An Aside about Typology
Following on a comment from a friend about how I am observant in interpreting
the myths and songs as about the current story:
Yeah, Ygritte's storytelling was clearly
just about setting up "types" for the current generation to
fulfill. [explain.] There is this whole genre of bible study,
"typology." It's all about interpreting Old Testament
stories and prophecies as prefiguring Christ. [Various examples given,
use your Googles. Isaac overthrowing the older brother Ishmael is a
"type" for Christ overthrowing the Old Covenant. It's relatively
out-of-fashion these days, partly because it lacks deep engagement with
what the texts actually say in favor of forced parallels to a particular
theology, but it's profoundly influential on Christian theology and
Biblical interpretation as a whole, even when you'd rather ignore it.]
Anyway, whenever people in fantasy books
tell old stories and legends it is almost always for the sole purpose
of doing typology (or giving an unfulfilled prophecy for someone to
fulfill). See, for example, all the prefaces in
The Belgariad. Tolkein and CS Lewis were both
SUPER-typological in their understanding of the Gospels, and they
both wrote fantasy epics with the Gospels in mind. Both of them used
past history in
their epics to prefigure the heroism of the hero. Presumably that's how
fantasy turns
typology into such a trope, above and beyond the part where you
don't tell past stories unless they're relevant to your present
novel. Someone should pull a thesis or two out of this: Do the
typological tendencies of SFF enter the genre primarily via imitation of
Tolkein and Lewis, or are there other vectors? Is SFF in other
western languages as fully typological as in English?
Discuss.
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