All ask to know of the machinations of the universe, the nature of God and the Gods, Satan, and the figures of the bible. Interestingly, however not nearly enough attention is given to how the stories we tell of them affect the perceived nature of the world we live in. Many seek to answer these questions but tend to tie themselves into the stories of the people they look upon with the unblinking eye of words upon a page, but only allowing their natures to dictate the rules of the world. While most descriptions of God come with some variety of world building debate, his nature power and the like, It is far and few between that works actively discussing Christianities One True God do they look at the full implications of how he runs the universe. Milton’s Paradise lost, with angels all about like in this story it is hard to not understand such concepts as animism and our deep rooted respect of nature for beings he cherishes guard and run the different aspects of the world and cosmos around us.
This lets me start this story with an interesting viewpoint, as traditionally animists and followers of old gods long since forgotten or forever immortalized are lumped together as producing the evil witches, warlocks and other magicians and sorcerors of the world. Leading me to start a story, a story that hopes to use the characters not as important figures to show the powers of ultimate destiny, but as people participating in a universe not of my own creation.
The Tale of Mallory the Calm
In a forrest a long time ago, in the deepest darkest part of the night before dawn, two mages fight. Both of different faiths, of different creeds and magics and one is chasing the other throughout the dark night. “By the Gods GET BACK HERE YOU COWARD” the one Chasing hollered, before being tripped by a loose tree root. The one being chased yelped back in short retort “Not a CHANCE” as they whispered a nearby bush flattened itself, allowing them to swiftly make it pass. The chaser when presented the obstacle hissed out a spell that had been passed to them by their god, incinerating the bush quickly and lightlessly. The chase continued neither gaining or losing ground for quite some time before the chaser attempted to converse again. “You cannot escape forever! You must run low on energy at some point!” They gasped out. The person they were chasing quipped back quickly “Certainly I shall, but all I need is to outlast you.”
The chase continued for a long while until the one being chased was cornered on a small cliff over hanging a river. “Well then cornered, its not so much about outrunning me now” the chaser exclaimed gleefully. “No” they said solemnly “It would seem the trick is getting away at this point” as they backed up further towards the edge. The chaser coughed “Well this is as good a place as any” they cough again “Mallory of Elderbourough you are henceforth charged with the crime of heretical worship and use of blessing bestowed upon you from evil gods resulting in but not limited to; famine, plague, and destruction of church property” silence “How do you plead?” “Not Guilty” They reply “for if practicing the traditions of my family caused all of those problems we would have seen them for generations before now” they then whisper out something as the jump off the edge.
The one chasing them runs over to see their fate, and watches as they fall and peacefully float downstream. They curse and jump to follow using their godly magic to create a platform beneath them as they lower. The chase resumes the forrest spirits the person being chased, one Mallory of Elderbourough, calls upon help them move swiftly as they try to dodge and avoid them. This time though the person chasing used much more of their magic and Mallory’s fate seem set in stone until they simply slipped through the floor into an underground cavern. Having temporarily evaded pursuit they looked at what was in the cavern using a small bit of magic to summon so lightning bugs to light the way. The chaser at at first launched past as they slipped out of sight, and it took them some time to find them again.
Mallory, surrounded by lightning bugs saw what appeared to be an ancient shrine of their religion, a shrine that spoke and invoked the power of the natures spirits that made up the world. The chaser was relentlessly hunting, as a mage to their god it would be unacceptable to be duped by such a lowly mage, so they hunted on. Mallory read the inscriptions quickly looking for a way out of the dark tomb-like shrine they were trapped within. The chaser gets closer hoping to find any sign of the weak magics that this unruly mage dared dapple in. Mallory’s eyes widened as they read the inscriptions, seeing the place for what it truly was. As the chaser began to give up they saw the slight gap in the ground and slipped through. They quickly began pouring magic at Mallory perfectly visible due to the lightning bugs as they defiantly pushed in a heavy stone panel.
You see when you magic system is based upon having other beings bend the world slightly in your favor, and mankind has a tendency the weaponize everything they find, you get abominations like this. A devise that levies the power of many, many angels pulling a tiny bit of the fabric of reality to open a pin sized hole powerful enough to slip outside of the world of mankind. While this power is grand and destructive, the vessel has some major flaws, namely an unhelpful tendency to empty out its control chamber by spitting it all out into the realm of chaos, pandemonium itself. I would say the story goes on, but when placed in an infinite realm where your magical arsenal cannot save you, humans don’t tend to last long.
To conclude this project I would like to reflect on what I wrote and how it responds to the question “Why does my response to this literature matter?” I wrote this short piece and the paragraphs to show how i have learned from both this class and classes before me the importance of the world the character are in to their story. Some stories require a nice and kind world that will do its best to help the character the spread a message about kindness and how we should treat people, others however may focus in on hostile or alien environments to show a story about struggle or sacrifice. The class overall has done a great job at showing be different stories of the medieval and renaissance periods and showing me different parts of this lesson such as how each stories nature shows the purpose of the story. The story is effected by different things like the authors beliefs, the time it was written, and the lessons they wished to teach. People for a very long time have created fiction inspired by other authors stories or literature and at different times people have changed or altered the meaning of a text by writing a story examining the nature of the stories rules that effect the characters and plot.
One of the oldest and most famous collections of fanfiction in fact as we went over in class slightly is the stories of King Aurthur. People were engrossed in the world and stories of King Arthur and as years went by different knights began to be added to the round table, all of different times, cultures, and statuses. Some were great heroes that took on mighty quests by accident such as gwain’s quest with the green knight. Some are seemingly perfect busy bodies who did their best to keep promises to the fey in spite of the nature of the people around them. The most famous outside of Author or Meril themselves though has gone through many phases, starting during the French courtly romance he was shown longing for the queen, leading latter additions that did not believe in such things to play him out as a simple cheater with few other motivations than his desire.
The work I went over in this project also is a great show of fanfiction like my own, trying to understand the universe that the bible portrays and overlaying his beliefs and other beliefs of the time over it to create a powerful and intriguing story. Unlike some stories of this type he simply rewrites and goes into depth about existing characters by exploring their interactions with one another and the changed world around it, such as the explanation of hell, jesuses existence and the beings who live in the void between hell and earth such as Night, Day, and Chaos. The world seems to bend to gods will, implying the story only completes its course with his permission, while also implying free will both among angels and others, showing a very complicated view on such things.
This all shows the nature and lessons we learn from creating fanfiction, all of the critical thinking that goes into using another persons world to either critique its very nature of even just to build on it and flesh it out for future audiences to enjoy even if its a smaller audience.These different stories allow us to examine the stories setting in more depth and focus in on different aspects to create and learn from these new stories that build so well off of the old ones. To conclude this reflection on my work I wished to further examen the nature of his text by interacting with it in a unique and personal way.