Religion in Your World: Believing, Doing, Belonging

[Mindfire]

Okay wow I just went off on a massive tangent. Sorry about that. Back on target now.

About the belonging/belief/doing thing.

Belief works a little different in my world. Akalesh doesn't typically intervene directly, but there is undeniable evidence of his existence in the form of magical gifts: some people can control fire, others can empathically connect with nature, others can channel lightning, things like that. And one nation, Mavaria, actually possesses an artifact called the Sword of Glass that is used to directly interpret the will of Akalesh. (Old Testament knowledge bonus: it essentially acts like the Urim and Thummim, but in sword form.) But undeniable evidence isn't necessarily "undeniable" per ce. After all the Israelites went back on their agreement with God several times despite witnessing miracles first hand. And there are people who act similarly in my world. People who perhaps think Akalesh is not very attentive or doesn't care, or maybe they've just decided their personal agenda is more important than his. It's an aspect of belief I'm exploring with some of my antagonists. Different religions tend to account for the magical powers exhibited by adherents of other religions by making the gods of other religions into a demon or an impostor in their own. For example, followers of Akalesh think of the Beorgian gods as "ice devils". (Though some doubt their existence entirely as magic in Beorgia is not nearly as common as it is among the believers of Akalesh, mostly because anyone who shows potential with it is immediately abducted into the priesthood. Yes, abducted, not inducted.) Conversely in the Orthodox Cult of Beorgia, Akalesh is referred to as Senclane the Devourer, he who was imprisoned within the sun lest his fires consume the world and destroy all of creation. ...There's an in-world reason for that.

Belonging, in retrospect, is a pretty big part of how religion works in my universe. What faith you adhere to is largely determined by what culture you're born into, though conversions have been known to happen. Even the followers of Akalesh don't necessarily see eye to eye and their perception of him is divided along cultural lines. "Akalesh" is properly the name used by the Mavarians, who view him as a father figure and king who is strongly associated with mountains, fire, the desert, and the sun, and the phoenix. The Mako use the name "Natsarat" and see him as the one who guides their paths, the Keeper of the Balance of nature, and the one who watches over them. They associate him with trees and the wild places, the wind, and with birds, especially the owl, which is a form sometimes taken by his messengers. The Inazuma use the name "Hakadosh" and think of him as a warrior figure, the Avenger who vindicates his people and visits judgment on his enemies. They associate him with storms, especially thunderstorms, lightning, and the whirlwind, but also with metal and smithing, since he taught them to bind the power of the storm into their weapons and armor. He is also associated with mountains and, to a lesser extent, the sea.

Doing is the part I haven't quite fleshed out yet. Different faiths do have different traditions, but I haven't written up a checklist of do's and don'ts for most of them, mostly because the majority of these faiths are primitive in that their not rigidly organized like most modern religions. Most of them don't even have priests per ce. In Mavaria the culture is very family-oriented, so the head of the household is the de facto priest of that household, the head of the clan is the preist of that clan and so on up the totem pole until you get to the patriarchs who are the de facto head priests of their extended familes, clans, and tribes while the king is the priest of the nation as a whole. The Mako have a spiritual authority called the Closest Guide who acts as an intercessor for their people, but each individual can also offer personal prayers for guidance without need of an intermediary. Among the Inazuma, religion is much more communal, so ritual gatherings and praying as a group is emphasized without any real spiritual head. Among these faiths the general guideline essentially seems to be "do what Akalesh says." I haven't worked it out beyond that, though I may later. Other faiths like the religions of the Baynish people and the Kudan focus on what is essentially ancestor worship with some nature spirits thrown in. They don't have a real "creed" per ce, except that the Baynish are focused on what is basically their version of manifest destiny (conquer ALL the land!) while the Kudan are greatly concerned with honor and (to a lesser extent) glory for themselves and their ancestors. The Beorgian religion is kind of a patchwork job of Catholicism and Paganism and the adherents pretty much do whatever the priests tell them to do. Their society is also rigidly stratified so that plays a part as well.

I really need to learn how to write briefer posts. Also, I fear I may have killed the thread...

 

[Feo Takahari]

I've only written two kinds of religion that my characters stay in, because they're the only two I feel like I know how to write.

One is based around the worship of great figures long gone--in one setting, kings and heroes whose ashes were disposed of in a particular river; in another, one's own ancestors. In both cases, the core of the religion is to respect the advice given by those who came before. Believers ultimately have the last word in how that advice is interpreted, and the ancestor-worship one doesn't even have any priests. (The other one has a holy book, The Word of the Water, which the protagonist sometimes quotes.)

