Sunspots 596

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Stephen Burnett continues a series about "Christian White Magic," here and here.

Relevant reports that a missionary in Russia has been arrested and fined for holding a religious service in his home, and inviting others to attend.

A Relevant commentator says that Christianity is not just a relationship -- it's a religion.

Finance: Relevant reports that the Mall of America will be closed on Thanksgiving Day.

Health: (and food) A doctor tells why he eats dropped food off of his kitchen floor, even if it's been there more than five seconds.

History: Listverse sets the record straight on Pocohantas. She had a very hard life.

Humor: A Christianity Today contributor prays for certain characteristics of a possible future husband.

Literature: Morgan Busse, Christian writer of fantastic literature, asks "What if Only One Person Reads my Books?"


Politics: The New York Times reports on a study of the political leanings of doctors, and there are several interesting results. Surgeons, for example, are nearly three times more likely to be Republican than infectious disease specialists. Also, doctors in higher-paying specialties are more likely to be Republican.

Science: Scientific American reports that silkworms, fed mulberry leaves sprayed with solutions of certain artificial materials, produce silk which is stronger than normal silk, and such silk can conduct electricity.

Oh, oh. Scientific American reports that the Food and Drug Administration, important scientific journals, and universities exert considerable control over how news from these bodies is reported. One example -- Fox News is not invited to FDA press conferences. The reason for this is not clear.

And Scientific American says that ISIS gets quite a bit of money from agriculture.

Listverse grosses us out with photos and descriptions of the 10 creepiest fungi.

FiveThirtyEight tells us that rocks don't just sit there.






Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 594

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Benjamin L. Corey claims that the US is not hostile toward Christianity, but hostile toward Christians who try to bully others into certain kinds of behavior.


Computing: Several companies in the information sector are working together with public representatives to develop ethics guidelines for artificial intelligence, according to reports by National Public Radio and other sources.

Gizmo's Freeware has posted an updated and annotated list of the best free apps, including, for example, substitutes for Word and Excel, and games, and many more.

Finance: Scientific American reports that Congress, with a bill backed by members of both parties (!) will probably pass legislation that helps prevent people who have lost property in a flood from continuing to receive federally backed insurance payments when they re-build in the same place. The worst case mentioned is a home that has had 34 damage claims in 32 years, whose owner has been paid about ten times the property's value over that time period.

Food: Cup noodles are 45 years old. NPR reports on their history and culture (and also on Ramen noodles).

Health: National Public Radio reports on the value of walking for health, especially in older people.

History: Listverse presents 10 amazing stories of survival in the Arctic.


Humor: (or not) The Conversation on why some of us think clowns are creepy.

Real humor: An amazing rope trick video.




Politics: NPR reports on the question of whether fact checks matter.
Science: NPR reports that an environmentally cleaner car may actually cost less.
Scientific American reports that 8-month-old babies are able to understand more than we might expect, and to use communication with adults.

Image source (public domain)

The Harry Potter series, revisited.

I recently re-read all seven of the Harry Potter books, by J. K. Rowling. I enjoyed reading them, and wish to give some reactions. Since Rowling exerted firm control over the movies, I'm not considering them, as such. They are mostly like the books. There are probably some spoilers in this post. Sorry.

1) There is a clear conflict between good, represented by Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, and evil, represented by Voldemort. Some of the magical people in the books are steadfastly good, some steadfastly evil. Some of them change camps. Harry, and others, are tempted to join the evil side. Harry's father apparently was a real rascal, and a bully, when he was in Hogwarts, the school for wizards, but he did stand up for good before he died. (Harry's parents died while he was still a baby, killed by Voldemort.)

Percy Weasley seeks power, and, because he does, rejects his parents and siblings, in order to curry favor with people in the Ministry of Magic. But he finally repents. Severus Snape seems to be an evil character through almost all seven of the books, but, in the end, Harry understands that he really was on the side of good all along.

There is some scripture, and some indications that some of the witches and wizards pray, in the book.

As of January 9, 2015, the Wikipedia article on the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has a section on "Christian Allegories."

2) Rowling doesn't seem to like bureaucracies very much. Although there are good people who work in the Ministry of Magic, there are also a lot of bad ones.

3) Rowling is usually very good at naming. Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Snape are names that are perfect for their characters. Hogwarts, and the four Hogwarts Houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin, are well named. Nearly Headless Nick is an inspired name (for a ghost). I think Rowling could have done a better job with the Deathly Hallows. The word Hallow has, for me at least, the connotation of holiness, and that isn't really what the Hallows were about. Pensieve also doesn't quite ring true, for me.

