rthstewart | Sir Papa, Wandbreaker

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Sir Papa, Wandbreaker

I posted Wandbreaker last night. It is perhaps, too sweet for your tastes. But ‘tis the season and given the last couple of days here in the states I wanted something to drive the dark away.

A huge thanks to Adaese

adaese who suggested Edmund breaking his daughter’s fairy wand on Boxing Day and the invention of Peter’s constituency in Cowley – East Oxford.

Those who have read TQSiT will recognize the story of Cyrus, the Satyr in the tree and Peter's oath to him.

The Pigeon story was set in November 2012; this one is over 40 years earlier, sometime in the late 1960s. The cannibal dinosaur Emma refers to is Coelophysis bauri which is not, in fact, cannibal at all, though widely reported as such until barely two years ago. The Disney animated movies, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella were all released and re-released in theaters – Snow White was in fact the first movie I ever saw in theaters – a reward for giving up my bottle -- and while I am very old, neither am I so old as to recall its original 1937 theatrical release.

As everyone is supposed to die in 1949 or thereabouts except for Susan, the idea of spouses isn’t something I’ve thought about at all, so I’m making this up as I go. I’d mentioned that Miriam, Edmund’s Jewish wife and Holocaust survivor, is someone who has been in my head for a very long time, even before Morgan. So, I’ve used the last two stories to trot out some of her backstory.

Careful readers undoubtedly figured out that I’ve married Peter off to Mary Russell. I know, I know. That seemed the best of the many even less satisfactory options. The one time I tried to write them in the trial balloon AU story, everyone hated it. The fact that I tried it and people so disliked it really, really gave me pause and I’ve struggled with how to deal with that because there were aspects of the pairing that I liked and so was surprised at how badly I flubbed it. I tried Jill with Peter (even in AW) and for various reasons, rejected the pairing. So, Mary it is. I’ll try to make it work. Except this isn’t supposed to work, as this is all AU, right? RIGHT? Remember? Everybody dies??

The Mary in my head is very different from the Mary a lot of readers see and so obviously the fault lies in the writing. She’s a divisive character and while we only get glimpses of her here, it is hard to reconcile that full steam ahead, selfish character of TSG to someone who appears far more settled and content in her role here, carrying her young son around like a rugby ball, advising her daughter on life in a highly energetic family, and playing the role of a politician’s wife. There’s a story, a long story, there, that we’ll just have to imagine because Mary and her relationship with anybody is not the focus of any of these stories, AU or not. Her growth does begin in the last chapters of AW, as she, a very young woman, copes with the terminal, decaying illness and ultimate death of her husband and first love.

As Heliopause mentioned to me last night, there is the underlying issue of the poor always being with you. This was very, very tricky and I danced around it quite a while. There’s the Great White Savior problem (though the constituency is certainly predominantly white though I don't know the precise demographics) and there’s the idea that doing good works out of duty or for hope of eternal reward is… well, ugly. I had Peter trying to explain this to Emma in various ways that all failed. Finally I went to showing, not telling, less is more. It is a joyful sharing of bountiful gifts, Mary, Peter and the rest of the family like being with people, and it recalls Susan’s greater comfort with the urban blacks in TQSiT.

And now I have no further excuse and shall return to Apostolic Way, though even I am reconsidering the everybody dies part. Really it is just so much more fun to have everyone live, isn’t it?

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Squee! and no, not too much sugar. Just the right amount, in fact.

Thank you! and thank you for your help!!

Have you seen this story?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20749632

I did NOT see that! Though there is a certain, well, DUH, if you HAVE the codebook. I was interested that they had identified Stott. When I wrote Pigeon I hadn't found anyone who had identified him. But this was why they put the story and the code out -- was with the hope that someone could decipher it!

Ah, a fluffy piece is kind of nice given that it's the holiday season and all, and people are supposed to be happy (hard as it is given current events).

With regards to Mary, Her growth does begin in the last chapters of AW, as she, a very young woman, copes with the terminal, decaying illness and ultimate death of her husband and first love.

This is pretty much the only way I can somewhat reconcile her relationship here with Peter since she seems so different from the Mary we've seen in TSG. I suppose with Richard's death, she has grown up and matured to the type of person Peter would eventually settle down with.

Did you write Peter/Jill in AW somewhere and I missed it? It's been awhile since I've reread anything so I could simply be forgetting it but I don't remember seeing any hints at all. Or was it during those scenes when Jill met Peter for the first time at Russell House and had all these questions for him?

