I believe I've posted this elsewhere, but again, regarding the so-called "thing about threes" in tales of heroic (mis)adventure:
Quote:
The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation—initiation—return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth.
A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man. – Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
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In the case of J. R. R. Tolkien's telling (
The Hobbit) and retelling (
The Lord of the Rings) of the standard three-part monomyth, a Hobbit leaves the little world of the shire, has adventures along the way to a mountain where a great battle happens, and then returns home to the Shire determined to live the life of a reclusive bachelor. Same story. Similar hobbit. Bigger mountain.
As a practical business matter, with a half-a-billion dollar budget spent lavishly producing Tolkien's first, rather bare-bones telling of the monomyth in terms of hobbits -- his singular literary creation -- Peter Jackson requires at least three marketing cycles in order to have a hope of recouping that enormous sunk investment, much less make a profit. A pecuniary strategy of dribbling out parts of the rather slim tale over two-and-a-half years -- by any and every possible commercial gimmick -- accounts for the so-called "trilogy" and not any fealty to the standard formula for a heroic adventure.