#monomyth

The text reads:

Interests and Themes Clement Wood was primarily a poet, but he also wrote noels, murder mysteries, spy stories, literary criticism, biography, history, reference works for beginning poets, and books about games. Some of his best known poems are written in black dialect.

You can guess what I'm going to say next... Clement Wood was not Black. His wife wasn't Black either. I checked to look up on what basis he had to do this and found none). I double checked this and his parents were not Black or even near to Black. *cough* I'm not against white people using Black American English... but when you make it your brand and the only way you write... it's questionable. Campbell chooses THIS GUY with no psychological background as one of his lines of proof for dream analysis for an anecdote. (I was blinking hard at this.)

Campbell chooses by mostly selective bias and anything to support his thesis, but doesn't reflect or analyze such things if the source is any good, if the source is reliable, if the source is up-to-date in their field, or if he might need to revise his thesis based on the things he finds. It's kind of what academics would refer to as that high schooler on a deadline that shapes the evidence around the thesis rather than shaping the thesis based on the research.

That said, while I disagree heavily with Campbell's analysis of even European folktales. Most contemporary folklorists have issues with how he tries to condense things together, especially without asking the people who live in those locations. (See criticisms at the end) Despite this, his story structure had legitimately spawned others to make their stories conform to his analyses, though often cutting out the misogynistic steps along the way.

Because of the imperialistic notions in Campbell, going through his text is a minefield of making huge corrections as I check every citation he makes. (Which one would do when he thinks that all jungle people are cannibals from the Oriental Mythology text... Do we have to go there, Campbell? Do we?)

He also has a heavy Christian bias, which he does not hide even once in his analysis of folktales, inevitably coming back to Jesus and (his) interpretation of the Bible. His later work does not even close adjust for multiculturalism and he blatantly ignores later social scientists while using archaeology to justify much of his analysis.

In this way, because Campbell is a huge fan of Sir. James G. Frazer , citing him multiple, multiple times, he uses how Frazer did things methodologically, by never setting foot anywhere near the people he's analyzing, or asking one question and using imperialist accounts of the cultures as a good method, over Franz Boas, the sociologists of the time or contemporaries.

People prior to his time period that were ideologically opposed to Campbell in part or whole which might have changed his thesis:

Bertolt Brecht (Anti-imperialism stances)

Georges Polti (His whole introduction)

Lester F. Ward (The whole chapter about how excited he was to be wrong)

Methodological opposition to Campbell:

Franz Boas (Campbell stayed in his armchair despite reading Boas and citing him four times in the text.)

Lester F. Ward (somewhat)

I'm hoping this gives some context. (We'll do a deeper dive than most Lit profs or Brandon Sanderson does)

I think it's fair to ask any reader to think about these people when reading Campbell. Also, I have to say that there are red flags everywhere in Campbell's book.

I don't think anyone is going to leave happy, even the Christians. Maybe the imperialists... maybe. This is the largest argument for checking your source's sources...

The Actual Text Analysis

Unlike Madame Butterfly, which I regret reading the text of, there is a way to rescue Campbell to be less misogynistic and imperialistic. I'll go over that at the end. But if you basically put this as the story of Jesus and then his resurrection, this is the basis of the thesis of the Monomyth and then you don't have to get into the racist stuff he uses to justify his thesis with me.

People have attempted it.

Here are the basic steps of the text:

Monomyth parts

Part I: Departure

The Call to Adventure

Refusal of the Call

Supernatural Aid

The Crossing of the First Threshold

The Belly of the Whale Part II: Initiation

The Road of Trials 89

The Meeting with the Goddess

Woman as the Temptress

Atonement with the Father

Apotheosis

The Ultimate Boon Part III: Return

Refusal of the Return 179

The Magic Flight 182

Rescue from Without 192

The Crossing of the Return Threshold 201

Master of the Two Worlds 212

Freedom to Live 221

I will note that these are inline with anthropologist Arnold van Gennep's The Rites of Passage (1909). (23 April 1873 – 7 May 1957)

Preliminary, Liminality, Post-liminality. He cites van Gennep on page 37, on the left side of the linked PDF. He translates it as Separation, Initiation and Return. Though the original French is:

préliminaire or "preliminary" liminaire or "liminality" postliminaire or "post-liminality"

Contemporary Anthropologists generally term it these days as Separation, Liminality and Reincorporation.

van Gennep has some issues as well... but if we go into every problem every author he cites we're going to be here to the end of time.

Image is for demonstration. (I knew he took from him because I could smell it.)

Campbell tends to call in anthropology and archaeology to give some extra authority to his claims, but then falls short of following the actual principals stated by those people by using missionaries' accounts... and this is where we're going to do the majority of the corrections to the text and where the majority of his work starts to unravel as his lines of evidence start to fall apart.

(This is the first time I feel like my dual interest in stories and anthropology has come in line with each other.)

Major racism coming... Will anyone be spared? No. Absolutely not.

Scholarship Problems with Campbell

I found these, BTW, before I read Brendan Gill and was irked. It wasn't I found these accusations and then tried to find support. It was more I was asking if anyone else felt the same way or had evidence.

But I'm asking why there was no take down of Campbell's scholarship on this basic level. As I've said in past reports, you can like the thesis, but hate the lines of evidence, you can also like the lines of evidence, but think they are presented wrong. There are many ways to look at the scholarship itself without trying to say an individual is all saintly or all the devil.

In this case, I think the thesis is rotten and the lines of support are also rotten as well as how it is presented. However, I can say it is seductive the way he writes it if you're willing to never look up if anything he says is correct or corroborate evidence. As I've said before: Functionalism is super seductive, and humans like a good pattern they can hang everything on. But you have to be careful, because as Wendy Fonarow said to me in class (paraphrasing here): The world is chaos and culture tries to make sense of it, but in trying to discipline it, something always falls out into the space of taboo.

This means there is no neat pattern for human behavior and there are very, very few universal truths.

Refusal to use Primary texts:

"Tunja and Sogamozzo in Colombia" (I can't copy-paste all of the text, but this should give low vision users the ability to find it in the text) So I looked up this myth from contemporary accounts from own voices... and this is what they say:

This refers to the Muisca Confederation. The proper name according to the people who are from that nation are Chibcha.

According to this website, while there is some duality in the myth it is NOT a virgin birth. Rather the Sun and moon deities emerge together with the children.

I should note that the way he recounts the Parvati myth is inaccurate as well. The original mythology is from Parvati Mangal, but he uses another author's account of that account rather than trying to find a translation of the original myth.

So, because it took me a little while to find the source material, I've linked it from Archive.org so you can compare. The original sanskrit from the original myth is also included for those that know Sanskrit or whom are interested.

Why he doesn't use a direct translation of the original, and rather does a summary of a Summary and gets it wrong is beyond me.

In the criticism section, Folklorists complain about him not analyzing the myths and putting them into context, but I have yet to see a complaint about how he has this tendency to Christianize them or get them plain wrong. In this case, he changes the story of Parvati severely so that Parvati is meditating *by* Shiva's side *on the mountain* and adds a little boy to the story, which fishily reminds me of the resurrection of Jesus. I'm asking why did no one call him on this?

