The Trickster In Psych

Looking back, every culture has their own set of myths and legends. While many of these stories differentiate depending on the society, from which they came, there are also many similarities between them. One of the largest similarities is the character, known as the trickster; a trickster is someone who cannot be fully defined, but who also has many traits which allow people to identify him as a trickster. The trickster character can be seen as essential to myth because they are what drive the story; without the trickster, the plot could cease to exist, or dramatically change. A good, modern day, example of the trickster character would be Shawn Spencer from the television show Psych. The very first episode of Psych starts with Shawn waiting in the police station to be rewarded for calling in a tip, or so he thought. In actuality, the police believe that he helped to commit the robbery due to the information he was able to provide. After failing to prove his innocence, Shawn quickly comes up with the idea to convince everyone he is a psychic. He is able to

Shawn starts off wanting to avoid being arrested, but as time goes on, he becomes more and more elaborate with his “visions” allowing people to fall even deeper into the deception that is his psychic abilities. While Shawn may use his skills to solve crime after crime, he also tricks people into believing he is actually psychic. This makes him out to be a very ambiguous person because while he does good deeds, it also shows that he can be a very manipulative person and take people’s trust for granted. Even after taking away his cunning nature, there is still the question, does he truly want to help people, or is he doing this because it is fun and he enjoys the challenge of solving a new