essay for hifsa

Creating the myth

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Archetypes in mythical tales

Fiction has been one important part of literature. Not only English but other languages have fiction stories as their literary asset. Story telling used to be an interesting activity in the ancient times. As soon as TV and cinema got invented, the need for story books started diminishing gradually. Cartoon shows and fiction movies replaced them. Now-a-days, fiction movies have become an important genre of not only US cinema but all across the world. Not only children watch the fiction movies and shows with interest but a good number of adults watches them as well.

Whenever myth or fiction is discussed, the term archetype is widely used. Archetype means a symbolic pattern which repeats quite often in the myth (Myths & archetypes). These fiction movies make use of archetypal characters and story which repeat over and over again with slight variations. In the lines below, we’ll examine the movie Thor, which was released in 2011 to see what archetypal elements were used in the movie.

Analysis of archetypal elements of the movie Thor

1. Many of the fiction movies revolve around imaginary worlds or realms in which the hero is to live. Lord of the rings and Harry Potter provide a good example of this generic trend. Similarly, in the movie Thor, the hero Thor is shown to belong from an imaginary world or realm called Asgard. Thor is supposed to be the king after his father Odin.

2. Raglan says that quite often it is illustrated about the heroes in the myth that the hero is actually son of God. In some cases the myth may have a heroine which is daughter of God and Goddess or either of them. To illustrate his point he narrates the case of Helen who was the daughter of Zeus and Leda (151).

Our case is quite similar. Although the movie Thor doesn’t say it in a straight forward manner that the ruler of Asgard is God. However, it has been mentioned several times in the movie that Odin, the ruler of Asgard, looks after 9 realms of the Cosmos of which Earth is also one. This is no less than portraying him as God. Thor is his son so he satisfies this characteristic of an archetypal hero.

3. Then there comes a phase in such movies where the hero has a new role for him or the beginning of a new role. Same happens in our case i.e. in the movie Thor. The day when Thor is to ascend the throne, a few individuals from the rival creature namely Bifrost ghosts attack Asgard in an attempt to steal its mysterious assets but the attempt fails and the crowning ceremony of Thor doesn’t meet completion. Thor asks his father to invade the realm of the rivals, but he refuses. Upon refusal Thor asks some of his friends to accompany to the realm of the rivals namely Bifrost.

4. Thor and His friends start fighting with the ghosts. Having been fled the situation against the will of Thor, with the help of his father Odin, they reach back Asgard. Thor argues with his father in a rash manner and advocates the need of war. His father descends him to the earth after taking all his powers, although he isn’t willing as it happens in the super hero movies that the main character or the hero isn’t willing to undergo the transformation.

5. One important feature of the movies is to present the power of the super hero associated with some sort of object. For example, in ‘The Mask’ series, the power was in the mask primarily (The Mask (film)). Similarly, in the movie Thor, the power of Thor primarily lies in a big hammer given to him by his father. When Thor’s father descends him forcefully to the earth, he takes his hammer back as well.

Yet another feature of many of the super heroes in the myth is their extra ordinary abilities to do tasks. For example, they may have the ability to climb tall buildings and walls within few seconds as well as the ability to fly. Batman, Spiderman and Hancock etc. are perfect examples of this particular feature. Thor, although presented in a guise much similar to ordinary human beings, has the same strengths surprisingly.

6. The superhero has to undergo a number of challenges during his transformation phase. For example, in the movie Spiderman, the challenge for the hero was to keep his identity hidden and live an ordinary life in ordinary circumstances. He should only take the guise of Spiderman in extraordinarily dangerous circumstances. Otherwise he has to live the life of as normal as an average human being does. Thor on the earth has pretty much the same challenge. All his powers are taken back and he descends the earth with none of his magical powers in his possession.

7. One common element in many of the superhero movies is revenge. Revenge that too full of violence is becoming part of the movies which may be detrimental for the character building of the children in the long run. There have been many instances of super hero movies in particular, where the hero takes the revenge and it is glorified such that the children perceive it as something really great. For example, The Dark Knight (trilogy), The avengers and The spider man etc. are some of the common and famous example. All of these movies are themed basically around the idea of the revenge. So is the case of Thor. When Thor comes to know that his brother (who is actually the fostered son of his father) has lied to him about the death of his father and his crowning, his love for the brother turns into the sentiments of revenge. Upon his return to Asgard, he has a fight with his brother Loki. In that fight Loki eventually loses.

8. One popular archetypal feature of heroes of the myth tales is that some of the heroes after going through a particular event or a series of events, transform into better persons or at least they tend to. At the end of the story, they emerge out as a person whose views are either changed completely or a certain aspect of their attitude or views has been changed. First example in this regard is of Hancock. Hancock in the beginning of ‘Hancock’ movie is a person who gets angry quite easily. He then goes to the prison and some betterment is seen in his behavior, more or less. Similarly, Thor is shown a warrior prince in the beginning of the movie who has adventures on his minds and who won’t care about the loss of lives and the massive bloodshed for the sake of revenge. Having suffered through a tough time on the Earth, he learns the lesson by the end of the movie to shun the war as much as possible.

9. Since the term fiction implies that it has nothing to do with the reality, one of the important features of the mythical stories and tales is that the super hero either doesn’t get the wounds during a fight or even if he gets wounded, his wounds get healed immediately. This feature is quite common with almost all of the super heroes. Some examples are Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Hancock etc. as well as Thor.

In the movie Thor, not only the super hero doesn’t get any wounds (when he has the possession of his super powers) but there is a healing chamber at his realm Asgard. When his friends get wounded, they go to the healing chamber and get healed immediately.

Archetype characters

It isn’t an astonishing fact at all that many of the mythical tales not only share archetypal story but archetypal characters as well. For example, Linda says that in the mythical tales and movies one of the archetypal characters is a wise old man whose advices and mentoring proves quite beneficial for the hero (4). In the movie Thor, this character has been served by Thor’s father who advises him to shun war as much as possible and that’s the key lesson of the movie as well.

One very famous archetypal character is that which is much like Brutus in nature; someone close to the main character or the hero who cheats on him just as Brutus had done to Julius Caesar. In the movie Thor, Loki has played the archetypal character of Brutus.

References

· Myths & Archetypes. Public broadcasting service. n.d. Web. 21 April. 2015. <http://www.pbs.org/mythsandheroes/myths_archetypes.html>

· Raglan, Lord. The hero: A study in tradition, myth and drama. Courier Corporation, 2013. (151).

· The Mask (film). Wikipedia. n.d. Web. 21 April. 2015

· Seger, Linda. "Creating the myth." Signs of life. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin (2003).