DE: Come with me...

[bjornwilde]

No DE posted yet, so I'm stealing it. It's like a compulsion I have.

The call to adventure; that famous construct of Joseph Campbell's. Did your pup answer it right away or ignore it at first like Mr. Campbell says all heroes do?

Comments

[a1enzo]

Ahahahahahahaha! *wipes eyes* Ignore it. That's a good one.

[1nv1nc1ble]

"What the Guardian said."

[bjornwilde]

Jessica and Val were born to the adventure; though Jess did try and turn her back on it and have a normal life.

Hank answered the call when the CIA rang and will answer the call when Charles does as well.

Thalia jumped at the chance and used it to free herself from a neglectful mother.

Anton is laughing in a very self-deprecating way that is verging into tears. It's almost as if he never had a choice or something.

Quinlan was thrilled at the call but his Grandmother tried to ruin him before the call was answered.

In my headcanon, Brimstone was the call to adventure for the chimera.

Andrea answered the call as well, joining the Order and graduating with top honors. Later in canon, she ignores another call in favor of duty and it goes badly for her.

[electro_kinetic]

If you're smart you ignore it for as long as you can, at least if you want a long and happy life. And then the multiverse throws you a curveball and that whole ignoring-it thing isn't really an option anymore.

[gavin62truck]

I think if you compressed Tommy's entire life and canon into this outline, it would fit almost perfectly. Except he answered his call right away, and there was no Reward immediately after the Ordeal(s), and the Road Back was just made up of Neverending Hard Goddamn Times.

[el_enmascarado_de_plata]

The various Santo movies I've seen give the impression that Santo has a silver Adventure Call Hotline wired directly to his house. My headcanon for his origin (there are apparently about five or six different origins for the Santo character, because the dude's been in like fifty movies) has him brought up in an orphanage run by nuns, taking the opportunity to wrestle in local matches wherever possible as soon as he was old enough, and being offered the chance to take up the identity Silver Mask by the prior luchador to fill the role. About the only delay between the call and the actual adventure would have been the amount of time it would have taken to go somewhere suitably out of the way so that nobody's secret identities were compromised.

Stacker did not so much get the Call to Adventure as the Statement of Look Kid You Burned Down A Building And Tried To Kill A Guy, You Can Go To Military School Or You Can Go To Jail, Take Your Pick. There is no evidence that when the Trespasser came he did anything other than put his everyday RAF affairs in order and volunteer to step up and organize as many of humanity's defenses as he was capable of doing.

Ellen, Gordon, Shephard, Mordin, Varric, and Medic kinda... well. Video game narratives very often have something of a different structure from written or oral ones, I think, since they require active participation on the part of the player in order to advance. Theoretically you could refuse the call to adventure for a time, but generally games aren't programmed to force you to keep playing. You could take a character in an open-world game and spend your entire time dicking around collecting, say, every single bent tin can in the Capital Wasteland, rather than going out and doing anything to advance the plot, but most of the games I play don't really send anybody to hunt the character down and inflict consequences on them until you keep going. Occasionally you get cases where event timers kick in and something bad happens if you don't achieve an objective within X amount of time, but for the most part that's not really a thing... Unless it's presented as part of the character's backstory that they said 'mm, no, I'mma stay here and work the dirt farm' and then the game starts with giant spiders from Mars lumbering across the property line, the Game Hero's Journey tends to start off like this:

HERO: *sitting at home doing basic tutorial stuff*
*there is a KNOCK at the door*
HERO: *opens door*
ADVENTURE: Hi, I'm-
HERO: Let me get my hat.

Alternatively:

HERO: *is trying to get to work*
*there is a THING*
*it is ORDINARY*
*the thing goes HORRIBLY WRONG*
ADVENTURE: Hey, you didn't need that roof, did you?
HERO: *starts hitting things with CROWBARS because otherwise the HERO will DIE and the game is OVER*
*seventeen thousand bullets later, everything is FIXED*
*or possibly there is a SEQUEL*

I'm not saying there aren't reluctant-hero video game characters, or characters with backstories that fit Mr. Campbell's definition of the journey, but I don't really run into a whole lot of those in the games I play. Even when I'm playing secondary characters like Medic or Mordin or Varric rather than the protagonists.

[genarti]

Thor: is already out the door at the first ring. Possibly he has, in fact, shown up on Adventure's doorstep first, asking if Adventure can come out and play today.

Clare: is giving Adventure a confused look, but also follows it right out the door, so close that she's in danger of treading on its heels.

