The Hero's journey is a recurring idea in this story. This is the idea of The Hero's Journey, as defined by and distilled from the work of noted researcher Joseph Campbell. Campbell researched spiritual/mythological beliefs and practices from cultures around the world, prehistoric and contemporary, pantheistic and monotheistic, and in the process of discovering commonalities of image and theme, also discovered commonalities of purpose. This purpose, he theorizes, is to guide humanity into a closer relationship with the divine - in other words, to help humanity understand itself, advance itself, and release itself from fear. Sound familiar?