Narnia: Nikabrikian Heresies

Content Note: Nazis, Violence, Discussion of the terms "Anger" and "Hate" in the comments

Narnia Recap: The Pevensie children and Trumpkin have met Aslan. Aslan took the girls off for a romp with Bacchus, but sent the boys and the dwarf into Aslan's How to deal with what they find there.

Prince Caspian, Chapter 12: Sorcery and Sudden Vengeance

One of my private pleasures is the video game spoof reviews and riffing on The Escapist site. The Unskippable videos combine all the wonderful that is MST3K plus video games, and I enjoy Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation videos, even if I would never in a million years recommend them to anyone else who didn't share my exact sense of humor. (They're standard dudebro humor with all the many, many trigger warnings that implies.) But despite the dudebro humor, I do enjoy the scattered references to classic literature and the general curmudgeony take-down of video games, many of which I've either played myself or (more frequently) have watched my Husband and Stepson play.

Today as I read Chapter 12 in Prince Caspian, I find myself thinking of Yahtzee's video review of Valkyria Chronicles. The game is a turn-based combat game, set in a thinly disguised anime version of the European front during World War II, and which I've had the pleasure of watching Husband play extensively before he eventually got bored and wandered off somewhere. The protagonist cast didn't exactly set the world on fire for me, and I confess I mostly found them rather irritating and annoying, so it was particularly amusing to me when Yathzee pointed out in his video the Unfortunate Implications of that sentiment:

   Valkyria Chronicles helped me come to two distressing realizations about my self. Firstly, that I might technically be a Nazi sympathizer, and secondly that turn-based strategy is something I might be able to get into. ~ Yahtzee

The implication here is that if one ends up sympathizing with the Nazi-Expy Antagonists and disliking the Allied-Expy Protagonists, then therefore one must be technically a Nazi sympathizer, no?

Well, no. It's a joke, of course, and I laughed, but this is where allegories get a bit fiddly: an allegory is not the same thing at that which it is allegorizing. Aslan is not the same thing as Jesus, and one is free to hate Aslan deeply and passionately without opening oneself to the accusation that one therefore hates Jesus. There are a number of reasons why this is true, not the least being that few allegories capture their subject perfectly, and nuance and complexity is often lost in the translation from concept to allegory. And then, of course, there is the issue that the author's conception of the subject may be very different from the reader's conception of the same, which means that even if a "perfect" allegory could be composed from the author's point of view, the reader may still beg to differ. And so on.

Yet all of this is a long way of saying that today's Narnia chapter made me pause to wonder if I was "technically" a Satanic follower as C.S. Lewis likely would have defined it. Because gods help me if Nikabrik and his merry band don't score quite a few sympathy points from me in this chapter, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to. Whoops me, I guess.



Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin approach the entrance to Aslan's How and are halted by two badger guards who immediately accept the legitimacy of the High Kings, and make homage to the two boys. Light is provided, and Trumpkin leads the way into the inner sanctum of the How, where the war council meets.

I have to say that I question the tactical decisions on display here. I don't know much about war planning, but it seems to me that if the numerically-superior enemy has your army near-surrounded and deeply at a disadvantage, maybe you don't want to spend a lot of time in an underground hole that only has one egress? It seems like it would be pretty easy for the enemy to capture the How. Maybe they're safe Because Deep Magic or something.

Although, I will take a moment here to say that this whole How business makes no sense to me. The narrative makes a big point of telling us that the caves sprang up some time after Aslan's death and the Pevensie's recall to England, and there are mysterious runes on the cave walls that look older than the Pevensie's reign and yet cannot possibly be so, and if all this is an allegory for something specific, I will admit that it is lost on me. So I'll move on.

   The Dwarf went on ahead and then turned to the right, and then to the left, and then down some steps, and then to the left again. Then at last they saw a light ahead—light from under a door. And now for the first time they heard voices, for they had come to the door of the central chamber. The voices inside were angry ones. Someone was talking so loudly that the approach of the boys and the Dwarf had not been heard.
   “Don’t like the sound of that,” whispered Trumpkin to Peter. “Let’s listen for a moment.” All three stood perfectly still on the outside of the door.

Also the magical cave has doors installed. I kind of want there to be a legend chiseled into the door: Ashanti's Door Installation. Nothing but the best for your magical mystical memorial cave! Call for a price quote.

And I want to make a point here, and that point requires spoilers. So here is this chapter in a nutshell: Trumpkin and the boys listen to Nikabrik argue that since the High Kings (and Aslan) haven't returned, they should call on the White Witch. Tempers escalate and a battle happens. That's Chapter 12 summarized.

So my point is this: I really dislike "let's listen in" plots. The only time I have ever (to my recollection) enjoyed a "let's listen in" plot it was at the skillful hands of Douglas Adams, who could pull off daring feats of writing that most of the rest of us can only dream of. I deeply, deeply, deeply dislike "let's listen in" plots and 99 times out of 100 it's better for everyone involved if the would-be eavesdroppers just walked into the middle of the room/clearing/concert hall/what-have-you and announced their presence.

This is one of those times.

The entire Chapter 12 is about the fact that the High Kings (and Aslan) haven't come back. Caspian is almost killed over this argument; several other people are killed over this argument. All Trumpkin and the boys had to do when this became apparent was to walk in and say, "Hey! We're here! Also, Aslan is outside with the girls." That tiny little act would have spared Caspian from being wounded (and nearly killed) and could potentially have saved the lives of Nikabrik and his two companions. Plus it would save us having to read a tedious argument about whether the High Kings (and Aslan) are going to come back. As if this book wasn't tedious enough already. But, and this is really the sticking point, THERE ARE THEOLOGIES TO BE MADE. So sit back and enjoy your theology, while remembering that it's all served second-hand through eavesdroppers who -- had they acted earlier and more decisively -- could have saved lives. Oh joy.

   “You know well enough,” said a voice (“That’s the King,” whispered Trumpkin), “why the Horn was not blown at sunrise this morning. Have you forgotten that Miraz fell upon us almost before Trumpkin had gone, and we were fighting for our lives for the space of three hours and more? I blew it when first I had a breathing space.”
   “I’m not likely to forget it,” came the angry voice, “when my Dwarfs bore the brunt of the attack and one in five of them fell.” (“That’s Nikabrik,” whispered Trumpkin.)
   “For shame, Dwarf,” came a thick voice (“Trufflehunter’s,” said Trumpkin). “We all did as much as the Dwarfs and none more than the King.”
   “Tell that tale your own way for all I care,” answered Nikabrik.

It's not a good sign when we're four paragraphs in and I'm already on Nikabrik's side.

And it's not because yay Nikabrik near so much as it is because boo Trufflehunter. There's no way that Trufflehunter isn't being completely misleading here; "one in five" fallen dwarves is a factual number that either did or didn't happen, and if Nikabrik is lying, it would be infinitely easier to provide the correct numbers. (The Narnian army seems fairly small and has been sharing a tightly confined space for some extended period. There's no reason why Trufflehunter couldn't have a decent recollection of how many dwarves in the army were wounded or dead. Especially since that's the sort of thing war councils tend to dwell on.)

Since Trufflehunter doesn't correct or dispute the "one in five" number, then I'm inclined to assume that Nikabrik is being accurate. In which case Trufflehunter's ass-kissing statement about how EVERYONE did as much as the dwarves and ESPECIALLY the king really grates my teeth because I don't care how waif-fu Caspian is, if one-fifth of him isn't seriously wounded or dead, then no, he hasn't 'done as much' as the dwarves. He may have killed as many Telemarines, but he hasn't suffered and sacrificed as much. That's not to blame him -- it's a good thing if Caspian is a good soldier and doesn't have a glass jaw -- but pretending that Nikabrik was talking about Damage Done when he was obviously talking about Damage Received is really poor form in an argument.

So already I'm on Nikabrik's side and imagining that Nikabrik is rightfully pretty pissed off. This is, after all, his friends and relations that he's talking about, and Trufflehunter has glossed over their deaths in order to place his lips more firmly on the local prince's posterior. In the meantime, we honestly don't even know if Trufflehunter has lost anyone in this war so far -- there were enough badgers up and walking to place them in charge of guarding Aslan's How, at least.

   “The help will come,” said Trufflehunter. “I stand by Aslan. Have patience, like us beasts. The help will come. It may be even now at the door.”
   “Pah!” snarled Nikabrik. “You badgers would have us wait till the sky falls and we can all catch larks. I tell you we can’t wait. Food is running short; we lose more than we can afford at every encounter; our followers are slipping away.”
   “And why?” asked Trufflehunter. “I’ll tell you why. Because it is noised among them that we have called on the Kings of old and the Kings of old have not answered. The last words Trumpkin spoke before he went (and went, most likely, to his death) were, ‘If you must blow the Horn, do not let the army know why you blow it or what you hope from it.’ But that same evening everyone seemed to know.”
   “You’d better have shoved your gray snout in a hornets’ nest, Badger, than suggest that I am the blab,” said Nikabrik.

And then there's this. Nikabrik is trying to lay out the problems with the current situation so that he can then propose a solution. Trufflehunter keeps trying to side-track the discussion and cast blame. Neither of these things are helpful, and this is the point at which I'd be voting Trufflehunter (who is only here because he was one of the three who originally found Caspian) off the war council entirely.

When Nikabrik points out that help has not arrived, possibly because the horn was blown at the wrong time or has no magic in it, Trufflehunter wants to make a racist statement about how the Beasts are more steadfast and faithful in the old ways than the Dwarves. Not. The. Time. When Nikabrik points out that they need to act quickly because their army numbers are dwindling (what happened to all the steadfast beasts?), Trufflehunter wants to start looking for a scapegoat to blame the camp rumors on. Because no one could POSSIBLY have figured something was up when the doctor stumbled into camp with nothing but an horn (looking suspiciously like Queen Susan's Horn of Legend) and then two high-ranking members of camp left on secret missions on the same day that Prince Caspian blew the horn for no reason at all. No, there has to be a leak on the war council because no one could figure that little puzzler out.

And since the leak can't be Trumpkin (he was the one who cautioned against leaks) and can't be Prince Caspian (because he can do no wrong) and can't be Doctor Cornelius (because he doesn't know anyone in camp to talk to) and can't be that chatty squirrel they sent off to the lamp-post (because he's been forgotten) and can't be Trufflehunter (because he's the one making accusations), we all know who it supposedly must be. No wonder Nikabrik is ruffled by the blatant accusation.

   “Oh, stop it, both of you,” said King Caspian. “I want to know what it is that Nikabrik keeps on hinting we should do. But before that, I want to know who those two strangers are whom he has brought into our council and who stand there with their ears open and their mouths shut.”
   “They are friends of mine,” said Nikabrik. “And what better right have you yourself to be here than that you are a friend of Trumpkin’s and the Badgers? And what right has that old dotard in the black gown to be here except that he is your friend? Why am I to be the only one who can’t bring in his friends?”
   “His Majesty is the King to whom you have sworn allegiance,” said Trufflehunter sternly.
   “Court manners, court manners,” sneered Nikabrik. “But in this hole we may talk plainly. You know—and he knows—that this Telmarine boy will be king of nowhere and nobody in a week unless we can help him out of the trap in which he sits.”

Oh-my-god, I agree with Nikabrik. I do. I can't help it. If they're really going to build their war council around friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend rules as though this were a potluck dinner and not, you know, an actual effective war council, then Nikabrik should have a couple of guest invitations to hand out to all his besties. (And if they aren't treating this like a potluck dinner, then Trufflehunter should have been formally removed five minutes ago.) Why is Doctor Cornelius here? Why aren't there representative members of each race in the army, making sure that supplies are handed out evenly and that troop movements are even feasible logistically? ("No, sire, the Talking Sloths can't loop around and encircle the troops. It's physically impossible.") Why is the entire war council a boy, his tutor, a badger who found him in the woods, and a dwarf that was there when the finding happened?

And I don't care how Caspian styles himself on his school notebook in the evenings (Mister Prince Caspian, King of Narnia), he's a boy of indeterminate age and almost no real-world experience who has managed to single-handedly lead his army into a ruinous defeat because he listened to an astrologist centaur who insisted that the only honorable, star-approved method of fighting was open combat on a glorious field of battle rather than guerrilla tactic raids on outlying cities and gathering allies over a wider swath than "everyone on our street block". Caspian may have been born with a silver ticket to the war council in his mouth, but that doesn't make Nikabrik any less right in saying that he's a glorified figurehead who has managed to stick himself between a rock and a hard place.

It's probably worth pointing out again here how much I love Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" (which is pretty clearly to me a conversation with Narnia as well as a good series in its own right) because child protagonist Lyra recognizes that she's a kid and actually asks adults for advice and help. Go figure, and certainly quite realistic from my own childhood. I suppose Lewis meant for Caspian's speech here to be very badass and kingly, and he does have a point about inviting complete strangers to the war council (in which case you hold off on the business stuff and ask them to introduce themselves, how hard is that?), but he comes off here as more spoiled than anything else and like he's picking his war council members not based on what they can contribute tactically but rather on whether or not they meet various personality requirements. And I don't find that kingly at all.

