Problematic Myths and the People Who Love Them

I grew up on d'Aulaire's Greek myths. My father brought it back from the library one day when I was about five or six, and my initial attempts to sound out the phenomenally impossible word "Aphrodite" sent my mom into well-muffled hysterics. (The best I could do, before she took mercy on me and corrected me, was "uh-PRO-fa-deet." And now you know.) The pictures were gorgeous, the stories were entrancing, and I wanted to be Artemis or Atalanta when I grew up. More recently, my boyfriend introduced me to the d'Aulaire book of Norse myths, which is just as awesome and explained a lot of things that confused me about the Norse gods. Safe to say, I'm a fan.

But reading those myths when I was seven, and again when I was seventeen, were two very different things. The d'Aulaires took great pains to avoid the word "mistress," even and especially when it was applicable. Zeus had a ridiculous number of "wives." Odin's seduction of Gunnlod, the mother of his son Bragi, god of bards, is hinted at but

Odin and Gunnlod, Ingri and Edgar d'Aulaire

never outright stated. (The story itself, in which Odin drinks up all three of her kettles of precious mead, then leaves her to weep beside her lost treasure, is suggestive enough.) The d'Aulaires told you that Aphrodite was in love with Ares, but I never learned the tale of Hephaestus catching them in flagrante - in a net, for maximum humor - until I was a teenager. Thor is outraged at the cutting of his wife Sif's hair not because she has awesome hair, but because a woman with shorn hair is branded a whore. It took a long time for me to realize that Daphne and Syrinx flee from Apollo and Pan because they're threatened with rape, rather than an awkward proposal of marriage.

Loki, Ingri and Edgar d'Aulaire

Odin, Ingri and Edgar d'Aulaire

And not even the d'Aulaires could
whitewash out the incredible sexual tension between Odin and Loki. They're attracted to each other at first sight. They mingle their blood. They swear fidelity. Odin even offers Loki a lovely, patient goddess as his beard. (Poor Sigunn also winds up as the beard for Loki's other marriage to the ogress Angerboda, mother of Hel, Fenris, and the Midgard Serpent. My guess is, safe and loving didn't do much for Loki's libido.)

I was shocked when I first read a kids' version of Edith Hamilton and asked my parents what "out of wedlock" meant. "But I thought Zeus was married to all his wives," I said. My long-suffering mother gently made clear that this was a polite fiction. And one of the great building blocks of my imaginative life began to shift. Zeus was no longer a responsible if reckless husband. He was a cad, a seducer, a thoughtless pig who cared more about the kids he sired than the women who bore them, and about his own fun most of all. The king of the gods, came the awful thought, was a jerk. And in that case, why was he the king? Why should I root for such a careless user?

The Abduction of Persephone,
Ingri and Edgar d'Aulaire

The floodgates had been opened, and the rush of criticism was impossible to stop. Hera gained a lot more of my sympathy. I stopped trying to excuse Aphrodite on account of her beauty. Hades and Persephone became one of my favorite couples for the simple reason that he was faithful to her. Suddenly the gods had faults, huge gaping faults of personality and behavior. Their humanity - the squabbles, the contests, the grousing - had been charming before. Now it became deeply problematic. The gods were worse than most people I knew. They acted with impunity, taking whatever they wanted and only offering an explanation if they felt like it. (Often those explanations were woefully inadequate. I've never been able to get behind the transformation of Niobe into a stone, just to shut up her crying. Especially since the stone itself keeps crying.)

Freya, Ingri and Edgar d'Aulaire

Other mythologies were equally subject to the criticism of my now-jaded expectations. So what if Freya's married? Her husband's missing, she's the goddess of love, and she has a hall full of strapping warriors. What do you think she's going to do with them? I revisited the tale of Sir Gawain and Lady Ragnell, understanding finally why he couldn't choose whether to have her beautiful by day or by night. I was dismally unsurprised to learn that Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys were all siblings. I'd hoped for better from the Egyptians than from the Greeks, but it was par for the course; gods liked incest. Myths became more important to me for the stories than for the codes of conduct they supported, or even for the reverence of the supernatural that they'd previously made me feel. Why should I revere Zeus the rake, or Loki the asshole, or Osiris the idiot? They didn't practice what they preached; they gleefully ignored their own rules. I enjoyed the stories; it didn't mean I had to like the characters as people.

