Angels and Demons: Not in a religious sense

Damian said:

Well I am glad that someone studies the Angelic Anatomy. I am not sure how that works with Angels and humans being so far from the same gene stock. I find it funny that Urban Fantasy hasn't taken the older histories into account. It's strange how something that is commonly shown to have no sexual anatomy to speak of has any kind of fascination with women or men from any species.

Click to expand...

Urban Fantasy is pretty closely related to Paranormal Romance, so frankly, everything that can be fetishized gets sexed on in somebody's book. Angels, werewolves, vampires, gargoyles... It's kind of a Rule 34 situation.

Buffy had demons without religious backup. There were no angels though.

jjdebenedictis said:

I read mostly fantasy, and I feel I've been trained by that to not see angels and demons as being necessarily tied to a real-world religion. There usually is a connection, but the author is also usually playing reeeeeeeally loose with that connection.

For example, there're rather a lot of urban fantasy books where the angels and demons are definitely tied to Judeo-Christianity, yet they're also interested in having sexy-times with humans. And I'm pretty sure the Judeo-Christian tradition states that angels (and by extension, fallen angels) don't have genitalia, so an interest in sexy-times is a bit of a stretch.

Now on to the real issue:
You know what? Fuck those people. You don't need anyone's stamp of approval to write a book exactly how you want to write it. If they don't like your ideas, fine; they're not your audience, and you do not need to give a rat's ass what they think. They were never going to be one of the people buying your book. They've got a right to their opinion and a right to speak it--but you don't need to care.

The problem is you're caring. A few random strangers you've met online have proven insecure enough to throw a fit when you fail to parrot the ideology already in their head. Why are you even bothering to value the opinion of them enough to let your mood be dragged down? They're actively proving their opinions aren't worth respecting enough to pay any attention to.

Click to expand...

This. I think you can use the connotations of angels and demons provided you tell the story properly and reveal what you want, when you want. I've read many many many SF stories that include angels or demons that turn out to be something completely different. You can always introduce/describe them as 'like angels' or they appeared to be angels to Bobby or whatever and do what you want. Fiction is fiction, it is your story, your vision.

I'm in the process of writing a story right now titled "Angel on the Rocks" and it certainly has no connections to religion other than the name and a bit of the mythical description of what some have described angels to look like.

I think any creature or being is ok to be used, as long as one is aware of how readers will react to them, and to be aware of their background and backstory.

Here's my advice:

Write a great story.

Have good worldbuilding. (Just slapping in generic demons and angels and call it a day without some kind of worldbuilding feels lazy to me.)

Just be aware of a creature's characteristics and backstory. If you're going to change something about a being, provide some worldbuilding so it doesn't look contrived or lazy. For example, calling a creature with elephant legs a mermaid may be a bit disorienting for some readers.

Avoid the "smeep" bunny thing. For example: If something walks like a zombie, moans like a zombie, is undead like a zombie, then call just it a freakin' zombie, please. Unless your world has never seen a zombie movie or something, lol.

Be aware that you may turn off or offend some readers, and you can't please everyone.

If you're going to use someone's religion or religious stories or beings from a culture/religion (ex: using beings from Native American stories), do your research and be respectful.

Aaand that's it, I guess?

ETA: I probably wouldn't be one of those readers who can read Angels and Demons without thinking about some kind of religious connotation. I love the Supernatural tv show because they pretty much touch a bit of the religious connotation. Angels have some meaning to me, so I guess I can't just think of them as "generic" beings in some urban fantasies...

Damian said:

As I said earlier Research is always a part of what I do because if I don't know how a thing works how is it that I can write about it with any sense of good from it. I usually try to be respectful with any creature or myth that I borrow from. Some people have differing opinions about that kind of thing though. Zombies are Zombies through and through but at the same time just because it's undead and doesn't sound like a normal human being doesn't mean that is a zombie you also have wraiths, revenants, wights, ghouls, and ghosts just as other alternatives. Think outside the box.

Click to expand...

And they are all fiction. All made up. It's up to the writer to present them in such a way as the reader is willing to suspend their disbelief.

