The Paranormal Genre -Stagnated
I was just barely twenty-years old when I caught the paranormal fever. It started with a movie; I don’t remember the title, but it dealt with an Angel that came to earth for some mission and fell in love with a woman. Sense then, I’ve been drawn to similar books and movies until perhaps five years ago when they started to boar and annoy me. It may have been the Twilight series that did it for me as the story line seemed to get out of hand. I did like the beginning of the series, as it was intriguing and different: Vampires trying to co-exist with people. True Blood, the HBO series, was equally intriguing for a while. But then, the stories all seemed to have the same basic story lines that I broke down into two categories.
The Love story: These stories, mostly written by female authors, seem to lose an interesting story line in an abrupt or slowly materializing romance. The innocent, beautiful girl causes the powerful vampire or angel to throw everything to the wind in order to obtain her love. If not that, the powerful supernatural being is on a quest to find his lost love. These stories usually have nice action that kept me interested, but then, often became sappy. An example of this is Fallen, by Lauren Kate. I was caught up in it for half of the story until – you guested it – it became sappy. Here is a description of the story from Good Reads.
17-year-old Lucinda falls in love with a gorgeous, intelligent boy, Daniel, at her new school, the grim, foreboding Sword & Cross . . . only to find out that Daniel is a fallen angel, and that they have spent lifetimes finding and losing one another as good & evil forces plot to keep them apart.
The Demons of Doom. These story lines are usually written by male authors. They involve Biblical angelic or demonic characters by name and not so much by theological personality descriptions. These stories usually fail to take into consideration the idea that in theology, various demons are believed to have been bound or imprisoned until the end of time. Demons like Azazel and Asmodeus, according to religious texts and dogma, have been taken away from our world forever. Yet Azazel, is a very popular character that authors seem to always pull out of his eternal prison. In addition to the creative and theological contradictions, many writers paint Hell as a living quarter for demons. Hell is where they live? I thought it was a place for punishment, but many authors like to give these demons power that allow them to come from the fiery pit, and in some cases, they are sent to earth by the devil himself – who, according to theology and religious dogma, won’t see Hell’s fire until the end of time. Still, these writers like to make the devil the ruler of Hell as Hades rules the underworld in Greek mythology. In the end, just as the love story plot lines become sappy, the Demons of Doom plot lines become too simplistic. The demons have come to destroy mankind and wreak unprecedented havoc on the universe simply because they are evil. These story lines often lack complexity in the demonic characters and if I’m watching the movie, I’m only waiting for the next fight scene. Take for example the film NEPHILIM. Here is a description from IMDb
NEPHILIM begins with the first signs of warfare evolving between good and evil. Set in modern times, two archangels, an atypical priest, an ex-homicide detective and a resurrected spirit form an unlikely alliance to unite against an insurgence of fallen angels and the termination of free will. It is written that the final battle is destined when the seeds for the race of Nephilim were planted by Beshwa, the first fallen angel to mate with humans during the ancient days on earth. Now, Father Markus must lead the battle against Azazel, a fallen angel who plans to create a new race of Nephilim. If born, the new race will prevail over all mortals and wreak unmitigated havoc and unstoppable evil. Indeed, with the birth of the Nephilim, a final battle between good and evil is set to begin.
What both types of paranormal stories have in common is an over-humanization of the supernatural. I believe the paranormal genre tends to put too much human emotion into the supernatural characters without answering some basic questions. Why would an angel love a mortal so much that he gives up everything? How does an immortal throw away all reasoning and logic to blindly pursue a selfish goal? Why does evil exist? Are demons out to destroy mankind just for the sake of doing so with no other reason aside from their evil nature?
When I write my paranormal fictions – usually based on angels and demons (djinn), I try to find an original angle that answers the above questions. What my goal is with the Men Djinn and Angels series is to connect theology, science, history and creativity in a thought provoking way that tells an interesting and entertaining story. In future books, I hope to show that demons and angels are different from people by de-humanizing them and present a less visited view of mankind through the eyes of the supernatural. I don’t know if it works, but so far, I like what I have done.
See more at: www.mendjinnandangels.com
The Love story: These stories, mostly written by female authors, seem to lose an interesting story line in an abrupt or slowly materializing romance. The innocent, beautiful girl causes the powerful vampire or angel to throw everything to the wind in order to obtain her love. If not that, the powerful supernatural being is on a quest to find his lost love. These stories usually have nice action that kept me interested, but then, often became sappy. An example of this is Fallen, by Lauren Kate. I was caught up in it for half of the story until – you guested it – it became sappy. Here is a description of the story from Good Reads.
17-year-old Lucinda falls in love with a gorgeous, intelligent boy, Daniel, at her new school, the grim, foreboding Sword & Cross . . . only to find out that Daniel is a fallen angel, and that they have spent lifetimes finding and losing one another as good & evil forces plot to keep them apart.
The Demons of Doom. These story lines are usually written by male authors. They involve Biblical angelic or demonic characters by name and not so much by theological personality descriptions. These stories usually fail to take into consideration the idea that in theology, various demons are believed to have been bound or imprisoned until the end of time. Demons like Azazel and Asmodeus, according to religious texts and dogma, have been taken away from our world forever. Yet Azazel, is a very popular character that authors seem to always pull out of his eternal prison. In addition to the creative and theological contradictions, many writers paint Hell as a living quarter for demons. Hell is where they live? I thought it was a place for punishment, but many authors like to give these demons power that allow them to come from the fiery pit, and in some cases, they are sent to earth by the devil himself – who, according to theology and religious dogma, won’t see Hell’s fire until the end of time. Still, these writers like to make the devil the ruler of Hell as Hades rules the underworld in Greek mythology. In the end, just as the love story plot lines become sappy, the Demons of Doom plot lines become too simplistic. The demons have come to destroy mankind and wreak unprecedented havoc on the universe simply because they are evil. These story lines often lack complexity in the demonic characters and if I’m watching the movie, I’m only waiting for the next fight scene. Take for example the film NEPHILIM. Here is a description from IMDb
NEPHILIM begins with the first signs of warfare evolving between good and evil. Set in modern times, two archangels, an atypical priest, an ex-homicide detective and a resurrected spirit form an unlikely alliance to unite against an insurgence of fallen angels and the termination of free will. It is written that the final battle is destined when the seeds for the race of Nephilim were planted by Beshwa, the first fallen angel to mate with humans during the ancient days on earth. Now, Father Markus must lead the battle against Azazel, a fallen angel who plans to create a new race of Nephilim. If born, the new race will prevail over all mortals and wreak unmitigated havoc and unstoppable evil. Indeed, with the birth of the Nephilim, a final battle between good and evil is set to begin.
What both types of paranormal stories have in common is an over-humanization of the supernatural. I believe the paranormal genre tends to put too much human emotion into the supernatural characters without answering some basic questions. Why would an angel love a mortal so much that he gives up everything? How does an immortal throw away all reasoning and logic to blindly pursue a selfish goal? Why does evil exist? Are demons out to destroy mankind just for the sake of doing so with no other reason aside from their evil nature?
When I write my paranormal fictions – usually based on angels and demons (djinn), I try to find an original angle that answers the above questions. What my goal is with the Men Djinn and Angels series is to connect theology, science, history and creativity in a thought provoking way that tells an interesting and entertaining story. In future books, I hope to show that demons and angels are different from people by de-humanizing them and present a less visited view of mankind through the eyes of the supernatural. I don’t know if it works, but so far, I like what I have done.
See more at: www.mendjinnandangels.com
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