The Religions are Fictional and most people don't play them. Remember in the "western world" Video games are for children and ignoring a few games that have been rather ignored until recently they children's things. Heck Halo is VERY religious when you think about it. Just replace Covenant (Also a religious term) with Catholic and your golden. Just because they are aliens with funny hats no one outside of a few notice.arachni42 wrote: It seems to me, from this thread, that it's misrepresentation that has the potential to be the most offensive, as opposed to merely mentioning God, Buddha or Allah. That being said... the more I think about it, the more I think the fantasy genre in particular lends itself to stories that involve religious conflict. The religions are often fictional, but also often have a real life corollary.
arachni42 wrote: As a writer, I like examples.
Out of curiosity, have you seen the recent British TV series Merlin? It is a TV drama/comedy. It tells a King Arthur story from a teenager point of view, and definitely plays up a conflict between magic and... well... outlawing magic and ostracizing witches/warlocks. But "religion" is quite noticeably missing. They are clearly careful not to mention God or paganism or anything specific. Even when there is a wedding, there is no priest per se. I am very sure this is done purposely to avoid stepping on anyone's toes, probably because, after all, it is not some sort of deep, epic show. I am curious what you think of that approach.
Marriage without a priest was very common in the Pagan rituals. Only when Catholicism showed up did they have a priest in all their "rituals." Also Pagan is a Roman Catholic term meaning "Anything that is not Roman Catholic."
Sorry I went on a tangent. No, I haven't seen it but the Merlin and dragon tales were used by the Christians to slowly convert them over and well the whole Germanic pantheon went the same way as the Greek/Roman ones.
Then what is their reference? What is the Magic? why are they banning it? Is this the X-men and Homosexuality? Or the Marvel Supers "registration act" for immigration? remember we write what we know. It either comes down to our past, our future or what is happening right now.
During the 70's and 80's the gay rights movement was the rage. It WAS what was going on. During the 90's and now Immigration and race is what is in the news. So now we are pushing for forced registration of foreigners, Sticking them in camps and watching their every move because they could be a threat. Our past is what we saw as children our hopes our dreams and how they are now seen from our eyes but it is again tainted by our lives and what we have today as a reference. Finally all this dystopian future stuff is watching those dreams fester and become what we fear. Reviewing history is what happens when we look to the future... and well it looks bad. Religion IS the history for most of the world and looking back we see through the cracks and is shows in everything we do.
*By Bleaching out any religion or most of it, what slips through is even more important...
Because it is too subtle. As "history" has shown the Nords and Vikings were "Christian." (until you look past the 500 year limit.) Most can see the Elves AS the pagans while they are the ones pushing for one god under the nation while Crushing any who fallow the '9 divines.' It's subtle but most either don't catch it or ignore it. They also play both sides to be dicks and let YOU decide which side you prefer so either side is the christian or pagan side.arachni42 wrote: I agree with this... but I'm not even sure there would be that much of a "backlash".... backlash implies a widespread response, and I don't think I've seen that to existing media. (Was there a backlash against Skyrim that I missed??) Although I suppose it depends on where you live.
'Course I could be reading too much into this. I would also like to apologize if this gets confusing... I'm not that great of a writer...