Content Note: Genocide, Torture, War, Racism, Sexism, Essentialism Narnia Recap: Prince Caspian has begun the process of gathering Old Narnians for war.
Prince Caspian, Chapter 7: Old Narnia In Danger
One of the frustrating things about not being a Straight White Male is that I tend to be treated as a member of some kind of hive mind of identically-shaped robots, each stamped out with the same personalities, opinions, and tendencies. I am a woman, so therefore I supposedly dream the same dreams, harbor the same desires, am motivated by the same factors, and behave in the same way as all other women. And if I don't fit that stereotype, well, then, I must just fit the exact opposite stereotype. It's all very confusing and frustrating and deeply tiring.
This shows up in the oddest places. Let slip to a group of gamers that I am a "girl gamer" and half the room assumes that I only play casual games like The Sims and Farmville; the other half decides that I'm probably a fragtastic hardcore badass because only the really dedicated girls game. When I walk into professional engineering meetings at work, I'm frequently assumed to be either the person in the room with the best interpersonal and communication skills because that's what women supposedly excel at, or I'm believed to be the most competent coder in the company because why else would I go into this industry, really.
The middle ground -- that I am decently good at some things and decently good at other things -- never seems to be made available to me, because places with depth and nuance seem reserved for the non-women in the room. Though most people seem willing to wait to get to know my Husband before judging his strength at documentation and his proficiency at code, I come pre-equipped with competing sets of expectations, usually impossible for me to reach since they tend to run along the lines of "best of the best" and "worst of the worst" simultaneously.
This stuff isn't just academic, or little annoyances to be endured without real consequence. When I first enrolled in engineering school and went to my advisor's office for the first time, the first thing he said to me after "hello" and before I'd sat down was that "I can tell you will be good in engineering." He had incorrectly assumed that because I'd decided to major in engineering despite the hurdle of being a woman, it must be my Grand Driving Passion as opposed to something I figured I'd be decent at and could make a living from. Two years later, in the first and only one of his classes that I signed up for, he told me that I was a "great disappointment" to him because apparently despite attending all classes, taking notes, reading the book, asking questions, and making the same grades as everyone else, I'd somehow failed to be as enthusiastic as he'd expected me to be about the subject. And all this unwarranted praise and pressure simply because I'd come decked out with a different model of primary and secondary sexual characteristics than his other students.
And this is damaging, this process of being defined by stereotypes and then beat about the head with them.
My company tries to control for this with diversity training. The teacher asks us to write down five things that people see or assume or believe when they initially look at or interact with us. Then we're asked to write down five things that we feel really define us as people. Usually, the lists have nothing in common, with the point being that there's very little you can tell about a person immediately on meeting them and that true understanding takes a great deal of time and emotional investment.
Whether or not this sinks in on a large scale is anyone's guess. (And it's not at all helped by the Myers-Briggs class where I invariably score 50/50 across all the letters and then the teacher ultimately 'assigns' me a personality based on the data point that I'm obviously cheating. *sigh* One thing is clear: whether there are 2 types of people in this world or 16 types, I fit poorly in all the buckets.)
I've talked in the past about my frustrations with the one-dimensional characterization of Animals in Narnia. And I want to underline once again that I am not criticizing the author or his authorial choices so much as I am simply expressing an opinion. Who am I, for instance, to say that it's a wrong choice to characterize, say, all Cats identically, just because my two litter-mate cats are both exceedingly different from each other and also different from the usual stereotypes (for instance, the fluffy-clumsy-lazy one is also the skillful and determined Hunter of Moths)? Who am I, also for instance, to say that the Sherlock Holmes stories -- which I greatly enjoy -- are wrong to have the characters adhere so obligingly to class-, race-, gender-, and nationality-stereotypes that Holmes can immediately tell every little thing about them at a glance? Why, I'm nobody to say those things are wrong! I'm Someone on the Internet. Close that browser right now if you want! I won't know that you did!
What I will say is that it bothers me. I will say that I feel like the repetition of these themes in literature commonly given to children can possibly prime some children to expect strict adherence to stereotype when it comes to real people. I can point out the startlingly high number of times people -- Real Life People -- have told me that they rely on stereotypes because "stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason" (intimating that reason is Because They're True and not Because They Are Convenient To The Patriarchal Narrative) or that "stereotypes are based in fact". I can point out that stereotypes are deployed most frequently and most harmfully against groups which are traditionally marginalized and othered as different, exotic, strange, or deviant from "normal" people.
And I can point out that the stereotypes employed against the Animals in Narnia don't make a whole lot of sense to me.
THE PLACE WHERE THEY HAD MET THE Fauns was, of course, Dancing Lawn itself, and here Caspian and his friends remained till the night of the great Council. To sleep under the stars, to drink nothing but well water and to live chiefly on nuts and wild fruit, was a strange experience for Caspian after his bed with silken sheets in a tapestried chamber at the castle, with meals laid out on gold and silver dishes in the anteroom, and attendants ready at his call. But he had never enjoyed himself more. Never had sleep been more refreshing nor food tasted more savory, and he began already to harden and his face wore a kinglier look.
Caspian, of course, is not a stereotype. He was raised as a prince with all the privileges inherent therein, but he isn't defined by his background and upbringing. When faced with new situations and relative privations, he adapts, thrives, and changes. If he has an essential nature, it's a nature of Narnian Kingliness, but this nature is clearly highly adaptable or else he would not have been able to survive and thrive under Midaz' watchful eye for so long.
The Bulgy Bears were very anxious to have the feast first and leave the council till afterward: perhaps till tomorrow. Reepicheep and his Mice said that councils and feasts could both wait, and proposed storming Miraz in his own castle that very night. Pattertwig and the other Squirrels said they could talk and eat at the same time, so why not have the council and feast all at once? The Moles proposed throwing up entrenchments round the Lawn before they did anything else. The Fauns thought it would be better to begin with a solemn dance. The Old Raven, while agreeing with the Bears that it would take too long to have a full council before supper, begged to be allowed to give a brief address to the whole company. But Caspian and the Centaurs and the Dwarfs overruled all these suggestions and insisted on holding a real council of war at once.
The Animals, in contrast, do conform to stereotypes. The three Bears are sleepy and indulgent and hungry and lazy. The thirteen Mice are feisty and fast and impetuous and hasty to the point of carelessness. The Squirrels are noisy and chattering and easily distractable and lack focus. The Moles are so focused on digging that they think every situation requires it; the Raven is portentous. And so on.
It is the human, and those creatures which most resemble humans, that brings order to the chaos. Though the Animals are so consumed by their natures that they cannot work together or accomplish a common goal, the human is able to navigate each side successfully and bring order and authority for the Animals to look up to and follow.
As a world-building detail, maybe this is appropriate. Maybe this is finally the example for why it simply has to be a human as ruler for Narnia, and maybe this finally explains why an intelligent Beaver or wise Rabbit couldn't accomplish the job just as well. Lewis-or-Aslan (I genuinely cannot be sure which) may have deliberately called the Animals into being with these inherent limitations for reasons that I am not supposed to question. Fine. Not my world, either in the God-Ruler sense or in the Authorial sense.
