An Update for Those Still Loyal

Hello, dear readers and brothers in the Lord.

I know I haven't taken care of this place very well in recent times. Life has been too complicated, and inspiration for writing has been too scarce.

I do, however, expect to be bringing you new content soon. Indeed, as part of this future content, I will be sharing with you a preview of some of the things you can expect.

So, without further ado, here is a brief list of the topics you can expect to see me covering in the coming months:

- Tolkien's Philosophy

- Medieval Cosmology & Symbolism

- Commentary on the Platonic Dialogues

- Commentary on Tolkien's On Fairy Stories

- Some articles about the necessity for a truly Biblical Worldview

- An exploration into the topic of enchantment (what it is & why it matters)

I'm also hoping that soon I might release with some good friends a new podcast on topics of this sort. It's going to be a lot of fun, and I hope you are still with us for the journey.

Anyways, may you receive many blessings and Graces. God bless, and I hope to see you again soon.

OUR PHILOSOPHY OF STORYTELLING

OUR PHILOSOPHY OF STORYTELLING

There are many books about storytelling that an up-and-coming storyteller may look into to learn his craft. Indeed, the whole genre of books that teach one how to write a good story has become a sort of cottage industry. Many have profited much thanks to it, and that is probably one of the reasons why these books are still being produced. After all, with so many wanting to learn how to tell a good story, why would there be a shortage of these books?

Nevertheless, one key aspect that many people tend to forget is whether or not these books actually provide any good insights into the craft of storytelling. Many will argue that they do. They say that it is necessary to read these books if people want to learn the theory of the craft. After all, no craftsman or artist can practice his trade well until he has first learned the theory. Others will claim that just reading great stories and not bothering with any of these books is a better pathway for beginners to follow. They will argue that many (if not all) of these new storytelling books are not based on any real knowledge of the craft. They are just opinion pieces from people looking to make money out of a profitable cottage industry. Hence, they conclude, it's better to learn from simply watching great films and reading good stories than from reading these books. The debate goes back and forth constantly, and like with all debates of this sort, it often seems like the controversy until Judgment Day. 

Yet, to be honest, I think both approaches have something good to offer. On the one side, it is true that learning theory is necessary for doing the practice well, and this, whether we like it or not, is almost never accomplished without recurring to some books. We cannot learn everything by analyzing stories; we need some more substantive on which we can base our analyses. On the other hand, it's also true that many of these "how to write a good story" books are nothing more than a scam. The knowledge they provide is often very superficial and will most likely not stand the test of time, and as such, we are probably better off learning from films that have indeed become great classics and have something valuable to teach us. So in a sense, it's possible to see how these two positions can be reconciled by admitting what each has gotten right. Reading books is necessary to learn the craft, but that does not mean we ought to read the books being released today.

So if neither of these approaches is entirely right, what should we do then? Well, what I propose is that we combine what is good in both approaches and thus create a third way that overcomes the other two. Firstly, we ought to acknowledge that reading books on good storytelling is going to be crucial for us to learn well the craft. However, since most of the books being put out today are not going to provide us with any valuable insights, we must therefore somewhere else to find good resources from which we can learn. Indeed, we must look in the ancient wisdom of our forefathers, who knew how to tell great stories much better than we do now. That's why I believe we have to begin acquainting ourselves with the great works of Homer, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Dante, Chesterton, Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis, all of which have provided over the centuries many important insights into what it means to tell a good story. Unlike the books being sold today, these giants of storytelling have indeed passed the test of time, and so we can safely say that reading them and learning what they had to say will not be a waste of time. And secondly, we also must be read and watch the great stories that have been told throughout History to be able to see how these eternal principles of good storytelling are applied. Thus, besides reading Aristotle and Tolkien to learn the theory, we must also read the great classic stories and watch the great classic films to see how that theory is put into practice. That's the way we should learn.

Therefore, if we truly want to learn how to tell great stories, we need to take an approach that is constantly putting in touch with the Wisdom of our forefathers and the Beauty of the work of the great masters. We cannot allow ourselves to be taught by scavengers looking to make money off beginners like us. But at the same time, we cannot be so arrogant as to just read and watch whatever story and then expect to learn some eternal Truth about storytelling from it. Hence, we must open ourselves to the great teachers of the past and their Wisdom, and then we must encounter the great classics and try to understand why they are so good. In other words, we must combine theoretical Wisdom with practical Beauty. A marriage between ancient theory and classic masterpieces of practice. That's how we learn to become great storytellers.