4) Rowling has a great imagination. The train to Hogwarts, Hogwarts itself, with its several classes on the practice of magic, the Sorting Hat, the ghosts, and the game of Quidditch, played on brooms, are some of the evidence for that. The entire wizard/witch culture, living in the midst of non-magical people, is also evidence. She is good on setting, plot, characterization and dialog. The plot can be especially intricate, but the reader doesn't have to understand the ins and outs of wand possession to grasp who is on the side of Voldemort, and who isn't.

The point of view seldom shifts. Most of the time, it's on Harry. If you end a chapter, usually the next one takes up where the previous one left off.

5) One of the attractions of the books, for young people, is that Harry, Hermione and Ron (and other Hogwarts students) do a lot of staying up after they should have been in bed. They also do a lot of exploring into places where they aren't supposed to go. They copy each other's schoolwork. Sometimes, they get punished for staying up too long, or trespassing, but mostly they don't. Some of the destruction of evil in the books would not have been possible without this sort of behavior.

6) For some reason, none of the many professors at Hogwarts seem to be married. Although the leading character, Harry, is male, there are many important female characters, such as Hermione Granger, Professor McGonagal, Dolores Umbridge, Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley and her mother, Molly. Not all of them are good. All of them are well developed.

7) The great moral questions in the books revolve around power, and its importance, and death, and its importance. At least four characters willingly enter situations where they are in danger of death, to advance the cause of good, and two of them die in these situations. Voldemort, the archvillian, has done everything that he can to keep from dying.
“There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!” snarled Voldemort. “You are quite wrong,” said Dumbledore . . . - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. 1 Corinthians 15:26, that says that the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, is on a tombstone, and Harry and Hermione reflect on it.

8) Although Harry can be proud, cheeky, devious, revenges some bad things done to him, and can question Dumbledore's judgment, he has his really good points. One of them is that he saves the lives of two contemporaries who have been really nasty to him. Those are Draco Malfoy and Dudley Dursley, his non-magical cousin. He stands up for Hagrid, the not-so-competent professor.

A few years ago, I posted my reactions to the books, in a comment on an interview of the author, J. K. Rowling, with Katie Couric. In that interview, Rowling said that her books were very moral, and not designed to encourage devil worship, black magic, and the like. In another post, I compiled a number of reactions, by Christians, to the books and movies. That post, "Is Harry Potter a bad influence, ii," is here. It has links to a couple of dozen sources. Some of them, especially those to Christianity Today, are, no doubt, now dead.

I agree with Rowling, mostly. (But see point 5, above.) The books are not designed to teach love of devil worship, black magic, and the like. They are coming of age novels, set in the environment of a wizard/witch subculture, mostly in the United Kingdom. The coming of age is more important than the magic that the young wizards and witches are taught at Hogwarts. (Wizards are male, witches female.)

The Wikipedia has extensive coverage of the books, and the movies. This article is probably the best place to start.

See Speculative Faith, which has some good posts on the matter of magic and Christianity. They include "The Christian Problem with Magic, 1," and the second part. Also "Deuteronomy 18 Witchcraft," which, among other things, points out that Elsa, from Frozen, is a witch, and a post that claims -- read it -- that some Christian parents practice white magic, especially near Halloween.

If you haven't read these books, you should. Thanks for reading this.

Sunspots 495

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: Threads from Henry's Web, a blog, has some careful thinking on separation of church and state. (Notice that I'm not putting this in Politics, but in Christianity.)
A blog post about Contemporary Christian music, from a worship leader who has moved away from doing 100% of that in worship.
Computing: Relevant reports that there is a real college course, entitled "wasting time on the Internet."
Gizmo's Freeware reports on a free web site that will convert most any file format into something else.
Humor: Tom Magliozzi, co-host, with his brother, Ray, of Car Talk, a long-running National Public Radio show, has passed away. We miss him.
Why it's smart to wear the same outfit every day. (This seems to apply to men, not women, but what do I know?)
Literature: Speculative Faith on The Bible and magic. I hadn't considered that Elsa, from Frozen, is a witch, but I guess she is. The article doesn't condemn Frozen. It does point out specific uses of magic that Christians should avoid.
Science: Wired reports on the winners of a contest on the best photos of microscopic objects.
Sports: Caroline Wozniacki, tennis star (she came in second in this year's US Open) ran in the New York marathon, and did well, in spite of never having run the entire distance at one practice session before. How good would she be if she really practiced?


 Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 490

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:

The Arts: (And Christianity) A fascinating discussion of so-called "white magic," which is illustrated thus:
Many Christians, including many parents, are practicing “white magic” whenever they fear and shun objects, symbols, and Things more than they fear Jesus Christ and hate inner sin.
Health: National Public Radio reports on how many days dying patients spend in hospitals, and what causes the variation. It varies widely, almost three times as much in New York and New Jersey as in Utah and Idaho.
Science: NPR reports on a portion of the brain that may be a main cause of unselfish behavior.
The BBC asks if all the ants on earth weigh more than all the people. I thank one of my brothers for this link.
Wired reports on a spider that lives its entire life underwater.
(And politics) Some right-wing news outlets are trumpeting a recent study, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as showing that global climate change is not caused by human activity. Not exactly. Here's a report on the study, from the Associated Press. To quote the AP: "The study ... does not question global warming but argues that there is evidence that in at least one place, local winds are a more important factor explaining ocean warming than greenhouse gases." Critics of the study have pointed out that local winds, themselves, are probably influenced by human activity. And, of course, even if human activity has no effect on winds, the report is not global, and it does not question that human activity effects ocean warming. Here's a press release, from NOAA, on the report.
Sports: The scoring summary of the September 21, 2014 NFL game between the New England Patriots and the Oakland Raiders. All of the scoring (a touchdown, an extra point, and six field goals) was done by three players, Sebastian Janikowski, Rob Gronkowski and Stephen Gostkowski. That must be some sort of record . . .

Image source (public domain)

Among Others by Jo Walton

You can almost always find chains of coincidence to disprove magic. That's because it doesn't happen the way it does in books. It makes those chains of coincidence. That's what it is. It's like if you snapped your fingers and produced a rose but it was because someone on an aeroplane had dropped a rose at just the right time for it to land in your hand. There was a real person and a real aeroplane and a real rose, but that doesn't mean the reason you have the rose isn't because you did the magic. Jo Walton, Among Others. (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2010, p. 40.)

I recently read Among Others by Jo Walton. The book won several important awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and British Fantasy awards, and was a nominee for the World Fantasy Award.

The book consists entirely of the diary of Morwenna Phelps, also known as Morwenna Markova, during the period from September 1979 through February 1980, plus an initial entry from 1975. She is a teenager, in a boarding school. She has been in a terrible accident that took the life of her twin sister, Morganna, and left her with one bad leg, so bad that she isn't required to participate in sports at the school. That's all right with her, because she is a voracious reader, mostly of fantastic literature. I didn't count, but there must have been a few hundred of such books mentioned, mostly read by Morwenna. She gives her opinions of them, and occasionally discusses them with a book club, or with her father. Many of these books are well known even today, and some of the others should be, although they aren't. I suspect that this parading of the history of science-fiction/fantasy, throughout the book, was one of the reasons for the awards that it won. It's a good book, though, lest there be any doubt.
It's a quiet book, and you won't find any armies marching, swordplay, space travel, or desperate wizards going to great lengths to cast spells. The quotation at the beginning of this post describes how magic works in Walton's sub-creation. It works quietly, in the background, as it were. I won't give away any more of the plot than is necessary to discuss a couple of matters. If you are interested in the plot, I recommend these reviews: This review says that Walton's description of magic, which takes the quotation above as its theme, is the most important aspect of the book. This one says that perhaps none of the magic, nor even the accident and the dead twin, are real, but we have a case of an unreliable narrator. This one, and others, indicate that the book is partly biographical. The location and time correspond to Walton's own life. Walton was, and is, somewhat crippled, and read fantastic literature as a teenager.

The first matter to discuss is fairies. Morwenna is able to see, and communicate, with fairies, mostly Welsh fairies. Such fairies are unlike most descriptions of these folk. They come in various sizes and shapes, some of them being not obviously humanoid at all. They can communicate a little, but aren't good with words, and don't like to talk to people. Most people can't see them.

The second matter is this: the book is a coming of age novel. It isn't much of a distortion to say that it's also about Morwenna's search for God. I quote:

[Humphrey] Carpenter says in the Inklings book that [C. S.] Lewis meant Aslan to be Jesus. I can sort of see it, but all the same it feels like a betrayal. It feels like allegory. No wonder Tolkien was cross. . . . Sometimes I'm so stupid -- but Aslan was always so much himself. I don't know what I think about Jesus, but I know what I think about Aslan. (page 129. Tolkien, though a great friend of Lewis for much of their lives, was not pleased with the Narnia books.)

and

Dear God, if you are there and care and can bless people, please bless Alison Carroll with your very best blessing. (page 212. Alison Carroll is her school librarian. Libraries are very important to Morwenna, and Ms. Carroll and another librarian went out of their way to do good things for Morwenna.)

