In Defense of Archetypes

How Wicked erodes our humanity.

It was a privilege to guest publish this post on M.A. Franklin's Bluster and Brine about a week ago. You can find that version here. I am additionally publishing the article here with a couple of tweaks.

A few decades ago, it became trendy to retell familiar stories from the perspective of the villain. Marketed as a provocative twist, these reinterpretations are postured as fresh takes on tired tropes.

Moreover, they seemed to offer insights into human compassion. Yes, the big bad wolf looks scary and seems to exhibit aggressive, anti-social behaviors. But at heart, he’s a decent, well-meaning chap doing the best he can with what he’s been dealt.

Subverting clichés and retelling old stories is nothing new—it’s the essence of art to tell things “the same but different.” At first glance, the film Wicked seems to follow this tradition. As I mentioned in a previous article:

Elphaba, the witch, checks all the classic villain boxes: green skin, black hat, broomstick. But the narrative complicates this trope by exploring a compassionate response to her outer scariness.

However, despite appearances, making an old story new isn’t really what Wicked does. Instead, it introduces two major issues:

1. It’s a giant cliché. Rather than offering a truly provocative reimagining, Wicked reinforces our predominant cultural narrative. Click here to learn more about that.

2. It’s an attack on storytelling itself. Films like Wicked, Maleficent, Moana, and Frozen challenge the very concept of the villain. In the case of Wicked, this is explicit. The movie begins with the question: “How does someone become wicked?” The rest of the film is an answer: villains are created by society—which is textbook Marxism.

Yes, Wicked retains a secondary villain (I won’t spoil it for you), but even this choice reinforces the broader, culturally Marxist narrative. The film doesn’t just reimagine— it undermines.

And that’s just to start with.

A Fundamental Problem with Reimagining Villains

Some elements of storytelling should never be undermined. Reimagining villains isn’t inherently clever or thought-provoking—it’s destructive. You can rearrange your house or even knock down a few walls, but hacking at the foundation destroys your own objectives.

In other words, it’s an attack on storytelling itself.

Attacking the concept of a villain is to misunderstand the essence of stories. It reduces storytelling to something entirely subjective, abstract, and personalized. Stories become mere decorations—like the green garnish on a vegetable tray: attractive, perhaps, but purposeless.

Due to the truth divide between mind and body in modern thought, stories are often dismissed as escapism, no more useful than Victorian spinsters. But this dismissal ignores the deeper role of stories and archetypes.

What Is an Archetype?

An archetype is a universally recognized pattern, symbol, character type, or theme that recurs across cultures, stories, and human experiences. Archetypes speak to fundamental human motivations, fears, and desires. Examples include the Hero, the Mentor, the Rebel, and the Journey, as well as symbols like the Shadow and the Quest.

When a character or situation feels universal, transcending its literal context, it points humanity back to the archetypal.

“In the enjoyment of a great myth, we come nearest to experiencing as a concrete what can otherwise be understood only as an abstraction… It is only by receiving the myth as a story that we experience the (universal) principle concretely… What flows into you from the myth is not truth but reality. “

—C. S. Lewis

The Bible is rich with archetypes woven into creation itself, shaping how we understand reality. Christ embodies the universal Hero, and Satan represents the concept of the Villain. Biblical characters often serve as “types” of Christ or Satan. Every tree whispers of the tree in Eden, and every lamb points to Christ as the Lamb of God.

Archetypes draw us beyond the fragmented and literal into a universal, symbolic language that speaks to our souls.

The Role of Archetypes in Storytelling

The Bible set a foundation for storytelling that was intentionally carried forward by ancient myths, fairy tales, and folk tales. All good stories echo back to these roots.

In other words, every good story echoes back to the Bible. This is why Wicked creates significant problems; first, by attacking archetypes, Wicked fragments storytelling. It strips narratives of symbolic depth, reducing them to random, situational ethics. It forces the story into hyper-literalism.

Second, it reverses The Wizard of Oz. In doing so, it feeds into the same fragmentation that its original source material opposed. The Wizard of Oz was a bold revolt against the material rationalism of its era. Its story symbolized a return to wholeness after fragmentation. The Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Lion were fragmented parts of one person—head, heart, and gut—echoing themes in Lewis’s Abolition of Man. It critiqued the dehumanizing machine of modernity.

The machine of modernity resists universal truths, archetypes, and symbols, leaving humanity scattered like freeway litter. It turns us into fragments: brainless scarecrows, heartless tin men, and cowardly lions.

I do think Wicked is worth seeing. I hope these thoughts help inform your conversations surrounding the film, whether with friends, family, or your kids.

But to recover our humanity, we must return to the old stories—the ones that point us back to wholeness and harmony with biblical types. We must recover the old stories to find our humanity again.