lpetrich

I will now do some more Lord Raglan scoring, for the Greek god Zeus, Harry James Potter, and Anakin and Luke Skywalker. With the recent completion of the Harry Potter canon, and the completion of the Star Wars canon a few years back, I now have complete biographies to refer to. And from my previous Lord Raglan thread, Lord Raglan Mythic Hero Problems, I will consider child-prodigy stories and prophecy fulfillments.

(1) The hero's mother is a royal virgin, while
Zeus: Rhea, a Titan or second-generation deity and daughter of the first generation deities and Universe rulers Ouranos and Gaia. However, she had 5 children before she had Zeus: 1/2
HP: Lily Evans was a witch, and Harry was her only child: 1
AS: Shmi Skywalker was a commoner, but Anakin was her only child: 1/2
LS: Princess Padmé Naberrie Amidala, whose only children were him and Leia Organa: 1

(2) his father is a king, and
Zeus: Kronos, another second-generation deity, ruler of the Universe and son of Ouranos and Gaia: 1
HP: James Potter was a pure-blood wizard: 1
AS: Cliegg Lars is a possible human father: 0
LS: Anakin Skywalker: 1

(3) the father is related to the mother.
Zeus: Both are children of Ouranos and Gaia: 1
HP: 0
AS: 0
LS: 0

(4) The hero's conception is unusual or miraculous; hence
Zeus: Apparently not: 0
HP: 0
AS: Shmi claimed that Anakin had no father: 1
LS: 0

(5) he is reputed to be a son of a god.
Zeus: Kronos was a god: 1
HP: 0
AS: The Force: 1
LS: 0

(6) Evil forces attempt to kill the infant or boy hero, but
Zeus: Kronos had swallowed his older 5 brothers and sisters, and wanted to do the same to him: 1
HP: Lord Voldemort tried to kill him when he was a baby: 1
AS: 0
LS: No hint of that: 0

(7) he is spirited away to safety and
Zeus: When Rhea gave birth to him, she gave Kronos a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he then swallowed: 1
HP: He is rescued by Albus Dumbledore and Rubeus Hagrid: 1
AS: 0
LS: When Padmé died after giving birth to him and Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and Beru Organa decided to keep the children safe, because they were sure that Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader would consider them a threat: 1

(8) reared by foster parents in a foreign land. Besides this,
Zeus: In some versions, Rhea took him to a cave in Crete, where he was raised by a goat named Amalthea; other versions are like that: 1
HP: By the Dursleys: 1
AS: 0
LS: Owen and Beru Lars raise him on Tatooine: 1

(9) we learn no details of his childhood until
Zeus: 1
HP: 1
AS: 0
LS: 1

(10) he journeys to his future kingdom, where
Zeus: when he grows up, he confronts Kronos: 1
HP: He gets sent to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: 1
AS: He becomes a Jedi, and eventually a Dark Lord of the Sith: 1
LS: He gradually joins the rebellion against the Empire: 1

(11) he triumphs over the reigning king and
Zeus: He makes Kronos vomit up his brothers and sisters, and he and his fellow third-generation deities fight and defeat Kronos and his fellow second-generation deities: 1
HP: He fights Lord Voldemort several times and eventually defeats him: 1
AS: He gradually takes the side of Chancellor, then Emperor Palpatine: 0
LS: He helps defeat Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine: 1

(12) marries a princess, often his predecessor's daughter, and
Zeus: His sister Hera: 1
HP: The witch Ginevra Molly "Ginny" Weasley: 1
AS: Padmé Amidala: 1
LS: --

(13) becomes king himself.
Zeus: He becomes the ruler of the Universe: 1
HP: He becomes head of the Aurors, an elite unit that hunts down bad sorcerers: 1
AS: He is a major Empire leader: 1
LS: --

(14) For a while he reigns uneventfully,
Zeus: Not as dramatically, and all the way to the present: 1
HP: Apparently so; he and Ginny have three children: 1
AS: Nothing one way or the other: 0
LS: --

(15) promulgating laws. But
Zeus: Yes: 1
HP: He and Ronald Bilius "Ron" Weasley revolutionize the Auror Department and Hermione Jean Granger is high up in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement: 1
AS: Nothing one way or the other: 0
LS: --

(16) he later loses favor with his subjects or with the gods and
Zeus: --
HP: --
AS: On board the new Death Star, Emperor Palpatine encourages Luke Skywalker to take his place: 1
LS: --

