e-louise-bates asked:
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The time period between The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has so much fanfic potential. Polly and Digory should have at least one, possibly two books’ worth of adventures. Maybe one could explain how the Lone Islands came under Narnian rule. Maybe they could be involved in events surrounding the founding of the other nations.
I’d also like the story of the last king before the White Witch takes the throne and starts the eternal winter. This one would start within Narnia from the king’s POV, paralleling The Last Battle. The tree Digory planted was supposed to protect Narnia, and do so in a way that kept it from becoming a cruel empire. So while it’s possible Jadis corrupted the later kings, I think there’s also a real chance that a decent portion of the royals would remain faithful to Aslan. But it would be tough–the Witch is coming ever-closer and she’s getting harder and harder to keep back. Some people would be tempted to terrible things to try to save Narnia.
Maybe Jadis kills the ruling king–who had tried compromises and alliances to placate her, only to be betrayed–but the crown prince and a loyal remnant are given a way to escape to Earth. And they have to set in motion some things that will eventually help save Narnia. (I’d kind of like them to end up in the 19th-century so some Narnian refugee could be the ancestor to Frank the cabby, but that does interfere with the whole “son of Adam” thing.) One of the Narnians definitely makes the wardrobe.
Potential December Reads
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
- The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux
- Midnight in Everwood by M.A. Kuzniar
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (or some other Christmas story)
- Verbum Domini by Pope Benedict XVI
L.M. Montgomery
Favorite Male Character: Barney
Snaith. He is kind and down-to-earth and intelligent and has a painful
past and he OWNS AN ISLAND! How can he not be my favorite?
Favorite Female Character: There
are other, more rounded characters that would probably serve as my
answer on most days, but today I want to appreciate the awesomeness that
is Miss Cornelia. She’s slightly one-note, but it’s a great note. She’s just so brash and blunt and amusing.
Least Favorite Character: Davy
and Dora. I despise the very premise of these characters and prefer to
pretend that they don’t exist. Dora’s too cutesy and Davy’s a brat who’s
even more annoying because everybody loves him for it. And I despise when fiction deals with the growing-up of the central cute kid by trying to bring in a set of twin cute kids. It never, ever works.
Favorite Ship: Barney/Valancy, followed closely by Anne/Gilbert
Favorite Friendship: Anne and Leslie. I like how they bond through their sorrows.
Favorite Quote: Not sure it’s my favorite line, but in terms of the line I think of most often, it’d have to be “Fear is the original sin.”
Worst Character Death (if any): Anne’s baby. It devastates Anne for life.
This made me so happy you have no idea Moment: Anne finally realizing she loves Gilbert.
Saddest Moment: The death of Anne’s baby. I cried.
Favorite Location: How
can I pick one? I can’t choose, you’re getting three. The House of
Dreams–the cozy cottage within sight of a lighthouse (I love it so much
that I feel sorry they ever had to leave it for Ingleside). Anne’s
bedroom in Anne of Windy Poplars (it’s in a tower! it has a tall bed! everything about it seems perfectly charming). And
of course, Barney’s island, and roughly half the book is spent
explaining just why it’s so awesome so I don’t really need to explain.
Narnia
Favorite Male Character: Puddleglum!
I love him beyond all measure. His every line is pure gold. I love his
cheerful pessimism, as well as his kindness and his willingness to be
the adult helping two children on a very difficult quest, and of course,
the strength of his convictions when facing off against the Green Lady.
Favorite Female Character: Jill Pole. She seems the
most relatable of Lewis’ heroines. Lucy and Susan both seem slightly
more exaggerated because they’re constantly compared to the other. But
Jill is just Jill. She’s steady and sensible and fallible and feels like a real kid thrust into the strange rules of fantasy worlds.
Least Favorite Character: The
White Witch. Of course. She’s the villain. (Boo, hiss). (And now I just
remembered Uncle Andrew, and I can’t decide who I hate more. The White
Witch is big, abstract evil, but Uncle Andrew has smaller and pettier
and more concretely annoying evilness).
Favorite Ship: Caspian
and the star’s daughter. It only gets, like, three lines in the books,
but we know it was a successful marriage, and the very idea of it
intrigues me. (Oh, also the cab driver and his wife. They’re both so
chill about being made king and queen of another world and I think they
probably have an amazing marriage).
