Scribbler's Guide to Myth

Robin Hood and the Making of an Outlaw Hero

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Sarah

Ridley Scott’s 2010 film Robin Hood has been touted as being “Robin Hood as you’ve never seen him.” Well, it depends on the “you” and the “seen.”

[What follows contains Spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it, you’ve been warned.]

Certainly, many of the tellings of Robin Hood are about Robin’s life as the leading outlaw of Sherwood Forest. Some versions have touched on what went before, how he came to be an outlaw, or what happened late in life.

The British television series in the 1980s showed how first a yeoman

and then an Earl’s son

became Robin Hood. The Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

shows Robin as a nobleman crusader who returns home to fight injustice. 1976’s Robin and Marion

also showed Robin as a crusader, who followed Richard the LionHeart off to war (after many forest adventures) and then returned home a much older man after the King’s death.

The literature and legends of Robin Hood cover many variations of how Robin became Robin Hood. So, the claim that Scott’s Robin would be nothing like what you knew before is actually stretching the point, even if just limited to film appearances (and yes, I skipped mentioning the Flynn version). Scott’s film doesn’t really stray very far from the core of the myth of Robin Hood as it has become.

First off, Robin Hood is one of the key examples of what an Outlaw Hero is. Of the community, but not in it. And the hero addresses some flaw in society. So far, so good. We’re on track.

One thing that Scott’s Robin Hood does do is make our hero, Robin Longstride, a Transformer. By being present in a scene, this Robin changes things. More usually, one would expect Robin Hood to be a Trickster, the underdog who punctures illusions and outwits “bigger” opponents. But Scott doesn’t go that route.

Early on in the film, King Richard explores his camp with his aide Robert Loxley, looking for an honest man. They encounter a brawling Robin, who has been entertaining fellow soldiers with the shell game. Then he is asked by the King to be honest and tell whether he thinks the King’s actions have pleased God. Remember, as a Transformer, Robin changes things. Even though Loxley tries to surreptitiously warn him against honesty, Robin says no, and cites a massacre Richard ordered in the Holy Land.

His honesty gets him put into stocks, where he is sitting when the King is killed. Robin and his co-horts use the situation to cover their escape from Richard’s army.

As they head back to England, they encounter the ambush of the English messengers taking the news of Richard’s death – and Richard’s crown – back to England. And Robert Loxley is the leader. With his dying breaths, Loxley charges Robin with returning his sword to his father. Robin decides to honor the request and does so by taking on Loxley’s identity.

Taking on a new identity certainly does transform things for a character. But in doing this, Robin not only changes his social identity, he takes up the “burden” and responsibilities belonging to Loxley. And in taking on that role he changes himself. Likewise, in taking on Loxley’s identity, he has to take on Loxley’s wife. This is yet another change for Robin (and for Marion).

Once he takes on this identity, his presence changes the way people react around him. Their response to his perceived status strengthens his inherent resolution and leadership abilities. That too changes him.

Onward the story goes, with the circumstances changing Robin and him changing the circumstances. Right up to the point where King John rejects the changes in the power structure that had been prepared by Robin’s father and the Barons years before. John declares Robin to be outlawed and so the “Legend Proper” begins.

There’s not much here that is alien to the nature of the Robin Hood legend. Scott’s changes are, in effect, a distinction without much difference. The one key “difference” in Ridley Scott’s version is that instead of a Trickster, he has given us the story of how a Transformer becomes an Outlaw Hero.

Pictures from Robin of Sherwood property of Goldcrest Films Int., Harlech Television, ITV. / Picture from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves property of Warner Bros. Pictures / Picture from Robin and Marion property of Columbia Pictures / Pictures from Robin Hood property of Universal Pictures.

Posted in Motifs at work | Tagged Outlaw Hero, Richard the Lionheart, Ridley Scott, Robin Hood, Transformer, Trickster | 4 Comments

Is the Myth of Wonder Woman a Lie?

Posted on June 6, 2010 by Sarah

One of the interesting things in having a website is checking the search strings that bring people to the site. In January this year, one of those search strings caught my attention. Someone was apparently investigating the question “Is the myth of Wonder Woman a lie?”

