DO NOT LEARN—The Moral of Modern Storytelling
DAY 128 - 26/8/5 -
Modern stories teach,
but audiences are not meant to learn.
If they do learn,
it would ruin the story's moral.
To understand what modern stories have become, let's consider what classic stories used to be. The most famous kind of story is the Hero's Journey. This well-known plot structure shows up in all kinds of media—anywhere that a young kid needs to vanquish evil by gaining power and making friends. These stories are about characters such as Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Peter Parker, Frodo Baggins, and King Arthur. The reason the Hero's Journey is so prevalent in stories about young people is because the Hero's Journey is essentially about learning.
The characters in these stories must learn new skills, technologies, or spiritual enlightenments to achieve their goals. Science fiction and fantasy novelist Brandon Sanderson describes the Hero's Journey as always being "about learning and obtaining things that characters need, but they don't quite know it yet or are not willing to reach for yet. The Hero's Journey is: Characters learn stuff and get better." The moral is learning leads to growth.
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| Reedsy's diagram of the Hero's Journey |
This is not the case in typical modern stories.
In most contemporary works, the moral is not about learning but about realizing. What keeps modern characters from their goals is not their limited knowledge or strength, in as much as it is their beliefs—particularly, their beliefs about themself. The greatest challenge modern characters face is self-doubt. Once a character discovers their identity, they are then able to overcome any obstacle.
This moral is often summed up as, 'You had the power inside you all along.' Many people first heard this when Glinda said it to Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz (1939). In that story, Dorothy realized her home was just as wonderful as anywhere over the rainbow, but she started the film wanting to run away from home. To overcome this flaw, Dorothy had to learn how to see through glittering deceptions, even the most attractive ones. Without learning that her beliefs were wrong, Dorothy's story would not have ended in victory. So, even though her classic tale resulted in a similar moral to modern stories, The Wizard of Oz was still built around learning.
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| As Glinda says, Dorothy's realization came directly through her learning. |
So, how is it that some classic characters can realize things and learn, while a lot of modern characters realize things without needing to learn? It is because most modern characters don't realize that they have false beliefs. Instead, they realize that their beliefs were always right. There is nothing they need to learn. If they did learn something new, then that would defeat the moral that they were always special.
A YouTuber and marketer known as the Real Life Fake Wizard describes this moral storytelling as being "functionally identical to person-praise." These stories teach people that in order to succeed they just need to 'come into their own,' and make themselves and others 'accept who they are.' There's no need to grow or mature, because there is nothing to learn.
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| Which Way How's modern interpretation of the Hero's Journey. Note: the "Challenge" is "self-doubt," and the "Mentor" is removed. |
This moral isn't in a few stories.
It's in nearly every story promoted these days.
The problem here is saturation. When the default resolution for modern stories becomes, 'you are already special and just need to realize it,' the cumulative message to children and audiences of all ages is dangerous for expanding minds. Greatness is innate. There is nothing worth striving towards because you are already perfect just the way you are.
- Real Life Fake Wizard
This saturation has seeped out from popular culture and into most modern literary works. It even appears in stories where readers never thought it would be.
Last summer, for my library's reading challenge, I read a young adult thriller titled The Summer We Forgot by Caroline George. Early on in the book, the main character Darby thought to herself, "Nowadays, the world tells people to live their truths, but what if we're not what we believe? What if we're the lies we tell ourselves?" (122). From her reasoning, I believed the plot would lead Darby to discover things about herself. She needed to 'face the mirror' and learn the truth, similar to Dorothy in Oz. By overcoming her self-deception, Darby would gain the knowledge to solve the book's mystery and save her friends...or so I thought.
Much later in the book, Darby realized that she didn't have any dark secrets; just uncomfortable ones. She discovered she was wrong to think that she had done something wicked in her past. She had only done what anyone else in her situation would. Upon coming to grips with this, Darby embraced her own goodness. She got over her 'mental block,' and said to herself, "In the pursuit of perfection, I forgot I was already enough," (337). Goodness was inside her all along.
Even in this story where the set up implied that characters were not innately good—that there was darkness within them that needed to be overcome—the modern moral still prevailed.
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| For a deeper examination of this modern moral check out this video from WWUTT |
Why do so many modern stories have this moral?
Maybe it's because it's easy. If characters don't have to learn and grow, then neither do their authors. Characters are only as developed as the people who write them. For someone to create a character's fake life, the author has to pull from what they understand about real life. C.S. Lewis described this paradigm in one of his essays on writing stories for children:
Let the pictures tell you their own moral. For the moral inherent in them will rise from whatever spiritual roots you have succeeded in striking during the whole course of your life. But if they don’t show you any moral, don’t put one in. For the moral you put in is likely to be a platitude, or even a falsehood, skimmed from the surface of your consciousness.
- C.S. Lewis
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| For an alternative view on modern morals check out these books by Christian commentators Alisa Childers and Allie Beth Stuckey |
The moral of innate goodness is false.
People are not born good, because "we were [all] by nature deserving of wrath," (Ephesians 2:3). If someone looks deep within themself, past the influences of things either in heaven or on earth, what they will find is a soul as black as sin. This is why the apostle Paul cried out in anguish, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death...So then, I myself...in my sinful nature am a slave to the law of sin," (Romans 7:24-25). The true 'power' that is 'within us' is the ability to destroy, hurt and lie. "There is no one who does good, not even one," (Psalm 14:3).
People are not innately good, but they can learn to do good. It is possible for someone to "repent, then, and turn to God, so that their sins may be wiped out," (Acts 3:19). They can then "bear fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God," (Colossians 1:10).
Modern storytelling lacks depictions of growth through learning, but readers young and old need to see this.
This is why I wrote a story—to help young adults learn that they are more than their identities, because identities can change over time. Even if someone is truly wicked, they don't have to give in to that darkness. They are capable of growth. The surest way for someone to grow in goodness is to learn righteousness—the heroic qualities of God. In this way, "those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever," (Daniel 12:3).
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| Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16) |
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I enjoyed this essay very much Jared. Some excellent insights you have into why so many storytellers seem to have nothing to say anymore.
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