Harry Potter and the Christian Magicians III — Theological Speculative Fiction
A reader writes in to ask three questions:
1. What is the right way to answer the accusation that the fantasy genre turns kids into satanists/gnostics/pagans? One sees this argument most used against Harry Potter, but in recent years I’ve come upon people who believe that the inclusion of magic in a work is so evil they won’t even let their children read Narnia.
2. Related to this, I’m curious what your opinion is in regard to what the proper way is for a Catholic author to handle magic in his work.
3. What would be your response to those who say that all magic ought to be portrayed as evil or only used by characters who are stand-ins for God (Aslan) or who are agents of God (as I have seen some argue that Gandalf is)?
The first question I answered at some length here. The second I answered at even greater length here. Let is now turn to the third.
As with most questions in life, this question is one concerning how to strike a happy medium between to opposing duties or desires. The first is the writer qua man and his duty to the truth and to heaven; the second is the writer qua writer and his duty to turn out a workmanlike product.
The first cannot be ignored for the second. A Christian writer cannot become a pagan for the sake of the marketplace while he takes up his pen. Indeed, if anything, the opposite. He must take up his pen for the greater glory of God.
There are two basic kinds of ideas: those that demand the total loyalty of the total person and influence every aspect of life, and those that do not. In general, the former are religious or semireligious ideas, and the latter are everything else. (I call Socialism a semireligious idea: there is no aspect of a man’s life that is beyond its reach, neither the use of gender-pronouns nor the use of Sterofoam or lightbulbs nor the use of recreational drugs nor the abuse of scientific climatological data.)
For the Christian, no aspect of life is or should be untouched and uninfluenced by Christ: even the humblest of work, baking bread or cobbling shoes, should and can be done in some fashion that reflects the glory to God, and displays virtue. While the heathen might find this concept remarkable (or contemptible) it is no more remarkable than saying and honest man does any work honestly, whether baker or shoemaker.
The heathens of the modern day who find the concept remarkable are, it must be admitted, hypocrites of astonishing insouciance: surely more than half the commentators on literature list subversion of the current social order as their express goal: they regard the introduction into the mind of the impressionable reader skepticism about the values and the virtues taught by Western civilization to be a healthy part of the maturation process. But a book supportive of any of the basic values or virtues of our common Western heritage will be denounced as fascist. Note, for example, the difference between the applause heaped on STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, a snide satire against monogamy and monotheism, and the opprobrium heaped on STARSHIP TROOPERS, a heartfelt paean to the unsung virtues of the footsoldier.
Yet neither can the second be ignored for the first. I have an obligation to write stories that will entertain not those who share my philosophy, but those who share my tastes, including the honorable opposition. Can I not, as a Christian, entertain heathens? Their world is dark enough as it is. Am I to tell them no jokes, no daydreams, no glittering ideas about the world of the future nor the world of fantasy?
Now, as science fiction and fantasy writer, my employers, the buyers of my wares, are ultimately not the editors but the readers: their interest is primarily in hearing a well told tale. They do not want to be on the receiving end of propaganda or lecture, certainly not coming from the pens of the disreputable tribe of fiction authors, that is, men who earn their bread by inventing fables rather than by honest labor that callouses the hands.
There are exceptions, of course. Fan of Ayn Rand are fans, by and large, fond of her lectures, and the same is true of Robert Heinlein: but such exceptional books are written for a narrower audience or by a wider talent than the norm. Outside such rare exceptions, tales are meant to entertain as editorials are meant to editorialize, and tales should be told for the sake of the telling.
Unfortunately, three factors militate against tale-telling for telling’s sake with no concern for the underlying philosophy or moral of the tale: first, the Enemy of Man and God and his agents and tools are firmly entrenched in the literary circles, so much so that to find a Christian writer among them is like finding an oasis in a sterile desert. Such few and refreshing shady pools exist, to be sure, but the uncounted acres of sand stretch bare and lifeless to the horizon. For every rare and beautiful pool of Tolkien, there are allegedly subversive writers busily sharpening and poisoning their pens against the purely imaginary Victorian prudes they see lurking beneath every doorstep, or watching with narrowed eyes behind the blinds, writers who think it best to use their dull sword-and-unicorn books as the proper venue to propagate the latest fashionable causes of the eternal rebellion: and they are as countless as the grains of sand in the wasteland.
We cannot abandon the literary field to them, or the market, or the impressionable minds of the young, or the battlefield.
