...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

Demythification

578 statements
105 feature instances
57 referencing feature instances

Demythification	type	FeatureClass
Demythification	label	Demythification
Demythification	page	Demythification
Demythification	comment	A form of Adaptational Mundanity that takes a legend and reveals what 'really' happened by stripping all the fantastic elements out of it (or, at the very least, rendering them Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane so that they do not have to be fantastic). This sometimes falls flat, because without the gods and magic, the audience might wonder what the point is. If King Arthur is just another warlord with no Lady of the Lake and no Merlin, he had better be made an interesting character in his own right. Authors sometimes forget this second part. In particular, the onus is on the writer to make the imagined "historical" events at least as interesting as the legend (and the actual events that inspired them sometimes weren't). If the historical period in which the original story is set is unfamiliar to audiences (and only touched on for verisimilitude by the writer for that reason), audiences may assume that the real-life historical milieu so lovingly depicted by the art department couldn't possibly have been the source for the story they know and love, and is part of the filmmaker's dastardly invention. This is complicated by the fact that Reality Is Unrealistic, plus less dramatic, and so, in the course of taking some of the more fantastic elements out, a certain amount of Hollywood History must be added in. This technique is often used to give an adaptation a grittier and more realistic feel in situations when it is perceived that the fantastic elements in the traditional version might seem too whimsical or even silly to the intended audience. Expect the hero to become Famed In-Story, thereby setting the stage for the rest of the story to become Shrouded in Myth. This tends, as a rule, to be a retelling of the legend in its current form. As a consequence, it can explain the "real history" behind figures who obviously had no real history in the story, because they were introduced to the legend later — even centuries later. Frequent examples include Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, and Alan-a-Dale in Robin Hood storiesnote Little John, Much the Miller's son, and Will Scarlet (or Scathelock, Scarlock, Stukeley, Stuteley, etc.) are his oldest companions, and Lancelot and Galahad in Arthurian Legendnote Bedivere, Kay, and the greatest of them all, Gawain, are the oldest "proto-knights of the Round Table". Incidentally, the technical term for this technique is Euhemerism, named after a 4th-century BCE Greek, making the trope Older Than Feudalism. Sometimes coupled with a less-than-subtle Take That! against religion, particularly Anvilicious writers will give the characters anachronistically agnostic attitudes towards the gods. Magical Realism can take the form of demythification in a more contemporary setting, or vice versa, especially if your Retroactive Realism involves one or two elements (often the most beloved elements) that are left purposefully ambiguous as to whether or not the supernatural is in play. When a writer intentionally does this as a way of drawing out what historians "really think" inspired the legends, it is this trope. When a writer makes stuff up by way of Direct Line to the Author in order to rewrite an existing legend, it is an External Retcon, which is a sister trope. When stripping away the fantastic happens within the same fictional universe that had the fantastic elements in the first place, that's Doing In the Wizard, which is a sister trope. When a writer takes definitely historical accounts and reimagines what actually happened, it is Historical Fiction (or Alternate History if the changes are great enough). When a writer makes a subtle reference to actual history in a work of fiction, it is a Historical In-Joke. See also Oral Tradition, Twice-Told Tale. Disenchantment is a related concept, referring to the ongoing devaluing of supernatural and mythological beliefs in western society, which can motivate interest in doing this. Not to be confused with Defictionalization or Low Fantasy. See Historical Fantasy for the opposite, retelling history with fantastic elements - though in some cases the approaches can overlap, like putting King Arthur into a Dark Age Europe setting instead of the usual High Middle Ages but still including magic.
Demythification	fetched	2024-02-28T07:14:54Z
Demythification	parsed	2024-02-28T07:14:54Z
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to AllJustADream: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to AncientAstronauts: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to BondCreature: Not an Item - UNKNOWN
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to CharacterExaggeration: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to CourtMage: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to DefiantToTheEnd: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to DisasterDominoes: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to DownplayedTrope: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to DressingAsTheEnemy: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to EndOfAnAge: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to ExcaliburInTheStone: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to FamedInStory: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to FandomSpecificPlot: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to FollowTheLeader: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to FootnoteFever: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to FrazettaMan: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to HandWave: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to HistoricalFiction: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to IChooseToStay: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to InUniverse: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to JesusWasCrazy: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to JudgmentOfSolomon: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to LastOfHisKind: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to MentalTimeTravel: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to MosesInTheBulrushes: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to MountainMan: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to MythologyGag: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to NonMaliciousMonster: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to OlderThanFeudalism: Not an Item - CAT
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to OriginalCharacter: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to OurMinotaursAreDifferent: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to SettingUpdate: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to ShownTheirWork: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to SnakePeople: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to SpecialEffectFailure: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to TheCassandra: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to TrojanHorse: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to Unicorn: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to Unobtainium: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to UrExample: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to VillainBall: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to WhileRomeBurns: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingComment	Dropped link to WorthyOpponent: Not an Item - FEATURE
Demythification	processingUnknown	BondCreature
Demythification	isPartOf	DBTropes
Demythification / int_109f849a	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_109f849a	comment	Hallmark's miniseries Hercules (2005). The existence of the Gods made rather ambiguous (Hercules being fathered by an escaped prisoner of war with a lightning shaped scar), but they do throw in mythical creatures of Ancient Greece. It's heavily arbitrary on when to dismiss the fantastic. In addition, Hercules' Super-Strength and fighting prowess is explained as a Charles Atlas Superpower brought on by Training from Hell.
Demythification / int_109f849a	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_109f849a	featureConfidence	1.0
Hercules	hasFeature	Demythification / int_109f849a
Demythification / int_13bb3a0c	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_13bb3a0c	comment	The Northman is either a subversion or a zig-zagged example. It is based on the ahistorical story of Amleth from the 12th century Gesta Danorum, which also inspired William Shakespeare's Hamlet, and is in turn speculated to have originated as a poem in 10th century Iceland. However there is no definitive proof of this, and common tropes with stories of Roman, Greek, and even Egyptian Mythology makes it likely that the original is much older. Anyway, the film takes great pains to set the story in the Viking Age and be true to the era; for example FjÃ¶lnir, the movie version of Feng/Claudius, loses his Danish kingdom to the historical Harald Fairhair and becomes a exile in Iceland, where most of the movie takes place instead. There is also a heavy dose of Deliberate Values Dissonance, and the movie had to be recut to make it more accessible to audiences who were not experts in Norse culture. However it also incorporates magic and many elements of Norse Mythology that are played completely straight, with no attempt to rationalize them.
Demythification / int_13bb3a0c	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_13bb3a0c	featureConfidence	1.0
The Northman	hasFeature	Demythification / int_13bb3a0c
Demythification / int_159a1583	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_159a1583	comment	The Alamo (2004) dips into this approach quite possibly in response to previous depictions of the historical events like The Alamo (1960), The Last Command and Davy Crockett (1954), most notably with the figure of David Crockett, exploring what it means to be a Living Legend. Crockett's death in American popular imagination has him going down fighting (explosively in the first two other movies), but this movie uses the alternate possibility that he was captured alive and executed after the battle. It's very much debated which version is more plausible based on conflicting sources. But he is still Defiant to the End. The deaths of the other Alamo leaders are also less romantic: Jim Bowie still goes down fighting on his sickbed, shooting his pistols before he dies, but he's killed before he can reach his namesake knife in contrast to other depictions which have him getting a last stab or two in. William Travis is randomly dropped by a headshot early in the battle instead of going down late in the battle surrounded on all sides, like how Crockett is usually depicted.
Demythification / int_159a1583	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_159a1583	featureConfidence	1.0
The Alamo (2004)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_159a1583
Demythification / int_19a23a42	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_19a23a42	comment	The Bounty from 1984 is a more historically accurate recounting of the mutiny on the Bounty than previous movie versions, both titled Mutiny on the Bounty and from 1935 and 1962. These older movies were ultimately based on somewhat fictionalized novels and fictionalized the story further for the screen, which all contributed to the popular image of the events. In the 1984 movie however, instead of depicting Captain William Bligh as a corrupt ogreish tyrant, he is well-meaning but with poor "people skills" and probably more lenient than he needed to be in enforcing discipline when it mattered most. The mutineers' leader, the first mate Fletcher Christian, is less of a stock heroic rebellious authority figure and more like an unstable powder keg of a man who blows up screaming, stunning even his fellow mutineers speechless.
Demythification / int_19a23a42	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_19a23a42	featureConfidence	1.0
The Bounty	hasFeature	Demythification / int_19a23a42
Demythification / int_1a12bbee	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_1a12bbee	comment	The Mighty Thor: The Norse gods are real, but not gods. They are extremely long-lived interdimensional beings who have technology so advanced that it looks like magic to humans. Also actual magic in some cases. They were confused with gods and worshipped by ancient Scandinavians. (Depending on the Writer — some say otherwise, and some say "What's the difference?" Notably, this explanation isn't in place for The Incredible Hercules, which just says Greek myth is true, but there's never any suggestion that the Olympians don't consider the Asgardians to be the same kind of beings as they are.)
Demythification / int_1a12bbee	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_1a12bbee	featureConfidence	1.0
The Mighty Thor (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_1a12bbee
Demythification / int_1f5ca475	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_1f5ca475	comment	King Arthur (2004) attempts (the keyword being: attempts) to present a historically accurate version of the Arthurian legends. No mean feat: the evidence is vague and contradictory. The film takes the Sarmatian Hypothesis and runs with it, stripping out all magical elements in the process. To name a few: Arthur is Lucius Artorius Castus, a Romano-British cavalry officer who chooses to stay after Rome pulls out of Britain. The Knights are Sarmatian cavalrymen drafted by the Romans, and the Round Table is exactly that, a round table commissioned by Artorius so his men can seat without giving more preeminence to any. At the time of the film, most of the Sarmatians have died already while fighting still restless, non-Romanized Britons (called "Woads"), and more die in the Saxon invasion. Merlin is the chief of the Briton rebels, who is forced to ally with Artorius to face the common threat of the Saxons. Guinevere is Merlin's daughter, a warrior woman who develops feelings for both Artorius and Lancelot, and only looks "queenly" after she marries Artorius at the end. The film's version of Excalibur in the Stone: It was Arthur's father's sword, and it was used as his tombstone by his wife and son. It remained there until a surprise Woad attack forced young Arthur to take it and use it to fight, and he kept it afterwards. In other words, the "spell" keeping the sword in place until retrieved by its rightful owner was just Arthur's legal ownership of it, which was never challenged by anyone. Arthur is Famed In-Story not only because of his own deeds but also because his father and many of his male ancestors before him, who all bore the exact same name, had led Sarmatian troops in Britain for several generations, and this began centuries before the events of the movie.
