Adventure  

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Adventurous activities are typically undertaken for the purposes of recreation or excitement, such as multi-sport [[adventure racing]] or a traveler's [[adventure tourism]]. However, an adventurous activity can lead to gains in knowledge, such as in the case of the numerous pioneers who have explored and charted the Earth and, in recent times, traveled into space and to the Moon. As a more modern example, [[adventure education]] makes use of challenging experiences for learning. Adventurous activities are typically undertaken for the purposes of recreation or excitement, such as multi-sport [[adventure racing]] or a traveler's [[adventure tourism]]. However, an adventurous activity can lead to gains in knowledge, such as in the case of the numerous pioneers who have explored and charted the Earth and, in recent times, traveled into space and to the Moon. As a more modern example, [[adventure education]] makes use of challenging experiences for learning.
-In the context of a [[narrative]], the adventure [[genre]] is typically applied to works in which the protagonist or other major characters are consistently placed in dangerous situations, and a [[fictional character|character]] who lives by their wits and their skills is often called an adventurer. [[Adventure novel]]s and [[adventure film]]s are both prominent genres in their respective media, although the latter has fallen out of the spotlight with the rise of the modern-style [[action film]]. In [[game]]s, the term is less consistently applied: the term "[[adventure game]]" is used in reference to [[video game]] that make use of exploration, interaction, and problem solving, while [[role-playing game]]s use the term "[[adventure (role-playing games)|adventure]]" in reference to specific pre-planned segments of gameplay.{{GFDL}}+In the context of a [[narrative]], the adventure [[genre]] is typically applied to works in which the protagonist or other major characters are consistently placed in dangerous situations, and a [[fictional character|character]] who lives by their wits and their skills is often called an adventurer. [[Adventure novel]]s and [[adventure film]]s are both prominent genres in their respective media, although the latter has fallen out of the spotlight with the rise of the modern-style [[action film]]. In [[game]]s, the term is less consistently applied: the term "[[adventure game]]" is used in reference to [[video game]] that make use of exploration, interaction, and problem solving, while [[role-playing game]]s use the term "[[adventure (role-playing games)|adventure]]" in reference to specific pre-planned segments of gameplay.
 + 
 +== Adventure in mythology ==
 +The oldest and most widespread stories in the world are adventure stories.
 + 
 +[[Joseph Campbell]] discussed his notion of the [[monomyth]] in his book, ''[[The Hero with a Thousand Faces]]''. Campbell proposed that the heroic mythological stories from culture to culture followed a similar underlying pattern, starting with the "call to adventure", followed by a hazardous journey and eventual triumph. The [[adventure novel]] exhibits these "protagonist on adventurous journey" characteristics as do many popular feature films, such as [[Star Wars]].
 + 
 +== Adventurers ==
 + 
 +An adventurer is a person who bases his lifestyle or their fortunes on adventurous acts. An adventurer or adventuress is a term that usually takes one of three meanings:
 + 
 +*One whose travels are unusual and often exotic, though not so unique as to qualify as [[exploration]].
 +*One who lives by their wits.
 +*One who takes part in a risky or speculative course of action for profit or position.
 + 
