“You can’t keep a good monster down!” ~ publicity for Ghost of Frankenstein

The archetype known as the Shadow represents the energy of the dark [Publications] side, the unexpressed, unrealized, or rejected aspects of something.  Often it’s the home of the suppressed monsters of our inner world. Shadows can be all the things we don’t like about ourselves, all the dark secrets we can’t admit, even to ourselves.  The qualities we have renounced and tried to root out still lurk within, operating in the Shadow world of the unconscious.  The Shadow can also shelter positive qualities that are in hiding or that we have rejected for some reason.

The negative face of the Shadow in stories is projected onto characters called villains, antagonists, or enemies. Villains and enemies are usually dedicated to the death, destruction, or defeat of the hero. Antagonists may not be quite so hostile – they may be Allies who are after the same goal but who disagree with the hero’s tactics.  Antagonists and heroes in conflict are like horses in a team pulling in different directions, while villains and heroes in conflict are like trains on a head-on collision course.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTION

The Shadow can represent the power of repressed feelings. Deep trauma or guilt can fester when exiled to the darkness of the unconscious, and emotions hidden or denied can turn into something monstrous that wants to destroy us.  If the Threshold Guardian represents neuroses, then the Shadow archetype stands for psychoses that not only hamper us, but threaten to destroy us.  The Shadow may simply be that shady part of ourselves that we are always wrestling with in struggles over bad habits and old fears.  This energy can be a powerful internal force with a life of its own and its own set of interests and priorities.  It can be a destructive force, especially if not acknowledged, confronted, and brought to light.

Thus in dreams, Shadows may appear as monsters, demons, devils, evil aliens, vampires, or other fearsome enemies.  Note that many Shadow figures are also shapeshifters, such as vampires and werewolves.

DRAMATIC FUNCTION

The function of the Shadow in drama is to challenge the hero and give her a worthy opponent in the struggle. Shadows create conflict and bring out the best in a hero by putting her in a life-threatening situation. It’s often been said that a story is only as good as its villain, because a strong enemy forces a hero to rise to the challenge.

The challenging energy of the Shadow archetype can be expressed in a single character, but it may also be a mask worn at different times by any of the characters. Heroes themselves can manifest a Shadow side. When the protagonist is crippled by doubts or guilt, acts in self-destructive ways, expresses a death wish, gets carried away with his success, abuses his power, or becomes selfish rather than self-sacrificing, the Shadow has overtaken him.

MASK OF THE SHADOW

The Shadow can combine in powerful ways with other archetypes. Like the other archetypes, the Shadow is a function or mask which can be worn by any character.  The primary Mentor of a story may wear the Shadow mask at times.  In An Officer and a Gentleman the drill sergeant played by Louis Gossett, Jr. Wears the masks of both Mentor and Shadow.  He is Richard Gere’s Mentor and second father, guiding him through the rigorous Navy training.  Btu in terms of the life-and-death heart of the story, Gossett is also a Shadow who is trying to destroy Gere by driving him out of the program.  He tests the young man to the limit to find out if he has what it takes, and almost kills him in the process of bringing out the best in him.

Another strong combination of archetypes is found in the fatal Shapeshifter figures discussed earlier. In some stories, the person who starts out as the hero’s love interest shifts shape so far that she becomes the Shadow, bent on the hero’s destruction.  Femmes fatales are often “shady ladies”.  This might represent a struggle between a person’s male and female sides, or obsession with the opposite sex turned into a psychotic state of mind.  Orson Welles created a classic story on this theme in The Lady from Shanghai, in which Rita Hayworth dazzles Welles’ character, shifts shape, and tries to destroy him.

A Shadow may also wear the mask of other archetypes. Anthony Hopkins’ “Hannibal the Cannibal” character from The Silence of the Lambs is primarily a Shadow, a projection of the dark side of human nature, but he also functions as a helpful Mentor to Jodie Foster’s FBI agent, providing her with information that helps her catch another insane killer.

