THE ORDINARY WORLD AND THE CALL TO ADVENTURE
In order to have an adventure, the situations of the adventure must somehow differ from the status quo. The hero must have a starting point, a place to call "home" (however good or bad it might be), a place where he may return. This leads us directly to....
THE WORLD OF COMMON DAY
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit...This particular hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected..."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Before the hero can set out on the adventure, the audience first needs to know where he or she is coming from. In the opening of The Hobbit we are told about Bag End and Hobbiton and about Bilbo. We are told seemingly insignificant details about the Shire and what it is like to live there. All this serves to paint a significant image of the Ordinary World of Middle-Earth. This is the normalcy that the hero will break from. Do the other characters in the Shire have stories of their own to tell? To be sure, but they aren't going to leave to have an adventure, so we don't want to read about them. After all, most of us have enough "normal" in our own lives. In the film "Star Wars", I'm sure writer/director George Lucas could have written a nice story about Luke, the loyal nephew, who forgoes his dreams of going to the Academy to stay and help out on his Uncle Owen's moisture farm, but it wouldn't have been the same would it?
Sometimes the Ordinary World is not the first thing that the author chooses to show us, especially in film. Sometimes we get a taste of the end of a last adventure. A good example of this is in "Raiders of the Lost Ark". We see Indiana Jones going to retrieve a Hovitos fertility idol, getting it taken from him, and then being chased down by dozens of angry Hovitos. But is that Indy's Ordinary World? I don't think so. In the next scene we see Indy's World of Common Day, that he is in fact a college archeology professor. In "Star Wars", George Lucas chose to start by showing us the Rebel Ship being attacked by the Star Destroyer, and then followed the droids on their small escapades on Tattoine and with the Jawas, but he could have started the film at the Lars' breakfast table and it would have basically been exactly the same story. That doesn't necessarily mean that the World of Common Day has to be boring. Not at all. For instance, in the Ridley Scott film "Gladiator", the hero Maximus is a great Roman general. His Ordinary World is not boring at all. But it is the status quo that he is in when we are brought in to the adventure. He no doubt has undergone another Hero's Journey to achieve his post as general, but we are not privy to that story. So it doesn't concern us.
Take your average comic book hero, now, we don't step through these stages each time for every issue. Some stages like the World of Common Day are taken as read, and are covered in the origins of the character. For instance, Peter Parker was just another science nerd living with his aunt until a radioactive spider bit him. Bruce Wayne's parents were killed. These details aren't covered again and again in every issue of Spiderman or Batman. It is taken "as read" that the reader knows the origins and why the Hero is on his journey. The bottom line is that the hero needs a starting point, a frame of reference to pit against the adventurous world they are about to enter. Something has to happen, a catalyst that propels the "normal" person out of the Ordinary World and onto the Hero's Journey. This is...
THE CALL TO ADVENTURE
"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope."
- Princess Leia (hologram), "Star Wars: Episode IV"
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"'Come off it Mr. Dent, you can't win, you know. You can't lie in front of the bulldozer indefinitely...I'm afraid you're going to have to accept it...this bypass has got to be built and it's going to be built!'"
- Mr. Prosser to Arthur Dent (explaining why Arthur's house should be knocked down), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
The potential hero is sitting fat, dumb, and happy (proverbially speaking) in the World of Common Day when something comes along and smacks him into the adventure. During romantic stories, this is usually the first glimpse at the object of affection. If the journey is to be inward, perhaps it is the first time the hero recognizes a fault within herself that she wishes to correct. The outward journey's signs are usually easy to recognize. In The Hobbit, Gandalf doesn't really give Bilbo a choice, he marks Bilbo's door with his staff and then the next thing you know...thirteen dwarves on his doorstep off for an adventure. In "Raiders of the Lost Ark", two government employees come to ask Indy and Marcus about the headpiece to the Staff of Ra, and that sets everything else in motion. In "Star Wars: A New Hope", the droids bring Luke an enigmatical message from the Rebellion, which eventually pulls him out of the Ordinary World and starts him on the path of becoming a Jedi Knight. When other characters bring the Call to the hero, they can be referred to as Heralds. The heralds can also become Helpers, as in "Star Wars: A New Hope". Or they can remain simply the heralds of the call, and serve little service to the hero other than to set him on his path, as in "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
But then something curious may happen. The Hero may want to go on the adventure, but they are frankly comfortable right where they are, and adventures, after all , are uncomfortable affairs. This acts as a sort of literary inertia, where a body at rest wants to stay at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force. That outside force is The Call to Adventure, the inertia drawing the hero to ignore it, is known as...
THE REFUSAL OF THE CALL
"We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't see what anybody sees in them...Good morning!...we don't want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water."
- Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
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"Alderaan? I'm not going to Alderaan. It's late, I have to get home. I'm in for it as it is."
- Luke Skywalker, "Star Wars: Episode IV"
A substantial argument surrounds this stage. Some argue that this stage always takes place, attributing the least moment of hesitancy to Refusal of the Call, I disagree. I can think of numerous examples where the Refusal of the Call does not take place, and it does not hurt the story at all. ("Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Top Gun", etc. In these examples the hero is all too eager to go on the adventure, doubt hardly enters his mind. In these stories, friends of the hero often will take the role of the Threshold Guardian and try to present the hero with a reason why it might not be such a good idea after all to go through with it, but the hero pays them no heed.)
Having said that, refusal of the call does not always occur immediately after The Call to Adventure. But the interesting thing is that through myth and through life we learn that if the Call is refused, what remains is stagnation, disintegration, and death. Nothing positive generally comes from Refusal of the Call. The call unanswered is droll and boring. Think of it, Luke drives Ben to Archorhead, drops him off and then goes back to moisture farming. Or Indiana Jones thinks that going up against all those Nazis, and after the Ark of the Covenant, is far too dangerous, he'd much rather stay and teach archaeology. Not that moisture farming or archaeology might be boring, but simply that they are orders of magnitude less exciting than becoming a Jedi Knight, or fighting Nazis for the Ark.
There is also another possibility. The hero who cannot refuse the Call because circumstances have thrust it upon her. Think "Erin Brockovich", or Maximus in "Gladiator", or Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings. In this instance, the Refusal of the Call will manifest itself through a regret or wishful thinking. ("I wish the ring had never come to me.." etc...). But the hero will continue simply because he has no choice. To Refuse the Call if followed in these circumstances is tantamount to suicide.
The bottom line is that the hero cannot achieve his or her full potential without accepting the Call and all the risks that come with it. That is not to say that the hero will succeed, for the road is long and treacherous. But simply getting on the road is a big big step. And the Powers That Be will try to thwart them every step of the way.
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