MYTHIC STORYTELLING AND CINEMA: Introduction

MYTHIC STORYTELLING AND CINEMA:

Introduction

What is mythic storytelling?

The Inklings have a very particular way of telling stories, which is quite unlike most of what we find in the modern age. People like Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams were telling stories in a very ancient way, in a very mythic way. They told stories that, like the great myths of old, intended to rebuild the bridge between man and the Divine. In other words, their tales were meant to re-enchant the world of men by showing the transcendent character of reality.

But in modernity, this is not at all the intended effect of storytelling. Modern writers are often more preoccupied with navigating the shallow darkness of a character's ego than with connecting the life of that character to some transcendence. This is a great chasm that separates one form of storytelling from the other: one is more theocentric (centered on the transcendent and the Divine) while the other is more anthropocentric (centered on the human ego and the self).

Therefore, for a story to be considered part of the Inklings tradition, it is not enough for it to include fantastical and preternatural elements. These are only superficial elements to the tradition. What is more important is that, through these elements, it manages to re-establish a relationship between man and the spiritual, transcendent realm.

So with all this said, how can cinema manifest this ancient, mythic form of storytelling that the Inklings were so fond of? Is it even possible for film, an auido-visual medium, to tell mythic stories? These are the questions that I shall attempt to answer in the following series of articles.

Can film do it?

The first question we might be troubled with when trying to solve these dilemmas is whether an audio-visual medium like film can, in principle, effectively communicate the essence of mythic storytelling. After all, myths and fairy tales have been traditionally expressed in oral and written forms, and there is certainly a reason for that: when telling a story in an oral and written way, the imagination is most free to play. If all you have are spoken or written words, then you can engage with the ideas that those words symbolize, and imagine them in whatever way you see fit. Hence, there is a power to the oral and written forms of storytelling that myths and fairy tales can take great advantage of.

Nevertheless, the history of art does show that, while myths and fairy tales have often had their origins in oral and written forms, it is not rare to express these mythic stories in other mediums. In the case of myth, one could point to the theater of the ancient Greeks, where myths were told in dramatic form. Likewise, one could also highlight the many examples of visual art made during antiquity and the middle ages to illustrate the stories of the great mythic heroes of old. Wagner's work (not just his adaptation of the Nibelung, but also operas like Percival and alike) is similar in this respect, except that instead of expressing myths in visual ways, he does it mostly in musical form. And in the case of fairy stories, one could remark about the great illustrators and engravers of the 19th century such as Arthur Gaskin and Gustave Doré. Thus, we see how even in mediums like painting, sculpture, illustration, music, and drama, mythic storytelling can be present.

That said, it is true that, in spite of being able to manifest myths and fairy tales in powerful ways, these mediums do lack the imaginative potency that oral and written forms of storytelling have. This is not something that can be ignored, and the responsible artist should be aware of it. The potential to use the imagination in these mediums is much more limited and restrained, and this is something that even Tolkien remarked in his essay On Fairy Stories when he criticized theater adaptations of fairy tales.

Still, although their effectiveness may be lesser, visual, musical, and dramatic mediums still have the capacity to communicate myths and fairy tales. Curiously enough, film is precisely a hybrid art form of all these mediums. It is a combination of the acting and scripting of drama, the melodies and harmonies of music, and the images and designs of the visual arts. Therefore, if it is possible to express mythic stories in all three of these afore-mentioned mediums, then it should be also possible to express them in the hybrid art form of cinema.

How can film do it?

Now that we have resolved the issue of whether or not it is possible to create films that tell mythic stories properly, let us examine how this is exactly accomplished. For this purpose, we shall look at how each of the three mediums I mentioned before (drama, visual arts, and music) has historically represented myth and fairy tales, and then we shall see how this can aid in sub-creating a complete representation of mythic storytelling in cinema.

First, let us look at drama. In our analysis, we will mainly examine the dimension of drama that deals with the script and not so much with the acting, given that the script is often more fundamental to the work of art. A good way in which scripts can properly tell mythic stories is by placing a lot of emphasis on how the spiritual and the theological affects the plot of the story. This was done par excellence by the ancient Greeks when they adapted their myths to the theatre. For example, in Sophocles' Oedipus King, when Oedipus realizes that he has committed a series of gravely immoral actions, it is stressed that this event is the consequence of Oedipus' arrogance towards the gods. Likewise, in Antigone, another play by Sophocles, when Antigone decides to defy the decrees of her uncle the king and give her late brother a proper ritual burial, it is also made clear how this decision relates back to her family's relationship with the gods. Admittedly, if one has read these plays, he will know that the first example is more explicit than the second, but both of these cases are valid illustrations of how the spiritual realm can become present in the script. 

