| 1 | [[WMG: A Note About the Origin of the Narnia Books]] |
| 2 | After reading this page, it's evident that most commenters are not aware that Lewis wrote the Narnia books ''specifically'' to tell younger readers his thoughts about Christian theology without being bound into the narrow structure permitted such discussions in his day. (Or in many others, including the present, if you think about it.) His intent, and the title of the best book about Lewis and Narnia, was to slip his ideas and discussions 'Past Watchful Dragons'. Keep that in mind as you read and analyze the whys and wherefores... |
| 3 | * The Other Wiki's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion,_the_Witch_and_the_Wardrobe#Writing article]] suggests his original intent wasn't that clear-cut (Aslan, for example, was one of the later elements to be introduced). |
| 4 | * I do remember reading and hearing quite frequently that all Lewis claimed to have been doing was "writing books [he] would have liked to have read". It's entirely possible this was just talk, but the whole "Chronicles of Narnia = Christian propaganda" slant does strike this humble troper as a somewhat simple and childish theory that hints at conspiracy. |
| 5 | * His Christian faith was a big part of his life, so obviously it was going to be a big part of the world he was creating. Like the above troper stated, he was most likely writing books he liked to read, not trying to persuade children to believe what he did. |
| 6 | * It's likely a little of both. On one hand, Lewis is writing books that he would like to read. On the other, being a pretty committed Christian, it's hardly a stretch to suggest that he would enjoy reading books that communicate why Christianity is a good and worthy thing to believe in. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and just because Lewis is using the books to communicate his worldview to others and suggest that it might be worth accepting doesn't mean that they're nothing but polemic. |
| 7 | * What I think is also important to point out in this context is that just because some people say the books are "Christian allegory", it doesn't mean that ''everything'' in them "stands in for something else". Some things do, and the extent to which they do is up to debate, but some things are just there because he's telling a story. |
| 8 | ** As I understand it, his lesser known, more adult-focused Silent Planet series is a lot more blatant about having Christian elements with the Devil being the antagonist, but it's still very earnest sci-fi. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | [[WMG: Aslan blatantly contradicts himself.]] |
| 11 | He repeatedly tells Lucy, in multiple books, that "no one is ''ever'' told "what would have happened". And yet in his speech to the kid in ''The Horse and His Boy'' he says, "I will now tell you what would have happened..." |
| 12 | * Probably because "No one is ever told..." sounds cooler than "I don't feel like telling you". He does it in ''Magician's Nephew'' too. |
| 13 | * What speech is that? He never tells anyone what would have happened at any point in ''The Horse and his Boy''. He just tells Aravis and Shasta (in two of the three scenes he appears in) that "nobody is told any story but their own." As for ''The Magician's Nephew'', there he tells Digory what would have happened if he had done something wrong (stealing the apple), whereas Lucy, both times, wanted to know what would have happened if she ''hadn't'' done something wrong (not followed Aslan when her siblings decided not to, and eavesdropping on and judging her friend). While telling Digory what sad fate he avoided would theoretically make him feel better, how could emphasizing to Lucy in detail how she screwed up make her feel any better? So, no, he didn't feel like telling her stuff that would make her dwell on her own guilt. |
| 14 | ** You've said it yourself: "He tells Digory what would have happened if he had done something wrong." I don't see any evidence that it has to do with the way anyone ''feels'' in any situation whatever. Guilt and all that don't even enter into it. He says, more than once, that ''no one'' is ''ever'' told what would have happened. Aslan isn't the type of fellow who goes around making sweeping proclamations like that and not meaning them. To mean by that, "I'm sorry, but I don't want to hurt your feelings by answering your questions," or, "I don't feel like responding to that" (or worse yet, simply flat out ''lie''), is not in character for him, and wouldn't make much sense anyway. It's just an irreconcilable inconsistency that has always irked me. The very, very best that could be said for it is that it is conceivably a classic textbook example of how misunderstanding and lack of clarity are among the many pitfalls of the passive voice in writing: "No one is ever told" = "I never tell anyone", and he instituted this "never tell" policy between the events of ''Horse'' and the later stories, but I find it hard to see him ever changing his mind about anything (and I don't mean that in a bad way). |
| 15 | *** Still, Digory is only told "his own story," or at least how it could have gone. It came across to me as an expanation of why Digory had chosen rightly and reconfirmed that Jadis is getting more than she bargained for. To me it is a completely different situation than any other. |
| 16 | *** In ''The Last Battle'', it's made clear that when Aslan told the older children that they'd never go back to Narnia, "he meant the Narnia you were thinking of", as opposed to the "true Narnia" through the stable door. This shows that Aslan is willing to say things that, if treated with excessive pedantry, turn out to be false, but which still communicate the (true) thing he wants to say. This may be one of those situations. I don't have my copy of the book available to check, but if I recall correctly Lucy first asks Aslan to tell her "what would have happened [...if she hadn't done the thing she shouldn't have]"; Aslan then tells her that no one is ever told "what would have happened", leaving the second bit of the sentence unsaid just as Lucy had. |
| 17 | ** The difference this troper sees is thus: In the case of Digory, the effects of eating the stolen apple were certain. If someone stole one for ill gain, only bad would come of it, even if there were good intentions behind it. It was a certainty. In the other cases, things were more uncertain. For example, Lucy asks Aslan "If I had gone to you earlier, would all of this trouble have been avoided?" In that case, there were many other factors, many other wills at work, and it probably would be too difficult to say whether or not doing different actions would have helped or caused things to somehow turn worse. There's the factor of human will involved. |
| 18 | * Digory has just passed a moral test with flying colours, and is told what would have happened if he had, instead, succumbed to temptation. In all the other cases, when Aslan says "no one is ever told...", he is talking to someone who has just messed up pretty badly, and refusing to tell them what would have happened if they had stayed true. In the same way, a kid who's been naughty, then asks for ice cream, might be told "You don't get ice cream," where the precise meaning is "You do sometimes get ice cream, but not when you're like this." The reason might simply be mercy: Aslan doesn't torture people with the thought of what they've lost, but he is happy to reward people with the thought of what they've gained. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | [[WMG: The time gap between ''The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe'' and ''Prince Caspian'']] |
| 21 | TheMovie of ''Prince Caspian'' accepts that the Pevensies have been gone for 1300 Narnian years. This length of time is never directly stated in the books but implied to be around 1000 years. Doctor Cornelius tells Caspian the Telmarine who conquered Narnia was Caspian the First, and the titular Caspian is Caspian the Tenth. So 9 generations have passed since the Telmarines conquered Narnia. Since this is not a universe where characters are prone to Main/MethuselahSyndrome, that's not enough to stretch across 1000+ years. What happened during the 700-1000 years after the Pevensies disappeared before the Telmarines came? |
| 22 | * Well, the length of time is stated in the book. But anyway, just because there have only been ten King Caspians doesn't mean that there have only been 10 kings. In real life, there were two kings between Henry and Henry II, two more until Henry III, two more until Henry IV-Henry VI, three more until Henry VII and Henry VIII, and twenty-four and counting with no Henry IX. There could have just been a longer gap between kings. |
| 23 | * Alternately, nothing at all of importance happened. The only people there until the Telmarines came were dwarves, centaurs and talking animals, I wouldn't expect them to make much societal progress. |
| 24 | ** [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman Why not?]] They're just as sapient as humans - if not, Aslan judging them in The Last Battle gets somewhat disturbing. |
| 25 | *** Because for one thing, Narnia never makes much societal progress at all. From start to finish it's stuck in an Arthurian mythos-style era. For another thing, humans are the ones who like to build towns and cities and whatnot where people congregate and come together and, well, form societies; left to their own devices, the talking animals clearly prefer to just live in simple homes in the woods in their own territory. And lastly, because Aslan basically set Narnia up so that it's supposed to be ruled by a human, and thus always prospers best when it is. |
| 26 | * But there were other humans elsewhere in the world, like Archenland and Calormen. Well, maybe they were somehow easier to fend off since they weren't from our world. |
| 27 | ** Well, they were, but very far removed. The first humans in Narnia included a cabbie and his wife, who stayed there as king and queen. Archenland was ruled by their great great grandkids. |
| 28 | ** So no humans were running Narnia for several centuries, and nobody was there to put up a fight. |
| 29 | * IIRC, the books do not mention how long it was between the Pevensies leaving Narnia and the Telmarine invasion. |
| 30 | ** The books don't, but [[AllThereInTheManual Lewis did]]. There were other kings and queens of Narnia between the Pevensies and the Telmarines (where they came from is not specified, but Archenland seems most likely). |
| 31 | *** Or from their own country. The Pevensies had several humans in their court, Lord Peridan, for example. It's likely they held council and, since the court wasn't full of power-hungry idiots, they voted and chose one. Or invited someone royal from Archenland, who knows. |
| 32 | * There's an official timeline of Narnian history. The Pevensies left Narnia in 1015; the Telmarines invaded in 1998; "Prince Caspian" is set in 2303. There's no elaboration on what happened inbetween. |
| 33 | * In ''The Last Battle'', Jill says something about how there always seems to be exciting things happening in Narnia. King Tirian responds that they have loads of history she's never heard about. Lots of things must have happened in 1300 years, but because recapping the history of over a millennium can't be done quickly, only those who would know everything would be the ones who sit down and study it. We can assume there were searches for the Pevensies after their disappearance, but then a new monarch was chosen (possibly the Pevensies named who their heir would be, or it could have been decided some other way) - a new bloodline ruled for so many years and Narnia went through lots of changes until the Telmarines invaded. |
| 34 | ** It's sort of handwaved in the book that Narnia was "in some disarray" after the Pevensies left and before the Telmarines fell through. A bigger question is after Frank and Helen but before the White Witch...What happened to the descendants of the first King and Queen? Did the Witch just kill them all? Did they flee to Archenland and never bother to try and recapture Narnia or save their subjects? Jadis can't come back to Narnia while the tree that Diggory planted still stands, so it eventually falls, but King and Helen have been having babies and their descendants have been there for 900 years, so what happened to them? |
| 35 | ** Wasn't it strongly implied that their children intermarried with the native Narnian wood- and river-spirits? Presumably, if this went on long enough, their bloodline was subsumed into those races. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | [[WMG:Another question: why has no technological development occurred in all that time?]] |
| 38 | Even if the Telmarines came about in the 1900s or slightly earlier, and even if they did lose all their tools in the journey, why ''didn't'' they have any advanced knowledge of some sort? For all that the books portray them, they were as primitive as the other inhabitants of Narnia (and its surrounding regions). By way of being ex-pirates in an era only a century from ours, they ought to have the technological edge of the people of their time. And yet no Telmarine seems to take an interest in, say, reinventing steam engines (which, given their era and the use of steam boats, they should have been familiar with) or figuring out how to make basic automobiles and firearms. While they might not have the necessary skills, you'd think that they'd at least give it a try once they took over an entire kingdom and had a crapton of resources to waste. Or atleast keep documentation of their past lives (why they'd know more history about Ancient Narnia than the modern world is just mindboggling). Instead, the Telmarines apparently shed their ties to the modern world, grabbed some spears/swords and went native. |
| 39 | * The Telmarines were pirates who stumbled into Telmar from our world by accident with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They had to recreate their society from scratch. |
| 40 | * Lewis was a Luddite - all the Inklings were. At least it spared the filmmakers the dilemma of whether or not to depict a 1952 version of advanced technology for 2008 theatergoers. (Then again, who here wouldn't want to see a Main/{{Zeerust}} Narnia?) |
| 41 | * I've always assumed the magic in Main/{{Magical Land}}s negates the urgency to develop new technology. |
| 42 | * Does the book specify when the Telmarines come from? Their technology is from about AD 1200, so they could have developed only slightly slower than on Earth, without a major plot hole. The Arab-equivalent Calormenes seem to have no magic, but much more advanced technology than either Narnia or Archenland in Horse and His Boy. |
| 43 | ** Speaking of which, [[Main/ExOttoyuhr this troper]] once saw a theory online that the Calormenes had 19th-century-level technology as of ''The Last Battle''... |
| 44 | ** I just remember them invading Narnia with spears and war drums. |
| 45 | ** I assumed the Telmarines must have arrived sometime in the intervening year the Pevensies were gone, so they're from the '40s as well. Makes sense, right? Kings go, Telmarines arrive and take over, thousands of years pass, Kings return. |
| 46 | ** Well, not necessarily. I've always seen the timeline incongruity thing (between "our" world and the Narnian world) as being somewhat tantamount to time travel, but between two different worlds. It very well could be possible from a resident of "our" world prior to 1900 (The Magician's Nephew) or after 1949 (The Last Battle) to enter Narnia, at any time. |
| 47 | ** Or the Telmarines entered Narnia earlier in both timelines but spent some time in the West building a civilization and army before invading. |
| 48 | ** Their ancestors first came from Earth long before the Pevensies (how long is never mentioned, only that the island they came from is now uninhabited) and inhabited the land of Telmar... until the Narnian royals (the Pevensies) disappeared and left it vulnerable to Caspian (I) the Conqueror. |
| 49 | ** The Telmarines' European ancestors were a bunch of drunken castaway pirates who were more concerned with feeding their appetites than preserving their craftsmanship. Their ''wives'', who'd have raised and taught the children, were native islanders from a pre-Colonial culture. Even preserving their blacksmithing technology was quite a feat, under those circumstances, never mind steam engines or firearms. |
| 50 | * Actually, this just bugs me about most fantasy fiction - they'll throw around terms like "a thousand generations" and yet there is absolutely no technological or scientific development. |
| 51 | ** Maybe they're just smart; they don't have to deal with global warming or oil shortages. |
| 52 | ** Long periods of human history have occurred where there was virtually no technological development or large cultural change. The Dark Ages and Middle Ages could be viewed as an example. |
| 53 | ** ...which are usually the periods MedievalEuropeanFantasy (including this one) take place in! ding-ding FridgeBrilliance! |
| 54 | ** You mean HollywoodHistory strikes again. There was serious technological development. I wouldn't be able to see if someone hadn't had the bright idea to invent glasses. Then there was the stirrup. I don't really want to go into how much the stirrup changed things. |
| 55 | *** Also Horse Collar (sorry - I couldn't find name for other animals), crop rotation, Okham razor (one of fundaments of science), experiments (Roger Bacon), basis of economics (in Scholastics), phylosophy of just ruler (St. Thomas Aquinas). |
| 56 | *** And clocks were invented in the Middle Ages too. Think what a huge step forward that was. |
| 57 | ** Hollywood can't help it if most MedievalEuropeanFantasy ''does'' have a Middle Ages-type setting. And they seem to have stirrups. |
| 58 | ** Narnia was sung into existence by Aslan, so it never had a Carboniferous period. Ergo, no coal. Ergo, nothing to power steam engines or similar technology. |
| 59 | * Also, the Telmarines have all the technology to make guns, or at least cannons, but they still use bows and arrows, and swords (and at least in the movies, catapults). Right at the beginning of ''Prince Caspian'', they shoot off fireworks, so they have gunpowder, and (at least in the movie) there is a point where they have bells ringing, so they have the technology required to cast the cannons. But they don't have a single cannon anywhere in Narnia. |
| 60 | ** So? The Incas had wheeled toys for centuries, but never thought of putting wheels on a cart. What seems obvious in hindsight required some massive innovation to happen, and the ultra-conservative Telmarine regime that suppressed all the crafts it doesn't like, such as seafaring can't have been a very good working environment for clever engineers. |
| 61 | *** Minor nitpick here: the Incans never had a reason to put wheels on carts because the largest animal they had was probably a llama, which is nowhere near as good as a horse or a bull for heavy pulling. It was probably more efficient to carry things by hand or drag them around than to try to hitch a bunch of humans to a wheeled cart. |
| 62 | *** It's still easier to pull a cart than drag things along the floor. |
| 63 | *** Yeah, you would think they would at least have invented the wheelbarrow. |
| 64 | *** The Incas lived in the mountains. Many of their travel routes were so steep and/or zigzag as to make wheels more dangerous than feet. |
| 65 | ** Also, early firearms weren't a clear improvement over bows and arrows. They were difficult and clumsy to load, not very accurate, and had a limited range. They were also unreliable and often more dangerous to the shooter than the target. There was a long period where guns were toys, curiosities, or at best weapons useful for very specialized situations, and bows/crossbows were the preferred distance weapons. |
| 66 | *** Early firearms didn't replace bows on the battlefield in real life. As a weapon for your basic massed infantry, which could be made passably combat effective with only a short duration of training, firearms (with a 40 to 100 foot effective range) supplanted spears (with a 6 to 10 foot effective range). Indeed, the bayonet was specifically developed to allow the musketman to turn himself back into a spearman when the need arises. In contrast archers were elite units that typically required decades of intensive training. |
| 67 | *** Furthermore, what would be the incentive to develop more sophisticated weaponry when there is no enemy that poses a threat? The Telmarines of Narnia have, to their knowledge, nearly wiped out the indigenous peoples (and animals) of Narnia, and they've successfully held the stragglers at bay for centuries using existing weapons technology. The cost in materials, infrastructure, and training seems difficult to justify when there is no evident problem to solve. |
| 68 | ** *China*, one of the world's largest empires, had gunpowder for *centuries* and didn't invent firearms. (They did have "fire arrows" which could start fires and scare forces unfamiliar with them.) |
| 69 | * Some of Narnia's indigenous creatures may have opposed technological progress directly. Remember the Bridge/Fords of Beruna? Europe's first industrial revolution might never have happened, if nature spirits kept rising from the rivers and attacking the waterwheels. |
| 70 | * On top of this, ''knowing'' about a technology doesn't give one the skills to ''make'' that technology. How many people in modern times would be able to figure out the process for finding and mining and smelting steel/iron, without reference guides to help you, then figure out the resulting machinery needed for guns? That the Telmarines have gotten so far as to have swords and armor at this point speaks for their tech advancement. |
| 71 | * Where did Mrs. Beaver's sewing machine come from? |
| 72 | ** Dwarf tech, is my hypothesis. |
| 73 | *** A better question is how she operates it with her little paws. |
| 74 | *** Actually, beavers ''do'' have semi-opposable thumbs, so they're among the better animal candidates for finer handiwork. (Of course, what's really happening here is that Lewis clearly didn't pay that much attention to biology in ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' - beavers also ''don't'' eat fish, what with being rodents - and only started doing so from ''Prince Caspian'' onward.) |
| 75 | ** Mrs. Beaver's sewing machine, likely broken when the wolves broke into their house in search of the humans, was replaced with a newer and better one by Father Christmas. Supposedly Christmas didn't stop happening until the White Witch took over, so it is possible that any sewing machines or other artifacts were gifts as well. |
| 76 | ** Or maybe the cabman's wife from ''The Magician's Nephew'' dropped a sewing needle from her pocket upon first arriving in Narnia, and it grew into a sewing machine. If it works for lampposts.... |
| 77 | * Mr Tumnus entertains Lucy with sardines on toast, a great British tea-time delicacy which uses tinned sardines. So where were the Narnian sardine-tinning factories? And can you see a faun wielding a tin-opener? |
| 78 | ** Of course, the book doesn't say that they were ''tinned'', and there are other ways of preserving fish... |
| 79 | ** And canned food is also a ridiculously old concept. They've clearly got plenty of metal and plenty of ways to work it. They may have invented tins of food because most Narnian creatures can use tins of food and find tins of food useful, but most Narnian animals can't use a gun nor would they see any particular need to when their natural or more low-tech weapons work better for them. |
| 80 | *** Where did Mr. Tumnus get jam, if it's been winter for 100 years (no fruit)? Calormen? |
| 81 | *** Probably Archenland. One of the other books mentioned Calormenes spread oil on their bread. And Calormen is a desert, while Archenland is forested. |
| 82 | *** Jam is a fruit preserve; it's meant to last for a long time. Not "100 years" long, granted, but given that it's jam being made from fruit grown in Narnia, it might be slightly magic jam that preserves longer than normal Earth jam. |
| 83 | * Let's face it. |
| 84 | ---> '''Lewis:''' Worldbuilding? What's that? |
| 85 | ---> '''Tolkien:''' GAAAAA! |
| 86 | * If you want to HandWave it, the films do address this. The clothes worn by the humans in the first seem to be from the Middle Ages, while in the second they seem more Renaissance inspired. It's the same in the third film but only three years have passed so there wouldn't have been much of a fashion revolution there. The BBC series does show a similar costume evolution, where ''The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe'' is medieval themed, and ''Prince Caspian'' seems more Shakespearean era. |
| 87 | * As for Mrs Beaver having a sewing machine, Mr Tumnus having jam and sardines - Narnia was first ruled by a king and queen from early 20th century England. So there are aspects of British culture that would have been passed down. Maybe Queen Helen was a seamstress and Aslan brought her sewing machine over, or she was able to have one made in a slightly more primitive fashion with Narnian technology (it's not said what type of sewing machine Mrs Beaver has, just that she has one and the children recognise it as such). |
| 88 | ** Or Queen Helen accidentally dropped a sewing needle from her pocket when she arrived, and it ''grew'' the thing. |
| 89 | * And here's some {{Fanon}} for you - Mr Tumnus was under orders to capture any humans he met and bring them to Jadis. He has books about humans in his house, so perhaps he was studying aspects of human culture that Narnians had known about and was using that knowledge to recreate some things that a human would find familiar or welcoming - all the better to entrap them. Hell, maybe ''Jadis'' conjured the things up to better serve her plan (she was briefly in England some thirty or so years before the Pevensies' time so she would be familiar with some of these concepts). |
| 90 | * The age of piracy was over centuries before the Pevensies time. So the Telmarine ancestors are probably from some time between the mid 1600s to the mid 1700s at most. After that, pirates were not tolerated much if at all. This is clearly a TimeyWimeyBall thing. The Telmarines clearly weren't there yet during the time of the first book (''The Lion Witch and Wardrobe'', not the chronological first book). As the High Kings and Queens of Narnia, the Pevensies had years to encounter or at least hear of the Telmarines if they had been there, yet they only encountered the Calormen. So the pirates (even though they were born centuries before) arrived at some in Narnia time point after the Pevensies chased the White Stag and ended up back through the Wardrobe to our universe. Time travel works that way. |
| 91 | ** Why assume the pirates in question came from the Golden Age of Piracy? Sailors have been bushwhacking other sailors since prehistoric times. Yes, the movies give the Telmarines' costumes a Spanish streak to imply ancestry from "Spanish Main" pirates, but given how wonky the temporal relationship between Earth and Narnia is, they could've derived from anything from Vikings to Aegean Sea Peoples in the novels. |
| 92 | *** In total fairness, while piracy has indeed been an ongoing concern throughout human history, if you ask most people in the Western world at least -- and certainly most children from around the middle of the twentieth century -- to picture and describe to you an archetypal pirate, they'd almost certainly describe a Sir Walter Raleigh / Blackbeard / Long John Silver-type from the Golden Age of Piracy. It's partly why it's ''called'' the "Golden Age of Piracy" to begin with. Lewis almost certainly created his human pirate characters with that in mind rather than the Aegean Sea Peoples or the Vikings; indeed, if he'd intended his reader to view them as being Viking in origin, he would have referred to them as Vikings. |
| 93 | ** A better question is why ''Charn'', a much older world, never advanced past chariots. |
| 94 | *** Same reason the ancient world of Middle Earth has apparently existed for millennia without ever discovering machine guns: it's a realm in a classic fairytale / "swords and sorcery"-style fantasy story. A certain amount of technological stagnation around about the age of antiquity-to-middle ages is just part of the genre at this point. |
| 95 | |
