Re: What should the theme of the Silver Chair be in the movie?
Posted: Sep 27, 2016 8:15 pm
@Rose-Tree Dryad: I didn't really realise I was showing my age. Spruiking is an old term for advertising. My very Australian grandmother used it frequently, with a certain connotation of contempt for those who do it, and the products/services extolled. Those were the days when people used to put on their letterboxes, "No hawkers or canvassers, thank you". And when "spruiking" had a lot in common with fairground "barkers". These days since the advent of television (1956 and onwards in Australia), we use the politer term of advertising, and advertising agent. Unless it is the spam we get stuck with on internet.
By the way, I've actually stayed in a wonderfully comfortable Hilton hotel, in Berlin, actually, and also in Prague, I think it was. So I've no quarrel with that particular hotel chain. But when the Bangkok Hilton is mentioned here in Australia, it is a derisive term for a South-East Asian gaol which has since been moved to a different location, or a POW camp like Changi in Singapore once was, not sure which. In Australia, the title "Bangkok Hilton" is the title of a TV mini-series, dealing with misadventures with the powers that be overseas, whether they were Japanese conquerors in WW2 or whether the Australian inmates portrayed were allegedly genuine offenders against the law, I'm not sure which.
The real Bangkok Hilton, if there is one in Bangkok, is probably at least 4 star accommodation, and good enough for even picky overseas travellers, such as Eustace who grizzled about his accommodation on the Dawn Treader in VDT. However, I couldn't resist the Harfang Hilton comparison. I included a couple of other hotel chains to make my point about LOTGK's claims that Harfang was a really good place to stay. I really would enjoy all your responses. Including Phelan Velvet's just above yours.
Personally I think trust, faith and obedience are separate though linked issues, but all of them are important to SC, but maybe not in the way they have been depicted so far on this thread. Not everyone who demands obedience is to be trusted, not bullies and not even if they are a head of state or a top religious leader. They, too, are all too human, you see. And Jill, or even Eustace, have yet to have more faith in Aslan's goodness, something they need to learn so that they can truly trust those four signs and Aslan's guidance. Above all, putting one's trust in a passerby's recommendation is probably a bad idea. Even if it is the only passerby our trio were to meet.
While obedience and trust are huge themes for SC, there are elements in the story which strongly suggest when neither obedience or trust were really good ideas for our travellers. As is suggested in Phelan Velvet's post above. But then did they get the options of checking out the menu, the alternatives on the buffet, or by asking the waiter? It is just as well for them that they had been alerted to the dodginess of this establishment.
And there is the matter of the word "obey" as in obeying a husband, that the wife is supposed to swear in a traditional Marriage Ceremony. LOTGK planned to marry Rilian as his Queen. Would she treat him with the deference a Queen Consort is normally expected to treat her King? Or would the Queen of the Underworld expect that whatever she says as Queen Regnant in Underworld, would also hold force as the wife of an actual King?
Sometimes the word "obey" has nothing much to do with either trust or faith as we would like them to be. And whether or not you choose to obey or disobey is all too likely to be purely a matter of what you think the consequences are likely to be, and whether or not one has wriggle room to get out of it. I agree that in Rose's example, she is trusting a competent guide when she travels the Amazon, so she does as the guide tells her. But I'd say that common sense also tells her to not touch those cute leopards, because she thus avoids her own liability for stupidly thinking that a wild leopard would be as tame as a domestic cat. At least then she is fully justified in retaining a certain faith in her own good judgement for heeding the reminder. But what would Rose-Tree Dryad think of herself, if she, not her allegedly experienced guide, seriously believed a passerby's unproven and somewhat fishy suggestion that there would be any sort of hotel-like establishment stuck in the middle of nowhere? And found that by overruling the guide, she put not only herself but the guide at risk, when the wayside cafe turned out to be a den of criminals? Aslan, and, especially Puddleglum, can't be blamed for Jill's and Eustace's determination to be sidetracked.
Jill, in particular, and also Eustace, who obviously both found camping somewhat tedious, are a bit too quick to trust LOTGK's advertising of Harfang. And considering that Eustace's journey in VDT was somewhat less arduous than the one he is undertaking with Jill in SC, and how much he grizzled in VDT about the sort of food and drink he had on board then, you would think even he would have been pickier about his Harfang lunch. After all, LOTGK never said a word about what sort of meat was being roasted, and what sort of food was spicy, sweet etc, did she? When they got into the kitchen, and saw the cookbook...oh my!
