Treatise on Law.

"An unjust law is no law at all,"-  St. Augustine

For some reason, in the our fiction novel, our heroes aren't exactly the most law abiding type. They'll steal cars (or horses) to outrun the bad guys, they'll take justice into their own hands and lets not even go into trespassing laws. That's what we've been brought up with. The idea that when the bad guys start fighting, we can do anything we need to do, lie, cheat, steal, take up the sword, in order to stop them. 

So here's the question. What is a hero allowed to do in order to stop a villain? On one hand, the guy who obeys every single traffic law, even when the villains are after him, is possibly going to die of stupidity. On the other side of the coin, we would do well to head Neitzche's warning that he who fights monster must take care not to become a monster himself. If the hero acts in every way like the villain in order to take him down/ What differentiates him from the villain? 

I think the answer to this, is that the heroes always follow moral law. Sometimes they follow moral law higher then the civil law that surrounds them. The laws of God trump the laws of man, and the laws God themselves work according to certain order of operations. The value of human life more valuable than the value of human property laws. Otherwise our characters will find themselves in the situation of being unable to fulfill their responsibilities towards their God or their loved ones, because they are being forced to obey minor laws.

However, this doesn't mean our heroes are free to ignore law. They simply have a priority of which laws to follow..That's what differentiates them. The villain does not obey law, or at least, he doesn't obey God's. The hero, to one extent or another is bound to obey God's law. And Christ reminds us that his commandments are not burdensome. They make room for moral complexities. But they don't free us to do whatever we want.

In conclusion, our characters always do have to obey the law. Not necessarily man's law, but always God's. His law comes first in all situations. 

Draconic Eternity

I've recently heard it said, that because the dragon is used as a symbol for Satan, that means that writers should never attempt to portray dragons in a positive light. It's an interesting argument and a little bit more nuanced then it sounds at first. The argument isn't that animals such as snakes, lions and wolves have to be evil because they are represented as such in the Bible, but rather that the concept of a dragon, in and of itself was a form that was made by Satan. If this is true, then it would make sense that one could never portray a dragon in any way that could be considered 'good'.

Of course, here we're getting into highly theoretical and not very practical theology. It's pretty much one step above discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. However it's been what I've been discussing these days with a friend of mine, and since it involves two of my passions. Theology and Dragons!

So, to counter this incredibly unpractical but interesting claim, I am going to make my own incredibly impractical but interesting claim.

There are dragons in heaven.

Now before you pick up stones and proceed to throw them at me let's take a moment and study the topic in the book of Isaiah. In this book we have the Seraphim. Now, it should be noted that the word Seraphim in Hebrew appears several other places in scriptures. It appears in Numbers and Deuteronomy. All and all the word 'Seraphim' appears seven times in the old testament. And it always means the same thing. Snake.

And not only just a Snake, but a 'firey serpent'. The word Seraphim is used when God smites the Israelites with a plague of poisonous snakes. Every time except in Isaiah 6 it s used a synonym for 'serpent'. Not to mention the fact that they have wings. In fact there is no evidence to suggest that the Seraphim are not dragons. In fact every serious source who has studied to topic of the Seraphim has come to the conclusion that they are dragons.

Can't wait to meet them in heaven.

Power Source.

I had an interesting experience today. I took about ten minutes out of my busy college life, snuck into the local woods and took a deep breath to pray. I love where I am at Patrick Henry College, don't get me wrong. But sometimes it does seem like an endless list of things that need to be done and doing. Sometimes you need a rest. Let yourself cool down a bit. Get some perspective on things.

Novels work basically like that. Every novel has a different specific energy level that it requires of it's readers. Some novels are intense and work the reader up and get them excited. Others relax the reader and bring their emotional level down. Both serve a purpose, and both contribute to Godly edification.

The writing at a high energy level is what you might call 'serious' work. It's not designed to entertain, at least not primarily, it's designed to educate. All Quiet on the Western Front would be one example, anything by George Orwell would be another.Just looking through my books shelf I find that I really don't have many other example at hand.  I guess I don't like novels that require a lot of emotional energy. I tend to find that there's enough pain in life as there is. But these novels have a place. They help tackle the tougher issues. Pain, War, Disease, Confusion. Those sort of things. For some reason these novels tend to win Newberry awards.

