When I was a child, my favorite toys were lego.

I didn’t really understand it at the time, but now I can see that the reason that I loved lego so much was because of archetypes.

What? Archetypes?

That’s the reason. Lego characters and settings are designed so that it is very easy to project archetypes onto them.

And when you have archetypes interacting with eachother, then you have a story.

Stories created themselves because the characters were already in play. It’s like looking a set-up chess board, just looking at it makes you imagine playing the game.

So, I thought I’d write a fun article about the individual archetypes you’d come across when you had tipped the lego out on the floor and were ready to play a long afternoon game.

#1 — The White Knight

The White Knight is the ideal soldier. Brave, loyal, and dangerous, he serves the king and is devoted to his Kingdom. He protects the innocent and those too weak to defend themselves.

All of these traits are automatic when you see this bold man clad in silver armor, on the back of a white horse.

He’s the best of us, the ideal. Often online, there is a joke about “white knights” where insecure men leap to the defense of woman online for social posturing.

While White Knight is used as a negative term in this context, that is exactly who these men are trying to imitate. They want to brave and recognized as such, and given the high honor of being a White Knight without having killed a dragon or saved a princess.

But that’s unimportant. The White Knight in the lego games I played very often was the main character. He was the man on a mission, who wanted to solve what was wrong with the Kingdom as soon as he could, and at the beginning of the journey, often he was this splendid, pure character.

However, as the story progressed, he would have to lose some of his shine, and get down in the muck of the world, and instead, transform from being a White Knight into a more flawed, damaged, but ultimately, fuller character.

#2 — The Black Knight

I have already written about the Black Knight, an archetype that is far more common than you’d expect.

The Black Knight is like the White Knight, in that he is principled, dangerous, and loyal to his cause. The only problem is, he is devoted to a cause that is misguided, or outright evil.

That’s where the mutual respect comes from, as you can gather that the Black Knight has positive attributes, like honor, but it doesn’t matter, as the Black Knight holds an evil ideal in his core.

It may be something like “No lives matter, therefore I can destroy who I like,” or “The Kingdom must fall because the King has failed me.” Whatever his belief is, it has poisoned him, and turned him away from the light.

The Black Knight is a character that could be redeemed during the lego games I played. If he recognized the error of his ways then he may provide a vital ally to the hero during the final battle.

The Black Knight and the White Knight when put into a story start off at different ends, but often, when the conclusion is met, they are a lot more like each other than any other character.

The thing with archetypes is that a character can wear one for a while, but not forever. It seems that characters will shed their archetypical prisons in favor of being more well-rounded characters, or adopting a combination of complex archetypes. For a story to do its job, characters have the change.

#3 — The Just King

The Just King is the ruler of Kingdom and the bringer of justice, security and order. It is by his rule that the innocent are protected, that the borders are defended, and the enemies are kept at bay.

Wise, experienced, and ruthless, the Just King is like a vicious lion protecting his pride, and can exercise deadly force as well as being gentle and considerate.

He is one of the top four masculine archetypes, and represents the ability to bring order to the world of chaos. He is balanced, so that he can pull from the traits of both the warrior and the scholar without being overwhelmed by their downside.

His people love him, as do his soldiers and all who serve him. While he may have to make hard decisions in times of crisis, he always does his best to do right by his people and his Kingdom.

At his heart, like the White Knight, he is GOOD. Whatever negative traits he has, he is always safe in that at his essence he is a good man.

In our collective psyche, he represents the father. The crown on his head symbolisms his direct connection to the divine, that he is God’s hand on earth. The Just King rules his kingdom like a child imagines God rules his.

There is a certain amount of understanding and forgiveness that we assume with the Just King. We can imagine him teaching his son a lesson about forgiveness or showing his daughter that she should not be afraid to be true to who she is.

The easiest example of the Just King in movies is Mufasa in the Lion King. While he can be terrifying and dangerous, he is also gentle, kind, and the teacher of lessons. In the end, he cares for his son, and wants him to become a strong but careful leader when he inherits the Kingdom.

In my lego games, the Just King was a good man, and always sought what was best, but he rarely was the one to activate the quest. He was the one who gave it to the hero, but the Just King never wandered off alone to face the darkness. It was always the hero.

What does this mean?

It’s simple. Your father cannot live your life for you. He has to push you out into the world of chaos, and you have to fight there on your own. He can guide you, help you, but he cannot live for you.

