South Korean filmmakers have featured zombies on multiple occasions, as the linked page shows. Yet their newest edition of a zombie story on Netflix, The Kingdom, has some aspects you won’t see in a zombie feature produced in the United States. First, it’s got an aspect of political intrigue that leaks over into moral commentary that I’ll talk about in a bit. Second, it’s a period piece, set roughly in the year 1600 in Korea. And third, its take on zombies is different from anything I’ve seen before.

I’ve only seen the first four episodes of the first season as of the moment of writing this post, so I can’t possibly give away how season one ends, nor can I say anything at all about season two, which Netflix recently released. However, if you don’t want to know anything at all about this series before watching it, skip this post, because I will talk about some general aspects and background of the story.

Different Zombies

The origin of the idea of a zombie comes to the world from Haiti, where legend was that supernatural power could reanimate a body and give it generalized invulnerability to harm–other than an attack to its head. Zombies in their first iterations and infamously as featured on The Walking Dead, are slow, lumbering, and stupid beasts, whose main means of killing someone stems from their ability to silently lurk almost anywhere and from the fact that once they start coming after you, they never need to stop to rest, nor do they even seem to need to eat, even though they’re continually biting any human being they can.

A major part of the fear behind this “classic” version of a zombie is the fear of becoming one. I’d say that fear links to the fear of death itself, because just as dead bodies rot in the grave, zombies a-la The Walking Dead rot as they shuffle around, decay as they move forward, having the appearance of people you once knew and loved, but have lost all the inner qualities that once defined them. Which is very much along the lines of how people who do not believe in life after death feel about dead bodies–they are nothing more than rotting meat, reminding us that death is eventually coming for us all.

South Korean zombies tap into a different fear. The fear of being attacked by a viscous predator. South Korean zombies are a lot more dangerous than those of The Walking Dead or other “classic” portrayals of zombies.

Korean films like Train to Busan and the series The Kingdom aren’t entirely unique in this regard. World War Z seems to have answered the question, “How could zombies really take over the world if they’re so slow and stupid?” by making them sprint at incredible speeds and having a single bite from a zombie rapidly convert a regular person into a zombie as well. Zombies even scale walls in WWZ and as a result collectively act with at least rudimentary problem-solving skills.

Zombies in The Kingdom also sprint. Though no faster than a regular person can run, unlike WWZ. And the conversion process changes in the episodes I’ve seen. At first, it required some time, a number of hours, like The Walking Dead. But soon the situation changes and people after a single bite become a zombie within seconds, like World War Z.

As a traditional Korean doctor featured in the story observes, “the sickness has changed.” Which is how becoming a zombie is portrayed in The Kingdom, as an illness, like most modern zombie films show it.

However, the first case of the illness seems to have been caused by an herb Korean physicians in the story believed would raise a person from the dead. It did, but not in the way they intended–which shows an aspect of “science gone wrong” in this story. Though set in Korea circa 1600.

Note that as a sickness, the behavior of zombies makes somewhat more sense than either World War Z or The Walking Dead, while striking a note out of vampire tales. Zombies in The Kingdom only come out at night. As the sun rises, they seek dark places to hide themselves, becoming as comatose as a dead body. Until night comes again.  As if they really are metabolically alive and need to rest–just as they need to eat.

These zombies often eat people alive, even as the person being eaten is rapidly becoming a zombie. The Kingdom shows zombies as ravenously hungry, not just for brains as in Romero’s The Night of the Living Dead or Z Nation, but to eat an entire person whole, yes, like The Walking Dead at times, but eating much more quickly. As if these zombies are like ravenous lions, tigers, or bears (oh my 🙂 ). Instead of decaying human beings.

Set in 1600 Korea

The exact year hasn’t been given in the story, but it occurs only a few years after a Japanese invasion of Korea that was finally repulsed in 1598, which is referenced multiple times. In fact, at first, the story seems to be only a period piece set in Korea circa 1600. The first episode shows traditional doctors performing their ordinary work, Confucian scholars worried about who will run the kingdom in the aftermath of the Japanese invasion, the nobles also reacting to that situation, and the Crown Prince Lee Chang going about the business of being the equivalent of a Vice President, someone who will take over the government but only if the current leader dies. It’s a bit of a slow burn in the first episode, the first zombies not appearing until near the end.

The portrayal of Korea’s past at first seems meticulously correct in all details and the costumes in particular are striking. But then the zombie plague happens, which throws away the strict attention to history that begins The Kingdom.

The setting is cool in that most people in the story don’t have weapons at all, and even those who do are often limited to swords and bows and arrows–though a handful of muskets are in the story as well. Would you want to fight a horde of super-aggressive zombies with nothing better than a sword or a musket? Me, neither.

The peasant veteran of the war with Japan running from the zombie horde. Image copyright: Netflix.

Note though that this tale is not the only Korean zombie apocalypse set in the historic past! The 2018 movie Rampant (which I have not seen) apparently comes from around the same time period.

Political Intrigue

The Crown Prince Lee Chang (played by Ju Ji-hoon) seems to be involved in an ordinary plot to assume his place as king after word of the death of his father leaks out. Because if a new heir is born to the current queen, his life will be worth nothing (because his mother was not a queen). But then the story reveals that the claims to his father still being alive are based on him having become a zombie…

The king may “live” forever!
Image copyright: Netflix.

