Peter Pan: Thinning the Lost Boys

There is apparently a segment in J.M Barrie's novel that suggests Peter had occasionally do something horrible to the Lost Boys.

“The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two.”

To me this line is really important as it can set the tone for an adaptation or expansion of the original novel and thus I would like to know what is the more common interpretation; either Logan's Run style execution or exile from Neverland.

edited 8th Aug '14 11:22:06 AM by Worlder

Disclaimer: I've neither read the book nor watched the play: my knowledge comes from adaptations, and, more relevantly to this discussion, from what I've read about the play and novel, especially on our trope page.

On the topic of the thread, I don't know what the common consensus is, but our trope page does seem to suggest that it's killing, or rather that killing would be perfectly in line with Peter's character. In particular, the entry for the trope Ambiguous Innocence has this to say:

The page also applies the "Sociopathic Hero" trope to Peter, noting that in the climactic fight—in which I presume that the pirates are more than willing to kill their foes—Peter attacks both sides to keep things "interesting".

edited 8th Aug '14 7:11:31 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

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Peter Pan is only the hero because James Hook exists, and he's worse, somehow.

Well, Hook kills children, too, and knows what it is he's doing. Peter doesn't understand the consequences of his actions, and lacks the requisite memory to even develop such an understanding. Peter thinks everything is a game and, Wendy notwithstanding, lives only in the present.

It's become pretty common for adaptations to depict Peter (and Wendy, by extension) on the cusp of adolesence, 12 or 13, while Barrie intended them to be somewhere around 6.

I think the referenced line is meant to indicate that Peter probably killed the Lost Boys when they became too numerous or started to grow up (here's a story idea: maybe the Lost Boys who grew up became the pirates...maybe Hook used to be a Lost Boy...)but at the same time, he was content to let his Lost Boys go off and be adopted by the Darling family.

edited 20th Aug '14 10:29:21 PM by Robbery

I wouldn't be surprised if he did both according to his whim at the time. Consistency is a long way from being one of Pan's virtues.

Trump delenda est

This is a little off-topic of course but I always pictured this as the reason Rufio was mourned for maybe thirty seconds in Hook before everyone completely forgot he existed. That's just the mentality in Neverland.

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So, basically "Peter Pan - Serial Killer" then? Seems legit.

In the book he remembers neither Tinkerbell nor Hook after they die.

Trump delenda est

There's a Darkier and Edgier novel about Peter Pan called The Child Thief, by Brom. The author pretty much says he was inspired by that line, "thinning the children."

I haven't read it so I can't vouch for it's quality, but its relevant if nothing else.

Tis most excellent, emphasizing the Anti part of Peter's anti-heroism turning the Hook Expy into an Anti-Villain and throwing in The Fair Folk in addition to just the fairies.

Trump delenda est

When I was very young, I thought "thins them out" meant making the ones that seemed too old for neverland younger and thinner (maybe through some kind of strenuous exercise?) and when I was a bit older, I thought it was just what we see happening with Wendy and her brothers (and that batch of lost boys)-they get old enough to want to go home, and Peter Pan kicks them out or lets them go. People like to assume that Wendy and her daughter are the only two "women" in his life, but I always thought of them as part of an endless succession of girls who play house with him, and then grow up and leave him, or rather go where he refuses to follow them.

edited 8th Jan '15 1:57:17 PM by odadune

Given that Barrie doesn't actually say "kill" you can interpret according to your own whims and prejudices.

"Thinning" usually has been used in the English language to mean either pruning or "necessary" killing. I.E "thinning the herd" - killing some of the weaker members of it in order to ensure the herd's survival - otherwise known as culling. Something that's pretty common on game reserves in Britain and elsewhere. Barrie would have known this given his background, and I think it's more than likely that he used the word in this context.

In the original play, this so called thinning is never mentioned or brought up, and in the novel it is a throwaway line thats never brought up again. In the official authorised sequel Peter BANISHES the Lost Boys who have grown too old. HE DOES NOT KILL THEM.

And they become the pirates.

It's a vicious cycle if anything.

I, too, buy the assumption Hook and company were Lost Boys.

Especially as it's implied Hook never knew Blackbeard/Barbecue and the legend just adjusts to who is the next captain.

