No New Tale to Tell

From the millions of stories out in the world , there are bound to be stories that sound nearly identical. The Odyssey and Beowulf have identical heroes and yet we consider both to be great Epics. The secret of all of this is that they have stories that have different things to say, with different meanings. All stories have some origin, and nothing can be genuinely original without having a minor point that can be stated as "this or that did this." Now it's easy to point out how all vampires stories take from Nosferatu and not the original Dracula book written by Bram Stroker, even Twilight with its "vampires" , but then i'm only emphasizing how this applies to fictional works. There are many instances of history having similar actions because they were good ideas to begin with and they could, in a way, work in almost any time period.

One great instance of this is the American Revolution influencing the French Revolution. They both share common traits such as:

a monarchy gone corrupt

a war between the monarchy and the civilians

the overthrowing of the monarchy

a time period of bad choices

a much more stable form of society

With this being said, couldn't we say that we could copy and paste either on to the other, change some names around, and it'd be the same thing? Well no, we could not at all. They both share general events, but in no way completely identical. The Americans fought for freedom because they felt that a ruler, who has never seen the colonies in person, could not be fit to run them properly, while the French believed that the monarchy was spending too much money on personal things than on their people. The Americans fought their war using the help of mercenaries and natives who happen to want to see the British lose a hand on their growing empire, while the French did it on their own with the help of people who had right ideas.  Then their's Maximilien de Robenspierre, the articles of confederations, Napoleon Bonaparte, and  all the things that were completely different that the French had done and the Americans didn't, and vice versa.  So while they are the same tune, they told different stories within their grand tale.

However you slice this, there are truly no new tales to be told or written because someone has beaten  another to it, but  that does not mean there is no way to tell a tale that is more memorable than the other,such as the case is for Dracula and Nosferatu, or they could be both be as equally memorable, but for different reasons, such as the French Revolution and the American Revolution. 

Truths

Grendel by John Gardner, quite an interesting read, that like most great books, has a way to keep itself relevant and ageless by addressing issues that can span through any time period. One instance of this is using the character known as the Shaper, who will spew on stories about heroes and honor of the king, regardless of the truth in it. This is obvious a use of propaganda, but is it necessarily bad to promote something without telling the entire truth? One could make the argument that it is considered lying and taking advantage of the innocent, but another side could argue it is just a way for people to cope with insecurities. a great example of this is when food companies show pictures of delicious food to lure people into buying their product. Most people note that the food never looks the same as it does in the pictures, the reason for this is that the plants used in the pictures are grown to look amazing, the food is made by a chef with years experience, and has fancy editing tricks to make it look good. The thought of the food looking that good makes one want to get the food more, but the actual thing will vaguely resemble the picture. While the image may be false and completely dishonest, the consumer did receive sustenance,and hopefully the promised flavor. So, while the picture looked nothing like what the real thing was, is that a bad thing? Would the food fill one up more if it looked like the image? Same goes with telling heroic tales, regardless of honesty. What if a hero lost a battle, or actually was a coward, the tales resembled his actions vaguely enough and brought entertainment to the listener and potentially inspiration. While the hero may not have been the same as they were told to be, or the battle not as fantastic as it were, the listener still received the initial enjoyment, regardless if it's no where near the same as the actual event. Would a story be the same if it were completely true and would one still be interested?  While I can say not all propaganda is good, I can say it was done with the intention to satisfy or reassure people of issues that they deal with daily or at that moment, and is meant with good intention on many occasions.

Modern Beowulf

Beowulf, a timeless hero (with traits some may not like) who in many ways is like the archangel Micheal, fighting for God in the war for good and evil. While not the first hero to be recognized for achievements such as killing Dragons, humanly beasts and their mothers, he is one that is highly read about and discussed because of his still modern connection to the Christian God. Along with this, one can argue the good and evil, justice and revenge, justifications of actions, and all that in this epic. There are some heroes, in fact many, that could be seen under same lights. Scott Pilgrim from the Scott Pilgrim series as well as Asukura Yoh from the Shaman King series are two examples that could easily fit under this.

Scott Pilgrim is basically a twenty-three year old who fights seven evil exes, each with inhumanly powers and abilities, of the girl of his dreams (quite literally). Basic, however there is more to this. While having to fight the seven exes, he discovers more about his "true love" and questions the justifications of wanting to fight all of them for her, who he learns is terrible during relationships. Risking his life, and learning about the justifications of his past actions are things he also learns through his journey. No where near connected to God, readers still learn the depth of this character and how "great" he is, how he never was really fighting for her, but more for himself, wanting to find a way to be happy, wanting to have pride in some sort of accomplishment. Just like Beowulf who did everything for fame, Scott did everything to be happy, not for money, not for the girl only, but for the pleasure of truly finding happiness when his life was all dung since the beginning. Love him or hate him, he redeems himself near the end, giving everyone he wronged proper closure, something his foil, Ramona Flowers, could not do, and being a true hero, even though he didn't care who he hurt in the beginning to get there, just like Beowulf did in order to beat Grendel.

 

Asukura Yoh is more of a different story. he is more connected to God, well the Great Spirit as they refer to in the series. He is meant to fight in order to control this great power and grant his true wish, to live the life where everything is good. While being completely different from Beowulf in terms of their willingness to kill,  he still has one thing that drives him to do things beyond the power of t humans, only being rivaled by those of a God. Throughout his story there are moments were there are questions of whether or not good should kill and still be considered good, or whether they're just as bad as the evil. These questions are asked alongside Beowulf's story, where it questions whether or not it is right for him to kill a mother who only wants her son's arm back, a person who's been outcasted only because of his blood line, and if him doing all this for glory still makes him a good guy. Yoh sees this more first hand without having to experience the way of killing, trying to keep himself calm and focused and not angry or bitter about situations. Yoh still has traits of a hero, but more so the positive ones than the negative ones that Scott Pilgrim and Beowulf both share.