Religion in Fantasy

[lea_hazel]

Supposing you picked up a book (secondary world fantasy, FWIW) and from beginning to end, it didn't have a single mention of religion in it. What would you think? I mean, none of the characters, major or minor, are religious, no places of worship, no names of gods, no forces beyond mortal ken, no epithets or swears or the like. How hard would you roll your eyes?


When I look at all the things I want to add to my story's worldbuilding, religion isn't one of them. Right now the world is very frail and basic, I have to add a lot regarding language, currency, economy, border politics and documentation, even technology. I also want to expand a few things I did address, like food and clothing, arts, and class differences.

Ostensibly religion is too big and too important a part of people's lives, even (sometimes especially) if they are not adherents themselves. Certainly I doubt I'd ever write a contemporary or historical story without addressing religion at least a little. However, building a whole set of religions suitable to four POV characters of four different species frankly sounds like more trouble than it's worth.

I don't really like religion, and don't find it fascinating enough. Then again, I don't find economics very interesting either, but I look at my story and see that it's necessary to address things like trade and craft, currency exchange and the value of certain goods, in order to accomplish the story I'm setting out to tell.


Can I accomplish my story in a world with no religion, or is that just too implausible?

Comments

[magycmyste]

I doubt I'd really notice, except maybe as an afterthought. But if it isn't important to either your plot or characters, then it probably doesn't matter. Religion, in terms of believing in a higher power, I think is only important to the extent that it affects your characters and plot (I mean, if you've got a rabid priest making trouble for your characters, then yeah, you may want to expand on that a bit.

In terms of religion as Something the characters strongly believe in (like a rock musician saying that rock n' roll in his religion), then, yes, I think it's extremely important as their driving force. But that's metaphorical, and not what you're talking about here, right?

It sounds to me like you've got plenty of other forces in your society (species and nation as stratifying points) that can replace higher-power religion quite easily, and provide the driving forces in your world.

I think ailelie covered everything else I would say, so I'll leave it at that. ^_^