The Title Saga

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Saga is originally an Old Norse word meaning “story” or “epic tale”. It has immigrated into English by way of The Icelandic Sagas, which were first translated into English in the 19th century.[1]

Since then, “saga” in English has the meaning of a long, epic story, sometimes with the subtext “long-winded”.

Titles containing "Saga" most often come in the format "(The) X Saga" (the article is optional). X is sometimes the protagonist, but can be practically anything—though usually a proper name or a noun. “Saga” is simply attached at the end, treating the whole title as a compound term.

This is different from the original Norse sagas, where there was always a genitive case involved—mostly of the type "<Protagonist's> saga" or "Saga of <the protagonists>".

A third, rare variant is "(The) <adjective> Saga" (not always clearly distinguishable from the first type).

This kind of title usually lampshades that the work is a series of more-than-average length and/or has a considerable number of instalments.

Examples of The Title Saga include:

Examples of the The X Saga type:

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Fanfic

Film

Literature

Machinima

Videogames

Webcomic

Web Original

Examples of other types (with genitive or adjectives)

Literature

Videogames

Web Original

  1. Etymology ramble: Old English had the equivalent cognate sagu, but this word morphed into saw “saying”, as in old wife’s saws, and is terribly obsolete.