Ben Upbin- Refusal of the Call

 I’ve noticed something amongst many modern hero stories. A lot of them ignore the refusal of the call stage or make a meta joke about it. I haven’t seen any main character in a hero story outright refuse the call for any good reason in years. Most characters either accept the call while heartedly, or they will make a joke about how all heroes have to go through such perilous journeys and they don’t want that. I feel that when Campbell wrote about his stages of the hero’s journey, it was based on all of the ancient hero myths. In these myths, many heroes initially refused the call because ancient humans were afraid of the unknown. To them, the unknown showing  up and outright calling out to them was insane.

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