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Bree and Hwin

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Bree and Hwin

Postby AnimalOfNarnia » Nov 15, 2013 9:07 pm

What are your thoughts on what they'll be like in the HHB movie? (In the event that it and the other four films get made)
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby The Rose-Tree Dryad » Jul 08, 2014 11:30 pm

John Cleese is an interesting idea for Bree's voice actor! I'll have to consider that when I reread HHB and see if it seems to fit well with Bree's lines. I'm not familiar with Kathy Bates, but I've always imagined Hwin having a gentle and timid, yet sort of motherly voice, that is slightly on the deep side.

One thought I've had is that I'd like for Bree and Hwin to look visibly different from the other Calormene horses. Since Bree and Hwin are originally from Narnia, I think that they ought to be different breeds altogether and have a distinct look that sets them apart if possible.

I'm thinking maybe a dark Lipizzaner stallion for Bree...

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... and possibly a bay Connemara for Hwin.

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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby waggawerewolf27 » Jul 09, 2014 3:25 am

I don't know much about horses generally, only our own Waler horses which we see frequently, not only in old posters and in Australian pictures of horses. I don't know where their forebears came from, as anything equine had to be brought to these shores by European settlers. From here they were sent back to Europe to fight for UK and what our soldiers understood as freedom from tyranny and loyalty to our own way of life at the time. And so, they also have a noble history of wartime service, commemorated in many stories not unlike the recent film and musical, Warhorse.

We also see these horses in reality. In the Olympics, maybe sometimes on the racecourse, but mostly when our police are about to maintain order in Sydney's CBD, during a parade or protest, for example. Walers in seem to be mostly brown horses with some bay ones. Bree could well be one of the bay horses, talking with a very upper-crust, very lofty sort of voice. The sort of voice one associates with retired colonels etc. My BBC audio play of HHB has Bree being voiced by Maurice Debenham, who has that slightly convivial, port-drinking, Gentlemen's Club snootiness down pat.

I agree with the idea of having John Cleese doing the voice-overs for Bree, though someone younger might be better. For Hwin, I'd like to see an Arabian thoroughbred kind of horse. I don't know what colour she would be, but I'd imagine for the voiceovers an actress who could convey a gentle, highly strung sort of horse, who still has strength and speed when necessary. Hwin is a horse that probably has a very good lineage, but is humbler than Bree, who sees clearly what has to be done, and with more common sense.
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby King_Erlian » Jul 09, 2014 4:32 am

How about Matt Smith as Bree and Karen Gillan as Hwin?
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby Meltintalle » Jul 09, 2014 2:38 pm

I like the coloring on the Lippizaner, Rose. It's a good match for the Baynes illustrations. :)

*would comment on Hwin, but probably ought to re-read the book before saying anything* ;))
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby aileth » Jul 09, 2014 10:04 pm

Either a Lipizzaner or an Andalusian, I would think, would do for Bree. They are quite close in type, though the Andalusian tends to be a bit lighter in body weight. It would depend on the horse, I suppose. The horses they used for PC were quite stocky, more than I would like to see for a war horse.

Of course, you can see where my preference lies if you look at the grey I used for avatars of Bree. Only problem is that that Andalusian is a mare :( And "Hwin" is a gelding.

One thing I hope they do properly is the horses' talking. All the other animals looked quite natural, somehow, in the movies so far, and then there was, "My name is Philip." It looked so fake to me.
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby waggawerewolf27 » Jul 10, 2014 1:35 am

I never thought of Philip's voice as fake, as it sort of came out of left field when I saw LWW on screen. Perhaps the accoustics were different in our local cinema. But I agree about the voiceovers needing to be really good and natural.

Actually, though I remember Bree as being a bay horse, I'm not sure what colour Hwin is. The mare in my avatar is a bay horse, with a chestnut foal by her side. The poster horse in my signature is a chestnut colour, like most cavalry/police horses.
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby aileth » Jul 10, 2014 8:25 am

Oh, I didn't make that very clear, did I? :)

I was thinking more of the mouth movements than the actual voice, in that case. It can't be easy to get the proper shape and make it seem realistic. I just felt that they did a better job with some of the others, notably full CGI creatures, Aslan, the fox, etc. Didn't Adamson mention something about it in one of his interviews?

Lewis didn't distinctly say what colours the horses were, did he? I most commonly associate 'dappled' with a grey horse, but my own bay gets the most gorgeous rings at certain times of the year. It will be interesting to see what the film makers choose. Perhaps it will depend on what trained horses are available at the time.
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby Meltintalle » Jul 16, 2014 9:00 am

Silver dapples are a gorgeous variation, though it might indeed be difficult to find ones with the right training.

