If All the Stories Have Been Told, Why Do We Still Need to Hear Them?

My entire philosophy of art in two handy quotes.

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.
— G. K. Chesterton

Art’s highest purpose is to comfort and encourage the weary and the frightened, to uplift the downhearted. We follow the story of the hero as everything that matters is taken from him. Maybe all he really loses is hope (and that’s bad enough). When he’s on the resurgence in Act III, we know we can come back from whomever or whatever puts us down, too.

There are many sculptures of Heracles versus the Hydra. This one is in Denmark. Imagine all those snake heads as hungry zombies and we’ve updated the story of one man versus all manner of bad craziness.

That is, if it’s well and convincingly written. Maybe you could sculpt a statue of someone performing a mighty deed, Heracles and the Hydra-style. Or paint something so serenely beautiful as to soothe our last surviving nerves from work. I want to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me, goes a line to a popular song from a few decades back. Show us it’s possible to at least manage that pain, too, if you don’t mind. Or at least give us a dank, sticky three-chord riff to make us forget it for two and a half minutes.

Most of all, we want to know we can all make it if we just hang in there and take that final stand. Sometimes all the hero has to do is show up before the bad guy, thinking he’s got nothing left to lose but his life, and what do you know? He sees this thing here, that thing there, he hears an inflection in his antagonist’s voice. A memory surfaces, something someone said. He sees his shot. He takes it.

And if this guy could do it....

“I shall rebuild...somewhere else. The Zorgons hit this place pretty hard, by the looks of it.”

We have art so that we may not perish from truth. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The Neetch was snarking here, but there’s another level to this besides “we have art because we can’t handle the truth.” At least according to how I choose to interpret it, and it’s debatable whether Nietzsche would appreciate my interpretation. I’m aware I’m turning his line inside out, but I stand by my variation, which is We have art so that we know we are not alone.

Every hero in every story you ever see has a Darkest Hour. By this point it’s been one disappointment, one failed plan after another. We’ve lost people, we’ve been betrayed, every move we make is on someone else’s metaphorical chessboard and we’re eternally in check.

There’s some downtime involved here as the hero sulks in silence, wondering whether to proceed at all. Either new information comes to light, or he decides to go out swinging despite the overwhelming odds. Either way, we’re encouraging those in their own private darknesses not to make any rash decisions. Wait either for the new information, or the resolve not to give your enemies the satisfaction. A lot of times that new information—a revealed weakness, or weapon, the cavalry, etc.—comes up in the course of our hero taking those final swings. 

However it plays out, evil falls. The hero overcomes.

As per Chesterton’s quote about the dragons, we know the dragons can be slain. Here, we know we require these stories that we may not perish from refusing to disregard the odds. The numbers never lie, but a good heart can sometimes change the equation. What Chesterton understood as the power of a valiant spirit, Nietzsche would recognize as self-interested will unfettered by the slave moralities of timorousness and terror. 

Whatever you want to call it. These are my stories, and I’m sticking to them.