Xanga entry 398): Joseph Campbell and "Otherworld"

[artemisdart]

398) Reading about the universal themes in myths... came across this sentence.

"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forcecs are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man." (Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, New York: MJF Books, p. 30.)

This truly is a universal theme in myths... and I realized it's one reason the end of the series "Otherland" (by Tad Williams) let me down so much... the heroes (those that survive!) do come back from their amazing, life-changing adventures, and --

-- do nothing. The main bad guy is dead, the evil brotherhood is thwarted. They're now all rich. So they decide to just keep "Otherland" a secret, since various governmental agencies would only ruin it if they knew about it.

Sort of a letdown. No boons to bestow on their fellow humans, no universal truths to impart to all mankind. Instead they just... go back to their lives. Only now they're rich, and they have a fun virtual reality playground that only they can enter.

A happy ending for them, but rather depressing for the rest of humanity.