Narnia: Endangering Girls For Fun And Profit!

[Content Note: Violence, Deadly Natural Disasters, Small Animals]

Narnia Recap: Peter, Susan, Lucy, and the Beavers are traveling to the place where they expect to find Aslan. Edmund has been taken captive by the White Witch, who is attempting to intercept the other children.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Chapter 12: Peter's First Battle

   WHILE THE DWARF AND THE WHITE Witch were saying this, miles away the Beavers and the children were walking on hour after hour into what seemed a delicious dream. Long ago they had left the coats behind them. And by now they had even stopped saying to one another, "Look! there's a kingfisher," or "I say, bluebells!" or "What was that lovely smell?" or "Just listen to that thrush!" [...]
   And after the thaw had been going on for some time they all realized that the Witch would no longer be able to use her sledge. After that they didn't hurry so much and they allowed themselves more rests and longer ones.

We've talked before, and I credit Kit Whitfield for making me notice this, about how intensely sweet and cozy and tidy a lot of the passages are in these books. This is one of those passages that would have seemed perfectly natural to me when I was a child and had no thought to question the preordained nature of the narrative and yet seems perfectly odd to me now that I am older. The party is moving at a leisurely pace, and sight-seeing along the way, because they know that the Witch can't use her sledge now that the snow has melted. Well, that makes perfect sense, why not stop and smell the roses? We'll get there when we get there and there's no sense in rushing.

Except, wait, what? Not but a few chapters before, Mr. Beaver was shushing them because there were spies everywhere and even some of the trees were on the Witch's side, and you certainly can't trust the birds, at least not the ones that aren't robins. Indeed, when the Witch first heard about the children and their plan to travel to the Stone Table, she sent her wolf police on ahead, and while the text justifies that the children aren't directly trackable between the falling snow and the melting snow, there's still the little fact that the wolves know their starting point and their intended destination, so it really shouldn't be that hard to locate their trail.

It seems to me like the party should be hurrying over the land, ducking behind rocks and keeping low to avoid the eyes of the bird spies that fly overhead, desperately frustrated to learn that the melting snow has radically altered the route they planned to take, and hoping against hope that they can get to Aslan in time before the wolves overtake and kill them. Instead, they're yelling to each other about the pretty flowers.

You'd think they'd at least want to hurry because every moment they dawdle, their brother's life is increasingly threatened, but no. Our future kings and queens of Narnia, folks.

It occurs to me here, too, that we never get any real sense that the Witch is powerful or even really has a large following. Later in the book, we'll see her field an entire army, and of course she has stone-turning and food-summoning and winter-making powers, but she apparently can't cast a single sending spell to put her followers on alert for the children, nor can she travel great distances. Heck, she can't even do anything to magic her sleigh-reindeer into feasible mounts for herself and her entourage of one driver and one prisoner. Satan may be the prince of the powers of the air, but Jadis -- like Nicolae -- seems to be largely ineffectual at the whole Evil Overlord Powers & Delegation thing.

   Susan had a slight blister on one heel.

This is as good a hook as any to talk about something I've been thinking lately as a reader and a writer, which is how authorial approaches can vastly vary when it comes to writing bad things happening to good characters.

In books, bad things happen. These bad things happen for lots of reasons: to propel the plot, to provide character growth, to give backstory and/or motivation, or simply as flavor text to describe a situation. Bad things in books are really ultimately inevitable. Some authors absolutely delight in hurting their favorite characters, not in a sadistic way so much as in an "I hurt them because I love them" way. Negative attention in books is important attention, and favored characters are seen to well deserve that all-important drama.

Other authors, however, become so attached to their favored characters that they can't have bad things happen to them, not really. If something bad needs to happen because the plot demands it or because the text wouldn't be complete otherwise, the author will reach for a less well-loved character and will heap all the abuse on them. The less favored character becomes the Butt Monkey for all the abuse that the series needs to dish out, and in doing so shields the other characters from harm.

I strongly dislike the Butt Monkey trope because it generally comes across as so artificial and unrealistic. Unless you're working in a D&D type system where a character can have a dreadful Luck stat and criminally low health, and thus killing the bard really isn't that impressive, it's unrealistic for the same character to be so hated by the universe that everything is out to get them and only them. The Butt Monkey becomes the whipping stand-in for the other characters, such that if someone has to have something bad happen to them -- whether it be as simple as a foot blister or as theologically complex as not making it into Heaven on the same day as everyone else -- the reader can immediately predict in advance who is going to have the awful bad thing fall on their head.

How can you, the author, avoid Butt Monkeys and the lack of suspense that generally accompanies their existence? I recommend rolling a die to determine who gets the foot blisters.

   They had been just as surprised as Edmund when they saw the winter vanishing and the whole wood passing in a few hours or so from January to May. They hadn't even known for certain (as the Witch did) that this was what would happen when Aslan came to Narnia.

I mention this in passing because there's been an ongoing debate as to whether Aslan was barred from Narnia until the children's coming weakened the winter, or whether the winter is weakened by Aslan's coming to Narnia. Let the debate continue unabated in the comments!

   They had left the course of the big river some time ago; for one had to turn a little to the right (that meant a little to the south) to reach the place of the Stone Table. Even if this had not been their way they couldn't have kept to the river valley once the thaw began, for with all that melting snow the river was soon in flood -- a wonderful, roaring, thundering yellow flood -- and their path would have been under water.

And I mention this in passing because Narnia has been safely frozen over for 100 years. I cannot imagine that at least a few families haven't built homes in frozen and dried riverbeds. Dry riverbeds are, I would guess, great wind shelters -- which would be an important consideration during an eternal winter. So it's really impossible for me to read this without imagining a lot of flooded homes and drowning baby Animals.

I swear I don't try to be morbid; this is just the stuff I think of when I'm reading.

   In the very middle of this open hilltop was the Stone Table. It was a great grim slab of gray stone supported on four upright stones. It looked very old; and it was cut all over with strange lines and figures that might be the letters of an unknown language. They gave you a curious feeling when you looked at them.

Is anyone keeping count of how many curious "feelings" have been going on in this book? At first I thought this was potentially a dig at atheists who 'know' that gods and demons exist and just refuse to admit it because they're supposedly so stubborn, but now I don't know what to think. Either it's somewhat lazy writing -- here is Aslan, feel happy; here is Stone Table, feel uncomfortable -- to quickly and easily highlight the Important Stuff in the book, or it's wishful thinking. I'm sure life would be easier if we all had the same emotional response to everything we see but in my experience we don't.

   The next thing they saw was a pavilion pitched on one side of the open place. A wonderful pavilion it was -- and especially now when the light of the setting sun fell upon it -- with sides of what looked like yellow silk and cords of crimson and tent-pegs of ivory; and high above it on a pole a banner which bore a red rampant lion fluttering in the breeze which was blowing in their faces from the far-off sea.

And this is another of those "sure, why not?" moments from my childhood that now seems intensely odd.

What is this pavilion doing here? Who pitched it? Where did the materials come from? Who are all the people and Animals that will soon be described as swarming quietly around Aslan -- are they from the Orthodox Church of Aslan and just sort of recruited to staff the pavilion on the spot, or did Aslan bring them with him on his journey to Narnia? Where did the "tent-pegs of ivory" come from, and was it harvested from animals or Animals and how do the Animals feel about that?

And -- again -- where are the hordes and hordes of giants and ghouls and werewolves that the Witch will field in battle in just a few hours? Is Narnia so peaceful that pavilions like this can go up without worry because the stone-turning of celebration participants is really only something that the Witch does? Or does Aslan extend some kind of special protection over the whole gala affair?

And not to be pedantic, but couldn't he be helping folks instead of lounging around in front of a silk tent waiting for the humans to stroll lazily up to him? It's not like there aren't flood victims all over the countryside in need of dire assistance.

   Aslan stood in the center of a crowd of creatures who had grouped themselves round him in the shape of a half-moon. There were Tree-Women there and Well-Women (Dryads and Naiads as they used to be called in our world) who had stringed instruments; it was they who had made the music. [...]
   There was also a unicorn, and a bull with the head of a man, and a pelican, and an eagle, and a great Dog. And next to Aslan stood two leopards of whom one carried his crown and the other his standard.

Wikipedia assures me that naiads are affiliated with wells, though I've always associated them with rivers and moving water. And I'm not really sure what to make of dryads in a 'verse where the trees are sentient and apparently capable of communication with the other living beings -- maybe dryads are how the trees communicate with the Animals and humans? I don't know.

I will take ten points from Gryffindor for bad world building here: I don't know about the pelican and the eagle, but the leopards will later be shown talking so by all rights they should be Leopards like the aforementioned Dog. I'm not sure what to think of that, actually -- maybe something was lost in translation at the editors' offices.

Question: How is the Leopard carrying Aslan's crown? In his mouth? That seems uncomfortable and additionally rather slobbery. For that matter, why does Aslan need a crown? It's telling that in the movies, Aslan is always dressed down very simply as nothing more than a lion -- his regal bearing is wrapped up in his simplicity in some ways. He's King of Kings and Lord of Lords (at least as some people interpret him) and he doesn't need a shiny crown to accentuate that.

   But as for Aslan himself, the Beavers and the children didn't know what to do or say when they saw him. People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time. If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at Aslan's face they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and then they found they couldn't look at him and went all trembly.
   "Go on," whispered Mr. Beaver. [...]
   "Susan," whispered Peter, "what about you? Ladies first."
   "No, you're the eldest," whispered Susan. And of course the longer they went on doing this the more awkward they felt. [...]
   "Welcome, Peter, Son of Adam," said Aslan. "Welcome, Susan and Lucy, Daughters of Eve. Welcome He-Beaver and She-Beaver." [...] "But where is the fourth?" asked Aslan.
   "He has tried to betray them and joined the White Witch, O Aslan," said Mr. Beaver.

Mr. Beaver is a real jerk.

No, really. I don't know how I didn't notice this as a kid, but he is. He shushes the children in the woods and goes on about spies and trees and the like when there's clearly zero danger -- the White Witch hasn't been able to field a single spy and her entire entourage seems to consist of a single dwarf and two wolves. Then he goes into his racism tirade about "never trust a dwarf!" and how things that aren't human but seem human are the worst things ever, despite there being human-naiads and human-dryads and human-stars all over Narnia. And then when Edmund disappears, he claims to have known all along that Edmund had eaten the Witch's food and was bewitched. And now he just can't wait to throw Edmund under the bus, and with fake Ye Olde Butcherede English to boot, just so he can kiss up to Aslan.

Don't ever change, Mr. Beaver; stay classy.

   "Please -- Aslan," said Lucy, "can anything be done to save Edmund?"
   "All shall be done," said Aslan. "But it may be harder than you think." And then he was silent again for some time. Up to that moment Lucy had been thinking how royal and strong and peaceful his face looked; now it suddenly came into her head that he looked sad as well. But next minute that expression was quite gone.

And now I have to be frustrated with Aslan, because he's not sad-looking until the very moment it occurs to him that he's going to have to be tortured to death in Edmund's place.

No, honestly, there's several seconds of talking and awkward silence between Mr. Beaver's accusation and Lucy's question -- I just cut it all because I'm trying not to quote the entire book at ya'll. And in all that time of Peter kind-of-sort-of defending Edmund and everyone staring silently at Peter, Aslan doesn't look sad at all -- he looks utterly content until the thought finally crosses his mind that he's going to have to do something about this whole Edmund situation.

Aslan knows -- better than anyone else here -- what the Witch can and will do to Edmund given the chance. But knowing that a 9-year-old boy (who Aslan may or may not love, depending on the Jesus allegory) may be legally tortured and killed by the local Big Bad isn't enough to make Aslan feel sad. No, what breaks his poker face is the prospect of his own self being tortured and killed.

In this scene and in a later one, Lewis seems to attempt to tie Aslan to Jesus by evoking the "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me" moment where Jesus is shown to grapple with his fears and pain at his upcoming suffering. It seems clear to me that Lewis was careful to use cherry-picked examples of the Biblical account of Jesus in order to characterize his own allegorical figure. And that's fine, but a problem arises when an author grabs a few characteristics from an existing character in the audience's minds and then expects all the characteristics to follow.

There's nothing in this scene -- or, really, in the rest of the book -- that really emphasizes that Aslan cares about Edmund and is dying on his behalf out of love for him. Sure, Aslan does die for Edmund, but it's just as reasonable within the framework of the text to assume that Aslan is doing so because otherwise the four-children-four-thrones prophecy wouldn't be able to come true. We really only "get" that Aslan loves Edmund and dies for him out of the goodness of his heart because we know that's what Jesus is supposed to have done, and we know that we're supposed to associate Aslan with Jesus. That's really not good characterization.

It's not that I don't think that Aslan isn't "supposed" to love Edmund; but I do think that Lewis kind of forgot to actually establish that fact. In rushing to establish his Jesus-figure who isn't looking forward to his own death, he forgot to characterize his Jesus-figure as also being intensely saddened by the loss of one small lamb. This is, incidentally, why it's not usually considered a smash idea to co-opt important and nuanced religious figures for your novel -- it's very easy to accidentally screw up and end up making the beloved figure seem like a genuinely dreadful person.

   "Meanwhile, let the feast be prepared. Ladies, take these Daughters of Eve to the pavilion and minister to them."

This is a nice two-fer scene: the girls go off to do girly things like brush their hair and be "minstered to" so that (a) Peter can be told important information because he's The Oldest and therefore much more important and (b) the girls can be endangered so that Peter -- the only one allowed to use his Christmas weapons -- can have his Big Damn Hero moment.

Let's walk through it, shall we?

   "That, O Man," said Aslan, "is Cair Paravel of the four thrones, in one of which you must sit as King. I show it to you because you are the firstborn and you will be High King over all the rest."
   And once more Peter said nothing, for at that moment a strange noise woke the silence suddenly. It was like a bugle, but richer.
   "It is your sister's horn," said Aslan to Peter in a low voice; so low as to be almost a purr, if it is not disrespectful to think of a Lion purring.

It's not disrespectful to think of a Lion purring, though as a matter of interest I will take the moment to note that lions can only purr while exhaling and not in the continuous manner that smaller cats can sustain. (Isn't that interesting? I think so!) It may, however, be very disrespectful -- depending on who you ask -- to co-opt a beloved religious figure for your novel in order to then depict them as amused, content, and/or utterly blase at the notion that a major character might be in danger for her life and is almost certainly scared out of her wits.

   For a moment Peter did not understand. Then, when he saw all the other creatures start forward and heard Aslan say with a wave of his paw, "Back! Let the Prince win his spurs," he did understand, and set off running as hard as he could to the pavilion. And there he saw a dreadful sight.

Just to be clear, Aslan the wise and honorable prince of the Narnia 'verse is ordering the other Narnians to leave a very young girl in danger so that a very young boy can rush into danger and kill or be killed in a violent, frightening, and almost certainly traumatic incident.

It's worth remembering that authors don't chronicle events in the same way that historians do. The events authors record in fiction are fictional, the products of their own imagination. There was no mandate to set this scene so that Aslan ordered his followers to leave a young girl in dire danger; the author chose to do so. The author chose to do so despite there being a dozen other ways to have Peter save the day and his sister. This isn't the Aslan that history forces us to accept; this is the Aslan that Lewis wanted to portray.

And he apparently didn't think it was a strange decision to have Aslan literally order people to not help a little girl.

   The Naiads and Dryads were scattering in every direction. Lucy was running toward him as fast as her short legs would carry her and her face was as white as paper.

The interesting thing about this scene is how thoroughly artificial it feels. There are only a few principle players: Peter, hero; Susan, victim; Aslan; chess master; Wolf, attacker; Naiads and Dryads and Lucy, helpless fleeing sheep.

Where are the huge groups of folks that were previously staffing the pavilion and (according to the movies) preparing for war? Lewis told us earlier that there were "...four great centaurs. The horse part of them was like huge English farm horses, and the man part was like stern but beautiful giants," and yet none of them were swift enough to defend Susan from a single wolf before Aslan showed up to tell them to back off? In a fight between one Wolf and four sentient Giant/Clydesdale hybrids, I'd put my money on the Clydesdale team.

And where are the Great Dog and the two Leopards and the Unicorn and the Eagle? Another author would have had the sentient pit bull and the unicorn (Motto: All the hooves of a horse, plus a sword attached to the head!) and the leopards beating the crap out of the wolves while the eagles and pelicans fly the girls to safety and the centaurs gallop up the hill to alert Aslan, but apparently they've all gone on a bathroom break.

Except they'll all be there thirty seconds from now when Aslan orders them to chase after the second wolf, so apparently Aslan really didn't need to tell them not to help Susan and the rest of the girls, because they were already standing around watching and being generally useless. This is great world-building here, I really want the noble Narnians to win out against the White Witch at this point because if there's one thing I love it's a new boss, same as the old boss.*

   Then he saw Susan make a dash for a tree, and swing herself up, followed by a huge gray beast. At first Peter thought it was a bear. Then he saw that it looked like an Alsatian, though it was far too big to be a dog. Then he realized that it was a wolf -- a wolf standing on its hind legs, with its front paws against the tree-trunk, snapping and snarling. All the hair on its back stood up on end. Susan had not been able to get higher than the second big branch. One of her legs hung down so that her foot was only an inch or two above the snapping teeth. Peter wondered why she did not get higher or at least take a better grip; then he realized that she was just going to faint and that if she fainted she would fall off.

You are a centaur. Or an eagle. Or a unicorn. Or, heck, a pelican of all things. Tell me how you still love and honor a god-lion who orders you to watch this scene without interfering or trying to help. Help me understand, because I honestly cannot. This scene literally makes me want to cry for being unable to help, and it makes me want to be sick at the thought that a god-king might order me not to.

When Huckleberry Finn thought god wanted him to turn in his friend Jim, Huckleberry declared "All right, then, I'll go to hell." He was willing to forfeit salvation and burn for eternity rather than give up his friend to a life of slavery. And yet here, when Aslan orders his followers to let a young girl dangle helplessly over the jaws of a giant wolf, all we hear is "All right, then, I'll go make popcorn."

   Peter did not feel very brave; indeed, he felt he was going to be sick. But that made no difference to what he had to do. He rushed straight up to the monster and aimed a slash of his sword at its side. [...] Then came a horrible, confused moment like something in a nightmare. He was tugging and pulling and the Wolf seemed neither alive nor dead, and its bared teeth knocked against his forehead, and everything was blood and heat and hair. A moment later he found that the monster lay dead and he had drawn his sword out of it and was straightening his back and rubbing the sweat off his face and out of his eyes. He felt tired all over. [...]
   Peter, still out of breath, turned and saw Aslan close at hand.
   "You have forgotten to clean your sword," said Aslan.
   It was true. Peter blushed when he looked at the bright blade and saw it all smeared with the Wolf's hair and blood. He stooped down and wiped it quite clean on the grass, and then wiped it quite dry on his coat.
   "Hand it to me and kneel, Son of Adam," said Aslan. And when Peter had done so he struck him with the flat of the blade and said, "Rise up, Sir Peter Wolf's-Bane. And, whatever happens, never forget to wipe your sword."