His insistence throughout his work to rely on imperialist and missionary accounts rather than from the people themselves is never flagged on any of the commentary of his work, which contemporary folklorists would have issues with as well. He says he likes Franz Boas, but then fails the basic tenant of Franz Boas:

Get out out your damned armchair.

You can get around this a little as a folklorist by using primary sources, but he does neither in any of his works, and then makes wild assertions.

This, to me, is much like me reading an account of who Gustav Freytag was from an LLM rather than spending a week getting a massive headache reading the book myself.

Accusations of Racism

Vigorous defenders of Campbell's scholarship will say there is absolutely no evidence for prejudice as if it's not in his work.

"Brendan Gill's column makes broad reference to Campbell's racism, sexism, and antisemitism, yet for such serious charges, the article is surprisingly devoid of concrete examples." —https://www.jstor.org/stable/26812493?seq=1

You really don't need to go far for this. You just need the paragraph where he accuses all of the "jungle people" of cannibalism in Masks of God, Volume 2, Oriental Mythology in the first chapter:

Tell me how this is not racist.

Evidence for Sexism

"While true as far as it goes, Campbell can not be personally held responsible for patriarchy throughout history. He does on occasion deal with female heroes in mythology. In episode three of the Power of Myth, Campbell describes a Blackfoot legend in which the chief's daughter ventures into the land of the buffalo for her tribe. It seems a stretch that a man who taught for thirty years at a predominantly female (and incidentally Jewish) school, could harbor overly sexist views. Indeed his wife retained her birth name and career during their forty-nine-year marriage." (The lack of commas is in the original text and the can not did have a space.) —Coralee Grede (JSTOR, Bashing Joseph Campbell: Is He Now the Hero of a Thousand Spaces?)

Not how sexism works.

Lajos Egri, child marriage advocate, worked in a female-dominated industry helping with a worker's strike before he went onto teach. And his work is eye wateringly sexist. There is an example he makes up in one of his books which has SA in it and then he makes the SAer the victim. Just because someone includes a heroine, it doesn't make them not sexist.

I know this is modern terminology, but you can have a heroine that you include that fails the Bechdel test, the sexy lamp test and the Mako Mori test, then say, welp, I included a female, therefore I'm not sexist. Are you sure about that? So let's look at an example from Campbell's own text.

In Campbell's version of Parvati Mangal, Parvati learns of Shiva and then goes by his side and then helps him out. Sounds suspiciously like Adam and Eve.

In the original text, Parvati was blessed from birth to marry Shiva. She then uses her own agency to be worthy of him separate from Shiva, earning her place to be beside the God of her own accord, not just because it was prophecy, but because she wanted to.

The difference is that in Campbell's version, Parvati's agency and decision-making are robbed from her. In many of the Hindu Mythology, the women have quite a bit of agency and the duality of choice and gender are prominent as argued by many, many scholars.

(I learned this in my College academic class on Hinduism, but it's not hard to find).

Rather than Parvati being a helpmeet, as Eve is, in Hindu mythology, they equally help each other. Shiva helps Parvati, Parvati helps Shiva.

Shiva asked Parvati to help vanquish Raktabija, a demon. So Parvati turned into Kali, but went too far, so Shiva helped Kali turn back into Parvati.

But this is not the story that Campbell thinks on at all, because he fundamentally changes the story so that the story is more like Adam and Eve. Eve is there to be a helper to Adam and submissive to him. And this person, vigorous defender of Campbell would say that the inclusion of Parvati is proof that Campbell is not sexist or racist.

But I would argue the way that he includes it and changes the story proves he is racist and sexist—if he wasn't sexist or racist, he would have preserved the original story as it was and summarized it properly and looked for a primary, not secondary source. But he didn't and that raises eyebrows for me, even when he's writing it. He's not writing in the 19th century. Why isn't he trying to find the primary source?

What makes a hero according to Campbell

Prologue — Toward a Natural History of the Gods and Heroes I. The Lineaments of a New Science The comparative study of the mythologies of the world compels us to view the cultural history of mankind as a unit; for we find that such themes as the fire-theft, deluge, land of the dead, virgin birth, and resurrected hero have a worldwide distribution — appearing everywhere in new combinations while remaining, like the elements of a kaleidoscope, only a few and always the same. —Primitive Mythology: Masks of Gods One by Joseph Campbell, originally published 1959, republished 1968 with new introduction

So fire theft, deluge, land of the dead, virgin birth, and resurrected hero are the main traits he looks for in a hero. It's Jesus and anything that resembles the Bible.

Fire Theft—Prometheus, but this also resembles Adam and Eve.

Deluge: The Great Flood.

Land of the Dead: Part of the resurrection of Christ

Virgin Birth: The birth of Christ

Resurrected Hero: Literally the resurrection.

Never mind all of the body of mythology that doesn't have these themes (or how in book 2 he's going to declare that all Jungle people are into cannibalism...)

So I'm introducing a core issue with Campbell. It's reductive and very Christian-biased. Something that at least in my era, we try not to do. But he's also in 1968 by the second edition and the rise of multiculturalism is already there and he's still refusing to fix this issue.

You might be thinking, but he wrote it originally in 1959, two years after the concept, can't you forgive him? But the thing is that in his intro he doesn't state anything about the problems, he has revised it, and he hasn't quashed it at all, say like how L. David Mech quashed his bad book on wolves by making sure it went out of print.

He sees no problem with this thesis. But let's continue on what he thinks is a good hero:

The folk tales commonly support or supplant this theme of the exile with that of the despised one, or the handicapped: the abused youngest son or daughter, the orphan, stepchild, ugly duckling, or the squire of low degree.

— The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, PDF version, page 191 of the PDF, right upper side.

It's worthy to note that Folklorists don't support this notion, and nowhere in Campbell's work does he mention how much the Brother's Grimm changed the stories to include more orphans and step children to soften the overall message.

Many of the original folktales were about the parent of the children—not step-parents but the ones that raised the children themselves. Here is an account of Rapunzel:

Once upon a time there lived a husband and wife who had been wishing for a child for many years, but it had all been in vain. Finally, the woman became pregnant. Now, in the back of their house the couple had a small window that overlooked a fairy’s garden filled with all kinds of flowers and herbs. But nobody ever dared to enter it.

https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/marchapril/feature/how-the-grimm-brothers-saved-the-fairy-tale

There is no neighbor or witch.

Likewise, Hansel and Gretel, it's their own parents that abandon them in the woods. Not step parents.

In the original Cinderella, the father is alive.

In Sleeping Beauty there is r*pe. (The prince comes by when she is asleep and has relations with her) There is a part II where the Prince's mother is an ogre.

In the original Snow White tale, her mother that makes the wish is also the one that wants to kill her.

But it's clear Campbell doesn't know this or doesn't care to note it in his work. Instead, he aligns himself, not with the original tale, but with the Brothers Grimm version when he write the above paragraph. Instead of questioning the folktale, he often tries to find a version of the folktale that suits his argument.

This means European folktales don't back their view of the hero, if anything, these folktales that Grimm collected were not about all of the magic in the world, but directly about the family dynamics and cautionary tales about how families could go wrong.