The Wooing of Gerd, Ingri and Edgar d'Aulaire

Which, I suspect, is exactly why the d'Aulaires did what they did. It's impossible to like or respect some of the choices that the gods make. Hera dooms Semele to a horrific death for sheer spite. Set takes vengeance to an appallingly vindictive level. The wooing of Gerd is an uncomfortable story of dubious consent, with a fertility moral that transforms rape into love. You could list every altruistic act of Loki's on one hand and still have fingers left over. These are awful people: morally corrupt, shamelessly self-serving, and whiny when someone else's underhanded gambit beats theirs. But they are also the core of the world's great stories, most of which wouldn't have happened without the appalling deeds committed by the gods.

So in telling those stories, you have to bowdlerize. You have to leave out the worst of the gods in order to communicate the real wonder and excitement of their stories. Especially when writing for kids, who may be encountering them for the first time, the magic should come first. There's plenty of time later for kids to learn the shades of gray. If you're going to entrance them with the glory of myth, you'd better make it as entrancing as it can be.

The Olympians, Ingri and Edgar d'Aulaire

Because it does lose something. I used to fling myself headlong into those stories, trusting in the awe-inspiring power and beauty of invincible immortals to do the right thing and save the world. I still love those stories, and I've forgiven the gods for not being as perfect as I wanted them to be. But I read them with my tongue in my cheek now. I ask questions; I groan at bad decisions; I mock the gods. I'm not sorry that I learned to think and doubt, but sometimes I miss the way it used to be. And I'm hugely grateful to the d'Aulaires for making me fall so hard for those stories that I can still love them even after I learned the truth.

Life After Troy

The Burning of Troy, Francisco Collantes

Part of the sheer fascination we've always had with the Trojan War is its unbelievable death toll. The Iliad spends a whole chapter naming all the kings, sons of kings, and kings' lieutenants who sailed to Troy, only to describe in equally loving detail the manners of their deaths a chapter or so later. Morbid? Of course. But magnetic.

And it explains why imagination clings so desperately to those lucky few who make it out alive. Odysseus, Aeneas, Cassandra (for a while), Andromache, the house of Atreus - all are names to conjure with. They're the survivors. Be it luck, courage, or determination, they were still standing at the end. They're the ones we want to know more about.

But there's a very distinct line drawn even among the survivors. It's apparently not enough to survive a ten-year siege of nonstop brutality. The survivors who live past the war are the ones who get as far from the war as they possibly can.

Captive Andromache, Frederic Leighton

This dooms most of the women from the start. Women's fortunes in ancient Greece were tied directly to their men and their city. When both those mainstays disappear, the women have no status anymore. Andromache suffers the humiliation of slavery and gets lusted after by the son of the man who killed her

Ajax and Cassandra,
Solomon J. Solomon

husband. Cassandra - princess, priestess, and prophet - is raped by two Greek commanders and murdered as collateral damage in Clytemnestra's vengeance. (An alternate version lets her run away to start a new line, but while I'd love to believe it - Cassandra's one of my Iliad favorites - I can envision a bloodthirsty Clytemnestra mowing down everyone in her path much more easily than I can see an escape for Cassandra.) Hecuba, powerless to save her husband or her children, gets claimed as a slave by Odysseus, which means that unless she was on the ship he himself left Troy in, it's very likely that she drowned en route to Ithaca. Only Helen manages to be female and in a safe place by the end of the war, and even her peace comes through depressing self-slander. Women in a society shaped by fighting men have very few tools for forging their own paths beyond destruction.

Even among the men, it's tough to break away from the defining episode of their lives. Agamemnon is most obviously tripped by

Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, Pierre-Narcisse Guerin

it, and through his death his entire family becomes accessory to the destruction of the Trojan War. Ajax of Locris earns the enmity of Athena when he rapes Cassandra inside her temple; his prideful refusal to atone, or to acknowledge the power of the gods, is so outrageous that Athena and Poseidon put aside their own feud to tag-team on drowning Ajax. Menelaus jumps at the chance to relive the war when Telemachus comes to visit. In the guise of telling the young man about his unknown father, he journeys back to the thrill of war, something he's evidently missed in the past ten years of domestic calm. Keep in mind here that Menelaus is by far the most successful, of the men who get back to Greece, in living beyond the war. Even he can't get over it.

