rthstewart | In which I take a deep breath and hit the post button anyway

So, Chapter 8, The Queen Susan in Finchley, is up.

There’s not much research here. The information on the SS Seatrain came from here.

I really meant to get this up sooner, but I’ve been tweaking Susan and Peter’s conversation for days. I’ve been concerned about a lot of things there. I don’t want Peter to seem pompous or judgmental for acts undertaken in Narnia. I really wanted to show a good relationship between the two of them because without that, the “not a Friend of Narnia” is meaningless. The ends and means discussion reappears, now with the added gloss of what it means to be a Knight of Narnia. It was

min023 who pointed out once how Susan was the only one not a Knight and I've thought a lot about that over the months.

Of immense concern to

l_a_r_m , Lowrey’s fate remains undecided. This is a step forward, as I did intend to kill him.

And of course, the chapter continues the meditation on families and children and the war’s effects upon them. The Churchill quote is deliberately ironic given what the War did to English family life. I’ve been working on the theme for several chapters now with good parents (Tom Clark, Lin Kun and Kwong Lee), bad parents (Harold and Alberta), absent parents (Richard Russell, John Pevensie, Leszi, Jack’s mother, Yi), parental figures (Ruby, Peter in many different guises), and unconventional families and single parents (Ruby as surrogate mother to Jack, Tom Clark, Dalia and Mrs. Pevensie as single parents, Maureen in an Asian family, Peter in a Cheetah family, Cyrus and the Satyrs) and so forth.

I’ve not addressed head on the issue of whether Edmund was one of those absent fathers and whether Morgan was one of those single mothers for a lot of reasons. Most troubling to me is that it reeks of fandom cliché and it’s not a part of the story that most TSG readers have focused upon too much. I’ve tried to show something of how I see the succession after the departure and it’s not the harsh, brutal, or violent upheaval most often shown in fic. Hence the reason for the introduction of Aidan and his many small relations.

snacky , Clio, E,

autumnia , and

min023 have been a huge help with this chapter. So, thank you!

There’s more to come about Edmund and Morgan. Like the Valentine's Day story, I will post it here and not on ff.net.

Some chapters come easily. The conversation between Peter and Susan was not one of them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Thanks Linnea for coming back! No, you are not obtuse. A couple of other folks raised the same issue of why it is bad and surprising thing that Asim is using the Rat and Crow. Susan walks through her concern near the beginning of the chapter after Edmund falls asleep in which she reflects the problem of Narnia standing for too many things. You need to think about it not from the perspective of the Colonel breaking the Code -- as you say, they know that -- but what it means that Susan (and the rest of them) continue to have conversations about "real" Narnia when Narnia now also is tied up with matters of British security and the Colonel's continuing use of it underscores the point. I've not forgotten, he's saying. If you value your future career, Susan, don't discuss "Narnia" unless it's official business.

Only Asim has come to the conclusion that Narnia is both a code and something "real" -- whatever that might be, and at this point, he is the only one open minded enough to think that it's not crazy. No one else knows that he's started to put some of it together. The Colonel knows nothing of "real" Narnia and Susan certainly isn't going to tell him. The Colonel continues to assume Narnia is a very clever allegorical code, treats it as such, and asks Asim to deliver the coded message to Susan. The problem is that while Asim might get the idea that there is a "coded" Narnia and "real" Narnia, the Colonel doesn't know of the "real." He's told Susan in no uncertain terms, no more talking about Narnia. Susan may talk to others of Narnia but she's breaking her promise to the Colonel and jeopardizing her career if she's caught. To the outsider listening, is she speaking of "real" Narnia in which case she's crazy, or is she violating the Official Secrets Act by speaking of matters of espionage in code. Either way, she's in trouble and it's a lot more difficult to walk the line. She can't just say to the Colonel, Oh, I'm talking about the Other Narnia because either 1) it's imaginary and so she's crazy or 2) it's the children's story, which he knows isn't true and which he isn't going to accept. Narnia Has To Stop and the more she speaks of it, the greater the risk she runs of losing his trust and jeopardizing her advancement in the intelligence operation.

It's also probably pretty concerning for them all to hear just how thoroughly the Colonel has broken the Code. His conversation with Susan is pretty brief on the subject and Asim does not discuss it with Edmund at all.

Better?

In which I take a deep breath and hit the post button anyway

Re: Using the Narnian Code