[UA] The Prince, on a white horse, returns!

[Timothy Ferguson]

I think it tries to reach for too many things, Sean.  Like the King, you
should split this up a little.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Holland" <capitalistrunningdog at netscape.net>
To: <ua at lists.uchicago.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 10:59 PM
Subject: [UA] The Prince, on a white horse, returns!



>      Attributes: The Prince (on a white horse) is the archetype of
> the Hero who rescues the Princess from the Palace of Thorns, the
> Prince who lifts the curse of Eternal Night from the Kingdom, the
> clever young man who outwits the Ogre-Sorcerer, saves the
> Princess and marries her.

In short, he's the Monomythic Hero and is definitively the protagonist.
Just there you can divide it up, perhaps like this:

The Knight-errant (Lancelot, Gawaine) (Rescues)
The Grail Knight (Galahad who heals the Barren Lands) (Heals the maimed
King)
The Giant-Killer (Jack) (Defeats the Evil and becomes prince)

Note how the roles differ

> This is the avatar of the Prince out of
> fairy tales, but remember until they were 'sanitized' in the 19th
> Century, fairy tales did not always have happy endings . . .  Further,
> the Prince symbolizes hopeless, but glorious and noble, causes.
> The avatar of the Prince often find themselves as martyrs to their
> beliefs or cast as the leader of doomed rebellions.

Martyr...?

>      Sometimes alone, but never without friends, the Prince
> overcomes all hardships to succeed in his goal, while remaining
> noble and true through it all.

 I'd add another type here, The Shallow Prince, but only because I'm a
Sondheim fan.

> The Prince rises above the common
> level of things, showing other people what can be done through
> nobility and hard work.

Nobles don't do hard work.  What does Snow White's prince do, except snog a
girl who looks dead and is in a glass coffin?  (Actually, on ArM someone
just mentioned he may have done a lot more to Sleeping Beauty.)
Eeeeeeeeeew.

> While the Prince is idealistic and good, he
> is not always wise, his causes may end up generating suffering
> (such as leading a poorly planned rebellion) or getting those who
> help him killed or injured.  The Prince may blind himself to the
> results of his actions or accept them and risk losing his idealism.
> Equally, the noble nature of the Prince can be manipulated by the
> cynical for their own ends.  It can be a difficult task to be noble and
> true at all times.  The Prince is an archetype of heroic tragedy as
> least as much as it is one of adventures and happy ending.

>      The Prince does not need to be of royal blood, nor every a
> royalist.  There have been avatars of the Prince that espouse
> anarchism, communist revolution, democracy and even among the
> ranks of the Hitler Jurgen.

Jungend?

So the Prince can embrace evil causes?  Defining evil consensually, of
course.  You therefore have a Black Prince whodoesn'tdraw from nobility, but
from his determination that the world should work to his model, from his
desire to set the world "right".

>      Taboo: The Price can never abandon an innocent in need.

Um, Jungend?

What definition of inncoent are we refering to here?

> They can only give minimal help (calling 911 for an accident victim,
> giving a sandwich to a staving man) but they cannot ignore them.

Except for the Shallow Prince:  Can Never Actually Live Happily Ever After.
8)  As Sondheim points out, there is always another adventure in the woods,
and Princes have to take them, because -they are Princes-.  This means
theynever actually get touse the treasure theybring back from the wilds.  To
go Campbellian theymay carry wisdom home, but do not intergrate it.  As
catalysts they encourage change, but remain unchanged.

They also have weird fetishes...a glass slipper on a red cushion?  Girls
with -really- long hair...

>      Symbols: White horse, a noble's sword, cloak, a rose, a
> banner (often tattered or bloodied).
>
>      Suspected Avatars in History: Jason.  The young Beowulf
> of the sagas (the older Beowulf shows how the Prince can evolve
> into a new Avatar path).  Dick Whittington, who according to
> legend entered London penniless and through luck and much effort
> became Mayor of London (again evolving as an Avatar).

I like him as the Common Man with the Lucky Cat, who took the role from the
Count of Carrabass (Puss in Boots)



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