Secondly, there are the visual arts. Here, I could mention three principles. The first is an intent by the artist to distinguish in his visual depictions the spiritual from the worldly. That is, he will not illustrate a saint like Saint Mark or semi-Divine hero like Hercules in the same manner he will design a peasant or a common soldier. Saints will often have their iconic halos or some visual variation of the same (such as light radiating from them), and heroes will have body figures that are exaggeratedly strong and imposing. This is unlike the representations of common men and women, who have not yet been touched by the Divine in the story. The second principle is that the visual artists also put a lot of attention in making it visually clear what the relationship of a given thing is with the Divine. So if a forest is cursed, the forest will appear twisted, dying, and evil. Likewise, if a character is blessed, he will look fair, healthy, and heavenly. And lastly, there is also a lot of preoccupation with trying to highlight the spiritual nature of a creature whenever that creature has some special relationship to the spiritual realm. So if in an illustration of a fairy tale, a grey wolf is a symbol for the spiritual, that wolf will not look like any "realistic, normal" wolf; rather, his features will be exaggerated so that it is made clear that this creature is not of this world but of the next. Thus, the visual artists (whether they be the Greek and Roman sculptors, the medieval painters of manuscripts, or the 19th-century illustrators of fairy tales) can tell mythic stories through their mediums.

Thirdly, we have music. Music has one principal way in which it can manifest the presence of the spiritual in its art, which is by the use of what is often called a leitmotif. Leitmotifs are simply musical themes that accompany a certain moment, character, or place from the story that the music is telling. The most famous example of leit motifs is that of Wagner and his Ring Cycle. Each element of his adaptation of the myth of the Ring has a specific theme that accompanies it throughout the play. But even in something so solemn and so sacred as the Liturgy of the Holy Mass can leitmotifs be found. In the Latin Rite, each moment of the Holy Mass (whether it be the Kyrie, the Gloria, or the Agnus Dei) has a musical theme, a specific chant, that follows it. So when the musician wants to highlight some spiritual aspect of the story, he can resort to the use of leitmotifs to do it. Thus can musical themes be used to highlight the presence of some spiritual or Divine element.

The Mythic in Film:

Being a combination of drama, visual arts, and music, cinema can combine all three of these sorts of techniques to produce a cinematic story that manifests the mythic in powerful ways. By making the relationship between the Divine and the human the guiding light of the script, the plot, the theme, and the characters of the story are all infused with a spiritual dimension that transcends them and gives them a proper mythical trademark. Then, by using all the various visual techniques to distinguish and highlight the presence of the Divine and its relationship to the elements of the story, everything the audience sees will have a deep spiritual significance to it. And likewise, by using leitmotifs to heighten the spiritual elements of the story, the music will also give new layers of theological and metaphysical meaning to what happens in the film. That is how cinema can communicate mythical storytelling.

DEMOCRATIC ORCS: Tolkien's Critique of Democracies

DEMOCRATIC ORCS:

TOLKIEN'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACIES

Election seasons are filled with hot takes. People on the left and the right are eager to express their thoughts on who should win, why they should win, and whether or not they will win. But in this storm of opinions and predictions, it is easy to lose sight of those insights which go beyond the superficial level of an election. It is easy to think that, just because we happen to live in a democratic state, that there is nothing wrong with democracy or that the critics of democracy are just ignorant fools. But this is precisely what we should avoid this year and, for that reason, I believe it would help us to remember the wise words of J. R. R. Tolkien with regards to democracy.
"Really? What can Tolkien tell us that is so important?"

Tolkien is best known for being the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but this is only the surface level of his achievements. He was also an excellent scholar and a profound thinker on many of the issues affecting the world to this day. Hence, I believe his insights to be immensely valuable, especially when the circumstances surrounding us at this moment are so turbulent and uncertain. So with all of that said, here are his words:

“I am not a 'democrat' only because 'humility' and equality are spiritual principles corrupted by the attempt to mechanize and formalize them, with the result that we get not universal smallness and humility, but universal greatness and pride, till some Orc gets hold of a ring of power--and then we get and are getting slavery.”

Now, I realize that this quote might be rather confusing for some, let's unpack it a bit.

