#4 in Health, fitness & dieting books
Use arrows to jump to the previous/next product

Reddit mentions of The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)

Sentiment score: 50
Reddit mentions: 80

We found 80 Reddit mentions of The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell). Here are the top ones.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)
Buying options
View on Amazon.com
or
    Features:
  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)
Specs:
Height8.6 Inches
Length5.9 Inches
Number of items1
Weight1.44 Pounds
Width1.3 Inches

idea-bulb Interested in what Redditors like? Check out our Shuffle feature

Shuffle: random products popular on Reddit

Found 80 comments on The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell):

u/nowtherebecareful · 10 pointsr/slatestarcodex

Check out The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell if you have not already! It's actually mentioned in the second paragraph in the Wikipedia article you linked. It's one of my favourite books of all-time.

As for why we seem so naturally/innately receptive to these narratives, personally in my opinion I think to some extent we think that's true because of confirmation bias. "Oh look at how so many people love Stars Wars." I think if we look we can see a number of narratives don't follow the Hero's Journey. But for those that do, I think the hero's journey is still so engaging because from one POV it can just be summarized as: a protagonist has a problem, the protagonist goes to solve the problem, they experience challenges in doing so, they receive help as well, and then finally they solve the problem. A story's gotta follow those broad strokes.

But great book from Joseph Campbell nonetheless!

Edit: Whoops, just noticed you asked about other universal plot structures, you didn't ask to read more about the hero's journey. Unfortunately I don't know of other universal plot structures off the top of my head. I'm still gonna leave this comment.

u/Montuckian · 8 pointsr/Frugal

Weight is a combination of diet and exercise, but that doesn't mean that they share an equal part. Most of your weight gain or loss is going to be governed by your diet (think 80%). Keep in mind, you can't outrun your fork.

That's okay though, as eating well is frugal. Start here.

If you don't know what your goals are, you'll likely never change your behavior. Find your maintenance calorie intake, eat at or below this while fulfilling nutritional requirements (MyFitnessPal isn't a bad way to track this), and then use exercise (body weight or otherwise) to increase your calorie deficit even more.

Keep in mind that lean body mass (LBM) will burn more calories than that fatty stuff, so doing body weight or dumbell exercises is always a good path to take. Head over to /r/fitness for some good workout advice that will meet your goals and budget.

Good luck, and if you need a little extra help and motivation, /r/loseit isn't a bad subreddit to frequent.

u/frostylakes · 8 pointsr/comic_crits

Even if this is supposed to be a part of something larger, it should have its own arc. You know what's supposed to happen as the author, so maybe to you, it seems like its fine. But you need to look and craft these things from the perspective of the audience.

I'll use, say, Cowboy Bebop as an example. It's almost entirely a series of self-contained episodes, save for a few episodes that touch on this relationship between Spike and Vicious. But, the self-contained episodes are often iterating and riffing on some of the same overall themes that these connected episodes are built on. Or, when they aren't, they're carried on pure entertainment value. They feel good. They're flat out fun to watch. Or they revel in the absurd, which ties into the show thematically and also rides pure entertainment value.

Fallout: New Vegas does this as well. Side-quests seem self-contained, more or less, but they build on your understanding of the world and they often build on this theme of nostalgia for the Old World, or Old World Blues, as the game eventually puts it. All of the companion character side-quests riff on this theme of clinging to the past or moving forward, the factions all follow in this theme (whether its the major factions modeling their selves after Old World powers or the Brotherhood of Steel finding that they don't belong in the world anymore, so they either need to adapt or cling to the past and die). All of these side quests are self-contained, thus having their own arc and feel satisfying to complete, but also they build on the overarching theme of the game and give the player something to think about once everything is said and done.

You can do this with your own work. You can figure out what it is that you want it to be about and make build on those themes, even just from the start. If you have ideas and themes you want to explore, you can explore them from the start in whatever way you want, and tie it all into something more grand later if you're telling an overall story, or just keep riffing on them in different self-contained scenarios. The main, best thing to keep in mind though is that if this is intended for an audience, you need to write it with the audience experience in mind. Your ideas could be incredible, but the audience would never know it if you've written it to be impenetrable to them, or just so boring that it's unlikely they'll continue to read to get to the good parts.

As an example, I love the show Eureka Seven. Somewhere towards the middle of its run, it has a small arc with a couple of characters named Ray and Charles that culminates in some of the best TV I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. But, I can almost never recommend this show to anyone. The first ~10 to 15ish episodes are a chore. The show sort of acts like you should know who all the characters are already, or doesn't give you a whole lot to work with in terms of giving you something to come back for. For this reason, it took me from when it aired back in 2005 all the way until 2014 to finally finish the show from front to back. There was a ton of good there, but it was so, so difficult to get to it through the start of the show.

So, Entertainment value. Have you read Fiona Staples' and Brian K Vaughan's Saga? The very first panel of the very first page oozes entertainment value, while also giving some great banter to help establish the characters and introduce us to the world. This is a strong opening, and even if there is some lull to the comic afterwards (which there may or may not be depending on your tastes), its given you a taste of what it is and a promise of what its capable of delivering. This is a really great thing to have. If you're aware of Homestuck, it's the GameFAQs FAQ that serves as the end of the comic's first Act that suddenly shows you how the comic will format itself: Lots of nonsensical goofing around until hitting an emotional climax that re-contextualizes the events you had just seen. This isn't at the start of the comic, but entertainment value carries the comic until that point, assuming you're into programming jokes and goofball shenanigans. But, this scene comes so comparatively late that it's likely you've already dropped the comic before getting to the "good part" if these jokes didn't carry the comic for you.

Actual Advice and Critique

Comics are hard, because, unless you have a writer or have an artist to partner with, you're doing both jobs, and the quality of the thing depends both on being well-written and well drawn (or at least some balance between the two that makes it palatable to read). I think that if you think in an actual episodic way, you could improve your writing a ton. With this comic, the arc would be "how did Lasereye become Lasereye?" It's potentially a pretty good premise, right? You'll establish a character and have plenty of chances to create entertaining scenarios because... It's your story! Lasereye became Lasereye in whatever way you decide he did. Go crazy, tell us a story! How did some young, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kid turn into some dude in a slum with one eye glowing brighter than ever and the other dim and jaded? Telling this in three pages would actually be a great exercise.

Your art is rough in that it looks like you could use learning some base fundamental things like human anatomy. Your palette and the food stand itself reminds me of Kill Six Billion Demons though, which is great. You've created a good atmosphere in panels 1, 2, and the last panel on the last page, despite the artwork itself being rough. That's great! You know how a thing should feel. That's a great thing to have down pat that will only continue to be a boon as your technical skill improves (and it will if you work at it!). I think that if you buckle down and grind through learning how to draw, you could make very great, visually appealing work.

There's a problem in page flow on Page 2. Here I've shown how your page directs the eye with red lines. The way the page is laid out, you end up reading the fifth panel before you read the fourth panel, which will cause a reader to have to double back to read things in order. You don't want that. You'll wanna keep an eye out for how your pages read in the future. Just give them a once-over and ask where the eye would naturally go following the lines on the page.

So, if you aren't currently, learning human anatomy would be a great place to start placing effort. If you have access, figure drawing classes and the such would be a great way to start working on that. It helps immensely to have others around who can help you if you aren't sure what you're doing at first. Books on comics in general would be a good place to go as well. Understanding Comics and Making Comics, both by by Scott McCloud, are good introductory texts. Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative by Will Eisner and Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist also by Will Eisner would be good as well.

For writing, Dan Harmon's Channel 101 guides will be great tutorials as he's one of the best working writers today in episodic TV. I'm aware this isn't directly comics, but the best writing advice is rarely going to come from a comics-focused book. Will Eisner will tell you how to use visuals to your advantage in telling a story, but the nitty-gritty of actually writing will have to come from somewhere else. The Hero of a Thousand Faces by Joseph Cambell may help you understand structure further. This is what Dan Harmon is riffing on and working off of with his Story Circles, but adapted slightly for the sake of episodic television. Film Crit Hulk, an online movie critic/ the Incredible Hulk has a screenwriting book called Screenwriting 101. It's invaluable. I highly recommend it, even if it isn't directly about comic writing. You'll be able to adapt the advice as you work in your own medium.

u/behemothpanzer · 7 pointsr/fantasywriters

You have talent, keep working and you'll be fine.

