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bedlamsbardNarnia movieverse conspiracy theory. Let me say this again: movieverse. Why is it specifically movieverse? Because it deals with something's that's not in the books; in fact, it's one of the few things in Prince Caspian that directly contradicts the book Prince Caspian.
Now, on the surface, this seems like what it's put out to be in the movie: kill time for Lucy to find Aslan and wake the trees from slumber. Honestly, I don't believe that anyone's plan was for the loser's army to summarily depart the field. Miraz's clearly wasn't, but I think the movie makes it pretty clear that if Peter had died in the ring, Edmund would have attacked immediately. Narnia did not just come out of hiding in order to go back in, or more likely, get completely slaughtered by the Telmarines, who probably aren't too keen on having a bunch of hostile talking animals and other creatures sitting at their backs. It's one thing when you haven't seen them in generations and they've become legend; it's another thing entirely when you know they're there. Anyway, Miraz's plan is as follows: kill Peter, attack, kill everyone else, probably either kill Caspian in the battle or take Caspian prisoner and publicly execute him for high treason, go back to his castle, rule Narnia. In case of the duel going wrong, his plan changes: have Glozelle shoot Peter, attack, etc., etc. Peter's plan is pretty similar: kill Miraz, wait to see what the reaction is for form's sake -- if the Telmarine army retreats in confusion, go back and hole up in the How and wait for Lucy to come back with reinforcements, but far more likely, if the Telmarine army attacks, do exactly what they do in the movie: attack right back in an all-out, desperate last stand, so when they go down fighting, they at least take as many of the enemy as they can down with them. And because Peter's trying to kill time in order to give Lucy as much as he can, he's probably going to drag the fight out as long as possible. Miraz, on the other hand, just wants to kill this annoying kid and get it over with. When Peter (yes, Peter) suggests single combat in the book, this is exactly what his plan is.
But in the movie, it's Caspian who suggests single combat.
At this point, Caspian still knows very little about Peter. Depending on whether or not we go off Edmund's comment about "a week ago, we were extinct" and when we set the beginning of that week (when Caspian ran away from Miraz's castle? when the Pevensies arrived in Narnia? when the Pevensies met up with the Narnians? when the Narnians attacked the castle?), they've only known each other for a very short amount of time, probably only a matter of days. Depending on how much Caspian actually knows about Narnian legends (and I would wager it's not all that much, whether or not you take my theory that the Telmarines have coopted the Narnian legends about the Golden Age and turned them around for pro-human propaganda), he probably only has a basic understanding of who High King Peter the Magnificent actually was: High King of Narnia, defeated the White Witch/saved Narnia, carries a famous sword, mysteriously vanished. And (correct me if I'm wrong), when he blew Susan's horn, he didn't know that he was calling back the Pevensies. That's a Narnian legend; Professor Cornelius (Doctor Cornelius in the book) didn't tell him so. He only found out afterwards, and at that point he was probably expecting resurrected ghosts or something, not living breathing people. He was certainly not expecting four kids years younger than him, one of whom happened to be the High King of legend.
Caspian is human. He's young, cocky, naive, raised with the expectation of ruling but probably not trained to it, and he's out of his depth. Peter's also human, but he's caught between young and old; there's a mental demarcation where he's been a kid for the past year, and his body is that of a teenager's, but his mind is more or less than of a thirty-year-old army general and sovereign king's. So what he looks like, to Caspian, is a cocky kid who thinks he knows better than everyone else and has taken over everything that Caspian's just beginning to get a handle on. Even worse, he's just gotten a lot of people that Caspian knows killed, and he blames Caspian for it. Peter may be blaming Caspian for being out of his depth, but from what Caspian can tell -- and he's not coming at this from a Narnian's point of view; a Narnian is probably more likely to remember that the Pevensies were just kids the first time they came to Narnia and killed the White Witch and saved the country and so forth (my impression is that Aslan's part in this has been downplayed over the years) -- Peter's just as out of his depth as Caspian is. And worse, he's a real threat to Caspian's throne -- there are probably any number of (likely pretty damn vocal) Narnians that have problems with a Telmarine, even a Narnian-sympathetic, on the throne of Narnia, but Peter's not a Telmarine, he's a Narnian. He's a Narnian with a history of being a good king, a history which has been built up to legendary proportions over the past thousand years of no rulers or bad rulers. At the point where he proposes single combat, he's not necessarily looking at Peter as an ally, he's looking at Peter as a rival. He doesn't necessarily see a need to buy Lucy time to summon Aslan; he's a Telmarine. He doesn't believe in Aslan, or if he does, he probably only believes in Aslan as just another of those mythical Narnian creatures. He probably doesn't believe in walking, talking trees, either. And he doesn't know just how good a swordsman Peter is; note that he isn't in the courtyard during the battle. Legend says that Peter is a fabulous swordsman; legend also says that Peter is a grown man. Which he's clearly not. He does, on the other hand, know exactly how good Miraz is with a sword, and the answer to that is pretty dang good. So why suggest personal combat? He's probably figured out enough about Peter by now to know that Peter will think it's a great idea.
