# Clash of Cultures



## Mindfire (Sep 9, 2013)

So in the world I've constructed, there are about three cultures who all worship the same god, but under different names and with different aspects emphasized. Obviously they don't agree on _everything_; they have different traditions, worship styles, etc. But theologically there are no real contradictions between their views. I'm wondering if it would be better to make them knowledgeable of this fact, and embrace each other in a kind of spiritual fraternity, or to keep them ignorant of this fact, leading to a source of cultural conflict. 

I feel like if I go the conflict route, it'll be just a pointless distraction from the plot that I have to conjure some kind of contrived resolution for later. But if I go the fraternity route, some readers might see that as a cop-out, or get annoyed because it would draw further attention to the fact that the "battle lines" in my WIP are largely drawn between Monotheists (Good Guys) and Polytheists/Atheists/Everybody Else (Bad Guys), though not without exceptions. To be honest, I'm leaning towards fraternity.

Thoughts?


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## Feo Takahari (Sep 9, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> So in the world I've constructed, there are about three cultures who all worship the same god, but under different names and with different aspects emphasized. Obviously they don't agree on _everything_; they have different traditions, worship styles, etc. But theologically there are no real contradictions between their views. I'm wondering if it would be better to make them knowledgeable of this fact, and embrace each other in a kind of spiritual fraternity, or to keep them ignorant of this fact, leading to a source of cultural conflict.
> 
> I feel like if I go the conflict route, it'll be just a pointless distraction from the plot that I have to conjure some kind of contrived resolution for later. But if I go the fraternity route, some readers might see that as a cop-out, or get annoyed because it would draw further attention to the fact that the "battle lines" in my WIP are largely drawn between Monotheists (Good Guys) and Polytheists/Atheists/Everybody Else (Bad Guys), though not without exceptions. To be honest, I'm leaning towards fraternity.
> 
> Thoughts?



I've already heard your worldbuilding, and it seems a bit too detailed to swap anything around now, but I might as well make the suggestion I'd make if I hadn't heard it: why only ally the monotheists with each other, rather than having some of the polytheists ally with them? I can't find the relevant historical texts*, but I could swear there was a time and place when Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus agreed that there was "One Truth, Three Ways."

* Anyone who knows more history than I do care to help me out with this? I think I read about it in one of Larry Gonick's histories.


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## Mindfire (Sep 9, 2013)

Feo Takahari said:


> I've already heard your worldbuilding, and it seems a bit too detailed to swap anything around now, but I might as well make the suggestion I'd make if I hadn't heard it: why only ally the monotheists with each other, rather than having some of the polytheists ally with them? I can't find the relevant historical texts*, but I could swear there was a time and place when Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus agreed that there was "One Truth, Three Ways."
> 
> * Anyone who knows more history than I do care to help me out with this? I think I read about it in one of Larry Gonick's histories.



Okay... I'm going to have to elaborate a bit. Some of this will probably re-tread what you already know.



Spoiler: Lengthy Explanation



The split between the monotheistic peoples and the poly/atheist/etc. peoples goes way back. A few thousand years in the past, mankind was a single, largely homogeneous culture. Their civilization grew decadent and corrupt and was eventually punished with natural disaster and foreign invasion. This caused the human race to splinter into four different factions. One faction fled from the invading forces out into the western seas and were never heard from again until much later. The second faction migrated into a southern forest called the Direwood and became the Mako nation. The third faction migrated into the cold northern lands and abandoned the worship of the Ancient One (the monotheistic god) out of bitterness over the fall of their civilization. Their descendents became the Beorgians and eventually adopted a polytheistic religion. (Won't go into specifics there, it would take too long.) The fourth faction stayed put and was enslaved by the invaders. 

Eventually, with the help of the Ancient One and under the leadership of the prophet Mavros, they overthrew their captors and established the nation of Mavaria. The Mavarians and the Mako remained monotheistic, worshiping the Ancient One under the names of Akalesh and Natsarat, respectively, because he delivered them from the invaders. (The Mako have their own account of how their ancestors escaped bein enslaved by the invaders.) But, as I said above, the Beorgians rejected the Ancient One and instead created their own pantheon of gods. As part of the bargain with their new gods, the Beorgians were "marked" with fair skin, whereas before, mankind had been universally brown-skinned. (The Beorgian gods are simultaneously "real" and not real. Again, it would take too long to explain fully.) So now we have a north/south split between the fair-skinned, polytheistic Beorgians and the dark-skinned, monotheistic Mavarians and Mako. 