The harshness,

You're making simple verb-tense errors all over your piece. Is it taking place in past-tense? he fed small grapes into her mouth
Or is it taking place in present-tense? she pouts to him, before he looks to her with an icy scowl

Both are acceptable. I personally prefer present-tense because I feel it adds immediacy and tension, but that's entirely a personal thing and should have no bearing on your own choices, but you need to make a choice and stick with it.

You need to format your writing properly before you show it to people. Things like paragraph breaks and indentations for lines of dialogue, and there are a couple of sentences where meaning completely breaks down, To an outside observer, he might seem slightly schizophrenic with his self affection, and quite considerably moronic of Strel, there was an observer. I have no idea what the second part of this sentence is supposed to convey.

There are a few points where your sentence construction gets a little clumsy, where the words get in the way of meaning or feeling, Strel made a vicious grin as a robed and turban-bound being huddled where it once was. (Made a vicious grin? Where what once was?)

wild were the actions of the people enamored with it (Enamoured with the market? How were their actions wild?)

However, there is a clear sense of creativity in your writing and a sense of determination to put words together in interesting ways that is impressive for someone of your age. If I were your English teacher, and I teach High School English, I'd be encouraging the hell out of you to keep writing because I think there is a lot of potential here.

Right now my suggestions would be to read everything you can. In particular, look beyond fantasy to books which are highly regarded for their literary merit. I'd strongly recommend Salman Rushdie (The Satanic Verses), Orhan Pamuk (My Name is Red), and Hillary Mantel (Wolf Hall).

As a fantasy fan there are things to really like in all of these books, and they're all examples of what writers at the absolute peak of the craft are capable of doing with language.

The second thing I'd suggest is to practice writing short pieces. It's all well and good to leap into a novel, but the ability to structure a beginning, middle, and end to a story is vital. If you can get classic story-structure skills mastered at a young age you're way, way, way ahead of the curve.

Finally, read The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. It's a non-fiction book about what Campbell calls "The Monomyth." A classic mythical story-structure repeated over and over and over again in mythic tales from around the world, and utterly essential reading for anyone who wants to write Fantasy.




u/Wegmarken · 6 pointsr/askphilosophy

Personally I think a better questions is 'how should one read Jung?' I have a friend who studied psychology with a neuroscience concentration, and that area doesn't tend to take Jung or most psychoanalysts seriously, and while that's not my background, I can see why. I used to be someone who took those methods of self-description and analysis very seriously, but in addition to occasionally taking me some weird places, it's really not taken seriously by most professionals in the fields of, say, psychology.

That said, there are a couple reasons to still study psychoanalytics. One is if you're interested in things like art, film or literature, which were all hugely influenced by ideas about the subconscious. I read a lot of James Joyce and Marcel Proust, and those writers can't be fully understood without some decent understanding of the understandings of psychology that fed into those authors works (Joyce even had his daughter be analyzed by Jung). Artists like Picasso and Pollock were heavily inspired by psychoanalysis, and much can be said for numerous filmmakers, and even some interesting religious study has been done with their work (Joseph Campbell comes to mind here). So if you're interested in that angle, I'd say go for it, as they've got a lot of interesting insights into how art, literature and even religion work.

Another way you can read them is for personal growth, rather than as a transmission of analytic information (I'm not sure I'm phrasing that very well; apologies). I have a few authors that I love to read, but would hesitate to use them to back up some assertion made in an academic paper, unless it was for a very specific purpose, or maybe just finding some flowery quote that I put at the front of a chapter to be pretentious. Jung's been great for me to understand myself, but I would be wary of using him in some academic setting (outside of some where it makes specific sense). I read him like I do Joseph Campbell, Peter Sloterdijk and Allan Watts.

TLDR: Yes, but only sorta. Expect personal growth, but not rigorous psychology, and you should find a lot of value in his work. I'd also recommend Joseph Campbell, since he developed a lot of psychoanalytic stuff into some somewhat more accessible work, and even edited some of Jung's work into an anthology.

u/catchierlight · 6 pointsr/occult

> I wonder if humanities curious nature towards mysticism is inevitable and that all paths, no matter how diverse, will always use the same formats and formulas to tell their tales.

This is one of the central tenants of Jung's research (well you know "research") and Joseph Cambell basically wrote the book about it... https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936 sorry if Im being didactic/eg if you already knew that... its a really facinating question/idea. As far as "Embedded in our DNA" eg for a more scientific approach this book is AMAZING https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicameral-Mind/dp/0618057072, even though it does veer from the purely scientific, the idea is that our brains have certain regions which act on our spiritual relationship to our "gods" which manifested themselves as voices in our earlier evolutionary states and that as we became more rational our brains still retained these functional but at the same time "disfunctional" anatomy leading to experiances that result for some in uncontrollable states, like schizophrenics for example ... the way he "proves" all of this stuff is a comparison of his experiments in neuroscience with historical texts, legends, sagas, and other implements of earlier humanity like archeological finds. if you are interested in this topic this is an absolutely Mindblowing book right here just saying!


Finally:
"Is this part of our evolutionary growth or yearning for divinity?
Our ego's thirst for magical power or trying to step out of our physical limitations?" I think you are right in that we yearn because, I beleive at least, our evolutionary state has one foot in the past and one in the future, we have evolved beyond our normal need for mere survival and we now use our brains for complex creation and navigation of human institutions but we dont really know "why", we dont really know what meaning is becuase "meaning" is a brand new thing! and without it the universe seems devoid of purpose and therefore I beleive we fill in those gaps with these notions and art, music etc, art and literature helps us define ourselves and music helps us 'engage' with the harmonics/vibrations of the universe on deeper levels (as it is really the only category here that actually relies on the schientific make up of the universe i.e. the ways that ratios of harmonic waves sound pleasing or displeasing based on their relationships in time...). I just love this stuff, am also agnostic but love to celebrate all ideas no matter how objectively "wrong" they may be, thats of c why Im on this sub! Love your questions/keep on searching!!!

u/HellhoundsOnMyTrail · 6 pointsr/OkCupid

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, a Jungian psychoanalyst.

Basically he looks at a bunch of the world's myths and relates it to the hero's journey. Really right down my alley with my dream interpretation and creative pursuits.

u/TempestheDragon · 5 pointsr/fantasywriters

Okay, I read it all. And here's my critique, Blangy. :-)
While the read is still fresh in my mind, I want to talk about my overall opinion on how your story can improve.

  1. There are too many flashbacks that aren't relevant to what's happening. What is happening is Peter is traveling and trying to hitch a ride... but... most of the chapter is dedicated to flashbacks that don't have anything to do with hitching a ride and are about a crown and his mom. However, I feel almost all your flashbacks can be used... just scattered around when they become more relevant.

  2. I feel you're introducing too many ideas (defeating guards, crowns, and mother-related flashbacks. These brief flashbacks on, I'm assuming, significant ideas (if Peter mentions he bests guards and talks about a crown, I'm going to guess he will be beating guards and wear a crown at the end) All of these ideas smashed into only a few pages make me feel everything is bouncing too quickly. I'm only getting a brief sketch, of say, Peter's memory (that was really intense). As a reader, I feel cheated of not being able to experience the event. Instead, I have to sit here and read about it. This makes me resent the story and loses my attention.

  3. I feel the beginning... makes no sense. All I see is a boy in the woods with his dog. What significance does this have? Why do I care?

    Maybe try Watching the opening scenes of really good movies. Pixar and Disney have it good. They know when to start. You can also (re)read the first chapter of a book you like. Ask yourself: Why does it start here? What is the opening conflict? For a bit more info, I'd highly recommend this video on How to Write a good first chapter and this video on How to write a good first page

  4. I resent the flashbacks even more because I want to get to know Peter, not his past. Reading the first page or so, I was excited to see where it would go and was disappointed when it just... spiraled into his past and went to brief outlines of his memories instead of crisp and clear present day.

