Shalom Chaverim –
I am not a bookworm by any means—especially given the fact that I don’t even read books, I listen to them (although I still argue they’re one and the same). I got back into reading fiction, and specifically science fiction and fantasy, during COVID. My reintroduction was Jade City by Fonda Lee. When I say this was the perfect book, I mean it was the perfect book. It was all of my favorite things: mob politics, East Asian honor culture, and martial arts. Beyond that though, Fonda wrote a truly exceptional book with every character being compelling, great pacing, well thought out magic system, and a beautifully created world interwoven with history and culture based on the magic. I immediately powered through the next two. The only thing missing was religion. She dabbled in the area slightly when a character would go to a temple to pray, or spoke of the monks who created “safe spaces” when she needed to put enemies in the same room. Otherwise, not much to mention, which I didn’t find a problem because religion wasn’t that critical to the story itself.
My next book was The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang, which was another exceptional book. The trilogy, however, was much to be desired. The nation known as “Hesperia” became a larger player in the trilogy and was a stand in for “European colonizer,” which wouldn’t have been an issue if Kuang hadn’t written them as a one-dimensional boogeyman. The Hesperians were clearly not just Westerners, but specifically Christians. I have no problem with writing the West as the antagonist, but I do have a problem with antagonists who are presented in such a black and white manner in a book that heavily relies on an extremely problematic main character.
As I kept reading both fantasy and science fiction, I noticed a distinct pattern: No one writes religion from a place of love or appreciation and always from a place of ignorance or antagonism. If religion isn’t ignored entirely, it’s usually integrated poorly. The easiest way most writers involve religion is by making them the primary or secondary antagonist. Religious institutions are oppressive, religious figures are corrupt, and religions themselves are presented as shallow concepts that only the “unenlightened” follow—setting up the protagonists to free said docile sheep from their slumber.
When writers decide they don’t want to ignore religion, but they don’t want to utilize it as a literary device, they rarely integrate it into the world they’ve built in any meaningful way—ignoring how religion is the foundation of every society. Ultimately, religion merely describes how humans understand the greater world around them and how they answer the big questions we can’t truly contemplate. Every human has asked, “Why does the sun rise?” and “Where does the rain come from?” Prior to modern science, the only way humans could interpret such enormous concepts, especially those pertaining to life and death, is through the existence of something that seemed like them but just more powerful. A human understands the idea that he can scoop water from a river and pour it over an anthill so there must just be a larger being who scoops water from the ocean and pours it over humans, and that is rain. This is important because these interpretations are what shape entire societies. Placating these all powerful beings becomes the most important thing you can do because it’s the only way to have any amount of control over your life. Religion defines the form and function of entire societies, and yet writers rarely ever internalize this. Instead, they usually create some second-rate version of the Catholic Church and move forward.
I understand why religion is rarely ever written well, and it’s usually because both writers, and readers, have complicated relationships with religion. Writing is a form of expression, and for many authors, religion has rarely ever played a positive role in their lives. I don’t think I’m wrong to generalize the average fantasy and sci-fi fan is someone who grew up with religious parents or in religious societies, and their form of rebellion is to dive into worlds that fight against this “oppressive” force. I don’t hold it against them as all anyone can do is write what they know, and if all they know is the oppressive nature of religion, specifically Christianity, then that’s what they’re going to write.
It is exactly this reason why I decided to make religion the foundation of my world and the driving force for my book. All three groups—Yisarians, Jaddites, and Bar’shibians—follow a branch of the main religion, each with their own interpretations, and each allowing the religion to drive their decisions. I wanted to create a world that allowed readers to see the beauty of religion and not just its ugliness. Sure, religion drives my characters to violence, but it also drives them to forgive and seek peace. Religion has been a force for evil, but it has also been a force for good. It is a complicated force of nature driven and directed by the self-reinforcing nature of human beings. Human beings are never entirely good nor are they entirely evil so why would the religions they create be any less complex?
Author: Contributor
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