Shadows may become seductive Shapeshifters to lure the hero into danger. They may function as Tricksters or Heralds, and may even manifest heroic qualities.  Villains who fight bravely for their cause or experience a change of heart may even be redeemed and become heroes themselves, like the Beast in Beauty and the Beast.

HUMANIZING THE SHADOW

Shadows need not be totally evil or wicked. In fact, it’s better if they are humanized by a touch of goodness, or by some admirable quality.  The Disney animated cartoons are memorable for their villains, such as Captain Hook in Peter Pan, the demon in Fantasia, the beautiful but wicked queen from Snow White, the glamorous fairy Maleficent in The Sleeping Beauty, and Cruelle D’Eville in One Hundred and One Dalmatians.  They are even more deliciously sinister because of their dashing, powerful, beautiful, or elegant qualities.

Shadows can also be humanized by making them vulnerable. The novelist Graham Greene masterfully makes his villains real, frail people.  He often has the hero on the verge of killing a villain, only to discover the poor fellow has a head cold or is reading a letter from his little daughter.  Suddenly the villain is not just a fly to be swatted but a real human being with weaknesses and emotions.  Killing such a figure becomes a true moral choice rather than a thoughtless reflex.

It’s important to remember in designing stories that most Shadow figures do not think of themselves as villains or enemies. From his point of view, a villain is the hero of his own myth, and the audience’s hero is his villain.  A dangerous type of villain is “the right man”, the person so convinced his cause is just that he will stop at nothing to achieve it.  Beware the man who believes the end justifies the means.  Hitler’s sincere belief that he was right, even heroic, allowed him to order the most villainous atrocities to achieve his aims.

A Shadow may be a character or force external to the hero, or it may be a deeply repressed part of the hero. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde vividly depicts the power of the dark side in a good man’s personality.

External Shadows must be vanquished or destroyed by the hero. Shadows of the internal kind may be disempowered like vampires, simply by bringing them out of the Shadows and into the light of consciousness.  Some Shadows may even be redeemed and turned into positive forces.  One of the most impressive Shadow figures in movie history, Darth Vader of the Star Wars series, is revealed in Return of the Jedi to be the hero’s father.  All his wickedness is finally forgiven, making him a benign, ghostly figure, watching over his son.  The Terminator also grows from being a killing machine bent on destroying the heroes in The Terminator to being a protective Mentor to the heroes in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Like the other archetypes, Shadows can express positive as well as negative aspects. The Shadow in a person’s psyche may be anything that has been suppressed, neglected, or forgotten.  The Shadow shelters the healthy, natural feelings we believe we’re not supposed to show.  But healthy anger or grief, if suppressed in the territory of the Shadow, can turn to harmful energy that strikes out and undermines us in unexpected ways.  The Shadow may also be unexplored potential, such as affection, creativity, or psychic ability, that goes unexpressed. “The roads not taken”, the possibilities of life that we eliminate by making choices at various stages, may collect in the Shadow, biding their time until brought into the light of consciousness.

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The psychological concept of the Shadow archetype is a useful metaphor for understanding villains and antagonists in our stories, as well as for grasping the unexpressed, ignored, or deeply hidden aspects of our heroes.

“We’re on a mission from God.” ~ from The Blues Brothers screenplay by Dan Aykroyd and John Landis

The word hero is Greek, from a root that means “to protect and to serve” (incidentally the motto of the Los Angeles Police [ie. 1,800 years later] Department). A Hero is someone who is willing to sacrifice his own needs on behalf of others, like a sherpard who will sacrifice to protect and serve his flock.  At the root the idea of Hero is connected with self-sacrifice.  (Note that I use the word Hero to describe a central character or protagonist of either sex.)  [Not give you a hand job.]

PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTION

In psychological terms, the archetype of the Hero represents what Freud called the ego – that part of the personality that separates from the mother, that considers itself distinct from the rest of the human race [so i doesn’t get worms]. Ultimately, a Hero is one who is able to transcend the bounds and illusions of the ego, but at first, Heroes are all ego: the I, the one, that personal identity which thinks it is separate from the rest of the group.  The journey of many Heroes is the story of that separation from the family or tribe, equivalent to a child’s sense of separation from the mother.

The Hero archetype represents the ego’s search for identity [in the Call to Adventure, show them were the worms went] and wholeness. In the process of becoming complete, integrated human beings, we are all Heroes facing internal guardians, monsters, and helpers.  In the quest to explore our own minds we find teachers, guides, demons, gods, mates, servants, scapegoats, masters, seducers, betrayers, and allies, as aspects of our personalities and characters in our dreams.  All the villains, tricksters, lovers, friends, and foes of the Hero can be found inside ourselves.  The psychological task we all face is to integrate these separate parts into one complete, balanced entity.  The ego, the Hero thinking she is separate from all these parts of herself, must incorporate them to become the Self.

DRAMATIC FUNCTIONS

AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION

The dramatic purpose of the Hero is to give the audience a window into the story. Each person hearing a tale or watching a play or movie is invited, in the early stages of the story, to identify with the Hero, to merge with him and see the world of the story through his eyes.  Storytellers do this by giving their Heroes a combination of qualities a mix of universal and unique characters.

Heroes have qualities that we all can identify with and recognize in ourselves. They are propelled by universal [to having a job] drives that we can all understand: the desire to be loved and understood, to succeed, survive, be free, get revenge, right wrongs, or seek self-expression.

Stories invite us to invest part of our personal identity in the Hero for the duration of the experience. In a sense we become the Hero for awhile.  We project ourselves into the Hero’s psyche, so that we want to be like them.  We want to experience the self-confidence of Katharine Hepburn [charades], the elegance of Fred Astaire [tap dance], the wit of Cary Grant, the sexiness of Marilyn Monroe.

Heroes should have universal qualities, emotions, and motivations that everyone has experienced at one time or another: revenge, anger, lust, competition, territoriality, patriotism, idealism, cynicism, or despair. But Heroes must also be unique human beings, rather than stereotypical creatures or tin gods without flaws or unpredictability.  Like any effective work of art they need both universality and originality.  Nobody wants to see a movie or read a story about abstract qualities in human form.  We want stories about real people.  A real character, like a real person, is not just a single trait but unique combination of many qualities and drives, some of them conflicting.  And the more conflicting, the better.  A character torn by warring allegiances to love and duty is inherently interesting to an audience.  A character who has a unique combination of contradictory impulses, such as trust and suspicion or hope and despair, seems more realistic and human than one who displays only one character trait.

A well-rounded Hero can be determined, uncertain, charming, forgetful, impatient, and strong in body but weak in heart, all at the same time. It’s the particular combination of qualities that gives an audience the sense that the Hero is one of a kind, a real person rather than a type.

GROWTH

Another story function of the Hero is learning or growth. In evaluating a script sometimes it’s hard to tell who is the main character, or who should be.  Often the best answer is: the one who learns or grows the most in the course of the story.  Heroes overcome obstacles and achieve goals, but they also gain new knowledge and wisdom.  The heart of many stories is the learning that goes on between a Hero and a mentor, or a Hero and a lover, or even between a Hero and a Villain.  We are all each other’s teachers.

ACTION

Another heroic function is acting or doing. The Hero is usually the most active person in the script.  His will and desire is what drives most stories forward.  A frequent flaw in screenplay is that the Hero is fairly active throughout the story, but at the most critical moment becomes passive and is rescued by the timely arrival of some outside force.  At this moment above all, a Hero should be fully active, in control of his own fate.  The Hero should perform the decisive action of the story, the action that requires taking the most risk or responsibility.