    Maybe try reading The Hero With One Thousand Faces. It's a classic and is full of information on how to structure stories. :-)

  5. I just... don't buy that he's super strong.
    > His belt felt heavy, weighed down by the heavy scabbard in which sat his castle-forged steel sword. He had, like most of things he owned, won it in a brawl with some unsuspecting mercenary or lordsguard.

    Mercenary? Lots of them were knights who were paid soldiers. They were highly trained from the age of 14 to 21. If they weren't knights, they would still be tough dudes. How would he encounter them?

    > Whilst he seemed somewhat skinny, his height hid his true strength.

    Lots of guys were tall. This gap of logic made me lose interest in the story.

    Maybe try Giving him some training in swordsmanship. Maybe a relative could have helped him..? For giving Peter training, you'd have to work on a word building bible because I don't think there were that many opportunities in medieval times to get sword training that wasn't second-rate. I'd recommend this video on making a world-building bible I just wanna say that I love this girls' videos and I'd recommend all of her other ones, too. :-)

    5)
    >The dying fire flickered weakly as it clung to its last few embers.

    Right off the bat, I expected the entire chapter to be about the feeling of... well... something dying. The first sentence of a chapter is important. A good deal of the time, it can set the tone of the chapter. But I was disappointed when that didn't happen.

    Hmm... that's all I can think of right now for improvements. There are some sentence structure tidbits, too. But those are minor. I just want to focus on the big picture.

    Now, on to things I liked about it.

  6. This one really struck out to me.

    > He could only remember her long auburn hair that he had buried his face into on countless nights when nightmares stopped him from sleeping.

    Then later,

    > The last thing he had seen of his mother was just a brief moment of her kicking and scratching at the guards as they forced her away from her son, pulling her from the auburn hair that had kept Peter so safe.

    Damn... that association and then that connection later was very poignant. I think that little tidbit can be really useful if it's presented at different times. But yeah, it was beautiful, Bangly! :D


  7. >His fur was matted from the rain and dirt, and looked black where it had once been brown. Peter had forgotten the name the buxom innkeeper from whom he had bought the dog off of had given him, but Mud seemed to be happy no matter what Peter called him, and the name did suit the dog well enough.

    This struck out to me because it describes the dog in an interesting way. Well done. :-)

  8. Overall, even with the flashbacks and such, I felt it was well-written. Your writing is the reason why I think: "Why don't I give critiques on this sub more often?" I quite enjoyed reading your work and I'm really looking forward to reading more of this story. It has potential... strong emotions and good writing... it's just needs some previsioning and I'm sure it can be a great story! Thank-you for the read. :-
u/cuadradoroja · 5 pointsr/conspiracy

Historically, human beings have rarely ever been aware of the control exerted upon them. Supposedly, realizing that control exists can be both an empowering and traumatizing event.

>When I became conscious of what my situation was, I thought of the best way to escape without being caught. I knew that if I didn't find that way, I could be killed.

Also, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces can aid readers in recognizing the timeless narrative techniques that are used to shape societies -- one mind at a time.

u/Fey_fox · 5 pointsr/pagan

It is confusing, but not something that can be easily summarized in a post.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143038192/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_SHufAbVP5DDP8 is still a good breakdown of the modern pagan movement and different groups you might find. http://www.witchvox.com looks like it was designed in the 90s but is still a good resource and is updated, you can find groups there too. http://wildhunt.org is a news blog if you want to see what’s going on today. There are other sites but that’ll get you started.

You can probably tell some folks are a bit sensitive about history. Some swear up and down that their traditions go back unbroken since forever, others will say that all neopagan traditions are reconstructionist and formed in the last century or so (give or take 50 years). The sensitivity comes from people feeling that the newer the tradition the less legitimate it is… but aren’t all religions and spiritual paths made up by someone?

Here’s the thing. You are in charge of your own spiritual journey and your connection to whatever you call your higher power/s is your own and no one else’s. Imho humans are creatures of habit and ritual. It sets the mind to task, even if that’s getting a cup of coffee and reading your email before work to help set up your day. Pagan rituals are a fame work to help you create sacred space, and there’s a psychology to it. What Wiccans call raising a cone of power is similar to what Jim Morrison did in his trancelike long performances where they would speed up and slow down the tempo, ending it in a release. Lots of pagan rituals across many paths use this old technique of syncing heartbeats with music. Other religions use this to a greater or lesser degree but most pagans use it with intent along with myth and symbolism of the wheel of the year which is a death/rebirth myth we re-enact over and over. It’s up to you to figure out what it all means. Beyond historic fact you decide your truth. There’s no dogma really. All the different traditions do is provide structure to work in. There’s no ‘true’ path. Just yours.

If you like more academic reading, I suggest The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1577315936/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_C9ufAbYFREXB5
Out of Your Mind: Tricksters, Interdependence, and the Cosmic Game of Hide and Seek https://www.amazon.com/dp/1622037529/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_G.ufAb9673FJ3
Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345409876/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_J-ufAbH37W34C
None of these are ‘pagan’ books, think of them more as companion philosophy/psychology behind myths. The last book is geared more towards women but it’s a good read regarding the female archetype in myth.

Nobody can give you concrete answers. You gotta do what anyone curious must do. Read and figure it out for yourself.

u/EnderVViggen · 5 pointsr/Screenwriting

I can't recomend or say this enough.

You need to read three books:

  1. Save The Cat. This book will give you the basics of how to write a script, and what points to follow.

  2. Here With A Thousand Faces. This is the same information you would get in Save The Cat, however, it's way more involved. This book isn't about screenwriting, it's about story/myth and how we tell them. READ THIS BOOK!

  3. The Power of Myth. Another book by Joseph Cambell, which explains why we tell stories the way we do, and why you should write your stories using the 'Hero's Journey' (see Hero With A Thousand Faces).

    It is important to learn these basics, as you need to learn to walk, before you can fly a fighter jet.

    Happy to answer any and all questions for you!!! But these books are a must!!! I read them all, and still have Hero & Power of Myth on my desk.
u/Xais56 · 4 pointsr/fantasywriting

Have a read of this.

Basically you need to be living and breathing story structure, to be at the point where an idea naturally slots itself into the pattern, rather than you struggling to work out how to access it.

If you want something a bit more formal read this, it's basically the university textbook version of the blog post I linked.

u/Halo6819 · 4 pointsr/Fantasy_Bookclub

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond: An amazing look at how civilization was formed

On Killing by Dave Grossman: If your characters kill anyone, know what it will do to them

*edit: Hero of a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell: You think Eragon is a rip off of Star Wars, or that Star Wars is a rip off of Jesus, or that Jesus is a rip off of some obscure norwegan god, find out the true origins of just about everything you have ever read and find out why Harry Potter had to die and had to come back from the dead!

u/azsincitymagic · 3 pointsr/dbz

In this book the author discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world mythologies. it explains it all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces

http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936

u/TheLorax86 · 3 pointsr/gaming

I mean, Jesus is just all other heroes by the same token. Ancient greek literature, which predates the story of Jesus follows the same archetypes. I'll just leave this here. http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335360288&sr=8-1

u/slowlybutsurelyknee · 3 pointsr/writing

John Truby's Anatomy of Story is a great one. Joseph Cambell's A Hero with a Thousand Faces is also where The Hero's Journey comes from and worth a read to see what kinds of universal motifs and beats exist in stories.

Also second On Writing & The Elements of Style! Brandon Sanderson is also great, and he does FAQ Fridays on his blog where he answers questions on writing as well!

u/SS465 · 3 pointsr/islam

I'm pretty sure Joseph Campbell talked about this. I definitely recommend checking out his book, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936). Also check out the Netflix special based on his lectures, "The Power of Myth," where he touches on this as well. Interesting stuff!

ETA: he specifically does mention the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and how his story fits this paradigm. Enjoy!

u/avogadrosemail · 3 pointsr/writing

Unfortunately I haven't read Silmarillion, so I have to defer that question. But I still suggest looking into The Monomyth and The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The idea is simply that stories have taken very similar forms since the beginning of history. Joseph Campbell noticed how the mythologies of different cultures who could never have interacted were eerily similar: how Hercules or Gilgamesh or Cuchulainn were basically the same guy.

