Ya Fantasy / religion question

[History_Chick]

I'm working on a YA fantasy novel. The world in this novel has a pagan/pro Goddess religion, which is mentioned throughout the book.

One of the main characters wants to destroy the religion at any cost. It reminds me of how Henry VIII looted the churches and how the Catholic Church back in the day got rid of the Pagans.

Heres my problem though. Will teens think its too heavy on the religion? Would this plot turn them off to this novel? While religion isnt the main plot of the book it is important.

Should I downplay the religion or scrap that idea totally?

Thanks for your input.

[Kathleen42]

I don't think it's something that can be given a simple yes or no answer. It depends largely on your writing and your story.

Both The Chronicles of Narnia and His Dark Materials have heavy religious undertones. Both were written by masterful storytellers and were widely successful.

On the flip side, I'm sure there are many manuscripts with religious undertones which have never seen the light of day.

[Sage]

There will be teens who will eat it up for the religious aspect, teens who won't care, and probably some teens who dislike it.

I was never very religious, but as long as the book wasn't preachy, religious themes were never a problem for me. In fact, Christopher Pike's stuff, which brought in Krishna several times, and sometimes God (not a YA book, but I remember reading Sati by him b/c of his YA stuff, and that was about a Jesus figure), a Greek goddess, etc. I ate his novels up.

[Epiphany]

The teens definitely won't care, but the parents might. (Example: His Dark Materials and Harry Potter) HOWEVER, it seems as though the more controversial the book is religiously, the more media attention it gets. Then people want to know what all the fuss is about so they buy the book.
So perhaps the religion in your novel will work for you rather than against you!

[gonovelgo]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. When you're dealing with something like religion, you're probably always going to annoy somebody regardless of what you do. Obviously don't be intentionally inflammatory, but I wouldn't dilute the story just to avoid irritating a minority of your readers.

[History_Chick]

Thanks everyone :)

I appreciate your input.

[Sage]

Yeah, there's always going to be someone who's upset by it, but don't let that stop you.

I wrote a non-YA urban fantasy about angels of death, and in it there were 10 gods. Nobody on Earth knew about them or believed in them, and the MC knew for a fact that they existed but had no actual faith in them. The ten gods were vital to the plot, but not in a religious way, just as beings.

One of my first betas asked me if I really needed ten gods. Why couldn't there just be one (um, 'cuz multiple gods were important to the story?)? Why couldn't the most powerful one be considered "God" and the rest something similar, but not actually gods?

So I started up a thread here in the SF/F section asking if Christians had problems with multiple gods in urban fantasy. And a few posters did tell me that they did because setting it in the real world instead of a separate fantasy world (as you do in high fantasy) meant the world had to follow rules that they accepted as true, which meant a single God. And even when I pointed out that they were fine with rewriting the rules of the world for fairies and wizards and vampires and werewolves, so why not for gods, it just didn't make sense for them.

And so they either don't pick up your book, or they view it as an alternate world.

And, yes, there were also plenty of people who thought that the multiple gods in urban fantasy was just fine, and he was the only beta to mention it.

[Stunted]

I think it'll be fine.

[Maprilynne]

As long as you are not pushing a religion, you really should be fine.