Okay, so it's no big secret that I'm really into archetypes and I'm really into cyberpunk. I've probably written about the topic before. The difference is that I've finally made myself start reading Cyberpunk 2020, so I've had plenty of time to reflect on it.

Cyberpunk 2020 cover image from DriveThruRPG

Understanding Archetypes

My archetypal knowledge is somewhat limited. There's a large part of any genre or movement that would be easily analyzed with Jungian archetypes, but they're more abstract and focus a lot on concepts like order and chaos, which aren't necessarily cogent for discussion.

For today, I'm going to focus on Pearson's personality archetypes, since that's what my most recent "eureka moment" focused on.

The Innocent and the Orphan

The Innocent and the Orphan are two sides of the same coin. In Pearson's personality archetypes, they are the most "immature" patterns that you would see, because they reflect a very basic, absolute understanding of the world and a lack of sense of self and personal role in the universe.

From a perspective of needs, the Innocent and the Orphan both need security. They're driven by a desire to get something that many of us take for granted: knowing that they have a place in the future.

Security

One of the most interesting things I found when I started to immerse myself in cyberpunk as a genre is the song "Certainty" by the band mind.in.a.box, which has a long-running series of albums that tell a cyberpunk narrative.

Certainty, posted on YouTube by Believe SAS, the rights manager for mind.in.a.box

The lyrics in this song really stuck with me as an example of "Why do you keep me from certainty? Why would you keep it away from me?"

This is the epitome of the problem facing the Innocent and the Orphan.

Safety is the most basic human need; if you present pretty much anything that presents a hazard, even the most weary, hungry person will go out of their way to avoid it.

The need for safety, in an abstract longer-term sense, is security. If safety is merely avoiding hazards, security is knowing how to avoid these hazards either intrinsically by experience and competence, or extrinsically by belonging to a group or having a situation that protects against these hazards.

Tragedy in Archetypes

Cyberpunk is inherently tragic (if not anti-heroic), in the sense that characters tend to be degraded by their experiences rather than ennobled by them. Most cyberpunk fiction focuses on larger-than-life characters, who may have a low social standing, but I'd argue that they fit the tragic hero mold more than the anti-heroic mold because we see heroes rather than everyday people.

After all, few cyberpunk stories focus on someone who is just ordinary. The strengths, often literally superhuman strengths on account of the cybernetics that are often used to augment human potentials, tend to be the focus of the conflict, and a tool for the protagonists to explore a Hero's Journey.

That they fail, or cannot achieve meaningful success, is a consequence of their inability to satisfy their need for security.

The Anti-Eden

The worlds of cyberpunk settings are almost predominantly ruthless and uncaring. SLA Industries is an example of this taken to its furthest extreme, but even more mainstream cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk like Deus Ex and the Matrix still offers a conceptual world where the very promise of safety is stripped away.

Corporations have replaced governments, except where shadowy organizations work behind the scenes to maintain their power at the expense of innocents. Your value is measured in dollars, and it might very well be low. Nobody will protect a victim for fear of becoming one themselves.

This describes 90% of cyberpunk settings, if not more.

The Innocent in Cyberpunk: Gimme Shelter

Most of the time that you encounter them in fiction, the Innocent needs help.

That's not a metaphor or a clever turn of phrase, that's the nature of their existence. Trusting, naive, and, to use the expedient term, lazy, the Innocent doesn't always seem to have a whole lot of redeeming virtues. In their best form, however, they possess a capacity to dream and to believe in a brighter future.

The Innocent in cyberpunk doesn't typically have this strength, unless it's a protagonist who is soon to be disabused of the notion.

The Innocent in cyberpunk is actually more commonly the antagonist of the story: elites who overlook their responsibilities and their duties and will make any sacrifice, so long as it involves someone else losing out and their own comfort being preserved.

This is especially interesting because cyberpunk is one of the best ways that you can see this sort of manifestation of the Innocent.

A healthy society needs people like the Ruler or the Sage, people who are concerned with order and rules (to grossly simplify their roles), but the corporations or shadow governments that you see in cyberpunk settings are dominated by the Innocent.

The corporate agent who is willing to backstab others because they benefit from the expedience is an Innocent. The government official who signs the orders without caring about those who will suffer is the Innocent. They buy their comfort on borrowed time, going for another day's security at the expense of brutally repressing others. Where they make positive developments, they are always going to struggle with the fact that they're suffering from cosmic anxiety. It's them or something else, and that something else will eat them and take their place.

Some of this can lead to cynicism, which would generally indicate that a character is more closely aligned with the Orphan archetype, but it's worth noting that these characters are the Innocent because they legitimately think that they can create a better world through their machinations. This is why they play antagonists and threshold watcher roles in cyberpunk worlds; they are looking for someone to make their dreams come true, but they can't do it themselves because they are perennially insecure.

To Be Continued

Tomorrow I'll talk about the Orphan in cyberpunk and go into more detail about how the characters can develop differently.