Nick Cowan-Nagora
Nick Kotsopoulos
IASC 3P90
Professor Barry Joe
The Hero's Journey is as perennial a tale as the seasons, and is a myth that dates back to our primeval roots. There are a countless number of stories in human history that have told of great heroes defying what has already been achieved, pushing the boundaries of human ability, and in some way being left illuminated by that journey. Myths such as the hero’s journey, have allowed humans to continually display the greatest form of evolutionary fitness the cosmos has ever seen! We as humans feed off these epic adventures of courage, wisdom, power and many more human ideas and emotions. We continually tell these myths to one another, in hope that the next generation may exhibit an even greater display of evolutionary fitness. The Hero's Journey is a monomyth, it is that which expresses the values of a society through a common archetype. In our society we have created new forms of media, and mythology is no longer found only throughout books and speech, but also found in New Media such as video games. Videogames such as The Legend of Zelda:Ocarina of Time (Oot), Halo, and Skyrim which contain elements found in the monomyth of the Hero’s Journey.
The Hero's Journey is an important myth because the hero character is the focal point of the story. What has changed with video games now is that you as the player must take on the identity of the hero, dissolve the self and transform your consciousness through the journey the hero must face. Myths have always been a part of human culture and the hero’s journey is ingrained into the religions of the past, with hero’s such as Christ, the Buddha, and Mohammed. As culture has changed, so have our heroes. The heroes of our culture are the likes of Master Chief, Link, and Gordon Freeman, and Dovahkiin. These heroes are a way of giving people something to believe in, a sense of hope, and a way of teaching what one should strive to achieve in life. Joseph Campbell, an expert in the field of comparative mythology, wrote about the hero’s journey in his book Hero with a Thousand Faces (http://orias.berkeley.edu/hero/). According to Campbell, the hero’s journey is a cyclical pattern of common elements a Hero must face.(http://dukenukem.typepad.com/game_matters/2005/05/into_the_woodsn.html). These traits are:Establishing the hero's world, The call to adventure, Entering the Mythological woods, Trial of Trials, Encountering the evil one, Gaining the hero's prize, Returning that prize to the community.
OoT is a perfect illustration of the Hero’s Journey. The player plays as Link, a small child who lives inside the peaceful Kokiri forest, home of the Kokiri and is called to adventure from his slumber by the fairy Navi. Link is set apart from the rest of the Kokiri, as he is the only one that does not have a fairy as a guide. 
The myth is how we as humans make meaning for our lives. We as the player become Link, and interact throughout the story and learn something from our journey and return back with the the truth of the metaphor, the True Force from the triforce. Link, as the triforce of courage is able to use his courage combined with wisdom of the Goddess Zelda, who holds the triforce of wisdom, to allow Link to use his power in harmony to transcend fear and venture on throughout the woods.
The Library of Babel, they are metaphors of meaning that reflect their light into our minds and allow us to live harmoniously inside a cosmos The conclusion of the story calls for a celebration. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_ukJe4UAxg complete game playthrough, with screenshots taken from this video
http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/the-monomyth-of-zelda-link-and-the-heros-journey-part-1-long-good-read.187200254/
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