Contemporary fantasy fiction and representations of religion: playing with reality, myth and magic in His Dark Materials and Harry Potter

Abstract

Often fiction and religion have been seen as separate moments or genres, but recent encounters between the two fields – such as fiction-based religions or religious controversies with regard to works of fiction – show that a thorough discussion of the religious in the fictional and the fictional in the religious is important. It may be consequential for what we understand religion to be in the study of religions today. The fantasy genre, with its other worlds, magic and superhuman characters, is extremely successful in contemporary Western popular culture. This article discusses the genre of fantasy fiction and analyses how selected examples of contemporary fantasy fiction represent and mediate religion. It argues that fantasy fiction both reflects and forms religious interests and religious fascination in contemporary society, and, in combination with the related new virtual worlds of the supernatural, fantasy fiction, that it provides sites for exploration of religion. This article is not a study of new religious movements, or of locating and analysing classically religious practitioners who use fantasy fiction in religions. Rather, the author seeks to understand the current pervasive presence of religion in fantasy fiction, and to discuss its significance in contemporary Western societies, as well as its implications for the understanding of religion. The author suggests that we should acknowledge, to a greater degree, the extent to which religion can be mixed with commerce, titillating entertainment, shared emotions, and everyday concerns. In addition, the author suggests that we should make more room for partial and shifting religious engagements in religion, and acknowledge a place, in the category of religion, for supernatural popular culture. The current fantasy popularity surge indicates not only a weakening of institutionalised religions, but also of the importance of belief and absolute truth claims in religion, and instead we see an increased visibility of ‘the religious’ and shifting and partial forms of religion in the West.

Key Words:

• popular culture
• fantasy fiction
• religious narrative
• religion
• in contemporary Western societies

Acknowledgement

I wish to thank Markus Davidsen warmly for the invitation to participate in these discussions, as well as for his many good suggestions and his meticulous and helpful editing. Thanks are also due to the peer reviewers for valuable input.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Laura Feldt is associate professor at the University of Southen Denmark (Odense). She works on religion in Mesopotamia, the Hebrew Bible, ancient Christianity, and contemporary popular culture.

Notes

1 This assessment can be discussed, of course; but to date these two series seem not to have been used in religious practice and group formation to the extent of Stranger in a Strange Land, Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings. Alderton (2014) discusses the phenomenon of Snapeism (a small group of women who have claimed, in online chatforums, to channel and worship the fictional Harry Potter character Professor Snape). The group is now defunct (Alderton 2014, 236).

2 A cross-over novel is a common term for a novel, the readership of which crosses over traditional market segments; i.e., for instance that it consists of children, young adults and adults.

3 It should be noted that my use of the term ‘field of religion’ in this article refers to a model of religiosity in a society presented by Ingvild Gilhus and Lisbeth Mikaelsson. According to this useful model, religion is envisaged as a field of concentric circles with porous boundaries. At the centre, we could place capital-R, institutionalised religions, religious experts earning a livelihood off religion, and key practitioners who regularly participate in rituals. In other circles, we could place persons who attend rituals irregularly, and who may mix rare ritual attendance in official religions or religious movements with courses in meditation or the reading of horoscopes, for instance. Others may attend for instance religious self-help courses now and then, or participate in religious or magical book-reading groups. In the outer circles, we could place large groups of people with partial and shifting engagements in religion, where religion forms a shifting part of one’s leisure time, where religion is consumed via the mediation of novels, films, TV series and computer gaming (Gilhus and Mikaelsson 2005, 10–15). This is a model of religion which stresses religious practice, religious communication and religious institutions relative to superhuman agents or forces (as many other useful understandings do; see for instance also A. Geertz 1999), but which also leaves room for several different forms of religion, from full-scale organised religions, to small groups, diffuse networks and solitaires, as well as for discussions of the presence of religious communication – ‘the religious’, in Stausberg’s terms (Stausberg 2010). We may thus usefully distinguish between religions and the religious, and regard both as part of the scholarly category of religion.

