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Violanthe
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 Commentary on Religion in Fantasy
Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:46 am |
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Creating the religions in a fantasy worlds is a regular part of world-building, but so many times it seems like religions in fantasy books are making a heavy-handed comment on religion in real life.
How do we got about creating a world where this aspect is simply another aspect and does not become an editorial on real life religions?
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Dagny
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Re: Commentary on Religion in Fantasy
Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 7:53 pm |
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the most succesful religions/cultures i've seen in fantasy were succesful for me, because they were completely and utterly different from anything i've ever been exposed to. Instead of reminding me of a world (and religion) i knew, they allowed me to fall even deeper into the spell of the fantasical world. it was great.
that said, i have read novels that were a disguise for either religious preaching or ranting, and they are annoying! |
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Mervi
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Re: Commentary on Religion in Fantasy
Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 1:09 pm |
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| Dagny wrote: | | the most succesful religions/cultures i've seen in fantasy were succesful for me, because they were completely and utterly different from anything i've ever been exposed to. |
Indeed.
I think that the main point is to make the religion(s) very different from the ones the writer is familiar with. Now granted, it's very hard to just make something out of thin air but it could just as well be a different sort of twist. A what if -scenario for a historical religion.
The two best fantasy religions that I've seen are Bujold's five gods in the Chalion books and Carey's Kushiel-series where some of the people are descendants of angels. |
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Violanthe
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Mervi
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Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:33 pm |
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Really? In what way?
There was the small, moving sect which I took to be sort of Jewish. But I really can't find many parallers between the Judeo-Christian misogynistic and often misandrist and sex-hating culture and the Kushiel-series' sex-positive one. |
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Violanthe
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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 3:15 pm |
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| Mervi wrote: | Really? In what way?
There was the small, moving sect which I took to be sort of Jewish. But I really can't find many parallers between the Judeo-Christian misogynistic and often misandrist and sex-hating culture and the Kushiel-series' sex-positive one. |
That's the primary thing she changed about the religion, which is admittedly huge. But there were other corollaries besides the sort-of-Jews. It's just been so long since I've read it, I have a hard time remembering the details, but I remember there being a fairly clear Jesus corollary. And you also have the "civilized" Terre D'Ange believers vs. the "barbarians" outside. It's significantly changed, but I remember thinking that it was heavily inspired by Christianity.
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Mervi
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Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:18 pm |
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| Violanthe wrote: |
but I remember there being a fairly clear Jesus corollary. |
I don't but it's been some time since I read them, too. If they weren't so thick I'd be tempted to reread them.
| Quote: | | And you also have the "civilized" Terre D'Ange believers vs. the "barbarians" outside. It's significantly changed, but I remember thinking that it was heavily inspired by Christianity. |
Actually, that's a part of many, many cultures if not all of them. Even the Native American tribes tended to call themselves "people" and therefore everyone who wasn't part of that tribe were "non-persons". (I was a huge Indian buff in my teens.)
The word barbarian itself comes from the Ancient Greek: everyone non-Greek were uncivilized a.k.a barbarians. The Romans were actually a big exception to this because they tended to admire the Greeks but even to them everyone else were uncivilized barbarians.
So, not a Christian thing. It just the old us vs them mentality. |
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Violanthe
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Mervi
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Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 4:37 pm |
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I think the angels were each patrons of one aspect of society. Kushiel for punishments and Cassiel (spelling?) was the patron of combat or guarding.
But having these sort of patrons is once again not a Christian idea originally. They just adopted it for themselves: for example, the goddess Athena is the patron of the city Athens. Quite a few cultures have or had supernatural patrons for places, such as springs or lakes but even cities and villages. Sometimes they were more well defined such as gods or goddesses and sometimes not even named such as forest or lake spirits. Ancestors were thought to guard their offspring but sometimes also the family house or fields. And of course gods in polytheistic pantheons tend to be a god of aspect or attribute (crafts, war, wisdom, fertility). It's not a great leap to make similar patron saints.
Of course, Christianity has grown from the cultures before and around it, so it's quite hard to find things completely unique to it. Even the Messiah figure comes from the Jewish people... And a god or man returning from the dead has been around for a long time before Christianity. Osiris, for example. |
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Violanthe
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Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:34 pm |
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Certainly, the patron/client relationship is not originally Christian, but it has been whole-heartedly adopted by Christianity, and it huge and vital part of it now.
Also, angels (which I had forgotten until you mentioned it), figure quite prominently in Christianity.
If I do recall, there were also orders of service to the faith. If I recall, Joscelin belonged to a warrior order that came with a vow of celibacy? This sounds and awful lot like the Jesuits to me. Not to mention, religious orders figure very heavily in Christianity.
All of these corollaries to Christianity added together with a very clear re-imagining of Renaissance Europe, and I don't see how we can read it as anything other than heavily based on Christianity. The structure is hugely Christian. She created a sexually-liberal religion using many of the basic fundaments of Christianity.
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Nik
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Distant Gods...
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 8:15 am |
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I had to take great care in my (half written) Medieval-ish setting where a form of magic worked. The 'magic system' didn't need invocations, didn't need Divine Intervention or Summonings, it just took the right genes and training...
This pushed Theist influence back a step.
Until Fred Jones was accidentally carried back by an Orloc, mega-stuff like earthquakes, storms, sun-spots, volcanoes, tides, aurorae etc etc were all assumed to be Gods' Doings.
Helped, of course, that any Orloc who interfered with such 'extended' geo-forces usually came to bad end, analogous to 'common folk' caught in Orlocs' cross-fire...