For one thing, the characters and situations they invent are dreary, and boring only except when they are shocking or grotesque. The cathedrals of modern literature are carven more and more with goblins and gargoyles, and less and less with saints.
For another thing, they age badly, and we don’t want out books to suffer the same fate as all the written works of the Eastern Roman Empire, who in five centuries or more produced nothing of interest to later generations. Reading yarns from a little as forty years ago is to stifle a yawn: the view in such works as STAND ON ZANZIBAR cannot but strike the readers of AMERICA ALONE as quaint in what might be called its retro-alarmism. It is hard to work up a lather of fear about overpopulation when you are suffering from underpopulation.
Also, a Christian artist is under a duty not just to his muse, to tell a honest tale for an honest dollar, but also to his guardian angel, not to use his powers for evil ends, or lead the unwary astray. In this respect, the author is no different from, let us say, a guitarist asked to help serenade a dark-eyed maiden on a moonlit balcony. If the young lover is Romeo, who is willing to give up honor and family for the beloved, well and good: the the lover is Don Juan, the guitarist is not guiltless when he gilts the seducer’s suit with the seductive strains of his singing strings.
Third, and most importantly, since many a youth learns certain basic ideas about life and the universe from his light reading rather than his schoolbooks, we also have a duty to the ghost of John W. Campbell Junior not to put outright false scientific facts in the stories we write. For the writers of speculative fiction, this includes a duty to work in realistic (if not real) scientific knowledge into a work of science fiction.
Likewise, if your book contains theological or metaphysical speculation, the ghost of Campbell will haunt you if you work in unrealistic or outright false theological or metaphysical facts.
There are books where a discipline called “magic” is merely alternate technology as in Heinlein’s MAGIC, INC., or in MASTER OF THE FIVE MAGICS by Lyndon Hardy.
These books have “magicians” in them in the same way that DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN by Anne McCaffrey THE DRAGONMASTERS by Jack Vance have “dragons” in them: namely, in name only. The extraterrestrials of Pern or Aerlith are dragonish in external properties only. Saint George and the Archangel Michael have no quarrel with them, nor does Beowulf nor Siegfried. Likewise in Heinlein and Hardy, the magicians are engineers of an alternate technology. There is nothing supernatural about it. Magic is physics.
But any book which has magic in it which is not a branch of physics will have it as a branch of metaphysics. Even if the magic is called by some other name, parapsychology, if it deals with the nature of the human soul and its relationship to the eternal, it is dealing with philosophical and metaphysical principles.
My suggestion is that the ghost of Campbell demand we authors not put in contradictions of known metaphysical facts when writing fantasy in the same way and for the same reason we do not put in contradictions of known physical facts. It may be done for the sake of drama, but let it not be done gratuitously, lest the learned scoff and the unlearned be deceived.
I will use an example of deception without using a name: a book that was very well written (I dare say better than anything my humble pen is likely to produce) that contained scientific speculation about the questions of free will and the nature of human self awareness used its artistic powers falsely, putting across the absurd conceit that men are merely meat machines without free will, and that evolution made an error by making man self-aware, and that ultimate evolution into superior beings demands we shed this unnecessary self-awareness.
To make it clear that this was partisanship and not authorship, the author included an essay at the end of his book to emphasize that he had no free will and that is was ‘silly’ (his word) to believe in free will. In effect, his words were asking the reader freely to choose to believe that we make no free choices whatsoever.
No doubt he was coerced by his brain-atoms to write such paradoxical jabberwocky and gibberish. Had he freely chosen to say such things in public, it would have been laughworthy if not blameworthy.
In the same way that science fiction readers would be impatient with a space adventure yarn where the author was a flat-earther or a partisan of the geocentric model, and the author attempted by his art and not by argument to promote his view of the world as the correct one, so too should we as readers of the fantastic be impatient with book touching on metaphysical or theological matters that get the basics wrong.
Let me stress one all-important caveat, verily, an exception that overshadows the rule. No science fiction story I have ever read gets all the science correct. Indeed, a science fiction story that did not contain a hefty element of speculation or even outright baloney would not be science fiction because it would not be fiction.
Nor I nor any seriously addicted reader is likely to stop reading stories with faster-than-light drive or time travel machines in them merely because such things are more impossible than fire-breathing dragons (which could, at least, conceivably exist without logical paradox).
A story that contains such fables and phantasms as warp drives and mind melds can still be counted by all serious commentators as ‘Hard SF.’ Readers make allowances. But the allowance only goes so far.
