Host segment:

Valeria: (looking into magic mirror) We've done it, Lord Voltmeter! He's cracking!

Lord Voltmeter: Oh, really? (Looks into magic mirror himself) No, he's just sleeping.

Valeria: Then why is he giggling to himself in his sleep?

Lord Voltmeter: Probably to keep himself sane. (Bangs fist on magic mirror) Hey! You! Lab rat! Wake up!

Nelth: (Waking up) Oh, it's the Troublesome Twins again. I don't suppose you'll be wanting to continue the experiment just yet?

Lord Voltmeter: Oh, no, booby. We'll give you a little breather...in the form of a book report! (Cackles madly)

Nelth: Your "wizzard" hat is slipping again, sir.

Lord Voltmeter: (straightens hat) Well. Your assignment today is to determine whether as a supposed piece of "Christian" fantasy, the book Dragonknight actually does a justice to the faith to which it attaches itself. Now, run along while I get ready to send along some friends to be with you.

Nelth: (frowns) Wait, what? Friends?

Lord Voltmeter: Just get along with it, will you?

A minor discourse on whether Dragonknight does Christianity justice and help propogate the teachings of Christianity in a way which is palatable to the discerning reader.

Hello. As you've seen above, the wizards have commanded me to do this silly little report, or they'll cut off all air to this part of the plane of literature. Being the lazy bastid that I am, I'll make this as short as I can without attracting the Troublesome Twins' wrath, so here we go:

The subject to be examined is the book Dragonknight, and whether the way it is written does the religion it represents--Christianity, in this case--a service, whereby service in this case is defined as an overall postive attitude developed by the discerning reader towards the religion represented, in this case, Christianity and its adherents.

Dragonknight's Christian roots are little in doubt. Right behind the cover are endorsements from various Christian authors (Douglas Hirt and Jill Elizabeth Nelson), the director of the American Christian Fiction Writer's Association, and the author of some Christian parenting book. There's even a bible verse (Proverbs 15:22) right out in the acknowledgements. Throughout the book, it is painfully clear that Wulder is a thinly-veiled analogy of God, Paladin of Jesus and the oft-quoted Tomes of Wulder the Bible. Bardon is shown to be praying to Wulder in a Christianlike fashion more than once, and characters say grace before eating. Wulder is referred to as "He" "His", and so forth, in exactly the same fashion as God is referred to.

With all these in place, there leaves little doubt that the characters are intended to be analogies of good, devout Christians. With this in mind, I will split this discourse into three distinct sections:

1. How Dragonknight portrays Christians and Christianity in a negative fashion.
2. How the actions taken by the protagonists in Dragonknight run counter to Jesus' teachings.
3. The distinct lack of faith in having a part to play in the story's events, although this supposedly being a religious fantasy.

In the following sections, I will assume that the reader has been following my sporkings right from the very first one, and the examples quoted herein may be found in them. As I said, I'm not going to pad my arguments to make them seem long and intimidating.

How Dragonknight portrays Christians and Christianity in a negative fashion

Rampant hypocrisy

Throughout the whole of the novel, Bardon and the devout amongst his companions are shown to be rampant hypocrites, often quoting principles from the Tomes of Wulder and then acting contrary to the principles quoted, sometimes mere moments after said quotation. Prominent examples from the text include Bardon's insistence that Wulder expects unbelievers to be respected equally like Wulder-worshippers are, yet he sits down and has a hour-long breakfast and then inspects Granny Kye's painting and N'Rae talking to a cute furry animal before waddling off with Regidor to save Bromp--as opposed to jumping into action when any devout of Wulder are even remotely threatened. Another severe offender is Bardon's judging everyone by their appearances at first sight throughout the novel (and never being wrong), despite him quoting a principle against just that the first time he meets Holt.

It's not just Bardon alone who is a hypocrite throughout the novel; Granny Kye, N'Rae, Jue Seeno and the other devout of Wulder have their moments in the spotlight of hypocrisy. If the reader is expected to extend the analogy to real-life Christians, who is going to believe them when they try to spread their religion?

Even the messages in the book itself are confused. It's mentioned that Wulderism believes beauty and cleverness are temporal and do not bring lasting happiness, yet all the "good" characters are good-looking and range from above average to being a genius who can learn a language in an hour. Compare this to the unbelievers and "low" races, which are ugly, smelly and stupid.

Misogynism

Nearly all of the women I remember in the book do at most one thing of value or plot-influencing, and then drop from view. N'Rae tames the kindia, Granny Kye gives Bardon the quest and then retires from the scene, Jue Seeno stays in her basket most of the time, and the same goes for Gilda. Kale is the only female character to have some impact on the plot, and what action she does have is confined to the last quarter of the book, when she actually comes on-stage.

