What's Next, Joseph Campbell?
* Spoiler alert for The Good Place* For most, the hero’s journey is fulfilled only by reaching the last step in the cycle, the Freedom to Live. In this final stage, the hero achieves a balance in life when they are no longer afraid of death and are “neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past” (“Hero’s Journey''). Pessimistically, however, I feel eventually this state would begin to lose its significance. I predict that after a while, the balance that had once accompanied the final stage will begin to tip back to a state of normal and gone is the glory of life in the cycle’s finale. Similar to when a dog finally catches its tail, but then realizes that it’s now stuck. So that I don’t sound completely radical (or rad…), one of my favorite TV shows, The Good Place, aligns with this thought: the idea that, perhaps, completing the hero’s journey does not govern the fulfillment of the quest. The Good Place features protagonist Eleanor Shellst...