On Worldbuilding: Religions [ polytheistic l Avatar TLA l Game of Thrones l Cthulhu ]

greetings protagonist why hello expositional plot point let me tell you about our kingdom religion muscaria nism and then the Great God Titan of cats descended and brought egg on are you just telling me your religion what are you what do you mean just telling me rather than showing me I mean I I guess well that's not very good fiction writing what do you mean that's not very good am i fictional yes and speaking of great fiction flow segue hi I'm Tim and I'll be your world build-up today if only there was a way for you to read great books that teach us about world building religions oh wait there is with today's wonderful sponsor audible where you can listen to books use my link at audible.com slash hello future me or text hello future me to 500 500 to get a free book and a 30-day free trial but stick around to the end and I'll tell you which book I recommend for world building religions it is a staple of the fantasy genre to feature really interesting and unique religions your sad devotion to that ancient religion I find your lack of faith disturbing and today we'll be focusing on one type of religion polytheism where there are multiple gods that all come within the same pantheon like the Greek pantheon this video will be a little bit different to my usual style with a strong focus on the world building itself and how religions actually work but we will still touch on how it can fit with character developments narrative tension and so on now I've noticed that most world building religion resources focus on the following things which are great questions to ask but most authors have already thought about them they're not particularly complex we're gonna get into the nitty-gritty so instead we'll be splitting this incredibly complex topic into nine yes a whopping nine points religious beliefs themselves the variation of religious beliefs how polytheistic religions spread religion and culture religion and politics religion in the economy narrative teams Namath appear religious tropes and models and character development and religion they're magic systems whoo okay let's get started most authors know that win world building a religion that the religion needs some form of belief but more importantly it's critical to understand one thing when coming up with this religious philosophy religion is complicated let me repeat that religion is complicated and when I say this I mean that all religions have a belief of some kind and most world building religion resources I've come across focus on saying that our religion should answer these three questions how did the world come to be how should we act towards one another and what happens when we die but these three questions aren't requirements for world building a religion in George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire the religion of the many faced God believes in the principle their death is a mercy not a curse but it has nothing to say on how the world was created and there's little to say on where we go when we die and even less to say on how we should interact with one another those aren't important questions to that religion while it's true that many world religions focus on these three questions that doesn't mean that your fictional one has to answer any or all of them your religion may focus on one of these questions or focus on something else entirely religion is not limited to these three questions and limiting yours to it Ken but what certainly make it feel cut and paste like it's just taking the template of the major world religions today why because religion is complicated maybe your religions just like hey murder isn't wrong but we should definitely build everything out of beef jerky but let's talk about variation in religious belief because on another level where your religion does have beliefs on these three questions it doesn't mean that all of its adherents agree on what those beliefs are and this can play a critical role in your world building these disagreements can arise because of interpretation of religious texts accepting or denying certain prophets or one group emphasizing certain values within the religion while another group emphasizes other values even if the gods themselves came down and explained about what they meant and this is only compounded when it comes to polytheistic Pantheon's because it's common for the gods to represent different principles values or ideas meaning that followers naturally divided themselves into different groups that align with certain gods and certain values in the Dragonlance series measure represents faith and meditation while Khadijah life represents courage and heroism there isn't a single religious institution that encompasses all of the gods or a single religious authority or a single religious group rather Messiah has his own followers even if he has very few of them who are mostly monks and priests while Khadijah life as a large group of followers who are mostly warriors and mercenaries and we can see the world-building tying religion to the economy here because the continent of insalaum where the story takes place is often plagued by war and conflict meaning a large sector of the economy are employed as soldiers meaning the warrior god holds greater sway they aren't all equal either in income or in worship or in follower numbers and showing which group has the most influence in society can emphasize what kind of society this is depending on what your fictional society values some gods on your Pantheon may be portrayed as more important and this will affect how much power their group has politically how much money they have and how ingrained their traditions their rituals their practices are in society and within these six who is to say that there aren't different interpretations of the same God why is this religion is complicated but a more critical question when it comes to world building is what makes a society value certain things more and thereby