This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Ego Types gathers four archetypes from a psychological model, drawn ultimately from Carl Jung's work on the collective unconscious, that groups twelve recurring character patterns into three stages of psychological development. This first stage, the ego types, names how a person first relates to the world before any deeper individuation begins, and each of its four members pairs a genuine gift with a specific failure mode rather than standing as either purely good or purely bad. The Innocent seeks a world that is fundamentally safe and good, carrying faith and the wish to begin again with a clean heart; its shadow is denial, a refusal to face complexity that leaves it dependent on others to keep the world safe for it. The Orphan, by contrast, has already been disappointed and answers that wound with realism, empathy and a dislike of pretension; where it fails, that same realism curdles into cynicism, victimhood and a willingness to surrender its own gifts just to belong.
The Hero and the Caregiver complete the set as a matched pair of active virtues carried too far. The Hero seeks to prove worth through courageous, decisive action, the archetype of the quest that answers the call and returns transformed; its shadow is arrogance, a need for a new enemy to conquer and a habit of measuring worth only by victory. The Caregiver seeks to protect and relieve the suffering of others, carrying compassion and the instinct to nourish and shelter; its shadow is martyrdom, giving that secretly demands gratitude or slides into control, and a neglect of its own needs until it collapses into resentment. Read as a set, all four ego types share the same shape: a real strength that becomes a real failure only when it stops being chosen and starts being compulsive.