Joseph Cambell, 194-1987), a master of mythology, is famous for his "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (1949), and his dialogue with a famous journalist "The Myth" (The Power of Myth, 1988)
Myth is the mother of fantasy
After being exposed to so many fantasy games and fantasy novels, you may wonder how these strange and incredible magic, monsters, races and adventures were created. Is there any evidence to test? In addition, these fantasy stories seem vaguely similar. Are they all "purely coincidental", whether they are similar or similar? In fact, in a broad sense, all kinds of well-known fantasy elements can be traced back to a very old "myth".
where there is human civilization, there are myths, and the myths bred by different civilizations have their own characteristics. Myth has been passed down from mouth to mouth since the ancient times when words were not invented, and it was sung by bard, and then recorded and adapted into epic or long legend by literati, which has been passed down to this day; Among them, there are various elements such as immortals, demons, monsters, fantastic Machamp, and the adventures of heroes, which are rich and diverse. Perhaps it can be said that myth is the fantasy literature of ancestors. Myth has deeply influenced the cultural development of human beings at all levels, the most obvious of which is of course literary creation, which can not only be said to lay the embryonic form of various literary works in later generations, but also be deeply inspired by art, music and drama. Looking at all kinds of fantasy games today, of course, we can't get rid of the "shadow" of myth.
The world of the gods
The myth contains all kinds of explanations about the running phenomena of everything in the world in ancient times, such as sunrise and moonrise, spring, summer, autumn and winter, wind, rain, thunder and lightning, earthquake and tsunami, and even how the world was created and everything came into being. Because the laws and reasons of these phenomena were far beyond the scope of human understanding and control at that time, human beings deduced from their own experience and thought that the whole world was dominated by a more powerful "God". Most gods are polytheistic. Many gods manage different things in nature, such as Apollo, Fengshen, Raytheon, Water God, Death, etc., and their subordinate organizations are quite "sound and huge", which seems to have the shadow of the organizational structure of human society.
Despite his extraordinary power, which dominates the operation of the world and the life and death of all things, he also has great wisdom and eternal life. The mythical god still has a very "humanized" side. No matter the myths in northern Europe, Greece, Rome, China, Indian and other places, God's actions are similar to those of human beings. There are all kinds of good things and bad things, and scenes of love and hatred, disputes, deception, plunder, murder, war and destruction are staged almost every day, which makes the world smoulder and even the world turbulent and unbalanced. The mythical god can be said to be a copy of human beings, but because of its powerful ability to manipulate nature, its influence is also relatively large. From a modern point of view, it may be unavoidable to think that God is just more childish and willful than people, and it simply lacks great power ... However, the moody and reckless character of the gods may reflect the ancient people's mentality of "staying away from unpredictable natural phenomena", or people's dissatisfaction with the rulers may be projected into it.
There are also opposing forces of good and evil in myths. Some myths are divided into good gods and evil gods, while others are opposing gods and demons. The evil nature of evil spirits or demons reflects human's fear of the dark unknown. Most of them symbolize external disasters such as diseases, insect epidemics, natural disasters, poverty, wars, or inner dark desires such as greed, jealousy, laziness, lying, selfishness and lewdness. Interestingly, although death and darkness have always been the source of people's fears, most myths still classify them as the "jurisdiction" of gods or good gods, which shows the neutrality and detachment of myths and the wisdom of the ancients.
Heroes and Adventures
Finally, sandwiched between the willfulness of the gods and the raging demons, the heroes came on stage. Through the trials set by the jealous, angry or treacherous gods and demons, they overcame the huge, fire-breathing, multi-headed and sharp-toothed monsters, intelligently broke all kinds of temptations or traps and rescued the suffering people (mostly beautiful women and princesses). Most heroes are descended from God (in other words, they are the illegitimate children of God), so they have extraordinary abilities. Or by the love and grace of a god, endowed with extraordinary wisdom or blessed by god. But heroes still have weaknesses: either they have brute force, no brains, or they are arrogant and irritable. In addition, they usually have a bumpy life, and they are cursed at birth, and their outstanding talents and brilliant achievements are also easily taboo. The fate of most heroes is miserable: Ziggy, the hero of Nordic mythology, was not designed by the wicked to forget his memory, but helped the wicked to trick his lover Brinside; In Greek mythology, Oedipus was a wise monarch, but he was exiled by himself because of the crime of killing his father and marrying his mother unintentionally. Odysseus is lucky, wandering for ten years, after hardships, finally returned home and reunited with his wife; Not to mention those who accidentally forgot the warnings of the gods, prophets or wise men and mistakenly committed minor taboos, leading to tragic results.
it seems that heroes are like chess pieces or props of the gods? But in fact, their adventurous spirit also symbolizes people's willpower against nature, fate or tyrannical rulers. Therefore, heroes are still the most loved characters in mythology. From myth, folklore, literary creation to fantasy games, the theme of heroic adventure has gradually replaced the legends of the gods, reflecting that the development of human civilization is gradually people-oriented; The adventure course is becoming more and more diversified, which is not only to kill demons and kill demons for the people, or to fight everywhere to unify the whole country, but also to have philosophical themes of questioning theocracy and challenging fate.
mythical creatures and fantasy literature
in addition to the war between gods and demons and heroic adventures, there are often various strange creatures in fantasy literature. Fantasy creatures are often born out of myths and legends, such as dragons (the images of dragons in eastern and western myths are completely different), unicorns, phoenixes, gluttons, Dapeng, Jiao, magic monkeys, tengu and river children in the east, and Centaur, Medusa, Griffin and bird demon in the west. These mythical creatures all look beyond reality, some are extremely huge, and some have terrible supernatural abilities, such as breathing fire, spraying poison, howling with terror, staring at fossilization and so on.
