campbell vs. vogler: what makes it mythical?

[@lesteryaytrippy7282]

This NEEDS more views!!! Campbell's monomyth is a philosophy, not a hard template. I was fooled by that graphic template! That's been around for years😮😮

[@marshmello8]

Great video! Had no idea Campbell's monomyth had been altered like that!

[@TheChazzyC]

hey! Your channel is fucking amazing. Binged every what the force podcast that included you because of your passion for myth and symbolism. amazing work

[@WitandFolly]

thank you !! 💗

[@zaksolo8927]

This is definitely one of my favorite videos you’ve done! Love it

[@WitandFolly]

thank you! so glad you liked it 😊💗

[@BellaNTheBeast]

This is fascinating, because I've been drafting a blog series about the Hero's vs. the Heroine's Journey, which is originally what led me to your channel--your Why You Don't Get Rey video. (Love that vid.) As I was writing, I had decided to use the pretty diagrams online to compare and contrast the two--specifically the one you mentioned and another that mirror's Murdock's perfectly from the book, but then I got curious after this video. My copy of Hero With a Thousand Faces does have a clear diagram and it's even labeled "The Hero's Journey." It's the 2008 version. It's on page 210, just before Chapter IV Keys. It moves counter-clockwise, beginning with Call to Adventure and ending with Elixir, sliced horizontally in half by Threshold of Adventure. I'm not sure if this was added in later or if so, who did it--I, too, have tried to read the book in the past and couldn't get in, but that was at the start of my interest in Campbell's work and mythology, so obviously I'll have to give it another try. Especially in light of this conversation. Fascinating... Thanks so much for your wonderful channel!

[@tashayars]

Wow this was really interesting ! Not what I was expecting from the thumbnail but damn it was really interesting

[@etherealsky7078]

Aah! Thanks again for another terrific video. I read The Hero With a Thousand Faces two years ago and felt mostly confused. (Or, at least, felt like I hadn’t grasped the deeper meanings of Campbell’s work) I should probably try to read it again, now that I’m more mature and that videos like yours have helped me understanding the concepts better.

[@WitandFolly]

I don't think Hero is a good book to understand Campbell. it was literally his first solo work. his lectures make it so much easier to understand and his later works are a bit easier to read 💗

[@etherealsky7078]

wit and folly Ooh I’ll try to listen to them too then. I hope they’re less... _obtuse_ than this book! 😅

[@ledafrost]

Really great video. Makes me want to go back and pick up Campbell again!

[@Arkylie]

This makes me wonder what you'd think of Christopher Booker's magnum opus "The Seven Basic Plots." It's quite the door-stopper of a thesis, but it tries to pin all (or, well, most) stories down into one of seven plots, which Booker eventually defines as different facets or viewpoints or foci of a single central plot, something like a kingdom in peril under a dark force and a hero rising up and overcoming his own flaws in order to defeat or transform the darkness, thus freeing the kingdom. At least, that's my general take on it, at this point in my life, having not read it in quite a while. It's hard to really tie so many hundreds of pages down to an easy thesis statement. I don't agree with everything he posits, but I like a lot of it, and it seems useful. He goes into things like the dark family figures (which one of your videos touches on with the Dark Mother at least) and light family figures, lots of Jungian archetypal concepts, the different dangers you face on your quest, etc. I like Booker's Quest, as a clearer plot structure (to me) than the other Quest explanations I've received. A danger threatens a kingdom; the hero must go to a far-off place to retrieve the item that will stop the danger; he generally takes allies with him, and they're commonly of type X, Y, or Z; he crosses the threshold and encounters various dangers of types J K L; he finally gets to the supposed end of his quest, only to realize that he's really at the halfway point (so either there's a different place to go to or he has big tests here that take up half the story); finally he passes the tests and seizes the item, then escapes the dangers and makes it home to save the kingdom and live happily ever after. One of the things he points out is that one of the most well-known Quest tales -- The Lord of the Rings -- inverts the quest, as it's a quest not to find or retrieve an object, but to get rid of one. The Gods Must Be Crazy is the only other tale I know of that inverts the Quest. But Booker's the reason that I easily divide the early trials into variations: Deadly Terrain (e.g. a swamp or a desert), lethal threat (monster), captivity (must escape), derailment (the hero gets distracted from the quest for a while -- must rededicate self to the quest, no matter how nice the alternative might seem), poppy field (pulled down into sleep or pleasure, completely put off your guard) -- and then finally the Deadly Opposites (Scylla and Charybdis), the journey to the underworld (awareness of mortality, but also wisdom from those who came before), and then you've made it to the MacGuffin. If you have the interest in looking over a giant thesis that you could compare to Campbell and Vogler, I hope you'll give "The Seven Basic Plots" a look. I'm really glad I did. Most of the plots are described (at least, in basic form) on TV Tropes: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheSevenBasicPlots (though the book goes into a lot more detail about the symbolism and such)

[@darthhavok1]

Really great work here. Just brings more questions to mind, which is good. It keeps me wanting to learn.

[@robinesperoza]

I want to read his work, but I kinda have the feeling reading Campbell's work will feel like remembering, rather than learning something new.

