Throughout the progression of the six archetypal character arcs that make up the human life cycle, we see a steady progression of the character’s power. As we explored in the positive King Arc, this final mid-life arc represents the height of temporal power. The King is someone who wields a vast amount of influence not just over his own life or within his personal relationships, but over extended numbers of people. Symbolically, he rules over a Kingdom, but more practically, his empire could be anything from a large family to a company.

Writing Archetypal Character Arcs (affiliate link)

In short, he’s the boss. He knows it. Everybody knows it. And he holds within his hand, whether literally or symbolically, the power of life and death over his subjects. Will he wield that power responsibly in a way that brings life to the Kingdom? This depends on whether he is centered within his positive aspect of King, or whether he is gripped by his shadow archetypes of Puppet and Tyrant. The Puppet represents the passive polarity within the King’s shadow; the Tyrant represents the aggressive polarity.

Along with the growing power that accumulates as a character progresses farther into the life arcs, so too the stakes rise proportionately. The more power the character accumulates, the greater his ability to do good to others—or evil. This evil inevitably results from a stagnation of growth. It could happen because a character was thrust into a position of leadership even though he failed to properly complete previous initiations. Or it could be he worked his way up through the aggressive archetypes, building his Kingdom on the backs of those he selfishly oppressed along the way.

King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette (affiliate link)

It’s also possible for someone to responsibly and authentically reach an archetype, only to stall out in his growth by over-identifying with his current archetype. In King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette refer to this as being “possessed” by an archetype. They indicate how the King archetype, particularly, may be forced into a shadow version of his own arc—still facing the propitiatory sacrifice demanded of him, but doing so unwillingly:

As Sir James Frazer and others have observed, kings in the ancient world were often ritually killed when their ability to live out the King archetype began to fail…. The danger for men who become possessed by this energy is that they too will fulfill the ancient pattern and die prematurely.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell (affiliate link)

It is no coincidence that the negative archetypes of later arcs often act as antagonists to the younger arcs. A King gone bad makes a formidable foe with the opportunity for huge stakes. He shows up most often in Hero stories (in which the Hero’s Quest may be about trying to “heal” the Sick King) and Queen stories (in which the Queen must grow into a leader worthy of responsibly replacing the unfit King). In The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell frequently refers to this villain as the “tyrant ogre” or “Holdfast”—the representative of a stalled status quo:

The upholding idea of the community is lost. Force is all that binds it. The emperor becomes the tyrant ogre (Herod-Nimrod), the usurper from whom the world is now to be saved.

The Hero Within by Carol S. Pearson (affiliate link)

Like all the negative archetypes, the Puppet and the Tyrant represent a personal failure to examine the Lies the Character Believes, to lean into growth, and to accept the next level of maturity and responsibility within one’s life. In The Hero Within, Carol Pearson references M. Scott Peck’s People of the Lie as:

…[defining] evil as those who would rather harm another than see the truth about themselves.

Once again with our series-wide reminder: The arcs and their related archetypes are alternately characterized as feminine and masculine. This is primarily indicating the ebb and flow between integration and individuation, among other qualities. Together all six primary life arcs create a progression that can be found in any human life (provided we complete our early arcs in order to reach the later arcs with a proper foundation). In short, although I will use feminine pronouns in relation to the feminine arcs and masculine pronouns in relation to the masculine arcs, archetypal representations within these journeys can be of any gender.

The Puppet: A Passive Refusal to Be a True Servant-Leader

The passive archetypes inevitably represent missed steps within the character’s growth. They “skipped a grade”—but not in a good way. The farther they get in life, the more egregious this lack becomes, both for themselves and for others. The Puppet is a potent example.

As the passive polarity within the King’s negative counter-archetypes, the Puppet necessarily represents a character who at least nominally holds a great deal of power. But he is also a character who lacks the strength, ability, or perhaps even desire to wield that power. He may have been born to the power, or he may have fostered a seeming sense of “maturity” to the point that he sneakily advanced beyond his actual capabilities.

Pearson warns:

In Jungian psychology, the shadow is formed by repression. If we do not express the positive side of an archetype, it can take us over, but in its negative form.

Regardless of exactly how he manifests, the Puppet is someone who wields his power only randomly and to his own benefit. Either he is content to fob off all true responsibilities onto others, or he himself is at the mercy of someone more powerful (likely a Tyrant or a Sorcerer).

The character will almost inevitably display a “spoiled brat” sense of entitlement that reveals his true level of immaturity. This puerility is exceedingly dangerous to others due to the power with which it is paired, but as with all the passive shadow archetypes, it represents a deep sense of fear and insecurity within the Puppet himself. He isn’t truly powerful; he just wields power. Gillette and Moore note:

This sense of deprivation and lack of “ownership” of the sources of and motives for power are always features of the passive poles of the archetypes.

