Stacked Shelves

I’m curious.  You know how it is, when you learn a new word, or hear of someone who is suffering from some condition, soon after you see or hear that word everywhere or you hear about several other people who have the same problem? For me, I have the mythological hero’s quest on the brain. I find the journey being enacted in books all the time. And it has me wondering: Do the writers know they’re reinterpreting the mythic hero’s quest or does it just happen quite naturally? Is there some sort of Jungian collective unconsciousness at work here? Or am I imagining things? Let me describe the hero’s quest (in as few words as possible). As mapped out by mythologist Joseph Campbell in The Hero With a Thousand Faces , the hero’s quest has three main stages: the departure, the initiation, and the return. Each stage is further broken down into additional steps (much condensed here): Stage 1: The Departure 1.   The call to adventure: Something is happening and the hero must act