In a smug-off between Aslan and Edward, who would win? And who would do the judging?

* That was going to be a YouTube link, but I was afraid you'd all be as culturally conditioned as I am now that a song by The Who means I have to go watch an episode of CSI.

217 comments:

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redcrow said...

>>>Question: How is the Leopard carrying Aslan's crown?

In his front paws.

>>>"Susan," whispered Peter, "what about you? Ladies first."
>>> [...]
>>>"Welcome, Peter, Son of Adam," said Aslan. "Welcome, Susan and Lucy, Daughters of Eve. Welcome He-Beaver and She-Beaver."

Looks like ladies last, acrtually.

>>>You are a centaur. Or an eagle. Or a unicorn. Or, heck, a pelican of all things. Tell me how you still love and honor a god-lion who orders you to watch this scene without interfering or trying to help. Help me understand, because I honestly cannot.

They think it's a test. Or they believe that Aslan don't bring you more hurt than you can take. (I don't share this "philosophy", but I know it exists.)

Ana Mardoll said...

In his front paws.

There's a HUGE debate in Narnia fanfic circles about whether or not the four-footed animals can walk on their hind legs. The pro-human-walk side points to the fact that Lewis' own illustrator had an Aslan "walking" with the Witch, with his "hands" crossed behind his back. The anti-human-walk side points to the fact that making Animals distinctly human is kind of against the whole Platonic essentialism themes, PLUS it looks really utterly silly. You simply cannot see a lion walk on it's hind-legs and not laugh out loud.

Both sides make good points. :P

Steph said...

I was the same way, when I first read these as a kid -- I just sort of glossed over a lot of Aslan's behavior because oh well, he's weird and inscrutable. (Being an atheist from a family of no-religion-in-particulars, the religious parallels went right over my head.) But I remember that even back then I was peeved at Peter's being chided for "forgetting" to clean his sword, as though he'd actually had some training in sword etiquette rather than just being handed one and told to go off and kill something, and he actually managed to do it and take out a monster wolf so geez lay off him, Aslan.

Some of the stuff makes me wonder how it didn't set off warning bells for me when I read it the first time. Just wait until A Horse and His Boy -- (spoiler warning, and probably trigger warning, too) -- where Aslan actually mauls one of the main characters. To teach her a lesson. And so after being a tough and equally capable character to the protagonist, she gets to sit out the rest of the book in bed recovering while he goes off to save the day. Grr.

And then you look at what said saving of the day entailed (getting a message to a kingdom before an attacking army could arrive) and realize that Aslan could have just teleported there and told them. Almost everything that happens in the books seems to be Aslan just testing people by making them do things he could easily do himself, and smugly pointing out when they make the littlest mistakes.

Ana Mardoll said...

But I remember that even back then I was peeved at Peter's being chided for "forgetting" to clean his sword, as though he'd actually had some training in sword etiquette

I'm additionally peeved that there's "clean grass" to wipe the sword on, given that Narnia has been covered under a blanket of snow for 100 years that is only now melting. Shouldn't the ground be wet mud and pretty much nothing else? Why are there suddenly grass and flowers everywhere?

Because Aslan, I guess.

Jules said...

You are a graduate assistant football coach, and you walk in on a grown man assaulting a small boy ...

Sorry, I read something else horrifying last night.

Ana Mardoll said...

Here's an image of Aslan on hind legs. It always struck me as a rather sensual and pagan-style drawing:

I should note that he's not about to maul Susan in that picture, but Steph is right that he does maul another girl later. Aravis is actually the main reason I wanted to deconstruct The Chronicles of Narnia, so I'm savoring that one up. The Horse and the Boy is either going to be the funnest thing ever, or it will explode the blog into a black hole of SAD.

Steph said...

"Because Aslan, I guess. "

In The Magician's Nephew, he makes all the plants in Narnia by singing, so I guess whistling up a little more wouldn't be a problem. He also creates all the animals -- they pop out of the ground in big bubbles of soil in a scene sort of reminiscent of what happens when you pour water on a Gremlin. Maybe that's where he got his instant entourage.

As for the pavilion ... Santa? Maybe it was originally for Edmund, and he changed the tag at the last minute.

Ana Mardoll said...

Which, fine, if that's how you experience faith, but as you point out, Ana, there's a certain lack of love to counterbalance it.

The worst part is, I think he sort of meant the love to be obviously in there -- I mean he DIES FOR EDMUND -- but forgot that due to the lack of other, loving cues, there are plenty of ways to interpret the same act as less "loving" and more "legalistic".

This is especially frustrating as there have been brands of Christianity who did/do see Jesus' sacrifice in pretty much straight legal terms, so it would seem that Lewis had to have been aware of that and yet... failed to counteract for it. It's all very odd.

Ana Mardoll said...

As for the pavilion ... Santa? Maybe it was originally for Edmund, and he changed the tag at the last minute.

Santa: "And for your brother Edmund, as the wisest and most sensible of the four of you, as well as the one most fond of sensual delights and foreign candies, I've set up a pavilion of ivory and silk just over that ridge, staffed by quite a few delightful fantastical creatures whose presence I think he will enjoy."

Peter et. al.: "Um..."

Santa: "Must dash."

Aslan: (muching from Turkish delight bowl) *nom nom nom*

Kit Whitfield said...

there are plenty of ways to interpret the same act as less "loving" and more "legalistic"

Indeed. Which is what makes all the stuff about how excitingly unsafe Aslan is such uncomfortable reading for me. He may be good and all that, but he doesn't actually act that way: he's usually telling somebody off or asserting himself, and the whole 'not a TAME lion' bit strikes me as a way of declaring him unaccountable.

Which is, perhaps, a reason why there's so much emphasis on how thrilling his name is and all the rest of it. The characters feel love instinctively, which saves Lewis having to write him as loveable. But when you combine it with Lewis's power-fascination, like I say, I find it a bit unseemly and creepy.

depizan said...

Wow. I didn't like this book when I was a kid and I like it even less now. Girls are useless, 13 year old boys can kill wolves without getting hurt (despite not knowing how to use a sword), and the forces of good are lazy or twisted.

Also, what's up with: "There's going to be a battle for the fate of this world. But first! Silk tents and feasting!"

art for anatomists said...

Could it be that Aslan's personality is simply what Lewis imagined an intelligent lion to be like, that his cruelty and jerkness is part of his animal nature ?

I haven't read any of Lewis' books and reading Ana's deconstructions is actually more appealing to me than reading the original, so my question might be somewhat uninformed.

Kit Whitfield said...

Also, what's up with: "There's going to be a battle for the fate of this world. But first! Silk tents and feasting!"

It may be an Inkling tic. I haven't read The Lord of the Rings, but my husband reckons that the first book of it is, I quote, 'basically a pub crawl.'

Ana Mardoll said...

It may be an Inkling tic. I haven't read The Lord of the Rings, but my husband reckons that the first book of it is, I quote, 'basically a pub crawl.'

It most definitely is. There's a LOT of feasting and singing and 'meetings' in Rivendell when TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! only it really, essentially, *isn't*. It bugs me. World-building is one of those things that authors can get a little too indulgent in, maybe?

depizan said...

The Rivendell bit is a little odd, but at least "yay, feast break" is more narratively covered in that Frodo is busy healing up. (Though why the quest should need to wait for that is a darn good question. The only answer seems to be: Because Frodo is a main character, and if we don't, we're out all the hobbit characters.) Also, I can't remember if the fact that time was of the essence had really been introduced before said meetings in Rivendell. (Been a few years since the last time I read the books.)

But I've got to wonder what kind of pub crawls Kit's husband goes on. O_o True, the hobbits start out their trip to Rivendell rather casually, but as the trip goes on, things get pretty dark and dangerous. I'll grant that the trip is, somewhat oddly, a dangerous voyage with a few... intermissions. After Rivendell, though, there are fewer moments of "let's totally forget that it's a dangerous and urgent trip." (Lothlorien might count, but that's about it.)

I think LWW's silk tents and feasting comes off as more WTF because the main characters should be more concerned that their brother is currently with the villain. It's one thing to have a feast break when everyone's together, to recover one's strength or prepare for battle or whatever, but this just comes off more like no one cares about Edmund. Certainly not the lion in power.

Randomosity said...

Feasting and singing and meetings can be done well as a delaying tactic. "Here, welcome to my home, we'll get you fed, patched up, and on your way. Oh really? Don't go so soon, you simply MUST meet the rest of the family. Mustn't eat and run...." If you show the tension of "we need to get out of here as soon as we politely can" vs feasting and after-feast festivities and excessive delaying hospitality, you can show time ticking away while the characters try not to anger their hosts. You really don't want to anger the hosts. You're in their home and eating their food...

Will Wildman said...

Starting off with a tangent: I can't find any sources other than the latest season of Torchwood with which to confirm the concept of 'harry boscoe', meaning a translation of terms that uses just the right almost-synonyms, such that the end result is technically a direct translation of the original words but their connoted meaning in the new language are different.

Anyway, that's what I feel like the creators of the movie did for this book. Aslan still pushes Peter into single combat (highly sketchy) but the scene implied that everyone else was pretty well safe due to the surrounding army - it was less "Kill the wolf before your sister dies" and more "Let's have an impromptu cage match". Disturbing, but not so utterly, grossly wrong as presented here. He still says "Clean your sword", but rather than a rebuke it's a reassurance: you're alive, you're okay, everyone is safe, the Wolf is dead, don't think about it, just breathe, you're okay, on your feet, clean your sword. At least that's how it felt to me. It may have been Liam Neeson Power.

I'm actually pretty much okay with the illogic of there being fresh green grass under the snow, because Narnia does not need to obey mundane physics. The rule isn't 'when the witch's power breaks, the snow melts', but the more poetic 'we shall have spring again'. Spring, in this context, means green grass and blossoms. Logic don't enter into it.

I'm similarly not worried that Animals will have set up their homes in dry riverbeds that are now being obliterated in a muddy torrent, because I continue to operate on the conviction that the long winter has properly slowed the 'effects' of time: people age more slowly, eat less often, and tend to keep doing today the same thing they did yesterday. I figure that the Beavers have been living in that lodge in exactly the same manner for decades upon decades.

Timothy (TRiG) said...

Also, Elrond was sending messages and making plans, collaborating with other Elven kingdoms in Lothlórien and the Grey Havens. In fact, some characters were annoyed by the delay, and Bilbo commented that it was troublesome that they'd now be setting off in winter. But while you're waiting, you may as well feast. I think Tolkien accounted for that one fairly well.

TRiG.

Will Wildman said...

'Pub crawl' definites described the first part of LOTR, not just the stay in Rivendell, but also the very slow exit from the Shire - move one town over, drink heavily, leave a week later, move two towns over, stay for six weeks and eat pies, etc. Post-Rivendell the pace picks up greatly for a while, and then they accidentally spend an entire month or so in Lothlorien. That always bugged me. Might have made a bit of a difference to the state of orc-infested Rohan if they had broken Saruman's hold on Theoden a month earlier, y'know?

There's something else I want to say that is escaping me every time I try to catch it again. No doubt I'll remember moments after posting.

ASG said...

I'm not sure your criticisms about Aslan "looking sad" are quite fair. How Aslan feels is deliberately kept opaque throughout the book, even (IIRC) when he is shaven/humiliated, and I don't read too much significance into the fact that Lucy briefly glimpses some sadness that the big strong lion is normally able to mask and which he quickly masks again so that he can get down to business. To get back to your earlier point about how exactly we're supposed to visualize these animals, lions always look pretty serious (not as serious as BABY CHEETAHS though, which is basically my favourite ridiculously-serious-looking animal) and sometimes it's tempting to anthropomorphize them as gravely carrying some great burden. I think Lewis might be capitalizing on that lionness-of-face even more than he's capitalizing on the Jesus connection in this scene.

My point is that we certainly don't know one way or the other, because all we can see is what "suddenly came into [Lucy's] head" as she looks at the expression on the face of a lion she's never met before. I think that not knowing what Aslan is thinking serves Lewis' point: the Son of God experiences depths of sorrow that we can't access or understand, etc. I can see how you might not like that theology, but it's not quite the same as saying Aslan is callous or self-centred.

BRB, writing Cheetah!Aslan fanfic. (Bonus, it'll also solve the problem of people not moving fast enough to save the world from evil!)

Will Wildman said...

God-mode-ing! That's the thing that was escaping me. I don't know how familiar other people here are with online roleplaying, either in games or on fora or what have you, but in many such cases people will tag their profile with a detailed physical description. In World of Warcraft it's particularly useful to do so because there's relatively little that can be done to customise your avatar, and so if you want to play a human who isn't bulging with muscle , or a short elf, or have a huge scar, your best bet is to write it down in your profile.

Because roleplaying is collaborative and unmoderated, considerate people will make an effort not to step on anyone's toes - if someone says they're in disguise as a dwarf but you can see that they're actually playing a gnome, it is bad show to declare "Ha ha, I see through your feeble disguise, gnome!" People who are not considerate will declare themselves to be gods among mortals, all-knowing, and impossibly powerful. One can't get into a (roleplayed) conflict with such a person, because they will simply declare their victory - they are always stronger, faster, wiser. They're known to tell other people how to react to what they do, too.

It looked very old; and it was cut all over with strange lines and figures that might be the letters of an unknown language. They gave you a curious feeling when you looked at them.

It is an accepted objective fact among the roleplaying community I know that there is no better sign of someone to stay well away from than if they have a profile including the phrase "When you look at him, you feel afraid."

redcrow said...

>>>there is no better sign of someone to stay well away from than if they have a profile including the phrase "When you look at him, you feel afraid."

It can be played well, theoretically. The three-dimentional, possibly even not evil character who is either so monstrous-looking that his appearance makes human brains paralized by terror, or is "normal"-looking, but cursed to be perceived as scary/creepy/evil by those he tries to communicate with.
(I understand that's not that you're talking about, sorry. Just got carried away a bit.)

Jillheather said...

I swear I don't try to be morbid; this is just the stuff I think of when I'm reading.

I would rather enjoy one review where you actively tried to be morbid, then.

Thomas Keyton said...

But I remember that even back then I was peeved at Peter's being chided for "forgetting" to clean his sword, as though he'd actually had some training in sword etiquette rather than just being handed one and told to go off and kill something, and he actually managed to do it and take out a monster wolf so geez lay off him, Aslan

I can't read this bit without thinking of Littlefinger from ASoIaF giving his little speech to Sansa about the importance of clean hands, so I think you're lucky to just be peeved.

Fluffy_goddess said...

Must dash off to a late shift at work, so I'll dig up my sources later, but I remember reading about this experience of god/faith when I was doing victorian domestic history -- a woman wrote that she always had faith in God, despite not being able to understand how an omniscient all-powerful good could allow evil etc., because she thought of it as a parallel to how she dealt with adults as a child: adults will tell you not to lick the wallpaper. When you are a child, you aren't in a position to appreciate a lecture on how there's arsenic in the wallpaper, and it's there for the dyes, and no we don't love pretty walls *more* than you, we just want both, so don't lick the wallpaper. But if you obey, you will be told this when you're old enough to understand what arsenic is on a more complex level than as simply "poison".

Lewis is writing Aslan as though Lewis were still a child -- Aslan can do anything. He's the grown-up. It doesn't have to *make sense*, because Lewis and his readers are all still children. The point is that you believe, and obey, and then later (presumably after death), an angel will come along and explain about narrative necessity and expected character roles, and all kinds of other stuff that... probably still wouldn't be very satisfying to us, but which Lewis expected would be satisfying.

jmerry said...

I will take ten points from Gryffindor for bad world building here

Hey, how do you know that's the right house?

... a banner which bore a red rampant lion...

Oh, right. Carry on.

Ana Mardoll said...

Ha! I hadn't even noticed the lion / Gryffindor comparison. It's a running joke in my head that I want to be one of those teachers who takes 10 points from Gryffindor no matter who is *actually* at fault. :P

Ana Mardoll said...

I would rather enjoy one review where you actively tried to be morbid, then.

Heh. It's probably something I can't force, but I'll see what I can do.

Giggles said...

Looking back at it, sending Peter to go kill Maugrim is cruel and unusual. What happens if the wolf (who probably has more fighting experience than Peter) actually, you know, kills him? Does Aslan just go 'oops, sorry' or 'well now there aren't four of you we can't fulfill the prophecy so I'm not going to bother with Edmund, you girls can just go home now and explain why your brothers died in a wardrobe'.

Also, can somebody say 'traumatised child' much. You know, if you want these four kids to be good rulers you maybe shouldn't traumatise them so massively Aslan. You're almost as bad as fricking Dumbledore.

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

Well, the spies situtation is bound to change now that Witch's power is weakening. And they don't know about how BIG and aggressive those wolves are -

regular wolves would run away from just a SIGHT of a sword. "Spies" implies watching, not interfering. So when they realise WW is not coming petrify them,

they, tired as they are, decide to take it slowly. And note that the wolves most likely wait for them AT THE END of the journey (this is the known point) so

it makes sence to take time and arrive full of power there.

Now, respect for pointing out the Susan thing, which is all the more startling as NArnia was not thought as seven book -cycle from the beginning. When I was

little, I always perceived Edmund as the one who suffers the most (see last chapter). But now it occurs that Edmund suffers DESERVEDLY, while Susan suffers

for being... well, Susan. (Funny thought: can Susan from "Minsters vs. Aliens" be THAT Susan? probably not, but would be funny.)

Note this however: in Real Life, there are people having more accidents than others. This is not just luck, but also some subconcious inablility to sence trouble. So Butt Monkeys actually exist. Thus the dice roll DO work with luck - different characters get different luck state and blister and such are then distributed according to those. Susan seems repeatedly hit with this precisely because of her charachter - Lewis certainly didn't like girls like her.

This is also eveident during the attack. Lucy does the sensible thing (for her) - she runs away towards others. Even if those in tent don't protect her, Peter (and probably some other animals outside) will. Susan instead chooses to panic and be close to fainting, instead of you know, asking somebody for hew bow (which is a MUCH better way to deal with wolves than a sword). This CAN be interpreted as a notion that girls should be braver and more tomboyish, but this is also a remainder that girls are usually useless.

As for Peter not being with the girls at the moment for attack, this is actually clever. The wolves should (and would) attack and kill Peter before he had

chance to react if they had founfd him first. Therefore, the HAD to attack Susan and Lucy, only to be surprized by Peter for this kill to work.

The animals not reacting is also on purpose. If they won't stop saving Susan, why won't they try to save Aslan later on?

I think, however that you misinterpret Aslan's sadness here. Remember HE agreed to the law about traitors. So when he hear sthat Edmund is a traitor, the position is "Edmund is in danger and deserves it." Only when Peter begs for Edmund, does Aslan decide to grant clemency, and THEN it saddens him that Edmund is in danger.

Ana Mardoll said...

Susan instead chooses to panic and be close to fainting, instead of you know, asking somebody for hew bow (which is a MUCH better way to deal with wolves than a sword).

Climbing up a tree to escape a horse-sized wolf isn't stupid -- it's a good idea. Much better than trying to outrun an animal who can easily run faster than you.