An odd Jill/Peter dynamic and chemistry crept into the writing of those parts where she is questioning him at Russell House. It kept pushing it's way in, and I kept pushing it out again.

I was lazy and just don't want to create another character. I wondered about Alice Jones, or Jill, Agnes, or Gladys. None worked for various reasons and I was clinging to enough reality to assume that Peter would not get elected in the early or mid 1960s with a mixed race wife. Mary has money and deep Oxford connections and roots and I'd actually assumed at first (this was in TSG to come) that Peter became very involved in Oxford town -- not university. Adaese then suggested Cowley - East Oxford and it all fit, as these things so often do when I'm just making it up as I go.

I'm crazy about the idea that they get drunk in Las Vegas and get married by an Elvis impersonator but the Elvis weddings didn't start until the 70s. (Yes, I looked it up because I really, REALLY wanted to do it). And then I wondered about a marriage over the anvil in Gretna Greene when they elope to Scotland but that doesn't work because at the time there was a 21 day residency period in Scotland. I figured they do get drunk while in the American southwest and get married by Native American tribesman, a Wiccan, or a crazy Jesuit in a desert mission. Why? How it works? Bah. Details.

It's s all AU. Unless I abandon the everybody dies which after the current climate, sounds pretty darn appealing. I don't have much passion for killing off a bunch of people in their 20s with whole lives of purpose and meaning ahead of them just because Lewis decided to kill them and Narnia too.

I kind of love the idea of Peter and Mary ending up together, especially after the way everyone was freaking out about Mary when they first met her, since she looked like that dryad. I also think that Peter would need a really independent sort of wife, who wouldn't mind the occasional doting. And he wouldn't do well with someone who fussed over him in turn constantly. If nothing else, they're friends, and I think for Peter, who struggled so much with the concept of marriage while in Narnia, that would be really important to him.

Thanks so much for that really wonderful observation. I really appreciate it. And I hope you are well! Did you do Yuletide?

No Yuletide for me. I knew that I wasn't going to have a lot of time in November and December, so I chose the lower-key Power Rangers fic exchange instead. I hate feeling like writing is an obligation instead of an escape; I have enough obligations and deadlines at work that I just don't need that extra stress in my life.

Also, I think I'd prefer the Everyone Lives AU. You've laid such a wonderful foundation in Spare Oom, and I think it would be heartbreaking to end it all when people had so much potential left. And it would be nice for Peter to work through his issues with Susan before he goes about spouting that she's no longer a Friend of Narnia.

Oh how fun with the Power Rangers exchange! And yes, if it's not fun, ugh. I turned in my Yuletide and I know that my gift will feature dinosaurs so I'm pretty excited.

Sigh.... the AU does have so much appeal... Oh Lewis... Really? Did you have to do that?

Everyone loves dinosaurs!

...you know, one of these days, I'm going to actually get those pictures from Venice off my phone, because I took pictures of stone griffins just for you.

I pretend like TLB never happened, except when it suits my needs. But it feels like such a cop-out on his part, especially after he had Aslan go on and on about how they have to live their lives in England, blah blah blah. So give them a chance to live, then! Harumph!

OH!!! There are stone griffins in Venice? We saw them in Rome! And it's not just that Lewis killed everybody, he destroyed Narnia too so that you couldn't even pretend to go there without dying. Which... that gets interesting in this doesn't it with the kids running around the House looking for doorways to Narnia? the assumption is that it must still be there... or something.

There were at least two that I noticed. One on top of the pillar thingies by the pier leading in to St. Mark's Square. I was like "Oh! Must take pictures with my crappy cell phone camera!" I didn't even bother trying to explain my reasoning to my coworkers. (Though the other American was just as gleeful about seeing where Indy came up out of the catacombs.)

Well, if you have Everyone Live, would you still have things play out the way they did in TLB, just with them not dying in the process? Or would you not destroy Narnia and not have them die? Or, you know, I wouldn't put it past Lucy to encourage the kids to go looking for any magical world, Narnia or not.

I like this one very much! It was just what I needed this afternoon. I enjoyed seeing the Pevensies having lives with spouses and kids.

Thank you! And yes we all needed something a little kinder.

Thanks. This answers some questions that I had when I read the story. I was trying to figure out if I had heard the names of Susan/Lucy's husbands before now. I'm still not sure. I mean to go over to FF.net and write an actual review. And maybe it is more fun if they all live... :)

I got what Peter was trying to say. To me, at least, it was clear.

Thanks :)

And thank you for that lovely, long review. You are so kind!