Favorite Friendship: Diggory
and Polly. They balance each other well, and I like how they were
friends before finding Narnia and maintained the friendship into their
old age.
Favorite Quote: “But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your
real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world. I’m
on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to
live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia”.
Worst Character Death (if any): The Pevensie children, because it leaves Susan all alone.
This made me so happy you have no idea Moment: Further up and further in! It was the first depiction of the end of the world that I didn’t find absolutely terrifying.
Saddest Moment: Actually, the entire premise of The Silver Chair, if you think about it. Rillian is lost for years and returns home just in time to watch his father die.
Favorite Location: My favorite places are the ones that weren’t settings so much as they were amazing concepts. The Wood Between the Worlds (all the trees! and the peaceful atmosphere! and the fact that you can get to literally hundreds of worlds! i wish we could have explored some of the other ones). The Island Where Dreams Come True (I love the moment of terror when everyone realizes what the name actually means). And the tantalizing glimpse we get of Bism (living jewels growing on trees!)
- It’s a globe of Earth
- It’s a flat map of Narnia with a curved line drawn across it
@lady-merian, Well, now you’ve made me curious. How does each chapter of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe end? I’m going to use the same categories I used to classify the Hunger Games chapters, but there are a few things that alter how these endings function in this book.
- Genre: This is a portal fantasy, not an action-adventure book. To borrow terminology from Orson Scott Card, this is a Milieu story rather than an Event Story. The tension comes as much from exploring a new world as from navigating a plot, so a lot of the revelations and narrative changes aren’t going to be as dramatic or devastating as they might be in a more intense narrative.
- POV: Rather than a first-person narrator, this book has an omniscient narrator who can show us things that the main characters don’t know about. This means that chapter endings are classified by how they function for the reader rather than the characters, since we know things that the characters don’t know.
The Categories
Bombshell: A surprise event or revelation occurs that’s outside the characters’ control. We want to turn the page to see the fallout from it.
Cliffhanger: Something is about to happen or be revealed, but we’re not sure what it is yet. We turn the page in the hope of learning this new information.
Tension-builder:
We’ve just learned some new information that makes the situation more
difficult or stressful.. It’s sort of a long-term cliffhanger–we know this is going to have an effect on the story, but not necessarily at the beginning of the next chapter.
Initiative: Characters are about to or have done something to take action.
Resolution: Main conflict of the chapter has been successfully resolved.
The Chapters
Chapter 1: Lucy has just entered Narnia and seen a faun. The faun is startled by her and drops his packages. Bombshell.
Chapter 2: Lucy comes back to the spare room and announces to everyone that she’s alright. Resolution.
Chapter 3: The witch demands to know what Edmund is. Edmund says he doesn’t know what she means, and says he’s at school, but it’s the holidays now. It’s a very odd place to end a chapter, since the next chapter picks up with the same argument, and this is the second time that the Witch has asked what Edmund is. I’ll call it a Cliffhanger, since we’re waiting to find out what the Witch means by asking “what” Edmund is.
Chapter 4: Edmund and Lucy are going back to the wardrobe. Edmund feels sick knowing that his siblings are on the side of the animals and he’s sympathetic to the witch. Lucy says, “What fun we shall have now that we’re all in it together.” A nice little bit of irony that serves as a Tension-builder.
Chapter 5: The four children hide in the wardrobe (and they don’t shut the door, because you never shut yourself in the wardrobe). Cliffhanger.
Chapter 6: Edmund and Peter argue if they can trust their guide, and Edmund points out that they don’t know the way to get back home. Bombshell.
Chapter 7: The children have just finished a meal with the Beavers and Mr. Beaver says it’s time to get down to business (and that the snow means no one will find tracks if someone’s trying to follow them). The gentlest form of Cliffhanger. We’re about to get an infodump, and we turn the page to learn the answers to questions, but it’s not a dramatic need-to-turn-the-page-now kind of tension.
Chapter 8: They’ve just found out that Edmund has gone to the White Witch, and the Beavers tell them they have to flee immediately. I’m going to call this a Bombshell, because Edmund’s defection is a huge surprise to the other three, and the announcement that they have to leave feels like an extension of that surprise.
Chapter 9: Edmund has just told the witch where his siblings are, and the witch orders her sled without bells to be prepared. Tension-builder.
