>To distance themselves?
No to prepare your mind for what is to come, every story is about just that, one way or another everyone is prepared for this using simple story telling, have you heard a 1000 stories by now in film, movie, book, fairy tale, history…
His story told over and over again, but it is all far fetched and there is no need to understand any of this unless you can finally see it all speaks about the same, rise and fall namely.