One of my fanfics explores how the message of mythologies shift as they're passed down. The main character quickly learns the story of the Witch Queen, a powerful, evil pagan figure who created the Key Stone which gives the bearer a boost in witchcraft power, and once seduced and brought the downfall of a king, with the cursed cat beast Yami being implied to be the king in question. However, later revelations reveal that this isn't true at all: the real Witch Queen was a young girl from ancient Egypt who was a magic prodigy, and her relationship with the king is also much more wholesome than the tales implied - they were childhood best friends with a side of mutual pining/courtly love going on, and she actually died trying to save him. Word of her sacrifice and how much she meant to the king got passed around over the centuries, and so she was called his queen (although they never married) and then conflated with the goddess Isis, who was then conflated with the goddess Hecate during the Ptolemy era, and then as Christianity took over, she - as a personification of everything "wrong" with a woman, strong-willed, magically gifted, and of equal status to her husband - was demonized into the Witch Queen. The main character, as a reincarnation of the original girl, inherits the powers and domains of all of the figures she was conflated with: all of Isis's powers after gaining Ra's true name and her designation as protector of the king, Hecate's domain over arcane arts, and leadership over all Witches and power over dark magic from her title as Witch Queen.
You know, something many writers miss while creating their own mythology is there always make it too clean. They remove anything that can be controversial, problematic, nonsensical, or just weird. But myths are weird for a reason. Not only are pass down from a culture way longer we where born and we often lack the context on why there are told that way, but there are meant to make you think, see things in very different ways and be more open minded about the strangest of ideas, and makes you wonder about impossible things otherwise you never thought before. Is a open book on how people view the world itself.
As a mythology writer myself I always try and have a couple of nonsensical/downright contradictory things. It's always fun thinking of mythical explanations for things, and then coming up with ALTERNATE variations on the same story!
To be fair, they are likely like that because humans are very moral 😇 fanatical, so censor and alter their own mythology to support whatever morals they happen to have.
It's hard to understand what you're trying to say thru your writing (I assume you aren't a native English speaker), but no, myths *aren't* meant to make you think and see things differently and be open-minded. In fact, usually quite the opposite. They're meant to tell the listener "Here's an answer, now stop asking me silly questions."
@@jursamajthat’s a relatively recent cultural trend (that is thankfully on the decline). Political leaders didn’t always have authoritarian regimes that needed to be propped up by an imperial “dominance over others” or a nation-state’s “motherland” mythos. During times where rulers weren’t dependent on an all-encompassing national/ethnic identity to control instead of govern, there wasn’t a whole lot of pressure on religious groups to justify the rulers’ divine right to rule. This is not to say that myths always/often served the purpose of teaching critical thinking, but your characterization of myths constantly serving the same general cultural purpose of propaganda is too hasty of a generalization.
The concept of a Mythological Canon is pretty specific to Christianity; many religions are pretty okay with multiple, contradictory versions of core stories.
@@stefanozucchelli5410 different versions cause of different translations don't talk nonsense do some research first obviously the original language the Bible was written in is old as hell so obviously there will be different translations
Weird things in mythology make more intuitive sense when you're working with the context of the original culture. For example, in Aztec mythology, why was one of the previous worlds destroyed by Jaguars? It's because when you are living near the jungles of Southern Mexico, jaguars are these terrifying creatures which come out of nowhere and kill you. For the Aztecs, they are these terrifying primal monsters who appear out of nowhere and bring about sudden death. They didn't view them as just another animal, but as a herald of the Gods, of the primal force of nature itself. So it makes sense that such a supernatural force could be responsible for destroying a world.
another example are snake, in christianity they are a symbol of sindue to maybe like their poison, while in other culture they are a symbol of life and rebirth
If you ever heard a jaguar in the night (in Brazil we call it Onça), that beast is terrifying. Not only it roars loudly, but it also has a type of low growling akin to a hellhound revving the engines of hell.
@@animalia5554weird thing to take a stand on... Who tf mentioned Dark Matter? Are you like, trying to disprove science because people are shitting in how mythology was created? Those are extremely different methods and concepts.... Whats the play here?
@@darkhobo I meant how Dark Matter was an idea to explain how the universe seems to be expanding more then it should , but there's new math suggesting other possibilities
Hello Darcy! Myths are like rumors. By the time you learn of them, they've been twisted so many times. In Avatar, the characters get to watch a play about their adventure. The play is probably based on military reports and rumors that have been twisted to glorify the morals of the fire nation.
"Sources include singing nomads, pirates, prisoners of war and a surprisingly knowledgeble merchant of cabbage." Sokka, reading out loud the souces in the episode "the ember island players".
I like the idea of a sci-fi story set in the far future universe that treats our modern understanding of science as a myth. “Early humans believed that, at the beginning of time, all of the stuff in the universe was concentrated into a single ball. And that ball was so hot and so dense that it exploded, and that explosion was so great, it continued for billions of years, and the universe continued expanding and expanding. Eventually, it was big enough that stars and solar systems and even galaxies gathered together within the expanding universe, and civilizations grew within those galaxies. Early humans wondered if the universe would ever stop expanding, or if it would just keep growing forever. Of course, we know better than that now.” Sounds like a pretty good creation myth, right?
It is a creation myth, though. I don't say that just because I believe it fictional; from a cultural perspective, it is a creation myth (and remember that all cultures think there own myths are true).
I couldn't keep up with the author's pace, but up though chapter 300 or so (and this probably continued) the "First Contact" webseries leaned into this hard. Might be worth looking into if this trope tickles your fancy. You know you've got the right one when you find the one with the sentient praying mantis people that have a cultural mania for ice cream and Really Nice Hats (it makes sense in context, promise)
@@Everywhere4 I'm honestly not sure what you mean. Note particularly that those two things actually share a number of categories. (and evolution has metaphysical, ethical, theological, and even epistemological implications. just like a religious creation myth)
From a certain part that is related to her sphere of influence. A lot of myths probably originated in something like a joke or at least with humor. "So what happened to Uranus's stuff?" "Hmmmm, well, funny you should ask...."
@@acadiano10 not really. Most myths either start out describing real life events or from symbolical stories that lose their symbolism as time goes on. For instance aphrodite was originally a war god that had her domains split into various different gods. And the idea of her spawning from the foam at the sea might have been symbolic retelling of her cult arriving at mainland Greece.
During the God’s War before time began, a powerful water deity invaded the Sky, which is why it is water coloured rather than sun coloured. Glorantha has the best invented mythology.
Wonder how rain works into that. Perhaps echoes of battles fought over the dominion of the sky. How the colors of the sky can shift being seen as the active struggle for dominance before being overtaken again. Perhaps the darkness of night is an armistice as the moon rises to gain power raising tides once again to bring the ocean back to the sky.
@@D.M.S. Oh, come on. Most religions grow organically, we’re talking about artificial ones built for fiction. It’s the difference between French and Klingon.
@@Dakarai_Knight When the upstart king of the air gods murdered the Sun, aka Emperor of the sky pantheon and natural overlord of all creation, the Sun went to the Underworld (aka Hell), which in turn drove almost all the darkness up to the surface world. Well almost. Some darkness invaded the sky, and although the Sun was later resurrected and restored Night still rules the Sky half the time. As for rain, that’s an Air/Water thing, not a Sky thing. He/she is named Heler and is the deity of rain, mist, sheep and magical gender swaps. The king of the air gods (yeah, the same one) found Heler inside a big water dragon he had to slay on a quest to defeat the god of drought. Google Glorantha. It’s wild. And about a mile deep.
Myths/beliefs being used as political tools has so many historical examples, like how many rulers used religion to give legitemacy to their rule (kings being direct descendants from gods or being worshipped as gods in flesh). Also considering how many early civilizations started in valleys of large rivers, it's unsurprising that the flood myths are very common, it is likely a shared common human experience across the world.
Rulers using religion is an interesting topic in itself because it varies so much. There have been religious states. Sometimes rulers have kept religion for easier assimilation post conquest. Other times religious mythos was a way to make some sort of omnipotent oversight (alongside images, statues, etc. to remind you even if the ruling class lives far). Other times rulers changed to often that among the general populations whatever teachings it had was the defacto law/expectation because no one had time for constant changing bs from their leaders.
I love how, even among established lore, there are headcanons (stories we share with each other that haven't been verified by the authors). We make mythology outside of stories. Lore is more than what others say. It's what we believe about what we observe.
a personal pet peeve of mine is when a fantasy universe has it's mythology clearly formed by a modern scientific understanding of the real world. it's just offputting to hear the 17th origin story of the universe that's just the big bang reflavored slightly, or for it to just be casually accepted in the setting that the sun is a star. everything doesn't need to be the same as reality, and the things that are the same don't need to be understood to be the same in-universe
I mean, it depends on the nature of the universe. For example, many fantasy worlds have gods that are very real and interact with people, so it isn't beyond reason that they could just explain to mortals how the universe was created. Either because their divinity gives them a greater understanding of the universe, or because they were physically involved in said creation process.
I agree! There are some places where it works, but for the most part, it’s definitely an anachronism. A piece cut out of a magazine, and pasted over a magazine, as it were.
Interesting with the Religious Syncretism, when Alexander the Great ‘conquered’ Egypt, a large source of tension was the clash between the Macedonian-Greek Pantheon and the Egyptian Pantheon. To help justify their conquest, and ease tensions, Alexander (it’s told) says that the Pantheons are the same but simply appearing as different aspects - that the sun god appears as Helios to the Greeks, but as Ra to the Egyptians, etc. It helped blend the religions together, and set more of a stability for the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt by imprinting that shared religious identity. Thought this’d be an interesting help for world building bits
The romans Famously integrated not only conquered nobility into their society but especially conquered Deities into their own Pantheon, or equal them to some of their own Deities. A big reason why the Romans lasted so long, roughly 2200 years from Kingdom to Eastern Empire, was their adaptability.
Also keep in mind that the Romans didn't "conquer" deities -- they subverted them. One of the things that the Romans did was perform rituals to convince their opponent's deity that they were their friends, and they'd really like being Roman. Except for Ba'al Hamon. That guy was a jerk.