The first thing that crossed my mind was why anyone was still asking whether any myth is a lie. But of course, that “still” is more a reflection of how much time I have personally spent studying myths and how they affect our lives. Not everyone else in the world has done that. There remain many who contend that anything talking about apparent divinities which is not about one’s personal deity is ipso facto “a lie.” So I guess I should address that aspect before starting out.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Myth is about meaning, it is not about fact. Not scientific fact, not historical fact. Because of this distinction, regardless of what one’s personal religious beliefs are, it remains possible for anyone to gain understanding by considering what a particular myth means, either in a cultural context or a personal one. Thus, it is basically a non sequitur for anyone to ask if a myth is a lie. A lie about what?

Previously, I had discussed Wonder Woman and how difficult she is as a character: difficult for writers to get a full grasp on her. You can find those observations HERE. I won’t repeat the whole.

So, then I ran across the question of “Is the myth of Wonder Woman a lie?” That got me thinking some more.

I spent a lot of time in The Scribbler’s Guide to the Land of Myth looking at archetypal patterns that are specific to women, among all the other things I was analysing. But even those patterns are not completely gender exclusive. Most archetypes can apply to either men or women. I’m not going to repeat all that: it’s easily found in the book. Please, check it out in the book.

We have to first ask what is meant by “lie”. Are we asking whether something is congruent with scientific and historical fact? After all, lies are about what is untrue. Or are we asking whether something reflects a genuine emotional state that many people experience? Or an ideal that would be an actual improvement over current conditions? When we get to discussing whether emotional states or imaginative and idealistic considerations are “untrue”, we move into more ify territory. How do you tell someone that their subjective emotion response to something is a lie? How can that be a lie?

Secondly, we have to ask (again) what really is the myth of Wonder Woman? I point back to my previous post on the character.

But let’s look at the details, giving the whole question a detailed consideration.

Are Amazons (warrior women, not residents of the Amazon river basin) real? As a race or society in the modern world? No, they are not. Were the mythic Amazons real? That’s uncertain, and more a question of archeology and cultural anthropology. We do have many women serving as warriors, though, and doing so with competence and honor. So, we could call those female soldiers (and sailors and marines and members of the air force) “Amazons”. Which would make “Amazons” real in fact, and so since they exist, they wouldn’t be “a lie.”

Are the comic book Amazons real? No, it’s fiction. Within the “universe” of DC Comics, sure they exist there. But in our flesh and blood world? No. So the next question is whether Wonder Woman as we get her in stories exists or not? And since she is a fiction, her stories exist, as fiction.

But does any of that make “the myth of Wonder Woman” a lie? No.

What is it that we look for, when we look at heroes and their stories, their myths? What is the truth we seek in these things? We seek models, ideals, inspiration. We seek models of behavior that can help us cope more successfully with the world around us. We seek ideals that we can aspire to, the “best of the best” that we would want to be like. We seek inspiration that can help us in difficult times, just that spark of determination that will help us over the last difficult slope.

Wonder Woman is a high profile figure – the most widely known female superhero. Since her creation, she has held that eminent position.

So where does the question come from, that asks whether “the myth of Wonder Woman is a lie”? Is this a male versus female matter? Where male chauvinism seeks to suppress any independent female?

In the 1970s, when modern feminism came to the forefront, there was certainly a lot of discussion of how men “kept women down”. Even as circumstances were changing, the debate went on (and, actually, still does continue). So it is interesting that in that era, the editorial decision was made to “de-power” Wonder Woman.

At that time, “de-powering” her was a way of making this role model more accessible to the “average woman”. She became a martial artist and still continued to help people, especially other women. Of course, male superheroes don’t get “de-powered” for that reason. So, even in attempting to make her “more accessible”, a cultural double standard was in action: women need a more “realistic” role model, something they can actually achieve, while men can be inspired by improbably powered heroes because they understand how fictive heroes work as inspiration. (Okay, so I’m being snide about this. But the double standard was a little bit in effect.) Mind you, this “de-powering” was not done at the behest of the feminists. In fact, it was feminists who led the call for a return of “classic Wonder Woman.”

She got her powers back in an inevitable ret-con. But Princess Diana has still been challenged in her position. In the 1990s, she lost her title as Wonder Woman.

But in this case, it was a matter of a specific story arc (wherein her mother was actually trying to protect Diana: it had been prophesied that “Wonder Woman” would die, so she orchestrated a substitution, but Diana was not told until Artemis, the substitute, died). However, one of the key things about this story arc was that it affirmed Diana’s position as a leader, not just of women but of her heroic peers. At the time, Diana had been the leader of the Justice League: when Artemis attempted to claim that position as well (as an extension of her duties as “Wonder Woman”), the League members made it clear that they followed Diana, not a title. Although she had “lost the right” to the emblems of her title, she continued in her heroic ways.

