Let's look at the building blocks of each sign and some ways they have changed and are changing. Each sign has a history of collective cultural construction based on myth (stories) and connect-the-dot constellations, as well as on astute observations of human nature.

The kinds of charcters that appear again and again in stories have coalesced into some pretty consistent archetypes, but as these characters appear in more modern stories, video games, and graphic novels, the collective view of them changes again.

My goal here is to teach some basic astrology so readers can understand how astrologers put together a picture of a personality type for each sign and how those personality types show up in our stories today. But I also hope you will join me in questioning it a bit. Comment on the “right” way to interpret all this at your own risk.

Basic Symbolic Building Blocks

1. Historically Associated Gods, Goddesses, Planets, and Celestial Bodies

This area is obviously the most complex, and different interpreters will bring in different influences. My biggest pet peeves have to do with the naming of planets and asteroids, not using asteroids as rulers, and the sexism built into all this.

Only one planet was named after a woman, and the woman they chose was Venus: beautiful, sexy, and a traditional “Good Mother” of blonde cherubs.

Venetia Burney, an 11-year-old English schoolgirl, named Pluto in 1930. It was the perfect opportunity to choose a female. She could have chosen Trivia (Hecate) if she was so fascinated by the underworld.

We could also mourn the fact that astrology, like a lot of our institutions and political ideas, having traveled through many cultures, got stuck in the Roman calendar and the Roman pantheon. The zodiac label you are given differs when using the Judeo-Christian and Indian (Vedic) calendars.

But even sticking with Rome, left to me, Justitia, the Roman Goddess of Justice, would rule Libra; the hot planet now named Venus would be Mars (and still rule Aries); and the planet now named Mars would be wise Minerva. Also, Pluto would be named Trivia (Hecate) and would still rule Scorpio.

But I do love having Venus in the mix, and I do love its association with Taurus—maybe the asteroid now named Athena could be Venus.

Yet, honestly, why are we relegated to using the Roman pantheon anyway? There are some super cool Japanese, Tibetan, Mayan, African, Celtic, and Nordic gods and goddesses I’d like to bring into this game. Why can’t the Yoruba God of the Hunt, Orisha Oshosi, rule Sagittarius? Kannon, the Japanese goddess of mercy and service, could rule Virgo.

The point is, modern astrologers, influenced by psychologist Carl Jung, scholar Joseph Campbell, and their successors, do play this game. They start with the traditional pantheon and bring in others to make a point. For now, I’ll do that too.

Maybe I’ll make my own zodiac later for fun. For now, we have what we have, and let’s learn it. Then we can play around.

Some signs began with a single association; as planets were discovered and named, they added another, and consequently, the archetype evolved. These are the associations most astrologers use today.

Signs with a single ruler (and no shared planet):

• Aries: Mars

• Cancer: Moon (Moon goddesses)

• Leo: Sun (Sun gods)

• Sagittarius: Jupiter

• Capricorn: Saturn

Signs with two rulers:

• Scorpio: Mars + Pluto

• Aquarius: Saturn + Uranus

• Pisces: Jupiter + Neptune

Planets that still rule two signs:

• Mercury (Gemini, Virgo)

• Venus (Taurus, Libra)

⭐Learn more about the history of astrology itself (not the archetypes or signs) and how it evolved in this article about Planetary Science in the Oxford Encyclopedias.

We know the symbols and metaphors that build the archetype have changed and continue to change. It’s the themes, lessons, values, and personality types that stay true to human nature across the centuries.

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2. Elements: Fire, Air, Earth, Water

The elements of fire (heat, light), air (sky, wind), earth (stone, metal, earthquakes), and water (rain, wood, flood) are recognized worldwide and are associated with distinct emotional and personified characteristics.

3. Modalities: Cardinal, Fixed, Mutable

The modalities of the signs are a way to describe similar modes of expression between pairs of opposite signs on the wheel

CARDINAL

Aries & Libra (male), Cancer & Capricorn (female) are Cardinal Signs. The key attribute is initiation. They represent the idea-generation and leadership start-up phase of the creative process.

FIXED

Taurus & Scorpio (female), Leo & Aquarius (male)are Fixed Signs. The key attribute is tenacity. The Fixed Signs represent the building phase of the creative process and craftsmanship.

MUTABLE

Gemini & Sagittarius (male), Virgo & Pisces (female) are Mutable Signs. The key attribute is adaptability. The mutable signs represent the revision (transformation) phase of the creative process and the distribution or communication of the resulting work.

When indigenous people from places like the Americas, Asia (and Australia and New Zealand) incorporated European astrology into their own religions and mysticism, and vice versa, those associations with the natural elements evolved. For instance, Virgo’s association with “Mother” Earth, plants, and growing things expanded.

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⭐SEE ALL POSTS on the Archetypes

4. Constellations

Sounds like a simple combination so far (Jupiter+fire+mutable = Sagittarius), but as the associated characteristics of these building blocks evolved through interactions with myriad cultures and were debated and integrated by astrologers, astronomers, storytellers, and philosophers across the centuries, a unique picture of each sign emerged.

When I describe the core building blocks of each archetype, I am not starting with Babylonians, Hellenistic Greeks, or Egyptian men on a hillside at night drinking and connecting the dots of constellations. Well, I am, but only for the purposes of humor.

We have no idea how they made those decisions, when, or even if the Babylonian seed drill was the inspiration for the original Aries constellation, before the ram became the symbol. That is entirely my conjecture, as far as I know.

I saw a picture of a seed drill, looked at the constellation, and knew the (wealthy) Babylonian astrologers called it “The Hired Man” because it signaled the time to hire people to plant and care for animals.

That idea wasn’t warrior-energy enough for the testosterone-worshiping Greeks and Romans, and the Greeks had this cool story about a golden ram, so…

What we know for sure is that the first sign of the zodiac and the Northern Hemisphere birth of the year in spring were one and the same. Male procreation is the enduring theme of Aries, not eggs and seeds.

That is what I will focus on most: basic symbols and enduring meaning. It is the ram, not the seed drill, that most influenced that archetype. Archetypes shift across time. It’s about time for another shift, but these things happen slowly.

We don’t have to shift back to a female starting lineup for spring. We can just let female characters be Aries, and every Aries trans or female character in a beloved story helps make the archetype less gendered.

Oh, yeah, if you got this far. I’m all for WOKE astrology and writing. Feel free to unsubscribe if you can’t be open-minded about that.

I will cite a few sources for each inspiration for the archetype in the articles dedicated to them, but I will not provide academic analysis. Again, we all know the ram metaphor well. I’ll include links if you want to follow up. That is not my focus. I don’t think all that’s crucial to storytellers today.

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Why Every Association Cannot Be Identified and Described Here

There are many cultural influences on the zodiac’s archetypes from across Asia, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. It’s practically impossible to determine the full extent of the influences on every philosopher, storyteller, astrologer, and astronomer who served as a collector and shaper of these disparate cultural elements that originally defined the archetypes of each sign.

The complexity of origin was only compounded as the archetype’s development continued through history. For example, it expanded and evolved again following contact with indigenous cultures of the Americas, as those stories, arts, and gods were incorporated into the minds of philosophers, storytellers, and astrologers who have discussed and written about astrology since the 1400s. The synthesis and feedback loop of cultures has continued to inform the archetypes and storytelling.

Religion, mysticism, and metaphysics have a dynamic relationship with astrology, and all contribute to contemporary storytelling.

Comics, graphic novels, and video games introduce an additional dimension by labeling characters specifically according to moral inclinations. It’s not really about their personality traits; it’s more about predicting how they will act.

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⭐RELATED POST: WHY Learn Archetype Astrology? (Even if You Don’t Believe In It.) A: Do you want to design a game? Write a screenplay? Understand why certain characters do what they do?

Gaming Character Tropes & Examples & the Moral Path

• Lawful Good: Teachers, paladins, knights, idealistic superheroes

• Chaotic Good: Rebels, freedom fighters, and tricksters who think it's good for everyone if they shake things up.

• Lawful Neutral: Characters willing to bend the rules when necessary to achieve the collective good.

• Chaotic Neutral: Mercenaries, opportunists, lone wolves, and other characters who do what they need to do to benefit themselves.

• Neutral Well, it depends.

• Villain Types: Tyrants, Cynics, Schemers, Anarchists

A Libra villain wants their own laws to dominate in perfect order and calls that “justice.” A Sagittarius villain is cynical. No one else is ethical, so why should I be?

Many people confuse tropes and archetypes, but each of the above gaming categories can fit into the bigger categories of each zodiac sign. You can have a Sagittarius who is lawful good, or chaotic good, or a cynical villain who has become a lone wolf. The freedom and truth aspects of that archetype can bend in any direction.

Karma

Many people think of karma as “What goes around, comes around” and believe that’s true in a religious sense. Christians believe the consequences will come one way, and those who believe in reincarnation believe it comes in another way. I will not address it in those terms, although I will discuss the broader context of the twelve signs as a pathway from one lesson to the next and from one character arc to the next.

If anything, I’ll approach it in a manner similar to the Roman Stoics, who also influenced the philosophy of astrology.

All our thoughts and actions, and their consequences, form a complex tapestry that we can never unravel, and we cannot point to this or that as the cause or consequence. We can’t do it for ourselves, so we certainly shouldn’t try do it for others—except inside our stories.

Philosophy

Philosophy and psychology are my focus here. If writers sit around in a writer’s room drawing from the Myers-Briggs personality tests or astrological karma, that is the conversation I am diving into. Everything is connected somehow to everything else.

Astrology is the name given to a series of diverse practices based in the idea that the stars, planets, and other celestial phenomena possess significance and meaning for events on Earth.

It assumes a link between Earth and sky in which all existence, spiritual, psychological, and physical, is interconnected. Most premodern cultures practiced a form of astrology.

A particularly complex variety of it evolved in Mesopotamia in the first and second millennia BCE from where it was imported into the Hellenistic world from the early 4th century bce onward. There it became attached to three philosophical schools, those pioneered by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, all of which shared the assumption that the cosmos is a single, living, integrated whole. -Nicholas Campion (bold and italics mine)

It’s Complicated

Like the interconnected threads of karma, the process of astrological archetypal evolution is so complex and dynamic that, as storytellers, we can learn and absorb as much knowledge as possible, then respond intuitively in the end.

Such is the creative process. It’s good to have lots of tools in your toolbox. This continuous change ensures that each archetype is a living, evolving entity.

