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Topic : Re: Character details of male archetypes In this link about character development, the author describes basic male archetypes that are found in a romance novel. http://www.likesbooks.com/eight.html My question - selfpublishingguru.com

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I think what many archetype systems use as a base point (consciously or unconsciously) is the Enneagram of Personality. Indeed a lot of writer's workshops and courses revolve around using the enneagram to make characters.

To cross reference the enneagram with the archetypes in your referenced article it breaks down like this:

Perfectionist (Bad Boy/Lost Soul/Professor)
Giver (Best Friend/Bad Boy)
Achiever (Chief/Charmer/Professor)
Romantic (Bad Boy/Lost Soul)
Observer (Professor/Lost Soul/Bad Boy)
Idealist (Bad Boy/Swashbuckler/Warrior)
Dreamer (Lost Soul/Charmer)
Boss (Chief/Warrior)
Peacemaker (Chief/Best Friend)

I think the reason why this cross referencing could be helpful is that the enneagram works on the basis of motivation whereas the archetypes work on the basis of outward behaviour.

Essentially the archetype gives you the outward appearance of the character whereas the enneagram gives you a clue as to the character's motivations for assuming their archetypal role.

It's a bit complicated to go into here but basically the breakdown shows that people could be motivated to assume the role of the Chief because they are a Boss, a Peacemaker or an Achiever.

The Boss fears weakness and acts in an aggressively protective manner towards their own perceived weakness and is also strongly motivated to protect those he cares about

The Peacemaker fears conflict and always acts to appease all parties and assume control.

The Achiever fears inadequacy and uses roles like masks over their own inner sense of inadequacy, it is as if their role is a persona masking (quite obviously) their inner personality which the achiever fears is somehow subpar or unworthy.

The relationships within the enneagram go a lot deeper but you can probably start to tease out how chiefs in these three different flavours will favour different outward appearances.

A boss chief will be very spartan and constantly proving that he is strong, he will be a man's man, properly macho. His leadership will be portrayed as some sort of duty and he will be keen to prove that he is the only one strong enough to do the job.

A peacemaker chief will make much of being patrician, urbane, calm and in quiet control. He will make sure he is perceived as generous and reasonable, he will enjoy the accoutrements of peace. He will often be keen to mark out a spiritual space and repeatedly use rhetoric that indicates people obey his station not his ego. He will be the most likely to treat leadership as a burden of reponsibility.

An Achiever chief will be, bluntly, obsessed with bling. His leadership will be a self-obsessive affair and he will want sports cars, blackberries and gold chains to show that he is the boss.

Obviously you could go into this very deeply but that's a jump off point for this kind of character analysis.


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