rthstewart | Visuals!

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Visuals!

I've signed up for the Narnia Fic Exchange! Have you? Do sign up! It's fun!
We had a great time getting caught up on the NFFR chat last night too!

And, I had the most wonderful, the most thoughtful email this morning from long time reader Ruan Chun Xian who said she was playing dress up with virtual dolls and ended up creating Lucy and Susan as Disney princesses (Ruan was annoyed because she couldn't find trousers for Lucy!!) and then she went further and DID MORGAN OF LINCH AND ANGLO-CARIBBEAN JILL POLE!

So you can see Susan, Lucy, Jill and Aravis here on her Tumblr. She pointed out that Susan looks a bit like Snow White except that Susan DOES/WOULD look like Snow White. And below are all the ladies together plus Morgan. (I LOVE Morgan's boots and her long braid and her plain green working gown).

Yes, I know, dread visuals but they are so lovely and I'm so grateful!!! Thank you!!

PS: I'm trudging through the next part of H&M and while Edmund's conversation with Aslan is all done and something else thereafter that I like a lot, I'm finding, not surprisingly, that Morgan and Aslan are quite a bit more difficult. She's got a long list of questions, she's really skeptical, and he's not forthcoming. I'm finding myself somewhere between what Greaves did with Marcie the atheist's conversation with Aslan in Chapter 5 of The Golden Age and what

anastigmatfic did with Morgan and Aslan in Deny the Child and not doing it anything near as well. If you have any thoughts on this, please, please drop me a line one way or another or ping me on google chat or I can jump on Skype, or share comments below. This is really holding up the update and it's getting very discouraging.

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I don't know if this helps, but I can see Morgan talking to Aslan like she would anyone else: starts out trying to be respectful but then gets frustrated and there's lots of throwing up of arms in exasperation. She's annoyed and she shows it. Not spitefully or anything, but she's Morgan and can't really hide it. There's a bit of pacing type movement, she's quite active where Aslan is kinda just chilling there being patient. I can't hear any of the dialogue though, sorry. And feel free to email, message, or whatever, me for anything

Edited 2012-06-16 18:25 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm thinking about it and this has been helpful, if nothing else reaffirming where I was going. I had a nasty thing happen online yesterday and at this point, I'm just proud of myself for not going to ground again for another 6 years. Aslan does come away appreciating just how patient Edmund can be with her when she's on a tear. That's pretty amusing.

Totally off-topic but perhaps encouraging anyway... I've been gradually getting myself caught up on fanfic reading by reading on my iPhone while nursing. :-) Just wanted to let you know I finally, finally read "Rat and Sword Go to War" and LOVED it. Yes, it's historical fiction with, on the surface, very little Narnia connection, but it seemed so fitting for the characters that for me it was a completely natural connection as Narnia fic. I found the historical background fascinating. (Perhaps it helps that I'm such a nerd, generally...!) And was actually in suspense as we got closer and closer to D-Day, even though I doubted you'd kill off Susan or Peter. Really well done.

Also caught up on the last two, no three I think now, chapters of H&M and I have to say that your "fluffy" is surprisingly chewy. :-P Lots of nice character development and the last chapter had a joyfully Narnian feel suffusing it. I'm not sure what to suggest for Morgan's conversation with Aslan, other than that I feel it would be important for Morgan to know Aslan accepts her for who she is in all her incarnations, both carefree Morgan-in-Narnia and acutely intelligent Morgan the Banker. She seems to keep being torn between them.

Thanks so much for reading and letting me know you enjoyed them. I have had a number of readers over the years try to manage typing with one hand while nursing because if you aren't nursing, you should be napping, right?

Thanks also for the points about appreciating the whole of her. That's an excellent point.

I was just thinking about how even Morgan's father didn't completely see all her facets as a person. Edmund is closer but I think still sometimes struggles. More from Morgans pov, as someone else said perhaps it depends on if she sees Aslan as God but she will really struggle with the fact that Aslan does not give answers in a form that can easily be analyzed. Yet she will have to come to some kind of compromise with herself/ Aslan over that. Maybe this is obvious. I'm just thinking about how a very analytical, intelligent person might deal with faith in our world. And I'm not an analytical person so I would probably get it wrong ha

She does have to come to a compromise. She uses her best tools against him and it rolls off of him. Aslan doesn't answer her questions but she also realizes in a way that her lot has been cast. She ends up arguing herself into a corner where she thinks she's got him figured out and where she can live with it. And oh Morgan, you are going to be so bitterly disappointed.

