Beware The Snencils

some of you need to romanticise the fucking paragraph break

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I have loved reading your posts on various fiction from Christian perspective. I am wondering your opinion on when fantasy/"magic" fiction becomes too much? I used to encounter a lot of people talking about how basically -anything- fantasy was evil. I have struggled with scrupulosity OCD for many years now so I tend to think things towards a legalistic lens. I'd like to be able to enjoy fantasy again, while carefully discerning, so I'd love to hear what you think are the merits/limits of fantasy

Hi! First off, Jesus said: "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." When you're wrestling with scrupulousity, sometimes it helps to see or hear out loud the reminder that life in Christ is one that's supposed to give you peace, not constant worry about doing everything right--even if you've heard that before and you already know it, sometimes it can help to hear it over again from outside your own head. So there it is! 🤝

Next: thank you for asking me! I'm no professional. But someone did ask me this question once before. I am having a hard time finding it on my blog right now, otherwise I'd link to it, but I'll try to summarize at the end of this post!

EDIT: You asked me to talk about the merits and limits of fantasy and I got carried away explaining why fantasy fiction is not outright evil according to the Bible. I moved that to the end of the post 😅 here's what I think the merits are:

All of Reality, our world, our timeline, was invented by God. That makes Him the storyteller, us His characters, and reality His narrative. Just like any storyteller, He made up a system of rules for His world: rules like, "humans sink in water," and "humans can't be cured of sickness by touching other humans," and "the weather doesn't change just because humans tell it to." Then God, the storyteller, broke His own world-building rules. On purpose. He wrote Himself (Jesus) into the story as a human who COULD walk on water and COULD heal other humans with a touch and COULD tell the weather what to do, and it obeyed.

In fantasy stories, when a character can break the established rules of the created world, we call that "magic." We call it "magic" when the storyteller brings in a supernatural element to show that this character is special, powerful, capable, set apart from all the others.

So that's what I think the merits are. Fantasy stories have a special kind of closeness to The Storyteller Who Invented Stories, because of that very element of "make the rules then bring in rule-breaking specialness" that He uses.

That's where you get Gandalf, or even the Fairy Godmother, or of course Aslan and the Deep Magic.

The limitations to the genre, I would say, is that fantasy stories are very tempting for storytellers' egos. Because of Tolkien, there's this generation of storytellers who think that inventing a fantasy world with rules and races and magical systems and cultures and, to sum it all up, a whole universe of their own design, is the POINT.

They think the themes and the message of their story comes second to how thorough and clever they can be with their made-up magical systems, or fantasy-race-relations, or made-up languages.

Basically, in no other genre have I observed storytellers getting so excited to play god-of-their-own-clever-world than in fantasy. Then they forget that the important part of a story is the message, not the brain that's capable of inventing worlds and languages and cool-sounding names and ancestries. What they have to say basically gets lost in how flashy and cool they can be while saying it.

But that's another soap box for another time. Those are basically the merits and limitations, I think, broad-strokes.

On to the Biblical worldview for magic in stories below!

"Magic" is mentioned in the Bible. It's sorcery. Specifically, the Bible is telling Christians to stay away from "real" magic...which is basically just "trying to connect with spiritual forces to accomplish anything supernatural." We were created to have relationship with one Spirit: God. Anything outside of that is like a fish trying to breathe oxygen: it hurts us. So the Bible says, "no real magic."

But.

"Fantasy fiction magic" is not "a real live human trying to connect with real demonic forces and accomplish something supernatural." Instead, "fantasy fiction magic" is just "a real live human making up a story. Playing pretend."

The Bible has no commands, no rules, against that. Jesus told stories. His servants tell stories. We're made to tell stories.

And the Bible has no commands against telling a story that includes magic in it.

Think of it this way: God said "do not murder" right? But then in Matthew 18 Jesus tells a parable where one man tries to choke another man. There's attempted murder in the story Jesus is telling: but just because God disapproves of the act of murder, does not mean He disapproves of telling a story that features murder.

Sin being in a story isn't a bad thing. It's realistic, because sin exists. What really matters is whether or not the story treats the sin like sin, and not like an admirable thing. Because the point of all stories is to tell the truth in a compelling way. If the story treats something sinful like it's not sinful, that wouldn't be truthful. But if the story treats sin like it's definitely bad, then it's doing what God invented stories to do: tell the truth.

Now here's where you might say, "yeah, but most fantasy stories treat magic like it's a good thing."

Right. But remember: most fantasy stories don't have what the Bible calls "magic" in them at all.

When the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella says "bibbidi bobbidi boo," she's not calling upon demons to give her supernatural power (which is what the Bible is talking about when it condemns magic.) She's using a pretend superpower that the storyteller made up, on the spot, for the story. Her "magic" is not what the Bible calls "magic," so it doesn't even matter if it's portrayed as "good" or "bad" morally.

Fantasy fiction is fine. There is no reason, Biblically, for Christians not to read fantasy fiction if their only reason for it is "well there's magic in it."

There's nothing wrong with telling a story that has a supernatural element in it. It's only a story. As long as it's not real humans doing creation-worshipping or demon-contacting practices, in real life it's okay to write and it's okay to read.

Let me know if that makes sense!