The orphan is not a central figure in much of European folktale. Even van Gennep would not support the idea that all initiates were outcasts. If through ignorance about the edits that the Grimms made, trying to force them into canon would be dishonest, so this requirement from writers can also be cast aside.

Campbell also cites Oedipus as an orphan of sorts, but his mother and father are alive. There isn't even a historical examination of what happened to Oedipus, but he's more than happy to use the Oedipus complex. (I should note that Gill stated that Campbell hated Freud, though he is more than happy to use Freud's examples when it's mind bendingly sexist.) And even Aristotle doesn't back his idea of the "Outcast" in Oedipus. Aristotle in Poetics says the best figures are of great importance (to Athens) and Oedipus being a rich and noble man and having terrible things happen to him is the point of the stories. Because when man is at his worst, then we can see their moral failings more clearly, so the common person can understand from the rich and powerful. ("Now, the best tragedies are founded on the story of a few houses, on the fortunes of Alcmaeon, Oedipus, Orestes, Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus, and those others who have done or suffered something terrible. A tragedy, then, to be perfect according to the rules of art should be of this construction. Hence they are in error who censure Euripides just because he follows this principle in his plays, many of which end unhappily. It is, as we have said, the right ending. The best proof is that on the stage and in dramatic competition, such plays, if well worked out, are the most tragic in effect; and Euripides, faulty though he may be in the general management of his subject, yet is felt to be the most tragic of the poets." —Poetics XIII by Aristotle)

Far from Oedipus being an "outcast in Aristotle's eyes, he's an elite who has things he does "accidentally" is good tragedy.

"But again, Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action, but of events inspiring fear or pity. Such an effect is best produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow as cause and effect. The tragic wonder will thee be greater than if they happened of themselves or by accident; for even coincidences are most striking when they have an air of design. We may instance the statue of Mitys at Argos, which fell upon his murderer while he was a spectator at a festival, and killed him. Such events seem not to be due to mere chance. Plots, therefore, constructed on these principles are necessarily the best." —Poetics IX

I suppose that contemporaries when they raised Campbell up as a sort of god of myth, knew his faults, but didn't care, but I also think we can examine his faults in scholarship and still ask pertinent questions along the way. So let's look at some his more faulty scholarship.

Most of the stories he cites across his books are not faithfully recreated. They are indexed by Missionaries, nuns and other Christians, which has problems of its own.

So his ideal hero, according to Campbell is an outcast of virgin birth. Does this sound like he's trying to cram world stories into the story of Jesus? Yes, yes it does. He's not even shy about this truth as I highlighted in the quote from the article:

The story is recounted everywhere; and with such striking uniformity of the main contours, that the early Christian missionaries were forced to think that the devil himself must be throwing up mockeries of their teaching wherever they set their hand.

He comes back again and again to comparing everything to Christianity or changing the stories to make it look like Christianity. (never mind he gets names wrong such as Himalaya for Himavat, or the fact he can't name the core myth title in the text at all. Or in the first case, can't even name the tribe with their endonym where their story comes from... At least in contemporary times if I did anything of the sort in college or uni classes I would get points off and it would be justified.)

Is this enough to launch that he's antisemitic in his academic work versus how Brendan Gill later accuses of him being in his personal life? No. I don't think so, but it is the job of scholars to do their best to try to get rid of their biases, but it's pretty clear that Campbell is well aware of the bias and refuses to get rid of it.

There are plenty of heroes who have none of these features.

Off the top of my head:

Perseus. Has a God father, Zeus, and a human mother Danaë. His is not a virgin birth. He is not resurrected. (Granted that Aristotle did not favor stories about Perseus, but that's a side quest) Not an orphan.

Odysseus Has a mother and father, not a virgin birth. And his is called THE epic journey for Europe. He is not reborn.

Sun Wukong has neither mother nor father.

YWH, in the original Babylonian myth, has a father, El and Asherah. In a bending of history, etc, later Asherah became his consort and El was forgotten/kicked to the curb... (Elew, as one of my classmates said)

Turkey girl from Zuni Myth, has neither father or mother mentioned. It's irrelevant to the events of the story. https://sacred-texts.com/nam/zuni/zft/zft05.htm

The majority of African myths I've read this, too, is irrelevant. (This is from all regions of Africa and also from listening to the podcast, Stories Mother Told: African Folktales: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stories-mother-told-african-folktales/id1519129134 He covers all regions of Africa.)

This applies to Caribbean stories and to Indigenous peoples of Australia as well.

I can continue, but as you see, his lines of evidence are shoddy.

Criticism about his stages of development:

The core of his work comes from two sources: van Gennep, some shoddy archaeology (particularly the more racist bits of it), and mostly Jung. It's worthy to note that Gill says he hated Freud because he was Jewish, the paper defending Campbell noted he worked with many Jews. I don't particularly think that's a good defense.

van Gennep did not have all those sub stages he added to the work, nor those sexist steps in the first place.

This is van Gennep's work in translation. (You're going to make me read this thing too, aren't you? Yes. Yes.) Full text is not online, but you can borrow it from Libby.

Unfortunately, I don't have room to really cover what van Gennep said, but it definitely was not the steps that Campbell put forth in that list. Does this pretty much mean all of the steps in the chapter you can scramble and do whatever you like as an author? Absolutely. No folklorist is going to get on your case of dropping any of the steps that Campbell lists since most modern academics beyond the Lit Professors who, for some reason HANG onto this plot structure without examination, is going to object.

I'll get to Maureen Murdock later, but basing anything on Campbell academically is pretty much asking for contemporary academic death.

In the work, and I checked, Campbell doesn't back his ideas by defending them vigorously at all. He only lists myths where he thinks it's true, but again, checking the myths themselves proves either to be from a faulty source or not true entirely as his habit to Christianize the telling comes to the fore. Going over every single myth and how it's wrong would make this too long and a dissertation, not a blog post. But no folklorist would get on your case at all for not believing Joseph Campbell's steps, so you can scramble, as an author as you please.

Contemporary Criticisms of Campbell:

Folklorists dislike him and have denounced him:

Multiculturalism has become the backbone of folklorists' work and using Jung is seen as iffy. (Even more Oedipus)

Accusations of Antisemitism

Feminists have heavily criticized Campbell

Maureen Murdock's Heroine's journey: https://www.amazon.com/Heroines-Journey-Womans-Quest-Wholeness/dp/1611808308

There are back and forth on the character of Campbell, as a person, with Gill saying he wasn't that great of a guy and others deeply defending him:

To be honest, I'm less interested in this, and more interested in his scholarship and what it says about him, which pretty much does back up the assertion of racism and bad scholarship.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26812493?seq=1

So Brendan Gill made similar claims to mine and I didn't even know Campbell.

Here is Brendan Gill's article: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1989/09/28/the-faces-of-joseph-campbell/

Conclusion: Is there a way to rescue Joseph Campbell?

Can Campbell's hero have any kind of reincorporation when so much of the basis is denounced by academics? This is where the intersection of what the writer is trying to accomplish versus the rotten theorist comes into play. Maybe reading all of this has soured you completely on Campbell and you don't want to hear it ever again. Maybe you want to spin it off into a new story structure, like Heroine's Journey, though still imperialist, given what I've given you.