 +In fiction, the adventurer figure or [[Picaro]] may be regarded as a descendant of the [[knight-errant]] of [[Medieval]] [[romance (genre)|romance]]. Like the knight, the adventurer roams through episodic encounters, usually involving wealth, romance, or fighting. Unlike the knight, the adventurer was a realistic figure, often lower class or otherwise impoverished, who is forced to make his way to fortune, often by deceit. Also, an adventurer is a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society. The [[picaresque]] novel originated in [[Spain]] in the middle of the fifteenth century. Novels such as [[Lazarillo de Tormes]] were influential across Europe. Throughout the eighteenth century, a great number of novels featured bold, amoral, adventuring protagonists, who made their way into wealth and happiness, sometimes with and sometimes without the moral conversion that generally accompanies the Spanish model.
 + 
 +Under [[Victorian morality]] the term, used without qualifiers, came to imply a person of low [[moral character]], often someone trying to marry for money.
 + 
 +In comic book handbooks such as ''[[Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe]]'' and ''[[Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe]]'', the term "adventurer" is used as a synonym for "[[super-hero]]" when listing a character's occupation.
 + 
 +In [[role-playing games]], the [[player characters]] are often professional adventurers, who earn wealth and fame by adventure, such as undertaking hazardous missions, exploring ruins, and slaying monsters. This stereotype is strong enough that ''the adventurers'' can often be used as a synonym for ''the player characters''. However [[non-player character]] groups of adventurers can also exist, and can be an interesting encounter for the players.
 + 
 +=== List of adventurers ===
 +==== Historical adventurers ====
 + 
 + 
 +*[[Teddy Roosevelt]]
 +*[[Alexander von Humboldt]]
 +*[[Bartholomew Gosnold]]
 +*[[John Smith of Jamestown|Captain John Smith]]
 +*[[Edward John Trelawny]]
 +*[[Edward Maria Wingfield]]
 +*[[F.A. Mitchell-Hedges]]
 +*[[Giacomo Casanova]]
 +*[[Arthur Rimbaud]]
 +*[[Gustavus von Tempsky]]
 +*[[Ibn Battuta]]
 +*[[James Holman]]
 +*[[John Muir]]
 +*[[Jørgen Jørgensen]]
 +*[[Marco Polo]]
 +*[[Calamity Jane|Martha Jane "Calamity Jane" Canary-Burke]]
 +*[[Mata Hari]]
 +*[[Percy Fawcett]]
 +*[[Ranald MacDonald]]
 +*[[Richard Francis Burton]]
 +*[[Roy Chapman Andrews]]
 +*[[T. E. Lawrence]]
 +*[[David Livingstone]]
 +*[[Frederick Gustavus Burnaby]]
 + 
 +==== Modern adventurers ====
 +*[[Benedict Allen]]
 +*[[Peter Blake (yachtsman)|Sir Peter Blake]] (1948–2001)
 +*[[Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz]] (1883–1940)
 +*[[Morris Cohen]] (1887–1970)
 +*[[Ranulph Fiennes]]
 +*[[Ben Fogle]]
 +*[[Steve Fossett]] (1944–2007)
 +*[[John Goddard (adventurer)|John Goddard]]
 +*[[Richard Halliburton]] (1900–1939)
 +*[[Matt Harding]]
 +*[[Hayatullah Khan Durrani]]
 +*[[Heinrich Harrer]] (1912–2006)
 +*[[David Hempleman-Adams]]
 +*[[Thor Heyerdahl]] (1914–2002)
 +*[[Mike Horn]]
 +*[[Alastair Humphreys]]
 +*[[George Kourounis]]
 +*[[David Henry Lewis]] (1917–2002)
 +*[[Rory Maclean]]
 +*[[Christopher McCandless]] (1968–1992)
 +*[[Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski]] (1876–1945)
 +*[[Bruce Parry]]
 +*[[Robert Young Pelton]]
 +*[[Bertrand Piccard]]
 +*[[Simon Reeve (UK television presenter)|Simon Reeve]]
 +*[[David Mayer de Rothschild]]
 +*[[Tahir Shah]]
 +*[[Reid Stowe]]
 +*[[Les Stroud]]
 +*[[Ed Viesturs]]
 +*[[Jock Wishart]]
 +*[[Charley Boorman]]
 +*[[Ewan McGregor]]
 +*[[Jim Rogers]]
 +*[[Joshua French and Tjostolv Moland]]
 + 
 +==== Fictional adventurers ====
 + 
 +*[[Argonauts]]
 +*[[Allan Quatermain]]
 +*[[The Adventures of Baron Munchausen|Baron Munchausen]]
 +*[[Bilbo Baggins]]
 +*[[Conan the Barbarian]]
 +*[[Corto Maltese]]
 +*[[Dirk Pitt]]
 +*[[Doc Savage]]
 +*[[Don Quixote]]
 +*[[Drizzt Do'Urden]]
 +*[[Evelyn Carnahan-O'Connell]]
 +*[[Adventure Time with Finn and Jake|Finn The Human]]
 +*[[The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack|Flapjack]]
 +*[[Frodo Baggins]]
 +*[[Indiana Jones]]
 +*[[Jack Flanders]]
 +*[[Jonny Quest]]
 +*[[Romancing the Stone|Jack T. Colton]]
 +*[[Lara Croft]]
 +*[[Lemuel Gulliver]]
 +*[[Link (The Legend of Zelda)]].
 +*[[Lord Asriel]]
 +*[[Angus MacGyver|MacGyver]]
 +*[[Nathan Drake (character)|Nathan Drake]]
 +*[[Odysseus]]
 +*[[Randolph Carter]]
 +*[[Rick O'Connell]]
 +*[[Rip Haywire (comic strip)|Rip Haywire]]
 +*[[Sindbad]]
 +*[[Solomon Kane]]
 +*[[Son Goku]]
 +*[[Spirou]]
 +*[[Tintin (character)|Tintin]]
 +*[[Xena]]
 + 
 +{{GFDL}}

