Misused: All Myths Are True

Oh sure, that's fine.

*picks absently at loose thread*

EDIT: Dang formatting.

edited 2nd Jun '13 3:38:27 PM by StarSword

I am planning to execute Noa's idea here as soon as I get time, which is hopefully soon too.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

OK, so I have done the great disambiguating, bringing the examples to the other tropes.

All that is left is: All Myths Are True. Are these examples a pattern worth YKTTW'ing, or just a jumble of things that would warrant only a disambiguation?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I noticed that His Dark Materials is listed in both the normal AMAT and in Fantasy Kitchen Sink, as well as left on that sandbox page. I'm not really familiar with the series, though, so I have no idea which actually applies.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

There are a lot of examples of what I would give the working title of Grand Unifying Myth — works which put lots of different myths down to a single common cause, like vampires, trolls, ogres and werewolves all being demons, or all humanity's gods being dimension hopping aliens.

I see a few different patterns in that list, some of which might be able to be merged into a single trope:

1. All in-universe myths are true. There are two subtypes that might have their own tropes already: a) all real-world religions are true, and b) all prophecies are true.
2. All stories, at least in some particular category, are true, either because a) The Multiverse makes it so or b) it's a Massive Multiplayer Crossover setting.
3. The most interesting potential trope: all myths or fantasy creatures are explained by something within the story. This is the Grand Unifying Myth mentioned above. A form of Doing In the Wizard, except not.
4. One particular myth is true. I don't think this should count, or is really a trope, but some of these might fall into one of the others given more context.

Here's how I break down the examples, breaking out problematic examples below the main list:

Anime and Manga

• Shaman King: 3
• Devilman: 3
• Guyver: 3
• Spice and Wolf: Zero Context Example
• Yu Yu Hakusho: 4
• Arago: 3

Comic Books

• Wisdom: 1a, I guess, could be considered 4
• The Eternals: 3
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 2b
• Crisis on Infinite Earths: 2a

Fan Fiction

• Cosmic Warriors: 4

Literature

• The Number of the Beast: 2a
• Harry Potter: ZCE, from what I know probably belongs in Fantasy Kitchen Sink, might be 1
• One for the Morning Glory: ZCE, possibly 1 or 2b
• Harold Shea: 2a
• John C. Wright: 1a
• The Dalemark Quartet: 1
• Neil Gaiman: ZCE (it literally says X Just X)
• Principia Discordia: Possibly 1, possibly 2, it's that kind of story
• Out of Their Minds: ZCE
• Discworld: ZCE
• Dune: 1b
• The Well of Ascension: 1b
• Magic: The Gathering/Lord of the Wastes: Sorta 1
• His Dark Materials: See above, seems to be 3
• Young Wizards: 3

Live-Action TV

• Quartermass: 3

Tabletop Games

• Mage: the Awakening: 1 is probably the trope being subverted
• Dungeons and Dragons/Eberron: 1

Video Games

• The Elder Scrolls Oblivion: Maybe 1b if you really squint
• Chrono Cross: ZCE, possibly an aversion to 1

Web Comics

• Thunderstruck: Subversion of 1a
• Abe Kroenen: Subversion of 4, which therefore might be considered a subversion of one of the others
• Wayward Sons: 1a, sort of

Web Original

• Tasakeru: 1 or 3

Western Animation

• Roswell Conspiracies: 3

Special cases:

• Sleeping Beauty: This is the opposite of the title, so I don't think it should count. See below.
• Stranger in a Strange Land: This is basically one agnostic character. Probably shouldn't count.
• Myths of Magic: Explicitly false.
• The Elder Scrolls Morrowind: This is an "exception" where everyone has a different myth they tell and only one of them is true; Sleeping Beauty should be considered an exception of this type. Not sure what trope it's an exception to, though.
• Fire Emblem: One particular myth turns out not to be true and a cover for a different myth. So, sorta 4?
• The "Other" Example: Aversion of The Legend of Chekhov and inversion of one of the above, in that everything they encounter turns out to have an associated myth, followed by numerous myths turning out not quite to be true as is

edited 5th Jun '13 1:04:54 PM by MorganWick

Re Morgan Wick's distinctions:

1 sounds like A Mythology Is True, but for several myths(?). It also overlaps with Crossover Cosmology at times.

2, sounds also like an expanded A Mythology Is True.

3 may be something YKTTW-worthy.

4 is A Mythology Is True.

I wonder if having Myths Are True or somesuch as a supertrope woulod be desirable.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I just looked up what trope 1b is: Prophecies Are Always Right. However, all the examples in this list are Playing with a Trope, specifically some entity arranging the prophecies' existence in order to further their own ends (though The Elder Scrolls Oblivion remains confusing regardless). That may be YKTTW-worthy as well.

Given the existence of A Mythology Is True, you would expect All Myths Are True to be that But More So (assuming you consider "myth" and "mythology" to be equivalent terms), so basically some combination of 1, 1a, and 2b, maybe 2a as well.

edited 5th Jun '13 1:16:06 PM by MorganWick

So in other words we have 2-3 potential tropes here?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Basically yes.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

IIRC the only myths in Harry Potter are the Chamber of Secrets and the Deathly Hallows, both of which turn out to be true. Other than that it belongs on Fantasy Kitchen Sink.

EDIT: Ok, done editing now.

edited 6th Jun '13 2:55:02 PM by StarSword

@Septimus: You said something earlier about making a disambiguation? Where'd you put it?

All Myths Are True. That name is being read for too many things for it to make a good redirect.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

OK, I made a YKTTW for Grand Unifying Myth and removed its examples as well as the Zero Context Examples from the sandbox.

That said, we need to know what to do with the examples called 1,2 and 4 in @232. Any opinions?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Bumping again to get answers on ^:

Also, it seems we have the trope for 3 already: One Myth To Rule Them All, which is a badly named page.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

My thoughts;

1. (a) seems like Legend Of Chekhov and (b) Prophecies Are Always Right
2. (a) could be tropeable; I'm not so sure about (b)
3. is One Myth To Rule Them All
4. isn't really a trope.

The YKTTW for 3 has a suggestion to merge it with One Myth...

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Not sure if it really counts as a merge, given they're already pretty much identical. But OMTRTA could do with a reworking, it's not very well described and has an awful name.

Thinking about it, I think the 1b examples wound up with this trope as a sort of "lite" form of One Myth To Rule Them All, in this case, One Myth To Explain All the Prophecies. (See my explanation above.)

Also, I think it's the generic 1 case that sounds like Legend Of Chekhov, and I suspect most of those aren't actually used as Chekhov's Guns, or Septimus would have moved them there.

edited 10th Jul '13 4:25:25 PM by MorganWick

TRS for One Myth To Rule Them All.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

This thread was on the bottom. Anything keeping this from going?

edited 6th Sep '13 9:03:20 PM by MikuruFan

I am waiting for the other thread to conclude.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

That thread is now concluded, so we can continue here. I still want to see some more agreement about where to move the examples from Sandbox.All Myths Are True.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Can we please get more opinions on where the examples on All Myths Are True ought to go? I am taking out the Zero Context Entries and moving those which still fit Prophecies Are Always Right and One Myth to Explain Them All.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman