The Monomyth

Most stories that take on any sort of "Hero's Quest" arc can be defined by the term, Monomyth, coined by Joseph Campbell to describe an almost universal structure to stories that isn't largely affected by time period or region of the world from which they are derived. It is structure that has been used throughout the history of storytelling and varies only a little between regions of the world that the story was originated from.

The Monomyth is separated into 17 different stages which the stories protagonist must progress through in order to reach the end, and thus their ultimate goal.

The first stage is "The Call to Adventure" in which the hero is summoned and told of their objectives in the quest that they must take part in, usually to a region unknown to their people.  Often when the hero is called, they will refuse the summons initially and stubbornly refuse the quest, this is always overcome by some incident and ultimately the hero will always partake in their quest eventually.

Once the hero is on track and has begun the quest,  they will meet their supernatural guide or helper, often the hero will receive some form of artifact from his new mentor which will aid them in their quest.

The belly of the whale describes the hero being fully separated from the life they knew before and now fully involved in their quest, this will often be the initial part of the character's metamorphosis from average Joe, into all conquering hero.

All the above stages describe the initial phase of the Monomyth; the Departure. In the second part, the character begins their initiation proper.

In the second part, the Initiation, the character will invariably have to go through a series of trials and tribulations described simply as "the road of trials". These tests are often to see the resolve of the character and his or her determination, often the trials will be in sets of three and sometimes the hero will fail one of them.

The character will then go through the stages, meeting the goddess, and temptation from a character of the opposite sex.  Whilst meeting the goddess, the hero will meet a character who they love more than anything and during the temptation phase the hero will have to overcome their own desires for physical pleasure as a test to see if they have the mettle to continue their quest.

The initiation part also contains the stage Atonement with the Father. Here the hero will meet a being of supreme power, often represented as a father figure, this is the mid point of the story and the hero continue on from this meeting with new found knowledge.

The next part is the Apotheosis, normally during this part, the hero will witness someone dying a physical death and receive some sort of new knowledge as a result. The part can also be described as a period of rest between the previous section before the hero begins their return.

The Ultimate boon is the final stage of the initiation, and during this the hero's goal will often be reached. All previous stages have just been preparation for the trial the hero faces in this final battle.

The third and final part of these stages is called the return, and here, after their ultimate victory the hero will begin their long trek back the their start point. During this stage, the hero will go through a different sort of trial. Initially they will be unwilling to return having found the life of adventure agreeable and the new experiences not something they want to let go of. The hero will though, still need to return in order to give the boon they found back to their people. The hero will ultimately return to their people and live a life of freedom.

The original Star Wars trilogy fits this story arc well, and in fact, Lucas studied the monomyth when writing the saga of Luke Skywalker.