But as a reader, all this makes me terribly uncomfortable. I feel like I'm being presented with a scale of intelligence and adaptability-to-challenging situations, with Humans on the top, Half-Humans next in line, Resembles Humans thirdly, and Animals down at the bottom. And it's this fundamental inequality that makes me very uncomfortable, as though we're looking at a sort of Narnian caste system. If you're born into the Squirrels, no matter how exceptional a Squirrel you may be, you are not qualified to rule. It may be justifiable, but it seems wholly unfair and pre-ordained to me -- isn't one of the mainstays of Standard Fantasy Tropes the protagonists who achieves greatness not by birth or biology or upbringing but rather by strength of character?
When all the other creatures had been persuaded to sit down quietly in a great circle, and when (with more difficulty) they had got Pattertwig to stop running to and fro and saying "Silence! Silence, everyone, for the King's speech," Caspian, feeling a little nervous, got up. "Narnians!" he began, but he never got any further, for at that very moment Camillo the Hare said, "Hush! There's a Man somewhere near." [...]
"Two badgers and you three Dwarfs, with your bows at the ready, go softly off to meet it," said Caspian. "We'll settle 'un," said a Black Dwarf grimly, fitting a shaft to his bowstring.
"Don't shoot if it is alone," said Caspian. "Catch it."
"Why?" asked the Dwarf.
"Do as you're told," said Glenstorm the Centaur.
It is, of course, a Black Dwarf who is the member of the party most inclined to violence. It is that way because that is part of their nature, Unfortunate Racist Implications notwithstanding. And it is also part of their nature to question authority and to not merely do something because a human has told them to do so.
And, again, I find this so strict and limiting in a way that "being human" in the Narnia-verse is not. Humans are manifestly capable of great violence -- Caspian's lineage attests to that; his ancestor conquered the country of Narnia and instigated a brutal program of genocide, and his uncle murdered his own father in cold blood. Humans are also capable of questioning authority and asking why or why not before choosing whether or not to do as they are told.
But humans are also capable of peace and obedience. Some humans are capable of these things in greater measure than others, but as variance across the species, that capability is undoubtedly there. But are we ever shown a Black Dwarf in this series who is capable of the "good" qualities of peace and obedience? Or a Black Dwarf who uses those "bad" qualities of violence and questioning to an ultimately good end? I'm not certain that we do. (For those who wonder, a quick search of "The Last Battle" yields one mention of "Black Dwar*" and no mention of "Red Dwar*".)
"Doctor Cornelius!" cried Caspian with joy, and rushed forward to greet his old tutor. Everyone else crowded round.
"Pah!" said Nikabrik. "A renegade Dwarf. A half-and-halfer! Shall I pass my sword through its throat?"
"Be quiet, Nikabrik," said Trumpkin. "The creature can't help its ancestry."
"This is my greatest friend and the savior of my life," said Caspian. "And anyone who doesn't like his company may leave my army: at once. [...]"
"But there's no time to go into that now. We must all fly from this place at once. You are already betrayed and Miraz is on the move. Before midday tomorrow you will be surrounded."
"Betrayed!" said Caspian. "And by whom?"
"Another renegade Dwarf, no doubt," said Nikabrik.
"By your horse Destrier," said Doctor Cornelius. "The poor brute knew no better. When you were knocked off, of course, he went dawdling back to his stable in the castle. Then the secret of your flight was known. I made myself scarce, having no wish to be questioned about it in Miraz's torture chamber. [...] Yesterday I learned that his army is out. I don't think some of your -- um -- pure-blooded Dwarfs have as much woodcraft as might be expected. You've left tracks all over the place. Great carelessness. At any rate something has warned Miraz that Old Narnia is not so dead as he had hoped, and he is on the move."
(I am gratified to have guessed correctly that Miraz has a torture chamber and knows how to make use of it.)
The named Black Dwarf of the group practices racial hatred and murder; the named Red Dwarf rebukes him. Nothing to see here, move along.
And yet... is there? As much as I truly hate the "essentialized" characterization of people in Narnia, it's part of the world. I didn't write the world, I don't like the way it's been written, and I'd change it if I could, but I seemingly cannot. Squirrels are chatterboxes. Centaurs are wise. Ogres are evil. These things are true by narratorial fiat, they are tautologically true. "Ogres are evil because Ogres are evil" is not a statement of racism in Narnia; it's just a statement of fact. Surely this is what Mr. Beaver was referencing in LWW when he made his famous statement about things that don't look like their essential nature.
[...] "No, no, there isn't a drop of real human blood in the Witch."
"That's why she's bad all through, Mr. Beaver," said Mrs. Beaver.
"True enough, Mrs. Beaver," replied he, "there may be two views about humans (meaning no offense to the present company). But there's no two views about things that look like humans and aren't."
"I've known good Dwarfs," said Mrs. Beaver.
"So've I, now you come to speak of it," said her husband, "but precious few, and they were the ones least like men. But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet."
Nikabrik is evil because he's a Black Dwarf. It makes sense, in the light of the world-building, for him to be predisposed towards violence and treachery. He literally can't change his nature.
But what is Cornelius? Cornelius looks human, or human enough that he was able to safely walk in Telmarine society without being murdered for all these years, as well as live in the court of Miraz without fear. And not just live in the court -- he scored a job as tutor for the heir, and just when Miraz was looking for someone above suspicion who wouldn't fill the boy's head with tales of Old Narnia. Cornelius is very, very good at looking human.
Were Mr. Beaver here, he might well recommend that Cornelius be put to death on the spot. They're in a vulnerable position, and they can't risk any treachery to reveal them to Miraz's more powerful and numerous forces. Nikabrik certainly does recommend this.
And yet... despite all this Narnian essentialism, when it comes down to it, Cornelius really is better than all the other dwarves. He knows magic, and explicitly calls out that his woodcraft skills -- despite not living in the forest himself for years -- is better than those dwarves who have made their home in this forest and whose skill at woodcraft literally means the difference between their life and death. Cornelius-the-dilettante is simply better. And he's wiser. Kinder. More adaptable. And brave enough and smart enough to retrieve Queen Susan's lost horn, and good enough to hand it over to a human child in an hour of need.
By the rules of Narnia, Cornelius shouldn't be better. He shouldn't be better because he should be limited by his non-Platonic nature. He shouldn't be better because it is impossible for Narnians to transcend their nature and become something greater. But he is.
He is also, at least partially, human.
And I think that the rules of Narnia are a smokescreen for the real rule: be a White Straight (Human) Male. That is why Cornelius is Better: because he is half-human. That is why Lucy is better than Susan: because she is half-male. And it is why Peter and Caspian are the best of all: they are all-human and all-male. But it's just a theory.
"Is there time for this foolery?" asked Nikabrik. "What are our plans? Battle or flight?"
"Battle if need be," said Trumpkin. "But we are hardly ready for it yet, and this is no very defensible place."
"I don't like the idea of running away," said Caspian.
"Hear him! Hear him!" said the Bulgy Bears. "Whatever we do, don't let's have any running. Especially not before supper; and not too soon after it neither." [...]
"Your Majesty," said Doctor Cornelius, "and all you variety of creatures, I think we must fly east and down the river to the great woods. The Telmarines hate that region. They have always been afraid of the sea and of something that may come over the sea. That is why they have let the great woods grow up. If traditions speak true, the ancient Cair Paravel was at the river-mouth. All that part is friendly to us and hateful to our enemies. We must go to Aslan's How." [...]