4 Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), is usually named as the first Gothic novel (Simonis 2005, 31; Wisker 2005, 15).

5 George MacDonald’s Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women (1858), is commonly regarded as the first fantasy novel. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien both published their major works in the 1950s. Good overviews of the developments in fantasy and related types of literature can be found in, for instance Sandner 2004, Traill 1996 and Cornwell 1990.

6 Literature and other sources for religion are always embedded in particular historical contexts, and so indeed tied to specific, historical concerns; but that does not mean that the genre of fantasy is inherently non-religious.

7 Contrary to the argument of Davidsen (2016), I suggest that – although narratives can indeed be more or less closed – the authoritative, religious interpretation of narratives and the ascription of veracity is first and foremost a pragmatic question. In other words, it takes place in the contexts of use. Vis-à-vis the argument of Petersen (2016) on textual autonomy, I submit that only scholars in academic discourse, not religious persons, can be held accountable for readings and analyses which do justice to the autonomy of texts. Yet, I readily acknowledge that different texts do suggest or stimulate certain types of usage. More below.

8 The following section on the genre of fantasy builds on the one published in Feldt (2016, 103–104).

9 Lachmann’s definition of fantastic literature is broad and encompasses fantasy, horror and related genres. The defining traits of the subgenres are also discussed in detail by Lachmann (Lachmann 2002, 7–26).

10 Some works of fantastic literature and fantasy present themselves as stories that have actually taken place in the text-external world – famously in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto from 1764. See also Todorov (1975, 27–28).

11 This would also follow, I believe, from Genette’s discussion of the differences between fictional and factional narratives. For even though he points out certain traits which tend to characterise fiction and factual narrative, he readily admits that no hard lines can be drawn: ‘[…] the two domains are neither so far apart nor so homogenous as they might appear’ (Genette 1990, 722). Genette points to the serious commitment of the author with regard to his narrative assertions as a signpost of a factual narrative, but also openly acknowledges that author commitment does not guarantee the veracity of the text, for authors can be mistaken or lie (Genette 1990, 770). Religious narratives fall within the genre of fiction because they most commonly feature the fictionalizing traits that Genette discusses, like offering access to the subjectivities of others, but they are also excluded, I argue, from the genre of factual narrative. Most religious texts are authorless, pseudepigraphic, we do not know the authors, or often the author is not the same as the narrator (Genette’s suggestion for the most typical trait of fiction, Genette 1990, 764). Moreover, I would hold that the issue of author commitment is, in principle, impossible to do historical research on. For these reasons, we can speak of typical traits, and differences of degree, when comparing fiction and religious narratives.

12 See, for instance, my discussion of the Exodus myth (Feldt 2011, 2012, 242–254).

13 Based on the view that the category of religion encompasses both religions and the religious (cf. Stausberg 2010).

14 I do not think that religious texts can indeed be non-fictional. We could imagine, in principle, a non-fictional text used in rituals by a religious group, and yet in this case, the text would only be non-fictional if read in and of itself, but if we read it in context and qua its religious use, it would still tend towards the fictional, because the text would be ascribed relations to superhuman agents and privileged access to their minds.

15 The following introduction overlaps with the introduction to Pullman’s trilogy published in Feldt (2009).

16 E.g., Marr, Johnson, Dirda (references in Squires 2003, 72–73), Squires (2003, 51–54), Tucker (2003, 124–130). Examples: ‘Pullman does for atheism what CS Lewis did for God’ (Marr); ‘the most savage attack on organised religion I have ever seen’ (Johnson). His Dark Materials’ use of the Bible differs from the reception of the Bible in other works of fantasy because it is so explicit and direct. As Manlove demonstrates, the use of the Bible in modern fantasy is often oblique (Manlove 1992, 262–263).