Huge amounts of description are lavished on N'Rae's beauty, and her so-called abilities are almost all Informed Attributes. Granny Kye and Jue Seeno's insinuation that all young women care about is their clothing is frankly sad. Really. I'm not pushing for females to be Action Girls or High-Powered Nobles, but being there to be just eye candy and a reward is a fate which should befall no character in any book. 

Yes, I know there're more definitions to "strong" than just a few, but I cannot for the life of me conceive how a character can be "strong" when she doesn't even do anything, turns over leadership to men, insists that an aged academic coming along will make things safer just because he's male, and cries at the first sign of adversity.

Bigotry and xenophobia

Worshippers of Wulder are portrayed as bigots and afraid of "ideological pollution", so to speak. This is most clearly seen when Bromp tells others of stories learned from other cultures about the conworld; Bardon and Regidor immediately plot to send the mapmaker away and then "kill the lies of an ignorant man" without the mapmaker around the defend his arguments (which contributes to the next point), despite the fact that the mapmaker was not actively trying to influence anyone towards his views and was simply telling the stories for entertainment value.

The reason for this? Fear of ideas leaking from the stories and undermining Wulderism. Of course, if people were secure in their faith, they needn't fear this sort of thing, resulting in further aspersions being cast on the validity and integrity of Wulderism. Just how great can it be if mere stories from another culture not even directed at converting anyone can shake people's faith in Wulderism? Of course, all the devout are bored, insinuating that good Wulder-worshippers have nothing to learn from other cultures at all.

Further bigotry is seen in the automatic dismissal of all of Bromp's help to the party as ultimately being self-serving in nature, and the suggestion that unbelievers are incapable of altruism--something which has been demonstrated to be false in the real world.

What makes it worse is the treatment of "lesser" unbelievers on the part of both author and characters, like the jailor in Ianna, as well as the Low Races. The jailor is a caricature of a character, and Bardon repeatedly thinks of doing various nasty things to the jailor without concern as to the morality of doing so. The Low Races have it even worse, what with them supposedly created by Pretender, the world's analogy of Satan. Throughout the book, Bardon and his companions kill, maim, threaten, cheat and steal from the Low Races without so much as a second thought; the quiss are forced to serve the antagonists unwillingly, although the bisonbecks have less of a problem, and the grawligs were just defending their territory. Unbelievers and Low Races have their rights all stepped over by Bardon and company, and no moral questions are raised.

Portrayal of Wulderism as having weak, illogical arguments

During the course of the novel, no attempt is made to explain the benefits and wonders of Wulderism to any of the characters. Bardon and Regidor repeatedly speak of "truth" defeating "lies", but no mention is ever made of exactly what said "truth" is. No arguments are ever made in the defense of Wulderism; Ms. Paul always cops out at the last moment by arranging matters so that any impending discourse is averted.

The conversion of Bromp, the strawman atheist to Wulderism is even more suspect. First off, after Bromp is revealed as the book's strawman atheist, he's portrayed as a whiny idiot who has no further argument against the non-existence of Wulder other than "I say so!" Even so, no attempt is made by either Bardon or Regidor to explain the precepts of Wulderism to Bromp and that way convince him to shed his atheism; his conversion to Wulderism results from a bet made to convert if they escape from the grawligs (which arguably might have been done without intervention from Wulder) and not because of his conviction at Wulder's Principles.

The methods of debate used by Wulder-worshippers are even more suspect. So far, the book has given instances of ganging up on a single dissenting voice and shouting him down through force of numbers, not allowing the dissenter to voice his opinion (Holt being rebuked at the Caves of Endor), refusal to listen to the other side of an argument (Bromp telling stories) and one-sided arguments without the other perty around to defend his arguments (Bardon and Regidor planning to "disprove" Bromp's stories.)

It really makes you think. What does truth and secure faith have to worry about this? Why resort to such methods of debate, if the principles of Wulder are unassailable truth? Should not the truth be brought out in proper debates, to crush opposing ideas by its own weight instead of resorting to such underhanded methods?

The portrayal of Wulder-worshippers, and by extent Christians, in Dragonknight is an extremely negative one, if the reader bothers to look beyond the surface. How can a book that treats Christians thus be considered even remotely Christian?

How the characters' actions contradict the teachings of Jesus

Now, I'm going to try my hand at this. Admittedly, the source material I am going to use is drawn from six years' worth of monday morning chapel sessions in the school I attended, and that was...three? Four? Years ago, so if I've misrepresented anything theologically or made any factual errors, please feel free to correct me.

For simplicity's sake, I'm going to be drawing only material from the Gospel, primarily Jesus' parables, because they're pretty much from Jesus' mouth and no one can claim they're not his teachings.

Now, I can understand if these actions were presented as failings and Bardon and/or the other characters involved recognised them for what they were and repented, but the problem is, they aren't. The implications of these actions are simply glossed over or even presented as being in the right, especially when it manages to benefit the character in some fashion.

