[ SECRET POST #3444 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3444 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #492.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Not really. Mythology's a construct of earlier periods (frequently bronze age, some iron age, potentially more recent periods if you're lumping in folklore as well), and is often a result either of people explaining phenomena they didn't understand, or of conveying a morality tale. Fantasy's a modern construction that's very grounded in modern thought, even though often borrows elements from myth and folklore.

There are definitely similarities, but the tone and focus is usually pretty different.

[ketita]

Yeah, but I'd argue that emotionally, they're there to serve a similar purpose or representing the world and life in an idealized, fantastic way.

[sarillia]

That makes fantasy sound kind of aspirational which is definitely not how I approach it. I don't want an idealized society when I read fantasy. I want an interesting one.

[ketita]

Depending on which mythology you're looking at, most of them are neither idealized nor aspirational?
I mean Hercules' Labors? Nothing idealized about that, and I'd argue most Greeks wouldn't want to be hounded by Hera, either. It's aspirational in the "wouldn't it be cool" sense, but at the end of the day most people would probably prefer to live the quiet life, and not get like, turned into a tree.

[sarillia]

But idealized is the word you used. I'm confused.

[ketita]

I think that there are elements of idealization in every fantasy world, even if it's very abstracted, in the sense of a world where good/evil is clearer, or the option of instant healing, or having visible, present gods to rage at. The element of escapism that people enjoyed in myths is also similar to what people get from fantasy.

Also I may not be making so much sense because I am severely jetlagged.

[sarillia]

I think you're right that there are elements of idealization in a lot of fantasy worlds but I don't think it's every. Personally I try to avoid the whole clearer good and evil thing and such.

[ketita]

...you're kind of latching onto one example here, which is not my broader point.

[sarillia]

But that one example is the thing I disagree with. Otherwise I don't really have anything to say.

[(Anonymous)]

No, disagreed.

Fantasy is not a modern construction, it has direct roots in folklore, which has direct roots in mythology. Fantasy is not a twentieth-century invention, fantasies sagas have existed as long as literature itself and frequently evoke mythology or mythological tropes. I don't think one could argue that something like Beowulf isn't a medieval-period fantasy.

And I would argue that most Graeco-Roman mythology - as the most popular and well-written mythology, both in the historical time period and throughout history up until today - is essentially fantasy and even was to the Greeks and Romans. Not that they didn't believe in gods (though not everyone literally believed in them, as evident by philosophical work of the time) but the chance that these stories were taken as literal histories is very unlikely. They were all essentially sagas, epic stories. The myths we know today that have survived history likely had the exact same function that any epic story today does.

[tabaqui]

Agree with you totally.

[a_potato]

Well-stated, anon.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

I agree with this, though with the added point that they were sagas that often had morality points to them. A lot of fairy tales were just the same - a fanciful story with a moral point to it.

Modern fantasy still does that, even in something like GOT, but I think GOT's moral point is "People are shitty".