Chapter 10: After everyone enjoys tea and sandwiches in the cave, Mr. Beaver tells them it’s time to move on. Initiative.
Chapter 11: The dwarf tells the White Witch that winter has been destroyed and it’s Aslan’s doing, and the Witch says anyone mentioning that name will be instantly killed. Tension-builder.
Chapter 12: Peter, still shaky after killing the Wolf, kneels before Aslan and is dubbed Wolf’s-Bane. “Whatever happens, never forget to clean your sword.” Peter has just been prepared for the coming war. Initiative.
Chapter 13: Aslan announces he’s made a deal and the Witch has renounced her claim on Edmund. When the Witch questions his promise, Aslan roars, and she flees for her life. Resolution.
Chapter 14: The children cover their eyes as Aslan is killed. Bombshell.
Chapter 15: Aslan brings the girls to the Witch’s home and they find themselves in a courtyard of statues. A resolution, because Aslan is alive, the journey’s over, and they’re safe, but as I’m reading it, it feels like a mild Cliffhanger, because we’re still curious about what Aslan’s going to do next.
Chapter 16: Aslan’s forces join the battle; Peter’s tired forces cheer, Aslan’s forces roar, and the enemy gibbers. Cliffhanger, since we’re not told how the battle goes, but an extremely joyful one, since it’s clear that circumstances are on the side of good. (And the first line of the next chapter tells us the battle was over in minutes).
Chapter 17: “And that is the very end of the adventure of the wardrobe. But if the Professor was right it was only the beginning of the adventures of Narnia.” Resolution of the whole story, but with a tantalizing promise of more.
Observations
The children are pulled along by the narrative and make no decisions for themselves (at least in the chapter endings). Even in the two chapters that end in Initiative, other characters are telling the children what action to resolve upon: Mr. Beaver tells them to keep moving after tea and Aslan tells Peter to go forward in the fight. And in both cases, they’re just continuing actions that have already been happening: the flight from the Witch and the battle against the Witch’s forces. This is part of the function as a middle-grade portal fantasy. First off, they’re children, who usually need authority figures to tell them what to do. Second, the characters are just vehicles to explore the world; we don’t need to explore their struggles with finding the right course of action. We just need them to go along for the ride so we can see more of Narnia.
Only three chapters end with neat Resolutions: Lucy coming back from meeting Mr. Tumnus, Aslan sending the Witch fleeing in terror, and the very end of the book. The first one serves to set the tone: this is a place where you can go on wild, fantastical adventures, but don’t worry because you’ll get home safely in the end. (It’s like those two chapters are a miniature form of the entire book). The second one gives us a moment of triumph before the ultimate, heartbreaking defeat of the story’s lowest point. And the last one is there because the book has come to an end (though we do get imagination-firing sequel promises).
The tension-builders all relate to the villain’s wider plot. They all relate to Edmund, and two of them come when Edmund is with the Witch and separated from his siblings. This makes sense, because the villain’s plot is the only large-scale thing happening in this otherwise very immediate quest story. The story isn’t driven by tension between the characters (except the tension introduced by the Witch). It’s a very concrete “we need to go here and do this” kind of story, which provides more opportunities for the promises of immediate resolution that we get from cliffhangers and bombshells.
The cliffhangers are all very mild. It’s not “oh no, are they going to be okay?” It’s a much gentler, “I want to find out what happens next” or “I want to find out what’s going on.” We turn the page, not necessarily because we’re worried about the characters, but because we’re curious. This makes sense with the portal fantasy structure. The story is driven by that sense of wonder and curiosity.
The bombshells are the hardest-hitting moments of the story. And this story provides plenty of opportunities for them, since the children aren’t the ones driving the narrative. The four bombshells actually provide some of the turning points of the story according to Seven-Point Story Structure.
- Plot Turn 1(The character’s world changes): Lucy discovers Narnia in the wardrobe
- Pinch 1 (forces the characters to action): Learning that they don’t know the way home forces them to continue with the adventure, but the third bombshell is the actual pinch point that forces them to act, because Edmund’s defection is what them to flee from the Beavers’ home.