All the same, I'd still agree with you, Rose that C.S.Lewis quote probably is central to the story of SC, especially in light of the post-war time in which he wrote the book.
By the way, I've actually stayed in a wonderfully comfortable Hilton hotel, in Berlin, actually, and also in Prague, I think it was. So I've no quarrel with that particular hotel chain. But when the Bangkok Hilton is mentioned here in Australia, it is a derisive term for a South-East Asian gaol which has since been moved to a different location, or a POW camp like Changi in Singapore once was, not sure which. In Australia, the title "Bangkok Hilton" is the title of a TV mini-series, dealing with misadventures with the powers that be overseas, whether they were Japanese conquerors in WW2 or whether the Australian inmates portrayed were allegedly genuine offenders against the law, I'm not sure which.
The real Bangkok Hilton, if there is one in Bangkok, is probably at least 4 star accommodation, and good enough for even picky overseas travellers, such as Eustace who grizzled about his accommodation on the Dawn Treader in VDT. However, I couldn't resist the Harfang Hilton comparison. I included a couple of other hotel chains to make my point about LOTGK's claims that Harfang was a really good place to stay. I really would enjoy all your responses. Including Phelan Velvet's just above yours.
Personally I think trust, faith and obedience are separate though linked issues, but all of them are important to SC, but maybe not in the way they have been depicted so far on this thread. Not everyone who demands obedience is to be trusted, not bullies and not even if they are a head of state or a top religious leader. They, too, are all too human, you see. And Jill, or even Eustace, have yet to have more faith in Aslan's goodness, something they need to learn so that they can truly trust those four signs and Aslan's guidance. Above all, putting one's trust in a passerby's recommendation is probably a bad idea. Even if it is the only passerby our trio were to meet.
While obedience and trust are huge themes for SC, there are elements in the story which strongly suggest when neither obedience or trust were really good ideas for our travellers. As is suggested in Phelan Velvet's post above. But then did they get the options of checking out the menu, the alternatives on the buffet, or by asking the waiter? It is just as well for them that they had been alerted to the dodginess of this establishment.
And there is the matter of the word "obey" as in obeying a husband, that the wife is supposed to swear in a traditional Marriage Ceremony. LOTGK planned to marry Rilian as his Queen. Would she treat him with the deference a Queen Consort is normally expected to treat her King? Or would the Queen of the Underworld expect that whatever she says as Queen Regnant in Underworld, would also hold force as the wife of an actual King?
Sometimes the word "obey" has nothing much to do with either trust or faith as we would like them to be. And whether or not you choose to obey or disobey is all too likely to be purely a matter of what you think the consequences are likely to be, and whether or not one has wriggle room to get out of it. I agree that in Rose's example, she is trusting a competent guide when she travels the Amazon, so she does as the guide tells her. But I'd say that common sense also tells her to not touch those cute leopards, because she thus avoids her own liability for stupidly thinking that a wild leopard would be as tame as a domestic cat. At least then she is fully justified in retaining a certain faith in her own good judgement for heeding the reminder. But what would Rose-Tree Dryad think of herself, if she, not her allegedly experienced guide, seriously believed a passerby's unproven and somewhat fishy suggestion that there would be any sort of hotel-like establishment stuck in the middle of nowhere? And found that by overruling the guide, she put not only herself but the guide at risk, when the wayside cafe turned out to be a den of criminals? Aslan, and, especially Puddleglum, can't be blamed for Jill's and Eustace's determination to be sidetracked.
Jill, in particular, and also Eustace, who obviously both found camping somewhat tedious, are a bit too quick to trust LOTGK's advertising of Harfang. And considering that Eustace's journey in VDT was somewhat less arduous than the one he is undertaking with Jill in SC, and how much he grizzled in VDT about the sort of food and drink he had on board then, you would think even he would have been pickier about his Harfang lunch. After all, LOTGK never said a word about what sort of meat was being roasted, and what sort of food was spicy, sweet etc, did she? When they got into the kitchen, and saw the cookbook...oh my!
All the same, I'd still agree with you, Rose that C.S.Lewis quote probably is central to the story of SC, especially in light of the post-war time in which he wrote the book.