Demythification / int_1f5ca475	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_1f5ca475	featureConfidence	1.0
King Arthur (2004)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_1f5ca475
Demythification / int_1fec263f	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_1fec263f	comment	In Zora Neale Hurston's Moses, Man of the Mountain, some of the famous miracles Moses performs in The Bible while leading the Hebrews out of Egypt are really tricks he learned from his first trip into Midian: he crosses the Red Sea because of his knowledge of tides and strikes water from a stone by finding a spring he had once encountered. However, some of his miracles are still as fantastic as the biblical version, and from Moses's perspective there is no difference between them: they're all just applications of his vast knowledge of nature.
Demythification / int_1fec263f	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_1fec263f	featureConfidence	1.0
Moses, Man of the Mountain	hasFeature	Demythification / int_1fec263f
Demythification / int_2275c659	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_2275c659	comment	House: One episode featured a teenage faith healer who apparently sent another patient's cancer into remission with a touch. Only to turn out that he gave her herpes that attacked the cancer, he'd been picking at his sores before he touched her. Another episode featured a doubting priest who began having visions of Jesus, stigmata, and other "prophetic" style symptoms. Eventually, House proved all the physical signs were merely the symptoms of a disease. The visions he figured were just alcohol-induced. Yet another has House ultimately choosing to play along with a pregnant couple who claim they are both virgins, telling them that the results prove the woman's conception is the first ever medically-proven case of parthenogenesis in humans. His "revelation" comes at the sound of church-like music. However, since this means all genetic material came from the mother, the baby is a girl.
Demythification / int_2275c659	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_2275c659	featureConfidence	1.0
House	hasFeature	Demythification / int_2275c659
Demythification / int_253e45cd	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_253e45cd	comment	The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell. Nimue, Morgan and Merlin's "magic" is a masterful mix of psychology, timing and chutzpah. The Unreliable Narrator is predisposed to believe in pagan magic, and believes every trick, Merlin and co. pull until Merlin explains in detail how he did it. Sometimes he still believes, despite the explanation. Similarly, pagan ceremonial magic is a mix of psychology, showmanship, trickery, and taking credit for natural occurrences.
Demythification / int_253e45cd	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_253e45cd	featureConfidence	1.0
The Warlord Chronicles	hasFeature	Demythification / int_253e45cd
Demythification / int_261c8d3f	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_261c8d3f	comment	The Simpsons: The episode "Simpsons Bible Stories" had a segment parodying Exodus. In that segment, Moses (played by Milhouse) and Lisa performed the miracles using non-supernatural means such as when they dropped baskets of frogs on the Pharaoh and parted the sea by flushing toilets. The only part that wasn't demythified was the burning bush (read: God) that snitched on Bart.
Demythification / int_261c8d3f	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_261c8d3f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Simpsons	hasFeature	Demythification / int_261c8d3f
Demythification / int_266b8433	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_266b8433	comment	Mermaids: The Body Found explains mermaids as an offshoot of the early hominid evolutionary tree that went back to live in the sea. Since they are primates (therefore, mammals) these mermaids have scale-sless skin and up and down propulsion, like dophins instead of fish, and their flukes are modified feet with bones, similar to a seal. They also live in pods and not all are female.
Demythification / int_266b8433	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_266b8433	featureConfidence	1.0
Mermaids: The Body Found	hasFeature	Demythification / int_266b8433
Demythification / int_26ef42e7	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_26ef42e7	comment	In Kevin & Kell, everybody knows the Easter Bunny is real. But while people may assume it's magic, in reality is the rabbit council who is in charge of a whole program to dispatch different easter bunnies to different areas to take care to hide the eggs.
Demythification / int_26ef42e7	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_26ef42e7	featureConfidence	1.0
Kevin & Kell (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_26ef42e7
Demythification / int_2a842e3a	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_2a842e3a	comment	The Doctor Who Expanded Universe introduces the Great Old Ones and their cults, which are able to create all kinds of blatantly magical effects with incantations and rituals. The Doctor, as usual, handwaves the entire thing: just as the Time Lords use mathematics to achieve their sufficiently advanced technology, the Great Old Ones used language, and brought their own physical laws forward into our universe with them. (This is roughly the same explanation that would later show up in "The Shakespeare Code".) Millennial Rites takes this even further, introducing a character from the next universe who appears to do the same thing through sigils.
Demythification / int_2a842e3a	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_2a842e3a	featureConfidence	1.0
Doctor Who – Expanded Universe (Franchise)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_2a842e3a
Demythification / int_2dd271bd	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_2dd271bd	comment	In Helen of Troy (1956), the gods never appear in person but the characters all devoutly believe in them. Achilles's invulnerability is rumored, but one character remarks that his armor or luck is perhaps just that good, and arrows later do just bounce off his armor. He dies from the proverbial arrow in the heel after Paris prays that he may hit a weak spot, but it could be due to him falling from his chariot and hitting his head on a rock.
Demythification / int_2dd271bd	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_2dd271bd	featureConfidence	1.0
Helen of Troy	hasFeature	Demythification / int_2dd271bd
Demythification / int_2e90ad18	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_2e90ad18	comment	The short-lived series Of Kings and Prophets was (at least in part) an attempt at doing this for the Books of Samuel in the Bible. For example: in the show's depiction of David's famous battle with Goliath, Goliath is not exceptionally tall, but just a physically imposing Philistine general who inspires his men by challenging his enemies to one-on-one duels. Compared to most other depictions, the fight also plays out like a realistic duel to the death: instead of a single slung stone to the head, it takes multiple shots for David to bring Goliath down, and he begins by targeting his knees.note This does line up with a few scholars claiming that there's an ambiguity with the Hebrew text regarding the words usually translated as "forehead" and "greaves", with the former possibly really being the singular form of the latter; they point out that Goliath is said to fall face down, not on his back which would presumably be more consistent with a frontal headshot. The show also leaves it deliberately ambiguous whether Samuel is actually a prophet, or just a wise man who claims to speak to God in order to manipulate others into doing his bidding.
Demythification / int_2e90ad18	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_2e90ad18	featureConfidence	1.0
Of Kings and Prophets	hasFeature	Demythification / int_2e90ad18
Demythification / int_2f6625c7	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_2f6625c7	comment	Jesus of Nazareth: Downplayed, but when John the Baptist baptizes Jesus, John claims to hear God's voice and relays "You are my beloved Son" etc. to Jesus instead of an overt voice from the heavens saying it.
Demythification / int_2f6625c7	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_2f6625c7	featureConfidence	1.0
Jesus of Nazareth	hasFeature	Demythification / int_2f6625c7
Demythification / int_315d0ba2	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_315d0ba2	comment	Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral (Goyo the Boy General) depicts the death of Filipino general Gregorio del Pilar rather anticlimactically compared to how it's been taught to schoolchildren for generations and how previous local movies portrayed him. The more romantic image of his death has him being shot on horseback, saber upraised and charging at the foe against hopeless odds (and a 1990s movie version even had him as pretty much the last man standing on his side), which ultimately comes from a newspaperman's account, and this is judged by some contemporary local historians as myth-making in light of other sources. The film instead follows these other sources, eyewitness accounts from his own soldiers who said he was sniped rather suddenly and while standing on the ground during a lull in the battle, and this leads to a panicked retreat by his men. Plus in general, the film goes for a Warts and All approach and avoids putting him on a pedestal, unlike the "textbook" approach and romanticizing tendency of many Filipino historical biopics.
Demythification / int_315d0ba2	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_315d0ba2	featureConfidence	1.0
Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral	hasFeature	Demythification / int_315d0ba2
Demythification / int_335cea93	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_335cea93	comment	The Realm of Albion, by Marcus Pitcaithly, demythifies elements of Mabinogion, other Celtic Mythology, and the late-medieval romances Amadis de Gaul and Perceforest.
Demythification / int_335cea93	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_335cea93	featureConfidence	1.0
The Realm of Albion	hasFeature	Demythification / int_335cea93
Demythification / int_3425fda3	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_3425fda3	comment	First Knight is still technically a fantasy film with no attempt made to ground the story in real places or a distinct historical period, but it also strips the Arthurian length down to a group of knights, their leader, the Big Bad and his horde, and a Love Triangle. No magical sword bestowed by some watery tart — or any other magic elements, like Merlin. For example: at the end of the film, Arthur isn't taken to mystic Avalon on the brink of his death by fey women—he just dies and gets a Viking Funeral.
Demythification / int_3425fda3	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_3425fda3	featureConfidence	1.0
First Knight	hasFeature	Demythification / int_3425fda3
Demythification / int_3483eb3c	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_3483eb3c	comment	Exodus: Gods and Kings has naturalistic explanations for at least some of the supernatural events in the story of Moses. Though it "doesnâ€™t completely shy away from the miraculous". The Nile is the color of blood because an unusually severe rash of crocodile attacks killed hundreds or thousands of people in it and it's actually full of blood. Later after most of the other plagues have hit, an advisor to the Pharaoh Rameses tries his best to come up with rational explanations for the phenomena - most of which actually make quite a bit of sense, enough for Rameses to not believe that these were actually acts of the Hebrews' God. The advisor and Rameses's priests, however, end up on death row when their explanations and prayers stop being effective at getting out of these problems. The advisor posits that the plagues are part of one big unfortunate chain reaction. The initial crocodile attacks churn up the red clay in the Nile, which seems to be more than usual. This kills off the fish and drives out frogs. The frogs die off in turn and the rotting fish and frogs attract gnats and flies, which in turn spread pestilence among both livestock and humans, specifically causing boils for the latter, and killing off a large portion of the cattle. The parting of the Red Sea is caused by the water receding before a tsunami, which hits the pursuing Egyptian army after the Hebrews manage to escape to higher ground.
Demythification / int_3483eb3c	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_3483eb3c	featureConfidence	1.0
Exodus: Gods and Kings	hasFeature	Demythification / int_3483eb3c
Demythification / int_3575f9a	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_3575f9a	comment	Several of the heroes in the game have subtle design influences that call back to their mythological inspirations. Achilles (and his Myrmidons) wears a helmet with cheek-guards resembling ant mandibles, a reference to the mythical origin of the Myrmidons being transformed from ants. Aeneas has several costume elements that harken toward his supposed Roman descendants, such as his cheek guards resembling a legionary's galea, his sash and cingulum, and his sword and shield resembling the iconic gladius and scutum.
Demythification / int_3575f9a	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_3575f9a	featureConfidence	1.0
The Aeneid	hasFeature	Demythification / int_3575f9a
Demythification / int_35bceb50	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_35bceb50	comment	Henry Treece wrote three mutually exclusive versions of the historical Arthur and co. starting with the young adult novel The Eagles have Flown, told from the viewpoint of a young Roman Briton who joins Arthur, then The Great Captains with Mordred and Arthur as the protagonists, and finally The Green Man, a retelling of Hamlet based on the original Danish legend, appearing when Hamlet is exiled to Britain.