   “Perhaps,” said Cornelius, “your new friends would like to speak for themselves? You there, who and what are you?”
   ‘Worshipful Master Doctor,” came a thin, whining voice. “So please you, I’m only a poor old woman, I am, and very obliged to his Worshipful Dwarfship for his friendship, I’m sure. His Majesty, bless his handsome face, has no need to be afraid of an old woman that’s nearly doubled up with the rheumatics and hasn’t two sticks to put under her kettle. I have some poor little skill—not like yours, Master Doctor, of course—in small spells and cantrips that I’d be glad to use against our enemies if it was agreeable to all concerned. For I hate ‘em. Oh yes. No one hates better than me.”

Clearly this is a terrible person because (a) she's female, (b) she has an unpleasant voice, (c) she's ugly, and (d) she's disabled, but I can't help but notice that this is the most polite person we've seen so far in the book. Presumably it's meant to be insincere false politeness (although she won't remain alive long enough for us to tell that for certain), but it's probably not a good sign that my first impression of Ms. Hag here is that I like her more than every other character in the book (excluding Susan and Trumpkin) combined.

   “Well, Nikabrik,” he said, “we will hear your plan.”
   There was a pause so long that the boys began to wonder if Nikabrik were ever going to begin; when he did, it was in a lower voice, as if he himself did not much like what he was saying.

Remember children, if you take away nothing else from the Narnia books, keep in mind that evil people always know they are doing evil. And they dislike doing evil because they know that evil is bad, but they do it anyway -- not because they have good reasons for their actions or because they are genuinely misguided, but because they are stubborn. And this is true whether you're seeking shelter with the woman who gave you magical candy or whether you are objecting to walking all over a dangerous forest in the middle of the night or whether you are proposing to make a deal with the devil in order to ensure the survival of your species.

   “All said and done,” he muttered, “none of us knows the truth about the ancient days in Narnia. Trumpkin believed none of the stories. I was ready to put them to the trial. We tried first the Horn and it has failed. If there ever was a High King Peter and a Queen Susan and a King Edmund and a Queen Lucy, then either they have not heard us, or they cannot come, or they are our enemies—”
   “Or they are on the way,” put in Trufflehunter.

I would like to take this moment to remind everyone that Nikabrik has -- for all that I can see -- made a good faith effort to try the horn plan, and would have been happy enough to go along with the results of the horn plan had it actually worked and brought back the High Kings and/or Aslan. I would also like to point out that there are three people listening to this conversation who could reveal that the horn plan worked at any moment if they wanted to step out of the shadows and announce themselves.

   “The White Witch!” cried three voices all at once, and from the noise Peter guessed that three people had leaped to their feet.   “Yes,” said Nikabrik very slowly and distinctly, “I mean the Witch. Sit down again. Don’t all take fright at a name as if you were children. We want power: and we want a power that will be on our side. As for power, do not the stories say that the Witch defeated Aslan, and bound him, and killed him on that very stone which is over there, just beyond the light?”
   “But they also say that he came to life again,” said the Badger sharply.
   “Yes, they say,” answered Nikabrik, “but you’ll notice that we hear precious little about anything he did afterward. He just fades out of the story. How do you explain that, if he really came to life? Isn’t it much more likely that he didn’t, and that the stories say nothing more about him because there was nothing more to say?”
   “He established the Kings and Queens,” said Caspian.
   “A King who has just won a great battle can usually establish himself without the help of a performing lion,” said Nikabrik.

I reckon it's a good thing that the narrative has already asserted that Nikabrik knows he's a wrong evil snot-fart-head, because otherwise I might be convinced that he's got a good point here from his point of view. Once again, the Aslan narrative simply doesn't make sense. The White Witch ruled Narnia for one hundred years and never in that time did Aslan do anything to oppose her until the English children showed up, and even then he was only in Narnia for a few days before disappearing again. The Pevensies have been gone for thirteen hundred years, and never in that time -- as far as anyone knows, and you'd think it'd be the sort of thing people would remember and mention -- has Aslan visited Narnia.

That's fourteen hundred years that Aslan has not been in Narnia, barring a few days during LWW. The land has undergone one hundred years of deathly winter, and three hundred years of brutally effective genocide, and never in that time has Aslan seen fit to pop in and help his subjects. And in those few days when he was there, the only thing he did do was save Edmund from a death that was orchestrated by the Emperor and the White Which, and show up to the final battle just in time to tip the scales.

And here is where it's worth pointing out again that the allegory isn't the same as the subject it is allegorizing. It makes sense (for various flavors of Christian theology, but I'm going to speak very generally here, as long as it's understood that there are almost as many interpretations of Jesus as there are Christians) for Jesus to not show up for the past thousand years or so because Jesus' purpose isn't the same as Aslan's purpose. Jesus' purpose wasn't to save the physical life of a single person, but Aslan's purpose was precisely that. Jesus' purpose wasn't to dethrone temporal rulers and bite their heads off, but that was precisely Aslan's role in LWW. As such, I think it's perfectly reasonable for me -- and Nikabrik -- to demand to know why Aslan isn't showing up to save physical lives and depose temporal rulers in the here and now without, by allegorical extension, asking the same thing of Jesus Christ. 

If Aslan is a spiritual entity in Narnia, he's a spiritual entity that can only be communed with in the fleshy presence of same. He isn't, for example, someone you can pray to and have an answer returned even if he is physically absent. He's not someone who can minister to two different people on the opposite ends of Narnia at the same time. And he only shows up when English school children are in the vicinity. This doesn't mean he's not a god, but it does mean that he's not a terribly useful one for, say, Narnians over the past fourteen hundred years or so. And it also means that his existence is pretty easy to reasonably doubt, when he only seems to exist under a very narrow set of circumstances.

   [...] “But she got on all right with us Dwarfs. I’m a Dwarf and I stand by my own people. We’re not afraid of the Witch.”
   “But you’ve joined with us,” said Trufflehunter.
   “Yes, and a lot of good it has done my people, so far,” snapped Nikabrik. “Who is sent on all the dangerous raids? The Dwarfs. Who goes short when the rations fail? The Dwarfs. Who—?”
   “Lies! All lies!” said the Badger.
   “And so,” said Nikabrik, whose voice now rose to a scream, “if you can’t help my people, I’ll go to someone who can.”
   “Is this open treason, Dwarf?” asked the King.
   “Put that sword back in its sheath, Caspian,” said Nikabrik. “Murder at council, eh? Is that your game? [...]”

And then there's this. Good dog, there's this.

I don't mind that Han shot first. I don't. I'm fervently against Han revisionism. It makes sense to me for Han to shoot first. But it makes sense to me because I don't think we're supposed to see Han as an unambiguously good guy at that stage. At best, he's a fundamentally good person in a fight-or-die situation; at worst, he's not much better than the people hunting him, but he has a significant character arc over the trilogy that causes him to grow and become a better person. Honestly, I think both interpretations (and the spectrum in-between) work well within the movie trilogy. But never have I felt that Han -- at the point of the shooting -- was meant to be a great guy who we were all supposed to unreservedly cheer for and who needed no growth whatsoever as a character, roll credits, call it a day, etc. Han shot first at the beginning of the series, but Han ended the series as a different person altogether.

Caspian doesn't grow. Heck, I'm not sure Caspian even talks after this chapter. I think he mostly makes sounds during the Peter-Miraz duel, and when Aslan crowns him Caspian says some piffle that totes proves he'll make the bestest king ever. But that's not growth. There's no growth here, as far as I'm concerned.

So we have the curious situation where Trufflehunter has repeatedly and aggressively verbally attacked Nikabrik, accused him of being an information leak, interrupted him, and really -- no pun intended -- badgered him to the point where he raises his voice. (And what is he raising his voice about? The slaughter of his friends and loved ones on the piss-poor combat plans developed by the Boy Wonder and the very badger who is verbally hounding him. Not an emotionally neutral topic, by any means.) And in response to this, Prince Caspian draws his sword at council.

What.

This is the guy who is going to be king of Narnia? A kid who listens to astrology over sound tactical advice, a kid who picks his war council based on who his bestest friends are, a kid whose idea of argument de-escalation is to pull out a deadly weapon? I'm sure he and Aslan will get along splendidly, but if this is where the monarchy is headed, count me out

   “Stop, stop, stop,” said Doctor Cornelius. “You go on too fast. The Witch is dead. All the stories agree on that. What does Nikabrik mean by calling on the Witch?”
   That gray and terrible voice which had spoken only once before said, “Oh, is she?”
    And then the shrill, whining voice began, “Oh, bless his heart, his dear little Majesty needn’t mind about the White Lady—that’s what we call her—being dead. The Worshipful Master Doctor is only making game of a poor old woman like me when he says that. Sweet Master Doctor, learned Master Doctor, who ever heard of a witch that really died? You can always get them back.”

I'm just going to say it: Team Hag. Judge me all you want, she's more polite and/or more cunning than anyone else on the Caspian side, and I prefer a polite and/or cunning evil hag queen to spoiled little boys who think chopping off the heads of allies in the middle of a council meeting is an appropriate response to a heated argument. Because that latter one is also evil in my book, and I'd rather have someone who is honest about being evil (and polite!) than someone who thinks he's the bee's knees in the Goody McGooderson department but is really just plain Rudely McEvilpants.

   “So that is your plan, Nikabrik! Black sorcery and the calling up of an accursed ghost. And I see who your companions are—a Hag and a Wer-Wolf!”
   The next minute or so was very confused. There was an animal roaring, a clash of steel; the boys and Trumpkin rushed in; Peter had a glimpse of a horrible, gray, gaunt creature, half man and half wolf, in the very act of leaping upon a boy about his own age, and Edmund saw a badger and a Dwarf rolling on the floor in a sort of cat fight. Trumpkin found himself face to face with the Hag. Her nose and chin stuck out like a pair of nutcrackers, her dirty gray hair was flying about her face and she had just got Doctor Cornelius by the throat. At one slash of Trumpkin’s sword her head rolled on the floor. Then the light was knocked over and it was all swords, teeth, claws, fists, and boots for about sixty seconds. Then silence.

Please take note that evil is ugly, deformed, dirty, and frequently female. For the record. Evil is also black, as in the case of Nikabrik the Black Dwarf, and/or animalistic as is the case with our Were friend.

   They all heard the noise of someone striking a match. It was Edmund. The little flame showed his face, looking pale and dirty. He blundered about for a little, found the candle (they were no longer using the lamp, for they had run out of oil), set it on the table, and lit it. When the flame rose clear, several people scrambled to their feet. Six faces blinked at one another in the candlelight.

OH MY FUCKING STARS AND GARTERS, C.S. LEWIS, OF ALL THE THINGS I WOULD LIKE YOU TO EXPLAIN IN AN ASIDE TO YOUR PLODDING, HORRIBLY PACED, THEOLOGICAL TRACT DISGUISED AS A NOVEL, THE *LAST* THING I CARE ABOUT IS WHY THEY ARE USING CANDLES INSTEAD OF OIL LAMPS.

How about you explain how this spoiled kid and his sycophantic badger are going to rule Narnia worth a damn once Aslan disappears after the coronation? How about you explain why Peter and Susan can't come back in a way that makes any sense beyond Because Puberty, and while you're at it, explain why they shouldn't be utterly outraged at being discarded like they're nothing more than cat-toys? How about you explain any number of things not related to CANDLES AND OIL LAMPS?

*huff* *huff* *huff*

   “It’s the High King, King Peter,” said Trumpkin.
   “Your Majesty is very welcome,” said Caspian.
   “And so is your Majesty,” said Peter. “I haven’t come to take your place, you know, but to put you into it.” [...]
   “I am sorry for Nikabrik,” said Caspian, “though he hated me from the first moment he saw me. He had gone sour inside from long suffering and hating. If we had won quickly he might have become a good Dwarf in the days of peace. I don’t know which of us killed him. I’m glad of that.”   “You’re bleeding,” said Peter.
   “Yes, I’m bitten,” said Caspian. “It was that—that wolf thing.” Cleaning and bandaging the wound took a long time, and when it was done Trumpkin said, “Now. Before everything else we want some breakfast.”
   “But not here,” said Peter.

Well, thank goodness that Peter is here to put Caspian in his rightful place and not take it from him, because we wouldn't want our Great White Savior to have to earn his place or anything. (And I suppose it would be too much to ask for the Narnians to have any say whatsoever in who rules them. I imagine that the Narnians who aren't keen on being ruled by the human child of their genocidal conquerors can just git out.)

Though it's such a shame that Nikabrik might have been good if they'd won quickly, possibly by not making foolish combat decisions based on over-estimating the strength of your own troops, or by blowing that horn a little sooner, or maybe Aslan not farting around invisibly in the mountains in order to make the point that Susan is THE WORST, or maybe by Peter and Edmund and Trumpkin announcing themselves five whole minutes before they actually did. But these things happen.

