The Beast Within Our Souls
The hero is always good, and he or she is always fighting against a horrible, lurking evil. Those are the rules of fantasy, although some authors break these rules. I am one of those authors.
In my fantasy series, The Beast of Maug Maurai, the heroes are not always good, and the villains are not always evil. There is a beast that lives in all of my characters, and, for some, it is a constant struggle to keep it at bay. For others, the beast was unleashed long ago, but they do not know it.
I don’t know why I enjoy blurring the lines between good and evil so much. Perhaps it’s because I’m trying to work things out in my head. Trying to make sense of a world that seems made from infinite shades of grey (a lot more than fifty, at any rate).
When terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 2001, it sent shock waves into my soul, as I think it did for most Americans. But two days after attack, a friend of mine who is deeply religious told me she hoped the bombers were suffering in hell.
I can’t blame her.
I’m from a town just outside New York, and I too felt rage at the brutality of the attack. I still tremble with hatred at the men who would bring war upon the innocent. But hearing her words that day made me squirm. Here was a woman who donated as much as she could to every Red Cross drive. Who volunteered at a soup kitchen on Wednesdays. A woman who had never exhibited even a trace of violence. Wishing eternal agony upon her fellow humans.
It was one of those moments of clarity. Someone in the railroad command-post switched a track and sent the train in a new direction.
In a just world, the terrorists would be flushed down the karmic toilet, straight into the cesspit of hell. But my brain sorted through little pieces of information that I had collected for years without realizing I was collecting them. Taped them together like a torn up love letter and slipped them through the mail slot. “Message for you, sir.”
And that message confused me.
The terrorists of 911 grew up under a constant barrage of religious propaganda. They spent their lives marinating in a religious stew of brainwashing. And when they were old enough, they were told that the path to heaven was through New York. They were told that virgins would await them in heaven, that God would smile at them, that they would have eternal salvation and glory.
If only they did this one little thing.
I have trouble not hating them. I don’t know if it’s possible not to. But a part of me wonders if hell is where they went. Or if there is a hell at all. These people believed what they did was right. Did they even know the beast was running free in their souls? How could God send people to hell if those people thought their actions were righteous? Does ignorance of right and wrong excuse someone for their acts?
Some of the people who read my book, The Scourge, accuse me of hating religion. That can’t be any farther from the truth. The people I respect the most in this world are people of deep faith. People who can believe in something that they cannot see. People who can put their trust in something they cannot touch. I am not always strong enough to have faith, so I admire those who are.
What I am against is zealotry.
Zealotry is what guided those planes into the Twin Towers. Zealotry is what breeds generation after generation of hatred in the Middle East. Zealotry is what led Christians to slaughter Muslims in the Crusades. It is what keeps the Sunnis and Shiites fighting 1300 years after the murder of Hussein, the Third Imam. Zealotry is what makes men willingly release the beast into their souls.
In The Scourge, a plague sweeps across medieval England, turning its victims into mindless, flesh-eating corpses. Some have accused me of using these zombies to symbolize people of faith. But those people are wrong. The mindless masses in my book represent Zealotry. There are many good and noble characters of faith in my trilogy. It is the zealots – whether their frenzied beliefs stem from religion or ideology – who I envisioned when creating that demonic plague.
In The Beast of Maug Maurai, faith is entirely different. The people of Laraytia believe in a moon goddess and sun god, and they are very much based on traditional Christianity. The sun god, Lojenwyne, represents justice. The moon goddess, Blythwynn, represents forgiveness. And these are the two greatest pillars of Christianity.
The God of the Old Testament is described as “a vengeful, angry God.” His justice knew no mercy. Entire cities were destroyed for their iniquities. ‘Not even the donkeys were spared,’ says one bible passage. Poor donkeys. But sins are a debt that must be collected.
Enter Jesus Christ.
Christ, in the New Testament, was the payment for those sins, the forgiveness of our debts. It is said that He died for all of our sins. That every transgression we will ever commit was wiped clean by His sacrifice.
God is justice. Christ is forgiveness.
But as a fantasy reader, I know that heroes are good, and those who kill needlessly are evil. I can’t help wondering if even Christ’s sacrifice would be enough to pay for the sins of nineteen men in four planes on September 11, 2001.