I think there's a parallel here to the "Shaman's Journey", which might be the oldest story pattern out there (see e.g. [1]). The original pattern had the Shama

I think there's a parallel here to the "Shaman's Journey", which might be the oldest story pattern out there (see e.g. [1]). The original pattern had the Shaman travel into the world of the supernatural to complete a kind of quest to solve a problem back home. In the Western world, the "supernatural realm" stopped catching on after a while, so we got first the Hero's Journey (vice Campbell) and the modern version of that myth, the MIH/BMG story where the protagonist gets into trouble and out again, possibly while staying in the same town all along. [1] https://sites.google.com/a/bc.edu/healing-our-world-shaman-today/home/the-hero-s-quest-and-the-shaman-s-journey https://sites.google.com/a/bc.edu/healing-our-world-shaman-t...