Just because we make up our own new pantheon, doesn't mean the old's gone. In fact, one of the prevailing inspirations for fiction is mythology: both ancient, and modern folklore. For a single example, David Pfanner wrote a whole thesis on the modern incarnations of King Arthur: reinterpreted and rehashed in comics, movies, literature, TV, and more. Aside from the literature aspect (think: Le Morte d'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Mallory), right off the top of my head I can name a few contemporary low-culture examples. I think there was a syndicated cartoon in the '90s from when I was a child, King Arthur and the Knights of Justice. There's definitely that HBO series Merlin. And of course, the classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail
But this isn't an isolated thing. Thor is a Marvel superhero, Disney's Hercules won four Annie awards in 1997, and any kid in the 2000s who was into trading card games could tell you that Yu-Gi-Oh! superficially claimed to have an ancient Egyptian theme. The integrity of the original material in all of these is patchy at best, but they stick in our imagination, anyway. They're just grounded in pre-existing narratives enough to be vaguely familiar, and therefore meaningful. No matter how much Arthurian scholars writhe at A Kid in King Arthur's Court.
I think we can look at Sherlock Holmes to see this kind of thing in action again. Sherlock Holmes is the fictional character who has been portrayed by the greatest number of actors. There's been dozens of TV shows, from Cushing to Brett, to now Cumberbach. There's been movies to suit every generation, the most recent featuring a garrulous Robert Downey Jr. There's been Japanese anime series, from Sherlock Hound, several episodes of which were directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and Case Closed, with a protagonist inspired by Doyle's tales. There's been western animation: Disney's The Great Mouse Detective, and a DIC series Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century. This is to say nothing of the vast library of literary Sherlockania stretching back even to before the ink was dry on half of Doyle's original serials. Star Trek was on Sherlock, too, giving us the lovely image of Lieutenant Commander Data in a deerstalker hat.
I think it is safe to say that humans will repeat what they like, and things become part of our mythology because we like them.
This raises another interesting connection, however: what is the difference between these adaptations, and the much-mocked, lowly fan fiction story.
I would argue that all of these things are actually fan fiction, too. Only that money has gone into their making, that they have been published and so are accessible and therefore respectable to audiences to consume, and that Sherlock Holmes and mythological sources are in the public domain and therefore there is no issue of copyright.
But fan fiction's a post (or series of posts, or a series of series of posts!) in of itself. For now, we'll content ourselves with the fact that in several hundred years there probably will be rampant and unchecked retellings of Star Wars and Titanic. We will probably be very happy we didn't live to see them.
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
But this isn't an isolated thing. Thor is a Marvel superhero, Disney's Hercules won four Annie awards in 1997, and any kid in the 2000s who was into trading card games could tell you that Yu-Gi-Oh! superficially claimed to have an ancient Egyptian theme. The integrity of the original material in all of these is patchy at best, but they stick in our imagination, anyway. They're just grounded in pre-existing narratives enough to be vaguely familiar, and therefore meaningful. No matter how much Arthurian scholars writhe at A Kid in King Arthur's Court.
He was no Connecticut Yankee, that's for sure.
I think we can look at Sherlock Holmes to see this kind of thing in action again. Sherlock Holmes is the fictional character who has been portrayed by the greatest number of actors. There's been dozens of TV shows, from Cushing to Brett, to now Cumberbach. There's been movies to suit every generation, the most recent featuring a garrulous Robert Downey Jr. There's been Japanese anime series, from Sherlock Hound, several episodes of which were directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and Case Closed, with a protagonist inspired by Doyle's tales. There's been western animation: Disney's The Great Mouse Detective, and a DIC series Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century. This is to say nothing of the vast library of literary Sherlockania stretching back even to before the ink was dry on half of Doyle's original serials. Star Trek was on Sherlock, too, giving us the lovely image of Lieutenant Commander Data in a deerstalker hat.
Marvelous.
I think it is safe to say that humans will repeat what they like, and things become part of our mythology because we like them.
This raises another interesting connection, however: what is the difference between these adaptations, and the much-mocked, lowly fan fiction story.
I would argue that all of these things are actually fan fiction, too. Only that money has gone into their making, that they have been published and so are accessible and therefore respectable to audiences to consume, and that Sherlock Holmes and mythological sources are in the public domain and therefore there is no issue of copyright.
But fan fiction's a post (or series of posts, or a series of series of posts!) in of itself. For now, we'll content ourselves with the fact that in several hundred years there probably will be rampant and unchecked retellings of Star Wars and Titanic. We will probably be very happy we didn't live to see them.
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I agree that the line between tribute/homage and fan fiction is hazy. I'd call the novel "The Seven Percent Solution" clearly a work of fan fiction, although it was a fully commercialized novel. Sherlock Holmes is clearly the front runner for this sort of treatment. But others have had tributes, too. We recently read a collection of stories set in one of Jack Vance's universes. Entitled "Songs of Dying Earth" it included pieces by many contemporary SF/fantasy authors (Martin, for one). Sadly, it didn't hold together very well.
Fan fiction can the trappings and minutiae of the original canon, but only a very small percentage of it can capture the essence - the author's deeper point of view. That's because writing in someone else's style/world is offering up your interpretation of that world, and not that of the original author. Fan fiction can be quite good - readable and fun - but it will always have the handicap of baggage: the internal points of referents back to the source work and original authors' intent.
Now that baggage is present in retellings of classic mythology, too. It's fascinating to compare the central characters of Arthurian cycle as they appear in the works of Chrétien de Troyes (1180 or so), Idylls of the King (1860s or so), and The Crystal Cave (1970). In this case, the original motifs are reinterpreted in each era FOR that era - the intent of the base source material's author having been lost in time. They are also in a way fan fiction, but because the roots of the canon are blurred in time, the reinterpretation asserts - reusing tropes for new ends rather than extending them.
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