On fantasy worldbuilding and the end times

Made-up worlds say a lot about their author. When thinking about the setting for a fantasy (or sci-fi) story, be it a novel or game or movie, it's easy to get bogged down by the scope of what one is trying to do: namely, nail down a new universe's-worth of rules, from laws of physics to supernatural entities. 

Is there magic in this new world? A "Force"? Some cosmic battle between good and evil in the backdrop? It's tough to decide. Sometimes a setting leads the course of the story, even. The new Dragon Age games, for instance, have the player fighting demons - and this poses many philosophical and moral questions. (Like how do "Sloth Demons" or "Rage Demons" relate to laziness and anger management in general?) More importantly, it's meant that the stories the series is telling have tended towards the black-and-white. Things are either demon-tainted or not, to the point that the most recent sequel is subtitled "Inquisition". This seems to be a common slippery-slope in this sort of fiction - you may set out to tell a story about palace intrigue or coming-of-age, but if in the backdrop you have demons that can possess people, it's a pretty safe bet that you'll end up with an Inquisition or the like.

As a second example, in a Legend game I've been in recently, we came across a witch. Blood magic, that sort of thing. Needless to say, the group of good-guys ended up killing the witch - but we've been very hesitant to tell the local authorities that there looked like there might be more than one, for fear of starting a witch hunt.

Some stories run with this on purpose: in the Warhammer 40k universe, there is a galaxy-wide Inquisition going on and it is a massive dystopia of constant war against aliens and demons. This is why my personal feeling is that no good stories can be told in 40k: it makes for great table-top miniature gaming but the setting is fixed, unchangeable and hopeless. Perhaps the one realistic part is that there are no "good guys" per se - every faction, including the original Space Marines, have crazy fanaticism and have committed countless atrocities during the fighting.

For contrast, part of what makes Tolkien's original stories great was their side-stepping of these cosmic struggles. Sauron is evil, no doubt, but opposing him is done mainly via virtues and inner strength, and not mere conflict and victory through greater military might, say. Tolkien's villains choose evil, and power, and darkness; they are not inherently demons or even all past the point of redemption. Most importantly, Tolkien's stories start and end in normalcy, which I think is key, but we'll get back to that in a second.

Thus there are two ways to go on this issue when building a world. Black-and-white cosmic struggle, which can, in the end, really only end with a purge. Or, a world with a lot of gray (or a small enough scope), so that villains are still human, and life can go on peacefully on the whole. Some stories are easy to classify, others walk the line a little (though mostly these are merely delaying the inevitable demon-slaying). Some look like one, but are really the other: Star Wars is a gray universe, despite the Light and Dark Sides to the Force. Game of Thrones, conversely, looks gray, and certainly has enough factions, but in the end somebody's going to have to deal with those zombies White Walkers. There's no live-and-let-live there.

So which are you and I living in? You had to know I'd get to that question eventually. And it's a little cheesy to say "both", I know, but I think that's going to have to be my answer. I think there are two factors here which make both sorts of stories resonate with us:

• We are surrounded only by fellow humans to interact with (other than the general environment and forces of nature). This makes it seem like a very gray and small setting - none of us will ever slay a demon, and the "inquisitions" we have had in the past have been atrocities rather than victories for Good.
• We also know about Good and Evil, though, and the Christian mythos at least has supernatural entities, and a hope that eventually evil will be banished from our world and only peace and good and love remain forever. This does seem to necessitate an apocalypse of sorts.

The key is in what we humans can actually do to influence and participate in these areas. In a video game or most fantasy settings, swords (and guns, sometimes) can kill demons and dragons and all kinds of evil or mindlessly destructive things. This means that people can participate in the aforementioned apocalypse. But here in the real world, we've only been given power to affect other people. Sure, Christianity has the concept of "spiritual warfare", by which is meant merely prayer and being virtuous - but resisting those sorts of demons is not done with violence. Quite the opposite.

So we're caught in the middle. It'd be easier in some ways if we could interact with the world as in some of these games, where Evil is always incarnate and defeated with a level-appropriate weapon. But no, we're stuck with living honest lives with integrity, loving our neighbors, and even loving our enemies. The apocalypse may yet come, and 2/3 of heaven will vanquish the other third - but a suit of armor or a gun will do you no good at that point. Those stories are fun to read about or play through in a game, but too much real-life violence is motivated by people living in a fantasy world where somehow injuring each other achieves a higher good. This isn't video-games making people violent - this is an age-old tale of people wanting to be the hero in their own story, and dehumanizing others to make it possible.