I feel like I can write this because I know how it feels to respect someone. I don't venerate people like Ghandi, but I can see them as inspirational figures, and I can choose to act according to principles they espoused.

The other approach is based around mental and moral improvement. In these religions, there exists a way of being and acting that is considered to be perfect, and each member is obligated to strive for this way of being. No mortal human is capable of perfection, of course, but followers believe that there's value in the attempt, and work to move closer and closer to their ideal. (This ideal is occasionally worshiped as an individual being, but it never appears as a character--I couldn't possibly portray how someone perfect would act and think.)

I feel like I can write this because I know how to strive for improvement. I can remember something I've done, think "That was the wrong choice," and then think, "I'll do this instead." I even have a goal I'm going for, although it's a lot less specific than in my stories.

The qualifier "stay in" is important. For instance, one character thinks God betrayed her, so she spends most of the story pretending (to herself and to others) that she's lost her faith. Despite this, many of her behaviors are informed by the idea that, should she choose to fight against evil, there exists a force that won't abandon her and let evil win.

I've never successfully worked around the problem of evil, so I didn't even try to do so this time. I just set it up and let the character struggle with it.

 

[Steerpike]

The problem of evil isn't hard to work around, fictionally. The problem requires four things:

1. An all-powerful god
2. An omniscient god
3. An all-good god
4. Evil

Eliminate any one of those, and you've gotten around the problem. Eliminating number four doesn't make much sense, since the problem wouldn't confront you in the first place if there were no evil. So god simply doesn't know about the evil, doesn't care about the evil, or doesn't have the power to stop it.

 

[Feo Takahari]

The problem of evil isn't hard to work around, fictionally. The problem requires four things:

1. An all-powerful god
2. An omniscient god
3. An all-good god
4. Evil

Eliminate any one of those, and you've gotten around the problem. Eliminating number four doesn't make much sense, since the problem wouldn't confront you in the first place if there were no evil. So god simply doesn't know about the evil, doesn't care about the evil, or doesn't have the power to stop it.

I've written things that aren't omnipotent, aren't omniscient, or aren't omnibenevolent, but that means they aren't perfect. God is that which is perfect, so calling something imperfect God feels disrespectful to any God that might exist. (Two of my characters, both religious themselves, make this argument to the faces--er, face-tentacles--of beings that lack these traits yet have the temerity to claim they're gods!)

Edit: Perhaps I should be more clear--the only stories I've written in which powerful beings actually appear are ones in which it's never confirmed they're gods, though it may be denied they're such. At the same time, none of my stories clearly deny that some God may exist (though one character does rant about the subject when he thinks his wife believes that she deserves to go to Hell.)

 

[Steerpike]

I've written things that aren't omnipotent, aren't omniscient, or aren't omnibenevolent, but that means they aren't perfect. God is that which is perfect, so calling something imperfect God feels disrespectful to any God that might exist. (Two of my characters, both religious themselves, make this argument to the faces--er, face-tentacles--of beings that lack these traits yet have the temerity to claim they're gods!)

I don't think that is necessarily true (god is that which is perfect), so I guess I agree with the tentacle monsters , By what reasoning does god necessarily have to be perfect. It's kind of like St. Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of god, wherein existence is more perfect than non-existence. But ultimately, there is no reason necessarily that god should have to be perfect. It fits in nicely with some conceptions of god but it isn't a necessary property, in my view.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I don't think that is necessarily true (god is that which is perfect), so I guess I agree with the tentacle monsters , By what reasoning does god necessarily have to be perfect. It's kind of like St. Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of god, wherein existence is more perfect than non-existence. But ultimately, there is no reason necessarily that god should have to be perfect. It fits in nicely with some conceptions of god but it isn't a necessary property, in my view.

By that logic, I guess you could argue I have written an individual goddess who has a personality and plays a major role in the story. She even has a high priestess. On the other hand, she's basically the Borg, so I'd kind of like to avoid applying any potentially sensitive religious terms to her.

 

[Steerpike]

By that logic, I guess you could argue I have written an individual goddess who has a personality and plays a major role in the story. She even has a high priestess. On the other hand, she's basically the Borg, so I'd kind of like to avoid applying any potentially sensitive religious terms to her.

