Kids & Parenting

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The Un-Fantasy
By David Wiseman
Introduction
To recognize bad fantasy, a person has to realize exactly what good fantasy is. To be able to recognize either, a person has to realize what fantasy is for. Before any of these to matter, the person has to realize what fantasy is. Webster says it is the free play of the creative imagination. Basically, it is whatever an imagination can make up that could never really happen. However, it is not completely baseless. If one can recognize why fantasy is written, how it effects the mind, and what it is supposed to do, one can also decide what fantasy is good, and what is bad.
1. The Purpose of Fantasy
From the earliest fantasy, even up to such writers as Hans Christian Anderson, C.S. Lewis, and Brian Jacques, wrote fantasy for one of two reasons. Recently people have begun to say that the reason for reading fantasy is to get away from reality. If that is so, what about allegories? These are fantasy stories that are meant to symbolize something that really happened. The Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the most famous allegories, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is also a well-known allegory. So that cannot be the reason for reading or writing fantasy.
The first reason fantasy is written for, is as allegory. It is to teach a lesson, or to tell a story about what really happened. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a retelling of the story of Christ. Hinds’ Feet on High Places, another allegory, is a telling of a Christian’s life.
The other reason for writing or reading fantasy is to inspire. Brian Jacques’ books do this.
Most of what hasn’t been mentioned is myth, like the Greek stories of their gods. These are stories that, at the time, were thought to be true. Of course, they probably didn’t believe every word of every story about the gods or the heroes, but they were supposed to be mostly true. Believe it or not, this is what the Lord of the Rings books are. They are simply retellings of ancient Nordic myths about their gods and heroes. They are not any Christian allegories, though it appears that Tolkien did see that they were a little like allegory, and liked that.
If that is true, what is bad fantasy? It is anything that teaches a bad lesson, or tells an untrue story. It could be said that mythology is bad, because it tells a lie. The only time mythology should be acceptable is in the study of a culture that believed in that myth, or studying the myth with the goal of proving it wrong. Only one other thing makes bad fantasy; something that inspires the reader to something bad.
2. The Power of Suggestion
Being one of the most powerful tools used on the mind, suggestion plays a big role in fantasy. If a writer can hint at something, simply suggesting that it may be true, it will be picked up by readers, and they may never realize it. Not that the reader won’t notice the effects, or realize it later, but they may never notice that they changed something they thought because the writer hinted at it.
Suggestion may not be very subtle, only just subtle enough to not directly say what the author thinks. Generally, if the main character thinks it, and is not proved wrong later, the author is hinting at what they say is true or good. In a well-written story, the reader will never notice the author, so they simply think of the main character, and follow what the main character thinks. If the hero is good, they will assume his ideas are good, and if they were good for the hero, they will probably think it will do good for them, even if the hero’s ideas couldn’t do him good in real life, but would end in harm. This is the sand trap of fantasy. Because fantasy is not bound by the chains of reality, it often points in entirely the wrong direction.
3. The Child’s Mind
A child never doubts, unless he or she has been hurt. In a child it is called innocence, but in an adult it is usually called idiocy. A child is too young to understand that most people are often lied to, and they have not learned to sift through the things they’re told to find the truth in it all. Whatever is put before them, they take for truth without questioning it. So, if an author suggests to them that something is true, they will take it for truth without any hesitation.
Though a teenager would never confess to thinking this way, they often don’t reason past what is cool. Many brilliant teens will not take the time to think beyond what strikes them as neat. It is not that, like a child, they can’t, it is simply that they don’t, because they don’t look and see the need to. Thus they may fall into the same trap that a child would, simply because they don’t use the God-given logic and discernment that they have.
How does this affect the subject? Everyone must beware that they do not introduce any lie to a person who cannot, or will not, sort between the lie, and the truth.
Even if it is not for a child, the idea that an author would suggest something that is wrong should discount the use of the book. That is simply because it is obvious that the author will try to steer his or her reader in the wrong direction. It is natural for anyone to try to make everyone else believe what he or she believes. If it is worth believing, it is worth everyone believing. There are those who say that it doesn’t matter what you believe, you can just believe it, and they’ll continue believing what they believe. However, they try to make sure everyone believes that. Thus they are still trying to convince the whole world to believe what they believe most firmly.