This rant actually goes on for pages and pages. Aren't you glad I'm giving y'all the short version?

I'd love to hear the long version!

Although I will take issue with Aslan being Odin. ;) Maybe -- MAYBE -- Zeus. I think he's more like a Dark version of Jesus, though. :)

Ben said...

Fairly certain that the Fellowship was recovering from Moria, mourning Gandalf, stocking up, and generally decompressing in Lothlorien. I felt as though it was a great relief from the drama of Moria, and almost got the Fellowship back to the very positive feeling they had before they entered the Misty Mountains. Of course, that previous sentence had a great deal of Doylism in there. I think what makes this stuff more wtf is that the presence of the pavilion at all is just plain nonsensical, as Ana discussed.

Amaryllis said...

And that's what happens when I get distracted between the first sentence and the last. Here's hapax, brilliant as usual.

Thomas Keyton said...

So when he hear sthat Edmund is a traitor, the position is "Edmund is in danger and deserves it."

So he'd happily risk the prophecied safety and prosperity of Narnia for a badly-written law? Didn't we talk about this in the last chapter?

chris the cynic said...

A Finch supposed to look at a Lion and think, "Why, I get it, that's the Divine assuming my Beastly nature to dwell among us, just look at the feathers

Lion's don't have feathers? You mean Venice lied to me?

-

As an aside, you know how I mentioned that sometimes I get pain in my back where I don't have wings? Usually it gets brought on by thinking about me having wings or people with wings (have me look at angels for any length of time and that'll probably do it) or something like that, but apparently thinking about a winged lion can do it too. That's just weird.

(Above and beyond the fact that a lack of unnatural appendages can cause me discomfort I mean.)

Ana Mardoll said...

I don't know about lions, lets alone Lions, but a cat's purr doesn't necessarily indicate contentment.

True, they also purr when they are frightened, distressed, and/or in pain. But none of those things seemed applicable in this situation. :/

Ana Mardoll said...

As for the Leopards, I have a vague notion that the Leopard symbolizes worldly power,

I believe that connection is made in Daniel.

Daniel 7:6 - After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.

I did NOT know that about pelicans, thank you. I was reading the chapter thinking WTF PELICANS?

So... we have a pavilion staffed with medieval church symbols because... Jasper? WHAT DOES THIS ADD TO THE STORY? *brainhurt*

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

You should also read "The Problem of Susan" by Neil Gaimann, then. It contains.... interesting stuff regarding this.

hapax said...

Well, I have a good deal more sophisticated understanding of Odin than I did when I was very young.

Most of the "Norse myths" books I read back then gave me the impression that Odin much less as the AllFather and a lot more of Gaiman's Mr. Wednesday, a con man who spent a lot of time punishing people he had entrapped by pretending to be a skeevy old guy in a hat.

Of course, Krsna among the cowmaids might be an even better example. I confess to a certain admiration for a guy who can pull off "Hey, want to look inside my mouth and see the ENTIRE COSMOS?" as a pick-up line.

Rikalous said...

Ooh! Ooh! I think I have an explanation for Peter-and-the-Wolf that doesn't require Aslan and company to be full of failure.

Someone hypothesized in an earlier thread that Peter's new sword was magic, and that's why he won the fight with the experienced Wolf. Now, different magic swords have different attributes. Some won't strike an innocent, some eat souls. Peter's sword is fresh from the elven forges of Christmas Town, and is still a blank slate. Making sure that Peter uses it first in single combat against a vicious Beast and in defense of his innocent sister's life ensures that the sword is imbued with virtue and justness and magnificence and all that jazz. This idea was bolstered when I thought that Aslan named the sword Wolf's-Bane, but it looks like that's Peter's title. Eh, they can share it. Anyway, Aslan doesn't explain any of this because he's not big on volunteering information, and Peter never asks. The assembled multitudes never explain it, because everyone knows that's how magic swords work and if they'd realized he had a new magic sword they never would have tried to interfere.

Wiping the sword might be part of the process (a completing the cycle thing that ensures it stops picking up vibes), or it might just be a little friendly practical advice. I think I'm going to read it as a not unkind reminder that winning one fight doesn't make him the hottest thing ever.

Now that the overthinking bunny is out of my head, I'm gonna go read the rest of the comments.

Dav said...

I always thought the pavillion was bizarre, but now I have to wonder how they got it pitched. Who got to nail in the tent pegs? I can kind of imagine the leopards pulling the cords taut (sort of), but after that, my imagination fails. I do like the idea of Aslan as a sort of traveling performer, with a nice little two-wheeled cart to hold his tent and some throw pillows and a brazier or two for his magic show.

The Well-Women bit made me do a double take as well. Does Narnia have many wells? Would that really be the go-to reference for water spirits?

Susan's blister doesn't surprise me - in fact, I'm surprised it's minor and they all don't have them. I bet none of them have had new or proper fitting shoes for quite a while, and they may not have the right sort of shoes for walking so far, and their socks have almost certainly gotten wet at some point. I'd expect them to be having significant trouble carrying on, honestly.

Randall M said...

The bull with a man's head is probably a Lamassu, a Sumerian/Akkadian creature depicted as having a bull's body (or a lion's, but Aslan is supposed to have lion-ness wrapped up in this scene), wings, and the head of a man. Possibly its presence here is due to the fact that, according to Wikipaedia, they were known as the Guardians of Kings in the later Babylonian period.

Steve Morrison said...

Peter’s sword was named Rhindon, or so he said in Prince Caspian. I wonder if Lewis had just been listening to Prokofiev when he decided to have a “Peter and the Wolf” fight? ;<)

Rikalous said...

Working under my theory, maybe Aslan is distressed because he doesn't want to terrify the human children, but it's necessary.
--
Their names are He-Beaver and She-Beaver? No. I will not accept this malarky. I'm going to say that their names are in fact their scents, and the fact that they don't interact with non-scent-dominant critters enough to need a non-scent name the way Maugrim/Fenris does is the reason that Mr. Beaver is so suspicious of birds and trees and not-quite-humans.
--
Alkatraz Smedley, sworn foe of the Evil Librarians, is on record that the reason authors make their characters suffer is to make the readers who empathize with the characters suffer in turn. Authors hate readers, you see.

Steve Morrison said...

No, I want to hear the long version!

An odd thought occurs to me: if God the Son is a Lion as well as a human being and a deity, doesn’t that mean that there are three natures in one person? Should we subscribe to some kind of hyper-Chalcedonion theology while reading Narnia?

Steph said...

This really would have been more appropriate back when it first came up in the Exposition Beaver chapters, but it only just now occurred to me. The prophecy states that Jadis' rule will end when four humans sit in the four thrones at Cair Paravel, so she sets spies and secret police to watch for humans entering Narnia.

Why didn't she destroy the thrones?

She had a hundred years to do it, and it never once occurred to her to send a gang of giants with sledgehammers to smash them into rubble? In fact, this could easily be a motivation for her to actually do something evil-overlordy besides petrifying the occasional dissenter. First she destroys the thrones, but she worries they might get repaired somehow, so she scatters the pieces across the Narnia, throws some into the ocean, and buries the rest in the Calormen desert. Then she gets worried -- Cair Paravel itself still exists, after all, and it's mentioned in the prophecy. So she repeats the entire process, but this time an entire castle has to be pulverized and carted away. THEN she realizes that the land itself is still there -- couldn't that be considered Cair Paravel? The Pevensies arrive to find a massive forced-labor operation involving most of the population, which has been going on for decades and has already removed a significant chunk of the Narnian coastline. Now THAT's a paranoid megalomaniac!

Cupcakedoll said...

I experience a similar weird effect from thinking about having wings. Not sure whether to file that under 'mystical' or 'psychosomatic' or a bit of both.

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

>> Climbing up a tree to escape a horse-sized wolf isn't stupid -- it's a good idea. Much better than trying to outrun an animal who can easily run faster than you.
Assuming you can climb, that is. She is shorter than Susan and presumably wasn't near the tree when attacked. Yet she didnt faint and actually chose a right dierection to run.
As for the whole battle, let's see it this way. To be a king, Peter must be able to fight. He will also lead the battle against the Witch. This means things like battle sickness and shock from first fight must be out of the way, and the best way to do so is to let him fight in a controlled battle, where no one is going to backstab Peter while he is preoccupied with the first wolf, or in shock (in the movie, a wolf trying exactly that is stopped rather hard). If Peter cannot do this, how is he going to survive the coming battle anyway?
This is, by the way, the biggest problem with the Narnia cycle. Most thing the protagonists accomplish serve the purpose top teach them something, or to demonstrate their worthiness, but don't actually CHANGE things. Nothing really depends on Pevensies, except thir own fate.
As for feast during the need and a battle to fight alone, however, this is present in LOTR with the Scouring of Shire. This takes place while everybody parties the victory over Sauron, and during their stay at Rivendell on the way back) and during their generally slow way back. And not only doesn't Gandalf (who certainly knows about this) ask Aragorn for a couply of soldier to accompany them, beu even leaves hobbits alone before they learn about it. The purpose is clear - hobbits (as a whole), too, must learn to defend themselves when Gandalf and other biggies isn't around anymore and this will happen.
Regarding thrones: who said she didn't try? They probably manifested AGAIN and AGAIN after she did.

Ana Mardoll said...

Steph, that's an awesome idea! I like the idea of Jadis as a proactive prophecy thwarter.

I wonder if Step 5 will be removing the sea entirely because the sea is mentioned. They've got to put all that land SOMEWHERE, so why not extend the coastline several miles out? And "Cair Paravel" is now a lake by the... um... well, it's in the middle of nowhere. HA!

Ana Mardoll said...

It's not like the point of Ana's critique isn't clearly made, from the title of this post, through the post itself, and even in many of the comments.

Susan is totally extraneous to Peter's abilities with this sword, magic or not. She's just bait. Conscripted bait.

Precisely! I mean, if the Eagle swarmed in and plucked Susan up and flew off (while the Pelican or one of the centaurs grabbed Lucy), the Wolf would still be there. He doesn't need to kill the girls first, he just went after them because he got to them first. He could face off against Peter and everything would go the same way.

It'd still be endangering PETER for fun and profit, but I'd accept a mental hand-wave that, eh, sword is magic and bearer can't be beaten/harmed.

Kit Whitfield said...

she thought of it as a parallel to how she dealt with adults as a child: adults will tell you not to lick the wallpaper. When you are a child, you aren't in a position to appreciate a lecture on how there's arsenic in the wallpaper, and it's there for the dyes, and no we don't love pretty walls *more* than you, we just want both, so don't lick the wallpaper. But if you obey, you will be told this when you're old enough to understand what arsenic is on a more complex level than as simply "poison".

Which tells you more about her ideas on parenting than about theology.

When my fifteen-month-old does something he shouldn't, I stop him. I also explain to him, in simple terms, why I'm stopping him. I pitch it to his level - 'Don't eat the privet leaves; they'll give you a tummy ache'; 'We don't take other people's toys, that's not a nice thing to do'; 'No, honey, you can eat dry food with your hands but we use a spoon for sticky foods otherwise it makes a mess', to use a few examples from recent days. But I always try to explain. And this is to a child whose active vocabulary consists of embryonic versions of 'Mama', 'Dada', 'Woof', 'Miaow', 'Moo' and 'Achoo.'

I figure that there are two possibilities. Either he can understand why he shouldn't do something, or he can't. If he can, I always explain it to him; I explain as much as I can on the off-chance he understands at least some of it. But the stuff he can't understand? I prevent him from doing it in the first place. To take a modern example: the fact that he doesn't understand the concept of electrocution means it's my responsibility to cover the plug sockets. The fact that he doesn't understand that falling will hurt him means it's my job not to leave him anywhere unsecured. The fact that he might put poison in his mouth means it's my job to keep poisons out of his reach. If he's too young to understand the explanation, he's too young to have good judgement about it, whatever orders I give him.

I don't expect him to obey me without an explanation. To put him in a position where he could do something and had to rely on an unexplained command would be deeply irresponsible parenting. Increased safety risks aside, part of my job as a parent is to teach him that there are reasons why things happen and reasons why we do things. If I continually let go by opportunities to show this to him, I'm neglecting his education in a serious way. I do not think it's my job to teach him to obey orders that make no sense; I think it's my job to teach him to expect orders to make sense, and to question them if they don't.

I don't buy a theological apology that casts God as a worse parent than I am.

--

A-a-and this is the chapter which allows me to go on my rant about Why Aslan Isn't Jesus.

The reasons you give are good reasons why he isn't a good representation of the actual Jesus. But I don't see any compelling evidence that this is anything other than a case of him being a bad portrait of Jesus rather than a portrait of something else.

Ana Mardoll said...

Yeah, I can't weigh in on parenting because I'm not one, but I WAS a kid once, and I wanted explanations for things. This really frustrated Mom because she just wanted to be able to say "because I said so, honey", but the thing is, I remember stuff better when I know the reason why. I still do! If I have to memorize "don't lick the wallpaper" in addition to 50 or 100 or 1,000 other rules, I'm going to fail early and often. But if I'm told that the wallpaper will give me a tummy-ache, I can work that into a view of the world around me -- WALLS! NOT FOOD! -- and I have a chance of remembering it.

I also think that explanations are good for the 'parent' because I frequently explain things to the cats and I think they probably don't understand me. (But they do understand my tone, and I want them to know they aren't bad kitties, they just made a mistake!) Explanations make parents think and rethink why certain rules need to be in place again, and that's a good thing. Maybe not pertinent to God, but I think it is. :D

Although I do think the original comment said the explanation wasn't one that would jadi with US. And that this was more a "probably how Lewis thought". Which it probably was. :/

But I don't see any compelling evidence that this is anything other than a case of him being a bad portrait of Jesus rather than a portrait of something else.

He certainly seems to fit a Bad Jesus to me better than any other religious figure I can imagine. He's really not Odin Allfather, if only because he has a father over the sea to whom he reports to. And, of course, Aslan hasn't got any children, or even any hint that he's a member of a pantheon larger than the Christian trinity...

I suppose he could be a deity from a tradition I'm not familiar with -- I don't know as much as I could know about Native American pantheons -- but he really doesn't sit well with Norse, Egyptian, or Greek/Roman well (I was teasing about Zeus earlier), and if he is supposed to be a Native American god, why all the Christian symbolism? Just my thoughts, of course. :)

Ana Mardoll said...

And for no better reason than I saw it on Shakesville this morning:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/myroboticarm/4025296612/

Ana Mardoll said...

^^ I especially like that the baby T-Rex looks really peeved about something.

depizan said...

"To be a king, Peter must be able to fight. He will also lead the battle against the Witch."

Never mind how incredibly stupid it is to have a thirteen year old boy who's never fought before in his life (outside of maybe a schoolyard tussle) lead a battle, if Peter needs to be able to fight, shouldn't someone, I don't know, teach him. Or is the default assumption that the sword is a magic sword that protects Peter, or at least fights for him, ala Need. (In which case training him would be a bad idea.)

And what would happen if Peter was, instead, so freaked out by his pre-battle fight that he ran away or went catatonic or something? Wouldn't be too good for morale to have one of the figureheads flake out. (And figureheads is all they ought to be, being, after all, children with no leadership or battle experience.)

But, as you note, the Pevensies really don't do much. They're special only because they're human - any humans who wandered in to Narnia would do - and humans need to sit on the thrones. They're not heroes, they're plot coupons.

Ana Mardoll said...

I, too, question the assumption that Peter "needs" to fight in order to be king. It's my understanding from the text that Peter (plus three) would be just as valid rulers of Narnia if they all had 7 years subtracted from their ages (rendering them 6, 5, 3, and 1, IIRC). They're Human, and therefore Royal, but that doesn't mean they have to be fighters.

Indeed, I would expect that ANY fighting in Narnia would have to be HIGHLY delegated.

General: "Have the Lions flank from the left, along with the Leopards. I want the Centaurs in the back, shooting anything that moves."

Sargent: "Oh, um, Centaurs don't use arrows in this mythos."

General: "They don't? Oh. OK, I want them on the right with the Horses and Unicorns, hoofing -- is that the right term? It's not important -- hoofing anything that they can. The Eagles can dive-bomb and the Pelicans can carry supplies. I want the Beavers up the middle with their claws --"

Sargent: "No, that won't work. Beavers move pretty slowly over land."

General: "Oh. Um. Well, have them ride on the Horses, along with the Mice."

Sargent: "First off, the Mice haven't been imbued with sentience yet. Second off, the Horses consider being ridden to be very demeaning. Third off, even if the Beavers are deposited by the Horse, they'll be trampled when the fighting starts."

General: "....... Do the BEAVERS use bows and arrows in this mythos?"

Sargent: "No."

General: "Oh, FFS."

Will Wildman said...

I find it odd that's described as a baby T-Rex when it's clearly based on the Jurassic Park velociraptors. (In fact, in the Jurassic Park movies they made velociraptors two or three times bigger than they really were, so that 'baby' may actually be the appropriate adult size!)

---

Another thing that slipped my mind: the Pevensies ditched their fur coats? Really? In the woods somewhere. They borrowstole big fur coats out of someone's wardrobe and then just tossed them off into the wilderness when they got too warm? I know they haven't really paused to think about how they might get home again, but really - those coats are not theirs to abandon when they don't feel like carrying them any more. (It would make slightly more sense if they said "Okay, let's not meet the beast-god while wearing animal skins; someone find a landmark where we can store these for later.")

---

I'm the same regarding explanations and reasoning - if I don't know why something must be, then I'm terrible at remembering what it is. I'm generally obsessive about following The Rules (or I was) but I wouldn't always recall that there was a rule if it had never been justified to my satisfaction. Which is not to say that there are no matters in which I could accept a deity telling me "You must trust me because you cannot understand", but that needs to be followed up with something like "You cannot understand because you can't fully perceive the eighth through tenth spatial dimensions". If I can't know why, an explanation as to why I can't know why is an acceptable substitute. This process may also be iterative.

"Explain it to me, god."
"You can't understand."
"Why not?"
"You wouldn't understand that either."
"Can you tell me wh-"
"Look, I'll skip over the next fifteen minutes of 'no' and just get to the part where you would have to understand what it feels like to invent the quark."

(I also can't learn mathematical processes unless I understand them. In first year of university I had to use derivatives of exponents in physics several months before we got to derivatives in math. Despite having it explained very clearly and repeatedly as "nx^y becomes ynx^y-1", I could not remember the rule for the life of me until I learned what in blazes was actually going on.)

---

I don't know as much as I could know about Native American pantheons

I am in no way claiming to be an expert, but in my limited experience, the first North American cultures tend toward a spirit-intensive and highly flexible mythology, somewhat reminiscent of Shinto and kami. I think it's the sort of environment where someone claiming to be the rightful king of all animals is likely to be met with more than a few calls of "Says who?" and then get pantsed by the trickster.

Ana Mardoll said...

(cont.)

Sargent: "That still leaves the middle."

General: "Right. I want the Dogs up the middle --"

Sargent: "Which ones?"

General: "All of them! Wait, why? Why does it matter?"

