“You can’t deny myth. It’s too powerful. You have to embrace it.”
I didn’t come to writing through literature and creative writing courses. I was a singer and then a lawyer before I turned to writing. I had an instinctive sense of what was satisfying, (and really writing is about telling a story you’d like to read), but actually analyzing how you make something engaging and emotionally satisfying is a long process, and you never stop learning. This little essay on myth represents where I am in the journey of learning and refining upon which I’ve embarked.
So how did this musing about myth and to some degree fairy tales all start? It was because of a movie script and a video game.
I’ve been writing a movie for Universal Pictures based on the Wild Card books that I co-edit with George R.R. Martin, and there’s a father/son situation in the script. My protagonist was a man trying to live up to the legend of a deceased father and this shows up on about page three of the script. The world is filled with images and comments about this father. Ultimately my hero discovers his father’s not dead, and then I had to figure out how Frank was going to react emotionally. What would he actually do?
What I was trying desperately to avoid was the “Luke, I am your father” moment from The Empire Strikes Back.
As I was approaching the final climactic and emotional scene between them I was utterly terrified. This was the emotional heart of the movie. If I messed this up the entire script would collapse. I found myself trying to run the other way. Maybe a secondary character could handle it? Maybe the father takes an action that removes agency from the son? What I was trying desperately to avoid was the “Luke, I am your father.” “Nooooooooo.” moment from The Empire Strikes Back. As is so often in the case of enormously popular movies that enter the culture, these scene has become both a meme and a cliche, and I really, really didn’t want to go there.
I paced the house looking for any alternative, and finally called a writer friend and outlined the problem. She listened and then she said to me, “You can’t deny myth. It’s too powerful. This is Oedipus and you have to embrace it.” She also added that this was something I had been promising from the beginning of the script and I, by God, had better pay off that promise.
Once I accepted the truth in what she was saying, a way to approach the scene that was different and (I hope) fresh occurred to me and I wrote the scene. The real test for me was whether it felt right as I was writing it, and it did. There were some brief falling action scenes that followed, but the true end was that moment between father and son.
Myth had indeed proved to be all powerful and could not be denied.
Art by BioWare
The other thread that feeds into this comes from playing BioWare’s Mass Effect franchise. I had really invested in these three games, and like many people I was horribly depressed and annoyed by the ending of the third game. Accusations were flung that the people who were upset just wanted a traditional happy ending, a “Disney,” or fairytale ending. All of these responses were of course delivered in tones of disdain implying that those of us who were angry and disappointed were clearly just immature or lacked the critical skills to recognize that real art is gritty, often bleak, etc. etc.
Is a fairytale ending really all that bad?
Again I went away to think. Okay, is a fairy tale ending really all that bad? Is there really anything inherently wrong with “And they all lived happily ever after”? There’s a lovely quote that captures how I feel about stories, and why I think it’s all right for us to embrace the fairy tale, happy ending:
The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to light amid the thorns. George Santayana
After all, David does defeat Goliath, and Odysseus gets to come home to his wife and son, Cinderella does go to the ball, Elisa spins nettles into shirts and saves her brothers and her marriage. We know the Little Tailor will outwit the giants and the king and win the princess. Things don’t always turn out badly, and people tend to remember the good things that happened to them rather than the bad. So why not celebrate that?
We know what to expect from these stories because the ending has been promised by the beginning, and if you don’t pay off that promise you are going to upset your listener/reader/viewer/player. Perhaps we all know the parameters of the promises because humans have been telling each other stories across numerous forms of entertainment for thousands of years. The tales have “grown in the telling”, as Tolkien said — from blind poets around fire pits in ancient Greece to stone hearths in castles where the tales were sung by bards, to a Dickens novel serialized in magazines, to movie palaces and finally on televisions and game consoles.
I think the reason we can’t avoid, deny or betray myth is because it is intrinsic to what makes us human on a biological level.
But where do these promises, that I think are reflections of myth, come from? And why are they so similar across most cultures? That’s when it struck me — maybe myth was the precursor to psychoanalysis. Maybe these tales were the way humans discussed deep seated needs and drives that couldn’t be expressed or explained in any other form. Perhaps fairy tales mimic human developmental stages as we now understand them.
I think the reason we can’t avoid, deny or betray myth is because it is intrinsic to what makes us human on a biological level. Myth is, at its most basic, a function of brain structure which is why it transcends continents, language, culture and religion. It is atavistic, very human and worth celebrating.
Written by Melinda Snodgrass
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Are you aware of the work of Merlin Donald and Robert Bellah? Merlin Donald is a Canadian cognitive scientist who wrote two fascinating books on the origins of cognitive modernity–he in fact posits a leap from “mimetic culture” to “mythic culture” as the creation of behavioral modernity, insofar as the advent of societies structure by stories and storytelling is the advent of humanity as we know it, and this is reflected in the biological architecture of our minds. Check out his books “Origins of the Modern Mind” and “A Mind so Rare”. Robert Bellah took the concepts and ran with them in his magnum opus Religion in Human Evolution, which argues that mythic culture preceded theoretic culture, and thus maintains a more fundamental, deep-rooted, intuitive, and emotional hold on us, and that it is useless to think we can jettison it, a principle he encapsulates in the dictum “nothing is ever lost”.
