I went today to a retelling of the Ramayana, the Indian epic poem, and despite the fact that the storyteller was good I found myself to be bored, mainly because the story was nonsensical, almost nobody had clear character motivations, and plot progression moved via a series of deus ex machina.
Quite frankly, if the story weren't thousands of years old I'd barely consider it fanfiction.net tier. So why is it that a lot of mythology/old folk stories are devoid of actually gripping storytelling? Was it that pacing and characterisation weren't a thing until later? I'd have assumed that proper storytelling is a core aspect that distinguishes humanity...
Gilgamesh, if memory serves suffers from a similar fate. Yet then there's the Odyssey, Beowulf and such,where there's characters with well defined traits. When there happens to be divine meddling it's usually established well in advance and it doesn't feel like the author wrote himself into a corner and just made shit up to fix the issue.
Why is it that later stories tend to be better from a storytelling perspective?
Andrew Long
Gilgamesh is a pretty well defined character with a clear arc. He begins as an asshole who abuses his power because his arrogant, and softens when he connects with someone he considers an equal. He and Enkidu go on bro adventures, and when Enkidu dies, he realizes that death scares him, and goes on another adventure to conquer death, which he fails.
If I had to guess, I'd say the difference probably comes down to the different functions served by mythology and other kinds of storytelling. Mythical stories, like the Ramayana, don't really exist in a framework where they need to make sense; they only exist to convey certain ideas and events within a culture's memory. They're key parts of a culture, and most people within that culture will be familiar with them, with negates a need for proper storytelling because everyone already knows what's happening and why.
Jack Hughes
If one thinks the world is governed by fate, nothing is really a deus ex machina.
Angel Gray
>Storytelling today is more effective than it was 2000 years ago. now color me suprised.
Hudson Hill
It was written in sanskrit, probably a lot of the meaning and sense is lost through translation and cultural differences. Also i bet back in the day the village elder could whip up a mad good oral version that was interesting enough to listen to for several hours.
Ian Flores
Ah, so the story being told is incidental to clarifying cultural beliefs?
Perhaps, though if a character (who has never shown any inclination towards magical abilities) can suddenly fly or turn the hairs on their arms into an army of warriors for no real reason then the story just becomes a garbled mess. There's no tension because any character will randomly decide they suddenly have godlike abilities and fix the issue, even if it involves defeating an ancient eldritch horror.
John Rodriguez
>turn the hairs on their arms into an army of warriors Sun Wukong can do that in The Journey to the West as well. He learned it while training (and mastering) The way of the Dao. I'm gonna guess that's its some sort of form in Eastern Magic
Cameron Price
I'm admittedly not well versed in Asian cultures, but does it have any particular significance or why such a random super power?
Kayden Price
>the story being told is incidental to clarifying cultural beliefs? Pretty much. Something like the Ramayana probably seems confusing because it's not familiar to you. There's lots of stuff in the Old Testament that you're probably fine with, but would baffle cultural outsiders; for example, there's still lots of debate over what the fuck is supposed to be happening during the incident with Zipporah at the inn. Cultural context of a huge part of what makes mythology work.
For something completely outside of the realm of religion, watch Excalibur and pretend you don't know anything about Arthurian mythology. It probably won't make a lot of sense. The characters aren't well-defined, some key concepts aren't explained, and the movie never really explains anyone's actions; for the most part, things in that movie happen because they're supposed to, and the audience just accepts it because they already know the story.
David Powell
Takes a long time to write shit so you only wrote down the basic stuff. Jesus you're not meant to read it literally like an autist, you're meant to fill in the other stuff on your own and use the note as a backup.
Eli Walker
Gilgamesh fails because he succeeded then he wouldn't have learned anything.
Ethan Reed
They're memorable becuase they were the only stories being told then, or told often enough someone actually bothered to write it down and preserve it.
Luis Foster
Sun Wukong just has a billion super broken abilities. But they don't matter for anything because Buddha stomps his ass anyway.
Wyatt Collins
>there's still lots of debate over what the fuck is supposed to be happening during the incident with Zipporah at the inn Not him, but there is? I can't ever remember hearing anything other than it supposed to be a message from God that even though Moses is supposed to be the instrument for saving all of Israel, he needs to take care of his family responsibilities (namely circumcising his son), even though that would delay his redemptive task.
Jack Scott
In context, it isn't random by all indications. I'm not familiar with it's origins but the fact that it appears in two Eastern Epics is notable.
Lincoln Cooper
>there is? Yes, it's notorious for being controversial, which is why I mentioned it in that context. I usually hate linking Wikipedia, but this is the easiest summary I could find online.
Basically, the Hebrew of the passage is really ambiguous, so it's sort of unclear as to what is even happening exactly. And even given the most common reading, there have been a number of explanations as to its meaning over the years.
Colton Stewart
that sounds like a fucking miserable time OP why would yo do that
Carter Parker
The Beowulf retelling was actually quite fun so I bought more tickets - now I don't know whether to keep attending...
Liam Gutierrez
How do you go from this...
Nathan Evans
...to this?
Jack Reed
And take into consideration a lot of those stories started off as oral tales told around camp fires to pass the time by merchants/herders/hunters etc. Going back through human history and development.
Which means before anybody ever had the time to write them down they had already been bounced around and had details added, taken away, and altered several times over.
Hunter Williams
>I went today to a retelling of the Ramayana, the Indian epic poem, and despite the fact that the storyteller was good I found myself to be bored, mainly because the story was nonsensical, almost nobody had clear character motivations, and plot progression moved via a series of deus ex machina