The Persians did something somewhat similar but much more pluralistic. Consistent with typical polytheistic worldview which saw different gods as sovereign over different physical territories, they believed that if they were going to rule a vast empire of many foreign lands that they needed to respect and appease the gods of those lands. They not only gave extensive religious freedom to conquered peoples, but they also provided funds for the upkeep/restoration of cultic sites and made efforts to make sure that the priestly classes were fulfilling their duties to their gods.
I'm so glad you brought up The Elder Scrolls bc I was definitely already thinking about it. As a person who, like you, is familiar with many world mythologies, it is extremely apparent to me that whomever crafted the various mythologies of The Elder Scrolls was VERY familiar with all manner of Eastern philosophy and Western esotericism, specifically gnosticism and The Bhagavad Gita.
Studying and being an avid fan of mythology is exactly why I'm so frustrated so many stories these days feel like they're just cheap knock offs of each other and how the stereotypical dragons, elves, orcs and castles fantasy setting has became so overused it effectively lost all magic. Mythologies from around the world have so many ideas, settings, creatures, magic systems, societal influences that could be a jumping off point for so many unique worldbuildings with unique plots, yet people just always default back to like a handful of plots and world we've seen a million times. Sure ripping off mythology doesn't make your story "original" either, but at least it's unique and can feel fresh in this oversaturated market of clone trend chasers.
But the question is, is that what the writers want? You're talking about uniqueness but considering how popular these stories are, clearly alot of people genuinely like it so i don't think you can just pass it off as trend chasing.
@@hadrianhexe9603 You're missing the point. I'm not saying the fantasy setting itself is wrong or people are bad for liking it, I'm saying it's been so universally overused it squandered attempts to tell a unique story. A comparison like the gaming industry. There's nothing wrong with shooter games or the people who enjoy shooter games in themselves, but if the market is so oversaturated with shooter games all trying to do the same thing while any other genres of games, games that tries to be be unique or break the formula is considered "unmarketable", that's an issue. Shooter games are allowed to exist, but they shouldn't run the monopoly of the entire industry.
@@oboretaiwritingch.2077 I'm not talking about that, which is a valid because diversity is needed, i'm talking about the fact you're speaking as though these things are created because the creator is chasing a trend and not because these are stories they love and influence them.
One thing to note is that mythology is not intentional but emergent, and does not always correspond like lowercase histories do with capitalized History (narratives vs reality). This is because mythology is a collection of stories aggregated together, maybe formally interpreted and canonized later on by institutions of religion and politics. Using Indian mythology as an example. The Ramayana has many different versions in different parts of the world and slices of society eg. the Tamil one vs the Jain one vs the Indonesian one. The Mahabharata probably arose from the Rg Veda story of the Battle of the Ten Kings as a core, collected with many other Puranic legends, retold by traveling and court bards, until compiled into the form we know today. Krishna the god was originally a collection of folk tales about several different groups of figures: 1) the playful baby Krishna 2) the playboy teenage Krishna 3) the heroic young adult Krishna and the Vrishni heroes and 4) the adult all-powerful wise Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita. Later on, Vaishnavas formalizing Vishnu as the chief of the Hindu pantheon would even go further to say that Krishna is actually the main form, and Vishnu and other avataras are secondary. Anyways my point is that myths are often like stories told to children, remembered by them as they grow up and begin to take them more and more serious. Not that they are told dripping with allegory and intention in the first place. There may be some level of symbolism, but not the amount by the time they are canonized by institutions. And also thus they are not rooted in reality like historical narratives may be rooted in actual historical events. For example, the Vrishni heroes probably didn't exist. They were just a fun set of stories to listen to.
I love, love, love mythology; it's one of my biggest hyperfixations, and it truly fascinates me how stories change and evolve just like people. Terry Pratchett said in Witches Abroad, "People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact it's the other way around." That's why I get really frustrated when people get dismissive of the effect that fiction, and stories in general, have on reality. The stories, tiny stories and huge stories and in-between stories, we tell ourselves and each other every single day, changes our reality, our perception of the world. Reality is molded, shaped, by every single individual's perspective, and with all of these perspectives continually colliding with each other, no wonder the world is in such a mess, and why people are becoming more and more divided, families are fractured, politics are more polarized than ever, and arguments are treated as a matter of life and death. Just taking a few seconds to think, 'why do I think this way?', or 'where did this story come from?' or 'is this my own viewpoint, or is it from someone else?' can be, literally, world-changing. Also, The Ocean at The End of The Lane is one of my favourite books of all time. So nice to see it get mentioned here.
One mind-blowing example of a lost meaning of myth not being clear is in the Dionysus mythology. There are some hints in the Dionysus myths that they are actually the stories of “Young Zeus” before he dethroned Kronos and became the king of the gods. One hint is the name itself; Dionysus might have originally meant Zeus (Di-wo) of the Nysaids (nūsos). The Nysaids were the nymphs that raised Zeus in the traditional narrative. So it’s possible that there was, in Bronze Age Thrace, Crete, or some other Greek town far away from the hub of Greek civilization, a cult dedicated to the stories of Young Zeus, who were isolated from the rest of mainstream Greek culture by the Bronze Age collapse, and when they were reunited with the rest of the Greek world, everyone had forgotten about the cult of Young Zeus (and the cult of Young Zeus had changed during the isolation), so the Greeks cobbled together several different contradictory beliefs about how the cult of Dionysus fit into their own, separately evolved, culture.
Speaking of Sanderson and religions, the character Sazed from Mistborn is extremely interesting within the context of religions. He preserves all knowledge of past religions first out of a sense of cultural preservation, assuming that other cultures are like his own Terris, and seek to recover their lost history. After he has a crisis of faith, he does come to acknowledge the internal inconsistencies, though later comes to understand how each religion preserves some type of knowledge, even if it looks like there is probably only one religion. THEN we get a wider Cosmere scope and come to understand that each religion might not simply be a creative take on the same history.
Personally I found Sazed's knowledge lacking, which might be a reflection of the fact that Sanderson himself was still growing as an author at the time. There are many belief systems in the real world that are very different from the ones Sazed was evaluating. For example, in Hinduism, "Brahman" is the universe and everything inside it, and is itself divine. In Buddhism, the Buddha claims "life is suffering", doesn't claim himself to be divine, and simply leads people to goodness. And these are the two biggest eastern religions. For a character to claim to have knowledge of the vast majority of religions, and to see all of them fall into the "good God vs evil God" bucket was disappointing.
@@PristinePerceptionsI don't know if you haven't finished the series or not, but the good God vs evil god is very much a part of the Mistborn storyline, it's not meant to be a reference to any real world religions. SPOILER ALERT "Hero of Ages" It's more a clue to help the readers learn about the two very real and very powerful gods that actually inspired all those religions in the first place.
@@IskandrArchive I have finished Era 1, yes, and am midway through Era 2. And I am generally aware of how the divinity is supposed to progress after Era 2. I am not against the Good vs Evil trope - it's fairly common, and very compelling. I was just miffed that a character who claimed to have knowledge of even obscure religions, goes through all of them and has a full blown crisis of faith, was limited to variations of just a few religious ideas. Many older religions even reject the notions that religions are supposed to instruct you, or that there is one truth, or the concept of Evil. A bit more complexity in Sazed's research would've elevated Sazed's character much more, I think.
@@PristinePerceptions Well, considering what is happening elsewhere in the Cosmere, it makes sense that those religions are missing from Sazed's collection of knowledge. The major reason for this, is an implication that the original creator of the Cosmere died around the time of the Lord Ruler's betrayal, which is such so happens to also be right when the Knights Radiant abandoned their role. Preservation and Ruin both died because no one knew that it was possible to contain both of them without having them die and need replacing.
@shauntempley9757 You do not know the timeline, so you made mistakes. The creator of the cosmere (Adonalsium) died 10,000 years before the True Desolation actually, the Knights Radiant abandoned their role 2,500 years before the True Desolation, and Rashek betrayed Alendi 1,300 years before the True Desolation
You see a lot of modern readers expecting ancient mythologies to be internally consistent and have definite "canon" versions, something they just were never designed to have.
I am so sorry for the loss of your fur child. We recently lost our Binx in November to a sudden aneurysm. But losing him allowed us to open our home to another kitten, and I wouldn't trade little Jiji for the world, despite many misgivings from his older sister, Sweetie. 😅
i like how in dragon age, clues about elven history can be found in the murals of elven ruins. not because they depict history, but because they depict myths which reveal the way the elves understand and relate to certain figures and events. makes for good fan theory videos.
It's especially interesting because the elven gods did/do exist... after a fashion. It's a good time to bring up a big worldbuilding trick: letting your carefully crafted history be straight-up wrong.
Heh. I'm watching this a few hours before DMing another session of a D&D campaign where it has been revealed so far that: - The natives of the New Land believe in the same gods but depict them differenty than the Empire. - Dragons hide among mortals. - The god of the forest might be dead?! And this video reminds me that I definitely should read your books which I already have next to me 🙃.
I'm literally doing the same thing, cleaning while listening to this, getting ready to DM. Helps get the creative juices flowing. Also might steal the "same gods, different depiction" thing lol
I'm building up a world/mythology, in which every god of life (or asociated domain) is a diferent aspect of a single primordial god. They thing of themselves as diferent people (gods), but are aware they're part of the same whole. None of the believers know this, of course. There's even a culture, that worships two separate aspects of this primordial god (they have diferent gods oversee human and non-human life).
Fun fact: As a separate example of religious syncretism, we know for a fact that Odin did not originate from Norse myth, but rather, he hails from proto-Germanic myth, where he was called Wotan/Woden. The Nords (meaning, for those who don't know, the people from Scandinavia, not referring to the people from Skyrim) took such a liking to him them when they made contact with proto-Germanic tribes that they brought him back, where he possibly supplanted Tyr. What's funny about religious syncretism is not only has it happened several times throughout history (The Romans are perhaps the biggest perpetrators of it and it's deeply fascinating to research), but it's also happened a lot more recently than people think. Namely where Satan and Lucifer are concerned, as despite being commonly associated as one and the same being, that's only a recent interpretation; Satan comes from comes from Hebrew "ha-satan" (literally "the satan") and the term essentially means "accuser" or "enemy", as it pretty much refers to the entity's divinely appointed duty to try and tempt humanity away from Yahweh/God and into sin. Lucifer, on the other hand, has weirder origins. The word "lucifer" means "the morning star", "light-bringer", "Shining one", or "the planet Venus", depending on whether you're going by the Latin or Hebrew interpretation, but in essence they all refer to the planet Venus itself, who's journey across the our sky inspired the motifs of a heavenly host being cast out for the crime of reaching for the highest seat in heaven. At one point, he was even a god himself in Greco-Roman myth.
