In the Closet

Bare with me for a few moments and deal with the first paragraph. 

I am a closeted Twilight fan.  Okay, so not too much in the closet as my friends and family know I love it.  I know, I just dropped like a hundred cool points with you, right?  Okay, again, bare with me as to why and continue reading.  Thank you.

Stephanie Meyer took vampirism to a whole new level.  The "sparkling" gimmick that has so many hating these movies is what endears me to them.  She went in a different direction with the vampire legend and for that I respect her.  She's showing individualism.  Good job!  Here's where I get to my mind-blowing thoughts:

How many OTHER legends have been changed over the hundreds of years that we've had the written word? 

Mind blown now?  Mine was.  As I sat and thought about this, my book-loving mind shot to history lessons and classic legends.  Let's say that Homer, while writing The Iliad, changed it up.  Are we sure it was a Trojan HORSE?  What if Homer was sitting there, quill in hand (or scribe in seat next to him) and was like, "No way!  I can't tell this tale the way it went.  Trojan Duck's just aren't cool!  Who sends a duck full of soldiers,anyway?  Egad, I must make this better than real.  HORSES!  YES! Women LOVE horses!"  Thus began the legend as we know it, the Trojan Horse.  What about Paul Bunyan and Babe, the big blue ox?  What if he was a real man?  He could have been larger than the average size of ,men at the time, inspiring someone to write about a giant!  Babe could have been so black that she appeared blue, promoting her popular color. 

People change stories all the time to make them their own, to elaborate on them. What we hold to be facts or legend isn't necessarily so and Stephanie Meyers just proves that.  A few hundred years from now, generations will be wondering what is truly fact or fiction about vampires (even though they truly don't exist) just based on one small change made in our time period. If you recall, vampires couldn't cross running water, yet so many books and movies have removed that big piece of information. 

Writers embellish!  They make all topics sound glamorous or exciting.  They write to keep you reading.  Would you really read a story about a Trojan Duck or a story about an above average height man with his black ox that couldn't carry a whole tree on his shoulder?  Neither would I....