Who Are Your Threshold Guardians
In continuing my posts about Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the Threshold Guardian.
All of our favorite books and movies have them, so what exactly are the threshold guardians? They are usually the right hand man to your antogaonist. They are the the Igors, the Salacious Crumbs, the Smees, and many others just to name a few.
I really started looking into this character when writing Rekindle the Flame. Although there were more than one Threshold Guardians in Four Pieces For Power, Rekindle the Flame gave me an opportunity to really play with one of my favorites to date.
Juan Carlos is the primary threshold guardian in Reindle the Flame. Im not going to sit here and give away some of the secrets of the book, but suffice to say, Juan Carlos does a great job of bumbling every move Andrew Correo (our Protagonist) takes in the name of the novels antagonist, who shall remain unnamed for now. :)
To put this idea in better context, lets look at a more well known Threshold Guardian, Darth Vader from Star Wars. Now some of you may be sitting back and saying "Wait a minute! Darth Vader was the Antagonist!!! Everyone knows that." Well let's think about this for a minute. Everyone that knows Star Wars and the whole philosophy of the Sith knows that there is always a Master and an Apprentice.
Now as much as I hate to burst your bubble, Darth Vader was only the Apprentice. Granted he was a state of the art apprentice, but an apprentice nonetheless. He was the tool of the Emperor to do whatever he could to stand in the way of the the Rebel Alliance and maintain the status quo of the Empire.
Now these threshold guardians can make or break a storyline. They are, afterall, the draw bridge or the massive wall that usually stands between the Protagonist and Antagonist. He or she needs to be created with care because, as we all know, the chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. If you have a weak threshold guardian(s), the quest to beat the antagonist can be really short.
So next time you sit down to write, identify your threshold guardian and craft him as creatively as Darth Vader and you will, most likely, not go wrong. most important, have fun with your writing and your readers will likely have fun too.