As I've said many times story is an interpretation of culture—a reinforcement and a challenge to it. It inherently has to simplify real life. Using story to comment on Hero's Journey is not a bad thing. Trying to revamp it, find better ways, un-Christianizing it, is all in the realm of what story can do. What I don't abide by is blind loyalty to a cultural item without any understanding of it.

The basis of Campbell's work is Arthur van Gennep. The best way to rescue it is to take it back to the core work and examine and ask questions about van Gennep's work. Instead of making it "one myth" and trying to cram in "features of Jesus' life" maybe the contemporary author would, instead, examine van Gennep's work in the times of character transition and upheaval in a more symbolic way.

Not all the way to something as unhinged as Eat Pray Love, or it's even more unhinged sequel, but perhaps think of times where there needs to be a drastic change:

Divorce and losing all of one's friends in the process.

Changing schools for the character

Drug-induced crash out resulting in having to get new friends

Trying to grow up.

Maybe the best way forward is to take all of the updated anthropology, look at multiculturalism, and instead of making a monomyth, trying to as the folklorists put it, find the context of where things are in space and time and treat story as a multi-faceted cultural and individualistic phenomena and then looking at how epic stories from around the world have been shaped by their own story structures and cultural contexts as an anti-imperialistic enterprise that would tick Joseph Campbell off. If you do want legit Epic story structures, for the writers out there, I'd look at individual cultures. Ramayana, Shahnameh, xiqu-type stories, Journey to the West, rather than trying to find a universal one way that they are done, find the target culture you wish to portray and find a precious story from there.

I know people who are of the, "But I want to create a NEW culture" are going to object. But NK Jemisin, when she wanted to create stories that felt more universal, without using Campbell as much, read as many mythologies as she could get her hands on for A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. (She talks extensively about it on her blog and also owns her missteps).

So your, "What to do then, huh?" should have levity to actually sit down and read as many myths and epics as your hands can get on and instead of a universal pattern, as Campbell has done here, is to ask, what does it mean to include a step like this into my mythology? What does it say about the people?

If you look at Parvati's story in Parvati Mangal and how Campbell changes it, what does it say that she has all of that agency in the original story? She could have rolled over and just plodded along, but she worked hard to make the prophecy come true. Do you want to change it?

My final thought is that we fiction writers seem to be caught very often in reductive thinking and caught in academia that is sometimes really, really dead. If it's a dead horse, it's more like a fossilized skeleton of a dead horse. I think this goes to prove that we, as writers, need to understand what we are copying before we copy it. The intersection of Story Structure, I think as I've shown thus far in this series of posts I've done looking at the primary sources is one of philosophy, psychology, archaeology, sociology, anthropology, culture, linguistics, and independent thinking. We deal with all of human knowledge and try to distill it, but not so far that it kills our consumers.

What is the Hero's Journey?

The Hero's Journey, or monomyth, is a narrative template that involves a hero going on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and returns home transformed. While the concept of the monomyth isn't new it was popularized by Joseph Campbell in his 1949 book A Hero With A Thousand Faces.

Campbell describes the Hero's Journey as having seventeen steps that can be broken down into three stages.

The Departure

The Initiation

The Return

Not all monomyths contain the full seventeen steps, and some may focus on only one or two of the stages; others may deal with the stages (steps) in a slightly different order.

Another defining mark of the monomyth are the characters. There are eight different archetypes that typically appear in the monomyth. Because pop culture is filled with many examples of the hero's journey I will be using The Lord of the Rings as a visual shorthand as examples of the different Character archetypes commonly found in the monomyth.

The graphic below contains a full breakdown of the stages of the hero's journey and the characters that appear.

To learn more about the Monomyth, you can find that here.

There are four key Character archetypes within 9-1-1.

The Hero

The Ally

The Mentor

The Herald

These are the most important archetypes because they are the most static. Within each character's own journey these roles are the ones that rarely shift and change. The other archetypes are extremely fluid and changing. A great example of the fluid nature of a stationary character archetype vs a shifting character archetype is Sue Blevins vs Tommy Kinard. Within the world of dispatch Sue is unchanging, always filling the role of mentor and leader. Where as Tommy as a character archetype has changed with every begins episode he appeared in.

And while 9-1-1 as a monomyth predominantly focuses on the second stage of the hero's journey, it also gives insight to the first stage through various characters begins episodes. Using all the above information, I will be breaking down Buck, Hen, and Chimney's Begins episodes and their story arcs so far.

After breaking down their respective stories, I will give my opinion on who's journey 9-1-1 has been telling for eight seasons as well as use that information to speculate where the story will go following Bobby's death, and what Chimney, Hen, and Buck's arcs will look like in season nine.

I will be covering the begins episodes in chronological order of when each character joined the LAFD rather than the episodic order.

To break down Chimney, Hen, and Buck's individual Begins episodes as they begin pertain to the greater 9-1-1 monomyth I will be identifying the following Character archetypes and which steps of the monomyth occur within each of their begins episodes,

Hero

Ally

Mentor

Shadow

Call to Action(The Departure)

The Initiation

Because Chimney doesn't receive the nickname of Chimney until after 2010 I will be referring to him as Howie or Howard in this section.

The Ally:

Kevin is more than just Howard's friend, or even best friend, he is Howard's brother(3×11). It appears that even after his death in 2x12 he is looking after Howie as a guardian angel(7×6). Obviously after Kevin's death the role in Chimney's life and journey shifts to Hen.

The Mentor:

Even though Eli only appears in three episodes(2x12, 5×7, 5×12) Eli is the Character we see Howie get the most guidance from aside from Anne Lee and on occasion, Hen. By the time Bobby arrives at the 118, Chimney is settled, he has been a firefighter and paramedic for more than a decade, of the original four, in season one Chimney is the character who is treated to be a peer and friend to Bobby which continues on through season eight.

The other character who could be considered Howie's mentor is Anne Lee. She is his second mother, finishing the job his mom started(4×10). Often times Anne is the one who we see giving Howie advice as it pertains to his personal life.

The Shadow:

I know the obvious answer for the shadow(nemesis) archetype is Gerrard. While he is the same nasty bigot in 2x12 as he is in 2x09(Hen Begins) he isn't the nemesis of Chimney's story. Sang Han is.

From season one on it is made clear that Howard has bad relationship with his father and that Sang isn't a good father to Howard and it is something that affects him well into adulthood and still affects him as season eight wraps up. In 2x12 it becomes obvious that Howard's self worth issues stem from the treatment he receives from his Dad and is also why he develops the hero complex that he does.

But it's also important to acknowledge Sang isn't evil. He's a bad dad, and a byproduct of his generation, but he is not evil. Sang is Howard's nemesis because he represents the generational trauma Howard must overcome to break those cycles.

The Call To Action:

Howie's Hero's Journey begins in 2005. He's trying to break into entrepreneurship and become an angel investor but is working at a karaoke bar with Kevin, when there is an accident resulting in a fire which Howie instinctual puts out and feels the call to become a fire fighter and starts developing a hero complex.

