Mix Master Myth Parallels

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this idea for a Myth Parallel, take a major Mythic cycle and change it's time period.

Play out the Greek Myths in the late middle ages with Troy falling in 1453.

Set Arthur's court in late Victorian Britain with WWI replacing Camlan. Let Modred and Arthur Dogfight to the death in Sopwith Camels!

Play out the Mahabharata in a Indo-Pakistani nuclear conflict.

Go all out.

Tricky. It's easy to play out a mythic cycle with anachronistic technology. In fact it's the default approach to King Arthur. It's not difficult to reset, say, fairy tales or novels in anachronistic timeframes. I've seen a Jane Austen heroine rewritten as an engineer hired to keep a rich man's nuclear power plant operating, or versions of Cinderella set in Edwardian England.

But major myth cycles have important historical events built into them. For example if Troy falls in 1453, it's presumably taking the place of Constantinople...only now instead of falling to the Turks, it's falling to a European alliance. Are the gods still recognized as gods, or do they operate in secret now?

[Flyndaran]

The movie made in 2000, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" is The Odessey but in the 1930s U.S.
Awesome music and wonderful watching for the first time without knowing this fact. Then waiting to see how major characters from the myth would be portrayed tickled me and my mom in the theater.

[David Johnston2]

That is something GURPS did with Robin Hood.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

That is something GURPS did with Robin Hood.

Including a cyberpunk version, IIRC.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

That is something GURPS did with Robin Hood.

Robin Hood is a rather bare bones myth. Generous thieves and corrupt local governments can be placed anywhere and anywhen in the past couple thousand years. I wouldn't even call his legendary archery absolutely necessary to the story. Just change it to whatever the local culture considers a refined skill.

[Phantasm]

When I was in HS, one of the local colleges did a post-apocalyptic rendition of MacBeth. It worked: the Three Witches used an open manhole for their cauldron, baseball bats and aluminum trash can lids for "swords" and shields, and the English used M-16s and wore shades. :)

And let's not forget being able to do a modern-day Romeo and Juliet... aka West Side Story. ("That's the one where the one couple makes out on the fire escape while the rest of the city tries to kill each other, right?" -- Darlene, Rosanne.) Some concepts work wonders with just a slight refluffing. :)

[Flyndaran]

Some of Shakespeare works in modern settings and cultures, but others fail horribly out of context.
Without ghosts or cultural beliefs that marrying one's siblings' spouses is a form of incest, Hamlet doesn't work quite so well. (I only have a cursory knowledge of "the bard", so if even that is wrong, please don't bite my head off.)

Edit: then again, Romeo And Juliet are rarely played as the tragedy of psychopaths obsessed on feelings of infatuation and revenge it meant. Love Story it is not!

[Tallor]

I have a headcanon that one of the Arthurs from the Camelot plots was picked up by Infinity, and now works as a leadership coach and public speaker. He's very good at it.

[simply Nathan]

One of my setting ideas was to have Robin Hood as one of King Arthur's knights, Vlad Tepes as a ruler in the nearby Transylvania, a muslim pirate captain named Sindbad, St. George and St. Nicholas a pair of wandering adventurers from Turkey, and a few other people from folklore (especially those based on mutated reputations of real people) all living as contemporaries in a compressed, misshapen map.

[Flyndaran]

St. Nicholas, Santa Claus, or the real one that started violent brawls when criticised on religious matters? Or some combo of the two.
I don't think St. George actually existed, so it's odd you paired them up.
If you go the route of Christian mish-mash, you have to have Joan D'Arc as the female knight fighting to unite France with Camelot.