Ulysses and the Sirens, Roman mosaic, 3rd century CE

What about Odysseus, you say? Well, sure, Odysseus is really good at making his own life. The Odyssey is arguably more famous than the Iliad. And he does indeed return home, to where his loving wife and valiant son await him. But don't forget that it takes him ten years to get home, on top of the ten years he spent fighting at Troy. Don't forget that one stupid remark to Poseidon's Cyclops son dogs him throughout those ten years. And don't forget - however much you might want to - that tradition, if not Homer, sends him on still further journeys after his return to Ithaca. Odysseus' success in shaking off the Trojan War wakes in him a wanderlust that he cannot ignore. He all but creates the archetype of the restless wanderer, searching for something new and different. His life is big enough to contain the war and his own travels, but one snares him as completely as the other snares the women.

Aeneas and Dido, Pierre-Narcisse Guerin

And then there's Aeneas. Flat-out awesome in the Iliad, with no ending given him by tradition, he gets co-opted into a spectacular piece of poetic propaganda written to justify the Roman Empire. He's the only one who gets a truly happy ending: his journey done, his quest fulfilled, his line and city firmly founded. Like Odysseus, he has rough seas to sail; unlike Odysseus, he knows what he's looking for and when he's found it. In one sense, of course Aeneas triumphs in the creation of a life free of the Trojan War; the rise of Augustus Caesar demands the legitimation that only Aeneas can provide. But even within the story, as a character, Aeneas tries harder than anyone to break free. He may be haunted by his failure to save his wife from Troy, but it doesn't stop him from falling in love with Dido or marrying Lavinia. Offered the chance to call it quits and rule Carthage, he refuses. He clings to his search for a new city, far from his home, precisely because it is the only way to escape Troy. He creates his own life on his own terms, refusing to be defined by the war, and he alone manages to get a satisfying happily ever after. (It's telling, too, that in the happy-ending alternate version of Cassandra's fate, she also finds a home and a life far beyond Troy or the Greek city-states. Getting out of Dodge is the only way to escape.)

The Trojan War is a paradigm-breaker. It's massive, spanning generations and continents; its consequences define "far-reaching." It makes sense that a world trying to patch itself back together in the image of the past is a world doomed to failure. Aeneas and Odysseus are the only ones who realize the impossibility of going home after the breaking of the world, and only Aeneas realizes it in time.

Too Much of Water

Oh, dear. It looks like you've got a tragic heroine on your hands. Well, there's only one thing to do with her: get her to the nearest body of water and dump her in.

Ophelia, John Everett Millais

It's really astounding how many tragic heroines die by water. You'd think there was a handbook or something. Elaine, Ophelia, Hero, Helle - their deaths are all intimately associated with water. Helle's is particularly egregious, as the only purpose she serves in her entire story is to fall off the Ram with the Golden Fleece while he's flying over an ocean. Her brother, also riding the Ram, survives to found a royal line, but his sister just drops into the sea like someone cued her. She exists to drown. I smell a thematic necessity.

The Lady of Shalott, John William Waterhouse

It's fairly obvious at first glance why water, of all four traditional elements, is so closely identified with women. Shakespeare spells it out when Laertes mourns his sister. "Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia," he chokes out upon hearing of her death, "and therefore I forbid my tears." Women cry; tears are water; water is a woman's element. That makes it especially appropriate for heroines foiled in love, like Ophelia and Elaine; death by water is as good as a signed confession of love. "I drowned in the tears I shed for my lover." The Lady of Shalott dispenses even with Elaine's farewell letter; she only needs to drift down to Camelot on the river for everyone to understand that she has died for love. The symbolism of a woman in water is universal.

Hero, William Henry Rinehart

And then there's the nature of these women's characters. Water-deaths are generally performed by women who lack control of their lives. Ophelia is hounded from pillar to post by father, brother, lover and king, until her suicide becomes her only act of agency in the entire play. Hero is first aggressively wooed by Leander, then sits in her tower and lights a lamp and waits for him to swim to shore. The several Elaines in Arthurian legend make it murky which, precisely, is the one who dies for love of Lancelot, but in some versions she's not even the spunky rapist who gives birth to Galahad; in these, she tends his wound, gets summarily rejected, pines for him, and expires right after demurely stage-managing her own death to give it the proper emotional punch. And the Lady of Shalott (who I differentiate from all the zillion Elaines because, after all, Tennyson never names her, and "Shalott" is not "Astolat") is the saddest of them all, locked in her tower by the whispered threat of a curse, and doomed to death in the very moment she truly experiences life. These are women more acted upon than acting, for whom the cool calm of a watery death seems fitting.