certain gods more this is often simplified I've seen and fantasy stories to what a society values morally like wisdom or courage but history shows us that it's a lot more complex than that the avatar the last airbender mythology does this extremely well because it's often to do with geography and what makes living in a certain landscape difficult so people call on certain gods that they would need to support them in that environment in the episode The Painted Lady a small river village relies entirely on its fish supply from the Janki River to survive so they emphasize the Painted Lady over other spirits a freshwater River spirit who protects the river and we can see this in ancient Egypt which was a largely dry and arid area so they revered the god harpy the god of the Nile who was responsible for the annual flooding of the Nile it ensured they had a good harvest and sufficient water and food in the environment that they lived in often it'll be economic and Chinese mythology Kenshin the God of the silkworm rose to prominence because of how critical their control of the silk trade was to their prosperity they concluded it must be divine but it can also be cultural the Water Tribe Revere's the moon and ocean spirits who gave them waterbending but they also embody the values of balance here Nanyang and cooperation which are very important to their personal religious philosophy and author can demonstrate the diversity of their gods and the diversity of their culture within a region by showing how different groups interpret the same Pantheon a society may choose to emphasize or worship a few gods of the pantheon more for economic political and geographical reasons even if the mythology itself doesn't necessarily say that this deity is more important just as religion shaped society society helps decide the form that that religion takes but how much variation should there be win world building your religion well three important factors to consider our territory the number of followers and how young the religion is the smaller the territory the less variation they will be because two different interpretations are unlikely to flourish in the same space this is why splits within the Christian Church are also largely geographical likewise the few of the followers the more likely there can be agreement between them all and the younger the religion is the less time it has to become challenged and evolved and so now we need to talk about how polytheistic religions spread and funnily enough we're actually going to talk about Christianity a monotheistic religion as a case study but you'll see why in a moment so Christianity spread like wildfire across Europe in the third to ninth centuries absorbing early religion after religion Celtic Germanic and in later centuries it would go on to absorb Slavic ones and part of the reason that it was able to do this was painter and saints there's a patron saint for the people who work with explosives patron saint for single people and even a patron saint for hangovers for all you people who were said that you're still calling on the patron saint of single people so how did Christianity do it well they sort of did this thing we're instead of telling people that their gods didn't exist and they had to convert they sort of went yeah no your gods are still out there don't worry they're just not quite gods and so people like Saint Brigid come along representing the great Irish Celtic goddess brick this helped Christianity absorb smaller religions into the faith because it allowed people to keep their personal identity and their value system while still being Christian now while this is a monotheistic example the point is is that polytheistic religions are very good at this if they were already a large number of gods especially if that number has changed over time then it may be natural that when people add their own gods they just go yeah why not let's have a god of kicking people we've done like in the balls comparatively if there are only a small number of gods it's still polytheistic but say 2 or 3 then its followers may be less inclined to add new gods because followers all agree that these are the only gods that they accept and why is this religion is complicated one of the most important elements of effective world-building is interconnectivity how your politics are fix your economy how your economy affects the military and here how your religious Pantheon affects everything else of anything religion is usually most closely connected with culture and one of the most difficult questions is how to actually incorporate all of this info that you've come up with without dumping exposition and then in the year 300 of the dawn times the seven gods turned all the witches into sand and that's how we got sandwiches there is a really good article on this on the world-building sec exchange site by sea Agrippa which I've linked in the description below but one of the best ways to world build your religion is to show how it affects ordinary people on an ordinary daily basis that is what culture is like how we say bless you when someone sneezes in Brandon Sanderson's the way of Kings voron ism has a strong belief in gender roles that men are leaders and warriors and women are scholars and artists because of this men are not meant to read and write one major outcome of this is that the academic realm of culture is entirely made up of women and as women are the ones that know history mathematics and science this heavily affects political power dynamics within the society as well as the economy women are the engineers they're the political advisors through the innovators in society the inventors allowing them to occupy wealthy positions and at the same time Voronezh emplace is a huge emphasis on modesty of women how they're expected to dress with a safe hand glove it's against social protocol to look inside a woman's glove and doing so is incredibly inappropriate it's kind of sexual like wise men if they do only read in secret another great question to ask