| 96 | [[WMG:Why does Telmarine technology and culture look so European if their connection to Europe is so remote?]] |
| 97 | Only half of the few dozen founding Telmarines were European and they were pirates. For example I doubt there was a blacksmith among them so why did they end up creating swords that look so European when they rediscovered metal working? I mean just look at how different European longswords and Japanese katanas are. |
| 98 | * The ''armorer'' and ''armorer's mate'' were regular features of pirate (and naval) ships from at least the 17th century onward. Miners and smiths, with their well-exercised frames, were prime targets for press-gangs. The origins of the Telmarines seem to be British- or Dutch-descended in the books (Caspian is a blond), Spanish or Moorish in the movies. The movies feature crossbows (unmentioned in the books) as a strictly Telmarine weapon, but there's no reason they'd favor curved swords over straight ones. |
| 99 | * Consider: A) as far as I can recall, we are never explicitly told what their technology / weapons actually look like in the books, so this may be just a movie design issue (and they chose to go with Spanish culture for some reason in the movie which is probably wrong for the books anyway, as stated above); B) we can easily assume some degree of cultural exchange with other countries in the world between the time they settled in Telmar and the time some of them invaded Narnia. Or even ''after'' they invaded Narnia. ETA: In fact, we probably ''have to'' assume cultural exchange in the other world because the age of Pacific Ocean piracy ''does not'' coincide with the age of straight European longswords and chivalry... |
| 100 | |
| 101 | [[WMG:Isn't Rilian (and, by extension, all his descendants including Tirian) part Star? And does that mean anything, or is he for all appearances a regular human?]] |
| 102 | Yes. Probably the only effect is that they are more handsome/beautiful than they'd otherwise be. |
| 103 | * Stars' "dancing" and motions apparently either control or affect fate, since Centaurs watch them to tell the future. So it's possible that, at the very least, precognition is a Star's power, perhaps probability control. If this counts for half-Stars too, who knows. The original royals of Narnia interbred with Wood Spirits and such, logic dictates some of both parent's ancestry '''must''' pass over, so...perhaps clairvoyance? |
| 104 | ** Perhaps stars only have any influence on the future while they are doing a star's job. |
| 105 | ** He is able to fight off the witch's enchantment for a brief period of time, so maybe that's the star heritage manifesting itself in the form of a different type of magic. Not very flashy or showy, but very useful nonetheless. |
| 106 | |
| 107 | [[WMG: Why does Narnia's fate hinge entirely on humans from our universe?]] |
| 108 | As shown in Prince Caspian, the entire non-human population of Narnia can go hang, as far as Aslan is concerned, if the country is not ruled by a human who believes in him. If humans are so special, why didn't he just make his own, or arrange for a replacement set when he got rid of the Pevensie lot? |
| 109 | * It doesn't. In thousands if not tens of thousands of years, only a few dozen pass by with any Earth-human main characters in Narnia. It's even mentioned in ''Literature/TheLastBattle'' when Jill wonders to Tirian why so much exciting is always going on in that world, and he mentions that they have tons of history she's never heard of before. |
| 110 | * Technically, since Aslan and God are one and the same (''Voyage of the Dawn Treader''), He ''did'' make his own, when He created our world. He didn't bring back any new humans right away after the Pevensies left because, apparently, nobody asked. It's His people's choice whether or not they want His help. Although it would have been unreasonable not to believe in the flesh and blood Pevensie kings and queens, the Narnians lost their faith in Aslan. ''Voyage of the Dawn Treader'' also suggests humans' visits to Narnia are more for our world's humans' benefit than the Narnians'. |
| 111 | ** Aslan isn't God, he's CrystalDragonJesus. The Emperor Beyond The Sea is God. |
| 112 | ** Lewis was a Christian. Christians believe Jesus is God. If Aslan is Jesus, Aslan is God. |
| 113 | *** The Emperor is God the Father in the Christian Trinity; Aslan is God the Son. |
| 114 | * Indeed, Narnia and all of its peoples are implied to be created by God just to convert a handful of English children into becoming faithful Christians. The inhabitants are just puppets to further Aslan's goal, and he literally could not care less about them. Yes, it doesn't make any sense. |
| 115 | ** Nice try, but the human inhabitants are all form our world or descended from humans in our world, and the residents of Narnia's world go into Heaven along with the Friends of Narnia. Human visitors save Narnia, adventures in Narnia help the human visitors... |
| 116 | ** It was humans who first introduced evil into Narnia; accordingly, when Aslan calls humans from our world into Narnia, He is essentially saying, "You broke it, you fix it." That's why all kings & queens of Narnia have to be human. Ruling is a form of service, if the ruler takes his/her responsibilities seriously. |
| 117 | *** And if the ruler doesn't take their responsibilities seriously, or are TheCaligula, or if some non-humans develop the idea of democracy but (depending on the era in Narnian history) still stuck with some unexperienced children from another world, I guess it sucks for them. Apparently Aslan considers making a clever point more important than what his creations may or may not actually want. |
| 118 | ** Aslan could have easily crushed the Witch under paw, or else ended her world centuries before the story even began (it was functionally dead anyway, since everbody but the Witch had turned to stone). Now instead of '''immediately''' doing away with this barren, lifeless wasteland, why does Aslan patiently wait for a few children to free the SealedEvilInACan before actually doing anything? Given his reputation for pulling off DeusExMachina to finish off worlds he considers "dead", why did he leave the Witch's world to fester as SchmuckBait for any unwary world-hopper? |
| 119 | * First of all, Aslan isn't just CrystalDragonJesus; it's implied that he's the real deal at the end of "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." I don't have my book with me and don't remember the exact quote, but he says something like "You came here so that you could get to know me better there." And the whole purpose of Narnia is decidedly NOT to convert a few human children. Have you read "The Magician's Newphew"? The world was originally created for animals; the reason humans got involved is that humans brought evil to the world. That's also why they're so important in Narnia, and my answer to this question. Aslan tells Digory that humans are going to have to help defeat the evil, but he would take most of the burden upon himself.Of course, this could be interpreted to mean Digory's quest for the apple, except that Aslan doesn't pay the largest price for another several thousand years, I think it is. Or at least centuries. Does this help at all? |
| 120 | ** Very true. Saying that Aslan only intervenes when humans are around is mixing up the cause and effect. Aslan doesn't wait until a human is around to help out with Narnia's problems; he brings a human into Narnia whenever there is a problem that the animals can't fix on there own. Remember that in the Chronicles, ruling is considered a necessary burden (at least by the good guys). So, humans ruling Narnia is actually there punishment for Digory bringing Jadis (i.e. evil) into the world - they broke it, they fix it. Presumably if there was no evil in the world, there would be no need for a leadership hierarchy. |
| 121 | *** This still doesn't explain why Aslan waited at least ten generations to bring the Pevensies back to Narnia. We see that there have been faithful animals and dwarfs in Narnia all this time; however, it's only when a human who worships Aslan inherits the throne that Aslan deigns to show up, and even then he plays a bunch of psychological mind games for no apparent reason. It's Susan's magical horn that brings the Pevensies back, and they have to wander up and down a cliff for days at a time because Aslan appears to ''one'' of them for a split second, and refuses to show himself to the others, and then punishes them for their understandable lack of enthusiasm for the plan "Let's hope Lucy wasn't seeing things and follow her over the sheer cliff face." Rather than, say, putting up a sign saying "PATH HERE". Or just showing himself to everyone at once. Or, indeed, showing up when the Telmarines first turned up and preventing the wholesale slaugher of all the non-human races who were, presumably, still faithful to Aslan, and, as you say, unable to fix the problem on their own. |
| 122 | *** Actually, it's when a human rallies Old Narnia up to regain their country that He shows up again. This is linked to the fact that Christian God acts when the people who believe in Him cry to him (Sounds familiar?). Considering the time frame, it's entirely possible that by the time they needed Him, their faith wasn't that strong anymore. Blowing Susan's horn not only summoned the kids but began to wake up the Dryads, River God, etc, up, or in other words, woke up Old Narnia. Also, it is implied that it was not that Aslan didn't want them to see him but that that the Pensive, except Lucy, were unable to see him. Susan and Peter are almost forced to do so. In fact, the dwarfs in the Last Battle are exactly the same as they refuse to see Aslan even if he is physically shaking them around. |
| 123 | *** So Aslan only bothers to help people when he feels they'll bow down to him with enough fervour? I know this is going into theodicy and actual academics have had better debates about this than most of us here can probably manage, but... what an [[JerkassGods asshole.]] Superman doesn't insist that the people of Metropolis have absolute faith in him before he saves them, he does it because it's the right thing to do and he's the only person in the vicinity who can do it. |
| 124 | *** It's called asking for help. Why should help be provided when it isn't desired? |
| 125 | *** Why should help be withheld just because desperate people are crying for help in general, not help from you specifically? |
| 126 | *** If a professor has a student who doesn't like him and goes to friends for useless help instead when struggling with their studies, the professor can't force the student to accept his help. If a kid is angry at their parents and turn to friends instead for help when they're in trouble, the parents can't force the kid to accept their help. Needing help but just wishing for it instead of asking for it from the right person doesn't work. Any career counselor tells you that, when you need a job, you don't get one by randomly selecting employers to apply to, or by sitting passively by wishing for the right one to act upon discovering that you need something, but by carefully selecting the right one to petition for what you need. |
| 127 | *** Aslan withholds his help in such an annoying way presumably because Lewis wanted him to act the same way God does in the real world. Indeed the phrase "He is not a tame lion" in the book seems to correspond to "God works in mysterious ways". Therefore, this debate is essentially one between believers trying to justify God's occasional lack of help, and the skeptics criticizing it. I for one agree that it was a jerk move for Aslan to only show himself to Lucy, and then blame the kids for not blindly believing every little slip of their imagination is the real thing. If it was out of his power to make them see him because they just didn't have enough faith, i.e. he was basically sitting there thinking "Oh no, they can't see me!", he could still have moved closer to them and yelled at them to try harder to get their attention, rather than just giving them one vague hint. (Not very good for dramaturgy and also not very dignified for the mighty mysterious Aslan, but nevertheless logic. Meaning Lewis should have come up with a better reason for why Aslan stays out of the fight for so long.) Likewise it makes no sense to say "Why would you help someone who isn't asking for it?" because the only reason they aren't asking for it is that they don't know you are there. Knowing full well that they ''would'' ask your help if they knew you are available, yet still withholding it, is not excusable. Especially if you are an all-knowing God who knows exactly what people want, or a presumably very godlike being as Aslan, and not simply a human who doesn't know for sure if someone really needs their help, as in many examples used above. |
| 128 | *** Trusting their very trustworthy sister is hardly "blindly believing" and even Edmund realizes it, reminding them of how dumb they came off last time they didn't trust her and remembering how he was the worst of all. |
| 129 | *** Possibly important to note at this point: Aslan never just shows up and makes threats disappear. He relies on his followers to do most of the work (see earlier comments re: "you broke it, you fix it"). Aslan did not allow himself to be seen except by people with sufficient faith, and that served as a litmus test. "Can they see me? No? Then they are not yet ready to do the job I have for them." |
| 130 | *** Keep in mind that Lewis himself is one of those believers. Aslan is clearly established as a metaphor for the Christian God, and a central tenet of Christian faith is that "God helps those who help themselves" -- namely, that for better or worse God isn't going to swoop in and solve all your problems for you just because you pray to him. In Christianity, God will find some way to show you comfort and support if you appeal to Him for it, and He might offer the occasional miracle from time to time, but for the most part He expects you to show some agency and self-reliance in dealing with the problems you face rather than expecting you to just pray to Him and expect Him to solve it for you. So it might indeed be a bit dickish from an atheistic perspective for Aslan to leave his human followers to get themselves out of a jam rather than using all his powers to help them out -- but Lewis wasn't an atheist, and for him that was a perfectly reasonable way for a God-figure to behave, and a perfectly valid lesson for the kids he was talking to (don't just rely on other people / God, use your own initiative). |
| 131 | * Back to the larger issue ('Aslan only cares for Narnia as a way to provide character development for young Earthlings'): Seeming to realize he'd conveyed that impression, C.S. Lewis went on to write ''The Horse and His Boy'' (in which Narnians save Narnia and Aslan is shown to be watching over them just as diligently), and also mentions a storyteller in ''The Last Battle'' telling several tales from the hundreds of years of Narnian history that Eustace and Jill missed out on. |
| 132 | * It's only been recently this troper started to realize the UnfortunateImplications of ...White, British (Christian) folks having the God-given right to swoop in and rule over the indigenous population of a country they "discovered." cough-colonialism-cough-cough... |
| 133 | * Also, a lot of this is just a function of the fact that, well, it's a story. The protagonists of the story are always going to be the people most important to the events that are happening and who everything tends to hinge on because, well, they wouldn't be the protagonists otherwise, someone else would be. It just so happens that the protagonists of the Narnia stories are human children -- in large part because the intended readers were also human children, and people generally tend to respond best to stories when the protagonists are similar to them (not always, but often). Potentially problematic for reasons stated above, perhaps, but there it is. |
| 134 | |
| 135 | [[WMG: Why was the return trip in The Silver Chair so quick?]] |
| 136 | The heroes spend weeks traveling North before going down into the caves. In escaping from them, they do the entire return trip without even stopping for lunch. |
| 137 | * They descended underground below Ettinsmoor in the far North, were captured by the gnomes, and then taken across an underground sea in a journey that the narrator says went on for weeks, sleeping and eating more times than they could count, so long that you began to wonder if your life above ground was just a dream, etc. They were going back under all the land they traveled across up above. Although she apparently came from somewhere up North, the Lady-of-the-Green-Kirtle's fortress was right underneath Narnia, which makes sense, since that was the land she planned to invade. Hence why her tunnel (that they used to escape) led up into Narnia. |
| 138 | |
| 139 | [[WMG:What ''is'' the name of the world Narnia exists in?]] |
| 140 | * Narnia, of course. |
| 141 | ** No, though that's clearly what the reader is led to believe in the first couple of books. In later books, like Horse and His Boy, it becomes apparent that Narnia is simply one political body, and not a very important one in the greater scheme of things. A name for the world is never given, when a word is needed, people simply call it "the world." If this seems strange, consider that our name for our world, "Earth," basically just means "ground." |
| 142 | *** That's not even what we call our world, just a planet in it (which we happen to live on). Since we as humans mostly reject the concept of other worlds, we don't even have a name for our own. |
| 143 | ** In fact, that causes Jill some confusion in ''The Silver Chair'' when Eustace tells her he's never been to Narnia -- he spent all his time in Narnia's ''world'' at sea and never set foot in the ''country'' Narnia. |
| 144 | ** This problem crops up in a ton of a fantasy. See: Main/PlanetEngland |
| 145 | ** I don't think they've ever needed a name for it. Most of them seem unaware of the Wood Between the Worlds and the parallel universes it leads to and all that, and would be just as shocked by the reality of other worlds as the humans were, hence Tumnus interpreting Lucy's explanation of such a thing happening as her traveling from a land he's never happened to have heard of in his own world called War Drobe in Spare Oom. I mean, think about it: have ''you'' ever thought of giving a moniker to ''our'' universe? |
| 146 | *** I thought it was ''Bob''? |
| 147 | *** Wouldn't it just be "The Universe". One universe is no different from the other. Magic is powerful in Narnia, and the universe of Charn, but not ours...other than that (really small, if you think about it) difference and some weird homonids (fauns, centaurs, et al) Narnia's universe is a universe like ours. So the planet that Narnia exists on, who knows, but that ''world'', in a multiverse sense, would just be ''a'' universe. If anything it would probably have a number, like in Marvel Comics, since that really makes more sense than anything--you can call it Universe 2 if you want, since from our perspective its the second universe humanity has made contact with. |
| 148 | *** Universe 4, actually, or Universe 3 if the Wood Between The Worlds isn't a full universe and doesn't count. |
| 149 | ** [[VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft Azeroth]]? [[http://i840.photobucket.com/albums/zz322/someinspired/fantasyworldmashup1.png At least, this troper thinks it makes sense...]] |
| 150 | * A better question is where the heck is [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Telmar]] supposed to be? In the drawn maps included in the books, it's never shown. Calormen and Archenland lie to the South, Lantern Waste to the west, the Wilds of the North and the Ocean to the East. Telmar is never on the map, unless there's more to the South or the West (between Narnia and the mountains) that's not shown. |
| 151 | ** It's beyond the Western Mountains. (''Prince Caspian'', ch. 4) |
| 152 | |
| 153 | [[WMG: In ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'', why doesn't Jadis just kill Edmund as soon as she finds out he's one of the children from the prophecy, instead of trying to play GottaCatchEmAll with his siblings? She wants to kill them to keep the prophecy from being fulfilled, so why doesn't she just kill Edmund first? Then there would only be three.]] |
| 154 | * Jadis likely doesn't believe in the prophecy. If she did, she'd flee the moment the signs of its fullfillment started. What she believes is that, in attempting to fullfill it, the humans and the followers they inspire may kill her and take her throne. Jadis' goal isn't to stop the prophecy per se; it's to survive and continue to rule. If she stops the propecy, but the other humans kill her out of vengeance, she's just as dead. So what if they ended up with three rulers instead of four atop her rotting corpse? The purely academic victory of stopping the prophecy but dying because she made a martyr of Edmund doesn't interest her at all. |
| 155 | * In the book, she considers that. Edmund notices she takes a stance like she's about to kill or attack him (probably turn him to stone) and then "seems to change her mind." Deciding to sacrifice that opportunity for the chance to get him to bring her the other 3 didn't work out in her favor, but it must have seemed smart at the time. 4 dead humans are a better insurance policy than 1, and the terms of the prophecy didn't specify the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve had to be siblings, so killing one wouldn't render the "set," so to speak, harmless. |
| 156 | * In the book, she does try this later after learning that the other siblings reached Aslan's camp. She decides that if Edmund isn't there it won't fulfill the prophecy and tries to behead him (he is rescued shortly after). |
| 157 | * It's possible that she derives some of her supernatural power from ritual sacrifice, particularly of traitors. Before Edmund had been set loose to join his siblings, he hadn't been a traitor, just a loose-lipped idiot. |
| 158 | ** Well she hoped to use Edmund to draw the other three out. Either he tells her where they are or she ransoms him to lure them to her. Once she gets their location from Edmund - he tells her about the Stone Table in the film to save the fox, I can't remember if he does the same to save the family of animals in the book - she actually does try to kill him. She actually says in the book that it's normally done on the Stone Table - but that she'll make do with a tree. |
| 159 | * this troper has seen both the original (BBC) and the new (Hollywood) version. the BBC was closer to the book then the Hollywood version was. Notably the ages of everyone in the BBC vs Hollywood, being a big thing, I always thought of Lucy as older, and then Hollywood version.....screwed with that immensely....though it might have to with ratings and all that. |
| 160 | ** ^ Lucy has always been the youngest of the Pevensies. WordOfGod confirms it. The BBC just cast an actress that looked older than most of her siblings |
| 161 | ** Sophie Wilcox, the actress who played Lucy in the BBC was about 12 years old when she was making LWW. Georgie Henley, Lucy from Walden's movie, turned nine while filming. Georgie Henley was actually closer to her book character's age. |
| 162 | [[WMG: In the film ''Prince Caspian'', Peter kills Red Shirts aplenty, but hesitates to kill Miraz]] |
| 163 | As Miraz, says, "What's the matter, boy? Too cowardly to take a life?", after watching Peter hack 'n' slash his way through hordes of Telmarine redshirts. Because they didn't have dialogue, and thus weren't actual ''people''. Also note that despite having seen the grisly horrors of melee warfare, and having sent good soldiers to their deaths through his own incompetence, he waltzes back to Earth happy as can be. |
| 164 | * Peter didn't refuse to kill Miraz out of a moral sense of ThouShaltNotKill -- he turned around and handed his sword to Caspian. Peter's response to that taunt was "It's not mine to take." Not that that improves the scene. [[AdaptationDecay The book made more sense.]] |
| 165 | ** Of course the book made more sense, the entire castle raid was added from whole cloth for the movie. It's easy to make sense when it DOESN'T HAPPEN AT ALL. |
| 166 | *** Chapter 7 of the book describes a downtrodden army trying to recover from Caspian's biggest battle yet. Its location was not specified, but some of the tactics are described. He was supposed to cut off the King's right wing, but the giant was not clever enough to do his part at the right time. The movie shifted around several events to refresh the narrative and improve the pacing (which is fine for a book, but not so useful for cinema), and most likely created the Castle Raid that Failed from that couple of paragraphs. |
| 167 | * Nobles having a different moral code regarding other nobles is hardly a new thing. In the middle ages, kings and princes were frequently captured, held in comfort and ransomed, while their soldiers were simply executed. Notice how Sopespian also hesitates to kill Caspian during the battle that follows. Even the Pevensies, who come from WWII Britain, would understand officers receiving different treatment than common soldiers. |
| 168 | ** Especially since y'know they where the Kings and Queens of Narnia for 15 years. |
| 169 | ** So Lion Jesus is totally okay with the aristocracy being treated better than the commoners? Whatever happened to the last being first and the first being last? |
| 170 | ** Forget the "Lion!Jesus" bit for a moment; even if we take the author at face value, Aslan is Lewis's personal take on Jesus at most, and no, he's not particularly consistent with the Biblical version. And as an independent character? Well...this ''is'' already the same leonine overlord who basically doesn't give a hoot about the fate of the average Narnian when there aren't any humans from another world around to show off to, and he definitely does take full advantage of the whole "lion = king of the beasts" trope. Coming from that angle, ''of course'' he'd be okay with human nobles in particular getting special treatment -- being the one who started the whole "Narnia is best off being ruled by outside humans rather than its own inhabitants" tradition and all in the first place... |
| 171 | * Miraz is down, injured, and disarmed. Maybe their code would say that at this point in a duel, Peter has won and doesn't need to kill him. Not any different than, say, the idea that you can attack a ship and kill people, but once the ship sinks you aren't supposed to go after the people floating in the water. |
| 172 | |
| 173 | [[WMG: ''The Last Battle'' states that Susan no longer believes in Narnia, dismissing it as a childhood fantasy.]] |
| 174 | While this might make sense if she were there for only a few weeks or months in Narnia time, she actually lived as queen for a few decades, maturing into an adult woman. She should have at least twenty years of accumulated memories, some of which would be unlikely to be imagined by a young girl, such as going through puberty or the more mundane aspects of ruling a country (albeit one inhabited by talking animals). |
| 175 | * Memories are tricky things in fantasy. Just look at what and why the Losers forget in Creator/StephenKing's ''It''. The things the mind is capable of doing, well, boggles the mind. Lewis mentions in ''The Magician's Nephew'' that when you try to make yourself stupider than you really are, you're unfortunately very good at it. [[YourMindMakesItReal People believe what they want to believe.]] In this case, if you believe first that there's no such thing as magic and that it's impossible to go through a portal into a MagicalLand where {{Talking Animal}}s and centaurs and fauns etc. are real, then you would have to believe that any memories of such a place ''must'' be your imagination. |
| 176 | * One of the major differences between the book and the film of Caspian is that in the film, they know how to shoot, duel etc. In the book, they have to remember it as being away from Narnia has made them forget. It's for this reason they all have forgotten about England once they have grown older. 'In one land, the other seems like a distant memory' is how I think it was put at one point. |
| 177 | ** I believe the wording was a "dream of a dream" |