About Odin, wasn't it more that it was Germanic people that brought him with them when they decided to live in the Nordics? Have heard both hypothesis. But yeah, Satan is an angel whose job it is to be the advocate of heaven. More or less. Nothing worse. Him and Lucifer having the reputation they have today is certainly some interesting reading. Especially with Lucifer most probably not even existing as a character until much later. Humans being humans do what they always do - combine two completely unrelated things.
@@Elora445 Norse people are Germanic people anyway. General opinion today is that both myths developed from the same Proto-Germanic mythology. Given how many gods are being shared, that seems way more sensible than the Norse just liking one particular god and copying it. Especially from a myth of a group they descended from.
Not quite. Odin was called Wodanaz, not Wodan/Wotan. Wodan is the Anglo-Saxon name, Wotan is the name used by white supremacists and as far as I know is not a historically attested name. The Norse didn't encounter the Proto-Germanics, they're descended from the Proto-Germanic people, hence why they lived centuries after Proto-Germanic split into it's various branches (though Proto-Germanic is not quite a language, more like a dialect continuum, though it's unattested as the people were illiterate and writing wasn't introduced to the region until after they became clearly separate languages). So it isn't an example of cultural syncretism but of cultural evolution. Wodanaz would become Othinn in Norse, and Wodan in Old English. Tyr is also a Germanic god, originally called Tiwaz, and would becomes Tyrr in Norse and Tiw in Old English (which is where we get Tuesday from).
I've unfortunately taken a multi-month break from writing my fantasy novels because of my mental health and living circumstances, but watching your videos and coming up with my own mythos and short stories has rekindled my passion and understanding of how much I use creative writing to parse through my own human experience. Thank you for all of your hard work and I'm excited to read your Writing/Worldbuilding series!
I think Dune would have deserved a little more attention in this video, because I find it very interesting how the Bene Gesserit intentionally create myths within other cultures to play out for them hundreds of years later. Imagine an organisation that foresighted that it prepares whole planets to make sure their agents are seen as sacred upon arrival. That really shows how powerful the Bene Gesserit are and it raises interesting questions
(Spoilers from the books, for anyone who hasn't read them) This also later plays into the nature of the Empire as a whole, how it twists once-genuine beliefs to serve its ends. The Butlerian Jihad was fuelled by a religious levels of faith in humanity and the human spirit (sensible when fighting quasi-sentient AI), but became a visceral hatred of almost all automation used to justify Imperial oppression, and later became something so twisted that when Leto II turns himself into a worm invokes it to declare himself god, nobody sees this as incongruent. Basically, religion in dune keeps getting Ship of Theseus'd into whatever the powers need people to believe, the Bene Gesserit are just extremely good at this.
18:34 Hello Darcy! Also, great video! I’m working on a homebrewed D&D campaign and your videos have been irreplaceable in terms of extra lore, and how to make my world feel believable and “real” despite being fantasy. Keep up the great work!
I have an alien species that is from a planet with two suns, no water(when someone says water they think it's sand), live in caves beneath the surface, have a metal shell(similar to pangolins or armadillos), and eat metal or rocks, as a result of that they have no eyes and see heat and sound, the material they eat causes their 'plates' to change colour/shape, and that is a quick way to see which caste they're apart of, the more colourful, the higher up they are
This is one of the things that made me love Dune so much. The viewer can put together how the Fremen’d culture came to be just by looking at the world, even having to read wikis or anything.
Sorry for a second comment, but when you bring up Perdido Street Station at 2:10 I had to mention a hilarious description I read of China Miéville's writing, namely that he "plays with the English language like Yo-Yo Ma on a cello." It was in the context of a short description of PSS too.
Went to watch this on Nebula (cause I heard yall get better pay from there) and couldnt find it. Not sure if thats me not knowing how to uae it properly or something 😅
Hi Darcy! Thanks for being with Tim during this tough time. I'm sorry for the loss of your kitty, Tim. Hopefully the little floofball can help comfort you. And thank you for the deep-dive into mythology, it got me thinking deeper about my worldbuilding (as your videos often do). Great video as always :)
That's why I decided from the start to make my myth have multiple contradictory records, split off deities from the same one, "canon foreigners," storylines that go nowhere, and such. Studying Norse mythology really helps in the matter.
Honestly, with each video of yours I watch, I get better as an author. These gems of condensed technical knowledge really allow me to flesh out my ideas and add a wealth of possibilities I had never considered before. I often have to rewatch these several times because my mind just goes off on one tangent after another. I'm definitely ordering your world building books when I get home.
... This made me think about the Androids in Nier: Automata. Like myths would mean less for them because of their memory retention (cause obviously androids) but how would an Android who tries to be an author would write about myths (post Ending-E I mean) about their gods about their creation, their destiny.
Sorry for your loss. Our pets are always much more than pets. It is us who have been blessed by them. Also Hello Darcy! Hope you healed his heart some.
Presumably because ancient Humans needed to explain a lot of phenomena and just thought of the most interesting or "believable" crap. iirc ancient Greeks once believed Sight was beams coming from the eyes. That sounds believable... for an ancient Human specifically. Or a really dumb modern one.
@@satgurs It's conceptually similar but the physical mechanisms required to have sight be "beams coming from the eyes" are so vastly different compares to "beams coming into the eyes" that that's probably reason one why the Greek didn't discover optics. They may have otherwise, although their glassmaking techniques weren't much to write home about.
I mean, you're confusing 'dumb' with 'ignorant' here. The emission theory doesn't stand alone, and it exists because it was using many pre-existing theories about the nature of the universe to attempt to explain how vision works. Oddly, the intromission theory relied on many of the same sources which posit the existence of internal and external fires and "like is known by like". Of course, it's also way simpler to explain how light works (wave/particle duality and all) than how vision works, because that's not just about light, but the eye, brain and mind, too.
Ooooo you would love my creation story! My channel is new so the video for it isn't up yet though the story is on my website. I'm uploading the video next week, would love to know what you (and others) think once it's posted!
I love how the implication of the thumbnail is that the disk world being on top of four elephants on top of a turtle is simply a myth when that is in fact how disk world functions
"Dying god" stories can also represent a diferent socio-economic group rising to power and their prefered god replacing the prefered god of the previous ruling goup with the previous one dying.
yeah, diferent generations os primordial supwepowered supernatural beings are a recurreing motif in diferent mythologies (like titans vs Olimpic Gods or Giants vs Norse Deities or between norse deities the conflicts between Æsir and Vanir)
@@irinaiturri I was thinking how the whole point of Osiris dying in the Egyptian mythology is to explain why Horus is now the new main god. But what you you mentioned is also likely a reflection of cultural shift.
@@petrsevcik5044 It's worth noting that Egypt was something of a theocracy with the pharaoh literally being a divine figure. As such gods rise, fall, and get mashed together seemingly at random. This was done mostly for political reasons.
The old stories don't make sense to modern people because most people today don't hallucinate, meditate, or pray. Legends are often allegorical as well.
Hello Darcy, I very much enjoyed this video it is thought provoking. I just started actually writing my story and I am currently tackling this very subject. So perfect timing. Thank you
One of the huge things to remember is that, even within the same mythology, perspectives can be different. The people east and west of a mountain range may worship the same gods, tell the same stories, and share similar histories, but they won’t be identical. The easterners may believe the land is the dead gods body, and the mountains are his spine, while the westerners believe he simply created the world and gave it to them.
Awesome video, as always! Recently, I (while researching a term from KM Weiland's new book) found out that a lot of mythology from the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Bible is actually there because of poetic devices that make the stories easier to remember. I was researching the many uses of a chiasmus, and that device is all about keeping the story "hooky," and reenforcing certain images for retention. Marketing for the ancients I guess! Myths are such a fascinating well to draw from.
Dionysus is a good real-life example of how myths can change over time based on society and politics (see OSP's old video on him, for example). A god's entire personality changed to fit a new society and structure. Also, hello Darcie! I had missed Momo was gone :( I'm sorry for your loss. I've been here long enough to remember Lord Mishka. It never gets easier, but it's nice having them in our lives and knowing we made theirs as good as we could. And in your cat's cases, they will be forever immortalized in your videos, as they rightfully deserve!
My girlfriend bought me all three of your books for my birthday, of course ruining my plan to have at least two more future gift ideas but i enjoy them.
Thank you for walking us through this survey of creation mythology and of how this can improve our fictional world building! In fact I think even in real life we need more of this kind of thing because it's just possible this is among the many things we, as humanity, can do to help heal Gaia.
Hello Darcy! Also this was a great video and mythology is often something I get stuck on in worldbuilding for my own stories so I'm glad to have some more advice!
Morrowind had the best mythology growth in the whole series, especially when you get into those metaphysical parts. If you go deep, you find that the entire Elder Scrolls universe is the dream of an unknown and unknowable dreamer, and historical figures like Tiber Septim and Vivec actually gain their powers by awakening to this understanding and managing not to succumb to nihilism and blink out of existence...
What I find interesting is that CHIM is sometimes described as "reaching a higher state of being through violence". That's exactly what your PC is doing throughout every game.
Coming up with mythologies and evolving stories and rituals is one of my favorite things to do in world building. Something you didn't mention which I also like to inform my mythologies with is doublets - two versions of the same story that had split and evolved by different cultures in different directions then coming back together. Sometimes the people try to make sense of the differences when they merge the stories back. Other times they see it as two completely different stories which leaves the culture with one more mythological story than they had before. Cool stuff
I love the myth/folklore of the Mananganal which is a vampire-like creature which splits in half at the waist at night. It's top half flying around feeding on the living.
