Tolkien & Epic Fantasy

I have always been more partial to The Lord of the Rings than The Hobbit, possibly due to my having watched the movies first, but also due to the level of maturity and detail presented in the more adult Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Much of what has always drawn me to Tolkien, and the high fantasy genre in general, has been the conveyed envisioning of an entirely foreign world with its own history, rules, and peoples with entirely different ways of being which beckon the audience to step into the position of something foreign to themselves.  Tolkien was certainly not the first to do this, but he raised the bar and held it there for a long time.  His work with languages and developing the cultural backgrounds of his world are what give his work so much depth.

It was not until my freshman year of high school that a friend of mine got me to watch Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, against the will of my protective parents.  I watched the entire series in succession and was immediately propelled into a fascination with the genre of epic fantasy which would inevitably put me at odds with my family, compelled by a literalist, puritanical interpretation of the bible which lead them to view any fiction portraying magic or “pagan” elements in a positive light as ‘the work of the devil’.  CS Lewis was okay because he was Protestant and used Protestant-approved symbolism, but Tolkien was Catholic, and my family resents the Catholic church.  It wasn’t long before I had discovered Dungeons & Dragons, which provided a whole new level of detail and autonomy relative to the classic Tolkienesq fantasy world and it encouraged me to get involved with world-creation seriously for the first time.  I have not yet read all of Tolkien, but as he is the most renowned world-builder among fantasy writers, it is a priority of mine to do so if I wish to succeed in my own world-building endeavors.

Witchcrat in Fiction

This is a documentary from the year 2001 called Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged.  I don’t expect you to watch it, but I feel it worth siting this particular documentary that I was made to watch after Harry Potter showed up on the Scholastic book catalog.  It is an hour long propaganda film about the evils the occult and how its depiction in media is being used to recruit children to become pagan devil-worshipers.

This is the view I was taught to have of witchcraft and magical fiction and it has taken some doing to overcome many of the presuppositions from my indoctrination.  I feel this worth addressing because I can’t see anything like Kiki’s delivery service without contemplating how deeply my understanding conflicts with what I’ve been told to think. 

Despite their gross misconceptions about the subject, fundamentalist / evangelical Christians who oppose these sorts of books and films about witches are not unjustified in doing so, particularly because they are targeted towards children.  When trying to raise children by the literal doctrine of the Bible, it is clear that films that deal with witches and magic present central themes and ideologies that directly challenge presupposed beliefs and they must be either dealt with rationally, ignored, or demonized.  

As only one such example, Kiki’s deliver service openly deals with supernatural powers not derived from God, subjective morality, female authority and empowerment, and many themes and images important to some pagan practices, all shown in a positive light wherein Kiki is rewarded and loved by the community for being a good witch.  I’m sure all of this may sound horribly innocent and trivial to those of less dogmatic ideologies, but, to a Biblical literalist, its innocent depiction is part of what makes it so insidious.   These concepts sold to children represent a very real threat of teaching their children ideas that conflict with their beliefs, jeopardizing the fate of their eternal souls in the eyes of their parents.  Regardless how wrong their religious assertions might be, I am compelled to present the motives of the misguided intentions of well-meaning parents.  Needless to say, I no longer share these views, but I feel them important to discuss when talking about magic in fiction and its impact in one of the world’s most religious developed nations.

Frankenstein

Jumping into the semester late, I attempted the first class's material first and read Frankenstein.  I did not finish it, but I got most of the way through.  Given the countless derivative works that branched from the central idea of this classic novel, I am surprised how little of the original story has survived in modern renditions.  I have no doubt that film adaptations had a greater impact than the book.  I found the writing a bit biblical, dry, and hard to follow, but I have always held a fascination with Pinocchio stories, by which I mean stories in which humans create life from something inanimate and must then deal with the ramifications.  Rather than the older notion of a golem made of clay, wood, or stone, Frankenstein seems to be original in its featuring of a flesh golem made from parts of dead bodies which is brought to life with science rather than magic, which is the primary aspect of the story that is reflected upon most.  This may be simply because it is frightening to think of scientists digging up graves for such a nefarious cause, but I like to think that the idea of a scientifically resurrected flesh golem resonates with us because it seems oddly plausible relative to other golem stories.

I found the part where Frankenstein's monster recanted his upbringing fascinating and deeply thought provoking, putting the reader in the mind of an essentially inhuman creature observing humans without any foreknowledge and trying to learn their ways.  It really goes into great detail and unfolds a very compelling background story behind the family he observes.  I think it may have been interesting if the entire recantation were puled from the novel and modified to be read as an independent short story from the perspective of the monster.  

I found Dr. Frankenstein to be a much less relatable and sensible character than his monster, having succeeded in his mad ambition of creating life only to abandon and condemn it immediately and spend the remainder of his life trying to escape from it, causing tons of problems that would have been easily avoided if he had simply taken professional responsibility for his endeavors from the beginning.  I have a hard time understanding why Dr. Frankenstein behaves the way he does, but at the time this work was written, when high technology and philosophical science fiction had not so deeply permeated the culture, I suppose that fear alone may be a sufficient explanation for his erratic behavior.