You can do some interesting things with gods in stories. Like in Steven Erikson's books (his are far from perfect). Or with Roger Zelazny's classic "Lord of Light." Good stuff.

 

[ThinkerX]

Ah...years ago, on another site, I spent literally years participating in 'unbeliever vs christian' debates. Hell, Original Sin, Faith vs Works, quality of evidence, all that and much, much more. Athiests, Agnostics, neo-pagans, jews, and a dozen different varieties of christian from laid back Quaker(ish) to hard core fundi took part in those debates. Eventually, the sites owners (it were a christian site) decided that subforum these debates were held was so dangerous they deleted the whole dang thing.

So how do these apply to the religions you've created? How does someone become a member of the religion? Does your religion conflate believing and belonging as Christianity does, or are these two separate issues, as in Judaism? What doctrine, if any, must members accept? What sort of things specific to your religions are members expected to do, and how important are they?

To put it bluntly, when formulating my worlds way back when, I spent way, way too much time on devising pantheons of Gods and hierarchies of saints, and worse, I formulated them with an AD&D mindset. Not only that, there were quite a few critical issues I didn't consider at all.

That said, the core of what is now my primary world is a sort of grossly distorted fantasy europe, in terms of cultures and peoples. There is a sort of quasi roman empire under hmmm...call it civilized barbarian management, with locals comparable to Greece, ancient egypt, and northern europe. This empire is emphatically monotheistic, and the religion shares enough in common with olde style christianity to drive theologians to hard core abuse of the sacrimental spirits. This is deliberate; in the timeline, these peoples ancestors were imported from earth in the mid 3rd century AD ('Era of Military Anarchy'), and some of these people considered themselves 'christians'...though many of their contemporaries would vehmently disagree.

In this empire, you are pretty much 'born into the True Faith'. The clergy weilds vast influence, running orphanges, hospitals, and charities. It also has considerable temporal power, to the point where a province or three within the empire are defacto theocracies. It mints its own coinage, the only entity allowed to do so apart from the imperial government, and has legal authority over magicians and marriages. It even has its own army (apart from strictly limited militias, mercenaries, and bodyguards, all other soldiers belong to the imperial army). In short, it is a power that has significant influence on the lives of just about everybody in the empire.

The True Faith is split into a large number of saintly orders, focusing on different things, and sometimes violently disagreeing with each other. The orders of Michael and Mithras are for warriors, Sophia is called upon for civil disputes, Fabia's clergy has charge of things supernatural, and so and so forth. More than a few of these saints were once pagan deities in their own right. Magic is practiced in some of these orders, indeed the tendency is to shunt magically talented kids into the clergy ('Gods gift requires Gods instruction'). However, while miracles and visions and wonders abound, the official view is the saints are 'off in heaven', pretty much 'never to return'.

This gets into the other issue I wrestled with for a long, long time: Are the Gods/Saints 'real'? This opens up a lot of cans filled with worms. Like: if the Gods/Saints are 'real', what separates them from really powerful magicians? If real, what sort of influence do the Gods/Saints exert in the afterlife? Could a really powerful magician become a deity? And later on, I began to wonder at how to go about realistically incorporating a 'true' deity or ten directly into the tale. The pro's, I should point out, are badly split here. In the end, I opted for a sort of 'new age' solution unhappily married with Lovecraft: there are powerful entities of pure spirit, sometimes termed 'Saints', but there are also other alien physical entities powerful enough to be termed Gods.

Despite the absolute conviction that their faith is the 'one true route to God', the clergy of the True Church is a bit hesitant when it comes to spreading the word. The reason is truth is both subjective and local, so the new branches often become heretical after a few generations, promoting division.

 

[Devor]

ROFL! From my outsider's perspective, even in varieties of Christianity that put faith and works on an even setting (as C.S. Lewis pretty much did, actually, saying they were the two handles on a pair of scissors or some such), what you believe is of a deep importance in defining you as a Christian that has no equivalent in a religion like Judaism. So I think the issues of how much weight we put on believing, doing and belonging stand.

Ohh of course. The debate isn't even "should I do good works" but "what role do I believe they play." But it's the question that led me to becoming Catholic, so I'm struggling to bite my tongue.

Intriguing! On what sort of criteria does the Phoenix-goddess judge whether you should be reborn or enter Nirvana? Is the aim to be an all around mensch, or are there ritual requirements as well? Or does entering Nirvana involve enlightenment?