She regained her title, of course. Because she is Wonder Woman.

So, what would it be like without Wonder Woman in our imaginative field?

Certainly, there have been heroic women in the history of the world. Joan of Arc, for instance, who led the French to reclaim lost territories from the English, and who inspired a timid prince to claim his royal title of king. Elizabeth I may not have led on the battlefield, but she battled the chauvinism that claimed that women could not rule, outwitting men left and right (even her own advisors) in order to hold the power herself. There are historical models of strong, heroic women.

And yet, to have such a model in fiction, is an important thing.

She was a ground-breaking character when her creator Marston introduced her. He specifically intended her to be a role model and inspiration to girls, to parallel the inspiration the male superheroes were to boys. He had hit on a crucial thing: yes, girls and women do need a mythic or imaginative role model. But it goes beyond that. By accepting this strong female character into the imaginative field, all readers gradually accept the right of female characters to even be in the field. These days, of course, Wonder Woman has been joined by a whole force of female superheroes, each touching some chord in the audience (and no, they aren’t just sex-fantasy figures, no matter how frequently the male artists draw them as such).

So, this brings us back to our original point. What makes a myth a lie? Is it even possible to do that? If the myth speaks to something important in the audience, to the degree that it is communicable and durable, then there is truth in it. Not factual truth, perhaps, but emotional truth and truth in meaning.

So what’s the answer? The answer is: No, the myth of Wonder Woman is not a lie.

Images are the property of DC Comics.

Posted in Musings | Tagged Comics, Scribbler's Guide, Warrior, Wonder Woman | Leave a comment

Inside the Story Space

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Sarah

(Originally posted on LiveJournal)

(For my friends, there are a couple of reasons I haven’t been posting much on LJ lately. The sore foot acquired at Wondercon at the beginning of April turned out to be plantar faciitis — distress of connective tissue in the foot, mostly on the underside. Early on, if I did nothing but lounge on the sofa with the foot elevated, it seemed fine, but the moment I put it down, pain returned. There’s not much one can do, except stretching and flexing, icing, and not stressing it. But it’s been a distraction. A second diversion has been the fact that I have been editing a bunch of short stories. The collection uses a set of characters a friend created for his graphic novels. He asked a number of his friends to write stories using the characters. And I volunteered to edit them in preparation of putting them together for a POD book. It’s been a lot of work — and I’ve learned that I really, really do not want to be an editor when I grow up. Oh, I can do it, and do it well, but I don’t get much joy from it. So, thems my excuses for not posting much.)

Recently I picked up, again, the novel Acacia, with an eye toward finally finishing the book. I started reading it well over a year ago. But it is a massive and dense book. And there is a lot to it, details vividly conveyed. But for some reason, I can’t read it straight through. I have to read this one in fits and starts.

But in getting back into it, I was struck by how I had no problem picking up the threads of the story. I know that part of this is because I do have a highly retentive memory. But I also credit the vividness of the author’s storytelling. He has made the world of the story real enough, detailed enough, that I have no problem remembering who the characters are, where they are, what’s at stake.

The phenomenon of getting back inside a story is something I have thought of occasionally before. I haven’t ever really had much problem doing that with a well written story. But I know that some people don’t like popping in and out of stories, feeling that it is too disjointed for them.

But what brought it especially to my mind this week were the events of the series finales of Lost and 24 on television. Here we have long stories told in “fits and starts”, and yet people seem to have no problem picking up the threads of the stories. Because they are engaged by the stories.

On top of that, many of the people who were plugged into these stories are also plugged into other ongoing stories: other television stories, mega-stories in comic books (for instance the recent long Blackest Night from DC Comics), multi-volume novels. People have no problem distinguishing one story from another, nor do they insist that they can follow only one of any of the possibilities.

So I started musing: specific stories are like pocket universes, and we enter them by some magical means. When we are inside the story space (especially when the story is well told and engaging), we have no problem remembering the details of that world as if they were indeed “real”. The characters are people we know well, the places are places familiar to us. When we exit the story, whether to take a break from it, or because the story is done, it is closed up behind us (a “closed book” in so many ways). We can open it again if we choose and re-enter it. But it doesn’t … extrude into our daily life, except in how the characters and events have touched us personally.

