To "E" & Edwardswifey

[rthstewart]

Thank you for going back and reviewing BRD.  It's been a nice lift in a less than stellar week.  I don't know if you will check over here, but thanks and I thought I would go ahead and comment.  The whole of that story was a triumph of inspiration of the moment over planning.  Big chunks (of which you have noticed some already) were reactions to fandom convention.  The guards were there because only stupid monarchs would not have personal body guards.  The "learning the business of governance" line was actually taken from some fan fic.  The only reason why I invented Morgan was because I had written those lines Edmund delivers about his names and titles and he needed someone to say them to.  The line about "so long as it isn't brother, father, or Peter" was there as another fandom spoof of the incest and love triangle stories.  There was a long bit eventually cut where Morgan explains that she is actually in Narnia for management training because she is such rubbish with people for yes, I very much saw Peter as CEO.  I was playing with management styles and, in another fandom reaction, DID NOT want to show Susan as list making and throwing parties.

As for the morality issues, which are danced around throughout the story (they aren't just Dancing with the dryads), and the chapter 4 depiction, well, I had no idea this would cause the kerfuffle that it did.  I had looked around and seen that it was practically canon that Edmund was raped by Jadis and Rilian by the LOTGK, and then there with all those stories with angsty Suspian,  girl falls into Narnia, love triangles, and Susan raped for her apostasy. I naively concluded that showing adults in  humorous and consensual conduct that was actually FUN would be pretty unremarkable.  Heh. 

I was playing with several ideas as well:  importance of succession; the mythological and biological proclivities of plants; culture clashes; imperialism; the historical escapades of the British monarchy; and equalization of power in an intimate relationship when one party is a ruling monarch.  A line I remember (it might have been from Edward VII) was that if a King expressed an interest in a man's wife, the husband kept his mouth shut and accepted the compliment.  I learned as well that the War really played havoc on the sexual contentment of the British, with a survey conducted in 1948 documenting rampant homosexuality and lesbianism, pre-marital sex and extra-marital relationships.  The results were so shocking, they were suppressed for 50 years.  The influx of American GIs in advance of D Day was another important factor, though of course that came later.

 

Anyway, thank you for reading. 

To Edwardswifey:  Thank you for sharing your thoughts on Chapter 22 of TQSiT.  I understand you didn't like the swearing.  In this case it was an English RAF pilot swearing, and after seeing a murder.  There are no Americans in the scene at all.  Also, I was concerned about what swear words to use to assure they were appropriate to 1942 and found the text of the speech that General Patton gave to the American troops in advance of D Day 2 years later.  Patton was, of course, an American and very profane.  The link is here and the words I put in Tebbitt's mouth in that scene are a heavily sanitized version of what Patton actually said.