Saga is originally an Old Norse word meaning “story” or “epic tale”. It has immigrated into English by way of The Icelandic Sagas, which were first translated into English in the 19th century.Etymology ramble
Since then, “saga” in English has the meaning of a long, epic story, sometimes with the subtext “long-winded”.
Titles containing "Saga" most often come in the format "(The) X Saga" (the article is optional). X is sometimes the protagonist, but can be practically anything — though usually a proper name or a noun. “Saga” is simply attached at the end, treating the whole title as a compound term.
In the original Norse sagas, there was always a genitive case involved — mostly of the type " saga" or "Saga of ".
A third, rare variant is "(The) Saga" (not always clearly distinguishable from the first type).
This kind of title usually lampshades that the work is a series of more-than-average length and/or has a considerable number of instalments.
Compare The Legend of X.
Examples of the The X Saga type:
- Each of the Dragon Ball Z Story Arcs is titled a saga, such as the Saiyan Saga, the Namek Saga, the Cell Saga, the Buu Saga; among the shorter ones are Androids Saga, Garlic Jr Saga and the Great Saiyaman Saga.
- Excel♡Saga
- Future GPX Cyber Formula SAGA, the third OVA in the series.
- Kerberos Saga
- Mazin Saga
- Mermaid Saga
- Vinland Saga
- Zombie Land Saga:
- An interesting case in that it originally referred to the prefecture in Japan, but due to a lucky case of In My Language, That Sounds Like..., it works here too.
- Every episode title has the word "Saga" incorporated somewhere.
- The Clone Saga, starring Spider-Man.
- The Dark Phoenix Saga, starring the X-Men.
- The Twilight Saga, the film version of the Twilight books.
- The full title of Battlefield Earth (both the book and the film) is Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000.
- The Bedwyn Saga
- Commonwealth Saga
- The Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock.
- The Forerunner Saga, a trilogy of Halo novels set roughly 100,000 years before the games.
- The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (written 1906-21) shows that this type is at least as old as the early 20th century.
- The Golden Hamster Saga
- Great Alta Saga
- The Gor series has "The Xth book in the Tarl Cabot Saga" or "the Saga of Counter-Earth" on the covers, but it's not part of the official title.
- Heechee Saga
- The Lightlark Saga
- Maradonia Saga
- Seafort Saga
- Synergenesis Saga
- The Transall Saga
- The Twilight Saga
- Vorkosigan Saga
- The Wingfeather Saga
- Books three through seven of The Witcher series are known collectively as Blood of the Elves Saga.
- The Dragon Wars Saga
- The 7th Saga
- Assassin's Creed: The Kenway Saga
- BIT.TRIP Saga
- Card Saga Wars
- Crimson Gem Saga
- Culdcept Saga
- Dark Forces Saga
- Digital Devil Saga
- Dragon Saga
- Geneforge Saga
- God of War Saga
- The Granstream Saga
- Hoshi Saga
- The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga
- The King of Fighters Collection: The Orochi Saga
- Legaia 2: Duel Saga
- Lost Saga
- Madara Saga
- Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
- Metal Saga
- MS Saga: A New Dawn
- Panzer Dragoon Saga
- Rastan Saga
- Sigma Star Saga
- Silva Saga (and its predecessor Minelvaton Saga)
- TearRing Saga (and its sequel Berwick Saga)
- Ufouria: The Saga
- Unbound Saga
- Unlimited Saga
- Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga
- Warcraft II: The Dark Saga
- Xenosaga
- Zoids Saga
Examples of other types (with genitive or adjectives):
- Asian Saga
- Brian's Saga
- Saga is the name of the second book in the The Avatar Chronicles series.
- The Saga of Darren Shan series and its prequel series, The Saga Of Larten Crepsley.
- The Saga of Recluce
- The Saga of Seven Suns
- The Saga of the Noble Dead
- Saga of the Exiles
- As mentioned, The Icelandic Sagas always fall into this group.