That question is a big part of the backstory for two, maybe three characters who have met the Phoenix, so I won't get into it too much. There used to be a system for it, but it broke, and the Phoenix-goddess has been a bit of a mystery since then. She makes some counter-intuitive choices. It's worse because there's a group which goes about testing whether the deceased have entered Nirvana, and then make a guess as to why, and they have no idea what they're doing.

 

[Trick]

I didn't think I left out belief--believing is one of the big three things, along with doing and belonging, that comprise a religion.

I didn't meant to imply that you left anything out, your post was insightful. The point that I was desperately reaching for with numb, clumsy fingers was that to some religious people there is no separation of the big three. Believing means that you must be doing and if you are not doing, then you (and others) are likely to think you're failing. If you manage to do because you believe, then you belong. 'Doing' is also not succeeding; trying your hardest may be all that is required. The three things are so tightly interconnected that a believer may never have even thought about their faith in these terms. Writers have to think in this fashion but characters don't. I think that explains what I meant but I tend to think in spiral while I'm explaining a straight line.

 

[Trick]

I have three WIPs with unique creation/religion systems. I'll just hit them briefly.

1) The God's Eye Prophecies (epic) Dual system. Chaos and Order existed seperately. Order got tired of Chaos tearing everything down and ate him. The internal struggle broke them apart into shards. Two particularly large shards became Krolas and the Murkrone. While one is basically good and the other bad, each has both Chaos and Order within them. In a struggle to defeat each other, they used the remaining shards to create the universe, alternating in the creation of different world aspects. In the WIP, there is no doubt they exist but religions vary. As a whole though, Magi follow Krolas and Wizards follow The Murkrone.

2) The Unbound (real world setting) Since it's on Earth, it's more about revealing that certain things are misunderstood about some religions and all mythological gods from history were the same immortal group of beings who are constantly at war. The concept is that humans (made in the image and likeness of G-d) are actually trinities themselves and the ones who are aware of this and separate their parts to achieve their fullest potential are the Unbound. They are immortal and the oldest of them have been worshipped everywhere on Earth since they came into existence. They do not think they are gods however because they are fully aware that G-d exists and that He created them. They are, however, petty and selfish, which they displayed particularly during their time in Greece and Rome. A lot of work has gone into research and study for this WIP to avoid offense to world religions.

3) Darkling Sun. Something like Native American beliefs blended with beliefs from indigenous peoples around the world. Totem like spirit worship of thirteen particular animals, each a guardian of something in particular. They represent the thirteen parts of the great spirit who created everything. The great spirit is ethereal though and different people approach their religion through one totem or another. There are a myriad other ancient tribes with very different beliefs than this system but the only other one I've fleshed out believes in a system that preys on the weak. When the weak die, if they suffer, they will be reborn stronger. So, the best thing to do for them is to treat them as less than dirt and use them as necessary. This religion (more a cult really) has a lot of terrible rituals involving torture and their magic is specifically based on the properties of human blood. As you can imagine, these are the bad guys in many ways, though I plan to have some of them break away and choose alternate beliefs in a sequel.

 

[Mara Edgerton]

I didn't meant to imply that you left anything out, your post was insightful. The point that I was desperately reaching for with numb, clumsy fingers was that to some religious people there is no separation of the big three. Believing means that you must be doing and if you are not doing, then you (and others) are likely to think you're failing. If you manage to do because you believe, then you belong. 'Doing' is also not succeeding; trying your hardest may be all that is required. The three things are so tightly interconnected that a believer may never have even thought about their faith in these terms. Writers have to think in this fashion but characters don't. I think that explains what I meant but I tend to think in spiral while I'm explaining a straight line.

You sound to me like you're coming at this from a thoroughly Christian perspective--or another religion where calling members 'believers,' as you do, make sense. And that's fine, and it's great to draw from that in your writing.

But my point is that 'the believer' model is not the only model out there for a religion. For example, you say that, "If you manage to do because you believe, then you belong." Not true in Judaism. In Judaism, you belong because you were born into the religion or because at some point you converted. In either case, you belong--you're a Jew--regardless of what you believe or what you do or don't do.

Conversely, you might believe everything the local rabbi does, and you might keep kosher and keep the Sabbath . . . but if you weren't born a Jew or you haven't undergone conversion, you're not a Jew, so you don't 'belong' in that sense. You might be welcome at the local synagogue, sure, but until the conversion happens you still wouldn't be a Jew.