SACRIFICE

People commonly think of Heroes as strong or brave, but these qualities are secondary to sacrifice – the true mark of a Hero. Sacrifice is the Hero’s willingness to give up something of value, perhaps even her own life, on behalf of an ideal or a group. Sacrifice means “making holy”.  In ancient times people made sacrifices, even of human beings, to acknowledge their debt to the spirit world, the gods, or nature, to appease those mighty forces, and to make holy the process of daily life.  Even death became sanctified, a holy act.

DEALING WITH DEATH

At the heart of every story is a confrontation with death. If the Hero doesn’t face actual death, then there is the threat of death or symbolic death in the form of a high-stakes game, love affair, or adventure in which the Hero may succeed (live) or fail (die).

Heroes show us how to deal with death. They may survive it, proving that death is not so tough. They may die and be reborn, proving that death can be transcended. They may be a Hero’s death, transcending death by offering up their lives willingly for a cause, an ideal, or a group.

True heroism is shown in stories when Heroes offer themselves on the altar of chance, willing to take the risk that their quest for adventure may lead to danger, loss, or death. Like soldiers who know that by enlisting they have agreed to give their lives if their country asks them to, Heroes accept the possibility of sacrifice.

The most effective Heroes are those who experience sacrifice. They may give up some cherished vice or eccentricity as the price of entering into a new way of life. They may return some of their winnings or share what they have gained in the Special World. They may return to their starting point, the tribe or village, and bring back boons, elixirs, food, or knowledge to share with the rest of the group.

HEROISM IN OTHER ARCHETYPES

Sometimes the Hero archetypes is not just manifested in the main character, the protagonist who bravely fights the bad guys and wins. The archetype can be manifested in other characters, when they act heroically. An unheroic character can grow to be heroic. The title character of Gunga Din begins as another archetype altogether, a trickster or clown, but by striving to be a Hero, and by sacrificing himself at a crucial moment on behalf of his friends, he earns the right to be called a Hero.  In Star Wars, Obi Wan Kenobi clearly manifests the archetype of the mentor through most of the story.  However, he acts heroically and temporarily wears the mask of the Hero when he sacrifices himself to allow Luke to escape the Death Star.

It can be very effective to have a villainous or antagonistic character unexpectedly manifest heroic qualities. On the sitcom level, when a character like Danny DeVito’s despicable “Taxi” dispatcher Louie suddenly reveals he has a soft heart or has done something noble, the episode wins an Emmy. A gallant villain, heroic in some ways and despicable in others, can be very appealing. Ideally, every well-rounded character should manifest a touch of every archetype, because the archetypes are expressions of the parts that make up a complete personality.

CHARACTER FLAWS

Interesting flaws humanize a character. We can recognize bits of ourselves in a Hero who is challenged to overcome inner doubts, errors in thinking, guilt or trauma from the past, or fear of the future. Weaknesses, imperfections, quirks, and vices immediately make a Hero or any character more real and appealing. It seems the more neurotic characters are, the more the audience likes them and identifies with them.

Flaws also give a character somewhere to go – the so-called “character arc” in which a character develops from condition A to condition Z through a series of steps. Flaws are a starting point of imperfection or incompleteness from which a character can grow. They may be deficiencies in a character. Perhaps a Hero has no romantic partner, and is looking for the “missing piece” to complete her life. This is often symbolized in fairy tales by having the Hero experience a loss or a death in the family. Many fairy tales begin with the death of a parent or the kidnapping of a brother or sister. This subtraction from the family unit sets the nervous energy of the story in motion, not to stop until the balance has been restored by the creation of a new family or the reuniting of the old.

In most modern stories it is the Hero’s personality that is being recreated or restored to wholeness. The missing piece may be a critical element of personality such as the ability to love or trust. Heroes may have to overcome some problem such as lack of patience or decisiveness. Audiences love watching Heroes grapple with personality problems and overcome them. Will Edward, the rich but cold-hearted businessman of Pretty Woman, warm up under the influence of the life-loving Vivian and become her Prince Charming?  Will Vivian gain some self-respect and escape her life of prostitution?  Will Conrad, the guilt-ridden teenager in Ordinary People, regain his lost ability to accept love and intimacy?