There are several other indications that she is searching for meaning in life, and hoping to find it, somehow, in God. She doesn't exactly do so, though.

Thanks for reading. If you want to read an ambiguous book about magic, coming of age, and searching for God, Among Others is for you.

Fantastic Literature - E. Stephen Burnett points out how the Bible supports it

Some Christians think that, say, the Harry Potter books have no place in a Christian's reading, because they have to do with magic. The same has been said for books that have some sort of pagan religion, or even, like the Narnia books, minor characters (such as Tumnus the faun) that are based on non-Christian mythology. I recognize that there are some books that I shouldn't read, because of some sort of sinful content, and that some Christians probably have no business reading the Harry Potter books, or maybe even the Narnia books, because of their own personal make-up and experience, which might open them up to temptations that I don't think are particularly dangerous for me. But I disagree with the idea that no Christian should be reading books with magicians or some sort of pagan religion, and certainly disagree with crossing off all fantastic literature.

See here for a post on a series of books that I decided not to continue reading. See here for a post on the work of a particular author who is a self-declared Druid, but whose work is clearly sympathetic toward Christianity. Here is a post, attempting to describe Christian novels. Here is an examination of Christianity, or lack thereof, in the Harry Potter books.

E. Stephen Burnett is one of the authors of the Speculative Faith blog. In two recent posts - here and here - he opened my eyes about two pertinent Biblical facts. First, Daniel, and his Israeli companions, had to be conversant with the literature of Babylon. (See Daniel 1, particularly verse 17.) That literature almost certainly included stories about pagan deities. Second, the Tabernacle, as God directed its construction, almost certainly included materials given to the Israelites by the Egyptians, and most likely some of those materials were related to Egyptian idol worship. (See here for the source of some, or all, of the Israelite gold, and here for the instructions to use gold in the building of the tabernacle.)

Thanks, Burnett. It seems that God-serving people could know about the stories of pagan gods, and that the worship of God could use materials that had previously been related to the worship of other gods. So fantastic literature can also be used to God's glory, and the edification of Christians, even though it contains elements of magic or paganism. I have thought so for a long time, but this confirms it.

Actually, Burnett goes even further, because he thinks he needs to. Some Christians think, and argue, that no fiction, of any kind, is suitable for Christians to read. (See here for documentation.)

Thanks for reading. Read Burnett.

Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea: Musings

Ursula K. Le Guin is arguably the best writer of fantastic literature in English of the last half of the 20th century. (She is still alive, and, as far as I know, still writing.) She has won numerous awards, all well-deserved. She has written in a variety of literary forms, including criticism and literature for young children.

Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy was published from 1968 through 1973. The series was designed for young people, and the final volume, The Farthest Shore, won the National Book Award for Children's Books. (Nearly 20 years later, Le Guin wrote three other books about the same sub-creation, and including stories about some of the characters in the trilogy. I have read the first three books numerous times. Recently, it occurred to me that I had never blogged about them, and I decided that it was time to fill that gap.

The first book in the trilogy is A Wizard of Earthsea. The previous sentence links to the Wikipedia article on the book, which has a good summary of it, and some references to works about the book.

I wish to muse about several aspects of A Wizard of Earthsea.

The book is written in the third person. It is well written, and well organized. The setting is the many islands of Earthsea -- not all of them, just a few. There is a good map. The location of Earthsea is not given, but it seems to be a non-earth planet, mostly water, with one sun and one moon, probably much like our own moon. Le Guin's father was an important anthropologist. Her mother was a writer and also an anthropologist. The book has anthropological aspects. One of them is that there are hints that the islands are inhabited by different ethnic and racial groups, many, but not all, dark-skinned. Another is that, regardless of the location, the people engage in two ceremonies, one as the days begin to lengthen, the other on the longest day: . . . the Long Dance began. Townsfolk and Masters and students and farmers all together, men and women, danced in the warm dust and dusk down all the roads of Roke to the sea-beaches, to the beat of drums and drone of pipes and flutes. Straight out into the sea they danced, under the moon one night past full, and the music was lost in the breakers' sound. As the east grew light they came back up the beaches and the roads, the drums silent and only the flutes playing soft and shrill. So it was done on every island of the Archipelago that night: one dance, one music binding together the sea-divided lands. (p. 69)

