I keep hearing the word archetype when I listen to intellectual podcasts. I have an idea, but not a firm grasp, leaving me with low confidence in using the word. Time to ask ChatGPT.

Archetype is a recurring symbol, character or theme that serves as a template for the human experience, myth, legend, storytelling and culture. It is timeless across history and universal across all cultures. It can also be symbolic or a metaphor of something deeper. In Lord of the Rings, the ring was the archetype for anything that is intensely corrosive that it can corrupt the most upstanding character, eg politics. In literature, the typical archetypes are the hero, the villain, the mentor, and the quest. The 'dragon slayer' is an archetype of a hero. A hero's journey is an archetype of a storytelling theme. In daily life, we can also say that, "Elon Musk is the archtype of GenX who has agency and innovates in defiance of convention."