A Guide to Understanding the Mytharc

Meta
Title:	A Guide to Understanding the Mytharc
Creator:	Sister Aspen
Date(s):	January 2000
Medium:	online
Fandom:	The X-Files
Topic:
External Links:	OBSSE Newsletter: January 2000 News for the OBSSEsed, Archived version (second page)
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A Guide to Understanding the Mytharc is a 2000 essay by Sister Aspen, "part-time Mytharc Rationalist."

It was published in the X-files newsletter, News for the OBSSEsed #32.

The essay is a humorous one, but is also a serious attempt to explain the mytharc.

Sections

• Part One: Why Explain the Mytharc, Anyway?
• Part Two: The Curse of Verse: A Mytharc Primer
• Part Three: Summary Section: a.k.a. the Mytharc CliffsNotes
• Part Four: Questions and Answers

Excerpts

Love it, hate it, or try to completely ignore it, the mytharc remains a central part of the X-Files. Too often attention given to the mytharc takes the form of criticism, exasperation, or even cries of pain and anguish, mixed with curses at Carternuity and the like-however, this need not be the case. The mytharc can actually be seen to make a strange sort of sense. What follows is one sister's desperate attempt at an explanation.

Part One: Why Explain the Mytharc, Anyway?

The first question that usually comes up when discussing the mytharc is generally along the lines of, "Why bother? What's the point of trying to explain it, anyway?" (The short answer has to do with a challenge made by that demurest of nuns, Sister Autumn, which was accepted after a few too many 'ritas one night. but I digress.) Anyway. so why, then? A more accurate question, in fact, is, "why not?" In fact, the entire purpose behind the X-Files is found in the search for answers to difficult questions, in seeking logical explanations for mysterious phenomena. The purest spirit of scientific inquiry is present in the pursuit of understanding the mytharc, in order to make sense of seeming nonsense, to achieve meaning from madness. Analyzing the mytharc may even be, then, the truest form of praise/homage for our Saint, who herself analyzes everything through the "lens of science." (How's that for an SRE?)

Part Two: The Curse of Verse: A Mytharc Primer

Now that the importance of understanding the mytharc has been made clearer, there are probably a few sibliren wondering what exactly was missed during those years of focusing only on such things as Scully's hair and clothing styles. So, based on traditional teaching methods, here's a simple rhyme to keep it all in perspective:

A is for Aliens, abductions and all

B is for Black Oil, the start of the fall,

C is for Conspiracy, colonization and more,

D is for DNA, the new tool of war,

E is for the ET that caused all this woe,

F is for Fowley-true friend or true foe?

G is for Gibson, not lost, just away,

H is for Hybrids, saving the day,

I is for Implants, used for control,

J is for Japanese scientists, sans soul,

K is for Krycek, who to each side belongs,

L is for the Lone Gunmen, and their litany of wrongs.

M is for Mulder, both Samantha and Fox,

N is for Nanites, influence in a box.

O is for the Outcome, as yet unknown,

P is for Purity, purest poison, alone-

Q is for Quonochontaug, site of betrayal,

R is for Roswell, sometime aliens' jail,

S is for Scully, our Saint brave and wise,

T is for Tunisia, home of Syndicate spies,

U is for UFOs, that strike hearts with fear,

V is for Vaccine, a hope once held dear,

W is for Walter Skinner, constrained,

X is for X-Files and the knowledge that's gained

Y is a question, for which the answer we seek,

and Z is for Zeus, where things began to look bleak.

And on that note, it's time for this sister to call it a day and retreat. quickly, strategically, but without surrendering the cherished hope of a complete answer for it all. Here's hoping that some small amount of light has been shed into the Byzantine world of the X-Files mythology-or, at least, that amusement was had by all!