Joseph Campbell, in The Hero With a Thousand Faces, outlines the deeply rooted human psychology that forms myths. Through his twelve stages of a hero, Campbell attempts to isolate the key ingredients of all mythological hero stories in order to arrive at the foundation of human hero-worship. Many popular movies adhere faithfully to these twelve stagesùwhether their authors meant for it to happen or not. Because that is precisely Campbell's point in his book: these stages are so deeply ingrained in our humanity that they cut across cultures and societies. They are simply part of what it is to be human, regardless of one's origin or belief system. In today's society, one can clearly see the twelve stages of the hero in popular movies and books. In the smash-hit movie The Matrix, Neo is a clear hero figure who traverses the twelve stages of the hero with panache. Likewise, in the Harry Potter books, and especially in The Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter continually traverses these twelve stages. This paper will outline the twelve stages of the hero and relate them to The Matrix and The Goblet of Fire.
1. The Hero is introduced in his ordinary world. Most stories take place in a special world, a world that is new and alien to its hero. This is certainly true for Neo in The Matrix, as evidenced by the traumatic birthing scene in which he is removed from the Matrix and shown the real world. This was also certainly true for Harry Potter in his first exposure to the world of Magic and to Hogwarts.
2. The call to adventure: The hero is presented with a problem, challenge, or adventure. In The Matrix, this problem is that the machines have annihilated the world as he knows it, have enslaved men to harvest their body heat for energy, and are hunting down the remaining free men. In The Goblet of Fire, the main problem is that Lord Voldemort has begun gathering the Death Eaters a more immediate problem facing Harry is th...