The Death of Dido, Peter Paul Rubens

Compare them to, say, Dido, another suicide for love. But she dies by fire, and therein lies all the difference. Dido is fire; she's passionate, headstrong, determined, and impulsive. She's not the kind of woman who could float from Carthage to Rome with a passive-aggressive scroll of farewell in her languid dead hands. There is nothing passive about her. When she goes out, she makes damn sure that everyone in the vicinity knows about it. She even goes the extra mile and stabs herself on her own funeral pyre, proving her courage and her recklessness - and starting the bitter feud of Rome and Carthage at the same time. All that makes her far more intimidating than an Elaine or an Ophelia. Dido, the suicide by fire, is a dangerous femme fatale. In comparison, the other tragic heroines are far easier to swallow. They don't wreak havoc; they don't die in a grand operatic manner; they have the decency to shuffle off quietly and modestly, without causing too much fuss and drama for their menfolk. Water is acceptable; fire is, well, fire. And sensible women, even tragic heroines, don't play with fire.

Ophelia, Fernando Vazquez

But, as always, there's more to the story. Water isn't just smooth and serene. Its depths are invisible and ominous; the calm surface covers the roiling underneath. In the same way that fire provides a key to Dido's character, water tells us everything we need to know about what's really going on in the heads of the drowned heroines. These aren't emo girls who feel the need to proclaim their heartbreak at the top of their lungs. They keep everything inside, undercover, out of sight - but it doesn't mean it's not there. Sometimes it breaks free, as in Ophelia's madness; sometimes it provides a poignant emphasis to the heroine's tragic fate, like the Lady of Shalott "singing in her song" as she dies. And sometimes it drives a quiet, secretive girl like Hero to the drastic act of flinging herself out of her tower.

The water suicides make it too easy for us to take them, as we take their element, at surface value. Drama queens like Dido get all the attention, while the Ophelias and Elaines sit quietly by, holding their emotions in. But those emotions are still there. They ruffle the surface. And they offer some answers to the mysteries of these heroines.

The Problem With Gawain

I have a problem. It's very serious. Ladies and gentlemen, I confess to you all that I am a Gawainaholic.

You wouldn't think it would really be a problem. Gawain's one of the shining stars of Camelot. He has more adventures than anyone but Lancelot, and his pedigree is better than that French interloper's, anyway. His marriage to Lady Ragnell is one of the great love stories of the whole cycle, and unlike most of the others it even has a happy ending. He's there at the beginning, and he lasts almost until the bitter end.

Sir Gawaine Finds the Beautiful Lady, Howard Pyle

But while those are among the many reasons why I love Gawain, there are also the inevitable issues of character continuity in a story cycle tweaked over centuries with no initial canon. The interpretation of my favorite knight's character runs the gamut from dreamy ideal knight to dimwitted oaf to bloody avenger. It's very hard to reconcile the bold idealist of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" with the end of Malory, when Gawain pursues vengeance against Lancelot even when it costs his life and the security of Arthur's rule. Even allowing for the inevitable jading of a youth as he matures, that is a huge change in personality from the kid who's heartbroken when he fails to do the right thing. Later variations of the Loathly Lady story even impose a random separation between Gawain and Ragnell, where she leaves him after a certain number of years because she "must." (There is no truly official Arthurian canon - even Malory wrote long after the legends had mutated beyond any original form - so I ignore this nonsense utterly. In my Arthuriana, Gawain and Ragnell live happily ever after forever.)

It's pretty easy to see where this change happens. The instant Lancelot comes on the scene, everyone else gets massively downgraded. It makes sense, of course; the greatest knight in the world is going to trounce everyone else in everything, be it chivalry, honor, or feats of arms. He's the greatest for a reason. But Gawain takes the brunt of that hit. He doesn't just lose prestige at court, he loses character depth. The day before Lancelot arrived, he was upstanding, honorable, valiant, and badass. By the next morning, he becomes crass, boastful, and kind of an idiot.

Hey, French troubadours! I'll still like your character even if he's not the only nice guy in the bunch. I PROMISE, OKAY?