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adventure novel

An adventure is an activity that comprises risky, dangerous, or uncertain experiences. The term is more popularly used in reference to physical activities that have some potential for danger, such as skydiving, mountain climbing, and extreme sports. The term is broad enough to refer to any enterprise that is potentially fraught with risk, such as a business venture or a major life undertaking. An adventurer is a person who bases their lifestyle or their fortunes on adventurous acts.

Adventurous experiences create psychological and physiological arousal, which can be interpreted as negative (e.g. fear) or positive (e.g. flow), and which can become a detriment as per the Yerkes-Dodson law. For some people, adventure becomes a major pursuit in and of itself.

Adventurous activities are typically undertaken for the purposes of recreation or excitement, such as multi-sport adventure racing or a traveler's adventure tourism. However, an adventurous activity can lead to gains in knowledge, such as in the case of the numerous pioneers who have explored and charted the Earth and, in recent times, traveled into space and to the Moon. As a more modern example, adventure education makes use of challenging experiences for learning.

In the context of a narrative, the adventure genre is typically applied to works in which the protagonist or other major characters are consistently placed in dangerous situations, and a character who lives by their wits and their skills is often called an adventurer. Adventure novels and adventure films are both prominent genres in their respective media, although the latter has fallen out of the spotlight with the rise of the modern-style action film. In games, the term is less consistently applied: the term "adventure game" is used in reference to video game that make use of exploration, interaction, and problem solving, while role-playing games use the term "adventure" in reference to specific pre-planned segments of gameplay.

Contents

Adventure in mythology

The oldest and most widespread stories in the world are adventure stories.

Joseph Campbell discussed his notion of the monomyth in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell proposed that the heroic mythological stories from culture to culture followed a similar underlying pattern, starting with the "call to adventure", followed by a hazardous journey and eventual triumph. The adventure novel exhibits these "protagonist on adventurous journey" characteristics as do many popular feature films, such as Star Wars.

Adventurers

An adventurer is a person who bases his lifestyle or their fortunes on adventurous acts. An adventurer or adventuress is a term that usually takes one of three meanings:

  • One whose travels are unusual and often exotic, though not so unique as to qualify as exploration.
  • One who lives by their wits.
  • One who takes part in a risky or speculative course of action for profit or position.

In fiction, the adventurer figure or Picaro may be regarded as a descendant of the knight-errant of Medieval romance. Like the knight, the adventurer roams through episodic encounters, usually involving wealth, romance, or fighting. Unlike the knight, the adventurer was a realistic figure, often lower class or otherwise impoverished, who is forced to make his way to fortune, often by deceit. Also, an adventurer is a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society. The picaresque novel originated in Spain in the middle of the fifteenth century. Novels such as Lazarillo de Tormes were influential across Europe. Throughout the eighteenth century, a great number of novels featured bold, amoral, adventuring protagonists, who made their way into wealth and happiness, sometimes with and sometimes without the moral conversion that generally accompanies the Spanish model.

Under Victorian morality the term, used without qualifiers, came to imply a person of low moral character, often someone trying to marry for money.

In comic book handbooks such as Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe, the term "adventurer" is used as a synonym for "super-hero" when listing a character's occupation.

In role-playing games, the player characters are often professional adventurers, who earn wealth and fame by adventure, such as undertaking hazardous missions, exploring ruins, and slaying monsters. This stereotype is strong enough that the adventurers can often be used as a synonym for the player characters. However non-player character groups of adventurers can also exist, and can be an interesting encounter for the players.

List of adventurers

Historical adventurers

Modern adventurers

Fictional adventurers


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