Is it controversial having a demon being and angel being mate?

[MagicFame1500]

Dark Elves? A bit redundant, when you look at the old myths - a lot of the old elves and dwarves were downright nasty. So, generic not so good elves you can get away with. Evil elves that dwell in matriarchal underground cities and worship a spider-demon...nope.

I heard a lot about this. They were originally mischievous and a bit cruel. But why can't they be evil, worshipping an evil demonic creature underground?

And what if you took mythology ideas from Thailand or Japan? It's no different than using powerful Nordic gods like Loki?

Whether or not such a druid could take a bipedal werewolf form is up to you. It'd also be pretty easy to flavor the rest of their druidic magic as sort of a holy, angel type magic. Plus, Aasimar in D&D are a race defined by having the blood of angels or other good outsiders running through their veins to begin with.

Very interesting, I think I know how I could work this out in my story.

What if such a race casted spells, cursing those into bipedal/wolf-like form?

 

[MagicFame1500]

Hobbits are specific, but Halflings are general. If you don't enforce your trademark over something you can lose it as well which is why you still can't use Hobbit, but you can use Orc. Basically if it's different enough from someone else's version that readers aren't likely to mistake one for the other than you're good.

So if I called an elven or fae race that look like them, but I called them Tabwens? I just made that word up right now. So if it means anything bad, I had no idea.

 

[ThinkerX]

I heard a lot about this. They were originally mischievous and a bit cruel. But why can't they be evil, worshipping an evil demonic creature underground?

And what if you took mythology ideas from Thailand or Japan? It's no different than using powerful Nordic gods like Loki?

Take a look at what other authors did: Tad Williams dark elves were 'Norns,' a splinter group that dwelt beneath a frozen mountain. The dark elves in Feists 'Magician' series were forest dwellers, nasty but with a sense of honor. In both cases, they had backstory that set them apart from the Drow of D&D.

As to mythology from elsewhere...I have a race of cat-men in my stories, the rachasa, inspired by south asian mythology and twisted to fit. Mentioned in a few tales not likely to see print anytime soon are the Gandharvas (south asian elves, renown for music and seduction, and the Kumbandas (blue skinned dwarves).

 

[Nighty_Knight]

Consider how a mix would fight a comparable pureblood. Dragon-angel vs angel vs dragon, what advantages and disadvantages would a mix have? Surely they're diluted for pure abilities. Hybrids are typically stronger though so it's believable they could win. Consider the drawbacks though. Example:

"Mules have more endurance by far than the horse, and are more resistant to parasites and disease, require less feed for good health, have tougher hooves than the horse, and have an incredible sense of self preservation that keeps them safe, which is often mistaken for stubbornness."

The hybrid of ass and horse is a tough animal, better than horses as pack animals, strong, tough and smart. Like an ass on steroids, larger and more agreeable. However mules lack the undercoat of horses in winter, so their less cold hearty but are more heat tolerant. They need less food so next to a horse in an environment where horses thrive, they become obease, not kidding. They're more cautious than horses but tend to escape easier, especially to go overfeed or get into trouble eating things they shouldn't.

Though they're hearty to most diseases that affect horses, they are susceptible to other diseases that horses don't typically get. They're also always sterile and may be strong for their size, they're slower and smaller than horses and less sure footed than an ass especially if they're overweight. Asses are like mountain goats in certain ways.

So there's always room for a fair fight with hybrids.

They are also sterile. That is one thing I noticed many fantasy hybrids tend to leave out. Half this and that, but never the consequence of it being unable to have its own offspring. That also solves the messy issue of having like 1/4 orcs and stuff.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

They are also sterile. That is one thing I noticed many fantasy hybrids tend to leave out. Half this and that, but never the consequence of it being unable to have its own offspring. That also solves the messy issue of having like 1/4 orcs and stuff.

Messy issues are our stock in trade.

 

[BearBear]

That also solves the messy issue of having like 1/4 orcs and stuff.

Aww no Orctoroons out there?

 

[Prince of Spires]

I think people worry too much over all these sorts of issues. If we can have sparkling, romantic vampires become bestsellers, then have your way with angels, demons and elves. Just write your Angels and Demons the way you like. If you're lucky, people will have an opinion about them. That means people are reading your work.

