The greatest story ever told...

[R.Nevermore]

As human beings, we all go through our lives with an eternal thirst for the perfect story. This story can be whitty, epic, funny, emotional, powerful, lighthearted or all of the above.

Over thousands of years, mankind has tried time and time again to craft such a story. And that's where this thread comes in... the search for the greatest story ever told.

With the thousands, maybe even millions of stories we've heard, told or witnessed, in your opinion, what is the most incredible, jarring, moving, funny or exciting story you have seen/heard/read/played?

For the sake of everyone else here, lets limit these stories to something that others somewhere out there might have heard of. For example, if your dad told you a really rivetting epic adventure as a bedtime story and you believe THAT is the greatest story ever told, keep it to yourself as nobody else will have ever heard of it. Generally we want this to be within the bounds of literature, media, pop-culture, common tales of widespread word of mouth, something that, should we desire, we can look up.

Note: You don't need to tell the story within this thread. Tell us the title and/or a brief description, and why you think it was the greatest story ever told.

EDIT: The goal of the thread is not to vote on which is the one single greatest work, but to compile a list of some of the great stories that speak to those of us on these boards. They can be great for so many reasons: The wording, the presentation, the emotional investment or how hard it made you laugh.

 

[blue heartless]

I'm not too sure what you expect from this, but I must say it did bring to mind Nate the Snake [http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?18654-Nate-the-Snake].

 

[Fiend Dragon]

Well, works of art and literature being subjective things that also serve to fill different purposes of entertainment or emotional response, it would be very difficult, and somewhat counterproductive to single out a single work as the 'best' when one can enjoy all of them for each of their individual strengths and messages.



That being said, MY VOTE will at this time go to Homestuck.
Maybe it's aided by it's unique medium of presentation, but I've never been so thoroughly invested in the entirety of a work and all it's facets. Every character is fascinating and well developed, each action meaningful and progressing the plot, and the pacing is top notch whether you are reading the archive or up to date. It's truly a pleasure to read through and somehow maintains an impossible and magical balance of emotions and tones throughout it's entirety.

I often refer to it as the 'best thing I've ever read' when referring people to it, and I don't say it lightly!

Oh right, basic summary, for those that haven't been fortunate to know of it.

Homestuck [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6] is a uniquely assembled 'comic' in the form of a mock adventure game that tells the story of a boy and his friends and a strange new game that they play together, as they begin to realize that they are in far deeper than they expected. Facing an epic adventure, championing as the greatest of their kind, and a unusual threat beyond comprehension, in the end, it's an adventure about Kids growing up in a strange world.

 

[R.Nevermore]

Well, works of art and literature being subjective things that also serve to fill different purposes of entertainment or emotional response, it would be very difficult, and somewhat counterproductive to single out a single work as the 'best' when one can enjoy all of them for each of their individual strengths and messages.

Of course they're subjective! That's a great part of the magic of storytelling. It speaks to each person in it's own unique way.

The goal of this thread is not to 'vote' on one single great story, but to compile a list of some of the greatest stories according to those of us on these boards.

 

[ryo02]

honestly I think we have yet to invent the tools with witch to tell the greatest story ... maybe when we can plug our brains into computer generated worlds maybe.

and I doubt we live long enough to experiance it from start to finnish maybe after we extend our lives.

hurray for future technology?

 

[Ima842]

Once Brazil wanted to invade Paraguay, Paraguay being the small country that it is only had 1000 soldiers, far lower than the Brazilian army, so the dictator at the time had an idea, To scare the Brazilian president the dictator invited him over to Paraguay to watch a military parade, the soldiers all pass in front of the Brazilian president over and over for 10 hours, the Brazilian president got scare and didn't invade Paraguay because he believe it had a huge army.

 

[Fiend Dragon]

Well, works of art and literature being subjective things that also serve to fill different purposes of entertainment or emotional response, it would be very difficult, and somewhat counterproductive to single out a single work as the 'best' when one can enjoy all of them for each of their individual strengths and messages.

Of course they're subjective! That's a great part of the magic of storytelling. It speaks to each person in it's own unique way.

The goal of this thread is not to 'vote' on one single great story, but to compile a list of some of the greatest stories according to those of us on these boards.

Well maybe the phrasing of 'vote' was a little misleading, I will clarify that that was just my suggestion for the list. I didn't mean to devalue the thread with the subjectiveness comment, just a little bit of rambling on my part.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

Mine is a short tale of irony and like all the best, it is based on a true story. Entirely.

It takes place on May 9, 1864 during the Civil war in the battle of Spotsylvania Court House. The union Colonel John Sedgewick enraged by his men cowardice in the face of Confederate sharpshoters strolled around in the open chastising them "What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Although ashamed, his men continued to flinch and he repeated, "I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Almost immediately after uttering these words he fell dead with a bullet wound over his left eye...

 

[aLaxLuthor]

When the Nazis invaded a Greek island, they went to the mayor and the bishop, who were both Eastern Orthodox Christians and told them "Write down the names of all the Jews on this island and give them to us." A few days later, the mayor and bishop come back and hand over a paper with only two names written on it- THEIR NAMES. The bishop then says "If you want to take them, you have to take us, too."

The island was Zakynthos. The rest of the community on the island hid the Jews (about 275) for the duration of the Nazi occupation.

In 1953, a series of earthquakes collapsed all but a few buildings on the island. The first relief ship was from Israel, along with the message: "The Jews of Zakynthos have never forgotten their Mayor and their beloved Bishop and what they did for us."

Gives me hope.