Chronicles of Narnia

A lot of times you do get the impression that species as a whole, or enough of them that others think of them as the whole, went over to the White Witch's side. I think in Caspian they even mention the wolves as an entire group that sided with Jadis. In the movie, Mr. Beaver even behaves with hostility towards the fox sent by Aslan under the mistaken assumption that he's just like the wolves.

At any rate, Jadis did seem effective at keeping the Narnians divided against each other for most of her reign.

Interestingly, while the books go out of their way to point out that, yes, good giants exist, only in The Silver Chair do we actually encounter hostile giants. The three other books any giant appears in they are always good Narnians.

I think that's because the Giants are explicitly shown as distant foreigners, and the few giants that show up in Narnia tend to be the ones drawn there because of their affinity for the country.

Speaking of gender roles, by the way, I find it darkly amusing that Father Christmas gives a bow and arrow to Susan, with the understanding that this is the only weapon fit for a woman, and the implication that women are too kind and tender to fight with a sword in bloody personal combat.

Thing is, archers were loathed in history, and for very good reasons. Archers are stealthy assassins who can kill you before you even get a chance to get close to them, making them dreaded opponents to face in battle. On top of that, while a sword can definitely be deadly, sharp blades leave neat cuts that heal cleanly once you stop the bleeding, and are fairly survivable if you don't die of blood loss. Arrows, however, get stuck in the wound, and create (by design!) horrible, ragged wounds that get infected and don't heal as easily. And that's not even going into poisoned arrows.

Arrows are brutal weapons, and it is clear that only our distance from the use of archery in warfare allows this weapon to be depicted as a nobler, kinder weapon fit for women.

That's quite a conflicting choice of weapon for someone nicknamed "the gentle".

Edited by Redmess on Sep 5th 2021 at 9:44:03 PM

Here is the series of blog posts by Matt Mikalatos, for those interested in reading his thoughts on the series, and Lewis in general.

I feel like you could adapt that into the description (truncated, since said description is already quite long) or an Analysis subpage of Guys Smash, Girls Shoot.

I think "gentle" here is less about being too-kindhearted to inflict violence, and more about being too delicate to face violence directed at them. Susan was given the bow-and-arrows because it lets her participate in the battling going on while staying at a somewhat safe remove from it.

Regarding the Beavers' opinion of dwarves, well, it's true that most dwarves we meet in Narnia are not very pleasant people. There's the unnamed dwarf who is the White Witch's servant, who is perfectly willing to do whatever evil thing she asks for. Then in Prince Caspian there's Nikabrik and his crowd, who are interested in bringing the White Witch back through dark sorcery and who are in league with more monstrous creatures. And then there's the "atheist" dwarves in The Last Battle. There are a few good dwarves, like Trumpkin, but in the series dwarves generally are bad news. Even Trumpkin, though well-meaning and still loyal to Caspian, is an obstacle to the plot in The Silver Chair.

Dwarves in Germanic and Norse mythology and fairytales were mostly bad news as well. Even in Tolkien any dwarf you meet before he wrote The Hobbit was likely to be bad news. It's The Hobbit that really marks the beginning of the transition of "dwarfs" to "dwarves"-the generally "stubborn but with a heart of gold" version familiar in fantasy fiction today.

There are other denizens of Narnia who are not treated as well as the dwarves, either. Werewolves and hags for example are pretty much killed on sight.

Susan is given a bow and arrow, but Lucy is given a dagger as well, so it's not true that the bow is thought of as the only weapon suitable for a girl. I think the idea is not that women are incapable of fighting or that archery is more "gentle", but that men generally react badly to seeing women in close combat.

Frankly, the whole idea of putting children directly into battle, as Aslan does repeatedly, is a rather questionable one. It seems obvious Peter doesn't have any idea how to use the sword he is given, at least at first, and he goes right into leading the Narnians into battle with no training in sword fighting or tactics at all.

But the series is about child protagonists. It's kind of like how Harry Potter is always fighting ogres, basilisks, or dragons with no adult support and yet no one ever accuses Dumbledore of child endangerment.

In the case of lewis and is tendecy to use chararter-as-arguments, dwarves comes to me as materalistic: gruft, prone to evil, disbeliving, etc.

Yes, Aslan is a bit of an ass like that sometimes. Like, his first reaction on seeing Maugrim is to send Peter in and insist he fights to wolf alone to prove himself.

