Chapter 11, Squamates

[rthstewart]

Chapter 11, Squamates, is up.

After much angst, I decided to split the chapter, putting off, yet again, conversations about camels and same sex bonded pairs of black swans, albatrosses, and giraffes. There will also be a flashback with Lucy, Aidan, Morgan and Edmund which answers the question Doctor Dolly raised after He loves not man the less, but nature more -- if Peter and Susan did the great bonding with Narnia, what did Lucy and Edmund do? The answer is that they performed Narnian bonding ceremonies with their spouses. Also, we (finally) get a normal, non-AU conversation with Mary and Peter -- the first since Part 1. But that is all for later.

For this chapter....

Thanks to lady_songsmith, clio, and snacky for the nudges and to many previous reviewers who asked some of the things I now wrestle with here.

I spent way too much time looking at historical agricultural production in Oxfordshire and locations of RAF bases and Aeorodromes. We finally get into the ballroom and return to the plaster blocks and Eustace finally hears about Chinese dragons. I found the story of the four dragons who became the four rivers of China in several places, including here. It is purportedly taken from Dragon Tales: A Collection of Chinese Stories. Beijing: Chinese Literature Press, 1988

I first found the discussion of the same sex giraffe pairs and rams who prefer other rams in the very comprehensive wiki entry, Homosexual behavior in animals and I'll be going back to that in a longer discussion in the next chapter. Other references, however, include the Merck Veterinary Manual which I understand recommends dealing with the rams that will not tup ewes as a matter of herd management and husbandry. N. Bailey and M. Zuk, Same-sex sexual behavior and evolution, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Volume 24, Issue 8, 439-446, 10 June 2009 was also useful, here

Some time ago, readers expressed an interest in seeing something of Mary and Richard happy, some explanation for why their relationship was what it was. So, I've done that here, writing what I hope is an older man and husband's point of view on his wife, love, lust, and bitter regret.

In an original text with Christian symbolism (I hesitate to call it allegory, as Lewis eschewed the term) and a fandom that so emphasizes it, I know that, nevertheless, there are plenty of readers (including some or many who come here) who do not adhere to Christianity and who do not and never have read the Chronicles for their Christian symbology. Some time ago, a reader asked me if Mary was an atheist. I said no, and of course, Richard is not an atheist as a point of his character was to show the co-existence of science and faith. The question though has stayed with me. As I moved into Part 3, I have begun to play with an idea with Digory -- that as a religious scholar he is, nevertheless, not religious. He is, however, a deist and shows how seeing God in everything means he sees God everywhere.  He does not subscribe to the view that God must be worshiped one particular way. He (and Lucy) are very iconoclastic, but still they are not atheists.

With Eustace, I go there, posing the questions a lot of fans have with this series. If we assume Aslan is a Jesus-stand-in, he is, at best, a pretty poor deity, so this argument goes. He imperils children, is inconsistent, arbitrary and even cruel, and, for instance, unlike Jesus who did tell his disciples that he would be resurrected (they just didn't understand the elliptical message), Lucy and Susan didn't have that information and so for a night, they weep over Aslan's dead body thinking he is really and truly gone forever. Nice.

Eustace, both in the canon character that we know, and as developed here, is in a position to express those viewpoints about where Aslan can be seen as falling short in the love your children, God is omnipotent, department. Eustace voices the criticism of Aslan the other Friends of Narnia don't voice. The counter is Jill who, as is developing here, has a very charismatic view of God and has been raised to see God as the deliverer, shepherd, and protector of oppressed people.  Jill is very comfortable with the age old question, why does God let bad things happen to good people?  She comes from slaves and still believes.

And if there was any doubt, Peter is no theologian or philosopher.

So, the next chapter is mostly finished and the one after that is the Christmas chapter, Just Like The Ones We Used To Know. I've been trying to get AW to the point that I can move seamlessly to my Big Bang, but they may not happen.

Anyway, thanks so much.  I would not have pushed Eustace in this direction were it not for the thoughtful commentary I've read over the last 2+ years so my thanks to those who have posed these questions.

Comments

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

edited because OMG Teal Dear. The same sex bonding in animals is really a very recent thing. Despite the jokes about "gay giraffes" the evolutionary biologists are very, very careful in their terminology. The Laysan albatross work is fascinating because it was 2009 before the researcher realized she was observing female pairs and there had been this HUGE effort for decades to explain away the significance of 2 egg nests when female albatrosses can only lay one egg at a time. There was NEVER even the theory put forth that there were really two females on the nest.

It's in there, actually, not for the sexuality itself -- I've pretty much been there, done that. This is a commentary on non-traditional families -- which will be really clear when we get to the Christmas chapter. I'm still trying to figure out some things there, including Mrs. Pevensie and the young widow/mother next door, Mrs. Goodwin and what her children realize and how they react to it.

As for the other, yeah, no one's much commented on that, but then issues of elder and spousal care are more relevant at my age than those who are younger. It's always interesting to see how people jump over certain things in their commentary and reviews. You can see the mental skipping, which makes perfect sense as, at best, it's really distant for so many and for those for whom it is more relevant, it's uncomfortable and sad. I know that Richard's sexual reflections and might-have-beens might seem uncomfortable -- I've not done anything so blunt in that regard -- even Maenad did not have that same quality and while Edmund came close in BRD, that was always with a humorous cast. This was, I thought, closer to how an older man longs for his partner, remembers what once was, but the body begins to fail and and knows he's powerless to stop it.

Oh gawd, I just realized that I've blathered about the sadness coming for two OCs. HELP ME. WHAT AM I DOING??? WRITING WHOLE SCENES WITH NO CANON CHARACTERS???!!! Errr, right, carrying on.

You asked about Digory and his WW1 history - I don't really have a clear idea -- some wonderful fic writers have written of him being de-mobbed and the after effects. I am assuming that Digory was surrounded by death and got very accustomed to dealing with wounded soldiers. I've had a scene in my head from the very beginning, where Peter is ministering to a no longer communicative Richard and a nurse observing that Peter has obviously had some experience in dealing with the ill and infirm -- because of course in Narnia he would have helped with his wounded soldiers.

OK, time to get out of PJs and to the grocery store.

[min023.livejournal.com]

Re Digory/Richard/Peter, that all sounds completely logical to me. And yes, there can be incredibly difficult issues around ageing and infirmity and illness, and I do utterly get where you're coming from. I think perhaps that they have become, if not less relevant, then certainly more remote in modern times than in earlier eras when families didn't necessarily go very far from one another, and the generations tended to be very much jumbled together under one roof. In that situation, it's going to be very much more in-your-face and normal, I guess.

And now I really am going to have to chase down that albatross paper you've cited

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

What I can't find now are the scholarly articles from the 1970s referring to the same sex bonding and copulating as repugnant and aberrant. A New York Times overview that discusses the albatrosses, who will be making an appearance in the next chapter, is here. The Wiki article is a very good basic primer and is well-cited, though it gets a lot of its information from the book Biological Exuberance by Bruce Bagemihl which I have refrained from buying. If that book is wrong, the Wiki article is wrong, which is why I was glad to find the other citations and more recent articles.