is do followers consider it a father-son relationship with their God or a brother-sister relationship or a sixth uncle twice removed or otherwise most importantly the average citizen won't understand all the nuances and theology of their religion but the ideas that the reader sees affecting their daily lives whether it be in their speech how they hold themselves this will represent the most ingrained and pervasive ideas of their religion without explicitly stating them but it's contextualizes - polytheism it can be interesting to see how the followers of different gods are affected differently on a daily basis because as we mentioned before they might have different value systems or different practices more interestingly do different gods have a different relationship with humans maybe one has a father-son type relationship one is a mother daughter or another is a toddler that just killed its sex goldfish and pit now how polytheism works in the daily life of mortals is often tied to a cost-benefit analysis of the religion what do they give up and what do they gain eternal life eternal donuts do they have to kill their children well though they just have to toast some marshmallows to their God each morning what would the ordinary person in their daily life give up and what would they be so concerned about losing or gaining to make sure that they keep worshiping they're not going to be loyal to a religion just because there's usually some level of personal investment and fantasy stories often have magic systems one of my favorite topics and if you want to learn a whole lot more about them then go to click on my three-part series which a lot of people have enjoyed and in connecting it with your polytheistic religion is incredibly common if the gods are very real and they interact with people then it's common for magic to be divine coming from the gods themselves like in david eddings in selenium and within that polytheistic religions often divide powers up amongst the gods meaning some F control of life or death or fire or nature you can give them whichever spheres you so want this could mean the channeling or worshipping one of those gods gives you a certain type of magic in our videos on hard magick and soft magick we talked about the importance of reliability and limits and costs and weaknesses and polytheism provides a great way to play with that perhaps using the gods power exposes you to also their weaknesses or a God chooses to limit how much power a person can have or maybe you have to bargain with their God for their magic putting a price on it like your soul which we often see in shows like supernatural likewise if gods can control and limit magic then it's subject to their decisions and their whim and emotions if they are very temperamental then there's nothing to suggest that magic is reliable or consistent they only give it to their most faithful perhaps it can be tied to sacrifices there's endless possibilities to play with and now religion and politics because who doesn't enjoy toxic comment sections they have a long-standing relationship but we'll be focusing on a couple of factors that are particularly pertinent when it comes to polytheism so history has shown us that religion is often used to validate political authorities like the Chinese emperor ruling via the Mandate of Heaven or the crowning of the Emperor of Constantinople but history has also shown us that it can come into conflict with political authorities like how the papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor competed for authority in Europe during the 12th or 13th centuries but it's notable that societies with polytheistic religions don't tend to rely on their religion of validating their political authorities as much nor do they challenge political authorities as much as monotheism and there's a very good reason for this polytheism tends to create decentralized religious power this is because as we've discussed they tend to divide into smaller factions as groups of people emphasize one or a small selection of the group of gods in the pantheon political authorities on the other hand whether it's a king or Emperor have their power spread across all of their land they have widespread military support a huge variety in their sources of income and their one single cohesive institution generally speaking across all of their land in contrast in polytheism no single faction is likely to have the support the money or the widespread geographical institutionalism needed to challenge and rival the political powers in the land this is the way that monotheistic religions usually can this is because they have centralized powers just one institution that isn't split into a whole lot of different factions so in what way do they exert power over the political authorities well it tends to be defections within these Pantheon's that exert the influence over smaller areas or cities within the larger region for example both Athens and Sparta recognize - the whole of the Greek pantheon but Athens took up Athena and emphasized wisdom while Sparta placed importance on Apollo and Artemis tanned emphasized the hunt poetry and archery because hotspots of these different gods and factions tend to evolve another effective way to world abilities to interconnect your religion with the economy in A Song of Ice and Fire the faith of the seven plays the role of the social safety net in the economy this role and how they carry it out we can see through Brian's experiences at the sit when we meet the wandering symptom the actions of the high Sparrow and others it shows the reader that the faith values humility caring for the poor opposes extravagance and has a strong belief in justice both rich beautif and restorative to take this principle and apply it to polytheistic Pantheon's as we discussed Pantheon's tend to split their followers into factions that emphasize certain values or gods and one way to world build all of the different gods into your society is to show how they play different roles in the