While I was looking at pictures, there was a heavy draft silver dapple. Golden Age Narnia hearkens back to the era of full armor that produced those horses, so I got a mental picture of some of those coming down the hill with the Narnians. Do you think they need to stay with the established breed type they gave Phillip in LWW or does Narnia have a wide variety of Talking Horses?
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby The Rose-Tree Dryad » Jul 20, 2014 11:13 pm

Wow, what a beautiful, beautiful horse, Mel! I can imagine that coat color for Bree. It wouldn't surprise me that Anradin would have liked having such a flashy-looking horse to ride into battle.

It's honestly hard to say what the Narnian horse breed would be like. In many ways, I think I'd take a look at wild horse breeds, because unlike this world, they wouldn't have had human breeders trying to encourage the proliferation of certain traits for certain purposes. So, purebred horses may not be the way to go at all. Of course, I might be overthinking this a little. ;))
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby waggawerewolf27 » Jul 21, 2014 5:41 am

Rose-tree Dryad wrote:It's honestly hard to say what the Narnian horse breed would be like. In many ways, I think I'd take a look at wild horse breeds, because unlike this world, they wouldn't have had human breeders trying to encourage the proliferation of certain traits for certain purposes. So, purebred horses may not be the way to go at all. Of course, I might be overthinking this a little.


You could be right. Horses aren't native to Australia at all, though now they are bred here in horse studs. All the horses here, including our Walers, are various mixtures of European and Arabian horses, and the wild ones are called Brumbies. But these poor horses which escaped into the wild, only to be rounded up periodically, haven't been always treated very well, until people realized they, too were valuable in the scheme of things.

In some ways I think of Bree when I think about these brumbies. I really think though that Bree would have been more the sort of horse that would fetch a good enough price to impress Anradin into treating him well.
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby aileth » Jul 26, 2014 8:28 am

Melty wrote:Golden Age Narnia hearkens back to the era of full armor that produced those horses, so I got a mental picture of some of those coming down the hill with the Narnians. Do you think they need to stay with the established breed type they gave Phillip in LWW or does Narnia have a wide variety of Talking Horses?


I don't think I've ever seen a horse that colour before. That's amazing!

There's no reason, as far as I can see, why they shouldn't vary the types of the Talking Horses. They used Friesians in PC; mind you, those weren't Talking Horses. But with such a wide variety to choose from here, I don't see why Narnia would be limited. The only thing I'm hoping they avoid is a Paint horse colouring. Pretty as it is, it doesn't seem suited to the story; too noticeable, for one.
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby Meltintalle » Jul 26, 2014 9:02 am

We could get technical on the Pintos. :p See, a Paint is specifically a horse with Quarter Horse bloodlines, whereas Pinto refers to the genes that produce that coloring.

Wikipedia wrote:The word "pinto" is a Spanish word literally meaning 'painted' and also 'dappled' or 'spotted


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Danish Knabstrupper as Bree, anyone?
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby The Rose-Tree Dryad » Jul 30, 2014 3:42 pm

I can kind of imagine a more "stereotypical" painted coat for Hwin. Maybe something like this Gypsy Vanner? I also love the idea of Bree being a Danish Knabstrupper, especially after seeling Mel's drawing of him as such. In some ways, flashy coat colors may be just the way to go, because it might partly explain why Calormenes were interested in capturing Narnian horses in the first place: they looked unique and they fetched a higher price because of it. Still, Bree and Hwin standing out too much might make it all the more difficult for them to go incognito in Tashbaan.
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby PhelanVelvel » Aug 13, 2014 2:16 pm

Because of this line: "He rode upon a strong dappled horse..." I always imagined Bree as a dapple grey. I know horses of other colours can be dappled, but since this is how I always imagined him, and how Pauline Baynes appears to have illustrated him, I stand by the idea. That's how I would really like him to look in the film. I don't have a specific preference for Hwin's colouration, though. Some form of brown or pinto would be fine by me. They had to rub mud and everything all over themselves to look like "ordinary" horses anyway, so her having a pretty colouration would be fine, I think. We should expect Bree and Hwin to look like horses of good breeding, and handsome to boot, because they ended up in high class homes. I think that talking Narnian horses would probably vary in breed, since they choose to marry whom they wish and they're constantly mixing up the gene pool. All this inter-breeding would probably result in one general type, but then again, there would probably be different populations in different regions. Due to differences in geography and climate, there might be a variety of conformations, coat lengths, and colours.
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Re: Bree and Hwin

Postby starkat » Aug 21, 2014 4:22 am

Thing about grays is, depending on the type, they mostly end up white by a certain time in their life. Dappled grays go white. Flea bitten grays don't, but their spots can get more numerous.

I've always seen Bree as more of a Thoroughbred or maybe a Hanoverian. A breed that has the speed and skill level to handle war. Thoroughbreds tend to be a bit flighty, but they also tend to have a ton of personality. Most of the ones I know are good at carrying themselves in that slightly snooty manor just because of the way they are built.

There are also different thoroughbred body styles. Some are more like Secretariat who had a thicker look. Some have that thin racer type look. I could see Bree built more like Secretariat and Hwin the same breed, but a much lighter build as she's a lady's horse and not a war horse.
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