About
About me
Hello! My name is Andrew. I’m the man behind The Archetype Lens and author of The Writer’s Guide to Archetypes.
I’m a writer and media researcher. My work focuses on archetypal patterns in narratives, primarily in films and television shows. Researching and writing about archetypes has been my primary occupation since 2019. I also work part-time as a software engineer.
In 2015, I was dreaming of a career writing screenplays and graphic novels. I picked up a few books on archetypes and writing, hoping to improve my craft. The books that I found oversimplified, or even misinterpreted, the archetypal concepts developed by C. G. Jung. I was familiar enough with Jung to spot the problem. At that point, however, I didn’t have the background to start reading Jung’s academic work and really grok it. I spent my nights and weekends over the following years acquiring a robust foundational understanding of archetypal concepts and a working familiarity with commonly discussed archetypal motifs. I decided, then, to go deeper with my research. And I haven’t stopped since.
I live in Fort Wayne, IN, where I’ve spent most of my life. I’m active in the local writing community. I hold a B.A. in Public Communication and a B.S. in Information Systems, both from Purdue University.
About The Archetype Lens
The Archetype Lens exists to provide a rich introduction to archetypes, especially for writers, critics, and scholars of literature, film, etc. The site presents a new taxonomy of character archetypes that is more complete and more meaningful than any previous schema.
The subject of Jungian archetypes is complex. The inherent subtleties make it difficult to approach. And a whole layer of confusion is added by novel takes on archetypes that depart from Jung’s conception. For those interested in understanding archetypes, it can be difficult to find a first foothold. This site is intended to provide an approachable entry point into this complex material.
About the information on this site
The content on this website is firmly rooted in the work of Jung and other prominent scholars of analytical psychology. My goal is to present an introductory overview of character archetypes (i.e., archetypes of personality in Jungian terms) in a manner that is clear and accessible, while honoring the depth and complexity of the underlying psychological model.
Labels and taxonomy
While some archetypes are widely acknowledged and discussed, there isn’t much consistency in the labels or definitions used to describe various archetypal patterns. And there is no standard taxonomy or genealogy of archetypes (though I hope my work will begin to address this).
Sources
The taxonomic framework that I present is built on the work of Jungian analyst Gareth S. Hill, from his book Masculine and Feminine: The Natural Flow of Opposites in the Psyche. Aside from Hill and Jung, my work draws primarily (though certainly not exclusively) on books by Robert A. Johnson, Marie-Louise von Franz, Murray Stein, Eugene Pascal, Edward F. Edinger, Emma Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Valerie Estelle Frankel. I also want to note the narrow but outsized influence on my work by Kim Hudson’s book, The Virgin’s Promise: Writing Stories of Feminine Creative, Spiritual, and Sexual Awakening. My work is further informed by a variety of ideas and perspectives from diverse disciplines.
While the content on this site draws heavily on prior scholarship, I’ve gone beyond simply cataloging and organizing what I’ve read. I’ve expanded and extended Hill’s work in several directions. I’ve used this framework to organize a variety of well-established archetypal patterns into a coherent, holistic model. And where I found gaps in that model, I’ve filled them in by reframing concepts that I’ve encountered in my secondary research, by synthesizing ideas from various sources, and by describing novel archetypes based on my own primary research.
Primary research
My primary research focuses on feature films. I’ve restricted my studies almost exclusively to English-language media.
Credits
All content written by Andrew Zurbrugg
Website designed by Andrew Zurbrugg
Portrait photos by Jake Ryan Baker
The Archetype Lens logo designed by Paul Zurbrugg and Andrew Zurbrugg
Copyrighted film and TV stills and quotations are reproduced under fair use for educational purposes.
Human-made
The background image on the home page was generated by Leonardo AI. Some of the text in the privacy policy was generated by Perplexity. All other content on this site is human-made.
LLMs have been used as research tools to answer simple queries and help with finding resources. LLMs have provided editorial feedback on draft content. All writing on the site is the original work of Andrew Zurbrugg.