SF/Fantasy Blog Tour Day2 - (Lions and Dragons)
Day two of the Christian SF/Fantasy Blog Tour continues. There was some pretty cool posts all around about our focus of the tour, Donita K. Paul's DragonKnight . I really like the interview going on over at A Christian Worldview of Fiction.
Also check out The Dragon Keeper Chronicles website. The webmaster has done a nice job.
Remember to go check out the other blog sites participating in the tour:
Sally Apokedak
Valerie Comer
Johne Cook
Janey DeMeo
Mary E. DeMuth
Beth Goddard
Rebecca Grabill
Leathel Grody
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Marcia Laycock
Shannon McNear
Matt Mikalatos
Mirtika Schultz
Stuart Stockton
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Steve Trower
Part one: The Author
Although I do not know Ms. Paul, I have been rather impressed by everything I keep coming across. I have yet to come across another author website that the author chats weekly with their readers. I like the story on Mary E. Demuth's blog that Ms. Paul sent a copy of her book for seeing Mary's daughter's book report on DragonSpell. Also check out June 20th post at Shannon McNear's blog about helping out a fellow writer. Finally, one of my favorite's is Donita's own post over at the 412Live blog. I love the whole Walmart scene.
When an author has a sales ranking of #754 at Amazon.com(Wow, it dropped since I last looked. Go Donita!) and is still personable and willing to take time out for the readers and other writers, that is pretty cool and says a lot to me.
Part two: Lions and Dragons
I had some thoughts today on how to continue the discussion of having good dragons within Christian fantasy.
To get back on the idea that most things have a good and bad and how they are used or behave is what determines what is good or evil. Now there are some things that do not fit and others I probably cannot theoretically justify. For example, probably the one thing that comes to mind is the movie "Hellboy". A demon doing good to help humans. A dragon to me is like another animal. It is pretty much a neutral, not good, not bad. A demon on the other hand is born of evil, I would not be able to back that up.
So back to dragons. If there really were such things as dragons, they would be like any other animal on the planet. They would not be good or evil, they would just be an animal. The same as a lion. Because the Bible potrays Jesus as a lion, should not all lions then be good, the same as the animal of the dragon is always evil? Exactly. No. The lion and dragon are only representations within the Bible. In real life however, they are(or would be) just an animal. Because the Bible potrays the lion as good, children are not out trying to pet one in the wild. In a similar statement from yesterday, whether we run into a lion or dragon in the wild, we would not ponder is it good or bad, no we would be saying "that thing is huge, hungry, and looking at me. I'm out of here!"
Tomorrow: Magic in Christian Fantasy?
posted by Leathel at 10:14 PM
3 Comments:
Again, some thought-provoking comments, Leathel.
I wondered when I saw that your title included Lions if you would approach this in reference to Jesus as the Lion of Judah or to Satan as the lion who roams about seeking who to devour. Either way, I thought it illustrated the point that an animal or an object can symbolize good or bad.
Oh, speaking of good or bad--hope I'm not quibbling on something that for you is a given. When you say people are good or bad, you aren't saying this is by nature, are you?
As I understand Scripture (and this is a huge sticking point with a lot of non-Christians), although we were created in God's image, all of us now are "bad." Sinful. Sullied to the point of inability to find God, or even want to find Him, on our own. Thats our lot apart from redemption.
Of course, you might have meant that some people do good things for the most part and some do evil things for the most part. I can't argue with that. Some of us wear our sin more on the outside and some of us more on the inside.
Becky
Ha. Good point Becky. I decided to pull that out. I keep bouncing between fiction and non-fictional and it was kind of confusing.
I was not even thinking of humanity being born sinful and no matter what bad. I was thinking more of human(or humanoid) characters we first meet in a story are in a way are 'neutral'. We only find out whether they are good or bad based on their actions.
And here I thought the Lion would refer us to CS Lewis.
Lesson of the day: Read first, conclude after.
Great post!
Rebecca
who suffers today from sleep-deprived-brain-rot
Post a Comment
<< Home