A quest for information
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| Author | Topic: A quest for information |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Friday, April 29 2005 23:11
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It is of course widely known among aficionados of fantasy games and novels that the idea of the hero saving the world is a hackneyed old plot, perhaps not without its charm but overused by amateurs and poor writers. But how old is it really? That's a question that's been troubling me for some time now, and one that I'd like forumgoers to have a go at answering. Stated more clearly: What's the earliest example of a work of fiction, in any genre, in which the protagonist, alone or in a small group, literally saves the entire world? I can't for the life of me think of a good example prior to LotR. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 03:46
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That's because prior to LotR most fantasy stories did not have the concept of "the entire world" as such, iirc - neither an alternative world nor our world. (Golden days, I am tempted to say. Keep the setting small, it leaves more room for the actual story) CS Lewis had one, but to complete the allegory he had to destroy it to imitate a Christian "day of judgement". So no world-saving there. On another note... When did Michael Ende write the never-ending story? Oh, okay, that was long afterward ('79). [ Saturday, April 30, 2005 03:47: Message edited by: In Soviet Russia, topics revive you ] -------------------- The Encyclopaedia Ermariana <-- Now a Wiki! "Polaris leers down from the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey." --- HP Lovecraft. "I single Aran out due to his nasty temperament, and his superior intellect." --- SupaNik Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 3898
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 03:53
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Depending upon the scale of "the entire world", I suppose the Ramayana could be technically considered, (as it is the entire world within the scope of the story), but that's all I can really think of. -------------------- ~Note : The professional newbie's advice should not be taken seriously, or at all.~ LINKAGE Posts: 364 | Registered: Saturday, January 17 2004 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 1993
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 06:46
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If you would replace "the entire world" with "the world I live in" several world-savers came in mind: - Orlando Furioso from Ludovico Ariost (1516) - Don Quichotte de la Mancha from Cervantes (1605) - St. George who defeated the dragon (1275) - the Bible of course (didn't Jesus want to save the world?) - all the greek mythology (e.g. the Odyssey from Homer) - the Epic of Gilgamesh (2500 BCE) - a lot of fairy-tales (keltic mythology) - 1001 nights with its islamic heroes - the Bhagavadghita ... well, all kind of religious myths. I think the theme of saving the world is as old as human kind. -------------------- ^ö^ vegetarians are sexy. Posts: 1420 | Registered: Wednesday, October 2 2002 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 06:50
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Gilgamesh had to fight a "demon" in the forest. I don't know if it was going to destroy the world. But it might have tried to destroy his world. There are pieces of the tablets missing before and after he fights the demon with the help of Enkidu. There is also the concept of Ragnarok, the final battle which will destroy the world in Norse mythology. [ Saturday, April 30, 2005 06:52: Message edited by: Toasted Basilisk on a Shish Kebab ] -------------------- Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh. Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight. Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 08:39
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Well, if you redefine 'save the world' into 'fight someone', the plot is indeed old. But there does seem to me to be a nontrivial issue of scale, here. As far as I know, the stories just listed all deal with problems that were important, but clearly localized even within the context of the stories themselves. I was under the impression that Gilgamesh was simply trying to find a way to live forever, that it was only his own death that he was trying to avoid. The Baghavad Gita deals, on the literal level, with a battle that must be fought between two rival branches of a powerful family. Don Quixote is just playing knight errant in general, with no notion of saving any more than small parts of his world. The 1001 Nights stories are set in the vast medieval Islamic empire, and none of them involves more than a single kingdom within it; moreover, all the plots I remember are really driven by individual problems, with the few realm-savings that do occur serving as mere backdrop. The Odyssey isn't about anything more than getting Odysseus home in time to save his marriage; once he does get home, he is actually set to wandering again, so he doesn't even really get to save Ithaca. I don't know the plot of Orlando Furioso. But I think that having the main plot be about saving everything that anyone in the story is aware of is a relatively recent notion. It might well have originated with Tolkien. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 5437
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 09:06
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If you are looking for literally the whole world, I would say possibly Noah's Arch. He was not a hero in the RPG sense, but saving every creature is saving the entire world. [ Saturday, April 30, 2005 09:06: Message edited by: Dolphin ] -------------------- Nena Posts: 2032 | Registered: Wednesday, January 26 2005 08:00 |
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Cartographer
Member # 1851
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 10:01
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Except that's not exactly fiction. One may want to argue about that, but let's not this time. (EDIT: actually, of some species there was more than two saved, btw) [ Saturday, April 30, 2005 11:16: Message edited by: From The Heart ] -------------------- "Son--err," her father said, "I mean... Daughter, I give you your first and only sword. Use it for with skill for great villainy." Nanoisms Ooh! Homepage - Blog - Geneforge, +2, +3 - My Elfwood Gallery - WannabeCool Forums So many strange ones around. Don't you think? Posts: 1308 | Registered: Sunday, September 8 2002 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 10:02
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Noah didn't do a great job of saving the world. He saved two of every species and a few extra humans. That's a lot of deaths he didn't prevent. The heroic solution would have been to slay God and bring all the wicked people back to righteousness anyway. The Bible and mythologies in general tend not to have much world saving. Epics have some saving, but it's usually on a smaller scale. Beowulf slays monsters to protect a kingdom or two, but he's not even protecting all of Denmark. The Greeks were too busy killing each other to save anyone but themselves. I feel like there has to be something like the saving the world quest before Tolkien, but I can't think of an example. Maybe he was more revolutionary than he gets credit for? —Alorael, who doesn't know enough about pre-Tolkien fantasy. From what he does know, though, there's nothing that seems like a good candidate for saviorhood. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 13:31
