The Patterns of Transcendence - Character Functions
Transcendence can serve different functions in a story. Here are the most common Character Functions where they appear:
Safe Character
A being of transcendence can serve as a Safe Character to the main character. One example is Grandmother Willow in the animated film Pocahontas (1995). Grandmother Willow does not save anyone’s day or take any action, but functions to give Pocahontas wise council.
Another example is Susie in The Lovely Bones (2009 film). Susie is dead and is somewhere between earth and heaven. She is learning how to transcend her human existence. Her beyond-the-grave narration as she looks over her family in the aftermath of her murder offers an eventual aura of peace. Susie also serves as Central Viewpoint Character and other functions in the flashbacks.
“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections-sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent-that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.” -Susie
System
The most common place we see transcendence is in a transcendental system that sits above all other systems. They are always the most powerful element in a story. This is commonly a God-system, like the Greek Gods in myths, or a magical system as found in many folktales and fantasy stories, or a people/race/aliens that have higher knowledge and/or moral reasoning than humans. Here are some examples of Transcendental Systems: God in Oh God! (1997 film), Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), an alien race in Contact (1997), and the enigmatic and eccentric inventor Morty, in Click (2006).
Transcendental Shield and Hero
In many cases, these powerful systems come down in a Power Shield to join the Primary Norm Breaker in the climax, which averts disaster and turns what would have been a tragedy into a drama with a win for the main character. When this happens, we call the shield a Transcendental Shield and the System Character of this system becomes a Transcendental Hero who plays a part at the Hero Function.
In ancient Greek plays, when a God swooped in at the end to save the day, they called it Deux Machina or the “God Machine,” because literally the actor playing the God, got lowered in on a mechanized cloud. Deux Machina is generally thought of today as a cop-out ending. We want our Primary Norm Breaker to be proactive in saving their own day, not to be saved by an all-powerful being. But when well structured, and well earned, it can be irresistible to our audience.
Some examples of Transcendental Shields and Heroes: Mr. Jordan comes down at the end of Heaven Can Wait to provide a permanent body for Joe Pendleton who was taken prematurely to heaven (1978 film), a superior knowledge of science paired with the power of love allows Meg Murray to save her father and brother Charles Wallace from “IT”, but she needs an assist from the witches Who, Which, and Whatsit in A Wrinkle in Time (1962 book), the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella (1950 animated film) gets Cinderella to the ball and creates the glass slipper that saves her in the end.
Next week: Patterns of Transcendence, part 2: a look at how Transcendental Systems, Shields, and Heroes can change the Kind (or genre) of stories.