But it strikes me as very wonderful that we humans are capable of “being part of” so many different pocket-universes. For myself, just on the spur of this moment, I can claim citizenship inside the story space of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, Doyle’s Sherlockian London, the realms of Howard’s Conan, the dark streets of Batman’s Gotham City, the corridors of Capt. Kirk’s Enterprise, the station levels of Babylon 5, the country homes and city residences of Georgette Heyer’s novels. And so many more. And they don’t leak into each other, except when we playfully throw them into the blender to see what sort of cocktail we can get by combining them.

I’m not really going anywhere with this rambling post. I’m just floating on a cloud overlooking the landscape of Storyland, and wondering how the various countries came about and why they so carefully maintain their borders — and why we are free to be citizens of all the countries, if we so desire.

I’m also a bit curious as to what pocket universes my friends are venturing into presently. Because many people I know often have multiple books “going” at the same time, even if there is one immediate one that is getting most of their attention. What worlds have you visited lately, and how well do you know the territory?

Just curious.

Comments

kalimac – May. 27th, 2010

The problem is that story spaces don’t operate by the same standards. And I don’t mean that they’re mutually inconsistent. I mean that they’re different the way that a great Picasso and a great Van Gogh and a great Rembrandt are great by different standards of greatness. Or the way you could say that an eight-year-old’s drawing is fabulous for an eight-year-old, but some work by Van Gogh is not Van Gogh at his best.

When I have Middle-earth actively in my head, all other fantasy worlds seem cheap and shoddy until I can shake it off and immerse myself, with the sole exception of the Valley of the Na.

scribblerworks – May. 27th, 2010

Yes! I think you’re right – jumping from story to story is rather like wandering a museum looking at pieces from various artists, right along with that eight-year-old’s drawing stuck on the refrigerator.

And I agree that Middle-earth does indeed take supremacy. Tolkien’s world-building is so thorough and yet engaging.

David Anthony Durham (the author of Acacia had previously written historical novels, and he was apparently very good working from established historical facts. He certainly brings that attention to detail to his fantasy writing. It’s almost overload.

sartorias – May. 27th, 2010

My own wouldn’t count (though I’ve slipped in and out for fifty years, now), so what does? The Vorkosiverse. I stepped into Herman Melville’s paradigm of earth, and stayed long enough to decide I don’t want to revisit it, so it will close behind me. I’m enjoying the America of West Wing because government actually works (what a fantasy!) and there are good people in it who can be effective. But then I drop over to NCIS.

I did try the world of 24, but I loathed it too much to stay there–your guts must be stronger than mine. Oh, how could I forget the LA of Chuck? *Love*

Just a few–this is already too blabbery.

scribblerworks – May. 27th, 2010

I think one’s own created world should count! I was certainly thinking of mine as I wrote the post.

That vividness of my own creation was something that struck me as part of this “being inside the story space”. I recently had the first two chapters of The Ring of Adonel critiqued by a writers’ group, and many of the comments addressed the vivid sense of place I had managed to convey.

Now, admittedly, those two chapters have gone through several fine-tuning revisions over the (ahem) couple of decades they’ve existed. But also, the particular place in the story, where most of the early chapters takes place, has been in my head for so long, I really do know it. But recently, I’ve finally moved the story into landscape I’ve only known before on a map. I suddenly realized how much I have relied on my artist’s approach, because I didn’t have as strong a sense of place in the new territory. I’m planning to address that by learning 3-D computer landscape modeling. I want to be able to “see” these places more vividly. I’m even considering (once I learn the program) offering an “imaging service” for other fantasy writers … but we’ll see how that shapes up after I’ve gotten the program and learned it.
😀

I had to read Moby Dick in college… and strangely enough the most vivid chapter to me was the one least connected to the actual story – it’s the one about rendering the whale blubber and the ambergris. I never got into West Wing myself, although I know it holds a lot of people. And certainly NCIS initially drew me in on the charms of Mark Harmon and David McCallum. But it’s also good storytelling. As for 24… it’s actually a strange case for me, because I think I was riding entirely on Kiefer Sutherland’s performance — so many of the characters around him don’t seem quite credible (what’s with all these moles regularly getting jobs in a counter-intelligence unit?). But Kiefer always “kept it real” in the character of Jack Bauer – or as real as you can get with what is essentially a comic book superhero. Heh… new worlds for me this year (or rather presently) are the Miami of Burn Notice and the Manhattan of Castle.