VARIETIES OF HERO

Heroes come in many varieties, including willing and unwilling Heroes, group-orientated and loner Heroes, Anti-heroes, tragic Heroes, and catalyst Heroes. Like all the other archetypes, the Hero is a flexible concept that can express many kinds of energy. Heroes may combine with other archetypes to produce hybrids like the Trickster Hero, or they may temporarily wear the mask of another archetype, becoming a Shapeshifter, a Mentor to someone else, or even a Shadow.

Although usually portrayed as a positive figure, the Hero may also express dark or negative sides of the ego. The Hero archetype generally represents the human spirit in positive action, but may also show the consequences of weakness and reluctance to act.

WILLING AND UNWILLING HEROES

It seems Heroes are of two types: 1) willing, active, gung-ho, committed to the adventure, without doubts, always bravely going ahead, self-motivated, or 2) unwilling, full of doubts and hesitations, passive, needing to be motivated or pushed into the adventure by outside forces. Both make equally entertaining stories, although a Hero who is passive throughout may make for an uninvolving dramatic experience. It’s usually best for an unwilling Hero to change at some point, to become committed to the adventure after some necessary motivation has been supplied.

ANTI-HEROES

Anti-hero is slippery term that can cause a lot of confusion. Simply stated, an Anti-hero is not the opposite of a Hero, but a specialized kind of Hero, one who may be an outlaw or a villain from the point of view of society, but with whom the audience is basically in sympathy. We identify with these outsiders because we have all felt like outsiders at one time or another.

Anti-heroes may be of two types: 1) characters who behave much like conventional Heroes, but are given a strong touch of cynicism or have a wounded quality, like Bogart’s characters in The Big Sleep and Casablanca, or 2) tragic Heroes, central figures of a story who may not be likeable or admirable, whose actions we may even deplore, like Macbeth or Scarface or the Joan Crawford of Mommie Dearest.

The wounded Anti-hero may be a heroic knight in tarnished armor, a loner who has rejected society or been rejected by it. These characters may win at the end and may have the audience’s full sympathy at all times, but in society’s eyes they are outcasts. They are often honorable men who have withdrawn from society’s corruption, perhaps ex-cops or soldiers who became disillusioned and now operate in the shadow of the law as private eyes, smugglers, gamblers, or soldiers of fortune. We love these characters because they are rebels, thumbing their noses at society as we would all like to do. Another archetype of this kind is personified in James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden, or the young Marlon Brando, whose character in The Wild One acted out a new and quite different generation’s dissatisfaction with the old.  Actors like Mickey Rourke, Matt Dillon, and Sean Penn carry on the tradition today.

The second type of Anti-hero is more like the classical idea of the tragic Hero. These are flawed Heroes who never overcome their inner demons and are brought down and destroyed by them. They may be charming, they may have admirable qualities, but the flaw wins out in the end. Some tragic Anti-heroes are not so admirable, but we watch their downfall with fascination because “there, but for the grace of God, go I.” Like the ancient Greeks who watched Oedipus fall, we are purged of our emotions and we learn to avoid the same pitfalls as we watch the destruction of Al Pacino’s character in Scarface, Signourney Weaver as Diane Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist, or Diane Keaton’s character in Looking for Mr. Goodbar.

GROUP-ORIENTED HEROES

Another distinction must be made about Heroes with respect to their orientation to society. Like the first storytellers, the earliest humans who went out hunting and gathering on the plains of Africa, most Heroes are group-orientated: they are part of a society at the beginning of the story, and their journey takes them to an unknown land far from home. When we first meet them, they are part of a clan, tribe, village, town, or family. Their story is one of separation from that group (Act One); lone adventure in the wilderness away from the group (Act Two); and usually, eventual reintegration with the group (Act Three).

Group-orientated Heroes often face a choice between returning to the Ordinary World of the first act, or remaining in the Special World of the second act. Heroes who choose to remain in the Special World are rare in Western culture but fairly common in classic Asian and Indian tales.