In the 1960s, that was never a sure thing for women, and I was very worried about it. Eowyn and that Sagittarius archetype gave me hope. Hope is a gift of Jupiter, after all. Even Eowyn’s struggles with courage and hope gave me courage and hope.

“All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.”

“What do you fear, lady?” he asked.

“A cage,” she said. “To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

(Contains Spoilers) The “White Lady,” Eowyn of Rohan in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, fits the Sagittarius archetype, but not the stereotype. They refer to her as the White Lady because her skin is exceptionally pale, even for Rohan. It’s not really about her race. Also, in keeping with the Sagittarius type, she is exceptionally tall and strong, like her brother.

Blunt and Defiant

When Aragorn tries to smooth the order that she remain with the women and children while the men go to fight, she dismisses the future King of Gondor’s words bluntly. She is defiant. She will fight for her own freedom and that of her family and nation. When she is ordered not to, she dresses as a man and goes anyway. That is as Sagittarian as it is possible to be.

Eowyn is a woman considered “feminine” who is also a defiant, freedom-loving, and skilled warrior. Women pretending to be boys or men so they can be their true Sagittarian selves is a trope in itself. Arya does it as well in Game of Thrones.

Independent and Fierce

Eowyn is a Lady of Rohan. The tribes of Rohan could be compared to the tribes of the Northern Plains of North America in the 18th and 19th centuries. Like the Comanche, the Rohan were fierce horse-lords and warriors. Take a fierce warrior and order him to stay home and care for the children just before a desperate battle his family will lead. See what happens.

Eowyn did not simply end the fighting by killing the Witch King; she fought bravely before that. Many people forget that before Legolas brought down an elephant in the films, Eowyn and Merry did so. When she could have been trampled, she rode her horse skillfully under it and through its legs, cutting its muscles and sinews until it fell.

Soldiering Onward

The battles in Middle-earth did not begin during the events of The Lord of the Rings. Eowyn could probably ride as soon as she could walk and wield a blade not long after. Her father was killed by orcs when she was only seven years old. Her mother died of grief, which certainly would have felt like abandonment to a child that age.

Eowyn and her brother Eomer were adopted by and loved dearly by their uncle, Theoden, the King of Rohan, but Theoden also abandoned Eowyn when he disappeared into an almost fatal, hopeless despair.

Theoden was manipulated and possibly slowly poisoned by Grima Wormtongue, who was working on behalf of the cynical villain Saruman. Eowyn would have been about 19 to 24 when this was happening. Yet, Eowyn bravely soldiers on through all of her difficulties and is there for Theodren when Gandalf rescues him.

Eowyn’s brother was almost a teenager when his parents died and could work out his grief on the battlefield with the camaraderie of his cousin Theodred, the heir to the throne. This left Eowyn alone and powerless to care for her uncle. A cage, indeed. When she meets Aragorn, she begins to dream of escaping her cage to become a queen with power over her own life.

The Rohan were known to be a serious people, but Eowyn herself—in spite of everything— is cheerful with her family, with Aragorn, and with Merry. It is also true that Eomer, who almost seems like a twin Sagittarius, was known to laugh in battle.

Courageous and Determined

I continue to see online comments calling her “selfish” and “ambitious” for choosing to defy orders and riding out to fight. Some audiences regard it as a sin for her to seek glory in battle. Eowyn should do it for a man or father she loves, not glory. She chooses “all of the above.”

No one would accuse a young man of her age, who did and said the same things, of those qualities. For him, it would be expected. If the character were male, the focus would also be on the outcome: Eowyn, with an assist from Merry, killed the Witch King of Angmar, something only they could do because they weren’t men. Women are collaborative, don’t you know.

Sagittarians aren’t known for being the brave warriors that Aries are. The main warrior archetype is of a young, fearless Aries. Sagittarius is knowledgable and therefore terrified. That distinguishes bravery and courage. You are afraid, but you do it anyway. The brilliant Miranda Otto, who plays Eowyn in the films, shows us her terror, even as she confronts what she fears.

Eowyn has suffered greatly from the effects of war and loss in her family. She goes to battle with full knowledge of what might and probably will happen. It’s so much easier to say you want death—giving you control over it—than it is to face a death you fear. So, she says she wants a glorious death.

When she faces the Witch King, she is terrified. But she remains bold and strong in the face of her own fear. That is her courage. She saves her uncle from an ugly and horrifying death and saves her people from tremendous suffering and slavery.

Grief

It is not until Eowyn has killed The Witch King in a terrifying melee, Aragorn rejects her, and Theoden is mortally wounded in front of her eyes and dies in her arms, that she finally bows to the reality of the toll of the grief of her many losses and her shellshock (PTSD). Tolkien called all that “the black breath” of the touch of the Witch King, but we know what it is.

She is weak and wounded. The war has ended. Who will she be if she can’t be a queen who decides her own fate? Who will she be without her sword and the next fight ahead?

Eowyn thinks there is no freedom or love in her future, so she fights the healers for quite a while before accepting their help. In fact, she does not accept help or advice very well from anyone at all until Faramir.

“And again she looked at Faramir. ‘No longer do I desire to be a queen,’ she said.”

Archetype or Stereotype?

Eowyn is a unique character rooted in archetype, not a stereotype. Some of the plot tropes could indeed be called stereotypes, but not Eowyn herself.

Tolkien could not resist using her to show Aragorn’s kindness and then hooking her up with Faramir after they have a slightly problematic conversation where he tells her she is wrong about everything, but he loves her anyway because she is fierce and beautiful.

One trope is that a man has to straighten her out. Also, the taming of the shrew trope is present, if mildly delivered. It’s only one or two problematic sentences in which she volunteers that she will give up the shield and suggests it’s the right thing for a woman to do, and she finally accepts it because of Farimir’s love.

In spite of that, I am happy for Faramir and Eowyn to find love and peace. It is definitely a scene that would be written differently by a modern woman, but Tolkien meant well, and I don’t accept that she is ‘tamed.”

When Eowyn uses the word, she wonders if a Lord of “civilized” Gondor would be said to have tamed a wild, savage, horsewoman of the plains, so that’s a different kind of trope stereotype.

At any rate, brave Eowyn decides to love, live, and find her way in a post-war world, as any veteran must.

And hey, Faramir is articulate, romantic, and hot. What’s not to love? They both deserve love. I’ll allow it.

A Profile in Courage

The character arcs of both Farimir and Eowyn are toward healing. Neither one will continue as warriors. Eowyn helped make Disney princesses Mulan, Raya, and Merida possible, letting little girls dream of becoming warriors and finding love.

Speaking of gender-neutrality (Weren’t we?). In astrology, fire and air have been considered “masculine,” and outward-facing, and earth and water are considered “feminine” and inward-facing, but you know, fuck that.

These archetypes have evolved as they have traveled across many continents and through time, absorbing millions of stories into their DNA. Their well-structured combinations cover all the themes you can imagine and every character.

NOTES

• You can access a table of contents on a desktop by hovering over and then clicking the stack of lines in the left margin of the screen.

• Hey Grammar Police! You should know I have just given up and now use “they” for individuals. English has always lacked a gender-neutral term, and I am tired of saying him, him, him, or keeping track of how many times I use “her” and when and if it furthers a stereotype. I plan to write a post titled “My Fucking Style Guide.”

ASTROLOGY ARCHETYPES

One-third of your audience believes in astrology as science, but, as archetypes/personality types, it is embedded in your audience as a whole. You can’t find anyone who doesn’t know what their sign is supposed to be and what it is supposed to mean about them.

I just saw an interview with the actors of Fallout on Amazon Prime. When asked what sign their characters are, they all answered immediately. They chose the signs I considered their moon or rising signs as their sun signs. THAT’S interesting! However, the point is that they responded without thinking. It is built into us.

While most people do not know the archetypes as intimately as friends or family, we are all acquainted with them, and a better understanding of archetypes (AND sun, moon, and rising signs) can make stories easier to interpret and writing richer.

Start by learning these ancient archetypes and their lessons, and you won’t end up with small stories and forgettable characters. You won’t end up sabotaging yourself by subverting expectations in such a way that large parts of your audience abandon you (unless you consciously take the risk).

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TROPES, STEREOTYPES, & ARCHETYPES EXPLAINED

Many writers, and screenwriters, in particular, often focus on tropes—both writing them and subverting them. However, tropes are a subcategory, not a core category, and subverting them should be undertaken to create memorable, unique characters. But know the rules first because your audience has expectations you need to thoroughly understand.

There are many books on tropes and lists of tropes for writers. There are hundreds and hundreds of character and plot tropes.

Tropes provide a framework and a way to fill in the blanks when writers are stuck, which is all well and good, but they also describe a very narrow set of behaviors that can easily become formulaic and predictable.

In building a memorable and meaningful story, the archetypes and character arcs are the blueprints and lumber, and the tropes are the checklists, hammers, levels, screwdrivers, and nailguns.

Okay, give me a better analogy.

Tropes are important; they are the smaller tools that build the story. They describe a character’s role in the story. He’s a rogue, and he’s a lovable one. He is in the story to shake things up or to learn his lesson.

Tropes, stereotypes, and archetypes are shorthand for recurring characters, relationships, and plot devices that storytellers use, enabling audiences to recognize them immediately.

A trope is a type of person, not a character. It’s almost, but not quite, a stereotype. Tropes become stereotypes when over-simplified and limited. Stereotypes limit a type of person to a particular class, “race,” or gender role. The limits are the key to the stereotype. A woman can never be a lovable rogue, or called a rogue at all.

No, “rogue” is too nice a word to use, too “boys will be boys,” to use for a charming woman who plays around. You know what those women are called and what happens to them in stories. I don’t have to say it.

In fact, while “woke” means a lot of things in modern culture, I think the vast majority of people use it when stereotypes in stories are flipped or subverted. Finally, people who hate those all-female or all African-American productions of Shakespeare have a word to use as a weapon.

I have noticed another phenomenon lately: when writers change the archetype used in a book to a different archetype in an adaptation, audiences rebel and call it “woke.” This is fascinating. Subverting a stereotype IS woke. Subverting an archetype is just changing the archetype. It is a dangerous thing to do, and another reason writers should understand the archetypes.

Some audience members call it "woke" because they have no other term to express their dissatisfaction. I’ll provide an example when I discuss Rings of Power (Amazon Prime), changing Galadriel from Aquarius to Leo later in this article.

Half the signs are designated as “male” (fire and air) and half as “female” (earth and water). There is no problem when we talk about the signs, values, lessons, and themes. All the signs have equal beauty and worth then. Each element has equal power and strength.