So that's all I'm pointing out--not all religions work the way Christianity does. That doesn't make Christianity (or Judaism) right, wrong or otherwise. It's just something to think about in creating a religion.

 

[Trick]

You sound to me like you're coming at this from a thoroughly Christian perspective--or another religion where calling members 'believers,' as you do, make sense. And that's fine, and it's great to draw from that in your writing ... So that's all I'm pointing out--not all religions work the way Christianity does. That doesn't make Christianity (or Judaism) right, wrong or otherwise. It's just something to think about in creating a religion.

I'm sure it's obvious that I'm Christian; Catholic specifically. As I mentioned to Scribble, I have a hard time not incorporating my beliefs (at the very least, my morality) into my work. I want to avoid though, at all costs, soap-boxing. I appreciate you breaking down how certain things are percieved by other religions, Judaism in your case. It's amazing how different religions can be, really. If there is a Catholic (baptized as such, I mean) and they do not believe in any of the dogmas of the church, they are still Catholic (we call that an indellible mark on the soul) but there is also a name for them: Apostate. We have titles for everything. If a Catholic rejects one or more dogmas but not all, that's a heretic. If one rejects the leadership of the church but abides in other things, they are in schism. Any of these kinds people distinctly do not 'belong' and we even have excommunication which makes it official. It sounds like there is probably less in-fighting among Jewish families about such things. Is that a correct inference?

I think that the biggest thing I personally can get out of this discussion is a way to represent religions in fantasy without one always being demonized. It seems to be a theme that there are bad religions and good religions in fantasy, or belief systems when the word 'religion' doesn't quite fit. How about just different religions?

Perhaps folks, if they feel comfortable, can respond about their religions on here, as you have, and give us all a better feel for what it is like to be a member of one or another. If a religion has not been represented yet, I'd love to hear about what it's like for you to be a part of it... In the frame of this post and more. It will help me, and likely others, to create characters with more realistic protrayals of participating, or not, in a religion unlike our own.

Perhaps I should make this a separate thread? Since it's just about personal religious exposition for the benefit of other writers, it should fall within the MS guidelines, unless my interpretation is flawed somehow.

 

[skip.knox]

>It seems to be a theme that there are bad religions and good religions in fantasy, or belief systems when the word 'religion' doesn't quite fit. How about just different religions?

The easiest answer is conflict. One could say that there is a theme that there are bad people and good people in fantasy, how about just different people? This can be done, of course, but for the most part you need a villain and a hero. If the story calls for it, or even if the author merely dreams it up, it's natural for the religion of the villain to be commensurately wicked.

Not to hijack a thread, but the real oddity is that there are good and evil races. What, *everyone* in a race is evil? No such thing as a good orc? Convenient for story-telling but hardly defensible.

So yeah, I would have no problem with there being multiple religions in a world with none of them intrinsically good or evil, just different. But I don't think the OP was about virtue or wickedness, it was about a certain way of understanding religion that would allow for multiple religions in a fantasy world to be merely, but profoundly, different.

 

[Mindfire]

>It seems to be a theme that there are bad religions and good religions in fantasy, or belief systems when the word 'religion' doesn't quite fit. How about just different religions?

The easiest answer is conflict. One could say that there is a theme that there are bad people and good people in fantasy, how about just different people? This can be done, of course, but for the most part you need a villain and a hero. If the story calls for it, or even if the author merely dreams it up, it's natural for the religion of the villain to be commensurately wicked.

Not to hijack a thread, but the real oddity is that there are good and evil races. What, *everyone* in a race is evil? No such thing as a good orc? Convenient for story-telling but hardly defensible.

So yeah, I would have no problem with there being multiple religions in a world with none of them intrinsically good or evil, just different. But I don't think the OP was about virtue or wickedness, it was about a certain way of understanding religion that would allow for multiple religions in a fantasy world to be merely, but profoundly, different.

Well, are orcs even really people, per ce? I always figured they were more like bio-engineered living weapons for Sauron and Morgoth before him. But anyway. I don't think it's too far fetched to have "evil" religions. I mean look at real life. You have examples, from modern day cults to the ancient cult of Moloch (wherein parents burned their children alive), of religions that can safely be declared evil, even if the people in them didn't worship the concept of evil itself as is common in fantasy.