| 178 | * Also, strictly speaking, all we know is that she is "no longer a friend of Narnia" and *acts* as though it were all made-up. The extent to which she really believes this isn't clear. |
| 179 | * At the end of ''Prince Caspian'' she is told by Aslan that she's never returning to Narnia (unlike Lucy and Edmund who return to that world in ''The Voyage of the Dawn Treader''); also she's fallen in love with Caspian so even if she did go back he'd be long dead so the best, least painful thing to do is to forget she ever went there. She was always the most doubtful of the four siblings anyway, so it was probably easy for her. This reminds me of how [[Franchise/TheIncredibles Elastigirl]] went from an ActionGirl to housewife in few years once all the heroes were banned: since she couldn't be a heroine she redirected her energy towards a normal life (well, as normal as having a superpowered family can be). |
| 180 | ** Keeping in mind that there is '''''absolutely no romance with Caspian''''' in the books, this is still a good theory. They all handled the news differently. |
| 181 | *** Peter is one year older than Susan, Susan is two years older than Edmund and Edmund is two years older than Lucy. |
| 182 | ** Expanding on this theory a little: In her time as a queen of Narnia, Susan grew up, presumably ruled well, had suitors and possibly lovers, and overall built up a wonderful fairytale life, and suddenly had that snatched away as though it never were. She would have coped with that, especially since she would be sharing with the loss with her siblings, but then they're called back in ''Prince Caspian''. Seeing the evidence of her old life as not only ''real'' but in such an abandoned and decrepit state broke her. Narnia had been stolen from her so easily, and, as she finds by the end of the book, it would be taken away ''again''. Rather than face that heartbreak one more time, she sets it firmly aside and focuses on the real world. (If it's not obvious, I have a great deal of sympathy for Susan—from where I'm standing, she just didn't want her emotions to be toyed with.) |
| 183 | *** I agree completely. I've often wondered, if I were a beloved monarch one day and a middle school kid in the middle of World War II the next, I cannot imagine I'd have adjusted to the change well at all. Also, while Susan is usually the most skeptical of the four, there is one very telling bit in Prince Caspian when they're at the ruins of Cair Paravel...Susan is palpably wistful about the good old days while the other three are all business. Anyone can see she's pining for her old life. And who could blame her? And that's BEFORE she is told in no uncertain terms that she won't be coming back to Narnia (we know Aslan didn't mean it quite as literally as it sounds, but she didn't!) |
| 184 | *** "Presumably lovers"? Presuming based on what? I'm assuming you mean "boyfriends", cause I doubt she'd be having extramarital sex. (You mean pre-marital sex, right?) |
| 185 | *** She certainly has suitors, although the only one we see, the Calormene prince Rabadash in The Horse and His Boy, is not exactly suitable. |
| 186 | *** Why wouldn't she have had pre-marital sex? Some of the "Problem with Susan" is that she's portrayed as the one who's got the strongest, most active libido. [[FridgeLogic Her "sin" in having pre-marital sex]] and refusal to "atone" in some way while she's young is a somewhat patriarchal view, but not outside the realm of possibility. "Lipstick and invitations" is code for an [[HardDrinkingPartyGirl active social life]], which surely includes some affairs. The other "Friends of Narnia" are either pre-pubescent or lead very monk-like existences. |
| 187 | *** If I'm not mistaken, the idea that Susan was cast out of Narnia because she'd discovered sex is really just the opinion of one person (Neil Gaiman, I believe - JK Rowling has also expressed support for that view, but she also admitted to having never read The Last Battle). It's also noteworthy that the two characters who criticize Susan about "lipstick and invitations" are Polly and Jill, neither of whom ever even met Susan in the earlier books. They certainly could have met her at some point that wasn't covered in the books, but the lack of an explanation makes it suspect all the same. I've always thought that theory was reading an awful lot into literally just a couple of paragraphs in one of seven books. |
| 188 | * Susan isn't dead, therefore she cannot go to heaven. QED. Creator/NeilGaiman wrote a short story about it - "The Problem of Susan" (it's not for kids). Involves Aslan/Jadis. |
| 189 | ** It can be seen the other way around too: she was rejected from Heaven, therefore she wasn't allowed to die and was condemned to live out the rest of her life without Narnia or her siblings. |
| 190 | ** With all respect to Gaiman, this one is better: http://honorh.livejournal.com/226358.html |
| 191 | ** Well, sure, if you want ''reverence.'' :p Seriously, though, I think Susanfic may become a genre [[http://philippos42.livejournal.com/105902.html in its own right.]] |
| 192 | * When I first read the series back in grade school, my interpretation was that Susan not staying in Narnia was a good thing, in that she had moved beyond such childish fantasies, while the others staying was a sign that they refused to grow up. Now, bear in mind that I was unaware at the time that Lewis was such a big Christian, but I still think it's a pretty interesting interpretation. |
| 193 | ** Aslan intended for all the Friends of Narnia to grow up, live in our world, and accept that inevitability, which is why they all reach a point when they are no longer allowed to visit Narnia. That doesn't mean they should [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids forget or dismiss their experiences]] in Narnia, which in their universe [[UpTheRealRabbitHole is not a fantasy but a very concretely real place]]. |
| 194 | * This [[http://xkcd.com/693/ xkcd]] strip explains everything. |
| 195 | * [[WordOfGod Lewis himself]] stated that Susan eventually ended up in Heaven as well, but because she had let herself get distracted by frivolities (e.g. "lipstick and invitations"), she ended up with a more arduous life-journey than did her siblings. |
| 196 | ** I don't think he made any more definite statement than "perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end". |
| 197 | ** "Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen in Narnia." That's canon. Susan will find her way back--in her own time and on her own terms. |
| 198 | *** Say not "on her own terms" but "after she has matured enough to accept Aslan's terms" and you'd be on firmer ground IMO. Also reflect that "Once a King or Queen..." etc should entail a lifelong acceptance of the ''responsibilities'' of Kingship/Queenship, not just its privileges. |
| 199 | ** One of the things he mentioned concerning Susan when everyone else "ascended" was that while she was at the time stuck in materialistic hedonism, a young lady may be motivated to rethink and reshape her life after having suddenly lost her entire family. |
| 200 | ** Susan did seem to be getting treated like a ProperLady when she was still quite young. She would have only been in her early teens when chosen to go to America with her parents. Being treated like an adult when she was still a child may have forced her to grow up too fast. It's a big part of puberty that the older sibling will stop wanting to play 'childish' games with their younger one. So she threw herself into her new role of being a sophisticated lady who had no time for frivolity - so she convinced herself that Narnia had to be just a silly game she and her siblings once played. |
| 201 | *** I [[FridgeBrilliance never thought of it before]], but maybe… AMERICA ruined Susan! |
| 202 | ** Also bear in mind how the other three children grew up. Peter spent time with the professor and presumably got to meet Polly - and hear about their experiences in Narnia. Edmund and Lucy got to go back to Narnia once more and they also had Eustace to share the experience with. They likely also heard about Eustace going back to Narnia, this time with Jill. Susan meanwhile was off in America with her parents - certainly not able to talk about magical lands and the like. Susan was cut off from any ties that would help her remember Narnia. |
| 203 | ** Can someone explain how a teenager losing her siblings and other relatives in a train crash is ''not'' supposed to be punishment and damnation? |
| 204 | *** What happens to her is obviously horrible when you think about it, but to say it's "supposed to be punishment and damnation" implies the book wants us to see it as some sort of retribution for Susan's actions, which I think is a lot more dubious. For starters, her doing the "right" thing wouldn't have prevented the deaths, just meant that she was among them. More significantly, the narrative never shows the slightest interest in how the deaths might impact on Susan; she's only briefly mentioned (before anyone knows they're dead) to explain why she's not present. |
| 205 | *** Because "punishment and damnation" in a Christian context means "going to hell", not necessarily "any unpleasant things which happen to you or your loved ones". Losing your family in a train wreck is a horrible thing that no one should have to experience, but it is entirely possible to live a good and decent life outside of that particular tragedy. In other words, what happened to Susan's family is awful, but it doesn't necessarily mean that Susan herself is automatically damned for all eternity. |
| 206 | *** To add to the above comment, from a Christian viewpoint, a tragedy that results in the rest of your family going on to spend eternity in a paradise that can never be taken away from them, if it also prompts you to start turning your thoughts from frivolity to mortality and begins a journey that results in returning to the path that will ensure that you rejoin them for eternity in a paradise that can never be taken from you, could be viewed in the context of a blessing. Thus, not only is it not damnation or punishment, but it could be seen as the exact opposite. This is something that is hard to explain to non-Christians, though C.S. Lewis also wrote non-fantasy books in which he did his best. |
| 207 | * A lot of this is {{Fanon}} brought on by years of people taking things out of context or remembering them wrong, presumably because the internet wasn't around, so memory was what the critics had to go on. What the actual situation with Susan is - her siblings still remember Narnia, which was a real thing that definitely happened. The Professor and Polly Plummer are in their lives too - two educated and rational adults who also had their experiences in Narnia (Polly is also close enough to the Pevensies to be known as [[HonoraryUncle 'Aunt Polly]]'). Susan however insists that these real experiences were just games they made up as children. The Pevensies, Digory and Polly all see the apparition of Tirian because they were at a 'Friends of Narnia' meeting - because they still talk about Narnia and share their experiences. Jill and Eustace go to Narnia because they know there is a problem that requires their help, and the others are on a train because they also want to help because ''they know there is a problem''. Their parents are on that train because they've chosen to believe their three children who they have no reason not to, and presumably want to help too. Susan is not there because she is not interested in helping solve the problem that's happening in this country she ruled for fifteen years, because she has convinced herself that this country does not exist (or is pretending it doesn't). Either she was asked to help and refused or else her siblings concluded on past behaviour that if asked to help, she would not and why waste their breath or start an argument they've been through over and over. Bear in mind Lucy was bullied quite nastily by Edmund, who tried to convince everyone else she was either a liar or delusional - and yet when he made a HeelFaceTurn and showed he wanted to be good, she was the first to forgive him and was just happy to have her brother back (and she never attacks him over his past actions). So if a girl of ''that'' level of kindness, forgiveness and empathy isn't associating with Susan, what does that say about the kind of person she's become? From what the other characters say, Susan has just become more preoccupied with presenting the image of being all grown up and sophisticated. You could defend this, but when she resorts to {{Gaslighting}} her siblings to uphold this image, I sort of lose most of my sympathy for her. |
| 208 | * And is she punished for anything? She isn't damned to hell or an eternity of misery, because how she deals with losing her family is entirely her own choice. Some people suffer tragedy and don't recover from it, but others are able to move past it and still lead full lives. Perhaps Susan's story is learning that family bonds should not be trivialised or treated the way she treated her family (we don't know the specifics but we do know these siblings were close and shared many experiences together, but now as an adult Susan was denying them and no longer associating with them) - because such things can't be taken for granted. She loses everything in an instant because that can happen in real life regardless of whether anyone deserves it. Maybe the tragedy is what brings her down to earth and makes her realise what's important, and she's able to grow past it and become a better person who will get to Aslan's Country in her own time. |
| 209 | |
| 210 | [[WMG: Where did the kids get those clothes from?]] |
| 211 | In the ''Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe'' film the Pevensies change into Narnian clothes and armor when they start preparing for battle. The only native Narnians that wear clothes are the dwarves, whose clothes would not fit children, and the female centaurs, who just wear leather tops. Yet they apparently had some clothes in exactly the right size on hand at the time when the kids got there. |
| 212 | * Prepared for the sake of the prophecy? Bought from Archenland? |
| 213 | * The Stone Table, where the army was stationed and where they stayed, is within sight of Cair Paravel, where the human royalty used to live. |
| 214 | ** It actually isn't. Cair Paravel and the Stone table are quite some distance apart (hence the need for the journey from one to the other in ''Literature/PrinceCaspian'') |
| 215 | * In the book, they raided one of Cair Paravel's treasuries before they left, getting their Gifts back, and starting to retrieve their memories (muscular and otherwise) of Narnia. The only thing missing was Susan's horn. Of course, in the book Caspian was like twelve years old... |
| 216 | ** The OP was talking about in the first film. The children wear their normal clothes until they reach the Stone Table and they change into medieval style clothes. I'm going to assume that there were seamstresses or someone there to make clothes. The encampment didn't just have warriors after all. Aslan got there first and he ''knew'' the Pevensies were on their way. It's not entirely unreasonable to suggest he had people make clothes for them in advance. Alternately the seamstresses are just that good and made them immediately when the children arrived. If you look at the dresses Susan and Lucy wear, they're relatively simple. |
| 217 | ** There are human-shaped beings in Narnia at the time. Tree-spirits are depicted wearing simple dresses in the artwork, and presumably creatures like hags and werewolves didn't walk around naked either; if any of the creatures who side with the Pevensies have fought some of the latter recently, they might have acquired a few items of apparel that way that they hadn't gotten around to taking apart for fabric yet. |
| 218 | |
| 219 | [[WMG: Susan . . . just Susan.]] |
| 220 | Even when I was younger and read the books I couldn't understand what was up with Susan. You can't tell me Peter didn't ever get interested in girls, or the two younger ones didn't start to want to dress nice and have other activities. Yes, it's a giant allegory, but why only Susan as a doubting Thomas? To twist the knife fully in, Lewis not only has all of her siblings die, but her PARENTS and all of her Narnian friends as well. Oh, but they get to go to heaven with Aslan; she's stuck in London, alone, with no family and the knowledge that she missed out on paradise. Seems a bit harsh for daring to like boys and make-up. |
| 221 | * Regardless of the traits her siblings now liked about her the least, Susan was not being punished for liking boys and make-up. She wasn't even "punished" per se. Her loss of belief caused her to miss the gathering of the Friends of Narnia, and thus to be left out of the loop when they formed the plan to get the magic rings, thus missing the train accident and subsequently going to Heaven at the same time the rest did. Missing this chance was a natural consequence of her choice to cut Narnia out of her life. As to her ultimate future, even Lewis never stated she missed her chance permanently. (Edmund messed up in the beginning, but he was forgiven, as were Eustace and Jill when they screwed up in their quest.) |
| 222 | * In fewer words - she didn't go to heaven because she ''wasn't dead''. |
| 223 | * Still, setting aside the old "lipstick=damnation" arguments, it's strange storytelling to have a major character suffer (by implication) a horrible fate (losing her whole family) and have it and her so perfunctorily dismissed within the story. I think this may tie in with Lewis's theological belief (shown in e.g. ''The Great Divorce'') that those in heaven can't be at all bothered by the fate of those not there, since that would be inconsistent with the former having perfect happiness. Comes across as rather callous, though. |
| 224 | ** It is a matter of faith. If you have faith, then you trust God/Aslan/Jesus that He will see to it that everything will work out in the end. As St. Julian of Norwich said, "And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." At the end of the Gospel of John, when Jesus prophesies Peter's fate, Peter points to the Beloved Disciple and asks, "What about him?" Jesus tells Peter to mind his own business. Resign as General Manager of the Universe; that's Jesus' job. |
| 225 | *** On other words: "Lets be callous sociopaths because Lewis thinks people in Heaven should be "unconcerned" with their loved ones". Also, if Christianity supports free will - it doesn't, but you seem obsessed in thinking it does -, then the chances of Susan being in Heaven are at best 50/50. It's a massive gambit. |
| 226 | *** I'm a bit confused as to how you think Christianity doesn't support free will and who you think is obsessing over it. A quote comes to mind (I really wish I could remember who said it first) "There are going to be two kinds of people at the judgment throne, those that say to God 'Thy will be done' (Christians) and those to whom God says 'thy will be done' (non-Christians)". That's where free will comes in in Christianity. You either choose to follow Christ or to follow your own desires. As for not caring about those still on Earth, I don't know of anyone that's been to heaven and returned to tell us if we get updates on how people on Earth are doing. So, there's no reason to assume we'd know the fate of anyone unless and until they show up in heaven, and there is no possible way for us to intervene on Earth. If you can't influence anything, why would you constantly worry about it? Its only making you miserable and doing nothing to change things. As for Susan, since she has been a believer in Aslan in the past I'd say her chances of getting into heaven would be 100%. If she stays on her current path she might find herself more than a bit embarrassed when she gets there, but she'll get there. |
| 227 | ** Well, it's really Lewis's job, given that the universe in question does whatever he wants it to. It's not a religious argument, but a storytelling criticism: when major characters undergo traumatic events, it's generally considered worth expending some description on. I don't think even devout Christian authors generally go for "and then his beloved wife breathed her last, which was unfortunate. But all will be well in the end, so meanwhile...". Would make for rather unengaging prose. |
| 228 | ** It seems to me that Susan doesn't get discussed more because (a) Peter clearly doesn't want to talk about this painful subject, and (b) there are more pressing issues, now that we've all just arrived in Heaven after the end of the world, and are still sorting out what happened to us. |
| 229 | * But it's also worth keeping in mind that following WWII there were a lot of kids who had been uprooted from one life (in the cities); send to another one (the countryside -- like the Penvensies); and then uprooted from that one to find that parents, relatives or friends who ''had'' stayed in the cities had been killed during the war. It's callous, but it was also a very real situation and one that would resonate strongly for a lot of people. |
| 230 | * I'm not sure it even occurred to Lewis how Susan would see these events, in much the same way that it didn't occur to George Lucas that [[InferredHolocaust the wreakage of the second Death Star would hit Endor]]. Interpret this as you will. |
| 231 | * Agreed. Whether it was for theological reasons (as I suggested above) or just overlooking the implications (as in the previous comment), the Fridge Callousness is not so much that the ending, when you think about it, really sucks for Susan per se, as the fact that neither the narration nor the characters seem much to consider or care that this is the case. I'm not wild about the {{Squick}} in Neil Gaiman's ''The Problem of Susan'', but he does a good job of pointing this aspect out. |
| 232 | * Folks project way too much onto the "Susan problem." Like the above line, "Missed out on paradise." She didn't miss out on it forever, she just missed out on this particular adventure that happened to end in everyone being in heaven/paradise. The original text is, ''"Peter says, rather shortly, that she "is no longer a friend of Narnia." Eustace adds, "whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia... she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy you still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'" And Jill says, "She's interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations."'' If you approach the books as being basically "The further adventures of Jesus and Pals" there is a lot more levels going on. It's not the explicit love of nylons, lipstick and invitations. It is the forsaking of Aslan/Narnia/Christianity/Jesus completely. This is an unfortunate aspect of religions (including, specifically, Christianity in this case) in which you are asked to forsake all other religions and beliefs as second the religion. Lots of folks get upset when they used to realize that unbaptized babies died and didn't get into heaven and such due to how "the rules" were setup, for example. If you don't believe in Aslan then he doesn't hook you up. There is a article out there titled "The Problem with The Problem with Susan" that outlines this all a lot better than we have space and time for here on a IJBM page, check it out if the "Susan problem" gets you down. |
| 233 | ** I believe [[http://chrisrusso.xanga.com/478779707/the-problem-with-the-problem-of-susan--narnia-and-gaiman-spoiler-warning/ this is the article you mentioned]] and, indeed, its a thoughtful and well written article that I endorse, to a point, although it isn't without problems, in particular his first counterargument. |
| 234 | ** Not trying to derail, but not every Christian denomination believes the same thing, such as the 'unbaptized infants' thing being a problem. |
| 235 | ** This is what happens when a deity plays the "salvation game" against his own creation. A lot of souls go astray, like Susan, and [[WasItReallyWorthIt are lost forever]]. Seems like Lewis was [[EsotericHappyEnding self aware enough to realize]] there are never any true winners in that sort of game, and wrestled with it in his other books. |
| 236 | * This troper got the feeling that it wasn't Susan's embracing of lipstick and nylons that made her "no longer a friend of Narnia", but the fact that she ''completely ignored'' Narnia in favor of them. Some of the other female characters were mentioned to dress up and Jill was specifically mentioned to have saved her pretty robes from Narnia to wear when she went to a fancy dress ball. Probably if Susan had remained a believer it wouldn't have mattered (in other words, it's not "Susan is acting like an adult woman, she sucks" it's "Susan opted to forget about Narnia in exchange for more silly pursuits). |
| 237 | * It's generally accepted by the fans that Lewis' treatment of Susan at the end of the series doesn't mean she'll never get to Real Narnia/Aslan's Country. She's not dead, so she may still get there, eventually; that much is accepted. So [[Headscratchers/HomePage what really bugs people]] is not that she doesn't go to Heaven, it's that she didn't go to Heaven ''at the same time the rest of them did.'' She wasn't in the train crash because she ''chose'' to stay away, that can't be denied. Aslan did not actively keep her out, so in that sense she was not being ''punished'', exactly, for liking make-up and boys and "forgetting" about Narnia. But Lewis clearly intended her to be an example. It makes sense he would include something like that, given that the series is basically AnAesop for Christianity, but the fact that he chose an established character that readers had grown attached to for this end makes it seem like too easy a dismissal and it comes across as rather callous, regardless of the fact that her "ending" is actually fairly open. |
| 238 | * My working theory as an eight year old was that C.S Lewis just wanted Peter or whoever to be able to say "We are the seven friends of Narnia," and Susan was the easiest character to knock off. Peter was the awesome idealised English boy hero, Edmund the traitor redeemed, Lucy the magically special author's favourite lots of one on one time with lion Jesus, Eustace had overcome the horribly liberal up bringing that made him a selfish whiny coward, Jill was pretty much a bad-ass battle wench for the time it was written, (Irrelevant, but I always thought that King Tristian had weird semi-romantic vibes with her, which bothered me a lot less as a child) |
| 239 | ** Even when he called her "Daughter"? |
| 240 | *** Polly and Digory were there at the beginning, so having them there at the end helped tie the entire series into a pretty package. Oh, and Susan? Susan was team mom. The please be sensible, I don't think that's a good idea, let's not, good thing I can cook, kind of team mom that all Susans at the time had to be. (Swallows and Amazons, anybody?) Even when the main plot of an entire book was based round events developing from some foreigner being in love with her she got no character development. She was always forced to be a function rather than a person. And Lewis wanted a special number. The eight friends of Narnia is a crap line, so he kicked out the one that wasn't as brave/special/permanently excited about how awesome Narnia is. (I was rather a precocious child, in the field of literary speculation anyway) And though I wouldn't swear to this theory now, I still feel sorry for Susan because she never got a chance to be anything else. |
| 241 | ** Seven is a pretty important number in the Bible; you might have something there. |
| 242 | ** The number 'Seven' theory might have weight but I'd argue that Polly would be the easiest to 'remove'. She was only in the Magicians Nephew and because of the order the books were written in, Diggory didn't even mention her in later years. She'd be much easier to exclude with barely a "oh I used to have a friend Polly but she doesn't believe anymore/is already dead", than Susan who was a main character in two books and mentioned frequently later on. She wasn't easiest to remove, she was removed to make a point. |
| 243 | * [[WordOfGod Lewis himself]] stated that Susan eventually ended up in Heaven as well, but because she had let herself get distracted by frivolities (e.g. "lipstick and invitations"), she ended up with a more arduous life-journey than did her siblings. |
| 244 | ** I don't think he made any more definite statement than "perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end". |
