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Some time ago, I was talking to a close friend of mine about a writing project of his, and I realized something that absolutely blew my mind.
He's writing a Christian scifi serial, and we were talking about some of the setting's assumptions that would need to be spelled out for the benefit of non-Christian readers. In the process, we started talking about another fantasy project of his, and he told me that it was also Christian fantasy, just less explicitly. It had never occurred to me that it was, and he was completely nonchalant about it.
And then, I realized something. For him, Christian fantasy isn't just a genre of choice. Its the default genre, because according to his worldview that's the world we actually live in. For him, the existence of God, angels, demons, and magic (that last one being caused by the actions of the former) are elements of reality, just like the laws of thermodynamics or the historical record, and there's no difference between them and all the other parts of reality that he can draw from in storycrafting. Granted, he doesn't believe that angels and magic are as obvious and intrusive in the real world as they are in his stories, but fundamentally its the same kind of world with the same causal forces.
Another step from there: if he were to write a realistic modern or historical drama with no speculative elements at all, it would STILL be - from my perspective - a fantasy novel, because the world that he's describing still informed by his beliefs about the real one, and so he's still writing about world in which supernatural beings and forces exist even if they aren't relevant to the story at hand.
Going further still: if he were to specifically exclude Christian theology from a story and write about an atheistic setting, from his perspective - and again, even if there were no supernatural or science fictional elements - he'd be writing some type of fantasy set in a world, unlike his view of the real one, where there is no god or magic.
So, what does the "fantasy" label actually mean? From my perspective, there are many, many people alive today who believe they are living in a world more akin to some fantasy novels than to the one I believe we live in...and presumably, they think the same about me.
He's writing a Christian scifi serial, and we were talking about some of the setting's assumptions that would need to be spelled out for the benefit of non-Christian readers. In the process, we started talking about another fantasy project of his, and he told me that it was also Christian fantasy, just less explicitly. It had never occurred to me that it was, and he was completely nonchalant about it.
And then, I realized something. For him, Christian fantasy isn't just a genre of choice. Its the default genre, because according to his worldview that's the world we actually live in. For him, the existence of God, angels, demons, and magic (that last one being caused by the actions of the former) are elements of reality, just like the laws of thermodynamics or the historical record, and there's no difference between them and all the other parts of reality that he can draw from in storycrafting. Granted, he doesn't believe that angels and magic are as obvious and intrusive in the real world as they are in his stories, but fundamentally its the same kind of world with the same causal forces.
Another step from there: if he were to write a realistic modern or historical drama with no speculative elements at all, it would STILL be - from my perspective - a fantasy novel, because the world that he's describing still informed by his beliefs about the real one, and so he's still writing about world in which supernatural beings and forces exist even if they aren't relevant to the story at hand.
Going further still: if he were to specifically exclude Christian theology from a story and write about an atheistic setting, from his perspective - and again, even if there were no supernatural or science fictional elements - he'd be writing some type of fantasy set in a world, unlike his view of the real one, where there is no god or magic.
So, what does the "fantasy" label actually mean? From my perspective, there are many, many people alive today who believe they are living in a world more akin to some fantasy novels than to the one I believe we live in...and presumably, they think the same about me.
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