We can expand on this some other time, but for now, we have more lego minifigures to talk about.

#4 — The Tyrant

While the White Knight is the opposite of the Black Knight, the Tyrant is the opposite of the Just King. In my lego games, he was a skeleton lord from another realm, who wanted to kill the king and take over his lands for himself.

The symbolism for having something dead as an opposite for the just king makes sense. Jordan Peterson has spoken about how the Father is representative of culture, and that culture is always “dead” when we inherit it.

And so, here he is, our dead father. He brings with him all the negative and terrible traits of the past. The bloodlust, the hungry for power, the will to dominate and destroy.

Even if the Tyrant is represented as a man, he is always a man who is in decay. Think of the Emperor from Star Wars. A sickly old man on his throne, whose own evil has rotted him through.

The Tyrant seeks to impose his will on the Kingdom, and take it for his own. This means he must kill the king and bring in a new age of strife and injustice to succeed.

There is a difference though between the Tyrant and another archetype, called the demon of chaos, who we will talk about later, but they both have evil aims when it comes to the future of the Kingdom.

In my lego games, he opened the portal from his world to our world, and brought with him an army of undead. From there, he would infect the townspeople, until our hero was forced into action and had to battle him with a magic weapon, often a special sword or spear.

What was interesting was that nearly always the hero was tempted to join this Undead Overlord. The hero may become infected with an undead disease himself, or find a cursed weapon or become possessed with a terrible spirit.

Look at Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. Always, the hero is given a chance to become one of the bad guys, or even the King of Evil.

Naturally it was repeated in my games. Our hero is vulnerable. He is tempted. And he may fall.

It’s also worth noting that in the games the Tyrant often had control over a dark dragon, the symbol of the collective unknown. He had dominion over a beast that had the power to level the Kingdom to the ground. Often, to defeat him, the hero had to master a dragon himself.

#5 — The Gray Wanderer

The Gray Wanderer is a character who has not yet chosen a side. He is neutral, unemotional and detached from the world.

He has the skill and dedication of both the Black and White Knight, but he has no cause, no King to serve. He either serves himself, or serves a higher ideal that is too abstract for most to understand.

Sometimes he seems to act for good, and other times he seems to act for evil. Often, it is just a matter of perception and preference.

This archetype was less common in my games than the others. He was optional, but when he was there, he needed to be sought out. Our hero had to go find him, and convince him to tell him some hidden knowledge that he knew.

You see, the Gray Wanderer has internalized the shadow. He has embraced his dark side, yet has not been turned evil. Now, he just has the knowledge of it, an understanding, and that is what our hero needs, or else he will be unable to fulfil his quest.

The reason this Gray Wanderer is optional is that often the role of a mentor or wise old man can fill this part. The wise old man especially, is more comfortable to deal with than this cold, lonely wanderer.

When our hero confronts the Gray Wanderer, he sees himself in those still eyes, and knows that within him is the potential to be as this man. This is who he will become if he forgoes his quest and instead embraces the wild and the ruins.

Within us, he is the call to wander, to leave our responsibilities behind, to throw out our possessions, to abandon our relationships, and just “go.” He’s there when a father decides to keep driving past home and instead leave the state entirely, never to return.

He is what happens when our principles die within us, when we no longer believe in them. A Black Knight may see the errors of his ways, but instead of becoming a force for good, he may instead reject the world entirely, and strike out on his own path.

The White Knight too, may become disillusioned when he sees the flaws in his ideals or principles, and to, take the lonely path.

The Gray Wanderer’s offer is tempting, his half-truth that yes there is evil out there, so quit the world, or yes you believed a lie, so flee into the wilderness and live for yourself.

If you follow him, you might not come back.

There are other archetypes I want to cover with lego minifigures, but that is enough for now.

These characters already exist within us, but lego, toys, video games, movies, TV shows, novels and legends all give them a chance to express themselves. Like pieces on a chess board, they can only move a certain way, but there are a million different ways a game can turn out.

Often it is situations that bring up archetypes within us. We can either be the Just King or the Tyrant when we have to supervise that project at work. We can be a White Knight and help when we see a man on the street being belittled, or snigger at his misfortune as we pass.

There’s always a choice. We choose who we want to be. Who do you want to be?

If you liked what you read, or found one of the archetypes interesting, make sure you share the article with someone you think will enjoy the read.