And, of course, it's a relief that they have The Help to clean the bodies out of the council chamber (and not ask any uncomfortable questions about what happened) so that the royalty don't have to get their hands dirty with the yucky corpses and all those little disgusting details.

Privilege, thy name is Caspian.

139 comments:

JenL said...

Although, I will take a moment here to say that this whole How business makes no sense to me. The narrative makes a big point of telling us that the caves sprang up some time after Aslan's death and the Pevensie's recall to England, and there are mysterious runes on the cave walls that look older than the Pevensie's reign and yet cannot possibly be so, and if all this is an allegory for something specific, I will admit that it is lost on me. So I'll move on.

I assumed this was a King Arthur/Glastonbury Tor reference.

Ana Mardoll said...

That would make sense. I'm afraid I was trying to look at it from a Jesus angle, since it's the spot of the Narnian crucifixion.

JenL said...

I could be vastly oversimplifying. I just had this notion in my head that the crucifixion tied into the Holy Grail, and there's the Arthurian search for that grail, and then the notion that Arthur would come again when he's needed. And so for me this mound with writing that seems older than it should be brings up some Arthurian ... emotions, I guess, more than imagery.

Will Wildman said...

I have no problem disliking the Hag, on the basis that she is deeply proud of her capacity to hate. That doesn't make any of the problematic things about her character better, of course.

But as to the chapter as a whole: sweet and sour flame-grilled cyborg zombie Lion Jesus. This chapter. What. Up to now I have been vexed: most of the cast are kind of jerks, Aslan in particular is playing cruel games while people die, everyone is entirely too pleased with Caspian. But this chapter. What? What.

wot.why would Nikabrik be presenting it at the council? This wasn't a coup, it was an attempt to argue that they have passed the Godzilla Threshold and it would be better to let loose Jadis on the Telmarines than just let the genocide keep on rolling. If he wanted to get rid of Caspian, he wouldn't be there.

If anyone else had said it, for whatever reason, I don't think Caspian would have drawn his sword. They were ready and willing to take Nikabrik out.

Once again, the most recent movie version is so, so much better. (And it wasn't that good.)

Peter said...

Caspian gets bitten by a werewolf. I am very disappointed that nothing ever comes of this.

Steve Morrison said...

I thought Aslan's How was a barrow, an artificial structure the Narnians had built over the stone table, rather than a cave.

Ana Mardoll said...

+1 to all the wot.

BUT THE THEOLOGIES!

How else are you going to cram in a heresy about Jesus not really returning to life and the Early Church being established by mortal means if you DON'T include a scene that literally makes no sense in the "wait, none of the character positions or motivations make sense here and the logical implication is that the Hero is a jerk" sense?

PRIORITIES!

Ana Mardoll said...

(I think it is a barrow, not a cave. I either misspoke or used the term very loosely. I'm less sure about it being erected by mortal hands -- I thought that somewhere it was said that it just sort of ushered itself into being.)

Dav said...

In my head-canon, Caspian is now a werewolf, and spends the rest of his life having to reschedule diplomatic events during the full moon after that first nasty encounter with the Archenlands ambassador, who sadly chose to attend the banquet held in his honor wearing a rabbit-fur capelet.

It's my head-canon, and you can't stop me.

Yeah, I don't really like the theologies here, nor am I particularly amused by the whole "but we know the Witch is bad because of legends and if you don't believe the legends of the victors, you are clearly evil and treacherous" because we all know that people who win wars never ever spin histories or anything. (And I think zombie!Jadis and the moral sacrifices that "good" people make to get power would be fun story-wise, in sort of a monkey's paw kind of way.)

Ana Mardoll said...

This. And it's particularly distressing that given two versions of the legend -- that Jadis was evil, versus Jadis was an ally to the dwarves -- it's the version held by the oppressed indigenous people that is Wrong and the version held by the Straight White Hero that is Right.

Great.

-- SPOILERS FOR THE DARK SHADOW MOVIE --

(I'm now seeing Caspian as Carolyn Stoddard. "I'm a werewolf, okay. Let's not make a big deal of it.")

JenL said...

Not that Wiki is always right, but according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Table:
"At some point during the absence of the Pevensie children, a barrow was raised over the remains of the broken Stone Table. Who built the mound, or why, is not explained by Lewis. It is possible that this action was undertaken by the superstitious Telmarines, who feared and despised anything to do with Old Narnia. Another possibility is that the Old Narnians themselves wished to protect the Stone Table fragments from desecration by hiding them from their enemies."

Marie Brennan said...

Why didn't they ask who Nikabrik's companions were when he arrived?

Because that would have ruined all the suspense in the scene.

Mind you, the suspense in the scene is crap, and this method of creating it is even more crap. If one of my creative writing students had handed this in to me, I would have taken a chainsaw to it, pointing out all the places where they were butchering logic and character on the altar of dumb surprises and dumber action. And if this were the only novel we had from C.S. Lewis, we'd be talking about how he couldn't plot his way out of a wet paper bag.

Unquestionably, some of what is going on here is We Must Have the Theology. But a competent writer could at least have made the theology pill go down easier: make Caspian a pov character (as the movie basically did); cut to his perspective for this conversation (not telling the reader right away that Peter et al. eavesdropping); have Nikabrik invite his friends in at the point where he wants to present his heretical notions, rather than them loitering around on the sidelines being ignored when they aren't needed. If you stopped to think, you might still wonder how long Peter had been eavesdropping, and why he hadn't come in sooner -- but you'd have to look for that hole to see it.

Rather than standing in it for the entire bloody scene.

Rakka said...

Pah. Only peasants wear rabbit fur. Squirrel though...

Ana Mardoll said...

I think the thing that offends me most about this scene is that the Must-Have Theology for which this entire scene is constructed isn't even GOOD.

There's no logic here that you could lift and re-apply to the theory of Did / Didn't Jesus Rise From The Dead. Nikabrik isn't wrong because logic or faith -- he's wrong because Lewis wrote him to be wrong. Aslan rose from the dead because Aslan rose from the dead; we can open LWW to the appropriate page and read it right there. But that doesn't say anything about Jesus, or about the people who believe that Jesus didn't rise from the dead.

Really, this whole scene seems to do nothing but conflate People Who Think Jesus Didn't Rise From The Dead with Evil, Stubborn, and Wrong. That's not a logical argument or a demonstration of faith; it's poisoning the well. And this from a guy who's supposed to be a great, compassionate thinker. I just ... what. What.

Lonespark said...

I am a proud Nikabrikian Heretic as of now.

Lonespark said...

And probably Team Hag.

Ana Mardoll said...

We need a motto.

"Because Chaotic Evil is better than Lawful Asshole"?

Evan said...

Or even not have Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin eavesdropping at all; just have them arrive several minutes later. I don't see any reason at all why they need to be listening to this themselves. We readers should hear it, of course, but why not give it to us from Caspian's or Trufflehunter's or Dr. Cornelius's point of view?

Remind me, when's the first scene in the Chronicles that isn't from the child-from-Earth's point of view? There's the long sequence in Last Battle from Tirian's viewpoint (and the first chapter from Shift's), there's one scene in Magician's Nephew from Uncle Andrew's, and Shasta doesn't technically count because he's a native-born Archenlander. But, then, those were the last three Chronicles written... is there any such scene earlier?

(BTW, I know why you put it in, but let me just add that for some reason I really like the phrasing of "Content Note: Nazis.")

Thomas Keyton said...

And I don't care how Caspian styles himself on his school notebook in the evenings (Mister Prince Caspian, King of Narnia)… but that doesn't make Nikabrik any less right in saying that he's a glorified figurehead who has managed to stick himself between a rock and a hard place.

Can I just say that you’re awesome? Because this paragraph is to awesomeness as a hypothetical Yggdrasill-dryad is to dryadness.

…small spells and cantrips that I’d be glad to use against our enemies if it was agreeable to all concerned. For I hate ‘em. Oh yes. No one hates better than me.”

Is the Hag’s line about hate meant to be a warning sign of OMGevil? Because… pretty much all the native Narnians have huge valid reasons for hating the Telmarine occupation that could be carved in spear-deep letters right next to the rules of the Deep Magic, such is their validity. Or is this supposed to be a pretty chivalrous sporting rebellion with no more hard feelings than a football game between two public schools? Yes, she seems proud of her ability to hate in its own right (though I think this is ambiguous to an extent, coming as it does immediately after “I hate ’em”), but her kind has been the subject of two state campaigns of genocide. She’s like Demona from Gargoyles but without any personal responsibility for her loss – hate may be all that’s keeping her functional, and I'm impressed she can be so polite to the open supporters of the previous Hag-genocide-regime.

Emperor forbid any indigenous person actually hate their conquerors and oppressors, I guess.

And in response to this, Prince Caspian draws his sword at council

Oh no! It’s movie!Aragorn!

Ana Mardoll said...

D'aw, shucks. :)

Re: Hatred, I probably should have included this in-post, but it was getting longy.

Hatred and Anger are tricky concepts in feminism. Some feminists are very pro-anger as a healthy response to oppression, to the point where I've even seen mottos like "If you're not angry, you're not helping". But other feminists find anger triggering -- some victims, myself included, associate anger with violence against their selves because the two have a history of going together.

Similarly, some people find hatred to be very damaging and not a positive thing. But some who find anger triggering may find hatred to be a positive alternative to anger. If anger is associated (to an individual) with heat and impulsiveness and proclivities toward violence, hatred can frequently be associated with cold and logic and strategies.

Ultimately, this may be one of the times when people are liable to talk past each other. I know someone, for example, who finds the entire concept of 'hate' to be so triggering that she doesn't even like to hear the word. (An expression like "I hate this heat" would really bother her.) I similarly know others who are fine and dandy with hate, but the very mention of anger/angry can send them into serious anxiety.

Personally, I tend to view hatred as a neutral thing that can be used for good or evil, and I generally prefer it to anger. But I do imagine that Ms. Hag is supposed here to be evil Because Hate.

bekabot said...

When I was a kid reading this book (not a very young kid: I was a post-pubescent kid of 13/14, rather than a pre-pubescent kid of, say 8-9/10, which may have made a difference in the way I reacted to the story) I was on Nikabrik's side too. Because why: it was evident to me that the How in which the war council was meeting was supposed to be Aslan's tomb. I mean, what else would it be? Okay, the narrative lets the reader know that the How isn't actually Aslan's tomb, but the reader is in a privileged position. The reader is better-informed and more au fait than Caspian, Trufflehunter, Nikabrik, Trumpkin, etc. etc. and all four Pevensies combined. The only entity better-informed than the reader at this point is Aslan himself (and that's just a matter of faith).

At the time I read this book my family was living in a part of Michigan (a suburb on the far outskirts of Detroit) where there were tribal barrows all over the place. Sometimes these were easily identifiable as burial-places and sometimes not: almost always they had some kind of cultural significance outside their function as burial-places but even when (not infrequently) there were no bones to be unearthed it was obvious that the mounds and barrows had originally been constructed as monuments to people who were dead. So that when I read Prince Caspian my tendency was to interpret the How in those terms. Darn it, when you meet in a guy's sepulchre (which would naturally be empty after 1400 years) it's not your fault or your problem if you just assume he's...defunct. ("Gee, Aslan, doesn't look like you'll be needing this space. Mind if we borrow it? Thanks...")

And from what we get to hear about the surviving Narnian legends, the evidence seems to point that way. I didn't blame Nikabrik for his point of view in the least; I just felt sorry a) that the set of circumstances he was in had placed his back against the wall, and b) that he didn't have any better alternatives than Jadis and Aslan. That's like trying to pick whether you'd like to executed via hanging or drowning. Either way, the outcome is bound to be subpar. Of course, Nikabrik turns out to be wrong, but on the basis of such information as he's permitted access to, he could scarcely come to any other conclusion. Now it isn't that what Nikabrik knows is false, it's just that what Nikabrik knows is incomplete. Nikabrik is unpleasant but he's not stubborn or malicious, what he is, is a low-information voter. But, and this is what turned me into not the biggest fan of Lewis, Nikabrik doesn't know enough to make the right decision b/c the author doesn't let him know enough to make the right decision.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

"Also the magical cave has doors installed."

Of course it does. How else are they going to have closed-room meetings?

"He had gone sour inside from long suffering and hating."

Yah. Funny how that happens.

Peter said...

I was going to say the Werewolf thing was my headcanon now, but VOTD raises problems. Surely it'd be mentioned at some point they were cooped up on that ship together for months? There must be a way of getting past this though, right?

Will Wildman said...

I think there's a meaningful difference between experiencing hatred and taking pride in one's capacity for hatred.

An analogy: in fighting their oppressors, the Caspianites are undoubtedly killing quite a number of Telmarines. That's pretty much unavoidable in war, and anyone who came in to reprimand them for daring to kill any of the enemy soldiers (because that's just what their oppressors did and now they're no better and et cetera) would be roundly mocked for their unhelpful preaching. The killing is unfortunate but necessary. Yet even if they were totally on the Good side, I would look askance at anyone who showed up boasting about how they were the best killer ever and no one kills like they do. People who think that the point of war is to kill lots of enemies tend to be reprehensible and unreliable.