Sargent: "Well, the Greyhounds are going to outpace the Pit Bulls and the Bulldogs pretty fast and they'll be sitting ducks for a few seconds, and --"

General: "Why are the Ducks sitting around and not helping with the supplies?"

Sargent: "Ducks, not Ducks. Aslan's tooth, it's hard to communicate around here. Can we get umlauts or something?"

General: "OK, look. we'll tell the Greyhounds to pace themselves --"

Sargent: "It's still more complicated than that. What about the Poodles?"

General: "The big ones or the little ones?"

Sargent: "And the Pekingese are going to be in serious danger..."

General: "Do we HAVE Pekingese?"

Sargent: "I'm sure we do. The question is whether or not they've been stereotyped."

Ana Mardoll said...

I find it odd that's described as a baby T-Rex when it's clearly based on the Jurassic Park velociraptors. (In fact, in the Jurassic Park movies they made velociraptors two or three times bigger than they really were, so that 'baby' may actually be the appropriate adult size!)

Oh, good, I thought it was a velociraptor, too, at first. But the caption said T-Rex. Also I did not know that about Jurassic Park sizing up. Interesting!

I think it's the sort of environment where someone claiming to be the rightful king of all animals is likely to be met with more than a few calls of "Says who?" and then get pantsed by the trickster.

Or at least they steal all the ivory tent-pegs so that everyone gets covered in silk tents and has to fight their way out. :D

Divya Jagadeesan said...

Hi Hapax, Just curious .. why do you spell him as Krsna ?

chris the cynic said...

(In fact, in the Jurassic Park movies they made velociraptors two or three times bigger than they really were, so that 'baby' may actually be the appropriate adult size!)

You left out the best part. The people responsible for making the dinosaurs wanted to be as realistic as possible so they were really stressing out over the demand that the raptors be six feet tall. They were calling up paleontologists desperately asking, "Well is there anything raptor-like that is that size?" and being told, "No, sorry. But it's possible something could be discovered." That totally failed to comfort them and they made their six foot raptors while continuing to be stressed, at which point someone duh up a six foot tall raptor. (The Utah Raptor as I recall.)

Ana Mardoll said...

Seriously? That's so sweet. That would totally be me, stressing.

Silver Adept said...

The comments are always a great joy to read on these posts.

The only reason I can see Aslan pulling this stunt is that he's sure that Peter will be able to win - either Peter has Excalibur's sheath, and thus can't be hurt by the wolf, or Aslan has such control of the wolf that he's nothing more than a training dummy.

And because, apparently, Susan can't just shoot the wolf from up in the tree once she's there. Women don't fight, tee hee, even when their lives are in danger.

As for the pavilion and the retinue, well, how else are you going to know this is Aslan as opposed to some other Lion? For all we know, that Lion's the next Buddha and the children are in the wrong story. With the right trappings of a King, it's apparent who he is.

Well, excepting of course, for the thrill that one gets by looking at this particular Lion. Because Jas...Aslan.

redcrow said...

>>>Because Jas...Aslan.

Jaslan?

Fluffy_goddess said...

Although I do think the original comment said the explanation wasn't one that would jadi with US. And that this was more a "probably how Lewis thought". Which it probably was. :/

Exactly! We do not think like Lewis thought, and we have very different practices for living. The example from my comment above came from a person who was explaining how she kept her faith despite having severe doubts -- she trusted her parents to explain stuff when she was older, and they did, so she when she was an adult she thought of religious doubts in the same parallel. This is a quirk of having societies where children were... thought of very differently from how they are now.

The idea that children could be reasoned with? Very much not in vogue in England when the Inkblots were in. Also, you theoretically couldn't reason with women (pros and cons list for a man marrying have been recorded, and they are more like what we'd write out if we were trying to decide if we wanted to adopt a puppy). And there was a 'safe' level of arsenic to have in your wallpaper. And working class women were so different from upper class ladies that the first could pop out kids without having to take a day off, but the latter should be on bedrest for most of her pregnancy because it's like a horrible draining disease.

Trying to wrap your mind around how Lewis expected his readers to respond is kinda wild. Scenes like these no longer translate well for us because as a society, we have moved on from those neuroses. We have new, more interesting neuroses, but not so much those. So even when he's trying to pull on common experiences, we have to stop and think, and then we mostly disagree.

And to end my Read Moar History! explanation of this, I recommend Judith Flanders' _Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England_ for an easy-reading history text. It's the kind of book that lets you step back and say, "okay, he meant to draw parallels so readers would see Aslan as a stern, good, all-knowing father figure, and this fails with modern audiences because wtf people actually thought that?!?!"

kbeth said...

Kit, I also really agree with your parenting philosophy regarding explaining things to children. This is an interesting question to me, because whenever my parents told me to do anything that was even remotely not immediately obvious, I would go "WHY?!" (Yeah, I was that kid.) When I was older, I asked my mom why she didn't just explain things to me rationally. She gave me this Look, and said, "I *tried* to explain things to you. You never believed me!"

And thinking back on it -- she was right. If she'd told me not to lick the walls because they'd make my stomach ache -- well, once I was over four or so, I would've said "What? How could walls make your stomach ache? Because of the dyes? But it's a wall, it's so harmless!" Then she would have started telling me about arsenic's effect on the body (she's a biologist), and that would have at least distracted me. But at the same time, there was still an element of having to take her word for it that I was not okay with. Now, obviously much of human society rests on trusting other people to tell you the truth (within reason, and with verification, etc), so at some point the kid will probably start doing that anyway (and hopefully you've taught them about the within reason and with verification, etc. part). And if they don't believe you for a while, that's still no reason to stop trying to explain things to them, since I also wouldn't want to train my child to blindly follow orders. But if the kid rejects your explanation, or refuses to believe it without being provided with every single detail (which you may not be able to provide, or which may take too much time), what do you do? Is there a good way to deal with that without just invoking your authority as a parent?

Ana Mardoll said...

Well, and I know all this and I'm pretty confident saying Kit does too. ;)

The problem with religion, though, is that explaining how a man of Lewis' day thought it worked isn't really... enough. There are lots of people who still think that the Narnia books are spot on for religion, despite the fact that we've moved away (slowly) from the concept that Women are Worthless, Children are Stupid, Mental Illnesses are Self-Indulgent, and Gods Needn't Explain Themselves. Yes, that's how things "worked"* in the 1950's, but they're not how they work now. But it takes deconstruction to point that out. :D

* For various versions of "worked". As noted, Lewis lashes out at parents who explain stuff to kids and don't spank them frequently. Ergo, there actually were parents in his day who did these things. So his Fail isn't even "EVERYONE was that way". SOME folks were that way. He was one of them. :)

Ana Mardoll said...

Is there a good way to deal with that without just invoking your authority as a parent?

I'm not a parent, but I think once a trust level has been established -- i.e., Mom doesn't lie to me, Mom will continue to explain when convenient -- then there's nothing wrong with a Why Chain.

"Don't eat the wallpaper."
"Why?"
"It will give you a tummy ache."
"Why?"
"Because there's a chemical that makes the paper stick to the wall that will hurt you."
"What's a chemical?"
"It's the stuff that makes food tastes good or bad."
"Does this chemical taste bad?"
"No, it's not a Taste Chemical, it's a Tummy Ache Chemical."
"How do you know?"
"There are Scientists who can test things for different chemicals."
etc.

And if nothing else, it's Because National Geographic.

chris the cynic said...

Why can't I lick the wall paper?
Because Aslan.
I still want to lick the wall paper.
Because Jasper!
I'm not convinced.
Because National Geographic.
Ok, I won't lick the wall paper.

kbeth said...

Ana: Yeah, that does make sense. I think part of the problem for me was that my parents are immigrants (though I'm not, as I was born here), and the culture clash meant that they'd occasionally-to-often tell me to do things or give me advice (usually social, but sometimes not) that pretty clearly didn't work with other people, or that was contradicted by things I read or that other people told me and so on. Or foods -- they'd try the usual strategy of saying "My, doesn't this taste wonderful!" and often as not, I wouldn't like it, which led to me refusing to believe anything they ever told me about how foods taste. Add to that that I'm naturally quite headstrong and stubborn to begin with, and there was definitely a period where I just didn't think they knew what they were talking about at all. (This is actually still true for certain areas of my life -- for example, I don't let them see my job applications, because the advice they give me almost always clashes with what everyone else tells me, including the career office at my college and people that I've networked with and employers and so on, but my parents get upset when I tell them this.) I did usually believe things that I got from other sources.

Kit Whitfield said...

But if the kid rejects your explanation, or refuses to believe it without being provided with every single detail (which you may not be able to provide, or which may take too much time), what do you do? Is there a good way to deal with that without just invoking your authority as a parent?

Ask me a year from now when my son's old enough to do it. :-) It probably depends. If he refuses to believe me when I say that bleach is bad for you, we have a problem that's far more complicated, though probably less urgent, than the problems he could create by drinking the bleach. Like Ana says, you'd expect a parent to build up a degree of trust about the basics.

If he wants every single detail ... well, I guess the Ideal Parent thing to do would be to try and explain it while leaving the supermarket, dragging him away from the walls or otherwise getting on with stuff, or else to say 'I'll explain it later' and then actually explain it later. Which would be a combination of explanation and strong-arming.

But when it comes to issues like 'You should behave this way towards people because it'll help you...' Well, my forecast is that if he's old enough to understand that there's a disparity between what I'm telling him and the actual results of his actions, he's old enough to have a discussion about it and I should try to listen to his perspective.

I do believe that parents should have some authority when their kids are young, but authority doesn't have to be unaccountable. I'm already working on the 'When Mummy says no, she means it' principle, for example, and if all else fails, a form of authority is to say to the kid 'Because it bugs me.' After all, being considerate about bugging people is a skill you have to learn too.

It partly depends on how much something matters. As long as the kid's eating a reasonable diet, it doesn't matter that much if you disagree about how something tastes. If they're old enough to be sending off job applications, it's too late, your raising period is pretty much over. But the life-or-death, or driving-me-round-the-bend situations - well, like I say, if a kid consistently refused to accept a degree of parental authority there, I'd think something was wrong.

Kit Whitfield said...

Come to that, isn't ivory a bit of an impractical material to make tent-pegs from anyway?

Pthalo said...

and did it come from elephant tusks or Elephant tusks?

Kish said...

About the discarded coats thing, I'd be inclined to make allowances for it based on the Pevensies' youth and the fantastic nature of the events, except that it seems to be the kind of thing Aslan calls people out on all the time. "You were showing off that you aren't afraid of heights; don't do that anymore." "You forgot to clean your sword." The lack of, "You stole coats from random strangers and threw them away in a forest in another world" chiding seems...arbitrary.

chris the cynic said...

Since we're talking about coats.

Long ago they had left the coats behind them.
...
He stooped down and wiped it quite clean on the grass, and then wiped it quite dry on his coat.

Then he screamed, "Oh my god, how did this get back on me?! I keep on throwing it away and yet whenever I look down there it is again! Make it stop!" Then he drops to his knees and starts sobbing, "Why won't it leave me alone."

-

Or what? What's up with the magic coat?

BrokenBell said...

Also, I'm really raising an eyebrow that he would be able to wipe a sword "quite clean" on the ground, leaving only a little bit of water to be cleaned off by his mysterious coat. No, he's just taken the coat and wiped all manner of blood, fur, and miscellaneous wolf fluids off on it, which is almost as bad as leaving them in the woods somewhere, really.

Steve Morrison said...

The coat was clearly made by the same tailor as Robinson Crusoe’s trousers. (He stripped before swimming out to the wreck; then when he was there he filled his pockets with hardtack, somehow.)

Ana Mardoll said...

I'll make the obvious joke: there are places you can put hardtack whilst nude, but you won't want to eat the hardtack later.

There. Got it out of our systems? We can move on now.

Or was it just me? o.O

Will Wildman said...

Also, I'm really raising an eyebrow that he would be able to wipe a sword "quite clean" on the ground, leaving only a little bit of water to be cleaned off by his mysterious coat.

Narnia: marmalade in the middle of winter, sewing machines ex nihilo, pandimensional Santa, and snowmelt that scrubs and disinfects but won't scratch your best china. In a way, if it's going to be a world with obvious magic being thrown about freely, I expect these kinds of perks, although I'd like it even more if they were acknowledged with a bit of "Have you lot noticed how convenient this place is? It's creeping me out." "Look, I found a tree that grows small volumes of poetry!"

Will Wildman said...

"Middle of winter" in my above post of course refers to the meteorological conditions and not the actual duration, since by the latter calculation midwinter was 50 years ago and this is more like the last 0.002% now.

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

>>>Ignoring the suffering of the female involved does seem to be a theme with your comments.
>>>It's not like the point of Ana's critique isn't clearly made, from the title of this post, through the post itself, and even in many of the comments.

>>>. Susan is totally extraneous to Peter's abilities with this sword, magic or not. She's just bait. Conscripted bait.


Well, the catch is, even I as child somehow understood that Susan and Lucy were not in such a great danger, and now I can express why.

See, Susan and Lucy ARE bait. But bait by an relative benigh entity, which is also a Lawful one. And the point of bait is that it is only seemingly endangered, just to lure the main target. Jadis may simply let the bait fall, but not Aslan.

Note, for example, that the wolf doesn't go after Lucy (who is still on the groun and whom he possibly could reach before Peter), but goes after Susan, who managed to climb JUSt high enough to be out of reach and will be unless she faints, and she is only starting to faint after Peter reaches her. This clearly suggests an elaborate setup, where the girls are always kept just ahead of danger. The wolf surely run to the tree just fast enough for Susan to climb, but not faster (weakened by Aslan?).

>>>if the Eagle swarmed in and plucked Susan up and flew off (while the Pelican or one of the centaurs grabbed Lucy), the Wolf would still be there. He doesn't need to kill the girls first, he just went after them because he got to them first. He could face off against Peter and everything would go the same way.
>>>It'd still be endangering PETER for fun and profit, but I'd accept a mental hand-wave that, eh, sword is magic and bearer can't be beaten/harmed.

No it wouldn't be the same way. Peter would be too petrified with fear and too surprized to react fast enough in such a case. To win this battle, he must be able to lay of his fear, at least partially, and the best way to do so is to have him fear for somebody he cares for. The bait not only LURES him to the wolf, it also gives him the mindset to actually fight the wolf.

This is similar to the second task of Triwizard tournament. The egg tells Harry (and other champions) that e must rescue his hostage within a nour, lest he be lost. So Harry attempts to save all the hostages - and in the end we learn that hostages were never really in danger - only the Champions were at risk, and that was also not big (Without Voldemort, that is). Champion's marks and wellbeing were at stake , not the hostages.

Here it is not exactly so, but I always perceived that as long as Lucy and Susan did something sensible (run/climb), the wolf would never be able to get them, them being just out of reach. Peter carries a risk, but presumably, the wolf's strength was sapped by Aslabn so that Peter can defeat him relatively easy. It's just like a driving lesson in car: you CAN do shit and injure/kill yourself, but this is very unlikely - much less likely than alone on an actual highway. Surely a proper training course would be better, but there is NO TIME: Aslan is going to swap places with Edmund, and the Witch will attack just afterwards, so a crash-course is in order

Of course, the real shame is JUST WHAT the charachter are given capabilities to. Girls, it seems, can at best only save themselves and only by FLIGHT: they can run, hide, climb and do their defensive moves to save themselves, but they cannot fight back. FIGHT, and thus the ultimate rescue from always falls upon a male (even if he is 13 years old), so Peter has to fight the wolf while Susan can only sit on tree. Another is that Lewis again harps on Susan - she got a blister and now, after indeed doing a sensible thing (climbing up a tree). does she sit straight and ask somebody for her bow? No, she is about to faint. Remember, folks: girls are useles and ladylike girls even moreso, even if the actually started with a correct idea. Such a lovely moral! (sarcasm off).

Ana Mardoll said...

If Aslan has micromanaged Narnia to the level that (a) he's decided which girl the Wolf will go after and (b) he's keeping Susan safe throughout, then there's no need for Peter to learn to fight. Big Brother has that stuff covered.

Incidentally, though I've been told it's handled better in the book, I thought the Triwizard stuff as seen in the movie was INCREDIBLY abusive stuff. I was seething for days that the Hogwarts people should NOT be in charge of children and it's no wonder people are so messed up in the wizarding world.

Ana Mardoll said...

does she sit straight and ask somebody for her bow?

I'm interested into how you see this playing out seeing as how she's been treed by an enormous wolf.

"Excuse me, Barbara, did you say your name was? Could you just be a dear and hand me that bow? There's a good lass, thank you so much." *twang*

Redwood Rhiadra said...

Hapax makes a good point about how un-Jesus-like Aslan is.

But Aslan isn't Jesus - he's *Christ*. Specifically, Lewis said he's the answer to "What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?" (Directly quoting from his claim that Aslan is not an allegory.)

And Aslan's characteristics, I think, tell us something about what Lewis thinks of what a Christ *should* be, once you look past the man who was Jesus. In my opinion, it isn't a pretty picture.

chris the cynic said...

Lazy alternate version:

"That, O Man," said Aslan, "is Cair Paravel of the four thrones, in one of which you must sit as King. I show it to you because you are the firstborn and you will be High King over all the rest."

And once more Peter said nothing, for at that moment a strange noise woke the silence suddenly. It was a twang followed by a high pitched squeal.

"That would be your sister," said Aslan to Peter in a low voice; so low as to be almost a purr, if it is not disrespectful to think of a Lion purring.

For a moment Peter did not understand. Then, when he saw all the other creatures start forward and heard Aslan say with a wave of his paw, "Back! Let the Prince be the first to congratulate the Princess on her kill," he understood and rushed forward to commend Susan on her prowess with a bow and how she bravely protected Lucy and the well women from the bear sized wolf.

Will Wildman said...

Incidentally, though I've been told it's handled better in the book, I thought the Triwizard stuff as seen in the movie was INCREDIBLY abusive stuff. I was seething for days that the Hogwarts people should NOT be in charge of children and it's no wonder people are so messed up in the wizarding world.

I often have difficulty remembering what stuff got left out of each movie, aside from some of Hagrid's scenes in the first one. Do specific cases come to mind? (The wizarding world is definitely unsafe and abusive by real-world standards, but I'm generally able to shrug it aside with the idea that it's supposed to be an exaggerated version of reality, where people are expected to occasionally lose all the bones in their arms, such that there's even an over-the-counter remedy for exactly that problem. If I let this framing slip, then I immediately collapse into a catatonic ragefear state because WTF LOVE POTIONS.)

Ana Mardoll said...

*applause*

I'd read the heck out of that book, Chris. :)

Ana Mardoll said...

Sometime after the Triwizard movie, I griped online that it was UTTERLY distasteful that the Hogwarts staff would put the children in danger as hostages for a stupid game. It was explained to me by a fan that Everyone Except Harry totally knew that the hostages were not in any danger at all, and Harry / Viewer only didn't know because of non-magical childhood.

Of course, I still think the PREMISE of the book -- Harry has been entered against the rules in a dangerous tournament, clearly someone is up to no good, lets see how this plays out -- is abusive and ridiculous. Abusivilous?

Makabit said...

