Texts in conversation - Dragonlance & The Coldfire Trilogy

Piggybacking on my earlier notions about science, religion, and nuance.  I'm currently re-reading The Dragonlance Trilogy (because after The Mirror Empire I needed something a tad simpler), and noticed C. S. Friedman's Black Sun Rising on the "dear to my heart" section of my bookshelf, and was struck by how differently religion functions in these two stories.  Between the two series, there are three approaches to religion, highlighting some of the ways religion is presented in Fantasy stories.  In Dragonlance, religion is in some ways simply the functional power it represents in D&D, but also more broadly an assumed characteristic of all people.  Black Sun Rising in contrast, presents religions that have grown up in response to their environment, and shows individual responses to those religions.  My favorite treatment of religion in Black Sun Rising (and the entire The Coldfire Trilogy) is that while acknowledging the world it exists in, elements of the religious faith stretch beyond the world.

(There's a giant disclaimer here - I am familiar primarily with western Christian beliefs and practices.  I grew up in the Presbyterian church and studied medieval Christianity in college.  My goal here is to talk about the ways religion is portrayed in fiction, but to the extent that I'm referencing real-world religious experience, that's the limited context I'm drawing on)

Religion in Dragonlance is mechanistic (it is, after all, based on an RPG).  Gods provide healing power.  Wizards do magic, but can't heal.  Clerics can heal.  It's a bit interesting because all of the gods left a long time ago & have only recently returned, so there are a bare handful of priests around, but basically by identifying as a religious figure (Cleric in D&D terms), the character can use magic to heal & is affiliated with a specific god.  Period, end of sentence.

Except that it's not quite that simple.  The entire impetus for the companions' original excursion was to seek evidence of the old gods, and there's no indication that this was just because they thought the world would be better if more people could cure light wounds.  The major new power in their lands are the Seekers, a group based in a nearby town that claims to be seeking out new gods.  Dwarves and Elves at least claim to remain devoted to their gods, even though there are no clerics in their communities.  Central to Weis & Hickman's view of society, then, is a notion that religion & spirituality must exist.  There's no theology in the series & no ritual, but there is a notion that people will seek out gods.  It's just not quite clear what "religion" is.

Compare Black Sun Rising and the rest of The Coldfire Trilogy.  People have crash-landed on a world where a mysterious power (the fae) makes technology not work but allows them to do magic.  Of course, there are also magical demons who feed on humanity in one way or another.  In this world, Friedman shows a society that has grown and developed for centuries after the landing, but also a few glimpses of the early days.  In those early days, many of the demons formed by people's unconscious came from religious traditions and half-remembered childhood tales.  Centuries later, however, people have come to terms with demons in various ways.  The demons are classified & understood to a large degree.  Some have developed symbiotic relationships & are even worshiped by many residents.  A church has grown up, based on the rejection of the fae.  Friedman returns frequently to the notion that an important aspect of this faith is that the church does not expect miracles.  Surrounded by tangible, common, magic, the church has defined itself as stretching itself towards a world not ruled by these spirits.

Black Sun Rising highlights one of the key challenges many fantasy series struggle with.  When wonders, magic, monsters, and gods exist within the universe, often in ways that have been defined and contextualized, how will religious faith be different from what we experience here where miracles are less prevalent?  Many series portray gods and worshipers, but Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy is one of the few I can think of where a religion has sprung up seeking a consolation that is manifestly not available within the world.  Not founded on divine revelation or miraculous events, the church of the Coldfire Trilogy presents what I think is really an interesting and nuanced view - a striving towards another world, where the grass is greener.

Another thing I appreciate about Black Sun Rising (and particularly the later books of the series) is that different believers have different experiences of the faith.  In my own life, I've known people (believers and not) who have attended church for the community it provides, people who engage deeply with the theology and rituals of their church, and people who identify as religious without attending an organized congregation.  Rarely are the faithful a homogenous group.  Within The Coldfire Trilogy, there are people of greater and less faith, people with different methods of reaching the goal, and those who attend a church seeking a consolation other than the promises of their faith.  The diversity of the members of the church is another strikingly positive aspect of The Coldfire Trilogy.  (Undercut a bit by the presentation of the church on the eastern continent in book 2)

Even fantasy series that present "religion" in some way have wildly different ways of portraying it.  For many series, as in Dragonlance, religion may be assumed without great attention to either ritual or theology, or alternately "religion" may just be another supernatural element of the world like wizards.  Fantasy series like The Coldfire Trilogy that present a nuanced, heterogenous group of the faithful, and a religious experience that truly looks outside the natural confines of the world are rare, and I like to celebrate them.

Casual Sexism: Eifelheim

I recently finished reading Michael Flynn's Eifelheim for book club, and generally really enjoyed it.  By which I mostly mean: I will forgive a great deal of a book that manages to present religion in a respectful way, and I have a particular soft spot for medieval philosophical debates because ridiculously amusing.  (Aside, did you know that there were very real & worrisome questions about how the resurrection of the body would work if you ended up in a river eaten by a fish that someone else later caught and ate because then the same particles would end up in two people and that would be confusing when God raised everyone?)  (Second aside - did you know that on Twitter Ta-Nehisi Coates inspired a bit of a discussion about body/spirit theology because football? Start here.)