Orkney Princes, LilyBotanica

It's also no coincidence that in his later, less glorious years, Gawain is deeply identified with the rest of his siblings, the bold and problematic Orkney princes. The children of the traitorous Morgause and Lot turn out very flawed (with the exception of Gareth, who of course is Lancelot's best friend and of course gets accidentally killed, which provides the reason for Gawain's loss of reason at the end of his life). Agravain is generally seen as all bad, mainly because he hangs out with Mordred, who's also in a way part of the Orkney brood. Gareth is a sweetheart, Gawain often a blustering bruiser, Gaheris a nonentity who can go either way. But despite their many good points (not least of which is their loyalty to Arthur), the Orkney princes are instrumental in the downfall of Camelot. Gaheris (or on occasion Agravain) ropes his brothers into a blood feud with their mother's lover, which results in the death of Lamorak and the exiling of a few of the Orkney princes. Gareth's death at rage-blinded Lancelot's hands shatters what goodwill is

The Joust, Mariusz Kozik

left, driving Gawain to an obsessive quest for revenge that pits Arthur against Lancelot, sends Guinevere to a nunnery, and leaves Britain undefended when Mordred makes his move. You'd think we'd have heard something about Gawain's intensely close relationships with his brothers before - you know, a touching farewell when he heads off to face the Green Knight, or a bawdy commiseration as he prepares to marry hideous Lady Ragnell - but no. Gawain is a lone wolf when heroic. And all his less-than-heroic deeds tie directly back to the demands of his family when they do decide to pop up.

The Green Knight, Julek Heller

I blame a lot of Gawain's character deterioration on the troubadours who wanted to puff up Lancelot. With the exception of the doomed love for his queen, Lancelot just acquired wholesale most of Gawain's heroic traits: the solitude on a quest for honor, the widely acknowledged superiority of strength and will, even the reputation for heedless acts of courage. But that's not fair to Lancelot, who's very much a character in his own right.

It's much more interesting to look at Gawain as the embodiment of Camelot, in microcosm. At first, young and on his own, he achieves incredible glory through his own bravery and resolve. He basks in the glow of his accomplishments without resting on his laurels, building a reputation for honor as his fame spreads. And it's through the direct intervention of familial ties, that the seeds are sown for his downfall.

I don't know about you guys, but that sounds a lot like Arthur, and the course of Camelot itself, to me.

Not that it's intentional. I don't think the storytellers shaped Gawain's tale like this on purpose. It's far more likely that they realized they'd forgotten about their initial Best Knight and pulled him back in for the climax, disregarding his early characterization. But I also don't think it's an accident that Gawain is destroyed by his devotion to his family, just as Arthur (and Camelot by extension) is destroyed by his son's betrayal. At its core, the Death of Arthur is a dysfunctional family drama played out on a world stage. As Arthur's nephew, Gawain is implicated in that drama and doomed by it.

It all comes down to family. The youthful idealism of the beginning is broken by the betrayal of kin at the end. It holds true for every member of Arthur's family. But Gawain, who has a place with the heroes as well as with the villains, is the only one whose life mirrors the trajectory of Arthur's kingdom.

Dragonslaying for Fame and Profit

When you get right down to it, there's one surefire way to become a hero. It's better than saving a king. It's more impressive than marrying a princess (although that often comes with the territory). It's basically guaranteed to cement you in our imagination forever.

Because only a true hero can slay a dragon.

Shadow over Mystara, Capcom

We could all recite this story in our sleep. Dragon terrorizes kingdom, king promises his daughter to whoever kills dragon, only the hero succeeds. It's a winning scenario for everyone: the king's subjects get to live without fear of being devoured, the king has his kingdom back plus a worthy successor, the princess gets to marry a hero, and said hero gets his courage and skill handsomely rewarded. But the weird thing is, that's only part of the story.

Heroes, like all the rest of us, have to work up to glory. Very few charge off the homestead and slay a dragon on their first try. Despite its position as the best way to become a hero, dragonslaying more often actually comes later in a hero's career, cementing his heroism rather than being the first proof of it.