It was after they had taken up their quarters in and around the How that fortune began to turn against them. King Miraz's scouts soon found their new lair, and he and his army arrived on the edge of the woods. And as so often happens, the enemy turned out stronger than they had reckoned. Caspian's heart sank as he saw company after company arriving. And though Miraz's men may have been afraid of going into the wood, they were even more afraid of Miraz, and with him in command they carried battle deeply into it and sometimes almost to the How itself. Caspian and other captains of course made many sorties into the open country. Thus there was fighting on most days and sometimes by night as well; but Caspian's party had on the whole the worst of it.
At last there came a night when everything had gone as badly as possible, and the rain which had been falling heavily all day had ceased at nightfall only to give place to raw cold. That morning Caspian had arranged what was his biggest battle yet, and all had hung their hopes on it. [...] But it had all failed. No one had warned Caspian (because no one in these later days of Narnia remembered) that Giants are not at all clever. Poor Wimbleweather, though as brave as a lion, was a true Giant in that respect. He had broken out at the wrong time and from the wrong place, and both his party and Caspian's had suffered badly and done the enemy little harm.
Time passes. Giants are not clever. Wise strategists take into account the essential Narnian natures of their troops.
And it's hard -- it's so hard -- to not point out here sarcastically that women shouldn't be put in positions of power because we're always thinking with our baby-makers or that people of color are well-suited to low-wage labor because of unscientific bell curves. I'm trying not to fling off a sarcastic reference to these things because I really, truly, honestly, openly do not think that was what Lewis was trying to do with all this. Seriously. I think he was trying to write a fun and whimsical childrens' fairy story with, yes, heavy-handed Christian morality, but ultimately all these stereotypes about silly Squirrels and un-clever Giants was very probably meant to be all in good fun.
So here I am, Vice-Chancellor of Nofunnington, pointing out that marginalized people have been consistently denied valuable positions in society because of the prejudice that they cannot rise above their nature, and it's like talking about sexism in Dr. Seuss books. Some people are going to see the connection and nod along and say yes, that is an endemic attitude in our society and it's an important conversation to have, and other people are going to say it is a fairy tale story with mythological creatures so where do you get off comparing fairy apples with real life oranges. And I'm just going to have to point up at the site tagline and shrug.
Wimbleweather isn't clever because he's a Giant and Giants are not clever. Apparently, though, they're really good at hiding their un-cleverness because this particular defeat came apparently pretty late in the war (how long has this been going on?), and he's been with them since the Recruiting Day, so he's served with quiet enough distinction that Caspian was willing to gamble big on him in hopes of a decisive win. And, indeed, they are so good at hiding their un-cleverness that in the 1,300 years since the Pevensies have been gone and communication in Narnia has withered, everyone has forgotten their essential un-cleverness. So Giants are not clever... some of the time. At crucial plot moments, let's say.
But this ignores the fact that humans are not clever all of the time. Even Caspian makes mistakes, though they're framed entirely as "trusted the wrong person to not disappoint him with suckage". But here we have basic confirmation bias: when Caspian the Human makes mistakes, it's in spite of his noble nature; when Wimbleweather the Giant makes mistakes, it's his true nature finally asserting itself.
And, yes, this is exactly like how women and people of color and QUILTBAG people and marginalized groups are kept from sharing in the same roles and responsibilities and privileges as Straight White Men. Whether Lewis realized it or not.
"If your Majesty is ever to use the Horn," said Trufflehunter, "I think the time has now come." Caspian had of course told them of his treasure several days ago.
"We are certainly in great need," answered Caspian. "But it is hard to be sure we are at our greatest. Supposing there came an even worse need and we had already used it?"
"By that argument," said Nikabrik, "your Majesty will never use it until it is too late."
"I agree with that," said Doctor Cornelius. [...]
"Then in the name of Aslan we will wind Queen Susan's Horn," said Caspian.
"There is one thing, Sire," said Doctor Cornelius, "that should perhaps be done first. We do not know what form the help will take. It might call Aslan himself from oversea. But I think it is more likely to call Peter the High King and his mighty consorts down from the high past. [...] "I think," went on the learned man, "that they -- or he -- will come back to one or other of the Ancient Places of Narnia. [...] I should like very much to send messengers to both places, to Lantern Waste and the river-mouth, to receive them -- or him -- or it."
"Who would you think of sending, Doctor Cornelius?" asked Caspian. [...]
"I won't go," said Nikabrik. "With all these Humans and beasts about, there must be a Dwarf here to see that the Dwarfs are fairly treated."
"Thimbles and thunderstorms!" cried Trumpkin in a rage. "Is that how you speak to the King? Send me, Sire, I'll go."
"But I thought you didn't believe in the Horn, Trumpkin," said Caspian.
"No more I do, your Majesty. But what's that got to do with it? I might as well die on a wild goose chase as die here. You are my King. I know the difference between giving advice and taking orders. You've had my advice, and now it's the time for orders."
And then there's this.
It's a council of war deep in the heart of Aslan's How, which is a mound erected over the stone table. The council is not using the Stone Table for common counseling as that would be sacrilegious; they've instead procured some logs to sit on, which must have taken a good deal of resources, particularly given that there's no way to tell a sentient-but-sleeping tree from a regular one and there are no beavers in the party, but I'm not going to tell people how to religion.
The council is counseling Caspian on whether or not to use the horn, and it's interesting to me that they still haven't used it yet. Caspian is vacillating on the issue and is determined not to use the horn until they're at their greatest hour of need. Surely that wouldn't be until they were truly defeated and surrounded by Miraz's armed soldiers, no?
I find this interesting because no such condition was originally attached to the horn. When it was given by Father Christmas to Susan, he merely told her:
And when you put this horn to your lips and blow it, then, wherever you are, I think help of some kind will come to you.
Not only are there not any guidelines for when to use the horn, Santa isn't even sure that help will come at all! He thinks it will. Probably. Maybe. (I can't shake the image of Santa adding, "I found this in my storeroom of assorted magical treasures. My Identify skill isn't what it used to be, but maybe it will help? I dunno.")
I don't suppose I blame Caspian or Cornelius for not knowing this. That was 1,300 years ago and the only 6 people who witnessed the exchange (the four children and two beavers) have been long gone, and apparently the dispenser of the gift doesn't bother to drop by Narnia anymore, eternal winter or no. (Maybe the yearly visit lost its appeal once the rivalry was gone?)
But in addition to demonstrating how information can be lost and how mysticism can be attached to an object over time (as the horn has been upgraded from "blow here for help" to "blow only when the alternative is unimaginably dire"), this is also potentially a case where Caspian is very wrong. He's a Hamlet in charge of the army, agonizing over whether to Do or Do Not, and meanwhile his troops die and are wounded unnecessarily while he waits. He may not be wrong from his perspective -- he's been told to only call it at the hour of greatest need -- but he is, for this one moment in time, wrong nevertheless.
Nikabrik and Trumpkin both believe that Caspian is wrong, too. But Nikabrik the Black Dwarf, the one with the bad hair and the bad attitude, says outright that he won't obey an order from Caspian because he believes that Caspian's bad leadership is detrimental to the safety of his people. Trumpkin the Red Dwarf, with the good hair and the good attitude, rebukes this attitude and tells Caspian to command him, even if his orders do not coincide with his opinion. (And even if those orders end up with him being captured, trussed up, taken out on a boat, and drowned to death.)