The writing at low energy levels would include really non serious works. Comic books would be low energy level. Other works such as Percy Jackson and Artemis Fowl would be other examples. Now when I say 'non-serious' this isn't to disparage these works. Personally I'm glad that not every work of fiction is on deep and painful experiences. Sometimes we need a break. Life is full of hardships. And personally, though my life experiences has caused me to be more grateful for high energy literature, they also have caused me to appreciate the escapism the non serious works brings. God intends rest for us. And we should rejoice in that.

A caveat to finish up here. Most works of fictions can't easily be classified as 'high energy' or 'low energy'. Most are somewhat of a mix. In reality most novels tend to fall somewhere between high and low. Most of the books we read  tend to be somewhere between Lord of the Flies and Superman vs the Avengers. I personally prefer my works to be a mix of silly and serious. That's what I like to read and that's what I like to write.

Not-So-Deathless One.

So I read the Epic of Gilgamesh today. It was not exactly the most optimistic of books. The books subject is the life of an incredible Sumerian hero. He has 'succeeded' in every modern definition of the word. He's rich, he's powerful, he's handsome and respected by both gods and man. He is the essence of a worldly victory. He's the greatest of the great. He only has one problem.

He dies.

He doesn't really want to die. He's afraid of death. He even goes as far to journey to the land of the gods to find he flower or immortality. But through a cruel twist of fate, even that evades him. And so Gilgamesh dies. All his great actions and worldly success are turned to dust. Not exactly the pick me up of the day.

But it brought up a good point, and one that really applies to our writing. We really have to be careful about how much confidence we place in worldly success for our characters. I mean, for all we love torturing our long suffering our long suffering characters, but we care about them.  Most of us like to make sure to give them a happy ending. At the end of the book want them to have defeated the villain, married to the love of their life and in a reasonably stable economic situation. Because we like happy endings.

Now don't worry I'm not going to rant against happy endings. I'm a big sucker for a happy endings. Nothing touches my heart more. But I think we have to be careful as we wrap up the plot, marry off the hero and heroine and write the final happily ever after that we don't make our ending too materialistic. Gilgamesh had everything that could be considered worldly success. But he lost it, because in the end, he died. Because he had nothing beyond this temporal life.

See 'happily ever after' is a wonderful thing, but you won't find it in defeating the villain, in marriage and those sort of things in life. Those are only pictures. Symbols of the day when we will defeat the ultimate villain, when Christ will marry His bride and peace will finally reign. Gilgamesh had the symbols, he defeated villains, had many wives, but none of that brought him happiness because true happiness does not come from those things, but the things that they symbolized.

The practical application of this is that the Christian writer must point towards the ultimate happy ending. Every well written happy ending has a shard of heaven embedded inside. The whispers of greater glory. Heaven, is the end. The happy end. It gives the story meaning and conclusion. Material success will gain us nothing without it.

Why now do we write?

What's the point of writing? I'm not asking that question because I'm depressed or anything. But seriously, stop and think for a moment. What's the point? This isn't an idle question, our Lord desires that we devote everything to Him. Including our writing. If we're going to devote everything to Him, then we need to think about why we are writing in the first place . 

Our first answer might be that it's fun. Unless writing puts us in danger of sin, this is a legitimate answer. God created fun for a reason. It's meant to help us relax; it gives us a different environment to worship in and helps us prepare ourselves to serve Him. But... I don't think the point of writing is that it's fun. I mean yes. Writing can be fun. It's amazingly enjoyable. But that's not why we write. Anyone who has had to slog through that one chapter that they really didn't want to write, knows that writing is not always enjoyable. If we're going to be writers we need a deeper purpose then that. 

Then there's Tolkien's explanation. He believed that in writing we are imitating our Creator by 'creating', or rather 'sub-creating' entire imaginary worlds. And this is true. Just like a child imitates his Daddy by putting on a suit and tie and pretending he's a 'grown-up', we imitate out Father by creating imaginary worlds; just as our Father creates real ones. Tolkien did indeed put his finger on one of the reasons for writing, but not the only reason for writing. Because imitation has it's limitations. A child might put on his Daddy's suite but he's never going to be hired by any major cooperation. 

We cannot create like God can, we are limited to mixing and matching the things that he has placed in this universe. None of our writing is original. It all stems from God's provident creation. This adds a different dimension to writing. Not only do we create worlds ourselves, but we reflect the world that He has created. When God creates, He creates truth. When we create, we reflect the truth that God created in the first place.

