how can I portray a culture that practices human sacrifice as not being uncivilized?
In our world, we consider human life to be precious and valuable. It is meant to be preserved, and a deliberate act of taking a life is considered deplorable by society. This is considered normal. The people of this setting also consider life to be valuable, as it was given to them by the gods. As it is precious, human life is the only thing worthy of being sacrificed to them. This continent is controlled by a theocracy where self-sacrifice is revered and promoted. The gods demands tribute from their people, and being sacrificed to them is the highest honor one can achieve. However, only a select few are worthy of such honor.
Slaves, the destitute, and average people are not applicants for this. The gods want those of merit, who have great potential and have proven themselves through competition. This is done through ritual games similar to our Olympics. These games are often dangerous where warriors or athletes from respective states go up against each other. Those who survive will meet each other in a final contest where there can only be one winner. All those who die in these games would be honored by their families and society as heroes who defended the pride of their nation. However, the winner will be given the ultimate honor of having their hearts removed and their soul offered to the heavens, where they would achieve godhood. Because of these games, outright war among nations has been avoided for millennia.
The religion demands for society to kill off its best people routinely, but I don't want to portray it as evil. The people and their leaders genuinely believe in what they are doing, and they have normal rules against murder and crime, etc. These events also keep the peace on the continent, as these war game rituals have taken the place of war and conflict. How can I get this across to the audience?
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1 answer
First, I will direct you here, because the questions overlap some (but are not duplicates). How to present an alien culture with different morals, without it coming across as savage?
You can't keep the reader from labeling the actions as "evil" if that's what they wish. And perhaps you don't want to stop them. Human sacrifice is pretty awful, at least to our modern minds.
Present your world matter-of-fact. This is how it works. This is why it works. Show the reader these things by how you describe them, not by sitting them down and explaining it.
Your characters might enjoy parts of the rituals, but they aren't doing all of this for kicks. They're doing it because it serves a purpose. Several purposes. Show those purposes.
One example is religious. They (some of them anyway) believe that these actions will please the gods and this in turn will benefit the society. Group ritual actions also bring a community together. They also reinforce social and class stratification in a community, something that leaders may consider necessary for the economy. They empower leaders and give them status. They reward certain families and sub-communities and elevate their status. They distract the people from things they ought not to be concerned with (problems with government, a disaster that could happen, etc). And they reduce leisure time where citizens could be out making trouble. Those are just a few examples.
The reader will take cues from you, the author. If you show these actions as normal (within this context), your reader will suspend disbelief. Of course, when contemplating the book, the reader may think very differently about the moral choices of the characters. And that's okay. You're presenting a world, with all its blemishes. Another route is to create dissidents in your world (it would be odd not to have any, but showing them is your choice). How you portray them, if at all, will help guide the reader as well.
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