The struggle between the First Minister Cho Hak-ju (portrayed by Ryu Seung-ryong), who is behind the plot to keep the king “alive,” and the Crown Prince form the basis of the story’s political intrigue. Though in general, the nobles support Cho Hak-ju, while Lee Chang’s supporters are mostly peasants.

Bad Nobles, Good Prince

The upper crust of Korean society are shown as nonchalantly caring only about themselves, condemning ordinary people to death through both inaction and selfish acts. With the exception of Lee Chang, who at first seems rather selfish, but quickly transforms into a self-sacrificing leader, who is doing everything he can to save his people, all his people, from the zombie apocalypse.

This underpins the moral framework of the story. While others long to have power for their own benefit and enjoyment, the Crown Prince becomes a deeply caring and self-sacrificing war leader as the zombies attack. While a group of nobles flee in a half-empty ship, leaving the peasants to their doom, Lee Chang herds them into a walled compound and does everything he can to protect them. Even giving up his personal food rations, so ordinary people could have something to eat.

In fact, food, that the peasants hardly have any while nobles eat at their leisure, while everyone is being chased by ravenous zombies, makes hunger and the menace it poses a much more important part of this story that what you usually see in zombie tales.

Note the prince’s personal bodyguard, a female doctor played by Bae Doo-na (who I know from Cloud Atlas), and an enigmatic peasant who fought against the Japanese round out the group of “good guys” who seek to cure the zombie sickness, keep the people alive, and avoid the troops sent by Cho Hak-ju to kill Lee Chang.

The Prince and the woman doctor are the main figures on this poster. Image copyright: Netflix.

Name Trivia

By the way, the name of this series in Korean is 킹덤, which is approximately pronounced as…”Kingdom”!

So the English word “kingdom” is the basis for the series name, though written in Korean writing (Hangul) in the South Korean version. A bit of trivia I found interesting.

Conclusion

I may have more to say about this story later on, but for now, while it does share with other zombie tales some normalizing gore and can be genuinely frightening at moments, this story so far for the most part qualifies as clean fiction in spite of its MA rating (so far, no nudity and no profanity). Another potential negative point is it also in general shows people as oddly irreligious, at least so far, even when facing predatory zombies. Which I would say is not a strictly realistic portrayal of human nature–most human beings, including in pre-Christian Korea, have prayed or otherwise sought supernatural help in the real world, especially in times of severe crisis.

But the portrayal of a self-sacrificing and compassionate leader dedicated to the lives of all his people, not just those of his social class, forms a strong moral positive to this tale. That portrayal, along with the sheer fun of zombies so different from what you may be used to and the things people must do to survive, makes this series worth recommending.

How about you, readers–have you seen any South Korean zombie films? In particular, have any of you seen both Rampant and also The Kingdom? I’d be interested in your perspective of what make them different from one another. Or how zombie films are different in Korea in general, including what you do or do not like about them. Other thoughts?

(By the way, if you want to hear the above content in podcast format, I created on for the first time you can find linked here:)
https://feed.podbean.com/travissbigidea/feed.xml

Two weeks ago, life was normal. Back then you could go to the theater, or set up camp in a Starbucks with a laptop and a latte, or go to the store with breezy confidence of finding toilet paper. The churches were open. Remember that?

Now we are all waiting for a return to normalcy. Even if you’re lucky enough to have both your health and your finances sound, even if your own life has changed only in altered routines and negligible inconveniences – even so, you want that return. There is an uneasy uncertainty in the atmosphere, a question waiting for an answer. We move about life with a wary eye on the news, on the world, watching for the answer to appear. How bad will it be?

These are interesting days. People will write books about them. But it’s the duller days you want to live in, the tranquil epochs between history’s watersheds. What makes good reading, after it’s all done, is not what makes a good life in the moment. The same paradox is at work in our stories. The sort of stories we want to read or watch are not the sort we actually want to live.

There are exceptions, I know. The adventures are thick with danger and privation, but some people really would take them anyway; the romances are fraught with painful drama, but some people really would live them. Still, I am sure that the idea of such things is more appealing than the fact of them. The things that make stories good – danger, difficulties, villains, misfortune, loss – are the things that make life bad. Our lives are a quest for well-being and happiness. Who really wants the apocalypse or the crisis, the danger or the pain?

Some people want to be heroes, a noble impulse. But if heroes are to be admired, the necessity of heroism is to be avoided. Nobody needs to be a hero when things are going well. The first suggestion of anything that would require heroism – whether personal tragedy or public calamity – sets us longing for what we call normal life. We would rather be happy.

In the wake of World War I, and the Spanish influenza, Warren Harding campaigned for president under the slogan ‘Return to Normalcy’. (We’ve had about a century of nitpicking over whether normalcy is, in fact, a word, but Harding indelibly marked American culture and got to be president in the bargain, so the win to him.) Harding declared that America needed healing instead of heroics, restoration instead of revolution, and the dispassionate instead of the dramatic. He won in a landslide. And what, after all, is the purpose of any heroics or revolution except to protect, save, or make better normal life? The purpose of the stories is not, perhaps, much different.

As we wait for the return of normalcy, we are spending more time with our stories than ever. Never before has binge-watching felt like a contribution to society. And you know something? It helps. So may your stories be exciting, and your life tranquil, and may interesting days soon pass.

Thank God, all of that you-know-what couldn’t stop Lorehaven magazine’s new spring 2020 issue from hitting cyber-shelves on time.

