Plato's Lost Dialogue

Location is a key part of any story.  Just think about Harry Potter; by the time you’ve finished the first book you feel like you’ve had a guided tour around Hogwarts and slept in the Gryffindor common room (or your House of choice).  If Hogwarts was set in a modern building in the centre of a bustling city the whole story would take on a completely different feel (and perhaps wouldn’t be the phenomenon it is). Tales of Atlantis: The Dawning of a New Age is set on (spoiler alert) Atlantis.  When it comes to thinking about where Atlantis should be located in the story (bearing in mind that it is set in modern times on Earth) it creates a number of problems.  Atlantis has to feel real - like Hogwarts or Narnia – and that means staying true to Plato’s original description (otherwise it’s just another fantasy world masquerading as the famous lost island).  But where on Earth do you stick it?     The concept of Atlantis was first introduced in...

Most people will be familiar with Plato (I’m talking about the ancient Greek philosopher rather than a Spanish plate).  Despite living nearly 2500 years ago his works are still hugely popular and he completes the holy trinity of ancient Greek philosophers along with Socrates and Aristotle (being a student of the former and a teacher of the latter).  On his father’s side he claimed to have been descended from Poseidon (which perhaps explains the link between Atlantis and Poseidon), and on his mother’s side he claimed to have been descended from the lawgiver Solon (which perhaps explains the link between Solon purportedly passing down the story of Atlantis to Plato via Critias amongst others). The first time we hear about Atlantis is in Plato’s dialogues: Timaeus and the unfinished Critias.  The dialogues are largely a monologue between Timaeus, Critias, Hermocrates and Socrates.  In them the four scholars discuss the ideal state and Critias explains how Athens (the ...