The Once and Future Blog

I chose this as my first reading lab for one reason - the Hero's Journey. The origination of my project's focus is the tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table - one of the most well-known myths in the Western world, and one of the most major Hero's Journey stories, second maybe to the works of Homer. However, my project is not on any such hero, but on the tale's final villain, Mordred. The final video in the playlist covers this topic extensively, which was quite helpful. Many of the steps I had never heard before, more just the major steps and the big three phases. I'll be looking to mimic or even mock the Journey in the work, shooting for more of a "Villain's Journey" or "Anti-Hero's Journey." A chart of all seventeen stages of the  Hero's Journey The videos in total were incredibly interesting. I had never considered several of the constructs and histories surrounding mythology. In my own readings, I had learne...

This week, I will be reading the last few parts of Ovid's Metamorphoses, a compilation of Greek and Roman myths of transformations - at times, explaining the existence of some phenomena, or providing the explanation for the name of some land or feature. The first of these stories in this block falls into the latter category - the tale of Daedalus and Icarus. The story of Icarus is a caution against hubris, older than much of the Western world. It tells of an artificer named Daedalus, who desires to escape his exile on Crete with his son, Icarus. He fashions wings of feathers, reeds, and wax to sail high above the domain of the tyrant Minos, who keeps him there. He warns Icarus not to fly too low, lest the moisture of the sea pull him down, and not to soar too high, lest the sun melt the wax holding the wings together. They soar off of Crete, like gods in flight to spectators below, and Icarus is so enamored with the experience, he forgets his father's words and soars too high,...