All 8 elements of the 8 Archetypal characters

questions
#1

Is there a ready reference to look up all the 8 elements of the archetypal characters?
A lot of back and forth and thinking happens with the individual elements other wise.

#2

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#3

Hey @JohnDusenberry , thanks for the reply!
I see I didn’t phrase my question clear enough. There are 64 total elements, with 4 dimensions, Motivation, Purpose, Evaluation and Methodology.
This is the motivation dimension. What I am looking for is the chess set of 64 elements marked with all the 8 archetypal characters, so that I can commit them to memory.

#4
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#5

Yes, the question did get resolved there.

#6

I always got (and still do because I find it interesting!) hung up on this concept. In the Lost Theory book, with the disclaimer that this isn’t official, there are possible archetypes for the 3 other sets in the quad. The Methodology archetypes make the next most amount of sense to me. For example, the archetype using Proaction also uses Evaluation, and is considered the Assertive archetype, with its dynamic pair being the Responsive archetype with Reaction and Re-evaluation as its elements. These could be seen as “protagonist” and “antagonist” versions of the method archetypes, but not necessarily, as it is looking at a context from a different angle, and while Proaction and Reaction “line up” with Pursuit and Avoidance, Evaluation and Re-evaluation do not line up with the “decision” elements of a protagonist and antagonist (which would be Certainty and Potentiality, which belong to the Dogmatic and Pragmatic method archetypes respectively - although in the book, certainty at that time was called ‘actuality’).
If that’s not enough to make your head spin, you still have 2 more sets of archetypes. The “Purpose Archetypes” are the ones I personally find the most confusing, as you can see in the book at the time of writing these they were intended to be used with the rest of the archetypes in tandem:

“When we look at a Protagonist who is Assertive and Evaluates in terms of Outcome, her purpose is to achieve a Goal…The Antagonist, being Responsive and Evaluating Impact, is more concerned with the Requirement.”

So the “driver” archetypes (Protag, Antag, Contagonist, Guardian) are moving towards purposes that have to do with the static plot points, but then the “passenger” archetypes (Reason, Emotion, Sidekick, Skeptic) are moving towards purposes that are reminiscent of what has been discussed regarding Linear vs Holistic (satisfaction vs fulfillment) mindsets as far as what satiates their drive:

“When you look at the Character of Reason, who Cautiously evaluates things in terms of Information, the Purpose of Satisfaction fits right in. To her counterpart, Emotion, doing things in a Risky manner based on Intuition, Happiness is the Purpose to which they aspire.”

Though, instead of “fulfillment” which goes to the “Passive Sidekick” archetype, the dynamic pair for the purpose archetype of Satisfaction is Happiness.

Now, is this accurate? I don’t know. Does it matter? I don’t really think so! Which is why they cut it out of the main theory book and never bothered to pin anything down. It’s interesting to learn, but easy to get lost in. I would be cautious about sticking too closely to elements for certain characters. Time and time again, I find myself wanting to stick my characters neatly in those element boxes, but then find I never really “bring them out” when an element is “called upon” as it were in my story. honestly, with subtext, I have started straying farther from being so strict about elements when writing especially when first drafting, and find it much more freeing! Yes, limitations can help the muse, but TOO many restrictions, and you are obviously going to start feeling like you are writing through a convoluted maze that no one will understand.
So sorry for this long-winded answer on a thread that probably didn’t need to be revived as the question was resolved. Clearly, I still find this all really fascinating even I don’t necessarily use it per se, it is still in the back of my mind. I think the gist, as I have seen Melanie herself write lately, is if you bring up one thing in a context, you have to then bring up the opposite of that thing. I realize the vagueness of that sentence is kind of ridiculous, especially in comparison to everything else I just wrote above, but in that sense, it’s pretty fitting, no? :sweat_smile:

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