Hi Ercan,
The trickster acts instinctively, I think, unlike the hero who makes a decision beforehand.
This needn’t to be a mental decision; one can also decide by one’s heart or conscience,
yet that’s a decision. The hero can equally decide to play the trickster for an ulterior
higher purpose (without turning into a trickster per se). It appears to be a heroic
constituent that sets him/her apart (although I cannot articulate it now, accurately).
Sometimes, there exists a metaphysical distance between the act and the doer;
and the hero remains a hero in spite of his ostensible error or negligence. That's one
of the lessons we can take from Bhagavadgita. Arjuna fights (and kills) but the Universe
bears witness that THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL ACT. I believe that here, intention is
the keyword.- Ercan
Back again. I know I’m near impossible lately to have a conversation with, my apologies to you and Evinnra for that.
Thanks for clarifying your distinction between hero and trickster for me. Mine is a much more blurred line I’m afraid.
First I would concede that others might say that trickster and fool are not necessarily the same because trickster is mischievous and fool is simply unconcerned, but I don’t think they are so different from the standpoint that I think of the trickster/fools actions as a response (consciously or subconsciously) mostly driven by an inability to conform to some ‘norm’, and as such, again consciously or subconsciously, as not really different from ‘answering the call’ in the heros journey. Now one might also argue that the trickster/fool isn’t a hero because they don’t really ‘return’ with something, but there is a couple of ways to consider this too, I think. First, maybe the fool as a hero simply hasn’t found that which to return with yet. Or secondly, that by simply being the trickster/fool what they have returned with is ‘permission’ for others to deviate from the norm as well.
A couple thoughts that we re shared in “The way of the fool” thread;
Campbell from An Open Life, P.39
Quote:
The fool really became the instructor of kings because he was careless of the king's opinion, careless of the kings power; and the king allowed this because he got wisdom from this uncontrolled source. The fool is the breakthrough of the absolute into the field of controlled social orders.
And at the end of the Tarot cards is the Fool, the one who's gone through all the stages that are represented in that series of cards, and now can wander through the world, careless and fearful of nothing.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground;
" I could not become anything: neither bad nor good, neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. And now I am eking out my days in my corner, taunting myself with the bitter and entirely useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot seriously become anything; That only a fool can become something."
I guess that in my thinking every hero must be at least some part trickster/fool, and every trickster/fool is some part hero.
Its interesting to me that when Moyers asked Campbell, he described himself as a ‘maverick’, as opposed to a fool or a hero. I don’t recall ever reading where he actually shared what maverick meant in his mind, but the term Maverick is defined as ‘an unbranded range animal’. The term as was derived from Texas rancher Samuel Maverick apparently means ‘independently minded’. I would certainly think that also shares some common ground with both hero and fool.
As this tread is about interpreting mythology I would concede no right or wrong, those are just my own interpretations at the moment.
Thanks for sharing yours.
bg
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