Between the ghost and the muse there is a tension like a tug of war. The ghost of Campbell demands a degree of realism even in speculative matters. The muse demands drama. Drama and reality are at odds, for if they were not, we would not crave drama, we would merely read newspapers or columns of statistics about the potato crop production in the Ukraine.
Now, what about magic? How is the Catholic author to handle magic in his work?
I submit that the rule here is the same. Campbell’s ghost (no doubt quite chagrined to be dragooned into the duty of guarding metaphysical as well as physical realism) still demands a degree of accuracy in the story, even if the muse must yield a few inches.
But never more than a few! We are authors, after all, and fiction is our stock in trade, not fact. People come to us for shade and rest from the remorseless summer sun of mundane facts.
Let me mention examples.
THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE was a metaphysical speculation on the question of what the Savior would be like and act like in other worlds, worlds where men were myths. The average reader, or even an informed reader, can find nothing in the book that offends established theological fact. Indeed, in this slim children’s book, the author achieves what (had I not seen it done) I would have called an impossible auctorial feat: to portray Jesus as a character with all the power and authority and melancholy and surprising joy as He must have seemed to his astonished and beloved and bewildered disciples in the First Century: a figure like a lion.
But it is still fiction, even a ridiculous fiction. If you asked Thomas Aquinas about the shape of the savior sent to save talking animals or wicked English schoolboys from the Deep Magic, he would tell you there is only one Christ, Jesus, and not two Christs, one for men and one for talking beavers, and not one Christ who changes shape and has several avatars like Vishnu. He might even tell you there is no such thing as talking beavers. If so, the Angelic Doctor would be missing the point: anyone who cannot excuse the falsehoods of fiction has no business reading tales, particularly fairy-tales.
In PERELANDRA the author speculates likewise on the Fall of Man as it might happen, or be avoided, in worlds beyond the sphere of Earth, and he again portrays Edenic innocence and the nature of temptation with theological accuracy just as much as his portrayal of an ocean-covered Venus is scientifically inaccurate.
Let me mention minor theological inaccuracies in movies that most moviegoers (I hope) remember. IT’S WONDERFUL LIFE by Frank Capra portrays Clarence Odbody as a comedy relief angel, Second Class, no doubt because a real angel cannot be portrayed on the screen without scaring the bejezzus out of the audience, but also because the drama is increased if the angel character has a goal he is seeking, in this case, to earn his wings by aiding the human over whom he is guardian.
Further, some drama is lost if the character is not a human being, and not something or someone the audience understands. The monolith from Kubrick’s 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY is (ironically) a more accurate portrayal of what an Ezekiel-type angel might seem like to merely human consciousness: but the idea of replacing Henry Travers’ charming portrayal of Clarence with Kubrick’s monolith is so stupid an idea that it would make even iron-eyed Pluto weep.
Now, in the Bible, angels can appear as human beings, and eat food, and (if we take Genesis literally) can couple with the daughters of Eve to bring forth a race of giants, mighty men of renown who were of old. But what angels cannot do is be people, or gain wings. Angels are a separate order of creation, not ‘grown-up’ versions of human. (That would be Saints.) And the wings are an invention of painters, who had to symbolize visually the dwellers in heaven.
Let me mention also a movie I wish were more famous, STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (originally (and more accurately) titled A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH) by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The conceit is that a Royal Air Force pilot jumping without a parachute is missed, due to the thick English fog, by the Conductor or angel sent to gather him to his ancestors, survives with only a dangerous head injury, and falls in love with the Woman’s Army Corps radio operator with whom he shared what should have been his last moments on Earth. By the time the Otherworld bureaucracy discovers the error, the RAF and the WAC have fallen in love. As it turns out, the concussion makes the pilot able to see the ghosts and angels of the Otherworld, who debate whether to allow him to live or die, but is what he is seeing real or delusion? His ethereal trial takes place while his body on Earth is under ether under surgery.
The theological inaccuracies in this film are on par with the notorious line in STAR WARS where Han Solo boasts of being able to make the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs. Perhaps for the sake of the more truth-averse and less tough-minded souls in the audience, no mention of God or Christ is ever made. The Otherworld is not even called heaven: no particular denomination is likely to be offended if everything is as generic as what chaplains in the Boy Scouts are required to say.
Of course, again, the theological errors are likely to offend no one: the movie is perfectly ambiguous as to whether the visions of the pilot are real or are merely hallucination. Even the most Puritanical and partisan of zealots will hesitate to condemn a film for teaching false doctrine when the film says of itself that it was only relating a dream.
