It’s Monday, so it’s time for the Fantasy With Friends discussion meme (hosted at Pages Unbound). This week’s theme is about religion in fantasy:
What are some interesting portrayals of religion in fantasy? Do you like seeing invented religions, or do you prefer fantasy worlds to have none?
The most interesting examples of religion in fantasy are pretty much all from cases where the writer has come up with a whole fully fleshed-out world, locating the story within it rather than inventing a world to suit the story. It can be a subtle difference, but it shows in the details: the example that comes to mind first is Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor and the other books set in the same world. It’s clear there are multiple sects and ways of worshipping, with the main character belonging to a fairly meditative tradition which is out of fashion, and a range of different gods who are worshipped in different ways (and focused on by different people).
Another example I’ve been enjoying is in T. Kingfisher’s books: gods are a major part of the world, but their nature is part of the story too. Can a god be killed? Where do they come from and what happens if they die? Can someone (or something) become a god?
I sometimes feel a bit annoyed with religion in fantasy, not because I think it shouldn’t be there — it’s clearly a major factor of human experience so, at least when writing about humans, it seems ripe for adding world-building — but because it’s lazy. Real world religions get poorly copy/pasted in and roughly reworked where it’s most obvious or impedes the story, in a way that can end up being disrespectful or implying that Christianity is some kind of default. People tend to write what they know and vary very little from it, and sometimes want us to believe that everyone in a whole world worships the same god with no disagreement about what that worship looks like.
Buuut when it’s done with an eye to the world you’re writing and to avoiding simple copy/pastes, it’s great: you can do a lot with comparatively few references to e.g. gods who are the patron of particular professions, or by including architecture like churches/temples/etc.
In conclusion, it very much depends on how lazy it is, along with how important it is to the story. You don’t need to have a fully fleshed out massive state religion if the whole book takes place at sea or something… but if it’s included, I much prefer it when it’s thought out.
The treatment of religion in A Song of Ice and Fire are one of the things I point to for how it is “inventing a world to suit the story”. None of the characters seem to actually believe their religion, at all, and despite there being differing ideas of worship, it never really matters except as a shorthand for a lazy fantasy pastiche of the War of the Roses. The treatment of sworn oaths (something people once took *very* seriously) is extremely casual and cynical, and it makes the whole thing fall apart for me.
And I do love Kingfisher’s paladin books, and how she’s really thought out what worship in that setting looks like, even for the books that aren’t focused on Temple associated characters (like Swordheart)
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I’ve had that impression about ASOIAF as well! I’ve never read it myself (well, I think I read 100 pages), but — it felt “shallow”, I didn’t feel like it had deep roots to draw on. (Contrast as ever Tolkien, who invented almost too much world for his own and his stories’ good and ended up as constrained as if by actual history in some cases.)
And re: Kingfisher, exactly; it’s a case where I feel like if I asked her a question about the world, she might have to think about it, but there would be an answer that existed before I asked the question, or at least a probable/fitting answer that feels like it existed before I asked.
I love this post and have included The Goblin Emperor and T Kingfisher books in my post for this topic too. I think that having some religious element definitely adds to the creation of a believable culture in a fantasy book, but only if it’s thought out properly.
Ha, cool that we picked the same examples. And definitely, if it’s just sort of… default basic Christianity, it feels like a waste and makes everything feel a little homogeneous.
I do personally like stories where the religion seems fleshed out and to have some point beyond the fact that the author seemed to think the world needed a religion, maybe even just for aesthetic purposes.
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Yes, indeed! Sadly there’s plenty of lazy ones though.
I agree that depictions of religion can sometimes feel lazy–and like many are doing a default copy of Christianity. If an author includes religion, I want it to done thoughtfully. I want it to make sense with the world and I want to see how those certain beliefs shape the characters’ worldview.
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Yes, exactly. Sometimes it just doesn’t seem well thought out, or like it exists without affecting the actual characters at all.