Demythification / int_35bceb50	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_35bceb50	featureConfidence	1.0
Hamlet (Theatre)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_35bceb50
Demythification / int_35e675e2	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_35e675e2	comment	Vikings uses Norse sagas that feature monsters and supernatural events as part of its source material, but gives the supernatural elements of them a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane approach (sometimes leaning farther into Unexplainably Magic with its prophecies). No one questions that Aslaug is the daughter of Sigurd the dragonslayer and Brynhild the Valkyrie, but whether they actually are her parents or even existed is left ambiguous. The show integrates the legendary inspirations with other historical sources, and often changes around both to fit its needs.
Demythification / int_35e675e2	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_35e675e2	featureConfidence	1.0
Vikings	hasFeature	Demythification / int_35e675e2
Demythification / int_3f2ef980	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_3f2ef980	comment	Transformers: The Last Knight has the history of the Knights involving Merlin. Turns out, he was actually a drunkard who met some Cybertronians.
Demythification / int_3f2ef980	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_3f2ef980	featureConfidence	1.0
Transformers: The Last Knight	hasFeature	Demythification / int_3f2ef980
Demythification / int_44fe781e	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_44fe781e	comment	Neon Genesis Evangelion presents the Dead Sea Scrolls as being left by the god-like alien who seeded Earth with life; this is the justification for the use of Biblical names and symbols used for the "Angels".
Demythification / int_44fe781e	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_44fe781e	featureConfidence	1.0
Neon Genesis Evangelion	hasFeature	Demythification / int_44fe781e
Demythification / int_45b21df3	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_45b21df3	comment	Monty Python's Life of Brian, despite expectations, actually subverts this. It follows the whacky misadventures of a man who is repeatedly mistaken for a prophet in Roman Galilee, from his adoration by the Magi to his crucifixion by the Romans, and shows (accurately) that there were many self-proclaimed prophets in that time and place. Yet the movie does not make any comment on Jesus' nature, his Nativity scene is accompanied by a heavenly glow and music unlike Brian's, and he stays offscreen except for other scene where he is addressing people during the Sermon on the Mount. Despite this, many censors considered the film blasphemous and it was denied a release in several countries for decades.
Demythification / int_45b21df3	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_45b21df3	featureConfidence	1.0
Monty Python's Life of Brian	hasFeature	Demythification / int_45b21df3
Demythification / int_4a08bb32	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_4a08bb32	comment	Baudolino by Umberto Eco does this with the "conspiracy" version of the various Grail and Templar legends surrounding the Crusades - the same material that Eco dealt with earlier in Foucault's Pendulum. The historical conspiracy is replaced by two petty criminals and forgers trying to make a profit by selling fake relics. Although it's clearly fiction, and the way that these two characters come up with nearly all the Dan Brown stuff on their own without planning is meant as a joke, the gist of it must be closer to reality than the organised, large-scale conspiracy version. Also, Baudolino himself is basically a medieval MÃ¼nchhausen.
Demythification / int_4a08bb32	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_4a08bb32	featureConfidence	1.0
Baudolino	hasFeature	Demythification / int_4a08bb32
Demythification / int_4a9ecddc	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_4a9ecddc	comment	King Jesus by Robert Graves, which mixes the canonical and non-canonical Christian gospels with a great deal of his own innovations, presents Jesus not as the son of God but the secret grandson of Herod. Though he does perform miracles and is resurrected at the end. He also presents the true secret name of God as coded through mathematics, musical notation and numerology as "Iieuoaa", or "Jievoaa", with the pronunciation used by the priests being deliberately misleading. Jesus finds out the secret and ultimately speaks the Divine Name aloud to resurrect Lazarus.
Demythification / int_4a9ecddc	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_4a9ecddc	featureConfidence	1.0
I, Claudius	hasFeature	Demythification / int_4a9ecddc
Demythification / int_4b187e74	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_4b187e74	comment	A few stories in The Lost Books of the Odyssey present the story of The Odyssey as one put together by far more mundane sources, such as Odysseus as a wandering bard, who ended The Trojan War in a matter of months but spins out a far grander tale to get away from the boredom of kingship.
Demythification / int_4b187e74	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_4b187e74	featureConfidence	1.0
The Odyssey	hasFeature	Demythification / int_4b187e74
Demythification / int_4c04c7da	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_4c04c7da	comment	Lifeforce (1985) (aka "The naked space vampire movie") posits that vampire legends are based on a race of alien Life Energy parasites.
Demythification / int_4c04c7da	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_4c04c7da	featureConfidence	1.0
Lifeforce (1985)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_4c04c7da
Demythification / int_5030d3bb	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_5030d3bb	comment	A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is a sci-fi spin of Pinocchio. Instead of a magical puppet, the protagonist (David) is a prototype for a Ridiculously Human Robot Kid who can feel love. His designer is an A.I. engineer who made him as a Replacement Goldfish of his dead son. Jiminy Criket's role is played by a robot teddy bear named Teddy, and Pleasure Island is a red district-type city. David looks for his father not inside a whale, but in a building in flooded New York City, and wants the Blue Fairy to turn him into a human boy so his human "mother" will love him back. He thinks he found her in flooded Coney Island, but it's just a statue. Thousands of years later, he is found by blue-colored highly advanced robots who... still can't make him into a real boy... but can make a clone of his mother who will love him.
Demythification / int_5030d3bb	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_5030d3bb	featureConfidence	1.0
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence	hasFeature	Demythification / int_5030d3bb
Demythification / int_50df0cd7	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_50df0cd7	comment	In Batman Odyssey, a story clearly inspired by Journey to the Center of the Earth, the Egyptian gods are not gods but weird denizens of the Hollow Earth.
Demythification / int_50df0cd7	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_50df0cd7	featureConfidence	1.0
Batman Odyssey (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_50df0cd7
Demythification / int_5ed018f2	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_5ed018f2	comment	Beowulf (1999) changes the setting to The Future After the End and is arguably more supernatural than its basis (not only are Grendel and his mother demonic entities, but Beowulf himself is half-demon). One element is less supernatural, however: Instead of Grendel sparing Hrothgar because he is a king and kings have divine protection, he does it because Hrothgar is his father.
Demythification / int_5ed018f2	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_5ed018f2	featureConfidence	1.0
Beowulf (1999)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_5ed018f2
Demythification / int_60381be1	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_60381be1	comment	O Brother, Where Art Thou? changes the setting of The Odyssey to Mississippi during The Great Depression. Ulysses is a fugitive from prison, Penelope divorces him and tells their children he died, Polyphemus is a one-eyed criminal, Zeus is the state governor, Tiresias is a blind railroad worker with a gift for prophecy, and Homer is a blind radio station manager.
Demythification / int_60381be1	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_60381be1	featureConfidence	1.0
O Brother, Where Art Thou?	hasFeature	Demythification / int_60381be1
Demythification / int_60ce1875	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_60ce1875	comment	Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix also retells "Cinderella".
Demythification / int_60ce1875	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_60ce1875	featureConfidence	1.0
Just Ella	hasFeature	Demythification / int_60ce1875
Demythification / int_61f7e353	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_61f7e353	comment	Elizabeth E. Wein's The Winter Prince deals with such characters of the Arthurian Legend as Artos (Arthur), Medraut (Mordred) and Queen Morgause (Morgaine) without any magic or magical swords at all. It is about people.
Demythification / int_61f7e353	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_61f7e353	featureConfidence	1.0
The Lion Hunters	hasFeature	Demythification / int_61f7e353
Demythification / int_63eff6e3	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_63eff6e3	comment	King David: David doesn't bring down Goliath with one stone immediately as in the Bible, instead having his first two stones deflected by Goliath's shield and having to dodge a thrown spear. More curiously, it's unclear whether the movie deliberately rationalizes away Goliath's size or it's just a invokedSpecial Effect Failure. Camera angles and sound design (clanking armor etc.) are played up for all they're worth to make him feel like a lumbering giant towering over the young David. But once Goliath is killed, there's a wide shot of his body lying on the ground surrounded by David, King Saul and others, and he just appears be a somewhat tall man. No one at the scene actually calls attention to Goliath's height being exceptional, though as the enemy champion he is The Dreaded. Years later, the Philistine king does refer to David's God "delivering him from the giant" when talking with the adult David, but it's entirely possible he's referring to how the tale grew in the telling. The movie also omits overt supernatural occurrences in the story like Saul visiting a witch to summon the prophet Samuel's ghost. God's voice is also never directly heard. So when David is selected over all of his older brothers to be anointed as the future king of Israel, Samuel has to divine God's will using two gems or stones (probably the mysterious Urim and Thummim mentioned in the Bible) held in his hands, and David is chosen because light shines or is reflected in them when it's his turn, unlike the others.
Demythification / int_63eff6e3	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_63eff6e3	featureConfidence	1.0
King David	hasFeature	Demythification / int_63eff6e3
Demythification / int_6749d524	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_6749d524	comment	Ever After does this for the Cinderella fairytale, with the story in a somewhat more down to Earth environment devoid of external magic. The Cinderella character is Danielle, a French noblewoman who's reduced to servanthood by her stepmother and one of her stepsisters after her dad dies. The crystal slippers actually are based on the shoes that belong to Danielle's Missing Mom and the Pimped-Out Dress was made by humans, not by magic. There's no Fairy Godmother... but there is a Cool Old Guy and sorta Crazy Inventor Godfather, who's none other than Leonardo da Vinci. To go to the Ball, Danielle gets help from her other stepsister Jacqueline as well as the family servants. The Prince, Henry, is a flawed human being with both pros and cons, and he doesn't take the revelation about Danielle being a "commoner" well, so Leonardo has to give him a harsh pep talk before he goes and apologizes to her.
Demythification / int_6749d524	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_6749d524	featureConfidence	1.0
Ever After	hasFeature	Demythification / int_6749d524
Demythification / int_691be369	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_691be369	comment	While The X-Files most often veered into the supernatural, it would sometimes do the opposite and offer mundane explanations for supernatural Twice Told Tales. Maybe. "The Jersey Devil" threw away every aspect of the Jersey Devil mythology except the name and the New Jersey Pine Barrens location, recycling the titular monster as a maneating Bigfoot. Which was later revealed to be an anthropologically modern family of (white) cannibals living buttnaked in the woods. Maybe. "Dod Kalm" explained rapid aging and ghost ships as side effects of bacterian activity. "Quagmire" had Mulder and Scully come to investigate a series of deaths attributed to a Stock Ness Monster, only to discover that they were committed by an alligator. Maybe. "El Mundo Gira" explains the Chupacabra as a man carrying an enzyme that makes otherwise inoffensive fungi grow rapidly fast, deforming him and killing any animal or human he comes in contact with. Mulder, naturally, believes that the enzyme came from outer space, but an UFO "seen" in an area of Chupacabra activity turns out to be a hazmat team coming to retrieve one of the Chupacabra's victims. The legend is shown to evolve rapidly as it is retold by superstitious Mexican immigrants, diverging according to their own biases (Flakita's version features the UFO and The Greys coming out of it, Gabrielle's version has no aliens but is melodramatic and Soap Opera-like).
