1. A Look on Archetypes. By Pierre-Alexis Barras PERSONALITY WAREHOUSE

2. WHAT ARE ARCHETYPES? Also known as Stock Characters, Archetypes are the generalized personas of individual characters. Archetypical groups are many and easily identifiable. The selections are so vast that one could place every human and character into an archetypical category.

3. ARCHETYPICAL GROUP EXAMPLES Action hero Anti-hero Black knight Cat lady Damsel in distress Hardboiled detective Badass Grandpa Gentleman thief Hotshot Mad scientist Space Nazis Superhero Super soldier Tycoon Swashbuckler Nerd Gentle giant ETC…

4. ACTIVITY As a group, come up with as many characters from movies, books or television and discuss what kind of archetype they’d be placed in or best represent.

5. WHAT IS THE ISSUE WITH ARCHETYPES? Archetypes are generally used for supporting flat characters that are never truly developed. This leads to many clichés and shortcuts to plot advancements. One must be careful when employing a stock character as otherwise the story can becomes predictable and looses the interest of the audience.

6. ACTIVITY Choose three archetypes and discuss what a character of the selected archetype would do if : They were confronted by a cat Had world domination Was on the verge of death Had a love one taken from them

7. WHAT TO ASK Examples of questions you should ask when evaluating a text would be: How is this character presented? Have I seen this sort of character before in another piece? What would this character’s personality be if summarized in two words? Is this character flat or dimensional?