In which I take a deep breath and hit the post button anyway

[rthstewart]

So, Chapter 8, The Queen Susan in Finchley, is up.

There’s not much research here. The information on the SS Seatrain came from here. 

Comments

[therck]

Yea! I was thrilled to see another chapter up, and nothing in it disappointed me. I find myself wishing occasionally that I'd just found your fic for the first time so that I could have the fun of reading it again for the first time.

Thanks so much for writing!

[rthstewart]

Awww, thank you! I really appreciate you reading and sharing!

[autumnia]

Some chapters come easily. The conversation between Peter and Susan was not one of them.

And truly, your work here in this chapter was magnificent (apologies to the High King for my use of the word). As I said in my review, the conversation between Susan and Peter was one of my favorite parts of this chapter. Normally, it would be Susan/Edmund's conversation (which I loved just as much as it was more discussion into Rat and Crow) but there was something about Peter and Su's talk that really caught my attention. I think it's because we normally see so much of the other siblings' conversations with each other (Peter/Edmund, Edmund/Lucy and Peter/Lucy [in Narnian flashbacks]) but we rarely see how the two older siblings interact with each other.

[rthstewart]

Thanks. I just got a PM from someone commenting on how I have Peter and Susan as affectionate and caring and open, acting in some ways as a father and a mother and yet plainly not. I dealt with this in the Folly chapter back in TQSiT and deliberately introduced the incest issue there in order to squash it. Given how rarely these two occupy the fandom stage together unless it is sexual, I always feel like I have to draw the boundaries. The groundwork for their split was laid early in TQSiT and now revisited and explicated further here. I think readers are still more likely to tilt in Susan's favor and find that Peter is being hypocritical and too harsh. That's what was so hard in this chapter. To try to explain Peter's position and make it sympathetic while not condemning Susan. In the end, readers will have to chose who they align with.

[marbleglove]

When I was reading the chapter, I got distracted from your recounting of the succession by the character development going on, but now I realize that, yeah, very few stories deal with the Narnia succession after the Pevensies leave and those that do have it be uncertain and tragic. Part of being a good ruler, however, would be having a clear succession. I like that they had a succession and their stay was more than a single brief golden age in a long bleak history. They started something that took a thousand years or more to run down.

And some conversations are just as difficult for the author as for the characters. It came out really well though.

Keep writing.

[rthstewart]

Thanks so much. The succession issue dominates the other side of the vision -- the Narnia side, from the perspective of the Beasts. I've not forgotten it for all that I've not dealt with it much in TSG. Edmund reflects on it back in Part 1. In AW in the Narnia flashback with Dalia and Peter and the cubs, the reason Dalia has left Peter is because she thinks that without her around he'll be more likely to find a suitable bondmate for the human heirs that the Beasts really, really, really want. The manipulations of the Beasts to achieve this are in The Palace Guard and By Royal Decree. And this is one where I just bang my head because it such fandom cliche to have those wandering parentless heirs, suicidal consorts, and political chaos left behind. Resorting to overused tropes has kept me from doing this. Well, that and the fact that most of the TSG readers aren't really interested in it -- see Harold and Morgan. The reviews for this chapter bear that out -- again -- given both the drop and what readers are focusing on. So, I

[elouise82]

I am finally - FINALLY - getting caught up on reading. Which right now involved a whole lot of re-reading the earlier parts. Which leads me to mention again, in case I didn't already leave a review on it on ff.net, how much I adore the interaction between Eustace and Mary in the museum. And how your Eustace is not, as so many portray him, a mindless drone to whatever Alberta tells him, but that his interests in science are very much his own. And his grimly realistic expectations of what life at Experiment House will be like (and the hint, perhaps just present in my own mind, that his school might have played a large part in his horridness, as much of it might have been necessary for self-preservation) now, and his desire to talk to Digory and Polly about how to be a not-royal Friend

[rthstewart]

I do hope you are feeling better! OUCH to the elbow!!! I have really enjoyed writing Eustace. I did it a bit in Part 2 and then got into his head when I wrote Under Cover. I really like him and I'm looking forward to Jill as well. I don't want to malign Eustace for reading all the wrong books when my own children have so enjoyed those same books. The school certainly plays a role and it is awful (I'm going to deal with the rabbit and the torture that he mentions to Jill in SC!) but alas in this vision I do see Harold and Alberta as very unaffectionate and neglectful parents. But then, I've been exploring parenting for a while in the story and while there are some good parents, I've not put Harold and Alberta there. I do love the idea of Eustace really embracing the "science" with Mary as a mentor and having the rigorous intellectual curiosity that Richard found was lacking in Peter -- that ability to do more than take things on faith.

[intrikate88]

Saving the chapter for tomorrow- I'm having a little hospital vacation for the next few days and need something to do. Can't wait to read it! :D

[rthstewart]

FEEL BETTER FIRST!