1. the story: no, not too sweet, or maybe I'm just a sucker for that. Really brought a grin to my face. :-) I thought Emma's resistance to helping at first very realistic, and her subsequent realizations too - I'm glad you let Peter just set an example without explaining too much. It worked so well. Love the snippets of backstory as usual. So do the kids just think Narnia is an elaborate fairy tale? Or do they believe in it as kids, but when they grow up they're not so sure?

Oddly my absolute fav line was the part about Aslan's breath and the spell working with love. I don't know, I just thought that concept was sweet and true on multiple levels.

2. Mary/Peter - I don't know how I missed your "trial balloon" the first time around - was that before I knew you? Or was I just really busy. Anyway, unimportant. I'm not sure people hated it so much as were a bit unconvinced, since there IS a really big gap in Mary development there. I thought there was a TON of chemistry/sparks between Mary and Peter in your work so far, which is why I originally thought you were going that way. But there's a difference between physical sparks and true compatibility. Yet I can see Mary's straightforwardness being a good fit for Peter. I don't know. I think there's just not enough of Mary being Mary in these AU snippets, to give us a real sense of how Mary/Peter actually WORKS. In the "trial balloon" story she seems uncharacteristically anxious and insecure - it makes sense for the story but it's only a glimpse.

I have no idea if that makes sense.

Easy thing first -- I've been really being very vague about Peter's wife in these two stories -- AU, right? right? I'm not trying to fill much in other than that whatever it is, for the time that she is there, it works. And that's where I'll leave it.

I'm glad you liked the story and having written this it's easy to see where Julia comes out in the previous one -- they've grown up with this Narnia story all their lives and as it being spoken of as something in jest, but also as something very, very real and present. As children, it could be very real but then they get cynical and move away from it, and then as adults with their own children, come back to it. The stories are told over and over, like the one about my mother substituting rum extract for the rum in a sweet potato casserole and the time my father in law played cribbage and tried to outdrink grandpa and ended up in the back of the station wagon at the Milwaukee Zoo "with the flu."

Thank you so much

Right - it could just as easily be someone Mary introduced to Peter. But I don't mind it being Mary either. I don't see why you can't write as many AUs to your own AU as you want. :-P Anyway, the fun is in the little glimpses to a full life, which you don't necessarily fill in. More than any other fanfic author I know of, your work has an independent complexity and vibrancy that make it possible to explore the characters on many different levels.

Heh, family stories. Our favorite was the one about my Grandma C, who was notoriously flighty, eating three-quarters of a burger with all the fixings, before she noticed she had forgotten the um... burger.

I liked this one. Yes, it's sweet but not saccharine, and I'm very on board with your more subtle messages. Awfully poignant too, in some ways, given the RL background in your part of the world right now (ugh, ugh, ugh, not going there any more than that)

Thanks so much. I hope you are well and yes, our news has been horrible.

I followed a link and found myself with Peter and Mary, just before she presented her first solo paper to the Royal Geographic Society; I liked very much seeing one fragment of how they work their way to each other, and to the calm future of the 1960s. (Which, as I've said elsewhere, I loved reading, for LOTS of reasons; what's striking me now is the subtle presentation of the family from various perspectives, though in Emma's perceptions -- we see Mary's view of this immensely strong family she's married into, for example, and Miriam's slightly ironic take, and the children's views, and especially the really clear sense of the siblings that they know who they are, and they know they love each other.)

Back in the 1948 story -- the edginess between Pater and Susan (or Peter's edginess -- we didn't see Susan) feels really crucial to me. I really want to find out about that. (So... if you're feeling like writing...)

I've already written you about Peter and Susan's edginess already apparent. As I said, the foundations for their split are already in the story.

And that piece with Mary... gosh... it started because Anastigmat started something that read to me as relationally intimate -- they seemed affectionate and physical, so I decided to run with it. It began with the idea that Digory chided her for losing his Scotus text in the Amazon and she was embarrassed that he did so in front of Asim and Polly. I liked the idea that the two of them shared that bond of disappointing a great intellect.

I think Mary would be very insecure about her academic work because of the assumption made that Richard did her thinking for her. And this is a big presentation of a paper that began during the Eureka moment in Digory's office in Part 1 in 1942 and then developed with the finding of the right plaster block in the ballroom with Eustace in last 42 and she's been working on through to the end of the war and Richard's death. This paper is all her own and she's going to stand up in front of a lot of men and defend it.

I do like your observation too that Mary understands for Emma what it is to be faced with the FORCE of personality and accomplishment and drive. It WOULD be overwhelming, even if born into it, I suppose.