"There was also a unicorn, and a bull with the head of a man, and a pelican, and an eagle, and a great Dog. And next to Aslan stood two leopards of whom one carried his crown and the other his standard."

I wouldn't have noticed it when I read this for the first time, thirty years ago, but what a ridiculous tangle of symbolic figures that is. You've got the four evangelists, except that Luke and Matthew have been fused into one being, and Mark is also Jesus, symbolically, making the whole thing totally asymmetrical, and driving me mad. Meanwhile, the unicorn is also a symbol of Christ, and the Pelican of Christ's sacrifice, and the leopards are heraldic, and I don't know what the hell the Dog is doing.

chris the cynic said...

I don't think it was the case that everyone besides Harry knew so much as everyone Harry talked to about it knew and assumed Harry was an idiot for not knowing. That said, I think the people he talked to about it were the hostages themselves who of course had it explained to them beforehand that they wouldn't be hurt and why they assume Harry would magically know the same thing is never really touched on.

Maybe spending time at Hogwarts just makes you assume that everything is done by magic. I never told him, oh well, he'll magically know.

Note that the use of the word magically here is my addition, they just assumed he'd know for unstated reasons. Or maybe it was because they considered it obvious. I'm not looking it up. I washed my hands of Harry Potter after reading the fifth book and my only regret so far is that I didn't wash my hands of it before reading that book.

Kish said...

Haven't seen the Goblet of Fire movie, or any movie after it. Stopped near the beginning of Goblet of Fire when it became evident that the...less than sound adaptations of the books...had just hit my/my fiancee's critical thresdhold.

But yes, in the novel Goblet of Fire, right after the second task, Ron says to Harry, "You didn't really think Dumbledore would let us be in danger, did you?" And Harry feels like an idiot.

And for Harry having to play in the tournament, well, that's something Rowling handwaved with "it's a binding magical contract...no matter who put your name in the Goblet." Explanations for why Harry couldn't stroll onto the field briefly at each task, be ceremonially awarded 0 points, and stroll back off are regrettably absent, as far as I know.

(There are, in any case, plenty of reasons to doubt the competence of every teacher at Hogwarts. And in the books, unlike in the-movies-as-far-as-I-watched, Snape is, instead of being just stern and creepy, the definition of abusive, sadistically so.)

Ana Mardoll said...

But yes, in the novel Goblet of Fire, right after the second task, Ron says to Harry, "You didn't really think Dumbledore would let us be in danger, did you?" And Harry feels like an idiot.

Wait, Dumbledore is the guy who is raising Harry to be a Heroic Sacrifice, right? And who hires an Evil and/or Cursed teacher pretty much once per school year? And keeps Snape on staff despite him being, as you say, abusive in the books? AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA.

*sniff* Sorry, it's a good explanation from Harry's POV, I'm sure. :)

Makabit said...

In general, the wizarding world has a disregard for the safety of children that apalls me. The Triwizard Tournament simply doesn't seem ethical.

Rikalous said...

Suikoden V taught me that Beavers are a liability in land battles.You want to save them for when the ships show up, because they go through those babies like a knife through butter.

Also, the ones we've seen so far are bigots, and I'd be antsy about fielding them alongside other races until I was certain they could work well together.

Thomas Keyton said...

As a Snape fan, I feel honour-bound to point out that Snape isn't as bad as Harry sees him (because seriously, Harry is one of the worst possible pupils ever). His treatment of Neville is horrific, but considering that Neville's family dropped him off a pier and out of a window to try and force magic out of him, I think it's unfair to bring him up as a special case of wizarding horror.

Amaryllis said...

Wasn't there an age requirement for the tournament? As I recall, a candidate had to be past their 17th birthday, which is of legal age in the wizarding world, so not children. Even here in Muggle USA, you can join the Army at 17. The tournament is risky, but is it riskier than a college football game? (Then again, that may not be much of a defense.)

Of course there's Harry at only 14, but Harry's always different.

I don't know what the hell the Dog is doing.
Well, what's "g-o-d" spelled backwards? Coincidence?

Ana Mardoll said...

The tournament is risky, but is it riskier than a college football game?

Well, it kills Edward Cullen, and he's practically impossible to kill. Certainly he couldn't be killed by football...

Kish said...

I've never understood why "this other person is also really bad" is supposed to be a defense of anyone in anything.

If you believe in Death of the Author, you have no need to take into account the things Rowling has said about Snape ("very sadistic," "deeply horrible," "abuses his power"). But that Neville has plenty of other trauma in his past--and Snape manages to trump them all as Neville's worst fear--is not something I would choose to bring up as a defense of Snape.

If I ever wanted to defend Snape, which is highly unlikely.

Ana Mardoll said...

I do feel like sometimes we forget that MANY (most?) abusers were victims of abuse in their past.

[stops talking about Snape, segues into new topic]

Book club recently read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. For those who don't know -- and I didn't -- Henrietta Lacks was a black woman in, ah, the 1950s (iirc) who was the first person to have a cell scraping that could survive, thrive, and multiply in a lab. The scraping was taken without her permission by white doctors and has been used in pretty much every major medical discovery since then. Quite a few companies have gotten very rich from her cells; her family is utterly impoverished. Her children were also physically and emotionally abused by their step-mother after Henrietta died.

Seems like the victims are clear here, right? Well, it's more complicated than that. To my distress, it turns out that at least 2 of her children most heavily featured in the book are very dangerous. One boy grew up to be a murderer, and -- in the epilogue -- was 'recently thrown out of an assisted living faculty for shoving a woman through a plate glass window' (or something to that effect). The daughter around whom the book revolves heavily frequently and regularly hits the author of the book, and at one point shoves her into a wall so hard that she bangs her head, chokes, and loses her breath.

These people are victims... but they're also abusers. The daughter doesn't like to leave her grandchildren alone with her brother because she's afraid he might hurt or kill them. THAT IS NOT A GOOD THING. Now, they're got a billion reasons that they are the way they are, and I felt sorry for them, but I felt sorry for the people they were hitting and killing ans shoving through plate glass windows MORE. Once-victim doesn't mean that you can't go on to be a now-abuser, nor does it excuse it. It explains it; it doesn't excuse it. *sad face*

I'm still trying to mentally write my review for this book; I'm not sure how I'm going to express my ambivalence with some of the things and how they are presented.

chris the cynic said...

I have to say I never understood the, "Other people are evil too," argument either.

hapax said...

Just curious .. why do you spell him as Krsna ?

Sheer force of habit. That's how his name is transliterated in my (very old) translation of the Bhagavad Gita.

I've seen many other spellings, of course, but "Krishna" -- the most common -- is indelibly associated in my brain with ISKCON.

However, if that spelling is seen as disrespectful, I *can* cudgel my fingers into learning new tricks.

hapax said...

As for the abandoned coats, it's worth pointing out that the children *do* go and explain to the Professor (whose coats they are) what happened; it's the only reason they tell him about Narnia at all.

I *think* (though I'm too lazy to walk upstairs and actually check) that it's Susan who rejects the "well, technically they're still IN the wardrobe" excuse, in which case, at least the author gives her credit for a decent ethical sense.

So it will probably turn out not to have been Susan after all.

:-(

Laiima said...

@Ana, In Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the cells that were scraped were from Ms. Lacks' *tumor*, not her regular body tissues. This tumor was worth studying because it not only grew very fast but became lethally aggressive very quickly.

I was horrified about so many things in that book. Including the treatment for cancer at that time, my god.

Ursula L said...

Is there a good way to deal with that without just invoking your authority as a parent?

The key, I think, is how you establish your authority as a parent.

Some parents say "do this because I'm your parent." Which is just invoking a random and arbitrary authority.

But you can take the time to establish that you're the parent, and you love your child, and it is your job to both keep your child safe, and teach your child the things it will need to know to keep themself safe once they're big. You can establish that you explain things when you can, but because its your job to keep them safe, you expect them to do as asked, and wait for explanations later, if that's what is needed to be safe. You're not going to explain traffic before telling them to get out of the street, but they can trust that there is an explanation, and they will get it. If you're in the middle of a conversation with an adult friend, the explanation may have to wait, because you're busy.

An appeal to authority is not a bad thing, if the authority is really an appropriate authority for the situation. Such as a loving parent protecting their child when they child is still to young to understand.

So explanations and learning to understand are a natural part of your parent-child interaction, with the mutual understanding that explanations will get more sophisticated over time. And that an explanation may not be forthcoming in every situation, depending on the context.

Makabit said...

Snape is really a god-awful model of teaching, but to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure Rowling creates any very good ones. "Hogwarts" and "best practice' are not really on the same page. Oddly, I'd say the people with the strongest teaching 'instinct' are Hagrid, Lupin, and the fake Moody, none of whom are really held up as models of pedagogy--rather the opposite--but all of whom manage to create rather effective classroom environments, the occasional safety issue aside.

To be fair to Snape, though, it's never clear to me if he ever actually wanted to teach children, or if his unfortunate teaching career is really just a byproduct of needing him on the scene at Hogwarts. EIther way, I would argue that there's a systemic problem at Hogwarts that runs much, much deeper than Severus Snape's personal problems. The House system seems like one of the biggest to me, along with what seems like an appalling lack of supervision and guidance of the student body.

Charity Brighton said...

I thought Lupin was supposed to be a really good teacher! I agree with the other things you said though, but I never got the impression that we were supposed to think that Lupin was a bad teacher. He wasn't even that unsafe.

Ana Mardoll said...

Yeah, I didn't want to get too technical. :)

Makabit said...

OK, point, I think Lupin get recognition for his teaching skills.

Ana Mardoll said...

I know, right?? Fake Moody was my favorite person ever. I was so sad when he turned out to be fake. :(

Ana Mardoll said...

I *think* (though I'm too lazy to walk upstairs and actually check) that it's Susan who rejects the "well, technically they're still IN the wardrobe" excuse, in which case, at least the author gives her credit for a decent ethical sense.

So it will probably turn out not to have been Susan after all.


Your second impulse was right. :)

“Ugh!” said Susan, stamping her feet, “it’s pretty cold. What about putting on some of these coats?”
“They’re not ours,” said Peter doubtfully.
“I am sure nobody would mind,” said Susan; “it isn’t as if we wanted to take them out of the house; we shan’t take them even out of the wardrobe.”
“I never thought of that, Su,” said Peter. “Of course, now you put it that way, I see. No one could say you had bagged a coat as long as you leave it in the wardrobe where you found it. And I suppose this whole country is in the wardrobe.”

---

And that would have been the very end of the story if it hadn’t been that they felt they really must explain to the Professor why four of the coats out of his wardrobe were missing. And the Professor, who was a very remarkable man, didn’t tell them not to be silly or not to tell lies, but believed the whole story. “No,” he said, “I don’t think it will be any good trying to go back through the wardrobe door to get the coats. You won’t get into Narnia again by that route. Nor would the coats be much use by now if you did! Eh? What’s that? Yes, of course you’ll get back to Narnia again someday. Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don’t go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don’t try to get there at all. It’ll happen when you’re not looking for it. And don’t talk too much about it even among yourselves. And don’t mention it to anyone else unless you find that they’ve had adventures of the same sort themselves. What’s that? How will you know? Oh, you’ll know all right. Odd things they say—even their looks—will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open. Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?”

---

I find the professor's reasoning particularly amusing since in canon he never went to Narnia beyond the one book, am I right?

depizan said...

I'm not sure when it comes to the world Rowling created it's so much the "Other people are evil too" argument as the "This world is completely F-ed up"argument. Snape's behavior really isn't that out of line - if it's out of line at all - with how most other people behave in the Wizarding World. Or at least, that's how I took Thomas Keyton's argument: In a world where people throw their kids out windows to make their magic manifest, just how bad does someone have to be for it to be abuse? (I mean, to our world, Snape, Neville's family, and scads of other adults are abusive, but it's not clear at all that they are to the Wizarding World.)

I have a real love/hate relationship with the Harry Potter books. There are parts of them, especially early on, that I really like and I think Rowling created some really interesting stuff. But she also doesn't appear to have thought through half of what she created, and she needed an editor (or even a good friend beta reading) sooooo badly by the end of the series that it ends up being just a mess. (Also, I despise The One as a concept, even if it was better justified than usual. Though, again, she sort of bounced off of how deeply messed up the whole thing was. And, why, exactly, did Harry need to survive to face Voldie again? As long as all of Voldie's horcruxes were destroyed, everything would work out for the side of "good." Are we supposed to believe that Dumbledore knew that Harry was the one horcrux that could survive being dehorcruxed? Even though absolutely everything else was destroyed in the process?)

Of course, by the end of the series, I think the only characters I still liked were Neville and Luna.

depizan said...

"But don’t go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don’t try to get there at all. It’ll happen when you’re not looking for it."

Wait! What? Why did it work more than once for Lucy and Edmund then? And are we really supposed to believe that Lucy stumbled into it twice before going in with her siblings and somehow wasn't looking for it at all the second time either.

Redwood Rhiadra said...

The tournament is risky, but is it riskier than a college football game?

The Tournament was discontinued because in the previous one, all the contestants and a large chunk of the spectators were killed. If I remember the numbers right, a contestant death per tournament was about average. Cedric's death was par for the course (although you might argue that it wasn't strictly Tournament-related).

It's effing dangerous. If football were that dangerous, you'd have seven players dying per game (one third of 22 players).

Makabit said...

I think most people love Neville. Because Neville is a good person.

Now, trying to be fair, because Snape is my favorite Rowling character after Neville:

I do agree that Snape, despite his many moral failings, needs to be seen in societal context. Consider Neville. Neville has difficulty with magical things. He may have some sort of magical learning difference. (I personally think he's simply a clutz with lots of anxiety). His family is willing to go to dangerous and abusive lengths to try to get him to 'snap out of it'. There is no Magical Learning Disabities Consultant at Hogwarts. There are no services available. And the example of poor old Argus Filch suggests that the life of a Squib is not easy.

Would Snape come off better if he were kind and gentle and did after-school tutoring with Neville? Sure. That would be the act of a good educator and a nice person, neither of which Severus Snape is. What I have to recognize here, though, is that no one else seems to do that either, except, to some degree, Lupin. Maybe I just don't remember, but what does any of the rest of the staff do to help Neville out? McGonagall doesn't tell Neville he's stupid--in words--but she also doesn't do a hell of a lot to help him. Snape may think that humiliating Neville will motivate him to get his act together. Is this a good approach? Hell no. But in a community in which there is apparently really no help or pity for the weak student, this may be the most a somewhat emotionally limited man can come up with.

It's not so much 'other people are bad, so Snape's OK', but more, "This situation is so much worse than "Severus Snape is a schmuck"'. If Snape is abusive (and certainly by my standards he is), what does this say about Dumbledore, who keeps him in the classroom year after year without any kind of intervention?

Will Wildman said...

The Tournament was discontinued because in the previous one, all the contestants and a large chunk of the spectators were killed. If I remember the numbers right, a contestant death per tournament was about average. Cedric's death was par for the course (although you might argue that it wasn't strictly Tournament-related).

I got the impression that the reason the tournament had been discontinued was that there had been more than one death, i.e., they could no longer act like the deaths were freak accidents happening in spite of all the safety precautions they imagined they were putting in. I definitely don't recall any implication that even one death per tournament was ever normal.

I remain horrified/amused that Fake Moody is the only person who ever really tried to impress on his students exactly how nightmarishly dangerous their world was, and was considered a bit paranoid for doing so. "Incidentally, all of you are carrying around sticks that can, with a bit of practice, be used to perform mind control, inflict soul-wrenching agony, or cause immediate unavoidable death in less time than it would take a muggle to activate The Clapper." Constant vigilance is danged right.

depizan said...

Exactly. Hogwarts is one seriously messed up school in a seriously messed up universe. Snape really doesn't seem unusually bad, except to Harry, and I'm not sure Harry has seen enough of the Wizarding World to make that distinction. (Harry also ignores the bad things that people he likes do - Fake Moody turning Malfoy into a ferret and bouncing him around was also student abuse, the Twins creations include some more than questionable ones, Hermione conjures attack birds, his father and Sirius could easily have gotten young Snape killed etc, etc.)

Lupin (prior to the last book) came off as one of the few truly good adults. The Wizarding World is just vile.

Amaryllis said...

I definitely don't recall any implication that even one death per tournament was ever normal.
Yeah, whatever the tournament may have been in the past, I had the impression that the three older students handled the current version without too much difficulty, at least until Voldemort made his move.

According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, in 2010 there were five deaths of high school, college and youth league football players where the deaths were directly attributable to football injuries, and eleven deaths that were indirectly related, heat stroke and heart failure and such. Granted, that's a very low percentage of the hundreds of thousands of boys and young men who play the game every year, the individual risk is small, but the fact remains, it's possible to die playing games for the honor of your school.

What I could never figure out about the Triwizard tournament, is why is limited to only three individual wizards. If you're going to go to all that trouble to relocate groups of students for an entire school year, why not give them all a chance, everyone who's of age? Or have elimination rounds? Or let them work in teams? Or something?

Ursula L said...

Is there a good way to deal with that without just invoking your authority as a parent?

Another thing that I found worked well, when I was working at group homes for developmentally disabled adults, and which friends of mine with small children have had good success with, too, was to work from a framework of positive rules, rather than negative ones.

I found a good starting point was "You only do things that keep you, and everyone around you, happy and healthy and safe and sound." It is simple enough for a very small child to learn, but can be expanded on in pretty much any situation. And it serves as an explanation as well - "don't do that, because it is not safe, and we only do things that help keep people safe." Because you've established safety as a value, the exact details of why it is unsafe don't matter as much. It also puts the child's concern for their own safety and happiness first, and ties it to the safety and happiness of others.

Other, more specific situations, I found I could also address with positive rules. "Smart people take their medicine, because they know it keeps them healthy." "A smart man wears his (wheelchair) seat belt, because he knows it keeps him from falling." "Cool people brush their teeth, because they know that gives them the shiny, stylish smile." "Wash with the soap, because soap helps make you handsome." The key was to understand what an individual valued (being considered smart, being considered cool, being considered good-looking) and tie desired behavior to their desired qualities, in an honest way. And also in a way that helped them feel in control of their lives, and of being the kind of person they want to be.

And when positive rules and explanations weren't satisfactory (which was rare) I found that having a reputation as someone who was reasonable, with good rules and explanations, gave me credibility when I didn't have an explanation that was really good. "Please help me with this, I'm feeling tired and grumpy and could use some niceness" or "It's my job to keep you safe, and this needs to be done, but I don't have time to explain now" were often acceptable, because they knew I wasn't one to make arbitrary demands.

Getting it right 75% of the time gives you a pass for probably another 20

Rikalous said...

Dunno why Fake Moody being fake would be a problem, given that Real Moody is exactly like him. Although now that I think about it, Fake Moody did give Neville a Herbology book to cheer him up after he saw the Cruciatis* as part of the Sinister Plan. Real Moody might or might not have been that decent.

