Myth versus History

[Ireth]

As has been pointed out in this very forum, probably multiple times, a lot of fantasy writers take a very literal approach to their mythologies -- the gods/goddesses exist and shape the world to their will, often interacting with mortals as well, and that is How Things Are. But others have raised voices of dissent, saying that myths should be myths, and separate from history. I'm compelled to ask, why should that be? Certainly stories get changed and twisted over time, but do myth and fact have to be entirely separate? Do people prefer a world where everything is explained by science, not "the will of the gods"? Why can't the sun be a chariot of fire pulled across the sky by a team of horses rather than a burning ball of gases? Or the moon a silver flower in a lamp, not a chunk of rock reflecting sunlight?

I'm especially concerned about this question with my fledgling story Moonhunter. In it, all the wolves are blessed with intelligence at roughly a human level (though there are no humans in that world), including the power of speech, by a goddess who is the moon. The moon goddess is then killed and cast out of the sky by the other deities: her older sister, goddess of day (likely made manifest in the sun), and the god of night, who is manifest in darkness (not the evil kind); as a result, the wolves eventually begin to lose their intelligence and speech, reverting to mindless animals one by one. The plot of the story focuses on a group of wolves who seek out the fallen remnants of the moon goddess' body in the hopes of restoring the goddess' power and her blessing on their kin.

I don't want to go for a cruel twist and have them find a chunk of worthless rock and the revelation that there are no gods, at least not as they understand them -- it seems that it would lend a certain fakeness to the idea of intelligent talking wolves. If there are no gods, one would ask, how did the wolves learn to think and speak? Or am I interpreting people's comments in entirely the wrong way? If I am, please don't hesitate to correct me.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I think a better framework for this is "Should the protagonists be right in their beliefs about the world?" The fact that a belief is scientific doesn't preclude it from being wrong (see: geocentrism), and the fact that a belief is mythical doesn't preclude it from being right (see: any case of shamanic herbalism where the herb turned out to actually work.) For that matter, plenty of bad scientists frame their ideas in mythic terms, and in a fantasy setting, what we would consider mythic can be literal science.

In this case, you have intelligent wolves, and you have some reason for their being intelligent. Whatever reason you come up with for their intelligence depends on the laws of nature in your setting (potentially including the laws of magic, which here are a part of nature.) In other words, any reason you come up with can be framed according to in-universe science. It's just a matter of whether you want to speak in scientific or mystical language.

 

[Cursive]

I think the distinction to make is not that myth or history is better but that a person's mind is likely to side one way or the other when reading your story. I don't want to offer possible suggestions to how you should proceed with your story, but I do think you should find out where you are on the spectrum of metaphorical mythologizing and realistically real fiction. Personally I'm in the middle I think. I love a great, creative idea that seems metaphorical and beautiful aesthetically but I also don't want it to be so fantastical that its almost impossible to explain without imposing some sort of magical necessity.

From the brief bit you've written about your story, it sounds like it has really great potential to have and make some poignant moments that will define how you feel about this very subject. I've already read into your storyline too much in my imagination so i dont want to even offer suggestions about where the plot should go. I might be in love with your book. If you don't write it I might have to.

All the best!

 

[Shockley]

My take on it is that a lot of people like to have the big myths (gods, mainly) of their world be literally true and present in the material. That's fine and dandy, if it fits into the work.

But for 99% of fantasy stories, it really doesn't matter if the myths, prophecies, what have you, etc. are true - people make them true because they expect them to be true because it's fantasy, and they don't even explore the idea that those myths can be mistaken.

 

[Anders Ämting]

A good example of this, I've noted, is the Elder Scrolls Lore.

For those of you who haven't played Elder Scrolls, the games basically contain a lot of written material that provide background information for the setting. Stuff like books written by scholars, religious text, myths of various people, etc. This (along with additional backstory to the various cultures, etc) is collectively known as the Lore.

The thing is, some of this lore doesn't make sense - there are parts that contradict other parts; a god in one culture can be a demon lord in another, for example, or some gods are actually older gods who got renamed or reimagined when they were assimiated by a new culture. The main villain of the last game is this ancient dragon demigod, but for some minor tribe somewhere he's a trickster god instead. And this is a setting where gods and demons objectively exist - the primary dieties do stuff like heal your diseases once a day if you pray to their alters, bestow literal blessings on their agents, etc. One demon god actually comments his own creation story, calling it "much too literal minded." Even some actual historical events seem kinda dubious.

