Rose Perkins: Magic Flight (Class Reading)

     According to Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the hero's journey includes a stage that he nicknames the magic flight. This stage occurs near the beginning of the hero's return, where the boon has been acquired and the hero is going home. However, Campbell says that this stage occurs when the boon has "been attained against the opposition of its guardian, or if the hero's wish to return to the world has been resented by the gods or demons" (Campbell). When the hero is supported, this stage does not occur. However, this stage can be pinpointed in many myths and stories, including Jason and the argonauts fleeing with the golden fleece. Upon thinking about it, I realized many books that I have read include this flight stage of the journey. For example, Harry Potter includes scenes with Harry fleeing Voldemort, especially in the last book when Harry is trying to get away from his aunt and uncle's house. The Maze Runner includes a magic flight stage as the group tries to escape the maze. They are forced to run through the maze that has been triggered to fall apart while trying to enter a code and fight grievers, man-made monsters sent by people who do not want them to escape the maze. 

    Within the Percy Jackson books, there are many smaller journeys within a larger journey. This means that there are many magic flight stages within the series. In the Lightning Thief, the magic flight involves Percy and his friends using magic pearls to escape the Underworld. In the Sea of Monsters, the group is forced to flee Polyphemus' island. The magic flight that I remember the most occurs in the 4th book, the Battle of the Labyrinth. The group leaves the labyrinth on the mountain that contains Kronos' coffin, where Kronos has just emerged in a new body. The group is majorly unprepared for this encounter, so they quickly flee back towards the labyrinth. Kronos is chasing them, so Rachel Dare throws a blue plastic hairbrush which hits Kronos in the eye and delays him long enough for the group to escape. Joseph Campbell noted that there is a specific variety of the magic flight where "delaying obstacles are tossed behind the wildly fleeing hero" (Campbell). This blue plastic hairbrush is a perfect example of this occurring. 

    The magic flight is overall a stage that occurs more often than not in myths. I can pinpoint more times it occurs than times it does not. Though it occurs in many classic myths, it can also be pointed out in modern books that contain the monomyth. 

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