Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

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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