Misused: All Myths Are True

AMAT doesn't mean that yet. That's a possible definition, but only if it can be made distinct enough from FKS to bother with having as a distinct trope.

I don't understand why you oppose a merge. Right now the AMAT description is a horrendous jumble that makes no sense. If you can read that description and come up with any coherent trope, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din. Most of it (including the laconic) is describing what is now Chekhovs Legend, but interspersed with rambling gibberish.

The examples are all based on what the name sounds like, what the image description is talking about, and what the page quote describes, which is "many mythological entities living side by side", and which is not addressed in any way by the actual description text.

So what is the trope, Troacctid? I know we've gone over this, but I still don't feel like I have a good answer. If you feel this is a tropeworthy concept that should not be cut or merged, please: Give me a description of it.

Explain to me what AMAT means, in a way that doesn't completely overlap with Fantasy Kitchen Sink. Give me the first two or three paragraphs of a solid trope description so I understand what you're aiming at. Maybe there IS a trope here that I just can't see because all I can see is phrases like "If the hero's got to do something Because Destiny Says So, these are the official mandates that forces them to do it", and my eyes cross every time I try to read it...

edited 15th Aug '12 12:15:47 PM by Escher

That's what I was talking about like four pages ago or something. Also here. Etc.

edited 15th Aug '12 12:29:40 PM by troacctid

Yes, and I still don't know what the trope really is.

Troacctid: "The idea behind this trope... is that fantastic elements of a work are based on real-world mythology because the audience is expected to be familiar with it..." "All Myths Are True is, broadly, the rule that supernatural elements of a work will tend to be based on real-world mythology, legend, and folklore, rather than trying to create something new and original that nobody has ever heard of before." "...only works that extend that to a variety of different myths will count."

Okay, so the trope is stories that have a variety of different real-world myths.

Troacctid: "I think 'the expectation that myths are real unless it is said otherwise' is a good way of putting it."

Well now I'm confused again. Is it an expectation that all myths are real, or is it a story with a variety of different myths in it? If I have a story that has reincarnated Greek gods fighting zombies controlled by a native american skinwalker, are we in AMAT or not? We certainly have a variety of myths, but no evidence that vampires and faeries and angels are real...

This is why I asked for a few paragraphs as if I were reading the description of the trope. So far I think I have a laconic (which doesn't mean what the current trope is about) but I'm not clear on your proposal. Actually I have the feeling that if we accept AMAT is what you say it is, it'll need to go to YKTTW as a new trope with the same name, rather than just fixing up the existing one.

edited 15th Aug '12 1:05:55 PM by Escher

I hate this trope page.

This conversation is excellent proof as of why.

The distinction between "a variety of myths are true" and "all myths are true" is unsupportable unless the latter is explicitly stated as a rule of the verse (as in Sandman, eg).

Many FKS works have, if only for humour, a touch of Arbitrary Skepticism ("you believe in leprechauns? What's wrong with you?"). Even if they don't, unless every single mythical/fantasy being has been spotted (including, of course, every single different interpretation of vampires), we logically cannot know if all of them exist or not.

The only other alternative (besides the "explicitly stated that everything exists" one mentioned above) is to make it a matter of scale, with FKS being two or more unrelated mythologies and AMAT being more than [X]. But then we're in the realms of The Same But More, so I don't like that option. I still favour merge.

All Myths Are True is the Law Of Fiction behind Fantasy Kitchen Sink. A setting becomes a Fantasy Kitchen Sink because All Myths Are True. Fantasy Kitchen Sink is a property of s particular setting: it's when there are a bunch of disparate fantasy elements packed into the same work. All Myths Are True is a rule: if the work's already using some number of fantasy elements, the author has a license to add in any number of additional unrelated fantasy elements without stretching the audience's Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

<long-winded analysis mode> This rule exists because when we suspend our disbelief, what we're doing is accepting the basic premise of the work. When a work's fantastic elements are based on real-world legend, the audience goes, "Okay, so things that we thought were fantasy are actually real." Once we suspend that particular disbelief, we're comfortable going as deep as the story needs us to go. Unless it's restricted to One Myth To Rule Them All or A Mythology Is True early on, the default assumption is that—as long as we've already got The Masquerade going on—any fantasy element is acceptable. In other words, most viewers are not Arbitrary Skeptics. In contrast, works that ask you to suspend disbelief in a different way won't get that same leeway: imagine if halfway through Portal 2, you had to fight a dragon. It'd feel like it came out of nowhere. Whereas in Harry Potter, even though the existence of magic and wizards shouldn't necessarily imply the existence of dragons by any stretch of logic, most readers don't bat an eye at the revelation that dragons are real in the Potterverse. </long-winded analysis mode>

"A setting becomes a Fantasy Kitchen Sink because All Myths Are True."

