1. Do you think the Queen sent the Earthmen specifically to fetch the children and Puddleglum or was it a general order to bring anyone who fell down to her?Oh yes, it was specifically directed at the children! I'm not saying there wasn't a general order to bring anyone who fell down to her at each available entry to her world. That does explain how so many previous champions had vanished over the years. Whoever survived crossing the terrain and adverse weather, and then escaped the giants, whether at Ettinsmoor or further on at Harfang, would fall victim to her and few would return as the watchword goes.
However, LOTGK, herself, had also met the children near the Giant's bridge, when she directed them to Harfang. In the intervening time between the children's meeting her, and their arrival at Harfang, she had ample opportunity to return to her palace with the Black knight and issue new orders to the gnomes, to ensure that there were enough at that outlet to meet two children and a Marshwiggle. So I've no doubt such guards were reinforced in case the children did manage to escape Harfang. Or even if they didn't take the bait of hot baths, nice meals and comfortable beds.
2. Lewis describes the gnomes as being very different. Do you think this variety will be seen in the movie? Which gnome would you most like to see?I don't see how even computer generation is going to manage the sort of variety and individuality that is implied in the book, to be able to be replicated in the movie. I think the directors will concentrate on the leading earthmen, such as the Warden and Mullugutherum, the ones with speaking parts. It is not how individual gnomes look that bothers me, but how they will sound. The difference between the FOTF audio and the BBC audio drama gnomes is that the FOTF gnomes sound so much more gravelly and darker, and I want that sort of thing for the movie.
3. Jill and Eustace both are forced to face their fears. Jill has to crawl through the small tunnel and Eustace must stand on the edge of a cliff and fall off. Which experience is worse and why? I'm inclined to think that Eustace's experience at the edge of the cliff was worse because the spectacle of instant death is what makes that experience so fearsome, and what makes Eustace's fears reasonable and normal. Crawling through the small tunnel in almost complete darkness is not as bad, despite its oppressiveness, because there is always the reassurance of hearing, touching and feeling one's way around, and there is no fear of falling. Besides, however afraid Jill was, at least she wasn't forced to face her fears alone.
4. “That is old Father Time, who was once a King in Overland.” Could Father Time be the giant memorialized in the “under me” inscription? No, not necessarily. Old Father Time is a giantish personification of a concept, very like Mother Nature, herself. Besides, he lays sleeping.
He will wake up at the end of Narnia.
Unless one wants to argue that the present SC Giantish population are a deterioration from an earlier time.
Aslan called the giants, like dwarfs and much else into being at the beginning of Narnia
However, it was only a generation or so previously that in Narnia, itself, we had the Giant Wimbleweather at the second battle of Beruna, centuries after Giant Rumblebuffin helped reinforcements come to the rescue against the White Witch at the first battle of Beruna.
5. Discuss how this chapter should be adapted. (ex. what do you most want to see, what problems do you see, etc.)There is one aspect of the chapter that I see as really important for the film. Jill has to face her own fears of dark, confined spaces, in this chapter, when crawling through narrow tunnels between those caves. Eustace tells her to think how he felt when falling over the cliff, but he does propose a solution to help her. He and Puddleglum will put her in the middle of the little group where she can feel a little safer by their presence. This is where Eustace is starting to think of the group as a whole.
The main problem I see, is how to do an underground journey in sometimes pitch black, or in rather dim light. I do want to see the caverns of the reptile-like creatures and that of Father Time and do think these two caverns, and maybe one or two others, would leaven a very dark and visually uninteresting journey from the Ruined City to the underground beach, otherwise.
There is also the lengthy voyage and how to depict it and portray the passage of time without taking up too much of the film's time. Fortunately in the book the children mostly slept, seated either side of Puddleglum. I could imagine that maybe, during that journey, more than the one ship mentioned in the book might pass their vessel, maybe one drawing alongside to share orders or news to the earthmen on board, and that during those stoppages food might be passed around which would allow for more interaction between the occupants of the boat. Or would the filmmakers just leave the children to sleep, with Puddleglum to argue with the crew?