The obvious hero in the story is obviously Ned, what defines a hero is someone who is not perfect, displays courage and self sacrifice. I can easily describe Ned as all three of these characteristics because the teenage life of Ned has to face all of this. An example of something Ned’s not is perfect at is physical activities such as karate. Ned even says himself that he is bad at karate. He describes himself as inflexible so he can’t perform the proper stretches needed and he can’t do the techniques correctly. Even when Ned played soccer he said he was terrible because his team lost 0-12. This show how Ned Is a hero because he is not perfect at all at any physical activities, which is relatable to some teenagers at Ned’s age in the book. Ned also displays courage, when he actually has to fight against himself instead of studying, to go to a concert. This only proves more to the reader about how equal he is to us even though he is currently a writer. Ned displays these more charecters of a hero more than any other character in the book.
The mentor in the story would have to be Ned’s school conscious. Ned”s school conscious was the one that wanted to stay home and study instead of going to a concert. At one point in the book Ned describes that his hanging out side wanted to sneak out the window even when his mom said no to going to the concert. His school conscious was the mentor and completely disregarded the hanging out part of the brain. This side of the brain told Ned that he had to study for the test coming up the next day. This mentor also experiences past experiences because it’s based off of Ned’s past experiences of not studying, so he does contain some wisdom. Mentor’s don’t always have to be a literal thing, archetypes can be internal too.
The Shadow in the story is definitely the other side of his brain, the one that was against the good side of Ned’s conscious. It’s the bad side of Ned’s conscious because it represents the darker side of Ned because it wants him to fail the same test because it focuses more on his social side of his life which he’s not very good at, which is why the shadow is very provocative. Also his negative conscious makes him do things that he feels that he would never do. Like in one part he never thought of smoking before, but when he went to a summer camp he learns about smoking and starts to smoke himself. His shadow is mostly based on his social life because as he even says he likes doing things he’s bad at because he says he’s supposedly good with everything, especially in academics. This is the shadow because of it’s negative influence on him.
The shapeshifter of the story is the Dad. I would say the Dad is because he doesn’t represent a father figure all the time, sometimes the Dad acts like a kid and leaves the house just to get away from the mother. The Dad always doesn’t necessarily set an example up Ned the Dad just supports him in not studying for the test. Like when Ned wanted to go to a concert, but had to study on a test the Dad just supported Ned because he wanted to see the band also, so he was on the negative side once in the story. Yet sometimes the Dad is on the good side by being firm sometimes about what he says like when he taught Ned when he was a kid. Ned’s dad taught Ned math which shows how he went to the good side A.K.A the mentor/studying side. So the Dad is pretty much unpredictable throughout the whole book.
In conclusion, all of the archetypes were very closely related to Ned (himself). Ned seems to be falling on the side of the shadow as he gets older in the book. I guess Ned is becoming more and more attracted to the negative side of things, he reveals himself as someone he’d never thought he’d be in the book.
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