On judging others/hypocrism

Throughout the whole of Dragonknight, the devout of Wulder have been hypocrites on a myriad of issues as discussed above, from prejudice to judging others before fully knowing them to the treatment of unbelievers, yet no one calls the offenders out on their hypocritical manner. Bardon, especially, seems to take a perverse delight in condemning others--he sure does a lot of it, to Haddock, to Holt, to the low races and random ugly animals he fights, to the random courtiers whom he feels are speaking behind his back about his heritage.

It's not just Bardon who does the condemning. Granny Kye, for example, lambasts the citizens of Ianna for "not following Paladin's edicts and feeding the poor" amongst other instances, although she was clearly at fault, not even asking if the bin in question was a forager bin. Jue Seeno follows in a similar fashion, verbally attacking virtually anyone who even so much as slights her.

There are two primary interpretations of the Discourse on Judgementalistm (Matthew 7:1-6), the first one being an argument against judging others (a similar argument can also be found in Luke 6:37-38), which Bardon certainly is guilty of. Even with the view amongst many conservative Protestants that only hasty or unfair judgement is being condemned by these verses, Bardon and company are certainly guilty of that, with Bardon judging people with a mere glance. I guess "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" is lost on these guys.

The other interpretation of the verses is that they are an attack on hypocrisy, and that, too, is a shoo-in, for Bardon and his company aren't just walking around with planks in their eyes, they have whole bloody trees growing out of their faces.

On anger/forgiving others

Throughout the whole of the novel, both Bardon and Jue Seeno are portrayed as angry, irritable characters. Both express anger throughout the events up to their arrival at Sir Dar's castle, although in the case of Jue Seeno it peters out a little, but only because she has less screen time. Bardon's wrath is primarily directed at unbelievers and those whom he believes have slighted him; Jue Seeno's wrath strikes even her fellow devotees of Wulder. What is most important is that their anger is primarily about petty issues and cheap angst, and nowhere what might be considered "righteous anger".

Most prominent throughout the story is Bardon's resentment of Holt for his attractions to N'Rae, despite Holt never having harmed the party so far. He nurses the grudge against Holt for the rest of the trip, continually trying to find fault with him, thinking ill of the marione at every turn and warning N'Rae against him. Bardon's anger gets the better of him against Holt in the alley and while fighting the quiss, where he throws Holt into the sea without considering the consequences.

Similarly, after seeing Sir Dar in his castle, Bardon assumes that the courtiers who have noticed his ears are speaking ill of his half-breed heritage, and without making clear the issue with them condemns them in his heart and has to restrain himself from physically hurting them. Unfortunately, all sympathy was squeezed from that whiny angst, and so the incident was not followed up upon. The same goes for the jailor in Ianna; Bardon is unable to let go or forgive the slights against him by the jailor, and again, desires violence against the jailor himself.

Matthew 5: 21-26 makes it clear that Jesus both condemns the anger leading to violence to be as bad as the crime itself, and clearly states the need for quick reconciliation between two parties. Bardon and Jue Seeno's repeated refusal to even approach reconciliation or forgiveness with those who have slighted them is condemned by Jesus in the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18: 21-35).

My, the characters are striving to act Christlike, aren't they?

On prejudice/loving your enemies

As I have explained above, bigotry, whether intentional or otherwise, is rife throughout the story despite claims in the text that there is no basis in Wulderism for prejudice; Bardon and company behave poorly towards unbelievers and the Low Races. I'm not going to go into that again, so I'll just get on with proof:

The primary reference for this will be the Parable of the Good Samatarian (Luke 10:25-37). Although Samatarians believed in the Abrahamic God, their beliefs differed from that of Jews in key areas, and thus the religions of the two groups were somewhat dissimilar--leading to the hate between the two groups.

Cast appropriately, the parable imparts its message to listeners: namely, that an individual of a social group they disapprove of can exhibit moral behaviour that is superior to individuals of the groups they approve; it also means that not sharing the same faith is no excuse to behave poorly, as there is a universal moral law. Many Christians have used it as an example of Christianity against racial prejudice.

Contrast this with Bardon's treatment of unbelievers, the portrayal of unbelievers and Low Races in the prose, and the insinuation that unbelievers such as Bromp are incapable of altruistic motivations and are all motivated by selfishness. I don't think further explanation is required to see how this goes against Christian precepts. Bardon's bloodthirsty attitude towards Randomly Attacking Monsters and the Low Races does him a disservice.

Wulder-worshippers being above the law

This is one of the iffier proofs, as it depends on a particular interpretation of Matthew 22:21, being that of the belief that it is good and appropriate to submit to the State when asked, that spiritual demands supersede earthly demands but do not abolish them, or that the demands of the state are non-negotiable. I'll break my little rule on only taking from the gospel here a little to include Romans 13:1, “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.”