There are some problems with male Aries starting the cycle of signs. I’ll talk about that in the article about Aries in April. However, the culmination of the spiritual journey is in female Pisces, so in many ways it balances out.

But, I am talking about characters here. That’s where it becomes problematic. The sexism is built in. Because the archetype has developed across cultures and religions worldwide, the vast majority of the tropes and stereotypes that resulted are based on gender. We’ll have to talk about how that sexism becomes specific within each archetype.

For now, let’s get back to tropes.

Examples: Quests, McGuffins, Relationship Tropes

Within the larger archetypal QUEST story structure, there might be an enemies-to-friends trope, a road trip trope, or a McGuffin, or all three. The archetypes, however, go deeper.

Reminder: A McGuffin is a symbolic object that turns out to be either less important than the characters (or audience) thought or not essential to the main story.

Pulp Fiction

Do you remember what they were looking for in Pulp Fiction? I vaguely remember a glowing suitcase. In any event, it wasn’t something crucial to the themes, characters, or story arc — it was a plot device to keep things moving. It was a trope — a holy grail.

What were the bigger archetypes involved? That was all embedded in character and the choices they made. Could they find redemption? Did they want to find it?

Each astrological archetype has that decision-tree arc embedded in it, too. What kind of choices does a person who fits this archetype often make, and how does each personality grow and evolve into making better choices? What’s a “better” choice anyway?

Fallout

In Fallout Season 1 (Amazon Prime, 2024—), there is a collection of McGuffin tropes. The main characters were each looking for certain people, then one man’s head, and now, in season 2, the enemies-to-friends (we assume) pair is looking for Hank MacLean and Cooper Howard’s family. We think they will bond. We believe they will learn from each other.

Enemies to Friends Trope: Okay, sure, you cut off my finger and then sold me to an organ harvesting company, but we have a common goal now, so...

Father-Daughter Trope: There is an obvious connection here. The Ghoul is looking for his daughter. Lucy is a daughter looking for her father.

Road Trip Trope: Traveling companions bickering over their world views. How will this trip and the McGuffin they seek change them?

But what's the ARCHETYPAL internal battle arc here?

We wonder if Lucy will lose herself and her hope and idealism in the darkness and the battle to survive, the way The Ghoul has lost himself, or will she bring him back to himself, to Cooper Howard?

That’s the power of the deeper archetype than the tropes that signal its existence.

The essential story is not found in the tropes! What exactly is their common goal? We all know these characters will find something or someone much bigger than all that.

The Stakes

We already know that Finding Truth and the fight for Freedom from Tyranny (The Sagittarius Archetype) are the universal stakes that make this story so compelling.

Then there are the deepest personal stakes we all face when we are confronted with true enemies and unexpected and challenging circumstances in real life.

How can I hold onto who I am and not become someone I would dislike? How can I hold onto my values and life philosophy in the face of tremendous stress? Where and what do I need to change?

RELATED POST: FALLOUT Season 1 | The Four ♐♐️♐️♐️ Horsemen of the Apocalypse on Amazon Prime

I’m going to continue using Sagittarius as the example. Sagittarius is often written to be the hunter, or outlaw, or the reluctant hero, or the former freedom-fighting soldier, or the cowboy who either has a heart of gold or the most cynical mind possible. Those are tropes based on the archetype.

But we can also think of Sagittarius as the archetype that encompasses the bigger motivations and lessons of those characters.

Hans Solo, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, George Lucas, 1977

CHARACTER: Han Solo

ARCHETYPE: Sagittarius

TROPES: Reluctant hero, lovable rogue, freedom fighter.

In my post on Sagittarius, I talk about the common story types within that archetype. For all the signs, the story is always based on what astrologers and Jungian psychologists would call The Soul’s Journey, and that is directly connected to the character arc.

For Han Solo in Star Wars, the archetypal arc was to choose love and a worthy cause bigger than himself over personal freedom. That’s what matters.

The rest are just tropes.

RELATED POST: The Sagittarius Archetype

CHARACTER ARCS

There is an astrological, philosophical idea that a soul is born in Aries, then reborn in Taurus, and so on, around and around the wheel until perfected. It’s not really linear like that, but that’s the basic idea. It is a universal character arc.

In addition, each sign has a partner: One sign above the horizon line and the other below the horizon line. Those partners share related lessons, so integrating them is the task of the soul.

Maybe you can believe that and maybe not, but the effect it has had on our stories is profound.

Let’s look at two characters millions of people know.

The Lord of the Rings (Sam & Frodo)

Sam & Frodo as Tropes

On the trope level, in the story of Sam and Frodo, we find the idea that forced proximity (trope) and the fact that they have common enemies (trope) are what build these relative strangers (the master and servant trope) into lifelong friends who are like brothers (trope). There are other tropes there, but you get the idea.

Tropes, then, are smaller, but important ideas that build characterization, plot, and relationships.

Sam & Frodo as Archetypes

Within the larger archetypes, we see the steadfast, stubborn, unbreakable devotion and dedication of Sam the Taurus—an archetype that both grows within him as he begins to love Frodo and is revealed by the story's circumstances.

We also have the kindness, mercy, empathy, and determined sacrifice of Frodo the Pisces (archetype), whose goal is to hold himself together long enough to save the entire world. (Yes, Nerds, I know. Frodo and Bilbo have the same birthday. I told you, I don’t care about that.😎Bilbo is a Sagittarius, Frodo is a Pisces.)

That archetypal love/friendship story between Frodo and Sam, and what they accomplish together, is the big picture that drives our emotional connection and our abiding love for these memorable characters.

What Sam and Frodo show us is moral beauty in the face of impossible odds. They not only maintain who they are but also find themselves.

In the hands of great writers, what the characters learn and become are found within the story’s archetypes, and the key that elevates it to something universal.

Writers who do not get hung up on trope-based writing and turn to the archetypes are the writers who create something lasting.

CARL JUNG, Astrology, and Today’s Archetypes

Before I get started on Jung, let me say that my aim at In Our Stars is not to support OR debunk astrology as a science.

It’s simply to use these highly developed archetypes to help us write and understand fiction.

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The influential psychologist Carl Jung put together a list of what he called archetypes.

The word “trope” wasn’t in common usage and certainly not among psychologists, so his list of “archetypes” is really a list of higher-level tropes. He just called them archetypes. Jung was strongly influenced by astrology in the trope list he developed. Jung's characterization of them as archetypes has made the two terms synonymous in the popular lexicon.

Jung’s list: caregiver, creator, explorer, hero, innocent, jester, lover, magician, orphan, ruler, rebel, sage

You can get more specific with tropes by combining them.

Examples include the hero-fool or jester (Forest Gump), the innocent ruler (Tommen Baratheon), and the hero-orphan-magician (Harry Potter), to name three among the millions of characters who embody these tropes.

You may notice that Jung identified twelve “archetypes,” but they don’t correspond to the twelve signs. As Sam and Frodo (and Pippin, Merry, and Eowyn) demonstrate, any archetype can produce a hero, however unlikely.

You could put hero, explorer, and jester under Sagittarius, for instance, but lots of other signs are known to be heroic types, and funny too. So there is no real alignment.

Some tropes are products of the dance of archetypes and other tropes. Many derive from the modern era, such as the antihero. Some were excluded from Jung’s analysis of myths and folktales.

It’s the character arc they go through that is the root of the story, and that is based on archetypes.

The journey through the planetary houses […] signifies the overcoming of a psychic obstacle, or of an autonomous complex, suitably represented by a planetary god or demon. —Carl Jung, C.W. Vol.14: Mysterium Coniunctionis

Jung compelled everyone to take a position on astrology, pro or con.

Jung reintroduced astrological archetypes into common discussions of storytelling, while simultaneously ensuring they would never be discussed in serious literary or psychological academia.

The Roman Catholic church had already turned away from its original beliefs in astrology and demonized these pagan beliefs of ordinary people as distracting from a belief in monotheism.

In reverse order, though, astrologers began to incorporate Judeo-Christian, Hindu, Taoist, and Egyptian cosmology into discussions of astrology. The archetypes kept developing.

Science, as we know it today, came along in the Enlightenment and brushed away all of that. They said, What? Your birthday determines your personality and life path? That’s not provable or real! Bah Humbug to ALL of it!

Take a Stand? What’s the Either/Or Choice?

Because Jung continued to stand by scientific empiricism — even though, to be fair, empiricism is philosophy — he and his church, other psychologists, and astronomers reacting to him helped solidify the idea that everyone must take a position on astrology: pro or con.

Two Unprovable Claims

To make that harder, Jung made two conflicting claims about astrology, confusing himself (and us).

ONE: Astrology is a symbolic, poetic language.

The first claim is that astrology is a symbolic, poetic language that can manifest in dreams and art and evoke intuition. It is part of the collective unconscious — hence it’s a set of universal story motifs and archetypal in nature.

TWO: Astrological signs for individuals are determined by math and birthdays.

Jung also believed in a mystical underpinning to synchronicity, so he used astronomy, mathematics, and the resulting Gregorian calendar birthdates to choose the signs ascribed to individuals in his “Analytic Psychology” practice.

He conducted research comparing charts of married couples to identify astrological and seasonal associations, in an attempt to demonstrate the scientific nature of astrology.

He found some statistically improbable sun-moon conjunctions and oppositions among those couples. These are coincidences that don’t prove the case, but they keep Jung and many others today from completely abandoning the claim that astrology is a science.

It [the chart] represents, in essence, a system of original and fundamental qualities in a person’s character, and can therefore be regarded as an equivalent of the individual psyche. - Carl Jung, 1955

Jung said it was the science of antiquity, even though no modern empirical scientist would say that astrology is valid, reliable, or accurate when put to the repeatable test.

For Jung, basing it on anecdotal observation and experience was enough to call it science. This also fits Jung’s view of the Soul’s Journey.

So, is astrology hogwash, symbolic physics, astronomy, psychology, or art?

Yes?

Because Jung used actual astronomy and math drawn charts, you, as Jung’s patient, could not conclude you were a Sagittarius based on your self-analysis, intuition, and the tropes you play out in life— not even based on your dreams, which Jung did regard as important.

If you dreamed you were a centaur seeking truth and freedom, Jung would look for where Sagittarius fell in your chart. He would not decide you were a Sagittarius at heart. To me, this was a real shame.

So Jung further marginalized himself (and astrology) by claiming that astrology is both science and poetry. That made it so we can’t talk about astrology anymore, even in the arts, without being pressed into taking a position: Do you believe in astrology or not? Is it real?