Of course, the two sides came to blows, which resulted in the Beorgians razing a large part of the Direwood and colonizing the newly-cleared land. When the hostilities ceased, the Beorgian colonials decided to declare their independence and founded the nation of Elyssia. In order to firmly establish their new national identity, they rejected the Beorgia's polytheistic religion (also a shrewd move by their leaders, as they would now no longer have to share power with clerics, who in Beorgia have more authority than some government and military officials). However, they retained a kind of disdain for the Mavarians and Mako (collectively called "the Dark Nations" by outsiders in reference to their skin tones) and did not re-adopt worship of the monotheistic god either. So Elyssia became a de facto atheist state. The Elyssians consider themselves, for various reasons, superior to all other cultures. However they still maintain a tenuous alliance with Beorgia due partly to their past connection and mostly to their contemptuous view of the Dark Nations. They consider the Beorgians foolish, but they consider the Dark Nations to be almost subhuman savages. By the same token, the Beorgians consider the Elyssians to be apostate or rebellious, but they still bear the "mark" or the gods as they have retained their fair skin, though not as fair as the Beorgians themselves, and are therefore deserving of some measure of respect. But the Beorgians see the Dark Nations are seen as (in the words of Kipling) "half devil, half child". Consequently, you have two sides: an alliance of fairer-skinned polytheists and atheists trying to subjugate or eradicate two nations of darker-skinned, monotheistic peoples.

Now, remember the group of humans who sailed off and vanished? They eventually landed in another part of the world in the far south called Vira and become the Viranese. (As you may have guessed from that name, they are based on elements from several Asian cultures and have the corresponding golden skin tone.) For reasons particular to their culture that I will not go into, they began worshiping the Ancient One under the name Hakadosh. Later on, they were invaded by exiles from Beorgia who had rejected the new polytheistic religion and had been forced to leave due to religious persecution. (Consequently they had not recieved the "mark" and retained a darker skin tone.) This set off a chain of events that caused the Viranese people to fracture into three factions. One faction became known as the Inazuma, who were displaced into the mountains and maintained the worship of Hakadosh/The Ancient One. The second was the Kudan, who lived on the northern steppes and adopted a kind of animistic religion in which Hakadosh was simply one spirit among many others, including nature spirits, the spirits of their ancestors, and even the gods worshipped by the foreigners. The third Viranese faction became serfs/slaves to the invaders and lost their cultural identity. The invaders, cut off from Beorgia, became known as the Baynish and adopted a polytheistic religion centered around the deification of the saint-like figures who led them in their flight from persecution, who they believed achieved apotheosis at their deaths. The Inazuma consider the Baynish to be usurpers and consider the Kudan to be traitors. So on Vira we have a three-way conflict involving a monotheistic faction and two polytheistic/animistic factions. 

Later on, events align such that the upper half of the world where the Mako, Mavarians, Beorgians, and Elyssians dwell (collectively called Hylos) becomes aware of the lower half of the world (Vira). The Mako and Mavarians ally themselves with the Inazuma, recognizing their cultural similarities, while the Beorgian/Elyssian coalition may or may not make an attempt to ally with the Baynish (that part of the story hasn't been fully fleshed out yet). The Kudan are utterly uninterested in the world war.

So, in total, we have an alliance of three monotheistic peoples (Mako, Mavarian, Inazuma), against an alliance of polytheists and atheists (Beorgia, Elyssia, _maybe_ the Baynish).

Also, the different cultures and the cultures I cherry picked elements from their rough analogues:
Mavarians: Egypt and Saharan Africa
Mako: Native Americans and South Americans
Beorgia: Russia
Elyssia: Rome and (Renaissance) Italy
Inazuma: Japan
Kudan: Mongols
Baynish: India



TL;DR- it generally has more to do with history, racism, convenience, and coincidence than it has to do with the religions specifically.

However, there are exceptions. I have a character from the atheist nation who sides with the monotheistic protagonist and his allies, multiple characters from the monotheistic cultures who defect/betray their own people, one guy who converts from polytheism to monotheism, and another character who gives up polytheism and flip-flops a bit before ultimately siding with the antagonists. Not everyone from the polytheistic and atheist nations is evil, and likewise the monotheists aren't universally good. It just so happens that my heroes are leading the monotheists and my villains have weaseled their way into positions of power in the poly/atheist nations. Also, my monotheists' view of their universe is the correct one, but not everything they believe is 100% accurate.


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## johnsonjoshuak (Sep 9, 2013)

Coming completely cold to your world, personally it would depend on how long you're looking at as far as a split. For example, being that it's only a few hundred years old, most of the Protestant denominations still agree that they were originally an offshoot of the Catholic church.

I would find it more interesting if, given enough time, if the divisions didn't know that they had come from the same source, but if a character or sect within the story did know but no one believed them.

Just my opinion.


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## Feo Takahari (Sep 9, 2013)

I'm still not buying the Beorgians' role in this. They may have rejected the Ancient One, but if they were willing to adopt _multiple_ new gods, and if so much time has passed, it seems like they'd get along better with a nation that has at least one god than with a nation that has no gods at all. Conversely, a nation founded on rejection of gods seems unlikely to accept an alliance with one that has many gods, even if it is against a common foe.

I don't mean to be too harsh, but it feels like you're pushing things a little too hard in order to set your monotheists against everyone else. I'm not sure it all fits together properly.


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## Ophiucha (Sep 9, 2013)

A couple of possibilities you can play with, if you like.