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quote:Yeah. My theory is that the emergence of saving the world as a plotline had something to do with the World Wars -- perhaps until then nobody seriously thought of the whole world as an entity that could be under threat? Actually, that can't quite be true, as fiction and mythology up to that time have plenty of stories about the world being destroyed, but in those cases it's by supernatural forces that humans are powerless to stop. The World Wars were the first example of a threat on a global scale that was caused by humans and stopped by humans, and I think that's significant. quote:As Alorael points out, Noah didn't really save very much of the world; besides, all he does is build a boat, which somehow isn't enormously heroic. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Master
Member # 4614
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 13:34
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quote:"Hey, everybody, I just killed God! Now everyone become righteous!" Laughter. -------------------- -ben4808 For those who love to spam: CSM Forums RIFQ Posts: 3360 | Registered: Friday, June 25 2004 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 13:45
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You will note that heroic solutions are rarely the most simple or sensible way of going about things. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 5450
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 14:05
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Most likely I'm wrong here, but I think David Eddings released a couple of boooks prior to Tolkien which involved saving the world. I'm not sure, though, so I could be wrong. -------------------- I'll put a Spring in your step. Polaris Posts: 2396 | Registered: Saturday, January 29 2005 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 14:13
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Considering Eddings's first work of epic fantasy was published in 1982, that seems unlikely. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 17:12
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quote:Laughter. Out loud. -------------------- 人 た ち を 燃 え る た め に 俺 は か れ ら に 火 を 上 げ る か ら 死 ん だ Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Master
Member # 1046
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 17:21
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quote:  -------------------- Polaris - Weather balloons, ninjas, and your big daddy Wise Man. What more could you want? Undead Theories - Don't Ask, Don't Tell Posts: 3323 | Registered: Thursday, April 25 2002 07:00 |
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E Equals MC What!!!!
Member # 5491
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 20:50
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Man, that's a really good question. I'm inclined to think Thuryl may be right about the impact of the world wars. In the wake of Hiroshima, the Cold War inspired any number of "Nuclear devastation narrowly averted" stories. C.S. Lewis's 'Prelandra' may or may not have been published before LOTR, I'm not sure. In either case, the two were very much contemparies, so the time difference between them is neither here or there. Does anyone here with some knowledge of the old Greek plays recall anything? -------------------- Sex is easier than love. Posts: 1861 | Registered: Friday, February 11 2005 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 21:12
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Well, maybe you could argue that Zeus and the other gods' defeat of the Titans saved the world, but there really wasn't much of a world to be saving at that point except for dirt and chaos. -------------------- 人 た ち を 燃 え る た め に 俺 は か れ ら に 火 を 上 げ る か ら 死 ん だ Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 21:16
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Well, yes, and by the same token YHVH booting Lucifer out of heaven might count as saving the world, but I was going for the world being saved by small numbers of (relatively) ordinary people. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, April 30 2005 21:54
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Greek tragedies tend not to involve saving the world. The closest one is probably Philoctetes, which you could stretch into saving the Achaeans. Maybe. The comedies aren't any better, and we've already discussed the epics. I'd call the defeat of the titans more of a power struggle and self-defense than any sort of saving of the world. It's also not accurate to say that Kronus was the Dark Lord. He just wasn't Zeus. —Alorael, who once again hopes that Ben is joking. If you can't distinguish righteousness from God, you are a prime example of what made crusaders so scary in the Middle Ages and extremist fanatics in the Middle East scary today. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
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written Sunday, May 1 2005 06:53
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Alo, I'd say the actual problem lies in those groups' definitions of righteousness and God's hands-off management style. Plenty of perfectly reasonable people believe that God is righteousness, they just don't confuse His Word with that of people with some sort of extremist political agenda. Thuryl, the further you go back into literature, the more hard-pressed you are to find ordinary people doing anything, let alone saving the world. [ Sunday, May 01, 2005 06:56: Message edited by: PoD person ] Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 5662
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written Sunday, May 1 2005 11:10
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this thing of "saving the world" derives from another theme, "good against evil", which is as old as mankind Posts: 38 | Registered: Sunday, April 3 2005 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Sunday, May 1 2005 12:48
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quote:Yeah, I'd rather noticed that too. Still, most works of fiction, even stretching back into ancient times, do have human characters who do stuff, even if they get a fair bit of outside assistance. quote:The point I am making is that having the protagonist save the world is a very culturally specific way of telling that kind of story. So stop Junging up the topic already. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 5667
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written Sunday, May 1 2005 21:08
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I can only think of one example in all mythology of anyone saving the "entire world." That comes from Aztec mythology, where the sun god (totally forgot his name as most of these gods have completely unpronouncable names) had to become the sun by killing all the other gods and then finally himself. The idea being that without the sun the world would die, and as the old sun was apparently dying at the time. This wasn't all that all that odd of an occurance either as he was the fifth sun, meaning four gods had gone before him. -------------------- Whatever happens, happens. Posts: 48 | Registered: Monday, April 4 2005 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 73
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written Monday, May 2 2005 11:29
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Is it Quezalcoatl? Huitzilopochtli? -------------------- The Lyceum - The Headquarters of the Blades designing community The Louvre - The Blades of Avernum graphics database Alexandria - The Blades of Exile Scenario database BoE Webring - Self explanatory Polaris - Free porn here Odd Todd - Fun for the unemployed (and everyone else too) Famous Last Words - A local pop-punk band They Might Be Giants - Four websites for one of the greatest bands in existance -------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Posts: 2957 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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