This is kind of a spin-off of my previous two posts about stories.

I had a brief discussion with Mike about stories. He said one could argue that any story had a “good guy vs. bad guy” situation - even in the news. He gave the example that most news stories have a victim or someone you are rooting for. I agreed with it and the conversation went on with its usual tangents.

I didn’t remember the conversation until recently, when my eyes darted around and saw this headline:

Wow, talk about villain. It was like I could see a bunch of news articles floating in my head:

“The guard donated money to children. Children with diseases.”
“That guy who shot the guard? White supremacist.”
“Neo-Nazi”
“Suicide bomber”
“Speaks german”
“Eats babies”
“Clubbed a seal”
“President of Rosie O’Donnell fan club”
etc

So I went further into news to see if I could dig up anything that sounded like hero-worshiping or villain-demonizing. Here’s just a few:

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Here’s a little something extra for those of you who enjoyed my first post on a similar topic, specifically the “redemption hero.” I mentioned briefly that a lot of ideas borrow from classic literature and mythology; for this post I’m going to expand on that idea with the “journey” story.

In my previous post, I briefly mentioned “The Odyssey,” which is an epic poem about a journey (even the word “odyssey” means journey) and is the most basic of all stories - someone or a group of people have to go somewhere. That’s it. You can’t get simpler than that.

Before we get started, I’d like to zip over to the East. Don’t worry now, I’ll take you back.

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Everyone has noticed by now the flurry of Hollywood remakes and franchise reboots (Indiana Jowned, Last Poop on the Left, X-Men 4, Friday the 430th, ad nauseam….). There’s even talks about rebooting other franchises: Teenage Mutant Ninja Poop, Superpoop, Poop to the Future, etc, etc….

There are no more original ideas.

It goes beyond this. Before movies were franchises. Waaaay back.

Have you ever heard of the expression that all modern stories are basically derived from things like the Odyssey or the Iliad?

It might not be a fair assumption though. The original epics were basically compilations of stories from various people; they began first as oral tradition until people invented writing. The claim that it was written by some dude named Homer is pretty much bullshit.

So let’s cast that idea out. I’d like to broaden it up a little bit and claim that all modern stories are based off of ancient poems (or the more general theory, “anything you’re thinking of, doing, or making, someone has already done it”). I’ll use my favorite story as my example, which I like to call the “redemption hero.” It tends to be a favorite, so it’s not surprising that modern interpretations of it do so well.

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