1. Personally, I'd have the leaders of their armies form a 'fraternity' of sorts, a close friendship through war, while acknowledging that a day may come - long after this war - when they may be on different sides of the same battlefield. Show how powerful the a/poly nations are, give them like an opening sequence _decimation_ of a major city or dock or national monument - a real wonder of the world-type of thing. Have the generals bicker and act spiteful towards one another, draw attention to their differences, but include a character-driven sub-arc where the three gain respect for one another. Maybe a scene with the generals in a bad situation where they choose to pray together, respecting each's individual traditions while standing together on what they're praying for (escape/victory/hope/whatever). Have them become friends, but without the cheesy ending where their nations fall behind them and come together as eternal allies. Have them part ways knowing that while they may always respect and care about one another, their alliance has ended along with the war against the a/poly people. It would make for a more minor, small scale subplot than having all three _nations_ kiss and make up.

2. Maybe have two of the nations like each other more than the third? Someone above mentioned Protestantism, and while certainly not all sects of protestants like each other, they do like each other more than the Catholics. Maybe, if you can work it into your timeline, have them all start out as basically the same, but having a schism of sorts that leads to one of them maintaining the oldest tradition (Catholic, if you will) while the other two go on to create reformed versions of the religion - different from one another, yet bound by their mutual dislike of the third. Maybe have that Catholic one suffer a nasty blow from the a/poly guys before the other two nations agree to help them.


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## The Dark One (Sep 10, 2013)

For the record, a little bit of anthropological background...

I'd never suggest the following nutshell is entirely accurate for all of human history, but it tends to be correct. (Of course, your fantasy world doesn't have to obey the same rules as our history.)

Throughout human history, religion-type has always been linked with mode of production. Hunter-gatherers have an animistic religion; agriculture/pastoralists have a pagan pantheon with a sacrifice reflex; more modally complex nation/states have monotheism with authoritarian rules to guide individuals who are more numerous and live more closely than the other modes. It follows that monotheists will be more numerous and technologically advanced than the pagans/animists. (Cf Avatar.) (As a side-note, atheists flourish in milieux where there is enough education and leisure time to reflect upon the perceived activity/inactivity of god...usually where there is a monotheistic culture with concomitant mode of production.)

I'm not suggesting (necessarily) that you slavishly follow the human example, but you should at least be aware of the paradigm so that you can compensate accordingly when you depart from it. Otherwise, your socio-religious matrix may lack authenticity.


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## SineNomine (Sep 10, 2013)

Define "no real contradiction between their views".  Because using the obvious example, Christianity, that distinction can get so fine that it borders on the ludicrous.

Consider all the heresies in early Christianity and all the splits over views that are really, really pedantic.  The Monophysite controversy was over whether Jesus Christ, after he had died and been resurrected, had two natures (One divine, One human) or one nature (A mix of both divine and human in a single nature).  That's silly.  And yet this was so important that in the late Byzantine-Sassanid wars in the 7th century, the Byzantines abandoned their designs on Arabia because their tributary state ally, the Ghassanids, were Monophysite.

"Oh well, you know we've been actively trying to control Arabia for five decades, and our allied Arab tribesmen are actually doing well against the Sassanid allied Arab tribesmen...but darn it, they just won't accept that Jesus had two natures for 40 days...Time to give up."

Conflict is PROBABLY the way to go.  It doesn't necessarily need to be active warfare conflict, but askance glances and elbowed ribs are pretty much necessary unless you want to make it a point how wonderful these people are for getting along when they have slightly different views.


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## psychotick (Sep 10, 2013)

Hi,

Three different monotheist religions and also at war with all others. Judaism, Christianity and Islam ring a bell? All supposedly worshipping the same God but at odds over a great many things.

Or if you want them spiritually more allied you could try Catholic, Protestant and Mormon as your role models. All are Christian in origin.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Mindfire (Sep 10, 2013)

So many great answers! I'm in class right now but I'll respond to you guys as soon as I'm out. You're giving me ideas I hadn't considered.


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## BWFoster78 (Sep 10, 2013)

In general:

conflict = interesting and fraternity = boring

If you have a choice between increasing tension or lowering it, increasing is usually the right call.


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## skip.knox (Sep 10, 2013)

I have not read all the backstory, but it sounds like you want the core conflict of your story to be over religion. If so, you can simply invent whatever conflict you wish. As SineNomine noted, the points of difference can seem incredibly trifling to an outsider, so you could have your monotheists fighting each other or fighting outsiders. It is entirely believable and coherent to have your monotheists regard *all* other religions as deluded or even inimical. Orthodoxy tends to want to recapitulate itself.

And I wouldn't regard polytheists as all that tolerant or inclusive. Tribes tend to have their gods. If you belong to a different tribe, you have *your* gods, but they are my enemies and I'll have nothing to do with them. My gods, my laws, my customs, all these things go together and help define me as a tribe.

Nor does a polytheistic society need to be primitive. I offer the Romans as an example. Over and over again, especially during the Republic, we see the Romans reacting harshly against "foreign" gods who get blamed for undermining good, honest, Roman virtues. 