When Howie reveals to John and Anne that he has applied for the academy. Anne worries about the dangerous nature of the job, while John is incredibly supportive. Kevin also reveals he has applied and John has his "are you out of your mind" moment. The entire scene plays out as foreshadowing both of Kevin's death as well as Howie's general story arc through the seasons.

There is of course the training montage that ends with Howie and Kevin receiving their assignments at the 118 and 133.

The Initiation:

Howard enters the 118 for the first time and is immediately met with the realities of serving under Gerrard. He is assumed to be a delivery man, given a dressing down about arriving on time rather than early, and regulated to the man behind. What follows is another montage of Howie consistently being regulated to the man behind, and trying to prove himself inter cut with clips of family dinners where we learn Kevin is thriving at the 133, and Howie lying about his job in order to look like he is doing just as well as Kevin.

Following the montage we get a scene to set up Howie becoming a paramedic, as well as the conversation with Tommy where Howie tries to connect with his team member but is shut down. Directly following this Eli comes in and takes Howie under his wing, training him to become a paramedic.

There's two pivotal scenes that follow the paramedic training montage, Eli's origin story and Kevin's death.

In the first scene Eli attempts to give Howie a reality check about the teams hesitate to accept him, also foreshadowing Kevin's death, as well as the hard lessons Howie has yet to learn. Eli tells Howie about how he decided to become a paramedic after a call had gone sideways.

"A few years ago, I pulled a ten year old, third degree out of a car fire. Right? And I handed her off to some rookie M.D., who everyone said was a golden boy and I watched him do everything wrong. She died on that scene before we left."

"Yeah, but for you, it's- it's not about the rush anymore. You know, the thrill?"

"If that's the question you're gonna ask after that, I'm sorry in advance for the lesson you're gonna learn."

Of course directly after this conversation the 118, 133, and several other houses are called to the scene of a structure where Kevin and Howie are sent to the roof to ventilate the building when a pregnant woman stumbles out onto the roof that is unstable. The roof starts going out from under her. This time it is Kevin who leaps to action, pushing her out of harms way, but in doing so he is the one who falls through the roof onto the fire.

After Kevin's funeral when he returns to work, Eli expresses his surprise at seeing Chimney who shrugs and says he had no where else to go.

The 118 responds to a floor collapse that turns out to be a gas leak as well, resulting in the building exploding, but not before Howie runs back into the building to save Tommy, and carries him to safety. In the hospital Eli once again arrives to check on Howie and give him advice and delivers his most iconic speech.

"Hand it off, man. You're gonna get hurt in this business. You, me, them. Hell, we all signed up for it right? We raised our hands and said, 'Yes, please' to the burns, and the broken bones, the cartoon bruises, two weeks without eyebrows. Right? But you know that's not the hurt I'm talking about. The things that can't be treated with ointment and a splint are the things that will kill us. The guilt, the loss, the images... we can't drink or sniff or screw them away. Hand it off."

"Kevin died, Eli."

"And Tommy didn't. Because of you. I know it's easy when the girls on fire or the guys bleeding out to think that we're god, but we ain't. You gotta let that ego burn away, man. You are not that powerful. Hand it off. We treat the wounded, we hand them off. These Doctors, they do their job, they hand them off to god or the universe, karma, whatever the else you want to call it. Hey. But we hand them off so we can pick up the next guy. And st the end of the day maybe ourselves. Because if we don't... "

"We become the patients."

"And the world has too many of them. What it needs is more caregivers. Go give care."

One of my personal favorite things about this monologue is that in many ways it acts as the thesis statement of 9-1-1, not just the show, but the entire universe.

The episode comes to and end with Howie moving into his own apartment, a nice moment between him and Anne, Tommy and Howie making amends, and Howie meeting the woman Kevin saved and her newborn son. There's a nice moment where Tommy asks Eli about Howie as a Paramedic and Eli confirms that Howie is a "damn good one" before another montage showing how far Howie has come as another paramedic before a hard cut to Chimney bleeding out after being stabbed by Doug.

Beyond Chimney Begins:

Remember what I said earlier about the roles of characters within 9-1-1 being fluid? Chimney Begins and Hen begins are a perfect example of this. Between both episodes Chimney fills the role of hero and ally, and to a much smaller degree we see him fill the role of mentor in both episodes. What Chimney Begins really does is plant the seeds for Chimney to later step fully into that mentor role as seen with Bobby in 1x08 as well as with Ravi in 6x14.

"Listen that's rough. But a situation like that. You got to hand it off. Focus on the task in front of you. We're in the buisness of saving lives, not judging them."

"Do you ever stop and think that some people's lives just aren't worth saving?"

"If you're thinking that, then you don't belong on the rig."

Chimney and Ravi, 6x14

Refusing the call:

Incidentally 6x14 is also when we learn about Chimney refusing the call of leadership when he tells Ravi how he has avoided readership ever since Kevin died because he had been the one to lead the charge on him and Kevin joining the Academy which inevitably lead ti Kevin's death, of course then we get the above quote which is a direct call back to Chimney begins and both of Eli's big monologue's showing Chimney start to step into that role of both mentor, and possibly leader.

Atonement with the Father:

This is a popular step for the Hero's of 9-1-1 to take, but this step is a bit different for Chimney.

For Chimney the step of attainment is taken with John Lee. There is a quiet moment at the end of 3x11. John and Chimney have a quiet moment where it is left unspoken and can be interpreted as a moment where John forgives Chimney for Kevin's death or that he no longer blames him.

Chimney has another version of this moment with his own father in season six. But the season six arch between Chimney and Sang is less about forgiveness and more about catharsis. That arch in season six is Chimney's victory(ultimate boon).

"Parents aren't perfect you know? They're just regular people who make mistakes and sometimes they hurt you even if they don't mean too. But you know, being mad at someone for most of your life is pretty exhausting and I was tired of carrying that around."

"So you forgave him?"

"I made my peace and I let myself move on."

Howard Han and Denny Wilson, 6×13)

Ally:

It is fairly obvious that within Hen's hero journey, Chimney is her ally and she is his. The only characters that ride as hard for Hen and Chimney as Hen and Chimney are Karen and Maddie. Referring back to Lord of the Rings, Hen and Chimney are the Sam and Frodo of 9-1-1 they would no question carry each other up the mountain to complete a quest.

But Athena is the other character that also fills the roll of Ally in Hen's life. They are friends and confidants. Athena is the character Hen is closest to besides Karen and Chimney. But Ally isn't the only role Athena fills in Hen's life.

The Mentor:

Athena also fills the roll of mentor is Hen's life. And with the exception of the 'support group' Athena invites Hen to in 2x09 that was never mentioned again. We only see Athena fill the role of mentor with two characters, Hen and May.

Throughout the eight seasons of 9-1-1 we see Hen as someone who is very confident, she is sure of herself and her decisions.Hen has a very well earned confidence. But during those times that Hen needs guidance either personally or professionally it is more often than not Athena we see Hen turn to and vice versa.

The Shadow:

The short answer is Gerrard. But truthfully is is more complicated than that.

