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A Campbell in Time
By: Miles Cressman
When most gamers think of the phrase "role-playing game" they imagine long adventures with a ragtag group of adventurers (or a sole hero, who meets others along the way, good and bad) traversing unknown lands to find their purpose in the world, stop an evil organization, or merely to battle a villain bent on destroying the planet. Very few RPGs themselves stray from this formula, which disappoints me to no end. The formula you see here is based around Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces, essentially a research into the idea of the monomyth.
The meaning of the monomyth was taken from various mythological stories and well-known legends, such as Christ, Buddha, or Moses. The structure of the monomyth is one that should be familiar to most all RPG players: the hero is born into a plain, ordinary world and ordinary life. He (or she, sometimes) receives the call to enter an entirely different world from his own. The hero then has to make a choice: Stay fully ignorant of the dangers ahead and remain in his dull, plain life, or go forth into the unknown, and see what fate lies in store for him. This can differ from story to story. For example, some twists occur with the hero at first refusing the call, usually resulting in suffering on the heroes?behalf until he accepts the call. Some heroes deny this calling for a long time. However, like all heroes they do accept this call and enter the strange, enigmatic world. A protective figure usually comes along, or some event provides the hero with some sort of weapon or tool so that he can progress further. The hero usually encounters a guardian between his world and the next, this can either be a deity, or simply a being that works to protect those inside the heroes?regular world from the next. The hero then must make a sacrifice, and in some stories appears to “die?while passing the threshold, signaling a rebirth.
The metaphorical nature of the rebirth can have many different meanings: A change in mind, body, or soul. Perhaps even a slight change, such as a paradigm shift in thinking or personality, can occur.
The hero, after passing into this new world, must undergo the road of trials that every hero must endure. A staple event in any RPG, most gamers have no doubt undergone hundreds of these trials: following Kuja in Final Fantasy IX and stopping the Mist, shaping the meaning of one’s existence in Planescape: Torment, or gathering the one-hundred-and-eight Stars of Destiny to lead a rebellious army against the ruling dictators in Suikoden. This road of trials differs depending on how the world is set up: the distance between the next town or next dungeon, the length of said dungeon, how many obstacles may lay in the way (such as boulders, you'd need items to get past, or simply not enough advancement in the plot), and other such difficulties. Two steps remain until the hero overcomes these trials: Apotheosis and the achievement of the goal. Apotheosis is the disintegration of the ego to expand awareness and consciousness of his new world. This could be a new ability gained through rigorous training, or possibly an awakening of a new reality or new way of thought that entirely shapes the way he perceives society or humanity. In RPGs, we can relate this to Tidus finding out the true nature of Sin as well as Yuna’s pilgrimage in Final Fantasy X, or Johnny Garland realizing the meaning of Malice and Will in Shadow Hearts: From the New World. After the hero undergoes this monumental change, he or she becomes ready to find and accept the ultimate reward, and sacrifice themselves for a greater cause. In some cases, after attaining this reward, the hero refuses to return to his old life, instead finding solace in the world that shaped him so. These heroes are often the ones who keep their boon to themselves, without rewarding humanity with it. In most cases, though, the hero decides to return and sometimes with this decision he must get rid of his ego, and his newfound way of thought. When the hero returns, he is forced to accept that this is his fate. Though, in the case of saviors such as Christ, the character may be able to remember and know both worlds no matter where he goes. When the hero can achieve this, he can fully bestow the fruits of his labor on mankind.
The monomyth is also a literary tool that has been repeated and beaten into the ground by most novelists, and especially by creators of RPGs. You can name almost every RPG on the market and find some tie to this overused story structure. Most of your favorite RPG series are steeped in it: Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Wild ARMs (especially the latest two), Xenogears, Xenosaga, Baldur’s Gate, Deus Ex, and many others. However, only a few have created such a way of going about it that you would almost forget that the monomyth is even in play. Games like Planescape: Torment and a lot of open-ended RPGs provide you with the ability to shape your heroes?path as you like it, to the utmost limits of your imagination. This freedom, to me, should be included in most RPGs that come out today. We’ve come a long ways as gamers, and I believe that this freedom should have been a norm a long time ago. Instead, you get tired, formulaic plots such as those found in Wild ARMs 5 where you tread literally the same ground as hundreds of RPGs in the past, with no stray from the monomyth formula whatsoever.
These types of stories are shoveled out by the truckload for meager sums of cash, advertised merely by their gameplay mechanics alone. Now, I have no problem with the monomyth and its great influence on both literary works and RPGs. I do have a problem with lazy developers who take this very well-known structure and apply it to every RPG they churn forth. The crux of this problem may lie in who is chosen to write the story, as most developers do not choose a known author or literary great to write the plot for their videogame. Most videogame writers merely have a passable proficiency in writing and thus give us storylines and heroes that could have been taken from any literary work out there. There is no originality when a developer takes one monomyth and copies it down to the exact wording, only changing the names of towns, characters, and setting. When the layout of your story is exactly the same as the layout of a story twenty years ago, there is a definite problem. Now, the future in store for those of us who are thoroughly entertained by great videogame storylines is not as bleak as one could expect (especially with releases like Mass Effect, where you control the story, and make a hero you would want to be), but nonetheless it will not stop developers from cashing in on simplicity rather than quality.
While it may be hard to admit for some, the monomyth is present in a lot people’s favorite RPGs (even Final Fantasy VII), which is to say that there are very few truly original RPG plotlines. However, humanity and the very nature of writing itself have come a long way since the times of Buddha and Moses, and true imagination and originality can be found. All it takes is a road of trials, a path less traveled by the RPG developers of today.
-- Miles Cressman
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