At any rate, a lovely post, and much appreciated.
Yes! I absolutely, completely, PASSIONATELY agree with you, Melinda.
Since the ancient Greeks first put on plays, people have associated tragic endings with high-brow art and happy endings with cheap, low-brow baudy tales. I love a happy ending. Naturally, I want the heroes to struggle for their victory, but when the time comes, I really want to feel elated, like the trials were all worthwhile, even in the face of all that’s been lost.
I suppose one thing any reader can count on from my books is that, in the end, good triumphs, and the heroes’ world will be left a better place for their actions.
I’m not aware of those books, Haaraculitus, they should fascinating. Thank you for bringing them to my attention.
*sigh* that should have read “They sound fascinating”. I’m a bit groggy this morning. I spent the weekend at an exhausting horse show.
I think your article touches on the truth of the situation. People need myths to exist because it is part of who we are and what we are as a culture. I started writing about engineering and science within sci-fi and fantasy stories. I’ve gotten good feedback from people who have enjoyed the articles. Yet, the more interesting response has been those who don’t enjoy what I’ve written—many people view the scientific examination as an attempt to remove the joy and wonderment from a piece of fiction. I could see their point of view, but after reading this article I have better understanding of what I was trampling over. I really appreciated your article. Consequently, I’m trying to modify my writing focus to celebrate the science within fiction. I feel that, unintentionally, explaining something fantastic can serve to remove that sense of awe that is essential to the completion of a myth. My goal has always been to use science as a means to generate a deeper interest and excitement about an aspect of fiction.
I completely agree, Paul. The hero has to “earn” the happy ending (and by god, my Shepard had earned it. Sorry, momentary game neep. :) Things can be bittersweet, but you have to pay off the promise you make in the opening of the work. Genre dictates that to some degree, expectations based on previous experience with this type of story or author, etc. but promises are made and they must be kept. I think it’s a creator’s obligation to meet their audiences expectations. That’s not selling out. That’s giving them a satisfying story in exchange for their money. And I really dislike it when people denigrate the audience for not liking something. Only a very few of us ever achieve a level of “art” that’s going to transcend the ages. Shakespeare wrote 14 comedies, 11 histories (where the good guys tended to win), and only 12 tragedies. As my friends Connie Willis frequently says — “If it was good enough for Shakespeare it’s good enough for me.”
And maybe we should off on having a discussion about whether Richard III really did kill his nephews. I’d sort of put that in the tragedy column. I’m partial to Richard and think he got a bad rap. :)
It’s a real balancing act, Chris. I want science in science fiction. I want people to have a sense of wonder about quantum entanglement, and bacteria that live on deep ocean vents, and what is beneath the ice of Europa, and how we’re going to alter our DNA so we can settle inhospitable worlds. But for fiction those wonders have to serve the story. They can’t be an end in and of themselves. And ultimately that story no matter what was the McGuffin that started the problem needs to be about the people — the human heart in conflict with itself. What people are really interested in are people and their interactions.
Thank you for the kind words, Chris. It’s a real balancing act. I want science in science fiction. I want people to have a sense of wonder about quantum entanglement, and bacteria that live on deep ocean vents, and what is beneath the ice of Europa, and how we’re going to alter our DNA so we can settle inhospitable worlds. But for fiction those wonders have to serve the story. They can’t be an end in and of themselves. And ultimately that story no matter what was the McGuffin that started the problem needs to be about the people — the human heart in conflict with itself. What people are really interested in are people and their interactions.
I have no idea why that earlier comment posted twice. Apologies. I have this effect on computers and apparently on websites too. *sigh*
Wonderful thoughts, Melinda. It is nice to see an article that makes it a point to say that maybe the ‘happily ever after’ isn’t all bad. It has become such a cliche in itself to mock and belittle the fairy tale ending as it was somehow lazy, the easy way out, and that the only true courage shown by an author is when they smash myth to smithereens. I don’t agree. Sure, the occasional story may be powerful in its defiance of tradition, but life amidst all the chaos and tragedy that befalls us all is not a life worth embracing if one cannot embrace hope. It is those glimmers of hope that keep us going, and hope fulfilled that eases the pain of tragedy and heals the wounds the life inflicts on all of us. I’d much rather have a well told story with a happy ending than one in which an author is trying to prove a point by doing just the opposite.
There’s a review of Cormack McCarthy’s THE ROAD written by Nick Hornsby that I want to have among my reference materials. I’ve ordered a copy of the magazine in which it appeared because apparently Hornsby makes the point about offering hope and light in a most compelling manner. I’m really tired of being told that only dark and brutal is “real”. It’s very easy to write dark. Comedy and upbeat is much more difficult and it’s just as real. This isn’t to say you make it easy for the protagonist, and it has to feel sincere, grounded and like the ending has integrity, but I’m with you. A simple story well told will always be welcomed and enjoyed by a lot of readers/viewers/players.