Damian said:

As I said earlier Research is always a part of what I do because if I don't know how a thing works how is it that I can write about it with any sense of good from it. I usually try to be respectful with any creature or myth that I borrow from. Some people have differing opinions about that kind of thing though. Zombies are Zombies through and through but at the same time just because it's undead and doesn't sound like a normal human being doesn't mean that is a zombie you also have wraiths, revenants, wights, ghouls, and ghosts just as other alternatives. Think outside the box.

Click to expand...

...I think we're misunderstanding each other? I don't understand your point here?

I was referring to the Call a Bunny Smeerp trope:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CallARabbitASmeerp

(I misspelled Smeerp as Smeep, lol.)

And the Z Word trope:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotUsingTheZWord

Yes, people have different ideas for different types of things. Yeah, that's normal. So, of course, you may offend some people or lose some readers, no matter what you do.

Of course, you can be creative.

Just be aware that not everyone may suspend their beliefs on same things as other people. One person may believe time travel is possible, while another may not. One person can believe in "love at first sight" in a story, while another person may not, and so on...

Just be careful about misusing or appropriating a person's religion or culture just to "think outside the box", whatever that means...

Write your story, then.

I'm obviously may not be one of your target readers for this kind of thing, lol. Which is totally fine. There will be other readers your story can reach.

ETA: And before anyone thinks I'm being a crazy dogmatic ultra-religious freak, I have enjoyed playing Shin Megami Tensei games. In those games, the Angels are a type of "monster" you can recruit (like Pokemon), and the Angels are strict, aggressive, douchewads. And Yaweh (aka God) seems kind of a righteous jerk, heh. A jerk your character can fight as a Boss, too! Dude, you can literally punch Yaweh/God in the face, lol!

See, even if there's a negative spin on it, I like that the religious aspect is acknowledged in some way.

jjdebenedictis said:

Now on to the real issue:
You know what? Fuck those people. You don't need anyone's stamp of approval to write a book exactly how you want to write it. If they don't like your ideas, fine; they're not your audience, and you do not need to give a rat's ass what they think. They were never going to be one of the people buying your book. They've got a right to their opinion and a right to speak it--but you don't need to care.

Click to expand...

Exactly. And I'm the first to say I'm probably not the target audience for any book that has angels and demons in it.

Write something that's fun and internally consistent, and give your people a reason to refer to these beings as angels and demons, and it will probably work.

Damian said:

Well I never said that I was going to misuse someones beliefs... SO far as that goes all that requires is research on what those are. Thanks again for the reminder that the fun of writing is to be creative and not care about others people being nitpicky tightwads. It helps to remind me why I started writing in the first place.

Click to expand...

Awesome, then. It's fantasy. Let your imagination run. Good luck. Have fun writing.

jjdebenedictis said:

Okay, now that's all quite thoroughly awesome. Although still not in good agreement with the urban fantasy I've read, aside from the "overly fond of human women" bit.

Click to expand...

It seems pretty odd that the pseudoepigraphic and vaguely canonical traditions about angelic demons (and or demonic angels) have been totally
excluded from most modern views of angels and demons. The Books of Enoch are canonical in some Christian traditions, but somehow their treatment of angelic demons just doesn't get anywhere in the modern/current view -- despite their assumed relevence in the Letters of James and Paul and even
the accounts of Josephus (where the angels leave the temple before the fall to the Romans).
It think what is happening is that moderns assume angels are "spiritual beings" which in the modern view is somehow infantile rather than powerful. In the ancient views of ye Olde Palestine and Judea (and all the way to semitic-speaking/Amharic parts of Ethiopoia) and the Levant, angels (like demons) inhabit the atmosphere and are very powerful. They are so characteristically of the upper air that even when Yahweh and his Elohim punish the leader of the rebel Angels (Shemihazh), he is suspended inverted among the stars of heaven. Moreover, not only are they fond of earthly girls, but they teach them 20 kinds of magic (from lipstick to weather forecasting).

Damian said:

Well I am glad that someone studies the Angelic Anatomy. I am not sure how that works with Angels and humans being so far from the same gene stock. I find it funny that Urban Fantasy hasn't taken the older histories into account. It's strange how something that is commonly shown to have no sexual anatomy to speak of has any kind of fascination with women or men from any species.

Click to expand...