All that having been said, theology is rarely the immediate driving force for individual conflict. It makes for background, but unless your story is a theological parable, I wouldn't put it in the foreground. Which is why I'm not writing your story!


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## Mindfire (Sep 10, 2013)

Okay, I'm going to do my best to address all the responses one by one, so get ready for a lot of back to back posts. 



Feo Takahari said:


> I don't mean to be too harsh, but it feels like you're pushing things a little too hard in order to set your monotheists against everyone else. I'm not sure it all fits together properly.



I think you're vastly underestimating the effects of racism in this case. The unacknowledged truth of the situation is that the Beorgians and Elyssians are motivated more by their hatred of the other peoples they possess than by any ideology or religious belief. The Mavarians and the Mako are also the only people in the known world to possess magic, so there's also the fear of a common enemy at play. Both the Beorgians and the Elyssians fear what could possibly happen if a nation wherein every single man, woman, and child is a living weapon with the ability to conjure fire out of nothing and summon giant flaming beasts were to decide, on a whim, to invade their countries. So of course, despite their great differences, the Beorgians and the Elyssians decide to stick together. They share a hatred and fear of the "Dark Nations" that compels them to cooperate for the sake of self-preservation. And while religion is a source of contention between them, they don't hate each other per ce, at least not as much as they hate the other cultures. The Beorgians see the Elyssians as "prodigal sons" who might eventually come home, while the Elyssians see the Beorgians as a foolishly superstitious people who might eventually become enlightened. Their respective ideologies allow them to find each other misguided, but tolerable while simultaneously codifying their hatred and fear of the Mavarians and Mako. Beorgian religion teaches that the Dark Nations have intermingled with demons and are therefore cursed. Elyssians take an almost colonialist view, that these are an unintelligent, but nevertheless dangerous people who need to be brought into line before they destroy everything around them, an obstacle to the Elyssian goal of a unified "enlightened" humanity (under Elyssian rule naturally). The Beorgian/Elyssian alliance may seem like a strange one, but stranger pairings have happened in our world (Japan/Germany).

Does this explanation make sense? And I haven't contrived all this just to justify neatly matching up the sides this way. It just happened organically, I swear.


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## Mindfire (Sep 10, 2013)

Ophiucha said:


> A couple of possibilities you can play with, if you like.
> 
> 1. Personally, I'd have the leaders of their armies form a 'fraternity' of sorts, a close friendship through war, while acknowledging that a day may come - long after this war - when they may be on different sides of the same battlefield. Show how powerful the a/poly nations are, give them like an opening sequence _decimation_ of a major city or dock or national monument - a real wonder of the world-type of thing. Have the generals bicker and act spiteful towards one another, draw attention to their differences, but include a character-driven sub-arc where the three gain respect for one another. Maybe a scene with the generals in a bad situation where they choose to pray together, respecting each's individual traditions while standing together on what they're praying for (escape/victory/hope/whatever). Have them become friends, but without the cheesy ending where their nations fall behind them and come together as eternal allies. Have them part ways knowing that while they may always respect and care about one another, their alliance has ended along with the war against the a/poly people. It would make for a more minor, small scale subplot than having all three _nations_ kiss and make up.
> 
> 2. Maybe have two of the nations like each other more than the third? Someone above mentioned Protestantism, and while certainly not all sects of protestants like each other, they do like each other more than the Catholics. Maybe, if you can work it into your timeline, have them all start out as basically the same, but having a schism of sorts that leads to one of them maintaining the oldest tradition (Catholic, if you will) while the other two go on to create reformed versions of the religion - different from one another, yet bound by their mutual dislike of the third. Maybe have that Catholic one suffer a nasty blow from the a/poly guys before the other two nations agree to help them.





SineNomine said:


> Define "no real contradiction between their views".  Because using the obvious example, Christianity, that distinction can get so fine that it borders on the ludicrous.
> 
> Consider all the heresies in early Christianity and all the splits over views that are really, really pedantic.  The Monophysite controversy was over whether Jesus Christ, after he had died and been resurrected, had two natures (One divine, One human) or one nature (A mix of both divine and human in a single nature).  That's silly.  And yet this was so important that in the late Byzantine-Sassanid wars in the 7th century, the Byzantines abandoned their designs on Arabia because their tributary state ally, the Ghassanids, were Monophysite.
> 
> ...





psychotick said:


> Hi,
> 
> Three different monotheist religions and also at war with all others. Judaism, Christianity and Islam ring a bell? All supposedly worshipping the same God but at odds over a great many things.
> 
> ...



Thanks for your suggestions Ophiucha, Sine, and psychotick! I lumped your comments together because they're driving at similar things. Until now, I'd been thinking of the matter as a simple dichotomy between "DO NOT LIKE" and "BESTIES 4EVER!" But now I can see there could be a happy medium. They could recognize their similarity of beliefs and the necessity of an alliance but disagree with each other on other things or just plain not get along perfectly. In fact, that's probably the route I'll end up taking.


