Matthia
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Regarding World of Five Gods: What is your relationship with theology? When building the theology of this universe, how much of it feels intentional, how much feels inspired? As a theology nerd, I'm ready to read a Karen Armstrong-level text analysis on the history and practical applications of the Five Gods.
Lois McMaster Bujold
My young-Midwesterner-dragged-to-church background has been supplemented by a lifetime of assorted reading, and now online Great Courses. After a whole bunch of church history from Roman and medieval European times, a surface acquaintance with Buddhism and Shinto, tiny bit on Hinduism, Chinese mythology which is in a class by itself. Ancient Egyptian gets a lot of coverage if one watches archeology programs. Pre-Christian Saxon/Germanic religions are, or were, hard to find much on back when I was researching _The Hallowed Hunt_; access may have improved since then. Other bits and bobs along the way.
I've done some reading of the writings of genuine mystics, most memorably (my memory is a sieve these days) St. Augustine and Thomas Merton, and a few deep meditative practices outside of the Christian sphere. What struck me most was their commonality, as if all were zeroing in on the same underlying thing, even if it was just the 60-cycle hum of their own biology.
When first setting up the 5 gods, it was not planned in advance, but rather, something I felt my way into as I wrote _The Curse of Chalion_. A few things I figured out very early on. I wanted a structure that resisted dualism, the easy good/evil divide that has caused so much trouble through history. Hence 5, a prime that can't be evenly divided, though of course humans being perverse like we are we immediately got dualism again with the Quadrene heresy.
Lots of fives in biology -- fingers, senses, some flowers, and on. It's very natural.
Another major initial reversal was that the 5 are not creator gods, but arise out of the workings of matter like everything else, a sort of World Overmind. They are inside time, and they _evolve_. They are thus neither omniscient nor omnipotent -- but the term omnisentient seems very apt.
Emergent properties were also much on my mind, talking of things that resist dualism. The mind-body or body/spirit problem, and all its logical snarls, drops away when body and mind are all part of the same thing. Take the fundamental structure of the universe, from which emerges physics, from which emerges chemistry, from which emerges biology, then brains, then consciousness -- take it up one fantasy step farther, and you can get plausible gods emerging. Endow them as well with perfect memories as well as perfect perceptions of Their pasts, and all pasts, and something pretty impressive... emerges.
Also, for life after death, the 5 are the only game in town.
A whole lot of the structural underpinnings of all this are drawn from biology, if you want another clue card. Because we are all biological organisms -- another only-game-in-town.
Many thoughts too on entropy, and how life temporarily resists it by, as someone put it, "climbing up the mast of a sinking ship". This comes out most in the magic.
Also, don't forget Narrative Constraints.
I talk about all this stuff scattered through many many interviews -- no way to auto-collate, I'm afraid, but there's this: https://vorkosigan.fandom.com/wiki/Au...
But I will certainly never be writing a textbook on all this invention -- I'd much rather spend my limited creative energy writing more fiction. (And I suspect you'd rather it, too.)
Ta, L.
My young-Midwesterner-dragged-to-church background has been supplemented by a lifetime of assorted reading, and now online Great Courses. After a whole bunch of church history from Roman and medieval European times, a surface acquaintance with Buddhism and Shinto, tiny bit on Hinduism, Chinese mythology which is in a class by itself. Ancient Egyptian gets a lot of coverage if one watches archeology programs. Pre-Christian Saxon/Germanic religions are, or were, hard to find much on back when I was researching _The Hallowed Hunt_; access may have improved since then. Other bits and bobs along the way.
I've done some reading of the writings of genuine mystics, most memorably (my memory is a sieve these days) St. Augustine and Thomas Merton, and a few deep meditative practices outside of the Christian sphere. What struck me most was their commonality, as if all were zeroing in on the same underlying thing, even if it was just the 60-cycle hum of their own biology.
When first setting up the 5 gods, it was not planned in advance, but rather, something I felt my way into as I wrote _The Curse of Chalion_. A few things I figured out very early on. I wanted a structure that resisted dualism, the easy good/evil divide that has caused so much trouble through history. Hence 5, a prime that can't be evenly divided, though of course humans being perverse like we are we immediately got dualism again with the Quadrene heresy.
Lots of fives in biology -- fingers, senses, some flowers, and on. It's very natural.
Another major initial reversal was that the 5 are not creator gods, but arise out of the workings of matter like everything else, a sort of World Overmind. They are inside time, and they _evolve_. They are thus neither omniscient nor omnipotent -- but the term omnisentient seems very apt.
Emergent properties were also much on my mind, talking of things that resist dualism. The mind-body or body/spirit problem, and all its logical snarls, drops away when body and mind are all part of the same thing. Take the fundamental structure of the universe, from which emerges physics, from which emerges chemistry, from which emerges biology, then brains, then consciousness -- take it up one fantasy step farther, and you can get plausible gods emerging. Endow them as well with perfect memories as well as perfect perceptions of Their pasts, and all pasts, and something pretty impressive... emerges.
Also, for life after death, the 5 are the only game in town.
A whole lot of the structural underpinnings of all this are drawn from biology, if you want another clue card. Because we are all biological organisms -- another only-game-in-town.
Many thoughts too on entropy, and how life temporarily resists it by, as someone put it, "climbing up the mast of a sinking ship". This comes out most in the magic.
Also, don't forget Narrative Constraints.
I talk about all this stuff scattered through many many interviews -- no way to auto-collate, I'm afraid, but there's this: https://vorkosigan.fandom.com/wiki/Au...
But I will certainly never be writing a textbook on all this invention -- I'd much rather spend my limited creative energy writing more fiction. (And I suspect you'd rather it, too.)
Ta, L.
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Aug 20, 2025 05:57AM · flag