LONER HEROES

In contrast to the group-oriented Hero is the loner Western Hero such as Shane, Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name, John Wayne’s Ethan in The Searchers, or The Lone Ranger. With this Hero type, the stories begin with the Heroes estranged from society. Their natural habitat is the wilderness, their natural state is solitude. Their journey is one of re-entry into the group (Act One); adventure within the group, on the group’s normal turf (Act Two); and return to isolation in the wilderness (Act Three). For them the Special World of Act Two is the tribe or village, which they visit briefly but in which they are always uncomfortable. The wonderful shot of John Wayne at the end of The Searchers sums up the energy of this Hero type.  Wayne is framed in a cabin doorway as an outsider forever cut off from the joys and comforts of the family.  This kind of Hero need not be limited to Westerns. It can be used effectively in dramas or action movies where a loner detective is tempted back into adventure, where a hermit or retired person is called back into society, or where an emotionally isolated person is challenged to re-enter the world of relationships.

As with group-oriented Heroes, the loner Heroes have the final choice of returning to their initial state (solitude), or remaining in the Special World of Act Two. Some Heroes begin as loners and end as group-oriented Heroes who elect to stay with the group.

CATALYST HEROES

A certain class of Hero is an exception to the rule that the Hero is usually the character who undergoes the most change. These are catalyst Heroes, central figures who may act heroically, but who do not change much themselves because their main function is to bring about transformation in others. Like a true catalyst in chemistry, they bring about a change in a system without being changed themselves.

A good example is Eddie Murphy’s character Axel Foley from Beverly Hills Cops.  His personality is already fully formed and distinctive at the story’s beginning.  He doesn’t have much of a character arc because he has nowhere to go.  He doesn’t learn or change much in the course of the story, but he does bring about change in his Beverly Hills cop buddies, Taggart and Rosewood.  By comparison they have relatively strong character arcs, from being uptight and by-the-book to being hip and streetwise, thanks to Axel’s influence.  In fact, although Axel is the central figure, the villain’s main opponent, and the character with the best lines and the most screen time, it could be argued that he is not the true Hero, but the Mentor of the piece, while young Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) is the actual Hero because he learns the most.

Catalyst Heroes are especially useful in continuing stories such as episodic TV shows and sequels. These Heroes undergo few internal changes, but primarily act to help others or guide them in their growth. Of course it’s a good idea once in awhile to give even these characters some moments of growth and change to help keep them fresh and believable.

THE ROAD OF HEROES

Heroes are symbols of the soul in transformation, and of the journey each person takes through like. The stages of that progression, the natural stages of life and growth, make up the Hero’s Journey. The Hero archetype is a rich field for exploration by writers and spiritual seekers. Carol S. Pearson’s book Awakening the Heroes Within further breaks down the idea of the Hero into useful archetypes (Innocent, Orphan, Martyr, Wanderer, Warrior, Caregiver, Seeker, Lover, Destroyer, Creator, Ruler, Magician, Sage, and Fool) and graphs the emotional progress of each. It’s a good guide to a deeper psychological understanding of the Hero in its many facets.  The special avenues travelled by some female heroes are described in The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness by Maureen Murdock.

“You can expect the unexpected.” ~ publicity for the film Charade

People often have trouble grasping the elusive archetype of the Shapeshifter, perhaps because its very nature is to be shifting and unstable.  Its appearance and characteristics change as soon as you examine it closely.  Nonetheless, the Shapeshifter is a powerful archetype and understanding its ways can be helpful in storytelling and in life.

Heroes frequently encounter figures, often of the opposite sex, whose primary characteristic is that they appear to change constantly from the hero’s point of view. Often the hero’s love interest or romantic partner will manifest the qualities of a Shapeshifter.  We have all experienced relationships in which our partner is fickle, two-faced, or bewilderingly changeable.  In Fatal Attraction the hero is confronted with a Shapeshifting woman who changes from a passionate lover to an insane, murderous harpy.

