Please tell me I'm not the only one who has a problem with the above map. PLEASE assure me of this! I mean, it's "Camp Half-Blood," not "Half-Blood Camp," Narnia doesn' have any of it's surrounding lands, Oz and Alagaesia are completely left out, etc., etc., etc.
Now, I can't draw worth a single Mushroom Kingdom coin, but I can go on the Internet, save a bunch of maps to my computer and put them all on a page on my blog so you can click right here and look at a bunch of different maps I've gathered together to help me prove the points I'm about to make here.
I'm not saying that maps such as these should be completely abandoned. I think they're awesome ideas, but putting these countries in such close proximity is when everything falls apart. I haven't read all the books/watched all the films and shows for all the fictional lands, but I think I know enough about a few to give us a good idea on what is wrong:
1. Some lands are outright stated to be imaginary. Such lands are "Terabithia," and although not pictured here, Mr. Rogers' "Neighborhood of Make Believe," and "The Hundred Acre Wood." These lands could never be placed on any such map because they are only of the mind. Yes, some people are going to pull out the Harry Potter quotation on me about how just because something's in your head doesn't make it any less real. Still, I can't feel right about having places that aren't real even in their fictional world being placed on a map.
3. The surrounding countries of several kingdoms are not included and countries are shaped incorrectly. The two I can right out tell you are inaccurate are Westeros (as little as I know about it) and Narnia. I mean, where's Essos? Where are Archenland, Calormen, and the islands Prince Caspian sailed to aboard the Dawn Treader? These are significant places to these series, yet on this map, they've just been dropped like they don't matter. Also, some countries are just shaped wrongly. They're either too big or just plain malformed.
4. Some of these places are in our world. Camp Half-Blood and Hogwarts are both hidden places that can only be located by those who belong to the classes of individuals allowed to attend (demigods or wizards), and Panem is North America in the future. Furthermore, this map chose to include the famous training locations of demigods and wizards but left out Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters--the training place for mutants. Obviously, if we include that, then we have other places to worry about such as Stark Tower, Gotham City, Metropolis, etc., but we'll conquer that topic in a little bit.5. Narnia is on a flat world, while other countries are located on spherical worlds. I think that says enough. Narnia can in no way be part of the same world as anything that is on a globe. Narnia is flat (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader).
As already stated, though, I believe maps like this are excellent ideas, but they need to be well thought out, not just patched together willy-nilly in a sort of "Ooh, I got a great idea, let's place all my fandoms in one gigantic map!" way. How can this be repaired, though?
Simple.
A fictional world UNIVERSE map.
"Say what?"
Okay, I mean, let's just think of something, by desiring to place everything on one map, the cartographer has neglected the Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Firefly, Doctor Who, etc. fandoms. The fictional world is a galaxy to explore! Oh, that leads to my first point of how to improve this.
2. Include a straight out map of our world. On it, mark Star Fleet Academy, Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter, 221B Baker Street, Cedric Diggory's house (where the rings to Narnia are buried), Hogwarts and the other wizarding schools, the rabbit hole to Wonderland, 17 Cherry Tree Lane, the locations of the Stargates on earth, Jurassic Park, Wonka's Chocolate Factory, Tortuga and the Isla de Muerta, all the cities and towns of the DC and Marvel universes, etc. You have to remember that this is not our world exactly. Trust me, we would have heard of some sort of crazy events going on, even if perception filters and the Mist kept us from seeing the truth. Plus, let's not forget the fact that we'd definitely see newspaper articles about the stuff the Winchester brothers of Supernatural are up to. So, this is an alternate earth in an alternate universe--just one of the multiple planets that will be drawn on the gigantic map above. On this alternate earth, as will be noted on the map, North America eventually becomes Panem, home of The Hunger Games. Based on the technology of Panem, it happened sometime after the last recorded events of Star Trek and Firefly. In Serenity, the voiceover states that Earth-That-Was got too crowded, although I imagine enough people were left on it when Panem formed to still have such competitions. This alternate world can also be justified by the existence of all the Presidents and Prime Ministers that never existed in our world.
4. Portals between this world and our world could exist. This is, of course, assuming events like that of Narnia did indeed happen in our world. The easiest way to get to this world is to find the yellow and green ring Digory Kirk's Uncle
Andrew invented, and jump into the ponds in the world between worlds
until we found our desired world. Other methods are a bit harder.
Obviously, the average tornado is destructive, but in The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy happens to get picked up in one that has either a) also picked up a portal to another world (This one happening to be Oz.) or b) is a portal to another world. The rabbit hole that Alice falls down is also another such portal, and is probably the exact same sort of portal that the characters in Enchanted use to get between Andalasia and Times Square, even though that particular one is a manhole. Both, nonetheless, are portals to another world where things do not work exactly like here.5. An explanation of why some lands have talking animals and some don't. First of all, Alternate Earth is extremely similar to ours. It merely contains people and a few places that don't exist in our world. These lands where animals can talk are quite like Narnia. I imagine there's some sort of planet in this alternate universe where animals can talk. I'd imagine that this particular planet is some sort of fairy tale planet. Not all the princes and princesses we know are alive at once. Rather, somehow our world got delivered the important stories of the histories of various royal kingdoms on this planet. In some lands, the animals can talk, and in others they can't. An alternate explanation could be that over time, the animals on Alternate Earth lost the ability to speak, just as Narnian animals can lose their ability to speak, however as the history of Alternate Earth includes characters such as King Arthur and Robin Hood who can't speak to animals, this explanation is highly unlikely.
Obviously, this blog post has all been in good fun, as I don't actually believe in alternate universes (Sorry!), and I know fiction is just fiction. It's all just stories that we use to keep ourselves entertained. But, you know what? That's okay. We all need that bit of fun in which we imagine what the world would be like if things weren't the way they are. Some may condemn fantasy as wrong, but I enjoy it becuse I understand that it's all pretend; it's not real. Still, imagine if this were real: I think we would all immediately start running around trying to find portals to this alternate universe.
But would you really want to go? It's dangerous. Unless you've got the Doctor (Well, this universe's Doctor, which is the Doctor we watch on TV.) to jiggery-pokery your phone, you can't call home. Your way back could get cut off. You might have to live out the rest of your life without electricity or any of the comforts you've known. Would you really want to possibly pay that price? Maybe you would, but I think some worlds are better left in our imaginations where we can escape back to reality. After all, reality should be where we live, and fiction should be where we visit because when we live our lives the other way around, that is when things become dangerous because we lose touch with what's real.
As a Christian, I've been called to live a life for God, not for my fandoms. Although I believe that literature is wonderful and fun, II Corinthians 10:5 says that I am to be "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." If I ever let the fictional world become more important than God--even C.S. Lewis's beautiful world of Narnia that alludes to Christianity--then my priorities are wrong, and I need to turn my focus back to Him. This is true whether it is fantasy literature or shopping or Facebook or music or whatever. And I am saying this knowing that I fail. My mind wanders during prayer more often than I should, and instead of talking to God, I find myself thinking about my writing or what I want to happen in life or even checking Facebook and Pinterest. My priorities can be seriously messed up sometimes. So, if you're a Christian, before you start your next TV show marathon or pick up a novel, think about if you've spent any time with God yet today. He is more important than whatever you are about to do. I know this is not the topic I started with up top, but it came to my heart as I was wrapping up, and I felt that it was important to end with this: that the Bible is better than any fantasy novel you will ever read and your relationship with God is more important than your favorite couple getting together.
