank you!! And welcome!! 🤩
@@Betwixt_App thank you! 💖
As someone who loved fantasy stories as a kid, but could never engage with the " win, kill, conquer " vibe of most adult opportunities to engage with mythos i really appreciate this articulation. Excellent!
As someone who is way more on the save the dragon, learn to understand the dragon side of things, ive always struggled with the traditional " warrior" too. and the heirachical nature, those are probably the main things that dont work for me.
But i see this as also being a way to engage with all the antagonists as actual internal aspects of one self as much as the protagonist. They might be represented/ personified by externalities, true but i think this is a interesting lens through which to investigate ones own messy fantastical internal world 🤔🥰
Ah, yes! This is exactly my take. I hope you enjoy the rest of the series! I’ll post the first Tebderfoot video tomorrow 🩶
My favorite "heroes" are what I call "superhealers." These are not fighting against a "bad guy" but against an idea.
Opposition comes from good people who don't understand. Winning is helping them understand and _folding them into your fight._
Stories like How to Train Your Dragon, Nausicaa, and the Horizon Zero Dawn game series.
There aren't many of these, but they are the most important stories to me.
Oh, yes!! This is such a beautiful summary. I’d love to see more of these.
Have you read the Wayfarers books by Becky Chambers? They are a wonderful example of kind, accepting and “bad guy” free sci-fi. They’re among my fave books of all time.
@@Betwixt_Appchecking out now!
Beautifully said! - I made a ham fisted attempt to express something similar, yours is much more on point. Thank you!
@@melusine826 wow, so I'm not the only one who realized there are these types of stories being told!
Do you have any more to add to the list (that I haven't seen?)
I just started reading Becky Chambers and am loving those books! There are two books by Cory Doctorow (The Walkaway and The Lost Cause) that are close to this style, they have more adversity in them but the protagonists arc is about learning to step out of the conflict and into that place of “folding them into your light”.
What a fresh take! It's so important to de-gender these archetypes and add the additional nuance, as you're doing here. I found it helpful to see ways I'm in tenderfoot AND seer in my current journey to leave a 'safe' job of many years, as well as hero (owning my power for a new career) and mage (leaving behind my attachment to current status quo). So many ways to look at one change, and I'm curious to consider how these varying roles can support one overall arc in my life.
Ooh, fantastic! This is exactly how I think we should “use” these stories. As archetypal, surely most of what goes on when we engage with this material will be unconscious, but I think there’s a lot of value in consciously “trying the journeys on for size”. And yes, as far as I’m concerned, this is *so* much easier when we remove the gender factor 🩶
I think that’s wrong. If you "de-gender" stories, you make it harder for either gender to connect with them. Instead, people of all genders should write stories that reflect their perspectives. Trying to de-gender past stories often just ruins them and betrays the intent of the author.
Yes! I just wrote about the hero’s journey and used the fool from the tarot as an alternative. I love this.
That’s exactly what I felt
I love this! I just closed out a Tenderfoot-Warrior cycle. The reintegration into society part is important! But i also seem to be in the other 4 passes atm.
Thank you
Oh! Congratulations on acting closure on whatever that Tenderfoot-Warrior cycle was about. I’m sure that was a big deal!
And thanks for watching and commenting! 🤩
This is hard! I feel like I’ve always kept the childlike wonder alive, and yet I have found myself being blindsided by old storylines from my maiden hood that feel like a death and rebirth over and over again. However, I’m 31 now and feel pulled to leadership. The lessons are still there, and are deeply personal, but I find myself in a position where I keep being called to a higher form of leadership within my job. Though I do desire other things, this pattern has been showing up throughout my whole journey. Desiring to maintain my free spirit and also stepping up as a leader.
I hadn't considered that the androgynous nature of Sazed in Mystborn was one of the very qualities that appealed to me.