Again, the idea that Heaven makes mistakes is one a pagan will allow, but no monotheist: but drama demands that characters make mistakes in order that the drama of correcting or forgiven them be put on stage. HERE COMES MISTER JORDAN starts with the conceit that a prizefighter who is prematurely snatched from life by an inexperienced angel must be reincarnated. The inferior remake is called HEAVEN CAN WAIT. A more theologically sound conceit lies behind the movie ANGEL ON MY SHOULDER, where the Devil makes a mistake by reincarnating a criminal in the body of a District Attorney, only to be defeated in his scheme when the criminal reforms: no Christian thinks Old Nick is incapable of error. All these films are theologically inaccurate, but posed no problems to the audience of the generation in which they were made, for in those days children went to Sunday school, and they knew the difference between a fact and tall-tale, reality and make-believe.
For theologically inaccurate books, I will mention THE GOLDEN COMPASS by Philip Pullman. As a speculation, even taken on its own terms, the concept that ‘the Dust’ is the by product of matter when matter becomes self-aware, and is also the source of sexual energy or sexual liberty, released (apparently) only during unchaste liaisons, which chastity disorganizes or mars, so that the natural cycle of ghosts becoming annihilated is in order to feed the universe the raw materials needed to create demons, so that only by abolishing chastity and annihilating the ghosts can the universe be put back in balance, is such a confused an paradoxical mix of nonsense that I weary myself even to complete this sentence.
Contrast it with the exquisite A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA by Ursula K. Leguin. The theology of Earthsea is a somewhat Westernized version of Taoism, but, unlike the admittedly talented Mr. Pullman, the even more talented Mrs. Leguin has considerable artistic integrity: the metaphysical background of Earthsea never shows any internal inconsistencies. Magic has the power, in Earthsea, if misused, to disturb the yin-yang balance between light and shadow, life and death: thus when pride (in the first volume of the trilogy) upsets the balance, and lust for immortality (in the third volume) in both cases the main character must set the balance right, either by an act of self knowledge, or by an act of self sacrifice. Lao Tzu would approve.
Is WIZARD OF EARTHSEA subversive of Christian truth? I would say that it is only to the degree and only in the way that BEOWULF is, or, for that matter THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. Christianity is a culmination of paganism, a fulfillment of hints and promises contained within it. While much ado is made over the differences between Oriental and Occidental mythology and philosophy, at its root, the human soul is the same, and the expressions are the same.
I submit that Christians can read pagan works without danger to their souls, and, indeed, can get more out of them than the pagans can, because we understand whence they come and wither they go, and the pagans can only dream, guess, and speculate in the dark.
If I may quote a wiser head than mine to make the point, G.K. Chesterton once wrote a speculation as to what Europe would have been like, had there been no intrusion from heaven into human affairs to inaugurate the Christian era:
There would still be Pythagoreans teaching reincarnation, as there are Hindus teaching reincarnation; there would still be Stoics making a religion out of reason and virtue, as there are still Confucians making a religion out of reason and virtue; there were be Neo-Platonists studying transcendental truths, the meaning of which was mysterious to other people and disputed even amongst themselves as there are, as the Buddhists still study transcendentalism and dispute even amongst themselves; There would still be intelligent Apollonians apparently worshiping the sun god but explaining that they were worshiping the Divine Principle, just as there are still intelligent Parsees apparently worshiping the sun god but explaining that they are worshiping the Deity; There would still be wild Dionysians dancing on the mountain, as there are still wild dervishes dancing in the desert; There would still be crowds of people attending the popular feasts of the gods in pagan Europe as in pagan Asia; there would still be crowds of gods, local and other, for them to worship; and there would still be a great many more people who worshiped them than believed in them. Finally, there would still be a large number of people who did worship gods and did believe in gods, and who believed in gods and worshiped gods simply because they were demons; there would still be Levantines secretly sacrificing to Moloch, as there are still thugs secretly sacrificing to Kali. There would still be a great deal of magic, and a great deal of it would be black magic; There would still be a considerable admiration of Seneca, and a considerable imitation of Nero; just as the exulted epigrams of Confucius could coexist with the tortures of China.
In other words, when we authors look for material and setting for our fantasy stories, we can either look to a European past, or we can look overseas, but whether we would or no, the world we portray without Christ is either going to be unrealistic, or it will contain the virtues of the pagans (and, for drama’s sake, the vices). Sparrowhawk of Earthsea is a virtuous pagan as much as is Beowulf, or, indeed, Aragorn or Gandalf. These characters live in a world without Christ.
