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?