Thoughts upon writing.
- There is apparently a movement of fantasy writers called "NEA", for "no elves allowed". Much like the National Education Association and the National Endowment for the Arts, they have an uphill battle justifying their existences, since as near as I can tell they are a mere puerile taboo.
How about you start a group called TDCBTOODIAFCT, for "The Dwemer Can't Be The Only Original Dwarves In All Fantasy, Can They?" That'd be more productive. Oh and hey, guess what, a major part of why the Dwemer are original? They're elves.
Nerevar's blade, you people suck at life. - So Whatsisname the Unbeliever, in Stephen R. Donaldson books, is not the only one of his protagonists who's a rapist. So is the vile little man who is the protagonist of his "The Gap" series, where there are, apparently, 40 pages of rape and torture of a young policewoman. The book is supposed to be about the dude's redemption (I hear—I wouldn't read it if you strapped explosives to my mother), but frankly, the only redemption I want that character to have is Last Rites.
Why the Hell, Michigan do they insist on writing books like this? The best-case interpretation of such phenomena, in literature, is that they are produced to please the self-cannibalizing lit-crit set, who praise ugliness for the sheer effort it requires to appreciate—thus setting them apart from the crowd (in accordance with Megan's Law). Otherwise, congratulations, Donaldson, you misogynist shit, you're writing the tie-in novel of a snuff-film. - A commenter over on Superversive, about 5 years ago (I was reading something in his archive) said that he wonders what the Celtic original of the jousts in Medieval Arthurian romances were. Now I am not certain, having read very little Welsh literature, but if the Britons were anything like the Irish I can answer that.
Wrestling. Warriors in Celtic societies wrestled, if some ritual combat short of warfare were required. If the Tain Bo Cuailnge is to be believed, they would actually deliberately wrestle in bodies of water, so that a combatant who was too stubborn to tap out would drown. Remember, these guys perfumed their hair so their severed heads would be decorative—plainly they were not messing around. - An oft-overlooked achievement of fantasy worldbuilding is the Slayers universe. For instance, the Mazoku and Shinzoku (Demon- and God-tribes) seem, at first glance, to be Moorcock/Warhammer Law-Chaos gods. But, upon examination, one discovers they're actually more complex not only than that, but even than the Anu-Padomay/Aedra-Daedra Elder Scrolls mythos.
See, the Shinzoku and Mazoku both worship the Supreme Being. The difference is that the Shinzoku (gods) believe the things created by it, or rather her (this mythos' supreme being is feminine, the Mother of All Things—she produced creation from within herself), are good, and should be preserved. The Mazoku (demons), on the other hand, believe those things to be a corruption, an interference with her pure splendor, and want to destroy it all (and then themselves). She's often identified as a demon herself—Lord of Nightmares, Darkness Beyond Pitch, Deeper than Midnight—but that seems to be mainly because the demons hold her in such reverence (in the books, Xellos tells Lina that even saying "Lord of Nightmares" can't be permitted to a human; even he, more powerful than any demons but Ruby Eye and the Five Retainers, always calls her "Mother of All Things").
I confess, one of the two races of trolls in my own fantasy get their ideology (remember, my fairy races divide based on their existential views) from the Mazoku. Mostly because "acosmic monism" is actually fairly common, and "we want there to be 'acosmos', so we're going to get rid of everything but the Monad" is a good motivation for evil-doing. - It is amusing that Moorcock sneers at stories with "talking vermin" in them, a class in which he includes hobbits, because he's Moorcock. I know some stories about talking vermin, nay talking varmints, that'd curl your hair, little boy. The most terrifying story ever told in any language is Woman Who Became a Bear—because it's about how the witchery of Corpse Poison Way came to involve the ability translated literally as "By Means of It, He Goes on All Fours" and idiomatically as skinwalking.
And the protagonist of that story? Coyote, Altse Hashke, the First Scolder. His wife is the eponymous Woman. To win her heart, he uses the original form of the Corpse Poison: he dies (at her brothers' hands) and brings himself back to life. See, at least one version of the Navajo creation myth describes how First Man (Altse Hastiin) made Corpse Poison in the first place. He needed curses, but as the, well, first man, he had no relatives to commit fratricide or incest on. But he realized there was someone closer to him than any kin could ever be. So he killed himself and brought himself back to life. - Or how about what First Man says when the animals discover he's been stealing their medicine (in the Indian sense of the word)? "Oh yes, my grandchildren, I am full of evil. But there is a time to use it, and a time to hold it back."
