rthstewart | Going there, again

I wrote this out a few days ago as I was trying to decide whether to insert the conversation between Susan and Peridan in which he dances around the fact that the Shoemaker, a Faun, is probably homosexual.

So, I'm going there. Again. In Chapter 7 of TQSiT.

"Nothing deceives like a document." A quote from the spymaster, Intrepid himself, William Stephenson.

There is some of this that is just plain outrageous. All documented, all true, completely outrageous, even in these days of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

To the point of going there or not, I've really tried to make the cultures of Narnia different from 1942 England in order to provide the basis for the Pevensies being so comfortable with people and cultural practices that are different. I've written of this so many times but in this chapter and the next, it really matters, or maybe that having laid the groundwork, we can leap with them the next step.

Not only has the culture of Narnia made them tolerant, they have also witnessed first hand the intolerance of dissent and differentness in the Witch and Miraz. They have come in, twice, at the end of reigns of terror. Their people have been brutalized for over a thousand years. This HAS to make them more sensitive to evidence of hatred, doesn't it?

So now to underscore the point, I've gone after another sacred cow of Narnia fandom in homosexuality with Queen Susan's withering criticism of Peridan for being an idiot about it. It's not slash, it's not incest, it's not any practice at all, whether Pevensie or someone else. It just is. Susan's reaction is a "so what, and what's it to you?" It's about belief, being slow to judgment that belongs to Aslan alone, empathy, gentleness, and minding one's own business.

So, why do I insert yet more gratuituous sex into the stories? First, does it make sense in the story?  In this milleu, the answer has to be yes, for lots of reasons. It can be part of the English boys' public school experience in one way or another (Lewis writes of it, in fact), it's part of the intelligence community of the time, it's part of the animal and plant kingdom, and it's in the lusty mythology of satyrs and fauns.

Second, it's there because I'm preaching. (Sometimes, yes, it's in there because it's fun and funny and gratuituous, or not always.) It's showing that the racial, religious, ethnic and sexual prejudices and injustice that blind other people, that encourage people to look the other way and just not see it, these prejudices do not blind the Pevensies. And that's important in this vision. In this vision, being Narnian and bearing the charge from Aslan, means you cannot look the other way or treat others with contempt and condemnation because they are different.

Anyway, I'll hit send.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If I had seen this entry before I reviewed chapter 7, then my comments about Peridan, the Cobbler and Susan may have been posted here instead.

As with your earlier post about Guy and the use of "Negro", I will again say that your mention about homosexuality was done tastefully. Whether or not they are mentioned, intolerance of any sort occurred back then and still do today. To me, the way you bring up both race and sexuality issues as they were dealt with back them just makes your story seem more real.

In regards to the Pevensies' high standards and tolerance of different peoples, behaviors and cultures, insert my comment about Peter, Edmund and TSG Part 1 here as well. And you pointing out their acceptance of differences as a very important point in this Narnia-verse was pretty clear and well-executed. I think that is also another reason why I like how you write the characters; you take us out beyond Lewis' world and make them so much more three-dimensional, with so much more detail than we ever get from canon.

I apologize for my rambling; it's way past my normal bedtime but I really wanted to address this entry before my thought scatter into the early morning.

I just cannot tell you how much I appreciate what you have posted. I don't see it as rambling at all. I just wish I could say that this was all beautifully planned out in advance. It isn't -- but I know where I'm going in part 3 and so continually build to that vision. Kinda helps when you are writing thematically rather than a detective novel where everything must fit just so. Edmund's admonition to Peter that if your subjects and friends have fur, feathers, and bark, what's on the outside of humans probably doesn't matter so much. And of course, apart from appearances, there is the respect for different cultures. As I see it, tolerance for race only gets you so far -- OK, so I don't have a problem with you being an ethnic Arab or African, but I still think your beliefs are wrong. That one is harder to deal with because it's meant trying to establish how Narnia culture is different and the easiest shorthand for that has been the different bonding/social organization/mating systems in the animal and plant kingdom. That's where I've run into some trouble, I suppose, in this fandom. And, I can see the merits of the criticism -- just because your Songbird subjects are promiscuous doesn't mean the Pevensies as characters can't be celibates. It's gratuituous and just because the Ps tolerate the conduct in their subjects doesn't mean they have to engage in variations on the same conduct themselves. So the argument goes. Which leads me to counter point of, "yeah, but it's FUN for grown ups!" Very mature of me, dontcha know?

Am shirking my work to reply since I can't seem to concentrate on my projects at the moment.

I'm sure all four Pevensies were in for rather a shock as they adjusted to their roles as monarchs and just realizing how varied their subjects were. They may have jumped to the same conclusions as people would have done in 1940s England, but then they had to put it into context. Good Beasts, Trees and other Creatures of Narnia are completely different from Humans.

As the Kings and Queens learned to throw our world's social norms out the window, so their subjects also learned a bit more about Human traits and customs. We saw that pretty up close with the Palace Guard; our ways are strange to them, and vice versa.

And after learning to be non-judgmental for almost twenty years of their lives, it should not be surprising at all that they have kept that knowledge with them even out of Narnia. As you said, they are Narnian and this is a significant part of what it means to be such a person. Eustace barely got a taste of it as he spent most of his time on a boat and with mainly humans; he will learn of course on his next visit to Narnia.

I'm sure sometimes we think or idolize the Pevensies as being better than others, but at least you show us that through their leadership and experience, it was something that they had to learn in order to rule with fairness and wisdom.

(And I plan to save all the chapters into a Word doc and see what number it comes up with for pages. Will let you know of that one. :-) )

Hi,

I appreciate that I'm over a year behind with these stories, and on this blog, but I'd like to say that I value the Narnia you're giving to us very, very much. It is as you say: being given the charge by Aslan means taking respect seriously, in one's own actions, rather than pointing a finger at anyone else.

I'm enjoying the story!

And thank you so much for reading!! Every now and then I think, oh, it's really not that bad in this fandom (or the world at large). And then, I look at our recent US tragedies and the intolerance and harsh judgment in certain parts of the Narnia fandom and I realize that yes, it IS that bad. I very much appreciate those who walk this journey with me.

Going there, again

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Thanks for Going There

Re: Thanks for Going There