If their metaphysical and theological reality is going to seem realistic, both the courage and the despair and the wonder at nature in her cruelty and beauty (for the pagans known little what lies beyond nature, or think it a void like Nirvana) must be portrayed. If the struggles and triumphs and defeats of your pagan characters are to be displayed with a degree of realism drama allows, then the pagan virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance must be shown.
Hence the fantasy author must show the stoicism with which Aragorn walks through the paths of the dead, or Sparrowhawk on a remarkably similar journey walks through the Dry Lands where the cold stars never rise nor set. The parallel with an Orphic journey is not accidental.
There is a scene in Phillip Pullman’s novel where his heroine Lyra Silvertongue travels to the netherworld, and there finds whining ghost tormented by the harpies set upon them by the oppression of Christian moral philosophy (or something), and frees the ghosts of their torment by an act of mass euthanasia (or whatever it is called when one demotes the dead from existence in the afterlife to utter non-existence) that the author meant to be be moving, but which moved this reader only to laughter and disgust. Lyra tells stories to the ghosts, which perhaps was meant to represent the salvific power of art, but in this case the power was used not to save, but to damn the ghosts to the second death.
This scene lacks all the power and dignity of either Aragorn’s travel through the land of the dead or Sparrowhawk’s, merely because it is not metaphysically or theologically correct, even under the speculative assumptions of pre-Christian theology.
So, I submit that Christians can set stories in make-believe universes that operate under the rules of pre-Christian theology for the same reason science fiction writers can set stories in make believe universes with time travel or faster-than-light drive or mind reading: not that we think these things are literally true, and not because we are trying to promote a belief in them. Did anyone skeptical of parapsychology before reading THE DEMOLISHED MAN by Alfred Bester end up believing in mind-reading afterward? Or SLAN by A.E. Van Vogt? Or GALACTIC PATROL by E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith? Or by seeing Professor X read minds in a comic book?
We can do it because Christianity is a complete system, that encompasses the universe, including the pre-Christian or pagan universe, and Christianity fulfills and completes and brings to flower what these pagan world views only hint at. We can write a story set in a pagan background, which praises the pagan virtues of justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude, because these four cardinal virtues are part of and have been incorporated into the seven virtues taught by the Church.
What we cannot do and ought not do is write a book that praises the pagan practices of suicide, polytheism, polygamy, infanticide, sorcery, or sexual abominations. (This include the sexual abominations that this generation has declared to be sacred and above reproach.)
Do I mean that a Christian cannot write a historical novel, for example, taking place in ancient Japan, or retell the tale of the 47 Ronin who all die by their own hand, or retell the tale of Cato of Utica, that man who of all men embodied the stern and ancient virtues of stoicism? Heaven forbid! But I say you ought not glamorize the suicide, especially since the current generation is prone to suicide.
This leads to a more difficult question: what makes a metaphysical speculation about magic realistic as opposed to unrealistic? How it is to be done?
The answer to that depend partly on how badly you are willing to please the muse by offending the ghost, or, in extreme cases, offending the Holy Ghost.
To me, a professional writer, the question is an engineering question. It asks how best or most adroitly or most craftily to craft a story that satisfies the demands of the muse for drama and the ghost for verisimilitude.
That very useful word ‘verisimilitude’ means the semblance of truth portrayed so authoritatively as to make it easy for the audience to suspend disbelief. It is done by craft rather than by facts, by realism rather than reality, much as a convincing backdrop in a play is painted with perspective and shades and hues that invite the eye to fool itself.
The science in science fiction must follow verisimilitude. In what is called Campbellian or Hard SF (Jules Verne, Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Niven) the verisimilitude is achieved by an heavier admixture of real scientific principles or facts. Heinlein’s description of a space suit in HAVE SPACE SUIT WILL TRAVEL is as accurate as a textbook. (Take that as a condemnation of textbooks or a compliment to Heinlein, either way.) This is like painting a backdrop with photographic realism.
In what is called Soft SF (H.G. Wells, Moorcock, Zelazny, LeGuin) the admixture is slight, a matter of mood and atmosphere. This is like painting an impressionist backdrop.
In Space Opera, the science is merely the battered and creaking machinery by which the god is lowered onto the stage to blow up the enemy planet or galaxy at the end (E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith, A.E. van Vogt). This like like having Jack Kirby paint your backdrop, and you should be so lucky.
