There’s no such thing as an original story. We’ve told them all so many times, we’ve developed archetypal arcs and structural beats. We know when a story isn’t right. And everyone and their mother has a modern retelling of some ancient myth they just have to share.
But are we prioritising this rightness of a good story over the historical and mythological facts? As my dad always says when I go off on a tangent during a period drama, “it’s just fiction, it doesn’t have to be accurate.”
Does it? Does it really?
Well, he’s not here right now. So let’s pick apart five modern-ish retellings and what they got wrong while updating the original myths to the times.
Modern Retelling #1. Disney’s Sword in the Stone vs Arthurian Legend
The film The Sword in the Stone is the Disney version of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, released in 1963. Since this is a Disney adaptation, I expected it to be so far removed from the original source material as to be a new story entirely. When Disney says loosely based, I draw the conclusion that they only kept the name of the characters and nothing else.
Take, for example, King Uther Pendragon. Disney portrays his death as the start of the Dark Ages because he was such a good king. It’s also never stated if he knew Merlin or not. This is not the case in the original myths. The Arthurian legends don’t hide the fact that Uther had Merlin disguise him as the Duke of Cornwall so he could rape the man’s wife, the Lady Igraine, the woman he lusted after, have his troops kill the duke in battle, and marry the woman. The resulting child was later said to be the legendary King Arthur.
We also have knights running around in full plate mail (mail was introduced in the 15th century with the invention of the musket. Knighting wasn’t a thing until Charlemagne in the 8th century) nearly a thousand years after King Arthur. See the timeline I created for the Arthurian legends in my post on Arthurian inaccuracies here.
While on the topic of Medieval England, can we pause and think about the fact that the Kingdom of England, in real life, came about in 972 under King Æthelstan who conquered the rest of the Viking kingdoms to have the whole of England to his name. The Arthurian myths are supposed to set a few centuries earlier, just after the Romans left in the late 5th century.
Has Disney ever gotten a thing right in any modern retelling, ever?
Modern story #2. Marvel’s Thor vs Norse Mythology
While we’re on the topic of Disney’s inaccuracies, let’s discuss the 2011 Marvel film Thor.
I have a whole post on Loki, so I’ll skip over that Laufey was actually his mother and Loki was a shit-stirrer rather than a full-on villain.
I understand this is based on the comics rather than the original myths. And boy, do I have some grudges on that. (Don’t even get me started on the armour.)
Thor is a redhead and has a beard in the myths, capable of flight without his hammer. He’s also lost his hammer a few times because Odin never enchanted it so only the worthy can wield it. Thor is a brash character in the myths, a fierce warrior with a quick temper and a strong sense of duty.
Loki was the blood brother of Odin, not his adopted son. And Thor’s parents are Odin and the giantess Jord, not Odin and Frigga. Heimdall was also a son of Odin, not just a follower. That family tree is remarkably confusing if you’re coming into the myths from the Marvel universes.
The Warriors Three never existed in the myths. And Sif was never a warrior at all. She was a blonde (until Loki happened) goddess of fertility and family.
We can therefore conclude that Marvel picks and mixes the myths to suit the story they want to tell.
Modern Retelling #3. Percy Jackson and the Olympians vs Greek Mythology
I love that the Percy Jackson book series doesn’t have that many problems in terms of mythological content. Many problems are more about how white the main cast of the original series are and the use of the term Half-Blood. But we’re not talking about that, we’re discussing the Greek myths.
Demigods were a thing in that there were kids of gods and humans. Hercules, Helen of Troy, Theseus of Thesus and the Minotaur, all these people go on quests because some god fucked up and expects their kids to fix it. Hey, that happens in the Percy Jackson books!
In the last book of the original series (The Last Olympian), the Battle of Manhattan plays out like the Siege of Troy, with the demigod kids playing the role of the Trojans defending Olympus. We even have one character, Clarisse, ride around the building dragging the corpse of a defeated enemy, just like Hector did with Achilles’ body.
There’s so many random moments of myths dropped right in the books. I’m always surprised by something new. Each book does play out like the old quests. Camp Half-Blood acts like a pre-military camp the ancient Athenians would have trained at, and there’s all the grudges right within the pages.
I’m mostly annoyed all the good stuff is aimed at kids.
Modern story #4. La Belle et La Bête vs Eros and Psyche
We’re mostly familiar with the 1991 Disney film Beauty and the Beast, which itself is based on the fairy-tale originally written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740. Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, in 1756, shortened and rewrote the story for children, which we’re more familiar with overall. Arguably, this version was to prepare girls for arranged marriages.
But there’s quite a few similarities I’ve found between this story and the Greek myth of Eros (desire) and Psyche (soul). The myth is originally from Metamorphoses (also called The Golden Ass), written in the 2nd century AD by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (or Platonicus).
While the particulars vary, the broad strokes remain the same.
A father hears news that he must sacrifice his youngest and most beautiful daughter to a monster. He does so and the girl ends up living in some large estate. Eventually, the girl gets homesick and wrangles a deal into visiting her family. The family trick her into doing something she promised not to do, betraying the trust of the man she’s staying with. She ends up doing something she never thought she would so she can prove herself to the man. They end up married and live happily ever after.
Psyche is married off to an invisible man and tricked into viewing his face after meeting with her jealous sisters who don’t like that she’s wealthier than them now. She ends up fulfilling impossible tasks for her mother-in-law Aphrodite to prove her loyalty and eternal love for Eros. Beauty’s jealous sisters trick her into staying away longer. She agrees to marry the Beast, which transforms the Beast back into a handsome prince.
Considering La Belle et la Bete is a 18th century story, and Eros and Psyche is 2nd century, it’s amazing at just how much we really don’t come up with. Someone already told them thousands of years ago.
Modern retelling #5. 2004 film King Arthur vs Arthurian Legend
I love picking the King Arthur legends apart so much, I had to do it twice. This time, I’m focusing on how King Arthur calls itself “the untold true story that inspired the legend.” It has its own TVTropes page for all the historical inaccuracies.
A big one is the dates. The Romans left Britain around 410. The real Cerdic and Cynric arrived in Britain around 495. Some historians place the Battle of Badon Hill (the final battle) to sometime between 490 to 516. The film is definitively set in 467.
Let’s focus on the warfare.
My favourite siege weapon is the trebuchet, a massive fucking catapult I can use to throw a dead horse over your castle wall or attack your other fortifications. They appeared in Western Europe in the 8th century at the earliest. The Romans wouldn’t have heard of them. And you never used them as field artillery as incendiary projectiles. They’re made of wood!
Motte and bailey castles appeared 500 years after the film’s setting, with the Norman conquest.
Plate armour is a later medieval addition. If anything, the guys in the myths would have had chain mail and boiled leathers (like Vikings!). Arthur himself wears a mishmash of what we think of as typical Roman armour, which was mostly out of use by the 5th century.
And the Saxons themselves were most likely invited to Britain as mercenaries by petty lords squabbling over land. Genetic studies (known during production of the film) also reveal that they settled down with the locals to where 75% of examined medieval skeletons had Saxon DNA.
Conclusion
Since there’s no such thing as an original story, it’s far too easy to tell a familiar one, but with our own society clouding over the key elements. Every author of a modern retelling aims the story at the audience they write for, at the cost of the original content and context.
And if we do it well enough, people won’t notice how much we’re trading in the realism for stories of love, friendship, and Christian-aligned good conquering the pagan-aligned evil.
Have I mentioned I hate historical inaccuracy in popular media?
