Noah Halili - The Threshold Guardian in Band of Brothers

  One of the character archetypes frequently seen in the Hero’s Journey is the threshold guardian. Iris March writes “The threshold guardian archetype is the person or thing that keeps the hero from entering the new world. In other words: it’s an obstacle that the hero needs to overcome” (March 2023). In Band of Brothers, one soldier stands out as an obstacle to the journey of the company. Captain Herbert Sobel served as the drill sergeant and leader of Easy Company during their training. Though he never served with them in combat, he represented a gateway to their journey across Europe. 

Captain Sobel primarily appears in episode 1: Currahee where the boot camp for the men of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment takes place. He is portrayed as being particularly harsh on his troops, determined to make them the best. The men of Easy Company express a clear distaste for Sobel and his tactics. In fact, at one point Denver Randleman states to the then lieutenant, Richard Winters, that he feels Easy Company is being unfairly treated because Captain Sobel hates them. His training tactics seem unjust to the men such as when he orders them to run six miles up and down Currahee Mountain after interrupting their spaghetti dinner. His exercises were relentless and proved to be an immense challenge for Easy Company to overcome before heading to war. 

While Sobel’s training was  insanely taxing on the men, it was through this training that the paratroopers of Easy Company became prepared for deployment. The obstacle that Sobel provided was necessary for their journey so that they could gain independence, courage, discipline, and fortitude. In a conversation between Winters and his best friend Lewis Nixon, Nixon states, “You know a man in this company who wouldn’t double time Currahee with a full pack just to piss in that guy’s morning coffee” (Band of Brothers). As March mentions, the threshold guardian is an obstacle that must be overcome in order to enter the “new world.” The new world for Easy Company is the war in Europe and the path they eventually take to Germany. It is only through Sobel’s training that the men are able to mature and prepare for the horrors they survive throughout WWII. While most will agree that Sobel was a harsh drill sergeant and arguably bad leader, one cannot deny that this training proved to be essential to the success of Easy Company. With their training, they successfully deployed to Normandy, pushed the German forces back to Germany, survived the Battle of the Bulge despite being surrounded and cut off from Allied forces, and eventually reached the Eagle’s Nest, marking the end of the war. Furthermore, they accomplished all of this with one of the highest casualty counts of the war. Captain Sobel acted as the threshold guardian and in doing so, he shaped Easy Company into one of the most formidable military assets of WWII.


Source:


https://www.irismarshedits.com/post/heros-journey-threshold-guardian-archetype 


Band of Brothers

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kip Redick Example of a Blog Post

 Page 4 Michael Taussig would suggest Juan's understanding of the meaning of a place emerges out of the process of an imitation of all the “differences” that we discern there. We mimic (in language and action) the full range of sounds, movements, and other sensory perceptions that come to us from the more than human world.” It’s hard to put a place that strikes us as sublime into mere words; we can try to describe it as a feeling and try to put language to that feeling, but sometimes the feeling of the beauty of nature or the power of a sacred space is too big to try to translate or make sense of. Would every place and experience be subjective, and would the discourse be the same? Would the mountain top make me feel the same as another? Or does my personal experience with the natural world and divine keep it intimate/ unique, or would my experience be relatable enough? The author uses the messiness, ambiguity, and mystery of people's deeply personal experience of ...
Read more

Rose Baker - Herbert's "Dune" and Martyrs

  In class, we talked about Jesus and Christianity as an example of myth. Myths and martyrs are dangerous to systems of control because even if they’re suppressed, they can survive and grow stronger. They last because they’re tied to belief, memory, and emotion---things you can’t fully erase. That’s what makes them more powerful than systems built on forced order or control. Even though much of the early church died gruesome deaths, and were consistently ordered to stop spreading the gospel, the "myth" of Jesus has continued for over 2000 years.      In Frank Herbert's  Dune , we see something similar. The Bene Gesserit know how powerful myths can be, and instead of waiting for one to form naturally, they build one on purpose. Through the Missionaria Protectiva , they plant stories and prophecies across different cultures, preparing the world for someone to fulfill the one part they can't fabricate, the living, breathing "savior" who must be visible and prov...
Read more

Joanah Eresechima - Blue Lock's Exploration of Flow

In the sixth chapter of American Camino , the concept of flow is extensively explained in the context of spiritual walking. It is described as unification of action and awareness to create a state in which thoughts are non-existent. The hiker just moves through the world, extremely aware and focused on the wilderness around them but unable to thoroughly reflect on it in that moment. It is only afterwards that the hiker is able to recall the memories from their flow state. Flow can occur in different types of people like artists, scientists and athletes (Redick 249). I was actually very surprised to see this term in the book because it becomes one of the central components in a manga I read called Blue Lock. The story followed a boy named Isagi Yoichi, a high school soccer player who got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join a soccer program called Blue Lock meant to create the greatest striker in the world. Out of 300 players, he was ranked 299 th , making him one of the weakest p...
Read more