Shapeshifters change appearance or mood, and are difficult for the hero and the audience to pin down. They may mislead the hero or keep her guessing, and their loyalty or sincerity is often in question.  An Ally or friend of the same sex as the hero may also act as a Shapeshifter in a buddy comedy or adventure.  Wizards, witches, and ogres are traditional Shapeshifters in the world of fairly tales.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTION

An important psychological purpose of the Shapeshifter archetype is to express the energy of the animus and anima, terms from the psychology of Carl Jung.  The animus is Jung’s name for the male element in the female unconscious, the bundle of positive and negative images of masculinity in a woman’s dreams and fantasies.  The anima is the corresponding female element in the male unconscious.  In this theory, people have a complete set of both male and female qualities which are necessary for survival and internal balance.

Historically, the female characteristics in men and the male characteristics in women have been sternly repressed by society. Men learn at an early age to show only the macho, unemotional side of themselves.  Women are taught by society to play down their masculine qualities.  This can lead to emotional and even physical problems.  Men are now working to regain some of their suppressed feminine qualities.  Women sometimes spend their adult lives trying to reclaim the male energies within them which society has discouraged, such as power and assertiveness.

PROJECTION

We may also confront the animus and anima in reality. By nature we look for people who match our internal image of the opposite sex.  Often we imagine the resemblance and project onto some unsuspecting person our desire to join with the anima or animus.  We may fall into relationships in which we have not seen the partner clearly.  Instead we have seen the anima or animus, our own internal notion of the ideal partner, projected onto the other person.  We often go through relationships trying to force the partner to match our projection.  Hitchcock created a powerful expression of this phenomenon in Vertigo.  James Stewart forces Kim Novak to change her hair and clothing to match the image of his feminine ideal Carlota, a woman who ironically never existed in the first place.

It’s natural for each sex to regard the other as ever-changing, mysterious. Many of us don’t understand our own sexuality and psychology very well, let alone that of the opposite sex.  Often our main experience of the opposite sex is their changeability and their tendency to shift attitudes, appearances, and emotions for no apparent reason.

Women complain that men are vague, vacillating, and unable to commit. Men complain that women are moody, flighty, fickle, and unpredictable.  Anger can turn gentle men into beasts.  Women change dramatically during their monthly cycle, shifting with the phases of the moon.  During pregnancy they drastically shift shape and mood.  At some time most of us have been perceived by others as “two-faced” Shapeshifters.

The animus and anima may be positive or negative figures who may be helpful to the hero or destructive to him. In some stories it’s the task of the hero to figure out which side, positive or negative, he is dealing with.

The Shapeshifter archetype is also a catalyst for change, a symbol of the psychological urge to transform. Dealing with a Shapeshifter may cause the hero to change attitudes about the opposite sex or come to terms with the repressed energies that this archetype stirs up.

These projections of our hidden opposite sides, these images and ideas about sexuality and relationships, form the archetype of the Shapeshifter.

DRAMATIC FUNCTION

The Shapeshifter serves the dramatic function of bringing doubt and suspense into a story. When heroes keep asking, “Is he faithful to me?  Is she going to betray me?  Does he truly love me?  Is he an ally or an enemy?” a Shapeshifter is generally present.

Shapeshifters appear with great frequency and variety in the film noir and thriller genres. The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, and Chinatown feature detectives confronting Shapeshifting women whose loyalty and motives are in doubt.  In other stories such as Hitchcock’s Suspicion or Shadow of a Doubt, a good woman must figure out if a Shapeshifting man is worthy of her trust.

A common type of Shapeshifter is called the femme fatale, the woman as temptress or destroyer.  The idea is as old as the Bible, with its stories of Eve in the Garden of Eden, the scheming Jezebel, and Delilah cutting off Samson’s hair to rob him of his strength.  The femme fatale finds expression today in stories of cops and detectives betrayed by killer women, such as Sharon Stone’s character in Basic Instinct or Kathleen Turner’s in Body Heat. Black Widow and Single White Female are interesting variants in which a female hero confronts a deadly, Shapeshifting femme fatale.

