Narnia: Open Thread (June 2012)

There will be a Narnia open thread today to allow some blog catching-up. Suggested topic:

How would the Narnian narrative change for you (if at all) if the explicit in-text "rulership" of the Sons-of-Adam / Daughters-of-Eve Pevensies and Caspian lineage was meant to be SYMBOLIC RULERSHIP only, with the 'king' (or 'queen') acting as a sort of attractive-but-politically-powerless figurehead largely tasked with entertaining foreign dignitaries while a representative Animal + Tree + Whatever parliament explicitly wielded all real political power with Aslan's blessings to do so?

22 comments:

Josh G. said...

I think you could very plausibly argue that this is how things did work, in canon. The very first Narnian monarchs, King Frank and Queen Helen, came from Victorian England, so they'd be quite familiar with such a system, as it was what they had back home. The Pevensies were elevated to the throne as children, so they would have had little choice but to rely heavily on advisers for some years, and why would they necessarily even want to stop listening when they came of age? Likewise, Caspian is proclaimed King by the Old Narnians, but they seem to be making most of the real decisions: Glenstorm decides the time is right to go to war, and Caspian basically says "OK." We're later specifically told that Trumpkin acts as regent for Caspian on two different occasions. I don't recall any specific mentions of representative government, but the notion that Narnian monarchs are largely figureheads is not at all hard to sustain.

Will Wildman said...

True, but that's only half of the premise that Ana is describing - first, that the monarchs are figureheads, and second, that there is a Narnian parliament of Owls that does all the actual ruling. There's a difference between one individual unilaterally making decisions for the high king (as a lone advisor or regent) and an entire group of possibly-elected Animals making decisions that are then symbolically approved by the high king.

If nothing else, it would make more sense to me in regards to why the Old Narnians are so intent on putting Caspian back on the throne. And it would provide a great deal more justification as to why the Pevensies didn't apparently develop any useful leadership skills during their reign.

GeniusLemur said...

But wouldn't that arrangement make the human characters even more useless and pointless in what's ostensibly their own story?

Ana Mardoll said...

Maybe, but I was thinking in, like, a "the health of the land is tied to the health of the ruler" kind of way. That's a trope, right? There was an Aladdin episode a bit like that.

ZMiles said...

Yep, it's a trope. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FisherKing

Ana Mardoll said...

Thank you, that's the one!

Nathaniel said...

Wouldn't really change the other parts of the narrative that bug me, like the issue of women or the casual racism/classicism inherent in the portrayal of the different Animals.

Will Wildman said...

Hmm. Women, no, racism, no, but I wonder if it impact the appearance of classism. If they had a parliament of just the stereotypically smart Animals (like I struckthrough above, I am overly pleased with the notion of 'parliament of Owls') and then workaday folks like the Beavers just kept their heads down and took orders from their betters, that would be no better and possibly even worse than the current human > Animal system. But if the parliament included dozens or hundreds of kinds of Animals, then it could perhaps counteract the problem by suggesting that the appearance of a class hierarchy was merely an appearance - maybe Beavers sound blue-collar and Owls sound all posh, but both are equally valued and proven similarly capable in the business of actually running Narnia. (If nothing else, because Owls know zilch about infrastructure and maintenance.)

Thomas Keyton said...

It depends what else changed with it - as it is, Aslan focuses all his attention on the kings and queens, and with the assumption that they have at least some power, this makes sense as a sort of theofeudalism. If the royalty's just there as a Fisher King security feature and Narnia a democratic constitutional monarchy, it wouldn't feel as consistent* to have an irregularly present god-king show up now and again to put his foot down when things go wrong.

*It might be a more interesting setting, however, with proper attention paid to the worldbuilding.

Nina said...

For me at least it would alleviate some of the discomfort I have with the "humans are better than animals" aspects of these books. Some strains of Christianity (and maybe other world religions; I'm only familiar with it in a Christian context) have a strong set of beliefs related to "humans are better than animals and are meant to have dominion over them" which makes me pretty uncomfortable. It has always seemed extremely arrogant, and I think in some cases leads to a casual dismissal of environmental concerns and/or charges of animal cruelty. I didn't think Lewis went quite that far, but the whole "only a Son of Adam/Daughter of Eve can be rightful ruler" thing definitely carries undertones of those ideas.

Plus, a canon animal parliament would help clear up plot holes like we are finding in PC. Why aren't the Telmarines/King Miraz legitimate rulers even though they are Sons of Adam? They dismissed the animal parliament!

Ana Mardoll said...

The barest, most basic of this was "We tax you, we protect you".

Kind of like the mob? Nice country you got here, be a shame if something happened to it...

Where's that Monty Python link? :)

Patrick Knipe said...

I hear and I obey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI

And yes, exactly like the mob. Knights were jerks.

BaseDeltaZero said...

Some strains of Christianity (and maybe other world religions; I'm only familiar with it in a Christian context) have a strong set of beliefs related to "humans are better than animals and are meant to have dominion over them" which makes me pretty uncomfortable. It has always seemed extremely arrogant, and I think in some cases leads to a casual dismissal of environmental concerns and/or charges of animal cruelty.

It's not really a problem for me, except in the interpretation that reads it as 'and therefore destroy everything'... but it quickly becomes problematic when animals are actually sapient.


3) Overall, though, the effect would be far more localized than it would be in a humans-only Parliament. The nature of Narnia means that solutions to problems that affect all of Narnia have to be tailored to suit every species. This means that laws would have to be either very open-ended or deliberately focused on one particular species. For example, it's easy to say "This new factory will open up a thousand jobs" in a humans-only country. In Narnia, the statement would be "This new factory will open up a thousand jobs for those citizens who possess opposing thumbs."

