Reluctant Hero Wikipedia Page Needs Your Help!

Are you looking for a quotation that you can't quite place? Trying to track down a hard-to-find publication? Here, folks can help you find the answers, or discuss ways for you to discover them for yourself.

Moderators: Clemsy, Martin_Weyers, Cindy B.

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bubblesort
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Reluctant Hero Wikipedia Page Needs Your Help!

Post by bubblesort »

I ran across the wikipedia page for Reluctant Hero. This page has problems, and I can try to fix them myself on my own, but it might be better to see if any of you would like to help.

The article attributes the concepts of Reluctant Hero and Adventuring Hero to Hero With A Thousand Faces, claiming that the following passage is in the book:
The hero may refuse the adventure or deny the ability to move beyond the status quo. The heralded event may even be ignored – All of these constitute the ‘Refusal of the Call.’ The use of magical intervention is then needed to plunge the hero into the unknown. The reluctant hero requires supernatural forces to urge him on, while the willing adventurer gathers amulets (magical items) and advice from the protector as aid for the journey"
The quote does not appear in Hero With A Thousand Faces at all. Further, searching my electronic copy of it for 'reluctant hero' and 'adventuring hero' turns up nothing. Campbell didn't even use the phrase 'reluctant hero'.

I'm not the first wikipedia editor to notice this. If you go to the talk page, you will see where somebody else mentioned this issue a year ago. I posted under him (I'm bubblesort on Wikipedia) and if no substantial objections happen before Monday I plan to overhaul the article or tag it for deletion or some kind of review by more experienced editors. The edits required to fix this are probably going to be pretty involved, but on Wikipedia they tend to not like to delete things that can be fixed, when practical.

The big problem is I want to be 100% certain that I'm not overlooking something here. Is this quote from some other Campbell writing or interview? It seems like something he might say, maybe, but it doesn't seem like his writing style at all. If this is from Campbell then can anybody cite the source? Maybe it's from a forward or from a different edition of the book or something?

BTW, if you are interested in the concept of the reluctant hero, TV Tropes has a much better article on the subject. Reluctant heros aren't just heros that refuse the call once, they are heros who constantly refuse the call, striving to be normal under circumstances that require them to use their abnormality. Think about Spider Man or mutants in X-Men who want to be cured of their mutations.

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

You're right. The quoted material and terms are not to be found in The Hero and are not Campbell's.

They come from here: http://mythichero.com/what_is_mythology.html

:)


P.S. to Clemsy. I am correct that Campbell was not known to use these particular labels, right? Thanks.
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

bubblesort
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Post by bubblesort »

Thanks! The guy who originally posted the quote is an admin, so I messaged him about it. He started cleaning it up a bit, I'll work on it a bit more tomorrow. The erroneous quote is gone, but it still needs tidying up a bit.

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

:)
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Doesn't sound like Campbell to me, either. I'm going to put this one in Stephen's inbox. He should take a look at that page.

....but it looks like i don't have to as the Campbell reference is gone. Good enough!
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

I scoured both the The Hero and The Power of Myth to find nothing along these lines. Then I decided to google the entire bit of quoted material and quickly located the source link that I offered above. Along the way I noticed that many people have quoted the mythichero.com excerpt and attributed it to Campbell and The Hero. Bummer.
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

:(

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