I think mythology is weirdd because....we have no idea what's going on beyond the veil ( or the past ). So, we crafted speculations and connect the dots. But, each every beliefs are different, just like religions does. And that's what i kinda like about it, everyday, new perspective. My personal mythologies favorite would be Greek, Norse, and some Japanese.
This was very helpful in mitigating some of my writer’s block! Thank you! I keep coming up against blocks based on having to go back and decide how one thing connects to the other things in the mythology, and I just need to dedicate time to framing out a solid mythology that’s always there for reference instead of making it up and having to match it up as I go along.
The Egyptian ones as seen in Moon Knight may be hallucinations. Otherwise, my take is that the "gods" we know about are powerful beings that fit some definitions of god, though in a world where magic can be understood scientifically if you know enough (which the 'gods' do and most mortals don't), but are still subject to limited power, death and morality (though most of them don't seem to understand that last one). There are also higher gods, about which we know very little, save that they are indescribably powerful - this includes beings like Cthon, Dormamu, the Celestials, Infinity and probably The Living Tribunal.
I love your videos. I learn so much about how people write and why we write. I also get a glimpse into the minds of other people by the characters they create. Your video on the psychology of Azula was one of the videos that really got me hooked on watching more of your videos.
What I like for some fictional mythology, is how their stories are truer than the ones that arose in the real world. I.e. the Aztecs believe that the land was created from the remains of a primordial crocodile-fish-amphibian being called Cipactli. But it’s not completely dead as it tries to comeback to life unless provided with sufficient blood offerings. Contrast this with Arceus from Pokémon, which created most other Pokémon, including very real Physics concepts such as spacetime, or abstract human feelings such as emotion, willpower and knowledge. Arceus can be a benevolent deity who will help anyone, or a vengeful being who seeks Judgment on the humans who double crossed him (Arceus and the Jewel of Life)
Great thoughtful video- I have really been enjoying learning about the evolution of real world myths, especially PIE mythology reconstruction, and I often wonder about ways to bring that into worlds I enjoy as a reader or player.
Myths are still made in modern times. Like stories about robots, AI, alien invasions, and superheros, externalizing our subconsious hopes and fears to help us deal with forces much larger than ourselves
@@itsgonnabeanaurfrommeNo, but myths can certainly originate as fictional stories that grow and change as they are retold again and again. Superman is one example. 1984 is probably another - the name conjures a vague story in many people's minds, and those stories are largely similar in most people's minds, even though most people probably haven't read the book (the original version of the myth).
What an amazing video! Great work! Lots of fun but also great ideas thought on and takes about :) But… man I’m glad you have Darcy to help give you some 4-legged love and affection
My mom had the best explanation for why Mythology is so weird - because the human brain is weird. I have question: what is our favorite Mythology? Mine is Greek-Roman because all the characters whether hero, villain, or God feels human complex - Steven Fry's Mythos explains much better why these stories still resonates with people even after thousands of years.
Syncretism is really neat honestly, And I'd highly recommend building it into your fictional religions because, Primarily, It's fun. I once made a fictional church that was explicitly created by an emperor who had recently conquered much new territory as a way to unify his now large realm, By incorporating elements of the mythologies of all the conquered peoples into it. And then the Church wound up outliving the Empire, and becoming itself the main power in the region.
I more recently have been working on mythos for one of my worlds. I've only come up with a basic creation myth so far. Essentially the world was created from the corpses of giant primordial dragons. They fought in a fierce battle, their blood becoming asteroids and meteors that were flung into space. Their corpses layed together by the victor, they became the "earth". One small casualty becoming the moon. That victors crying tears became the waters on this "earth." It left only a incubating nest of eggs (The Sun) before disappearing into vast expanse. I got the whole dragon thing since i originally made a continent back a long time ago. This continent looked much akin to a dragon. so Made it a thing ^-^.
One of my favorite quotes is from American Gods (the show). Paraphrased: Worship requires fear of the gods. And fear of the gods requires a certain level of F***ed up. The world is pretty messed up, and doesn't always make sense. So the stories we make reflect that
In my little slice of fiction the elves have a shared creation myth. There was a single god who created for themself a paradise and in it they created the cycle of birth, life, death, decay. They also inadvertently created corruption, things which only seek to disturb this cycle, primarily focusing on the death and decay parts. So the creator god did battle against the corruption but was losing. So in a last bid effort to save their paradise they shattered themself. Each of those pieces then became the original form of each of the elves. They beat back and dispersed the corruption but then the real problem began because then the elves thought that THEY were entitled to rule the paradise and they all started to turn on each other.
Another interesting one is people rewriting pre-existing myths as part of their own narrative - sometimes so well that people completely forget the original. This happened with irish myths, when christianity came and religious figures such as saint patrick were introduced to presumably preexisting myths, such as Oisín i dTír na nÓg
@@R3LKZz_0D and? It contributes nothing to the topic of the video. It just clutters it with all the other people who make these comments and shoves all the relevant ones to the bottom because they obviously don’t get as many likes as the ones that are just asking people to like them for the sake of getting likes
One of the species I created for my fantasy world, the krarka, worship dead gods. To explain that, I have to explain how they reproduce. There are three sexes to the krarka: emorc, roni, and correp. They reproduce when one of each sex goes to a sacred location in their cities, sheds their metal exoskeleton, and fuse together, producing one to two dozen babies. Their creation myth involves their three gods, Migaen, Lusodra, and Tyiestan, fusing together to produce the first three hundred krarka. So their gods died to create them, and creation, especially of life, is a sacred act to them. So, they also keep this act secret and refer to it to outsiders as "joining the gods," since it is the ultimate sacred act of creation.
My own world is another example of the "dead god" motif: The entire world is actually the corpse of a once-omnipotent god who tore himself into pieces, so far so good. But because a god cannot truly die, the parts of his body instead came to life and became new gods themselves, which are now limited to domains that you would associate with those body parts. Some examples: The eyes left their sockets and became the sun and moon, Gods of Light, Sight, and thus, Truth (there is also another story as to why the moon doesn't shine as bright as the sun anymore). The lungs became mighty trees, Gods of Breath, the Winds, and makers of all spirits. The hands became the Sculptors, who shape the remaining flesh of this god into the bodies that these spirits inhabit, and are thus the creators of all living bodies. The hair came to tangle and weave itself into the firmament: they are thus Gods of Secrecy, keepers of the veil that hides everything humanity should not understand. Lastly, the innards became the serpentine God of Hunger, who hides deep in the earth and has the responsibility of devouring everything that the other Gods make, so that the world never becomes "too full". So you see, the reason that there are multiple gods, none of which are themselves omnipotent, is because they are all only part of an omnipotent whole. These gods all chase different goals (e.g. truth versus secrecy, or hunger versus literally everyone else), which means they can't ever work together in perfect harmony again. This is the reason why my world is a very "imperfect" place, where these gods all try to enforce their conflicting ideas. So it's imperfect, but at least it is a somewhat stable world that can sustain life. Or so it was. Until somebody did the unthinkable, and murdered the God of Hunger.
Hello, Darcy! Really interesting video, thanks. Blended mythology is very interesting, and happens a lot in the real world. Making up mythologies for fictional cultures is fun, but following through on how they grew and combined is potential for so many stories.
Legends speak of those who get On Writing and Worldbuilding or my book! linktr.ee/timhickson will you be one of them?
~ Tim
Wow
Do you have a bunch of references for the media footage used and books referenced? I'm in love and would like to deep dive first hand!
No offense, I don't know if it's the editing but you really speak too fast and the constant gesturing doesn't help
One of my fanfics explores how the message of mythologies shift as they're passed down. The main character quickly learns the story of the Witch Queen, a powerful, evil pagan figure who created the Key Stone which gives the bearer a boost in witchcraft power, and once seduced and brought the downfall of a king, with the cursed cat beast Yami being implied to be the king in question. However, later revelations reveal that this isn't true at all: the real Witch Queen was a young girl from ancient Egypt who was a magic prodigy, and her relationship with the king is also much more wholesome than the tales implied - they were childhood best friends with a side of mutual pining/courtly love going on, and she actually died trying to save him. Word of her sacrifice and how much she meant to the king got passed around over the centuries, and so she was called his queen (although they never married) and then conflated with the goddess Isis, who was then conflated with the goddess Hecate during the Ptolemy era, and then as Christianity took over, she - as a personification of everything "wrong" with a woman, strong-willed, magically gifted, and of equal status to her husband - was demonized into the Witch Queen. The main character, as a reincarnation of the original girl, inherits the powers and domains of all of the figures she was conflated with: all of Isis's powers after gaining Ra's true name and her designation as protector of the king, Hecate's domain over arcane arts, and leadership over all Witches and power over dark magic from her title as Witch Queen.
@@balabanasireti false. just listen better
You know, something many writers miss while creating their own mythology is there always make it too clean.
They remove anything that can be controversial, problematic, nonsensical, or just weird. But myths are weird for a reason.
Not only are pass down from a culture way longer we where born and we often lack the context on why there are told that way, but there are meant to make you think, see things in very different ways and be more open minded about the strangest of ideas, and makes you wonder about impossible things otherwise you never thought before.
Is a open book on how people view the world itself.
As a mythology writer myself I always try and have a couple of nonsensical/downright contradictory things. It's always fun thinking of mythical explanations for things, and then coming up with ALTERNATE variations on the same story!
To be fair, they are likely like that because humans are very moral 😇 fanatical, so censor and alter their own mythology to support whatever morals they happen to have.
It's hard to understand what you're trying to say thru your writing (I assume you aren't a native English speaker), but no, myths *aren't* meant to make you think and see things differently and be open-minded. In fact, usually quite the opposite. They're meant to tell the listener "Here's an answer, now stop asking me silly questions."
@@jursamaj Not in all mythologies. Sometimes the myth is to teach you a sometimes unintuitive lesson to expand your thinking.
@@jursamajthat’s a relatively recent cultural trend (that is thankfully on the decline).
Political leaders didn’t always have authoritarian regimes that needed to be propped up by an imperial “dominance over others” or a nation-state’s “motherland” mythos.
During times where rulers weren’t dependent on an all-encompassing national/ethnic identity to control instead of govern, there wasn’t a whole lot of pressure on religious groups to justify the rulers’ divine right to rule.