A federal system, perhaps?

Peter said...

I've been thinking a lot about the issue of women recently, and the thing that really bugs me about the whole thing (from in an in 'verse perspective anyway, lots of things bug me from a real world view point) is that in MN Original Sin in Narnia was committed by a male (Diggory brought in Jadis). Surely that means that all the usual religious justifications for the treatment of women should be reversed?

Will Wildman said...

This also raises the question of what the function of the Narnia government is. The only things we know of that the Pevensies did for sure, in an official function, were landscaping Cair Paravel and dealing with foreign dignitaries.

Human society as we know it depends on an economy because our l33t prosperity system is semirandomised specialisation - all people are basically born the same, but some of us become builders and some become providers and some become inventors and some become artists and so forth, and very, very few of us are completely self-reliant, especially in any society that the Pevensies would recognise as a society.

Animals aren't like that - they are quite consistently self-reliant, and don't depend on trade, although in Narnia they obviously do trade some. (Otherwise we'd have to explain the Beavers secretly having the resources necessary to make their own glass jars and smelt/construct a sewing machine and so forth.) But those things they trade for aren't apparently necessities, especially once Jadis is gone and spring returns. So we'd have to ask ourselves whether we think the Narnians would care about things like providing jobs. It seems to me more likely that they would be about setting up laws that smooth the interactions of different species - setting aside specific areas for where and when predator Animals have the right to hunt, approving locations where Beavers are allowed to dam a river, registering which Trees don't mind sharing their acorns and how many.

In a system like that, while you do need regional representatives, it's mostly for the purpose of ensuring that there isn't a problem hidden away in some valley that no one ever hears about because there's no rep for the area. In many of these cases, regular majority-vote democracy may not work because it's very literally two Wolves and a Sheep voting on what's for dinner. I think they would demand a system that functioned only by consensus, which means that geographic representation is somewhat less important.

JonathanPelikan said...

Everyone's put an amazing amount of thought into one of my favorite things in the universe; Worldbuilding, and it's truly a pleasure to read. I would help contribute, but I have a very 'it's obvious that the creator himself didn't even begin to care about these sorts of details because, well, that wasn't his goal or his point, and so if he couldn't be arsed, I'm not going to fill in all the holes for him.' Sort of like wondering how the Global Community would operate if the twelve princes are still mysterious and unknown but also have absolute dominion but it seems like regional government and police units still exist...

It has compelled me to keep worldbuilding on my own novel, though. I love that sense of 'this is a world we're looking at. it might be radically different from our own but here's how it works, even when the camera's off or the main character isn't stepping through the streets.'

Jenny Islander said...

The function of having Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve on the throne is alluded to in the first book: they keep the land safe from wielders of evil magic. When the four thrones at Cair Paravel are occupied, then the Deep Magic set into Narnia at its beginning will operate and the winterspell of the White Witch will be broken. It seems logical, given that this is a Christian series and Christian theology makes much of covenant relationships, that the human monarch does have to keep faith with Narnia in order for this to work. Reading here has clarified for me that the human monarch need not, and probably should not, have any executive power, at least none that can overturn the decisions of his/her council.

Long story short, I have no problem with the thrones at Cair Paravel being mainly for ritual use, and I believe that this actually fits the worldbuilding better than any other explanation. The casual misogyny and racism--those I have to read around or rephrase when I read the books to my children.

Will Wildman said...

When the four thrones at Cair Paravel are occupied, then the Deep Magic set into Narnia at its beginning will operate and the winterspell of the White Witch will be broken.

Well, maybe, except that the endless winter starts to thaw as soon as all four of them are in Narnia, long before they actually get crowned. For that matter, it happens while Edmund is still separated from them and in mortal danger. If the mere presence of humans in Narnia was enough to undermine Jadis' power, it's not clear why they would need to be even ceremonial heads of state rather than just having a nice cottage and a stipend for continuing to project their Human Anti-Sorcery Field through the country.

Jenny Islander said...

True. Hmm. Maybe the magic recognizes that here at last are the four human siblings who are suited to the throne? Edmund's misadventure wouldn't contradict this because Christian theology teaches that everybody can go wrong.

Rikalous said...

There's been evil magic oppressing Narnia for quite a long time. It's not inconceivable that there was a pressure of Narnian magic that built up and was released when four candidates showed up. If they hadn't been crowned, the pressure could have dissipated, and then Narnia's vulnerable to the next Jadis wannabe who shows up.

hf said...

No, no, the prophecy about the thrones said that occupying them would kill Jadis. Which never happened. But from Lewis' point of view the Pevensies may have acted like Kings and Queens by going to war and caring for Aslan respectively. That would make it plausible that the Deep Magic allows Aslan to kill any pretenders to the throne (or whichever of the rival monarchs he wants to kill) when Son(s) of Adam and/or Daughter(s) of Eve fulfill their royal roles.

Maybe the key to making Aslan do something in PC wasn't having a 'good' King available, but simply having multiple human claimants to the throne. (Though he still doesn't bother to appear until the Pevensies have been back in Narnia for a while, nor does he ever eat Miraz. Perhaps he doesn't like the taste of Telmarines.)

John Biles said...

What made the Telmarines illegitimate is pretty simple-- they beat up and slaughtered the actual Narnians. They would make Narnia not Narnia at all. Just being human isn't enough.

As for an animal parliament, I think it would be pretty cool, but the way most of the plots are set up, I'm not sure it would make an actual difference. In Book 1 and 2, legitimate Narnian government has been destroyed, Book 3 is outside Narnia, Book 4 is about rescuing the heir to the throne, Book 5 deals with non-Narnians, Book 6 is a flashback... Book 7 seems to be the only one which would really be impacted very much.

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