Now, me, I took one look at this stuff and realized that this is lore as in, you know, folklore. It's literally the myths and legends of these people -the hearsay and campfire stories and oral traditions- that have been written down and added to the world of the games to make it feel more realistic. Which I think is awesome, because this is how mythology actually works in reality. And even if the gods exist, that doesn't mean the people got everything right.

Which makes it a bit frustrating to hang out with other Elder Scrolls fans, since a lot of them tend to regard the Lore as the literal canon - that stuff really happened, all of it, even the parts that seem silly or contradictory, because they are just too used to fantasy mythologies being literal facts all the time.

Curiously, and somewhat ironically, talking to these people actually feels kinda like talking to very literal-minded religious people.

 

[wordwalker]

And of course, any time it bumps up against either the real powers or someone else's beliefs, any misinterpretation is a plot device waiting to happen...

 

[Mindfire]

Ireth, I can totally relate to your dilemma. And I agree that having the wolves find only a broken rock and fade hopelessly into unintelligence would be a poor ending. It would also create major plot holes, like why your world's tides hadn't gone haywire after the moon crashed, or why something that big hitting the earth's surface didn't result in a mass extinction.

But the answer to your question is that it really depends on how you, personally feel about the supernatural. For the moment, disregard the interests of the reader. Because a reader is only going to give your story credence if it's honest. And it can only be honest if it squares in some way with who you are as a person. I don't have any research to back this up, but I have a feeling that more cynical, materialistic types prefer stories where the "powers that be" either butt out of mortal affairs or just plain don't exist except in the minds of the people, while those who have even a bare minimum of spiritual belief (no religion required, that's a debate for another day) are more willing to accept divine-intervention-as-fact. Which camp do you fall into? Your sadness at the wolves' possible disappointment leads me to believe that you are in the latter camp. In which case, I think you should follow your heart.

Now, if I might be allowed to make an inference, I'm guessing that you think taking the wolves' lore about the gods literally might result in a fairly "standard" and predictable fantasy plot: things go awry, heroes find mcguffin, the day (night?) is save, while the more melancholy, cynical ending is "deeper" and has more pathos. You want to tell a deep, but interesting story, but you don't want a depressing ending. Well I have good news for you! Not only can you fuse your myth into your history, you can do it in a way that doesn't negate depth or pathos. Anders made a good point about the Elder Scrolls that is applicable to your situation. Your wolves' myths may be literally true, but that doesn't mean they know the whole story. Pieces go missing, stories are misremembered or forgotten, old scripts are mistranslated, legends are embellished. These things happen. You don't need your wolves to discover that everything they knew was a lie. You can simply have them discover that they don't know the whole story. That there are gaps in their knowledge.

The foundation, the key here, is for you to decide what really happened. If your gut tells you the legends are literally true, stick with that. If they aren't, or if there's more to them, dig into that. Once you know what actually happened and is happening, then you can ask what your characters know. They'll most certainly know less than you do. They'll probably have a distorted version of the facts. They may even have a few things that are outright wrong and were invented over the course of a few generations. In other words, their knowledge is not an exact match for the actual truth. Now all you have to do is take them on a journey to discover what the truth is, a journey that can be as hopeful or cynical as you choose. Not everything has to be explained scientifically, and perhaps not everything should. This is fantasy after all. If the supernatural has no place here, where does it?

 

[Zireael]

I don't mind having in-setting lore which contradicts other lore (see Elder Scrolls example). However, the problem is, how to present it in such a way as to not confuse the reader?

 

[Mindfire]

I don't mind having in-setting lore which contradicts other lore (see Elder Scrolls example). However, the problem is, how to present it in such a way as to not confuse the reader?

I sort of have this issue. I'm going to put up a thread about it. The best solution I can come up with is "Mythic Favoritism." In other words if two cultures have religions, lore, etc. that disagree, decide who's ultimately right and then grant "favoritism" to that culture. Allow the story to back up their beliefs while showing those of the opposing camp to be false. I take this perhaps to an extreme in that most of the characters who come from a nation with the "correct" beliefs are heroes while most of those with "incorrect" beliefs are villains. There are good and bad people from all nations of course, but most of the good guys are in the "correct" camp, and most of the villains are in the "mistaken" camp.

 

[Shockley]

If you want there to be an answer, then follow what Mindfire said. Sometimes, though, the mystery can be more fun than the answer.

Philip K. Dick had a nice way of handling this in 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' A substantial part of the background narrative revolved around a religion based on a man suffering and dying so that everyone could enter into this blissful state through machines in their home. As the story progresses, more and more holes get pocked in this idea - until it is completely disproven and made impossible. It is then followed up with the POV character having a religious experience, bringing it all back into question again.