The book is a coming-of-age novel. Ged begins his life in a poor and isolated village on Gont, one of the many islands that make up Earthsea. He learns some of his father's blacksmithing trade, but the most important thing about his life is that he has magical ability. Ogion the Silent, the local mage, takes Ged as an apprentice. Ged is not thrilled by this. Ogion doesn't often perform any magic. He is concerned about preserving the equilibrium of the world: ". . . Ged, listen to me now. Have you never thought how danger must surround power as a shadow does light? This sorcery is not a game we play for pleasure or for praise. Think of this: that every word, every act of our Art is said and done either for good, or for evil. Before you speak or do you must know the price that is to pay!" (p. 35, Ogion to Ged)

Ged decides to leave Ogion, and travel to Roke, where the school for wizards is located. At first, he does well at the school, probably better than any other student. (All the students, and the Masters, are male.) But he has a problem, one that Ogion knew about, and hoped to cure -- Ged is proud. He cannot endure being looked down upon. One of the other students, Jasper, delights in looking down on Ged. Finally, Ged can endure it no longer, and declares that he will perform one of the most difficult acts of magic, and, of course, one that will endanger the equilibrium of the world. He calls, from the land of the dead, the Dry Land, a legendary woman, Elfarran, who has been dead for centuries. He succeeds, but in the process, he not only brings a dead woman from the Dry Land to the real, living world, but he allows a nameless evil being to enter it, too. That being scars Ged's face, and leaves him ill in body and mind.

The Masters repair the damage Ged has caused. Nemmerle, the Archmage, expends so much of his power that he dies in the process. When Ged returns to health, he is permanently scarred, and not as quick a student as he used to be. But he is allowed to complete his training, and the new Archmage sends him to be wizard to a group of small islands that is threatened by a dragon.

Three important events happen during Ged's first tenure as a wizard. One of them is that a small boy becomes sick. Ged believes that the boy is dying, but tries to save him, anyway. He does not succeed, and, for the first time, enters, in spirit, the Dry Land, the land of the dead. He almost does not return, but his small pet licks him until Ged regains consciousness. Ged realizes that he has to escape the being he released earlier, and therefore must leave the people he has served as wizard. Before he does so, Ged confronts the dragon, and, by using that animal's secret name, which gives him power over it, he guarantees that the dragon will never attack the islands he has tried to protect. So, in a year or so, Ged has encountered two of the things he studied about, but never experienced, the Dry Land and a dragon. The third important event is more of a process. Ged learns, from the fishermen of the islands, how to repair a boat, using tools and magic.

Ged flees, trying to get away from the threat of the evil being he released earlier. In his flight, he comes to another island where an Old Power, a spirit of a stone, the Terenon, holds sway. He escapes, changing himself into a falcon, and flies back to Gont, to the home of Ogion. Ogion advises Ged not to flee the shadow being, but to hunt it down. Ged does so. The being he is chasing leads Ged to ground his boat on a tiny sand island, and there are other difficulties. On the sand island, Ged finds an old couple, probably brother and sister, who do not share a common language with him. They come to trust him, and the woman gives Ged an old piece of metal, broken from something larger. This will be significant in the second book of the trilogy, but doesn't seem so to Ged at the time.

Finally, in the open sea, in a boat he has repaired, Ged meets this being. The two speak Ged's secret name, "Ged," to each other, and embrace, becoming a single entity, which seems to be mostly Ged, and, judging by the subsequent books, a good person. Probably Le Guin meant to say that, by accepting his darker self, Ged becomes a whole, mature, person, able to do what must be done in the world.

Le Guin is a Taoist. There are a couple of elements that one wouldn't expect to find in a Christian story. One of them is the resolution described in the previous paragraph. A Christian story would have such an evil being destroyed, rejected, not assimilated.

The second element is that there is no god of any kind in the book. In fact, the culture that the wizards inhabit rejects the very idea: "It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man's hand and the wisdom in a tree's root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name." (p. 185, Ged to Yarrow, a minor character.)

In spite of these religious ideas, the book is well worth reading. Thanks for reading this.

Spindle's End, by Robin McKinley

Robin McKinley's Spindle's End (2000) is a book infused through and through with magic. (See here for an essay on magic in the book, and here for the so-far brief Wikipedia article on Spindle's End.) The book is McKinley's take on "Sleeping Beauty."

Another aspect of the book is the connection between Katriona, a seeming teen-age girl, who, on impulse, spirits the baby princess away to a long hiding place in her simple village, and animals. Katriona can, while she is traveling with the Princess, speak to the animals, and they to her, and the princess is fed by milk from all sorts of mammals. Later, Katriona loses the ability to understand animal speech, but the princess has it. In the end, various animals help the princess defeat the evil fairy who has laid a curse on her, with one, a large captive raptor, finally destroying the evil Pernicia.

