One Tale to End All Tales?

 

When I was fifteen, I wrote my first novel and I was determined it should be revolutionary. It wouldn’t employ a single trope or similarity to another work of fiction. Before long, this proved tricky and I stayed after class one day to ask my English teacher if anyone could create a truly original story. She responded by sketching a Hero’s Journey monomyth diagram on the board. That is how, a few weeks ahead of my entire class, I learned that the Hero’s Journey was the one tale to rule them all.

Until college. Four years later, again a sophomore, I took a literary theory class where the course text was a book of essays and autobiographical fiction by the Native American writer Zitkala-Sa. While analyzing it in an essay, I once more broke revolutionary ground when I realized Zitkala-Sa’s stories didn’t fit in Joseph Campbell’s monomyth model. Why, this was because Joseph Campbell, the great white male, had neglected to take women and native people’s stories into play. Oh, the injustice of it all! And so I set out to write a semester long research paper about how the Hero’s Journey in all its colonialist glory had overlooked marginalized storytellers.

Until the night before my paper was due. I’d been going off a Hero’s Journey diagram I’d found on the first page of google and assumed, because the website mention Campbell’s book The Hero with A Thousand Faces, that it was all accurate to the book. With my paper all polished and peer edited and ready for submission, I decided I’d check out the book itself, find a few quotes to throw in, and call it good. But when I flipped to the index, I found the names of several Native American tribes listed. Campbell had taken Native American myths into account.

I overhauled my entire paper overnight.

Two years later, I took a myths, legends, and folktales class and discovered that there are myths, legends, and folktales. Campbell’s myth model was only ever intended for myths. If you want to analyze a fairy tale, you don’t go to Campbell, you use Proppian analysis. Though Vladimir Propp tracked some elements common with Hero’s Journey stories (heroes, villainy, overcoming), they’re more tailored to fairy tales.

Proppian analysis starts with a family member absenting themselves from the home. Beauty’s father leaves for a journey, Hansel and Gretel are led to the woods, Cinderella’s mother is dead. It ends with a wedding and ascension to the throne. This can either be literal (Snow White marries her prince) or more figurative (Dorothy and her traveling companions are rewarded). Fairy tales feature a donor character, like Cinderella’s godmother or the dead Wicked Witch of the East, who grant the hero magical a magic talisman or assistance.

Last night I watched a stage production of Mary Poppins. Neither Miss Poppins nor the kids have a hero’s journey. The kids have a problem (distant parents) but don’t take action to fix it on their own. Mary Poppins takes action but she doesn’t have a problem. Fixing the Banks family doesn’t give her anything. At no point in the story is she really threatened or endangered. This bugged me for a while until I realized Proppian analysis is probably a better fit. Suddenly, this story follows the rules. Michael and Jane absent themselves to play in the park and their parents are emotionally absent. Mary Poppins functions as their donor. A wedding is the happy unification of a family and that’s exactly what happens to the Bankses at the end. 

Proppian analysis is the wrong choice for non-fairy tale stories, like YA contemporary novels. Popular author Sarah Dessen’s YA contemporary books usually feature a teenage girl on summer break. She has a job, family issues, friends, and, eventually, a boyfriend. But she’s not locked in battle with an evil overlord or witch. Some YA novels might include triumph over a sports rival, school bully, or an opponent in a class election, but  in many of them, like Dessen's, the end result is something like "the shy heroine learns to have confidence." 

YA contemporaries attempt to model real life more than mystery books do. In real life, a friend could be killed in a hit and run accident and your journey is one of grieving and healing. In a mystery novel, you track that sucker down. There are as many ways to understand stories as there are kinds of stories. Zitkala-Sa’s stories didn’t match Campbell’s pattern because she was writing biography, not because Campbell was some kind of racist. Myths don’t read like fairy tales, fairy tales don’t read like biographies, biographies don’t read like YA contemporaries, and contemporaries don't read like mysteries. The more you study different plot structures, the more you familiarize yourself with the breadth of different genres and learn new ways to frame your character's journey. 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Effie Trinket is the Best Character Name Ever

 The Hunger Games trilogy offers a spread of aptly-named characters. Katniss is  an edible plant with arrow-shaped leaves. Katniss Everdeen is an archer who knows how to survive in the wild. Katniss are useful plants, but not pretty ones. Evening Primroses are a delicate, prettier plant with medicinal properties. Her sister Prim is a delicate, pretty girl who wants to be a doctor. Peeta (pita) is a baker. Panem echoes ancient Roman civilizations in many ways and several Capitol officials have Roman names. 

