Editing Quest (section)

==Quest objects==

[[Image:TheKnightAtTheCrossroads.jpg|left|thumb|''A Knight at the Crossroads'' by [[Viktor Vasnetsov]]]]

The hero normally aims to obtain something or someone by the quest, and with this object to return home.<ref>
[[W. H. Auden]], "The Quest Hero", ''Understanding the Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism'', p35 {{ISBN|0-618-42253-6}}</ref> The object can be something new, that fulfills a lack in their life, or something that was stolen away from them or someone with authority to dispatch them.<ref>[[Vladimir Propp]], ''Morphology of the Folk Tale'', p 36, {{ISBN|0-292-78376-0}}</ref>

Sometimes the hero has no desire to return; [[Galahad|Sir Galahad]]'s quest for the [[Holy Grail]] is to find it, not return with it. A return may, indeed, be impossible: [[Aeneas]] quests for a homeland, having lost [[Troy]] at the beginning of [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]],'' and he does not return to Troy to re-found it but settles in Italy (to become an ancestor of the Romans).

If the hero does return after the culmination of the quest, they may face [[false hero]]es who attempt to pass themselves off as them,<ref>[[Vladimir Propp]], ''Morphology of the Folk Tale'', p60, {{ISBN|0-292-78376-0}}
</ref> or their initial response may be a rejection of that return, as [[Joseph Campbell]] describes in his critical analysis of quest literature, ''[[The Hero With a Thousand Faces|The Hero with a Thousand Faces]]''.

If someone dispatches the hero on a quest, the overt reason may be false, with the dispatcher actually sending them on the difficult quest in hopes of their death in the attempt, or in order to remove them from the scene for a time, just as if the claim were sincere, except that the tale usually ends with the dispatcher being unmasked and punished.<ref>[[Vladimir Propp]], ''Morphology of the Folk Tale'', p77 {{ISBN|0-292-78376-0}}</ref> Stories with such false quest-objects include the legends of [[Jason]] and [[Perseus]], the fairy tales ''[[The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird]]'', ''[[Go I Know Not Whither and Fetch I Know Not What]]'', and the story of ''[[Beren and Lúthien]]'' in [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Silmarillion]]''.

The quest object may, indeed, function only as a convenient reason for the hero's journey. Such objects are termed [[MacGuffin]]s. When a hero is on a quest for several objects that are only a convenient reason for their journey, they are termed plot coupons.