So, like 'killing enemy soldiers', I think hatred can be valid and useful while still being something that it's gross to take pride in.

muscipula said...

Yes! Nikabrik is factually wrong about some things but it's hard to see him as unjustified. It's not like the others have any better factual basis for what they believe - all of them are following tradition of one kind or another. And it's perfectly true that if you happened to be a wolf, a hag, etc., then you'd have a better life under Jadis than at any other time before or since. Nikabrik is morally wrong to excuse Jadis for having exterminated the beavers (which she actually didn't do!) but supposed good guy Peter gets to show off his practiced skill at werewolf-slaying, and say "Let the vermin be flung into a pit".

This is so much worse than the equivalent scene in the Silver Chair, where Puddleglum defends being a Narnian even if there is no real Narnia. I think that scene is a striking picture not only of faith, but also of the moral element that is so lacking here. Aslan and Jadis shouldn't just be two opposing forces that are compared on their magical power level - "good" and "evil" have to be more than just names for sides, and Aslan should be more than the just the chief of Team Good.

Theo Axner said...

You make several good points as usual, not least about the whole "let's listen in" device - that never really occurred to me before, or maybe I just accepted it as an obvious narrative convenience. But you're absolutely right that it makes nonsense of Nikabrik's desperate plan B, since that is wholly predicated on them not having shown up.

However, I'm interpreting some parts of the chapter a little differently. As I've said before, I think Nikabrik coming across as having a legitimate point or two is not completely unintentional. I think he's an attempt at a complex and somewhat sympathetic villain, although an unsuccessful one - or at least, successful in other ways than intended.

In this particular scene, while we're doubtlessly finding Nikabrik more likeable and Trufflehunter more annoying than Lewis intended, I'm not sure Trufflehunter is supposed to be perfectly in the right. I read the scene most as them arguing emotionally and subjectively and Cornelius acting as the voice of reason (which he's usually designated as).

I don't really have a problem with Nikabrik being uncomfortable with his own plan, either. After all, even if you're prepared to justify what you do as a necessary evil in a desperate situation, necromancy is still clearly pretty universally considered an ugly and dangerous business.

And I second the notion that the movie handled this little subplot much better.

Peter said...

I suspect we're supposed to agree that "Jesus rose from the dead because Jesus rose from the dead; we can open the Bible to the appropriate page and read it right there". The difference of course being that we have an out-verse perspective and know that LWW actually happened in-verse

Theo Axner said...

You make several good points as usual, not least about the whole "let's listen in" device - that never really occurred to me before, or maybe I just accepted it as an obvious narrative convenience. But you're absolutely right that it makes nonsense of Nikabrik's desperate plan B, since that is wholly predicated on them not having shown up.

However, I'm interpreting some parts of the chapter a little differently. As I've said before, I think Nikabrik coming across as having a legitimate point or two is not completely unintentional. I think he's an attempt at a complex and somewhat sympathetic villain, although an unsuccessful one - or at least, successful in other ways than intended.

In this particular scene, while we're doubtlessly finding Nikabrik more likeable and Trufflehunter more annoying than Lewis intended, I'm not sure Trufflehunter is supposed to be perfectly in the right. I read the scene most as them arguing emotionally and subjectively and Cornelius acting as the voice of reason (which he's usually designated as).

I don't really have a problem with Nikabrik being uncomfortable with his own plan, either. After all, even if you're prepared to justify what you do as a necessary evil in a desperate situation, necromancy is still clearly pretty universally considered an ugly and dangerous business.

And I second the notion that the movie handled this little subplot much better.

Ana Mardoll said...

I suspect we're supposed to agree that "Jesus rose from the dead because Jesus rose from the dead; we can open the Bible to the appropriate page and read it right there". The difference of course being that we have an out-verse perspective and know that LWW actually happened in-verse

Well, precisely. I would hope -- ye gods, I would STRONGLY hope -- that an educated man like C.S. Lewis, who is a jewel in the crown of Christian apologetics, would grasp that the people who don't believe in Jesus' resurrection aren't hinging their arguments entirely on not having read the bit in the Bible where he totally does.

Because that would be really, really stupid if he didn't grasp that. That's, like, Chick Tract level of obtuseness. YOU MEAN THE BIBLE SAYS GOD EXISTS? I NEVER KNEW! I RENOUNCE MY ATHEISM FOREVER!

muscipula said...

Oh, here's one more thing that struck me following the previous discussion about Aslan being mysterious and unhelpful.

Trufflehunter says, "It's all one calling on [Aslan] and on the Kings. They were his servants." This is when he thinks that Nikabrik is suggesting invoking Aslan, since summoning the children apparently didn't work.

In John 15:15, Jesus says to his disciples (NIV), "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."

By this standard, the children really are servants and not friends, because they never know what Aslan is up to. The next chapter starts off with Peter saying, "Aslan and the girls [...] are somewhere close. We don't know when he will act. In his own time, no doubt, not ours. In the meantime he would like us to do what we can on our own." In other words: he has no idea where Aslan is, what (if anything) he's planning, when he'll do it, or what he wants them to do other than muddling through as best they can.

Isator Levi said...

Huh. I had always assumed that the whole "resurrect the White Witch" plot point was, you know, something relevent to the narrative, something with buildup, suspense and properly integrated resolution.

As opposed to something vaguely brought up and resolved in the space of a single chapter.

That's even apart from all the stuff with the fully reasonable position of the minority figure or violence of the majority and the unqualified monarch-to-be.

See, this kind of stuff is why I really like these Narnia deconstructions. All these perspectives on fantasy society and war and all that jazz is very relevent to my current interests.

One of these days, I'm going to integrate this stuff into my favoured roleplaying game.

Isator Levi said...

And basically resolved off-screen, at that.

(Is there a way to edit these or what?)

muscipula said...

AND ANOTHER THING! (sorry!) Nikabrik is oh so evil for no longer supporting Caspian's claim to the throne. OK, he should keep his promises. But the others shouldn't be too confident that Aslan will approve of that plan. Admittedly he does have a history of enthroning foreign children - but isn't it also possible that he will write off the whole Telmarine royal line as illegitimate? And that bringing the children back does mean that they'll supplant Caspian, just as thoroughly as the Witch might.

JonathanPelikan said...

Stuff about allegory always makes me think of this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onr_z45NVyI
It's not about Narnia but it has a tangent about allegory versus applicability in fiction.

Brin Bellway said...

(Is there a way to edit these or what?)

I can edit my posts. I think the relevant difference is I have a Disqus account and you don't.

UrsulaVernon said...

My mother felt the same way---I was never allowed to say I hated anything (heat, tofu, waiting) because hate was actually a sin.

Hmm, actually typing that makes me wonder if Lewis was coming at it from that direction---good Christians don't hate, ergo someone proud of their hatred is a Bad Person. But I don't know if there are serious theological underpinnings there to be based on.

Ana Mardoll said...

I don't think I agree, though I want to clarify that I have no bone to pick here and I'm only facetiously on the side of the Hag -- she's pretty clearly supposed to be EVUL.

But I don't see hatred as analogous to killing, probably because I don't see killing as really morally neutral -- I tend to think that killing is always an awful thing, but sometimes awful things have to be done. Whereas I can easily imagine times when hatred is positive and healthy and a good in and of itself -- not just a "net" good overall.

To rope back to anger, there are a number of people in the feminist community who, well, if not "taking pride" in their anger, it is at least a part of their identity. I've seen a number of bloggers and commenters style themselves as "angry black woman" or "pissed bitch" or something similar. If it's important to their identity, then I imagine there is some pride there. In the Captain Awkward post, there's a long and interesting derail about the positive power of feminist "rage" and "anger", and Melissa McEwan is quoted (though I think this is an old quote, because I didn't recognize it) as saying that she's not angry because she's a feminist, but rather she's a feminist because she's angry. Clearly anger is important to some people.

I'm not sure why hatred should be considered a bad thing, as I really view it as a very close cousin to anger -- sort of the Blue Palette Swap version that would live on Ice Mountain and eat snow cones whereas Anger would be the Red Palette Swap that lived on Fiery Volcano and drank tabasco sauce straight from the bottle.

But that's just my rambly thoughts. I think I'll go pour apple cider on my head now and see what happens. :)

Ana Mardoll said...

Interesting! I was thinking of a trigger situation, but now that you mention it, my mother was the same way; "hate" wasn't a trigger word for her, but we weren't allowed to say it, Because Sin.

Rikalous said...

I suppose that on nights where Caspian would be suffering from the Transylvanian complaint* they could chain him to a bit of wood, carved so that it would float with him on top, and just leave him out on the water to thrash about until dawn. The crew would all know, but they'd never dream of telling the foreign children something so embarrassing about the King.

* Damn, that sounds like vampirism. The Uberwaldian complaint? Where are there werewolves but no vampires?

Aidan Bird said...

I still feel very, very uneasy around the word hate because of that being drummed into me from a very young age until I finally was able to put boundaries up between me and certain family members. I've been reading your thoughts on hate, Ana, and I find it very interesting because it's so opposite of my view - instilled by my upbringing - that hate corrupts.

Though these days I also am starting to see hate appear when people are saying to me: "Well, I love you, the sinner, but I hate the sin." For to me, that's just a fancy way of saying: "I hate you and I hate what you do." I think the reason I see it that way is because the context of that phrase is used to attack a part of myself that I simply cannot change, so to hate that aspect of myself that I cannot change, isn't that essentially hating me as a person? Can you hate one aspect of someone and not hate them as a person? Can you hate anyone and not wish them ill?

So now I'm left with a lot of food for thought. I really don't know what to think on the hate part of the debate.

As for anger - I recognize it can be healthy, but because I've seen it used in so many unhealthy ways, it still frightens me, especially when I myself am feeling angry. However, I find it slightly easier to understand the anger side of the debate than the hate side.

Anyway, I find your comments on hate to be fascinating, Ana, and thank you for that. I'm going to have to go sit on it now.

P.S. The Narnia deconstructions is at the moment my most favorite posts on the Internet. You really are great at pointing out all the things that left me uneasy about them, but at the time I was reading them, I didn't have the words or the voice to tackle it.

Ana Mardoll said...

Thank you, Aidan. I've updated the post to reflect that we're discussing hate/anger in the comments, because you're right that the terms and concepts can be legitimately triggering, especially if they've been used against you.

That whole "hate the sin" thing deeply pisses me off, because it's such a cop-out. If you hate someone's sexuality, then you hate an integral part of them, end of story.

Isator Levi said...

"I think the relevant difference is I have a Disqus account and you don't."

Accounts for things do not sit well with my broadband, sadly.

You know what I realised? Trufflehunter is a lot like Wormtongue, is his sycophantry and his wild exclamations of "Lies!", except on this occasion it's him who stands on the throat of Gimli (movie version only).

Will Wildman said...

So I think this is very much about what words precisely mean to us - I specifically spoke of hatred and not anger in my case because while they are often co-present, I very much do not see them as being different flavours of the same thing. Hatred seems much more closely tied to what something is; while anger is more directly about what someone does.

I think anger implies a reason where hatred requires no such thing. (They're called 'hate crimes' rather than 'anger crimes' for a reason.) If someone is angry with X, they'll be expected to have a reason, whereas people are, I think, frequently understood to hate Y for no given reason at all. It's also far more encompassing: I can love someone and be angry with them; I can't love them and hate them at the same time. So these seem like very different beasts to me.

Aidan Bird said...

Thank you, Ana.

Also, your clarification really helps a lot. Hating/being angry about Rape Culture makes a lot of sense to me, and is also different from hating/being angry at specific people. So in that context, the hate side of the argument makes a lot more sense, and lessens the uneasy/fear of the word itself. Thank you again for that clarification.

Ana Mardoll said...

TW: Abusive Relationships

Huh. I do agree that we're working with very different definitions, but I'm not sure how to reconcile words. I'd almost be on the flip side re: reasons, but then I think that's because I've had too much experience with people being angry at me for (imho) no good reason. My ex-husband frequently became extremely angry and hot-tempered, to the point of hitting me hard enough to almost break my nose, and pushing me down a flight of stairs, so anger is not something that I connotate as rational. The divide between Hatred / Anger for me is really almost entirely measured by how "hot-headed" / impulsive / shouty / intense the holder is behaving.

Don't know how to fix that, or even if I'm using the words wrong. It does fit with "hate crimes", though, in my head now that you mention it, since those are contrasted with "angry crimes" i.e., what we often call "crimes of passion" (I dislike that framing so, so much). Much to think on, here.

Ana Mardoll said...

Thank YOU. And I should have been clearer from the get-go. I definitely think hatred/anger about Oppression, Kyriarchy, Patriarchy, Rape Culture, etc. is a very different animal from hatred/anger against people, even people involved in those concepts.