My favorite name is District 12’s Madge Undersee, Katniss’s friend who gives her mockingjay pin. This name is fun to unpack. Madge gives her the badge and M for Mockinjay. Her last name comes from her father, who, as mayor of District 12, is supposed to oversee everything. But since he and his family let Katniss get away with poaching, it could be said he undersees everything.

Effie Trinket’s name gives us even more to unpack than Madge’s. First, let’s look at her first name. I always imagined Effie was a nickname for Frances. A google search tells me it’s short for Euphemia-a Greek name for well-spoken. But never mind meaning or origin. All that matters is that Euphemia is an old-fashioned name no modern woman would ever saddle her child with ever. There’s something beautiful about it, but it’s a stuffy, antique kind of beautiful. Euphemia sounds like a Victorian lady of wealth, influence, and reputation. Additionally, it puts me in mind of the word euphemism-a polite term for something dreadful.

But Suzanne Collins doesn’t call her Euphemia Trinket. She’s Effie. “Effie” sounds to me like Euphemia or her parents looked at this name and said, “How do I make this cute? How do I make this trendy?” and the resulting Effie was the best they could come up with. I can’t imagine any modern parents calling their daughter Effie, but the name might work for a poodle. Effie, as a whole, sounds like an older, wealthy lady trying (and failing) to be stylish.

Her last name, Trinket, is a real word. Trinkets are jewelry of knickknacks, sometimes expensive and never useful. Decorative. Showy. Not a weapon you’d fear and not a tool you’d go to for help. Trinkets are there to sit still and look pretty. The site MyHeritage tells me it is, in fact, used as a surname in our world, but unless you have a friend by this name, you’ll probably think jewelry before people.

Now, who is our woman? She’s a resident of the Capitol, which makes her wealthy. Her job as Reaping announcer and pre-Games escort puts her in the public eye, but she’s a pseudo-authority rather than an actual one. She selects contestants for the Hunger Games but can’t be held actively accountable for their deaths. Katniss doesn’t feel the same disdain for her as she does Capitol politicians and gamemakers. Unlike Cinna, Katniss’s stylist, and mentor Haymitch, she’s useless in terms of tactical game preparation, image control, and outside assistance. Her role is to accompany rather than coach. Her hair, makeup, outfits, and accessories aim for the height of fashion but hit a ghastly kind of flamboyance. And overall, she’s a walking euphemism. She’s the reader or viewer’s first introduction to the games, a fight to the death couched inside the glamour of reality television. She knows Katniss is slated to die, but perkily downplays every pre-game milestone as “a big, big day.”

Overall, Effie Trinket carries with it the airs of:

Wealth

Influence

Triviality

Glamour

Tackiness

Old-fashionedness

Sugarcoating

Try following this pattern to create a name for a similar character. Let’s start with the name Frances. We’ll bypass the common name Fran the same way Suzanne Collins doesn’t pull the ordinary Mia out of Euphemia. If we go to the end of Frances instead, we could turn it into Sissy, a weak woman who could be cute but certainly isn't useful in a fight. Now let’s brainstorm words similar to Trinket:

Treasure

Antique

Jewelry

Bauble

Decor

Knickknack

My favorite from this list is Bauble. If we change the spelling, that gives us bobble. Bobbleheads are bouncy, entertaining, decorative, and useless. Sissy Bobble sounds like a silly, useless sort of woman.

Writing prompt: Imagine a character who is Effie's opposite in every way-powerful, dangerous, modern, youthful, and sloppily dressed. Now, give her a name. 

