In storytelling, the threshold guardian is the obstacle, the limiting factor, that which must be overcome if the hero is to continue. In stories, the threshold guardian may be the ferryman on the River Styx, the three-headed-dog sleeping before the gates of hell. Threshold guardians might be liminal entities, wardens of crossroads, or borders, seasons or times of days, present only so long as their purpose persists.
In oral stories, those threshold guardians are often easy to pick out, bearing flaming swords, or speaking enigmatic languages, able to steer wind or weather or coax a mountain to breathe fire. But in real life, threshold guardians are sometimes subtle: the bank manager who won’t approve the mortgage, the grad school admission clerk who insists the paperwork arrived too late, the doctor laying out the possible courses of treatment, each of which is an equally bad choice.
In real life or story, the guardian may be visible, or hidden in a traumatic past. The guardian may manifest as age, disability, loss, grief, perhaps temptation. Always, the hero needs to move forward and the threshold guardian, whether benign or malignant, mentor or companion, at that particular junction has one purpose, either by conscious action or unaware positioning–to be IN. THE. WAY.
In most stories, the hero succeeds, gets past the Ferryman, kills the dragon with the flaming sword, finds another way to finance the venture, replaces a traumatic experience with a good one. Real life is different. The guardians often win and the only way to find meaning in the guardian is to find meaning in the threshold the hero does not breach, the lessons it imparts, of limits and confines, actions to be avoided, mistakes to vow never to make again. That’s why stories are preferable to real life.
But real life is where we live, and those lessons have value. To appreciate what we’ve lost, to nurture what remains, to assess time and opportunity by a different measure. Of satisfaction in work done well, joy in a relationship cultivated, accomplishment in a new solution.
Then we go on, just like the hero, to meet the new challenge.
The image at the top of the post can be found here.
Leave a Reply