*Harry specifically noted that it was like something Lupin, aka the only DADA teacher who wasn't evil or Snape, would have done.
---
A more general problem I have with the Potterverse is the way it uses the Masquerade trope. They put a whole lot of effort into mind-whammying Muggles into forgetting or not finding out about magic, and virtually no effort into actually learning about the population in which they are embedded*. Normally I could hand-wave that as part of the general screwed-up-ness of wizarding society, which Harry doesn't notice because it beats being locked in a cupboard and dodging his brother's thugs. However, there's a constant influx of Muggle-borns, who seem perfectly fine with the fact that their new society treats the all of the people they knew before Hogwarts with a combination of paternalism, distrust, and staggering willful ignorance.* The only explanation we get is Hagrid saying that the magical community wants to be left alone, which doesn't seem adequate considering the fact that the Muggles could benefit from everything to magical medicines to apparently clean energy flight and travel. Now, I wouldn't expect Hagrid to be the most politically or socially savvy type around, but shouldn't someone with a solid understanding of the policy give a Muggle-born orientation to address these things?

* They don't even know how to dress inconspicuously. Do they never go outside?
** There should at least be enough Muggle-borns around to be able to tell Ministry agents "You dress like an escaped mental patient," yet Crouch's successful passing is noted as remarkable.

Kit Whitfield said...

"Cool people brush their teeth, because they know that gives them the shiny, stylish smile."

Ah, so I'm not the only one who uses that! (To my son, frequently: 'I know you don't like this, honey, but all the cool kids have their hands and faces clean after a meal.')

More seriously, that's a lovely way to handle things. :-)

--

Regarding teaching in Harry Potter ... I think it's worth bearing in mind that Hogwarts is basically an English public school ('public' in England meaning private and exclusive), and that fairly recently, standards of care were low. As recently as the 1980s, children could be beaten for misdemeanours, and with a cane, which is a very nasty implement. But even formal punishments aside, there was a lot more low-level aggression permitted.

My husband and I are from the last few years of the old era - corporal punishment was just being banned when we were at primary school, for instance - and both of us remember incidents of teachers manhandling kids. When I was at primary school, the elderly headmistress lost patience with a girl who kept adding seven and one and getting seven, slapped her hand eight times in quick succession and said, 'How many smacks did you get?' 'Eight.' 'So what's the answer?' 'Eight.' Another time, a child didn't stop when she rang the bell, so she chased her and rang it in her ear. An older and less skilled teacher at Husband's school would make fun of him for being Welsh - in fact he's always lived in London and has an English accent, but his dad is Welsh and he has a Welsh name, which was reason enough for the teacher to make jokes about 'the valleys'. The same teacher once lost his temper with another pupil, quite unreasonably - the pupil was just insisting on an explanation of something inconsistent in the timetable - and grabbed him by the hair. These were not under-funded inner-city schools; these were respectable private schools.

And the teachers weren't fired for any of this. Try it nowadays and the regulatory services would be on you like a bat on a mosquito, but they were part of a passing generation where the pupils could be pushed around with impunity and discipline was pretty much whatever the teacher could enforce.

If you think of Harry Potter's school in that context, it makes a lot more sense. I always thought it was a good detail in the movies, for instance, that Snape occasionally hits the pupils - not hard, but an irritated swat across the back of the head for giggling or talking in class. I think that considering Hogwarts by modern standards is a bit off contextually; it makes a lot more sense to picture it as a seventies-ish era public school. (It's also a useful piece of context if you consider the relationship between Snape and James Potter and Whathisname Black. Picture the latter as boys whose family have been going to public schools for generations and Snape as an impoverished scholarship boy and it makes a lot of sense.)

Elzi said...

"When Huckleberry Finn thought god wanted him to turn in his friend Jim, Huckleberry declared "All right, then, I'll go to hell." He was willing to forfeit salvation and burn for eternity rather than give up his friend to a life of slavery. And yet here, when Aslan orders his followers to let a young girl dangle helplessly over the jaws of a giant wolf, all we hear is "All right, then, I'll go make popcorn.""


So Aslan's followers are basically the Tribulation Force?

Kish said...

Wait! What? Why did it work more than once for Lucy and Edmund then? And are we really supposed to believe that Lucy stumbled into it twice before going in with her siblings and somehow wasn't looking for it at all the second time either.

If I recall correctly, the second time she went into the wardrobe, Lewis went into detail about how, with the way the other three had acted like she was being ridiculous, she no longer really believed there was anything in the wardrobe herself, and I immediately thought, "Oh, I get it, it only works if you're not expecting it, so the four of them just found a wardrobe when Lucy knew what was there and the other three were prepared to believe Lucy, the portal is there when Lucy's been convinced it's not there and Edmund's just going to tease her, and they can all four stumble through it later."

Ana Mardoll said...

Which brings up the point that if they'd been able to get in the first time, Edmund wouldn't have met the Witch, the siblings needn't have argued, and Aslan wouldn't have had to die...

In fairness to Snape fans, I think ALL the teachers at Hogwarts are abusive and/or incompetent and should be sacked. Except maybe McGonagall, but we never really see her DO much until the last movie...

Ana Mardoll said...

What... is the purpose... of a RUBBER DUCK?

This confused me, too. I mean, a lot of them live in the Muggle world, right? They go to the train station in order to get to Hogwarts, after all. It shouldn't be THAT hard to pick up on things. o.O

chris the cynic said...

A major plot point in the first book is that wizards are abject failures when it comes to basic reasoning. As I recall, the only reason that the logic problem was considered a challenge on the level of a giant three headed dog was, according Hermione, basically that wizards are idiots. (She didn't say it that way, though.) Sure they can do amazing things, but ask them to apply their brains in even the smallest rational way and they'll fail.

Observing the world around you and making reasonable inferences is applying your brain in a rational way. That is something that is inexplicably beyond the realm of wizard thought. Even more inexplicable because the spells operate in predictable ways that could be better understood via the use of logic. You'd think that critical thinking skills would be the first thing you'd teach an aspiring magic person.

-

By the way, sticking with one term because, as Will has pointed out elsewhere, neither witch nor wizard is a gendered term. Hermione is pretty clearly a wizard. Harry is most definitely a witch if the girls of Hogwarts are. Witch, it seems to me, is saddled with more negative connotations (it wasn't the Salem Wizard Trials, after all) but I'm not sure if that's just because I've missed the negative things wrt wizards.

Ana Mardoll said...

In most Wiccan communities I've participated in, it's standard practice to refer to male practitioners as "witch" until/unless they indicate a preference otherwise. Both "witch" and "wizard" are technically gender-neutral, and fwiw, not everyone in the Wiccan/pagan/witchcraft communities were super thrilled with how Rowling used them. (Or rather, not really unhappy with how she used them, more like unhappy with how a lot of people accept her usage as 'fact' now.)

Quick breakdown, albeit not in a scholarly venue: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110416083441AAMLZel

'Wizard' tends to imply a higher level of ceremony than most magic users work.

depizan said...

If I recall correctly, the second time she went into the wardrobe, Lewis went into detail about how, with the way the other three had acted like she was being ridiculous, she no longer really believed there was anything in the wardrobe herself

"She did not mean to hide in the wardrobe, because she knew that would only set the others talking again about the whole wretched business. But she did want to have one more look inside it; for by this time she was beginning to wonder herself whether Narnia and the Faun had not been a dream."

Now there might be more that Ana didn't quote, but that sounds very much like Lucy wanted to find out whether or not it was there, not that she no longer expected it. (Unless some doubt is sufficient?) Also, Lucy and Edmund both were aware Narnia could be there when all four kids hid in it from the tour group (and the Professor had told the older kids it was possible). They weren't looking for it, though. (It's really Lucy's second visit that seems to not fit what the Professor says later.)

hapax said...

I know that we've moved on to the vastly more interesting topic of Harry Potter, but it occurred to me last night whilst grating oranges how to make this whole presentation of Aslan make sense.

Aslan isn't an incarnation of the Logos, or any deity of a religion practiced on Earth. Rather, his appearance and behavior is perfectly consistent with a King-God of authority, order, rationality, patriarchy, law; a golden god of light and magnificence; a solar god who dies at night and midwinter to be reborn in the dawn and the spring.

A God whose over-reach, arrogance, and cruelty condemned him to an endless series of incarnation, death, and re-incarnation, serving a Creation he despised, until he at last learned the value of moderation, humility, and compassion (and obviously has a ways to go still).

Lewis isn't telling a Christian parable at all. He's serving as a priest of Bright Itempas.

depizan said...

However, there's a constant influx of Muggle-borns, who seem perfectly fine with the fact that their new society treats the all of the people they knew before Hogwarts with a combination of paternalism, distrust, and staggering willful ignorance.

When you add in the fact that the Wizarding World seems to be dependent on the Muggle world, this reaches truly mind blowing levels of improbability. There's a strong implication in the Ministry scene in Deathly Hallows that there aren't wizarding equivalents to greengrocers and the like - and we never see or hear about wizard farmers or construction people or the like, though one might assume that squibs do that sort of work for the Wizarding World. Or, alternatively, somehow house elves are able to buy stuff (where was Kreacher getting food for the trio when they were staying in Grimaud Place) from Muggle stores. Which raises all kinds of unanswered questions.

Some people have theorized that magic use actually causes brain damage - which might explain both their inability to reason and their questionable (or just plain non-existent) morality. I mean, Kit can explain Hogwarts as being like public schools of a few decades back, but I'm pretty sure she's not suggesting it's common for British people to toss their kids out windows, or any of the other non-school-related weirdness we see in the Wizarding World.

Kit Whitfield said...

I'm pretty sure she's not suggesting it's common for British people to toss their kids out windows

New-fangled nonsense; it never did me any harm. :-p

Thomas Keyton said...

The point I was trying to make with citing Neville's history of abuse is that I think it's unfair to pick on Snape in particular as terribly abusive. None of the Gryffindors Neville mentions these incidents to react with any horror (either that or Harry's really unobservant) and coupled with all the physical violence that seems to happen in Hogwarts as a matter of course, not to mention the magic-ableism running through British wizarding society as a whole, and all the speciesism that the text bizarrely seems to support at times, Snape's teaching methods don't stand out in comparison to all the rest of the nightmarish bits. They're (obviously) still bad, but fit in perfectly with the rest of it.

And about Snape somehow overcoming all of Neville's trauma, YMMV but I think there's a convincing reading that Snape is the face Neville puts on his fear of being an inadequate wizard, which as we know has led to his being put in mortal danger, so again: Snape. Not quite as bad as he looks.

* Harry himself, who recognises what was done to him as wrong, doesn't think this is particularly bad, which is very alarming for our hero.

Thomas Keyton said...

They put a whole lot of effort into mind-whammying Muggles into forgetting or not finding out about magic, and virtually no effort into actually learning about the population in which they are embedded*.

In addition, we know from that poor holiday site operator at the Quidditch World Cup that too many Memory Charms give at least short term brain damage. The text treats this as amusing, of course.

Kit Whitfield said...

Snape's teaching methods don't stand out in comparison to all the rest of the nightmarish bits. They're (obviously) still bad, but fit in perfectly with the rest of it.

Plus, of course, Harry's aunt and uncle make him sleep in a cupboard. This is a children's book, and hence has a tendency to exaggerate stuff. Among other things, Rowling is a literary successor to Roald Dahl.

Ana Mardoll said...

The first war with Voldemort should have shaken this society to its roots, and if nothing else, should have put an end to the House system at Hogwarts--yes, this is a pet peeve of mine. But in reality, it has done very little. You'd think they'd at least have a monument somewhere at Hogwarts to old pupils who died fighting, or something, but essentially, in their minds, they can't see Voldemort any more, so the ugliness he revealed about their society is also invisible.

Whoa, that's really deep. Interesting social commentary, even if Rowling may not have meant it to be taken that way. I like it!

Randomosity said...

Makabit: That's a very good point. Maybe Voldemort wanted to kill the Muggle in himself or prove he's as good as a pureblood by going over the top in his Muggle-phobia. The non-privileged glossing over the part which makes that person non-privileged. Ingratiating yourself with the in-group is universal.

There are a lot of real world examples of this and it's not just racism, it's sexim, and any -ism you could care to name. I can't think of any examples of an -ism that doesn't have people oppressing their own.

Thomas Keyton said...

And I see now that other people said what I meant but more clearly.

Thomas Keyton said...

To be fair, Snape is right there, and teaches the class Neville is worst at. (He does explicitly say that he doesn't want the Boggart to turn into his grandmother, so she is there as a potential face). But yes, that's why I said "not quite as bad". Snape is still the worst possible teacher Neville could have had in his weakest subject - I don't think there's anyone who denies that.

depizan said...

The fact that it's a society that's desperately screwed up in some ways is not necessarily a flaw in the world-building.

Indeed not. But there are times and places where I really wish she'd addressed it a little more. I was left with the feeling that she both tried to make a realistically flawed world and a world that was better than ours (because magic is cool!). There's just this odd mix of idealism and realism (? cynicism?) in the stories that makes them come out... odd (to me, anyway). Is the central conflict Good vs. Evil, Neutral vs. Evil or Slightly Evil vs. Really Evil? I could make cases for all of the above, depending on what examples I picked from the books. (And, if I were sure Rowling meant it to come off that way, I'm not sure I'd see that as a bad thing. But I get this sense that she thought she was writing Good vs. Evil, or at least good vs. Evil.)

Are we supposed to think about how the Wizarding World treats the Muggle world? Are we supposed to think about how non-human sapient beings are treated? (I get the feeling we're supposed to see SPEW as nothing but a joke, but it's a case of strawman has a point*.) What about the inherent problem of house elves? What about the fact that our heroes start using Unforgivable Curses? Were we supposed to notice, or is this protagonist centered morality? What about the fact that nothing seems to have changed in the epilogue? (Which seemed better in the movie, now that I think about it. I'll have to compare the two sometime.)

I will say this: they are a great series of stories to talk about and discuss!


*Not linking to TVtropes. That place will eat your life!

Thomas Keyton said...

WHen we were watching the next-to-last movie, in the scene where the Death Eaters are gathered, and Voldemort is torturing the woman who taught Muggle studies at Hogwarts and going on about how she wants the wizards to breed with Muggles, my husband turned to me and said, "Wait, isn't Snape mixed?"

The amusing thing about this is that in PS, Hagrid's exposition includes "Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get [James and Lily] on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore..." which from a Doylist perspective implies that JKR hadn't thought of the pureblood supremacy aspect yet but from a Watsonian perspective implies that either Voldemort was keeping rather quiet in public about this sort of thing or that no one actually ever told Hagrid why the war started.

Thomas Keyton said...

To be fair, Snape is right there, and teaches the class Neville is worst at.

Also on reflection there's the fact that Snape's hostility comes right after he's finally proven himself a wizard and has escaped the mortal endangerment. Again,, not quite as bad.

I don't know why I have such an investment in defending him, I really don't. Disgust at the protagonist and a love-hate relationship with the books doesn't seem enough.

Will Wildman said...

(I get the feeling we're supposed to see SPEW as nothing but a joke, but it's a case of strawman has a point*.)

I can't find sources off-hand, but I think that's intentional - Rowling has talked about institutional racism/classism, and was aiming to (quickly) depict a lot of the intricacies: people who are mostly good (pick your favourite Hogwarts teacher) are complicit, people who are actually being oppressed are also conditioned to not upset the status quo (Winky), and people who honestly want to do the right thing don't necessarily have the wisdom to take the right approach. SPEW is the creation of a high-schooler who has apparently Just Discovered Activism; it is completely morally right while also being completely inadequate for engaging a problem that is ingrained in an entire culture.

While I kind of loved that the first weeks after the end of the series were full of fans asking Rowling what happened to their favourite characters and getting the answers right from her mouth, I also really wish that more of that information had been included in the books proper. Rowling's spoken canon is that post-school, Hermione goes into wizard law and kickstarts a huge reform in the legal status of magical creatures.

Randomosity said...

Rowling's spoken canon is that post-school, Hermione goes into wizard law and kickstarts a huge reform in the legal status of magical creatures.

I want to read that series.

Ursula L said...

A major plot point in the first book is that wizards are abject failures when it comes to basic reasoning. As I recall, the only reason that the logic problem was considered a challenge on the level of a giant three headed dog was, according Hermione, basically that wizards are idiots. (She didn't say it that way, though.) Sure they can do amazing things, but ask them to apply their brains in even the smallest rational way and they'll fail.

Part of it seems to be that wizarding education is really lacking. It's not only that Dumbledore is running Hogwarts for his own political ends, rather than focusing on its quality as a school.

There don't seem to be any wizarding primary/elementary schools. And given the massive ignorance of the Muggle world, plus the demand for secrecy about magic combined with children having little control of their magical powers, I don't think that wizarding children are attending Muggle schools.

So you've got kids coming in to Hogwarts that have been, at best, home schooled, and at worst, left uneducated. There are probably quite a few who struggle with basic things like reading, writing and arithmetic. And Hogwarts doesn't seem to provide any remedial education in those subjects.

You then have the kids attending Hogwarts for up to seven years, although dropping out seems to be common and not looked down on. The Weasely twins, Hermione, Harry, and Draco all dropped out, and possibly others as well, given the reaction to Dumbledore's murder at the school and the events around the Chamber of Secrets, when parents pulled their children from school.

After those seven years, there is no other education available, except perhaps apprenticeships. And the teachers at Hogwarts have no education beyond what Hogwarts itself offers and what they manage to pick up on their own. None of the education at Hogwarts seems to be about magical theory, the scientific method, or anything else that would help wizards learn to understand how magic works. It's pretty much rote learning.

A few prodigies, like the young Dumbledore, might explore such things on their own, via correspondence with the few other wizards interested in such matters.

Overall, wizarding society seems to be not just isolated, but too small to really maintain a sophisticated knowledge base. An occasional genius comes along now and then, making new discoveries, but they're unlikely to be able to teach what they discover to many people, and knowledge is probably lost and regularly as it is discovered. Look at the way that Voldemort had to track down individual wandmakers when he had questions - there was no established way that this essential skill was recorded and shared.

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

>>>Plus, you know, Aslan has at this point specifically ORDERED everyone to >>>not help her.

Did Susan know that? Anyway there is another reason The wolf had to go after girls first: If Susan was not in danger but just stood around while Peter battled the wolf, it'd be a lot harder to convince her NOT to take her bow and turn a wolf into arrow hedgehog than it took with Animals - or she would come as total jerkass. This adds to my theory that wolf going specifically after her was orchestrated somehow.
This by the way adds into a disturbingly large number of stories where the authors conspire to not let the strong girls save themselves. Whenever a strong (and not a faux version) female that is not the heroine is portrayed as targeted, there always seem contrived circusmstances preventing her from solving the problem on her own. Now a male would not be able to help himself in such circusmstances either, but thhose always never happen to men. So while not demoting the females to Faux Action Girl status, this is still annoying.
By the way, I remember that in your rewiev of the "Lemony Snicket" Film, you wrote that Hollywood doesn't subject its female heroes to nox-sexual violence, which is bad. Well, Lewis DID subject its female heroes to nox-sexual violence (No sexual vibe from wolf, or is there something?). Is it also bad?

Izzy said...

They gave you a curious feeling when you looked at them.

