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Spoiler Alert! // Ian Blair

 Roman mythology overall seems to have been set up as a solid mythical world with all types of stories that could be told in the world's setting. However, this does not exclude the fact that by including predestination in describing the nature of the soul, poets like Homer and Virgil have royally screwed themselves out of creating any suspense about the outcome of the hero's journey. Let me explain in further detail; in Book VI of The Aeneid, Aeneas' journey throughout the underworld highlights a specific passage that just blatantly reveals Aeneas' future descendants:

"Turn your two eyes This way and see this people, your own Romans. Here is Caesar, and all the line of Iulus, All who shall one day pass under the dome Of the great sky: this is the man, this one, Of whom you have heard the promise, Caesar Augustus, son of the deified, Who shall bring once again an Age of Gold To Latium. . . Numa, the king, Who will build early Rome on a base of laws . . . After him Comes Tullus, breaker of his country's peace . . ." (Virgil 187-188).

I hate to expose my cinemasins fandom like this, but isn't revealing the lineage of Aeneas to the reader, along with confirming that some souls are "fated" to enter the physical life again (Virgil 186) the number one thing a storyteller does NOT want to do? I mean, how entertaining would it be if Darth Vader was revealed to be Luke's father before The Empire Strikes Back first hit theaters? It would rob audiences of virtually the most iconic plot twist in history, and deeply sour the reputation of later movies in the franchise. I understand wanting to keep continuity with Homer and other poets like him who set up this mythological world, but I can only hope that Virgil's redraft of The Aeneid would not have included this letdown of a moment in the plot line. 


p.s. I commented on Caroline's and Rachael's posts.

Comments

  1. Braylan StringfellowNovember 16, 2020 at 9:07 PM

    I agree that Virgil could have done a better job at this. No one likes spoiler alerts and Virgil basically did one in his own book.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jessef LeslieNovember 17, 2020 at 4:24 PM

    I agree and for the Romans it seems that “fate” was not always set in stone. So his destiny isn't a full spoil because it can be altered by the gods. Also, the end of this story was known by the Romans already and was therefore less of a spoiler.

    ReplyDelete

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