In recent years people have studied the psychology of this phenomena, and now we specifically reference it as a story telling tool. There are plenty of criticisms, saying it's paint by number etc... You can boil any story down to the basic "A hero goes somewhere to do something" which is so generic that it's meaningless. But that's why there is no point in directly comparing your work to LOTR. They will have to have similarities if you dig deeply enough.

Where is the point where they are different enough? Nobody can tell you without reading it. But from what you've already described you sound fine. I personally would draw the line somewhere around characters named "Blundalf the Blue" and "Leafbeard".

u/CupBeEmpty · 3 pointsr/AskAnAmerican

Oh my dear sweet child.

American movies are so secular?

I mean, how dense are you? American movies are rife with religious connotation, tropes, or just outright straight religion. Have you not watched a movie in a couple decades?

PM me your address and I will literally buy you this book.

I will also illicitly give you a link to The Passion of the Christ.

u/Pr4zz4 · 3 pointsr/Jung

There are several. Here’s just a few I’ve enjoyed.

King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062506064/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_04ugDbXGHB18G

Iron John: A Book about Men https://www.amazon.com/dp/0306824264/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_h5ugDb5X2WAJ8

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1577315936/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_y5ugDbNTGC2GM

u/ashlykos · 3 pointsr/suggestmeabook
  • Save the Cat is the structure used by nearly every Hollywood blockbuster.
  • Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces is a classic. The Story Circle is arguably a form of Campbell's Hero's Journey.

    (edit: formatting)
u/ursineduck · 2 pointsr/books

there's another one called Hero with a thousand faces i totally picked seven randomly because "i heard somewhere that stories..... are based on "n" different themes where n is a real rational integer in R^2 such that f(n) is smooth..." seemed a bit unnecessary but i like that i am goddamn spot on.

u/ajdzis · 2 pointsr/writing

The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell sounds like what you're looking for. While it's not a "how to" guide, the book is an artfully written exploration of mythology, psychology, and the concept of "monomyth" -- universal symbolism and meaning structures across cultures and time-periods. It also guided/inspired Star Wars.

edit: lined to book

u/tammuz1 · 2 pointsr/filmmaking

Possibly (and I personally have issues with his attitude and viewpoints on filmmaking) but that's beside the point. The point is a lot of young filmmakers found/find this book inspiring and empowering, even though it's probably outdated for the Youtube generation.

And to be fair to my housemate (he's a screenwriter, which is what the OP is interested in), it took him a while to come up with a book that he can recommend and at the same time not too technical, after I shot down a couple of other titles (like this, this and this.)

u/LewsTherin177 · 2 pointsr/freefolk

Are you familiar with Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces or The Seven Basic Plots?

That's ultimately why, even though I like GRRMs' work, I take his critiques of authors like Tolkien with a grain of salt. Narratively there's only so many stories you can actually tell. And why I don't rate him as highly as Tolkien or Herbert or Jordan.

Like we're seeing with Jon Snow in the show, and probably will in the books, ultimately it's just another hero's journey.

GRRM just added more peripheral stories and used the narrative weights to try to make the story seem more complex – but you can't really escape the structure ultimately.

Or as Christopher Nolan so succinctly summarizes via Harvey Dent's character in The Dark Knight, you either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain. That's the tension of anyone making a difference.

u/JerBearGRR · 2 pointsr/exmormon
  • How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee by Bart Ehrman. He provides a much more plausible explanation of who Jesus actually was and who he was not than what you'll hear in chapels.
  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. The same pattern of the "hero" story repeats itself countless times over thousands of years and through different cultures. The story of Jesus fits the pattern.
  • And if you want your mind blown, Freedom from the Known. The most influential book I've ever read. It provided me courage to let my own ideas and perspectives guide my worldview. It teaches that it was OK to disagree with a perceived authority.
u/slick8086 · 2 pointsr/movies

> It is sad that none of these people can come up with an original idea

Joseph Campbell would like to have a word with you

u/theredknight · 2 pointsr/Screenwriting

Yeah no worries happy to help, definitely PM me. I'm happy to offer you suggestions if that's useful to you.

If you're at all curious about the mechanics of what you're trying to work with your audience, it might help you to understand it based on brain science. The problem with forcing a symbol onto a character or a character into a symbol sets up a battle between your right and left hemispheres of the brain.

The right hemisphere lacks language so it largely works in meaning, symbols, images, and lives in the moment. The left hemisphere (specifically the portion behind your left eye) is constantly trying to generate a story of what it's seeing and make predictions of what will happen next based on what happened before. It also seems to contain language primarily.

So, in my opinion, symbols ideally should be generated by your right hemisphere which is responding to reality but unable to coin it words. From there, your left hemisphere should gather that up and codify it into a storyline. However, by trying to craft the symbol first, that's likely how you got a blockage. You're telling your left hemisphere to create the symbol which is disconnected by meaning because the left hemisphere doesn't really care if things are meaningful or not. It just wants to generate a story to cover it's ass.

There's a good writeup about how they learned all of this mentioned in Jonathan Gottschall's book The Storytelling Animal. Basically, in the early 1960s, a man's corpus callosum (the median between his two hemispheres) was severed and so his hemispheres couldn't talk to each other. Then, they gave the man a divider and began to show each of his eyes different things. So they might show his left eye a picture of chickens and his right eye a field of snow. They'd offer him objects and his immediate reaction came from his right hemisphere, so he'd grab a snow shovel. However, his left hemisphere had to justify why it had done that and so when questioned why he went for the snow shovel, he said "To pick up the chicken poop!"

The point is the right hemisphere is the center you want to trigger deeply in your audience. That's why peculiar symbols and mythic motifs stir people in deep ways. It's the right hemisphere that wants to swing a light saber for example, or responds to conversations in Tarantino films about food. The problem with a lot of screenplays is there's a lack of understanding of these core ideas and as a result, some people just let their left hemisphere generate story thread garbage that doesn't really make sense or work.

Now that's not to say that you have to have an insane understanding of symbolism to write a good screenplay. You don't. We all understand these things deeply in our own right hemispheres. You should, however, be aiming to be inspired by your own deeper meaningfulness but also willing to share your ideas with others to polish your storytelling. This is why oral storytellers are constantly re-working their stories.

The shortcut of course, is to utilize standard mythological motifs. However, there's problems with this as anyone who learned Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey can see. Just because you're using a mythological motif doesn't mean you're utilizing meaningful symbolism. The Hero's Journey is a collection of 12 or so motifs that Campbell saw. Well those aren't the only motifs out there. Vladimir Propp's version has about 31 core motifs (he calls functions) and Stith Thompson's collection has over 46,000 motifs and are quite useful for story generation if you develop an eye for updating old storyforms. (I've done quite a few story creation experiments using Thompson's stuff).

If you don't work from an understanding of meaning and symbolism, it's like creating a person whose bones are all dislocated from each other and therefore can't move. If your story can't move, it definitely can't move your audience. You need meaningful symbolism to pull that off, and it doesn't take much to be honest. Stanley Kubrick would write his films around 6 to 8 meaningful symbolic ideas, which he termed "non submersible units" and then craft the story around that. Ray Bradbury in his book Zen in the Art of Writing describes hiding meaningful moments from his childhood into his stories in order to give them soul as well. You get the idea.

u/BadnNglish · 2 pointsr/AskAnthropology

You may have read it already, but I've always found Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces to be relevant when bridging the gap between philosophy, anthropology, and psychology in debates with friends.

u/Belskirnir_ · 2 pointsr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

IM BLUE DA BA DEE It is called blue and the artwork is blue! what more could you want!!! its the bluest thing in the world! da ba dee da ba diiii

Summer Rae Her wwe ring name is Summer Rae, which is like summer rays which are what tan us whilst chilling in the summer. She is also hot like the summer!

Watermelon Slicer its like an apple slicer but freaking massive!!! not seen anyone ever use them but i need one in my life for the perfect melons

Elvis Searcher CD this would be for my dad, we havent always had the best of relationships but we are starting to really get along right now, would be nice to treat him with the newest album of his favourite artist that we both love, after all he has done for me recently

Karl Pilkington Book this series was one of the funniest tv shows i have ever seen and this book is just as funny, its a diary of the events and its just so stupid in places that it is sidesplitting!!!