And yes, Peter Pan is meant to be a Fairy/Sidhe and that means he has Blue-and-Orange Morality. This is made abundantly clear and both he as well as Tinker Bell are kinda psychotic. Part of the point of the novel is Wendy realizes she needs to get out of this madhouse.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Peter was an infant who fell out of his pram in Kensington Gardens; he mentions this in the novel, and it's covered in more detail in Barrie's The Little White Bird or, alternately, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, which is essentially taken from the parts of The Little White Bird that deal with Peter Pan. He was raised by fairies, and is clearly no longer entirely human, but he's not entirely fairy either. This isn't hinted at or alluded to, it's pretty much directly stated.

I mean, you can have whatever headcanon you want, naturally, but there is stuff about the nature of Peter and the history of Hook and his pirates that Barrie covers pretty directly, and that can't really be ignored.

edited 10th Feb '18 1:36:24 PM by Robbery

Eh, he's a Changeling in the classical sense.

This isn't a thing the author made up.

This is a pretty established part of fairy lore.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

True, but Barrie never actually says Peter's a changeling. The story he has Peter relate is that Peter went back to his own window after being away with the fairies for some time and saw another little boy in his bed, which could be taken to mean that he was replaced with a changeling, but is usually interpreted to mean that his parents had another kid after he vanished. As Barrie isn't explicit about that last point, I suppose you could take it however you liked. Still, that would make the kid who replaced him the changeling, rather than Peter himself.

Barrie relates the story of Peter falling out of his pram and being raised by fairies at least three times, in three different places (The Little White Bird, the play Peter Pan, and the novel Peter and Wendy). Still, he also strongly implies that Peter is an unreliable authority on his own origins, and may have made the whole business up.

One of the more interesting bits from the novel, to my mind, is when Peter, Wendy and the boys are arriving in Neverland, and Neverland doesn't initially want to let them in. That bit's never really been explained to my knowledge, and I've never been sure how to interpret it. Peter seems to come and go from Neverland as he likes, so possibly it's the presence of Wendy and her brothers that it doesn't like?

edited 11th Feb '18 11:53:41 AM by Robbery

I don't have a dog in this race and have just been sitting and munching popcorn for the discussion but I do want to chime in to note that I think there's a communication disconnect going on that's causing people to talk past each other.

The people suggesting that Peter Pan is a trickster fae don't mean that he is literally, biologically a faerie. They mean he assumes a role that is typical of trickster fae in classical literature. He's not actually a faerie, but his behavior within the context of the story is identical to how many works of literature utilize faeries as a plot device.

This is an important detail that's causing this conversation to turn into one side saying, "He's the book's trickster fae" and another side going, "He is clearly human," which are not actually mutually-exclusive points, despite this argument thinking they are

Anyway, back to popcorn.

edited 12th Feb '18 9:25:00 AM by TobiasDrake

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I don't know that he functions as a trickster in the literary/ archetypal sense in the story, in that the nature of his role is pretty consistent (he leads the Lost Boys, protects Wendy, and opposes Hook consistently). If by "trickster" you just mean that he tricks his enemies, then sure, He relies on trickery and cunning as much as he does on anything else.

edited 14th Feb '18 12:10:42 PM by Robbery

Well, he also leads children away from their parents to a magical land where they may be horribly killed.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Here's a thought I've been having lately: "Falling out of their prams" is a euphemism for dying, Neverland is Limbo and Peter is it's Lord. Maybe that's why Neverland resists the presence of Wendy and her brothers at first, because as living children they don't belong there. Of course that doesn't jibe with the Lost Boys being able to return to the land of the living without rotting and wanting to eat the Darlings' brains so I may be talking through my hat.

Trump delenda est

Well, according to Barrie (or at least, according to Peter, so who knows) all of the Lost Boys are boys who fell out of their prams like he did (girls, he says—mostly, one imagines, to endear himself to Wendy—are too clever to fall out of their prams). So in their case, we may be given to understand that they are possibly abandoned or, as their title implies, lost children. As for Wendy, Barrie makes a point to let the audience know that she essentially asks Peter to take her to Neverland. He tells her about Neverland, and he flatters her quite a bit, but he never offers to take her to Neverland until she raises the point herself.