Demythification / int_691be369	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_691be369	featureConfidence	1.0
The X-Files	hasFeature	Demythification / int_691be369
Demythification / int_6a6ba83c	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_6a6ba83c	comment	The King Must Die and The Bull From the Sea, Mary Renault's novels about Theseus. Successful in that Renault does make Theseus a complex and compelling character in his own right. She also succeeds in capturing much of the spirit of the myth because her first person narrator, Theseus, believes in the gods and their influence in his life, even if none of the book's events are depicted as blatantly supernatural - modern readers would interpret them quite differently.
Demythification / int_6a6ba83c	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_6a6ba83c	featureConfidence	1.0
The King Must Die	hasFeature	Demythification / int_6a6ba83c
Demythification / int_6b5435fc	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_6b5435fc	comment	Age of Empires II: Like its predecessor, this is a Medieval RTS that is based on history and devoid of fantasy. The scenario editor contains some Arthurian Legend, Robin Hood, and Nibelungenlied hero units to be used at the player's discretion, but they are all common swordsman, cavalry, archer, or monk units with better stats. Anyone that would require magic (like Merlin or Morgaine) is absent. Likewise, the campaigns may include legends or references to them for storytelling purposes, but they are not supernatural: Barbarossa's "The Emperor Sleeping" scenario is about carrying his body to be buried in Jerusalem rather than him being a King in the Mountain, Genghis Khan's campaign ends with the Mongols believing that he will come Back from the Dead one day rather than him doing so, the only supposed miracles of Joan of Arc referenced are those that can be rationalized in some other way, etc. In the scenario "The Battle at Hanoi" of the Rise of Rajas expansion, LÃª Lá»£i receives 500 gold and his sword Thuáºn ThiÃªn ("Heaven's Will") from a "Turtle Monk" after escorting him safely to Hanoi. In the legend, LÃª Lá»£i received the sword from the golden turtle god Kim Quy. In addition, the sword only increases LÃª Lá»£i's attack by 4, rather than making him a giant with the strength of 1000 men. This sidequest is completely removed in the Definitive Edition. The nats, vengeful spirits of Burmese folklore, appear in the Bayinnaung campaign as hostile "enchantresses" who gain attack by killing units (with a knife). The nagas in the Prithviraj campaign are described as a "Serpent People", but are actually hostile priests and monitor lizards. No word on them being demigods. This goes even further after the release of the Dynasties of India DLC, where the nagas are substitued by the unambiguously human Paramaras (a Rajput clan).
Demythification / int_6b5435fc	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_6b5435fc	featureConfidence	1.0
Age of Empires II (Video Game)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_6b5435fc
Demythification / int_6cc7497b	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_6cc7497b	comment	The supernatural is quite real in Castlevania (2017), but it has an explanation for crosses being effective against vampires pretty much akin to Blindsight above, as geometric shapes naturally messing with their differently-evolved brains. This is when the show introduces its version of the throwing cross subweapon from the games.
Demythification / int_6cc7497b	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_6cc7497b	featureConfidence	1.0
Castlevania (2017)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_6cc7497b
Demythification / int_6ed03a72	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_6ed03a72	comment	The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. This is a borderline case, however, as more than one interpretation is offered for the Visions, and indeed implied for 'the Conscience'. Of course, since Joan of Arc was definitely a real person, The Messenger might also be accused of going the opposite route and adding fantastic elements (though this gets into a tricky theological debate).
Demythification / int_6ed03a72	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_6ed03a72	featureConfidence	1.0
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc	hasFeature	Demythification / int_6ed03a72
Demythification / int_6f153936	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_6f153936	comment	The Last Temptation of Christ portrays Satan and Jesus' divine origin as real, but offers a down-to-earth version of the latter and the Crucifixion. The unconventional-looking Willem Dafoe plays Jesus, he is shocked when he pulls off his first miracle, the Last Supper scene avoids a "Last Supper" Steal by involving a lot more people than the traditional thirteen (including women) and having them seat on the ground, and the Crucifixion scenes skew from traditional religious portrayals in favor of archaeology and non-religious accounts of how Roman crucifixions happened (for example, Jesus only carries the horizontal section to Golgotha, he is nailed by the wrists and also tied, and the two thieves are nailed to dead trees). Jesus' cross looks like a traditional Latin cross by sheer accident, due to the wooden sign reading "Jesus Nazarene King of the Jews" being placed on top of it; if not for that, it would look like a 'T'. John the Baptist is portrayed as much older with greying hair, with no indication he and Jesus are related, and there's no voice from heavens when he baptizes Jesus.
Demythification / int_6f153936	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_6f153936	featureConfidence	1.0
The Last Temptation of Christ	hasFeature	Demythification / int_6f153936
Demythification / int_704d43b3	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_704d43b3	comment	So many books and documentaries have tried to find an all-encompassing scientific explanation for the story of Exodus that it's hard to trace it down to the first one that brought up the idea. Occurrences like the parting of the Red Sea and the red river are usually attributed to a natural disaster.
Demythification / int_704d43b3	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_704d43b3	featureConfidence	1.0
Book of Exodus	hasFeature	Demythification / int_704d43b3
Demythification / int_709972cc	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_709972cc	comment	El Cid (2020) dials back the legendary elements of the literary cycle and adds historical figures and locations from the 11th century, but doesn't let go completely of the post-1200 legend (or Hollywood History). For example, the death of Ferdinand I is clearly based on the Romance of the Siege of Zamora, with his children and El Cid being present for his agony and the division of the kingdom, but instead of portraying El Cid as a celebrity respected by everyone like the romance, he's there as an unknown young squire, as he would be at the time of Ferdinand's death. Urraca's actress also said that the iconic Oath of Santa Gadea would be featured in the show even though it's known to have never happened.
Demythification / int_709972cc	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_709972cc	featureConfidence	1.0
El Cid (2020)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_709972cc
Demythification / int_7441e239	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_7441e239	comment	The Ten Commandments (1956) has a scene where Ramses tries to explain away the Plagues as natural phenomena. To paraphrase, he tells Moses that red mud seeped into the Nile River, causing the frogs to leave and the cattle drinking from it to sicken and die, whose carcasses rotted, attracting rats and bugs that spread disease. Then there's the matter of burning hail from the sky...
Demythification / int_7441e239	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_7441e239	featureConfidence	1.0
The Ten Commandments (1956)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_7441e239
Demythification / int_760ce135	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_760ce135	comment	Blindsight explains that vampires are not supernatural beings, but a Human Subspecies that evolved to prey on normal humans in prehistoric times. Since they were predators, they had superior pattern-recognizing skills and general intelligence, larger canines, better night-vision and the ability to put themselves into suspended animation for long periods of time. However, their intelligence came with a price: their advanced pattern-recognition, combined with the vertical and horizontal receptors crosswired in their visual cortex, caused them to experience fatal seizures whenever right angles take up more than 30 degrees of their visual field. This explains why they were warded off by crosses and ultimately lead to their extinction when humans invented architecture.
Demythification / int_760ce135	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_760ce135	featureConfidence	1.0
Blindsight	hasFeature	Demythification / int_760ce135
Demythification / int_764175c4	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_764175c4	comment	The Cartoon History of the Universe briefly presents Gilgamesh as a bald brutish regular king and Enkidu as a similarly brutish but regular insane wild man he hung out with. While other kings at the time claimed to be half god, Gilgamesh outdoes them by claiming to be two-thirds god. When a bystander gasps and asks if that means he had three parents, Gilgamesh just guffaws. Then instead of Gilgamesh spurning the advances of the goddess Ishtar, he does the unthinkable by refusing to do the annual fertility sex rites with the priestess of the goddess Inanna (Ishtar's precursor), and the monsters he defeats are just foreign tribes he raids for booty and slaves.
Demythification / int_764175c4	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_764175c4	featureConfidence	1.0
The Cartoon History of the Universe (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_764175c4
Demythification / int_76fa3504	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_76fa3504	comment	In Conspiracy X, psychic phenomena are simply another aspect of physics which mainstream human science still haven't figured out. All humans (excluding extremely rare mutations) are psychic, to a degree (explaining things like "intuition" or "empathy"). "Magic" and most magical creatures are actually also a result of this: the vast majority of humans produce more psychic energy than they use, and the excess "seeps" out of their body to create a sort of psychic background force, the so called "Collective Subconscious" of humanity. "Magic" is the manipulation of this psychic "seepage" to achieve all sorts of effects (the rituals work because enough people subconsciously believe they should), demons and spirits are intelligent manifestations of people's fears, and vampires and werewolves are people who were "infected" by the seepage until they were physically and mentally transformed into subconscious archetypes: "The Stalker" and "The Predator", in this case.
Demythification / int_76fa3504	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_76fa3504	featureConfidence	1.0
Conspiracy X (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_76fa3504
Demythification / int_7894fb5d	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_7894fb5d	comment	Gospel of Afranius by the Russian author Kirill Yeskov presents the four canonical Gospels as honest but one-sided eyewitness accounts of "Operation Pisces", a Roman secret service False Flag Operation to undermine right-wing militia support in Judea. While not denying (or supporting) the claim of Jesus' (who is shown as an unwitting (?) victim of the Romans) divine nature, it explains most of his miracles with actions of the Double Reverse Quadruple Agent Judas and his posthumous appearances, with various impostors (one of whom went on to write the Q document).
Demythification / int_7894fb5d	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_7894fb5d	featureConfidence	1.0
The Four Gospels	hasFeature	Demythification / int_7894fb5d
Demythification / int_7ae1ceda	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_7ae1ceda	comment	In Infinite Worlds, the above world is called Camelot-2. (Camelot-1 is the Traditional version, and Camelot-3 is the Cinematic one.) Camelot-2 was briefly considered by Homeline scholars to be evidence that Artorius was the real Arthur of their own history, until further exploration turned up so many timelines with a "historical Arthur" to fit basically any theory, that they retired the "Camelot" designation altogether.
Demythification / int_7ae1ceda	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_7ae1ceda	featureConfidence	1.0
Infinite Worlds (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_7ae1ceda
Demythification / int_7cd65c99	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_7cd65c99	comment	The Wicked Years series removes or tones down a lot of the magic and weirdness from the Land of Oz books. For example, Glinda and Ozma are humans instead of fairies.