| 245 | * I've often wondered how much Susan's "abandonment" of Narnia had to do with being a giddy girl and how much it had to do with a simple act of growing apart from her siblings. Here is my theory. Susan, in her position, did something that was perfectly reasonable: she moved on, and tried to forget, presumably because the memories of Narnia would have been too painful for her. Her siblings, on the other hand, did not, and this led to a falling out between Susan and them. They, and the rest of her family, were naturally quite bitter, and perhaps because Susan never gave them an explanation they found acceptable, they attributed her abandonment of Narnia entirely to her being interested in the things most teenage girls are interested in. |
| 246 | ** Side thought - lack of fellowship, maybe? Consider - Peter didn't get to return any more than Susan did. But, there was a strong divergence between what happened with the two when the next trip (Dawn Treader) took place. Susan was off travelling with her parents. Peter was studying for college...and staying with Professor Kirke while he did so. Even before TMN where we learned who he really was relative to Narnia, Professor Kirke was painted as someone who would and did understand it very well. We're never given such an option regarding the Pevensie parents. It's possible that Peter kept his own memory alive simply through that, during the period where Susan let herself believe it all a fantasy. |
| 247 | ** I like this theory -- particularly as Susan had always been the most sensible and practical of the four, and was never a dizzy airhead as the others claim she's become in ''The Last Battle''. If Susan knew she could never go back to Narnia, then she'd try her best to make a proper life for herself in England, along with everything that implies about getting on in English society (parties, socialising, etc.) It's completely understandable she'd never want to discuss Narnia again, and if her siblings were to keep on bringing it up the best way she could shut them down would be to dismiss it as childish games to their faces -- even if she actually did know it was all real. In this light, the comments about her from Lucy, Jill and Polly in the last book seem a lot more like petty sniping (particularly from Polly, with the "She's spent the whole of her life racing towards the age she is now, and she'll spend the rest of her life trying to stay that age" remark -- honestly, the Pevensies had never even ''met'' Polly until after ''The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'' at the very earliest, so it's probable that Polly has barely even ''interacted'' with Susan at all.) |
| 248 | ** Polly may have met the Pevensies directly after 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. She and Diggory were still friends so its not that far-fetched to imagine Diggory writing to say "Hey, some kids are staying with me and went to Narnia. Come up and visit!" and her popping on the train to come and squee about the kids journey to Narnia and share her own adventures. |
| 249 | *** That is possible, but my impression from the end of LWW is that after Professor Kirke told them he didn't think they'd get back there through the wardrobe, that was it - he didn't discuss it with them again. My take on it is that it was probably when he was coaching Peter for his exams that he came clean about his own past there. |
| 250 | * You know what happens to Susan? A few days after the train wreck, some official comes to the Pevensie house, where Susan sits in emotional shock, and hands her "your brothers' and sister's personal effects." These include a box containing some green rings and some yellow ones. If she's lucky, she picks up a green ring first. Then she touches a yellow ring. Then she's in the Wood Between the Worlds. She screams and screams and screams. When she's done, the next cycle of adventures starts. Pick a pool, any pool. |
| 251 | ** http://b.fanfiction.net/s/5562075/1/Trinkets |
| 252 | * Can't a lot of this be chalked up to the unreliability of the other seven as witnesses? They aren't omniscient narrators. Susan was quite a young woman, and had gone through a lot. If she and her pubescent sister four years younger didn't see eye to eye, and Lucy's perspective shaded Jill's (Jill being even younger than Lucy), you could get easily get some misrepresentation out of that. |
| 253 | * Everybody always focuses on the "lipstick and invitations" bit, but I don't think that's really where the problem lies. I think the most telling reason for why Susan got left out is more of a maturity issue, as shown by when she says "What wonderful memories you have! '''Fancy you still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children'''." The issue isn't that she's being more social, it's that she's basically attempting to deny everything that she experienced because it makes her feel childish, and she ''wants'' to feel mature. Creator/CSLewis had some strong opinions on people who felt that "being grown up" was an end in itself, and disparaged childish things for that reason. Maybe this quote will shed some light on where he might have been coming from: |
| 254 | -->“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” |
| 255 | |
| 256 | ** Can someone explain how a teenager losing her siblings and other relatives in a train crash is ''not'' supposed to be punishment and damnation? |
| 257 | *** The key phrase here is "supposed to be" - ie, "intended to be," which assumes ''intent''. The train crash isn't something that was intentionally caused by Aslan (or anyone else) in response to anything Susan did or didn't do. It wasn't intentionally caused at all. It was a tragic accident (mirroring a real-life train accident that occurred in 1955), and when it happened Aslan brought Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Digory, and Polly into his country aka heaven. Yes, it's terrible for Susan to lose all three of her siblings that way, but it's not something that was done ''to'' her to punish her, and it wouldn't have been affected by anything she did or didn't do, except that she could have been killed with the rest of them if she'd been with them.\ |
| 258 | As for "damnation," she's not damned because she's not ''dead''. She's not denied entry to Aslan's country, she's not there because she chose not to be (via choosing not to join the gathering of the Friends of Narnia and the subsequent efforts to rescue Tirian). She's got the rest of her adult life to get there or not, and which it ends up being will be her choice as well. |
| 259 | ** Also, as explained above, "punishment and damnation" means something quite specific in Christian teaching -- specifically, it means being sent to hell. It doesn't just mean "something bad which happens to you". The idea is that God will judge you on your death and determine your fate in the afterlife, not that he's going to send invisible lightning bolts to kill your family out of spite. Having your entire family die in a terrible accident is awful, but it doesn't mean God has damned you. |
| 260 | * From the Christian point of view... Susan rejected Narnia. It is implied that she also rejected Christianity in her own world. When her parents and siblings died in that train crash, her siblings wound up in Heaven Narnia, and her parents in Heaven England, and it seemed that they would be able to reach each other and spend time with each other. Meanwhile, Susan lives out the rest of her life and, as C.S. Lewis said, finds her own way through. This is one of the big things that non-Christians often don't understand about Christianity. How could that be anything but a terrible punishment for Susan? Well, if one path has her floating through the rest of her life, on an easy path to eventual damnation, and the other path has her undergo a traumatic event in this temporal, sin-broken world that brings her back to Christianity and/or Narnia, then the second path is the one in which she winds up spending eternity with her parents and siblings in paradise. In eternity, the fact that it took her a mere few decades longer to get there will not seem like such a big deal. If you attend a party that lasts for ten hours, arriving three minutes late doesn't mean that you've missed any appreciable amount of fun. In that view, the train crash and being bereft of her family was, if it was the catalyst that broke Susan out of her frivolous lifestyle and started her back into the habit of considering eternity, a gift rather than a punishment. The temporal pain would be worth very little when compared to the eternity of paradise. |
| 261 | ** And if the grief and horror of losing her entire family - losing them, ''because they'd taken a train'' home from some stupid reunion with others who insist on obsessing over what she ''honestly believes'' was a silly childhood fantasy - is the very thing that persuades Susan that blindly believing '''anything''' you can't directly witness or prove is self-destructive bullshit? No more faith in Narnia, in Christianity, in anything, because it's what got her parents and siblings killed? Nice Job Breaking It, Aslan, if so. |
| 262 | *** Which is a possibility. The ultimate point is, however, that either way it is ''Susan's choice'', not Aslan being spiteful. From a Christian perspective, Aslan isn't "breaking" anything; Susan just has the freedom to make her own decisions. A central tenet of Christianity is that humans are made in the image of God, but they ultimately have free will and the ability to choose their destiny. Those choices, however, affect what happens to them after death. This means that God cannot force anyone to believe in Him or worship Him or follow His teachings, but it does mean that if they don't do so they may not be able to enter Heaven when they die. It's the same thing here; Aslan is not locking Susan out of Heaven Narnia Land and taunting her about it, it's just that the choices she has made in her life so far are keeping her out of Heaven Narnia, and if she is going to make her way there she will have to do so separately from her family and make the right choices. |
| 263 | *** Yes but Susan didn't ''choose'' that train crash, or ''choose'' to be the sole survivor of it, and forced to get on with her life, alone. Likewise Aslan/God punishing humans for using free will exactly as he's expecting them to, is not only illogical, immoral, but it's a cruel SadisticChoice that ''masquerades as free will''. Aslan is telling you to always do ''what he wants'' otherwise you lose your place in his paradise forever. Unless...the Christian perspective was really that [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill free will was a terrible idea after all?]] |
| 264 | |
| 265 | [[WMG: Jadis killed ''every living thing'' in her universe, and had never visited Earth before, but didn't die of massive infection in seconds?]] |
| 266 | * Perhaps A) the Deplorable Word only affected living things outside the speaker's body and B) the people of Charn didn't know anything about microbes. Besides, the books obviously are not meant to be hard science fiction. After all, the stars in the Narnia universe are humanoids who evidently have no trouble living in the vacuum of space. |
| 267 | * We're told in ''The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe'' that there's "not a drop of human blood in her". She could easily be unaffected by earth microbes. |
| 268 | * I vote the Word only works on complex, multicellular life. If cockroaches can survive nuclear apocalypse... |
| 269 | * Jadis only killed every living thing after becoming an adult and developing an immune system. And going to another world would be an infection risk independent of the number of bacteria 'currently' in Charn as they would be different from earth/Narnia ones. Being a witch and is inhumanly strong, presumably with an immune system to match, would be the important factors. |
| 270 | ** Plus, she was only on Earth for a matter of hours. Even a real-life SCIDS patient wouldn't die of an infection ''that'' fast. Then she ate one of the silver apples shortly after coming to Narnia, which probably rendered her immune to disease as part of the immortality package. |
| 271 | * I may have forgotten something from the text but I always sort of assumed that she went into her weird magical catatonia with those other people pretty soon after her genocide. I mean, why would she have stuck around long? [[PyrrhicVictory Everyone was dead. There was no one left to rule over.]] [[VictoryIsBoring I don't think there would be very much else she'd be interested in there anymore either, which is why she went into her little enchanted slumber, waiting for someone living to come around.]] She wouldn't likely have been around the dead bodies long enough to be exposed to their cooties for a dangerous amount of time. As for earth's own infections, she's half-djinn and half-giantess, so I don't know if she's vulnerable to the same diseases as us anyway (not that she was here for very long, so it wouldn't matter much), but if she is then for that very reason, that same similar biology, she would stand the same chances of infection as any of us. Maybe she wouldn't have built up any immunity, but most of us haven't built up as much to the common diseases as the OP poster seems to think either, and had she got anything, by the time it would have really set in she would have already eaten that apple. |
| 272 | ** Any organisms within her own body would probably be counted as ''part'' of her body. All we really are is a massive collection of tiny critters, after all. |
| 273 | * Jadis went into her statue-like hibernation ''intending'' to leave Charn with whomever awakened her and go rule their world instead. If catching infections is a standard concern for cross-world travelers, she'd probably have been aware of that risk and used her magic to protect herself from it. |
| 274 | * Also... guys, it's a fantasy novel for kids. If there's a point where world-building questions like this start to just seem a bit petty and nitpicky, it's when we're quibbling over the likelihood of a powerful witch from an alternate dimension not dropping dead from cholera or whatever mere hours after stepping foot into Victorian London. The story's not about that, no one cares about that, it's Rule Of It's A Fantasy Just Go With It or whatever. |
| 275 | |
| 276 | [[WMG: Why did the Green Witch have to brainwash Rilian ''and'' raise an army?]] |
| 277 | If, as seems to be indicated, she could use her enslaved Earthmen to overwhelm Narnia with force of arms and the element of surprise... why did she need the true heir as a puppet ruler? Or, since she could evidently use mind control on that kind of scale, why not just use ''Narnians'' against themselves? |
| 278 | * Some possible explanations: we know that many Narnians put great stock in the idea of the "true king" (as seen in ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' and ''Prince Caspian'') and many are deferential to authority even in the face of harmful decrees (as seen in ''The Last Battle''). Hence having Rilian on her side could make conquering and ruling Narnia much easier for the witch. With regard to the mind control magic - it's presumably a safe guess that for some reason it wouldn't have worked among Narnians ''en masse'' like it did with the Earthmen. One could even speculatively tie these together by suggesting that having a king on the throne lends Narnia some protection against widespread magic, as might be implied by TLTW&TW. A related speculation would be that the witch's invasion, for political and/or magical reasons, was being timed to coincide with Caspian's death. |
| 279 | ** I was going to wonder why just controlling the ruler wouldn't be good enough for her, but now that I think about it, backup never hurts. And the importance of a human king hadn't occurred to me. Actually, that could explain the oddly convenient timing, them being ready to go ''right'' when Caspian took off... and Rilian, as a protected Narnian, being the only one who got ''any'' time as himself despite presumably getting more personal attention... wow. FridgeBrilliance! |
| 280 | *** Shared FridgeBrilliance! I've read and loved this series for years and that never ocurred to me! |
| 281 | ** The Talking Animals also have to be considered -- could she mind-control ''them''? |
| 282 | ** Having a human ruler might also have discouraged the locals from praying for Aslan to come and save them. The Green Witch might've known what happened to her predecessor.... |
| 283 | |
| 284 | [[WMG: Why couldn't the Lady of the Green Kirtle mind-control all of Narnia like she did the gnomes?]] |
| 285 | * Perhaps the spell only works on goblins/gnomes/whatever? |
| 286 | ** The spell had NoOntologicalInertia upon her death, so it's likely she has a limit on how many people she can actually dominate at any given time. |
| 287 | * She didn't seem interested in any other land but the underground one. As long as she had that one, she had what she wanted. |
| 288 | ** Not really; her whole plan is to conquer Narnia with an underland army and reign through Rilian. She definitely wants the overlands. |
| 289 | * Remember that she had to use a fragrant incense thrown onto her fire to begin to weave her mind-control over merely three humans and a marshwiggle, and even though she was in her home territory, the marsh-wiggle on his own was able to thwart her at it. It seems likely that the earthmen were more vulnerable to her powers than "overlanders" would be. |
| 290 | ** Or it requires repeated exposure to her magics to suborn someone's will. It's implied that she visited Rilian several times on the down-low before Caspian learned of her existence. She probably needed to reinforce the enchantments she wove over the prince repeatedly, before he fell sufficiently under her control to be taken. |
| 291 | ** Even with Rillian, he was lucid for about an hour every day, which is why he was strapped to the Silver Chair when the heroes reached him. Somehow, the chair helped to keep him subdued after that hour was up. After he escaped and destroyed the chair, he was freed from the enchantment. |
| 292 | |
| 293 | [[WMG: The Telmarines' ethnicity.]] |
| 294 | It's pretty much assumed, if not stated outright, that the Telmarines are white -- Caspian is illustrated as blond, the "swarthy" Calormenes are contrasted with them, etc. But the backstory of the Telmarines, as recounted by Aslan, is that they are descended from a ship of (male, presumably white) pirates ''and their native Pacific-Islander wives''. Now, surely that would mean that all the Telmarines, including Caspian, are half-white half-Polynesian? |
| 295 | * Telmar is closest to majority-white Narnia and Archenland - intermarriage with those peoples has reduced the polynesian appearance over the centuries possibly. Also, I don't think any Telmarine except Caspian is particularly described, he could have an unusually high pirate-to-native ratio. |
| 296 | * Nowhere does it say that the European pirates mated with Polynesian women. Just that they landed in islands in the Southern Sea. In order to look white, they had to have mated with white- possibly blonde- women. Only two islands have blonde natives- Iceland to the north, and the Canary Islands to the south. So it makes sense that they landed in the Canary Islands (historically accurate if they were originally from Spain like the movie portrays them to be) and they mated with the blonde Guanche women. But then, this Troper is 1/4th Canarian and does not expect most people to be aware of this info. |
| 297 | ** Actually, you're clearly thinking of The Movie, whereas the OP is thinking of the book, which is rather significantly different in the way it portrays the Telmarines and their background. In the book Aslan does say they conquered an island in "the ocean people of that world call Pacific" and "took local women to wives" or something along those lines, so yes, the part-Polynesian ancestry ''is'' basically book canon (unless we assume the island was inhabited by people of different, for example South Asian, ancestry). And Caspian is not just illustrated but indeed said in the text (in ''Voyage of the Dawn Treader'') to be blond. Some of the below explanations probably apply to the book. |
| 298 | * Assuming that the Telmarines were in Narnia (world, not country) for more than 2000 years, which is entirely possible, then the individuals with lighter skin would have had better chances to survive in the temperate climate with cold winters (no vitamin supplements or fresh fruit in winter, remember?), meaning that in the long run the genetics would have ensured that the remaining population would be mostly white. |
| 299 | ** Except that one of the riddles of Polynesian ancestry is that they are apparently a cold adapted people (high body fat and muscle, short legs etc) living in a warm climate. (This has been interpreted to mean that either a) during Polynesian settlement only those that could survive long, cold sea voyages survived to breed or b) there was a secondary settlement of Polynesia from a region with a cold climate that resulted in the phenotype we see today. - But that's neither here nor there in response to the above question.) |
| 300 | * You can't assume the pirates were white or all male. Pirates were English, Spanish, Jamaican, runaway slaves -- just about any ethnicity that was in the Caribbean and Atlantic Oceans. With such a mixed bag of genes, Caspian described as being blonde isn't that far-fetched. |
| 301 | * Also, hey, blonde Melanesians. Plus, considering the original group of pirates-and-families was quite small, you can probably also safely assume interbreeding with other cultures in the Narnian world - just like, given the state of their culture by the time Miraz & Caspian X are kings, you can probably assume a high degree of cultural exchange and / or shift. There are several possibilities and my inclination is "a mix of them, probably". (Possible Polynesian elements in Telmarine culture is a bit of a hobby horse of mine...) |
| 302 | |
| 303 | [[WMG:What about Susan's Horn?]] |
| 304 | I can't remember if this was resolved in the books or not, but if, after the Pevensies went back to England in Prince Caspian, somebody blew on Susan's horn for help, wouldn't they be called back to Narnia again? Surely there must have been some troubled times. Wouldn't somebody have blown on it? Was it because of some moral code that says "if Aslan tells a person something, then we will never attempt to contradict that statement?" that prevented somebody from blowing the horn? |
| 305 | * The horn's property is just that help of some sort will most likely come when you blow it - it doesn't have to be in Pevensie form. More generally, the books tend to promote the view that travel between the worlds happens if/when Aslan wants it to, and not otherwise. Admittedly Jadis arriving in Narnia in TMN is a fairly notable exception. |
| 306 | ** The horn brings help in lots of different form, sometimes not even magical. At one point in TLTWATH, Susan blows the horn when she and Lucy are being attacked by wolves. Help arrives when her brothers hear her from over the hill & come running. |
| 307 | * Aslan never forbade anyone from blowing the horn, so that last one wouldn't be a reason. The above answer fits with Dr. Cornelius' statement that you never know "what form the help will take." It probably summons whoever is best suited/destined to help in a particular situation. [=VotDT=] says Caspian left the horn with his Regent Trumpkin in Narnia in case there was emergency while he was at sea, presumably to call Caspian for help. "The Silver Chair" also shows that Aslan is perfectly willing to summon TheChosenOne from our world on his own to help Narnia in a crisis without anyone needing to blow the horn. |
| 308 | ** Alternately the horn just isn't actually magic - and it's just a way for a young girl in a magical land to call for help if she's attacked. Using the horn to call the Pevensies could have been a BatmanGambit by Aslan to get the Narnians to ''really'' believe in him. |
| 309 | * ''Dawn Treader'' takes place only three years after ''Prince Caspian'', and the brief update Caspian gives Edmund and Lucy on their arrival suggests that all has been well throughout that time. So it's entirely possible that no one blew the horn in those three years. |
| 310 | |
| 311 | [[WMG:Always winter, but never Christmas.]] |
| 312 | Never Christmas? In a world where Aslan is the Christ figure and was born before the world was I should hope there's no Christmas. Whose birthday is being celebrated, and when did the coca-cola santa get here? |
| 313 | * We never find out what religious significance, if any, Christmas has in Narnia - it could just be celebrated as a midwinter festival. Father Christmas (who, after all, has nothing to do with the biblical account) showing up is consistent with Narnia as a place where lots of mythological figure from our world - dryads, fauns, Bacchus etc. really exist. (The idea that his modern appearance originated with Coca Cola is an [[http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santa/cocacola.asp urban myth]] though). On the other hand, it's not impossible they could be celebrating the birth of Jesus in our world - presumably less significant for Narnia, but a good enough excuse for a party. It's never clear to what extent Narnians are familiar with our world's theology, but they talk about "Sons of Adam" and "Daughters of Eve" and, according to the TMN, had people from Earth there from the very beginning, so there's certainly a plausible mechanism (even aside from contriving random info dumps from Aslan) for them to know about Christmas - if King Frank and Queen Helen celebrated it, the tradition could easily have both spread and survived. |
| 314 | * Always winter - what does anybody eat? A single year of crop failure and bad harvests can cause widespread famine; a few years with no harvest at all and the entire population is going to starve to death, and it seems heavily implied that the White Witch has been at it for decades or more. |
| 315 | ** People have lived in the tundra, Alaska, northern Russia, and other year-round frozen places where you can't plant crops. |
| 316 | *** Actually, no. Human beings do not traditionally live ''anywhere'' that is frozen year-round. Even in Alaska, Siberia, Greenland, etc., there are still times when there is no snow on the ground and plants can grow. Moreover, the native populations of those areas lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers for the most part - not in settled, agrarian societies like Narnia is implied to be. |
| 317 | *** Narnia is not inhabited by humans at the time of Jadis's reign, and who knows what they eat. It's also possible that magic food rations are doled out by her administration. It's similar to the absolute monarchies seen in Hydraulic Empires. The White Witch is able to keep such a stranglehold on Narnia because even if you'e not being turned into a stone statue, you'll slowly starve to death. |
| 318 | ** What I can't figure out is where the Beavers obtained the materials for bread, marmalade roll, and other goodies that require foodstuffs that can't grow in the winter. Or for that matter, where the technology for a sewing machine came from. |
| 319 | *** As for the sewing machine, I have no idea, but the bread, marmalade roll and other foodstuffs could have come from Calormen, Archenland, Telmarine or the other inhabited islands in the same world. White Witch didn't rule the entire world, just Narnia itself. |
| 320 | *** Where did they get the foodstuffs from? From the grocer's. That's what shops are for - especially in fairy tales. How the shops get stocked, and how Narnia has a monetary system of any kind, and how the Beavers and Mr Tumnus make any money to buy stuff, is left as an exercise for the student. Adults buy things from shops, shops have things in them to buy; all else is confusion. :) |
| 321 | *** The Archenlanders have had 100 years to establish an extensive smuggling operation for simple food that wasn't infused with Walter White's product, thus reducing the threat the witch poses to Archenland by ensuring fewer Narnians will actively work for her due to addictive magic candy. |
| 322 | ** We know there are edible things (gems!) deep underground in Bism, which wouldn't be inhibited from "growing" by winter conditions on the surface. Perhaps the dwarfs used to trade with the Underworld folk, whose gemstones (and underground crops, maybe?) could still grow during the frozen |
