The Heroine’s JourneyBuffy, Willow, River, Skye,

Kitty, Nico, Fray

 Campbell's Model: The Hero's Journey 

  My Model: The Heroine's Journey

  World of Common Day   World of Common Day   Call To Adventure   Call To Adventure- A Desire to

Reconnect with the Feminine  Refusal of The Call   Refusal of The Call  Supernatural Aid   The Ruthless Mentor & Bladeless

Talisman  Crossing The First Threshold

Belly of the Whale  Crossing the First Threshold:

Opening One’s Senses  Road of Trials   Sidekicks, Trials, Adversaries  Meeting With The Goddess

Woman as Temptress  Marriage to the Animus,

Confronting the Powerless Father  Atonement with The Father

Apotheosis  Atonement with the Mother.

Apotheosis through the Feminine   The Ultimate Boon    Reward: Winning the Family  The Magic Flight   Magic Flight  Reinstating the

Family  Master of the Two Worlds   Power over Life and Death

 

 

Hero• Heroes quest to

defeat the Dark Lord and rule as the High King

…and HeroineThe heroine quests to save loved ones, a quest as dangerous as any journey of the hero.

Modern Questors

Quests • Kitty’s Quests: • Freeing hostages• Rescuing her lover• Saving her son• Saving the Earth

Buffy saves children (“Killed by Death,” “Band Candy,” “Gingerbread”), abused women (“I Only Have Eyes for You,” “Anne,” “Beauty and the Beasts”) her mother (“School Hard,” “Ted,” “Helpless”), and finally her little sister Dawn (“The Gift,” “All the Way,” “Once More with Feeling”).

River saves her friends and reveals the slaughter of innocents on Miranda.

Skye’s seeking her parents. This goes poorly.

Common Day

The tale begins in the humdrum world of kitchen chores and powerlessness. The heroine lives with an absent mother and brutal stepmother. The father figure, if there is one, is equally obstructive. More than anything, the girl longs for an escape, an adventure. Here the story begins.

Call to Adventure Without a catalyst, Cinderella might remain

in her kitchen forever. Some event, either a chance at freedom and happiness or a devastating act of destruction propels the heroine from her place of safety and into the frightening world of the spirit.

Refusing the Call

Here, the hero is faced with the unknown. By contrast, home represents safety and security, a place the child is loathe to leave.

Buffy: What I want is to be left alone! Angel: Do you really think that’s an option anymore? You’re standing at the Mouth of Hell. And it’s about to open. Don’t turn your back on this. You’ve gotta be ready. (“Welcome to the Hellmouth”)

“There’s no “we,” okay? I’m the slayer, and you’re not” (“The Harvest”)

Buffy: I’ve got a way around it. I quit! Angel: It’s not that simple. Buffy: I’m making it that simple! I quit! I resign, I-I’m fired, you can find someone else to stop the Master from taking over! Giles: I’m not sure that anyone else can. All the... the signs indicate... Buffy: The signs? Read me the signs! Tell me my fortune! You’re so useful sitting here with all your books! (“Prophecy Girl”)

Ruthless Mentor, Bladeless Talisman While heroes almost always

receive a sword (wand, lightsaber…) from their kindly old mentor, girls walk away with household objects. All of the heroines accomplish their quests without violence, needing cleverness and fortitude more than Excalibur. Actions in the so-called “women’s domain” frequently save the men and allow the heroines to accomplish their goals.

The Heroine’s TreasuresFeminine symbols:amulet, apple, bag, ball, bird, cauldron, cave, circle, cloak, clothing, comb, crown, cup, egg, eye, flowers, forest, girdle, grail, helmet, home, hoop, jewelry, keys, lasso, mirror, moon, night, oven, ring, rose, serpent, slippers, spindle, spiral, thread, tree, vase, veil, voice, water, web, well.

Buffy’s Talismans• Quipping – power of the magical voice• Silver cross (moon magic and the mystic feminine)• Holy water (purification and feminine source of life)• Stakes: Weapons are an extension of the hero’s will but also the counterpart of the

monsters the hero must fight—while vampires impale people with pointy teeth, Buffy impales them in turn, taking their power as her own.

• She slays the Big Bads with only masculine weapons in the earliest seasons - she impales the Master on a stake and stabs Angel with a sword.

• She progresses through traditional feminine powers, using trickery to play on the Mayor’s emotions, and wielding magic against Adam.

• Finally, Buffy uses the mystic scythe, shaped like the moon, and a classic feminine symbol. Just as the Great Goddess Demeter, Inanna, Cybele, or Dana was represented by life and grain, she also appeared in her death aspect as the reaper of both plants and souls. As the First Slayer warns her, Buffy must experience death as well as life, pain as well as joy, in order to transcend her existence and become the ultimate savior.

Vanishing: Kitty Pryde• Scott Summers tells her, “You’re not a fighter. Your power isn’t

aggressive, it’s protective. That’s good to show. And people like you.” She battles fading away completely in the third and fourth volumes.

• While in the movie X-Men: The Last Stand, Kitty saves the child, in the comic, Kitty rescues Peter, who throws Wolverine after the girl in a flashier scene. While her team takes the credit, Kitty rescues all the hostages at the story’s climax, silently slipping in and spiriting them away.

