What about them? The scenario you provided sounds like a perfectly valid fit for the circle he’s describing. In the end, your hero now has a newfound responsibility to maintain the good. That’s huge. How did she come to that realization? The “Return” phase is precisely where she would process that discovery.

“For some characters, [7. Return] is as easy as hugging the scarecrow goodbye and waking up. […] or in a love story, having realized what’s important.”

Based off your description, I’m imagining a heartwarming and simple story about a scientist who wants to find a cure for cancer:

1. ESTABLISH A PROTAGONIST: We meet her in college.

2. SOMETHING AIN'T QUITE RIGHT: We learn that her brother has cancer, and that she wants to cure it.

3. CROSSING THE THRESHOLD: She gets hired at a prestigious cancer research lab.

4. THE ROAD OF TRIALS: Night after night, she stays up late pouring over data.

5. MEETING WITH THE GODDESS: She finally discovers a cure for cancer.

6. MEET YOUR MAKER; The late nights have taken their toll and she’s exhausted, but she’s overwhelmed with happiness that her hard work has paid off.

7. BRINGING IT HOME: She begins to feel the weight of how important her work will be for both her brother and humanity at large.

8. MASTER OF BOTH WORLDS: She accomplishes what she set out to do; cure her brother’s cancer. She also sends the entirety of her research to universities, science journals, and news outlets the world over, ensuring that no single company can own the manufacturing process of this cure.

You can do anything with story as long as you write it well.

If you know you're not going to be writing it especially well, use the tropes.

One of the problems with US television in the broadcast and early cable age was that all television series were 22-26 episodes long. Another was that after the first air date, viewers would be likely to encounter them out of order.

As a direct result, television series avoided having one episode refer to another. The major exception were soap operas, which often ran 4-6 episodes every week and specifically maintained continuity -- there are/were digest magazines devoted to catching watchers up on current storylines.

Any examples?

Aragorn

Aragorn was totally changed though; he had to watch Frodo leave on the elven ships to the land of the Maiar (iirc) because he couldn't deal with the pain of having been the ring bearer; the love of his life was immortal and she gave up her place in the Undying Lands for him, he watched the collapse of the Dwarves, and the light of magic leave the land - and because of his Numenorian blood he was to stand at this precipice, knowing everything the world had lost, and he'd have nobody to share it with - it would quickly become legend/myth.

Aragorn was mighty - but he was absolutely changed. Beautiful but tragic.

The point is that Aragorn has not had to sacrifice any major thing. Of course he is changed in many ways, and he does feel the weight of the events, and his invreased responsibility.

But this is really not comparable to Luke losing his hand, or Frodo taking on the taint of evil (and losing a finger), or Iron Man losing his hear, or Gilgamesh losing Enkidu. Stretching the hero's journey so far would only show it to be a shallow trick.

> The point is that Aragorn has not had to sacrifice any major thing.

Aragorn's sacrifices occurred before the story began. He was the rightful king, yet had wandered in the wilderness for something like 90 years, defending people who not only did not appreciate him, but were actively suspicious of him.

He also had little or no hope of regaining the kingdom -- and also little or no hope of marrying the woman he loved (as Elrond had forbidden her to marry him unless he somehow became king).

That's gotta wear on a guy after the first, say, 50 or 60 years.

That would still not make Aragorn's story fit the model, since all of the trials and tribulations that we see him go through would then have happened after the sacrifice, not before it as in the model.

Aragorn had many trials and tribulations afterward, particularly leading the army to the Black Gate. They basically assumed they were on a suicide mission, but did it anyway in an attempt to distract Sauron from Frodo and Sam.

Aragorn is also not really the hero of the story, he's just a side character who adds flavour to the story which is really about the hobbits. I don't think side characters need any specific story arc to make them interesting, they just need to be unique in some way.

There are numerous chapters dedicated entirely to Aragorn's story (as there are for Sam and Frodo, for Merry and Pippin). I very very much disagree that he is just a side character. The Lord of the Rings is of an "ensemble cast", with no single protagonist. So while Aragorn is not The Hero, neither is Frodo, nor Sam.

I would absolutely argue that Frodo is the protagonist/hero of The Lord of the Rings. ("Protagonist" and "hero" aren't always interchangeable, but they are in this case.) Yes, other characters in LotR have their own stories and even their own arcs -- but that's true for many, even most, novels over a certain length. Many characters in LotR have their own stories with beginnings and endings, but the epic's overarching plot is that of the journey to destroy the One Ring and end Sauron's threat once and for all -- and that journey is the journey of the Ringbearer.

One of the most trenchant pieces of advice I got from a workshop instructor -- an award-winning fantasy novelist -- when I was struggling with a novel outline was "come up with an arc for all of your major characters, not just Gail [the protagonist]." Every major character in a story has something they want, has a place they start and a place they end up. Obviously stories can have multiple protagonists, but not every character who has a discernible arc is a protagonist, and not every story with an "ensemble cast" is one with multiple protagonists. (e.g., Ocean's Eleven is about an ensemble, but structurally, Danny Ocean is absolutely the protagonist.)

Story structure tools don't work particularly well as blueprints -- the major failing of the (in)famous Save the Cat! is its relentless prescriptiveness in this regard -- but they can work well as lenses and, before writing, as brainstorming tools. You need to be able to tell who your protagonist is -- and, yes, there may be more than one, but you need to understand your story structure well enough to know whether you really do have a story with multiple protagonists. And if your answer to "what does your main character want" is "oh, nothing, really, they're just fine," then you need to at least consider the possibility that there is a problem with your story, not with the general principle that stories are about characters trying to resolve problems.

> I would absolutely argue that Frodo is the protagonist/hero of The Lord of the Rings.

I would say that The Lord of the Rings is the story of the defeat of Sauron, not a story of a hobbit making it alone to Mordor to single-handedly destroy the One Ring. Tolkien could have absolutely told the story while only focusing on Frodo, and only included characters like Sam, Aragorn, Gandalf, Merry, Pippin, Legolas, Gimli sporadically, mostly when they crossed Frodo's path (such as in The Fellowship of the Ring). He very deliberately chose not to do that.

In comparison, in Ocean's Eleven, the focus is always on Danny's plan. Sure, we get to see how the others are playing their part in the plan, but it's Danny's plan, and nothing in the story happens without a direct (at lest tangential) connection with him and the heist he orchestrated. There is nothing equivalent to the defense of Helm's Deep, the conquering of Isengard, the ride of the Rohirim and so on - entire hugely important plot points that have nothing whatsoever to do with Frodo's journey.

I would also add that it's not that hard to argue that, if you were to chose a single protagonist, it should be Aragorn, not Frodo - after all, the third and final book is named for him (The Return of the King) - the only character to have a whole book named for him. He also gets the most traditional, heroic ending - he is wed to the love of his life, and he rules with a just and rightful hand over the now purified world.

How do you know he's just? And why is it so rightful? Maybe it's my dislike of Aragorn as a character but who cares about who is the king of Gondor. The return of the king is a cute name for the third book, but obviously they couldn't name it "Frodo takes the ring to Mt Doom" because that would spoil too much. The return of the king is just the gambit that's used to distract Sauron while Frodo and Sam get the job done.

It's cool that Aragorn is the descendant of the traitorous and flawed royal line of Numenor, but it would be cooler if Aragorn had just went off with Arwen to hide in a crevice somewhere and let Faramir rule over Gondor, who certainly would be more loved by his people and seems to have a decent shot at uniting houses with Rohan.

Anyways, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Tolkien should have known that.