EVERYBODY DIES EVERYBODY DIES EVERYBODY DIES EVERYBODY DIES EVERYBODY DIES

I don't mind if you have a canonical "kill them all off except Susan" version, as long as we get to hear a lot of what happened to them in the "everyone lives" version. AW perhaps needs to be that canonical one - unless it needn't ...

Sweet story. Right amount of sweetness. Some of it comes from the child's POV, and that she's a sweet child too. At least when she realises that Papa is right, and that it is a good thing, not just a necessary one, to help other people (by telling them good stories).

Thanks so much! I do hope you are well? I'm so glad you liked it. It is fun to write that young point of view. And children are by their nature selfish of their things and it's HARD to share. This had been very preachy in different iterations and following that old adage, it improved once I started showing rather than telling.

Thank you again!

Joining the comment party since my ff.net review was enthusiastic but unhelpful.

I cannot imagine something so intimidating as having Peter Pevensie for a father, and for all the reasons you gave. Having to live with and live up to that? I really feel for Emma, who only wants a Christmas like her friends have. That said, she *would* come to her eventual realization by way of Narnia!

I skipped over to your trial balloon with Mary, and will agree with some of the smart people here: The reason a Peter/Mary relationship would have been so disconcerting (and still is, a bit) is because we haven't seen Mary develop at all. She's, so far, in the same place she started, roughly, and that is charming but ultimately incompatible. I think that once she does develop, that things will feel much more natural.

As for AU Nobody Dies: I love it, clearly. It's so much more fun this way, especially because, as has been said, it seems so wasteful to just kill them all off when they have all this potential and these brewing accomplishments. What you want to write is ultimately your decision, but I think that the canon-style ending is in some ways the greater challenge - how do you make an event like that make sense, fit into the messages you've been sending since TSG, etc? It would be very tough. (But I think you can do it, if you decide you want to.) AU Nobody Dies, though, is such fun.

Also, in Wandbreaker, I loved the view of Edmund's perpetually messy house. And Miriam with her own supply of magic Sellotape! Adorable wailing Helen!

A funny, charming and lively Christmas story. Hooray! Like everyone else, I'm delighted by these AU stories, with the Pevensies and everyone else living, learning and loving--so much better than them dying young.

I agree with many of the points mentioned by the other reviewers. What really struck me was how you have the adults take Helen and Emma seriously. Instead of patting Helen on the head and saying "There, there dear, it's just pretend", they phone for Uncle Peter. Helen knows that Uncle Peter helps people and fixes things and he is the only person who can help her undo her disastrous spell. And Uncle Peter does not fail her, even bringing along his special tool box with the magical sellotape, instead of relying on the chance of there being sellotape at Edmund's house. All this, when he obviously has a busy day ahead of him.

Then there is the bittersweet moment when Edmund bows (very nicely) to his daughter and addresses her as lady and princess. The children are all princes and princesses of Narnia, even if they don't know it.

I don't have a problem with the Mary/Peter pairing. I always liked Mary and always thought there was an attraction between them. It's a bit more of a stretch seeing her as a political wife. Althought it wouldn't bother Peter to have a wife with an active career, it would be a bit unusual I think given the time. Still, their joint personalities would carry the day. I would think their household would have some domestic help though. If Edmund needed a large staff and a Tiger to keep him in order, I can't see Mary being a cooking and cleaning kind of wife and mum!

One of the reviewers said she thought that being Peter's daughter and living up to his expectations and legacy would be very difficult. I would think being Susan's daughter would be worse--such a beautiful, accomplished and brilliant woman. Very intimidating prospect.

Just a few random thoughts. Thank you for this wonhderful Christmas present. I hope you will share any other Commoner Royalty stories which occur to you. They are such a marvelous family.

ClaireI

Just getting back to you myself due to travel and such. My thanks. I'm not in a great place right now, head-wise with fic writing and fandom and so I really appreciate these kind and generous thoughts on what worked for you in this story. I think any child in the family would find a daunting legacy and there would be a lot of adjustments for spouses too. When I wrote Julia for the Pigeon story, I did think about her relationship with her mother some -- at this point, Julia is herself middle aged and has entered the point of her life where she is now sometime parent to her own parent. That would be a complicated relationship, I think. Someone had asked me how Susan might feel with her daughter profiting from the family's exploits and that's an interesting thing to think about, I suppose.

anyway, thank you very very much and I hope you had a lovely holiday and happy new year!

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Sir Papa, Wandbreaker

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Wandbreaker

Re: Wandbreaker