Week 1: Myths In Daily Life

Where do you see myths, mythic figures, or mythic references active in the world around you?

Myths are prevalent in everyday society. To think otherwise is to be blind, deaf, and dumb to any kind of media that we encounter. Actively, we can see myths in advertisements, such as Nike. Nike was the Greek goddess of victory, personifying and emphasizing the company's ploy to instill a sense of triumph and personal achievement in their consumers simply by purchasing and using their products.


However, I find myth most present in my own life in the books I read. I have always been an avid reader, and mythologies of all origins have been one of my favorite topics. In particular, one of my favorite series, by Tui T. Sutherland, was a three book series called Avatars starting with "So This Is How the World Ends". While it is more of a young adult read, I greatly enjoyed it growing up. The basic premise of the series is that the spirits of all gods from all different pantheons/mythologies (or religions if you choose to think of it that way) are dying out because they survive off of the prayers, offerings, and sacrifices of humans. The already limited supplication to the gods because of the implementations of technology, as well as a higher trend towards atheism and agnosticism leads to a problem of gods slowly fading because they are not worshipped or remembered. This leads the pantheons to convene and decide to create a contest in which a human will be, shall we say, housed with the soul of a god or goddess from each pantheon, and they will fight to the death to see which pantheon will be the center of all worship, leading to the annihilation of all other pantheons. The players (pantheons) of the game are Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Hindu, Polynesian, Mesoamerican, Norse, and Sumerian. Smaller pantheons who did not have as many worshippers joined together in order to compete, as there is no true Mesoamerican pantheon of gods. Without giving too much of the story away, these humans with god souls, also known as avatars, then learn of their heritage and fight. 



While not the most historically or mythically accurate source, I learned a great deal about all of these different mythologies and it lead me to further research. This series, and other books like it, is a key source of mythologies in our modern day and age.