Pattertwigs Pal wrote:I agree there doesn't seem to be an urgent need for Edmund and Lucy to be on the voyage. Yet, Lucy is needed to undo the spell on the Dufflepuds. I think Edmund's role has to do with thinking and talking. He is there for Eustace, he goes up against Caspian twice, and uses logic to figure things out.
And yet there needs to be such a reason. Either to solve a problem or else to avert others occurring. Maybe the presence of all three children was to keep Caspian honest and on track?
As we were told in
Prince Caspian, Narnia wasn't really a place for humans but yet it was a country for humans to be in charge of. According to the films and audio versions so far, such a purpose can be from the point of view of protecting Narnia, though when Edmund went there first, he was the reason for Aslan's sacrifice, and when he, Susan and Peter went there in
Prince Caspian, it was at the behest of Prince Caspian, himself, at that stage in rebellion against the Telmarine rule of Caspian's uncle Miraz, when the birth of Miraz's son made Caspian superfluous as heir.
But in the four VDT film and audio productions, at least two of them suggest that Lucy, Edmund and Eustace were more in need of such discipline than Caspian, himself. In the Walden film, in particular, it seemed that it was Edmund who was the one tempted, not Caspian, and in one of the audio productions it was Edmund who was humming and ha'ing about wanting some of the money. Even in the BBC TV production, there was an actual fight between Caspian and Edmund. Yes you are right that Edmund was there for Eustace, when he was undragonned, but was that the only other reason why, apart from keeping Caspian honest, Edmund was on the Dawn Treader?
Why did Eustace find himself stuck in such a place, for example? Was he just the sort of child who was ripe to be turned into a dragon, so that he could solve the problem of Octesian's disappearance? Or did his character development as a dragon show him to be a good deal less of a nuisance than he ever meant to be in his resentfully kidnapped state? What about Lucy's struggles with some of the spells, even though I agree she was necessary to read out the invisibility spell reversal for the benefit of the Dufflepuds? Or is there something else about that cruise that we are all missing?
aileth wrote:Was Lewis thinking about the abdication of Edward VIII? George VI did not want to take the throne, and it cost him dearly. Nevertheless, he felt that it was his duty to God and his country to step in when his brother would not fulfill his responsibilities. It is possible that Caspian would have been leaving Narnia in a precarious position. One of the benefits of a monarchy is the stability it brings to a country: the same leader for years and years, without the upheaval of having to select another one every so often. The question of succession can be touchy, unless the heir is hereditary. Even then, English history is filled with the wars that occurred whenever there was a weak leader or an uncertain line of progression
It was not only possible but probable that Narnia would have been in a mess if Caspian had abdicated. Had Caspian gone on with Reepicheep and his old Pevensie friends, he would not only have broken faith with Narnia and the captain and crew of the
Dawn Treader, but also whoever was still living among the Seven Lords, themselves, and Ramandu's daughter, whom he was to marry eventually. Who else could have ruled Narnia, anyway? We aren't told what happened to Caspian's fatherless little cousin, who would be about three by the time of VDT. And a three year old is not a suitable person to rule a country, even with good guidance from his predecessors' councillors.
And yes, you are right about English history, and until the end of the Stuart line, of Scottish history for that matter. Even Irish, from 1168 AD, when Ireland came under the control of the Norman, Richard de Clare, also called Strongbow.
Edward VIII abdicating at the end of 1936 would definitely be what C.S.Lewis was thinking about. Not only did it look like a desertion of his duty, to choose the lady not the crown, but it left UK open to the wiles of "Der Fuehrer", whose men thought if they could invade the British Isles, they could restore Edward VIII to be in charge of a Quisling government. They, at any rate, had no problems with a twice-divorced American duchess being the Queen Consort of "their" king.
King_Erlian wrote:There's an interesting contrast between Eustace's situation and Susan's. Eustace had Edmund and Lucy, then Jill, and later Peter, the Professor and Aunt Polly to help him consolidate his faith in Narnia......Torn out of the fellowship of her Narnian-loving friends, it's no surprise that her faith in Narnia diminished. So I think we should stop laying all the blame at Susan's feet. In a way, her parents were partly (and inadvertently) responsible for her losing faith...
Now that is a fair point, Erlian.
And it may apply, not only to Susan, but also to Caspian as well, who, like Eustace, had had a rather lonely upbringing, and therefore may have enjoyed the company of the others rather more than he might have been prepared to admit. Hence his difficulties in "letting go" towards the end of the journey.
In any case I agree that Susan should not have been blamed for being in America in VDT, and very likely in SC as well, and therefore out of the Narnia loop. It wasn't necessarily the fault, inadvertent or not, of Mr and Mrs Pevensie, either. I don't think that Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold would have wanted to be saddled with teenaged Susan, nor, given Edmund and Lucy's opinion of him at the beginning of VDT, could I see Susan enjoying being with someone like Eustace, who was so much younger than herself.
Peter wasn't with Eustace, Lucy and Edmund either, and though his reason for being away was hard work, not the "holiday cruise" that Susan and, arguably, his other siblings, were having, he at least had the company of Professor Kirk. The most striking thing about VDT is that for the first time in the series we see how Lucy and Edmund manage without being overshadowed by their older siblings, or by the family dynamics which had defined all four children beforehand.
Much of the hype about Susan has been by post war, often anti-Christian academics and writers, who miss the point that being by herself she would have had extra reason to "begin to come close to her own world", as Aslan put it. Especially as Susan, already dabbling in "romance" at the end of LWW, wasn't quite so likely to forget the problem of finding suitable consorts, unlike Caspian with his rather snooty attitude to the Duke of Galma's daughter. I wonder if Lucy hadn't reminded him of Ramandu's daughter when she did, backed up by Aslan's little chat with him, if Caspian would have simply forgotten about the need to find himself a Queen.
I'm not quite as sure that Aunt Alberta, herself, had such difficulty with Eustace, initially, though he might have become somewhat less receptive to her administrations of Plumptree's Vitaminised Nerve Food etc. It was more like after the Pevensies had left, and when he went back to school, and found himself having to stand up to the very sorts of people that his mother might well have thought necessary to impress, that she might have gotten her nose out of joint with him.