Our cover story: “The Best of Christian Fantasy,” in which our well-read review team chooses their favorite Christian-made fiction.

Lorehaven subscribers already have their secret word to access all the new issue online. Not a subscriber yet? It’s free by email. You can read each review and article via the website, or download the free PDF (plus all the magazine’s back issues).

Inside Lorehaven‘s spring 2020 issue:

Masthead

Captain’s Log

E. Stephen Burnett

God may still use “foolish” stories to help our imaginations grow.

The Best of Christian Fantasy

Lorehaven review team

Lorehaven’s review team explores the books they like best.

• A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr.
• Flora & Ulysses, Kate DiCamillo
• The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Firebird series, Kathy Tyers
• Rescue, F. E. Greene
• Oxygen, John B. Olson and Randall Ingermanson
• The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis
• This Present Darkness, Frank E. Peretti
• The Visitation, Frank E. Peretti
• Phantastes, George MacDonald

Sponsored Review

Lorehaven review team

Remnant, Daniel Peyton

In Defense of the Weird

Marian Jacobs

With fantasy’s “strangeness,” we can train to believe in unseen truth.

Fantastical Truth’s new episode

We’ve also released the next episode of Fantastical Truth: “What If the Armies of Hell Tried to Invade Your Hometown?” Lorehaven review chief Austin Gunderson joins us to explore Frank E. Peretti’s classic 1986 spiritual warfare thriller, This Present Darkness.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Austin’s article about Peretti’s prayer-full debut starts like this:

In the early 1980s, “Christian speculative fiction” wasn’t a thing. Sure, Pilgrim’s Progress and Ben-Hur were staples in Christian libraries, and J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were giants. But fantastical fiction targeted specifically at a Christian audience hadn’t come into its own.

That all changed when struggling former pastor Frank E. Peretti’s This Present Darkness was published in 1986.

Peretti’s supernatural thriller begins in Ashton, a small college town on the northwestern plains. One wouldn’t consider this place as ground zero for a demonic conspiracy to dominate the globe. But the essential conceit of Peretti’s story is that human action affects the spiritual plane, and vice-versa.

Read the complete show notes here.

Of course, you can also listen and subscribe with Apple, Google, or any major podcast streamer—which now includes the Lorehaven channel on YouTube.

Fantastic feedback

How did you like the new issue?

What titles would you add to your list of the best Christian fantasy?

What’s your story with This Present Darkness or other Peretti novels?

Comment below, or send us a direct note using the podcast feedback form.

Next on Fantastical Truth

Unless something big breaks, for episode 10, we’ll put on our hard hats and do a little deconstruction. That is, we’ll bounce off the recent “faith deconstruction” stories among Christians. We will ask, more positively, how excellent Christian-made stories can help us build up our hearts and imaginations–not just our heads!–so that we love Jesus more and can face the challenges of life.

Stay healthy out there, keep praying, and Godspeed!

Stephen

Without trying to be too dramatic, I think it’s accurate to say we are in the midst of a pandemic. Most of the countries in the world are reporting verified cases of The Virus, along with a percentage of deaths. The number is growing exponentially, which is why the US has a “shelter in place” policy and some counties have shut down places like the beach or hiking trails. It’s all with the intention of keeping people from infecting each other.

The natural question is, why? Is God bringing this pestilence upon the world? Is Satan using this virus and the near panic that spurred the hoarding we’ve seen in order to close down churches and prepare the world for the anti-christ? Or is this just a result of the laws of nature and the inevitable mutation of the virus, of humans living in close proximity to disease-carrying animals?

I think the answer is, Yes.

Yes, I believe God works in and through things like earthquakes and wars and pestilence. We see this in Scripture. The first occurrence of God saying that He would do something cataclysmic that would cause devastation is in Exodus when God lays out His plan to free His people from slavery in Egypt: “The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.” (Exo. 7:5; emphasis mine) This phrase is repeated throughout the period of the plagues, either to Pharaoh or to Moses or to the people of Israel.

At other times, of course, God told Israel that they were delivered from an enemy so that they would know He is Lord, or that they received needed food or care, and even His choice of them as His people, the apple of His eye.

But when we reach the books of prophecy, God begins to declare His judgment upon His people, and upon other nations, all with the purpose of letting them know Him. Take this passage in Ezekiel:

“Behold, I Myself am going to bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places. So your altars will become desolate and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will make your slain fall in front of your idols. I will also lay the dead bodies of the sons of Israel in front of their idols; and I will scatter your bones around your altars. In all your dwellings, cities will become waste and the high places will be desolate, that your altars may become waste and desolate, your idols may be broken and brought to an end, your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be blotted out. The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the LORD.” (Eze. 6:3-7; emphasis mine)

There are many other such passages throughout the book and in other books of prophecy. Besides these explicit statements, we have an example when God brings judgment to Israel because of David’s sin. God actually gave him a choice between a period of famine, war, or pestilence. David chose pestilence because he said he wanted to be in God’s hand. Yes, in God’s hand:

Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the LORD for His mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”

So the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand men of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. (2 Sam 24:14-15)

Because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, I think it’s safe to say that God can send pestilence.

But what about Satan? Well, the most obvious example of this from the Bible is Job. First Satan destroyed his belongings, then he killed his servants and his kids, and finally he gave him an illness—something horrible like boils spreading all over his body.

Satan’s plan was to bring Job to the place his wife tempted him to go: “Curse God and die.” He wanted Job to be an example of a person who only worshiped God when things were going well. As soon as life was unbearable, Satan reasoned, Job would turn against God.