It would be frivolous of me to try to conceal from the reader that such reflections are not only exceedingly unpopular but even come perilously close to those turbid fantasies which becloud the minds of world-reformers and other interpreters of “signs and portends.” But I must take this risk, even if it means putting my hard-won reputation for truthfulness, reliability, and capacity for scientific judgment in jeopardy. - Carl Jung. 1958

RELATED POST: Calendar Shenanigans: The sun sign isn’t where it used to be . . .

I wish Jung had taken that extra step to the thought that, yes, we can fit ourselves into these signs and combinations of signs, but that birthdays do not determine that. Maybe his own character arc would have led him there if he had lived longer.

Today’s Jungian psychologists have a mix of beliefs. Many believe in the birthdate-based chart, and some don’t, as you might expect.

Final Q & A with Jung

What Jung observed in his study of the system for constructing an astrological chart was how complete a picture of a personality and their life lessons it provided.

It was so detailed and awe-inspiring that it made him believe in it. I’d like to ask him this, though . . .

• Could that astrological chart serve as a visual language to describe a well-developed fictional character better than a live one?

• Could astrology have been a myth-making and storytelling character-building and theme-building technique all along, even when people could not see it out of the original context?

Now, if someone asks your birthday, you know right away why they are asking, and you immediately sort them into a box: Us or Them. Don’t you? What if that choice is a false dichotomy, no matter how common?

What if someone asked, “What sign do you identify with the most?” There would be a pause while you tried to figure that one out. “What sign would you like to be?”

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Subverting Tropes and Archetypes is Dangerous. Be careful.

Subverting tropes is fun and creative, but large sections of your audience will resist, so you must be careful.

Must romantic comedy follow a formula?

I’m thinking of the backlash against the movie My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), starring Julia Roberts as the protagonist — or was she the antagonist?

I recommend this film. It’s a great story, but it’s more of a dramedy than it seems or was billed to be. It’s actually about the deepest aspects of the Libra archetype: partnership, justice, putting others first, etc.

Be careful with how you subvert expectations, because you might make the audience dislike the character (and its writer).

Spoiler: Bottom line: they did not follow up on the friends-to-lovers trope, and audiences reacted with displeasure.

ASIDE: I prefer to use older films in my examples whenever possible, in the hope that more people will have seen them. 70% of the surveyed population reports having seen The Lord of the Rings trilogy, so I often use that. Julia Roberts is popular, so I am hopeful you have seen this movie. If not, watch it, and you’ll see what I mean about it breaking out of the tropes and the Libra themes involved.

Is Galadriel an Aquarius or not?

I am also thinking about how the writers handled the character of Galadriel in the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. (2022-)

You will have a problem with your audience when they have already decided who the character is, and you write her as a completely different archetype in the prequel.

The 8000-year-old, end-of-the-third-age Galadriel, as portrayed in The Lord of the Rings books and Peter Jackson's films, is emblematic of the highly evolved Aquarian Water-Bearer archetype — a cool, clear, community-minded, and ethereal visionary. Her power is spiritual and atomic.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. (2022-) made second-age Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) into a hot-headed, young, egotistical Leo warrior who is also a visionary, but her power is mainly elven physical prowess and high-elf intelligence.

Okay, hang in there a minute with me on this. This actually makes a lot of sense in a character arc that spans thousands of years. Leo and Aquarius’ life lessons are linked, and one leads to the other. It also completely aligns with Jung’s analysis that, to learn our lessons, we must integrate perceived conflicts or oppositions within our nature. Leo and Aquarius are opposite on the wheel.

However, if you don’t have deep enough knowledge of these archetypes, you will write them unskillfully — and they did.

In Rings of Power, season 1, Galadriel the Leo was obsessed with her identity as a warrior, and she was focused on only one performance goal: find and kill Sauron. She didn’t direct people to do things; she commanded them with a queenly and imperious manner.

She was even (apparently) directed not to look at the people she was ordering about and pontificating to about her fiery personal obsession.

To try to make us like her, they added a fairly minor “Save the Cat” moment where she goes back to help a fellow elf who got too cold, but this wasn’t enough, and the effort fell flat. It didn’t help her fellow elves like her much either. They mutinied.

If the writers had thought through the archetype arc from one sign to the other a little more, large sections of the audience wouldn’t have seen a self-centered brat with a sword and decided not to like her or care what happens to her. Audiences would have liked her enough to give the writers more time to show her arc before judging it.

Only just under 40% of the audience finished season one, and 60% of the remaining audience didn’t move on to season two, which is a real shame because it was much more focused, and the acting, scene writing, and directing are chef’s kiss in many places.

There were other reasons for the audience loss as well. We should give these shows the episodes needed to tell the story (in season one, only six were needed). Still, almost all the fans I have seen online at some point mention unlikable or unrecognizable Galadriel.

For fans who finished season 2, they will have seen Galadriel getting closer to her Aquarius phase. Most of those who stayed understood how she got from A to B instinctively anyway.

However, breaking out of the archetype audiences expected to see in order to create a character arc that started in a very different place wasn’t as well planned out as the writers believed, and for many fans, it didn’t work at all.

Why do we need to know about archetypes and tropes?

Writing is hard. (No kidding, genius.) No, seriously. It’s not just that having a starter archetype or trope makes it easier; it also makes a character more understandable to an audience. It’s shorthand. That becomes the artistry of it.

I’m not saying that Rings of Power isn’t a good show overall or that subverting expectations shouldn’t be done.

The better the character fits the archetype and the more specificity added by the writer, the more memorable the character will be to audiences.

There is much more to learn about these archetypes than the popular culture interpretations of their signs. Learning more in-depth astrology can help writers, directors, and actors create more memorable and relatable stories and help audiences enjoy them more, too.

The Four♐Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Fallout on Amazon Prime

Sagittarian Themes: Freedom, Travel, World Building, Expansion, Luck, Ethics, Education. The Four Horsemen ♐♐♐♐ of the Apocalypse: The Ghoul (Cooper Howard); Lucy MacLean; Maximus, & Norm MacLean

Fallout may be the best-crafted show on television.

The astrological themes in this show are certainly timely as we struggle to protect our freedoms and resist corporate dominance. . .

Read More About FALLOUT

The Sagittarius Archetype

Writing Sagittarius: The Sagittarius personality type, Sagittarius themes, and how the archetype and related tropes have evolved, PLUS its relationship with Gemini […]

Cowboys, Knights in Shining Armor, Freedom Fighters, Hermit Scholars, Wizards, Hunters, Traveling Adventurers, Truth-to-Power Whistleblowers. . . Ah, Storytellers do love Sagittarius.

Characters you know by nicknames or first names alone: Katniss, Bilbo, Gandalf, and now The Ghoul are all contributing to our modern understanding of the Sagittarius character and story tropes.

Read About the Sagittarius Archetype

Calendar Shenanigans: The sun sign isn’t where it used to be …

Signs of the Times

Birthday-based astrology in the West is traditionally based on the alignment of the Sun, constellations, and Earth during ancient Babylonian and Greco-Roman times.

HOWEVER, over the last few thousand years, the Earth has rotated, and the math has changed. Are you really the sign you think you are? (This article is a short one.)

Calendar Shenanigans Revealed

Speaking of calendars, the Asian Year of the Fire Horse begins in February of 2026. I will think of it as the year to celebrate Sagittarius! It will be a Red Horse Year indeed. Viva la Sagittarius! To freedom and truth!

Love has never been a popular movement, and no one’s ever wanted, really, to be free. The world is held together, really it is, by the love and the passion of a very few people. . . of course, you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you have got to remember is what you are looking at is also you. Everyone you’re looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster. You could be that cop. And you have to decide in yourself, not to be. — James Balwin

FALLOUT (Amazon Prime) | a 5-Star ADAPTATION

FALLOUT is one of the best shows on television right now. Not simply because it's a great adaptation of a game, entertaining, scary, and funny. Not simply because the design of the whole experience is fabulous to look at and listen to.

It’s also because we, too, feel like we are in end-stage capitalism and that some kind of world-ending catastrophe is not so far away. We are more polarized than ever, and we feel surrounded by monsters.

And our ability to fight this future off feels to many of us like the exhausted and heckled politician in the show feels, blandly saying you have never heard of them because they aren’t paid for by corporations. It seems to me that character is America and her ideals, and she is as depressed as hell.

I think a big part of the reason FALLOUT is so good is how closely it holds to ancient archetypes we all recognize while also addressing our fears and the emotional and political realities of today. The familiar archetypes bring us into the story.

“Everyone you’re looking at is also you.” You, asking yourself moral questions: Who and what will I be inside this big fat mess? This is one of the best things about video games like this. You don’t just practice with weapons and strategies; you have to make moral decisions at every turn.

I’ll get to the Sagittarius archetype when I talk about the characters, but first, a review and an encouragement to watch it if you haven’t!

Contains SPOILERS for seasons one and two. I think this article will make a LOT more sense if you have already seen the first season.

The Story

Tim Cain designed the Fallout game. Based on his name and where he lives, he might be my cousin. There is a lot of loose talk in this show about cousins. Cain created the foundation for everything Fallout. Some say it’s the best RPG (Role-Playing Game) ever made. The whole concept is deeply creative.

Whatever else Fallout is, it is also a critique of militarism, war, and factionalism. That is what Cain says. The loss of truth, choice, transparency, and freedom is the result of that. As it happens, those are Sagittarius themes, too.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.
~ American President George Washington, 1776

In Fallout, a few people make all the decisions for everyone else and use their factions and inventive weapons of destruction and control to enforce them, and The People did not choose the deciders.

Cain says Fallout is not about the brutal, uncaring dominance of corporate capitalist culture. Sure, Timmy. Whatever you say, cousin. It seems fitting that the American creator doesn’t see that part; it’s so ingrained in us that it becomes invisible.

But not to Nolan.

Producer, writer, and director Jonathan Nolan played the game—as did the showrunners. The showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, have mentioned Nolan’s “specific,” “laser-focused” vision in interviews.

Jonathan Nolan is one of our best English-language screenwriters. The fact that he is British and American, and has lived in both places, helps him observe from a bit of a distance and know American culture intimately.

It’s a story for the whole world, and American influence cannot be overstated.

Whatever Tim Cain intended, Fallout is absolutely about end-stage capitalism, and its relationship to high tech. It’s not a pretty picture.

Acting and the depicted character arcs are the way we follow a story personally—it is where we imagine ourselves in the story.