Brilliant! My few months away fro age 60 and I see my life's journey so accurately fits to the new archetypal segments presented here. I'm a deep thinker and writer. So it's not as if I haven't pondered much every day my life's experiences. These constructs are the clarity - developmentally - I'VE NOT BEEN AbLE TO ARTICULATE ON my own. So again, brilliant!
Oh, this is so great to hear. Thank you!! I hope you enjoy the rest of the series!
You speak Common Sense, a rare and increasingly endangered language. I suspect you also speak Adult. Please keep it up; we need your multi-lingual voice.
Hahaha! I’m only semi-proficient at Adult, I’m afraid. I still do too many swears and inappropriate innuendos 🫢
Your channel has some of the only workups I've seen as to what happens AFTER the hero's journey. As this is a definite set of phases in my current life, I find this quite valuable. I also am fascinated with your treatment of what happens on failure of each of these journeys as life is often filled with these failures where we, hopefully only temporarily, become the villain of the story. Please keep up with these aspects as no one else appears to be doing them.
This is so crazy! You created something so unique here I thank you with all my heart!!
Truly fascinating. This is one of the first of your videos that I've watched, and I feel it gives me not only incredible insight on the culture of stories, but also on life itself.
For many years I've also been developing ideas for a science-fiction novel I want to write, set in a positive and progressive future. I've often wondered if there are alternatives to the hero's journey archetype that I've so commonly heard of, which was so commonly masculine. If I'm writing about a positive and progressive future, then I believe it should be one where we've moved beyond today's common binary views on gender. I feel like your gender-neutral archetypes are the solution I should look to as I write my novel.
Considering that I am also someone who has loved stories my whole life, as well as the craft of storytelling, and your Betwixt app works on the premise of looking at your life as a story, it seems really worth my while to check that out as well!
And I'll definitely watch more of your videos! Thank you!!!
I left Act 1 a few years ago, individuating from my family of origin, after i moved back in with my parents. One parent died, the other now estranged and i got away from domestic abu$e. Act 2 began when i started my own parenting journey and had to advocate my kids' disability support needs when others were dismissive or just harmful and made life miserable. I might be at a point now towards the end of act 2 where I'm nurturing my own needs, am at greater capacity to handle change and support dependents, and am able to think strategically about how to balance personal gains (in interests and career) with whole-family needs. And yet i feel like I've started another act 2 as a late dx neurodivergent person, finding their community and unmasked self. 😅
OMG, love these new names!
Thank you! Me too!
Love your material. Love your presentation. Thank you.
Thank you!
The Hero's Journey is a process the individual goes through to grow, learn, and change. The Hero in the Journey is from a different set of Archetypes than the one that includes the Hero as one of the 12 roughly sketched out by Jung and detailed by Joseph Campbell afterward. All 12 of Campbell's interpretations of Jung's archetypes can both be found in, and can progress through the complete Hero cycle. By contrast, the Hero specifically connected to the name of the Journey cycle derives from the Persona, Shadow, Self, Anima/Animus, and Hero set, which already transcends gender considerations. All six of them travel the circle together because they all exist simultaneously within the traveler.
Yes, this is true of Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces (I mention this in the first video). What I’m talking about here is the Hero’s Journey as the three-act story structure we see in movies, etc. This particular archetype corresponds to Campbell’s “the Hero as Warrior” (which is why I went with Warrior here). Campbell’s stages were all gender neutral, which I appreciate greatly.
That said, both Campbell’s and Jung’s theories were steeped in the patriarchal values and perspectives of their time. Campbell, when asked about the masc-leaning nature of his recommended journey, famously suggested that women didn’t need to take the Hero’s Journey (no growth needed for us, apparently. We just… are). And I highly doubt Jung’s theories on the anima/animus would be the same if he were around today. Gender roles have changed hugely, and this means our expression of these archetypes have too.
I love this quote from Jung’s “Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious” (on the meaning of myth in a changing world): “the best we can do is dream the myth forward and give it modern dress” 🩶
Nice intellectual discussion that I appreciate. But I must say I love knowing about the Campbells work. But this is a new perspective.