I dare say, the majority of people today don’t think either God or Satan has anything to do with the rapid spread of a mutated virus. Rather, it’s just the natural course of things, and all we need to do is “flatten the curve,” which we can do with social distancing.

Of course there is some truth to that way of thinking. We can and should be careful and wise, but in no way can we bypass God’s plans. Satan’s? He may mean evil for us believers, but God means good.

This was the case when God put Joseph in place to deal with a seven year famine.

I can’t help but think God has put each Christ-follower in place for “such a time as this.”

Bottom line: God is a righteous Judge. He may well be bringing judgment on the world—not in flood proportions, but in a way that we will know He is God. All the plans we had—for March Madness or attending conferences or even graduating from school or buying toilet paper in the grocery store—are as nothing. All are changed, and we are foolish if we don’t understand that God’s hand is behind it.

He actually may use Satan’s schemes, or the work of evil men, such as Joseph’s brothers; He may even use the natural way things work—the way viruses mutate and spread. But be clear: God is at work in the world. He wants us to see Him and to know Him.

It’s almost become a politically incorrect thing among Christians to say that God is a Judge, that He exercises justice against people. A pandemic gives us the opportunity to recognize God and His role as a just Judge, that His justice is real, just as His love and mercy is.

Feature image by Our World in Data, dated March 19, 2020.

Twelve Monkeys (or 12 Monkeys) is both the title of a 1995 film and also a 47 episode SyFy channel TV series that debuted in January of 2015 and ended in 2018. A caveat to my post here is that I’ve seen the 1995 movie though not the series and will mainly talk about the film, though I’m familiar with the series and will reference how its view of fatalism is different from its source material. Both the film and the series feature a virus that wipes out the vast majority of humanity. And both ponder the issue of whether it’s really possible to change fate. I’ll talk about what I believe the Bible has to say on that topic near the end.

By the way, some spoilers about the film are in this article–in case you’ve never seen it and were hoping to be surprised. (But that was 25 years ago–surely you’ve seen it by now, right? 🙂 )

Cassandra

Both versions of 12 Monkeys do something all my favorite science fiction does; they use the lives of characters to illustrate ideas, to deliberately get the viewer to thinking about what’s actually true. But pondering the nature of fate isn’t new with Twelve Monkeys, in fact, both stories make deliberate reference to the ancient Greek myth of Cassandra in the name of one of the main characters, Cassandra “Cassie” Railly. The myth of Cassandra, for those who may not be familiar with it, features the title figure of the myth being given the ability to accurately see the future by the god Apollo–but because she would not take the Pagan deity as her lover, he also cursed her so that no one would ever believe her prophecies of inevitable tragedy to come (her visions concerned the fall of Troy, by the way).

La Jetée

But Twelve Monkeys has a much more recent predecessor than Cassandra. Chris Marker in 1962 produced a short film in French called La Jetée, which featured a central plot very similar to the 12 Monkeys movie. La Jetée is a time travel story from a post-apocalyptic (and rather dystopian) future, back to the past for the purpose of averting the apocalypse if possible. La Jetée by the way means “the jetty” as in a pier, but in French it can also be used to describe an observation platform–in this case it refers to such a platform in an airport, where a young version of the main character witnesses the inevitable demise of his older, time-traveling self. Note the French name of the film also sounds like là j’étais, which means “there I was” or “there I used to be,” the title serving as a play on words referring to time travel.

La Jetée Poster
Image source: 3×6.net/sf/category/art/

The story in La Jetée is a told by a voice-over narrator while what’s shown is a photo-montage. The overall presentation is très artistique in a style rather uniquely French that did not carry over very much to the American film it inspired. By the way, as a university student studying foreign languages (at that time, Spanish, French, and German), I took a French literature class circa 1993 in which I watched La Jetée. I liked it very much, though I falsely concluded based on the name “Marker” than the man who produced it must not have been French (he was: born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve, who took the pen name “Marker” based on “magic markers”).

Note the apocalypse featured in La Jetée was a nuclear holocaust. The main similarity with Twelve Monkeys was the time traveling central figure in the story, who was a prisoner in his own time, whose strong memory of a woman he saw as a child helped him to make it back to the right time period. Emotionally, La Jetée is a tragic love story of a man finding a woman burned into his memory and the two of them falling in love, with him inevitably dying in the process. Though intellectually, the plot’s firmly about fate and it denies any ability of anyone to change the past. Fate is what fate is.

The Virus

The American film aimed for the exact same emotional and intellectual beats as La Jetée, even though presented in a standard movie format, with major Hollywood stars–including Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt. It did offer one major change, though. In 1995, shortly after the end of the Cold War, it seemed that a nuclear apocalypse was highly unlikely (in reality it still can happen and still could have happened), so the plot featured a genetically-engineered killer virus that wipes out most of the human race, instead of a massive nuclear war.

The protagonist and his love interest. Image copyright: Universal Pictures

The film made it seem the virus would be deliberately released by a mentally unstable son (Brad Pitt) of a prominent virologist (Christopher Plummer), because of his radical environmental ideas and a disdain for humanity. The unstable son’s activist group he called “the army of the twelve monkeys,” hence the name of the movie in English. (Plot twist: the lunatic son only wanted to release monkeys held to test viruses and put his father in a cage, whereas a serious, stable, but ideologically-driven colleague of the virologist was in fact the one who deliberately released the virus.)