Some quick background:

The following comic is about two characters: Zori Kell and Tuath Ara. Zori is a Sith apprentice and Tuath is a Jedi padawan. They met sometime before this story takes place on the desert planet Gaia. Zori saved Tuath from an accident that killed her master, and the duo formed an uneasy alliance to survive the unforgiving desert. They spent two Gaia-months trying to find a way offworld and develop feelings for each other. They share a kiss before returning to their respective lives.

They continued to run into each other. Zori is a member of the Sith cult known as the Devout, headed by Darth Arachne, and Tuath, as a senior padawan, is frequently sent against the cult. Before this comic begins, Tuath is captured by the Devout and put to work in their mines as a slave. Zori, who is fiercely protective of Tuath, will not allow this insult to her and stages a breakout. This brings us to the start of the comic

I am becoming aware of the effect a lack of trust in the media has had on people, paired with a dearth of research skills.

Before the Throne: How The Assassin's Blade Reveals the Heart Behind the Legend

This Is Where It Hurts—And This Is Where She Begins

I didn’t expect this book to undo me. I opened it for context, for backstory, for a deeper understanding of a girl I already thought I knew. I was not prepared to meet her here—bloody-knuckled and golden-eyed, standing at the edge of her own undoing, daring the world to come closer.

The Assassin’s Blade is not a prequel. It’s a reckoning.

These five novellas do not orbit the Throne of Glass series—they are its heartbeat, its open wound. They are the story beneath the story, the ghost behind every line Celaena Sardothien ever speaks. I thought I loved her before. But it was here, in these pages of sun-scorched desert and salt-stung shores and bloodstained cobblestones, that I saw her clearly for the first time.

This is the book where the mask cracks.

Where we watch a girl who kills for coin learn what it means to fight for something she’ll never get paid for. Where the sharp edges of her arrogance are dulled by bruised compassion, where her bravado is tested against grief so raw it bleeds straight through the page. She is not softened here. She is tempered.

Her love story with Sam Cortland wrecked me—not because it was tragic (though it is, utterly), but because it was real. No grand declarations. No sweeping gestures. Just quiet defiance and tentative touches. A rivalry melting into alliance. A glance held too long. A boy who didn’t ask to be her hero—but stayed anyway.

And when he’s gone? The silence he leaves behind is the loudest thing in the book.

But this isn’t just a love story. It’s a story about choice. About power.

About what happens when a girl forged into a weapon begins to wonder who she is when she’s not being pointed at someone.

When Celaena walks into Skull’s Bay, she is the blade Arobynn Hamel sharpened for years—obedient, lethal, beautiful. When she leaves, she’s something else entirely. She’s the girl who chose to defy him. Who looked at 200 shackled souls and decided that maybe she didn’t have to be what he made her.

There is no moment more powerful than when she realizes she can choose. That her loyalty was never freely given—it was manipulated, conditioned, beaten into her. That the life she’s been living isn’t the only one available to her.

And it costs her everything.

Arobynn’s shadow stretches long over these novellas.

He is not the loudest villain. But he is the most dangerous. His violence doesn’t scream—it whispers. It gifts. It smiles. He doesn’t break Celaena with blows (though those come too)—he breaks her with belief. He teaches her to confuse control for care, cruelty for closeness. And when she finally sees through it—when she walks away from the Keep, from him, from the man who raised her in a gilded cage—she doesn’t just claim freedom.

She earns it.

Every setting here is symbolic. Every relationship a lesson.

The Red Desert teaches her discipline, the cost of trust, and what it means to be seen as something more than a killer. Ansel offers her friendship, then betrayal, then something stranger: mercy. In Innish, Yrene Towers reminds Celaena that healing and hurting can exist in the same body—and that sometimes, giving away your armor (a ruby brooch, a pouch of gold) can be braver than drawing your blade.

By the time we reach the final novella, the road ahead feels inevitable. And yet, I still hoped. I hoped Sam would survive. I hoped Arobynn’s grip wouldn’t tighten. I hoped, absurdly, that love might be enough to save her.

But this is not a story that spares its heroine. This is the story that forges her.

When Celaena kneels in the King’s court, sentenced not to death but to a life of chains, she doesn’t scream. She doesn’t beg.

She survives.

And on that long, bitter road to Endovier, when the world has been stripped from her and only the memory of love remains, she sees the white stag—the Lord of the North, the symbol of her lost home—and finds something fierce and sacred still flickering inside her.

Not hope. Not yet. But resolve.

“I am Celaena Sardothien, and I will not be afraid.”

Those words hit like thunder. They are not pride. They are not bravado. They are the bones of her future self forming beneath the ash. This line, whispered into darkness, is a prophecy. A promise. And I will never forget the way it made me sit back, breathe deep, and believe in her all over again.

This book didn’t just deepen my love for the series. It reshaped it.

The Assassin’s Blade is not supplemental. It’s essential. It’s the foundation. The soul. The scar tissue. It is the quiet epic of a girl choosing—over and over—not to become the worst thing that ever happened to her.

Reading it felt like remembering something I’d forgotten I knew. Something about survival. About love. About fire.

Rating: ★★★★¾ (4.75/5)

For the ache. For the anger. For the boy who died, and the girl who didn’t. For the blade that became a queen.

Olives and coconut. You are a monster 🤣🤣

👻 Trick or treat? 🍫

My first trick-or-treater!! Here ya go!

HOLY SHIT MĀORI MIKU