Sybel's Hero Cycle

          While reading the book, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, the reader may start to question who the true hero of the story is.  In examining the book and following Cambell’s description of the cycle of the child-hero, we may come to the conclusion that Sybel may be considered a fantasy hero

            Cambell’s cycle of the child-hero starts with the “child of destiny” living in obscurity, sometimes in a situation of extreme danger.  He may be drawn inward “to his own depths” or protracted outward to unknown regions.  There is darkness and there is evil.  A guide will come to them, often in the form of an angel, old woman, or animal.  The child-hero will be removed to school/special environment where he is further informed on his extraordinary talent/gift and realizes how much further they can go with that talent.  Eventually the child-hero returns and will sometimes return with the praise of the public.  Now let’s examine Sybel and how she fits into the frame of Cambell’s child hero.

            Sybel’s first decades of life are in obscurity on her mountain being raised by her father.  Her father’s main purpose is to bring her into her magic and teach her the world that is magic and all that it encompasses.  While Sybel is not specifically taken to a school to learn her talent, her home serves as a school, a sort of magic school where she learns to harness and control it.  The reader is left to doubt that love and affection were present in this house where mythical animals roamed.  The unknown danger that Sybel is living in is that many desire the power she controls.  Kings fear her, but also are willing to take the risk to control her for the use of that power. 

            Sybel’s guide can be viewed as both Maelga and Coren.  Maelga fits in Cambell’s description of a guide that is an old woman.  Maelga assists Sybel in raising Tamlorn throughout the book and giving advice, even when Sybel is not asking for it.  Maelga is straightforward in her advice giving and cares deeply for Sybel and Tamlorn.  Coren later becomes Syble’s husband and while he does not guide her in an obvious way, it is his love that has a large hand in saving her in the end.

            The darkness and evil that are part of the child–hero cycle are Sybel’s decent into revenge.  The Boar Cyrin says, “The giant Grof, as hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind and he died of what he saw there” (249).  There is both evil and darkness in this quote and in how it applies to Sybel.  She has become obsessed with her revenge and is blind by what is around her; darkness surrounds her thoughts and actions.  It is when Blammor (which is darkness and shadows itself) shows her the evil thoughts in her minds that she is able to truly see what she is becoming.

           

            Sybel eventually returns to her mountain home alone.  Her animals, her husband, and her foster son are gone.  She has not returned to the praise of the public.  In calling the Liralen she calls Coren, her husband.  Upon his arrival, Sybel realizes that the Blammor was Liralen all along and all she does want in life is her husband and their life together.