The fantasy writer’s Christ Complex

Christianity permeates fantasy. I see two reasons for this. First, Christianity is everywhere. A baby can be born into an atheist family and will not take his first ten steps without hearing about Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ from the world around him. Second, the Bible is the most riveting and wildly popular fantasy story in existence. (I suppose The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream are the runners-up.) From the first, the fantasy writer is aware of the power of the Christian myth. It has inspired artists for ages. It’s a bandwagon that is easy to join.

If my implication isn’t clear, I’ll make it so: fantasy writers plagiarize the Bible to make their jobs a little easier. They also do it to show their intelligence, to show that they know the Bible. This is because great writers who were damn-near Bible scholars, too, wrote masterpieces based on the Bible, and other writers want to look smart just like them. If a fantasy writer can’t spin at least one yarn that relates to the Bible, what does that say about him? The fantasy writer’s Christ Complex, then, is a mixture of showing off his (usually incomplete) knowledge of the Bible and using Christianity as an easy out for storytelling.

I’m guilty of it.

And I’m guilty of enjoying it, too.

Sometimes.

Two things annoy me when it comes to imitating the Bible. First, the imitation isn’t very inventive. For example, in his novel, , Patrick Rothfuss builds a mythos for his world that involves Tehlu (both God and Christ) and Encanis (Satan). (Don’t worry; no spoilers.) They battle for the souls of humans, and Tehlu (in human form, like Christ) literally throws Encanis into a fire pit (Hell). To ensure Encanis can’t escape, Tehlu jumps into the pit, sacrificing himself to the flames (the Crucifixion). To be fair, I’m only 160 pages into Rothfuss’ big novel, so maybe he will complicate this story a bit, but for now, I’m a little disappointed because his mythos is merely a facsimile of Christianity. The second thing that annoys me can be found in The Name of the Wind, too. Rothfuss also uses Christian morality, praising altruism and self-sacrifice as noble virtues in his troubled main character. (My apologies, Mr. Rothfuss. There are other examples, but it just so happens that I’m reading your novel right now. To be fair, though, I love it, generally, and would recommend it to fantasy readers.)

When a fantasy writer simply twists around the Christian mythos and slaps on new names to his equivalents of God, Jesus, and Satan, and when he jumps on the morality-of-self-sacrifice bandwagon, I’m annoyed. It’s been done already. My God, has it been done already!

On the other side, I enjoy Phillip Pullman’s work. His series, His Dark Materials (which begins with The Golden Compass), challenges the status quo of Christianity and the awesome power it holds in our lives. To quote the host of the Sunday morning radio program, The Jesus Christ Show, shortly before the movie The Golden Compass was released, the novel series “is about three children who go on a quest to kill God.”

And isn’t that a hell of a thing?

I’ll forgive the Christ Complex though (which is very similar to the Shakespeare Complex, but I’ll write about that some other time). I have it, too. You’ll find blunt references to Christ in my fantasy series, Tradition…but wait ‘til you see what I do with it. I hope that it will be a fresh take on the story of Christ and an enjoyable challenge to the morality of self-sacrifice. Today, such challenges are needed.

Do you enjoy seeing Christian themes in science fiction and fantasy? Which books stand out to you because of those themes?

 

Chris Raiin’s fantasy novelette, Upholder, is free to read now.

Click here for the free PDF or the Kindle Edition.

Thanks for reading.