Guitar Picks They are the best pick because they literally are picks ;)

Star Wars Doggo Costume! This is a costume for dogs and fits all sizes! You know it will be funny and cute to see the doggo walk around with a stormtrooper on him!!! ( or her)

Banana Armour I think this is useless because who puts bananas in positions where they are unarmed and need to be protected! i do need it tho

Mulan It is one of the greatest films in the world, it promotes feminism, there is romance, guilt, family honour and values, the moral of not judging a book by its cover as well as you being able to achieve anything you want, its soundtrack is a masterpiece and helped launch the career of Christina Aguilera AND it has Stevie Wonder and Donny Osmond, a panda, a cricket, batman references, a homosexual subplot, and a talking fucking dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy... what more do you want

DIY Enema kit it would be helpful because not only can it make sure your bowel movements are okay, it can be used for sexual pleasure, to help with drug or alcohol intake, it can be used for a punishment on someone who has wronged you and im 90% sure it can be used in some way to benefit the population and aid in childbirth

Nutribullet!!! to help me get healthier and lose weight before my university graduation and cousins wedding in india

Pesky Penguin Bottle Opener Its an add on and its something that Benedrillt Cumberpatch cannot say!

Tottenham Hotspur Scarf! THEY ARE THE BEST AND I LOVE THEM!!! im going to guess you are a fan of the spurs! because tottenham are also called spurs! get it?! sorry im bad at this stuff aha dont know any american teams really

Some rare pokemon haloween plush for this price i hope this is super rare and something that is signed by pikachu himself

Unicorn Poop This is special candy! real unicorn poop, trust me, its real... i promise... i think... i lied

Sweet Candies Yankee Candle this is my fav scent! its what i imagine the wonka factory smells like!!!

Pokedex!!! pokemon was my fav growing up and i used one of these bad boys to go round and try to hunt them down!

The Hero with a thousand faces book this is a book that really shows the basic outline and plot for most films and characters that the world loves! it hellped my dad and his friend when they were writing a screenplay and i feel like its a great place to start and look at !

WWE Seth Freaking Rollins Funko Pop! this is a combination of 2! i love wwe and wrestling and Seth Rollins is my current favourite wrestler! i actually wanan try to become a wrestler! and also funko pops! i am a huge collector and obsessed with them!

Random Ass Bollywood Vinyl This is one of my fav bollywood films and has a banging sountrack, just is funny that it is on vinyl!

This was a lot of fun! thankyou for this!

EDIT: Sorry still getting used to this new reddit and didnt realise the linking has changed!

u/scdozer435 · 2 pointsr/askphilosophy

I second The Hero With a Thousand Faces as a semi-philosophical but very interesting and indirectly spiritual book. Very accessible, and a great gift (I've gifted Campbell numerous times by now).

Pascal's Pensees would be great, being very spiritually oriented and all. Kierkegaard's a bit more dense, but also has a lot of interesting things to say on sprituality. Try Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing.

u/danceswithronin · 2 pointsr/writing

I'm having a derpy autistic moment, so I can't tell if you're joking or not, but in case you're not joking, somebody [totally has written this book.] (http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936) :D

EDIT: typo

u/Tyler_023 · 2 pointsr/awakened

My response is: study comparative religion, comparative mythology, and comparative mysticism.

I would start with Joseph Campbell

https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/

u/franran · 2 pointsr/OneY

I suggest you stop thinking about finding/dating women and start working on yourself. Who are you, what do you stand for, who do you want to be(come). Focus on yourself. Read this http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936

Stop the pity party, take one step forward everyday. Not toward a girl, but toward the man you are.

u/sonofaresiii · 2 pointsr/Filmmakers

All of them, really. Absolutely no harm will come from reading all the books out there (for a while). At worst, you'll learn ways of doing things that DON'T work for you but it's still good knowledge to have.

After a while, eventually, you'll start noticing though that all the new books out are just copying and rephrasing the books that came before them. That's when it's time to stop.

Some of the popular ones are syd field's book, Robert McKee's book, Joseph Campbell's book (and imo a book called The Writer's Journey by Christopher something that analyzes Campbell's book and puts it into modern story telling terms). That'll get you started. I have varying opinions of each of those books and none of them should be adhered to by law, but they ALL contain concepts and theories that, as a professional writer, you'd do well to expose yourself to. If for no other reason than that you can be aware of the concepts when others talk about them.

Tangentially, Stephen king's On Writing and William Goldman's books are great reads but don't necessarily apply to the craft of screen writing directly. Also useful to read any interviews or collections of interviews with screen writers. You may also want to check out some podcasts, Jeff goldsmith's interviews with screen writers is great and I have no idea if it's still available or even what it's called but I used to listen to one titled something like Sam and Jim Go to Hollywood (I am positive I got those names wrong) about two guys who up and quit their careers as restaurant owners and moved to Hollywood to become writers and share what they've learned. Ted Rossio and Terry Elliot also run, or ran, a website with forums (which are eh) and and a collection of articles about screen writing which are fantastic.

This was all stuff I was into years ago, so I don't know how much of it is still relevant, because like I said when you get to a certain point you've kind of read everything out there and it all starts repeating itself, and you realize all that's left is to read screenplays and write a ton.

Good luck.

e: back on my computer, here are some links:

Syd Field's Sreenplay (he has several books out, that's the one you should start with as it lays the foundation for basic story structure of nearly all modern movies. IMO, it's also the best one out there because he never says these are rules in any way, he simply analyzed a bunch of movies and lays out his findings for you to do with as you wish)

Robert McKee's Story

Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces

and Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey

Stephen King's On Writing which describes his writing style and, while I don't prefer it, is a very interesting style similar to the Cohen Brothers

William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie did I Tell? two accounts of William Goldman's experiences as one of the top writers in Hollywood, and dealing with the business. Writer of The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, and many others. Dude's a legend.

Jeff Goldsmith's Q&A podcast he also did the same style podcast while working for a screenwriting magazine, though the name escapes me right now

Sam and Jim Go to Hollywood holy shit I got their names right I can't believe it. Seems to be dead for a few years but it looks like their podcasts are still up.

Wordplay, Ted & Terry's website read every single one of those articles

e: BONUS! Not that useful as an educational resource, but it's fun to read Ken Levine's blog, writer on MASH and Cheers Ken's blog (no, not the guy who made BioShock)

u/ScottishGeology · 1 pointr/Romania

> Sorry if my quotations are all over the place and if i don't make much sense, i'm pretty beat.

No worries.

> Whoa, isn't Halo 2 like, the worst Halo, according to the fans of the series? Isn't that the one that ends with "i'm finishing this fight"? If so, you have some quaint taste in storytelling :).

I found the difference between the two installments a great idea. In the first HALO you know almost nothing about the enemy. High tech space cult worshiping ancient aliens that has a taste to genocide anything that doesn't agree with them. Stop them. The story is like the first Star Wars movie. Great male hero with a humble beginning teams up with female companion (who is not the damsel in distress anymore), stops an evil Empire and blows up an evil superweapon.

Simple heroic story. ([Have you read The Hero with a Thousand Faces?](
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Hero-Thousand-Faces-Collected-Works-Joseph-Campbell/1577315936/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1500659625&sr=1-3&keywords=the+hero+with+a+thousand+faces) it explains well how many stories get repeated through history just with different characters and updated technology because they appeal to the human condition.)

Than in HALO 2 like in The Empire Strikes Back things get muddied. (They are not the same after that, but there is an arc how Darth Vader goes from a purely evil entity to a victim caught up in his own hatred and thirst for power) The evil Elites turn out to be victims caught up in a crazy ideology that dominated their culture after a long war with the Prophets, in which the two come together into a religious empire. The same is true about The Arbiter he goes from the great human exterminator to one of the heroes who saved the human race and the galaxy from extinction. I just enjoy the Arbiters story as he goes from cult member to a truly honorable warrior.