Or what Talking God said, when he and the others of the Four Colored Bodies2 first met the Navajo, when they emerged into the Fourth World (chased there, thanks to their penchant for cuckolding the Third World's inhabitants)? "We will teach you a law, so that you do not get into trouble like this. But your foolishness has left a stink on you; clean yourselves before we return tomorrow." I should perhaps mention that the Four Colored Bodies heard the Navajo coming, and came down to them, from the kivas of Anasazi ruins.
Seriously, read Navajo mythology, before you even think of writing a fantasy story. Also before you even think of denouncing the idea of White and Black Magic. Where I come from, those are called Blessing Way and Corpse Poison Way. - It is amusing to note how much manga and anime involves villains who are pastiches of Sartre's ethics. And heroes who are closer to Camus's. One has to respect a nation that thinks different strains of existentialism ought to form the basis of comic-book fights.
No, seriously. I'm pretty weird, that I do things like that. But over there, "swordsman who kills people just to affirm his existence" is easily as common as "corrupt corporate executive". - Tolkien, the silly chap, struggled mightily with the fact he'd set Middle Earth at least partly on a flat earth. Now, believe me when I say I sympathize—I write hard science fiction and have an anxiety disorder—but one might consider that poetic license, appropriate to the mythic setting.
In my fantasy, the elves and trolls were born with the universe, and fought their first wars before anything their setting would classify as "earth" or "metal" had solidified. At some point they'll also mention their bodies have only looked like humans' in the time since humans have existed.
Incidentally, I already had it mentioned, when one of the elves gets wounded, that she's having trouble breathing because her body is losing contact with Elemental Air. Elves have no need of respiration, but in order to maintain their bodies, they need to maintain a balance of the elements.
3 comments:
You wrote:
"Seriously, read Navajo mythology, before you even think of writing a fantasy story. Also before you even think of denouncing the idea of White and Black Magic. Where I come from, those are called Blessing Way and Corpse Poison Way."
I guess it depends on one's reasons for denouncing the idea of White and Black Magic. The reason I don't like that dichotomy is because of it's dualism which is not compatible with the way the universe really works. That is to say, in the real world there is no white magic, there's just varying degrees of demonic activity and (relatively) harmless superstition.
The Navajo stuff sounds interesting but, but at the end of the day, as St. Paul says "all the gods of the gentiles are devils".
Now, I suppose there's an argument to be made that a fantasy setting can or even should be completely fantastical such that God doesn't exist and everything's different. I don't know that there's anything wrong in principle with this -- although I would really like to find a priest who's studied traditional theology and is interested in sci-fi/fantasy to discuss this with.
Personally, I much prefer, and am much more comfortable with, a fantasy setting that while very different from our own, still conforms to the most basic laws of real life. So no white and black magic. I guess that makes me a sort of the fantasy version of a hard sci-fi guy?
Well, if the Navajo gods are devils, they are very poor at their job, since the Navajo code of ethics is pretty much "natural law" all down the line. And they emphatically believe that it was taught by their gods.
My personal suspicion about most pagan gods is that they're something like fairies. From the way Navajo mythology phrases it, they didn't set out to teach humans morals out of the goodness of their hearts, but because the "stink" of their moral transgressions annoyed them.
It seems a bit unfair to blame the gods for the fact humans read their yearning for God into some fairies who were just doing them a favor—albeit mostly for their own comfort.
One must remember, St. Paul, like all Jews, made a point of knowing nothing about pagan gods. (That, and the word "demon" had a much broader, less negative sense in the first century than it does now—most Jewish and early Christian thought didn't actually have the concept of fallen angels. That comes later, as a part of the later patristic discussions of free will.)
Of course, the reason Jews knew nothing about pagan gods was that they, like all fairies, are dangerous, even when they aren't malevolent—since their codes seem just as much based on "don't annoy us" as "do the right thing". But nevertheless, when God approached the Jews, he did it in the manner of those pagan gods—his oldest title is ha-Ba'al Yisrael, Israel's (chief) God—and it strikes me as unlikely that he'd do that if all pagan gods were fallen angels.
Still, though, even if the gods aren't devils, the larger point does stand—"White Magic" does come with an elaborate, complicated, and non-negotiable code of conduct. Nothing is free, with that kind of being.
A character in my vampire book compares using the gods for magic to joining the Mafia, what with having to abide by a harsh, inflexible code, that doesn't have the slightest room for compassion (a feature of all pagan ethics is "Harm was done, a price must be paid"—whether it was intentional or not). Using devils for magic, on the other hand, is like borrowing money from the Mafia.
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