I don't, for example, hate rapists. But I hate that rape exists and isn't taken seriously in our society and is under-prosecuted and so forth. I hate that. I don't say that I'm angry about it, though, mostly because in my Lexicon, anger requires energy, and I've lately reached a rape fatigue with all this Akin stuff.

Relevant link to rape fatigue: http://jezebel.com/5936679/rape-fatigue-and-you-when-theres-just-no-anger-left

EdinburghEye said...

I love reading Narnia out loud. Like Tolkien - like Kipling - like Austen - C.S.Lewis writes wonderfully for the reader-aloud. My favourite technique for getting kids into bed on time was to promise them that if they got into bed with their teeth brushed on time I'd read to them till they went to sleep. Their choice of stories, obviously, but I have got to read Narnia often enough that I can say:

My very favourite speech in all of the books ever is the Werewolf's.

“I'm hunger. I'm thirst. Where I bite, I hold till I die, and even after death they must cut out my mouthful from my enemy's body and bury it with me. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze. I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show me your enemies.”

Who wouldn't want this guy on your side? As far as we know, he comes along in good faith assuming he's been invited to a war council in preparation for battle, and literally the first (and the only) thing he gets to say before he's killed by the people he assumed he would be fighting for is a bold offer that he is more than capable of fighting to the end and he will fight Prince Caspian's enemies.

And they kill him because of species prejudice.

I don't think that bloody Caspian kid deserved to become a werewolf.

Theo Axner said...

EdinburghEye beat me to it. The werewolf's speech is my favourite part of PC and probably one of my favourite Narnia passages in general. I think Lewis was at his best when he let loose and put in these weird, wild pieces. That Hideous Strength has a lot of that (along with a lot of stuff that's just plain bonkers in a less cool way).

Nathaniel said...

Lewis has always struck me as someone who is considered brilliant by non-intellectuals. The few theological and philosophical writings of his I bothered to read didn't impress in the least.

Thomas Keyton said...

Who wouldn't want this guy on your side? As far as we know, he comes along in good faith assuming he's been invited to a war council in preparation for battle, and literally the first (and the only) thing he gets to say before he's killed by the people he assumed he would be fighting for is a bold offer that he is more than capable of fighting to the end and he will fight Prince Caspian's enemies

Yes! And there's not even any strong evidence that he's actually evil (unless you count allusions to Fenrir* in the "where I bite I hold till I die" line, and considering that the gods basically made their own enemy there...) - he's ferocious and powerful, nigh-unkillable, and willing to slay what he believes needs slaying in defence of Narnia. Paint him gold and give him a wig, and who needs Susan's horn of summoning?

* And if we're going by mythical allusions to judge alignment, what of the centaurs and fauns?

Ana Mardoll said...

Seriously, centaurs have the best PR campaign. Was there a good centaur besides Chiron? When did they all become Lawful Good??

Isator Levi said...

Most of the centaurs in Harry Potter still feel like jerks, even if they come around enough to provide some fire support in the end.

Illhousen said...

"‘Worshipful Master Doctor,” came a thin, whining voice. “So please you, I’m only a poor old woman, I am, and very obliged to his Worshipful Dwarfship for his friendship, I’m sure. His Majesty, bless his handsome face, has no need to be afraid of an old woman that’s nearly doubled up with the rheumatics and hasn’t two sticks to put under her kettle. I have some poor little skill—not like yours, Master Doctor, of course—in small spells and cantrips that I’d be glad to use against our enemies if it was agreeable to all concerned. For I hate ‘em. Oh yes. No one hates better than me.”"

Goddammit, I like her! OK, so I have a soft spot for old kinda evil hags since Ravel, but damn. It's both funny and badass.

And yeah, there were so many opportunities to dramatically enter the room a bit earlier and say "Guess what? The Kings (and Queens but they aren't important) are here!". Then hag and werewolf could've attacked everyone because their plan became unlikely to succeed, Nikabrik could've sacrifice himself, and Lewis could've make a theological point about how forces of evil corrupt otherwise good people in hard times and drag them to their death or something. Instead we have the most needless battle I can remember.

Pqw said...

That motto actually speaks to a situation in my real life. :-/ So yeah, I'm a Nikabrikian Heretic and member of Team Hag too.

Isator Levi said...

Wait, he got the chance to say that in the book?! Wow, I was familiar with the passage, and assumed that it was invented for the movie.

I also thought that it came in the context of him threatening the protagonists, rather than offering his services.

It's a shame, in a good Norse narrative, a character like the participating in your final battle would be a must have.

Still, there is merit in the Christian notion that violence is not the most desired solution to such disputes, and that compassion, and peacemaking and love are far more integral for the right kind of victor-

Oh.
:p

depizan said...

What gets me about this chapter is that the "good" guys are show to do bad to evil things, while the things that are supposed to mark the "evil" characters as evil are much less clear.

"For I hate ‘em. Oh yes. No one hates better than me." Really can be interpreted two ways. Either, like a Sith Lord, she's saying she's great at hating and proud of it. Or, in the context, she's saying she's exceptionally pissed at their enemies. (Or hate has kept her going, as suggested up thread.)

I mention Sith Lords because when they give "by the way, I'm eeeeeevil" speeches, there is no doubt about it. There is doubt here. And, frankly, that's not what you want in your "by the way, I'm eeeeeevil" speeches, or people might miss that that's what they're meant to be. The werewolf's speech has that same problem, turned up to 11. He's bloody offering his services! And no part of it says "by the way, I'm eeeeevil."

Given that the only person who we know had their sword out was Caspian, our "good" king must have attacked first. What the flying fuck? No wonder we don't see the beginning of the melee. Then we've got the "good" people listening to something they could've put a stop to at any moment.

I'm sorry, by deeds, the "good" people are bad and the "evil" people have done no more than defend themselves. This is deeply messed up.

Steve Morrison said...

Hey, wait a minute! The werewolf bit Caspian, so shouldn't they have had to remove the mouthful of the Prince's flesh and bury it with him fling it into the pit with him?

Amaranth said...

They killed the werewolf's speech in the movie, IMO. Instead of shouting the last line, he should have dropped to an intense whisper.

But maybe that's just me.

And yeah, it never registered until reading this today that Caspian was *bitten by a werewolf*...do you suppose Lewis didn't know what normally happens or he just decided to ignore it because Kids' Book?

Rikalous said...

Clearly he lied, because he is Evil and lying is Evil so he'd lie every chance he got.

Or he was saying that he could hold on until he died, but he chooses not to because he doesn't want to go walking around with his teeth tight around a chunk of the first thing he bit for the rest of his life.

depizan said...

I wondered about that, myself.

Ana Mardoll said...

In Narnia, people seem to be born good or evil. Animals are steadfast. Red dwarves are good, and black dwarves aren't. Giants are bad unless they come from a good family.

Werewolves can't be made in this paradigm, because then you'd have a Good Man become an Evil Creature against his will, and that makes Plato cry.

My guess, anyway.

Ana Mardoll said...

Isn't it stated that he's not fully transformed yet? (In bed and can't be arsed to check.) If so, I'd say Perfect Grip can only be utilized as a feat post-transformation.

depizan said...

That would also explain why, after his impressive speech, he's so easily killed.

depizan said...

Except that they explicitly say that if they hadn't fucked up being freedom fighters, Nikabrik might have become good.

I don't know, the whole thing makes me very bookstabby. (Not that, as a library clerk, I would ever actually stab a book.) But then, I really hate the concept of born good/born bad, always chaotic evil races, etc. I'm a big proponent of good and evil are what you do. But I'm a big proponent of what people do, not what people are, anyway. Which makes me at odds with all of Narnia, pretty much. Narnia is all about what people are. Hate. That.

Ana Mardoll said...

True. I think Nikabrik, as a dwarf, occupies a Narnia grey area. He can either tow the line and be redeemed, like Trumpkin (albeit as a servant and cat toy), or he can be an object lesson like the black dwarves in Last Battle.

But the hag and the werewolf are irredeemable "vermin". The idea that our great white savior could become one of THOSE through a bite would probably have horrified Lewis. (Becoming the Other?!) In my head canon, anyway.

Amaryllis said...

Oh dear. It really is awful, isn't it?

I can't find any redeeming values, as the saying is, in this chapter. And I dislike everyone in it.

I dislike the Hag and the Werewolf. I dislike Nikabrik and Cornelius and the Badger. I despise Peter and Edmund and Trumpkin for just standing there while things fall apart. Why on earth-- on Narnia-- didn't they just walk in and announce themselves?

Caspian and the Werewolf-- was "infection by bite" a commonly-accepted trope when PC was written? I seem to recall that the classical werewolf tales involved a choice on the part of the werewolf, some sort of sorcery or freely-chosen devilish allegiance, or possibly a divine curse or punishment for some sin. An innocent person turned into a werewolf involuntarily is after all inconsistent with the Christian notion of free will: you can't be turned into an embodiment of evil without your own consent. In which case, I guess we are to assume that the Werewolf and the Hag at some point chose to be what they are.

(Yes, I know, it's problematic that the metaphors for evil are ugly and elderly; the idea that you can tell evil by looking at is problematic in itself. But that's the genre for you.)

" I think it's perfectly reasonable for me -- and Nikabrik -- to demand to know why Aslan isn't showing up to save physical lives and depose temporal rulers"
We may recall that Aslan, at this very moment, is too busy partying with Bacchus to have any attention to spare for Caspian's problems.

Which, in one way, sort of maps to the real world, where at any given moment, some people are in trouble or danger while other people are happy and carefree. But, but, usually not in such close proximity, and with such close relationships. Is Susan and Lucy's moment of distracted joy, more important than Nikabrik's potential redemption? And I'll bet, if they'd taken Susan into the How, she'd have had no patience for this listiening-at-the-door nonsense.

I don't think that the Witch was supposed to be regarded as only a temporal ruler. Breaking her power was a spiritual event, although Lewis did have to drag in a physical battle to go along with the Deep-Magic part. This time, it is purely a matter of temporal rule.

Were those carvings in the How supposed to be older than the Pevensies' reign, or just older than the Pevensies? I mean, the How was constructed, and presumably carved, after the children went back to England, but that's 1400 years ago. Plenty of time for carvings to acquire that ancient look. And yet, these two adolescents were present in Narnia before the carvings were made, so are technically even older. In other words, "just the usual muddle about times."

I like the Glastonbury association, though. Peter and Edmund are just lucky they didn't come across their own memorial stones! That would have given them a nice shock.

Steve Morrison said...

Yes, Peter says: “And I suppose this thing is a Wer-Wolf. It’s so long since I’ve seen one. Wolf’s head and man’s body. That means he was just turning from man into wolf at the moment he was killed.”
So in that case, did Caspian develop a liking for very rare steaks afterward, like Bill Weasley?

Amaryllis said...

"my mother was the same way; "hate" wasn't a trigger word for her, but we weren't allowed to say it, Because Sin. "

I never got in trouble for using "hate." But my grandmother used to get really peeved about the casual use of "love:"

"What do you mean, you love ice cream? Do you love it like you love your mother?"
Well, no, I guess not...

Steve Morrison said...

Ha, would you care to guess which author this quote is from:
Most of my generation were reproved as children for saying that we “loved” strawberries
That’s right, C. S. Lewis! (from The Four Loves.)

Rakka said...

Re hate and anger: I've been angry, and I've hated, and hating was powerlessness and helplessness and palm-sweaty revenge fantasies. It sucked. Anger may be destructive but it's so much better to let it out than leaving it to simmer and rot and become hatred. It's like difference between stagnant water and rapids. Neither are pleasant to fall into but only the former breeds disease.

Maartje said...

[Dunno if I should TW, but graphic descriptions of what anger feels like?]

Interesting, Rakka. For me, it was the other way around - anger was powerlessness and helplessness and palm-sweaty revenge fantasies. It sucked. Hatred may be destructive but it's so much better to just let it simmer for a while instead of letting it all burst out uncontrolledly. It's the difference between stagnant water and rapids. Neither are pleasant to fall into but only the latter gets your head smashed open on the rocks.

(In other words, I think people vary. I'm an introvert who very much doesn't like to have to 'think on my feet' so I am at my best when I'm NOT propelled by intense emotion and adrenalin surges to do the first fool thing that comes into my head. I don't trust anger - I get angry pretty easily but I never make a decision until I'm calmed down again, because I want to be able to trust my decisions once the emotion vanishes. And sometimes anger cools down into simple peacefulness ('cause the thing I was angry about wasn't a big deal) and sometimes anger cools down into hatred, which is the perfect calm spot for me to decide whether I'm going to do something about it, and what.)

EdinburghEye said...

Isator Levi Wait, he got the chance to say that in the book?!

The two "vermin" are asked to introduce themselves. The Werewolf's response - he is presumably then in human form, looking like a gaunt and hairy (and naked or near-naked) man - is that kind of vaunting brag that Lewis would have been familiar with, a warriror saying what he can do.