Nevertheless, Granny Kye's actions in Ianna and her subsequent condemnation of the town's leadership and people clearly show that she acts, if not believes that she is above secular law (considering her portrayal as slightly addled, this may be slightly excused, but her characterisation flip-flops according to the plot's demands). The people of Ianna not feeding the poor is no excuse for her to sieze other people's goods for distribution to the orphans without making things clear first, especially after Bardon mentioning early in the book "there is no right reason for doing the wrong thing."

The insinuation that there are some who cannot be saved even if they turned to Wulder

This, possibly, is the most disgusting point that I'm going to make. While it is not explicitly stated that the Low Races are incapable of salvation, the way in which Bardon and the rest of his little troupe treat them, as opposed to the even the unbelievers of the High Races, heavily suggests this point.

In the prose itself, it is stated that Pretender created the seven Low Races, that they are mockeries of the High Races, and that they are unnatural. It is heavily implied that any member of the Low Races are evil
by default, as opposed to the High Races, and the actions taken by Bardon and his friends with regards to the Low Races supports this hypothesis. They slaughter, maim, cheat and steal from the Low Races without a second thought, and fail to show them any decency or trust their words, even in the case of the dying quiss and the grawligs defending their territory--certainly not something they do to even Bromp or anyone else who might be turned to Wulder.

Even when Jue Seeno claims Wulder does not look down upon the low races, she simply says that because Wulder allowed their creation, He can turn something created for evil to serve His purpose and do something good for all. That's it. Nothing about the low races themselves. Have they sent missionaries? No one's bothered, it seems. It's a foregone conclusion. They're just too stupid, too ugly, carnivorous, no one can turn them from their ways...

Urp.

Excuse me, I got the impression from monday morning chapel service that one of the central tenets of the Christian faith is that God has the power to change even the most wicked sinner, and that anyone--anyone who opens their heart to Jesus and accepts him as his or her Lord and Saviour will receive salvation. The insinuation that there is a group of people who simply cannot do this--well, I really have nothing more to say.

The failure of Bardon's faith to play any significant and obvious role in the resolution of the conflict

Despite this being a supposedly "Christian" fantasy, Bardon's faith actually has very little to do with the outcome of the book's events or the choices he makes, since he goes and does what the plot needs anyways, even if it means being a complete hypocrite to the principles he spouts. How can a book be "Christian" if the faith isn't central to the plot? By the same extent, the Da Vinci Code could be considered "Christian" too, since it has Christians and Christian groups as characters, deals with the Christian faith, and so forth. Yet anyone would be hard-pressed to claim it was a work of "Christian" fiction.

Throughout the book, Bardon spouts the Principles of Wulder at every turn, often when rebuking someone or repeating them to himself when it's convenient. He also prays to Wulder, says grace and sings the occasional hymn to Wulder, yet his faith fails to do anything for him when it counts (although this might be a side-effect of his hypocrisy) I'll just quote an amazon review:

"However, much of the Christian overtones take the form of pedantic iterations of scripture-like verses which stifle conversation and eliminate much enjoyment of the text. This style of writing seems to make the Christian-influencing of a work nothing more than the provision mere proverbial wisdom instead of an edifying infusion of the Spirit of Truth.

"On the whole, I give the text somewhere between 2.5 and 3 stars. It is most definitely not a complete bomb of a work but is not philosophically or theologically thought-provoking."

His faith doesn't make him take heart when the going is tough. It doesn't affect his relationships with people in postive ways. Every single one of the major plot points and fights are oddly clear of even the tiniest hint of Bardon's faith in action. Personally, I think it would have made a much stronger point had Bardon been an ordinary person who triumphed through the power of his faith in Wulder, which allowed him to overcome obstacles, but instead of that, Ms. Paul saw fit to provide Bardon and his companions with the following, which I've complained about at every turn:

1. Unearned inherent traits in the characters
2. Trinkets which Bardon amassed throughout the book
3. Sheer authorial intervention

Nowhere does Bardon's belief in Wulder help him. The power of Wulderism can't be seen anywhere. Instead, all their problems are solved by the above three, which have no link to Wulderism at all. They save the knights by stumbling upon them, they hack and slash through mooks without any problem at all, and so forth. Where's the faith?

A religious fiction book that sidelines its own faith. Amazing. And with that, I happily conclude that Dragonknight cannot be a Christian fantasy, when it smears Christians with a black brush,  the protagonists' actions directly contradicts the teachings of Jesus with no recrimination and the faith isn't even an issue.

***

Nelth: How's that, sir, ma'am?

Lord Voltmeter: Very nice, you overgrown lizard. But nevermind, you can continue with the book! (Presses button)

(Lights flash. An alarm sounds. The whole plane starts to vibrate.)

Nelth: Oh no, we've got reading sign! (Flees)