Perseus and Andromeda, Drakenza Kimpel

Take Perseus, my personal favorite of all the Greek heroes for his combination of asskicking and being a decent human. By the time he meets his dragon, he's already accomplished the heroic feat for which he's famous: he's killed Medusa, and has her head in a bag at his side when he meets cute with Andromeda. Undaunted by the battle he literally just won (and probably psyched at the thought of rescuing a gorgeous naked princess), Perseus promptly dispatches the sea serpent sent to eat Andromeda. Some versions have him slice the monster up with his sword; others have him cleverly use the killer trophy from his last fight in a very dramatic display of his already-established heroism. And while Andromeda chained to the rock is the iconic image of a damsel in distress, Perseus' killing of the sea serpent is very much secondary, even in the story, to his killing of Medusa. It's the head of Medusa, not of the serpent, that he brandishes when he returns home.

There's also Rama, an unquestioned hero long before he runs into his dragon. Like Perseus, he doesn't even need one. He's endured baseless exile and a life of hardship with incredible grace and goodwill. He's also clearly a great person, because both his wife and his younger brother accompany him into exile of their own will, despite Rama's pleading with them to protect themselves and stay in their cushy palace. Not enough yet? Well, there's also the matter of his entire kingdom mourning his loss because they know he'd be a fantastic king, or his other younger brother Bharata (whose jealous mother orchestrated the whole wrongful-exile thing) refusing to claim the rights due to a crown prince. Bharata actually tracks Rama down in exile just to apologize in person for his mother, and to assure Rama that he himself is just keeping Rama's place open for when he returns. The Ramayana is chock-full of awesome people being awesome. And even in this land of paragons, they all respect Rama most. Dude is a hero. No question.

So although the capture and rescue of his wife Sita forms one of the great set-pieces of the whole epic, it's never necessary for proving Rama's heroism. It's certainly moving that he follows Sita's trail all the way to a demon kingdom, and it's very impressive that he fights a demon king (whose ten heads push the same dragon-alert buttons as, say, the Hydra, or the Yamata no Orochi) to reclaim the woman who's been faithful to him all this time. But it's not by any means the first hint we get that Rama is a hero. At this point - near the end of the Ramayana, just before Rama gets called back home to become king - it's icing on the cake. It's actually made even better by the fact that we know very well that Rama rocks. We're not wondering in the slightest who will win this fight; we're munching popcorn and cheering Rama on.

Susano-o Fighting the Yamata no Orochi, superspacemonkey

Whether in legend or in Spenser, Saint George's dragon-slaying follows a slew of other heroic acts (and isn't even the final capper in The Faerie Queene, which has him still questing after he defeats the dragon and marries Una). Susano-o beats the Yamata no Orochi, a monstrous eight-headed dragon, by a combination of trickery and swordplay, but Susano-o is a storm god who previously made his sister's necklace give birth to five men; he has no desperate need to prove his power. And for Siegfried, killing a dragon is just one of many stepping-stones (although not the first) to his most famous deed: the wooing of Brunnhild, a formidable warrior regardless of whether she's a Valkyrie or just an incredibly strong mortal. We remember them because they killed dragons, but that's hardly all they did.

The Fall of Beowulf, Devin Maupin

And then there's Beowulf. His fight with a dragon, far from making his name, is the fight that kills him. When he meets his dragon, he's old but still powerful. He killed Grendel and his mother long ago. He's ruled his people for years, largely because of the fame and prestige he won in those two battles. But he takes on the dragon anyway, partly because he's the king and knows how these things work, but also partly because he knows very well that he's a hero. And heroes fight dragons. It's inevitable that he will die in this fight - you didn't really think an asskicker like Beowulf would go in his sleep, did you? - but it's also his final act of heroism to face the dragon himself, taking very literally the king's task to defend his people. When he and the dragon kill each other (with Beowulf getting a much-needed assist from his one loyal warrior, Wiglaf), it's a truly fitting death: the monster and the monster-slayer destroying each other. The fight with the dragon provides the final affirmation of Beowulf's heroism in risking (and losing) his life to protect his subjects.

Saint George and the Dragon, Trina Schart Hyman

So nowhere, really, is the slaying of a dragon the ultimate proof of heroism. But in each case, it is a watershed moment in each hero's career. Perseus wins a wife; Rama claims his crown; Beowulf goes out in a blaze of glory. Maybe the reason it's become so obvious a path to heroism is because slaying a dragon marks a change in a hero's life. Nothing is the same after a fight with a dragon. There's always an upgrade of some kind.

Killing a dragon isn't usually the first time the hero proves his heroism. But it is usually the first moment he gets the trappings and rewards of a hero. And that speaks very eloquently to a culture searching for a deed that defines heroism.

