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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26199
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26199
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I would challenge your assertion that the journey is a metaphor for maturation. In today's highly (one might almost say pathologically) individualistic society we do tend to think that the story is all about me: the hero is heroic for the hero's own sake. But the classic hero's journey is not about the hero acting for the hero's sake, but the hero acting for the sake of the community.

The hero leaves the community (in some cases is exiled from the community) and faces various ordeals to win a boon for the sake of the community, after which they are welcomed back into the community (or, in the tragic version, cannot return).

This is then a complete arc. The hero is reintegrated into the community and the community itself is safe. And they all lived happily ever after.

Or at least until there is another threat and the hero is called upon once again.

And in fact the super-hero movies all follow this formula. X-Men, Ghostbusters, Spiderman, all begin with exile and end with acceptance and reintegration.

This is not a maturation plot. It is an exile and return plot. The maturation plot may be a subtype, in the sense that the immature are, to one extent or another, exiled, and must demonstrate maturity to be welcomed back. The teenage years are years of exile. But there is no post-return plot, other than to be exiled again, which is then a repetition of the hero's journey.

As a tribal species, exile is our greatest threat and our greatest fear, loneliness our greatest agony. To be unwelcome around the fire is to be cast out into the wilderness, to the cold, the dark, and the wolves. Those who are cast out, and those who voluntarily leave for the sake of the tribe, share a common consummation: the return.

Original score: 6