Susan as Snow White! Lucy in blue (that pic just screams LUCY at me). Headscarved Aravis! Wildhaired Jill! Yayyyyy! And Morgan! I love her long braid and her Narnian-green gown.

Ruan did a lovely job, didn't she? It is too bad we can't see Lucy in trousers but I do like the carefree spirit she captured.

Morgan is an Evil Banker and she belongs, in head canon, to one of the Banking Houses of the Lone Islands. They are in turn modeled (very carelessly) on a number of things, including some of the medieval banking families, the Sienese contrada, and the Rothschilds, but with the punishing work ethic (and to some extent morals) of the modern day New York investment banker or mergers and acquisitions attorney -- a milieu I am very familiar with.

Jill and Aravis SQUEE!!!

I always wondered if Aravis ever got annoyed at having to wear skirts all the time once she moved to Archenland - and if she occasionally stole Cor's trousers both to annoy him and to recapture her accustomed freedom of movement.

'Fraid I'm no help with Morgan and Aslan, except to say that I definitely see her getting more and more upset and sputtering, and him being very patient but with a twinkle in his eye, until finally she runs out of steam and gives him a chance to speak. Which is a lovely mental image, but doesn't help AT ALL with specifics.

ISTA. Tell me why you loved Paladin of Souls. Tell me why you loved Ista, Liss, dy Cabon, Illvin (be still my heart), Ferda and Foix! Oh... even Catilarra (I love Ista not doing especially with the gowns that Cati shows her and how it would make her look like she was wearing a drapery). Oh and the scene in the stairway when Ista meets the Father? And then speaks to the horse who becomes demented in love with her? DEMON! ROTFL

SERIOUS chills when Ista met the Father on the stairs. And Arhys and Illvin, the brotherly love, the non-competitive competition, the heart-breaking end! And yes, even Catti being a brat but still being so strong (the ladies fighting off the enemy at the end because nobody bothered to consider them a threat, and Liss throwing ROCKS) - I hope she has a story of her own someday, of her life after Paladin of Souls, because, like Ista, she deserves Adventures after she's grown up.

Love Foix and the bear-demon, and how he manages to make that work, and how he goes about impressing Liss in such a completely opposite way from Ferda.

I think I first started really sympathizing with and rooting for Ista when she just started walking, and went FIVE MILES in a heavy court mourning dress and slippers before they caught up with her, just out of sheer frustration with the monotony of life. I know SO MUCH that feeling, of just having to walk or you're going to burst, but the walking only stuffs all those feelings back down, because you can't ever walk fast enough to get away from them completely, just control them for a while longer. And then the pilgrimage just to get away, without hope of much of anything for the future, and how it all just blossomed from there. And that the Learned was the first one EVER to pity her for her role in dy Lutez's death? Heart-breaking.

And then at the end, when Ista faces all her handmaidens again, and totally PWNS them, it's such a contrast from the beginning, and you just can't help but cheer.

Ista's dialogue with the Bastard is really wonderful during the whole encounter with Joen. I've always been deeply moved by her recognition that she has come to late to love, late to her god, and late to her life. Though truly, there are so many wonderful metaphors and exchanges in that chapter, I can't pick just one. I am also powerfully moved by the saint of the Bastard moving among the dead, signing to where they were taken, and speaking with the living. Her change is simply to listen so that the dead may be remembered.

I had a horrid thing happen online yesterday and rather than ripping everything down and metaphorically tossing the laptop in the river, I read the whole last of that book, again. I love it all, right down to how Demon debases himself in a most unhorselike fashion and how Liss says she's very bad at being a lady in waiting as she really is best at riding very fast and how Ista's brother is managing his sister's new status as demon eater.