[@thesupermonad1332]

Idk about you but to me that makes it all the more alluring

[@arthurkassabian2528]

I suspect that the rigidity of the Hero's Journey in todays media may be, in part, due to highly influential books that portray the perfect narrative as adhering to strict, almost formulaic plot points. Two come to mind; Save the Cat and Robert Mkee's books. That's not to say that these are terrible books or analysis of film, they both have outstanding insights, they just shouldn't be used slavishly. I also agree, Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces is difficult to read (far more difficult than his other works like Occidental Mythology). It's one of those books people say that they have read just to impress others!!!!!!

[@WhatTheForce]

So good

[@mlrafiki]

So good! I always want your videos to run longer and go deeper but I understand why you keep them brief.

[@shelleyblack3509]

Fantastic!

[@PseudoMystic]

I really loved your video on vampires in fiction and "the violence binary", but this reminds me of many fundamental disagreements I had when reading Campbell in college. While I remember defending his merits against a student who dismissed his work prior to actually reading it, there were and are strong points of contention for me regarding his work and the Jungian traditions of mythology analysis in general. It's beyond the scope of a long-winded youtube comment from someone who has enjoyed your content so far for me to go into much detail, but a core point of divergence for me from Campbell is this idea that myths must speak to shared/universal experiences or can only be considered proper myths within an interpretive consensus. My main point of citation for this would be the mythology of the Abrahamic religions, far from producing stable consensus as to metaphorical signification, the Abrahamic religions have enjoyed a plethora of divergent interpretations regarding the events described in their varying cannon. One could argue that the metaphoric implications of each part of say the Catholic Bible or the Tanakh were at least clear to those writing and receiving those stories at the time of their conception, but it would feel contrived to assert that those earlier components ceased to functions as "mythical" once said unambiguous symbolism was lost. From what I can tell, many of the stories which people are most passionate about reading in a mythical framework (in Campbell's sense of transcendent connotation) are also the ones that spawn the most varied interpretations, great myths are not limited to giving us answers but I think also compels us to ask questions.

[@WitandFolly]

I think Campbell says the stuff about shared interpretations in context, but not in general. Campbell talks a lot in his lectures about these tales as speaking to the human subconscious because they are representative of a shared experience, but this is actually one of the reasons he often stressed for people to read the myths themselves. It's about how does myth or metaphor speak to *you*. I feel like I'm just repeating a lot of my points from another video I did about my love for Campbell lol, but I'll just say that often, this comes down to people not understanding that he wanted to take people out of their doctrine and into their own purpose. His work is about encouraging others to study myth from a non-literal point of view as well as it is self-help for Westerners to see beyond heaven and hell. Was he wrong sometimes? Of course. But I think he inspired a generation of young students (especially young women) to start looking at why metaphors are so important and how they affect so much in our lives.

[@CamkirE]

Really good and interesting, but I still don’t know what Campbell is trying to tell us.

[@WitandFolly]

lol I discuss him in almost every video. I'd do a Campbell 101 but by now I figured everyone was tired of the introduction

[@WitandFolly]

what do you think he's telling us? honestly. I'm sure you'd be right

[@CamkirE]

I think he is very difficult to understand in depth for the everyday person. But something about finding your true self, inner peace, growing up, love, overcome hardship in life...I don’t know, - please make a 101...these things never grow old.

[@WitandFolly]

@@CamkirE yes, all these things :)

[@Izaya4EVER]

I love your channel!

[@GreatWhite00000]

It's a bit sad but it's not Vogler's fault. He did exactly what the monomyth is supposed to do: be used as a tool by the wielder to better understand the world around them. He was a little bit too effective though

[@NeedsContent]

Someone send this vid to Damon Lindelof.

[@morievna]

Brilliant as ever^^ I find it impressive how you nail each subject in relatively short amount of time. That thing about counter-clockwise direction sounded so cool - I liked Campbell’s reasons for that. Though I must agree that Vogler is more approachable - I had a lot misconception about hero’s journey as well, but listening to your channel and What the Force clarified a lot to me. Personally, what I love about mythical stories is that each time I reread/rewatch them, there is always something I didn’t notice before. That makes me more excited and engaged in them. I like other types of stories too, but sometimes I get impression that some of them rely to much on shock values than meaning or symbolism - whether it be plot twists like GOT or excessive amount of violence like again GOT or Suspiria. But I guess it is matter of preference too - I just like analyze things overall^^

[@WitandFolly]

this is a good place to start analyzing your own perspective though! your perspective is worth it - your opinion is worth something, with everything it's made up of. I sometimes enjoy certain types of violence in my stories, but there's a reason why, psychologically or mythically why I need to explore that for myself every now and then. I might do a video on this some day if I can get away with it on this platform. but yeah, don't deny your perspective 💗

[@GreatWhite00000]

Campbell is what Jordan Peterson whish he was but can never achieve

[@thedumbdog1964]

I tried to read Hero because I heard it influenced George Lucas and wanted to see how that snowballed into Star Wars, but Campbell just kept talking about foreskins and stuff

[@WitandFolly]

wtf are you talking about?