And yet -- probably not surprisingly at this point -- I feel sympathy with Nikabrik. Later he will point out that in a single battle yet to occur, his people were killed (or wounded? the narrative is deliberately unclear) by 1 in 5. The Black Dwarves were not merely decimated, they were pentamated. (Note: Probably not a real word.) The Badger will argue with Nikabrik and say that everyone else -- including the King -- "all did as much" in battle as the dwarves, but that doesn't come close to saying that they all lost as much.
Maybe Nikabrik is lying when he says that the dwarves are bearing the brunt of this war. But I'm not sure how he could be. Based on the text, it sounds like everyone in the army is everyone they met on Recruiting Day. In an army of "flighty" Squirrels, tiny Mice, dancing Fauns, Bears so foolish they can't stop thinking about food long enough to flee for their lives and can't stay awake during a crucial upcoming duel that decides the very fate of Narnia, and un-clever Giants, who is on the front lines dealing the most damage and keeping the army from breaking through? The centaurs, maybe, but there only seems to be four of them (Glenstorm and his three sons) and even if there are some unmentioned daughters and/or friends of the family, there doesn't sound to be more than a dozen. And that's assuming they're at the front and aren't providing archery support from the back.
It kind of seems to me that the dwarves have to be the cannon-fodder of this army, if we just look at the dynamics of who is available to throw onto the front lines. And for all that, they're getting... what? A chance at vengeance and freedom, I suppose. But at the end of the day, they're putting the "rightful" heir -- rightful by Telmarine standards, too, which has to sting -- on the throne and he's still a human who still doesn't understand them, who openly sneers at their strategies and philosophies, and whose only connection with their real home of Narnia is the fanciful romanticization of a child.
I'm not sure, in light of all that, that Nikabrik is wrong when he says that he has to remain there to represent the interests of his people. I don't see any other dwarves being invited to the war council -- it's basically just Caspian, his best friend, and the three people who lived in the home he blundered into. When Trumpkin leaves, there won't be another Red Dwarf brought to take his place on the council; certainly there are no centaurs or Squirrels or Bears in there. Apparently if Nikabrik were to leave, the Black Dwarves would have no representation whatsoever in the planning phase, but they would still be expected to lay down their lives.
And we're supposed to accept this, I think, as Trumpkin does, because Caspian is the king. And the king gives the orders. But this king has -- through no fault of his own, but nevertheless -- given bad orders. He took them into open warfare on the advice of an astrologer, and that war has now gone very badly indeed. He placed too much responsibility on a battle general who could not handle his orders. He has cost lives by unnecessarily waiting to blow the horn. Like all Caspian's privilege, like the genocide of the Narnians, this isn't Caspian's fault. But it does, perhaps, like all those other things, make him less suited to rule with an iron fist and unquestioned judgment over the many diverse peoples of Narnia.
It's just strange to me that Nikabrik is treated like a villain for pointing that out.
49 comments:
I'm not familiar enough with military culture to know what your options are when your C.O. has gone off the rails, but I generally think you do and die. Although there's certainly plenty of cases where sub-commanders have worked around these situations. And I don't know how much more it clouds things to have a boy king in charge of things - a rosy-cheeked figurehead your rebellion will probably need if it ever hopes to become truly independent. I would be inclined to leave the strategy to the persons who have managed to stay alive over three centuries of warfare, myself, and use Caspian as a sort of banner-holder. I'd guess the Animals and surviving dwarves would not camp out in a single location (on a bare hill), but utilize guerrilla tactics. Strike the supply lines. Make Miraz march through mires and marshes. Play on the army's fear of the forest by making sure that they never sleep soundly. Get the trees to shuffle around at night so they wake up someplace new? Have Owls drop the skulls of their comrades into their bedding? Make them so afraid that they invent their own stories.
But barring that, I think it's clear that Lewis expects soldiers to obey orders. (Just as we on earth are subject to the commands of God even though we might not understand or agree.) If Caspian's plan isn't working, Nikabrik should double down and try harder.
I also *hate* that Cornelius is right about the manner of help and the location without *any* indication that this could be an expected outcome. Even good old High King Peter at the height of his powers isn't going to be too much help (except that he might better command the devastated rebel army). I can think of a number of things that might be more helpful.
There's a bit in Lackey's "By the Sword" where a company that's lost 1/2 the officers and 1/3 of the rest can basically call for a vote of no confidence and vote in a new Captain of the army on the grounds that it's highly probable that the current Captain sucks. I always liked that bit; it seemed sort of sensible.
Military organizations vary drastically, but in a place like Narnia, I would suspect that the various animals and such will just go home if their leaders decide Caspian is turning out to be a bad bargain. Medieval troops were raised through feudal relationships. They could be lost the same way, or if other circumstances meant the men started to head out.
I'm gonna argue though, that Caspian is, in fact, a stereotype. He's a wide-eyed, brave but romantic boy of noble birth, now he's going to be king, and he's even physically responding to his new environment, "he began already to harden and his face wore a kinglier look".
But he has no personality, nor any emotions that aren't tied up with "Golly, I'm going to be king!", and he does nothing that is out of line with who he is supposed to be, ever.
He's a positive stereotype, but an utterly flat character.
I love your ideas. As a guerilla army, they should be able to pull off all kinds of awesome and creative attacks and demoralization strategies that a wholly human army could only dream of. It would also make for a far better book if they did. Not only would our heroes look more competent, but things would be happening!
Well, it's not a very smart strategy in general to question the commander's orders in the middle of a war. True, there's the chance the commander is highly incompetent. But he's more likely to be at worst at least marginally competent, and any plans will be less effective if he can't count on his troops to follow his orders, a-la the not-smart Giant. Even if you remove the commander altogether, you set a precedent that bad leaders can be quickly removed if you think your plans are better and you have no form of legitimacy yourself, justified or not. So unless you are a Mary Tzu level tactician, you're going to have to spend a lot of effort in not being removed yourself by someone no less legitmate to command than you are when your plan doesn't exactly work. Or if others don't think they will work. Or if they just want power, and like the precedence.
On the other hand, they now have a little kid (how old is Caspian supposed to be anyway now? We didn't know how old he was when he left, and I have completely lost track of the narrative. How much time has passed since he fled the castle?) who was raised among their enemies, and is as Ana pointed out the true legitimate ruler by the laws of their genociders for the previous 250 years. So I can quite well understand doubting his abilities.
And given the rather obvious parallels between Dwarfs and agnosts/atheists, I am rather upset by this narrative that suggests that they can still be sort-of-okay people, as long as they don't let the fact that they don't believe what the christians believe stop them from following any and all commands their christian leaders order based on their own beliefs.
@Dav: My thoughts exactly. IIRC, we saw the horn get used once. And while indeed it summoned help, it didn't do so in any magical manner. Susan made a loud noise with it, and Peter was close enough to hear it. I really have to wonder how Cornelius figured that it will in fact summon Peter through 1300 years and another dimension, and also somehow concludes that this help will not actually show up anywhere near close enough to help. But no worries, he knows pretty much exactly where this magically conjured help will pop up. The only reasonable explanation is if, after the kids left in book 1, Aslan popped in to give a prophecy on how it will work the next time it's used. In which case, thanks for forseeing that and not doing anything to stop the Tellmarines from invading and killing everyone, even though you knew it was comming. It can't even be excused by the Tellmarines being human and therefor legitimate, because there's an illegitimate ruler now, and the narrative just explained that many of Caspian's 'followers' have died during their frantic retreat and guerilla warfare, while Aslan hasn't shown up yet.