Gerrard is a physical representation of the sexism, racism, and homophobia that Hen faces in her day to day life.

Tommy and Sal could also technically be classified this way, but because of how the episode ends, they are a better fit for the shape shifter archetype.

The Call To Action:

After quitting her pharmaceutical sales rep job Hen goes to see her life coach Stacey Mullins where she takes an aptitude test. Stacey winds up tearing up the test telling Hen it will only work if Hen is being honest with herself rather than answering with what she thinks Stacey wants to her. When asked what she hates most Hen responds with bullies. Stacy points out then Hen feels a desire to protect the vulnerable and Hen almost jokingly suggests she the job vigilante which her and Stacey joke about.

"You know. You don't need a test to find out what you are supposed to do. You have a fire within… You have a fire, a passion, a purpose. And I know this is gonna sound cliche, but there's a voice inside of us that, when we listen to it, when we quiet ourselves and just listen, all will be well. All will be revealed…

Stacey Mullins, 2x09

Stacey then collapses having a heart attack. Without hesitation Hen checks on Stacey, calling 9-1-1, and immediately CPR, saving Stacey's life.

Later we see Hen at home with her then girlfriend, Eva. Hen is trying to explain to Eva how saving Stacey made her feel like she's found her purpose, her vocation. Initially Eva appears to be supportive, but does try to dissuade Hen which is where it is revealed Hen had actually received the call much earlier in her life, and all this time she has been on the second step of the Hero's journey, 'The Refusal of the Call'.

"No I think the sign came from God when when I was sixteen and I got shot and lived. This is him sending me a reminder."

Hen's training montage on the surface is about preparing her for the next stage of her journey, but more than that it is about her embracing her calling and herself as she really is.

The Initiation:

Hen's arrival at the 118 is met with mixed reactions. She is met with immediate disdain from Gerrard, Sal and Tommy show initially positive attitudes but otherwise follow Gerrard's lead. It's Howie who bucks convention by remaining warm and welcoming, trying to bond with Hen and befriend her.

Gerrard is regularly hostile to Hen questioning her ability to do the job hiding under the guise of worrying about wasting the tax payers money which Hen doesn't let slide, pushing back against Gerrard's outdated, and bigoted opinions. This all culminates on a call to a home that had been destroyed in a mudslide, trapping a mother and daughter inside. Hen uses her intelligence and ability to think outside the box in order to free the victim even if it wasn't in time. After the mudslide call, Gerrard threatens to fire hen before benching her, siting he doesn't trust her, but it is much more likely he didn't like being shown up by a black woman.

Prior to this Howie had once again tried to connect with Hen, even offering her comfort which Hen denies. She does however take his advice to talk to someone and reaches out to Athena.

At the bar we learn Athena gets together with other first responders to drink and swap war stories. Towards the end of this scene Athena reminds everyone at the table that they are the first responders of change but change doesn't come easy.

"I have something to say to all of you. I see you. I saw you the second I walked in that door. All of you staring down at me. I see you when you're hazing me, not like all the other rookies. Whether we're here in the house or-or-or we're out on a call, I'm watching you, I'm look, I see you. When you look at me what do you see? A woman? A black woman? A lesbian? Good. 'Cause I'm all those things. And I don't expect you to love me. I don't even ask you to like me. All I ask is that when you look at me, see me. See me the way I see you- as a proud member of this department. One of the rare few that chooses to spend their life in service of those who are hurt and those who need to be saved. Yes. And one other thing. If any of you have a problem with me being here, I suggest you ask for a transfer. 'Cause I'm not going anywhere."

The remainder of the episode is in an interesting way Hen's triumph, her ultimate boon, even though Hen is still early into the second stage of her journey. It's Hen's moment of showing her brilliance, her competence and having it save the day on the scene of a car accident. This accident is also the scene that marks the beginning of the Hen & Chimney partnership with Chimney defying orders to follow Hen down the hillside, the first of many.

The end of the episode also reveals Sal and Tommy’s true allegiances with them embracing Hen. It is also likely that they had been part of the fire fighters complaining about Gerrard and his treatment of Hen while also giving her glowing reviews. Of course, this moment of triumph is marked with the reveal that Gerrard has been removed from the 118 and a new Captain will temporarily be taking charge.

Beyond Hen Begins

As stated above, Hen's triumph over Gerrard doesn't mean she has left the second stage of her journey yet, she still has a long way to go in the years following.

Woman as Temptress:

This step isn't necessarily about women being sexual temptresses so much as it is about worldly pleasures leading the hero off their path. But within Hen's hero journey Eva is the representation of this. Aside from the obvious, Hen having an affair with Eva in 1x05, Eva is the one who tries to dissuade Hen from following her life's calling telling her all the ways it will be to hard, trying to get Hen to give up before she even starts.

Beyond the affair, Eva is an example of temptations designed to lead the hero off course when Eva starts manipulating events and people, trying to make Hen and Karen lose custody of Denny thinking that if she herself regains custody of Denny then Hen will leave Karen and reunite with her.

"You had me Eva. You had me. I loved you. I woulda done anything for you. That wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. See you have this fantasy of us playing house, as if I haven't already lived through that. I know how it goes, it's me trying over and over and over to build a life for us and you tearing it down brick by brick by brick until I'm left alone heart broken in a hole I don't even know how to climb out of. I survived you Eva, and I'm sure as hell not going to let you put Denny through this."

Henrietta Wilson, 1x09

Of course Hen overcomes the temptations and roadblocks Eva puts in her path, returning to the journey and moving forward.

Atonement with the Father:

While Hen does have a moment of finding forgiveness towards her absent father and catharsis in 2x07 for Hen this step does not occur with her Dad, it's with her mom.

Hen and Toni have a complicated relationship, and at the start of the series they are not close, with Toni not supporting Hen, going to far as to not attend Hen and Karen's wedding.

"Henrietta, let me say this. I'm sorry I didn't come to your wedding. I had my reasons, my excuses, I didn't understand, I wasn't ready. I needed more time to catch up with the way the world was changing. But the truth is, honey, I was just wrong."

"It's okay, Toni."

"No, it isn't. I don't know how you found it in your heart to forgive me, but I'm grateful you did. We all lost something that day. I think today may be our chance to get it back."

Toni Wilson and Karen Wilson, 5×18

Over the course of season four and through season six Hen and Toni heal their relationship, becoming closer, and Toni even learns to be supportive of Hen not just in her professional life, but in her personal life as well.

Refusal of the Call:

One thing I find interesting is that Hen actually rejects her calling in a sense for a third time in after the ambulance accident that resulted in the death of a young girl and it's when she and Karen have a run in with Stacey that she re-accepts her calling.

"Well, um, nothing supernatural, but I have definitely seen things. Six years ago, I saw my daughter walk down the aisle, four years ago, I saw my first grandchild, last year my second. I've seen the world. I have visited everyone who's mattered to me, and I've told each and every one how much I love them. And every day I wake up grateful. Grateful for my second chance, I'm grateful to God, but most of all I'm grateful to you, Hen. Thank you for saving my life."

Stacey Mullins 3×09

It is actually this speech from Stacey that starts the chain of events that leads Hen to answering the call of medical school(the step of Apotheosis).

