The Dialogue

“Explain it to me like I’m five."

"The author is your God! Worship them and despair!"

"C’mon, man, be serious."

"If you don’t want to be mocked, don’t do things worthy of mocking."

“Dude.”

“Ok, ok. So, you know how fandoms work?”

“Where is this going?”

“Things like Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings, Disney and the like, you know what they have? A sacred timeline, a series of canonical events outlined in narrative designed to convey deeper meanings and explorations on morality.”

“Yeah? It’s called fiction.”

“Heretic!”

“What?”

“Answer me this, mate. What is the Bible?”

“You’re serious?”

“What is the Bible? Or the Torah, or the Quran, one of the Vedas, Hell even one of the texts sacred to Hinduism I don’t remember what they’re called off the top of my head. What are they?”

“Books?”

"Books of?”

"…religion?”

"Really?”

"You’re not making this easy on me.”

"They’re books of stories. Sacred timelines wherein characters undergo trials and challenges. Frequently there’s magic, angels and demons, gods and devils. They’re fantasy novels. Or, close enough for my argument.”

"Which I hope we’re finally getting to.”

"I think that modern fandom audiences are taping into a similar genetic make-up for the sacred, and might well be becoming the progenitors of new religions.”

“Ok lead with that next time. Let me have it. Friend, defend your position.”

"Right. So, what is the purpose of religion? Be nice.”

"Fine. At its core, a religion is a community organization centred around a shared belief structure most often containing morality guidelines, interpersonal expectations, and rules for social order.”

"Very clinical. And what do they do in the world? And remember; be nice.”

"Gather new believers, have ceremonies and festivals, do rites of passage and stuff. I guess a lot of the shelters and foodbanks are run or supported by churches where I live, so there’s charity work in there too. In fact, I think that charity is a pretty big part of what a lot of religions say they do.”

"Name an item on that list that doesn’t apply to the fans of a world-famous novelist. And I mean one of the really, really big ones like Jordan, Sanderson, Tolkien and the like.”

"What?”

"Indulge me.”

"Charity?”

"All of them that I am aware of, ask their fans to donate to at least one charity. A few even run those charities themselves.”

"Rites of passage, then.”

"Ok. That one you have me a little stumped on. I admit it. But, hey, what with some of the conventions going on, that might start to become a real thing. Perhaps it already is, if what little I know about the 501'st Legion is accurate. We could also just be too early in the process.”

"Process? Are you trying to tell me that you think these Fantasy novelists are going to turn into gods?”

"Some of them, maybe, but more likely prophets. And probably not our generation‘s ones, I think we’re too early in the process. But not just novelists, I think it works for most large-scale content creation. Get to a certain size, and boom, you suddenly become the de facto head of a small community. Most of them start calling out, or directly raising funds for, charities of some kind.

"They have rules of interaction as simple as the Ten Commandments that are strictly adhered to by a majority of people a majority of the time. Breaking those rules can result in shunning and expulsion. And all of them have characters that are beloved by people because of their emotional connection to them, but also for strength that has guided them through tough times. People often cite their favourite books in moments of stress or fear to give themselves courage.

“So you tell me, what else do people do that with?”

"Alright, granted. They do similar things with religious texts. You mentioned it earlier I believe. And I’ll bring up a point in your favour, because I’m nice like that, hardcore fans Tolkien fans know about the Red Book of Westmarch. Representing layered information distributed to those who show ‘devotion.’ Even if that’s only to Google’s search bar. But I maintain that it’s absurd.”

"You have to remember, I didn’t say they are, or were, going to become religions. Just that they have the same DNA and might be the forebears of religions.”

"Forebears?”

"Yeah. Forebears. I think that their psycho-cultural descendants will become religion.”

"You made that up.”

"Maybe. But you understood it."

“Very well, go on then. Psycho-cultural descendants? Bah!”

"Ouch. My pride. Anyway, we can trace the early stages of the evolution using your own favourite example. The Lord of the Rings was directly inspired by Norse sagas and epic English poetry. It codified an entire genre of literature and created one of the most dedicated fanbases on the planet.”

"Yeah fanbases. They’re not exactly true believers in Eru Eluvitar, are they? I mean, they don’t run churches or anything, and that author is dead so it’s not as though he can ask them to donate to charity. So your assertion falls at one of the first hurdles.”

“Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish and never claimed to be anything else. Christianity evolved as a result of his teachings spreading through the world, coupled with his death at the hands of Pontius Pilot, who is strangely missing from most sermons. Funny. Also, our understanding of Hell as a concept is largely a result of Dante’s Inferno, which itself was a piece of biblical fan-fiction.”

“Was it? I’ve never made much of a study of it.”

“Yes it was. At least, the structure of Hell. I mean, far as I know, Judaism doesn’t even have a Hell. I don’t know enough about it comment at length, but I’m positive they don’t have one. Hell’s a very Christian construct.”

“Doesn’t Islam have a Hell?”

“I think so, but I’m no expert. Anyway, Islam is younger than Christianity, but it does recognize Jesus as a prophet in their book, just not THE Prophet.”

“Fair enough. How does this relate to your nonsense about authors?”

“Not just authors. But podcasters, public speakers like Jordan Peterson. Anyone really. If they gain a following large enough, especially one that holds them up as an aspirational figure, I believe that they have entered the religion pipeline. The only remaining question is what their, for lack of a better word, faithful do with those teachings down the line.”

“You’re thinking about Hubbard?”

“Indeed. He is one example, though his was a lot more intentional. Or, taken another way, those poor fools with the Kool-Aid. Or the people, I think this was in Japan, who were essentially buried alive as an act of faith.”

“Cults?”