Demythification / int_7cd65c99	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_7cd65c99	featureConfidence	1.0
The Wicked Years	hasFeature	Demythification / int_7cd65c99
Demythification / int_7cda381e	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_7cda381e	comment	Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is set in Greece during the Peloponnesian War with many landmarks being based on mythology as both real historical sites that inspired the myths—the palace of Odysseus on Ithaca, for example—as well as completely fictional ones such as the gigantic stone statue of Zeus in the first real area of the game. In the series' typical fashion, many myths are also alluded to in other ways such as the first larger sequence of the game concluding with the Eagle Bearer having to fight "the Cyclops of Kephallonia", a one-eyed bandit leader who wields a huge spiked mace and is noted as keeping goats, much like how Polyphemus is portrayed in The Odyssey. This makes it all the more surprising when an actual cyclops appears later. It's ultimately still connected to Clarke's Third Law, though.
Demythification / int_7cda381e	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_7cda381e	featureConfidence	1.0
Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (Video Game)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_7cda381e
Demythification / int_7d998b1e	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_7d998b1e	comment	Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real explains dragons and reptilian sea monsters as a unique lineage of crocodile relatives that arose in the Triassic, evolving flight and the ability to make fire from their mouth through a chemical reaction, which they use for defense and to cook their meat. Originally all dragons were bipedal tetrapods (so wyverns) but one aquatic lineage evolved six limbs and survived the K/T mass extinction, from which it recolonized the continents and gained flight again.
Demythification / int_7d998b1e	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_7d998b1e	featureConfidence	1.0
Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real	hasFeature	Demythification / int_7d998b1e
Demythification / int_85237000	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_85237000	comment	Pope Joan firmly places the legendary character in the 9th century (moreso the source novel) and offers a plausible biography of her. Instead of being educated in Athens by her lover as in some versions of the legend, she has a Greek tutor in her German hometown years before meeting that lover and going to Rome, never visiting Greece.
Demythification / int_85237000	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_85237000	featureConfidence	1.0
Pope Joan	hasFeature	Demythification / int_85237000
Demythification / int_8960fd02	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_8960fd02	comment	In Vinland Saga Askeladd is the last remaining direct descendant of King Arthur, who was really a Romano-British general named Artorius. Said character was probably named after him as well, making his original full name "Lucius Artorius Castus". (Same as the King Arthur (2004) film, which it might have referenced.)
Demythification / int_8960fd02	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_8960fd02	featureConfidence	1.0
Vinland Saga (Manga)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_8960fd02
Demythification / int_897870a2	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_897870a2	comment	A Total War Saga: TROY breathes this trope as part of its "truth behind the myth" approach to the Trojan War. All throughout the game are references to Greek Mythology conveyed through more realistic and plausible explanations that could have inspired them. The game depicts various mythical creatures in more mundane forms that could possibly be distorted by future audiences into their more recognizable fantastical forms. The Minotaur is a Cretan outlaw with a bull skull headdress and labrys harkening back to the old Minoan culture, the Cyclops is a muscular feral shepherd or pirate (the latter referencing how some Cyclopes, including Polyphemus, were sons of Poseidon) wearing a dwarf elephant skull, the Centaurs are equestrian tribesmen who would have among the first instances of horsemen encountered in the Greek world, the Harpies are marauding bands of bandit women wearing feathered cloaks, and the Amazons are Scythian warrior women (excavations of Scythian kurgans have uncovered skeletons of warrior women). Several of the heroes in the game have subtle design influences that call back to their mythological inspirations. Achilles (and his Myrmidons) wears a helmet with cheek-guards resembling ant mandibles, a reference to the mythical origin of the Myrmidons being transformed from ants. Aeneas has several costume elements that harken toward his supposed Roman descendants, such as his cheek guards resembling a legionary's galea, his sash and cingulum, and his sword and shield resembling the iconic gladius and scutum. The iconic Trojan Horse is given three possible interpretations in game. The first are mundane siege towers with sail crests that resemble a horse's mane. The second is a horse-prowed covered boat that can be used to sneak troops into the city, which requires the services of Odysseus much like how he devised the plan for the original Trojan Horse. The third are earthquakes, which reference how Poseidon was the God of both Horses and Earthquakes; a symbolic horse rather than a physical construct.
Demythification / int_897870a2	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_897870a2	featureConfidence	1.0
A Total War Saga: TROY (Video Game)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_897870a2
Demythification / int_8a76eb6b	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_8a76eb6b	comment	In The Master and Margarita, the title character's masterpiece is a novel recounting the life of Pontius Pilate. Excerpts are given from the chapters concerning Pilate's encounter with Jesus, which depict the episode in this way: nothing unambiguously supernatural occurs, and Yeshua is characterized as a philosopher who speaks of the Kingdom of Heaven only as a metaphor and is misunderstood by his followers.
Demythification / int_8a76eb6b	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_8a76eb6b	featureConfidence	1.0
The Master and Margarita	hasFeature	Demythification / int_8a76eb6b
Demythification / int_8ac4e993	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_8ac4e993	comment	Yasuhiko Yoshikazu of Gundam fame did some historical manga, including Jesus and Waga na wa Nero ("My Name Is Nero") which go into this, both also being in the same continuity. In the former, Jesus is strongly implied to be just a regular human preacher whose divine sonship and miracles are ambiguous at best and exaggerations, delusions and lies at worst, not entirely due to his own actions but also due to the plots of Barabbas and the Zealots who want a figurehead to rally behind against Rome. In any case, he doesn't rise from the dead like his followers think he will. A few of them who discover this before anyone else then steal his body from his tomb to keep the idea of him as the Messiah alive. One of them (the narrator) is left in the tomb to pass down the "angel's" message that he did resurrect to the women who go there later, who pass it down to Peter and the others, etc. Later in My Name is Nero (which also deals with purely historical myths like Nero partying and making music in his palace while Rome burned - he was outside the city at the time of the Great Fire and personally took charge of the renovation efforts), the rise of Christianity in Rome is shown with Peter and Paul's activities. Nero meets Paul in person and casts doubt on his conversion story, of him encountering a bright light and voice that claims to be Jesus; Nero asks why he should believe that was really Jesus if Paul didn't see a man and admittedly never met the man during his earthly life. When the Christians are blamed for the fire and their persecution begins, Peter has his "Quo Vadis" moment where he resolves to die like his master rather than escape, but admits to his companions that he and the original apostles lied about Jesus's post-resurrection appearances, deceiving Paul and others. There's a page of him kneeling before Jesus on the road, but it's only symbolic unlike in the Quo Vadis legend where Peter actually has a vision of Jesus.
Demythification / int_8ac4e993	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_8ac4e993	featureConfidence	1.0
Gundam (Franchise)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_8ac4e993
Demythification / int_8b0cbf75	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_8b0cbf75	comment	I Am Legend does away with anything supernatural about vampirism. It's all caused by a bacteria. All legends of supernatural effects are either given a scientific-sounding explanation or else turn out to be mere legends. For example, repelling vampires with a cross works but is unreliable. Why? The sight of formerly revered items causes self-loathing in the vampire; a once-faithful Christian might be repelled. A formerly Jewish vampire is repelled by the Torah, but unaffected by crosses.
Demythification / int_8b0cbf75	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_8b0cbf75	featureConfidence	1.0
I Am Legend	hasFeature	Demythification / int_8b0cbf75
Demythification / int_8c2d20ca	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_8c2d20ca	comment	The first album of Lilith has the titular enhanced time traveler go back to the Trojan War which is depicted with suitably archaic Bronze Age aesthetics and name spellings, with the "Greeks" being Achaian "sea people" facing the "Trojans" of Wilusa/Wilios. The Trojan Horse is a siege engine with a horse head which breaches the walls at the same time as an earthquake happens with both sides invoking the equivalent of Poseidon the god of horses and earthquakes (the engine is destroyed, but the walls fall). Lilith's uncanny appearance and superhuman abilities lead people to mistake her for a goddess or spirit, but she also pretends to be as an Amazon, from Sarmatia. As a final twist she blinds and cripples Akireu (Achilles), who then survives to essentially become Homer.
Demythification / int_8c2d20ca	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_8c2d20ca	featureConfidence	1.0
Lilith (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_8c2d20ca
Demythification / int_8d84363c	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_8d84363c	comment	Rome does not have Julius Caesar say his famous Last Words "Et Tu, Brute?" or "You too, Brutus?" right before he dies, like how Common Knowledge and pop culture has it (thanks to Shakespeare's play). This is following the ancient sources like Suetonius and Plutarch who assert that he said nothing, though Suetonius also says that it was rumored that he said "you too, my child/son" in Greek (Kai su, teknon) to Brutus. The show has Caesar convey the sentiment to Brutus wordlessly, through his facial expressions. The show also pointedly does not have Caesar saying one of his other famous quotes, "Alea iacta est" or "The die is cast" before crossing the Rubicon with his army. It just happens, with the common soldier viewpoint character Titus Pullo realizing the import of it - that the point of no return has been passed and this means civil war. In both cases it's left for the viewer to imply that the famous phrases were cooked up later.
Demythification / int_8d84363c	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_8d84363c	featureConfidence	1.0
Rome	hasFeature	Demythification / int_8d84363c
Demythification / int_9277eb55	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_9277eb55	comment	In Ondine, the suspected selkie is just a really good (human) swimmer. The "seal coat" is actually smuggled drugs, the "selkie husband" is a drug baron, her mystical song is actually a foreign pop song, and Annie getting a replacement kidney is pure coincidence.
Demythification / int_9277eb55	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_9277eb55	featureConfidence	1.0
Ondine	hasFeature	Demythification / int_9277eb55
Demythification / int_947e2b1e	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_947e2b1e	comment	Oedipus the King and most adaptations of the same story downplay the Sphinx. The in-depth human tragedy seems to lose something by also having a Riddle-Spewing Man-Eating She-Beast going around in the Backstory.
Demythification / int_947e2b1e	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_947e2b1e	featureConfidence	1.0
Oedipus the King (Theatre)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_947e2b1e
Demythification / int_94a340d8	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_94a340d8	comment	The mini-series Moses the Lawgiver stripped bare the story of Moses.
Demythification / int_94a340d8	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_94a340d8	featureConfidence	1.0
Moses the Lawgiver	hasFeature	Demythification / int_94a340d8
Demythification / int_98a3fa0b	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_98a3fa0b	comment	The Gospel According to St. Matthew: Downplayed through the stark down-to-earth approach. Miracles happen but they're presented through Smash Cuts, so they just happen suddenly with no shining lights or other visual fanfare, and this gives the film a bit of a Magic Realism vibe.
