A Study in Archetypes: From Arthurian and Medieval Romance to Marvel Comics
They aren’t just comics. Their roots run much deeper than the 20th century.
On my website, I have written numerous times on the topic of archetypes. Archetypes repeat throughout history and in fiction, as I noted in the post here:
…Living, breathing human beings are the product of previous generations. Even the orphan, with no memory of his parents and is raised in an orphanage or on the street, is affected by the genetics and traits of his parents from whom he inherits by blood more than mere physical characteristics. No matter what choices or individual habits and thought patterns he develops on his own, there will remain echoes of his parents’ personalities within him. These will drive him in certain directions and give him inclinations he may not fully understand.
This is why orphans searching for their parents or wishing to know their heritage remains a potent story formula. We instinctively know that we are shaped by those who came before us, that we have our roots in a past, in a home somewhere beyond that in which we find ourselves at present. Even if the home we come from is a broken or unloving one, knowing about it will teach us more about ourselves – and show us where we do or do not wish to go in our own lives as we move forward into the future.
It is for this reason that writers creating series or stepping into a position to shepherd a continuing series forward have to be aware of – and respect – the canon, continuity, and archetypes that compose it. As I have said elsewhere, archetypes tie us to the past; they are the wisdom of the ages passed down via any story to the present generations. To abuse or break them means severing those links, denying present and future audiences the ties that bind us together and make us human. In short, to willfully destroy an archetype is to leave the audience orphans.
Canon and continuity aid archetypes in accomplishing this goal. Canon covers worldbuilding and the quirks of a fictional universe, making it something like real-world physics. Established canon that explains how the Force, superpowers, or warp drive works grounds the fantastic in ways that allow the audience to understand that although things in this fictional world are different, they still abide by certain rules that man cannot bend. Just as, in the real world, man cannot (and should not) bend everything to his will.
History – in this case personal history, national history, and even world history –tells a man where he is coming from and gives him an idea of where he wants to go. A series’ continuity from before and after it premieres acts in that capacity for the characters. Even allowing for time travel in Star Trek or Marvel Comics, there has to be an established history or continuity that lets the audience know where things began and where they are or could be going. There have to be rules and responsibilities tied to using time travel as well; mindlessly playing with time could destroy the series’ continuity as it could eradicate our history, if it were possible in the real world.
Archetypes and their attendant tropes are often derided in most schools of writing these days. The general trend – which presents itself as progressive, new, or avant-garde – is in fact at least three centuries old. It is perhaps older even than that but the previous attempts fell by the wayside and only the gold remains. We no longer remember the stories that were told to undo the societies of the past, because they had not the enduring power of the epics that promoted those cultures and helped hold them together.
We all know the rough outline of the argument that certain archetypes are “old fashioned” or need to be torn down. Someone suggests the archetypes are oppressive, either in the sense of preventing someone from creating what they desire or because they symbolize some type of physical domination or bias, and proceeds to switch them, or degrade them, or alter them beyond recognition. The knight errant rescuing the damsel in distress, for instance, is supposedly a representation of men (the oft-despised “patriarchy”) subjugating women. So modern authors swap the knight’s and the princess’s positions, or they have the princess save herself and refuse to marry the knight, or they may even have her kill the knight when he proves to be a monster instead of a savior.
They do this because they believe that the original model for the trope is stifling their creativity, or because it helps “the patriarchy” hold women down. The idea that the trope of the knight errant rescuing a woman in distress could be representative of men valuing women and desiring them above all things, apparently, never crosses a modern writing teacher’s mind. Nor many a skilled, published author’s mind, either.
It ought to, however, because that is what this trope actually symbolized: The value men placed on women and their desire to become one with them. At the same time, it symbolized women’s hope that they would be worth enough for men to risk their lives to prove their love for them. For only a man who would slay dragons could truly be determined to stay with a woman “in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, ‘til death do [them] part.”