First of all, we must recall what the promises of democracy are. Democracy promises a state where all men are equally free and powerful, where power resides not in one Divinely-appointed ruler but rather in the "will of the people". It is the people who, supposedly, hold power in a democracy, and that is its main promise. Eat this fruit and you shall have the power to determine what laws, customs and order your society will follow.

This is, however, only an illusion and facade that serves to attract people. The actual spiritual reality of democracy is much darker and sinister. Democracy promises the masses power, power to change at will anything. But this power, instead of being for our good, is for our ill because it is the start of a deep descent into the dark pits of pride. Hence, by promising us power, we increase in pride. We begin to be prideful precisely because we feel like we can rule the whole world based on the mere criteria of our whims. And thus, by increasing in pride (the first of the deadly sins), we ultimately arrive at the worst part of this affair: spiritual sickness.

But why? Why should pride lead us down the road of spiritual death? The answer to this objection is rather simple: because pride is the exaltation of the self over the exaltation of God. And that is a grave spiritual crime. God alone is worthy of all exaltation for He is King of all of us. But by engaging, we forget our rightful place as stewards and are snared into believing that we are actually our own petty little kings. We become egotists, and by extension, rebels of the Kingdom of God. That is why pride is so spiritually destructive. It makes us think we are gods when in fact we are not. Pride is the essence of the serpent's temptation at Eden: you shall be as gods.

Therefore, if democracy leads to pride and pride leads to spiritual sickness, it follows that democracy has a great tendency to makes us spiritually sick. But what exactly does this spiritual sickness constitute? That is an important question to ask because we can never forget what it means to be spiritually sick.

To be spiritually sick means that we are enslaved, enslaved specifically to sin. When we are spiritually sick, we are in such a state of depravity that we struggle to seek the True, the Good, and the Beautiful and are instead attracted more by the false, the evil, and the ugly. In other words, unless we receive the Grace of Absolution, we tend to go not towards virtue and order but instead towards sin and chaos. And this tendency is slavish precisely because it does not want us to seek something better. This sin at the core of our sickness is so despotic that it will not allow us to do anything except sin, and that is how it enslaves us.

Having said all this, it is not hard to see why Tolkien used the motif of the orc to describe the dynamics of democracy. Orcs are essentially beings who have been so spiritually corrupted that they have become minions to evil. The state of their deathly sick souls is made manifest in their horrid appearance and savage behavior. They are no longer free; they are slaves to their sin. And that is precisely what democracy does to the soul. It turns it into an orc. The pride of the illusion of power is so great that it corrupts the soul to the core, and leaves it as slavish to sin as the soul of an orc

So what are we to do about this? Should those of us who by the Wisdom of Divine Providence ended up living in democratic states avoid voting altogether? Should we proceed to overthrow our governments and install a monarchy in their stead? Or is there an alternative way to deal with politics in democratic states?

I believe there is indeed an alternative that does not involve violence, the overthrow of governments, or abandonment of politics altogether. And that solution is rather simple: remember who you are. That's it. We only have to remember that we are servants of our King, Christ the King, not kings in our own right. Therefore, when we go into the ballot box and cast our vote, we should cast it not with our interests in mind, but with God's Interests in mind. Whatever it is that Our Lord wants is what we shall vote for. His Laws should be our laws, His desires should be our desires, His Order should be our order. In short, the best antidote to the corrupting evils of democracy is to not allow its temptations of power and pride to go over our heads. We merely have to remind ourselves we are subjects of the Kingdom, not its kings.

That is the insight that Tolkien can bring us for this election season. To remember what the orcish dangers of the democratic system are and how we can best avoid it by always serving Christ.

TOLKIEN, REALISM, AND MYTH

TOLKIEN, REALISM, AND MYTH

Introduction

One of the most common critiques against Tolkien's work is that it is "unrealistic". Critics of this kind will complain that Tolkien does not care for the use of subtlety when he portrays the reality of Good and evil in his work. Good characters will be fair, glimmering, brave, and noble, while evil characters will be crooked, ugly, dark, and wicked. In other words, there are no "gray areas", no moral ambiguity in the characters. And it is this lack of "grayness" that Tolkien's critics will take as "unrealistic" and proof that his work is nothing more than shallow tales of cheap fantasy.

However, even though it is true that Tolkien is rather explicit when it comes to his portrayal of Good and evil, these critiques fail to see what Tolkien was intending to do when he portrayed morality in this way. Indeed, once one understands what Tolkien's intention was, his portrayal not only makes sense but it also makes more sense than all those so-called "realistic" portrayals, filled with gray ambiguities. Therefore, if one wishes to reply to these critiques, it is crucial that we first understand Tolkien's motives.

