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[Narnia Content Note: Rape, Forced Marriage, Non-consensual BDSM, Self-Harm, Racism, Violence]
Narnia Recap: Shasta and Bree have met up with Aravis and Hwin. Bree has demanded Aravis tell her story.
Obligatory note about racism, intent, and Lewis is here.
The Horse and His Boy, Chapter 3: At the Gates of Tashbaan
Chapter 3 is one of the flashback chapters that Lewis loved so much; we saw a similar one in Prince Caspian, and there will be a lot of parallels that I want to bring up. But let's get started.
First, Aravis notes her lineage: She is a noble woman, the only daughter of her father, with a deceased elder brother and a surviving younger brother.
“MY NAME,” SAID THE GIRL AT ONCE, “is Aravis Tarkheena and I am the only daughter of Kidrash Tarkaan, the son of Rishti Tarkaan, the son of Kidrash Tarkaan, the son of Ilsombreh Tisroc, the son of Ardeeb Tisroc who was descended in a right line from the god Tash. My father is the lord of the province of Calavar and is one who has the right of standing on his feet in his shoes before the face of Tisroc himself (may he live forever). My mother (on whom be the peace of the gods) is dead and my father has married another wife. One of my brothers has fallen in battle against the rebels in the far west and the other is a child.
She also has an Evil Stepmother because (a) adult women are evil in this series and (b) Lewis was nothing if not willing to rip off other fairy tales for material.
Shut Up!
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[Narnia Content Note: Racism, Violence, Rape and Rape Culture, Cissexism]
Narnia Recap: Shasta and Bree are being chased by a lion, and have been railroaded into another horse and rider.
Obligatory note about racism, intent, and Lewis is here.
The Horse and His Boy, Chapter 2: A Wayside Adventure
That was a longer pause than I'd intended; I'm sorry. How is everyone? Making it through the winter okay so far? It's already dipped below freezing here in Texas (during November!) and I have lost the ability to can. But otherwise I'm doing well, despite a strange parrot-like need to squawk "BUY MY BOOK!" every two minutes. I'm sure it'll pass.
I said before that Chapter 2 is difficult for me, because it's... not wrong, but it's not right for me. Part of this is because I have so much investment in the series at this point that I read passages a certain "this way" rather than an alternative "thus way". (Incidentally, that was part of the reason why I was committed to going through these in the order I read them as a child and not in the "canonical" order.) So, for instance, today we meet Hwin, the girl-horse of this book.
There is nothing stopping you from viewing Hwin as a socially savvy female horse who is a mistress of manipulation and capable of maneuvering the horse and humans around her into peaceable company. Indeed, I think the book would be much improved by such an interpretation. What is stopping me from that interpretation, however, is the belief that Lewis intends Hwin to be a shining example of good femininity and he would have rather torn out his own eyeballs than agree with me that social manipulation can absolutely be good.
No, no, these are books about manly men blurting out whatever inconvenient truths cross their manly minds while the good ladies hang back and deferentially follow their lead. If you let a woman manipulate men, then the next thing you know she's leading him about on a leash (literally, in the case of Edmund!) and cats are lying down with dogs, et cetera. And I think this is an important point when the very last book, The Silver Chair, was predicated on the horror of a man being manipulated into actually buying the pretense of chivalry and thinking that he should defer to all his lady's wishes when everyone knows--most especially the men practicing the chivalry!--that such devotion to her will and wishes is a romantic game of pretend, not something you actually do.
So, slipping back into this, when we last left our heroes, they were being chased by lions because that is how god railroads you back onto track in life:
Shasta now gave himself up for lost and began to wonder whether lions killed you quickly or played with you as a cat plays with a mouse and how much it would hurt. At the same time (one sometimes does this at the most frightful moments) he noticed everything. He saw that the other rider was a very small, slender person, mail-clad (the moon shone on the mail) and riding magnificently. He had no beard.
Shut Up!