economy perhaps one faction who follows the warrior God and helps run the local militia to protect the town or the faction of the god of Commerce uses its money to make loans to those who need it to continue with the faith of the seven example which is technically monotheistic we see the seven different aspects of their God playing different roles in society we have the Warriors sons defending the faith and its followers and we have the silent sisters who usually follow the mother caring for the dead the sick and dying given your polytheistic affections different roles in society and the economy helps lay out the different values and beliefs surrounding each God but let's talk about world building narrative tension and polytheistic NetHope er I know big words just hang on for a second matha Pia is where gods derive their power from the worship prayer or attention of their followers so they can become stronger or weaker depending on that if you can imagine Zeus buckling over getting fat and exhausted because people haven't been killing enough sheep for him then yeah that's how it works the epitome of this is in Neil Gaiman's famous work American Gods where the old gods like Odin and Loki are dying because the new gods are rising like that if the Internet are in cars because people don't believe in the old ones anymore in they're believing in these new ones on a side note this is less common but not impossible with monotheism that they tend to stay away from it because of the theme of the omniscient omnipotent omnipresent godlike figure who holds up the universe if they're being undermined as a being then well what's gonna happen to the universe that tends to be the question that they ask and this concept is a really interesting and common source of conflict and narratives that focus on polytheism in Terry Pratchett's fantastic books small gods gods try to get their followers to undermine other gods even within the same pantheon to help sustain them and boost their power if people fear that their God is dying then how will they get more followers more sacrifices more worship well they take them by force will they sacrifice humans to make up for it it author has to consider how this affects the interactions between different factions that emphasize different gods within the pantheon or alternatively how it affects the relationship with other Pantheon's different types of religions all coming in within the same melting pot of a society on another level and I'm only mentioning this because I think the concept is super cool meth appiah is sometimes reciprocal and that not only do gods live by belief but they actually change depending on what their followers believe about them and this can play with some really interesting ideas because societies change society values evolve people change an author can take this in any number of fascinating ways in rick riordan terrors of Olympus series two different groups with competing ideals about what their gods should be like come into conflict and this ring did the gods essentially mad unable to intervene and what happens when the gods can't intervene and finally it can be interesting to mix religious models religious structures that we find in our world when designing our fictional religion world building naturally draws on things that we see in our world and understand to give our fictional worlds the sense of realism a sense of grounding so that the reader does believe that it can happen because of this it can be easy to fall into the pre-existing models that we see in polytheistic religions like the Greek Roman and Norse Pantheon's we're familiar with them there are any number of chokes that typically define this but these tend to be that they're based around a generational mythology that they have families of God's with husbands wives sons daughters and so on and that the gods tend to have very human behavior there are other tropes but these ones are very common and there's thing wrong with that setup inherently but one way to differentiate your polytheistic religion is to draw on the tropes that we see in other religious models whether it's pantheism monotheism dualism animism shamanism ancestor worship or others in tokine's mythology into Aluva tar is the monotheistic one true God but the angelic beings known as the Vela operate a lot more like a polytheistic Pantheon there are family with husbands wives sons and daughters with the typical spheres that we see in the Greek type Pantheon and one of my favorites there's a fascinating mix of shamanism and polytheism in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos we're interacting with the pantheon of gods often requires a state of madness or causes you to go mad likewise the dragon Lance series has an interesting mix of dualism and polytheism or more try ISM there's no Supreme God but there are three different groups of gods the good and the neutral and the evil all existing and constant balance and conflict and for a real-world example before Irish mythology was anglicized it had an interesting mix of polytheism and dualism where there were these two groups of godlike beings the Tuatha dé Danann which were largely good and the form ourian's which were largely destructive gods but another important question is whether your polytheism is more in line with Western ideas or with Eastern ideas are they a strict pantheon of purely deities who are definitely superior and above humans or are they a collection of otherworldly and distant spirits that fulfill their roles in the natural worlds they might not even be sentient like in Princess Mononoke and Avatar The Last Airbender your Pantheon doesn't need to be either of these it can be a mixture and we shouldn't get stuck in relying on one of these two models relying purely on tropes that we identify with major Pentiums from our world can lead to our fictional religious Pantheon's feeling unoriginal because the gods are just placeholder deities for Zeus and Poseidon even if the exact powers of the gods differ a little mixing