 

[MagicFame1500]

Tad Williams dark elves were 'Norns,' a splinter group that dwelt beneath a frozen mountain. The dark elves in Feists 'Magician' series were forest dwellers, nasty but with a sense of honor

Good call. This definitely works then.

rachasa, inspired by south asian mythology and twisted to fit. Mentioned in a few tales not likely to see print anytime soon are the Gandharvas (south asian elves, renown for music and seduction, and the Kumbandas (blue skinned dwarves).

Thanks for the references! This helps with exploring other cultures I wanted to add.

I think people worry too much over all these sorts of issues. If we can have sparkling, romantic vampires become bestsellers, then have your way with angels, demons and elves. Just write your Angels and Demons the way you like. If you're lucky, people will have an opinion about them. That means people are reading your work.

I'll give it a try. If I can get opinions on here when I show some of my work, I should know what is good and what needs changes.

 

[Graham J. Darling]

Mortals have the power and inclination to reproduce because they'd otherwise all die out. A naturally-immortal being would have no use for the practice and conceivably no understanding of it. Also, in most of Judaism and Christianity (ex. in St Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologica"), unlike a human that is the union of a material body with a non-material soul, angels good and bad (i.e. devils/demons) are pure spirit without bodies of any kind (or size, location, or senses; more like numbers than Star Trek "energy-beings"), save what they may temporarily assemble, project or possess for particular missions. Bodily beings that are yet unaging, tenuous or invisible, however aligned, would in those traditions be called fairies or elves or other "longaevi", not angels.

 

[Queshire]

Ok, but that's obviously not the case here because otherwise there wouldn't be any point to this thread. =_=

 

[Graham J. Darling]

This thread's title is "Is it controversial having a demon being and angel being mate?" Controversy can arise on technical grounds as much as ethical or aesthetic ones, at least for readers who enjoy hard spec fic that bothers to get the invoked universe's science/mythos right. See also what Larry Niven says about Dante's 14th-century Inferno/Purgatorio/Paradiso: "The Divine Comedy is an immortal fantasy, but only time has made it so. It was the first hard science fiction novel! It has all the earmarks. It's a trilogy. Its scope has never been exceeded. The breadth of the author's research is very apparent: theology, the classics, architecture, geography, astrology, all of the major fields of study of Dante's day." (Playgrounds of the Mind. New York: Tor, 1991).

 

[pmmg]

It is the case, because he used the word angel. Angel's are not beings that go about having sex with demons or dragons. You have to change them into something they are not to make that happen. In which case, its not an angel. I am sure many will want gloss over that, but from the start, there is a lack of understanding about angels and demons.

 

[Queshire]

Yeeeeeeeeah.... I'm going to go ahead and say you're in the minority for thinking that.

 

[Graham J. Darling]

Perhaps one should take a poll first before such a declaration? And even then, that would be a fallacious argument ("argumentum ad populem" = "appeal to the people"), because a minority opinion can still be right--such as about how angels are supposed to work in the particular mythos that's invoked by that name, especially for those who may be unfamiliar with, don't much care for, or don't want to be bound by sparkly vampires or other rootless artifice.

 

[Queshire]

Mmmmm..... nah.

 

[Finchbearer]

There are soooo many YA fantasy books that have angels and demons be human-like and ‘mate’, or more commonly it’s along the lines of ‘my husband the devil’. All I’m saying is that in fantasy land you can really do whatever you want. The religious / biblical definitions of angels and demons are thrown out the window…

 

[Graham J. Darling]

Just as actual science is thrown out the window in many a so-called science fiction story ("my husband the klingon"), that similarly leaves the reader more ignorant about the source material than when they started. Some readers (including, young ones) might want more out a story. Some writers might want to give them more.

 

[Queshire]

And some writers want a protagonist with one angel wing and one demon wing because that's badass.

 

[Finchbearer]

Hmmm, you know give the reader more credit, perhaps a subject matter will entice someone to read into the origin of a mythology or belief. Also the bible and other belief systems are just that, they are beliefs.

 

[Queshire]

I do understand where they're coming from though. There's subjects I would be just as strident about as well.