These beliefs were encompassed in part in the old ideas of chivalry. This code was not just a warrior code meant to civilize and curb men’s actions in combat; it insisted that women be treated with respect. Did all men live up to that code? One might as well ask if all women lived up to their own version of that code, since the gentle manners of courtesy gave them so much power over men. If one sex can violate the code stipulated for it, why cannot the other do the same?
Over these questions I have seen no New York Times bestselling writers or those with teaching or academic positions argue. Instead, they do worse than argue over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – at least that would set the angels in question laughing. No, rather than debate philosophy writers scream about what “not to do” and claim that only their way is the proper way to write a story or a character. Though these days “write” might be a stretch for what some authors insist their students ought to do.
While there is a proper way to write a story and a character, that method is flexible enough to fit the individual in several respects. Only in one is it rigid: Do not break the frame – the archetype – which you are using. You may adjust it, paint it in new colors, or add or subtract certain elements. You may deconstruct and reconstruct it. This is all well and good.
But if you smash different frame pieces and then try to graft the remains onto one another to create a “new” type of hero, do not be surprised when you instead end up with Frankenstein’s monster. One can no more make a “new” man out of broken archetypes than he can out of dead bodies, nor can he turn an archetype meant for a villain into an archetype for a hero. The principle in these cases is the same as that which Tolkien noted when Saruman told Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring that the color white may be broken. As Gandalf said: “In that case, it is no longer white.” It is dead, destroyed. You may have a prism of new colors but the clarity and beauty of the white is gone.
A prism’s glitter on the wall or the colors in stained glass have their place, but try replacing the sun with these things. How long before, lost in a haze of green, you trip and fall in a ditch and break your neck? Or what if you walk out to sea and drown because everything is so blue, you cannot tell where the beach ends and the water begins by sight? A desert already looks endless – would you have a wanderer trapped there become more confused by bathing the dunes in orange or yellow light?
Yet this is what those insisting on breaking archetypes or swapping them are doing not only to audiences, but to the authors they claim to teach. Left to flounder in unclear light or even darkness, I see many writers clawing to tell good stories but fumbling and cutting themselves on sharp rocks or upturned wreckage they would see if they had a clear light to guide them.
It breaks my heart because I was once stumbling through that mad prism world myself. I was fortunate enough to have guides and guards, a compass, a map, and a distant star at which to aim. Even with that, though, I bear the scars and marks of mistakes I made which I might have avoided if there had been a flashlight that I could have used to pierce the gloom, so I could avoid worrying about tripping and falling on some piece of shrapnel which might sever an artery.
One of those flashlights would have been archetypes, of which I have spent the last year plus studying in-depth. To whit:
Characters are relatable when they follow the patterns that swirl through life, which have come down to us from the fog of prehistory. They are at once familiar and different; new and ancient, as the faces that come and go in our daily lives carry in them the history of ancestors long forgotten. Individuals are forged by their pasts, by their families’ pasts, by their choices in the present, and by their own personal decisions to be better or worse today than they were yesterday.
But Writerly Sound Bites are not good enough to pass out flashlights. Vocational Vivications are not enough. Even a piece by a Roving Author is not enough. There is more that needs to be done. A flashlight is no longer going to help and, perhaps, it never was.
We need to restore the sun. We need to be able to see again. The white light must be reinstated or we will all perish.
To that end, I have begun writing books on archetypes that most people would recognize: Marvel Comics. In a discussion with Anthony Marchetta on the Superversive Livestream here I mentioned something he had not heard before and, to be frank, which I had not heard, either. I had to figure it out for myself over years of voracious reading and film viewing, whereupon I recognized certain patterns that repeat down through the centuries from generation to generation:
Marvel’s characters are reincarnated Arthurian legends.
Delving into the legendarium of Arthur to confirm my observations, I came to realize that Marvel Comics’ entire universe owes a huge debt to King Arthur. It also owes a debt to the Carolingian Cycle, the tales of Robin Hood, various fairy tales, Medieval history itself, and other epics either written in the Middle Ages or set therein. At the oldest, I would say many of the archetypes I have discovered reach as far back as circa 1100 A.D. (or C.E., if you wish to use that quaint measurement) while others go back to circa 500 A.D. A couple of these archetypes have real people who actually lived as their basis.