| 323 | * And why are the trees still there? Narnia looked like a forested land during a frozen winter: The trees have all lost their leaves, but they are still standing, and ready to bloom when spring does come after a hundred years. But of course, trees just survive for a few months in that state; they're not equipped to stay alive and in one piece if freezing temperatures persist for years on end. But then, it puts a whole new light on Mr. Tumnus's warning that "some of the trees are on the Witch's side": if the trees couldn't survive the winter without [[AWizardDidIt magic to help them survive]], then that could be the reason for the trees spying for the Witch. |
| 324 | ** The "EndlessWinter" of the White Witch's administration may have been more of a time-stoppage effect than an actual prolongation of winter conditions ''across'' time. After all, if it were an otherwise-normal winter that just kept on for that long, the Beavers' stream would have dried up from lack of snowmelt and the snowdrifts would have built up until the whole kingdom was one big glacier. Also, the Witch's dwarf did initially suggest that the winter's breaking was only a thaw, so perhaps the Witch's winter was a lot like a genuine British January: cold enough that the snow doesn't vanish completely, but with above-freezing periods when the snow cover diminishes and the grass gets a little sun. |
| 325 | * Christmas is simply a day of the year that people have designated as having special significance. You can ban its celebration but you can't just make December 25th not happen - and for that matter even if you do make it illegal that doesn't always stop people. |
| 326 | ** [[AWizardDidIt A Witch Did It]]. |
| 327 | *** Given that Father Christmas really does exist in Narnia and apparently only turns up when it's Christmas, it seems that Christmas is more of a physical state than a calendrical one in Narnia's world. This would be yet another instance of our-world myth and folklore being reality in Narnia. |
| 328 | *** Who said that Narnia was a spherical planet orbiting a star? It's perfectly possible that calendars don't apply in Narnia during the reign of the White Witch. |
| 329 | ** [[FridgeBrilliance I realized not too long ago]] that the White Witch's winter never ends ''because'' Christmas never comes. Christmas is the modern celebration that took over the old Winter Solstice celebration. What's so special about the Winter Solstice? That's when the days stop getting shorter and start getting longer again, so that you know eventually spring will arrive. If you never get to the middle of winter, you can't get to the end. |
| 330 | *** The Winter Solstice is the return/rebirth of the Sun. Christmas was placed as it was BECAUSE of the various pagan Solstice holidays; think of it as the Christian Winter Solstice. It's a stealth metaphor. By stopping Christmas from coming, Jadis is keeping the Sun ([[{{Pun}} "Son"]] aka Aslan) from coming back. |
| 331 | *** I never thought about it that way. Both this and the above bullet are utter brilliance! |
| 332 | * It just seemed to this troper like banning Christmas was a more playful way of showing how terrible the Witch was. In the movie especially, when Mr. Tumnus discusses it with Lucy there's a feeling of ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas'', like it was a time for partying and having fun and that all was taken away from them. |
| 333 | * It's a figure of speech meaning that they got all of the bad things associated with winter, but none of the good things. |
| 334 | ** It's not ''just'' a figure of speech, because Father Christmas appears (and characters on both sides correctly see this as evidence that the spell is breaking). However, when the spell breaks, it goes from winter to spring in a few hours, so clearly it wasn't actually 25 December. |
| 335 | * It's just one of those things, like Tumnus's umbrella and Mrs. Beaver's sewing machine. Lewis wanted a warm welcoming Old Narnia and decided that should include UsefulNotes/AVeryBritishChristmas. So sue him. |
| 336 | * In the book, Father Christmas tells Peter, Lucy and the Beavers that the Witch's magic has kept him away from Narnia for a hundred years. As a child, I simply concluded that this was why there hadn't been a Christmas during the reign of the White Witch -- the date still came around, but it wasn't ''Christmas,'' because the Spirit of Christmas was being kept away. (I like the "solstice" theory too, though.) |
| 337 | * Aside from all the points made above, another thing to consider: Aslan is Jesus. This means he should, presumably, know about everything in our world, including his birth there and the subsequent celebration of it. Since we know Aslan was in the business of teaching others how to know him, so they would "know him better" on Earth, it makes sense that he would want to ensure things associated with his Earthly guise would have a presence in Narnia, to help the Pevensies to make connections and be ready to accept him via the familiar. So even aside from Frank and Helen bringing Christmas with them (and for that matter Polly and Digory), and the Winter Solstice thing, Aslan could have decreed Christmas be celebrated in order to provide that connection back to Earth. Since Father Christmas was actually based off a saint of Earth, this crossed with Aslan's divine powers and the FantasyKitchenSink trait of Narnia would then have made Father Christmas a real, separate being. How did Jadis keep him away? Because, like Aslan, who was the world's creator rather than indigenous to it, she was also an outsider. Not to mention being symbolic of Satan... |
| 338 | ** When Christianity was taking in converts, to better ingratiate them certain "pagan" festival periods were turned into Christian holidays related to relevant Christian events (since there is no record of when these events exactly happened and the calculation of periods of time was very different anyway. Which is why Christianities two most major events, Easter and Christmas, fall on pagan celebration periods for fertility (new life/rebirth quaintly enough) and Winter Solstice |
| 339 | * We may be overthinking this beyond the level that a children's fantasy story demands or is able to sustain. The White Witch has placed a curse on the land that it is always winter -- always snowing, cold, and twilight, basically your typical miserable English winter. However, because she is also not very nice, she has also outlawed the Christmas festivities that might make winter bearable, and on top of this has likely tweaked the winter spell to create some kind of magical barrier that prevents it from ever being Christmas Day and/or Father Christmas from being able to visit Narnia to spread happiness and good cheer. Hence, it is always winter, but never Christmas. Basically, to paraphrase ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', [[AWizardDidIt A Witch (Literally) Did It]]. It's magic, [[MST3KMantra just go with it.]] |
| 340 | |
| 341 | [[WMG: Passages to Narnia only work once.]] |
| 342 | Professor Kirk says at the end of LWW that you can't get to Narnia the same way twice. Edmund went to Narnia through the wardrobe once before he went with all of his siblings, and Lucy went in and out of that thing three times throughout the book. What gives? |
| 343 | * That wardrobe was very erratic. It didn't even always work for Lucy before the time all four of them went through it. |
| 344 | * Presumably Kirke was just expounding on a general principle (which he wouldn't be an infallible authority on in any case) rather than an absolute rule. The more general sense would presumably count the multiple trips as part of a single "adventure" (after all, not too much Narnian time passes between them), with the idea that any different adventure with a different purpose would require a different way of getting there. Although it's subsequently one trip to Narnia per adventure anyway, so the issue doesn't arise. |
| 345 | ** Yeah, as far as ''Kirke'' knew you couldn't get there the same way twice, but he was just presuming this from his own past experience, which was limited to the one-way rings. |
| 346 | * Since the gates are controlled by Aslan, in LWW he just kept the wardrobe passage open until he was done with it. Then, the next time he needed to bring the kids over, he created one in the subway since they weren't near the wardrobe. |
| 347 | ** One, it's called the London Underground or the Tube. Two, it's never specifically mentioned in the book where the Pevensies were when they were summoned by the Horn - but as it was still (probably) WWII, it's unlikely that they would have been in London at the time. Other than that, good point. |
| 348 | * Why don't we just accept the rule that "Passages to Narnia Only Work For The Duration of One Novel" and be done with it? |
| 349 | ** Well, I think a major point of the Headscratchers sections is to discuss whether or not fictional events make sense in-universe, given what we know of it. |
| 350 | ** One theory about the wardrobe is that it only stops working once all four Pevensies have gone inside it at once. |
| 351 | * Basically, it's magic. The point is that the wardrobe is, to all intents and purposes, "used up". |
| 352 | |
| 353 | [[WMG: People assuming that Jadis and the Lady of the Green Kirtle are the same person.]] |
| 354 | This Just Bugs Me. Jadis was pretty clearly KilledOffForReal at the end of ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'', and even if her spirit/life-force/whatever had somehow survived, there isn't a scrap of evidence in ''The Silver Chair'' for the two witches being the same person, just that they were "of the same sort". |
| 355 | * It's because both Jadis and The Lady are analogous to TheDevil in their respective books. The fact that it's show that Jadis could be resurrected in ''Prince Caspian'' probably doesn't help matters either. |
| 356 | ** Jadis is ''not'' TheDevil. Jadis represents Death. She is referred to as "The Emperor [i.e. God]'s hangman" by one character, she brought death upon everyone in her own home land, she is loosed upon the world in a Pandora's box-like way, she brings a perpetual winter in her reign, killing the land, she is the killer of Aslan...she's Death. ''Tash'' is TheDevil (or the Antichrist), whom Aslan describes as his opposite in every way. Sorry, but that's one of the misconceptions that just bugs me. |
| 357 | *** I think this is a possible interpretation, but overstated as an obvious one. Jadis isn't a morally neutral and essentially natural force; she's an actively malevolent outsider. She tempts Diggory (in a garden, with an apple) and Edmund and opposes Aslan as much as she is able. And the "Emperor's hangman" thing seems pretty consistent with a Christian view of sinners ending up with the devil in hell (which also implies the two interpretations aren;t mutually exclusive: "the wages of sin is death" and all that). Plus, for all that Tash obviously occupied this role in TLB, it seems unlikely he was even conceived as a character when LWW was written. |
| 358 | *** As support of your point, the original meaning of "satan" (note the lowercase) and his role in the Bible was "accuser" or "advocate". Before he was conflated with Lucifer and made out to be the source of all evil, the Tempter, and the ruler of Hell (though even that isn't quite right, he's supposed to be confined and punished there as much as the other fallen angels/demons and damned souls), Satan was merely supposed to test people (as he did Jesus) and be their accuser when they were put on trial for their sins. This fits even better with the idea of being the Emperor's (God's) hangman. |
| 359 | * (A probably unnecessary correction) Only in TheMovie, it was. In the book, the hag might just have been making an empty boast. |
| 360 | * I'm pretty sure it was possible in the book, too, since Peter, Edmund, Caspian, and Trumpkin burst in right when the hag says to draw the circle and prepare the blue fire or something; there was a sense of urgency that they absolutely could not let her do that. Still, not only is there Zero evidence in the books that the Lady of the Green Kirtle is the White Witch, there is no reason for the theory, and it makes no sense: the [=LotGK=] is normal human sized, not a giantess; Jadis could not turn into a serpent; the [=LotGK=] is not inhumanly pale as salt; and if they were supposed to be the same person, Lewis would have made it clear and explicit. I think this theory started from a CowboyBebopAtHisComputer character guide that stated the White Witch was "completely dangerous, even in ''The Silver Chair''," for some reason, but people usually laugh at mistakes like that, not start taking them seriously. |
| 361 | ** Might also be the result of the BBC production, which recycled actresses for the two characters. Though to be honest, they're best off getting Creator/TildaSwinton to player her anyway, because the it's evident the movies miss something without her. |
| 362 | ** Those people seem to forget that Barbara Kellerman also played the hag in ''Prince Caspian'' - and that other actors doubled up to play multiple parts across the adaptations. |
| 363 | * The theory that the L. of the G. K. was "of the same sort" was expounded by a Narnian courtier who only knew that the White Witch 'originally' came out of the North, too (remember, ''Magician's Nephew'' hadn't been written and Lewis may have come up with her real origin between books.) I don't conflate the two witches myself, but I can see how folks would latch onto this line to give some context to a well-written but essentially OutsideContextProblem. Once Lewis established Jadis as the "serpent" in this world's mythos, folks would naturally seek patterns - daughter, apprentice, reincarnation - to link her to the L. of the G. K. |
| 364 | |
| 365 | [[WMG: Why don't any of the Narnians ever want to come back to our world?]] |
| 366 | Even setting aside the element of curiosity, Tumnus has a very good reason to want to escape Narnia when he lets Lucy go instead of turning her over to the White Witch. He's going on and on about the awful things she'll do to him, and Lucy says she's very sorry but can she please go home, and he immediately agrees and even escorts her back to the lamppost -- and then just says goodbye, with her saying she hopes things turn out all right for him. Shouldn't it have seemed obvious at that point to ask if he could go back with her, at least temporarily, instead of living in misery and fear? (And he knew it was summer where she came from too.) |
| 367 | * Been a while for me, but does he even yet understand at that point that she ''is'' from another world? Doesn't he still think that Spare Oom is just some foreign place in the same world he's from? If not, it may necessitate a greater act of courage on his part to flee from his own lifelong home into a mysterious new universe of aliens which he knew nothing about than it would be to continue living uncomfortably, yet more safely than most, in Narnia. Also, I don't remember Lucy inviting him. He doesn't seem like the sort that would just presume to ask or demand that kind of thing even under those circumstances. |
| 368 | * I second the above statement about how risking his life in Narnia probably seemed less scary than risking it in some unknown MagicalLand (in his point of view), but he did indeed think think War Drobe and Spare Oom were just places he never heard of because he didn't study geography enough. As to other Narnians, Caspian ''did'' want to see our world, which he finally got to do briefly in ''The Silver Chair''. Professor Kirke also must have warned the Pevensies at some point after their first journey that bringing people from a foreign world to ours could be a very dangerous thing (as he knew from personal experience); it's not exactly a practice to be encouraged. But who's to say that some Narnians ''did'' find a portal from their world to ours and used it without ever encountering the characters we follow in the books? |
| 369 | ** Better the devil you know... |
| 370 | * Reepicheep also volunteers to come to our world (though not really out of curiosity) at the end of Prince Caspian, but is vetoed by Aslan. As mentioned in the "same way twice" discussion, there's a fairly strong message in the books that you only travel between worlds if Aslan wants you to, and a lot of the travel consists of being involuntarily whisked to and from Narnia rather than actively choosing it. Seems plausible that the Narnians could be somewhat devout/fatalistic on this point, and figure that if it's not happening then there's probably some good reason for it (note that Caspian worries if his desire to see our world is wrong). Additionally, Narnians' only information about our world (as far as we know) comes from a handful of visitors, most of whom have regarded Narnia as much more exciting place than dull, grey England (early Eustace being an exception, but then everyone thought he was a twerp), so haven't exactly been selling the concept. |
| 371 | * Out-of-character, none of the good-guy Narnians ever gets to come to our world because Lewis was saving the "fantasy characters become FishOutOfWater in London" gimmick for Jadis's sojourn in ''The Magician's Nephew''. |
| 372 | ** Well, in that case, it was worth the wait. (Besides, better to have Jadis wreaking havoc on London than Reepicheep.) |
| 373 | *** Exactly. London could actually survive Jadis. I'm pretty sure Reepicheep would conquer Europe either for the challenge or because someone made a short joke. |
| 374 | |
| 375 | [[WMG: During the time prior to ''Lion . . . '', was it unending winter in Telmar, Archenland, Ettinsmoor, and Calormen?]] |
| 376 | It seems pretty unfair that Telmarines, Archenlanders, Ettinsmoor giants, and Calormene all would have to suffer through "always winter never Christmas" just because Jadis has her eyes set on a nation of talking animals. Since it seems fairly likely that they knew about Jadis's claims to be Narnia's queen and about her claims to be responsible for the winter, their hostility to Narnia suddenly seems a lot more reasonable . . . |
| 377 | * It occurs to me that might explain why the Telmarines later invaded Narnia and then tried to exterminate all evidence of magic and the fantastical -- all they would know about the unending winter is that it was caused by Jadis, Queen of Narnia (they would have no reason to doubt her title), until she was overthrown by four children who didn't seem willing to take responsibility for how the internal squabbles of Narnia had caused a brief ice age for at least three other sovereign nations if not more. And didn't Jadis spend centuries brooding and building up her power as the White Witch of the Wild North (often treated as a part of Narnia, remember) before she finally attacked Narnia? So it makes sense that the Telmarines, once they get their chance, would try to stomp out all magic and thereby avoid another ice age. |
| 378 | * Actually, it seems unlikely that Jadis would be content with controlling only Narnia. She probably seemed like a Narnian [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler]] ready to conquer Archenland and then Calormen! |
| 379 | * In "The Horse & His Boy", the Calormene Grand Vizier explains that they have never seriously considered conquering Narnia before because until recently it was covered with perpetual snow & ice, and moreover was ruled by a powerful enchantress. This would imply that Calormen, at least, was not so covered. It would also explain how foodstuffs got into Narnia despite not being able to grow things (unless the Dwarves had underground hothouses); the Witch probably allowed some trade. |
| 380 | ** Perhaps, but recall that LWW has Narnian books on whether or not humans are mythical (which frankly seems a bit odd after only 100 yrs). If there is trade it must be pretty minimal and little-known. |
| 381 | ** Witch-disseminated propaganda, possibly, to keep her subjects from turning to other nations for potential Kings and Queens. |
| 382 | * It might also explain why the Calormenes ended up turning to Tash instead of Aslan; although they were suffering from Jadis' winter just as much as anyone else, Aslan seemed to care only about the Narnians. |
| 383 | ** I was actually thinking the opposite: if they, who worshiped Tash, were doing fine while the Aslan-worshiping Narnians were covered in snow, it probably would have gone a long way towards reinforcing their views that Tash was the true god. |
| 384 | * Contrary to Jill's first assumption in ''Literature/TheSilverChair'', PlanetEngland-ism doesn't apply to this MagicalLand. "Narnia" only refers to the country, not the entire planet on which said country is located. It was not winter on the entire planet or even the entire continent for one-hundred years but only in Narnia (the country, not the planet). Jadis obviously didn't rule over any other countries besides Narnia (the Tisrocs had been ruling Calormen for generations prior to the Pevensies taking the thrones), so there's no reason to assume she extended her eternal winter spell to other countries as well. Was she powerful enough to trap the whole planet or continent in eternal winter? There's no way to know for sure. If she could, why wouldn't she? Because she's an EvilOverlord, not a CardCarryingVillain who spreads wanton chaos and despair ForTheEvulz. As has been said above, countries that aren't trapped in eternal winter provide better opportunities for trade. |
| 385 | ** To pick at a tiny niggling point, it's not a planet (c.f. ''Voyage of the Dawn Treader).'' |
| 386 | * She wanted to conquer Narnia, IIRC, from the first moment it was formed, and that was fresh out of a humiliating aborted attempt to conquer Earth. She was sore about not getting her chance before and seems to have been biding her time, letting the apple do its work, while she amassed an army. Her grudge was with that specific land. |
| 387 | * In ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy'' Aravis' silly friend says that Narnia is a land full of demons, covered in ice and snow. Presumably, the countries around Narnia were not--this also explains why they were able to obtain food that would not grow in winter. |
| 388 | * The Calormenes including the Tisroc have full-grown adults; so do the Archenlanders, when the Pevensies are young adults-Lucy is only 20- so obviously at least Calormen and Archenland were not affected. |
| 389 | [[WMG: UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.]] |
| 390 | Only in relation to ''Literature/BridgeToTerabithia'', but it's really annoying that Walden Media chose to keep Narnia in-period but not Bridge since, 1)the war is really only used as an excuse to get the kids up to the Professor's house while TheSeventies and the whole post-Vietnam mindset looms large in the background of BTT, and 2) They were re-creating America in New Zealand, it wouldn't have been ''that'' much harder to throw in a period setting. |
| 391 | ** Could be a combination of ViewersAreMorons and ValuesDissonance. They probably figured that most of the audience would be kids and kids wouldn't understand the social values of the period (Leslie being considered weird for having short hair, her not having a TV, etc). So they decided to modernize it. With Narnia, while it was set in WWII, they really didn't touch on social issues that might be considered confusing to kids. |
| 392 | |
| 393 | [[WMG: AngstWhatAngst]] |
| 394 | Even when I was a kid, it bothered me that the Pevensies seemed to have no problem with ditching their parents forever. AngstWhatAngst is a trope for a reason, but still, none of them spares a single thought about what their disappearance might do to their parents, nor do any of the kids seem to miss them. It struck me as more than a bit heartless, though I know it wasn't intended to. Also related to my other Headscratcher - the fact that they seem to have zero problem when they accidentally return to Earth after having grown up and been kings and queens. They miss Narnia, of course, but suddenly finding themselves ordinary children again seemingly has no effect on them. |
| 395 | * As you may recall, part of the magic of Narnia (the world) is that it pulls you in with fascination, and makes the world you left seem like a hazy dream. Like when Lucy totally lost track of time on her first incursion into Narnia. It may have a similar but opposite effect on the return to our world, making Narnia seem just like a pleasant, distant memory. |
| 396 | * "If they ever remembered their life in this world, it was only as one remembers a dream." Plus, they were kids in a kids' book, and what kid reading it wouldn't think it would be so much cooler to stay and live in a MagicalLand forever than have to return to dreary old Earth? |
| 397 | * In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, their parents had sent them away and only Professor Kirk would know or care that they were missing. That might be enough to keep them there until they forgot about our world. Afterwards, there's always someone around who knows about NarniaTime. In The Last Battle, they were dead anyway, so they might as well enjoy themselves in Heaven/new Narnia. |
| 398 | * Another thing to keep in mind is that, before all four of them go to Narnia, they already knew about NarniaTime to some degree--Lucy had from their perspective claimed to have been gone for hours and hours while only being gone less than a minute, something Professor Kirke notes makes him believe her story is genuine and not a lie since her story would have seemed more plausible if she had hidden for some time before emerging. So with that bit of knowledge, they could have easily concluded there would be plenty of time to rule since it would always be the same moment they left when they returned. And then, as stated above, memories and knowledge of Earth faded so they forgot exactly how long they'd been away, or even that they came from somewhere else. |
| 399 | |
| 400 | [[WMG:What's with that bit with the "Luftwaffe" on the main page?]] |
| 401 | I don't get the joke. |
| 402 | * In the movie, the Luftwaffe (...Um, I don't know if you know or not, and I'm sorry if you do, but they're kind of like the German airforce/bombers during WWII IIRC) are bombing London during the opening. The Pevensie's house doesn't get bombed, and none of ''[[InferredHolocaust them]]'' die, but the Luftwaffe are ''still'' dropping bombs all over London, and there must have been a few deaths. Ya know, for kids! Does that help? |
| 403 | ** Yes. |
| 404 | ** It happens in the books as well, but entirely offscreen to set up the reason the four Pevensies are suddenly being sent off to live in somebody's old mansion. |
| 405 | ** In real life, over 800,000 school-age children were evacuated from cities to the countryside to escape the Blitz (German bombing). |
| 406 | [[WMG: Putting the Pevensies on the throne]] |
| 407 | The whole 'becoming a king/queen fantasy' is enchanting when you're little, but looking back on it it also seems fairly dumb. After all, Aslan just put four children in charge of Narnia, the eldest of whom is thirteen, and none of them knowing all that much about the country they're now ruling, the ones around it and the international relations between them. And yes, it's not as if there haven't been rulers who came into power at that age, but they were typically raised in anticipation of that power, like Caspian. Even King Frank and Queen Helen had the advantage of being fully fledged adults when they became rulers, with experience beyond childhood. (Besides, it wasn't like they were outsiders; everyone was learning along with them.) I'm surprised no one in Narnia, even deliriously happy at the prospect of the prophecy coming true as they were, stopped to say, 'We thought you'd be taller?' |
| 408 | * Following the logic mentioned above under the "What happened during the 1300 years the Pevensies were gone?" WMG, there were other humans in the court of Narnia--not only the council of advisers but the seven Lords who are sent away by Miraz and have to be rescued in book three, and the humans who rule the various islands like the Governor of the Lone Islands. Just because Jadis took these places over (or claimed to) doesn't mean they didn't have their own rulers who were supplanted that could have resumed power when she was defeated. Or they were appointed by the Pevensies. Anyway, the point: with all these rulers, nobles, and advisers around, there were plenty of people who could have taught the four kids how to rule as well as the political situation with the other nations. |