Embodying, Echoing, Sensing• Buffy (and Fray, Faith…) has slayer dreams and can sense vampires.• Simon: River was more than gifted. She...she was a gift. Everything she did, music,

math, theoretical physics -- even-even dance -- there was nothing that didn't come as naturally to her as breathing does to us.

• River: You're wrong about River. River's not on the ship. They didn't want her here, but she couldn't make herself leave. So she melted... Melted away. They didn't know she could do that, but she did…. I'm not on the ship. I'm in the ship. I am the ship.

• “You’re the key. The key to everything. You’re going to save us all,” says Langton in “The Hollow Men” (2-12). “You’re going to be the savior of the world,” he insists.

• Echo’s goddess power, carried in her unique spinal fluid, reflects her status as the ultimate vessel. “There is no me . . . I’m just a container. You think anybody would worship us? Be like worshipping a cup,” she says in “Omega” (1-12). But that is her power—filling herself with souls until her sum is a far, far greater whole.

“I can kill you with my brain….”

More Powers: Magic, Intuition, the Earth

Threshold

The heroine must surrender her reliance on logic and willingly enter the world of emotion and fantasy.

Sidekicks, Trials, Adversaries

Animal helpers and teams generally represent part of the heroine’s psyche, pointing out things she doesn’t notice and teaching her how to outwit her adversary. They guide her, bolstering her courage when the quest is daunting.

Prince Charming: The World of Eros

In the game of love, the hero and heroine each view their partner as a shapeshifter. This “other half” they must cleave to like themselves has frightening mood swings and unpredictable desires. Physically, the two people are opposites, with contrasting desires and emotions. Hence, many tales appear about enticing swan maidens from the sea or taming beastly monsters into Prince Charmings.

Beauty and the Beast around the World

• Shimchong, The Blindman's Daughter (Korea)• The Brahman Girl who Married a Tiger (India)• Bull-of-all-the-Land (Jamaica)• Pretty Polly (Appalachian America)• Egle, Queen of Serpents (Lithuania)• Eros and Psyche (Greece)• The Lizard Husband (Indonesia).• Monkey Son-in-Law (Japan)• The Princess and the Pig (Turkey)• The Frog Prince (Germany)• Bluebeard (France)• The Green Serpent (Italy)• The Frog Prince (Sri Lanka)

Beauty and the Beast Retold

Prince Charming: The Helpless Father

At some point, the heroine returns home to discover the prince, or father-figure, cannot save her. She must leave the patriarchy and rely on herself.

• Buffy’s father, Giles, Angel, Wesley, the Watchers• Boyd Langdon, Paul Ballard, Alpha • Cabin in the Woods• Urkonn in Fray• Kitty and Professor X and Colossus

“You take care of me, Simon. You’ve always taken care of me. My turn.”

Descent into Death

The heroine descends into the realm of darkness toward initiation and wisdom, seeking her own elusive dark side. There she will find her greatest challenge…herself.

Shadow

• Darla, Cordelia, Kendra, Drusilla, Faith• “Nightmares,” “Halloween,” “The Wish”• Harmony, Aprilbot, Buffybot, The First

Slayer, Dark Willow, Spike, The First • Buffy/Fray, Willow/Aluwyn (comics)• Kitty/Emma Frost • Fray/Harth/Erin• Skye/Raina/Jiaying

Villains: The Child-Killer• The witch is anti-life, killer of

children. She freezes the world into sterility, forbidding growth or change. Frequently, she is the Jungian shadow for the young questor.

• Llorona, Mexico• Condenado, South America• Medea, Greece

• Houmea, Maori • Lilith, Jewish (pictured)• Baba Yaga, Russia (pictured)

Atonement with the Mother Like the witch-queen of Snow

White, the Terrible Mother is enraged that she is no longer fairest in the kingdom. Therefore, she plots the destruction of the heroine. Our heroine descends to the darkest place, and there, confronts her.

Killers of Innocents:• Darla, Drusilla• Glory, Dark Willow• The First Evil• Jasmine• Danger Room• RainaWicked Stepmothers:• Adelle DeWitt• Mrs. Post, Maggie Walsh• Victoria Hand, Jiaying• Emma Frost, Agent Brand

In Whedon’s Wonder Woman, Diana’s nemesis, Strife, has an earthly representative in businesswoman Arabella Callas.

“The more pain you learn to take, the more power you will control,” says the Witchbreaker, ancestress of the witch heroine Nico (Runaways: Dead End Kids).

Reward Triumphant, the heroine wins what she has

sought for so long. She snatches her lover from the Fairie Queen’s horse, or saves her child from certain death. She may find the brief romance she’s sought for so long. Still, the quest has not ended, until she returns safely home.

Mastering Life and Death To achieve the greatest

success, the heroine becomes a queen or “goddess” herself. In this way she achieves enormous power and becomes a guardian for the next generation. Even if their ascension isn’t to royalty or goddesshood, all train successors, passing on the wisdom they’ve learned.

Ascension Still, the other side of the

benevolent mother goddess is the destroyer: Medea turns murderous and Gaia can destroy as well as create. For the heroine as goddess ascended, it’s a short distance to her own shadow: the Terrible Mother. Willow (season 7) Buffy (season 8/9) Cordelia (season 5) and Illyria (After the Fall) must learn to let go. Echo and Skye retire, their journey done.

Learn more at www.vefrankel.com

More on the journey

Learn more at www.vefrankel.com

More on the journey