Tolkien's Intention

Unlike most writers of his time, when Tolkien wrote his work, he was not intending to craft a modern series of novels. Rather, what he was trying to do was to sub-create a mythology, a web of mythic tales.

Myth, by definition, is quite distinct from the modern novel. Not only is myth much more ancient, but it is also operating on an entirely different framework of reality. The modern novel often assumes that reality is just the sensible world. In other words, according to the framework of reality under which the modern novel operates, only what can be seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted is real. All else is either a lie or figment of our imagination. As a result, the novels of the 20th century have a strictly materialistic and often-times nihilistic view of reality. There is no truth, no goodness, no beauty, according to this view, because, after all, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are all part of a worldview that directly contradicts the materialistic nihilism of modernity. Myth, on the other hand, does recognize the existence of a world beyond the sensible: an invisible, spiritual, and metaphysical world where Truth, Goodness, and Beauty can and do exist. And it is this more integral view (the view that integrates both the visible and invisible sides of reality) that Myth takes as its framework. Hence, Myth and the modern novel are not only different but one could go as far as to say that they are irreconcilably opposed.

As such, when we say that Tolkien's intention was to write a mythic story, we must understand that he was working under a drastically distinct framework from the one that the modern novel takes as its own. This realization, logically, has significant implications in the portrayal of Good and evil. Since the mythic framework acknowledges the reality of the spiritual, it also recognizes the fact that the origin of moral evil is not ambiguous but rather very concrete and defined. Moral evil originates from a disordered act of the will to not conform to the Will of God. Evil, in other words, is an act of spiritual rebellion that ultimately ends in chaos. And since the spiritual inevitably affects the material, it does not take long before this invisible evil is embodied by a visible evil.

Myth vs. Modern Novel

All of this is incomprehensible to the modern novelist. The modern novelist, in his materialistic nihilism, cannot understand that evil is spiritual rebellion because he does not acknowledge any kind of metaphysical and spiritual order at all. For him, reality is already chaotic and meaningless, so when he is confronted with manifestly evil acts, he has no way to rationally recognize them as such. Hence, all he can do is to see things in a perpetual mist of confusion where nothing is ever good or evil.

But when we hold both of these views up for scrutiny, it is evident which one makes more sense. After all, only someone who has totally lost his mind can fall into the pitfall of denying the objective reality of Good and evil. It is right there for us to see. For example, the gulags of Soviet Russia are clear manifestations of a spiritual evil that has taken over the whole political system of a nation. Likewise, on a more personal scale, the visible brokenness of addicts and criminals is clearly a symptom of a much deeper spiritual sickness in the souls of those persons. There is no ambiguity when evil is so manifest. Even the most depressed nihilist will have to admit that there is something wrong in these situations, even if he has no way of explaining why that is. Therefore, it is evidently true that the invisible, moral reality soon takes its form in the visible reality, thus proving that the mythic worldview is the right one.

This is why Tolkien chose to portray Good and evil the way he did. He knew that the spiritual realm is very much real and that its effect would soon find an echo in the material world. Hence, when we see the evil creatures of his mythology as these terrifying and disgusting beings, what we are really seeing are the repercussions of a spiritual state of cursedness, beings that are spiritually dead. On the other hand, when we see the heroes of this mythic world and notice how beautiful and noble they look, we are witnessing the effects that an orderly spiritual state has. That is the reason why Tolkien seems to be explicit in his portrayal of Good and evil.

A More Real Portrayal

And to be honest, this portrayal is ultimately much more realistic than all the gray ambiguity that the modern novel is so fond of. After all, since the spiritual realm is a reality that we ought to contend with, it is absolutely reasonable to portray Good and evil in a way that the spiritual effects on matter are starkly manifested. Therefore, when one hears critiques of Tolkien's work as being "unrealistic", we should remember that the spiritual is more real than the material, and as such, the mythic is more real than the modern.  

SEVEN TIPS FOR THE HEIRS OF THE INKLINGS

 SEVEN TIPS FOR THE HEIRS OF THE INKLINGS

There is no shortage on tips and recommendations for writing stories in the fantasy genre. Anyone who has an interest in becoming a fantasy storyteller will already be acquainted with the tons of guides and suggestion lists for crafting good plots, characters and secondary worlds. Nevertheless, though there is a lot to be gained from these helps, there is something that is often missing from them. 