I maintain that to really understand Ista and her journey, to not get completely fed up with her and her cranky state, one must have at least metaphorically walked in her shoes. A young woman identifies with Iselle and Betriz (and who wouldn't?). The older woman, the one with miles, years, or both, sees Ista's mid life crisis. She is hugely relatable, if not in the particulars, certainly in the attitude. We love our families, love our lives, love our God or gods, but still, Ista speaks to the great potential of the wise woman, the crone, to be more than the walls around us.

Dunno if this would help with h&m, but where do you see Morganand Aslan's relationship going ultimately?mIs he just another (very wise) person to her, or as he is to the four, a deity and a guide? Why does ishe feel the way she does and when did that happen? She hits him with a candlestick which must indicate some level of friendship and ease and yet... It is Aslan....

All excellent points! Thank you! Oh Morgan. Only you would hit a god with a candlestick and then go back and do it again.

Only because Ista didn't have any candlesticks to hand.

Oh my gosh. THIS. I...

Ista and Morgan would have a lovely chat over the irritating mysteriousness of their respective deities. And then Morgan would go win Shinys from Foix and Ferda, and Ista would terrify all the Talking Horses.

Why can't he ever just say what he means? Or as I've now written Morgan saying,
“You do that a lot, don’t you?” she countered but did keep on walking.

“And what is that?”

“Be metaphorical. Or, saying one thing and meaning that and something else besides. Can’t you ever just speak plainly and give a simple yes or no?”

Hehe you're welcome. I had fun doing these.

Re conversation with Aslan, I do see a lot of "that's someone else's story" and Morgan getting enormously frustrated. And I agree with lot101, Morgan would just end up forgetting Aslan is Aslan and not bother hiding her frustration at all. I also see her calling Aslan out on the whole "dropping Edmund into Narnia in freezing winter and shoving him into the Witch's path", seeing as how she thought that was more Aslan's fault than Edmund's.

Thanks so much for the thoughts (and the pictures). They are wonderful. I'm limping through it. Clio pointed out to me that while Morgan is very intelligent and can be very insightful (intellectually though not emotionally) she is not very tactful. This is all great and thank you for sharing (both pictures and ideas!)

One of the things I remember from earlier in the story is Morgan's motto "Trust, but verify." I think she would have this attitude toward Aslan as well. She can sense his goodness, she knows how important Aslan is to Edmund and the other Narnians but she can't help but ask questions. That is who and what she is.
Also, her questions would veer all over the place as thoughts dart around in her brain.

"Child," said Alsan with infinite patience, "No-one is ever told anyone's story but their own."

"Oh...why not?"

"Aslan...will I see you again? May I ask more questions?"
"Child, you will ask me questions all your life. And I will always answer, one way or another."

The only other thing I can think of, is that Morgan sees patterns. It is what makes her such an outstanding banker and analyst.

I don't know if this helps at all. Thank you for not dumping everything during your recent online problems! And don't worry too much over this chapter. It will be outstanding as always.

Thanks again.

ClaireI

As I've been writing it, basically every question she asks, he answers with another. It's driving her crazy. I now have a draft of maybe 2800 words, so yeah! Took long enough. I'll let it stew while I write the rest of the chapter. I'd had this idea of sending Morgan off to see the Beavers but that's something Lucy does and I don't want to detract from that.

Interesting thoughts, all of them.

I'm not entirely sure about 'trust but verify', because I thought that was more Edmund's thing than Morgan's. Definitely patterns and logic and needing stuff to make sense, though. I can see the whole notion of 'deity' not making a whole lot of sense to Morgan, because that's not the read I get from your Lone Islands society and culture - seems like that whole notion is a bit... well, not alien exactly, but more the province of their clients - seems like the bankers will smile and go along, while perhaps thinking privately that the clients (e.g. the Calormenes) are a bit demented with their gods and their poetry.

Don't know there's much here to help, but anyway...

Morgan really thinks Aslan makes no sense at all. She's got this running thing where Aslan keeps saying because A loves B and B loves C therefore A loves C and Morgan keeps saying, "no! This isn't math." You aren't being logical. What you say makes no sense. she's probably not angry enough, but I've finally got about 2800 words so that's good. It's only took a week. GRRRRR

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