Questions Too Like the Lightning raised for me, part 1

[asakiyume]

Since finishing Too Like the Lightning, my mind has been burning up thinking about it. There are elements of the story that made me wonder if I wanted to read further in the series, but after a few days, I can say yes, I do, in part because I want to see what the author’s going to do with those elements.

I thought I could talk here about three things the book brought up for me. Maybe parcel them out over a few entries. Those three things are (1) Flavors of Divinity; Or, What Makes a God? (2) Will a Powerful Enough Computer Result in Unerring Predictions? And (3) Asking the Wrong Questions: Yet Another Asakiyume Rant on the Trolley Problem.

So this entry is for (1). In lots of stories, a god is basically a being who’s much more powerful than your ordinary human. Gods often also rule over and/or protect some collection of ordinary humans—and sometimes menace others. They’re like people, only with higher stats. As the witch says in The Silver Chair, “You have seen lamps, and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and called it the sun. You’ve seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it’s to be called a lion.”—same with gods.

Sometimes a deity’s motivations and thought processes are inscrutable, but usually, when we’re talking about these stat-enhanced creatures, they’re very, very easy to scrute.

But in some fiction, the gods are ineffable, mystical. The story may not specify how powerful they are, because that’s not where the interest is; the gods are there for wisdom and communion. This type of god may be intimate with humans or may be remote, but whatever the nature of the relationship, they’re definitely not simply more-better mortals.

I can enjoy stories with either type of god in it but what I don’t think I like very much is mixing the two; I guess I have an instinct I’m not going to like the two flavors together, so to speak? ETA--maybe because it represents two different kinds of worldbuilding? Or two different types of thinking on divinity?

But I’m also thinking maybe I’ve got too restrictive a taxonomy here. Maybe there are other, different ways of depicting gods in stories that are neither of these two and not just a mixing of them, either.

So… that’s one thing I’m curious about, going forward in the Terra Ignota series.

Comments

[sartorias]

I tend to avoid books with gods because they are usually thinly disguised humans with powers, with adolescent emotions. Especially YA novels in which gods like Death or Evil come in the form of cute young men who then fall desperately in love with our heroine, who thinks she's ugly. (I also avoid books that claim characters are thousands of years old for the same reason, unless they are WuXia or XianXia)

Sometimes the definition of the word seems ill thought out, or slippery.

However, if I get a glance of the numinous, I'm okay with it. Like in Lois McMaster Bujold's Five Gods series. She does that so very well.

In this series, the god part (I keep typing dog because of dyslexia and because I talk more online about dogs than about gods) seems the weakest part of an otherwise fascinating series, because I don't get any sense of ineffable resonance or numinosity, but I'm so willing to go along for the ride because of other aspects of worldbuilding, and the clever writing that only sometimes stumbles.

[asakiyume]

Sometimes the definition of the word seems ill thought out, or slippery. --yeah. I think writers should ask themselves, Why am I calling this character a god? In whose mind is the character a god? Do I, the writer, think of this character as a genuine god, or is that merely a belief on the part of the characters? And if I do, then what am I meaning by that?

Yes; so far in this series I've encountered two godlike beings. The first's abilities set off my worldbuilding warning bells like WOW, because the powers given to the character are literally Too Much. No real limitations have been made on them, and they're story wreckers. If anything is possible--which it is, with those powers--story is reduced to goo. Right now it's not causing problems because the author isn't focusing on that, but--well, I'm anticipating developments with curiosity but trepidation. And this is an instance where I'd prefer not to call the character a god--but I have a feeling the author wanted to to bring up questions about the nature of a god.

The other character is kind of a black box to me right now, but that character, too, seems like some manner of overpowered human being.

I'm willing to go along with the ride too! Clearly.

PS

[asakiyume]

Is the reason that you don't mind a character being thousands of years old if they're WuXia or XianXia because those practices give a tenable reason for longevity, or is it something else?

Re: PS

[sartorias]

No, in those situations I take the years (and sizes of armies) as stylized inflation, sort of, and mentally lop off the back bunch of zeroes to adjust the images for my western perception, sort of.

Re: PS

[asakiyume]

Got it. My mother used to do that with inflated beauty descriptions. "Her eyes were more ravishing than the 160 diamonds on the the rani's diadem." --okay, she had pretty eyes.

Re: PS

[sartorias]

Yup! Same idea.

Re: PS

[sartorias]

Poetic license, that was the term I was groping for.

Re: PS

[asakiyume]

**two thumbs up**

Re: PS

[marycatelli]

"Man, that POV character is IN LOVE!"

Re: PS

[asakiyume]

Yep ;-)

[marycatelli]

Adolescent? On the good days. Most are infantile, and then people try to defend on the grounds the myths were like that.

No. No matter how badly the gods behaved, they weren't infantile.