About This Episode

The hero fights. He defeats the villain. He wins — and sometimes that's exactly when things start to fall apart. Cultural mythologist Dr. Jody Bower has been tracing a different story structure for decades, finding it across centuries of women's fiction, in biographies of famous women, in ancient myth, and now in Barbie. The heroine's path moves differently: not through conquest, but through learning. Not by destroying the witch — by going to her, humbling herself, and asking to be taught.

Jody is the author of Jane Eyre's Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine's Story and The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties Become Warrior Goddesses. She holds a PhD in mythological studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute and has spent years tracing what she calls "post-heroic" patterns of power — ways of moving through the world that don't depend on winning, but on discernment. On knowing what has value and choosing more of it.

We covered a lot of ground: the shift happening right now from individual to collective heroism in film and story; why Barbie functions as a descent myth; the difference between a leaving story and a descent story and what each one requires; and the deep problem with applying heroic thinking to social and political activism. Near the end, Jody described a near-death experience from a couple of years ago — and what it showed her about the soul, about death, and about the fullness of life.

What We Cover

Jody's mythic origin story. Growing up without religious affiliation but with deep curiosity about how the world came to be — spending weekends at reservation dances with her family, visiting churches and synagogues out of fascination rather than faith. Discovering Jung and dream work in college. The serendipitous meeting that led her to Pacifica and the book that became Jane Eyre's Sisters.

The shift in heroic stories. How the last twenty years of superhero cinema have quietly transformed the hero's journey. Love is no longer what the hero earns at the end — it's what distinguishes him from the villain at the outset. Harry Potter wins because of the love held in his heart, not because of his power alone. And the hero is increasingly not a lone individual but a fellowship: Stranger Things, Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings, even the new Masters of the Universe. The mythic shift from "I" to "we."

Barbie and the descent story. Why the Barbie film works as myth and which kind it actually is. Jody draws a distinction between the leaving story — a woman who escapes a constrictive situation to build something new — and the descent story, in which someone who has been over-protected must go down into the dark to find what was missing. Barbie is the descent story. Not everyone needs the same map.

Heroic thinking and what it costs us. Heroic thinking — right versus wrong, the single wondrous act, hero worship, the belief that one victory settles things permanently — shows up everywhere in our politics and our activism. Jody traces where it leads: to burnout when the load becomes impossible to carry alone, and in the worst case, to something far darker. The hero who wins either becomes a tyrant or discovers that winning didn't fix it.

The heroine's alternative. The heroine doesn't fight the witch. She goes to the witch, humbles herself, and asks to be taught. She's handed impossible tasks — sorting a pile of seeds, separating what has value from what doesn't — and what these tasks teach her is discernment. Not what is evil, but what feeds people. Jody calls this "blameless discernment." The focus isn't on destroying what's bad. It's on choosing and growing what's good.

On near-death, mystery, and ecstasy. Jody describes a catastrophic medical event and what she found in the darkness of it — complete peace, a choice, and something she couldn't explain. She also talks about what ecstasy has meant in her life, and why mystery isn't a problem to be solved.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome

01:42 Jody’s mythic origin story

08:13 Love as the mark of the hero vs. the villain

12:18 From “I” to “we”: the collective hero

14:22 Barbie and the descent story

18:51 Heroic thinking in politics and activism

30:26 The heroine’s alternative

31:48 She goes where they tell her never to go

33:04 Sorting seeds: discernment over judgment

34:22 Blameless discernment

43:02 Jody’s near-death experience

50:59 On ecstasy

53:18 How to find Jody

Memorable Quotes

"She goes exactly where they tell her never to go." — Jody Bower

"She humbles herself before the witch, and she says, teach me." — Jody Bower

"The difference between them is that the hero can love." — Jody Bower

"Heroic thinking is right and wrong thinking. I'm right. You're wrong." — Jody Bower

"Blameless discernment. What do you want to foster in life?" — Jody Bower

"The descent to the Cave of the Dark Goddess has no meaning for me because I grew up in that situation." — Jody Bower

"I don't have to go down to the cave. I've been there." — Jody Bower

"I was present in nothingness. And I was given the choice to go or stay." — Jody Bower

"It's a chosen path chosen not out of belief, but out of experience." — Jody Bower

Resources & Links

• Dr. Jody Bower: jodybower.com
• Jane Eyre's Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine's Story — [Amazon / Indiebound]
• The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties Become Warrior Goddesses — [Amazon / Indiebound]
• Maureen Murdock — The Heroine's Journey [add link]
• Kim Hudson — The Virgin's Promise [add link]
• Christine Downing — [add link]
• Pacifica Graduate Institute: pacifica.edu
• Support the show: bostonblake.com/contribute/
• More episodes: mythicpodcast.com

About Dr. Jody Bower

Dr. Jody Bower is a cultural mythologist with a PhD from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is the author of Jane Eyre's Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine's Story and The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties Become Warrior Goddesses. She lectures, teaches workshops, and works with writers and filmmakers on archetypal story structure. You can find her at jodybower.com and on LinkedIn.

About Mythic

Ancient myths don't stay in the past. They are retold again and again in contemporary media. They also play out in the real world — our relationships, our politics, and in the moments when life suddenly feels larger than ordinary explanation can account for.

Mythic is a podcast about meaningful living through the power of myth. I'm Boston Blake — a certified coach, a lifelong student of depth psychology, and someone who has spent most of his adult life studying what makes humans tick. Sometimes I sit down with mythologists, Jungian scholars, artists, and practitioners to trace the archetypal patterns alive in our world right now. Other times I go in alone — following a myth or an archetype wherever it leads, into ancient legend and modern headlines alike.

If you've ever felt like there's more going on beneath the surface of your life — and that the right story, told in the right way, might help you understand what it is — this podcast is for you.

Journey on.