Mythos - My Picks

A mythos is something a large number of fictional universes have. Some are more detailed that others, and some are so detailed that they come off as obtuse until adequately explained. In this article, I'll be looking at three chosen fictional universes with extensive background lore. One from the world of books, one from movies/TV, and one from video games.

The first mythos is one I've chosen from one of my favourite authors - that of the Bartimaeus series created by Jonathan Stroud. Spanning the original trilogy and a later prequel novel, the world of the sarcastic Djinn and his human associates and masters is incredibly detailed and expressive. Something to note about this is that it is the product of a single mind, and because of this that one mind is able to cover and control the mythos' content, but you have to admit his skill. Without any contradictions that are easily seen, he tied together a pseudo-magical alternate history where a series of Magician-ruled civilisations rise and are brought down by their own dictatorial power. Also, by telling the story from two and eventually three points of view, he offers a full vision of Britain as the magical ruling power, giving a perspective that many other similar narratives would lack. But is above all the sympathetic tone of the cast that enables a full absorption of this world Stroud created.

In both movies and television, the Star Trek universe is both massive and detailed. Beginning as a series with a tight budget and moralistic finales in the mid-1960s, the series proper has spun-off into six series, ten movies and an ever-growing mountain of additional media. Amazingly, across the series and movies at least, the series' canon and continuity has remained consistent across fifty years despite some dubious actor-based failures in alien or character portrayals. Here the reason is known and clear; a series bible that has been maintained and adhered to right up until the recent movie reboots reset the timeline. Across upwards of three generations, with only occasional drops of clangers, the continuity of race encounters, relations and discoveries has been preserved to the point of obsession. This makes Star Trek one of the most uniform speculative fictional universes in existence.

In television, there isn't a universe to rival Star Trek aside from Doctor Who, which initially ran from 1963 to 1989, before being resurrected as a television movie in 1996, and then revived successfully and running since 2005. One of the main explanations behind the variety and scope is that well over thirty writers have worked on the series during the course of its run. There is also the fact that - as a science fiction universe involving time-space travel - the number of ways and times events could cross is strictly limited by the laws of common sense. That also leads to a question - how the heck do they keep the canon from being riddled with contradictions? Well, it was at one point. But since the advent of the second-to-third incarnations of the Doctor, established lore has been set in place that new and returning writers follow. Writers for the revived series have taken the trend of tying everything directly back to overarching threads, but they have also respected the earlier canon. The creators of the original series managed to use the format of episodic and disconnected stories to avoid alienating potential new viewers as they could jump in at any stage. Sadly the revived series has not followed this model. While the inner workings can still be something of a mystery, but you have to admire the writers for keeping the lore consistent as far as humanly possible within the scope of over two hundred stories from

For the video game entry, the one I must choose is Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy. Created by regular Final Fantasy writer Kazushige Nojima, the mythos is mainly seen as a failure by fans of the Final Fantasy series, and from a developmental standpoint it was undermined by its own ambition, which was not compatible with the development resources and production structures of the time. Compared by developers and journalists to Classical Greek mythology, the mythos is a fairly simple tale of divine rivalry and the nature of "heart" and "soul" in humanity, all tying into a darker take on the Final Fantasy series' traditional Crystal motif. This mythos is unique in that it doesn't tie into a continuous timeline, but rather creates a shared theme of divine power enforcing its will on chosen humans. Unfortunately, despite the promise of the mythos, the developers made the cardinal mistake - by jumping between information dumps and complete mystery and the detailing of crucial elements in Japan-exclusive material, the mythos alienated players before they could appreciate its nuances.

There are more expansive universes than one article can comfortably accommodate, ranging from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, the overly extensive and retcon-filled comic series of Marvel and DC Comics. The ones I've chosen represent both my favourites and those I've had extensive experience of. Each of the ones above provided experience and inspiration for me for my own work as a writer and author. Out of all the extensive universes I've experienced, there's one thing I've learned - make it consistent, or people will roast you.