It is odd that Urban Fantasy just doesn't do the sexy angels thing. It was extremely popular in the 8th century AD. Supposedly the Book of the Giants (ie the book of the adventures of the ofspring of angels and humans) was the most widely-translated book of that century: Sogdian, Persian Syratic-- you name it. Nobody has found a complete copy that I know of, but pieces have turned up all up and down the Silk Road.

see for example:

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/giants-the-book-of

In the Golden Compass series there are angels and daemons, but not in the angels are good guys and daemons are bag guys sense. The conflict includes religion, but not in the usual way religion is used in fantasy. I particularly liked the two angels who were on the right side, and had a homosexual relationship with each other. The series is an indication of how the traditional motifs can be subverted and used for antithetical purposes. And of course it is a darn good story.

So I think angels and daemons - or demons - can be taken outside the religious straightjacket and used in very creative ways. After all we create our own worlds in fantasies - or Science fiction. So what's to stop us from mixing and twisting as we desire?

Maxx said:

There is the larger issue of cultural appropriation. So if one writes of a world with any Judeo-Christian motifs such as Heaven or Hell or Purgatory or
shepherds watching flocks by night or Judegment Day or Cathedrals or Graveyards or Vineyards or reliques or relics or Saints or Miracles, then you are morally oblicated to at least give some consideration to having Angels and Demons. However, as always == do some research. Read the book of Tobit for example or Enoch.

Click to expand...

Seriously, *this*. I'm oversimplifying things, but Enochian angels are horny bastards. They actually chose to fall from Heaven so they could get it on with all the humans down on Earth, despite the fact that angel/human offspring is horrifying and incredibly dangerous Nephilm, and the biblical Flood was necessary to wipe their Nephilm kids from the earth before they could destroy it. Angels gave up Heaven for sex. They damned themselves for it. Angels don't mess around with sexytimes.

The Book of Enoch and it's related works aren't technically biblical canon, so Barbie Doll angels can be accepted if you want your story to have it. But I find the apocrypha really fascinating. The Book of Enoch is a dream for any writer, it's like somebody looked at the Bible and went 'this is cool but I want more worldbuilding for the angels'.

I work with angels in an modern fantasy context a lot, and it's a lot of fun. One of my WIPs is a LGBT romance which deals a lot with the problems of an afterlife where same-sex love is still taboo, and the fact that suicide -- a huge cause of death in the UK, and that number goes up if you're writing fiction set during any kind of disaster like an angelic apocalypse -- is supposed to damn you, but in the middle of an angel/demon war the rules have to change to keep Heaven's ranks filled. Just like in real wartime, recruitment efforts can get desperate.

Biblical mythology is an absolutely massive field, with a huge amount of biblical books outside the canon, and a lot of works like Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno which significantly influence the mythology. It's a field of research I deeply, deeply enjoy despite not being part of any of the Judeo-Christian religions.

I'll just add a quote:

"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing."
- Norman Maclean A River Runs through It

EMaree said:

Biblical mythology is an absolutely massive field, with a huge amount of biblical books outside the canon, and a lot of works like Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno which significantly influence the mythology. It's a field of research I deeply, deeply enjoy despite not being part of any of the Judeo-Christian religions.

Click to expand...

I'm glad somebody is keeping up the horny angels traditions.

Very cool, Emaree!

I remembered reading an excerpt Paradise Lost back in high school. I remembered thinking it was very interesting, and I enjoyed reading it. I didn't know there were more material like that.

(ETA: But, you see? Even those texts still have religious connotations or references. For example, Heaven is mentioned, etc. I personally feel you can't escape such connotations when using Angels and Demons. The connotations also give depth and worldbuilding to the Angels and Demons stuff. As Emaree and other posters have mentioned, there is material out there to build upon and play around with.)

Maxx said:

It is odd that Urban Fantasy just doesn't do the sexy angels thing. It was extremely popular in the 8th century AD. Supposedly the Book of the Giants (ie the book of the adventures of the ofspring of angels and humans) was the most widely-translated book of that century: Sogdian, Persian Syratic-- you name it. Nobody has found a complete copy that I know of, but pieces have turned up all up and down the Silk Road.

Click to expand...

The Book of Giants was a major holy book for Manicheans I believe. I guess it's popularity died out when they did.