In modern storytelling, a clear example can be found in the Game of Thrones characters Joffrey and Tommen Baratheon. Even though psychotic Joffrey exhibits clear signs of wanting to be a Tyrant, both he and later his well-intentioned little brother Tommen are obviously Puppets to their Tyrant grandfather Tywin Lannister. Both are Puppets purely for the reason that they were thrust into positions of power without having properly arced into the true maturity of the King (both being only teenagers).

Game of Thrones (2011-19), HBO.

The Puppet’s Potential Arcs: Positive and Negative

It is always possible for a passive archetype to rise to the challenge and learn the lessons of its related positive arc. However, the farther along a character is within the chronological arcs, the more likely he will have to go back to fulfill previous archetypes first. This “leveling up” can be done all within the same story in a relatively short amount of time. But the degree of transformation will be tremendous.

If the Puppet’s primary problem is that he is not chronologically advanced into the proper placement of the King Arc (such as in the case of the Baratheon princes in Game of Thrones), his best path of growth is more likely to be a return to his properly timed arc (i.e., Maiden or Hero).

However, the more powerful a character is, the harder it can be to let go of that power—however stagnated or unhealthy it may be personally. Only a person brave enough to undergo an extraordinary transformation is likely to release his ill-gotten temporal power, even if that power is just nominal, as it inevitably is in the case of the Puppet.

And so it is more likely that the Puppet will refuse to evolve and will therefore end his story as a tragedy in the midst of the Kingdom he could not and would not protect. Or he will rise up to seize more power, refusing to step aside even when it is time and instead using his position to oppress his Kingdom as the Tyrant.

The Tyrant: An Aggressive Refusal to Be a True Servant-Leader

The Tyrant is, of course, a chillingly well-known archetype—historically, globally, and personally. Humans have a hard enough time wielding power, much less surrendering it—and surrender is the heart of a true King Arc.

The Tyrant, however, never surrenders. The Tyrant will take his power to the grave—and his Kingdom with him. As such, however well he may manage the actual affairs of the Kingdom (and many do), he is ultimately a curse upon his Kingdom and his subjects. The true King steps aside to make room for new life; the Tyrant blocks that life and ultimately can give his Kingdom only death, even if he does not directly desire such.

Gillette and Moore speak to the profound unhealth that governs and emerges from the Tyrant’s refusal to sacrifice for his Kingdom:

The tyrant king is not in the Center and does not feel calm and generative. He is not creative, only destructive. If he were secure in his own generativity and in his own inner order—his Self structures—he would react with delight at the birth of new life in his realm.

Instead, the Tyrant proves his own distrustful and (ironically) immature relationship to power by doing everything he can to hang on to everything he’s got. Since, as we’ve seen, the King Arc is all about surrendering power and prestige as a preparation for the descent into the Underworld of Elderhood (and, eventually, the end of life), the Tyrant’s rejection of this arc is ultimately an attempt to reject his own mortality. The unrepentant Tyrant, then, is always doomed.

Campbell, of course, has much to say on the subject:

The figure of the tyrant-monster is known to the mythologies, folk traditions, legends, and even nightmares, of the world; and his characteristics are everywhere essentially the same. He is the hoarder of the general benefit. He is the monster avid for the greedy rights of “my and mine.” The havoc wrought by him is described in mythology and fairy tale as being universal throughout his domain. This may be no more than his household, his own tortured psyche, or the lives that he blights with the touch of his friendship and assistance; or it may amount to the extent of his civilization. The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his world—no matter how his affairs may seem to prosper. Self-terrorized, fear-haunted, alert at every hand to meet and battle back the anticipated aggressions of his environment, which are primarily the reflections of the uncontrollable impulses to acquisition within himself, the giant of self-achieved independence is the world’s messenger of disaster, even though, in his mind, he may entertain himself with human intentions. Wherever he sets his hand there is a cry (if not from the housetops, then—more miserably—within every heart): a cry for the redeeming hero, the carrier of the shining blade, whose blow, whose touch, whose existence, will liberate the land.

The Tyrant’s Potential Arcs: Positive and Negative

The responsibilities of the King are tricky ones. He must constantly weigh such questions as “How much power is too much?” and “Where have I the right to rule over my subjects—and where am I overstepping?” Every King will make mistakes. Present within every positive King is always the shadow of the potential (and sometimes actualized) Tyrant. As a result, there is also always the potential for a return to the King in every Tyrant (especially if he has proven himself faithful in his earlier arcs).