Trowa: says yes in his heart, says something noncommittal out loud, spends five minutes doing a background check on Adventure, sticks up a note for Cathy, and then calls back to say he's on his way.

River: also follows right along, unless she thinks Adventure is a jerk in this instance. (Even then she might come along to make sure things are done right, though.)

Regan: would like to think she'd say yes. Would instead ignore the heck out of it for as long as she could get away with doing so.

Enjolras: Adventure just gets a busy signal, because Enjolras is on the phone with the French Revolution 24/7. If Adventure can join in a conference call, though, then sure thing.

[bjornwilde]

I am now imagining a wee Thor standing on a doorstep looking up at Adventure's mother saying, "Can Adventure come out and play?"

[herr_bookman]

Annnnd credit to you for first choked-on drink for the week. That was amazing.

[bjornwilde]

Hazah!

[genarti]

*grin* I was thinking that.

You know that in a metaphorical sense, that was EVERY DAY OF THOR'S CHILDHOOD. Complete with "But whyyyyyy can't I go play with Adventure instead???" every time he had homework.

[bjornwilde]

If my time and drawing skills were more readily available, you'd have fanart. = ]

Have you read Thor: Son of Asgard by any chance? A short comic series from before Thor proved he was worthy of Mjolnir. Beautiful art and great stories.

[genarti]

Hee! Mine are likewise out of reach, but I appreciate the mental image alone.

I haven't! I've read very little in the way of Thor comics, to be honest. But I'll keep an eye out for it, if it's that good.

[1nv1nc1ble]

There's also a cartoon movie: Thor: Tales of Asgard, which I believe is canon with MCU.

[street_sparrow]

Ichabod: Adventure keeps coming to find him and forcibly abducting him. He just wanted to be a history professor...

Giovanni: He'd like to think so, but he's not quite there yet. Later, and not really very much later though, hoo boy yes.

Sharpe: Enjoys a quiet life but isn't totally averse to answering the call when it comes.

Harry Callahan: As for Sharpe. He'd like to just run his business and be left in peace, but his daughters are wizards so that's never going to happen and he doesn't seem to mind terribly. Although he does worry about them.

Nancy: The only adventures she gets now are World War II related, and nobody wants those.

Jonathan: Jumps at it with his hands wide open.

Michael Carpenter: He met his wife while slaying a dragon that somebody was trying to feed her to. I think that says it all.

Roshaun: Adventure marked him from birth. He's not always very happy with that.

Norrington: Used to only have the regular military type adventures. Then he met Jack Sparrow. (Or possibly Elizabeth Turner, going much farther back.)

Gavroche: Loves it. Which, you know, is a good thing considering he lives in the Neverwhere universe...

[sdelmonte]

Kirk and Cyborg answered that call a long time ago.

Gibbs tries to ignore it, but where Jack goes, he goes, and that means adventure (or at least misadventure).

Knox will report on the results of adventure, but he tries hard to not actually be there. There is a reason he's not a war correspondent.

Howard tests planes in his spare time. But he doesn't really see that as an adventure.

And Charlie used to answer the call. He doesn't anymore.

[jjprobert]

Hero? What hero? Also, What call?

So claim Erik, Alfred and Bean.


Jack and Max, on the other hand, well, both of them answered pretty damn sharpish when the call came knocking.

As for the first three, well, Erik did dump Thor at hospital, and left him there until they (him, Jane and Darcy) realised quite what they'd left...

Alfred doesn't hesitate to help Bruce with his plans.

And Bean answers the first call as a method of getting himself off the streets. And once he's involved, he can't let alone. Partly because he knows it won't leave him alive if he does...

[damncompass]

I AM SO SORRY. :( I was in-district and didn't have my phoooone this morning. I'm an idjit.

Anyway:

Joshua tried to turn Mrs. F. down when she was making him a Regent. He'd rather just study things in a corner.

Helena embraced and still embraces adventure. Everything's an adventure, and she absolutely loves it.

Fantine would say that she's never really had adventures, and the one time she tried, it went poorly for everyone.

Valentine's only adventure is keeping Peter grounded.

[bjornwilde]

No problem. I happened to have an idea and saw the DE was still open. :-)

Sorry, I meant to say this earlier.

[souffle_girlek]

Katya: Wasn't so much called by adventure as she was scruffed like a naughty kitten by it and hauled off to her new life without so much as a by-your-leave.