What puzzles me is that characters such as Trumpkin are all like, "Obey Caspian because he's the King!" Except Caspian isn't, yet. And the ACTUAL King -- y'know, Miraz? -- is the de facto ruler of Narnia. Caspian is no more legitimate than Miraz as a ruler.
The narrative seems to be saying, "It's okay to disobey a King you don't like. That doesn't make you a disloyal subject or anything. TRUE loyalty means you MUST obey someone else that you've decided is going to replace the King you don't like, because eventually that someone will be King instead (if all goes well, and the stars align, etc). Then you're TOTES loyal."
It's a very odd definition of loyalty. It seems to have nothing to do with actual facts, like recent history or lines of succession. Trumpkin's painted as honourable when he really isn't. He's actively committing treason by deciding to support Caspian and taking a leadership role in this insurrection. He might BELIEVE with all his heart that he's doing the right thing, but Loyalty To Your King doesn't mean you can ditch your actual King whenever you disagree with him.
(I'm explaining this badly but I've only had one coffee today.) ;)
If I were Caspian, I'd be more than a little concerned that Trumpkin is prone to switching loyalties whenever he can find someone else to lead the way, and becomes a turncoat whenever it suits him. At least Nikabrik is a straight-shooter, and you know where you stand with him.
Caspian reminds me here of another young, charismatic pretender who wasn't that good of a general- Charles Edward Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie. The grandson of King James II, Charles had a claim to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland; his grandfather had been deposed by the nobility-chosen William III (a Dutch lord).
Charles (who had been raised in exile) was the figurehead of the mostly Scottish-based Jacobite Uprising of 1745, and he was a popular one, too. However, he doesn't seem to have been a very good leader. The first great victory of his uprising- the battle of Prestonpans- was organised by his talented general Lord George Murray. It was this same general whose advice Charles ignored at the Battle of Culloden, led his forces into a marsh and saw the rebellion crushed ruthlessly in a decisive defeat.
After that he spent a great deal of time fleeing with a price on his head- and the tale of which has become quite romanticised.
Although I doubt Lewis had Bonnie Prince Charlie in mind when he wrote Caspian, the same themes are there- the idea of a romantic, charismatic figurehead who perhaps represents a mythical 'golden age', and is actually not that talented.
On the topic of evil.
I was educated in a Catholic high school, and I got pretty damn good marks for religious studies, too. I'm looking at the portrayal of ogres, Black Dwarves etc here and scratching my head, because I'm sure Lewis knew this.
In essence, here, the idea that any such race could actually -be- universally evil is antithetical to that construct. The evils of sin stem from free will- and if there's free will amongst Dwarves and ogres, then there -has- to be good Dwarves and Ogres. Evil is the absence of God, and pure evil thus can't exist.
JRR Tolkien knew this and he wrestled with it greatly, trying to reconcile his beliefs with the existence of Orcs in his Legendarium. He knew that by his own beliefs, there had to be good Orcs somewhere- ultimately he decided that they simply don't show.
It honestly never occurred to me when I was reading the books that Caspian's claim to the throne is so flimzy. I suspect it never occurred to Lewis either.
TRiG.
That's the "creative misunderstanding" that Vimes talks about in Night Watch, yes?
TRiG.
Trumpkin has no reason to be loyal to Miraz. He's sworn no fealty to him, he doesn't recognize the Telmarines as legitimate rulers, and therefore, there's no reason to think poorly of him for fighting against him.
The question is: what the heck makes Caspian different?
I have to suspect, from Trumpkin's POV, nothing. The boy is a handsome, highly manipulable romantic. His royal Telmarine blood makes him an acceptable king to the human population, his descent from Adam v'Chava, his opposition to Miraz, and his apparent love of 'Old Narnia' makes him a potentially acceptable king to the indigenous Narnians. He has nowhere to go, Miraz wants him dead, and Cornelius has primed him to see Narnians as wonderful and exotic, and also to seek their forgiveness for his people's crimes.
He will be a good king. People will love him. He will sign on the dotted line, and he will do as his friend and savior Trumpkin tells him is best. He's a godsend.
Nikabrik, of course, is a purist and a radical who will not compromise. He doesn't see the possibility of a kingdom functionally ruled by Narnians, if it involves compromise with and legitimization of the hated Telmarines, and he can't see why they should bow down to this concept of the legitimate human ruler.
Trumpkin's plan will, in fact, work very well. Nikabrik, who will always favor speaking truth to power over actually controlling power, will never like it much.
Makabit - that's exactly the conclusion that this whole discussion has been leading me towards (though you phrased it better and more completely than I was thinking). They're not playing up Caspian as being King because he's somehow Rightful, but because they intend to make him King and in that circumstance it would be much smoother and more efficient if people also thought of him as Rightful.
---
JRR Tolkien knew this and he wrestled with it greatly, trying to reconcile his beliefs with the existence of Orcs in his Legendarium. He knew that by his own beliefs, there had to be good Orcs somewhere- ultimately he decided that they simply don't show.
If I recall correctly, one of the things that really stalled Tolkien when he started on the sequel to LOTR was that he couldn't help but conclude that the shining kingdoms of humanity would have to fall towards the kinds of petty corruption and failings that characterise the real world, while the orcs, free of Sauron's pushing, would normalise as a people and start showing a lot more of their good in with their apparent brutality, such that it would become very difficult to tell which side was Good and which was Evil these days.
That sounds exactly right to me. Caspian is convenient, young, and will be perfectly happy to be a figurehead while real control passes to Narnians. And probably Trumpkin isn't too sad to see the High Kings and Queens for the same reason: King Arthur's basically shown up to bolster support, but it's very unlikely that they'll be around to muck things up long-term or know enough of the political situation to make up their own minds about what's going down.
Given the way revolutions run, Trumpkin *might* be happy to have a less likeable comrade to throw under the bus, too. Nikabrik is predictable and honest, or honest enough so that he's disliked. He could be a helpful tool, or a useful sacrifice.
Nikabrik is evil because he's a Black Dwarf. It makes sense, in the light of the world-building, for him to be predisposed towards violence and treachery. He literally can't change his nature.
To be fair, it's explicitly commented - though only after his death - that he might have gotten over his bitterness and become a good Dwarf if he had lived. As I said before, I think it's pretty clear that Lewis didn't intend Nikabrik to be a one-dimensional bad guy, although his portrayal is highly problematic. It's also only fair to note that he is shown as giving good advice (acknowledged as such by the more or less omniscient Cornelius) at the council.
I'm now waiting for Caspian to try to blow the horn and realize it's only usable by Bards and just gives a +5 to Perform.
Peripherally related, but it always puzzled me when I read this as a child that Lewis felt the need to point out that they didn't have their war council around the Stone Table because it was Too Sacred.
I was all like, "Isn't the Stone Table *broken*, like with a huge giant crack down the middle? Which would pretty much make it unusable as a *table*?"
I mean, did Lewis forget that a big part of Aslan resurrecting was "the Stone Table will crack"?
"We are certainly in great need," answered Caspian. "But it is hard to be sure we are at our greatest. Supposing there came an even worse need and we had already used it?"
So... Caspian seems to be a typical RPG player. I always end up saving coll artifacts for later use because "surely I can beat this boss without spending my only Cloud Kill scroll". Then all this cool stuff becomes useless.