| 409 | * Don't forget that their coronation had the personal (and visible) endorsement of Aslan, which would make Narnians a lot less likely to question it. |
| 410 | * They also had the immediate friendship, counsel and support of the Beavers and Mr. Tumnus, as well as other characters introduced in ''The Horse and his Boy.'' Children as kings is not a new concept and monarchies have ways of working around the issues. |
| 411 | |
| 412 | [[WMG:Nobody needs a therapist, not even Peter.]] |
| 413 | ''Prince Caspian'', in its DarkerAndEdgier way, made the warfare considerably more intense. Peter is placed in charge, and leads an assault on the castle which ends in his troops dying in droves. In fact, he has to watch through the portcullis as people, ''good'' people, who ''trusted'' him, are mercilessly cut down because he screwed up. Then he goes back to England and has a nice childhood. This is ''not'' what happens in real life. ( Roméo Dallaire, for example, was driven to attempt suicide because he couldn't save the people who he was supposed to help.) You can have a fun childhood fantasy with bloodless carnage where the hero goes home happy, or you can plunge him into the horrors of war and leave him forever changed. Mixing and matching is just... ''weird''. |
| 414 | * Peter has already lived a decent chunk of a lifetime in Narnia during the end of ''LWW', as well as already being shown as taking responsibility for his siblings at points during the war. He is not a "child". Additionally, this is probably not what happens in real life, but I'd be somewhat dubious of somebody's claims that anything other than one particular reaction to something is "wrong" |
| 415 | * Yes, there are plenty of real-life examples demonstrating that one can witness the horrors of war and nonetheless lead a happy life afterwards. Perhaps you'd expect (it seems too much to require) that the person be changed somehow by the experience, but a) ''Prince Caspian'' isn't the first time Peter has witnessed bloody deaths (happens in LWW, and possibly in his post-book reign) and b) how do we know the experience in Caspian didn't change him? It's not as though we see any substantial chunk of his life following the events of the film. |
| 416 | * Considering that only until fairly recently those considered "crazy" were subjected to some fairly horrific experimental cures, it's not surprising that the kids DIDN'T go to therapy. [[NightmareFuel Google the process for how frontal lobotomies were initially performed]]. Don't say I didn't warn you. |
| 417 | * Peter's British and he'd already lived through World War II in our own world. He didn't have to go to Narnia to have people he knew get killed, or to witness the wanton destruction of places he'd known all his life. And he'd already dealt with feeling helpless to save others; heck, his own brother was fatally wounded at the end of LWW, and only Lucy, not Peter, was able to heal him. |
| 418 | * Also, it's a mid-twentieth century children's fantasy series. Leaving aside that a realistic depiction of the ShellShockedVeteran Child Soldier wouldn't exactly be the stuff of children's stories, it was written at a time and place where the "stiff upper lip" was celebrated; you powered through adversity and didn't let it emotionally affect you. ValuesDissonance, essentially. |
| 419 | * Also, "''This is ''not'' what happens in real life.''" Actually, in many cases, it ''is'', or at least something close (at least, making allowances for the obvious fantasy elements being discussed). While not uncommon, [[RealityIsUnrealistic PTSD is a lot rarer than you would believe if you took your knowledge of psychology solely from contemporary fiction.]] With no disrespect intended to General Dallaire, not everyone who finds themselves in difficult and potentially traumatic situations is doomed to experience psychological trauma; people can be quite psychologically resilient through even the worst situations. |
| 420 | * It has already been stated that while in England, their memories of Narnia become more of a dream, likely only remembering the good things or at least their battle memories simplified. While in Narnia, the longer they stayed, the more they gained their abilities, if not their memories as well. By the time of the attack on the castle in the movie, Peter would have had the memories of his decades of rule and battles in his first stint in Narnia. |
| 421 | |
| 422 | [[WMG: Jadis's origins in ''The Magician's Nephew'' don't match with the events of ''The Silver Chair'']] |
| 423 | Jadis, the White Witch, is established as not being from the Narnian world at all in the book ''The Magician's Nephew'' but rather is from the now-dead world of Charn. But in the book ''The Silver Chair'', the Lady of the Green Kirtle is supposed to be a "Northern witch" of the same species as Jadis, even though Jadis is established in ''The Magician's Nephew'' as the last of her species (and, indeed, the last of her ''whole world'', as she personally killed off everybody else). It doesn't match up. |
| 424 | * I don't think it ever says they're of the same ''species'' (though it's possible; Jadis could have had children in Narnia), just that they're both "Northern witches". Jadis was there from the beginning and fled to the far north after the events of TMN; I think it's implied that the witches there are somehow her doing, but that could have simply been a case of her promulgating witchcraft in the region. |
| 425 | * It might also be possible that the Northern Witches and Jadis have nothing to do with each other beyond Jadis having spent time in the North, and the Narnians simply lumped all the Witches together. The above seems more likely, though; I always figured that the Lady of the Green Kirtle was a former BastardUnderstudy of Jadis or a descendant of one, playing at DragonAscendant. |
| 426 | ** Given that the Silver Chair is thousands of years after TMN, its possible that the Northern Witches are Jadis's descendants. She's the last of her kind from Charn, but she could have had 'lovers' and children in the time since. Also, the bit about her being related to Lilith may just be conjecture on the part of Narnians, since they probably didn't know about Charn. |
| 427 | *** Arguably, the bit about Lilith could be FridgeBrilliance - it's very probable that the first king and queen, Frank and Helen, knew about Lilith and described the witch as "a descendant of Lilith", either in exaggeration or for symbolism. The Narnians, having no idea who Lilith actually was, just took that as truth and began repeating it amongst themselves. |
| 428 | ** It's also possible that, while there's no ''biological'' relationship between Jadis and the Lady, Jadis might've trained some apprentices in witchcraft while she was building up her power in the North. This would not only explain the Lady's status as a "Northern witch" -- i.e. a practitioner of the Northern magics introduced by Jadis -- but also where the hag from ''Prince Caspian'' acquired her own magical know-how, specifically knowledge of a rite that would resurrect the White Witch. |
| 429 | *** The fridge-brilliance part about ''that'' idea is that it suggests Jadis - despite the prejudice she showed against "book learned" magicians in ''The Magician's Nephew'' - realized that Aslan ''might'' be too much for her, so she overcame her disdain and taught enough "magicians... of a sort" to insure that they could bring back the dead. Or at least, one specific dead person: herself. |
| 430 | |
| 431 | [[WMG: Growing up in Narnia]] |
| 432 | Here's the thing that got me when I watched the movie. These kids grew up in Narnia, spending about two decades, from the looks of it, there and they suffer no ill effects when they travel back and are reverted back to their previous age. Imagine how depressing that would be, the reason being a child is so great is because you have no worries or cares, but also because you don't know what you're missing. Presumably, they've all killed a few people, had sex, drank alcohol, ruled over a country, had meaningful long term relationships, and developed tastes and idiosyncrasies that can't be satiated in the real world. I mean they've spent more time in Narnia than they have in the real world at the end of the LWW, and then they just go back. |
| 433 | * Probably not sex since there is no indication that they ever married and Narnian society seems [[strike:healthier]] more conservative in that respect than ours is. |
| 434 | ** Alcohol's canon, though: on their return in VoDT, Edmund and Lucy are happy to drink mead but "Eustace was sorry afterwards that he had drunk any". Highly doubtful that the Pevensies would have been knocking it back Earth-side, though the odd ''thimbleful'' on high days wouldn't have been out of the question in polite English society. |
| 435 | * There is a fairly well-established idea in the books that time in Narnia makes you more "Narnian" (adult, heroic), and in LWW the crowned Pevensies ultimately start remembering their original lives only as a sort of dream, so you can perhaps handwave this one a bit by suggesting that the reverse occurred to some degree when they returned (although, of course, ultimately regarding the experience as wholly unreal didn't work out so well for Susan...). But this does seem quite a large issue (one of many that arises to some degree from LWW being written as a standalone), and one that the later films, unlike the books, make a few nods to. |
| 436 | |
| 437 | [[WMG: Where did the Stone Table come from?]] |
| 438 | Literature/TheMagiciansNephew establishes the entire beginning of the world of Narnia, but nowhere is the extremely important and ancient-as-the-world plot device Stone Table mentioned. Furthermore, Jadis is described as some sort of giantess/Lilith hybrid by the beavers, but there doesn't seem to be a way for that kind of creature to make it from our world to Charn. There's just so much that needs to be called CanonDiscontinuity between LWW and the prequel that it's mind-boggling. |
| 439 | * Agree about Jadis and the more general point, but the Stone Table's absence is at least consistent with TMN not really giving details about the creation of anything specific in Narnia (aside from the lamp post). Calormen, Telmar, the Lone Islands, Father Time, even the walled garden (before Digory gets taken there); we don't get told about any of these appearing. |
| 440 | ** The Beavers could have been just plain wrong, of course - how would Narnians generally have been in a position to know? They knew of Adam and Eve... and Lilith... because their original King and Queen would have told those tales to explain ''their'' origins. But Frank, Helen, and Fledge had never been to Charn and only knew of Jadis as a woman of mysterious origins and superhuman strength. |
| 441 | * FridgeBrilliance: The Stone Table is a place of death, and nothing in Narnia had died or even knew what death was at the time of its creation. Aslan wouldn't have put something there that would endanger his creations' first hours of innocence, so the Table had to be a later addition to his newborn world. |
| 442 | * Why couldn't a child of Lilith get from Earth to Charn? We're told in Prince Caspian that "There were many chinks or chasms between worlds in old times, but they have grown rarer." |
| 443 | |
| 444 | [[WMG: Eustace.]] |
| 445 | It just really bugs me that Eustace is implied to be the jerkass that he is because he's an ActualPacifist, a feminist, his school didn't use corporal punishment and his parents were non-smoking vegetarian teetotalers. So refraining from smoking and refusing to beat your child will result in him being a total JerkAss? Nice {{Aesop}}, Lewis. |
| 446 | * This troper hasn't read the book, but from what he got from the movie, was that Eustace was a JerkAss not because of his formation, but because he focused too much on Science, and absolutely nothing on imagination or creativity, which, even if you're a scientist, you're gonna need them. |
| 447 | ** 1. Nothing mentioned about his interest in science in the book - instead, he harps on about politics and the economy (he criticises the idea of four monarchs of Narnia and contemplates the tax benefits of the dragon's hoard of gold), and 2. See MeasuringTheMarigolds. |
| 448 | * Eustace seemed to be a JerkAss for the sake of being a JerkAss - basically just a StrawAtheist. He didn't even care about science, from what we're told about him. Just about showing that he's better than others. Lewis simply didn't seem to feel him a character worth exploring before his conversion. |
| 449 | * YMMV, I saw it less as "Eustace wasn't beaten as a child, ergo he's a brat" and more "Eustace is never punished for anything and turned out SpoiledRotten so he's a brat. Yeah, beating kids? Not cool[[note]]By the standards of Lewis's time, corporal punishment - quite distinct from child abuse - was not considered monstrous. Naturally there could be bad authority figures who could not or would not distinguish the two; you'll find plenty in Dickens. But it was expected until very recently that parents would physically chastise children, and so would teachers - and, for instance, the pupils in Stalky & Co seem to regard a caning as something to be avoided if possible, but nothing to be upset about. Harold and Alberta have parallels in Viz's "The Modern Parents", if you know it[[/note]]. Never teaching them how to not be a brat? Also not cool. Again, though, YMMV. |
| 450 | ** It should be noted that biographies of C.S. Lewis note that he (and his peers) suffered physical abuse at the hands of Robert "Oldie" Capron [[note]]Above and beyond the "standards of the day;" Lewis was not in attendance long, as Capron's flogging of one student led to legal action by the boy's parents, which bankrupted the institution. Capron was admitted to a psychiatric ward at the same time.[[/note]] (not to be confused with the child actor), headmaster of the Wynyard School, where he was send after his mother's death from cancer. That the Stubbs refrained from corporal punishment is an oddity, but given Lewis's upbringing, it is unlikely that their lack of physical discipline is sufficient to damn them. Their refusal to discipline at all is another story. |
| 451 | * It's also a bit of a stretch to call Eustace a feminist when what he really objects to is Lucy getting privileges he doesn't; he'd have absolutely no problem accepting privileges that ''Lucy'' didn't get, if they were offered to him. |
| 452 | ** He actually does accept such a privilege in the story: in the extract from his diary, during the time when water was being rationed, he mentions that Lucy gave him some of her ration and that he accepted on the basis that girls don't need to drink as much! |
| 453 | * I think Eustace's main problem is that he is shallow. IIRC, most of the details Lewis reveals about his upbringing aren't socially progressive, just psychological and physical health fads: having windows open all the time, parents wearing "a special kind of underclothes," etc. He also parrots things he's heard from his elders without being able to really understand them. So he's a pacifist? He's a kid. He's too young to go to war. He has never seriously had to consider the implications of pacifism or of any other demanding life choice. Having no discipline at school (we see in his next appearance that Experiment House abolished corporal punishment and didn't replace it with any other kind of discipline) or at home (I think this is what calling his parents by their first names symbolizes) doesn't help his character either, but he wasn't given much to work with in the first place. |
| 454 | * Also, even if we overlook his unpleasant nature, Eustace starts out with a serious disadvantage. Edmund and Lucy remember having been adults, fought in wars, and so forth. He really is just a kid. |
| 455 | * Eustace only claims to be a pacifist when he's refusing to fight Reepicheep; he could just be a chicken making up an excuse. His objection to Lucy getting her own room is not feminist, it's clueless (excusable, perhaps, because of his age, but still clueless); she gets her own room not because women deserve more privileges than men but because ''she is the only woman on board''. |
| 456 | ** Also note that he claimed to be a pacifist to avoid the consequences of grabbing Reepicheep and swinging him around by his tail. Even if he really was still convinced (as he claimed) that Reepicheep was just a trained rodent, torturing animals is hardly in keeping with the ideas of pacifism. |
| 457 | ** Lucy gets the royal cabin while the three boys get a smaller room underneath. Also, she could have roomed with her own brother, which would have made things less crowded for Eustace and Caspian. Caspian seems to be motivated by "chivalry", and Edmund could either be the same or be babying his little sister by going along with it. |
| 458 | *** Caspian is a knight and High King of a land with a culture where the code of chivalry is kind of a big deal. It neither needs nor requires being put in quotes as an explanation for his motivations. |
| 459 | *** Technically not the High King - that would be Peter. |
| 460 | * Eustace is a jerkass not because of his specific beliefs and upbringing (though those are viewed askance by the narrator), but because he thinks they make him better than other people. Undoubtedly, Lewis chose his particular list of characteristics (vegetarian, teetotaling, progressive-school-attending) because he associated them with a type of holier-than-though smugness that he wanted to convey in Eustace. Perhaps a modern equivalent would be parents who are vegan, teach at a liberal-arts college, don't own a television, and only buy organic food (not that any of these traits are specifically negative, but they are commonly used as shorthand for a particular "type" of person). |
| 461 | * There's a blog deconstructing the Narnia series out there whose author makes a pretty good case that Eustace's supposed jerkassery may be primarily an InformedFlaw. Whatever his actions and unexplored possible prior issues with the Pevensies, in ''[[Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader VotDT]]'' he quickly ends up shanghaied into Narnia against his will, unlike the golden four in the first novel he doesn't have a ready way back via a magical wardrobe, and rather than having his first encounter with the natives be with a friendly faun or beavers (or even a faux-friendly witch), he ends up on a ship full of strangers who make fun of him for getting seasick. And unlike the other two he's ''not'' legendary-former-royalty of Narnia -- he really ''is'' just a kid who got dragged along. It's not entirely surprising, then, that he wouldn't take it well, no matter how much Lewis himself goes out of his way to mock him. |
| 462 | * Did anyone ever consider that perhaps the "Special kind of underclothes" turned Eustace into a jerkass? We have no idea what exactly those underclothes were and perhaps they are very uncomfortable. Perhaps Eustace is acting out because his clothing makes him itchy all over. He stops being a jerk when he is a dragon and his clothing magically disappears. Then upon regaining human form, Aslan gives him new clothes that presumably would not itch as much! Problem solved |
| 463 | ** It's his parents who wear the "special kind of underclothes", not him. Given Lewis' track record with respect to faiths other than his own, I always wondered if this was dogwhistle for the Scrubbs being Mormons (who really do wear special underwear once they're married). I can't imagine he was very fond of them. |
| 464 | * Honestly, Eustace just seems like a KnowNothingKnowItAll - the equivalent of a modern day teenager/young adult who's like "I'm eighteen, I have an opinion and I want everyone to know it" (except he's younger). He makes a comment at some point that the men should need less water because all their sweat should cool them down, which is just idiotic if you actually know about perspiration. He reads books so he can parrot the facts without understanding them, purely to make himself seem smarter than everyone else. He acts like a dick when he's first brought to Narnia, which could be somewhat understandable given the circumstances, but he continues to act like a dick and the others treat him accordingly. Once he starts being nicer, they follow suit. |
| 465 | * Lewis sort of adopted the persona of straw-Tory himself. His colleagues nicknamed him 'Heavy' Lewis. He just seized the opportunity to get off a rant about everything 'modern' and how it was destroying society. |
| 466 | [[WMG: Uncle Andrew.]] |
| 467 | There are limits on how far you can take ArbitrarySkepticism. He is a man who genuinely believes that his godmother had fairy blood, that he could learn and practice magic and that he owns a boxful of dust from Atlantis that can be converted into rings that allow you to travel into other dimensions - yet he can't bring himself to believe in talking animals?! And that's not the only reason why he's so infuriating: at start he seems to have the makings of an interesting, nuanced character with fleshed out motivations for his amoral actions, but as the story progresses he's reduced to a caricature with no place in the story, except to be Lewis' StrawAtheist ButtMonkey. When I read a story called ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'', I expect for the Magician to have some significance in the main plot, as well. |
| 468 | * The impression I got was that Uncle Andrew convinced himself it all wasn't real not because he didn't believe in it, but because he was ''scared'' of it. He'd spent his whole life looking for magic, yes, but he always kept it at arm's length- remember how he balked at the idea of sending ''himself'' to AnotherDimension? When he got to proto-Narnia, he was perfectly willing to believe in its rejuvenating properties, but the Talking Animals and Aslan frightened him enough that he convinced himself they were mundane animals to deal with it. It might have something to do with the fact that the magic he does is (he thinks) under his control and therefore safe- the Talking Animals obviously ''aren't''. |
| 469 | * Or, more crudely, he believed in "impossible" things only when he thought they would get him wealth or power - hence his plans for a profitable health resort utilising early Narnia's rejuvenating powers. Believing in the sentience of the animals would have meant uncomfortable thoughts about them having rights. Real-life human history is full of groups who refused to believe in the full sentience/humanity of other groups for that reason. |
| 470 | ** That's a good point (Uncle Andrew even speculates briefly about doing a little ethnic cleansing), although I'm pretty sure his sudden embrace of willful ignorance was a jab at people - an atheist, in this case - who refuse to believe ''any'' amount of proof that doesn't fit their preconceptions. |
| 471 | * Regarding him being a "caricature", I see that as exactly the point. He's a caricature Evil Magician who meets the real thing. And as implied at the end, better to be a butt-monkey than really evil. |
| 472 | |
| 473 | [[WMG: Why doesn't Santa give me cool weapons for Christmas?]] |
| 474 | I feel cheated. |
| 475 | * One can only assume you haven't been a good little boy/girl. Shame on you. |
| 476 | ** You'd ''have'' to be a good boy/girl to get weapons for Christmas. Can you imagine Santa giving them to bad boys/girls? |
| 477 | * The next time you happen to celebrate Christmas in a magical land where the cool weapons are needed to kill evil witches, he'll probably be happy to give you some. |
| 478 | |
| 479 | [[WMG: What is the problem with Minotaurs being good?]] |
| 480 | I've always wondered why some people object to Minotaurs fighting on the heroes' side. They're not like demons, who are evil, they seem more like Fauns or Centaurs, who are sentient and can choose between Good and Evil. |
| 481 | * The only objection I can see is that they are mentioned in LWW as evil. That's not much of an objection, since it's clear that whole races are seldom good or evil in Narnia, though there may be strong trends. True, the original Minotaur of myth was a plain old man-eating monster, but centaurs hardly have a spotless record, and Narnia shows only good centaurs. The book of LWW even mentions in passing a man-headed bull in Aslan's army, a sort of reverse minotaur, like a "shedu" from Babylonian imagery. |
| 482 | * There is a strong implication of some creatures being AlwaysChaoticEvil - in Prince Caspian, Peter orders that Nikabrik's body [[DueToTheDead be returned to his people for burial while the Wer-Wolf and the Hag are to be thrown in a pit]], which implies either 'the vermin' genuinely are inferior or that Peter is a big old racist, not to mention the description of the Pevensies hunting down and killing the remnants of Jadis' army in the early years of their reign (with no mention of trials or any kind of justice) - possibly that combined with assumptions carried over from Tolkien. |
| 483 | * It was the movies that gave the minotaurs their later redemption. In the books they're never mentioned again (and may, like the talking beavers, have been one of the races fully wiped out in the interim.) |
| 484 | |
| 485 | [[WMG: '''ONLY FOR THE MOVIES''' What's the time line between LWW and Dawn Treader?]] |
| 486 | So, in LWW, the Luftwaffe are dropping bombs all over London, hence why the four are sent away. I was always taught that this was a WWII thing. However in Dawn Treader, Edmund is trying to enlist, and there is talk about how "The Germans" are making it impossible for Edmund and Lucy to go to America to join their parents. Did I just miss something? Was there a time loop that took them back again? Is there a British war that I just haven't learned about? :is confused: |
| 487 | * World War Two lasted from around 1939 (in Europe) to 1945. Lewis' timeline states the children were evacuated from London in 1940, like in RealLife. Dawn Treader should have been around 1942, wherein the war was still going on. The real discrepancy might be exactly what age the children are in the movies. Lucy should be ten, according to the timeline, but the movie makes her seem to be in her teens, which does add to the confusion. |
| 488 | ** Stupid question, but why would Lucy and Edmund (and the other two, natch) be moved from the professor's house to Cambridge? I'm sorry, I just don't see that as a good idea... Add to that the fact that PC in between LWW and [=VoDT=] shows the four running around the tube and going to school and all... I thought there was a war on? Is this just something that they don't teach in American schools? |
| 489 | *** Well, the air raids would have stopped by PC, I think. We do still see a soldier in the background, and a war poster, so it's implied that there is still a war going on, but it's not affecting our protagonists that much. At least, that's what I got out of it. :P As for being moved to Cambridge... the movies changed the reason. In the book, Peter had to study for an exam with the Professor, who somehow lost his wealth and now lived in a small cottage with only room for one kid. Susan went to America with her parents as a summer vacation, leaving Lucy and Edmund with Eustace's family. So, they all just ended up scattered. ''Literature/TheLastBattle'' also implies that the Professor's house was destroyed, presumably by a bomb. |
| 490 | *** That actually makes a ''lot'' of sense. Thanks! |
| 491 | ** A year has passed when ''Prince Caspian'' starts, and another year by the time of the next film. It's just that more time passed in real life, and Georgie Henley went through quite a growth spurt. So she's only 2-3 years older than she was in ''The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe'' but you can just assume she's YoungerThanTheyLook. |
| 492 | |
| 493 | [[WMG: What kind of [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment "benevolent, loving, just, magnificent, fair and kind" saviour]] would send children into battle, and make said children the rulers of Narnia?]] |
