Wednesday 14 November 2012

Life After Ys


In The Dog And The Wolf (London, 1989) by Poul and Karen Anderson, ex-king Gratillonius' daughter Nemeta clarifies a couple of otherwise ambiguous points.Yes, she does still worship the Three of Ys when working as a witch after the fall of Ys. Yes, Dahut's powers as a mermaid do derive from the Three, not from any other Power.

Further, Nemeta as owl is insubstantial, a mere Sending, whereas Dahut as mermaid has an intermediate status, solid and substantial enough to pull men under the sea but supernatural or spiritual enough to affect and harm Nemeta as owl.

Meanwhile, Gratillonius has almost imperceptibly been moving towards accepting Christianity. Earlier in the King of Ys tetralogy, when he instructed another character in the Mystery of Mithras, Gratillonius presented at face value implausible stories about a primordial past. Now he accepts without question supernatural stories about Christ, in particular that the latter could have called on a legion of angels... I suspect that, although Jesus, unlike Mithras, existed, he did not have access to any angelic legion.

However, the tetralogy is a historical fantasy in which supernatural events, like the owl, the mermaid and angelic messages, do occur. In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol Series, a time traveller says that he cannot in honesty argue for Christ but that series is historical science fiction, not historical fantasy.

For readers who cannot empathise with Gratillonius' conversion to Christianity, there is one character whose worldview is much closer to modern secularism. Gratillonius' handfast man, Rufinus, professes unbelief in any of the Gods but Gratillonius, unlike many of his co-religionists, retains the good sense to befriend and employ such an able man as Rufinus.

7 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

I think you made a mistake when writing "...a time traveller says that he cannot in honesty argue for Christ." My memory of that part of "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" was that the time taveller could not honestly argue for the PAGAN gods.

And Our Lord was REFUSING to call for a legion of angels who would fight to prevent Him from being crucified. Being God as well as man, Christ certainly did have that power of calling for legions of angels.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Hi.

"...how could I in honesty have argued for Christ?" (The Time Patrol, New York, 1991, p. 252)

I accept that Christ had the power to call angels but refused to both in Christian belief and in the Andersons' historical fantasy.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Darn! I could have sworn it was the pagan gods the time traveller was thinking of! Mea culpa! Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa! (Smiles)

Onr puzzlement I've came across is how some people say they believe in God but deny angels--non corporeal beings--exist. That did not make logical sense to me. To me, if you believe God exists, then He certainly had the power to create angels.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

But you are right. Carl said both. Having met Wulfinas, the Arian missionary, Carl as narrator commented that he was unable to defend a Paganism that was going under but then added that he could not honestly have argued for Christ either.

There is still a difference between God being able to create angels and him doing so. A Jesuit I knew said that an angel (ang-El) in the OT just meant God was present. A Catholic lay man said people thought God was a king, kings have courtiers, therefore God has angels as courtiers in Heaven.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Oops! I was half right, then, as regards the time traveller! (Smiles)

But, the Church teaches that the Bible does offer us revealed truths. Some of them only gradually made more plain as time passed. One of them being the reality of angels. What the Jesuit priest said was true of the older, more primitive parts of the OT. But later books of the OT, such as Tobit, are explicit in calling angels real, actual, distinct persons. And that point was stresed as well in the NT.

And I see nothing wrong or odd in thinking of the angels as the servants, messengers, and courtiers of God.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Not courtiers - God is not in one place so can't hold court anywhere? (I would add that the ultimate reality cannot be a person but there we disagree.)

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Yes, we do disagree on a crucial point, I fear. My belief is that God cannot BE God if He is not also a Person.

And one part of the OT showing angels as servants and messengers of God is the beginning of chapter six of Isaiah. In fact, some commentators have thought that was a vision of the pre Incarnate Logos, The Second Person of the Trinity. Largely because of how God the Father is described as never having been "seen" by any man.

Sean