{"id":2976,"date":"2018-08-09T10:15:53","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T16:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/?p=2976"},"modified":"2018-08-03T10:16:29","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T16:16:29","slug":"move-over-odysseus-christopher-robin-takes-a-classic-heros-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2018\/08\/move-over-odysseus-christopher-robin-takes-a-classic-heros-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Move Over, Odysseus: Christopher Robin Takes a Classic Hero’s Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
Winnie-the-Pooh and Ewan McGregor in Disney\u2019s Christopher Robin, photo from the Disney trailer<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

To the denizens of the Hundred-Acre Wood, Christopher Robin has always been a hero. In A.A. Milne\u2019s classic stories (and in Disney\u2019s animated cartoons, too), he\u2019s saved them from high waters and heffalumps, from bees and burrows and, very often, from themselves.<\/p>\n

But in Disney\u2019s Christopher Robin<\/em>, Christopher (in a fantastic performance by Ewan McGregor) joins the likes of Odysseus, Frodo Baggins and Luke Skywalker in taking a classic Hero\u2019s Journey straight out of Joseph Campbell\u2019s Monomyth.<\/p>\n

Almost all hero stories take many elements from this age-old form, from The Wizard of Oz<\/em> to Men in Black<\/em>, sometimes omitting some, adding others or twisting the order. But Christopher Robin<\/em> is as faithful to the classic 12-step Hero\u2019s Journey (the version adapted by Christopher Vogler) as anything I\u2019ve seen\u2014so much so that if I should ever become a college movie professor and teach a class on the Hero\u2019s Journey, I\u2019ll be showing my students this.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve seen the Christopher Robin<\/em> (but only if you\u2019ve seen it, because every unpacking of a hero\u2019s journey involves spoilers<\/strong>), cross the threshold and see what I mean:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Winnie-the-Pooh and Ewan McGregor from Disney\u2019s Christopher Robin, photo courtesy Disney film clip<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

1. Most heroic journeys begin rooted in the \u201cordinary\u201d world<\/strong>: Frodo\u2019s Shire, Luke\u2019s home on Tatooine, Dorothy\u2019s Kansas, etc. Our hero\u2019s an ordinary person in an ordinary place, not so different than ordinary us.<\/p>\n

Christopher Robin starts his own journey in the ordinary city of London\u2014working as a middle manager for a luggage company and struggling (and failing) to balance home and work. But then he receives \u2026<\/p>\n

2. A call to adventure<\/strong>. In Christopher Robin\u2019s case, I think the initial call is pretty prosaic, too. He\u2019s being called to go off to the family cottage in Sussex for a weekend, to spend some good, quality, all-too-rare time with his wife, Evelyn (Hayley Atwell), and daughter, Madeline (Bronte Carmichael). Sussex, we know, was where Christopher Robin did all his adventuring as a child, and it\u2019d be a great opportunity to reconnect with those closest to him. But Christopher\u2019s boss wants him to work over the weekend. And when Evelyn presses him to go to Sussex anyway, Christopher says \u2026<\/p>\n

3. \u201cIt can\u2019t be helped.\u201d This is dubbed, in Campbell, the refusal of the call<\/strong>. We see this refusal in Frodo\u2019s reluctance to leave the Shire, in Luke\u2019s initial insistence that he has to stay on Tatooine, even in Moses\u2019 excuse-making by the burning bush. \u201cI can\u2019t do this,\u201d our heroes say. \u201cAre you crazy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Christopher feels like it would be crazy to shirk his duties just to spend time with his family. Madeline\u2019s crushed by Christopher\u2019s refusal, and Evelyn\u2019s gently furious. \u201cYour life is happening now,\u201d she tells him. \u201cRight in front of you.\u201d Christopher\u2019s lost, and on some level he knows it. He needs \u2026<\/p>\n

4. A mentor<\/strong>, and he finds one on the park bench\u2014a stuffed, surprisingly lively bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. He\u2019s not your prototypical wise mentor in the mold of Gandalf or Obi-Wan. But despite being a bear of very little brain, he knows a thing or two about what\u2019s really important in life and how to enjoy it to the fullest. He implores Christopher Robin to join him on a quest (a secondary call to adventure, really) to find his lost friends. Christopher Robin would really like to reject this call, too, but eventually he \u2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Ewan McGregor in Disney\u2019s Christopher Robin, photo courtesy Disney film clip<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

5. Crosses the threshold<\/strong> into another world, right through a door stuck in a massive tree. He pops into the world of the Hundred-Acre Wood, where he faces \u2026<\/p>\n

