This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the Helping Writers

Authors Podcast.

I hope you enjoy this week's episode,

Arctypal Antagunists for the Hero Arc, Dragon and Sick King. The well-known hero arc offers us the exciting story of a brave

youth fighting to discover and earn his own worthiness. It follows on the heels of the Maiden Ark's initial

individuation from the authority figures that dominate one's youth and it offers the

young adult the opportunity to discover what he is

meant to do with his life. Viewed mythically, the Hero Arc or journey is usually an

epic quest in which the hero ventures away from

the kingdom to confront a dragon and find the elixir that will heal the sick

king and save the kingdom.

More realistically, it is a story about finding meaning and setting one's course in the very

specific ways that will influence the entire rest of one's life.

As we've already explored in our initial post about the Hero Arc, it is a story about

exploring one's newly burgeoning power as an adult and

discovering whether or not that power will be surrendered into a greater love,

which could be for a specific person or cause, but generally is seen to represent a loving

reintegration with society itself.

As such, the Hero Arc is certainly a story with a deep inner conflict and character

arc for the protagonist. The antagonists, the character faces in the external plot may demand all sorts of heroic action.

But fundamentally, as always, they represent key aspects of the hero himself. The two-sided face of the hero's archetypal

antagonist can be seen to be represented by the dragon and the sick king.

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