With that understanding seasons four through six were actually intended to be the final leg of Hen's journey only to be walked back when the show decided not to go forward with the medical school plot line leaving Hen in an awkward sort of limbo in the step of The Refusal to Return.

The Ally:

I know this is going to get a lot of people hot under the collar but in Buck's journey Maddie is Buck's ally. This does not cheapen his relationships with Eddie or anyone else, but in the story of Maddie and Buck they are each others closest allies.

The ally is the hero's closest most important companion and this dialogue from Buck Begins perfectly summarizes why Maddie and Buck are their own alliance in the same vein as Hen and Chimney.

"No matter how hard it got, I always had these [postcards], I always had you."

We always had each other."

Maddie and Evan Buckley 4×05

The Mentor:

Bobby is the character that we see Buck most often go to for advice, or even just general guidance. Bobby and Maddie are without a doubt the two strongest influences in Buck's life and have their own unique bond within this archetype where Bobby fills the role of the father and Buck fills the role of son - more about that later.

The Shadow:

I'm sure there will be an assumption that Daniel is the Shadow or nemesis because of his role in Buck's coma dream, but that wasn't actually Daniel, we don't ever really learn anything about Daniel. It's about what Daniel represents.

In Buck Begins, and truthfully much of Buck's journey, Daniel is a shadow looming over Buck's life, but Buck doesn't understand why that shadow exists. This all manifests into the Daniel we see in Buck's coma dream which is a manifestation of generational trauma, unresolved grief, and Buck's worryingly low self worth.

Because Buck's episode deviates from the formula followed by 2x09 and 2x12 I will be breaking down 4x05 in terms chronological events rather than scene by scene.

I will also be using Evan in place of Buck as he doesn't become Buck until he joins the LAFD

Evan's origin story starts in 1996 with Maddie teaching him to ride a bike and continues through 2004, and ultimately 2012. While the earliest aspects of Evan's journey do not cleanly fit into the over all narrative of the stages of the hero's journey they are important both in establishing the obstacle he must overcome(Daniel and his parents grief), but they are establish the depth of the relationship between Maddie and Evan

"Boston's not that far. And I'm just a phone call away whenever you need me.

Maddie Buckley 2004, 4x05

The Call to Action:

In 2012 after crashing his motorcycle and once again being kicked out of college, he begs Maddie to let him stay with her. Maddie is at this point still hiding the abuse she is experiencing in her marriage so she tells Evan no, but she does promise to help Evan figure it out.

Later that night after Buck is enduring a berating from their mom about his recklessness, Maddie arrives and Evan leaves with her. Maddie pulls over not long later telling Evan to get out of the jeep, she tosses him the keys and offers him some money to get started. Evan doesn't require much persuading to leave Pennsylvania and their family behind, but he does ask Maddie to leave with him, and she agrees in the moment.

The following day Evan goes to pick up from the hospital and receives a letter from her friend Omar.

Dear Evan,

I'm sorry to tell you this way, but I can't leave with you. For one crazy moment I really thought I could do it. But then reality set in and I realized that my life is here. But yours isn't. It's still ahead of you and I want you to find it. Find the thing that makes you happy, the people that make you feel loved. This is your time now, Evan. Go find your place in the world and never look back.

Evan leaves and lives an incredibly nomadic live style over the next five years sending Maddie post cards to let her know where he is, what he is doing, and that he's still trying to figure it out. Eventually he winds up down in Peru working as a bartender where he meets Connor and several other guys. He's watching the film Back Draft when Connor approaches him, inviting Buck to go back to LA with him and the other guys.

Once in LA Buck enlists in the LAFD and becomes a probationary fire fighter at the 118 in 2017, which is when he becomes Buck.

Beyond Buck Begins

For Buck his begins episode is the first part of his journey, the second leg out his journey plays out in the canon timeliness. But there are a few specific steps that play out over the seasons that I want to touch on.

Woman as Temptress:

I'm going to keep this step brief, but it does need to be touched on. In 1x01 Buck calls himself a self diagnosed sex addict. Buck was absolutely using sex to fill a void in his life to the point it had become a problem and he lost his job (temporarily as it was).

The meeting with the Goddess:

This is the stage where the hero receives items to help him in the future.

This step specifically applies to his relationship with Abby, which he himself defines as the most transformative relationship of his life(8x06). Buck isn't given a physical gift, but the relationship with Abby is where he truly starts growing up and maturing so that he can start moving forward on his journey.

When this relationship occurs in season 1 Buck is very much an island. His relationship with the 118 is still in it's early days, he has been separated from Maddie for years and, aside from Maddie, Abby is the first person to show Buck affection just because. Buck doesn't have to act out, he doesn't have to be reckless to be deserving of love. That is the gift Abby gave Buck.

Atonement of the Father:

By the end of Buck Begins, Buck finds a way to forgive his parents for their emotional abandonment of him and Maddie and by the time season six rolls around and Buck is struck by lightening in 6x10 the relationship between parents and children is in a better place they are not particularly close. And by that measure even in season seven things seem to still be improving but they still do not have to close a close relationship. Buck even calls Bobby the father he never had (7x10). So while catharsis has been found, has atonement been reached?

Yes, but not necessarily with Phillip and Margaret.

This step comes to fruition through Bobby's relationships with Buck, May, and Harry. While the three will never, and could never, replace Brooke and Bobby Jr, Bobby is able to find atonement through these relationships(as well as his relationship with Athena and the 118) particularly in those moments where he saves their lives, something he couldn't do with his first family.

The Ultimate Boon:

This brings us back to Daniel, or really what Daniel represents to Buck. Daniel is Buck's first lost save, but also the cause of generational trauma do to the Buckley parents unprocessed grief. This is not to villainize Margaret or Phillip, at the time of Daniel's death in the early nineties they did not receive the proper means or support necessary to process that grief.

But because of that unprocessed grief that made them retreat into themselves and emotionally abandon their two living children they caused Maddie and Buck a lot of harm and trauma, unintentional as it may have been.

In 6x10 during a Han-Buckley family dinner that is going well, Buck asks Maddie if she wonders what things would be like if Daniel had never died. Of course later that episode Buck is struck by lightening and dies for three minutes before being revived and in a coma.

While in his coma Buck dreams of a life where Daniel had lived, and that world is great. Until it's not. By the end of the episode and his dream Buck is in a stand off with this dream version of Daniel, who later changes becoming an alternate version of Buck himself. For Buck the defeat of Daniel isn't about forgiveness or seeing an abusive boss removed from power. It's about himself, and about loving himself and accepting himself. It is about letting go of things that are beyond his control.

With all the above information what does that mean within the greater story of 9-1-1? The short simple answer? There are three ongoing monomyths occurring simultaneously.

The longer, more complicated answer?

9-1-1 is Buck's hero journey. Season one starts with Buck as a hot-head, wet behind the ears probie. As of 1x02 Buck has only been with the 118 for six months, even though it's never acknowledged, he had not yet completed his probationary year. We the audience are watching his entire journey unfold in real time.

