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Topic : Rare list of character archetypes and psychology? I've been researching this on my own for weeks without finding anything useable. I need a list of American-style (not Japanese, anime, etc.) character - selfpublishingguru.com

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I've been researching this on my own for weeks without finding anything useable. I need a list of American-style (not Japanese, anime, etc.) character archetypes in American fiction of any type and the psychology of each archetype. At this point genre doesn't matter. A character archetype example: The villain who secretly yearns to be killed, and "finally" released from being alive. My goal is original character creation and I need lists to show me new things. No anime/manga, absolutely no TV Tropes. No IRL psychology like Jung, absolutely no Greek myths. And I'll buy books if I have to.


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What you seem to need are Stock Characters. A nice list from "Absent-minded professor" to "Zombie" can be found here. It has a nice reference list as well.

Some more background, including the categories you reject is here


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it is an interesting question, but I can't imagine it being one that has an actual answer. It is claimed that there are Seven Basic Plots (That number does change depending on who is talking about it)

So there are a finite number of plots to tell, there are also a finite number of personality types to fit into those plots.

I can't think how you could get away from real life psychology, since stories are written by people for consumption by people. Invariably all stories are about people to some degree.

Story telling has been central to human civilisation for as long as we've been able to go back. In that time all of those possible mixes have been discovered and written many many times.

when you consider that the Iliad is circa 3000 years, and that those stories still resonate in modern literature it is difficult to think that any modern countries have added anything to the concepts of story telling characters. It would be even harder to consider that any particular country has managed to create and maintain its own niche.


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Almost all literary tropes have made it to tv/film except for the small number that don't work visually. On top of that the main characteristic of the english language is theft of which Japanese influence is only the latest (although to be fair a dominant influence for anime/manga and other post ww2 japanese culture is american popular culture). If we also exclude greek, we then also have to exclude latin as the myths only really differ in the names of the gods. And if we ignore Jung we should also ignore yoga (which is a interesting blend of indian religion and traditions, british military tradition including calisthenics and good old American con-arts and cultish thinking) and German (thank god that we don't have to list Nazi influences like Jewish, Socialist, Fascist, and other minor influences). If we follow along that line of thinking we should also probably also exclude Russian and Scandinavian myth. So I have compiled a list of all archetypes that meets this stringent list of restrictions and present it here for your approval:

 


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