If we look closely at these mythical creatures, we can find that they often have the appearance characteristics of real creatures, or even the "synthesis" of several kinds of creatures, such as long-winged wings, such as flying horses and Griffins. Long fish tails, such as mermaids; Beast-shaped human face, such as the sphinx; Half man and half beast, such as faun (half sheep man), tauren, Sagittarius, etc. In oriental mythology, many auspicious beasts have more complicated images. For example, dragons combine many features such as cow's head, antlers, python's body, fish scales and eagle's claws to form the majestic appearance of SHEN WOO. Phoenix combines golden pheasant head, parrot mouth, mandarin duck body, Dapeng wing, crane leg and peacock tail; Kirin has a deer head, a unicorn, a moose body, fish scales, horse feet, a wolf's hoof and a cow's tail, which can be said to be extremely gorgeous. Therefore, some people speculate that these fantasy creatures are actually exaggerated, beautified or supernatural by the ancients' imagination. For example, the unicorn may be a giraffe or a four-elephant, the phoenix may be a peacock or a pheasant, and the gluttonous may be a tiger, which has changed from reality to fantasy and then given symbolic significance.
In mythology, some creatures can become mounts or adventure partners of gods or heroes, such as flying horses; Some creatures symbolize good or bad omen, such as unicorn, phoenix, Banshee, etc. Some creatures are uncontested races, such as horses or Fairies. However, most monsters become the trials of legendary heroes' adventure process, and they are sacrificed for the great achievements of heroes, such as the stories of hydra lizard, Medusa, tauren, sphinx and so on. I believe that players who often play fantasy games should be familiar with the above creatures, because fantasy games often extract materials from myths and legends. Most of these fantastic creatures, who are famous in mythology, are not ordinary people in the game. Their unique features and abilities have become their registered trademarks. If players have a little understanding of the mythological or legendary background of these creatures, they may have more fun when they meet in the game.
the deep structure of myth
As mentioned above, mythical creatures often have special meanings. In fact, the content of myths or legends that have been circulating for a long time itself has a profound meaning. In the concept of contemporary scientific rationality, the content of ancient myths can be said to be absurd and contrary to the truth, which is impossible to happen. But interestingly, these mythological elements appear again and again in many stories, dramas and literary creations. In fantasy literature, mythical allusions and metaphors are more ubiquitous. Taking the fantasy classic "The Lord of the Rings" as an example, Tolkien blended the myths and legends of Northern Europe, Greece and Celtic, laying the world foundation of his "Middle-earth". The elves, dwarves, hobbits, tree people and orcs he created were all born out of myths and legends. Another fantasy literature, The Legend of Earthsea, extracts the essence of South Pacific island national culture and oriental philosophy, creating a fantasy world different from western mythology. There are countless examples like this, and it can be seen that myths and legends have a far-reaching impact on contemporary fantasy literature.
why are people so obsessed with myths that they never get tired of hearing them? In the melody of repeated creation, what do we realize? Perhaps we can get some enlightenment from the concept of "Collective unconscious" put forward by psychologist Carl Jung. Jung believes that myth is the dream of ethnic groups, and it is the potential consciousness formed by the generation after generation. All kinds of images in mythology reflect the collective psychology of the nation and symbolize the common experience of the people. He thinks that human beings as a whole have similar subconscious contents, so he analyzes local myths and primitive religious beliefs, and draws many Archetype, such as Hercules, Hero, Rebirth, Death, Wise Man, Mother Earth, etc., all of which are ubiquitous in local myths and legends. In other words, human beings convey the symbolic meaning of the collective subconscious from generation to generation by constantly telling or recreating myths and folklore.
The mythologist Joseph Campbell further applied Jung's argument to myth research. According to Campbell's analysis, legends of gods and heroic adventures are the necessary metaphors for all human beings to grow up. Take the hero's victory over the monster as an example. The hero symbolizes "self" and the monster symbolizes "the dark side of self". The whole theme symbolizes that everyone must discover and overcome the inner dark side in order to really grow up.
Myth symbolizes everyone's growth process. In modern language, myth can be described as the basic teaching material for understanding the external world and inner self at that time, and it is the crystallization of human beings' attempts to understand the mystery of the universe and the meaning of life. It is no wonder that until today, although it has been rewritten and rewritten for countless generations and integrated into the significance of each era, the basic spirit of ancient myths can still resonate with our inner existence. In other words, mythological allusions can enrich and enhance the level of fantasy stories. Readers who like to read fantasy stories may wish to read classic fantasy masterpieces carefully, find out the mythological textual research and significance cited in them, and further think about the author's intentions, which will certainly have a deeper understanding!