 

Most of these list of recommendations assume from the outset a very superficial outlook on the fantasy genre. They assume that fantasy is just like any other modern literary genre, except that it contains dragons, wizards and magic. This way of looking at fantasy, however, is severely flawed, as we have proven in other articles (here). It fails to address the deeper layers of meaning that are inherent in the genre and allow it to be so distinctively fascinating. Therefore, by adopting a view of fantasy that is awfully superficial, modern guides for writing fantasy have fostered the identity crisis of the genre despite all the good technical advice they may provide new storytellers with.

 

Yet as we saw in a previous article, this doesn't mean that there is no solution to the identity crisis of fantasy. If there is one way that the genre can be saved from the depths of this crisis, it is by returning to the great tradition that gave birth to it, and that tradition is found in the Inklings.

 

But alas, if anyone would desire to follow in the steps of Barfield, Williams, Lewis and Tolkien, he will be disappointed to find that there are little to no resources that may guide him through the process. That's the ill this humble article proposes to amend. In the course of this article, we will provide seven brief suggestions for those aspiring heirs to the Inlikings tradition. God-willing, by the time he has finished reading, the reader will have found a light to guide him through the dark.

 

1. Familiarize yourself with myth and fairy tales

 

If one wants to become like the Inklings, he must be acquianted with those tales that brought the Inklings together. This is why fairy tales and myths are a crucial part of forming oneself as an heir of the Inklings tradition. After all, the club initially got started as a place to read and enjoy together myths, legends and fairy tales. Had it not been for the great legends of the noble Hector, the valiant Gawain and the fierce Beowulf, the Inklings would have likely never had a reason for knowing each other. In other words, these stories formed the core of their companionship, so it would certainly be imprudent for anyone who wants to be an Inkling as well to not become familiarized with them.

 

2. Make the Transcendent a central part of your writing and your life

 

The Inklings were highly spiritual men. None of them would fit the bill for the modern or postmodern writers of today, and that is partly what makes them so great. Their insight into the transcendent side of reality is not only fascinating but also deeply enriching for their readers. They told stories full of meaning that brought back Beauty and the Divine to a world that had forgotten these realities. 

 

Hence, if one is to follow in the footsteps of the Inklings, he should adopt this transcendent and highly spiritual worldview in both his work and his personal life. Stories cannot be about mundane, superficial situations. Rather, they must be about the most transcendent things in reality, the stuff of epics. But this cannot be accomplished unless one personally understands the significance that transcendence has. For this reason, it is crucial that the storyteller himself, like the Inklings, lives out in his life the spiritual and religious reality that he depicts in his work. After all, one cannot give what he does not possess in the first place, and if one wants his work to be transcendent, it follows that his life should be transcendent as well. It is only be making spiritual and religious transcendence the center of one's work and life that one can honor the heritage of the Inklings.

 

3. Know your culture, love your culture and write about your culture

 

When the Inklings wrote their works, they did not draw their inspiration out of a sheer romantic feeling of self-expression. On the contrary, their inspiration was anything but emotive self-expression. Rather, one of their main sources of inspiration was often their deep and intense love for their culture. We see this Tolkien when he declares that he intended his Legandarium to be a sort of mythology for English culture. We see it with Barfield who could have never written a work like Poetic Diction had he not first fallen in love with the great poetic traditions of the old world. And lastly, we see it in Lewis whose love for medieval and ancient cosmology inspired him to write the Space Trilogy. Thus, it was their knowledge and love for their cultural heritage that inspired the Inklings to sub-create.

 

So if one wishes to become an Inkling, it follows one must do likewise in this sense. Culture and tradition must be a treasure for us, not old skeletons we lock up in the attic. They must be the wellspring from which our writing is nurtured. Furthermore, it's also a great opportunity to make one's writing intensely personal without falling into the trap of subjectivism. Suppose you are a Catholic of Spanish and Italian descent who wants to write in this tradition. Learning about your heritage and traditions as an Italo-Spanish Catholic will not only give you good resources to base your work on but it will also give your writing a certain flavor that is distinctly yours. Those are the advantages of following the path of the Inklings when it comes to culture.