McKinley considers the relationship between magic and the church of the time. There are some tensions, but Katriona decides that paying the local priest to pray for the growing princess is worth the money.

I won't give away the plot, but I wished that McKinley had shortened the ending. The final conflict between the princess and the evil fairy, Pernicia, goes on too long, it seemed to me.

I have previously posted about a book by this author.

Nonetheless, the book is well worth reading.

Mistborn: The Final Empire, by Brandon Sanderson

I was looking for a new fantasy author to read, and decided to try a book by Brandon Sanderson. His official website is here, and the Wikipedia article on him is here. I read his Mistborn: The Final Empire (Tor, 2008), and I'm glad that I did. The link in the previous sentence is to the Wikipedia article on the book. This is the book's web page on the author's web site. Clearly, I'm not the only fan of this book, or the series of three books that it is part of. There is a Mistborn Wiki, with a number of articles on various aspects of the book(s).

I generally try to avoid giving away the plots of books that I read, and I will try to give away as little as possible in this post. I have three points to make.

First, there are interesting characters in the book. These characters have feelings, and flaws, and most of them are trying to do good. The good that they are trying to do is to overthrow the Lord Ruler, and the nobility, who hold most of the population, the skaa, of the unnamed planet (continent?) that is the setting in slavery. The leading character is a teenage girl, Vin. Most of the story is told from her standpoint. She has magical ability, and her mother was skaa. She decides to join Kelsier, an inspiring, if unpredictable leader, who also has magical ability, in his plot to overthrow the Lord Ruler.

Second, the nature of the magic in the book is intriguing, and, as far as I'm aware, unlike the magical powers of any other sub-creation. There are actually three kinds of magic in the book. The main kind is Allomancy, a hereditary gift that must be awakened, usually by a traumatic event. Most people aren't Allomancers at all. Some are Mistings -- they are able to somehow internally consume a particular metal or alloy, and, when they do, have temporary powers of one sort or another. There are several types of Mistings. There are also Mistborn, people like Vin and Kelsier, who can use several kinds of metals or alloys, and have all the powers. Such powers include heightened senses, increased strength, the ability to influence the emotions of others, or to hide from enemies using Allomancy, and the ability to move things rapidly against gravity, including the Allomancer herself. In other words, Mistborn are able to move rapidly like the characters in some recent Chinese Martial Arts movies, such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There is another kind of magic, Ferruchemy, which a particular race, small in number, the Terris, can practice. There is a third kind of magic, practiced by a few powerful servants of the Lord Ruler. All three of these forms of magic utilize metals, by ingestion and burning (Oxidation?), or by physical contact.

The third aspect of the book that I wish to muse on is going to give away major portions of the plot.

Religion is mentioned several times. One of the characters, Sazed, is a Terris. He is able to access and retain information on many kinds of religions, using special memory storage provided through Ferruchemy. Occasionally, Sazed mentions some obscure, or at least extinct religion. He doesn't give much detail, but none of the religions he mentions seem to be closely related to any religion currently practiced in real life.

I was not clear on whether or not the skaa, or the other inhabitants of the land that the book is set in, have a religion. If they do, it seems to be worship of the Lord Ruler, who, himself, has powerful magical abilities, as he uses both Allomancy and Ferruchemy, and is, apparently, immortal. He says that he is, and even those who want to overthrow him believe that he is immortal.

Whether anyone else pays attention or not, one of the things I have tried to do, at least for my own satisfaction, in this blog is to consider questions of religion in fantastic literature. If you wish to know more about this, I recommend my "What Must Be Christian About a Christian Novel?" and "Paganism and Christianity in Juliet Marillier's Fiction." Both of these have links to related posts.

I was a little surprised to find, near the end of Mistborn, that there is a Christ-figure in the book. By this, I mean that there is a character who has some of the attributes of Jesus Christ, who suffered for the sins of others, died as a sacrifice for those sins, and rose again to prove His power. The character is Kelsier. Kelsier decides, when the rebellion looks like it won't actually succeed, to sabotage the only mine where the rarest of the metals used by Mistborn is found. The Lord Ruler, and the nobles, as well as other mistborn, like Kelsier and Vin, depend on this metal. His sabotage is successful. In retaliation, the Lord Ruler orders the execution of hundreds of skaa, who, of course, had nothing to do with the sabotage. Kelsier decides that he cannot allow this to happen. He begins freeing the prisoners, knowing that this will make the Lord Ruler, himself, act to try to stop Kelsier. The Lord Ruler does this. He kills Kelsier, in a public place, where many skaa, and many of the Lord Ruler's servants, as well as Vin, are witnesses. Kelsier's close associates, including Vin, discover that Kelsier planned to give himself up -- he knew that he would be killed.