Honestly I love these so much. It really evokes setting out on an adventure and that it is intended as a progression. The terms are so much more descriptive too and maybe easier to grasp the meaning of because they aren't so culturally encumbered. It's also like learning the language of a fantasy novel, which is really powerful. It's very easy for me to envision myself in the shoes of a Tenderfoot heading out for an unexpected journey. Whereas before I think some of the gendered language was exclusionary to at least someone at any point as far as placing yourself along this path. You just unlocked DLC for everyone. Great work! And thank you! I'm excited about this journey!
Your content is amazing. I'm just realizing I'm going through the mage arch after just finishing the seer arch. Thanks for opening my eyes
Oh, wonderful! Thanks so much 🩶
This is genius. You’re very talented. This should be a book.
I thought more people don't want change than do want change and growth that's why nostalgia so attractive right?
It depends on whether we’re talking about conscious or unconscious desire - consciously, we crave growth and purpose, and very often wish to change our lives in some way, but unconsciously we cling to the safety and certainty of sameness, even when more of the same would be a miserable experience. This conflict is at the root of why people can struggle to let go of damaging addictions, fears, limiting beliefs or abusive relationships, etc.
I’m so glad you showed up in my recommendations, this is a needed perspective and I’m looking forward to checking out more of your work!
I’m glad, too!
With the contrasts of our current politicans' models of masculinity and strength, this feels even more acute.
The two that resonate the most today to me are the Queen and the Mage, but I don't feel like facing any real challenge indeed... The difference between those two is not very clear to me though, because I understand that the Mage will be a Luminary per se. But eventually the Luminary is much more indentified with the physical realm than the Mage is...
Yes, I think that's a good way of putting it. The Luminary is much more bound to the world and, in particular, to those they love. The challenge of letting go is similar, but the Luminary does this in order to connect in a more mature way to those they love and, ultimately, to lead them on their journeys through the world. The Mage, however, is letting go in much more of a fundamental way to all ego attachments.
If the end goal is to integrate the masculine and feminine psyche, I would think it important to leave the archetypes as gendered so that each phase balances out the previous one.
I’ve thought about this a lot and I did struggle at the beginning to give up the genders. But, ultimately, masculine doesn’t mean male (some women can naturally express more masculinity than some men, for example), and feminine doesn’t mean female either (ditto).
So we really don’t need the characters to have the corresponding outward gender in order to express the traits, and I just think it’s too much of a barrier. I can’t imagine huge numbers of cis men rushing to explore their inner Maidens and see if they’ve walked that path.
@@Betwixt_App I can understand how that could be a barrier for some people, yeah. I guess I'm just a bit weary of the devaluing of the gender polarity lately. I'm a woman who is fairly androgenous in personality and looks to a degree, but it's always been a journey for me of learning to appreciate masculinity and femininity, and I value both.
Oh, absolutely! This is exactly how I feel, it’s just that I believe the non-binary archetypal characters promote and enable acceptance of both masculine and feminine aspects of the psyche, whereas the gendered ones exclude/alienate people, cause arguments, and send incorrect messages about what it means to be male or female (because to be female is not to be feminine, and to be male is not to be masculine. We all need both).
With gender-neutral archetypes, the reader/onlooker can always imagine the archetypal character in their own gender, which means they’re accessible.
What’s interesting to me is that if I’d just picked a bunch of gender-neutral archetypes to explore and never mentioned gender, no one would have a problem. Carol Pearson’s book “Awakening the Heroes Within” does exactly this (12 Jungian archetypes, all gender neutral), and because they aren’t presented as alternatives, people accept them without a second thought. Gender is just such an emotional tropic, which makes this all the more important as far as I’m concerned.
@@Betwixt_App curious how much of our "hang ups" seem to stem from language. Some languages don't have as much gendered terminology and I'm always keen to learn HOW that might change their interpretation of the same questions 🤔
Edit to add* and what of the many many cultures that had/ have multiple genders historically as PART of their society..... how do THEY discuss these concepts?