Then Caspian draws his sword, in effect his solid Telmarine prejudice (shared by Peter, and C.S.Lewis, so marked as "good") telling him that he can kill these two in council, where they have been invited by one of his close advisers, just as consciencelessly as he likes - just as his Uncle Miraz would have killed any Old Narnian.

Betcha what then happened was that Nikabrik tried to tackle Caspian (doubtless aware that Caspian wouldn't stand a chance against a Werewolf, and wanting to stop the fight there and then) and then Trufflehunter tackled Nikabrik, and then Caspian waved his sword at the Werewolf and the Werewolf starts changing form and tackles Caspian.

And then the two Kings and Trumpkin rush in and kill the "vermin" and Nikabrik and all's well.

Amaranth: They killed the werewolf's speech in the movie, IMO. Instead of shouting the last line, he should have dropped to an intense whisper.

That's exactly how I always read it - the last line is a loud whisper, intense and practically hissed.

EdinburghEye said...

Given that the only person who we know had their sword out was Caspian, our "good" king must have attacked first. What the flying fuck? No wonder we don't see the beginning of the melee.

Yes. And actually, it's just occurred to me - the Telmarines probably did a lot of this when they were taking over Narnia. Well, maybe not often, but I can see Old Narnians coming to them in good faith thinking their new rulers ("sons of Adam, daughters of Eve") will respect the truce and they can talk about respecting the Trees and the Rivers and how to ask an animal if they're a Talking Beast before you try to kill them - and then the Telmarines just drew their swords and slaughtered them.

Nikabrik sees his worst fears about Caspian coming true.

Isator Levi said...

Huh. When I read it, I hear "Show me your enemies" in a matter-of-fact, casual tone. Like a plumber asking to be shown where the broken pipes are.

BrokenBell said...

“All said and done,” he muttered, “none of us knows the truth about the ancient days in Narnia. Trumpkin believed none of the stories. I was ready to put them to the trial. We tried first the Horn and it has failed. If there ever was a High King Peter and a Queen Susan and a King Edmund and a Queen Lucy, then either they have not heard us, or they cannot come, or they are our enemies—”
“Or they are on the way,”
Here. Right here. Precisely here is where it should say "Peter declared", instead of "put in Trufflehunter". This is the point at which Peter and Edmund and Trumpkin should've strode in, full of calm and confidence, and taken control of the situation, with maximum dramatic timing achieved. Here is where the High Kings of Old should have demonstrated their legendary ability to hold council and organise war and rule, in sharp contrast to the bickering and paranoia-ridden meetings the inexperienced Caspian had utterly failed to effectively manage. This would prove their worth, not just to Caspian's fledgling government, but to us, the audience, who have yet to see them be royalty in any meaningful capacity, and are likely be deeply skeptical (and reasonably so) of how much help four kids and an unreliable demigod are really going to be to an active and endangered resistance movement.

Furthermore, there is no reason why we should be introduced to this scene through Pevensie eyes. None whatsoever. As Ana says, having them eavesdrop until the last possible moment actively weakens the scene and does serious harm to the characterisation of Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin. And for what? We've already spent ample time with Caspian as the viewpoint character. What would be lost by handing the camera over to him once again, in the middle of this tense war council, where we have no idea how close the Pevensies are, or if Caspian is even going to hold out until they get there? How much more evil and stubborn and stupid Lewis could've painted Nikabrick as being (in the name of DEEP THEOLOGICAL POINTS, of course) if the dwarf had actually gotten to meet the fabled High Kings, and continue to be doubtful and skeptical about the truth of these ancient legends directly to the people those legends are about?

And you know what? Nikabrik was right. Not even "his position was reasonable considering the information that was available to him". No, even taking all that into account, it's a perfectly reasonable stance to take, and should be seriously considered as an alternative to trying to get Aslan involved again. Yeah, the long winter sucked, and she was horribly oppressive, but at least there was a continuous Narnian culture that was protected from hostile outside forces, and it wasn't being hunted to extinction. The Pevensies came in with Aslan, dethroned the Witch, and played around for thirty to forty years before disappearing completely, leaving Narnia without guidance and without protection. It's allowed to come extremely close to complete desolation before Aslan decides that maybe he could lift a damn paw and forces the Pevensies back into action. They're literally worse off following Aslan, in real, concrete terms, than they would've been under the Witch. So screw it. Maybe they should bring back the Witch. At least then Narnia might have a reliable chance at existence.

Lonespark said...

And I'll bet, if they'd taken Susan into the How, she'd have had no patience for this listiening-at-the-door nonsense.

Word. Susan takes action.

Ana Mardoll said...

One of the many things Lewis expects me to be interested in and yet I aggressively refuse to be:

“I say, Peter,” whispered Edmund. “Look at those carvings on the walls. Don’t they look old? And yet we’re older than that. When we were last here, they hadn’t been made.”
“Yes,” said Peter. “That makes one think.”


The Narnia wiki states that the How was erected 1,000 years after the Stone Table split in half, i.e., the resurrection. So the carvings on the wall cannot physically be more than 300 years old at this point in the timeline (the Pevensies have been gone 1,300 years), but I read this as Edmund and Peter saying they "look" older than 300 years.

http://narnia.wikia.com/wiki/Aslan%27s_How

Amaryllis said...

Well, but have Peter and Edmund read the wiki? They don't know exactly when in the last millennium that the How was raised. Nor are they trained in Narnian art history, they wouldn't be able to tell by the style. All they'd see is carved walls that "look old" but that hadn't existed in what to them feels like the recent past, the year ago that they'd last been in Narnia. I'm not sure why this is important, but I don't think it's meant to be supernatural.

You'd think it was meant to "make one think" about just how long it had been since they were last in Narnia, and maybe they should be sure they understand the current situation before they go charging in unprepared, maybe that's what the eavesdropping was supposed to be. If so, it doesn't work.

A thousand years after the Resurrection, huh? Okay, it may be Glastonbury, but it's probably also the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, constructed (over the remains of older churches, it's true) beginning in 1048 A.D.

@Steve Morrison: well, there you go. It must have been a Thing in that generation. Pass the strawberries, I'm very fond of them.

Ana Mardoll said...

Who knows. They've been all over creation and back with Trumpkin for three days, so if he knew, he could have told them. Especially since it was erected when the Telmarine problems started. But I class it as up there with candles and oil lamps.

EdinburghEye said...

BrokenBell Here. Right here. Precisely here is where it should say "Peter declared", instead of "put in Trufflehunter". This is the point at which Peter and Edmund and Trumpkin should've strode in, full of calm and confidence, and taken control of the situation, with maximum dramatic timing achieved.

YES.

And, if the Chaotic Good decide they can't trust the Hag and the Werewolf because they're EVIL, well, the honourable thing to do would be to have them held prisoner til the battle's over (soon, now Aslan's arrived) and then give them a fair trial if there;s any actual EVIDENCE they're evil.

(Admittedly in Aslan's Narnia a "fair trial" pretty much consists of Trial by Lion, but there you go.)

I suppose the theory is Aslan can't return to Narnia unless there are Sons of Adam/Daughters of Eve rightly ruling it, and the Telmarines having slaughtered the Old Narnians aren;t "rightful". So Caspian is the innocent stock and Peter is there to confirm rightful inheritance.

But then Aslan won't show up again except briefly in the Silver Chair, and then only to British schoolchildren.

Anton_Mates said...

I definitely think hatred/anger about Oppression, Kyriarchy, Patriarchy, Rape Culture, etc. is a very different animal from hatred/anger against people, even people involved in those concepts.

That's the position Lewis takes in, for instance, Perelandra. The perfect Christian loves the sinner but hates the sin. Ransom experiences "a torrent of perfectly lawful hatred" for the first and only time in his life when he faces the Un-Man, Satan incarnate; that's the only soul in existence which is 100% irredeemable and can therefore be "lawfully" hated.

So, yeah, I think the Hag's problem is that she revels in hating the Telmarines themselves, instead of nobly restricting herself to hating her atrocities. Of course, the Hag probably has reasons not to have developed into a paragon of virtue, what with almost every sentient being in Narnia wanting her dead and considering her "vermin" and all. But they don't mean "vermin" hatefully, you know! Or if they do, it's her fault for forcing them to hate her. )

Dav said...

It's an incredibly fine line. I don't think hatred or anger is necessarily a bad thing, and I think the line between "hating everything you do and stand for" and "hating you" can be pretty much nil.

I basically stand on anger/hate where I stand on forgiveness: no one can make me feel forgiveness, or make me not forgive, and if I'm the victim of someone's assholery, only I get to make the call as to the right response. If I'm forgiving/angry/hating on someone else's behalf, that's more complicated, and requires a lot more awareness so I don't use other people's pain for my gain. In short, there's no right response to any given situation, and generally it's not my call to make for other people. I care way more about actions, anyway - you need to find ways to deal with anger and hatred and forgiveness and guilt so that they are not destructive to you or others. Sometimes that means seeking them out and sometimes that means embracing them as a lifestyle and sometimes that means cutting them out completely.

Ursula L said...

It's an incredibly fine line. I don't think hatred or anger is necessarily a bad thing, and I think the line between "hating everything you do and stand for" and "hating you" can be pretty much nil.

The line really is between "hating this thing you do and stand for" and "hating every thing you do and stand for."

Because even the most monstrous people have things that they do, and things that they stand for, which are not monstrous. And when you loose track of that, you dehumanize the person you're hating.

Ana Mardoll said...

I'd be careful about conflating my views with Lewis' because I don't think they're the same.

I am NOT a proponent of "love the sinner, hate the sin". For one thing, I don't extend love or forgiveness or anything to anyone without my Reasons. I don't love, for example, rapists. I may love a specific rapist, for Reasons, but I'm not going to love all rapists just because some god demanded that I extend love to all living creatures. I don't work that way -- I don't love people I don't know. And a good many people I know, I don't love. That's my right and my place and anyone who tries to pressure me to do otherwise can fuck off.

And "hate the sin" can be problematic because, as Aiden points out, it's frequently used to hate actions that don't cause harm, like homosexuality or paganism. It's one thing for someone to decide that they hate, say, rape because it's a heinous violation of human rights and bodily autonomy. It's another thing entirely to hate an entire sexual orientation because you've been steeped in prejudice mixed with religious privilege. I do NOT think it's alright to conflate those things -- that's (one reason) why I said there is healthy hate and unhealthy hate.

Tying back into the "fuck you, I'll hate who I want" paradigm above, the Hag is a victim of oppression that is stronger than anything Lewis ever could have imagined. She has, in my opinion, every right to hate the people who have wiped out her family and friends, to the point where she may well be one of the last of her kind. Whether that hatred is healthy for her is her own business (and, additionally, health is not a Moral Imperative). Lewis really has no right to cast judgment on her for her internal decisions in a terrible survival situation. If he wants to judge her, it should be on her deeds, not her words, in my opinion.

TL;DR: Lewis and I are *not* in the same place on this.

bekabot said...

"Seriously, centaurs have the best PR campaign. Was there a good centaur besides Chiron? When did they all become Lawful Good??"

I think it's because of Jonathan Swift. Centaurs in present-day English-language fiction seem to bear a closer resemblance to Swift's Houyhnhnms than to their Classical progenitors. I think centaurs got their Lawful Good reputation because Jonathan Swift was their PR guy.

Rakka said...

Maartje, exactly that. Anger passes, and doesn't necessarily need acting on it. Hate sticks into you and affects everything even tangentially related to the cause of it. Therefore I'd rather be angry about something than hate something, and rather be object of anger than hate.

That aside... why exactly are we supposed to be cheering for Aslan and the assorted Kings? I haven't read Narnia (must've been the only fantasy book in the library I didn't read in senior secondary) or seen the movies even, but Protagonist Centered Everything is so far off the scale it hit the roof in the room above this one. Team Wer-Wolf.

Ymfon said...

@ Ursula: Well put.

Theo Axner said...

I think it's because of Jonathan Swift. Centaurs in present-day English-language fiction seem to bear a closer resemblance to Swift's Houyhnhnms than to their Classical progenitors. I think centaurs got their Lawful Good reputation because Jonathan Swift was their PR guy.

Interesting, haven't heard that before but you may well be right. It would be ironic in that case, considering that the Houyhnhms were pretty awful themselves. Though IIRC opinions differ to what extent Swift himself was aware of this.

Smilodon said...

I think it's stifling to say that human emotions are "bad", even if they are "negative" emotions. Because even negative emotions can be important and valuable ones - I think a few people in this thread have given contexts where anger and hatred are justified. I just found out that one of my past collegues is in a very bad situation. And I wish that she was full of anger and hatred, partly because she ought to be in her situation, but mostly because those are strong emotions, and she needs a lot of strength right now.

Someone brought up the word "dehumanizing" and I think that's an important distinction. I think when you lose the ability to see someone as a person because of anger or hate is when the emotions become most destructive. But dehumanizing kindness and compassion is often a terrible thing as well, though in a subtler way than anger.

Lily said...

It's probably worth pointing out again here how much I love Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" (which is pretty clearly to me a conversation with Narnia as well as a good series in its own right) because child protagonist Lyra recognizes that she's a kid and actually asks adults for advice and help.

