This paper theorises the traumatised hero's journey as an original departure from Joseph Campbell's monomyth. Unlike Campbell's hero who departs whole and returns transformed, the traumatised hero begins already wounded—trauma is the condition of the self before the journey starts. I trace three cultural models that reveal distinct historical and philosophical responses to wounded subjectivity. The US model operates within modernity's redemptive logic: the coherent self is a recoverable telos, and narrative closure promises healing. The Japanese model reflects postmodernity's refusal of resolution. Drawing on Azuma Hiroki's database consumption theory, I analyse Neon Genesis Evangelion and Chainsaw Man to show how power derives from persistence rather than healing—the hero endures fragmentation without synthesis. The Korean model inhabits Baudrillard's hyperreality: the wound remains, but surface is repaired through face, status, and spectacle. From My Lovely Kim Sam Soon to The Glory and Squid Game, Korean narratives substitute image for essence. The traumatised subject performs recovery without achieving it, operating within economies of visibility where appearance supersedes interiority. This historical arc—from modernity's faith in narrative coherence to postmodernity's refusal of closure to hyperreality's substitution of simulacra for substance—maps onto shifting configurations of selfhood, media, and capital. Korean cultural production reveals how trauma becomes spectacle in late capitalist media ecologies, where the wound is not healed but aestheticised, monetised, and endlessly reproduced. This framework offers critical tools for understanding contemporary representations of suffering, resilience, and subjectivity across global media cultures.

Authors:
Roger Lin, Hong Kong Chu Hai College, Hong Kong

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Roger Lin: educator & artist. Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Chu Hai College. 200+ film/TV, theatre productions. Curated 60+ art exhibitions. Author of Ultraman v Superman (2024) and The Distant Ethics Generation (2026).

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