Primarily, this indicates the ebb and flow between integration and individuation, among other qualities. The arcs are alternately characterized as feminine and masculine. Reminders: Once again, before we officially get started, I want to emphasize two important reminders that hold true for all of the arcs we’ll be studying.ġ. His arc quite literally ends with the traditional low moment of the Third Plot Point as the transition from life’s Second Act to the Third Act. The King Arc, then, is about a character at the height of temporal power who is faced with the realization that the greatest good he can do for his beloved Kingdom-which he has so far proven himself so worthy to rule-is to sacrifice himself and surrender the throne. Whether the character will rise to the even greater (and in some ways more powerful) challenges of the Third Act of life depend on his ability to successfully fulfill his final charge as King. From this point, the character descends (and the word is symbolically important) into the second half of life-into old age, crippling mortality, and eventual death. The King is an archetype of major proportions, representing the height of temporal male power and authority….įrom here, it would seem there is nowhere to go but down. As Caroline Myss puts it in Sacred Contracts: Obviously, anyone inhabiting the King archetype has reached the apex of temporal life. Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss (affiliate link) Up to this point, the arcs have represented the first half of life’s concerns with the exterior world-with one’s relationship to self, others, love, and power from both positions of subordination and of authority. Although not necessarily glimpsed within the Queen Arc itself, this signifies a total shift within the overall archetypal story.
The Queen Arc ends with the protagonist essentially having become the King. In our examination of the six life arcs, the middle two arcs of the cycle, comprising the “Second Act,” are the Queen (discussed last week) and the King. Thematically, this is represented by a Moment of Truth, in which the protagonist grasps the central Truth of his story (while not yet fully releasing or overcoming his Lie). Equally, it signifies the shift into the “active” phase, in which the protagonist begins to recognize what the conflict is really about and what antagonist he is really confronting. Within the plot it signifies a shift out of the “reactive” phase, in which the protagonist has been distracted by the Lie and by surface conflicts. In any story, the structural Midpoint represents in many ways the turning point of the entire story. If we view the human life and thus the six archetypal character arcs of the “life arcs” as taking on the classic story-structure format of Three Acts, then it is no coincidence that the all-important Midpoint marks the transition from the Queen Arc to the King Arc.
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