The donor—prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object
The (magical) helper—helps the hero in the quest
The princess and her father—gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished
The dispatcher—character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
The hero or victim/seeker hero—reacts to the donor, weds the princess
False hero—takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.
These roles could sometimes be distributed among various characters, as the hero kills the villain dragon, and the dragon's sisters take on the villainous role of chasing him. Conversely, one character could engage in acts as more than one role, as a father could send his son on the quest and give him a sword, acting as both dispatcher and donor.
“How silly of John Frow (the party line now runs) to fret about the game of echoes and reflections that all good writers play with their predecessors. The Russian critic Vladimir Propp even proposed that all stories could be rendered down into one of seven archetypes, with golden oldies such as Cinderella or Romeo and Juliet turning up time and again across centuries and continents.”
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