I'm from a family of 6 children and identify each of these roles for each of us 6. Of course, everyone is responsible for growing up after a certain point but the roles you play in childhood transfer to who you become as an adult. There are just some things about me that I have accepted I will never be able to change.
The Hero Saves the Day-This is my older brother. He eventually stopped trying to save the day but has not spoken to my father, the alcoholic in our family, for at least 10 years. He carries a lot of anger, self-righteousness, etc around with him. He has pretty much almost completely disengaged from our entire family, including the dysfunctional and the functional. I think he's going to have a lot of regret and pain when my Dad dies.
The Scapegoat Takes the Blame-This is the third child in my family. First, I want to say that this statement is untrue: "the drug and alcohol addictions cause all the problems." This is simply not true. There are many problems in this world that have nothing to do with addiction and alcohol. Anyway, I think it was less that my brother took on this role and more that he was more susceptible and less able to deal with the stress, (perhaps the "weakest") and therefore i think the alcoholic ASSIGNED him as the scapegoat. Alcoholics have many scapegoats, including people and things.
I think this is also my youngest brother. I think because he was the baby, he also got assigned as a scapegoat. He also was weaker, I think because we looked at him as the baby. He became the second-generation addicted person.
The Mascot Entertains-Oh, this is definitely my sister and the fourth born (brother). They are all goofballs, always joking, the BEST impersonators. They seem to be escapists too.
The Lost Child Fades Away-And this is me. It sucks. But according to society's standards, I am probably functioning at the highest level of my siblings.
But of course we all have our strengths and weaknesses. The scapegoats DEFINITELY wound up having it worse than anyone else. I think maybe because they took more abuse over time? It's a more negative role than the others. The hero and the mascots have positive attributes (heroes are seen as more capable and reliable; mascots make people laugh and make tons of friends. The lost child is just passive and easily overlooked but that's not a bad thing. They just look for other quiet people to be with. Whereas the scapegoats fit in with other "Bad" kids.
I don't know; just my observations about me and my siblings and how we wound up, classifed by role type. I hope this was at least somewhat interesting.