 Fantasy: December 16, 2015 Issue [#7371] |
  Fantasy
This week: The Priest Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.
-Virginia Woolf
One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
-Thomas Paine
Women priests. Great, great. Now there's priests of both sexes I don't listen to.
-Bill Hicks
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For my last three newsletters, I covered the Fantasy archetypes of the Warrior, the Wizard, and the Thief.
This one covers an archetype that's a bit harder to write or identify: the Priest.
Part of the difficulty with the Priest is that she or he is not always a literal priest; that is, an interlocutor for a god or religion. While that's a standard Priest archetype (for example, Shepherd Book in Firefly/Serenity), it's more about what the character does, and the role he or she plays in the story, than about religion itself.
While the Warrior is focused on martial arts, the Wizard is a specialist of some arcane or scientific discipline, and the Thief is a master of stealth and misdirection, the Priest is, at its core, an expert on human nature. Or, you know, the nature of elves, Zorbs, or whatever.
A Priest can be a moral compass, or a mere observer. With her knowledge of what motivates and inspires other characters, she can be a powerful force for good, or an evil mastermind, or anything in between.
Often, if you as a writer need an interpreter, someone to explain to the reader what some person or group is feeling or likely to do, it's the Priest that discusses this with the other characters.
Many Priests are, as a result, highly charismatic; hence you get your cult leaders or minion-leading supervillains. Knowledge of human nature is instrumental in learning how to push a character's buttons, or pull her strings.
Other typical roles for a priest include advisor, psychologist, healer, teacher, and mentor. Some other examples of this archetype from popular culture include Deanna Troi from Star Trek:The Next Generation (hey, I never said Priests had to be fan favorites) and Giles from Buffy. As noted above, Priests can be difficult to identify sometimes, and stories can get by without them, but they can play an integral part in fantasy or science fiction stories. |
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Last time, in "The Thief" , I discussed the archetype of the Thief.
Quick-Quill  : As pertaining to the Wizard, I was lost. I'm still not sure what you mean as a Wizard Protagonist? Give some examples a non-gamer might recognize. Is there a movie or book that shows this?
Any specialist, really; anyone who is very, very good at a certain thing, a thing that affects their immediate environment. In classic fantasy, this is a magic-user. In contemporary fantasy, Hermione Granger comes to mind; while everyone at Hogwarts is a wizard in training, she is especially good at it. In science fiction, consider Spock, the ever-logical specialist in science and logic. Or in the show Firefly, Kaylee, who is exceptionally good at keeping the engines running. The character of Neo from The Matrix fits the Wizard archetype. If you're familiar with the TV show Arrow, the character Felicity Smoak is an accomplished hacker, which I consider to be a modern Wizard. From a writer's perspective, if someone needs to bend the rules, or do something beyond the mundane, what we need is a Wizard.
Quick-Quill : This one, The Thief was easy to understand. When you gave Bilbo as the example I knew exactly what you were saying. Great News letter. I await the next ones. I'm printing them as my writing group is reading Vogler's the Journey.
Well, this month's Priest is probably the most difficult to parse, as it's not always connected to religion and may be the hardest to identify in literature. And, of course, my personal classification system isn't the only one possible - I'm doing this series, in part, to get people thinking about it. And if I ever find a system I like better, I'll be sure to talk about it here 
And that's it for me for this year - see you all in 2016! Until then, have a wonderful holiday season and...
DREAM ON!!! |
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