I think I left my brain in an ancient port city of Rome

[rthstewart]

So happy Tuesday after Happy Cat Sacrifice Day! By whose authority am I back and work?

Easter dinner for 20 was fabulous though I'll assume my jet lagged state was responsible for the gross over-estimation of food (coupled with my epic failure at  math). I also had to prepare for 2 readings at the church’s Easter Vigil mass (Moses parting the Red

Comments

[autumnia]

re: the Pevensies being too young to be involved in the war - While in reality, of course they are too young and none of this is credible, I think it's best to keep in mind that this is a fantasy world and the main characters were all children who went to a magical land and grew up there and really ARE adults though their outward appearances do not reflect this. If one is reading stories in this fandom, then to be honest, it's not completely impossible. You've already set up your take on them (as adults in children's bodies) so very long ago and as you said, if we've kept up, none of this is surprising or unbelievable

[rthstewart]

I am reconciling myself that the next AW chapter is heavy on Lucy

[autumnia]

Hmm. Edmund in DC will definitely be a lot lonelier than Harold the Clerk, not just because there's no romantic interest or distraction. At least on the Lone Islands, he still had his subjects around and they were mostly unnoticeable since they were animals. He will have no one to truly confide to or to ask advice of while working for the Colonel. For all that George will know who and what Edmund is in the way he knows Susan, it's not the same as having Sallowpad or Jina around. I'd like to think Ed would try to talk to Lucy but as I said earlier, it would be hard with the censoring and all the secrets

[adaese]

I shouldn't worry too much about class issues. There are probably about as many finer gradations of class as there are people in the UK (also known as Most of the English are doing it Wrong!). I happen to be pretty strong on the finer points of Oxbridge Middle Class, but wouldn't dream of commenting on the different shades of working class (rural is quite different from inner-city, for example). Incidentally, Peter is being very, very upper middle class when he chooses to go slumming it with working class troops. It's a common form of rebellion, and never, ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, involves slumming it with lower middle class people. Can be highly amusing, when you spot it and realise what's happening - and the youngster doing the slumming always thinks they're doing something totally original.

[rthstewart]

Fascinating. Yes, I can see all of that. In this case, with Peter, I've been playing for a long time with his everyman persona, but that he is also one who enjoys his royal prerogatives. Turning him into an anti-Colonial has been part of this whole journey and it was surprising to find that this story played into it as well. I've got a scene written for much later in which Susan really takes him to task for this (in her view) slide where she essentially says, "And here you are, the common man of the people, yet reasserting a most royal prerogative

[adaese]

And a very good story it is too.

[cofax7]

I suspect, frankly, that any narrative problems you see--and if I were to identify any, I would say that the only real structural problem is the way the story winds up, and up, and up, and then you get the big battle, and then it stops--anyway, inasmuch as that's a problem, it's a problem because you're working in a predetermined setting & timeline. You can't really give Susan and Peter a lot of time for an emotional reunion and a comprehensive, leisurely wrapup, because there wasn't time. The real story didn't stop there, and so neither can the Pevensies.

So I can see that there's some disappointment, but I think the other strengths of the story more than make up for that.

And what Autumnia said about the ages: yes, they're both too young and too old, and that's the hazard of writing Narnia.

Bravo again: it's quite well done.

[rthstewart]

Thanks for the comment, Cofax. I really appreciate the technical view of it -- the big build up and then BAM it's over. The actual assault on the bridges was 17 minutes long. They were relieved 12 hours later and I did hit some of the high points there -- the Number One Gun, the exploding tank, and the snipers. There were a few other things that also happened, but I was limited by Peter's pov or it was hard to figure out what happened -- particularly the street fighting which, frankly, isn't as interesting. And at some point, it gets repetitive -- OH NO another threat to the bridge! it's a plane, it's a boat, it's a frogman! The sequence of events got very muddled too and rather than trying to muddle through what happened when and who did what, I ended it on the high, Hollywood moment of the bagpippers.

Thank you for this insight.

[rthstewart]

Goodness, there's a lot here! Thanks so much! Most of all, how FUN that you are able to enjoy the lectures on Malayan politics and war. That is just terrific. And why yes, it's listening to just those sorts of stories that can so inspire fic!!!

It's funny that you mention Lucy's reaction -- I have a line in the next chapter where she says that everyone else is off and away and she stays, and here of all places at horrid school and that that was not how it used to be. Other readers have not liked how young Lucy seems in some parts (I suppose she is) and that the spelling seems silly. I keep thinking that Lucy was a wonderful correspondent with friends who didn't have hands and dictionaries were simply not a priority in Narnia for her friends who maybe didn't read very well and many of whom probably never had traditional schooling. She spelled phonetically and she's always in a hurry with her letters, firing them off one after another with great enthusiasm

[knitress]

It was a lovely lovely dinner; food and company and waterblasters and champagne! Plus jellybeans :-) Thank you so much for hosting.

[rthstewart]

I once again had jelly beans for breakfast. NOM