The protagonist meets the lunatic. Image copyright: Universal Pictures

What’s interesting at the moment of writing this post is the movie’s almost-by-accident prediction that a deadly virus could become a such a powerful threat to the survival of humanity.

Could a single virus really threaten the whole human race as portrayed in Twelve Monkeys? Probably not, because a deadly virus provokes public health responses aimed at isolating the infection, as we’re seeing happen now.

But could a powerful virus disrupt the human race and change it forever? Why, yes, at least to a degree. We’re disrupted right now. Though the changes won’t last forever and may not even have much of an effect even one year from now.

But then again, even though no human being really knows the future, it’s probably safe to predict other international viral pandemics will take place. The question is simply where and when and how large the effects will be. With the related question of how human beings will react to these threats.

Viral Fate

So is death by deadly virus part of the inevitable fate of the human race? Is this something we should fear? Would this be worse if someone did this on purpose?

David Morse as the ideologically motivated scientist who releases the virus. Image copyright: Universal Pictures.

I’ve pretty much already said, “no” to all my rhetorical questions, but clarify my position a bit, viruses have to maintain their host alive to spread. The deadlier a virus is, even if it’s very contagious as in aggressively attacking people, the deadliness of the virus works against it spreading. Because dead people don’t get around much! Meaning they don’t actively spread viruses. So outbreaks of extremely deadly viruses tend to hit a certain local area hard, but when people are dying there in mass numbers, people cut off travel to the infectious area so that the area of impact isn’t majorly international. This is how Ebola has been.

Viruses not as deadly generally spread much more easily, especially if some people carry the virus but don’t show symptoms. Which is how Covid 19 works. But of course Covid is deadly enough to require efforts to contain its spread.

Since it’s rather built into the nature of viruses that they by themselves can’t wipe out 99% of the human race, even if a human being were to jigger with them, I would say we should not be in terror of viruses, even though viruses are going to keep popping up. Though it makes sense to take reasonable precautions. Such as washing your hands. And following other guidance given out by public health officials.

Fate Fate

But wait a minute–don’t we Christians believe God knows the future? This is established in the Bible in many places, for example, Isaiah 46:10. Don’t we believe God even has determined in advance when we will die? Among other passages, reference Hebrews 9:27 for this doctrine. So why should we try to prevent our own deaths if that’s already been determined?

Could it be that like La Jetée or Twelve Monkeys we can try to change how events turn out, but in the end, what’s going to happen is what’s going to happen? So we actually have no power to change our own destiny?

Note that the TV Series Twelve Monkeys takes a different approach about changing the past via time travel, i.e. changing fate. In the series, changing fate is not impossible. It’s just very, very difficult (for an explanation, look under Development in the linked article about the series).

So which of the two 12 Monkeys views is correct? Is it possible to change our destiny, but difficult? Or is it impossible?

C.S. Lewis, so brilliant in so many things, offered an opinion of sorts on this subject in story form. In Prince Caspian he has Aslan tell Lucy when she asks what would have happened had they obeyed him better: “To know what would have happened, child?…No, nobody is ever told that.” Which would seem to imply that the choices we actually make are the only ones that really matter. As if choices we didn’t make could not have ever really happened. As if everything we do is already pre-determined.

By the way, I’m not saying Lewis believed human actions were all pre-determined. Just that the one particular bit of dialogue in Prince Caspian sounds that way. In general, Christians have rejected complete pre-determination and have maintained human will must somehow include real choices, or  much of our Christian practice would make no sense. Such as sharing the Gospel in hopes that some will believe.

Though of course some Christians have believed that God pre-determined all actions anyone could take. Though such a position is more a characteristic of people with a deterministic and cause-and-effect view of the universe acting strictly according to natural law, without direct intervention by God. Deist Albert Einstein was and atheist Sam Harris is a strong supporter of total determinism of human actions.

The Bible on What Could Have Happened

Surprisingly, Lewis seems to have goofed when he had Alan tell Lucy nobody is told what would have happened. Because the Bible records in I Samuel 23:9-13 that when David was fleeing from King Saul and occupied the town of Keilah, that the men of the city would turn him over to Saul. So David packed up and left the city–and was never turned over. So David was told what would have happened, even though it didn’t happen.

So the Bible seems to play it both ways–it declares God knows all things and has established what will happen. Yet it calls on us to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven–indicating it isn’t being done that way now.

It would seem the Bible supports the idea that changing the past would be possible, if we ever got a time machine and had the opportunity to try. Though I suspect it might be difficult.

But can we make real choices? Can we in effect change our fate? It certainly seems we can–or why else would David have been told what would have happened?

Conclusion

So since what you do matters, wash your hands and take some reasonable precautions versus Covid 19. 🙂

As for Twelve Monkeys, have you seen it? I’d especially be interested in hearing the thoughts of people who’ve both seen the movie and the TV series.

Are there other sci fi stories that talk about fate in the context of a viral pandemic? Or other time travel stories you’d recommend?

Most of us are feeling the squeeze from the quarantines sweeping the world, whether at work, at home, or at play. Some are enjoying the downtime, some are barely noticing a change, and some are on the verge of a mental breakdown. We should send prayers (and help, if possible) to those who are being negatively affected by the shutdowns. But how would fictional characters fare in these uncertain times? Let’s check in on some of them.