Because Caspian didn't think that Peter had a chance in hell of beating Miraz. He set the duel up to kill Peter.
There is a ninety-nine point nine percent chance that Caspian has no idea how Narnia was run during the Golden Age. (There is also, like, a ninety-nine point eight percent chance that no one else does, either.) Whatever he does or does not know, he knows that by Telmarine law, if Peter doesn't have a child, then the next in line for the throne is his next of kin: Susan. Or possibly Edmund, depending on whether the Telmarines count women in the line of succession or not, but the Narnians almost certainly do, so Caspian will probably leave it at that and call it a day. Note that he isn't there to watch the fight, or at least the beginning of it and yet, since he's the horseman here, wouldn't it be best if he was there to lead the charge whenever it should become necessary? No -- he's going after Susan, the titular heir to the throne of Narnia. It doesn't matter if Lucy gets killed; she's just an impediment to getting the throne, and if she dies wandering around in the woods looking for a talking lion, then, well, so be it. As for Edmund, well, if there should happen to be a battle, as everyone expects there to be, and if he should happen to die in said battle -- well, nobody's going to look too closely at who swung the sword. Killing them himself, in the middle of the How, with Narnians all around them, is not an option -- but here are the Telmarines, so very, very conveniently arrayed for battle, and Peter, who's more than happy to engage in single combat with Miraz. And with Peter, Edmund, and Lucy gone, Caspian is free to marry Susan, which will add Narnian legitimacy to his claim to the throne, and become king of Narnia.
Granted, there still would have been that pesky Telmarine army right there, but Caspian is a Telmarine prince. He's supposed to be the Telmarine king, currently; take Miraz out of the way, somehow, and it probably won't be that hard to convince the army that he's their rightful ruler, especially if he shows up midway through the battle following the duel, or afterwards. The Narnians acknowledge Susan, the Telmarines acknowledge Caspian...marry as soon as possible, get crowned, and Bob's your uncle and Fanny's your aunt and Caspian's king of Narnia.
Except...Peter was a better swordsman than Caspian expected, and when Caspian arrived, the duel was barely half-over. And Peter trusted Caspian, and the Telmarines had plans of their own, and wow, mythical talking lion? Actually exists. With walking trees. Who knew?
Now, on the surface, this seems like what it's put out to be in the movie: kill time for Lucy to find Aslan and wake the trees from slumber. Honestly, I don't believe that anyone's plan was for the loser's army to summarily depart the field. Miraz's clearly wasn't, but I think the movie makes it pretty clear that if Peter had died in the ring, Edmund would have attacked immediately. Narnia did not just come out of hiding in order to go back in, or more likely, get completely slaughtered by the Telmarines, who probably aren't too keen on having a bunch of hostile talking animals and other creatures sitting at their backs. It's one thing when you haven't seen them in generations and they've become legend; it's another thing entirely when you know they're there. Anyway, Miraz's plan is as follows: kill Peter, attack, kill everyone else, probably either kill Caspian in the battle or take Caspian prisoner and publicly execute him for high treason, go back to his castle, rule Narnia. In case of the duel going wrong, his plan changes: have Glozelle shoot Peter, attack, etc., etc. Peter's plan is pretty similar: kill Miraz, wait to see what the reaction is for form's sake -- if the Telmarine army retreats in confusion, go back and hole up in the How and wait for Lucy to come back with reinforcements, but far more likely, if the Telmarine army attacks, do exactly what they do in the movie: attack right back in an all-out, desperate last stand, so when they go down fighting, they at least take as many of the enemy as they can down with them. And because Peter's trying to kill time in order to give Lucy as much as he can, he's probably going to drag the fight out as long as possible. Miraz, on the other hand, just wants to kill this annoying kid and get it over with. When Peter (yes, Peter) suggests single combat in the book, this is exactly what his plan is.
But in the movie, it's Caspian who suggests single combat.
At this point, Caspian still knows very little about Peter. Depending on whether or not we go off Edmund's comment about "a week ago, we were extinct" and when we set the beginning of that week (when Caspian ran away from Miraz's castle? when the Pevensies arrived in Narnia? when the Pevensies met up with the Narnians? when the Narnians attacked the castle?), they've only known each other for a very short amount of time, probably only a matter of days. Depending on how much Caspian actually knows about Narnian legends (and I would wager it's not all that much, whether or not you take my theory that the Telmarines have coopted the Narnian legends about the Golden Age and turned them around for pro-human propaganda), he probably only has a basic understanding of who High King Peter the Magnificent actually was: High King of Narnia, defeated the White Witch/saved Narnia, carries a famous sword, mysteriously vanished. And (correct me if I'm wrong), when he blew Susan's horn, he didn't know that he was calling back the Pevensies. That's a Narnian legend; Professor Cornelius (Doctor Cornelius in the book) didn't tell him so. He only found out afterwards, and at that point he was probably expecting resurrected ghosts or something, not living breathing people. He was certainly not expecting four kids years younger than him, one of whom happened to be the High King of legend.
