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Who Is Santiago A Threshold Guardian

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The crystal merchant is a threshold guardian for Santiago. The threshold guardian is a person or thing that appears early in the hero’s journey and test the hero so that he or she can continue. Santiago stumbles across the Crystal merchant after he has been robbed and he is starving. The merchant feeds him and offers him a job. Santiago originally agrees to work so that he can save money and continue his journey; however, this does not work since the journey is too expensive. Santiago relents and decides to buy some sheep and return to Spain with honor. At the last minute, he decides to forgo returning to Spain and continues his journey. This relates back to the Crystal merchant being a threshold guardian because this is the first time Santiago

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