Babel Clash

In honour of ME we’re going to talk about gods – I like how that sounds. I have to agree with Joel on one (the one major) point about gods, namely that mortals must control their own fate.

To take a slight diversion, what’s bugged me about many novels, TV series and other things is the existence of prophecy – it’s a millstone about the neck of so much and unless you specifically have a plan for it, it’s a lazy excuse for not thinking a plot through. While it’s often not specified as to the origin of the prophecy they’re in the same boat as a divine, ineffable plan, so most of the time you just need to follow the script and the world will be saved.

Needless to say I’ve always found that very boring – they may both have their place in novels, but use them in the wrong way and it’ll backfire. Taking away the importance of actions and their consequences is most definitely the wrong way to go about fiction and the right way to leave your reader wondering why they bothered getting to the end.

Fantasy worlds tend to involve some sort of the supernatural and whatever part of the whole spectrum it involves, it allows for the possibility of beings beyond normal constraints. Now you don’t have to use them, but the more magic involved the more likely, to my mind anyway, there will be gods and monsters – it tends to be a form that involves power and the capacity for unlimited change so they’re a logical consequence and once you’ve got that, they’re characters with their own set of rules. The idea of an infallible, intangible and omnipresent god is a relatively recent one in human history (or at least throughout the majority I believe) and as a plot device sounds a pretty lazy one to me. And if you’re going to have them, they’re going to want to get involved in whatever’s going on.

Most importantly, they’re fun, or at least they can be! Being long-lived and more powerful than humans doesn’t mean they always do the right thing or fail to make mistakes – it just means the consequences of their actions are proportionately grand and destructive. Their potential impact on a world is not infinite and would most likely be far less than a GSU from a Culture novel – what you do with them is up to you but don’t ignore them. If a world has magic and gods, then factor them in, don’t just use them as window-dressing. Otherwise you run the risk of your creation lacking the depth and consistency it deserves.

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