But this is a topic for blabbery, so no problem with that. In fact, that’s sort of the point — all these diverse places we go to in stories, some of which are incongruous. All in fun.

sartorias – May. 27th, 2010

Kiefer is good, but the show was too humorless for me, and also the cost in innocents dying pointlessly way too high. But degustibus.

I enjoyed Castle, and I loved season two of Burn Notice . . . I will get three when Netflix releases it, and I hope it’s not a repeat of two. The one I fell in love with was Chuck.

sartorias – May. 27th, 2010

Another thought, Melville is certainly at his best in Moby Dick, blending the real with the fictional world to give it added resonance.

However, I find that he has nothing to say to me in his subsequent stuff: I don’t find Bartleby the least bit funny (this is where “absurdism as comedy” and I totally part ways), and Pierre is an abysmally, almost unforgiveably ugly view of writers, what they write, what happens to what they write, and the world they write in.

jpantalleresco – May. 28th, 2010

bookwise I am currently reading the Alchemist by Pablo Coehlo. It’s not something I normally read but I’m enjoying it. I can kind of relate to seeking a treasure and journeying to unknown lands. I’ve done it many times.

Television Wise I’m watching episodes of Codegeass: Lelouche of the Rebellion. I’ve never watched a hero of a series be so diabolical. This series is epic and probably the best political show I’ve ever seen.

I’m rereading the Great Hunt by Robert Jordan as well. With him it’s watching how his world just ties together so well. It’s amazing to see how far in advance he planned things. A real master of his craft.

(Anonymous) – Jun. 30th, 2010

Your writing is brilliant Scribbler….
…but the thinking behind the writing is even more so.

“I’m not really going anywhere with this rambling post. I’m just floating on a cloud overlooking the landscape of Storyland, and wondering how the various countries came about and why they so carefully maintain their borders — and why we are free to be citizens of all the countries, if we so desire.”

🙂 Wow to the 5th power!!!!!

Indeed, walking on a cloud… is very easy on a sore foot.

Jim from Michigan

Posted in Musings | Tagged Babylon 5, DC Comics, Georgette Heyer, J.R.R. Tolkien, Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek | Leave a comment

A Game for Tricksters and Shapeshifters

Posted on May 24, 2010 by Sarah

We don’t often think of mythic archetypes as something we would apply to our daily lives, especially figures like shapeshifters and tricksters. And yet our own little personal mythologies can shape our social interactions.

I’ve been thinking about this lately, while watching Season 20 of Survivor. Twice a year, this show sends a bunch of people off to some remote location, puts them through a variety of contests and then makes them vote each other out of the game. Because the players all live together in rough camps, the nature and quality of their social behavior can have a big effect on how far an individual may last in the game.

The cast of Survivor, Season 20, Heroes versus Villains

And the game design works in such a way that merely getting to the Final Two or Three is not necessarily an indication of good gameplay on your part: it could be because other players know you are so disliked that if given a choice between you and themselves, the jury (players previously voted out) will not give you the big prize.

Over the years, there have been those who believed that winning at challenges holds the key to winning the whole. Or making big plays to dump athletes or very social players. Some have believed that controlling all actions of their alliances is the winning way. Others choose to stay under the radar, not being too outstanding, or too obnoxious, or too visible in any fashion.

Russell was a Trickster

But the presentation each player makes of his or her self affects these methods. This seems very evident in Survivor‘s Season 20, which was labeled “Heroes versus Villains.” In this case, the players did not choose the labels. And yet, some embraced the designations, some rejected them, and some didn’t care. On an obvious level, Rupert deeply embraced the designation of “hero,” to the degree that he felt himself very reluctant to ally with a so-called “villain.” Colby as well clung to his perception of “playing with honor.” Russell gleefully plowed through players as chief villain (calling himself “king” several times). Coach, who seemed disconcerted to be classed as a villain, set out to play with what he perceived as honor and warrior ethics.

The problem with all this is that the game design of Survivor does not accommodate such self-perceptions. The social aspect of the game ends up ruling the final decisions of the jury, the people who will choose the million dollar winner. Thus, insisting that just being “athletic and winning challenges” won’t help someone who doesn’t get along with his or her tribe-mates. For those who believe they can “play with honor,” the reality is that they will have to break a promise at some point if they want to stay in the game.

The game of Survivor favors those who can operate in the modes of the mythic figures of Tricksters and Shapeshifters.