The Acting

Thanks to all involved and the Casting Director, John Papsidera.

And my Emmy nods go to . . .

• Walton Goggins as Cooper Howard/ and The Ghoul

• Ella Purnell as Lucy MacLean

• Aaron Moten as Maximus (He is my One to Watch actor!)

• Moises Arias as Norman MacLean

• Kyle MacLachlin as Hank MacLean (Dark Dale Cooper, for Twin Peaks fans)

• Xelia Mendes-Jones as Dane (You can also catch this actor tearing up the screen in The Wheel of Time)

• Johnny Pemberton as Thaddeus

• Leslie Uggams as Betty Pearson

Also brilliant performances by Dave Register, Frances Turner, Jon Daly, Reg Luzzi, Annabel O’Hagan, and Dale Dickey.

Hey, thanks for casting Erik Estrada and Fred Armisen, too. That was great. I can’t decide about McCauley Caukin in that role. Creepier? Meh? I feel bad for him that you can’t stop thinking of him as a kid. He wasn’t on screen long enough.

The Show Design is Awe-Inspiring

Costumes and Makeup

The costumes are pretty. They were designed by Amy Westcott, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Black Swan (2011).

What I love about her work is that she does not need to steal the spotlight; her costumes serve the story perfectly. Sounds weird, but she made the apocalypse watchable!

Jake Gerber (Walking Dead) and Vincent Van Dyke designed the makeup, while Mike Harvey leads the team. I am glad The Ghoul is not gruesome, since we have to look at him for so long.

SOME PHOTOS

• Get a look at what actors Dale Dickey, Michael Emerson, and Ella Purnell are wearing. I’m going to cosplay Dale Dickey!

• Get a look at the Ghoul makeup on Walton Goggins.

• Check out Aaron Moten and The Brotherhood

Corporate Overseer Amazon has not yet approved my use of these photos (Ha!).

Sets

A lot has been said about the set design. The 50s and 60s aesthetic in Bethesda’s game design carried over into this particular story, and the American propaganda posters and household props in the background are cohesive across factions and brilliant in every frame.

You can rewatch the whole show just to look for Easter eggs. Thank you, Production Designer Howard Cummings and his team.

Cinematography

Jonathan Nolan’s vision, channeled through Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh and his team, was shot on film, with the Wasteland scenes shot on location in America and Namibia.

The Wasteland camera work was inspired by spaghetti western tropes in general and from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly specifically. The extreme long shots and closeups not only fit the period, but also remind us that it is a western in style, which again brings us back to the Sagittarius archetype (I am almost there).

Sound

Add the brilliant music by Ramin Djawadi and sound design by Susan Cahill and Daniel Colman. The flavor of the game's sound effects, the dry humor of the integrated songs, and the careful integration of character theme music are exceptionally well constructed and set the overall tone.

The music's editing is subtle when needed, which I appreciate. Djawadi worked with director Jonathan Nolan and sound supervisor Susan Cahill on Westworld.

I have linked to some detailed articles about these designers above. Why reinvent the wheel? I hope you can read those too.

Prediction: Fallout will continue to sweep design awards.

What’s the Apocalypse Downside?

“I just threw acid in an innocent man’s face, and I’ve only been up here two weeks. The wasteland sucks.” -Lucy MacLean

TRIGGER AND BOUNCE WARNINGS

1. Season two has a weekly release schedule, which removes the instant gratification we had with season 1, when all episodes were released together. Steel yourself.

2. This show is almost cartoonishly gross, once or twice an episode. The violence can hit viscerally, so be warned.

Hopefully, the slow motion, brilliant song choices, and music composition will help you distance yourself enough to tolerate it. Please don’t give up and bounce; it’s worth staying.

3. If you are like me (and I know I am), you hate zombies. I hate zombies. So, usually, I’d bounce after I realized there were ghouls and feral ghouls (basically zombies), but I didn’t, and I am glad I stayed. They handled all that with some serious expertise. If you love zombies, well, you are in luck. There are Elvis ones!

4. There is a vulnerable dog. SPOILER: The Dog is still alive — so far — so don’t bounce. He gets healed.

Okey Dokey. Go watch, but please subscribe first.

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Now for the♐THEMES & CHARACTERS

The main protagonists all have Sagittarius values. Traditionally, it is said that America has a Sagittarius Rising. That refers to the cowboy tropes and the freedom-loving, gun-loving, truth-telling image of Americans worldwide. This was certainly true in the 1950s when our own timeline diverged from the one in Fallout. The themes of the archetype of Sagittarius are at the core of the plot of Fallout. That is what I mean by genius structure.

We also have an image as a country of inventive, entrepreneurial spirits and an image of having rich corporations with too much control, but I’ll talk about that when I get to the Capricorn archetype next month.

The truth is, the writers didn’t have to know astrology consciously. It helps, but it isn’t crucial. Those ancient storytelling tropes and archetypes are ingrained in us. Sagittarius and Capricorn share space at the top of the astrological wheel. America is emblematic of the push-pull between them since we first began to form top-level organizations and governments.

A Cowboy and his Horse Dog.

I was watching someone who reacted to Fallout on YouTube (early in season 1, episode two) say that The Ghoul needed a horse or a dog, because, of course, he does. We all recognize Sagittarius characters, whether we call them that or not, and a Sagittarius needs an animal sidekick.

May I point out that he keeps that dog long after its usefulness in finding that particular McGuffin has ended?

COOPER HOWARD (THE GHOUL): The Cowboy

“Us cowpokes, we take it as it comes.” -Cooper Howard, Fallout, Amazon Prime

Our exposition on the big picture and timeline for Fallout is delivered through the character arc of Cowboy Actor Cooper Howard, who is turned into a Ghoul by radiation. He is the first on screen and at the core of the story. His story ties the Before the Bombs Dropped and After the Bombs Dropped timelines together.

We start season one by seeing the beginning and end of his arc so far, and as events unfold, we go back and revisit the middle. I am not sure I have ever seen a show jump between timelines as skillfully as they did in season one.

Season two has a couple of awkward transitions covered by great camera work, but it doesn’t matter so much because what these writers do so well is leave us with a hundred questions at the end of every scene. We can’t wait to find out what’s happening elsewhere.

Cooper Howard’s fame and his marriage to a higher-up in the corporation at the heart of the story mean he knows or meets most of the players. The irony is endless as corporate bad guy after corporate bad guy fawns over the white hat cowboy who represented everything people loved about free and generous America. It’s great writing.

His transformation into his black-hat side, and the counterpoint to the young, idealistic Lucy and the earnest Maximus, make the choice between ethics and cynicism central to all the character arcs and, certainly, to this truth-and-freedom-loving Sagittarius archetype.

Walter Groggins plays Howard and The Ghoul with equal one-pointed concentration and a complete awareness of the horrible absurdity of every situation he finds himself in. It makes us want his gravelly-voiced cowboy on screen at all times.

America has always prided itself on valuing freedom above all else, and the Wild West (called the Wasteland in Fallout) is a problematic symbol of that freedom.

Do we really want freedom? For everyone? If so, why do we keep giving it and taking it away?

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LUCY MacLean: The Reformer

“I may end up looking like you, but I’ll never be like you.” - Lucy MacLean

The next main character we meet is the naive and idealistic Squeaky MacLean (See what I did there?). I almost said “innocent.” She isn’t. She is well-read and highly educated. She is naive; she believes people will come around if she just says the right thing.

She, too, carries the Sagittarius archetype's idea of America as a blunt truth-teller, a generous, freedom-loving nation that needs only to be rebuilt to regain its moral glory. Everyone she meets tells her she is out of her mind. And yet, they like her. They make a few changes in their actions to get her approval. The force is strong in that one.

Ella Purnell plays this Statue of Liberty on foot with a mid-west accent and a fresh-faced eagerness that makes me, as an American (Purnell is British), feel called out.

I think Lucy has an Aquarius Sun, Libra Moon, and Sagittarius rising. I’ll talk about her more in the Aquarius newsletter.

RELATED POST: HOW to Write Astrology Archetypes: Sun Signs, Moon Signs, and Rising Signs

MAXIMUS: The Knight in Shining Armor

“It is a knight’s duty to better this fallen world.” -Maximus, Fallout

Right now, Maximus is Don Quixote, the earnest and delusional knight created by the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, or “Cervantes.” As Thaddeus would say, Guess What! Thadeus is Fallout’s version of Quixote’s companion, Sancho Panza.

Maximus wants to be the knight who is motivated by finding the truth or achieving freedom for all—and that may be his eventual path.

Sagittarius rules religions, and Max is a true believer. He can’t quite comprehend the hypocrisy and cynicism around him. He is a little too flexible, easy to manipulate, and sways in the direction of the thoughts of the last person he spoke with.

But he just can’t stop acting independently. He says, “I don’t want to do the things I have to do! They just keep happening!”

I am also giving Maximus a Capricorn Rising because the world sees him as an ambitious climber. He fails up. We know he has Daddy issues and is looking for approval, and the way he navigates the Brotherhood definitely fits the Capricorn profile. Now in season 2, he is once again hooked up with an older man. Let’s find out what happens.

Capricorn is next month, so I’ll talk about Maximus more in-depth then.

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NORM McClean: Deep Diver

“Maybe we could do to them what they would have done to us.”

-Norm MacLean, Fallout

People always forget about Norman MacLean, Lucy’s brother, played by the capable and fascinating actor Moises Arias. Arias has mastered the power of stillness. This actor portrays Norm as a quiet, determined person.

Norm is the Scorpio Detective trope in many ways. He wants to dig deeper. He can’t leave well enough alone.

Norm didn’t get his name on the screen as an introduction. His face isn’t on the poster. He is the underground hero, so to speak. (See what I did there?) This is my only quibble. In S1E8, when he was standing in Vault 31, realizing what was happening, that’s when we should have seen “NORM” fill the screen. It made me wonder how long he will live.

Chaos Agent?

Introverts are interesting when the camera closes in.

I’m thinking Norm is our secret agent for chaos. Having a Sagittarius moon and Gemini Rising puts Norm in a classic Independent Study class. He learned all about the computers so he could snoop around and get the big picture, not as the “job” the Vault leaders gave him.

That Sagittarius-Gemini Moon-Rising combination can be dangerous to the status quo! They know bullsh!t when they hear it and can dish some out themselves if the situation calls for it.

When Norm reveals his father’s backstory and storylines overlap, and Hank and Betty appear in the Cooper Howard storyline, you can hear the collective audience saying, “There’s Betty!”

