Calormene technology (or the lack of it)

[King_Erlian]

One thing that struck me, when reading "The Last Battle" recently, is how little technological change there was in the Narnian world from its beginning to its end. Many centuries passed between the Golden Age, during which Rabadash tried to conquer Archenland, and the time of Tirian; yet the description of Rishda's soldiers (their appearance, weapons and behaviour) seems to indicate that they weren't really any different to those of Rabadash - they still wear mail, and use scimitars and spears. They don't have even primitive guns or cannons. You would think that a materialistic and militaristic empire such as Calormen would have prized the development of technology, especially weapons, to gain an advantage over their enemies and neighbours.

I expect the real reason for this is that it just never occurred to Lewis to have Calormen advance in technology over the Narnian centuries - he described the country in some detail in "The Horse And His Boy" and had the same image in his mind when writing "The Last Battle", even though so much Narnian time had elapsed. But can anyone think of a "within-universe" reason for it? For instance, might the laws of physics be different in the Narnian universe, so that much of our technology simply wouldn't work within it (just as Jadis' magic didn't work in our world)? After all, the Narnian world is a world that is flat, where the sun literally goes around it instead of the other way round and stars are human-sized people.

But if Calormen in Tirian's time had become more like a modern country in our world, it would have struck me as being more of a final end to Narnia when it was overrun by the Calormenes, because the Calormenes could by then have discovered some kind of weapon of total destruction. Jadis had the Deplorable Word which she used to destroy Charn. Aslan hinted to Digory and Polly that in a few years, humans could develop some way of destroying our world (Lewis writing at the time of the start of the nuclear arms race). But I always felt that, when reading "The Last Battle", why should the Calormenes invading mean the end of Narnia? It had been ruled by the White Witch for a hundred years and liberated by Aslan and the Pevensies. It had been occupied by the Telmarines who were eventually overthrown. Why couldn't the Calormenes be defeated? On the other hand, if the Calormenes had had some way of destroying all life in the Narnian world, then any hope of defeating them would have been dashed.

It struck me that events had reached an unpleasant, but not final state when Aslan suddenly cut things short and ended that world. It's not as if the Narnian sun was big, red and cold during Tirian's reign; it only appeared like that once, at the very last sunrise - while the sun in Charn had been red for hundreds of years.

[DiGoRyKiRkE]

I'm sure that there were some sort of technological advances that Lewis never mentioned in any of the books. Perhaps the use of different metals for swords/arrow-tips/etc, better shields, better bows, etc... It's not at all unheard of for technological advances of the type you're suggesting to not occur within the time frame given.

Look at our own world, for instance. Warfare was pretty much the same from 1000 B.C. to 1000 A.D. Mainly swords and archers and shields and whatnot. That's a 2,000 year time span without the introduction of guns or cannons or what have you.

I think it is also important to know that technological advances arise from need. If Calormen was already tops in the Narnian world at warfare, they really had no need to upgrade, because they could already cream everybody else. Throw in the fact that war was fairly uncommon in the Narnian world (maybe one happening once every several hundred years) and I think you can logically explain why there were no guns/cannons/atomic bombs in Narnia.

Excellent topic though! I look forward to reading the discussion

[PhelanVelvel]

Frankly, I disagree with Lewis' choice to make the Narnian universe (or at least planet) last only 2,555 years. To me, that feels like too little time. When Jewel talks about how there were good times, so many good things in a row that there was nothing to put in the history books, I'm thinking thousand and thousands, if not millions, of years. What he's thinking of is maybe a few hundred at most. I don't think Lewis needed to squash the planet's history down so much. It seemed like he wanted to plot it out so that there was something relatively "important" happening every few hundred years, i.e. something involving humans from our world.

It is an interesting idea that they might have had different laws of physics, especially when you make the comparison with Jadis' magic. I like that. It also makes sense considering that Aslan sang their world into existence, giving it a magical origin, rather than the more "scientific" or natural laws-based origin of our own world. I just think that Narnia seems a lot smaller and more insignificant when you think that it only lasted for a measly two and a half thousand years.

The denizens of that world certainly had more than enough time to develop technology beyond swords, but if the laws of their universe somehow put limitations on what they could invent, we can't really fault them for it.

I just have to wonder why Aslan would bring a world into existence and have its people live in relatively the same sort of "era", medieval or renaissance or however you would classify it, for the whole world's duration. When you look at how little time Narnia really existed for, it almost seems like it was made exclusively to be used as a learning tool for the seven friends. Then again, as an omnipotent creator, I'm sure you'd have a wide variety of worlds/universes. I was just very taken aback when I first inspected Narnia's timeline. In my mind, I imagined Narnia had grown ancient by the time of The Last Battle, but 2,555 years makes the Narnian world seem like a fun little diversion on the side compared to what Aslan must have theoretically put into ours.

[DiGoRyKiRkE]

I don't know. . . 2,555 years ago (~540 BC) the Babylonian empire was still going strong. Goodness gracious how we as a society and a world have changed since those days, and I wouldn't call that time span of human history "insignificant."

[PhelanVelvel]

Well, it's not that it's necessarily insignificant, but that their world existed for a tiny fraction of how long our world has existed. It kind of makes you wonder why Aslan would do that. I also have to wonder why the events of The Last Battle necessarily meant the end of Narnia. I understand that Aslan can bring about the end whenever he wants, but like King_Erlian said, Narnia had been conquered in the past and managed to turn it around. Did it only have to end because the seven friends had died, and there would be no help from our world to intervene? o_O