4. The Person of the Protagonist
The protagonist is the person usually called the hero. Commonly, the hero is the main character. However, it is not unusual for the main character to be someone other than the hero. Rarely is the bad guy, or the antagonist, the main character.
Daring, brave, heroic, unconquerable, these are terms usually used to describe the hero. This is because the purpose of the hero is to be admired. The hero is the person who does it right. The hero may be flawed, he usually makes mistakes just like any human being, but he does what is right because he believes in it. In the case of allegory, the hero often doesn’t do anything wrong. Take, for instance, Aslan from C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. Because He is a picture of Christ, He doesn’t do anything wrong. However, if one looks at Christian from The Pilgrim’s Progress, he is the hero, and makes mistakes. However, in the end, he does what is right, and faces all dangers to do it. This is the nature of the hero. He is to inspire, he is to be what everyone reading the book ought to try to be. This is usually true even of fiction, not just fantasy.
Thus, a bad hero, is one who does something wrong and is not corrected. It is someone who comes from the evil side of things. Suppose the hero of an allegory were a demon. This would be the mark of a bad hero, because his purpose is to inspire the reader to be like him. Think about it. What if C.S. Lewis’ Wormwood were a hero, meant to inspire? It would be horrid!
5. The Person of the Antagonist
The purpose of the antagonist, or the bad-guy, in fantasy, is to embody evil. He is the sorcerer in the In the Hall of the Dragon King, the dragon in The Hobbit, and the witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He is the one that the reader despises, the one that the hero kills, and the one with the evil plot, who runs in terror at the end. He wears black and red, and hides in dark mists, sending his evil hoards out with the pointing of his bony finger. With mystical power he casts spells on his enemies, he worships demons, and yet they scatter at his very command.
Always, the sorcerer has been the bad-guy, and the reader hates him for his sorcery. Unfailingly he is evil, because the author uses him to be the picture of evil in their story, which is why he is defeated. Good will always defeat evil and light will always pierce darkness. But there must be light to pierce the darkness. Darkness does not fight darkness, and cannot. Christ told us, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to ruin. And every city or house divided against itself will not stand. And if Satan throws out Satan, he was divided against himself. How, then, will his kingdom stand?”
Granted, in the end evil destroys itself, but the good-guy cannot be a sorcerer or necromancer, because those roles are, by nature, evil. Why is that? There are only two sources of power. One is God, the other is Satan, and if power does not come from one it must come from the other. We know that sorcery is not from God, because throughout the Bible He was so firm set against it. If it doesn’t come from Him, it must come from Satan.
Many will argue that it doesn’t matter in fantasy, because fantasy is impossible. But the roles must be kept straight because of the purpose of fantasy. If roles are reversed, it’s purpose will be to encourage the reader to a lie, and anything that lies must be thrown out, unless lying is not bad.
6. The Bible
In the book of Philippians Paul states, “For the rest, brothers, whatever is true, whatever honorable, whatever is right, whatever pure, whatever lovely, whatever of good report; if of any virtue, and if of any praise, think on these things.”
When fantasy goes wrong it is none of these things. It is false, it is dishonorable, it is wrong, it is impure, it is ugly, it is of bad report, it is un-virtuous, and it is not praiseworthy. Paul tells us to think about the opposite things.
This kind of fantasy lies because it switches good and evil, and says that evil is good. It has no honor, because there is no honor in a hero who is evil. It is wrong because it does not tell the truth. It is impure, because evil knows no purity. It is ugly, because the ruler of evil is ugly. It is of bad report, because it confuses the minds of children. It has no virtue because it makes slime virtue, and casts virtue to the winds. It is not worthy of praise because it does not know where to give praise. Why, then, should a Christian think on it?
7. Conclusion
If any fantasy has these characteristics of false fantasy, Christians should not think on it, should not read it, should avoid it. Is there any fantasy at this time that Christians are reading that falls into this category? The thing that all arguments point to is the Harry Potter series. It confuses the bad-guy and the hero, creating a hero that is a sorcerer, one who gets his power from Satan. What does that teach? What does it suggest? It suggests that sorcery is okay, that it is safe, and that it does not go against all the principles of Christianity. How is it that Christians can read these books and not realize what they are saying? They take the necromancer of The Dragon King Trilogy the witch of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and the demons of The Pilgrim’s Progress and make them the hero! But how much worse that they make a child the sorcerer, so that children will identify with him!
How much more needs to be said than that this clearly represents bad fantasy?

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