THE BELLY OF THE WHALE

"Now we must brave the long dark of Moria.  Let us hope that our passage goes unnoticed."

- Gandalf the Grey, "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"

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"Once more I come to know of thee King Harry, if for thy ransom you will now compound, before thy most assured overthrow?"

- Montjoy the Herald, Henry V by William Shakespeare

Just before the hero will reach THE SUPREME ORDEAL they will reach a point which Joseph Campbell refers to as THE BELLY OF THE WHALE.  At this stage the hero will have appeared to be swallowed up by the opposition forces and to the outside world the hero may appear to have died.   Vogler refers to this stage as the "Approach to the Inmost Cave".   In essence they are the same thing and their placement along a specific timeline is somewhat arbitrary.  What matters is that before the hero achieves the SUPREME ORDEAL, there will be a moment where the hero will actually need to consolidate his or her powers because things are about to get really bad.  Often, the hero will appear to actually be physically swallowed up in something much larger than he is.   Some examples:  In "Star Wars: A New Hope" Luke and company are "swallowed" into the Death Star, their actual moment in THE BELLY OF THE WHALE occurs when they escape the detention block by diving into a trash compactor, which adds a whole new set of challenges as the walls being to close in as the "beast" tries to figuratively "digest" them.  In "Raiders of the Lost Ark", THE BELLY OF THE WHALE occurs when Indy and Marion are locked inside the Well of the Souls by the Nazis, who leave them for dead.  In "Ghostbusters" the milestone takes place when the Ghostbusters are arrested and thrown into jail for violating EPA laws and causing an explosion in downtown New York.   In the "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (film adaptation), the milestone takes place when the Fellowship narrowly escape the Watcher in the Water and braves 'the long dark of Moria'.   And I don't mean to give the idea that THE BELLY  always takes place indoors, just that it is a crisis point where things start looking pretty bleak.  For instance, in "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" (film adaptation), the BELLY OF THE WHALE is most probably the Warg attack on the refugees from Rohan.  The bottom line is that when THE BELLY OF THE WHALE happens, the hero better get ready, because although he or she may escape from the BELLY intact, things are just beginning to get bad.  They are on their way to the SUPREME ORDEAL .