A non-human creature, who has been successfully masquerading as a nobleman, apparently known to be an non-human only by himself and Kelsier, assumes Kelsier's bodily form, and appears, in this way, to some skaa, and this, as well as the revulsion caused by the death of Kelsier on their behalf, leads the skaa to overthrow the nobility. Eventually, they begin a religion, with Kelsier as its deity.

Thus, Kelsier sacrifices himself for others, and, in a sense, rises from the dead, which, as I see it, makes him a Christ-figure.

May I be clear -- this is not exactly a Christian book. It does reflect Christ, although fictionally and not completely.

Vin and Sazed are able to kill the Lord Ruler at the end. I expect to read the remaining books in this series, and will be interested to see where Sanderson takes Vin and the other characters. I'd also like to know why there are mists, why ash is continually falling from the sky, why Vin has difficulty imagining green-colored vegetation, and, as a biologist, how the people (and animals) get food, if there aren't any green-colored plants.

Thanks for reading.

The Sharing Knife Books: Ground

In previous posts, I described the setting and the theme of the four Sharing Knife novels, by Lois McMaster Bujold. A later post, on religion in the books, is here.The final post in the series, on how I found illustrations of important Christian ideas in the books, whether Bujold intended them or not, is here.

I now expand on the setting, by describing one special aspect of Bujold's sub-creation, namely, ground. A Wikipedia author, in the article on Passage, the third book in the series, compared ground to the traditional Chinese concept of ch'i, or qi. The comparison seems to have some merit. I would like to describe Bujold's ground, as well as I am able. I do not think in those terms, myself.

All material objects possess ground. Living things have more of it than non-living objects, and humans have more of it than any other living things. Embryos and fetuses have especially active ground. Some adults have more active, or intense, ground than others. A person with groundsense can distinguish between people, using only this sense, which tells us that there must be some property, or properties, of ground that make it so distinguishable.

Lakewalkers all develop groundsense during adolescence. The amount of groundsense varies. Groundsense has a range. For Dag, this is about a mile, normally, although during some times when he has been stressed, it is much less. Most Lakewalkers do not have a range as great as Dag's. Some Lakewalkers are especially talented. They are healers, or makers of sharing knives. I described sharing knives in my first post in this series.

Some farmers have a little groundsense. Fawn's Aunt Nattie has some. Fawn, herself, has none.

Not only can Lakewalkers detect individual humans, other living things, and inanimate objects (such as hidden sandbars in rivers) but they can manipulate other objects with groundsense. They can, for example, make mosquitoes stay away from them. Dag, at least, can attract fireflies to himself. He can also fish and hunt using his groundsense, attracting game animals and fish to him, using his ground.

Dag puts a broken glass bowl together, using his groundsense. Healers, and even ordinary Lakewalker patrollers, can do some medical work with their groundsense. When doing so, they lose contact with the ordinary world, and sense details of the body to be healed that would not be perceptible to a person lacking groundsense. They can set a bone, remove infection, and other remarkable things. They don't seem to be able to sense microscopic objects, such as blood cells or platelets.

The loss of contact with the ordinary world gives the healer the ability to sense, as it were, a second, parallel world, the world sensed only by groundsense. The same ability, in a lesser degree, seems to be expressed on other occasions. This reminds me of the two worlds seen by some of Tolkien's characters. In The Fellowship of the Ring, just as Frodo is crossing the Ford of the River Bruinen, on the way to Rivendell, the house of Elrond, he sees that parallel world, rather than the ordinary one. Glorfindel, an elf-lord, and the Riders of the enemy are "seen" especially well by Frodo, his peers, and Aragorn, a human, less so.

There are dangers in becoming too obsessed with the parallel world shown by groundsense. A Lakewalker, especially a healer, can become groundlocked -- conscious only of the world shown by groundsense so long that she cannot come back to the ordinary world. If this happens, she dies.

Ground, as indicated above, can be detected by others. So, to a Lakewalker, being with lots of people can be like receiving too many radio broadcasts at once -- noisy and distracting. Lakewalkers can voluntarily shield their grounds from other people. When they do so effectively, they cannot use their groundsense.

Dag discovers that he can extend, and use, a hand he doesn't really have (he lost his real hand in a fight with a malice). Arkady, an accomplished maker, can also do this.

Dag also discovers that he can groundrip other objects -- remove the ground from them, so that they die, or if not living, lose their structural integrity. He uses this as a weapon, ground-ripping a small cross-section of Crane's spinal cord, which paralyzes Crane, and making a hole in the heart of a bat-based slave of a malice, thus causing its death.