Demythification / int_98a3fa0b	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_98a3fa0b	featureConfidence	1.0
The Gospel According to St. Matthew	hasFeature	Demythification / int_98a3fa0b
Demythification / int_9d47a2a2	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_9d47a2a2	comment	Though mythological creatures are still present in A Song of Ice and Fire, they tend to be subdued and more 'realistic' in some way: Dragons have two wings and two legs instead of four. Giants are gorilla-like hominids, more like Bigfoot than straight giant humans. Unicorns are goat-like creatures (or surviving Elasmotherium, according to some fan speculation). Manticores are scorpion-like arthropods. Basilisks are venomous reptiles that kill with their bite, not their glare.
Demythification / int_9d47a2a2	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_9d47a2a2	featureConfidence	1.0
A Song of Ice and Fire	hasFeature	Demythification / int_9d47a2a2
Demythification / int_a183d57f	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_a183d57f	comment	Futurama: "The Deep South": Mermaids are mutated humans living in the underwater ruins of Atlant... a. "The Honking" parodies Horror tropes with a Haunted House with in-built Portrait Painting Peepholes, "robot ghosts" that are actually holograms leaking from improperly shielded "dead robots", robots turning into "werecars" who turn other robots into werecars after running them over and infecting them with a computer virus (victims in the Arctic are turned into "abominable snowmobiles"), and revealing that Calculon has lived 1000 years by upgrading himself and going through different identities. "A Pharaoh to Remember" parodies Ancient Astronauts with the planet O'Cyris IV, whose culture is modeled on Ancient Egypt. Fry takes this as confirmation that aliens created the Egyptian civilization, but one of the natives clarifies that it was the Egyptians who took to the stars and colonized O'Cyris IV. Another episode, "That Darn Katz", later shows that other aliens visited Egypt in 3500 BC, built the Great Pyramid, and were worshipped as gods. We know them as house cats.
Demythification / int_a183d57f	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_a183d57f	featureConfidence	1.0
Futurama	hasFeature	Demythification / int_a183d57f
Demythification / int_a390bcb2	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_a390bcb2	comment	Jesus Video: A time traveler from 20 Minutes into the Future travels to Roman-era Jerusalem and films two tapes of Jesus preaching, with no miracles. Many people disregard him as a boring rabbi and the claims it's Jesus as a hoax, though others try to live closer to what's said on the tapes.
Demythification / int_a390bcb2	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_a390bcb2	featureConfidence	1.0
Jesus Video	hasFeature	Demythification / int_a390bcb2
Demythification / int_a5549ed0	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_a5549ed0	comment	The Bible: Out of all the naturalistic attempts to explain how the early disciples came to believe in Christ's Resurrection, one of the most interesting is the Twin Hypothesis. This posits that Jesus had a twin who was otherwise unknown and who came around and impersonated Jesus after he was crucified and buried. This theory was posited by Greg Cavin in a debate he did with William Lane Craig. While it's not a popular view among scholars because it's so contrived, it would at least explain the physicality of the appearances, and would hint at an explanation as to how the tomb became empty.
Demythification / int_a5549ed0	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_a5549ed0	featureConfidence	1.0
The Bible	hasFeature	Demythification / int_a5549ed0
Demythification / int_a59597f2	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_a59597f2	comment	Rossini's opera La Cenerentola tells the story of Cinderella minus the magical elements. As in Ever After, the Fairy Godmother figure is a Cool Old Guy, in this case the prince's tutor Alidoro who gives Cinderella her elegant clothes and takes her to the ball after she shows him kindness while he's disguised as a beggar. The glass slippers are replaced by a pair of matching bracelets, and instead of having to leave the ball at midnight, Cinderella chooses to leave to make the prince search for her and test whether or not he'll accept her even in rags.
Demythification / int_a59597f2	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_a59597f2	featureConfidence	1.0
Cinderella	hasFeature	Demythification / int_a59597f2
Demythification / int_a7b47b7f	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_a7b47b7f	comment	The Egyptian portrays the Minotaur as a Decomposite Character of sorts, with "Minotaur" being the name of the Cretan high priest who wears a bull mask a majority of the time, to the point that he is mistaken for a bull-human hybrid when he is first encountered in dim light. The Cretan God subverts the Demythification, being a bull-headed sea serpent, but otherwise just an average, man-eating beast... That is dead.
Demythification / int_a7b47b7f	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_a7b47b7f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Egyptian	hasFeature	Demythification / int_a7b47b7f
Demythification / int_abb595ea	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_abb595ea	comment	Here Lies Arthur tells the story of how Merlin (not a wizard) built up the legend of Arthur (not a hero, but a common warlord, and a fairly stupid one at that) using a web of deceit and the help of the book's young protagonist.
Demythification / int_abb595ea	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_abb595ea	featureConfidence	1.0
Here Lies Arthur	hasFeature	Demythification / int_abb595ea
Demythification / int_abbb5fed	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_abbb5fed	comment	The Ministry of Time: The legendary version of El Cid is the result of a 1960s time-traveler impersonating the real Cid after accidentally killing him and trying to live up to the legend he's familiar with. The El Cid Ploy is Alonso donning this time-traveler's armor after he dies in battle, rather than his corpse being sat upon his horse to win a battle after his death. The real Cid? A skilled, but unheroic Medieval warrior.
Demythification / int_abbb5fed	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_abbb5fed	featureConfidence	1.0
The Ministry of Time	hasFeature	Demythification / int_abbb5fed
Demythification / int_afecd0bd	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_afecd0bd	comment	Beowulf (2007): Hrothgar, Beowulf and Wiglaf are stripped completely or almost completely of classical heroism and depicted as very flawed people, Grendel is a Tragic Monster who won't hurt Hrothgar because his mother forbid him to, Beowulf uses a chain and a door to rip Grendel's arm off instead of his bare hands, the killing of his mother is a flat out lie, and the epic as we know it is just a very distorted version of events that Beowulf tries to disown in his dying breath, without success. Grendel, his mother, and the dragon are still real and supernatural, however.
Demythification / int_afecd0bd	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_afecd0bd	featureConfidence	1.0
Beowulf (2007)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_afecd0bd
Demythification / int_b079312a	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_b079312a	comment	Beowulf & Grendel: Grendel is the last "troll" - trolls being either Neanderthals or Neanderthal-like cavemen. They are taller, stronger, and hairier than (other) humans, but not excessively so, and still use weapons and clothes. They can also go out during the day (but Grendel only attacks at night) and don't turn to stone (though Grendel apparently manages to disguise himself as one while at night, Beowulf missing him despite sitting right in front of him). Grendel is also mentally challenged. His name was given because he grinds his teeth in his sleep, but the poem writer will make the world know him as a grinder of man bones. And he attacks Hrothgar's hall because his men killed his father, but won't attack Hrothgar himself because he spared him as a child. Finally, Beowulf doesn't rip Grendel's arm out with his own strength; he merely traps it, and Grendel cuts it to free himself. One of Beowulf's men worries that, as a troll, he might be able to grow it back. Of course, this does not happen and he dies from the injury. Confusingly (and disappointingly, for those who were looking for a complete demythification of the story), Grendel's mother is still a superpowered aquatic monster. At least there are no giant snakes around her watery lair. Another man offers to swim into it, but Beowulf turns him down and does it himself. Grendel "spares" a praying Christian priest, which convinces the Danes to convert to Christianity in order to be protected against Grendel. In reality, Grendel spared the priest because he was confused about his behavior and ultimately didn't see him as a threat. When Grendel is killed, the furious mother comes to town with a vengeance and kills everyone on the way to the hall, Christian and Pagan priests included. The Original Character Selma the Witch never does any witchy stuff. She's just a local woman who lives removed from other people and has more knowledge of, and sympathy for Grendel.
Demythification / int_b079312a	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_b079312a	featureConfidence	1.0
Beowulf & Grendel	hasFeature	Demythification / int_b079312a
Demythification / int_b3710362	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_b3710362	comment	Troy purposefully strips out the prominent supernatural elements of the original poems — or renders them ambiguous. The gods are never seen, and never act, despite their large roles as Physical Gods in Homers telling. Achilles is a Nay-Theist who pooh-poohs the gods at every turn. Hector, of all people, paraphrases Stalin: "How many battalions does the sun god command?" The priest of Apollo acts as an inverted Cassandra — he always gives exactly the wrong advice and is always believed. There are many other changes from the original plays unrelated to the trope. Achilles's mother has a brief scene, but she looks more like a wise woman than a goddess. When a young boy says that people believe that she is a goddess, Achilles himself scoffs at the idea. The child also asks about his invincivility, and he responds that if he were invincible, then he wouldn't be bothering with a shield. note This is a fair point, as stories of Achilles being literally invincible didn't emerge until later, more fantastical versions of The Trojan War. During the time that The Iliad was popular entertainment, Achilles was as vulnerable as the next soldier, but was unbeatable due to his skill. Achilles' blasphemy tends to be followed by bad luck, and of course he is shot in both the heel and the chest (several times, in fact), but he removes the arrows from his chest before dying and his men find him dead with just the one arrow stuck in his heel. In general, the film seems to interpret anything where the gods would be involved as a metaphor or exaggeration. This isn't too far from how some historians view it, with a common reading being that any kind of major feat or unlikely event would be credited to the gods - for instance, a passage going something like "Athena blocked a spear thrown at Achilles" could be read as "the spear thrown at Achilles miraculously missed him."
Demythification / int_b3710362	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_b3710362	featureConfidence	1.0
Troy	hasFeature	Demythification / int_b3710362
Demythification / int_b63ce3e6	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_b63ce3e6	comment	Immortals: Despite gods and magic still playing a large role in the story, the Minotaur is not a maneating hybrid of man and bull, but a freakishly large Torture Technician who wears a wire bull mask and likes to kill people in a Bronze Bull.
Demythification / int_b63ce3e6	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_b63ce3e6	featureConfidence	1.0
Immortals	hasFeature	Demythification / int_b63ce3e6
Demythification / int_b652fbfe	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_b652fbfe	comment	Joan Wolf's The Road To Avalon has no magical elements except for Arthur and Morgan (portrayed as Arthur's lover) sharing a telepathic link. Merlin is a Roman-trained engineer.
Demythification / int_b652fbfe	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_b652fbfe	featureConfidence	1.0
The Road To Avalon	hasFeature	Demythification / int_b652fbfe
Demythification / int_bcd2dd35	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_bcd2dd35	comment	Though The 13th Warrior adds magic in comparison to the book source below, in the form of an old seer woman, it also gets rid of the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane dwarf daggers, so the duel with the Mother is closer to the original from Beowulf but still demythified. In the poem, the Mother breaks Beowulf's sword and he kills her with an older, more powerful sword in her lair; in the movie, he simply kills her with his sword and loses it while fleeing from her lair.
