Frequently Asked Questions - Religion and Spirituality

Is the MUniverse polytheistic or monotheistic? There seems to be conflicting indications.

Some readers interpreted the early chapters which dealt only with Khersis when religion came up as indicating that I was eschewing the typical fantasy pantheon and making a monotheistic universe. This raises the question, is our universe polytheistic or monotheistic? It is my experience that the number of gods a world does or does not have will not prevent people from believing in any particular quantity of deities they set their hearts upon, be it one, many, or none.

Even acknowledging that, in typical fantasy fashion, the gods have a verifiable physical preference, I see no conflict with some people believing that theirs is the “one true” god and having “no other god before” him. I see no reason to believe that people would more readily agree what exactly constitutes a “true god”, either.

How did the different races end up with such wildly different myths?/

Short answer: it happens.

In most fantasy worlds, because “the gods are real”, there’s one set of myths which are only myths in that they’re mythic in scope… they’re essentially true and everybody knows them and agrees on them, and if there’s any dissent it’s a big story point because either the dissenters are eeeeeevillll or they’re secretly the good guys. Even if the elves have one set of myths and the dwarves have another, it’s only because they have different gods and their myths only deal with their corner of the world. With everything else they fight about, you rarely see the dwarves and elves falling out because one believes the world was made from the bones of Fireaxe Grimbeer and the other thinks it was fashioned in seven days by Emostar Vaguelygay, because those gods are real in the story and therefore not subject to this kind of disagreement.

I don’t really buy the logic there. Our world is made of real and we can’t often agree on any two things inside it. Ignoring the possibility of any actual divine/supernatural stuff existing in our world, all of our conflicting myths and legends came about because of real, (at one time) verifiable events: wars, people, seasons, animals, whatever. Adding another class or two of things to those lists wouldn’t change the essential nature of the beast, which is that 1) we like to make stuff up when we don’t know something and 2) we frequently don’t know shit.

So, the merfolk living in the middle of the ocean come up with one set of stories and the gnomes living secluded in their shires come up with another. Why not? The light-skinned elves living on the surface have one version of history which says they’re the good guys and the dark-skinned elves living down below have another one which says they’re the good guys. Just because we throw “the gods” into the mix doesn’t mean everybody’s going to suddenly agree.

Similarly, within the human race, the Khersians believe that Arkhanites are dangerous heretics and Anankhans are overzealous worshippers of a demigoddess, and the Arkhanites and Anankhans disagree. Some Khersians believe that their sacred texts say certain things about, say, the respective places of men and women in the world, and others disagree.

So… you’re saying the “reality” of the gods relative, shaped by and subject to belief?

No. As much as I love the works of Neil Gaiman, as much fun as I’ve had playing with subjective reality in other places, that’s not at all what I’m saying here. What am I saying? People disagree. People have different beliefs, and if reality is not subject to their beliefs, neither are their beliefs subject to reality. That’s life.

Why are people of faith portrayed so negatively in this story?

I really only had one person ask me this, but he asked it so many times it definitely qualifies as “frequently asked.”

To put it simply, I don’t feel that they are. Amaranth, though far from perfect as a person, is in my opinion portrayed in a generally positive way, and she’s chock full of faith… but of course, the people who are apt to pose this question don’t think of a nude worshipper of the mother goddess of nature as a “person of faith,” do they?

Of course, this question assumes that “people of faith” are some tiny minority. Don’t you imagine the characters pass by “people of faith” every day? Don’t you imagine that as many of the minor characters who interact with them in some positive way are “people of faith” as are not? Maybe the people in the story who make a point of letting the world know that they’re “people of faith” in the two minutes or so that they spend in the main character’s presence come off as prats… but is that an indictment of their faith, or an illustration of a kind of behavior?

I certainly don’t portray people who are willing to take a symbol of their faith and shove it in your face regardless of how uncomfortable that makes you in a flattering light. I don’t go out of my way to enshrine people who use their faith as an excuse for racism or other exclusion. Nowhere in the story, though, have I said that religion in general–or any particular religion–is bad.

If you’re not trying to make a big point about religion, why so obviously model Khersianity after Christianity?

I want this story, for all its fantastic and far-fetched elements, to be recognizable to anybody who’s lived through the experience of an American university. Most such institutions have a sizable, visible Christian population. It’s part of the backdrop of university life.

What’s the big deal with the “K” versus “Kh”? How are they pronounced?

The notional language that’s spoken in the story, Pax, contains a letter that doesn’t exist in English, the letter “Kh,” which is used to denote divinity. Gods belonging to other cultures frequently have their name translated into a form with an appropriate consonant sound in them if the translator feels they’re important or wants to show respect. Other cultures sometimes simply provide a Pax form of their god’s name outright, in order to make sure their gods receive their due from human speakers.

How do you pronounce it?

If you’re reading the actual words “The Letter Kh”, you’d say “The Letter Khee”, in the same sense that you would say “The Letter Kay” when reading “The Letter K.” That’s how you pronounce the “name” of the letter. It’s not how you actually parse it in a word.

For actually using the letter in a word, the actual difference is in how the sound is formed. I’m not a linguist, but I believe the correct term is aspiration… the “kuh” sound in “kh” is very slightly more aspirated. If you say a word both ways, there’s slightly more air being forced through your throat on the “kh.” The actual pronunciation of a word which includes the letter? It’s not something you or I would likely to be able to hear if listening with regular attentiveness to spoken conversation. It’s subtle. To the people in the MUniverse, though, it’s clear as day, because they grow up making and listening for the distinction.

So why is it such a big deal whether or not somebody uses Kh? Because, as noted above, it denotes divinity. Imagine a true believer preparing an altar to their god, and somebody comes along and sits on it like it’s a park bench. That’s what it means when somebody leaves off the “Kh”. Now imagine that somebody else, seeing the true believers at their altar, starts bowing down to a park bench and saying, “Oh Mighty Park Bench, Bequeath Unto Me Thy Seatful Blessings!” That’s what it looks like when somebody gives the “Kh” to something that’s not perceived as a god.

That’s why it’s a big deal. It’s perceived as disrespectful or mocking to misuse “Kh”, either by putting it where it doesn’t belong or leaving it off.

This is why, when not-quite-swearing, sometimes characters will say “kee” or “kosh”, and at other times they’ll say “khee” or “khosh.” The latter form is considered blasphemy on par with actually swearing by the name of a god.