6. Tests, allies and enemies<\/strong>. The allies are obvious enough: All of Christopher\u2019s old childhood pals are there, of course. Piglet, Rabbit, Eeyore and all the rest. But Christopher Robin gets creative when it comes to the quest\u2019s enemies. Christopher Robin\u2019s main enemy, really, is Christopher Robin. He\u2019s so changed from his old childhood self that his friends don\u2019t recognize him and mistake him for a fearsome heffalump. Christopher tries to tell them that he\u2019s not<\/em> a heffalump, but only comes across more like a monster than ever. And in the midst of this testing of Christopher\u2019s character, he falls into \u2026<\/p>\n

7. The inmost cave<\/strong>. Well, actually, he falls into a hole, actually, but it\u2019s pretty close to a cave\u2014the place where all heroes on a classic hero\u2019s journey must face their greatest fears. This cave can take many shapes. Many heroes dive into the underworld. In The Wizard of Oz<\/em>, Dorothy and her friends had to breech the Witch\u2019s castle. Luke Skywalker found his greatest fear in a literal cave in The Empire Strikes Back<\/em>. And in Christopher Robin, Christopher must, in that hole, confront the reality that he\u2019s far more like a heffalump than he\u2019d like to be. That realization leads to \u2026<\/p>\n

8. The ordeal.<\/strong> To convince the residents of the Hundred-Acre Wood, Christopher Robin does battle with a horde of heffalumps. It\u2019s a symbolic battle against his stodgy adult self (he even beats his briefcase something awful), signaling to both his friends and himself that he is still Christopher Robin, the Wood\u2019s long-absent hero. And with his successful navigation of the hero\u2019s ordeal he \u2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Cast from Disney\u2019s Christopher Robin, photo courtesy Disney film clip<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

9. Claims his reward<\/strong>, in this case the loyalty and affection of his longtime friends, who see him for what he is. And with that, the \u201cquest\u201d\u2014the one laid on him by Pooh, at least\u2014seems complete. He\u2019s reunited Pooh with his pals. He\u2019s reclaimed his own soul, in a sense. And it\u2019s time for him to find \u2026<\/p>\n

10. The road back.<\/strong> See, Christopher\u2019s not done questing yet. Not really. He\u2019s got to go back into his real world and experience a \u2026<\/p>\n

11. Resurrection.<\/strong> Not, in this case, a physical one, but a spiritual one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the climax in which the Hero must have his final and most dangerous encounter with death,\u201d writes Dan Bronzite for movieoutline.com<\/a><\/em>. \u201cThe final battle also represents something far greater than the Hero\u2019s own existence with its outcome having far-reaching consequences to his Ordinary World and the lives of those he left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christopher Robin\u2019s own encounter with death (in this case career death) comes in the midst of a business meeting\u2014the one he was supposed to be preparing for all weekend. He doesn\u2019t realize that, during his adventure in the Hundred-Acre Wood, Tigger replaced his papers with stuff that (in Tigger\u2019s eyes) really matters. Madeline and Christopher\u2019s friends realize the mistake and hurtle headlong into the fray to help, but obviously you don\u2019t want a little girl and a bevy of animate stuffed animals gallivanting around London all alone. And that pushes Christopher into the movie\u2019s big decision: He must choose between pushing on with his important presentation or helping Evelyn find Madeline. He must plant his flag.<\/p>\n

And so he dies to his old, stodgy self\u2014committing, he thinks, professional suicide\u2014and runs off to rescue Madeline.<\/p>\n

12. It marks the beginning of a new life for Christopher and his family, the final stage in the hero\u2019s journey called \u201creturn with the elixir<\/strong>.\u201d \u201cThe final reward that he obtains may be literal or metaphoric,\u201d writes Bronzite. \u201cIt could be a cause for celebration, self-realization or an end to strife, but whatever it is it represents three things: change, success and proof of his journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christopher Robin indeed comes home from his Hero\u2019s Journey a changed and better man\u2014a quiet hero without a sword at his side, but a bear in his arms.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To the denizens of the Hundred-Acre Wood, Christopher Robin has always been a hero. In A.A. Milne\u2019s classic stories (and in Disney\u2019s animated cartoons, too), he\u2019s saved them from high waters and heffalumps, from bees and burrows and, very often, from themselves. But in Disney\u2019s Christopher Robin, Christopher (in a fantastic performance by Ewan McGregor) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2036,"featured_media":2988,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[407,6,73,103,627,624,83],"class_list":["post-2976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-christopher-robin","tag-classics","tag-disney","tag-heroes","tag-pooh","tag-quest","tag-redemption"],"yoast_head":"\nMove Over, Odysseus: Christopher Robin Takes a Classic Hero's Journey<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Christopher Robin has always been a hero to the residents of the Hundred-Acre Wood. 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