And on a practical level Oliver Stark is the forth billed actor on the call sheet behind Angela Basset, Peter Krause, and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Two of the three top billed actor's characters are intrinsically tied to Oliver Stark's.

Quick side note about Athena. Athena's story is it's own separate monomyth completely separate from the monomyth of the 118 or even the monomyth of Dispatch. 9-1-1 has multiple monomyths occurring at the same time and has ever since the first season.

The next point to 9-1-1 being centered around Buck's hero journey is the the one hundredth episode(7x04) is centered around Buck and his queer awakening, and his new feelings for Tommy.

Speaking of season seven, and tangentially season eight, while they do still follow the narrative template of the hero's journey they are odd to say the least.

There are new obstacles introduced, but nothing lasting. Any sort of nemesis presented to our hero's is quickly vanquished, and not even in a satisfying way. Plot lines are picked up and dropped at will, and for much of these two seasons it seems that our hero's are just being kept in limbo.

An argument could be made that Buck isn't being kept in limbo because of his arc surrounding his sexuality, but up until the back half of season eight what does he experience that he hasn't experienced before? Why is this?

Well, season six was originally going to be the final season, the show had been canceled by Fox. Because of that our hero's journeys had to be completed. Then the show was picked up by ABC, saving it from cancellation. Seasons seven and eight seem to be about walking it back, forcing our hero's back into the early steps of their stories and keeping them there. Right up until Bobby's death anyways.

I'm going to address this very quickly before moving onto discussing Bobby's death in terms of the monomyth. I'm only addressing it because I can already hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Why am I not discussing Eddie as part of the Hero's Journey Template? Well there's a couple reasons.

As stated in my introductory statement, this meta is focusing on Chimney, Hen, and Buck as they, and Bobby, were the original fire fighters of the show, and have been around since the pilot episode. These are the characters within the 118 whose arcs most strongly follow the seventeen steps of the Hero's Journey. Which leads into my next point.

Eddie's over all arch does not follow the template of the monomyth. If you go back to his begins episode there is no Ally, No Mentor, No Shadow. There is no defining Call to Action.

This isn't me saying Eddie isn't a hero, he is. But his character arc does not fit into the narrative being discussed in this meta. So he isn't going to be discussed alongside Chimney, Hen, and Buck.

And before I get crucified for stating Maddie is Buck's ally rather than Eddie. I am not saying that Eddie isn't important to Buck, he obviously is. In Buck's own words Eddie is his best friend. But that doesn't mean that Eddie fits the ally archetype, and that's okay. Let me explain.

Going Back to Lord of the Rings as my basis of comparison. Frodo is the hero and Sam is the ally. But the rest rest of the Fellowship are allies as well. And taking it a step further, just because Sam is the ally, it doesn't make Merry or Pippin any less important to Frodo. Sam is Frodo's ally because they are together to the very end, that was their journey. Merry and Pippin's journey took them somewhere different. Merry and Pippin are heroes in their own right in their own individual journeys. What does any of that have to do with Eddie and his relationship with Buck?

Simply put, Maddie is the character who is with Buck to the very end. Eddie is not. Eddie has his own journey to pursue and his own battles to fight. That doesn't make him lesser to Maddie, or Buck, it just means the journey is different.

Let's get back to the monomyth of the 118 and Bobby's death.

The Breaking of the 118

Even though the death of the mentor is not a formally recognized step of the Hero's journey it is a very common and pivotal step in the hero's journey. Let's once again return to the Lord of the Rings for comparison. When Gandalf dies during the Fellowship of the Ring it is a turning point for every single member of the Fellowship but it has the largest impact on Frodo and Aragorn. It is Gandalf's death that Frodo to leave the Fellowship not wanting anyone else to die for him. It is also Gandalf's death that forces Aragon to take leadership of the remaining members of the Fellowship.

After Bobby's death the 118 fractures. They are all trying to deal with their grief on their own instead of leaning on each other, they are so fractured that Buck applies for a transfer because without Bobby the 118 is just a number(8x18).

"This is our firehouse. This is the 118. And it's not just a number. It's us. And you're right, Buck. Things are never gonna be the same again because Cap is gone. But leaving won't change that. It won't make you feel any less sad. It just means that you'll be sad all alone. Bobby died so that I could live. And it has screwed me up in ways that I cannot fully express, but the truth is... he would've done that for any one of us. You see, he knew that just coming in to work every day, there is a chance that one or more of us would not make it home. And his job above everything else was to make sure that we did. And we're all standing here right now because of him. This team, we are his legacy. So we can miss him. And we can mourn him. And we can even curse his name, but we are not going to disrespect him by throwing away what he built right here. So you hang up your turnouts, you hit the showers, you go home and you get some rest. 'Cause we are all gonna see each other on our next shift right here. Together. Understood?"

Howard Han, 8x18

By the end of the episode, and season, things appear to be back in stasis, Eddie has returned to the 118, Buck isn't transferring, there is even the birth of Bobby Nash Han. So what's next?

Return of A Captain

Of our three heroes who is the most likely to take up the mantle of the 118?

In my original tumblr post about this I thought Chimney was the least likely to take up that title but I have since changed my mind and believe Buck is the least likely to become Captain while it is a coin flip between Hen and Chimney becoming the next Captain.

I very strongly believe that Buck will not be the next Captain. With everything that happened to Buck prior to 8x15 and then Bobby's death, Buck has been simaltaniously been forced back into the steps of The Road of Trials(the sixth step) and Apotheosis(the tenth step). Essentially Buck is repeating the hardest parts of the Hero's Journey.

As for Hen and Chim, I no longer feel there is a clear answer. Both characters have been bit into the limbo of once again Refusing The Call, with Hen turning down the position for her family, and Chimney refusing it because of a fear of leadership due to Kevin's death.

There is also the matter of their personal hero's journey. Unlike Buck they weren't forced backwards into the Initiation Stage, however they are both in an odd sort of limbo of being in the stage of The Refusal to Return home.

At the moment of writing this meta, my hesitant belief is that once season nine comes we will see Chimney sitting in the Captain's chair simply because of his big speech at the end of 8×18 and Hen's response to it, calling him Cap before correcting herself.

Truthfully I don't have any idea where the story will go for Buck, Chimney, or Hen in season nine and have even less of a solid idea of who will be Captain. I would love for it to be Hen. She is smart, capable, compassionate, and shows the same outside the box thinking as Bobby. But I also have a feeling it will be Chimney. He is just as smart and capable as Hen, he has also shown the same propensity for being a natural mentor that Bobby did, and there is also the fact that with the exception of Athena Begins(3x07) and Bobby Begins(Point of Origin, 1x05) Chimney has appeared in every single begins episode.

Hen or Chimney taking over the Captain's seat is the most logical conclusion as they are the true OGs of the 118. Making anyone else the Captain would make about as much sense as if Pierce Risher became Captain of the 126 instead of Judd at the end of Lone Star.

The problem is, Tim Minear is being purposely vague, leaving it completely open to speculation. He could of course choose to follow through on those plot threads he has set up. But look at the transition from season seven to season eight. Those plot threads that were set up at the end of season seven were either ignored, or done in the laziest most unsatisfying way possible.