If I have one more person tell me that I'm missing the entire point of the books -- there is someone going through my meta now and I'm getting the comment notifications and they are pissing me off.
I am not Christian. I did not come at the books from a Christian POV, or even from a religious POV at all. No, the books are not meticulously plotted out. No, the movies are not the books. Yes, I have explicitly stated EVERYWHERE that I write movieverse and not bookverse, so don't challenge my characterization on bookverse grounds. (Leeway on Eustace, Jill, and Tirian, obviously, but what she's getting at is mostly my Susan portrayal.)
Yes. Perhaps LWW was written as a standalone book. It doesn't matter how it was written. You know why? Because it's not read as a standalone book. It doesn't matter what the authorial intent is; it matters what the reader reads.
And no. No, I didn't read the religious themes in the book; I wasn't raised to be religious, I'm not sure I was even raised with a very strong concept of religion until about the time I hit middle school. And I read the books a long time before then, and even then, my religious underpinnings are not Judeo-Christian by any means.
Here's the truth: I did not realize that Lewis's point in the books was religious until this year. I knew there were religious themes. To be honest, I more or less skimmed over them. I couldn't -- and I still can't -- reconcile what happens in the books with what people seem inclined to tell me over and over again is Lewis's point; it makes no logical sense to me and never has. And you know what? It probably never will. No matter how I contort my brain.
Yes. The books are inconsistent. You know what the fun of fic and meta is? Trying to make those inconsistencies consistent and give a reason for them. A SENSIBLE, LOGICAL reason.
This is what I believe: "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, / And every single one of them is right!"
No one comes at the story from the same angle. No one.
And once the book is in print, it doesn't matter what the author wrote. It matters what's on the page. And that's true for anything and everything: books, television, movies, music, dance, artwork, speeches, crossing the street, anything.
I am not Christian. I did not come at the books from a Christian POV, or even from a religious POV at all. No, the books are not meticulously plotted out. No, the movies are not the books. Yes, I have explicitly stated EVERYWHERE that I write movieverse and not bookverse, so don't challenge my characterization on bookverse grounds. (Leeway on Eustace, Jill, and Tirian, obviously, but what she's getting at is mostly my Susan portrayal.)
Yes. Perhaps LWW was written as a standalone book. It doesn't matter how it was written. You know why? Because it's not read as a standalone book. It doesn't matter what the authorial intent is; it matters what the reader reads.
And no. No, I didn't read the religious themes in the book; I wasn't raised to be religious, I'm not sure I was even raised with a very strong concept of religion until about the time I hit middle school. And I read the books a long time before then, and even then, my religious underpinnings are not Judeo-Christian by any means.
Here's the truth: I did not realize that Lewis's point in the books was religious until this year. I knew there were religious themes. To be honest, I more or less skimmed over them. I couldn't -- and I still can't -- reconcile what happens in the books with what people seem inclined to tell me over and over again is Lewis's point; it makes no logical sense to me and never has. And you know what? It probably never will. No matter how I contort my brain.
Yes. The books are inconsistent. You know what the fun of fic and meta is? Trying to make those inconsistencies consistent and give a reason for them. A SENSIBLE, LOGICAL reason.
This is what I believe: "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, / And every single one of them is right!"
No one comes at the story from the same angle. No one.
And once the book is in print, it doesn't matter what the author wrote. It matters what's on the page. And that's true for anything and everything: books, television, movies, music, dance, artwork, speeches, crossing the street, anything.