 

4. Learn your metaphysics and theology and incorporate it into your writing

 

Anyone who has read the Inklings' work will know that their writing is deeply imbued in classical metaphysical and theological realities. One need only to look at Tolkien's The Silmarillion, Williams' occult novels and Lewis' last Narnia volume to know this. You cannot escape the supernatural and preternatural when you venture into the Inklings because, in many ways, that was and is the foundation of their work. But in addition to making metaphysics and theology a central aspect of their writing, these men also knew enough about these complex subjects to swiftly incorporate many metaphysical and theological into the plots and characters of their stories. Many examples come to mind: the most prominent would probably be Eru Illuvatar and his angelic host of Valar and Maiar and Aslan and his mystical dominion over Creation. Only men educated in the great philosophical and theological tradition of Christendom would have been able to accomplish such a feat. Thus, we get the level of depth that all of the Inklings' work has.

 

Therefore, if one wishes to emulate the Inklings in this respect, he must immerse himself in the metaphysical and theological realities of the world. First, he must educate himself on the great philosophical and theological tradition of Christendom. Secondly, he must analyze and plan how he can incorporate metaphysical and theological elements into his writing in a way that will give a deep consistency to the whole mythic story. And lastly, he must practice. He must put pen to paper and try his hand at writing stories that are profoundly metaphysical and theological. It's a technique that even the most literate of Christian theologians and philosophers would have some trouble with. Hence, by learning, thinking and practicing, the aspiring heir to the Inklings will have had enough training to imbue his tales with as much as metaphysics and theology as the great masters did.

 

5. Develop the secondary world

 

Developing secondary worlds, or worldbuilding (as it is today known), was key to the mythic stories of the Inklings. These secondary worlds had a rich development, which had a good and consistent metaphysical and theological foundation. Hence, relying on the last suggestion, the man aspiring to be like the Inklings must work on his transcendent foundations to build a secondary world that is filled with layers upon layers of development. In other words, he should not neglect the worldbuilding of the setting, as some modern fantasy writers do. On the contrary, he must work on it as much as he works on the characters and on the plot.

 

6. Practice immersion, recovery, escape and consolation

 

As Tolkien explains in his essay On Fairy Tales, fantasy that immerses the reader in an enchanted sub-created world exists for the purpose of three things: recovery, escape and consolation. Let us explain what is meant by these terms. Firstly, recovery is the principle by which we see mundane, normal things in a refreshing and enchanting light. Then, escape refers to the escape from the modern world and into a world that is more real, more magical and sacramental. And lastly, consolation is that quality of the tale that brings Hope and Joy to the reader. In other words, it is the quality proper to the eucatastrophe, that is, the good catastrophe. When all seems lost and dark and it seems that evil and sin will prevail, Hope and Joy must arrive to save the day and thus give the consolation of the happy ending. These are, according to the great Inkling tradition, some of the most fundamental aspects of good fantasy writing. (You can see a more in-depth explanation of these three aspects of fantasy here)

 

Hence, it follows that those who want to take up the mantle from the Inklings must follow Tolkien's principles and apply them to their writing. Through their immersive stories set in wonderful secondary worlds, they must achieve the three things at which fantasy is best. Accomplishing recovery, escape and consolation in the story means true success.

 

7. The story must have as its ultimate end the echoing of the True Myth

 

All of the Inklings believed in what they called the True Myth. This is the Myth that came into the Primary World and united myth with History. This is Christianity. If anything can be described as the deepest point of connection for the Inklings, it is this.

 

That was the ultimate end of all their stories (to echo the True Myth and thus bring people closer to the Saving Grace of Jesus Christ), and therefore, it should be our ultimate end as well. We do not familiarize ourselves with myths for nothing; we do not go to encounter transcendence in our lives for nothing; we do not study metaphysics and theology for nothing; we do not fall in love with our culture for nothing; in short, we do not tell stories for nothing. All this we do for ultimately one purpose: to grow closer to the God that creates us and loves us and to bring others closer to Him Who is Love Itself. That is why the Inklings wrote what they wrote in the end, and that should be the reason why we write as well. Christ is our beginning and our end, our Alpha and Omega, and more so when it comes to storytelling.

STAR WARS & MYTH

STAR WARS & MYTH

Few stories have been so successful in capturing the imaginations of their audiences as Star Wars. Even the name itself evokes a multitude of fascinating, epic images in our minds. It's a story that has been told in multiple mediums (movies, TV shows, music, video games, comics, books, etc.) and that has influenced the lives of many people in very significant ways.

 

Some may wonder how a story about space battles and adventures was able to achieve so much success. Some say it is because of its initial technological achievements in film. Others say it is due to the shrewdness of George Lucas (the author of the series) as an entrepreneur. But I propose a different answer. I think the answer lies in the story's relationship with myth. I realize some may be perplexed by such a statement. After all, what has the saga of the Skywalkers have to do with myth? The answer is that it has everything to do, and this reality becomes apparent once we examine the origins of the series.

