[UA] Archetype evolution

[Kevin Mowery]

----------
> From: S. Ben Melhuish <sben at pile.org>
> To: UA at purpletape.cs.uchicago.edu
> Subject: [UA] Archetype evolution
> Date: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 2:39 PM
> 
> So I get my copy of UA and start reading it.  Tasty, indeed.  I may even
> play this game one day soon, rather than put it on my shelf to collect
> dust with the other games I own (other than Ars Magica).
> 
> As often happens when I'm exposed to a work of intense creativity, my
> own muse starts talking to me.  For no apparent reason, I think about
> D.B. Cooper.  (For those who don't know about him, he's a bit of a
> legend, an anti-hero, around the Northwest.  I don't remember the details
> of the story -- perhaps someone can correct or elaborate -- but in the
> early '70s, he hijacked a plane, somehow ended up with a suitcase or two
> full of cash, and parachuted out.  The only trace of him that has been
> found was a handful of the money that he stole, washed up on the banks
> of the Columbia River.)
> 
> Well, it's obvious that he ascended at some point in his parachute
> descent.  (Note the drastic rise in airline hijackings since -- a
> resonance of his ascension.  Nice, too, that his metaphysical ascension
> was triggered by a physical descent.)  This gets me thinking, however.
> 
> What archetype did he become?  The first choice is obviously the
> Hijacker, but that's not really universal enough.  So perhaps he replaced
> the old Highway Robber, he-who-preys-on-travelers, who didn't keep up
> with the times and became irrelevant.  He updated the old archetype with
> a new take on the same basic principle.
> 
> This gets me thinking even more, however.  If D.B. Cooper could update
> the Highway Robber and become the Hijacker, could someone else supplant
> D.B. Cooper as, say, the terrorist Hijacker?  Yes, this is quite
> different from the Highway Robber, but not so far from D.B. Cooper's
> Hijacker -- the difference being the reason for taking over the airplane
> (political vs. personal).
> 
> Can archetypes evolve in this way, eventually becoming something
> completely other than what they started out as?  Anyone have any thoughts
> on this?  (My personal take is, sure, if you (the archetype) don't change
> with the times, it's off-to-the-House-of-Renunciation with you.  And if
> there's eventually enough of a drift from the original archetype, well,
> I'm sure there's someone around who'd be happy to become the new
> predator of travelers, in whatever form that takes.  Of course, come to
> think of it, a terrorist Hijacker is still a predator of travelers....)

	I like the idea of a Highwayman archetype.  I don't think that the
Hijacker would replace the old archetype, though.  The Highwayman, or
Highway Robber, steals money and possibly kills the people he comes across.
 The Hijacker usually either steals the whole plane to go somewhere else,
or takes hostages until political or financial demands are met by a third
party.  I think there's enough difference there that the two would be
separate.

Kevin "Professor Bobo" Mowery _____________________ profbobo at io.com
"The entire dismemberment of Vash Gar reveals an ignorance of anatomy so 
deep that I begin to question whether the author does, indeed, have a
body."
                       --ratmm's Norb on the "Seven Stars MSTing"
     **See the "Seven Stars MSTing" at http://www.io.com/~profbobo **
                           


> -- Sben
> sben at pile.org