Situation Archetypes/Symbols

Question 1

Light vs. Darkness –

Answer 1

Light usually suggests hope, renewal, OR intellectual illumination; darkness implies the unknown,
ignorance, or despair.

Question 2

Water vs. Desert –

Answer 2

Because water is necessary to life and growth, it commonly appears as a birth or rebirth symbol.
Water is used in baptism services, which solemnizes spiritual births. Similarly, the appearance of rain in a work of
literature can suggest a character’s spiritual birth.

Question 3

Heaven vs. Hell –

Answer 3

Humanity has traditionally associated parts of the universe not accessible to it with the dwelling places
of the primordial forces that govern its world. The skies and mountaintops house its gods; the bowels of the earth contain
the diabolic forces that inhabit its universe.

Question 4

Haven vs. Wilderness –

Answer 4

Places of safety contrast sharply against the dangerous wilderness. Heroes are often sheltered
for a time to regain health and resources.

Question 5

Supernatural Intervention –

Answer 5

The gods intervene on the side of the hero or sometimes against him.

Question 6

Fire vs. Ice –

Answer 6

Fire represents knowledge, light, life, and rebirth while ice like desert represents ignorance, darkness,
sterility, and death.

Question 7

The Quest –

Answer 7

This motif describes the search for someone or some talisman which, when found and brought back, will
restore fertility to a wasted land, the desolation of which is mirrored by a leader’s illness and disability.

Question 8

The Task –

Answer 8

This refers to a possibly superhuman feat that must be accomplished in order to fulfill the ultimate goal.

Question 9

The Journey –

Answer 9

The journey sends the hero in search for some truth of information necessary to restore fertility, justice,
and/or harmony to the kingdom. The journey includes the series of trials and tribulations the hero faces along the way.
Usually the hero descends into a real or psychological hell and is forced to discover the blackest truths, quite often
concerning his faults. Once the hero is at this lowest level, he must accept personal responsibility to return to the world of
the living.

Question 10

The Initiation –

Answer 10

This situation refers to a moment, usually psychological, in which an individual comes into maturity. He or
she gains a new awareness into the nature of circumstances and problems and understands his or her responsibility for
trying to resolve the dilemma. Typically, a hero receives a calling, a message or signal that he or she must make sacrifices
and become responsible for getting involved in the problem. Often a hero will deny and question the calling and ultimately,
in the initiation, will accept responsibility.

Question 11

The Ritual –

Answer 11

Not to be confused with the initiation, the ritual refers to an organized ceremony that involves honored
members of a given community and an Initiate. This situation officially brings the young man or woman into the realm of the
community’s adult world.

Question 12

The Fall –

Answer 12

Not to be confused with the awareness in the initiation, this archetype describes a descent in action from a higher
to a lower state of being, an experience which might involve defilement, moral imperfection, and/or loss of innocence. This
fall is often accompanied by expulsion from a kind of paradise as penalty for disobedience and/or moral transgression.

Question 13

Death and Rebirth –

Answer 13

The most common of all situational archetypes, this motif grows out of the parallel between the cycle of
nature and the cycle of life. It refers to those situations in which someone or something, concrete and/or metaphysical dies,
yet is accompanied by some sign of birth or rebirth.

Question 14

Nature vs. Mechanistic World –

Answer 14

Expressed in its simplest form, this refers to situations which suggest that nature is good
whereas the forces of technology are bad.

Question 15

Battle Between Good and Evil –

Answer 15

These situations pit obvious forces which represent good and evil against one another.
Typically, good ultimately triumphs over evil despite great odds.

Question 16

The Unhealable Wound –

Answer 16

This wound, physical or psychological, cannot be healed fully. This would also indicate a loss of
innocence or purity. Often the wounds’ pain drives the sufferer to desperate measures of madness.

Question 17

The Magic Weapon –

Answer 17

Sometimes connected with the task, this refers to a skilled individual hero’s ability to use a piece of
technology in order to combat evil, continue a journey, or to prove his or her identity as a chosen individual.

Question 18

Father-Son Conflict –

Answer 18

Tension often results from separation during childhood or from an external source when the
individuals meet as men and where the mentor often has a higher place in the affections of the hero than the natural
parent. Sometimes the conflict is resolved in atonement.

Question 19

Innate Wisdom vs. Educated Stupidity –

Answer 19

Some characters exhibit wisdom and understanding intuitively as opposed to
those supposedly in charge.

Question 20

Black (darkness) –

Answer 20

chaos, mystery, the unknown, before existence, death, the unconscious, evil

Question 21

Red –

Answer 21

blood, sacrifice; violent passion, disorder, sunrise, birth, fire, emotion, wounds, death, sentiment, mother, Mars,
the note C, anger, excitement, heat, physical stimulation

Question 22

Green –

Answer 22

hope, growth, envy, Earth, fertility, sensation, vegetation, death, water, nature, sympathy, adaptability,
growth, Jupiter and Venus, the note G, envy

Question 23

White (light) –

Answer 23

purity, peace, innocence, goodness, Spirit, morality, creative force, the direction East, spiritual thought