Makabit's comment:
"Trumpkin's painted as honourable when he really isn't. He's actively committing treason by deciding to support Caspian and taking a leadership role in this insurrection. He might BELIEVE with all his heart that he's doing the right thing, but Loyalty To Your King doesn't mean you can ditch your actual King whenever you disagree with him. "
Actually Trumpkin is not commiting treason since he was never a subject of the Telmarines. The reason is that the Telmarines didn't want him to submit to their authority they wanted him and other non-human Narnians dead and as such treated non-human Narnians as enemies and not subjects. Enemies like that cannot by definition commit treason against those who are their enemies. Trumpkin owes no loyalty to someone who will kill him for the "crime" of existing and wants nothing at all from him excspt that he die.
What is very puzzling is how easily Trumpkin slips into accepting Caspian has "legitimate", He accepts with virtually no problem that Caspian is a "legitimate" ruler and therefore the whole rule by the Telmarine dynasty is "legitimate". As mentioned before Caspian's claim to the throne is that he is the descendent of a 300 year old line of conquerers who engaged in myriad atrocities over that time period. Yet somehow the "legitimacy" of Caspian's right to rule by descent from this line of killers is not even morally questioned. Virtually everyone takes his right to rule as self evident. Well is isn't.
If Miraz after overthrowing and killing Prince Caspian's father had ended the reign of terror against the old Narnians, how many would complain about Miraz behavior?
If Miraz after overthrowing and killing Prince Caspian's father had ended the reign of terror against the old Narnians, how many would complain about Miraz behavior?
If he also agreed to worship Aslan, as Prince Caspian does? None at all. Caspian is, after all, descended from a long line of pirates, and Aslan makes sure to spell it out.
If Miraz had killed his brother and declared his loyalty to Aslan, he would have been recognized as a great hero and rightful King by the beasts and most of the dwarves, just as happens with Caspian. Caspian would have gone from being Crown Prince to being a prince who would never be king when Miraz's son was born, and no one would have found the fact that his father was king back in the Dark Times to make any difference whatsoever.
Cornelius could have picked up the information about what help and where would come from all his magic research into where the darn thing was. I'm not sure whether he flubbed the check that would have told him it was useable at will, or if he found out that it would only be used during their hour of greatest need and misinterpreted that to mean that it only could be used then, or what.
What I will say is that it bothers me. I will say that I feel like the repetition of these themes in literature commonly given to children can possibly prime some children to expect strict adherence to stereotype when it comes to real people. ..I can point out that stereotypes are deployed most frequently and most harmfully against groups which are traditionally marginalized and othered as different, exotic, strange, or deviant from "normal" people.
And I can understand your feelings here. Why., only yesterday I heard a straight white cis man refer to straight white cis men as "the ordinary people." As though straight white cis male is somehow the default for human being. It's infuriating.
I'm not denying that you can read these stories in that light. All I ever wanted to point out is that there's another way to look at them. And that it's a way that's not available with a lot of other problematic literature for children. To take an exteme example, you've got a link to PersonalFailure's page where she's running an Elsie Dinsmore analysis. And there's no way you can look at the way the black characters are depicted, as anything but reinforcing racist stereotypes about black people.
You can-- well, at least I can; maybe I'm wrong-- look at Lewis's ogres and dwarfs and talking animals and read them as saying something about people in general, not about any group of people in particular.
Giants, for instance. Giants are interesting because they're not, in folklore, as intrinsically evil as ogres. But yes, in most folktales they're presented as being rather stupid and thoughtlessly violent. Unfair stereotyping of people who don't fit the default size? Or an encouragement to children (and other disadvantaged people, perhaps) that the one who is larger and more powerful than you, and being mean to you, is not invulnerable?
So what do you do when the giant is on your side? No, I don't think Lewis did a particularly good job with that one.
I hope this makes sense; I'm, as usual, in a hurry. I don't think you're wrong to feel as you do; I hope you don't think I'm either saying that you're wrong, or totally unjustified in what I say.
Aslan's How: it's described as a hill built over the Stone Table. Meant to remind one of the catacombs, perhaps, where the Christians are said to have hidden during times of persecution (although I don't think they actually did). Or, more likely, of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, an edifice built over what's said to have been the Hill of Calvary. Or perhaps, like that building, it's a symbol of the church itself, all divided into "galleries and caves," a "perfect maze," decorated with "strange characters." A far cry from the primitive Table open to the sky, and yet, with something sacred and powerful and unchanged at the heart of it.
they've instead procured some logs to sit on, which must have taken a good deal of resources, particularly given that there's no way to tell a sentient-but-sleeping tree from a regular one
The How is in the middle of, and under, a forest. Surely there are fallen trees and fallen branches? Even in the Forest of Fangorn, Gandalf told the company to "cut no living wood," but dead limbs were okay. Same here?
The Black Dwarves were not merely decimated, they were pentamated. (Note: Probably not a real word.)
Quintecimated? 'Pentamated' would mean multiplied by five, so unless the dwarves were killed five times over...
I'm not familiar enough with military culture to know what your options are when your C.O. has gone off the rails, but I generally think you do and die.
It would depend how far off the rails they've gone, and just how. Illegal orders not only *can* be disobeyed, but (theoretically) *must* be disobeyed. An order that is merely a profoundly terrible idea tends to get creatively misinterpreted (or just 'lost'). If the subordinate's creative interpretation works out, this may result in the commander being retroactively relieved by *their* superiors. In any event, with a bad enough leader, the (significant) negative effects of disobedience can be less than the harm of continuing to obey... a single leader you have negative confidence in is worse than a group that you might doubt.
It makes me wonder if he was actually present for those battles - if he just sent out a regiment and stayed back at the camp to plan while they went to fight and die.
Granted, this'd be kind of understandable - if it happened, I'd expect it to be Trumpkin's suggestion. It wouldn't do for your figurehead to catch a crossbow bolt, after all...
So... Caspian seems to be a typical RPG player. I always end up saving coll artifacts for later use because "surely I can beat this boss without spending my only Cloud Kill scroll". Then all this cool stuff becomes useless.
Cloud Kill? On presumably a single high level target? That's just silly, everyone knows you use Cloud Kill against masses of weaker enemies.
I'm not denying that you can read these stories in that light. All I ever wanted to point out is that there's another way to look at them.
Oh, sure, I completely understand that -- of course there's another way to look at them. In fact, I'd argue there are a hundred other ways to look at them! :)
And that's where there's kind of a disconnect between "Normal, Everyday Ana Who Enjoys Most Everything" and "Analytical Ana Who Thinks Too Much About Narnia and Twilight" because a lot of people here only see the latter and don't realize that she's just a subset of the former.
I actually enjoy almost all the fiction I read. If you ever run Husband's ARAT program against my Amazon reviews, you'll find I'm overwhelmingly positive in my reviews. (And most of my 1- and 2-star reviews are products, not fiction. As in "this product broke when I used it".) If someone forced me to rate Twilight, I'd probably give it 3 stars on a 5 star scale; if someone made me rate Narnia as a whole, I'd probably give it 4 stars.
I don't hate these books. And I do get that these books are fairy tales that were written by a guy in the 50s who didn't have a lot of Privilege 101 training. I get that. This isn't about hating on Narnia or taking away the nice things from everyone. I simply find it fascinating to pull out this stuff and say "hey, here's some racism/sexism/classism/etc. I bet you never noticed in these books".
And -- as in the case of this week's post -- it really is true that "(White) Men make mistakes by accident, but Giants/Women/Blacks/What-have-you make mistakes by nature" is precisely why marginalized people have been denied positions of power and importance for pretty much ever.