Awakening the Heroes Within by Carol S. Pearson (affiliate link)

In Awakening the Heroes Within, Pearson talks about the one thing the King (or any archetype) can do to guard against or return from possession by a negative counter-archetype:

The danger of becoming rigid and locked into old ways and hence harming the kingdom is always present for the Ruler. One way to avoid becoming an evil tyrant is to continue to take our journeys throughout life so that we are constantly renewed.

Because the King Arc ends (at least symbolically, sometimes literally) with his death, it is not uncommon for a repentant Tyrant to also end by giving his life for his Kingdom. Depending on how far gone he is within the negative archetype, this may be the best he can hope for in trying to repair his own mistakes.

But he may also perish in less admirable circumstances. If he refuses to relinquish power and remains stubbornly in his unregenerative patterns, a younger Hero or Queen may arise to remove his blight from upon the Kingdom. Gillette and Moore reference the biblical story of King David replacing the Tyrant Saul:

Though the prophet Samuel has told Saul that Yahweh no longer wants him to be king—that is, to embody the King energy for the realm—Saul’s Ego has become identified with the King and refuses to relinquish the throne.

If the Tyrant is exceedingly powerful, and if he is not confronted by Heroes or Queens strong enough to dethrone him, the inevitable cycle of life may still push him off his throne at some point. Old age will claim him one way or another. But if he cannot gracefully accept the transition from King to Crone, he is likely instead to devolve into the manipulative (and in many ways greater) powers of the Witch, working for her own ends behind the scenes—and then perhaps eventually returning to the world’s stage as the even more destructive Sorcerer.

Key Points of the King’s Regressive Archetypes

For easy reference and comparison, I will be sharing some scannable summations of each arc’s key points:

Passive Shadow Archetype: Puppet is Irresponsible (to protect from consequences of Power)

Aggressive Shadow Archetype: Tyrant is Oppressive (aggressive use of Power)

Positive King Arc: Leader to Elder (moves from Regal World to Preternatural World)

King’s Story: An Awakening.

King’s Symbolic Setting: Empire

King’s Lie vs. Truth: Strength vs. Surrender

“Physical strength is the pinnacle of human achievement.” versus “Spiritual strength requires me to relinquish my physical strength.”

King’s Initial Motto: “I, the capable.”

King’s Archetypal Antagonist: Cataclysm

King’s Relationship to Own Negative Shadow Archetypes:

Either Puppet finally wields his Power out of a growing Perception.

Or Tyrant learns to submit his Power to the bigger picture of Perception.

Examples of the Puppet and Tyrant Archetypes

Examples of the Puppet and Tyrant archetypes include the following. Click on the links for structural analyses.

Puppet

• Joffrey and Tommen Baratheon in Game of Thrones
• Theoden in The Two Towers
• Tsarina Alexandra in Rasputin and the Empress
• Nels Olson in The Little House on the Prairie
• Prince John in Robin Hood
• Mr. Bennet in Pride & Prejudice
• King Louis XIII in The Musketeers

Game of Thrones (2011-19), HBO; Pride & Prejudice (2005), Focus Features; The Musketeers (2014-16), BBC One; Little House on the Prairie (1974-83), NBC; Robin Hood (1973), Walt Disney Pictures; The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), New Line Cinema.

Tyrant

• Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights
• Michael Corleone in The Godfather
• Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones
• Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones (second half)
• Miranda Priestley in The Devil Wears Prada
• Old Man Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life
• Miss Minchin in A Little Princess
• Catherine de Burgh in Pride & Prejudice
• Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre
• Mrs. Merdle in Little Dorrit
• Professor Delores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Yubaba in Spirited Away
• Tom Dunson in Red River
• Cardinal Richelieu in The Musketeers

Game of Thrones (2011-19), HBO; The Godfather (1972), Paramount Pictures; The Musketeers (2014-16), BBC One; Wuthering Heights (2009), ITV; Red River (1948), United Artists; It’s a Wonderful Life (1947), Liberty Films.

Stay Tuned: Next week, we will study the shadow archetypes of the Crone: Hermit and Witch.

Related Posts:

• Story Theory and the Quest for Meaning
• An Introduction to Archetypal Stories
• Archetypal Character Arcs: A New Series
  • The Maiden Arc
  • The Hero Arc
  • The Queen Arc
  • The King Arc
  • The Crone Arc
  • The Mage Arc
• Introduction to the 12 Negative Archetypes
  • The Maiden’s Shadow Archetypes
  • The Hero’s Shadow Archetypes
  • The Queen’s Shadow Archetypes

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! Can you think of any further examples of stories that feature either the Puppet or the Tyrant? Tell me in the comments!

Go on the journey with your characters! Check out the Archetypal Character Guided Meditations.

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