 

[Mara Edgerton]

If there is a Catholic (baptized as such, I mean) and they do not believe in any of the dogmas of the church, they are still Catholic (we call that an indellible mark on the soul) but there is also a name for them: Apostate. We have titles for everything. If a Catholic rejects one or more dogmas but not all, that's a heretic. If one rejects the leadership of the church but abides in other things, they are in schism. Any of these kinds people distinctly do not 'belong' and we even have excommunication which makes it official. It sounds like there is probably less in-fighting among Jewish families about such things. Is that a correct inference?

There's nothing you can do in Judaism to make you stop belonging--once a Jew, always a Jew. That doesn't mean your rabbi or your family will be happy if you convert to another religion. There will be lots of drama--but you're still a Jew. (Bob Dylan converted to Christianity and then became post-religious, but no one batted an eyelash when he turned up at Chasidic fundraisers. He's still a Jew by Jewish law.)

There are two issues with belonging, however, that question whether one was a Jew to begin with. One has to do with conversion: for example, if you converted to Reform Judaism, Orthodox rabbis will want you to convert again if you decide to become Orthodox. (They only recognize Orthodox conversions.) The other is the issue of patrilineal descent. Most Jews believe Judaism comes down through the mother, or via conversion. But a couple of branches accept patrilineal descent--you're a Jew even if only your father was Jewish. So say you're a Jew through your father happily going to a Reform synagogue. If you decide to become Orthodox, the rabbi will expect you to undergo a formal conversion.

Perhaps I should make this a separate thread? Since it's just about personal religious exposition for the benefit of other writers, it should fall within the MS guidelines, unless my interpretation is flawed somehow.

As long as it stays in the guidelines, I would think here or another thread is fine. Whichever works.

 

[Mara Edgerton]

Not to hijack a thread, but the real oddity is that there are good and evil races. What, *everyone* in a race is evil? No such thing as a good orc? Convenient for story-telling but hardly defensible.

I like stories (and rpg's) where you scrap the idea of inherently good or evil races. Sure, make lots of good orcs! I understand Mindfire's point, but just abandon Tolkien's idea of orcs and then no worries.

So yeah, I would have no problem with there being multiple religions in a world with none of them intrinsically good or evil, just different. But I don't think the OP was about virtue or wickedness, it was about a certain way of understanding religion that would allow for multiple religions in a fantasy world to be merely, but profoundly, different.

Exactly. Thank you for putting that so well.

 

[Ireth]

I like stories (and rpg's) where you scrap the idea of inherently good or evil races. Sure, make lots of good orcs! I understand Mindfire's point, but just abandon Tolkien's idea of orcs and then no worries.

*cough* Actually, Tolkien never liked the idea of all orcs being evil either. It's just that the other characters never came across any -- or perhaps they just killed them all just as the orcs were realizing they WERE good. Just because something isn't encountered in the text doesn't mean it doesn't exist in the setting. In Mordor, for instance, there are huge, fertile farmlands that fed Sauron's vast armies, but because Frodo and Sam never saw them, many people probably wondered what those armies actually ate.

 

[Trick]

Tangent, sorry

You have examples, from modern day cults to the ancient cult of Moloch (wherein parents burned their children alive), of religions that can safely be declared evil, even if the people in them didn't worship the concept of evil itself as is common in fantasy.

The cult of Moloch features prominently in one of my WIPs! (an on earth fantasy) and, as I said in an above post,

all mythological gods from history were the same immortal group of beings who are constantly at war. The concept is that humans (made in the image and likeness of G-d) are actually trinities themselves and the ones who are aware of this and separate their parts to achieve their fullest potential are the Unbound. They are immortal and the oldest of them have been worshipped everywhere on Earth since they came into existence.

I have Moloch go on to become Set (Egyptian) then Prometheus (this makes more sense in context) and then on to Loki. The book takes place in modern times and he is a business magnate named Malaki Prome.

 

[Mara Edgerton]

*cough* Actually, Tolkien never liked the idea of all orcs being evil either. It's just that the other characters never came across any -- or perhaps they just killed them all just as the orcs were realizing they WERE good. Just because something isn't encountered in the text doesn't mean it doesn't exist in the setting. In Mordor, for instance, there are huge, fertile farmlands that fed Sauron's vast armies, but because Frodo and Sam never saw them, many people probably wondered what those armies actually ate.

Yay! Does that mean there were non-white humans, hobbits or elves somewhere in Middle Earth too?

(Not insinuating that Tolkien was racist, lol--but, come on. Can we have some people of color as characters too? And yes, I know this is way off topic, so I will quiet down now. Sigh.)