CROSSING GODS PT. 4

 As a quick coda to CROSSING GODS PT. 3, it occurs to me that. although I may find uses for the terms I introduced there, there's a simpler line I might draw in the sands of shifting alignment, at least with respect to modern usages of all types of traditional narratives, be they myths, folktales, or legends. 

If a given modern narrative attempts to substantially represent a traditional story's plot action-- that is, making some attempt to be "canonical"-- but alters the scenario by bringing in extraneous elements, or rearranging elements within the actual canon, then that is a crossover. Thus, of the earlier examples cited, the 1952 QUEEN OF SHEBA would be a "re-arrangement" type, in which the (probably political) martial alliance of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is reworked so that Sheba never marries Solomon but rather hooks up with the king's son Rehoboam, who's in the Solomon narrative but not with that role. The examples with extraneous elements would include the movie NOAH, which imports Tubal Cain from a different Biblical story to serve as the story's villain, and the 1980s CLASH OF THE TITANS, which the story of Perseus is merged with elements from the narratives of Achilles and Bellerophon.

However, if there is no substantial attempt to be canonical, then what one has is an "open canon" created of whatever elements appear in an aligned set of traditional stories. Thus Marvel-Thor can meet any character from Norse mythology or folktales, and there is no crossover-tension. Even though the Thor of Myth may never have encountered the Surtur of Myth (so far as we know from surviving texts), Marvel-Thor can meet any Nordic traditional figure, from any time period, and it won't be a crossover. However, when he meets Hercules or Shiva, traditional figures from other myth-cosmoses, that's a crossover.

The "open canon" principle would also hold for my example of THE IRON DRUID CHRONICLES from the first CROSSING GODS. The entirely fictional hero of this series, Atticus, is a master of Celtic magic, so any purely Celtic myth-figure he encounters is a null-crossover. But when he meets the pale horseman of Christian Revelation, that's a crossover of the innominate kind. Ditto Marvel's Daimon Hellstrom meeting any entity purely native to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Null-crossovers would include Satan and all traditional figures from that cosmos, probably including even icons from other pantheons who were demonized by early Jews and Christians (Baal, Astarte), but would NOT include icons from completely different traditions, such as the Egyptian Anubis and the Celtic Morgaine LeFay.