So, a wary superstition held. You were polite and courteous to the Sea, the River, the Mountain's scree, the Sky, the Dunes, the Trees etc etc lest you give offence and draw trouble...
There'd be some anthropomorphisation, but not too much, for fear of giving offence by undue familiarity and 'lese majeste'...
If a Prince or Lord had a favourite, or a region a 'genus locii' (sp) then there'd be some formal 'ritual activity'. But, of course, you did not dare be too blatant in your reverence for fear of prompting jealousy... |
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Violanthe
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Mervi
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Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 4:21 am |
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| Violanthe wrote: |
Also, angels (which I had forgotten until you mentioned it), figure quite prominently in Christianity.
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And Judaism and Islam.
| Quote: | | If I recall, Joscelin belonged to a warrior order that came with a vow of celibacy? |
Chaste warrior castes are actually very much a Christian thing.
But I do realize that all of the point that I've argued are a very large part of Christianity and if the reader hasn't been exposed to or studied any other culture or religion it is going to feel heavily Christianity-based. It's just my Ancient history Minor rearing its head to point out that none of these aspects are exlusively Christian. That's why I had a feeling that the religion is like ancient Astarte worship put into a Renaissance setting.[/b] |
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Violanthe
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Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 2:48 pm |
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I think it's really the configuration of these elements, rather than the elements themselves. After all, Carey not only puts these elements together, but places them in a thinly veiled European geography with very similar cultures surrounding them (from the viking-like barbarians, to the northerly celts). And if I do recall, doesn't she take readers in later books to the part of her world that resembles the Middle East, and thus includes presumeably an Islam-like religion. And we've already talked about the fact that she had a Jewish-like subculture. In contrast to the other cultural/religious traditions in her fiction incarnation of our world, the main religion in the first book looks all the more Christian.
I will concede that it is based perhaps half and half on Christianity and Greco-Roman religion, but since Christianity itself is based about half on Greco-Roman religion, the distinction becomes dubious, in my eyes.
Ultimately I see religion more for its cultural elements than for its doctrines, and that's why I see a lot of Christianity in Carey's world.
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David Thomas Lord
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Re: Commentary on Religion in Fantasy
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:40 am |
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| Violanthe wrote: | | How do we got about creating a world where this aspect is simply another aspect and does not become an editorial on real life religions? |
Since religion itself is an editorial on real life, it would be impossible to create a fictional religion that does not do the same. I believe that any writer who would create such a religion is actually seeking to do the same damaging things to his readers that religions do to the populace. |
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Violanthe
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 3:07 pm |
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Certainly fiction in general is an editorial on real life. Thus any aspect of a fictional world, including religion, is meant to express a certain view of real life.
But my question is about fictional religion being a commentary on real life religion, not on real life in general.
And which types of fictional religion are you saying would be damaging to readers? The type that does or does not editorialize on real life religion?
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Nik
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"But how did you approach the process of creating this.
Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 3:38 pm |
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"But how did you approach the process of creating this religion?"
I'm Agnostic.IMHO, ALL religions are 'superstitious nonsense' until proven otherwise. I just had to make the adherents' mind-set internally consistent... |
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Mervi
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 4:05 am |
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Basically, I design fantasy religions in two ways:
1, "I want the society to be like this. How could it have developed this way?" Very often the answer is religion and/or the many different factions that religions seem to inevitably develop.
2, "What would the society be like if the religion was like this?"
Designing societies is fun and religions are a big part of it. Even if a whole society was ateistic, it would still shape the society: no churches, no official religion, no cursing in gods' name, possible percecution of the religious people in other societies... And I'd bet that there would be a splinter group, even a secret one if it had to be, who would be religious. Many, many humans need to belive in something bigger than themselves. |
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David Thomas Lord
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 10:50 am |
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| Violanthe wrote: | But my question is about fictional religion being a commentary on real life religion, not on real life in general.
And which types of fictional religion are you saying would be damaging to readers? The type that does or does not editorialize on real life religion? |
Sorry, Vio, I missed your true question.
If fictional love stories are a commentary on love in general, war stories on war, horror stories on our fears, how could fictionalized religion not be a commentary on real-life religion? It doesn't matter if your intention is to do so or not, you will still be writing a commentary because ultimately all you can base this new fictional religion upon are the precepts and rituals of religions that do or did exist.
Because of that, your fictional religion will carry the same dictatorial qualities of established religions, and that is what is damaging to the reader. In my opinion. |
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Violanthe
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Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 3:21 pm |
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| David Thomas Lord wrote: | | Because of that, your fictional religion will carry the same dictatorial qualities of established religions, and that is what is damaging to the reader. In my opinion. |
But doesn't that depend on two factors?
1) How the religion is contextualized: A fictionalized religion can be dictatorial, but contextualized in such a context as to portray it in a negative light.
2) What sorts of religions, rituals, etc. are included in the fictionalized religion: Even though many of the world's most pervasive religions have dictatorial hierarchies, doesn't mean all religions do. In fact, there are some religions that contend, quite literally, that all religions are right, or that people should pick and choose those elements of ritual and belief that are meaningful to them (e.g. Baha'i Faith, Unitarian Universalism, etc.). To say nothing of lived religion or folk religion, or new age religion (run into many dictatorial Wiccans, lately?).
And even if a fictional work does portray a specifically dictatorial religion, and portrays it in a positive light, doesn't the "lens" of fiction make it more likely that the reader will look at it with a more dispassionate eye, and less likely to be personally damaged by it?
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