 

[bjza]

I sort of have this issue. I'm going to put up a thread about it. The best solution I can come up with is "Mythic Favoritism." In other words if two cultures have religions, lore, etc. that disagree, decide who's ultimately right and then grant "favoritism" to that culture. Allow the story to back up their beliefs while showing those of the opposing camp to be false. I take this perhaps to an extreme in that most of the characters who come from a nation with the "correct" beliefs are heroes while most of those with "incorrect" beliefs are villains. There are good and bad people from all nations of course, but most of the good guys are in the "correct" camp, and most of the villains are in the "mistaken" camp.

I would be hesitant to use such favoritism if it's so perfectly split and so unlike the way knowledge works in our world. No one is correct all of the time. It is not that rare to find scholars who disagree, citizenry who disagree with the scholars, merchants and aristocrats who interpret things differently than religious leaders, ancient sources with fact, myth and misinterpretation mixed in, noble houses with family histories that conveniently fill in gaps of a more powerful house... These are all familiar to each of us. So long as the information and disagreements are revealed through individual voices, I don't think a reader will find it too confusing. Rather, it could be exciting where knowing the truth is vital to the plot.

 

[Mindfire]

I would be hesitant to use such favoritism if it's so perfectly split and so unlike the way knowledge works in our world. No one is correct all of the time. It is not that rare to find scholars who disagree, citizenry who disagree with the scholars, merchants and aristocrats who interpret things differently than religious leaders, ancient sources with fact, myth and misinterpretation mixed in, noble houses with family histories that conveniently fill in gaps of a more powerful house... These are all familiar to each of us. So long as the information and disagreements are revealed through individual voices, I don't think a reader will find it too confusing. Rather, it could be exciting where knowing the truth is vital to the plot.

That's the part I'm struggling with. Issues of religion and lore are rarely central to the plot. Mostly they influence the story indirectly by shaping how the characters see the world and by way of the magic systems. I can only think of a few instances where religious issues are central to the plot. But when they do occur, supernatural events only support one set of religions. (Which are technically only one religion because 3 cultures unknowingly worship the same God under different names.) The world by nature is aggressively exclusive in this respect. (Gee, you think my Judeo-Christian is showing enough here?)

Introducing any ambiguity would not only muddle the plot, but betray everything I know deep down about the world. As a result, all the false religions feel hollow. Developing them further doesn't seem to help and ultimately feels pointless. Introducing errors into the true religions also feels like a betrayal and makes even the heroes less sympathetic in my eyes.

It seems I am in an impossible position.
Everybody is correct = impossible and a cop-out.
Nobody is correct = betrayal and more plot holes.

I know shades of grey are all the rage, but there has to be black and white here. Somebody has to be right and someone has to be wrong. Favoritism is the best balance I can achieve , unless you see a better option.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I know shades of grey are all the rage, but there has to be black and white here. Somebody has to be right and someone has to be wrong. Favoritism is the best balance I can achieve , unless you see a better option.

I'm not a Christian, but I deeply respect the morality Christ espoused. Find virtues you support in the religions you disagree with, and show how metaphysics you think are wrong can still lead to values you think are right.

 

[Mindfire]

I'm not a Christian, but I deeply respect the morality Christ espoused. Find virtues you support in the religions you disagree with, and show how metaphysics you think are wrong can still lead to values you think are right.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. It occurs to me that the problem with the incorrect religions is that I've in a sense equated "incorrectness" with "religion of evil". Not that the false religions go around sacrificing children or anything (though there is a cult that does), but they do things like actively discourage charity, openly promote racism, and aggressively enforce a rigid social class system. Of course, these are things that Christianity has done in the past... But the problem is that I portray it not as human error but as the willful machinations of an eeeeeevil Darth Pope Avatar and his acolytes. (And now I think my Protestant is showing.) The only incorrect religion I've fully developed (which does have some Catholic influences) is actually an elaborate deception used to control the populace. But only the Avatar and the highest tier of the religious order know that. So I suppose I could show lesser priests and believers as sympathetic characters? Come to think of it, the Beorgians (nation that adheres to this faith) aren't portrayed as sympathetic as a whole. Come to think of it, most characters that don't share a cultural background with my main character are unsympathetic. Perhaps that's the root of the issue?