Tricksters

Parvati was a Trickster

The Trickster, let us remember, is one who punctures illusions, works from the position of being an underdog, and who keeps the sense of humor at hand. Not that the object is to be the “class clown,” but rather to keep the sense of balance in the face of incongruity. Tricksters keep an eye toward the best opportunities for bringing down “the big guys.”

A Trickster knows vividly he or she is at a disadvantage at all times, and so never lets down the guard. If switching alliances or just one vote serves the Trickster, that person will do it. And all the while, the Trickster will work at maintaining public humor, in order to keep the social situation from turning against him.

Shapeshifters

The Shapeshifter, by contrast, is the one who keeps secret some key piece of information. In Survivor, that could be a hidden alliance or possession of a hidden Immunity Idol. Shapeshifters will change voting targets as the game changes.

Rob was a Shapeshifter

A Shapeshifter will change social activity as circumstances change: such as letting someone else “provide food” for a long time, until that person is no longer needed for strategic purposes; as soon as it is an advantage, Shapeshifters will become “providers” (assuming possession of that skill). Another Shapeshifter might hold off in physical challenges until late in the game, when individual immunity is most important.

Sandra was a Shapeshifter

The way to deal with Shapeshifters is either change shapes with those people or to hold onto them until they reveal their “hidden truth.” When applied to Survivor, I suppose that means “be in an alliance with them.”

In Survivor, the game-play of both Tricksters and Shapeshifters can look similar. The nature of the game requires a lot of lying and tricking other players. And yet, there are differences in the way each type goes about these.

Season 20 Tricksters and Shapeshifters

Tricksters tend to run over those who are actively in their way. Russell was notorious for this – if he felt himself crossed or thwarted, he worked to remove that person promptly without waiting. This would involve tricking or persuading other players that his target was a threat in some way. He disrupted Rob’s plans by tricking Tyson into switching his vote (in a split-vote plot designed by Rob that would have put Tyson, Russell and Parvati in a three-way tie: in the re-vote, those three would not themselves vote and Rob’s alliance could then remove either Russell or Parvati easily) to Parvati, whom he then protected with a hidden Immunity Idol, with the result that Rob’s ally Tyson was voted out.

Parvati herself was no slouch at tricky maneuvering. She had played twice previously and won one of those games. Yet, Russell aligned with her seeming to consider her a malleable coat-tail rider. She did warn him she was not such when he told her she could “ride his coat-tails all the way,” but he apparently did not take that seriously. Parvati tricked her own ally, by keeping secret that she had found a hidden Immunity Idol. When the Heroes passed their Immunity Idol to Russell, thinking he was in danger before the merge, he gave it to Parvati at a point where it seemed she was in danger. She used both idols to benefit her own plans rather than Russell, which infuriated him for a bit.

By contrast, as Shapeshifters, Rob and Sandra played by seeming to ally one-to-one with each player they connected with. This can look like playing tricks, but it isn’t quite. With Rob, he would play true with his allies, being what they needed, as long as they held on to him. For Sandra, who had all her alliances peeled away from her, she held onto her one truth: she would not support Russell. Even down to the end, when it was evident that Russell would remove anyone who was not “with him,” when Russell asked her directly if she was with him or against him, she flat out told the truth: “I’m against you, Russell.” She went on to win the season, over the two Tricksters.

Archetypes Playing Survivor

But note, of all the mythical archetypes, these two are best adapted to changing circumstances. They are not the ones who come into the game and stick to a rigid personal mythology. “Heroes,” “villains,” “warriors,” “honorable player,” “pure athlete,” all those personal labels end up tripping the players who cling to them.

As I said, applying mythic motifs to our “real world” lives takes some careful consideration. Real lives tend to be more complicated than “story lives.” And yet, because myth is about meaning, we do, in the end, tend toward the mythic shapes that best convey our “personal meaning.” It’s an interesting prospect to consider. What mythic forms are most important in your life? And how do they become manifested in your lifte?

I’m going to have to go think about this some more. I’ll be interested in anyone’s thoughts about it.

Posted in Musings | Tagged Hero, Parvati Shallow, Rob Mariano, Russell Hantz, Sandra Diaz-Twine, Shapeshifter, Survivor, Trickster, Villain, Warrior | Leave a comment

Mythopoesis: Myth

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Sarah

The word “myth” is a slippery thing, for the minute one tries to pin it down with a rational description, it either dries up or slides out of reach. That eminent compendium of definition, the Oxford English Dictionary gives the following entry for “myth”:

A purely fictitious narrative usually involving supernatural persons, actions, or events, and embodying some popular ideas concerning natural or historical phenomena.
Properly distinguished from allegory and from legend (which implies a nucleus fact) but often used vaguely to include any narrative having fictitious elements.

