Category talk:Mythological ships

Comments

Does the Starship Enterprise belong in this category? Titanium Dragon 16:11, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

See the first paragraph of mythology. I certainly think it does. It's inspired a great many stories apart from the series canon, and has to a large extent taken on a life of its own. For the same reason I put SS Edmund Fitzgerald in the category -- any ship that inspires songs can certainly be thought of as having a mythology -- but one of the regular editors there believed mythology had to do only with religion and I wasn't about to start an edit war over it.

What do you think of HMS Victory? TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I think including the enterprise and similar waters down the category, and also more or less ignores what mythology is used to refer to in a scholarly fashion. It isn't a traditional story in any real sense; while it is certain popular, I wouldn't define it as mythological. This isn't ships in popular culture, and stuff like the enterprise, the HMS Beagle, and even the Titanic probably don't belong here (though I could see someone making an argument for the Titanic's inclusion, due to all the stories surrounding its sinking; however, I don't think it really qualifies as traditional stories, and I think since the advent of better record keeping additions to "mythology" are much more difficult because people can go and look at contemporary reports or watch it on the History Channel). Just because something is popular and draws from ideas found in mythology doesn't make it mythological; I don't think many people would call The Lord of the Rings mythology, for instance. Titanium Dragon 04:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not a work of fiction itself that makes a mythology, but what happens after the work is finished. Mere popularity won't suffice; the story has to achieve a certain reality to its readers and to be carried on -- or filled in -- by them in a way that becomes self-perpetuating.

Having accurate historical accounts available has absolutely no bearing on whether a mythology grows around an event. I'm reading a book that I picked up because it looked interesting, but it turned out to be by someone whose work was foundational to modern thought on the history of religions. (The Myth of the Eternal Return by Mircea Eliade, 2005 edition, Princeton University Press.) In he relates a situation recorded by a Romanian folklorist just before WWII (pp 44-45). In one village he came upon a current tragic story that was circulating about a local young man who was about to be married, but had been bespelled by a mountain fairy who had fallen in love with him. Just before his wedding day, this fairy threw him off a cliff in a fit of jealousy, whereupon he was instantly killed. He was found the next day by shepherds and brought back to the village, where his bereaved fiancee sang a beautiful, allusive, original poem of lament that poured out of her on the spot. Although the folklorist was told this had happened "a long time ago", he was persistent and eventually discovered that the woman whose lover had been killed was actually still alive. He tracked the old woman down, and discovered that the true facts were much more mundane: he had slipped and fallen off the cliff one night; he had not died instantly, but had cried out and been heard by the shepherds, which is how they found him; he was brought back to the village alive but died a short time later. The poetry was nothing more than the usual laments of the local tradition. Needless to say, no fairies were involved.

So having a good record, or even a living memory, of an event does absolutely nothing to prevent the creation of a myth. Our own collective credibility over urban legends should demonstrate that this still occurs. So yes, I think that even ships of relatively recent history could well become mythological as stories (which may or may not relate to the actual facts) grow up around them. So I'd tend to include the USS Bonhomme Richard, the HMS Victory, the USS Constitution, possibly the Golden Hind, the Santa María, and others.

I called the Enterprise mythological not so much because of the TV series, but because of the entire subculture that's grown up around it. Some of these people are deeply into the mythology, which as far as they're concerned did not stop when the series did at all. You don't have to Google very much to find further stories.

Tolkien himself considered his story cycle to be a mythology -- mostly considering his other writings, of which LotR was only the conclusion -- and he was a recognized expert in the subject, so his opinions are worth considering. In public he was not so bold to call it that, using instead the coined term "legendarium" meaning a body of legends. But privately he thought of it as a mythology, and I think it's been carried on as if it were one ever since. However, he wrote of no single ship that has been as mythological in and of itself as the Enterprise, not even Vingilot. TCC (talk) (contribs) 07:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Delete Category

I propose that the category Category:Mythological ships be deleted. The reasons are 1. The very low number of entries makes it of limited usefulness. 2. It is controversial (see Talk:Noah's Ark) that Noah's Ark, the most well known 'ship' listed is in this category. WP:CAT states "be careful of NPOV when creating or filling categories. Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category". ^rossnixon 02:13, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• Opposed--ZayZayEM 02:58, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The proper place for this discussion is Categories for Discussion. I'm moving this discussion there as a procedural move. Best, --Shirahadasha 18:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I've transferred this discussion to the correct forum. Here's a repeat of the notice at the top of the page with a link to the discussion. Best, --Shirahadasha 19:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)