Water, genes, memes.

I mean, really the problem is that retelling is the natural flow of stories, right? Cinderella started in Greece and spread as far as China. Every King Arthur or Sun Wukong is part of a thriving family tree radiating off of its roots, diversifying into dazzlingly specialized and varied forms as domestic dogs. We're meant to regurgitate, to recycle, to say "you know this story, but now I will tell it to you."

What is sick is not retelling.

What is sick is that a dam was built in the river of culture, barring the flow of the waters, preventing the silt from accumulating in the delta, the fish from reaching the sea. What is sick is the difference between a dog landrace and a dog breed. Domestic animal landraces are an informal thing; they evolve in response to the demands of their environment and their human owners. They are varied, flexible things. Particularly useful stock from outside the landrace pool is free to join; what does the shepherd or hunter care about "purity" of blood, if the dog can herd or hunt? When made into a breed, what was once a landrace dog becomes a closed gene pool. Nothing new can re-enter without significant backlash from dog fanciers. Rather than the shape following the function, function begins to follow shape; a breed standard is written about how the animal should be shaped, at times leading to distortion (ever shortening faces, ever arching spines) that deteriorates its health. (A purebred has a brand identity, and it must stay faithful.) Harmless variations, such as colors, are banned for reasons that seem no deeper than "it traditionally isn't that color, so it should never be."

As the gene pool grows sick in a closed pool judged entirely by loyalty to a predetermined aesthetic, the meme pool grows sick, in a story that cannot swim to the sea of the cultural commons. It wants to spread to new lands, to interbreed with other stories. (Do you know Merlin was not originally part of the King Arthur tales?) Bottlenecked. Inbreeding depression. Would chess, xiangqi, shogi ever been born if Chaturanga was as tightly controlled as Pokemon? The African cheetah cries because it is the last of its lineage and perilously at risk for it; not just human onslaught but its own body threatens it. Why would you do this to an animal on purpose? Why would we do this to culture on purpose? When a Taqueria in Mexico displays Son Goku the saiyan - a memetic descendant of Sun Wukong the monkey king, who like his ancestor resonates across cultures past his original one, as a lovable heroic figure - that's as natural as anything. Don't you feel frustrated that you can't retell the stories that resonate the most with the current cultural moment without fear of repercussion? Don't you feel frustrated by how little popular art can evolve, if every story born outside the breed registry of the rights-holders needs to have the pretense of existing ex nihilo, like Athena from the head of Zeus? I want to be honest. I don't want to have to obfuscate my allusions and inspirations. To be obtuse instead of direct should be a matter of artistic choice, not of legal safety.

The water grows stagnant. I glare at the dam.