Because we can NEVER analyze our favorite stories and characters enough, we took our Fandomentals character archetypes to the next level. That’s right, we’re not willing to simply have our Dutiful Princess or Glorious Dumbass, we carefully thought over and created an entire astrological chart (okay, twelve) full of character archetypes for all of you to tag your favorites as. Or yourself? Are they primarily a Glorious Dumbass with a Disaster Chosen One rising? (HELLO, WYNONNA EARP, YOU LOVEABLE MESS!) Or what about a Dutiful Princess with a Tactician moon (Bruce Wayne, y’all)?
Okay, fine, while Kori is trying her best to wrap her head around astrological terms, y’all get the gist of where we’re going with this. You or your character can have a primary archetype and still have secondary traits of others, got it? So while she’s off in the corner figuring things out, let’s get to the fun part.
Dutiful Princess
The OG term that started it all, you can read more about this archetype here.
Examples of the Dutiful Princess: House Martell of ASOIAF, Bruce Wayne aka Batman, Sister Beatrice of Warrior Nun
Glorious Dumbass
Look, Warrior Nun is going to shoulder a LOT of blame for our resurgence of character archetypes, just deal with it. You can read more about the Glorious Dumbass here.
Examples of the Glorious Dumbass: Wynonna Earp of Wynonna Earp, Ava Silva of Warrior Nun, Ryan Wilder of Batwoman
Disaster Chosen One
This archetype can swing towards doom or redemption, depending on the characters in question. Read more about the archetype here.
Examples of the Disaster Chosen One: Jon Snow of Game of Thrones, Lena Luthor of Supergirl, Sister Lilith of Warrior Nun
The King
Heavy is the head that wears the crown. This character is the one to turn to when the chips are down, and hope is looking lost. Read more about the archetype here.
Examples of the King: Okoye of Black Panther, Shotgun Mary of Warrior Nun, Dot of The Wilds
The Buttercup
This is the kindest person you will ever meet, the beating heart of any group, and the one who will tell you the hard truths when you need to hear them. They’ll also be the first person to murder whoever hurts their loved ones. Read more about the archetype here.
Examples of the Buttercup: Bow of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Theo Putnam of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Sister Camila of Warrior Nun
The Anarchist
The wild card that’s completely unpredictable. If helping someone works for their own goals? Great! But if those goals change… well. These roguish loner types are looking out for themselves and generally tend to abhor systems, especially systems they perceive as corrupt. If you’re working on an epic strategy to complete your quest, you should probably expect the Anarchist to Leroy Jenkins the entire endeavor.
Examples of the Anarchist: Alice of Batwoman, Yennefer of The Witcher, Loki of the MCU
The Tactician
The strategist, the level head of the group, the one who always has a Plan B, C, D, etc. through Z, and then some if things go sideways. This character is the resourceful ‘man’ with a plan (though as usual, all of these archetypes are gender-neutral). But we can’t stress this enough, their backup strategies have backup strategies.
Examples of the Tactician: Oliver Queen of Arrow, Ava Sharpe of Legends of Tomorrow, Gideon of Legends of Tomorrow
The Cavalier
Nothing phases this character. They literally do not give a fuck. Sometimes this is a gift, and they remain unflappable and/or positive in awful situations or absolute chaos. However, this goes both ways, and sometimes this character waits until it’s too late to suddenly realize that fucks, do indeed, need to be given.
Examples of the Cavalier: Behrad Tarazi of Legends of Tomorrow, the Dude of The Big Lebowski, Crush of Finding Nemo
The Devourer
The scum of the earth kind of villain who is here to give the other characters a bad time, the audience a bad time, and really just everyone a bad time. Literally, nothing good happens around them. You’ll feel like you need a massive cleansing after reading, listening, or watching them. Abandon all hope and light ye, who enter this archetype’s realm, because they’ll consume every shred of good feeling you have.
Examples of the Devourer: Ramsay Bolton of ASOIAF, Nurse Ratched of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, William Hamleigh of The Pillars of the Earth
The Moustache Twirler
While this villain is here to give the characters a bad time, the audience will often have a fun time watching it happen. This type has a broad range of physical features from cartoonish to suave, but they are very much enamored with their own perceived wits, power, wealth, etc. And they can monologue or scene chew like nobody’s business.
Examples of the Mustache Twirler: Rita Repulsa of the Power Rangers franchise, Robbie Rotten of LazyTown, The Master of Doctor Who
Lord Fauntleroy
We all know this type, someone so “virtuous”, so “good”, so “pure” they make the rest of us want to vomit. This character is the one to go on a voluntourism trip and take a ton of photos with underprivileged persons for their social media adding #soblessed. They think their god’s gifts to humanity because they gave five dollars to a homeless person one time and almost missed their bus to do it. And they absolutely MUST have everyone else’s attention and congratulations for all the “good works” they do. Underneath the outwardly “good” facade is usually a self-absorbed character (either mostly annoying but ultimately harmless or outright diabolically evil). The Buttercup’s arch-nemesis.
Examples of the Lord Fauntleroy: Hilary Faye of Saved!, Darla Dimple of Cats Don’t Dance, half of the characters on Glee
Death (Duck Hat optional)
The Dark Souls first boss you’re not meant to win against. Death sans hat is the big bad even the Devourer won’t fuck with, aka the big scary Dark Souls boss. Death with a Duck Hat had a positive encounter with someone (usually a Glorious Dumbass), decided they liked them enough not to kill them right away, and suddenly got to have character development. Death with a Duck Hat is trying out new things, seeing what they like, and all about living their best lives, other opinions be damned. Just… don’t fuck with their Glorious Dumbass emotional support character. You WILL die. Painfully.
Examples of Death (with and without a Duck Hat): Hela of Thor: Ragnarok, Poison Ivy of Batman is an example of both versions, before and after meeting Harley Quinn
Images courtesy of Warner Bros, Netflix, FOX, BBC, the CW, Marvel Studios, HBO, and Walt Disney
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