Origins of Success:

 

The greatest inspiration for George Lucas when sub-creating this great, epic tale was the work of psychologist Joseph Campbell. What Campbell's work did was outline and catalog all the major patterns and "tropes" in mythologies and provide a "psychological" explanation as to why they were so common. He then tried to unite all of these patterns into a single scheme, which he named the archetypal "hero's journey". Thus, he concluded that this way of telling stories, this mythic hero's journey, penetrated and resonated deeply in our being, and that is why we are so enthralled by myths and the when we encounter them. Lucas was fascinated by this theory, and henceforth he sought to craft a story that would follow these patterns to a T. That story was Star Wars.

 

Hence, the relationship between myth and Star Wars. Without myth, there would be no hero's journey. And without the hero's journey, there would be no Star Wars.

 

This is why Star Wars has had so much resonance with so many people. It truly does speak in a universal language, the language of myth, that captivates the imagination of anyone who comes across it. The patterns of mythic stories, as Campbell pointed out, do indeed penetrate into the most profound depth of the human person, and Star Wars proves that. It is a story filled with the patterns of myth, and therefore, it is logical that it should have as much of an impact as the ancient mythologies had.

The Fatal Flaw:

There is, however, more to the relationship between myth and Star Wars than Campell and the hero’s journey because even though Star Wars does present a very good example of a story that follows the patterns, it nevertheless fails in one crucial point. That point is its way of portraying the Divine.

 

You see, myth is not just patterns. Myth is a way of not just telling stories but also of understanding the world. It's a worldview, as the Inklings well knew. And this mythic worldview has one fundamental aspect which can never be absent, and that is transcendence. Transcendence is something directly from the Divine, God. God Is the Source of all being. Nothing has meaning or transcendence without Him; nothing has existence without Him. The mythic worldview understands this reality, but unfortunately, it seems George Lucas did not.

 

George Lucas seems to have committed the mistake of thinking that all there was to myth was patterns. Patterns that would help him craft a story that resonated with people. And even though the issue of patterns and their resonance with people is true, it is not all there is to myth. Lucas failed to capture the Source of Myth, the ultimate Cause of why these stories are so captivating in the first place. Thus, transcendence in the world of Star Wars becomes a convoluted mess. There is no unified Source from which transcendence is derived, and so behind the trappings of the patterns which Star Wars exemplifies, all you have is metaphysical chaos.

 

This is unlike the work of other great myth makers of the 20th century such as Tolkien and Lewis. Contrary to Lucas, they did understand that you need to have a Source for objective transcendence in your sub-created secondary world. It can't all be patterns and theory; it must have metaphysical realism and consistency. That is why you see Aslan becoming a sort of Christ-like figure in the Narnia. After all, Christ is the Divine Itself, and so it follows that all transcendence (and by extension, the story of Narnia) will revolve around Him. The same is true of Tolkien, as is made apparent in the first chapter of his book The Silmarillion. There, Eru Illuvatar (who would come to symbolize God) creates the world of Arda (the name for Tolkien's sub-created world), and in this manner, it is made clear that this world has a transcendent order to it. Everything is ordered by the Divine in both series, and thus is the metaphysical unity, depth, and order, proper to all good myths, established. And it is this metaphysical structure that gives a richness and Beauty to the stories of Tolkien and Lewis.

The Descent into Chaos:

But by lacking the Divine in his work, Lucas' world of Star Wars ends up being shallow and chaotic in contrast. This is where Lucas fails. He uses the exterior patterns of myth, but he does not realize that those patterns follow a more complex metaphysical reality that must be included in the work as well. Perhaps this is why the Star Wars saga, in spite of its initial success, has become so messy in its latest installments. Unlike the first three movies, the last six films have not been universally well-received. They have sparked discomfort and even anger among many of those who loved the first movies. 

Something seems to have broken, therefore. The story of the Skywalkers, like the metaphysics of its world, became meaningless and convoluted. Ultimately, there ended up being no order, no Beauty, no transcendence by the end of the ninth movie. Was this merely an error in the screenplay or could there be a deeper reason for the ultimate failure of the Star Wars story? Could it be perhaps that this is due to Lucas' great mistake of thinking the patterns were enough to create a good myth? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. 

 

Nevertheless, given how significant the relationship between myth and Star Wars is, it seems to me that there is something to be said about how Lucas, despite having succeeded in employing the patterns of the hero's journey, ultimately failed to capture the essence of myth.