tropes from monotheism mysticism dualism shamanism animism ancestor worship or elsewise as well as Western and Eastern conceptions of what polytheism is can help your religion stand out as unique and why is this important jeana's complicated and lastly let's briefly talk about character development and that second question we talked about at the beginning which was whether or not the religion had anything to say about how we should interact with one another fantasy stories often have characters being born into a society with a dominant religion that's ingrained into the people ingrained into the society but the thing is if this religion has any values or beliefs about how we should act with others then this should be ingrained into most characters this provides two avenues for character development firstly this can restrict our characters are willing to act like scar and formula Alchemist whose religion prevented him from performing alchemy and he had to figure out a way to work around that and he did so by destroying instead of reconstructing and this might mean that many characters within your story may have a similar moral code which can be but isn't always less interesting it can just be more fascinating to the reader if there's a diversity of moral compasses secondly this can provide for a great point of tension where they are forced into situations that challenge their morals forcing them to change or become more resolute like in the Goblin Emperor by Kathryn Edison with a character Meyer struggles to follow his religion while also being a ruler but if the character doesn't follow these dominant religious values then the author has to explain why this character doesn't follow its Tennant if everyone else around them does polytheism provides for an easy way around this because different gods can have entirely different values meaning characters can just pick whichever god they want hmm god of piety and kindness or the god of wine hmm alternatively having a dominant religion that doesn't have laws on how characters should interact with one another perhaps focusing on the other questions or different things entirely allows you to have characters who all grow up under the same religion but can act differently have a diverse range of morals but before we go any further I would like to thank today's sponsor audible because right now if you go to audible.com slash hello future me you can pick up a story with amazing world building when it comes to religion dune by Frank Herbert this is a science fiction classic I highly recommend that you go check it out one of my biggest problems is making time to read I know that that's a struggle for a lot of people but with audible when you're in the car when you're spending time outdoors hiking or biking or exercising or while you're worshipping supreme leader Mischka you can listen to audiobooks audible makes experiencing inspiring stories super easy and convenient and members get a credit every month for any audio book regarding surprise and that book is yours to keep forever if you don't like it you can trade it in and choose something else from audibles unmatched selection go to audible.com slash shallow future me or a text hello future means who 500 500 to get a free copy of dune along with a 30-day free trial then and I do want you to actually do this drop me a comment to let me know if you pick up dune or some other book that you think I should read that has fantastic world building I would love to hear what you have to say so what have we covered today well firstly while many world religions focus on the three questions that doesn't mean your fictional one has to answer any or all of them secondly polytheistic religions tend to result in a lot of variation in religious belief as people divide into groups that emphasize certain gods for geographical cultural or economic reasons variation is also dependent on territory numbers of followers and how old the religion is thirdly polytheistic religions tend to be more adaptable and can absorb other religions into them allowing them to evolve over time fourthly one of the best ways to world build your religion is to show how it affects ordinary people culturally on an ordinary daily basis fifthly polytheistic religions tend to compete less with the regional powers than monotheistic religions would because they often have a decentralized religious power with multiple groups not quite matching the unified power of the state sixthly demonstrating how these polytheistic groups all fit into society and the economy in particular is a great way to show the diversity of values and beliefs surrounding each god seventhly where gods live and die by worship thus being math Appiah this can be a great source of conflict within the narrative as factions compete or undermine one another for their gods and 8th lis don't be afraid to mix religious models and tropes purely relying on polytheistic tropes that we see in our world can lead to a stale and unoriginal pantheon it doesn't need to be organized religion that is all from me if you would like to support the channel see more of this kind of content see background content you know when I'm making this sort of thing deciding thumbnails talking about which topics I should make then come join the patreon discord for just a couple of dollars a month it would mean the absolute world if you did stay nerdy sub-arrays and I will see you in the future

Channel: Hello Future Me

Views: 686,195

Keywords: avatar, legend of korra, legend of aang, the last airbender, atla, waterbending, religion, worldbuilding, greek myth, norse myth, chinese myth, mythology, egyptian mythology, game of thrones, cersei lannister, christianity, on writing, how to, explained, polytheism, zeus, poseidon, water tribe, fire nation, many faced god, arya stark, jon snow, cthulu, princess mononoke, studio ghibli, fullmetal alchemist, dragonlance, terry pratchett, skyrim

Id: Wz2H1t5XvP8

Length: 28min 4sec (1684 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 04 2018