Comments | cofax7: Narnia fic: The Cave in Deerfield, a Carpetbaggers story (gen, T, 1900 words)

cofax7

Narnia fic: The Cave in Deerfield, a Carpetbaggers story (gen, T, 1900 words)

Nov 06, 2010 08:32

This story won't make an enormous amount of sense unless you've been reading Carpetbaggers.

But then again, maybe it will.

( Click on this if you want to read a rather spoilery warning. )

narnia, carpetbaggers, narnia-fic

Comments 8

chrissie_m November 6 2010, 23:28:36 UTC

It's strange (and I'm speaking solely of my own response here) that I actually felt more grief and horror at the situation of these other children yesterday, when I didn't have names or stories to put to them. Just this horror that of course the Pevensie children weren't the first to get to Narnia, and of course this is what would happen to children who weren't the destined four, what the Witch would do to isolated children who for whatever reason (not a tame lion doesn't quite cut it for me as an adult) didn't have Aslan's blessing ( ... )

cofax7 November 7 2010, 00:44:28 UTC

I actually felt more grief and horror at the situation of these other children yesterday, when I didn't have names or stories to put to them

That makes perfect sense to me. But also: you don't think Aslan just tried a couple of times, do you? He tried over and over--the ones Lucy found are just the ones that Jadis kept in the dungeon. Some of them never made it to Jadis, and some of them she disposed of quietly in the woods. No one (other than Aslan) will ever know just how many children and adults died trying to break the winter. And not all of them were from our world, either: some were from Telmar or Galma or even Calormen.

Anyway, I"m very glad you're enjoying the novel. I'm having quite a lovely time writing it.

What was Aslan thinking? auroramama November 7 2010, 05:32:41 UTC

Brrrr. Now I'm cold, too. Aslan trying over and over, drafting children for that cellar in Omelas. Yes, they weren't alone, they had each other; yes, they were brave and healthy and hopeful, until the end; yes, it did end for them, eventually, quicker for some. And Narnia and its inhabitants were dying (and compromising with evil to survive, which may have concerned Aslan still more. But they were too young to truly give consent, and most of them may never have known why they were suffering. I think it's too high a price to pay, even to turn Narnia into utopia (which, of course, would not happen. It never does.)

Re: What was Aslan thinking? cofax7 November 7 2010, 05:45:58 UTC

That's a really good question. And if we think of it from a Doylist perspective, it falls apart because it's just shitty world-building with a lot of handwaving by Lewis to make it work.

From a Watsonian perspective? Hmm. I must assume that there was something at work that made it necessary that the Humans to break the Witch's power and allow Aslan back into Narnia had to be children. Perhaps it goes back to Digory and Polly's presence at the beginning of the creation? Perhaps because the innocence of children is more powerful than the Witch's ambition and evil, and adults could not be that innocent? I don't know ( ... )

sg_fignewton November 11 2010, 06:46:07 UTC

You made these poor children so real, and in such excellent Lewis style, too.

I think the pieces had to fit together properly. The right time, the right kids, the right moment. But it's pretty chilling, nonetheless.

cofax7 November 19 2010, 18:46:08 UTC

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to reply sooner. Thank you so much for the kind comments.

spritl April 30 2011, 08:10:42 UTC

This is so touching and fridge horrifying. I love the style you use, the language is a very close imitation of C. S. Lewis and really reads like something he could have written. And it's such a short story but the personality of the Petersons really shine through.

But I don't remember the passageway through the wardrobe locking the children in Narnia? I remember it as always being open in Narnia but sometimes closed in our world, and that was why Lucy and Edmund could go back and forth before their final journey and why the grown-up Kings & Queens accidentally fell back into our world because it had just been standing there over the years, waiting for them...

Or am I confusing the movie with the books?

cofax7 April 30 2011, 14:43:10 UTC

Or am I confusing the movie with the books?

It's never clear in either books or movie whether they could go back if they had tried. I suspect that there were limitations on their return, since Aslan intended them to be kings and queens--it could be that the passage would stay open for Lucy to find until all four of them were there, at which point it would close until they'd accomplished what Aslan intended.

Certainly it would be unwise to keep such a passage open for all and sundry to wander through, and Mrs. Macready would have noticed any stray fauns or Dwarfs...

Thank you for your kind words!