Yes! I read The Magician's Nephew today ("Well, maybe I was just being unfair to Lewis. I did like listening to the audio dramatizations as a child..." I remember being confused about why a conservative Christian company would endorse Narnia because isn't Narnia fantasy? Silly, wee Lily.) and it...left a bad taste in my mouth. My first instinct was to run to His Dark Materials, where the kids act like real kids.

~Lily~

Asha said...

I've always thought of anger as the sharp, bright feeling you get when you are cut- you jerk and react and try to either get yourself to safety or lash out at what damaged you. Hatred is what festers afterward if the situation isn't repaired. It's not a good or a bad thing, it just is, and it is how a person acts on those feelings (yay, pop psych!) that make them negative or positive. If I'm angry at someone groping me and lash out, that's self-defense. If I'm angry that the attraction I wanted to visit is closed and call the receptionist and bawl her out, I'm being a jerk. If I hate the system that allowed the guy to get away with groping me, that's justified and I want to act in sustained manner to correct the society that allowed it to happen. If I hate the attraction for being closed... that's really absurd. (Why yes, I was the one who got bawled out today.)

But I was raised as a Baptist and the whole "Hate the sin, love the sinner" was drilled into me early. My mom sincerely believes in it... and it is a big fat lie. She can't handle that I'm not 100% straight and that I disagree with her on most religious points now. She can't acknowledge that her hate hurts people, and herself. It really doesn't work to say I hate you for having black hair but I love the rest of you.

Anton_Mates said...

I'd be careful about conflating my views with Lewis' because I don't think they're the same.

Oh, I didn't think they were; apologies for careless writing. It just seemed to me that they aligned on the specific point about hatred of people being different from hatred of the harmful behavior they perpetrate. I agree with you that hatred of people can be perfectly legitimate, and that "hate the sin" is plenty problematic. (And if "throw this vermin I've just murdered into an unmarked mass grave" isn't an example of Our Heroes hating the sinner, I have no idea what would qualify.)

She has, in my opinion, every right to hate the people who have wiped out her family and friends, to the point where she may well be one of the last of her kind.

She has every right to hate Aslan and his followers, too, given that they were busily engaged in slaughtering her kind before the Telmarines showed up to finish the job. AFAIK, it's never suggested that Aslan even gave the Chaotic Evil races an opportunity to reform; there are no Missions to the Ogres mentioned.

If he wants to judge her, it should be on her deeds, not her words, in my opinion.

It's hard to imagine quite how dastardly her deeds could be, at least for the last few decades. The hags and monsters are obviously keeping a very low profile, since they don't seem to inspire real fear in the other Old Narnians, and the average Telmarine believes them totally extinct. They must attack other races very rarely, if at all.

Seriously, centaurs have the best PR campaign. Was there a good centaur besides Chiron? When did they all become Lawful Good?

Heraracles' friend Pholus was also a good centaur. Like Chiron, he was often given different ancestry from the main centaur race. Chiron's kids were pretty civilized but apparently weren't centaurs, since he married a nymph. However, they were transformed into horses by various gods at a statistically remarkable rate.

The centaurs continued to be mostly depicted as violent drunkards through the Renaissance, I believe. Maybe it was the Victorians that cleaned them up? Hawthorne's description of Chiron in "Tanglewood Tales" is the first one I know of that doesn't mention how savage the other centaurs were.

I would guess that Lewis makes his centaurs so virtuous to prove a point; he frequently insisted that all the good bits of pagan mythology could be reconciled with Christianity. He's even got one of those Assyrian human-headed bulls following Aslan.

Isabel C. said...

Team Hag here as well.

I'm angry at things, and at people. I hate other things, and people. I try to restrict both to situations when they're justified--I'm perfectly happy to hate Fred Phelps, or any of the mass-murderers that have made the news lately, and to a lesser degree, to hate people who make life miserable for their friends/SOs/etc--and to not let either lead me into actions that will be self-destructive, or make the world worse than the people I hate already do.

And I'm cool with that.

On werewolves: I thought the contagion-by-bite idea was actually an invention of the Lon Chaney films, but Wiki says it appears first in a 1935 film called Werewolf of London. That was pre-Caspian, but I don't know how widespread the trope would've been in the intervening 14 years, particularly to someone like Lewis, who doesn't seem to have been a giant horror-film buff.

Steve Morrison said...

I wonder where Nikabrik’s name came from? It occurred to me a while ago that it might be from the “neeker-breekers” in LotR (i.e., annoying, noisy swamp insects), but it’s not too clear why Lewis would have thought that was appropriate.

Isator Levi said...

I thought it was basically just "nick (as in steal) a brick", as in person who steals dismantled masonry from abandoned British buildings.

Theo Axner said...

Lacking any other indications, I think Lewis went for sound associations, as he often did with his invented names. "Nikabrik" sounds harsh, hard and angular.

Amaryllis said...

Didn't we have a discussion about the "he's a brick" idiom? Maybe Nikabrik is "no' a brick," to be Scots about it.

And Trumpkin, of course, is a "little trump." And admirable person (a trump) who gets the better of (trumps) his opponents. But let's not forget that he's really short!

etv13 said...

"a competent writer" -- and yet, somehow, sixty years later, these books are still in print and attracting all this time and attention. Imagine if they'd been written by a good writer.

UrsulaVernon said...

Well, to give Mr. Lewis what credit he is due, the "adults won't believe you/can't help you" thing is arguably one of the great consistent tropes in children's literature. Otherwise they come and and fix it and you get sent home and hear about it later. So my tendency is to give him a pass on that bit, in a "Why Don't The Eagles Fly The Ring To Mt. Doom?" sort of way, because otherwise you don't have a plot.

(I, uh, freely admit as an author of children's books myself, I use this one all the time. You have to get the parents out of the way if you want anything exciting to happen, since adults are tiresome about letting you visit other worlds unsupervised.)

Mind you, that one ONLY works in Magician's Nephew, where Digory and Polly can be forgiven for not explaining to their parents that there's a crazy wizard with magic rings. In Prince Caspian, not sitting down and asking Trumpkin and crew for advic is just idiocy.

Makabit said...

I suppose I should try to read "His Dark Materials" again. I got through "The Golden Compass" some years ago, and simply didn't like it.

Makabit said...

Amaranth: They killed the werewolf's speech in the movie, IMO. Instead of shouting the last line, he should have dropped to an intense whisper

Hollywood does that. "They call me Mr. Tibbs," is not supposed to be said in a loud angry voice. It's meant to be deadpan, controlled, and very dry.

Lonespark said...

I've known plenty of kids whose parents/family would not fix anything. Is the problem with using characters like supposed to be that kids from highly functional families won't relate?

Rakka said...

Probably would push the book into "issue" category if the kid had problems and the parents were all "would it help if I farted"*. Wouldn't want to include neglect and other real world problems in our children's fantasy books, right?

* From a larp, a few years ago. Peasant woman: "my good king, a werewolf took my child!" King: "would it help if I farted?" Ah, Mytofest...

Toby Bartels said...

The official name of the trope is Adults Are Useless: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdultsAreUseless

Asha said...

Seconding a lack of pleasure in reading "The Golden Compass." I found the characters unlikeable and was unable to sympathize with any of them. I could see where Pullman was going, but damn, I just couldn't enjoy his characters, and if I can't do that I can't read the work. It's why I stopped reading Harry Potter at book five- Harry turned into something I didn't like.

Nora said...

In my opinion, The Golden Compass was the best of the three books, The Subtle Knife was a little worse, and the third book , The Amber Spyglass, was a real disappointment. In a way, I thought the later books were like an atheist version of Lewis: so determined to make a theological point that everything else was subordinated to the author's point. It's too bad, too, because I did like the first book. I suspect Pullman was being less heavy handed there.

Thomas Keyton said...

Oh gods, The Amber Spyglass. The general plot was enjoyable enough at first and I actually liked the concept of the mulefa as a demonstration of yes, this is an infinite multiverse and has all sorts of bizarre creatures in it (despite their total irrelevance to the plot), but then Father Gomez shows up. And instead of maybe doing character stuff with Mary and the mulefa, which could have been an interesting look at introducing the concept of religion to a culture that has never had any, he instantly trains the evil extradimensional swan-things to serve him, and decides, apropos of nothing, that the mulefa's wheels are an abomination against God despite not having heard their myth about the Serpent teaching wheel-making to the first mulefa and coming from a world where artificial methods of transport are church-sanctioned and all over the place. (Also apparently snakes existed in the mulefa's world despite the spinal column losing to the mulefa diamond and whatever layout the evil extradimensional swan-things had.)

And the intention craft. What even was that? Why was Asriel so excited about what is essentially just another aircraft? One that can't even be piloted by the daemonless majority of his forces? And why did the Authority even build the Underworld when the only possible reason for doing so is cartoonish supervillainy? And why identify Dust with dark matter if it can be created out of nothing by human thoughts? Aaargh!

UrsulaVernon said...

I don't think there's a problem with kids not relating to adults being useless (to borrow the trope name) because of family dysfunction--written well, kids will relate to all kinds of things--but as a plot point, that really takes over the whole book. Me, I write a lighthearted series about little dragons who can't breathe fire, jackalopes and were-hotdogs. I could not shoehorn alcoholism or abuse in there without sounding like the worst sort of Very Special After School Special. Other author's mileage may vary.

Brilliant books can and have been written about heroes with dysfunctional families--witness Huckleberry Finn!--but I expect it's hard to pull off a book where you return from Neverland to misery and abuse and not have your audience not throw the book across the room, unless you casually kill off the family/ have unrealistic magic fixes/whatever.

Lonespark said...

It's kind of making me sad now, because it's like kids with crap families only ever get to be in after-school specials. They don't get fantasy. So I'd love it if anyone knows of any exceptions.

Of course Harry Potter is an exception, but I felt like that was treated oddly.

Anyway, if your parents or guardians are abusive or neglectful or overwhelmed or etc., there's still science fair and sports championships and falling in love and etc., so there could totally be magical artifacts/worlds/etc.

Amaryllis said...

I write a lighthearted series about little dragons who can't breathe fire, jackalopes and were-hotdogs.

Which sounds like fun, and another good book that somehow I've never read.

So I looked up your work, and, well, congratulations on that Hugo!

* goes off to put Digger and Dragonbreath on the ToBeRead list *

Ana Mardoll said...

This is a VERY qualified comment, because the book is HUGELY triggering, but Brom's "The Child Thief" is a Peter Pan re-imagining where the Lost Children (boys and girls) become "lost" because their homes are abusive. They move to Neverland where death in combat is inevitable on a long enough eternal timeline BUT they're still happier than they were with their families.

Really great book (imho), not an after-school special, but hugely triggering for some people.

Wednesday said...

Y'know, I think this conversation we're overhearing potentially could have been salvaged if we'd been allowed to see inside the room, and maybe inside someone's head. Nikabrik is only unreasonable if he's dishonest -- if he's taking a FOX News approach to reality, twisting facts, exaggerating, and making things up when it suits him. But we can't see that if we're just outsiders overhearing, we readers need evidence of this sort of thing. And since our viewpoint characters don't know anything about Caspian's forces' situation, the only way for us to get that information is to be in the room ourselves:

“I’m not likely to forget it,” Nikabrik spat, “when my Dwarfs bore the brunt of the attack and one in five of them fell.”

“For shame, Dwarf,” Trufflehunter rumbled, not for the first time. The badger was starting to tire of Nikabrik's rough disregard for facts. He gestured at the wall where they'd chalked their force's numbers - dead, wounded, and hale. "One in five" was an exaggeration at best, and the dwarves with their armor had fared far better than the Beasts -- the dwarvish causalities would mostly be on their feet and battle-ready within a few days. The Beast casualties...

Trufflehunter swallowed, pushing that painful thought aside. “We all did as much as the Dwarfs," he said firmly. And immediately regretted his phrasing when he saw Nikabrik open his mouth to object. "And none more than the King,” he added, pointing to the other part of the wall, where they'd tallied the enemies accounted for (as best as anyone could tell) by each of the forces.

And at the end of the scene:

“Yes, and a lot of good it has done my people, so far,” snapped Nikabrik, fingering his ax. “Who is sent on all the dangerous raids? The Dwarfs. Who goes short when the rations fail? The Dwarfs. Who—?”

“Lies! All lies!” said the Badger, although he knew it was futile. Nikabrik would complain of short rations even if they had full-fledged daily feasts for the army -- so long as army allotted food based on size and need, the dwarves would get less then the Centaurs, and Nikabrik would complain.

“And so,” said Nikabrik, whose voice now rose to a scream, “if you," he swung his ax in a wide arc to punctuate his words, "can’t help," swish, "my," swish, "people," swish "I’ll go to someone," swish, "who can.” He pointed his ax at Caspian. "And I'm bringing the human with me," he said softly, so dangerously quiet that Trufflehunter, with his keen ears, still wasn't certain he'd heard him properly.