Norm’s nemesis, Betty, is played by the great Leslie Uggams. I don’t think it’s going to be a small part. That doesn’t bode well for Norm. He is going to have to shake things up and get out of there.

I’m going to save the longer article about Norm until I get to the Scorpio Newsletter in November 2026. Hopefully, that will be right before season three, and hopefully he will still be alive.

What do you think? I have a question. Do you think Norm was named after the author of A River Runs Through It? Hank is a big reader. If so, why? Seems too coincidental to me.

Fallout has put each of our characters in situations that will test their skills and moral fortitude, forcing them to examine every action. The show is popular just when we need to examine our actions as Americans and as world citizens, deciding how to deal with America and its Corporate Overseers.

SEASON 2 of Fallout is on Amazon Prime as of December 17, 2025. Get a Fallout recap before diving into this season.

Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream,
That vanished with the morn:

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, “Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!”

Yes, as my swift days near their goal:
‘Tis all that I implore;
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.

-Emily Bronte, “The Old Stoic”

Sagittarius Symbols

We do not put centaurs in too many stories, but we have not abandoned the bow and arrow or the horse. The cowboy hats of the Americas and wide-brim hats in general—meant to keep the rain off when you travel— are now a symbol for Sagittarius. Sagittarius has always been The Wanderer, and the values of courage, freedom, and truth have always been part of the archetype.

The personality traits represented by the Horse in the Chinese zodiac certainly align with Sagittarius. There are thousands of associations, but we know the archetype when we see it, even if cultures do not call it Sagittarius.

If you are unsure about the distinction between archetypes, stereotypes, and tropes, or just want to know how I am using those words, read . . .

RELATED POST: Archetype Astrology? | Archetypes vs Tropes vs Stereotypes

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1: The Modern Sagittarius | Familiar Faces in Fiction

• Sagittarius Genres and Themes

• Character Tropes & Stereotypes

• Sagittarius Personality Traits

• Dark Sagittarius

• Character Case Studies (Bilbo, Gandalf, Katniss, etc.)

PART 2: ♐Archetype Building Blocks

• Jupiter, Gods, and Centaurs

• Values, Lessons, and Themes

• Hercules & The Killing of the Stymphalian Birds

A more detailed table of contents is available by clicking the lines that appear in the left margin when reading on a desktop.

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PART 1: The Modern Sagittarius | Familiar Faces in Fiction

Sagittarius GENRES and THEMES

Sagittarian story themes focus on self-mastery and fighting cynicism, tyranny, dishonesty, and dishonor. These stories are often about developing the courage to do what is right after figuring out exactly what that might be.

Sagittarius genres tend to be travel and road-trip stories, thrillers, westerns, adventure, science fiction, and fantasy. The settings for Sagittarius stories can have wide-open vistas (and often do) or cramped quarters below a submarine deck. The point is that, in some way, the setting is wild or dangerous — or both.

Of course, there are horror, mystery, and romance that may feature a Sagittarian character, but these genres often incorporate themes from other signs. The usual tropes for a Sagittarius character in a different sign’s theme are to function as a jester, sidekick, or guru. Maybe they just have a big mouth.

In other words, they might get murdered in the first 10 minutes of a Scorpio story because they confronted a murderer with the truth (while they are alone out in the middle of nowhere) and said they plan to bring the killer to justice. Good job, Sagittarius.

Sagittarius CHARACTER TROPES & STEREOTYPES

Until recently, Sagittarius has appeared in most stories as male, but not always. That is how the archetype was designed, first by male astrologers and then by patriarchal warrior societies.

If you want to write an unforgettable Sagittarius character, male or female, you have to look past the way people, who weren’t culturally perceptive enough to know the difference between archetypes and stereotypes, first conceived it.

When I get to the section below on case studies, I’ll talk about Eowyn in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as the iconic female Sagittarius example.

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SAGITTARIUS PERSONALITY TRAITS | Go Big or Go Home

Big & Lucky

Because Jupiter rules Sagittarius, everything about a Sagittarius character will be larger than life. They usually have strong voices, loud, hearty laughs, and are almost always big and tall; the basic point is to make sure they don’t blend into a crowd. If they do, it won’t be for long.

They are often portrayed as immense individuals. Think Brienne of Tarth (A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin), Gandalf (The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien), Hagrid (The Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling), or Cormoran Strike (Cormoran Strike series, Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling).

Of course, writers can play with this. Sagittarians Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins are, respectively, very big and very small, but both are big personalities, and their presence is strongly felt throughout the entire story. Sagittarians Brienne of Tarth and Arya Stark follow the same pattern.

Apparently, if you worship Jupiter correctly, you will be luckier than anyone who worships any other god. In stories, a Sagittarius’s luck often starts as catastrophic and becomes ridiculously good—no middle ground.

Katniss Everdeen is the perfect example of that in The Hunger Games. Mat Cauthon, in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series, is another example. Both have disastrous luck at first, but over the course of time, we see that no one could be luckier.

Of course, luck benefits from self-confidence, and Sagittarius has that in spades.

In fact, a writer of the super lucky Sagittarius character has to write fantasy or farce or try to walk the line and stop while it’s still marginally believable.

My favorite example of Jupiter’s luck appears in Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of The Hobbit. Bilbo (Sagittarius) and the Dwarves, for 99% of three movies, avoid broken bones, crushing, falling, being eaten, being shot, and death. Gandalf (also Sagittarius) and Bilbo survive the entire adventure, of course. These characters are SO lucky in this children’s book; it is as big and silly as Tolkien meant it to be.

People talk about living a “small life.” When your life suddenly expands, you might find yourself thanking Jupiter or cursing him. You can get a raise or a windfall, but you can also get fat or end up with a thousand things to do.

There is nothing small about a Sagittarius life. It’s like winning a billion dollars. Is it really lucky? How in the world would you manage all that? Wouldn’t you rather win a bit less? It makes a more interesting story, though, right?

Bold & Blunt

Sagittarians hate wandering around a party making small talk, so they’d rather pick a fight, or grab a lampshade and dance on the table, and — like all centaurs everywhere— They’ll drink too much and talk too much.

They will embarrass you and themselves by telling all your secrets, and theirs too.

They have the foot-in-mouth disease of blurting out the truth at inconvenient, uncomfortable moments, probably at the top of their lungs.

Think Hagrid, again.

This is a character who starts their hero’s journey by opening their big mouth, telling off a manager or customer, and getting fired.

This is the best friend who tells someone their coat smells, or they have mascara on the tip of their nose. This is the character who tells their friend (five minutes before the wedding) that it’s a mistake to marry that man. Annoyingly, they are almost always right.

This is the character who suddenly spouts the most uncomfortable truth about another to their face, resulting in both of them standing there in shocked silence.

Dexterity in speech starts in Gemini, but Sagittarius is known for everything from using words to evade commitment to the off-the-cuff, inspirational throw-yourself-into-battle speech. When a Sagittarius character speaks the blunt truth to another in a story, the audience might say aloud, “Facts!” or “She’s not wrong.”

The Lesson

Like Gemini, Sagittarius is supposed to master skilled speech. One of the Gemini and Sagittarius lessons blended together is what might be called “right speech” by the Buddhists.

You say the right thing at the right time to the right person, and you don’t abuse your skills. Truth + kindness. Not so easy to master.

Cheerful, Optimistic, & Easy-Going

“We Cowpokes, we take it as it comes,” says Sagittarian Cooper Howard, and then he repeats it when he is The Ghoul in Fallout (Amazon Prime Video). He means it differently each time, but he is a (mainly) flexible character playing with the cards he is handed.

Howard used to be a very easy-going and optimistic guy before circumstances changed him into the dark Sagittarius/Scorpio villain he is now.

Take Jovial optimism and add the mutability of this sign, and you have someone who gets along with everyone, as long as they don’t push for too much commitment or ask them to do something unethical or betray them.

Most stories are about people learning, changing, adapting to circumstances, and overcoming the lucky or unlucky odds and their own weaknesses. Everyone needs a little mutability, but there is always the risk that people will take advantage of you. Whether you can hold onto your soul when you stop being easy-going is great drama

Hilarity Ensues

Jupiter, being a son of Saturn, was a pretty serious guy, so how did Sagittarius get to be considered the funniest sign? It’s more about Jupiter making the people happy. If you are aligned with Jupiter and have his approval, you will be both lucky and light-hearted. The word jovial comes from the root jov (from Jupiter).

The idea of the good humor of Sagittarius is something that evolved, not just from having the favor of Jupiter, but also from the happiness that results from being an honorable person, having immense good luck, being open-minded about people who are different from you, keeping a positive outlook (aka known as “keeping your sense of humor”), and also from those stories of clever centaurs drinking too much wine and partying like it’s 1201 BCE.

If you are deeply knowledgable about human nature and the absurdities of life, you can’t help but laugh.

Intolerant of Trivia or Foolishness

Foolishness should be differentiated from playfulness here. Sagittarians love to fool around, as long as it’s witty, artful, or meaningful. But show a lack of considered thought or an obsession with meaningless conversation, and you will either wonder where they went or have to recover from being told what a fool you are.

Ethical and Truthful

The thing Sagittarius characters do best, in my opinion, is help give people the courage to speak the truth and face the consequences of that. A main character in a theme that involves calling out fraud, lies, and corruption with radical honesty, or a story where the truth changes history, is usually a Sagittarius.

The Sagittarius hero is an ethical character who stands up — at some point — in a legislature, or board room, church meeting, staff meeting, or in the face of the president or king—and tells the uncomfortable truth.

Putting your life and livelihood on the line because of your principles is a BIG choice, and courage is Sagittarius’s middle name.

These protagonists have no use for half measures, so no white lies for them. They seek and tell the truth and nothing but the truth, even if it hurts. They can’t help themselves.

An Aventurer of the Mind and Body

Many Sagittarian characters start as professors or armchair explorers and then become adventurers. Those armchair-to-action-adventure freedom-loving characters appeal to all of us readers, and writers love to include them.

Sagittarius is the least extroverted of the three fire signs, because of all that BIG smarts. They can’t talk to that many people. They may be a gregarious comedian in public, but unlike Leo and Aries, they don’t have a long list of close friends in their own sphere.

The ninth house rules culture, foreign travel, philosophy, psychology, religion, higher education teaching, and knowledge. You can’t talk to just anyone about topics you have read everything ever written on. While this house does rule higher education, most Sagittarian characters—being fiercely independent—are self-taught.