The Shapeshifter, like the other archetypes, can be manifested by male or female characters. There are as many hommes fatales in myth, literature, and movies as there are femmes.  In Greek mythology, Zeus was a great Shapeshifter, changing forms to cavort with human maidens who usually ended up suffering for it. Looking for Mr. Goodbar is about a woman seeking a perfect lover, but finding instead a Shapeshifting man who brings her death.  The film The Stranger depicts a good woman (Loretta Young) who is about to marry a monstrous Shapeshifter, a closet Nazi played by Orson Welles.

The fatale aspect is not always essential to this archetype.  Shapeshifters may only dazzle and confuse the hero, rather than try to kill her.  Shapeshifting is a natural part of romance.  It’s common to be blinded by love, unable to see the other person clearly through the many masks they wear.  The character played by Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone appears to be a Shapeshifter to hero Kathleen Turner, who is kept guessing until the last moment about the loyalty of her male counterpart.

Shapeshifting may manifest in changes of appearance. In many films a woman’s change of costume or hairstyle indicates that her identity is shifting and her loyalty is in doubt.  This archetype may also be expressed through changes in behaviour or speech, such as assuming different accents or telling a succession of lies.  In the thriller Arabesque, Shapeshifter Sophia Loren tells unwilling hero Gregory Peck a bewildering series of stories about her background, all of which turns out to be untrue.  Many heroes have to deal with Shapeshifters, male and female, who assume disguises and tell lies to confuse them.

A famous Shapeshifter from The Odyssey is the sea god Proteus, “the Old Man of the Sea.”  Menelaus, one of the heroes returning from the Trojan War, traps Proteus to force information out of him.  Proteus changes into a lion, a snake, a panther, a boar, running water, and a tree in his attempt to escape.  But Menelaus and his men hold on tight until Proteus returns to his true form and yields up the answers to their questions.  The story teaches that if heroes are patient with Shapeshifters the truth may eventually come out.  “Protean,” our adjective meaning “readily taking many forms,” comes from the story of Proteus.

MASK OF THE SHAPESHIFTER

As with the other archetypes, Shapeshifting is a function or a mask that may be worn by any character in a story. A hero may wear the mask in a romantic situation.  Richard Gere, in An Officer and a Gentleman, puts on airs and tells a hat full of lies to impress Debra Winger.  He temporarily acts as a Shapeshifter although he is the hero of the piece.

Sometimes a hero must become a Shapeshifter to escape a trap or get past a Threshold Guardian. In Sister Act, Whoopi Goldberg’s character, a Las Vegas lounge singer, disguises herself as a Catholic nun to keep from being killed as a witness to a mob murder.

Villains or their allies may wear the Shapeshifter mask to seduce or confuse a hero. The wicked queen in Snow White assumes the form of an old crone to trick the hero into eating a poisoned apple.

Shapeshifting is also a natural attribute of other archetypes such as Mentors and Tricksters. Merlin, Mentor of the King Arthur stories frequently changes shape to aid Arthur’s cause.  The goddess Athena in The Odyssey assumes the appearance of many different humans to help Odysseus and his son.

Shapeshifters can also be found in so-called “buddy movies” in which the story centres on two male or two female characters who share the role of hero. Often one is more conventionally heroic and easier for the audience to identify with.  The second character, while of the same sex as the main hero, will often be a Shapeshifter, whose loyalty and true nature are always in question.  In the comedy The In-Laws, the “straight” hero, Alan Arkin, is nearly driven crazy by the Shapeshifting of his buddy, Peter Falk, a CIA agent.

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The Shapeshifter is one of the most flexible archetypes and serves a protean variety of functions in modern stories. It’s found most often in male-female relationships, but it may also be useful in other situations to portray characters whose appearance or behavior changes to meet the needs of the story.