Seer and Tenderfoot struck out for me. Healing things from my childhood that I didn't see as harmful until I healed my adult trauma. Tenderfoot along with the Warrior and Sovereign, prepare the path for the Seer and their initiation. The Rite of Integration where all will be a synergistic whole.
Yes!! Beautifully put 🩶
This is really cool. Do you have suggestions for resources where I can learn more about the arcs you discussed at the end?
Yep! You can check the show notes for some book recommendations about the archetypes and arcs, and I’ll be sharing more in-depth explorations of these particular arcs over the rest of this series, too. We have 12 videos on the way, starting with the Tenderfoot’s first video tomorrow.
This is a really good take and makes sense.
Is there a Skeptic or a Doubter's journey to Believer? The kind of arc that involves learning to trust one's intuition, or to believe in magic or the spirit world. It feels like a varianr of the Seer... with the Void as a sort of Death, perhaps?
First off I have to say that Betwixt is brilliant, so kudos to you for that! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
This video is fantastic and hopefully we are arriving at place where the culture can begin to understand this. Even early and late 20th century Jungians realized that an integrated androgynous psyche was the goal, but I think they were constrained by the language they had access to the the extremely enforced patriarchy they and their clients/patients lived in.
Thus early Jungians were forced to be very gender specific, like Toni Wolf with her archetypes applied only to women: the Amazon, the Mother, the Hetaira, and the Medial Woman. Later 20th century works like “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” while geared exclusively to men, acknowledged the importance of the integration of the Anima and stated that simply changing “King” to “Queen” would make the archetypes as applicable to women. (Interestingly, I have seen some shifts in modern reference to these in pop culture. Tony Robbins for example uses “Sovereign” instead of King/Queen when he refers to archetypes in order to make it gender neutral.)
Aside from de-gendering, another area we can look at is decolonizing the archetypes. Some non-Western systems like the Vedic archetypes (ashramas) are already non-gendered: Brahmacharya (Student), Grihastha (Householder), Vanaprastha (Forest Dweller), and Sannyasa (Ascetic).
I’m looking forward to more videos from your channel!!! 👍🏽🤓
This is a fascinating comment, thank you! I think there was/is an important place for the gendered archetypes too, particularly the female ones, as I don’t think we could jump straight from patriarchal misogyny to gender neutrality without serious losses. Femininity and women/girls need to be elevated first. That said, it’ll be a while (understatement) before we can say that work is done, and I think the enby stuff now needs to happen alongside that fight.
I didn’t know Robbins used Sovereign! It is the best option, for sure. I used Monarch for a while but it was just too… dry.
And re Jungians and anima/animus - I think Jung was miles ahead with him views on the anima/animus, although his expression of those views was slightly jarring on occasion! But I very much doubt his opinions would be identical if he was alive now. To me, it only makes sense to believe that we all have both an animus and anima, rather than only having the one in opposition to our outwardly expressed gender.
Thanks so much for this comment!! And I’m thrilled you’re enjoying Betwixt!!
@@Betwixt_AppI completely agree with you that there is a place for gendered archetypes. Firstly, since soooooo much has been written geared towards men and just have “man” or "he" as the default, whatever is out there that is geared towards women is very important, among other things for empowering women to see themselves more directly in the what is being represented.
And secondly, I personally (especially as a cis man) just like the notion (as you say at the beginning of this video) that going back and forth between the two poles strengthens psychological fluidity and growth towards a more integrated psyche. (The notion that a Pawn becomes a Queen by making it to the other side of the chessboard must come from somewhere! 😃) And perhaps some LGBTQ+ people are better able to access this because we are already "transgressing" societal norms and expectations and/or have grappled with issues of identity during adolescence.