(17) is driven from the throne and the city and
Zeus: --
HP: --
AS: He pushes Palpatine down a shaft after Palpatine tortured Luke: 1
LS: --

(18) meets with a mysterious death,
Zeus: --
HP: --
AS: The dying Palpatine explodes in a shower of Force lightning, short-circuiting his suit and killing him: 1
LS: --

(19) often atop a hill.
Zeus: --
HP: --
AS: Does some prominent place in the Death Star count? 1/2
LS: --

(20) If he has children, they do not succeed him.
Zeus: --
HP: --
AS: Neither Luke nor Leia decide to follow the Dark Side of the Force: 1
LS: --

(21) His body is not buried, yet
Zeus: --
HP: --
AS: He is cremated on Endor: 1
LS: --

(22) he has one or more holy sepulchers.
Zeus: --
HP: --
AS: No hint of that: 0
LS: --

Child prodigy?
Zeus: No
HP: No (his "childhood" being his pre-Hogwarts years)
AS: Yes
LS: No

Prophecy fulfillment?
Zeus: Yes, he overthrew Kronos, fulfilling a prophecy that Kronos had learned about and tried to thwart by swallowing his children.
HP: Lord Voldemort learns from Severus Snape that a certain Sybill Patricia Trelawney had prophesied in a job interview that someone capable of defeating the "Dark Lord" will soon be born. That someone was Harry Potter.
AS: Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn was convinced that he was the "Chosen One" of Jedi prophecy "who will bring balance to the Force," and George Lucas has claimed that he had fulfilled that prophecy by destroying the Sith: Palpatine and himself.
LS: No prophecies related to him.

Scores:
Zeus: 13.5/15
Harry Potter: 12/15
Anakin Skywalker: 11/22
Luke Skywalker: 7/13

The scores of Zeus, Harry Potter, and Luke Skywalker are for only part of their lives, because the canons for all three characters end with them being alive and well.

Maybe I should also calculate Leia Organa's score, but her biography closely parallels Luke's, except for her not engaging in hand-to-hand combat with either Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine.

GakuseiDon

Why?

Rick Sumner

The problem with your use of Luke and Anakin is that by the time we get the tale of Anakin, the motivation and source for Luke's story is being fundamentally changed.

Star Wars Ep. IV-VI is essentially a retelling of The Wizard of Oz. The Tinman (3P0) is the coward, the Lion (Chewy) lacks a brain, and the Wizard (Yoda) is a wizard posing as a humbug instead of a humbug posing as a Wizard, but ultimately Luke is still Dorothy Gale in outer space.

By the time Lucas brings us to Anakin's story, that retelling isn't the goal anymore. Everything in Ep. I-III is apocryphal to Luke's "hero's quest." Using it is akin to using the Infancy of Thomas to define the "hero's quest" of Jesus, which, for example, takes the Padme card away from Luke (though I'm puzzled as to how you missed that evil forces were after infant Luke--it's why he was hidden).

To carry it out, Luke needs to stand on eps. IV-VI, because that's where his "hero's quest" is. Lest someone object that his reliance on Dorothy negates my next point (both of them being the same "hero,") I'd ask the reader to bear in mind that most of Jesus' points come where he is being intentionally modelled on earlier characters as well.

The bigger problem here is that Luke and Dorothy are precisely the type of heroes that Raglan's looking for. So why do they score so much lower? What if we tweak the settings a little? What if, for example, we add a point for those who were raised by someone other than their parents (one could add bunches of such provisos). Now we give Luke and Dorothy higher scores. Does that mean we've improved the scale, because we've included more of the heroes Raglan had in mind?

Of course it doesn't. It makes it arbitrary. Which Raglan's is too. Ultimately what he's done is grabbed some heroes, found some similarities between the narratives, and ascribed a point to each.

But, as we see with Luke or Dorothy, if we grab different heroes, the results are different. So if I created a scale with, for example, Luke, Dorothy and Superman (raised by someone they call their "uncle," raised in a rural area, adoptive parents described as "good" people, it's actually really easy to do), what makes his better?

You point to Harry Potter, or the Skywalkers as though this is a point in your favor, which is missing the criticism and emphasizing the problem. If Raglan's scale can really identify a "mythic hero," why doesn't it do so consistently? Why is it only consistently effective when used to identify "heroes" used in its compilation, or heroes clearly dependent on those used in the compilation?

