Wizards and magic and myth oh my!

It’s virtually impossible for a writer to come up with completely new creatures, situated in a completely new world, without drawing some sort of knowledge from the fountain of information currently available. Let’s take myth as an example. We’ve seen a lot of myths used as examples in Harry Potter. Werewolves are most commonly depicted as humans who have the shape shifting ability to become a wolf. The wolf-part is characterized as large, wild, and animalistically inclined despite the human soul somewhere inside it. Werewolves are also bound by the full moon to make this change, whether they want to or not. And the only way to become a werewolf is to be bitten by one.

Author Jim Butcher draws a lot from myth, legend, fantasy, and folklore. His popular series, The Dresden Files, is about wizard Harry Dresden who goes up against many evils and battles them to protect his city using his magic and magical allies to aid him. In his series we see a lot of vampires, werewolves, ghouls, faeries, and other popular mythical/supernatural creatures and molded them to fit his story.

What I’ve always wondered is how much is too much to twist popular legend? You can’t modify it too much or else you’ve created an entirely new character, but it’s really open to interpretation how you manage your characters and your world because you are the creator and the controller of it all. I personally feel that it is ok to make your own changes so as to break out of the status quo, but there must be something familiar, something that we can recognize as a traditional feature.

Are you confused yet? Yeah, me too.