The Monkey King

Archetype of limitless freedom and powerful joyous play

The Monkey King is a core archetypal figure of power, freedom, and play.

The archetype famously expressed himself, beloved in Chinese and Indian mythology, through Wukong and Hanuman.

In modern times, where the peak of the Monkey King’s strength is even higher, he is embodied in Monkey D. Luffy, Aang, Robin Hood, and Son Goku (among many others).

What defines the Monkey King archetype

At the root of the Monkey King’s core are playfulness, joy, and appreciation of beauty. He takes a casual, playful attitude towards life. He understands life is an open-world game, and he wants to explore and experience all its aspects of beauty. The Monkey King’s intense wonder and appreciation for beauty are similar to those of a newborn child.

To others, the Monkey King represents limitless freedom and agency. He puts no barriers on himself or on what he can do. He tolerates any hardship to manifest his will into reality. If he says something will happen, it is always made possible by his boundless perseverance and will. He is the embodiment of boundless freedom, sometimes through literal exploration of his world.

The supporting pillar of both his freedom and playfulness is competence. His habit of approaching life with full agency requires the power to navigate the world as he pleases. The Monkey King’s power is seeded by intense perseverance. His agency and ability reinforce each other: the ability to do things increases his belief in what more he can do, and his belief that he can do anything increases his ability to act in the world.

Development and Expression of Monkey Kings

Importantly, Monkey Kings grow because they were given both freedom and protection to explore the world as children, and shown examples of joy in play. The young Monkey King’s guardians acted as loving enablers and inspirations for his exploration and wonder for the world. Monkey Kings tend not to know their biological guardians and so feel less rooted to a specific place or aspect of the world, but rather feel connected to the world as a whole.

Monkey Kings tend to gather a group of people behind them (as a king) and with them (as a member of a tight-knit, stellar group). These people often cover their weaknesses (for example, Monkey Kings are often not of the highest mathematical intelligence, or have narrow but powerful abilities). The Monkey King’s people rally behind him because he radiates freedom and joy. Monkey Kings nourish and inspire their people.

Monkey Kings also tend to be joyfully aloof and, on average, not put as much weight on romance. Uniquely high-weight personal attachments may hold them down. Instead of attachment to one person, Monkey Kings are attached to their people, their values, and the world (examples are Goku and Luffy). There are exceptions to this trend, such as Aang, who refused to eliminate his attachment to Katara.

Luffy, the perfected form

Luffy is the perfected Monkey King because he is youthful, fully free, joyous, and happy.

Luffy was given a challenging environment as a child. His grandpa Garp and, most importantly, his inspiring brothers Ace and Sabo, showed him perseverance and joy in play.

Luffy is a wide explorer who set off to explore out of pure love for his world and wanting to experience it in full. He doesn’t limit himself to conventionally held beliefs and aims for the highest of what life may have to offer, becoming the King of the Pirates. More importantly, he cares for the journey for the One Piece just as much as the One Piece itself.

He attracts people to his side who fill his weaknesses and act as his family. He protects and empowers them with the same freedom he enjoys.

He pushes for limitless freedom for all people, unshackling all who are made unfree as slaves and subjects of tyranny, eventually unshackling the world from the restricting weight of celestial dragons.

His power in gear 5 is to manifest will into reality, the will to unlock limitless freedom for the world. He embodies Nika and Joyboy, the historical joyous unshacklers of his world.

Differences from the trickster

The archetype is importantly distinct from the trickster, who likes to mess with and manipulate the world into a state of disorder. The Trickster’s motivations are similar: limitless freedom and being enamored with the manifestations of the world, but he expresses these feelings differently. He also explores, manipulates, and breaks down, like the Monkey King. The trickster targets variance for variance’s sake. But the Monkey King usually chooses to target powerful limiters of freedom, whereas the trickster has no restrictions on his targets. The Monkey King helps to create a free society, whereas the Trickster divides and increases the chaotic variance of the world. Tricksters are figures like Loki, Usopp, Reynard the Fox, Puck, some Jokers, and Deadpool. Unlike the trickster, Monkey Kings don’t waver in their values (the trickster’s only real value is entertainment, which even then is loosely held). They never play with the aspirations of others, and are straightforward and assertive in their values (particularly love, friendship, and loyalty to their people).

Monkey kings are not academicians, they are practitioners.

Reflections on the archetype

The Monkey King is the core of childhood blossoming after a man grows up and enters the difficult world. The Monkey King, against the pressure of the world, keeps his childlike joy/wonder/limitless freedom alive.

All men have childlike wonder and limitless freedom at their core.

As a child, wonder and freedom come easily because everything is new, because we are unconditioned by society, and because we can borrow the power/protection of our parents and other guardians.

Most men are conditioned by society to hold these in and restrict their expression in the world, especially once freedom and expression seem to become more difficult to maintain with age. As we become beholden to traditional systems (which are useful, of course) and are conditioned to believe that the world is the way it is (yes, often current ways are good because they’ve lasted the test of time), we often lose the freedom/wonder of childhood.

Monkey Kings reject this typical conditioning of society to inhibit childlike power and return to the golden state of man at his birth.

They back up their wonder and limitless freedom by becoming the protectors of themselves and their people through exceptional ability begotten by exceptional will and perseverance.

It requires discipline and suffering, but they are willful and powerful to an extent that whatever they say will happen always happens.

Monkey Kings see the world as it is, a beautiful game for them to play filled with wonderful people and manifestations.