17 The statement is Mary Malone’s, a former nun, and, read in the context, the statement is connected to the prehistory, which she frames negatively (AS, p. 441). So, the context suggests that her approach to religion at the time was wrong, not that religion per se is wrong. In AS (pp. 470–476), it is suggested that the absence of God is not necessarily a positive liberation, but may be another form of slavery – and that it leaves a spiritual void (AS, pp. 447, 449; cf. Bird 2005, 195).

18 After the release of the film adaptation of the first book, The Golden Compass, more hostile reactions from organised religious groups in North America followed, even if the anti-religious content was toned down in the film compared to the book (cf. Toth 2013, 177–178).

19 Even though His Dark Materials questions values traditionally associated with organised Christianity and criticises institutionalised and authoritarian religions, the religious themes of the trilogy are pervasive, and the trilogy can be seen as an attempt to transform traditional and authoritarian forms of religion into more genuine and authentic forms. As suggested in Feldt (2009), the representations of religion favoured in the trilogy are congruent with the shift away from authoritarian forms of religion towards individualised spirituality so well documented by sociologists of religion (Woodhead 2004, 333–347; Heelas and Woodhead 2005).

20 The term Dust is generally capitalised in the novels, and at the very beginning this is explained with reference to Lyra’s sensing and feeling that there is something special to this kind of dust (GC, 21).

21 Although Milton’s Paradise Lost forms the principal inspiration for His Dark Materials (Squires 2003, 19), the rewriting concerns the Old Testament Fall myth from Genesis 3 (Feldt 2009). His Dark Materials’ relation to Paradise Lost is different, as His Dark Materials may be seen on a par with Paradise Lost as alternative instances of rewriting of the basic myth of Genesis 3. The specifically Christian Old Testament narrative is used, not the Hebrew or Jewish Bible narrative. The references to the Bible in the trilogy refer to the Christian Bible known as ‘The King James’ Version’, a Christian, English translation of the Bible from 1611.

22 Note that this type of myth understanding is congruent with the shift from 19^th-century theories of myth to 20^th-century theories of myth (Segal 2015, 1–3, 36–38).

23 Harry Potter will be italicised when reference is made to the series as a whole, while the unmarked ‘Harry Potter’ is used to refer to the character.

24 But also elsewhere, see Kruk (2005) and Gemmil and Nexon (2006, 79).

25 A sub-genre of fantasy features portals into the magical world or into another, magical time (like in Lewis’ Narnia series). Some fantasy novels are set entirely in another world (e.g., LeGuin’s EarthSea stories). However, the relations to the everyday world are still often reflected upon (as in the prologue and appendices to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings) (Feldt 2016, 110).

26 Chronotope (Greek chrónos, tópos) is a literary-critical term coined by Bakhtin to designate the interaction and connection between time and space as forms of human perception. In literature, Bakhtin sees time and space as invariably connected in different forms relative to genres (Bakhtin 1989, 192).

27 Since 1999, Platform 9 ¾ has been marked by signs at King’s Cross Station in London, as witnessed by this author. The site has become a major tourist spot.

28 That some forms of deep magic, in Harry Potter, are explained or re-described in terms of psychology and feelings does not render it disenchanted, as argued in Feldt (2016).

29 Harry Potter’s multimedia presence would only add to this effect.

30 But cf. the discussion by Abby Ohlheiser (2015), and Zoe Alderton’s article on the phenomenon of Snapewives (2014). Relations to religion can be located online (e.g., on the website ‘Harry Potter for Seekers’ and related links).

31 For discussions of religion and popular culture, see Partridge (2004, I: 122–126; Forbes and Mahan 2000; Deacy and Arweck 2009).

32 Ingvild Gilhus and Lisbeth Mikaelsson have coined, and demonstrated the importance of, this distinction (2001).

33 For this useful distinction, see (Stausberg 2010, 358–359). As Stausberg points out, it is valuable to distinguish between things religious and religions. Only the latter always involves institutional settings.

34 See Kaufmann (2009, 92–96) for an enlightening discussion of the emergence of fantastic-miraculous stories, commerce and consumerism in 19^th-century Lourdes.