So! Fairy tale story that is complete fluff and not meant to be taken seriously? Yes! But. Narrative that reinforces the Patriarchal line that Platonic natures are a Thing and Certain People can't be trusted in crucial situations? Yeah, that too, unfortunately.
Both/And.
But always with a smile. :)
:)
And sometimes I do hate these books; well, parts of them.
And -- as in the case of this week's post -- it really is true that "(White) Men make mistakes by accident, but Giants/Women/Blacks/What-have-you make mistakes by nature" is precisely why marginalized people have been denied positions of power and importance for pretty much ever.
Can't argue with that. I hear that one all the time, still, in this supposedly enlightened 21st century.
One minor nitpick in the general rapprochement?
Fairy tale story that is complete fluff and not meant to be taken seriously? Yes!
Well, no. Not fluff. Just taken seriously in a different way.
Well, see above re: "hundred other ways to look at them!" :D (We've had commenters who read the series as kids and didn't even notice the religious bits. :))
But I apologize if that sounded like I was misrepresenting your opinion. I certainly didn't want to come off that way, and I'm sorry.
And the ACTUAL King -- y'know, Miraz? -- is the de facto ruler of Narnia. Caspian is no more legitimate than Miraz as a ruler.
Well, it depends on how wedded the Telmarines are to the rules of inheritance. The way the book presents it, it's an ironclad law that Caspian is legally supposed to be king because his father was king. Miraz only gets to be the de facto ruler because Caspian's too young to put in charge, and like many historical monarchies the Telmarines are fine with having the nearest adult relative be regent until the underage monarch reaches adulthood. But the regent is not the king, and has no legal right to put the underage monarch aside and declare himself king. Of course, if Caspian were to meet with a fatal accident, then Miraz would be the legal heir to the throne, and therefore the rightful king, or if Miraz convinced a sufficient number of nobles to support him then the legalities wouldn't matter, but since Caspian's alive and the Good Guys aren't interested in bending the rules for Miraz, Caspian is The Rightful King and Miraz isn't.
If I recall correctly, one of the things that really stalled Tolkien when he started on the sequel to LOTR was that he couldn't help but conclude that the shining kingdoms of humanity would have to fall towards the kinds of petty corruption and failings that characterise the real world, while the orcs, free of Sauron's pushing, would normalise as a people and start showing a lot more of their good in with their apparent brutality, such that it would become very difficult to tell which side was Good and which was Evil these days.
I find it funny, because that exact setup is pretty much a straight subversion of a lot of fantasy genre tropes.
Hell, I'd read that. Someone get their fanfic on!
As a note: The Silmarillion stands out for me for this reason in that it has some complex, grey-grey and even fully evil Elves. They're not all shiny and light.
It kind of seems to me that the dwarves have to be the cannon-fodder of this army, if we just look at the dynamics of who is available to throw onto the front lines.
They mine the iron, they build the castles, they fight the wars- see? Dwarves really *are* the cornerstone of Narnia.
As a curious aside, with the gifts seen earlier and the name of "Black Dwarf", I'm assuming that these really are meant to be your Norse dwarfs with the smithing and the crafting and all that. One of the possible names for Dwarfs was 'Svartalfar', which translates into 'Black Elf'. Amongst other things they crafted the fetters that bound the wolf Fenrir.
And I apologize if if I misinterpreted yours. Let the discussion proceed!
And, y'know, it's not even that I like these books all that well. When I was a kid, they weren't among my favorites-- and I think that was because of the Talking Beasts, actually. They confused me in a "How big are these animals? WTF sewing-machine?" kind of way. Same reason I lost interest in The Wind in the Willows when Mr. Toad started driving human-sized motor cars and getting involved with human policemen and all.
And now, if I open one of the books to any random page, I'm likely to read something that annoys me.
And yet... somehow, the overall effect still has... something. Each book contains some imagery that, well, that I guess led me to feel for Lewis a little bit of what Lewis felt for George MacDonald:
The quality that had enchanted me in his imaginative works turned out to be the quality of the real universe, the divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic reality in which we all live….I see there was no deception. The deception is all the other way round–in that prosaic moralism which confines goodness to the region of Law and Duty, which never lets us feel in our face the sweet air blowing from ‘the land of righteousness’, never reveals that elusive Form which if once seen must inevitably be desired with all but sensuous desire–the thing (in Sappho’s phrase) ‘more gold than gold.’
"Cloud Kill? On presumably a single high level target? That's just silly, everyone knows you use Cloud Kill against masses of weaker enemies."
Not in the first Baldur's Gates. There Cloud Kill was the single most powerful spell. That no wizard could learn because of level cup. And, IIRC, only one scroll was available which made it very valuable. Also, most bosses have a bunch of minions hanging around so combination of Web + Cloud Kill + Fireballs and other offensive spells was a good idea.
Not in the first Baldur's Gates.
[...]
That no wizard could learn because of level cup.
In Baldur's Gate 1 without expansion, no wizard can learn Cloud Kill. I'm not sure what, without the expansion, you'd actually need to use it on.
In Tales of the Sword Coast, the expansion, "Cast Invisibility, send the wizard in alone, have her cast Cloud Kill and drink an invisibility potion" is the simplest way of defeating Aec'Letec, the final boss of the expansion, who otherwise will give you a seriously nasty, even brutal, fight, involving some members of your party turning into ghasts and being unresurrectably dead. However, also, if you install the expansion, the XP cap raises to 161,000, enough that a wizard gains access to fifth-level spells and can learn Cloud Kill.
In Baldur's Gate 2, the no-expansion XP cap is high enough for a wizard to reach 17th-level, well above Cloud Kill, and Cloud Kill is by no means the most powerful spell.
And it's not at all helped by the Myers-Briggs class where I invariably score 50/50 across all the letters
I only score 50/50 on two of them (leading to me straddling four categories) and people seem to be shocked and amazed when I tell them that.
I find this interesting because no such condition was originally attached to the bow.
Horn. You meant to say horn. Compared to some of the mistakes I usually make, that's pretty minor, but you might want to correct it anyway.
-
On disagreeing with orders, if they were pirates they'd simply vote someone else into the captaincy and move on.
I *did* mean to say horn. Thank you. :)
Oddly enough, I have no problem with Lewis (a Brit) suggesting that there was a Divine Right of Kings. As a Canadian, I think I find it much less problematic than an American might.
And seriously, wouldn't religion be easier if instead of this complex reading and interpreting of scriptures, the knowledge was simply obviously avaliable, and all good people knew it? If you accept that, in Narnia, knowledge of good and evil and knowledge of Aslan are the same, then it's not nearly so mean as before. I really liked when in The Last Battle Aslan pardoned someone because they were a good person, and so clearly had been on Aslan's side all along, just without knowing it. As a tween, that scene was one of my fallbacks when my friends tried to convert me to save me from damnation. (Nowadays, I find the concept that _my_ goodness glorifies _your_ god repugnant, but it was an incredible comfort to me and my friends.)
The idea of the animals being defined by their stereotypes never bothered me, though I can see Ana's point. I accept books that describe a character as "she was like a kitten, with wide, inquisitive eyes, curiously exploring each new item in her surroundings". So to me, it's not a big leap to "The talking kitten was, like all kittens, inquistive, and curious."
I find it funny, because that exact setup is pretty much a straight subversion of a lot of fantasy genre tropes.
