[p-e-w]

Persepolis absolutely DOES use the “hero’s journey” narrative archetype you’re claiming it avoids. The second part even ends by explicitly stating that she has grown into a different person, and is now ready to “face the world” when she leaves her family for the second time.

Indeed, the story is quite Western overall, which is perhaps unsurprising, given that the author had already been living in the West for over a decade when she wrote it.

[spwa4]

You mean Iran had been pushing itself west/modern and was quite western by 1979. So she was raised as a young girl into a western context, despite that people now want to deny this existed.

Even back then the mullahs and islam were looked upon as an external occupation force to some extent. Now 10x worse of course, but even back then. A lot of people seem to want to see some sort of alternative/sufficiently different state/society succeed, even if that means totally falsifying history.