Hm. I see the point of objecting to this line, but I have used similar constructions before: mostly when I'm writing in tight third-person from a modern character's point of view. Post-twentieth Americans don't really think or talk about what "one" does or "people" do, so No Proper Lady ended up with a lot of sentences like "The things out there didn't let you scream, anyhow."

I also have "Peter and the Wolf" stuck in my head now. So thanks for that. ;)

On Harry Potter: I agree with Kit's comment about Dahl. Part of the problem, I think, is that the earlier HP books had almost a cartoon feeling, at least where injury was concerned. People got hit with frying pans and dropped out of windows, but it was like Wiley E. Coyote catching an anvil to the head-- comically raised bumps, but no serious injury. And then the later books got more serious and darker in tone, which made the established attitudes toward physical danger very...disjointed.

Ana Mardoll said...

Sailorsaturumon132000.....

I really don't know what to say to you. I don't. You've bounced all over this thread with reasons to be upset with Susan. Reasons that make no gorram sense unless you basically have never lived on this earth. You got on her case for going up a tree instead of running away like Lucy, as if the one flight response was somehow less sensible than the other. You got on her case for not asking someone to hand her the bow, which makes zero sense because in order to hand her the bow, that someone would have to get within jaw-distance of a giant, enraged wolf. Now you're getting on her in advance for saying that she would be a bad person for not shooting the wolf while it's in combat with Peter which blatantly ignores the fact that there's a reason why archers don't shoot into duels.

I mean, seriously? You're taking the opportunity to register upsetedness with a girl for hypothetically not shooting at a target within arm's reach of her brother? In what world does that make any sense? I'm asking.

And this Lemony Snicket question... where do I start? The only way your question makes ANY sense is if you've ignored or deliberately misinterpreted everything I said in both this post and that one. And you also have to have ignored everything I've said about the SoUE as a whole.

Misogynists usually defend themselves from the term by playing word games: "I can't be a misogynist because I don't HATE women." But in your case, I can't help but think that maybe you do actually hate women, because it's the only way I can reconcile your posts with any world-view that makes sense. You bend over backwards to blame Susan for pretty much everything in this chapter, and you can't speak to me without ignoring everything I say, which is -- I beg pardon for saying so -- very disrespectful.

I've wrestled with this comment for awhile now, but I've decided that I genuinely don't have the spoons to deal with you further in this thread, I'm sorry.

Rimagen said...

I’ve seen that spelling too, but it usually has extra punctuation: r with a dot under it is supposed to stand for a sound intermediate between English ri and English er, whereas s with a dot beneath it sounds like English sh. (This is according to my copy of Hindu Myths by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty.)

Nick the Australian said...

There's nothing in this scene -- or, really, in the rest of the book -- that really emphasizes that Aslan cares about Edmund and is dying on his behalf out of love for him. Sure, Aslan does die for Edmund, but it's just as reasonable within the framework of the text to assume that Aslan is doing so because otherwise the four-children-four-thrones prophecy wouldn't be able to come true.

I'm pretty sure this is actually how I read it when I first read this book: that Aslan was only helping Edmund for the good of Narnia, rather than out of any compassion to Edmund himself. Of course, I hadn't made the Aslan-is-Jesus connection at the time.

Rakka said...

And now I'm itching for a deconstruction of Harry Potter... bad brain, bad.

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

I sense a lack of humor, together with seeing enemies where there are none. OF COURSE, that remark about
SoUE film was largely meant as joke. I do uderstand that what you meant as good was confronting girls with danger and letting them master it, not becoming damsels. And creating contrived circumstances for the (non-faux) Action Girl to be unable to defend herself not one time, but each time the danger comes up is especially bad writing - I DID wrote in the earlier post that I am extremely annoyed at such things. But this problem is with Lewis, not with Susan.
For the record, Susan always was the most likable character to me, ever since I read LWW as a litttle child. Then I had to return the book, searched for it for years, found all 7 Narnia stories in a single book - and learned the hard way why Sequelitis is bad. You could deduce that I like Susan from the fact that I brought up The Gaiman story "The problem of Susan", btw. I liked Susan precisely because she thought things over rationally, and didn't rush She also behaved like a typical 12-years-old would in such situation. I CERTAINLY DO NOT BLAME HER for such behavior - she behaves completely normal.
The trouble is, if you behave this way in fantasy, you end up a Damsel in Distress-at best. You must be as fearless as Darling children, or even better (Arya Stark level), to compete with first-line characters, since those get such treatment all the time. Realistically a 13-years old boy had no chance to lift such a sword and penetrate such a big wolf - but Peter did. And later Edmund also will become instant expert with sword and even play a crucial role - again far above what a small child should be able to do. It is a sole guilt of the author that Susan is never put in circumstances where she can prove herself capable, and you would know that if you had read my last post carefully. This applies both to the fact that she didn't have her bow handy and that nobody would give it to her (there shouldn't be even need to ask: "Hey Daughter of Eve, catch!" - shouted a flying eagle" was in order). Same thing for not shooting into a duel - Legolas would. By the way in real world, no beast would be that stupid - the wold would just wait for an opening which Peter would definitely give when he moved in, sword swinging, to attack the wolf. Therefore in when dealing with such situation in real life, the swordsman should only keep the beast at bay, away from the archer and the archer should be there - and shoot. And I DID concede the point that climbing was sensible, but Lewis specifically writes the situation so that Susan is chance-less to defend herself.
The point in LWW is precisely that I wished Susan could prove herself in battle, but the author did everything to deny such a chance, and this is sad. Susan behaves normally, but the author fails completely by not letting her win at least sometimes, like Peter, Edmund and Caspian do. To quote Gaiman, "Susan, ... who might have been the most interesting character in the whole cycle if she'd been allowed to, is a Cinderella in a story where the Ugly Sisters win. " This was particularly jarring for me since I DID read a couple of stories with victorious Action Girls by the time I read LWW - and here is great story and both girls are not allowed to do anything battle-wise!

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

Regarding the Snicket film: the point is that violence against girls quickly becomes a major turnoff if done wrong (like in LWW), so many Hollywood writers will back away from it in anything, even in filming a source material where it was done mostly right. Better have the girl not being in direct danger at all. It's a pity, but the film needs bigger auditory than a book to recoup its costs, so corners had to be cut. Had they included the scene and done it wrong, you would dislike the film even more.
And just for record: I try my hardest NOT to argue in bad faith. However on some issues, I have conflicting opinions (like "Susan should be stronger" - " Susan is good model as she is - rational and yet ladylike".) In this case, I always play Commander Contrarian and bring on the most dissenting opinion, since I believe that dissent promotes discussion. The comparison with SouE is such a moment - I did understand that the old post was not about such endangering as in LWW, I just wanted to see whether you understand the problems with "Girls in Danger" from both sides. I am sorry if this offends you so much, OK?

Will Wildman said...

I sense a lack of humor, together with seeing enemies where there are none.

I'm curious why you thought it was a great idea to open up your post with 'you are humourless and paranoid'. Like, if you'd cut this bit out, did you think you would lose a key part of your thesis? It doesn't really relate to the rest of what you've got to say, except as an opening jab that aims to put the other person on the defensive. Not the most elegant approach.

hapax said...

Will, it was a freebie to those of us playing along with our Bingo cards.

Izzy said...

In this case, I always play Commander Contrarian and bring on the most dissenting opinion, since I believe that dissent promotes discussion.

Well, for God's sake, stop.

Nobody likes Commander Contrarian/Devil's Advocate Guy. Nobody appreciates the "I am going to take an abstract academic tone and make the most obnoxious possible argument because I can" thing; no worthwhile statement has ever been preceded by "Just to play devil's advocate here...".

The devil has plenty of people to make his argument. Assuming that the listeners haven't considered the blatantly obnoxious contrary opinions is condescending and...well, again, I come back to obnoxious.

Don't do it.

Izzy said...

Also?

Learn to apologize.

I am sorry if this offends you so much, OK? : DOING IT WRONG.

Makabit said...

I've thought about that, but I'm afraid I would be killed. Also, I don't have that much time, a lot of the time.

Makabit said...

Yes, IIRC, McGonagall realizes early that the Dursleys are bad people. I meant that comment, however, as a swipe against all the Muggle neighbors and teachers and parents-of-classmates and such who never realize that Harry is a victim of abuse, or if they realize, do not act.

I suppose they could all be magicked into not realizing, or shutting up--the Dumbledore conspiracy seems to run deep--but if not, the wizarding world doesn't seem to have less to answer for than the Muggle one, as regards child abuse.

JenL said...

"I mean, seriously? You're taking the opportunity to register upsetedness with a girl for hypothetically not shooting at a target within arm's reach of her brother? In what world does that make any sense? I'm asking."

A girl who's owned the bow for a few hours, who has yet to take a practice shot with it. Even if it was common at that time and place for all children to learn archery, she's been handed a new bow and arrows - no reason to assume she's going to be able to put *the first arrow* where she wants it in a moving target.

Makabit said...

"A girl who's owned the bow for a few hours, who has yet to take a practice shot with it. Even if it was common at that time and place for all children to learn archery, she's been handed a new bow and arrows - no reason to assume she's going to be able to put *the first arrow* where she wants it in a moving target."

Well, yes, although in Narnia that seems to be a perfectly ordinary expectation--here's poor Peter, expected to kill a wolf with a sword, a weapon he's less likely to have been taught than Susan is the bow.

Ana Mardoll said...

Moderator Notice

Sailorsaturumon132000,

You've been given 2 spoons, in accordance with the moderation policy here: http://www.anamardoll.com/p/comment-policy.html

1. Unwillingness to understanding blog posts and being deliberately inflammatory are prohibited by blog policy. Calling the behavior "Devil's Advocate" when asked to stop is not an excuse.

2. Responding to other commenters with an accusation of humorlessness and paranoia is not appropriate. It's not respectful and it's not necessary. (It's additionally treading the lines of sexism and abelism.)

You now have 2 out of 3 spoons, where a 3rd spoon constitutes banning from the blog. If you would like to remain on this blog with us, please take the time to read the comment policy carefully and learn to engage the other commenters with respect. Thank you.

ZMiles said...

As I recall, didn't Harry have to stay at the Dursley's because his Protection From Scrying in the muggle world would only work so long as he lived there?

Of course, this doesn't mitigate Dumbledore (and everyone else) doing nothing to check the Dursley's abuse of him, and only Dumbledore knew about the reason (so the others had even less of a reason to not want to interfere), but I thought there was a reason why he wasn't put anywhere else.

Ana Mardoll said...

Well, yes, although in Narnia that seems to be a perfectly ordinary expectation--here's poor Peter, expected to kill a wolf with a sword, a weapon he's less likely to have been taught than Susan is the bow.

The scene is confusing, but I *think* it says that the Wolf pauses to howl, and Peter stabs it then.

That stroke never reached the Wolf. Quick as lightning it turned round, its eyes flaming, and its mouth wide open in a howl of anger. If it had not been so angry that it simply had to howl it would have got him by the throat at once. As it was -- though all this happened too quickly for Peter to think at all -- he had just time to duck down and plunge his sword, as hard as he could, between the brute's forelegs into its heart.

So, yeah, definitely Peter is showing skill by being able to pick up and move a very heavy sword (assuming it's not weighted for a child, which considering that he carries it as an adult, I assume it isn't), but it's slightly different from being able to aim and fire a bow.... at a target less than a foot away from your brother.

But, yeah, if we're assuming the weapons are magical, then we could go far with that... Does Lucy's dagger show magical properties later in the series? I can't recall.

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

Exactly, and herein lies the double standard: OF COURSE, everything I suggested for Susan to do is unrealistic, and would not be expected in real life. But what Peter did is even LESS realistic (believe somebody who as child had both a toy bow and a toy sword), and yet he does it, and this is expected from him.
Basically characters starting their fantasy adventure can perform in two ways:
- like they would realistically perform in such circumstances (rather poor)
- or like they are expected to perform to be the story's heroes (rather favorable).
Both standards have their justifications, and both can provide for good story.
But Lewis piles the standard against each other, and applies the realistic(=poor) standard to girls - Susan and Lucy behave like little girls realistically would - and heroic (=favorable) standard for boys - Peter (and later, Edmund) perform like expected from heroes ( Edmund fights his way to the witch , despite having just as little sword training as Peter) - and nobody expects any less from them. It should be again pointed out that learning sword fighting is WAY harder then learning to use a pike, an ax, or a bow. There was a reason why only nobles used swords in battle. And it is this combination that gives the moral "boys are better at fighting than girls; boys should fight (since they always can) and girls should flee (since they understandingly cannot fight)" - the main Narnia double-standard.
So yes, what I wanted from Susan is not realistic - but in a world where a 13-year old boy slay a Wolf bigger than him with a sword he uses for first time, it is.


Another issue regarding Hogwarts: Rowling admitted in interview that she based it on her experience in the seventies. But I also think she based it on historical records of how school was as well. Think about "Nicholas Nickleby", Or "The little princess" or similar. Those really didn't care about students, and most teachers were like Snape, or at least like Mc Gonagall. As for the injuries, wizards are more resilient to them. Intuitive magic protects them (remember how Neville used his powers for the first time), and any physical injury not instantly fatal can be easily cured by a competent healer, so they do have casual attitude towards them - they don't have to put half the Quiddich Team on crutches after rough games. But then magical injuries start coming in, nastier ones, very unlikely to occur spontaneously, very painful, and protected against magical healing, and THEN things get ugly.

JenL said...

As I recall, didn't Harry have to stay at the Dursley's because his Protection From Scrying in the muggle world would only work so long as he lived there?

Of course, this doesn't mitigate Dumbledore (and everyone else) doing nothing to check the Dursley's abuse of him, and only Dumbledore knew about the reason (so the others had even less of a reason to not want to interfere), but I thought there was a reason why he wasn't put anywhere else.


There's some sort of protection that comes from being in your home, while you're a child. But I think that until he went to Hogwarts, the bigger protection for Harry was simply that no witch or wizard would think to look for him being raised as a Muggle. And given how kids are treated in the wizarding world, if anyone *did* know how little Harry was treated, the outrage would be not "how could you treat a *child* this way" but "how could you treat *He Who Lived* this way".

Well, yes, although in Narnia that seems to be a perfectly ordinary expectation--here's poor Peter, expected to kill a wolf with a sword, a weapon he's less likely to have been taught than Susan is the bow. True, and if Peter swung absolutely wrong or if Susan fell, he could even hit her. But he isn't being asked to aim a weapon *at* Susan, the way Susan would be aiming *at* Peter-fighting-the-Wolf. Unless the thought was that Susan could have identified an incoming threat, grabbed the bow, (strung the bow?) noched(?) an arrow, pulled, aimed, and killed the Wolf before he could have gotten to her and taken her throat out in his first rush. Because that strikes me as a very "only in Hollywood pictures" shot.

Ana Mardoll said...

Well, I think we can all agree that Katniss could do it. :D

*mandatory Hunger Games reference for all bow-and-arrow discussions*

JenL said...

Well, I think we can all agree that Katniss could do it. :D

(Do I need a spoiler warning for Hunger Games? If so, apologies.)

Even Katniss missed a shot with a bow she'd never used before!

chris the cynic said...

Having sufficient training in both to realize how Very Very Bad I am at wielding them, I would posit that it would be far more effective for an untrained person to forget the bow completely, and to try to stab at an attacker with the point of the arrow.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Rikalous said...

I think that Dumbledore leaving Harry with the Dursleys was, besides being necessary for the Deep Magic protection of Lilly's sacrifice, an example of Dumbledore being very optimistic about other people's morality. As Hagrid mentions once, Dumbledore's big on giving second chances to people. The Mauraders were all hooligans to some degree at Hogwarts and Lupin's a werewolf to boot, Hagrid's a half-giant who raises illegal dragons in a small wooden house, Moody's violently paranoid, Mundungus Fletcher is a career criminal, and Snape is Snape. So giving people the benefit of the doubt has worked out well for him,* and he really did think that leaving a note would make the Dursleys play nice. Mind you, Ms. Figg knew enough about the way the Dursleys treated Harry to make sure not to be too nice, so it still wasn't one of Albus's better decisions.

Out of curiosity, chris, what was the continuity error that you caught?

*Well, Grindlewald didn't go so well, but now that I think about it, part of the reason Dumbledore's like this is probably that he keeps going "Dung's a crook, but he wasn't instrumental in the original magic Hitler developing his philosophy so he's got one up on me," in the back of his head.

Steve Morrison said...

I’m willing to bet it was the order in which Harry’s parents appeared at the end of GoF; am I right?

Kit Whitfield said...

I always play Commander Contrarian and bring on the most dissenting opinion, since I believe that dissent promotes discussion.

Commander Contrarian? What on earth makes you think you're a ranking officer here?

What makes you think it's your place to decide how best to 'promote discussion'?

This is not your blog. It's Ana's. She's perfectly capable of promoting discussion with her own talent, intelligence and hard work, and everybody else is perfectly capable of having a discussion without a self-appointed jackass. We don't need you to stir, we don't need you to manipulate the conversation into the aggressive tone you've decided it should have, we don't need you shoving in dissent for dissent's sake.

This is not your blog. You want a dissent-based discussion forum, put in the work and go create your own blog and see if anybody wants to follow it. You do not get to cruise in here and decide how the rest of us should converse.

You are not promoting discussion of the kind that the majority of people enjoy here. The majority of people here enjoy respectful discussion, and you are destroying that.

This is a game where Commander Contrarian is not one of the available pieces. Pick the hat or the iron or something else, or go play some other game on some other blog if you can find people willing to play with you.

Izzy said...

Yep.

Truth that should be universally acknowledged:

People who say they voice obnoxious opinions because "dissent promotes discussion" really mean "because dissenting promotes people paying attention to me."

Randomosity said...

You said it! That is one of my biggest peeves of commenters. "Taking the Devil's Advocate" position just to "foster debate" is so tiresome a cliche and so earnestly argued every time that I'm not fooled for one minute.

But back to Narnia and weapons. Every year at our local Renaissance Festival, I like to go to the archery booth and shoot arrows. I'm not good at it, but for a once a year fun thing to do, I'm not horrendously bad.

Firing into melee is a bad thing to do, especially if you're untrained. You'll almost certainly miss and hit an ally instead. Swinging a sword untrained, might be easier but you're right there and missing has higher consequences. I've done the fencing, too, I'm only slightly better at that and that's because friends and I have padded weapons we made and we'll take them along on picnics and camping trips. The kids love it.

Brin Bellway said...

Kit: Pick the hat or the iron or something else

Can I have the puppy? I like the puppy. It can stand on its head.

Randomosity: Firing into melee is a bad thing to do, especially if you're untrained. You'll almost certainly miss and hit an ally instead.

I remember doing archery at camp and being excited every time I got it anywhere on the target. The target was probably bigger than the distance between the Wolf and Peter, and about half the time I couldn't even manage that.

chris the cynic said...

Yes. You are right. I was reading through the book at a decent clip and then I smashed into that bit like a brick wall. It was extremely jarring.

I didn't see that Rowling attributed it to sleep deprivation before, that's something I understand. When you're tired enough even the most basic things can be forgotten or become extremely difficult, so in that case it makes sense that something that's common sense when you're awake (take the few seconds needed to double check) might not happen.

hapax said...

