#still can’t unfuck what has been majorly fucked by those who came before you

[finaltennessee]

I saw some people tweeting that they are upset about the lack of positive Christian representation in D20 campaigns and that all of Brennan’s bad guys are religious and… I got unnecessarily annoyed about it and wrote a whole ass paper.

To begin, let’s look at ACOC. Is the main religion and head of that church depicted as one of the big bads in this season? Yes. Was every person who worshipped the bulb evil? Absolutely not. Saint Citrina was literally a Saint. She wasn’t depicted as evil. Sir Morris Brie was a good dude. He worshipped the bulb, but he wasn’t down with what the Pontifex was trying to do. In fact, when the Ramsian Doctrine was made official by the Pontifex, Brennan expressed how there was some split between followers on the morality of it. Not just with Candians either, if I recall. (I’m in the middle of rewatching it, but I’m not quite to that part yet). Also, the Bulb wasn’t the only being that was worshipped in Calorum, despite the fact that many presented as faithful bulbians to keep up appearances for the concord. There was the sweetening path, the great beasts, and the ones the dairy islanders had (cannot remember the name). To my understanding, these were all loosely based on paganism and were represented in a much much more positive light as were their followers (even though the sugar plum fairy ended up sucking). This alone disproves the narrative that Brennan presents all religions as “bad”. Ignoring all of that, Brennan expressed in an interview that some of acoc is based on the crusades. Are you gonna be mad still that he presented a church that shunned or even hunted down and killed those who didn’t fit their norm as an enemy when we can literally read about that in our history books? Or in Fantasy High’s case, Kristen’s church wasn’t even THE big bad. But it was something that he probably put in there to appeal to Ally and their history with religion. A history that many MANY other people can relate to. Faith or religion isn’t inherently evil. The people who would use it and twist it to manipulate or harm others and to fit their own agenda are. And THAT’s the message I see coming across when I watch FH or ACOC. Some people may have very positive and amazing experiences with their religion or faith and that’s great for them. (specifically talking Christianity) But many don’t. You can’t blame others for wanting to defeat the fantasy version of something that gave them irl trauma in a game of spicy dice. Or blame the person creating a world in which those with religious trauma can do that. I can completely understand the want for other religious representations, and I completely agree. They should explore more of that if they’re comfortable with it. But if we are talking about more positive Christianity/Catholic representation…you should probably look elsewhere. The things he puts in to those two campaigns aren’t exactly pulled out of thin air… You can still have faith and love your religion while acknowledging all the harm others in the past (and present) associated with your religion have done to others. Just a rant from a former jw (jehovahs witness)