Then I don't see a meaningful distinction between the two. One's a noun and one's a verb, but if they are tied so tightly together, there's no real point to having both.

Or put it another way: Which one do you link to when discussing such a work?

edited 17th Aug '12 12:24:09 PM by Escher

I simply don't agree with that. It becomes easier to introduce further fantastic elements, as long as a reasonable excuse is available (and as I said before, the existence of magic is a reasonable excuse for almost anything), but it's not expected. You don't find yourself wondering why Harry Potter doesn't solve his problem by asking Zeus for help, because you have absolutely no reason to think Zeus exists in this world, whereas by your logic you would ("of course Zeus exists, All Myths Are True!")

To put it another way, the "law" you're proposing runs entirely counter to the fundamental law of fantasy fiction; Magic A Is Magic A. By your law, there could be no such thing as a Deus ex Machina because all the Dei are assumed to exist in the first place.

edited 17th Aug '12 12:30:14 PM by johnnye

Well it shows up pretty often in fiction so there must be something to it.

And when it shows up, you have a Fantasy Kitchen Sink. I just don't think the definition you're describing is tropeable if it isn't universal, and I don't think it's universal.

Troactid, can you give any examples where All Myths Are True applies?

I think this discussion is kind of going in circles at this point; we're repeating posts from page 3 or 4. Can we call for a crowner, get a vote, and shut the door on this thing?

edited 20th Aug '12 8:29:03 AM by Escher

Yeah, we need to wrap this up at some point. I'll go through the thread and ask for a crowner.

Clocking as inactive.

Found this crowner and will request hooking.

I'd like to see the problem in the issue box. This thread is old, long and stale. Voting will end up a clusterfuck without a summary of issues.

Added a description and added another option. Also will downvote the "cleanup" option since it has a habit of going wrong.

This:

...is not true. All Myths Are True is not about "a myth turning out to be true after being mentioned in-universe". That's The Legend of Chekhov. All Myths Are True is about works where a wide variety of fantastic and mythological things from our real-world legends turn out to be true.

edited 7th Dec '12 11:20:09 AM by troacctid

Wasn't the very complaint that sparked this topic that many heroes turn out to be true is not this trope?

Description is poorly-written. Easy mistake to make.

All Myths Are True seems to be related to Fantasy Kitchen Sink then, just that it specifically involves Real Life myths.

Also, about the misuse - how clear is it that Myths refers to RL myths and not to fictional ones?

Honestly? I don't know if it has to be real-world myths. That's just how it is in most of the examples I'm familiar with, and I'm extrapolating from there. Maybe I'm off-base.

Just generally speaking, I think the thing to do here is formally tighten the definition match the usage. There's not much point in attempting to wrangle it down to Chekhovs Myth, even if that's what the description says it's "supposed" to be, since it isn't used that way, the title doesn't match that trope, and we now have The Legend of Chekhov to fill those shoes.

Regarding Fantasy Kitchen Sink, I think they're looking at the same phenomenon through different lenses. Fantasy Kitchen Sink is more focused on how the end result can be a patchwork of mixed-up, disparate elements from all over the map.

"Real life myths" as opposed to what? Fictional myths? Can anyone name a single work which presents us with a slew of original in-work myths before demonstrating them all to be true?

If they're looking at the same thing through different lenses, that sounds like an argument to merge them.

edited 7th Dec '12 11:48:05 AM by johnnye

Right, see, that's what I thought.

If it's okay, I'm going to delete the part of the crowner option that stipulates creating a new trope for Chekhovs Myth, given that, y'know, Chekhovs Myth. Hopefully that's not controversial.

edited 7th Dec '12 11:52:00 AM by troacctid

I thought of another reason why Fantasy Kitchen Sink and All Myths Are True are not necessarily the same thing.

If a work is set in the "real world" (or at least a version of it) where fantasy elements are normally considered myths, then it's All Myths Are True. But such works are not always Fantasy. For example, sometimes it's Science Fiction with Ancient Astronauts or Sufficiently Advanced Aliens. I don't think non-fantasy works should called a Fantasy Kitchen Sink.

Likewise, in a fantasy world, where things like dragons, vampires, witches, fairies, etc. are real, it could be a Fantasy Kitchen Sink. But in that case, those things aren't actually myths in that world, so I wouldn't consider it to be All Myths Are True.

edited 7th Dec '12 8:50:50 PM by DouglasFir