David's Heros Journies Blog

Hey guys! Welcome back for the third blog post for this semester! Today I will talk about how the movie Legally Blond follows the Heroine's Journey pattern and how this can help us better understand the narrative as it progresses. This movie follows this pattern almost perfectly, with all 9 stages clearly identifiable throughout the story. Looking at this movie through the lens of Victoria Linn Schmidt's Heroine's Journey allows you to better understand the events that happen throughout, as well as the character development of Elle. To begin, let's look at the stages of the Heroine's Journey. First, "The Illusion of the Perfect World." This stage is fairly straightforward to identify at the beginning of the movie. She is happy with her boyfriend, everyone likes her, and she thinks nothing can go wrong. Then, very soon after this part, we see "The Betrayal or Realisation" stage, where her boyfriend breaks up with her to go to law school, which cau...

Hey guys! Welcome back to my Heros Journies blog! Today we will talk about the "Woman as Temptress" stage of the Hero's Journey in Siddhartha by Herman Hesse from 1922. The "Woman as Temptress" is a critical stage in Siddhartha. This is the main point where he becomes derailed from his journey, or so it seems, and is tempted and falls into a purely material and physical lifestyle. However, it becomes clear later that this stage was actually essential to Siddhartha's development, and leads him to his moment of Apotheosis and therefore peace and unity with the universe. This stage in the Hero's Journey is demonstrated when Siddhartha meets Kamala for the first time and everything that happens after. As soon as Siddhartha meets her, he devotes his whole life to winning her and living up to her expectations. He becomes rich and lives a pleasure-filled life. He is taught by Kamala in the ways of love and instructed by Kamaswarmi in the ways of trade. An inter...

Hey guys! Today, I will talk about Star Wars, a familiar story to most of us. Specifically, I will be talking about some of the scenes in the "first" movie (A New Hope), created by George Lucas in 1977, and how they are part of the Hero's Journey narrative. One of the stages that I think is done the best in the movie was the Crossing the Threshold/Belly of the Whale stage. This occurs in the film when Luke returns to his house to find his aunt and uncle dead. He then realizes that there is nothing left for him there. This realization makes him decide to go to Mos Eisley with Ben Kenobi to find transport to Alderaan to help Princess Leia. As soon as he arrives, he is immediately thrust into a new and unfamiliar world with a sprinkling of danger.  One of the most important parts of this stage is how much George Lucas puts effort into making the whole of Mos Eisley so, well... alien. There are large numbers of unique aliens and droids all over. The reason that he puts so muc...