I am terrified to use the words "swan song"

[bedlamsbard]

Y'all want to know what's hilarious (uh, at least to me)? That according to the official Narnia timeline, by the time "Dust in the Air" takes place (five years after LB), Eustace, Jill, and Peter are all the same age, and all the other Pevensies are younger. And Tirian's older, obviously, because he pointed out in LB that Peter looked younger than him, and now he's even older.

This is hilarious. I have to use this somehow. I'm not sure how, but it will come out.

Also, y'all have probably not noticed it, but I went through the first chapter of "Dust" and changed a couple thing. One paragraph where I used "then" in every sentence, one instance of "Edmund" to "Eustace", and the season. The season is no longer fall; the season is spring. This is important. Not to the plot (although hell, what do I know at this point? I'm making it up as I go), but thematically. The seasons in Narnia are kind of important to me -- hi, Great Summer, anyone? King of Summer, Queen of Spring? LWW makes this obvious, but it's the end of winter and the beginning of spring/summer, while PC takes place in late summer and VotDT is a late summer/early autumn kind of story. SC is a winter type story. LB should be winter, but instead it feels overwhelmingly like autumn. (Personally, I don't feel that we ever see the summer of Narnia except in HHB, which doesn't really count except in all the ways it does; the summer of Narnia is the Golden Age and summer dies and nothing lasts forever. Summer is fleeting, summer is nothing but moments caught in time, summer is an illusion and a heat shimmer, but sometimes summer is the most important time of year.)

"Dust in the Air" is spring. Make of this what you will.

And, uh, it kind of has a soundtrack, or at least a playlist, but the song I've listened to the most while writing this has been Emmylou Harris's One of These Days, which is from my Lucy playlist, but another four of them are from my Edmund playlist. This is more for the end of the story than the beginning/middle, but, well. *shrugs* On the other hand, this song and this song are also on the playlist, so who knows what the hell my brain is on right now.

ETA: Or possibly I can't do math, or I have been using more than one version of a Narnia timeline, or God, who knows what right now. Wait, no, it's the latter one: I have seen Eustace and Jill's year of birth as being both 1933 and 1934. Canon gives us Peter's DOB as 1927, which would make him 13 in 1940, but Warsverse Peter is either 14 or 15 in 1940 -- the dates for him being in WWII don't add up otherwise. I am so confused, y'all have no idea.

Comments

[sevter.livejournal.com]

Actually, that is pretty hilarious. Still, the Pevensie siblings are wayyy older than everyone (depends on whether you're counting in Narnian times or not) and they do have the advantage of a lifetime of experience, which Eustace, Jill and Trilian doesn't have, so we'll probably have to cut them *some* slack. Although, seriously, Trillian ought to do better than this. He's *king* for heaven's sake...

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

You just know that Eustace is going to try and play on the age thing somehow, because he doesn't get it. He thinks he gets it, and he thinks that having the benefit of the Narnia time dilation field gives him some kind of advantage or something, but five years in an occupied country is so not the same thing as FIFTEEN YEARS RULING. Which Eustace is going to have pointed out to him in exhaustive detail...

Tirian: most incompetent king of Narnia ever!

[sevter.livejournal.com]

I've got to break this habit of not replying to people. Sorry about that. The email system's been kinda screwy these past few days. *smiles sheepishly*

Anyway, just came back from reading the comment that Lucy is going with Tirian (which I just realized was misspelled like a dozen times already)? *shakes head* I hope Peter's not gonna kill him for *destroying his country* and then consorting with his baby sister.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Peter gave up on caring who his siblings sleep with a long time ago so long as whoever it is isn't a national security risk.

[westingturtle.livejournal.com]

So what are everyone's relative ages? Because for some reason, my mind had the last five years passing in Narnia and England concurrently. Although all this will change is whether I giggle or smirk at Peter defending Lucy's legs from Tirian.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I haven't quite decided how much time passed in England as compared to Narnia, but it definitely wasn't the full five years.

It changes a little depending if I use Warsverse ages rather than canon ages, since I aged them a year in the Warsverse to account for the actors' looks in the movies. But going by canon --

Peter is twenty-two.
Susan is twenty-one.
Edmund is nineteen.
Lucy is seventeen.
Eustace and Jill should be fifteen, but are instead twenty-one.

Whoa. Wait. Now I'm confused, because I always assumed that canon had Peter fourteen in 1940. (I had Peter fifteen in 1940.) How did I lose a year? Do my dates still add up? This is important, because I have Peter as a pilot in WWII -- no, shit, my dates don't add up, Peter wouldn't be old enough to be drafted and fight in Burma.