Blakeney: Didn't so much sign up for the adventure as he is just doing what is expected of a person in his situation. It does help that he rather enjoys the adventure and is good at it.

Balthazar: Also didn't so much choose the adventure as he got hauled along by it forcibly - One gets the impression that Merlin very rarely asked for an opinion on how the future would go.

Haymitch: ... We're not asking him this question. He has a knife and isn't nearly drunk enough yet.

Glorfindel: Answered the call, ignored the call from his old sensible life, and then when it was all over, went and hunted down adventure and rode it like a pony.

Ace: Another 'scruffed like a kitten' pup, but she did have an option for part of it, and that she didn't even hesitate to answer 'hells yes'.

Oswin: ....... She said yes to an adventure much milder than the one she got.

Clara: Is entirely guilty of saying yes to all of the adventures, and frankly has no one else to blame for the trouble she gets into. See icon descriptor. This applies SO MUCH. >.<

Bones: Told adventure that he was a doctor, not an explorer, so please go take a long walk off a short pier. And then adventure got vengeful and shoved him off a cliff.

[death_gone_mad]

All mine are NPCs. The adventure happens to them. Hee.

If Amascut is on an adventure, it is a call she answered a long time ago and she got called crazy for answering it. Someone has to set the universe on fire right. But as I said, NPC, and in particular she's one who the adventurer can walk up to be assigned an adventure. Like rescuing her twin sister who fell down a well or going off to some distant land to kill X amount of gnarly beasty. Because gnarly beasties need to die. So it goes. She's also potentially the bottomless pit that the adventurer and various nemeses can fall into, never to be heard of again.

Fairy Fixit... it isn't much of an adventure if you stay home, keep your day job, and secretly subvert a coup. But I am sure working out in the field can be adventurous, but it is not so much a voyage to find herself and test what her grit, they're just... jobs? Tasks? Some jobs can be extremely testing. But she is mostly just someone the adventurer has to deal with on occasion.

Evil Chicken's original function was to catch the adventurer unaware and feast on the adventurer's organ meats. :D

[hasthehighground]

Clint has been known to ignore the call to Adventure (and known to go 'to hell with it,' and jump in), but you never but never ignore Nick Fury's calls. He's usually assigned to Adventure.

Chuck Hansen will punch Adventure in the face.

Darcy Lewis never gets called to Adventure so much as tagging along behind the hero (Jane), at least pre-seeing Thor 2, but she is a masterful tag-alonger.

[inlovewithwords]

Eriond was kind of in the middle of it--although as he arguably incarnated and then went and found Zedar... I don't know. Adventure didn't call him. He was part of it.

Henry not only answered his personal call, he answered so proactively he became The Call for the actual lead of his canon.

Lois answered the call first try, because it was her cousin asking Clark to solve her 'murder.' She just didn't realize that was answering the call to greater adventure for a while. After that, well. She goes "oh, is there no call today? I'd better go find some Adventure and knock on its door." She doesn't know how to say no.

Tavi's interesting. He spends most of book one accidentally stumbling into Adventure, not given much of an option besides "ADVENTURE or DIE." However, there is a specific moment near the end where he has a choice: Be sensible and let the bad guys just take the MacGuffin back and live--or try to keep it from them and run. And he notes that two days earlier, he would have just let them take it, then says to himself, out loud, "Two days ago, I had a lot more sense." So yeah. He only recognizes The Call after he's already in the Adventure... but he answers. And keeps answering, every time The Call ups the ante.

[kd7sov]

Felix... didn't have the option. Adventure quite literally kidnapped him, and - in millicanon - basically said "do the adventure or your parents are in trouble".

Kain... it's complicated. You could say he answered when he went with Cecil; you could say it kidnapped him too; you could say, actually, quite a lot of things.

Fluttershy, you would think, would have resisted. But in point of fact, she shows up at the library and at the edge of the Everfree with the others, with no canonical indication of discussion or thought. Perhaps she's more adventurous, at least in groups, than she thinks.

[misslucyjane]

Steve banged on Adventure's door until it let him him.

Bilbo almost slept through Adventure. Then he had to go through Adventure without a pocket handkerchief, poor baby.

Lydia is screening the calls from Adventure.

Merlin accepted the call, then spent the next five years bitching about it.

Jack accepted the call, then found out it wasn't for him.

Cecil was born to the call, I'd say, though he would say he's not a hero, just a reporter.

THe Ice King resisted the call for as long as he could, and now can't remember why or what he was like before the call came along. He breaks my heart a little, really.