Everything Wrong with Harry Potter's Astronomy Class

The Harry Potter books are full of school scenes where Harry brews potions, learns to fly, and practices spells he'll use against Dementors and Death Eaters. The one class that never seems to be important is astronomy. The classroom itself, the Astronomy Tower, serves as a location for three memorable moments. Harry, Ron, and Hermione bring Norbert there for Charlie's friends to pick up in the third book, watch Hagrid arrest in the fifth book, and, most memorably of all, the Astronomy Tower is the setting of Dumbledore's death. But though the class setting makes it a convenient location for Harry to get a bird's eye view or clandestine rendezvous, the actual class taught there isn't worth the fuss. The very existence of this class begs questions about the practicality of the Hogwarts curriculum and what it means for Harry's daily life.

This Class Meets at Midnight

In the first book, it's mentioned that Harry's astronomy class is scheduled every Wednesday at midnight. In Harry's fifth year, he has an astronomy final scheduled for 11 o' clock at night. Sure, it makes sense that a class requiring stars and darkness would meet in the middle of the night. But, what does this mean for their school schedule? A bunch of eleven-year-olds are getting back from class at 1:00 a.m. at the earliest, and then they have to wake up and eat breakfast the same time as the rest of the school. I can only hope they don't have any morning classes scheduled the days after that so they can go back to their dormitories and nap.

Holding class at night means it must be totally normal for students to walk around the castle at midnight. Harry never runs into astronomy students when he's traipsing around the castle in his invisibility cloak. Granted, they could be only hanging out in the Astronomy Tower and whatever hallways connect that tower to the common rooms. But if it's normal for students to walk around the castle at night, that begs the question of why Harry has to do so clandestinely. Couldn't he just tell Filch he's on his way back from astronomy?

They Only Ever Learn Jupiter

From the Harry Potter wiki:

Toward the end of the (first) year, Hermione was quizzing Ron on Astronomy. Their studying included using a map of Jupiter. It was noted that the studies on Jupiter continued into later years, when Harry tried to learn the names of Jupiter's moons in his fifth year of study at Hogwarts. 

Their fifth year exam has a section on Jupiter too. There are a couple of times throughout the series where they're filling out star charts, but the only planet they study is Jupiter. Yes, yes, I know there are more stars than planets, but planets are closer and you'd expect them to come up once in a while. Jupiter must be fascinating if they can study it for five years without moving on in their education. 

They Will Never Use This
Unlike real high school, a lot of what Hogwarts kids learn in required classes is directly applicable to their real lives. Harry takes Potions; he learns how to brew polyjuice. Harry takes Defense Against the Dark Arts; he learns expelliarmus for when he's fighting Voldemort. Some classes are less useful. McGonagall is a dear, but I can't think of a time when Harry used Transfiguration outside of class. Most Transfiguration spells are ridiculously specific, like turning a teapot into a tortoise. But there are still situations where a wizard might find themselves in possession of too many teapots and not enough tortoises. Astronomy is entirely useless.
It's Not One of the Useless Electives
In her third year, Hermione enrolls in a great number of fluff classes. Tell me, when did she ever use arithmancy outside of class? Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Divination, Muggle Studies, and Care of Magical Creatures are electives because they aren't all that important, though the last two are far more applicable than the first three. Seriously, wizards are so ignorant of Muggle society that they can't dress themselves. Muggle Studies should be a required class. Since Hogwarts has other trivial classes, Astronomy wouldn't stand out so much, except Astronomy is a required class and Arithmancy is not.

 
If they learn this, why not math?
Since astronomy has no magical value, it's possible that they're taught it as science, not magic. My high school had an astronomy class, too. But if they're allowed to study science, why not math? Why not English? These poor professors are grading seventh years' essays written by students who weren't taught writing past age eleven. Surely astronomy can't be the only normal subject they allowed into the curriculum. 

They Will NEVER Use This

Most classes at Hogwarts are about spells (Charms, Transfiguration, DADA). Potions and Herbology deal with substances that could save a person's life. What's the application for astronomy? You can't mix drops of Jupiter into Polyjuice potion. There is no mention of spells that can only be cast when Jupiter is in the proper alignment. Harry never calculates star positions to stop a dementor. The only area of magic in which stars might come in handy is divination, and that's its own class.