Caspian is human. He's young, cocky, naive, raised with the expectation of ruling but probably not trained to it, and he's out of his depth. Peter's also human, but he's caught between young and old; there's a mental demarcation where he's been a kid for the past year, and his body is that of a teenager's, but his mind is more or less than of a thirty-year-old army general and sovereign king's. So what he looks like, to Caspian, is a cocky kid who thinks he knows better than everyone else and has taken over everything that Caspian's just beginning to get a handle on. Even worse, he's just gotten a lot of people that Caspian knows killed, and he blames Caspian for it. Peter may be blaming Caspian for being out of his depth, but from what Caspian can tell -- and he's not coming at this from a Narnian's point of view; a Narnian is probably more likely to remember that the Pevensies were just kids the first time they came to Narnia and killed the White Witch and saved the country and so forth (my impression is that Aslan's part in this has been downplayed over the years) -- Peter's just as out of his depth as Caspian is. And worse, he's a real threat to Caspian's throne -- there are probably any number of (likely pretty damn vocal) Narnians that have problems with a Telmarine, even a Narnian-sympathetic, on the throne of Narnia, but Peter's not a Telmarine, he's a Narnian. He's a Narnian with a history of being a good king, a history which has been built up to legendary proportions over the past thousand years of no rulers or bad rulers. At the point where he proposes single combat, he's not necessarily looking at Peter as an ally, he's looking at Peter as a rival. He doesn't necessarily see a need to buy Lucy time to summon Aslan; he's a Telmarine. He doesn't believe in Aslan, or if he does, he probably only believes in Aslan as just another of those mythical Narnian creatures. He probably doesn't believe in walking, talking trees, either. And he doesn't know just how good a swordsman Peter is; note that he isn't in the courtyard during the battle. Legend says that Peter is a fabulous swordsman; legend also says that Peter is a grown man. Which he's clearly not. He does, on the other hand, know exactly how good Miraz is with a sword, and the answer to that is pretty dang good. So why suggest personal combat? He's probably figured out enough about Peter by now to know that Peter will think it's a great idea.
Because Caspian didn't think that Peter had a chance in hell of beating Miraz. He set the duel up to kill Peter.
There is a ninety-nine point nine percent chance that Caspian has no idea how Narnia was run during the Golden Age. (There is also, like, a ninety-nine point eight percent chance that no one else does, either.) Whatever he does or does not know, he knows that by Telmarine law, if Peter doesn't have a child, then the next in line for the throne is his next of kin: Susan. Or possibly Edmund, depending on whether the Telmarines count women in the line of succession or not, but the Narnians almost certainly do, so Caspian will probably leave it at that and call it a day. Note that he isn't there to watch the fight, or at least the beginning of it and yet, since he's the horseman here, wouldn't it be best if he was there to lead the charge whenever it should become necessary? No -- he's going after Susan, the titular heir to the throne of Narnia. It doesn't matter if Lucy gets killed; she's just an impediment to getting the throne, and if she dies wandering around in the woods looking for a talking lion, then, well, so be it. As for Edmund, well, if there should happen to be a battle, as everyone expects there to be, and if he should happen to die in said battle -- well, nobody's going to look too closely at who swung the sword. Killing them himself, in the middle of the How, with Narnians all around them, is not an option -- but here are the Telmarines, so very, very conveniently arrayed for battle, and Peter, who's more than happy to engage in single combat with Miraz. And with Peter, Edmund, and Lucy gone, Caspian is free to marry Susan, which will add Narnian legitimacy to his claim to the throne, and become king of Narnia.
Granted, there still would have been that pesky Telmarine army right there, but Caspian is a Telmarine prince. He's supposed to be the Telmarine king, currently; take Miraz out of the way, somehow, and it probably won't be that hard to convince the army that he's their rightful ruler, especially if he shows up midway through the battle following the duel, or afterwards. The Narnians acknowledge Susan, the Telmarines acknowledge Caspian...marry as soon as possible, get crowned, and Bob's your uncle and Fanny's your aunt and Caspian's king of Narnia.
Except...Peter was a better swordsman than Caspian expected, and when Caspian arrived, the duel was barely half-over. And Peter trusted Caspian, and the Telmarines had plans of their own, and wow, mythical talking lion? Actually exists. With walking trees. Who knew?