This is not to say that myths always/often served the purpose of teaching critical thinking, but your characterization of myths constantly serving the same general cultural purpose of propaganda is too hasty of a generalization.
The more mythology you look into outside of “canon”, the more you realize that our stories are more varied and strange than we originally imagined
The concept of a Mythological Canon is pretty specific to Christianity; many religions are pretty okay with multiple, contradictory versions of core stories.
The real problem is passing on the myth in a coherent manner. The very same bible has dozens of different versions often contradicting each other.
@@stefanozucchelli5410 different versions cause of different translations don't talk nonsense do some research first obviously the original language the Bible was written in is old as hell so obviously there will be different translations
@@Shadow-Astro69 That was a very roundabout way of agreeing with the guy.
@@contentsdiffer5958 it isn't the same thing
Weird things in mythology make more intuitive sense when you're working with the context of the original culture. For example, in Aztec mythology, why was one of the previous worlds destroyed by Jaguars? It's because when you are living near the jungles of Southern Mexico, jaguars are these terrifying creatures which come out of nowhere and kill you. For the Aztecs, they are these terrifying primal monsters who appear out of nowhere and bring about sudden death. They didn't view them as just another animal, but as a herald of the Gods, of the primal force of nature itself. So it makes sense that such a supernatural force could be responsible for destroying a world.
another example are snake, in christianity they are a symbol of sindue to maybe like their poison, while in other culture they are a symbol of life and rebirth
If you ever heard a jaguar in the night (in Brazil we call it Onça), that beast is terrifying. Not only it roars loudly, but it also has a type of low growling akin to a hellhound revving the engines of hell.
@@filiperodriguesaquinThey just want their fur to be straightened
When you try to explain the unexplainable you generally get some insane solutions.
This is a great comment 😂
Like Dark Matter?
@@animalia5554weird thing to take a stand on...
Who tf mentioned Dark Matter? Are you like, trying to disprove science because people are shitting in how mythology was created?
Those are extremely different methods and concepts.... Whats the play here?
@@darkhobo I meant how Dark Matter was an idea to explain how the universe seems to be expanding more then it should , but there's new math suggesting other possibilities
@darkhobo wow, that was super aggressive.
Hello Darcy!
Myths are like rumors. By the time you learn of them, they've been twisted so many times. In Avatar, the characters get to watch a play about their adventure. The play is probably based on military reports and rumors that have been twisted to glorify the morals of the fire nation.
"Sources include singing nomads, pirates, prisoners of war and a surprisingly knowledgeble merchant of cabbage." Sokka, reading out loud the souces in the episode "the ember island players".
A:TLA's recap episode was the best I've ever seen. I wish more creators followed their example.
I like the idea of a sci-fi story set in the far future universe that treats our modern understanding of science as a myth. “Early humans believed that, at the beginning of time, all of the stuff in the universe was concentrated into a single ball. And that ball was so hot and so dense that it exploded, and that explosion was so great, it continued for billions of years, and the universe continued expanding and expanding. Eventually, it was big enough that stars and solar systems and even galaxies gathered together within the expanding universe, and civilizations grew within those galaxies. Early humans wondered if the universe would ever stop expanding, or if it would just keep growing forever. Of course, we know better than that now.”
Sounds like a pretty good creation myth, right?
It is a creation myth, though. I don't say that just because I believe it fictional; from a cultural perspective, it is a creation myth (and remember that all cultures think there own myths are true).
I couldn't keep up with the author's pace, but up though chapter 300 or so (and this probably continued) the "First Contact" webseries leaned into this hard.
Might be worth looking into if this trope tickles your fancy. You know you've got the right one when you find the one with the sentient praying mantis people that have a cultural mania for ice cream and Really Nice Hats (it makes sense in context, promise)
Dude, Asimov literally had already written that in Foundation and Earth.
@@robertlewis6915
But wouldn’t it be like as if we put a house and a tent in the same category just because one can hide from the rain in it?
@@Everywhere4 I'm honestly not sure what you mean. Note particularly that those two things actually share a number of categories.
(and evolution has metaphysical, ethical, theological, and even epistemological implications. just like a religious creation myth)
tbf aphrodite just popped up as an adult because she resembles adult love, so it makes sense she was never a kid
From a certain part that is related to her sphere of influence.
A lot of myths probably originated in something like a joke or at least with humor. "So what happened to Uranus's stuff?"
"Hmmmm, well, funny you should ask...."
Tell that to the ancient greek
Yeah the idea of the god of sex ever having been a kid is disturbing so I never questioned her appearing fully grown
@@acadiano10 not really. Most myths either start out describing real life events or from symbolical stories that lose their symbolism as time goes on.
For instance aphrodite was originally a war god that had her domains split into various different gods. And the idea of her spawning from the foam at the sea might have been symbolic retelling of her cult arriving at mainland Greece.
Many of the gods were born as adults and Aphrodite isn’t necessarily “adult love” as such
During the God’s War before time began, a powerful water deity invaded the Sky, which is why it is water coloured rather than sun coloured. Glorantha has the best invented mythology.
Wonder how rain works into that. Perhaps echoes of battles fought over the dominion of the sky. How the colors of the sky can shift being seen as the active struggle for dominance before being overtaken again. Perhaps the darkness of night is an armistice as the moon rises to gain power raising tides once again to bring the ocean back to the sky.
Which mythology is not invented?
Man, I have been balls deep in Glorantha for the last month and it keeps showing up wherever i turn aroumd.
@@D.M.S. Oh, come on. Most religions grow organically, we’re talking about artificial ones built for fiction. It’s the difference between French and Klingon.
@@Dakarai_Knight When the upstart king of the air gods murdered the Sun, aka Emperor of the sky pantheon and natural overlord of all creation, the Sun went to the Underworld (aka Hell), which in turn drove almost all the darkness up to the surface world. Well almost. Some darkness invaded the sky, and although the Sun was later resurrected and restored Night still rules the Sky half the time.
As for rain, that’s an Air/Water thing, not a Sky thing. He/she is named Heler and is the deity of rain, mist, sheep and magical gender swaps. The king of the air gods (yeah, the same one) found Heler inside a big water dragon he had to slay on a quest to defeat the god of drought.
Google Glorantha. It’s wild. And about a mile deep.
Myths/beliefs being used as political tools has so many historical examples, like how many rulers used religion to give legitemacy to their rule (kings being direct descendants from gods or being worshipped as gods in flesh).
Also considering how many early civilizations started in valleys of large rivers, it's unsurprising that the flood myths are very common, it is likely a shared common human experience across the world.
Rulers using religion is an interesting topic in itself because it varies so much. There have been religious states. Sometimes rulers have kept religion for easier assimilation post conquest. Other times religious mythos was a way to make some sort of omnipotent oversight (alongside images, statues, etc. to remind you even if the ruling class lives far). Other times rulers changed to often that among the general populations whatever teachings it had was the defacto law/expectation because no one had time for constant changing bs from their leaders.
I love how, even among established lore, there are headcanons (stories we share with each other that haven't been verified by the authors). We make mythology outside of stories. Lore is more than what others say. It's what we believe about what we observe.
Hello Darcy
a personal pet peeve of mine is when a fantasy universe has it's mythology clearly formed by a modern scientific understanding of the real world. it's just offputting to hear the 17th origin story of the universe that's just the big bang reflavored slightly, or for it to just be casually accepted in the setting that the sun is a star. everything doesn't need to be the same as reality, and the things that are the same don't need to be understood to be the same in-universe
I mean, it depends on the nature of the universe. For example, many fantasy worlds have gods that are very real and interact with people, so it isn't beyond reason that they could just explain to mortals how the universe was created. Either because their divinity gives them a greater understanding of the universe, or because they were physically involved in said creation process.
I agree! There are some places where it works, but for the most part, it’s definitely an anachronism. A piece cut out of a magazine, and pasted over a magazine, as it were.
Aww... I'm sorry for the loss of the kitty... cute puppy though
Interesting with the Religious Syncretism, when Alexander the Great ‘conquered’ Egypt, a large source of tension was the clash between the Macedonian-Greek Pantheon and the Egyptian Pantheon. To help justify their conquest, and ease tensions, Alexander (it’s told) says that the Pantheons are the same but simply appearing as different aspects - that the sun god appears as Helios to the Greeks, but as Ra to the Egyptians, etc. It helped blend the religions together, and set more of a stability for the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt by imprinting that shared religious identity.
Thought this’d be an interesting help for world building bits
Wasn't there one myth where greek gods escaped to Egypt from a terrifying monster and cosplayed as furries to hide from it?
The romans Famously integrated not only conquered nobility into their society but especially conquered Deities into their own Pantheon, or equal them to some of their own Deities.
A big reason why the Romans lasted so long, roughly 2200 years from Kingdom to Eastern Empire, was their adaptability.
Also keep in mind that the Romans didn't "conquer" deities -- they subverted them. One of the things that the Romans did was perform rituals to convince their opponent's deity that they were their friends, and they'd really like being Roman.
Except for Ba'al Hamon. That guy was a jerk.
The Persians did something somewhat similar but much more pluralistic. Consistent with typical polytheistic worldview which saw different gods as sovereign over different physical territories, they believed that if they were going to rule a vast empire of many foreign lands that they needed to respect and appease the gods of those lands. They not only gave extensive religious freedom to conquered peoples, but they also provided funds for the upkeep/restoration of cultic sites and made efforts to make sure that the priestly classes were fulfilling their duties to their gods.
I'm so glad you brought up The Elder Scrolls bc I was definitely already thinking about it. As a person who, like you, is familiar with many world mythologies, it is extremely apparent to me that whomever crafted the various mythologies of The Elder Scrolls was VERY familiar with all manner of Eastern philosophy and Western esotericism, specifically gnosticism and The Bhagavad Gita.
Studying and being an avid fan of mythology is exactly why I'm so frustrated so many stories these days feel like they're just cheap knock offs of each other and how the stereotypical dragons, elves, orcs and castles fantasy setting has became so overused it effectively lost all magic.
Mythologies from around the world have so many ideas, settings, creatures, magic systems, societal influences that could be a jumping off point for so many unique worldbuildings with unique plots, yet people just always default back to like a handful of plots and world we've seen a million times.
