What the Wingfeather Saga Teaches Us About Worship

Spoiler Alert: This post contains spoilers to North! Or Be Eaten and The Warden and the Wolf King. Please keep this in mind while reading the post, particularly the final two sections.

For as long as humanity has existed, the need to worship something or someone has been prevalent in society. I’d like to suggest that humanity longs for worship because from the foundation it was designed to worship. Isaiah recognizes this, saying that humanity was created for God’s glory.

“Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him.” – Isaiah 43:7 (NKJV)

Humanity Was Designed for Worship

God designed Adam and Eve as His descendants who would reflect His character. Their very lives magnified or worshiped the One who had made them. Adam and Eve were given a task by God to tend the earth.

“Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.” – Genesis 2:15 (NKJV) 

Curiously, here the words tend and keep (abad and shamar) are the same words later used in the Bible used to describe worship and priestly service. Adam and Eve were designed to tend and keep a garden, and their work was as worship unto the Creator. (Doesn’t this give a different meaning to work?)

Later on, God commanded the people of Israel to worship none other but Him. This was the essence of the first and second commandments (Exodus 20:3-5) and God reiterates this sentiment when He gives the ten commandments once more to Moses after the nation of Israel had sinned and worshiped a man-made, golden calf.

“But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God).” – Exodus 34:13-14 (NKJV)

This begs the question: why? Why did God design man for worship and command him to not worship anything else?

What We Worship Changes Us

To illustrate my point, I’d like to reference Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga. In this tale, Gnag the Nameless, ruler of the dark kingdom of Dang, builds an army by having people sing an ancient song that transforms them into evil lizards (Fangs) and later into evil wolves.

Gnag the Nameless had stolen some of the powerful Ancient Stones made by the Maker, and by harnessing their power, he would meld people with an animal (a lizard or wolf) through song and change them. When the transformation was complete, the Stone Keepers would give the new Fang a different name, effectively twisting the image and identity they had been given by the Maker. Many people were willing to forget who they were in the past all in the pursuit of power, strength, and a new and different life. To quote the song in the book:

“Sing the song of the ancient stones, and the blood of the beast imbues your bones.”

We Become What We Behold

This story strikes me because we, as humans, become what we behold and worship. When we worship God, we reflect His image, magnify it, and become more like Him. But what happens when we worship something else? We become disfigured, transformed into a “lesser image”, and lose our God-given identity.

The Psalmist knew this.

“Their idols are silver and gold, The work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; Eyes they have, but they do not see; They have ears, but they do not hear; Noses they have, but they do not smell; They have hands, but they do not handle; Feet they have, but they do not walk; Nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them; So is everyone who trusts in them.” – Psalms 115:4-8 (NKJV)

Misplaced, or misdirected, worship not only goes against God’s design and explicit commandment, it deforms our identity, purpose, and design. Just like all those people in the Wingfeather Saga, singing the wrong song can deform us into nameless puppets of the enemy without an identity and without glory.

What Are We Beholding?

In the Saga, people had fallen under a “spell” of sorts. They had desires and believed that the way to fulfill them would be to follow Gnag the Nameless. Some turned themselves in willingly, while others were kidnapped and made to forcefully sing the Ancient Song.

But many of them wanted to sing the song because they wanted power. Others wanted to belong to something bigger than themselves. Others wanted fame and glory. They believed that the wrong song was the way to obtain this. Unfortunately, all they gained was a distorted reality and an empty life devoid of family and real glory.

The fangs were led by empty promises which did change them, but instead of transforming them into something glorious they deformed into something less than the Maker’s intended purpose for them.

Changing the Song

Toward the end of the Saga, King Kalmar meets with the Maker, who tells him that when the time comes he will know what to do to save all the Fangs and the kingdom of Anniera. Kalmar, who had been captured by the Fangs and had been turned into a wolf himself (Gray Fang), realized that to save the Fangs, he needed to hold the Ancient Stone and have the Fangs sing the song.

But Janner, Kalmar’s older brother and the Throne Warden, realizes that if Kalmar sings the song, he could die and reverting the transformation may be hopeless. Janner figures out that the way to save everyone, his brother and king included, is to change the song.

“Sing the song of the ancient stones, and the blood of the boy imbues your bones.”

With the new song in his mind, Janner grabs the Ancient Stone from Kalmar and urges him and the crowd to keep singing. Janner hugs the stone to himself, and as he loses consciousness he can sense the life draining from him even as he senses the Maker’s immense love and pleasure.

The Fangs all revert back to humans, having sung the song of the boy rather than the beast. King Kalmar returns to being a boy again. But Janner is gone, having become the first seed in a new garden. Kalmar weeps over his brother as he realizes that Janner took his place so that while the transformation happened, Kalmar wouldn’t die and so that all Fangs would be restored.

Worship That Calls Us Higher

I do not believe Andrew Peterson intended this story to be an exact metaphor of the Gospel, but the overall message echoes it nonetheless. Janner, to me, shows how Jesus turned himself in to die for all of us so we could be restored to the original image the Maker had for us.

We had fallen and forgotten God’s design for us. We’d embraced other idols and worshiped lesser things in the pursuit of greatness. The only way to transform us back into His glorious image and redeem us was to have someone take our place and change the song, so to speak. But this someone had to bear the image of what we needed to be transformed into. Jesus, the Maker’s son and the perfect man, gave His life so that we would get His glory.

Now we are all given a choice: we will either worship God and in so doing be called higher, or we will worship lesser things and eventually lose our identity. But a way has been made for us. There’s now a new song we can sing!

Final Note

The Warden and the Wolf King has an open ending, with the faint hope of resurrection on the horizon. I believe this is the hope we all have and can look forward to. Jesus took our place, and resurrected, so we can now look forward to the new life He is living.

And part of this new life is a new song: a song that transforms us higher into the image of our Maker.

The question now is: what will we worship? Remember, worship and work are intertwined. What will we work towards and what will we behold in our lives?

Thanks for reading,
Anna

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Photo by Bruno Croci on Unsplash