I began work on a novel right as I am typing this. The idea popped into my head while I watched the ending to the LOTR - The Return of the King, this morning, for perhaps the 90th time that I have sat through the films.
The idea is, perhaps, the most ambitious thing I have ever undertaken as a writing project, and I am almost intimidated to just stop it right here and now. But almost, as it is often said, only counts with Horseshoes and Hand grenades.
The title 'Mythicon' came to me while on wikipedia.org. I was looking up a character that appears in the DvD extended edition of TROTK, but nowhere else, in Peter Jackson's retelling of the greatest tale ever written down. This character, known most famously as 'The Mouth of Sauron', really disturbed me. I had not watched this version of the film before, and had not seen this scene played out. I knew who we was at a glance, as in the book, he was the "messenger" of Sauron himself, sent in before the final confrontation with Aragorn and all that followed. In the film, he was decapitated after taunting them all cruelly, tossing the armor Frodo had worn, claiming he was tortured to death. In the book, the messenger was rebuffed and in his fury, sent the legions of Mordor at them.
Regardless, this "creature" truly disturbed me. His face helped:
It wasn't the headpiece that struck me, even though the runes adorning it speak black things, the name of Sauron, the abhorred, etc, but the mouth. As the creature spoke, black ichorous goo frothed on his teeth, and his split lips and horrible voice just got under my skin. The sense of evil about this being was the most disturbing thing I have seen in the trilogy. I can see why this would have been cut out of the Theatrical release, as it was just too much for some.
He was in fact, upon further reading,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouth_of_Sauron
A human necromancer in the service of Sauron, and, in fact, of the same race as Aragorn himself. This means his long life had been spent doing horrendous evil in the Dark Lord's stead. What a life right?
Anyway, before it is assumed my idea is some of kind of tie-in to Tolkiens epic works (I am not worthy, nor would legality be on my side), my idea only borrows one concept from the sweeping saga of the War of the Ring and whatnot: Fantasy becoming reality.
That being said, the premise for my book (series I am sure, this is too big for a posting on some forum), is that, well, thinking about every legend and myth that mankind has kept over the ages, every creature, every idea, every fable, all of that HAS to come from sompeplace right? What if there existed a being who had the sole purpose in existence of "creating" man's fantasies. What if this being was some higher thing, a being whose charge it was to fuel the creativity of man, and keep him dreaming, as some form of balance against non-thought of our species.
That being said, now what if that being went mad, and began to make man's racially diverse visions reality? What if the nightmares, the monsters, the horrors, and the whims of mankind, collectively, were suddenly being made real?
What then?
That's the gist. Stay tuned...