The same was true for HALO 4, while many grumbled about many aspects of the game. I enjoyed how it was a story about the Mechanical soldier finding his humanity by dealing with a loss of a loved one. He used to stopping Empires, Demons and Gods, yet he fails on saving one person. It is a great story. Of course HALO 5 ruined it, but we don't need to talk about that...

> Oh, you don't need to link me SW:EW, i know the game very well. There's even that Thrawn mod! You're very unlikey to find a bigger Star Wars nerd than me in Romania, btw.

Cool. Always great to meet a fellow Star Wars fan. Just a fun fact: Ian McDiarmid was born in Carnoustie, in Angus. Just 10 minutes drive away from where I live. Basically Palpatine is from Angus! He went to university in Dundee. We don't even have a plaque in Carnoustie to commemorate him, maybe I should ask my council about to get one put up. Such a great actor.

>What the actual fuck. Is that the same LBC that employs James O'Brien, which tore a new asshole to Farage during the Brexit campaign? WTF?

Yes, LBC always tries to get everybody in from the different political spectrum. For Me James O'Brien being on in the morning than have Nigel Farage on the evening is normal.

I followed his career quite closely from early on. I knew from 2009 that he would be trouble and that he has giant sway over politics in the background. Cameron was terrified of him. I even read Farage's books, you need to know exactly what tunes the devil is playing in order to defeat it. (Good quote from Jeeves and Wooster). The episode was about the rich aristocrat getting mixed up with Communists, very funny. (Great comedy series.)

Back to Farage... I remember, I told one of my friends that I read one of his books. He told the entire debate club. They thought I was a mad raving racist. Even after explaining that in order to defeat him politically we should understand his ideology, that was one awkward week. By the way the clip is from Father Ted, a great comedy.

> Yugoslavia is probably a prime example of shit hitting the fan at 60 mph. Putting all those stories together might result into something pretty awesome.

Well off to the library for me. Interesting stories. Scotland produces a lot of video games. Maybe I would be able to find a studio or get UBISOFT involved.

> Ah, never underestimate the average American's love for anything christian.

I am for freedom of religion and I agree with the First Amendment but you cannot go around killing people or setting society on fire just because you think you are God's VIP. Personally Far Cry 3 should have ended with the U.S. Navy dropping off forces capturing the island. (Between 4.00 to 5.00)

Same with Far Cry 5. The killings begin... The National Guard rolls in... Congress passes disaster relief... Joseph who...? We live in the age of the Internet nothing happens on Earth without the N.S.A. knowing. So mass murder in woods wouldn't go unnoticed. I think currently the U.S. government is so scared of terrorism that they would shoot christian terrorists too.

> I know the term "PC" gets a bad rap these days, like, i don't know, "feminism", but i think that's very short-sighted. I see he's dwelling into the psychology of the bible and whatnot, but does he go into our history, as a species? Does he realize that until fairly recently (like the 1800s), the human race was deeply misogynistic and misopedistic?

He surprisingly talks a lot about Evolution. How the Human species had to evolve along with the neurology to understand complicated concepts and solve problems without falling back to violence. He makes a good point about the importance of classical liberalism: "Equality of opportunity is not the same as equality of outcome" Of course I don't purely listen to him. I respect Bill Nye too. I think one interesting debate is between Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris. (I know I am treading on dangerous water here) A long listen but an interesting conversation.

I hope you have a nice weekend.

u/The_Sponge_Of_Wrath · 1 pointr/startrek

If you're interested in delving deeper, this is the book you want :)

u/elijahlight · 1 pointr/Filmmakers

If you're interested in the storytelling side I would recommend The Writers Journey which is based upon The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Also some great YouTube videos from Kal Bashir.

u/HeirToPendragon · 1 pointr/books

>"I identified with Rand/Mat/Perrin"

Beyond how terrible that is, let's jump right in.

>"well, i always liked it because it starts out w/ some young men, far from civilization/cities who are destined to save the world (glossing over the "fated to go insane" part)."

So they are just like Jesus, Anakin and/or Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, Superman, the main character of almost every god damn Final Fantasy (and most other RPG/JRPG) game out there, tell me when I can stop.

Now, I'm not going to say the book is unoriginal. It's just going off of the typical Hero Myth that Jospeh Campbell outlined. He has his own story plots and he's not really a thief of ideas (compared to, say, the Eragon books).

However, the WoT series needs an editor more than Tolkien did, and that's saying a lot. Most of the book is a set of useless, ongoing, yet somehow disjointed, amount of side stories that branch so far from the main plot that you are forced to ask why they are there. And when you reach that point, you know you're in need of an editor.

If you're looking for the best fantasy series of the current age, you're going to be weighted down by arguing opinions. However, if you want mine, go pick up Gaiman's The Sandman graphic novel series (I suggest library, they aren't cheap). The Sandman is easily, in my opinion, the best fantasy series to ever be printed.

If you're looking for more of the traditional hero myth, try Bone (another graphic novel, and a good one). For the normal style, I suggest the Dresden Files (which are really fun) or the Dark Tower series.

I'm sure other people can give you examples.

u/eekbarbaderkle · 1 pointr/rickandmorty

Um well here's the book it's from. I don't know what you want a link to. An explanation of the Hero's Journey, or Harmon talking about it?

u/raxo06 · 1 pointr/Harmontown

It's funny because I was tempted to correct your initial summation Campbell's work but decided against it since I was also in the process of admitting how shitty it is to correct someone on something that's not even part of the point they were making.

But to say that Campbell's work is a simplification or "plebeian bastardization" of Jung's work is not accurate. It's common practice in academic writing for a scholar to build upon the work of another. So it's more accurate to say that Campbell was influenced by or that he built upon Jung's writing on archetypes and the collective subconscious. But while Campbell is writing on the nature of myths, Jung was a psychologist building upon Freud's earlier work to a completely different end.

Ultimately, what I'm trying to say is that the sentiment in this sub regarding Campbell's work being derivative and therefore less valuable is unfair because it is the nature of academic writing to build upon the writings of your predecessor.


The Hero with a Thousand Faces
is the seminal work in the field and clearly the source of Harmon's inspiration. I'd also recommend Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey as the best and most succint interpretation and analysis of Campbell's ideas as a framework for contemporary story and writing.

u/FetusFeast · 1 pointr/books

lets see...

u/registering_is_dumb · 1 pointr/books

Classical Myth by Barry Powell is what my favorite classics teacher taught out of. It is a very readable book that is probably 1/3 primary sources -- which I like.

http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Myth-7th-Barry-Powell/dp/0205176070/

And then these two classics on mythology from Joseph Campbell also come to mind as very accessible and packed with information from a guy who definitely knows what he is talking about:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Myth-Joseph-Campbell/dp/0385418868/

http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/

u/nixonisnotacrook · 1 pointr/zen

Have you read Hero with a Thousand Faces? Writers study those books, like in Disney, for example, the employees attend seminars on writing and how to put archetypal story structuring in practice.

u/NoWandStds · 1 pointr/gamedev


I know more about narrative. I recomend you:

u/erissays · 1 pointr/Fantasy

For fairy tales, I recommend the following:

u/sic_transit_gloria · 1 pointr/Psychonaut

It depends on what the "hallucination" is, but inherently - no. And that sort of assumption, that if someone is seeing something that most other people aren't, then it must not be there and they must be hallucinating or suffering from some sort of psychosis or schizophrenia etc. is a form of societally conditioned violence, as far as I'm concerned. Of course there are some people who do suffer from hallucinations, but seeing something that others don't - auras, for example - does not automatically mean that it is a hallucination. So I'd just ask what the hallucination itself was.

Buddha:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/812061660X/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_14?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2ZNRRJXT0TOB6

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1614290407/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_11?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Joseph Campbell:

https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1503795767&sr=8-3&keywords=joseph+campbell

u/_phylactery_ · 1 pointr/funny

It's totally awesome! I think people are assuming I'm insulting Eragon which I'm not.

If you take a look at most adventure stories you'll notice that while they have different plot points, the stories often follow similar narrative trajectories. This is an idea most famously argued by Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with 1000 Faces.

In this book, Campbell breaks down the monomyth into parts for example the first plot point is usually called "The Call to Adventure." Campbell describes the Call to Adventure: "The hero begins in a mundane situation of normality from which some information is received that acts as a call to head off into the unknown."

