When Fantasy and Theology Collide: Some Thoughts on Satan
I recently met a woman whose father-in-law had been a federal prison guard at a medical prison that held the “Blind Sheikh” back around the time of the 9/11 terrorist attack. The Blind Sheikh (Omar Abdel-Rahman) was an associate of Osama bin Laden and the planner behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — one of the early “masterminds” of Al Qaeda. In other words, a real life counterpart to the nastiest, most nefarious villains in our fictional thriller novels and cinema fare.
She told me that her dad-in-law spoke to the Sheikh a couple times, as could be expected: casual banter will occasionally happen between guards and the imprisoned criminals they are guarding. She said the Sheikh seemed friendly enough to her father-in-law, but she added, “The Sheikh told him that we worship three gods. That was a big issue he had with us, that we worship three gods. So much of it was cultural misunderstanding.”
Here at Black Gate we often have posts on films and TV shows as they connect with or pertain to our favorite genre(s). If we don’t talk as much (or at all) about live drama, it’s probably because there’s not as much SF or Fantasy happening on the stage as there is on the screen. I’d think we’d all agree that with a very few exceptions stage effects are simply not equal to the kind of special effects SF and Fantasy often need.