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## Mindfire (Sep 10, 2013)

The Dark One said:


> For the record, a little bit of anthropological background...
> 
> I'd never suggest the following nutshell is entirely accurate for all of human history, but it tends to be correct. (Of course, your fantasy world doesn't have to obey the same rules as our history.)
> 
> ...



Thanks for the tip. However, I should point out that your anthropology assumes (as does most scientific discipline) that the beliefs in question are not actually true and that the accompanying gods aren't actually real. For example if any one of the Abrahamic faiths is true, then mankind was monotheistic from the start and polytheism and animism came later. Leaving aside the question of the validity of real-world religions, the anthropological understanding of religious development doesn't really hold up in a fantasy world where gods _actually_ and _demonstrably_ exist and have played an active role in shaping human history, as the supernatural beings in my world have.


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## Mindfire (Sep 10, 2013)

BWFoster78 said:


> In general:
> 
> conflict = interesting and fraternity = boring
> 
> If you have a choice between increasing tension or lowering it, increasing is usually the right call.



In general, I agree. The problem is that if you set up a conflict, you need to have a satisfying payoff. If the three nations are squabbling over whose god is the real one, I can't think of an organic way to set up "the reveal" that isn't completely anti-climactic and doesn't make the entire subplot feel like a waste of the audience's time and a distraction from the main story. If it's telegraphed too much, it'll be an eye-rolling moment. But if it's telegraphed too little, it'll look like a deus ex machina cop-out (because obviously the only way the question could be definitively settled is if the god told them himself, which isn't beyond the realm of possibility or even likelihood).


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## BWFoster78 (Sep 10, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> In general, I agree. The problem is that if you set up a conflict, you need to have a satisfying payoff. If the three nations are squabbling over whose god is the real one, I can't think of an organic way to set up "the reveal" that isn't completely anti-climactic and doesn't make the entire subplot feel like a waste of the audience's time and a distraction from the main story. If it's telegraphed too much, it'll be an eye-rolling moment. But if it's telegraphed too little, it'll look like a deus ex machina cop-out (because obviously the only way the question could be definitively settled is if the god told them himself, which isn't beyond the realm of possibility or even likelihood).



Not all conflicts have resolution on a global level.  Going to a more personal level would work:

Character A represents one religion and hates Character B who supports a rival faction and who feels the same way.  The resolution can simply be the two characters gaining a grudging respect for each other even if they both still dislike the other's theology.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 10, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> I think you're vastly underestimating the effects of racism in this case. The unacknowledged truth of the situation is that the Beorgians and Elyssians are motivated more by their hatred of the other peoples they possess than by any ideology or religious belief. The Mavarians and the Mako are also the only people in the known world to possess magic, so there's also the fear of a common enemy at play. Both the Beorgians and the Elyssians fear what could possibly happen if a nation wherein every single man, woman, and child is a living weapon with the ability to conjure fire out of nothing and summon giant flaming beasts were to decide, on a whim, to invade their countries. So of course, despite their great differences, the Beorgians and the Elyssians decide to stick together. They share a hatred and fear of the "Dark Nations" that compels them to cooperate for the sake of self-preservation.


I know from your previous posts that your Mavarians are Black African types, but what of the Mako? Are they dark-skinned too? Because I'm getting an uncomfortable "inverted racism" vibe here, what with your darker-skinned races having superior magic and morality than the presumably villainous lighter-skinned ones. I mean, it's one thing to have a light-skinned faction aggress against a dark-skinned one, but must you make the darker-skinned people the more magical ones?


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## Feo Takahari (Sep 10, 2013)

Jabrosky said:


> I know from your previous posts that your Mavarians are Black African types, but what of the Mako? Are they dark-skinned too? Because I'm getting an uncomfortable "inverted racism" vibe here, what with your darker-skinned races having superior magic and morality than the presumably villainous lighter-skinned ones. I mean, it's one thing to have a light-skinned faction aggress against a dark-skinned one, but must you make the darker-skinned people the more magical ones?



Good magic in Mindfire's setting is a gift from God, and since his dark-skinned people are the ones who worship the one true God . . . (Of course, there are plenty of implications in that alone.)


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## Mindfire (Sep 10, 2013)

Jabrosky said:


> I know from your previous posts that your Mavarians are Black African types, but what of the Mako? Are they dark-skinned too? Because I'm getting an uncomfortable "inverted racism" vibe here, what with your darker-skinned races having superior magic and morality than the presumably villainous lighter-skinned ones. I mean, it's one thing to have a light-skinned faction aggress against a dark-skinned one, but must you make the darker-skinned people the more magical ones?



If I was going to get pedantic about it, I'd say the Mako would be properly termed "copper-skinned". But their tone is different enough from the Beorgians and Elyssians for them to get lumped in with the Mavarians by said cultures. However, the Beorgians and Elyssians have a few phenotypical differences between them. Beorgians tend to be much fairer-skinned with lighter eyes and hair on average, while the Elyssians, being modeled on Italians, have darker eyes, hair, and a somewhat sun-tanned look. 