This is usually followed by the "Refusal of the Call" where "Often when the call is given, the future hero first refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances."

It's pretty interesting stuff (to me at least!) and it can help you look at literature/storytelling from a new perspective.

If you're interested in the Monomyth here are some fuuuun places to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936

http://orias.berkeley.edu/hero/

u/Cdresden · 1 pointr/fantasywriters

Not at all. Not even just in fantasy. There are tons of outstanding fantasy stories that don't involve magic or prophecy or pseudoscience of any kind.

I think at its bare bones, a story is about a person's transformation, a change in opinion or perspective. That person doesn't have to be the center of the universe.

In Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he deconstructs the basic form of the story, and shows how it's a hero's journey. The hero's tribe is in trouble, so he journeys outside his tribe and goes through challenges, and discovers knowledge. He's transformed in the process. He brings this back to his tribe and saves the day. Maybe that's what you're thinking about.

u/PM_ME_BOOBPIX · 1 pointr/writing

All fictions.... well 99.99% of fiction follows the Hero's Journey.


Book: https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936

Documentary: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093183/

u/IvanMarkowKane · 1 pointr/GetMotivated

This or Bulfinch's Mythology http://www.amazon.com/Bulfinchs-Mythology-Fable-Thomas-Bulfinch-ebook/dp/B004TPB9CU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414441098&sr=8-1&keywords=bulfinch will give you the standard Greek Myths with all the little variations (as the myths tended to change over time )

Joeseph Campbells 'Hero with a Thousand Faces' http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414441286&sr=8-1&keywords=campbell+mythology will give you an alternative way of looking at the myths, should you still be interested after Hamilton or Bulfinch

u/its_me_kraft_punk · 1 pointr/INTP

Is that really how you feel? You don't enjoy any art that consists of fantasy or escapist elements? I've come to enjoy all kinds of surreal art like David Lynch's work, The Twilight Zone, The Leftovers, etc. And there's a lot of logical sense in HP. It's possible to incorporate real-world themes and lessons into fantasy fiction. It's been a talent for millennia. If this is really that new to you I suggest this.

u/OriginalStomper · 1 pointr/todayilearned

HP follows the path laid out for lots of great stories, as identified in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. As summarized in wikipedia, Campbell explores the idea that all the great myths which have survived share certain common tropes:

> Campbell describes a number of stages or steps along this journey. The hero starts in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unusual world of strange powers and events (a call to adventure). If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, the hero must face tasks and trials (a road of trials), and may have to face these trials alone, or may have assistance. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift (the goal or "boon"), which often results in the discovery of important self-knowledge. The hero must then decide whether to return with this boon (the return to the ordinary world), often facing challenges on the return journey. If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world (the application of the boon).

This formula is a proven winner used time and again, whether in Star Wars or in Frank Herbert's Dune or in numerous other stories.

u/ultraregret · 1 pointr/writing

Okay, so there are a lot of people who say there's "No real guide to writing." I understand why they say that but they're not factually correct. A lot of the best writers I follow all recommend a few key books. I started writing my book with no guides, which was fun, but I set myself up for a TON of rewrites because I didn't know what I was doing. I'm now deep in revisions and V2, and the only reason I'm finding success is I got my hands on some excellent books that showed me where to go from "You have a cool idea that might make a good book."


First, My Story Can Beat Up Your Story. Really good, basic, zero-fluff guide to writing (tailored to screenplays but it works just as well for novels.) I went from a mess of a first draft to a rock solid 10-page outline with this book alone. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00696HIYA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

​

Second, The Writer's Journey. People like Dan Harmon (Community, Rick and Morty) swear by this book. Little more fluff (by which I mean philosophical mumbo jumbo) but still an excellent resource for getting to know your characters, plot, structure, and what makes a story good as opposed to bad. https://www.amazon.com/Writers-Journey-Structure-Storytellers-Screenwriters/dp/0941188132


But all of these are basically just introductory texts to reading the Holy Grail of writing, The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. I started here and realized I was way out of my depth in terms of understanding why this book is important for writers, so I'm now backing myself down to Writing 101 rather than the masterclass.


https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1549390571&sr=1-1&keywords=hero+with+a+thousand+faces

u/adelie42 · 1 pointr/Anarcho_Capitalism

My suggestions -- things that most influenced me:


  • Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought Vol 1 & 2

    Gives a full explanation of what different people thought throughout the world at different times and places about economics and how it evolved versus the stagnant theological explanation you are not supposed to question today.

  • A History of Private Life Vol 1-5

    Tells a world history of actual people, their customs, and how they lived. Much more engaging than the endless list of who killed who under which tyrant that we are supposed to worship (if they won) like we get today.

  • Hero With a Thousand Faces

    The only book you should read on comparative religion if you were to read just one. An excellent literary analysis of "all" mythology and biblical stories.

  • The Real Lincoln

    On the topic of revisionism, if you want to know more about what really happened instead of just the tired and empty hero worship. People should really know what he did to earn his place in history. To note, not for the faint of heart.

  • Dead Aid

    Another book not for the faint of heart. A detailed account of how the World Bank and other groups have made Africa and the Middle East poorer than they were 50 years ago, despite spending over $1.5 trillion dollars trying to fix them.

    Two videos I recommend:


  • Want To Help Someone, Shut Up and Listen

    Teaches more about economics than any other video of its length, and doesn't even talk about "economics". It is where I heard about Dead Aid.

  • How Intellectual Property Hampers Capitalism

    Title says it all
u/tpounds0 · 1 pointr/Screenwriting
  • The Eight Characters of Comedy: A Guide to Sitcom Acting and Writing by Scott Sedita
  • As I said, I read it but wouldn't put it on my recommend list. I think it's more applicable to actors in a Sitcom than as a writing tool.


  • Into The Woods by John Yorke
  • I pointed out how it wasn't for me, because it is a focus on Five Acts, while American Television's acts are decided by the number of commercial breaks.

  • Story by Robert McGee
  • It's recommended so often that it doesn't make sense on my list. My list is normally a comment on other's posts asking for book suggestions. I assume someone will reference this book.

  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) by Joseph Campbell
  • I didn't say anything about the book. Just my belief in the protomyth. I say later in the thread that ultimately reading anything will help you, as long as it doesn't distract you from writing.


    ------

    I don't find my list derivative and pedantic. But you're very well entitled to your thoughts.
u/natarey · 1 pointr/reddit.com

I'm a pretty well-confirmed athiest at this point. I tend to view the current manifestations of religion as following in a long tradition of mythmaking by human cultures.

With that in mind, you might look into some psychology in addition to your religious research. I'm a writer, which is how I came by Jung and Campbell and Booker -- but I think the idea of underlying patterns of thought that guide our own mythmaking is of broader use than simply helping me understand storytelling better.

I've read the following, and suggest you do as well!

Jung

The Basic Writings of CG Jung

Man and His Symbols

The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Psychology and Religion

Campbell

The Hero With A Thousand Faces

The Masks of God (Vols. 1 - 3)

Myths to Live By

Booker

The Seven Basic Plots

There are a lot more, but those are the ones I'd start with. As an undergrad, I majored in English and Rhetoric, and minored in both Religion and Poetry -- this cultural storytelling stuff is important to me.

As a library science graduate student, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that you can get all of these books from your local library -- and can enlist the aid of the reference desk in finding more material for your research. Believe me, there's nothing a reference worker likes more than an interesting topic -- i.e. something that doesn't involve directing people to the bathroom, or helping people find books on filing their taxes. We're trained to help with real research! Use us!

u/UndeadBBQ · 1 pointr/TrueAtheism

Coming from a writer, gamedesigner, story-designer kind of background I found that most religions, like mere fairytales, behave similar ion their stories.
Two very good books on this topic are:
The Hero with a thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=pd_sim_b_1
and
Archetypes by Carl Gustav Jung.
http://www.amazon.com/Archetypes-Collective-Unconscious-Collected-Works/dp/0691018332

What it basically says it that humans, no matter where they live, follow a rough pattern of storytelling. This leads to the conclusion that our biology and following our psychology works in similar patterns. Therefore we developed similar myths and as you asked, religions.
This of course is additional to what others were writting but it gave me a completely different look on what religion is and what it does with our brain and culture.

u/uberwookie · 1 pointr/Pathfinder_RPG

Because the Heroes Journey transcends culture and even awareness of itself as a trope. Not Long enough, more details --> Joseph Campbell's writings on this subject.

u/SYO2017 · 1 pointr/JordanPeterson

> The hero myth is all about courage tbh..

uhmmm not according to these 3 sources:

  1. https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936

  2. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093183/

  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey

    It can be interpreted secondarily as courage, but... it's not the main focus.