Demythification / int_bcd2dd35	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_bcd2dd35	featureConfidence	1.0
The13thWarrior	hasFeature	Demythification / int_bcd2dd35
Demythification / int_bdf28900	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_bdf28900	comment	In The Great Wall, the Tao Tei, described in many classical Chinese texts as gluttonous monsters and one of the Four Perils, are changed to a species of aliens that arrived on earth in a comet. They attack China every sixty years to gather food to feed their queen and the Great Wall was built to repel them.
Demythification / int_bdf28900	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_bdf28900	featureConfidence	1.0
The Great Wall	hasFeature	Demythification / int_bdf28900
Demythification / int_c00c0023	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_c00c0023	comment	Empire Earth zigzags this for its Greek campaign. The first level has a village chieftain named Hierakles leading his people to a new land where they build a temple and a city on top of a hill (the Acropolis), the Trojan War is fought without divine intervention, while Theseus was a leader of Athens who united the outlying city-states against Sparta and Thebes. The last (of very few) supernatural events is when Theseus ascends to become a god; this marks the campaign moving from being based on Greek myth to being based on history.
Demythification / int_c00c0023	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_c00c0023	featureConfidence	1.0
Empire Earth (Video Game)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_c00c0023
Demythification / int_c29f1036	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_c29f1036	comment	The Prince of Egypt is a partial Demythification of the Book of Exodus, keeping in most of the overtly fantastical elements—like the Burning Bush and the parting of the Red Sea—while reimagining some of the subtler fantastical elements that don't translate quite as well into modern times. To elaborate: Most translations of the Book of Exodus heavily imply that the Pharaoh's court magicians possessed some degree of genuine magical abilities, which allowed them to replicate all of Moses' miracles until the Ten Plagues left them too weak to do magic. For the story's original audience, the intended message was likely that there were many forms of magic in the world, but none of them were as powerful as God's divine miracles note This makes sense considering that earlier Judaism is henotheistic, not monotheist, so the other powers are real, but Yahweh's the only one worthy of worship. In the movie, Ramses' court magicians Hotep and Huy are shown to be simple illusionists who use sleight of hand and stagecraft to make people think they can perform miracles, while Moses' miracles are the real deal. Case in point: Moses transforms his staff into a snake and in plain view of the audience and other characters, whereas Hotep and Huy disguise them transforming theirs with darkness and a blinding flash of light, obviously insinuating that they switched their staves for snakes when no one could see; Moses also turns his snake back into a staff after the Villain Song while Hotep and Huy don't—Moses' staff-turned-snake devoured the two fake ones. Many translations make reference to God "harden[ing] the Pharaoh's heart" to ensure that he doesn't free the Hebrews until the Ten Plagues have run their course (presumably to make an example of the Egyptians for future generations), implying that God uses His power to influence certain people's behavior and actions. The movie gives him a pretty convincing Freudian Excuse that makes his actions seem much more understandable. His father Pharaoh Seti is shown to be an emotionally abusive tyrant who constantly reminded his son that the fate of Egypt rested on his shoulders, and that any sign of weakness could bring his forefathers' dynasty crashing down ("One weak link can destroy a chain!"). As an adult, Ramses takes his advice to heart and refuses to free the Hebrews because he considers mercy to be a sign of weakness, only relenting when his firstborn son is killed by the Plagues. The movie nods to the text of the Bible by letting Ramses sing (in the song "The Plagues") "Then let my heart be hardened, and nevermind how high the cost may grow".
Demythification / int_c29f1036	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_c29f1036	featureConfidence	1.0
The Prince of Egypt	hasFeature	Demythification / int_c29f1036
Demythification / int_c43df4d8	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_c43df4d8	comment	Doctor Who does this occasionally. Almost any supernatural element in the show is explained as either alien or extradimensional. Even vampires turn out to be alien fish using perception filters to appear human. The "teeth" are the product of human subconscious trying to warn the person of a threat. (At least, some vampires are. Other vampires are actually blood-sucking, The Virus-spreading monsters, repelled by faith [a "psychic barrier"] or garlic [or "garil", which is space-garlic], and only killable by driving a stake through the heart. But they're still from space or the future, so that's okay.)
Demythification / int_c43df4d8	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_c43df4d8	featureConfidence	1.0
Doctor Who	hasFeature	Demythification / int_c43df4d8
Demythification / int_cccc51f1	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_cccc51f1	comment	In The Dreams in the Witch House, the titular Witch vanished from a cell in Salem because she found how to travel though different dimensions after discovering some advanced form of physics, which was understood by her and her 17th century contemporaries as witchcraft.
Demythification / int_cccc51f1	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_cccc51f1	featureConfidence	1.0
The Dreams in the Witch House	hasFeature	Demythification / int_cccc51f1
Demythification / int_ccf875f7	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_ccf875f7	comment	Some episodes of Criminal Minds start with the premise of "what if this popular fictional creature was a modern Serial Killer", including vampires, werewolves, and Cinderella, among others. Naturally, magic is always replaced by some kind of psychosis. The second season of the spin-off Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders has non-supernatural versions of a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl note a Woman Scorned turned reclusive and addicted to plastic surgery, a Caribbean zombie note a brain-damaged hitman who clawed his way out of a shallow grave after surviving his execution and a yeti note a brain-damaged mountaineer who was lost in the Himalayas after surviving an avalanche and turned cannibalistic.
Demythification / int_ccf875f7	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_ccf875f7	featureConfidence	1.0
Criminal Minds	hasFeature	Demythification / int_ccf875f7
Demythification / int_d3918c01	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_d3918c01	comment	The second season of the spin-off Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders has non-supernatural versions of a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl note a Woman Scorned turned reclusive and addicted to plastic surgery, a Caribbean zombie note a brain-damaged hitman who clawed his way out of a shallow grave after surviving his execution and a yeti note a brain-damaged mountaineer who was lost in the Himalayas after surviving an avalanche and turned cannibalistic.
Demythification / int_d3918c01	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_d3918c01	featureConfidence	1.0
Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders	hasFeature	Demythification / int_d3918c01
Demythification / int_d9909edd	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_d9909edd	comment	The Man from Earth: While the movie has one possibly supernatural element on which the whole story is based, the way it explains the myth of Jesus is quite realistic. John's immortality is given a highly speculative natural explanation. The characters themselves discuss whether it would be scientifically plausible for a man to stop ageing and live indefinitely. They conclude that it's theoretically possible, if highly unlikely.
Demythification / int_d9909edd	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_d9909edd	featureConfidence	1.0
The Man from Earth	hasFeature	Demythification / int_d9909edd
Demythification / int_da0db67	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_da0db67	comment	Requiem from the Darkness features a strange subversion where a trio of outright supernatural beings are using their powers to fake or perpetuate myths of other supernatural beings. Through the series many myths and legends are examined and many of them are simply the trio using trickery to fool others. For example a sociopathic murderer is explained away as a tanuki, a shapeshifting badger dog, who is suffering from Shapeshifter Modelock.
Demythification / int_da0db67	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_da0db67	featureConfidence	1.0
Requiem from the Darkness	hasFeature	Demythification / int_da0db67
Demythification / int_e043db38	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_e043db38	comment	Klaus (2019) is an origin story for Santa Claus, except that he's just a lonely old man who winds up distributing toys to a small village. The children come to believe he's magical, but the various traditions are given mundane explanations: Why don't the children ever see him? Because Jesper is very good at sneaking into houses and delivering presents. Why does he come down the chimneys? Because they are usually the only way to get into the heavily fortified houses of Smeerensberg. The coal in the stocking and the Naughty List? Made up on the spot by Jesper punishing a bully who was a jerk to him when he first arrived. Workshop full of elves? Just an appreciative Sami family giving a helping hand. Flying through the sky on a sled pulled by reindeer? Ehh, it's a long story. However there is no explanation for the strange wind that may be the spirit of Klaus' deceased wife, and whatever happened to enable Klaus to continue delivering presents even after his own passing.
Demythification / int_e043db38	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_e043db38	featureConfidence	1.0
Klaus (2019)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_e043db38
Demythification / int_e0c573d4	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_e0c573d4	comment	The Last Legion by Valerio Massimo Manfredi and its film adaptation with Colin Firth and Ben Kingsley. Or rather, its final twist, which reveals that Uther Pendragon was the new identity of the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus after he fled to Britain; Merlin was his British tutor, Ambrosinus, and Excalibur was Julius Caesar's sword, bearing the inscription "ensis caliburnus", meaning in-universe that it was forged by a smith of the Chalybes. The only thing magical about the latter two is that Merlin doesn't seem to age and Excalibur ends in the stone, with natural weathering eventually obscuring the original Latin inscription until only "E", "S" and "Calibur" are visible.
Demythification / int_e0c573d4	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_e0c573d4	featureConfidence	1.0
The Last Legion	hasFeature	Demythification / int_e0c573d4
Demythification / int_e2ade9fb	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_e2ade9fb	comment	Other biblical stories like the Great Flood in Genesis get similar treatment. It's often pointed out that other religions and cultures have their versions of flood myths, sometimes with human survivors repopulating the Earth afterwards, most notoriously as found in The Epic of Gilgamesh which is older than the composition of Genesis. Explanations include localized floods instead of a truly worldwide one, and the loss of land and rise of sea levels at the end of the Ice Age.
Demythification / int_e2ade9fb	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_e2ade9fb	featureConfidence	1.0
Book of Genesis	hasFeature	Demythification / int_e2ade9fb
Demythification / int_e5c5bc22	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_e5c5bc22	comment	GURPS The third edition Camelot sourcebook has three settings: Traditional, Cinematic or Historical. Historical is obviously this, a no-mana setting where a 5th century Roman general named Artorius has become Riothamus of post-Roman Britain by marrying Vortigern's daughter, and defends the country against the Saxons. In Infinite Worlds, the above world is called Camelot-2. (Camelot-1 is the Traditional version, and Camelot-3 is the Cinematic one.) Camelot-2 was briefly considered by Homeline scholars to be evidence that Artorius was the real Arthur of their own history, until further exploration turned up so many timelines with a "historical Arthur" to fit basically any theory, that they retired the "Camelot" designation altogether.
Demythification / int_e5c5bc22	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_e5c5bc22	featureConfidence	1.0
GURPS (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_e5c5bc22
Demythification / int_e6eba2f5	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_e6eba2f5	comment	Jesus Christ Superstar although it doesn't debate Jesus' divinity, does question him from Judas' point of view, and seemingly does in the wizard with respect to physical miracles and angels incarnate. Rather than being made to look especially fallible, Jesus counsels his followers to be more sensible, but his best intentions are tragically unheeded by his flock.