Hi, ladies and gentlemen, my brain in action. Kindly add a year onto the above ages. Peter's twenty-three, Susan's twenty-two, Edmund's twenty, Lucy's eighteen, Eustace and Jill are sixteen/twenty-two (wrong here too; where the hell have I been getting my dates, man?), and Tirian...Wikipedia says he was born between 2530 and 2535, and that LB happens in 2555, and canon tells us he's older than Peter, so Tirian's thirty at this point.

Possibly at this point I've confused myself, but hey, it's all in fun and WHAT NOW LEWIS?

No, seriously, hang on: Lucy is, what, eleven in PC? Because she's starting school. And Peter is five years older than her, so sixteen there, 1941, and in 1949 he's...twenty-four? Oh my God, this is why I'm an English major, not a history major.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

:raises hand: with the english public school system, you could make the case of Lucy being 13 when she went to boarding school - prep school is often 'not really counted' as school. I know. Horribly confusing. But can give you some leeway.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but she doesn't really look thirteen in PC, and that would make Peter eighteen, which is too old. *sigh*

[franceica.livejournal.com]

I am so confused by the Narnian timeline. I can't remember where does their age come from? I really don't remember it stated in the books. But maybe it's just me with my terrible memory.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

It's not stated in the books. If I remember correctly, the years between them are stated, and then we know Edmund just finished his first year at school in LWW and that Lucy's starting her first year in PC; in LB, either Jill or Eustace says that all the Pevensies have finished school. This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narnian_timeline) is the timeline on Wikipedia that I was using, but I checked out the Narnia omnibus at the bookstore today, and its "official" timeline has 1933 for Eustace and Jill's year of birth instead of 1934. So -- basically no one knows. Especially since the actors look older than the characters, and I write movieverse. *throws up hands*

[franceica.livejournal.com]

Yes, I normally goes with the Wikipedia timeline, too. Because it's the first I come across. But since it is not stated in the book, and we are anyway talking about movieverse here, so I think as long as it's internally consistent, it'd be alright. Forget about the official timeline! *still confused*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

*nods firmly* And anything else gets put on the pile of "a year is a long time! there are birthdays there! and none of Lewis's other facts add up either, so ha."

Comparative ages by C.S.Lewis

[dikela.livejournal.com]

I am quoting from the LB here.

*He who sat at the right hand of the old man was hardly full grown, certainly younger than Tirian himself, but his face had already the look of a king and a warrior. And you could almost say the same of the other youth who sat at the right hand of the old woman. Facing Tirian across the table sat a fair-haired girl younger than either of these, and on either side of her a boy and a girl who were younger still.*

So, by my calculations, even if NO TIME passed in England, Eustace and Jill would NOT be older than Peter. Lucy is five years younger than Peter, and they are younger than she. At the most they could be the same age as Susan and older than Edmund and Lucy.

And it would feel more believable, I think, if Eustace tries to pull the rank age on Edmund. He wouldn't dare to do it with your Peter.

P.S. You wrote somewhere that you find it significant that Narnia was destroyed when Peter died in the train wreck. But you forget that other persons died there too. I mean Digory Kirk and Polly Plummer. THEY got into Narnia when it was being created, and THEY did it by themselves without ANY help from either Aslan or Narnia. And maybe THAT is why Narnia must always be ruled by a Son of Adam.

P.P.S. Somewhere else there was a question about VotDT -- WHY did Edmund and Lucy go to Narnia if there was no crisis and WHY did Eustace come with them. And I thought, maybe Aslan did it to prepare Eustace for 'Silver Chair' adventure? His cousins sort of introduced him, and they didn't go into Narnia itself. I wonder, if Edmund got there alone would Narnia have recognized him and what it would have done?

And P.P.P.S. In my opinion Aslan had nothing to do with the train wreck, he did not kill them. Why would he? It was just an unfortunate accident.

Re: Comparative ages by C.S.Lewis

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Yes, we will all chalk this up to my inability to do basic math. Reason I'm English and history and not physics!

Re: Comparative ages by C.S.Lewis

[dikela.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, we don't expect a paper on mathematical equations from you. And your English and history are first rate!

Re: Comparative ages by C.S.Lewis

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Well, I was going to be a physics major, then I stopped and actually thought about it. Nah, I'll take the double in the lib arts instead!