Archetypes are the formants of character · 1:53pm Aug 16th, 2020
Curiosity, in my head, is the desire to explore for the sake of growing one’s own map of the world. It feels important because explorers are willing to put themselves on the line for the sake of the map. It feels primordial in the sense that it requires trial-and-error for the sake of growing something, which reflects facets of evolution. It feels pure in the sense that it’s not meant to be decomposed as a small piece in the pursuit of some higher goal. It feels solid because curiosity, as a concept, resonates with many people.
There are other character concepts that feel similarly important, primordial, and pure. To derive a few, the desires to create, to raise, and to rule each lead to their own bundle of character traits. I think of these resulting character traits as archetypes. In writing, I imagine that archetypes are ultimately important because they resonate with people.
In some sense, stories exist because they resonate with people. To the extent that a story is driven by its characters, the reasons behind why characters resonate feel broadly the same as the meta-reasons behind stories in general.
I’m rather fond of character-driven stories, and for me that bubbles up into a desire to understand archetypes. If I try to tackle the problem directly, I end up with a hopelessly difficult question that I phrase as, “What is the space of archetypes?” This question breaks down roughly as follows.
- What are all possible archetypes?
- What are the ways they can vary?
These questions have no definite answer. There are some things that are certainly archetypes (e.g., the explorer), and there are some ways in which they can certainly vary (e.g., by motivation), but to try to map out all of the archetypes feels like a hopeless task, roughly on the same level as trying to map out all the sensible words.
Mapping out such pseudo-structured things is incidentally something that artificial intelligence can do (and will become increasingly good at doing), but not yet with something as complex as archetypes. Though it will never be perfect, I think one day the cartography of archetypes will be a proper field of study.
In the meanwhile, I can at least try to understand the resonance that leads to archetypes. That way I can recognize archetypes when they pop up, and I can try to understand why they’re popping up.
In other studies, points of resonance are called formants. When you speak, the size and shape of your vocal tract, head, and chest change how sound resonates in your body before venturing out into the open air. As you adjust your vocal tract, like when you move your lips and tongue, the frequencies (tones) that resonate most strongly change. Those resonant frequencies, the formants, reflect aspects of the space in your vocal tract, and so they’re a useful proxy for recognizing vocal tract shapes when you can’t observe vocal tract shapes directly.
You can try this yourself. If you listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXK_cE9AqAI without reading the lyrics, you can imagine someone going through the motions to sing a song even though, if you don’t already know the words, you probably can’t understand what’s being said. That audio was created by mimicking the formants that people create while actually singing. By closing your eyes, listening, and trying to imagine the singer, you can get a sense for how formants can give you information about the space they reflect. Similarly, by understanding the relevant properties of the head, chest, and vocal tract— and maybe also by listening to a bunch of formant singing— you can get a sense for the space of formants.
I imagine the same is true for archetypes, which I think of as the formants of character. By observing archetypes, you can get a sense for characters and how they change. Similarly, by understanding characters— and maybe also by reading a bunch of stories— you can get a sense for the space of archetypes.
Was all that really worth it for such an obvious conclusion? Yes! At some point, I’ll write a post on why I love deriving obvious things.
5336713
ah yes.... Obvious things these days! =)
Hm, interesting; thanks.
5336715
Having one's head in the clouds long enough to forget how one's thoughts attach to the common grounding. I think the word for this phenomenon is unhinged. I'm trying to get better about that!
5336817
5336715
Thanks for reading!
5336957
make's sence. No prob!
I think that asking "what is the space of archetypes?" is akin to asking "what is the space of language?" Albeit not in the sense of the scope of things that can be spoken but rather the scope of things that can be communicated. That feels like a superbly ill=posed question.
Presumably, if something can be thought about then it should be able to be communicated. There are, however, qualia that throw a wrench into that idea. For example, it would be fairly easy to explain to a distant alien civilization the difference between "up" and "down." It takes, however, advanced knowledge of particle physics to explain "left" versus "right." It's possible there are things that can be understood but cannot be communicated.
Going back to archetypes, perhaps narrowing down the context might help mapping them out. We could ask about their behavior or attitude in a specific situation. For example, a character is stranded on a deserted island. Which archetypes will remain collected and take stock of the situation? Which will panic? What is the first thing the explorer does here? etc. As we study more contexts we will learn more than just about archetypes, but how to write stories.
5337231
That's a good point. Given some archetypes, it should definitely be possible to map them out, but mapping out all archetypes might not be possible.
One thing that makes the space of language hard to work with is that it should contain itself, since that space can be communicated by a short phrase (namely the phrase "the space of language"). The space of archetypes shouldn't contain itself as an archetype since a space isn't an archetype, so that's one hard problem we don't need to deal with.
I like that approach a lot. I'd write it like this: "A character is stranded on a deserted island. What kinds of characters would do interesting things in this position?" Repeat the question for many contexts, and the kinds of characters that pop up frequently are archetypes.
And how to be more interesting as people, and how to spot the potential for interesting scenarios with a group of people. That's a lot of learning from such a simple exercise. You should write a blog post on that!