The King's Evolution

What happened to King Arthur? One minute he's a young warrior king who can pull swords out of rocks and anvils, the next he's stuck shuffling papers in some keep while his wife dallies with his best friend. That is one serious midlife crisis.

And it happens very abruptly, too. The first quarter, at least, of any Arthurian cycle revolves around the once and future king himself: his conception, his fostering, his coming-of-age via sword trick, his defeat of the rival kings, his marriage to Guinevere, and his creation of the Round Table knights.

The Sword in the Stone, Rodney Matthews

Then all of a sudden it's about the knights, each one getting a day in the limelight. Gawain, Percival, Balin and Balan, Kay, Gareth, and of course Lancelot, each with his own quests, successes and failures, which they dutifully report on back at Camelot. Where Arthur's

King Arthur, Winchester
Round Table

sitting, presiding over feasts and refusing to eat until he sees marvels and all that jazz. Kind of a comedown for a vigorous young king whose early career puts everyone else's to shame.

There's a lot going on in the transition from fighter to lawgiver, from active participant to benevolent presence in the wings. The first factor in play was probably the difficulty legends have with making a legislator a warrior. The archetypal "wise leader" is rarely found making corpses on a battlefield. We remember Hammurabi as the first lawgiver in history, conveniently ignoring the fact that he was a Mesopotamian emperor, which by definition means he kicked ass like nobody's business. Nestor, spouting smart advice Agamemnon rarely heeds, is old and ill suited to hack up Trojans. Ptah, the Egyptian god of creation, also presides over handicrafts, products of peaceful times; Maat, who represents balance and justice, is a woman. Nobody wants their legal system in the hands of a berserker. So for Arthur to take the place he himself has prepared - that of lawgiver to the masses, bringer of peace to a troubled land - he has to become inactive. He can't represent good government while also taking the lead in all quests that come to Camelot. And once it becomes clear that Guinevere will never give him a son, it's all the more important that the king protect his life and not go gallivanting after every Questing Beast and white hart that turns up.

The White Hart, Arthur Rackham

There's also the nature of the mythos itself. Arthurian legend as we know it is a hodgepodge of individual stories collected under one great umbrella. That umbrella is Arthur and his law-forged peace, which wasn't even in some of the stories in their original forms. Latecomers to the mythos - Merlin, Lancelot, Galahad, Tristan and Isolde - are the active and heroic centers of their own stories. There's simply no way to inject Arthur into a tragic tale of star-crossed lovers, especially given its similarity to his own marriage, except to say, "Well, it was happening in Arthur's reign." Merlin's exploits become a prequel and a foreshadowing of Arthur's greater glory; Lancelot can fight for the honor of Queen Guinevere as easily as for any other woman. But their stories are their own. Arthur's peace can bring them all together and give us a tapestry of courtly life, possible only in peace. Without Arthur, they'd be disconnected and blurring together; but his inclusion, although important for the unification of the mythos, is in name only.

And then there's the whole question of courtly love. Let's face it: the husband never comes off well in those stories. It's actually a miracle that Arthur survives his bout with courtly love with an even greater reputation as a friend, lover and king. It would be so easy to turn him into a

Lancelot Brings Guenevere to Arthur, Henry Justice Ford

Mark of Cornwall, obsessed with proving his wife's guilt and stabbing his friend in the back. Instead, facing a scenario tailor-made to break a great man, Arthur proves his greatness of spirit by acknowledging Lancelot and Guinevere's pain at their betrayal of him. He may be the only cuckold in legend with depth. But he's never going to be the hero of this story. That part is always going to go to Lancelot, to the flashy young wooer in love with a woman above his station. The whole notion of courtly love was invented so that character could seem heroic rather than lecherous. Lancelot is a creation of courtly love; the structure of the story requires that he be the hero. It's a testament to the appeal of Arthur as benevolent ruler that the worst he suffers is passivity, rather than character assassination.

So in terms of the mythos' requirements, Arthur has to be deactivated. You could argue that his

time with Merlin is his apprenticeship in learning how to rule from a throne rather than a battlefield, and that Merlin only leaves when Arthur finally learns. But that doesn't mean we have to forget that teenage Arthur led an army against several northern kings and defeated them all to prove his right to the throne, or that his earliest appearances in Welsh legend are all as a great war-leader, or that in the twilight of his reign he still personally led troops to Brittany.