But yeah, as you’ve mentioned in some of the comments, and as I’ve heard anecdotally from those in practice, there are just a lot of clients/patients that have difficulty (or just actively resist) seeing themselves in an archetype if it doesn’t match their gender. And omg so much of the older literature has to be read with an understanding that their language around gender (and queerness) was… limited. 😮💨
Thank you so much for starting this channel!!! 🙏🏽
These idea are not new to me, but you have wonderfully contextualized and developed them. Thanks!
Oh, thank you! And you’re so welcome 🩶
@@Betwixt_App And thank you for taking away the gauze of the gendering of these archetypes. It is like seeing old friends for the first time.
@@jonlittle5032 Oh, what a *beautiful* way of putting it! Thank you so much for this comment.
"The stories you watch, read and play dictate the way you see yourself and the life you lead."
Where does that come from, please?
@@phil0rms Jungian psychology, mainly. I don’t mean that we literally become the characters of the books, films or games we engage with. I mean that the archetypes expressed in such narratives are an innate part of who we are, and that we can either bring them into conscious awareness and use these aspects healthily and positively, or we can leave them in the shadow (the unconscious), where they work through us in, usually, much darker ways.
Amazing!
I find the perspective as briliant! Congratulations for the discovery and ideas!
Can it also happen that they are not linear but mixed during our lifetime?
Oh, definitely! I think we could feasibly be on all six journeys at once, and we won’t complete them in the archetypal way each time, either. But there’s just something so powerful about engaging with the stories in full, no matter how twisted or diluted our real-life versions might be 🩶
I love what you do!
Thank you!
I would love to see a different story that is compelling and successful. Ideally.. Without using too many inaccurate excuses if it isn’t… (or else… we can of course correct without facing what’s most uncomfortable and what needs improvement).
But the hero’s journey, when done well, captivates us because… we are living it in any number of ways. On the micro cosmic and macro. As far as I’m aware, story telling is our oldest modality of conveying memetic information. Apart from that.,. Joesph Campbell (hero with a thousand faces)… and so on.
I might need your help with writing a screenplay where I want to challenge all those typical story structure archetypes.
Oooh! How interesting! 🤩🤩🤩
You are such an interesting human being ❤
Luminary here - great name by the way
Thank you! The Luminary (and the two corresponding shadow archetypes) were by far the hardest to rename!
If I’m a middle aged nonbinary person, does that make me a Monarch?
Absolutely not. We can be on any of these paths at any stage in life, and technically we need to have completed the previous arcs to fully inhabit the Sovereign (or Monarch) archetype. And unfortunately, most of us won’t do that. But it is an option, and we’re more likely to be there if we’re middle-aged than if we’re younger.
Hi Hazel! 😊
Archetypes are expressing the collective human experience hence archetypes.. You are just very accommodating. Good luck with this you come across as a decent person . Let's hope people with mental issues don't totally reject therapy over a person ' s point of view of universal truths, symbols and archetypes. Huge responsibility.
I see your Seer and it puts me in mind of Homestuck classpects.
I would have categorized Neo as a hero instead of a maiden. He powered up and left home in order to rescue his love interest, and then at the end of the series of movies he delivered the power he acquired on his journey back to his home team by renegotiating the deal between the Matrix-dwelling humans and the machines.
So what happened to Neo during those movies that was more maiden than hero?
Neo's escape from the Matrix at the beginning of the first movie was instigated by someone else. Maybe the claim is that Neo was a maiden during the first movie only? The image of Neo offered in this video wasn't from the first movie, IIRC. He didn't fly around much then.
I was hoping that you were going to suggest new paths to take. It is less interesting to relabel the existing paths to make them gender neutral, given that you offered examples showing that they weren't overwhelmingly gendered to start with. Dorothy couldn't have been a hero if heroes were always male. It isn't obvious that using a less gendered word for "hero" would have helped Dorothy given that neither the old word nor the new word were ever used in Dorothy's presence.
Fantastic video! Thank you so much for talking about such an interesting and important topic 😊❤
Thank you! And you’re so welcome, it’s my absolute pleasure!
I think this is a wonderful concept!
