The Journey

I just finished reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (still going through classics thanks to the fact that they are all free on the Kindle) and it started me thinking about the journey characters take during epic quests.  I googled for tropes to see if I've once again inadvertently stumbled across one and the closest I can seem to find is The Hero's Journey - warning TVTropes link.  Whereas that trope is all about the events of the journey that the character goes through, my thought was more about the location.  In many stories - Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and Kingdom Hearts to name a few - the characters start in an ideal world.  Actually, Wizard of Oz is slightly different because she starts in Kansas, which is described as incredibly grey and flat, so hardly ideal, but I'm thinking more about the Munchkin's land she really starts her journey on.

So they start in this super nice area they'd be crazy to leave, but they must for some reason (they're determined to get back to the land of the grey and flat, a tall man with a pointy beard and even pointier hat told them to, they fall into a black hole and end up in a different place, etc.).  The next step is always safe with the illusion of danger (like a Disneyland ride) - a forest with the feeling of danger, but either no real danger or some guardian to keep the character safe, a strange town full of strangers, but no one really threatening and usually there's a guide to help the character out.  As the journey continues, the locations get darker, scarier, and more dangerous directly proportional to the character's growth level.  The journey ends somewhere either completely gothic, demonic, or void.  Basically, there will be lots of spike and/or fire or there will be lots of nothing.

My favorite part is that once the quest is completed, the characters usually just appear back at the beginning.  Story-wise it makes sense, the climax has happened, another climax is not what a reader really wants, but if the characters were struggling to reach their destination (running low on food, sneaking past armies, etc.) then that should still be an issue on the way back, right?  And if they do get magically apparated or taken home by giant eagles, then why didn't those take them to their destination in the first place?  Definitely food for thought when coming up with the ending of the journey.

This transition from idyllic settings to terror can be something really interesting to play with when designing games, especially if you make the transition slow and subtle so the player doesn't even realize it's happening. I'd especially love to see this concept played with in a board game.  Somehow the board itself changes as the game continues on and gets darker and more twisted (mostly just the art, not so much the components).