“All religions started as cults. That’s where we get the word I think. Like the cult of Dionysus and their secret rites. They all have the same socio-cultural roots.”

“Please stop saying that just to sound smart. But, ok, granted. How then does Tolkien fit? He’s dead.”

“Again, Jesus was dead long before Christianity took off. Essentially, we can think of the Lord of the Rings as something like a holy text that simply hasn’t been sufficiently mythologized yet. Maybe it never will be, considering how our information is immortal now. Media still gets lost, I think I read somewhere that a majority of video games that have ever been made are in fact lost media. But-”

“What exactly does lost media have to do with any of this?”

“How many books of the Troy Saga do we have?”

“What?”

“How many?”

“Three. Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid. What does that matter?”

“Right, but we have reason to believe that most of the surviving heroes of the Iliad had their own stories about getting home, right? But we don’t know just how much of the story was considered historical or religiously significant and how much of it was just fiction. I mean, you included the Aeneid, but that one was just fiction. Propaganda created by the Romans, it has nothing to do with Homer.”

“Yeah, I remember that now. Ok, so we have two.”

“Far as I know. Point is this, that lost media is important to understanding the importance of the Epic as a whole. Think about Shakespeare’s work, one of the longer historical cycles, if we only had Richard III, we would know that there were supposed to be others, but what exactly they’re about would be a mystery.”

“And getting back to the religion aspect? I mean, no one worships MacBeth. People don’t kneel in the temple of Hamlet and beg God for the strength to stop overthinking and make a choice. Why haven’t they shifted into religions yet?”

“They still might. You and I don’t know for sure, but so much of our understanding of history beyond a certain point is managed entirely by religion.”

“The faithful sure do like locking the ability to read and write behind buying into their doctrine. We don’t have a lot of that stuff because the faith kept so much of the population illiterate and ignorant, building their power base rather than elevating their societies.”

“Don’t be too Euro-centric. East Asia for certain and probably most of the Arab world had a huge amount of literacy. The Islamic Golden Age was going on during the peak of the dark ages don’t forget. Not to mention Chinese history is full to bursting with innovations and literature.

“What I mean by connecting it to lost media is this, in the way backs, the only way we had to retain this information was either through oral tradition, carving it into stone, or putting it on something impermanent like paper or pottery. So, the things that were the most important were preserved either by recitation or by active effort to preserve it in physical form.

“Eventually, those things burrowed into the collective consciousness like ticks and were applied spiritually. No don’t interrupt, I’m not saying that what we are seeing is the perfect counter part to the evolution of religion, simply that I think it’s following a similar trajectory.”

“The more I think about it, the more I think I understand. Buffet could be, in the future, remembered as something akin to a prophet. The Oracle of Omaha. Or maybe Goggins evolving into something like the Heracles myth. The type of people whose books might get lumped into a larger text over time.”

“Now you’re catching on.”

“Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Alex Jones is already approaching something like that, what with people believing anything he says and even responding to his calls for violence. Someone somewhere is probably recording his ‘words of wisdom’ for future generations. All of these people sell books and those books are sometimes used as life guides.”

“Precisely. That’s what I meant when I mentioned podcasters and public speakers, they have a more direct link to the current zeitgeist and people feel like they have a personal relationship with them. V-tubers can probably be lumped in there as well, since really their whole job is mass appeal; not to mention the fact that a lot of them do a lot of charity.”

“There is a guy who does charity bike rides in Japan, raised millions for immune deficiency research, eh?”

“Yes. He could, depending on how the future goes, have a statue like Terry Fox. But all of that comes back to reading.”

“This is the part where I have to disagree. I don’t care how popular Potter was, or Hell maybe still is, it’s not a religion.”

“Collapsing your own fandom over childish hatred notwithstanding, it could have been. If you observe it, people got tattoos, they read the novels more than people read their holy texts. People spend thousands of dollars in transport and lodging to stand at King’s Cross with a cart – or take a photo with a train in the middle of nowhere of all things. They almost literally make pilgrimages to sites important to them in this way.

“How much of a stretch could it possibly be to assume that, if the author’s ethics weren’t in question, that adoration might not have evolved into a more recognizable faith?”

“I see what you mean there. And I suppose comic cons are essentially the same thing.”

“Those are more like Powwows I think. But yeah, basically.”

“Or the renaissance fairs where people dress like fantasy characters?”

“Yes. The historians of the future might just consider those and other things like them to be more like annual celebrations of gods or nature. ‘Ritualistic purposes’ is sort of the archaeologist’s catch all for when they don’t understand what they’re seeing but know it mattered. A ritual doesn’t have to be something as elaborate as a quinceañera, confirmation, or graduation. Besides, most of what we now understand as important religious events were either practical or an excuse to get together and party.”

“So, you think that modern fantasy authors are creating… what? You said that you think their descendants will become religions, but probably not they themselves.”

“Here’s what I think, at some point we’re going to have a civilizational collapse. Don’t give me that, it’s going to happen. And a lot of our knowledge of history is going to be lost. But a lot of our most important modern fictions are going to be preserved because people want entertainment and the comfort of their favourites.”

“I’m following you so far.”

“They are also going to preserve the elements of their love of fandom that give them the most entertainment and comfort. Teaching them to their children and grandchildren, facilitating a shift away from the strictures of fiction and entering into the world of myth and tradition.”

“You think we’re going to be the age of heroes?”

“I don’t know. But I think it’s likely.”

“The author is your god.”

“Yep.”

“You think too much.”

“I hear that a lot.”

-0-

This dialogue was recovered from an audio file discovered in the Rideau Valley and translated by Dr. Marc Edgedancer (Classics). Potter’s Eve, Moana’s Month 2977.

Authors unknown. Second Classical Age.