taotrooper | Religious systems and fiction

First of all, a question. Is Tolkien's "The Book of Lost Tales" any good, truth to be told? I don't want to spend my money in it just because I'm curious about that Eriol, and then to find myself bored out. Be honest.

Meanwhile, I found myself building a huge part of Clow country's religion and ecclesiastic system in order to write some Touya/Yuki plot bunnies. I'm not taking this slightly: I even read a long and tedious essay at the Britannica macropedia about old and modern religions and their classification.

However... do you think people could take my take on their religion (sorry about redundance) in a bad way? When it comes to religion, people get offended too easily and I'm scared someone flames me for making one up. However, it's impossible and stupid to adapt an existing, real-life religion from our world. Not even myths from ancient civilizations.

Also, I'm doing it as CLAMPic as possible, with dualism, natural forces, twins, magic, crossovers and so on. The main gods are not even my creation, mind you. (don't ask me about the main gods, because I'm not going to answer; you'll have to wait)

Besides, there's a 0.5% of probability CLAMP will contradict me in canon. Because... why would they lose their valuable S+S quality time in explaining how does each world work?

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Is Tolkien's "The Book of Lost Tales" any good, truth to be told?

It depends. If you like Tolkien´s style I´ve always found his short stories very interesting, less mechanic than lets say Lord of the Rings. Though Book of Lost Tales feels a bit unconnected, scattered, more than Silmarillion. I´m not a big fan of Tolkien so I´m biased, but I thought it was a curious read.

Thanks! I'm not a Tolkien freak, but I'm curious about those two books. That's why I'm asking, because he sometimes bores me or overwhelms me, and I wanted to know what to expect.

Probably I'll just look for it in a library or e-book instead. I have the feeling his son's comments are going to drive me insane x_x

I'll ask my dad about it, first chance I get; it's likely that he's read it, since he has a collection of those books, and we may even own it. If it's like the Silmarillion, like the above commenter says, it'll probably read like a history book. Sometimes I find that fascination, other times boring, so... If you get desperate, I can get it out from the library; I've been curious myself, but I get the feeling that I won't be able to get CCS!Eriol out of my head while reading.

About the religion fic...I say do whatever you want, just don't post it where you're likely to get flamed. People tend to be idiots where religion is concerned, everything will offend a certain type, so just avoid letting them see it, and if you do get flamed, remember that the flamer would probably find offense even if you adapted Christianity to fit the world.

Because... why would they lose their valuable S+S quality time in explaining how does each world work?

Because they're being controlled by fanbrats! Or they might as well be.

They might, probably, considering how OOC S+S are in that manga (anime is worse, though)

I'll still post my fics at the Pit anyway, flamed or not. It's not like I'm going to put in the summary I made a religion up. I just need a basis for likely rituals or celebrations I can exploit for Touya/Yukito goodness, or even just for Yukito's character development's sake. When you write precanon with one of the characters as a High Priest, it's hard not to mention the beliefs at the background. Coming up with Royalty background is easy, but that only concerns Touya (and his lovely father, if I ever write him.)

I read the first volume of the Book of Lost Tales and loved it, but I agree with

zauberer_sirin: it feels very scattered. It's sort of a previous version of the stories in the Silmarillion (and Eriol doesn't do much apart from listening, really).

It also includes a lot of explanations and comments by Christopher Tolkien about how his father developed the different versions, some of his old poems, things like that. I don't know how interested you are in the making of Tolkien's mythology- you can either love it or half of it will bore you to death. There's a big chunk of comments after each tale, mind you.

As for your world building, I say go ahead! People (well, sane people) don't get offended by Greek or Nordic myths, and those are stories from actual religions, so there shouldn't be any problems with a fictional one. And if someone gets offended over a fictional religion, they need a good slap over the head...

I think I can imagine where you're going with the main gods, after the other day's fic, but I'll better shut up just in case,

I bet you're dead-on, but I'm going to enter Rowling mode and not saying anything else. Just reading between the lines of my fic, it becomes so obvious it hurts...

...mmm

Yeah, I know. Subtle as a rock again. Everybody knows, and yet, I'm not telling.

I suck as international woman of mystery.

I'm not a great fan of Tolkien's style (no matter how much I admire his capacities for building a world with all its little details), so The Book of Lost Tales bore me to death when I started reading it, that's all I can say ^^;;

And I also think I know something about those gods... but I could be wrong anyway. And I'm anxious to see it even though I'm not an avid fanfic reader XD

Thanks ^^ Then it's likely it will bore me as well. Heh.

I'm sorry I can't help you at all with the Tolkien - I've read the trilogy and the Simarillion but nothing more. (I am a BAD Tolkien fan girl)

I'm really looking forward to seeing what you've come up with! Detailed world building is one of my favourite aspects of fantasy. It really annoys me when professional authors take the thinly-disguised-european-medieval-only-with-hygiene copout.

The opposite result is when someone spends so much time developing the backstory and culture of the world that ... well.... the story never gets written. (ie: everything I've ever started)

Interesting the idea of building up a religion for a Tsubasa fanfic. I have a strong feeling that CLAMP didn't even think about religions for a majority of their worlds. (Shurano/Sharano being the only one, sort of.) Chances are, you'll piss off someone. Best advice is to just ignore them. Good luck.

Well, there's not a lot of time in canon for world-building, especially for religions or characters' beliefs. Shurano was an exception since they had to deal with gods anyway -as in RG Veda.

Actually, in their other works (CLAMP's, I mean) they won't work a lot on characters' religions -excluding RG Veda, I repeat, and X where we see people with Buddhist, Shintoist and Christian affiliations/creeds.

God knows anime!Eriol confuses the hell out of me just for that, even if it's not an actual CLAMP thing. He's found playing the piano, practicing for a Christmas mass, which should mean he's Christian (what kind, though? there are more possibilities Tomoeda's church is Catholic, but he's British so he's more bound to be an Anglican). However, in New Year he's on the divination stand at Tsukimine shrine, so he should a Shintoist since I doubt they'd let him do that if he's a Christian even if he's Kaho's... (boy)friend.
Is he both? Is he none? Is he lying about one? Would he be Buddhist as well since he has Clow's memories and he was at least half a Buddhist as a half Chinese?
Now that we're at it, which religion was Clow? Did he even believe in one? Did he believe in all?

...

Crap, I'm sorry. I got excited over my own obsession. Anyway, I doubt my pseudoreligion should offend anyone, but you never know. There's batshit crazy people at teh interwebz.

Hahahahahaha.

Good thing Clow country won't admit that kind of fantasy novel cliches.

On most occasions, I would be unhappy about plot bunnies.
For you, I say amen to the bunnies and may they come en masse!!
Yes, I'm a fan, could you tell?

-~*)

O_oU

I have fans? Since when? O_oUU

Offtopic, but that icon! Squee, baby emperor penguin! ♥

Religious systems and fiction

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