As for the other "incorrect" religions, they haven't really been fleshed out. One culture, the North Haldorians (also known as the "White" Haldorians) practices a kind of ancestor worship of saint-like demigod figures called the Champions, who are believed to have used their power to bring their race into a new world when the old one was torn by war and corruption and ultimately destroyed by dragons. The North Haldorians believe that the Champions ascended to a higher plane of existence and became fully gods, giving their blessing and urging them to conquer the new world and the inhuman "barbarians" who inhabited it. This is actually half-true. The Champions did exist, but they were only ordinary men with a command of magic, not gods or demigods. The "old world" was just a different continent (that still exists!) and they weren't forced to come to the "new world" because of war or dragons but simple religious persecution (like the Pilgrims). Dragons (and my dragons are slightly different than the usual kind) did exist once upon a time, but they had nothing to do with the reason the Champions and their followers fled the "old world". The Champions did not "ascend to godhood", most of them died when the ship carrying the refugees was wrecked on the shores of the "new world", and the last few died shortly after leading the others inland. They came to be reverenced as heroes and, over time, worshipped as gods. The "barbarians" the North Haldorians believe it is their duty to conquer are actually the Native Haldorians. Their story will not be related here.

By far the most undeveloped of my religions is that practiced by a faction of the Native Haldorians that has settled into a kind of on/off peace with the North Haldorians, the Horsemen of the Steppes. I literally know nothing about their beliefs except the word "shamanism". That's about it.

 

[Mindfire]

...sorry for hijacking your thread, Ireth. I was going to make my own. Honest. :/

 

[Cinninamon]

I personally love mythology and most of my stories have some kind of mythological aspect to it, such as ancient beasts who had been in slumber or some kind of deity. But perhaps for this, you could have so that when the Goddess is cast out, her body is split up into actual moon rocks and she is only ever in that "worthless" form because she is incomplete. The only other way I can think to explain this is the final boss of Bayonetta, the Goddess Jubileus. At the very end she is unable to do anything because she's literally just large inanimate rocks.

 

[bjza]

I know shades of grey are all the rage, but there has to be black and white here. Somebody has to be right and someone has to be wrong. Favoritism is the best balance I can achieve , unless you see a better option.

Try viewing it from the other perspectives, like Feo is suggesting, and remember that people can be at their most creative when it seems (to outsiders) that their beliefs have been definitively proven wrong. The facts may be black and white, but not everyone has an identical interpretation of them and no worthwhile perspective character has access to all of them.

 

[SeverinR]

I think part of the story telling can be the belief in mythology or lore, and discovering the truth later on.
Myth are created by retelling of great events, which regularly changes after each retelling.

I think its part of realism to use partial info or misinformation that would occur in a real event. Humans are fallible and can mis-interprate things.
I think having them be totally wrong, would be extreme, but it has happened in life. Science believed the world was flat for along time.

 

[Addison]

I remember a book that drew from....German mythology I think. German or Slavic, one of those. Both mythologies are my favorites. So I was excited to find this book. I sat down and read it right there in the library. I didn't get to the end of the first quarter of the book. The author and poked, twisted, prodded and plucked at the mythology until it fit her story. I was insulted, I felt betrayed.

I understand that authors draw from history, mythology and such for their stories. Either something in what they hear sparks an idea on its own or they like at a raw idea, find some historical or mythological event which is similar and stronger, and mix them together into a story. THAT I can read. Because they are drawing on the concept of the myth or history they were inspired by. But if they read a piece of mythology and say "Ooh this is neat, I should re-write it into a book so everyone can read this" then just stop right there. Unless you're going to do justice to the story, as in re write to fill in the blanks accurately without destroying the myth, bending it to your own will, then just don't write it.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I remember a book that drew from....German mythology I think. German or Slavic, one of those. Both mythologies are my favorites. So I was excited to find this book. I sat down and read it right there in the library. I didn't get to the end of the first quarter of the book. The author and poked, twisted, prodded and plucked at the mythology until it fit her story. I was insulted, I felt betrayed.

I understand that authors draw from history, mythology and such for their stories. Either something in what they hear sparks an idea on its own or they like at a raw idea, find some historical or mythological event which is similar and stronger, and mix them together into a story. THAT I can read. Because they are drawing on the concept of the myth or history they were inspired by. But if they read a piece of mythology and say "Ooh this is neat, I should re-write it into a book so everyone can read this" then just stop right there. Unless you're going to do justice to the story, as in re write to fill in the blanks accurately without destroying the myth, bending it to your own will, then just don't write it.

I've read some of Edith Hamilton's work on the evolution of Greek myths and legends, so I can't really agree with this. Even in antiquity, two different storytellers could have two completely different versions of the same myth, and both versions could be great in their own way. I'd go so far as to say that we wouldn't still remember Ovid if he didn't mess around with myths and adapt them to his own style. (It actually disappoints me that this casual acceptance of rewriting and repurposing hasn't survived to the present day--I blame copyright laws.)