Sure ripping off mythology doesn't make your story "original" either, but at least it's unique and can feel fresh in this oversaturated market of clone trend chasers.
Not to mention so many fantasy writers write with an obvious focus on making an epic. Rather than creating a mythology that feels mythological...
Real it’s honestly disappointing if I ever make a story I’ll do my best to make it unique and amazing
But the question is, is that what the writers want? You're talking about uniqueness but considering how popular these stories are, clearly alot of people genuinely like it so i don't think you can just pass it off as trend chasing.
@@hadrianhexe9603 You're missing the point. I'm not saying the fantasy setting itself is wrong or people are bad for liking it, I'm saying it's been so universally overused it squandered attempts to tell a unique story.
A comparison like the gaming industry. There's nothing wrong with shooter games or the people who enjoy shooter games in themselves, but if the market is so oversaturated with shooter games all trying to do the same thing while any other genres of games, games that tries to be be unique or break the formula is considered "unmarketable", that's an issue.
Shooter games are allowed to exist, but they shouldn't run the monopoly of the entire industry.
@@oboretaiwritingch.2077 I'm not talking about that, which is a valid because diversity is needed, i'm talking about the fact you're speaking as though these things are created because the creator is chasing a trend and not because these are stories they love and influence them.
One thing to note is that mythology is not intentional but emergent, and does not always correspond like lowercase histories do with capitalized History (narratives vs reality). This is because mythology is a collection of stories aggregated together, maybe formally interpreted and canonized later on by institutions of religion and politics.
Using Indian mythology as an example. The Ramayana has many different versions in different parts of the world and slices of society eg. the Tamil one vs the Jain one vs the Indonesian one. The Mahabharata probably arose from the Rg Veda story of the Battle of the Ten Kings as a core, collected with many other Puranic legends, retold by traveling and court bards, until compiled into the form we know today. Krishna the god was originally a collection of folk tales about several different groups of figures: 1) the playful baby Krishna 2) the playboy teenage Krishna 3) the heroic young adult Krishna and the Vrishni heroes and 4) the adult all-powerful wise Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita. Later on, Vaishnavas formalizing Vishnu as the chief of the Hindu pantheon would even go further to say that Krishna is actually the main form, and Vishnu and other avataras are secondary.
Anyways my point is that myths are often like stories told to children, remembered by them as they grow up and begin to take them more and more serious. Not that they are told dripping with allegory and intention in the first place. There may be some level of symbolism, but not the amount by the time they are canonized by institutions. And also thus they are not rooted in reality like historical narratives may be rooted in actual historical events. For example, the Vrishni heroes probably didn't exist. They were just a fun set of stories to listen to.
I love, love, love mythology; it's one of my biggest hyperfixations, and it truly fascinates me how stories change and evolve just like people. Terry Pratchett said in Witches Abroad, "People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact it's the other way around." That's why I get really frustrated when people get dismissive of the effect that fiction, and stories in general, have on reality. The stories, tiny stories and huge stories and in-between stories, we tell ourselves and each other every single day, changes our reality, our perception of the world. Reality is molded, shaped, by every single individual's perspective, and with all of these perspectives continually colliding with each other, no wonder the world is in such a mess, and why people are becoming more and more divided, families are fractured, politics are more polarized than ever, and arguments are treated as a matter of life and death. Just taking a few seconds to think, 'why do I think this way?', or 'where did this story come from?' or 'is this my own viewpoint, or is it from someone else?' can be, literally, world-changing.
Also, The Ocean at The End of The Lane is one of my favourite books of all time. So nice to see it get mentioned here.
Owl House: The islands are the corpse of a Dead Titan, and their magic is just wielding the Titan's residual magic held in it's corpse.
One mind-blowing example of a lost meaning of myth not being clear is in the Dionysus mythology. There are some hints in the Dionysus myths that they are actually the stories of “Young Zeus” before he dethroned Kronos and became the king of the gods. One hint is the name itself; Dionysus might have originally meant Zeus (Di-wo) of the Nysaids (nūsos). The Nysaids were the nymphs that raised Zeus in the traditional narrative. So it’s possible that there was, in Bronze Age Thrace, Crete, or some other Greek town far away from the hub of Greek civilization, a cult dedicated to the stories of Young Zeus, who were isolated from the rest of mainstream Greek culture by the Bronze Age collapse, and when they were reunited with the rest of the Greek world, everyone had forgotten about the cult of Young Zeus (and the cult of Young Zeus had changed during the isolation), so the Greeks cobbled together several different contradictory beliefs about how the cult of Dionysus fit into their own, separately evolved, culture.
Speaking of Sanderson and religions, the character Sazed from Mistborn is extremely interesting within the context of religions. He preserves all knowledge of past religions first out of a sense of cultural preservation, assuming that other cultures are like his own Terris, and seek to recover their lost history. After he has a crisis of faith, he does come to acknowledge the internal inconsistencies, though later comes to understand how each religion preserves some type of knowledge, even if it looks like there is probably only one religion. THEN we get a wider Cosmere scope and come to understand that each religion might not simply be a creative take on the same history.
Personally I found Sazed's knowledge lacking, which might be a reflection of the fact that Sanderson himself was still growing as an author at the time. There are many belief systems in the real world that are very different from the ones Sazed was evaluating. For example, in Hinduism, "Brahman" is the universe and everything inside it, and is itself divine. In Buddhism, the Buddha claims "life is suffering", doesn't claim himself to be divine, and simply leads people to goodness. And these are the two biggest eastern religions. For a character to claim to have knowledge of the vast majority of religions, and to see all of them fall into the "good God vs evil God" bucket was disappointing.
@@PristinePerceptionsI don't know if you haven't finished the series or not, but the good God vs evil god is very much a part of the Mistborn storyline, it's not meant to be a reference to any real world religions.
SPOILER ALERT "Hero of Ages"
It's more a clue to help the readers learn about the two very real and very powerful gods that actually inspired all those religions in the first place.
@@IskandrArchive I have finished Era 1, yes, and am midway through Era 2. And I am generally aware of how the divinity is supposed to progress after Era 2. I am not against the Good vs Evil trope - it's fairly common, and very compelling. I was just miffed that a character who claimed to have knowledge of even obscure religions, goes through all of them and has a full blown crisis of faith, was limited to variations of just a few religious ideas. Many older religions even reject the notions that religions are supposed to instruct you, or that there is one truth, or the concept of Evil. A bit more complexity in Sazed's research would've elevated Sazed's character much more, I think.
@@PristinePerceptions Well, considering what is happening elsewhere in the Cosmere, it makes sense that those religions are missing from Sazed's collection of knowledge.
The major reason for this, is an implication that the original creator of the Cosmere died around the time of the Lord Ruler's betrayal, which is such so happens to also be right when the Knights Radiant abandoned their role.
Preservation and Ruin both died because no one knew that it was possible to contain both of them without having them die and need replacing.
@shauntempley9757 You do not know the timeline, so you made mistakes. The creator of the cosmere (Adonalsium) died 10,000 years before the True Desolation actually, the Knights Radiant abandoned their role 2,500 years before the True Desolation, and Rashek betrayed Alendi 1,300 years before the True Desolation
Your writing and world building books are good. The first one helped me a lot with fight scenes.
Hello, Darcy! Thank you for comforting HelloFutureMe in this tough time... we all love both of you!
You see a lot of modern readers expecting ancient mythologies to be internally consistent and have definite "canon" versions, something they just were never designed to have.
Exactly, internal inconsistency in myths can actually add to the authenticity, as well as allowing individual interpretation of thr stories
I am so sorry for the loss of your fur child. We recently lost our Binx in November to a sudden aneurysm. But losing him allowed us to open our home to another kitten, and I wouldn't trade little Jiji for the world, despite many misgivings from his older sister, Sweetie. 😅
I am so sorry for your loss 😢 and thank you for such an insightful vid, I feel it will definitely help my writing skills 🙏
i like how in dragon age, clues about elven history can be found in the murals of elven ruins. not because they depict history, but because they depict myths which reveal the way the elves understand and relate to certain figures and events. makes for good fan theory videos.
It's especially interesting because the elven gods did/do exist... after a fashion. It's a good time to bring up a big worldbuilding trick: letting your carefully crafted history be straight-up wrong.
Heh. I'm watching this a few hours before DMing another session of a D&D campaign where it has been revealed so far that:
- The natives of the New Land believe in the same gods but depict them differenty than the Empire.
- Dragons hide among mortals.
- The god of the forest might be dead?!
And this video reminds me that I definitely should read your books which I already have next to me 🙃.
Note to self: add dogs and cats to the setting, including a dog named Darcy. Or a dragon 😮
@@DominoPivot Why can't it be both? A Dragon polymorphed into a Dog called Darcy. and he kinda likes it cause of the ear scritches :)
I'm literally doing the same thing, cleaning while listening to this, getting ready to DM. Helps get the creative juices flowing.
Also might steal the "same gods, different depiction" thing lol
I'm building up a world/mythology, in which every god of life (or asociated domain) is a diferent aspect of a single primordial god. They thing of themselves as diferent people (gods), but are aware they're part of the same whole. None of the believers know this, of course. There's even a culture, that worships two separate aspects of this primordial god (they have diferent gods oversee human and non-human life).
Do dragons hide amongst mortals in their natural form?
Fun fact: As a separate example of religious syncretism, we know for a fact that Odin did not originate from Norse myth, but rather, he hails from proto-Germanic myth, where he was called Wotan/Woden. The Nords (meaning, for those who don't know, the people from Scandinavia, not referring to the people from Skyrim) took such a liking to him them when they made contact with proto-Germanic tribes that they brought him back, where he possibly supplanted Tyr.
What's funny about religious syncretism is not only has it happened several times throughout history (The Romans are perhaps the biggest perpetrators of it and it's deeply fascinating to research), but it's also happened a lot more recently than people think. Namely where Satan and Lucifer are concerned, as despite being commonly associated as one and the same being, that's only a recent interpretation; Satan comes from comes from Hebrew "ha-satan" (literally "the satan") and the term essentially means "accuser" or "enemy", as it pretty much refers to the entity's divinely appointed duty to try and tempt humanity away from Yahweh/God and into sin.