So that's the real core of why we write. We don't write in order to create truth, but discover it. Our writing is meant to reflect the pure and absolute truth about the world that God, Himself originally created. Truly we are given a great honour. To be able to write about the creation of the Living God! 

Where the Wolfthings are.

Sometimes,on Theology Dragons, you will find articles on empiricism, postmodernism, the history of the Middle Ages. Sometimes, I'm going to explore the angst of our modern society and the need for us to to return to Christ-like standards in creativity. Sometimes on this site, you will find blog posts that are actually mature and thoughtful.

This is not one of the blog posts. This one is on werewolves.

Okay so werewolves are not really a mature topic. They have less theological depth to them then say fairies or vampires. Far less underlying philosophical concepts to explore. But I like werewolves, so you all are going have to suffer me a bit while I rant about them. I mean, you can't get much more awesome then a guy who can actually turn into a wolf! Only thing better then a werewolf is a dragon, and as we have previously established on this blog, dragons are awesome.

Now just because werewolves are not as philosophically deep as fairies or vampires doesn't mean they don't have depth to them. Oh they do. See we've brought up various fantastic races and symbolism before. Vampires are a symbol of sin, Fairies are a symbol of the enigmatic mystery and the Modern Wizard is a symbol of technology and progress. So what are the underlying themes with werewolves?

Alright I've heard it said by a lot of modern literary critics that the werewolf is a symbol of the 'beast within'. Now this sounds really pretty but has anyone stopped to think what the 'beast within' is? That terms sounds nice but it really doesn't describe anything. The werewolf is a human who turns into a wolf, of course it symbolizes the beast within! But what does that even mean?

Well it can be a lot of things. In fact a lot of the differences between various werewolves in fiction can be attributed to different methods authors use to interpret 'the beast within'. It can be used to portray unrestrained sin. In this case the werewolf is not that different from a vampire, both are used to portray an overwhelming carnal blood-lust that humans cannot control no matter how 'good' their original intentions. That's the sort of werewolf you see in those old 1950's horror films. The other main interpretation of 'the beast within' is to represent humans love for nature and wildlife. Since the werewolf is a man who can turn into a wolf, it represents the connection that humans can have with the Lord's Creation. This sort of werewolf is a symbol of man as steward of the earth. It shows in a subtle sort of way his dominance over the rest of the creation the Lord has made.

So those are some of my thoughts on that subject. Werewolves are a interesting topic to deal with, and can either be used to represent sin.. or man's Lordship of creation.

The Anti-Hero.

We in the Modern day of the age like the Anti-Hero. The world has become a more cynical place then it used to be, and the Anti-Hero is become more popular for that reason. But truth be told, all generations have liked the antihero.  Captain Nemo and the ominous Count of Monte Cristo kept audiences entertained a long time before the tone of the age turned cynical. Audiences are thrilled by the Anti-Hero, they always were and they always have been.

Why is that? Because I think more than any other character the Anti-Hero shows the state of humanity. Humans are flawed and sinful creatures, but we're not without our virtues. Just like the Anti-Hero we try to do the right thing, but we slip up. We end up causing damage when all we wanted to do was create something good. We wanted justice. Or mercy. But we depended on ourselves rather than something bigger outside it. 

The Anti-Hero is always striving for something good, the Great Gatsby wants perfection, the Count of Monte Cristo and Inspector Javert both desire justice. They want what the heroes want, but the difference is by the methods they achieve it. The hero struggles, but in the end he always depends on something bigger than himself to bring about ultimate victory. The anti-hero is a cynic. He doesn't think there is anyone out there is going to bring about his Vision. He has to accomplish it through his own strength and his own power.

And here's a good place to point out the difference between the classical Anti-Heroes and the modern ones. In modern times we often glorify the anti-hero. We have forgotten God, we've forgotten the fact that goodness exists outside of us. So who do we turn to save us? We turn to the Anti-Hero. Because if goodness comes from within, then the Anti-Hero is right. We need to take goodness into our own hands. The Anti-Hero is the closest we get to God. Contrast this to Javert or Gatsby who end up destroying their lives through their basically cynical worldview.

"I did not come to pray to God, but inform Him I am taking his place" - Edmund Dantes