Superman: “The Daily Planet told Clark Kent to work from home, which gives me more time to patrol Metropolis. Since many people are staying home, there have been a lot of break-ins at jewelry stores, pawn shops, banks, and other places that are normally well-protected. And of course, damsels in distress are still falling from buildings and helicopters. Just the other day, I saved the mayor’s niece after Lex Luthor threw her off a bridge. I was in such a hurry, I forgot my surgical mask. I tried to keep my head turned to the side as I carried her to safety, but when she coughed in my face, I dropped her in a pond. I hope she could swim.”

Bilbo Baggins: “I had to cancel my eleventy-eleventh birthday celebration because Gandalf, that old wet blanket, advised against congregating in groups of three hundred or more. Phineas Fleabottom’s funeral had more numbers than that, and he was the shire’s used wagon salesman. Hardly a popular character. Ah well…at least it will give me time to work on my next book, There and Back Again Again. Please don’t tell Peter Jackson.”

Wonder Woman: “Oh, a virus that is most lethal to old men? Can’t say I’m surprised. I’d love to lasso one of those guys from the CDC and get the real story out of him. But since I’m at home, I’ve decided to take up a hobby. Tae-Bo. Lots of air punches, which is totally my thing. I brought home a Howitzer from the Great Man War and I set it up in the half-mile-long bunker underneath my unassuming suburban home to fire right at me. Tae-Bo makes my bullet-blocking much more graceful. Thanks, Billy Blanks!”

Doctor Leonard McCoy: “The coronavirus? The coronavirus? What is this, the Dark Ages?”

Batman: “Wayne Enterprises took a real pounding in the stock market. I had to lay off a number of workers and close down some underperforming departments. The good news is that this will save Wayne Enterprises a lot of money in the long run. The bad news is that some of these folks might become criminals to put bread on the table. And that would be a big mistake, because I’ve embedded GPS trackers in all of the Wayne Enterprises cell phones that we sent home with the laid-off workers to thank them for their years of service. If they run amok in Gotham, the Batman will make them wish they had never turned to a life of crime.”

Katniss Eberdeen: “I’m a big believer in natural health. Organic everything, essential oils. When they commanded us to line up, I was shocked. I mean, don’t they realize that anyone out there could be a carrier? A girl coughed next to me and I held my breath for at least a minute. I was going to volunteer as tribute, but there was no way I was going to the Capitol of Panem. I heard they had like over a hundred confirmed cases. Going to a crowded city is the last thing I want to do. Sorry, sis. May the odds be ever in your favor.”

Thanos: “Sweet…”

How would your favorite characters react to the quarantines and social shutdowns?

In episode 7, we promised our next episode would focus on Frank E. Peretti’s This Present Darkness.

But first, a word from our biggest news of 2020.

In Fantastical Truth episode 8, Zackary Russell and I share a few “favorite” pandemic stories, including the recent Planet of the Apes film trilogy and Tosca Lee’s 2019 novel The Line Between.

These stories can actually help Christians prepare our imaginations for these trials—or even worse suffering.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Lorehaven reviews The Line Between

These truth glimpses give The Line Between surprising heart-warmth amongst the chill, while its road-trip quest drives fast through mad territory and never once feels bogged down in snowbanks. Even by the finale, we get hints that our heroes have learned that yes, sometimes you must stay preserved from a world gone mad, but for the greater mission of helping others in that world. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, you can’t simply separate from evil people—not even cultists—in order to avoid evil. That very line between evil and good cuts through every human heart.

• Read the full review in Lorehaven magazine’s spring 2019 issue.
• Read our interview with bestselling novelist Tosca Lee.
• Subscribe free to get every issue.

Quotes and notes

• In 2017, Mark Carver wrote at Speculative Faith, “It’s interesting how the biggest threat to human existence rarely gets news coverage. It’s not North Korea or global warming or white privilege; it’s disease.” (Down With the Sickness, Sept. 20, 2017)
• Big lessons of pandemics: we’re not in control. These events challenge us to ask ourselves, “Where is my hope?”
• We blame politicians or countries or each other, or downplay the problem versus panicking, and/or buy into conspiracy theories—all because doing so gives us a sense of control.
• Christians may be material “preppers,” but we must always be preppers for times of suffering.

Most of us don’t five focused thought to evil and suffering until we experience them. This forces us to formulate perspective on the fly, at a time when our thinking is muddled and we’re exhausted and consumed by pressing issues. Readers who have “been there” will attest that it’s far better to think through suffering in advance.

—Randy Alcorn, If God is Good, page 14

Read the complete show notes here.

Then, next week in episode 9, we really will explore that 1980s Peretti-verse as originally promised.

Godspeed, and stay healthy,

Stephen

I don’t mean to sound flippant, but the name for the virus which is spreading faster than we’d like, and which has caused a number of head-turning closures—like March Madness and the NBA, the end of MLB Spring Training, schools in upwards of 30 different states, and any number of churches—the name of this thing is a bit long and the shortened version is not easy to remember (at least not for me, largely because I’m not that great with names, I guess.) So I’m settling on The Virus Thing.

I know for some people the quick spreading, deadly illness can be quite fearful. That’s why stores have sold out of things like sanitizer and sanitary wipes and health masks. Why the run on toilet paper, is another topic for another time, but I guess it does illustrate what fearful people will do. No logic to is, but everyone else is buying it up, so I’d better buy it up too.