Lucifer, on the other hand, has weirder origins. The word "lucifer" means "the morning star", "light-bringer", "Shining one", or "the planet Venus", depending on whether you're going by the Latin or Hebrew interpretation, but in essence they all refer to the planet Venus itself, who's journey across the our sky inspired the motifs of a heavenly host being cast out for the crime of reaching for the highest seat in heaven. At one point, he was even a god himself in Greco-Roman myth.
About Odin, wasn't it more that it was Germanic people that brought him with them when they decided to live in the Nordics? Have heard both hypothesis.
But yeah, Satan is an angel whose job it is to be the advocate of heaven. More or less. Nothing worse. Him and Lucifer having the reputation they have today is certainly some interesting reading. Especially with Lucifer most probably not even existing as a character until much later. Humans being humans do what they always do - combine two completely unrelated things.
@@Elora445So Satan and Slugworth from Willy Wonka serve similar functions?
@@maximillianhallett3055
I honestly have no idea who Slugworth is, so can't say.
@@Elora445 Norse people are Germanic people anyway. General opinion today is that both myths developed from the same Proto-Germanic mythology. Given how many gods are being shared, that seems way more sensible than the Norse just liking one particular god and copying it. Especially from a myth of a group they descended from.
Not quite. Odin was called Wodanaz, not Wodan/Wotan. Wodan is the Anglo-Saxon name, Wotan is the name used by white supremacists and as far as I know is not a historically attested name.
The Norse didn't encounter the Proto-Germanics, they're descended from the Proto-Germanic people, hence why they lived centuries after Proto-Germanic split into it's various branches (though Proto-Germanic is not quite a language, more like a dialect continuum, though it's unattested as the people were illiterate and writing wasn't introduced to the region until after they became clearly separate languages).
So it isn't an example of cultural syncretism but of cultural evolution. Wodanaz would become Othinn in Norse, and Wodan in Old English. Tyr is also a Germanic god, originally called Tiwaz, and would becomes Tyrr in Norse and Tiw in Old English (which is where we get Tuesday from).
I've unfortunately taken a multi-month break from writing my fantasy novels because of my mental health and living circumstances, but watching your videos and coming up with my own mythos and short stories has rekindled my passion and understanding of how much I use creative writing to parse through my own human experience. Thank you for all of your hard work and I'm excited to read your Writing/Worldbuilding series!
I think Dune would have deserved a little more attention in this video, because I find it very interesting how the Bene Gesserit intentionally create myths within other cultures to play out for them hundreds of years later. Imagine an organisation that foresighted that it prepares whole planets to make sure their agents are seen as sacred upon arrival. That really shows how powerful the Bene Gesserit are and it raises interesting questions
(Spoilers from the books, for anyone who hasn't read them)
This also later plays into the nature of the Empire as a whole, how it twists once-genuine beliefs to serve its ends. The Butlerian Jihad was fuelled by a religious levels of faith in humanity and the human spirit (sensible when fighting quasi-sentient AI), but became a visceral hatred of almost all automation used to justify Imperial oppression, and later became something so twisted that when Leto II turns himself into a worm invokes it to declare himself god, nobody sees this as incongruent.
Basically, religion in dune keeps getting Ship of Theseus'd into whatever the powers need people to believe, the Bene Gesserit are just extremely good at this.
18:34 Hello Darcy! Also, great video! I’m working on a homebrewed D&D campaign and your videos have been irreplaceable in terms of extra lore, and how to make my world feel believable and “real” despite being fantasy. Keep up the great work!
Always a good Saturday when there's a new Hello Future Me video!
I have an alien species that is from a planet with two suns, no water(when someone says water they think it's sand), live in caves beneath the surface, have a metal shell(similar to pangolins or armadillos), and eat metal or rocks, as a result of that they have no eyes and see heat and sound, the material they eat causes their 'plates' to change colour/shape, and that is a quick way to see which caste they're apart of, the more colourful, the higher up they are
This is one of the things that made me love Dune so much. The viewer can put together how the Fremen’d culture came to be just by looking at the world, even having to read wikis or anything.
Sorry for a second comment, but when you bring up Perdido Street Station at 2:10 I had to mention a hilarious description I read of China Miéville's writing, namely that he "plays with the English language like Yo-Yo Ma on a cello." It was in the context of a short description of PSS too.
Went to watch this on Nebula (cause I heard yall get better pay from there) and couldnt find it. Not sure if thats me not knowing how to uae it properly or something 😅
Ah shoot I didn't hit publish! Thank you for reminding me
~ Tim
Hi Darcy! Thanks for being with Tim during this tough time. I'm sorry for the loss of your kitty, Tim. Hopefully the little floofball can help comfort you. And thank you for the deep-dive into mythology, it got me thinking deeper about my worldbuilding (as your videos often do). Great video as always :)
That's why I decided from the start to make my myth have multiple contradictory records, split off deities from the same one, "canon foreigners," storylines that go nowhere, and such. Studying Norse mythology really helps in the matter.
Honestly, with each video of yours I watch, I get better as an author. These gems of condensed technical knowledge really allow me to flesh out my ideas and add a wealth of possibilities I had never considered before. I often have to rewatch these several times because my mind just goes off on one tangent after another.
I'm definitely ordering your world building books when I get home.
This feels like it could turn into a collaboration between your channel and another great channel that deals with mythology, @creganford!
On point 6, a recent video on sci Fi put it really good: "any sufficiently speculative science fiction is indistinguishable from theology"
... This made me think about the Androids in Nier: Automata. Like myths would mean less for them because of their memory retention (cause obviously androids) but how would an Android who tries to be an author would write about myths (post Ending-E I mean) about their gods about their creation, their destiny.
Sorry for your loss. Our pets are always much more than pets. It is us who have been blessed by them.
Also Hello Darcy! Hope you healed his heart some.
Presumably because ancient Humans needed to explain a lot of phenomena and just thought of the most interesting or "believable" crap.
iirc ancient Greeks once believed Sight was beams coming from the eyes. That sounds believable... for an ancient Human specifically. Or a really dumb modern one.
True 😅
~ Tim
I never thought I was superman the whole time
Not that far off. Sight is beams coming into the eyes.
@@satgurs It's conceptually similar but the physical mechanisms required to have sight be "beams coming from the eyes" are so vastly different compares to "beams coming into the eyes" that that's probably reason one why the Greek didn't discover optics. They may have otherwise, although their glassmaking techniques weren't much to write home about.
I mean, you're confusing 'dumb' with 'ignorant' here. The emission theory doesn't stand alone, and it exists because it was using many pre-existing theories about the nature of the universe to attempt to explain how vision works. Oddly, the intromission theory relied on many of the same sources which posit the existence of internal and external fires and "like is known by like".
Of course, it's also way simpler to explain how light works (wave/particle duality and all) than how vision works, because that's not just about light, but the eye, brain and mind, too.
HELLO DARCY!!!
Also, awesome that you got your own books now! I will definitely be picking them up soon.
Ooooo you would love my creation story! My channel is new so the video for it isn't up yet though the story is on my website. I'm uploading the video next week, would love to know what you (and others) think once it's posted!
I love how the implication of the thumbnail is that the disk world being on top of four elephants on top of a turtle is simply a myth when that is in fact how disk world functions
It's always funny when alien or not human but totally actually human species refer to hell or heaven
The peasants were made from the pink snow and the nobles were made from yellow. The moral of the story: Don't eat strangely coloured snow.
"Dying god" stories can also represent a diferent socio-economic group rising to power and their prefered god replacing the prefered god of the previous ruling goup with the previous one dying.
yeah, diferent generations os primordial supwepowered supernatural beings are a recurreing motif in diferent mythologies (like titans vs Olimpic Gods or Giants vs Norse Deities or between norse deities the conflicts between Æsir and Vanir)
@@irinaiturri I was thinking how the whole point of Osiris dying in the Egyptian mythology is to explain why Horus is now the new main god.
But what you you mentioned is also likely a reflection of cultural shift.
@@petrsevcik5044 It's worth noting that Egypt was something of a theocracy with the pharaoh literally being a divine figure. As such gods rise, fall, and get mashed together seemingly at random. This was done mostly for political reasons.
Hello Darcy 😍 Sorry about your cat, too. I hope that cute little teddy bear is bringing you some comfort.
The old stories don't make sense to modern people because most people today don't hallucinate, meditate, or pray. Legends are often allegorical as well.
Hello Darcy! I’m so sorry for the loss of your cat & great video of always
I’m so sorry for the loss of your cat, Tim….
And hello to Dossy (I hope I spelled his name right)
Isn’t this the second cat he’s lost as well? 😢
Hello Darcy,
I very much enjoyed this video it is thought provoking. I just started actually writing my story and I am currently tackling this very subject. So perfect timing.
Thank you
Someone at gamefreak did NOT understand the assignment
One of the huge things to remember is that, even within the same mythology, perspectives can be different. The people east and west of a mountain range may worship the same gods, tell the same stories, and share similar histories, but they won’t be identical. The easterners may believe the land is the dead gods body, and the mountains are his spine, while the westerners believe he simply created the world and gave it to them.
Sorry for your loss, I love your videos!
Awesome video, as always!
Recently, I (while researching a term from KM Weiland's new book) found out that a lot of mythology from the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Bible is actually there because of poetic devices that make the stories easier to remember. I was researching the many uses of a chiasmus, and that device is all about keeping the story "hooky," and reenforcing certain images for retention. Marketing for the ancients I guess!
Myths are such a fascinating well to draw from.
Dionysus is a good real-life example of how myths can change over time based on society and politics (see OSP's old video on him, for example). A god's entire personality changed to fit a new society and structure.
Also, hello Darcie! I had missed Momo was gone :( I'm sorry for your loss. I've been here long enough to remember Lord Mishka. It never gets easier, but it's nice having them in our lives and knowing we made theirs as good as we could. And in your cat's cases, they will be forever immortalized in your videos, as they rightfully deserve!
My girlfriend bought me all three of your books for my birthday, of course ruining my plan to have at least two more future gift ideas but i enjoy them.