Demythification / int_e6eba2f5	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_e6eba2f5	featureConfidence	1.0
Jesus Christ Superstar (Music)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_e6eba2f5
Demythification / int_e9a9f587	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_e9a9f587	comment	The short story anthology Time Lord Fairy Tales replaces magical events in classic fairy tales with various sci-fi equivalents and technobabble: "cursed into eternal slumber" becomes "trapped in suspended animation" while "fairy's curse turns man into beast; woman's love saves him" becomes "time stream accident alters man's DNA and transforms him into a beast-man; woman who loves him administers the engineered cure".
Demythification / int_e9a9f587	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_e9a9f587	featureConfidence	1.0
Time Lord Fairy Tales	hasFeature	Demythification / int_e9a9f587
Demythification / int_ea49d044	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_ea49d044	comment	The Red Tent does this with the story of Dinah (daughter of Jacob) in the Old Testament. In this story, instead of Dinah being raped by the prince of Shechem, they had a consensual relationship that her brothers didn't approve of. Instead of Jacob's visions and name change (to Israel) being seen as from God, they are seen as a man slowly going crazy as his family falls apart.
Demythification / int_ea49d044	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_ea49d044	featureConfidence	1.0
The Red Tent	hasFeature	Demythification / int_ea49d044
Demythification / int_f0841a69	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_f0841a69	comment	Primeval often "explains" legendary creatures and phenomena like dragons, mermaids, haunted houses or the Egyptian monster Ammit, as prehistoric (or future!) animals that passed through the time portals into historical times and were embellished by people.note The above animals were the dinosaur Dracorex, future sea-adapted primates, a maybe primate future creature capable of cammouflaging itself, and the Eocene "running crocodile" Pristichampsus.
Demythification / int_f0841a69	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_f0841a69	featureConfidence	1.0
Primeval	hasFeature	Demythification / int_f0841a69
Demythification / int_f2ca724e	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_f2ca724e	comment	Hercules (2014). A constant theme of the movie is legend vs reality. The adventures of Hercules shown in the film are purported to be the "truth behind the legend", with fantastic elements rationalised as hallucinations or fanciful inventions/exaggerations; the 12 Labors were just stories (deliberately spread as they helped in his reputation). All mythical creatures are unfounded beliefs. Hercules' murder of his wife and children, the result of a curse by Hera in the legend, turns out to be committed by a jealous king who'd drugged Hercules, then had his family killed while letting Hercules believe he did it later. However, Hercules' legitimate Super-Strength is unexplained, and Amphiarus' visions are treated as real.
Demythification / int_f2ca724e	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_f2ca724e	featureConfidence	1.0
Hercules (2014)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_f2ca724e
Demythification / int_f3a0d8d4	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_f3a0d8d4	comment	In Age of Bronze, Eric Shanower's graphic novel series based on the The Trojan Cycle, the gods don't appear, and there's no evidence that they actually exist in the world of the adaptation. This is deliberate, as the afterword makes clear. The series is set in the 12th century BC (the time the events that inspired Homer, who wrote around 800 BC, are believed to have happened) and there is great attention to detail to make architecture, dress, weapons, etc. be true to the period. So while the Homeric names, personalities and relations between characters are kept intact, they are cosmetically as far from any other adaptation of the Illiad, usually based on the Classical Greece of 500 BC or later, as they can be. The Achaeans are Mycenaean Greeks, and Troy is mostly Hittite with some leftover Minoan influences. The Judgement of Paris? All Just a Dream. Well, a dream Paris claims to have had, during a seductive speech he makes to Helen. Helen of Troy is only fairly attractive, not beautiful (but she is very conscious about her image and spends a lot of time on it; this, coupled with her exotic appeal and personality, is what makes Troy fall in love with her). Odysseus and Agamemnon say that she's the most beautiful woman in the world because the Hellene soldiers will fight more willingly than they would for the real reasons for the war, which are more complicated and less glamorous. Helen is also the daughter of Tyndareus. Her mother believes that she hatched from an egg after she had intercourse with Zeus in the form of a swan because she is insane. However, the story has taken life of its own and become a rumor that Helen is of divine origin. Many people referred to as children of gods are actually priests of that god. Oenone, Tethys, and other nymphs are just wise women that engage in healing and divination, and call themselves the daughters of the gods they worship. Anius and the Oenotropae are just a priest of Apollo and his three priestess daughters, living in Delos; instead of Agamemnon kidnapping the Oenotropae to feed his army, he docks in Delos and uses the food left there by the Greeks over the years as temple offerings. Heracles was a roving warlord whose strength and charisma was such that he ended up revered as a god by his own men, and was later killed by his wife. His earlier sack of Troy is narrated differently by a bitter Priam, who attributes it to "a dispute over a couple of horses" with Priam's father, Laomedon. Priam's sister Hesione is not saved from Human Sacrifice but taken as war bounty. Cheiron, while called a centaur, is a big, hairy Mountain Man rather than a half man, half horse creature. The story of Iphigenia being rescued at the last minute by Artemis was invented out of whole cloth by Odysseus to try to comfort her mother. The exceptions are the many prophecies of doom. Cassandra's, of course, are the most detailed and accurate, but true to myth, they are taken for incoherent ramblings and not believed. Instead of being cursed by Apollo for refusing his advances, she was raped by a pedophile at the temple of Apollo, when she was a child, and she grew up believing that the pedophile was Apollo and that he had cursed her (in reality he just told her that nobody would believe her about the rape). The curse is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy here: Cassandra acts crazy because she thinks no one will believe her, and people don't believe her because she acts crazy.
Demythification / int_f3a0d8d4	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_f3a0d8d4	featureConfidence	1.0
Age of Bronze (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_f3a0d8d4
Demythification / int_f739b6f5	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_f739b6f5	comment	Wayward Sons: The Greek gods weren't gods, they were superpowered aliens.
Demythification / int_f739b6f5	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_f739b6f5	featureConfidence	1.0
Wayward Sons (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_f739b6f5
Demythification / int_f7730dc4	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_f7730dc4	comment	Diaries of a Madman plays with this. Several human myths are actually true, including Merlin, whereas others such as legends surrounding several of the human gods are instead revealed to be powerful mages.
Demythification / int_f7730dc4	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_f7730dc4	featureConfidence	1.0
DiariesOfAMadman	hasFeature	Demythification / int_f7730dc4
Demythification / int_f7d93e4a	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_f7d93e4a	comment	In Assassin's Creed, The Advanced Ancient Humans known as "The First Civilization", "Those Who Came Before", or the "Isu" are given as being the inspiration for many if not all gods from ancient mythologies, the first individual to explicitly appear being named Minerva as the player character, Ezio Auditore in this case, immediately identifies her as such a god but she denies any actual divinity. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is set in Greece during the Peloponnesian War with many landmarks being based on mythology as both real historical sites that inspired the myths—the palace of Odysseus on Ithaca, for example—as well as completely fictional ones such as the gigantic stone statue of Zeus in the first real area of the game. In the series' typical fashion, many myths are also alluded to in other ways such as the first larger sequence of the game concluding with the Eagle Bearer having to fight "the Cyclops of Kephallonia", a one-eyed bandit leader who wields a huge spiked mace and is noted as keeping goats, much like how Polyphemus is portrayed in The Odyssey. This makes it all the more surprising when an actual cyclops appears later. It's ultimately still connected to Clarke's Third Law, though.
Demythification / int_f7d93e4a	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_f7d93e4a	featureConfidence	1.0
Assassin's Creed (Franchise)	hasFeature	Demythification / int_f7d93e4a
Demythification / int_f82bec31	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_f82bec31	comment	The Cryptozoologicon is a tongue-in-cheek attempt by paleontologist Darren Naish and artists C.M. Kosemen and John Conway to reimagine the creatures of cryptozoology in a scientifically plausible manner as much as to subvert clichÃ©s and expectations. The rejection of Living Dinosaurs and plesiosaurs is recurring: the Mokele-mbembÃ© is a long-necked tortoise, the Mbielu-mbielu-mbielu a giant bichir fish, and the Gambo a marine platypus relative. Meanwhile, the Chupacabra is a kangaroo-like predatory opossum, the Maryland Goatman is a predatory bipedal monkey instead of a transparent copy of a classical satyr, and the Yeti is a brown-furred, medium-sized bipedal ape more related to orangutans than humans, neither abominable nor in the snow if it can avoid it.
Demythification / int_f82bec31	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_f82bec31	featureConfidence	1.0
Cryptozoologicon	hasFeature	Demythification / int_f82bec31
Demythification / int_fa7d84e8	type	Demythification
Demythification / int_fa7d84e8	comment	Arthur of the Britons: Arthur is a warlord attempting to unite the Celtic tribes. There's no Merlin or knights (Arthur's trusted second is Kai), the Sword in the Stone is a visual metaphor that Arthur sets up but which doesn't quite land, and so on. His foster father Llud is a demythified version of Lludd of the Silver Hand from the Mabinogion, who wears a silver hand prothesis after losing his own in battle.
Demythification / int_fa7d84e8	featureApplicability	1.0
Demythification / int_fa7d84e8	featureConfidence	1.0
Arthur of the Britons	hasFeature	Demythification / int_fa7d84e8

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Demythification	processingCategory2	Speculative Fiction Tropes
Neon Genesis Evangelion / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Princess Thieves (Audio Play) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Age of Bronze (Comic Book) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Ben-Hur (1907) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Beowulf & Grendel / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Exodus: Gods and Kings / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
First Knight / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
George And The Dragon / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Hercules (2014) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Immortals / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
King Arthur (2004) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
King David / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Monty Python's Life of Brian / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Pope Joan / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Last Temptation of Christ / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Man from Earth / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Tales of Hoffmann (1916) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Ten Commandments / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Ten Commandments (1956) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The 13th Warrior / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Troy / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Assassin's Creed (Franchise) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Cryptozoologicon / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Darth Bane / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Eaters of the Dead / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Heimskringla / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Here Lies Arthur / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Jesus Video / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Sword at Sunset / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Egyptian / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The King Must Die / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Master and Margarita / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Mistmantle Chronicles / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Road To Avalon / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Troy Saga / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Warlord Chronicles / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Till We Have Faces / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
DeMythification	sameAs	Demythification
Phoenix (Manga) / int_e4b95db8	type	Demythification
Phoenix (1954) (Manga) / int_e4b95db8	type	Demythification
Arthur of the Britons / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Camelot / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Edward the Seventh / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Hollywood (1980) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Moses the Lawgiver / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Frankenstein Chronicles / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Space 1889 (Tabletop Game) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
A Total War Saga: TROY (Video Game) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Empire Earth (Video Game) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Ryse: Son of Rome (Video Game) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
The Ocean Hunter (Video Game) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Vigilant (Video Game) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification
Klaus (2019) / int_b51a2dd8	type	Demythification

Copyright of DBTropes.org wrapper 2009-2013 DFKI Knowledge Management. Imprint. - Thanks to Bakken&Baeck for hosting. Contact.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.