Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
I don't get the big deal about Small Gods. Discworld is an excellent series.
[...]
Besides, Narnia was mentioned and it's not a good fit.
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No argument about
Discworld being excellent. The argument is about recommending them to someone that does not want to see their religion criticised, and does not want to read about magic unless it's portrayed as evil. Any judgement I may hold concerning those objectives is best reserved for the P&R subforum, but the
Discworld series is not a reliable place to fulfil them. (
I guess we might argue that Christianity is never explicitly criticised in the series because it does not exist by that name on this fantasy world, but it would be an ignorant reader who did not recognise the references. Magic is portrayed as something tricky, and perhaps best avoided, but not intrinsically evil. And for anyone not familiar with Pratchett's works, don't get me wrong, it's not like Pratchett singled out religion. It was open season on religion, science, government, and pretty much everything else. The absurdities of our existence gave him an endless source to choose from.)
Lewis's
Narnia series and the
Cosmic Trilogy are interesting cases as regards this discussion, but I can't see any way to discuss them properly outside the P&R subforum. I liked them both as stories in their own right, but you'd have to be quite ignorant of Christianity to miss that aspect of them, and if you're a devout Christian you are going to perceive these a little differently to other readers - especially if you're also aware of Lewis's non-fiction writing.