I have been a fan of Marvel’s media my entire life. Of this I have made no secret. But until I began to truly excavate the past after receiving a complimentary request from Overgrownhobbit here, I had no idea how much I was missing. This archaeological expedition into the literature of the Middle Ages has made me appreciate more not only the genius of various Marvel Comics, cartoons, and films, but the literature that inspired them.
Marvel’s beautiful colors help to restore natural light to the world of writing. If they can do that for me, then why cannot they do it for you, too?
Behind the Founding Members’ paywall there will be chapters focused on recounting the history of various Arthurian and Medieval characters, then comparing those histories to the publication histories of certain Marvel characters. You can purchase a gift subscription for them or pay for the subscription for the writer in your life, so that they can read these chapters and see the landscape properly.
The first book is titled Knights of the Mutant Table. Any X-fans in the audience will find these chapters particularly enlightening if only from the perspective of a fan, not an author. If you are a writer and want to learn where certain quirks that helped make the X-Men the powerhouse they were for decades came from? This is a book you will definitely want to read.
There will be five books in this series. The second book is Avengers of Camelot, which is underway, followed by Arthurian Norse Myths. These and the following two are still works in progress. Collecting all this information and footnoting it properly takes time, and I have stories of my own to write in-between these non-fiction works. It is only fair to warn you that there will be delays.
But if you are an aspiring or practicing writer who wants a leg up on the competition, this is a book you want to read. I have released a preface for Knights of the Mutant Table today along with a note on “character histories.” The other chapters will be released as my writing schedule permits.
Superheroes are considered reincarnations of Ancient myth, and while some of them are modeled after Ancient deities, the fact remains that Marvel followed Arthurian and Medieval principles in making a variety of their heroes knights. Even the gods of Asgard have something of the Medieval in them, as you will see if you stay with me long enough to finish Arthurian Norse Myths.
Man has always reached beyond his station. He has always desired heroes that are larger-than-life, because somewhere in the distant reaches of his mind, he knows this life isn’t where everything ends. He knows that we were made for more than what we see, feel, touch, taste, hear, and sense. We were made to be loved.
We were made for Love Himself.
By reconnecting with the Medieval mindset that helped to make these Marvel heroes, I hope more writers can come to see that fact. Even better, I hope they can strive to reach for it. For as Robert Browning said, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
The only way to find out is to get there. Fellow authors, future writers, X-Men, Avengers, Asgardians – let us begin. The path is here, though it be shrouded in places with swamps and dark forests. We come not unarmed, however; we enter the fray with fire powers, with sorcery, with shields and bows and armor. With staves and scientific inventions and grit under our nails, with hope, fear, anticipation, and wonder.
We come looking for an adventure, and we have come escorted by heroes. Authors, ASSEMBLE!!!!
I thought of this idea after some idiot (don't remember person or where it was published) decided that super-heroes were inherently "fascist".
It's obvious to me that superheroes (even ones without powers) are based on older stories about wandering heroes who find problems (even seeking out problems) and act to deal with the problems or avenge the victims of the problems.
They aren't acting as agents of some human authority (ie law enforcement folks) but are individuals seeing something and say "this isn't right" then doing something about it.
Look at all the stories about monster slayers in mythology/legends. Those people are the origins of superheroes.
Never heard that Marvel are reincarnated Arthurian characters, and I would agree and disagree to an extent, as I am not so certain that there is a 'Maiden's Knight' in the mould of Gauvain amongst the X-Men or something. That said, I'd argue on the other hand the creative mould that brought them together comes from the same place as the Arthurian Knights to an extent.
That said, I myself as a writer have been naturally drawn to archetypes and have always found them and Campbell to be the ultimate guide so that if you follow them and their light you will never fail as a writer in my view. But the trouble is that too many have turned away from them, and this is why many cultures around the world are failing.
That said, as a critic I bemoan the loss of archetypes also, and think that there must be a realignment at some point, and that it is inevitable.