Aslan presumably has an Omniscient Morality License here; he knows the fight will turn out well.

Possibly, yes.

I've started on Prince Caspian. Funny how Cornelius seems to guess exactly what Susan's horn is going to do, apropos of nothing (given that the wording of how the horn works has always been rather vague).

Though alternatively, perhaps it planted the idea in Caspian's head, and the horn responds to what help you are wishing most for. That would be a neat detail, actually.

Edited by Redmess on Sep 5th 2021 at 7:51:26 PM

Regarding the Beavers feelings about the Dwarves, that may be less racism per se than provincialism. You find that sort of narrow provincial thinking in all kinds of British fiction (and American fiction too, and, I'm sure, fiction from all over), where people from one town think everyone from the next town over is weird and not to be trusted. It's akin to racism, certainly, but not quite the same thing.

Indeed, it is narrowminded provincialism, the sort of low key racists who don't exactly advocate killing people of another race, but nonetheless have an automatic distrust or low opinion of them.

On another note, it is interesting how it is Nikabrik who advises Caspian on using Susan's horn, and Trumpkin is the big doubter who doesn't really believe it will do anything at all.

I think it's that the Horn has a situational effect. Susan uses it in LWW and it only summons the very mundane help of getting Aslan and Peter's attention. I'd guess it brings what the user needs.

So what is with Aslan in Caspian suddenly playing mind games with the kids not showing himself to them? It's hardly like he needs to test their faith or anything, not that he bothered with that the first time around.

It feels oddly mercurial.

Uh... And then Lucy and Susan have a bacchanalia, with actual Bacchus. And they have, ahem, grape juice. And though the text avoids mentioning anything sexual, it does mention Bacchus' crowd of wild girls, and Susan and Lucy even note that they wouldn't feel very comfortable around Bacchus if Aslan hadn't been with them.

Edited by Redmess on Sep 6th 2021 at 9:49:38 PM

Aslan's actually like that twice. Once with the kids in Prince Caspian and that one time with Jill.

"Promise you won't eat me?"

"No."

Like, what's the point of that? Jill's terrified for her life, and people who are terrified aren't gonna retain much information.

I think in Prince Caspian, it was supposed to be a thing about faith and trust or something and with Jill, it was pretty clearly supposed to be a reference to the "he's not a tame lion" thing but like...maybe making an oblique threat to a little girl is a bit much?

That's also the same scene where Aslan has his whole "I have eaten countless people, from the poor to kings" speech.

Aslan is kinda weird sometimes.

On Caspian, I find I have very little to say about that book. It just doesn't seem to have all that much going on, when you come down to it.

Also, weird detail: according to Nikabrik, beavers are extinct in Narnia. And no one seems to counter this point of his.

And Nikabrik is right about one thing: Aslan does have a tendency to just disappear at the end of the story. He's a lot like Lucky Luke and other lonesome cowboys that way. Always shows up just where and when he is needed most, and once the conflict is resolved, disappears without a trace.

Edited by Redmess on Sep 6th 2021 at 11:34:09 AM

To add on to that, Nikabrik takes for granted that the White Witch purposefully wiped them out, or at the very least killed so many that that weren't able to recover. Makes me wonder what they did in particular that earned that much ire from her.

It's weird how the Telmarines don't really seem to have much of a reaction to Aslan roaring loud enough to make all of Narnia shake, or to all the forests in the country getting on the move. How could they have possibly missed that part until after the duel?

That duel is a bit disappointing as well. We only get to see it from a distance, not even hearing what Miraz and Peter have to say to each other or what Miraz thinks about him. And then Miraz goes down like a chump and just keeps laying down for no apparent other reason than having tripped, apparently just content to let his own secondant stab him to death.

And then Peter, who just honourably spared Miraz, just up and executes the noble on the spot. I guess royal kinslayers get afforded more respect than noble traitors... or something.

I mean, really, Peter? You're fine dispatching some treacherous noble, but the tyrant actively destroying your kingdom is off limits? What kind of morality is that? I guess the hero can't be seen dispatching villains in this book, but that is immediately subverted with the noble, so I don't know. It just feels confusing.

"What's that, there's a bridge over a river? Modernity! Blasphemy! Tear it down and get your feet soaked by wading through the river like Aslan intended you to!"

