Pinocchio — Hero’s Journey

Here is a quick study on the hero’s journey of Pinocchio, inspired by my learning about it from Professor Jordan B. Peterson.

Picking Pinocchio because I recently researched his comic for a story I had to write about mythology. The story is about the wood-carver Geppetto who gets visited by a fairy. The Blue Fairy brings Geppetto’s favorite puppet, Pinocchio, to life! She tells Pinocchio that if he wants to become a real child, he has to behave and listen to his conscience, Jiminy Cricket! But Pinocchio falls into the hands of ruthless characters who take him to the terrible Stromboli and to the enchanted Island, putting the poor puppet in a sea of trouble!

It is about how Pinocchio a kid finds a way to wander out in the unknown, knowing so little, to find his Dad who is stuck in the belly of a whale. Yes to think of this story in its actuality is asking for too much of suspension of reality, but we never really feel like that because the premise of the entire thing is around a puppet that turned conscious by a magical fairy. That brilliantly makes us focus on the underlying story of it all. Now Geppetto being stuck, starving in the belly of a whale being an old guy meaning his way of doing things isn’t very fruitful. If you keep doing things the same old way at some point it’s no longer going to work. Even if it was good, it needs to be updated and the spirit of youth in this case Pinocchio does that. The willingness to break boundaries and take risks is how youth like behaviour. Pinocchio like most hero journeys gets scared by the whale when he first sees it and tries to swim away. But the whale swallows him, he meets his Dad and reveals his Jackass ears and the tail he has grown over this adventure because of the fairy’s curse. Showing that he is not in good shape and a little damaged since Geppetto last saw him. But he is willing to show those traits which means he is aware of his insufficiencies. This understanding of him not being all that he could be is what drives him to find everything that his father represents. Bringing in the central learning theme of humility of understanding that there is always something to learn. The humility, naivety, and constantly facing the unknown that makes Pinocchio so appealing.

I don’t think the character would work in a TV show, since the underlying message is very important and drives the entire plot and that’s just incredibly hard to do on a longer platform. I think Walt Disney’s execution on the movie is pure genius. The story above is actually Disney’s representation from both the comics and the movie, which was inspired from Carlo Collodi’s book which is incredibly dark and not for kids at all. Here are some of the chapter titles from the book “Pinocchio’s feet are burned off”, “Pinocchio is hanged”, and “Pinocchio eats some sugar and tells a lie”.