The journey of the villain in the Harry Potter series : an archetypal study of fantasy villains

Abstract

Fantasy has featured in our culture since the beginning of times. From ancient mythology to futuristic Sci-Fi, stories have been filled with fantastic characters and settings. Disguised under the cover of the fantastic there is a heavy load of symbolism being conveyed through structures called archetypes. The idea of archetype as a symbolic structure which is repeated countlessly over time and space was identified and studied by the psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung and these archetypes can be recognized in many forms of art or even in dreams. Fantasy usually has archetypes as its basic structure. The symbols expressed as archetypes are supposedly understandable through cultures, and yet, each culture may express the same archetype in different ways. An important archetype that too often features in fantastical stories is that of the hero. Joseph Campbell has explored it, based on Jung's archetype theory, and called the pattern that composes heroes worldwide the Monomyth or the hero journey. This journey can be clearly seen in stories from ancient folk-tale and mythology to contemporary works, which is the case of the Harry Potter series. A literary phenomenon of the 21st century, the Harry Potter series tells the story of a boy wizard and his journey into herohood. In every hero journey, its pinnacle is reached in the confrontation with an arch(e)-villain. Every step in the journey bears a symbolic significance and the villain as part of that journey follows the rule. The villain is mostly the force to which the hero has to oppose, he is also a representation of the unknown; therefore this character is usually presented without a past or reason to be. However, the villain in the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort, lives his own journey; one which is incredibly similar to the archetypal journey lived by the hero, Harry. This thesis studies the archetype of villains in fantasy literature and the journey of the hero as it can be related to the villain in the Harry Potter series. This study is based on the archetypal the ory of C. G. Jung and on the pattern traced for the hero by Campbell. The journeys of both villain and hero are compared for the proposition of a contemporary understanding of the villain archetype.