I think one of the unfortunate things about Tolkien's place in the fantasy classics is that his story was so much bigger even than the doorstopper that most people know about, and it becomes a very different story when placed in its broader context. There are a jillion stories that are obviously heavily inspired by LOTR, but it's like if someone in Middle-Earth wrote 'fantasy' novels about our actual Earth and then an entire genre spawned based solely on the Second World War, without much notice of the millennia leading up to it or the decades that followed.
(Mind you, this has happened in our real world and WW2 too, so the metaphor might not be ideal.)
On TVTropes, they have a page called 'the Unbuilt Trope', for cases where the foundational work of a genre is effectively a deconstruction of the genre it spawned. I think Tolkien's legendarium, taken as a whole, is or was steadily coming closer to that than folks expect.
On the broad issue of animals being defined by their stereotypes, I don't think I have a constant position. I can obviously see on the one hand why it's vexing if the folks who aren't White Men are restricted and the undeniably distasteful flavour of 'flaws are the exception for Caspian and the norm for the lesser-races-I-mean-Animals'.
But on the other hand, I'm not sure that it's right to work from the premise that Animals, if they appear different or restricted from a subjective human perspective, are necessarily inferior to humans and would be 'better' if they were more like us. I could see how that would go colonialist and be all 'We have the responsibility to try to save the Animals from their unfortunate limitations'. Deer are just doing their Deer thing. Who's a human to say that the Deer are necessarily inferior just because they're not great at diplomacy and logistics? They're sure a heck of a lot better at winter survival, which in turn feeds into a whole bunch of relevant skills and roles. So I could see the argument for a sort of everyone-uses-their-specialised-skills Narnia where humans really are optimised for being the best rulers. What remains unnecessary in that case is the overt glorification and the endless riches and such, because there's no reason to heap that much praise on someone just because they're performing their GodLion-assigned role.
Summing up: the relationship of humans to Animals in Narnia is disturbing when we map it onto the relationships of humans to other humans on Earth, but maybe that's because we're starting from a place of trying to impose the relationships of Earth humans onto Narnian society.
Are the animals better at survival, though? When Cornelius busts in and says "Miraz is coming, we gotta go", the Bears want to eat dinner and take a nap, which is terminally stupid.
I can't help but feel there's a difference between what you are proposing, which is intriguing, and what Lewis actually gave us.
(At least, that's how the Bears' advice reads to me.)
There's definitely plenty of room to debate, and questions of how closely Lewis himself was trying to cleave to whatever notion he was trying to put forward. The Beavers back in LWW showed both better survival skills and worse in relation to the Witch, and I would imagine that dodging the Telmarine army for 300 years would hone one's skills even better than trying to not attract Jadis' ire. So while my original point about 'winter survival' doesn't necessarily map to 'hostile occupation survival', I would agree that the Bears appear to be terminally foolish in ways that don't have any clear relation to their Animal nature. Actual bears would definitely react to soldiers ploughing through their woods.
"(We've had commenters who read the series as kids and didn't even notice the religious bits. :))"
That's me, lol! It took someone actually pointing it out for me to notice the religious bits, and I read and reread these books over and over and loved them. In my defense, I didn't have a particularly religious upbringing. (On the other hand, my husband was raised Catholic and he didn't notice the religious aspects as a kid either.)
When Cornelius busts in and says "Miraz is coming, we gotta go", the Bears want to eat dinner and take a nap, which is terminally stupid.
Do we know what time of year it is? New head-canon: it's the winter, the bears were hibernating when Trufflehunter etc dragged them out, and they're incapable of coming fully awake.
..Except that Miraz ISN'T Trumpkin's king, he's the foreign invader who is a descendant of foreign invaders who have been murdering and despoiling his people for the last 1300 years. Miraz is the ENEMY. It's not treason to support a replacement ruler against your enemy. It's maybe a little sketchy to throw your loyalty behind another one of the brutal foreign invader's children in the hopes that he won't be quite as bad as his ancestors, but it's not treason against Miraz. They never were loyal to or beholden to Miraz.
"Whatever we do, don't let's have any running. Especially not before supper; and not too soon after it neither."
As I remember from the book. the Bears emphasise running. In fact (depending on species) a bears can run from 30mph, I think Lewis's image of a Bear was probably unalterably coloured by bears in an oldstyle bear pit at the zoo. Traditionally visitors were allowed to feed bears with sweet treats, and (a) I would guess they weren't very fast when they'd lived in a pit and (b) they were probably shockingly overweight from bad feeding practices. Narnian Talking Animals aren't just stereotyped by species, they're stereotyped by an English author's perceptions of their species.
Plus if the Bulgy Bears were vegetarians (which I think Lewis hints at later in the book when Lucy encounters a bad bear) they probably had to eat regularly and often or they'd be unable to function. Pandas and Koalas can starve to death horribly fast if deprived of their regular diet. When the Bulgy Bears say they're not going to run anywhere before they eat, they may mean literally that they can't.
Me too! I read them when I was pretty young, and I only realized it was religious years later (my tweens), when someone pointed it out. My gut reaction was that CS Lewis had tricked me.
Yeah, I found out when I was particularly on the outs with Christianity and was pretty uncomfortable with the whole thing for awhile. I've come to terms with it at this point (largely because I've mellowed in my whole approach to religion), but I felt sort of like I had been tricked and partly just really embarrassed that everyone had gotten it but me.
In fact (depending on species) a bears can run from 30mph, I think Lewis's image of a Bear was probably unalterably coloured by bears in an oldstyle bear pit at the zoo.
Well, I think Lewis was perfectly aware that bears can be fast on their feet; the non-talking bear you mention is certainly such, and that one was mostly vegetarian. He just figured that the good bears in a children's book probably shouldn't be like that. Why, I don't know. He had already written a far more realistic and awesome bear, Mr. Bultitude, in That Hideous Strength.
if the Bulgy Bears were vegetarians
It does raise the question of what, exactly, this army was fed on, doesn't it? Were all these diverse species content with a steady diet of "nuts and wild fruits"? Was there enough of that kind of food within safe foraging distance? Did the humans and the dwarfs find themselves raiding those farmhouses for food, after all-- or no, they're deep in the woods where there are no Telmarine settlements nearby. What do Centaurs eat, anyway?
And how did such a mixed company find itself getting along at mealtimes? For instance, did the Owls have to keep reminding themselves of the difference between mice and Mice? Were they ever tempted to forget, when they were hungry? Did they feel bad about eating a mouse after they'd just had a friendly conversation with a Mouse?
What do Centaurs eat, anyway?
I don't actually remember which book it's in, but there's this whole paragraph that goes into how centaurs have a human stomach and a horse stomach and, accordingly, have to eat as much as a horse would eat of horse food plus as much as a human would eat of human food.
I don't actually remember which book it's in, but there's this whole paragraph that goes into how centaurs have a human stomach and a horse stomach and, accordingly, have to eat as much as a horse would eat of horse food plus as much as a human would eat of human food.
That's in The Silver Chair.
Already exists... but in Russian. Nick Perumov wrote a series of books (the so-called "Ring of Darkness" trilogy), which explore just this premise, with wars between men more important than the orcs' threat. It also depicts Rohan's king becoming dishonorable, and a very interesting take on the forces behind the conflict. Sadly, because of trademark issues, the books were never translated into English.
Also note that we alsready have elements of this in Tolkien's books, with Numenor ultimately falling to corruption.
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