As for the fact that my darker-skinned nations are magical while the lighter-skinned cultures are generally not (again, there are exceptions), I find it amusing that the opposite scheme (e.g., lighter-skinned magical elves and Men of the West vs the darker-skinned Haradrim, the lily-white Narnians and Archenlanders vs. the dark-skinned Calormenes, etc.) is accepted, but when I choose to do the opposite it suddenly becomes a problem. And I say that as someone who _loves_ the Legendarium and the Narnia books. Also, my approach is not unprecedented. It is inspired in part by the Earthsea books, in which the darker-skinned peoples of the Archipelago have magic and the fair-skinned Kargish people do not. I liked the fact that LeGuin made her hero and main civilization non-white and wanted to do something similar. 

But to allay your fears, I should note that the Beorgians and Elyssians are not universally or inherently evil, nor do I treat them as such. They just have corrupt leaders armed with misguided and errant philosophies. Some members of these nations side with my protagonists and are instrumental in overthrowing their leaders. Also, in the future of this world, say a few generations or so down the line (yeah, I plan that far ahead), things are a lot less "black and white", no pun intended. Beorgia's religious system withers away and it's empire shatters into a bunch of islands that each have their own views on the world. Elyssia splits in two, with one half befriending Mavaria and the other half instituting somewhat isolationist policies. Not to mention that both in the present and the future, there are corrupt members of the Mavarian and Mako civilizations. In fact, I plan for one of my current protagonist's descendants to be a villain in the future. Furthermore, the dark-skinned/light-skinned dichotomy breaks down entirely when you go to Vira (the southern continent), because everyone there, good and bad alike, has skin tones ranging from olive to brown.

In short, there's no reverse racism here. I've just chosen to build a world where light-skinned people are a relative minority. (Which isn't too removed from reality if you think about it...)


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## Jabrosky (Sep 10, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> I find it amusing that the opposite scheme (e.g., lighter-skinned magical elves and Men of the West vs the darker-skinned Haradrim, the lily-white Narnians and Archenlanders vs. the dark-skinned Calormenes) is accepted, but when I choose to do the opposite it suddenly becomes a problem.


As a matter of fact I don't like the racial undertones in LotR either. If anything, those are even worse since they champion the socioeconomically dominant and oppressive group. And thank you for the clarification.


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## Mindfire (Sep 10, 2013)

Feo Takahari said:


> Good magic in Mindfire's setting is a gift from God, and since his dark-skinned people are the ones who worship the one true God . . . (Of course, there are plenty of implications in that alone.)



Let me be clear, I don't have an "agenda" or anything. Everything grew organically. I wanted a dark-skinned protagonist (sadly a rare thing in our genre), a (meta)physical magic system that wasn't just your average "true names"/"ancient language" shtick, and I wanted a universe that somewhat jived with my personal spiritual beliefs. After several interations and refinements for the sake of coherence, this is the result.


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## Mindfire (Sep 10, 2013)

Jabrosky said:


> As a matter of fact I don't like the racial undertones in LotR either. If anything, those are even worse since they champion the socioeconomically dominant and oppressive group. And thank you for the clarification.



I didn't mean to insinuate that you did. Just making a general observation, largely prophetic. In all honesty, I wasn't so much criticizing _your_ reaction as I was criticizing the reaction I _expect_ to get from the grand majority publishers once I finish this thing.


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## The Dark One (Sep 11, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> Thanks for the tip. However, I should point out that your anthropology assumes (as does most scientific discipline) that the beliefs in question are not actually true and that the accompanying gods aren't actually real. For example if any one of the Abrahamic faiths is true, then mankind was monotheistic from the start and polytheism and animism came later. Leaving aside the question of the validity of real-world religions, the anthropological understanding of religious development doesn't really hold up in a fantasy world where gods _actually_ and _demonstrably_ exist and have played an active role in shaping human history, as the supernatural beings in my world have.


Which was more-or-less my point re what happens in your invented fantasy world, but don't forget that people are reading your book in the real world and they bring with them their own background knowledge which constitutes a complex myriad of filters through which they perceive your work.

By the way, the anthropological model assumes nothing about the reality of god(s). It simply notes that where a particular mode of production exists, a particular style of theology is (almost) always determined as I described earlier.

Maybe all the gods are real?


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## Mindfire (Sep 11, 2013)

skip.knox said:


> I have not read all the backstory, but it sounds like you want the core conflict of your story to be over religion. If so, you can simply invent whatever conflict you wish. As SineNomine noted, the points of difference can seem incredibly trifling to an outsider, so you could have your monotheists fighting each other or fighting outsiders. It is entirely believable and coherent to have your monotheists regard *all* other religions as deluded or even inimical. Orthodoxy tends to want to recapitulate itself.
> 
> And I wouldn't regard polytheists as all that tolerant or inclusive. Tribes tend to have their gods. If you belong to a different tribe, you have *your* gods, but they are my enemies and I'll have nothing to do with them. My gods, my laws, my customs, all these things go together and help define me as a tribe.
> 
> ...



