Paul S Cilwa
Registered
The original point was that there can be implied characters who become part of the story, but don't get "lines"--and yet as a part of the story, are expected (by the reader) to contribute to it.Any time you actually cast God as a character, you have to give him lines.
I don't think Gordon was referring to throwaway lines. A character grunting "Jesus!" when hit by a canonball hasn't brought Jesus as a character into the story any more than another one saying, "As my great-Aunt Esmerelda always used to say..." requires Great-Aunt Esmerelda to contribute to the plot.
On the other hand, if the story begins with the heroine going over Esmerelda's things, and telling other characters about her and how wise and wonderful she was, we will expect Esmerelda, somehow, to contribute to the resolution of the story.
Note that no one expects Esmerelda to show up in person. After all, it was Esmerelda's memory that was brought into the story; it's her memory that must resolve the plot.
Similarly, praying or speaking to God/Jesus/Buddha/Mohammed doesn't really bring any of them into the story (unless they answer back). It does bring the character's devotion into the story; thus that devotion must contribute to the plot: Either as a device to get the story going (unanswered prayer) or a solution (an answer to the prayer in bad fiction, a deeper understanding by the pray-er that he or she had the answer all along, in better fiction)...or both.
The issue of actually having God as a speaking character, with His attribute of omnipotence, does cause challenges to the writer, just as writing for Superman (who is nearly omnipotent) does. In the latter case, writers solved the problem when they realized that Superman's powers are also his weaknesses. If you can't help but overhear your friends whenever they speak, how can you respect their privacy? Or, as in the TV show Smallville, what if your knowledge of the future prevents you from allowing your one, true love to marry you?
Similarly, God's omnipotence can be thought of, in story terms, as a weakness. For example, it means that He can not tell a lie. Any word He speaks becomes reality. His omniscience is also a problem, as theologians of the middle ages well knew: If God knows everything, He knew Adam and Eve would fall; and therefore, he might as well have sent everyone to Hell to start with because He knew that was where they would end up. How can an omniscient God create a meaningful "free will"? 'Cause it ain't really "free" if He knows the outcome. Then there's omnipresence and omnitemperance (I made up the last one as a substitute for "eternal". There might be a better term.) Both terms imply that God is "limited" to this Universe, since it contains all space and time. (Other Universes, by definition, must have their own, discreet, bodies of space and time.) If that's true, perhaps God has pals...certainly a jumping-off point for a story!
But as far as devout characters praying is concerned, I disagree that it brings "God" as a character into the story. It makes their devotion a part of the story, which is surely what the author had in mind.
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