This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 544th episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode, Arcetypal Character Arks Part 11, The Queen's Shadow Artypes, the Snow Queen and the

sorceress. Character who makes it through the Hero Arc is a character who has graduated into a brave new world.

The second act of the life cycle of archetypal character arcs.

This section of life, which deals with questions of relationship and power,

begins with the first of the mature arcs, that of the Queen.

But like all positive archetypes, the Queen's positive archetypes the Queen's potential for further transformation

is shadowed by the possibility of her slipping instead into either of two

counter archetypes, the Snow Queen and the

sorceress. As with all of the positive archetypes, the Queen's journey is

characterized not just by the external antagonists she faces in bringing order to her kingdom, but just as much by her personal inner struggle against the lure of her own shadow archetypes.

Instead of rising up to protect her family,

whether literal or symbolic,

she may freeze into the selfish and numb passivity of the Snow Queen, someone who cannot

master the courage and strength to protect those she loves, largely because she

has not properly learned the lessons of the first act in gaining the ability to protect and care for herself.

It is also possible the Queen may instead succumb to the alluring but false power of her aggressive

form the sorceress. In so doing she forfeits her true responsibility to become a selfless leader of those she loves,

instead even vampirically manipulating those in her charge in order to meet her own needs.

By the time we reach the archetypal character arcs of the second act, we often start seeing

some familiar faces from the previous arcs showing up in supporting roles.

Here it's the maiden and the hero.

And not surprisingly, the negative forms of the Queen and all later archetypes are almost

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