The Impact of Deviating From the Hero's Journey

In the billions of stories that exist on this planet, it is not surprising how many of them deviate from the structure laid out by Joseph Campbell in the Hero's Journey. However, what is surprising is the lasting popularity of stories that feature flat characters (who are supposed to be the bane of writers everywhere). In fact, character-driven stories have only been popular relatively recently—think of how modern fairytale rewrites like Cinder or Land of Stories treat the characters compared to the originals. Somehow, despite the two-dimensional nature of their protagonists, many stories with little character growth are still wildly popular.

By the time of Joseph Campbell, character development was considered an integral part of a good story. And yet, characters like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty have stayed in the cultural consciousness despite their lack of personality or character growth. The power of not having character growth like in the Hero's Journey means that the story is free to focus on a moral and explore other overarching themes. Classic tragedies are a very good example of this. Typically, the main character (who will usually start off from a privileged position) will have one major character flaw that leads them to their eventual downfall. If the main character were to grow and develop, the tragedy would lose its impact. The downfall of the tragic protagonist depends on them not being able to see their impending doom.

Shakespeare's tragedies exemplify this type of narrative especially well. For example, the play Othello is only possible because Othello is both impulsive and trusting. If he had outgrown these qualities, he might not have believed Iago so readily, nor would he have murdered his wife. The Hero's Journey wouldn't have worked with Othello because it would undermine the moral of "Don't be too impulsive and trusting"—if Othello killed his wife after thinking about it for a long time and asking people other than Iago about her affair, that would have made him look like an idiot rather than a tragic hero.

On a more cheerful note, another subset of stories that frequently deviate from the Hero's Journey is folklore and fairytales. Joseph Campbell was fascinated by folklore, but they ironically rarely follow the Hero's Journey. Many of these stories focus not so much on the character as they do the plot. This is in direct contrast to the Hero's Journey, which is entirely focused on the character of the hero. Many folklore characters are flat. In fact, many of them don't even get names. Prince Charming could be a prince from any fairytale, and the damsel in distress could be a princess from any kingdom.

However, most people still know the stories of Sleeping Beauty, of Snow White, of Cinderella. This is in part due to the large pop culture presence of Disney movies, but another reason why they are so memorable is because of their simplicity. There are 17 stages of the Hero's Journey and only three major parts of most fairytales. Many fairytales were originally passed down through oral tradition, so it makes sense that they would have evolved in a way that makes them easy to tell orally. This is also likely the reason things often come in threes in fairytales. Trying to cram a full Hero's Journey structure into a fairytale would make it lose its impact because it would remove many of the characteristics of a fairytale that make it well suited for its purpose. A Hero's Journey fairytale would also likely lose focus of the moral of the story (which is often "Be kind and good things will come to you", something that doesn't fit well with the Hero's Journey).

Many stories exist that don't fit the Hero's Journey, and its worth thinking about why they do not. In these cases, trying to fit a narrative into the the Hero's Journey is much like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole; you might be able to with a little force, but the peg will probably get broken in the process.

(In the process of writing this, I found a website that catalogues fairytales by trope: http://www.mftd.org/index.php?action=home . I recommend taking a look!)