And then there are the get-rich-at-everyone-else’s-expense schemers who an unverified report claims, are now selling the hoarded toilet paper on eBay for an exorbitant price. Such is the way fear can dictate society’s reaction to a widespread danger.

As it happens, speculative author Jill Williamson just released a novel in November, 2019, that now feels eerily spot on. Thirst is a prequel to her dystopian series, The Safe Lands, in essence explaining how the world got the way it was when the first novel in the series, Captives, opens.

Back in January I featured Thirst in one of our Fiction Friday segments.

Little did I realize that The Virus Thing would soon have an effect here and around the globe in a way that feels like it came from the pages of that book. Especially this part from the back cover copy:

Desperation brings out the worst in many of the travelers, infecting even those closest to Eli. When division comes, will he be able to hold his group together or will each fall victim to their own thirst for survival?

Of course we haven’t seen desperation bring out the worst yet. Just the crazy. (Toilet paper?? I can’t get over that one. As if having lots of toilet paper will safeguard anyone from a virus!)

Maybe that’s because no one actually, really is desperate. They just want to hedge things against desperation now while they can.

I’m not saying we are anywhere close to experiencing events such as the characters in Jill’s novel experienced, but it is a good study of society and how quickly order can descend into chaos.

I’m not saying that’s where we’re headed at this time either. I just think it feels eerily prescient that Jill wrote Thirst months before The Virus Thing broke out.

In all this public reaction to our current situation, I think a couple things remain clear:

1. Christians should behave in a way that marks us as Christians. We should still be kind to our neighbor, to the people in the never-ending grocery line.
2. We should resist the urge to take over for God. We can’t hedge ourselves against death. Our times are in God’s hands. Buying extra canned goods will not extend our lives a single day beyond God’s plan for our lives.
3. We should remember that God is faithful, not just in good times. He is faithful even when the storm swamps the boat, even when we’re pushed into the fiery furnace, even when we’re trapped between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army. He’s faithful when we face a giant and all we have is a sling.

For the sake of Spec Faith, I couldn’t help but point out that speculative fiction is a great source for understanding the “what if’s” of life. Jill’s story gives us a window into our society as we face a new uncertainty. Well, new to us. A century ago people dealt with influenza, pre-antibiotics, and  that must have been very hard and frightening. In centuries before that, people faced the Black Plague and Cholera and other diseases that took thousands of lives.

But in the 21st century, dealing with a quick-spreading disease that has no specific drug that will arrest it, is new ground.

Reactions vary from those who hoard, and those who mock, to those who go on as if nothing has changed. I guess I lean toward the latter. Sure, families have new challenges—with kids home from school and various meetings and conferences cancelled. I definitely don’t think we should be in panic mode, but I also think we need a bit of generous respect when it comes to taking health precautions.

Now is the time to be good neighbors, to show kindness, to stay connected (and we are blessed with so many ways of staying connected electronically), and to pray.

That’s probably the most important thing Christians can do. That and speak the truth about who God is, about how important it is to keep our eyes fixed on the One who holds us in His hand.

Our Fantastical Truth podcast now features on the new Lorehaven channel on YouTube.

Podcast producer Zackary Russell has already uploaded video adaptations of our first four podcast episodes (plus a trailer and clip).

Subscribe to Lorehaven on YouTube for all the new videos, especially if you click that famous bell icon to get mobile device notifications.

Of course, you can also listen to the podcast using all the major podcast players, or listen to episodes right here at Lorehaven.com.

Of course, episode 7, How Does Jesus Define and Redeem His Gift of Imagination? | with Brian Godawa, released this week:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Godspeed!

Stephen

Today’s media produces entertainment featuring strong female characters.¹ However, in depicting such characters, there is an over-emphasis of physical strength. Is this the only way to show feminine prowess?

In Star Trek: Voyager, B’Elanna Torres is a human/Klingon hybrid. She is known for her volatile temper, her strength, and her aggression. In the episode entitled “Living Witness”, the Doctor in reminiscence, makes this comment: “B’Elanna Torres. Intelligent, beautiful and with a chip on her shoulder the size of the Horsehead Nebula. She also had a kind of vulnerability that made her quite endearing.”

Let me state here: I’m glad more women are being seen in roles of strength. There are more diverse stories, interesting conundrums to ponder through, etc. Wonder Woman can flip over cars, deflect bullets, and keep her hair from getting dusty while debris is flying all over the place. Captain Marvel can take a punch by Thanos. Heck, I once got hit in the face by a baby and got a black eye.

The women are kicking butt just as hard as men…which I think it part of the fascination and the problem. These characters, along with others, focus on physical strength. There is an over-emphasis on physical strength as the deciding factor of strong female characters.

Ultimately, I believe it comes down to this question: Does having a strong female character simply mean having a girl kick guy in face or is there more to her than just physical strength?

Let’s explore some iconic and well-known fictional female characters. This list doesn’t pretend to be exhaustive by any means. I know I could have chosen dozens, perhaps hundreds more.

But then Speculative Faith would probably send me a reminder that brevity is an unacknowledged fruit of the Spirit. 😊

Chun Li, Streetfighter Game Franchise

Chun Li. Image copyright: Capcom.

When I think of a strong female character that fits the ‘girl kicks guy in face’ like a glove to a hand, I think of Chun Li. According to trusty Wikipedia: “While she isn’t the first playable female fighter, she is the first playable female fighter of any fighting game franchise to gain mainstream recognition…”

Within the context of this character, there is still remnants of a softer femininity that the game creators kept. After she wins a round, she does this cute little laugh and jumps up and down like a young girl while the poor warrior is wallowing in his blood.