In Tolkien’s book, The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins was well known for studying all the time. He pored over his books and maps and avoided everyone but Frodo. He loved the elves and wanted to know all about them.

He was a little guy, so he never seriously considered going to see these things or meet the elves until Gandalf practically pushed him out the door. Once on the road, however, he was quite good at adventuring, showing intelligence and bravery at every turn.

In The Lord of the Rings, he retired to Elrond’s house, probably to have someone he could talk to. For him, Rivendell and Elrond’s 6000 years of knowledge was Bilbo living his best life inside a magnificent library. It’s easy to picture Elrond gently shooing him away or distracting him with food after the hundredth question.

Languages

While Sagittarian Gandalf could speak every language in Middle-earth, including Warg, Elrond could read them all. I chose a Sagittarius rising for Elrond. (I say he’s an Aquarius like Galadriel)

Sagittarius loves to travel and learn languages. It seems at odds with the simple cowboy, but the main character cowhands in stories are often Sagittarius. (Yes, I mean cowboy, but I am trying not to use that male label)

There may be many side cowhand characters with different sun signs, but if a cowhand (I wish cowhand didn’t sound silly) suddenly makes a speech in the advanced and challenging language of Navajo — or any language other than their own, really — you have to suspect this character is a Sagittarius. One language is usually not enough to contain a Sagittarius.

A Hermit and Solo Wanderer

Many Sagittarians are solitary, especially at the beginning of their arc. Being alone gives you time to think without noisier minds around you rattling off opinions and talking about things they know nothing about.

Besides, it’s easier to read books when you are alone.

Courageous, Independent, and Defiant

This starts at “Don’t tell me what to do or where to be and when.” It doesn’t end there. As a Sagittarius character evolves, they find themselves in situations where it is hard for most people to stand up and do the right thing, but it’s the right thing to do, so Sagittarians will do it.

In stories, we want to see characters stand up for themselves and others, be free to say and do whatever they want, and avoid negative consequences for this risk-taking, so they often succeed, giving us hope for ourselves in the real world.

Outside fiction, few of those choices go unpunished, which is why it takes real courage. We know what really happens to most whistleblowers, activists, and freedom fighters.

Sagittarius characters who make speeches about freedom and take steps to protect it help us take those steps when it’s our turn because they are the right thing to do. Do the next right thing. That is a motto an evolved Sagittarius can live by. Or maybe do what you want, but be ready to pay for it.

What is courage?

To spread yourself out in the world, you need freedom and independence, and for Sagittarius, those things must be defended at any cost.

An Aries is brave. Bravery is not the same as courage. Aries is fearless.

Real courage is acting when you are full of fear. It is taking action when you are fully aware of all the consequences and even know for sure that you will pay for the choices you make.

A Sagittarius is knowledgeable, so they think much more deeply about the consequences of their actions. An evolved Sagittarius might lose a leg in the fighting, but never their courage.

However, we can go further than that.

In a famous conversation between two Sagittarians in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Gandalf told Bilbo that true courage is knowing when not to take a life. Bilbo remembered this wisdom, and when he had the chance to kill Gollum, Bilbo felt the truth of that and held back. He was terrified of Gollum, but he held back.

His courage inspired Frodo’s courage later, and it changed them both. It gave the ring (greed, malice & cynicism) less of a hold on them, and it changed the course of the future for the better.

Sagittarius is a role model for courage.

A Soldier, a Fighter, A Hunter

Sagittarius characters include freedom fighters, former soldiers, and cowpokes defending their way of life. An evolved Sagittarius fights for the freedom of others, too. Sagittarius is not quiet about why s/he was fighting either. You will be told, and Sagittarius will have built an entire philosophy about it. Look for a character spouting maxims.

A reluctant warrior isn’t always a Sagittarius, but a Sagittarius is often a reluctant warrior. Why is this hero reluctant? Because Sagittarius doesn’t usually fight for the adrenaline rush like Aries, or the glory, like Leo. There must be a BIGGER reason, too.

The Sagittarius archetype is the last of the fire signs and the most evolved as a warrior. Sagittarius fights for a cause. They may have fun fighting, but they never fight for fun. Like Sagittarian Robin Hood, Sagittarians need a cause to fight for.

Sagittarian characters tend to be former soldiers because they value freedom too much to remain in the military for long. If your character has been in the military for decades, look at fixed signs Leo and Scorpio first. Fiery Aries is the maverick most likely to get kicked out.

Sagittarian Cormoran Strike in the mystery series by Robert Galbraith (Jo Rowling) and Cooper Howard/The Ghoul in the TV show Fallout are both former soldiers and (mostly) independent (private detective, bounty hunter) and hunters (of humans). Many people can be considered hunters. A detective hunts for bad guys, a journalist might hunt for a good story or the whole truth.

Another Sagittarian and reluctant skillful warrior off hunting in the woods— and one with her bow and arrow—is Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Katniss does not want to fight; she does not want to be the face of the resistance, yet she does what is needed.

You Animal, You!

It certainly takes athletic ability to ride a horse, turn, and hit your target while moving. The Centaur is half horse, half human, and Sagittarius has a bit of the agile, wild animal about them.

They love all animals, and in every story with a strong Sagittarius character, look for the animals. When a character is set up with a dog companion or is a horse-whisperer, it awakens my Sagittarius radar.

Wild animals almost always make an appearance in a Sagittarius story. The animal can be the object of a hunt, a danger to the community, or just so big that it could unintentionally kill you. Again, we are back to thinking about the character of Hagrid.

If a character is a hunter, we should also think of Sagittarius. Gods carrying bows and arrows, like Artemis and Diana, were both hunters and protectors of animals.

Sagittarians can also be quite sexually promiscuous in stories. A Sagittarian who does not tell the truth to their partners and uses people for sex is a feature of both its immature characters and villains. Taming themselves can be their biggest challenge.

DARK SAGITTARIUS: THE VILLAINS

The Sagittarian villain is never quite as vicious as a Mars-inspired Aries or Scorpio can be, but that doesn’t mean a Sagittarius villain isn’t angry, violent, and cruel.

A character who is particularly cruel to underdogs and animals, who seeks to destroy the freedom and independence of others while keeping those things for himself or herself, can easily be a Sagittarius gone bad.

The Sagittarius will be sarcastic, sardonic, and clever. S/he will present riddles for you to solve that you can’t possibly solve. S/he is a master of the mind game.

However, this description covers many types of villains, so keep in mind that the distinguishing motivation of the Sagittarius villain will not be ambition, greed, jealousy, revenge, despair, or the desire for attention or perfect order that motivates other villains.

The Sagittarius villain is motivated by cynicism and fiery rage. Characters like Psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris), Anarchist The Joker (DC Comics), Former Teacher Aunt Lydia (The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood), and former actor Cooper Howard/The Ghoul (Fallout Amazon Prime) fit this description.

The Sagittarius villain will often be a former educated idealist who has succumbed to the darkest cynicism imaginable and is now playing an entirely selfish game.

RELATED POST: FALLOUT ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐| The Four ♐Horsemen of the Apocalypse

CHARACTER CASE STUDIES (Eowyn, Gandalf)

I have already mentioned more than half a dozen Sagittarian characters. Among them, Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is the most complex and probably warrants a longer post of her own. So that will come later.

Meanwhile, I think I will stay with the well-known Eowyn and Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings.

EOWYN ♐of Rohan

I was inspired to write more about her, so you can find that case study as a separate post.

Gandalf ♐The BIG Iconic Sagittarian

There is no better character in all of literature to use as the iconic Sagittarius than Gandalf the Grey.

There are other Sagittarians in J.R.R. Tolkien’s adventure stories: Eowyn and Bilbo come to mind, but Gandalf is the Jupiter of the story. He is a big presence in every way, and Ian McKellen was the perfect casting choice in the movies.

Tolkien’s close friend C.S. Lewis was a Sagittarius by birth and deeply interested in medieval astrology. I cannot imagine they did not discuss it.

C.S. Lewis would make his students laugh by saying, "Those born under Jupiter are apt to be loud-voiced and red-faced. It is obvious under which planet I was born!"

In the books, Gandalf was a Maiar, a larger-than-life demigod or archangel. He was sent as an Ishtar — a leader sent by the gods to inspire the “free peoples of Middle-earth” to fight for their freedom.

Mutable Fire

“I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you.”

-Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

We know Gandalf loves his fireworks, but if you look closely at that story, you will see that Gandalf has more than a passing relationship with the element of fire.

In the world of Tolkien, the “flame of Anor” is the power of creation and inspiration. Gandalf was also given Narya, the elven ring of fire, first carried by the elf lord Cirdan, to amplify Gandalf’s powers.

Read More About It

Secret Fire: The Spiritual Vision of J.R.R.Tolkien. I could only find a collectible

paperback version of this. Try your local used bookstore!

The Arrow & The Staff

Saittarius is said to be “one-pointed” and direct. Gandalf’s staff takes the place of the bow and arrow. Gandalf himself is usually straightforward — like an arrow — and men, elves, trees, horses, and hobbits are both afraid of his tongue and yet, also trust him.

He is physically bigger than all of them. He has a great booming voice when he wishes to snap someone out of an illusion that has them in its grip, and he loves to laugh. He tells Frodo and Bilbo the truth and lets them make their own decisions, and he doesn’t mince words when he thinks someone has been foolish or is wrong.

Never Suffer Fools Gladly

“Fool of a Took! Next time, throw yourself in!”

Have I mentioned people are exhausting? Sometimes Galdalf can’t take any more foolishness. He tells whoever it is his blunt truth and marches away to be alone for a while until he can master himself and come back, and in true mutable fashion, he never holds a grudge against his friends.

One of my favorite movie moments in The Lord of the Rings trilogy comes after Pippin looks into the Palantir. Gandalf starts hollering at him, turns and sees his fixed eyes, and immediately drops the loud lecture to run to cradle him in his arms and break the spell on him. Every time he yells at Pippin, he demonstrates his faith in him by assigning him a task or explaining something to him. This is the evolved Sagittarian character: truthful, blunt, perceptive, and kind.

The Wizard/Philosopher/Scholar

Gandalf also keeps running off on his own, going to research this or that, or talk to someone who might know what is going on.

He is also constantly spouting different languages, philosophy, or poetry when people need encouragement. He always knows the right thing to say and isn’t afraid to discuss the most significant topics, including death.

The Centaur

To complete the Sagittarian archetype, Gandalf rides—but does not own— the king of all horses, Shadowfax. No saddle for Shadowfax. He is a free animal of Middle-earth. To ride Shadowfax, the Wizard and horse must be as one.