As in sci-fi, so in fantasy. Let me suggest that when it comes to theological or metaphysical portrayal in books, or portraying magic or magicians in books, there are at least three types of fantasy:
Hard Fantasy achieves theological verisimilitude by violating no known principle of the received cannon of theology of the West for Christian works, nor of paganism for pre-Christian works.
Now, there is no problem with portraying magicians as villains, or as souls who come to a sticky end. I hope no Christian will accuse the ante-climax of THE WORM OUROBOROS of unrealism when the sorcerer-king Gorice XII of Witchland imperils his immortal soul and defies prophecy by climbing to the conjuring chamber atop the Iron Tower of Carce for a final attempt, and hence is destroyed by the wild and malefic powers he unwisely summons up. He is hounded toward his doom like Odin foretelling Ragnarok, surrounded by omens like a battlefield is surrounded by ravens, and goes to his thaumaturgic death with a grim and unflinching demeanor of a Cato of Utica, or a Beowulf.
Even a writer as unsympathetic to theological truth as Joss Whedon can handle the dangers of witchcraft in a convincing way, if only to serve the needs of drama. There is one story arc in BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER where Willow the Witch, having successfully raised Buffy from the dead when she was required to change networks, begins to rely on magic to solve other problems, such as erase her lover’s memory to sponge away a lover’s quarrel, and so on.
Whedon in my opinion failed or flinched back by making Willow’s magic and addictive drug like opium rather than making magic seductive and more destructive for the spiritual reason that it fed her pride, and make her hostile to Giles, the figure in the show representing spiritual guidance and authority. But modern people are poisoned by modern philosophy, which is trite and cowardly. To condemn ‘substance’ abuse requires the daring of a GI Joe public service announcement: to condemn pride when we live in world that praises pride, or, as they call it, self-esteem, requires the daring of a Jeremiah.
Nonetheless, even if imperfectly, Mr. Whedon correctly portrays magic as corruptive and dangerous. This is not only good drama, it is ‘Hard’ or realistic fantasy.
I would also list any modern fantasy that closely follows ancient models as Hard fantasy. I do not believe need insist on all points of Christian Theology being correctly portrayed for the same reason I do not believe a science fiction yarn set in a Newtonian universe need be un-enjoyable (I am referring to SKYLARK OF SPACE by E.E. Doc Smith, which merely dismisses the Theory of Relativity as wrong without so much as cracking a smile.)
In the same way that the four pagan and cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude are the root and ancestor of the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love, a Hard fantasy may indeed contain accurate theology even if set in a pre-Christian setting.
I have already complimented A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA. Let me also compliment the Barry Hughart’s series Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox as the most imaginative and refreshing fantasy of its decade. There is a scene where two men are in love with the same woman without any trace of jealousy: and this is one of the clues the detective uses to conclude the woman is a goddess, on the grounds that erotic love is exclusive, but worship, the love of man to the divine, is inclusive, and oft grows greater in community. This is a perfectly fine observation of human nature and supernature which contradicts no known theological principle.
(I hope no one except the enemy will be offended if I list Oriental lands as pre-Christian rather than non-Christian. In my own way, I am as optimistic as those who call it ‘the developing world’ rather than by some more accurate term that referred to chaos and disintegration. Certainly no one will believe that to have China adopt the ersatz religion of Marx is the final stage of the evolution of the philosophy of that great and ancient nation: and since Marxism is considerably less sophisticated than Confucianism, I cannot in good conscience call ancient China pre-Marxist.)
Next there is fantasy that has less verisimilitude which we might call Soft. Nearly any story which has a Good Witch in it, or which portrays the summoning and trafficking with spirits as either beneficial or morally neutral will echo with a false tone.
Wizard of Oz is Soft Fantasy, even the epitome of Soft Fantasy. The magic is not dangerous, and operates not according to any magic system. L Frank Baum did none of the research that, for example, Ursula K LeGuin did when she invented her ‘Rule of True Names’ or Lyndon Hardy did inventing five to seven rule systems for his magic. The magic in Oz has everything to do with fairy Godmothers from fairy tales and nothing to do with the grimoires and alembecs of alchemists, or with the mind-numbing obscurantism of the occult, or the nonsense of astrology. We Christians can, without any betrayal of conscience, can accept the idea of Glinda the Good Witch in the same way we accept that there are talking Scarecrows and walking Tin Men: it is absurdity told for the delight of the fairytale.