Ground, and the story of Fawn and Dag, are essential to the Sharing Knife books.

Thanks for reading.

Sword and Sorcery: Why?

Some fantasy literature, including some of the most important, is sometimes referred to as "sword and sorcery" fantasy. The phrase is often disparaging. No doubt the disparagement is sometimes well-deserved. I make no claim to have read all of the books in this category, by a long shot, but, based on what I see in bookstores, some of them are probably hack work, written mainly to sell, rather than from an artistic impulse. Nonetheless, some of these books have, or will, stand the test of time. Here's a more or less random list of books that I have read, all set in pre-gunpowder societies:
"The Lord of the Rings"works by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon
The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander
The Narnia books by C. S. Lewis
Works by Juliet Marillier
The Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Chalion novels, and the Sharing Knife tetralogy, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Most of the works of Patricia McKillip
The Tales of Goldstone Wood, by Anne Elisabeth Stengl
The Staff and the Sword books, by Patrick W. Carr
 

Some of the works above take place on Earth, in a previous time. Some take place on unspecified planets. The Narnia books take place in both 20th century Earth, and also in another planet, or maybe even in another universe. But the world of Narnia is a sword and sorcery world.

You can add your own to these lists, probably. Why swords? Why sorcery?

Let's deal with the sorcery first.

Tolkien coined the word, eucatastrophe. More or less, it means some amazing turn of events, leading to a good outcome. We all want our mothers to eat an apple from another world, and get well. We would hope that the elves come out of the woods to our aid, driving off evil enemies. In other words, even though many 21st century English-speakers don't believe in miracles, they wish that they could, and are thrilled when miracles happen. We may also thrill when great evil is encountered by fictional characters -- when Ged has to go into the realm of the dead, across the wall of stones, to heal a kingdom, or when Eowyn faces an evil spirit-wizard, who is mounted on a dreadful flying creature.

Sorcery, or magic, also enables unlikely, or common folk to become important. An Assistant Pig-Keeper, or a long-legged Ranger, becomes a king. A sheepfarmer's daughter becomes a great hero. A boy from an obscure village becomes a great Archmage.

Another appealing feature of many works containing sorcery is that good is good, and evil is evil. Most of us like clear friends and enemies, I guess. Granted, there are sometimes turncoats -- Susan stops believing, or Saruman seeks only his own ends, not the good he was supposed to. But usually we can tell the good from the bad. There are no good orcs.

Some of these things can happen in real life, too, but they don't happen to us, and it's nice to read about them, and put ourselves in these situations.

How about the swords?

Swords, for one thing, speak of the past. When you and I and others read sword and sorcery fantasy, we are, perhaps, seeking a past golden age. If there are combustion engines, airplanes, and assault rifles, we know that we are near our own present, with its problems.

Swords don't require much technology. In fact, swords were apparently invented and used in the Bronze Age. So swords are, in part, a symbol of the rejection of technology. Tolkien, for one, disliked the technology of his twentieth century, and most or all of the "advances" in technology in his books are for evil purposes.

Swords are personal weapons, and, although most authors and readers of sword and sorcery fiction have never used them, we know this. You can't kill or injure someone with a sword without seeing them, without a personal encounter.

Swords require skill to use. I suppose that guns do, too, but pointing and pulling a trigger don't seem to require much training or practice, whereas using a sword effectively does require training and practice. (Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion spends a fair amount of text on this.)

So, in some ways, swords are more humane weapons than guns.

Swords are also spiritual symbols. (See Hebrews 4:12)

It is no great surprise, then, that swords play key roles in some of these books, and, no doubt, in others. In The Deed of Paksenarrion, and in The Lord of the Rings, particular swords, forged by elves, play a role.

I'm sure that a great deal more has, should, and will be said about this topic. Comment if you will.

Thanks for reading.

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On July 18, 2009, I added a tag, and added books by Lois McMaster Bujold, and also added authors Juliet Marillier and Patricia McKillip to the list of works. I modified the title from "Sword, Sorcery," to the present title.

On December 14th, 2009, I added a link to Bujold's "Sharing Knife" books.

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October 28, 2013

I have discovered two relatively short articles entitled "Examining the four main foci for traditionalist impulses in fantasy and science fiction," which consider the main themes of "tradionalist," i. e., sword and sorcery, fantasy, and discuss the continuing popularity of such fiction. They are found here and here.

On July 5, 2015, I added Anne Elisabeth Stengl and Patrick W. Carr to the list.