- (Midpoint is Peter joining the battle after meeting Aslan)
- Pinch 2 (lowest point): Aslan’s death
This function of the bombshells makes sense according to the demands of the structure. The midpoint occurs when the characters move from reacting to taking action, so it can’t come from a bombshell, but the Plot Turns and Pinches happen when the characters are faced with events that are outside of their control.
All this is fascinating to me, because we have an story where the main characters make almost no choices, yet the underlying structure is still present and still satisfying. The characters aren’t driving the story; they’re just swept up into it, yet it works because a portal fantasy is driven by wonder and curiosity. We’re the ones going on this adventure, swept up by the story with no control over where it goes, so the story functions best when the characters themselves lack that control. The story’s momentum comes not necessarily from life or death stakes, but by the readers’ curiosity to know what happens next or what’s around the next corner. And yet, because so much of the story is outside of the characters’ control, we have opportunities for bombshell revelations that provide the story structure. There are a couple of odd chapter endings, but Lewis knows what he’s doing, and can keep up the tension in a way that’s appropriate for the tone of the story. No wonder this book has become a classic.
As an outside researcher who has been living among Christian homeschooler communities for many years, the impression I have gotten of their childhood fantasy reading habits are:
Everyone
- The Chronicles of Narnia
- Lord of the Rings
Catholics
- Redwall
Protestants
- The Oz books
Sample sizes are inconclusive and research is ongoing.
Further research suggests my sample pool was tainted by a few Protestant Oz fanatics, and mostly everyone read LotR, Narnia and Redwall, with Oz being a rare niche interest.
- My sister, seeing a Narnia question in Trivial Pursuit: Oh, Narnia! I've seen that movie! I don't remember anything about it, though.
- Me: Do you at least remember the lion?
- Sister: I remember a beaver thing.
- Me: You watched a Narnia movie and you remember the beaver but not the lion???
I find it irritating that while many people (especially Other Fantasy Writers) are more than ready to criticize CS Lewis and Narnia for the whole "once the children grow up they aren't allowed to go back to Narnia" as though he invented the idea, nobody seems to care that J.M Barrie specifically told us that you can grow up or you can have magic, but not both.
I mean, Lewis at least had an idea behind "Narnia is for children." I have always understood him to be saying--this magical world is to prepare you to live better in the real world, and while you can't stay in it, you can carry it with you for the rest of your life and it will enrich your existence forever.
J.M. Barrie in Peter Pan, however, says--growing up means you can't have magic, and having magic means you can't grow up.
I'm not saying Peter Pan is a bad story. I just wish people weren't so quick to pile on Lewis while ignoring the fact that Barrie did this idea much earlier, and without half so much depth.
(And let's face it, the very fact that so many books about real people experiencing magic are for and about children shows that this idea had been implicit in people's understanding long before Lewis started writing children's books. He obeyed the conventions of the genre as had already been established, but he put his own spin on it to give it a greater and richer meaning.)
You know, you’re making me wonder why we always assume that leaving the magical world behind is a sad ending. There’s something rather lovely in it, if you approach it the right way. Childhood is a time of exploration, infinite possibilities, trying to figure out how the world works. By the time you reach adulthood, you’ve learned what’s possible and what’s not within the laws of reality, and you get to go out in the world armed with your knowledge. Earth is a world worth exploring just as much as Narnia or Neverland, and it’s a grand thing to be able to go out into it as a grownup. There may not be magic, but there’s still wonder and grandeur and fascinating things to explore.
(Chesterton’s works do that–approach the real world with all the wonder one would approach a trip through Narnia or Middle Earth. Perhaps he writes fantasy about the adults who’ve left Narnia, who appreciate the real world as the magical land to explore).
incoramsanctissimo asked:
For the book ask: 14, 24 📖
14. What books do you want to finish before the year is over?
There are a bunch of books that I’ve got partially finished that I’d like to finish before the year’s end, but right now my biggest priorities are
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
- The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden
- Hester by Margaret Oliphant
- The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond by G.K. Chesterton
- The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux
24. Did you DNF anything? Why?
As I said elsewhere, I DNFed a lot of books for various reasons. One DNF was The Sea-Fairies by L. Frank Baum, because I very rarely read books with demons (even fantasy type ones) and this used the word too often for my comfort (and the rest of the story wasn’t quite gripping enough for me to think it worthwhile to push through).
valiantarcher asked:
Seasonal, for the book stack ask, please?