Thanks for your input. Theology isn't the central conflict of the story, but it does play an important role.


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## Devor (Sep 13, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> In general, I agree. The problem is that if you set up a conflict, you need to have a satisfying payoff. If the three nations are squabbling over whose god is the real one, I can't think of an organic way to set up "the reveal" that isn't completely anti-climactic and doesn't make the entire subplot feel like a waste of the audience's time and a distraction from the main story.



I think this is true.  There's no way "All three gods are really the same" is going to be a satisfying reveal to anyone.

BWFoster does have a point about "ratcheting up" the tension, but you can do that from a quasi-fraternity perspective.  I mean, if your brother starts a fight, even one where he's in the wrong, then you're going to get pulled into it.  And consider how many people abuse that, and start a fight _just to get their friends wrapped up in it._  There's plenty of opportunities for tension available.




SineNomine said:


> Consider all the heresies in early Christianity and all the splits over views that are really, really pedantic.  The Monophysite controversy was over whether Jesus Christ, after he had died and been resurrected, had two natures (One divine, One human) or one nature (A mix of both divine and human in a single nature).  That's silly.



Your overall point stands, and I can understand why it would sound silly.  But as someone who's pretty familiar with the theology behind it, if I had to pick a piece of theology worth going to war over (not that I would really want to go to war), these kinds of Christological questions would be it.

When a Christian talks about becoming "one with God," it's because love is a "perfect bond," as exemplified in the human and divine nature of Christ.  It's not because Christians believe they are going to be subsumed by Him, which is what a single nature would suggest.  It's the one topic which fully defines both the Christian view of God as loving and the nature of man as a fully distinct person, hence capable of choice.  Once you start to develop upon the Monophysite belief system, it ultimately destroys the Christian worldview in favor of one much closer to pantheism.




			
				Mindfire said:
			
		

> As part of the bargain with their new gods, the Beorgians were "marked" with fair skin, whereas before, mankind had been universally brown-skinned.



I don't care about the portrayals, but I do think it's discomforting to use skin color as a mark of who's got the right religion.  Even if you don't mean anything by it, and you were just trying to find a way to diversify from common roots, I think most people will assume you mean the worst.

---

Total aside, but is there a thread where you've talked about how the magic works in your world?


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## Mindfire (Sep 13, 2013)

Devor said:


> I think this is true.  There's no way "All three gods are really the same" is going to be a satisfying reveal to anyone.
> 
> BWFoster does have a point about "ratcheting up" the tension, but you can do that from a quasi-fraternity perspective.  I mean, if your brother starts a fight, even one where he's in the wrong, then you're going to get pulled into it.  And consider how many people abuse that, and start a fight _just to get their friends wrapped up in it._  There's plenty of opportunities for tension available.



You have a good point here. And I think I'm going to end up doing something like this. As I said, I originally concieved of the problem as a strict dichotomy between instant friendship and complete hostility. I think something in between the extremes will work best.




Devor said:


> I don't care about the portrayals, but I do think it's discomforting to use skin color as a mark of who's got the right religion.  Even if you don't mean anything by it, and you were just trying to find a way to diversify from common roots, I think most people will assume you mean the worst.
> 
> ---
> 
> Total aside, but is there a thread where you've talked about how the magic works in your world?



I see your point. This is what the Beorgians themselves believe, and it's part of the reason for their antipathy towards the Dark Nations. Whether it is true or not I have not fully decided. (My cosmology isn't a perfectly static system, and evolves constantly.) Originally they just became fair-skinned because of generations of adaptation to their environment, like actual Europeans. However, I quickly realized that there just wasn't enough space in my timeline to allow for this, so I came up with the idea that their gods did it.

And there probably is a thread on my magic system around here somewhere. I could dig it up if you want, but since, as I said, my system isn't perfectly static, the concepts there are probably a little out of date. Did you have any specific questions or are you just looking for an overview?


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## Devor (Sep 13, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> And there probably is a thread on my magic system around here somewhere. I could dig it up if you want, but since, as I said, my system isn't perfectly static, the concepts there are probably a little out of date. Did you have any specific questions or are you just looking for an overview?



I was just a bit curious what you came up with since you've done quite a bit of worldbuilding and have spun the typical world on its head.  I thought maybe you'd come up with something different and cool.

I don't want to waste your time, so I thought maybe you'd posted an overview and I missed it.


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## Mindfire (Sep 13, 2013)

Devor said:


> I was just a bit curious what you came up with since you've done quite a bit of worldbuilding and have spun the typical world on its head.  I thought maybe you'd come up with something different and cool.
> 
> I don't want to waste your time, so I thought maybe you'd posted an overview and I missed it.