A good example of religions mixing stories together is Christianity
Thank you for walking us through this survey of creation mythology and of how this can improve our fictional world building! In fact I think even in real life we need more of this kind of thing because it's just possible this is among the many things we, as humanity, can do to help heal Gaia.
Hello Darcy! Also this was a great video and mythology is often something I get stuck on in worldbuilding for my own stories so I'm glad to have some more advice!
0:08 ive never understood why elephants are part of the world turtle myth
Biggest thing some people have ever seen, makes sense there’s gotta be a HUGE one under there?
@@WindWalker666 makes sense they used elphants to carry things
The disc's not gonna balance by itself
In some weeks I'm gonna receive those books of on writing and world-building. Can't wait until to read it. It's awesome how this author explains it.
Morrowind had the best mythology growth in the whole series, especially when you get into those metaphysical parts. If you go deep, you find that the entire Elder Scrolls universe is the dream of an unknown and unknowable dreamer, and historical figures like Tiber Septim and Vivec actually gain their powers by awakening to this understanding and managing not to succumb to nihilism and blink out of existence...
What I find interesting is that CHIM is sometimes described as "reaching a higher state of being through violence". That's exactly what your PC is doing throughout every game.
Coming up with mythologies and evolving stories and rituals is one of my favorite things to do in world building. Something you didn't mention which I also like to inform my mythologies with is doublets - two versions of the same story that had split and evolved by different cultures in different directions then coming back together. Sometimes the people try to make sense of the differences when they merge the stories back. Other times they see it as two completely different stories which leaves the culture with one more mythological story than they had before. Cool stuff
1:11 Did you see the writing on the wall?
I love the myth/folklore of the Mananganal which is a vampire-like creature which splits in half at the waist at night. It's top half flying around feeding on the living.
It’s easier to spooky-fly when you can unload half your body weight 🧐
I think mythology is weirdd because....we have no idea what's going on beyond the veil ( or the past ). So, we crafted speculations and connect the dots. But, each every beliefs are different, just like religions does. And that's what i kinda like about it, everyday, new perspective. My personal mythologies favorite would be Greek, Norse, and some Japanese.
This was very helpful in mitigating some of my writer’s block! Thank you! I keep coming up against blocks based on having to go back and decide how one thing connects to the other things in the mythology, and I just need to dedicate time to framing out a solid mythology that’s always there for reference instead of making it up and having to match it up as I go along.
I hate the Pantheons of the MCU. Are their gods now or not? Are the Egyptian gods now real and the rest are Aliens?
The Egyptian ones as seen in Moon Knight may be hallucinations. Otherwise, my take is that the "gods" we know about are powerful beings that fit some definitions of god, though in a world where magic can be understood scientifically if you know enough (which the 'gods' do and most mortals don't), but are still subject to limited power, death and morality (though most of them don't seem to understand that last one). There are also higher gods, about which we know very little, save that they are indescribably powerful - this includes beings like Cthon, Dormamu, the Celestials, Infinity and probably The Living Tribunal.
The puppy is adorbs! Deepest condolences on your cat.
If you’re trying to understand mythology literally, rather than symbolically, you’re not understanding it.
I love your videos. I learn so much about how people write and why we write. I also get a glimpse into the minds of other people by the characters they create. Your video on the psychology of Azula was one of the videos that really got me hooked on watching more of your videos.
What I like for some fictional mythology, is how their stories are truer than the ones that arose in the real world.
I.e. the Aztecs believe that the land was created from the remains of a primordial crocodile-fish-amphibian being called Cipactli. But it’s not completely dead as it tries to comeback to life unless provided with sufficient blood offerings.
Contrast this with Arceus from Pokémon, which created most other Pokémon, including very real Physics concepts such as spacetime, or abstract human feelings such as emotion, willpower and knowledge. Arceus can be a benevolent deity who will help anyone, or a vengeful being who seeks Judgment on the humans who double crossed him (Arceus and the Jewel of Life)
Great thoughtful video- I have really been enjoying learning about the evolution of real world myths, especially PIE mythology reconstruction, and I often wonder about ways to bring that into worlds I enjoy as a reader or player.
Myths are still made in modern times. Like stories about robots, AI, alien invasions, and superheros, externalizing our subconsious hopes and fears to help us deal with forces much larger than ourselves
Myths are not the same as fictional stories for entertainment.
@@itsgonnabeanaurfrommeNo, but myths can certainly originate as fictional stories that grow and change as they are retold again and again. Superman is one example. 1984 is probably another - the name conjures a vague story in many people's minds, and those stories are largely similar in most people's minds, even though most people probably haven't read the book (the original version of the myth).
Is it just me, or is the sound acting up?
Darcy is amazing and wonderful and I wish nothing but the best for him
The Judeo-Christian god making Eve from Adam's rib bone is so similar to mythology because it IS mythology.
What an amazing video! Great work! Lots of fun but also great ideas thought on and takes about :)
But… man I’m glad you have Darcy to help give you some 4-legged love and affection
My mom had the best explanation for why Mythology is so weird - because the human brain is weird. I have question: what is our favorite Mythology? Mine is Greek-Roman because all the characters whether hero, villain, or God feels human complex - Steven Fry's Mythos explains much better why these stories still resonates with people even after thousands of years.
Syncretism is really neat honestly, And I'd highly recommend building it into your fictional religions because, Primarily, It's fun. I once made a fictional church that was explicitly created by an emperor who had recently conquered much new territory as a way to unify his now large realm, By incorporating elements of the mythologies of all the conquered peoples into it. And then the Church wound up outliving the Empire, and becoming itself the main power in the region.
Rest in peace, Mishka. Our benevolent communist dictator 🫡
Mishka's been dead for years now. And he was god-emperor.
I more recently have been working on mythos for one of my worlds. I've only come up with a basic creation myth so far.
Essentially the world was created from the corpses of giant primordial dragons. They fought in a fierce battle, their blood becoming asteroids and meteors that were flung into space. Their corpses layed together by the victor, they became the "earth". One small casualty becoming the moon. That victors crying tears became the waters on this "earth." It left only a incubating nest of eggs (The Sun) before disappearing into vast expanse.
I got the whole dragon thing since i originally made a continent back a long time ago. This continent looked much akin to a dragon. so Made it a thing ^-^.
One of my favorite quotes is from American Gods (the show). Paraphrased: Worship requires fear of the gods. And fear of the gods requires a certain level of F***ed up.
The world is pretty messed up, and doesn't always make sense. So the stories we make reflect that
In my little slice of fiction the elves have a shared creation myth.
There was a single god who created for themself a paradise and in it they created the cycle of birth, life, death, decay. They also inadvertently created corruption, things which only seek to disturb this cycle, primarily focusing on the death and decay parts.
So the creator god did battle against the corruption but was losing. So in a last bid effort to save their paradise they shattered themself. Each of those pieces then became the original form of each of the elves. They beat back and dispersed the corruption but then the real problem began because then the elves thought that THEY were entitled to rule the paradise and they all started to turn on each other.
0:37 i prefer the version were god just made men and women and basically said now live
Another interesting one is people rewriting pre-existing myths as part of their own narrative - sometimes so well that people completely forget the original. This happened with irish myths, when christianity came and religious figures such as saint patrick were introduced to presumably preexisting myths, such as Oisín i dTír na nÓg
St. Bridget was actually an Irish-Celtic god that was demoted to a sainthood by the christianization of the region.
First 10 seconds 👇
Npc like beggar ☝️
👆
First trillion years of the universe
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@@YodaOnABender nah I’m not an npc bro I just never get here this early
First hour and 23 minutes and 2 seconds 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇
@@R3LKZz_0D and? It contributes nothing to the topic of the video. It just clutters it with all the other people who make these comments and shoves all the relevant ones to the bottom because they obviously don’t get as many likes as the ones that are just asking people to like them for the sake of getting likes
One of the species I created for my fantasy world, the krarka, worship dead gods. To explain that, I have to explain how they reproduce.
There are three sexes to the krarka: emorc, roni, and correp. They reproduce when one of each sex goes to a sacred location in their cities, sheds their metal exoskeleton, and fuse together, producing one to two dozen babies. Their creation myth involves their three gods, Migaen, Lusodra, and Tyiestan, fusing together to produce the first three hundred krarka. So their gods died to create them, and creation, especially of life, is a sacred act to them.
So, they also keep this act secret and refer to it to outsiders as "joining the gods," since it is the ultimate sacred act of creation.
What an amazing video! Great work! Lots of fun but also great ideas thought on and takes about :)
My own world is another example of the "dead god" motif:
The entire world is actually the corpse of a once-omnipotent god who tore himself into pieces, so far so good. But because a god cannot truly die, the parts of his body instead came to life and became new gods themselves, which are now limited to domains that you would associate with those body parts. Some examples:
The eyes left their sockets and became the sun and moon, Gods of Light, Sight, and thus, Truth (there is also another story as to why the moon doesn't shine as bright as the sun anymore).
The lungs became mighty trees, Gods of Breath, the Winds, and makers of all spirits.
The hands became the Sculptors, who shape the remaining flesh of this god into the bodies that these spirits inhabit, and are thus the creators of all living bodies.
The hair came to tangle and weave itself into the firmament: they are thus Gods of Secrecy, keepers of the veil that hides everything humanity should not understand.
Lastly, the innards became the serpentine God of Hunger, who hides deep in the earth and has the responsibility of devouring everything that the other Gods make, so that the world never becomes "too full".
So you see, the reason that there are multiple gods, none of which are themselves omnipotent, is because they are all only part of an omnipotent whole. These gods all chase different goals (e.g. truth versus secrecy, or hunger versus literally everyone else), which means they can't ever work together in perfect harmony again. This is the reason why my world is a very "imperfect" place, where these gods all try to enforce their conflicting ideas.
So it's imperfect, but at least it is a somewhat stable world that can sustain life.
Or so it was.
Until somebody did the unthinkable, and murdered the God of Hunger.
Hi, Darcy! Thank you for taking the time to cover this topic!
Super insightful video. Sorry for the loss of your cat!
Hello, Darcy!
Really interesting video, thanks. Blended mythology is very interesting, and happens a lot in the real world. Making up mythologies for fictional cultures is fun, but following through on how they grew and combined is potential for so many stories.