Yeah, I don't really get why having something as basic and sensible as a bridge is considered so heinous. Now maybe if it was a dam or something (a man made one, at least), it could be understandable, but Lewis has already established that dams are perfectly fine... as long as Beavers build them, at least.

And then there's another bit of Lewis' hobby horse about schools being evil.

"Chubby little girls", Lewis? Oh, so they're fat children too? Stay classy, Lewis...

And then the Bacchanals show up and tear the school down... along with the rest of the town, apparently. Uh... I know we are supposed to see this as a good thing, but it seems kind of horrible for the people living there.

Oh, and Bacchus' wild girls, ahum, help a young girl out of her uncomfortable clothes... With the implication of turning her into a wild girl as well. Damn, Lewis. That's some weird and conflicted imagery you've got going on there. Aslan apparently approving does not help matters much.

They also turn some random bad guy into a tree, and a crowd of mean little boys into pigs. Man, this book is suddenly getting all classical on us, meting out poetically cruel justice on people.

I love Reepicheep, but I don't feel Caspian does him quite justice. He's basically a joke until the last part of the book. I think Dawn Treader did a much better job with him.

Oh look, we're not even keeping up the pretence any more about everyone drinking wine at those bacchanals.

Weird how Aslan tells Caspian he will be a good king because he doesn't feel ready for it. Also, it's not like he hasn't been groomed for kingship all his life.

Uh, don't ask how a mere 12 people grew into a nation big enough to invade Narnia...

And once again, Humans have a divine right to rule over other worlds. The colonialism angle is strong with this one.

Wait, why do they need to change clothes all of a sudden? They didn't need to do that at all the last time.

And then the story just sort of ends with everyone sitting at the station again like nothing happened. It's kind of abrupt.

Edited by Redmess on Sep 7th 2021 at 12:48:20 PM

Telmar’s stated to have been a nation for centuries before they showed up in Narnia, so while they’ve probably got some inbreeding issues from far back in their history before they contacted anyone else, them being a full scale nation large enough to invade Narnia isn’t actually that odd.

Yes it is, because Aslan explicitly says Telmar had been depopulated by the time the pirates showed up.

Here's another bit from this article:

He's right, I was worried about that as well, but Lewis sails straight past it without a second thought.

I was reading this article on why children grow too old to go back to Narnia, and it had this interesting bit on fandom and Star Wars:

I think it is an interesting view on fandom, and perhaps particularly relevant for this forum in general. We may all still love Disney, but at the same time most of us can't help asking the grown-up questions: why does the Sultan allow all that poverty and cruelty in Agrabah? What sort of father sends his kid to school on his own when he was setting his own wooden fingers on fire just the night before?What happens to those toys when their owners grow up? Is Belle falling in love with the Beast really a good thing?

And some of these movies become "too old" in that sense as well, when they get sequels that explicitly dives into those adult questions. Toy Story is a prime example of this. Which is not to say that the sequels were bad, but they were different, with a mature mindset that the original didn't really have. In the original story, Andy just would never have grown up, and logic be damned. It would have been a happy ending because that's how these stories can still end when you view them through the eyes of a young child.

But of course Lewis hits an optimistic note about this as well:

Sorry, I meant that we don’t really have a good idea how long it was between when the pirates showed up and when the famine that drove them to Narnia was. It sounds like there might have been a pre-existing infrastructure (from the people there before), so even if it was only 50 years, that’d be enough time for their population to grow a surprisingly large amount.

That being said, their invasion of Narnia was always kind of weird in general, not the least being that the placement of things means that the Narnian capital is on the exact opposite side of the country from the direction the Telmarines came from.

It makes it sound like there’s more to the story and Lewis never bothered exploring it.

Well, that, or Lewis simply didn't think about it too much. It's pretty clear that Lewis was not the intricate world builder amongst the Inklings, that was Tolkien. Who incidentally was so critical of Lewis' first draft of Wardrobe that Lewis threw it out and started over, apparently.

Lewis also lifted a fair few things from Tolkien's unpublished work, which you can imagine Tolkien wasn't terribly impressed with.

Things like those trees, which suddenly get very Ent-like in Caspian. In Wardrobe, the tree people are still very clearly separate entities from their trees, but in the next book they suddenly are the trees. And what's even more confusing, in Battle, they are back to being the more classical spirits separate from trees again (one dryad dies suddenly when her tree gets cut down all the way over in the Lantern Wood).