Divine Intervention in Fantasy Fiction
Worldbuilding and the Supernatural
Let’s talk about divine intervention. Divine intervention in worldbuilding and storytelling that is!
As with any worldbuilding topic, “what ifs” and “if-then” statements will guide the more nuanced evaluation, but I’ll be concise in this post.
I think adding divine or supernatural elements can add orders of magnitude of complexity to a setting or strain the bounds of its internal logic. An actively intervening pantheon of gods - whether bestowing powers or throwing lightning bolts - changes a world’s equilibrium.
Conversely, if a god shows up in the opening scenes of a story to bestow a power and then is idle until the final scene, is that a god or a celestial vending machine?
What is a god exactly? How can it manifest itself (or not) in the story? I think it is possible to incorporate the divine and supernatural in stories without breaking verisimilitude, but I think the best example of the point I’m making is the Q character in Star Trek: The Next Generation. All powerful, all knowing or near as much, but he doesn’t really flex his muscles. He’s a Formula 1 race car that stays under 15 mph in the parking garage. I think Q is there to be an intellectual foil to Picard. Picard is not just the captain of the Federation’s prized vessel, he’s elevated as humanity’s envoy, the ideal, the one selected to withstand the inquisitions of a god-like being.
Q’s supernatural powers provide the rationale for him to bop in and bop out and to force Picard to engage in debate. Can you imagine some Romulan captain frantically chasing Picard across space to spar about the merits of the human condition? That doesn’t have the dread and grandeur of Q’s unexpected entrances.
For all of Q’s power or that of the Continuum, what do they do that has any lasting consequence? Rearranging the quadrants? No. Creating new planets or solar systems? No. Acting in some way commensurate with their purported capabilities? Not really. In reality, is Q more cosmic jerk than all-powerful being?
Every storyteller will use conveyances to impart lessons or to differentiate characters, sometimes more smoothly spun into the world’s fabric than others.
What do you think? What depictions of divine or all-powerful beings do you prefer? What worldbuilding methods have you seen work best?
This is a great topic that I would like to explore with you; and one maybe I should write about more within my own stack. I'm still trying to figure out how to fill my vault with thoughts that matter without giving away creation. You're definitely inspiring me.
But, to start an argument and be sincerely contrarian, I think Q is a terrible example. His very existence requires him to continually show up to correct his own previous appearances. While very likely Q was just a way for writers to "do whatever because we have nothing," future writers had to reconcile his decisions and his very existence. I'm sure plenty of fans would disagree with me, but I found Q a stain on the Star Trek universe. I just can't discuss him in this context because . . . Q is simply a lazy way around a McGuffin (god-like being poses divine questions and demands answers or else).
That out of the way, I think we should explore the most important question of your post: What is a god exactly? What is divinity? Is divinity attached to all gods? Who defines a god? Are gods static or dynamic; as in, do they exist despite culture or are they a product of culture? How do they draw power? Does the first law of thermodynamics apply?
A god that only exists for the sake of story is no more than deus ex machina. A divine product of culture becomes religion embedded deeply into the psyche of the folk.
I happen to like the Greek pantheon. From the limited books I’ve read, they are just as petty as mortals, so they have reasons for their interference in the lives of mortals. To me, as long as there is logic behind what anyone in a story does, whether that person is a person, god, dragon, kraken, etc., then the story is more engaging.