Camp Tolkien or Camp Lewis?

[Twalli]

So virtually all fantasy stories have religious aspects or tones. Yet Tolkien claims they aren't needed (he used them). Lewis claimed they were needed. Who so you believe.

Religion is not needed in fantasy (JRR Tolkien)

Religion is needed in fantasy (CS Lewis)

[MuddyMole]

It's not needed, and it may even be more interesting when there is no obvious hero or villain in the story (just lots of morally dubious anti-heroes motivated by greed, love, survival, etc).

The thing with CS Lewis's stories is not just that they have extremely strong religious tones, but that they are very specifically Christian religious tones - Aslan is a very blatant representation of Jesus, for example - and that makes the whole Chronicles of Narnia series feel like propaganda, designed to brainwash children into Christianity.

Although most fantasy stories do feature religious and spiritual elements (the battle between light and dark, good and evil etc), the authors usually try to come with something original. It makes the fantasy world seem more complete/believable than a world with no religion at all, and provides a motivation for characters' actions. Particularly since fantasy usually means the middle ages plus magic and monsters, and religion was a pretty big deal back then.

[Twalli]

A lot of them don't have obvious religious tones. The scene where Harry sacrifices himself in the last Harry Potter book is Jesus representation. With Jordan we have "The Creator", with Tolike we have "Eru Illuvatar, The One", and with Sanderson we have "Adonalsium" as supreme deities. I don't know if Jordan or Sanderson are in Camp Tolkien or Lewis, but they do have supreme deities. I guess that we could say that Sherrilyn Kenyon and Steve McHugh don't have religious tones in the same way, although one has gods and the other has powerful people who were seen as gods. It's just those are characters and not people that are really prayed to in most cases.

[Wise4myage]

Camp Lewis.