gods & goddesses

[thorn1ofmany]

I've noticed on several threads people have mentioned David Eddings' The Belgariad. Unfortunatly, I have yet to read The Belgariad and The Malloreon, but I have read The Elenium and The Tamuli and was very impressed with his work.

His characters were absolutely brilliant, but I was also intrigued by his use of gods/goddesses and religion. Thus (partly inspired by the sorcerer discussion going on in the Christian Spins on Lengends thread) I have started this thread to discuss how a fantasy world of multiple gods and goddesses could be used within a Christian context.

After reading The Elenium and The Tamuli I was struck by the parallels between the fictional Elene religion and Catholicism. It was somewhat portrayed as a force of good, but mostly it functioned as a hypocritical form of religious government. This is in stark contrast to the child goddess a.k.a. Flute a.k.a. (some name that starts with A) who is by far the most interesting character. She is indeed very childlike, but at the same time wise beyond measure. As the saying goes: "It is a greater ability to be able to conceal one's ability."

So, on the one hand you have the Elene god who is very similar to the God of Christianity, whose existence throughout The Elenium is in question and when his existence is finally confirmed in The Tamuli he is portrayed as stern, silent and uncaring. On the other hand you have the child goddess who is constantly portrayed as whimsical, mysterious, and loving.

Now there are so many other unchristian elements to the story that it could not possibly be salvaged and saved, but stricly speaking theoretically (and of course ignoring that Blue Rose created the world and Sparhawk is potentially a god) the more we learn about the child goddess the more we see that she is quite the manipulator. The more we learn about the Elene god the more of an enigma he becomes.

So this is my idea. The child goddess is evil (Satan=angel of light). In desperation the characters who have been depending on her turn to the Elene god for help. So let me know what you all think or if you have any ideas of your own.

[ShiroiHikari]

So you're talking about allegory? *confused.*

[thorn1ofmany]

No, I personal dislike allegories because every intricate detail of the story has to represent something, I prefer stories where Christian archetypes are used for the basis of the story's universe. So I'm talking about stories where there are multiple gods, but they are false because there is only one all powerful God.

[Hitokiri]

I've never read (or hear) of any of the books you said Thorn but (as you all know) I'm a huge Tolkien-fan. In the Samarillion, he went into great detailed of things I guess viewed as Gods and Goddesses. The Valor (but they were more like I guess arch-angels to me). Cause thier is one mighty bieng (or God) Ilúvatar .

[EireWolf]

Hmmm... in the Belgariad, all the gods have one god as their father, Ul. But they are each still gods in their own right, having responsibility for certain domains of the world. It's just that they ultimately defer to Ul. One of the gods (Torak) turned evil, though, because he thought he was better than all the others... sound familiar? So there are some similarities to Christian theology, but I still wouldn't call it a Christian series.