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Aug. 30th, 2020 12:32 amYou know, thinking about mythology and people talking about “but there’s no true version!!” to back up whatever they’ve come up with or read, something that then doesn’t actually have a tie to any known source from when that mythology was religion in the culture it belonged to (or shortly after, as in the case of Norse mythology)... I’d say that while people definitely have a right (as much as you have a “right” to do anything literary) to invent/reinvent stuff as they like, no one gets to really go around and claim it’s real or true or whatever. Yes, myths often have several versions - but in a lot of cases, we only know of maybe a handful, or less than that. Just because there might once have been more than those known version around doesn't mean you can do whatever you want and claim any actual source doesn't matter. If you came up with something and made an interpretation, say so! It's not as if it's necessarily bad to reinvent things.
But, there’s absoluetly a difference between the stories made by the people of that culture, when the religion the myths belonged to was living, and things invented or interpreted today.
I don’t even mean just Greek mythology - I mean Ancient Egyptian mythology too, and definitely Norse mythology. There’s only a couple known sources for Norse mythology for example, the Eddas, the various sagas, and folklore. And while the Eddas need to be considered with some critical thought because it’s unknown how much the Christian author’s, well, Christian bias filtered through in what he was writing down, they’re still, aside from folklore and such, the source(s) we have.
Re/Inventing anything beyond that doesn't make that true to the ancient source.
Inventing stuff that has no connection to any folklore or any of the sagas or Eddas (or any of the known sources in the Theogony, Orphics if you like that, various plays, etc. for Greek Mythology), is something you sure can do, but that doesn’t make your new version the same as what we know from ancient sources or actually as real as those old sources. Just because there might have been any number of versions of any given myth out there that we will never know of doesn’t mean you can go “there are so many versions, nothing is true I can do what I want!!!”
You can have fun without claiming things. And yeah, you sure can do what you want but that doesn’t mean you won’t get pushback, and that people won't question or judge it for deviating from known sources... Especially if you then claim it's just as true, or an "actual" version that totally does exist.
But, there’s absoluetly a difference between the stories made by the people of that culture, when the religion the myths belonged to was living, and things invented or interpreted today.
I don’t even mean just Greek mythology - I mean Ancient Egyptian mythology too, and definitely Norse mythology. There’s only a couple known sources for Norse mythology for example, the Eddas, the various sagas, and folklore. And while the Eddas need to be considered with some critical thought because it’s unknown how much the Christian author’s, well, Christian bias filtered through in what he was writing down, they’re still, aside from folklore and such, the source(s) we have.
Re/Inventing anything beyond that doesn't make that true to the ancient source.
Inventing stuff that has no connection to any folklore or any of the sagas or Eddas (or any of the known sources in the Theogony, Orphics if you like that, various plays, etc. for Greek Mythology), is something you sure can do, but that doesn’t make your new version the same as what we know from ancient sources or actually as real as those old sources. Just because there might have been any number of versions of any given myth out there that we will never know of doesn’t mean you can go “there are so many versions, nothing is true I can do what I want!!!”
You can have fun without claiming things. And yeah, you sure can do what you want but that doesn’t mean you won’t get pushback, and that people won't question or judge it for deviating from known sources... Especially if you then claim it's just as true, or an "actual" version that totally does exist.