Baum deliberately broke with the strict and stern morality of the fairy stories collected by the Brothers Grimm, and invented the kind of sugar coated and saccharine elfland that Professor Tolkien thoroughly detested (see his portrayal of the incompetent Master Cook in ‘Smith of Wotton Major’ if you have a doubt on this point.) Putting Tolkien’s objections, whatever they were, to one side, Oz is Soft fantasy in the same way that DUNE is Soft SF.
Now, I do not mean this as a condemnation! DUNE by Frank Herbert has ‘Soft’ science at its core, and I do not mean faster than light drive, but things like precognition and irresistible ‘voice’ powers and drugs that extend life and expand consciousness and all sorts of stage machinery made of balonium and unobtainium.
Don’t get me wrong: DUNE is a personal favorite of mine and of millions of readers, and it is science fiction. What it is not, is Hard science fiction, that is, the author did not use real science to invent what is basically a sword-and-planet adventure opera. Until real scientists start talking about force fields that stop fast moving particles but let slow ones through, or precognition, or breeding programs to create messiahs with Way Cool Mind Powers, we should classify this as Soft rather than Hard SF. The fact that it is better than most or all Hard SF does not mean our scheme of taxonomy is flawed. Hard SF does not equal Good SF, no matter what the esteemed readers of Analog may say.
Likewise a ‘Soft’ or unrealistic fantasy book can be a delightful book: but it does not use verisimilitude to real theological or metaphysical principles, pagan or Christian, to ease the suspension of disbelief in the audience.
Another example of Soft Fantasy is Jim Butcher’s ‘Dresden Files’ novels, which I recommend to all and sundry. The theological absurdity of having a magician be a good guy is mitigated by the clear spiritual dangers which surround him, and the author is willing to have this fictional universe come down like a ton of bricks on his fictional warlock when and if the man oversteps the moral law of the universe. Jim Butcher shows the backbone of one of Grimm’s Fairytales. Nonetheless, the author indulges in what I assess as somewhat unrealistic theological conceits, such as having a pentacle drive back a vampire with the same authority and power as a Crucifix, provided only the belief of the flourisher of the meaningless symbol is sufficiently sincere. Harry Dresden can also make the Kessel Run in seven parsecs.
An example of Soft fantasy whose metaphysics is so softcore as to be mushy, is the Eternal Champion sequence by Michael Moorcock. His conceit is that there is no struggle between good and evil in the universe, or, rather, the multiverse, but instead between Law and Chaos. The goodness in the universe is a balance between the two, and evil consists of going to the extremes. This remarkably shallow and empty notion of morality is partly saved by its resemblance to the moderation or medium of Aristotle, but the books are more open to be enjoyed the less seriously you take the posturings of the main characters. The conceit is is not theologically sound, even from a pagan point of view.
As examined in a prior essay, is there a danger to uninstructed and unwary young readers seeing magic portrayed as Way Cool? Certainly there is, and the danger is greater the more corrupt the generation becomes.
Does this mean the faithful Christian author cannot portray his Good Witch as one of the Good Guys? I would say that is a balancing act. The faithful Christian can write a romance novel, but he may not in good conscience write pornography. Romance novels these days are quite a bit more racy than they were before the current Dark Ages set in: a faithful Christian writing a romance novel must take care not to get so racy that it is arguably porn. The twilight darkens into night by slowly and invisible shades.
For that matter, I can think of at least two series of books that began as perfectly normal sword-and-planet or vampire-hunter-babe romances, and shaded themselves into the pornography section of the bookstore. The Christian cannot go there.
My rule of thumb is that a faithful Christian can write a book like THUVIA, MAID OF MARS, but should hesitate to pen a book like ANITA, VAMPIRESS-HUNTING LESBIAN LOVE-SLAVE OF GOR, even if the latter might outsell the former.
Finally, there is a genre of fantasy I like to call Elf Opera. It is like Space Opera: your heroes have rollicking adventures and suffer angst about as shallow as the soap opera troubles of Peter Parker, and the your characters include not just a knight, but a half-elf, a druid, a thief and a magic user. Magic users of the lawful good alignment use lawful good magic, and druid use nature magic, and the good druids are not portrayed as sacrificing human captive by burning them with unspeakably sadistic slowness to death in a wicker basket over a lingering fire. The fact that no real knight in real life would be seen in the same room with a druid and a magician and the thief without hanging the one or dismembering the other is of no moment: realism is not only not the strong suit of Elf Opera, it is not even in the cards.