The only thing for future reference is I would also add a real-life example for each archetype to make it a bit easier to understand too:
Like, “this is what we experience when we need to move away from the situation that feels too small for us, PAR EXAMPLE: when you want to move out to live on your own, but your parents aren’t ready to accept that you’re an adult now & don’t want to let you go - so you have to learn to prioritize your reasonable needs over other people’s feelings about them”.
That way it’s easier to grasp the concept/ground it in real life, but also to relate to it ❤️
Ah, yes! I do this a bit more in the videos that are still to come where I’m going into each archetype (along with their antagonists, shadow selves, and the all important Lie vs Truth). But if I’m honest, I could have gone heavier on the examples even in those vids. I was trying to be mindful of time 😬
❤❤❤
🥰
Interesting opinion
I intend to play Betwixt soon (I'm captured by the positive, social game Sky: Children of the Light)
But I'm going into game dev from 3D animation, and I want to make more positive games like Sky.
So this video speaks very deeply to my soul right now!
If there's a game dev community out there for positive, social, or mental health games, please please share!
Oooh!! I love this! Betwixt is a text-based game (by design - it’s important to leave space for the imagination) but… I’d love to experiment with a visual version (possibly in VR). If you have any thoughts after playing, please let me know!
And I don’t know of a community of that ilk, unfortunately. I wish I did!
@@Betwixt_App...maybe we should form one. 😏
@@Betwixt_Applet's stay in touch after I play Betwixt. I've been doing a ton of study on how to build a standard story into a 3D game. (Hint: start with game mechanics - the parts between the story beats. In Sky it's flying and collecting, Horizon and RDR2 it's riding and fighting, in TLoU, it's stealth and fighting.)
Would love to find a way to collaborate (if I can figure out how to get my bills paid too!)
Erm… I’m IN! You know, there are a lot of people of this kind in our Discord server. If you enjoy Betwixt, you must join! (There’s a link in the app)
@@Betwixt_Appexcellent! Just what I'm looking for!!!!
I love these new names! They still extract the power the gendered terms while making them more accessible to people of either, neither, or both embodiments. Very cool!
Also, it still strikes me as fascinating that the stories of the Christ and the Buddha so accurately line up with the Seer and Mage archetypes. No wonder I (and many others) am inspired by their tales and words!
Thanks for the great videos!
Oh, totally! Jung believed that all myth, religious and primitive stories were born *out* of archetypal psychic contents. He reasoned that the fact that the same motifs and characters recurred countlessly in different cultures and geographies suggested that these stories are innate and that they pre-date our religious texts, etc - that those stories were written based on projections of what we already understood unconsciously. It’s fascinating stuff!
Still picking hero
Love this video!! Really appreciate the de-gendering of these archtypes which to me feels like it gives them an even more mythic quality.
I've always felt the obsession with the hero's journey was off. I remember as a child we'd play pretend and all the boys were falling over themselves trying to be the hero and avenge one another. Everybody wanted to be the saviour, nobody wanted to be saved. They'd get into fights over it.
Social harmony requires people to be willing to be fluid with their roles and the meaning they bring to a situation. When we privilege one role above all others, we create a rigidity within people that can lead to conflict. It's also very boring haha 😹
100000% I absolutely agree with all of this. We need to be able to change roles in order to adapt to different environments and stages of life, too. This is very hard when anything other than the Hero is considered lesser
@@Betwixt_App Yeah totally! I'm glad you agree 😊 I'm a fan of your videos.
Personally I felt the tenderfoot arc type resonated for me the most. Or at least, it's the one I yearn for most deeply. I have spend a lot of my life trying to support and please my family. I love them dearly, but I long to spend some time away and get to experience the world and meet new people.
Oh, thank you!!
And I hear that yearning. Do you think you might be able to get away at some point?
@@Betwixt_App I believe so ☺I moved out on my own at the start of the year. And I've made a new friend who's amazing and she seems to want to meet new people too. I still have some family commitments, but I'm feeling really excited about my future!