Caspian hadn't heard either, not with his human ears. But he'd seen the look in Nikabrik's eyes before, on the battlefield, and knew the sense if not the specifics. “Is this open treason, Dwarf?” he asked, drawing his sword, bracing himself to block a swing from that heavy, deadly ax.

“Put that sword back in its sheath, Caspian,” said Nikabrik, not moving his ax in the slightest. “Murder at council, eh? Is that your game? [...]”

EdinburghEye said...

Ursula, just off the top of my head, children's fantasy stories with dysfunctional families/abusive parents:
Alan Garner, The Owl Service.
Diana Wynne Jones, The Time of the Ghost (also The Ogre Downstairs, Eight Days of Luke, and probably more - Jones does some really amazing unsentimental parent-child stuff: Christopher Chant's relationship with both of his parents in the first Chrestomanci book is really emotionally abusive).
William Mayne, A Game of Dark (and many of his other novels tend to have rather distant, uninvolved parents)

There's probably more. You can't "shoehorn" abuse or alcoholism into a story, or any other "problem", but honestly; isn't it realistically just going to come up in plot points?

Isabel C. said...

Right, it doesn't bug me much for the same sort of reason.

I think I mentioned it on here before, but: when I was a kid, adults in general existed to keep you from doing anything fun. Mom and Dad are the reasons you can't eat a dinner consisting entirely of brownie batter and chips, or stay up until midnight watching horror movies; your teacher is the reason you have to sit in class and think about algebra instead of riding your bike; and so on. If I'd found a doorway to a magic world, I wouldn't have told my folks either, and we have, and had, a pretty decent relationship.

Once actual danger appears, I feel like most kids would be more willing to go tell someone, if they could. In which case you get the thing where you're trapped already or grown-ups wouldn't believe you or whatever, because hey--otherwise there's no story.

depizan said...

Of course, that only makes sense if Nikabrik knows there are people who can hear (but not see) what's going on and who might be sympathetic to him. Or if there are people at the meeting who can somehow be swayed despite seeing the opposing evidence. If he's not wearing a wire for Narnian Fox News, I'm not sure who he can be deceiving.

Amaryllis said...

Yeah, the Dursleys were pretty cartoonish. But then, the tone of the whole series changed as it went on-- not to derail the thread with whether that was a Good Thing or a Bad Thing-- and the Dursleys didn't really fit very well after a while.

For an older classic, I was reminded of T. H. White's Mistress Masham's Repose. Our heroine, Maria, is an orphan, and her guardians are classically cruel, avaricious and stupid. The adults nominally on her side are either culpably clueless (the Professor) or powerless due to their class and gender (the Cook), or six inches tall (the Schoolmaster).

Needless to say, the small people-- girl-child and Lilliputians-- are victorious.

Some of Eva Ibbotson's books feature cruel or neglectful parents or guardians. The Secret of Platform 13 begins like an alternate version of Harry Potter, complete with orphan boy and abusive guardians. Island of the Aunts features two children who prefer their kidnappers-- the Aunts, with the best of intentions-- over their real families. And in general, a lot of her work includes children who are happier with various ghosts and sprites and magicians than with their families or parental substitutes.

But there's a lot of the other kind of story as well, isn't there? All those good parents in Nesbit's books, and Edward Eager, and Madeleine L'Engle and Diane Duane and Rick Riordan (I think? It's been a while) and so on.

Lonespark said...

Hrrrmmm...
Then thinking further on it, maybe it's that we asscociate fantasy strongly with escape? I was just thinking, "I don't want to read about well-rendered emotional abuse! That's what real life is for!" And yet I have, in service of wonderful characters and worlds, subjected my mind to far worse. It's just an initial kneejerk thing.

On the subject of emotional abuse, this is what makes the villain in Tangled one of Disney's most terrifying, to me.

Lonespark said...

Mom and Dad are the reasons you can't eat a dinner consisting entirely of brownie batter and chips

I am so crap at this aspect of parenting.

Pqw said...

I'm glad someone mentioned Eva Ibbotson and Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci books. I first ran across Charmed Life (by DWJ) in the supermarket when I was living with my aunt and uncle in 1985. Boy howdy was that emotional abusive stuff familiar. That book changed my life. First, intro to DWJ, one of my favorite authors. Second, realistic portrayal of family dysfunction (the evil sister), right as I was living it with my cousin.

How about Robin McKinley's Hero and the Crown? Aerin's mother dies (iirc) in childbirth; she has a distant relationship with her father. She is tormented by older cousins, esp one girl who is esp cruel. Aerin has no friends, except her father's lame war horse.

Robin McKinley's Deerskin is brutal, but so emotionally true that I re-read it a lot. If only for Moonwoman, and the puppies. And a prince who isn't handsome, but is kind.

The Jigsaw Woman by Kim Antieau

The young princesses in Sharon Shinn's Troubled Waters.

Damaging childhood and worse adolescence of Niki in Emma Bull's Falcon. (One of my favorite books. And the science not only holds up, but because I actually *understand* it by now, I'm amazed the book was written so well in 1989.)

Damaging childhood and adolescence of Faris Nallaneen in Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magic. Excellent world-building and amazing characters.

And of course, the classic horrible childhood -- Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong and Dragonsinger.

Wednesday said...

Well, I was short on time when I wrote that, so it was more of a "test of concept" than "carefully-thought-out-and-revised alternate scene interpretation". I was aiming more for Nikabrik-as-a-bigot, someone who honestly does see dwarves as being oppressed because they aren't being privileged.

depizan said...

I think you did about the best anyone could while sticking to an approximation of the original. The scene is one that's just horribly hard to make work sensibly. If Nikabrik is a bigot, or playing to some Narnian Fox News crowd, you're left with the question of why he's on the war council at all, and why his characterization changed. In fact, I'm not sure there's a way to play him as wrong here without the question of his presence on the war council, at a minimum. And if he's not wrong...

Yet, Lewis clearly meant for him to be wrong. At least in summoning the Witch. But did Lewis mean for him to be lying, inaccurate, or otherwise wrong about the facts of their situation? I hope so, even though it doesn't make sense. The alternative is too horrible.

UrsulaVernon said...

Oh dear. Probably I wasn't clear enough--*I* personally can't shoehorn it into my series, because it'd just be wildly out of place there, and attempting to add themes like that in would seriously come off After School Special. There's a whole long list of light-and-funny things that suddenly try to address Serious Social Issues, ("Next, on a very special episode of Punky Brewster...") and I can count on the fingers of one hand the ones that do it well--I know that as a writer, I would not make that short list! But that's me, myself and I, and the shoehorning was not meant to refer to anyone else's writing.

Other authors' mileage may vary.

Lonespark said...

Ah...that makes plenty of sense. I should have probably figured it out, what with the hotdog.

Ygorbla said...

Now I really want to write a story where they actually resurrect the witch. There are so many interesting directions you could go with it -- perhaps they trade one devil for another, of course, and end up suffering worse; or they manage to play the witch off against the Telemarines and defeat both.

Or perhaps Jadis, unused to both having to depend on others and having them genuinely depend on her (and look to her for protection) slowly has a change of heart. Meanwhile Werewolf Caspian, outcast as evil by his former allies, comes to understand and appreciate the privilege that formerly sheltered him; initially, he fights a one-man war against Jadis, but slowly sees that she has changed and switches sides to fight beside her in the last battle against the Telemarines. Eventually the two fall in love and marry, leading the realm to a new era of peace and prosperity.

Equality Network said...

That makes sense! Sorry I didn't get it.

On trying to make Nikabrik's last scene make sense -

Prince Caspian was actually one of my favourite "Narnia stories" when I was small. (The favourite was The Horse and his Boy.) Only what I liked was the four-chapter segment which is all about the boy Caspian running away and fetching up in the small home of Trumpkin and Trufflehunter and Nikabrik and being cared for: and the segment in which the four children land in Narnia-but-they-don't-know -it and are figuring it out.

(And Reepicheep, of course.)

Rakka said...

I'd read that.

Raleigh_kun said...

This. Team Evil totally comes across as logical, rational, we're-in-deep-shit-and-trying-to-survive people. The Hag, well, who knows what happened to her in her life, who she lost and how, that causes her to hate so much, and what if hate is the only thing keeping her going, as is implied? Should she sit down and die instead? Maybe the hate will give way to something else and maybe it won't, but at least she's still alive and that has to be worth something.

And Nikabrik is making the best plans he can with the info he has - he's tried their way and they got their asses handed to them. Now he's ~suggesting~ a more logical approach and he's getting drowned out and belittled and insulted. And then Caspian pulls a sword! Which honestly at that technology level, he might as well have pulled a gun. If he intended to use it then he might as well not bother claiming to be good, and if he's ~not~ planning on using it then he did a really stupid thing.

Nikabrikian Heretic, yep.

Raleigh_kun said...

I really enjoyed your re-imagining of the scene, it makes it flow much better and the 'good' guys actually come across as somewhat good and reasonable, as opposed to hysterical and wilfully blind like in the original scene. XD

Raleigh_kun said...

If you wrote that I would read it, even though I don't usually read het. Werewolf!Caspian is just too good to turn down. XD

AztecQueen2000 said...

This may be a little late, but I was wondering--why did Aslan wait until now to bring the Pevensie children back? Why not bring them back during the initial Telmarine coup, so that this whole mess could have been avoided in the first place? After all, the usual muddle about times means that a year on Earth could be 1,300 Narnian years (Prince Caspian) or three years (Voyage of the Dawn Treader).

depizan said...

He'd gone out for tea?

Rikalous said...

He's not a tame lion!

I have read the books, and I don't remember any sort of explanation. Aslan moves in mysterious ways.

chris the cynic said...

I thought that the whole thing was that he didn't bring them back. Caspian did by blowing on the horn. If he'd decided not to blow on the horn, the resistance had become a generational struggle, and 5,000 years later one of his distant descendants decided, "Fuck it, I'm blowing the damn horn already," it would have taken 6,300 years for them to come back.

On the other hand, if someone had blown the horn when they realized that their royalty had gone missing, it would have been 36 hours for them to come back.

depizan said...

Ah, right. I really hope one of Aslan's titles isn't "protector of Narnia." If it is, he should be fired.

We're also right back to the great question: what, exactly, was so wrong with the idea of calling on the White Witch again? I think it's fairly safe to say that she was a better protector of Narnia than Aslan or the Pevensies. After all, we heard nothing of invasions during her reign, and she stuck around longer than they did. I'm not saying she wasn't a tyrant or that she wasn't evil. What I am saying is that there's very little good evidence that Aslan is an improvement.

When an evil queen looks better than your god, you just might have goofed somewhere.

Asha said...

I suddenly want to read that story. It also makes me wonder, in a Watsonian way, why the native Narnians didn't blow the horn. They were such bad monarchs that they weren't wanted back and the tales of their reign had to fade into myth, perhaps?

Rikalous said...

I believe the Horn was a vague "help of some sort should come when you blow this" sort of thing, so it wouldn't have occurred to anyone to use it to summon back the Pevensies after they went missing hunting the Stag. As to why it was unused or unavailable when the Telmarines invaded, I can only conclude there were shenanigans of some sort.

hf said...

Dudes, the Horn disappeared with everything else Susan was carrying when she went along with the idiots and vanished from Narnia. "Many terrors [Cornelius] endured, many spells did I utter, to find it, when I was still young."

Now, if Lewis has thought this through at all -- and the scene here in the OP suggests he has not -- Narnia must have had some way to get help before Cornelius came along. (But apparently they didn't say 'Aslan says'.) CS Lewis in some essay or article tries to argue that it makes sense for his God to delay help until you ask for it. Because this seems fundamentally no different from giving humans agency at all. Lewis argues that it doesn't matter if you let people control the world around them directly or by the power of prayer, and thus the 'real' question 'is' why God would give us important choices at all.

This ignores the fact that if you built a world for children, you wouldn't let anyone die, or suffer more than a certain amount. But maybe Lewis believes in a form of reincarnation plus an almost-full-Truman-show scenario.

depizan said...

While I can see the argument that God/Aslan/whomever won't help unless you ask for it being a way to still give humans/Narnians/whomever agency, that argument only works if it is possible to ask said deity for help. It seems strongly implied that the only way to ask for help was via the incredible disappearing horn. That seems equivalent to, instead of having people dial 911 for help, they must dial a number that was written on a piece of paper and tossed to the winds. If you find it, if it's readable, you can have help. :D That's a terrible way to do things.

hf said...

Yes, I think we have to consider the possibility that Lewis wrote this book for money and in a great hurry.

Asha said...

Well, we've established that they very, very much NEEDED help and that there was a ethnic cleansing/genocide going on of the native Narnians for centuries now. And if I recall correctly, didn't Cornelius seem to think that it WOULD summon the four earth children? And summoning them back as CHILDREN seems to make next to no sense, either. For that matter, why didn't they revert to adulthood when they returned to Narnia? That makes just as much sense as them becoming children when they went back to England. *has various brain farts in quick succession*

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