    What sources are you referring to?
u/NoClaim · 1 pointr/atheism

You and your teacher should look at comparative mythology works by Joseph Campbell such as The Masks of God collection, particularly Vol 4. Creative Mythology, and The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Will make you realize that you can go back to pre-babylonian times to find everything from the adam/eve story to the great flood and more.

u/xkcel · 1 pointr/DestinyTheGame

Also, in case you're wondering where the thought process against this sort of MTX design of video games comes from; mine comes from "The Hero with a thousand faces"
https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936

Actually, it comes from a knock off book that I read in college, but they're the same thing.
All video games are journeys. Those journeys have specific events and attributes that define themselves. Many MTX designs seek to undermine the narrative or value of a story for monetization. I'll give an example.

Let's say you're playing a game called "Jesus Christ lord and savior". This game goes over the journey of Jesus and you play Jesus. You're carrying your cross on your way to be crucified and a popup comes up. 2.99$ to increase progression and become god faster. 1.99$ for a loot box with cool Jesus swag. Don't forget to preorder the first DLC, Mormon expansion.

In the narrative of Jesus Christ those sort of MTX directly undermine the journey Jesus was on. We can no more separate the progression model of a game from the hero journey, than we can separate the single player campaign. By doing so we compromise the key elements of immersion and undermine the return value of the hero journey. The "sense of pride and accomplishment" we feel is normally in response to a well thought out journey. Cheapening the experience with counter narrative monetization undermines the core tenants of our species story telling and own personal journey.

u/GerardDG · 0 pointsr/DebateReligion

That was an unsatisfying answer, I suppose. You want me to make a genuine play before we continue, fine, I'll give it a shot. But the supposed delineation between literal and symbolic is the first thing you'll have to discard. It is entirely wrongheaded. It's not even wrong. On one end a literal interpretation has Christians eat the body of Christ and drink his blood, and you end up painting them as vampire cannibals. Which was probably your agenda anyway. On the other, everything is symbolic and the new testament might aswell be referring to Jesus' covert war against clown reptiles. These answers are silly because the question is silly.

In the early 20th century, mathmetician Kurt Gödel set out to create his incompleteness theorem. The theorem was originally intended to show Russel and Whitehead's system for working with natural numbers as complete. This is important, because what use is an incomplete system? Not only did he end up proving the system as incomplete (humiliating two people he actually admired), he ended up proving no consistent system of logic can ever be complete, and vice versa. Neither can the system prove it's own axioms, any more than you can lift yourself by pulling your hair. Why is this crucial to a debate about religion? Because divinity is complete.

Source: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter.

So math and science arrive at what religion already knew. All is one. Duality is false. Symbolic and literal interpretations do not exclude one another, they show aspects of the same complete divine thing. They are shifts in perspective. An unsolved rubix cube does not disprove the solution. One implies the other.

And so the singular divine splits itself into male and female. One becomes two. And the coupling of two will beget a third. But duality is false, division is false. Man is fallible and incomplete, so he stifles the world through his ego. The benevolent king becomes the tyrant. The mighty creator becomes Holdfast, the enemy, the dragon.

It's been awhile since I've actually seen a bible, but as I recall the new testament does not start with Mary or God. It was Herod who called the census and set the whole thing in motion. The bad, unjust king strangles the land in an attempt to secure his reign. Thereby his actions create the very thing he fears most: the hero.

The tyrant-father is just a different face of the holy creator. When the arch-enemy holds the entire world in his stranglehold, new life springs from the void itself. The story of the savior is the story of every single human being. It shows the hero ascending the dominance hierarchy, dethroning the evil tyrant, slaying the dragon and reuniting with the divine. The hero's special weapon is the ability to tell good from evil in all their different guises. And again good and evil are just a perspective shift away from being truth and untruth. What difference does it make if the dragon is an actual dragon, mankind's sin, or the duality of all existance itself? All of it is symbolic. And in the sense that all of us are heroes, all of it is real.

Source: Hero with a thousand faces by Joseph Campbell.

>Clearly we can infer the Apostles and many early Christians believed that these things literally happened, and whether or not you think this is zealotry, the number of Christians who believe this literally is greater than those who see this symbolically.

This part brings a particular quote to mind, and besides there's a third book that I can show off as having read:

>The sun signifies first of all gold. But just as philosophical gold is not common gold, so the sun is neither just the metallic gold nor the heavenly orb...Redness, heat and dryness are the classical qualities of the Egyptian Set (Greek Typhon), the evil principle which, like the alchemical sulphur, is closely connected with the devil. And just as TYphon has his kingdom in the forbidden sea, so the sun, as sol centralis has its sea, its "crude perceptible water" and as sol coelestis its "subtle imperceptible water." This sea water (Aqua pontica) is extracted from sun and moon...
>
>We can barely understand such a description, contaminated as it is by imaginative and mythological associations peculiar to the medieval mind. It is precisely this fantastical contamination however that renders the alchemical description worth examining- Not from the perspective of the history of science, concerned with the examination of outdated objective ideas, but from the perspective of psychology, focused on the interpretation of subjective frames of reference...The alchemist could not sperate his subjective ideas from the nature of things, from his hypotheses (emphasis by prof. Peterson)...The medieval man lived in a universe that was moral- where everything, even ores and metals, strived above all for perfection.

Source: Maps of meaning by Jordan Peterson.

u/scalyblue · 0 pointsr/scifiwriting

As long as you put your desire and hope in the act of writing itself, as opposed to the desire of wanting to have written something, you will do well.

I would suggest a few pieces of light reading, a few pieces of heavy reading, and some listening for you too.

Light reading:

Stephen King's "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" This book is not meant as a book of lessons so much as the formula that assembled one writer. It's short, it's heartfelt, and it has some wisdom in it.

The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. - This is a short book, it gives a good starter set of rules that we accept for communicating with one another in the English language.

Heavy Reading:

Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell. - This is a short book but it is very thick with information and esoteric names from all cultures. Why is that? Because it deals with, very succinctly, the fundamental core of nearly all human storytelling, Campbell's "Monomyth" premise can inform you all the way from the Epic of Gilgamesh to Star Wars a New Hope

Writing Excuses This is a Podcast about writing by Brandon Sanderson, of "Mistborn," "Way of Kings," and "Wheel of Time" fame, Howard Taylor, the writer and artist of Schlock Mercenary, a webcomic that hasn't missed a day for a long while, Mary Robinette Kowol, a Puppeteer and Author of "Shades of Milk and Honey" and Dan Wells, from the "I am not a Serial Killer" series It has been going on for more than a decade, and nearly every episode is a wonderful bit of knowledge.

u/Trent_Boyett · 0 pointsr/TrueAtheism

When was new to atheism, I found the works if Joseph Campbell to be very valuable.

In his popular works, he essentially deconstructs and compares the great world religions, and shows that in many cases, the underlying messages of them are similar, and point to some truths about the human experience that can be appreciated without having to turn to spirituality or the supernatural.

His seminal work is The Hero of a Thousand Faces and it's probably the best place to start.

I also really enjoyed Reflextions on the Art of Living which is a collection of short pieces.

Much of Campbell's work is generally no longer considered academically sound, but it's still a fantastic read.

u/_Human_Decency_ · -3 pointsr/atheism

The stories never really change their substance, just their scenes and characters. Reason offered us a different process, not a new story.

Maybe humans are the gods and these stories are just our unconscious projections giving us a road map to becoming our higher selves. Even if God doesn't exist, how does that invalidate the stories? It seems like I'm not properly conveying the process of how to approach those 'stories'. Try reading this.