I consider Elf Opera to be completely harmless. No schoolgirl was ever convinced to become a wicca by reading Terry Brooks, Piers Anthony, or Robert Jordan. There is more danger to those inclined toward the occult from reading Tolkien and Lewis, who by presenting the supernatural world in something of its realism and beauty, have no choice but to allure those with a darker interest in the supernatural to yearn for it as well.
We are all exiles. Few and far between are the men so dead in their hearts that to them the horns of elfland softly blowing in the gloaming hold no enchantment, no hint of precious lands once lost, ancient woods thick with magic and peril, or remote unvisited mountains shrouded in cloud as if in the robes of august kings.
Because we are all exiles, it is almost impossible to address the fantastic in literature without some impressionable reader, homesick for the supernatural, to be inspired to seek out the dark path to the twilight side of the supernatural: for the glamor of elfland does indeed pay a tithe to hell.
And yet, I say again, there is far more danger to the impressionable schoolgirl from far more mundane stories which portray abortion and contraception as normal, chastity as vile, selfishness as laudable, and so on. For that matter, Ursula K LeGuin in recent decades uses her considerable talent and genius to indoctrinate the unwary in the idea that all norms and virtues are cultural artifacts, and that every way of life, is equally valid, provided it is non-monogamous and non-monotheistic.
For that reason, I will make the startling statement that a brilliant book like LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS poses a greater danger to those tempted by the occult than does A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA, even though the latter book is actually about good wizards doing sorcery. The mood, theme and atmosphere of LEFT HAND points to multiculturalism and moral relativism, and from the premise that all cultures (except Christendom) are equally valid, the idea that all religions (except Christianity) are equally valid is a short step; and an even shorter step to say that the folk beliefs of the pre-Christians are valid and profound and fair, etc., and the schoolgirl will be dancing naked in under the sacred yews in the pale light of the sacred moon before you can say ‘paternoster.’
For the record, I think the number of people lured by LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS to paganism is exactly zero. I am merely using this as an example to point to the real source of danger, which I take to be the philosophy of witchcraft, self-empowerment, not the paraphernalia and pointed hats, which I see as relatively harmless.
No doubt by now you are impatient for me to address finally the question actually asked, which was this: What would be your response to those who say that all magic ought to be portrayed as evil or only used by characters who are stand-ins for God (Aslan) or who are agents of God (as I have seen some argue that Gandalf is)?
My response is to say this:
Of the three types of fantasy, Soft fantasy runs the greatest risk of glamorizing the occult, particularly among postchristian or morally retarded readers whose education was at the soft and feeble hands of state-run public schools, not under the strict and merciless knuckle-bruising rulers of nuns.
One solution which I admire as a craftsman of the false and deceitful arts of story-telling to the paradox of how to keep the verisimilitude of real theology but also indulge in the fairytale grandeur and wonder of having a good magician as Merlin aid the hero, or, since the days of Ursula LeGuin, be the hero, is exactly the solution mentioned: all good wizards must either be prophets or angels or some other stand in for divine powers. That solves the problem neatly, and satisfies everyone except for a small coterie of Christians whom nothing will satisfy.
So my response is to say ‘No.’ To have all good magicians in a story turn out to be angels or prophets solves a major dilemma of writing Hard fantasy: but I doubt this is the only solution to the dilemma.
Nor think I that think readers or writers, even Christian readers and writers, need avoid softer fantasy any more than they need avoid romance novels, provided, of course, they have not started to slip through those shades of twilight into the deeper gloom.
If you want to have your magic user throw a fireball, I say fling flame with gusto.
It becomes more problematic if you want to have your Jedi actually preach some nonsense about all life being a pantheistic non-personal Force or Shavian Life-Energy which makes no demands, and has a spice of oriental mysticism about it without actually requiring the disciplines and strict moral code of real mystics. There are people who are lured away from the light of heaven and drawn toward, if I may use the expression, the Dark Side by such lighthearted nonsense. Once you give in to the Dark Side, forever will it dominate your destiny.
The best solution I can offer to a Christian writer who wants to write a Soft fantasy is to treat it the way a Christian would treat a historical novel set in pagan days or Asian lands: by making it clear that the pagans themselves know their world view is incomplete. There is One for whom they yearn, even if to them He is the unknown god. We Christians enjoy the fullness of truth. It is not charitable for us to scoff at those who, through no fault of their own, have only reflections and echoes, colored shadows and partial stories of the truth.
Nor is it beyond the power of our art to lead the willing reader or the open-hearted audience from a partial truth to a fuller one.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