The Two Crowns, Frank Dicksee

We tend to simplify Arthur. He makes it easy for us; he takes so easily to the mantle of lawgiver that we give him no other plaudits. But he's a much more complicated figure than that. He's a gifted warrior who deliberately retreats from the field of glory to concentrate on day-to-day administration. He's a devoted husband and friend who sacrifices his peace of mind to protect the hearts and consciences of the people he loves. He steps back to give other people time to shine, becoming forgotten even in his own story cycle until the end. He's a leader, in every sense of the word. And he shouldn't be put in a neat little box. He's too interesting for that.

Dancing with the Stars

I talk about the Twelve Dancing Princesses quite a bit on this blog. What I haven't yet confessed is that I have a real soft spot for the story, quite beyond the wish-fulfillment fantasy of being a princess who gets to wear spiffy new shoes and dance with a prince every night.

The Soldier, Clive Hicks Jenkins

The unnamed soldier who drives the story is my favorite fairy tale hero. Only the Beast rivals him in my affections. Prince Charming and all his ilk can scram. Give me a tricksy thinker any day of the week.

Why the soldier? Why a nameless late-arrival in a lesser-known fairy tale? Why a guy Disney hasn't supplied with a swoony animated face? Partly for the same reason that Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairy tale: the complexity of his character, hinted at subtly but in every version I've ever heard. And partly because he's just awesome.

The fairy tale canon is stuffed to overflowing with heroes who are heroic because it's what they're supposed to do. Why does Cinderella's prince scour the kingdom for the girl with the tiny feet? Why does Sleeping Beauty's prince brave a gruesome death to save a girl he's never even seen? Why does Aladdin do anything? Because they're heroes. They know what's expected of them just like we do. They read their script, and they're going to perform the hell out of it, and no one needs to ask any questions.

The soldier is different. He's got motivation. He's a commoner who sees a chance to rise in the world - a near-impossible thing, given his position in a society hierarchical enough for the Princesses' father to permit only princes to investigate his daughters. Sometimes I've seen him played or written as wounded, which means his only form of income is gone. In the more draconian versions, where failed candidates get executed, the soldier is literally on his last chance. Solving the Princesses' mystery is the only path to survival open to him.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Anne Anderson

Be honest: in his situation, you'd allow yourself some time to panic, hyperventilate, engage in self-doubt, etc., yes? (I would, too. It's okay.) But this is where the soldier earns his stripes as a hero. He doesn't do any of that. He gets to the palace, persuades the king to let him have a go, and becomes goal-oriented like you wouldn't believe. He's three steps ahead of everyone, including the clever Eldest Princess who's been running circles around the rest of the palace chumps. After successfully tracking the Princesses on the very first night, instead of spilling the beans in a fit of glee, he has the sense to take all his allotted time to gather a whole mess of irrefutable proof. And during the day, he deploys his champion poker face to keep the Princesses from being suspicious, while probably courting them into the bargain (now that he knows he's going to win).

I don't care what you say. He is the textbook definition of cool.

Granted, if all we ever saw him do was track a bunch of girls through the woods at night, I'd be more concerned. But the very first time we meet him, we receive ample proof of his awesomeness. Remember, he's extremely down on his luck. No profession, no money, no prospect of long life and happiness. And yet he shares his lunch with a poor woman who has even less than he does. Was anyone surprised when she turned out to be one of those good witches who crisscrosses Fairy Tale Land rewarding good guys? Those characters exist for people like the soldier: unassuming decent people who just need one push in the right direction to turn their lives around.

Plus, there's that hilarious ending to one of the variants where, given his choice of bride among the Princesses, the soldier picks the Eldest Princess because neither of them are spring chickens and will suit each other best. Clever, pragmatic, and snarky? Sign me up! (Confession: I always think he marries the Eldest Princess anyway, regardless of their ages. The Youngest Princess - who, let's face it, is the only other real option - does nothing but squeal when he steps on her dress. The Eldest Princess is almost as smart and cunning as the soldier himself. They would suit each other best.)

There's just no one quite like him. For wit, quick thinking, sense, and goodness, no hero rivals the soldier. He's a self-made man in a universe that thrives on the status quo. He relies on his own talents and ambition - and of course, the charm that makes people like me fall head over heels for him. He is the complete package, and part of the fun of reading his story is learning just how much he deserves the good fortune that he earns.