I took my kids to see the Lion King recently and around the same time was reading about the Story Circle in Chris Fox’s book Plot Gardening. The whole idea of the Story Circle comes from Dan Harmon and ultimately comes from The Hero of A Thousand Faces by Campbell.
Dan Harmon says he’s used the circle so much he sees it everywhere. It’s tattooed on his brain. He’s also always analyzing stories.
So I thought I would try it with the Lion King. Here goes nothing.
The story circle has been described well at other parts of the Internet including by Harmon himself. However, I’m going to give it a shot so you can understand where I’m coming from with this analysis.
Imagine a circle, the movement of the story is clockwise.
Split the circle along the middle. The two halves represents a duality. Order and Chaos. Ordinary World and Special World. Consciousness and Unconsciousness. Life and Death. It is also moving from the ordinary world to the spiritual world. Also – moving between external forces. I found a whole list of dualities here. Some cool dualities:
- fact and myth
- strong and weak
- attraction and repulsion
- mass and energy
- finite and infinite
- mind and body
- collectivism and individualism
- idealism and realism
- tangible and intangible
- pleasure and pain
- good and evil
- reason and empathy
- wealth and poverty
- anarchy and authority
- virtue and vice
- moral and immoral
- just and unjust
- happiness and sad
- war and peace
- male and female
That link above also has a interesting quote from the Tao on Abstraction. Basically it says that the opposite helps define the subject. Especially in relative terms. Long is long compared to short.
Now split the circle from top to bottom. The right half represents the internal problem with the protagonist and the left half represents the change for better, e.g. going from selfish to unselfish, or stubborn to not stubborn. Look to the extreme of a character trait. It can’t just be a little bit of greed. It is moving from inner states.
Here is a good list of character traits. Here are some ones I like that seem common in story telling:
- jealous v. trusting
- fearful v. courageous
- greedy v. generous
- self centered v. considerate
- arrogant v. humble / modest
- lazy v. active
- compulsive v. controlled
- dishonest v. honest
- angry v. calm, peaceful
- aimless v. methodical, resolute
- depressed v. cheerful, glad
- narrow minded v. tolerant
- narcissistic v. sacrificing
- weak willed v. bold, brave
- think also about the characters in The Wizard of Oz
- Cowardly Lion v. Courage
- Tin Man – Lack of Heart v. Empathy
- Scarecrow wants brains, he’s dumb v. intelligence
- and the Seven Deadly Sins
- Pride
- Envy
- Gluttony
- Lust
- Anger
- Greed
- Sloth
Now with those pairs of halves. Bisect the circle into 8 parts. Going clockwise and starting from the top, number the lines from 1 through 8. These represent sign posts as follows:
- You – in a zone of comfort
- Need – you want something
- Go – Enter an unfamiliar situation & what the story is about, the terrorist attack, the contrast of worlds
- Search – Adapt to it, the road of trials, experiment, stripping away and moving to the deepest unconsciousness.
- Find – Get what you want, meeting with the goddess, greatest point of vulnerability,
- Take – Pay a Heavy Price, Meet your Maker, Take Control of Your Destiny, New Goal Created Here – Obiwan Dies
- Return – return to the familiar situation, Waking up – pulled out of extreme situation, return to rebel camp to plot
- Change – Change the world having changed yourself. Master of Both Worlds, life not the same, the showdown
A lot of this comes from A Hero with a Thousand Faces which I’m not going to get into here.
The Circle Can apply to any piece of the story including each character, the tone, theme. You want to have a circle for each character.
Now taking this and applying to the Lion King.
- Simba is born and hanging out with his dad. Introduce some characters, Nala, the Bird, the Monkey, and Scar. (I forget names.)
- Simba wants to be big and strong like his dad. He’s egged on by his uncle to dangerous situations.
- Simba thinks he kills his dad by starting a stampede. Scar convinces him to leave his home. He ends up in a new world.
- At first he is about to be attacked, then he finds friends and starts to adapt.
- He’s found happiness and belonging. He runs around his new home seemingly content.
- He learns that Scar has taken over the lands and destroyed them. He learns that he cant just run away from him problems and he has his dad’s courage.
- Simba returns. His uncle confronts him and makes confession about killing his dad. Simba uses new strength to escape Simba. The pride turns on Simba and he runs off. They battle again, Simba offers empathy, but Scar turns on him while betraying his bad buy friends – the hyenas – who turn on Scar.
- Simba and Nala have a baby and the circle of life goes on.
Lessons learned: Most of the stages seem to go as planned. At Number 4, the Take, we get a couple things bundled in that I might be doing wrong. When he learns about the destruction of his old home, he learns the cost of his actions. We also get the lesson from the Monkey and the spirit of his dad. In the return we get an extended sort of battle that wraps up the story threads. Scar versus the pride. Scar versus the hyenas. Simba reconciles the death of his father with the Pride.
So that’s the Lion King and the Story Circle. It works!