Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

Re:Stories We’ve Seen Too Often by bombcar on Monday May 15, 2023 @01:33PM (#35951663)

Hasn't it been said there's only 7 basic stories in the world? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots or something.

But who cares that The Lion King and Hamlet may be the same story at the base, they're certainly different enough to be enjoyable each in their own right, and I wouldn't substitute one for the other in some strange form of economization.

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Re:Stories We’ve Seen Too Often by readthenotes1 on Monday May 15, 2023 @02:39PM (#35952675)

The wiki article left off Vonnegut's take on this

https://bigthink.com/high-culture/vonnegut-shapes/

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Re:Stories We’ve Seen Too Often by marttt on Monday May 15, 2023 @02:41PM (#35952706)

See also: Soviet folklorist Vladimr Propp identified 7 typical characters and 31 functions (of which the narrative will be composed) in fairy tales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp#Narrative_struc...

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Re:Stories We’ve Seen Too Often by NeoTar on Monday May 15, 2023 @03:47PM (#35953519)

I have thought that Sci-Fi / speculative fiction stories are in a really good position to be categorised by something similar to Aarne–Thompson–Uther index.

Consider some basic stories like:

* a person travels backwards through time to prevent a tragedy.

  - By doing so they cause the tragedy to occur.

  - On returning to their own time they discover the tragedy was necessary for their society.

* a person travels backwards in time to meet their hero.

  - they discover the person didn’t exist and become them.
 
  - they discover the person isn’t as heroic as they hoped and coach them.

Just four examples, but I’m sure you can see how many stories fit into each.

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