Weaker sex, my big toe!

Of interest is Chun Li’s backstory. She trying to take Bison, the man who killed her father. Her motivation remains the same throughout most of the incarnations and reincarnations of the game and the films. However, after she defeats Bison, she says something to the effect of she’s going back to being an ordinary girl.  In this context, she was already trained in various martial arts but it was for a specific purpose. Physical strength was not her for all and be all of existence.

Okoye, General of the Dora Milaje in the Black Panther Universe and the fictional African country of Wakanda.

Since I’m not a comic book fan I can only discuss her portrayal in the movie.

Okoye. Image copyright: Marvel Studios

This character can kick a guy in the face. And stab him while he’s still recovering from the blow.  Her physical strength is what made her an asset to King T’Challa.

Yet it is her sense of duty that really struck me as a core element of feminine strength.  Duty and honor go hand in hand. Okoye’s duty lies to the king of Wakanda even at the cost of her own desires. This is made evident when Kilmonger usurps the throne. Believing that King T’Challa is dead, despite her feelings, she gives her allegiance to the new king.

When it’s discovered that King T’Challa is still alive, which still makes him the king to serve, she does so by fighting against Kilmonger. Though her strength is an asset, it is duty and honor that makes her strong.

The Mistress of Storytelling – Scheherazade

Far as I know, Scheherazade wasn’t strong in the physical sense. Most of the tales she told the anthology were tales from antiquity.

Scheherazade by Sophie Gengembre Anderson – Public Domain

According to the English translation of Arabian nights, she is described as: “Scheherazade had perused the books, annals, and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples, and instances of bygone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts, and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.”

Imagination and creativity was her strong suit. She saved her life by telling bedtime stories. Stories are the universal language of the planet. It builds bridges, and cements relationships. When we share in story, as Scheherazade did, we share in the human experience.

Sarah Connor – The Terminator Franchise

Sarah Connor’s character grows as she works to give her son every advantage to fight against the machines destined to take over the world. In Terminator 1, she’s just flimsy thing, very soft and just a regular girl.

Sarah Connor. Image copyright: TriStar Pictures

Now, in Terminator 2, she becomes this hardened and cynical warrior. If you notice, her appearance has changed drastically, bearing more muscles and leanness, erasing the softer part of her character. Now, we do know her story arc. She’s doing everything she can to prevent Judgement Day. There’s a scene in the movie where she must decide between killing an innocent who may be guilty one day or not. It’s an interesting scene because she comes to the realization that she’s doing the exact same thing the murderous terminators from the future are doing – taking care of a problem before it becomes one.

At the end, it’s not her physical strength that takes precedence but the compassion for another human being that makes her strong enough to NOT kill the person.

Dana Scully, The X-Files

It would be remiss of me to not mention everyone’s favorite female skeptic, Dana Scully. Throwing aside all tropes about green-eyed redheads being temperamental and emotional, she took the stand as level-headed woman, only interested in what science could tell her.

Dana Scully. Image copyright: Fox Television.

This shows a characteristic of feminine strength is of logic and reason. Women are cerebral to the extreme. Generally speaking, women talk. Contrary to popular belief, they talk over things not always because it is an emotional outlet though it can certainly be that. I’ll be the first to admit that.  Sometimes, we’re working out a problem.

A woman may not want a solution at that moment but while she’s talking it out, she is expressing a lot of things about whatever is on her mind. Is this not what analytical fields do – explore a variety of avenues until they come up a solution?

Ellen Ripley, the Alien Franchise

Sacrifice is another aspect of feminine strength. The female character that comes to mind is Ellen Ripley of the Alien franchise.

Ellen Ripley. Image copyright, 20th Century Fox.

Ellen Ripley sacrificed being with her daughter, in the first movie, to provide a better life for her. This action leads to an event that changes her life forever. Encounter with an abandoned ship which leads us down the path of meeting a murderous alien species who uses us as incubators for their young.

In Aliens, the second movie of the franchise, there’s a marvelous battle between Ripley and the Alien Queen. It’s probably the best cat fight ever.

Allow me to wax on about the scene from Aliens. These are two females showing the fierceness of the gender in a maternal role. Both are females protecting their young – communicating their intentions and willing to go head to head to protect them…or avenge them!

I’m sure there are more characters I can pull from popular culture from all over the world that would depict women as strong characters bereft of physical strength.

It brings me to my conclusion as I parallel this to the Bible and what woman personifies what a strong woman is.

Proverbs 31 is a message from a woman to her son. It’s well known in all of Christendom. The verse 10-31 are often cited as The Virtuous Woman. In these few verses, we gain insight to a woman who is an entrepreneur, a housewife, mother, lover, a safe place, and a blessing. She’s not subservient, not chattel, not a second-class citizen, not an afterthought. She is front and center. She is a strong female.

The person who I can best see who embodies all the aspects of the virtuous woman is you, my sister in Christ.  It is He who lives in you that makes you strong. All these fictional female characters must rely on themselves. We, virtuous women, we don’t have to rely on ourselves.

Our sense of duty and honor, our compassion, our reasoning, everything is based in Him. He is what makes us strong and all others are poor imitations.

What attributes did I leave out? What fictional female characters can you think of? I kept it in the speculative fiction arena but I know there’s more? What are your thoughts?