| 494 | * Well, the inspiration is obviously the Christian god, and one's willingness to accept a powerful character who sometimes acts as the Deus Ex Machina and sometimes seems to leave people to do it themselves is probably tied to the separate and much bigger question of whether one accepts the Working In Mysterious Ways idea or not. But to keep things Narnia-specific, the children acquitted themselves well in the battle and as rulers, so one could presumably say that, less-than-obvious though their selection was, Aslan had sufficient foresight to realise that they would do so. Plus TheChosenOne is a pretty well-worn fantasy trope, so it's not as though the unlikely character(s) saving the world and/or becoming king was an audacious new idea on Lewis's part. |
| 495 | * One who's the deity of a children's fantasy book. The first item on the agenda of almost every children's book is "how to give the kids way more agency than real kids should ever have." It's what the kid readers want. |
| 496 | |
| 497 | [[WMG: Edmund's Character Derailment in the first movie]] |
| 498 | |
| 499 | This always bugged me. In the book, he begins to realize that Jadis is a psycho after seeing her turn the Christmas party to stone, and changes sides of his own accord. In the ''movie'', he's all buddy buddy with Jadis until she specifically turns on ''him''. Worse yet, he sells out his ''siblings'' for a complete stranger who may have been part of a trap (and this is coming from someone who ''loves'' the fox in this movie). Who thought this was a good idea? |
| 500 | * Just a quick question- which first movie? The old BBC one? Or the newer one? [/hasn't seen either in a while] |
| 501 | * Assuming you mean the most recent movie: in the books, the Christmas party takes place ''after'' Jadis has left the castle in her sledge to track down the other three siblings and kill them. In the ''books'', then, Edmund's character is worse for that, as it either takes him a lot longer to realize that Jadis is evil or he just doesn't care that the witch is going to hunt his siblings down and kill them. In the ''movie'', Edmund realizes it a lot faster, when (yes) she turns on him immediately and tosses him in the dungeon with Tumnus -- and we're shown Edmund feeling sorry for Tumnus. Remember, he only blurts out the plans of the beavers to stop Jadis from torturing Tumnus. |
| 502 | |
| 503 | [[WMG: Lord Rhoop, particularly in the Film.]] |
| 504 | |
| 505 | This has been bothering me for a while. Lord Rhoop was alone in Dark Island, fighting off his worst fears. How did he ''survive'' the past decade or so without food, and constantly in battle with his worst fears? |
| 506 | * (Haven't seen the film, only read the book.) Perhaps it's the nature of that particular DreamLand / DarkWorld. He wasn't "alive" in the sense of having a physical, metabolising body. Or to put it another way, how do people survive in {{Hell}}? |
| 507 | * FridgeHorror and NightmareFuel ... The dreams become flesh, and he has been fighting them off, ergo, he has been eating the dreams he kills. |
| 508 | * OP here. So then, does that mean he was eating ''raw meat?''... This got a whole lot [[{{Squick}} squickier.]]. |
| 509 | ** Regarding the lack of a physical body, [[spoiler: that description seems to apply more to the people eaten by the Mist.]] |
| 510 | * OTOH, since all dreams come true(good and bad) a starving person would allucinate/dream food, so he shouldn't have trouble with that either. The raw meat theory is more tragic, though. |
| 511 | ** I've got an even better one for you. A starving person might dream of food, yes. However, Rhoop was living in a constant nightmare of his own creation, where EVERY type of dream comes true. In such a situation, any good outcome would surely be destroyed by his fears and demons haunting him endlessly, hence his suffering. Even if a delicious banquet appeared before him, would it not be possible that a starving person might dream of being forced to be around vast quantities of food but prevented from eating it in some way, much like there being no water in Hell? Oh, but it gets even better; I'm sure there are plenty of things he would be able to consume. Think about it - what kind of "food" would make an appearance in ''your'' darkest nightmares? Something much, much worse than "raw meat", perhaps... |
| 512 | * I don't think the book suggests that the ENTIRE island was barren and featureless. There could have been edible plants and fruit trees to sustain oneself on, in between dream onslaughts. Maybe when hungry, he would tend to DREAM of food; and in keeping with the island's properties, it materialized. |
| 513 | ** The book never actually describes a physical island at any point. It's the dome of darkness and then when the dome disappears, there's nothing there but water. There might never have been a permanent island at all. |
| 514 | * Food would turn up from time to time. Unfortunately for Rhoop, he would often realize in the middle of supper that he was naked, and the guests would all be pointing and laughing. |
| 515 | * People may dream they are starving, but never that they have starved to death... indeed, since you never truly die in dreams, one of the horrors of Dark Island was that no matter what happened to Lord Rhoop, there was never a merciful death to put a stop to it. |
| 516 | * Not sure about the food part, but regarding the mental assault, [[Literature/HarryPotter Sirius Black]] survived nearly twice as long in a similar situation. |
| 517 | |
| 518 | [[WMG: VDT Movie only; What's with the people taken by the green mist?]] |
| 519 | The green mist apparently requires human sacrifices for some reason, but when it's defeated, several boats of missing people return. What was the point of that, besides giving the film a cheap way to raise tension and pathos? What was the mist trying to do, and why didn't it succeed well enough to at least finish off the people sacrificed to it? It doesn't make any sense, even if you assume that the WildMassGuessing about the mist being the White Witch returning or the Queen of the Underworld's first attack, as both of them go for straight-up conquest and neither have any connection to mist or the sea. |
| 520 | * Why do you assume that the green mist would destroy the people sacrificed to it? There's no basis for that other than that it's what would happen in most stories. Maybe the point was simply to keep them. Or to ''not'' let them die. If they're forever in stasis in the mist, they can't live lives pleasing to Aslan and the Emperor, and they can't go to Heaven at the end of them. |
| 521 | ** Possibly the Dark Island is powered by the collective dreams of people. If there are no people there to dream, it has no power. WordOfGod said that it was meant as Foreshadowing to the Lady of the Green Kirtle. Possibly the witch wanted to use the power of the island - making it stronger by putting more people on it. |
| 522 | |
| 523 | [[WMG: Tash]] |
| 524 | What is this thing? According to Lewis' notes Jadis is the Satan figure in Narnia and there was no evil in this world before she entered it. Then where the heck did that thing come from? It's a GodOfEvil in setting in which Christian theology is undeniably true, so no other god aside Christian God should exist, yet here he is, very real. I know he is supposed to represent false gods or gods used to justify horrible acts or something like that, but that doesn't explain his origin in-Universe. |
| 525 | ** He's some kind of Outsider, just like Jadis. Remember, he doesn't actually walk Narnian soil until he's called, and he doesn't stay for long either. He's a rather uncaring god/demon/bird thing. Worship of Tash probably entered Calormen sometime in the middle period of their civilization, but to paraphrase Aslan's words, whoever does good in Tash's name is in reality serving Aslan, and whoever does evil in Aslan's name is in reality serving Tash. While Jadis might be the original Satan-figure, Tash could well be the actual Satan. |
| 526 | ** There's nothing in the books to indicate where the Calormenes came from, or even if their ancestors were from our own world. It's entirely possible that they, and Tash, originated from a universe where creatures like him are as normal a part of the magical milieu as Bacchus or the river-god are normal for Narnia. |
| 527 | ** If Aslan is to be taken literally when he says that they are opposites, then Tash may be far worse than Satan. To be truly opposite to Aslan he couldn't be his creation, he'd have to be an being of independent and equal power. Jadis is Lucifer, Tash is some kind of Anti-God. |
| 528 | *** Whatever Tash is, it's not an Anti-God: King Peter can exorcise it in the name of the Emperor without much effort. |
| 529 | ** In short, Tash is an EldritchAbomination; the "squid" part of the AngelsDevilsAndSquid trope. |
| 530 | ** Alternately, Tash may have been ''part'' of the Emperor-over-Sea's design for the cosmos, not an outside intruder like Jadis. Having recognized that his new world was corrupted from the beginning, he included a Death God among his river gods, tree spirits and so forth (note the vulture symbolism) because his universe suddenly had the potential for its creatures to reject his grace. Aslan meant that Tash was 'his opposite' not because he was equal to the Emperor, but because he symbolizes oblivion, while Aslan has always represented life. |
| 531 | |
| 532 | [[WMG: If Aslan is Jesus and his father is God, who's supposed to be the Holy Spirit?]] |
| 533 | I cannot really believe that Lewis wouldn't include equivalents of two parts of the Holy Trinity in his series, yet the only thing that seems to be close is Eagle from ''The Voyage of the Dawn Treader''. |
| 534 | ** Eagle? The albatross that flies by at Dark Island? |
| 535 | * There are different characters in each book who can, from a certain point of view, be called analogous to the Holy Spirit in that they work (directly/indirectly) for Aslan (Jesus) and play a guiding role for the protagonists. The ones that come to mind are the Beavers from LWW and Trumpkin or Dr Cornelius from PC. Haven't read the series in a while, so I can't think of any others right now. |
| 536 | * The Holy Spirit is you know, a spirit. If you really wanted a physical representation it would probably Aslan's breath/wind. |
| 537 | * I can think of only two references that ''might'' be the third of the Trinity: the first is the aforementioned albatross, the second is in ''The Horse and His Boy'' when Shasta asks an unseen being shrouded in fog 'Who are you?' and receives the answer 'Myself' in three voices. Once the fog clears, only the physically-manifest member of the Trinity (Aslan) is seen. |
| 538 | |
| 539 | [[WMG: Why is Edmund so vilified in TLTWATW?]] |
| 540 | The first time he meets the Witch, he's almost instantly given magical addictive mind-screwy Turkish Delight. His first information about Narnia comes from Jadis and is influenced by her magic - he's not in his right mind when he develops his loyalty to her. And by extension, why do the Emperor's laws not make a distinction between treason performed knowingly and with full consent, and treason under the influence of evil magic? |
| 541 | * Because the Emperor's law is impersonal and clearly wasn't made with this situation in mind. I'd go so far as to say Aslan agrees that it's not a fair system, since he agrees to sacrifice his own life for Edmund's. |
| 542 | * So the Emperor is at best Lawful Neutral and at worst Lawful Evil? Either we're all massively wrong about Lewis' intended allegory or his definition of God and/or goodness was rather unexpected. Edmund is eight years old, iirc, or ten at most - what kind of law condemns children to death? |
| 543 | * The original text doesn't "villify" Edmund as much as it pities him. It doesn't constantly condemn him, judge him, or say he's getting what he deserves; it just describes what he wants, what he's thinking, and how much he's suffering. Ultimately, it partially blames his actions and attitude on his bad schooling. The only time it calls him "spiteful" is when he's teasing Lucy and lies to Peter and Susan about Narnia - the text considers that treatment of his sister worse than betraying his siblings to a homicidal witch. The influence of the Turkish Delight isn't a Get Out Jail Free Card for his betrayal, though; his addiction was a motive, not an excuse. He knew what he was doing was wrong (even if he tried to deny it to himself on the long walk from the Beavers), he just didn't care, as long as it got him a throne and his next fix. But whether he "was in his right mind or not," the Witch certainly wasn't going to let something like common sense and reasonable justice interfere when the letter of the law gave her a claim to his life. |
| 544 | ** I thought it was because we're supposed to really, really not like him so that Aslan's choice to sacrifice himself for a prat like that resonates all the more. |
| 545 | ** Well the other characters only ''suspect'' that Edmund ate her food. Jadis is the only one that knows for sure - and she's not going to tell. |
| 546 | ** His first issue was treating Lucy terribly after she went to Narnia for the first time and then teasing her when they couldn't prove it. His second issue was to lie and say he hadn't gone to Narnia just because that would admit she had been right, instead pretending they had been playing it was real. Even Peter called him out for this as, if he had been doing that, it was cruel for him to treat her like that. Edmund was villified well before his meeting with the White Witch. In fact, that was one of the few things he wasn't villified for. |
| 547 | |
| 548 | [[WMG: All good service goes to Aslan, and all evil goes to Tash]] |
| 549 | This just seems like Aslan washing his paws clean of anyone who, for example, misinterprets him or takes honest service of Aslan too far and becomes TheFundamentalist or a KnightTemplar. And what about Emeth, who honestly believed Tash represented all the good ideals he strove towards, and suddenly is told "actually no, you were serving me despite the fact that you know nothing about me and have loved and worshipped Tash all your life"? Lewis doesn't seem to understand the possibility that good people might genuinely believe in a different god (or, if he allowed for the possibility of good atheists, a lack thereof). |
| 550 | * The difference between this situation and real world religions is that Aslan and Tash are discrete, approachable entities with defined personalities. Emeth devoutly served an idea of Tash that resembled the real Aslan much more than the real Tash, so he gets accounted a follower of Aslan ''because'' Aslan respects those ideals regardless of whose name gets stuck on them. Similarly, doing evil in Aslan's name in the sincere belief that Aslan would approve (as opposed to say, Shift, who paid lip-service to Aslan solely to advance his own position and never really believed in Aslan ''or'' Tash) brings you much closer to what Tash apparently looks for in his servants, so you go to Tash. Basically, keep in mind that this is a universe with actual, incarnate embodiments of good and evil, making the whole situation a lot less spiritually nebulous than real life. |
| 551 | ** Sure, but what if Emeth had been told- by Tash's priests, say- that sacrificing someone on an altar would be Tash's will? (He'd have no reason to believe he knew 'Tash' better than the priests.) Would he go around killing people to satisfy his religion's tenets? Or would he break those tenets, considering his image of Tash more important than the being ''his culture dictates'' is truly Tash? |
| 552 | *** We can't know that without knowing Emeth better. But if he's considered as a symbolic figure in a parable, then yes: he would refuse to be untrue to ''his'' interpretation of Tash, even if it meant the sacrificial knife or the stake. Dying at the hands of priests of Tash, to remain true to 'his' Tash, would be his choice. |
| 553 | * This comes straight from Christian theology (see the parable of the GoodSamaritan) - in fact, Lewis' interpretation is a particularly forgiving one. Good (read: God) and Evil are rather like hot and cold in physics, namely that cold does not really exist and is merely a lacking of heat. Ergo nothing can be good that does not reflect God in some way. Therefore if Emeth was a good, noble, and loyal servant who lived a virtuous life... that he didn't do so explicitly for Aslan is of little importance. Emeth didn't need explicit knowledge of God to live in a Godly manner, his heart simply knew that as the only Truth. |
| 554 | ** Essentially he was always (unknowingly) disloyal to Tash who as not-God is harsh and evil, because you could not be loyal to Tash (or any other false faith) in truth and avoid being some total baby-killer class evil dude. Essentially this underwrites all sorts of virtuous pagans (or atheists or whatever else) because if God is equivalent to virtue all virtue reflects a belief in God, however a person may choose to wrap that. Though Tash is a Satanic figure here, the point would remain unchanged if he was just superstition or some human philosopher that got wise sitting under a tree or something. |
| 555 | ** By the ''same token'' using God's name to commit evil is '''absolutely no excuse''', as we see with Shift's whole faux Aslanism for example, as it ''utterly'' and ''vilely'' distorts the Truth of God. And would (probably) be considerably worse as the KnightTemplar should know better, and is fairly literally adding insult to injury. |
| 556 | ** Also FYI most denominations of Christianity are not quite this forgiving but at least formally consider people ignorant/rejecting of Jesus/God/Christianity to be a tragedy it is their mission from God to help avert via missionary activity. Formal doctrine aside many Christians personally believe an infinitely forgiving God would not hold circumstances truly beyond a person's control against them in the end. Lewis is explicitly of this more forgiving flavor in Narnia. |
| 557 | * To me it seemed that this was a fast-paced version of 'seek and you will find'. Emeth seemed to know the character of Aslan, but apparently not his name. The whole 'every good thing is done for Aslan' deal, as I saw it, fit pretty well into the Christian concept that faith, not works, is what saves you. Apparently Aslan can accomplish good even through those who oppose him. |
| 558 | ** ... but Emeth didn't have faith in Aslan. He had faith in Tash. That's the whole point of their conversation. Emeth's ''works'' saved him, not his faith, because his works somehow redirected his faith from its intended recipient. |
| 559 | *** Aslan observes more than once that he has ''many'' names. Names aren't very important to him; deeds are. |
| 560 | |
| 561 | |
| 562 | [[WMG: YearInsideHourOutside]] |
| 563 | What happens if two people go into the wardrobe about an hour apart and return through the trees at the same time? Or vice versa? |
| 564 | |
| 565 | * While there's no reaon to expect much consistency, something similar to the first scenario happens in the book when Edmund first enters Narnia: he enters after Lucy, when they meet up the conversation suggests she's been there significantly longer (meeting with Tumnus), they leave at the same time and end up back in our world at the same time. |
| 566 | |
| 567 | [[WMG: Lucy and the Dwarfs]] |
| 568 | In ''The Last Battle'', the Dwarfs are huddled in a corner, still believing they are inside the stable, and are unwilling and unable to perceive their true surroundings. Naturally, Lucy takes pity on them and tries to talk some sense into them. When that doesn't work, she gets Tirian to help, also unsuccessfully. So why didn't anyone explain to her that the Dwarfs are ''cold-blood murderers''? When both Eustace and Tirian show anger at the Dwarfs, Lucy dismisses their complaints. Tirian even calls them traitors worthy of death, but Lucy isn't interested. Tirian has an overdeveloped sense of chivalry, so he just goes along with whatever Lucy wants, no matter how misguided it is, but Eustace could have mentioned that the Dwarfs had just ''slaughtered several Talking Horses''. Even as compassionate as Lucy is, that knowledge should have made her feel different. (This doesn't mean that if Lucy had known the entire truth, then she wouldn't have tried to help the Dwarfs anyway, but at least she could have felt a little bit of righteous anger at their deeds, instead of being blissfully ignorant.) Is everyone else afraid that Lucy is too delicate and naive to handle the truth? That seems doubtful, considering that she's tough enough to fight in a battle and kill enemy soldiers with her bow and arrows, as she did in ''A Horse and His Boy''. Do the others just not really care anymore? That doesn't seem likely either, since they didn't yet know that they were [[spoiler: in the Narnian Heaven, and all of the horses most likely came back to life.]] |
| 569 | * As soon as Lucy suggested they approach the Dwarfs, Tirian replied something close to that he "had no love for Dwarfs today" but would set that distaste aside to please a lady - old-fashioned chivalry by our standards but not by his. |
| 570 | * Lucy is just trying to be compassionate and forgiving, which are some of her most prominent personality traits. It's also probably supposed to reflect the idea that everyone, and yes that includes murderers, are to be offered the chance to sincerely repent and be forgiven by God. Lucy is effectively offering them that one last chance at repentance (acting as an emissary of Aslan/Jesus/God), even now that they're essentially already dead, by saying "If you'll just look around you'll see what a wonderful place you could be in instead." Because they choose instead to wallow in their own bitterness (which includes their murdering ways), they are effectively in a Hell of their own making and choice. |
| 571 | |
| 572 | [[WMG: Traitors, and the destruction of Narnia thereby.]] |
| 573 | According to Jadis, if a traitor is not punished (And by implication, if she specifically does not ritually execute them on the stone table) then Narnia will perish in fire and water. |
| 574 | Let us assume that Magician's Nephew takes place in the 1890s. This means that 40-50 years of our time have passed between it and LWW. In the slightly less than one year in our time between LWW and Caspian, 1000 years pass in Narnia. Logically extrapolating this, and assuming the inconsistencies of NarniaTime iron out to an average that's, give or take, 40,000-50,000 years, how, in all of that time, has not one single traitor to any faction managed to avoid discovery or punishment? Even assuming it to be a tenth of that time, 5,000 years and not one successful treason? Even the comparatively short century of Jadis' reign is stretching that a bit. Not to mention the fact that Mr. Tumnus originally worked as a spy for Jadis before defecting to the children and is therefore a traitor himself, but is never executed (Unless you count being turned to stone, but as this appears to be non lethal, non-ritual and he is bought back this seems unlikely to count). So, logically, shouldn't Narnia have perished by now? And with the witch gone, who kills traitors? Do they just get free reign now? |
| 575 | * Maybe it doesn't mean just any traitor, but traitors against Narnia as a whole. Edmund was selling out his siblings, the future kings and queens of Narnia, so in a sense he was selling out Narnia's leadership. |
| 576 | * Or maybe the traitor-killing isn't necessary anymore ever since Aslan sacrificed himself and invoked the Deep Magic that broke the Stone Table. |
| 577 | * Jadis has the ''right'' to all traitors, but I don't think it's ever stated that she has to exercise it. The peril to Narnia is presumably only if she does choose to exercise it and is nonetheless denied. |
| 578 | * The above statement is correct -- Aslan saves Edmund getting Jadis to "renounce her claim on your brother's blood." Plus, remember that NarniaTime ''doesn't'' work as "X years on Earth=Y years in Narnia." In '''Literature/PrinceCaspian'', 1 year on Earth=1000 years in Narnia; in ''Literature/TheSilverChair'', 1 year on Earth=70 years in Narnia. |
| 579 | ** In ''[[Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader Dawn Treader]]'', the difference is even smaller: one Earth year was equal to two Narnian years. And all of this presupposes that, even if there were no magical time-dilation and contraction effects, a Narnian year consists of 365 24-hour days. That could well be a false assumption, rendering any attempt at calculations and formulas (even more) useless. |
| 580 | |
| 581 | [[WMG: So, what was in that house at the end of the street that the kids in "The Magician's Nephew" wanted to explore?]] |
| 582 | Granted, they found a MUCH cooler place to explore in the end, but I kind of want to know if they were right about criminals hiding out there or if it was just them being kids and imagining exotic explanations for mundane but slightly unusual occurrences. |
| 583 | * No one is ever told what ''would'' have happened. |
| 584 | |
| 585 | [[WMG: The Deplorable Word]] |
| 586 | So, ever since I was little I've wondered about this... In ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'', according to what Jadis tells the kids, someone in her world "discovered" the Deplorable Word way back when, and everyone in Charn seemed to know what it would do, hence people were forbidden to seek knowledge of it. Yet obviously no one had ever spoken the word aloud before Jadis did, because, uh... the world would have been destroyed. So how did anyone know what the Deplorable Word would do, or even figure it out to begin with, if no one had ever tried it out? |
| 587 | * The entire quote by Jadis is: "It had long been known to the great kings of our race that there was a word which, '''if spoken with the proper ceremonies''', would destroy all living things except the one who spoke it." So merely saying the Word wasn't enough. Some magic was involved to make sure it worked. In Jadis's society, only kings and queens knew magic so the pool of possible users of the Word was slim. |
| 588 | * For the more specific question of "how do you know what it does without using it", that basically boils down to how magic works in that universe, and we really don't know. But it seems entirely possible that ''could'' be a way of telling what a spell does without casting it, just as we can know enough underlying science/engineering to predict how some technology will perform before it's built or used. |
| 589 | ** Jadis seems quite familiar with the notion of traveling between worlds, so perhaps one of Charn's rulers used the Deplorable Word on ''another'' world in the past, to foil an attempted invasion or the like. |
| 590 | *** Unlikely: her magic didn't work in London, and she had to get herself some Narnian magic (the apple) and start using tools (a wand, a bottle, etc) before she could do any magic in Narnia either. It seems like each world's magic only works in its own world (other than magic like the rings which is specifically for travelling between worlds). |
| 591 | ** Jadis says that she paid a terrible price to learn the word in the first place, so maybe that includes what it would actually do. Maybe she didn't know what she was learning and just looked for some powerful magic to defeat her sister. |
| 592 | |
| 593 | [[WMG: The Island Where Dreams Come True]] |
| 594 | Why hadn't anyone tried to ''exploit'' the Island's true properties. Surely there are those who would desire to bring to life their own worst Nightmares and gather them into one place(the dreamer's ship) and show their worst fears off. That ''is'' what ''I'' would do with the Island if it existed...... |
| 595 | * Even setting aside how dangerous that would be, to fairly minimal benefit (would many people really want to risk being tormented by their worst nightmares just to "show them off"?), there's no indication that anyone other than the Voyagers and Rhoop knows where the place is. |
| 596 | * It seemed to have been destroyed by Aslan when the characters were freed from it. |
| 597 | |
| 598 | [[WMG: how could growing up preclude them from re entering Narnia if they already grew up?]] |
| 599 | They stayed in Narnia for 15 years remember. Even Lucy should have the life experience of someone pushing 30 by the time she supposedly gets too grown up to go back |
| 600 | * For this and many other reasons, I think it's reasonable to assume (even if it's never explicitly stated) that that there was some degree of reverting to childhood after the Pevensies returned from Narnia. It's clearly not as dramatic as the reverse process of forgetting England that happened (although over a much longer timescale) while they were there, since they still remember Narnia pretty well, but mentally speaking they still aren't 30 year-olds trapped in children's bodies thereafter, and certainly don't act like it. |
