#fantasy representation

[2] my original idea was that their mother, when her eldest son expressed interest in divination as a field of study, sat him down and had a long conversation with him, and at the end concluded that as long as he honored god and used magic only to help people, she would accept it as his adult decision, and i'm wondering how this comes across to more observantly jewish people.

Hi Anon, sorry it took me so long to get back to this. Hopefully it’s still relevant. For other readers, this is a follow-up to this ask, which in turn is a follow-up to this one from a different writer also thinking through questions of Jewish representation in fantasy fiction. As always, standard 2J3O disclaimers apply.

That said, from my perspective what you’re describing is a pretty believable conversation for a family to have. While it’s extremely familiar for those conversations to be present in a modern Reform or even Conservative affiliated family, it’s also the sort of thing we see a lot in Jewish American history. Magic might not have been on the table, but questions where halacha (Jewish law, the code of Jewish practices) conflicts with parnassah (the ability to support yourself and your dependants) always have. There have always been shopkeepers who can’t afford to close on Saturdays, merchants or peddlers who can’t avoid eating meat, doctors who can’t turn their pagers off on Yom Kippur, and astronauts who have to make a call on what observance might even begin to look like in a place where the measurement of time, our fundamental guide, is fully arbitrary. 

I remember when Joe Lieberman, who described himself as observant rather than Orthodox, became the first ever Jewish vice presidential candidate in a major political party, when I was in high school. He was asked very pointedly whether he was willing to break shabbat in the event of an emergency or pressing official business, and had to assure the public that he would. The question of course is a product of the antisemitic assumption that Jews’ loyalty to their country is inevitably partial or divided, and only people with the kind of assumptions that prompted the question would be surprised by the answer: to Jews and those who know us well, it’s so obvious that we could easily have left it unsaid.

A question to ask yourself about this example is why either character believes divination specifically is forbidden. We aren’t given explanations in Torah for most mitzvot, especially the ones that warn us against the practices of other groups. The mother and son might have completely different assumptions about what the prohibition means, based on their different educations or life experiences. If the mother assumes the main goal is to prevent assimilation or idolatry, asking him to assure her that he will not adopt non-Jewish/non-monotheistic beliefs makes sense. If he assumes it’s for another reason--or refers to a different definition of divination--then he might have a reason for wanting to pursue that course of study that doesn’t perhaps satisfy his mother but does allow him to assure her that he’s not planning to abandon his Jewish identity. 

In our world, avoiding assimilation and avoiding avoda zara (engaging in non-Jewish worship) are the most common reasonings offered for the prohibition on fortune-telling (among those who feel it needs to be explained: for some people, to seek reasons for the mitzvot is to miss the point: we do the mitzvot because they are mitzvot, period). Personally, I avoid tarot and astrology primarily because I don’t find them interesting but also because I consider them avoda zara. To others*, it’s not a form of worship at all, but a fun psychological game or a way to think through their hopes. 

*I’m excluding in this analysis the people who engage with these practices because they misunderstand them as being a science, because they’re consciously engaging in non-Jewish spiritual practices, or to intentionally deceive others, and only considering people who consider themselves to be within the bounds of Jewish practice, regarding tarot as the spiritual practice of a different group. 

If I were sitting down with someone whose religious life I was part of shaping, and they told me they were interested in astrology, my questions about it would center on what they feel astrology does for them, what they believe that it is, and what they believe that mitzvot do for them, and what they believe that a mitzvah is. These are the kind of questions that a Christian teacher might feel they have “right” answers for,” but for Jews these are intensely personal questions that a Jew over the age of 13 must struggle with for themselves, and are almost guaranteed to disagree on. 

This is all a very long way of saying that I think the conversation you’re imagining between mother and son is incredibly realistic and valid. I get a little itchy when a Jewish character is more focused on the concept of “relationship with God” than “culturally appropriate actions” but some Jews really do think that way, and that could be another difference for them to talk about or for him to think about afterward: if she’s a very spiritual person whose way of thinking about her Jewishness involves an emotionally personified God figure, and he’s a practical sort whose spirituality comes from keeping his actions and motivations in line with Torah values, it’s no surprise that she would use language like “honor God” that he can easily agree to yet not find troubling or compelling himself.

okay, as this is my first post, i don’t want to come on too strong here but

REPRESENTATION IN FANTASY NOVELS BY FANTASY AUTHORS SUCKS AND NEEDS TO IMPROVE !

I get it. Fantasy is a tricky genre to write in, and if you've created your own universe, it wont have many of the things we have in this universe. It will have its own versions of everything, its own transport, cultures etc. But the thing is, I keep seeing fantasy authors and/or their readers justifying pitiful representation by claiming their world doesn't have real life races, sexual orientations, countries etc. But just remember: LGBT+ people exist no matter what they're called, and what labels they have. Just because your world doesn't have a name for bisexuality, or transgenderism etc, it does not have to be erased completely. And just because races aren’t the same as ours, doesn't mean you have to whitewash your cast and culture like so many fantasy authors do. If you can include straight white cis boys into your fiction then why cant you include LGBT+ trans women of colour? Why cant there be characters that look like your readers, characters with braids, monolids, dark skin, afros? Why cant we have a badass, realistic woman as our chosen one, instead of the lonely, perfect elf with about as much depth as a thimble, who has to sit down and be a helpless love interest for our boring male protagonist? Let Prince Arius Shadowhynter of Dragonville check out another guy. Let him be dark skinned, let him have braids. Of course you don’t have to state he’s asexual. But you can tell your readers he’s the legendary warrior who lusts for no one, who no one can ever seduce. I’m sick and tired of Tolkien rip offs creating  the same basic all white cast to save the day.  And before you claim that this is defiling the essence of fantasy: JRR Tolkiens books are classics, yes, and well written, but they were also incredibly misogynist, and featured almost no POC, let alone any LGBT+ folks. Most early, ‘classic’ fantasy novels are the same. Fantasy was created in a time of racism, sexism, homophobia etc, but we don’t have to perpetuate this.

genderfluid human shapeshifters

Like they can only shift into other human features(so no animals or inanimate objects) and finally everyone's like

GOOD GOD JUST KEEP A STREAK OF PURPLE IN YOUR HAIR OR SOMETHING SO WE KNOW IT'S YOU