Can I have the puppy? I like the puppy. It can stand on its head.

I always took the puppy and put it in the wheelbarrow. Or, if my brother took the wheelbarrow, put the hat on the puppy.

SO CYUUT!

(This is a *really* pointless digression, isn't it? Shall we return to the business of Stabbing Things?)

Honestly, I've always thought the best weapon for the untrained is a mace. Or, I have a nice Louisville Slugger in the coat closet.

Oh, and for whoever asked about Lucy's dagger - it is never ever mentioned again in the entire series. Nor is Susan's bow (the one that will "not easily miss".) This irritated me no end every time I re-read the scene in the treasure room in Prince Caspian.

Rikalous said...

So she just uses some random bow in her archery contest with the dwarf next book? I guess the ability to not easily miss was in her the whole time.

Also, a Mr. Chekhov would like a word with Mr. Lewis.

Ana Mardoll said...

Ha, I'd forgotten that Katniss misses. The reason being, iirc, that she's not used to having a GOOD bow? And she's over-correcting because she's used to a crappy one? Nice detail, that. :)

JenL said...

Ha, I'd forgotten that Katniss misses. The reason being, iirc, that she's not used to having a GOOD bow? And she's over-correcting because she's used to a crappy one? Nice detail, that. :)

Exactly. She was dead accurate with the bow she was used to, and expected to be the same with this brand-new off-the-shelf bow. Once she realized it handled differently, she adjusted quickly enough - but it took her a few shots to get it dialed in, so to speak.

Of course - where did Katniss get her arrows back home? If she was making them herself, or buying them from someone (or just using the same ones over and over and over, repaired as needed), seems like having brand-new manufactured arrows would be a big issue, too.

Given that I just read Hunger Games for the first time this last weekend, the details are reasonably fresh.... ;-)

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

>>>Firing into melee is a bad thing to do, especially if you're untrained. You'll almost certainly miss and hit an ally instead. Swinging a sword untrained, might be easier...
Swinging a sword is not necessaryly easier. It really depends on person. First time I tried to do it (and it was aplastic one, but heavy, just like the real one), it flew out of my hand, which would be fatal for Peter. On the other hand the first time I used a bow, I hit a 50-cm target at about 15 meters, which would be enough precision here. And since Susan was given the bow, I'd say she does have some proficiency for shooting. But all this is ultimately pointless - Susan was not given a chance to use a bow, period.
By the way, the movie does make it easier a bit: Peter doesn't really swing the sword - he tips it towards the Wolf, and when the Wolf jumps on him, he firmly holds the sword and the Wolf basically impales himself - this way it really could work.

Izzy said...

So...do you want to address any of the complaints made about your earlier posts, or would you rather try and distract us with the fact that you're So Cool because you've ZOMG USED REAL WEAPONS?

Kit Whitfield said...

At the moment, Sailorsaturumon, I'm really not interested in hearing you say anything other than 'I'm sorry I was such a jerk; I shall try to be a better person in future.'

Do you get this? You do not get to control how the conversation goes. It is not your place to 'promote' the kind of discussions you've decided we should have. Neither can you decide that you can just ignore everything you've done and everyone has said about it, change to a subject you'd rather discuss, and have everyone go along with it.

This is not your blog. Everyone but Ana is here by mutual consent and depends on goodwill. You cannot wave your hand and have the conversation go the way you want no matter what anyone else thinks or feels.

If you show no respect to anyone else, no one is going to respect you. Which means nobody is interested in what you have to say, because you do not come across as someone whose thoughts are worth hearing.

If you don't play nice, nobody will want to play with you.

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

Question to mod: should I engage in discussion about my behavior, or is this pure Narnia thread and such discussion would be off-top?

Brin Bellway said...

or is this pure Narnia thread and such discussion would be off-top?

While I'm not a mod, we have 200 comments, and our topic is barely-to-not recognisable as related to the OP at this point.

Ana Mardoll said...

Thank you for asking. If you can engage the others respectfully, you may do so. I highly encourage you to read the comments policy beforehand, if you have not already.

Marc Mielke said...

Isn't that Lannister?

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

Ok. Kit, Izzy, I honestly cannot understand why my previous posts were met with such an anger. I came to this blog precisely because of Narnia deconstruction, since I felt that Lewis botched the girls' charachters, especially Susan, and enjoyed the deconstruction very much. In most positions, I agreed with Ana, and I even tried to bring in further sources agreeing, namely Gaiman. I don't try promote dissent for the sake of dissent, let alone to be important - I genuinely want to contribute. If I agree with the author in some point, I don't bring that point, period. Usually I simply comment on nitpicks, so the picture would be clearer for everyone. Or I bring points that I consider weak so they can be considered - typically the doubts will be dispelled, but sometimes the reaction could be "right, didn't thought about that" - this can be VERY important in some fields, though I admit not necessary in this blog. I don't want to make things harder for everyone by pointing what I perceive a wrong statement - I want to make the arguments bulletproof. If I had no arguments I (at that moment, beforre rebuking) considered valid , I wouldn't bring thing I knew were wrong (except sometimes for fun like that SouE issue, see below). In the issue of this scene, I diisagreed. I believed that rather than not endangering the girls, Lewis should put them in danger - and have tham master it at least partially, to prove themselves (Susan won't get this moment, ever,by the way. That's why I liked ASOFAI - Arya and Sansa DO master dangers) So I started a brainstorming about how this could be done. I didn't want to offend anyone, or come out like I hated Susan for not doing anything, it's just that I DID have a bunch of ideas what Lewis could let her do, and for me it was hard to see where they go wrong by myself (this thing with possibly hitting an ally, for example? completely forgotten). When my ideas were shot down, I did not bring them again (rebuked is rebuked), and yes, I did appreciate that discussion. And just for fun, I brought in the earlier post about SouE which had a different context,, but which , among others, did contain a SEEMINGLY different conclusion. I thought of it as a (somewhat jokingly) Thesis-Antithesis thing : "Girls should not be sheltered from danger, or they cannot proive themselves" - "Girls should not be endangered just so OTHER charachters can prove themselves", and I hoped everybody would recognise that my contradiction claim was a joke.
And then I was called a jerk, a woman-hater, and "ignorer of women suffering"., which confused me. If my constant suggesting of things Susan could do (and didn't because LEWIS couldn't stand a ladylike girl to be good fighter) offended you , I wholeheartedly apologize. I also apologize that I replied at those accusation with counter accusations. But I am not a jerk, or a woman hater. I do not control the discussion flow, but I do try to keep discussion topic-based, because that's what I am genuinely interested in, and that's why I returned to Narnia theme. And while you are no longer interested in what I have to say, I hope some other commenters are. There is certainly no point to continue offence. I am your friend, not an enemy, OK?
Regarding On-Topic complains to my arguments. Some of them I conceded, and to some I already responded in previous posts (like why I expected extraordinary from Susan), and some will follow later on.

Good night and please don't be offended with me.

Rowen said...

I know it's COMPLETELY wrong, and I'm coming to the party kinda late, but I see this and think "Hermione McBeal." Either that or "Hogsmeade Legal."

BrokenBell said...

Just a couple points from me. There's a lot more to it, but it's late, and I'm not as good at this as the people you're responding to:

1. Threads don't exist in individually-wrapped vacuums. Things you've said elsewhere will affect how people react to you here. Remarks made by someone who has demonstrated sensitivity and insight will be afforded more patience and understanding than the same remarks made by someone who has a track record of being a dismissive jerk. This isn't an unreasonable distinction to make. This is making use of experience to make an informed judgment.

2. "I'm sorry you're offended" is an insult. Pure and simple. You may as well post a picture of your raised middle finger. It's a non-apology that demonstrates a complete failure to comprehend even the simple fact that someone could reasonably have a problem with you, and pushes all fault onto the other person, who is implied to be just too sensitive to understand what you were saying.

Moreover, to flatly state that there's no point in continuing to be offended after admitting that you don't even understand why there was a problem in the first place is to show an incredible lack of self-awareness, and once again suggests that you don't especially care about what other people are trying to tell you. An idea supported by the fact that Izzy has already pointed out how worthless the "I'm sorry you're offended" line is in this very thread, and yet you're continuing to use it as if it's a real thing.

Pthalo said...

Sailor, I agree with the BrokenBell. You're likely being picked on here because of your behaviour in another thread, because people are still somewhat mad at you over that and wanting an apology for your behaviour over there.

Misogyny isn't an on-off switch. There are very few (probably zero) people who women haters and hate them all the time and in all situations. What happens more frequently is that a person, even a person who has some enlightened views towards the equality of men and women still occasionally falls into the trap of buying into some aspects of inequality. For example, a hypothetical person might believe that men and women should have equal pay for doing the same job, but might still believe that women as a whole are somewhat less rational than men. This doesn't mean the hypothetical person is 100% misogynist in all of their views, just that they have inconsistencies in some of their views, some of which are misogynistic and some of which are enlightened. You argue that you are not a misogynist. It is likely that while you do not actively and consciously hate women, you have not updated all of your beliefs to match the non-misogynistic views. You expressed some misogynistic views in another thread. The correct response is to apologise for that and update your misogynistic beliefs to match your non-misogynistic ones. People will think better of you if you are brave enough to pause to admit wrongdoing and apologise for it. Until you do that, your unapologised for behaviour is going to colour people's interpretations of everything you say. We aren't asking you never make a mistake. We're just asking you learn from your mistakes, apologise for them, and try to make less of them in the future.

I've personally found most of your actual points in this thread to be well thought out. Sure shooting into melee is not realistic, but a thirteen year old untrained boy killing a wolf with a sword isn't realistic either, neither are talking wolves or hundred year winters or the rest of the Narnia premise. So if Lewis had chosen to let Susan use her bow and that had gone unrealistically well for her, that would have been better than having her climb up a tree and almost faint.

I think people are hearing you say "Susan should've done this thing which is impossible in the real world and probably would have gone badly" and they are more inclined to that reading of your writing because of your behaviour in that other thread, whereas it's possible that your intended meaning here is more along the lines of "Lewis should have had Susan do this impossible thing instead of having her be a damsel in distress." If he had done so, if Susan had fired into melee and killed the wolf, I'm sure Aslan could've found another wolf for Peter's ritual first kill, and just like there was a discussion of whether the sword had some magical property that made Peter's first kill go better for him than it realistically ought to have, we would be discussing whether Susan's bow had some magical inerrancy property or somesuch.

People will probably respond better to you if you post something like this:

I'm sorry for my behaviour in the other thread. I shouldn't have ______. I have learned ____________ from this exchange, and I will try not to do it again. I apologise to everyone who was hurt by my statements.

Pthalo said...

(p.s. there are several correct ways and several incorrect ways of filling out the apology I wrote above. The right way acknowledges what you did specifically and shows what you learned and is written in a regretful tone. An example wrong way of filling it out would be something like "I shouldn't have assumed you were capable of rational discourse. I have learned not to make assumptions like that from this exchange."

Lonespark said...

Q.
Q would judge the smug-off, and he's well qualified.

I am quite fine with tents and feasting before The Battle at the End of the World/This Book, but Pagans just would be.

Lonespark said...

Wow, Hapax, you have articulated a thought/feeling I have long had about Why Characters Like Aslan Can't Possibly Be Jesus. Not the Jesus I grew up knowing, anyhow, and we haven't really talked in a while, and I can't see him as particularly Odin-like either, but a Cosmic King for whom the ends always justify the means, except that in the end the ends and means spell destruction for Him and His Creation...yeah, that's more like it. Also it makes the presence of centaurs, dryads, etc. slightly less jarring.

Lonespark said...

Aslan can totally be "Zeus" if he's the "Zeus" from the horrible Immortals movie I saw on Friday. There would be spoilers to explain totally why, but he makes rules just to break them and lets his favorite humans suffer pain and loss and pain and blood and on and on, and claims to answer to some higher authority though none is in evidence...

Lonespark said...

Lewis isn't telling a Christian parable at all. He's serving as a priest of Bright Itempas.

Marry me?

That really does explain why Asland is so effed up, too, since he's missing the rest of his pantheon and specifically two-thirds of The Three. But does that make Jadis a godling, or...what?

Kit Whitfield said...

@SailorS:

First: paragraph breaks are your friend and everyone else's. Your post is very hard on the eyes.

--

I honestly cannot understand why my previous posts were met with such an anger.

Which suggests in itself that you didn't read other people's comments very carefully. Everyone's objections to your behaviour were clearly stated. I don't think they could be clarified any further.

--

I don't try promote dissent for the sake of dissent

When you go around saying things like

In this case, I always play Commander Contrarian and bring on the most dissenting opinion, since I believe that dissent promotes discussion.

then you can blame no one but yourself if people read 'dissent for the sake of dissent/attention' - especially on a blog when the discussion has been going perfectly well and been filled with intelligent contributions when no contrarianism has been present. It suggests that you either can't perceive that the discussion has been going fine without you, or that you aren't honest either with us or yourself when you say you don't promote dissent just to get attention.

Most charitable interpretation: you could see an alternative viewpoint that could be considered, argued it very badly, and then got defensive when it was misinterpreted due to your poor phrasing. You are responsible for what you say on the board, and if you don't say something clearly and it gets misunderstood, your job is to clarify, not to blame others.


As to trying to keep discussion 'topic-based' - which again, is not your business to control; if Ana feels the conversation is wandering too much, she is perfectly capable of stepping in and saying so, and held in high enough regard that I find it hard to believe anyone would refuse to comply - that is a rather slippery description of how you were behaving towards others. What you were actually doing was ignoring a lot of people who said they didn't like how you were acting.

When you offend someone and then act as if nothing had happened, that's not constructive conversation. It's gaslighting. It's also an attempt to avoid the effort of taking responsibility for the bad effects your actions had and fixing things.

Generally speaking, the problem is this: you are not showing due attention to what other people are saying about your posts. If you mean something constructive and it comes across badly, the constructive response is, 'Oops, I didn't mean what you think I mean, what I actually mean is this, sorry for the bad phrasing.' If people tell you they are upset with you, the constructive response is to take that seriously, not ignore it. If people say they don't like your behaviour, the constructive response is to take it on board, not to argue that you're 'promoting discussion' as if you were the only person smart enough to know how the conversation should go. You need to show more respect for other people's intelligence, listen better, and engage thoughtfully rather than defensively.

Sailorsaturumon132000 said...

Regarding that thread, I AM sorry for rushing in without fully understanding what Ana meant by false accusations and thus completely missing the point. And let's leave it at that.
Additionally I am sorry for treating this blog as a verbal battle ground (which the forums I typically hang at are, sometimes deliberately).
By the way, for me fiction and non-fiction discussion are always strictly separated, since not all things valid in real life are valid in fiction. For example, if any girl were menaced by a wolf in real life, I'd say climbing the tree is the best shot. I am also VERY sorry for not clearly stating it in the beginning (and not understanding the problem when it was first pointed out to me). As for fiction, your post summarizes it best. (Compare, however, my post with two types of performance levels in fiction) .
As for misogyny, well, I do not claim I am 0% misogynistic. I am male and have male stereotypes, so many things I consider self-obvious are misogynistic in nature. But "women-hater" is way stronger than that: it implies I consciously consider women inferior and/or want to make them inferior. I strongly object to this interpretation of what I said about Susan and others. I will read other comments more carefully in the future. I however would ask to to do the same with my comments. My very first post in this thread was that Edmund suffers deservedly while Susan suffers undeservedly. Is this a typical post for a woman hater?

Just a point regarding the melee. Yes, if Peter and the Wolf would be close, it would be impossible to shoot. I actually envisioned the scene like in the movie where the Wolf stayed quite far from Peter before jumping. And a centaur even attempted to shoot, but was stopped. What I meant was it would be cool to have Susan in that place, with her magical bow. Ironically Jill, and even (I think) Lucy get to shoot at enemies in later books - Susan never does.
As for vital region, it is VERY hard to fight with an arrow lodged into you, even if it is not in vital regions. In this case, an arrow has an edge over bullets. But it was Lewis' decision for Susan to be caught unarmed. Anyway, I believe the whole thing was orchestrated to be a test for Peter, and only Peter, which also included making everybody else unable or unwilling to help. Whether the setup was made in-universe or just a as a narrative trope, I don't know.

Will Wildman said...

misogyny
1650s, from Gk. misogynia, from misogynes "woman-hater," from miso- + gyne "woman"


http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=misogyny&allowed_in_frame=0

Don't just say 'But I have an excuse, I'm a man!' No one needs to justify where their sexism comes from; we live in a sexist society and we have all been told sexist things at one time or another, been saturated in it to one degree or another. The relevant thing is whether your reaction to being told you've said something misogynist is more "Oh, I hadn't realised that, I will reconsider my words" or more "But I'm totally not a woman-hater!"

My very first post in this thread was that Edmund suffers deservedly while Susan suffers undeservedly. Is this a typical post for a woman hater?

You don't get cred. That's not how it works. I think it would be generally agreed that my posts would also tend not to be the type of thing that a misogynist would say, but that doesn't mean that I think I should be handled gently if I screw up and say something sexist. If you want to be taken seriously as someone who is trying not to be sexist, then show less concern over whether you think people are calling you harsh things and more over whether you've actually said something sexist .

I really don't care if you 'strongly object' to being called misogynist, because as near as I can tell you're more worried about being seen as an enlightened person than with being an enlightened person.

Reread the 'False Accusations' thread. Read it until you see that there is a bigger problem than whether you and Ana were working from the same definitions, and until you realise that you have said things that support misogyny.

Will Wildman said...

On an unrelated note, because of my computer's bilingual settings, I get Captchas in French. As if it wasn't bad enough to try to read some of those twisty letters, I have to figure out the alt-code for an I with a circumflex over it.

Kit Whitfield said...

And let's leave it at that.

See, here it is again. Either you're not expressing yourself clearly, or you're stating that you think it should be your decision and no one else's when an issue is settled. The same way you seemed to be implying that you and no one else knew how best to promote discussion, and that you had the right to declare complaints about your behaviour off-topic.

Whatever other opinions you express about works of fiction, they are not going to come across well when couched in such entitled language. You really, really, really need to start working on acting like you know other people have an equal say in what the conversation should be. And before you bother to assert that yes, of course you know that: what's in your head is not the point. This is something you need to demonstrate through your behaviour over a period of time.

Thomas Keyton said...

As I recall, didn't Harry have to stay at the Dursley's because his Protection From Scrying in the muggle world would only work so long as he lived there?

Dumbledore says in OotP that being able to call Privet Drive home meant that while he was there, Voldemort couldn't touch him. Specifically Voldemort. Who was less than a ghost for thirteen years. And it's canon that random wizards and witches were able to find Harry in the middle of Muggle streets before he knew anything about the Wizarding World, and also canon that not only did Bellatrix and her gang somehow avoid Azkaban until they went after the Longbottoms, but also that, based on the arrangement of the circle at Voldemort's resurrection party, most of the Death Eaters were found innocent. Harry was incredibly lucky that Voldemort was so bad at acquiring loyalty, because he was unbelievably unprotected for most of his life.

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