Patronus Potter

Interesting. I might add that Harry is descended from the one Peverell brother who defeated death, adding to his godly credentials, and that he becomes "master of death" himself.

youngalexander

Wot fun!

However, you may be interested in a more pertinent ref; A New Theory of Myth

Quite a few attempts were undertaken in the past to call attention to the similarities and parallels between aspects of the life of Jesus and the life of Hercules. There were Emil Ackermann, Theodor Birt and Friederich Pfister. Pfister listed according to Aune (1990:11) twenty-one parallels. Then there was Arnold Toynbee who found twenty-four points of correspondence between the Jesus of the gospel and the Hercules of Greek legend. These findings suggest that the legend of Hercules may be an important common source from which the story of Jesus on the one hand and the stories of the pagan historical heroes on the other may have derived some of their common features (Aune 1990:13). Aune (1990:14) suggested several Christological traditions in The Letter to the Hebrews that exhibit themes and motifs that are associated with ancient conceptions of Hercules.
One of these conceptions is the title son of God. Both Jesus and Hercules are called the son of God. Both filled the role of a high priest who through prayer was as a helper and giver of strength and grace to people in the difficulties of life. Both were obedient to God/Zeus, and although the notion of resurrection is largely absent from Hercules’ legends, the notion that he was raised to Olympus with divine status was an integral part of the Hercules myth (Aune 1990:19). For both, death and ascension to heaven resulted in deification.

Aune, D E 1990. Heracles and Christ: Heracles imagery in the Christology of early Christianity, in Balch, D L, Ferguson, E & Meeks, W A (eds), Greeks, Romans, and Christians: Essays in honor of Abraham J Malherbe (or via: amazon.co.uk), 2-19. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

Seems to impress the Art Historians. Indeed, in 4th C imagery, both Jesus & Heracles have common features.

chieftain

I'm sorry, but this is rubbish. The motivation for Star Wars IV is fairly explicitly a retelling of Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress in outer space. As such it follows the Raglan criteria pretty closely (and the similar Joseph Campbell stages). For more information, see the book of the scripts, in which the development of the original story is detailed.

The robots are actually copies of the two bumbling servants from Kurosawa's film, not anything from Oz. But of course you're right in thinking that both films come from the same hero archetype in the end.

Rick Sumner

Huh. Go figure.

http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/dial/oz/femoztax.html
http://www.spookybug.com/origins/oz.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wa...IV:_A_New_Hope

Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill have both commented on how obvious the story's dependence on The Wizard of Oz was. So, for that matter, have many, many reviewers. The sites linked to above detail some of the striking similarities. Lest you think I'm poisoning the well, here's one that takes the converse:

http://www.decentfilms.com/sections/...wars4_cap.html

Interestingly, it suggests that they are both Americanizations of other folktales--they have a common source, not direct dependence (Sandmel would be proud).

Lest you get the wrong impression, I don't mean to suggest that The Hidden Fortress didn't influence Lucas.

In either event, if we're in agreement that they're essentially forms of American myth, it really doesn't matter whether we agree on their direct dependence or not. They're mythic heroes that Raglan's scale fails to catch.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Clivedurdle

But did anyone notice the scribal error Dursley that of course should read Durdle?

lpetrich

I wanted to see how well some additional sorts of characters fit Lord Raglan's profile. It must be admitted that Zeus was one of Lord Raglan's inputs, so it's not surprising that he is a high scorer.

However, Harry Potter and the Skywalkers are characters of fantasy universes that have captured many peoples' imaginations, so I decided to see how well they fit.

Harry Potter's good fit may be a reason that the fundies are indignant at the his serie; he represents competition for them on their own turf. It's like how they got indignant at The Da Vinci Code.

But given that both Harry Potter and the Skywalkers are recent creations, their authors could easily have learned of many previous mythologies, and apparently George Lucas had done exactly that with Joseph Campbell's work.

As to youngalexander on Hercules and Jesus Christ in the Roman Empire, something similar could well have happened back then also. The early Xian apologist Justin Martyr had noted similarities back then also, though he decided that pagan similarities to Xian things had been invented by the Devil to keep people away from the One True Religion.

jeremyp

I haven't read any of this thread because I do intend to read the last book.

If there are spoilers in it with respect to the last book, could somebody edit the title to say so.