Ooooohh! I love this. Super excited for you!! 🤩🤩🤩
I really don't like that you take this universal tropes and turn it into activism. You are free to do it of course but spoils otherwise great channel. World needs more heroes, young people are weak and afraid to take responsibility, which suits corporations and totalitarian governments to have infantile subjects who are only concerned about gender and pronouns. I prefer people who can carve their own destiny and change the world to their liking, how you are doing here for example.
I don’t see this as activism, actually. I think it’s (really, really) psychologically important that we move beyond the archaic gender roles of patriarchal society, which is all so very out of date.
Jung (who most definitely wasn’t a feminist activist 😂) strongly advocated for the importance of wholeness and integration of psychic contexts, *in particular* the contrasexual aspects of the psyche. This means accepting both our masculine and feminine sides/traits, which is to say: striving for psychological androgyny.
In a world that is so hung up on gender (as you so rightly point out), though, we can’t expect men to willingly embrace their inner Maidens or, even, women to fully and easily embrace their inner Kings. The barriers are just to tall.
And so I truly believe that stripping gender away from important and transformative archetypal stories is a necessary step 🩶
@@Betwixt_App reading your reply mends my aching heart. wonderful, really.
@@KatzeMelliThank you!! 😍
*psychic contents
But, you can overlay the hero’s journey onto any specific context, whether the hero is a man, woman, gender-fluid, intersex, or a completely asexual automaton. One can add “queer” themes to a story without even affecting the archetypes of the hero’s journey.
Yes, agreed (hence my listing Dorothy Gale in the Wizard of Oz as an example of the Hero's Journey). But any Hero arc will always promote and elevate traditionally masculine aspects of the psyche regardless of the protagonist's gender, and we dramatise this arc far, far more often than any of the others, which means we have an unhealthy societal bias for the Hero and his macho values, which we could to challenge.
However, the main reason I'm queering the archetypes here is for the sake of the discussion I'm setting up. There are 12 videos to come in this series, exploring six character arcs and archetypes (three of which are masculine and three of which are feminine).
All six of these journeys are important for people of all genders, but because of the emotional baggage attached to gender in our culture, it's a challenge for a cis man to fully identify with the Crone, for example, or to embrace his inner Maiden. Furthermore, because our society has downgraded all traditionally feminine traits, we unconsciously perceive the female characters' journeys as less important, which isn't the case.
So, I've de-gendered them to remove these barriers and also to open all paths up for non-binary folk :-)
Thank you for clarifying that for me, I was worried that you were going to try to augment the main steps of the hero’s journey, like changing “the belly of the beast” to “identity confusion” or something like that. Because, changing the cadence of the hero’s journey is when we start losing the accessibility of that archetype. So, again thank you for doing the good work, but please keep an eye on what is irreducible in all this.
Noice
Also, Sky: CotL is structured around the stages of life (infancy, childhood, teenhood, adulthood, midlife, wisdom, death/rebirth.)
These are utterly devoid of gender.
I wonder if your archetypes could be strutured more like this? (They still have echos of the genders, and still put archetypes associated with masculine traits more advanced to feminine. Not unlike the Tarot archetypes.)
I wish we could just erase gender. (Abd race.) :(
I have Sky on my phone but I’m yet to fully grasp it. This sounds very intriguing!
And I’d love to erase gender and race, too. I do think it’s helpful to recognise the difference between what are considered masculine and feminine traits and states (because to have one without the other is to deprive ourselves of life and wholeness), but it’s not at all helpful that they have become so closely associated with “male” and “female”, which is not the same thing.
So, while I think it’s helpful and important to observe the oscillation between individuation (masc) and integration (fem) during the journey of these six archetypes - because without that, the characters wouldn’t be able to go through the important transitions of their development - I think it’s vital that the characters themselves be gender neutral.
(I wrote a lovely, long reply, which got deleted when I switched to get a Sky friend code! So let me take care of that first, then try again!)