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PART 2: ♐Archetype Building Blocks

Jupiter, Gods, and Centaurs

Sagittarius has been associated with several gods and other figures in mythology, representing both the constellation’s dark, beast-like, warlike nature and its scholarly, enlightened side. Here is a selection . . .

• The Babylonian Centaur Pa Bil Sag. This figure had two heads, and one was turned with an arrow pointed at the scorpion behind him, signifying the soul’s journey through Scorpio and into Sagittarius.

• The Babylonian god Nergal, the god of war (also sometimes associated with Scorpio)

• An aspect of the Babylonian god Marduk, specifically called ”the diviner of the divine decision” ruled the region of the sky known as Sagittarius. I like this title because Sagittarius rules the intellect.

• Crotus, the Greek Centaur, invented archery. He was a musician, had a keen mind, and was a lover of the arts (His mother was a Muse)

• The teacher Chiron, the enlightened and kind centaur who valued reason and knowledge

And, of course, of all the gods, Sagittarius is most associated with The Sky God, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the greatest and best.

I have already covered Jupiter thoroughly in the personality traits and Gandalf case study, but here I note that this planet is observed by every culture, and all of them assigned gods to it.

Because of its size and steady light, the planet is usually associated with wisdom, optimism, intellect, insight, clarity of thought, and good fortune. So, too, by extension, is Sagittarius.

Big Picture: Values, Lessons, and Themes

Q. How hard is it to have the personal freedom we all desire and still be responsive to others we love, while standing up for the freedom of all of us?

Q. How hard is it to consistently apply critical thinking to our knowledge and opinions so that we stand up for truth and not mislead ourselves or others with what we desire to be true, but is not, in fact, true? What is truth, and how can we honor it?

Q. How incredibly difficult is it to USE freedom of speech for the betterment of everyone, including yourself? How difficult is it to always speak the truth, with full awareness of what the actual truth is, and still be kind and responsible? Can anyone do all that at the highest level?

It would probably help to have learned the lessons of Gemini. Now we know what manipulative speech is. We know what misleading speech is. We know what a persuasive speech for the best reasons should sound like.

Characters in stories everywhere struggle with these Sagittarius lessons.

In the first section of this article, I discussed Sagittarian story themes that emphasize mental self-mastery and the struggle against cynicism, tyranny, dishonesty, and dishonor. I am confident you can develop questions like mine that address all those themes.

The Philosophical Big Picture of Astrology

The first six signs (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and Virgo) emphasize humanity's childhood and our individual development. The lessons address ♈Self, ♉Values, ♊Communication, ♋Private Life, ♌Personal Performance, and ♍Service. It’s easy to see how Virgo lessons about service take the “soul” or character into the last six lessons that involve others.

The last six signs (Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces) emphasize the development of the individual in interaction with the world at large. The lessons address ♎Partnership/Justice, ♏Power, ♐Mind/Thinking, ♑Public Life, ♒Community, and ♓Spirituality, and Sacrifice.

Theoretically, a Sagittarius has already visited the depths of Scorpio’s examination of power and control and come up the other side into the light. Now they look around them at the world and see how people misuse that power as a selfish weapon that crushes freedom and truth. They conclude that knowledge is, in fact, power and decide to collect it. What will we be able to learn and do once we have mastered our own minds?

All of these are the questions we address in stories, from the largest epic sagas such as The Hunger Games, Fallout, and The Lord of the Rings to smaller personal struggles with truth and freedom.

Hercules & The Killing of the Stymphalian Birds

Now, let us end with a story that addresses the Sagittarius central theme of mental self-mastery.

This isn’t necessarily a building block of the popular Sagittarius archetype; this is a building block of the Sagittarius philosophical and psychological 9th House stage of the Soul’s Journey.

There is a famous story about the Twelve Labors, or tasks, of the Greek demigod Hercules. This story, among others, strongly influenced all the archetypes as they evolved from the Babylonians through the cultures of the Middle East, India, and Hellenistic Greece to the Romans.

Backstory

Jupiter’s counterpart in Greece was Zeus. Hera was Zeus’s wife. At one point, Zeus pretended to be the husband of a mortal princess he fancied, named Alcmene so that he could have sex with her. Hercules was the result.

Hera wasn’t thrilled. She put a spell on Hercules that made him kill his own wife and children.

I mean, the murders were Hera’s fault, of course. Everybody knew that. You know how women are, I mean, what could poor Hercules do? Everyone knows it’s bad when women have power.

ANYWAY, poor, powerless, the strongest man alive, son of the top god, Hercules wasn’t killed or imprisoned. He went to Apollo, asked to be punished, and was given a to-do list.

His cousin, King Eurystheus, was appointed. He assigned Hercules (Heracles) 12 impossible tasks to atone for his crimes.

Bring me the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West!

Thus begins the hero's journey in video games everywhere.

The influential metaphysical writer Alice Bailey aligned each of Hercules’ tasks with the lessons represented by the zodiac signs. There are, after all, twelve tasks and twelve signs, and each sign represents a stage in the soul’s journey.

We do not know how the signs aligned at the time this myth was shared, and I don’t necessarily agree that Bailey got all the alignments 100% correct.

Still, part of the beauty of using symbols in stories is that they mean different things to different people at different times while still addressing the underlying truth of human nature.

The Mission

This time, Hercules was tasked with driving off predatory birds that lived in a dark marsh on a high plateau in Greece. IN the version I like, that colossal asshole Ares raised the birds, so they were terrorizing travelers and eating people.

According to Alice Bailey, the Stymphalian Birds symbolize the nasty, cynical, chaotic thoughts in your mind.

Since Sagittarius is a fire sign, we are usually referring to out-of-control, angry thoughts aimed in all directions.

It’s you aggressively ruminating at 3 AM about some conflict with a co-worker, your boss, your spouse, or a random person who smashed into your car and isn’t sorry.

It’s you thinking your worst, poisonous thoughts about other people (and yourself) are true, and the only truth about them and you.

Those birds are the ungodly, out-of-control noise in your head.

In Sagittarius, the lesson is to calm the worst, marshy, soul-sucking thoughts and drive off the remaining ugly thoughts and dangerous birds, and leave some space for songbirds, silence, and self-acceptance.

What Happened?

Hercules didn’t understand what these birds were or how to drive them off. They were huge, hideous, and terrifying. They had iron beaks like swords and feathers like spears.

As if that wasn’t enough, they had poisonous poop that spread everywhere in the mind, I mean, marsh.

What really drove everyone mad, however, were the loud, hideous sounds those big birds made. They were chaos incarnate. And they never shut up, ever.

Hercules’ half-sister Athena (Hera wasn’t her mother either—she didn’t have a mother) gave him some giant bronze clackers made by the immortal god and blacksmith Hephaistos.

From the top of a nearby mountain, Hercules used his new tools to make a godly racket, and the birds freaked out and took to the air. As the birds came flying up to attack him, Hercules killed some of them with poison-tipped arrows. The rest flew off screaming and were never heard from again.

Ah, the blessed silence of wide open spaces where a person can breathe.

Read more about this Greek myth here.

I do not think they are mathematically scientific, but I think they have psychological and philosophical truth. They are based on thousands of years of poetic observation of human nature. That is a different kind of science.

Has your sign been part of shaping your identity?

The math here might blow your mind, and you may not like it. Mathematical and birthdate-based astrology is about IDENTITY and challenges to that can really set off emotional repercussions. Remember, I DO believe it is valuable as a well-constructed compass or magnifying glass for an inner journey.

Signs of the Times & Divine Math Theory

Since 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse, let’s look at the calendar for Sagittarius as an example.

Sagittarius (Dhanus, Kheshet).

• November 22-December 21 — Traditional Western Astrology

• December 18- January 19 — Astronomy

• December 15- January 13 — Vedic Astrology (Indian)

• December to January — Judeo-Christian Astrology (new moon to new moon)

You will notice from the Vedic and Hebrew dates above that they align much better with the current math or astronomy. That’s because they have always been based on the actual and current movement of the Earth, Sun, Moon, and constellations rather than the Roman calendar.

“Astrological signs are determined by the position of the sun relative to certain constellations on a person’s day of birth. The problem is, the positions were determined more than 2,000 years ago. Nowadays, the stars have shifted in the night sky so much that [Roman] horoscope signs are nearly a month off.” — Live Science

Are you still a Sagittarius?

If your birthday is November 22nd to the 24th, you are now a Libra! If your birthday is November 25 to December 17, you are now a Scorpio. Congratulations??!!??

You might be thinking, Nah! I AM a Sagittarius.

Okay by me.

Why not decide which signs suit you best and give yourself The Big Three: Sun, Moon, and Rising signs?

Find out if your sign has changed.

I made images that include all the calendar dates for each sign, like the one for Sagittarius above, OR use a Jewish calendar converter to determine which month you were born in for the Hebrew zodiac.

You can also use a Vedic astrology calculator site to determine your entire birth chart there.

Judeo-Christian Astrology Comes with Warnings

If you use the Hebrew calendar, remember that the Judeo-Christian bible (Deuteronomy 18) says you may not use this knowledge for divination, spells, or decision-making. (Just sayin’)

Apparently, it’s totally okay to use it for self-knowledge or to apply it to fictional characters, which is what I do here at In Our Stars!

I was raised with astrology and had my full chart drawn and read when I was 14, and those ideas had a profound impact on who I thought I was. For example, my sun and moon—in the chart—are conjunct within 1 degree. So I felt special—like I had some superpower—even though I never resonated with the sign they were in, no matter how hard I tried.

About 15 years later, I majored in Behavioral Science in college, and my view of astrology shifted to seeing it as psychology based on archetypes rather than physics and math.

It wasn’t easy to give up my special identity, but I came to that conclusion myself. No one confronted me with it. You may not want to change your ideas about yourself because of this article. If that is the case, you be you! I am just offering some math facts. Do with them what you will. Maybe some of you will find your new sign fits better and be happy. I hope so.

Get the Dates for ALL the Signs

More Anon,

Kate

If you believe in the Divine Math Theory of Astrology or in birthdate astrology, you may find these dates pretty mind-blowing. The Earth has shifted since ancient times.

That has changed the alignments of the constellations and the sun, probably making you a different sign than you thought!

Read more about that in the Calendar Shenanigans explainer.

Or you can join me in thinking about which sign best fits you, regardless of your birthday. I am a Sagittarius, despite being born in the summer. 😎