To be honest my magic is not terribly revolutionary. I think it's unique enough not to be generic, but nothing to write home about. My inspiration came mainly from Avatar: the Last Airbender and Codex Alera, though other things have crept in. I wanted to aim at something simple and intuitive rather than a complicated, quasi-scientific system or your average Elder Scrolls-esque scheme of schools and disciplines. I wanted it to tie into my cosmology in a meaningful way, and I _definitely_ wanted to stay the heck away from "true names". I think they've been done almost to death. With my magic, I try to define things just enough so that it all stays consistent, but leave enough unexplained so that there's some "wiggle room" for creativity and so it doesn't intrude on the story or demand too much memorization from the reader. Consequently, my magic powers tend to be rather simple abilities that the characters then use in creative and (hopefully) interesting ways, rather than a massive list of spells and counter-spells. 

For example, one of my main featured abilities, and the one most relied on by my protagonist, is soulfire. Or, more accurately, soulfire is the name of the trait and firecasting is the art of using it. The power itself is pretty simple and obvious: the ability to create and control magical fire. But since the ability is powered by the user's imagination, the fire can do way more than just burn things if you're creative enough. The power of the casting is directly proportional to the amount of imagination put into it, which incentivizes creativity. Flashy attacks actually do more damage than boring fireballs, so firecasting is just as much about artistic skill as it is about martial ability and its users actually place more value in the artistic aspect and the self-expression than they do in fighting, per ce. The art even incorporates dance-like movements in order to immerse the user completely into the act of creation, though particularly powerful firecasters can create elaborate designs without moving a single muscle. Firecasting also has countless non-combat applications. For example, a talented firecaster can spawn an entity known as a firehawk, which is a small, phoenix-like creature that exists to fulfill a single command (scouting an area, retrieving an item, delivering a message) before "burning out" and ceasing to exist. Soulfire is a blood-linked trait that was given to the ancestors of the Mavarians to help them overcome the Thrakoan "dragons" that had enslaved them in ancient times. 

There are other abilities in my universe, plus some magical artifacts, and each of them has a purpose and a history behind them, as well as a philosophy which guides their use. The origin of magic is linked to my world's history and its cosmology. I'd be glad to discuss it at length if you're interested, but like I said, nothing earth-shattering.


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## Helen (Sep 17, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> So in the world I've constructed, there are about three cultures who all worship the same god, but under different names and with different aspects emphasized. Obviously they don't agree on _everything_; they have different traditions, worship styles, etc. But theologically there are no real contradictions between their views. I'm wondering if it would be better to make them knowledgeable of this fact, and embrace each other in a kind of spiritual fraternity, or to keep them ignorant of this fact, leading to a source of cultural conflict.
> 
> I feel like if I go the conflict route, it'll be just a pointless distraction from the plot that I have to conjure some kind of contrived resolution for later. But if I go the fraternity route, some readers might see that as a cop-out, or get annoyed because it would draw further attention to the fact that the "battle lines" in my WIP are largely drawn between Monotheists (Good Guys) and Polytheists/Atheists/Everybody Else (Bad Guys), though not without exceptions. To be honest, I'm leaning towards fraternity.
> 
> Thoughts?



I would go with the conflict route.

What you're doing is creating opposite worlds (each with thematic meaning).

e.g. in AVATAR there's a reason why the military world and the Na'vi world are opposites.


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## Mindfire (Sep 17, 2013)

Helen said:


> I would go with the conflict route.
> 
> What you're doing is creating opposite worlds (each with thematic meaning).
> 
> e.g. in AVATAR there's a reason why the military world and the Na'vi world are opposites.



I meant should I have conflict between those who are _on the same side_. Conflict between opposite sides is a given.


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## Devor (Sep 17, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> For example, one of my main featured abilities, and the one most relied on by my protagonist, is soulfire. Or, more accurately, soulfire is the name of the trait and firecasting is the art of using it. The power itself is pretty simple and obvious: the ability to create and control magical fire. But since the ability is powered by the user's imagination, the fire can do way more than just burn things if you're creative enough. The power of the casting is directly proportional to the amount of imagination put into it, which incentivizes creativity.



So kind of like the Green Lantern, but with fire?  That's kind of cool.


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## Mindfire (Sep 17, 2013)

Devor said:


> So kind of like the Green Lantern, but with fire?  That's kind of cool.



That's a pretty good way to put it. Except that a masterful user can create constructs that can act autonomously, like the firehawk or other animal totems that perform specific tasks independent of the user. I don't think Green Lanterns can do that. However, doing this depletes the user's power in an amount proportional to the size, power, and complexity of the construct and the user is limited to less complex castings until their power recovers. Like the overheat guage the guns in some shooter games have. It's a limit I added to keep them from getting too overpowered. Otherwise, each and every Mavarian could manufacture their own personal army. 

Generally, animal totems are used only by the most powerful masters because of the attending power drain. Most Mavarians prefer creative techniques that don't leave them vulnerable afterward. For example: they live in a desert. There's sand everywhere. So a small fiery whirlwind can whip up the sand, melt it into glass, and then hurl a barrage of glass shards at an opponent.


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