I give these out like candy in the game, because I'm now a bit of an elder player: 6183-MXJA-BRB3 (edit: click the upper right to reveal the gear menu. Open the gear and click "Sky codes." Enter it there.) This only connects us in the game. Nothing is revealed by accepting, not even a username. This will allow us to hold hands and it opens chat. If it's invalid, either I had to reuse it for another player, or someone here used it first! Just ask for another. Again, I give these out like candy in game, to save spending the candles I collect. I won't be hurt if you don't use it.❤
I'd love to explore Sky and discuss this very topic in the context of games and game dev!
Ok, now I'll rewrite my deleted post in a fresh reply...
I love the idea of "individuation" and "integration." It echos Dr. Deborah Tannen's book _You Just Don't Understand_ which was formative in my youth.
Perhaps _pairing_ them is what implies the hierarchy, where placing them on more of an alternating continuum feels less like one is more advanced than the other.
I've also been thinking of "inner/emotional' world and "outer/physical" world. There are journeys where you need to grow inside (like Kiki's Delivery Service) and ones where you need to act (most other hero stories.)
This would also explain why men can struggle in our society - masculine is associated with external action, and shuns internal reflection, and you can't get the internal work done by acting out.
Dr. Montessori grouped 3 years together, and also 6 years together (based on Jung who was her contemporary.) What I've noticed working with children is that the first 3 years are _absorptive_ and the second are _expressive._ For instance, 6-9yos are hungry to learn, but 9-12yo are restless to _apply_ that learning. Infants absorb how to move their bodies, and preschoolers use their bodies with purpose. Middle school is all about absorbing social place, and high school is about making that place for yourself, through apprenticeships.
Maslow's hierarchy puts the two physical needs lower on the hierarchy than the two emotional needs. Self Actualization and Self Transcendence are cognitive needs and expressions.
As for Sky, there's a lot to that game - it's complicated in a similar way that life is complicated: there's just a lot of tasks to do!
Focus on one at a time: at first, to open the map, make your way to each realm's temple. Then you can return any time.
As you make your way, release spirits using your light. To get help from other players, use the ? expression (click the yellow fan at the top for the expression menu). Releasing spirits gives you expressions you can use to communicate.
Finding spirits will also help you find Light Children. These give you more power to fly. (These become important later.)
Along the way, you will collect light from Red Candles, and from burning Darkness. These create candles which are the "money" in the game. When you start, spend your candles making as many friends as possible to help you. Yes, every single gray child you see is an actual real person!
Take their hand and let them lead you and _don't feel obligated to reciprocate._ They were once guided by an elder player, just as they are offering to guide you now. And don't be hurt if they turn you down - they're often busy with their own goals.
There's more, but that is the core: make friends, make friends, make friends!
Sky is an absolutely fascinating game in the genre of "can games make the world a better place?"
This is all super interesting!
I’ll give the code a try in Sky when I have a little time.
And all the polarities: masc/fem, active/introspective, day/night, etc., are just so interesting to me. I love your observation of this oscillation in children! That’s a fabulous thing.
To me, this inhale/exhale pattern when moving through the archetypal journeys was very much a lightbulb moment. Historically, I (like so many “father’s daughters”) have struggled to accept my feminine side. As I’ve matured (and also matured my understanding of the word feminine), this has become easier, and integrating both the active and the receptive in myself has brought with it wisdom, peace, confidence, creativity… really, the list is endless. I have a long way to go, of course, but I guess my hope is that these enby archetypal arcs can help (both me and others) on this integrative path.
Life is using and being used by people…mostly without yours or theirs honest acknowledgment? Guilt by basic human needs. Good luck
Wow, that was the shortest subscription to any channel I ever ever had, adios
Byeee!
Now your channel is on the do not recommend list. Sorry to see you go, but there is no credibility to your point of view after this. It diverges from science and rational, evidence based thought.
Interesting. Please show me some evidence-based thought to counter these ideas. I’m keen to read the studies 🙏🏼
Noice