Point being: while Eifelheim may or may not be "good" to the extent that that's relevant, it pushes a lot of nice buttons for me.  And until recently, no real downsides.  But this time, I noticed that in the "present" timeline, our protagonist Tom had been a bit of a man-about-town until he finally finally fell in with his girlfriend Sharon.  Sharon is a physicist who's settling Tom down, but not particularly exciting, so he gets to meet librarian Judy: "a fine-featured woman, decked with a long print dress and adorned by large, plain glasses. Her hair met behind her in a tight bun."
"Lieber Gott, Tom thought. An archetype!"

Well yes, but as we'll soon see, not only in the way Flynn meant.  Judy is introduced as a fine-featured woman, and she flushes when Tom speaks to her.

A paragraph later: "That was the nexus. A lonely librarian wanted a human conversation, and a lonely cliologist needed a break from his fruitless hunt".  Coupled with the fact that Tom's just been thrown out of his apartment by his girlfriend, the archetype Flynn's setting up has all sorts of sexual connotations, and every time we return to the present, there's some reference to Judy the librarian increasingly intruding on Tom's time which his girlfriend resents.

It's all perfectly innocent of course.  Tom and Sharon are An Item, and there's no hint that either Tom or Judy wants to start an affair.  It's just that the present timeline needs a bit of spice, and a lonely, fine-featured librarian to introduce a bit of jealousy is the perfect ingredient.

Tom's girlfriend has a research aide.  He's male.  We never really learn much about his physical appearance, and there are no hints of sparks, jealousy, or anything else, of course.

The sexism in Eifelheim is casual and unconsidered.  It's the sort of thing that I either didn't notice on previous readings, or maybe grinned at a bit.  It's not overt to the point it intrudes on the story, just quietly there.  And now, it detracts from the novel.  Because safe spaces and scaly llamas.  Because for some readers, it's going to reinforce negative views and for others it's going to be actively unpleasant (like being punched in the face at a restaurant) and there's no reason they should have to have that experience while reading Eifelheim.

I can't consume media the same way I used to anymore.  I'm a lot more sensitive to casual racism & sexism than I used to be. I suspect a lot still flies by me (and there is plenty of other writing that's insensitive & insulting to other communities like the disabled, LGBT, and others that I mostly miss).  Sometimes when I notice this, I get a bit sad, because I'd love to read Eifelheim without having the sexism detract from it.  Except, the author could do that to.  The author could write a more inclusive book that's not casually insulting, and then I wouldn't have this problem.  And loads of other people who aren't represented in fiction could also enjoy it.  That would be great.  I guess I'm saying #weneeddiversebooks ?  Also, authors: do better.  I'll reward you by buying your books, because there are fewer and fewer that don't bug me as I'm reading them.

Taking Religion Seriously

I've started a re-read of Eifelheim, Michael Flynn's 2006 Hugo-Nominated novel, which I pitched to my book group & discussed on Sunday.  The book flits between 14th century germany and modern grad students (a theoretical physicist and a mathematician essentially trying to do reverse-psychohistory explaining 14th century settlements), and includes alien intruders.  I had forgotten that the main character in 14th century germany is a priest and natural philosopher.  When mysterious lightning crackles through the town, a minorite monk and most of the villagers fear demons and the devil, but it's the priest (Father Dietrich) who remembers the generation of static electricity with fur and amber, and seeks natural explanations.

I commented during my read of Ancillary Justice that I was very happy to see the religious rituals in Radch culture, rituals which did at times play out in how people viewed the world.  Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon features an older ghul-hunter whose magic works as an expression of his faith and knowledge.  Books (speculative fiction and otherwise) that take religion seriously as an important feature of the world not necessarily in opposition to science exist, but they can be hard to find.

So recently, enthused by the natural philosophical ruminations of father Deitrich, I tweeted out:

In all seriousness, working hard at reconciling faith and science is more difficult & rewarding than trying to sever them.
— Jonah Sutton-Morse (@jsuttonmorse) September 8, 2014

I know that there's a long history in western thought that aligns science and religion as polar opposites.  I'd be interested in having someone who knows more than I do outline where this came from, what sustains it now, and whether this dichotomy exists in cultures outside of the western european tradition.  There are a few books (Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow comes to mind, and maybe A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, though it's been a while since I read it) that take on the roles of religion and ritual pretty directly.  The (few) arab-inspired books I've read (Throne of the Crescent Moon mentioned above, When Gravity Fails and Desert of Souls) all show practices, garb, and beliefs as elements of the worldbuilding.

This post is, I guess, an invitation to discussion if anyone's interested.  Where does the notion that religion and science must be at each other's throats come from? Are there speculative fiction books that bridge this divide? Harden it? Why are so many books simply silent on either regular weekly rituals or religious beliefs and practices? Is there a place in speculative fiction to bridge the divide between science and religion? And do non-western books and stories do this better?

I'll dive back to the question from time to time, but if anyone else wants to chime in, I'd love to see a conversation about this.