One’s rational response to this definition is to agree, even while one’s heart is dissatisfied. For those who follow a particular faith, it is even less successful, for “myth” of a sort is usually at the core of their faith: a supernatural person embodying and concerned with natural and historical phenomena. Our minds are trained to accept the idea that myths are “made up stories”, but at some point our hearts quibble. While those whose religious beliefs are shaped by Judeo-Christian teachings are willing to accept the tales of the Greek myths as “made up,” the term “fictitious” becomes an unacceptable description for their own traditions. Some feeling insists that there is truth in the myths of one’s religion, truth of some sort or another. This then is where the problems of defining and describing myth arise: myth is not aimed at the rational response, but rather directed toward the non-rational (or emotional, or subjective) and intuitive response to the world.

Northrop Frye in Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton University Press: 1973) gives this explanation:

If superior in kind both to other men and to the environment of other men, the hero is a divine being, and the story about him will be a myth in the common sense of a story about a god. (AC, p. 33)

The point is that myth is about something other than “mere” humanity. If mythic characters represent a human quality, they do it in a distilled and highly potent way, untainted by other qualities. The god Pan, for instance, in his ambiguous mischievous way, embodies that highly charged excitement which in its negative manifestation is called panic. A “mere human” could not convey this representation, embody this quality: either the human character would simply be an example of someone caught in the emotion or they would stretch to become something more than human.

When a Sub-Creator sets out to include a mythic dimension to his Secondary World, these qualities of myth are things he needs to keep in his mind. Formal religion with its rituals is not a sufficient substitute for the mythic background, because ritual properly celebrates the remembrance of a mythic event or person. Without a sense of the myth behind the ritual, the reader will find the formal religions presented in the Secondary World rather flat. Further, if myth is present in the Secondary World, there must be at least some of the peoples of that world who believe in the myth.

If the Sub-Creator pays insufficient attention to a myth he has placed in the story and has a character who believes in the myth, he can easily end up cheating the character. If the author does not know what the characters believe, he can by inattention make the characters look like fools.

Myth is the heart’s explanation of why things are as they are in the world – the heart’s explanation and not the minds. Myth has little to do with scientific fact. Science and rationality will answer the question “What is the sun and why does it rise and set?” with facts about stars and rotations, and probably end up by pointing out that the sun itself is not moving around us – it doesn’t really “rise and set”. Unless an Author creates his peoples in such a way that they begin by knowing these scientific facts, their myths will not speak of the sun factually (as we know it). Indeed, a race of peoples who did know these facts would not speak of the sun “rising” or “setting”. However, if an Author considers handling myth in a traditional fashion, he needs to discover what sort of an outlook his peoples have about their sun (or suns). For those of us who live in temperate zones, the sun is friendly. To wake in the dark of night in order to watch the coming of sun is a heart-filling experience: the horizon turns grey and then a thread of gold appears, and gradually this gleaming, blinding presence rises up to begin its march across the sky. But supposing one lived in an extremely arid zone: the sun would be no friend there, rather a thief who steals away the night’s coolness.

Myths reflect, among other things, the way a culture responds to its environment, what the sun and moon mean to the people, and how important and powerful the winds and weather are to them.

The forces of nature, supernatural and elemental emotional forces, these are the types of things which draw on the garments of personality in myth. Myth is not about inanimate objects, but about a living, active universe. Northrop Frye describes the mythopoeic impulse this way:

Nature is now inside the mind of an infinite man who builds his cities out of the Milky Way. This is not reality, but it is the conceivable or imaginative limit of desire, which is infinite, eternal, and hence apocalyptic of the whole of nature as the content of an infinite and eternal living body which, if not human, is closer to being human than to being inanimate.(AC, p. 119)

Apocalypse! Revelation! Myths are the lightning embodiment of the heart’s perceptions. Beware, for any moment now you will realize that the thunder rumbling about in those cloud-banked skies in the sound of Thor’s hammer: the sparks from the anvil will be flying and soon his feet will come crashing through the trees with wind and rain on his heels.

Posted in Mythopoesis | Tagged Archetypes, Mythology, Northrup Frye, World Building, Writing | 1 Comment

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