| 601 | |
| 602 | [[WMG: Where were the Archenlanders during the Narnian Winter?]] |
| 603 | * So let me see if I have the timeline right. Aslan creates Narnia (both the nation and the [[PlanetEngland universe in which it exists]]) and sets Frank and Helen up as King and Queen. Their eldest son succeeds them as King of Narnia, and their second son colonizes Archenland and becomes King there. (''The Magician's Nephew'') In the centuries after, the Narnian royal line dies out and all humans disappear from Narnia, some interbreeding with nymphs and dryads and such until they're unrecognizable as part-human. The talking animals and other magical creatures presumably self-govern until they're conquered by Jadis. (''The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe'') HOWEVER, the royal line of Archenland does NOT die out, continuing in a direct line of succession from King Frank, and humanity flourishes there (possibly bolstered by some random Earthicans who stumbled upon portals, like the Calormenes and Telmarines). (''A Horse and His Boy'') And when the White Witch Jadis shows up and conquers their closest allied nation-state, with whom they have a thousand-year shared history of brotherhood and friendship and to whose throne their royal family has a very strong claim, the Archenlanders... sit on their thumbs for a century hoping that their magical lion-god will someday get around to sorting out the evil {{Magocracy}} that's sitting on their doorstep? Do I have that about right? |
| 604 | ** We don't know what the Archenlanders' reactions were. They may have tried to attack the Witch, only for her army to defeat theirs. |
| 605 | ** In broad strokes, yes. But bear in mind that Archenland is specifically presented as a little kingdom with very little wealth or military power. It's hard to imagine a nastier position than being trapped between a witch-queen and her evil minions and Calormen with its conquest-hungry Tarkaans. If it makes you feel better, the existence of Archenland gave humans in Narnia somewhere to flee once Jadis started eradicating their kind in Narnia. |
| 606 | |
| 607 | [[WMG: The Rings]] |
| 608 | Basically, if Uncle Andrew didn't ever go to the Wood between the Worlds how could he know that the green ones bring you back? |
| 609 | ** He didn't. That was basically the point of the sequence where Digory and Polly try to get into other worlds with the wrong ring. The narrator basically confirms that Uncle Andrew 'was working with things he did not understand' and only really had a vague grasp on the theory of the process. The children were probably quite lucky the green rings worked at all. |
| 610 | |
| 611 | [[WMG: The Dwarves in the Stable]] |
| 612 | Why didn't the king move the Dwarfs so far apart that they could never reach each other right behind over a chasm so that the shock of the sheer notion of a deep chasm in a stable shocks them to reality(''no'' hole in a ''stable'' is ''that'' deep)? |
| 613 | ** It's by no means impossible that they would have rationalized that as well - "felt like I was falling, must have been dreaming" - people sufficiently committed to a delusion can probably come up with an explanation (even a clearly inadequate one) for anything. Perhaps more importantly, no one there is really motivated to go to great lengths to enlighten the dwarfs: they're not a very likeable bunch, and Aslan shows up shortly afterwards to say there's no point bothering. |
| 614 | |
| 615 | [[WMG: Who stands for the Jews in Narnia?]] |
| 616 | While the series itself is about Christianity, it seems odd to me for Christianity to ever exist without the context provided by Judaism. I once thought the talking animals (original inhabitants of Narnia and by extension Aslan's original followers) may have been intended to represent them, but The Magician's Nephew reveals that this isn't actually the case. Was there perhaps ever a civilization who directly followed The Emperor from Across the Sea? |
| 617 | ** Perhaps there's another country based on Jewish custom. Calormen seems to represent Islam to some extent - although it was likely Lewis just using the ArabianNightsDays trope to make the land seem exotic. |
| 618 | ** Despite Lewis' love of allegory, he didn't really do a lot of world building. He had strengths as a writer but he wasn't really interested in creating a FantasyCounterpartCulture for everything. Although your comment about a civilization that follows the Emperor rather than Aslan does remind me for some reason of the retired stars in ''Voyage,'' though I suspect the parallel there was supposed to be angelic. |
| 619 | ** This troper thought that it might be the Dwarves. In Book 7, they refuse to follow Aslan and instead bicker amongst themselves in the darkness, which sounds like what Lewis, who wasn't overly fond of Jews, might've thought of them. |
| 620 | |
| 621 | [[WMG: By what right does Caspian own the Lone Islands?]] |
| 622 | He claims they belong to him because centuries (or possibly millennia?) ago, they swore fealty to a monarch from an earlier dynasty. Caspian has no connection to that dynasty. Aslan made him king because he was human and, if we go by the explanation in Magician's Nephew for why monarchs are human, he had to clean up the mess his ancestors made after their genocidal conquest. He has no such connection to the people of the Lone Islands. |
| 623 | ** Caspian acting like something of an entitled prat is actually a fairly consistent part of his characterization during that whole novel. He's king, but rather than do the responsible thing and rule at home while somebody ''else'' goes looking for seven lost members of the Telmarine ruling caste he decides that no, he has do it all by himself. At least early in the book he lays claim to every "undiscovered" island the ''Dawn Treader'' comes across like any good colonialist would. He threatens his friends with death if they ever blab about the Midas pool to outsiders. And in the end, he almost decides to just abandon his throne and move into Aslan's country on a lark and only Aslan himself giving him a stern talking-to stops him. His claim to the Lone Islands can probably be summed up easily enough as "I'm king of the nearest kingdom around and if you don't act like good subjects and stop trading slaves to those nasty foreigners from Calormen I just ''might'' decide to come back with an army, so let's not start any unpleasantness here, shall we?". |
| 624 | ** For that matter, it's a good thing for Caspian that he has Aslan's approval or else his title as king of Narnia might itself stand on shaky ground. The Telmarines started out as pirates who got displaced into Narnia, conquered the place, and happily oppressed and/or slaughtered the natives for at least ''ten human generations'', after all; some of the surviving dwarves or talking animals might just start to wonder why the spawn of that particular dynasty, no matter how legitimate by his own culture's standards, should rule over ''them'' after all that once the dust has finally settled. |
| 625 | ** Caspian mentions that the tax hasn't been paid for 150 years and we know that 150 years before "The Voyage of the Dawn-Treader" the Telmarines were ruling Narnia. Possibly the Lone Islands resisted but were eventually brought under the Caspian dynasty and the institutions surrounding the Lone Islands were continued. |
| 626 | ** This one's got a ShrugOfGod right there in the text: "(By the way, I never have heard how these remote islands became attached to the crown of Narnia..." Nobody knows how strong Caspian's claim is, not even Lewis. |
| 627 | *** Actually, we learn this in ''The Last Battle'' when Tirian is telling Jill about the peaceful times of Narnia: "He told how King Gale, who was ninth in descent from Frank the first of all Kings, had sailed far away into the Eastern seas and delivered the Lone Islanders from a dragon and how, in return, they had given him the Lone Islands to be part of the royal lands of Narnia for ever." Whether this justifies Caspian's actions when he arrived there is up to interpretation. |
| 628 | *** Caspian had to reconquer the Lone Islands to free Lucy, Edmund, and Reep. He used his knowledge that they were once in the realm of Narnia and they had failed to pay their taxes for the last 150 years to do this. Basically, he was bluffing and this was ultimately an IndyPloy |
| 629 | |
| 630 | [[WMG: Another Dawn Treader question - Lord Bern and slavery]] |
| 631 | Lord Bern buys Caspian because he reminds him of King Caspian, but he doesn't buy any of the other slaves, even on seeing Lucy's obvious distress. Fair enough, maybe he's short on money (though we're told he's prosperous) and is saving who he can from slavery in Calormen or wherever. But he doesn't say anything about freeing Caspian until Caspian says "oh, by the way, I'm actually King Caspian's son." Was he intending to keep Caspian as a slave? And despite claiming to be against the slave trade, when Caspian offers to reimburse him, Bern says "[the money's] not in Pug's purse yet, Sire." Bern who has "moved His Sufficiency the Governor a hundred times to crush this vile traffic in man’s flesh" has a line of credit with a slave trader? What's going on here? |
| 632 | * Enough gold to buy a slave is going to be way too heavy to carry around day-to-day. A wealthy man like Bern would write a formal promise of payment to the slave trader (like writing a check), and the slave-trader would go to whoever manages Bern's wealth and receive payment. This would be a normal way of making any large purchase, not just buying a slave, and doesn't particularly imply anything about having a line of credit with the slave trader. The rest I'd probably chalk up to Bern being somewhat resigned to the fact that he has no real power to change the system nor can he afford to save every slave; he presumably makes sure his own servants are freed men and well treated, and plans to do the same for Caspian. That said, if he frees Caspian right away another slaver could snatch him right up again. Like freeing slaves in the real world, it would be important for him to make sure Caspian has a way to support and protect himself, which might take some time, or otherwise is safe from slavery - perhaps by being formally in Bern's employ. Until then, Caspian's probably safest as Bern's lawful slave. |
| 633 | |
| 634 | |
| 635 | [[WMG: What was the point of the Dufflepuds?]] |
| 636 | The Narnia stories always have some sort of religious meaning to their plots and characters, especially the latter. But do the dufflepuds have any religious analogy behind them, or were they merely an attempt by Lewis at humor? |
| 637 | * They could be analogy for humans claiming they know better than God, with them constantly ignoring the advice of the magician while messing up simple tasks like cooking dinner and farming potatoes, and their chief being praised for stating extremely obvious truths. |
| 638 | * The Dufflepuds are actually highly problematic. Consider: When the White Witch turns people into stone, it's one of the things that mark her as a villain. When Eustace gets involuntarily turned into a dragon earlier in ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'', it's a rather miserable experience for him. Yet when the wizard Coriakin transforms these people (against their will, for disobedience) into forms they consider so ugly that they'd rather be invisible...that's suddenly a-ok because he's [[PalsWithJesus pals with Aslan]] and because when the invisibility spell is lifted again, Lucy in an unprecedented display of sympathy finds their transformed bodies hilariously funny and asks if they really ''have'' to be turned back. [[FlatWhat Wat]]. -- And no, they never do get their original form back, and what the author would like us to take away from this episode is that they're silly people who simply didn't know how to properly ''appreciate'' their wizard-given new bodies. If that's not a prime example of ProtagonistCenteredMorality, I don't know what is. |
| 639 | *** People turned into stone by the White Witch are apparently in a state of suspended animation with no awareness of the passage of time. Eustace is miserable as a dragon because he realises he's cut off from the entire human race. The Dufflepuds are still conscious and active and not deprived of the companionship of their own kind, so it's not really comparable. It's also reasonable to assume the only reason they thought they were so ugly is that their chief said so. When Lucy (who wins their respect because she 'outwitted' the magician) tells them they look very nice they happily agree. "Very nice we look. You couldn't find a handsomer lot." |
| 640 | *** ... They're mutilated. Coriakin fuses their legs together because they're bad slaves. It's not really comparable to Jadis' victims - it's worse. |
| 641 | *** Coriakin is a fallen star whose suzerainty over the Duffers is a punishment for whatever unknown sins a star can commit. He's not a role model by any standard, and he even says that he was wrong to transform them. |
| 642 | |
| 643 | [[WMG: Aravis and Caspian/Cornelius]] |
| 644 | In ''Horse and His Boy'', Aravis flees her arranged marriage and leaves her slave to suffer punishment for letting her escape (iirc she drugged her slave but I don't have the book with me), and Aslan inflicts on her the same wounds given to her slave. A harsh but fair reminder to think of the little people. But in ''Prince Caspian'', Dr Cornelius casts a sleep-spell on Miraz' soldiers to help Caspian escape the possibility of assassination. Sleeping on duty is kind of a serious offence, Caspian is a potential rival to Miraz' newborn heir, and Miraz is a cruel tyrant - it's inevitable that these soldiers were punished, yet as far as we're told, neither Caspian nor his tutor suffer the slightest injury on their account. Why the double standard? Did Aslan relax his standards in the intervening millennia? Do his worshippers get better treatment than pagans? [[ValuesDissonance Did Lewis think a life of marital rape not serious enough for drastic measures?]] What's going on? |
| 645 | * The difference is that Aravis expressly ''needed'' the lesson, while neither Dr. Cornelius nor Caspian did. Aravis, when asked, states outright that she knows the slave she drugged was most likely beaten for falling asleep and allowing Aravis to get away, and demonstrates no concern or compassion for the fact that it was ''her'' actions that brought the girl's punishment about. It's not just that the slave was hurt because of Aravis' actions, it's that Aravis knew it would happen and didn't consider it a problem. While I don't recall the issue being addressed in ''Prince Caspian'', neither Caspian nor Dr. Cornelius is shown having the kind of dismissive disregard for the misfortunes of those in lower stations that Aravis has, so they don't need the object lesson the way Aravis does. |
| 646 | ** So Aravis knew her actions had bad consequences but didn't care, while Caspian and Dr Cornelius didn't even think about the little people in the first place? |
| 647 | *** Caspian may not have thought of it at the time and was shortly thereafter too preoccupied with a war for his life, while Dr. Cornelius deemed it necessary to save Caspian's life and was shortly thereafter preoccupied with avoiding torture and possibly execution/murder for his part in Caspian's escape. It's not that they didn't care, but there were far more pressing things for them to deal with. In contrast, Aravis essentially got away scot-free and bragged about what she did. |
| 648 | *** She didn't brag, she just brought it up matter-of-factly and justified it by saying the slave-girl was a spy for her stepmother. (Whether or not this makes the slave-girl a traitor by the Emperor's standards and thus deserving of death on the Stone Table rather than a whipping is another point entirely...) Aravis realises her actions need justification while Caspian and Cornelius just don't think about it. And besides, if Dr Cornelius can be excused by his preoccupation with escaping Miraz' wrath (until he shows up to join the resistance), surely Aravis can be excused by her preoccupation with getting herself and Hwin out of a country that will enslave Hwin and force her into a lifetime of marital rape. |
| 649 | *** We don't know that Caspian or Cornelius "just don't think about it" - we do know from their actions through the rest of the book that neither of them is in the habit of ignoring the suffering of others. It's not brought up because it's not relevant to the story being told. Aravis, meanwhile, doesn't seem to have thought about the slave girl's fate until Shasta makes a point of asking what would've become of her, and then she's dismissive of the girl's possible suffering. She justifies her actions because Shasta is asking her for justification, not because she recognized at the time that she was doing the slave dirty and setting her up for punishment, and this is not an isolated incident but reflective of her overall attitude toward people she considers 'beneath' her.\ |
| 650 | There's also the fact that the girl in Aravis's story is a ''slave,'' where the guards in ''Prince Caspian'' were soldiers with more of a measure of choice in whether or not to obey if ordered to do something wrong. |
| 651 | * Another question: what if Aravis' father or stepmother had, unbeknownst to Aravis, done worse to the slave-girl than whip her? Just how far would Aslan have gone? |
| 652 | ** No one is told what ''would'' have happened. (Which is to say: that's missing the point. The point is not 'eye for an eye,' it's that Aravis needed to gain compassion for the pain that her actions caused to people more vulnerable than herself, rather than shrugging it off as unimportant because it didn't affect ''her''. The whipping received by the slave girl is used for this purpose at least in part because it's painful but not actually that traumatic for Aravis or difficult to recover from.) |
| 653 | ** And there's the fact that if she's going to become a queen of Archenland, Aravis needs to learn compassion for the small folk. She's already partly there, wanting to stop the Calormene invasion of Narnia, but Aslan wanted to teach her that she can't go around fucking over servants or commoners with no power just to help herself. She had sympathetic reasons for fleeing the arranged marriage, but she did also display some pride and haughtiness towards Shasta and Hwin at first that she needed to outgrow. |
| 654 | |
| 655 | [[WMG: Timeline between PC and TVOTDT]] |
| 656 | * So in Prince Caspian 1000 Narnia years are 1 year in Earth time, right? So what's the timespan between Caspian and Dawn Treader? It would seem that some period of time has passed, but how long can it really have been? |
| 657 | ** In TVOTDT, the characters state that 1 year has passed on Earth and 3 years in Narnia since PC. Remember, there is no "X years on Earth = X years in Narnia" rule. The rule is: no matter how much time you spend in Narnia, you always return to Earth at the exact moment you left; and on Earth, you never know how much time has passed in Narnia. In one Earth year, any time between 0 seconds and 1 quadrillion years could have passed in Narnia. |
| 658 | * The timeline between the two in our world is a bit more problematic. It's definitely been two years since the first book, but the narrator refers to World War II in the past tense, implying that it's at least the summer of 1945 - which would be five years after LWW. (It's also highly unlikely that Lucy and Edmund's parents could have gone to America for the summer if the war were still raging.) |
| 659 | |
| 660 | [[WMG: The point of the Last Battle]] |
| 661 | If Aslan was going to simply remake everything anew and good, the New England, the New Narnia and the New Charn, ''then what was the point of the old creation?'' Did the lives or choices of the characters make any real difference in the end? Did Aslan simply want to be a part of Team Good Guys? Or just have the children there to act as observers |
| 662 | * Analogous to life in our own world as a journey to heaven? That's how I always interpreted it anyway. |
| 663 | |
| 664 | [[WMG: Money ]] |
| 665 | In VDT Lucy is able to identify the body on Deathwater Island as one of the seven exiled Lords because he was carrying "a few coins; not Calormen crescents but genuine Narnian "Lions" and "Trees" such as you might see any day in the market place of Beaversdam or Beruna." Except they were coins of Narnia back when the Pevensies ruled it, 1300 years before. Got any Anglo-Saxon coins in your pocket? They wouldn't be Telmarine because the Telmarines hated trees, and lions had become extinct. It's stated also that the main coin of the Lone Islands was the Calormen crescent- so where do the old Narnian coins come from? |
| 666 | ** Antique relics from times gone by perhaps? |
| 667 | ** It's entirely possible that while Telmarines hated trees in reality and lions were extinct, they were still useful as symbols and they simply kept using the old-style currency. Somewhat comparable to, say, using an eagle as a symbol even though you'd probably prefer not to have to tackle one in real life, or lions being heraldic symbols in Europe despite the fact there are no lions in Europe... It probably is something of a worldbuilding oversight on Lewis' part, but on the other hand it does make a bit of sense if you weigh in the possibility that keeping the existing financial system in place instead of completely overturning it may have been a more prudent choice at the time of the Telmarine conquest (after all, you probably gain more from your conquest if the money you seize continues to be valid...). Even though "there were few humans in Narnia" at the time, we can perhaps assume there were some and they were not all killed so maybe the Telmarines would have tried to maintain at least a semblance of legality. So it would be less comparable to carrying around Saxon coins today and more to, say, the British still using the pound centuries later, despite several dynastic changes and despite decimalisation. Or maybe to the fact there were still Crowns in use in the Protectorate Böhmen und Mähren during the German occupation of WWII. Assuming Narnian coins look more or less the same way they do in Spare Oom, perhaps they simply started minting their own versions of the old coins just with the current king's head. |
| 668 | ** Morever... it's barely there in ''Prince Caspian'', but... it's interesting to note that the two places mentioned are "Beruna or Beaversdam" which are exactly the two places Lucy is known to / can be reasonably assumed to have visited in Narnia during her last visit there in ''Prince Caspian''. It's actually a couple of days before the Pevensies go back to our world after the battle, and they have been to Miraz' castle near Beaversdam in the meantime. |
| 669 | ** We know the missing lords had passed through the Lone Isles earlier, so perhaps the Islanders were still using Old Narnian imagery on their coinage at the time. The lord who died at Deathwater may have changed his Telmarine money for local currency during their sojourn. |
| 670 | |
| 671 | [[WMG: What happens when people from our world die in Narnia?]] |
| 672 | Do they return to their world once they die, but can never come back to Narnia since they’re dead there? Or are they also dead in the “real” world? |
| 673 | * Lewis never addressed this. My guess would be they return to our world. Remember in ''The Last Battle'', the children were killed in a train crash and returned to the world of Narnia. Maybe when a person from the “real” world dies in Narnia, they return to Earth (if they are still alive there). |
| 674 | ** He did address it, at the end of ''The Last Battle'': when the Pevensies are reunited with all their old friends in the new Narnia (i.e. heaven), King Frank and Queen Helen are there. So it would appear people from our world can go to Narnian heaven. My guess is whichever world they were happier in, that's their heaven. (Which also suggests Susan will join them eventually - at least I like to think so!) |
| 675 | ** From the Narnian heaven, the Kings and Queens were able to see the Pevensie parents waving to them from another peninsula that was supposedly "Europe heaven", and it is stated that they are all part of the same landmass and you can get from one to another. So even if Susan winds up going to England heaven like her parents to start with, there will be absolutely nothing stopping her from making her own way, unable to tire, freeze, or starve, into the Narnia heaven and staying there as long as she likes. |
| 676 | |
| 677 | [[WMG: Narnian Animal Diet]] |
| 678 | What do the talking animals, particularly the predators, eat in Narnia? I doubt the good predators would [[SapientEatSapient eat other talking animals]], as that is akin to cannibalism. Do they eat non-talking animals or are they vegetarian? |
| 679 | * Non-talking animals do exist in Narnia and even humans eat meat, just not from talking animals. Many of the predators (at least the good ones) probably eat non-talking animals, but not talking ones. For example, a talking lion might eat a non-talking deer but be friends with a talking one. |
| 680 | ** To borrow from another beloved children's adventure, "[[WesternAnimation/FindingNemo Sorry if I ever took a snap at ya -- fish gotta swim, birds gotta eat]]." In a world of talking animals, it's possible that friendships may be formed irrespective of the food chain but that everyone understands that carnivores have to eat just like herbivores do, and keeps this in mind. |
| 681 | ** That's the thing in ''Literature/TheSilverChair'' - the children are shocked when they discover that the giants killed a talking stag for them to eat. So the meat that's eaten is from the non-talking animals. |
| 682 | |
| 683 | [[WMG: The giants' plan for the Autumn Feast]] |
| 684 | How would two human children fill enough pies to feed a castle full of giants? |
| 685 | ** Perhaps only a select few would get the pies made from Jill and Eustace. As human children are a rarity, they might have that dish as a prize or something. |
| 686 | ** There would've been one pie for the giants' king and another for their queen. The other giants celebrated the prospect of child-pies because a well-fed, happy royal couple can be expected to be generous with their underlings, when the ''other'' feast-day delicacies are doled out. |
| 687 | |
| 688 | [[WMG: No ressurection for Charn?]] |
| 689 | In the Magician's Nephew we visit Charn, an immensely old world completely depopulated by Jadis using the Deplorable Word to defeat her sister. After Jadis leaves Charn behind the teleportation pool leading to this world in the Wood between Worlds dries up and Aslan announces that the world of Charn is gone "as if it never had been". |
| 690 | So...considering that Christianity is real in this book series...how can Charn simply fade into oblivion without recieving a Biblical-style ressurection, and judgement of the dead, like Narnia would in the final book? |
| 691 | What about the early kings and queens of that world, who were said to be wise and kind? What about all the innocent commoners that were swept up in the various wars between the later, cruel nobles? Are they all consigned to oblivion because some mad-woman, who possibly lived hundreds of thousands of years after their death, used some forbidden magic? |
| 692 | That's seems hardly just or fair! |
| 693 | * The good people would presumably go to Aslan's Country. And since Jadis was the only living thing in the world for years before it dried up, all those who were killed by the Deplorable Word would have received their judgment then. |
| 694 | * And Aslan doesn't resurrect the world because he wants to use it as a lesson to the children. Jadis and her sister destroyed their own world fighting their civil war, and the former killed literally everything in it just to win. Aslan wanted the children to know the atrocities people are capable of doing to each other, a lesson that would ring very hollow if he had the power to just resurrect the whole world. This was intended as a direct allegory to nuclear attack that the world was particularly afraid of during the Cold War. |
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